One night, a particularly militant soul, embattled and utterly encumbered by past-life aggression, escaped the underground sanctuary. He surfaced through a manhole in a city street and proceeded to wreak havok downtown, for a while, until the Crows swooped in to diffuse the potential catastrophe.
It had awoken me from sleep—the monster’s rippling presence sending shockwaves for miles through a previously serene atmosphere. It were those pulses that stirred me awake, out of bed and bending the local spacetime to arrive on the scene two moments later. In between the quickened dimensional leap, I had donned my Thunderbird helmet and assumed my carbon-fiber skeleton, transmuting into the true form of Big Cat.
The Crows had already descended upon him, at the intersection of Main and MLK Blvd. As they subdued him with an electromagnetic field that lifted him feet from the ground, paralyzing his ability to destroy, the creature writhed with overflowing anger, unresolved in his gut from a lifetime of abuse. He had once been human, and would be again with a little therapy down in the bowels of Gardanne, in Her soul sanctuary. Once rehabilitated, his fate would likely be left to reincarnation on one of the dozen Earths below.
Witnesses noted the strong but gentle force exerted by the Crows. Their enforcement of peace walked the fine line between necessary pressure and overreaction. They did not want to harm the misguided, violent entity, only subdue him. These masters of their martial craft expertly contained the threat before he hurt himself or others. Their ultimately benign actions also retained a sense of safety among Gardanners—the Crows’ highest goal.
Lessons learned:
- Remain vigilant, especially in peacetime. Growing too comfortable only softens the soul’s ability to react to threats.
- Gardanne sat as a city of light and darkness. It’s the balance we maintain that lifts us out of duality, into higher and higher consciousness echelons. Gardanners must all eventually integrate their respective shadows.
- We’d need to establish a protocol for responding to evil, or imbalance, that had the potential to throw Gardanne off Her divine path.
First steps, though, were getting ahead of the fallout from the disaster. Fear had a way of lingering on citizens’ minds, if we didn’t dispel the ripple effects.
We published a hard news story in the Gardanne Register to quell people’s concerns…
Monster Escape Inspires Security Protocol Talks
DOWNTOWN, Gdnn. — Those within an earshot of downtown may have heard loud crashes and explosions early this morning. The culprit: an escaped soul from the sanctuary, a giant mountain of anger, who took out his aggression all over Main Street.
Rest assured. The misguided entity has been captured and returned to his underground dwelling.
“We’re investigating how this individual escaped his locked room,” a Soul Sanctuary spokesperson said. “The good news is that this incident has exposed weaknesses in our security system. We’ve since shored up our fortress, so to speak, protecting Gardanne from what lies beneath.”
Reminding us that evil still lurks stands as the silver lining to last night’s calamity. Even in the pursuit of higher consciousness, we must not forget the basest origins of our human nature.
Gardanne will roll out response protocol in the coming weeks.
Behind closed doors, I met with top Crows and their leader Leviathan in my editor’s office at the Register.
“The city sits at a higher vibration,” Leviathan said. “But that doesn’t make it immune to darker frequencies.”
“We could have drew this entity to the surface, you’re saying,” I said. “It could have been attracted to negative emotions that emerged above ground.”
“Yes,” He said. “You or another prominent resident may have even manifested the being itself.”
“A hallucination,” I said.
“You’re a channeler,” He continued. “Unresolved resentment, however faint, may have attracted this entity. Your power is a double-edged sword.”
“Duly noted,” I said, acknowledging the fragility of our otherwise peaceful state. And reading between Leviathan’s lines, I continued, “even with impenetrable security in the Soul Sanctuary, I think you’re also saying that this could happen again.”
“Yes,” He said. “Violence could arise among citizens above ground, or the entire city state could attract nefarious characters from another dimension.”
“Perhaps the city state requires a fire drill,” I said. “We need to remind citizens that the peace they enjoy is fragile.”
Leviathan and His Crows agreed. We took to planning. I suggested we record our preparatory efforts to later ensure townsfolk that there had always been method to our imposed madness.
Leviathan crammed his Goliath-like, gargantuan, 10-foot frame into my garage, overlooking the zen garden in the back yard. Unbeknownst to most Gardanne citizens, that was where the Thunderbird Lair lay, a studio where we recorded podcasts debriefing the tasks of birdcraft. The set consisted of two La-Z-Boys diagonally facing each other. A neon sign shaped in the form of the Ford Thunderbird logo hung overhead between us.
