I. Nowhere. You Are Alive and They are all Dead. Marrakech, April 2019.

I wake up under a vaulted skylight. I can’t move but I can make the shape of a minaret at an angle, its golden spire pierced by an imperative sunshine. The room is dark, filled with marbled columns and glittering tiles. I blink slowly and the pain feels as otherworldly as the roof and its patterns. I see a vibrant fresco above me: it looks like a massacre of flowers and centurions, all of them symmetrically beheaded by a constellation of semi circular arches. Feels like architecture as a fine, murderous art, a proper annihilator of time and memory, until the loudspeaker starts calling out the prayer and my system revives in some excruciating fashion.

The muezzin channels the deadly echoes of my immediate past. They are shouting out loud: YOU ARE ALIVE AND WE ARE DEAD!

I’m tied to a stretcher. Blinking is painful enough to not consider moving, thus I breathe slowly. Feels like swallowing cracked glass. My upper body is bandaged, my legs bruised and my head pounding like drum’n’bass infused with Stormzy’s grime beats. There’s a bloody handkerchief stuffed in my left hand. I can’t open its palm: it feels like there is a hole right in its centre. My heart and mind are galloping while the flashbacks line up like Detroit techno stuck on the blades of a Blackhawk.

BOOOOM! Flashbacks, here we go!

Oh my days!

All of a sudden, I remember it: a balaclava militia shot down the Blackhawk and the four escorts that helped me fleeing Ireland, right before landing on North African soil. It was pitch dark until the sky started glowing so hard that you could read a book under the burst of the artillery. It is the last thing I remember. My ears are ringing like Jeff Mills’ eviscerating dark matter. Was I shot? Someone must have rescued me and nursed my wounds, but who? Darkness adjusts to me and I adjust to nothing but to a big, massive IF.

If I, If I, If I… It takes a fake passport and four vanished escorts to remember my murdered pupil. My dear, sweet Nora!

If I, If I, If I… I’M NOT DEAD AND THEY ALL ARE …

Nora and Selby’s men would still be breathing and Murder would have never come to life if it were not for Alex, the damned witch doctor at Nowhere. I try to clench my fists. I cry instead: the pain is unbearable. I scan every angle of the room that my battered neck can cover until realising that there is someone hanging on the ceiling. He looks like the overweight, bald version of the singer of the first band that I ever interviewed. I scrutinise the silhouette, see his gold teeth smile and hear the words:

“You are lucky to be alive.”

“I wish I wasn’t and they were. Where are they?”

“Breath in. Death never comes at the wrong time, somehow it spared you.”

“I bet you know how.”

“I know many things.”

“No doubt. Are you FLOATING?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

“I could be THE END of your struggling.”

II. Now Here. Asian Dub Foundation, Bcn, 1995.

It is a hangover Saturday morning and I sneak into the subway as effortlessly as usual. It only takes a little shrink of my flat belly to slide between the metal barrier and its anorexic-friendly gap: more than this, nothing fits; more than this, there is nothing.

Actually, more than this there is a slightly unprofessional sense of timing. It is 4pm and the interview is set in fifteen minutes. I’m sleepless and late: I’m twelve underground stops from my destination when I realise I don’t have batteries in my borrowed tape recorder, the fundamental reason for the tachycardia that is about to hit me.

I saw the band playing live last night in a venue named after a sandwich, which was poetically fitting, since one of the members is named after a Turkish roll, Shuarma. It was a roaring, thunderous gig. The crowd let rip: they danced with their fists and knees raised, as if celebrating the fusion between ska and ragamuffin; slavery and freedom. At one point, Shuarma grabbed the microphone and said something that no one understood. Then he put his hands on his head and began to sob. The fragility of the prophet conveyed the public’s empathy, rather capable of translating his body language than his words.

Shuarma had a lot of sad things to say about their adoptive country, a gloomy place called England. He used the words of a greater prophet: “The Revolution will not be televised”; then added: “the island will be gutted.”

It was a very fine gig, but it lasted until 1am, and I missed my bus home. I had to wait six hours for the next one and it was too cold to sleep rough, so I had the brilliant idea of going to the closest squat house to get some rest. I met a bunch of Saint Petersburg anarchist drinkers of endless nostrils, and passed out around noon for ten minutes, before realising that they were bleaching my hair and tattooing my arm with a rather predictable, encircled A.

“Don’t get so carried away, it will help you with the interview”, they said when I started shouting.

