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SAMSARA

Commentary

SAMSARA

'Samsara' refers to the cycle of suffering; the theatrical drama of birth, death and rebirth. The repetitive agony of existing. Whatever we do, however we live, we suffer. Things play on our minds, things hurt us, people hurt us, circumstance hurts us. We are scarred consistently by this existence. There is no way to escape it. Even if we lock ourselves away from the world and experience nothing and know nothing, we suffer because we are constrained and deprived. Even if our lived were perfect, life is not possible without death, and wouldn't death be a whole lot worse if our lives were wonderful; if we knew all along we'd eventually have it taken away? Wouldn't that respectively make those perfect lives a constant worry; a worry about the impending shadow of death? Wouldn't that make our perfect lives imperfect?

There is no escape from suffering; from the wheel of samsara. Only by no longer existing can we escape it, but how do we go about achieving this? How do we get away from life if we have to continually concentrate as we do to comprehend it; to have to deliberate; to schedule; all the time? How can we even begin to imagine looking for the key out of this prison while we're continually either scrabbling around for those things we need to keep us alive or being distracted by those sparkling, attractive things which we don't need at all?

CHARACTERS: IRON

Iron reacts to the suffering of the world by combating it with a comical, free spirited attitude. He goes with the flow of life and lives like a child. He expects nothing and thus is never dissapointed. He tends not to digress or philosophise too strongly since he is easily confused by complicated concepts and even the world around him. He is an instinctive creature who shields his own scars behind a veil of carefree humour and warm acceptence of the world.

However, at heart he is both thoughtful and comtemplative. He shys away from reasoning anything out, but he does harbour deep concerns for the state of the world and people in general, he simply keeps them quite. Only with Lincoln can he express such things, but even then he is reserved. He does strongly desire a more peaceful, more constructive world, but he is at heart the fairweather revolutionary. In many ways he fights for fun rather than vengence or justice, although what drives him is unknown; at least to him. It becomes apparent to the reader that he shares Lincoln's ideology even if it is not so apparent to him as he constantly goes with how he feels without deliberating that ideology in his head or even aloud.

Afflicted greatly by the loss he has endured, his mental functions are far from exemplary. Trauma has effected him in a slightly different way to Lincoln. He has become manic; a little crazed, though still in control. He is happy in heart and, most often, action, perhaps because he has lost all sense of responsibility. He just lets the wind take him. To him life is not hopeless, but dull and repetative. He longs for something new, and has the blazie view that anything is possible if you are strong willed enough. Even a single person can topple a society if he tries. It is this belief which makes him quite like a child in many ways. He is mischeifous and principled in unison; not unlike the monkey king in Wu Cheng En's classic Chinese folk story; he is a proud warrior who while on a highly moral pilgrimage is more often than not distracted by whichever scuffles come his way out of pure entertainment value. But he is also wise at heart, even if he doesn't know it. He speaks the truth often by mistake in instinctive soundbites while Lincoln reaches the same conclusions through laboured deliberation; quite like a Shakespearean fool. His methods may be unorthodox, but he is certainly headed on the right path. He posseses a king of ;beginner's mind' which in Zen is highly sought after. Like a child, nothing bothers him. Enlightenment comes to those who realise it is necissary to stop learning and instead unlearn and those who have not yet learned at all. Lincoln falls into the former catagory, Iron the lattter.

CHARACTERS: LINCOLN

Lincoln, in contrast to Iron, is the eternal sceptic and a serial worrier. Though at first the two seem similar, it is only when they meet that the differences, and similarities, really see the light of day. They have both suffered similar histories, they both harbour similar views. But Lincoln's world is quite different to Iron's.

She is really quite lost; lost in a bleak depression,although highly curious and intellectual. In direct contrast to Iron, she is wrought with a chronic depression. In the past she had been tempted by suicide, but she is a bizzarly strong willed character, and mabye it is only this which deters her. Hardship seems to follow her like a starved mutt to a juicy chop, but she never gives up her priciples, or her fight. She feels she is fighting out of necessity; because there are injustices to be corrected. She is not vengeful; she is passed that; but she certainly is protective of her fellow human beings. She desperately despises killing and unnessisary violence of any kind, and is driven by the compulsion to prevent anyone else ever having to suffer what she has suffered.

Lincoln is a harsh contradiction in many ways. She abhors violence, but is often the one to dish it out out of observed necessity. She is frail but formidable. She is calculated but lost. She is an utter pessimist, but doesn't ever falter in continuing the fight. She is eceptionally strong willed and headstrong to the point of irrisponsibility, and she takes life deadly seriously until chance turns her world view on its head. She is the classical nihilist; always highlighting the bad things in life, although she often has harsh, manic mood swings which bring her back to the innocence of childhood for a time. In these, she is often influenced by Iron's intoxicating 'begginer's mind'; the ease of going with the flow. However, more often than not, she is aware of carrying around a huge responsibility. This is existential angst; when one chooses, that choice effects the whole of humanity. Society as it is now is down to you because you are part of that humanity. If society is to be changed, that is down to you also. With this vast responsibility on her shoulders, Lincoln is a textbook reactionary. She rebels against everything she catches sight of; against convention, against government, against accept philosophical ideas, even against language itself with her often poetical but decidedly dark gothic style.

In many ways she is the less insane of the two, but at once she is the one who seems to suffer more. Much of that suffering is of her own making; her drive to work everything out; to argue each issue away in her head rather than let them be. She despairs at the world and wishes she was more like Iron; wishes she was spared the knowledge of the world brought about by the macabre and sceptical nature of deliberation, but she knows such a wish is a cop out; a shirking of that responsibility; so she cuts the form of the contstant guerilla revolutionary; unconvinced that her charge will succeed, but condemned to persue martyrship by the power if principle.

Wether Iron’s clownlike acceptence of life without exploration of its why and wherefores of Lincoln’s constant, sceptical worry is preferable in attempting to attain both a happy and educated life is anybody’s guess. Perhaps a wholesome combination of the two would prove to be a transcendental formula.

LANGUAGE

The prologue is difficult to read; it makes the reader work. It isn't supposed to be fun, it's supposed to constrain you; to give you a taste of the insanity, the depravity and the purgatory that the characters experience. Its designed to make you feel trapped; trapped by language in the same way as the principals are trapped in society; in this body, in this 'part'; in this city.

Because you are made to make effort in deciphering the abstract nature of the prologue, you feel you are plodding through a thick bog. The language is unorthodox and confusing, and the fact that both location and action are maliciously blurred make the feeling of directionlessness; of blindness; worse. The rarity of paragraphs and unbearably long sentences also add to this constraint; the page is an impassable, unending block. All there is is this constraining, deliberated swirl which supplies some insight into how the main characters feel before they are even introduced.

