Gold Morning, Blue Night

By Andie Kirkdale

A sequel to the Blue Sun Chronicles series, the Gold Morning, Blue Night collection tells the stories of two planets in neighboring galaxies.

In the Milky Way Galaxy, Jane tries to make sense of her experience on the blue sun planet. But her quiet life as a librarian is interrupted by a UFO, a runaway senator, and a mythological villain.

In the Andromeda Galaxy, the last shaman of the blue sun planet narrates the history of his people, of their mythological origins, their tragic end, and their message for the people of Earth. Will the Earthman who listens to these tales put aside his prejudices and learn from the alien shaman?

Gold Morning, Blue Night is the ebook edition of the author’s paperback titles Cosmic Flower and Goldlight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359078493

Book preview

Part I

Living the Way: By the Sea

There is water in the desert.

A sudden sea, human-engineered, bird-blessed, fault line-fragile. It sings a saline song in a desert on a yellow sun planet that shimmers with the events of history and the possibilities of the future.

The sea gave sustenance to ancient people who lived with the sun and then to settlements of people who turned the desert green.

The sea holds water that turns gold under the sun’s light.

Southern California calls it the Salton Sea, but I am searching for its secret name.

As the drought continues, so does the evaporation of the Sea. Evaporating water that exposes dust and the remains of fish that can’t escape the heat. Fish bone beaches and salted winds that drive old piers into the ground and push aside homes from a better time.

If the Sea dries and dies, so could we. If the Sea lives and thrives, so will we.

Under the glow of our yellow sun we live as the alarm clock people. There is no sleeping in. Instead we are the daffodil dawn bringers, the new illuminators, the rosy red night celebrators. We are the waking dreamers.

After surviving the accident that changed my life and an election that irritated the nation, I came to the Salton Sea to find peace and purpose, to find clarity and vision, to live the way my mentor taught me.

Among the many teachings my mentor passed on to me was that everything and everyone has a song. As I walk by the Sea in the mornings, I watch the mud pots bubble up from the ground, singing from the Earth’s geothermal force,

O Yellow Sun shine sharp,

Send out rays like a harp.

The seekers then play a song

For others to sing along.

At night I watch the sun set over the Sea and wonder if I can pan gold from the water, the alchemical gold that teaches us how to turn the desert into a garden, how to awaken.

This morning, I walk by the Sea to learn more about its gold and maybe its secret name.

In my pocket, my phone jingles with a text message.

Dear Jane,

Thank you for your recent donation to the project. Hope to see you at the next meeting.

Dawn

I put my phone away, reluctant to reply. I want to contribute more money to save the Salton Sea, but my own funds are evaporating. I have enough to work and live, but it’s not much.

There is a message I’m still waiting for with news that might preserve me and the Sea.

I walk on and watch the light of the sun play on the water. The wind blows, the pelicans swim. Something flutters nearby.

Thinking it’s a bird, I turn, intending to take a picture of it. Instead I see something on the sand, small, square, and white. I pick it up.

It’s a playing card, a Queen of Hearts. I put it in my pocket next to my phone and keep walking.

Election Fever

A poem written by Moose Jones of Salty Beach after watching the first debate.

Welcome to tonight’s presidential debate.

We present your candidates:

Linda Callahan,

Democratic Senator from Oregon

Samuel Newcombe,

Republican Senator from Vermont.

They carry the wounds of 1964,

A landslide triggered by a daisy.

A Great Society in the making,

A war in the distance,

The division of a nation.

Nixon walked the wilderness,

Followed by a silent majority,

While voices shouted in protest.

The quiet, the loud,

The passive, the active,

The U.S. yin and yang,

Locked in struggle,

Not seeing the drop of one

In the heart of the other.

Then after the debate,

We’ll have a dance competition,

With a ranch-style barbecue

Over a Cold War flame.

Linda, with a pencil behind her ear,

Sam, whose sight is rather near,

Will dance to a live orchestra,

Hoping for a new age.

Weather Report for October

Weather for the second week of October in the Coachella Valley, Imperial Valley, and Salton Sea communities:

Sunny with daytime highs of 90-100 degrees and nighttime lows of 80-85 degrees.

