[Can also be found in Paraphilia Magazine's rolling Periodical.]

They say that we are already who we need to be. I don’t know, it sounds like destiny and the last thing we want is a human authority on that subject. But I think in terms of appreciation, and even stretching… body has this full range of motion from cannonball in a swimming pool to the full extension on Voyager’s plaque. But mercy my limbs aren’t keen to fold or extend with full ease… and maybe that’s what they mean by already who we need to be… only thing left to do is the stretching to get the full use.

The full use of anything is raw resource, and just as possibly a terror as a segue. We remember the self-replicant language and the mazes of Borges, but it was a little work by Blanchot that set me wandering the streets and looking for the wavelengths of words. He smelled in the ruin of industrial expansion that one day even the password will change so often no one will be able to remember, or it will be unrecognizable. He found his fiction in that truth. He was just not straight enough to align with Time’s Arrow, so like his passwords he is largely forgotten, but if you’ve ever taken a fortnight’s walk into the moonless wilds, you will know that familiar can be a noun. So nice to know someone else is enraptured by the observation of Language as a Something (and even more daring, a Something Else) and that makes it possible to find courage in anywhere. But he’s dead so there is no rush, read my story instead, just in case. Because my password is still active, and the realm of action is where we will meet, in the if and when.

The thirteenth floor was a mezzanine where you switched elevators, to the fifteenth and the mica tiled chevron patterned entry of the restaurant’s level, and the sixteenth floor, a dizzying rooftop bar edged with little more than thick tricky plates of architectural glass. Without a breeze the height could be artificial, if not for the swirling of children on the little traveling ice rink in Pershing Square below, distant told with a complete silence of movement among a cloudy smattering of red lights. Close enough to string a clothes line across, the Deco tower of the Title Guarantee building suggested a mid-management demi-demiurge who had turned out the lights and was home for dinner. Flagpole bare, ingenious balconies that seemed placed for four elders to sit out the days in the sun and thinned auto vapors, alert and rheumatic reminiscence faced in four cardinal directions.

There was something about being in the building that called me to make trouble, a little fuss, to be certain the security guard on the 13th floor was at the heart of it. The whole point was to walk, to look up at the extremities and join them. Neither urgency to escape, a thought one doesn’t fancy lightly when walking the heart of a city, nor the breaking free and hiding in the clothes racks that boundless indifference and situation can inspire in children. The finger of the building held up a morsel of something I was invited to try. It reminded me of walking through an indigenous market in Oaxaca, where an old one eyed lady hissed to get my attention. Standing over a caldron of stew, part of what I imagine was a skull languidly rising above its bubbling red surface, she offered me a few shreds of goat’s meat from the extended tip her hand. The fine folds of her hand, the stain of the chiles folding her and the stew into one dish.

That’s what brought me to the rooftop… folding into the dish. Back to the thirteenth floor, eyeing a portal behind the security guard. A simple, marble-framed cut entrance, with stairs ascending. It was unlit – that was the oddity, and the arch was strangely low, so the steps seemed to ascend into empty black space. It hummed with a cool opposition to light, as though dark matter was discovered to radiate a coolness in its beams, and was invading the floor just above us. Contemplating it, both elevators burst open, packed six each with young professionals in the clean but understated city standard that reflects our time. Excess is concealed in matters of health: the water, flora and fauna they will enjoy comes from a tidy Avalon of healthy soils and dirt roads, wealth dressed in a sheepskin of common sense, golden corn fed to golden calves and gently lifted to the eating houses in ample slings of silk, loops gently drifting beneath the observation decks of silent dirigibles. Lighter than air they tie off at that miniature homage to the Chrysler Building’s spire, just across Hill Street, and the calves are rubbed down with avocado oil and tattoo’d under spray anesthetic by a former intern of Wim Delvoye. The contentment of the calves is recorded and archived on humming servers whose blue droplet lights can only be seen during a citywide brownout, when the Deco tower’s redundant backup power supply kicks in and the mirror polish of the concrete provides a sort of omnidirectional launching ramp for its watery photon ripples. A crowd-funding dinner is held in the Crystal Ballroom at the nearby Biltmore, where they are introduced, paraded and priced by cut and pound by celebrity food talent, according to their decoration. They are finished in a makeshift abattoir deep under the sidewalks, perfect cube chambers with stainless rails, lined in glistening zirconium dioxide ceramic tiles. At each step the chambers are hosed down by repurposed factory robots with a tea tree and vinegar solution, and blasted for a split second of stellar grade heat. Much later, when javelinas would run the halls, the tiles could be chiseled away and sharpened into spearpoints, perpetuating the grand cycle. Finally they are smuggled in tunnels under the streets to the 15th floor kitchen in order to avoid exposure to UV, and served one slice at a time under the starless night of downtown Los Angeles.

I was neither hungry or thirsty, I was curious about the shadowy passage behind the guard at the thirteenth floor. He leapt from his stool at the rush of people, all of them confused by having to change elevators, and tried to sheep-dog them in the right direction. It was my break, and I was up into the dark stairway in a flash.

I already knew a line was being crossed by the tenth step. The stairwell did not turn but steadily moved upward like a Looney Tunes scene, impossibly up and beyond the walls of the building into what dimensionally should have been the open air. Yes, I thought, pay-dirt. A simple wood door with a handsome and anachronous engraved escutcheon greeted me. There was no key, and it did not give when I pushed. I pulled at the brass edge of the keyhole with my fingernail, and reached into my pocket. On my keyring was a skeleton key that once belonged to a dresser I left behind to the covetous hunger of a sociopathic landlord better forgotten. It fit, and turned slowly with rusty hesitation, until the key finally snapped at the very instant the door gave in.

