Angular Tube

It is an angular tube made of slick paneled walls brought together by plastic joints and hidden metal screws that evade detection. It is a long tunnel in the shape of a hollowed out rectangle stretching at least a hundred feet, curving ever so slightly in the middle towards a goal I cannot see. On both sides the walls are shiny gray plastic without reflection or texture. They are simple, sterile. If needed, they could be disassembled in a matter of hours.
We wait in a single-file line within the tube. I cannot see the beginning, I cannot see the end, there are bodies in each direction. Most are dressed in long-sleeved dress shirts that button to the neck. They are men of all shapes, sizes and skin-tones. They all shoulder either a black computer bag or a small black suitcase with wheels and elongated collapsible handle. We wait, each facing forward, just a few inches from the person before us.
The man in front of me taps the plastic wall with his finger impatiently. He is tall, reaching nearly seven feet. His outstretched arm, covered in a cotton pin-striped plaid design, can reach easily from one side of the corridor to the other. He rests his right palm on the wall and taps his index finger in quick agitated bursts.
The dull sound of strangers is all around, the sound of communal silence unbroken by questions or laughter. We stand, waiting, all looking forward towards the corridor’s curve into a future which cannot be seen.
Overhead are evenly spaced strips of florescent lights that glow through narrow plastic frames embedded in the ceiling. There are lights every five feet, providing the plastic tunnel with rays of yellow illumination in an otherwise dim, windowless chamber.
The black plastic floor below my feet is covered in a pattern of raised circles the size of silver dollars. Somewhere behind me a small suitcase rolls relentlessly over the plastic bumps, thunk thunk thunk thumk. The rhythm adds one more layer to the soundscape. On both sides of the ground where the walls and floor meet, stretching the length of the tube, is a foot-wide striped yellow and black plastic sticker indicating a warning of some kind.
Close by, an idling plane hums, its roar finding us through the plastic walls, its constancy unable to drown the silence of strangers.

Gathering

It is a large open space, inside a vast modern building. The roof is very high and slightly curved, and scattered throughout are many thick white columns. The walls are white as well, punctuated by light brown and black adornments along the edges. There are large banners high up on the walls and smaller posters at eye level. There are small booths arranged in long rows, forming a criss cross pattern through the hall. Each booth has one or two sellers showing off their items or their skills. People walk from one booth to another, asking questions, admiring the merchandise, talking to each other and sometimes buying a piece. The products are of a wide variety. Some people are selling books and magazines, others sell paintings, sculptures or posters. Others sell unique items: a rare letter from a legendary author, a cross encrusted with the bones of saints, an exotic musical instrument that consists of several layers of cymbals connected by a metal cylinder, a silver scepter said to be from a lost civilization. The sellers are of a wide variety as well. Some are old and sly, wearing overcoats and hats, their eyebrows slant upwards and their smiles seem frozen in place. They know what to say and how to say it, they can respond quickly to any question and have a way of holding their audience in place. Others are young and inexperienced. They sit behind their products, hoping someone will want them and they smile weakly when asked a question, as if asking for forgiveness or pity from the onlookers. The noise of the salesmen and the crowd that moves around them is echoed through the huge space, forming a constant wall of sound that vibrates and feedbacks upon itself.
The entire place is surrounded by a garden. There are several doorways to the garden and they are all open, allowing a gentle breeze to flow through. Outside, people sit, eat and talk. There are many stone paths that connect a multitude of stone tables. There are many cement benches as well, surrounding large carefully trimmed bushes. Several large trees provide shade and there is a large open lawn where kids play. A young boy examines the magical stick that his Dad just bought him. His eyes are full of wonder as they caress every detail of the engravings that cover the stick. The father sits a few feet away, reading a new book while he eats a hot dog. A slight brunette girl poses for her boyfriend wearing a new shiny dress and a pearl necklace she just got. The boyfriend, a young surfer in jeans and a T-shirt, sits and nod in appreciation. An older man with a beard sits with his back against a tree, observing the crowd as it moves past him.
Inside, there is a smaller area that is separated from the main hall only by some bookcases and tables, giving the impression of a self contained room. There are many people there, sitting on metal chairs, arranged like a small theater. They all hold their attention on a middle aged skinny man that stands on a small stage as he speaks onto a microphone. The words that he speaks align with the noise, forming a kind of smooth verbal harmony with the endless conversation that resonates against the walls. A thin blonde woman, wearing a light flowery summer dress, is standing in the midst of the audience and she sings back at the speaker, repeating his words with high melodic flourishes. People applaud sporadically as the woman continues to sing and the man continues to speak. The rational subject of the speech has been lost but something else has been found and it now bounces back and forth between the man and his microphone and the open mouth and heart of the brave innocent singer. An invisible sphere surrounds them and sets them apart from the loud chaos all around. Each word from the man and each high note from the woman seem to expand out and curve around the sphere and give it substance and shape, a kind of almost perceptible translucent blue veil. A woman has noticed what is happening and with her eyes closed, admires their ethereal construction.