Residents throughout the area have periodically reported meteorological phenomena such as isolated sounds of thunder, lightning strikes, dark clouds, and intermittent electrical storms.

But as of yet no rainfall has been recorded.

The Filmmaker’s Quest

Noon at the Salton Sea. A sailboat crosses the water. Enter Brian, the filmmaker, a young man wearing jeans and a UCLA t-shirt. He walks on the beach, followed by Josh, the cameraman.

Brian: It’s hot. (glances at phone) 100 degrees? Unreal. Who would want to live out here?

Josh: (points to edge of water) Check this out. Dead fish.

Brian: (into phone as it records) Dead fish choking the water. A pier covered with salt sinking into the sand. Dilapidated trailers marked by mysterious graffiti. A vacation destination, once California’s Riviera now turned into a desolate saline wasteland. What mysteries lurk here? (Stops to observe the sailboat then says) Welcome to the Lovecraftian sea.

Josh: (with cheer) The eldritch horror of it all, the terrible stench!

Brian: Like duck eggs gone bad.

An older man wearing a zipped-up sleeping bag with holes cut out for his arms and a head band with antlers walks down the beach toward them.

Man: You’re trashing my beloved Sea.

Brian: (looks at dead fish) It’s kind of doing that to itself. What’s your name?

Man: Back in the day I was Moose Jones, stuntman. Aka Moose Head and Moose Mann.

Brian: What’s your job now?

Moose: Poet. Drummer. Professional piscine mourner.

Brian: You must be busy.

Moose: At night I am. During the day I walk the path of the sun and watch for UFOs.

Brian: Would you like to be in my movie? I need locals for the verisimilitude of mise-en-scène.

Moose: All right. But I have to prepare my own specially made vegan meals which I cook over the volcanic mud pots.

Brian: You mean those weird bubbling things?

Moose: Listen and learn, young man. Listen and learn.

Brian: What?

Moose: Or you could go to our library.

Brian: You have a library out here?

Moose: Complete with librarian, recently arrived from another world.

Brian: You have a librarian?

Moose: What is it with young people today, you’re thick as concrete!

Brian: Me? I’m not the one wearing a sleeping bag in the heat and antlers on my head.

Moose: (nodding so that the antlers move a bit) Part of my mystical duties, young man. Now go, go down to the library and learn.

Moose walks away.

Brian: (to the Josh) What’s with this place?

Josh: (shrugs) Something about the sun, it does things to your brain. (takes camera off shoulder) If you go to the library then I’ll drive over to Niland for supplies.

Brian: All right, I’ll check out the community up there. (nods at a sign on the road above them) Rose Beach.

Josh: Watch out for desert critters. (walks toward a pickup truck parked to the side)

Brian: (to himself while walking up to the road) UFOs?

Something white flashes in the sands under the sun. Brian picks the item up and sees it’s a playing card, a King of Hearts. He puts the card in his pocket and resumes walking.

The Sea News for October

Local doings

Gerald Milton of Salty Beach caught a record number of tilapia fish over the weekend. Fish while you can, he told us. Before the salt takes them too.

Due to the rising salinity of the sea, other varieties of fish have died off.

At the Elementary School, Sofia Hernandez and Bobby Jenkins won prizes in the science fair. Sofia informed us with her diorama of the Sea’s eco-system and Bobby entertained us with his model of the bubbling, blooping mud pots.

Several residents report UFO sightings, describing a silver disk-shaped aircraft that flies in silence over the Sea, then disappears. Jack of Stony Beach told a reporter, It was like, wow, man.

The Salton Sea Senior Center will celebrate the following birthdays this week: Paula Murphy, 71;  Eustacia Smith, 78; and Raymond Henderson, 93.

This Week’s Specials at the Rose Beach Market

Fresh-baked sourdough bread, $3 a loaf.

Avocados, 3 for 99¢

Burrito, $6. Your choice of chicken, beef, or carnitas with cheese, refried beans, and rice. Luis makes the best tortillas in Southern California.

In the nation

NEW INFLUENZA STRAIN

Atlanta, GA--In a statement released on Friday, the Center for Disease Control urged people not to panic regarding the recent cases of the influenza strain H2T9, also called the Fatigue Flu.

