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ON THE DETACHED
Music: Kim Olesen. Vocal Melodies: Henrik Fevre.
There’s a point in time,
and a space in time
where the moons and suns
entwine and balance
Every now and then
silver beams escape and f ind their way
to the heart of a man
Having severed the bonds of time and space sometime in what you
would perceive as a distant past, The Detached are a people of infinity.
They are those of the humans gifted with that most sought after of
vanities; endlessness. They simply do not age, except by choice. Just as
it is natural for you to manipulate the dimensions of depth, width and
height; time is for them as matter, and manipulating it is as simple as
picking up an object in a room and placing it elsewhere. Larger objects
require more skill and power – sometimes even tools and machinery - to
move; it is the same for large shifts in time.
Their entire organisms are subject to only conscious and chosen aging;
their minds show no regress and their senses are as keen as the age they
desire to experience. It is important to note though, that endlessness and
immortality aren’t the same thing. The flesh of the detached is as weak
as that of any man.
As ages have passed – selectively – before their eyes, the Detached have
been brought to bear the blunt of their humanity in more ways than one.
Their minds, ageless as they are, have become the ultimate indication
that the experience travels with the actor as something untouchable,
superimposing a linearity even on those lives that have selective access to
time; the method the rest of us believe we perceive linearity by.
This is a story of a detached – perhaps not one of the ones who has
fared best in the continuum. His name is Bilao, and we meet him first
on a mountain in the Italian Alps.
FIND A WAY (OR
MAKE ONE)
Music: Kim Olesen, Jesper M Jensen. Vocal Melodies: Jacob Hansen.
Bilao stood looking at the Elephants in the snow. Absurd. They
moved about – back and forth - slowly and silently from this distance.
They seemed stuck in the frozen otherness of the Alps. Had he been
near them, he would have heard the sounds of ropes creaking, swords
clanking – smelled the sweat of the beasts and the burning oils of the
lanterns. But he wasn’t near.
Bilao was – is – a tall man of beautiful complexion. He was wearing a
white leather coat, lined with the fur and crowned with a hood that was
tied tightly around his tanned face.
That, over there, in the distance was his friend, Simelas, these days
calling himself by the name Hannibal, and toying with the limits of the
possible; altering the conscience of the humans of this time.
Bilao moved closer in an instant, as the champion of Carthage prepared
to speak to his frustrated men. Hannibal gestured with his hand as he
rose to the back of a war elephant and screamed to his tired soldiers.
Bilao heard him say: “We will either find a way, or make one!”
I am enchanted by the tide
The mere anxiety for the ride
Find a way or make one to be heard
It’s time to change
On backs of beasts we ride
Chaotic realms subconsciously defied
We’re changing snowflakes into water
Bringing damaged cells to the slaughter
I’m on this quest to seek the truth
the scene is set for alteration
Using my powers of infinite youth
to dissolve the desolation
Find a way or make one to be seen
What’s done can be undone
On backs of beasts we ride
Chaotic realms subconsciously defied
We’re changing snowflakes into water
This journey’s set to turn
All human conscience back to live-and-learn
Replacing liquid states with mortar
I am a soldier in the know
Leading a wishful path through the snow
with head held high
On backs of beasts we ride
Chaotic realms subconsciously defied
This journey’s set to turn
All human conscience back to live-and-learn
Replacing liquid states with mortar
YIRI
Music: Jesper M Jensen, Kim Olesen. Vocal Melodies: Henrik Fevre.
In the Australian desert, even time is hard to move under the merciless
burn of the noonday sun. It is easy to get lost in the monotony of the
landscape. It seems endless.
There are those who attribute only romantic notions to the sonic practices
that make up the songlines that crisscross the continent of red sand.
But to Bilao, the songlines really are a map of unseen paths, that crawl
through the vast emptiness, allowing those in the know to sing their way
through the absence of civilization. Away from the feeling of being lost.
Bilao learned to sing his way across time and space, by replicating the
system of the songlines. The stories and melodies make up a transparent
reality, super-imposable upon the emptiness, carrying with it its own
landscape, its own cities, friendships and signposts. Its own direction.
Such are the songlines. Bilao had known for very long, but he always
sang alone – so naturally he wondered about the landscapes evoked by
others through their song. This was clearly before he met her.
With a decision, he moved time and placed it in a cathedral where
monks sang. Bilao was dressed like one himself, and he smiled slightly
as he ran his hand across his bald head. He sat down and looked
at the brothers singing. Their words were in Latin. They sang a low
song about a reality quite different from that of the cloister. They sang
together and with it mapped out a route they could travel, and that could
only lead to the place they sang forth. Bilao lowered his head.
