Mckenzie's Podcast

The sound of the tolling bell invaded McKenzie’s mind. It was seven a.m. on a sunny Sunday morning and the faithful were making their way to early mass. Historically, France is a predominantly Roman Catholic country with a past that is steeped in religiosity far removed from the character of Jesus Christ. Fear has bound and controlled the Catholic Christians who, for the most part, are blissfully unaware of any other viable alternatives. McKenzie came from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, another stronghold of religious control. He hated religion and that put him off Christianity although he still didn’t know that there was a difference between the two. Slowly, however, the revelation was beginning to dawn on him. McKenzie was about to embark on a massive learning curve. McKenzie collected his thoughts and focussed on the day ahead. He knew that it contained lurking dangers and he would need to have his wits about him. Emile, his long time friend, had set up the meeting with Youssef, a Moroccan refugee, who no

The smell of sulphur and the stench of filth made McKenzie want to retch. It overpowered him; dank, putrid decay, the reek of death. The tortured screaming was at fever-pitch way beyond the capabilities of anything human. Involuntarily, McKenzie let out a scream himself. It came from somewhere deep within him and inside that desperate cry was every ounce of McKenzie’s last hope of survival. Out of nowhere McKenzie suddenly felt his fall being cushioned by an invisible source. Instead of falling downwards into the jaws of the devouring black evil abyss he was travelling upwards at the speed of light towards a glorious, magnificent, iridescent kaleidoscope of brilliant colours. McKenzie was exhilarated, he was overwhelmed with euphoria. Elated and filled with tremendous joy, McKenzie lay back into the invisible arms and enjoyed the ride. All of a sudden, McKenzie was in the centre of an inexpressible light. Colours flashed all around him. He could almost touch and taste each colour, however, as he reached out t

McKenzie was spiralling backwards, falling into empty darkness. He felt helpless; unable to coordinate his movements; unable to think straight. What was happening to him? He had no idea. He reached out desperately trying to catch hold of something, anything to stop him falling. He caught hold of a horrible slimy thing that gave him the creeps but he couldn’t keep hold of it. As it slipped from his grasp, McKenzie saw the ugliest face of indescribable evil stare back at him. It had piercing dark eyes that gripped his soul. Panicking, McKenzie scanned the unyielding void. At that moment the screaming started; eerie, spine-chilling, blood-curdling screaming, first one demented, twisted voice then another and another. The cacophony was overwhelming; ear-splitting, unrelenting like slow sadistic torture to the point of death but death like a predator toyed with its prey. Spinning, spiralling deeper, McKenzie plummeted downwards into the gaping jaws of whatever awaited him in chasm below….. Matthew 10:28….Do not be

It was the smell that first caught McKenzie’s attention. It transported him back to a time when he lived in Kisumu, Kenya. He was six years old. His family lived in the security of the military compound where his father had been unexpectedly stationed. McKenzie made friends quickly with some of the other white children but it was the Kenyan children that he liked the most. He had never known any black kids before. Blessing was a boy roughly the same age as McKenzie but that’s where the similarities stopped. Blessing had a younger sister called Precious. Together they came into the compound every day. While their mother cleaned around the compound her children would sit, well behaved, on the carefully tended lawn. When it came time to clean McKenzie’s family home, McKenzie would go out to play. Blessing loved football and so too did McKenzie. They didn’t speak each other’s language but football knew no language barriers. During the rough and tumble of close-contact hot and sweaty games, McKenzie noticed the sm

To say Sanjid’s house was shabby was a gross misunderstatement. The ancient outer edifice was crumbling and so too were the walls inside. It was highly unlikely that the windows had ever been cleaned. The threadbare linen draped over them, although once vibrant with colour, was now sun-bleached to a monochromatic grey. It was held together by the cobwebs that generations of spiders had dexterously spun over gaping holes where countless flies were trapped in mass graves. McKenzie stooped under the low roof in the dusty room where the meeting was to be held. Sanjid motioned for him to sit down, so McKenzie sat cross-legged on the warped wooden floor. Sanjid had no desire to work in the brick factory that had employed his family since the day it was built. In an attempt to get out he had found himself a niche where he could work running errands for the local underworld. Unwittingly, he had found himself entangled with an Iranian-backed extremist group who, single-handedly wanted to rid Pakistan of every white in