While it’s still unusual to see severe cases, they can occur, says a representative. If you notice any symptoms such as a disrupted sleep cycle and extreme fatigue, please see your health care provider immediately. In the meantime practice good hygiene habits such as frequently washing your hands and covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze.

The CDC and FDA are working to create a vaccine.

PROTESTS AGAINST CALLAHAN ADMINISTRATION

Washington, D.C.--On Saturday, protesters at the National Mall and across the U.S. gathered in a coordinated effort to voice their complaints about the Callahan administration.

She’s too lenient on everything, said a protester in St. Louis.

But she shouldn’t be too strict because that would make her like my mom, said another protester.

Protesters voiced concerns about Callahan’s handling of threats posed by the Association countries and worried that she was under alien or supernatural control.

Callahan receives messages from Pluto which are picked up and rendered into English by the Mars rover, said a protester in Milwaukee.

The flu vaccine is the aliens’ form of mind control, says a protester in Phoenix.

Representatives from the White House stress that there is no alien interference with life on Earth and urge protesters to focus on more immediate concerns.

We should all evaluate the sources from which we get our news, says President Callahan. Is the news item researched? Does it present a rational point of view? Or is it based on fear and sensationalism?

That statement only proves she’s under alien influence, says a protester in Cleveland.

Some protesters wanted more support for third party candidates.

I voted Libertarian instead, says a protester with a sign that read yo ho she must go. Republicans and Democrats are the same.

Reporters asked President Callahan for further comment, but she was busy taking her children Jake, 12, and Elizabeth, 10, to school.

Announcements and Advertisements

FOR SALE: 1970 Dodge Charger convertible that belonged to my aunt. Was the parade vehicle when she was crowned Miss Salton Sea.

SWM seeks SWF to discuss existential dread and the feeling that life is a dream

MISSING PET: A desert tarantula who answers to the name Roxy. I’ve notified Animal Control. But don’t be afraid. She’s very tame. If you see her, please text Sofia Hernandez.

Living the Way: Back to Earth

In difficult times many are called to be spiritual warriors, agents of awakening.

--the Teachings

Every morning, I wake from dreams about a planet named Mayavi that orbited a blue sun. When my eyes open, the yellow light streaming through my trailer window tells me I’m back on Earth.

My accident and near-death experience took me to this planet settled by Earth people who chose a new path. People like the Strange Ones whose alien histories I learned from memories stored in hidden stones and crystals. The ones who rescued me from an underground prison before the planet’s star went supernova.

I miss these Strange Ones. When the pain of missing them becomes too much I force myself back into my life on Earth. Staying busy helps.

Returning to Earth after my experience was a challenge. At first I felt that surge of ecstasy and gratitude that the tribes on planet Mayavi called shamara. In this state, the mind opens and goes up an octave to access the sacred, the wondrous, the galactic. To live in shamara is to go beyond the ordinary and live in bliss.

Then I had to get on with the business of living on Earth, a planet focused on money, power, and fear. Be realistic, says this world. Nothing happened to you. It was a hallucination. Nothing matters.

But my mind, illuminated by the blue sun, and my soul, awakened by my journey, know something different. I know about a blue light that shone through the windows of an ancient stone house, about a man who stood in the kitchen of that house and gave me the Teachings. My mentor, the Gardener.

While I recovered from my accident, I stayed with my uncle Sebastian in Munich. But in the middle of my joy came a peculiar feeling as if I were somehow still dead and what I live now is a dream. Germany was cold and gray in comparison to where I’d been. I needed more light; I needed the sun. Germany was filled with too much history of the Third Reich, World War II, and the Holocaust. Too many ghosts in the city.

Burden. Pain.

Stay focused, I tell myself. Live in the now.

I get out of bed and take out my clothes for the day: a white dress and a purple and white shawl I knit myself.

Next to the shawl is a necklace with a silver pendant in the shape of Andromeda, our galactic neighbor 2.5 million light years away.

In that galaxy once lived Mayavi, a planet that orbited a blue sun. To that planet traveled my grandfather Friedrich Winkelmeier. He brought back with him to Earth one cold January day near the end of the war an alien waitress. Pinala Fayivi, my grandmother.