When the characters are introduced there is some automatic sympathy for them; partially simply because the reader is relieved to finally find something familiar; something concrete to grab hold of which hopefully the rest of the swirl will wrap around to provide some continuity. We are relieved to see forms at last; emerging from the mist.

Sympathy is also forthcoming because the reader, too has experienced what it is like to be constrained; the reader felt how the characters feel while dragging their feel through the prologue. Sympathy is forthcoming because the characters experience this purgatory; this muddle; eternally. It isn't as if they can throw the script down in disgust; close the book and loll in front of the TV; do something less stressful. They are condemned to wallow in a world which makes only hazy, occasional sense.

Most will sympathise with one character over another, depending on their own psychological makeup. Those who reacted to the niggling haze of the prologue by adopting a manic, carefree attitude; enjoying what they could even if it made little real sense and passing the rest by; will lean towards Iron, since this is how he has reacted to the world. He laughs at it; finds a comic neiche and doesn't allow the ongoing puzzle to get him down. Those who were sceptical; who read every line carefully and concluded that it just didn't make sense; who despaired; who toyed with giving up because of the harsh incoherence of it all, will empathise with the eternal pessimist Lincoln, whose often defeatist attitude of cruel nihilism instils in her a deep and hopeless depression.

As the story goes on, the language becomes clearer; as the character's outlooks become clearer; as they work out slowly what it all means. When they meet, a huge weight is taken from each's shoulders. They compliment each other in such a way as to alleviate their purgatory. There is a magical connection between them which sparks their rebellious streaks to jolt onto another level; to challenge the plot itself; to challenge the predetermination of it all rather than merely the tactless goons which the 'divine' appears to continuously line up like hordes of toy soldiers in front of the garage drive; before them.

Just as the principal's responsibility is diminished when they meet, the reader is also relieved of a great deal of pressure. The language slowly becomes easier; partially due to one becoming used to it, partly because things really do begin to make a little more sense. The connection between the two grants them their first taste of freedom. They gain the time, space and insight to question, and even transcend, the plot; transcend reality. The reader, too, is invited to indulge in such questions in participating in the principal's philosophising; a tendency attributable only to the free and curious mind.

Of course, language still constrains, because never are the characters truly free. Even the enlightened man must remain trapped, as it were, in this body; in this life; until it passes away. Though it is lessened, the insanity remains; the despair remains. But language can be escaped; this is the realisation, as the language does not equal the meaning. When one points to indicate the moon, one's finger is not the moon, it is merely a tool, just as this body is merely a tool, not the destination. Language, then, symbolises life itself; the constraint, the confusion; the incessance. Language can be played with; it can be laughed at; it can be used just as the body is used; as a vehicle. Language should be used as it is a great tool; the only one for the job. But language should not be taken too seriously; it's laws should not be taken too seriously. Life is important, but even that should not be taken too seriously. We cannot transcend; discover new things; if we keep to the letter of our language laws; if we can't take it apart and question it. We cannot transcend the suffering of life if we don't question it too; if we just despair in it and hate ourselves and everything else. Language mirrors life in that we must use it as a vehicle, but only when we leave aside in the conventional sense can we really travel and transcend.

The principals, too, have problems with language. Lincoln posseses a peculiar rationale when it comes to speech; she uses strings of long and unnesisary words and basically speaks as if she is reciting poetry. Iron is much more sussinct; he didn't spend the majority of his time in captivity with his nose in a book; but his speech too is garbled and not particularly articulate. He can say what he wants to say when the mood takes him, but often has trouble comprehending terms. For them language problems are expected. When a person is cut off from contact with other human beings for so long, conversational skills are bound to diminish, which only adds to the depravity they feel.

The limits of language; the frustration incurred by it; are gargantuan problems for the philosopher. The distinction between direct knowing and the written word. Language muddles the primordial, Platonic ideas which reside somewhere in our souls; waters them down and never satisfies the idea behind the words. Life is a struggle; it is baffling. Language is the same. But if we are made to work; to linger on every word; to pronounce them, maybe we will be experiencing life; tasting the moment; rather that wasting our time categorising and deliberating; being scientific about something not remotely concrete. Transcendence is not an easy thing, but if we question a thing's nature; a words nature; an ideologies nature; a life’s nature; maybe we will be beginning to experience rather than just observe; rather than just do as convention tells us. This is the first step to realising the limits of language; of realising the limits of this life. When we have made this first, vital step, we begin to dedicate ourselves to something more; to direct knowing. It is a meagre step, but it is a start.

FONTS

Font styles and sizes are used to convey mood and atmosphere. The basic font changes size after chapter six; becoming a little larger, which makes reading slightly easier though not so as the reader will notice. Of course this is to create an atmosphere of freedom; of 'space to think', although we are still stuck in the constraining world around us as the characters are stuck in their environment. Later on, different fonts are used for dreams of different kinds and to denote the presence of 'nightmare' inverse characters who may only exist as dark spectres in the principal's psyches.

CHARACTERS

Bit part characters are just that; one dimentional. They are canon fodder and serve little other purpose. They are awkwadly shaped rocks in the road to salvation which habitually litter the pilgrim's path and need to be kicked aside. They bare a variety of names. Some are stereotypical movie names which are constructed to be easily forgettable. Others are names from various New York sub cultures which highlight ethnic diversity and also serve as being difficult; irritating the flow of sentences just as the rocks hamper the pilgrim's progress. Others are names from myth and religion which might bare some real significance.

SYMBOLISM

Many symbolic refernces come up continually. Colour is the most obvious; blacks and grays denote the ever present deadness of the industrial world. Reads refer not only to blood and suffering, but to revolution and martyrship. Shadows are often highlighted; the inescapable grasp of corporeal existence. One cannot escape his own shadow just as one cannot escape darkness, depravity and suffering while existing in this physical world.

Other reoccuring symbolism often concerns youth; metaphors relating to children and the inquisitive, shildlike mind held in such regard in Zen. References to children; especially in relation to the principals; denotes lost childhood, the notion that they have been cheated of something ordinary people need to go through to shape themselves as adults able to interact with the world around them. It is a deep longing in their hearts to return to the days in which they had no concerns; had everything on a plate and were not crushed by such responsibilities wether moral or physical. Animal imigary is also frequent; the tending of the characters towards a more natural, unadulterated world which only exists to them in metaphor. Another reoccuring symbol is eyes and sight, as used to convey insanity and reality in King Lear; being not only the eye of truth cutting through the contingent worlds, but also as a window to the soul, which is why this symbol is often used when the two main characters interact; it is thier souls which are really interacting.

QUESTIONABLE REALITIES

There are really two stories going on here; one the stereotypical, Hollywood formula action movie tale in which the principals are caught up but become increasingly sceptical of; the other a journey of self discovery in which the characters grow outside themselves and unearth a greater reality, as if some relisious experience or chance meeting of the minds has sparked a fundemental change in the makeup of the universe. So that everything that meant anything before; the point of life; the path they had walked their whole lives; was revealed as false, as a new, superior alternative rises to surplant it.

