The Way To That Road

by

Michael Edwards

"Travelin' Eternity Road/What Will You Find There?"

Ray Thomas, The Moody Blues

"I wonder," Crackpot mused aloud, "if you can shoot up maple syrup."

"I'll let you know," said Saint Martha the Junkie.

"Tell me again: why are we here in Canada?" asked Huntsman.

Crackpot shook his head.  "I regret that I can't: I never told you in the first place," he replied.  "All I said was 'Let's go North a ways.'"

"I thought you meant New Hampshire, to attend the Winter Festival," a dejected Huntsman admitted.

Here Father Aloysius joined the conversation.  "They don't have a winter festival - they hate winter.  They carry their old people to the top of Mount Washington and leave them there till Spring.  I have that on good authority.  And if they haven't blown away, they go back home."

Father Aloysius was forever in danger of being defrocked for his radical view of religious doctrine: He insisted there was no God, and he had that on good authority.  Asked why he didn't just resign, he would always say his father didn't raise no quitters.

Abbot Percival kept an eye on Father Aloysius the entire way to Prescott, Canada.  But his good eye was fixed on Sister Clarens-Bristol, the Heretic, who he was sure tried passing for a priest when no one was looking.  In fact, he followed that duplicitous nun into St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church on Dibbie Street, where he caught her asking the parish priest if he needed another priest to help say Mass.  Dejected, Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic slipped into the confessional and began hearing people's sins, refusing resolutely to forgive sins of the flesh.

"Where you been?" Abbot Percival asked when the nun emerged from St. Mark's. 

"Oh, you know me," came the nun's reply, "I could spend hours just browsing.

The Abbot wasn't buying that; but kept his cover.  "I'll defrock that imposter yet," he promised Monsignor Beale.

"You haven't the credentials or the standing to defrock anyone," Beale pointed out.  "Besides, you're not Italian."

"Where there's a will, there's a way," the determined Abbot retorted.

"Where to now?" a frazzled Saint Martha the Junkie asked.  She was currently in the grip of a full blown hyperglycemic reaction to the maple syrup.

"I've decided we now go directly to Thule, Greenland, by-passing Springhill, Nova Scotia entirely," Abbot Percival informed his traveling companions.

"Whoa there Abbot," interjected Father Aloysius, "who put you in charge?"

"God did - when He made me Abbot of St. Tarquin's Monastery.  Which outranks the rest of you," the good Abbot informed the priest.

"Hold on there," Monsignor Beale cautioned.  "We have two civilians in our midst - "

"And one full-fledged Saint," added Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.  "I think a Saint outranks an Abbot any day of the week."

"How did you get to be a Saint?" Abbot Percival turned his steely gray eyes on Saint Martha the Junkie.

"Well" St. Martha explained in an excited tone, "I was working as housekeeper to the College of Cardinals when they voted to confer beatification on Sister Mary Martha Jinx - you know, the nun who single handedly chased a hundred demons from St. Peter's sacristy.  She squirted them was Holy Water...well, actually, it was chicken soup.  She was the Vatican's official cook.  So the Cardinals asked me to carry their decision to Pope Concubus XXII, who - I didn't know at the time - was a bit senile.  So when he asked me what was the candidate's name, I could have sworn he asked me what was my name so I said 'Martha Glick.'  So, before I could stop him, he pronounced me Saint Martha Glick.  So when I told the College of Cardinals what had happened, they all fell to their knees and began praying to me to heal them.  So I tried to tell them I was only a Saint by mistaken identity, they said that 'Once a Saint always a Saint' Doctrine had already kicked in and it was too late to reverse it.  If I hadn't taken the time to shoot up first, I wouldn't have missed the deadline.  So here I stand before you: Saint Martha Glick, which the Pope shortened to Glickenstein."

"Humpf!" snorted Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.  "And people say I'm the one who should be excommunicated just because I dared say out loud what the Church Hierarchy were all thinking!"

"And what might that be?" asked Father Aloysius innocently.

"That the Bible was written by the Abbess of Black Rock with the help of King Tut and his vizier Eye.  I had all my ducks in a row and could have proven it once and for all - till some minor Egyptologist said neither King Tut nor Eye could write: all they could do was draw pretty pictures, maybe illustrate but nothing more.  So maybe they only worked on the Evangelical Children's Bible."

In the end Saint Martha the Junkie, who clearly outranked everyone else, sided with the good Abbot.  So it was off to Thule, Greenland.

Monsignor Beale, son of a CIA accountant and a goalie for an Ice Hockey Team - the only woman to make the cut - was keeping a log of the journey and asked the others if they remembered to the second what time they arrived at Thule, his watch's second hand having become dislodged from its perch on the face.  They all answered in the affirmative that they remembered.

"And what time precisely was that?" the monsignor asked, receiving as many answers as there were travelers in the party - for, indeed, each had arrived a second later than the others.  Except for Huntsman, who only realized standing on the street corner in Ushuaia that his watch had stopped working before the journey even began.

Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, meanwhile, happened to look up and notice an ice sheet floating by as they all stood close to the harbor, and asked how they got there.

"I hope she's not suggesting we floated in on an ice sheet," Abbot Percival whispered to Father Aloysius.  No one could remember precisely how they had arrived in Nuuk.

"Isn't there a big war college somewhere on this islet?" remarked Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.  "Maybe they brought us."

"Then why are we wearing snow shoes instead of army boots?" Monsignor Beale remarked.

"Didn't I read something about there being a shortage of army green shoe laces?" a Mr. Klaus Marksman-Schmidt reported.  The others all wondered where this Marksman-Schmidt came from; but he seemed to know so much about army gear, he must have been there all along and they simply forgot - and, after all, they all knew his name.  Besides, he clearly recalled them having knowledge of his having read something about army green shoe laces.

"I copped horse once from a Marksman-Schmidt," St. Martha the Junkie told the others.  Well, that cinched it: he must be part of the original party.  Everyone gathered around him and began asking if he knew how they had gotten from Prescott, Ontario, to Thule, Greenland.

"The usual way," Marksman-Schmidt assured one and all.

"Of course," they all agreed.  "Now we remember."

Momentarily, a Greenlander passed their way.  Abbot Percival took the opportunity to ask the gentleman which way and how far to the nearest 5-Star hotel.

The Greenlander pointed.  "Due East, about a thousand miles straight ahead."

"Bless you my son," said the Abbot before turning back to his traveling companions.

"We'll have to settle for a travel lodge," he informed them.

While the good Abbot searched for a suitable travel lodge, the others just hung loose, watching the glacier slowly melt away.  Except for Sister Clarens-Bristol, who tried out her famous ice dance routine in her patent leather nun's boots.  And Klaus Marksman-Schmidt who, a member in less than good standing of the Polar Bear Club, proceeded to disrobe and hop into the frigid waters of Nuuk Harbor.

No sooner had Abbot Percival returned with the news that lodgings were available, then an armored vehicle with a big American flag drove up to where the group was hanging.

"Welcome to Red-White-and-Blue Land," an army colonel stepped out of the vehicle to greet the newest arrivals.

"I thought you said we were in Greenland," Father Aloysius said to Crackpot.

"No," came the reply, "I never said where we were, only that we weren't in Kansas any more."

"Kansas just up and blew away according to a song I just heard," Monsignor Beale noted.

"Lucky us that we weren't there," Father Aloysius expressed some gratitude for US geography.

"What exactly are you illegal immigrants doing here, all decked out in costumes?  Are you part of the Travellin' Terrorist Routine?  If you are, you ain't welcome in our fair land."

Just about that time Marksman-Schmidt was coming out of the Harbor.  "Damn Global Warming!" he muttered under his breath.  "Might as well be in a hot tub for all the good this water is!"

"You best get dressed," said the American Colonel.  "You're coming with me."

"Oh, thank you," said Abbot Percival, who had become because of his skill at securing lodgings, the unofficial spokesman for these travelers.

"We're disappointed by the dearth of 5-Stars here," the Abbot confessed, much to the dismay of the Colonel, who saw himself, as he was senior ranking officer, there being no general officers, let alone a 5-Star General, as being now in the direct line of fire.

"Don't let any of these assassins out of your sight," he cautioned his Adjutant, a certain Lieutenant Bleech.

"I will watch them like a hawk!" Adjutant Bleech swore.

"How about if we upgrade that to a falcon?"

"Yes sir!  Can do sir!"

"I like this bus you have," St. Martha the Junkie noted.  "That Northern Light won't ever get in here."  Martha's mother had warned her as a little girl never to go near a Northern Light because the dust would turn you to a pillar of salt just like it did Lot's wife.  Martha saw no reason to put her mom's warning to the test just now.

"Northern Lights and dust bunnies," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic murmured to herself,  Unbeknownst to the travelers, every word they uttered was recorded and run through a decoding filter to extract any hidden messages.  Northern Lights passed muster; but Dust Bunnies set off all kinds of bells inside Mister Polyp, the huge decoding machine back at base.  It turned out the Spokane Dust Bunnies was a gang of former Merry Maids, cleaning ladies laid off when one too many husband ran his finger over an end table after the ladies had finished, and found a residue of dust.  Their one overriding purpose in life since their termination was to make the world safe for sloppy housekeeping.

When the armored vehicle arrived back at the big base, the "Gang of Eight," as, unbeknownst to them, they had come to be dubbed by the US military, was led to a special bunker far below ground level, where their interrogation began.

"Who's the leader of this band?" First Sergeant Ichabaad Bloomshein asked.

"Oh no, I believe you've mistaken us for someone else," replied Abbot Percival.  We play no music."

"But you will face the music by God," the Sergeant assured the good Abbot.

"Ah!  Music by God - yes indeed, good honest hymns," Father Aloysius chimed in.

"None the less," the Sergeant persisted, "By the time I'm finished, you'll be singing a different tune."

"I have perfect pitch," said Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic. "Well," she qualified her boast, "almost perfect.  I haven't quite mastered the 'fa' or the 'so."

"I can't sing a note," confessed Monsignor Beale.

"Why do you wish us to sing for our supper?" asked Crackpot.

"Who are you?" the interrogator asked.

"I'm co-leader of these travelers," Crackpot noted.

"And I'm the other," said Huntsman.

"The other what?"

"The other co-leader."

"So there are two of you!" the Sergeant was beginning to piece this all together.  "This gets more interesting by the minute.  First you swear you have no leader, then all of a sudden you come up with two."

"Do you happen to have any horse lying about?" St. Martha the Junkie asked all of a sudden.

"Ah!  So you're looking for a way to make your escape!"

"That's one way to put it," said St. Martha the Junkie.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm just about ready to turn in for the night.  Who's up for a bedtime snack?" said Father Aloysius out of the blue.

"I'm afraid that's out of the question," the Sergeant insisted.

"That's what I was afraid of," grumbled the good priest, "they don't serve after 9 P.M. here."

"I'll cut to the chase: what are you folks doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Crackpot.  "We're searching for that road."

"What road?"

"That road."

Mr. Polyp meanwhile was having a fit of ringing.  "That Road," it seems, set off a flurry of recognition among his diodes.

"Jesus, Mary, Jehosephat!" cried the Colonel, in the Decoding Room, "Mr. Polyp's about to burst!"

"Pin 'em down Sarge!" the Colonel said into his mic.  "Get to the bottom of this 'Road' business!"

"Gentlemen, ladies: I'm taking off my gloves!" Sergeant Bloomshein announced to one and all.  The travelers all looked at one another, puzzled by the Sergeant's odd reference to a pair of gloves he simply wasn't wearing.

"Reykjavik's a bit sandier than I remember," observed St. Martha the Junkie.

"You were here before?" Monsignor Beale asked.

"Just once.  The Pope was appearing on a TV show and he thought it would be a good gesture to have his newest Saint in tow.  But I don't see any glaciers anywhere."

"Nor will you," Klaus Marksman-Schmidt pointed out.  "Since we're in Timbuktu, not Reykjavik."

"How'd we get here?" all the travelers, almost in unison, asked.

"The usual way," replied Klaus.  "We overpowered Sergeant Bloomshein and made our escape -"

"Why'd we do that?" asked Abbot Percival.

"It was your idea," Klaus pointed out.  "You kept complaining about the accommodations all during our interrogation.  So I bopped the good Sergeant over the head just about the time Mister Polyp burst trying to decode Sister Clarens-Bristol's heretical babble.  So while the entire base was engaged in attempting to put the decoder back together again -"

"Like Humpty Dumpty!" quipped Father Aloysius.

"-we made our way to the runway, get in one of the planes, and took off, headed - we thought - for Reykjavik.  what we didn't know was that the plane we took was on loan from Africom.  So it by-passed Iceland completely and ended up here.  It was headed for Nigeria but ran out of fuel so I landed it here.  Well, actually, he landed it for me" Marksman-Schmidt said, pointing to Sergeant Bloomshein, who was presently snoozing.