Inside was a long hall, a curved vaulted ceiling, a library of incredible length. At its far end a rose window and along its length four massive portals for light, their depth revealing the thickness of the walls, easily as a dense my body’s length lying prone. Its entire perimeter was a railed walkway carved throughout with the fruits of a Baroque imagination. The stacks reached eight shelves high, conformed to every vertical space. I suppose it says something about my mood to mention the library first, before describing the curious contained and churning sea that filled the center of that great chamber. As though sliced from the center of a squall in international waters, waves sloshed and whirled in that space contained in it, but with the volition and energy only possible for waters that are working out the waveforms of vast distance in every direction. The library was an enclosure for a force of nature that did not obey the same physical laws. I stood inside that room, the head of a contradictory table, and the books seemed a light matter. They were the other guests, our banquet was the mathematical absurdity just beyond the rail. It was transfixing, naturally, and then my eye followed the momentum of a wave, watching it and aware its crest would breach the barrier of the hand rail and threaten to soak the books. I watched the water strike something like a glass barrier, but one so crystalline and transparent it might have been thinner than rice paper, and only then did I step forward, pulling the door closed behind me, and began to inquire what records this impossible place served to keep.

(Short Story)

Soft, even light.  Lungs pulling gently, drawing themselves full of clean, pure air.  The sensation of tingling in the thumbs, then the fingertips.  Soft light gently prying open the eyelids, one thin line at a time.  The crunch of a billowing comforter, early morning eyes drawing faint lines to distinguish between the coverings, the walls, ceiling, and the surrounding soft light.  The light had no source, evenly drifting through the six planes of the room like an atmosphere.

Her voice, soft as the light, spoke, “Garden, please.”  The panels to her right, the direction she faced, slid apart.

The hardness of the green growth seemed to rush forward, seemed to be the movement that pushed the screens apart.  A courtyard, three times the dimension of her room, the sound of running water.

Her eyes studied the leaves, looking for movement.  She watched the red pearl of a ladybug settling on an orchid.  Over the garden, no ceiling; in this room the light had a source.  A faint overhead chirp of a bird.  She sighed, and returned her gaze to the leaves, stems and tendrils of life.  Still, she found herself seeking upward, and felt annoyed.

“Why is there no sky?” the waking woman asked.
“You know why,” came a female, factual voice from behind her.  A soft, blue glow appeared over the garden.
“It’s just not quite right.”
“It will be corrected. Would you like to have the garden rotated?”
“No.  I am finished.”  The screen silently pinched off the courtyard view.
“Good.  What is your name?”
“Eliza C.”
“Good.  How are your physical sensations?”

Eliza moved her awareness with practiced deliberation throughout her body, starting from her scalp, and ending at her toes.  She sat up, letting the covers drop, and felt the hem of her feather light garment.  Her body felt perfect, balanced, and light as her clothing.  She stood and began stretching.

“All here,” she answered.  “Is anyone else awake?”
“Good.  No one else is awake today.  Did you have any dreams?”
“No… wait, something, a bird.”

Across one of the wall panels, the shadow of a sparrow-like bird flew across, and its song.
“Larger.”
Another shadow, the cry of a hawk.
“Not a predator.”  The cry of a raven.
“Yes, that’s it, a rook.  I remember.  In the dream, a rook casts its shadow over me, then settles on the top of a bare tree.  It’s in a desert.”
“Good,” replied the voice.  A woman’s silhouette replaced the raven’s shadow.  It was standing at attention. “Anything more?”
“The rook is a friend.”
“I am your friend.  Shall we begin?  There is a nest on the seashore, a turtle’s nest.  The soft eggs begin hatching, and a hundred tiny turtles start crawling their way to the ocean.  The distance is significant, and difficult.  There are gulls beginning to circle.  They will eat all the hatchlings they can.”
“What is the question?” as Eliza, touching her face.
“I am spellbound.  I can’t save them all.  What should I do?”

Eliza crossed her legs, straightened her back, and breathed through her nose.  After a few moments, she replied.
“Scoop them up and carry them to the water.  Your involvement has tipped the balance, both for you and the newborn turtles.”
“Good.”  After a pause, the shadow receded.  The floor slowly rotated Eliza around, and three new shadows appeared on another wall.  They were standing close by one another, outlined in familiar uniforms.

“Are you prepared to provide tribunal service?” one of them asked.  It was an unfamiliar voice.
“Yes,” Eliza responded.  “Who are the others?”
“Citizen Hwang, Sat 5, Unit 589, Third Watch.  Citizen Smith, Sat 4, Unit 1322, Third Watch.  Celebrity Perfection, Taiwan, Gold Lion Media Group.”

This was unusual.
“Why am I being placed with third watch citizens?”
“A solar storm interrupted the second watch in Sat 2.”
With almost comical timing, the light behind the panel to her right, where the garden that ran the length of Sat 2 was, flickered with a glitch.

“Hello Hwang, Smith, Perfection.”
“Hello Eliza,” came three voices in chorus.
The woman’s silhouette appeared behind her.
“Good.  First plaintiff, Velocity Tech Human Resources, Second Director.  Citizen Case ID 4839922345.”

This number appeared floating to the right of her face.  A synopsis unscrolled below it as she read.
“Tribunal, there may be a mistake.  I counsel on juvenile cases.”
“No mistake.  The solar storm made a rescheduling of priorities necessary.”
“I see.  Why is there no defendant statement?”
“In profile cases neurobiology is the standard testimony.  Do you understand your instructions.”
Eliza read the text floating beside her once more.  “Yes, but I do not understand the process.”
“This is very straightforward,” came a voice from among the three.  It had a melodious vibrant quality, and Eliza placed it as the celebrity’s.  “You provide the counsel, the brain scan results come in, and the results are self evident.  These go very quickly.  Are you ready?”
“Yes, alright.”
“Good.  Citizen, your counselor is online.”

In the panel to her left, an image of a figure, sitting slightly reclined in a chair with their legs up.
“Hello,” came a male voice.  It sounded mature, professional, as though prepared for a virtual interview.
“Hello, you sound slightly tense.  Have you been relaxing?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I am sitting in the shade, beside a waterfall.”
“Good.  Are there birds?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to concentrate on the birds.  Take your time.”

Some moments passed, and a faintly audible exhalation from the man.
“Are you completely relaxed?” asked Eliza.
“Yes.”  It was apparent in his voice that this was so.
“Good.  Now, I want you to pray.  Pray deeply, intently.  I want you to pray for everyone that you love, I want you to speak directly to God.”
“Uh, ok.  Is this a normal request?”
“Relax.  This is routine.”

