I will be away from my keyboard for a week.
I am planning on traveling in astral form to a hidden city in Tibet, discovering the secret subterranean gateway to Agarththa, the buried supercivilization in Pellucidar inhabited by the Original Masters guiding human evolution.
There I intend to achieve enlightenment, overcoming all barriers and boundaries of time, space, nature, and the human condition.
Once I have achieved transcendental unity with the cosmic all, and find myself raptured in culminant spiritual purity and levitating above the clouds of Nara province, unfortunately, I will glance down at the sullen and mundane earth, see a buxom and callipygous young maiden washing laundry in the river, glimpsing her long shapely white legs beneath her kimono.
My mind will be heavy with lustful thoughts, robbing me of the ability to fly, and down I will crash into the water at her feet, splashing us both comically.
My current Visualization of the Cosmic All predicts this downfall and return to normal human life with its pains and sorrows should happen Sunday or Monday next, and I can resume blogging then.
Here is an auranetic image from that future event reflect back through time to a convenient sheaf of psychic rice paper I keep in my desk:
As this future scene unfolds, a series of amusing blunders will reveal that this pretty lady is and was my own wife the whole time, washing my burial wrappings, since my disappearance was unexplained, and the court had declared me legally dead.
She will be skeptical that I achieved enlightenment, because I did not have a smartphone with me, and took no selfie pictures of myself in Nirvana.
She and I will return together to Ithaca, New York, where we live, but I will disguise myself as a homeless bum. Then I will murder all the suitors found living in my house, wooing my wife, touching my bright red Dragon Award statue, playing with my collection of polyhedral dice and painted lead miniatures.
When the New York State Police come to arrest me for this bloodstained but entirely justified murder spree, I will raise the Dragon Banner, call the Legion of Time, sow the Dragon's Teeth, ignite the Bat Signal, take the Red Cross, vow crusade, and march on New York City for a final showdown with the Paynim.
The victorious legions will elect me Emperor, John the Abominable, and New York State, now renamed the Holier More-Roman Empire, will enact a brutal and draconian Inquisition. Elon Musk will provide me the soulless robotic inquisitors and exotic bioeningeered catgirl torturesses needed: Heretics will be exiled to the penal colonies on Mars (which will ironically save the human race, after the Earth collides with Evil Planet Nemesis).
Then, unexpectedly, word comes that the entrance to Agarththa beneath Everest has closed. The sacred city sinks once more beyond human sight and ken into the core of the world. There is no return way!
Surrounded by such pomp and circumstances, in my throneroom atop the Empire State Building (now a name of irony!) lolling on my golden throne surrounded by a lovely harem of playboy bunnies, quaffing opium wine from the skull of my enemy, feet on a rug made from the flayed skin of a late-night comedian who mocked me, overshadowed by piles heaps of doubloons and guineas, stolen art treasures looted from Westchester County, and being adored by flattering servants, why am I suddenly sickened by my glorious life?
John the Abominable! It is a name of terror! Have I not what all men envy and more? Wealth, power, praise? The kisses beautiful maidens?
But the memory of my enlightenment, the moment of spiritual clarity and purity haunts and torments me!
Where is the water that can wash the bloodstains from my hands?! What purging fire can burn away the lust and pride and greed that are now my masters -- ME! The mightiest warlord of New England! Now I am the most wretched of slaves!
Speaking of my resolve to no one, I will gather my old crew, enter the black ship once more, and row the winedark sea into the antipodes, where no man has ever ventured, beyond the sunset: there will Mount Purgatory will arise, mysterious and sacred, surrounded by august cloud, crowned by strange, consuming flame.
Perhaps on the reed-filled shore I will find the calm and stern Cato of Utica, whose word will give me comfort, and show the upward way. What other hope is there? Where else is the word of life to be found?
But I will have my laptop with me, so I will post occasional columns on matters political, theological, philosophical, science-fictional and humorous. Farewell until then.