"I didn't think sergeants were allowed to land airplanes, only captains," observed Abbot Percival.

"Well," Klaus rejoined, "I won't tell if you don't."

It was agreed all around that they wouldn't tell on the Sergeant.

"By the way," Klaus Marksman-Schmidt added, "Old Sarge here wishes to join our little group."

"Can we trust him?" asked Crackpot, a sentiment Huntsman readily seconded.

"Of course not," said Klaus.

"Well, as long as we know that," everyone agreed.

Actually, Old Sarge's intention was not to join the travelers but to continue his assigned duty of spying on them.  To that end, he had, in his right pants pocket, a miniature decoder which had been dubbed "Little Polyp," a direct offspring of Mr. Polyp, dubbed "Big Polyp."  Little Polyp was equipped to handle 100 terabytes of code, and was guaranteed not to burst.  So was Big Polyp for that matter; but its warranty had been voided through haste ("Haste Makes Waste"), the staff of the big beautiful Red-White&Blue Base having been in such a hurry to try it out that three of the seventeen steps in the instruction manual had been by-passed.  Little Polyp, by contrast, had only seven steps and they had been followed to the letter.  So there was no chance of Old Sarge picking decoded pieces from his pocket for the next six months.

"Ladies, Gentlemen: to the Casbah!" announced Abbot Percival.

Upon searching for hours for the Casbah, the traveling band concluded they weren't in Casablanca, nor even Morocco, but in fact in Timbuktu, Mali.

"I like what they've done with the place," Old Sarge remarked.

"So you were here before?" Abbot Percival asked.

"No.  I just like what they've done with the place.  This sand all over the main drag: it's bound to keep you from sliding when they get an ice storm."

Sarge, it seems, had left his heart in Nuuk, and saw ice lurking behind every dune.

"We're looking for the Casbah" Abbot Percival, for whom old habits die hard, began asking random passers-by.

Meanwhile Little Polyp, ever on the lookout for a coded message, began buzzing and vibrating.  To cover for his Junior Decoder, Sergeant Bloomshein began hitting at his thigh, careful not to hit Little Polyp.

"Jesus in New Jersey!" he cried out.  "I've got a charley house in my right thigh!"

Father Aloysius gave a wink to Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, both of whom were of the school that advances the "JCBPNJET" theory.  The letters stand for its central thesis: "Jesus Christ By-passes New Jersey every time."

"There it is!" declared Abbot Percival .  "I'd know the Casbah anywhere!"

So the travelers made for Sankore Madrasah, certain down to Little Polyp they would find adequate accommodations, if not quite 5-Star by Western standards.

They rapped then made their way in.  They looked all around for the concierge but found no one.

"Maybe it closed for the season," suggested St. Martha the Junkie.

Just as everyone was about to turn and leave, a wizened old gentleman stepped from an alcove and, slowly approaching, said first in one then another tongue before hitting the right one "You must remove your shoes."

The travelers complied, thanking the old gentlemen for allowing them to cool their feet.

"We seek no less than two rooms," Crackpot took the lead in asking.

"We have no rooms," said the old gentleman.

"All filled up," mused Sergeant Ichabad Bloomshein with a sigh.  Even Little Polyp, in its own squeaky way, gave off a sigh.

"I must congratulate your guests on their most thoughtful concern for the other guests.  It's so quiet in here you could hear a pin drop," Abbot Percival observed.

As no one other than the old gentleman was here, he naturally took the good Abbot's words as referring to themselves.  "An odd way of looking at things," he thought to himself.

"As you're filled up, we'd better be on our way," said Huntsman, not wanting to wear out their welcome.

"Yes, we had better," Abbot Percival readily agreed.  "We bid you a good day, sir," he told the old gentleman, adding, "You've proven yourself a first rate concierge, even if this isn't quite a 5-Star hotel."

"Concierge?" the old gentleman asked.

"Or whatever term you use here at the Casbah," Abbot Percival replied.

"By the way," old Sarge couldn't resist asking, "what are you called?"

"I am the Last Scholar of the old ways," came the cryptic answer, though it failed to shed much light on the subject at hand.

"Well, then, a farewell to you, Mister Last Scholar of the old ways," the travelers announced as they turned to go.

"Oh by the way," Abbot Percival turned back to ask, "which way to that road from here?"

"You seek that road?" the Last Scholar asked.

"Yes, indeed we do," the good Abbot assured.

"I, too, have sought it these many years of study.  It never occurred to me to seek it on foot.  May I, Last Scholar of the old ways, seek that road in your company?"

"We'd be honored, sir," both Crackpot and Huntsman said more or less in unison.  "But who will look after this place when you're gone?"

"I leave it in the hands of Allah," said the Last Scholar.

"Ah, so you do have help here," observed Father Aloysius.

"We all do if we but acknowledge it," was the Last Scholar's response.

As they traveled first on foot, then in a camel drawn cart, then a bus, a train, even a plane - a military transport Old Sarge contracted for - the Last Scholar, having found that road long ago deep in his studies, advised them they were going the wrong way.

"The road you seek - "

- "That road - " reminded Abbot Percival.

- "Is on a 4 degree plane.  You're on a 4 and a half degree plane.  You will never get there.  You are headed straight for Cairo when it is Alexandria you want."

"Ah!  The Lighthouse.  Best in the world," observed Monsignor Beale.

"And so it was - along with the Library - until man and nature erased all traces of them.  Though some of the parchments were saved.  A few ended up in my hands."

"But the Library wasn't Muslim," the good Abbot pointed out.

"We of the Old Ways did not believe nothing of worth existed before us," the Last Scholar said.

"Something we can't say of Christianity," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic added, much to the chagrin of her fellow clerics.

So the travelers changed course and set out for Alexandria, one half degree closer to their ultimate destination.

They were drawn to the lighthouse...where the lighthouse was, the Lighthouse of Alexandria.  It now lay in the shallow waters of the inlet where once it proudly proclaimed itself one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  There stood there now a few rocks jutting from the water, and a lone figure holding a flashlight.

"May we address you, sir?" Abbot Percival asked.

"You may, it's still early, I have time for discourse," the figure answered.

"Are you awaiting something or someone?" St. Martha the Junkie then asked.

"I will soon be, when it becomes dark."

"But you won't see it when it grows dark."

He held up his flashlight and said "That's what this is for.  I am the Keeper of the Light.  I hold 1000 Lumens.  I will stand on this rock till daylight holding the light in the absence of the Lighthouse.  My light is all that remains to guide ships to safety."

"But they have radar, and all manner of electronics to safely guide the ships to port," Sergeant Bloomshein pointed out.  "They don't need light any more."

"They need it more than ever," said the Keeper of Light.

"The Old Ways are best," said the Last Scholar of Sankore, with which the Keeper of Light readily agreed.

"I've seen more radar wrecks than I care to think about," the Keeper of Light told the others.

"But even your thousand lumens is way too little to safely guide a ship to shore," Sergeant Bloomshein pointed out.

"My light moves as the current ebbs and flows," the Keeper of Light explained - a statement so filled with code words that Little Polyp began shaking so ominously that Old Sarge's whole body also began to shake.

"An old war wound," Old Sarge assured the others.  "Every now and again it acts up."

"Or it could be your decoder," proposed St. Martha the Junkie out of the blue.

"What decoder?" Old Sarge demanded to know.

"The one in your pocket there," the Keeper of Light beat St. Martha in spelling it out.

"And just what would a light keeper know about decoders?" Old Sarge asked.

"Our neighbors down the road a bit have every piece of spyware known to man," the Keeper of Light answered, adding momentarily that they will see for themselves for they must cross that land where spies abound in order to reach where that road they seek picks up.

"Can we simply go around?" asked Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.  "I have no desire to watch Old Sarge here do the dance of St. Vitus for the next two weeks or more."

"There is no getting around the land of spies, not if you wish to remain on track," the keeper of Light assured one and all.  "You must not pass Petra or your journey will come to naught.  However you must at all costs avoid being taken for tourists or you will be bussed to Amman, where you will be expected to pay your respects to the King, who has been said to be a spy."

"Well then the King and Old Sarge should get along beautifully, maybe trade secrets over a nice Arak, perhaps with a dish of mansaf," observed the Last Scholar.

"How do you know so much about Jordan?" asked Abbot Percival.

"How might a Scholar of Islam not know all the lands of his people and dare call himself a scholar?" asked the Last Scholar.

"You must come with us, to lead the way across the desert," the good Abbot pleaded with the Keeper of Light.

"I can only travel by day and be back by nightfall," explained the Keeper of Light.  "Except on the night of the full moon, which lights the way for me."

It was just such a night coming up, so the Keeper of Light agreed to accompany the others.  "But how will you cross the Sinai?"

"The usual way," Old Sarge was quick to reply.  And indeed, he presently commandeered a military transport.

Along the way to Petra there were children out playing in the rubble, then a bright flash of light and they were gone.  Never to return.  Had they been whisked away to that road?  Or simply disappeared?  No one would ever know.  Nothing of them remained.  Children playing in the rubble who suddenly disappear are just as suddenly forgotten.

"Did you guys see that?" asked St. Martha the Junkie.

"See what?" asked Monsignor Beale.

"The way those kids out playing were just whisked away in a bright flash of light.

"The rapture must be starting early," Father Aloysius noted.

"Rapture? or Raptor?" sneered Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

"Will it take us?" Old Sarge wondered aloud.  And as he wondered, his mind filled with visions of the five Catholics among the group, plus the two Muslims, being left behind for not being Evangelicals, though how God could tell from this angle was a mystery - as he wondered about these mysteries, the travelers wandered into the canyon where Petra stood carved into its walls.

"I'll see if I can locate a local to find out which of these buildings is the hotel," Abbot Percival mused as he walked ahead of the others.

While the good Abbot sought accommodations, the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light made for Qasr al-Biat Temple to give thanks for their deliverance from the land they had traversed to reach Petra - for they knew only too well what the flash of light that had taken away the children at play was, and it had nothing to do with the Rapture.

"Perhaps the Heretic was closer to the truth," they both agreed once they had finished praying for the souls of the martyrs.

"You may have to stay in one of the tombs," Abbot Percival was told by someone he took for a local but was actually a tourist from Singapore.

The good Abbot mulled over the suggestion, deciding to tell the others there were guest houses - Bed and Breakfasts.

"Separate little houses - one for each of us," was the way he explained it.

"And breakfast?" asked Crackpot.

"We may have to take that at the Visitor Center down the road," the Abbot explained.

"So not a B&B - just a B," Huntsman, the other expedition leader, observed.

"More or less," the Abbot confirmed.

So the travelers spent their first night at Petra in someone else's tomb.  But they slept okay, considering.

Come morning, they made their way beyond Petra to the Visitors Center, where they discovered they may not need to stay in the guest houses where they spent the night.

"You may find better accommodations at Wadi Musa, a mere 2 or so miles beyond Petra," the group was told.

Upon leaving the Visitors Center, the expedition leaders, Crackpot and Huntsman, not wishing to leave anyone behind, took a head count and lo and behold, found one additional head among the group. 

"Excuse me, sir, but you seem to be lost," Crackpot addressed the newcomer.

"I am a wanderer," the man let it be known.  "And as such cannot ever become lost."

"I was lost once," noted Abbot Percival.  "When I first came to my monastery, I took a wrong turn and lost my way."

"You cannot but become lost the moment you think of a place as your own," the wanderer said.

"But I am the Abbot now and know my way around blindfolded," Percival explained.

The wanderer bowed and said "Then indeed you have become truly lost."

"Well, we have to be on our way to Wadi Musa to get lodgings, then it's back to Petra for one last go round, then we're off to Samarkand."

Again the wanderer bowed.  "This will be fine," he said, as he accompanied the travelers.

"He's just going our way as far as the Wadi," it was whispered among the travelers, who all but two agreed this was the case.  But the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light knew better.

Once the travelers left Petra, Wadi Musa and Jordan itself behind and headed for Samarkand, Monsignor Beale couldn't help noticing the wanderer was still with the group, and said as much to the others.

"Ah, so he is," noted Abbot Percival.  "Maybe he's lost."  The good Abbot suggested Crackpot and Huntsman, leaders of the group, try and discover how much longer this wanderer planned to accompany the expedition.

"Excuse me," said Crackpot, "we were wondering where it is you're headed.  Are you looking for something in particular?"

"That road," came the wanderer's answer.

When it was reported back to the others what the wanderer said, there ensued a bit of controversy.

"Three to five," Father Aloysius tallied.  "That is, three Muslims to five Christians, including one heretic," he added.

"If we're not careful," cautioned Monsignor Beale, "they may try to convert us before we try to convert them.

"Oh nonsense," said Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.  "No one here's ever likely to start praying to Allah and saying 'Allah Akbar.'"

