Faces

Faces

Few things are as powerful as words, if not botulin, the toxin
responsible for botulism. A few words can make or break a person,
contrary to that old rhyme with which bullied school kids are
comforted: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never
harm me." Depending on how one looks at it, the few words her mother
uttered made or broke Pandora Loren Thomas.

She was four. Her screams drew Mrs. Thomas from the settee, where she
had been comfortably curled, watching Dallas and sipping a Tia Maria.
'What is it, love?'

'A face, Mummy, a face!'

'Now, now, dear,' cooed Mrs. Thomas, stroking her distraught
offspring's hair, 'Where's this face?'

'There, Mummy, it was there!' Pandora pointed to the chair in the
corner, draped with her clothes for the morrow.

'There's nothing there, love, look!'

'No, Mummy, there's a face. I saw it! Put the light out!'

Mrs. Thomas sighed, stood up and walked to the switch on the wall.
'There now. The light's off. Now where's this face?' She sat on her
daughter's bed.

'Look, Mummy, there!'

'Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, it does rather look like a face.' The
way Pandora's coat was hanging, the jutting elbow of one of the sleeves
resembled a Roman nose, the folded skirt, sweater and blouse
overhanging the seat's edge suggested protruding lips. 'You're a clever
girl for seeing that, Pandora, it does look like a face, but as you can
see, it's only your clothes. Now hush and I'll read you a
story...'

'A clever girl...' she had said.

The cloud game reinforced Pandora's visual imagination. They would lie
on their backs in the garden and point out shapes in the clouds: cats,
dogs, rabbits..., but mainly human faces.

The bathroom floor was patterned linoleum - streaks and blotches.
Pandora would sit on the WC, longer than necessary, picking out images.
The dining table was grainy oak - a feast of possibilities.

Pandora's father was an international art dealer, often away from home,
but when he came back his passion for his subject made its mark on
Pandora. Mindful of the dangers of overloading and boring a young mind,
the senior Thomases agreed early on a strategy. They would take Pandora
to art galleries, but only ever to see a single painting at a time, for
which they would lay some appetite-whetting groundwork.

One such excursion was to the City Art Gallery in Manchester to see
William Holman Hunt's The Hireling Shepherd. This beautifully detailed
painting, superficially a scene of bucolic bliss and romance, had a
sinister side and a moral message. It is a glorious summer day in
idyllic English countryside. A shepherdess is treating a late lamb,
ensconced insouciantly on her lap, to some apples. Meanwhile, a leering
shepherd has come up behind her. He kneels forward, his head on her
right shoulder, his left arm encircling her, the hand displaying a
death's head moth. If one looks very closely one can discern the image
of a human skull on the moth's thorax. In the background a neglected
sheep is breaking into a field of wheat, on which it will gorge and
then possibly die of bloat. Pandora's mission had been to spot the
hidden face and "the naughty greedy sheep". She found two.

A few minutes in front of the canvas, and her parents whisked her away
for a milkshake and a burger, over-ruling her protests and
side-stepping her queries about the tantalizing canvases she glimpsed
on the way out - 'That's enough for today. Another time, dear.'
Pandora's enthusiasm for art was inextinguishable.

Much as the Pre-Raphaelites impressed her, Pandora gravitated towards
the more abstract. She could read so much into Monet's waterlilies,
Picasso's cubism and Turner's skies. Likewise, Van Gogh's more frenetic
brushwork offered myriad interpretive possibilities.

At school it was assumed she would be an artist, but in her penultimate
year she was taught history by a certain Geoffrey Lloyd. Mr. Lloyd was
one of those teachers who change lives. He loved young people and loved
his subject. He believed that everything was relevant - had to be made
relevant - to his pupils, and he was adept at reading their characters
and abilities. Pandora's visual/artistic skills were well known. He
presented her with aerial photographs of archaeological sites, pointing
out the subtle variations in the colours of crops, the slight dips and
rises associated with buried ruins, long-forgotten earthworks and
drainage ditches. Pandora was hooked. A new realm opened for her. On
her own initiative, she trawled archives of aerial photographs, and one
day presented Mr. Lloyd with a photograph of some Cambridgeshire
farmland, a drained fen. On it she had highlighted some anomalous
streaks of pale green in the early spring wheat. Mr. L, as she knew him
now, had his contacts. A local archaeological society investigated. The
farmer, with an eye on diversifying into tourism, was all too happy to
co-operate. They struck gold - not literally although they found a
large assortment of brass artefacts - and Pandora knew what she was
going to study at university.