Today I could have them jailed as tattoo rapists and hair offenders for that. But back then; you could even get away with paedophilia if you were wearing a Catholic robe. Before passing out, I told the Petersburgers that most of Asian Dub Foundation members were of South East Asian background, and that they were well known as outspoken and efficient political activists. Last year one of their lyrics went viral and its protagonist, a freedom fighter from Bangladesh, was released from prison due to the global impact of the song. I reflect on what I did last year and I feel even more weightless.

I count an abortion, one arrest and no love. Nobody wrote a song to get me out of jail, but then again I didn’t have to go to jail, it was just a house arrest —for stealing three Spanish Constitutions, a few criminal codes and a few books on Roman. Law, all of them seized from the fanciest legal bookstore in town, in order to subsequently sell them at half price to my Law Degree classmates.

III. Nowhere, Marrakech, April 2019.

The floating body could be twelve or sixty years old. He is just wearing a black tunic embroidered with golden pebbles. I can make out his shiny testicles and plump thighs while he descends upon me as if propelled by an engine on his ass. I see his double chin and chubby fingers. His mouth is thin and his voice sounds like Greta Garbo’s filtered by a broken synthesiser when he says:

“Selby is gone.”

My insides turn and phonetics fail to engage with the end of onomatopoeia. I could refill all the oceans in the world with just one teardrop and this SCREAM. Nothing feels real except the absence of my life, as I knew it 48 hours ago. I’m mumbling and crying rivers thicker than all the poisoned water on the planet. He extends his left hand, makes the universal shush sign and rubs my temples with his awkward fingers. My pupils roll and my mouth opens. I freeze for a moment and then my cracked voice says:

“S-e-l-b-y.” and “Nooooooooooo.”

“Murder and his men got him while you were travelling. I did my best to save you all, but they are many and very organised. Overall, they are not who you think they are. The bigger picture is as nasty as it gets. I’m so sorry for your losses,” says the floating being.

“I’m afraid I can’t see any picture bigger than Selby’s and Nora’s passing. What about the escorts that helped me escape?”

He shakes his bizarre head.

“I will explain at the right time, don’t worry, but for the time being I can keep you away from Murder and his beasts and help you track down Alex. We all want revenge, but only some of us must fight for it.”

“Selby said that I should only deal with Khaled once in Marrakesh.”

“I’m Khaled. And yes, you are right, we have a deal: I can keep you away from your hunters. But if you want to get out there, you might need a new face.”

“I’m sick of all this. What do you freakin’ mean?”

“I can arrange your face surgery and let you go once our deal is done. But as you know, nothing comes for free.”

“Selby already paid you a crazy amount of money, that I remember.”

“Since he is gone and you are here, the deal shall be rearranged. I hear you are a very accomplished writer.”

“What? I could barely get printed in the worse Spanish newspapers when tabloids were alive. I’m not a writer; I just worked as a journalist for a shameful while.”

“That I remember, yes. It was embarrassing. But then again, you are lying.”

My face before surgery becomes a puzzled emoji. I can’t help but wonder.

“Did I ever interview you?”

He smirks.

“Fuck me. Are you the former singer of ADF?”

“Fuck you indeed.”

Hell Hound, Bcn 1995.

I get off the subway at 4:15pm. There are two Spanish hairy dwarfs in dark blue uniforms outside the metal barriers. They are both taller than me. I take out my fake pass, and before the smart one realises I jump the fence behind them. The least smart releases their hellhound and I run for my virgin-journalist life. I avoid the fangs of Satan by sneaking into the lift before its doors shut.

I get out five stories above the hellhound and keep on running towards the hotel where the band is waiting. I scan the blinders of all the closed shops that could sell batteries, a perfect 100 per cent of them. That is something I knew before I started magical thinking about opened shops in Barcelona on siesta fucking o’clock on a fucking Saturday of 19 fucking 95.

I often swear, but rarely sweat.

By the time I reach the Hotel hall, I’m drenched in BLEACHED drops! They are highly corrosive and my skin reacts accordingly: I have rashes all over. The press manager sees me and knows instantly that I’m not a hotel customer but the early late journalist.

“Oh my goodness!”.

She can’t help but look at me in horror. I catch my reflection in the gigantic mirror, by the huge piano: I look like a resurrected Chernobyl casualty.

“Shuarma is not impressed with your sense of timing, let me tell you. Nora has taken your spot. You are next. Are you okay?”

“Fucking thriving, thanks.”

The room is filled with half of the music journalists of the city, around twenty guys, most of them sporting glasses, no hair and wooden faces. None of them would ever smile except for Nora. She is slim and young, and writes for a fashion magazine whose existence seems to deny the fundamental identity of the band as blatantly as the PLATFORM I’m writing for. At least she might get paid to do it.

Nora says hello, offers me her seat and makes a grimace.

“Be careful, he is dead serious,” she says.

