The Green Man (Zygotic Gametic Edit)

<<OH MY GOD! IT'S ALIVE!>> Doktor Storm Thorgarten was raving in his bunker lab. He had popped open his Coke bottom glasses momentarily so as to peer into an electron microscope. <<Pieter, come. Behold this marvelous vision!>>

<<Lord almighty>> Pieter said.

And Storm snatched the slide of microscopic slime and twirled it like the closest thing to a wom(b)an he'd come upon since he left one, his wild Einsteinian hair was flying as he spun and sang, <<It's alive, it's alive!>>

<<The miracle of life>> Pieter said.

Above ground there was a housing complex crafted especially for African guest workers and their families. In one of the apartments two Ethiopian boys were blazing some modified Moroccan hashish in a bathtub bong. <<Het shiet op>> one of them cried as his lungs ignited. <<Supersonisch!>>

<<46 years>> Storm said defiantly <<46 years I've been working for this!>>

<<I'll get the champagne>> Pieter proposed.

<<Get me a subject first>> the good doktor instructed. <<Pretty looking cultures on petri dishes are one thing. Successful field experiments are another.>> He held up the slide of microscopic slime like a Wild West sheriff might tout his badge. <<This baby's going out to meet the people.>>

A DOZEN YEARS LATER, in a rival neighborhood of Amsterdam Willem Boonzajer was on a commuter train fighting with a refugee for the last seat. The refugee was Sudanese with the usual extermination numbers tattooed on his wrist.

<> he insisted, saying it in Dutch of course.

<> Willem snorted, <<but that's not the etiquette here. Do you understand what etiquette means? It might be all right to go on a mad stampede for the nearest seat in subSahara or wherever it is you come from but this is Europe yeah, this is the land of respect yeah. I got on the train first, I saw the seat first. Therefore I should have it.>>

The refugee, having understood only the reference to the Sahara, repeated his pidgin, <>

Willem said, <> The refugee just gripped his seat and said as smugly as he could in such broken Dutch, <<You not intimidate me now.>>

<<Is there a problem here?>> another black man interjected. He rose from his seat on the other side of the carriage and challenged Willem with an intimidating stare. <>

<<Go on then>> Willem sighed <<take it.>>

WHEN WILLEM GOT TO WORK it was at the Glam European headquarters in the Muiderpoort district. His office was a ripoff of a hash coffee shop with dogeaten couches, Pink Floyd videos and an ornamental bong. He had a secretary named Moya and a gift for media promotions.

<<Jesus Christ, what a morning>> he said. <<And they talk about a coffee-colored Europe!<<

Speaking of coffee here were three young men sipping cups of Douwe Egberts on his divan, three white men in suits and a lad whose skin was a violent shade of green.

Paval Pozynak, the Green Man from Ukraine!

<<What are you a>> Willem wondered <<Martian or something?>>

Imagine if there were creatures on Mars and they were intelligent and they wanted to settle here. Not War of the Worlds style or anything but say there was a famine back on Mars, their ozone belt went on the blink or something and suddenly they're fleeing home in rickety spaceships, piling into the sky for the lush green fields and commodity markets of Earth. Martian restaurants spring up all over Asia, specializing in lichen soups and dry ice shakes. A new genre of music, mixing Martian glottal clicks and Hip Hop, becomes popular among Europe's disillusioned youth.

<<They've been waiting for you>> Moya said. <<This is Mr Wagenaar. And Mr Brugmans. And Mr Kroon. And Paval Poznyak.>>

<<We're lawyers>> Mr Wagenaar commenced, offering his hand nonetheless. <<From Wagenaar and Associates. Paval here is our client. He'd been using one of your products every day for three years when he developed this... condition.>>

<> Willem objected. <<If this is a liability matter you should be speaking to our legal reps..>>

Mr Brugmans said, <<Oh, we've got no concern about liability. This case will be a walkover..>>

Willem fingered his ornamental bong as if it were, say, a flute. <<So what I have got to do with it?.>>

<<When a man wakes up one morning and finds his skin greener than Kermit that man has to reconsider his future.>> Mr Kroon said. <<Especially if he's a school dropout and is living in an age of permanent 10 per cent unemployment. We could milk you for 30 million but is 30 million enough? Your a PR man, Mr Boonzajer>> Mr Kroon smiling now, <<you understand these things.>>

<<No I don't.>> Willem said, fingering his bong.

