It was told far and wide amongst the forests of the Xeje that one should never broach further than the way of Keino.  Crystal ceilings, traversing the tree tops like a wondrous fountain, or succulent beverages amongst a nightly moonlight were never too grand for the austerity of the populace.  

 

Twittering butterflies, catching their evening awnings across a plant, resting solemnly as they gazed out across the greenery, found all but the dishevelled bark of a tree as mesmerising enough to provide their sprightly exuberance.  

 

Even the lonely electric buzz of the sacred Xyo plantations shone onwards like a mystical angel across the fertile grassland, twisting away into the twinkling Xyo fountains near the centre of the civilisation.  

 

The spiralled citadels circled high into the air like an ornate, ceramic tree top cabin, akin to that of a pride of lions.  The communal forum at the centre glowed thick with the torches of these surrounding buildings.  

 

The Xyo folk traversed through the winding streets, gripped to their philosophical studies, study of the geometric forms of Zarkovich, and their devout devotion to Keino, which so too was being studied amongst the many inner chambers of the spiralled towers.

 

For it was heralded that only the land, and the ornate thistles beneath it, shone brighter that the illicit enticements that could beguile the fertile minds of the youth and flood the city expanse with filth and decrepitude.  

 

They were a hardy and erudite folk, who blew whispers into the air rather than shouts, gliding across the skies with the own liberation they had taught themselves.  

 

Imagination was worshipped over strength, intelligence over force and a dreamy euphoric anticipation mesmerised them in a sheer wonder of all life.  

 

New life and new ideas collide in the sacred hills and gloss the sides of the fountains with a luminescent wonder.  Sprightly they filter into the wine cups of their banquets and steadily keep control the blissful thickets with ornate wonder.

 

Austere and erudite, the Xyo established a society based on the wisdom of their leaders, a feature that was fought for rigorously amongst the candidates in the form of debates in grand and antiquated lecture halls.   

 

From the age of two, Xyo students began their education.  They studied wildlife, mathematics and literacy in an awe-inspiring grand schoolroom as if they were their own prophets in an oncoming cosmic war.  Diagrams, sketches and mathematical sums were all part of their education.  

 

Winding through the ranks of age, before long young Xyo students would learn the secrets of their civilisation.  At the age of sixteen, they were introduced to the sacred “Bliss” powder that hovered across the land as a result of the instability of Keino. Through their knowledge of the Xin and Xan, they could control and manipulate this “Bliss” powder and use it to create gravitational waves that could move and dismember even buildings across their green and grassy thickets.  

 

“Bliss” was a peculiar entity that could be trapped and kept in stable bottles and then blown out vigorously creating an enormous gravitation pull.  By the age we are dealing with, Xyo scientists had developed clockwork motors that enabled a diligent and scientific gravitational wave to be released from the apparatus. 

 

This machinery was used in tandem with the Xyo’s knowledge of the affect of Keino on the grasslands and thickets, which in turn gave them their sacred electric energy. It filtered through the waterfalls and grassland imbued with an electric charge which only the Xyo could harness.    

 

Physicists and mathematicians would guard and study the wonders of “Bliss”. Applying their knowledge of the geometric forms of “Zarkovich” which was built upon the basis of all elemental mechanics, these scientists could combine “Bliss” with “Keino” and thereby created large spectacular cranes that operated upon the scientific features of mathematics and gravity.  They were an erudite and crafty sort, who ignited the cataclysms of magnetism with newfound wonder.  

 

Developing such an artifice enabled control of the magnetic pulse in newfound positions, magnetising the material in a newfound frenzy that took many years to reach the required speed for.  Thousands of mechanics were drafted in and they took the splendour out to a safe and secluded environment with which to try it.  You see the issue is they cannot pulse a charge through many types of metal at the required speed, an alignment of muons rather and dead brick of metal is required to launch the living daylights out of you. That said, you have reached the neverbrooks of mechanics… so please continue.  The sprightly educated among you will realise that nothing has an electric charge unless there is movement of our a favourite friend the electrons.  But passive and passive not… you need to add something into the equation in the form of a lightning bolt brick pen aka the slender filtration of a muon. That is all, that is all… now continue.   

