Valencia

“Almost all the residents live behind bars. That tells you everything you need to know, right? Add in a covering of graffiti and a layer of trash and you get the idea. I don’t see anything remotely interesting about this place.”

Palm trees, Jehovah's witnesses preaching with hand held megaphones, a long line of drunks and drug addicts, Latin girls laughing loudly and shamelessly, a fat white man in a dirty button up shirt dark with sweat. I pass by three black men with a boom box blaring the sound of 70s soul music. I feel tempted to tell them that I used to listen to that very same music in a place very far away, a place they will probably never see in their lives, a remote place full of legends and violence. But they’re busy talking to each other so I let the thought pass by.

The whole place smells of urine, especially close to the walls farthest from the BART entrance. A sign says: “This is not a bathroom.” Too late for that.

Ahead of me on the BART escalator I see a young girl in a dirty white t-shirt and gray sweat pants. The pants are nearly falling off her, showing the crack of her ass a few inches away from my face. The skin of her lower back is soft, white and covered in tiny nearly invisible blond hair. She leans against the handrail in a gesture of exhaustion. A flier on the wall reads: “The Black Mass… delicious cumbias, hot rhythms…”

Later, on 16^th, I see the same girl walking next to an older black man. She stops and turns towards him.

“We’re here. We might as well go. Right? We might as well go. He’s been waiting for a long time.”

She holds up her sweat pants with her right hand while she talks. I imagine a passionate love story and a climax about to happen. Most likely it’s only a drug deal.

“Mission street itself is dirty, noisy, busy and enchanting. It’s almost like going somewhere else, somewhere outside.”

I see thousands of purple dots spreading over black and white shapes, surrounded by larger purple circles with black and white faces in the middle of them. “One dot represents a housing unit served with a no-fault eviction. The actual number of displaced people is significantly higher…”

A curving transparent banner answers with the words “Only God.” Underneath someone has added in black marker: “…holds grudges.”

A psychedelic death apparition rises from the asphalt. She has tall purple hair, blank white eyes, a bright red heart over her third eye, white fangs tattooed over her mouth and cheeks. Two small pink wolves float around her shoulders. A bright star trickles down from her bright white right eye.

Her mouth opens and she speaks to me in a soft seductive voice:

“Here is the final resting place where one can still find a love that transcends all time.

But you must keep your eyes wide open, you must have your ears ready to hear.”

A middle-aged drunk man in ripped jeans and a ripped half open flannel shirt looks up at me from the sidewalk. “Change?” he says in a demanding voice. When I look down at him, he repeats in a louder voice: “Change?” Then he pushes an upturned yellow hat towards me. He points to the hat with his index finger, skin wrinkled, dirty nails, tattooed forearms. “No, sorry.” I say. He turns away to look for the next potential donor.

Next to him I see a hopeful twist of words: “We’re not divided. We’re just not together…”

I’ve heard this was once known as the street of the witches – “la calle de las brujas.” Maybe some time in the past women practiced some kind of witchcraft here. Maybe they were just pagan healers. Maybe they were just Latin women who inspired both lust and fear with their dark eyes. Or maybe they were nothing at all.

Maybe this street of witches becomes more mysterious when night falls, maybe it becomes a dark alleyway with an aura of arrivals. Now, in the daylight, a sad blue robot stares at a bright red flower. Plumes of pink smoke spill out from its joints.

A poem calls out to me, black letters over a green background.

“The people

Live, then fate

Obey. Darkness

Dissipates and must

Give way…”

The poet is the City itself. And the audience is the City as well.

A lonesome creator talking in an empty room full of oblivious ghosts.

“It's a little surreal, like being in the middle of a zombie movie.”

A simple white sticker reads: “Smart phone. Dumb head.” But another sticker reaches out to give a response: “It’s too late. I’m addicted to the game.”

A blue bear in a yellow shirt instructs me to “hella resist!” His mouth is open in rage, his left fist is raised in brave defiance.

Then I see a single message - a white background surrounding letters made of absence. “We Will Not Be Silent”

“This is the real San Francisco. Not the Financial District, definitely not Fisherman’s Wharf.

This is the real thing. This is what I wanted to see when I came here.”

A heavy set girl leans back on the passenger seat of a parked car. Her head is only barely visible, her eyes scan her surroundings with a tangible sense of paranoia. She alternates between scanning and looking at her cell phone which she holds in her right hand. When I step close to take a photo of some fliers pinned up on a pole she looks up at me with blatant distrust. I turn away from her and point my camera at the pole.