Bilao:
Out of the desert sun
Cathedral vaults so immense
Might even make an emperor lose his stature
The brother:
Wait! There’s something in the air
You might feel it yourselves
A different chemistry among the brothers
Bilao:
I am here to understand the words you’re singing
I know I’m a stranger
As yet just a stranger to this circle
The song’s beguiling
The brothers are smiling
The distant feeling’s gone
The same reflections
Profound intentions
Have brought us closer
The brother:
Your proficiency in language
increases our chance
to map the unknown co-ordinates of our futures
Bilao:
How to penetrate the mystery of second sight
The words of a yiri!
A lifetime of travel compositions
The song’s beguiling
The brothers are smiling
United we’ll be
Searching for answers
Merging to answer
The holy questions of life
Eyes looking down in prayer
The song’s beguiling
The brothers are smiling
United we’ll be
Searching for answers
Merging to answer
The holy questions
Searching for reasons
Merging to reason
The holy questions of life
LOST IN MY SELF
Music: Jacob Hansen. Vocal Melodies: Jacob Hansen.
Dear Bilao,
I decided to leave this letter for you here at this time, in the hope you will
get it when you are here. You need to know that man is more than that
which is able to recognize it self as a victim. He must be, for else he is
nothing but the sum of functions that keep death at bay.
Does this mean that endlessness is not something physical, rather it
is something man has within – and that I am not endless, because I
feel victimized and alone? I know I feel abandoned and estranged, but
should I pity my self ?
It is very confusing. But on the bright side I have all the time I need to
figure it out, and, if this letter finds you in time, your help in addition?
Hope hear from you soon,
Bilao.
My weary soul’s divided
I feel it questions all I am
All I am
The wavering inside it
A free man versus caged inhabitant
on his own land
The mirrored face bewildered,
a fierce contraction
Reaction
Lost in my self
Lack or wealth
Lost in my self and my mind
The skills that I’ve been given
A revelation?
Devastation?
Enforced eternity
Designed by destiny
My stand was never heard in this obscurity
Lost in my self
Lack or wealth
Lost in my self and my mind
DODECAHEDRON
Music: Kim Olesen, Jesper M Jensen. Vocal Melodies: Henrik Fevre,
Kim Olesen, Jacob Hansen.
.
..The universe was perceived as infinite for the longest time. Its infinity
helped physicists make ends meet, and it accounted for that most accidental
of miracles; life. “In an infinite space, all occurrences – even that
which is infinitely unlikely will happen once”, it was said. Infinity and
endlessness accounted for much. However, to the detached, the universe
is not infinite. It is large, but not infinite. Rather it is a twelve sided
shape; a dodecahedron, the edges of which are paired and connected by
doughnut-shaped tracts, each twisting what goes out through one pane
of the 12-sided shape and projecting it back into the figure through the
connected side. This accounts for the wrongful perception of infinity that
man had for the longest time; time and space is so large it is hard to
get a good look at. But when it comes down to it, it is repetition with a
twist, only on a very large scale...
Out here at the timeline
at lightspeed I travel
although my thinking’s barely moving
I’m recharging my senses
Awaiting tomorrow
One more place in time
Just a f lash and I’ll be back on earth again
Building dreams for free men
Just a f lash and I’ll be part of life again
Anywhen
Out here at the timeline
The dodecahedron
retains the history we’re living
A second home for the detached
with room for reflection
Out of space and time
Just a f lash and I’ll be back on earth again
Building dreams for free men
Just a f lash and I’ll be part of life again
Anywhen
I penetrate the aerosphere
My destination’s drawing near
Through halls of myth and dreamy light
The noise, the sand, the building site
Just a f lash and I’ll be back on earth again
Building dreams for free men
Just a f lash and I’ll be part of life again
Anywhen
PYRAMIDS
Music: Kim Olesen. Vocal Melodies: Jacob Hansen.
Bilao looked out over the massive construction site. It was night, and the
darkness was so thick, that the only way to spot the massive structure
that was being built, was to trace its outline as it obstructed the stars on
the night sky. This was where a man – a finite man – of vision worked
his version of the truth in a race against time. Gizeh was warm this
summer. This was his 10th year on the site. There were some 20000
men in his zaa, some of whom he had come to know very well. All
worked here for pay - either as a substitution for taxes, or for cash
from the Pharaoh. All were skilled craftsmen. The nights in the desert
were cold, this one was no exception; but there was music and there
was always the stars. Bilao always thought that the stars were a gate
to somewhere else. To an infinity larger than the one he had attained
by becoming detached. The stars were the goal of ones dreams; timeless
and without purpose. He enjoyed thinking about what he could do with
eternity as others came and went – or at least aged, as they had over the
decade here on the site. Even Khufu, the mighty Pharaoh, was visibly
older, and the pyramid was still only half done.