"I would," said St. Martha the Junkie.

"Why would you?" asked Old Sarge.

"Our God is boring," came her answer.  "I'm up for something new, something more God-like.  I'm tired of saying 'God is great, God is good, Yay God" before every meal.  It's just boring, that's all."

Here Monsignor Beale demonstrated his mathematical acumen by observing that once St. Martha the Junkie converted to Islam, there would be four Christians to four Muslims."

"What about old Sarge here?" asked Abbot Percival.

But it was pointed out that as a decoder and a tag-along to boot, he was neutral and so his vote didn't count  The Sergeant hung his head hearing this.

"Is that how you guys think of me?" he asked in such a forlorn manner his pocket decoder - little Polyp - didn't know what to make of the six clear codes embedded in his question.

"Answer me this," Monsignor Beale asked St. Martha the Junkie in one final effort to dissuade her from becoming a Muslim, "are you willing to go down on your knees and pray five times a day?"

"As a Saint, I'm required to kneel and pray fifty times a day, so I don't think a mere five times will be a problem."

"Who told you that?"

"The Pope himself."

"Come on: he's new at the game.  No Saint has ever been required to pray fifty times a day," the Monsignor insisted.

"That's because they were all dead - and dead men say no prayers," St. Martha the Junkie reminded the Monsignor.

Meanwhile Crackpot and Huntsman were engaged in plotting their course to Samarkand, deep inside Southeast Uzbekistan.

"It's a long way," Crackpot noted.

"How will we get there?" Huntsman asked.

"The usual way," Old Sarge, ever the optimist, said as he was passing by.

Halfway through Iraq, Old Sarge got a bad case of the shakes.  Actually, Little Polyp the pocked decoder did.  And it shook so hard it shook his entire body along with it - not the first time it did it either.

It seems their path took them within range of a big US military base, which just happened to have a decoder surpassing even Big Polyp in decoding capacity.  It was dubbed Giant Polyp; and when it performed a handshake on a passing decoder it shook, rattled and rolled till it tripped a circuit and had to be reset.

What had set both Giant and Little Polyp off was mention of the anticipated trek across Northern Iran, within sight of Tehran.

Giant Polyp was warning Little Polyp to stay out of Tehran because one never knew if a bombing raid was imminent.  And Little Polyp, in turn, was in effect attempting to warn Old Sarge.

Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic strolled up to Old Sarge and whispered "Sarge, they don't do the funky chicken any longer."

Old Sarge, for his part, whispered back "Darn: it's the only dance I know."

"It would appear you don't know it very well either," the Heretic whispered in return before walking back to the other clerics, prelates and a Saint.

Finally they were through Iran and both Little Polyp and Old Sarge calmed down.

Approaching the border they noticed something they had not noticed till then: ten people had joined their party.

"Who are these Iranians?" Old Sarge asked, on the alert lest Little Polyp go off again.

"They are Iraqis," Saint Martha the Junkie corrected the Sergeant. 

"How do you know that?" Old Sarge asked.

"I just now asked," St. Martha the Junkie answered.

"You speak Iraqi?" Sister Clarens-Bristol, the Heretic, asked.

"They speak English."

"Yes," one of the ten who joined picked up the thread.  "We learned it from our executioners."

"But you're not dead," Father Aloysius observed in a slightly accusatory manner.

"Not completely."

"Then who are you?" Abbot Percival picked up the ball.

"Children of the Damned.  When our village was destroyed, we ten survived."

"But you're not children," the good Abbot pointed out.

"'When children die they do not grow,'" the travelers were told.  "It's from a song a soldier sang for us just before he chased us from our village.  When we returned, our whole village was gone; everyone in it was gone; the part of us meant to grow was gone.  We became children forever.  Children of the Dead.  Children of the Damned."

"I see," said Abbot Percival.

"And were are you headed now?" Crackpot asked.

"That road," came the answer.  A moment of silence followed.  "We know our journey takes us to Samarkand, then on to Pyongyang."

"You know we must traverse Turkmenistan to get to Samarkand.  It is a dangerous land."

"For Arabs, all lands are dangerous lands," the Last Scholar, who had heretofore said nothing, spoke up to point out.

"How did we get here?" asked Father Aloysius upon rousing from a deep Angelus, having carried the prayer to an extreme and completely lost track of time and space.

"We came by way of Merv," Crackpot answered.  "There we met these folks, who offered to let us accompany them."

"For which we're grateful," Huntsman, the travelers' other leader, added.

"They were on a pilgrimage when we encountered them," Abbot Percival saw fit to point out.

"And now your pilgrimage is complete," Old Sarge declared.

"Ah," added Monsignor Beale, "for us Samarkand is only a stopover."

"For us as well," agreed the leader of the group that brought the travelers within their caravan.

"Then where will your pilgrimage take you now?" the good Abbot asked.

"To Pyongyang," came the reply.

"Small world," quipped Old Sarge, his decoder poised and ready for action for its having heard the infamous capital of North Korea mentioned.

"Quite the contrary," the leader of the caravan challenged Old Sarge's conclusion.  "It is a very big world our journey takes us, for we seek that road."

"Come with us then," St. Martha the Junkie suggested.  "But leave your camels behind."

"We cannot.  They alone know the way to that road we seek."

Meanwhile the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light were debating the merits of the Prince Merv Mosque, the Yusuf Kamadani Mosque and the Sultan Sandjar Mosque, among the best preserved sites in the ancient city complex.  No consensus was reached regarding their relative merits.

Samarkand welcomed the travelers with open arms.  Arms replete with weapons.  The arms of Uzbekistan's national security force.

"Who are you and why are you here?" the travelers were asked.

"We come in peace, we seek that road," Crackpot spoke for the entire group.

"You will only find a fragment of such a road here," a National Security official advised.

"But a fragment will point the way to Pyongyang," the leader of the caravan accompanying the travelers assured the official - a statement which at once set Little Polyp into an agitated frenzy.

Turning to Old Sarge, the Uzbek official proclaimed "We will have to confiscate your decoder" as he extended a hand.  "You may reclaim it when you leave the city.  Meanwhile, may I suggest a visit to Gur-i-Amir, Timur's mausoleum."

"Before you go," Abbot Percival saw fit to inquire, "what is the best 4-star hotel around here?"

"I recommend the Marokand Spa," came the official response.

Those in the camel caravan were a trifle taken back by the good Abbot's exaggerated preference and expressed their discomfort.

"Surely you could rough it for the couple days we'll be here," it was suggested.

"I am roughing it," the good Abbot answered his camel driving companions, "which is why I opted for four stars instead of five."

"His excellency is nothing if not frugal," declared Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

And all the while the issue of accommodations transpired, Old Sarge was sulking over the loss - even if only temporary - of his Little Polyp the pocket decoder.  He felt positively naked without it, and said so to the others.

"Was it spying on us?" Father Aloysius and Sister Clarens-Bristol the heretic both asked to know.

"For your own good," the Sergeant assured one and all.

As it turned out, not only was the Marokand Spa fully booked but so were all the other 4-star hotels.

"Looks like we'll all be roughing it tonight," the Abbot correctly predicted, for the travelers ended up at the Family and Friends Hotel, a nice place but, sadly, only rated 1-star.  Of course, the camels, not being quite so choosey, gladly settled in the parking lot for the night.

Next morning Crackpot and Huntsman announced to the travelers that they would be leaving by checkout time.

"We've got a long ways to go to our next stop," they reminded the others.

Here the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light announced, in turn, that they would catch up to the others later.

"There is still much to see in this the other holiest city of Islam," the Last Scholar maintained.

"Surely you're not planning to go to Mecca1" Abbot Percival expressed with some alarm.

"Why would we?" asked the Keeper of Light.

"Is it not the other holy city of which you speak?" the good Abbot asked.

"We seek not the holy cities of Allah but the holy cities of Arabic Scholarship," the Keeper of Light informed the Abbot.

"Then if not Mecca, where?"

"My home of Timbuctu," the Last Scholar answered.

All the while this exchange took place, the caravan busied with rousing the camels, feeding and watering them - not an easy task for the camels had taken to the Family and Friends parking lot like a fish to an oasis.

And as the camels reluctantly sprang into action for the next leg of the journey, the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light planned their itinerary: Sherdor Madrassa; Tilya Kori Madrassa; Ulugh Beg Madrassa; and the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum as well as the Bibi-Khamym Mosque.

It took little time to arrive at Osh, just across the border into Kyrgyzstan.  But much time to find their way through mountain passes and along trails and roadways to Issyk-Kul Lake in the Northeast.  They finally reached Karakol at the Eastern tip of the Lake - from there a short trek to China.  On the way, a few camels decided mountainous terrain was not for them so they bolted in the middle of the night, making their way back to more familiar clines.

Not once the entire journey across Kyrgyzstan did Little Polyp have occasion to go off.  Old Sarge could hardly believe it: an entire country needing no decoding.

But once the border was breached, the very instant Old Sarge stepped into China, Little Polyp just seemed to know it had crossed into forbidden territory.                                

For the rest of the traveling party, accommodations in Aksu, China was uppermost in their minds.  Abbot Percival, as was his wont, sought out the best hotels - Grand Hotel, Aksu Xinyue Hotel, Hilton Garden Inn, Great Eagle Plaza - but they were all booked.  So it was back to one-stars for the duration.  The camels who had elected to continue the journey - for if Hannibal could coax elephants to cross the Alps, then by the gods camels could best that by crossing the Tian Shan - rather than return to their desert oasis, were fine with one-star parking lots.

"We mustn't tarry," Crackpot let it be known, "otherwise we could get bogged down and swallowed up by the vastness of China and never reach our next destination."

Their trek touched the southern fringes of the Gobi Desert, a trek greatly relished by the camels, all of whom discounted both the relative sparseness of both sand and heat to bask in the glory of feeling right at home.  They might well have thought they died and went to heaven had it been their wont to dwell on such matters.

"We must visit and consult with the Uyghurs," the Children of the Damned expressed to Crackpot and Huntsman.  "Even if it means losing valuable time reaching that road.  They are in many ways our spiritual brothers; and perhaps a few of them will accompany us on our journey."

The consultation, as expected, provided the Children of the Damned spiritual comfort; but no fellow travelers.

"We are content here in our home," the Children of the Damned were told.  "We cannot leave."

When this was reported back to the other travelers, Old Sarge could barely believe his ears.  "They wish to remain where they're oppressed?" he said.

"They aren't on the same wavelength as you Westerners," came the reply.

Little Polyp was having none of this and buzzed and bounced and otherwise through one tantrum after another, displayed its displeasure with this information.  For it had been programmed from birth to fear and loathe all things Chinese.  Old Sarge had a devil of a time just keeping it in his trouser pocket, so committed was it to spreading freedom and democracy worldwide.

The other travelers, stepping away from Old Sarge and his pro-American contraption, began discussing the upcoming trek across the Chinese mainland.

"This camel caravan will slow us down, I greatly fear," said the good Abbot.

"Camels are somewhat slow, that's true," Monsignor Beale agreed, as did Father Aloysius.  Saint Martha the Junkie, however, pointed out that they must be confusing camels with elephants - a take seconded by Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

"It's elephants who are particularly slow on the go," said Saint Martha the Junkie.

"They never forget a route through," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic pointed out.

As it happened, though, the route as chosen by the camels proved the best as well as the quickest across China.

The first official stop was Urumqi, where they were greeted by a cadre of Chinese soldiers, accompanied by the Mayor and City Council.  The soldiers drew their guns at the approach of the caravan; the Mayor withdrew a key to the city from his pocket; and Council members, having nothing to display,  stood at attention.

"We've been expecting you!" the Mayor announced.  "Your movement has been monitored the moment you entered China.  We welcome you in the name of the people of China."

Crackpot and Huntsman stepped forward to thank the Mayor on behalf of the entire group, which had grown considerably as not only a few Uyghurs but many other Chinese citizens had joined the journey.

They were marched through the main streets of Urumqi with great ceremony; and given the best accommodations in town.

As always, the camels, once bedded down for the night, found the accommodations much to their liking.  Though, also as always, Abbot Percival found them somewhat lacking.

"Not my idea of a five-star hotel, if I'm truthful," the good Abbot informed the others.

While in Urumqi, the mostly Muslim travelers made side trips to the Tatar Mosque and, especially, the Beifang Mosque, where, just by chance, they encountered the Last scholar and the Keeper of Light.

"How did you get here without camels?" they were asked.

"The usual way," was their reply.

At the very start of their visit, Old Sarge was advised to check his decoder at the counter and to be sure the clerk gave him a receipt.

"Ah!" observed the clerk, "a Little Polyp - state of the art!"

Next up on the itinerary was Turpan, where once again they were welcomed with open arms, given the key to the city, and put up at a fine hotel for the duration of their stay.

