14. Bowie & Oakley

Wong Boom Bong was adopted by well-off parents. He was abandoned at birth, a foundling, but he was fortunate to have been picked up by the lap of luxury. No desire arose in him to seek out his biological mother, who, to his narrative, must have been a drugged out junkie whore; nor his father, most probably a no good, low-time rascal, heroin dealer. They are both probably dead; no point wasting time, effort and money to unearth their whereabouts. Anything, or anyone rather, that didn't want him from the beginning was not worthy, and it would be better off that they stayed absent forever.

He didn't have high regard for his adopted mum and dad as well. They were one of those super rich couples influenced by celebrities who made it hip and cool to adopt destitute kids. They loved him, no doubt, but they expressed it more through presents than presence. Mum and dad didn't want to be left out from their entitled in-crowd, so voilà! Wong Boom Bong became part of their hypocritical fabulous lives.

And so, Wong Boom Bong grew up alone at a tender age. Surrounded by toys and the latest gadgets, video games became his best friend. His babysitter. He developed an uncanny gift to tear things apart, separate them and piece them back together again, for better or for worse. Often he wrecked them, but many times the electronic toys were given a new lease of life, reprogrammed to function in ways the manufacturer had not intended. Mutant in form doubtless, but cooler to Wong Boom Bong's appraisal.

So he tinkered and he toyed and eventually his meddling led him online. He scripted and coded Tapestry 13, a game bad guys won in the end. Wong Boom Bong identified with them…bad guys. Villians. He was a nerd, a geek, and he was bullied perpetually in school. Beaten up by those jocks, seen as an isolated and insulated weirdo whose spectacles were taped with yellow adhesive tape, the boy found solace in bash-em-ups like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. He was good at them, but he was even better in his mind. The ultimate king and warrior in fantasy, a smart one even, and from there he progressively developed and coded his own dystopian storyline. The ending was bad for parents and the world at large, but good for him and the likes of him…outcasts, misfits, magical warlocks and girls with breasts too big because of cosmetic surgery in order to fit in and feel belonged. Even the surviving good guys were wackos; a Siamese twins cop, a repentant corporate Medusa, literally, and a disfigured-pussy retired prostitute turned road warrior who was perhaps, subconsciously, his saving grace for the biological mother he never knew.

Obviously the story/game never found an audience; it was just teenage obsession, here today gone tomorrow, never fully completed in its development. Later, Wong Boom Bong discovered an interest in the occult, dabbled in juvenile sorcery and faux Satan worship, youthful rebellion, but the real momentum that cemented his feet and future in concrete was the dream of an enchanted hostile forest and Zvuv, the supernatural talking fruit fly that continually accompanied him till the end in 2030.

Was he mad? Crazy? It was one thing to be able to talk to animals in slumbered fables, but to speak to them while awake? Yet, it was quite a gift, a talkative insect companion, just as though it was right out of Disney. The fly buzzed around giving opinions; Wong Boom Bong heard it from across the room, from beneath the table and chair, right next to him, up on the ceiling. It instinctively knew it was not welcomed when other humans were present, so it remained at a distance. But throughout, it would be a chatterbox, zizzing nonstop, providing insights to the only person who could listen and understand. For example, Zvuv mentioned the contents in a random lady's totebag, and for some reason, Wong Boom Bong said it out loud to the lady's surprise. Through Zvuv he found out about a person's dead spouse, or a couple's desire to buy a new house. Someone's deepest, darkest secret fetish. His parents’ friends were delighted. They called him gifted. At first he didn't know what to do with the information, but soon he realized that if he spun a compelling tale to add to Zvuv's details, people took him seriously. And so, Wong Boom Bong found his feet on the career path as a self-taught shaman fortune teller. If he kept things generic enough there was generally a 70% chance of fulfilment. For the remaining 30, he could weave up some excuse that the recipient of the word didn't have sufficient faith, or that the fates had altered, or that the person seeking clairvoyance had unluckily triggered an undesirable portal of misfortune, which could be cleansed by further ritual and the accompanying proceeds from the contents of one's bank account. His teenage meandering of occult rites rehashed and modified as he played by ear proved useful. And profitable. He laughed to the bank but lamented his name. Master Wong Boom Bong just sounded stupid. He craved something more exotic, more mysterious, intriguing, a branding that could bring him an international audience. Hence, Wong Boom Bong was laid to rest and Dr. Zyber Long was born.