First year was "mind-blowing", as she later described it. Something of
a loner at school, though not unpopular, she was now among kindred
spirits. Daniel shared her intense curiosity. Always into something
new, he had heard about this "rave" through some friends in the
debating society. It was due to take place a few miles from
Peterborough in the Cambridgeshire countryside. They had to go.

[From this point until next square brackets imagine a different
typeface!]

Fire. Elemental fire. New friends here but no talk pressure. Sit on
straw bale under stars. Heat radiating from fire, soul warmth. Tap feet
to djembe beat. Mind neutral and coast. Relaxation. Sip wine.

'Would you like some?' she says, a dreadlocked traveller with the
softest voice. A small sealable plastic packet is extended.

''Shrooms. Why not?' One by one, tease out ten small dried heads with
their long stems and chew. Musty, earthy, slightly gritty. Swallow.
Time passes. Very little change - mellow, ease - could be the wine. Ten
more. Peace. Tap feet. Watch glowing wood, flickering flames. Wait. Ten
again. Close eyes and wipe mind clean.

Suddenly fire after-images transform to strident, flamboyant
heavy-metal album covers. The slate clears, washes over pale yellow.
Cascade of intricate multi-hued grillery, tuned by music and
eyelid-filtered firelight. Changes again: fantastically complex gold
fretwork, tiny panels of assorted colours in repeated patterns fill the
spaces. Grilles and mosaics replace one another. Curving shapes also.
Semi-three dimensional avalanches of colours pour forwards -
computer-generated images of passages. South American Indian jewellery
patterns. Tiny Picasso head briefly visible in the middle of a vista.
Writhing yin-yang/Paisley patterns cavort. Occasional stylised figures.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs in abundance, but more complex and
extensive. Now stained glass swirls. On and on. A new colour floods the
field and trips another show - the music has changed. The pattern
reduces in size - someone has passed in front of the fire. On and
on.

Someone speaks. Open eyes, stand up and talk. Coherent. Converse about
organic and inorganic farming. Hardly any effect with eyes open - just
relaxed. Dim network of thin purple lines covers people, outlines are
faint green. Barely discernible. Close eyes and show continues when
mind is blanked. Open eyes - objects composed of faint green, red and
blue dots - like a television screen up close. Close eyes. It's more
difficult to generate pictures. Someone offers a joint. Struggle not to
cough. Flood of new relaxation enters legs. Close eyes. Images back,
full strength.

After a while decide to dance. Once started don't want to stop.
Marvellous music. Close eyes again and mind-surf on avalanche of
colours. Feeling more here and now and relaxed than ever felt. Belong
to the earth, and the earth belongs to us. All these people belong here
too. Prisoners in own cells, but also together. Everything here is
right. Open eyes and watch a lean body rock in spasms of delight to the
music. Beseeches with her arms. Draws on a joint. So lean she's almost
pure spirit, music-riding sprite. She moves around under the roof of
the open-sided barn. Contortions ecstasy-driven. Not the drug, but real
ecstasy at existence. Joined by a male figure. Assume male, but hard to
tell really, he's draped in vegetation - a green man communing with the
spirits. The two of them circle and flounce, in and out, round and
round.

Hours pass. At first occasionally exchange a word with companion
dancers. Words don't serve to convey the feelings, but want them to
know aware of them and like their presence. Also know it's unnecessary
- they are already aware of it. All know we like each other. Not just
the drugs. With some people you like them from first meeting. As they
are. Distinct entities, but part of you. No need to worry about
interactions or what to say. Just exist with them. Belong. Don't talk
now for hours and stay in the flow. Everything here is right and simple
and good. This is the underlying reality - not mortgages and cars and
possessions and taxes. Raving sane. Unacquisitive love. Cruising in
Now.

