What YOU need to know about the Kuboshes by Seth Deitch

What YOU need to know about the Kuboshes by Seth Deitch


The waitress came by my table and refilled my coffee just after I emptied it for the third time in the last thirty minutes.
“It’s scary, isn’t it? Like I can read your mind.” She quipped.
I wondered how scared she would be if she really could read my mind.
I put aside the random thought. I needed to focus. Things were happening, the whole world felt tense. I was shielded from the transmissions, but I knew I would be deluding myself were I to believe that was a permanent solution. Sooner or later they tumble to the fact that they are no longer getting through and then they move as quickly as possible.
I paid the check and thanked the waitress and tipped her exactly ten percent so as not to draw attention with either niggardliness or extravagance. I did, however, risk leaving a pamphlet with it. I liked that waitress. Her name was Deedee. I wanted her to be informed about the coming great changes.
In my apartment, I carefully replaced the lining in my hat. The aluminum foil had become worn and would soon start to admit the probe rays if I failed to take action. Once, not too long ago, a hole that I allowed to go unrepaired had allowed a probe to get through and lead me into a spate of obsessive masturbation that lasted for a week. Since that time, I have been more vigilant.
I noticed that one of the boxes of pamphlets in the corner wasn’t properly lined up with the others and hoped that it hadn’t been that way for too long. The probes can sense the disturbance in the resonance field. I corrected the error and hoped for the best.
This man who had been elected president was a papist. What could this mean but ruin? A sign of the end times! How could a man who was aware think otherwise? Since he had taken control of the government, and even more so since the new pope had come to power, the beams had become stronger, the heralds in the sky had appeared more frequently and my harassment by the police had become more obvious. The strange thing was that he himself seemed to be unaware of the conspiracy, perhaps because he represented a counter conspiracy. His predecessor knew some of it. “Military/Industrial complex”. Ha! It was far, far broader than that.
It was almost ten o’clock, which was when I was supposed to meet with my Controller. He walked and in the park at that time every day and we had a few minutes to converse.
The clouds of doom were only metaphoric on this bright and sunny morning. I was the only one in the park with a coat. It made me stand out, but a trench coat could conceal more shielding than a light jacket.
I spotted him immediately along with his keeper, a pleasant tempered woman in early middle age, who had, for some reason, never married. The Controller turned his golden eyes on me as she unhooked his collar, but bolted off in another direction. He could learn more from sniffing a tree stump than I could from reading the entire newspaper.
I approached and waved at the woman, her name was Elizabeth Martin, and said “Nice morning!”
“Isn’t it though? How are you Mister Case?” She called over to my controller as he was starting to dig at the base of a tree. “Moosie! Your friend is here!”
His ears pricked up and he bounded toward me. He nearly bowled me over as he put his paws up on me and slobbered all over my hand. While it was abhorrent to me, I tolerated the physical contact because it was part of his cover. “We must talk,” he muttered while still licking my hand.
I had psychically encoded my report and needed to pass it to him. I knelt down so we were face to face and pulled it from my pocket. “Moosie, I have a present for you!” I held up the pink rubber Spaldeen and then tossed it fifty feet. He dashed after it and picked up the information without effort.
“You and Moosie have such a rapport.” Said Elizabeth. “Do you and your wife have dogs?” She gazed at me archly; she had subtly accented the word wife rather than the word dogs. I thought it best to keep my response neutral.
“I can’t have pets where I live.” I forced a sad smile.
“Your landlord won’t let you keep one, or maybe your wife is allergic?” Again the accent on wife. Was this some sort of code?
The Controller was starting to roll around on a squirrel corpse. Elizabeth saw and clapped her hands together loudly. “Moosie! Stop that!”
I knew it was my cue to move. “I’ll go get him Miss Martin.”
“Thank you so much. I simply can’t have him bringing that smell into the house!” She met my eyes. “And please, call me Elizabeth.”
I dashed after my contact and grabbed his collar pulling him away from the dead rodent. He looked me in the eye. “It’s about time.” He said. “I wish that I could do something less disgusting to get you alone to talk!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “Elizabeth was asking personal questions,... I was distracted.”
