This edition of pcbycp is proudly sponsored by Senior Service. The smokers choice for suspended wicker baskets being aimlessly trawled above the North Sea.

 Dear reader.

Last time we checked in on our heroes they were relishing the improbable reality, that just this once the forces of meteorology had unwittingly conspired to SAVE THEM ! And just this once their respite could be registered in the absolute calm of a departing storm. A storm of such ferocity that it seemed absurd that only moments earlier they were worried by the consequences of centrifugal force and an undigested lunch.  Just as they had been worried about being smashed to bits or suffering the unleashed wrath of Sophie (‘Pushing ol ducks over in a nursing home in five easy steps’) Mirabella may vent her unrestrained fury upon them.

We are indebted to the ASA (Australian Space Agency) for these updated images of the Rotodyne. Rumoured to be re- equipped as our forward defence mainstay.

But all is stilled. Scarcely a noise intrudes the safe confines of the Rotodyne, and not even Sophies exclamations: “are youse gonna let me our youse suffering useless, ball less bastards or what?” will penetrate the sanctitude of being saved.  Saved by the tempest. Saved by time and saved by the flickering light of the ‘fasten seat belts’ light which after landing reminded them still that they were cocooned inside a machine, and until summoned the machine would continue to serve in its own machine-like way.

‘I dunno Ces, looks like our luck has held, whichever way you look at it, though we may be perched one tail wheel on a precipice or poised over a stinkin volcano, we’re the right way up and, (Terry pinched himself) ‘more or less in one piece’.

Rotodyne’s being considered by federal Government as stop-gap emergency housing modules for lower income itinerant types. ” Life-style Choices program’.

Ces, still slumped over the console, picked himself up and grabbed another Camel supplied by the ever-agreeable Terry. ‘You know Terry I think you’re right. Buggered if I know where we are, but we must be pretty high up as it’s a bit chilly, and as far as I can see we seem’, he rubbed the condensation on the window, ‘it seems to be we’ve landed in a clearing of sorts’.

pcbycp’s artist depicting low-income housing module in transit to no fixed address.

Ces’s eyes scanned the dimly lit landscape, the others gathered round and finding a suitable shred of fabric to which they wiped the heavy condensation they agreed,’ Yep Ces, you’re dead on’! Then they pointed to a protuberance of sorts. ‘Look there! On the outside there’, Ces pointed to the area immediately in front of them as it waxed and waned in the swirling mist, ‘looks to be the outline of a hut’? Ces wasn’t sure; ‘it could be a building, or’ … they craned their necks to see through the mist. ‘Perhaps it’s a town of some description’? It seemed incredible only an hour before they were headed off the coast allegedly on the way to Bali, but this didn’t look like Bali. It occurred to them that perhaps they’d gone off course. How far off course? Was this still Indonesia, or one of its many far-flung islands? They were intrigued and strained to make sense of the objects diffused by the must and rain. For it started raining intensely and everything was obscured again. They became aware of the falling light, and the sun, now a pallid opalescent disc, just poking above the trees.

‘I spose whatever it is, we might as well find out, and besides, Quent affirmed ‘I’m getting hungry, if it’s a village they’ll have to have a pub, a post office and a general store, maybe they’ll have Spam’? They all looked at Quent dolorously. ‘That’s enough, maybe an alternative’.  They had a point after living off Spam for a week they were tired and their digestive systems weak. Perhaps the admixture of gases furthering Sophies discomfiture, they’d forgotten about Sophie. ‘What the’, and sure enough as cued, Sophie returned her invective, ‘Fucken let me loose and I’ll get you de- balled and skinned faster than a broken tooth ewe in the marking paddock, and the I’ll.

Venus of Willendorf. Uncanny resemblance to Sophie.

‘Perhaps’, Ces said; ‘there’s something like a figure above that building?’,

They all craned their necks,

It looked strangely familiar, a native totem of sorts. And it puzzled them.

Unerring likeness to the celebrated Fair Work Commissioner.

‘Can’t make it out, if it’s a village this totem thingy is pretty much smack bang in the middle. In the tropics the evening light plays tricks on the eyes. Joseph Conrad wrote about it in ‘Lord Jim’ and alluded to the phenomena in ‘The Nigger and the Narcissus’.  They strained their eyes to see the features of the totem, which to all intents and purposes has all the proportions of an ancient neolithic fertility goddess.  It looks like the ‘Venus of Willandorf’ said Ces, ‘Nup mate more like the ‘Venus of Mesomorph’! Terry chuckled, ‘and it seems familiar. I dunno’; said Quent; ‘its uncanny, and the profile’?  They strained their eyes till they were bursting and just then a glimmer of sunlight as if directed by an unseen hand illuminated the very spot and all of a sudden the wooden, crudely fashioned object, demonstrating the skill and passion of the native sculptor at his or her totemic best was revealed. In every detail they had captured a likeness. At first they responded with an effusive ‘Wow’! Until at that precise moment when the sunlight filtered, and the features just glistening after the most recent shower, they realised, that they had arrived back at the beginning.

Ol style religion. When primitive folk worshiped fertility goddesses and prayed for salvation by raising arms and ululating in gibberish.

For the totem, mysterious and incarnate, perplexing and perspicaciously plausible was  none other than their nemesis, the body in the bag, the ‘she’ who though bound and trussed still dictated order, the likeness was none other than Sophie.

The natives had captured the likeness of Sophie in every detail and presented her in all her glory her eternality and stature as a GODDESS!

‘Well, I’ll be’, Terry murmured,’I knew something would happen to wipe the smile off our faces’!

‘Yup’ said Quent phlegmatically;  ‘Of all the villages and all the totems in the world she sits atop ours’.

‘Are we rooted’? They all looked at each other. ‘Not yet’! said Ces; ‘We’ve got the Real Goddess in the back’.

This time they sniggered,

Perhaps they could play the man who would be Queen? Only time could tell.

But would the natives fall for Sophie as their goddess reincarnate? There was only one way to find out.

Some of these ancient worship rituals are kept alive by primitive folk today

Tune into the next deific dispatch as we wrestle with the royal pestle and ask ourselves,. ‘Will Sophie be Queen’? Or ‘will all the Queen’s Horses and all the Queen’s men turn out to be mere chess pieces or prawns’?