A post office label, upside down, words written in black marker, barely legible: “King Baby: Remember to Forget”

A hand sized band sticker announcing its single message in black letters crisscrossed with white lines: “Boom!”

Below it, a command: “Paid advertisement. Do not remove.”

Another band sticker establishes its philosophical and practical commitment: “We only play music we have never played before!”

I look at the girl in the car one more time as I walk away. Her eyes are still scanning, still unsure of my intentions.

A black sticker with large white letters: “Jesus. The way, the truth, the life.” A large fat Buddha squats to the left, a serpent skull tattooed over his heart. A smaller sticker with a single disembodied hand gives the whole scene the finger. “Fuck off Jesus! Fuck off Buddha! Fuck off serpent! Fuck off heart!”

There’s a hole in the window of a restaurant. I look through it. A man stares out at me suspiciously from inside.

“We walked down 16th in the morning and a vagrant was lying on the ground. We walked back in the evening and he was still there, motionless. Was he dead? Everyone just ignored him. Ultimately, we ignored him too.”

A large black woman with a sullen angry face stands before me, there’s a necklace with a single pearl around her neck. She wears a bright green shirt with two buttons on her right breast: “Defend Freddie Gray” and “Save Mumia”

I take a step and I find myself in the middle of a cemetery at night. An angry demon with red eyes of fire stares at a living skull vomiting gray serpents from its broken mouth. The whole of the night is alive with purple serpents with red eyes and hungry mouths. The demon has only a few words to say to me: “Here is the final resting place where one can still find a love that would transcend all time.”

I look around me. Four angry dogs burst with ravenous hunger. Blood and saliva fly in all directions, away from their open jaws.

“We felt perfectly safe at all times. We usually do. Not that easy to scare us. There were homeless people, but there are homeless people everywhere. You just get used to it. We’re used to it. It’s fine for us. No problem.”

A middle aged drunk man looks up from the floor and talks to me.

“You want to shoot these ones behind me?”

“Yeah… I didn’t want to bother you.”

“No bother.”

He stands up and turns around to look at the figures painted on the wall behind him.

“Man, these look like men dressed as nuns, no? Transgenders?”

“Yeah, it said something over there about them being the original spokespeople for transgender rights… something like that.”

“Really?” He rushes over to read the text I’m pointing at. His mouth falls open. “Holy shit! It really does. I didn’t know… I didn’t know.”

I smile at him and point my camera towards the nuns.

This is one of the few streets in this city that still preserves a sense of time, a sense of place. A street of spells, for those who know its history; maybe when night falls, it becomes a dark alley with an aura of mystery.
Meanwhile, in the daylight, here are some spells that are still remembered, spells that meant something to someone: “The Ultimate High Rise” “The Barbary Coast” “A Terrible Anger” “The Octopus” “Nineteen Eighty Four” “Brave New World” “Reclaiming San Francisco” “City for Sale” “The Grapes of Wrath” “Virgin Soul” “You Can’t Win”

Everything must go? Yes. Everything must go!

From the left side the Virgin Mary looks on. A single white ghost floats over her head.

“At times I felt scared. I became convinced something was about to happen. Nothing ever did, but still. I felt like it was about to…”

A man I once knew has now become a mural - on the wall he looks more like a mythical cartoon than an actual memory, like something that jumped out of a old black and white Mexican comic book and now looks down at me from the wall. The artistic spaces he created are listed, so are some of his other accomplishments. Graffiti has already tainted his face, a younger face than I remember, a face to remain young for eternity.

His mouth opens and he speaks: 

“You seem like you’re ready to move on. But wait! Before death can take me away She will come to save me…”

She will come. She must come. Maybe She is hidden behind more than one face that I’ve already seen around me - maybe She flows in and out of them when needed then slips back into the walls when the danger fades away.

A few steps later a frightened boy stares at me in black and white. Black letters surround him like a swarm of bees: “Enough enough enough stop killing our children stop killing our children enough enough enough” She may be powerful, but She may not be powerful enough. There are cold places where Her power can’t reach.

Somebody has written “Get off sacred land!” They have written more underneath but someone else has covered it with purple paint. A third someone has come along and roughly, imperfectly, covered the purple paint in black scratches.

Here is a final communication. Sacred means nothing. No love transcends all time.

“I felt very uncomfortable, very ill at ease. I was unnerved by the frequent, threatening drooling crazies. I'm not trying to be offensive or insulting. Many of the homeless were literally drooling. My son pointed out the long globs of spit spilling over their chins. He couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even want to look!”