“She is a slut, she wants to suck your energy so you can’t perform the mission. You must maintain your celibacy!”
“I know, I know.”
“Continue to evade her probing about your personal life. You have no personal life. Your life is the mission.”
“I understand.”
“Alright then. Today you need to meet with six people. Any six people, but they should be as divergent as possible. Talk to them about Russia, Cuba, Baseball, Mrs. Kennedy’s hats, whatever, but find out their favorite color! I need to know the key wavelengths for more people so I can arrive at an average.”
“Favorite colors, o.k.”
“You’d better go now. You have a lot to do.”
I led my controller back to his keeper and bid them both goodbye.
As I walked away, Elizabeth called after me. “Give my best to Mrs. Case.”
I almost faltered in my pace. Did she know my mother? Had I ever asked Deedee her favorite color? I needed another cup of coffee. My controller had repeatedly told me that I should have as much of the stimulant beverage as possible. It keeps me sharp for the battle. I didn’t need to ask Elizabeth. The Controller lived with her after all, he would know already.
I knew what people thought who casually observed the workings of my life, even the small parts that I allow the public to see, to them I appear to be insane. It tortures me for people to see me that way, but I must do these things in order to accomplish the great work. Sometimes “Moosie” called upon me to inform the public about some aspect of our work. Those times were the worst. I don’t like the way people look at me when I talk about what’s really going on. Most of them are dupes; hapless pawns of a conspiracy so great that even those of us who are aware of it can barely fathom its intricacies. Even worse is being told to “move along” by police officers, as if I was a common criminal. Mocking me with their eyes. They want me dead, but they can’t just kill me straight out. Not now, not yet, but time is coming that they will be able to execute me for thinking the wrong thoughts. Can’t they see I’m trying to save their lives?
From what my controller told me, I fashioned a master chart that delineates all of the connections for my own reference. It takes up an entire wall of my apartment and has many amendments tacked up on it on small pieces of paper. I keep promising myself I’ll redo the entire thing on a single large sheet, but the situation and the relationships are fluid, ever changing. Those who are duped by the shadow reality created by the conspiracy find it impossible to believe that our rulers, our owners, would go through so much trouble to fool them. If they only knew exactly how and why they were being duped, they would whistle a different tune, that’s for sure!
It turned out that Deedee liked pink. I admit surprise. People who favor pastels usually seem less honest and straightforward than her. I would have expected her to be a more committed red or blue type. Pink is the same color as the Spaldeen that I used to carry information to the controller. I would have to make special note of that on the chart.
I realized that I had no favorite color. I would have to ask the controller what that meant. I wondered if maybe all agents had no favorite color, that all frequencies of light effected their emotions equally.
“Puff the Magic Dragon” was playing on the radio in the Woolworth’s diner. It had been preceded by “The Monster Mash”, last year’s hit, but Halloween was coming up in a week and it was appropriate to the season. Dragons and monsters. If only they knew. If only they knew.
My life was actually far better than it had been before my controller discovered me. I didn’t know that the feelings and intuitions that I had related to something greater than myself. There was some comfort in knowing that there actually was a conspiracy to control my mind and that I was actually hearing strange instructions being beamed into my consciousness by the agents of darkness. I am not insane.
It was a wonderful day when Elizabeth Martin first spoke to me. The rays had been doing their evil work. I had been thinking the most unclean thoughts…thinking them with the most unclean words. She said I looked troubled. Not knowing who she was, I was understandably reluctant to tell her that strange voices were telling me to fornicate with almost anything and that Jesus would love me for it, so I just told her I had had a bad day at work. It was a lie. A sinful lie. I had been living off of a small inheritance for a few years.
She asked me my name. I said, “Joseph Case”, but even then, my own name sounded like an alien construct to me. I had not yet learned my true name.
She asked me to watch her dog for a moment while she went to make a phone call. As soon as she was out of sight, the animal spoke to me.
The dog turned huge, intense brown eyes upon me. “I have been looking for you.” He said, matter-of-factly.
I was alarmed and at first pretended not to hear him. I stood rigidly gripping his lead in my white-knuckled hand.
