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Foundation in Floodplain

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APT. 13

   In this apartment, you can freeze a moment in your life and examine each aspect, even down to the molecular level. While someone is about to slug you, his fist raised, you can observe the fly by your ear, the dust mites under the chair, the body ash all over the furniture, the atoms floating in what you once believed was only empty space. You can examine the facial expressions of your loved ones revealing fear, disapproval, anger, amusement. You can go into other rooms to observe things before they are used up, suggesting or corresponding to or reflecting what you perceived as the meaning of your life at that moment, slightly puzzling in retrospect, all the molecules acting as though conscious of how the patterns fit together, as if all possibilities were known.

(You realize that you are still on the right path because on a couch you find an old wooden box with Chapter Four of Rooms that Dream....)

The Emperor

ROOMS THAT DREAM:

CHAPTER FOUR

   Justin had no discretionary income but indulged in short trips to the foothills, where he would often trespass to explore the trails and Native American village sites along creeks and rivers--the price of retaining his sanity, he rationalized. One day as he drove on a single lane road along the Kings River, he glanced at the floodplain and for a second glimpsed the concrete foundation of a large building below in the flood plain of the river. He experienced at that moment a twinge of remembrance but did not recall the significance of the foundation until he was falling asleep that evening; he suddenly remembered a trip to the Kings River with his family when he was eleven or twelve, not long after they had moved to Fresno from Los Angeles. He and his brother had slept on the back seat as the car slowly wound its way up the hills, both of them waking as the car glided into a grassy area next to the road, “In the Ghetto” by Elvis Presley blaring on the radio, his Dad, before turning off the car, uncharacteristically allowing the song to reach its conclusion.
   As his Dad fished from a sandy bank, Justin gazed transfixed at a huge spider web in the foliage near the road until he located a bulbous spider in the corner of the web and jumped back, horrified. Justin's brother called from a dirt road next to the river, excitedly yelling that he had found something, then dashing off down the road and vanishing in bushes behind a tall tree. Justin sprinted after him but couldn’t keep up with him.
   Feeling suddenly very alone, Justin tip-toed between the bushes, expecting an ambush, until he noticed his brother off in the distance in a clearing.
   “What took you so long?” his brother sneered.
   Justin saw several large slabs of concrete. Looking closer, he recognized that the concrete formed the foundation of a large building, a fact that had initially escaped him because several trees were growing inside what used to be a mansion. He jumped up on the foundation wall and inched around it until he reached a point where the concrete was broken up by the roots of the trees.
   Confused, afraid and fascinated all at once, suddenly feeling paralyzed, Justin stared at the uncountable leaves inside what was left of the house.
   “Let’s go,” his brother shouted.
   “No,” Justin responded, uncharacteristically.
   His brother squinted. “C’mon, let’s go! What’s your damn problem?”
   Justin stared at the tumbled concrete of the foundation. His brother dashed away, leaving Justin alone again. He looked around carefully, disappointed, on one hand, by his inability to comprehend the feelings inspired by the foundation, and, on the other, by the fact that he would never be able to walk all the way around the house on the low, concrete wall, as if on a tight rope.
   Finally, Justin got down from the concrete, suddenly hearing a loud voice, “You will be back in thirty-five years….”
   Scared out of his wits, Justin raced back through the bushes to the dirt road, wanting to tell everyone about that voice, which he had never heard before. But when Justin crept up to his father, who was silently reeling in his fishing line, suddenly the voice didn‘t seem real anymore.
   Thirty-five years later, Justin noticed the foundation of the house as he was driving by, never before glancing down at the river bottom at exactly the right moment on any of the other trips he had taken to the Kings River.
   The next day, during the meditation portion of his daily ritual, Justin envisioned the God Horus standing on a concrete stage at one end of the foundation. That didn’t make sense to Justin because he only remembered the concrete where the walls of the different rooms had been, so he drove back to the Kings River the next week to investigate the foundation and discovered that the house did indeed have two concrete patios resembling stages at both ends--his waking vision more accurate than his memory of the place. When he stood next to the concrete, everything seemed to be as it had been that day thirty-five years before, as if he had been gone only a few minutes, the river flowing serenely beyond a small beach of white sand, the dirt road still heading beyond huge sycamores and oaks, the spider web gone, his father dead of a heart attack a few years after that fishing trip thirty-five years ago.
   During the period during which he had rediscovered the foundation, Justin had become an occultist, communing with Horus, Isis, Thoth, and Osiris during his personal rituals. In the process, he had experienced symbolic death several times in meditation as well as an overwhelming sense of cosmic harmony, and he recognized that the Christ is not a man but a cosmic force that the symbolic forms of savior figures such as Horus, Dionysus, and Jesus personify, enabling the worshipper to channel the force into heart and mind and soul. Thoth, the god of magic and communication, embodies the mighty Logos, the Word that channels the primal forces into manifestation, and Isis looms as the Celestial Mother, the root of all form in the manifested universe. Horus shines as the symbol of the higher self, the expression of Divine Will on the physical plane, conceived after Isis found the body parts of Osiris and put them back together.
   When he returned thirty-five years later to the foundation of the house, Justin imagined Horus standing on the concrete slab, which was more like an altar than a patio or a stage, and Justin's inner voice whispered that he should not give his spiritual power away to anything or anyone on the physical plane. Justin consciously became at that moment what he had always suspected was awaiting him, as if he had suddenly grown into a set of clothes that had always been in his closet: A spiritual renegade who would go his own way no matter what. He wondered for a moment if his new-found friendship with Peter was in any way part of his path now.

