PRELUDE Stars hung in eternity threaten to fall into each other winking in disbelief. My breath wafts its cooling warmth into the darkness as I turn to answer the call from inside. That beckoning voice that brought me here. Only there are no tomorrows, no yesterdays, and one time eternal. The now. A cry rents the stillness. It is not possible, is it? The pad of feet issues from somewhere. No reassurance that I will leave here alive or whole or even if my spirit will be cleansed from my bones. Nicely or rendered horribly apart like from some Grade B horror movie. So coming here was not at all wise. Still my breath issues forth joining the clouds that skirt soundlessly by as mist curls among trees, like angelic spirits melted into smoke tendrils by this place. Chill surges upwards as fog thickens, cooling and undulating like a snake on a river of calling. Whatever this is that draws me here, asking of myself questions, I have that no answers to speak before it. Denying touch, taste, sound, smell and clamping numbness to my ears, I remain open to its only way of being. The here. The now. Dew drips from grass, leaves, everywhere. The soft plodding of water coming home to earth. A cycle born again, returning. Padding sounds end as I take another step forward, answering the call that beckons. While silence answers me with its own questions. Once again. Roger woke in a lurch from his dreams. He got up and walked slowly to the bathroom making sure Beth, his wife, wouldn’t wake. Outside the full moon hung in abeyance, calling to him to sleep some more and continue this insane journey he began, or at least was called to perform. Bugger that, I have to urinate first before my bladder bursts. He closed his eyes and let his waters flow into the toilet before him. Yeah, I know, Words from the song echoed in him, the Orinoco Flow. What a Bag. John Lennon’s song added to the echoes descending away into dribbles. ‘Let it be’. Let it be, let it be, let it be. Whispering words of wisdom. Let it be. And that was where it began. Only it won’t, will it? Let anything be, anymore?  Seattle, Sea Tac Airport “T he End is near! Repent sinners! Set your spirit free, join Jehovah at the right hand of God!” The man dressed in a black suit bellowed to the crowd of people, most of whom were simply trying to get either into the airport before they missed their fl ight, or were waiting for their rides out of this chaos. Unfortunately, Roger had picked a spot to get out of his taxicab right next to the Jehovah’s Witness and two newly-bald Hare Krishna dressed in their fl owing robes, chanting in time to the rhythm of their tambourines. “Join the pure love of God. Set your spirit free.” The two chanted brazenly trying to overcome the Jehovah’s Witness man thumping his bible loudly exclaimed in a baritone voice, “Ignore false prophets.” The two being ex-WFC converts didn’t take well to the rude preacher stealing the show beside them with his boisterous Sunday-morning-at-the-pulpit voice and began to thump their tambourines even louder. The Jehovah man glared and raised his voice. Roger Harrison and his new wife Beth waited while the taxi driver unloaded their luggage as all Hell broke loose. The man in black started thumping one of the Hare Krishna over the head with his bible as the other put him in a headlock shouting, “Find the love of God and yourself.” Prayer beads went flying in all directions as the Jehovah man grabbed one of the tambourines and slammed one of the Hare Krishna’s in the head. Roger glanced at his watch; they didn’t have much time to make their plane, let alone watch the bizarre spectacle unfolding in front of him. Already security guards were running in from all directions adding to the ensuing melee. “Wow, don’t see that every day,” Beth spurted. An older man, obviously a former love-child of the sixties according to his long hard and faded, well-worn peace-emblem teeshirt, shoved by Roger. “Peace Bro’.” He gave Roger the two-fingered sign once common in the sixties. Roger caught the line ‘If I could turn myself inside out and set my spirit free’ playing from the man’s headset. U2, he thought, as he managed to squeeze into the terminal building. “I’ve got to help my brethren fight the fascist pigs in power, the times they are a-changing.” He smiled and grabbed a fallen tambourine and belted one of the guards over the head. “Oh, that they will be if we miss our flight. They’ll be changing me into the ranks of the newly divorced.” He hurried his new bride inside. “Yup,” he