Abandoned Gas Station

It is nighttime, dark and cold, the air tinged with the electricity that comes before a storm. It is a small town on the edge of a highway in the middle of a great flat expanse of dry land. The town is a tiny rest spot for travelers and a recurring source of sustenance for the few local inhabitants. There are two open gas stations, each with a corresponding convenience store. There are a few other stores and a car mechanic shop, all closed for the night. Few cars drive by, and even fewer stop. The traffic light flashes red continuously and the pedestrian lights have all been turned off. The tall dry grass on the edge of the road bends backwards with the force of the wind and some leaves float away towards the outer darkness.
In the little gas station on the north side, an old man slumps backwards against an old rickety chair, his head bobbing up and down with the weight of tired drowsiness. A single man fills the tank of his new red car, calmly surveying his surroundings as he leans against the back door. A large truck is parked on the side, its massive bulk forming a temporary barrier against the wind. A small brown cat scurries behind some large dumpsters behind the building.
In the gas station to the south, a fat woman sits waiting for clients. She reads a celebrity news magazine and sips from a plastic cup of coffee. She looks out to the street every so often and then back to her magazine and the dream world of the movie stars. There is a small sedan parked on the side and a large fat man sleeps soundly behind the wheel, little trickles of saliva dripping off the side of his mouth and down his chin.
A block further down, there is a third gas station, dark and abandoned. A light blue pickup truck is parked on the street in front of it, all its wheels are flat and the lights have been broken. The pumps are rusty and their design is from another era. The windows of the building have also been broken and the inside has been completely pillaged. An old cash register and some dirty ripped up newspapers are all that remain.
I sit on the step that leads to the forgotten main register. I am wearing a thick black jacket, the hood pulled back towards my shoulders, black pants and black shoes and a white shirt. Around my neck is a tiny porcelain mushroom, painted in with many colored lines and dangling from an elastic black cord. My back is resting against the wall and my eyes shift slowly back and forth between the dark cold street and the girl that rests in my arms.
She has a small fragile brown body, black hair to her shoulders and a delicate soft face. Her eyes are turned downward as she presses her cheek against my chest. She is wearing a black skirt, a light brown blouse, and flat black shoes. Her body trembles every so often and mine trembles in response. Her breath comes in loud gasps and tiny little sobs. I hold her head with my hand and softly caress her black hair and her forehead. I press her tightly towards me and she responds by pushing into me, as if she wants to sink completely into my heart and find a true hiding place in there, away from the wind and the cold and the loneliness.
Every few minutes, the wind makes a loud sound as it flows through the desolate gas station and the cold rush sends a collective shiver through both our bodies. She looks up at me as if to confirm that I’m still there and I look down and continue to caress her hair. I nod and her cheek returns to my chest.

