Installment 5

"The question you may be wanting isn't the one you may have just wanted to ask." The shaman-kapua was talking without my having said anything.

"What question did you think I was going to ask?"

"You were dreaming up something."

"Oh - that point about always dreaming, even when awake."

"Was that your question?"

"Something down that line."

"You were thinking too loudly again."

"Sorry."

"You just don't know your own power. Not unusual. But a point to consider in your life."

"Meaning a person could have power over their dreams - dream what they want?"

"More that your intuition and your dreams are the same - or come from the same place."

"Oh, that point of 'there are no limits.' So intuition, dreams, even imagination are the same."

"From the same place, anyway - if you consider that place different from you, still."

"Interesting point. And as a person acts, it is done to them in that moment as well."

"So does that answer your question of what causes dreams?"

"Beauty, Peace, Joy - how much of these you want in your life determines what you get."

"Or they are already there and you might only be figuring out what you don't get."

The sea gulls circled overhead, as the waves murmured on the shore. Another perfect day.

- - - -

On that side of the statue, the vines were not decayed, so I was able to get handholds and rise with the water instead of being swept away. I stayed close in that crevice, but soon had my head above water.

While the torrent raged in the center, a reverse eddy formed in and around the statue. Downstream on the dark side of the figure, it was more turbid. I could see a whirlpool forming and branches sucked down into it. But on this side, the water was actually tending to push me against the stone figure, keeping me safe.

There was that peace again, but with a clearer mind than before.

And so I wanted to hold that thought forever...

- - - -

Again, nodding, Joe started awake. Daydreaming again.

"What was this book I was reading?" he thought to himself. It's that psychology text again. No wonder.

His eyes fell on a passage under his fingers: '...in certain belief-systems, it is held that a witch-doctor can enter the dreams of another and change them as needed. It has been experimentally proven with experiments on animals (Kouretsky, et al.) that their REM patterns were affected through stimulations via electrodes with a small voltages..."

Joe slapped the book shut and looked out the window for a long while.

The day was brighter, but still hazy.

The air in the room was clean, as fresh as the scrubbers could make it.

Joe just sat there and enjoyed the view for a long time, calming his mind and finding the peace within.

The sun shifted toward the west and he continued to sit there.

At last he rose, gathered his books and placed them carefully on the "To Return" table, then walked out into the hall and the hospital proper.

- - - -

"What was that?" Factor 1 asked. "I've never seen those types of readings before."

"Meditation does that," Factor 2 responded. "I did some interne work for some studies on Eastern practices. Same brainwave patterns. He was meditating."

"Hey, that's not in his background. That complicates things."

"Meaning: there's more to know about this guy. Like exactly what we've been chasing down. The Anomaly."

- - - -

Entering the Garden, I moved along its pristine paths easily. Beautiful as usual, the scents and sounds were a soothing refreshment compared to the quiet stillness of the library. Finding a deserted bench with dappled shadows covering it, I sat to reflect on all I had studied.

The reason I was here was a study itself.

Physically, I had no illness, and I hadn't seen people in casts or bandages. This was a psych hospital, pure and simple.

No problem. I'm not on meds (that I know of) so this is more or less controllable.

How I got here still draws a blank, but that doesn't need to be solved right now.

So intuition is the link between everything. It's like love and creativity. It flows through everything.

Intuition is probably not the best word for it. Imagination might also serve. Love fits as well.

This is really just life. Or it could be called a game. Or a great learning experience.

Which means, as "Mr. Wizard" used to say, "It don't mean sheeit."

A smile crossed my face at the joke. If there were no self, just Self, then obviously one is all Nature, which includes dung, dung beetles, all forms of compost, digestion, ingesting, growing food, living, etc.

Well, that should keep them going.

Time for some action.

I rose, stretched, and walked to the door nearest my room.

- - - -

"What the hell was that, now?" Factor 1 was sweating again as he stared at the screen, typed, stopped, stared.