said, “you don’t get to see that every day.” Set my spirit free. Lyrics echoed in his head. My spirit free? The question fluttered away. As somewhere in the mists of his mind angels fluttered wings and rain fell on delicate ferns, uncurling into the light generated by the sun overhead. What? February 4th, 1971, The Moon; Fra Mauro Crater “One small step for man… one giant leap for mankind.” The words of Neil Armstrong echoed through Edwin Mitchell’s mind as he stared up at the Earth rising over the horizon, the music of 2001: A Space Odyssey playing in his head. Earth: continents, surrounded by the deep blue of the oceans cradled in billowy arms of clouds. He tried to spot the USA and, more importantly, the location of his hometown, where his wife and kids were probably staring back up at the moon. No markings existed to distinguish one country from another, nor to distinguish democracies from communistic societies or dictatorships. Land and mountains, ocean and clouds. Just one world spinning. Odd, he’d not really expected it to be like this. Spinning, like so many of the other dots of light shining by the untold billions amid all this magnificence and the darkness of space, without the filter of sky and atmosphere. One spec, a mote revolving in a sea of infinity, all part of the cosmos. At peace with the universe. At one with itself. At one with the Universe; connected. Edwin smiled. He’d never imagined it would be like this. No lines, no boundaries out here. Nothing like he’d been told, had read about in the books: light years of frozen emptiness separated by mere molecules and photons floating in vastness. This was different. Something no books, no professors could describe, and none could experience. He was only the sixth man to walk on the moon, blessed to have left Earth and view it from the outside in. Whole, suspended in the firmament of the heavens. Tones of awe, like angels humming in reverence, filled his head. As the light of Earth flooded the plain he stood on, Ed gasped. Lights dancing, reflecting. Lights touching him as he grasped the rocks around him. Lights dancing? On the Moon? He turned and stared into the heavens. Flashes of flares or rocket-fire, too small to be anything propelled, streaked off the moon’s surface into space. Heading in the direction of Earth. Beep. “Ed, your vital signs are going offline. Ed, you’ve stopped breathing. CO levels are rising. Ed, you okay?” “Yes, Mission Control, I’m fine. Did you register any unusual activity?” “Nothing other than some of the seismic sensors indicating several tremors in the area.” “How many?” He counted the streaks heading away from the moon. “Looks like about twelve peaks in activity, just beyond the Fra Mauro crater. Are you over the top yet?” He counted the same number of lights ascending into the dark universal sky heading towards earth. “Another couple of steps.” They aren’t going to believe this back home are they? He took a long breath and sighed, lost in crystalline reflections as he crested the crater. “Ed? Everything okay? Your monitors are going nuts again.” “Jeez.” No one, absolutely no one would believe this. He didn’t believe it himself. “Just admiring old Mother Earth,” he lied. “It’s not every day you get to see an Earthrise.” No, nothing was as he’d been taught. Oh, it was all there, the stars, the sun, the blackness of space, everything where it should be. Only it was different, as different as the plateau before him. A whole lifetime of teachings and beliefs blown aside by invisible winds, like dust before reality’s vision. He shook his head, scrambled back down the way he’d come and returned to his work of digging up moon rocks to take home. Was it possible? Did I just see that? Home, he thought, how funny. In some ways as he stared up into the heavens, he was home. Sea Tac Airport “If I could turn myself inside out and break my spirit free.” The U2 song line stuck, stewing away in his head, too many times to be coincidence. Spinning at the unconscious like a dog digging aimlessly in the dirt at something tantalizing it smelled. Compelling him on and on. Compelling him on and on. The near riot outside began to die down, with the security guards resorting to Tasering and handcuffing the troublemakers. The Jehovah man yelling obscenities at the bleeding Hari Krishna’s as they cursed back in some Indian dialect that only Buddha would know. Words, all words pulling at him, like spirit things. Echoing, so strange. His whole day had begun to have a feeling of surrealism. The scene