#There was an extended version of the 'david cleaning his room' story but it felt a bit dark so I cut it

[bunnieswithknives]

So, Lesley's somewhat of a better parent than Roy. But based on what we've seen so far... She's pretty fucked.

What has Roy done to be put on the bad parent list compared to Lesley?

Roy believed in making punishments related to whatever he was being punished for a better 'learning experience'

For example: if Roy asked David to clean his room and he refused, he would lock him in until he was done, even if he had to miss meals to do it, or if David broke something important to him he would get rid of something important to David. Some were worse than others, but Roy was strict on the fact that punishments wouldn't end until they were over, or until Lesley decided it was too far and forced him to stop.

[dassala]

The Way She Moves

Newly Remastered for #CSRomCom18 - Please note I am editing this as I go, so the version on AO3 does not necessarily match. I’m going to swap out those chapters when I’m done. If you like it, please reblog it! Reblogs help authors reach a broader audience!

–

Emma Swan is a lost girl, who made her way to Hollywood Boulevard on a quest to make something of herself. One fateful night on the job, she meets a handsome stranger in a fancy car. Giving directions leads to so much more.

A Pretty Woman AU - Rated E for Explicit - Chapter 4 (1, 2, 3, 5)

Emma fidgeted nervously with the hem of her dress as they stood in the lobby of a very fancy-looking boutique, not unlike the one she had been ousted from earlier in the week. Killian was looking down at his phone, thumbs moving quickly to answer emails or texts or whatever it was he did on that thing. A handsome young man approached with a grin, offering a hand out to Killian, who glanced up and took it, shaking it firmly.

“Good afternoon,” the man said, shaking Killian’s hand firmly before he moved to offer his hand to Emma, “my name is David Nolan, and I’m the manager of this establishment. I understand you were looking to speak to me?”

Killian smiled, tucking his phone into his suit pocket. “Yes, sir. My name is Killian Jones. This is my lovely companion Emma Swan. Miss Swan is visiting me and has had the most unfortunate accident with her luggage.”

Emma glanced sidelong at Killian, watching him make up the story on the spot. She smirked slightly and shifted her weight on her heels.

“She is in need of a wardrobe for a few events whilst here in town. Can you be of assistance, Mr. Nolan? Money is, of course, absolutely no object when it comes to my Swan.”

A shiver ran down Emma’s spine as Killian placed a hand low on her back. His Swan. She wondered how much of that sentiment was the story and how much of it was true. She forced a smile and nodded to Mr. Nolan, whose eyes widened slightly at the mention of money.

“You have come to absolutely the right place, Mr. Jones,” David extended his arm to Emma. “Let me show you to my wife and in-house stylist, Mary Margaret. Mr. Jones, will you be joining us?”

“I have some business to attend to,” he pulled out a business card and handed it over to Mr. Nolan, along with a black credit card. “Please call me if you have any trouble with the credit card. I highly doubt it, though.”

Taking the credit card, Mr. Nolan gave a grin and a nod. “Oh we will most certainly help Miss Swan find everything she needs.”

“Excellent,” Killian leaned in and gave Emma a kiss on the cheek. “Be good. Have fun.”

Emma simply nodded with a smile as Mr. Nolan pulled her away toward a table to begin the process of buying an entire new wardrobe.

Emma leaned back against the hard wooden dining room chair as she waited, fluffing her hair a little bit more and glancing at the digital clock on the stove in the kitchen. It was 8:45, and Killian still had not made it back from the office. She was nearly ready to give up on the whole idea when she heard the faint ‘beep’ of the elevator approaching. Kicking her long, bare legs up onto the edge of the table, she leaned back comfortably and waited.

He looked exhausted. His hair was slightly askew, his brow furrowed as he stared down into the phone in his hand. He had barely loosened his tie, but otherwise was completely buttoned up, vest and all.

“How was your day, Dear?” She asked.

He moved to tuck the phone into his pocket and looked up. His expression fell and his hand missed its target, his phone clambering to the floor.

In a wash of warm candlelight, Emma was almost completely nude. Her long golden locks spilled slightly over her shoulders, legs kicked up onto the dining table, crossed one over the other. The only scrap of clothing she wore was a red leather jacket, a soft lambskin one which was definitely an upgrade from the pleather thing she had been wearing when she met him. It just barely covered her breasts, the soft lining inside warm on her nipples. From the angle he stood, Emma was quite sure he had a very nice view of her ass, rounded and supple and ready for him in every way. She hated to admit that the mere sight of Killian made warmth pool within her hips. Her body was positively begging for him.

“Stressful?” Emma asked, raising an eyebrow. The reaction was what she had hoped it would be. Biting down on her lip, she lifted her hands and crooked a finger at the wealthy businessman before her, who seemed to be melting into some sort of trembling mess.

Killian nodded slowly, his eyes transfixed upon her nearly-nude body. He stepped forward, dropping his briefcase and beginning to shed his suit jacket.

“Do you like the jacket? I thought I’d upgrade,” she smiled brightly, uncrossing her legs and letting her feet find the floor. She stood slowly and moved toward him. She felt her breasts move in their natural sway as she strode in his direction. Reaching up, she tugged at his tie, removing it slowly.

“I think the jacket is my favorite of your purchases. I don’t even need to see the rest, Love,” he muttered, reaching out to slide his hands over her hips. He leaned in, lips parting, eyes heavy-lidded with want.

Emma quickly turned her head, swallowing hard. She closed her eyes, allowing his lips to find her cheek. She felt him awkwardly pause, then trail kisses down the side of her neck.

“Well, I got quite a lot of good stuff,” she muttered, her fingers finding the hair at the back of his neck. She wound the strands around her fingers, her nails scraping ever-so-slightly at the lowest part of his scalp. “I thought I should say ‘thank you’.”

Chuckling softly, his hands found their way up her sides and he palmed her breasts, rocking his hips forward against hers. “You are very welcome,” he smirked and shifted his weight to slide off his shiny black leather shoes.

Licking her lips slowly, Emma breathed against Killian’s ear. “So what’ll it be, Mister Jones?” She flicked her tongue against his earlobe. “Tell me what you want.”

“You,” he whispered in return, his eyes darkened with lust. “Leave the jacket on.”

“I seem to have found a weakness…” she giggled and tugged at his belt, pulling it open and whipping it aside.

“You are my weakness, Swan,” he muttered against the crook of her neck, placing kisses against her skin.

Emma blushed, not sure how to handle such a compliment. She was sure it was merely bedroom talk. With a firm tug, she pulled open his vest, buttons flying across the room. She laughed softly and slid her fingers into his warm, soft chest hair, dragging her hands slowly down over his taut torso. “I want to taste you,” she whispered against his ear. He seemed to shiver at the thought, and Emma bent, finding a comfortable spot on her knees in the plush carpet. Her hands slid over the now-tented dress slacks he wore, teasing and circling his erection with a wicked smirk.

Killian’s eyes closed as she teased him, and he laughed softly. “Fuck,” he whispered under his breath, his toes curling in anticipation. He slid his fingers into her soft hair, pushing it back from her face as he watched her undress him, then slide the head of his cock in between her beautiful pink lips. “Emma…” he moaned lowly.

Emma pulled her lips back and released him with a loud ‘pop’, her eyes focused up on him from her position on the floor. Her tongue slowly circled his girth, wetting his member from top to bottom. One hand settled on his balls as she leaned forward and enveloped his length completely, pushing him deep inside the back of her throat.

He drew in a sharp breath, letting his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. When she was able, she emitted a low moan, the vibration of her lips bound to drive him wild. She gripped his backside with one hand, pushing his hips into her face. She knew he would never force her into anything she couldn’t handle, so for that particular kindness, she pushed her abilities to the limit. His fingers wound into her long, blonde locks, and she gazed up at him with each second that she devoured his incredible cock. With the tightening of his muscles, she knew he was upon his edge. Pushing his length deep into her throat, she relished the way he gasped in tiny breaths before he came. He cried out loudly and held her close, pumping his hot seed down her throat. He released his grip on Emma quickly after his orgasm, wanting to be sure she would not choke on him any more than she felt was comfortable.

Emma took a deep breath once she was released, cleaning him with her lips and tongue. She made sure to swallow every last drop of his essence, watching him from her knees. With a blush in her cheeks and slightly watery eyes, she pushed her hair back from her face and smirked, watching him stare at her in wonder. He reached forward and brushed her cheek with his fingertips.

“Are you alright, Love?” He asked, pulling her close to him. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m perfect, Killian,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t seem so concerned.”

He chuckled softly and scooped her up into his arms, kicking away his pants before carrying her toward the bed. “When a lady does a favor, its best to care for her after…”

Emma bit down on her lower lip. “You’re the most polite man I’ve ever met.”

He placed her carefully on the bed and laid down beside her, something changing in his expression when she spoke. He slid a hand onto her backside, cupping the soft curve of it against his palm.

“How did you end up doing this?” He asked finally. She knew the question would be coming her way eventually. She was really surprised it had taken so long.

“I grew up in the foster system. My parents dropped me on the side of the road when I was a baby. When I turned sixteen, I ran away from my last group home and I got together with this…total loser. He taught me how to steal things. We lived in dirty hotel rooms and squatted in abandoned apartments for a while. Maybe...two years? Then I got pregnant.”

Both of Killian’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Pregnant? You have a child?”

Emma shook her head. “When he found out, he took off. Didn’t want the responsibility, you know? I went to a shelter and tried to get my life in order for the kid’s sake. But I ended up losing the baby, anyway. So I ran as far away from Boston as I could get. First day here, I met Ruby. She turned tricks on Hollywood Boulevard and made it sound easy.”

He frowned and brushed some hair from her eyes. “How long ago was that?”

Glancing up at him, Emma cleared her throat. “About six months ago? I moved in with her and tried some other jobs first. I parked cars and waited tables. My first night on the Boulevard was…three weeks ago. I got picked up, taken to some crummy roach motel, and…I cried the whole time.”

She was sure he could see regret in her eyes. Killian took in a deep breath and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “No crying anymore.”

Emma didn’t know if he meant it as a command or as an observation, so she shrugged and smirked. “A girl could hardly be sad with you, Mr. Jones.”

“I certainly would not want to disappoint you,” he smiled, grasping her leg and lifting it up over his hip. He slid a hand down between her thighs, stroking her lust-flooded center with his thick fingers. Emma hissed and moaned, looking directly into his eyes. His gaze darkened with lust, and she knew he was pleased at just how wet she was. “I doubt you ever could,” she grinned and giggled as they began round two of what was sure to be a night of surprises.

--

A cool breeze swept through the trees surrounding the playing fields. Emma took Killian’s hand as she stepped out of the black limousine which carried them out to the Polo club. A floral, long-sleeved mini dress capped with a wide-brimmed white hat made sure that she now blended seamlessly into the crowd. She wobbled slightly on her heels as they made their way through a gravel drive, making a note to wear flats, should she ever find herself in a similar situation again.

“Mr. Jones!” A man hurried toward them. Killian extended a hand and greeted the man with a smile.

“Mr. French, it’s nice to see you again,” he grinned broadly and gave a tip of his hand toward Emma. “This is my friend Emma Swan. Emma, this is Moe French, and he was kind enough to handle all of our arrangements for the match.”

Emma offered her hand to Mr. French, who shook it with a firm grip. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. French. Thank you for your hard work.”

“No problem at all, my dear! Please, come to the tent and let me know if everything is to your liking,” he ushered the pair toward a large white tent and pulled back a flap for them to enter. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light beneath the canopy, Emma gasped slightly. The room was filled with round tables topped with gorgeous centerpieces of flowers in pinks and yellows. The North side of the tent was open to the field, giving anyone inside a perfect view of the match.

“Oh my Goodness,” she whispered, looking around. There were several bars and buffet tables set up around the perimeter of the tent.

“Do you approve, Miss Swan?” Mr. French asked. Killian stepped away from her for a moment to speak to a caterer about the dining options.

“It’s beautiful,” she beamed to the man, “but I’m hardly the person to ask. Killian paid for it, I believe.”

“Ah, yes, but he wanted to make sure you were satisfied,” he nodded and grinned. “If you have any questions, I’ll be in the next building over, dealing with the ice sculpture.”

As she leaned over to smell one of the lovely floral arrangements, she heard a voice from the entrance.

“Killian Jones, how the hell are ya?” A man asked, stepping into the room. Emma turned to see a man with salt and pepper hair, a hint of a moustache, and one of the cheesiest grins she had ever seen. At the man’s side was a proper-looking woman with chocolate skin and elegant features. She was petite and slim, her curves hugged in a tight-fitting red Herve Leger bandage dress. As Emma stood her ground, she noticed several others filing into the tent and swarming the bar.

“Emma,” Killian gave a small gesture with his hand, beckoning her to him. She smiled and moved to his side, where he slid his arm around her waist. “Emma, this is my attorney, Neal Cassidy and his lovely wife Tamara. Neal, this is my friend Emma Swan.”

“Wow, you did well this time,” Neal snickered, taking Emma’s hand and kissing the back of it. “It’s a pleasure, Miss Swan.”

“Very nice to meet you,” she nodded and smiled, putting off an eerie feeling about Mr. Cassidy. She smiled as well at Tamara, who gave a curt nod and turned to find the bar. Emma excused herself while the two men talked shop.

As she strolled through the tent, Emma stopped and admired a few of the napkins on the buffet table. She traced the ‘Jones Enterprises’ logo with her finger, feeling a little sad now that she knew the company had recently undergone rebranding from ‘Jones Brothers Enterprises’. A couple of women sat at a table nearby, tittering with the latest gossip.

“Did you see the blonde he brought with him?” One of the women asked. She was a redhead with a large green gem dangling from her neck. Emma knew from the kind of money that tended to be thrown around in these crowds that the gem was likely a very expensive emerald.

“Yeah, flavor of the month,” the other woman giggled, tipping her martini up to her lips. “Typical Killian Jones. I’m sure she’s positively gagging for the cash.”

Unable to control herself, Emma’s gaze narrowed. She moved closer to the table and gave a smile. “Are you ladies enjoying yourself?”

A look of shock crossed the redhead’s features. She hid a smirk and nodded quickly. “Oh of course, darling…”

“Fantastic. And I’m not gagging for the cash. In fact, I’m just using him for his huge cock. Have fun, girls!” Turning, Emma stalked out of the tent, leaving both women in complete shock.

--

“Listen, Killian, we gotta close this deal as soon as we can, okay?” Neal lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke to the side. He shook his head. “Old man Gold is gettin’ itchy, and he’s hiring some new legal firepower.”

“I’m working on it,” Killian sighed, fanning the smoke away from himself. He dusted some dirt from his pant leg and took a step back from his associate. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here, sponsoring this event.”

“I don’t know why we don’t just throw this money into the deal instead of wining and dining everyone,” Neal waved his cigarette around a bit more and tapped some ash down onto the ground.

“It takes tact, Mate. That’s why I do this bit, and you handle the paperwork,” glancing around the tent, Killian frowned. “Did you see where Emma got to?”

“Nah,” Neal shrugged, “But did you see those Oz girls?” He whistled low and made a clicking sound with his tongue.

--

Having wandered away from the tent, Emma was still kicking herself for having made such an insensitive comment. She knew it was inappropriate to talk about Killian like that, but why did people have to be so rude anyway? She paused and leaned against a fence, staring out over the field.

“Emma?” A voice asked. Breaking herself from her reverie, she glanced up to see one of the players making his way over toward her on horseback. She stood a bit taller and smiled when she realized who it was.

“August,” she grinned. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

With a chuckle, August removed his helmet and climbed down off of his horse. The team was just warming up, so his uniform was still clean and pressed. “Your boyfriend did.”

“Ah,” Emma blushed and moved her sunglasses up onto her hat. “Well, he doesn’t tell me much.”

Frowning, August shook his head. “Shame. I can see you’re quite smart. Maybe you could help him on some of these business deals of his.”

Avoiding going any further into the subject, Emma nodded toward the beautiful stallion in front of her. “Is this your horse?”

“Yes!” He grinned and patted the chestnut-colored horse. “This is Hermes. Would you like to pet him?” He brought the horse closer to the fence.

--

Stepping out into the sun, Killian glanced around, lowering his wayfarers over his eyes. After a moment, he paused, watching Emma petting the horse of one of the polo players.

“Dude,” Neal said, ducking out of the tent next to him, stomping his cigarette into the pristine grass, “is that guy after your girl?”