 

The science spread amongst their populace and eventually they were living in verifiable glittering spires that extended out of the forests and above the green thickets.  What the scientists devoted themselves to precisely was using their knowledge of electrical charges to send out the necessary gravitational waves they were so interested in operating.  Well… young sir, that is the enormous pulse of an atom combing with the sky and flapping inwards, almost alike a balloon.  You see these are great parapets that… how do they create the gravity?… you see they suck inwards and also spit out a line which, through our mechanics… we have learnt precisely where this lead goes.  So a flapping device… yes, yes exactly so and heavily computerised with metal as dense as a mausoleum so we have to be careful and put up shields… cordoned away at the front of each of our spaceships the computerised machine flaps down in a certain way, sending off a rhythm for you all to enjoy.  Does the shape of the machine change?  Yes, yes exactly so - you didn’t understand our comment about the Terminator malleable metal but that is what it is like!  

 

Diverse and resolute as the Xyo were, they popularised scientific laboratories along the sacred waterfalls and high thickets.  They was a communal hub dub where they would eat food and nourish themselves, while also conversing, meeting each other and divulging their scientific enquiries.  Principally upon many of their shopping lists was a reliable energy drink they could use to boost brain performance.  Well you have been to university, but the obvious one is more neurones in the brain which solves everyone’s problems.  There will be a new energy drink in twenty years time, which will blow everyone’s mind, including yours that will work by fulfilling caffeine’s by product Olanzapine and launching a whole new range of stealth apparatus dependent on that Olanzapine function if you please… reversing the Olanzapine is the central way forward!  Yes, yes, yes!  Is it slivery?  Yes, yes, yes - any chemical information?  New compounds, a little difference and it will catapult the brethren into the early storm troopers.  Caffeine, taurine, inositol - which one changed?  Caffeine you stupid fool now that is all I want to say… yes, I will underscore those two accompaniments are still included!  Yes, yes, salutations for the day!  

 

The age they lived in now spanned roughly 10,000 years since the Xyo had settled among the forests and waterfalls where the mountain ranges levelled out in a plateau, and where the grassy expanse created a numinous atmosphere among the trees.  The many of them looked towards the towering waterfalls at the north edge of their settlement that fed down gentle spring water into the centre of the ornate city.  The city now had a population of about a million and spanned across the tree toped hills on the western side and walled bridge on the eastern side.  The beauty of the place had a French “je ne sais quoi” about it and the spiralled French limestone permeated throughout the suburbs leading towards an outer wall.   

 

The Xyo leading professors were meeting and discussing furiously across the high thickets, preparing as the were for the oncoming central feature of their society, which was the coronation of a new king.  Fortunately, in our society, only four supreme people control a whole universe, but they are not much better than the rest of the populace, other than their supreme record of past conduct.  They are usually about 1,000 years old and operate loosely as a twin pair of some advisors in front and behind.  The capital planet of the universe is usually a dwindling Earth-like planet that now has an enormous government base with all the technological tools necessary, and is similar, in that way, to the US Pentagon.   

 

The plans and provisions for the new coronation swept across the high waterfalls and spiralled towers of the metropolis’ centre.  The inner governmental section, beside the river Excelsus, was bubbling away with civil servants preparing the central throne and pulpit where the King would offer a speech once anointed.  I want to say a few things here… you see the way pain works is controlling the nervous system into action, we alternatively do nothing other than cowering away using our own gravitational and electromagnetic waves to ensure we don’t ever reach to high a pain threshold.  

 

Yet in the land of Xekakon, amongst the sacred forests of Xeje, the oncoming coronation domnated the minds of many of the populace.  There was a large portion of royalist sentiments among swathes of the population.  They held to pageantry and tradition as a form of encouragement to the rest of the populace to remain diligent and intellectual, much like their own household gods.  However, in this instance, the king had been voted in an election held within the city.  Much alike heaven, the general hierarchy of politics revolved around attending one of the finest, well yes, that is actually the truth because it as functioning and working society, so they would indeed benefit from attending a leading university, perhaps on another planet.  Once graduated with all the enticements of societies and extra-curricular activities, they would then spend many years as a junior advisor, much alike this society, before yes, that is indeed right, moving to one of the capital planets, working hard using all computerised technology and working out how to help or how to save their territory of planets.  Becoming a leader required an elected victory, but rather than the whole population, it was administered by the leading professors of the political efforts, yes, yes exactly so… it is just too big.  