A very drunk white man talks to a young black man with the body of a bodybuilder. The drunk man talks in an endless river of slurred words which I find impossible to follow. A kind of slippery meaning emerges and I try to fill in the gaps.

"I hope there is love for those who are in trouble, by the power of the City that loves them. The consolations of the City are neither small nor few, they can never be diminished, however great the number of those who share in them.”

The bodybuilder, his back straight as a tower, listens and responds every few sentences. A nod here, a “yes”, a humming undertow of affirmation. His hand goes to the drunk’s shoulder in a gesture of kindness.

“I believe it. I believe that the City is pleased to love those who are in trouble by means of its people who themselves have been hurt. Hurt people helping hurt people. Various important purposes are served by this wise law. Order is achieved through our subjection to this higher authority. The ultimate authority that is the City.”

As I walk by them the bodybuilder turns towards me and greets me.

“How are you doing sir?”

I respond: “I’m doing well. How are you?”

“Fine…” and he smiles to complete the interaction.

Later they walk past me, the drunk man is still talking in an endless blur of slurred words. He turns towards me and says something I can’t understand. I turn and lean my head in to try to make out the words.

“Don’t bother me. I’m here to take photos!” the bodybuilder says for me and smiles.

I nod and smile at him.

“Many are very hurt; they walk around with heavy hearts. Their pride makes them scorn this way of obtaining love from the City. But the City is ready to offer its heart, the City is ready to offer its love. The City is the final place where one can still find a love that transcends time.”

A young woman with purple hair closes her eyes. Her eyelids are bluish gray. She is surrounded by many colored flowers, of all shapes and sizes. She opens her mouth and speaks to me in a voice full of melody and color.

“This street was once known as the street of the witches. Once there were many women like me who lived here. Women of dark powers, women of subtle ways. At night the street would always be closed at both ends so that nobody could approach the women and ask for some kind of spell. Today this is just an alley off of Valencia. But when night falls, I speak to others as I speak to you now. And every night I tell a new story but all my stories are lies.”

A family of Mexican farmers sits to have lunch outside on a rough wooden table. A strong older man with short black hair stares out at nothing, his face stoic and blank.

Soon he will be drunk and he will have a lot to say. But for now he only stares in silence. His adult daughter sits to his right, a smile of gentle contentment on her face. His adult son sits to the right of the daughter, smiling with a tortilla in his right hand and a full sombrero on his head. To the left of the middle aged man are his young daughter, maybe around 6 years old, and his wife, who also smiles contentedly as she prepares another tortilla. Only a single sheep stares back at me, the only denizen of this world aware that it is being transported into eternity by invisible eyes.

A friendly green penis with a faded pink head raises its hand to say hello to me. While it greets me, over on its left side it teaches the ABCs while tiny fluffy clouds tease him into a playful partial erection. A sleepy vagina with a tiny pubic black hat looks at us both with half closed eyes. It opens itself to the world out of sheer exhaustion, too tired to remain sealed and alone. Its secret mission is to teach the numbers, the sequential division of events and digital objects which is the basis for stable understanding. It is in this way that the world was first divided into language and mathematics. For most of the day, so it must remain.

“My sister went to school in this neighborhood a long time ago. This is back when we lived with my father. She was a bit out of control, right? She did some crazy dark things that I definitely would not recommend, some things I would be scared to try myself.”

The young woman with purple hair tells me a story:

“Once there was a young man who lost his wife because of a fever. His family was very sad because they couldn’t afford a funeral. Since there was no money to bury her properly, the wife was buried in a mass grave, along with many others who had died that week, that month, that year. The young man then stole some money for himself. In the process of stealing he killed the rich man who was his victim. The young man then managed to bribe a priest to recover the body of his love from the mass grave in which it had been placed. Before the police took him way, the young man took the body of his wife to a proper cemetery and lay her to rest. Thus their love found a resting place, a place of peace outside of time.”

On a thick stripe of blue paint there is an announcement for a website in thick black letters. Underneath it there is a broken red slash with the word PARTY written over it. Two zombies with missing arms and blank eyes stare out at me from between the pink letters.

“All I saw was a dirty and scary ghetto area. Not a place I would let my kids walk home by themselves.”

An old Mexican man, black mustache, black combed back hair sprinkled with white. He stands in front of his vegetable stand: peppers 2 for 1 dollar, corn 8 for 1 dollar.

“I will tell you the rest of it. Not everyone gets to hear it. This is the truth of the City spoken by one who has learned from the street. The hearts of all inhabitants of the City are knit together in love and their mutual understanding is increased whenever we speak.  Those who are loved by the City through others like them are brought under strong obligations to enduring friendships and sincere gratitude.”