I shiver now. The secret of my ancestry I couldn’t tell anyone but the ones who share it with me, my uncle and my mother.

I am, at least partly, I am an…

Say it. Admit it. Embrace it.

I’m an alien. Extraterrestrial. An Earthling with Andromedan DNA.

Not something I want to disclose in a nation afraid of aliens.

My phone jingles with another text message.

Checking to see if you’re ok. Remember it takes time to recover from an NDE. Best, Lyra.

Relief washes over me as I text a thank you back to her. For a moment, I want to take the day off and head over to Santa Barbara for a visit to Lyra’s bookstore. I’d also like to visit my friends Natalie and Jarrett who’ve moved their microbrewery business to San Diego. But those are long trips by bus. I save my transportation money for my twice a month trips to see my mother.

Living on a financial budget is a challenge. Living on an emotional budget is harder. After my experience I want to shout from the mountain tops about the incredible love of the universe, our shared humanity, and the need to become aware. That life can be a fairy tale of beauty and heroism, of discovering hidden treasure outside and inside. But my findings don’t mesh with the fear tales sold as fairy tales on Earth.

Before breakfast, I pick up my current journal, one of several notebooks on my desk, and write,

First Star gave every living being a spark of its light. That is our core, our eternal self. And in this core, we are whole and good. An authentic life is built from the connection to our core.

My goal is to write down the Teachings that the Gardener gave me before I was sent back to Earth. The Indigenous tribes on Mayavi called the Teachings and their spirituality the Way of the Weaving.

I can still remember the feel of the Gardener’s cool fingers on the sides of my head as we stood in the leaky basement of a crumbling building, the Dancer and my jalen zet standing nearby. The frenzy of our energy as we left the building to complete our last tasks before the supernova, an event they called the Unfolding.

I remember the feelings of joy, madness, economic theory, despair, and hope as I received the Teachings. I remember the Gardener’s love, his sorrow, his understanding that there would be no forgiveness for what he’d done on Earth, that the legacy of his deeds would follow him through subsequent lifetimes.

His attempt to shield me from his pain, his burden.

While the Gardener gave me the Teachings, an image formed in my mind: the two of us standing in the kitchen of the ancient stone house down in the Tehtaba, the farm where he once lived.

In this vision, we both wore traditional clothing of the Telendi tribe; I wore a qivoti dress and he wore todavdo. The kitchen had modern silver-colored appliances, similar to Earth yet not the same, including a refrigerator door that had a ring tone.

Walter and Alfred installed the music, the Gardener told me as he swept the floor. They changed it frequently.

He put the broom away, then opened the refrigerator door. Music rang out.

That sounds like Frère Jacques, I said.

Here it’s a Telendi folk melody, he said. With a similar theme of awakening. Remember that.

You’ve given me much to remember, Herr Gärtner.

As my mentor Sh’eka gave to me. He took out a pitcher of red-purple liquid, a drink they called shum soda. And Jane…He put the pitcher down on the counter. I wish I had spoken with you earlier. My courage failed until Gestapo Müller did the unthinkable. I’m sorry.

I nodded and looked outside. In the orchard next to the stone house grew the Elder Tree, the planet’s oldest dalana, the tree that grew the wisdom fruit. The tree that changed their lives, its root that survived the Destruction.

I replied to the Gardener, I should have tried more to communicate with you. Instead I ran away from you. I panicked and had to get out of the car.

I understand why, he said. But when you said that word, Tehtaba, I felt hope. You knew of my home, but I allowed my fear to eclipse my hope. He paused in pouring out a glass of shum soda. I want you to live, he said. All of us do. To do what we couldn’t.

What’s that?

To live free from the prison of fear, he said. You must keep the seed of hope and use the Teachings to re-plant that seed.

Since returning to Southern California, I’ve filled several notebooks with the Teachings, sketches, memory fragments, and poems. Information about the Earth colonists who called themselves the Strange Ones. Information about Mayavi’s tribes, the Tullaqor and the Telendi. It’s been a year since my experience and I’m still discovering new memories.

But right now I have to go to work and attempt life as a normal, job-holding Earth person.

I tie the purple and white shawl over my dress, arrange my hair into a side ponytail as Tullaqor women once did, and head out of my trailer.