"Don't you find this a bit odd?" Old Sarge mused to the others.

Abbot Percival spoke for the entire group when he said "Hospitality, my dear sir, is never odd!"

But his question got some of the others to thinking.  And indeed it did after much reflection seem as they proceeded a bit odd the ease of their egress across more than half of China.

The camels of course were troubled by none of this, for they merely took it in stride.

But, truthfully, the good Abbot and his fellow prelates found Urumqi a bit too hot.  And before either Crackpot or Huntsman realized the bizarre turn around, they found themselves in Kashgar.  They stayed one night, visited one mosque - Idkah - then left.

Next up was Jiuquan, where, as before, the travelers were warmly greeted, given the key to the city and offered the finest accommodations, though never quite as fine as the good Abbot would have liked.  While there they visited the Najl a hu Mosque before departing for Zhangye, four keys in hand; and, sure enough, followed by a fifth.

While in Zhangye they visited the Giant Buddha Temple, whose statue Abbot Percival found a bit oversized for a god - and he said so.

"There is no god!" declared Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.  The prelates merely shook their heads, having been apprised of this heretical nun's atheism more times than they could shake a cross at.  A certain decoder, however, had never before heard such a blasphemy; and began leaping about and shrieking like a banshee.  It was all Old Sarge could do to keep his pants on.

But it was Saint Martha the Junkie who put the device at ease by simply pointing out that the Buddha was not a god, only a holy man.  So when they visited the Mati Temple, nothing untoward befell Little Polyp.

When they left Zhangye, the camels instinctively made for Xi'an.

"We'll have to go easy here, tred softly as it were," announced Crackpot, the leader.  "Besides taking us off course, too far South, these camels have brought us to one of China's Forbidden Cities."

"So just be on your guard at all times," Huntsman added, as it turned out needlessly, for not only were they greeted as before and given yet another key to add to their collection, and offered the finest accommodations; they were also given a big banquet at which all the city fathers toasted them.

"We regret only," they were told by the Mayor, "that your carriers, the exalted camels, cannot join us.  But, owing to a city ordinance, they must remain outside."  As it happened, the camels, unbeknownst to all, had already started back.

The whole time the caravan was trekking across China, they were being pursued by a PFC with Murderous intent.  It was a matter of height, not rank.  Nor was it Old Sarge being pursued but Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, who beat Saint Martha the Junkie by three inches.  Not that height mattered a hoot to Saint Martha the Junkie, only heroin, when she could get it, which was almost never.  In truth she had never shot up in her life; she just liked the idea of being a Junkie: it just felt right to her.  So her being six foot two only entered the picture as a medium of comparison.

And comparison was everything to Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, for, at six foot five, she had won the trophy for tallest Heretic in America three years running.  But she had given up the trophy she loved to an upstart Heretic (some would say an imposter).  At six foot five and a quarter, he had claimed this year's trophy.

This friar, Brother Peatree Disch, as it was later discovered, had cheated his way to the height of heresy.  He had put falsies stolen from a stripper inside his Army boots.

"Did you think you could hide the truth or your falsies forever?" the Arch-Bishop demanded.

"Not forever, no - just till next year," PFC Disch assured his prelate.

"You are hereby ordered to find Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, at six foot five the rightful winner of this year's contest, and place the trophy you in effect pilfered in the true tall Heretic's hands.  Go now and may the God she denies be with you."

"How the hell would I know where a heretic hangs?" the frustrated friar asked to know.

"Aren't you one yourself?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right."

"Then find her, fulfill your mission, and may you come to believe again in God long enough for Him to have mercy on your soul!"

"There is no soul," PFC Brother Peatree Disch declared.

"How'd you come by such a name?" the Brother who admitted him to the Monastery couldn't help asking.

"Mother, as I'm sure you know by now, is a world renowned molecular biologist," soon to be Brother Peatree pointed out.  "She said when I was born I looked like something that had just crawled out of a petri dish.  I wasn't there so I can't verify it.  I have to take her word for it."

It was only upon his graduation three years later that the mix-up became clear.  It seems Peatree Disch thought he had enlisted in a military academy.  Yet when he received his certificate and nowhere on it was to be found his hard earned rank of PFC, but only his Brotherhood, he felt compelled to point out the grave mis-print to the head of the Academy.

"You do know this is a Monastery," he was told.  "And though your training is vigorous, it does not confer upon you a name, rank and serial number."

A disconcerted Brother Peatree did as he had always done and found a man in a dark alley who for a price altered his certificate to read no longer "Brother Peatree" but, instead, "PFC Peatree Disch."

For six months he had been stalking Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic to give her her just dessert, the whole time formulating a plan to kill the nun so he could keep his trophy.  He had never killed before but reasoned that as it was done every day - and twicest on Sunday - how difficult could it be?

Men do not as a rule believe in love at first sight; and as PFC Disch never strayed far from established dogma (except to win a trophy), he didn't believe in it either.  And yet, one look at his victim and all that was shattered.  It was the Nun's habit that swayed him: he could never resist a woman in a uniform - especially one so close to a lab coat.  In truth, he had never seen her before - not even when he took the tallest Heretic in America top honor; but he knew her the moment he saw her.

He caught up with his quarry and the group she traveled with just outside Dalian, where they had mistakenly gone, thinking it bordered North Korea.  It would seem that without the camels to direct them along the ancient Silk Road, they were no wiser than the novice travelers they had always been.

"Too bad our guides turned tail and ran," a distraught Abbot Percival noted.

"Oh no," his excellency was corrected, "Xian is the end of the Silk Road, so they set out for the return trip home."

What neither the good Abbot nor anyone else realized was that, had their journey not followed the ancient Silk Road and had there not been an actual Silk Road Caravan fast on their heels, for which they were mistaken, they would never have received the red carpet treatment in every city they visited.  In fact, had they kept on course to Pyongyang they would have been seized and all their keys taken back.

"So you mean the camels were just following this Silk Road, and not really taking us across China?" Father Aloysius asked.

"It's in their blood - their DNA as you Westerners like to say," came the reply.

"Frankly, my dear, they nor I gave a damn about your journey!" a voice seemingly from nowhere rang out.  It was the voice of one Peatree Disch, who had just made his appearance known to one and all.

"Why are you?" asked Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic as she turned full face to her accuser.

He was speechless, his love at first sight tied his tongue.  Then, like what the Nun later characterized as A Lovesick Cow, he bleated out "I came to kill for the trophy I love, and found instead someone I love more!"

Then he looked around and said "Where am I?"

"You're asking the wrong ones," he was told in no uncertain terms.  "We're as lost as you are."

"I'm lost in love on the border with North Korea," PFC Disch admitted.

"Well, I may be a Heretic," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic told her lovesick suitor, "but I'm still a Nun, sir, and as such I don't jump into bed with the first tall heretical monk I meet!"

As it happened, Peatree Disch was a little bit virginal for a PFC, and failed to grasp what going to bed had to do with falling in love at first sight.

"If you're tired," he pledged his everlasting love, "I'll search the world over to find you a down filled pillow that's just right for your beauteous head!"

"I'm allergic to down," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic said coldly.

"Then I'm doomed to sleep alone till the end of time," a distraught Disch said, "for I'm allergic to every pillow stuffing save down."

"I've always said it," Saint Martha the Junkie whispered, "no cement wall can hold a candle to a down pillow for separating man from woman."

In the depths of his despair PFC Peatree Disch found hope as he looked around for the first time since overtaking the travelers at Ji'anshi on the border of North Korea.  And hope had a face, and the face bore the unmistakable look of a Uyghur, then of many Uyghurs, as many as had decided to stray from their beloved Xinjiang Prefecture long enough to witness the start of that road.

"Thank God thank God thank God!" the PFC cried out.

"Young man," noted Abbot Percival, "one thank you to a customer, thank you very much!"

"But I thank God they're safe - safe at last - hallelujah they're safe!" PFC Disch explained.

As a secretary, St. Martha the Junkie quickly identified the PFC's problem.

"A bad case of the triplicates," she reported.

But it was Old Sarge who cut right to the chase.  "Let's just let the man let it all out!" he insisted, in triplicate.  "We all know the Uyghurs are frightfully oppressed here in China - the US government wouldn't make something like that up!"

"You know it, I know it, but do they know it?" added Monsignor Beale.

Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic had frankly had enough of this triplicate business and bellowed out "I think I am I think" - thinking to slowly wind the threes down to twos.

"Know what?" one of Uyghurs asked.

"Ah," whispered Saint Martha the Junkie, "the unitarys are back in the driver's seat."

"Know you're oppressed by China," PFC Disch informed the oppressed Uyghur who, along with several of his comrades, had just picked up and left Xinjiang without so much as a word, let alone a triplicity of words.

"Oh that," the Uyghur was reminded of his special debasement by the Chinese, as assumed in the West.  "How did you find out?"

"I turned on the TV," Disch stated the source of his knowledge.

"Was your TV made in Taiwan?"

"Why, come to think of it: Yes, I think it was.  At least I think so."

"That explains it," said the Uyghur.

All this time, Little Polyp was cooing, purring and dispensing strange little coded messages.  For it knew, if none other did, what resided in PFC Disch's undershorts.  Too important to simply assign it to his pants pocket, the PFC carried not only on his person but snuggled against his person the newest, the littlest, the most ingenious decoder in the entire Polyp line: Polyp Junior, small but endowed with terabytes of open space for the seeding of endless codes, big and small.

Of course, no PFC on Earth was ever supposed to even know about such a device, let alone have one.  The fact of the matter was, he, PFC Peatree Disch, graduate of the Frankfort Franciscan Monastery, had stolen it, just plain picked it up and walked off with it.  Something just told him to do it, and he did.  He was at an Armory, and there was a display of the latest special gadgets to help make and keep the world safe for safety and security.  He saw it, he liked it, he took it.  It was the old -

                    - I came, I saw, I conquered.

And this little bugger kept telling him Yughurs were oppressed, oppressed, oppressed.  And had he not fallen hopelessly (and sleeplessly) in love, he had planned to raise an army to free the Yughurs.  But alas, the best laid plans of man and mice (and PFCs and monks) oft go awry.

And this little bugger, correctly called Polyp Junior, detected, hidden fast within Old Sarge's pants pocket, an ally in the fight for a safer, more secure world - a bird, as it were, of a feather, with whom Polyp Junior wished to get to know (though not in the Biblical sense, of course, for that would indeed be wrong).  And they did as they were programmed to do - no more, no less: they traded barbs on China, their common enemy in this the un-secure part of the globe.

Little Polyp to Polyp Junior: "eenie-meenie-minee-mo.  Catch a Yughur by the toe.  If he hollers, you'll know he's oppressed by his Chinese overlords."

Polyp Junior back at Little Polyp: "Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum.  I smell the threat of a Chinaman."

Little Pollyp to his little buddy: "one potato-two potato-three potato-four; five potato-six potato-seven potato-or Peking Duck at every door."

You see, Big Daddy Polyp had nothing good to say about China - and that was how it raised its offspring.  But then, no one ever gave Big Daddy a key to their city.  And this played on its diodes and tore at its circuits and pulled at its hearty cables.  No sir, not a single city key hung from its sleek buttons - and it had into the hundreds.  Coffee cups galore, coats and hats, even a careless rubber; but not one bloody key.  And it was plainly all China's fault.

But that all stopped with one small step for road hogs, hounds, scholars, prelates, junkies, heretics, camel drivers, grunts, light keepers, even a few Yughurs.  That one small step shut Little decoder and decoder Junior up for good.  For that one small step carried them both from China all the way to North Korea.

"We're not in North Carolina any more" both devices, in unison, texted one last text to each other.  Then were silent as instruction on how to proceed poured in from Greenland.

"Warning!  Warning!" Big Daddy Polyp cried out in Cobol, Fortran, and even some languages you're not supposed to know.

"How'd we get across the border?" Abbot Percival wondered aloud.  But no one could say.

Saint Martha the Junkie, who took that last minute opportunity to shoot up, didn't know.

Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, fresh from cursing God and man, and a certain newly arrived PFC, didn't know.

Monsignor Beale, finding himself wondering why there were no altar girls but only boys, didn't know.

Father Aloysius, wondering why no seniors ever assisted at Mass but only half-assed kids who wouldn't know a chalice from a jock strap, didn't know.

Old Sarge, who thought they were sent by God and the Chief of Staff to make the world safe for freedom and democracy, didn't know.

PFC Peatree Disch, lost in a reverie which, embarrassingly, brought on a wet dream, didn't know.

No one else in the party so much as gave it a thought.  They had been there, now they were here - and that was that.

When, as they approached Pyongyang, and as he inexplicably shouted out "Pyongyang or bust!," Peatree Disch got Old Sarge on the sly.

