Nothing stops the onslaught of images across my mind’s eye. Their never ending furore has become a part of normal life to nullify elements of the present. To become purely a memory, gone until the future, unimportant to the present, eventuates. I accepted years ago that the pictures will always be with me, affecting the path of my life in one form or another. I cannot cut myself loose from them. There are times when I feel that they are my only reality and that life itself is a dream. Waiting, I isolate their wielding imagery, superimposed over reality filled with detail that shifts across the escarpments of life.

I’ve glimpsed other circumstances and conditions in our lives that don’t yet exist. Walked on air, flown to the stars, glimpsed other worlds, drifted through infinity - they can be an endless journey through a wondrous experience. I often ask myself what it must be like to live in a half-blind world where the road being walked upon cannot be seen with vision? To live in the eternal moment, no beginning, no end, just the immediate present?

There seems to be no escaping the vortex of violence and words again fail me after the brutal killings in Bali. One asks oneself why? Why do innocents have to die? Perhaps one has to have an understanding of the act of terrorism itself. Those concerned, have a compulsive need for revenge. They don’t count the cost. It is all or nothing. Always. For them there is no in-between. There’s no one truth. They have no moral distinctions. They are fanatical, ruthless and uncompromising, stupid, blind and deadly. The bottom line is that they believe, absolutely and without question, that terror is the one legitimate weapon they have left. It gives them a licence to terrorise and the way to remove the problem is to destroy the source. Evil, when allowed to grow, develops into the grip of a hypnotic spell. Evil is no mystifying concept, it is the inability to change for the good. We have notions of good and evil, reward and punishment which is converted into religions or when not capable of even that much, what we call Law. Again, we should not let those who are responsible for this atrocity go unpunished.

Newspaper reports come across as a rambling incoherent, hotchpotch of generalised statements, vague allegations and innuendos, without any substantiation and are based on half-truths and the like. I suppose what we learn from newspaper articles is a heavily truncated version of the truth. You know something and you guess some more thinking you have the whole story and it’s as if you’ve baked the perfect cake standing tall with evidence but once removed from the oven it sinks in the middle! I have to admit though, I begin to wonder if the pieces don’t add up because adding up isn’t a part of the plan. I have all too little evidence of any substance upon which to base my surmises - and even, ironically enough, the word “imaginations”. Making connections out of very little is one thing but the pieces I’ve produced seem to belong to a different puzzle. I’ve run through in my mind everything that’s happened. The proof is not there and not likely to come. That kind of proof only surfaces afterwards. I suspect it’s buried somewhere amongst the raw data that’s intercepted, partially processed and filed away each day. They just don’t know they have it - that one clue linking a circle of death and duplicity that stretches from the Middle East - terror in Yemen and Kuwait - a part of a trail with no beginning and the very deadliest of ends in Bali. A series of coincidences that probably can be rationally explained but the more I try and force my thoughts in another direction the stronger I find myself being pulled back to what I don’t want to accept. I don’t like anomalies. I always consider them suspect. My mind goes off on unsubstantiated tangents with nothing even remotely pulled forward to tie it together. It’s like one of those Russian metrushka dolls - a doll within a doll within a doll. Everything highly compartmentalised but no one has the complete picture!

Are Al Queda and Jemaah Islamiah moving towards a common strategy as has been suggested in some news reports? Recent events have led me to do some serious thinking. It is my belief that they are pursuing a number of different strategies. One strategy is no doubt a consolidation of assets. Their strategies, individually, vary greatly and will change continuously in the foreseeable future. They will continue to focus heavily on creating unrest within the Asian region and they will penetrate even more deeply. Primarily they will focus on consolidation of operations, rationalising and achieving greater co-operation and coordinating between groups. Their goal is to develop strong and profitable long-term relationships with carefully targeted individuals. In the past such a partnership could not have been foreseen because of differences between countries. Today, they are moving towards each other as they see profitability in achieving their aims. No doubt such co-operation will prove useless, in some instances, and seem highly uncertain when considered alone, but when viewed together, as a portfolio, it takes on a different significance. It will give them a dominant position within the region.

