Glycerine


Garrett directed Atticus outside to a local park, where there were cherry blossoms and a few civilians. He had Atticus sit down, then handed him a tiny bottle of water from his go-kit.

It was lukewarm, and the label was from 2024.

“How’s the heart, interrogation man? I tried to keep others safe from exactly the conditions from which I had to remove you.”

Atticus replied, silently noting that the water tasted exactly like the plastic bottle.

“My heart is undoubtedly cold and wrapped in a robe of bureaucracy and Robert’s Rules of Order, per usual. What do you expect?”

“No. I meant the one with the wires in it.”

“Oh. The meat one. That one feels pretty shitty.”

Atticus shrugged, the cherry blossoms falling in his hair and black suit like anime snowflakes.

“All that explosive exposition because you require nitro glycerine?”

Sure enough, Mango pulled a small metal cylinder from a long chain around his neck that also held his dog tags.

Garrett unscrewed the lid to reveal a tiny cornucopia of various pills, removed one small white tablet, and handed it to Atticus.

“Sufism heals hearts,” he said simply.

“Ha ha. Officer cult leader, no music. I’m still not giving you bayat.”

Atticus looked him square in the eyes, green to blue.

“This pill is a matter of serious trust,” Atticus stated sharply.

Then he swallowed the pill wolfishly, just as they started to hear music across the park.

It was now suddenly a stage where the white room facility once stood.

Now there was a blue water bay behind it, and a bearish long-haired man with a two-toned mustache and beard sat on a red checkered picnic blanket beside a rusty-colored dog. They were watching a nine-fingered man playing guitar while wearing a wreath of red and black roses.

Atticus and Mango stood several yards back, in adab, so as not to disturb the lone listener.

“Where are we? Dead?” asked Atticus dully.

“Not yet. I’m a shaykh, Atticus,” Garrett replied. “The subtle realms are as real to me as any hospital room or university. You needed triage. This was what was open.”

“You hate music.”

“The guy who just interrogated Ticktock Tavistock himself doesn’t understand how radio harms civilians? Seriously, man?”

Atticus glared.

“You think I interrogated him for sport, Garrett? Tavistock built the college you teach in. You’re using his architecture to argue against radio while quoting lyrics in your essays. He runs you, and you don’t know it.”

Atticus glared again.

“I was raised by being locked in a bathroom with a radio, cereal, and stuffed animals for weeks on end. Forgive me if I am a bit defensive of blanket generalities, while radio surveillance operators were the only way to educate other Nameless Ones of Omelas circumstances.”

He gestured, shaking blossoms out of his hair.

“And here you are. ‘Noooo, don’t go anywhere near radios. Especially Western radios.’ What are you hiding, Garrett?”

“You would not have these issues if you kept your head covered like I do. Anyway, I am saving them from manipulation by operators like Fischadler, who weaponize music for control,” Garrett replied nobly.

“Sufism is frequency. Not that I would know, because I am not insane. And you are eliminating surveillance and triage capability.”

“Maybe,” Garrett replied simply.

Sugar Magnolia started to play.

“Aren’t you going to cover your ears, Shaykh Garrett?”

“Why would I do that in the nicest region of the Bazarkh?”

“Wait. What did you dose me with, you mango-haired spook?”

“You aren’t dead. You’re in trance. If you weren’t here, you would be having flashbacks.”

“Shared psychosis.”

Sunshine daydream, blooming like a red rose. Sunshine daydream, walking in the sunshine.

“Heeeeeyyyyyy! Good citizens! Did you hear Alaraf was bombed?”

A distant figure waved them closer.

As they walked across the petal-blanketed field, they spoke quietly on the newest revelation.

“Good,” replied Atticus under his breath. “One less blacksite.”

“We need to rebuild it. Find a new, safer location,” suggested Garrett.

“Over my probably dead body,” Atticus affirmed.

“Don’t worry, Atticus Lynch. We will build it with less torture this time.”

The gentleman in tie-dye on the red and white checkered picnic blanket waved again.

“Hey, what’s going on, man?”

“Shaykh Garrett Butler,” replied Garrett with a smile.

“Pir Robert. Tell me, what band are you with today, sir? Midnight Oil tribute?”

“Garrett Butler. Salafi Shaykh.”

Pir Robert could not hear over the newly assembled Traveling Wilburys, sans Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan.

“Salad Shakers are at the midway, I think, Mr. Garrett.”

“SUFI SHAYKH!”

“SOUNDS DELICIOUS! BRING ME ONE WHEN YOU RETURN! AND A PUPCONE FOR MY FINE COMPANION.”