Some moments passed, and Eliza waited, for what she did not know.  A soft tone eventually chimed, and the silhouette of the reclining man faded away, replaced by the plaintiff.
“Show us the results,” he said.
In the center of her chamber, a hologram of a human brain, accompanied by the case ID, appeared in slow rotation.  It was divided into four colored areas.  Eliza raised her hand to touch it, but paused halfway.
“Results,” came the voice behind her.
Two bright points of light began to glow towards the back of the brain.
“Occipital Lobe.  Visualization Meditation training.  Tribunal?”
The three voices spoke in order.  “Guilty.” “Guilty.” “Guilty.”
The voice behind her, “This tribunal finds Citizen Case ID 4839922345 guilty of lying under oath.  This citizen does not possess a belief in God, therefore violating their oath, and should be removed from government employment immediately.  Sentencing is at the discretion of the plaintiff contractor.”
“Thank you tribunal,” said the plaintiff, whose shadow vanished.  A new shadow appeared.
“Media Central, you are being forwarded Case ID 4839922345.  Please be advised this case possesses mental training that may render them resistant to market suggestion.  Please adjust your programming and advise sponsors accordingly.”

“That was it?”  asked Eliza.
“Your services are appreciated, Citizen Eliza.  Are you ready to proceed?”
“Yes.”
“Good.  Second plaintiff, Sunshine Quad Biotech.  Citizen Case ID 5238491922.”
Eliza scanned the new summary, it was more of the same.
“Hello, I am your counselor.  Are you relaxed?”
“Not really,” came a young man’s voice.  “Why am I here?”
“Where are you?” Eliza asked.
“I am on a rock, in the desert.  The sun is setting.”
“Is the sunset appealing?”
“Oh yes, its very beautiful.  I don’t remember how I got here though?”
“You fell asleep.  I want you to concentrate on the sunset.  Take as long as you need, and let me know when you are relaxed.  I’m going to give you instructions to guide you until you are relaxed.”

The case took much longer.  Finally, it was time.
“Are you relaxed?”
“Yes.”
“Good.  Now, I want you to pray.  Pray deeply, intently.  I want you to pray for everyone that you love, I want you to speak directly to God.”

Once the tone sounded, she watched the brain hologram intently.  And waited.  “Results,”  Came the voice behind her.  No bright spots appeared.  “Zero activation, atheist.  Plaintiff, is this the citizen’s first complaint?”
“Tribunal, this is the first complaint, and we request leniency.  The citizen volunteered for trial as a precondition, and has desirable qualifications for our agency.”
“Tribunal is instructed that the verdict options are as follows – Violation, Ministration, Non Violation.”
The three figures spoke in turn, “Ministration.”  “Ministration.”  “Ministration.”
“Plaintiff be advised a conversion minister will be assigned to the citizen.  This case will be automatically reconvened in one year’s time.”
“Tribunal, is there no possible way of reconvening sooner?”
“Plaintiff, you are permitted to advise the citizen that they may apply for an earlier hearing if their conversion takes place sooner.  Dismissed.”

“This is the most unusual experience!  I had no idea what other tasks counselors undertake.”
“Counselor, we thank you for your services.  Are you prepared to continue?”
“Yes.”
“Good.  Tribunal, be advised the global shadow has shifted over the western region, we are now hearing cases in the eastern region.  Please review your new verdict guidelines.  Counselor, please review your new guidance suggestions.”

Eliza scanned the floating text, and was relieved to see her instructions were limited to relaxing the citizen, with no call to prayer at the end.  That part of the procedure made her decidedly uncomfortable.
“Eastern region is even easier,” said one of the tribunal shadows.  “We almost never get a guilty verdict.”

“Third plaintiff, the Party, Citizen A.  Citizen Case ID 4375689999.  Assessment for elevation of third agricultural secretary to rank of second agricultural secretary, begin.”
Eliza guided the man into relaxation, and waited beside the resulting brain scan.  No bright spots.
“Tribunal, what is your verdict?”  “Not guilty.” “Not guilty.” “Not guilty.”
“Minister will be appointed.”

“Fourth plaintiff, the Party, Citizen B. Citizen Case ID 5496732200.  Assessment for Softech Mfg. Conglomerate assembly line position, begin.”
The relaxation was taking some time.
“Pause.  Why are there long delays when we speak?  This is making guidance difficult.”
“This dialect is highly regional and requires additional processing time, Eliza.”
At last a hologram brain rotated in the chamber.  A bright light appeared in the front of the brain.
“Frontal lobe.  Prayer, strong belief in personified divine beings or God.  Tribunal, what is your verdict?”
“Guilty.”  “Guilty.”  “Guilty.”
“Citizen B is advised that Party guidelines prohibit technology employment to non atheists.  The party may add any additional measures as it sees fit.”

“Fifth plaintiff, the Party, Citizen C. Citizen Case ID 1244435677.  Sentencing assessment of self designated artist, unofficial, for corruption of morality.  Counselor you may proceed.”
“Hello,” said Eliza.
“Hello,” came the voice from the reclining shadow.
“Are you relaxed?”
“Very.”  By the voice it seemed to be so.
“Where are you?”
“I am in a large coliseum, surrounded by an angry mob.  It is a show trial, and there are lions in cages that are about to be released.”
Eliza, “Pause.  Do you call this a relaxation environment?”
The voice from behind, “Confirming.  Citizen is in a Spring Grassland environment, modeled after his home province.”
Eliza began again, “Are you sure that is what you see?”
“Yes.  I know this calm grassland is not real, this breeze feels great, but I know that if I started to run, I would still be in this prison no matter how far I travelled.  Where I really am, I will be eaten alive by wild beasts to entertain the people, without any way of preparing.”
“Please try and relax.”
“I am relaxed,” he said.  It was apparently true.  “And where are you?  On a calm river, a mountain top, floating by on one of these clouds?”
Eliza considered this.  “I am floating on a cloud.  I want you to look at those clouds closely, take as much time as you need, and deeply relax.”
“This is a happy, beautiful place.  A wonderful illusion, I almost do not see the lions.  What I don’t understand is why they would want me to be comfortable, relaxed, when they could do anything they like with our lives.  That’s why I planted that garden in the middle of the highway.  I wanted to show everyone that we’re not actually comf…”
“Citizen is paused,” the voice came from behind her.  “Details of the case are not for the tribunal’s consideration.  Is that understood?”
“Yes,” the tribunal replied.