outside didn’t help. He was supposed to be on his honeymoon. Buddha, incense and mystical music echoed in his head. Echoing winds, words. Spirit. Drifting, pulling him away. Intangible presences. Pooling like dew on grass, drip, dripping, flowing into a burbling stream. Consciousness. Spirit flowing. To places, dimensions unknown. Inevitable things. His subconscious nagging at him, it’s sublime finger jabbing into his head, Roger shuffled forward joining the long queue in the ticket line. Why? Why here? Why now? “What are you so nervous about?” Beth prodded him. “Who says I’m nervous?” She broke him away from his musing as fairies folded their arms and tapped their slippered feet, waiting for an answer only they knew would come. “Because you always turn pale and squeeze your hands together, or mine.” He yanked himself back to earth and realized he’d been gripping her hand so tight her wedding band had marked her finger. “Sorry.” All day he’d felt odd, like something wasn’t right. That commotion outside hadn’t helped ease his fears. The repeated chanting of voices? Haunting his memory like niggling tendrils of spirit things. Fuck, get out of my head, he swore to himself. And where the eff did this come from? It was like what I just saw or heard twigged some memory of myself, or at least of what I once was? Roger simply looked blanked at his new wife, not sure what to say to mollify her, when his heart was beginning to race on a journey he’d never taken, but knew he was on. Once before. “I don’t get it. You’ve flown dozens of times on business. Or are you afraid of me? Don’t worry I don’t bite; although I do nibble rather fine. Remember the first time we kissed? I thought you were going to crush my fingers.” “And the second and the third. You know I get nervous around women.” Yes, talk to Beth, it helped to get the visions of angels out of my head. Only why are they there in the first place? He aimlessly scratched at an itchy part of his stomach that had begun to throb. Heat spread as he scratched at it. “Hey, I’m your wife now. It’s okay.” “I know. I think lunch didn’t agree with me, damn Burritos.” He hugged her. A strange day threatened, that’s what it was. Be prepared for the most unexpected on those days, a colleague once told him. Easier said than done. It reminded him of a poster from his younger days, ‘It’s hard to remember your objective is to drain the swamp, when you’re up to your armpits in alligators.’ Roger frowned, the soft cry of a child caught his ears from somewhere in the distance or from inside his heart. “Do you hear that?” He cranked his head around, scanning the crowd. “No, I don’t. Hear what?” “Young girl, crying.” Roger spotted the young black girl standing by the candy counter about thirty feet away. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. Everyone too busy rushing around trying to catch planes. He muttered. She was clutching a doll, tears streaming down her ebony face. “Keep our place, I’ll be right back.” “You okay young lady,” he bent over and held out a Kleenex as he approached. “Can’t find my mommy.” She started to cry harder. “It’s okay, we’ll find her. Let’s go over here to security and I’ll buy you a candy bar while we page her.” He was careful not to touch her as they walked over to the counter. Even acts of kindness he knew could be wrongly construed. Best to be careful, didn’t want to be thrown in the clink on child molestation charges on his honeymoon. A minute later, after the pager called out the lady’s name and the young girl had nearly finished the Mars bar he bought, a rather frightened large black lady came running from across the crowded terminal. “My baby! One second she was by my side and the next she was gone.” She sobbed as she clutched the young girl. “Thank you, kind sir, and you young lady are going to get a good scolding.” “No problem, but be kind, she was only a child, doing what kids do, exploring strange environs.” She looked weirdly at him and crushed her kid closer to him, like he was someone suddenly not to be trusted. He walked back to join Beth in their lineup, which had moved only about three people closer to the front. He scratched at the throb in his stomach. The heat pulsating. “You’re always helping kids. Why is that?” “Don’t know. Something to do with having no dad as I grew up. Perhaps.” In his head the words, teachers call out to those that need attention and protection before their time is ready to begin their teachings. Protectors insure the lives of the innocent so that they can one day