Dust of the Earth, chapter 6

Welcome to the continuing serialized version of Phantom Limbs' bassist Jim Parks' novel, Dust Of The Earth, a Tucson story about Tucson history, mystery, other worlds, desert mojo, forbidden love, and the fledgling Tucson music scene... (c) by Jim Parks, reprinted with permission

We last off with the narrator having a psychedelic experience in the middle of a rainstorm...

"I had intercourse...with the Tree Of Life"

 Chapter 6

I think Jorge and the sisters found me, or I found them. They pulled me along. The girls were like reindeer steering me through a sky full of Christmas lights. Sometimes I fell, and Jorge would pick me up and set me back into the sleigh. On Dinah! On Kleine! That couldn't have been their names! We went on like that for a lifetime. And then through a maze of alleyways -- beasts growling and barking on either side. The beasts spoke to me -- a secret language. THE SECRET. Yes, of course. You always learn the secret, only to forget upon awakening. This time I would remember it. I would write it down. But I had no pen and paper.

    We started climbing a tree. I felt myself being pushed and pulled upward, supported by a thousand arms. The tree was alive, and Jorge and the girls were a part of it, their arms like branches. I whimpered and held on. I held on to a body, or a trunk. I kept holding on. I heard speech, and I spoke back. I had intercourse with the tree, with The Tree Of Life.

    Then silence.

    And then...falling.

    For what seemed like minutes. Falling, hitting.

    You're supposed to wake up before you hit. So I was dead. That's what happens. That's the rule.

    But I was picked up and carried. A giant spirit-angel picked me up like I was nothing. Of course, I was nothing. The wind could have picked me up and carried me. So this was a spirit of the wind who carried me and then set me down. I lay on something soft with a blanket over me, shivering. How can spirits shiver? A figure appeared, looking down at me. I saw a crucifix swinging slowly next to my face. The Pit and The Pendulum.

    But no, I saw cleavage of all things, warm caramel flesh. I could almost taste it. My gaze traveled upwards, the chest, the neck, the shoulders, and then a face. How could this be? It was the face of Ana Socorro Castellano. She was in a nightgown and robe, which had parted as she bent over me to pull up the blanket.

To Be Continued...