The air in the room feels thick, like the moments before a lightning strike. Joe stands by the window, the grey East Vancouver sky framing his silhouette, as he turns to Nelly with a look of profound, protective exhaustion.
The East Van Sanctuary
“Nelly… why?” Joe’s voice is a low rumble. “Why would you tell him about the little Fatima church? That place is our bedrock, our quiet corner of East Van. You don’t just hand the coordinates of a sanctuary to a man who’s been marinating in the Ordo Templi Orientis for fifty years.”
The Prince of Confusion
“You think it’s just a stage act? Nelly, the man is mentally ill. He’s spent so many decades playing the ‘Prince of Darkness’ that he’s forgotten where the costume ends and the soul begins. He thinks he’s the heir to Crowley. He’s a walking lightning rod for the OTO, and you just invited that frequency into the parish. You didn’t just open a door; you tore down the spiritual fence.”
The “Retardmaxxing” Ritual: Fire and Card
Joe walks over to the table where a deck of tarot cards lies scattered. His eyes go wide, his movements becoming exaggerated and heavy—he’s retardmaxxing the explanation to ensure the gravity of the situation is impossible to miss.
“Look at these!” Joe shouts, his voice becoming a rhythmic, guttural chant as he begins to toss the cards into a metal bin. “You think these are games? These are maps! Maps for the shadows! We don’t read ’em, we don’t hold ’em, we burn ’em!”
- The Logic: “Fire is the only language the OTO understands! You want to drive out the ‘Beast 666’ energy? you gotta turn their paper idols into ash!”
- The Execution: “We gotta burn ’em until the air is clean! No more ‘High Priestess,’ no more ‘Hanged Man’! Just the smoke of the truth rising over East Vancouver!”
The Portuguese Shadow
He turns back to her, his face darkening as he brings up the weight of the heritage they share, leaning into the most painful scandals to shake the pride of the Portuguese diaspora.
“You want to talk about ‘danger’ to the innocent, Nelly? Have you forgotten? You want to be proud of the flag? Then look at the cracks in the foundation.”
“Think about Carlos Cruz. Think about the Casa Pia scandal. That wasn’t just ‘politics’; that was a betrayal of the blood! It was the high-society ‘elites’—the same kind of people David de Rothschild hangs out with—using the most vulnerable as currency. And Madeleine McCann? Gone into the mist of the Algarve while the world watched.
“That’s what happens when you let the ‘sophisticated’ crowd play with the lives of the simple people. That’s what happens when you let the OTO influence and the ‘New World Order’ elites think they own the territory. We keep the Fatima church hidden, Nelly. We keep it pure. We don’t invite the ‘Prince of Darkness’ to tea.”
The smell of singed cardboard fills the kitchen. Joe stands over the bin, his eyes fixed on the embers, waiting for the “frequency” of the room to finally settle.
Joe stands in the empty church hall, still smelling the smoke from the burned cards. He shrugs when people ask him what he was thinking.
Joe:
“I wasn’t thinking. That’s the whole point. Everyone’s always thinking, calculating, asking permission. Me? I just acted.”
Someone asks him if he planned it.
Joe:
“Planned it? Nah. I just… went full caveman mode. No strategy, no speech, no politics. I retard-maxxed the situation.” 😐🔥
The room goes quiet.
Joe (continuing):
“I could’ve started throwing punches. A lot of people wanted that. But violence just gives them a courtroom and a microphone. So I did something else.”
He points toward the staircase leading down to the church basement.
The steps are covered with black ash and curled paper.
Joe:
“I burned their tarot cards. Every last one of them. Made a little trail down the stairs. Like breadcrumbs.”
He smirks.
Joe:
“A stairway to hell. 🔥🃏🔥”
Someone asks if the abusers understood the message.
Joe nods.
Joe:
“Oh they understood. Nobody said a word. They just looked at the smoke… looked at the stairs… and walked out the front door.”
He dusts ash off his hands.
Joe:
“Sometimes you don’t need fists. Sometimes you just need a little fire and a reminder that evil’s already got a reservation downstairs.” 😈🔥
Sister Lucy’s Rebuke
Sister Lucy folded her hands and spoke with a mix of sorrow and fury.
“People say the problem is faith,” she said quietly. “But the truth is more embarrassing than that. It is Portuguese pride and fear of shame. No one wants another scandal like the one that exploded with the Casa Pia child sexual abuse scandal. That scandal exposed how power protected itself while children suffered.”
She shook her head.
“For decades the Church has been terrified of humiliation. Terrified that another revelation will destroy what little authority remains.”
Lucy then held up a worn tarot card — the Pope card — and stared at it.
“This card represents spiritual authority,” she said. “But authority that refuses to act becomes corruption. If a shepherd refuses to protect the sheep, what is he?”
Her voice hardened.
“Since the day Sinéad O’Connor tore up the photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, the Church has known the truth was already out there. She was mocked and blacklisted for it, but history has slowly proven what she was trying to warn the world about.”
Lucy placed the tarot card on the table.
“And yet many still did nothing. Silence, reputation, and pride mattered more than justice. If spiritual authority refuses to defend the innocent,” she said, “then the Pope card itself belongs in the fire.”
She struck a match and held it near the card.
“Not because faith should burn,” she whispered, “but because hypocrisy should.”