"Pfc Disch reporting for duty, sir!"

"But I thought you were a monk," said Old Sarge.

"That's my cover," the self-designated PFC explained.  "I use it when I go undercover.  I just want my superior non-com to know I'll be ready when we take Pyongyang."

"Take Pyongyang?" an incredulous Sarge could not believe his ears.

"That's why we're here, Sarge."

"Where'd you get that idea?"

"Straight from Polyp Junior here in my pocket, who got it straight from Big Daddy Polyp."

"I see," old Sarge mused.  "And backup?" he asked.

"I'm afraid we're on our own - this mission is top-drawer secret, sir."

"Top-drawer secret, eh."

"Yes sir."

They left off abruptly as Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic approached.

"What are you guys plotting?" the nun asked.

"Oh nothing," Pfc Disch answered.  "So move along buttercup, nothing to see here."

"What I see here," said the nun, "is that a certain monk had a nocturnal emission - and in broad daylight!"

"Anyone we know?" asked Pfc Disch as he turned and walked away, grabbing the nun's habit veil clean off her head as he did.

"Why do you even wear this anyway?" Pfc Disch asked as he walked on.

"Out of habit," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic answered tongue in cheek as she grabbed Disch's jock strap, which he mistook a health caution for a fashion statement and wore on the outside of his monk's garment.

"Be sure your jock strap's not too tight," his high school coach had advised the boys of the gym class.  Ever since receiving that advice, Peatree Disch wore his athletic supporter over his regular garments, reasoning that the layers of his other clothes would keep it from becoming too tight.

Ah, the streets of Pyongyang!  Like none other on Earth, sinister from the get go, when King Dangun is said to have made it his capital; and, a thousand years hence Wang Geoh restored it to its former standing, only to be ruled by Japan and then occupied by Russia and bombed by the US and rebuilt  by North Korea.

And here they all were, this troupe of travelers, wanderers, seekers after that road, a hundred strong and growing, come from as far away as Canada, as near as China.

"Where you off to?" Saint Martha the Junkie asked Pfc Peatree Disch, who had separated from the group and started off on his own.

"The Ministry of Social Security to sign up for my retirement benefits," the Pfc replied.

"Aren't you a little young to be thinking about Social Security?"

"Oh no," came the reply.  "My mom and dad waited so long they couldn't get theirs till they were almost 70.  I don't want to have to wait that long.  A gypsy read my palm and told me I'd live to be 87.  So that means if I have to wait till I'm 70 I'll only get it for 16 years."

"Why not 17?"

"If I'm going to die at 87, then I'd have to pay back anything I got that whole year.  I don't know if I can afford it.  So I should start by the time I'm 30."

"Tell you what," said Saint Martha the Junkie, "I'll go with you."

"And on the way, you can tell me how many men the heretical nun has slept with.  And what she likes to do in bed.  And if she wears the same kind of chastity belt nuns are required to wear and if she does, where the key is hidden."

"We're off to see the wizard!" Saint Martha the Junkie sang.

"That's an idea," said the Pfc.  "Maybe for a fee he could cast a spell over my Claressa."

The Ministry of Social Security, as all government buildings of Pyongyang, was imposing and forbidding; but they found a way in, made their way to the information center, and asked for the sign-up.

"I wanted to get it out of the way while I'm still young enough to enjoy it," Pfc Peatree Disch explained.

Just then Polyp Junior made a racket.  Immediately the pair was surrounded by a cadre of armed guards.

"What is that sound?" they asked.

"Oh that's only my decoder," the Pfc answered.  "It'll quiet down in a minute."

"Let us see this decoder!" they demanded.

"How does it work?" they asked.

Meanwhile Saint Martha the Junkie took their leader aside.

"It's only a cell phone but he thinks it's a decoder," she explained.  "He's spent his entire life in a monastery.  He was taken by the Franciscans as a baby and raised as a monk.  They programmed his phone to ring whenever it's time for vespers.  Even now he's silently praying to St. Francis."

"So," the leader turned to Peatree to ask, "you receive messages on this decoder?"

"All the time, day or night.  But I've learned to sleep anyway."

"During vespers?"

"Vespers, shouts, and everything in between," came the reply.

"And where was this device made - China?"

"Oh no!  Never China!" Pfc Disch assured his interlocatur.

"Japan then," the leader sneered.  "I spit on it!"

This accomplished, Pfc Peatree Disch and Saint Martha the Junkie were shown to a window where new registrations were conducted.

"I'm here to register," the Pfc announced.

Half an hour later, the registration completed, he asked how soon his Social Security would begin and was told it already had.

On their way out, Pfc Disch said to his companion "Mom and dad should have come here and they wouldn't have had to wait till they were 70 for their Social Security to kick in."

Everyone else kept a low profile in keeping with Pyongyang's reputation for strict, almost Puritan behavior.  This caution was most evident in the religious faction, which had been briefed by Abbot Percival on North Korea's overall disdain for religion.

"They make men of the cloth - " the good Abbot began before being interrupted by a lady's cough - "and women of the cloth, even unveiled, wear a big red sign saying 'Leper.'  Anyway, that' what Cardinal FuFu told us."

"Why leper and not panther?" Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic asked.

"Well, the good Cardinal was addressing a room full of white clerics," Abbot Percival gave out.  "Presumably when he addresses black clerics he goes with the panther."

"My favorite has always been the tiger," added PFC Peatree Disch, who had just re-joined the group.  "But I cried when I read about that wizard Little Black Sambo who turned the tiger into syrup.  I've never touched syrup since."

"Then what do you put on your pancakes?" Sister Clarens-Bistol the Heretic asked.  "That's of course unless you ejaculate on them," added the nun.

"I don't say any prayers before breakfast, especially not the Ejaculation," Peatree explained.  "I just put a big wad of gravy on my pancakes.  That way I'm sure to get enough cholesterol to keep my blood flowing."

Noticeably absent from this tete-a-tete was Saint Martha the Junkie, who in truth had not had a fix since this journey began - unless she counted the maple syrup, which she didn't.  And though Little Black Sambo was a million miles from her thoughts, she too, like PFC Disch, had sworn off syrups of every description.

She figured if anyone knew a good place for a fix, a soldier would.  She approached one standing by himself, leaning against a wall, looking high as a kite; and asked him where she might get a fix.

He simply shrugged and said, in his charming Pyongyang accent "No sprechen ze English."

So Saint Martha the Junkie had no choice but to act out her request.  To that end, she took out her needle; feigned filling it with heroin; and giving herself a fix.

"Ah!" the soldier exclaimed as he pulled out a small packet and gave it to her.

She thanked him and was on her way.

"No, I haven't been to mass since I was a little boy," PFC Monk Peatree Disch was heavy into a conversation with his fellow clerics concerning the Catholic versus Protestant worship of the Almighty.

"Give a G. D. priest an inch, he'll take a mile!  We'd have been all day choking on incense listening to a never ending sermon on monstrance if someone with a gift for mimicry hadn't shouted out 'Etae Missa Est' in the Priest's voice.  Thanks but no thanks but I have the Saint Vitus Dance - always have.  Can't sit still more than five minutes in a row."

"They don't do that anymore," Father Aloysius assured the monk.  "No monstrance, no incense, no Latin, no sermon.  Just the latest Rap song and a 'God is great, God is good' and the Mass is over."

"But they still wear the silk dressing robes, don't they?"

"No indeed.  It's strictly jeans and sweats, maybe bicycle tights."

"Is it still a requirement that priests be hung like horses?" Peatree asked.

"That never was a requirement," the priest assured the monk.

"Like hell it wasn't!" Peatree insisted.  "Mother Superior told me that herself when I told her I wanted to be a priest."

"I stand corrected," Father Aloysius apologized.

"We have to keep to our schedule," Crackpot let it be known.  Huntsman seconded his partner's advisory.  "Naha won't come to us, you know."

"It may have to," Old Sarge suggested.  "How will we get there otherwise?"

"The usual way," came the reply.                        

It was very late when the travelers stepped off the huge transport from Pyongyang bound for Ho Chi Minh City with stop offs in Okinawa and Taiwan.  The jumbo plane roared into Naha International Airport, deposited its passengers then roared out again, oblivious to the myriad of shushes from Naha's air traffic controllers.

"Quiet, please!" the controllers cautioned.  "This is when the Americans sleep.  They don't like to be disturbed!"  But to no avail.

"Just like Communists, to be insensitive to other people's sleep cycle!"

Greeting, then joining the travelers was a Brit named Peat Moss.

"Where'd you get such a God-awful crazy name?" PFC Peatree Disch just had to ask.

"My dad, I'm told, took one look at his newborn son and declared I favored his pater, my grandpapa, whose name was Peat Moss.  So he bestowed the family name on his son.  In fact, daddy also favored grandpapa, which accounts for his name as well."

"Ah, another Peat Moss on your family tree!" Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic jumped to a false conclusion.

"No indeed.  His name was Heath Moss.  Father had his name changed from Peat Moss.  'You know what,' the name changers all agreed, seeing him in profile, 'you're on to something there.  We see strong touches of heather, even some scrub brush - just a little, but enough to warrant a name change.  So it's official: Heath Moss it is.'"

Tears streamed down the monk's cheeks.  "That the most heart warming story I've ever heard," he said.

"Then you'd love the one about my great-great-great grandmama on my mother's side, who immigrated from the Americas long before any of us were even born.  They of course shortened her name, from Smith to Smith-Pickerdene, as was the custom back in the Victorian days.

"Was Jack the Ripper from her gene pool?" Abbot Percival found himself asking.  Except he mis-spoke the slasher's name as Picker.

"Oh no," answered Peat Moss, "she was quite barren, my grandmama.  All her genes were recessive, you see.  And killers, as everyone knows, must have a full set of dominant genes to ply their trade."

While this important tete-a-tete went on, the Muslims, who had joined the travelers in Central Asia. began missing their camels, wishing there had been some way to bring them to Okinawa.

"It's almost too quiet, it's spooky," it was noted.

"Soon the Americans will arise from their sleep and begin flying their aeroplanes all around the island," it was noted.

"Wonder why they do that?" it was asked.

"Because they can," it was answered.

"We must visit Shuri Castle, I hear it's beautiful this time of year," recommended Monsignor Beale.

"Where did you hear that?" asked a skeptical Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

"Just now a couple tourists were talking," the Monsignor said.

"And you were eaves dropping?  How shameful," scolded PFC Disch.

"Oh no," the Monsignor assured the Monk, "they were eaves dropping: speaking while they snooped - they made sure I heard their recommendation.  In truth, I believe they were Shuri-men-monks in civies sent out to drum up business for the Castle."

PFC Disch shed a tear or two over this piece of news, for he knew only too well how sad it makes a monk to go among the masses un-frocked.

"I once dated a man who had once lived in this very city," offered Saint Martha the Junkie.  "He spent his every waking moment telling dirty jokes.  They weren't funny though."

"Nonsense," declared Peat Moss, who had more or less invited himself to join the party of travelers, "dirty jokes are among the funniest jokes ever told.  I must look this friend of yours up and listen."

"His jokes weren't funny because he forgot the punch line," Saint Martha the Junkie explained. 

"It's the thought that counts," Peat Moss pointed out.  "The punch line is just the icing on the cake."

"Does he think dirty jokes are found in Cook Books?" Abbot Percival asked as an aside.

"If they come from Chef Be-Bop-Bo-Bob they do," Old Sarge was quick to point out.  "Every recipe has a dirty joke embedded in it - kind of like those fortune cookies.  Our Mess Hall kept a copy of his best cook book in the latrine.  Eventually, though, all the pages got torn out and only the binding remained, and one lone recipe for his Mac-and-Cheesecake."

"Why are you whispering?" the good Abbot asked.

"Because every time Little Polyp hears one of Bob's recipes, poor thing starts laughing hysterically and I have to hit the pause button.  And when I do that a siren goes off.  It's a lose-lose proposition."

So at last they were all off to see Shuri Castle, which they were assured was beautiful this time of year.

But they never made it, for the strangest thing happened.

They reached Hobart, Tasmania in record time considering they were off to Shuri Castle in Naha, Okinawa.

The moment they had landed at Naha International airport, and the whole way from Pyongyang, unbeknownst to all - even Little Polyp, usually right on the ball - deep within PFC Peatree Disch's monk's robes, his Tiny Polyp was banging, bleeping, buzzing and just plain carrying on like there was no tomorrow, for it knew perfectly well where it had been and whose transport it had flown to Naha in.  It was barely two minutes into Okinawa standard time when the Americans detected its alarm button raging.  But as their midday siesta wasn't yet over, their commander wouldn't let them respond.  Finally, halfway to Shuri Castle, the siesta ended, the service men all nice and rested, the travelers were picked up, put on a Navy transport, and taken to the US to be interrogated.  Apparently, though, their siesta ended too soon after all and they headed South rather than East.  (The night before, they had all watched Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest," so South and East were firmly fixed in their minds, to a man.)