This particular evening the music of the camps was periodically trumped
by the sound of the smithies working overtime. In the dark beyond him,
the blade of his huge Bronze saw, weighed down with large rocks, rested
against the wall of the dormitory. Tomorrow he would be on one end of
the two-man blade: sawing, sprinkling sand into the open cut, sawing
and sprinkling again. The blade, the muscle, the song, the smithies – all
tools for building the necropolis. As he fell asleep, Bilao thought about
the paradox of death being so remarkably industrious.
Awaiting the sun
A monument of dreams to gaze upon
Tomorrow’s foretold
A monument of grandeur will unfold
In this starry night I take a sight
at these unworldly structures
In silence
I cross to other worlds
In my stargazing
There’s an entrance
to something more than this
Awaiting the sun
A monument of dreams to gaze upon
A new era’s under way
Tomorrow’s foretold
at the crucial break of day
A monument of grandeur will unfold
After ended warlike affairs
we’ve turned our swords to plowshares
In silence
I tend to ask myself
What’s eternal?
A delusion?
A fluid state of mind?
Awaiting the sun
A monument of dreams to gaze upon
When darkness turns to light
Tomorrow’s foretold
A monument of grandeur will unfold
And it’s reaching for the sky
Awaiting the sun
Awaiting the sun
Revealing’s begun...
OUT OF TIME
Music: Henrik Fevre, Kim Olesen. Vocal Melodies: Henrik Fevre.
Consciousness continues, even when time becomes an object and its
established linearity becomes jumbled. You carry your love within your
experience as you drift through the ages. There is no reset when you move
time; you do not become unborn by passing by the date of your birth.
Nor do you forget, simply by reversing past an event. Experience travels
along and creates its own coherence. You don’t fall out of love because of
time; you fall out of love because of experience.
Bilao met her at a banquet at the court of a Byzantine merchant.
She too was among the detached. When they spoke, their words took
the form of a song. She told him her thoughts on love and how the
accumulation of experience created its own linearity for her. He in turn
explained about the songs that made up his map, and she nodded in
recognition. It was the same; but she worded it differently. She suggested
that love might just be enough to fi ll up eternity. Put an end to the
endless, as it were. Although confused as to the purpose of that, Bilao
listened to her and her beautiful voice.
While he did, he felt his gaze drift outside of himself, and looked
down upon them. They were seated across from each other in an arched
hallway in the merchants home. Her hair was pretty. Unusually pretty;
prettier than Bilao had seen in the past or in the future. He stopped
listening to her talk after a while and just watched her lips move. His
gaze fl oated ever outwards, the hallway becoming roofed and part of
a house, which in turn revealed itself to be in a town, that lay nestled
among mountains under a black starry sky. But despite the rapid
ascend of his gaze, it was as if he remained there with her as well; at a
place with depth, width and height. And out of time.
There’s a f ire within
that may burn your skin
It can make you blind
and leave the world behind
Every night we pray
that our hearts
be taken by these forces of magic some day
It may be today
Long time gone
My life was merely day by day
A lone crusade
through self-denial and delay
The thought of something more
kept me at war
until my very mind
was opened and out of time
Opened and out of time
When we spoke
our words would take the form of a song
While joined in laughter and tears,
my sense of time had disappeared
All the things we’d done meant nothing
once the ground we walked upon
was replaced and out of time
Replaced and out of time
Replaced and out of time...
There’s a light to guide us
Once we understand
BLOODOATH
Music: Jesper M Jensen, Kim Olesen, Jacob Hansen. Vocal Melodies:
Jacob Hansen.
The scary insight into how fragile life is - the dawning of the realization,
that with being detached from time eternally came no protection
from the violence of reality - came to Bilao in a terrible rush of pain
and tearing of flesh. It was somewhen in the early 28th century; many,
many experiences ago. Bilao was immersed in conversation, seated inside
a carriage traveling the orbital highways of a colony. The carriage had
a malfunction.
Bilao still vividly remembers the screaming noise of the vehicles hull
twisting instantly in the collision with an ongoing carriage. It is part
of a song that hurts. The walls of the carriage folded towards him at
great speed, and he had no time to move himself out of time – or out
of the way for that matter. The crushing impact made the material cut
into him with an ease that seemed almost comical. Then he passed out
from the pain.