Killian shook his head and smirked. “No, no. They’ve met before. That’s August Gold,” Killian gestured toward the young man. “He’s the heir to Gold Industries. They met at dinner the other evening.”

There was a long silence. Emma’s laughter echoed as the horse nuzzled up against her. Neal finally spoke, “Where’d you say you met her?”

Taking in a deep breath, Killian cleared his throat. “At a party,” he said casually, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“What party? What’s she do?” Neal stepped forward and turned to face his associate. “She just showed up right when you started working on this deal?”

“Just a party, Mate,” Killian rolled his eyes. “And…she’s in sales.”

“What does she sell?”

“What does it matter, Cassidy?” Killian’s voice was a little more edgy than it had been earlier in the day. “Why do you care?”

“I’m just saying it’s a little suspicious. She looks chummy with Gold. What if she’s…y’know, working for them? Trying to get into your pants to knock you off of your game?” Neal’s narrowed gaze showed how serious he was about the idea. Killian stifled a laugh.

“She’s not an industrial spy,” he smirked. “Trust me.”

“You act like you don’t know a damn thing about her, though,” Neal shoved his hands into his pockets, clicking his tongue obnoxiously. “I’m just sayin’…”

“Oh my God, Cassidy, she’s a hooker,” the Englishman blurted, rolling his eyes. “Okay? She’s a hooker. I hired her for the week. I met her on Hollywood Boulevard. In your car.”

The attorney paused and stared at him, moving in closer. “Are you for real, Jones?”

Killian laughed and nodded. “Yes, I’m serious.” He patted his associate on the shoulder and turned to head back inside the tent, shaking his head.

--

“Good luck out there,” Emma beamed and gestured to the field. “I don’t know much about Polo, but I’ll root for your team.”

“Good to know I have a cheerleader,” August replied with a wink. He climbed back into the saddle and took off, leaving Emma at the fence, waving.

Neal strolled slowly over toward Emma, licking his lips. “Having fun?” He asked with a smirk.

Emma jumped slightly and laughed, nodding. “Yes! Gosh, you scared me. Are you enjoying yourself, too?”

Shrugging, Neal pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and leaned his back against the fence, his head turned toward Emma. “It’s all the same to me. Same parties; same people. But it must be all new to you.”

Nodding, she shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “Yes, everyone is a stranger to me. But Killian has been great with introducing me to everyone.” Whistles blew as the players moved into formation, waiting for the match to begin. “Should we move back into the tent? Get out of this sun?” She started back in the direction of the party.

“Big change from Hollywood Boulevard, hm?” Neal’s eyebrow raised slowly as he wantonly dragged his gaze down, then back up her body.

Emma’s jaw clenched. She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him. Suddenly uncomfortable, she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He laughed and leaned in a bit closer to her. “C’mon, you know what I mean. This isn’t your thing. You do most of your best work on your knees, I wager. Killian wouldn’t have kept you around all week if you didn’t.”

She remained silent, toeing the ground with her suede sandal. Her head was spinning. She honestly thought Killian would have kept her real occupation to himself. After everything, she must have been wrong about him. He really was just a creep like the rest of them.

“Well, listen,” Neal said, pushing away from the fence and moving closer to her. He dragged a finger down the side of her arm. Emma turned her head away at the putrid scent of cigarettes and whiskey. “After he leaves town, let’s get together. I’m interested in seeing what you can do.”

Her stomach churning at the idea of this horrid man treating her like a piece of meat, Emma simply nodded. She suddenly sympathized with Tamara, and understood her cold demeanor. The poor woman was married to a terrible slime ball.

“Or, um,” Neal glanced at the tent, then looked around for a moment, “I have a hundred bucks in my wallet. Why don’t we go up to the clubhouse and I’ll lay your sweet ass out, hm?” Emma jumped as his hand found her backside with a sharp smack.

“No,” Emma protested, stepping away. “I’m...I deal with one client at a time. I’m...I’m with Killian right now.”

“Too bad,” Neal turned and walked back toward the tent, lighting up another cigarette. He paused near the entrance and glanced back at her, reaching down to adjust himself in his pants. “Woulda been a good time.”

Emma shivered, despite the heat of the day, and glanced around. No one had seen their encounter; for which she was grateful. It took her a few minutes to compose herself before she made her way slowly back into the tent, stopping at the bar for a martini on the way.

--

“You were awfully quiet at the match, Love,” Killian said once they were seated inside the limousine. He reached over and placed a hand on her thigh. She jumped slightly at his touch, fighting away a wave of nausea at the thought of what happened outside the tent.

Emma offered a smile. “I don’t really know anything about polo, to be perfectly honest.”

“Well then, I hope you learned something while watching,” taking out his phone, Killian flipped through a few emails and text messages. Emma turned to gaze out her window. Her blood was boiling with rage. Everything told her to run away from the situation as fast as she could. The last thing she needed was Killian handing her off to his sleazy friends.

The thick silence between the pair remained until Emma stalked off of the elevator and made her way toward the suite’s bathroom.

“Are you alright, Swan?” Killian asked, tugging at his tie. He frowned, following her slowly.

“No,” Emma answered honestly. She grabbed her things, shoving them into the ripped black purse with which she had arrived. Turning, she grabbed her busted boots from the floor. “I think…I think I’ve been here too long. It’s time to go. I want my money.” She averted her eyes.

Pausing, Killian stared at the beautiful blonde in front of him. She was angry, but he could hardly know why. Emma was just too frustrated to form words about the situation without bursting into tears. Stepping forward, he reached out to touch her cheek, but she turned away.

“Just…give me the money for the first night, and I’ll go,” she finally looked up at him, tears welling up in her eyes.

“What did I do?” He asked quietly, stepping closer once more. She backed away from him, clutching her bag to her chest.

“I didn’t come here to be pimped out to your friends,” she finally said, wiping angrily at tears on her face. “I say who, I say when, I say how much.”

His jaw dropping slightly, Killian’s expression revealed the moment he came to a realization about what had happened. “Emma, I…I only told him about you because he thought you were some kind of spy working for Gold. He thought you were cavorting with August.”

“I don’t care,” she clenched her teeth. “If you were going to let your friends try to pick me up, I’d rather be in my street clothes. I can handle them, then. It’s like my armor.” For emphasis, she shrugged the battered pleather jacket onto her shoulders. It was a cheap contrast to her expensive, summery dress.

“The last thing I wanted was for Cassidy to try and pick you up. And if that’s armor, it’s pretty poor, Love. Hardly covers much at all,” he smirked. She was not interested in a joke. Turning, he sighed and moved to a small safe near the bar. He opened it and took out a handful of bills, tossing them onto the sofa next to her. “Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

When she saw the money hit the sofa, it was like a stab to the chest. Hearing his caring words made it worse. She felt as if he was twisting the knife. What did he care? Holding her bag more tightly, she ran toward the elevator.

--

Closing the safe, he heard Emma’s heels clicking on the marble floor as she took off. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was fairly common knowledge that Neal Cassidy was a jerk; he had just never experienced it first-hand. Now, he knew exactly who it was he had hired as an attorney. The real question was: why did Emma’s departure leave him feeling empty inside? He turned back to see if she was gone. He had not heard the elevator, but she was nowhere in sight. The money, however, all of it, was still on the couch. Glancing up, he moved toward the elevator bank, where he watched her furiously pound the ‘down’ button on the elevator. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and approached slowly.

“Emma, I’m sorry,” he sighed. “Please, stay.”

She did not turn to look at him. A tear streamed down her cheek. “You hurt me,” she whispered.

“I promise I will never, ever hurt you again. And I want to make this right, please,” he pleaded, keeping his distance but maintaining his gaze. “Please stay for the rest of the week with me. You can go if you wish, but…I would very much like the pleasure of your company.”

The elevator doors opened. Emma stared into the small, empty cubicle. She took in a deep breath, then turned to face Killian. He could see the hurt behind her eyes. Their color was much duller than usual. With a slow nod, she let the elevator doors close and turned back to him. She bit down on her lower lip and stepped back into the living area of the suite.

[davidaolson]

Awakened by a Demon

The demon screeched as if being tortured in the pits of hell where every last inch of its flesh was flayed and the writhing, skinless, oozing body was dipped in rock salt and set on a slow-burning flame.

“Uh-Ooooooo, Oh-Noooooo, Tu-Qoooooo, Fu-Quuuuu, Quuuu-Quu-uuu-uu-u”

It’s screeching shattered the still of the night. Not just once. Over and over for the better part of an hour. It screeched. Then the lull during which my heart settled and I felt sleep crawling from between the sheets, my eyes growing heavy. Until it screeched again. Four screams in a sequence with the last sputtering words decaying like a loosely mounted motor running out of gas forcing every cell in my body to high alert. Danger, Will Robison.

The beast had to be close. Beast? Or was it a ghost? A demon? A demon ghost hybrid. The locals are superstitious. Stories of ghosts and spirits are commonplace. Just tonight, I learned Auntie would not go to the upstairs floor in her own home. Her own home! A place she lived for decades because she believes it is haunted. Yet, it is ok for the maid and the grandkids to sleep up there. How much of the belief is based in fact? How much is fiction from a people steeped in superstition? I noticed I am fingering the smooth leather medicine bag I’ve worn around my neck since my encounter with Rattlesnake in New Mexico a couple of weeks earlier. I guess a Western education does not immunize one from a belief in amulets or the evil they keep at bay.

The noise seemed to be coming from just outside the sliding glass doors of my room in the Abuyog hotel. It may be a ventriloquist. The identified location a misdirection and it was nearer. Under the bed??? Did I remember to lock the window? “Fu-Quuuuu”. Is the demon studying me from behind a curtain of darkness? Behind the corner armoire? “Quuuu-Quu-uuu-uu-u.” Let’s rationalize. Maybe it’s a screaming cat. A cat in preheat sparring with an overzealous mate attempting to force a dry fuck, or a night bird trying to spook a twitchy nose rat into breaking cover and running, perhaps the Philippine version of a Screech Owl, the tufty eared, bug-eyed predator out for the nightly hunt. Screech Owl? Screeching Owl. Yes.

The noise tortures me. I am also tormented by claws scratching the floor in the room directly above me. Or, is in hiding between the ceiling and the floor? If it found a way to infiltrate the hotel, is my room safe? Is it rats? Is the Fu-Quuuuu demon inside the hotel trying to catch a rat? Does it have the flexibility to escape through a hole and emerge in my room? Is it a rat jousting with a slithering snake? Will the snake find refuge in the pipes and poke a triangular head out of the toilet bowl during my morning constitutional sinking teeth into my meaty, muscley ass or, shudder, ball sack? I better check the bowl then shit while hovering.

I cowered stock still sweating in the bed. My pillow is soaked through to both sides. My heart pounds. What time is it? I slowly looked at my phone. 3 am. 3 fucking am and I’m wide awake. 3 am. Much too early to chase a sunrise. And going outside in the dead of night could mean an encounter with the Fu-Quuuuu demon. Is it taking a clue from the owl playbook, trying to spook me from my safe sanctuary into vulnerable open space? I want to run. But, I imagine going up to the roof and facing Fu-Quuuuuu followed by my own fading Oh-Noooooo as it devours me, head first, or hexes my life ensuring I die tragically, or scares me so deeply my hair roots die and white strands sparsely cover my head. Irrational? Who’s to say what evil lurks in the heart of demons.

I lay unmoving for the next two hours too terrified to reach beyond the bed for the lamp for fear the demon is throwing its voice beyond the glass as it sits beneath my bed waiting to tear off any limb extending beyond the bed’s edge. Too frightened to reach over to my wife for comfort for fear the beast would hear me move and be triggered to attack the way running prey triggers a bear to give chase. I lay petrified waiting for the rising sun to send the safety of daylight.

“Did you hear the demon last night?” It wasn’t until the second morning hearing the awful screeching that I overcame my embarrassment and felt comfortable discussing the screaming, screeching demon.

“Demon?”

“Ya, that loud screaming.”

“Screaming? That was a tukó, one of our local geckos. The name is from the sound it makes. Tu-koooooo. Tu-koooooo.” It’s a cute lizard. Good luck in the home.

“I didn’t hear no Tu-koooooo. I heard “Uh-Ooooooo, Oh-Noooooo, Tu-Qoooooo, Fu-Quuuuu, Quuuu-Quu-uuu-uu-u.” My voice decayed quicker than tukó at the end of a chant. “Cough. Cough.” I look at her. No sympathy for my feigned cough. It’s no use. I know it. She knows it. There is no way for me to save face. I feel the fool for being distraught because the unfamiliar voice squawked by a little lizard frightened the hell out of me. And I am simultaneously excited knowing Rattlesnake may have been speaking capital ‘T’ Truth.

The Ambien Zombie

The waking up before the sun theme lasted the entire trip. Jet lag from jumping 13 time zones over 24 hours requires the better part of two weeks for me to fully adjust. We were only a few days into the trip. Once my body clock adjusts to local sun cycles, we head back to Chicago where I endure another two weeks of screwed up sleeping schedules. Plus I have a very difficult time sleeping in a sitting position. On long-haul flights, I use prescription Ambien to help me sleep and adjust to a new time zone.

I’ve head stories of Ambien zombies, perfectly nice people zombified by the drug especially when mixed with Alcohol. They babble incoherently, have even been known to strip naked and wall about the plane. All with no recollection when then come down.

Always, until this trip, I enjoyed my Ambien induced coma without incident waking refreshed on the flip side. Win-win. The episode between Chicago and Taiwan will keep me away from Ambien the rest of the trip and will probably be the last time I ever use the sleep aid. I became the dreaded Ambien Zombie.

I took two as soon as my luggage was stowed in the overhead before buckling into my middle seat, next to my aisle seated wife, for the 15-hour flight taking off at 12:30 am. Normally, I fly long haul alone. There have never been complaints so I assume my induced sleep is simply a deep, dreamless sleep. Not so this time where I experienced two vivid dreams.

The first was of me walking around the airplane in slow motion. In the dream, I was unable to pronounce Pinot Noir in a way the flight attendant understood. I rarely eat airplane food, aside from crackers and fruit cups, because the smell while still in the carts makes me nauseous. But, I ordered the beef dish. And I ordered a whiskey which I mixed with apple juice. The obnoxious concoction was promptly spilled mostly onto my wife’s tray overflowing into her lap. I looked at the mess and returned to eating with all the dexterity and urgency of a sloth. All this, I later learned from my irritated wife, actually happened but I was too stoned on the sleeping pill to realize it.

I now wonder if those previous trips were simply a relaxed deep sleep or I acted the fool. I’ve never been arrested or deboarded so I’m going to guess there were no exceedingly unseemly events.

The second dream was rather bizarre.

Tukó, the gecko lizard, and I are sitting face to face in chairs. This is a giant Tukó, big as a double homunculus human. It’s feet dangle above the floor, the fat tail wrapped around the chairback providing balance. Tukó has no butt so sitting is difficult. The pink tongue licks its eyes the way a dog tongues its snout clean after eating. The mouth opens, sound spill out, the mouth closes. The eyes look at me, expectantly. The mouth opens again, “Who-Ooooooo. Fu-Quuuuuu”

Language gap. Unlike my encounter with Rattlesnake who spoke in words I understood, there is a definite language gap with Tukó, a gap exacerbated by the human lizard culture gap.

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” I said wondering if the language barrier was two way.

Tukó reaches out a closed hand palm up, turns it over, unfurls the five thick fingers revealing a very small gecko. It couldn’t have been longer than one-inch nose to tail. He pumps his hand up and down motioning me to take it. I reach out and it crawls, without hesitation, into my hand. I can feel the stickiness of the toe pads. It’s a little like tearing apart velcro with every step.

“Emmm…” how to be culturally sensitive here? Is it simply a gift? Am I supposed to eat it? We are in Asia where feeding guests is standard hospitality and refusing to eat offered food an insult. I look at it again. Well, at least it isn’t balut. I hope I don’t gag. I force a smile,” Thank you”. And move it toward my mouth.

Tukó chatters frantically. “Nuh-Oooooo. Nuh-Ooooooo.”

I stop midway, mouth agape.

Tukó points to the side of its head. I am still very confused. “What? What do I do?”