On the surface, and especially in the beginning, there is only the daily toil of the predictable. A formulaic, unimaginative plot is firmly in place in which every perspective twist can be predicted well in advance. We have two lone rebels outcast by society intent on fighting fire with fire just to satisfy the moviehouse audience's bloodlust. Both have had theirb families murdered by petty criminals and thus hold the high moral ground in their persuit of vengence. We have a villain; typical to the average Hollywood flick, of East European origin, who harbours a somewhat paradoxical love of classical music, who enjoys playing the showman in tending towards the theatrical beside cohorts of jackbooted goons. Who engages in long and conceited monologues in a manner familiar to all the classical Hollywood villains; revealing his dastardly world dominating plan a little two early just so that the heros can use it against him. We have stereotypical scenes; all the usual landmarks, all the typical backing characters both good and bad. But there is a magical element; an emotional element; a spiritual element; which breaks the whole thing down, slowly at least, and makes a mockery of that predictable environment.

When the main characters meet, something clicks which shifts them some way out of the stereotypical story; out of the text. It's an unexplainable elixier;like the moment a robot 'evolves' enough that conscioussness hits it and it becomes comparable to humans. Exactly where and how and why it happens is unknown, but that it does is undeniable. The link between them breaks the whole thing down because though the Hollywood plot continues, their attitudes towards it change.

They begin to think; to converse. They begin to question their motives and their 'place' in life. They question the nature of life and of the world around them. Their meeting is a point of transition; a kind of satori; a sudden enlightenment. Suddenly something makes sense; like it never has before; and the rest just falls away. Everything they have been brought up to believe; led to believe; is imperfect; a falsehood, because when confrounted for the first time with truth, just as when confrounted for the first time with love, nothing else can ever compare. The world to you will never be the same again.

The principals soon learn how to manipulate 'the script'; the stereotypical parts they are supposed to play; to their advantage, and to predict what is about to happen to them. All this is symbolic of the spiritual path. A religious experience; a spiritual experience; can literally turn one's world upside down. The world as it was doesn't hold any water anymore. We are used to living in a physical world governed by physical laws; concerned with physical pleasures and pains. When the physical is suddenly revealed to be insignificant in comparison with the weight of the spiritual, we laugh at it. Many spiritual masters just grin; that's all they do. They do it because the true nature of contingent phenomena has been revealed to them, and they appreciate the humour. It is humerous that they have spent every waking moment of this life up until now concerning tehmselves with this world. Worrying about it, basking in it, cursing it. It is humerous that there is everyone else; doing the same. Rushing around, following convention; procedure. Scheduling their lives restlessly in order to experience more pleasure and less pain, working endlessly to aquire material possesions, playing the parts which society and convention and the corporeal, temporal world dictate, and none of it is even real!

It is this idea of 'playing parts' which bares most significance. Iron and Lincoln and characters in an a-typical Hollywood script. They are social devients who have suffered tortured histories and who share a common, picture perfect villain as a nemisis on whom to exact the revenge the finale promises from the outset. They are meant to overcome their pain by overcoming vast odds. They are intended to make things right by overturning society and becoming saviours; heros. When they meet, something happens and the script goes a little haywire. There is a moment of realisation. As soon as they meet there is an emotional bond; a spiritual bond. Though they hardly recognise it themselves, we know it is there. The power of this link shifts their perceptions, and for that brief moment which it takes for a religious experience to shatter one's entire worldview, they 'look up', and rea;ize they are not them at all; that they are actors reading scripts as opposed to mere 'parts'; mere characters in a film. This is an acurate analogy of the impact of spirituality. Imagine you are Macbeth, and there you are; about to pull the dagger on the king, and suddenly someone yells 'cut!'. You look around and you arn't Macbeth at all; you're an actor playing Macbeth. The dagger is plastic, the king isn't asleep. The gaurds know you are going to frame them and really they don't care, because it isn't real. This is what one experiences in a religious experience. This is what Iron and Lincoln experience when they meet. It rips reality itself in two and opens up new horizons. It makes them question things and wonder, which the script says they should not do; which the genre of the script demands they avoid lest the blood lusting audience turn away bored to death. A world is revealed which the divine screenplay writer wished to hide his subjects from like rats in a monochrome maze; trapped without knowing they were trapped; cut off from the vast world outside that they always believed the maze was the world; having never experienced the reality of the outside; having never even experienced colour.

Soon the principals are anticipating whats around the next corner before it happens, they are finishing other character's sentences, they are making comments on mataphors the narrator uses, they are criticising the unbelievability; the absurdness; of the other characters as if they have read the script. This is the symbolic thing; to have 'read the script'. We can say that the enlightened have 'read the script'. That they know what is comming; that they have seen how things will pan out. They have transcended. Iron and Lincoln are in the midst of transcending. It is an ongoing process, but as it continues it becomes clear that they have 'read' more and more of 'the script'; they have had glimses of enlightenment, but they are still trapped in their stereotypical, fantasy world, just as we are trapped, even if we attain enlightenment; in this material body.

So the real story is that of self discovery; a philosophical treatise cast against the backdrop of a predictable fantasy. Background characters are unimaginative; unimpressive. They are pathetic in their mock grandeur; their skin deep streetwise personas which in comparrison to the principals do not convince at all. These characters are not actors playing parts, they are simply parts. They are one dimentional. Only Iron and Lincoln are parts played by real people; they alone are genuine; like the real players in a giant virtual reality machine which, after a severe electrical fault, caused them to have amnesia. Only now do they realize they are trapped in an unreal world. But this transcendence seems to rattle the divine scriptwriter's cage. Our world contaoins good and bad; work, if you will, of dueling divinities; one good, one bad. The good is pacifistic; it has left crafty but solvable puzzles. It is more intellegent than its counterpart and far more benevolent, but part of its benevolence is to issue human beings with freedom. Though optomism persuades it that all sentient beings will eventually find the way, or a way, it is a laisseiz faire god. It's counterpart is quite the opposite. When the principals meet and the tide is turned; when they start to ask questions, the maclicious deity ups the ante. It speeds things up; it places obstacles in their paths. It is desperate to embroil the charcaters in the old reality they are questioning. It is intent on busying them with 'the script' to the point where they simply will not have time to philosophise. This way, the manevolent will triumph since it will prevent the transcendence of the characters and keep them slaves to 'the script; to contingent existence. It tries everything without itself straying from the script, as this will expose the falacy of this fantasy universe. It employs countless hordes of bit parts for them to scrap with, it interupts their digressions with bouts of violence from typically cardboard chacaters. It gives Lincoln futher heartache by concocting 'accidental' ways in which she can break her own moral code. The first time it suceeds, but by the second time she has grown in understanding of the workings of this scripted world and it fails. It throws the pricipals into a meeting with their nemisis earlier than the script would prefer to stir their emotions and make them forget the philsophy. It gives them 'freinds' to interact with who though also sterotypical, mirror the divine enough to persuade them that they are indeed 'messengers' from it. It tries constantly to derail the real journey; the spiritual one; by attatching them all the more to the physical one.