 

And it was here, that a singular, young Xyo student, named Anchises, was flocking out of the main temple at the north of the Xanathine square.  He rushed furiously across the cobbled square towards a crowd of tutors on the left side.  Patting down his tunic from the dust, he wiped himself down before staring up at the austere professors.  A long grey-haired fellow, who puffed on a vaporising machine, stared down at him celestially.  Yes, vapes are probably the most popular item across the whole universe, and you were right, well obviously not, in fact what you need is a diagram and to shoot it trillions of years into the future.  What say would you put in your vapes?  That is a closely guarded secret which is in fact nitrogen and trillions of other compounds, which is necessary to keep it edible.  

 

The fellow looked down at the young Xyo student and began to utter some words.  “I beseech you,” he cried heartily.  “To treat these realms with respect,” he arched forward and glared at Anchises thoroughly.  “You have no business causing a tumult in these confines.  And not as much,” he peered around him studiously.  “When the coronation is about to take place!”  

 

Anchises seemed dumbstruck by his perturbance and gathered himself to speak. “Praise be to the king!”  He uttered proudly.  He then reached into his bag and brought out what seemed to be a leaflet.  “But what I have before me now is this document,” he continued merrily.  “Granting me space in one of the lodge houses before the coronation begins tomorrow!”  He reached forward and handed over the document to one of the professors. 

 

The professor stepped back and inspected the leaflet.  He gave a brief chuckle to himself before handing it to this partner beside him.  “It seems we’ll have one insolent robin at the coronation along with the rest of the respectable inhabitants,” he chuckled forcefully.  “But… be on your way, I suppose,” he continued condescendingly.  “Go and register yourself at the lodging houses in the city!”  He turned and snarled at Anchises.  “Before I change my mind!”  

 

Anchises darted off to the location of his lodgings, scanning his paperwork at the reception, before throwing his bag on the floor in the small but cosy room and casually climbing onto the bed.  To him, as a studious pupil in the second year of the his masters course, he had a burgeoning eagerness to unravel the science by which these occasions operated.  He was currently studying the molecule compounds of the Xyo’s metals, using the geometric forms of Zarkovich amongst his tools to numerically decipher the molecular compounds.  He scanned through one of the online textbooks he had on his hologram screen, before turning the lights out and falling to sleep.  

 

The following day was the date of the coronation.  The sacred ritual was rich were vernal tokens, white tulips and an array of sweet-smelling perfumes. The whole participants and congregation wore white gowns as incense floated into the air and white petals flew dreamily across the breeze.  There was a throng of about a thousand of them, who congregated in the open air amongst the green thickets.  The attendant at the front held out a tall, white-wooden staff as the fluttering butterflies traversed and trapeised around them.  Finally, the attendant placed the crown on the king’s head and he was announced “king”.  

 

But what of the mentalities of this extraordinary populace.  Well, well I’d say everyone is born very, very serious so they can develop themselves into the stupid freelancers of Earth.  The women are very, very bubbly, but the men do go out quite a lot for physical strength.  A large proportion of the men recreate themselves as Brad Pitt types of people, but many also prefer to be straight out comedians, which does lend itself more to the drug line.  The women are all quite studiously simple… and yes you can go any size of height… making the most popular sexy, sensuous women or normally quite tall genius comedians or joquey tall squats.  There is a minority of everyone else including, say, beefeaters, vagabonds, Earthian hipsters, artists and all the other sorts, because they’ll be there!  They’ll be there!  