There have been fears that sensitive information was being held back by the Indonesians. The American’s have privately condemned the inadequate, imprecise and quite unhelpful nature of the information given to them recently. There are those within the Indonesian Government who are fully aware what was going on and who are ensuring no-one peels away any more layers and I ask myself why are the Indonesians protecting the information? The Indonesians haven’t given anything like the hard information that the American’s want/need. The whole thing is too pat. There’s something very rotten somewhere. Furthermore, their evasiveness suggests an ulterior motive. It’s unpalatable, unnecessary and hardly prudent. The Indonesians cannot afford to be stubborn, neither can they afford to stick their heads in the sand. One thing is certain, it isn’t a good habit to bite the hand that feeds and curiously, it is my belief, the intelligence barriers the Indonesians have erected will work against them in future years. I struggle away at the questions I have in my own mind. In the end, aren’t all the answers a matter of simplicity, even to the extent of over-simplification? Simplicity, I guess, is only arrived at after so many devious excursions, like Goethe’s drunken beggar on horseback, through complexity.

Indonesia may be forced to react to domestic developments. There are many deeply troubling issues besetting Indonesia. The growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism is just a small part of what is occurring and Islamic fundamentalism is likely to present considerable challenges in the future. There is no doubt that terrorism will impact Indonesia from an economic and financial point of view. Megawati will continue to walk a fine tightrope. And when the shock wears off ... it will become a grotesque carousel, carnal, cruel and brutal. The current situation is not only very fluid but highly critical. The struggle ahead is going to be overwhelming for the current government. A failing economy will create general disillusionment within Indonesian society, which may rally popular support behind a menacing ideology. You cannot neglect or have disdain for the Indonesian military. Events of change can easily trigger a violent response on the part of powers bent on preserving the prevailing status quo. It will require considerable sensitivity to the dangerous political dynamic in the region.

Now, even days after the event, I still find it difficult to understand what it is that was portrayed. My words do not do justice to what was seen. How can I explain what I fully saw? Perhaps my imagination is playing a trick on me, or rather is playing the same trick over and over again. It’s as if what was seen has become arrested at a particular frame. In my imagination I see the light come on again and the images flow on. The script is different each time but not the end towards which the action is flowing and some words come to mind “In my fathers house there are many mansions.” I hope this is true and if it is true that what was seen in the vision will not eventuate ...

Once again, I was thrown into another place. The wall is still broken, still falling but something has changed, the sands have quivered. A shifting of oaths, a new movement of purposes? There was no table only a group of people who stood erect, pallid of face, staring ahead as if alone - each man of himself alone. (Until they are themselves of the soul, they’ll remain strangled by the chains within them.) Scornful and forever grumbling, they will become weakened by their display of nothingness. Their shadows will continue to hover at the cross roads even at noon. Voices raged without purpose, argumentative. Shadowy faces became tense. One face remained impervious, almost menacing, its whiteness not that of goodness though perhaps of fealty. He who will remain undeterred, who will bring death by his faithfulness, will also deceive. Around him blood flows, at first a trickle and then a deep broad river, rushing, tumbling. Chanting heard beneath is depths, echoing, echoing ... Face upon face passed me by. Those that stand alone disappeared within its torrent of bitterness and despair, submerged in a hate of their own making. The four with crowns upon their heads worked frantically, shoring up that which had broken free which threatened to bring death and destruction to surrounding lands but they have also remained solitary and aloof and will become broken. Behind them, huge and immovable, wings outstretched, covering those within its reach, remained the eagle, eyes wide open, unblinking. Head raised it screamed its own anger and agony caught within the brilliant flash of light. Undeterred it remained, scorched, blackened but not broken hovering, and watching.

Time turns, the wind blows, the sands rise and subside, the wheel of time marches forward. Emptiness and desolation remained, nothing seen but white bones scattered across empty landscape. The deads’ flame is blown out and ever more shall be so.

Something else occurred - words were spoken, words which I’ve forgotten and cannot for the life of me recall. Why do I feel bereaved, as though I’d lost someone only recently. It weighs heavily upon me, this unknown loss.