“Don’t ignore me. I’m here to save your life.”
Those were the words! I knew that those would be the words spoken by the one who would explain everything! I was ecstatic!
In the few moments we had that first meeting, he laid out the bare bones of what it was I had been experiencing and how I could be instrumental in defeating the dark design that they were a signal of. He told me that we must meet often and he would instruct me in my part of the plan for the world’s salvation. I would work alone and would never meet another agent except him until the plan was completed. At that time all the agents would become the new philosopher kings and help Jesus return to Earth!
Just before Elizabeth returned, he told me how to block the rays and gave me my first assignment. When she sat down, she asked me if I came to the park often.
“All the time.” I said.
She beamed. That’s so nice! Moosie likes you, I do hope we will see you often.”
The controller told me to line my apartment walls with aluminum foil to block the rays. A lining of it in my hat would be required when I left the house. I must keep myself scrupulously clean and all products of my body had to be carefully disposed of. No parings of my skin or nails could be put out with the garbage. They must be burned and the ashes flushed down the toilet. My clothing could not leave the house with any stains of sweat, saliva, mucus, urine, feces or ejaculate, therefore I had to pre-wash all of my things before I went to the laundry. I must avoid physical contact with others, particularly women and I must not have intercourse. It was imperative that I keep all of my vital fluids in check.
The force that was our enemy was known as the “Goromes”. They were monsters from a malevolent dimension who have been rampaging through our universe for millions of years. They reached our planet some thousands of years ago and have been responsible for all the misery that has marked human history. The Kuboshes, who were agents of the Goromes worked hard to distract humanity with sexual impulses. They reached across space-time to affect sensitive tissues with heat and moisture and swelling until all the victim felt was need for release and the powers of the world meant nothing. They defiled our very bodies to advance their evil program. I knew that castration would protect me, but the controller forbade it and forced me to get by with an aluminum foil shield in my under shorts. I complained of the discomfort to The Controller. His opinion was that removing my genitals would cause quite a bit more discomfort than that. Furthermore, it was a good discipline to maintain my purity against the demon Kuboshes on my own strengths.
The Goromes needed the sex energy of mankind so they could bring the Tumblebugs to Earth. Tumblebugs were psychic war machines that came in the guise of conglomerate corporations. Their mission was to tell people to indulge in sinful sex and ignore the incursion of the Goromes. They use the stolen sex energy in their advertisements and as beamed weapons against agents like myself. The result is that most of humanity is insane, driven mad by the Tumblebugs, but I have become aware. I am now, for the first time, in control of myself. I am not insane.
It was important for me to appear as “normal” as possible and not stand out to avoid instant termination by The Goromes. The controller insisted that that I appear as a perfect unremarkable member of society to his keeper in particular. The reason for this was unclear to me, but I complied. As far as Elizabeth Martin was concerned, I was a junior account executive with an advertising agency on Madison avenue, a job I had actually held before the sex rays got too strong. At that time in my life, although I didn’t know it, I had been a servant of the Tumblebugs.
The faces of people in the streets and on television show so little awareness. They simply go on with their happy lives without a clue as to the reality of the human condition. Charles Fort seemed to show remarkable insight when he said “I think we might be property.” It was not insight, but a statement of known truth, for Fort was an agent like myself. His writings are the Bible’s Third Testament.
I stopped to purchase newspapers at a stand near the park. I grabbed a Daily News, a New York Times and a Herald Tribune as well as a racing form and a copy of Popular Mechanics. The newsie was an Italian man with shifty eyes and a pencil line moustache. He was eyeing a cop who had picked up a Daily News and flipped straight to the comics page but had yet to make any indication of intent to pay for it known. As he was chuckling over the antics of Little Orphan Annie, I reached into my pocket for a dollar to pay for my reading matter. In rapid succession I fumbled the papers and then dropped some change. I drew the attention of the officer when he caught a glimpse of the foil lining of my trench coat. As I bent to pick up my papers and change, the cop asked, “Does that keep you warmer, Mack?”
I attempted to remain composed. “Why, yes. Yes it does! You should try it.”
