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The Highest Peak
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all rights reserved
Copyright 1990
by Ovia Dale Bell


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for myself

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"...There is nothing covered that will not
be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known...
Whatever you have spoken in the dark will be
heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the
ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops..."
-Luke 12: 2-3


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Chapter One


At first, the unfeeling, senseless darkness was overwhelming, then gradually, I became accustomed to it. Now I live in a world of dreams conjured up from memory and imagination. I cannot see anything except in my mind. I cannot hear, I cannot taste or smell. I have absolutely no sense of touch.
But I know that I am still living in the world of other human beings because I remember what happened to me.
It was an accident.
I was forty-nine years old. It happened on the twenty-ninth day of September, in 1971. I was sweeping leaves and twigs off the room of my house. I stepped on a wet spot where the leaves were slippery,lost my footing, got unbalanced and went down clutching and grabing at anything and everything, but found nothing to get a hold onto.
Then I was lying on my back on the bricks of the back yard patio. I couldn't move. In fact, it didn't occur to me to try to move at fist. I was totally stunned. Then I began to feel sick. Waves of nausea kept washing over me. I couldn't see any tarther than just a few feet around me...
So I just lay there.
For a while, I don't know how long, I was not aware of anything except the nausea and the strange feelings. Thn I realized the nausea was gone. I felt better. I was looking up through the trees at the sky.
It was very blue. I thought about how blue it was and how green the leaves on the trees were. I was storing up one more visual memory.
Another thing I can't do is speak. That was the first thing I lost. As I lay there on the bricks, I suddenly made a move to get up. I did it without thinking about it. I just started to get up, but nothing happened. I couldn't move. That scared me. My heart started pounding and I struggled to move, but couldn't. I thought I was struggling. In my mind I was frantically struggling, but only in my mind.


7
7
The floor was the same delightful floor as the bedroom and the patio. The walls were living walls of all kinds of exotic plants, flowers and shrubbery. They afforded privacy and yet you could look through them and see the fields and meadows and forests beyond. A large tree grew up from the floor in the far right corner. It's branches turned and spread every which way, up and up and over the room, creating a ceiling through which you could see little patches of sky. Toward the left of the room, which was about the same size as the bedroom, there was a large bath pool. It's surface was level with the floor and you could see the floor itself continue on down into the pool. The water was so clear that were it not for the reflections and the light playing on it's surface it would have been invisible.
Just inside the threshold of the door to my right, was a little low wall with a top about a foot wide which formed a cozy niche around the toilet. It opened out toward the tree. There was a package of cigarettes beside a strange looking ashtray on it's wall at the opposite side from me. The toilet was round and small and very low to the ground. It's seat was padded and looked soft and warm. There was no visible water tank or flushing handle. I went around it's little wall to the opening, set my coffee cup down beside the ashtray and cigarettes, adjusted my clothing appropriately, turned and sat down on the toilet seat and discovered that I was sitting in the comfortable, ages old position which is ideal for bodily waste eliminations. I sat there and smoked cigarettes and sipped coffee, surrounded by all outdoors, yet snugly and cozily indoors.
Finally I looked around for toilet tissue and for a way to flush the toilet. I didn't see anything like that anywhere. Then just as I was beginning to wonder what to do, I heard a little whooshing noise, the felt warm water rushing against that exposed part of my body in the bowl, washing me as clean as a rock in a waterfall, then the warm water stopped and was replaced by a rushing of warm air! I was flushed and cleand and dried like a newborn baby with nothing left to do but rise and adjust my clothing. I did that and turned and looked into the toilet. It was sparkling clean. Then I heard another smaller whooshing sound beside me and looked down. The ashtray was doing the same thing. Water was spraying down from all around it's rim, down through the center. In seconds, the ashtray was as clean as a whistle.
I wanted to go outside.
I turned and went back through the bathroom door, on into the bedroom, and toward the patio.
The fire was gone from the fireplace and it's interior was clean and looking as if no fire had ever been there. The coffeepot and little skillet and food tray was gone. There was no scrap of evidence left that any of those things had ever been there.
The bed was made too. It's warmly inviting covers and pillows were smooth and unwrinkled.
As I walked out onto the patio, I was looking a little over to my left toward the stream.
Someone was there!
I stopped.
There was a fig tree loaded with ripe fruit, beside the stream. A man was standing beneath it picking figs and eating.
I stared.
He looked familiar! He was tall and looked strong, but not muscular. He had no excess body fat, but was not slender. His clothing fit as if someone had used a computer print-out pattern of his perfectly proportioned body to cut the fabric, leaving plenty of room for him to move, but with no sloppiness. His complexion had a warm suntanned, glowing look. His hair, neither short nor long, was medium brown. He was not facing directly toward me, so I couldn't see his face very well, but it looked as if he might have a medium short, well trimmed beard. The words, "for I am gentle and lowly in heart" came into my mind. My heart leaped and my breath caught in my throat, making me gasp.
Jesus! He looked as I had always imagined Jesus might look! My silent lips formed the words, "Can it be?...Can it be?"

* * * * * * *

8.

And then I woke up.
The words, "can it be?" were still going around and around in my mind.
Another dream!
The disappointment of waking devastated me.
I lay there mentally ehausted and unable to think, the words "can it be" still echoing like bells chiming in the distance. I was lost in a black sea of unmoving, unfeeling nothingness.
If anyone was in the room and happened to look at me, they would have seen tears falling from my open, un-seeing eyes.
Once in a television documentary, I saw a young woman crying like that. She was in what the doctors called a deep, irreversible coma. Her eyes were open and looked bright and clear, although they said she would never see again. Once, when the camera was on her, I saw three tears roll from her eyes and down her cheeks. She remained forever in whatever position she was placed by her attendants until someone turned her again. They said that all of her bodily functions performed naturally and normally and that she could live in that condition for years and years to come. She received fluids and nourishment directly into her stomach through a tube which could be attached to feed, the detached until the next feeding time. She was in a state hospital where she ws cared for like an infant. Her family brought a lawsuit against the state in the hopes the the court would order the hospital to stop feeding her and "let her go." They felt that she had died the day of her car accident which they said had killed her and left only her functioning body. They said the hospital was violating her constitutionl rights by keeping her body alive and not allowing her to die and that whe would not want to exist in that condition.
They lost the suit.
The court ruled that withholding nourishment from her would violate her constitutional right to life. Starving her to death would be the same as starving a helpless infant.
"Am I like the woman I saw on television?" I thought, "are my tears falling from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks as hers were?"
My tears stopped. I hoped no one had seen them. I remembered how painful it is to see tears and to be helpless in the face of them.
Reason returned to me and I became calm. I thought, "I have a lot of thinking work to do." Then: "Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established." I felt a smile as I relaxed and sleep crept in and wrapped me into a deep, quiet blanket of renewing rest.
When I awoke, my mind was cleqn and clear and I was ready to tackle my thinking job.
I began with questions: Why had I been so upset to return from this new dream? Could I prevent that from happening again? Whad I not minded leaving dreams before? How were the dreams different?
Soon I was finding answers.
In the past dreams, I had re-lived memories from the past, and that was why I didn't mind letting them go. I remembered the sweet and pleasant little episode with my son Orrie when he was a small child. It was a very nice experience, but I had already had that experience, and human beings are not backward striving animals. We are always and forever looking forward. We continually seek the new, the different, the challenging. We are rooted in and build from the past, but we grope and reach for and need the future. No matter how plain and uneventful our days are, they are always unlike our yesterdays. Some of our lives unfold slowly, so that it seems as if each day melts quietly into the next, yet each day is a new day and change is inevitable no matter how slowly it comes. Others make large, drastic leaps into change, almost daily, so that their lives are like a kaleidoscope.
Change is the stuff life is made of. That is why we are afraid of death and pray for eternal life. We think that death is the end and life is a going-on.
This dream was a going-on.
Still, it would have been easy enough to leave it for a while to awaken again except for one thing: This dream was a creation. In this dream, I was creating. I was in a world of imaginary marvels come true, and just as I was in the middle of it, right at the most exciting part, I was suddenly zapped back inot reality.
"no wonder I was upset," I thought. Then I began to think back through the dream, pleasantly conjuring up in my imagination all of it's wonderful details.
I wanted to go back. I wanted to go to the man under the fig tree.


9.
I remembered something: "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened to you."
I started asking and seeking and knocking.
First I asked. I asked in the way I had learned from Jesus to ask. "Father, if it is your will, guide me back into that wonderful dream creation, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done."
Then I sought. I searched back through all my memories for ways to control dreams. I remembered how I had learned to never have a nightmare, I remembered how I had learned to slip back into and finish a particularly pleasant dream, and I thought of many things I had read about dreaming. I thought and thought for a long time.
Then: "That's it," I thought, "I'm ready."
As I became more and more drowsy, I kept visualizing myself at the door of my dream. I reached out and knocked. The door opened.

* * * * * * *


I was back on my beautiful patio. Once again my bare feet were responding to the sensual pleasure of the smooth, clean bedsheet texture of the stones beneath them.
There was the low steps leading from the patio wall opening to the path.
Dare I look toward the river and the fig tree?
I looked.
"Yes! He's there! He's still there!" My heart lurched. "Can it be?...Can it be?"
I walked over to the steps then down slowly, one by one onto the path. I didn't notice that the stones of the steps and the path felt the same as the floors of the patio and the house. I was aware only of him. He was still eating figs and had not yet looked in my direction. As I approached him, he turned and looked at me. His warm and gentle eyes lit up with recognition and he smiled. "Hi," he said.
My heart was racing and pounding. "Are you...are you..." I stammered, "are you Jesus?"
He laughed. He dropped the fig he had just picked and still laughing, he stooped to pick it up. His laughter was delightful and contagious. I found my own joyous laughter begin to bubble up and join with his. Ease and comfort and a feeling of being home flooded over me.
He stood straight agaih and looked at me and smiled. "I knew you were thinking that," he said, "no, I'm not Jesus. In fact, I'm 'zillions' of miles from being even close to being Jesus. The reason you thought I could be Jesus is because I look the way you imagined Jesus would look, but since it is impossible for anyone to imagine the perfection of Jesus, your imaginings fell inmeasurably short. "No," he repeated seriously, "I'm not Jesus." Then he laughed again, "I'm just your good friend and neighbor--my name is Riez."
I laughed with him. "I'm your good friend and neighbor too,--my name is Mema." I reached my hand out to him and we shook hands warmly as we said in unison, "Glad to meet you, good friend and neighbor!"
"Where do you live?" I asked. He turned and pointed and I looked in the direction he was pointing. Far off in the distance beneath the pale sky, I saw soft blue mountain tops hidden here and there by misty veils of white clouds, disappearing down into dark green forests. The trees of the forest marched down the mountainside, farther and farther down, until finally they disappeared into fields and pastures, dotted here and there with little sparkling lakes.
The fields and pastures finally ended with a smal, wild meadow filled with tall, thin grasses and flowers just beyond the low stone wall which enclosed the lawns around my house. I was so taken by the view, that I almost didn't hear him speak.
"See that clump of trees on the other side of that little lake? My house and my barns and sheds and my workshop are nestled in among them."
"Barns and sheds and workshop? You're a farmer and a coarpenter?" I asked.
"Yes, and that's not all," he replied," I'm also many other things, too. But remember...I'm not Jesus. I'm just as limited as you are." He laughed wholeheartedly as I smiled sheepishly but teasingly and said, "well, I'll admit I'm disappointed you're not Jesus," He immediately understood and laughed delightfully. Then, "well it's back to work for me...I was setting some tomato plants in that field over there," he pointed back across the way toward his fields, "these figs looked so good I came over for a little snack. Now I'm going back up to my shop and finish a project I started last week."
"What are you building?" I asked. "A fireside table, he answered, "and it's turning out beautifully. Why don't you come on up after a while and see it?"
"Oh yes!" I exaclaimed, "and I can see your place!"
He started walking away toward the low stone fence which separated the wildflower meadow from the wide path which ran along beside the stream. Just before he leaped over the fence, he turned back and looked at me. His voice was soft: "see you later, Mem."
I smiled and waved, then turned back to the fig tree.

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10.

The fruit hung sweet and brown all over the tree. I reached up, picked a few, then started back along the path toward my house as I ate them. That's when I finally noticed that the path was like the floor of my house, soft and clean to my bare feet. I stopped, knelt down and felt it with my hands, then bent over and smelled. I smelled just the way it felt, like freshly laundered, sun and breeze dried linens.
The closely cut grass along beside the path was luxuriantly green. I moved my hand out onto the grass, caressing it. It had the old familir feel and smell of soft, fresh-cut summer grass, but without the little sticky, clingly feel I remembered from times past. It felt freshly laundered and clean, just like the path. I marveled.
A breeze began to stir. I felt it move against my face as it gently lifted my hair. The faint smell of honeysuckle and wisteria blossoms drifted by, and again I felt a wave of joy bubble up from somewhere deep inside of myself.
I jumped up and went running and skipping back up to my house, across the patio, through the bedroom, and on into the doorway of the indoor-outdoor bathroom. It was just as I remembered, breathtakingly beautiful. I walked across to the big tree in the far right corner of the room, reached out and rubbed my hands over it's trunk, and up onto the lower upward-reaching branches. It's bark was slightly textured but not scratchy. The trunk felt stron and solid. The branches and smaller branches and twigs went every which way, forming a canopy ceiling filled in with small, pale spring-green leaves. "The very same green as the draperies in the bedroom," I thought as I turned back and walked across the room toward the bath pool.
Suddenly my heart jumped and I gasped. Someone was there! "No! ... it's a mirror! It's me. No it's not,...it can't be me. But it is me! It can't be! But it is .." .Back and forth my mind raced wildly.
On the wall beside the door to the bedroom was a large, full length mirror. It was plain to see that it was a mirror, but even more plain to see that the person in the mirror could not possibly be me! I had to make movements which were duplicated in the mirror to finally believe it was me. Then I stood still for a long time and stared. I was stunned. Yes, it was me, but it was an almost unrecognizably new me. I was not middle-aged any more! I still had the same tall, slender five-foot-eight-inch, hundred twenty-four-pound frame but every line and curve from top to toe was ideally proportioned. I still had the same long, dark-warm-brown hair, but now it cascaded luxuriously down around my face in a beautiful new way that I had never noticed before. My dark eyelashes were long and silkily thick. My once fading brown eyes were now dark and warm and sparkly and no longer hiding behind those old, despised spectacles. My lips, warm and rosy red, still had their same shape, but looked more fully alive and expressive. My skin, like a sixteen year old girl was clean, clear, firm, and flawless.
Suddenly I was overcome with delight and flung my arms out and twirled around and around, laughing and dancing.
As I twirled back toward the mirror, I thought about my teeth. Something was different. No more dentures! It was my own natural teeth, only now they were perfectly straight and even. I stepped up close to the mirror and smiled broadly. I leaned over closer, opened my mouth, and looked inside. No cavities, no empty spaces, no fillings.
I stepped back from the mirror and studied the reflection thoughtfully. I looked neither old nor young. "So strange..." I thought, "I am no age. I am only me. It is still me as I have always been , but now it's a perfect me. This is the real me. Mema...Mem!"
As I stood there, I slowly became conscious of another wonder. The clothes I was wearing! "How could I have not noticed them before?" I thought. They were simplicity defined. The fabric was weightless, yet strong, and seemed to be made of naturally colored, un-dyed cotton. The color was that of cloudy blue summer skies. It was a two-piece set of long, pajama-like trousers and a top with elbow length sleeves. They fit my body in such a way that I could hardly feel them against my skin. The top came down over the trousers and ended a little way below my navel line. It's collar nestled softly against the nape of my neck. I couldn't feel the waist of the trousers touching me at all. I picked up the hem of the top and looked. The tousers curved up around my hips and snuggled in around my waist. There were no buttons, no zipper, no opening at all... and no elastic. "How do they come off?" I wondered and poked my fingers down between my body and the top of the trousers, and pushed outward. As I did, the fabric stretched out smoothly and easily, as it it was not there at all. I let go and it slowly snuggled back into place. I pushed them out again and saw that I I was wearing wispy, silky little hip hugging panties of the same color as the outfit. "No wonder I didn't notice," I thought, "theyre so light and comfortable that I was not aware of them!"
The feeling of exuberant joy once again welled up in me so strongly and powerfully that I could not contain it. I burst into laughter and flung myself, clothes and all, headlong and with total abandon into to the bath pool. The water was warm and soothing, but I was not soothed yet! I splashed and laughed and tumbled and rolled and flung water every which way, all oaver the plants and flowers of the wall and up as high as I could toward the ceiling. I dipped and turned and splashed until I was finally calm enough to relax again, then I peeled the wet clothing from my body, tossed them out of the pool, and floated around on my back, lazily gazing up through the pale green leaves of the tree ceiling. I stretched my arms up to the sky, then held my hands in front of me, reveling in their smooth, soft creaminess, long slender fingers and coral pink nails. I raised a foot up from the water and examined it's strong, slender perfection and it's same coral pink nails.
I was soon familiar with this newly perfect body and it became one with my spirit.
Then with a new feeling of dignity and strength, I stood and moved dripping wet up the steps from the pool.

* * * * * * *

11.

When I reached the top step and stepped out of the water onto the floor the light in the room subtly changed from it's shady, daylight coolness to a warm, red glow. A full breeze filled with midsummer heat began to circulate and fill the entire room, causing the leaves of the tree and the plants and flowers to dance and sway to the rhythm of it's musical movement. In only a matter of a few seconds I was silky dry from head to toe, and the air became still and the light came back up to shaded daylight. I heard a low whirring sound and looked over toward the tree. A section of the floor about eighteen inches deep and five feet wide began slowly rising up from the floor near the tree, and after the whole operation was completed I was looking at a beautiful dressing table, complete with drawers of all sizes, a padded bench, and long, tall mirror all the way across it's back. I went over to it and pulled out each drawer. They were all full of neatly folded garments of all kinds and colors. I picked a soft, finely woven knit of a deep, dark red color. It reached all the way to my ankles and fit snugly and perfectly just as the trousers had. I sat down on the bench and looked into the mirror, then reached up with both hands and pulled my hir up into a rolling twist, tucked it in, then while still holding it with one hand, I opened the little drawer in the middle of the table. I hoped to find hair pins to hold my hair up. There were brushes and combs and all sorts of things in the drawer, but I didn't see any hair pins. I didn't want to turn my hair loose and let it fall, but I needed both hands to rummage through the drawer so I let it go. It didn't fall! Amazing! I looked in the mirror. Every hair was still in place just as I had arranged it. I shook my head. It stayed. I shook harder. It stayed. I reached up and ran my fingers into and through it, and it all came tumbling down. I picked up a strnd, raised it up and over my head, patted it down, turned it loose and it stayed until I ran my fingers through it again. I tried all kinds of different ways to arrange it. I made curls, pulled it straight, brushed it under, flipped it up, swept it back, pulled it all over to one side, fluffed it out, and pressed it down smooth, and each time it stayed exactly the way I arranged it no matter how I tried to shake it out, until I ran my fingers through it.
I was so absorbed with playing with my hair that I was startled and nearly jumped off the bench when I heard a clear, sweet, musical voice ring out from the direction of the patio.
"Yoo-hoo! Hello-oooh!"
I leaped from the bench, went over to the open bathroom door and looked out through the bedroom, across the patio.
A beautiful, vivacious looking, dark haired young woman was walking bouncily up the path toward the patio.
I recognized her instantly. She was the young woman I had seen in the television documentary, who was in a deep irreversible coma!

...

40,41


12.

My first impulse was to run to her and grab her in a bear hug and dance her around, but I stopped myself just in time. "She doesn't know me," I thought quickly, "and if I gave away my knowledge of her, I would have to explain, and she might not want to be reminded." Still, I was grinning with pleasure when I reached the patio step.
"Hi!" She sang as she came on up the path, "I'm Kelly from across the river, and I know you're Mema. Ries told me you wee here. He called me a while ago to tell me he is finishing the fireside table he's building for me and that you were going to see it. I'm so eager to see it myself, that I decided to walk on up with you.
"Oh that's wonderful!" I exclaimed. "I'm so glad to see you and that you're going along!" I stepped down onto the path, held out both hands to her and greeted her warmly. She took my hands and we exchanged an enthusiastic two-handed hand shake. She didn't seem to notice the excessive warmth of my greeting.
"I'm ready to go now, if you are," I said. "Good!" she answered, and we started down the path. "Do you want to walk across the fields, or go along the path by the river?" She asked. "Oh the path! I'd like to go on the path by the river! I exclaimed.
At the end of my path, we turned left and walked on past the fig tree. As we walked along the trees became more and more closely spaced so that soon we were striding along the most beautiful woodland trail I had ever seen. All the while, we were busily chatting, occasionally stopping to exclaim over a particularly beautiful flower or plant or other woodland wonder. Once the path turned away from the stream, and after a few hundred feet we came to a little creek which was burbling and gurgling and tumbling it's way over large rocks on it's way down to join the river. We skipped and hopped laughingly over the rocks to the other side and continued on our way. She had been telling me all about her husband Otto, her little seven yer old daughter, Cerise, and her four year old baby son Kleff. Now she was telling me directions to her house from mine. "When you come out from your path to the river path, you turn right," she said, "then you go along the path a little way and after the river bends the first time, you will see a low white stone bridge crossing the river. On the other side of the bridge to the left there's a white stone wall the same height as the bridge which forms the bank of the river for aabout two hundred feet. The riverside path runs along the top of the wall to the bridge and on the right side of the bridge there's a big tree. The path turns away from the river at the tree so that there's a grassy space and trees growing between the river path and the river bank in that direction. When you're crossing the bridge you'll see a wide path which continues on straight out from the bridge and curves on up a little grassy wooded hill onto the thick forest. That's the path to my home. As you go along the wide path you'll see many other little paths leading away from the main trail. None of them go anywhere. They just meander around an back to the main path. All you have to do is deep going and when you reach my home you will know it and you will be very much surprised! I won't tell you about my home, because I want you to have the full benefit of that surprise when yu see it!"
I laughed with delighted anticipation. "Well, I can't wait!" I teased, "I think I'll just turn around right now and go back and see it!."
I stopped and stood still, grinning slyly. She burst into peals of laughter, grabbed my arm, and pulling me along, saying, "Oh no you won't! We're almost to Ries' now and we have to see my new fireside table. "Oh! Here he is now, coming to meet us!" She called out to Ries through her laughter: "I just told Mema about what a surprise she's going to get when she sees my home, and she said she can't wait and she's boing back to see it right now! I'm having to drag her along!" Her voice was full of teasing laughter.
"Uh, Oh!" Ries holelred. "I'd better help you. Nobody could resist going back to see your home!" He leaped forward, playfully grabbed my other arm, and together, they dragged me along a little way as I pretended to pull back and try to escape.
Then all of a sudden they stopped and stood stock still. They became quiet and hushed. They were looking up the path ahead.
I looked.
Right in the middle of the path, there was a fawn toddling around on it's little wobbly legs. It had just stumbled from a clump of bushes nearby.
We moved quietly and softly on up the the little fawn, knelt beside it, and gently petted it. It reached out it's cool little nose and nuzzled us and looked up at us with it's large, dark, fluid eyes. We heard a rustling of leaves beside us and the doe appeared. She came over to us slowly and fearlessly then lowered her head, nuzzled in between us to reach the fawn and began to gently nuzzle and lick his soft little body. No one spoke. All three of us rose as one and walked quietly and silently on along the path.
_______




46,47

13.
Because of all the talking and playing I had been only vaguely aware that the path had turned away from the river and that we had been walking through the woods toward the fields for a while. Now the trail suddenly emerged from the woods into the wide open vista of fields and pastures surrounded by forests and distance and sky. I looked across the fields to the left and saw my house and the trees along beside the river and the forests of it's other side. Then I looked back to the right toward the mountains.
Ries was speaking: "This is my cornfield," he was saying, "See how fast it's growing? It must be seven inches tall already and I planted it just three weeks ago!"
We walked on along the path between the little patches of fields, chatting quietly and Ries showing us each one and telling us what was growing and when he had planted it. After the corn, we passed a small field of southern peas, then one of okra, then butterbeans then the last one of tomatoes.
"Do you have little fields like this all the way from here to my house?" I asked. "Yes," he answered, "these little fields are scattered all around among the pastures and lakes...the nearest one to your house s the one where I set the new tomaato plants this morning."
We were close enough now to see the buildings of his farm nestled in among the clump of trees he had pointed to from the fig tree earlier. They were all made of old weatherworn stone an were built in such a wat that it looked as if they were growing up from out of the ground. From the last field we passed, the land began to gently slope upwrd to the buildings and I began to see outcrops of huge rocks and boulders. Behind his buildings, there was a large area of rocky pasture land gently rising on upwards to the beginning of the first trees of the forest which marched on up to cover the feet of the tall, blue mountains.
The trail began to wind and curave around trees and shrubs and flowers and boulders. We were entering a garden unlike any I had ever seen or imagined before. As we walked along, I became so absorbed in the increasing beauty of the surroundings that I fell silent. Kelly and Ries continued softly talking and laughing. They seemed to understand my need to quietly and fully drink in the strength and glory and majesty of this indescribable place. Words and phrases began flitting through my mind: "sparkling diamond dewdrops...singing,...sighing waters...living light playing and dancing...lacy leaves of spring...ultimate form...harmony...shapes of spiritual love...incandescence...peace...power...
As each word or phrase entered my mind, it fded into nothing, knowing it's on inadequacy. Paradise? What a pitiful word! If one tried to use that word here, it would shrivel and die on their lips. Even the air itself was so clean and pure and nature-scented that it was intoxicating to my new and un-accustomed senses. I began to move more and more slowly. My senses were reeling. I stopped. I couldn't bear it. "I must sit down," I thought. I closed my eyes and sank down among a deep purple cloud of exotic blossoms beside the path. Darkness began to close in around me and I breathed a sigh of relief.

* * * * * * *

I slept. And slept.
How long did I sleep?
I don't know. Eons? Minutes? Time and space no longer exist. There are days and nights and mornings and hours and evenings and events but they are not bound by time. There are places and things and moons and planets and stars, but they are not bound by space.

* * * * * * *

I awoke to find that I was no longer in my world of dreams and marvels. I was back in reality...the world where human beings are still going about their daily business of working and playing, sleeping and waking, feeling, tasting, hearing, wmelling, talking and moving about... while I lay in a hospital bed somewhere, thinking, dreaming, sleeping, waking and creating. Creating a whole new world which was now becoming more real to me than reality.

...

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This time I was not disturbed to awaken to the still, dark world of reality. I knew I would return to my creation. My first thought was "why didn't Ries and Kelly warn me? Why didn't they prepare me before we entered into the unbearable beauty of that...place?" Then I realized that they couldn't. No matter what they had said, or howlong they had talked, I would have still been totally unprepared. I thought, "I know that place is not heaven, because "eyes have not seen, nor..." Even that place would face into nothing compared to heaven. "No wonder we have to be cleansed and purified and the Lord has to prepare us before we can enter heaven! We would never be able to bear it's glory the way we are. It's impact would utterly desstroy us!" I thought and thought. I slept and wakened and thought and slept and wakened again. I stayed in reality for days on end, sleeping quietly, waking, thinking, then sleeping quietly again. Myspirit was "renewed like the eagle's."

* * * * * * *


My head was resting on the soft pillow of Kelly's lap. One of her hands was gently stroking my brow. Ries knelt close beside us among the purple cloud of exotic blossoms I had sunk down into before. As my eyes opened, they met the warm, tender gaze of Ries' eyes. I smile shyly and lamely. As I spoke, my voice was almost a whisper: "I thought you said you were not Jesus...how could you create this place if you're not Jesus?" He chuckled softly. His voice, as he spoke was low and gentle. "Remember I told you I'm a farmer and a capenter and many other things? Well, I'm a landscape artist too." A sparkle came into his voice as he continued, "This work is my special garden." Then a little teasing note entered his voice: "I think it made quite an impression on you!" I could only say, "Yes. It did. It will always." I moved to sit up. "How big is it?" I asked. "Oh, I don't actually know," he answered, "it's probably about seven acres."
"I know what size it is," said Kelly, "it's exactly the right size. When I'm walking through it, I think if it was more, I couldn't bear it, and if it was less, I would starve for more!"
We were all sitting now, side by side among the purple blossoms. I in the middle and Ries and Kelly on each side. Kelly jumped up. "Come on, Mema, the shop is just around this curve of the path, let's to see my fireside table!"
I hesitated a moment, looking all around once more, then drew in a deep, ragged breath and stood. "OK," I said, "I'm ready." Ries stood up too. I looked at the large crumpled area where we had crushed the purple blossoms. "Oh!" I exclaimed, "LOok what we did! The flowers are all bruised and broken!" Ries and Kelly laughed. "That's all right," said Kelly, "they're strong like grass. They'll spring back up and be like new in a little while." We walked on a few steps and around the last curve of the path. Now it was comparatively straight again and the surroundings were gradually returning to their normal beauty. Ries was speaking: "There's several trails into and out of the special gaden," he was saying, "and each area becomes more and more special as you go in and less and less as you go out, so that the impact isn't sudden and shocking. Every time you come here you will find it new and different. Now that you have experienced it, you can come again and again and it won't overcome you as it did this, your first time."
I was still at a loss for words. My answer was simple, yet it said everything: "Yes."
I looked ahead.

======-=---------



15.