Tukó deftly grabs the miniscule gecko from my hand and places it next to my head. It crawls into my ear canal. A shiver starts from my ear and runs all the way down to my toes. This is worse than one gulp needed to swallow it. I am scared. No. Terrified. I once saw a movie where a person was strapped to a table while a villain in a white lab coat looked on. The villain grabbed an earwig from a bucket of crawling earwigs using a longish pair of zircon encrusted tweezers and proceeded to stick the wiggling bug into the man’s ear. The man screamed in agony as the earwig slowly ate its way through his brain until it reached the center killing him. Was I about to begin a ghastly death?

“Can you understand me now, David? You should be able to.”

“I…I can understand you.” What the hell was going on?

“That is a Babel Gecko. It is similar to the Babel Fish. You do know what a Babel Fish is, David?”

“Yes, I do.” My pride swells. I read the six books in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy and knew the answer. “A babel fish is fictitious It’s small, yellow and leech-like. It crawls into the ear of a person suctioning onto the eardrum enabling the person to understand any language in the universe.”

“Close.”

“Close? I read all the books and saw the tv show. I know what a Babel Fish is.”

“It is not fictitious.” Tukó emphasized ‘fictitious’ by making air quotes with those fat finger hands. “It exists just not in our space-time continuum. Douggy Adams was taken up by aliens and moved between space-time streams. Eventually, the brought him back but failed to erase all the memories from his time away. Those books he wrote contained fractal representations of that time. Now, what you have in your ear is a Babel Gecko. It has the ability to translate all animal, tree, and rock people communication into your human language which is why you now understand me. It cannot translate human to human because the primitive human language causes the Babel Gecko to deteriorate from the inside out.”

“Primitive human language? Human language is the most sophisticated ever devised.”

“Typical human arrogance. It is not the most sophisticated on earth and considered white noise in other worlds. It’s why the beings on distant planets don’t bother responding to the signals and probes you send into deep space. You, humans, communicate only with sound with the exception of visual artists. Unless the artworks are straightforward, you misinterpret them as well. We animals have the ability to communicate with and without sound. We can communicate with color, physical motion, smell, telepathically and any combination. It is called ‘voice’ and is sophisticated beyond human comprehension while being transparently simple to all nonhumans. Babel Gecko translates all voice into approximations of human words. You may sense gaps, sometimes elongated, in the translation because the Babel Gecko must dumb it down for your comprehension.”

“Okayyy. There are insects and other lizards in this room. Why don’t I hear them?” I got him. There was no recovery from this argument.

Tukó chuckled. Paused. “The Babel Gecko knows. Humans like claiming they are good at multi-tasking. But it is impossible for the primitive human brain to focus on more than one task at a time. The Babel Gecko’s sophistication allows it to tune into the vibration of your thought waves then filter the many voices allowing only the one on which you are attempting to focus. This is why you don’t hear the mosquitoes discussing the sweetness of your wife’s blood they are sampling while she showers or the very large spider behind the shower room curtain singing a siren song to lure those same mosquitoes into its lethal web.”

“That sounds quite far-fetched.”

“Of course you would say that. Liars have a hard time believing the truth.”

“Liars?”

“Come now David, you are fully aware humans tell as many lies as they do truths. Even the quote-unquote truths tend to be embellished.”

I have to admit he is correct. I like to think I am truthful to a fault but know, in my heart, I am prone to embellishing my stories. Innocent enough but still, why not just relate facts?

“We in the animal world are incapable of telling lies. Our communication is always congruous. Our voice, true. The body, our colors, telepathy, and words are always in sync. Though, one should be extremely careful when communicating with a split tongue being such as Rattlesnake. With them, truth halves and they may allow one half only to slip off a tongue branch into the world. Half truths are deceptive. Lying by omission of the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me by one of the thousands of Gods, is still lying.”

Gecko stopped talking, stared up at the ceiling. Was it hungry? looking for bugs? Too much silence for my taste, a vacuum needing filling.

“Thank you for the gift of the Babel Gecko.”

“It’s NOT yours.” Heavy emphasis on the NOT. “It is a loan. It will crawl out and away before you leave the Philippines. It would be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Dangerous? You can trust me. I won’t let anything happen to it.”

“Fu-Quuuuuu!”

“Sorry, I didn’t understand you. I think the Babel Gecko is on the fritz.”

“It’s working just fine. And you heard me correctly. I said, ‘Fuck you!’ Your people have brought nothing but misery to this planet and my people ever since you left the trees in your hairy pre-hominid days and started building cities. You bred, still, breed like roaches, and continue spreading your pestilence! No offense to roaches. They are a hearty people. It’s simply a reality your mind can’t grasp.”

“Sorry?”

“Was that a question?” His color changed slightly. A red hue undertoned the skin. Can they color shift like chameleons? The gold eyes pulsed.

“Um, Sorry! I apologize for the human race.”

“It’s too late for apologies. The damage is done. We will all pay the price for your unchecked infestation. You humans most of all.”

“Really? What’s gonna happen?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, Yes I do. I have a right to know.”

“Rights is a human philosophical construct. There are no such thing as rights there only is existence. But, I will tell you. There’s nothing you can do to change the future. It will start when Big Ben strikes thirteen…” vrrrrt. vrrrrt. vrrrrt “…the blood moon will crumble…” vrrrrt. vrrrrt. vrrrrt.

vrrrrt. vrrrrt. vrrrrt. My vibrating watch alarm, set for the morning in Chicago, pulled me out of the Ambien slumber. I was still mired in a stupor, still mashed into the too small middle seat in the exit row, still on the plane heading to Taiwan. I dreamt it all.

An Expected Unexpected Trip

We weren’t supposed to be in the Philippines this year. Our trip to Southeast Asia was scheduled, tentatively scheduled, for 2019. January or February, opposite typhoon season, when the cold still strangled Chicago and the Philippines was a beacon of near perfect warmth. We planned to forego Belize where we had lizard basked in the sun for a week each of the previous two Winters and make our 3rd trip in 6 years to my wife’s homeland, her hometown. Her father was aging quickly. His health was not the greatest. Each of our last two visits we believed was the last to see him alive.

The dreaded call, came on a Friday a few days after we returned from New Mexico. Just as Rattlesnake foreshadowed. The following Friday, we were crammed into a plane for the 24 hour trip from Chicago to Manila this time via Taiwan. We overnighted in Manila then took an early flight to Tacloban City in Leyte. It was a short flight. Most flights between the islands in the archipelago are about an hour. We spent more time in lines and waiting in the terminal than airborne. Such is the curse of modern travel.

Our Manila hotel was an apartment. Inexpensive, great air conditioning which we desperately needed in a 90/90 country. The temps were 90+ Fahrenheit and the humidity was upward of 90% all day every day. Life in 90/90 means the sun feels heavy, a burden one must carry like an overloaded backpack even in the relatively cool shade. It was almost possible to extract a glass full of water with every few breaths. Sweat was my Eau de cologne. Not of choice but the natural order of life. The body must cool itself. The inexpensiveness of the apartment means one foregoes amenities like on-premise restaurants. The neighboring Marriott goes for $200 a night. For me, it’s a no-brainer tradeoff. Though, walking between our place and the restaurants in the pouring rain, Manila was in the middle of a typhoon, while sharing a single umbrella is a downer.

Our flight to Tacloban was in the early morning, too early to find a breakfast place. Plus we were reluctant to walk to the nearby hotels and be pelted by the typhoon drenching Manila and snarling traffic. The food at the domestic airport did not appeal to me. This all added up to being hungry upon arrival in Tacloban.

Stuffing My Face With Outdoor Chicken at Andoks

Our choice of eateries on the road to Abuyog is limited. There’s a McDonald’s or, on the opposite side of the street, Andok’s Chicken. Just the thought of McD’s makes my stomach cringe so, when asked, I requested Andok’s. I think it surprised our hosts. Andok’s is an open-air eating establishment with the food cooked on an outdoor spit behind a three-sided glass enclosure. It looks and smells succulent. We order, carry our chilled pop, without ice, to a clean table next to a table where a group recently vacated.

Our conversation is primarily in the local language, meaning I think it my own bubble. It is an existence with which I am more than content. I half listen to the ambient noise, sip my rapidly warming pop. Curse the ice made with unfiltered water. My inner life is active. I rarely grow bored. I am content to sit and think while they conversed. After all, they have a deep history and I don’t speak but a few words in their language. To expect them to accommodate my desires would be selfish. We achieved yin-yang balance.

I catch a whiff of a stench and look around to see if an open sewer is nearby. Nope. There’s a person at the adjacent table who I at first think is a worker cleaning up but noticed she’s eating the leftover food. Nibbling whatever morsel she can from the chicken bones, tilting the bottle to drain last drops of soda. When finished picking the plates clean, she walks toward us and reaches out for my half-empty water bottle. They told her no. I try an appear nonchalant.

Her face is oddly shaped. Is she mentally challenged? A mild Down’s Syndrome. There is a strangeness to her eyes. She walks behind me on her way beyond the restaurant boundary and I realize the malodor is not an open sewer. It is her. She never says a word at our table nor while she waits, like a feral dog outside the range of stick and stones, for opportunities to pick at leftovers. She took a position further from us than the strays sniffing the chicken laden air on the periphery. Is this how she is forced to survive. Does she view herself as lesser than dogs which is why she waits beyond them? Is she viewed by the locals as lesser than a dog? Does this society have more empathy for the canid than the hominid? I soon find out.

My companions drop back into their lingua franca freeing me to eat the delivered chicken and ruminate in the less visited antechambers hidden in my mind. I think back to the unplanned nature of this trip and its prognostication by Rattlesnake two weeks prior while we explored the wilds in Nueva México. A little Spanish thrown into the narrative. I’m not totally oblivious to other languages just lack fluency in any but English. Tubig means water in Tagalog and Salamat is thank you. Two words I need to get by in this country.

Rattlesnake told me. Is that the right phraseology? No. It is more apt to say Rattlesnake warned me that Tukó harnessed the temperament of a trickster with the ability to shapeshift. Trickster spirits take human form by day changing to animal form when Sun is replaced by Moon. He warned me, a preferred form for Tukó was that of an impoverished, mute woman. Is this woman a human being or a spirit being? Are her eyes a bit off or did the Rattlesnakes tales fill my head with imagined realities?

I try from a distance to see her eyes. Are the human round pupiled or vertical gecko pupiled. I cannot see clearly from where I sit. Would round pupils, tell me anything? If Trickster shapeshifts to a human, wouldn’t it also mimic the eye design? Perhaps the human form is a shell and a vertical pupil exists behind the round pupil. In the right light, would I be able to see the Trickster behind the translucent human-like eye?

I catch myself absentmindedly rubbing my medicine bag. Instinct once again overrides my Western University education predicated on logic. I doubt this would have been the case before I encountered the talking Spirit Rattlesnake and the Ancient One that set him free from the large stone. That singular event rocked my understanding of reality and now I am unsure where the division between real and imaginary exists. Or are they one and the same?

I look at her askance. Not wanting anyone to know I am staring but I need to know her nature. What is that movement? Did she just flick a pink tongue over her eyes?

Our stomachs full, my companions start tossing chicken bones to a yellow furred mongrel. It’s a stray. Heavy teated. Dirty. Patchy fur from fighting other curs. It inches closer, warily, until it is next to our table. Hunger trumps fear. Western dogs who are rarely given chicken bones. One because in America dogs are on par with humans. And because of the belief, their digestive system is too sensitive for the tiny spears. They give all the chicken leftovers to the dog. The dog eats. The hungry woman looks on. They pet the dog, a few affectionate pats on the head. They tell her she’s a pretty dog. Eventually, they give the woman a chunk of pork. No kind words. No affectionate touch. They don’t tell her she is pretty.

Is giving her food kindness? I don’t see it that way. We give of our excess. Our trash. A mouthful she would have helped herself to after we left. It seems to me more a guilt offering. But this is my perspective, the view of an outsider out of tune with the spoken language and the cultural context. My conscience is not assuaged.

I ate too much and I struggle with churning guilt grinding at my insides. I try to rationalize my lack of action as not wanting to throw a stone in the culture pool and start unexpected ripples that might upset the natural order. But it is simply a rationalization, a lie told to the self.

Truth is, I am wretched. Not the poor woman with little access to food. Me the overweight, self-centered glutton who ate my fill, more than my fill until I was sluggish, without thinking of her hunger. Ate until I was stuffed beyond need. As I think this, I looked sheepishly at her one more time with my eyes hidden behind my dark sunglasses. I swear her eyes flash gold for the time it takes to snap my fingers, flash gold with a vertical slit and the hint of an almost smile.

There is still an hour’s drive to our hotel. An hour where I am reminded of my wretchedness with every home we pass cobbled together using uneven wooden planks leaving open seams in the walls, and discarded sheet metal roofs creating oven temperatures in direct sunlight, homes without running water or electricity, homes without screens to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

I had forgotten the extent of the poverty in the country, forgotten the face of a similar poverty I saw every day in India and vowed never to ignore. Forgotten how blessed I am to have access to quality medical care, two cars in the family, a home with climate control, the means to travel eight thousand miles and stay in a comfortable hotel with a roof from which to enjoy the sun climbing spectacularly orange over an ocean horizon. And, always, the promise of a warm meal greeting our every arrival at Auntie’s home.

Auntie’s House

It is customary in the Philippines for a family member to host the deceased for the nine days preceding the funeral including the feed those coming to pay their respects. On day ten, the funeral is held. There are additional ceremonies at prescribed intervals following the entombment with the last at the one year anniversary.

Aunties home became the makeshift funeral parlor with the casket prominently displayed in the family room, the first sight when entering the front door. On the trip over, I wondered how people tolerated the stink of the slowly decaying body. It turns out, in this case at least for they do not live below the poverty line, the casket was top tier including a clear, glass covering. Hermetically sealed. Any odor would be confined.

We arrive on day 7 and visit daily until the funeral which ended up being delayed until day 10 for want of an available officiate. Each time we enter food is offered within a few minutes. In the Philippines, serving food is equivalent to saying, “I love you.”

I love chicken adobo and pancit. Have grown accustomed to heaping bowls of rice. But not so much the bony fish, too much work to separate the flesh from the sharp bones. Nor am I a fan of dinuguan. Pig’s blood adds a strong iron taste to the soup. By the third day, my palate craves variety. Our farm visit added a touch of variety. Virgin coconuts freshly felled from the trees with a machete have the sweetest milk. Locally grown greens added to a soup of freshly killed chicken, head included. It is a self-supporting chicken so the meat is on the chewy side. Of course, heaps of steaming rice, for a meal minus rice is only a snack.

The trip to the farm is different than past adventures. The ferry was bypassed by a bridge. It’s not strong enough to support a car so we walk across and board a motorput for the final distance to the farm. It terrifies one of the aunties so she opts for the ferry on the way back. It is dubbed the dancing bridge for it sways while we walk across.

Aside from one fast food place, there are no restaurants in town, none with hygiene necessary to sensitive Western stomachs. The last thing I want is Montezuma to seek revenge while I’m in the Philippines. On our final full day in Abuyog, Cousin remembers a new Italian restaurant owned/operated by a real Italian at the far north end of the city outside the town proper. I am skeptical. Authentic Italian food in the middle of a small town? How is possible? We eat there for lunch. Stay to swim and eat dinner as well. It is heavenly. And we finally have wine to accompany our dinner. There are no liquor stores in Abuyog, my wife tells me. No place to buy wine. We find the last day she is wrong. There is a liquor store a very short walk from our hotel. We leave tomorrow. No time for a bottle of red or a chilled white.

Daily temps are 90/90. Yet the homes have no air conditioning not even the nicer ones like Auntie’s or Cousins. I mostly visit after sundown to avoid the heaviest heat. As soon as I enter, someone adjusts both oscillating fans to ensure I was in their path and had a smidge of relief from the heat. Still, after about an hour, I am sweat soaked and head back to the hotel to bask, sometimes naked, in the air conditioning, temperature set on stun.

Some of the visitors we encounter are comfortable enough with English to greet me and ask if I am hungry. Hungry or not, food is still served. They can speak quite a bit more but are embarrassed to speak the language with someone who is fluent. The fear of making mistakes and possibly looking foolish is strong. I speak no Waray, the local dialect, so welcome any attempt at English. I do not push the issue. It is my preference they enjoyed the company of my wife. These are her people and holes are rent in the fabric of their family during her absence. Our visits are a time they all participate in mending the holes, a tribe working together to sew up the holes in the fishing net. I enjoy watching her. She becomes highly animated when conversing in her native dialect. I sit and watch from my familiar bubble.