McKenzie’s Edge During his time of self-imposed isolation, McKenzie had exercised less and eaten more. He had gained a few extra pounds. Not so much that anyone would notice, anyone that is, except McKenzie. McKenzie felt that he had lost his edge. His mind was less sharp and his reactions were slow. He didn’t like it, his keen instincts were fuzzy. It surely wasn’t only as a result of being slightly overweight, although that would certainly contribute, no, there was something else. Isolation and a lack of interactive relationships would also be a factor. However, the one main cause for McKenzie being under par was directly related to McKenzie’s distinct lack of adventure! At heart, McKenzie was an adrenalin junkie and it had been far too long since his last fix. He was a man of action. Now, with his project sufficiently advanced, it was time for McKenzie to start joining the dots. His first port of call was Pakistan. It was time to find out what was really going on with their nuclear arsenal….. McKenzie’s fi

McKenzie Looks for a Connection McKenzie found himself at church. It was somewhere in middle England at the beginning of spring. With new life bursting out all around him, it seemed like an excellent time to make a God connection in the hope of getting things off to a good start after his winter of isolation. From the outside it didn’t look like a church building. It was a factory unit in an industrial estate. McKenzie liked that. One thing that repulsed McKenzie was overt religion. Non-religious Christianity was often difficult to find because religion soiled true Christianity like a bad stain. Furthermore, it was McKenzie’s sad experience that religion and Christianity were bed-fellows that were difficult to separate. McKenzie was made to feel welcome when he entered. Without much ado, he progressed into the main auditorium just as the band began to play and they were good. The presentation was good, the sound quality was good, the stage lighting was good and the projected visuals were also good. As the en

McKenzie comes out of Hibernation McKenzie caught his reflection in a shop window. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He looked like someone who had been isolated, hidden high on a mountain or deep in a jungle or lost in a desert. His eyes stared and darted everywhere trying to make sense of too much information. He looked like a crazy-man, cowered and scuffling, as he looked for shadows to hide in. His hair was long and so too was his beard. He was overweight and his clothes had seen better days. His reclusive lifestyle whilst productive had done nothing for his image. He was feeling fearful and overwhelmed among so many people in the city. McKenzie needed a makeover, bad. First-off, he went for a short haircut and a beard trim. He wasn’t ready to lose the beard altogether, he may need it to hide behind. He couldn’t stomach the small talk from the slightly camp barber. He felt detached and uninvolved with his life and lifestyle. McKenzie had been locked into his project all winter and he felt like a bear comin

McKenzie Finds Hope McKenzie scanned the parched desert landscape expecting to see nothing but, hoping that he would see something or someone, some kind of life, anything. As his trained eyes journeyed slowly through the bleak, arid, inhospitable terrain, he stopped to look again at a speck in the distance. It hovered in the shimmering heat. It may have been his imagination, it may have been a mirage, but it was worth checking out. McKenzie filled up his canteen with water from the drum in his pick-up and set off in the direction of that indistinguishable fragment of hope. As he got closer the speck grew larger and took on a distinct shape. When he finally reached it, McKenzie discovered with delight that he had stumbled upon a caravanserai; a roadside resting place where travellers could rest and recover from the day's journey. These caravanserai supported the, albeit sporadic, flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes throughout North Africa. Although currently deserted, M

McKenzie Gets Cooked The wind died away leaving McKenzie sitting in the merciless inferno of airless sunshine. He felt like a piece of meat tossed on a barbeque griddle as he began to cook in the unrelenting heat. He focussed his mind and tried to find a place inside his head where he could cope. He tried not to sweat but beads of perspiration began to form on his forehead and he felt trickles of sweat run down his rib cage. There was nowhere to hide. McKenzie’s car, like McKenzie himself, had overheated on the sand-covered single-track road that ran from Reganne to In Salah through the Algerian Sahara. Wisely, he had a five-gallon drum of water in the back of his borrowed pick-up. McKenzie had turned off the engine to allow it to cool down. As he waited his mind went back to Spain and to Maria. She knew nothing of his whereabouts and, therefore, no amount of torture would make her give him away. He hoped that she would not suffer long before she died. Vultures circled high overhead but McKenzie was determine