replace them. Echoed like an opera in the void. Why do I get the feeling this trip is nowhere where I think it will take me? He smiled to her as the vision of some Buddhaistic being winked back at him. “Only your mom to raise you. Must have brought out your feminine, sensitive side. Another reason why I love you. I’ve never met a man with such a spiritual deepness.” She winked. “Just wait until I get you alone.” “Is that a promise?” Spiritual deepness? Never had anyone say that to me before. Doesn’t everyone listen to Enya in their car or Delirium? He thought a moment as the throb in his stomach increased. Promises, promises of inevitable things. Inevitable things unfolding. Fuck. They were on their honeymoon, full of excitement for the new journey together as man and wife. But inside Roger sensed another journey unfolding, one he had dreamt about for days now in his dreams. Unsettling dreams, that at first he’d put it down to his anticipation of getting married, his nervousness regarding the honeymoon trip, but feared it was much more. The incident earlier with U2 and the chanting Hare Krishna’s had unleashed something buried in his mind. He began to drift away again, some forgotten thread inside nagging at him. Pulling him on some pathway he’d never recall going down ever before. An awakening. Journeys on paths unbidden, a soul’s course, and destiny denied like the flashflood down desert canyons, every breath, every step sweeping him away. Thrust to the embrace of fate and futures scrawled into sacred rock. Knowing, the ache of knowing that things were unfolding in the universe all around him and there was nothing he could do. Roger sighed. This wasn’t going to be an ordinary honeymoon was it? I hope whatever happens at least let me get laid tonight first then I’d be open to learning the spiritual pathways of turtles swimming under full moons while fairies caressed their bellies. Man, I gotta write this stuff down. Don’t know where it is coming from? He scratched at the hardness forming in his stomach. They’d made love many times, but he wanted to do it on a Hawaiian beach in the moonlight. Naked, with sand stuck in his cheeks, Blue Hawaiian drinks beside them. Although, intuitively he knew there was little he could do now, except watch it crash into him, into his orderly existence, wiping rationality aside like dust from bookshelves. But the bookshelf didn’t exist, and each dust speck was a world unto itself. Nor was the dusting rag just a rag but a curtain of time sweeping all before it, while only chaos talked, reeling in its own hosts. Inevitable things. Damn, it was like watching the wall approach as your car veers out of control towards it. Again the hymn of angels. “We’re next, honey.” Hardness in my stomach? What the? Roger tensed, gripping her hand as he rubbed against something in his stomach that shouldn’t be there, nor was yesterday. Yesterday, a Beatles song echoed in the background. When time was gone away. “Ow, you’re crushing my hand again. What is wrong?” “Don’t know.” I’ve done this dozens of times, this is my honeymoon. He reminded himself he was setting off on his honeymoon with Beth. They were heading for Hawaii and then on a free Grand Canyon whitewater rafting trip he’d won in a company contest last year. He’d promised Bill, his buddy, that he’d also visit Sedona, Arizona. Land of the red rock, canyons and Hopi Indians as part of the package. He shook his head, still not sure why he’d let Bill talk him into going to Sedona, yet something about that name intrigued him, called him. Like this moment, haunted him. What if he said no, I can’t do this. Won’t. Maybe he should turn around. If he was smart, he would and run before everything he knew up til now in his life melted into a slagheap before his feet. But destiny was a capricious child at best. Unruly and without definition, no boundaries. No knowing when it would call or where it would surface. Major moments that changed lifetimes and entire nations in the blink of an eye, when a shift of one single belief or thought pattern came without deliberation and totally unexpectedly. Roger held his ground, one foot demanding resolutely to go back and the other? Into nowhere land. “You okay?” “Yeah, just keep thinking I’ve forgotten something,” he lied. Trying to release her hand, his grip to the now. Damn it. Run. He stared into her sweet, concerned face. The brown eyes he’d fallen instantly in love with. The petite nose, half-hidden by the cascade of brunette hair, and the twin dimples that