“Improve, then, all your experiences, for the benefit of your fellow City inhabitants. In this way those who ought to love those who are hurt will be well prepared to do the work assigned to them. The street is an excellent teacher. The street gives great confidence to one who learns how to speak. It enables him to speak with more certainty and boldness than he would have spoken otherwise.”

“Is the City truly the Mother of all homeless? The Father of mercies? The City of all love?”

Over a dirty white ledge, I see the simple command: “Believe only in falling” Nothing else.

“I guess it's an interesting place if you’re into that sort of thing. I wouldn’t go back. But that’s just me.”

Over bright orange paint strokes, in light blue letters: “Free the people of Palestine. Boycott Israel.”

Next to it is a small blue and white flier. A young white silhouette represents “modern white youth.” Modern white youth is being attacked through its right ear by a web of words and ideas: “Cultural Marxism, White Guilt, Communism, Equality, Hate Your Race, World Immigration, Feminism, Racism, White Privilege, Degeneracy, Homosexuality, Colonialism, Drugs” Out of its left ear blood spills out, bright red against a light blue sky.

Two girls walk ahead of me. Both of them are Latin, in their twenties, dark hair, brown skin. They stop in front of a restaurant that specializes in tacos.

“Is this the one? Ah wait, no, this is the one we came to before, right?”

The other girl nods. There is a streak of blue in her hair.

“Yeah, it was good though.”

I sidestep them. The girl with the blue streak apologizes for standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Her eyes open wide for a moment. Maybe she remembers something that was better left forgotten.

“It felt threatening to walk by so many homeless, drunk and drugged people on the street. For us it was clearly not a pleasant place to visit.”

The disembodied voices have multiplied and I can hear them coming at me from all directions.

“Why are some of you feeling excluded, after all the loving things you have read in your newspapers and heard in your TV news? Why do you go to the rivers and neglect the fountain? Would you accept the true love that the City has for you? It rose from your pain and it knows where you come from.”

Two women stand in front of the police station. Their thick old backpacks are in front of them, temporarily placed on the sidewalk. They are rearranging things inside of their backpacks in a rush. I know that one or both of them have just gone through a long ordeal. I also get the sense that they have left someone behind inside the station and the ordeal is not over. This is only a brief respite before the pain begins again.

The older woman, with unruly blond hair and kind eyes, looks at me. I feel that she wants to ask something of me, she wants me to help her in some way. I have an urge to help but I restrain myself and just nod. As I walk by her, she is still looking at me with an air of recognition.

“Consider attentively what are the particular diseases you currently endure. Think of your mistakes, think of the worst of all the evils you have committed. I hope you don’t misunderstand me. I hope you don’t hear me say one thing and think I said another. Strong consolation will be provided for those who flee for refuge to the Law.

The police may be cruel at times, they may even seem unfair. But they are ultimately your caretakers, your lovers, your passage through birth and death. They are an extension of the love that the City has for you. But there can be no true love to those who continue with their mistakes. Once you have recognized these mistakes, you must forever put an end to them or the City will claim its debts.”

An army of bright red ants fights an army of bright blue ants. They fight over a terrain of black waves and gray hills. On the hills it is written: “love each other out loud…” On the waves no words will stay in place. The water exists beyond the reach of language.

“The smell of urine is everywhere you go. Can’t these people find a fucking bathroom?”

A large white poster is pasted to a pole with thick dark green tape. The tape is broken and twisted and placed at random intervals. The message is written with various different letters, cut out from magazines and newspapers, in the style of a kidnapper writing a ransom note. It reads: “Too Many Bums in this Town”

I see young blond girl laying naked with a black young man. She spoons him from behind, rubbing her nose against the back of his neck. Their nude bodies are partly covered by thick blue blankets. A fire rages behind them. Math and language intertwine through their sweat, semen and blood.

A beautiful young Latin woman looks sideways at me. She is surrounded by blue waves and yellow tentacles. A sign on her nose reads: “Warning: Security Cameras in Use”

Her mouth opens and she speaks in a smooth low voice that crackles with ancient life.

“I will tell you their story so you can tell it again. Once a young man lost his wife because of a gang war. She was not the intended target but she died nonetheless. He couldn’t afford a funeral so her body was taken to the city morgue. The devastated husband tried to steal from a liquor store but the owner had a gun and shot him. The wife’s body was never recovered. But the young man joined her at the morgue. That was the final resting place where they finally found a love that could transcend time.”