Through the trees, bushes, plants and rocky outcrops, I could see a large building. The pathway was becoming somewhat steep as it followed the natural rise of the land up to the building. There was a large, open doorway in the side of the building and the path continued on up and into it. There were no steps. The floor inside was level with the ground outside. Plants, trees, vines and flowers were scattered and clumped and trailing over and among the rocks and ledges all the way up to the building and against it's walls. As we entered the threshold of the fooor into the building, I stopped. Ries and Kelly continued on in. I fogot about them as I stood there gazing all around. "This can't be a workshop," I thought. I had expected to see workbenches, tables, saws, grinders, sanders, and all sorts of tools and devices. There was none of these in sight; there was only space and beauty, ease and comfort. On the floor in the center of the huge rectangular shaped room there was a small open fireplace enclosed by rocks of various sizes and shapes. Informally placed, comfortable chairs sat all around the fireplace, and little tables of different shapes and heights were scattered around among the chairs. There was nothing else in the room...only the wide expanse of floor which had all of the characteristics of the floor in my house. The whole north wall was open and the floor went outside and formed a patio the same way mine did from my bedroom, except this one was much larger and the open wall formed a frame for the breathtaking beauty of the rising land, lakes, forests, and the blue mountains in the distance. All four corners of the room were filled with all sorts of trees, shrubs, flowers and plants. The branches of the trees were all spread ut and reaching toward the center above the fireplace where some of them met and intermingled forming a leafy ceiling which was open to the sky. All along the bases of the walls there were many different kinds of ferns, water plants and little whispering waterfalls with vines growing from among them and up all over the walls. Little birds of many colors and sizes were twittering and playing and nesting among the vines. There was another smaller, open doorway in the south wall facing toward my house. The floor went out this door and became a path which turned right toward Ries' house and other buildings down the hill. I walked across the room, past the fireplace, and toward the other door, counting my long strides as I went. There were forty-nine strides from the large eastern door across to the other door. I stepped utside and looked around. Ries' house and other buildings were visible down the hill through the trees to the right, and directly in front of me toward the south I caught glimpses of my place across the fields and meadows. I went back inside, still gazing all around as I walked over to the fireplace area where Ries and Kelly had been all along. They were sitting facing each other in chairs beside the fireplace rocks, a low table between them, looking at a much smaller table which was standing on the one between them. Kelly's fireside table! I hadn't expected it to be so small! It was only about nine inches tall and it's top was about eleven by fifteen inches. It sat there small and proud and strong. It looked as if it could support several hundred pounds. It was made of some kind of wood and it's finish gleamed warm and dark and silky smooth. I reached out to caress it's top. "Kelly!" I exclaimed in a low voice, "it's beautiful!" She turned and looked at me, her face glowing with pleasure. "It's exactly as I hoped it would be. It will be perfect for my special earthen pot. It will stand over on the right side of my hearth, and reflections of the firelight will gleam and glow and dane in the dark mirror of it's surfaces." She smiled and touched the gleaming surface. "Thes is not just a table," she leaned over and stretched her hand across the table to Ries' hand and clasped it in hers. Her eyes were shiny wet as she looked at him. "Thank you, Ries," she said. He smiled. "You're welcome Kell," he said. "It will be a great honor to this little table to hold your special pot. I'm eager to see them together in their place by your fireside. I'd like to go over to your home this evening after sundown to see how your pot likes it's little table."
Kelly laughed delightedly, picked up her already treasured little table and stood holding it close to her.
"I think I'll run all the way home with it," she said, "I'm going to prepare a delicious ittle supper and we will all sit by the fire and feast and watch the taable and pot fall in love with each other. They will be so compatible that they'll quickly become inseparable." She turned to me. I know Ries has to introduce this incredible shop to you and explain it. He can do that, give you some lunch, then show you the rest of the buildings, the house and everything, and then at sunset you can walk together up to my house. It will still be light enough for you to see my very surprising home before it's time to light a fire in the fireplace and have supper. I'll be telling Otto and the children all about you and they'll be wanting very much to meet you." I was beaming with pleasure. "Oh yes, Kelly, that's a wonderful plan!"
Ries spoke as he rose up from his chair. "It sure is," he said, "but Kelly, don't you want to stay for lunch with us?"
"Oh no!" said Kelly, "I want to run home now with my litttle table and see how it fits with my special pot. I'll stop for a minute at Mem's fig tree and have a little snack."
We all laughed. Kelly turned and ran out the door, waving back at us as she went. "See y'all at sunset!" she called. Ries and I, still laughing, waved to the empty door. "OK!" We yelled.

... 58,59
...
16

I pulled one of the chairs around to face the fireplace, and sat down. "I don't see how this could be a workshop," I said, "but now that I think of the dressing table in my bathroom, I think I might be getting an idea as to where all the workshop things might be." I was looking all around the room and at the floor as I spoke. Ries laughed as he pulled another chair around and sat down. "And I think you're on the right track!" He replied. He held out his left arm. "See this embroidered braclet around my sleeve?" I looked. Exquisitely embroidered little half-inch squares were all linked together and woven into the fabric of his shirt sleeve all the way around his wrist. His shirt was dark green and each of the squares were different shades of a lighter green. "Your shirt doesn't have sleeves, he continued, "but look at the hem of it toward the left side, and you will see a strip of embroidery like this." I looked at the hem of my shirt. The little squares there were lighter shades of the dark red color of my shirt. "These are lovely ornaments, but they are more than that," said Ries, "watch this."
He lightly touched one of the squares: three quick touches and a long one. I heard the same low whirring sound I had heard in my bathroom when the dressing table rose from the floor, and a long workbench with many open shelves containing toos and shop equipment beneath it's work surface came slowly and quietly up from the floor. He touchedd the same square twice, once, then twice again. Another component containing sanding and grinding devices and equipment arose. "Each component can be activated individually or all at once,' he said, then he touched the square two quick touches and a long long touch. All around the room, all sorts of tables, workbenches, tool cabinets and equipments whirred up into place. "I see!" I exclaimed, "everything is computer activated and programmed to respond to coded touches on the squares...and they must be outside the range of touches that might be acccidentally applied during normal daily activities...but I didn't code touch my little squares in my house...how did my dressing table and bath drier and the other things happen to turn on at exactly right time?"
"They're not only programmed on your bracelet squares," he answered, "they're also programmed on your house computer. They are user activated. Stepping from your bath pool dripping wet activates the drier and the dressing table. The house computer components are coded to things like body weight and movements, temperature levels, particular pressures, wetness, dryness, and many other conditions. Hidden squares like these of various sizes are strategically and precisely placed so that the components are activated at the moment they're needed."
I thought of something else. " How is it that I didn't get wet sleeping so close to the open window wall when it was raining so hard?" I asked. "Oh, but that wall was not open," he replied, "it does have a window. The glass is not just glass. It contains elements which allow it to be made so thin and clear that it is practically weightless and invisible, yet it is so strong that it could withstand the force of a 500 mile per hour wind. It has small openings and vents in all the right places and at proper angles so as to admit air and sound when desirable. It is programmed to open and close in response to weather conditions, but like most of the other house components, it also has manually operated controls. You'll be finding little push buttons everywhere."
"But what about the patio wall?" I asked. "What if it was closed and I couldn't see it? After I met yuou at the fig tree, I ran up the path, across the patio, and into the house so fast that if it had been closed I would have crashed into it!"
He burst into peals of laughter. "What a vision!" He exclaimed. "No, in a case like that, the wall would flash warning lights and sounds in plenty of time to remind you to slow down. Also when it's closed, thee is a door section that opens and closes automatically for you to enter and exit. Any time you happened to be moving too fast, the warnings would be activated."
I laughed and said, "Well, I don't think I want to test it! Next time I'll slow down when I reach the patio! But there's another thing I really don't understand. When I was waking up earlier, I heard and smelled coffee perking, and bacon frying and when I was fully awake, I found coffee, bacon, toast, donuts, and creamy mild for the coffe. All these things were on the hearth where a lovely fire was burning in the fireplace. I enjoyed the breakfast, then explored the bathroom and when I passed back through the bedroom the breakfast utensils were gone, the fire ws gone, the fireplace was spotless, and the bed was mde. How did all these things get done? They couldn't do themselves!"
Ries beamed with pleasure. "Now that invention was one of my favorite pet projects," he said.
"What!?" I jumped up from my chair, then sat back down. "What!? Your project? You mean you're a carpenter, a farmer, an artist, a scientist, and inventor? I know you said you are many things, but..." My voice trailed off as I looked silently all around. Then: "How many things can one person do?" His answer was serious: "One person cand do as many things as necessary to fulfill his or her needs and dreams and desires." He paused a moment, and his voice lightened. "Science is my love, inventions my joy, art my ecstasy, carpentry my pleasure and farming is my daily bread."
"Now," he continued, "I'll show you how your breakfast and chores swere done...but first let me finish showing you my workshop." He code touched the first bracelet square. All the carpentry equipment whirred back down into the floor. He code-touched the second square. In a few seconds the building was fully equipped again, only this time all the whirrings brought up a complete laboratory. He code-touched again and the laboratory disappeared back down into the floor, then he touched the third square. This time the whirring sound brought up a long, semi-circular bank of desks, tables, cabinets and computer components only a few feet away on the other side of the fireplace. It faced out toward the open wall which framed the blue mountain vista. "This is my mental workshop," he said, "this is where I consstruch, tear down, put together, take apart, do and re-do in graphic and mechanical detail on the the computer screen. When I am satisfied that an idea will work, I then program complete plans for it into the computer. After that, the rest is easy."
He turned toward me, sat straight up in his chair and peered down at me with a "mock professor" look, and grinning mischievously, he said in a deep voice, "Now my dear, you have seen my workshop; do you have any questions before I demonstrate the marvels of magically cooking breakfast and tidying homes?"

...

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17

He looked so funny!
I laughed wholeheartedly. "Yes, your professorship," I said, "I most certainly do! I have a million questions. But please, let's save them for a while. I want to see the 'magic' first!'
He leaned back in his chair. "Sit back, relax, and observe the patio, please," he said. I relaxed into my chair and looked out toward the bluemountains across the patio. He touched his wrist bracelet. The whirring sound began. A large, spacious, fully equipped kitchen component rose up from the floor on the patio. "Now meet my helpers" he said, and touched again, causing a high, narrow cabinet door of the kitchen component to slide open . A tall, thin, tubular shaped mechanical device glided noiselessly out of the cabinet, followed by six more. They stood all in a row as if waiting for inspection. He code touched again and six of them glided back into the cabinet and the door closed. We only need one at the moment," he said. Hetouched again. The device began moving about the kitchen with the obvious purpose of preparing a meal. Itmoved as gracefully as a human. It was about five fieet, six inches tall, and twenty-four inches around. It had arm-like appendages at each side, with mechanical hands. It didn't walk, but Ries said it's lower section could separate and be used ike legs and feet for climbing and stepping when necessary. It could bend and stretch and grasp and manipulate things as easily and efficiently as any person. "So that's howmy breakfast was preparedJ! But I didn't see any of these devices at my house!" I said.
"I know," Ries answered, "I had already pre-programmed them and had them on automatic time sequence; it just happened by coincidence that you din't see them working. "You were not fully awake when they prepared the breakfast and you were busy in the bathroom when they tidied up. They are stored in one of the cabinets on the north wall between your bed and the bathroom. "You'll find them when you get back home this evening, then when hou're ready, you'll find lesson programs that will teach you all the codes and how to use hyour code bracelet. Don't be dismayed by the many codes: they will lbe much easier to learn than you might think."
"I know I have many more wonderful discoveries to make at my house," I said, "and I'm glad I'm learning all these things about it now, so that I won't be so overwhelmed later." I thought about it for a minute, then: "I still have unanswered questions. How is everything so clean and fresh? How can all the floors and paths be so clean and soft? How does my hair stay the way I arrange it? How does this physical rejuvenation work? Oh! there's so many questions!"
Ries smiled and answered. "I think I'll give you a broad, sweeping answer now, and then later, as time goes by, if you want more detailed answers to any particular question, we'll discuss it more fully. I'll just say that the answers to all your questions will involve electronics, chemical engineering, biotechnical engineering, and other scientific technologies." I stared at the floor for another minute, thinking again. Then I spoke. Slowly and bemusedly. "You know something? I think I already partly know! My hair for example...is there a particular, peculiar chemical in the bath pool water which acts only on the hair cells to give them that behavior property?" I looked at him eagerly expecting confirmation. He didn't disappoint me. He leaned over and took my hands in his. His luminous, warm eyes smiled into mine. Very softly and tenderly, he said, "Yes. Welcome home, Mem." I felt tears of joy spill over onto my cheeks. A soft, fragrant breeze from the special garden found it's way in through the large, open side door. We heard the breeze playing a little chime on the patio. It seemed as if his voice had played in tune with the chime. We turned and looked out toward the patio and saw that our lunch was ready. The kitchen component was gone and a table was waiting. It was covered with a white cloth. Low flowers adorned it's center. Already served plates were set. Little bowls and trays of food were grouped along one side and on the other there were cups, a creamer, and a container of steamy coffee. We left our chairs and walked toward the table on the patio. As we passed the group of trees in the eastern corner of the room, I noticed a door I hadn't see before. It was almost hidden among the vines and plants along the wall beside the corner trees.
"That's the door to the bathroom," Ries answered my unspoken question. "Come, let me show you. I think you'll like this." He quickly turned and walked toward the door. I followed along in his tracks. As he approached the door, it glided open quietly and disappeared into the wall. We stepped through the opening.
We were outside!
There was the same kinds of rocks and boulders and rocky ledges and trees and plants we had passed through on our way up the path toward the building! This was no bathroom! We were actually, totally outside!
I started laughing.

...

70,71

18
Somehow this struck me as the funniest thing I had ever seen. I laughed so hard I had to sit down on a rock. Finally I was able to calm myself down to little fits of giggles. Ries was laughing too, but he was laughing at me laughing. "I knew you would like it," he laughed.
I wasn't quieted enough yet to really speak. All I could say was, "Oh my, oh my!" Then I began to really look around. Now I could see that it really was a room of sorts. A long, nature shaped room. At the far end, the rocks, boulders and ledges made a sloping climb upward about thirty feet. Little waterfalls were spilling and tumbling their way over and around the rocks and ledges, until finally they gathered together on the last ledge, then spilled over it's edge about eight feet down into a sparkling pool large enough to swim around in. Over to the right side of the pool the water gathered together again and became a little stream which ran only a few feet before it disappeared into the rocks, then a few feet farther along, it reappeared again, running slowly and quietly as it moved along beside a huge boulder wall which was about eight feet tall. This wall came almost straight on toward the building, then gradually became lower and more rock strewn and vegetative as it turned away from the building. From where the rock wall turned, trees and bushes continued on to the building and were so thick you could'nt see through them. On our left side, the trees, vines, shrubs and boulders were as thick as the ones on the right and they curved outward from the building then as they wove their way out then in again, they went all the way on up to the top of the waterfall. The space between the two rock walls did form a large, long, irregularly shaped room.
Ries had stood there quietly while I sat on the rock and looked all around.
I stood up and walked a few steps away then back to Ries. I pointed toward the waterfall. "I see the shower, but..." He pointed to a little group of large rocks. I went over to them and looked. It was arranged just like the little niche was arranged at my house, except here it was formed by a natural wall of rocks. Ries was speaking: "There's a wide microwave heating panel embedded into the surface of the ledge where the waterfall spills over into the pool, nd others embedded in the sides of the pool wall near the bottom. They will heat the shower and the pool in seconds. And there's a series of cooling and purifying grids across that first little stream where the water flows out of the pool. Therefore the water leaving the pool is clean and cool and won't harm fishes and other living things farther along the stream."
"And let me guess," I said, "any other bathing, dressing or grooming need is built underground the way they are in my bathroom."
"That's right," he said, "and the whole area has walls and a ceiling made of the same invisible glass-like material as your bathroom and the workshop. It is fully climate controlled like a greenhouse. The air is always fresh, clean, and pure."
"How are the walls and ceilings made with no visible seams or supports?" I asked.
"In some cases," he answered, "special glass blowers are used, and in other cases forms are built and the molten material is poured, allowed to cool, then the forms removed."
"It seems the more complicated things appear the more simple they are," I mused.
"Yes," he answered, "that is always true."
We turned, walked back through the door to the shop and on woward ur lunch waiting for us on the patio.


...
74, 75

19

As we approached the patio, Ries was saying, "this patio is open now, but in winter it can be closed in with th invisible glass-like material to keep it warm and snug away from blizzards. "Blizzards!" I exclaimed, "Oh how beautiful everything here must be when it's covered all over with snow!" "Yes," he smiled, "in fact, it's so silently beautiful that sometime it's breathtaking and that makes it hard to do anything other than look at it and play in it."
We were now beside the table, and as he spoke, we pulled out chairs and sat down. "At last!" he exclaimed, "now we can eat. I'm starving!"
By this time I was hungry too. I looked at my plate and became even more hungry. On the plate were generous servings of fresh southern peas with little snps, golden fried and creamy new corn from the fields, little bite-sized pieces of red, vine ripened tomatoes, crispy little pieces of deep-fried okra, and deep golden brown pieces of french-fried crusty cornbread. Off one side of the table were dishes full of the same things in case anyone wanted more and on the other side was the coffee, creamer, cups, little dishes of cheese cakes covered all over with thick layers of juicy strawberries. Each and every piece of china on the table was different from all the others. They were the most beautiful, exquisitely made dishes I had ever seen. They looked so fragile that I was almost afraid to touch one.
Ries noticed how timidly I was looking at them and laughed. "I know," he said, "they do look untouchable, don't they? But they aren't. Watch this."
He reached over, picked up two of the cups by their handles, and holding them out at arm's length, he quickly brought them crashing in against each other with all his might. I couldn't help but cringe and duck for safety but there were no broken, shattered pieces. The only thing we heard was a tiny, musical clink as they struck. "They are almost indestructible and will keep food hot or cold for hours," he said, "Kelly made them. She is a master potter. She has developed many special materials and techniques. In fact, she is not only a master potter, she is master of all master potters. When hyou see her special pot, you will understand."
He began eating. I said, "oh, but she didn't tell me she was a potter. I didn't know it was she who made her special pot," I said as I also began to eat.
"No, she seldom talks about her work, but you'll soon see," Ries replied between bites.
Then we both settled earnestly into eating our meal. We ate quietly and companioably, each of us gzing occasionally off into the distance toward the blue mountains.
I had never before eaten a meal whose taste could equal this one. Not even in the days of childhood when taste buds were new and foods were unforgettably good.
The creamy, juicy strawberry cheese cake was like the closing notes of a symphony played by angels in heaven.
We poured ourselves a last cup of coffee, and taking his cup in hand, Ries rose and said, "bring your coffee and let's sit over here." He went over toward the side of the patio to a grouop of chairs and tables like the ones inside by the fireplace. I picked up my cup and followed, and chose a low, softly padded chair beside a little table. We sat for a while drowsily relaxed and talking quietly about the view before us. The lower peaks of the blue mountains were crisp and clear against the unclouded deeper blue of the sky. Gazing at the mountains, I became more and more
contemplative and increasingly quiet and drowsy, but roused up again as Ries spoke and stood up. "I was going to give you a closer look at one of the 'High Energy, Low Power, Efficiency, Robots,' and tell you how they work, but I see you need to rest for a while."
I looked up at him. "What?" High energy, low power what?" He laughed. "The helpers. The magic machines that prepared our lunch. The word 'helpers' is an acronym. The machines are high energy low power efficiency robots and the first letters of those words spell helpers, so I call them 'helpers,' but of course they are not the only machines in that program."
"Oh!" I laughed, "thank goodness for acronyms. It'll be a lot easier to call them helpers. Let me see them now. I don't think I'm too tired."
"OK," he answered, "We'll do it quickly, then I'll go to the barn and check on a few things while you rest."
He touched the code bracelet and the helper cabined rose into view. One of the helpers glided over to us and stopped. In appearance it didn't look impressive at all. It reminded me of a section of accordion stove pipe with mechanical arms and hands.
"If you were to put a hat on it and stand it in a corn field with it's 'arms' outstretched it could be used as a scarecrow, but it was more than impressive in it's abilities and mechanical complexity. And when Ries had finished demonstrating and listing many of the things it was capable of I was astounded.
It was wearing a code bracelet and could operate and use all the equipment in the shop, the laboratory, and the computer bank.
Ries finished his explanations of it: "This is by far the most important tool we have, because this tool can use all other tools." He pointed to the code bracelet on his sleeve. "MY next goal is to make this helper obsolete. I'm working on a project now, that if it is successful, will do that, but I'll tell you about that later.
Right now you have to rest and I have things to see to at the barn." He smiled, turned and walked purposefully back through the workshop toward the barn. As he walked a way, a small alcove-like component with low walls containing a bed with shelves of books around it began to rise from the floor a few feet away. I knew he had touched his code bracelet as he left.
The bed looked inviting. "But first," I thought, "I want to explore outside again." When I went through the bathroom door and found myself 'outdoors,' I had to laugh again. I almost expected to see a tiny house with a halfmoon cut into it's door. I walked a little way on toward the waterfall, then turned and went over to the stream beside the high rock wall. The wall looked like one big, solid gray rock. The stream at it's base was abut twelve feet wide and looked to be only about two feet deep. The water was so crystal clear that you could see the rock all the way to the bottom as of no water was there. As I was looking at it, a large trout swam out of the rock, and into the stream slowly and casually swimming around as if he were searching for food. My mouth fell open in sheer amazement. " MY head was swimming with unbelief at what I had seen. The fish swam around a few minutes then turned and swam back straight into the rock and disappeared. I was dumbfounded. Then two more fish swam out of the rock, one following behind the other. They did exactly the same as the first one, swam slowly and searchingly a little way out from the rock, then straight back into it! "Impossible!" I thought, "solid fish can't swim in and out of solid rock!" I stood there a little while longer, waiting to see if they would come back out, but they didn't. I kept thinking, "How in the world? It's impossible."
Then suddenly I knew. It was so simple that I was embarrassed I had not thought of it before. Why hadn't I realized it immediately? Crystal clear water. Reflections. The water was so clear that it was like a mirror reflecting the rock wall, making it appear to reach all the way to the bottom of the stream, when in reality there was a cleft near the bottom of the rock and the fish were merely swimming in and out from under the rock. I stared at it, looking from all angles and directions, trying to see an opening at the bottom under the rock, but no mattr how I tried, I couldn't break the illusion that the solid rock was touching the stream bed. Finally I smiled and walked away shaking my head. "Sometimes illusion is the very image of reality," I thought.
I was becoming very tired. Very sleepy.
By the time I reached the patio bed, I was almost asleep on my feet. I sank down onto the bed, cradled the pillow under my head, and in mere moments I began drifting...Reality faded into broken thoughts of Ries. "He knows I'm not in reality. I'm still here. I'm still on Ries' patio. No. NO. It's dark. I must be back in real reality. I must be back in the hospital bed. But my eyes are closed. I'm still on the patio. No. MY eyes are open and it's still dark. It's reality. No. I can feel the patio bed. I can smell the air. No. my eyes are open. it's still dark...OH! I'm trapped! I'm trapped! Help me! I'm trapped between dreaming and waking and I cant get back into either! OH! It's so dark! Help me! Ries! Ries! Help me!"
Suddenly my eyes flew open and I saw Ries walking quickly toward me from the direction of the shop. He sat down beside me.
"It's okay, Mem." His voice was gentle, soothing. "It's okay. You were dozing. You were not fully asleep nor fully awake. It won't happen again. You were drifting between reality and dreaming, but it won't happen again. You can sleep now." His voice became softer. "YOu can sleep...you will sleep. Deeply...deeply... When you wake, you'll be here. It's not time yet for waking into real reality. You'll be here. Here. "
I slept. Peacefully. Deeply.


t.


...
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20
When I awoke, the late afternoon glow of the lowering sun outlined the tops of the blue mountains and lit up the clouds and mists which hovered around the highest peaks.
I felt fresh and new again. The first thing I thought of was seeing the fish swim into and out of the solid rock wall of the crystal clear stream. All of a sudden I knew the answer to how that impossible thing happened. I laughed out loud. It was so simple that I was embarrassed that I had not thought of it before. Why hadn't I realized it immediately? Crystal clear water. Reflections. The water was so clear that it was like a mirror reflecting the rock wall, making it appear to reach all the way to the bottom of the stream, when in reality there was a cleft near the bottom of the rock and the fish were merely swimming in and out from under the rock. I remembered how I had had stared at it, looking from all angles and directions, trying to see an opening at the bottom
under the rock, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't
break the illusion that the solid rock was touching the
stream bed. There was no visual doubt that the fish was actually swimming into and out of the solid stone. Finally I smiled and stood up shaking my head. "Sometimes illusion is the very image of reality," I thought, as I went over to the chair I had used earlier and sat down. There was fresh coffee and a little bowl full of juicy ripe nectarines cut into bite-sized pieces and a little silver fork on the table.
I relaxed into the chair enjoying the fruit and coffee and the cool, golden late-afternoon atmosphere.
Suddenly I began to feel restless and agitated. I was remembering how I had been trapped between waking reality and dreaming reality and how terrifying it was. Then I remembered how Ries' soothing voice and words had calmed me and caused me to sleep deeply and peacefully. Remembering that relaxed me again and I was able to think about it calmly, but all my thoughts were questions: Why had it happenedd? Would it happen again? What if it did happen and I became trapped forever between waking and sleeping? How had Ries brought me out of it? Did he hypnotize me? These and other questions were flooding my mind when I heard Ries coming up the path from the barn to the shop. He was whistling a little tune. The sound of it was reassuring to me.
I could ask Ries. He would know. I got up from the chair and went to meet him. When he saw me, he said, "Oh there you are! You look much better! In fact, you look lide the sparkle on a morning dewdrop!" I lauaghed. "And that's just about how I feel," I answered, "but I have a lot of questions."
"Well good," he replied, "anyone who has questions can find answers. Let's go back this way and I'll show you the rest of my place, then we can walk across the fields past your house and on up to Kelly's and Otto's place and as we walk along the way, we can discuss your questions."
"That's a good plan," I said, "I can hardly wait to see their mysterious home, and which of your other buildings will we see first?"
"The barn is first," he answered, "come on, let's go!"
We went on down the trail toward the barn and other buildings. They were all typical farm buildings with all the usual supplies, equipment, toools and animals, except that everything everywhere was immaculate. The house was like any farmhouse anywhere, except that no one was there. As we went through it, Ries explained, "I don't use the house at all except for occasional visitors. I live and sleep and eat and work in the workshop."
The house was the last building. When we left it, we went out across the grounds toward the fields and meadows.
I looked over the fields toward my home on the other side. It looked like a gift waiting to be opened and explored. "But not yet," I thought, "first I have to know where I am. Can I stay here? It seems so real here. Am I dreaming now, or is this the real world and reality just a bad dream? How can I be thinking of reality if I'm dreaming? Oh, if only I could stay awake here and sleep when I'm awake...! Oh, I'm so confused!"
Without realizing it, I spoke the last words aloud. My voice was filled with anguish.
Ries touched my arm. "It's okay, Mem," he said, "you're confused because you have become fully aware. You know you're dreaming and you don't want to wake up. That's why you were caught between waking and sleeping, and why it was so frightening for you. You were beginning to sink from the dream stage of sleep into a deeper sleep, but you were afraid. You were trying to stay in the dream stage and trying to sleep deeper, and trying to awaken all at the same time, which caused such conflict that you felt trapped and became panic stricken."
"HOw did your presence and voice get me out of the panic?" I asked, "did you hypnotize me?"
He chuckled. "NO, it was just that my voice and words and presence calmed you and dispelled the fear, and you were able to enter into the deep sleep stage without struggling to stay in the dream stage. It won't happen again now that you know where you are. You're in control now, Mem. You're home. I sensed earlier that you were becoming aware. Remember when I said, 'welcome home' earlier?"
"Oh yes...but what do you mean that I'm in control and that I'm home now? Do you mean I can stay here in the dream stage?"
"No," he said, "but think of this: Our knowledge of existence depends on consciousness. If we were not conscious, we wouldn't know that we exist. Your existence is now mental more than physical. Your world is now a world of mental consciousness rather than a world of sense consciousness. You will still have dream stages, but you've been thinking of your waking periods as reality and your sleeping periods as imaginary creation, and when you became aware that you were dreaming you were afraid that if you fell into deep sleep while you were in the dream period that you would leave the dream and awake into what you were calling reality, which is really just sense consciousness."
"Oh, I see!" I interrupted him. "Before I fell from the roof and lost all my senses, I was so totally sense conscious that I seldom remembered sleep-dreams and was hardly even aware of the dream stages, but now I will be so totally dream conscious that I will hardly be aware of the sense conscious waking stages!"
"Yes, that's right," Ries said, "dreaming is mental consciousness, 'reality' is sense consciousness and deep sleep is,...we don't know yet, except we know that it is peace and rest and renewal of both sense and mental consciousness...can it be...God consciousness?" .... His voice trailed off. He was thinking. He was so deep in thought that his steps slowed to a stop. He stood there a few minutes, deep in thought, then he turned and looked back toward the blue mountains. "You know..." he said, "someday we will know the truth and we'll be free. We're so near,...so very near.."
He looked at me and smiled as he turned back and we started walking again. "How do you feel now?" He asked.
I thought a few seconds, then spoke: "I feel...good. And I feel strong and safe and confident and deeply happy. I know our minds are infinitely more complex than we have touched on today and more than we can know now, but it's so wonderful to exist in this world of... of mental consciousness. I'm glad I remember who I was, but it's better to be who I am. "
"How do I feel? I feel good!"
Ries threw out his arms and flung himself straight up in a high jump and shouted, "I feel good too!
I laughed, "and look where we are already!" We had walked all the way across the fields and meadows, and were nearing the path to my house. I had been so engrossed in our conversation that I hadn't even been aware of my surroundings.
Ries ran over to my path and in toward my house, calling back to me as he ran. "You walk on ahead, and I'll catch up with you. I'm going to stop in your house and get a long sleeved shirt for you. It might be a little cool when the sun goes down."
I continued walking along the path beside the river.
I began to feel a little strange. Something was bothering me again. "What is it?" I thought. It was like having someone's name 'on the tip of your tongue' that just wouldn't come out.
Then suddenly, it was like a little bell went off in my head. "That's it!" I thought, Ries! He knows me! He's always known me. He even knows my thoughts. He even knew I had been thinking of my waking times as reality and dreaming times as creating. Who is he? How can he know my mind?"
I stopped and looked back at my house where he was. I stood there staring at the house, puzzled.
Suddenly he ran out across the patio, down the path toward me, carrying the shirt.
I waited.
He trotted on up to me and stopped, handing me the shirt and a little pair of soft leather shoes. When I saw the shoes, I looked down at my feet. "MY goodnes," I said, "I've been going around all day without shoes and didn't even notice it!" I slipped them onto my feet. They were so lightweight and comfortable that I knew I would immediately forget that I was wearing them. I put on the shirt and still just stood there looking a Ries.
Wondering.
Seconds went by.
We stood there.
I looking at him, he looking at me.
Neither of us spoke. It was as if my eyes were asking and his eyes were trying to tell. Finally he spoke:
"Don't you recognize me Mem? Don't you know who I am?"

