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“If I am a witch, then what are you? Mr uses-a-magic-stone-to-transform-an-old-chicken-into-a-young-girl-just-to-fuck-her? Does that not smack of sorcery a teensy bit? Does summoning all of this out of nowhere…” she gestured to the grand castle and grounds “…not constitute some form or wizardry?” Aniello the cockerel looked around with rapid head movements that chickens do, in a shifty kind of way that suggested don’t-know-who-you’re-talking-to-nothing-but-a-cockerel-here and said no more. He then began to scratch the ground and peck at it.

Rachel shook her head in exasperated disbelief before shouting “Aniello! Hoy Aniello, come take this creature away!” Aniello the cockerel looks up, not really understanding what’s going on. What, or rather who should he see coming out of the castle doors but… another Aniello! The cockerel looks at Rachel then the approaching Aniello, back to Rachel, back to Aniello! “What creature my love?” enquires the new Aniello. “This one!” she gesticulates harshly at the cockerel Aniello, who now is caught in a kind of stunned inertia.

Oh cockerelo, cockerelo, too late he reacts and the obedient, ever loving Aniello is on him. “Well my fine fellow…” says Aniello, “…you will make a good addition to tonight’s dinner.” And away with him, clutching cockerel-Aniello by the legs upside down. Rachel blows the new Aniello a kiss from her claw, which the new Aniello looks slightly perturbed by but still receives pleasantly, before heading back to the castle with the cockerel, with a mind to take it to the kitchen. As Aniello walks through the long stony corridors, so eventually some kind of sense emerges from the shock and the cockerel-Aniello begins to find his voice.

“Aniello, Aniello!” he crows, and Aniello stops. “You can speak?!” “Yes, I can speak Aniello and you must listen to me before you send me to slaughter.” “Go on.” Says Aniello, though he does not put the fowl down. “Aniello, I am non-other than your beloved Rachel and have been transformed into a cockerel. The Rachel that called you is not Rachel but one of the two wizards whom you turned into asses many years ago; somehow they are back, how I do not know. You must free me and save our child, but beware, for whilst the wizard does not have the red stone, he does have a new black stone, which is yet more powerful than the red one. If you do not believe me, look in the branches of the scots pine trees near the courtyard. There, if you wait a while you will see hovering a winged egg. This winged egg is our child, not yet ready to fully hatch. Get the red-stone and whilst the wizard does not yet know that you know it is he, see if you can disarm him of the black.” “Well, this is a strange tale you tell me for sure!” said Aniello, “Go, go, go to the window until you see the egg, then you will know I am not lying. Our poor child needs our help!”

So Aniello altered his route until he reached a window on the correct side of the castle, and from there (all the while holding the cockerel-Aniello) he peered out into the lofty branches of the scots pine trees. He looked and he saw nothing, but the cockerel bade him look a while longer, and then sure enough there was something. At first he thought it a bird, but then noticing how it hovered and yet how it could not be a kestrel; he focussed his sight upon it and saw it did indeed look like a winged egg. His mind whirled and he did not know what to think, for he had heard of the ancient tales of the winged egg Kneph and its strange symbolism. He did not know what to believe and his mind was filled with serpents, cockatrices and mysteries. Yet the cockerel did seem so earnest in its explanation and has he watched his wife cavorting strangely below in the courtyard, he did begin to feel there was something sinister and off about her.

Round and round the black stone she danced in eccentric circles and chanted as she spun. Beneath her, her claw-like feet scratched at the dirt to form a pattern where she stepped. Gradually, her turns became sharper and her birdsong became louder until it was no more than a whistling shriek which deafened the Aniellos’ ears so that neither heard the words she spoke next. “Black stone, black stone, I beg thee, hear my plea! I ask you to curse the peasant-man who dared make a mockery of me!” Now of course like all fables and fairy tales, Rachel’s words certainly didn’t go unheard, though she was not aware that the outcome of her invocation would not be as she intended. Had she not been blinded by her enthusiasm, she may have noticed that she had fumbled her words and instead of “mockery” she had said “cocker-ly”. Regardless, the Freudian slip had been made and the avian-reptilian overlord had heard her wishes and sealed her fate.

When at last the ringing subsided, the Aniellos realised that Rachel had been concealed from their view. The dust that had been churned up from her feverish dance now formed a cloud around her which Aniello surmised was to ensure that the next act of her nefarious machinations would remain undisturbed. Little did they know that they were lucky to be blinded from the horrors within. 

