That's Soho Six Months ago.

[Nonius]

Croke decided to wait at the entrance of Il Fornaio, a popular pizza joint in the middle of Rufus Street.  He waited for several minutes, during which time a strange woman in a white wool cap approached him and stood about five feet away.  Croke noticed that the woman was attractive, and yet there was something slightly cockeyed about her demeanor.  She had shoulder length dark hair that was flattened with a certain oily texture that spoke of lack of hygiene, perhaps implemented with a certain Radical Bohemian Chic mode in mind.  She was dressed in a style that reminded Croke of all that he conjured up about London in its groovy days; She sported a knee length shoddy coat with houndstooth patterns, black go go boots, black stockings with a few runs here and there, and she was toting a preposterous bag resembling a lunch box from the sixties with a cartoon character painted in purple and green on the front.  Croke didn’t notice each of the oddities about here and how the getup seemed to be consummately makeshiftl.  Rather, the ensemble on his first glance looked chic and well thought out in terms of creativity and flair.  But then, as he examined each component on its own, he realized that it spelled out nothing more than acute bad taste.  However, she was attractive, if a little odd in appearance. 



 



She stood there motionless as Croke stole an occasional glance at her.  He felt self-conscious as he chain smoked and pretended that she didn’t exist.  Minutes passed and it took some time for Croke to surmise that people were passing by him and into Il Fornai and saying “Good Evening”, “Hello”, and other salutations because they actually thought he worked there; In fact, Croke did resemble a short and compact bodyguard with a shaved head.  So, Croke looked like a bodyguard and the woman looked like she was possibly waiting for a friend next to a bodyguard, but, then again, Croke was fairly sure that she was waiting for nobody.  He felt she was waiting for Croke to say something, to acknowledge her existence perhaps, and then maybe something else would be demanded.   



 



Finally, he approached her and asked, “Are you with Miskov’s party?” This seemed like an obvious question given the fact that they both had waited for some time now, and Mishkov did in fact indicate that two women would be accompanying him.



 



The woman stared at him for several seconds, and then said, “No, are you?”



 



“Well, yes, but, do you know who Mishkov is?”



 



“No.  So, why would you use his name in asking that question?  You assumed that I knew Mishkov, and that means that you asked a loaded question.  That is a fallacy you know.”



 



Croke scratched his head for a second, while glancing at a dilapidated building housing an Indian restaurant. He didn’t know how to respond, and thus offered “Mkay, well, I’ll be running along now….due to meet some friends….”



 



“Wait, you ask a loaded question and then just walk off like that as if nothing happened?  You have no manners.  And, you obviously know nothing about Rhetoric.”



 



Croke was agitated by her response.  Even though, as a man, he did at least subliminally entertain the thought of having s*x with her (he’s a man, ergo…), he was not in the mood to engage in petty accusations and twisted small talk.   So, he waved his arms and head and said, “Whatever.”  He turned around and walked in the opposite direction.



 



“Answer me.  Why did you assume that I knew Mishkov?”



 



Croke lit a cigarette, took in a long puff, then turned around to be faced with her long face and big dark eyes.  There was something in her eyes that, on the one hand, soothed him and on the other hand, seemed melancholic to the extent that it drummed up memories of someone or something that he once new a long time ago.  He didn’t like thinking about his past in a gloomy and ill-defined context, and hence he winced for a second, as if on the fence on whether to respond. 



 



Then, he offered, “Mkay lady, Do “



 



The woman broke into his response with “Don’t call me lady, I’m not a lady, do you know what a lady is?”  As she said this, Croke could see that she was not very old (not that this defined lady in any English sense as it is known in England).  In fact, she looked like a scrappy and attractive street girl, possibly not more than twenty five years old.



 



“Alright, er, mademoiselle do “



 



“How would you assume that I am a mademoiselle?  You have no skills in speech, logic, and Rhetoric!” She shouted.



 



“Er, will you just shut the phuck up so I can say something?” shouted Croke, as he shot out an expression that looked like it came from an ill-tempered body guard. She shut up.



 



“Girl-woman, do know Mishkov or don’t you?  Answer me that and maybe, just maybe, we can exchange a few more words…otherwise, I’m outta here….woman-girl!”

[Nonius]

“No, wait, ok….I don’t know Mishkov.  I’m a film critic prowling around the streets of London at night.  I love this area, it gives me a lot of inspiration.” Replied the woman.



 



“Inspiration for what?”



 



“Inspiration to make the perfect movie.  I’ve written several scenarios, but, haven’t finished any of them, since it’s so hard to focus on one idea.  I think they all have promise though, really….”



 



Croke rubbed his head in puzzled state.  He then said, “Making a movie?  You’re a critic, not a film maker.  But, I understand, the action is in the creation, not in the opinion making, right?”