...

91/92

21

"No," I answered, "not yet. Are you an angel?'
"No."
"Then how did you know my mind earlier? How did you know I had been thinking of sense consciousness as reality and mental consciousness as creation...can you read people's minds?"
"No. You wee thrashing around and mumbling. I understood enough of what you were saying to know what was going on in your mind."
He grinned his little mischievous grin. "I am very intelligent, you know!"
"You most certainly are!" I smiled at him warmly.
He chuckled softly. "I can see that you have a very high opinion of me! First you thought I might be Jesus, then you thought I must be an angel, then you thought I could read minds...but please let me assure you that I am neither super-natural nor super-human. I have no powers that you don't have." He grinned that little grin again, then, "I have to admit though,...I'm glad you esteem me so highly. It pleases me to no end."
I reached ut and put my hand on his arm and looked into his eyes eanestly. "Yes. I do have a high opinion of you. In fact, I'm almost in awe of you, yet I feel perfectly at home with you. I trust you completely. Won't you tell me who you are?"
He smiled. "It's not that I won't. It's that I can't. I could talk all day trying to tell you, but you still wouldn't know. The only way you will know me is when you recognize me. And you will. I think it will be soon."
Somehow, I understood and I said, "Oh this is wonderful! You're a puzzle! You're the ultimate puzzle of all puzzles!" I laughed with utter delight. "I love solving puzzles, and solving you is going to be the greatest achievement of my whole puzzle solving career!"
His laughter joined with mine and we started running on down the path. We ran all the way around the first bend of the little river to the low, white, stone footbridge Kelly had told me about. There it was! The stone bank to the left on the other side of the bridge and the path going up the hill and everything else just as she had described it.
We stopped on the bridge for a minute. I made a sweeping gesture toward the trail that ran along the river's edge on the other side. "Where does that trail go?" I asked. Ries pointed down the river to our right. "Down that way, it follows the river about five miles to a little town. One person lives about halfway between here and town. Her name is Myna. She lives on a big houseboat. The river gets wider between here and town, and it's about twice this wide at her place."
Then he pointed toward the left. "Back up this way, past your house, the trail follows the river about a mile to a waterfall which tumbles from out of a rocky hillside. That's where the river begins and it gets more and more narrow between here and there. "No one lives along the trail that way. It's just a beautiful woodland walking trail."
We walked slowly on across the bridge and started up the trail which continued straight out from the footbridge, up the little grass covered hill and into the forest toward Kelly's.
"I wish we had time to walk a little way up toward the waterfalls," I said, "I'd like to look acoss the river and see my house from this side."
"So do I," said Ries, "In fact, I wish we had time to walk all the way up to the falls, but the sun is setting fast now, and I want us to arrive at Kell's in time for it's final sky-glow...as Kelly said, it's going to be a great surprise for you when you see her home! Come on, let's walk faster!"

...
94/95

22
We hurried along the trail past trees of all kinds and sizes, bushes, flowering shrubs, vines, rocks, and boulders. Every now and then one of the little side trails Kelly had described that didn't go anywhere but rejoined the main path farther along.
As we went, we talked, laughed and joked about anything and everything, skipping back and forth and around one subject after another. After a little while I noticed that the trail was winding through more and larger boulders and thicker clumps of trees. At one place the boulders on each side of the trail were so huge that it was like walking through an open-topped tunnel, then farther along the trail ran between two huge boulders like the one in Ries' bathroom. They started out low and vegetative then got higher and higher until they formed a solid rock wall on both sides of us about eight feet high. Up ahead it looked like we were coming to a dead end of stone, but when we came up to it, it made a sharp curve and...
The Ocean!!!
Spread out below us, and as far out as we could see in an everlasting panorama, was the shimmeing, glassy-still, rainbow hued, living waters of a twilight ocean, lighted by the sunset sky above!
For a few seconds it felt like I had stepped off the edge of the world into the sky! I reeled. My breath caught in my throat, my knees went weak and buckled under me and I would have sunk to the ground if Ries hadn't grabbed hold of me. It was so sudden and unexpected! We were standing on a narrow rock ledge with only about fifty feet between us and the edge, and about fifty more feet on each side of us. At it's edge it had a low flat topped wall made of big rocks cemented together, and on it's right side, it connected with a large multi-roomed natural stone house which was built into the face of the stone cliff.
Although the sunset itself was behind us, the sky above was filled with fire-edged, lacy patterned clouds in layers and layers and fluffs on fluffs with patches of blues and purples and almost greens showing through. Out in the far away distance, miles from from the shoreline, a mist was gathering, getting ready to creep in and hide the coast at nightfall. Because of the mist, there was no dark blue line of water marking a separation between ocean and sky. There was no way to see whee ocean stopped and sky began. On both sides of us, the rocky cliffs stretched away and away then disappeard into mists of their own.
The house was built into the face of the wide outreaching ledges of the stone cliffs in such a way that it created the illusion that it was not there at all but was merely itself a part of the cliff.
We stood there unmoving and silent for minute after minute, until finally the light was almost gone and the colors faded.
I took a deep breath of the clean, fresh air. It seemed as if I hadn't breathed since we stepped out from that last curve of the rock-tunnel path.
My voice sounded almost like a spueaky wheel when I spoke: "Kelly's very surprising home! I think this is one of the best surprises I have ever seen in my whole entire life...the ocean! I had no idea we were so close to the ocean! If the wind had been blowing I would have heard the waves before we saw it, and that would've spoiled the surprise!"
"Yes, it would," Ries said, "when the weather is stormy you can hear the waves crashing all the way to your house."
He walked over toward the edge saying, "come on over here, I want to show you something." I hesitantly followed him over to the edge, almost afraid to get close to the low rock wall. We were so high!

...

23

But when we reached the wall and I fearfully peered over the top of it, I felt perfectly safe again. The cliff was not a sheer, straight drop to the rocky beach below. It's incline was fairly steep, but rocks and ledges jutted out in such a way that one could walk down from level to level withut stumbling or falling, and each level had it's own protective rock fence allowing safe passage.
"Here's what I wanted to show you," said Ries, "here on the inner edge of the wall is another one of our little push-buttons." He pushed the button and a section of the wall glided smoothly down into the ground, leaving an open gateway to the downward passages.
"There's an elevator in the house on the other side, he said, "it's built inot the side of a section of sheer-faced rock and goes down through Kelly's work room and fireplace room, but going up and down here is great fun, and very exhilerating. Oh! Here comes Kelly and Otto now! Look, Cerise and Kleff's with them, too! He laughed out loud as Kelly called out, 'Hey!" Then, "What did ema do when she saw our big surprise?" Her voice was filled with pleasure and anticipation.
"You should've seen her!" Ries called back, "she lost her breath and would've crumbled in a heap on the ground if I hadn't caught her and held her up!"
Everybody, including me, laughed and I ran over to Kelly, gave her that big bear hug and danced her around like I had wanted to do when I first recognized her on my patio.
"Oh Kelly!...It's so beautiful, so wonderful! I love your very surprising home!"
"I new you would! And now you get to meet my Otto and my little Cerise and baby Kleff...here's Mema, everyone!"
We all greeted each other cheefully.
Little Cerise was a slender, lovely, dark haired copy of Kelly. Baby Kleff was sweet and adorable, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Otto was medium tall, strong, and had the same light brown hair as Kleff. His eyes were lighter blue than Kleff's with faint green tones. When he spoke his voice was low and quiet. "Kelly's been telling us all about you, and I think you've had quite a day, haven't you?"
"Oh yes! This has been a day like no other dy in the history of time," I said, "and it's a wonder that I haven't floated off into space with the sheer joy of it!"
He laughed and his laugh was like his voice, low and quiet.
Cerise and Kleff stayed close to their parents and watched me shyly. When I spoke to them they smiled pleased looking little smiles and answered sweetly in their soft little voices. They evoked such feelings of affection that I wanted to hug them, but I knew I had to wait until they were ready. I was asking them if they liked to make sand castles on the beach when kelly said, "Okay everybody, it's fireside time! Come on Mema, the fireside is down the cliff; let's lead the way down."
We all clattered and chattered along as we wove our way back and forth from one level to another down the cliff side. On the last level down, the path turned to the right into a large, cave-like room that was hewn right into the stone at the base of the cliff. The whole front of the room was open to the beach and on one wall there was a large fireplace with a low hearth like the one in my house. Chairs, cushions, pillows, and little tables were strewn all around in front of the hearth facing the fire. All around the room, on all the walls were shelves of different sizes and at various levels, formed by natural outcroppings of rock ledges. Not quite in the center of the room there was a little odd-shaped pool surrounded by smooth-topped gray stones of different sizes and heights. On the other side of the room, opposite from the fireplace, there was a cozy little resting and sleeping nook, with a door on each side of it. One ot the doors opened directly into the elevator Ries had told me about.
"There's another chamber above this one," Kelly explained, "that's where my working area and storeroom is, and the other door opens into the bathroom."
All around the room, on the ledge shelves and on the stones around the pool there were casually placed objects of earthenware, pots, vases, ollas, urns, and beautifully and intricately shaped pieces of earthen sculpture. Every piece was perfect and beautiful beyond description; they were of all sizes and shapes and subtle colors.
Kelly took me all around the room, showing me particular pieces and telling me little stories about them, then she led me over to the fireplace where everyone else was already gathered in front of the fire, chattering and laughing. "Now," she said, "you'll see my special pot on it's little fireside table that Ries made for me!"
The short, proud little table was standing over to the right side of the fire on the hearth, special pot resting on it's top.
I stood there and stared.
Time froze. I was speechless.
I didn't know what to say.
Every one else had stopped talking and was watching me.
The beautiful little table gleamed and glowed in the firelight. The pot's surfaces caught reflections, too but not like the table. You had to really look to see them, and oh my goodness, that must have been absolutely the ugliest pot of clay ever to come off a potter's wheel! The contrast between the beauty of the table and the ugliness of the pot was staggering.
Finally I just couldn't help it, I burst out, "But I don't understand!" My voice had a pleading note in it.
Everyone broke out into peals of laughter. "You will! You will! Just wait, you'll see!"
Even little Kleff was delighted with all the glee at my consternation.
My reaction to the pot pleased Kelly most of all. She absolutely sparkled with pleasure. "That's okay, Mema," she smiled almost shyly, "you will understand. It's only a matter of time."

...

24

And she was right. That one lumpy, mis-shapen pot became my most favorite of all, but all I could do right then was stare at it in puzzlement. "It would certainly be a good pot for baked beans," I said, "and I believe it would hold enough for all of us. It's making me hungry now, just looking at it."
"you are so right," said Kelly, "look at this." She reached over, grasped the lumpy looking knob on top of the pot and lifted it's lid, and as she did, steam came rising up, bringing themost delicious aroma I had ever smelled.
"Oh my goodness!" I exclaimed, now I'm really hungry!"
"And just at the right time," said Kelly, "here comes the rest of our supper!"
Two helpers were gliding up to the hearth. One was carrying a large tray piled high with crispy, golden-fried sunfish and little irregularly shaped balls of cornbread filled with chopped green onions, deep-fried to the same crispy, golden brown as the fish, and a large bowl of fresh garden salad. The other helper was carrying a lemon frosted cake and a basketful of plates, cups, silverwae, napkins and utensils. They put all these things down on the hearth beside containers of coffee, iced tea, and lemonade, then glided smoothly away.
Each of us served our own plate, pulled up a chair to the hearth, and holding our plates on our laps, we ate and watched the flames of the fire in the fireplace.
Conversation dwindled down to occasional comments on how good the food was. Especially the baked beans.
As I ate, I kept looking at the special pot again and again.
It sat there meekly, but unashamed, on it's perfect table, it's imperfection enhancing the perfection of the table and all the other potteries in the room, nd even, it seemed, the very flames of the fire itself. Even the plain stones of the hearth became beautiful in it's presence.
"What a wonderful pot," I thought. "it's making lovely things more lovely and plain things beautiful."
It was the very essence of that one necessary flaw of nature which enables us to comprehend beauty itself. The truth about the special pot was beginning to dawn in my mind.
"Oh I see!" I suddenly exclaimed aloud. "I understand now! "This pot is special because it does a very special thing! It holds the secret of beauty!" I jumped up from my chair, went over to where Kelly sat, leaned over and kissed the top of her head. Everyone yelled "Yayyyyyyy" and applauded.
A burning log on the fire broke in two, fell apart, and sent sparks flying up the chimney. Everyone laughed and started talking all at once.
As the fire burned lower and lower the talking became less and less.
I had been quiet for several minutes, gazing into the fireplace at the red-glowing embers and the little blue and green flames bravely clinging to broken hot coals, when Ries stood up.
"Time to go home!" he announced.
My heart quickened as I thought of my house. I was suddenly filled with longing to be there alone. I wanted to prop myself up in my bed, look out at the night, and think.
As we clambered up from our chairs, talking about what a wonderful evening it had been, and moving out toward the cliff climb, I felt a soft little hand slip into mine. I looked down. It was Cerise. She was looking up at me, her large, serious eyes questioning. I felt my heart swell as I leaned over and hugged her. We smiled secretly at each other as Kleff ran up and jumped into my arms, curled his little arms around my neck and squeezed with all his might. I held him close for a moment, then swung him around, and as I let him down, he ran excitedly on ahead to catch up with his dad.
The climb up the cliff was exhilarating, just as Ries had said, and by the time we reached the top, I was fresh and wide awake again.
There was a large, pale moon shining mistily through the fog-shrouded atmosphere. The walk home through the hush of the cloud-filled forest would be a mystical delight.
Ries and I exchanged quiet "goodnights" with the others as we walked over to the trail opening between the huge boulders and stepped around that curve into the high rock tunnel where we had emerged earlier. I laughed softly, remembering.
"Wait a minute," I said, and went back and looked around the curve. This time I couldn't see the ocean or the sky; it was lost in the fog. I could only see the ledge and a little way along the cliff. I went back to Ries and we set off for home, walking quietly, eaach of us lost in our own thoughts and our own enjoyment of the fog-filled woods bathed by the pale, misty light of the moon.
As we drew near to the footbridge, my mind raced eagerly ahead to my house. I wanted to say something about it, but didn't want to break the spell of our silent, companionable walk through the night. Ries sensed my feelings and spok first: "We're almost to your house; do you want to be greeted by a cheerful little fire in your fireplace?"
"Oh...yes!"
"Okay, touch the first square on your bracelet, two dashes and a dot."
I picked up the hem of my shirt, and by feeling the bracelet, I found the first square and touched it, two touches then a shorter touch. I visualized a cabinet door on my wall opening and a helper gliding easily and efficiently out to make a fire. Then I thought of something else I wante: "And I'd like to have a pitcher of sweetend tea, ice, a glass, an ashtray and cigarettes!" I sounded like a child reciting his Christmas list to Santa Claus.
Ries felt my excitement and laughed with pleasure. "That's three dots and two dashess!"
I touched the square again. "Oh I like this!" I laughed, "now I want a bowl of milk with fresh, warm, crusty cornbread crumbled in it to eat in bed before I go to sleep."
Ries told me the code and I touched it onto the bracelet.
"How would you like it if you could think the instructions and not need the code bracelet?" He asked, then not waiting for an answer, he went on, "that's the project I'm working on now. Our thoughts are emitted as electrical impulses. The helpers could be modifed and programmed to respond to patterns of thinking. We could activate the helpers with thought instead of touch codes. The only problem is that I haven't yet developed equipment sensitive enough to pick up those electrical impulses; they are extremely tiny and low powere; but I'm on the brinkF! I have an idea that I think is the key to solving the whole problem. Then these code bracelets will be obsolete!"
"Oh yes, that would be wonderful," I said, "I've already been thinking that there must be an awful lot of these codes to memorize and wondering how long it would be before I could do them automatically the way you do."
"It will be a lot easier and quicker than you you think," he answered, "but mental communication with the helpers would be infinitely more efficient and more convenient than the code bracelets."
"Yes it surely would; although this way is fun to me, and I'm still happy with code-touching the bracelet...what's the code for another breakfast like the one I had before?"
"Let me see...you had the coffee, bacon, toast and donuts...that's two dots and two dashes, and since it is your habit to waken at dawn, the helpers will prepare it at that time...Look!" He pointed ahead. "There's your house. We're almost there!" I was already looking. It looked dark all around except for the welcoming glow of the firelight dimly shining out from the open atio wall.
Our stride involuntarily quickened, and Ries started "running in place," saying "Im going to start right here, and run across the fields and all the way home!" With those words, he broke into a run, calling back to me over his shoulder, "see you later!"...and went loping off down the trail past my house. I laughed softly and shook my head. "He's so.." I couldn't think of words to describe him, so just chuckled and turned my attention back to being home.
I walked slowly on up to my path and stopped for a minute.
"There it is!" I thought, "my very own house. Waiting just for me!"
I turned slowly and looked in every direction at the night all around me.
It was dripping mist and the sky was trying to hide the moon. It was so wonderfully quiet and peaceful that it almost brought tears to my eyes.
"I'm home..." I whispered.

...
25

The welcoming glow of the firelight from the house beckoned and I moved on up the path and across the patio then paused again before stepping across the threshold into the room. The fire was burning sheerily, casting it's glow and shadows all over the room. The tea and other things I had asked for was waiting on a small table beside the chair in front of the hearth. The bed looked inviting.
I didn't look for a light switch; the firelight was all I wanted. I picked up the tea, took a few sips, lit one of the cigarettes, then sipping and smoking, I slowly walked all around the room looking closely at everything. I didn't open any of the cabinets or doors; I just walked around the room once and then into the bathroom. "Tomorrow," I thought, "I will examine every single thing in every nook and cranny of this whole house."
It was dark in the bathroom, so I left the door open a few inches so I could see my way around by the firelight. In a few minutes I was standing in front of the mirror by the bathpool, as I had before, in wonderment. It was still hard to believe that the reflection in the mirror was really me.
I turned back to the bathpool, quickly undressed then slowly stepped down the steps into the warm, soothing water, then lay back and floated around, wishing I could fall asleep there and breathe under water if I sank below the surface. But no, I must not stay this time. Too much to do.
Soon I was back to the fireplace agin, all dried and dressed, wearing a cool, clean, wonderfully comfortable sleeping outfit. I poured myself some more tea then went over to the bed and sat down, setting the tea on the cabinet by the bed. There were four drawers in the cabinet table. I opened the top drawer and found a small electronic instrument that looked like a remote control for something. All the other drawers were empty. I put the instrument back in the drawer, thinking I might ruin it or turn on something I didn't want if I started pushing it's buttons not knowing what it would do, but then curiosity about it won over and I opened the drawer and took it back out, pulled down the bed covers, stacked the pillows up against the headboard, propped myself up, and sat there studying it. It looked exactly like a remote control for a television set. "That's what it has to be," I thought, although I could not see a television set anywere in sight. I pushed it's power button.
A large, thin, dark-colored panel slid up from between the foot of the bed and the shelf wall. It covered an area about four feet square in front of the shelves. As soon as the panel settled into place, a picture with sound came on. It was a news channel.
I gasped. "Oh my goodness!"
It didn't look like a picture. It looked real! It was television, but in three dimensional clarity, every detail so clear and true to life that it seemed as if I was looking through an open window at real events instead of at a television picture. The news story was about an art festival being held in a small village somewhere. I instantly became so absorbed in the television that I forgot all about my plan to look at the night and think. I even forgot where I was, until I heard a little sound beside me and sensed movement.
It startled me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, but immediately saw that it was a helper putting the bowl of milk and cornbread on the table beside me with an extra glass of milk. "Oh!" I thought, "I forgot all about that! I was going to watch the helper make the cornbread!" I was sure that the counters and cabinets and doors on the other wall contained a small kitchenette, and I had meant to watch the helper work, but being so deeply absorbed by the television, I hadn't heard or seen the helper until it was beside me. It turned and glided smoothly toward the wall around the corner behind the cabinet table.
I leaned way out across the table, peered around the corner, and watched it disappear into a tall cabinet, then I picked up the bowl, settled back into place and began eating the milk and cornbread. It was the best I had ever tasted. I sighed with pleasure and satisfaction as I looked back to the television again. The piece about the art festival had ended and now a man was talking about the development of a new variety of soybean. At the moment I was not that much interested in soybeans, so I changed to the next channel and was instantly fascinated and absorbed again. It was a low and slow flying balloon tour over a winter wonderland of snow-covered rocky mountain peaks, valleys, gorges, glaciers, waterfalls, and ridges of dark green trees fringed with snow. Somtimes the baloon would go down almost to the ground, weaving it's way through trees and canyons, then rise again over canyon walls and high peaks. It didn't look like pictures at all. It was like being there. It looked so real, so much like looking out an open window, that I was compelled to crawl down to the foot of the bed and try to put my hand out through the opening and touch a snow-covered tree limb. Of course my hand was stopped by the invisible glass screen of the television. I
crawled back up to my pillow, sheepishly, and settled back down again.
I ate and enjoyed and grew sleepy, then turned the television off, settled down into the bed on my right side facing the low buning almost gone fire and, gazing into the last little flickering flames, I soon drifted off to sleep, thinking of the things Ries had told me about reality and dreaming and sleeping.
My last thought was, "reality is sense consciousness, dreaming is mental consciousness, and deep sleep is..."

* * * * * * *


...

116/117


26

My mind found that still, quiet place called deep sleep, where rest and renewal abides.
I drifted easily into and out of short periods of sense consciousness, "the world of reality," where thoughts would drift lazily through my mind, then fade gently away as I slept deeply again.
Now that my fall from the roof had rendered me senseless, there was no need to linger in the sense world. I had found a totally new existence,...I existed in the world of mental consciousness where dreams were not dreams at all, and the senses of the mental world seemed even more real than the physical senses I had always thought of before as being the world of "real reality."

* * * * * * *


When my alarm clock, the symphony of bird song sounded, I lay quietly and unmoving for minutes, almost awake, dimly remembering thoughts from the last "dream" of the world of reality.
This from the book of Nehemiah was echoing in my mind:
"Blessed be your glorious name,
which is exalted above all
blessing and praise!
You alone are the Lord;
You have made heaven,
the heaven of heavens
with all their host,
the earth and all things on it,
the seas and all that is in them,
and you preserve them all.
The host of heaven worships You."

When I came fully awake and opened my eyes, I was lying on my left side facing the open window wall and the first thing I saw was the beautiful blue mountains away in the distance high above Ries' house and the fields and meadows.
I wonered how far away they were and how high was the highest peak. I had not seen all the peaks because of clouds and mist. I wondered if people lived up there.
I threw the covers back, rolled over to the window wall and leaned far out over the wide sill and looked all around my own yard. There were no plants, shrubs of any kind, trees, or flowers anywhere. just a wide expanse of luscious, fresh-cut green grass reaching all the way out to the low rock fence bordering the fields and meadows and as far as I could see around toward the back, and out to the wide river path.
All that wide open space was like a blank canvas waiting to be painted, and I started visualizing how I would landscape it. I could hardly wait to walk around out there and think and plan and work.
"But first things firs!" I thought as I turned back and rolled over and swung my feet to the floor. I had already been smelling the delicious aroma of breakfast and I wanted coffee.
Soon I was pouring my second cup of coffee and preparing to explore; breakfast could wait a while.
Cup in hand, I started with the area I expected to be a kitchenette. The first thing I noticed was a long row of numbered push-buttons on the lower edge of a cabinet above the counter.
I pushed the number one button, a natural choice, and as it happened, a good choice, because it turned on a video screen on the cabinet door above it which began showing fully illustrated diagrams and instructions for every unit in the whole component which was a kitchenette, just as I thought.
After about thirty minutes of opening doors and drawers, pushing buttons, and consulting the diagram, I was familiar with everything. There was nothing in any of the lower cabinets except very complicated elecgtronic equipment with a miriad of dials, switches, instrument panels, tiny lights of all colors, some blinking and some not, and push buttons; this was the power and control center for the house and grounds.
The counter top was totally empty and bare until particular buttons were pushed.
There was a three sectioned kitchen sink. One of the sections was deeper and contained an automatic dishwasher and drier. I pushed it's button, the panel on top of it slid back. I set my cup in, pushed the button, it closed and in about a second it blinked, slid open and there was my cup, sparkling clean and dry.
Another push button caused another panel to slide back and reveal a rectangular area on the counter about twenty-four by thirty inches in size. It had a thick, glassy look and was divided into four wide strips of blue. The first strip was very pale blue, the next medium blue and the next darker blue and the fourth was very dark blue.
It was a cook stove but it made no heat at all. I putmy bare hand on all the strips and it didn't even feel warm, but when I took a specially made saucepan from the cabinet above the stove, filled it half full of water and set it on the pale blue strip, the water instantly began to simmer gently. I slid it across the strips and the darker the sstrip, the harder it boiled.
All the cabinets aabove the counter to the right of the stove area was cold storage.
The shelves were made wide, narrow, deep, shallow, short or tall, so that everything was right at my fingertips and nothing was stoed behind anything. The temperature from cabinet to cabinet ranged from cool to cold to very cold to below zero freezing and they were all fully stocked.
All the other cabinets above the counter were built the same way the cold storage cabinets were. Nothing was stored behind anything, and they were all completely furnished with everything a kitchen needed. The whole kitchenette was the very epitome of technology for efficient food preparation, yet it would fully satisfy the personal joy so many people find in cooking.
I was very pleased when I finished exploring it and was also beginning to feel little twinges of hunger.
The bacon, toast, donuts and coffee were still waiting. I picked up the tray they were on and walked out to the patio.
There was not a chair or table in sight anywhere, but I soon found a button to push and watched a large section of the floor slide back and another section rise up holding little tables and comfortable chairs. That's when I saw that the floor was not really stone. On the surface, it looked like stone but it was made of some kind of strange, thin material. "No wonder it feels so good to my feet," I thought.
I picked a chair, put the tray on a table beside it, sat down, relaxed and began to thoroughly enjoy the breakfast and the glorious view all around me.
After I finished eating, I pulled up a low table, propped my feet up on it, poured one last cup of coffee, lit a cigarette, and for a while I did nothing but
sip and smoke and bask in this wonderful world of mental consciousness. I held the cigarette I was smoking in front of me and looked at it, watching the tiny little fire at the end of it. "It's impossible for this to harm me here," I thought, "the only thing that could possibly harm me here in this world of mental consciousness would be my own thoughts. If I were to think of and imagine terriible things, then those things would be real and I would have bad, harmful experiences." I thought of something Jesus said: "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil..."
I prayed: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..." I thought of something Ries had said: "One person can do as many things as necessary to fulfill his or her needs and dreams and desires."
I thought, "my greatest need and desire is to know and to think only good for me and for everyone and for all beings and for all existence." Such a wonderfull, glorious feeling of joy and happiness welled up in my heart that I couldn't contain it, and I jumped up from the chair and went running down to the river.
The water was so clear and clean and sparkling that it reminded me of the river of life, and it looked deep and full and reflected the blue of the sky.
I thought of the bluemountains and looked up.
The highest peaks were still hidden.
Then for just a moment the mist cleared, the sun shone through and I saw it!
The highest peak!
Oh how wondrously beautiful!
But the mist covered it again so quickly that I wasn't sure I had really seen it. Did I imagine it? "Oh if only I could see it again!" The words came as only a breath with no sound.
I waited and watched, but the mist stayed and I walked back up the path to the house, still looking and thinking, "I saw it! Or was it the sun reflecting on the clouds? Oh, it was so glorious! I wish I could see it again!"


