PENKNIFE

since time moves backwards in this story, there is no plot twist in the conventional sense, but there is the slow discovery of certain connexions and situations that appear as you read. maybe you could read this after reading the book

in old world we follow and unfollow a character called sánchez, a student who travels and unravels out through time towards his own personal truth and love and understanding.

sánchez is witness to something incomprehensible, and as he roves restlessly around europe in a bid to learn about the technological and psychic marvel at the heart of his own dream-prophecy. the 5 short chapters circle each other like birds and within them sánchez tries to work his imagination into a seemingly innocent science fiction film script.

in his vision, space ships are leaving earth to a new planet. the elite are abandoning the world since the climate has collapsed and they are in the Age of Rain. constant downpour, bloated rivers and rising seas have disrupted the system, so the rich and powerful are using the chaos and confusion to make their hasty escape. clearly they are not going alone. they are taking slaves with them.

old world is structured around the number 5, like the 5 ‘elements‘ or changes of daoism. in daoist thought, each element (fire, wood, water, metal, earth) is fed by the preceding one, and each element has its corresponding characteristic, colour, body organ, power and disease, emotion and counter emotion, and season.

in old world the narration is reversed so that each season is a chapter and a scene that feeds the succeeding one. in case this concept is difficult to understand, this is a chronologically ordered retelling of the events:

STRUCTURE –

LATE SUMMER:

sánchez and his girlfriend didi (mary dindimene) are in a touristic beachtown somewhere in europe. they buy a blanket to sit on which happens to have ‘magical’ properties (it allows them to travel interdimensionally). sánchez becomes obsessed with it and even more obsessed with it when didi manages to lose it. sánchez follows clues trying to find it, and realises his search will take him to the city (a city somewhere in europe), and this causes the breakup of their relationship.

# sánchez, wrapped in the blanket, had had a powerful vision of another dimension (the dimension of time?), and in order to process it, he embarks on writing it down as a film script for a dystopian science fiction film. he writes the final scene first, in accordance with his vision; a scene describing a space ship on the launchpad, about to fly to another world. the ship is a transport ship, packed full of human chattel and powerful technology in order to serve the elites on a new planet (paraíso 2). at the final moment before take-off, there is a revolt on board and the ship stays on earth, on rainy earth.

AUTUMN:

this section is taken from sánchez´s personal journal, describing his life in the city as he searches for the blanket, enrolls to study neuroscience to learn more about his vision, and moves in with a girl called iris ford. he works in a restaurant and continues writing the science fiction story and publishes the story online in increments. one day he is met by a strange man called dr zelotti, who tests him and iris for a mysterious job by means of a surreal questionnaire. another day sánchez has a vision of a horse in the city. the horse leads him to a to meet the man who stole the blanket from him. before learning any more information, the search is blocked by the large figure of ali bigmore.

WINTER:

sánchez and iris have accepted the job, which is to do fieldwork in a small, snowy town far north in europe somewhere, for the university professor gone rogue – dr zelotti. the setting is relatively free from signal interference, and the job is to test some highly advanced top secret technology. the technology is in fact the same technology that was wired into the blanket, and is now in helmet shape. their task is to put the helmet on and detail the experiences. this section is the alternating entries of their field notes, which they are required to regularly send back to dr zelotti. dr zelotti is engaging in the tactic of keeping his enemies close, only sánchez and ford do not know that they are his enemies. meanwhile they are befriended by the local people who have strange rural customs.

it turns out that dr zelotti has abandoned his morals and sold his allegiance to a mega corporation and a group of strange shareholders whose secret mission of world dominion is to force the human race from earth by building a giant network of antennas that will corrupt the harmony of peace and mild weather and breed chaos across the globe.

somehow the local people have understood this and they manage to turn sánchez and ford against the company. they join the rebellion against the company and become part of a mission to sabotage the antenna. they are chased down and ali bigmore who is dr zelotti’s personal henchman. there is a battle and a large explosion and iris ford escapes to see her estranged father in the south.