"Roger, just chill out. He's doing everything according to plan." Factor 2 was more relaxed and composed. "Look, he was just reading philosophy and spiritual literature - what do you expect?"

"You got a point there. He's staying inside this one now, so I should be content. But what he's thinking... that could cause problems. Did you figure out where that text came from?"

Factor 2 frowned. "Yes, but you may not like this. Scan this, but don't say it out loud." She passed a scrap of paper to him.

Roger's face went slack as he read the single word over and over. "Sue, you're kidding."

"Wish I was. Here, give me that back and I'll dispose of it securely."

"Did you do a back-trace for other stuff he put in there?"

Sue brushed a lock of hair back, more from habit than need. "Yea, and there wasn't much to find. Obviously, I couldn't tag them because that would be obvious that we knew. But I memorized them. All interesting points which wouldn't mean much otherwise. Something here, something there. All designed to be innocent additions - unless you are looking specifically for them."

"Or being led to them." Roger was thinking out loud.

Silence filled the small control center.

Sue spoke first. "We can't even talk about this here. Let's do some squash after shift and go over it."

- - - -

Immersion tank would do it, but that's extreme. Just a darkened room in the early morning would suffice. Lay there with the lights off and the blinds closed. Still familiar enough to root to you the Now, but indistinct enough to allow your mind to wander.

Since dreams were an always-on, moving in and out of them was not difficult. Factually, we probably do it all the time - this might even compose "thinking".

But right now, I want to try something else.

Just extending my beingness out.  Beyond the room, beyond the halls, beyond the floor, beyond the building - out and out and out...

- - - -

Cat and Dog were walking on a path.

"Feel that?"

"Yup."

"He woke up."

"Looks like."

They both stopped and looked at each other.

"You know what this means."

"Yeah, no more laugh-tracks."

They giggled together at the inside joke.

- - - -

Sitting on the head of the carved figure wasn't particularly uncomfortable, other than being wet.

While I could climb out, there wasn't much need for it. The water was drawing down slowly and the sky was clearing. Still some hours of daylight left, probably enough to get back to my jeep. I was going to have to get to the top of the canyon walls, but there were easier ways than hand-over-hand vine climbing.

I'd perched mostly on the white side, but a little on the black, moving occasionally when that piece got too numb. Too much white space seemed to rob me of any reason to do anything, the bliss was so intense. So I balanced it with some of the dark, nihilistic side to keep focused on what was going on. Not completely comfortable, but it kept me awake.

Because I just had a lot of waiting to do at this point...

- - - -

Falling through the air is just so cool.

I always land in the bed.

Wait a minute, let's try this -

I sat up and put my hands out in front like flying a plane with a control wheel. Let's see, forward is down, and pulling backward makes me go up - leaning right and left...

Now it got interesting. I was flying. Anywhere I wanted to go.

The land below looked patchwork, just like always. Different stuff being grown in different areas - towns and cities being discolored patched spreading out like blight.

I slowed my speed to simply enjoy the scenery more.

Because that was why I was here - to enjoy.

- - - -

The beach was empty today. I had it all to myself. I needed it.

The world had turned inside out, and it was all my own fault. Too fitting that I stopped here to work it all out.

Had I never met my kahuna-shaman-kapua, I'd never have known. Or if I thought these teachings to be all bunk, then I could have gone on as before.

I probably could have been rich by now. Too many people have been telling me that this is so. All those books I've read, the stories I'd uncovered for myself.

Like there were two paths here: One - reality is arduous, you are alone, most everything is separate from you and against you (or at least working in cross-odds across your path); Two - reality is simple, you are with and part of everyone and everything, all are here to give you a lesson or help you solve a puzzle, you are responsible for creating everything that happens to you.

But there was one trick: everything was just as it was before, only now you know.

It was the red pill, blue pill problem.

The problem was, once you found out, was there really a "going back"? Or would you really always suspect - if only in the furthest corner of your mind - that what you had uncovered was true?

Of course, as usual, the waves murmured on the beach, the trees overhead whispered the breezes songs, and the birds kept an odd accompanying beat as they circled above and sometimes plummeted to surface with a fish - or not.