“Do you believe me now?” The cockerel Aniello craned his neck to face his upside down (from his perspective) human counterpart. “We must make a plan at once to extract the black stone from her villainous claws! You must help me find the winged egg or else we may never defeat her! You must let me go at once before it is too late!” Understandably, this was a lot for the human not-Aniello to take in. His knowledge of the egg and its strange and unknown powers frightened him but somehow he knew that the cockerel was telling him the truth. He looked yonder towards the Scots pines and for a moment, thought he caught sight of the winged-egg of which the cockerel spoke and an uncomfortable sensation stirred within him. Strange as it may be, the truth was clear before him. Though what might he gain from this transaction? A cockerel might not offer him much but a bargain is still a bargain. He pondered for a moment, considering what this hapless bird might offer him. For a brief moment, a mischievous smirk darted across his features for he had finally reached his conclusion. In his most booming and authoritarian voice, he announced the terms of their mutual companionship.  

“Is that so, my bird friend? I could very easily help you since you yourself are.. inhibited in your current form. But naturally my aid would come at a price, perhaps the price of a certain red stone…”. He trailed off without finishing his point. Aniello, still securely hanging by his feet, flapped his wings furiously. “You damned fool! Do you not know the powers which you meddle with!? The red stone is one of the most powerful artefacts in the known world and you want to use it for your foolish desires! Pray tell, what exactly do you intend to do with it if it falls into your possession? Tell me honestly what it is that you want most in all the world.” A lengthy pause saturated the air between them. Not-Aniello inhaled deeply and levelled his gaze with one of (for he could not meet the gaze of both) cockerel/original Aniello’s deeply-unsettled orange eyes. “I want to start a folk-rock band”. 

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Listen to Shuffle Up (Lyrics Below)

I’ve been walking these city streets and these feet keep creeping up on me,
Well it seems in main I can’t complain, I never knew if I was bored or strange,
Can’t cry but can’t just ignore, that tap tap tappin’ knockin’ at my door,
Or pavement, street or shopping mall, here it comes again and it seems to call…

Katcha koo, katcha koo, katcha,
We’re going to katcha katcha
What you say don’t matter today,
Katcha koo, katcha koo, katcha,
We’re going to katcha katcha,
I’m just takin’ a break, once more…

Mind those boots in steady beat,
Shuffle up, shuffle up, shuffle up,
Mind those holy holy feet,
Shuffle up, shuffle up, shuffle up,

So now in walking round town my ears are filled with that strolling sound,
And some times too out of the corner of my eye, a rustling coat and mumbled cry,
What’s that? I hear you say, well it sure beats me but it’s here to stay,
For so it seems now every day, it’s misery in that marching way…

Katcha koo, katcha koo, katcha,
We’re going to katcha katcha
What you say don’t matter today,
Katcha koo, katcha koo, katcha,
We’re going to katcha katcha,
I’m just takin’ a break, once more…

Mind those boots in steady beat,
Shuffle up, shuffle up, shuffle up,
Mind those holy holy feet,
Shuffle up, shuffle up, shuffle up,
Leather could make you stop dead,
On your way and all attention pay,

So now these days are cold, I feel so weak from growing old,
Well my knees do creak through every week, my insides hurt from my imbibing streak,
Like rats that move discrete, akin to cats but with bigger feet,
As enigmas go it’s quite the show, ever present sure but slow…

Katcha koo, katcha koo, katcha,
We’re going to katcha katcha
What you say don’t matter today,
Katcha koo, katcha koo, katcha,
We’re going to katcha katcha,
I’m just takin’ a break, once more…

Mind those boots in steady beat,
Shuffle up, shuffle up, shuffle up,
Mind those holy holy feet,
Shuffle up, shuffle up, shuffle up,
Climb into the tumble dryer,
Stay there ’til it’s much safer outside,
On your way and all attention pay,

And in truth your souls defeat,
Shuffle up, Shuffle up, Shuffle up,
Lines the tombs of ancient Crete,
Shuffle up, Shuffle up, Shuffle up,
Climb into the tumble dryer,
Stay there ’til it’s much safer outside,
Climb into the tumble dryer baby,
Stay there ’til it’s much safer outside…



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What are zones? The concept is extensively explored here but can more succinctly explained as commonly being a modern region of some industrial/office nature that has been abandoned and that now presents an uncanny appearance. Brief more detail would be to say that the withdrawl of the concepts imprinted upon the region (e.g. previously multi-storey carpark) leave a kind of vacuum into which rushes the otherworldly manifestation.