Over a yellow and red fiery background, someone has written in bright green letters: “Listen to the …. Of the Poor” After “the…” someone else has written the word “Tongues” A third someone has written in rough black marker: “As you wish”

A giant bee stares out at me with a huge white human eye that opens up from its back. Made of scratchy stripes of yellow and black, the body is covered in bloody splotches. Violence is everywhere, blood is the seed from which all beauty takes life.

A family runs away in black silhouette. Father leads, mother follows, young daughter holds on to mother’s hand. They run desperately towards a young dark-haired woman wearing an open leopard jacket, slim black panties and nothing else. Over her head is the word “Persona.” Under her barely covered crotch is the word “Lust.”

Further away, another dark haired young girl looks on. On her face is a satisfied smile; her mouth and chin are covered in black blood. Around her are the words: “Pure Lust”

She turns to me and clarifies: “Not just violence, not just blood.”

“It was run down, just one big dump. I’m sorry I don’t mean to be insulting, but that’s how I saw it. I saw what appeared to be gangs just hanging out on the street. I mean… somebody should do something when you see these people hanging out like that.”

Two girls stand at the corner by an old bank. They are both smoking, one seems a lot more confident in her movements than the other. The confident one is dressed in dark gray pants and a loose white sweater. The younger one has hesitation written on her face; she is dressed in white jeans and a white t-shirt. They are both smoking pot and the younger one is self conscious about doing it in public.

“It’s all the same, you know? All the same…” the older one says. Then she brushes her black hair out of her eyes.

This street was once known as the street of the witches. Back then women with secret powers lived here. At night the street was dark so that nobody could go in search of beauty. The darkness would hide it, the darkness would make them believe that beauty didn’t exist. This place becomes pregnant when night falls, a dark path with a vibrant sense of an endless departure.

A simple message is written with black marker, the ink is already fading under the sun:

“Do What You Want. Love How You Want. Make…”

A floating black and white mask sprouts black and white mushrooms from its head. A single number one sits on its closed third eye; two white flowers are on either side of its white wide open eyes. It opens its mouth to speak to me in a dark deep voice full of memory:

“For many years, the young man brought flowers and cleaned his wife’s grave. His obsession reached such a degree that he married a young girl that looked just like her. When that girl died, he married another girl that looked just like her. Eventually he came to see that all girls everywhere, all women of all kinds and in all places were her and had always been her. Thus all bad things that could happen had already happened to her. And all good things would certainly happen to her as well. It was only when he saw this final truth that he was finally happy. But he had been dead many years by the time that final recognition arrived.”

“The only thing I’m left with is the dirt, the dirt and the trash and the dirty people living on the streets. Don’t they have a place to go? They should have somewhere, I don’t know, some kind of shelter or something. What I saw was a kind of village for the homeless. Why is this happening?”

A hand drawn butterfly rises into a world of deep solid colors, waves upon waves of green and red and yellow. The scene is signed by “the gang of tears”

If I close my eyes, I can hear the flapping of its wings. Soft, heavy, subtle.

Vessantara

When the people heard of Prince Vessantara, they thought of his long black hair, his glossy mustache and the scent of women that rolled off him like roses. When they saw his chariot approaching over the yellow dunes that had baked in the suns for much too long, then they exclaimed, “Prince, oh Prince.”

When the people heard the prince was coming, they fell to the ground and let the flaming sand burn their knees. The sun burned them as it always had, as it continued to do, for the sun knew no mercy. The sun had forgotten them. The sun had become angry. The sun was lustful and raging. The sun shone down on them with love so hot that it strangled the throat of the very man she loved. And so the sun burned them, as it did each day, but when the prince rode over the dunes, the light became pure fire. Flaming heat followed him wherever he went. Each little city and town, along the dirt paths and sandy landscape. Sun followed him like a glowing shadow, trailing him as he crossed country and continent searching for the black stamens of the mudak plant. Beside it would be the woman with the purple eyes, the master with his whip and the mind that turned elephants to gold.

The prince went to search every cave in his mountainous land, every village. He went over the protests of his loyal people and the pleas of his own young wife. He came and went, staying in his palace just long enough to eat, bathe and produce an heir. Each time he left her on the marble steps of the palace she begged,
“Stay with me my love.”
And each time he said only,
“I must go.”
And she wept. Her sobbing could not be heard over the sound of the chariot wheels turning over the road. The King would wrap his arm around the young princess’s shoulder in a gesture of paternal consolation, but in his mind’s eye would be the face of the purple eyed woman. His heart joined his son, his body could feel the bounce of the chariot and the restless yearning of the boy’s young heart. He could see the long roads stretched out ahead, the nights of endless stars and the campfires that burned away nearly all thoughts of home.