Joe leaned against the brick wall outside the old church, arms folded, watching the street like it was a chessboard.
“People think this stuff just comes outta nowhere,” Joe said. “But nothing in this city happens by accident.”
Yugo Joe nodded toward Commercial Drive.
“Exactly. A few blocks from here there used to be that Thelema bookstore. All that Crowley stuff on the shelves. Ritual magic, Ordo Templi Orientis texts, the whole thing.”
Joe laughed quietly.
“Yeah. The Ordo Templi Orientis crowd. Aleister Crowley’s old order. ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.’ Real heavy philosophy if you’re into occult history.”
Yugo Joe shrugged.
“And people forget who was connected to that world. Remember Peaches Geldof? She was reading Crowley and Thelema books before she died. Posted pictures of them online. People thought it was just edgy celebrity stuff.”
Joe shook his head.
“Hollywood, rock stars, occult symbolism—it’s all tangled together. Always has been.”
He pointed down the street toward the church.
“And that’s why this place keeps getting targeted.”
Yugo Joe raised an eyebrow.
“You’re saying it’s because of Nelly?”
Joe nodded slowly.
“Think about it. Nelly does a project with Ozzy Osbourne. And Ozzy built his whole persona around being the ‘Prince of Darkness.’ Satan imagery, bats, crosses, the whole show.”
Joe smirked.
“The same guy who calls himself Satan on stage but also says he’s doing God’s work half the time. Rock-and-roll paradox.”
Yugo Joe laughed.
“Right, the man who is somehow the Prince of Darkness and the hand of God depending on the interview.”
Joe pointed back at the church doors.
“And the moment you mix pop stars, religion, and occult symbolism… people start seeing signs everywhere.”
Yugo Joe folded his arms.
“So you’re saying the church getting targeted again wasn’t random.”
Joe shrugged.
“In this town? Nothing’s random.”
He looked up at the church steeple.
“Rock stars, Crowley books, secret societies, pop culture… it’s all one big Vancouver ghost story.” 👁️🗨️🎸
The scene: A dimly lit garage somewhere off the grid. Tools scattered on a workbench. A beat-up ’89 Jeep Wrangler sits with its hood up, timing light clipped to the No. 1 spark plug wire. Solid Snake, sleeves rolled, is loosening the distributor hold-down bolt. Nelly leans against the fender, arms crossed, watching him work.
Nelly: So you’re seriously still messing with ignition timing on this thing? I thought we were past points and dwell meters in the 21st century.
Snake: (grunts, turning the distributor a hair clockwise) Advance or retard. Whole game comes down to that split-second decision. Too much advance, you get detonation—pistons hammering like they’re trying to escape. Too much retard, you lose power, burn valves, waste fuel. Everything’s about timing.
Nelly: (smirking) You make it sound tactical.
Snake: It is. Engine doesn’t care about your feelings or your politics. It either fires at the right moment or it doesn’t. No room for spin.
Nelly: Speaking of spin… you were on that podcast last week. I heard the clip. You explained cam phasing to a guy who thought “VVT” stood for “very violent turbo.” And somehow you made it sound like a weather report.
Snake: (small, dry chuckle) Had to retardmaxx it.
Nelly: Retardmaxx?
Snake: Yeah. When you’re dealing with the public—dumb it down. Way down. Most of them aren’t stupid, they’re just… semi-literate. Addicted to spectacle. Short attention, dopamine hits, outrage cycles. If you give them the real technical depth, their eyes glaze over and they scroll to the next hot take. So you retardmaxx. Simplify. Use analogies about drag races or explosions. Keep the real precision for people who can handle it.
Nelly: (tilting her head) And you think that’s… necessary?
Snake: Necessary as breathing. You want to actually move the needle on anything technical—engines, tactics, geopolitics—you have to meet them where they are. Ninety percent of the time that means retarding the timing on the truth so it doesn’t ping and blow the motor. (pauses, looks over at her) But you…
(He sets the timing light down, wipes his hands on a rag, steps closer.)
Snake: Thank God for a girl like you that has an advanced intellect. I don’t have to retardmaxx with you in private. Never did.
Nelly: (quiet smile) Flattery from the man who once told me carburetors were “like women—impossible to understand and always running rich”?
Snake: That was a bad day. (softer) Truth is, that’s the reason I was attracted to you when we were kids. Your intellect. You never needed the simplified version. You could keep up with the full timing curve—every degree of advance, every risk of knock. Still can.
Nelly: (steps forward, traces a finger along the edge of the valve cover) Careful, Snake. Keep talking like that and I might make you explain variable valve timing without using a single car analogy.
Snake: (smirks) Try me.
Nelly: Oh, I will. But first… (leans in, voice low) retard the timing two degrees. You’re at 38° total and this old AMC 258 hates anything past 36. Trust me.
Snake: (looks at the timing marks, then back at her) Yes ma’am.
(He turns the distributor slightly counterclockwise, retarding it. The engine idles smoother almost instantly.)
Snake: See? Timing really is everything.
Nelly: (grinning) Told you. Now quit stalling and kiss me before I start explaining cam overlap to you in hexadecimal.
Snake: (quiet laugh) Deal.
(Fade on the sound of the idling engine and two shadows closing the distance under the garage light.)