 

Before long the coronation ceremony was all over and the congregation dispelled into their various quarters. Later they all re-emerged at the Xanathine square and, carrying bottles of wine among themselves, they all drank and partied into the early hours of the morning.  It was a rarely witnessed medley of all the green wonders the sacred forests of the Xeje offered and, saluting both themselves and the king, their bodies pulsated through the night with earthian wonder.  Anchises, relishing the occasion, drank through several of the gratuitous drinks, cavorting with fellow revellers far and wide, before, at last, he collapsed onto bed.  

 

 

 

*********

 

A couple of months later, a form of heat was burgeoning amongst the high waterfalls and thickets of the Xeje forest.  It began with a new sensations within disparate spiralling towers, principally among the elite students nearby by to Zenith University. They took up new principles of mathematics, and would huddle in nightly meetings where they explored the newfound ideas retrieved from their varying mathematic principles.  It was a lofty kind of revelry, whose seed it took from an occluded type of rose bush and electrified it with principles seldom found amongst the Xyo.  They were searchers in a barren expanse, dividing the principles of their kind with no basis, save an unruly grounding of insanity.  

 

Yet passed on it was, and soon the form of yoga became adopted across the northern districts of the city.  Principally, what this newfound psychology brought was a self-esteem so far-reaching that it became detached from the way of the Xyo. Powerful though it was, however, it could bless an Xyo student with intellectual capacities far beyond what they knew to be true.  Fortunately, however, the followers of this yoga kept deadly silent about its power and obscured its rites from public view.  Yet, the mentalities amassed via this influx among the students filtered into the high waterfalls of the Xeje forest like a deadly viper, putrefying the crystal virtue the Xyo depended on. The crystal bedrock of waterfalls turned thicker with the ripe and riotous pollution now seeping at its side.    

 

Amongst this decay of the State, one evening two Xyo students, who, in fact practiced the new mathematical principles of Zarkovich, gathered beneath a band stage near the cobbled town square of Zenit.  Bright and intellectual, they swayed around the band stage sipping beer and smoking gently on cigarettes, like the cavalier young students they were.  

​

From across the band stage, as she swirled around one of the pillars, a young lady caressed the sands beneath her and dived down towards her friend sat on a bench on the other side.  There, he was sat ruminating on the beauty of the evening, entertaining himself with a beverage as the thorny thickets consumed the backdrop. The girl was a young student of the Xyo, who studied the chemical properties of the “Bliss” powder, while the man, rather, was a mechanical engineer amongst the establishment.  

 

Yes, yes, they were indeed reckless vagabonds, but the point here is to establish the levels of anarchy in our own society… and let me tell you something and that is everyone is concerned rather with the social side of life… so we have very few anarchist struggles, c’est le genuine truth, because when you are stuck in a universe with so many planets, everyone does feel small and insignificant so there are few protests about ordinary affairs.  To start an opposition to something, there are many ways, but the most common is to upstart a community and voice your concerns like Extinction Rebellion, whereupon you will be granted a hearing most commonly.  But with many people choosing their own bodies, it steers clear of many and is most commonly involved with work and pensions.   

 

However, the liberal intelligentsia that they were began to ruminate to each other in the solemn, sombre evening.  The lady, named Estrella, was the first to perk up and she peered down from the band stage as she swung around one of the poles. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could fly off into the shadows of the night!”  She paused and dreamed to herself.  “Like one of those butterflies climbing into the breeze!”  She stepped down from the band stage and sat on a bench across from her friend.  

 

The more austere and proud of the two, Francis, was sat across the park bench, aching from his flailing gasp of reality as the two of them flocked amongst the shadows.  He took a puff of his cigarette, before looking back at her wailingly.  “There is no business in any of us conversing with the students of the East side,” he said at last. “It is only frenzy, mischief and disorder.”  He pointed towards the band stage in front of him.  “Say!” He uttered forcefully.  “Leave your theatrics and pride at the door… and fetter, rather, below your consciousness!”  

 

Estrella perked up adamantly and attempted to brush aside Francis’ wisdom.  “But we could make a change to their lives!”  She continued.  “We could make them happier!”  She picked up her wine glass, stood up and swayed from side to side. “They could build cathedrals, skyscrapers and entertainment parks with just a whiff of our help!”  