Life was easy in this dream.

As it was in most dreams.

- - - -

"That's the rub, isn't it? Was is simpler than Might-Be, even if you wanted to change it." The author was middle-aged, in a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows. A dark mock-turtleneck completed his outfit, while his graying hair and slight beard continued the professorial appearance. "But it all fits together in the grand scheme of things. Call to Adventure - which you can refuse or not. Your Mentor, who might be a Trickster. First Threshold - which is that moment of crisis where things are never the same from that point forward, similar to your Call to Adventure, only more "serious". And then there are the trials and challenges. What do you have to look forward to? Innermost Cave, Supreme Ordeal, Reward, a Road back with its possibility of Resurrection and Chase - but you are bringing back the Elixir. And now you have to deal with living your life with all that fame and ignominy, even though the world around you has changed, it's all the same."

As he talked, he gestured to a large, traditional free-standing chalk-board with a large circle and all these points on it.

We were sitting at a large conference room in a library - one of those you find in an old Victorian house, the shelves lined with hardbound books and some sort of Indian carpet covering the floor. Occasional busts of scholars and philosophers found their way into niches, interspersed with framed paintings of heroes and adventurers. The chairs were heavy oak, padded stiffly with leather. The ceiling arched above us, painted with frescoes of Heracles' Labors, interspersed with other mythic adventures.

"Look," he continued,"This room represents your mind. You've surrounded yourself with heroes and free thinkers and all they represent. Everything is a mentor or a story of someone else's trials. You bring these people into your life so they can tell you what you want to hear. But is it simply your choice?"

As if on cue, several doors at the far end opened and figures I'd entered. Dressed in their own period garb, I recognized them as authors I had read and studied through my youth: Napoleon Hill, Charles Haanel, Earl Nightingale, Dorothea Brande, Louis La'mour, Charles Bristol, Dale Carnegie, Thomas Troward, Genevieve Behrend, Lester Levenson. Last to enter and take their seats: Lao Tse, Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha Gautama.

"All of us here have been telling your answers to your questions, but only as we were needed. That is the oldest tradition of teaching, even though we have all written books or told parables which seem in conflict with that tradition.

"And we are here today to help you again. Ask any of us what you want, what is it you seek, what question you have - and we will tell you our advice.

"If I could make this simpler, I would. But this is your dream, after all. I am just another shade or mist inhabiting it."

I was seated at the table head, these notables sitting on each side down it's long length with the opposite end-chair empty. "Are we still waiting for another to come?" I asked aloud.

It was Genevieve who spoke first. "We are only awaiting you to arrive. For the being who sits there will be you. The choice you will make now decides who it is that site there shortly. But it will still be you."

- - - -

"Oh - My - Gawd!" Sue was freaked.

"No, no, nononononononooooo!" Roger crashed his hands on the keyboard, which made Sue jump.

All screens were blank, however the power was on and everything else was working. Maintenance programs were working in the background and could be accessed. The main program was running, but there was no input.

Roger dived under the desk and was checking cables - nothing was loose. Sue meanwhile called up the remote lines, the IT department, and anyone else they had numbers for. All reported the system was working fine. IT even told her to keep Roger from touching anything - just report any loose wires and they'd be right over to fix them.

Roger bumped his head coming back up, which didn't help his attitude. But instead of saying anything impolite, he just sat and glowered.

Sue, relieved at the quiet, was off in her own world in thinking of alternative solutions to get it running again - when suddenly the screens were filled with figures and data like nothing had ever happened.

Roger dialed into IT immediately and demanded they start analytics on the whole line right away. IT responded that they already had, thank you, and they'd have someone over in minutes to do a line-trace, that he had been on his way since the first call. Roger mumbled something apologetic and hung up, much to Sue's displeasure.

"Well?" she said.

"Well, what?"

"Never mind." She had already started routine cross-check subprograms when the screens came back. "They're all reporting that it was a simple lack of data. Nothing happened for a moment there."