“Counselor, proceed.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to stop speaking and relax.  Is that alright?”
“You sound like a kind person, I’m sure the soothing way you speak means you are doing exactly what you are best at.  I don’t think you are a lion in disguise.  But I wonder if your ‘floating cloud’ is any more real than my ‘breezy grassland’?  Alright, I will begin to relax.”
Eliza stared at the shadow on her screen.

After a long silence passed, the neural scan hovered beside her.  In it, a slight glow in the front half of the brain, and two bright spots in the rear.  It was the brightest brain yet.
The voice behind startled Eliza slightly.  “Results.  Deep meditative training.  Frontal lobe activity, Occipital Lobe pronounced activity.  Indications of illegal cultivation guidance.  Citizen C, Party regulations require a full investigation of the subject’s personal contacts.  Tribunal, what is your rule?”
“Guilty.”  “Guilty.” “Guilty.”
“Celebrity tribune, you are being transferred to Media Central.  You may present the case, verdict and sentence to the public.”

All shadows faded away.
“Garden,” Eliza said.  “And a stabilizer.”
“As you request, my friend,” spoke a woman’s voice.  The garden panel slid open.  She watched the leaves bounce slightly in the artificial breeze.  A few moments later, Eliza’s form relaxed, and she half reclined.  “You know, that last case, his readings would qualify him to serve as a Sat counselor just like me.  He had all the developments necessary.”
“I am not able to offer any insight on a specific case.”
“Do you think he will go to prison?”
“I do not have that information, as you know we can’t access Media Central here.  Usually, there is a prison sentence, or an Access Downgrade.  Would you like some music?”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
“Good.”

(An Allegorical Story)

While walking towards the Golden Hills, whose jagged mounds shimmered in the heat as through they were composed of steam, less real than an image I might see in a dream, I came across a fellow traveller meditating in the shade of a stone escarpment.  His clothing was faded and raw, and for a moment I thought about my own clothing, and felt young and inexperienced.  I dismissed this distinction as I sat next to the traveler, so that I might greet him on empty terms, to better discover who he might be.

When I sat beside him, facing as he was facing, I discovered that a league away was a ruin of some building, easy to spot as its walls seemed to be coated in a white clay.  It presided over a notch in a wall of yellow stone, built on the right pillar.  Finding this reason to speak, I asked the man about whether this was a suitable gateway through the Golden Hills, as it seemed to be away from the path that was in current use.  The traveler was kind enough to satisfy my questions.

“I met a local cowherd in this spot, and asked the same thing of him.  Fortunately I understood his language, and he was able to tell me a great deal.  Do you see how it is like a gate?  He told me that no one passes through that gate for fear of a curse, and several generations ago the road was redirected to the south.”

“Is it a shorter way to the mountain pass than the road to the south?”  At this the traveler smiled.

“Good, you are not afraid.  To answer your question, the way is said to be somewhat shorter, and decidedly more beautiful.”

“It seems from this distance, that the structure has no windows.  So it must have been a fortress?”

“I am told it does have windows, but that they only face across the gate, to the other side.  Now that your easy courage has firmed up my own resolve to journey in that direction, let’s walk towards it, and I will tell you the interesting story about the place. I am called Thera.”

During my studies, I learned that one of the ancient word-sounds – li – is known to many languages, and describes the distance that a person is able to see across flat land, which is also the distance a healthy person may walk within the time it take the sun to travel 15 degrees.  I was taught that sounds such as this, which describe an ordinary observation between a human and the natural world, are like the seeds of humankind, from which all the branches on the trees of language and peoples originate.  During our walk, I thought that it is also the perfect measure of distance and time in which to hear a marvelous story.  While we walked, it began to gently rain, and this welcome cooling lifted our spirits.

* * *

The cowherd had told that his people were descendants of the chief that built the structure, and they called the place the Crown Gate, and the building the White Crown.  His people, who now roamed with their herds along the cold streams that flow from the mountains, following the seasonal grasses and sheltering in tents made of the skins of their animals, kept the story in clear memory, because the story of the White Crown is the memory of how their people lost their old way of life, living in a city surrounded by green crops.  When asked for the name of the chief that build it, he refused and spat on the ground.  He said that until then, their people had a name, but now were only known as the people of this land, and in turn they do not speak the name of the chief.  They say that once there was a matching temple on the other side, called Black Crown, which was destroyed, but would periodically reappear to the unlucky.

As the tradition goes, the chief who built White Crown was not solely responsible for the misfortune, but in fact the entire line he descended from took part in their misfortune, and for this reason the people do not revere a lineage of chiefs any longer, but decide the movements of the people by ritual fortune telling, in which their healers cast certain bones of a sheep to decide by chance whether to remain or move.  By submitting their fates to random chance, they hope to avoid the curse that afflicted their chiefs and ancestors.

As with many, the story begins with their first ancestor.  He was chasing game for his people, which were scarce.  He had wandered for days, weak and exhausted, when he finally did spot one, he chased it along the stone ridge until he reached the Gate, where the animal leapt across to the other side.  He took aim, and despite his honed skills, he missed, and his spear’s point shattered against the rock.  In those days a spear point was the most valuable thing a person could own.  Filled with anger, he sat to down to consider what had happened.  He realized that his frustration had led him to throw poorly, and decided to settle himself in order to regain his composure.  He sat for a long time in that place until he found himself entering a state of complete calm.  When at last this was achieved he opened his eyes and to his surprise, saw a man sitting across from him, on the other side.