SPRING:

iris ford’s father is an american who has been living in a cave in a cove in a strange tourist town Somewhere in Europe™ he plays guitar and sings songs and is wild and travelled. he meets a gang of artists who one by one attach themselves to the unit for one day in spring. each artist represents an element. iris’s father who goes by the name dog represents wood, a celtic ex-heroin addict called match represents fire, a chinese nail-salon worker called rain (who is coincidentally reading sánchez’s science fiction online) represents water, and a cheerful and welcoming african sculptor called muhdi represents earth. there is one missing element who is iris ford herself and she represents metal. after having escaped zelotti she shows up to reconcile with her father who she blamed for her mother’s death.

EARLY SUMMER:

sánchez was paralysed from the waist down by the explosion and is now holed up in a random town somewhere in europe. he has almost no memories of anything. he is living with ali bigmore and ali’s mother fatima. ali had had an attack of conscientiousness for his role in sánchez’s paralysis and amnesia and as a result stopped speaking and became his friend and carer. dr zelotti also felt guilty about the ordeal and is anonymously supporting them all financially. he also reached out to mary dindimene to come and care for sánchez. having had forgotten her, sánchez meets her as if for the first time and falls in love with her again.

dr zelotti was also able to recover and return sánchez’s briefcase which contained the pages of his science fiction story. as these chapters have been reversed for this summary, and each chapter includes the ongoing dystopian saga of the abandoning ship of earth, the sci-fi story would therefore also reverse. however, since sánchez began writing it backwards, starting at the final scene, it is told progressively in order.

SCI-FI:

the story follows two young friends called ratty and jay who live in the slums of a flooded rainy village somewhere in europe. ratty has no family, and he believes that his father left earth as a pioneer, for glory and discovery and adventure. his dream is to follow his father’s footsteps and perhaps even find him on the new world. jay lives with his mother, mother kaye, who is from the southern mountains. between the 3 of them, a plan is formed to leave – ratty to find a space ship to take him to the new world, and jay and his mother to find an ocean liner to take them to the mountains in the south, a community high above the water level.

their first step is to get to the capital city. once there, jay and his mother are taken onboard an ocean liner thanks to mother kaye’s charms and optimism. ratty witnesses first-hand that city residents are being herded up and press-ganged into slavery. he evades them, then he follows the prisoners out of town to a boat which finally takes them to the space ship. ratty and his canine companion manage to stowaway on the spaceship undetected. once inside, he connects with the prisoners who use his help to escape, then organise for mutiny and revolt. the powerful technology onboard happens to be a handheld device which connects to the psychic dimension of the user. it is a tool that can be used for great evil, and is supposed to delivered to the elites for them to control their new society. ratty and the prisoners are able to use this technology to escape. however, one of the prisoners happens to be one of the architects of the ship, and this man antonio creates a counter mutiny with the idea of taking charge of the space ship himself, and going to the new world anyway – not as a prisoner; but as a leader or new tyrant with technological superiority. with the element of surprise and his deep resentment he envisions displacing the elite with his own order. ratty is almost convinced since he still wants to find his father but realising that he would almost certainly be there as a slave he decides to make the old world his resting home, and joins the prisoners as they take down antonio and disable the take-off.

this story is inspired by:

books like roberto bolaño’s savage detectives, carson mcullers’ the heart is a lonely hunter, cormac mcarthy’s blood meridian, fyodor dostoevsky’s crime and punishment, philip pullman’s northern lights, isaac asimov’s foundation series, and frank herbert’s dune…

films like memento, alien, the power rangers…

concepts and folk physics like the 5 elements or changes of chinese tradition, the 4 elements of western and nahuatl tradition, manifestation techniques, astral projection, creative visualisation, mormon seer stones, spirit animals, and animal totems…

current day realism like elon musk and the desperation of the elite to flee earth, the effects of heroin, the effects of being addicted to technology…

symbolism like horse symbolism, water symbolism, landscape and environment symbolism…

horse symbolism:

horse from footrot and flats (a cat named horse), horse as slang for heroin, horse jockey, horsing around, the history of the horse in the americas, the relationship between indigenous people and the horse spirit, an alternative theory, horse spirits like kelpies and wind/water/fire/earth horses, the end of the age of horse, where have all the workhorses gone?