124/125

27

I stood for a while on the steps of the patio gazing at the beautiful mist clouded peaks, but after a few minutes I finally gave up and went on into the house and over to the wall where the helper cabinet was. I hadn't examined things on that wall yet. The first thing I looked for was push buttons, and found them beside the helper cabinet. The first one I pushed caused a large panel to slide down into the floor and revealed a built-in computer component much like the one Ries had in his shop but more simple and compact.
I forgot all the other buttons and sat down to the keyboard. I found the on/off switch and flipped it on. The screen lit up, with printed and illustrated instructions on what to do next.
Soon I was deep into my first lesson on how to use a computer. It was leading me step by step, clearly and simplyb teaching me. As I grew more and more confident, my fingers typed faster and faster. It was so interesting, and I was enjoying it so much that I forgot everything else and time flew by. I was learning that this computer could teach me anything I wanted to know and finally I was familiar enough with it to choose and key in any lesson program on any subject.
I paused, leaned back in the chair and thought, "What subject will I choose first? Art? Philosophy? Geography? History? ...?"
I noticed the helper cabinet beside the computer desk. "That's it! The first thing I need to learn is the code system for the helpers." I keyed in that lesson program. Soon I could see that Ries was right when he said it would be easier to learn than I thought, but after a while I was working more andmore slowly and realizfed I was very tired. I leaned back in the chair and looked around.
I could hardly believe my eyes! It was late afternoon and the whole world was aglow with that special golden light of the lowering sun. I had been so absorbed in my work that hours had passed in what seemed only a little while. And I was very hungry.
I thought for a few seconds, going over in my mind a few of the touch codes I had learned, then touch coded my bracelet for fresh coffee and a snack of fresh fruit and tiny sandwiches.
The helper cabinet opened, a helper slid out and glided quietly over to the kitchenette.
I stood and sstretched and yawned, then walked lazily out onto the patio and stretched myself out on one of the patio chair-lounges and relaxed while I waited for the coffee and snack. I closed my eyes and mentally reviewed all the codes I had learned from the computer.
In only a few short minutes, the helper was placing a tray on a table beside me.
As I sipped the coffee and ate, I felt less tired.
The sun was sinking lower. The golden glow of it's light intensified and transformed the whole world into a reflection of it's orange-red warmth. A gentle breeze stirred againsy my face.
I thought of the blue mountains. Had I really seen their highest peaks? I looked. They were still shrouded in their soft covering of misty clouds. I kept thinking of them and remembering how they had looked and how the highest pead shimmered. Soon I was composing a little poem about it in my mind:
I saw that mountain once,
I think I saw it!
It happened so fast
I'm not always sure.'
It was so glorious,
So heavenly,
So high up in the sky!
It was so glittering
And shell-pink and white,
And so high in the sky
So splendidly shimmery,
But I think I did
See the higest peak!...
The little poem thrilled me/ it expressed my feelings so exactly that I wanted to remember it. I quickly left my chair and ran in to the computer, rememberinghow I had learned earlier to store my own personal programs into it. "This will be my first little bit," I thought as I sat down to the keyboard.
I was so excited that the first thing I did was make an error, but the computer immediately inmormed me of the mistake and showed me how to correct it, and in only a minute or so I had the little poem safely stored in the computer and a printed copy of it in my hand.
I went into the bathroom and stayed a long time. I had a leisurely bath, floated lazily around in the bath pool, explored all the drawers of the dressing table, played with arranging my hair again, and discovered another push button that brought up a large closed filled with delightful apparel.
By the time I left the bathroom and walked back out to the patio, it was almost completely cark. The sky was filled with little points of light; some glittered and twinkled, and some shone steady and still; some were faint and far away and some were bright and seemed much closer.
"Stardust..." I thought, everything is made of stardust..." The soft breeze picked up and a puff of wind stirred the tree tops along the riverside.
I thought I could faintly hear the sound of ocean waves from across the strip of forest toward Kelly's home, and wondered if the surf was rising, and thought of Kelly and her family and her special pot. I thought of how scary it had felt when I had stepped around the curve of the rock-tunnel path and had found myself standing on the high rock ledge above the ocean. I thought of how pleasant the evening had been at Kelly's fireside and of the walk home through the misty forest and how Ries had run off home across the fields when we were nearing my house. I wondered what Ries was doing. I imagined him at his computer working on the helper modification project. I thought about how it would make the code bracelets obsolete, but he helpers...wouldn't the helpers still have to use the bracelets, since they couldn't think? I would ask Ries about that.
I walked down my path and turned onto the river path toward the footbridge. I continued walking on through the starlit night thinking and thinking.
When I came to the footbridge, I went on across it, turned left on the other side onto the trail that went up to the waterfall and the beginning of the river. I walked on along that trail until I was opposite from my house across the river, thn I stopped and stood a few minutes looking at it. It looked small, dark and silent as if it was patiently waiating for me to return. I smiled and code touched my bracelet for a fire in the fireplace then watached the house slowly come to life as the firelight began to flicker and light it's interior with a warm glow, then I stood there and admired it a minute before I turned and walked briskly back down the pat, across the bridge, and home again, mentally reciting all the codes I had learned as I walked.
I was ready for my cozy bed, my television with it's real-life pictures and sounds, my snack, and deep sleep.


* * * * * * *


130/131


28


"I'm still here!"
I opened my eyes. The sun was shining brightly. I looked to the blue mountains to reassue myself. "Yes! There's my mountainsS; I'm still here!
Past memories from the sense conscious world had woven themselves in and ou of my sleep like dreams, but as soon as I saw the blue mountains, they faded back into the past, leaving only bitrs and pieces half remembered, then forgotten as a strange sound brought me fully awake.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
"Screeeeech!"
The sound was coming from toward the river.
"What in the world?! I thought, as I got up and looked out across the patio.
A virtual beehive of activity greeted my eyes. There were all sorts of machines and tools and building supplies, and a whole crew of helpers were busily working down by the river a little over to the right of my house! "What in the world!" This time I said it out loud, under my breath, "what are they doing?" I absent-mindedly touch coded for coffee and went over to the chairs and sat down.
Soon the coffee came and I sat there sipping and watching and wondering.
"Hi! Ries' voice startled me, and I jumped and turned toward him all in one move. He had cut across the fields and was now approaching the patio.
"Surprise, surprise!" He said, as he swung over the patio's low wall. I jumped up from my chair and gesturing toward the hustle and bustle at the river, I exclaimed, Ries! What in the world are they doing?"
He saw my pot of coffee and said, "just a minute, let me get a cup," and went on into the kitchenette.
I sat bak down, refilled my own cup, and still had the coffeepot in my hand as he reappeared. He put his cup on the table and I poured his coffee as he pulled up a chair and sat down.
"Oh wait!" He said, and got back up and went in to my computer. It hummed and whirred a minute then was quiet again. He came back out with several papers in his hand. "Here," he said, and handed the papers to me, "now you can see what they're doing...you're going to like this." He picked up his coffee as I took the papers and looked.
The first few papers were blueprints; I studied each one, but couldn't tell what they were. I couldn't even tell which way was top and which was bottom; I turned them every which way, but to me they still looked the same. I was as puzzled as ever until I came to the last page. It was a beautiful, life-like, full color picture of the river and grounds in front of my house, only in the pictured, there was a large, naturally aged, wooden deck with low railings around it, on the bank of the river where all the activity was now taking place, and over to the right of it a low, wide footbridge extended from the deck on across the river. On the other side, a trail went out from the bridge and on through the forest gently curving back up in the direction that would join it to Kelly's trail.
The deck was low and snuggled in on the bank among the trees and low shrubs in such a way that it looked as if it had grown up from the ground, and it's waterside edge extended out about two feet over the water. The wood of both the deck and the bridge was strong and heavy and looked old and mossy and weathered as if it had been there forever.
I looked up from the picture at Ries. Amazement and wonderment and joy must have been shining from my face. He smiled happily and said, "I knew you would like it!"
"But I can't think of how to tell you how happy I am" I said, "this is exactly the way I would build it, only I wouldn't know how to make the blueprints. I had already thought of how nice it would be to have my own footbridge closer to the house, and the deck is like frosting on the cake!"
He laughed, "well, it wont be long before you can dip your fingers into that frosting! It should be finished by sundown, and if you want to, we'll have supper out there on the deck and watch the stars come out."
"Oh yes! I exclaimed, "let's have those little sandwiches and fresh fruits that's all peeled and cut and..."
"And sesame crackers and cheeses and pickles and spicy cucumber slices!" he added.
"And coffee and chocolate devils food cake!" We finished in unison, laughing and pointing at each other. "Now that's settled!" He announced, and folded his arms in mock pomposity across his chest. Then: "Have you finished exploring all the 'ins and outs' oj your little house yet?"
"No," I answered, "I got so involved with the computer that I never got to the rest of the pushbuttons and things on that wall, and I slept late this morning: in fact, I haven't been up lon. I came straight from the bed out here when heard the noise."
We both looked toward the river where the building project was in full swing and Ries said, "Well, I see things are going smoothly and as planned. I worked on my pet helper project all day yesterday; now I need to do some thinking about it, and since I think better walking I'm going to walk to town and have lunch, then I'll walk from there across to the ocean, and back along the beach to Otto and Kelly's, then back here. By the time I get back, it will probably be almost sundown and time for our supper."
We both stood up and I said, "Oh! Before you go, I wanted to ask you...since the helpers can't think, won't they still have to use the code bracelets?"
"Oh, but they don't literally use them now," he answered, "everything goes through the main computer center. When we touch code the bracelets, we're not activating the helpers directly; the code goes into the central computer and it activates the helper. When the helpers are using the code bracelet, it is acturally the central computer that activates them to do so. Now when this project is successfull completed, our thought patterns will be the codes; the computer center will receive and decipher them and relay them on to the helpers." He stopped and thought a minute. Then: "Uh, oh! You look puzzled! I think this is so complicated that I need help. I better let the computer itself teach you. When you finish with your house exploring, if you will scan the lesson programs on your computer, you'll find one that is perfect for you and it will teach you clearly and simply with diagrams and illustrations."
I nodded and smiled. "I think you're right and I'm ready and eager to start."
He laughed and said, "okay then, see you later!" And went striding off toward the river path.
I stood there for a few minutes more watching the helpers work and watching Ries striding briskly along the trail. He soon disappeared among the riverside trees and I went inside to the computer wall, carrying my coffee along with me, and started checking out the other push buttons beside the helper cabinet.
I began systematically pushing buttons one by one, starting with number two, since I already knew that number one opened and closed the computer component.
Number two revealed more desks and all kinds of office equipment and supplies. Number Three filled the room with the most beautiful, heavenly music ever known to earth. Number four opened and closed the draperies. Number five converted the bed into a beautiful, dark green sofa with pillows of the same pale green as the draperies. Number six filled the house with a heavy, wet fog so thick that you couldn't see through it, then the glowing warm red light and summer breeze like the one that dried me in the bathroom came on, and in a couple of minutes the fog was gone and the whole house and everything in it, including me, was fresh and sparkly clothesline clean.
Number seven operated a small elevator down into the basement under the house where all the under-floor components and mechanical apparatus were neatly, compactly, and precisely arranged.
When I pushed number eithe, a large, semi-circular component rose up from the floor just behind the fireplace chairs. It was a whole, complete, compact center for doing art work! It converted the whole house into a perfect art studio!
I was stunned.
I sat down on the sofa and looked at it. Painting had always been the joy of my life and I had always wanted something like this. Always before, in the physical world of sense consciousness, I'd had to work whenever and wherever I could find a spot and enough time amid the comings and goings and doings of all the other people in my life; supplies had always been limited and interruptions constant. Now here I sat on my very own green sofa in my very own studio house where no one lived but me. I could work to my heart's content with no intrusions, yet I was not alone in the world; I had friends.
Tears filled my eyes and spilled over, running down my cheeks; I had to wipe them away so that I could see.
There was a fully automatic and adjustable easel to the left side of the arc and another one on the right side. In the center the desk top slanted slightly for table top work. There were shelves and drawers and cabinets filled with all kinds of supplies: papers, stretached canvases, oils, acrylics, watercolors, pencils, pens, charcoal, kneaded erasers, brushes, mixing media, mats, frames, and many other items of that nature. There were brush hoders, brush cleaners, and hand cleaners. There was an automatically adjustable chairstool and when the component had risen from the floor, an automatically adjusted skylight had opened in the ceiling above it.
I got up from the sofa, went to the pushbuttons and closed all the draperies, leaving only the skylight, then went over to the component, chose a canvas, placed it on the left easel, went back to the sofa, sat down, leaned back and forgot all the whole world. There was only the blank canvas and me. Soon the canvas, in my mind, was not blank; I was seeing what I would paint.
And then I was painting.
I forgot I had not eaten, I forgot I had not dressed.
I forgot the helpers building the deck and bridge, I forgot Ries and Kelly...I forgot everything else....

_________________ 140/141

29

I worked and worked, sometimes stepping back and back from the easel to get an overall view, sometime stepping back so absentmindedly that my legs bumped into the sofa. Sometime I would sit a minute looking, see something to do I had not seen before and jump up and back to work.
Time and time went by, but time didn't exist. Once I lay back on the sofa to stuey the painting and fell asleep, then in only a few minute woke again knowing the solution to the problem I had been studying and worked again and worked and worked.
Finally I was so tired that I started smearing paint, mixing wrong colors, and stumbling when I stepped back from the canvas to get a better loo. I knew I had to stop for a while and rest.
I stumbled out onto the patio and fell onto a lounge, stretched out and was sound asleep in seconds, not even noticing that it was already late afternoon and that the helpers were almost finished with the deck and the bridge and were getting ready to leave.
When I woke up, the sun was setting and Ries was sitting relaxed on a chair beside me, looking drowsily off toward the blue mountains.
I sat up. "Ries..." My voice was low and it almost broke. "Ries, I found it. I found my art studio!"
He looked at me. His voice was tender. "I thought so. When I saw the draperies were closed, I was sure you had found it; you've been working all day, haven't you?"
I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak without tears.
"Can I, uh...can I see what you've done?" He was hesitant, but eager.
I nodded again and looked off toward the mountains. He got up, went over to the draperies, parted them, and went in. I stayed on my chair and waited. It seemed he was gone a long time. When he finally came back out, he pulled his chair over to face mine, sat down, took both my hands in his and looked into my eyes. His eyes were moist. "Mem..." his voice broke. "Mem..." he was almost whispering. "You saw them...you saw the peaks of the blue mountains. You saw the highest peak.. You painted them...You painted the highest peak! When did you see them?"
"I don't know..."
I could hardly speak. I think it was yesterday...I..."
Then I remembered I had the little poem in my pocket. I took it out and handed it to him.
He looked at it and read aloud:
"I saw that mountain once; I think I saw it!
It happened so fast, I'm not always sure.
It was so glorious, so heavenly,
So high up in the sky, so glitteringly
shell-pink and white, so high in the sky,
so splendidly shimmery, but I think I did
see that mountain!"
When he finished, he turned a long look toward the mountains, then back to me and spoke:
"You did, Mem. Oh Mem...you did see them! I saw them once and I felt just the same as you did, and I have longed to see them again and now you have shown them to me. Your painting! Now everyone can see them! Oh how you must have worked, to do that much in one day!"
"But Ries...I..Hasn't everyone seen them? Doesn't the mists ever leave them?"
"No, it's so rare...so rare," he answeed, "hardly anyone has seen them, and no one has ever painted them. Everyone loves the mountains and everyone is always looking and hoping for a glimpse of their peaks..." His voice trailed off and he got up and went inside again.
I waited again. I couldn't go. I knew I would want to start working again and I knew I would ruin the painting if I didn't wait until I was fully rested and fresh again.
When he came back out, he was full of joy and exuberance. "I can hardly wait for Kelly,Otto, Cerise, and Kleff and everyone else to see it!" He exclaimed.
His words brought joy bubbling up in my heart.
"And it seems as if it just painted it's self!" I said, and looked down toward the river.
"Oh! The deck! The bridge! It's finished!!! The helpers are gone. It looks exactly like the picture you showed me! Let's go down and see it and walk across the bridge and look back at my studio house."
"Yes, and rest, eat, talk, and watch the stars come out," he answered.
As we started down the path, I touch coded my bracelet and looked back to the house. The draperies swung open and I could see the art component disappearing into the floor. It would be out of sight. I would rest tonight and start fresh again tomorrow.

...


144/145

30
The deck was like a large, open, outdoor room. The floor looked like it was made of wide, heavy old timbers, but it felt clean, soft, and freshly laundered to my bare feet, just like all the other floors and paths. There were cushioned chairs, lounges, ottomans, stools and little tables of various sizes, and over to one side, there was a bin holding a stack of pillows and cushions of all sizes and shapes, and a smaller stack of very lightweight quilts of different sizes.
The footbridge was about six feet wide and made of the same material as the deck. We walked all around on the deck looking at everything, then walked across the bridge and a little way up the path so we could look back at the bridge, the deck, and my studio house. We were both very pleased; everything looked as if it had been there forever.
As we stood there admiring everything, we saw two helpers coming out of the house with our supper. "Time to eat!" Our voices rang out in unison; we laughed about that and I said, "That's twice today we said the same thing together...we must be the same person!"
"Yes we must be!" Ries said, and still laughing we went back across the bridge to the deck. The helpers put the food on one of the taables and we sat down and started picking and choosing things and eating. I watched the helpers as they glided quietly back toward the house and thought of something. "Ries?" I touched his arm. "Does everyone have helpers and do they do everything everywhere?"
"Yes, everyone has them, but they don't do everything. They could and would do everything, but most people like to work. The good thing about the helpers is that they leave people free to experiment, be innovative, and creative in their work if they choose. Or if they like to they can do the same old thing in the same old way." He chuckled. "Like my little fields, for example, I do them the old way because I enjoy the work of preparing the soil, planting and tending the fields, but I don't enjoy harvesting the crops and preparing them for the table, so I use helpers for that." He laughed and said, It's a good thing the world doesn't depend on my 'farming' for food!" Then he went on seriously: "No , my fields and little 'farm' and my carpentry is just for pleasure and rest from my real work. My real work is thinking, creating and inventing. In fact, everyone's real work is thinking, creating, and inventing. I visualize electronics, mechanics and carpentry, you visualize paintings and enjoy the work of painting them yourself..."
"Oh! I enterrupted, "and Kelly visualizes pottery and saculpture and she enjoys making...what does Otto do?"
"Otto does fishing, boating, ocean craft and marine biology, Cerise is already doing creative writing; she particularly enjoys writing little poems and verses, and little Kleff is music. He can already play any instrument he can hold and manipulate. He was born full of music...even his little baby cries sounded musical! That's why they named him Kleff, but with variant spelling, of course."
I was delighted and laughed with glee. Ries laughed with me and went on: "some people like nothing more than games, entertainment and travel. Their work is the hardest work of all...what could be more tiring and physically strenuous than constantly playing and traveling!? But not to the people who love it, and they're always inventing new games, entertainments, and vacation resorts, then everyone else uses them for occasional temporary diversions, allowing themselves a time out from their usual work.
I thought of the television balloon tour I had enjoyed so much. "And they use helpers to make films and we enjoy them on television!"
"That's right...look! He pointed to the sky above my house. "There's the first star! Let's move to the lounges and watch the sky and see how many stars we can count as they appear until there's too many to count." We each chose a lounge, a pillow, and a quilt then placed them side by side and snuggled down to watch the sky.
Because of trees, we didn't have a total view of all the sky around us, but there was enough that we could count stars. "
We had counted only up to twelve before we started talking about them and about planets, comets, meteorites, galaxies, nebulae, black holes, space and time, and forgot all about counting stars.
"How far do you think space and universes go?" I asked.
"It never stops," he answered, "it has no beginning and no end. It's parts are forever changing, moving, acting and reacting, forming and re-forming, but it's whole is existence and existence has no beginning and no ending."
"You mean if I were to start moving now and move out from here in a straight line and never stop, that I would never come to an end of things?"
"You couldn't. Suppose you could. When you got to the end of things, what would you see ahead? No things. You keep moving on straight ahead in your straight line; it looks to you like empty space but actually space is not empty. Even if it could be empty and contain nothing, it still wouldn't be empty, it would be full of nothing, and even nothing is something. Suppose you continued straight on and on through that nothing...what then? If the nothing ended, you would be moving on through something again. See? There's no beginning and no end! Nothing and something is everything. Nothing is wat something moves around in and wherever you are is the center of everything, because no which way you go there's no end. Existence hs no beginning and no end!"
Slowly, quietly, and thoughtfully, I repeated his last words: "Existence has no beginning and no end." Then: "I am that, I am...I am." Then I grew quiet, still thinking.
"Mem?" Ries touched my arm. "I'm glad you saw the mountain peaks and the highest one. I'm glad you're painting them..."
"I'm glad too, Ries," I murmured. I was almost asleep. "Tomorrow I can work on the painting again. I can...finish it...it will be done...tomorrow..." I drifted off. I was fast asleep.


...

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A mockingbird suddenly burst into loud, ecstatic song from a branch of a tree beside the deck and woke me. He went on and on from song to song, and soon other birds awoke joined in with their own songs and chatter, until it seemed the whole world was alive with their music.
I opened my eyes. The stars were gone and the sky was showing the first pale light of dawn. I had slept the night through, deeply and restfully.
I sat up and looked sleepily around. Ries was gone. His quilt and pillow was still crumpled and tumbled on his lounge. The remains of our supper was still on the table. I looked all around and didn't see or hear him anywhere and thought he must've awakened early and gone home. I lay back down, snuggled into the covers, listened to the birds, looked up through the trees and appreciated the new outdoor living room deck, then remembered my painting, threw back the cover, got up and went up to the house, coding my bracelet as I walked.
I went straight through to the bathroom and soon was splashing in the bathpool, feeling wonderful and thinking, "existence has no beginning and no end."
I wasted no time. In a matter of minutes I was sitting on my green sofa, coffee in hand and breakfast at my side, draperies closed, studio component in place, and studying the painting under the early morning light from the skylight above.
At first I looked at the painting with new eyes and in astonishment. I could hardly believe I had painted it.
No wonder Ries was touched and so moved by it," I thought, then I began to see things that ' still needed to be done.
Soon I was unaware of the whole world again and deeply involved in working on the painting. It wouldn't be finished until every single detail was perfect. When I could search and search and not find anything else to do to it, and when I could do that every day for several days or weeks and still not find anything else to do to it, then I would know it was finished.
But this painting was not like any other painting I had ever done. It was almost as if it was painting itself, using me for a tool. In only a few short hours, I knew it was finished. Always before, I'd had to work for weeks...working, looking, studying, changing, wiping off paint, starting over, working more, and then when I had finally done everything I could do, and the paintings were finished, they had always fallen far short of what I had envisioned in my mind.
But not this painting. From start to finish, the vision had flowed smoothly and perfectly from mind to canvas.
I spent the rest of the day looking at it and walking around the house and the patio, lying on the sofa looking at it, walking down to the river deck and back to the sofa again, looking and looking. It was perfect. I looked and walked and ate and smoked and drank coffee and tea and looked and walked and looked.
It was still perfect.
In the late afternoon, I was lying on the sofa half dozing and still looking. I thought of Ries' special garden and felt a need to see it again. "I will go," I thought, "and when I come back I might wee something I need to do to the painting that I haven't noticed yet." But I knew I hadn't missed anything. I knew it was perfect.
I jumped up from the sofa and walked quickly outside and down the path past the fig tree and on along the riverside trail toward Ries' special garden. I walked very fast all the way until I reached the place where the trail began to wind and curve around trees and shrubs and flowers and boulders, then stopped for a minute before walking slowly on into the ever increasing beauty of the garden.
As I walked, a subtle sound of old familiar music began to emanate from all around me. It was so gentle and sweet, and so much a part of blossoms and trilling waters and glowing green living things that I had to really listen to hear it. Sweet and low, a singing began to weave itself into the music. It was so much a part of the music that I could barely discern it, yet I recognized some of it's old words:
"I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the
Roses...
And the voice I hear
Falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses...
... And he walks with me
And he talks with me
And he tells me I am his own..."
Soon, as I slowly walked on, the music faded into the sound of breezes playing through tall, waving pine boughs high above my head with another music of it's own.
I came to a small narrow, pebbly, rocky stream of water flowing swiftly and crystal clear. Green grasses and flowers draped and dipped into it along it's bank.
I knelt down and looked into the water. There was a beautiful sculptured woman lying asleep on the bed of the stream! Her long, silky hair was undulating sensually, flowing out and away from her head with the swift flow of the water. Her face was just below the surface. She looked blissful and serene, her lips barely curved into a little smile of...what? I couldn't tell. I kept moving from adjective to adjective thinking one would describe that little smile, then thinking no,...not exactly...then move on to another. I stared at her for a long time before I finally stood and continued on my way through the garden.
It's impossible to describe that garden. It was so indescribable that I soon realized what Kelly had meant when she'd said, "It's exactly the right size; when I'm walking through it, I think if it was more I couldn't bear it, and if was less I would starve for more!"
Just as I began to feel overwhelmed it began to be less and less special as Ries had said it would, and I found myself coming out of it at a different place from where I had entered.
I emerged into the face of the sunset. The whole western sky was glowing read and bright and overhead it's glow lit up and glittered the edges of puffy clouds. It reminded me of Kelly's ocean home and how the ocean and sky had looked when I had first seen it from her high rock ledge patio. I wanted to see her, and thought, "soon I will go up there again."
I looked across the fields and meadows to my studio house and to the sunset across the wide fields and forests behind it and smiled.
"But first things first!" I thought. I wanted to see the painting. Would it still be perfect?
I turned and walked rapidly and eagerly back across the fields toward home.
As I came nearer to my house, I could see people moving around on the river deck and the footbridge. My steps slowed. "People!" I thought, "Who are they? What are they doing?"
I walked on, hesitantly and shyly, wondering what to expect, then my steps quickened and I hurried on faster and more eagerly than ever. It was Ries, Kelly, Otto, Cerise, and Kleff on the deck. They saw me coming and waved cheerily. I waved back and hurried on.

...

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Cerise and Kleff ran happily up and met me as I was passingmy house, and greeted me with bear hugs and excited chatter about the new river deck and bridge and trail. Each of them took one of my hands and we clattered and chattered on down to the rier deck to join the others, and as we approached them, Kelly ran out and we gave each other happy greetings and hugs.
"Ries brought us to see the new river deck and bridge and he said there is something else...a surprise that he wants us to see...but he said we had to wait 'til you were here...did you go to the special garden?...We thought that's where you were?!" She turned to Ries, "She's here! Can we see the surprise now?"
In her enthusiasm, she had barely given me a chance to respond, and laughing with delight, I hugged her again and greeted Otto warmly and said to Ries:
"This is wonderful! I'm glad you brought them. This is a happy surprise for me too. Let's all go up to the house; I'm already wanting to see the 'you know what' again too! I've been to your special garden and oh, Ries, I saw the beautiful sculptured woman sleeping on the bed of the little stream!"
Otto looked startled and exclaimed, "You did!? I was up there earlier today and I saw it too...it's unusual for two people to follow the same path and see the same things the same day! Did you hear the music, too?"
"Yes! Did you hear the old song, 'in the garden'?"
"Yes," he answered," then we went on talking animatedly and comparing our almost identical experience of the garden while the others listened with amazement. Except for Ries. He didn't look amazed.
He looked happy and knowing. As Otto and I finished our comparisons, he spoke,
"It is rare," he said, "ven when people go in together they usually come out remembering it differently, but it does happen." He smiled his little smile. "It is rare and unusual and beautiful," he said, "but now let's all go up to the house and see something else that's rare and unusual and beautiful!"
I felt a little breathless and shy as we trooped up the path and reached the patio. The draperies were still closed, and as I stepped up onto the patio, I touched my bracelet to open them.
Ries took charge and herded everyone on into the house and over to the green sofa, telling them to keep their eyes only on the sofa and to close them when they sat down and not to open them untill he said "open."
He put them all in a row, side by side on the sofa, sat me down on one arm of it, then went and perched on the other arm himself.
When everyone was settled and still, he said, "Open!"
And there it was. The painting.
Still perfect.
Silence.
Not a word, not a sound, not a movement.
Total silence. Not even the sound of breathing.
Then almost as one, we turned around and looked out the open window wall toward the blue mountains outlined against the almost night sky, then back to the painting again.
Still no one spoke or moved. Minutes went by.
Then music.
Music so soft and sweet and incredible that it brought tears to my eyes. I looked at little Kleff. He had taken a small harmonica from his pocket and was playing, hes eyes still on the painting.
The music softly trilled and sang and bubbled and rose and fell and sparkled and whispered 'til finally it faded...and faded...back into the painting itself, it seemed.
He leaned over and looked across to me, smiling happily and brightly, and said, "you painted my music! I hear that music all the time, and now I can see it and I know where it comes from!" Then he said, "I want to go up there! I want to go up to the top of the highest mountain!"
"Me too! Me too!" Cerise chimed in. "I want to go up there too!"
"And someday we will," Otto's voice was deep and throaty. "We'll all go, won't we Kelly?"
Kelly nodded, and wiping tears from her eyes, she hugged first little Kleff beside her, then got up and hugged each of us in turn, and without speaking, she walked out onto the patio.
Everyone else stood up and milled around for a few minutes, talking about the painting, going up close to it and looking, then stepping back and looking.
Cerise wanted to know how did I paint it and I told her I didn't know but I thought it just painted itself and used me for a brush. She giggled with delight and said,
"Oh I know, I know! It's like my stories and poems! They write themselves and use me for a pencil!"
"Yes! That's it!" I said, and we hugged each other in understanding.
"See?" She said, and took a little notebook and a pencil from her pocket. "I carry this with me all the time, everywhere I go!" She looked at the painting and a thoughtful look came over her face. She forgot all about me as she went over to the sofa and curled up in one of it's corners, pencil and notebook in hand, still studying the painting.
Little Kleff was playing around the room now, and Ries and Otto was still standing in front of the painting, talking about the highest peak. "Someday I'll make it to the top," Otto was saying, "I thought I had found the way up then, but I was only a little more than halfway before I had to retreat and come back down."
I wanted to ask him about the mountains, but before I could speak to him, Kelly came back in from the patio and stood in front of the painting and something about the way she looked made me forget what Otto had said.
"Mem," she said, "do you know what's going to happen?"
I stared at her in puzzlement. She looked and sounded so ...strange.
"But Kelly...what's wrong?"
Ries and Otto forgot their conversation.
"Yes, Kelly," Otto asked, what's wrong" What's bothering you?"
She looked at us. "Don't you see? The painting can't stay here. The only way we'll ever get to see it will be to go to wherever it is and we'll never be able to enjoy it in privacy again." She was almost in tears. "Oh Mem, I'm so sorry, Mem, you won't be able to keep the painting here!"



