At The End Of The Earth

Upon a large rock, on a yellow, sun-burnt hillside, beside a flock of white sheep and a sleeping shepherd. There, upon the rock, was the book that I had seen. 
It was thick and bound in a reddish hued leather. Although there was a slight breeze, not a page wavered. I had lost count of the days, the moons that had passed as I slowly wandered to this rock, this book. Now I was shy to approach it.  
I sat on the path and rested my head against my hand. The grasses, the tiny white flowers that crowded the book like a garland, the wind, the tree leaves, all of them gently swayed to a slow rhythm. The book held a place in the center. What it was, dream, myth, truth, emptiness, I did not know.

*   *   *
In a tavern at the end of the earth, just past the forest where the thickets grew so dense no light penetrated, beyond the huts where the banished lived and died of loneliness, in a tavern that hosted the wisest of seekers, their hearts blackened by courage. There Josephine sat among the dirty earth scoundrels.
She sat before a mug of mead, the cup so large it mocked others in the cupboard. Her gestures were both calm and wild, a hurricane contained within the confines of a small woman bound in leather and pauper’s armor. 
She turned to me as I entered and watched me approach. I knew we had never met before. But I also knew that the magnetic bands of earth and star had brought me to her feet, had pulled me through the vacant valleys of sand, past the meadows and siren’s songs, through the cities and graveyards and wastelands of the dispossessed, had brought me here, to the end of the earth, where the black hearted sat on wooden stools, watching time unfold and refold, unwind and rewind.
I took in her lips, her pale skin and tousled purple hair. I took in the presence of magnets, wind, stars. I observed how the push and pull of all energy ended and began with her. 
“Would you like a drink?” she asked. 
The mug slid towards me like a comet. I grabbed it easily and brought it to my lips. One taste of her drink shocked me. It burned, and as I swallowed, it moved through me like fire, lighting me from the inside.
I saw myself, sitting there before her, beside the other earth men that had come, the others that would follow the invisible paths for years through sandy valleys and burned grasslands, past the cities and stark villages until they arrived at the end of the earth, at the tavern where all energy began and ended.
“So you see now,” she said.
Her words came from my mouth, from my eyes. There was the large rock on a yellow, sun-burnt hillside. In one second I saw the route, the many moons, the many years, the thousands of steps through valleys and forests, away from the end of the earth and towards the waters, then the seas and rivers, down through the ancient caves. 
There were many scenes at once, one imposed upon the other, each of them changing as easily as water. They arranged themselves in a line, then spherically, then rotated as a series of shapes that touched ends like a mandala.
I looked at her then, on the wooden stool beside the bar, stone walls on all sides, torches lit on the walls flickering, casting their stories along the floors and our faces. She smiled, her dark eyes alight with mischief, with knowledge of earth and wind, happy to share her secrets with me.
We did not talk. We shared the mead and the silence, the visions which allowed us to see one another from the inside. I saw the book on the rock beside the white sheep and the sleeping shepherd. One day I would find it.

Wall Of Words

Spiraling currents and walls of words met us at the other end of the tunnel.

We had walked, walked for so long that I had forgotten there were feet, arms, or thoughts attached to me. There had been darkness for so long that I forgot you were with me, that there was an action called “walking,” a thing such as breathing and experience. We had been in the tunnel for so long that there was no tunnel, no self, no other. 
And then we emerged, and I realized that you were with me, but we were different. Our skin was shiny, with new hands and muscles and thin lines of electricity that voyaged up and down our veins in eternal recurrence.
I could see the purple and yellow pulsing through your skin, through my own. And it went between us too, stopping not at the borders of biology, but traveled through the space between us, changing color. It was not distance between us, because we were connected, both through these colored currents and through the walls of words.
With each new discovery between us the words would slowly fade together, one replacing the other so slowly, so beautifully that I would sometimes get lost in the blurring lines and speckled palettes. We dabbled together, linking minds, smiling, fusing thoughts into cursive patterns.
We arranged our bodies in new ways, imitating the patterns on the chamber walls. I on top of you, you inside of me, connecting and mirroring, shadows becoming dances, a twisted oblique labyrinthine representation of conscious energy.
And the hidden channels, here we dove into them. Nakedness not just unabashed, but sacred. We gave ourselves as gifts. Golden and shiny, wet and smooth, buffered in hair and dancing dreams and shadowy thoughts. I could see the landscapes of purple places, where moons came out to light the way for traveling islands we glimpsed from moving trains.

