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The world famous École Des Beaux Lézards. Somewhere in there, there’s a bench, and, like a hammer and a pair of pliers or something.

As I entered the dilapidated dwelling/school, barn rats ran along the rafters overhead in the direction of The Shadow, who was bent over a futuristic-looking device. He seemed to be working at something with a screwdriver, and just as I reached him, he turned and handed me an alarm clock-sized device. “This,” he said, “is the future of communication, and you can use this to communicate with your friend Decanus.”

“You see, Fat Ass, the air is filled with conversations that we can’t hear. Alien conversations. Aliens, Biaviians included, converse with each other just the way you and I do, but when they are far apart they have a sort of intergalactic cell phone system that they use, and just as bored truckers with CB’s can listen to your cell, we, with a sort of CB, can listen to theirs. This is the new CB,” he said.

This cutting edge device shows great promise for the future -- when you hold it at a certain angle, you can hear something that sounds almost like music. . . only smaller.

The Shadow showed me how to work the device, which involves scanning different wave lengths for the particular conversations we’re looking for. The device can apparently pick up conversations between Biaviians, “But,” he said, “I wouldn’t put it past Decanus to find a transmitter, and sent out encoded messages that the aliens couldn't understand. Listen hard, and closely examine any words you hear in English.” Back at Chateau Clintonville, I turned the device on, and scanned the wave lengths for Biaviian conversations. Soon enough, invisible airwaves crackled with life, and I was listening to what I believe was Decanus’s distress signal.

On a wave length called WOLD, I listened in on a thing called a “rock block.” I’m certain, however, that this “rock block” was actually a transmission from Biaveh, because the voice that spoke over the noise was intensely high-pitched. Long ago The Shadow told me that the atmosphere on Biaveh was composed of at least 30% helium, and this was the only explanation for the cryptic code that fought its way through the tiny, tinny speaker.

The first quarter of the “rock block” was too awesomely distorted and heavy to make out clearly, but I was able to decipher the following words:

I get up at seven, yeah,
And I go to work at nine,
I got no time for livin’, yes,
Cause I’m working all the time.

It seems to me, I could live my life,
A lot better than I think I am.
I guess that’s why they call me,
They call me the working man.

It would seem, then, that Decanus has been put on a grueling janitorial schedule that requires him to get up at seven AM, and involves a wicked fuzz pedal.

The second quarter of the block was stranger, and I could decipher even less, but it seemed more important. It was Decanus telling the story of his abduction.

Fly by night away from here,
Change my life again,
Fly by night goodbye my dear,
My ship isn’t coming and I just can’t pretend.

This message indicates that Decanus was taken after sundown, the night I blew my unemployment check at Columbus’s famous gentlemen’s club The Dairy Farm, and that even though he was so stunned that he couldn’t believe he was being abducted, once taken aboard, reality set in, and he could no longer deny the truth of the matter.

The third quarter was slightly more troubling:

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can't pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill.

It seems that Decanus is receiving rough treatment at the hands of his alien captors, but he must have found out about the (Canadian) Dollars for Decanus fund and is encouraging you, the reader, to donate your money (we have no use for your time) to help secure his release. Of your own freewill, choose Decanus’s high-pitched celestial voice as a ready guide, and give to the (Canadian) Dollars for Decanus fund today!

The fourth and final quarter is stranger yet:

Today's Tom Sawyer
He gets high on you.
And the space he invades
He gets by on you.

What you say about his company
Is what you say about society
Catch the witness, catch the wit
Catch the spirit, catch the spit

We have no idea what this means, but staffers are working round the clock trying to decode its obviously profound import. We believe that this über cryptic message, by virtue of its very cryptuosity, must contain the most important message of all -- otherwise why would he bury it so deeply in pretentious silliness?

After discussing this with the homeless heroin addicts who sleep in the parking lot of Chateau Clintonville, I have determined that what I’m actually picking up through the Shadowtronic device are “songs” by a band called Rush. Still more significant, the old scar collectors claim that Rush are Canadian! After sharing about seventeen beers and mulling it over, the junkies and I have decided that Decanus must have chosen to express himself through Canadian songs to remind us to give Canadian currency.

Check back for more updates from Biaveh and beyond!