The ancestor did not recognize the man at first, but noticed he was sitting, facing him, in the same posture, and seemed to be dressed the same way.  Who is this person who dresses as though he is from my people, but who I do not recognize?  He waved with his left arm, and the man waved in return, waving with his right.  This is like a children’s game, is he mocking me?  He called out to him, who are you?  And the man replied with the same question.  It was then that his eyes perceived that there was something familiar about him after all – he was in fact looking at himself!  The longer he looked, the more certain it was, though while this man was dressed the same, had the same features, and repeated everything he said, there was a darker cast to his skin, and a darker tone to his clothes.  The chief remained there for a long time, calm and collect, and the other man did not waver.  Finally, as the sun began to set, the man mysteriously disappeared before his eyes.

Was this a demon, he thought?  Just then, in the place of the figure, an animal approached.  The animal was unsurprised and did not seem to notice him.  With perfectly calm movements, the chief picked up his other spear, and felled the animal.  Certainly he thought, that was no demon.  He took the animal home to his people, and suggested they move their camp to the place of the Gates.  He asked the fortune teller among his people, who told him that the man he saw was his own self, who lived in a world very close to our own.  The chief asked how it was possible that there were other worlds.  The fortune teller said, “Do the birds not fly above in flocks, and do the lake fish not also swim below in schools?  Just as we live in the realm between the sky and the earth, and travel as a group ourselves?  Surely the one you saw is also in his own world, which is somehow between the worlds which we know?”

The idea seemed very odd, but the choice of camping at the Gates proved prosperous.  The hunting was good, and water flowed nearby.  For the chief, this afforded the opportunity to sit on the gate and look across, hoping to see his twin brother again.  This did not come to pass, and the people scratched their heads, saying, “Our chief is no longer willing to hunt for us.”  But some said, “Look at the place he has chosen for us to live, it is a good place with plenty of game, who cares that he spends all his time contemplating on a rock?”

When he died the ancestor’s son, the chief, built a level sitting platform and a sturdy canopy to remember the place where his father would sit.  During that time, the people found no reason to move, and the people’s numbers grew.

One day, while the chief was sitting at the place where his father would spend his time, practicing the calm sitting that he was taught brought greater skill in the hunt, he opened his eyes and was surprised to see, sitting across from him, another man.  Was this the man that his father has spoken of?  What was more surprising, this other man was dressed the same as his people, but he did not recognize him.  Even more surprising than this, along with the man there appeared an identical platform and canopy to the one he had built!  He waved, and the man waved in reply.  He called out, “Who are you?”  and the man replied, “Who are you?”.  He looked closer, and finally saw that the man’s face was identical to his own!   To the chief he was identical, man and platform and canopy, except there was slight darker tone to his skin, and a darker color to the canopy, as though it was enshrouded in smoke.  As long as the chief sat there, trying to comprehend what he saw, the other remained.

Finally, the sun began to set, and the man, platform and canopy on the other side faded away.  Just then, he heard a voice call from below, at the entrance to the Gate.

“Hello!” said the voice, and he looked to see a stranger, leading a few animals.  The stranger was wearing clothes the chief had never seen before, and he had never seen these animals who seemed to be content to travel alongside him.  “By chance I saw your canopy from afar, and thought this must be the right way to travel.  Is this the way to the mountain pass?”

“It is,” said the chief.  It was then the people had met their first traveler.  The traveler was so grateful for the hospitality that he received, that he gave them a blessing.  He asked them to watch his animals while he travelled away, and promised they may have any offspring that came of them during that time.  He taught them to care for the animals, and harvest from them.

Amazed by what had come to pass, the chief took to spending much of his time sitting on the platform as his father did.  The people thought this was strange, but did not complain, as they grew to enjoy the benefits of the animals in their care, and no longer needed to spend as much time hunting.  During this time the people’s numbers grew, and they built many houses.

When the chief had passed away, his son gathered stones and built a tall memorial beside the platform on the Crown Gate.  He also built a low wall around the platform, to shelter it from the wind.  During that time, the stranger who had brought the gift of the herds to his people returned, very old.  “I am too old to travel any further,” he explained, “And I was hoping, that in return for keeping these animals as you have done so well, if I might live out my last here as one of your own.”

The people welcomed this, and the old man became a friend to the chief’s son.  He told him about the people he had met beyond the mountains, whose numbers were also growing, and that other travellers were sure to make their way.  “I had some trouble finding this place again,” the old man explained.  “The golden hills are numerous and confuse a travelers direction.  The wind brings dust that make it hard to tell one place from another.  Why don’t you paint that tower you built for your father white, so that it will be more easily spotted by future travelers?”  The chief took his advice, and when the old man had passed on, buried him beside his father.

One day, while sitting on the sheltered platform at the Gate and thinking about his father and the old stranger, the chief was calming himself as he was taught and looking up was surprised to see, there on the other side, another man.  This man was sitting just as he sat, and in addition sat on the same walled platform, in the shade of a memorial tower identically built.  Knowing what to expect, he look closer and saw that indeed, he was looking at his own face.  He called out, “Who are you?”  and the other replied, “Who are you?” and knew that like his ancestors, he was meeting his smoky twin.  He sat for a long time looking at this person, and pondering the other memorial, which unlike his own white memorial was black in color.  Sitting there for a long time, the figure and the black tower faded away as the sun began to set.

It was then he looked across, and saw a long caravan of strangers approaching.  They had never received so many visitors at once, and these people brought many animals of different kinds, new foods and cloth, weapons and tools.  During that time, what became known as the White Crown did, as predicted, attract travelers.  The people would trade with these travelers, in exchange for the food, leather, horn and shelter that the people’s lands and herds provided.  The people grew very quickly in number and in wealth.

When the chief had passed away, his son built a beautiful temple at White Crown for his ancestors.  He was taught a tradition, that here his ancestors would practice sitting for long periods of time, and if they did this for long enough, they would see themselves in another world.  In this other world their twin was also chief, and it was believed these two worlds were tied together, each growing in wealth as the other.  He was taught that he must sit there for the benefit of both places, until he saw that the other world was also well, and bring new blessings to his people.