For most of my life, I have felt an outsider, apart from the group, isolated. No matter how hard I tried to fit in, I was (am) the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit. I have come to accept isolation is endemic to my DNA and I have learned to thrive in solitude. So much so, it has gradually become my preferred mode of being. I inhabit a bubble. Bubble boy.

The isolation becomes a shroud when visiting a land where my language is an afterthought or a nonthought. Non-language can be a wall. A wall of our own making when we chose to remain monolingual.

Unless one has extensive practice existing in isolation, whether by choice to remain apart from people or one is forced into it by dint of not speaking a common tongue, it can be a terrifying space. The sharing of even a few phrases gives hope, creates connection.

Many, probably most, of the native-born US citizenry speaks English only. Bilingualism, sadly, is an anomaly, a logical outcome of communal arrogance. “If you don’t speak Amurican you ain’t worth talking at“. It sucks that multilingualism is viewed as an unnecessary expense by most school boards in the United States. Worse, speaking any language other than English is increasingly, thanks to the orange buffoon, viewed as unAmerican, unpatriotic. If he truly wants to make America great, he should emphasize multilingualism in the schools verbal as well as speaking the languages of the arts.

For the ‘Build the Wall’ types, being in the midst of people who speak a language in addition to English, or worse, only English is uncomfortable exacerbating their fearfulness. They would rather isolate themselves with a border wall than face their fear. Build an isolating wall because of a fear of being isolated. Oh, the irony.

The proposed border wall between Mexico and the United States is a concept buttressed by fear, a foolish attempt to medicate anxiety. Like the antidepressant Prozac, it creates the illusion the situation is different. Perception is more important than reality.

Me, I am thankful for the multilingual. They can help build a bridge between us.

On our previous visit to the Philippines, I learned the concept of beer English. We were at the beach celebrating our marriage with lots of fresh food and buckets of beer. For the most part, I watched the waves kicking up against the shore and the fishermen in their small boats pulling in nets. Once in a while, there would be a word I understood in their language pulling me into their reality before I returned to watching. From a raging sea of Waray, an English speaking fish breached the water, hung in the air. A cousin started speaking to me in English. I was incredulous.

“You’re speaking English?”

“It’s beer English. We only speak English after drinking five beers.” Everyone laughed. And I was included in parts of the conversation until the beer was gone and we parted for our own homes.

There does not seem to be a drinking culture at wakes in the Philippines. Consequently, there was no beer English, very little conversation drawing me in. My ears do prick up when I catch one of the few Waray words I understand. Salamat for thank you. Tubig for water. O-O for yes. Mostly, at Aunties, I retreat to the sanctity of my bubble from which I people watch.

The Honking Huge Spider

I was in my sanctum one evening when I saw the short, jerky movement of a black object overhead. The homes, the ones I have visited, have no screens. Geckos and insects are regular visitors. In the ceiling line, where the ceiling meets the wall, a massive spider. I am not one to shy away from the creepies or the crawlies but this monster caused chills to shoot down my spine and escape through my toes where they hid in the shadows of a bookcase.

The spider is a good 5 inches in diameter with a body big enough to kidnap and drain the blood from a small child in one slurp. Not wanting to interrupt my wife’s animated conversation and appear to be a fraidy cat in front of her family, I stared at her hoping she would feel the intensity of my gaze and look my way so I could lip point, Philippino style, at the gruesome beast. No luck.

I sent mojo vibes through the air figuring the dense humidity would easily carry the signals drop to drop between us and tweak her subconscious. Again no luck. I became increasingly agitated. Should I shout a warning and save everyone’s lives? Or would my alarm raise twitters at the city boys irrational fear of something that amounted to a child’s pet?

I hold my tongue. Chilled fear sweat added to and mixed with my heat sweat. I am both hot and cold.

A gecko darts across the ceiling in the direction of Mr. Monster Spider. It is the biggest I have seen on the trip. Six inches long with a thick body and tail. Was this the Spirit Tukó come to save me?

As gecko draws near to the spider, it scurries until it is directly over my head. The movement is blindingly fast. If the spider decided to attack, could I beat it in a foot race? I am wearing my ultralight Ferrell tennis shoes but don’t know if my old knees can sustain a pace for the duration necessary to be further from the spider than one of the other guests. I didn’t need to be faster than spider just faster than the slowest person to put a victim between me and the monster. Of course, it could just let loose and fall from the ceiling onto my head the moment I look away and siphon all my brain juice.

Gecko appears not to notice Spider. Rather than witness a lizard arachnid skirmish, I watch Gecko descended the wall and take refuge behind a framed picture. Is it, too, afraid of the spider or simply returning to digest a stomach full of insects in a safe space?

Either way, I feel safer with the sentinel Gecko, a natural predator, close by. My protector. My savior. I have long been a fan of geckos. Correction. I love geckos. I wish there were a dozen or so roaming the walls and ceilings in our Chicago home. Wild geckos. Free-range geckos. Not the inmates transferred from animal prisons (aka pet stores) only to be locked in another glass cage inside a home.

A human can’t be human confined to 6′ x 8′ prison cell and still be a human nor can a gecko be a gecko when confined to a small enclosure. The US government confined the American Indians to reservations knowing full well it would crush their souls beyond repair and domesticate the ‘savages’. I don’t want a tamed gecko. It would lose gecko essence. They are harbingers of good luck. If the essence is gone so is the luck. Or, the luck may go negative and bring bad tidings upon the household.

Geckos feast on the crawlies invading the home. And they whisper dreams into your ears during slumber. I could use some vivid dreams. One can never have too many geckos gracing the palace. The praying mantis also eats insects so is beneficial but they don’t dispense dreams. Alas, Chicago has bitter Winters meaning no insect food to sustain geckos. Geckos starve. More bad luck. Geckos are another good reason for me to move to the Desert Southwest. I wonder, is Gecko of my totem?

On our last trip, we were island hopping near Puerto Princessa. I paid a few Philippine pisos for a temporary gecko tattoo over my left shoulder. Since then, I have contemplated a tattoo of Delicate Arch topped by a gecko against a sunset. Almost like it was riding the Arch into the sunset cowboy style. It would make for a great back piece. A symbol of my favorite land, a spirit animal. And if the ink could be made of finely ground red rock dust, it would have in my body the actual where I wish to rest forever. Now, if only there was a way to get inked without needles.

Finally, Irene looks my way. I lip point upward toward the spider careful not to make eye contact and force it into a defensive posture from which attack would be imminent. I do not want the beast finding a path into my head to play mind games.

“What?” she said.

“There’s a spider,” I whisper not wanting to be too obvious.

“What spider? Where?”

“It is above my head.” Emphasis on every syllable. I look up. It’s gone. Disappeared.

“I swear. There was a huge spider,” I show her the size with my hands. “The mother of all spiders. A baby eater for sure!”

She gives me her half twisted smile. The one when she considers my actions foolish, my words moronic, or general idiocy on my part. She returns to her conversation. I feel humiliated. I also grow increasingly agitated. I cannot shake the feeling it is lurking in the shadows studying me with those 12 beady eyes waiting for an opening to pounce and sink those nasty fangs into my delicately soft alabaster neck.

I give a few exaggerated yawns arm stretch overhead but not too high to put them in harm’s way. My wife catches my drift and arranges for a motorput to take me to the hotel though I would prefer to walk. She doesn’t feel it’s safe for a foreigner to walk the streets alone after dark. I stayed safely locked in our airconditioned room until the funeral on the morrow.

Funeral

We hop into a motorput magically appearing right outside our hotel dressed in our blacks and/or whites, the preferred funeral colors but no reds. The motorput is a motorcycle with an attached side cage for passengers. The vehicle is not made for people of my height and girth. I shoehorn myself into the vehicle and endure the short, uncomfortable ride to Aunties. Thankfully, Irene is tiny so we are able to sit side by side. It is early morning and already the heat is surging. The hearse is late, as expected, so we linger in the room with the casket. I check overhead for the massive spider. Nothing. There is no way I am going to sit on the couch for fear it may be hiding between it and the wall. I stand. Watch warily. And exit the house right behind the casket. We are first and second-row mourners walking behind the hearse to the church.

The slow procession begins in full exposure to the sun. I have neither hat nor umbrella to stave the biting light rays boring through my flesh and into my body with the ferocity of a radioactive maggot in rotting meat. I boil from the inside out until sweat seeps from every pore and drops down the crack of my ass, swass. Sweat is the equivalent of body tears. We have only walked two blocks and there is close to a mile remaining. I rejoice inside when we turn from Auntie’s lane onto the thoroughfare to the Church and see trees lining the East side of the street. I strategically slide right and drink in the cooling shade.

A few trees ahead, there is a rustling of leaves. Green ballerinas? There is no breeze. There is, though, a small animal in the branches probably a bird, the monster spider hunting…me, maybe a lizard. We saw large iguanas in the Belizean trees. Would I be lucky here as well and see an interesting lizard or maybe a monkey?

My head cocks upward. I tried to be discreet. But it has to be obvious to the few without tear-soaked eyes. When beneath the fluttering leaves, my head is angled almost straight up, sweat trickles into my eyes. I reach to wipe away the sweat and feel something fall into my mouth. It sticks to my lips for an instant then slips inside. It is no bigger than the broken tip of a toothpick but soft with a slight wiggle. Wiggle?

I don’t want to gag and hack it up causing a scene amidst everyone’s sorrow so fish it with my tongue until it is between my front teeth and I can discreetly grab it. It is soft, pliant, dark with the texture of a lizards tail. A yellowish, juicy substance oozes from the broken end. Lizard blood. My lips tingle. Probably an emotional reaction to chewing lizard tail. It needed some chili peppers.

The Church

We enter the church. The delicious air is a good ten degrees cooler. The wonders of shade and fans to agitate the air. The upper row stained glass windows are open to the outside, to the elements. A few stained glass windows have holes. Vandals chucking rocks? The Doors and side windows are wide open, no screens, allowing nature free passage and a place at the foot of the Lord. Appropriate that the created has a place at the table of the creator. Birds flitted inside the church.

The second thing I notice is White Jesus. This is one of my pet peeves. It is bad enough swarthy people around the world apply caustic chemicals to lighten their skin to attain a twisted ideal of beauty. The Catholic church perpetuates the idea their God-Man was a slender white guy with light hair when they know full well Jesus was a Middle Eastern carpenter who was most likely brown and muscular. Better to show simply the cross as do the Protestant churches than further ingrain the twisted white is right agenda. It really is a disgusting practice.

By the time we reach the front and sit in the first pew nearest the casket, the immediate family pew where I feel completely out of place considering the deceased’s siblings sit further back, the slight tingle has crawled over my lips, slowly spreading until my lips and tongue are numb. What the fuck is going on? The numbness spreads up my cheeks, over my forehead, into my hair then rushed down to my waist. I can still feel my eyebrows and my legs still move. My eyes, too, retain the ability to bounce around their sockets. I can just move my head a few centimeters. The colors grow vivid as if the vibrance slider in Photoshop is pushed to the maximum. Acid trip?

I try to get my wife’s attention. I can’t speak. Can’t move my arms. She is lost in sorrow. We do not connect. The priest enters. The congregation rises. I stand out of instinct? More likely the almost 20 years of attending Catholic Mass imprinted the ritual into my DNA. I will never be free despite being nonCatholic for almost three times the years I spent in Catholic schools. The priest motions us to sit. And we all, in unison, drop to the seated position. Soon would come standing and kneeling and sitting and more standing and more kneeling. Catholic yoga

Sweat rolls down my face burning my eyes. I can not wipe it away. Frantic, I side glanced at my wife again hoping to attract her attention. She is still lost in grief. I am stuck on an island. Bubble boy is isolated. Bubble boy is not enjoying this isolation.

The priest raises his hands heavenward and opens his mouth to pray. Instead of words, sparrows fly out, small brown sparrows emerge from his mouth. Chubby seedeaters. They clumsily fly about until finding purchase on the walls, behind the lights where they cast eerie shadows, perched on the cross where they chirp, chirp, chirp. The longer the priest drones on, the more sparrows rush forth. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Until the altar is coated with brown birds. The mass of birds actually more beautiful than the gilded altar. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Not a pretty song in the bunch though. Chirpy chirp. The language of the birds a fitting eulogy especially since I exist outside the language of the priest and congregation. I would later learn the priest spoke monotone with a message clearly showing he had no personal, first-hand knowledge of the deceased. He was not nearly as coherent or interesting as the chirping sparrows.

At the consecration of the elements when Catholic lore says the wine and host transubstantiate into the blood and body of Christ, swallows explode from the wounds of Christ, streaming out of the hands, feet, and sword pierced side where once flowed blood and water. A steady flow of dark blue tuxedo dressed birds with elegantly curved wings. Each leaves an arced, blood red vapor trail that is pierced by a following bird and shatters into thousands of particles until a red mist hangs in the air like a dense morning fog hovering over a lake obscuring my vision.

The swallows twist and turn in the air with more grace than a prima ballerina in a Bolshoi Ballet. Their elegant flight poetic, poetry, the highest language, on the wing. They fly in and out of the windows seemingly gaining speed with every flap of their delightful wings. They fly under and over the casket while the priest speaks the eulogy.

I prefer the bird eulogy. I cannot understand the priest. I can understand the birds. They are honoring the deceased with an aerial ballet. They fly until their deep blue feathers are pushed from their bodies falling quill first into the ground like a thousand arrows shot into the sky descending in a veil. The blue feathers are replaced by virginal white feathers. Blue tuxedo swapped for a pearlescent tuxedo. What a tribute!

I want nature to be my eulogist, too. Yes, I do mull over the format of my wake and funeral. I’m creating a playlist of favorite songs for the occasion. It will be my last party and I want it done my way. Actually, I prefer my grandson to speak my eulogy since he is the only living being still viewing me from behind rose-tinted glasses through which I appear infallible or pretty close to infallible. He won’t have to lie to the congregants and say what a great guy I was. When he says it, he will believe it. It will be his truth even if it’s contrary to everyone else’s truth.

He would lead the burial procession, my final walk to my holiest of holies, the remote Red Rock Utah desert. I would love to rest atop Delicate Arch but I’m afraid the National Park Service would object, vehemently. Bones kicked by vultures and falling from the sky might cause injury followed by the inevitable lawsuit.

The procession would include a gaggle of geckos including at least one tukó since it’s voice sounds both cheerful and a lament. Its song will touch the hearts bidding me good riddance and those who weep in sadness.

I would like a chorus of birds in the background, the same cacophony the rises Sun in the morning, a chime of Canyon Wrens sitting first chair trilling the most beautiful birdsong ever to delight my ears. Their descending trills a metaphor for the winding down of my life. Somewhere in the procession, a single mythical rattlesnake to guard my corpse against rodents until one of the last California Condors rips open my chest and sticks that nasty pink head between my ribs and eats my heart. And we rise to the heavens on spectacular black/white, yin/yang wings as wide as the sky itself.

Since Delicate Arch won’t be available, my corpse it to be strategically placed beneath a gnarled juniper. A touch of shade to guard against sunburn. Face me West so my milky eyes can enjoy every sunset until they are plucked out by Raven and gifted to a blind coyote so it can see the world in vivid color and rejoice, as I did, with sunrises and sunsets. I can envisage it stopping mid-hunt, mid-chew on a kangaroo rat and watching, mouth agape as the apricot rays fade to tangerine. Maybe the not quite dead rat will escape while Coyote is mesmerized.

The priest descends down from the pulpit. Shakes the aspergillum at the casket anointing with holy water. The now white swallows start flying in tight counterclockwise formation layer upon layer from floor to ceiling creating a whirlwind, a translucent, blood red whirlwind. I feel myself leave my body and float into the air. The hulk remains seated. I see my shadow. Dainty long wings. A swallow. I am a swallow and I can fly. I am lithe. I am agile. I am Bird.

I join the flock flying round and round at dizzying speeds maintaining a fine balance between centripetal sucking us into the middle force and centrifugal thrusting toward the wall force. The blood red contrails continue to slide into the whirlwind forming a funnel cloud. The tip dancing on top of the casket, tap dancing on the glass until a hole is bored right through. The glass shatters it into a thousand knife edged splinters slicing the air into ribbons. They, too, join the funnel and shoot up into the ceiling digging and twisting, carving a hole in the dark wood.