Outside, I stop by the patch of ground I keep as a garden. Plant cultivation is also part of the Teachings but I’m not doing too well. My flowers and plants are withered from the desert sun and water restrictions. A few hearty dandelions remain on the edges.

Although it’s now legal across California, I haven’t yet grown cannabis plants. Cannabis differs from the fasha plant on Mayavi and requires a different approach.

During their time on the planet, the Strange Ones went through an experience called Process, a psychedelic life review, a soul examination. A spiritual ordeal, or as my jalen zet called it, a metaphysical asskicking. The Gardener impressed on me the responsibility involved with growing and administering consciousness-altering plants. To alter consciousness is to alter reality is to alter the self’s relationship with reality. Some people embrace that adventure, others reject it, others don’t even want to consider it.

While at my uncle’s house, I looked through my grandfather’s notebooks as a way to understand my experience. He wrote about Maya, a concept discussed by the Vedic sages, a force that created the dreams and illusions that make up what we think of as reality. In my grandfather’s visions, Maya became a dancing figure, a hostess of the cosmic play we call life. Maya dances through the universe, Maya dances the universe, using her veils to conceal and to reveal. Some illusions are beautiful and nurturing. Others are dark and damaging. We can develop the power to create our reality, but will our reality be based on love or on fear?

Extreme philosophizing: a side effect of an NDE.

Making a note to myself to order a new book about desert gardening, I get into my golf cart and drive to work.

As I drive, I can see in the bright blue sky above the faint outlines, the tunnels that make up what the Telendi shamans called the Jarok T’ar. During my experience, I learned another name for this network of tunnels, the Hyperdimensional Hallway.

The Telendi shamans used the Jarok T’ar to travel to other planets, including visits to Earth in ancient times. But that type of journey is an advanced skill. My grandfather was one of few modern people on Earth to make the journey to the planet Mayavi. His notes stated that philosophers, poets, and mystics from ancient Indian, Egyptian, Celtic, and Mayan cultures made that journey before him through a method that the Theosophists in the nineteenth century called casting a mayavi-rupa, a dream body to travel across space and time.

Earth people met with the aliens from Mayavi, and they learned from each other about a shared humanity around the world, around the universe.

During his time on the planet, the Gardener wasn’t able to travel up to the Jarok T’ar. Too gravity-bound, too many rocks in my head, he said. At least not without my platypus.

He instructed me to focus on grounding my life first before traveling again. I agreed with him. My first trip through the Hallway and the next trip with the Bard of Mayavi were disorienting. The Hallway knew everything about this universe and maybe others as well.

Now I need to focus on Earth and what I’m supposed to do here.

Memorandum

As we have discussed, the Salton Sea and surrounding areas face a number of issues. Don, my predecessor here at the tourism office, outlined the following issues:

Evaporation: What remaining water the Sea still receives from the Colorado River will be transferred to the coastal cities. If we don’t keep enough of the Sea intact, the loss will eventually affect the ecosystem of Southern California. Two ideas are proposed: reduce the Sea into a more workable size or to create wetlands on the Sea’s shore.

Salinity: Due to evaporation and shrinking, the salinity of the Sea has increased with a matching decrease of fish able to live in the Sea. The decrease in fish levels then affects the birds that come to the Sea as part of their migration patterns.

Erosion: The dried-out soil left by evaporation contains toxic elements from farming chemicals which are then blown by the frequent winds. There has been a noticeable rise in asthma among the residents.

Future of the Sea: despite the challenges, we believe in the Sea’s future as resource for clean energy production, including geothermal, solar, and wind.

Funding for the maintenance of the Salton Sea is shared by state and local governments. An effort is being made to assemble a delegation to travel to Washington, D.C. to present our concerns to the Callahan administration in hopes of obtaining further federal funding built on Congressman Bono’s project.

In the meantime, other funds are obtained from tourism and tax revenue in the communities of Rose Beach and Salty Beach.

Recent donations from the following area residents are noted and appreciated: Frank Parks, Middleton Beach; Jane Winkelmeier-McBride, Rose Beach; Moose Jones, Salty Beach.