But this chief had a restless spirit, and did not enjoy sitting still for long periods of time.  He asked the elders, “Why should I sit on that windy rock staring across the gap, when our city has grown to offer so much.  How can I hear music with all that wind?  If I must sit, I would prefer to be on the back of a fast horse than a motionless rock.”   The elders discussed this, and decided that according to the stories whoever sat on the Gate saw their own twin.  Perhaps it did not matter who sat there, and that one of their own would suffice.  They said, “Is the chief not a representative of the people?  Why then couldn’t a representative of the chief serve as a representative of the people?”  From that time on, one of the elders would be chosen to sit as a priest every day at White Crown.

It came to pass that one day, while sitting in the temple that faced the other side, the priest had achieved complete relaxation and looked up to see his twin on the other side, as had been foretold.   He was so overjoyed, he nearly forgot to call out the sacred phrase, “Who are you?” and was relieved to hear in reply, “Who are you?”  He was also pleased to see that on the other side, in perfect match of every brick and decoration, an identical, Black Crown facing him.  All is well in the other land, he though, and so it will be for us.  Marveling at this, he watched until the sun began to set, and the Black Crown and his twin faded away.

As he looked up, wondering what boon would be granted, he saw something startling just a league away – an army approached.  Quickly he ran to the city and warned the people.  Many of the people fled, others prepared to fight, while the elders took shelter in the temple at White Crown.  The army destroyed many homes and killed many people, but in the end were repulsed, and rode away carrying stolen people and animals.  The elders in the temple discussed these events.  Some said the attack was the fault of the chief, for entrusting the temple duty to a priest.  Others said that the foretold blessing was to have enough warning to prepare, and resist the attack.

The chief favored the latter opinion, and preferred the advice of those priests who said that like the vision of the ancestor, to move his people to this sacred place, this vision was an instruction to build an army, and protect this place from attack.  The chief raised an army, made weapons of war, and proclaimed it his duty to defeat these marauding neighbors before they could attack again.  He set apart the priests who supported him, made them in charge of the White Crown temple, and set off to war.

When the chief returned, he brought with him a great deal of treasure from the defeated neighbors, and to avenge his own people, took many of their animals and people.  The stolen people he brought back were disliked for the destruction of their city.  Some of the elders spoke against this, saying that a city could be rebuilt, and that there was no reason to keep the stolen people.  Other elders said that a debt was owed, and the stolen people would repay that debt by rebuilding and fortifying the city.  The chief, furious with the first group, threw them out of the palace, and many left to live as exiles.

Of the second group of elders, the one who had seen the vision of the approaching army and who had become quite powerful, asked if some of the stolen people might be used to build a grand fortified temple at White Crown, to protect the ones who were serving this sacred role, and this was granted.  So the city was rebuilt and fortified, and the temple expanded, with much of the work performed by slaves.  In this way, the people grew in number and wealth.

Over time, the priests of White Crown grew very powerful.  They taught the people of the city about their sacred mission, and collected offerings from them and the travelers who passed the the Crown Gate, and the place become known far and wide for its wealth and grandeur.  The chiefs, now kings, fought more wars to protect the city, and to increase its wealth.  Whenever they marched off to war, they would ride through the Crown Gate, and receive the blessings of the priests above.  The slaves, who had also grown in number, continued to live as servants, and were kept out of the temple.

As it happened, some of the exiled elders had built their own settlements nearby.  Because they had come to believe in their tradition that the vision of the army which had established the priests of White Crown was a result of of the Chief abandoning the ways of their people, they sought to take as their example the first ancestor, and practiced sitting calmly and seeking visions of the other side in their own way.  Because they were still of the people, they hoped that they could restore the fortunes and end the warfare that had become a part of their lives.  They did this without a temple, rejecting the idea as a corruption of the White Crown priesthood.  For this reason, descendants of the stolen people came to the outer settlements to practice the ancestor way.  In the tradition of the exiled elders, the stolen people were not servants, with many settled among them, and they developed their own traditions.

It was during this time that the river began to dry.  This happened slowly, over a few generations, so that the famous city would continue to grow, conduct war, and gain in wealth and slaves even though the water grew increasingly scarce.  By this time the settlements of the exiled elders had grown as well, and had their own priests, chiefs and even armies.  As the crops began to decline, those who were not rulers suffered the shortfall.  Eventually, the armies of the people began to fight even among themselves, and the people began to decline.

It is said that their King suffered for the first time a tremendous defeat in battle, and furious at the decline of the people, was at a loss.  He went to White Crown, to the platform where his ancestors sat, and demanded the Black Temple appear.  It is said he vowed to cross over and conquer the other world, if necessary, should the blessings not resume and the river return to its banks.  He ordered a bridge built across the gate, and made all of his priests practice their rituals for revealing the other side.  He did not sit as the tradition had taught, but stood in his armor with his soldiers, prepared to invade.  It is said that a great storm arose, but the priests did not cease their rituals, and the soldiers did not remove their armor.  The King cried, “If you do not open now, I will destroy the White Crown, and so too will the Black Crown be destroyed.”  To everyone’s amazement the storm ceased, the clouds parted, and before them stood the Black Crown.  Also before them stood the King’s own twin, with his own army at the ready.  Taking this as a challenge, the King ordered his men to march, and advanced across the bridge to the other side.

It is said the King and his army vanished, never to be seen again.

The outer settlements, whose people were composed of the descendants of the stolen and the exiled, predicted that hearing of the vanishing King, soon the enemies of the people would descend on the city.  They uprooted, abandoning what they could not carry, and took to wandering, and have done so to this day.  The people that remained tried to guard their treasure, temple, and places of power, but were eventually overcome by marauders and drought, and the city vanished into memory, avoided by all.

* * *

“So you see,” said Thera, “You found me sitting and watching from a distance, half in amusement, to see if the place would appear for myself.  But your coming along reminded me that I was not seeing anything at all!”

We had reached the gates, and the rain had stopped.  Curiously we climbed up into the majestic ruins, and looking down saw some remains here and there of a city that once lay on the other side.  Now it was like a graveyard, with dried posts pointing up from the sand like fingers to the sky.  We saw the serpentine trace of a dry riverbed, vanishing off into the distance.  Finding the place that must have been the old platform, we sat for a while and watched.