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I was shocked. "But Kelly! Why do you say that? Why can't I keep the painting here!?"
Ries and Otto was shocked too.
"Yes, Kelly, why? What are you talking about? Why can't Mem keep the painting here?" Ries asked.
Kelly looked at Ries. "Think Ries.!" She said, "in your excitement you're not thinking.! What was almost the first thing you thought of after you first saw the painting?"
Ries looked puzzled. "I don't know..." He thought a second, then: "I remember how happy I was and I could hardly wait for you and Otto and Cerise and Kleff and everyone else to see it and how everyone is always looking and hoping to see the mountain peaks and the highest one and now they can at least see them in Mem's painting! Everyone can see them...everyone..." His voice trailed off, then: "Oh! Kelly, now I know what you're talking about." He looked dismayed.
"I'm afraid I do too," said Otto. His voice was filled with resignation.
I knew too.
I was still staring at Kelly, thinking of all the people who lived in the little town and along the beach and scattered across the countryside and other little towns and in cities. They would all want to see the painting. I saw visions of a steady stream of people coming and going to and from my beloved little studio house.
I shuddered. I couldn't live that way. I had to be alone most of the time. I had to.
"I understand, Kelly." My voice was steady and quiet. I looked at Ries. "Have you told anyone else about it yet?"
"No," he answered, "I know what you are thinking. You don't want anyone else to know you did the painting. You're right. It's better for you if no one else knows where the painting came from."
Otto looked at Cerise and Kleff and said, "if we explain to the children they will understand too, and will never mention it to anyone."
"That's right," said Kelly, "and no one knows but us. When I was on the patio, I was thinking...Mem could keep it for a while...at least for a few months, couldn't she? That wouldn't be too selfish would it?"
"I don't thing it would be too selfish," Otto said.
"I don't either," Ries agreed, "although I still can hardly wait for everyone to see it! What a dilemma!" He laughed. "Me too!" I laughed with Ries, "I'm so happy about it that I want everyone to see it and enjoy it the way we do, and I'm eager to share it, but at the same time, I wish I could keep it to myself!"
"Maybe we can at least think of a way to keep it in Little Town," said Otto, "we could easily go there as often as we like." Then he looked crestfallen and said, "no...that wouldn't be good...the people of Little Town would feel the same way about streams of people as Memma.
And so would we. We love our town the way it is."
"Yes...that's true..." Ries was thinking. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I know! Blue Mountain Ocean Resort! It's the perfect place!"
"Yes! That is absolutely the perfect place," Otto agreed.
"And they love steams of people there! Kelly chimed in excitedly.
"And they alread have a small art museum," Otto added.
"But where is it?" I asked, catching their enthusiasm.
Ries touched my arm, "It's perfect, Mem," he said, "it's a seaside resort about ten miles up the empty stretch of beach from Otto and Kelly's place. It's called 'Blue Mountain Ocean Resort' because it's on a rise of un-forested land, and it's built so that everyone who lives or visits there has a constant, totally unobstructed view of both the ocean and the blue mountains. It's a marvelous place. It has many restaurants, theatres, inns, hotels, entertainments of all kinds, museums, and of course the art museum Otto mentioned. It's perfect!"
"I'm hungry!"
It was little Kleff. His musical voice rang out from where he was playing in front of the fireplace, and filled the room. He had chairs lined up in a row and was playing a train game.
Everyone looked in his direction and laughed and Kelly ran over, picked him up and hugged him laughingly and said, "and I'm hungry too, let's eat, everybody!"
"Yes! I'm hungry too!" Everyone else went laughingly over by the fireplace to join Kelly and Kleff.
We had been so busy looking at the painting and planning, that we had forgotten all about supper.
"What are going to have?" Otto asked.
"I know!" Kelly exclaimed, and she started tapping her code bracelet.
"Everyone will like this and it will be fast," she added.
I took the painting from the easel. "And let's store away the studio component." I handed the painting to Otto and took a lightweight portable easel from a compartment in the studio component.
"And have a fire in the fireplace, said Ries, tapping his own bracelet.
Otto and I took the painting and the easel over to the wall to left of the fireplace, and placed it so that it could be viewed from everywhere in the room, and veryone started choosing and placing chairs and little tables and arranging them just so to their own satisfaction, facing the fireplace and easel, laughing and chattering and bumping into each other.
When everyone was settled, Cerise stood up from her hair, went to the fireplace and turned facine us, a serious little smile on hter face. She had a small piece of paper in her hand.
Everyone applauded and cheered. She nodded her head slightly. The room grew quiet except for the crackle ot the fire behind her. She looked at the paper, then back to us, then back to the paper again, and started to read:
"Far away in the distance
Blue mountains touch the sky
Their misty tops invisible
Their feet in forests lie
If I look up to the mountains
Then someday I shall see
Their hightest heavenly glory
Will be revealed to me.
She looked at everyone and then at me, smiling shyly.
As we cheered and applauded againn, Kelly and I jumped up and hugged her, almost bumping into a helper as it glided to the hearth carrying a large tray loaded with all kinds of delicious snack foods.
Two more helpers glided over and placed trays on the hearth.
There were hot soups of several kinds, little crackers, breads, sandwiches, little sausages, cheeses, vegetaable salads, fruit salads, stuffed eggs, little cakes, coffee, tea, milk, and fruit juices.
Everyone ate with good appetite, watching the fire, looking at the painting and talking very little.
I thought about the blue mountains and wondered again if anyone lived up there on it's peak.

...

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"Otto?"
"Yes, Mema?" He had just finished eating and was putting his plate on the hearth and pouring himself more coffee.
"When you and Ries were talking about the mountains, you said you tried to climb the highest peak and you couldn't find the way?"
"That's right Mem," he answered, "I was only a little more than half way up before I had to come back down. I was lost for a while and couldn't find my way up or down."
Ries was also at the hearth now, getting coffee and putting down his plate. He chuckled. "I have a feeling you'll find the way up next time! You have Kelly and the children now. I know the four of you together can find the way!"
Kelly laughted and said, "We surely will. When the children are old enough we'll go all the way to the top. But right now, it's getting late for the children and I think we'd better take them home now Mem, and leave Ries to tell you about the mountains."
Kleff was crawling up onto her lap as she spoke; she laughed and cuddled him close in her arms. You're getting sleepy aren't you?" He nodded.
"I see what you mean, Kelly," I laughed. Then: "And look at you Cerise! You're almost lying down in your chair!"
Cerise smiled. She looked very sleepy. Otto laughed and said, "they're so tired and sleepy, I think we'd better use a mobilette instead of walking back home." He started tapping his bracelet. "It will be here in a few minutes," he added.
"Mobilette? What in the world is a mobilette?" I asked, puzzled again.
"You don't know?" Ries was surprised. "But I thought you had learned all of your helper code system!?"
"So did I, but I was so tired at the end of the lesson program...come to think of it, there were a few codes at the end that I didn't even do...I went out to the patio to rest and I completely forgot about them. I was thinking I had learned the whole system."
"Oh! Well then, come out to the patio and we'll show you. Then later you can go back to the computer and finish...come on everybody, let's show Mem her mobilette!" He was already on his way as he spoke and all the rest of us followed, pushing our chairs back and putting our dishes on the hearth as we went.
Ries tapped his bracelet. A section of the path in front of the steps raised a few inches then slid back and a very small, two-seated, four passenger, open-topped car rose up into view from it's underground storage space. It was a beautiful little thing. It's body was the color of sand and it's cushions a slightly darker eggshell color.
"You can drive it yourself or set it's computer on automatic," Ries was saying, "and it has an 'invisible' top which is automatically activated to open and close by weather conditions. It will always seem open to you, but you'll never get rained or snowed on unless you want to.
"It will go smoothly on all the trails, even the ones across the fields, and it has a small, perpetually powered solar capsule.
"It never needs maintenance of any kind. If it ever becomes likely that it will malfunction in any way, it's computer will notify Central Transportation; a new one will be delivered and the old one returned for recycling. But that almost never happens and you never have to do anything. Everything is done automatically from a transportation center.
"We hardly ever use them anyway," Kelly said, "we like walking as much as you do, Mem, but at times like this they are very handy. Of course some people love them and drive around constantly, running around all the time, here, there, and everywhere." She laughed. "Some people would even use it to drive from here down to your river deck!"
She thought of something else and laughed even harder. "Why, I know one person who never stores his at all! He keeps it right inside his house and when he goes, his car goes!" She broke into peals of laughter, infecting us all with her merriment. "And here comes ours, Kelly!" Otto laughed.
Theirs was just like mine, except it's color was pale blue. It glided up and stopped next to mine. They all piled in, still laughing and waving goodbyes as the little car turned and moved smoothly and silently away down the path, and on across the new bridge.
Ries and I watched then waved them them one last goodnight wave as they disappeared up the forest trail, then I turned and walked all around the little car, running my hand over it's smooth lines and curves. It's door was open and I got into the driver's seat. It fit me perfectly. I looked up and Ries. "First thing tomorrow, I can explore this whole countryside and see where everything is."
" Ries smiled, "But only after you finish the code system lesson program. It won't go anywhere or do anything without proper instructions...I'll go home now, and you can go to your computer and finish learning the code system, then tomorrow you can explore the countryside, ending up at my place at supper time. We can have supper on my patio, and I'll tell you all about the blue mountains."
I got out of the car, saying, "okay, but please, tell me one thing now, do people live up there in the mountains?"
"They sure do! In fact, they're scattered all over the place, up one side and down the other, but not up the highest pead, at least not as far as I know. I've heard stories about someone who lives at the top of the highest peak...I don't know...but have work to do now...I..."
He looked toward the river then back at me. His voice changed. It nearly broke as he said, "Mem...remember..."
Another pause.
Then:
"First things first!"
Something about his voice and the way he looked, caused my heart to flip over. My face ran hot. His eyes were speaking secrets to me.
I trembled.
I knew who he was!
I couldn't speak. I could only stare at him. Unbelieving. I was numb.
He understood. His went deep and his lips promised a smile. His voice was like a vow: "See you later, Mem..."
And he was gone. Across the lawn and toward the fields and meadows.
I stared after him long after he had disappeared into the night, but all I could see was the dark outlines of the blue mountains far off in the distance.

*******


35

The long hot rays of the late afternoon sun foud me sitting on the ledge of a huge rock, leaning back against a smaller one, high above the ocean, the little car parked and waiting nearby. I ws not far from the Blue Mountain Ocean Resort.
I gazed dreamily out across the wide, never ending ocean and watched it dash and break and spray itself against the rocky shore.
I had been in and out of the little car all day, driving and stopping and looking then driving and stopping again. I first drove the meandering trails through the wide fields behind my house to the forest beyond, then back to the left and found Little Town, looking at all it's strange little shops and stores. All the people were pleasant and friendly.
From Little Town, I drove across to the ocean where Otto's docks and boat yards and fish houses wee, then turned right along the oceanside, opposite from the direction back to Kelly's, then right again through the forest, up one trail and down another; stopping now and then at waterfalls, creeks and other beautiful sites, making a large circle around and finally ending at Blue Mountain Ocean Resort.
I walked around it's streets until I found the art museum. I looked at everything in the small museum while discretely eating a sandwich I'd brought from home, then I found a water fountain, had a long, cool drink and walked around some more.
"Ries is right," I thought, "this is a wonderful, lovely place, and it's the perfect place for my perfect painting."
Ries...all night and all day he had been a golden thead weaving in and out of my mind.
The sun was dropping lower and lower. Son it's sunset rainbows would be playing across the face of the ocean.
I went to the little car, got in, closed the door and sat looking at it's little computerized map screen, finding ways that would lead me back to the trail across the fields behind my house. I would leave the mobilette at home and walk along the riverside path and thrugh Ries' special garden.
All the way home and all the way along the riverside path, I gave my mind over and thought of him. Why hadn't I recognized him before?
He was the one my budding years had ached and longed for, the one my young years had searched and hoped for, and the one my later years had wished for and dreamed of but despaired of ever finding, until finally, older years convinced me that he didn't exist.
I remembered a dream of a beautiful white wedding filled with spring flowers, how Ries held outhis hand to me as I came to him in veils and laces, walking on clouds of music...I remembered the words, "Those whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder..." Then I remembered him saying, "Don't you remember me Mem?" I thought of his smiles...his laughter, how he could be so lighthearted and serious and tender and strong and gentle and teasing and understanding; how he knew my mind and my heart, how from the beginning, I so totally trusted him and felt so at one with him.
The trail began it's now familiar winding and curving around trees and shrubs and flowers and bouldeers. I was entering into the special garden. It began to claim all my attention and thoughts. I knew the sun was sinking low, although I couldn't see it through the limbs and leaves of trees and flowers and plants. It's evening glow set the whole garden aflame and intensified the intoxicating aroma of myriads of sweet blossoms.
I seemed to be floating along through clouds. Clouds and clouds of white blossomed trees of many different kinds grew all around, some reaching across the path and touching each other above my head. Their petals fell all around in slow motion, like lazy little snowflakes scattering more clouds of white on the soft, green carpets of grass.
Through the white blossom clouds ahead of me someone smiling and waving.
It was Ries.
Coming to meet me...
"Those whom God hath joined..."

Now here we are,
You and I...
Our spirits caught
In the swirl of time.
MY head lies upon your breast,
Your hand is clasped in mine.
In blissful dreams,
Our eyes are closed;
We're swept along toghether,
Ethereal spirits caught in time
As dreams of love we gather.
Glimmering rainbows,
Glittering stars,
Are strewn along our trail;
Crystal and gold
And diamonds old,
And laces, creamy and pale.
Here we are,
You and I,
Caught in the swirl of time;
Your head lying upon my breast,
And my hand clasped in thine.

All through the night every precious dream of love we had ever had came true, and when the rising sun sent it's beam of light through the mists of morning, it found us curled up together as one form, sleeping like twin embryos among the blossoms on the soft green grass, warmly covered with blankets of fragrant petals.

*******

178/179


36
Midmorning found us on Ries' patio, laughing and talking and hungrily devouring a huge breakfast of crispy, spicy sausages, eggs, toasted bread, jams and coffee.
I took one last bite of juicy toast and jam, then leaned back and relaxed into my chair with my coffee, and reached for a cigarette. Holding the unlit cigarette in my my hand, I looked across at Ries still eating. "You know what I want to do today?" I asked.
He laughed mischievously. "Sure I do, but tell me anyway!"
I laughed too, and threw the cigarette at him. He caught it in midair as I went on:
"Now, I want to walk in to Little Tow. I want to see everything between here and there and spend more time there than I did yesterday."
"Good!" He said, "and do you know what I want to do?"
I gave him a sideways, comical leer and said, "sure I do, abut tell me anyway!" Then we both laughed hilariously. He threw the cigarette back at me, I ducked and it hit me on the shoulder and fell to the floor. I picked it up, leaned back in my chair again and still half giggling, I lit it.
He relaxed back into his own chair with his coffee and cigarette. "No," he said, "what I want to do is go to the computer and unravel the one last tangle of problems on my helper project. I think today is the day. I think today is breakthrough day!"
"That means we'll soon be using the new system!" I exclaimed, "how soon will it be?"
Right now I don't know exactly, but I would say in just a few weeks. I will have to program the whole plan into the computer, then modify one helper myself, then program it to modify the others here, then I'll program the whole package in to the main computer center and one of the helper centers can take over from there, sending out modified helpers and recalling and recycling all the old ones.
"in a few months everyone everywhere should already be accustomed to the new system and taking it as much for granted as they do the system we're using now."
He looked dreamily out toward the blue mountains. "I wonder what my next project will be..."
I was also looking to the mountains. "Maybe that's what it will be," I said.
"What? Maybe what's what it will be?" He looked at me.
I raised one arm and made a broad sweeping gesture across the view before us. "The mountain!" I laughed.
"Oh, so it's riddle speaking time!" He laughed too, then with a little serious note: "But I think I have an inkling of what you mean."
"Do you think someone really lives up there on top of the highest peak?" I asked.
He looked thoughtful. "I have a strong, deep feeling that someone does, but I don't believe that someone is anything like the stories I've heard.
"All kinds of stories are told, all the way from a vengeful old hermit, to a kindly old gentleman, to a person from outer space, to every other kind of person people can think up! Maybe he or she or it is all of those things or maybe none of them. Maybe there's no one there. It's a tantalizing mystery.
"People are always trying to find their way to the to, and some do, but they always come back telling their stories in such unfathomable symbolic phrasses that their explanations serve only to deepen the mystery. I think that someone or something is there...but it's so hard to find the way up!
"I don't think I could it right now. It's such a maze of trails and boulder walls and winding streams that almost everyone gets so confused and lost before they can reach the top that they just give up and come back down and it takes all their energy and concentration just to do that!
"It's a wonder Otto found the way up as far as he did. He's determined that some day he'll go all the way to the top. I believe he will. I think about it too. So do you."
"Yes. From the very beginning. And we will go up there. All the way. But it's not time yet..."
I thought a minute. "Why do you think we have such a strong urge toward the mountains?" I knew what his answer would be even as I asked.
"I don't know...could it be the mystery? And that from here they look so beautiful......I I don't know..."
I stood up, still looking toward the mountains. "I wonder...somehow I feel that whoever is there...whoever could live at such heights and in such beauty must be more special than we can imagine."
"I don't know..." He was standing close beside me now, his wrist draped over my shoulder. "I just don't know," he repeated, "but somehow I feel the same and I believe someday we'll know the truth."
I nodded. "Yes...and then we'll be free."
Then, with unspoken agreement, we turned and walked into the shop and he clapped my shoulder lightly as I smiled and went on toward the south door.
His computer equipment was already gliding up from it's underground storage.
At the door, I paused and looked back. He was standing by the computer watching me go. He smiled his smile and raised his hand. "See you later, Mem!" I smiled and waved then continued on along the path toward home, across the beautiful grounds surrounding Ries' shop and farm buildings, through the grasses and flowers of the meadows, past his little fields of growing corn, peas, tomatoes, and other vegetaables, beside little lakes and more meadows and little fields. then on through the last little meadow and up to the low stone wall which bordered the lawns around my house.
When I reached the wall, I climbed up on it. It was only about waist high to me and easy enough to get over, but as I hopped on over to the lawn on the other side, taking Ries' shortcut across the lawn to my patio, I was thinking, "my first landscaping projject will be a gate in the wall and a path for the shortcut."
The first thing that met my eyes as I entered the house was the painting. It was still on the portable easel beside the fireplace.
It was like an idealized mirror image of the view beyond the open window wall beside my bed. There were the same fields and meadows and little lakes, the clump of trees of Ries' place, the rocky pastureland behind it sloping gently on upwards to the forest, which marched on up to cover the foothills of the mountains, then the glorious blue mountains themselves, their peaks reaching up to the sky...only in the painting, the highest peak was like a crystal city,l glimmering and glowing in the revealing, fleeting light breaking through the mists and clouds and towering into infinity.
My breath caught in my throat. I had to turn and look toward the reality of the blue mountains themselves. Would I catch another glimpse of the "crystal city?" But no, the clouds and mists were still there. As always, I saw only the lower peaks made blue by distance and atmospheric haze.
I noticed the unmade bed. It was just as I had left it the morning before. I had forgotten to code my bracelet. Now I wanted the green sofa, and not wanting to wait, I touched the bracelet and let the bed slide down into storage just as it was and be replaced by the sofa. I curled into a corner of the sofa and looked at the painting for a long time.
At last, I jumped up from the sofa, ran into the bathroom, out of my clothes and into the bathpool.

* * * * * *


184/185

37

By the time the midday sun began to lower itself into it's long descent to the western horizon, I was striding joyfully along the riverside path, well on my way to Little Town, accompnied by the twittering, flitting and hopping around of birds, and the scurrying of furry little animals in the underbrush alongside the wide trail.
I breathed deeply and prayerfully, drinking in the pure, free air of the intoxicating aroma of the tangled, many-treed forest.
The river beside me whispered it's way along as it flowed smoothly and quietly, ever widening as it searched it's way to the ocean.
Several times, I came upon short footbridges lying across little creeks which were
burbling and gurgling their way into the river. At each bridge, I stopped for a minute, looking into the clear waters of the streams and at the ferns and other water plants along their edges.
Once a furry little long-eared rabbit hopped ut onto the edge of the trail just ahead of me. He sat up on his haunches, dangling his forepaws and sniffing at a tender green plant beside the trail. He looked at me as I passed. I spoke to him: "Hi little rabbit!"
He merely turned aside and started nibbling on the plant.
At one place the path was built up like a causeway across a shallow pond and most of the pond was covered by water lilies in full bloom. There were large, snow white ones with long layers of serrated petals and small buttercup shaped yellow ones, and large areas of unbelievably tiny lavender ones.
As I was crossing over the pond, three large, blue-gray cranes glided in over the tree tops, landed at it's edge and stood unmoving on their long, thin legs, looking for little fishes among the tall water grasses. As the river became still wider and almost twice as wide as it was at my house, I knew I was almost halfway to town and started looking ahead for a large houseboat along it's bank.
I had often thought of Myna, the woman Ries told me about who lived in the houseboat, and wondered about her, and as I was looking for her houseboat, I wondered if I would see her today. I hoped I would.
When I did see the houseboat through the trees ahead of me I was taken aback.
Ries had told me it was big, but that was all he'd said about it, and I wasn't prepared for this old weather-beaten, gray and haphazardly put together conglomeration of timbers.
In some places the boards were nailed diagonally, vertically, crossways, or just any old which-a-way over the original walls. I couldn't think why, because it didn't look there was any reason for them being there. The walls didn't look rotten or as if there could be holes that needed patching.
It looked strong and sturdy and seaworthy, while at the same time it looked old, weatherworn, and strangely put together.
Myna was on the rear deck hanging clothes on a line that was sstretched from the cabin to an upright beam by the rail at the end of the deck.
There were three old laundry tubs in a row on a bench up against the cabin. There were other things on the deck too, but I didn't have time to look at everything.
Myna looked old and weather-beaten too, until I was close enough to see her better. The trail ran along the edge of the river bank so close to the houseboat, that I could've easily stepped off the trail and onto the deck of the boat if I had been walking on that side, and when I came alongside of her, she turned from the garment she was hanging and looked right straight into my eyes and nodded politely. Her face was expressionless but serene, as if she was thinking of something or daydreaming.
I could tell that she didn't want me to stop or talk and it made me feel a little shy, so I smiled a little and said, "Hi," then dipped my head and walked on, looking down at the ground.
I couldn't think of anything else but her all the rest of the way to town.
She had the deepest, clearest, bluest eyes I had ever seen. They were the kind of blue you see when you pour blue food coloring into water to make easter egg dye. They wee so clear that you could see way down into them, yet not pale colored at all.
The reason she had looked old and weather worn until I was closer was because of her shape and the way she was dressed. She was fairly short and not slender at all, but neither was she fat.
She was wearing baggy old faded out pants with big pockets and a nondescript reddish colored old shirt with it's long sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and an old floppy-brimmed, soft brown leather looking hat.
Her hair must have been short, or all tucked up under the hat. I only had a glimpse of it, but I had the impression that it would be dark chestnut colored.
What was she thinking of? Where was her mind? Why was she doing laundry that way? Why did the houseboat look so dilapidated? What did it look like inside? What does she do? Is she friendly or withdrawn? Would I see her ahain on my way back home? Would she be ready to talk to me?
It seemed that she had paid no more attention to my passing by than the little rabbit had. She had barely noticed me at all. To her, I could've been a leaf falling from a tree.
The trail ahead of me began curving toward the left and the river was making a curve to the right. There was a house almost hidden by the trees and bushes, snuggled in on the vee shaped piece of land between the path and the river.
Soon I passed another house, then another and another, first on one side of the trail then on the other.
I was coming in to Little Town already, and it seemed like almost no time at all since I had passed Myna's houseboat.
Now there were sidewalks and the houses were closer together.
I passed a small garden supply store with it's own greenhouse and plant nursery, then a fish market, then a barbershop in the side of a building whose front faced the main square of town.
There was a small park filled with trees, shrubs, and flowers in the center of the square, with the inevitable water fountain in the middle of it, and park benches scattered all around.
The main street with it's sidewalks and buildings ran all the way around the square. It was a perfect carbon copy on any old small town anywhere.
When I passed the barbershop, and went on around the corner, I saw that the building's main business was a "five-and-ten-cent- store." I went inside.
It was like a historical relic from the past. There was a long candy counter facing the double entrance doors, it's top holding a row of tilted glass bins filled with all different kinds of candy. Each bin could be opened at the back. Under the candy bins the counter had doors which opened into storage spaces for more candy.
The rest of the store was filled with other long counters whose tops were divided into shallow box-like sections holding neat displays of every kind of small, inexpensive items that any household could ever need: needles, threads, thimbles, ribbons, laces, baby powder, diapers, books, stationery, cups, plates, forks, lipsticks, nail polish, combs, mirrors, brushers, soatps pins, handkerchiefs, socks, slippers, towels, sheets, panties, shirts, ties, nails, pliers, hammers, ropes, cords, tapes,....the list would be endless.
I walked slowly up and down and back and forth between the counters looking at everything.
Then I went back out onto the sidewak and strolled along, looking inot the showcase windows of a shoe store, a dress shop, a small appliance store, and a hand craft shop.
I passed a beauty salon, a bank, a laundry, and a furniture store.
I soon realized that the whole town was a historical relic from the past! I was thrilled with it, and when I came to something I had heard of before called a "hole-in-the-wall," I stopped. The smell was making my mouth water and my stomach groan with hunger.
It was a wide ledged, window-like opening into the wall of a building with a tiny room inside. It had just enough space to hold one person, a cooking grill,l a coffee maker, soft drinks, and supplies needed for preparing hotdogs and hamburgers. That's all.
Just as I started to step up to the window and ask for a hotdog and a cup of coffee, I realized I didn't have any money!
Not being able to get the hotdog and coffee made me want it more than ever.
I went across the sstreet to the park and sat down on a bench near the fountain. From where I sat, I could still see the "hole-in-the-wall." A man walked up to it's window, stood there a minute or two laughing and talking with the man inside, then came on across the street toward the parak eating a drippey, juicy hotdog and licking his fingers. My mouth watered.
I was thinking hard. Trying to remember something I had seen about money when I was scanning my computer.
I sat there toying with my code bracelet, running my fingers over it's little squares. I just couldn't remember.
Then it hit me. "Wait a minute!" thought, "I can find out!"
I had suddenly remembered that the last square to the right on the bracelet was a communicator square...a telephone. I could code a call in to the computer and get verbal information about money. I'd had no occasion to use the communicator square before, and had momentarily forgotten all about it.
In my mind, I ran through the code system lessons to refresh my memory, then started tapping my bracelet.
Everyone has money. Everyone has their own personal bank account into which monthly deposits are made systematically and automatically from the main computer center. It is not large amounts, but enough for simple and comfortable living. As Ries said, almost everyone works because they want to, and most people add much to the automatic deposits themselves.
A few extremely intrepreneurial and productive people are very wealthy and another few live entirely on the automatic deposits, but no one anywhere is poor or needy.
I was soon on my my across the street to the bank and a few minutes more found me back on the same park bench, hotdog in hand, coffee and chocolate candy beside me, and money in my pocket.
I took a bite of hotdog. Some of it's relish oozed out onto my fingers and I licked it off hungrily. It was the best hotdog in the entire world, ever in the whole history of time!
After i finished eating, I sat there for a while sippig my coffee and smoking and feeling very lazy.
Now and then someone would pass by the bench, smiling and greeting me as they went by.
I noticed the sun was lowering and decided it was time to go home. I wondered if Myna would want to visit for a while.
I got up from the park bench with mixed feelings about her. I hoped she would notice me this time, and yet at the same time, she seemed so strange and mysterious, that the thought of talking with her made me feel shy again.

* * * * * * *

194/195

38

When I got back to the place by the river where the houseboat was, I saw no movement at all nor heard any sound. Myna was nowhere to be seen.The houseboat looked deserted. The sun was setting as I went by, and it's long, golden rays of light made the stillness seem even deeper.
I was both disappointed and relieved. I determined that I would come back in a few days, and this time, I would cast off my shyness and talk with her, unless she totally rejected me. In the meantime, I would ask Ries about her.
I was about a half mile farther along the trail when I saw him coming to meet me. He saw me at the same time and we both broke into a run and quickly closed the space between us. He grabbed me up and swung me around, laughing gleefully.
"Mem, I did it! I found the answer1 You won't believe it when I tell you what solved the helper problem! You'll never believe it!"
He was laughing and shaking his head as if he didn't believe it himself.
"What was it? Tell me, tell me!" I grabbed him by the shoulders with both hands, laughing and shaking him.
"You just won't believe it, Mem, it was my skin! My own skin! Can you believe that?"
"No! You're right, I don't believe it! You're not serious, are you?"
"Yes! Totally serious. I had the brain wave receiver solved and put together and I knew it was sensitive enough to pick up the waves, but it just wouldn't do it. I tried everything I could think of. Still nothing. I was totally baffled. It should have worked. I couldn't think why it wouldn't.
"Then I thought of how people sometimes involuntarily pick up each other's thoughts. 'What do people's receivers have that this one doesn't have?' I thought. Then it hit me. Skin! I was so excited I trembled as I took a small sharp knife and scraped ithard over my brow several times and rubbed the microscopic skin cells across the receiver. I put it under the microscope and saw that I had a thin layer of cells all over it, then I tried it again and it worked! It was faint and unclear but it worked!J The layer of skin cells were so thin that it didn't work well, but solving that was simple. I scanned the computer, found the exact composition of skin, brought up the laboratory component and soon had a perfect specimen of skin. I applied it carefully to the receiver then tried it again and the message came through! Loud and clear!"
I looked at his brow. It was faintly red all over as if he had been sunburned.
"You did! You really did!" I exclaimed, "it's a good thing you could make synthetic skin, or else you would now be wearing a bandage on your head to cover a whole patch of missing real skin!"
We laughed and hugged and danced around jig fasshion a minute then began walking on up the trail toward home, talking about how different the helper system would be, then skipping aroung back and forth from one subject to another.
When I asked him about Myna, he couldn't tell me anything. She had never communicated with him nor anyone else that he knew of.
"In fact," he said, "I hardly ever see her at all. When I pass by the houseboat, it's usually quiet and still and no sighn of her anywhere. When I do see her, she always behaves the same as she did with you today...did you see her eyes?"
"Yes...have you ever seen eyes like that?"
He shook his head. "No, and they make you feel so...I don't know...helpless? Do you think she is...well...mentally deficient?"
I thought a minute. "No...I don't think that...I didn't feel that. It was like she was...I can't find words for it, but I want to see her again. I want her to talk to me."
I thought again, then: "I know what I want! I want to paint her. Oh if only I could! If I could transfer my vision of her
on to the canvas..." My voice trailed off into thoughts.
We walked on quietly, each of us thinking our own thoughts together.