McKenzie on the Run McKenzie grew increasingly more impatient as he waited for Maria to show. It was now well past their pre-arranged rendezvous time. Maybe their plot had been discovered. If so, it was inevitable that Don Pedro’s henchmen would extract all the details from her and they would now come for McKenzie. It would be safer for him to make his escape while he could but that would mean deserting Maria. As he pondered this dilemma, framed in the rear-view mirror, his is eye caught something shifting in the shadows. His instincts kicked-in and adrenalin exploded through his body. He threw himself out of the driver’s door and ducked behind a large commercial refuse bin that had been wheeled out from ‘La Gaviota’ just moments earlier for the nocturnal bin-men. A bullet ricocheted off the wall behind him. McKenzie, with lightning speed, gathered his thoughts. He positioned himself behind the large container and began to push it towards the assassins. There was a slight downward slope on the road that helpe

McKenzie’s Reality Check It started as a tiny speckle in the far, far distance, in the macro-space behind McKenzie’s eyes. Sitting in his recliner easy-chair soaking up the sunshine through the window of his bedroom, he almost purred like a pussy-cat. McKenzie inclined his head towards the wall and watched the shifting shadows and dancing lights that were refracted through the trees from the garden outside. A cloud momentarily passed in front of the sun bringing McKenzie back from day-dreaming to the stark reality of the matter in hand; why was Helga murdered and who did it? He had no option but to walk away the night she was killed. To get involved with a murder would have complicated everything. He had been waiting on Helga returning with a contact name; a name that would take him to the leader of the Unilateral Disarmament Movement in Russia. Whoever killed Helga didn’t want McKenzie to have that name. McKenzie knew that this was more, much more, than a group of Ban the Bomb ex-hippie protesters. He wonder

McKenzie Meets His Past His mp4 player was out of juice, so McKenzie tuned into the noise that surrounded him. He zoned-into private conversations until he found something that interested him. He was back in Scotland, in Glasgow, in a massive shopping mall that had sprung-up from nowhere since his last visit. Malls are noisy places and they are fascinating. Nameless people, thousands of them, milled around in all directions. Every one of them had a unique story to tell….McKenzie knew that all they wanted was someone to listen. He pondered this as he sipped his Starbucks latte, casually eavesdropping into whatever conversation caught his attention in the ambience. “Hello son, is this seat taken?” McKenzie followed the voice to a smartly dressed old man with piercing blue eyes and a recently done neat haircut. He was holding a mug of tea standing in front of the empty seat at McKenzie’s table. “No, it’s yours”, smiled McKenzie politely. “Thank you. Busy place, isn’t it?” “Yes”, responded McKenzie. “My name’s A

McKenzie waited anxiously for Maria to show. They had meticulously planned this meeting before she helped him to escape from ‘La Dama de la Noche’. Maria had decided to go to her father in Sao Paulo Brazil. Together with McKenzie, they had staged his escape and arranged a rendezvous in Marbella’s Old Town. McKenzie would drive them both, in his hired car, to Malaga Airport. They would catch a flight to London’s Heathrow and, from there, onto Sao Paulo. Don Pedro would be so preoccupied with finding McKenzie that they should be absorbed into the populace of Sao Paulo before he even noticed that Maria was missing. McKenzie had left some false trails that would, hopefully, lead Don Pedro into thinking that he had driven north to France. That was what McKenzie loudly told the man at the car hire office in Puerto Banus. McKenzie sat quietly outside La Gaviota bar drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of the hired black Merc and he waited…… They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of

The air at such altitude, in the foothills of the Himalayas, was incredibly thin and dry making it impossible to sweat despite the scorching heat. McKenzie’s blood pressure was far too high causing his face to flush like a beetroot. His pulse was beating so hard that he thought his head would explode and his heart would burst. The journey to Khoplang, a tiny village in the district of Gorkha, took two days walking. Much of the dirt road had been washed away by the frequent torrential rains making it heavy-going under foot for McKenzie and his Sherpa guide. Wading through the river in full spate was not an option, even although it would have cut hours off the journey. When the driver of an old truck offered them a lift, McKenzie and his guide jumped at the chance despite the exorbitant price they had to pay for the privilege. McKenzie had an important meeting with, Chitra, the Chief Elder of the village. Chitra had some valuable information that may just expose the communist insurgent’s take-over of the former