He regained consciousness in a hospital where medicinal technologies
of the day could keep anyone who was brought in with the mere
remnants of a pulse, alive. A doctor helped him, but couldn’t help him
negotiate the mental anguish of near destruction. It made him want
to experience that which would make him understand what he had no
need to experience.
Had it happened in a past time with less technology at its command, in
a different manner - Bilao crushed under the impact of a rock, thrown
from an enemy catapult – all infinity and detachment had mattered not.
Bilao would have been dead. As it were, he survived, and rose from
his sickbed compelled by the experience, to sing forth a different map
of places of loss.
From the urge to seek my sources
I travel to restore
and bring myself to break down the door
I’m taken in by vicious forces
to realms of death and horror
Submersion into underworlds at war
Must face the madness
though it hurts
Must face the blackness
though it hurts
Mortal dread’s become
a drag on being one with my self
I seem to struggle with defenses
and the infinity of man
threatened by the vulnerable “I am”
In every corner of my senses
there’s a will to alteration
It’s been haunting me ad nauseam
Must face the madness
though it hurts
Must face the blackness
though it hurts
Mortal dread’s become
a drag on being one with my self
If someone’s out there
I need a word for protection
And if you’re out there
this oath of blood is bonded by affection
Mortal dread’s become
a drag on being one with my self
Mortal dread’s become
a drag on being one with all else
Mortal dread’s succumbed
Mortal dread’s succumbed
AMMONIA SNOW
Music: Kim Olesen. Vocal Melodies: Jacob Hansen.
Bilao looked at the Ammonia falling outside. The temperature was
dropping and the rain was becoming more like sleet. When it got below
75 freezing it would be proper snow. It was the main distraction from
the monotony of his life as a captive. He was confined to spheric chamber,
and had let them sentence him because it felt like the right thing to
do. He wanted to experience institutionalized justice – and he wanted to
help those who sentenced him feel righteous.
Before the transport to the prison facility, he was given a sedative that
rendered him unconscious. He wasn’t scared at all, he knew that once
he felt he had learned his lesson – experienced what he needed here - he
could easily move time backwards, to a point where his prison-chamber
didn’t exist – or forward to a place where it would have succumbed to
the wear and tear of time. And then he would be free. Or so he thought.
But he hadn’t really envisioned this, despite all his experience... His
spheric prison was what kept him safe from that which lay outside it.
If he moved enough time out of the way - forwards or backwards - the
sphere would indeed eventually disappear or collapse, but then he would
be outside in the thundering silence of the ammonia snow, where he
would die painfully within seconds. He was struggling; at the same time
depressed and bored by his own regrets and stupidity. Was that all he
had to look forward to then; a long wait before death?
I look out, the moon is rising
The only light of my experiment:
Imprisonment
I lost myself
Lack of wealth
I lost myself and my mind
I needed time away
to understand my deeds of yesterday
It’s now a matter of repentance
This stay’s about to turn
my shady conscience back to live-and-learn
To f ind the meaning of existence
Encaged by deadly snowflakes
I face a long and painful destiny
Reality
I lost myself
Lack of wealth
I lost myself and my mind
I needed to address
Chaotic realms so easy to possess
I tripped and fell without resistance
This stay’s about to turn
my shady conscience back to live-and-learn
To f ind the meaning of existence
OPTIONS
- GOING NOWHERE
Music: Kim Olesen, Jesper M Jensen. Vocal Melodies: Henrik Fevre.
It was like moving a mountain with your bare hands. A hundred years,
with nowhere to put them and no tools to help carry the burden. It was a
massive undertaking. The Sphere eventually caved in after enough time
was moved out of the way.
The freezing rain immediately burned into his skin. He tried to move,
but his skin got brittle and splintered instantly. His breath froze solid
in his mouth and lungs, and he lost consciousness within seconds after
the sphere collapsed. Where and whenever he was, it was simply too
cold to be.
However, she always had him in mind. She asked around. She would
say to friends: ‘You never forget old love’, and she would laugh a little.
She heard of Bilao’s imprisonment; he was being held on an ammonia
mining colony in an outer system. On the upside, it was a system ruled
by law. At first she wanted to break him out, but then she learned
that Bilao had done nothing to avoid capture and sentencing. And she
realized only too well that what he was sentenced for warranted his
punishment. So she didn’t. Break him out, that is.
Instead, she spent some years gaining the trust and respect of the people
on the colony, before she finally had an application accepted to work as
a guard in the colony’s prison facilities. That way she could watch him.