* * * * * *

39

Summer was gone.
Autumn's oblique rays of sunlight sparkled and glittered on all green and growing things, hinting of the cool and frosty days of flaming colors soon to come.
I stood in the open entrance to my little studio house looking insde at theperfect painting of the blue mountains with their highest peaks revealed.
It would be the last time I would see it there in it's now accustomed place on the portable easel by the fireplace.
Ries stood close behind me, looking at it over my shoulder.
He held a spcially built packing crate in his hand. His mobilette waited beside the path. He was taking to painting to someone he knew who would discretely deliver it to the Blue Mountain Ocean Resort Museum.
I looked all around the room. I had been working all summer and now there were six other paintings.
One filled the once empty space above my bed. I smiled as I looked at it. Of all the six, it was my favorite. It's mind-created shapes and lines were a perfect complement to the nature created beauty which the open walls of my house brought inside. It's embryonic and geometric shapes were both eternal and static. It's colors were perfectly balanced between cool sfpirituality and warm earthiness with no white at all except for one ribbon of pure, whiter than white moving endlessly with no beginning and no end, widening and narrowing and turning it's way in and out among the sometime familiar, sometime strange forms of color.
I walked over to the portable easel, took the blue mountain painting from it's place and handed it to Ries." He gently eased it into the crate, sealed the lid on the top, reached out his hand and touched my shoulder, then turned and walked quickly away and out to the mobilette.
Then he was gone.
I looked around the room again. These paintings were good, but none of them were perfect.
There was one of Kelly's fireplace room, the first one I did after the blue mountain one. It was a beautiful representation of her fireplace, the little pool, her flawless pottery, and the special pot on it's little table on the hearth.
Then there was one of the waterfall and pool in Ries' bathroom, then one of Cerise and Kleff playing on the river dock, than a close up view of some rocks and grasses and flowers, and the last one was the blue-gray cranes flying in over the pond on the trail to Little Town.
The cranes reminded me of Myna, and I sighed. I had not seen her again all these weeks.
I raised the studio component up from storage, walked over and looked at the canvas on the easel. "It's not her," I thought. That's not Myna at all.
I had tried and tried to paint her from memory, but always met with failure. If only I could see her...talk with her. I sighed again, then turned and slowly walked outside.
The once bare expanse of lush green lawn all around my house was now transformed into a lovely, restful, spirit-renewing garden.
Ries and I together and with the helpers had worked on it all summer long. We had put almost fully grown maple trees, one on each side ot the patio, and carefully placed other trees and shrubbery all throughout the garden. some were flowering trees and some not.
We made tiny waterfalls and pools and streams and bridges.
We placed rocks and ferns and flowers and plants.
It was cool and shady with several open areas for contrast and for the admission of sunlight. I never grew tired of walking all around and through it.
We had also extended the patio, and now it went all the way around the house. We opened the wall of the bathroom between the tree in the corner and the bathpool, so that now we could go in and out that way too.
As I slowly walked all around the garden, I soon was free of that last pang of separation I had felt at seeing the blue mountain painting go.
"It was time," I thought.
Then I thought of Myna again and of how I had been trying to paint her. Why was it so difficult?
I had seen only a fleeting glimpse of the blue mountain's highest peaks, and yet the perfect vision was almost magically transferred through my hands from mind to canvas in just a little more than one day. "Why is it so different with Myna? I thought, why can't I get the painting right? Why do I feel such a strong need to talk with her?"
I left the garden and walked down to the river deck and sat there for a while thinking and watching the slow, almost still flow of the water. I didn't once think of reality nor of the sense conscious world of the past. I had almost forgotten that I had ever existed in any other time or any other place. This world was now so real to me that the physically real world of the past was like a dream.
I stood up and walked over to the edge of the deck and leaned over the rail and looked as far as I could see into the water, but I couldn't see the bottom.
Strange...The water was usually crystal clear.
Feeling restless, I turned away, walked across the deck to the bridge, went across to the opposite bank and looked back across the river at my house and garden. It was so beautiful...I breathed thankfully, and walked back over the bridge to the deck and sat down, but only for a minute, then was moving around the deck again. Almost agitated.
I stood looking down the old trail on this side of the river. Many times I would walk down that way, go across the old low, white stone bridge, then circle back up to my bridge. It was a nice walk. Not too short and not too long. I headed off down the trail, walking briskly.
When I was still some distance from the white bridge and catching glimpses of it through the trees, I thought I saw someone sitting on the white stone wall beside the opposite end of the bridge. I walked slower, peering through openings through the leaves and branches as I went.
Suddenly I stopped. My heart leaping up. It was Myna! I couldn't believe it. But there she was! Had she come to visit? Did she remember me? Did she know I came this way often?
I was so flustered I could hardly breathe. I thought of the unfinished failure of my attempt to paint her on my easel. Should I approach her?
She sat still and as unmoving as the cranes did when they waited for little fishes to swim by. Maybe I shouldn't disturb her. But then mabe she had seen me. I was hidden by trees and bushes, but maybe she had caught glimpses of me as I moved along the trail. Maybe she knows I'm here..."
"Oh this is so insane!" I thought, "why am I so in awe of her? Why am I acting so foolishly?"
I calmed myself and looked more closely at her. She was dressed exactly the same as she had been that one time I saw her on the deck of her houseboat, but now the floppy old soft brown leather hat was pushed a little back from her brow.
She sat with her right leg dangling over the side of the wall so that her shoe almost touched the water, and her left leg crossed back over the right one, with that foot propped on the bank in front of her. Her arms were crossed over her chest and resting on her thighs as she was sort of hunched over. She looked relaxed and serene.
I took a deep breath and walked on.
As I went across the bridge, I tried to be casual, but walked a little stiffly in spite of myself.
"I'll sit down on the end of the bridge next to her," I thought, "then she'll have to talk to me."
But she didn't. I marched right on up to her and sat down on the side of the bridge, saying, "Hello Myna," as I settled down slightly and for a moment her incredible eyes met mine and she said, "Hello Mem." My heart leaped up again, and I thought, "She spoke! She knows me! She's going to talk to me!"
But that's all she said. She went back to wherever she had been in her mind before I came. For all it concerned her, I could've been a grasshopper that landed beside her.
And I couldn't speak either. For a few minutes I sat there stiff and uncomfortable, wondering what to do. Should I leave? But I couldn't leave. All I could do was sit there.
Gradually, as the minutes went slowly by, I relaxed. Then I became calm and still. Just like she was.
And we were together.
She was not off in a world of her own and I off in a different world. We were together, sitting side by side on the bridge, beside the waters of the river, among the trees and grasses and shrubs and flowers beneath the skies above us.
That's all.
There were no words spoken and no words needed. We just sat there together for a long time and when she finally looked at me briefly, nodded politely, and got up and left, I knew that we were friends forever.
After she left, I went home and spent the rest of the day working in the garden and thinking of her, how I wanted to painther, how I wanted to express my vision of her. "She is so compelling," I thought, "so mysterious and strange."
Yet I felt that she was the very epitome of peace and stillness.

* * * * * * *


40

Something was wrong.
I had gone to bed early, still feeling restless and strange and still thinking of Myna. I tried to get interested in the true as life television pictures, but all I did was hold the control in my hand and switch from channel to channel. The sound seemed to keep fading out and the pictures kept going dim and indistinct. I thought that was strange, and then I noticed that it was not only the television.
It was everything.
The whole world was gradually fading away and being replaced by an almost lightness.!
Suddenly I was gripped by an intense, heart-squeezing fear. I screamed but no sound came out.
Then everything was gone.
Everything.
House, paintings, garden, mountains, friends, fields, meadows, forests, everything...
And most heartbreaking of all, memories were gone..Ries was gone...Time was falling...once I thought I heard my voice desperately calling out his name. I was lost in a sea of light that wasn't really light at all, but the not light didn't last long. I suddenly plunged headlong into the black, unfeeling, silent world of sense conscious reality. In that same old hospital bed. In that same old coma. It was such a relief to stop falling that I started to sob brokenly.
Then froze.
I heard myself! I felt the bed under my body! I smelled something! Then the light came back. Although my eyes were closed, I could tell it was light.
Then I knew. Somehow I knew. This was real. I opened my eyes.
Yes. It was real. I was in a hospital bed. There was a tall window and I could see that it was night time.
I looked all around the room. I was alone. The door to the hallway was partly open. I saw a nurse walk hurriedly down the hall past the door. I could hear two people talking somewhere out there.
I wondered if I could move. Yes. I could. I turned over on my right side facing the door. The light in the room was only from the partly open door to the hall, but I could plainly see everything in the room.
I turned over onto my back again and raised up my right hand and looked at it. It looked old and ugly.
I felt hot tears squeeze themselves from my eyes and run down into the hair at my temples. "Ries, oh Ries," I moaned.
My heart began to ache in a deep agony of grief and my throat closed and choked.
Then I thought, "I'll go back. I'll close my mind away from all this and go back."
I tried with all my might to shut out all the sounds and smells and sensations and the light, but it was no use. I couldn't do it, and my grief became so overwhelming that I couldn't bear it. I went into a numb, unthinking agony of pain.
Then a prayer formed itself in my mind, crying out as Jesus had done: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
A feeling of comfort washed over me, as a thought crept into my benumbed mind, echoing through it's empty chambers: "And this too, shall pass..."
Then it seemed I could hear Ries' gentle voice: "It's okay Mem, it's okay."
At last my mind was eased and I could think again.
Somehow, I had regained all my senses. Somehow I had regained my sense consciousness. I didn't know why I had lost them and now I didn't know why they were back.
I was very uncomfortable. I felt heavy and cumbersome. Could I speak? What would I say? What if someone heard me? I wasn't ready for that. I hoped no one would come into the room.
I decided to try a whisper. I would say a prayer. Broken and breathy, the words came out: "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven..."
The night was long and I didn't sleep. I was fully aware of who I was and where I was. I could think of times past, my youth, my life, and falling from the housetop. I could remember losing all my senses. I could remember how I had gradually entered into the world of mental consciousness where mental images and thoughts were reality. I could remember my studio house, the blue mountains, the river, and the whole countryside of that mental world. I could remember Ries and Kelly and Otto and Cerise and Kleff. I could remember conversations and emotions. I could remember Little Town and the people there.
And I could remember Myna.
I thought of years past before I accidentally fell off the house, and events of those years. They had not been happy and self-fulfilling. There had been good times and bad times, but always, always there had been the deep, pushed-back and buried longing for self-realization and the fulfilment of dreams.
As dawn began to lighten the tall dark window of the hospital room, I resolved: "wherever I am, in whatever world I live, I must always and forever strive to know and think only good...for myself, for everyone, for all beings, and for all existence."
I slept.
Voices in the doorway awakened me. It was two nurses. One was holding an armload of bed linens. The other was speaking: "Have you done 304 yet?"
The one with the linens said, "Yes, I only have this one, then 306 and 307 and I'll be finished."
She looked at her watch. "You should have your feeding all done by eight o'clock or a little after. We can be in the cafeteria a little past eight-thirty."
The other one said, "Good, I'm already starving. Let's get moving!"
They laughed and the one with the linens came into the room. I held my breath, afraid she would notice that I was conscious.
I didn't need to worry. She didn't even look at me. She put the linens on a chair, went into the bathroom, came back out with a pan of water and towels and washcloths and put them on a table beside the bed.
She was very quick and very efficient. She had the bed linens changed and my body clean and comfortable in no more than ten minutes.
She never once looked directly at me. She handled me impersonally and absentmindedly, but gently and easily.
I lay there, still, relaxed, and unmoving. Like Myna. Like I had done with Myna on the bridge, I was out of my body while still in it.
The nurse had been gone from the room only a minute before the other nurse came in carrying feeding paraphernalia. She hung a long, narrow plastic bag upside down on a metal pole by the bed. It was filled with a thick, brown fluid. There was a small tube rolled and attached to the end of the bag. She moved the covers over a little, leaned over looked closely and felt gently around on my stomach, then unrolled the tube.
As her hands touched my stomach again, I hear a little snapping sound. She adjusted the covers, looked briefly around the room and left.
I watched the bad as it slowly emptied. I guessed it took about twenty minutes. She came back, removed the bag and was gone again. "She'll soon be in the cafeteria," I thought.
I was still sleepy, but afraid that if I slept, someone might come in and catch me waking up. I didn't want anyone to know I was conscious. Not yet. Not unless I was sure that I would have to stay conscious. "I might slip back away from here at any minute," I thought.
I remembered reading about people doing that. Then I remembered reading a book about a woman who was in a state of catalepsy, a mental illness in which the patient is in a condition of suspended animation and loses all voluntary motion. I remembered it was characterized by a trancelike state of consciousness and a posture in which the limbs hold any position in which they are placed.
"Can that be what happened to me?" I thought, "dod the condition I found myself in after the fall from the roof cause me to go insane? Did that unfeeling, black, senseless, overwhelming darkness cause me to slip into catalepsy? Will I stay conscious now? Will I go back to the world of mental consciousness? Or will I fall into the dark again and never come out as long as I live?"
Fear crept into my mind and gained a foothold. A blinding light flashed and glared in my head behind my eyes and I grabbed my head with both hands, squeezing it tight and clenching my eyes shut. I lay there rigid, as stiff as a board.
The light subsided.
I felt someone sit down on the bed beside me. I opened my eyes.
It was Myna!
Still, serene, quiet Myna!
I swam into the deep, clear, blueness of her eyes and found peace.
It never occurred to me to wonder how she was there.
A nurse came into the room. Myna moved away from the bed and stood by the window until after the nurse gently turned me over, repositioned my body, and left. Then she came and sat beside me again. The nurse didn't notice her at all.
Days and nights went by. The tall window became dark, then light again, then dark again, over and over.
Myna stayed. Day and night. She stayed beside me, never speaking, never leaving, never moving, except to stand by the sindow when someone was attending me.
No one ever noticed her.
I stopped thinking.
I no longer wondered or cared about my condition, whether it was coma, insanity, or anything else. All I knew was peace, stillness and love. Myna was there. My friend. She would always be there. Throughout all eternity. This world, another world, any world...forever.
Gradually, day by day the hospital room began to fade. It faded and faded until finally there was nothing but soft white mistiness like the clouds and mists that covered the highest peak of the blue mountains.
And Myna. Always real. Always there.
Now there were no days, no nights, no time, no space. There was only the soft blanket of mist and Myna and peace and stillness.
Then I began to think again.
Beautiful thoughts drifted slowly into my mind, one by one, along with visions of loveliness and songs of joy. They filled my mind and filled my heart.
The mists became interlaced with rainbows of light. The light grew and grew and was filled with joyful music. The music became the song of a mockingbird.
I was home again.
I was in my bed, in my beloved little studio house.
It was nighttime but not dark; a bright moon was shining all around and into the house. The mockingbird was in one of my new trees beside the open winddow wall. He was singing joyfully to the full moon.
Myna was standing by the green drapery at the foot of the bed, looking out across the patio toward the river.
She turned and looked at me for a moment. In the light of the moon, I could see her politely nod her head. I smiled and knew that she had smiled too, as she turned and went out across the patio, down the path, and off into the moonlight.
I smiled again...Myna...my friend.
I closed my eyes and went to sleep listening to the mockingbird singing joyfully outside my open window.

* * * * * * *


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41

It rained for three days. A steady drizzle sometime slackening off to tiny misty drops becoming large plopping drops under the trees.
Ries was to be gone for a week. His plan was to take the blue mountain painting to his art dealer friend, then to make the rounds visiting other friends and colleagues who were inventors, scientists, and horticulturists.
I thought of the long hospital episode as only a "dream," a "nightmare." I knew that no time had passed here in the mental world while I was there.
But why had it happened?
Ries would know. "Oh if only he was home," I thought, "I have to wait a whole week!"
I thought of Myna and of how I had been so at peace with her in the "dream." Her eyes seemed to say "fear not, for I am with you..." will never leave you nor forsake you. I am your friend."
I spent most of that first rainy day propped up in bed reading a novel. It was about one of the first impressionist painters. I was amazed at the insight the author had into the struggle of painters to convey their visions onto canvas.
Most of the next two wonderful, drowsy, drippy days, I did nothing other than the smallest little daily life chores. Absolutely nothing at all. I kept a fire in the fireplace all the time, letting it burn down to coals at night then building it up again every morning.
During times when the rain slackened, I strolled around through the garden, sometime being showered by sudden huge droplets of water as I passed under a tree just as a little puff of wind came along and shook it.
I stood long minutes by the open gateway Ries and I had made in the garden wall for our shortcut from the little meadow across the lawn to my patio. I gazed toward his place across the fields and meadows, thinking how empty and deserted it seemed with him away.
The rainy mists were so heavy that I couldn't see the blue mountains at all.
As the days went by, I began to have little spurts of activity and did things like digging myriads of little holes in the rich, loamy soil of the garden and setting in hundreds of bulbs of all different kinds. Some of them were old familiar ones like daffodils and irises. Many of them were strange to me. I mixed them indiscriminately. Spring would fill the whole garden with beds and beds of surprises.
I made a cake. Seet, lemony, yellow-rich and tall. I baked it dark, golden brown, in a pan with a hole built up in the center. I drizzled lemon icing all over it. It was delicious. I left it invitingly out in the open on the counter of the kitchenette with a knife across the edge of the plate. Several times a day, I would cut a big slice, pour a cup of fresh coffee and walk around eating cake and drinking coffee, or sit propped up in bed with it to eat, sip, and watch the rain.
Not once did I think of painting. I had the studio component in storage out of sight and never once thought of it. I merely took pleasure in the rain and heavy mist. I listened to the rain's drumming, dripping, dropping, splashing, spattering, and spraying. I watched it's heavy cascades of white, it's single searching drops finding their way to the ground across wide green leaves in the garden. I saw huge diamond drops caught trembling on everything, I saw sheets of water scatter and run before hard gusts of sudden wind. I walked through it to the white bridge, letting it wash over me, sometime raising my head to feel it on my face, getting very wet and cold, then back into the house to walk straight into the warm water of the bathpool. Oh how good it did feel later on, all curled up on a cozy chair, looking out across the patio toward the river deck again, with warm, dry clothing on.
Sometime in the early dark hours of the fourth day, the wind picked up to a steady, very cool, but not quite cold, blowing and the rain was all gone. I had the wall window beside my bed open, and it blew it's fresh, delicious, chill across my face. I pulled up more covers, snuggled in and welcomed it into my house to billow the draperies and delight my soul.
I awoke thinking of Myna and painting. Can I paint her now?
No. I knew the answer as soon as the question formed. It didn't bother me. I raised the studio component, looked at the failed attempt to paint her on the easel and smiled.
I squeezed a huge blob of white gesso from a tube onto a palette, took a large, soft but strong brush, and covered the whole canvas over, transforming it into a clean, white, untouched painting ground. I smiled and thought, "When I try again, it will be perfect like the blue mountain painting, only better because my failed attempts will be it's foundation...like Kelly's special pot."
I felt good.
I was full of energy and exuberance. After breakfast I put on a light jacket, warm socks and shoes, and set off down the path, across the bridge and up the trail toward Kelly's, letting the wind whip my hair around and into my face, still thinking of painting Myna and of Kelly's special pot.
I could hear the faint roar of the ocean and thought how high and spray-filled the waves must be. The trees of the forest along the trail waved and tossed their limbs and threw showers of leaves everywhere, some of them still green. The trail was littered with twigs and leaves and sometimes whole small branches. Once a large, wet, limp maple leaf blew onto my face and clung. I peeled it off and laid it carefully and gently beside the path, smoothing it out so that it could face up to the treetops and sky as it slowly became one again with the soil beneath it.
The sound of the ocean became more and more clear and distinct the closer I got to it.
When I came to the high boulder walls that closed in both sides of the trail and rounded the curve onto Kelly's high rock ledge, I stopped and exulted in the wind blowing in off the ocean. The ocean was a huge mass of surging, billowing, slate-gray waves and white breakers disappearing into the misty gray of the sky's horizon.
I walked over to the ledge wall and looked down to the shoreline. There was Kelly and Cerise and Kleff! Kelly was standing on a large, flat boulder which was half buried beside a sandy area of the beach. Her hair and clothing were blowing and whipping all around her as she leaned into the wind facing the ocean. Cerise and Kleff were darting, hopping, and jumping back and forth, playing tag with the foamy edges of the waves as they rolled in and out across the sand.
I hurried down the cliff-side from level to level, past Kelly's fireside room and out across the beach toward them.
Cerise and Kleff saw me coming, hollered to Kelly, and ran up to meet me. Kelly waved both hands above her head and jumped up and down. Cerise and Kleff tumbled and jumped their way up to me, lauaghing and bumping into each other as they came, then excitedly and briefly hugging me and wanting me to play the tag game.
We ran and stumbled against the wind, past Kelly and on down to the water's edge, then back toward Kelly, barely escaping the foamy water as it chased behind us. Kelly soon joined in the game and we all ran and jumped, squealing and laughing, back and forth until we were worn out, then dropped one by one, breathing hard and laughing onto Kelly's flat rock.
We rested a few minutes, then let the wind push us back up to Kelly's cave-like fireplace room built into the base of the rocky cliff wall.
Kelly got a fire going to warm up the dampness in the room, and we all gathered around the fireplace, dropping into comfortable chairs and resting some more.
We spent the whole day back and forth between the beach and the fireplace room.
After a while, the sun began to break through the clouds and the wind slowed to a whisper. The air was fresh and clean and very cool. The waves lowered themselves a little, but continued to roll and break and spray and foam.
We walked up and down the shore, long distnces in both directions, each of us carrying white cloth bags, searching the beach for washed-up "treasures" and rare shells, then we spread a large bed sheet out on the floor in front of the fireplace and each of us dumped the contents of our cloth bags onto the center of the sheet, and sat around the edge of it rummaging through our treasures, laughing, exclaiming, comparing and examining.
Among the common, but interesting shells of many different sizes and shapes, we had four that were rare and beautiful.
Kleff had a pair of old, faded plastic sunglasses, a half empty bottle of suntan lotion, and a little bright green bottle. Cerise had a large blue neckerchief, three smooth, white intricately shaped pieces of driftwood, and a bottle cap. Kelly found a small piece of driftwood that looked like a bird, a little red bowl made of glass, a seahorse, and a yellow plastic flower. I had a solid black rock, shiny and smooth, about the size and shape of a lop-sided pancake, a strange looking brown thing that looked like a small spiny desert plant, a large button made of white bone and a tiny clear bottle.
By the time the full red sun lowered itself down through scattered clouds and disappeared behind the trees, we were tired and hungry and ready for supper.
Otto came home from a long day of working at his docks and boatyard and ate supper with us, then went up to the house to watch television and Kelly and the children and I went up to the rock ledge and watched a huge, orange moon climb up out of the ocean.
We sat bundled warmly in quilts on lounges, quietly talking, telling stories, resting, and watching the moon slowly climb the sky, losing it's huge, glowing orangeness and shining brightly, glittering a trail of sparkling light straight across the ocean to us.
On the way home, I walked fast in the crispy cold air, breathing deeply and taking long strides as the moon followed along above and behind me. It's bright light shone through the trees and made sharply clear and dark shadow patterns of leaves and branches on the wide, pale color of the trail.
When I reached my bridge, and just as I started to step onto it, a mockingbird started singing across the river. He was in a tree above the river deck.
That's where I slept that night. On the deck with the mockingbird. After I took quilts and a pillow from the bin and settled down onto a soft and cozy lounge and became still and quiet, the mockingbird began singing again with new vigor. It was his farewell song to summer. He would be silent all winter long, waiting for spring to come again.
I was asleep before he came to the end of his third round of songs.

* * * * * * *
42

The morning brought thick layers of snow-white frost; crunchy, crisp and cold, it covered the housetop, the grass, the bushes and shrubs, the fence top, and almost everything except the sheltered areas under trees. Son the maple trees beside the patio, the other deciduous garden trees, and all the forest would be flaming and flashing in the sunlight, sparkling golds and reds, inviting winter to come and undress them.
I awoke missing Ries more than ever. "This is the fifth day," I thought, "two more days..."
It was cold. I wrapped the covers around me cocoon style and sent a thought message for a hot blazing fire in the fireplace, a breakfast on the hearth, and heat for the bathpool. I did it automatically, not even thinking of the old code bracelet at all. Ries had been right, it hadn't been quite three months and already everyone was taking the new helper system for granted.
I waited a few minutes until I knew everything would be ready, then wrapping one of the quilts around me, I ran barefoot through the frost, up to the house, past the fire and jumped into the bathpool. not waiting to get undressed. I could do that in the pool.
I closed my eyes and floated around in the steamy warm water thinking of Ries and our union, visualizing the clouds of white blossoms in the special garden where we had first come together, thinking of the white wedding and the words, "those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder," thinking o how our home together was not limited to a house closed in by walls...our home encompassed the whole of our space, where we lived and worked and loved...the fields and meadows, my little studio house, the river and trails, the river deck and bridges, Ries' special garden, his shop and farm...
I thought of our summer, creating my garden, going to Little Town, walking the trail up to the waterfall at the source of the river, playing on the beach at Kelly's working alone and working together, sometimes talking and sometimes not.
I thought of how Ries liked to walk alone and think. I thought of his working in his little fields, and sometimes just sitting in one plaace or another, deep in thought. Ries...I sighed. Two more days.
After breakfast, I decided to walk to Little Town. I wondered if Myna would be home. "Why is she gone so much?" I thought, "Where does she go?"
I was not surprised to find her houseboat quiet and still and unoccupied.
I sat on her deck for a little while, knowing I was welcome there. I hoped she would soon come home, but she didn't
In Little Town, I browsed through the five-and-ten-cent store for a long time. I bought a large cellophane wrapped, double cookie sandwich filled with marshmallow creme and covered all over with a thin layer of chocolate. It was called a "moon pie." I put it in my jacket pocket and strolled along the sidewalks around the square of town, going into first one shop then another, browsing and chatting briefly and pleasantly with shop owners and other customers.
I saved the best shop for last. It was the craft shop. I loved looking at things people had made with their own two hands. Especially the baskets.
In one corner of the craft shop, there was a display of handmade quilts. I always spent time in the that corner, looking at all the quilts and admiring them but had never bought one. Today was different.
I saw it before I was halfway across the shop. It was folded neatly, lying on top of all the other quilts.
I had never seen such a quilt. It had no planned design, no planned color scheme, and it was not quilted. Someone had taken a very lightweight but strong piece of quilt-size fabric and using silky embroidery threads of all colors, they had lit their fingers, needle, thread and imagination wander haphazardly all over the cloth, creaating, creating, and creating. Whatever came into their mind appeared in silky colors and desighns and tiny pictures all over the whole quilt. I saw little yellow fish, white birds, a tiny two-inch clock showint the time at seven o'clock, people having a picnic, flowers, trees, a cup of steaming coffee, a ring with a purple stone, green leaves and vines, grapes, cherries, a tiny sparkling wine glass filled with deep, dark red, and words like soul and spirit and truth and life hiding in various designs.
I saw all these things and hadn't even begun to see everything on the quilt. You could spread it out, stand back and look and you didn't notice any of those details. All you would notice would be a harmonius blending of colors. Then a closer look would reveal all sorts of strange shapes, forms and patterns. Amazing! It was lightweight and cuddly and lined with a very pale but warm colored lining. You could hold it up close to you and it would make you feel as warm secure as a baby in it's mother's arms.
I bought it and left the shop hugging it close in my arms.
I stopped at the hole-in-the-wall and bought a juicy hamburger filled with layers of tomato, lettuce, onions, and pickles with mustard on the onion side of the toasty hot bun and mayonaise on the tomato/lettuce side, and coffee in two cups with lids. The man put them all in a little bag for me and I walked across the street to the park, still hugging the quilt.
I sat down on a bench, took the moon pie out of my pocket and put it with the hamburger bag on the bench beside me, then held the folded quilt on my lap, looking at it and turning it's folds first one way then another, my head bent low over it. I was looking at a small design of three different shades of blue in the corner of it. The predominant blue in the design was exactly the color of Myna's eyes, but you couldn't see into this blue.
This same blue appeared again and again all over the quilt in other designs and pictures.
Someone sat down quietly and almost imperceptibly beside me. I looked up and into the same blue.
It was Myna.
The blue of her eyes was filled with light. She looked down at the quilt, reached over and touched a pointing finger to a word hidden in the blue design. As she traced her finger over the word, it became clearly visible to me. "Myna." Her name! She made this quilt! She brought it to the craft shop knowing I would find it! Ot was a gift!
My heart swelled up and tears of emotion filled my eyes. I looked up at her, my eyes brimming over. I could barely see her through the tears as she lightly touched my hand on the quilt, nodded politely, rose from the bench, and walked away.
I was stunned. I couldn't even think about it. I just sat there holding the quilt and feeling blessed, my head bowed and my heart full.
Someone else sat down beside me, and I felt strong arms go around me pulling me close and holding me tenderly.
It was Ries. Home early. At just the right moment as always. We held each other.
He spoke. "I came home this way, through Little Tow, so I could stop at our hole-in-the-wall for our favorite Little Town lunch. I happened to look over here to the park and saw you. What is it, Mem? Were you crying?" His voice was gentle. Fresh tears spilled over and I held the quilt up to show him. "Look Ries...Myna made it!"
I traced my finger on the design in the corner showing him her name.
"She was here, Ries,...she sat down beside me...her eyes were so blue and bright they sparkled...she knew I would find it...it's a gift, Ries! A gift from Myna! But she's gone now...she just left...and she touched my hand!" The words tumbled out in a stream.
Ries looked at the quilt in amazement. "Mem! Look at this! Look at the work...there must be a million stitches here. It would take years to do this. There's time and time on top of time of work in this quilt!"
For a few minutes we sat there, both of us looking at the quilt and marveling over it's designs, and imagining Myna sitting quietly for hours and hours, day after day, sewing and sewing. Sewing her very self into this large bed-sized piece of soft fabric, then hiding her name in the blue design in it's corner, and last of all, sewing on the lining.
I hugged the quilt close, then kept it on my lap as we ate our lunch and talked.
I forgot all about the "nightmare," of waking up in the hospital. It had trailed along in the back of my mind through all those days of waiting for Ries, while I enjoyed the rain, the day with Kelly and the children on the beach, the moonlit walk back, and sleeping on the river deck with the mockingbird. Even through my joy in Myna's gift. But now that Ries was here, I forgot it completely. But it was still there. Ries saw it.
We had been talking about his trip. He told me how his art dealer friend had wanted to buy the blue mountain painting and how disappointed he was when Ries told him it was not for sale at any price. He told me of places he had been, things he had seen and about visits with old friends, and how his mind was always on home and he'd finally decided to come home early.
I hugged him close again. "I'm so glad you're home! Next time, I think I might go with you...I didn't know how much I would miss you!" He held me close, then held me back and looked at me. "Something's different, Mem. Something's hiding in your eyes. What happened?"
That brought the nightmare back. I told him all about it. How I had been restless after he left, about finding Myna on the bridge and sitting with her. I described the whole long nightmare and all my feeling of hopeless terror, desperation and fear, and of how Myna had saved me. Myna with the still, quiet, serene peace of her presence always there, never leaving.
"Why did it happen, Ries? Why?" My voice was urgent. "How can I keep it from happening a gain?"
He stood up. "Let's go home, Mem. Let's think about it on the way home, then talk about it there."
I stood up too, hugging my comforting quilt close to me.
We went to Ries' mobilette where he'd left it parked and got in.
As we drove away, Ries said, "It's okay, Mem, we'll find the answer."

