An audio cartoon introduces the main action. Persian Air's last flight to Heaven - an old bus of a Hurricane - prepares to leave wasteland Earth amid climate chaos, war and destruction. It must reach the grail of the seventh heaven or the world will die. Confusion reigns - the pilot Dr Who Am I is challenged for identification as a passenger and each passenger/listener believes he or she is the pilot. No-one knows how to get to heaven. But they can follow clues left by missing (but not dead) agent 00Heaven and the Hafiz flight guide and upside down Dante held by navigator Lt O Who Ru. She tells Dr Who Am I he must fly the Hurricane of Love.
The form
A cartoon of Eastern and Western accents and attitudes. This track combines action movie dialogue and two ghazals presented as announcements. A 2 couplet ghazal is yelled as a public address announcement evoking the chaos and confusion yet also the ultimate safety of the only plane available. (The Hurricane of Love can fly safely out through the Eye of the storm.) In the second half of the track, a ghazal from the master Hafiz himself forms the basis of the take off announcement from navigator Lt O Who Ru.
The allegory
Dr Who Am I and Lt O Who Ru's quest of inner space is the search for their real selves - their eternal souls - in a passing and dangerous world, on a planet that is spinning towards destruction. Love appears to be a reckless adventure, the destruction of their very identities, but is in fact the only way out of the chaos. Agent 00Heaven's clues represent the glimmerings of intuition beyond reason, a God or faith within, and Hafiz (the Persian love poet Khajeh Shamsoddin Mohammed Hafez-e Shirazi, 1320-1390) and Dante (1265-1321) represent Eastern and Western traditions of truth-seeking.
lyrics
"The Last Flight to Heaven, final call for the Last Flight to heaven!"
"Thunder and lightning is blasting Creation, a steam roller hitting
The deck but my Eye of the storm is your safe haven"
"Heavenly vessels can ferry the stars but my true lovers
Mend and make do, wing and pray this old bus of a Hurricane."
"Dr Who Am I. What are you doing here?"
"Who's asking."
"She certainly is. Lt O Who Ru."
"I'm getting away from myself and finding it All on the OOHeaven trail."
… So 00Heaven’s not dead?
Adam in a Bond? No, but we are unless we can follow his trail.
I see you are looking at Dante upside down and you have a Hafiz flight guide speak so you speak whirling Dhervish? What’s a bright girl like you doing in a Persian Air stewardess uniform?
Don’t be fooled by appearances. I was NASA’s top astronaut. Only the boys upstairs wouldn’t let women fly moon missions.Well, shall we save the planet?
I thought the White House was doing that?
Ha! Western Air no longer runs a last flight to heaven. Too many terrorists and not enough baggage room. We must take the Hurricane of Love to Persian Air.
But I've only flown Jupiters, Tardises and Dantes. I have no experience of flying the Hurricane of Love.
Well now's your chance to learn..."
"This is astro-knight grail quester Lt O Who Ru. Welcome to the last flight to heaven. If you go as Christ to the sky clothed in simple purity then your light shall rise and become as a hundred rays connect to the sun. Safety procedures. There are no safety procedures. God protect your mark of beauty from the evil eye’s effect. By that beauty the moon and sun are held in check. We are now about to take off for Manonash, which is the annihilation of the self, so please unfasten your seatbelts and hold on to your partner as we go through the six degrees of separation towards the seven degrees of love. Though the deluge shall arrive and threaten everything alive, Hafiz is there to be your guide and see you through the typhoon’s eye. Despair not.
(Why not just tell them Dante’s hell is situated under the earth because it is sub-human?)
Owing to the effect of the Evil Eye, the only way to heaven is down through what Dante called hell, purgatory and on into the core of our being.
Inner space is not like outer space. The deeper you go, the higher you fly.
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