And watch over him. It got a little twisted; almost as if he was her pet.
Too many options will do that to you.
It’s a flaw, it’s a crime
Sadly I’ve been fooled by time
Thus dissolved by the rain;
the lethal shower of ammonia
caught me unrestrained
Nothing lef t to repent
My vivid journey finally came to end
As the Sphere caved in
and lef t me in vain
I’m going nowhere
Let me out, hear my prayer
I’m going nowhere
Can’t stand up, I’m trying
to return to yesterday but my voice
is numb and it won’t obey
Trains of thought through my mind
How could I have been so blind?
All I gained from my crusade
was a premonition of my death,
only much too late
Every time, every place
comes to life within the inner space
‘fore my mind gives in
Exhausted by pain
I’m going nowhere
Let me out, hear my prayer
I’m going nowhere
Can’t stand up, I’m trying
to return to yesterday but my voice
is numb and it won’t obey
Waiting there in the wings
Knowing what the future would bring
Patiently she watched him go
from retraction to deep sorrow
Disintegration began
but sheltered under her wingspan
His old heart clung to the bit of life
that once was substance
Saved in silence
A LIFETIME TO
SHARE
Music: Jesper M Jensen, Kim Olesen. Vocal Melodies: Henrik Fevre.
Bilao’s story could have ended there in the freezing rain. It didn’t; he
lost consciousness – true – but she was never of a mindset to watch
him die. Rather, she was watching him. Ready for the moment when the
sphere collapsed.
The frozen wastes of the ammonia outpost were cold, but not so cold
that proper equipment couldn’t negotiate it. She came prepared and
immediately picked him up as his mind faded into frozen oblivion. She
sheltered him and – having brought the proper tools for such endeavors
– immediately moved more time with a single gesture, than he had been
able to during the years of his imprisonment. She moved them to a place
where his body could be saved.
Her intent was very clear. She didn’t save him so that they could
continue. She had no intentions of negotiating his past experiences for
him by continuing in an endless loop. She rescued him from that icy rain
for only one reason; attachment.
Bilao regained consciousness somewhere in the 17th century. He was in
a bed. There were people talking outside his door, but he couldn’t make
out the language. Polish? Russian? It sounded Slavic to him.
The last thing he recalled was the searing pain of the ammonia rain
as he stood in the collapsed prison sphere; he immediately looked at his
arm. It was unscathed. Not a scar. No burns.
The door opened and she came in.
“You’re here?”, Bilao asked.
“Yeah”, she said with a smile.
“Why?”, he looked at her.
“I wanted us to get over it. The past and the future. All the time and
what not? Get over it, you know..”
Her attachment to the time they were in was solidifying for her even
as they spoke. She felt they were no worse off than other lovers. Who
carries not a wealth of joy, pain, disappointment, glory, embarrassment,
bravery, cowardice, victory and defeat with them in any relation?
“You are older”, said Bilao. She was. Ever so slightly older. Her hair
had changed its colour a little and her eyes had odd little wrinkles at
their edges.
She smiled at him. “Yes”, she said. “You should stay here with me.”
She had chosen to age, and was to end her experience here. It was
irreversible. She could only recommend it to Bilao – it was far superior
to what they had been doing so far. She thought about the dodecahedron
universe; of how infinity really was just repetition with a twist. She had
ended repetition here, and felt closer to infinity for it.
Weightless in the morning light
I f ind myself awake
Vaguely I recall the night
My whole wide world at stake
I failed, she came
Broke into my game
In another time
with blessing in her hand
She kneels before my bed and I’m
supposed to understand
Somewhat older
Time weighs on her shoulders
No one can see all the worlds they have travelled
No one compares with their powers at hand
All of the pieces that puzzled their journey
are now in position to land
No one can see it’s a strange allegation
Detached with only a lifetime to share
The countdown has started for her expiration
A precious but mortal affair
Knowing that your hourglass
has limited grains of sand
defines our destiny
I won’t part with repetition,
this is what I am
I choose infinity
I’ll stay for long
But some day I’ll be gone
No one can see all the worlds they have travelled
No one compares with their powers at hand
All of the pieces that puzzled their journey
are now in position to land
No one can see it’s a strange allegation
Detached with only a lifetime to share
While the countdown has started for her expiration
He’s got all the time in the world to spare
Bilao looked at her, and instinctively knew that he
would stay to see her off. 40 years. Perhaps 60. Once
she was gone, he would move on. He couldn’t stay......
.....another time perhaps.....