"Doesn't make sense. That just doesn't happen. It's not like he's gone digital and can just turn on and off on his own. It's an analog signal, for chrissakes!"

"Ok, ok. We both know that. I can understand your upset, but it's not helping. We need to find out what happened, and it is going to take both of us to figure it out."

"Right. Sorry." Roger was quiet, composing himself, forcing his body to relax. "Were the recorders running?"

"Yes. They got all the same readouts. Just a blank that happened. Cross-checks confirm what we saw."

Roger sighed. "OK, then we simply have some work to do. It's procedure 01-a."

Sue had already pulled the hardcopy manual out from the tiny bookshelf with the few actual books in the room. She sneezed lightly at the dust. "I thought they cleaned these things."

Roger had his copy as well, the standard procedure for these situations, written in a time when printouts were more common than monitors. He frowned at the type-style, reminiscent of typewritten pages. Fumbling around his pockets and in the desk drawer, he found an actual pencil with an erasure, as the instructions called for. "Ok, by the numbers: 1-1..."

- - - -

While the floor was covered with mud, the last of the flash-flood had begun exiting, while the rain had slowed to a drizzle and was working to remove that thin silt layer as it did. Tiny rivulets meandered in the dark mass, cutting back to the sandstone floor of the canyon.

I sat bemused by all this, even though soaking wet.

"Help me, please - HELP ME!" A cry shrieked from above, shaking me out of my placid reflections. The calls continued, giving me the urge to do something, anything.

"I'm coming!" I hollered back. Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed vines and sought footholds to get closer to the source of those calls. It was a sheer climb I wouldn't have attempted if it weren't for the dire calls and intermittent sobbing of that unknown and unseen female voice from above. 20 or 30 feet or more, with skin scraping away as I clawed my way up as fast as I could without becoming my own victim by slipping, as the occasional failed footing would remind me.

Finally, I reached the edge and was able to chin up high enough to get a knee over the edge and pull myself over. Rolling on my back to get my breath back, I also listened to hear where that crying was coming from.

It had subdued from shrieking and was now a continual sobbing over to my left.

The trees grew rank up here, much as the same tropical forest I had come in through. Vines traveled up their trunks and the clearing sky was exposing the riots of color in the flowers and leaves of these trees.

Rising to my feet, I started out in the direction of the sound, working as I wove my way through the vines. "Where are you?" I called.

"Here! Hurry!" the voice came back, urgently.

At last I caught a glimpse of light colored fabric through the mass of trunks and pushed to squeeze closer between the branches and tendrils. As I did, I was forced to slip off my backpack in order to fit in that tight space.

Darker here, I could finally see her face, which lit up as she saw my own. "Oh thank God! You're here." The sobbing began again, this time tears of joy.

"Ok, alright. Hang on. Just calm down now. Tell me if something's hurt and what's going on."

She gulped and forced herself to relax a bit. "I can't tell if anything's broken, I just can't move. It was raining so hard I went under this tree and the wind must have knocked the top out of it."

I could see that she was in pain, but the problem was a trunk much bigger than she was had fallen down on top of her, pinning her to the tree roots. She may have been protected by the shoulders of those roots and they extended from the tree, but I wouldn't know until we got it off her.

"Let me look around and see how this is set, then. The next move is to get it off."

"I tried pushing, but it's so soft and slimy that my hands only slipped. And the vines are holding it."

The vines were also keeping the massive weight off her as the huge mass of the branch had been rotting for years and took that moment to crash down. I could also see that a lot more was hung in neighboring trees, along with the thick vines it had succumbed to and were now keeping that poor girl alive.

I found her foot, very much attached. As I touched it, she flinched. "Your hand is cold."

"Well, at least we know you've still got your legs. Hang in there. I'm checking out this end over here." As I traveled down the remainder of the branch, I saw that it was mostly balanced on those root shoulders, held there by the vines.

It would need her to move, if she could. "Here's what we are going to do. I'm going to push down on this other end and it should raise up enough for you to slide out underneath. We'll give it a try and see."