Over the years the bond between Zvuv and Zyber Long deepened, so much so the insect not only divulged information but acted as a spirit emissary for the faux doctor. He could dispatch the fly to do his bidding. Through Zvuv Dr. Zyber Long experienced Ari's untouched, virgin world. The Diptera disclosed that the Serpent ate its tail, that the end birthed the beginning, and the cycle repeated, though it never really repeats, but just is, as a song is or a movie is regardless how many times one listens or watches, or not. Zvuv said it's just there, though its human friend couldn't really compute. He believed he was living in a simulation as is everyone and everything else, but he could not make head or tail of the mechanics of it. A snake swallowing its own end, how could one even begin to comprehend, metaphor or not? But he respected his experiences whenever Zvuv took him on a psychedelic trip, resigned to flow and accept fate rather than fight and question his sanity. Ari's jungle was pristine and spectacular. Of course Zvuv never ever mentioned Ari, but he could feel the awe, like it was a divine presence manifesting in the physical, pressing a warm glow onto, and into, his chest. In that enraptured state with Zvuv, Dr. Zyber Long often cried. The tangible oneness and unity of flora and fauna was captivating and overpowering. He felt the forest breathing as one. He saw the aura that surrounded every tree and every creature as though a pulsating rainbow from heaven descended and overlaid the entire jungle's floor. And he heard nature speak. In that enlightening high, it was not only Zvuv's voice but that of the entire land. Always, the two wolves, two crows, three cats and one snake presented themselves, extremely excited to chat about their jungle adventures, just as they did on that night nearing Christmas when he was nineteen years old. And as the visions glided down and Zyber Long landed, Zvuv's calming buzz guided him back to his ‘real’ simulated life. Faux doc would open his eyes after the trance to the very ordinary everyday, wished the trip had been longer, and checked his schedule; there was always a senile old lady, or an anxious housewife, a concerned father, or an embittered business partner desiring revenge, a desperate fellow, or just a common someone wanting his or her future read.

On the last day of Adam Zyber Long's long life (seventy years short of a millennium by Watcher life extension serum), Azazel showed the first man a perfumer's bottle. A dead Zvuv slept inside, drowned in expensive putrefied ointment. From Ecclesiastes 10:1, Azazel was hinting at his folly thinking he was wise, conning distressed innocent folk, working in cahoots with a happy-go-lucky cooperating insect. Adam Zyber Long’s heart sank to a heavy thud onto the floor. His best friend dead, reliable buddy gone. At the stroke of midnight, 1st January 2030, Zvuv and the man who was once the boy Wong Boom Bong bid each other farewell. Zyber Long would enter the sex singularity and the fruit fly would return to the primordial forest before there was the presence of sapiens. Zyber Long never considered himself to be an extremely sexual man, but nonetheless, a man he was, and is, with manly needs, and TI just knew how to gravitate and scratch his desires. Spectacled intellectuals; to be precise, spectacled intellectuals in a limousine. Three spectacled intellectuals. AI generated. That was just before Azazel robbed him of his revelry, back to conscious thought, and the first thing that crossed his mind, even before he realized he was naked before a rifle cradling octogenarian with prized kills and lion carpets decorating the sandy grounds of the Sahara, was the absence of his best friend Zvuv.

“It's OK,” Azazel said, “Baal-zvuv is a friend. The Lord of flies. One fly is as good as another. Dispensable. Replacable.”

Adam Zyber Long stared at the lifeless insect. Instinctively he knew he was about to join the six-legged miniature creature. With that knowledge, he was happy. He'd done his job. He'd fathered the human race. He was tired. Now he could die and be reunited with his long lost whirring pal who he'd been separated from for eight hundred and ninety two years. Adam touched his temples and his scalp. His head was bandaged over and across. Azazel had removed the invasive brain-computer interface that kept him wired to the Scapegoat's bidding. The wounds were healing, they weren't fresh. He was ready to be plugged out, or if his will sufficed, return to the primordial forest. Be nothing. Be all things. One with nature. Blend in. Become the jungle. Part of it. Adam Zyber Long closed his eyes. Colours clouded behind his lids, a morphing and dancing kaleidoscope, an artist's disarrayed and messy palette. Then he heard the familiar buzz. Excited but calm, he opened his field of vision. And to his delight the incessant noisy chatter. Zvuv! Or maybe it was just another of its kin. How was a man to know? Honestly, as Azazel stated, one fly is as good as another. Then came crashing in the whole bloody, jolly sounds of nature. It was music to Adam Zyber Long’s ears. He was no longer Adam. He was Dr. Zyber Long. In fact, fuck that, he was Wong Boom Bong again. In the foreground, two wolves, two crows, three cats and a serpent. The rest of fauna and flora sang backup. Zvuv was always the lead. But then, all of a sudden, a picture not in sync, a freshly polished limousine drove up. Ironically right in the middle of a tropical jungle. Impossible! But yet… Its plush burgundy upholstered doors swung wide open. Wong Boom Bong aka Dr. Zyber Long aka Adam Zyber Long mindlessly got in. Erect. Feminine laughter could be heard from within, so called intellectual conversational purrs and puns. The limo drove off. Its motorized window rolled down and an object tossed out onto the forest floor. Even as the canines, corvids, felines and reptile looked on, a fruit fly settled adjacent to the frame of a pair of intelligent Oakley spectacles.

AI generated art prompted by author

Any similarities to persons and events are coincidental. Use of names of public figures, places and events are purely fictional and are not representative of them.