Dawn Jenkins, Salton Sea Tourism Board

The Wilderness

I am Nixon in the wilderness.

I am the post-election ghost.

Right, left, Republican, Democrat, red, blue, coast, flyover, city, country, male, female.

The election was a psychedelic political fever dream. And I never even did drugs.

No, I was good.

My father, the great Senator Jonathan Newcombe, told me one day I’d be president if I did everything right.

I was well-behaved.

I went to church. Episcopalian, of course.

I went to the right schools.

I majored in history.

I served in the Air Force.

I was the most popular mayor of my town, Adamsville.

I was the best governor of Vermont.

I served on the Republican State Committee.

I kissed many babies.

I served in the House for four years.

I served in the Senate for twenty years.

I believed in small government and in fiscal and personal responsibility.

I believed in America.

I voted against outsourcing jobs overseas.

I voted for the invasion of Iraq.

I worked to keep the integrity of the Republican Party.

The RNC supported me. My speech at the convention was well-received.

I believed that true love is between a man and a woman. Then my grandson Jamie came out and introduced his boyfriend friend partner to me.

I did everything right. I had it all. I was the best candidate the GOP had in years.

And then Linda Callahan decided to run.

She brought back the New Deal Coalition.

The media loved her. They gushed over her like a political princess.

The media called her young and vibrant, the most exciting Democratic candidate since JFK and LBJ.

The media called me day old toast, a Republican retread.

Then there was that comedian who called me Sammy Nuke ‘em. Typical liberal, thinks everything is funny.

Linda had 278 electoral votes to my 260.

Now I am Nixon in the wilderness.

And it’s hot out here.

But I will walk on.

There is a secret out here in the desert. One my grandfather knew about. A secret that can move about the nation through portals. A secret that could move the nation.

I will find it.

Living the Way: At the Library

You have worth. You carry within you the light of First Star.

Realizing this is the first step to liberation.

--the Teachings

I drive down Rose Street in my golf cart.

My path takes me past empty graffiti-covered trailers, their rusted metal sides sinking into the desert sand. The wheels of my cart crunch over dried fish bones and salt crystals. Boards cover the windows of a closed diner, once a stop for truck drivers.

But there are signs of our efforts to renew the Sea communities. My path also takes me past construction scaffolding to build new businesses and homes. A new strip mall with two big box stores. The elementary school and high school. Lots sold for future homes in the Citrus Grove housing development.

As I turn onto Sunrise Street, music pours out from The Light of Christ Church building. The church organist, Claudette Hanford, sits on the bench, swaying back and forth as she chords out the music for the next service.

I steer my cart up to a small trailer on 25 Pelican Street with the sign Rose Beach Library. My job, my project, my anchor in this world.

Before going in, I take a towel from the cart’s front seat and wipe off the sand and dirt from the sign. The number 25 emerges with a golden shine.

Before I left Mayavi, the Strange Ones had gifts for me. The Bard and the Librarian, then the Gardener, the Dancer, and Alfred, my jalen zet. The Dancer’s gift was a set of lucky numbers and 25 was one of them. That’s how I knew this address would be the right place for my library project.

The library’s interior is cool, dark, and damp. A twittering sound greets me. I walk over to a birdcage and lift off the cover. Inside a bird with bright yellow feather chirps at me.

Good morning, Beak, I say to him as I check the level of his water tube. Ready for another day?

Beak responds by whistling a few notes from Bach’s first Brandenburg Concerto.

While Beak whistles, I set up for the day. A faint smell of salt and fish lingers in the trailer despite my repeated cleanings. I check the tape on a broken windowpane. It can last a while but the leak in the bathroom will need a plumber. I spent most of this month’s budget buying books at library sales and used bookstores in the Coachella Valley cities of Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, and La Quinta.

A few of the books are for my studies in economics. I didn’t take a course when I was in college and wasn’t interested until I met the Gardener. He was an economist in his Earth life, the role he preferred above his other tasks. The field of study in his time was called political economy. A focus on small business, honesty, entrepreneurship, and service to the community will create a sound economy, he told me. Not corruption, not self-enrichment.