Even towards the end, Iron and Lincoln are involved in two journeys at once; the physical journey to the hub of society; the scripted one; and the spiritual journey inside them. Both journeys, since they are kindred spirits; they take together, but in the end it is the greater journey which they complete to the detrement of the other. In the end, they fool the devil himself. Utop the twin towers would be the perfect place for the manevolent scripter; for the devil we call material existence; to claim the souls of the principals. Bound by their insanity, they are unable to break the cycle of live and death; to break samsara; themselves. Only in the realisation that this insanity is a scripted phenomena can they hope to conqour it. The devil's champion; the script's champion; the villlain of the piece Volcenzi at this point adopts the personal symbolic persona of this devil; the devil called samsara; called suffering. The evil which binds us; desire and materialism. It is just him and the principals, with the manevolent scripter controlling, as it were, the devil in the pack. What is meant to happen in the script is for Iron and Lincoln to defeat him; to throw him off the building and live, as it were, happily ever after as saviours of humanity. Up until now, for all their philosophical digression, for all their spiritual development, even if unconscioussly they have not stopped following the script. Whatever they have thought and done, they have been led here. Only by denying the scripter his finale can they transcend and be freed from the wheel of samsara; of contingent existence. So it is by playing on the devil's own evil that they fool him; that they sidestep him. In dying, Lincoln becomes more alive than she could ever be while trapped in the cycle of samsara. By dying she cheats death; she cheats the script and for the first time in her olife does something unscripted; she fails. But in failing, she secures the greatest triumph of all. The script is blown apart, and it is the devil itself who has been fooled into releasing the detenator which destroys its own monumental work. For a monent she is distracted; distracted by the wonder of existence; by an instant of transcendence; of experiencing things as they are without any thought of past and future, and it is then when the devil's frustration boils over and it does something rash; cutting her down and thus making the completion of its sterotypical script impossible.

Iron; forever curious but perhaps less aware than Lincoln; or at least less aware that he is aware; is still for a moment overtaken by vengence; by thoughts attributable only to the contingent, scripted world, which results in him completing the deed and killing the villain in typical movie fashion. But since the die has already been cast, and since in attaining vengence he also kills himself, he does begin to transcend, which is why in a way it takes him the briefest moments of a futher incarnation; or else a brief visit to a world between world; like a Tibetan bardo state between life and death where realities are garbled; to grant him transendence.

Of course, the final chapter is open ended. What it means is not clear. It appears the whole thing is a dream; drempt by a pair of fanciful kids. But wouldn't this be too easy a way out? Isn't this, too, a classical, stereotypicaI Hollywood manner to end a sci fi tale? Alternatives abound. Could it be that they have not transcended at all; that the scripter still has a hold of them and they were following the writer's wishes all along? Could it be that they are the script writers, and that the idea for the script was concocted in dream as children; that therefore the cycle begins again as those children eventually write that selfsame script and so on and so forth in a vicious circle; the circle of samsara? Or could it be that like truly transcendental beings; like high lamas and mythical deities, they have gained the ability; through transcendence; to manipulate the laws of life and death and live in this world while remaining detatched from it; no longer subject to its laws despite existing there out of choice? That they have chosen, in death, because of their cares for one another, to enter their next incarnation; as children; together, before 'moving on'? As I say, this is open ended. It is really up to the reader, because the meaning of books, scripts, movies and what have you truly does not reside in the words, phrases and acts thereof, but rather in the minds of those who observe it.

PHILOSOPHY

As time goes on, the book becomes a kind of forum for contentious issues of real socio-political, spiritual and ethical significance not just to the principals in their fictional world, but also to us in this apparently genuine one. The characters are able to debate as they go about their ‘scripted’ chores as if students sitting around a university seminar table more interested in indulging philsophical flights of fancy than penning their less intreaging essays, and thus all the while futhering their intelectual development as they attempt to sidestep it.

CHAPTER OVERVIEWS

PROLOGUE

A surreal introduction which grants some insight into the workings; or faults; of the principal’s minds before they are even introduced. A garbled concoxion of mixed mataphors, surreal symbolism and tounge twisting alliterations which compliment a strange abstract. Issues are raised, but nothing is solved. Just like in life, questions are asked but there is no reply, and the contrant questions stall us; anger us, even. The reader is contrained in a weird, nightmare world which, though it exists only in near future fantasy, raises the same sensations of being trapped; of the meaningless of the human predicament; of prolonged, laboured suffering, as we experience here, now, constantly; in our own world.

CHAPTER ONE

Iron Looks back on the recent history of his home town and the world in general; charging the power hungry beuraucrats who sold the nation state's freedom down the river to line their own pockets with gold; with the reponsibility for the mess. He doesn't really have any solutions to the predicament he is in, but fights his low social standing as of a base instinct. He himself has suffered much and been cut off from the world. Now, thrown back into it, he finds himself at odds with the grasping mentality of his compatriots, not to mention on top of the government's murderous hit list. Inevitably he encounters some prize goons, and a scuffle ensues, but it is not enough to distract him from his ongoing critique of capitalism.

CHAPTER TWO

Lincoln is surprised by the sobre atmosphere as she also criticises society as it is today. As she wanders, her thoughts become more and more pessimistic and she begins to reflect on life and grows depressed. Her memmories are acidic to her brain and emotions, and she fights to fend them off but to no avail. The hopelessness of it all would turn her inside out if she didn't carry such a responsibility; to her own convictions as well as to her fellow human beings, as if any of them would care if she was alive or dead.

CHAPTER THREE

Iron contemplates emptiness; a concept which has always puzzled him; and reaches no sound rational conclusions. Stumbling across an infant government checkpoint, he gets involved in a brawl with an intimidating number of trained soldiers but through unfafable optomism and base instinct comes through unscathed.

CHAPTER FOUR

Faced with a decidedly hostile world, Lincoln ponders the age old problem of evil. Does evil really exist outside the minds of human beings? Is God responsible for evil and futhermore can he, or should he prevent it? These thoughts are brought to the fore when she unintentionally encroaches upon a neo nazi get together which she disbands with a combination of battling fortitude and tactical awareness; knowing when to get out if the odds become stacked against her.

CHAPTER FIVE

Fate decrees that both Iron and Lincoln end up in the same place at the same time; a gargantuan shopping mall where Iron hopes to wreak a governmental recruitment meeting which he has heard about through the grapevine. Lincoln is only there by accident; she has become caught up in swirling crowds and virtually pushed into the heart of a commercial enterprise her principals would rather she avoid.

