Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 6 Number 3, December 2005

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MOVING ON

by

Per Brask

They got out at a rest area on the I-25 just north Las Vegas, NM, to stretch and let the dog run after the frisbee for a while.  After walking for a bit in the light scrub, the dog chasing her soft toy and catching it in the air, Ruth went to use the facilities.  Niles tossed the frisbee extra far and high.  He smelled the new high desert scent in the air, different from the north, and, despite its being cool and fresh, a whole lot warmer this time of year.  This was a trip to celebrate his retirement.  After thirty-five years as a grade-five and six teachers, Niles and Ruth had retired and hence they were on their way to a three-months winter stay in Palm springs, CA.

Niles noticed an unkindness of ravens surfing a vortex when suddenly the dog came beating back, no frisbee in her mouth.
"Bring it!" he commanded, but the dog ran to sit behind him.
"Come on, now," he said and patted the dog.
"It may have to do with me," someone said.
Niles looked up, but in the direction of the voice, right next to a Creosote bush sat a coyote staring at him. When his eyes met its eyes, it didn't run off.  It just sat.  He held on to his dog that had grown courageous enough to growl. Perhaps the coyote has become used to getting fed by people who
stop here, Niles thought.
"No that's not why I'm here," the voice answered.
It's talking to me! Niles thought.
"I am," the voice said.  "Put your dog back in the car and come
back and talk to me."
Niles automatically obeyed.  His car was parked close by, so he
was back in a matter of moments, keeping what he thought was a safe
distance.

"Don't worry," the coyote said.  "I'm here to lead you."
"Lead me where?"
"Look down."
Niles did and on the ground he lay prone on his back, dead with a silly smile on his face.
"I see," he sighed.  "What about Ruth?"
"She'll be fine.  Don't worry."
Niles looked down again and realized that he and the coyote were twirling, as if dancing, in the air above the rest area.  The ravens clattered as they rose past them.  Niles saw Ruth come out of the rest room, walk over to the car and then rush towards his body.
"Tell her everything will be fine."
"How?"
"Just think it and she'll hear."
Niles did and he saw Ruth look up as the thought passed through
her mind.  She cried.
Niles and the coyote rose ever higher and on the horizon he saw a city come into view.  It wasn't Santa Fe, as one might have expected. It was, Niles knew, though he didn't know how he knew it, Prague.  Not Prague of today, well, he wouldn't really know because he'd never been there, but the fact that there were mainly horse drawn carts on the cobbled streets indicated as much.  As they moved closer Niles could see that it was raining and getting dark.  Though he was some distance from the city he could see clearly into a small apartment where a rabbi, he knew it was a rabbi, was teaching Torah to his young daughter, something quite unusual, Niles also knew.  The rabbi's wife was in the kitchen cooking and from time to time she would appear to mix her thoughts into the conversation.  All three were laughing, and Niles heard the rabbi say, "The holy Lion, said..." and then an other place came into view. India, Niles knew.   A young woman sitting on a donkey was being hung from a tree.  As a man from the crowd stepped forward and whipped the donkey, the woman cried out, "You will soon enough learn that the Lord Krishna knows of no difference among men, nor among men and women."
A new vista came into view, as Niles and the coyote kept
twirling in the dark-blue sky.  A camp with people sitting dressed in
skins around a fire.  An old man was telling a story about how the gods
created man from the trees.
"Have you seen enough to understand?"  Niles heard the coyote
ask.
"I have," he responded.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth a new sight came into focus.  A city.  Obviously a city of the future, Niles thought.  Some of the buildings were taller than he'd ever seen and none seemed shaped alike.  The streets were winding, none that he could see was straight,
and layered on top of one another.  An astonishing amount of vehicles, but he detected no pollution. His view settled on a large apartment where three children were sleeping and a man and a woman were quietly dancing in the living room, while a holographic jazz band played a torch song.

"This is your new family," the coyote said to Niles.  "What you
have now learned about your task in every life will enter your soul. But you must now forget."
"Why?"
"Even if I knew I wouldn't be able to tell you," said the coyote as it reached a paw towards Niles's mouth to seal the secret.  But Niles opened his mouth at that moment and the paw only graced his tongue and then he was gone, destined again to be a teacher, but this time he could teach the wisdom of the passage, because he would be one of the few who
remembers.