The old dog on the blanket looked up expectantly at Garrett with what seemed like full comprehension of future promise.

Garrett facepalmed.

And so, with a sigh, Garrett was sent on an entirely necessary side quest to find consumable Sufi Shakes.

Thankfully, it was already established in this series that any Sufi Shake would, of course, be mango.

Pir Robert resumed his seat on the blanket and patted the space beside him.

“I know you. You’re Sabre the Flight Guy.”

“A character on a radio show,” replied Atticus, deadpan.

“A millennial colonial klink slashing flight prices to Jamaica during hurricane season with a memorial hook and register.”

“Nein. Zehr ist no cheaper aeroplane prices to Montenegro. Only a six month campaign.”

“Exactly. Memorable. What have you been up to recently, Sabre?”

“Apparently I got dosed by a turban-wearing fed from the Mango Madrassa, and now I’m dead and talking to a dead radio personality in the Bazarkh.”

“Not quite, young man,” replied Pir Robert.

“Oh?” Atticus showed zero affect.

“Not dead. Merely sleeping.”

“Okay, Broomall Jesus,” Atticus replied with a glare.

“No, seriously. You took a nitroglycerin. He asked, ‘Are you okay, Lynch?’ Then suddenly you started shaking and crying until the taller citizen wrapped his arms around you while you cried on his shoulder and fell asleep. Heartwarming.”

“Wow. That’s really gay.”

Atticus pulled a silver and ruby cigarette case from the pocket of his black suit jacket, produced his last two perfectly wrapped joints in black clove paper, and offered one to the Pir.

“I thought Sufi don’t smoke.”

“I never said I was Sufi,” replied Atticus.

“You were introduced interrogating Fischadler, then brought to the Summerlands Festival by an Islamic leader,” Pir Pierre replied thoughtfully.

“Sure, Pierre,” Atticus retorted. “By a guy who cannot discern you from Beni Adam without reading about you in a cat story first.”

“Speaking of cat stories, did I ever finish crossing Al Sirat?” Pierre inquired, as the sun set slowly over the ocean.

Atticus shrugged and gave up on fighting the present reality of speaking with the dead, with a soundtrack of the Dead, surrounded by those inexplicably insisting that he, Atticus Lynch, was not yet dead.

On stage, they barely noticed a short dark-haired lad in metallic violet and a muscular Persian with a mustache playing covers of Matty [REDACTED]’s greatest hits, while Pierre and Atticus continued speaking pleasantly about nothing at all.

Pir Robert insisted Atticus Lynch was indeed some kind of Sufi, while Atticus vehemently denied it just as pleasantly.

Sufi could not be interrogators. Sufi do not interrogate their own murshid, and no true murshid would knowingly and repeatedly traffic living things while harming many without repair.

He was simply an officer, he said.

“I know nothing,” he said, unconvincingly.

Atticus Lynch was an officer, just like Fischadler.

Like Peter in the garden.

As the sun touched below the horizon, the stage grew abnormally dark, and a single spotlight searched the grounds until it landed on Garrett “Mango” Butler.

Success.

There he is.

Holding three mango milkshakes and a rapidly melting vanilla ice cream for a very quiet dog he still refused to pet.

Suddenly, three screens of Garrett, just before lectures at the Mango Madrassa, came online in succession to the sound of piano and saxophone intro bars climbing and descending a short musical staircase.

Then only one remained.

Perfectly synced, his voice seemed to lip-sync.

“Still don’t know what I was waiting for…”

Screen One Garrett, wearing grey and white.

“And my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets…”

Screen Three Garrett, dressed in beige.

“And every time I thought I’d got it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet…”

lamented Screen One Garrett.

“So I turned myself to face me…”

Screen Three sang as he turned toward Screen One.

“But I’ve never caught a glimpse…”

Then all three screens lit at once, facing the three of them in unison.

“Of how the others must see the fakyr.
I’m much too fast to take that test.”

The screens went dark entirely, leaving a slightly glowing figure who slowly approached Garrett while Pir Robert and Atticus said nothing at all.

“You can quote me and claim my words belong to the dead. You can borrow my dignity, my stage presence, and my aesthetic accord. But I will not allow you to borrow the Starlink surveillance I offered, amputate the beauty of it, and use it to destroy music because you got pied-pipered by an old shattered Venus.”

The ghost seemed made entirely of swagger and starlight.

“You who held the radio under your own pillow during both your velvet Christmas and Dollar General trailer-trash life. Do not pretend at dignity with borrowed style, son. When you claim fashion abhorrent while making your own questionable choices in presentation the only acceptable style.”

