Meanwhile, back in the heartland, Betty boatmom was shining the hull of her boat. When everything converged, she was sure to navigate through the flood waters of global warming by gliding around Frangipani county on her deck boat. Her new lookout, Princess Cyndi Lou, danced merrily around the vessel, determing its sea worthiness by sniffing every little nook and cranny of the boat.
Last night, they sat on the boat and watched the crescent moon smile at Mars and Venus as they peeked over the eastern horizon. Days ticked by and the three and a half year window of time seemed so short. Attention on deck, all hands of the USS Survivor are ready for the days mission. Strangely, it was just to sit quietly and reflect. Watch the sun track across the sky and land in the northwestern sky in a dazzling display of fuschias and musky purples. This kind of patience was needed. This kind of clarity was required. We are standing on a cusp of a new dawn that no one can even imagine. Yet, the world is colored with the technology and the dirt of an age that must pass. Choking in its own black lung, the American way is scheduled for rehab.
********************
Orderly, this is Captain Betty Boatmom, and I have the oranges. They were shipped all the way from the tropical orange groves in Atlanta. Permission to dock at the hospital receiving bay?
A thin wavering voice crackled over the intercome.
Permission granted.
It feels better to know that this change will be coming. It makes sense of all the insanity
ReplyDeleteThe dream ended as the walls of reality turned to water and collapsed like a giant wave cresting onto land.
ReplyDeleteBetty flitted her eyes into awakenness, into shattering yellow-white light, forcing her eyed closed again, and her brain forcing them to open, towards reality, just as surely.
Raising a hand to her eyes as she raised her head, Betty looked out over a vast expanse of water, crested all around her head in brilliant afternoon sunlight, dancing violently on the ripples.
She immediately came to her senses, like someone putting down a mystery novel to juice spilled on a carpet, and checked the boat and then her surroundings. She had fallen asleep accidentily, without setting her anchor, and, having no idea how long she'd been resting, was rather surprised to see she hadn't run aground the limestone walls of Lake Gabriel.
It was a fingery lake, with a very large main area, with a much more narrow, riverlike eastern section, 3 times as long as the main with a dozen outlets all deep enough for a small houseboat like Betty's.
She had, most fortuitiously, drifted from the center of the lake into the narrows instead of running around, and was halfway to Noah's Nook, which was the halfway point to David's Dam at the far east end.
Or Dam David, as she called it, as it shared its name with her Boss, Mr. Budafucco, the head salesman down at Contract Co.
Betty had only meant to take a quick trip and be back in time for lunch, but a quick glance at her watch told her it was 2:23. She realized it was far too late to sneak into work with the lunch crowd, she would have to use a sick day.
That hadn't been her plan, when she ditches for a sick day she always calls in early, which she had learned to do from 2 decades as a saleswoman with grumpy grunting male bosses.
For this one she would have to come up with a more elaborate story, something that would explain why she was unable to contact anyone at work until now.
These details of work, now thrust into her mind, caused her lips to curl. To awaken from such a powerful dream, then to find yourself magically surrounded by sunlight and a beautiful lake, only to be covered in the wet blanket of coming up with a believable excuse and weaseling out of getting in trouble with her hardass boss.
Sometimes she wished he was like his famous namesake, and she could just push him down on his desk and seduce her way out of her problems. David Buddafucco was as passionate about working as Joey Buddafucco was about the pastime of his relatives.
They must have really been legendary to end up with a surname like that.
She opened her purse and checked her phone. Great, 5 messages. She took it off vibrate and shoved it back into her bag.
She was staring at the beautiful oak trees on the near shore, trying to decide if she was even going to head back in yet, when...
an eagle drifted by. It was huge and circling the back bay. Their eyes met and Betty had an instant moment of mega-consciousness. The power of the gaze between the two knocked her off her feet and she went flying backwards. Landing on her bottom cushioned the blow but Betty boatmom was staring at the eagle who had landed on the lowest branch of the oak tree nearest the water.
ReplyDelete"oh my God..oh my god, she kept mumbling over and over barely above a whisper.
Her soul spoke to her in a language only known by the heart.
"You must prepare. Today is one week before the summer solstice. Go to the fire and dowse yourself with the energy. Be surprized at what transpires"
The eagle's face transformed and it was the face of a Nez Perce warrior. His eyes were fierce, yet soft and soulful. Oh and so sexy. The hard throb felt by BB sent her into a delirious trance. Passed out in the most tranquil of states, Betty boatmom had enjoyed an orgasmic look into her own future and she liked what she saw.