"OK"

With a 1 - 2 - 3, I pushed all my weight down on the longer end and it swung up precariously.

The young woman moved quickly and scrambled out, pushing herself flat against another tree as far from the first as she could.

Just then, my foot slipped on the muddy, rotted surface and I fell off the branch, letting it drop and break into heavy pieces where the girl had been just seconds before. The air was filled with shredded bark, water, mud, and leaves for the next few seconds.

Both of us were covered in it, but safe.

Looking at each other for the first time, we sized the other up as we wiped off the goo as best we could. She was a willowy blonde, tall but not disproportionately. Sturdy shoulders told of an athletic youth, while her disheveled clothes only told of the near-death experience she had just survived, but gave no clues to her shape otherwise. But you don’t dress for fashion in this part of the world.

“You okay? I don’t see any blood.”

Laughing, she thanked me, "It was so good you were here. I'm sure I couldn't have gotten out of that mess by myself. Lord knows I shouldn't have come this way, but the weather reports said nothing of a shower. Should have listened. But thanks."

"Well, your welcome. I'm glad I was here too. Is your transport nearby? We should get moving as we don't have that many hours of daylight left."

She shrugged. "Well, if I can find the path I was on, it's not too far away." She brushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear, and then pulled her own hat up by it's drawstring and put it firmly on her head. Looking about, she adjusted her belt and set off around the back of that huge tree.

"Oh, wait, I need to get my back pack." A few steps back, and some wriggling, fished the soiled and torn backpack out of the thin space I could only wonder how I squeezed through.

She laughed when she saw it, dimples forming in her mud-streaked cheeks as she smiled. "Well, that's seen better days. Hope it stays in one piece until you get back."

I brushed it off roughly, smiling as I did so, and shrugged into it. "It's got a few tales it could tell. Now, that path?"

"Over here." She set off around the tree at a practiced lope which had me working to keep up. Surprisingly, her long legs weren't scratched despite wearing only walking shorts above them. I couldn't stand anything except long duck trousers myself, but that was more upbringing.

Her trail wound in and among the trees and she was travelling it like she was going through it like it was her own back yard. Surprisingly, it was clear of vines, almost like it had been trimmed.

"I was lucky to find this animal trail not far from a main road - well they call these things roads here. I know the shocks on my Land Rover are shot for sure with all those pot holes I struggled through to get here." She tossed her comments over her back, lilting in an accent I couldn't place, perhaps formed from travelling.

I only grunted in reply, my breath coming hard enough to come by, without efforting to carry on a conversation as well. To be sure, I never saw much need to exercise, but her pace was showing me my age.

"OK, we'll rest here. Mine is just ahead and it looks like the wind wasn't so bad hereabouts. So we shouldn't have any surprises."

As I sank against a nearby tree and wrestled my canteen out, she noticed my arm was scratched.

"Here' let me help you with that. It must have hurt." She pulled a white handkerchief out of a pocket and first rubbed the dirt and blood away with a corner of it, then tied it tightly in place. "That's going to have to do until we can get it looked at." Her blue eyes looked into mine as she spoke, a smile full of perfect teeth lightening her face up as it did.

"Well, I did bring a first aid kit, but all that's left is a tourniquet now - and pain pills, no iodine." I shrugged. And caught both the scent of her shampoo and my own earthy smell from those exertions.

"If you've gotten this far, you'll make it, then. You look like you've done this type of thing before." She pushed off my shoulder and rested herself now on a tree trunk next to mine.

"I've been around the pike a bit. But it was good finding you."

"I'll say. But I guess I did. I'm just really thankful you were there." She looked down a bit and then straightened her hat and stood. "Ready? We've still got a piece and a bit to go."

"Sure." I stood and stretched, sore from all that running and climbing. But we weren't getting anywhere standing here.

She looked me over once and then nodded, moving off in the lead, leaving me working to keep up and admire her form from the back. But I had to admit she matched the beautiful scenery here.