Iron's audacious bid to tackle the higher echelons of society first hand backfire and he is require to make a sharp exit; ending up sharing a lift with Lincoln, who is so intreaged by his apparent distain for the powers that be that she too displays her revolutionary colours and helps him escape. Remembering suddenly that she recognises him from a hirtherto forgotten past, she kickstarts his oft amnesia ridden memmory and the pair begin to feel unusually drawn to eachother.

CHAPTER SIX

Lincoln's day does not start well. It is as if some malignant Cartesian demon is messing with the world around her; prompting her towards futher pesimism to prevent her from making a transcendental discovery. The day will end even worse. Meeting up with Iron, the two are soon distracted by an old fashioned bank robbery and decide to persue the felons. Eventually, Lincoln mistakingly causes the death of one of the crooks, thus violating her most sacred principle.

CHAPTER 7

Burdened with her guilt, Lincoln begins to slip back into the depths of her darkest depression as she tries unsuccesfully both to justify her actions rationally and to repent. But she is pulled back from the brink by the simple realisation that she is no longer alone, coupled with Iron's clumsily conceived but nonetheless honest attempt to put her mind to other things. The conversation digresses towards debates on memmory, free will, God and eventually matters of a more positive emotional nature. Lincoln eventually comes to the existentialist conclusion that human beings are that which they make of themselves, and even begins to forgive herself.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Utop his lofty perch in the old Twin Towers, the villain of the piece is introduced. Volscenzi is the steretypical bad guy; eccentric and power crazed, he is a paranoid megalomaniac who quite clearly desires; as is required of his kind; world domination. He carelessly misinterprets Gibran and the Bible itself, and fails to impress his eternal servant Abreru, who advisidly keeps his distain and bordom to himself.

CHAPTER NINE

While investigating a disturbance at a derilict library, Iron and Lincoln first deal with a number of dubious militia men then stumble upon an out of place monk who reveals to them his involvement in a highly illegal hospice scheme; presumably what the soldiers were looking for.

Chen essentially represents enlightenment; he is a figure of transcendence; a role model. But he is also a stereotypical character. How often is the wise man portrayed as a wandering monk unfaffable in the face of callous aggression? In a way, he represents what we might call God's 'involvement' in the script writing of life; a glimpse of the other worldly truth without it's observer having to traverse the gap between worlds for good. Chen is a kind of reminder placed there to refer the principals towards the right path; to inspire them or at least keep them on the straight and narrow. Though he has a small part, his words are heeded by the main characters, and he has a kind of purifying influence on them, if not of a direct kind.

CHAPTER TEN

Lincoln worries herself into an intellectual mess when she contemplates the nature of suffering while walking through a chaotic rainstorm which appears to her to be gifted from God in some unintelligable way. She reflects on her own mental inabilities, and even on what will become a reoccuring nightmare about cloning before drifting unknowingly past the obscure pairing of Silvanus and Bezeel.

Silvanius and Bezeel appear to occupy different bodies in different chapters; certainly completely different roles. One moment they are a publican and a hippy, the next a bodygaurd and a down and out. As the story progresses it becomes clear that they are not really 'of this earth' They are more like angels sent to observe; struck, perhaps, by the magical connection between Iron and Lincoln; made aware that the possibility of transcendence is present within them. They seem to be there to observe and report back to a higher power; to guide without ever interacting, as they never cross paths with the principals, or, in fact, anybody else, directly. What that higher power may be and exactly what their purpose is is shrouded in mystery, and though certain things are revealed later on, the reader is left, to an extent, to decifer the meaning of their presence themselves. Certainly, Silvanus is the teacher and Bezeel the pupil. It could be said that perhaps Silvanus represents God, or Jesus, and that Bezeel is a kind of fallen angel. Perhaps Silvanus is Jesus and Bezeel, in a way, reminiscent of man; a once perfect beig who through his faults has fallen and needs to be reminded of his true place. Again, the analogy of life as a stage comes to the fore, since being other worldly, Silvanus and Bezeel are quite like real life people picking up different background parts at different times; flitting in and out of existence; of incarnations. If Iron and Lincoln are actors placing parts but through their insanity not knowing they are anything more than those parts, then mabye Silvanus and Bezeel are colleagues of theirs; taking up parts in order to prompt them into realisations of their true nature; to get them to consider the spiritual in order to transcend and rejoin them in the 'real' world. Certainly, in their first apperance in chapter six, they watch the action like stage hands on a break not knowing they are in shot; even commenting on the acting ability of other extras.

But philosophical speculations aside, Lincoln wanders into a sabatour bust on an electronics company and inevitably emerges from the regular allegedly coincidental encounter unscathed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As if desperate to preoccupy the principals, the scripter pulls an encounter with the puppetmaster foward a little. Volscenzi, in all his mock renaissance pomp and grandeur, decides to trash Chen's underground hospice, and finds the preist admonishing militia top gun Kaishek without even having to resort to words. Volscenzi rants and raves and is just about to blow his top when Iron and Lincoln arrive to stare into the eyes of their oen private tormentor; the man who condemned them to lives in solitary by murdering their parents all those years ago. Somehow, Chen manages to stem both's anger, but Iron gets a much sought after crack at his esteemed head of state regardlessly, just about comming out on top in a balanced if short lived scrap before Volscenzi scuttles away with his entorage to hatch more decisive plans of attack.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Iron bites off more than he should be able to crew again in the guise of a former toy store full of bloodthirsty assasins, but, true to the comicbook destiny he is beginning to believe governs his existence, comes out on top. Running into big cheese Kaishek for the second time in two days, he finally finds a somewhat worthy opponent.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Lincoln regretfully spends Christmas day worrying about loneliness, suffering, Zeno's paradoxes and the unreality of the world around her. She wishes she could turn back the clock and return to the innocence of childhhod. Speaking of which, she and Iron stumble upon a young girl crying in the snow and decide to take her in at least until the possibility of any 'maniacs' passing by and abducting her fades away; the notion of the authorities being the real headcases and the actually condemned heros being comparitively sane coming to the fore to strengthen chapter eleven's clear revelation that though he might call the shots, Volscenzi is far from a model of mental stability. It is society, afterall, which labels people insane often only after the observation that they are different from the majority in certain undesirable ways. What if society itself is insane?