The soul, white as daylight, cleansed of sin, purged of impurity pulls away from the body into the calm at the center of the vortex where it hovers with face turned upward, arms reaching heavenward. We all, birds, soul, red whispering smoke slowly begin to ascend. Once through the bored hole in the roof, our speed increases both circular and upward. The more rapidly we fly the quicker we ascend, ascend through the damp clouds, through the cerulean sky, into space and still we ascend. We are headed toward a dot radiating white light, whiter than starlight. Is it a distant sun? My head tingles.

When I was in High School, I saw Supertramp live in 1979. It was my first concert. I was dressed in my coolest Rock and Roll denim vest, elephant flare bluejeans with side stitching, over a pair of Midwestern style cowboy boots. They were tawny with a squarish toe. None of that roach killer pointy toe shit the cow fuckers wear in Texas. I was probably wearing a $5 bootleg concert shirt purchased near the carpark. A friend drove freeing me to indulge in mind-opening substances. Our seats were 20th row almost dead center. We didn’t sit. Everyone stood on the folding metal chairs straining for the best sight line.

Late in the concert, the band jammed an extended version of the song Rudy including a synchronized video running on a big screen behind the band. The lyrics talk about Rudy riding a train to nowhere. The sound of a train chugging along. Subtle at first. The tempo of the song increased so did the locomotive until it was flying down the tracks at high speed. The screen image changed to black with a pinhole of white dead center. We were in a long, pitch dark tunnel except for the tiny dot on the horizon. The locomotive chug, chug, chugged. The song tempo increased. The dot grew bigger. Faster, faster until we exited the tunnel and were blasted by a full white screen. And I experienced the biggest head rush known to man with a force that knocked me off my feet and onto my ass in the seat of the chair.

This is how the ascension to the white light high in the sky felt. A slowly growing headrush. Our speed increases. The light comes closer, grows bigger, increases intensity. My eyes water against the speed we were moving and the friggin’ brightness of the immaculate light. I close my eyes tight to prevent my pupils from melting.

A voice at once feminine and masculine, gentle and kind spoke, “Welcome, my faithful servant.”

I feel a warmth from the pit of my stomach radiate outward, engulf me like I am swaddled in a blanket just out of the dryer and still hot. I force my eyes open. The light is still bright but I can make out a silhouetted figure between the machine gun eyelid blinks. Arms reach out from behind the light veil. My name is called. “David…David…” I am about to come face to face with God. “David…David…” I reach my wings toward the figure and feel a sharp pain in my side. “David…David…” distinctly feminine now.

“I am coming, Lord!” Again the sharp pain. I must be flying too fast or the thin air is making it hard to breathe.”

“David…” feminine and familiar?

“David, it’s picture time.”

“Pictures?” I open my eyes. I am still seated in the pew next to my wife. Her elbow caused the pain in my side. I can move again.

“Yes. I need you to take pictures of us around the casket. You will be in some, too.” There is a Philipino tradition of taking pictures of the family members standing around the casket. It dawned on me, during the days of the wake, people were taking selfies of themselves and the deceased in the casket. It felt almost morbid to my Western sense of decorum. But, it was a different culture and, as Pope Francis said, who am I to judge.

The remainder of the ritual was to walk behind the hearse to the above ground, vault cemetery. Most, including me, rode in cars to avoid the growing heat. At the cemetery, the casket was inserted into the concrete vault. This one was on the 2nd tier of three tiers. Many prayers were said. Rosaries swayed with the people’s emotion. I held an umbrella over my wife and myself so we wouldn’t collapse in the feverish weather. More prayers recited, ritualistic incantations spoken without thought as to their meaning.

The vault was sealed with cement while we watched then we walked back to the cars. Except for Tío Pat who hung around until the cement had dried and a name with date scraped prominently in the rough surface. A formal seal. Every tomb had the combination. I guess there are problems with people stealing from the graves and he wanted to make sure there was no funny business before the cement set solid. We returned to Auntie’s for another meal. While eating, I kept a wary eye out for the baby eating spider.

The next two days we spent at a mini resort in Tacloban where I did pretty much nothing except chill in the shade and write and drink and eat not Philippino food. Then it was an overnighter in Manila followed by a planned two and a half days at Busuanga Island Paradise in Coron, assuming the planes jumped on time.

Busuanga Island Paradise Resort

It was while checking in at Busuanga Island Paradise resort that I finally set eyes on a Tukó. Irene was completing the paperwork when a loud Tu-Koooooo sounded. Jenny, the manager, saw me searching the ceiling. She was tall for a Filipina, wore a baseball hat with the pony pulled through the back. Her face hinted at underlying features not quite Asian. I would learn later her father was an American. An Assistant Manager name tag was pinned to a white Busuanga polo. She wore knee-high water boots. It had rained every day for the past 21 days and was raining now. “Do you want to see the Tukó?”

“Yes,” I blurted excitement peaking on the inside.

She pulled a large picture frame part way from the wall. I peeked behind. Too much shadow. Easily remedied by the flashlight app from my iPhone. The bright white light helped me to see but it was still difficult to get a clear view even with my head pressed against the wall. Only one eye could see the lizard hiding high. My blue eye stared into vertical slit yellow eyes, very like Rattlesnakes. Cousins? It looked to be about 8 inches in total length including the deformed tail. Had it escaped the jaws of a predator?

“He’s a little one,” Jenny said. “There are lots of tukós here. Yesterday, I saw one twice the size at the pavilion.” Lot’s of tukós? Tukó promised land? Would I finally meet the spirit Tukó? There were only a few days left on our trip. Was I getting close?

The second evening, I am sitting in the outdoor pavilion in cross section with both fans enjoying the sounds of the jungle evening, switching between writing of my travels and reading poetry by Filipino author Nick Carbó. Half the books I read are translations by authors from the other countries. When visiting or planning to visit a country, I read at least one book from a local author with the aim to absorb a few cultural nuances. Obviously, the books have to be translated into English which limits the selection. And the profit motive further reduces the available topics to those appealing to English readers. Imperfect. But better than self-imposed isolation.

Anyway, I am switching between reading and recording our Philippine adventures in my travel notebook. Unlined, of course. Lined paper constricts writing to linear thinking. I like to think in other word flowing possibilities. A lovely tree frog hopping on the ground catches my attention. It is the color of brown, chlorophyll deprived leaves, dead leaves fallen from mother tree after their season turned. The legs are chicken thin, comical. Black eyes bulged from the head. I was tempted to catch it for closer scrutiny. But my words were flowing and I prefer to not interrupt flow.

I turn back to the table to grab my water bottle and am greeted by a very large tukó. It had to be at least 12 inches from toe to the tip of a very fat tail. Startled, I pulled my hand back. It didn’t move. There is no sign of fear in its eyes or body language. It stared. I stared back. There’s a glint in Tukó’s eye. There is very little ambient light so the glint must be emanating from an internal spark. I look deeper into the eyes through the vertical slit, beyond the gold flecks, and see the formation of the universe outside of time. The gold flecks are released by the explosion creating Earth. There were Canyons. Slot Canyon. A black Sphere.

A pink, almost human pink tongue, licks one eye then the other. Most geckos don’t have eyelids and are not able to blink. Like snakes, their eyeballs are covered with spectacles—transparent scales that protect them. Without moisture, gecko eyes can become dry like stone baked in a noonday sun. Swipes of the tongue keep them moist and clean, windshield wipers replacing instead of removing moisture. I sense a thought in my head. The thought feels like, “Dyu got sum ting para moi?” This could just be my mind playing tricks on itself. Then again, there is the distinct possibility this is the Spirit Tukó.

I reached into my shirt and pulled out the medicine bag. It was damp. Shit! We were snorkeling all day. The medicine bag was beneath my rash guard. I forgot to take it off. I open it up and pulled out the creamy flower. There is no movement inside the petals. Most likely worm is dead. Desert creatures and salt water are incompatible. Maybe, Tukó will still accept the offering.

I unfold the flower and lay it on the table exposing the worm. Tukó’s head bounces up and down in excitement. It licks both eyes double four time. It looks at me and back at the flower. Then it looks back and forth between the soy sauce bottle and the worm. I could have sworn Tukó did the Filipino lip point at the soy sauce bottle then again at the motionless worm.

Soy sauce is the number one condiment in this country, a land devoid of spicy foods. I have heard tell of a region enjoying fiery peppers but we have not set foot on that island. I planned to pack chili powder to add some pizazz but, in my haste, completely forgot. I was forced to suffer under the other two primary spices, salt and pepper. I grab the bottle and place a drop in the worm.

“Mu-Orrrrrr. Mu-Orrrrrrr.” Tukó bounces it’s head up and down. I sprinkle a few more drops on the worm. “Mu-Orrrrrr! Mu-Orrrrrrr! Mu-Orrrrrr! Mu-Orrrrrrr!” Tukó happy dances with every additional sprinkle.

“Okay”, I douse the worm until it is floating in a brown pool of the salty liquid.

Tukó, deftly and with lightning reflexes, grabs the worm. Chews once, twice then swallows. “Yu-Ummmmmm.” Wipes its mouth on the creamy flower leaving a brown stain looking like shit on toilet paper. “Yu-Um…” The second Yum is cut short. A look of disappointment clouds Tukó’s face followed by angry utterances. “De-Edddddd. No-Stooooryyy. No-Stooooryyy. De-Edddddd Fu-Quuuuuu! Bu-byyyyyy!” Tukó turns and waddled off. The body undulating like Snake but suspended on the four legs. It would have been comical were I not stunned and devasted it was leaving without informing me of my purpose. I feel tears well in my soul.

“Wait! I’m sorry. Worm’s death was an accident. I checked yesterday and it was still alive. It was an accident.” I brought it 8000 miles. Snuck it through customs carefully avoiding the sniffer dogs. “Don’t leave. I need to know. Rattlesnake told me you knew my purpose… don’t… don’t go.”

Tukó takes no heed. There is no indication it heard my words. If anything it speeds up. It waddles to the wall, climbs vertical with as much ease as I walk on flat, paved sidewalks, and disappears into the rafters.

Failure! All that effort getting Worm to the Philippines. Finally, meeting up with Tukó. What now? What now? I was on the edge of learning my purpose twice. One ended with a dream sequence conversation with Spirit Rattlesnake. This, the seconded, ended because a worm died. I was so close. It was a nightmare. Nightmare? Dream? Dream! And then it dawns on me…

I run into the night jungle, fall on my hands and knees at the base of a tree, and feel around for some soft loam. Mosquitoes buzz me. I dig with bare hands sifting the dirt through my fingers searching. One crawly. Too big. Mosquitoes ravage me. Poke and prod. I feel fleshy wigglers. Sweat burns my eyes. Mosquitoes pierce me. I pull out my phone, flick the light on. There. There. Gold. Grubs. Five grubs. I pick up two and tuck them into my medicine bag, hold two more in my hand.

I run out of the jungle. Grab my books and continue running into our room. I hadn’t run with such urgency in years. I grab the door with the muddy hand. The handle slips. I brush the mud off on my shorts, was able to turn the handle, and open the door. The room is still chilly. Amazingly chilly. So chilly, the cold-bloods would be sluggish.

I rush to the window. The mini gecko still clings to the diaphanous curtain. I grab the first grub between two fingers and held it out to the gecko. I move it slowly closer despite my rampaging heart and shaking hand. The gecko sniffs, licks with the pink moist tongue, then grabs the grub and gulps it down in one swallow. How I don’t know because the grub was almost half the length of the gecko. I show the second grub to the gecko and make sure it saw me stuff it into my ear.

“What on earth are you doing? Did you just put something in your ear?” Her toothbrush is still in her mouth.

I had forgotten my wife was in the room. I wave her down and shush her. “I’ll explain later.” I lean in close to the mini lizard. Hoping. Hoping. I feel the grub wiggling in my ear and have to fight the urge to pull it out. My hoping was rewarded by hopping. The gecko leaped from the curtain onto my ear then crawled into the ear canal. Where it, thankfully, gobbles up the grub.

“Yu-Ummmmmm.�� I heard it say. “Thank-Youuuuu. I was so hungrrrrryyyy. Tired. Sleep now. Talk on the ‘morrow.” I could feel it circling like a dog then curling up and settling down in the warmth of my inner ear. It is pressed against my eardrum. At first, all sound was muffled. In a few moments, clarity returns. No. Clarity is enhanced. I can feel-hear its rhythmic breathing.

I am now equipped with a living translator, a Babel Gecko. Mission to speak with Spirit Tukó step one accomplished. Tomorrow I will seek the Spirit Being and attempt to convince he/she/it/they to continue our conversation. Until then, I have some mansplaining to do or I might be sleeping on the floor.

There’s Got To Be A Morning After

I wake the next morning from a dreamless sleep, a sleep restful from eyes closed to eyes fluttering open. Not once did I stir awake the usual 2, 3, 4 times every night. I must not have snored for my wife did not nudge me awake during the night and tell me to go back to sleep. Or, I was so exhausted I was oblivious.

Is this attributable to the Babel Gecko silencing my voices? Or a long day island hopping to white sand beaches, swimming in warm crystalline waters, and snorkeling near reefs teeming with fish?

I slept for seven blissful hours and awoke percolating energy. I can feel Babel Gecko as a slight pressure in my ear canal. But, there is no movement. A small gecko barks by the mirror. It is amazing the volume coming from such small creatures. Just gecko speak. No translation. Babel Gecko must still be sleeping. I want to rush out to the pavilion and seek the spirit Gecko, Gecko with a big G just like the big G Gods. What use, though, if my Rosetta Stone is not awake?

I push the area around my ear, front, below and behind, hoping the pressure will nudge it awake. No joy. I contemplate sticking my pinky in my ear, the nail length should reach. It also might pierce Babel Gecko. Patience. I tell my self. Patience? Patience when every fiber of my body is stretched taut enough that any touch would vibrate in the audio range, a human harp singing?

The last time I felt this high strung was the first time I engaged with my wife in the biblical sense. That night I had a clear path to satiating crescendo and hours of cuddling relaxation. Now? No path, no physical path. Perhaps a run? No. My knees are ravaged and the humidity would wrap me like a warm, wet towel keeping me from losing heat and ripe for an internal meltdown. One heart attack is enough.

Rub one out? No, that would leave me with sticky fingers, a wet bed, and wake my wife from her deep slumber. Not a good choice. She prefers, strongly, to not be woken early in the morning. We still had a few hours before she needed to wake for our 2nd day hopping the pristine islands. I could write a few pages in my travel journal but the agitation would render my already poor scribbling unreadable even to me.

I ease out of bed, grab my Kindle, make a cup of Earl Grey and walk to the pavilion. There is still a few poems by Philipino poet Nick Carbó to finish in his book, El Grupo McDonalds, before wrestling with Octavio Paz. Nick’s imagery is straightforward, relatively easy to follow. Octavio lives in the surreal. The words are tangled, the images twisted yet still sing beauty to my warped soul, Romeo serenading Juliette, Napoleon invading wet Josephine, Eve giving sight to blind Adam. He requires deep concentration to extract meaning. Mostly, I play in the imagery because much of the meaning is beyond my comprehension. That should get my mind off the internal machinations driving me to agitation.

Considering I’m living a pseudo surrealistic life what with a talking Rattlesnake and now an animal voice translating Babel Gecko tucked in my ear, surreal is on par with my mindset. I expect my near future will be steeped in a warm tea of melting clocks and fish on tethers.

In the pavilion, I sit at the table designated ours by the hotel staff. It is roped off by a small sign bearing my wife’s name, an invisible, inviolate border. It is situated between two oscillating fans mounted high on the rafters at a ninety-degree angle ensuring a constant breeze from one side or the other. A breeze clearing mosquitoes and keeping me cool, sorta.

Fish Soup

Red Crabs and Rice!

When we first arrived and lunched at the pavilion, we were not enamored with our assigned table. We staged a coup and conquered another’s territory. We illegally immigrated to someone else’s table and squatted. And, you know what, we were comfy. The other couple was comfy. The world did not end.

I turn the fans on, open my Kindle. The backlight is too bright. I scale it down to a soft glow until the backlit display casts a gentle light, just right for reading.

I chose to sit in the pavilion hoping the return of Tukó, hoping the Spirit Being would forgive the accidental death of the yucca worm and speak the wisdom I needed to hear. I wait and wait. No reappearance nor would it show those golden eyes to me for the duration of our trip.