THE PREVIOUS EVENING Willem had been at one of his sessions, this one a Jungian therapy group. The topic of the night was monsters and the archetype they represented. The woman in front of Willem began by talking about Jenny Longtooth, a witch who hid out in the leas and dug trapdoors for unwary children. After 25 minutes the coordinator had to interrupt and pass the torch to Willem.

<<I've never believed in monsters>> Willem confessed. <>

<<Don't be so defensive>> the coordinator urged him.. <<Get in touch with your feelings.>>

<<Well>> Willem said, <<if we're going to broaden this topic to cover fear, I'll tell you about my fears. I've always had this feeling, this gut feeling that flowing beneath the skin of this life there being another realm, a world behind this one. Another dimension. Here but not here, if you will.>>

<<The only place in the universe is stant if need be -- call him The Chameleon');">here the coordinator said. <<If Jung didn't say anything about the fifth dimension then he certainly should have.>>

<<But it's more than that<< Willem insisted. <>

<<Where is the interface?>> the coordinator coaxed. <<What does it feel like?>>

<<The interface is breached only in moments of metamorphosis. A caterpillar turning into a butterfly, that's the fifth fucking dimension. That successive melding and permutation of gamete to zygote to our primitive and original embryonic form.<< Willem's knees were wobbling at this. <<A man dying and hitting that tunnel of brilliant light...>>

A man dying and hitting that tunnel of brilliant light, in molecular bonds!

<<It's okay Will>> when the tears started flowing <<we're all here for you.>>

<> Willem managed eventually, "wedded to the underbelly of this world is another, just beyond our reach. It is sometimes glimpsed as a movement over the shoulder or revealed in the brief union of lovers, when time, space and matter meet. But unless you can submerge yourself all you can do is stand at the brink of this world and catch flashes of what lies below the opaque surface. Only sometimes does someone burst through the skin and become a part of it, merging, breathing underwater.>>

<<Jenny can jump into mirrors>> the psycho woman blurted.

<<YOU'RE NOT actually saying>> Willem was reading Pavel's bio over morning tea biscuits studded with guarana flakes to enhance stamina. Paval was born in the Ukraine in 1982 and moved Dutchward with his parents when the European Union came. In Rotterdam he fell into EU vice like crack cocaine and Gabba techno. The story about him being a school dropout was true and there were documents to prove it. He had acne as well. When he was 16 he started using Glam facewash to dry out his zits. It was reasonably successful so he kept using it, two times a day for three years.

<<The rest is still highly confidential>> Mr Wagenaar said. So confidential, Willem noticed, that Paval hadn't muttered a word all morning. "In August this year our client took a daytrip to France where he contracted an especially bad case of sunburn. He returned home, applied Glam facewash as every other night and went to sleep. When he woke up half the skin on his face had peeled away. The skin underneath... well, you can see for yourself.>>

<<The specialists have diagnosed a complete melanin mutation," Mr Brugmans said. "As you may well know melanin darkens the skin in a range from white to jet black. For the first time in recorded history, in a mutation somehow linked to your product, our client's melanin has turned chlorophyllic green.>>

"Our skincare range is a simple variation on a recipe which has been around for decades>> Willem responded. "Suitably cosmopolitanized, naturally. It has never caused a mutation before.>>

"That's why we want to have fun with it," Mr Kroon said. "Glam makes the world's first Green Man. We'll make a fucking mint!>>

>>Of course," Mr Wagenaar said, "there will be dividends enough for Glam to share.>>

WILLEM'S WIFE was Noa and she was Israeli. This may puzzle readers who've developed a preconception (in turn founded on stereotype) that Willem was a racist. Willem was not a racist, he was simply obsessed with the ideal of ethnic transcendence. The fact this was a racist ideal in early 21st century society is irrelevant. Willem would willingly Orientalize his eyes if he felt that would homogenise the global gene pool. Lisa is not a Dutch convert and Willem is not a tryhard Zionist, but when they were together he yearned for some kind of alchemy where two plus two equaled five, and a miraculous, higher state of being might emerge.

Occasionally, usually in bed, they achieved it.

"I can only stay an hour or two>> Willem said from the middle of a delicate cunnilingus position. "I've got to stay back all night working on this new promotion.>>

"Oh Christ," Lisa trying desperately not to revert to Hebrew, "an hour or two with you is all it takes." She wrapped her Semitic thighs tight around his golden head, his tongue their temporary axis. "Oh God," she said, "I'm exploding!>>

Getting redressed for work Willem dropped as casually as he could, "Fucking hell. I met a green man today.>>