erupted with each smile, framing the luscious lips he wanted more than anything to be kissing on a Hawaiian beach. He shook his head, clearing it, grounding himself with deep breaths, back into his life. His dreams the last few nights had been filled with insights and the dull ache of knowing inevitable things were taking place. Hadn’t he read that the big events in one’s life are all preordained and in those moments, time slows to a crawl and eternity grips each syllable until half lights shutter away in strobe-lamp fashion? Or was it simply the fact that he was worried about flying, especially after the ISIS and all the constant hysteria induced by the government regarding retaliation or all the conspiracy theories over Covid-19 and government control. As he stepped through the metal detector he knew. Everything in his orderly, ordinary, run of the mill, two point five kids, a mortgage, good paying job, benefits, would change. Fuck, why didn’t I run? Forever. And ever. Amen. Beep. Beep. Angels snickered and fairies spat magic into the earth before them. Causing new fairies to be born. Double fuck. “Sorry, sir. Please go back and remove any coins and other metal objects.” “Oh. Thought I already did that.” The Inevitability of too late to turn back. One path set, the others discarded. His heart pounded. Angels were laughing behind my back right now as devilish beings played in the band and others joined in a jig. Beth went through while he did as the attendant instructed him, a thorough check of his pockets confirmed that he didn’t have any metal on him. The lineup behind him was lengthening, other travelers as eager as he was to set off for their destination waiting patiently. He stepped back through the metal detector’s frame again. Beep. Beep. The bastards were rolling in the aisles of heaven, howling and whoever held the wild card was gleaming like a jackdaw in heat. “Over here, sir. Spread your legs and raise your arms. Do you have any metal on your body?” The attendant scanned him with his wand. “Not that I know of.” He wanted to add, except for the metal plate in my skull, but he figured anyone who had to stand there doing this job day after day wouldn’t have much of a sense of humor. The scene from the movie Spinal Tap came to mind, where the hip rock star with the spray-on leather pants and hefty package bulging from his crotch area is stopped at an airport scanner. Much to the macho dude’s chagrin, security discovers a concealed Bierwurst sausage wrapped in tinfoil. Beep. Beep. The detector went off around his midsection. “Must be my highiron diet,” he joked weakly, the attendant didn’t smile. “This is no laughing matter sir. Have you had any operations?” “No, sir.” Roger leaned heavily on the “sir”. Sweat was breaking out on his forehead. “Never had an operation in my life.” “Proceed to that room over there.” It was now too late to run. “Ah, but … will I miss my flight?” “Proceed to that room. You have not been cleared for boarding.” “Roger, what’s going on here?” Beth stared, frowning, an eye twitching. She hated being singled out in a crowd and he knew he was to blame. “Don’t worry, babe. Something seems to be setting off the metal detectors. I can’t board until they check it out.” Crap, years later he was still antsy enough after the bombing of the World Trade Towers, and now this. The smirk of chaos commencing its numbing jumbled dance, taking control … the lines between his dream-world and reality blurred. Had he already set something in place that would lead to change? The trouble with inevitable things and chaos is that there’s no secretary keeping notes, no Dictaphone to replay the events or a cellphone to take images. Only hands-on experience and he’d never experienced anything deep or religious or wildly spiritual in his life, until now. Well other than listening to the Orinoco flow by Enya, I knew that listening to that irish bag would get me into trouble. Yet something in her cadence called. So where was all this coming from? And why couldn’t I shut up that voice in my head? Three guards lounged in the small room, the two males casually snapped their gum. A rotund female guard sat in the corner reading the National Enquirer, scowl pinching her ruddy face. Dealing with her, he sensed, would be like taking sirloin from a pit-bull. It could be done but chances were you’d lose more blood and flesh than you’d gain. “Hands up. Gotta run another scanner over you,” the first male ordered. It beeped in the same area as before. “Ever have an operation, sir?” The