McKenzie is Amazed As quickly as she had entered, Maria left the room, having caused relatively little damage. McKenzie was confused and wondered what was going on. Was this part of a physiological ploy to intimidate him? Before McKenzie had a chance to work it all out, the cabin door swung open again and Maria stood, statuesque, framed in the doorway. She was dressed to kill in her bright red mini dress. Smoke rose from an extremely long cigarette delicately held in her perfectly manicured fingers. “You intrigue me” she purred, toying with his mind and emotions. “I have been instructed to kill you for my pleasure, but before I do, I want to know who you are.” McKenzie remained silent, giving nothing away. “There is a smell from you that reminds me of my father back in Brazil. Maybe you are my father?” She let her question hang in the air. “I hate him! He abandoned me when I was a child.” Maria’s lip was quivering. “He didn’t come to look for me when I was taken in the jungle.” McKenzie’s mind raced back to t

McKenzie and the Digital Age McKenzie was taken aback when the preacher walked up to the pulpit and said, “Please do not turn off your mobile phones. Leave them on and start texting and posting messages of what happens here to your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Attach photos and videos by all means.” Almost immediately, mobile phones being held aloft began flashing. Others were slowly moving as they panned the preacher and the congregation. “Be sure to invite the people you contact to come along to this meeting, if they can,” said the preacher. Before long, a stream of social network ‘friends’ began to stream into the meeting. Far from being distracting, the buzz was electrifying. The church was alive, the congregation was active and the preacher was animated. Something was going on everywhere. All over the world, people were talking about the meeting that McKenzie was attending. As social networkers began to respond about what was happening in their own congregations, their home groups, whatever they were

McKenzie is Spared Condensation stuck to the window like mist on a Scottish mountain. However, McKenzie was not in Scotland, The Land of his Fathers, he was in South East Asia, Myanmar to be precise, Mandalay City to be very precise. A drop of water left its trail and through the window blurred images of the city made indistinct shapes through the glass. McKenzie’s clothes stuck to him with sweat, he was only wearing a t-shirt and Bermudas but they were soaked through. He was alone for the moment but his head was still spinning from what had just happened. The tiny, plain room had been packed with around fifty people praying. Prayers like McKenzie had never heard; loud, fervent and passionate. Almost everyone had been weeping, their faces streaked with tears, crying out to God. Suddenly the bamboo door had burst open and at least twenty policemen with clubs had rushed in. It was carnage. The sickening thuds on beating flesh, breaking bones and frenzied screaming filled the room where the sound of prayer had

Miguel radioed ahead informing the Coastguard and the Guardia Civil of his surprise catch. Before he reached the beautiful La Carihuela beach, he could see that is was packed with emergency service vehicles and, of course, the press. Miguel ordered his small crew to unload the fish while the net, with the horrific human remains still entangled, was removed on a temporary winch set up on the sand. It was deposited into a screened of no-go area. Camera flash guns popped and the TV cameras rolled capturing every detail of the latest scoop. The press scrum pushed microphones with their network logos attached into Miguel’s leathery face. He had seen many things during his sixty-eight years of life but this took the biscuit. He was deeply affected by his grim catch. They asked him all kinds of questions…. “Where exactly were you fishing?” “How long were you there?” “How old is your boat?” “What beer do you drink?” Miguel, as he was advised by the police, declined to comment on anything. The remains were officially

By the time McKenzie heard the key unlock the cabin door, he had manoeuvred himself into a sitting position on the floor with his back against the wall. At least that way he would see what was coming. To his surprise, it was Maria who entered unaccompanied. McKenzie looked her up and down. As usual, she was impeccably dressed with not even a hair out of place. Her dark eyes locked onto McKenzie’s upturned face. He could detect no obvious signs of emotion other than absolute self confidence. She glided over to McKenzie and asked herself out loud, “What are we going to do with you?” McKenzie, still gagged and bound, looked into Maria’s face. She stooped, grabbed a corner of the duct tape that was over his mouth and gave it a good tug. McKenzie was now able to talk. “Thank you”, he said with a hint of cynicism while contorting his mouth and jaw. “You’re welcome”, Maria responded with obvious sarcasm. “I want to hear you when you scream”. McKenzie was defenceless. His wrists were tied behind his back and his ank