* * * * * * *

234/235

43

The sun was still high when we drove up to our bridge by the river deck. Ries didn't drive on across the bridge. He stopped the little car and looked on up the river trail toward the waterfall, then looked at me.
I was already looking at him, and knew what he was thinking.
In unison, precisely together, we said, "do you want to walk up to the waterfall?" That was one of our private jokes, and we laughingly got out of the mobilette. We took Myna's quilt, turned it longways, draped it over our shoulders and wrapped ourselves together in it, each of us holding one of it's corners over our shoulder then we started off up the trail, laughing and snuggling together in the quilt making mock shivers and pretending to be cold.
We laughed and played and teased all the way up to our favorite grassy green, flower strewn, tiny meadow near the falls.
We picked a large bouquet of fall flowers which had somehow escaped the morning's heavy frost and on the way back home we scattered golden petals all along the trail, "so we could find our way back again," we laughed.
By the time we saw our bridge and the little car ahead, the sun was going down and our shivers of cold were not pretend ones. We started running, and ran on past the mobilette, over the bridge, and up to the house and was soon sitting quiet and cozy beside the fire in my little studio house, eating our supper and thinking together.
The new quilt was folded in a corner of the green sofa.
After a while, Ries said, "Mem...?"
I looked at him and listened.
He hesitated a second, then: "Do you ever think of your life before the accident? Before your world became mostly mental?"
I was startled by the question and felt my heart quicken. I looked at him questioningly. He just looked back at me with a serious look and waited.
I looked at the fire in the fireplace. "Yes. Sometime I do."
"Do you ever think you might recover? That you would regain your physical senses and go back to the life you had before?"
The very thought of going back brought some of the pain of the nightmare. "Yes. But I can't think of going back. When a thought of that comes into my mind, I [ush it away. I can't think of that. I bury those thoughts."
He leaned over toward me. "Do you know that it's possible? That you might go back? Would you fight against it if it truly happened, as you did in the 'nightmare?'
I looked at him with pain filled eyes. "I don't know, Ries, but I hope it will never happen. I want to stay here."
He leaned closer. "Mem...remember how Myna came to you and stayed? Remember how she gave you peace? How you accepted your condition, knowing that she was your friend and would never leave you no matter where you were?"
I looked at him, remembering. "Yes, then I let everything go. Everything. I existed only in that peace. It was indescribable. That's when I began to find my way back here."
"That peace was already in you, Mem. In your mind, Myna was a symbol of peace because you had seen it in her and shared it with her on the bridge. Think about it, Mem."
I thought. I remembered that it was only when I stopped struggling to commune with Myna and relaxed that I really did commune with her. I remembered that in the "dream," it was only when Myna came bringing peace, and I stopped struggling against the loss of my wonderful mental world, that I was able to return to it. I remembered back to the first times after the accident. It was only after I had stopped struggling against the senseless, unfeeling, blackness that I had begun to enter into this happy idyllic world of mental consciousness in the first place.
The truth began to daw in my mind: peace is the door which opens into joy, happiness, love, and true self fulfillment. I didn't need to divide myself. This mental existence and the physical sense existence is one existence.
Another truth dawned in my mind: "I can enter into peace anytime, anywhere; I can live in peace like Myna does!" I looked into Ries' eyes and smiled.
He smiled back. "The struggle is over, Mem." He took both my hands in his. "You had the nightmare because of fear. You were afraid that if you ever regained your physical senses, then you would lose this mental world. You buried the fear, or at least you tried to bury it, but fear won't stay buried. It will always come out. It will always manifest itself in one form or another. But now that you have found peace, it won't happen again. Anytime a fearful thought comes into your mind you can enter into peace and Truth will dissolve the fear."
I nodded. "I remember that in the past, before the accident, before I lost all my physical senses, I had never truly found peace. I was always struggling and striving against something or for something. That's why I was never truly happy and never attained self-fulfillment. I can see that now. If I had ever been able to totally let go of struggled and enter into peace, I would have found the same joy and fulfillment that I found after the accident when I stopped struggling and fighting against the unseeing, unfeeling blackness, and found peace in it. That peace opened the door to this world...I'm glad I had the nightmare, Ries. It has brought me together with myself. It is no loger this existence and that existence. It is just plain old existence. It is one existence... Oh Ries, I feel so free!"
He smiled. "You love this mental world and now you know that you can love the physical world because they are one existence...and what if, for some reason, you found yourself in another world?"
I was startled again and exclaimed, "Another world!""
He got up from his chair and went over to the fireplace and stood there for a minute looking into the flames, then came back to his chair. I sensed a deep inner excitement in him.
He said, "All summer long, I've been thinking about it. When I was walking and when I worked in my little fields or in my shop, I was thinking and trying to sort out an idea in my mind.
"Remember when we were talking about levels of consciousness and comparing them to dream stages, deep sleep stages, and waking stages , and we said waking is physical consciousness, dreaming is mental consciousness, and deep sleep is...and we didn't know? That's what I have been thinking about..."
He stood up again, went over to the green sofa and stood for a minute looking out the window wall toward the blue mountains, then came back.
"I think the highest peak is a symbol to us, Mem. I think that's why we feel so drawn to the mountains and the highest peaks. I think we see them always there but always hidden and never revealed to us except in rare glimpses and that to us, they symbolize another stage of consciousness...the one that we think of as hidden in deep sleep."
"Does that mean you don't think anyone or anything is up there?" I asked.
"I don't know...Myna became a symbol of peace to you because she is filled with peace...maybe the highest peaks have become a symbol to deep consciousness to us because someone or something is there that is filled with deep consciousness...I don't know...it seems that going up there is the only way to find out."
"Ries?" A thought had come into my mind and fear was trying to enter with it. I didn't want to speak it, but reminded myself: "Peace will dissolve all fear...peace in total acceptance, total letting go, total trust." I took a deep breath and voiced the thought:
"Ries, I would have never found this mental world if I had not had the accident and lost all of my physical senses. Those senses were too distracting. I had glimpses of this world, but physical senses are like the clouds and mists that cover the highest peak. They are always there, covering mental consciousness like clouds..."
The fear gained a foothold and crept inot my voice. "We would lose this world, Ries. We can't enter the world of deep consciousness without first losing this world."
He answered gently. "I know, Mem. We would have to 'lose our life to gain it,' but we've had glimpses of the highest peaks. We know they are gloriously beautiful and wonderful beyond description..."
He thought a minute, then went on. "Remember how you were drawn to Myna? How you wanted t paint your vision of her? How you felt almost in awe of her? Her peace was so compelling that it drew you to her. The blue mountains and their highest peaks are like that. We are drawn to them. Compelled by them. In awe of them. I think we should try to find our way up the the highest peaks. Soon."
I had another fear and I was able to bring it out into the open and let Truth dissolve it. "What if we can't find the way? We could be lost. What if we reach the peaks and become lost forever in the clouds and mists?"
I knew the answer even as Ries spoke it. "Then we will enter into peace. Just as you swam into the blueness of Myna's eyes in your nightmare and found the peace which brought you back here, we will swim into the mists of the highesst peak and find the peace which will carry us into the world of deep consciousness."
I was silent, thinking about it. I thought of how we were always looking toward the mountains, I remembered the time I had caught a glimpse of the highest peaks and had been able to paint them so quickly and perfectly. I thought of how we had sometimes talked of going up there...someday... "but Ries is read," I thought, "he wants to go soon...am I ready?"
Ries spoke, "I see you need to think aabout it," he said, I need to think too. I need a long, fast walk around the big fields."
He stood up, then leaned over and kissed the top of my head. "See you later, Mem."
But I didn't thing about it. I went over to the sofa, picked up Myna's quilt, hugged it to me for a minute, stored the sofa, brought up the bed, took it's old quilt off and spread Myna's quilt on it. Then I crawled into the bed, pulled the new quilt up all the way over my shoulders to my chin, settled down cozily onto my pillow and instantly went to sleep.
I slept the deep sleep ot total rest and renewal for a while and then awoke into reality.
But it was no like the "nightmare," this was the reality I had grown accustomed to. This was the reality that I now thought of as fleeting dreams in the night. This was the reality where I thought thoughts, remembered memories, and drifted comfortably in the dark, unseeing, unfeeling, sea of nothingness, knowing that I would drift into and out of deep sleep for a few hours and then wake up in the dream world of mental consciousness, which to me had become the real world...knowing that the periods of time in the sense world of reality would be only half remembered and soon forgotten.
* * * * * *



244/245

44

But this time I didn't forget. I awoke with the dawn still holding Myna's quilt close to me and vividly remembering how I had felt in reality. I remembered thinking of and clearly visualizing Myna as she had been in the hospital room during the days and nights when I had been fully aware and conscious in reality. I remembered thinking of the blue mountains, and Ries, and that he wanted to go to the highest peak soon.
I lay there in my bed, in my little studio house, in the mentally conscious dream world that now seemed real to me, and wondered how it was that I had seen Myna so clearly in the hospital room when I had temporarily regained all of my physical senses. How could it be that I had seen her there?
She couldn't be there. Not if I had truly regained all of my senses and been physically conscious.
When the hospital episode was happening I was sure it was real. I was sure I was in reality, but later I had thought of it as a "dream," a "nightmare..."
Suddenly I realized the truth. It was a dream in a dream! That had never happened before! "No wonder I thought it was real," I thought. Then I remembered that I had had dreams in dreams a few times in the past before the accident.
"How confusing!" I thought, "Here I am, deep in a coma, dreaming dreams that are my only real life, and having a dream in a dream! And now here I am in a dream, thinking aabout reality!"
The whole thing struck me as so ridiculously funny, that I laughed out loud.
"But at least I do know who I am," I thought, "I know who I am and where I am. I know that in reality I fell from the roof of my house, and I am lying in a deep coma or something like that, somewhere in a hospital, dreaming dreams and existing entirely in an imaginary world. I don't know how long I have been in this condition, since I have no way of marking time, but it must have been a very long time, because I have become so accustomed to this imaginary dream existence and enjoyed it so much, that I had actually begun to fear and dread the possibility of coming out of the coma and recovering.
I thought of the real nurses and real people in the real hospital, and how it would shock them if they knew that I could think. I wished people could know that even without physical awareness, the mind still functions. Even though it is deprived of the sensory input of sound, sight, touch, smell and taste, it still has ideals, memory, creativity, thoughts, imagination, and dreams.
I wished I could somehow let people know that the most important thing in existence is thoughts. That thoughts shousd be watched constantly and kept as good and clean and pure as possible, because ultimatedly, thoughts are the only reality.
I sat up in the bed and leaned out of the wall window, breathing in the fresh, clean, and clear morning air, then stretched lazily back into the bed and sent a thought message for breakfast and watched a helper glide smoothly out of it's cabinet and over to the kitchenette.
The coffee would be ready in a minute and I would take it with me into the garden. I would have breakfast under the honeysuckle arbor beside the goldfish pond.
Myna was in the garden.
Not in person, but in spirit. Everywhere I went, there she was; in the bright glow of the open reas, in the deep cool of shade, in the blue sky above, in the leaves of trees sparkling in the morning sunlight, in the little birds twittering and hopping through the trees, in the flowers and grasses and waters and rocks and in the sweet aroma of the honeysuckle vine...Myna was there. The very essence of her serenity, her stillness and her total surrender to peace was everywhere I looked, everywhere I went.
Ries and I had placed a picnic table, chairs and lounges on an open grassy area in the back garden. The grassy area was surrounded by trees, plants of many different kinds, and shrubs, but threre was an opening among the limbs of trees toward the north which framed a view of the highest peaks of the blue mountains.
I sat down at the table, leaned over on my elbows, and looked at the mountains. I would have breakfast here, I decided, and sent a thought message to the helpers.
As I ate slowly and tranquilly in the midst of the garden's serenity and gazed dreamily toward the mountains, I knew that now I could paint Myna. It was not a sudden inspiration nor a flash of insight; it was a knowledge that came slowly and calmly.
I didn't go into the house. I sent a thought message to the helpers; they brought out the canvas, an easel, paints, and everything I needed. They arranged all the supplies neatly on the picnic table then glided smotthly away, back to their storage cabinet in the house.
The first color I mixed was the blue of Myna's eyes.
Then I mixed a delicate shell pink, a transparent pearl,l and an icy translucent blue.
I went on mixing colors with no hesitation, then squeezed a pure white onto the palette board.
I was ready.
I worked steadily with no stopping and starting, no stepping back to look, and no problems to solve.
I remained fully aware of the garden around me and the mountains in the distance.
After a while the highest peaks of the mountains became visible to me, in all their majesty and glory, among the clouds and mists, they were like cathedrals in the sky.
It seemed only natural that they became visible.
I worked on.
A little flock of yellow finches landed on the picnic table, pecking around in the remains of my breakfast.
I smiled and worked on.
A fish hawk plunged with a loud splash into the little fish pond at the edge of the open area, then flew triumphantly up into the air with his dinner; I paused briefly and watched him disappear into the trees, then worked on.
A grasshopper landed on my foot, I glanced at him, and worked on.
All the colors I had squeezed out of tubes and mixed on the palette were gone.
I needed one more little touch of pure white. I looked at the empty palette. On the edge of it, was one little bit of white. I picked it up with a clean brush, applied it to the canvas, put the palette on the picnic table, dropped the brush into the cleaning fluid, went over to a lounge and lay down. I closed my eyes.
The painting was finished.
The autumn sun shone down on me, warm and golden, from it's lowering position above the treetops.
I slept.

* * * * * * *

250/251


45

Voices awakened me.
Someone was coming around the house through the trees and shrubs of the garden. The sun was low and the air growing cooler. I heard Ries saying, "She's usually in the garden at this time of day...let's see if she's around back." A strange male voice answered, "I would be out here too, if I lived here. Next to your special garden, I believe this is the most beautiful one I've ever seen!"
I could see them now, coming toward me. They hadn't noticed me yet. They stopped for a minute to look closely at a little rock sculptured waterfall and pool I had made a few weeks earlier.
The man was neither tall nor short, heavy nor slim, dark nor light. Everything about him was average, even the tone of his voice. I heard him ask Ries, "How did she get these delicate little green ferns to grow out of these rocks like this?"
Ries laughed and said, "Oh that! She drilled holes, stuck the fern roots in, then packed soil in around the roots. The spray from the waterfall keeps them moist, and as you can see, they are thriving."
They came on across a little flat bridge and emerged from the bushes into the open grassy area. I stood up and walked over to greet them.
"There she is," Ries said. He saw the easel and exclaimed, "Mem! You've been painting out here!'
He took the man's arm and with a big, happy smile, he said, "This is my friend Allman Strumley. He's the art dealer I took the blue mountain painting to."
They came on up closeer to me. Allman and I shook hands as I welcomed him and he told me he had just delivered the painting of the highest peaks to the museum at the Blue Mountain Ocean Resort. I looked questioningly at Ries. "It's okay, Mem," he said, "your secret is safe with Allman. He'll never tell anyone where the painting came from."
Allman looked toward the picnic table and the easel. "Is it finished, can we look at it?"
I felt a little shy, but I trusted him immediatedly. I looked through the opening in the tree limbs toward the mountains. Their highest peaks were hidden again. I looked back at Ries, then at Allman, then down at the ground, hesitating. "I don't know..." I said, then, "Yes, I think so," and led them back and around the table.
The painting was fairly large, about thiry-six by forty-eight inches, so we stood back about fifteen feet away from it in order to get a good over-all view of it.
This was my first real look at it too.
I was stunned.
It was Myna, yes, plainly and clearly Myna, but at the same time, it was a close-up view of the highest peaks of the mountains!
Peace, tranquility, and serenity emanated from it and caused me to instantly become very still and very quiet.
Silently, my mind whispered, "How can it be? It is Myna...it is the highest peaks..."
"My-na..." It was Allman. His voice broke and separated the syllables of her name.
Ries and I looked at him in surprise. He was no longer aware of us. Ries put his hand on his old friend's shoulder and asked gently, "Do you know her, Allman?"
Not taking his eyes from the painting, Allman nodded. He was visibly trying to pull himself together.
Ries waited.
Finally Allman spoke, still looking at the painting. "She did it. She really did. Now I know she found the way." His voice was low and wonder-struck.
"What do you mean?" Ries asked, "What are you talking about Allman?"
I sat down on a chair. I could tell by the sound of Ries' voice that he already had an idea of what Allman meant.
Allman looked at Ries and said, "What? What did you say?"
Ries said, "Here Allman, let's sit down." He took Allman's arm, steered him over to a chair and sat him down, then pulled up another chair and sat down facing him.
I sent a thought message for iced tea and coffee.
Allman was speaking again, looking at Ries and then at me. "How do you know her? Has she been here? Is she here now? Where is she?"
Ries answered. "She lives about halfway between here and Little Town, on the river in a houseboat. It is only on rare occasions that we see her, and even then she never talks and seldom speaks even a word.
"Mem was drawn to her from the first time she saw her and wanted very much to paint her, but all of her attempts ended in failure. Then about a week ago, she found Myna sitting on the white bridge. As usual, Myna didn't talk. Mem sat down beside her, determined to get her to talk and to get to know her, but as it turned out, Mem couldn't talk either, but soon she found herself in deep, silent communion with Myna and they became close friends, with never a word spoken. Myna carries within herself the very essence of serenity and tranquility; she lives constantly in total peace."
Alman was still looking at the painting. "I can see it...this painting clearly shows it." He paused, then: "she seems different, yet the same..."
I didn't say anything. A helper brought the tea and coffee. Ries gave Allman a glass of the tea and poured coffee for himself and for me.
"How long has she been here?" Alllman asked.
"almost a year," Ries answered, "when did you know her, Allman?"
Allman leaned back in his chair, sipping his tea. His voice was normal again as he spoke. "I met her about two years ago at a party. She ws a professor of philosophy, and had just taken a teaching position at the university. I loved her from the beginning and she loved me, but there was one thing between us that seemed insurmountable. The mountains. She was determined to go up there and I thought it was foolish and useless.
I tried to convince her that it would be a waste of time and energy, and extremeely dangerous to try to find the way up to the highest peak, that she wouldn't find anything or anyone there even if she did succeed and that she could very well get lost and never find her way back."
He drank some of his tea and said, "Ries, you know how I felt about the mountains. We've talked about it before."
Ries nodded and said, "Yes, I remember. You were sure nothing was there and I couldn't decide one way or another. Myny was sure there was?
Alllman nodded sadly. "Yes, she was, but I thought I had convinced her not to go.
"We had wonderful times. We laughed and played and talked, went to parties, the theatre, out to nightclubs with friends, danced and joked and grew closer and closer, but every time I mentioned marriage, she would become suddenly quiet and say, 'not yet." Then one day she was gone. Completely disappeared. Left her home and all her belongings just as they were. I couldn't find her anywhere. I tried every way I could think of to find some trace of her, but nothing. In my heart of hearts I knew where she was. The mountains. I hated the mountains. I've hated them ever since."
He was looking at the painting again. "But now I don't hate them...I see now that Myna was right all along. She found her way to the highest peak. She found something there. She found what she was looking for. I see now why she didn't come back to me. She knew that I wouldn't understand. But now I do..." He leaned over, holding his head in his hands.
Ries reached over, gripped Allman's shoulder firmly and said, "You've found her now. Walk down there, Allman. Walk down to Myna's riverboat. Think about it on the way. She's waiting for you."
Allman raised his head and looked at Ries. Then he looked at me. He said just one word: "Yes."
Ries and I walked back through the garden and around the house with him and stood together watching him quickly disappear off down the old riverside path toward the white bridge, his every step reverberating hope.
Ries put his arm around me and I leaned my head over on his shoulder. We didn't talk. We just stood there, still looking down the trail long after Allman was out of sight. We both knew that we were going to the mountains. We were going to find our way up to the highest peak.
Peace settled down over us. The whole world was still.
The decision was made.

* * * * * * *

258/259

46

Allman didn't come back.
The next morning, we took the painting of Myna to Kelly and Otto. They wee not surprised when we told them we were going to the mountains.
Kelly hung the painting in her fireplace room. She and Otto stood for long minutes looking at it, then silently came to Ries and me and embraced us. They and Cerise and Kleff were solemn as they hugged us one last time and told us goodbye.
Three days later, Allman still hadn't returned.
We had been making preparations for our journey and were almost ready.
We decided to walk to Little Town one more time and haave a "hole-in-the-wall" hotdog in the park in the square. We would stop by the riverboat and tell Allman and Myna goodbye.
But they were gone.
Everything was gone.
The trees hung still and silent over the empty river where the houseboat had been anchored. We stood on the empty path looking at the silent space and wondering. Where did they go? Would we ever see them again?
As we stood there, a stir of autumn wind moved through the treetops. Leaves of orange, red and gold showered down all around us and scurried along the ground among brown ones already there. I saw a scrap of paper scurrying along with the leaves. Something was written on it.
I picked it up and Ries and I read it together:
"Words drip from the lips of man
in a continuous flow.
It is as so many streamlets flowing from the mountainside;
Some soak into the fertile earth bringing forth flowers of beauty and truth;
Most continue streaming on...
On to the salty sea,
Where they rock back and forth
meaninglessly."

I folded it carefully and put it in my pocket. It had to be Myna's.


* * * * * * *


We were ready to go.
Our plan was to go directly from Ries' place, across the rocky pastures, Up the gently rising land to the forest beyond, then on up into the foothills of the mountains.
We wanted to walk all the way.
We wanted to go as straight as we could from where we were, up and up until we rached the very top of the highest peak.
We were on Ries' patio. We were wearing lightweight, comfortable clothing, and walking shoes which would protect our feet, but were so weightless and fit so well that it was almost like wearing no shoes.
We were taking two helpers along to carry the camping packs so that we could walk free and unencumbered. They were standing fully packed and ready, beside the south door of Ries' shop.
We stood beside the low patio wall looking out across the lands toward the mountains. The weather was sunny and cool.
"How far is it across there from here to the mountain?
I asked.
"Well, from here to the beginning of the foothills, it's about fifty miles," Ries answered we can easily walk twenty miles a day, even if we start late and stop early...are you ready?
I looked at him and smiled. "I'm ready."
We walked across the patio, through Ries' shop, and out the south door.
The helpers fell into place behind us and we continued on down the path to the farm buildings, went through the barn and on out behind it and soon was heading off across the rocky pasture land.
We passed small rocks and big rocks, huge boulders and scrubby little shrubs, little ponds and small lakes, and meadows full of stubbly grasses and weeds.
Autumn flowers were blooming everywhere. That one heavy, early frost we'd had hadn't bothered them at all.
Occasionally we heard the fluid songs of meadowlarks, but couldn't see them.
We walked steadily but not speedily, each of us drinking in the fresh cool autumn air and exulting in the beauty of our surroundings.
We didn't talk, but now and then we would touch or look at each other and smile.
When we left Ries' patio, the sun was halfway up the morning sky. We didn't stop or look back until it was directly overhead.
We had already crossed the pastures and were well on the way across the upward sloping field lands.
The forests seemed much nearer now.
We came to a small bubbling spring surrounded by grasses and wild flowers.
We stopped and drank from the spring then together we turned and looked back across the way we had come.
The clump of trees in which Ries' place nestled looked small and far away. We couldn't see my little studio house. It was hidden from view behind the trees of Ries' place.
We rested on the grass while the helpers made a small lunch. Ries lay with his eyes closed, dozing in the sun.
I watched the helpers, fascinated by their efficiency and thankful to have them.
First they took something from one of the packs that looked like a piece of cardboard folded like an accordion. They unfolded it, pulled down short, stubby legs about four inches long, snapped and locked them into place, and it made a small table about one foot wide and four feet long. Then they took a small case from the pack, put it on the table and opened it up. It held every utensil needed for cooking and serving, even a thin and flat two-burner electric stove.
Everything was small but fully adequate for two people: Two plates, two cups, two soup bowls, two spoons two cookpots, a skillet and a coffee pot.
They took four small packets of freeze-dried foods from the pack. The packets were thin; one was about two by two inches and the other three were about three by four inches. They dipped fresh, clean water from the spring and began to mix and stir and cook. First they filled the coffee pot with water, opened the smallest packet, poured the contents in the coffee basket, set the coffee pot on the stove, then mixed the contents of one of the larger packets with water in a soup bowl, poured the mixture into the skillet, and set it on the stove. I could see that it would be cornbread.
They put water in the two cook pots, mixed the contents of each of the other packets into the water, and when the coffee and cornbread was done, they removed the coffee pot and the skillet from the stove and put on the two cook pots.
They emptied tiny little packets of cream into the two cups and poured coffee into them.
I reached over and took a cup of the hot coffee and began sipping. I didn't expect it to be very tasty but it was delicious.
The coffee smell aroused Ries and I handed him a cup, and by the time we finished it, our lunch was ready.
Each of our plates held generous portions of stew filled with pieces of meat and vegetables, and a piece of crispy, crusted cornbread and the soup bowls held servings of rich and creamy chocolate pudding with luscious pieces of red cherry slices in it.
Everything tasted fresh and tender. I was amazed and delighted.
I ask Ries how the little stove was powered and he explained that it contained small solar cells so sensitive that it would pick up power from the sun even during cloudy and rainy days.
After lunch, we rested for about thirty minutes, then set off again.
We were high spirited and talkative. We gamboled and played and laughed and talked and joked our way up the gentle slope of the land and were already entering the outskirts of the forest by the time the sun began to set.
We looked back toward home and couldn't distinguish Ries' clump of trees from all the other trees of the forests by the river and on it's other side.
When we came to a small stream tumbling and pouring over it's rocky bed, we decided to camp beside it for the night.
The sun was already behind the trees and the air was becoming cold.
I sat down on the ground beside the trunk of a huge tree, nestling between it's outgrowing roots, and leaning back against it's smooth trunk. I wasn't cold yet, but my hands were, and I held them folded close to me to warm them. I knew it would be cold in the night and that the higher we climbed the colder it would become.
Ries took a small tube from on of the camping packs and squeezed a clear cream from it and rubbed it all over his hands and face and neck and ears, then brought it over to me. "This is insulating cream," he said, "it will keep the exposed areas of your body warm. Our walking suits and hats and all of our other clothing have solar cells like the stove and they are thermostatically controlled so that our body temperature will remain constant no matter what the surrounding temperature is, but we don't want our hands and head covered, so we can use this cream to keep those parts warm.
I took the cream and rubbed it all over my hands and wrists and face and neck and ears the way Ries had done. The cream instantly disappeared on my skin and in a couple of minutes my hands were comfortably warm again.
The helpers already had a small brown tent erected and was putting a large sleeping pad and pillow pads in it. I knew what they would put in next: Myna's quilt. It would be our cover. I watched one of the helpers take it from one of teh camping packs, shake it out, and spread it out on the sleeping pad. Ries was watching too, and we smiled at each other. He went over and opened a small valve on the corner of the sleeping pad, and blew air into it, then did the same with the pillow pads. "We're going to be warm and snug and cozy and sleep on air," I said.
"Yes, and stay dry too," Ries answered. "Everything is waterproof: the tent, the sleeping pad, pillow pads, and our clothes. And everything as solar powered, thermostatically controlled temperature. We won't be cold, we won't be hot, and we won't get wet..." He laughed, then added, "now if we just don't get lost!"
I laughed too, and said, "And we can't get lost, because we'll always know where we are even if no one else does!"
The helpers built a nice big fire a little distance from my "sitting tree," then set up the little table and began preparing supper.
This time, they actually made a little chocolate cake for dessert. They emptied a little packet into one of the soup bowls, cooked the mixture in the skillet the way they had done the cornbbread, then squeezed chocolate frosting all over it from another little packet. And for supper, they made crusty wheat bread, thin slices of roast beef with gravy, creamy mashed potatoes, and asparagus tips.
All of these things came from small thin packets no bigger than a postal card. Mixing the contents of the packets with water "magically" transformed them into normal sized, fresh tasting, delicious foods.
After we finished with supper, we soon became so drosy that we could hardly stay awake, so we crawled into the tent.
I was glad to have Myna's quilt. It gave me comfort and a feeling of being at home. We pulled it up over us and slept all night long, not waking at all until birdsongs woke us at the first light of dawn.




