----A warm summer's evening----

.....some time after 2200 hours........lower pacific........a little known island called ********..........covert mission status: blue. Message continues - security clearance Bravo Echo Romeo November Alpha Romeo Delta 7

Armed with my wolf hat and a mug (much have I learnt from the chronicles of riddick) I leap from rooftop to rooftop of our village avoiding detection by the evil forces of the 'normal police'. Their mission: to bring everyone into normality alignment. I shall never surrender.
As the wind whips my face, my keen eyes watch the landscape for any sign of movement. They have become tricky these past days.
My mind wanders back....
.....to earlier. A short relaxation by the pool. Again the wind blows across our tanning (by which I mean cooking) bodies after a cooling swim to calm our savaged minds.
I enjoy the warmth of our solar radiation, intensified by the lack of ozone layer and feel the irritating courseness of my newly unshaven beard. Now 5 days after our acceptance to grow beards in honour of national moustache day (1st March) I begin to suspect that the year of the dodo has brought its first downfall. I am pleased with the current state of beardedness I possess and yet an emptiness within my soul haunts me - is this all I was created for?

A very real dilemma grips me. Why am I here? There must be more than this - surely? I search amongst my triumphs and trials of the past weeks and uncover a basic disatisfaction, there is something out of alignment that tears at my soul little by little. I dive deeper into the murky water of my mind......
....and emerge. Spluttering slightly and wholly disatisfied with the taste of natural 'gorge water' after having thrown myself off a 10/15 meter rock into what turned out to be warm but greenish water. We had driven many miles from our home (home? a curious word for such a place when everything we know is left so far behind) The Po to make a daring excursion into The Cest. Our deeds are upsettingly easy to accomplish - some thermal wear later and a trip to try on dresses (other people's not mine) and we leave for the gorge.
The gorge it turns out is some kind of natural.....gorge.... located on the outskirts of The Cest. A veritable slash in some kind of volcanic rock face it is a quiet paradise tucked away amidst what is already a quite beautiful country. Expecting to have to pay a hefty fee for entrance I am pleasantly surprised to enter a huge area lined with trees, miniature waterfalls, a pool and lake, and changing area bathed in sunlight - all for the sum of precisely no earth pounds. God bless the australians, they haven't yet devised some evil money making scheme like the natural trust to suck your money away in return for an amazing day out. In a place like this you could easily believe that values and fun are still open to us without the use of social narcotics or biological enhancements.
We walk across a small rock bridge up through trees and around to follow the course of the river. Trekking along the side of the gorge we come to a bench and have arrived at our destination of: the rock. Not The Rock of course, we are not mad. To Pinny and Tem's delight we have been beaten there by the Tan-Man - a boy of approximately 16 years with gross fake tan and a died blonde (read:yellow) streak in his hair. We notice also a girl whom we encountered back in the Cest [with the dresses] -it's possible that she is a foreign agent and stalking us, but no she got here first- who I have upheld as a shining example of beauty and fashion sense. Tim is not convinced. She leaves almost immediately so perhaps she wasn't too impressed with us anyway - no doubt our pasty complexion wasn't a winner compared to the magic of the Tan-Man.

An afternoon of swimming, diving and dubious rock climbing ensues until our tired bodies force us to return to watch movies back at home - via a trip to the Mac to sample the Oz burger or whatever it's called. We leave with some distress, swapping a magical cove of natural beauty for the badly (if not cheaply) woven entertainment of Hollywood, and sink back into a world where values assault us on every side, tempting us to live a way that strips our spirit of its life. And so we drive back (plus music courtesy of Mr Rowe).....

.......the pool swims back into focus on the canvas of my mind. How do I describe The Po? It is a curious place as young people have fun in front of me without even a hint of competitiveness, exclusiveness or spitefulness. Young and old they are at home with each other, and those who are younger than even my class mates offer a hand of friendship and hospitality in genuine warmth. It is amazing to be somewhere with so many broken people coming and going, where even now I find emptiness inside me whilst being surrounded by comfort and truth, where there is such a respect and love. I find strangely that as I open myself to the possibility of brokeness, to have my mind reorganised around a village that seems so strange and bizarre and alien, that in some ways I have come home and that there is a great well to draw strength from. And so broken inside we hope that this sunlight might yet pierce what's going on and make a difference.

Things have not changed, the tear in my soul remains - disatisfaction and emptiness have not been filled. And yet a new perspective is dawning which threatens to comfort and heal, and to turn upside down everything I once knew. I will never be ready for it. Perhaps that is the best part, just to live.

.....My thoughts disturb and yet calm me. Perhaps not many will understand the things we bare. My task for the evening however is complete, a connection has been made that brought space back for just a moment and allows me to breathe this mountain air. The normality police have been evaded and their evil leader has been dispatched to the far corners of ********. For a time there is peace once more.

Transmission end.
Security coding complete.