I read for a couple of hours, read until the thick, misty air glows dim gray-white, no apricot/tangerine sunrise this far into the jungle. I read until I hear the door click open and see my wife floating across the grounds her eye waving to and fro scanning for snakes with every step. We saw a nice grass snake our first day here. It crossed our path and slithered off into the taller grasses. She was not amused. Just out of bed, she is still as beautiful as the day I first laid eyes upon her in a Chicago restaurant and felt a tingling in my loins.

We eat the buffet breakfast, lots of scrambled eggs overcooked for me, peeled fruits, toast. She has a few cups of coffee, me another tea. A satisfying meal before heading out to the wet market to buy some freshly caught fish and the huge prawns our boatmen would cook a few hours later, food they would serve us while we rejoiced on the pearly beaches and swam beneath a cerulean sky in impossibly turquoise waters. Would Babel Gecko tag along for the adventure or take leave before we plunged into the depths?

Swimming with the Fishes

Our hotel is in the jungle, a twenty-minute van ride to the jumping off point for the water adventures. As much as I try to prod, and will Babel Gecko into a woke state, there is no movement in my ear canal.

At the wet market, the flies buzz, a few near dead fish gasp a spasm through their scaly bodies as they slowly drown in the thick air. It is the perfect time to expose my psyche to the pained fish. What were their final thoughts? No translation was forthcoming.

I know Babel Gecko is still there. I can feel the coolness of its tiny miniscule, cold-blooded body against my eardrum. Yet, I can neither hear nor feel breathing. Is it dead? Alive? Sleeping?

We will be snorkeling in the next hour and swimming most of the day. Dare I participate? It might drown and sever any possibility of guiding me. But, what’s to sever if non-reactive Babel Gecko is possibly dead? I send thoughts and prayers to it the entire boat ride.

The boats are traditional, double outrigger and sloooowww. One of our guides stands on the prow watching for submerged rocks.

I catch the boat crew sneaking looks at me speaking out loud to no one in particular. I’m sure it looks like I am spouting incantations the way a priest mumbles through a mass ritually performed a thousand times without variation. The thoughts and prayers did no good. Didn’t think they would. Thoughts and prayers are an illusory phrase spoke to assuage the guilt of people who won’t offer any real help but want others to view them as caring and helpful. More than anything, it is a shout to “Look at wonderful me!”

Our first stop, Siete Pescados, Seven fishes, an area rich in corals, a haven for mobile and stationary sea life.

I am not a fan of cold water except to drink and then prefer water that is as much solid as liquid. This intense dislike keeps me out of pools, lakes, and oceans. I learned yesterday this was not the case with the beach water. Today, we are further out. I tentatively descend the ladder into the ocean bay. The shock I experience when plunging in? The temperature is temperate. Not too cold, not cold at all. Perfect for a bubble bath after a long, long bike ride when on fire muscles need soothing.

The saltiness means buoyancy means no life jacket required…for me. I much prefer the mobility of swimming unencumbered. Irene, on the other hand, is less confident especially nervous when the bottom is more than twelve feet. She always wears a life jacket and uses me as a second flotation device. At times, it feels I am swimming for two. Mostly, I don’t mind the added work. It’s far better than two years ago when I had to snorkel alone in Belize because she was terrified of any water over her head. She has learned to swim with her next goal of learning to scuba dive. I am looking forward to that day. I love Scuba. I wonder, though, how she will take to more water above her than below.

Most of the time we snorkel, I am fumbling with my GoPro camera. I forgot the buoyant stick so must concentrate not to drop it. The floor is thick with coral. The GoPro would sink like a rock and disappear. I don’t like sticking my hands in places I cannot see when in the ocean. Too many critters with spikes and sharp teeth.

Her confidence grows. Short forays on her own become more common. I make sure to keep an eye out so I, in my fish searching excitement, don’t wander too far. Why excited? So many colorful fish. Some only previously seen on television and in professional aquariums.

There is stick, fan, and brain corals, all beautiful, each attracting their own fish species. The fish forage around the coral branches or, like the parrot fish, nibbling algae formed on the coral. Most exciting for me, aside from my wife discovering and showing me a striped sea snake later in the day, is the bulbous puffer fish with the tiny fins looking more like an overstuffed condom than a denizen of the deep. By color, it is nondescript.

It swims like a dirigible. Slowish. Not very linear. The bulky head resembling more a battering ram than a sleek, slicing missile. I follow hoping it will puff up balloonish. No luck. No predator to strike fear in its heart. Nor does this hairy hominid seem threat enough to trigger the instinct for self-preservation.

“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” I spot a Dory fish or a fish similar in shape and color to Dory. Possibly a blue tang. Not being a tropical fish expert, I can’t say for sure. “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” I realize I am hearing a fish speaking. “Just keep swimming.” Babel Gecko is obviously awake and translating.

“Yes, David, I am.”

“You am? You are? You are what”

“Just am. I am.”

The Old and New Testament God’s used the phrase, “I Am”, to hint at their existence pre-time. It is interpreted by Christian scholars as a declaration of divinity. Here I am, a snorkeling human immersed in a world of water breathers, salt-water breathers enjoying the otherworldly experience. My focus is on simple enjoyment. It seemed Babel Gecko is gearing up for philosophical sparring.

I simply want to be deep under not to think deep while under. I enjoy floating, partially submerged with a mask and a mouthpiece stuffed into my speaking hole with a tube extending into the air. Perhaps I can just ignore the distraction. physically, speech is impossible. I can just keep swimming pretending to be oblivious.

“Wait for it?”

“Wait for…shit.” We already had a brief conversation. Babel Gecko is plugged into my head. Verbal words are unnecessary.

“There you go man, keep as cool as you can. Face piles and piles…”

“… of trials with smiles. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave and keep on thinking free.” The little bugger is quoting song lyrics now. “Why the Moody Blues?”

“Do you remember the opening lyrics to that song?”

“Of course I do. ‘I think, I think I am, therefore I am, I think.'”

“Yes, my bright little star. You think therefore You are. Or, You am as I are.”

I looked back to find my wife. She is a few meters away and seems to be enjoying herself. There is no fear in her body language.

“Because we both are, David, I am able to connect with you at the thought level. Words are so primitive, a waste of energy, and enslaved to a specific language. Thoughts are universal, exist outside the limits of language. Only the simplest thoughts can be dumbed down to words. Except for the poets. Poets extended words beyond mere scratches on a page. They are able to create a bouquet of images, layers of meaning, nuanced implications with a sparsity of words, imagery dense forests with desert symbolism.”

“I enjoy poetry, too. But, I must admit, much of what I read is beyond my comprehension.” I think back to Octavio and the challenge of finding coherence in his imagery.

“That’s because of your propensity to interpret poetry with logic. One can’t think poetry. It must be felt. Poetry is an experience. Allow it to wash over you like the apricot rays of sunrise. Feel poetry don’t think poetry.”

I’m an engineer. Logic is everything. Am I an Engineer because I was born thinking logical or do I depend upon logic for because I am educated in Engineering? “How does one suspend logic?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been human, never been constrained by words or logic. We in the non-human space are fully aware logic is illogical.”

“How, then, do you survive?”

“How do we survive? It’s a wonder any of you humans survive. Logic is used to manipulate thinking thus beguile humans. Human logic says my side needs enough ‘defensive’ nuclear weaponry to blow up the world 10 times because the other side can do it three times. If both sides can destroy Earth one time then there is enough to destroy earth twice. Why is more needed? To line the silk undershorts of the greedy powerful who already possess more money than they can use in twenty lifetimes. It’s all about ego stroking.”

“I always, always knew nuclear escalation was warped thinking, twisted logic.”

“We animals survive by instinct. Emotion. Connection to the Collective Consciousness allows us to experience the energy of all life forms, including humans. The closest word in your language is empathy but our universal web is an amplifier making it broader and deeper.”

“For example?”

“Remember the balloon fish you were following?”

“Balloon fish?” In my mind, I saw Puffer fluttering near the coral. “Do you mean Pufferfish?

“Yes. Pufferfish. You were trying to spook it so it would inflate its body.”

“Um…ya.”

“I was still in a state of semi-consciousness yet felt it screaming in distress.”

“Distress?”

“Of course, distress. How would you feel with a hairy alien one hundred times your size following you around?”

“Ok. I get your point.”

“I have not made my point. For Puffer to puff requires significant energy use. Energy must be replenished by food. A short while ago it expanded to ward off a hungry eel. Eel induced stress then you added to the stress nudging our friend toward a nervous breakdown. I smelled the stress in the water, felt the fear-tension radiating through Universal Consciousness. All beings near Puffer experienced the stress, all except you and the other humans preferring to think in thought. Sharks are drawn to the stress lines and the implication of weakened, easy prey. To protect us all, including you, I distracted you with this conversation. Puffer was free to bumblebee swim away on those tiny fins dissipating stress. We are all connected. It is just you fool humans have ignored it for so long it seems to be erased from your DNA. Or your logical thinking has blinded you from our interconnectedness. You are welcome, by the way.”

“Welcome?”

“Yes, the shortest path between the sharks and the stress nucleus radiator was through your wife.”

“Huh? Oh. Oh! Thank You!”

“De nada, mon ami.”

“You just mixed Spanish and French. Are you multilingual?”

“No. Thought communicators don’t need to speak in any specific language. Have you not been paying attention? You interpreted my thoughts with words in your comfort zone.”

“The bounce between human languages, Daveed, shows a sensitivity to Universal Consciousness. Perhaps Rattlesnake was correct and there is hope, a plan for your life. Perhaps you are not just aimlessly wandering between birth and death.”

For part of our conversation, I was feeling stupid.”Of course, I’m not wandering aimlessly.” How quickly it changed to pissed when my worldview was challenged. “My life has a purpose. I have always sensed a greater calling, a heightened sense of the spiritual, a visceral connection with creation centered in the power emanating from the rocks around Moab. My struggle has always been understanding why I am sensitive to the spiritual and how I am supposed to serve the world. In other words, my purpose for being born. Rattlesnake gave me hope. He told me you held the answers.”

“I am not here to tell. I don’t have answers. My role is to give you a key with which you will open doors. I hint at possibilities. I point toward futures. I…I…I need a rest. Filtering through your mind gyrations trying to find coherence is exhausting. How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Maintain sanity.”

With those words hanging in the water. Babel Gecko stopped talking presumably to nap leaving me to ponder the soundness of my thinking and mental life.

Fun in The Sun

We, Irene and I, spend the remainder of the day basking in the glorious Philippines taking advantage of the beautiful weather, idyllic waters, and the serenity of the most beautiful white sand beaches in our world. The water and beaches in greater Coron. We choose to limit our movement on this second-day of island hopping. Day one we hit five different sites. Today, only two. There is a lot to be said for deep experience over wide. Both have their place. Today we needed deep tissue massage.

We spend the majority of our time at Malcapuya Island. The boat parked in a beautiful bay. We take a short walk to the shaded huts looking over a stunning bay. What’s the difference between beautiful and stunning? The angle of the sun glinting off the gentle waves singing when they brush over the sand. The texture of cool sand beneath bare feet too long encumbered by shoes, and the way the ivory whiteness kisses the incoming waves. The turquoise water against a backdrop of an impossibly blue sky sliced with wispy clouds high above cottony cumulus. Seeing my bronzed wife in a sexy one-piece emerging from the ocean looking more mermaid than a human. And many other subtleties felt deep in the soul.

We eat a leisurely lunch. A dirty white dog visits coaxed in by Irene. It looks halfway between fox and dog with the pointed ears and long, narrow snout, and bushy tail. She has elongated, swollen teats, a nursing mother. Where were her pups? I feel the word thirsty. Is Babel Gecko sleeping or has our connection become so intertwined translation supersedes Babel Gecko sleep? Irene gives the fox-dog water from our supply. “You’re giving our water to the dog? What if we run short? It’s very hot.”

“She’s thirsty.” Squatting next to the dog pouring water into her cupped hand which the dog eagerly laps. “She has puppies and needs the water more than we do.”

“How did you know she was thirsty?” It was a dumb question I should not have bothered to ask. She has a connection with dogs that shames my connection with humans. Dog empathy. Animal empathy.

“I could feel it.”

The dog consumes the better part of a liter and chowed down on the leftover fish heads and skeleton ensuring not a morsel goes to waste. Energy ensuring milk will flow and puppies have a chance to become dogs.

There is a big clam a ways out. Locals are giving rides where one has to hang onto the outriggers in the water while they putt-putt to the location. My preference is to swim and see it. We opt for neither. There is enough to explore nearer shore and we only have enough pisos remaining to tip our boatmen.

Our final stop before the hour-long, slow boat back to Coron is a sandbar. We can see the connected island across the strait. Deep massage or wider massage? I am so relaxed, either suits me. We cross to the sandbar. Only, it isn’t just a sandbar. It was but it isn’t now. Best of all, we are the only ones visiting. Peace and solitude.

It is later afternoon, tide on the rise. What was an exposed sandbar in the morning is now a submerged beach bar. A bar without drinks. A Mai Tai would be perfect. We walk on the submerged beach bar. The water is barely above our knees. In the center, an isolated rock outcropping attracts small fish the way light attracts moths only these thrive on algae instead of being cooked when touching the light.

Around the back of the island, rocks and coral abound as do fish. Not nearly the variety we enjoyed at Siete Pescado but equal in quantity. I see another parrot fish notable for their almost fluorescent coloration. The fish swim in mixed color, mixed species clusters, choosing to intermingle without the small-minded prejudice plaguing humanity. Inter-species harmony. My guess is they are not burdened by religiosity and the division wrought by practitioners of the faiths. They come together based on the content of each others character.

The Last Conversation with Tukó

“You are partially correct, David.” Babel Gecko speaks.

“Partially correct about what?”

“The fish people, all peoples but humans, exist in a perpetual state of worship. This is different than humans who set apart a designated time to honor the creator, a begrudging hour a week. Even that pittance is enough to win the label ‘zealot’ or ‘pious’. Each being exists in harmony with their creator never trying to impose their way of life. Parrotfish does not demand Shark become a vegan. Unlike your ilk believing it is a godly faith to ball gag your truth into the souls of those believing differently. Deep-throating others inevitably leads to retribution and the puking of holy wars.”

“How are the other beings different when Shark eats Parrotfish? Isn’t that ball gagging belief too? I’m sure Parrotfish doesn’t believe being eaten allows it to pursue Parrotfish faith.” I had Babel Gecko this time. Logic turned against diatribe.

“No.” Subtle chuckle. “That is each being existing true to their unique design.”

“And just how is that different?”

“To begin with, humans put their own faces on the gods. The Catholic god is white. The Islamic god is swarthy. You all carve division out of harmony. It should be obvious that each human religion creates god in their own images. We don’t put a mask on Universal Consciousness, ultimate reality, whatever you want to call it. Every other being from Rock to Microbe to the ancient Tree people are in a continuous state of worship every moment of their existence. There is no division between life and worship. They wake in worship. Sleep in worship. Dream in worship. Eat and procreate as an act of worship. An elephant never wishes to be a bird or even another elephant. Each exists in their moment, in the present maximizing their uniqueness.”

“Hmm…this sounds kinda Buddhist?”

“Yes. The Buddha was approaching Universal Consciousness but it was still an oblique angle mostly missing the crux. Each being exists as itself. Accepts the uniqueness of all others. None seek to be another. They exist within their purpose. Outside of man, there is never any animal, despite the anthropomorphized stories in your fairy tale books, that seeks to be something outside themselves, their purpose.

“Their purpose? They have a purpose?”

“Yes, purpose. The essence you are so desperate to discover. Do you know, you embodied your purpose at birth? But, like most humans, you lost it seeking joy and contentment outside yourself. Your journey is not one of discovery. It’s about reconnecting with your inner self, unweaving your own craziness.”

“I guess that makes sense.” It actually is more logical than I am willing to admit to a lizard. Inwardly, I have always felt restless, disconnected. It makes sense that I am on a quest to find a lost part of myself. But I don’t relay this to the Babel Gecko. I don’t want to endure another soliloquy on the illogic of human logic.

“Young David, you are on a journey.”

“I’m not young.” I’m feeling smug and annoyed.

“Before you were, I was. I’m older than Methuselah, was a witness to creation itself.”

I felt my head tilt like an inquisitive dog.

“I sense it is dawning on you. Yes, I am the Spirit Gecko, the Tukó foretold by Rattlesnake.”

“But…but…you are so tiny? How? How? What about the worm eater?”