Later stand by the fire and Exist there on the warmth - just oneself
and the universe. Sit with the others on the straw bales. Stars
overhead. Banter. Wait together. Dawn. A skein of geese skim overhead
and out over the empty fields. The wraith girl, and the green man, are
under them and writhe yet. Shamans. See faces in the foliage of his
costume. Benign faces of happy gods. Perfect.

[Imagine normal typeface resumed here!]

It took Pandora a while to digest. Firstly, although long aware of the
power of her visual imagination, she was now truly in awe of - almost
frightened by - the fantastic creativity of the human brain. It was a
wonder, a miracle that all that imagery was lying there, latent, to be
released when the moment was right. It was true that cannabis, alcohol
and especially the magic mushrooms had opened the doors of perception
for her, but she had the feeling that, with practice, these doors could
be opened at will. It was a matter of deep relaxation, and not of
force. Or was it that one was tapping into another plane of existence,
that one's brain was not conjuring it but simply accessing it? This
related to her second major revelation: she had never felt such a
powerful sense of community. No wonder people "opted out"! Who could
blame them? Were their lives any more to be despised than those of the
materialistic worker ants who supposedly constituted the good upright
citizenry of this country, buying, buying, buying, consuming,
polluting, always wanting more?

Pandora did not "opt out". While enjoying the occasional spliff, and
once or twice dropping some acid, she continued with her studies,
graduating cum laude. And so, to find a job...

Her final thesis had involved the interpretation of satellite imagery
using GIS software, and her natural aptitude for this, together with
the reasonable knowledge of geology she had acquired along the way,
made her highly employable. Ever one to try something new, she found
herself working for an oil and gas exploration company subcontracted to
BP. Two years of smiling at the chauvinist remarks of her colleagues
wore her down, and, when she was approached by a representative of
Chevron, she was happy to make the move.
Although this line of work did not directly fulfil her artistic side,
she was well paid and could afford frequent holidays to the artistic
centres of the world. The galleries of San Francisco (her new
hometown), New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rome, Venice,
Florence, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sydney were like second homes to
her. In addition, she was happily accumulating a fine collection of
modern art. By supporting young artists she was able, at least partly,
to salve her conscience perturbed by working for avaricious
multinationals. Her pilgrimage in May to "Les Portes Ouvertes des
Ateliers d'Artistes de Belleville" in Paris was the highlight of her
year. Here, she slipped easily into the bohemian milieu she had dabbled
in as a student, keeping her feet on the ground and her head in the
clouds as she sipped pastis in garrets and on the terrasse of Le
Soleil, her favourite bar, watching the hip Parisian crowd debate life
and art around her.

One evening, hunched over her computer in her San Francisco office, she
was approached by a smart young man in a grey suit. 'Miss Thomas? I'm
Ralph Kline. May we talk?' He presented his card: CIA.

Pandora's first thought was what had she done? Her frightened
expression must have been obvious to Ralph - perhaps he was used to it
- and he instantly reassured her. 'Don't worry, you've done nothing.
Look, we know a lot about you but it's all good. Well, mainly - we'll
overlook the use of psychedelics in your youth...' He smiled.

'Cheeky young pup,' thought Pandora, 'He's no older than I am!' He was,
as the Americans would say, "kinda cute". Unsettling. She blushed. He
smiled again.

'Don't worry about the money. You'll be very well paid. By the way,
we've taken care of your contract with Chevron. We'd like you to start
on Monday.'

Monday! Well, Chevron was leaving 'Frisco anyway, and she didn't fancy
San Ramon. She'd given them a couple of years. The timing seemed
fortuitous. Why not?

Washington DC was smaller than she had imagined. They gave her an
office in a small building not far from the Pentagon. Latest computers,
latest software, the plushest of furniture, air conditioning she could
control from a couple of buttons on her desk... At first the work was
familiar to her: satellite photographs, seismic and magnetic surveys.
Of Iraq. Where would the oil most likely be? She had the uneasy feeling
that they knew more than she did, that they were testing her. And Ralph
- he flirted with her, clearly fancied her, complimenting her on her
clothes and hair - but there was an unspoken barrier there. Underneath
all the charm she knew they were on different sides of a divide.