"So they take planes to Shuri Castle?" PFC Disch, who had been distracted the whole trip, asked.

"Apparently," Peat Moss answered.

Presently, the travelers found themselves in Hobart, Tasmania.  They were ushered off the Naval transport and straight to the Supreme Court of Tasmania, where their escort/guide to the Naval Yards for incarceration as threats to National Security had gone to ask directions.  (However, he should not be faulted for mistaking Hobart, Tasmania for Norfolk, Virginia, since Airman First Class Devero Botch was only on temporary assignment to the Navel Facility at Okinawa and couldn't tell one Navy town from another).

"Where do I take these, my prisoners?" AFC Botch asked the Clerk of Court.

"The Risdon Prison Complex - and Mary Hutychinson for the ladies of course - is within walking distance.  However, we don't recommend taking them there with first informing the Ombudsman."

"The Commander already knows they're coming," the Airman assured the Clerk.

"What's that noise coming from your hand?" the Clerk asked after having noted a disturbing racket and having traced it to the Airman's right hand.

"That's my chip," Devero Botch answered but offered no more information.

"Ah!" noted the Clerk.  "So you have an artificial hand.  I've heard of these."

Later, as they made their way to Risdon Prison Complex, Old Sarge and PFC Monk Peatree Disch managed to get AFC Botch by himself.

"Is that what I think it is?" Old Sarge asked, having also noticed the racket just under Botch's skin.

"Sure is," said the Airman, eager to share the wonders of modern military nano-technology with fellow soldiers.

"Straight from DARPA to my wrist, none other than the latest decoding tech," the Airman boasted.

"What you call it?" an eager PFC Disch asked.

"Teeny Tiny Polyp!" Botch proudly replied.

"Doesn't get any better," he added, adding "at least not till they incorporate into the brain itself.  I'm on the waiting list."

"We want to be on that list too!" both Old Sarge and PFC Disch swore.

"Are we there yet?" Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic asked.

"Where?" PFC Disch, the Monk, in turn asked.

"Shuri Castle," came the nun's reply.

"Oh look!" said Airman First Class Botch, pointing to St. John's Presbyterian Church off in the distance.

"We'll check it out," Nun and Monk said as they made for the Church made in the Egyptian mode.

"You may not enter," the visitors were told.

"We just want to see the throne room, that's all," the Monk explained.

"What an odd way of describing the sacristy," the doorman puzzled.

"Then we can see it?" asked the Nun.

"No," came the stern reply, sending Nun and Monk back to rejoin the other travelers.

"So the Niponese call their throne room a sacristy - just like we call our back room," the Nun remarked.

"Makes sense," said the Monk,  "You weren't allowed to see the King in those days."

"Then how did they know there was one?"

"They just took it on faith."

The travelers moved on.  If they can't see the Throne Room, they'd find some other place to sightsee.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Peat Moss upon reaching the corner of Argyle and Macquarie.  "What's a Tasmanian Museum doing in the Forbidden City of Okinawa?"

PFC Peatree Disch, who was beginning to figure all this out, snapped his fingers and said "Of course!  The Pacific Plate!  It carried Tasmania all the way to the Antarctic Circle, but left this Museum behind since it was still on the Asian Plate.  I think I read about it in an article in our news magazine, the Army Times."

"Are you sure it wasn't Good Housekeeping where you read about those plates?" asked Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

"Come to think of it, I believe it was there too," agreed the PFC Monk.

At any rate, the Museum seemed to be open, so they entered, some of the other travelers with them, notably the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light, both of whom were at once seized of a sense of dread.

"We must leave this place at once," they announced to Crackpot and Huntsman, the leaders of the pack.

"We just got here," said Crackpot, Huntsman adding "Surely it won't hurt anything to browse around a bit."

"There are angry spirits here," the Islamic Scholar and Keeper of Light informed everyone.

"There are no spirits!" insisted the heretical Nun.

"None except the last two full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanians," cautioned Saint Martha the Junkie.  "Their names are Truganini and Lanne, both were desecrated for the amusement of the British Royal Society - though they didn't call it entertainment back then though it was.  They called it Science."

"Well, they're the same thing, Science and Entertainment, aren't they?" asked Old Sarge, whose attention was piqued by Little Polyp's sudden reaction to the names Truganini and Lanne.

"I think my ancestor was the last Aboriginal from France," Peat Moss interjected into the discussion.  "When he died they all moved lock stock and barrel to Britain."

"So that's where all those stocks came from," observed PFC Disch.

"And all those barrels Guy Faukes tired to blow up," added Airman Botch.

Meanwhile the rest of the travelers had taken the Last Scholar and Keeper of Light's advice and left the Tasmanian Museum.

They were deported.  Well, transported to the mainland, to the very center of Australia, to Alice Springs to be precise.

Little Polyp's distress beacon upon hearing the names Truganini and Lanne was picked up by an American warship scouring the South Pacific to insure freedom and democracy exists in and around the Mariana's Trench; and forwarded at once to mainland America, which after a deep search realized its significance and forwarded it to British Intelligence; which in turn sent it by carrier pigeon, which it was testing, to the Royal Society, which sent an urgent message to Canberra, which was diverted by a single letter - the letter "r" mistakenly added after the capital "C" - to the village of Cranberry in Staffordshire in England's West Midlands before being sent on to the Australian capital, where the Prime Minister immediately ordered the transporting of the travelers to the Northern Territory.  And into the Alice they went.

And on into Blatherskite Park just in time for the annual Camel Cup, an event which brought a huge smile to the faces of the camel drivers of Central Asia, whose camels had all seen enough of China and returned home.  All in all, it was a transport appreciated by one and all the travelers.

"We're not in Hana anymore!" quipped Old Sarge, who, alone of the group, had mapped their progress from Okinawa to Tasmania and now Alice Springs with its red sands and scrublands.

"Are you tourists taking the Larapinta Trail?" one of the locals asked.

"We are not thieves!" answered back someone no one among the group of travelers could recall having seen before.

"Who are you?" Crackpot and Huntsman both demanded to know.  "And why do you number yourself among this 'we?'"

"Do I do wrong?" the stranger, in turn, demanded to be told.

"Yes and no," was the only answer anyone could come up with.

"In that case," the stranger said, "I choose 'No.'"

"You still haven't said who you are," noted Abbot Percival.

"Who but Mad Max would you expect to encounter here in the middle of nowhere?" came the reply.

"What about Crocodile Dundee?" Monsignor Beale asked.

"He got eaten by a Kangaroo," Mad Max advised.

"Kangaroos are herbivores!" a passing native pointed out.

"Ah - but a blind Kangaroo may mistakenly eat a man!" insisted Mad Max.  "In the case of Mr. Dundee, he was kicked in the head by an ostrich, which he tried to sneak up on.  As he lay there in a semi-conscious state, a blind Kangaroo mistook him for a shrub and began chomping away.  By the time the authorities arrived, it was all over."

"He died as he lived," said PFC Monk Disch.

"Why Mad Max?" Saint Martha the Junkie asked the stranger.

"Well, mom and dad are both obstetricians.  And they were watching a 'Mad Max' marathon on TV - Disney or one of those family channels I think - the day I was born.  They timed my delivery to coincide with the commercial break - I think they were advertising a Mickey Mouse marathon.  Mom wanted to name me Mickey but dad said that was a sissy name so they decided on Mad Max."

"Did they give you a last name?" asked Peat Moss.

"Dundee," came the name, a name which could only elicit a snigger.

"So instead of Mad Max they could have named you Crocodile," observed Airman Botch.  "So why didn't they?"

"Mother thought I looked more like a mouse - so that's why she wanted Mickey.  But father insisted on Mad Max, so they compromised and let me choose Mickey as my confirmation name, though Minnie was what I wanted but it was already taken by another boy."

"Minnie's a girl's name," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic advised.

"That's what everyone said, but it didn't sound girlish to me," Mad Max admitted.

"So both your parents were obstetricians," mused Father Aloysius.

"For animals though," Mad Max clarified.  "Mostly Kangaroos."

"Ah!" Old Sarge saw a potential for tragedy.  "So they may have birthed the very Joey that grew up to eat old Crocodile Dundee."

"No maybe about it," a shame-faced Aussie was forced to admit.

"Small world," Abbot Percival concluded.

This year's Camel Cup did not go to plan; in fact, it was a complete disaster.  Once the travelers joined the other spectators in Blatherskite Park, and the camels looked up long enough to see the smiling faces of the Central Asian camel drivers, they proceeded, to a Dromedary, to throw their riders and run over to those glorious smiling faces of real true genuine Arabian camel drivers, grunting, moaning, bellowing and even whistling the whole way.  The one and only thought in their minds was "You come to take us home!"

The travelers were run out of town - not on a rail but on camel back, for the camels refused to part with their Arabian saviors, who understood that they were not put on Earth to play polo or to win races but to walk at a methodical pace across the deserts, not of Australia but of Central Asia and into China.  In a word, to once again conduct themselves across the ancient Silk Road.

"Of course that wasn't his name," PFC Peatree Disch announced to one and all upon their arrival on Pitcairn Island.  "Nor was it a Mutiny - that was just a cover story told to the Admiralty."

"Then what was his name?" Peat Moss demanded to know.  The only Englishman in the group, he did not care for an outsider altering English History.

"It was Flatinala Cristofera," PFC Monk Disch replied.  "And he was put ashore here because Captain Bligh could no longer abide his chronic flatulence!"

"And just where did you come up with this cock and bull story?" Peat Moss asked.

"There is no bull," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic jumped in to add.  "And very little cock."

Ignoring what he took to be a reference to his physiognomy, the Monk proceeded to respond to Peat Moss and any one else who might be listening.  "I don't need to come up with what I just know."

"And just how did we get here?" Abbot Percival saw fit to ask.

"The usual way," Old Sarge saw fit to answer.

"They're rather like the Hapsburgs here, you know," Airman Botch added.  "Much in-breeding."

"I take it there are no 5-Star hotels here," Abbot Percival thought it fit to change the subject, since the Hohenzollerns were his preferred royal family, not the Hapsburgs.

Presently thirty-five Pitcairn Islanders trouped on down to the beach to welcome the new comers.  Crackpot and Huntsman looked them over, as did Airman Botch, though he was looking for the Hapsburg chin.

"Where's the rest of your people?" Crackpot asked in a disappointed manner, for he had hoped for a bigger reception.

"This is everyone," the Mayor of Adamstown answered.

"Surely not," added PFC Disch.

"Was there a plague?" Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic then saw fit to ask, though she of all people should have known better, having been schooled by Mother Shipton, Abbess of the convent, who claimed descent from Teraura, a Tahitian princess consorted to Matthew Quintal (before they had to kill him for threatening the whole group; to Ned Young; and to Thursday October Christian I, son of Fletcher Christian.  Mother Shipton always declared herself illegitimate for not knowing who her great great great great grandfather was.  This, she insisted, was what kept her from becoming the first female Pope.

"No plague, missus," the Heretical Nun was assured.

"Oh I'm not married," the Nun told one and all.

"Ah," declared PFC Disch, "one illegitimacy per convent.

"And are you not sexually active?" the Monk was asked.  "Should we protect our little boys?"

Thinking this a general question pertaining to the nearness of the Pacific Ocean, which he knew was deliberately named to fool people into thinking it a gentle body of water, PFC Disch answered back quite forcefully "Absolutely!"

"So castration might be in order."

"If that's the only way to keep them from drowning, then yes, extreme as it is, it must be done," the Monk was forced to acknowledge.

"By the way," one of the Uyghurs from China thought to ask, "have fifty camels passed this way lately?  Ridden by fifty Central Asians?"

"Not this year so far, no," came the thoughtful reply, adding "Were they headed here?"

"No, they were headed out of Alice Springs back to the old Silk Road."

"I take it you have no 5-Star hotels at present," Abbot Percival surmised.

"No, we don't.  Just guest bungalows."

"Then perhaps we should be going," the good Abbot concluded.

"Where are you off to?" the towns people asked.

"We don't always know," Huntsman chimed in to say.  "We do, however, think Ushuaia is up next," he added.

"How will you get there?"

"The usual way," Saint Martha the Junkie answered for the group.

"You know what," Crackpot spoke for the entire group, "maybe we should stay one night.  We can share quarters.  Yes, by gosh, we will take you up on your guest houses after all."

"Unfortunately, we're all booked up."

"By whom?"

The Mayor of Adamstown pointed to the ocean.  "By them."

Coming closer was a boat - but not just any boat.  Rather, a cruise ship.

"Is that one of the 20-deck ships we've heard so much about?" asked Old Sarge.