“You foolish humans always thinking bigger is better. Sometimes, I wonder why we bother to protect your race. The worm eater was a pretender. The woman you encountered when arriving at Tacloban, as you correctly surmised, was a decoy. Worm eater and the woman are small ‘s’ spirit geckos. Did you not see the woman lick her eyes?”

“Hmmm. Protect our race? The human race?”

“Yes, but that is a topic for another time. I have been around since the beginning…”

“Beginning of what??”

“…the beginning of the beginning. By comparison you, young David, have existed for less than one one-hundred-thousandth the tick of a clock.”

“By that reckoning, I have less than the one-thousand-thousandth before I die. I guess I am both old and young relative to you.” I couldn’t help but be a smartass.

“What makes you think life ends with death? Have you considered death is the beginning and birth an end?”

“Riddles! You are as frustrating as Rattlesnake was before he wooshed back into his rock leaving a scar chiseled into its surface. Let’s rewind. You said I am on a journey?!?!” half question, half declaration.

“Yes. A long journey and I am, as was Rattlesnake, but a link in a disjointed chain wrapped through history connecting discontiguous time passages. I can see all the links back to before the beginning of your great, great grandparents and a few into your future. You, David, are on a hero’s journey. I am one of many advisors.”

“Many advisors? How man… Hold on. A hero’s journey?” Joseph Campbell wrote extensively about the mythology of the hero’s journey underpinning many world faiths. Is Babel Gecko telling me I’m to be the founder of a new faith? A prophet? A god? What shall I call my faith system? But there are issues. “A hero’s journey needs a hero and a dragon to slay.”

“Your quest is to rediscover the purpose you lost after toddlerhood. In that context, you are both hero and dragon. To slay the dragon is to slay yourself. Game over?”

“Wait. You said death is the beginning.”

“Correction, A beginning.”

“A beginning. If I slay myself I would be both dead and at a new beginning simultaneously. A Shroedinger’s cat paradox and I’m the pussy in the box. I would be dead to this life and alive to a new life. Like The Christ, resurrected into God.”

“Correction, a god. Are you able to retain any information? Why do I bother? There are many, many gods and Gods.”

“Again, you sound like Rattlesnake. Are you the same Sprint only shapeshifted?”

“What is Snake but Lizard without legs? By and by, never trust the words slipping off the fork tongues. They split truth. Rattlesnake is the definition of dichotomy. I think I already explained this.”

“Let’s back up,” I said. “You danced around my question. If I slay the dragon thus myself and death is a new beginning, am I to die and resurrect a God?”

“I said to consider the possibility. Compare it with water and ice. When water is warmed to 32 degrees it begins to melt. Cool water to 32 degrees and freezing starts. As one dies, the other is birthed. Death equals life. Life equals death. At 32 degrees is the coexistence of life and death, a perfect balance of living stabilizing dying, death stabilizing life.”

“Are you saying, if I slay my dragon, I will birth myself? But that means I have always been the dragon and the hero never was. Or am I in an equilibrium environment so I am both dragon and hero at this moment? Damn, this is confusing.”

“You are confused because you persist with thinking in thoughts. There is understanding that cannot be explained by primitive human thought. This is one of them.”

“Primitive thought? Human thought is the essence of intelligence. It is by thinking and thought that we ascended….”

“Your kind are so enthralled with thought you have lost the balance of empathic feeling. Need I remind you, it is thinking and thought that devised the atomic bomb. It is thinking and thought that kills for pleasure beyond the need for food. It is being handcuffed by thinking in thought that warps human philosophy until destroying the very habitat sustaining you is rationalized as logical. Because you refuse to experience life outside of thought, you are bringing destruction to many of the plant people and animal people not to mention the pending obliteration of the human people. How the Fu-Quuuuuu does that pass for intelligence?”

No snappy comebacks come to mind. No red herrings to derail Tukó allowing me a face-saving coup de gras and exit stage left. What to do? Simple. Do nothing, no thing. Remain silent. Terminate thinking. Halt thought. Float away on the thin ice of a new day. I unfocus my eyes and hover face down, submerged ears connected to the ebb and flow murmuring of Ocean’s soul brushing against my eardrums, a one-inch diameter breathing tube connecting me to sweet air. Yin-yang. Fish and human. Ommmm. Ommmm.

“David.”

“Huh? What?”

I am not sure how long I dwelt outside of thought in the amniotic paradise. Was it seconds? Minutes? Longer? Nine months? Whatever the duration, I return to awareness feeling relaxed, freshly emerged from a chrysalis after a long, restful sleep. I would like to say transformed physically but I am still an aging redhead carrying too much weight around my midsection. The caterpillar stayed a caterpillar.

“David, can you sense me?

“I can hear you.”

“I haven’t been talking”

“You’re not talking? Then, I am tuned into your thought waves. I guess I am sensing you.”

“Before I go….”

“Go? Go where?”

“Away. I’m leaving.

“Nooo!”

“You should be used to separations by now. Did you not tell Rattlesnake everyone leaves you?

“Ya. Doesn’t mean I like being abandoned.”

“I have imparted to you what I had to impart.”

“Whatever…how can you leave when I’m still a mess.”

“A mess?”

“Yes. You asked how I maintain sanity. I am out of order and will not find my peace until harmony is attained. Harmony with what? Harmony with everything. Including myself. I’m thinking Nirvana on earth. Peace in my soul.”

“What you desire is not a one-time event. Order, itself is an illusion. Harmony, on the other hand, once found requires maintenance to sustain the beauty state.”

“How will I know when I enter the beauty state?”

“The natural world will accept you as one of them. You will be able to understand their essence without the need of an intermediary like me. You will be outside of mere thought and sense the universality of all life. You will be comfortable existing in both the thought and empathy.”

“What about my purpose? How will I know.”

“David, you are on a vision quest. Neither snake nor I can reveal your purpose because it is hidden from us as well. Purpose is not a single destination. It’s a series of destinations. Purpose evolves over time. Rattlesnake was able to point you toward me because I was a near future. Your next future is beyond my vision and my dreams. But my dreaming of future events is imaginary. There is no future as there is no past. It is always present. Always I am. Always you are. I can tell you this..be open. The next spirit may be very large or very small, tree or insect or any being between including rock. It may be nonambulatory requiring you to sit still for days. Keep your spirit open so you don’t miss the sign. There is no saying how many guides hold links in your chain.”

“Sure, I will remain open, leave my spirit raw flapping in the breeze.”

Gecko popped out of my ear. It floundered in the water’s great strength. The ocean was pushing me around and I was infinitely heavier than tiny Tukó. I tried to reach for it but the waves pushed and pulled us in different directions. I thought it might drown. Until it’s tiny tail grew into a fishtail. Scales flipped out of the lizard skin on the bottom half the body. The upper changed into a woman, the spitting image of the raggedy lady at the chicken stand. Still gecko green but definitely the woman. It grew as long as my leg. Shapeshifter. With a few strong flicks of its tail, it disappeared into the distance. But not before singing in a high, melodious voice, “Remember…Spirit Beings come in all shapes and sizes…some are not ambulatory…”

That was the last I saw or heard from Tukó. The boat trip back to Coron took us into a squall of dark clouds, eventually releasing a heavy rain. It rained through the evening and the next day causing a slight delay in our Palawan-Manila flight.

Aside from the reason taking us to the Philippines, it was a good trip. We had space away from tourism to experience untarnished native life and for Irene to reconnect with childhood memories and the people making them special. And we had a couple days of tourism visiting some of the most beautiful beaches and waters the world has to offer.

The next day, Chicago via Taiwan. Most of the trip I mulled over and over the conversations with Tukó. Sticking like a barbed hook in my craw was the phrase that not all Spirit Beings are ambulatory. In my opaqueness, I sensed a clue. The second leg, the long leg was on a Hello Kitty themed plane from the flight attendant aprons to the eating utensils topped with Kitty. I found it trite, childish. Irene thought it cute. I didn’t touch the Ambien.

The Fat Tailed Lizard in the Philippines (Seeking Tukó) Awakened by a Demon The demon screeched as if being tortured in the pits of hell where every last inch of its flesh was flayed and the writhing, skinless, oozing body was dipped in rock salt and set on a slow-burning flame.

[speedygal]

Not a logical intervention - part 42

A/N Yes, yet another long arse chapter.

“SEAAALLIIIIK~!”

A young boy crashed against the captain’s leg and wrapped his hands around the unusually more muscular legs. Miller stared down at the boy with his hands linked behind his back. He looked down toward the child raising an his right eyebrow in surprise.

“GEORGE SAMUEL KIRK, JUNIOR!”

Miller looked up toward the woman.

“I missed you!” Sam said.

“Get off the stranger,” Winona tugged the child off the Vulcan’s legs. “Sorry.”

“No apologies needed,” Miller said.

“You’re the new professor at Alpha Centauri’s University,” Winona said. “Mr Miller isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Miller said.

“But he is Sealik,” Sam said, pointing at the taller man.

“Sammy,” Winona said. “Not every Vulcan you see is Selek.”

“Yes mom,” Sam said, lowering his head.

“We are not going to miss your doctors appointment,” Winona said. “Sammy, come along.”

The two walked away from the younger Vulcan. Miller turned toward the duo. Sam was like a shorter miniature version of Peter Kirk. It was Sam, who looked strikingly similar to pictures of Kirk at the age of a toddler. Why were they on Alpha Centau---unless. . . Miller had been lead to believe that Jim would go to San Fransisco even at retirement.  They were living together in San Fransisco last as Miller recalled. So it seemed that the admiral and Spock decided not to purchase the house and become part of its history so that their younger counterparts could live in there upon retirement. Which meant that Kirk was alone at home. Miller turned from the Kirk’s direction then walked away.

The house felt empty.

It was empty.

All except for Maru and Kirk.

It felt empty to the admiral.

To  Kirk, the colors were dull and dark around him. He noticed the empty spaces in the house. From the backyard that was lined in flowers. A garden that Spock had planted for Kirk earlier in their time together. Kirk weeded out the weeds. Ripping them out one by one disposing them into the gray bucket. Kirk’s hands were a shade of brown from all the tending. Kirk returned inside the house and washed his hands easily finding the gloves by the sink. The sink that was reflective of what landed onto it. Upon reflection, Kirk realized  he was not quite alive as he normally was. He stood upright drying his hands off on the nearby towel. He set the gloves onto the table alongside the doorway to the backyard. The star fleet issued padd dinged on the table. Kirk picked it up along with his glasses.

Kirk was reading a mission report handed in by Captain Xena and her partner Gabrielle. The read was a rather detailed impressive story to the man.  He stood up pacing the room rereading and re-re-reading the report.  He came to the back porch where he saw the two empty chairs that hadn’t been put away. Maru tagged along, mewing in confusion. The two lawn chairs were seated side by side. He would wait for the Vulcan. When he was a hundred sixty, Kirk would have Spock be taken out of stasis and spend the last five years of their lives together. A painful existence but worth it all together. Kirk came to the ending of the text.

“Ah ha,” Kirk said. “This is my kind of mission.”

Slaying a god?

He would believe it.

“Now which god did they slay?” Kirk said, then he reread the report. “. . . Cupid?” he looked at it in bewilderment then laughed. “Why would Cupid want to kill them? Wasn’t he just trying to get these two women together?” He sat down  onto the couch ad checked the list of reports sent by the USS Hood. “Hmm. . .”

Maru leaped into the admiral’s lap  with a soft mew.

“I miss him, too,” Kirk said.  “I miss him too. . .”

It was going to be a very lonely hundred years.

There was a calico cat resting on a chair  appearing to be covered in dirt and it’s strapped harness seemed to be worse for the wear. There was a collar around the cat’s neck. If a nearby passer had knelt down to the cat then looked at the tag. They would notice it read ‘Italian Miller, seeing eye cat of Selek Miller’. David McCoy happened it be one of those passers. He held the hand of his son, Leonard, visiting Alpha Centauri to pick up Eleanor from a wild adventure she had for the sake of research. Writing novels she required going on long trips to accurate do the research. No matter how risky the visit was.

“Paa,” Leonard plead.

“Unless ya goin’ to give it straight to its owner,” David said. “I don’t see a problem.”

“I will, I will, I will!” Leonard said,

“Get the cat,” David requested.

“Yes, pa!” Leonard said. Leonard picked up Italian. “Aww, this is a sad cat.”

Leonard came over to David for checked for a comn number.

“I will make the call when we get to the hotel,” David said. “Don’t snuggle with it.”

“But paaa,” Leonard said. “the cat is sad.”

“The cat’s Italian,” David said. “Italian is not happy right now.”

“Can I wash the cat?”  Leonard asked.

“If ya like to get your hands dirty,” David said.

“I do, I do,  I do!” Leonard said rapidly nodding.

“Good,” David said. “Maybe the owner is somewhere around here. . .”

“I hope so,” Leonard said, as they walked off the shuttle craft.

They walked for a good while then came into a hotel. Leonard was having difficulty not petting the animal. The urge to pet it. It was extreme for a seven year old being instructed not to pet the cat. Nor to snuggle with it. The cat was overwhelming fluffy and mewing signalling displeasure at the way Leonard held him. The door to the hotel room opened and Leonard dashed right in. Leonard destrapped the harness to the cat then turned on the water and put in the plug.  Leonard felt around Italian’s sides with his fingers gently petting along the cat. He noticed the cat seemed way too thin. As though Italian had not been eating for a week or two. Leonard frowned, disapprovingly.

Italian made itself comfortable sitting down in the sink. The harness slipped off Italian’s body. Leonard  rubbed the soap onto a towel waiting for the water to rise. Italian was relaxed, no longer mewing while looking around.  Leonard tried to take the collar. Every time his fingers approached the collar, Italian thumped him extending his claws on to the young boy’s hand repeatedly. He had nice small cuts  running along his hands. Leonard put on band-aid and resumed cleaning the cat. David locked the door behind him taking the card with him. Leonard seemingly was left occupied. His brown looked at the cat with affection. Italian stood up seemingly dried. Leonard’s hand glided down Italian’s back. Italian’s eyes were gazed on the open window. The cat leaped over Leonard’s head then climbed on to the counter then leaped out of the building.

“ITALIAN!” Leonard called.

Leonard bolted out of the room slamming the door shut behind him. He fled down the stairs zipping down with impressive speed. He came out of the hotel doors to find the cat running down the pavement heading in a uncertain direction

“ITALIAN!” Leonard cried. “ITALIAN! GET BACK HERE!”

Leonard’s eyes were on the ground watching after the fluffy long tail waving in the air from side to side.

“ITAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaAAAAAALIEEEEEEEN!” Leonard hollered.

The cat’s speed remained constant. Leonard bulldozed his way after the cat with sheer determination in his blood. His dad was going to kill him for leaving the hotel room. The southern boy slipped into campus passing by several students on his way. Italian leaped up. Italian landed in the arms of the well dressed Vulcan who was in black robes. Italian purred in the baffled Vulcan’s arms. Leonard panted, coming to a stop feet away from the professor. He placed his hands on to his knees catching his breath.

“Sorry, Mister,” Leonard apologized. ‘This is. .” he gestured toward the cat. “Italian Miller.”

“Italian Miller,” Miller repeated. “What a unusual name.”

“Mine’s Leonard McCoy,” Leonard said.

Miller’s eyebrow vanished among his hairline then went down. The Vulcan observed the characteristically different design in Leonard’s hair style. He had seen the pictures of the doctor in his childhood. The bangs were swept to the left rather than to the right. It was fascinating. He had brown eyes rather than baby blue ones. This was not an alternate timeline but merely a alternate universe. The divergence occurred earlier than he had thought. Much earlier. Miller combed his fingers through the felines hair.

“Professor Miller,” Miller said.

“So this is  your cat,” Leonard said. “Your cat will follow wherever you go. You can’t just leave a cat behind and not expect it to go Homeward Bound.”

“I may share the name of its owner but I am not,” Miller explained. He held his free hand up in the ta’al. “I am Selrek Miller.”

“Oh, well,” Leonard said. “that guiding harness wouldn’t be necessary for someone with typical eyesight.” He looked down at the cat who seemed to be purring. “My family are not really cat people. You keep it.”

“You are very kind,” Miller said.

“Thank ya,” Leonard said.

“May  I escort you back to your home?” Miller inquired.

“I don’t live here,” Leonard said. “I am from Georgia, Earth. Live and breathe southern air.”