With this in mind I want to consider an experience I have had in experimenting with a kind of phenomenological play. In reading about the Buddhist concept of sunyata I may well have misunderstood it, nevertheless what I took from the concept at the time was the notion of emptiness and how this emptiness seemed to tally well with the notion of removing the pneuminous accretions from the vector field. So observing the world with a certain kind of passivity towards the conceptual overlays, I found that things looked exactly the same and yet different. There is no other way to describe it as such, precisely because it was an experience that does not easily fit into the regular currency of linguistic conveyance (though it is recognisable in the buddhist literature). To not see things under the auspice of concepts (insofar as this was possible, it can argued it was only a layer or so) did not alter the spatial arrangement or appearance of things and yet they did look different. There were things there, the world was there and yet they were in a sense not comprehended, or least not in the same way*.

This emptiness is slightly beside the point, but only slightly. The experiment in stripping concepts away created this unusual effect with urban areas, but it was not uncanny, it was more just empty. However when the same concept stripping effect was applied to more natural areas I found that they flickered in and out of a much more otherworldly fairyland (not in twee sense) like appearance of nature, not unlike the kinds of descriptions found of nature in the works of Arthur Machen or Algernon Blackwood.

We can speculatively attribute this to the conceptual removal of more recent not so consciously experienced perceptions of natural scenes (woodland in this case largely) that render the natural safe and rationally comprehended. In the UK there are no dangerous wild animals as such, so even this level of threat is not there to perturb consciousness. It does not seem unreasonable from here to think that if my phenomenological epoche (of a sort) were removing some levels others might be disclosed. In the case of nature, unlike the modern houses and roads, because the perception runs deeper in the organism in a mytho-poetic way, the removal of a certain pneuminous level disclosed nature in this way I have described as being similar to the that disclosed by the blackwood/machen machine. To be clear, I do not mean I saw any entities whatsoever, only that the trees etc acquired a sort of unearthly eerie nature, or at least had this nature more readily disclosed.

The zonetology theory says that the removal of a conceptual layer facilitates the uncanny appearance of the zone. This is what happens in the dereliction of places. This is faciliated not simply by conceptual removal on its own but rather alteration in the vector region that intimates to the observer that the region is derelict. This may be perpetual emptiness, dark windows, rubbish accruing, being partially broken, boarded up, fenced off etc. The feedback from these signs transforms the region into a zonal phenomenon.

What is the connection of all this to Tolkein’s dark wasteland? Well,it is reasonably hypothesised that Tolkein derived Mordor from the coal mine and steel work riddled east midlands region of the England. The region was even named the black country owing to the layer of soot which covered the towns and landscape. It was a morass of black belching chimneys and burning furnaces. Thus the theory goes that Tolkein transposed this industrial landscape into the Lord of the Rings as Mordor.

If this is correct then it seems to me albeit through a natural power of imagination, that Tolkein performed an act not dissimilar to my own Sunyata like play. In my case, the natural world became like something that reminded me of a notion of a kind of primeval fairy land. In Tolkein’s case it seems possible that the industrial alteration of the landscape disturbed his perception of the regular world sufficiently, so that he was able to perceive it as wrought by some dark power.

This is clearly not exactly the same, and I write this only because these various things tied themselves together in my thoughts in some way that may be hard to recover. My act is of phenomenological play, whereas his (putative) act is one that has been imposed upon him. This being said, the feeling that united in me the two notions is their relation to fairy land like phenomena. Mordor is of course the home of goblins, dark wicked goblins, other frightful things and a dark lord. It is not dark and twisted trees (though there are some of these there I recall) but it is still a manifestation of dark fairyland, almost a hell related type place.

The point seems to suggest less that I successfully perceived concept free being, but rather than in doing so, like with the zonal phenomenon, I allowed other powers to rush in to fill the pneuminous layer I had removed. If the logic follows to Mordor, then in the perceptual alteration that steel works etc brought about upon the landscape, opened a space into which the archetype of this dark realm could step. That is, the disturbance which I effected deliberately was brought about via different means in the inception of Mordor.

Hence Mordor does have a kind of zonal genesis. The landscape was not abandoned directly but the particular combination of deathly/dark otherworldly indices served to facilitate a zone like transformation to the region. This idea in turn can be reflected back into zonetology in general, to question the notion of the removal of the accretions (in the instance of abandonment). This suggests the possibility that the transformation of these regions is more about vector alteration that brings about sudden conceptual (accretive) restructuring, and less about an absence that is filled. The zonal powers do rush to fill, but not from absence, rather from the disturbance that has been effected, either from the subject-Narp (what I did) or the vector (what Tolkein may have done.)