"Indeed it is," came the Mayor's reply.

"But surely," objected Father Aloysius, whose CPA had him estimating just how many such a ship could hold, "you cannot possibly accommodate every one."

"No, only a few have elected to come ashore," the Mayor assured the prelate.

"Hmm," mused Peat Moss, "I wonder.  Perhaps we could hitch a ride with them."

"Oh, I hear they're all booked up."

"Surely they have a place for stowaways," Airman Botch proposed.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask," agreed both Crackpot and Huntsman, leaders of the expedition.

And ask they did; but were told they already had a full complement of stowaways. 

"However," the Bursar saw fit to suggest, "we might be able to squeeze you all in the hold.  Now we can't promise ideal conditions...but as they say 'Beggars can't be choosers.'"

Next morning, after a good night's rest, and a safe return of those who had spent the night in town, the Captain announced to one and all...

"All aboard!  Next stop Ushuaia!"

The stowaways settled in for the journey to Tierra del Fuego.  The hold was a bit cramped, but all in all adequate for their needs.  Abbot Percival, however, did see fit to inquire after a first class stateroom.

"Sorry sir," the purser informed him, "but all the staterooms are booked.  Now if you don't mind bunking with other of our guests, I'm sure we could fit you in one of our second class suites."

But no, the good Abbot saw so little difference between second class and the hold that sleeping on - or even in - a barrel was as good as bunking with another.

"Oh, by the way," the purser almost forget, "the Captain has asked me to invite you and nine other stowaways to join him at the Captain's table for dinner come Thursday.  Does Thursday work for you?"

"It will be fine, by all means," Abbot Percival accepted the invitation on behalf of his fellow stowaways.

"So good of you to join me," The Captain greeted the ten stowaways who had accepted his gracious invitation.

"Normally, aren't stowaways put in the brig?" Old Sarge saw fit to inquire.

"Actually the brig has had to be converted into a kind of bunk house for seven families.  They overbooked us, you see, and, well, since we always save the hold for stowaways, we had no choice but to partition the brig to accommodate our guests.  In fact, their kids were thrilled at being in the brig.  But tell me, if I'm not too presumptuous, how did you end up on Pitcairn Island - where did you start out from?"

"Port Huron, Michigan," PFC Peatree Disch the Monk at once jumped in to say.

The other nine stowaways looked at one another, then in unison all said "No, we didn't."

"I like to think we did," the Monk persisted.  "I've always been fond of Lake Huron.  Someday I hope to see it.  My neighbor's ex-husband's uncle, I'm told, drowned in Lake Huron.  His body was never found.  I'm sure if I could learn to swim I could find it."

"We actually began our journey in Poughkeepsie, New York State," Abbot Percival related.  "It just seemed like the place to begin.  We're of course on our way to that road."

"Why?" asked the Captain, adding that "No one goes there any more."

"Precisely why," the good Abbot said.

"I still wish we had left from Port Huron," muttered a disappointed Monk.  "Besides, you need an atlas to even spell Poughkeepsie.  Who spells a city like that?"

"There is no spelling!" declared Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic. "The last spelling bee an advocate for illiteracy mowed all the contestants down with a machine gun and every one else was afraid to spell anything since."

"I bet I could spell Port Huron before an illiterate could even pull the trigger!" PFC Disch boasted.  "Here goes: P-o-t H-a-r-u-n.  There, what'd I tell you?"

Old Sarge struck up a conversation with the Navy Midshipman.

"Excuse me," the Midshipman asked, "where's the best place to plant a bomb on board?"

"What, you have a bomb?" Old Sarge, in turn, asked.

"You're the third person who's asked me that.  Do I look like a bomber?"

"No, but you are acting suspicious," Old Sarge pointed out.

"Like a Unibomber, you mean?"

Just then Little Polyp could contain itself no longer and began screeching wildly.

"Little Polyp?" the Midshipman asked.  "I've got one too, but I keep it in my cabin whenever I'm out looking for a place to stash a bomb."

Nothing further was said for awhile.  Then Midshipman Tamerlane Jamboree, still deep in thought, revealed to Old Sarge his deepest desire.

"I was so sure I could become a Bee Gee," he confessed.  "But I didn't make the grade."

"Bee Gee," mused Old Sarge.  "Is that anything like the Sea Bees?" he asked.

"Sea Bees," in turn mused Midshipman Tam Jam, as he was called, or TJ for short, "can't say as I know that group.  What's one of their songs?" he asked.

"I think it goes 'Over here, over there' - that's all I remember."

"That sounds familiar.  Mom used to go around the house singing it when she'd come home from bivouac.  I would ask her about it, but all she ever said was 'oh it's just a little ditty I picked up at work.'"

"A ditty you say," mused Old Sarge.  "Sort of like a anthem maybe."

"Of course now it's down to one Bee Gee, so maybe I could try again," TJ said straight out.  "Anyway, I've got to continue my rounds.  Every time I find the perfect place for a bomb there's nothing there."

"Isn't that always the way," Old Sarge admitted.

"Yep, but I'll keep searching: Midshipman's got to search the ship; Airman's got to search the plane; astronaut's got to search the stars."

"What about Army?" Old Sarge saw fit to ask.

"Grunt's got to search the bunker."

"Yeah: it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it!  By the way: when you're done searching all twenty decks, look us up.  We could use a good man on our way to that road."

Then Old Sarge added, a bit shame-faced, "I have to admit," he said, "I thought at first you were looking for a place to plant a bomb."

"I could have been," the Midshipman told Old Sarge.

"But isn't it against Navy rules to plant bombs on cruise ships?"

"Used to be," answered the Midshipman.  "Not any more.  It's anything goes."

"Then Airman Botch could plant a bomb on a commercial airline?"

"If he wanted to, sure.  And you could plant a bomb in a schoolyard if you're a mind to.  The big boss made it legal to do whatever we want.  Course we been training fish for years to carry bombs.  The Killer Whales, the Dolphins.  We haven't had much luck with sharks yet - they tend to eat whoever's putting the bomb on them.  But we're working on it."

        "Day after day,

        We stuck, nor breath, nor motion

        As idle as a painted ship

        Upon a painted ocean."

At first, Peat Moss, as was appropriate given his ethnicity, his upbringing, his regard for all things Victorian.  It seemed apropos to quote this particular stanza from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner."

Soon another took it up, as a kind of humorous passing of a lazy afternoon aboard a twenty story cruise ship.  Then another, in a kind of "What the heck" fashion.  And another and another, a quaint little round robin on the poop deck.

Yet another deck took it up, and yet another until by mid-afternoon the whole ship was quoting Coleridge.

Then at 4 P.M. precisely the Captain got on the loudspeaker to recite it.  And so it became official: the big cruise ship was stuck fast at the Pacific mouth of the Strait of Magellan.

The refrain did not end with the Captain though.  It ended with PFC Monk Peatree Disch, who had grown weary of Coleridge and, after managing a turn at the loud speaker, rang out with a rousing chorus of

            "Here I sit, broken hearted,

            Came to shit and only farted."

- a refrain no one felt compelled to take up, save for Old Sarge, who simply said to the PFC "Soldier, you don't know shit from shinola!"

Fortunately, this stuck fast part of the journey made its way straight past the "Day After Day" part of the verse.

By nightfall, the ship was being drawn by a tug through the Strait, on its way to Ushuaia.

The group, once embarked onto the pier at Ushuaia, gravitated as if by some strange manner of imagination to 1730 Maipu Avenue, led by an eager Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, with PFC Monk Peatree Disch in close pursuit.

"What's your hurry?" Saint Martha the Junkie asked.

"I don't want to miss it," was the Nun's answer.

"Miss what?"

"The Museo del Fin del Mundo.  Specifically the basement," the Nun replied.

"How do you know it has a basement?" the Junkie asked.

"It was a prison.  It had to have a dungeon, a torture chamber.  They say if you enter a torture chamber at a certain hour you can hear the screams of the victims.  And maybe they'll still have some of the devices they used - I sure would love to try them out on the Monk here."

As it happened, the Monk overheard this tete-a-tete and put the brakes right on it.

"Oh no," he said, "my days of being a guinea pig are over!  I volunteered to be tortured - they wanted to try out some new tortures, so I agreed.  They said it would look good on my résumé."

"How did it go?" Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic asked.

"Okay at first, then it got a bit heavy.  I followed protocol and cried Uncle just like you're supposed to, but they kept piling these big rocks on me till I had to just knock them all off.  They said I ruined the test, but I know I didn't.  I did cry Uncle, maybe not loud enough."

But a thoroughly disappointed Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic found no torture devices that day on Malpu Avenue in the heart of Ushuaia.

"I bet if we went to my monastery you'd find some," PFC Monk Peatree Disch consoled the Nun.  "I know for sure you'd find a whole stack of rocks.  Maybe no screams - but I bet you could get an ear full of Uncles!"

"I must get to Paramaribo before sunset," Midshipman Tamerlaine Jamboree suddenly remembered as they were rummaging through the Museo del Fin del Mundo.

The Midshipman went on to say he must find the stake Kodjo was burnt alive on.  "Today, January 26th, is the anniversary of that terrible event.  I must be at that event."

"This Kodjo: he was a heretic?" asked PFC Disch.

"He was a dog!" insisted Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

"No: he was a runaway slave, who tried to burn down Paramaribo."

"Why would he do that?" asked Monsignor Beale.

"Why wouldn't he?" Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic asked.

"You would?" asked the Monk.

"Dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of my heretical ancestors were, so why wouldn't I?"

"If we catch the first plane out of here, we can just make the last vigil of the day," the Midshipman advised one and all.

"And if we catch the last plane out of here, we can make the first vigil of the day, tomorrow being the 26th - today being the 25th," Old Sarge of all people pointed out.  For indeed, his Little Polyp was not only a great decoder but the world's most accurate time piece as well.

"Of course," the Midshipman finally pieced together what had made him a day late and a dollar short.  "When we crossed the International Date Line I forgot to reset my watch."

"That happened to Doctor Who once," Peat Moss pointed out.

"So did he go to Paramaribo?" the Midshipman saw fit to inquire.

"No, he ended up at the end of time itself."

"There is no time!" declared Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic.

"And Doctor Who proved it!" added Saint Martha the Junkie.

Meanwhile, the Last Scholar was noting to the Keeper of Light how westerners' finest moments were the most whimsical.

"They substitute whimsy for philosophy.  How else explain their Doctrine of Discovery?"

As it happened the last flight from Ushuaia - Malvinas Argentinas International Airport was booked solid, as was the first flight; but the middle flight was still open, but only half a dozen seats were available.  Meanwhile the cruise ship's Captain was inviting the rest of the group to continue Northward as his personal guests.

"The hold is still up for grabs," he reminded his guests.  "Now I can't promise you passage to Paramaribo, but I'm sure you can make satisfactory arrangements along the way."

And that they did, arriving in Paramaribo long before the six who took the plane, which was hijacked by a gang of crazed American politicians out for a joyride and ended up in Georgetown, Gayana, by way of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.  Each stop along the way, the hijackers looked down and said "Yeah, we'll take one of those."

Midshipman Jamboree missed the annual remembrance by six days and fifteen minutes.  He vowed to make it on time next year.

"Was Kodjo an ancestor of yours?" PFC Disch asked the Midshipman.

"All men are brothers," came the reply.  "So, yes, Kodjo was my brother."

"Older brother," Sister Clarens-Bristol saw fit to note.

"Brotherhood is timeless," the Midshipman reminded the Nun.

"Sisterhood too," Saint Martha the Junkie insisted.

"Sainthood too," said PFC Disch.  "Well, except for Saint Christopher.  He didn't exist."

"Then he's in good company," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic pointed out.  "The Apostles didn't exist.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph didn't.  The Angels didn't.  God and Satan didn't.  Only the little lamb in the manger did; and they ate him."

"You're thinking of the Big Bad Wolf" Airman Botch declared.

"And you're thinking of Little Red Riding Hood's grandma," Peat Moss joined in to say.

"And she was the best part of the story," PFC Disch stated his preference.  "All snug as a bug in a rug in her little manger, wearing a coon skin cap and a moo-moo.  She reminds me so much of my own grandma."

"Your grandma slept in a manger?" someone asked.

"Sure.  In a barn, out behind the family business.  She was a bit of a recluse.  She disowned the whole family because they didn't vote Republican.  Oh they all tried to claim they did, but she caught 'em with her Republican Question: 'What's two plus two?'  And when they all answered "four," she knew they were lying.  For as every good Republican knows, two plus two equals a million - because if you have two nice shiny pennies to rub together, you're rich."

As Little Red Riding Hood's granny faded back into time and her manger, as did the Monk's granny, the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light comforted the Midshipman, who was not only lingering beside the monument but silently weeping as well.