 

“I sense virtue in a departure of Xyo students from this turf, rather!” Denounced Francis defiantly.  “We were born amongst the high waterfalls…and nothing else touches our souls!” 

 

“Yet they live among hate and decrepitude!”  Cried Estrella in reply.  “They denounce the way of the Xyo nor attend to the high thickets such as those of our high order!”  

 

“Nor do they claim a patronage to our way of life!”  Denounced Francis in reply.  “Yet observable to all of us is that there are no kins or royalties amongst these two clans. The ties of friendship are obsolete among the traversing peaks of our existence.”  He reached forward and grabbed Estrella by the arm.  “Quick!  Make haste!”  He cried at last.  “Let us depart from these lands and return to the high waterfalls!”  

 

And so the pair of them returned to the Xanathine square.  If I could say something amongst this literacy, I would say there are many “rough” parts of the confederation, principally in the outer realms of the universes, where people genuinely like it for the criminality, but there are also some Egyptian cove type planets, very, very many, I’d like to say, which a better Earth analysis such as Brandhorst’s videography would have revealed.  There are about 96% posh and respectable planets and a few, cheaply made planets, that people do herald for their criminality and disorder. They’re not even that built up, just like, rather, a posh girl group’s holiday.    

​

However, conversing among the inner chambers of the spiralled citadels beside the Xanathine square was a newfound furor regarding a decline in the electric exuberance of the glistening thickets. Reports spread to the government that the energy was dwindling, which immediately drew up maps and diagrams, and surveyed the dwindling territories of high thickets.

 

They sent out delegates and scientists to survey the green land, while engineers scanned the reports furiously and compiled dossiers for the king to read.

 

Yes, yes, and let me introduce a few case studies about how we operate in an emergency. Signals are brought into our space ships, whereupon we throw open the hatches and send out some space troopers. We prefer “Ski Medic” types of people, who have strength and knowledge of the equipment rather than rotting fag ashes like yourself. Yes they can fly in an iron man suit or better still a single person space craft and use it to save people’s lives if they have left the moon base. On the planets, the security is monitored by tightly built brain monitors and electrically fast robots, who do genuinely sort it all out. What about oppression? Well that is enormously helped by those monitoring. Yes, yes, humans also train as paramedics and do also help people, much the same as your previous novel. So, say a building was being attacked, yes, yes, a flying robot would indeed go in and save them all. The robots are programmed by news corps, aka, RedRum industries.

 

To those in charge, say, captains or officers, they flood themselves with screens detailing everything and ensure someone is monitoring the robots perfectly. They delegate, and transfer to different departments as the saga event takes place.

​

Here, within the command centre of the Xyo’s military base, the king, named Xerxes, furiously controlled the oncoming disaster. He leant over the holographic map at the centre of the room, while bludgeoning his concerns towards the many of his support staff. There was a crowd of about twenty of them, surveying the sudden plight of electric pathways amongst the green thickets.  If I could intervene here as say language lessons are the best tools for teamwork… and people understand each other better after lengthy times practising amongst each other.  That is the genuine truth.  You don’t want to turn up and simply mingle together, but rather a bout of exercising as a group beforehand will allow the supremacy of things like the language skills and diligence to show their importance.  

 

Immediately peering loathsomely over the hologram map, Xerxes called over his most trusted advisor and began to utter his displeasure at the ongoing plight of the thickets. “Jeeves… Jeeves… come close,” he uttered forcefully. “Take a look and see how the thickets are dwindling into the abyss!”  Jeeves drew near to him and he continued peering across the map.  “Every one of them is evaporating into the air… like the place is a deathly no man’s land!”  

 

Jeeves peered across his notepad and began to offer some suggestions.  “It is like the atoms are drawing away from each other,” he stumbled aloud.  “The bonds of the molecules seem to be cyphering away into the open sky.”  

 

“It is a fool’s predicament that has cost us this disaster!”  Shouted Xerxes, turning around.  “No, no, no!”  He said again.  He picked up his walking stick and paced around to the other side of the map.  “I won’t hear of anything else other than a stringent investigation into why this is happening!”  He cried aloud.  