 



“Is that a rhetorical question?  Well, anyway, I guess I can let my guard down for a second here, yes, well, I’d naturally rather make films than write about them.  But, alas, my day hasn’t come yet.  But you know what?  I’m looking for subjects and protagonists for my ideas every night, and, I actually think I’ve found a nice anti-hero- you.”



 



“What the phuck are you talking about?  Me?  Why?  I’m just standing in front of a restaurant looking for Mishkov, and, surely you can’t think that I’d make an interesting character for any form of theatrical expression…I mean, well..”



 



“You have an interesting presence.  Ok, you’re not Adonis, but, you have an interesting face and you move your body in interesting ways.  I actually spotted you sometime ago, sorry for that, but I saw you back near Tower Bridge station. “



 



“What?  This is getting just a little too creepy for my taste….” Croke then turned around and began to walk away for a second when the woman tugged on his coat, deploring him to just hear her out for a few minutes.



 



She then prefaced her justification with a series of apologies.  Then, she said, “The way I see it, I want to be a character in your story, and I feel you have a story to tell, right here in London.  I can tell you are American, although you have an odd accent….Anyway, I want to write a scenario in which you meet me here in London, and then, we play a certain game.   The game is this…..There are two men, Russian actually, like Mishkov I suppose, who are here trying to do something really bad.  I can’t tell you where they are right now, but I will give you one and only one hint.  They are planning to take over a country, more or less, and a certain man by the name of Jean-Pierre is going to help them.  I want you to find them and I want you to stop them from executing their plan.  You must go to Soho in order to do this.  If you accomplish your mission, then, well, maybe I’ll be a real close friend to you, and, I think you’ll like that, a really close friend that could help you in your life.  You have a few problems I can see that in your eyes, you want to forget your personal history…..isn’t that it?”



 



Croke smiled and waved his right index finger at her with a coy smile, “Ha ha, that is pretty funny, so, when is Mishkov arriving?  What is your name?”

[Nonius]

“My name is Nadia, but, I don’t think it is particularly funny.  Ok, this is a game, ok, there are no Russians, nor is there a country in danger.  Look, you are waiting for Mishkov, he isn’t here, and I can see, it is clear really, that you have nothing better to do right now, here, on Planet Earth, in London.  Play along, you’ll like it…..Now, what I want you to do is kiss me, Stupid.”



 



“What, hey, what are you doing?” replied Croke as Nadia grabbed him and kissed him intensely for about thirty seconds while a loud malfunctioning muffler could be heard within earshot of our fair hero.  Croke tried with effort to unlike the vice-like grip of the young woman, and he noticed that her kiss, while pleasant, had a certain effected countenance to it; it didn’t feel real or appropriate, but it did feel nice.   While she kissed him, she watched with glimmering eyes as a large van with a loud muffler drove past them. 



 



She finally unlocked her lips from his and said, “Ok, coast is clear, all is well in Rimrock, hehhehhee.  That man has been following me for a long time, I think he’s just a mad piker, but, you never know.  See, look….”  She pointed to a large van manned by a bald large man who was peeking out at them.  The van itself looked like an extension of the driver’s seemingly flamboyant presence, and, for a flickering moment, Croke began to believe Nadia.  He began to believe in things that she subsequently said were false, but then these thoughts subsided and a degree of reasonable suspicion set in. 



 



Then, Nadia continued with “Mkay, I know you are American, it is clear.  One thing I was thinking about recently was how much the American Empire has in common with the Mongolian Empire. “



 



“Mongolian Empire? What are you talking about?.....I really should be getting on.”



 



“No, hear me out on this.  The Mongolian Empire was one of the greatest empires in terms of its duration and shear size, and yet, can you show me one thing, one physical thing that was left by the Mongols, really let’s start with buildings. Show me a Mongolian building?   Why do I say that? In a thousand years, I think someone like me will come up to someone like you and pose the same thing about America.  I was in the States recently, covering a film by a young and promising American, of Indian descent by the way, and I couldn’t get the following thought out of my mind- there is nothing here that shows permanence, nothing exists in the States that will test the Ages.  I know it sound silly, but, hey, think of London.  Well, there are a lot of buildings that are firm and solid and will stand for many more centuries.  I know it is a facile concept, but, the buildings of an empire do reflect the desire of that empire to be remembered, yes, er, remembered even though, when you look at a building that is 1000 years old, you may have a hard time contemplating life during those times. Perhaps you will doubt, just for a second, that those times existed, and then your thoughts will come into line and you will shrug it off as nonsense…;and then you will continue to believe in life on Earth before you existed, and you will rely on historical documents and believe that they represent unadulterated truth.”



 



“Will you shut the phuck up for a few moments while I register your existence, and decide if you are a figment of my imagination….hehehe, [i] I must admit though, your lips feel quite nice.”[/i]

[Nonius]

“mkay, so you agree.  What is your name by the way?”



 



“I’m Croke.”