“Look!”  I cried!  “I see it!”  There on the other side, I saw two travelers sitting in the shade of a ruined temple.  I began to feel uneasy after what I had heard.

Thera seemed delighted, and waved.  There on the other side, his twin waved back, and we heard his laughter.  “Sounds just like me!”  He smiled.  And we heard the other say the same.

“That sounds much like any echo I have encountered in my travels,” I said.  This was repeated back to me.

“Well, let’s go meet them!”  Thera exclaimed, and we made our way around, any bridge having long vanished, to climb up to the other side.  There was nothing, and we stood on the spot where our twins in the Black Crown had appeared.  The spot was a slight depression in the surface of the rock, filled with a shallow layer of water.  Thera laughed and pointed at the reflections at our feet.  “Hello, pleased to meet you!”

I am writing this brief work as a guide to action, that will help to make sense of our modern situation, and empower the reader with a sense of justice that is easy to understand.  From this understanding, the reader will be able to know what to do from within their own ability, and be of use to all others as an instrument of justice.

Return

Defending the Ordinary is meant, as a phrase, to remind those who are drawn to serve that all action meant to alleviate the suffering of others is rooted in the ordinary.  Ordinary life, ordinary freedom, ordinary happiness, ordinary peace are the goals of providing relief from suffering, and the heart of any body of individuals built and trained to defend.  When the ordinary is forgotten, one is easily swept away by the extraordinary, and will serve to distract and oppress, regardless of faith in any theory.

Theory is difficult to understand, and is open to interpretation and manipulation.  It is not without value, but is not suitable as the heart.  Before theory, at the root, there must be that which anyone can understand.  Ordinary life, freedom, happiness and peace is something anyone can understand.  If we look even at the heart of revenge, we will see that the desire is to seek redress for being deprived of ordinary life, freedom, happiness and peace.  Viewed in this way, we see that revenge is a theory, and we can look at any act of revenge and ask, does this act restore the ordinary, defend the ordinary, or does it take me further away from it?

Ordinary life is continually faced with extraordinary conditions.  How we conduct ourselves when we face them may have different understandings based on the situation, the culture, and the time.  But each situation still may be faced with the heart-question: does this return towards the ordinary, or does it seek to further the extraordinary?

Extraordinary conditions here are considered those that deprive beings of their ability to enjoy personal, family, community, and cultural freedom.  These include economic, environmental, social pressures, and the conditions of warfare and natural disaster.

Ordinary conditions are here considered those that are a natural part of human life, even though they may also deprive beings of their ability to enjoy personal, family, community, and cultural freedom.  These are health, sickness, food, water, shelter, sex and death, according to the specific needs of birth, youth, adulthood, and old age.

In a time of extraordinary conditions, it is easy to believe the response should also be extraordinary, but if viewed from the heart of defending life, freedom, happiness and peace, we can easily see that is most needed is an immediate return to the ordinary.

The correct response to extraordinary conditions is Return.

Every act of return is an act of defense of the ordinary.

Justice

The question of justice is one that reveals instinct alone is insufficient to permit peaceful and free lives that include diversity.  What is right for one may not be right for another.  What is right for a large culture may not be right for a small culture.  What is right for profit may not be right for natural sustainability.

Justice is a question that requires us to meet in open discussion, to make agreements and compromise.  For this reason, justice requires us to look beyond personal instinct, and leads to an awareness of larger groups than ourselves – of family, community, culture, and most distant, the world.  For this reason personal instinctual freedom does not provide a strong enough position to consider the defense of others when we meet to discuss justice.

Personal freedom would appear to be the strongest position, the ultimate point of return, but it is incomplete if it is based on instinct alone, and it does not include the defense of the ordinary for other beings.  This is why:  full realization of the ordinary for the individual, full realization of personal freedom, has only one one conclusion – the life of the individual is connected to the lives of all others around them.  The ordinary individual is part of ordinary connections to the world around them – their ordinary belonging to the entire natural world.

Believing the individual is extraordinary, or that instinct demands a separation or superiority to the ordinary, is evidence that the individual has not yet grasped personal freedom.  For justice, for defense of the ordinary, personal instinct is not enough, and the individual has not yet achieved true personal freedom, which leads to the concern for the well being of others.

It is a far greater position of strength, that will overcome any extraordinary circumstances, to realize this truth:  when the individual has understood personal freedom, they will have developed compassion for the struggles involved within themselves.  When they have fully cultivated this compassion, they can not help but have compassion for the struggles of others, and can not help but seek to alleviate the struggles of others.  All true justice follows this course.

The action to understand freedom as alleviating the struggle of others is ordinary, and the effort to realize this freedom personally is a return to the ordinary.  The natural desire to alleviate the suffering of others that is rooted in this understanding is ordinary, and the effort to help others with their pain is to return with them to an ordinary state.

This would appear to go against many theories, and many desires for revenge, all part of the discussion that is called justice.  But a true return to the ordinary will reveal the correct course of action, that can be discussed openly with anyone of any ability to understand, because it is rooted in return, and is based on personal, clear understanding that the ordinary is the root all true justice.

Ordinary understanding, ordinary life, ordinary peace, ordinary happiness, ordinary nature.  All of these can be experienced, personally, completely, and require only to return and investigate the nature of one’s own self.  A return to freedom, of the personal, the family, the community, the culture, and the natural world.

Because strength and clear knowledge of the right actions requires less rather than more, return rather than expansion, there is nothing to fear from exceptional circumstances.  No matter how great or excessive the challenge to justice, return is stepping back to the small, the element, the particle, the truth of the ordinary.  For this reason, the extraordinary relies on extraordinary means to draw our awareness away from the ordinary and our strength – extraordinary force, manipulation, fear, injury, repetition, greed, resource, theory.  To maintain extraordinary results requires extraordinary energy, which will always, ultimately collapse and change.  To maintain ordinary results on the other hand only requires ordinary energy, which is sustainable and does not face collapse.  Even if the extraordinary succeeds for a time to create injustice against the ordinary, once it collapses the inevitable result is return towards the ordinary.  This is why there is no need to fear the collapse of extraordinary conditions. This is also why the most important action is to defend the ordinary.