 

Yet Jeeves emerged with a desolate cry amongst viscous tension consming the room.  “It’s just,” he uttered timidly, “That it appears to be a fault of the muons across the green stalks!  Alas,” he continued.  “The only scientist who would know how solve this problem is a man named Pelops.  But,” he continued dejectedly.  “He has been in exile for the past three years.”  

 

“Well find the man!”  Blurted Xerxes ecstatically.  “And find a way to salvage these thickets!”  He tossed something onto the table, before turning around and heading towards the exit of the room.  “Or else we’ll all be destitute and the city will have now power,” he said at last, glancing back wretchedly at the peeved squadrons behind him.  

 

 

 

********* 

​

​

The journey ayonder out into the far reaches of the Xyo’s lands, began solemnly and fearsomely the next day.  A retinue of space wagons left the citadels with a task force of about ten Xyo professors, all accompanied with the latest technological equipment for a search and rescue mission.  

 

They soared through the sky like a burgeoning eagle.  They catapulted themselves with the roar of a trillion hydrogen atoms, destined to climb and climb until they completed their objective.  

​

Onwards and onwards they flew like a verifiable eagle.  The squadron of three high-speed space wagons traversed the green forest landscape below them as they soared like rockets propelled with an infinite exuberance.  The engines roared like a monster, and the burgeoning rush from inside the cock-pit and passenger compartment seemed unfathomable, as if they were soaring faster the speed of sound in a blissful void. 

 

The journey to the place where it was claimed that Pelops resided in exile was roughly a thousand kilometres away and took an hour to reach in the crew’s space wagons. The land they found themselves at was highly mountainous and snow glossed the tops of the mountain peaks.  Resting against the side of the rock, topped with snow and transparent with glass across the sides was the legendary destination where Pelops resided.  

 

The three space craft hovered down and landed on a helicopter pad at the side of the building.  The breeze was quiet, the sun shiny and only the chill of the snow could prevent it from being a perfect day.  Jeeves pushed open the side of the door and emerged on the frosty landing bay.  Cold and despondent with a winter’s wretchedness, they could perceive no one coming to greet them.  Peculiar thought it was, the retinue moved over towards the door and pressed the buzzer. 

 

There, a video beside the door gleamed on with an apparition of an aged-looking man. Jeeves immediately perked up and spoke some words into the mouthpiece. “We’re looking for a man named Pelops,” he uttered astutely.  “Do you know who he is and does he live here?”  

 

The man the other side of the video screen stuttered immediately, recoiled with an aged strain, before mumbling some sorrowful, sombre words.  “I am indeed the man named Pelops,” he announced at last.  ‘But don’t think I’m partial to people coming to my door unannounced.”  He took a puff of what seemed to be a cigarette.  “I prefer a peaceful form of life… and away from the vultures of those sorry high waterfalls.”  

 

Jeeves butted in again adamantly.  “We just need to ask you a few questions!”  He announced firmly at last.  

 

“Well I suppose you should come in,” uttered Pelops in reply.  “I’ll unbuckle the security gate!”  

 

Jeeves, along with his crew, spoke to Pelops for the following two hours.  It was a form of luminescent parlay in which they delved into Pelops’ former career, the way of the past Xyo and different mathematical theories.  Pelops was a sort of regretful bastion, who had once held lectures among the high waterfalls of the Xeje forests, tutoring great swathes of students.  He had led the Xyo into newfound principles, greater benevolence and furthered much of the academic studies years ago.  

 

However as the night was beginning to come to a close, Jeeves got down to the crux of the matter.  Raising the topic of the electrons dwindling amongst the grassy thickets in the sacred lands of the Xyo, he pestered the aged Pelops with intrigues into his knowledge of muons and molecular compounds.  Eventually he raised a glass and begged Pelops to return to the Xanathine square, where he would be honoured with much gold for his troubles.  