 



“Hahahha. Croke?  Is there a first name?  Or, maybe that is your first name?”



 



“No, I am only Croke.” Said Croke.



 



“Well, now I think I need to do a reality check here,  I meet a strange man with a shaved head outside of a pizza restaurant called, ‘Croke’, nothing more, nothing less.  Hahhaha.”  Nadia continued to laugh for a long time until she could control herself.  During this time, Croke examined her body and decided that she wasn’t a figment of his imagination, and that, his desire to ravish her, as odd as she was, were stronger than the odd looming fear that he had about knowing her.



 



“Ok, Nadia, I’ll play the game.  Where are the Russians?” Said Croke, as he noticed his genitals grow in size from the influx of blood. 



 



“They are in Mayfair.”



 



Croke looked for another cigarette but noticed that the pack was empty.  He then searched all six pockets in his coat and jeans, and nervously gestured to the sky as he showed signs of desperate need.  He then said, “Ok, Mayfair, let’s go, after I get some cigarettes…where can I pick up a pack?”



 



“Around the corner, there is a small store, you call them ‘Bodegas’ at least in New York. I’ll wait love, and then we’ll go to Mayfair and I’ll help you get the evil Russians.”



 



Croke became very excited and henceforth ran around the corner to a small store called ‘Ashok’s’ in which he bought a pack of Silk Cut Blues.  The cashier, a dark and sullen faced Indian, spent a long time locating the Silk Cut Blues, during which time Croke gazed at rows of snacks and strange patrons who looked like they were coming down from unnatural highs.  He finally got his pack and then scrambled out of Ashok’s, turned left, ran down a sidewalk lined with graffiti laden tin doors and small Chinese take out joints until he reached Rufus Street.  He turned the corner left, and noticed, much to his chagrin, that his dark-eyed love, his short term Nadia, was gone.

[Nonius]

She was gone.  He looked around right and left, while he pondered her absence.  On the one hand, he was relieved, since she was just another cog in his life’s engine, and even though the cog was a mere wavelet of information, it seemed to have a pronounced meaning for him.  On the other hand, he genuinely liked here, because she was, well, first of all, attractive and second of all, she was a seemingly wavelet constrained reflection, a biological mirror as it were right down to even a gender flip, of himself.  He could not articulate all of the layers of comparison and contrast, but, he had faith that they existed. 



 



He wanted her in a nontrivial sense, and he was at the same time perplexed by her existence.  Her thoughts of history and references to the Mongolian Empire seemed to coincide in important ways with his most recent thoughts and recollections, although, it could be discerned by Croke as well as the writer and the readers of this story that She, Nadia, articulated this connection in a much clearer fashion. There was only one History of Earth, although that one History had certainly gone through several revisions and reshufflings of ideas and artifacts.  In the same way, one’s history on this planet also goes through a myriad of changes in self-interpretation, each change of which is precipitated the most inconsequential of motifs such as a change of city, a change of context, or a change of friends and acquaintances.  His current context and city was London, and he had been around the block many times, in many cities, and he had endured many trials and tribulations in social and other categories of intercourse.  And thus he felt like he was on the crest of a wavelet of revolutionary proportion, a wave that was constrained in time and space, but which, despite its immediacy, demanded a profound recognition. 



 



So, what was this wave, and what was the change of paradigm.  Croke was forty four years old?  He was born in California.  He studied Physics at Stanford for eight years.  He went through an array of female relationships that ended with nothing, much to the chagrin of his family. He traveled the world, taking on postdoctoral positions for small stints of time.  Then, he snapped and exited academics and entered the world of banking while still in the fits of adolescence at the unripe age of thirty.  Still unattached, with immediate family moving out in several random dimensions from ground zero of Crokeness, he felt even more unattached to the real world and like a smoke particle moving about randomly on a two dimensional manifold whose topology matched that of a sphere.  He roamed and roamed and roamed the planet as a Phycisist and then as a banker, and he never became attached until he met a nice young French girl by the name of Alexandra.  They were married and lived and roamed throughout the world for several years, childless, unattached to the roaming particles comprising immediate family relationships.  And then Croke went through a crisis known to human’s as a midlife crisis, and this really meant that he was becoming a man at the age of forty.  Unfortunately, this meant that he had to decide on whether his current situation was correct and in line with his view and philosophy on life, and, being the case that life’s path was so riddled with random bumps and reflections, and, being the case that all connections to the past were severed through separation of space, he was prone to make a decision based on a Markovian model of existence- all information was captured in the present, and if the present didn’t feel right, the write a new present.  And this revision required the revision of a past.  Yes, write a new past, just as billions of humans have written a new past throughout the ages.  And, the only haunting proof of the true past, only things that humans, and Croke, could rely on with a cold recognition of physicality, were things in the MeatSpace of the here and now- buildings, humans in immediate presence, geographical references, and so on.