The Roaring Silence

The room is on the third floor of an office building that is 6 stories tall. It is an office space that is nearly empty and lacking any kind of expected adornments. The floor is covered in a slightly dirty, dark blue carpet. The windows are about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. They open by sliding the glass up. They are all open right now. A gentle breeze filters through the room, flowing from one open window to another. The hallway door is open as well and so are the elevator doors beyond, the emergency lights quietly flashing on and off. On one corner there are cut telephone wires hanging out of the wall and the shadows of desks and file cabinets can still be detected on the carpet. There are long fluorescent lamps above us, attached to the white ceiling, all turned on, all throwing off a soft hum that reverberates throughout the space and resonates with the sound of the wind outside.
On the street below there are no cars, nor the distant sound of them. Across from our window, there are other windows, other buildings. All the windows are open, all are silent and welcoming of the breeze that flows in from the street. There are no pedestrians, no sound of people calling or complaining, no children crying, no hint of rush or conflict, no human activity at all. The traffic lights are flashing on and off for nobody. Many little pieces of paper blow all about the city. I can’t make out the text, but they all have the same thing printed on them. A neon sign is crackling just outside the window and the sound of our breathing acts as a calm soft ostinato to its constant electric variation. The sky is bright purple and there are no stars and no sun and no moon. It is too light to be night and too purple to be day.
He sits on a small metal chair across from me. He is about 25 years old, a bit heavy set, with a round friendly face, thick arms laced with muscle and a round belly. He is wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. There are some tattoos on his arms and a scar on his lower neck. His face is overgrown with the beginning of a beard and his hair is cut very short, mostly brown with just a hint of yellow. His eyes are clear and wide open and so is his mouth. He breathes in slowly and with some effort. It takes all the will that he can muster to remain in the chair and stay calm. I can see that the corners of his eyes long to look out the windows once more, to confirm what he has seen, to try to visually come up with some kind of explanation, something that will make it all clear and understandable.
I sit on a small wooden stool and I also breathe very slowly and with some difficulty. I am wearing a white buttoned up shirt, black corduroy pants and black shoes. I have a long scraggly beard and very long black hair, tied up in a pony tail. I wear a circular medallion under my shirt, a metal talisman with a tiny pyramid at its center. My arms are at my sides and my hands rest on my lap. My knees are together and I make recurring efforts to maintain them in place. My eyes are also wide open and staring deeply into my companion’s eyes. We both can sense the delicate nature of the situation, the crawling wave of fear and panic that threatens to break us apart. Neither of us gives in to it.
We both continue to breathe, as deeply and as slowly as possible. The breeze lifts little strands of hair over our faces and tickles at our nose. The hum of the lights seems to hint at a deeper drone, something heavier coming up from deep underneath us, something that is too complete, too final and too powerful to be allowed completely into this room, into this space between us, right now. Each time the drone gets louder, his eyes widen a bit and mine do as well. I nod ever so slightly, we breathe together and the drone descends again, fading into the soft hum of the lights. The breeze blows between us again and we exhale, savoring a tiny moment of relative rest.
The drone, the solitude, the bright purple sky, the roaring silence, the little pieces of paper that constantly fly by the window… all like the very peak of an enormous wave that threatens to overwhelm us and take us with it, along with everything around us, dissolving us into the indistinct void from which we were originally formed. We sit together at the very peak of this awesome force beyond our comprehension and we slowly… ever so slowly and gently… take another breath.

Bath

There is a grass equilateral triangle, about 100 feet on each side, surrounded by three buildings, each three stories high. The buildings contain a repeating sequence of small alcoves, each with a door, a glass window and thick curtains. The upper stories have long balconies running along the alcoves with a thin metal railing on the side. There are stairways on both sides and small additional indirect lamps at periodic intervals on the edges of the roof. The walls are a light brown that looks almost yellow in the middle of the night, with only the very soft lights shining on them. The railings have complex adornments and each door has a number engraved in golden letters. It is all very quiet. There is no movement along the balconies and no sound coming from inside the rooms.
The grass is moist with dew, tiny drops of water linger from the slender leaves and throw off a welcoming scent. They are trimmed to perfection, all at the same length, giving the illusion of a flat surface. There are tall, black metal posts, almost as tall as the buildings with little lights at the top, that further illuminate the area. The posts stand on small cement squares, about 4 feet long, and there are three of them, one at each corner of the triangle. From the center of each side, there is a cement path that goes towards the center.
In the middle of the triangle is a metal railing in the shape of a circle. It is black metal as well, but shiny with moisture like the grass, and covered in tiny baroque figures. Where the cement pathways meet it there are small metal doors. Through the thin metal bars of the railing, you can see into its center, past the doors. There, in the middle of the entire configuration, is a pool of hot water. In the dark of the night and the beams of the lamp posts, clouds of steam are visible as they rise from the hot water and disappear into the night sky. The water is a dark shade of blue and it moves only slightly, with little tiny waves that shift back and forth along the surface. It sounds like the subtle echo of a beach as the miniscule waves hit the cement edge and recede. A low electrical hum underscores the gentle sound and an additional light shines up from the depths.
In the center of the pool, two women stand facing each other, waist deep in the water. One is very young, blonde and has a very slight body. Her face is round and child like, her long hair is wet and sticks tightly to her head and shoulders. Her small bare breasts are almost invisible in the midst of the hot steam, only her dark maroon nipples stand out in the midst of her soft, white skin. The other woman is older, her body is thicker and covered in curves. She has short black hair, also wet and pressed against her head and forehead. Her breasts are large, full and they fall towards her stomach. She is taller than the young one and holds her space with a calm severity. Her face is a delicate mix of gentleness and harshness.
They stare into each other’s eyes and very calmly bathe each other, slowly running their hands over each others arms, shoulders, breasts and stomach. The older woman reaches down, holding her hand in the shape of a small cup, brings it back full of water and slowly lets it drip over the younger woman’s body. The blonde barely smiles and repeats the same process, letting the water gently drip down over the brunnette’s chest.
Their eyes vibrate with an intensity that radiates out throughout the inner circle and out onto the grass triangle and the buildings that surround it. The grass, the lamp posts, the walls, the railings, even the numbers on the doors… they all shine in sympathetic resonance and are brought to life. With each breath, the women repeat the process… the slow dripping of the water, the calm response and the rhythmic intensity of their contact. There is no hidden identity, no silent purpose, no mountain to climb, no cliff to jump from… just another handful of water and eyes that burn like hot steam.