The flicker of moonlight began to rise across her left cheek. She was shocked that it was close to midnight and the full moon was overhead.
"Laugh at me, brother moon," Betty retorted. My mission is to honor the four directions. Each season is to honor each direction."
Next Sunday would be June 21 and she had found a spot out on the open water where she would honor the south. The exact moment would mark the solstic and the large peach and melon candle would be lit. To this fire she would start a cirlce of one year....Autumnal equinox to the west. Winter solstice to the north...of the Bards can't wait...and spring equinox to the east and back to the lake for the summer solstice.
I promise that the world will change and you will change the world. Oh, the sexy face of the Indian messenger....What will be?...will be.
When??? When??? I can't wait?
ReplyDeleteBetty sat at the Frangipani Cafe, gulping down water glass after water glass knowing that her patience had run thin. Next to her a rather large pointed woman was blasting utterances of idignation about her co-worker. Apparently this woman could not stand that no one in her department was living up to her expectations. Her voice bellowed everywhere and Betty sighed wondering how this woman could fritter away her precious time complaining about others shortcomings.How FUCKING boring! Wake up. Go and live as if your life depended on it. Working at a university job had given her all the trappings of a petty mind and Betty could not have stomached another minute but for the phone call. It was not one of her programmmed rings so this was someone new.
ReplyDelete"Is this...Betty...Drinkwater?"
ReplyDeleteBetty gasped. She hadn't used that name in 25 years, since she was a young student at Washington State University, spending all her free time covered in flowers at sit-ins and protests where they would sing John Denver songs with all the delicacy of a castrati singing 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore'.
The truth is, Betty's great, great, great grandfather was a half-Navaho Indian, his mother had been kidnapped, or rescued, depending on your perspective, from a group mixed-tribe Indians living, unknown to anyone for many years, on government land in Utah.
Betty had joined the American Indian Movement while at Washington State, she had done some research into her family line, and though she was unable to say with certainty what her female Indian ancestor's name had been, she chose Drinkwater.
She looked across to the refridgerator shaped complaining machine across from her and stood up, offering her an Alex Trebeck like smile, that told her she really did care desperately about the clues she was deciphering, yet revealing the gleeful necesity of a commercial break.
Putting her hand over her phone, she said genially, "I'll be right back."
Turning her back to her lunch partner she strode away quickly and said tentatively, "Yes...this is Betty Drinkwater, who is this?"
"I am calling you from the future and I have all the instructions that you will need to make it through the great harvesting of souls."
ReplyDelete"Who is this again? " Betty thought it sounded very much like herself but she could not grasp the technology. This seemed like something so..Terminator and John Connor.
So you are me in the future?
The voice calmly stated. "Yes. You will need my help and direction navigating through the great harvesting of souls."
A chill ran up Betty's spine. She had remembered a DVD from a medical anthorpologist from San Francisco State College who had spoken just those words....a great harvesting of souls.
"But what about?...
"No time for questions. you must take this week to fast and drink only wheatgrass. I will call you the day before the ritual and give you the exact coordinates...until then. Fast!
Betty walked back to the cafe booth with a bewildered look. When the waitress came to take their orders, Betty turned and joked, "I seem to be at the wrong place today. Can't ear. Gotta go".
Without so much as a good-bye, she got up and left the restaurant mumbling to herself, "Jesus, and I didn't even ask myself how far into the future I was".
"Hello Sis."
ReplyDeleteBetty looked at her blackberry.
Well, I'll be damned, a txt from Perci. It had been a long time since she had heard from her brother, longer still since she had been out to Seattle.
Betty closed her eyes. Her mind was filled with images of the Walla Wa valley. The majestic beauty of the place filled her body with serenity. She had taken her brother through this sacred land when she had helped him move there over a year ago. She smiled and opened her eyes.
And barely swerved out of the way of an incoming semi-truck. Jesus, Bett! Stay focused, be in the moment, mind your pentacles. A mantra she often repeated to herself these days. She quickly put her Subaru Outback back into the proper lane, the cursing and honking of the truck slowly fading away.
At the time she had helped her brother move, she had pretty much written him off as a do-nothing loser. Not even a dreamer, just a modest man with no ambition. But two years ago, something changed inside of him. Since he and his friend Simon started talking about 2012 and that disk Simon had found. Within a couple of months, Perci had hatched a plan to move out to the West Coast and asked for his sisters help.