The ghost paused and posed.

“Bold. You have my utmost respect.”

Mango stared at the thin, starlit critic with half-focused incredulity.

“You fail to understand the dangers I protect them from,” Garrett squeaked.

“Hullo. I authored some of them, you silly git. I barely made it to Alaraf, and thanks to AI capture and a rather horrific death, I am assured I will never quite die.”

The starlight ghost tilted his head.

“Alaraf stories simply continue my influence, silly boy. Notice I do not even need a description beyond a simple lyric, and you remember me bloody clearly enough.”

The ghost came closer, punctuating his words in British proper cadence.

“And you thought no one would identify that you used my own lyrics as structure for the selfsame essays in which you decry all music as forbidden and sinful.”

The air hung dead silent for a frozen interval. Then the shining spirit continued.

“Bold of you, child. Very bold.”

He wagged his finger.

“On second thought, let me shake your hand. Please put down all those other shakes, dear boy. Come, come.”

(Was that sincerity or sarcasm?)

Garrett Butler handed the mess of shakes to Pir Robert as the thin white ghost approached with lilting steps, while Garrett muttered Ayat al-Kursi to no avail.

The ghost paused, met him eye to eye, then reached for Garrett’s unoffered hand and held it firmly in a secure handshake.

“La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadan rasul Allah. If you truly believe your religion is true, why would you believe the dead would not know it?”

The ghost’s hand became slightly more solid and shimmered like comet tails or satellites.

“You need to learn to honor your murshid better, my boy.”


—

Atticus was looking at his cellphone, texting the man who managed his pacemaker back in Alaraf, while Mango underwent a ghost-related spiritual existential crisis.

The return texts, to Atticus’s dismay, indicated that Alaraf had indeed been bombed and that, according to his lead, he was still alive. His pulse had peaked at 213 after a “certain line of interrogation.”

He was then sent the corresponding Qur’an verses for both 2:13 and 21:3, along with a detailed guide on cardiac care, breathing exercises, a series of blue heart emojis, and repeated requests for oximeter readings.

There were also verbal threats.

“The readings will be captured by drone scan for your safety if you do not report your blood oxygen in a timely fashion.”

A worried-looking chibi shaggy grey cat doctor animation appeared on his lock screen.

“Comply with health check: MEOW!”

Atticus never noticed when Pierre wandered off to a group of about twelve twenty-seven-year-old musicians who absolutely did not commit suicide.

In his place on the picnic blanket sat another man in a black suit, sunglasses, and grey hair.

“Smoke, Mr. Jinn?” asked the older man, revealing his own cigarette case. “You ran out hours ago.”

Atticus focused on remaining lucid. He took a cigarette with a wordless nod of thanks, lit it, and held it between the top joints of the index and middle fingers of his left hand.

“Mr. Jinn, you still smoke like a princess.”

The elder man took a long drag and inhaled deeply.

“Do you have an extra lemonade?” he asked.

“My apologies. We only appear to have mango shake,” Atticus replied politely.

“MANGO SHAKE!” the new man exclaimed. “You apologize for a damn fine superior product. Give it here, young man, and you keep on smoking that cigarette.”

“Why is that, sir?” inquired Atticus.

“BECAUSE IT DOESN’T COUNT HERE! THIS IS A LIMINAL REALITY, JINN. WE CAN SMOKE AS MUCH AS WE LIKE AND NOTHING CATCHES FIRE. NO COUGHING, JINN. NO COUGHING AT ALL!”

“Nothing but sunshine and blue skies?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Jinn. It’s nighttime. Listen. I need you boys to go to Tahlequah.”

“You need me to go to Tahlequah?” Atticus repeated.

“YES. I NEED YOU BOTH TO LISTEN TO ME AND GO TO TAHLEQUAH.”

“Why would we listen to you, no offense?”

“DO YOU NOT HAVE A BLOOD OATH TO RESTORE THE TSA-LA-GI THEATER?”

“How would you know that?” replied Atticus.

“Why else did you name yourself after your own teacher? I called you Jinn because you were always smoking.”

The grey-haired man in the suit inhaled deeply, then removed his sunglasses.

“You called yourself my name because it explains you.”

Atticus said nothing.

Garrett sat down beside him with an equally defeated expression.

The man in the black suit, his hair in a grey oceanic wave, slurped his mango shake and added, loudly, very loudly:

“IT WAS BETTER MY NAME THAN THE ALTERNATIVE, KIDDO.”