second stared him in the eyes. “Nope. And I’m a frequent flyer. Never had a problem with security.” “Yeah, got it. Open your shirt, please.” The guard was still staring him down. He’d read that police and security personnel were trained to detect if a person was lying just by the way their eyes moved when he was asked a question. Roger stared straight back at the guard as he unbuttoned his shirt. There, outlined just below his right ribcage, barely visible, was an irregular bulge. The throb he’d scratched at several times, earlier. He turned white; I should have run, fucking inevitable things. Fucking haloed thy bloody angels. “What’s that?” The guard poked at him. Roger winced as he ran his fingers over the area. It wasn’t hot to the touch, like he expected a tumor or blood clot to be, nor discolored, in fact it felt smooth, almost metallic. What was it? How’d it get there? Was he going to die? The visions of a woman he’d just seen on TV dying from some sort of viral infection, her body covered in massive sores. The doctors puzzled by this unknown affliction. “I … ah … can only say I’ve never seen this before.” And that was the bloody truth, how is this possible? What the hell was going on here? He’d recently had a physical and his doctor hadn’t said anything about this. Surely he would have noticed it himself, in the shower this morning? Wouldn’t he? “So you’re standing here trying to tell me you’ve never seen this before?” “Yes.” “One more time, sir. Explain to me what that is.” The guard raised his voice. “I … ah … can’t. I didn’t even know it was there.” Christ, what was this? Some kind of nightmare? The kind of things that happen only in Sci-Fi movies. The guard held the scanner directly over the lump. It began beeping madly. “Well, I think you’re full of shit myself. I’ve seen some pretty inventive ways to smuggle things in and out of this country. Ever seen puppies with sown up stomachs, hiding coke? What do you think, Ernie? Dope?” He nodded to the other male. “Hey, just relax, Burt. We can’t assume our mister ready to go on holidays here and relax on a Hawaiian beach sipping Mai Tais is up to something. Maybe he’s got some cancerous growth or worse…” “Oh like the scene from the movie, which one?” He snapped his fingers. “Alien! Where the baby bursts out from the guys chest.” “Yeah, that’s the one.” He laughed ignoring the almost shivering Roger, as he kept glancing at the clock on the wall. Ernie turned back to him, all sign of joviality gone. “Nah, you know what I’m thinking? Dope.” He eyed him directly again. The only dopes here were the Dumb and Dumber rejects from security guard school. These were people used to being in control, who enjoyed watching others squirm. This was too surreal, not really happening, like the sensations that had assaulted him as he waited in line, like the hallucinations of marijuana. Like he was floating over all of this and watching, like this was meant to happen, only he didn’t know why. “Dope? How can that be dope, up there?” “You tell us, sir. But we need to get you checked out. Maybe you’ve got some kind of explosives taped up inside you, behind some sort of fake skin graft. Never know what these whack job extremist Moslems come up with. Stand behind the screen, remove all your clothing and put on the robe. Over reacting? Remember nine-eleven. I lost an uncle in that pile of rubble and it ain’t happening here again on my shift.” “Do I look like a Muslim suicidal type of dude?” “Don’t care, my job is to ensure the national security of this great nation of the US of A. If Trump wants to keep all the Taco breaths out by building a wall, then no wacko is getting in or out past my shift. Prepare the lube Burt and if you give us any more static I’ll let Helga over there check you out.” “Or maybe he’d like that,” the other laughed. Roger’s ears turned hot. They were baiting him, trying to force him to lose his cool. They were not good people, they liked baiting, torturing others. His intuition was going off, just like at the lineup. He clenched his fists, had to stay calm or goodbye honeymoon, welcome jail cell. He glanced down at the headlines on the paper Helga was reading, Man claims aliens impregnated him. Has seven-pound baby girl and two others of unknown DNA. He finished robing himself in the paper gown and stepped away from the screen. The snap of latex over fingers echoed. The next few minutes weren’t going to be quite the honeymoon experience he had planned. Why in hell didn’t I run, when my guts told me to?