Two Worlds Collide

   Picture this place.

   Look down on it from above, as if you're falling down to earth from somewhere up above.

   As you approach the ground you see a wide expanse of green, interspersed with red. When you get closer you realise the green is a vast, endless cover of trees. They stretch out in every direction, from horizon to horizon. Bright, clear, lively green, soaking up sunlight. A streak of red winds its way through it. As you pass over it you can tell it's a road, a dusty road of red sand that snakes its way through the sea of green, twisting and bucking this way and that. You notice that it bends around corners and folds itself around rusty-coloured angular shapes that on closer inspection reveal themselves to be outcrops of red sandstone, the same colour as the dirt on the road. Here there's a long line of low, steep cliffs plunging down into the green of the ocean of trees; it is punctuated by a tall pointy pyramid sticking out at one end of it, like an exclamation mark. Before you finally reach the ground you notice that the cliffs form part of a long line of escarpment country that runs along a roughly north-south axis. An escarpment like an unscalable wall that strikes a sharp divide between east country and west country.

   You land softly on the ground, bare feet firmly digging into deep, loose sand with the consistency of dust. You now notice you have a towel slung over your shoulders, and you're on your way to meet some people to do something. After wading through a spread of broken glass you step over a big dog turd, strategically deposited right in front of the gate, and you enter a shady, cool area. The other people are there, and they have started the session already. You nod politely all around, put your towel down on the ground, have a quick squiz at what the others are doing and try the best you can to fold yourself in the same positions that they seem to be forcing themselves into. By all appearances this is causing them considerable discomfort, which they are at great pains to hide.

   There's a person out the front. Judging from the way they intone commands in a peaceful and serene voice they are the instructor.

   '... and now reach forward, and grab your toes in Towjamana ...'

   Obediently you grab your toes and hang onto them as if your life depends on it. It may well.

   '... lift up your left foot, and bring it level with your head ...'

   You do as you're told, on Penalty of Death, or, at the very least, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the instructor. You groan with the strain of bringing your foot up to conversational eye-to-eye level.

   'Uuuurrrhuuuurrrmmmppphhhhfff ...'

   With a barely perceptible and infinitely elegant movement of the head the instructor fixes you in her stare and raises one eyebrow. It arches up in a delicate line that seems to have been drawn with a thick black texter. Possibly raided from out of one of the primary school kids' pencil cases. There is not an unplucked and untoward eyebrow hair within cooee. You wither under her gaze and swallow your groan.

   '...mmmppfff ... wwobwwobpuurw ...'

   '... and now,' she continues, slightly raising her voice, 'straighten your big toe in the position of the Phallic Lotus Upyerarsana ...'

   You straighten your toe, mind firmly focussed on the desired lotus stance. Your toe cramps up immediately.

   'mmppf— gngngn ...' You grind your teeth and bite back any embarrassing noises, lest The Eyebrow Arch Higher.

   '... now, breathe out slowly and peacefully ...' the instructor croons.

   Your diaphragm appears to be in deadlock with itself, allowing no options for either breathing in or out. The only thing that seems to be willing to breathe, and with a distressing urgency at that, is your arse. You clench your teeth, hang on for grim life and squeeze back the impending fart with all the appropriately spiritual mindpower you can muster. You desperately try not to think about that particular kind of river turtle that, in an acrobatic trick of evolutionary gymnastics, has developed the ability to breathe through its arse. It instantly becomes the only thing you can think of.

   '... now, very gently, insert your fully erect toe into your ear in Vasselinaya—'

   With superhuman effort you manage to shove your toe into your ear. A red hot pain flashes straight through your brain, and comes very close to releasing that pent-up fart, and potentially opening the floodgates for whatever else may lie hidden behind it. A visit to the dentist suddenly appears an attractive alternative, or, possibly, giving birth to quadruplets, through your arse, because you're a bloke.

   '—and now hold it there for five minutes, while breathing in and out deeply and peacefully ...'

   You concentrate ferociously with the sort of peace-loving feeling that is often encountered in Middle Eastern peace negotiations, just after one side has blown up the other one.

   Through your haze of agony you hear the instructor quietly get up from her Phallic Toe Pose, and, with a semi-divine grace acquired only after long, arduous years of meditation at very expensive and meticulously derelict centres in the Himalaya mountains frequented exclusively by Westerners with an insatiable appetite for esoteric learning, an excess of money and a dire shortage of any sense, glides daintily over to a music machine in the corner. She presses "play" while you squirm and grimace with your toe in your ear.

   '... and four minutes more ...'

