“Find inner peace? I looked; it wasn’t there.” – Bob Geldof
i. It Came from Outer Space. Maybe.
“I have some momentous news,” announces Rami.
“What’s that?” I ask. I hope it’s something good. I could do with some good news.
“I’ve cancelled my trip,” he tells me. This is momentous news. He’s been talking about it for months.
“Because of the coronavirus?”
“Yup,” he says. “They’ve cancelled the event.”
This is a big deal. The channelling event in California he was going to has been organised for over a year. All tickets have sold out. It’s the last time a very famous interdimensional higher consciousness will be making contact with us. But now the organisers are worried about the thousands of participants who will be coming from all over the world. Who knows what they might be bringing along with them and spreading about? They don’t want their special channelling event to turn into the world’s largest New Age death camp. You can’t blame them. They’ve taken note of that sect in South Korea and they’re not taking any chances. Nobody needs that kind of bad press, least of all a higher consciousness from another dimension. Although, given that they can see through all space and time, you’d have thought they would know in advance whether the event would be a disaster or not. Or maybe they do know and that’s why they’ve suggested to the organisers that rescheduling might be a good idea. Either way, I find it heartening that someone is acknowledging that all the crystals, singing bowls and healing energies in the world are useless in the face of this mysterious virus which, for all anybody knows, might have come from another dimension too. I don’t think that’s any more out there than some of the other conspiracy theories I’ve heard flying around.
“My bags were half packed,” says Rami, sadly. Although he did start packing a fortnight ago for an event that was still a month away: his favourite Hawaiian shirt was all folded and ready to go.
“You’re going to lose a lot of money,” I tell him.
“Yeah,” he shrugs, “but I’m feeling better about the decision with each passing moment.”
He’s been worrying about the coronavirus himself. He bought a bottle of First Defence on Monday. His doctor recommended it to him. I had to show him how to use it. Higher beings aside, I find it harder to believe that a man can have lived into his early sixties and never used a nasal spray.
“You put this up your nose?” he asked incredulously, staring cross-eyed at the long white nozzle.
“Yeah,” I tell him, “and push down. It shoots up into your sinuses.”
He grimaced. I could just picture him clutching it to his chest all through the eleven-hour flight to LAX, casting sideways glances at his fellow passengers, scrutinising them for signs of disease. In truth, Rami was more concerned about his elderly mother. She’s ninety-six. He had been worrying about who was going to look after her while he was away. And what if he had to go into isolation, who would take care of her then? He doesn’t have to worry about any of these things any more. He’s staying where he is.
“I feel safe here,” he says. “And they’ll be putting the event on pay per view when it does happen, anyway. I’ll just watch it that way.”
ii. Good for What Ails You
An imposing English woman with close-cropped hair and octagonal framed glasses is explaining to me the spelling of her name.
“Like Janet,” she says, “but with an X. Janex”
“Right.”
“Do you have a good memory?” she asks.
“Try me.”
“Can you remember what you wrote down on that piece of paper you just gave me. I’ve lost it.”
For the last ten minutes we have been having an involved discussion about some complicated room availability dates. I wrote all the dates down for her and literally handed her the piece of paper two minutes ago.
“I remember,” I tell her and start to write them out all over again.
“Don’t worry,” she says, stopping me as I’m nearly finished. “I just found it.”
Janex wants to hold some sort of vaguely defined monthly chanting and meditation group at the centre. We’ve been getting a lot of these lately. Our outside notice-board is currently covered in posters for meditations, healing ceremonies, manifestation workshops. We’ve become like a static modern equivalent of those old-time travelling medicine shows. Earlier on the phone I spoke to a woman with the sniffles who wanted to run a herbal well-being event, possibly involving dance.
“You sound like you’ve got a bad cold,” I remarked. Much like one of our toilets has a leaky flange, I thought.
“I’m in the middle of a lymph cleanse,” she told me.
Even Colin has been dabbling. He went to a private one-on-one gong-bath session yesterday.
“I don’t think it would be your thing,” he said. “There was a lot of going around me in circles ringing bells and praising the universe.”
“Hey,” I told him, “if it works, it works. Does it work for you?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I think so. I fell asleep half way through.”
iii. Bob Geldof Breaks the Photocopier
Janex leaves the office to be immediately replaced by Marlene who asks if I could print off some photocopies for her.
“I’m doing an astrology talk tonight,” she explains, handing me a sheaf of papers. “I’m very nervous.”
“I’ll bring them up to you,” I tell her.
The first document is an astrological chart labelled Bob Geldof. I leaf through the others and soon make the connection: Paula Yates. Tiger Lily. Michael. Peaches. A cursed family. Doomed connections, all.
I feed Bob’s birth chart into the photocopier. It immediately jams. I have to open every door and hatch and fish out a crumpled first copy before it will let me try again. The second attempt jams too. I go through the same rigmarole, another two crumpled copies of Bob’s chart wrenched out of the machine, service hatches opened and slammed shut, multiple times, the machine beeping at me constantly, me getting increasingly irate. It strikes me as deeply ironic that we can produce houses that people can live in and guns that actually fire and skeletal creatures that can walk all by themselves, and all sorts of other incredible three-dimensional objects with printers now, but we still haven’t mastered pieces of fucking paper. Then I accidentally knock the rest of Marlene’s astrology charts off the top of the copier, behind a unit of drawers, and have to lie on my back under the desk, straining my arm around until I can snag them with my fingers to retrieve them. When I finally get to try and copy Bob Geldof’s birth chart a third time the machine jams yet again and I furiously drive my knee into its witless grey bulk with a crash. Wrenching open the door to the rollers, this time a large black plastic comb falls out. I can’t see where it belongs to put it back, so I just toss it to the side and try one more time. At last Bob’s chart prints. And Paula’s and Tiger Lily’s and Michael’s and Peaches’ too.
After taking the copies up to Marlene and apologising for the delay, I’m curious – what can Bob Geldof’s birth chart tell us about the tragedies he and his family have endured? I look up a copy online and as far as I can make out – I am, after all, no astrologer – Bob Geldof’s main problem, astrologically speaking, seems to be a lack of water:
‘Bob Geldof, your natal chart shows a lack of the Water element, with only 2.67% instead of the average 25%. Whether you are aware of it or not, affective values bring about problems, for you or your close friends.‘
Oh dear. Still, on the brighter side:
‘Bob Geldof, Fire is dominant in your natal chart and endows you with intuition, energy, courage, self-confidence, and enthusiasm! Cheers for communication and mobility, Bob Geldof!‘
Although to put all of this in context, the chart also comes with an important disclaimer:
‘These short excerpts of astrological charts are computer processed. They are, by no means, of a personal nature. This principle is valid for the 57,477 celebrities included in our database.‘
Or in other words:
‘Don’t worry about what the stars say, Bob Geldof! It’s nothing personal!‘
Which I think is good advice for anyone troubled by astrology, photocopiers, the coronavirus, disorganised people with perplexingly spelled names or just life in general: The universe is completely indifferent to your own unique and personal brand of suffering. But don’t worry. It’s nothing personal.
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