Alice of course represent lost childhood; innocence and curiousity at a world which she approaches with a pure and untarnished mind but which in years to come will inevitably cut her down as it does eventually all people. She is a kind of angelic figure; a cheribine image. In granting her shelter from the evils of the world, Iron and Lincoln are in a way righting a wrong; giving someone what they themselves lost, and thus ensuring Alice herself not loose it too. But Alice has quite an effect; especially on Lincoln. Iron is like the big brother figure. He finds it easy to converse with her at her level, since there is a great deal of the child in him as well, and to him she surely represents his own lost youth. In knowing her, doors are unlocked in his mind to those cherished memmories. Lincoln will come to be seen as a mother figure in a way to her; at least a role model. Lincoln has never fitted that role before, and it gives her a great deal of confidence. For the first time, someone looks up to her and that Sartre like responsibility she carries around finally aquires some concrete grounding. Before it was simply abstract, and she could duck the responsibility if she felt particularly driven to do so, but ith Alice the future is right there in her hands. It gives her a new lease of life; a much fonder acceptance of things around her, and especially appreciation of Iron's presence, which in turn gets her thinking of, and even seriously looking forward to better times.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The snowy scene stands as a representation of purity; purity of mind rather than anything else; the clear mind of the enlightened. Progressing along that path and appreciating eachother's assistance, Iron and Lincoln debate karma, cause and effect and general ethics before becomming sidetracked by a bunch of troublemaking browncoats who have difficulty in detering them from their private seminar. They are drifting futher from the intended script. The movie theatre location is an obvious reference to life as a stage and the principals as actors on it, though the plot they follow is wearing so thin that they are resorting to turning to philosophy like any bored soldier or businessman would, and it is the philosophy which appears more important.

Later, a metaphysical malestrom seems to wash away the grime of corporeal life; of deluded perceptions outside Lincoln's appartment; the power of nature; of good; wiping the slate clean for the much maligned principals. Alice displays a wisdom accesable only to those at either the end or the beginning of life as she and Lincoln talk about freedom, the mystery of existence, DNA and genetics. Lincoln has a much broader and more frequent smile these days, and is eased by her relationship with Iron. Alice, in turn, is more a symbloic than a practical figure. Iron was always a child; he did not discover his spiritual instinct; he just maintained it into adulthood, though due to selective amnesia needed some tool with which to recall it. Lincoln had lost it completely; entering the manic depressive teenage angst years despite her trauma and growing dissilusioned with the world. Alice is the rekindlement of that child's perception; that trust and positivity; in her which has been absent for so long. In saving Alice's inncoent childhood she brings her own back from the brink. Optomism is to come extent restored; and trust, especially in her apparent soul mate, despite the fact she has not trusted in years.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A very different kind of chapter from the others, chapter fifteen is written in four deividable parts. The first is a first person account of Iron's dream, in which he debates that conundrum which has always confused him; emptiness; and meets characters from his past. This is really the working of his mind; the stuttering thing at last beginning to make sense of the world with a little help. He is at last able to settle down and dream freely; to let things click into place.

The second part is a monologue between Iron and Alice about UFOs and conspiricies against the backdrop of central park

The third involves Lincoln's dreams this time, as she imagines she is a fish swimming against the current in a vast world; refering to her place in socity and her attitudes against the flow, and a meeting with a electrically buzzing lamb which clealy refers to the lamb of God. This instills in her the drive to up the ante against her and the city's tormentors by reassuring her faith in salavation; notably a citywide salvation she might just be able to bring about now she has the positivity.

The last section is the strangest, and deals with Lincoln's fears. An opposite, evil Lincoln and evil Iron stalk the streets looking for money bagging murders; demons of Lincoln;s own conscience. She has been contemplating the notion that someone, somewhere cloned her into a second, negative version of herself, and her nightmares actually come true in the world outside; exposing the notion that the main characters are slowly aquiring the ability to 'read the script' and indeed transcend it even unintentionally and effect the outside world without leaving their own sleep; highlighting its falibility. The characters are indeed evil, and this scares Lincoln; perhaps the deep pycholical evils within herself are comming to the fore, although in wakefulness there is the drive to prevent them, however bizzare the reality which you wake to remember. Eventually, Silvanus and Bezeel; two other worldly charcters themselves; have to intervene to turn back the nightmares in Lincoln's head; her deep fears about the nature of her own character (after what she has unintentionally caused in life and the practice of living by the swords) finally dispelled. Thus she is somehow free of things; free from the great weight of doubt over the content of her character as these gaurdian angels exorcise her most self despising sentiments. Again she is playing with the script; influencing it to the extent that her personality; a personality which has grown beyond the stereotype; actually changes what is going on in the story and adds it's own scene; a scene spawned by her basest fears; the Freudian dark side of the psyche; which in the end is cut down just how 'reality' seems sometimes it could be cut down...

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Iron and Lincoln are disturbed in their debate about artificial intellegence when they stumble unknowingly into a trap; cohorts of bounty hunters ambushing them but ultimately faring no better than any of the other unconvincing hoodlums they had met thus far. In the heat of battle, Lincoln accidently knocks the head hitman off a lofty walkway, but in saving him from certain death feels she has at least gone some way to righting a wrong she committed aome time ago, thus letting both her own and her past victim's souls go free.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lincoln confuses Iron and, for that matter, herself, as the pair delve into the strange complexities of time, time travel and it's implications. What exactly is time, and can it be manipulated? Predictably, they run into another physical encounter with a group of government honchos; this time a burly officer brutalising an apparent traitor until the revolutionaries intervene. Iron survives an unexpectedly difficult battle against Johnson, but this fails to deter them from their philosophical investigations.

Johnson is as stereotypical a character as can be imagined. He is a big, brawling ex boxer hired for his muscle rather than his intellegence, who cares little for politics but just loves to fight. Strangely, he does not remain a foe for long; turning traitor himself in a later chapter just to highlight the deterioration of Volscenzi's society. Even the most mindless of bit parts are beginning to see 'through' the weak Hollywood plot and gain a glimpse of that other worldly reality.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Lincoln returns to discover her appartment has been overturned by the authorities. After fighting her way out of her own home and making an anarchic mess of it along the way, she comes to the realisation that if you have nothing you have nothing to loose, and that since now she has nothing, she has in reality been granted a great freedom. Perhaps it is time to move on with her life; to leave the world which has confined her behind just as she has left the mode of thinking which is supposed to confine her behind in exchange for a more open, transcendendent appreciation of reality.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A tin can balancing on the edge of a basketball cage mirrors the plights of two pairs of individuals whose lives will only now cross paths. Silvanus remains silent as it is revealed that his mission was not to observe Iron and Lincoln's devience from 'the plot', but to sit in judgement over his own pupil Bezeel's spiritual realisation. In accepting the wonder of nature, Bezeel regains a lost inncoence and gains back his place as an angelic being; although the true natures of the pair are still open ended. Certainly, Silvanus knew what was going on all the time, but questions of his identity; if he is simply a superior angel, or a God in human form here to observe the demonic plot go rotten, or wether he is Christ or some other entity; remain. Bezeel, certainly, transcends in a very real way, but here 'chance' really does deserve its inverted commas. Just as Bezeel dissapears in a blaze of light, Iron comes around the corner on one of his usual philosophical jaunts. Laying eyes on the creature for the first time is a real, 'concrete', if such a term can be used, realisation of the transcendental. A door to the other word; to the real world; away from the film set of life one which he has for so long lived; is opened, then closed in his face. But when such realisations come, they are never forgotten, and it grants Iron new confidence. He decides that he may as well embrace his 'destiny' as set out by the stereotypical script if only to see what lies beyond it; to enter that angelic world himself once he has finished playing his part here. It drives him to go for broke and do what he would have had no problem doing earlier before he had become concerned with more important things. He decides that if he follows the plot as he should, but with an open mind which he should not posses, perhaps he will find that at its end it is up to him wether he escapes or remains in the clutches of the limited, constrained environment in which he at least physically exists.

