Уильям Берроуз: Nova Express

Copyright © 1964 by William S. Burroughs

Copyright renewed © 1992 by William S. Burroughs

Nova Express appeared in the collection The Soft Machine, Nova Express, and The Wild Boys: Three Novels , published as a Black Cat Book in 1980 and an Evergreen Book in 1988.

THE SECTION called "This Horrible Case" was written in collaboration with Mr. Ian Sommerville, a mathematician — Mr. Sommerville also contributed the technical notes in the section called "Chinese Laundry"-An extension of Brion Gysin's cut-up method which I call the fold-in method has been used in this book which is consequently a composite of many writers living and dead.

Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth deals consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever –

"Don’t let them see us. Don’t tell them what we are doing —"

Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth?

"For God’s sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out —"

"Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians —"

"Not the Green Deal — Don’t show them that —"

"Not the Orgasm Death —"

" Not the ovens — "

Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Piccadilly.

"Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time."

Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. Thesewords may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal —

"Top Secret — Classified — For The Board — The Elite — The Initiates — "

Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies, Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth, Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn?

What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you: “the word” . Alien Word “the”. “The” word of Alien Enemy imprisons “thee” in Time. In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open. I Hassan i Sabbah rub out the word forever . If you I cancel all your words forever. And the words of Hassan i Sabbah as also cancel. Cross all your skies see the silent writing of Brion Gysin Hassan i Sabbah: drew September 17, 1899 over New York.

Prisoners, Come Out

"Don't listen to Hassan i Sabbah," they will tell you. "He wants to take your body and all pleasures of the body away from you. Listen to us. We are serving The Garden of Delights Immortality Cosmic Consciousness The Best Ever In Drug Kicks. And love love love in slop buckets. How does that sound to you boys? Better than Hassan i Sabbah and his cold windy bodiless rock? Right?"

At the immediate risk of finding myself the most unpopular character of all fiction — and history is fiction — I must say this:

"Bring together state of news — Inquire onward from state to doer — Who monopolized Immortality? Who monopolized Cosmic Consciousness? Who monopolized Love Sex and Dream? Who monopolized Life Time and Fortune? Who took from you what is yours? Now they will give it all back? Did they ever give anything away. for nothing? Did they ever give any more than they had to give? Did they not always take back what they gave when possible and it always was? Listen : Their Garden Of Delights is a terminal sewer — I have been at some pains to map this area of terminal sewage in the so called pornographic sections of Naked Lunch and Soft Machine — Their Immortality Cosmic Consciousness and Love is second-run grade-B shit — Their drugs are poison designed to beam in Orgasm Death and Nova Ovens — Stay out of the Garden Of Delights — It is a man-eating trap that ends in green goo — Throw back their ersatz Immortality — It will fall apart before you can get out of The Big Store — Flush their drug kicks down the drain — They are poisoning and monopolizing the hallucinogen drugs — learn to make it without any chemical corn — All that they offer is a screen to cover retreat from the colony they have so disgracefully mismanaged. To cover travel arrangements so they will never have to pay the constituents they have betrayed and sold out. Once these arrangements are complete they will blow the place up behind them.

And what does my program of total austerity and total resistance offer you ? I offer you nothing. I am not a politician. These are conditions of total emergency. And these are my instructions for total emergency if carried out now could avert the total disaster now on tracks:

" Peoples of the earth, you have all been poisoned. Convert all available stocks of morphine to apomorphine. Chemists, work round the clock on variation and synthesis of the apomorphine formulae. Apomorphine is the only agent that can disintoxicate you and cut the enemy beam off your line. Apomorphine and silence. I order total resistance directed against this conspiracy to pay off peoples of the earth in ersatz bullshit. I order total resistance directed against The Nova Conspiracy and all those engaged in it.

"The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals. In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out . With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly –

"(Signed) INSPECTOR J. LEE, NOVA POLICE"

Post Script Of The Regulator: I would like to sound a word of warning — To speak is 'to lie — To live is to collaborate — Anybody is a coward when faced by the nova ovens — There are degrees of lying collaboration and cowardice — That is to say degrees of intoxication — It is precisely a question of regulation — The enemy is not man is not woman — The enemy exists only where no life is and moves always to push life into extreme untenable positions — You can cut the enemy off your line by the judicious use of apomorphine and silence — Use the sanity drug apomorphine .

"Apomorphine is made from morphine but its physiological action is quite different. Morphine depresses the front brain. Apomorphine stimulates the back brain, acts on the hypothalamus to regulate the percentage of various constituents in the blood serum and so normalize the constitution of the blood." I quote from Anxiety and Its Treatment by Doctor John Yerbury Dent.

Pry Yourself Loose And Listen

I was traveling with The Intolerable Kid on The Nova Lark — We were on the nod after a rumble in The Crab Galaxy involving this two-way time stock; when you come to the end of a biologic film just run it back and start over — Nobody knows the difference — Like nobody there before the film. {1} 1 Postulate a biologic film running from the beginning to the end, from zero to zero as all biologic film run in any time universe — Call this film XI and postulate further that there can only be one film with the quality XI in any given time universe. XI is the film and performers — X2 is the audience who are all trying to get into the film — Nobody is permitted to leave the biologic theater which in this case is the human body — Because if anybody did leave the theater he would be looking at a different film Y and Film X1 and audience X2 would then cease to exist by mathematical definition — In 1960 with the publication of Minutes To Go, Martin's stale movie was greeted by an unprecedented chorus of boos and a concerted walkout — "We seen this five times already and not standing still for another twilight of your tired Gods."