“Then why are you on Alpha Centauri?” Miller asked.

“My parents travel a lot,” Leonard said. “Durin’ the summer. There’s two weeks off of school durin’ March. Otherwise, I’m down in Georgia with my ma and pa. . .”

“May I escort you back to the hotel?” Miller asked, once rephrasing  his question.

“Sure,” Leonard said. “Follow me.”

Miller and Leonard walked side by side off campus.

It had been one month and two weeks since the absence of the Spocks and Italian. Kirk opened the door tiredly. Maru walked into the house pressing her side against the older man’s leg. Kirk brought himself over to the couch guiding himself along it. He took off his hat discarding it onto the couch. He zipped down his blue Admiral outfit. He unzipped his pants then slid them off. He was in his black shirt that seemingly fitted his figure that had the designs of the star fleet delta decorating it in a lighter shade of black. Kirk crept up the stairs. There was not  sound within the house except for the sounds of mewing tailing after him. Kirk opened the door to his bedroom with baggy eyes. He closed the door behind him with the cat miraculously by his side. Kirk slid into bed and went fast asleep where he snored.  Maru came to the admiral’s side then curled up against his chest and purred.

Kirk missed the feel of Spock’s colder body.  Hearing the Vulcan’s laughter. The wide, long smile on Spock’s when the Vulcan’s ridgid control fell over a joke he just told. The small smiles that the Vulcan had toward the human in public. Hearing Spock’s beautiful, gravel elderly voice. There were many things the admiral found himself missing. The way he meditated. Kirk should have been alarmed seeing Spock listening to a audio books more often than meditating. The Vulcan certainly did not slow down on knitting. Somehow and some way, the Vulcan was able to knit so fast that he made elaborate shirts with designs despite being blind. To the federation, there were various types of blindness. Seeing figures but not their faces just their forms and their colors. Some saw in bat vision. Some saw only a bright light. Some only saw a gray fog covering their vision.

When Spock looked in the human’s direction, all the Ambassador visualized was his bondmate. Radiating beauty and being so attractive. Spock made him feel attractive and Kirk made him feel the same. Kirk wrapped his hand around the cat feeling tears growing along his eyes. A singular void had made itself at home. He missed Spock. Kirk clenched his eyes. His breathing unsteady then his eyes fluttered open. It was one of the last images that Spock had given him in their last mind meld together on the last morning.  Kirk smelled the feline’s fur. He had gone through a tiring mission. Oversaw it, to retrieve Charlie, the Cardassian defector, out of a anomaly with sapient beings. Ended up leading the mission all together because the captain and the first officer could not risk going into the cloud. He lost three good men trying to rescue the defector. He closed his eyes.

“We want him to stay.”

“He can’t possibly stay. He is mortal.”

“We can make him live forever,”

“What’s the point of living forever if your experiences can’t be shared? If you don’t have a friend, a companion, or someone to talk and comfort?” Kirk asked. “What is the point of life being alone in the hands of someone this officer cannot possibly trust?”

“We will gain his trust.”

It didn’t sound too good from the entities.

“Gain his trust naturally or forcefully?”

“That will be determined.”

Charlie, the Cardassian, looked over with pleading eyes.

“I am from Star Fleet,” Kirk said. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.. But if you don’t hand him over then I will have to order all torpedoes on your vessel,” his hands were clenching onto the hat. A admiral’s hat that Kirk wondered to himself, why did this get made? Star Fleet has no use for hats. He pressed against the elastic rim. “Your vessel is in the middle of a transport route that most shuttles take to starbases.”

Charlie collapsed to his feet landing to his side as a slumped figure.

“Lieutenant Charlie!” Kirk called, coming to the man’s side.

“I like to see you try coming to him,” came the taunt.

A invisible force ripped through him leaving anger and sore all over. Kirk steadied himself, flinching. He pushed his way  through the invisible angry voice. He steadied himself down to the Cardassian’s side who was groaning in pain. Kirk flipped out his communicator to contact the ship.  Charlie’s assignment happened to be the Yeager. Kirk pushed aside the sore feeling looking around as he spoke into the communicator. The entity around him was furious.

“You can’t be doing that!”  came the scream.

“Prepare one to transport,” Kirk replied, then closed the communicator.  Charlie’s figure became outlined in a projected like image that was blue. “If you will not cooperate with us then I have no choice but to give the order,” He stood up as Charlie’s figure vanished from his side inside the purple entity. “I don’t want to do that.”

“No.”

“Do you have friends?”

“No.”

“Then get out there and find those who are like you.”

“No.”

“You’re a lonely entity.”

“No.”

“Why do you not want to go out?”

“We won’t like it.”

Kirk grimaced. Though he understood where the entity was coming from. He did not approve of their reluctance to go out seeking for life like them. The individual had not exactly gave a good first impression. And it had been likely eons since they had spoken with one of their kind.

“You cannot keep the charade up. Separating mortal beings from their loved ones. Making  then think they were kidnapped and killed or went into the space Bermuda Triangle. Do you have no heart? Imagine if a higher up being, a celestial, did that to you. Carrying you around wherever you went without consent.  Being unable to find people to relate. Terrified, trapped, and desperate enough to find ways every day to escape. Being stuck with someone you cannot relate is a lot like that. You can’t live forever. . . Can you?”

The world began to fade before his eyes as there was silence around him. The entity was unable to respond. The powerful barrier that rippled through the admiral’s body vanished. The admiral had a sigh of relief to himself. He flipped open his communicator, “One to transport.”

Kirk’s eyes slowly opened. There was a loud, rapid knocking on the door from downstairs. Kirk let go of Maru.  Kirk miserably got out of the bed then put on his dark shorts that ended below his knees. Tiredly, the admiral slid down his dark regulation shirt over his stomach. He looked over to see the time. He had slept a day away. Kirk didn’t feel as sore as he had earlier. The admiral came down the stairs with his hand on the wooden rail. Kirk came to the door while scratching his side. He grabbed hold onto the door then turned it and opened it to see a familiar face staring back at him.

“Ashaya," Miller began. Love. “my deepest-apologies-for-my earlier-comments-made-earlier--”

“Slow down!” Kirk said. “I do not understand a word you are saying.”

Miller sucked in a breath then exhaled.

“What the hell. I love you. Clone or not,” Miller then elaborated. “One cannot apologize for actions such as mine.”

“There’s a old earth saying I recently learned as an admiral,” Kirk said, straightening himself. He no longer was leaned against the doorway for support. “You’re a dumbass, Mr Miller.”

Miller raised his thinned yet slightly more thick right, slanted eyebrow.

“As the doctor commonly said. . “ Miller then added. “I am an idiot, not a dumbass,” Kirk laughed. A light, kind natured laugh. Miller looked on watching the admiral ride the laughter out before continuing. “I approved of the procedure despite lingering concerns that I shall still outlive you. I should have spoken about it with you instead of keeping it to myself.”

“Damn right, you should have,” Kirk said.

Miler bowed his head.

“I regret not talking about it,” Miller said.  “I am still confused as to why I have memories of the 2280′s rather than the 2290s.”

“That is something I don’t have an answer to,”  Kirk said. “If anything you should have the memories of the 2290′s.”

Miller looked over the human’s shoulder then back.

“Does your husband happen to be blind?” Miller asked.

“Yes,” Kirk said.

“I offer my eyes,” Miller said, then Kirk held his hand up.

“He wants the eyes that he was born with,” Kirk said. “Not made. Or cloned.”

Miller nodded, in understanding.

“I understand,” Miller said.

“You don’t approve,” Kirk said. Miller grew perplexed.  “I know that tone, Mr Miller.”

“Why would I rather not see your face every day?”  Miller asked.

Miller’s hand cupped along the human’s face. Kirk was sweating.  Kirk smiled, feeling the warm feelings telepathically trying to reach him. The Vulcan was in Vulcan customary two piece traveling attire complimented by his colorful kimono outfit. The Vulcan wore eyeliner. Kirk’s mental barrier remained up. The Vulcan stroked the side of the human’s face. Miller wasn’t Spock. Miller wasn’t Spock. Miller wasn’t Spock. Miller wasn’t Spock. Spock and Miller were the same person. Kirk lowered his mental shields. It then hit Kirk that he wasn’t feeling well. He was sweating. He was suddenly overcome by a resurgence of positive, strong tender feelings coming in like a old friend running into his house and into his arms. Spock placed a hand onto the human’s forehead. From there, Kirk was unsure what exactly happened. He remembered his arm being slung over the Vulcan’s shoulder, the sound of a door closing, and Miller speaking in Vulcan. Then everything else was a haze.

Kirk awoke in bed, shirtless, with the blanket over him.

The soft hiss of a hypospray brought him back to sleep.

“Miller?”

The second time he awoke again, Miller was taking out another hypospray.

“Mr Miller?”  Kirk said.

Miller put the hypospray alongside his neck and then he was out.

“What is going on?” Kirk didn’t feel so hot anymore.

Miller placed a hypospray along the man’s neck.

“Rest, Jim,” Miller said.

“Miller!” Kirk said, bolting up.

Miller was leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded.

“You have adequately recuperated from the illness to get back on your feet,” Miller said. “I have yet to see any evidence that my counterpart has lived with you.”

Right. . .

“I put away the pictures for my own benefit.” Kirk said.

“I see,” Miller said. “You are keeping him in stasis until you and him can live the same lifespan.”

“Yes,” Kirk said.

“Logical,” Miller came over to the chair. “You had messages from Star Fleet command regarding various matters,” Kirk was baffled. “I handled them accordingly.” Kirk looked over to see a table filled with hyposprays that had Vulcan calligraphy in what was namely doctor writing. His eyes turned in the direction of the Vulcan, alarmed, as it occurred to him. “I did it for your benefit.”

“Spock, is that Vulcan prescribed medication?” Kirk’s eyebrows raised,

“Yes,” Miller said.

“Do I need to know why?” Kirk asked,

“It helped you recover quicker,”  Miller said.

“ . . . It did,” Kirk laughed. “Looks like I ran myself down.” Miller set himself on to the edge of the bed.

“I took care of the cat,” Spock said. “Maru is a unique feline.”

“Maru choose us,” Kirk said. “Adopted us. . . actually.”

“That is a wise feline,” Miller said, reaching his hand out for the human.

Kirk looked up toward Miller with both hands on his lap, rising an eyebrow.

“There’s something you are keeping back from me,” Kirk said.

“Before I give him my heart, I would like to make you happy for today and tomorrow. On the third day is when the operation is to be done.” Miller said, bluntly. “I wish to uplift your mood. That is my main purpose in life as your partner.”

“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” Kirk asked.

“Jim, I am his clone,” Miller reminded

“Humor me. Is it logical?” Kirk asked.

“We are the same person,” Miller said.

“‘You’re separated by a lifetime,” Kirk said.

“So?” Miller raised his eyebrows.  “That never stopped us.”

“It never did,” Kirk said, as a soft smile grew on his face taking the Vulcan’s hand.

“Forgive me, but you need a shower,” Miller said.

“Where have you been sleeping?” Kirk asked.

“The downstairs couch,” Miller said. “the recliner, and the bedroom couch.”

“Your poor back,” Kirk said, patting the Vulcan’s back.

“It was a fair exchange,” Miller said, guiding the human toward the bathroom. “I prepared your morning wear,” the Vulcan gently squeezed the human’s butt then whispered into his ear. “I saved the weeding for you.”

“Hey, I am supposed to be the one pampering you,” Kirk said.

“For now, it is the other way around as it should have been,” Miller  said, gently guiding the human into the bathroom then closed the door behind the human.

Miller put his back against the door closing his eyes regretfully.  Miller sensed the atmosphere inside the house coming to life. It was odd how the admiral’s unexpected lighting brought it to life. It wasn’t the morning light or the evening light doing the trick. Miller made his way down the stairs then prepared to make the human’s breakfast. Maru hopped onto the counter mewing. Miller applied some cat food into the cats bowl. Maru quickly went to work eating. Minutes later,  Kirk came down the stairs with a yawn. Kirk noticed there was a pair of gloves by the plate. Kirk smiled, brightly, back at the clone.

The next two days were full of lovemaking. Though Miller had decided on not bonding them together as their time in the same house was severely limited. Miller watched the human sing while tending to the garden throughout the evening. Kirk enjoyed the way that the Vulcan touched him. It was different to the make outs that he had with the older Spock. Nice and slow like a old couple taking their time. This one was deeply passionate and very long absorbing every little feeling. It was a mix of slow and tender. A part of what Kirk found endearing with his partner. Kirk was the first to fall asleep both nights. Miller had a cold body, whenever they were close, which was odd since he wasn’t as old as  his counterpart. The cold temperature brought Kirk to sleep for the two nights. Kirk was ashamed to admit but he was taking advantage of how young Miller was. Doing everything that he wished he should have done Spock in their youth. Miller seemed fascinated by the man’s larger body. A look of intrigue and admiration as though he had laid eyes on the most beautifully crafted statue in his life. Their sessions together lasted for a few hours around the house.

Kirk had become prepared for the operation. Off duty, retired, civilian. His favorite buttoned up black and white plaid shirt. Comfortable long pants that felt comfortable to his skin and around yet below his stomach. Kirk had counted each time the clone had smiled. Kirk had smiled more than he had in the past month. Miller had given him refreshments. Done improvements around for the sake of his counterpart that were minor and not something that could detriment the memories their future counterparts will make in this house. Kirk and Spock sitting on the porch swing together watching  the sun set be replaced by a beautiful night sky. Their fingers interlocking together while seated together.

The look of awe on the Vulcan’s face on the night sky.

Miller gave him memories that his counterpart had to see.

No iffs or buts about it, it was the aesthetic.

It was something Kirk agreed to do.

The communicator beeped.

“Miller here,” Kirk said.

“He consented!” Mac’ie said. “We are prepping your husband for surgery. You must attend. The heart will be in thirty three minutes.”

Miller smiled, waving back at Kirk, doing last touches to the garden.

“What do you mean?” Kirk said, waving back as he slowly turned away from Miller. “It’s going to be an hour.”

“Spock Miller has been dead for the past week. The heart has been kept secure and safe. There was a science station explosion on the USS Amsterdam, he was a passenger, heading to Earth. And he was right there.” Kirk’s hand trembled. “It was a ion storm. There was no way to save him. The pain was too much for him. It killed him.” Kirk turned away to see the garden had no kneeling Vulcan.

“I will be right there,” Kirk said. “Classify the operation.”

“Yes, sir,” Mac’ie said.

“Thank you for informing me,” Kirk’s voice went solemn. “Doctor. Miller out.”

Kirk slid the communicator into his pocket then there was knocking at the door. Kirk came to the door then opened it to see that there was a older black woman  with two children by her side, one black and the other white resembling his dear friend McCoy.  Otherwise, the two looked strikingly alike. Twins. In the taller woman’s arms was Italian with a new harness handle on. Kirk recognized her as Eleanor, the little girl as Donna, and the last child was Leonard.

“Star Fleet said ya live here,” Eleanor said. “Here is your cat, Mr Miller.”

Eleanor handed Italian to Kirk. 

“Nice house,” Donna said.

“I hope Italian enjoys it,” Leonard agreed.

Italian snuggled into the human’s arms happily.

“Long as you don’t abandon that cat, again, I won’t report you for animal neglect,” Eleanor said.

Kirk nodded.

“I won’t,” Kirk said.

Spock's eyes opened feeling well rested on a biobed. 

“My husband, attend,” the words were shaky coming from someone who once said them with confidence and certainty.

Spock leaned up holding his two fingers out meeting the admiral’s gesture.

“Yes?” Spock said. A tearful smile appeared on the admiral’s face. A smile that Spock could not see.

“You’re back,” Kirk said, squeezing the Vulcan’s shoulder.

Spock raised an eyebrow.

“Did you doubt the skill of the doctor?” Spock asked.

“For a moment there. . .” Kirk said. “I was scared you were not going to come back to me.”

“I always come back for you,” Spock said. “Come here, ashaya.” Love.

Spock brought the human into the hug. He sent a wave of comfort and assurance toward the human, closing his eyes. Spock sensed that they were being watched by Doctor Mac’ie. His fatigue was no longer present. His legs didn’t feel swollen anymore. And he longer had shortness of breath. Spock thanked the great bird of the galaxy. Mac’ie turned away from the two older men then walked away filing out the padd.  Italian was set inside a cat carrier in the same room.