CHAPTER TWENTY

After extrapolating a complicated plan of attack, Iron contents himself in his own luckluster genius while Lincoln is secretly compelled by her persevering angst and sense of responsibility to both silently oppose such wishful schemes and, on the other hand, to do what she can to make a real, concrete difference. En route to the restricted South Manhatten 'safe' zone, they mull over issues of anscestory and religion; the train symbolising a transition; a travelling from one destination to another; one life to another.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Iron and Lincoln arrive at the scantily gaurded South Street Ferry Port, and proceed to sack it without much difficulty. Iron encounters an old foe here, and Johnson places a wager that if he is able to defeat him, he will join their revolutionary excersion.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Iron, Lincoln and the less than philosophical Johnson arrive on the military training post on Liberty Island; the latter really just making up the numbers; almost as if he was another stereotype placed there by a now desperate script writer to ensure the principals; however disillusioned by the plot they may be; make it to the grand finale through a combination of the burley boxer disuading them from meaningful discussion through his lumbering presence and basically doing some of their fighting for them. In this he certainly succeeds as they are stopped by hordes of raw recruits marshalled by the crackpot general turned apparent surrealist artist Kaishek. The trio fight out an epic scuffle with cohorts of under trained extras before Lincoln is given the responsibility of ousting Kaishek herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Chapter twenty three is divided into five parts for two reasons. Firtsly, it is all one 'scene', and hardly any time passes between the sections. Since there is now an urgency about all this, and of course a struggle to keep the characters occupied with solid, gratuatous action, the pace must be upped, or else they might slip back into free thought. Secondly, the whole chapter is a tribute to Bruce Lee's final film 'Game of Death', which he never managed to finish. The premis of the film is that a martial artist must test himself to become proficient, and at varying levels and disciplines. This is symbolised by a tall building. At ground floor level, he encounters basic, run of the mills opponents. As he progresses upwards, the opponents diminish in number, but posses greater expertise, and very different styles. One floor may contain a sword weilding foe, the next one armed with nunchuks, etc etc. The penultimate floor houses the unknown; the most difficult opponet; one for whom the martial artist has never trained, which forced him to use his ingenuity. Only then can he progress to fulfil his destiny.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE A

Iron, Lincoln and Johnson, backed by out of place new year celebrations, enter the main lobbey of a seemingly deserted World Trade Center while two stray dogs quible over a one dollar bill; a comment on consumer society itself and New York's financial district, world trade et all in particular. New year means new opportunities, new possibilities; a wiping clean of the proverbial slate, and this is what is intended. It is an auspicious day for a revolution. The trio are halted inside by a gargantuan welcoming party and only escape when Johnson allows his emotions to get the better of him anf plunges them into a loosing battle. Iron and Lincoln escape upstairs while Johnson piledrives his way into the lobbey level elevator waiting room, where he meets not only Volscenzi and his cronies, but; most worryingly of all; himself. Whether the 'demonic' version of Johnson is real, a figment of the principal's imagination, a genetic experiment or a device to get rid of the traitorous brawler from thestory implanted by the powers that be is open to debate. Certainly, Johnson seems to complete a paradox comparable in some ways to the grandfather complex which plagues wanabe time travellers; he murders himself. Perhaps in that moment he 'escapes' in a transcendendent way, although he was not really headed in that direction; a sudden Zen enlightenment, perhaps. The demonic Johnson is not seen in this story again. Could it be that in killing Johnson, he himself is deleted, or even that the whole thing is engineered so that in killing himself Johnson is erased from the story alltogether after doing 'a good job' in the script writer's eyes in getting his newfound friends here in the first place?

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE B

Iron and Lincoln end up in a sparse parlimentary suite occupied by a dubious collection of state governers, who immediately turn to their favored policy; violence; but unfortunately retain their usual performance expectancy; utter failure. Another poigient moment passes the reactionaries by as they seperate to tackle opposing paths. Everyone must find their own way in life; conqour their own demons; if they are to discover themselves.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE C

In a small, dark room, Lincoln encounters Acrasia; a firebrand of similar skill and pace, but with wholly different ideals. Acrasia is a gothic apocalyptic; a highly talented and yet unquestionably disjointed individual who quotes anarchic shreds of scripture and thinks herself some kind of antichrist. Again, the idea that if society is insane, the retarded rule while the most gifted end up in mental hospitals thinking they are deranged when really they are simply scarred rears its head.

This is Lincoln's 'unknown'; the opponent she must defeat in order to discover herself. There is nothing in this room but that which she brings to it. It is that classical martial arts conundrum; you can defeat as many opponents as you like, but to be a master you must defeat your self.

The darkness and the lack of space are reminiscent of Lincoln's world. It is hazy, it makes no sense; it is claustrophobic and terrorfing. Her responsibility is terrorfying. The swaying lightbulb is her mind; one, lone light. It illuminates parts of her world; makes sense of some things; but only for a short time. It swings and moans and isn't easy to control, but at least it doesn't leave her totally blind.

The monochrome is reminiscent of her new ideas on life; of the ground on which she is walking. Of life as a film set; stuck on a celluloid she will only escape if she can discover colour; the spiritual world. There is no colour at all in this chapter. Lincoln is dressed in black and white; that is made clear. Acrasia is dressed in almost camoflague black. The floor is black and white cheque; like a chess board; the game being carried out one of life and death itself. The light is white, the surroundings black. It is a place of harsh contrast; enigmatic, like Lincoln herself.

Acrasia is Lincoln's alternative self; she is her 'negative' side; how she could have turned out if life had been just slightly different. She is a textbook lunatic, but is labelled sane by a government prepared to pay top dollar for her skills. She is a callous mercenary who delights in blood and destruction; a manic depressive who finds solice only in the agony she is able to conjure. She is what Lincoln fears lurks at the heart of her own soul. Only by defeating this negative self can she go free.