The Prince found the woman with the purple eyes, met her not in a bed of silk, but in the chilly air of a dark cave high in the mountains. They nearly reached heaven standing so far above the earth, the clouds became their ever-changing door and from where they sat so deep in the cave, they could hear the wind howling outside. The woman with purple eyes sat across the fire. Her long white hair was matted and tangled and she chewed the spices of the mudak plant with him and spit into the fire so that it hissed. Her wrinkled tan flesh hung loose over her bones but she could move quickly dancing around the fire and catch hold of a doorway if one came by. When she caught one the prince would pass through and she would wait for him to return, holding the door open. It took great strength, but the woman with purple eyes could do it despite the terrible weight of the doors.

There came a time when she held the door open for three days, the longest she had ever gone and still she held it, hoping he would return. He had gone too far into the land on the other side of the door, searching always for the master with the whip. This time he had gone too far and not turned back in time and the woman with purple eyes grew weaker and at last slipped, letting the door slam shut.

Prince Vessantara had no choice then but to find the Master, but the world he now inhabited was strange to him and riddled with peril. Decades passed within that world and 5 years in his home land. At last he met the master who gave him only part of the secret and then cracked his whip to open a new door for the prince to return home.

He returned to the palace, but could not be comfortable. They shaved away his long beard and the servants whispered about how unnaturally the young prince had aged. His young princess said,
“You are not my husband. The husband who left me has never come back.”
Prince Vessantara nodded,
“You are right. I am not the husband that left you.”
The King had grown ill in his son’s absence and died shortly after his return. Prince Vessantara was crowned King, but ruling a kingdom mattered little to him. He longed to discover the rest of the secret that had been imparted to him by the Master.

His ministers asked for a son. Without a son the administration was weak, but the princess would not touch the strange Vessantara, she waited for the husband who left her to return. The ministers suggested concubines, but Vessantara would have none. At last, unhinged by her woe, the young princess declared that King Vessantara was an impostor, an assassin that had murdered the young Vessantara to usurp the throne. The people were outraged. They asked that he be punished. There was much debate among the ministers.

Prince Vessantara was banished when the red Moondam tree dropped its ocean scented flowers, looking more like a sad flower in winter than the masculine tree they all knew it to be. The night was crying with several of the young villagers. Tears flowed from their eyes and nose. Mouths opened and shut with nervous ticks. They remembered the young prince that had left them in his chariot.

The old Prince exclaimed,
"The ministers do not understand. The princess does not understand. The people do not understand. I am not the young prince that left long ago, but still I am Vessantara. You banish Vessantara from his father’s palace.”

Then slowly, in sadness, he turned his back once more, looking into the shadows and finding only unopened love letters sent from a flowery hand. The letters, gleaming white under the full moonlight, still had much to say, but they required effort. A quick motion of the wrists, a jab of the fingers and a voyage of the eyes.
He walked towards the urn that contained his father’s ashes and kissed it and cast a sorrowful eye upon his wife, Princess Maddhi, to bid her goodbye.
The princess did not beg,
“Stay with me my love.”
Vessantara did not say,
“I must go.”
He simply went away, looking for the spice of the mudak plant. Looking once again at the mountains for the woman with the purple eyes, looking for the master with his whip and the mind that turned elephants into gold.