Then came 9/11. When the plane struck she felt the impact. Then
everything went quiet. For months, midst all the hullabaloo and then
Afghanistan, she felt sidelined, forgotten, neglected. Except the money
kept entering her bank account and she was told not to worry, to stay
around. She chilled, killed time in the art galleries. If nothing else
this curious new job had allowed her to discover some wonderful places
and people. Gallery K with its exciting mix of artists and fun
openings, the Troyer with its balance of abstract and realistic pieces,
Kathleen Ewing's wide-ranging showcase for photography, The Fraser,
Eklektikos, the Okuda, the Anton... She was in seventh heaven, became a
regular at the openings and the arts correspondent for one of the local
papers.

One day there was a knock on her door. She was downloading yet another
image of an oilfield - they sent her one a week for her to play with
(or so it appeared). Without waiting for her to respond, Ralph marched
in. His smile was tight-lipped. She knew that at last she was to find
out why she had been brought here. She could feel her carotid arteries
throb. She swallowed.

'Pandora, you may have guessed that we didn't just bring you here to do
the same job you were doing for Chevron. We know there's a great deal
of oil in Iraq. Most of the world's reserves in fact. We don't really
need you to do all that interpretation right now. We've done all the
background checks on you. We know we can trust you. Our, ummm..., our
informants in Washington say that you have kept your word and not told
anyone where you work or what you do. Yes, we have followed you, but
you must understand what the stakes are - Al Qaeda and all that? Mmm?
Well, we think you are probably the best person in the world to help us
now. We are going into Iraq, with or without the UN, we will do it. We
need you to spot the military targets, find the hidden caches of arms,
biological and chemical weapons factories... Or provide us with,
ahh...' He cleared his throat. 'Well, something that might be...' He
pursed his lips and Pandora watched his eyes travel the room. 'Listen,
Pandora, you're a creative person, aren't you? And a bright one? I
don't need to be too explicit, I think?'

'Do I have a choice?'

'Is that a no?'

'No, but...'

'Good. Let's just say that it would be for the greater good if you
acceded. And for your personal good.'

The nightmares started three weeks later. She woke screaming. It was
the faces: faces of starving Iraqi children emerging from satellite
images of the deserts; faces of grieving mothers next to the remains of
smouldering schools; the face of Bin Laden leering from the ruins of a
hospital destroyed by a US missile, gloating - she sensed - about the
support he would gain; the faces of Israeli bomb victims, rendered
abstract by the devastation of shrapnel; the faces of Palestinian
street urchins made bestial, feral, by the horrors they had witnessed -
the bulldozing of their homes and the murder of their friends.
Occasionally it was Tony Blair in the guise of a greedy sheep, but
mostly it was the face of George W. Bush, bloated but ravenous, oil
drooling from his dyspractic mouth. Now he was a death's head on the
back of a moth.

She struggled on, toiling over the mind-numbingly dull landscapes,
rotating through the contrast options, highlighting an anomaly here, a
suspicious blip there, trying to find something real that would not
force her to... "accede". But how could you spot a botulin factory
anyway? You could make the stuff in a cupboard! Palpitations
accompanied her first "creative" endeavours. Then came the
hallucinations, a diurnal version of her nightly torment - her
conscience calling.

It was easy to get a doctor to certify her as unable to work - probable
LSD flashbacks. She acted up, as deranged as possible. Tried to
convince them that she was no security risk. Eventually they let her
go.

They still keep tabs on her, but are less concerned today. She has
become a druid, lives on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall. She can see
the spirits in everything: faces in trees, in ponds and even in rivers,
although they appear and disappear so quickly. She has a vast
collection of close-up photographs of tree bark and peeling paint. With
a fine black pen she outlines the images she sees in these. Under
supervision, she takes the local nursery school art classes. She's
harmless enough, a nice lady.

You should meet her.