Defense

What does it mean to defend the ordinary?

Defense is a posture composed of a full range of actions whose purpose is to protect against attack.  Attack is a posture composed of only one action, whether its objective is to injure, destroy, or overcome.  All of life defends itself, it is part of the natural order of things.  The turtle has a shell, the brine shrimp dries itself during drought, the earth has an atmosphere to dissolve space debris.  The attack of the extraordinary should be viewed in the same light, whether it is a human attack on justice, or a natural disaster.  The natural defense of human freedom, happiness and peace is the ability to return to the inner strength of being lighter, simpler, and more ordinary than what is attacking it.

Unlike attack, which is composed of only one action, defense is composed of a full range of actions.  The greater kinds of defense are actions of fortification.  Here fortification is used in the same sense as the adding of vitamins and minerals to wheat flour, as much as it envisions the building of walls.  Keeping in clear view the defense of the ordinary, fortification includes: nourishment, nurturing, enjoyment, refinement, teaching, and encouragement.   Fortifying nourishment refers to the defense of healthy food and clean air and water; nurturing to the defense of healthy mental environments for youth; enjoyment to the defense of ordinary gatherings to celebrate life together, to experience peace and the natural world; refinement to the defense of ordinary skills that give rise to self-sufficiency, self-knowledge and enjoyment;  teaching the defense of the ability to instruct youth in the ordinary ways of family, community, culture and nature; encouragement the defense of courage to return to the ordinary.

For this reason, the most important defenders of the ordinary include those who grow and prepare food, those who create healthy mental environments, those who create gatherings that celebrate life, those who create environments of peace and natural beauty, those who practice skills that refine the individual, those that instruct youth in the ways of the ordinary, and those that raise the courage and self-esteem of others.

The reason this is the most important act of defense becomes clear when one learns, individually, how to return to the source of choice over their actions, which is ordinary freedom, happiness and peace within themselves, and as a consequence discovers the source of all desire to alleviate the suffering of others.  The discovery that this choice is personal, rather than obtained outside one’s self in the ideas and opinions of others, is the stone that builds this fortification.  In this discovery, they recognize that the source of extraordinary desires and attack is also rooted in themselves.  Seeing how these things arise from nothing, they are able to make informed choices that result in ordinary happiness.  These choices inevitably raise the ordinary happiness of others.

The lesser kind of defense is repulsion, which means to push back an attack.    It is lesser because it does not contribute to fortification, and therefore has an inherent weakness.  Its weakness is caused by its wavering state – it is both returning to the ordinary (as a defense) and moving towards the exceptional (as an attack).  For this reason we see many things that begin as a successful defense of the ordinary, only to become the new extraordinary that causes injustice.  For this reason, it is considerably less effective than defense through fortification.

For humans, fortification is laughter, stillness, clarity and courage, which come from the freedom, happiness and peace that the defense of the ordinary creates.

Watched another of Wong Kar Wai’s waking dreams, 2046.

Reminded of a place I’ve never been except in imagined memories, he achieved a perfection. Where the writer is still protagonist even within his own antagonism. A journey by train to a place we all feel exists, though none can report it. The letter and the meaning of romantic escape. Where passions are fragile, like an avalanche.  I must have been in the mood, for the depth was mine, was felt, and all irrational.

And oh, the eye contact. The small gestures of the feet and hands.

In the film are mentioned the ’5 signs of decay of a mortal angel’ in Buddhist lore, which reminds me of Yukio Mishima’s disconcerting book about this overlapping of visionary expectation and the independent, visceral potentials in a human character. The signs are of mortality overlapping radiant existence, the angels disrobed of their celestial dryness bathe in the river of time, robes hanging from a branch and left trailing in the river mud.  The signs are rewritten with a secular twist:

When the smile is slow to come.
When tears are delayed until tomorrow.
When eyelids tremble before beauty.
When there is sweat without heat or strain.
When happiness is sought in a place instead of a feeling.

If any of this seems out of place to you, it may be the way you have stored and encapsulated ideas.  For most Westerners the ideas displayed in this movie, despite a David Lynch sensibility for color and light, are quite ordinary.  Not a drop of blood, no criminality, no aggressive displays of wealth, no super-human abilities, not even a single show of physical overpowering.  All the force remains in the feelings and conduct of ordinary lives.

Herein lies the challenge.  There are transgressive opportunities to acknowledge here, and the tension will revolve around the Western myth of centrality.  Translucent gender roles costumed in glamour in the face of urban scarcity, existential angst, petty materialism, and the clincher – deconstructive, even morbid reflections of the sacrosanct.  We still have a challenge, in letting go of our cultural appropriation: our gloss that the beliefs within the temples of other cultures are empty of people just as simple, frail, and ordinary as our own.  While the west began a powerful urge towards eastern philosophy in the 60′s, the avant-garde, Asian cinema, and writers like Mishima were engaged in a modern inquiry just as transgressive as our own self-view.  In these things, in commonality, lies the dirt that covers the seeds of distinction our intellectuals, looking to other cultures for alternatives, are truly after.  Seeds bear the distinct genome of their ultimate flowering, but soil is everywhere and immune to geographic boundaries – it needs only be fertile.

This reminds me of George Battaille’s thoughts about the potential role of the writer embattled in any system… becoming its excess is to be aligned with nature and change. Not seeking the repair of fractures, but to continue to populate the whole with the elements that you would see survive.

Traveling on a long journey back from the time/place where everyone goes, but from where no one returns, where nothing changes. I consider interior places that I have made endless and unchanging, and see where they overlap the mortal and present. I look through my reflection into the landscape of my own heart. To prefer to store away certain feelings in a time vault, rather than bear the feeling of debt, I recognize the universality of such a treasury, and I forgive. At the same time I come to reflect on these stored possessions that I cannot easily loan, because I have already purchased my tickets for the long return journey to the present.