Knight of Cups

   At breakfast, Peter’s mother asked, "Why are you spending so much time with that man?"
   "What man?" Peter replied.
   "The man in Apartment 104."
   "Oh, you mean Justin. We just talk about stuff."
   "I bet I know why he spends so much time over there," Chuck paused. "Because he’s a sissy!"
   "Mom," Peter whined.
   "Does that man ever touch you?" his mom asked.
   "No! What are you talking about? We just hang out together."
   Chuck stepped behind his mother and mouthed the word "fairy."
   "Where did you get these?" Peter’s mother held out his pack of Tarot cards. "Chuck found these in your top dresser drawer."
   "Tell him to stay out of my stuff!" Peter yelled.
   "Did that man give these to you?" his mom asked.
   "No, he just helps me understand what they mean."
   "And how does he know what they mean?"
   "He knows a lot of things. I don’t know. He reads a lot. He’s a philosopher," Peter replied.
   "I don’t want these cards in my house," his mother insisted. "Your father and I agree. We are a good Christian family and these ungodly cards do not belong here." She threw the Tarot cards in the garbage.
   "Mom!"
   "I don’t want you wasting your money on that sacrilegious crap anymore, and I don’t want you spending any more time with that man. You can’t trust anyone these days. Now go clean your room. I don’t want you to come out until that room is spotless."
   "But, Mom!"
   "Go, now!"
   Later that day, Peter sneaked out of the apartment. When Justin opened the door, Peter mumbled, "My mom found the Tarot cards. She threw them in the trash, and she doesn’t want me to talk to you anymore."
   "You’re kidding? Do you want me to have a chat with her?" Justin asked.
   "No, she won’t listen to you or anyone else. She gets an idea in her head and won’t let it go. She doesn’t trust anybody."
   Justin stared at Peter. "I have an idea," Justin said. "Can you sneak out to the church down the street? We can meet there and act like we’re praying."
   "Okay, I’ll meet you there in ten minutes," Peter blurted out.
   Peter hustled back to the apartment, grabbed his bike and told his mom that he was going out for a ride. He rushed out the door before he could hear her reply.
   He was down the street in no time. Pretty soon, Cashing parked his Corolla next to the curb. They entered together and plopped down in a pew. No one else appeared to be in the church.
   "Remember how I described it, the meditation, I mean," Peter said.
   Cashing stared at the cross on the altar for a moment and then closed his eyes. As Cashing imagined the black Calvary cross, it seemed to come alive in his mind or in some other dimension, and Cashing imagined that black energy was floating from the old woman’s body to the cross. Then Cashing imagined her whole being filling with light, and, perhaps because of his compassion for her, Cashing had the sense that he was really helping her.
   Then Cashing suddenly felt regret for things that he had done wrong, and just as he was about to ask forgiveness for himself, he heard a voice, "Can I help you?"
   Cashing and Peter opened their eyes. The minister was hovering over them. "We’re just prayin’together," Cashing said.
   "I’m sorry. I know Peter here because he comes to youth group, but I’m afraid I don’t know you," the minister said.
   "Justin Cashing. Peter and I have recently become friends," Cashing said.
   "It’s so wonderful to have both of you here," the minister said. "It’s not easy to find men who will mentor the youth in our community. Do you go to a nearby church?"
   "I’m just getting back to my roots, so to speak. I thought I would check out your church because Peter spoke so highly of it."
   The minister looked surprised. "Well, feel free to come by anytime," the minister smiled.
   "Thank you," Peter and Cashing chimed together.
   "I think it’s time to go," Cashing mumbled.
   "Do you think we had any effect?" Peter asked.
   "I’m sure we had an effect, but I’m not sure it’s the one we wanted. How well does the minister know your parents?"
   "Pretty well."
   "Well enough to ask about me?"
   "Yeah, maybe."
   "Well, maybe it’s time you got home."
   "Okay," Peter said and quickly rode off.
   "We probably had an effect, all right," Cashing muttered.

Go on a different adventure.