​

Destitute and delirious the conversation continued onwards. At one point Pelops urged that he had never witnessed a citadel as weak as the Xanathine Square, while at another he claimed that all students of the Xyo were dishevelled vagabonds. Jeeves was swaying around trying to decipher the enigmatic exuberance of the man, while also refraining those involved from drinking too much of the wine.  At last, Jeeves raised a cry and proposed that Pelops be made Vice-President of Zenit University in return for his help. Much flattered and absorbed by his dreams to run the academia, Pelops at last obliged and agreed to the terms.  Duly, the retinue all returned to Xanathine Square the following day. 

​

​

​

*********

​

​

There, and much infuriated by the dwindling life of the green thickets, Xerxes frolicked around the command base demanding answers from his struggling crew. He shoved aside the feeble designs stemming from molecular geologists and grew into an enormous rage when others informed him of the dwindling energy levels now permeating the city.  He was flabbergasted at what he believed to be their ineptitude and commonly drew out a cigarette and tried to compose himself. 

 

It was amongst this chaos of management, that at last Pelops emerged in the building.  “Your majesty!”  He cried.  “It seems you now have need of an old fool like myself!”  He joked.  He strolled over and warmly greeted the king. “Tis a few several years since I’ve been back in these headquarters to say the least!”  He murmured further exuberantly.  “But right you are, right you are!”  He extolled again.  “Now let me look at some of the maps of the high waterfalls!”  

 

The king introduced Pelops to the hologram map at the centre of the room. He altered the dials illustrating close up holographic images of the various lands of the Xyo and spiralled in on the affected parts, that were decaying like the north wind. After several minutes observing the hologram, Pelops perked up and offered his judgement.  “It seems different mathematical principles are infiltrating the thickets and destroying the energy sources like a newfound mathematical virus!”  

 

“Is there anything you can do to reverse it?”  Butted in the king astutely.  

 

“Not precisely,” uttered Pelops regrettably.  “It seems the mathematical code is being filtered in to the system from a control centre somewhere else.”  He twisted one of the dials and zoomed in on the Xanathine Square.  “But I can retrieve the data signals and find where it is coming from!”  He tapped in some code into the hologram computer.  “Yes!  Got ya!”  He cried at last.  He turned round and looked at the king exuberantly.  “The mathematical code is stemming from the student blocks of Zenit University.”  He turned and flicked the map to Zenit university.  “If we cut out this new mathematical code at the source, we should be able to save the high green thickets!” 

​

Yet, alas, a second later a group of students smashed through the door of the command centre and filled the room with a wild frenzy.  Smashing the computer screens and fighting against the security guards, they swarmed across the room, turning it into a savage free-for-all.  Finally, Estrella, who had been part of the mob, strolled forward at the head as the fighting came to a halt.  She peered at Pelops and the King with an ethereal wonder and uttered some words as if a saint upon a pulpit. “I hereby claim that you have no right to change this new way of the Xyo!”  She cried at last. 

 

Yet, flabbergasted, the king arched forward and uttered his hatred.  “So it is you, young girl, who has putrified the sacred green lands of this kingdom!”

 

”Aye,” cried Estrella in reply.  “And proud of it as well!” 

 

“What is this nonsense,” uttered Pelops, interrupting into the melee.  “The green thickets is what gives us our fuel source to power the city.”  He paced back and forth. “It cannot be changed in any way.  It is the simple rule of mechanics!”  

 

“Not precisely!  You old aged scientist”  Cried Estrella loudly in reply.  “We at the Zenit University have developed a new fuel source.  One that is built with metal and iron, rather those antiquated green plants!”  

 

Pelops stumbled back and almost seemed to faint.  “I don’t understand,” he stumbled at last.  “The chloroplasts of the leaves are what sends the current through to the city.  It is scientifically impossible!”  

 

“Well how’s about this,” shouted Estrella forcefully.  “Why don’t we debate it in a lecture room tomorrow?  Like the old ways of the Xyo!  Then we will prove who is wrong and who is right!”   

 

 

 

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And, indeed, the date was set the following day for the almighty debate that had divided many echelons of the Xyo’s society.  It was due to be held in the great auditorium at the centre of the city near the Xanathine Square.  The throng of the crowd emerged from their disparate dwellings, traversing the bridges at the side of the high waterfalls and meeting at the forum that was encircled by the legendary River Excelsus. 

