Free Island of Death by Barry Letts

published Empirical Epistemology - twenty years ago, was it?’
    ‘Twenty-two. No, twenty-three. And not so young, I’m afraid. Are you sure you won’t have a drink? A small sundowner, as they used to say out here?’
    ‘Thank you, no,’ replied the Doctor. It would be wise to avoid drinking anything that could contain the substance he’d found in Sarah’s aspirin bottle. If its effect was anything like her description...
    ‘And it hardly ties in with the rigorous approach of Quantum Qualia’, he continued.
    ‘You never came across my subsequent study of consciousness, then,’ said Hilda.
    ‘Indeed I did,’ replied the Doctor. ‘ The Emptiness of the Busy Mind.’
    ‘Something of a pop title, I must admit,’ she said with a chuckle.
    ‘If it wouldn’t be considered too sexist a way of putting it for the modern ear, I’d say it was masterly!’
    She smiled and gave a little bow of her head in acknowledgement of the compliment. ‘If you read between the lines, you’ll find the Skang on every page,’ she said.
    She looked down at the paper in her hand, the note that Will had brought from the Doctor. ‘If I should meet the Skang on the path, should I kill him?’ she read out. ‘You are asking me whether the way of the Skang is a paradigm of the Buddha’s way... Or even whether, in the last analysis, he can be essentially equated to the Buddhanature?’ she said, looking up.
    ‘Or Tillich’s “Ground of Being”. I am.’
    Hilda’s smile disappeared. The Doctor stroked his chin with the back of his forefinger. He must be careful. She was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t just making conversation.
    ‘Relatively speaking, it’s more like the collective unconscious of Jung - or of Assagioli. In ultimate terms, I should have tended towards a comparison with the Beloved of the Sufis.’
    The Doctor nodded. It was as he’d thought. ‘But that would mean that you are equating the divinity of your Skang with God!’
    Hilda looked at him over the top of her glasses. ‘And would you have the intellectual arrogance to tell me that I am wrong?’
    They were getting into very deep waters here. A change of course. ‘What about the physical aspect?’
     
    Dame Hilda frowned slightly. ‘I don’t follow you.’
    ‘What is the significance of its... or should I say, his demonic appearance?’
    Now Hilda was taking him very seriously. ‘The word Skang is a shortening - a simplification - of his Indian name. And like many Indian Gods, he must first and foremost be a destroyer.’
    The Doctor nodded. ‘Shiva - and his wife Kali, with her necklace of skulls.’
    ‘The Skang in the fierceness of his embrace pierces the very heart and mind - and the fire of his sublime love burns away the egotistical dross it finds there. And with that purification, the devotee vanishes forever in the ecstasy of divine union.’
    The Doctor looked at her in amazement. Where had the severely rational philosopher, the supreme sceptic of her generation, disappeared to? The fervour in her voice, and the glow in her eyes made it abundantly clear. She actually believed it all to be true!
    ‘Mm... And how is this unity made manifest to your devoted followers?’ The Doctor was doing his best to sound no more than mildly interested; the implication being that this was nothing but the idle curiosity of an old academic acquaintance.
    But the attempt was in vain. Hilda’s expression changed from paradoxical absorbed openness to a stiff normality. ‘We have our rituals, our ceremonies... Now, Doctor, I’m sure you’ll understand...’
    Had he given away too much?
    ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, getting to his feet.
    Mother Hilda watched as the bearer showed him out, platitudes of empty politeness hanging in the air. Her social smile faded, leaving a slight frown. A moment later, a decision made, she rose and hurried inside the bungalow.
    ‘Will!’ she called. ‘Where are you?’
    He appeared at the door of his