So it is colour again which provides the change; the stick that broke the camel's back. With the introduction of color; notably red; the colour of revolution; of blood, is the monochrome world thrown open. We can imagine a scene of stark black and white; like life was a movie we always thought was filmed in monochrome, until there is a splash of bright colour, then we suddenly recognise that though the world is undoubtably dark, it is possible to buck the trend. This is symbolic of the religious experience itself.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE D

Lincoln having burried her ghosts, it is now Iron's turn. His nemisis is again cloaked in darkness, and for the same reasons, although for the carefree Iron there is no searing lightbulb. Insanity doesn't hurt him because confidence is his most valuable possesion; it assures him of near invincibility. This is his insanity; and it is this he must confrount.

Japingka is a mountain of a man, and downs Iron without even a flich, taking that wepeon of confidence out of the battle with the first strike. Now Iron must do something he isn't used to; think his way through rather than go with the flow; symbolic of his attitude to life, which is a good one, but again, he finds that without that thing which always lets him get by, he is facing his fear; the fear of being unsure; of being inadequate, as he felt when his family were taken from him, as he felt wasting away in that institute, letting time slip by while Lincoln became studious, although admittedly she also became even more depressed. This giant represents these fears, and again the principle must face them.

The first section of this fight is a direct take off of Bruce Lee's fight with Kareem Abdul-Jaber in 'Game of Death'; who played 'the unknown' in that film. The coreography is a complete replica, as is the scene.

Amid the fighting, the scene switches to Lincoln; huddled up in the service stairway, oblivious to the action. It is more of a hell being here alone than her punishing encounter with Acrasia, but she isn't quite sure why. She has cared for Iron in a poigniant way for quite some time, as he has for her, but the tragedy is that in their insanity, neither of them realise it. Of course, the reader is just waiting for one of them to click, but they have lost, or at least forgotten and no longer recognise, the ability to love after the trauma they had suffered. At least now Lincoln is beginning to realise.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE E

In lots of ways this is the final chapter; certainly it is the 'finale'. Having made their way to the top and conqoured their fears, Iron and Lincoln confrount one last handful of cardboard militia in the apt location of the top floor of the World Trade Center; huge floor to ceiling windows providing elegant panoramas of the smoggy film set on which their entire existences have been played out, clusters of sickly neon vending machines and tourist keosks just waiting to be destroyed; symbolising the final throws of the commercial world. You may have noticed that aside from the 'mind made' characters Japingka and Acrasia, all the 'bit parts' introduced in chapter twenty three have names of Shakespearian characters, which serves to highlight the perception that this is all just a stage set. Lincoln even gets to fight Volscenzi for the first time, and its a grisly battle. Both are unnervingly equal, and in this particular fight at least, equally attack minded, which results in some brutal exchanges. Eventually, Volscenzi's bodygaurds prise him away and Iron gets a short crack at him before they escape onto the roof.

The esculator to the roof is the point of no return; its just one way up, and at the top minature palms swaying in the wind and the blank sky above; the natural world beackoning them on up and out of this bitter metroplolis; afterall, at this height they are above everything; above the set which has engulfed them since as long as they can remember.

If you had to set the final scene of a formula action movie in New York City, where would it be? The perfect answer would be on the roof of the highest building in town, and that's where we are; just as the script writer would have wanted. There were hickups along the way, but in the end things are as they are meant to be; as is expected. The wheel of samsara goes on; Iron and Lincoln will not transcend, they'll just keep playing their parts; constrained in this physical world. The movie nears its end, and they will do the bidding of the material world, like it or not... Or will they?

A few bodygaurds later and things have been turned upside down. In a moment of insight, Lincoln looks around, savours life; the presence of higher awareness; and is promptly shot in the head by devil's advocate Volscenzi for not paying enough attention to the Hollywood script. In dying, she cheats the scripter and transcends; cheats samsara itself and escapes suffering; escapes the world. She has failed in playing her part to the end, so she has succeeded in transcending it; in achieving something better. At the same time, the devil shoots himself in the foot; or perhaps in the hoof; just as the consumer society shot itself in the foot; by pulling the trigger. By getting so carried away by the plot that he forgot what he wanted to happen was for the heros to triumph so that they would still be stuck in samsara; bound to the wheel of repetatative, predictable, stagnant existence.

But Lincoln doesn't pass before telling Iron, in a round about way, how she feels, and realising he shares her perceptions. Really, she doesn't pass at all because in transcendence we don't really 'pass', as that would involve moving to a different physical body, and that is reincarnation, which is caused when we are attatched to samsara, unless we determine that reincarnation ourselves, which is the preserve of truly transcendent beings only. But in many ways, Lincoln's conscioussness; and most importantly her spirit, are passed onto Iron, which, though he is thrown into a fit of anger which results in the deaths of both he and his tormentor Volscenzi, makes him 'complete' for the first time since that traumatic day.

Lincoln's dying experience is reminiscent of recorded near death experinces, and has vast spiritual undertones which really speak for themselves. Throughout the book, when Lincoln spoke of God she used the word God with a small g because she never really believed in God per se; she was always a sceptic. Iron always used a capital G because as usual he was self assured, and had been brought up to beileve. But at last Lincoln 'sees' God, and realises she believed all along, she just never called that 'thing' God, as it is confusing to label something with a name which seems to sttribute 'personality' when you never observed it as such. She still does not percieve God as a thinking, feeling entity, but recognises it was always there.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Being dead should be easy. For Iron it proves quite a chore. Having not quite transcened yet, Iron 'wakes up' in a reality not dissimilar to the last one. In one desperate throw of the dice, the script writer; the tormentor; the jailer; tries to pull off every workable explanation for why he is still here; apparently alive; in this world, looking into the panicig eyes of his nemisis Volscenzi, but to no avail. He wheels in all sorts of witnesses as if he was playing the prosecution in a far fetched American courtroom drama, but Iron is buying none of it. Nothing adds up; life doesn't add up, so he concluded this can't be life. It's the final nail in the coffin. The 'world' disintegrates before him and Iron is able to transcend. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a 'bardo' state between realms; between life and death. Normally, a person will enter the bardo for a time before moving on to the next body; carrying on on the wheel of suffering, forgetting at least for the time being while he is involved in readjusting to corporeal existence, the spiritual ground he has already covered, and often going a great deal of time without remembering. This fate would have befallen Iron, but being just that hairs bredfth away from transcendence, he achieves it in the bardo state; it his doubting dream. His own devils try to convince him to stay; that the world is real; but fail miserably. There is no going back because the spiritual work is done; the wheel broken.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

This is pretty open ended. It is up to the reader what happens. Perhaps Iron and Lincoln dreamed it all symultainiously. If so, their spirits must be connected in some way; the entire story ending up as a dream being a familiar and thus heavily stereotypical conclusion to many science fiction tales. Perhaps they chose to enter their next life together on this earth as many high lamas do without the constraints of samsara; and therefore free to remember everything and be free from the pains which plagued them before. Perhaps it is symbolic; in the next world; in a world we cannot explain in anything other than metaphor; in the eternal flow of nibbana; we maintain the innocence; the intuition and the peace, of children.

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