 

The auditorium itself was built into the rock on the western side of the high waterfalls and had a tropical, seductive esprit.  With space for about 2,000 guests, the scene was very much set for a galactic duel between the two debaters.  Estrella, fierce and deadly, had been elected the spokesperson for the Xyo students.  On the other side, much denigrated for its progressiveness, many professors had declined to speak, but, rather, Pelops assumed the role as an old-age bastion of their ancestral concepts.  

 

And so Estrella was first to pick up the microphone.  She paced forward solemnly and withdrew something from her pocket.  In her hand was a golf ball which she pointed up towards the crowd with her fingers.  Drawing a big heap of breath she began to utter some words.  “Say, ladies and gentlemen, you are putting on a golf green,” she uttered first.  “You can miss the hole by an inch… yet still the ball will fall in the hole.  This is due to an invisible factor in the form of the wind.  If another ball is in the way, you will not be able to pass your ball into the hole.  There must be a transgressive factor that is represented in the wind.  Nor can you pass two golf balls together in a representation of electrons.  There must be a fluid factor in the form of the muons.  And, ladies and gentlemen,” she continued.  “Our metallic structures offer the greatest number of muons and therefore the greatest amount of power!”  

 

“Yet what of the waste that is left behind?”  Intruded Pelops into the foray.  “Our electric plants grow and degrade with no waste or pollution.  It is like a flowering green flower bed!”  He swept across the floor of the stage.  “Legolas, Diamedes, Zandron - these people all lit their homes on the peaceful tranquility of plants.”  He turned around and snarled at Estrella.  “Where were you in the glorious nightime parties amongst the thickets?  Where were you each harvest as butterflies lit up the sky like drones?  The thickets bind us a whole!  They are part of our soul!”    

 

Estrella seemed more agitated and snarled at Pelops fiercely.  “You’re nothing but a decrepit old man!”  She shouted loudly.  “We must embrace new technologies.  Or,” she snarled viciously.  “We’ll be stuck in the doldrums like you!”  

 

“Oh… so we’re trading insults are we now?!”  Denounced Pelops viciously.  “This city was a wondrous city before a few began messing with it!”  He turned and stared at the crowd rapturously.  “And it will return that way!”

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Yet as soon as he had uttered his words, flocks of students from the crowd charged forward onto the stage, immersing the pair of them in an endless frenzy.  A large, rotund student of Zenith University rugby-tackled the aged Pelops onto the floor and the ancient professor lay lifeless on the ground.  Pummelling his fists against the professor’s face, it seemed like the poor life was about to escape his soul.  

 

Meanwhile solemnly, the long-lost student of the Xyo, Anchises remained perched near the far end of the auditorium, despairing of the frenzy taking place beneath him. He hummed into the air desperately, when, suddenly, a shrouded apparition began to appear before him.  Gliding forward in front of his eyes, it seemed to be the legendary Jahwaka, high priest of the Xyo.  Emerging in front of the humble student, he spoke these words as follows:   

 

“Anchises, son of Romulus, I have come before you now to save the way of the Xyo. Everywhere you look around is filled with the ancient spirit of “Bliss”.  It permeates all life and all phenomena.  Use the way of “Bliss” to overcome the forces that shackle us down like speed or gravity.  You must, rather, fly like an angel in the sky.  Someone conjoined by all elements of “Bliss” cannot be defeated in battle!  He is the almighty and nothing can hold him back!”  

 

And with that, Anchises began to float in the air.  “Bliss” seeped wildly from his limbs as he hovered above the auditorium.  Gliding solemnly down to the stage, he seethed power knowing no limits… before, at last, he decimated all those following the way of Xin and evil.  The riotous numbers of students came cataclysmically to a halt, and, with their numbers shattered, were forced to retreat.  Collecting their things and tending to the wounded, the virtuous of the Xyo regrouped in the Xanathine Square, and began to rebuild their society.  Turning and congratulating Anchises who floated down to the ground, he stood up straight and uttered some deprecating words. “Don’t mind me,” he said at last.  “Because I am a patriot!”

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THE END