The cop gave me a strange look. Did he suspect more? He gave a short laugh. “Ha! You bust me up! I don’t know how well the silver would go with the blue.”
“So you like blue?”
He held the inquiring expression. “You think the uniform of the New York City police department is funny? This blue is my favorite color!”
That was two down, four to go. “Of course not, officer. You have a nice day!” I paid the newsie, received thirty cents change and hurried away.
I needed to get to my apartment before noon so that I could receive the message of the title. This was one of the many ways Kuboshes communicated with one another. WPIX was running “One in a Million” and an episode of “The Phantom Empire”. The meaning of the serial title was laughably transparent, but the reference in the title of the light ice skating musical was less obvious and would require study. I would have to consult the metrics. I switched off the television. All I needed was the titles of the films. I wouldn’t need to consult it again until the afternoon.
I returned to the street and started counting New Jersey license plates as I walked five blocks north. The number of them on that walk at that time of day provides one of the twelve metrics used by the Kuboshes. Today there were six. When I had all twelve, I could set up the graph.
Then suddenly there was the image of Khruschev standing on a hill of corpses making an obscene gesture at me as a convoy of flying saucers streamed overhead. Nazi storm troopers with vampire fangs pointed machine guns at me while giggling like little girls! A dog defecated on the Declaration of independence and a legion of boys pointed and laughed at the dog and at my horror. An atomic mushroom sprouted over the island of Manhattan in the form of a laughing devil face! Khrushchev pounded the Earth with the heel of his shoe while sporting a gap-toothed grin.
I reeled from the vision! Tottered like drunken sailor right there on the street. The vision passed as quickly as it had come.
A middle aged man put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you alright, buddy?”, he asked.
His touch was electric and terrifying. If any of the Gorome poison that I had worked so hard to rid myself of should seep into my clothing it would set me back several weeks worth of ablutions. “Don’t touch me!”, I screamed. “Don’t transfer your devil juice! Don’t open me to the sex vibrations!”
The man stepped back looking confused. In my alarm, my hat had come off and the sex rays were suddenly streaming into my brain. I grabbed it off the sidewalk as quickly as I could and jammed it onto my head.
The man said, “Sorry pal, I was only trying to help!”
I was distraught. “You bastard, you damned bastard!” I was on the verge of tears.
Hey, buddy, you’re in public, there’s ladies present! Watch your language!”
“Ladies! Energy sluts! They want my power! Fuckfuckfuckfuck fuckity-fuck! That’s all they want and I am left like Sampson, shorn and blind!”
A younger man jumped forward and grabbed the collar of my coat. “You better shut up you crazy son-of-a-bitch!” He had hair in a pompadour, a lot of pimples and was chewing on a toothpick. “You take the crazy shit somewhere else, get it?”
He released my collar and I hurried off before a cop decided to show up. “I am not insane!”, I muttered under my breath. The visions didn’t come to me often when I was in public. I mostly had them at home. The visions could be triggered by all sorts of things, but thoughts about sex or the government or my mother were most likely to bring one. I think the Kuboshes were attempting to interfere with my collecting the metrics.
I turned and looked down the block and closed and opened my eyes slowly while reciting the Lord’s prayer. On the fourth opening (on the line “on Earth as it is in Heaven”) I counted the red and green lights out to the horizon. Three red, the second metric. There were six cabs waiting at the stand on the corner, the third metric. The clock at the automat was two minutes slow compared to my watch, the fourth metric. Pies at the automat on 42nd‘s windows were lined up blueberry, blueberry, apple, custard, the fifth metric. I had a piece of the apple while I observed women’s hats. Pillboxes proliferated, but I was looking for floral motifs. I counted four out of ten, the sixth metric.
I know the metrics sound like they are random. Let me point out that they can be gathered from a great number of different sources. The invaders have remodulated the laws of chance by their presence placing odds for certain occurrences higher or lower than would normally be expected. Only certain types of human minds can be trained to perceive these fluxuations. My controller has such a mind.
As I left the automat I passed a pretty young woman who wore a lavender silk scarf. I took a chance.
“lovely scarf.” I commented.
“It’s my favorite color!” She chirped merrily. So noted.