We were rolling.
“You heard how the monster escaped?” I said.
“I read the paper, yeah,” replied Leviathan, an imposing figure of a Thunderbird, the Crow Leader. In a past life, he could have brought pro wrestler Andre the Giant to quivering tears.
He wore a T-bird helmet like mine—smooth, slick, reflective vanta black surface with a dorsal fin up top, a bird’s feather that tuned into Akashic frequencies—but the mouth contained fangs. His light-up eyes faced downward into a grimmace. Resting badass face. He kept it on the entire interview. He didn’t even remove it to smoke his smoldering stogie. Just puffed through the mouthpiece.
“That accident exposed a weakness of our otherwise peaceful community,” I said. “I think we need to stage an attack, and then summon our security—your Crows—to see how they respond.”
“It will also be a good reminder,” He said, “that even the 7th-dimension requires an immune system response to antigens.”
“Aye, and the best medicine is preventative.”
“This is what I’m thinking—”
“Before you start,” I said, “you should hold up a copy of today’s paper to prove we pre-recorded this.”
Attack Staged for Citywide Safety Drill
GARDANNE — Weeks after the infamous monster escape, Gardanne experienced Her second breach of security in recorded history. Except this attack was planned.
An elaborate street theatre performance produced by Leviathan and His trusty Crows acted as an example attack on our peaceful city state in an effort to train Her citizens. The teachable moment was intended to remind Her citizens that, however high in consciousness, Gardanne is still vulnerable.
“I thought it was another monstah that escaped,” said Ted Freely, a resident on West Elm Street who witnessed the controlled explosion that ignited the whole faux fiasco.
Crows, disguised as extraterrestrial pillagers proceeded to ransack nearby establishments and shake down any witnesses within the vicinity. Before anything got too out of hand, additional Crows dressed as themselves swooped in to intercept. They were quoted on scene, after the fact, with sentiments of admiration for these shook townsfolk who maintained composure amidst the impending doom. Needless to say, no one was hurt… physically, at least.
“We apologize to anyone who experienced psychological trauma from last night’s impromptu drill,” Leviathan, the Crow leader said. “The event was meant to mimic an actual attack, however, where surprise would almost assuredly be at play. Town officials, including myself, other high Crows and Big Cat had to carry out this endeavor as real as possible to remind townspeople that they can never get too comfortable here, even after a thousand summers of uninterrupted bliss. Humanity has a dark past. And those who haven’t integrated their shadows yet could still spill entropy into an otherwise healthy, self-sustaining municipal system.”
The top Crow went on to assure any cynics of the staged event’s validity that this wasn’t some retcon attempt. There was still no apparent weakness in the Crows’ defenses. And anyone who still didn’t believe them could tune into tonight’s evening news.
A recorded explanation for Big Cat’s and Leviathan’s motives will play in the tabernacle at 8 p.m. The Thunderbird Lair podcast will also be simulcasted throughout Gardanne airwaves.
Our prerecorded podcast was received well by all townsfolk. It restored faith in our little city state while also acting as a poignant reminder to remain vigilant.
Leviathan and I didn’t design the exercise for Crows’ training, although it did provide some invaluable reps. As I said, it was a lesson for the townsfolk. Don’t get lost in the light. Embrace your respective shadow too, lest it get away. Growing too comfortable in the sunshine of freely creating your art can also blind sight and dull senses. You can become weak and vulnerable to forces who would harm you for their own gain or amusement. And Gardanne was not like the Earth worlds below, who hosted plenty of seedy examples to remind those people. We might go a millennium before such insidious agents ever took shape. We existed on such a high vibration. So we had to remind ourselves.
Ultimately, Leviathan and His Crows provided the necessary and appreciated thorns to the rose that was Gardanne. In a town set up to venture further into uncharted consciousness, it was nice to know we had seasoned experts equipped to handle almost anything. They spoke softly and wielded big gravity. They commanded an ancient, heavy wisdom that shimmered the very logos of it all. It was best not to tamper with Them.
Gardanne, the Crows, Leviathan all emanate from the universe of Big Cat, a novel.
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