*Phenomenology epoche

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Written by the CEO in conjunction with Jessica Lightfoot-Toye

In a sad twist of fate, as Aniello attempted to anticipate the position of the egg Aniello lunged towards where he perceived the egg was heading, unfortunately the egg, sensing that it was his protective father who sought to help him, swooped towards where it perceived the strange humming net would be. This resulted in mutual failure an ungainly and unsuccessful swipe at the ovoid offspring that sent Aniello teetering and ultimately plummeting off the high window ledge onto the hard stone parquet floor below with a sickening crunch.

“Oh dear, oh dear…” Said Rachel quite nonchalantly before swinging herself off the windowsill, from where she half flapped her way safely down to where he lay. Aniello was quite, quite dead, that much was clear. With a half comedic reproach, Rachel lifted her fist and shook it faux angrily in the air at the hovering egg “Now see what you’ve done to your father!” she shouted up towards it. The egg floated a little closer and appeared to bob remorsefully in the air. Rachel then peered down to look closer at her deceased husband. Her avian eye scanned him up and down for several moments before focussing on his caved in head. Then, taking out of her dress a small pair of scissors, she began to make a series of swift incisions, (which, if one were asked for a simile for them, one would say they resembled a pecking motion) into the wreckage of his head.

The blood spattered over her hands, up her sleeves, small bits grey matter flew hither and thither. Then, her eyes acquired a beady triumphant look, and she plunged her hand into the cavity and, after a moment of squelchy rummaging extracted a blood-soaked glistening black stone. Seemingly now oblivious to the hovering child-egg, she held the stone, peered at it intensely, then wiped it clean on her dress. Now with a wide-eyed look of concentration she focussed again on the stone. 

Upon doing so for just a miniscule amount of time, an incredible transformation began to occur. A blue light of a strange pulsating hue began to emanate from Aniello’s corpse. The air around it shimmered in an unearthly azure haze and an ineffably aural hum filled the air. The hum intensified, the light intensified until blue light and noise became one in a quasi-synaesthesic PHZZZZZZZZZZZZT! When this phenomenon subsided, there standing on the court floor was a very large majestic looking cockerel.

For a moment, the bewildered beast stood entirely still as though his incredible transformation  had somehow suspended him within a psychic trance. Rachel, who was already experienced in inhabiting a poultry vessel, rolled her eyes and released an inward sigh. Kneeling down to inspect him more closely, she cast a critical eye over his admittedly beautiful rust plumage which formed a brilliant copper cape which only further accentuated his vividly regal tail feathers. Having made this necessary assessment, she concluded that he was far more visually impressive in this form. Throughout the duration of this process, Aniello/the cockerel had not moved at all. Rachel, unphased, waved a clawed hand back and forth before him but his expression did not change, that is of course assuming that a cockerel would be capable of showing any expression at all. After a couple more pitiful passes, she sighed once more. 

“You really are useless. I see where our child gets it from”

At this remark, the egg-child, which had been quietly hovering above Rachel’s shoulder, swiftly retreated into the canopy of a nearby tree and concealed itself within the dense branches. Rachel pretending not to have noticed, concerned herself solely with the matter at hand. Having briefly pondered how she might break her husband’s trance, she reached behind him and harshly plucked one of his lustrous tail feathers to which he responded with an almighty shriek.

The cry (which was so loud it caused the surrounding palace walls to tremble as though disturbed by seismic activity) sent an unexpected shockwave throughout the kingdom which very much disturbed the many courtiers and local avian population alike. Rachel, wholly displeased by the unnecessary noise, shoved Aniello’s head into a nearby bucket of water. 

“Fool! Stop making such a terrible racket! You only have yourself to blame for this!”

In a dire state of distress, the squawking bird fruitlessly flapped his wings like the proverbial headless chicken, haphazardly striking his clawed toes behind him in an attempt to dissuade the perpetrator of his unjust treatment. When Rachel finally relented and released her grip upon his elongated neck, the drenched Aniello, surprisingly not dead, withdrew his head from the water and appeared to gasp for air. Croaking and choking out of the way, alarm shook him deep within his hollow bones as he caught his reflection within the rippling water. The shrieking then resumed.

“You witch! What have you done to me!?”