I take her seat while she slips a business card in my pocket, winks and says: “This is Victor.”

“Hello,” says Shuarma. “I have been waiting and I don’t like to wait.”

“It is the first interview of my life, my dearest apologies. I was so anxious that I took the wrong subway.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

I feel like Dennis Hopper’s nostrils after a Colombian bender. I confess that I was in Saint Petersburg after the gig and mention the bleach incident. As it turns out, the whole room, staff included, seems incapable of NOT staring at me. It might be difficult to understand that a man in the shape of a tiny lobster can breathe or move —let alone conduct the first interview of his life.

I take my seat and place the recorder in the middle of the table. My bleached skin and bleeding tattoo kind of disguise the fact that the tape is not rolling. Shuarma could be Rambo if he hadn’t eaten in his entire life. The laser of his eyes could melt all the Himalayan snow in just one blink. He says it is the first time he has seen an interviewer drinking at work. I say I’m glad it’s his first time. I have no idea how the beer has landed on my hand —let alone my throat.

“Cheers anyway,”

I say, smirking.

“Welcome to Barcelona, the most intoxicated city on the planet.”

Shuarma looks at the press manager, points at me and says: “Is this for real?” I have my heart in my mouth. It is a polyglot heart that can talk non-stop. I say that in Spain, the transition from dictatorship to democracy was a narco-operation to decimate the rebellious populations of the North. I say that the story is akin to that of England and India.

I wanted to say between Ireland and England, but it is my racing heart speaking. Shuarma stretches his back, cracks his fingers, and grimaces in utter disgust. He asks me if I’m going to ask any question. I only have a sense of humour left.

“I’m the one asking the questions here.”

Not that funny, so it seems. I ask about the band and their activism: “What came first?”

He wonders if I have done my research. I ask if he likes the climate of Barcelona.

“Are you a meteorologist?”

I ask what element their music would be. Fire? Earth? Air? Water?

“Do you write about horoscopes or what?”

I confess that I have been asked to write horoscopes for a women’s magazine, and I don’t mention that I have no fucking idea about astrology.

“Technically you are deflowering me,” I say.

He would never look more unimpressed.

“Are you going to ask me any damned question?”

It is 1995, 15 years before THE WOKE UP, and I have already asked three unanswered questions. Then my heart says:

“Okay, if your music were a colour, what colour would that be?”

Shuarma inhales deeply, looks around, clicks his tongue, rolls his sleeve and before he forms a fist, I say:

“It wasn’t a rhetorical question, just a little poetic licence.”

My speech stops the punch, if only for a moment. Shuarma considers his Mister Proper right arm, looks at the table, and only then the postcolonial horror unveils. He grabs the recorder, realises that it isn’t rolling and checks the batteries.

“Are you fucking joking me? Get the fuck out of my sight. NOW!”

Voilà! It is the first answer of my journalist life, at least the first that is not a question. It’s a fucking order indeed. I obey; I’m great at it.

Nowhere: Face Off, Sorrow Sandwiches. Marrakesh 2019.

“So if your sorrows were a sandwich, what would it be?” asks Khaled.

“A rat-pissed Shuarma?”

He ignores the answer, not even smiles.

“Do you know what is the worst nightmare of a paranoid?”

“Yes: to see your worst fears come true. It is actually happening. And I also know that I’d rather kill myself than play your sick game. Give me a knife and I’ll do it. I’m ready.”

Shuarma shakes his head.

“It does not work like that. I’m going to give you a pen, a safe place and a new face, and you will write my story, which is also yours.”

“I would prefer not to. Just give me a sharp knife, please.”

“There is so much you can do. You have an implant in your left temple. Your pain will slow down soon.”

“A WHAAATTT?”

My mouth shuts slowly and a stream of soothing, wet substance fills my insides with sheer opioid pleasure.

“Can you feel it? This is how it starts. You will do as I told, and then we will track down Alex and Murder, and spare thousands of people the same pain we have both been through. Don’t be scared, I’m not trying to destroy you.”

“You can’t destroy what is already destroyed.”

“No, you are right. But we can destroy what has destroyed us. There is nothing you can do apart from writing and keep your martial training going. There is hope, that is why you are still breathing.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“And then again, you will. Your first assignment will be in Japan; your adored Sensei’s have the answers.”

“To what question?”

“How to stop your life from becoming an AI.”

“Seriously? Who is your scriptwriter? That sounds lame as fuck!”

“Very good, my dear. That is exactly why I brought you here. We will change the narrative and map the safe spots of a brave new world. The revolution will be offline.”

“Nowhere?”

“Exactly. Will start now here. Next stop is Japan.”

To be continued…