The Soldiers and the Witches

The questions still remain unanswered, even after decades and countless journalistic searches through every type of record. The detainees were taken, all of them women, on the good faith that they would be returned to their homes after a reasonable interrogation and some photo ops with high ranking government officials. That was the official story, it came from the president’s lips. It was printed in the one small daily paper next to the three photos of the captured women, their faces dotted by the micro spots of ink. It was plausible that some of the military officials had their hands in the cookie jar, that they were just waiting for the new coup and then they would run the country their way. Iron fist, shirts buttoned to the neck, each woman a potential hole for the taking. But now, before the gunshots, now, as the cauldron was still at a low murmur, they were waiting for night to fall and sleep to overcome many eyelids with an unbearable burden.
The women were not returned. There were years of tribunals, the world asked questions, and the questions remain. They are alive with question marks on both sides of the sentence. They are bold and italic. And they linger in the air, a once angry current that has simmered to a soft cry. The whole country lives with the curse of inflection. The babies in the womb feel the collective shiver and stutter at the consequences.
The women were taken in the dead of night. While the stars shone brightly, their heads were covered in soft white pillow cases. Despite the sacks and blindness, they remained tall and proud. It was the skin on their necks that spoke of their defiant eyes beneath the cloak. Their necks sung soft lullabies that their gagged mouths could not materialize. Their necks rejected the shackles on their bare feet and the ropes that bound their hands.
The largest man among the pack of wolves was overseeing the arrest. His round stomach was just below the arrogance of his chest, so pompous and eager that it pushed out the shiny buttons of his military uniform and reflected the light of the stars. He felt their rejection, the witches were not terrified of his guns or voice. As he exploded into the small shack, their eyes did not break with worry, their mouths did not tremble before the legion of men behind him. They were unmoved, unafraid. More so, they were unwavering, refusing to let their spirits be taken. He felt it through the pillowcases, he felt it through their silence, he felt it coming through his back and moving like a current to his chest.
“Damn these women!” he thought.
There were no alternatives. These witches would be punished for their acts against he president. Their detention would be a show to all the brujas that litter the mountainside- their fires and chants would not be tolerated! At least that was what he told himself. That’s what his consciousness liked to think…was he a good man? A loyal man? Defending and protecting the president? Maybe…in the smallness of his dreams, he wondered about the erections he had while breaking down the doors. He wondered about the heat he felt as he slapped the defiant witches into submission. Was this an act of loyalty? Was it something else? No, he was loyal damnit! A nationalist!
This was a reasonable land, with logical people…at least the people of the city. These women could not be allowed to play with the subconscious of a nation. They helped the enemy with their potent smoke and their red colored balms. They aided terrorism with their ceremonial chants and dreams. The country had been ruled by these fat women for centuries, these women with enormous breasts and checkered aprons. These women large as trees with flowers braided into their long gray hair. They had to be stopped.
“If the conquerors were not able to do it, then we will.” he muttered under his breath.
The military had raided three encampments in the past two days…there would be more to come. The three they had now had left crying children in their wake. The cocks were just beginning to crow as they began the mountainous descent, but in the bluish black of the heavens, the stars still flickered. The earth under their feet was hard and compact, the women marched soundlessly as their feet padded the soft soil like compassionate mothers.
It was a small chain gang and the man holding the reins, the second in command, turned every now and then to make sure the women trailing behind him were still there. He didn’t trust these witches and every time he turned around, he half expected one of them to be missing, having vanished into the twilight sky with a cloud of red vapors. He looked into the hillsides, into the blackened walls were he knew there were tree covered foothills and steep mountains beyond.
The small military team had pursued the rumors for years. They had hired scouts and bought off self-righteous old lovers in the hopes of tracking down another group of witches, little covens which dotted the jungle covered regions of the country. These could not be extraordinary women, they lived like animals, living within mud walls and sheltered from the rain with leaves. They ate worms and toads, he was sure! Without the women, closure would eventually enrapture the peasant community…there were just a couple of huts, “maybe we’ll go back and kill them all in the morning,” he thought. He shrunk a little with the thought of murdering the villagers, he still hated the sight of blood, even though he had personally ended the life of hundreds of people, slaying them with his metal blade. His duties had not changed him, he felt sick each time, his stomach revolted, yet, his loins…something within him tingled as he punctured them. They always begged, they pleaded with him for pardon…
Could he really be their salvation? Could he be their god? No, he did not grant life, he merely took it. The transfer of energy was one sided, their blood ran only towards him. He made a point of always slicing them downwind, so the gravitational pull, the wind, the force would bring their last gasps pouring into his lungs and skin. He felt them enter, like a steaming cauldron of red ink, he was poked and touched, massaged and punctured.
The countries he had traveled to were always desperate, half the population working for modernity, while the other half could not let go of their powders and their myths. Could they not see they were torturing themselves with their devil-religions? Did they not understand that the forces of truth were on his side? Wasn’t eternal life attractive to these people? He felt sorry as he bludgeoned the men, his pity dissipating as he dropped his green military pants and forced himself into the tight unwelcoming insides of crying women.
He compared himself to an ancient warrior, punishing those that worked against his god. If people would not join them willingly, he would put them out of their misery, allowing them to forever dance with the devil. Panic spread through the mountain communities when they heard that the Avenger Platoon had arrived. The smoking fires of the foothills re-created images of their last victory. The sky was alight with brutal scenes of slaughtered villagers, headless chicken and udder-less cows. The cooking fires knew what was to come.
“Even the fires of the people are haunted,” he thought. “What god-loving fires turns smoke into a prophecy?”
The poses of the women, their pleading eyes as they begged for their children’s lives, kissing his feet as he broke down their splintered doors. He moved with sexual heat as he stormed with his army through town, taking the beautiful maidens and gutting the crones. The uniformed men were allowed to do as they pleased with the townspeople, so long as they left no one alive. The thrill of it, the energy of it, the fear in the crisp morning air always led to a bulge in his woolen pants, and he walked around fully erect, while he ordered his troops to set fire to the thatched huts. He could decapitate a man while, at the same time, defile his daughter as she screamed for the solace of death. And yes, he would grant that to her later, after he released a small load of his heat and prepared for another invasion of peasant flesh. There was always sexual release in the slice of his sword. The sweet release of abandon that only lasted for an instant…if only he could hold onto it for another second.
He imagined other adults of his class, sipping wine at dinner parties and playing with their decks of cards. He snickered. It was he who was doing the real work for this country! He was exterminating the network of witches and warlocks. While they sat in their fancy neighborhoods and bred small white dogs, he was the real savior of the country! Not the general, not the president, it was he who led his men to do the good work of god.
“To hell with those social climbers! The history of the world will one day praise our goals. God will show who is right!”
He turned around once again and saw that the three witches were still there, walking in single file, in silent defiance, seething with the hatred of utter and complete defeat. At that moment, that was all the proof he needed. God was in his hands, god was in his weapons, god was in his soldiers, god was in the chains that held them and wouldn’t let them go.

