The police said they would return. He looked at his fire, that was now almost out, and could see that his potato was almost ruined, burnt to a hard, black lump. He ran, he ran to the neighbours on the other side who were also now returning to their house after the commotion. To Spasha and Roy, who made him baked beans on toast, put bits of bacon in it, and tinned tomatoes. This was something he had never tasted with baked beans before. Bacon and tomatoes. He loved it. So loved it. And they weren’t cross with him and he sat with them, knowing that when he went home his mother would hit him with a wooden spoon.

But the lasting memory of that evening was the baked beans, with bacon and tomato.

And his burnt potato.

And the beauty of it all.

Chapter Five

The United States of America has a Cancer.

Or rather a Moon Child birth sign, as the association with a terminal disease is not the connection a positivity-obsessed nation likes to make. July 4th – its birthday.

Astrologically, the vibrations of Palm Springs were perfectly tuned to his. But as both the world and Ever appear to vibrate at 7.83 Hz this was not conclusive reasoning.

Perhaps, then, his return to Palm Springs was encouraged by the frequency of UFO sightings in the area, and Ever’s desire to have a symbiotic relationship with the alien travellers. It had been tried, not in Palm Springs, but tried. He had lain naked outside for a night, save for a T-shirt inscribed with lipstick-red writing – FREE SPERM HERE – a descending vertical arrow pointing to his genitalia. This event was not conducted without the ingestion of mind-altering chemicals. No sperm, however, was taken to consummate Ever’s dream, the creation of the HUMIEN race. This only gave conviction to his belief that they didn’t want his sperm because he was actually one of them. They had already placed him on earth. He was the experiment.

The word to define this new race had caused him some concern. Humanalien. The combination could have gone towards hum-anal-ien. But the prospect of a race of anals always brought him back to HUMIEN. He was young.

*

There are some things in life you have to take control over.

It was astrologically determined that he should be there.

The events that were to happen there were the predictions of his psychic.

His therapist should have been told, and, thank God, his doctor wasn’t needed.

Yet.

The four horsemen – Astrologist, Psychic, Therapist, Doctor – the dependent Ever needed these four in the absence of human closeness in the life that was left to him, to do his depending and avoid his own personal apocalypse.

*