   Her voice drifts over the airwaves with transcendental harmony, inner bliss and outer condescension. You're not sure, but you remember hearing, once, somewhere, that "transcendental" was a type of dentistry procedure. It sounded painful.

   Generic ploinky-ploinky music fills the air. Calm, relaxing, mystic, and, no doubt, possessed of mysterious spiritual Healing Powers, it appears to consist predominantly of gentle waves of atmospheric synthesiser strains, glockenspiel tinkling, ancient native tribal didgeridoo rumbling and the gentle patter-patting of a crystal clear waterfall, complimented, so it would seem, by the sound of someone blowing their nose somewhere in the mix.

   The music wafts into your ear, squeezing past your toe firmly lodged in there in insidious fashion, fills up your skull in wavelengths of fluffy pink cotton wool, and proceeds to turn your brain to mush. You find yourself unaccountably marvelling at the recollection of beige wallpaper you once saw in an elevator fifteen years ago.

   Then a distant sound cuts through your blanket of bliss.

   'Fuk you mudafuka!'

   The music falters slightly, as if taken aback by this interruption, then resumes bravely.

   'Ooooooiiiiinnngggg ooooiiiiinnnnggg uuurrrow uuurrrrow ...'

   'Fuk you, mudafuka! Fuk you, fukin arsole!' The first voice has clearly found a response in kind.

   'Nah, fuk you cunt! Ai sed it furst!' Voice One obviously has no intention of giving ground to its rejoinder.

   'Ah yeah, gomon den, gomon, bring id mudafuka!'

   Oooooiiiinnnngggg oooooiiiiinnnnnggg ... The music seems to have been turned up slightly.

   The instructor's voice now joins the fray, appearing slightly out of breath and flustered. 'Aaaaand ... three minutes more ... and breathe in deeply ... breathe out slowly ...'

   'Fuk you fuk you fuk you mudafuka!' Voice One is now getting distinctly agitated, and, by all accounts, ready to up the ante.

    Ooooiiiinnnngggg oooiiiinnnggg ...

   At the risk of hellfire, brimstone and eternal damnation from the instructor, you dare open one eye, and swivel it sideways. You stare out past the toe in your ear, towards the street. There, about forty metres away, you see a flurry of bodies, moving fast. There's flashes of bright clothing, red, yellow, green, orange. A throng of people is moving around, surging to and fro. Several more voices have now taken up the rally cry.

   'Fuk you mudafuka! Fuk all yous mudafukas!'

   Your eye blinks slowly. It recruits the second eye, reluctantly peeling itself open and dragging itself away from unplumbed sub-oceanic depths of tranquility and heavenly healing. Between the two of them they see a crowd of at least two hundred people, heaving to and fro from one side of the street to the other.

   Oooooiiiiinnnngggg oooooiiiinnnnggg ...

   '... and now, everybody, concentrate, two minutes more ...' The instructor's voice has taken on a distinctly shrill tone, edging towards hysteria.

   'Ah yeah? Ah yeah? Ah yeah? You no tok to me laik dat ...' The gathered crowd perceptibly draws in its collective breath, in trembling anticipation of the coming scathing and, no doubt, withering final word.

   '... you mudafuka!!'

   The crowd lets out its breath and shudders involuntarily at the audacity and perspicacity of the final insult, delivered with brilliant and masterful incisiveness. It is a sign to cut loose, and seems to be what the two hundred-odd strong mob has been waiting for.

   Within seconds there are blokes racing down the street holding three long spears in each hand, bare feet ploughing through the carpet of broken glass. From the other side two fellas turn up carrying crossbows. They stop and point them at the spear-carriers, screaming abuse at the top of their voices.

   Ooooiiiinnnngggg ooooiiii— The music cuts out in mid-wail.

   'Uh ... uhum ...'  the instructor's voice sounds shaky and brittle. 'Uh ... we just might wrap up now, maybe ...' Her voice trails off, then picks up with renewed enthusiasm. 'Before we go, would anyone like a cup of Focaccia-Latte-Infusion tea?' She looks around nervously. 'Anyone?'

   There is a general and wide-spread sound of moans, groans and creaking, as the people in the session unfold themselves from the Phallic Toe Pose, and realign and reassemble their various limbs. A chorus of popping sounds accompanies the removal of toes from ears. Scanning the various faces, and ascertaining the degrees of hypertension, stress and strain accumulated during the session, it is a fair guess that none of those present would object overly much to the premature termination of the event. There are no takers for the cuppa.

   You walk out the gate, stepping over the dog shit, and wade through the broken glass. Picking your way through the roiling, jostling crowd, you duck a flying spear, and side-step a crossbow bolt.

   There's never a dull moment.

   The fight will continue for the next five days.