I was looking away when a girl in a yellow shirt decided to look at me. Then I saw her reflected on your skin, could smell the jasmine and sun of the day in which she appeared. She jumped through a chain of daisies and came to us, bringing more voices and more strange boys and girls who sang in unison. They wore glasses and golden crowns and I could not quite make out their words and instead of singing, made up syllables to the melody and spun in circles.  Black and red birds descended upon the scene, some of them menace makers, adding to the chaos, to the flutter of leaves and eyelashes. They swirled and swooped, brushing some of us with their glitter tipped wings, and I laughed, despite myself.  It was a carnival of lights, a thousand elements blinking, lighting up the night, fireworks bursting, lovers in the bushes, covered in dirt and sticky leaves and kisses.

Spiraling currents, the walls of words held us close, hugged us deeply. I write and re-write, you who read and maybe re-read, we are bound through electric pulsing currents. Together in a sense, apart in yet another sense, I send bursts of this hot energy your way, and you let them come in through the eyes. They come out through your lips and I sense the words once again transformed. Shapes without definition, meaning as slippery as soap and water.

Rare Is The Moment

A little piece of paper with a name and a phone number written on it. Such proposals can lead to an unexpected degree of change in the self...

Right before waking I dreamed I heard the doorbell ring and saw her face. It startled me awake and I realized that it had been yet another dream.

What good is it to hold onto ghosts? A surge of light that emerges from the caves and not from the sky, from the depths and not from the heavens?

The old architect upstairs knew that this couldn't be good, but this was what would make her love me in that way that was so rare that I might as well make it happen any time I could.

The first time I saw the time machine I was skeptical.
I remember I asked:
"Does it work?"
and he answered:
"Kind of."

It worked where rare is the moment, where rare is the space, where rare is the mass that falls without making a sound, and rare is the sound itself... so rare that I might as well make it happen any time I could.

This was what would make her love me, the boy that played by himself in a dark garden full of mountains of sand and intricate structures of loose bricks. Elements of ground and blood and stone and wind, elements of word and phrase and symbol, elements of dream and myth and shadows that are only partly seen...
What good is it to hold onto ghosts?

A little piece of paper with a name and a phone number written on it.

The old architect upstairs knew that this couldn't be good. He developed vision complications in the left eye.

There were three circular tunnels that fed into a single cylindrical chamber. It was lined with a reflective silver insulation. The outside was all white plastic. At the top of the cylinder was a magnetic motor which resembled a giant fan with a crank to start it.

Right before waking I dreamed I heard the doorbell ring and saw her face. It startled me awake and I realized that it had been yet another dream. A surge of light that emerges from the caves and not from the sky, from the depths and not from the heavens.

"What if it works?" I asked.
"I don't know..." he confessed.

It worked where rare is the moment, where rare is the space, where rare is the mass that falls without making a sound, and rare is the sound itself... so rare that I might as well make it happen any time I can.

I wake with the lyrics to "You Only Live Twice" in my head, as if a part of me is reciting the words over and over as I sleep, like a mantra to pull me awake again.
I jolt awake and sit up in bed, the feeling that I am supposed to be somewhere else gnawing compellingly at my heart.

A little piece of paper with a name and a phone number written on it.

Such proposals, where rare is the moment, can lead to an unexpected degree of change, where rare is the space. Three circular tunnels, like a mantra, where rare is the mass. A surge of light  that falls without making a sound, elements of dream and myth, and rare is the sound itself...

So rare that I might as well make it happen any time I can.