"Fools remind us only the present matters," they were saying, "yet the past matters far more because it brings the whole of humanity to our doorstep.  Few things happening now set upon us - but let tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow pass and those current events move to their allotted place within the past, where on that tomorrow they finally reveal themselves to us."

"It's in the skin," added the Midshipman.  "We absorb through our skin the ideas floating by and the things that happened.  I don't feel but I sense things, like what happened to Kodjo, Present and Mentor.  And it's stronger on their anniversary."

"When we reach Tikal, we two will part with the group of seekers," the Last Scholar informed the Midshipman.

"Is that where you're headed? the Midshipman asked.

"It's where we must head," the Keeper of Light answered.

"Then I must bid you adieu," said the Midshipman, "for I must head for Jerusalem.  Tikal is of yesterday.  Jerusalem is of today."

The Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light looked knowingly at each other and nodded.

"Jerusalem is of a yesterday farther back than Tikal, even before time began.  For it is a city whose soul has been stolen so that its past might be returned.  Without its soul, the only past possible to it is before it existed.  You will never find it, no matter how you try.  A city at the center of three religions - the home of three gods - has had its soul wrest front it, pulled too hard in three directions for its soul to survive.  Go to the Dome of the Rock, you will feel an emptiness which drives men insane enough to slaughter man and beast and crop.  For that mayhem is the highest octave of madness."

For every word spoken by the Last Scholar came a corresponding nod of the Keeper of Light's head.

"Still," acknowledged the Midshipman, "I must go.  I must see for myself what it is about it makes men fight, kill and die."

With these words, the Midshipman headed for the coast.

When he finally reached Jerusalem, on a military transport carrying weapons which he was assured would only be used for self-defense, broadly speaking.  Slowly he made his way to the Dome of the Rock, feeling a kinship to he who carried a cross to another hill, outside the city.  Calvary.  Golgotha.  Place of the skull.

He felt like it was he carrying that cross.  He wished he had that cross upon his shoulder, to give him weight, for he felt as though he had been drained of every drop of blood and every ounce of flesh, and every sensation save an emptiness such as he was warned would come upon him.

He began weeping, not for himself but for the man on the cross, who had suffered and died in vain, his act of sacrifice saving no one, for in two thousand years no one had been saved.

He turned and ran, ran as fast and as far as he could, all the way to a place known as the West Bank, Judea and Samaria.

"What is this place?" he asked the first person he met, who understood not a word of his asking but knew what he sought, and answered in a strange tongue which he at once understood "It is what it isn't, but once was, and where it is no more."  This, too, made him cry.  And he was comforted by the same strange tongue, which told him to keep his tears for himself, for he did not and perhaps would never know.

A sniper, in a jeep, watching him speaking to an old woman with a tongue he should not hear, drove by and shot him in the back.

An old woman, who lived in a shoe, or a shoebox, or a tent, or something, carried him home and nursed him back to health, all the while her family looking on.  And when he was ready to move on, and thanked her and the many members of her family, she told him he would not find the road he sought in this land.  She took out a map and pointed to a place in Central America and told him this was where he must go.

As he was leaving, he turned back to wave goodbye; and as he did he saw the same Jeep carrying the same man who had shot him.  The Jeep stopped, the man reached deep to pick up a weapon, only not a gun this time but a bazooka.  The man aimed it and fired.  The tent, and everything in it, blew up.  The Midshipman saw it all, then saw the man in the Jeep pull away and head for him.  He immediately sat down on the road, facing the oncoming Jeep.  It stopped just shy of the Midshipman.  The man coaxed the Midshipman into the Jeep and drove away, ending up at the airport, where an American cargo plane awaited, which carried the Midshipman westward.  And in this way he ended up in Guatemala.

When he finally met up with the others, at Tikal, he announced to them that this was where he'd remain.  When asked why, all he would say was that this dead city was all that remained of life, and soon it too would be gone.

"He's wrong of course," offered PFC Peatree Disch, the Monk from Poukepsie.  "Tikal is the Eternal City."

"I thought that was Rome?" countered Airman Botch.

"Rome's a decoy," the Monk assured one and all.  "Tikal was here forever and always will be until forever is over and done with.  It was the Western most suburb of Atlantis, now it's all that's left.  The rest of Atlantis is beneath the Bermuda Triangle, scattered along the Bimini Road.  But Tikal to this day remains - and always will."

No one believed him, and no one was able to get the Midshipman to reconsider his plan to remain a resident of Tidal - it's one and only - for the rest of his life.

"Are you absolutely sure?" he was asked one last time. 

"I will wait here for my maker," the Midshipman said.

PFC Disch turned to Sister Clarens-Bristol, the Heretic.  "No 'There is no Maker'?" he asked.

"A man with a touch of heaven on his brow always requires a maker."

Everyone wished the Midshipman well as they finished sightseeing and all, all except for two that is, gathered to move on.  No one had noticed the Last Scholar and the Keeper of Light silently slip away to return to Timbuctu and Alexandria respectively.  When their absence was finally noticed, they were already well on their way to Merida, Mexico, from there to get transport home.

"The past swallowed them up," Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic noted.  "It'll do that here you know.  If we ever pass this way again, we'll find Midshipman Jamboree missing too."

"Technically, we won't 'find' him missing," the Monk pointed out.

Everyone appreciated the logic of this particular point.  Everyone, that is, except Little Polyp and its sidekick Polyp Junior, both of whom pinged and rang and screeched to express their disagreement.  It was like this with them: "find" was one of Great Big Daddy Polyp's two way code words, with an active and a passive denotation and a corresponding positive and negative mode which therefore could not be pinned down to any one definition or usage.  It was all Old Sarge could do to calm Little Polyp down, all the Airman could do to calm Polyp Junior down.  In fact they pinged and rang and screeched all the way to Alice Town, on Bimini's North Shore.  And despite this not being the tourist season, the group managed to find excellent accommodations at the Bimini Cove Resort and Marina.

"Ah!" exclaimed Sister Clarens-Bristol the Heretic, "I see they're Pet Friendly, so our PFC Monk will even be welcome."

Misunderstanding the reference, PFC Monk Peatree Disch cautioned the nun not to get to friendly because everyone knew what heavy petting led to.

"Your vow of chastity could go right out the window!" the Monk warned the Nun.

"There are no vows," the Nun insisted.  "Nor vowels," she added as an afterthought.

"You won't be winning any spelling bees anytime soon," the Monk saw fit to predict.

Surprisingly, Abbot Percival forgot to ask if there were any 5-Star Hotels here in Alice Town.  He was so pleased to be basking once again in comfortable surroundings it never occurred to him to ask.  In truth, the many roads traveled since leaving Poukepsie had dulled his senses to the kind of service he had previously thought essential to his well-being.

From Bimini to Cuba, Alice Town to Havana, was but a hop, a skip, a jump.

"But you'll never get there," promised Midshipman Jamboree before they departed Tikal.

"Why not?" the group leaders, Crackpot and Huntsman, asked.

"You'll find it surrounded, you'll find nowhere to enter, you will be turned away."

"Surely not," the entire group protested.  "We trekked across China; went to Pyongyang; saw, or meant to see, the Castle at Naha (?); then down to Hobart; found our way to Alice Spring; to Ushuaia, whose name we still can't say; to Paramaribo, where we helped you cry for a slave; to this ancient place where Mayas sacrificed much.  Next we go to Alice Town.  Then we must travel to Havana to complete our way to that road.  Only you tell us we may not enter our final destination.  How can this be?"

"There's an armada attacking all who come near that place," explained the Midshipman.

"We must pass through Havana to get to that road.  As long as any place is closed to anyone, we will never reach our destination.  We will wander endlessly along a trail that leads nowhere but where we began.  That road will forever elude us.  We are cursed."

"Or blessed," whispered the Midshipman as the group departed.

"I wish we could remain here in Alice Town forever," was said upon settling down for the night - said by of all people Abbot Percival.  "We have to pass through Havana to get to Guantanomo, where the remaining prisoners would lead us the final way to that road, a way only they know, a way they have seen every night in their dreams.  They alone hold the key to what we have spent a lifetime seeking.  I would remain here forever until they came free and led us to that road.  We are so close.  So close."

Everyone, even the Uyghurs still with the group, echoed the good Abbot's words.                    *

"So close."

But even forever was not time enough to see prisoners at last released; and Abbot Percival knew it, so instead of securing a suite in Alice Town with a very long lease, he prompted the group to go in a day or so and return to Poukepsie.  Empty handed as it were.

The Uyghurs, however, opted instead to return home to Western China.

"The US is always standing up for your rights in China," Old Sarge encouraged them to remain with the group.

"Yes, but when they see us, they will turn away and say to one another 'Oh, those Uyghurs!'  They care for our rights, but nothing for us"

It was a few days' journey getting from Alice Town to Poukepsie, a frustrating journey, carrying them so close yet because of the politics of the species, so far from the last stop along the way to that road.

They wound their way up the East Coast, Florida through Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania into New York State and on up the Hudson to their place of origin (though right up to the end PFC Peatree Disch maintained they came from his beloved Port Huron, though he had never seen it in his life, let alone been there).

Out of the blue, on the outskirts of Poukepsie, PFC Monk Peatree Disch exclaimed loudly enough for all to hear -

"We forgot Marrakesh!  We forgot to go to Marrakesh!  We have to go back, we have to retrace our steps!"

In the back of his mind, of course, was the bizarre ideation that retracing their steps would end them up in his beloved Port Huron.

But his hopes were dashed by a tiny piece of spyware which none other than Old Sarge pulled from his pocket as if he were delivering the coup de grace.

"No we didn't," Old Sarge told the group.  "Little Polyp here re-directed us to Timbuktu instead."

"Hateful little devil!" PFC Disch muttered, unaware that those three words were the ultimate code that would set Little Polyp off for good.

So good in fact did they set it off that it short-circuited in one and a half different ways.

Old Sarge had no choice but to conduct an impromptu requiem per AR 17077-C, at the close of which he dug a deep hole and laid his Little Polyp to rest, asking Big Polyp to accept its little offspring into that big satellite in the sky, followed by the requisite "Tention!"

Old Sarge wiped away a tear then moved on.

"Ah!" declared Peatree Disch as he looked around, looked all around.  "Port Huron.  Home at last."

It took all the rest of the group, plus the few stragglers among the Uyghurs, to convince the PFC Monk that the home they reached at last was actually Poukepsie, New York, USA.

"Poukepsie?  How'd we get here?" asked the Disch.

"The usual way," came the usual answer.

"Then we've got to start all over again," Disch announced, explaining that by missing Marakesh the whole journey was jeopardized.

"We actually didn't miss it," Huntsman and Crackpot both joined in to point out.  "It was never on our itinerary."

"There is no itinerary," Sister Carens-Bristol the Heretic was quick to declare.  And it almost turned out for once to be an accurate declaration, until Crackpot remembered at the last moment where he had left their itinerary.  He had put the 3 x 5 index card in his boot to cushion his bunion.

"See," he said as he presented the card, "no Marrakesh."

PFC Disch, on loan to the Army from the Monastery, broke down and cried at this news.

"That means I'll never again walk the beautiful moon drenched shores of Port Huron," he muttered through his sobs.

He hadn't heard, of course, that Port Huron was slowly sinking into Lake Huron, so he would never walk its beautiful moon drenched shores regardless.  (Just as well, since he had plucked that phrase "beautiful moon drenched shores" from a movie - The Rocky Horror Picture Show - the only movie he had been allowed to watch back at the Monastery.)

The more he thought about it, the more determined he grew.  He was all set to head out to Port Huron - he'd figure out what state it was in on the way - when he heard something that caught his attention, something not a normal downtown Main Street Poukepsie sound.  He was slow to identify it, though the others were not.  It was music, but where it was coming from was a mystery to one and all.

PFC Monk Peatree Disch knew right away where it originated, or thought he did, even if he was loathe to identify it as what it was.  But Old Sarge knew, the Airman knew, the heretical Nun knew, as did the Sainted Junkie, the Monsignor, the Father, even the good Abbot, Peat Moss too, and the leaders of the expedition both knew, the few remaining Uyghurs still with the group as well.

As it grew louder, it took on a more characteristic quality, words now enveloping the music.  Even he who at birth reminded his mother of her biological experiments began to get it finally. 

"Talking Heads," the PFC in his Monk's outfit over top his Army fatigues said.  "The Road To Nowhere."  But it wasn't coming from somewhere, it was coming from everywhere, all at once but each play a second later than the last.  No matter how far down Main Street they went, there it was, coming from window after window.

No one said what it meant; they each thought it; and because they did, it needed no telling.

Without the crucial stopover in Havana, this was the only road the travelers would ever be on.  Forever and ever, going Nowhere.  (Till The End Of Time.)

THE END

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

6:12 P.M.