Friend Behind The Mask

I extend my hand deep into the quick sands of time and lock my hand around something which has been pulled down deep by the strength of gravity. With grave effort, with great curiosity and a sense of awe, I unearth a little katchina doll, a creature with dark brown eyes and tan skin. Her hair is short now, but I remember when it was long and tangled, a massive web of a thick dark mane. Now I am in her kitchen. The window overlooks Beach street and a white building across the way. It is a beautiful window which lets bright sunshine in.
She chops, stirs and shuffles around the kitchen with a look of seriousness frozen upon her face. Her body is plumper than I remember. The girl I knew had muscular legs and arms, her body was lean. I try to capture her in a photograph. The photo is wrong, this is not the girl I remember, but a glance upward reveals that it is an image of the woman before me. The stress, the anger and frustration, I had thought it was all a game, a mask she liked to try on when we were younger, but now it seems bigger than her, a presence that holds her captive. Her new friends expect it. She expects it. A familiar persona.
Searching for my playmate of old, I continue to take picture after picture. I am always looking at her carefully, looking for what I want to see revealed. So often she is grimacing, it looks as if she is in great and terrible pain. Her face flickers with variations of the endless grimace. There is a smile that is a tight mask of horror, a neutral facial expression that looks as if she is baring her teeth menacingly, and a frown that seems to be the least pained of the three. Her neck is tight.
Sitting at the table at last, so much of the work has passed, and even now that she is more relaxed, she is more of something that I thought was an act as a child. I wait patiently to see my friend and at last, for no particular reason, our eyes meet and she is there for a flash, surprised and relieved that I was waiting there for her. My heart tingles warmly because she is alive behind all that heavy armor.
Later amid talks of workouts in the gym and loss of weight, I suggest that she go back to chasing after ice cream trucks. For a moment she is there again, the girl I remember, and she is glad that I remember. And I do, I do remember Angela. I remember that we tore down the burning white sidewalks, the pads of our bare feet pounding against that scalding surface with a dull thud, our hair flying wildly behind us. Faster and faster we ran, listening to the retreating sound of Beautiful Dreamer played over a loud speaker, unable to slow down lest we should feel the horrible burning sidewalk on our soles, unable to stop lest we should loose all hope of catching that van full of cold treats. We ran and ran and ran. The way I remember it, we never caught the truck. The way I remember it, we didn’t really care if we caught the truck. We said that we did care just to have a reason to run like this, like wild things down the meandering circles that were the streets that made up our neighborhood. We ran until the circle had brought us back home, to her green front yard, to the porch where all the shoes sat unused in a basket near the deep shade of a huge tropical plant.
Today we walk with shoes on, back to her apartment with its big bright windows. We walk back with my youngest daughter and, in the dim elevator, I ask my old friend if she remembers the opening line to Glinda’s song from the Wizard of Oz. I can’t remember the tune.
"I can’t sing." She tells me. But she can sing. I know she can. She can sing every song from the entire movie. She is singing it and dancing in the front yard near the sidewalk while we wait for the ghostly sounds of an ice cream truck to find its way to us.
I extend my hand deep into the quick sands of time and lock my hand around something which has been pulled down deep by the strength of gravity. I will not let go. I will not forget, not ever. So long as I am, I will see to it that our soles burn forever, that we sing, breath easily and run un-shoed for all eternity.