268/269

47

After breakfast we were full of energy and ready to go.
By the time the sun began to cast long beams of light through the tall trees, we were well on our way again.
Ever since we had left Ries' patio, we had been walking on a well defined trail. I wasn't surprised because I knew that the fields and forests all around our home was crisscrossed by easy and wide trails. But now that we were in the forest which led up to the mountain's foothills, I wondered if the trails would end. I asked Ries.
"No, they don't end," he said, "in fact, the higher yu go into the foothills the more trails there are."
Every now and then we had been passing smaller trails that led off from the main trail and was passing one as he spoke. He pointed to it and said, "Most of the smaller trails like that one go to people's houses. They are scattered all throughout the whole forest and the mountain's foothills, but it's unlikely that you will see one of them, since they are back among the trees. Some are as far as three miles or more from the main trails. People walk and drive their mobilettes all over the place and I'm surprised that we haven't met anyone yet this morning."
"Does anyone live farther on up the side of the mountains past the tree line?" I asked.
"There's a few scattered around part of the way up, but none as far as halfway that I know of." He looked all around then up the trail ahead and said, "We're going to turn off of this main trail up ahead a little way, onto a less traveled path. We'll stay on that one all the way up as far as trails go. It's wide and easy to travel, bu none ot the trails are straight, and as they get on up into the foothills they turn and loop and curve and go up and down and back and forth. We won't cover as much distance as quickly then."
He looked all around us at the unbelievably beautiful autumn forest and added: "but we don't mind, do we? Let's take our time and enjoy every minute of the trip."
I agreed wholeheartedly. It was still early and the morning mists still lingered. It softened colors and lines and gave everything around us a quiet, magical quality, and a little way out from us through the trees the forest around us seemed to fade into blue mystery.
The sun was halfway up to the tops of the trees now, and as we walked, it seemed to follow along, peeking through the trees and mists. I could see why so many people wanted to live here. I thought I would like living here too, and said, "Why don't we live up here in the forest, Ries?"
He laughed delightedly. "Why Mem! I do believe you're enchanted!" He leaned toward me as we walked and looked closely into my face, still chuckling. "Yep! I see it on your face. You're enchanted! This magical forest has cast it's spell on you!"
I looked at him and laughed too, and thought of our wide fields, meadows, wildflowers, Ries' little vegetable fields, our gardens, my little studio house, Ries' shop, the river, Kelly, Otto, Cerise, Kleff, the ocean, Myna and Little Town...
I felt a pang of homesickness and looked back over my shoulder along the trail behid us as if I could see home back there. When I spoke, the homesickness was in my voice: "I wonder where Myna and Allman is..."
Ries reached out and put his arm across my shoulders gently and briefly and said, "me too."
We walked on.
Because of the tall forest around us, we couldn't see home behind us nor the blue mountains ahead.
We spent a whole beautiful glorious week slowly winding our way up through the green, gold, red, and orange of the autumn forest-covered foothills of the mountains.
Once it rained all day and all night and that day and night was fantastically lovely. The rain would come heavy sometime, then drizzled lightly, then slow to a drippy mist, then come heavy again.
We were warm, dry, and comfortable and were not inconvenienced by the rain at all. At camping time the helpers shook out a large, lightweight, waterproof piece of fabric and stretched it overhead, tying it to trees in such a way that the rain would run off of it, then built a small fire and prepared our meals and pitched our tent underneath the open shelter.
We slept beside waterfalls and rivers, in a thick pine grove once, and once beneath a large tree whose bright yellow leaves kept falling lazily down and covering the ground with a golden carpet.
From time to time we met people along the trail, exchanged pleasant greetings with them and continued on our way.
Finally we came to a small town at the upper edge of the forest. The terrain had become more and more rocky and the trees and vegetation more and more sparse. We were finally above the foothills and at the base of the highest peak. This was the upper edges of the tree line.
From here on up we would have to find our own way. There would be no more trails.
The town was like a last frontier. We found a camping supply store and replaced all of the provisions we had used.
The people at the store wished us a safe and successful journey and we continued on our way.
The trail out of town wound up and up for about another mile then ended abruptly at a huge flat-topped rock which was walled in on both sides by other rocks of all sizes and shapes. We climbed up on top of it and stood looking back toward home. We were high enough now that we could see over the trees of the forest. The whole world was spread out before us. We could see valleys and forests and fields and rivers and lakes and house and towns and ribbons of trails and the ocean. We thought we could see where our home, Little Town, Kelly's, and the Blue Mountain Resort was, but we couldn't be sure.
We finally turned back and looked out across the flat rock then up and ahead of us and tried to see the highest peak of the mountain, but all we could see were more rocks and clouds and sky.
We didn't know which way to go, but somehow it seemed natural to go straight ahead and that's what we did, without consultation.
Soon we came to a solid rock wall which toweed about twelve feet straight up above our heads, but this time a clear path ran along it's base in both directions to our right and to our left. We looked at each other questioningly for a moment then without hesitating turned to the right. This way continued on for a while, straight along the base of the rock wall, closed in by huge, jagged rocks of all sizes and shapes, too steep and too rough to travel on, then suddenly it made a sharp turn to the left and we found ourselves in a large, room-sized, flat and smooth-floored open area totally surrounded by huge sheer faced boulders jammed up against each other.
It would have been a dead end except that there were three corridor-like openings through the boulders, one to our left, one directly opposite it to our right and one a little over to the left and straight ahead of us.
We had been going to our right for a while, so we decided to go into the corridor on our left. It was very narrow and we had to walk single file. Ries went ahead, I walked behind him and the helpers followed along behind me.
We walked and walked and walked.
Once the sheer-faced rock walls became so high that all we could see was a narrow strip of sky above us. Then they became lower again, but never low enough for us to see over them.
We were becoming tired and hungry and knew that it was late afternoon.
The corridor became even more narrow.
We kept walking.
Our shoulders didn't quite touch the rock walls, but the helper's camping packs were almost scraping against them. If it became more narrow we would have to go back and try one of the other corridors. It would be dark and into the night before we could go back that far.
We kept on walking. We were thankful that the path under our feet was smooth and not strewn with rocks and pebbles.
The light began to fail and we knew that soon it would be dark.
The walls became higher and higher again. The corridor had been making gentle curves all along, and we couldn't see very far ahead nor behind us.
Suddenly we came to a sharp curve to the right. We held our breath as we rounded the curve, hoping the corridor would open out into a space large enough for us to make camp for the night.
I didn't. It was a dead end. We would have to go back.


276/277


48

We were stunned. We stood there string at the solid rock ahead of us as if we could will it to open up and let us through.
Ries turned around facing me and leaned up against the dead end of stone and I leaned onto him. We stood there for minutes gathering strength. Finally he spoke. "We'll have to rest a while." I nodded. "Yes." I stepped back, he slid down into a sitting position, and I turned and sat in front of him. He leaned back on the rock and I leaned back on him. Our shoulders were only inches from the rock walls on each side of us.
We looked up at the strip of sky above us. The light was almost gone.
Ries took a small flask of fortified fruit juice from his pocket and we drank some, then bowed our heads and tried to rest.
The helpers stood waiting.
After a while Ries said, "Are you ready?"
I said, "Yes," and stood up, then Ries stood and said, "We need to eat something before we start." He thought messaged the rear helper and it took a small package about the size of a matchbook from the front helper's pack and handed it across to us. It contained six thin wafers of emergency rations. Ries took three wafers and gave me three, saying, "These three wafers are nutritionally equal to a whole three course dinner and taste delicious. We'll eat them along the way. They are quite chewy and it takes about thirty minutes to eat all of them."
We had another drink and was ready to go. The corridor was so narrow that the helpers couldn't turn around with the fully loaded camping packs bulging out, and had to move along backwards ahead of us, and as we started off, the thought of us squeezed into this deep and narrow rock tunnel, walking along with the helpers moving backwards ahead of us, struck me as funny but I was too tired to manage more than a small giggle. I mentioned it to Ries and he chuckled.
When full darkness came, it was pitch black. We couldn't see the helpers, each other, or even the strip of sky above. We didn't see any need for using flashlights though, because we knew that the path was smooth and level, so we just kept walking fearlessly on through the black darkness. We could even walk with our eyes closed and doze along the way.
We had been walking along silently for what seemed like eternities, and I had been dozing as I walked when suddenly a thought he me and I was startled awake.
"Ries!?" I exclaimed.
He was walking along half asleep and sort of mumbled, "huhn?"
I said, "It's so dark and we're practically walking in our sleep...what if we walk right on straight across the large open space, and into another corridor? We don't know what's in the other corridors...we could walk right over a cliff or something..."
He didn't answer immediately, but finally said, "The chances of that happening are remote, but I guess it is possible."
I touched the rock walls beside me and said, "It seems like we have been walking for hous and hours...could we have already done that? Maybe we're already in another corridor..."
I was beginning to feel lost and confused.
"Wait a minute," he said, "I'll stop the helpers, too. Let me think a minute. I'm tired. I'm not really awake."
"I'm going to sit down," I said.
"Yes, let's both rest a few minutes," he answered.
I rested my head on my knees and waited. I was so tired that I started falling asleep. Ries' voice startled me.
"I wish I had instructed the helpers to stop and warn us when we came to the end of the corridor...I didn't think of it. I just told them to keep goiong a few paces ahead of us until I instructed them to stop...You're right Mem...we've been walking so long and we've been dozing...it's like being in a trance...we could have even slept and not known it. We have no way of knowing how long we've been walking. I know the chances that we could have walked across the open space and into another corridor is small, but stillo...there is that small chance...I'm so tired, I can't think. We've been walking since dawn this morning...where's the flashlight?...I can't think...let's just stop and stretch out here and really sleep for a while. I just can't think right now. We've pushed ourselves past our endurance."
I wanted nothing more than to stop and I said, "Yes."
We stretched ourselves out on the narrow path and instantly fell sound asleep.
I was lying flat on my stomach with my head cradled on my arms.
A bright light was shining in my face. I moved slightly to avoid the light, then suddenly remembering where I was, I came awake. I raised my head and opened my eyes.
Just a few feet ahead of me, the lead helper was standing within an inch of the edge of a bottomless precipiece!
I felt as if my heart and all my blood melted and drained down into the ground beneath my body. I felt like I was reduced to nothing more than a blob of jelly. I didn't have strength to move or to speak.
We were in another corridor! It had opened out onto a narrow ledge high above other rocks between us and other lower rocks across the way just enough to see a strip of ocean far away in the distance. The sun was up and had just broken through low clouds on the horizon, and was shining into my face. The lead helper was silhouetted against the sky at the very edge of the cliff.
I felt Ries' hand gently take a hold of my foot and it gave me strength enough to turn my head and look at him with horror filled eyes. He smiled. "It's okay, Mem," he said, "be still. I'll move the helpers back this way, and we'll move back too. We're okay. We're safe. Come on."
I managed somehow to sit up and he crawled up to me, then stood up, helping me to stand too. I couldn't have stood alone. He held me close a minute. My back was now toward the precipiece and he slowly moved backwards leading me farther and farther away from the edge. The helpers followed along behind me. When we had moved about a hundred feet back, he stopped and held me close again.
Now that we were well away from the edge of the cliff, I was feeling better. Ries' strength poured into me and I finally raised my head and stood on my own strength. I took a deep breath and said, "I'm okay, now."
He hugged me tight a second, then let me go, and turned back the way we had come and said, "Let's fo find the open space. It can't be very far. We'll have breakfast, set up the tent and rest all day and all night. We need it."
In less than ten minutes, we were back to the large room-sized open space where we had entered the first corridor.

282/283

49
When we emerged and saw the other corridor we had taken the day before across the open space, Ries said, "Now we know which corridor to take. There's only one more left, so it has to be the right one.
I laughed and exclaimed, "Brilliant deduction, professor!"
Ries laughed too, and said, "Don't I get a prize for that outstanding little piece of mental achievment?" I grabbed him and kissed him a "million" times and we hugged each other, and laughed and danced around in little jigs in sheer relief that what could have happened didn't happen. We had been practically within inches of walking off a mile high cliff.
Ries had already instructed the helpers and they were starting the breakfast and a=camp setup procedures.
We were right back where we had started from and the horrifying experience had sobered us, but still we were undaunted.
It didn't enter our minds to go back down the mountain. We thought only of going up.
We slept for a while after breakfast, then relaxed on our air filled sleeping pad and talked and rested and napped the rest of the day.
We realized that there was any number of ways we could have avoided the predicament we had found ourselves in the night before, but our one biggest mistake had been pushing ourselves on long after we should have stopped. We resolved never to do that again. The one most important thing we would need was to be able to think clearly at all times.
At dawn the next morning we awoke will rested, in good spirits and eager to see what was ahead of us along that last corridor.
It was narrow just as the other two had been, but it's curves were not long and gentle. It had sharp curves to the right and to the left, it went uphill and downhill, and all along the way, it had deep crevices breaking across it's smooth floor. The crevices were not wide, and we could easily step over them, but we had to keep always on the alert, being very careful not to inadvertently stumble into one. It would be very easy to break an ankle, foot or leg.
We had to walk single file again, but this time Ries went first, then the helpers, and I last. We did this so that the camping packs on both helpers would be easily accessible. The second helper could reach the first helper's pack and I could creach the second helper's pack. We walked all morning, expecting to emerge from the high walled corridor around every bend and curve.
Three times the corridor became so narrow for short stretches that the camping packs barely squeezed through, scraping the walls on both sides.
Once a large rock blocked the way but it was low enough that we were able to climb over it.
At noon, we stopped and rested for thirty minutes, and ate a small lunch of breakfast leftovers, then continued on.
About three hours later we stopped and rested again. Nothing had changed except that there were more and more crevices and they were getting wider and wider. Some were as much as two feet wide. They were anywhere from a few inches to three feet deep. This corridor was very discouraging except that it did seem to be climbing gradually higher and higher and we expected at any minute to come to the end of it and find an open, easier way to go.
But when the light of day became dimmer and dimmer and we knew that darkness would soon be upon us, we were still trudging along the narrow corridor, watching out for crevices and wishing for open spaces. We were tired and hungry and knew we should stop, but when we didn't find an end to the corridor around one curve, we would go on ahead and around just one more, then one more again, and when full darkness came, we took flashlights from the camping packs and continued hopefully on around one curve and then another until finally, not wanting to repeat the mistake we had made before and push ourselves past our physical and mental endurance, we stopped.
The corridor was only about twenty-four inches wide. We laid the helpers "face" down, end to end on the ground, took the sleeping pad, our pillow pads, Myna's quilt, the large piece of fabric we had used as a shelter in the rain, emergency rations, and juice from the camping packs. I walked carefully across the helpers to Ries. We folded the sleeping pad and shelter fabric and laid them end to end on the ground and sat, knees up, backs to the wall, side by side to eat the rations and drink the juice. We would have to sleep the way we had walked all day...in single file.
Ries turned the light toward the next curve in the corridor and said, "wouldn't it be a joke on us if there's a wide open space around that curve just waiting for us while we sleep crunched up here in this stone slot?"
I groaned. "Please! Don't even think it!"
He chuckled softly. "You wait here, and I'll take a light and look around three more curves. Just three more." He stood up and walked away and around the curve.
I put my head down on my knees and closed my eyes. I tried to think how long we had been walking since it got dark. It seemed like hours. I picked up Myna's quilt, crumpled it into a wad on my lap and put my arms around it and laid my head on it. I forgot being hungry and about the emergency rations and dozed, waiting for Ries.
He wasn't gone long. When he came back he knelt beside me, put his arms around me, and said, "Would you like to have some hot soup and sleep in the tent on the air filled sleeping pad with me?"
I sat bolt upright and said, "You found space? You really did?"
I could hardly believe it.
"There's a flat smooth open area around the third curve from here," he answered, "it's not very large, but big enough for the tent and for us to move around a little." He hesitated, then said, "Remember that first rock wall we came to after we left the town and we could've gone either right or left and we turned right?"
I said "Yes, it led us to the large area with the three corridors, but why do you ask?"
"Tomorrow, we have to go back there. We should have turned left there instead of right. The third curve up ahead where the open space is, is the last curve. It's a dead end."
I didn't say anything. I reached in my pocket for a cigarette. There were three left in the pack. I suddenly realized that this one pack had lasted more than a week, and in the past, I had used at least two whole packs every day. I gave one to Ries. He noticed there was only one left and said, "There's more stowed in the camping pack but it looks like we've lost our taste for them...I keep forgetting about them, and I've noticed you do too."
"Yes, that's right!" I exclaimed. "I only this minute realized it...but I think we'll really enjoy this one..."
I paused, then said,
"It's really a dead end?"
He answered gently: "It really is. We'll have to go back, and it will take all day long and into the night just to get back to the open area at the beginning of this corridor."
I took a long drink of the juice and said, "I'm glad and thankful for the open space at the dead end...we can have thick, chunky, hot soup and toasty bread and sleep comfortably on the sleeping pad. We'll be able to stretch and turn and curl up on our sides. We can put some air into the pad and it will be soft and cozy and we'll wake up fully rested tomorrow, have hot coffee and a delicious breakfast... I'm ready! Let's go have hot soup!"

288/289

50
We gathered up our things and went on to the open space around the last curve to the dead end.
We were still undaunted. We still didn't think of going back down and giving up our quest. We still thought only of going up, and when we finally reached the high rock wall where we had chosen the wrong direction, it was the morning of the fifth day.
Four days and four nights had gone by since we hd stood in this very spot and unhesitatingly turned to the right and went the wrong way. Now we unhesitatingly continued on along the new way with high hopes and a sense of excitement.
And our perseverance was richly rewarded. That whole day was a beautiful, glorious journey upward.
The way was clear and definite and wide open. There was a towering rock wall on our right and a wide open panoramic view of the whole world stretching out to the horizon on our left. We were on a ledge which was at least three hundred feet wide. We went up, up, up, and when the day was over we were still on the wide expansive ledge, gradually going up.
We passed many tiny little waterfalls trickling down from the rock wall beside us and flowing smoothly along small, shallow crevices across the ledge to tumble on down the mountain side at the far edge.
We spent the night in our tent, tucked safely up against the cliff wall.
The next morning we continued on joyfully...laughing, talking, and playing along the way.
Aftr a while we began to find large rocks and boulders scattered along the ledge and soon they were so big that we were having to pick our way along between them.
The high cliff wall to the right of us became lower and lower as we went until finally it was only a few feet above our heads.
As we picked our way along between boulders, we soon realized that the ledge was ending.
We heard the sound of falling waters ahead of us. It became louder and louder as we came nearer and nearer to it, and finally we saw it.
It was the end of the ledge.
There was only one way to go and that was to climb up beside the waterfall.
The way was steep, but easy. Huge, flat stones were scattered all along the edge of the falling stream. The waterfall cascaded from one level to another on it's way down and we climbed from one level to another on our way up, stopping to rest occasionally, just like the water did in it's little pools between the rocks.
We were thrilled and exhilarated.
Now we were really going up! We thought we must be almost halfway up the mountain already!
We ate lunch beside the cascading waters on a huge, flat moss covered rock. We sat leaning back against a rock, eating and looking out across the vast expanse of land stretching out to the hazy horizon far below us.
The weather was clear and sunny before us, but when we turned and looked back and up toward the mountain top, clouds and mists hovered and dipped toward us so close that our hearts raced with excitement, because we knew that they covered only the highest peaks and we had to be more than halfway up.
When we finished eating, we reated a whild, then eagerly began our climb again.
We had to stop and rest often, because the climb was steep, but just as the sun lowered on it's way to setting, a misty fog crept in all around us and we knew we had reched the lower edges of the highest peak.
We heard the sound of falling waters again.
There was a high rock ahead of us and we had to go round it. When we climbed up and around and was on top of it's wide flat top, we saw the new waterfall up ahead. It tumbled down from a ledge that was at least a hundred feet high. Another steep climb. This one was more treacherous than the first, but not so much so as to turn us back. At the end of it we went up and around another huge boulder and suddenly found ourselves surrounded again in an open space like the one we had encountered the first day. The one with the three dead end corridors.
This one had four outlets, but they were not so narrow and high walled as the other ones had been.
We set up camp. We would spend the night here.
Which one of the four outlets would we choose the next morning? We thought about it and talked about it and thought about it again.
When we went to sleep we still had not decided.
Ries was already up and out of the tent when I awoke in the morning. I cuddled alone into Myna's quilt, dozing and luxuriating in early morning half awake comfort until the smell of freshly brewed coffee brought me up and out of the tent. I didn't see Ries anywhere. The helpers had breakfast almost ready. I poured a cup of coffee and sat quietly sipping slowly from the cup and waiting for Ries. I knew he was checking out the four outlets, going a little way along each one to see what they looked like.
In a few minutes he was back and pouring coffee for himself. "They're all alike as far as I went," he said, "and they all lead upward."
"Do they go upb gradually or ae they steep?" I asked.
"They're about medium, not a gentle slope and yet not a steep climb, but there's no telling what they're like farther along."
We started eating our breakfast, and I said, "It really doesn't matter which one we take since we have no way of knowing which is the right one. We just have to be prepared to retrace our steps as often and as long as necessary."
Ries nodded. "You're right. Let's draw lots for one since we can't decide." I laughed. "Good idea!" It was a relief to have the hard decision made so easily.
This would be our seventh day on the mountain.
Five days later, we were sitting in the same exact spot drawing lots again!
We had lost count of the number of times we had drawn lots.
Every one of the four outlets had other outlets along the way and those outlets had outlets. There were myriads of ways to go, and so far every single one had led back into one ot the four main outlets not far from the open space where we were camping and each day at sundown we had found ourselves back at the same place again.
We were becoming very discouraged but remained determined and on this, the morning of the twelfth day, we set off again hopefully and expectantly.
This time the sundown didn't bring us back to the same spot again. We were higher up. The fog was so dense that we could see nothing but only the rocks and boulders immediately around us. We camped, then climbed again the next day. We went every which way, back and forth, up and down, around boulders, over boulders and between boulders, but always upward.
Three more days we climbed.
On the morning of the fourth day, which was our seventeenth day on the mountain we started off again, but every way we tried to go went down, down, down, with never a turn back up and the only way to go up again was to bo back to where we had camped.
Could we be at the top?
Could this be the top of the highest peak?


51
The thick and heavy fog hung all around us, softening the shapes of huge rocks and boulders. We could see only the ones within a few feet of us.
We looked at each other. I said, "Is this it? Are we at the top?"
Ries looked all around us at the dim outlines of rocks and boulders enshrouded in the fog.
Suddenly he yelled at the top of his voice:
"Is anybody here!!???!!
Then he laughed. His voice fell flat and dull on the fog. He looked at me, his eyes deep and fathomless. "Yes, we're at the top, Mem. Do you see anybody or anything?" I looked at him, then all around, then back at him.
Realization dawned on me.
I smiled.
"Yes. I do. I see you."
I held out both arms in a circle, fingers touching and looked down. "And I see me...
Someone is up here. We are!"
I looked around us at the fog and the rocks and boulders and at the two helpers standing near by. "I see something too. I see rocks and boulders and fog and two machines loaded with camping supplies."
I looked more closely at the nearest rocks. "And I see little green mosses and gray lichen and water collected in crevices of rocks..."
Ries stepped over to me and we held each other close for a minute, then stood still and quiet, not moving and not speaking.
The silence was indescribable. It was like the silence I had entered into with Myna. I imagined her climbing this mountain alone, and standing here alone, and carrying this silence back within her everywhere she went. I wondered how long she had stayed up here. I thought of the little piece of paper we had found on the path where her houseboat had been. I had carried it with me ever since and I now reached into my pocket and took it out. Ries and I read it again:
"Words drip from the lips of man
In a continuous flow.
It is as so many streamlets
flowing from the mountainside.
Some soak into the fertile earth,
bringing forth flowers
of beauty and truth;
Most continue streaming on
On to the salty sea
Where they rock back and forth
Meaninglessly.

Ries spoke: "She found the stillness here." I answered: "Yes."
I said, "Let's stay here a while. Let's set up the tent again and stay."
He nodded assent.
We each arranged a comfortable place to sit side by side on the rocks, using other rocks for chair backs. We put some air in the sleeping pad, spread it on the rocks and used our pillow pads to lean back on. It was almost like our lounges at home.
When we spoke, we spoke very softly and the fog muffled our voices. We hardly disturbed the silence at all. We settled down and relaxed, not talking, each of us thinking our own thoughts together.
I was thinking, "Are we really at the top of the highest peak? How can Ries be so sure? If we are at the top, why didn't we know it when we first got here? Why did we realize it only when we started to leave, and there was no way to go but down? JWJhy is it so special now that we think it is the top and wasn't before? The fog is so thick we can't see anything. Maybe we're just on a small rise. Maybe it would go down and then up again...how can Ries be so sure?" My thoughts went round and round and soon I began to drift off to sleep.
"Mem! Mem! Wake up! Look!"
It was Ries. He was shaking me.
I opened my eyes. He was sitting up, not looking at me as he called out and shook me, but looking all around us.
I looked. And gasped.
The fog around us was all gone!
The sky was clear and blue above us, but below us, all around in every direction, we were looking down on thick, fluffy white clouds. We couldn't see any of the mountain peaks at all It was like we were on a chunk of stone in the sky floating on a sea of clouds
The illusion mde me dizzy and I clung to a rock beside the sleeping pad.
The clouds below us were moving and billowing and it created the sensation that we were moving. The illusion was so strong and seemed so real that I clung to the rock for dear life.
The sold space of rocks and boulders around us was only about seventy-five feet in diameter and it looked like about twenty feet down the sloping sides all around us to the tops of the clouds.
There was no doubt in my mind
now.I knew we were on top of the highest peak.
We watched the moving, billowing clouds in utter fascination for what seemed like eons. Neither of us was able to speak.
We watched as rainbow colors and flashes of light began to appear on one side. We knew the morning sun was shining up through the clouds.
The beauty, the movement, the light, the running silver and rainbow colors of edges of clouds, the very awesomeness of it all was more than I could bear.
I put my head down on my arms, still clinging to the rock, closed my eyes and began to cry softly. I felt Ries' comforting hand touch my shoulder.
When I was finally able to raise my head again, I saw a huge billowing tower of clouds rising high above us and rolling in toward us. In a few seconds it reached us and folded us into itself, closing us in again into our old familiar envelope of thick fog.
Once again we could see no more than the solid foundation of the neaby rocks and boulders.
I, weak and trembling, still clung to the rock beside the sleeping pad.
We waited. Would this cloud pass by? Would it happen again?
Minutes went by. The fog stayed.
Finally I was able to speak. I turned and looked at Ries. "I'm ready to go."
He nodded.

* * * * * * *


52

A few hours later, we were already down below the fog again.
We had picked our way down, down, down, back and forth, around and between boulders.
We never came up against obstacles and we never had to retrace our steps.
At sundown we camped beside a small clear-water lake. We had seen waterfalls and other lakes, but we never saw the same waterfalls we had seen on the way up, nor did we find the wide ledge.
We saw nothing familiar.
Somehow, we were going down a different way from the way we came up.
by sundown the next day we were deep into the forests of the foothills. We had no idea where we were. We had not seen the little town we'd called the last frontier, and we had not found any trails. We had not come upon any houses tucked away in the forest.
At nightfall, we made camp in the midst of a stand of tall, thick-trunked trees. They towered high above us, their tops rippling and swaying gently to the music of a light wind playing through their upper branches.
Twinkling stars shone down through open areas of their leaves, appearing and disappearing as the limbs moved. Thick layers of fallen leaves covered the floor of the forest all around us.
We spread the sleeping pad on the soft, leafy carpet and lay with our heads on our pillow pads, wataching the glittering stars and the swaying brancehes, listening to the music of the wind.
I was holding FMyna's quilt crumpled in my arms, cuddling it close to me.
Ries whispered, "Listen! Did I hear music?"
I whispered back, "Yes, it's the wind playing in the trees..."
We both listened again. "There it was again!" he whispered, "not the wind, something else...didn't you hear it?"
"No..." I listened carefully, trying to hear it, then put my hand on his rm, saying, "Yes! Now I hear it...it's so much like a part of the wind that it's hard to hear."
We couldn't discern what the instrument was. Chimes? Violin? What? Who was playing it? Where was it coming from?
We both listened hard. It rose and fell as the wind rose and fell. It murmured when the wind murmured. It played along in tune with the wind and in time with it.
The stars twinkled and appeared and disappeared in perfect fiming with the moving trees against the sky and with the windsong and the music.
We were mesmerizfed by the sight and sound and soon floated off into deep, lyrical sleep.

* * * * * *

A light was shining in my face. The music of the wind and trees was now loud and clear and near by. I opened my eyes.
It was morning. The sun was high. It was sending a beam of light through the trees, shining in my face.
The wind was gone and the forest was still.
I moved. I looked around.
A young boy, about eleven or twelve years old was sitting beside a tree playing a harmonica. He was playing the same tune Kleff had played while sitting on my green sofa and looking at the blue mountain painting.
I didn't see Ries anywhere. I closed my eyes listening to the music.
I slept again.
The light in my fce woke me again. The boy was still playing. I moved my face from the light again and looked at him. He noticed me and stopped playing. He spoke: "Are you going home?"
I nodded. "Yes. We were on the mountain. We went all the way up. We were up on top of the highest peak. Now we're going home."
He smiled and started playing again.
I closed my eyes for a minute, listening, then opened them again.
The forest was gone.
I was on a narrow bed in a small room. The boy sat on a chair by the window playing the harmonica and looking at me.
I smiled into his eyes and when I did, he froze in place. He stopped playing, still holding the harmonica to his mouth, and sat there unmoving, as still as a statue, staring at me.
I looked away from him and around the room. I saw a calendar on the wall. The page was turned to April. The year was 1976. I went back to sleep.

* * * * * *

I am back in my little studio house now. Writing this story.
Every day I sit in my garden and write. I don't have much time.
I have awakened in that little room where the calendar is on the wall three times more. Once in May and twice in June. Always 1976. Five years since I fell from the roof of my house in 1971.
I know that soon I will be leaving this dream world. Soon I will awaken in that little room and stay there.
I am returning to the "real" world. I know it. I want to be ready.
Ries and I live quietly and happily. We have been to the mountain. We found our way to the highest peak.
Myna and Allman live in peace and tranquility in a small house beside the river near the low, white bridge. They were there when Ries and I returned from the mountains.
Kelly, Otto, Cerise, and Kleff live happily and cheerfully beside the ocean, preparing for the day they will embark upon their journey to the highest peak of the blue mountains.
Some days we all walk together to Little TJown and have a hole in the wall hotdog in the park of the town square.
I spend most of my time in the garden. When I return to the real world, this story will be full and complete in my mind. Some day I will hold a pencil in my hand and write it on real paper.
I haven't seen the boy who was playing the harmonica agaih, but I know I will because I know who he is. He is my grandson. Orrie's son. He was only seven years old the last time I saw him, before the accident. I think of him often now, and smile and wonder...does he still want cocoa every morning the way he did when he was small and the way his daddy did years ago?
Soon I will know. Soon I will awaken to the real world for good.
But I won't leave this world behind. It will always be with me. I will carry it with me forever.
I know.
I know because I have seen the blue mountains.
I have been to the highest peak.


The End