In A Hotel

The room is a long rectangle, framed by white walls lightly adorned with flowery watercolor paintings. On one end there is a door, a heavy wooden door with metal bindings and an antique lock. On the other end, there is a set of glass doors that faces a balcony that overlooks the beach. There is a large bed, large enough for two people to sleep in. It is closer to the main doorway. Between the bed and the glass doors is a living room area, a couch, a small coffee table, a circular rug and two additional chairs.
It is nighttime. All electrical lights are off and small candles burn in all corners of the room. The warm ocean breeze slips inside in currents of pungent heat mixed with a hint of dead fish and algae. The sound of the waves creates an underlying drone, that holds the space in place, like a larger breath that exhales and inhales us, pulling us toward nothingness and bringing us back here, to this little room.
I sit on the couch, leaning back, my eyes wide open, my breathing slow and steady, in an interlocking beat with the rhythm of the waves and the dancing of the candlelight. My hands rest gently on my knees and my legs are only slightly apart.
My friend sits across from me, on a chair. His eyes are also wide open, as he looks directly into mine. He is wearing white, white pants, white shirt… here he radiates white through his skin. His hands are on the armrests of the chair, his back is straight against its back. He breathes in time with me, his eyes seeming to widen and contract with each exhalation.
The air around us crackles with energy, electrical flashes of light and color dance in and out, just barely visible from the corners of my eyes. As our eyes widen, our attention intensifies and the crackling is audible, an intermittent caress of high frequencies in unrepeatable rhythms, surges of squealing brightness, harsh yet soothing high pitches, and something that sounds like the ancient laughter of little people with extended ears and big bellies, rolling around in dark clouds of pliable protoplasm. As our eyes contract again, our attention slides lower and the sounds become the rustling of the breeze against the curtains, the wooden roof cracking with the tender kiss of the hot ocean night.
I look into his eyes and I see him, but more I see that which is not him, which was him before him, which came and took him and became more through him. I see an old Chinese man of gentle eyes and a long white beard, I see a great journey across open sea. I see a man I recognize, my old teacher, I see him staring intensely, as if finding himself in a place he doesn’t recognize, not knowing how he came to be where he shouldn’t be, where he is not. I see another man, an old Indian of rough skin and pronounced lips, he is not surprised, his eyes take it all in and swallow it, I dive into him and come out inside of me, my eyes still open, my friend still there.
His mouth is open. My mouth is open. Slight sounds come out, unrecognizable, sounds that are not symbols but have meaning, sounds that travel and come back touched with old stories and barely recognizable songs. I see two old lines converging in him, from a long distant past, two stories that become one in him and push forth out towards me. A long thread of changing faces, stretching back though forgotten underground tales and families, a small branch of the lineage of knowledge now stands naked before me, pulsing with Life through the corridors of time, vibrating with music that is ever changing and always new, even as it has already been written and sung. As I see it, it changes. As it changes, I see it. What was, is and as it is, it is free and it is not the same. I open to it and let it flow through me, into my mouth, up into my third eye, down to my solar center, and out again. It shifts me around. What was once me is still there, but my past has changed. I am not what I remembered, but I am what I have always been. It is here with me. For a moment it stands before me, revealing itself as Legion and One.
Come to me. Come through me. I welcome you. I am here with you. You have arrived, back here, safe or as safe as you can be, armed with power and ready to Work.
It is Time.

Transient Contact

I am houseguest in a new mansion. It has the feel of a colonial track home, made to look authentic but you can tell it's an imitation, the old time feeling is just not captured.
This is my temporary home. I don’t know where I came from or where I am going, but there is a room with many beds, for transients like myself, and I am calling this home for the time being.
There has been an outdoor barbeque in the shade across the street from the house and I am the last person cleaning up and gathering the small amount of trash that remains.
There is the relaxed atmosphere of a summer party coming to a close, the air is still warm and there is no need to hurry. A small white pickup truck drives by me, I make eye contact with the young white man in the driver’s seat, his skin is tan from working or playing outdoors. We lock eyes and I smile as the car moves past me.
He is stunned by my smile, wanting to feel the emotion again, he stops the car and backs up, repeating the scenario, I smile again.
The realization hits me: I need to end contact with this man, we cannot take this flirtation any further. I turn my head and walk away to find the trash can, feeling his eyes follow me.