Chronicles of Wizard Prang
by Stafford Beer

Contents

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Blodwyn was titivating herself, and "coming down" as she put it.

As usual, Wizard Prang was amazed by her look of sang froid, since he well knew it was no more than a look.

'Do you teach us all the same thing?' she said, re-arranging her hair without having a mirror.

'I show you all how to identify with the cosmos whose child you are, and to identify the deity in yourself The means necessarily differ, because you are all different, and your perceptions of the world are different too.'

'I suppose that's why you rarely see more than one of us at once. And I thought it was because we had big secrets.' Blodwyn made an exaggerated pout.

'That's the same thing' he said, 'except that you want to make something of it.’

The goodbyes took a little time. Even then, Blodwyn turned back, rummaging in her big floppy leather bag.

'I found this,' she said; 'it was in the book on Konarak that you lent me.'

She handed him a sealed envelope.

'It is your writing, isn't it?'

Another goodbye.

'And practice,' he almost hissed.

Wizard Prang turned the envelope over several times. On the front was written: "Prang's Fitness Plans". It stirred only the faintest recollection.

He filled his glass, sat down, and slit open the envelope.

"Plan A," he read.

He looked behind the simple sheet of paper, and inside the envelope: nothing. Apparently he had not got as far as Plan B even.

"Plan A," the paper said: "Cycle Daily".

Under that it said: "Prerequisite a bicycle".

Under that it said: "Components Needed".

He began to read the list underneath that; "Wheels, handlebars, saddle..."

The list went on, but Wizard Prang did not. Instead, he screwed up the paper and the envelope, and tossed them into the fire.

'Damned fitness fads,' he grumbled under his breath.

When Perny came in, the wizard was standing back from his easel. Loaded paintbrushes stuck out from between his fingers on both hands, and he had two more between his teeth. He looked like a demented porcupine.

Perny came round between him and the painting, and gave him a little kiss on the forehead. She looked into his eyes.

Was she going to say: "Blodwyn was here, wasn't she?", or realize that he knew that she knew?

The point was better made by silence. She stood at his side and looked at the wet canvas. He divested himself of quilts.

'People are always asking me what your pictures mean.'

'What do you tell them?'

'I tell them your paintings are not pictures anyway.'

'Let's hope that folk don't realize that Picasso said it first.'

The wizard finished scraping spare paint off the bit of broken plate glass that he used as a palette, getting more of it on his person than he had bargained for as usual.

‘Well,' Perny continued boldly: 'When people ask what your poems mean, I say that your poems are not statements.'

'I don't know if Picasso wrote poems,' the wizard said absently, trying to free each hand in turn of paint, and getting more on the hand he was using to do the job each time.

'So much for paintings and poems. What do you say about my knowledge?'

'It hasn't come up.' Perny had momentarily run out of steam.

He put the rag down and faced her.

'Tell me.'

She frowned in concentration, but held his eyes with hers.

'How about "his knowledge is not a catechism"?'

Wizard Prang walked out of the cottage with a view to washing his hands in the water butt outside. He gave Perny a passing hug as he went.

'Right,' he said when he got back, 'I'm going to show you something tonight that I've been saving up until you seemed to be in the right state for it. You seem ...'

'Will it knock my socks off?' she asked eagerly.

It was a favourite expression of hers, and one he never complained about because it was the right sort of comment, if not particularly mystical in literary quality.

'At the least,' said Wizard Prang. 'Let's get organized.'

He strode over to the wine and water shelf, and busied himself with a purposeful air.

Perny went into the small back room it was a lean to suffix to the little house. She lit all the candies in there, and three patchouli joss sticks. She came back into the main room. The wizard was not there.

Perny went over to "her" comer of the room where various garments were hanging. She changed out of her jeans and T shirt, rings and earrings (not to mention the execrated digital watch) and put on a loose robe. She washed carefully, as a ritual, using the jug and basin, and some oils especially composed for her by Wizard Prang.

He came back festooned with flowers. He had bluebells and daffodils caught up in the skirt of his robe, celandines and sorrel, wild violets and primroses in bunches in his hands.

'Strange,' thought Perny, 'about the bluebells.' She could have sworn they were all over.

Together they put the flowers in jars, and placed them in the meditation room.

'I know we don't need any of this stuff,' Perny said, looking around, 'but I do so like it. It helps. It marks off our work as something special. Sometimes, though, It feels ... well, pagan. Another inhibition.'

She was not too worried, because she did the gorgeous grin.

'Then forget the little Sanskrit you know,' the wizard said very softly, 'and use the familiar terms of your upbringing.'

He waved an arm.

'All these are sacramentals, that is, sacred appurtenances of sacraments. Sacraments are channels of grace. Grace is unwarranted love.'

'When do we start?'

'When we are ready.'

The wizard steered Perry back into the main room and shut the door.

'Please sit down for a bit'. He gestured to her cushion. 'I want you to think very carefully about what I just said. It is a nice evening: if you prefer, we can work outside.'

He picked up his glass and went outside. She could see him standing motionless for a long time, thinking or meditating or whatever it was. Anyway, he looked unusual.

He felt her touch his arm, and looked round slowly. Her upturned face was calm, but her being was vibrant.

'Can we go in now, please?'

How could so small a chamber become its own universe; and how could that universe spin away across the intergalactic night ...

They had been sitting in their accustomed places back in the main room for more than an hour in silence when Perny began breathing normally again, and stirred, changing her position.

The wizard had been enfolding her in his presence.

'Wow,' she said. 'I'll never manage it without you.'

He chuckled. ‘I'll bet you said that when you learned to swim and ride a bike. Don't worry, I'll stay with you until you've got it.'

'But, "it" includes you.'

'Not necessarily.'

His reply was mysterious to her.

'Why is it that so many people hurtle themselves through life, and never take any time even to glimpse what I am beginning to know?'

The wizard treated the question as rhetorical, but noted with pleasure that she had not said "beginning to learn".

It was very late. Perny got up, and began moving about as if getting into gear to undertake normal nightly routines. She suddenly laughed.

'We've missed Blethering Fog!'

'In what sense? I for one wasn't aiming at him.'

'No, silly,' she said, 'he was to be on the radio, don't you remember? In the series A Day in the Life of.... He is the typical MR.'

'Heaven protect us.'

'Oh, it would have been interesting. He's a stockbroker, you know, on top of being in Parliament, and a JP and chairman of all sorts of things.'

'Quite so. As you just put it 'he is hurtling himself through life without even a glimpse of anything that actually matters. The rest is maya illusion.'

'Well, why does he do it?' Perny asked.

'Because he has invested his life in guilt-edged insecurities,' said Wizard Prang.

Chapter Eleven

Table of Contents

Chapter Thirteen