Then the Gardener launched into a lecture about the dangers of predatory capitalism and cronyism, during which I got distracted because my spider friend Vixfir was tapping his legs. The supernova was approaching, and he was eager to finish his last mission to rescue the Box of Tahel from…

I bring myself back to present reality and spend the morning shelving and setting up the self-checkout station.

There’s a knock on the door frame. Yes, come in, I call out. Library’s open.

A man wearing jeans and a UCLA t-shirt, phone in hand, walks in. As he approaches me, I note the time on the digital clock on my desk. 2:13. Some of the other lucky numbers.

Salton Sea has a library? exclaims the man. He holds the phone up and takes a picture. And a librarian? I’ve met the old people and the agricultural workers and saw the dead fish but…

He lowers the phone with an expression I’m familiar with. The residents know me and don’t comment on my appearance. But the travelers who come through en route to Niland or Palm Springs always pause.

Sorry, he says and looks away.

I nod. Thanks for stopping by. Can I help you?

I’m Brian Forester, he says. I’m making a film for a grad school project.

Jane Winkelmeier-McBride. Welcome to the Salton Sea. I indicate a glass case running along the library’s back wall. Sofia, one of the students in my afterschool program made a display about the Sea’s history. Her timeline dates back to Lake Cahuilla which formed here over a thousand years.

While Brian examines the display, I take a few surreptitious peeks at him. Tall, scruffy in a studied hipster way, but appealing. In this remote location, I don’t have much opportunity to meet single men my age. I’m not ready to date yet but there’s no harm in thinking about it.

Then an ache slices through my heart as I remember having to part from Alfred, my jalen zet.

As I attempt to control the emotions coming over me, I notice Brian is taking a few of his own surreptitious peeks.

It’s all right, you can ask, I say.

The pink hair… he begins.

I have a good stylist.

But your skin, that is to say, you’re blue, he says. His voice contains curiosity only, no judgment.

Methemoglobinemia, a condition of the red blood cells. It’s hereditary. My mother and uncle also have it.

I heard people come out here for health reasons, says Brian.

Yes, since the turn of the century, I say.

Brian returns to the display case. I walk over to Beak’s cage, glad an awkward moment has passed. While I’ve always had a blue tinge to my skin, in the year since my NDE, it’s been turning a darker, more noticeable blue.

Beak flutters his wings, then squawks,

Ha ha ha hey

Don’t go away.

Yes yes yes here

There’s nothing to fear.

Brian looks up from the display, startled. Is that a canary or a parrot?

Beak is a hybrid. I take a small plastic bag from my purse and put a few seeds and a dandelion leaf into the cage’s food dish. The bird ruffles his feathers then pecks at the seeds. Many types of birds come to the Sea during their migrations. But I think Beak is an escaped pet. I put the bag back in my purse. What kind of film are you making?

I’m considering different topics, refining my vision, he says. But with a focus on the environment.

Good, the Sea needs support, I say.

Hello, calls out a voice.

An elderly woman, bent almost double over her walker, edges into the library. Jane honey, she says in a chain smoker’s rasp. You have any of the good stuff?

Sure do, Paula. I open a box on my desk and take out several paperback romances. Check out as many as you want. The others called in with their requests and I’ll deliver them to the senior center.

Thank you, honey, says Paula. She nods at Brian. Does this one read or is he lost?

I’m a filmmaker, says Brian.

Not another one, says Paula. Hardly a week goes by without someone in our yard with a camera going on about death. We need to focus on life. She leans on her walker. Back in the day, this was the most popular vacation spot in Southern California.

Fishing, sailing, and water skiing, I tell Brian. Bars and nightclubs.

Dune buggy rides and treasure hunts, too, says Paula. All the Hollywood people came out here to vacation. Donny Frampton. Teddy Shakes. Bobbie Jean Stratford. Smiles Mirando.

I’ve never heard of them, says Brian.

Paula leans forward and says, I taught Billy Banks how to dance the Salton Sea Swing. She nods at me. Taught Jane too, what little I could around this contraption.

I still practice it, I say. I haven’t forgotten.

Good, says Paula, straightening up as much as she can. We need to remember what we were in this time of sleep.

A look of panic lights Brian’s face. Do you have any cases of Fatigue Flu out here?

None so far, I say. Germs and bugs dry up in this heat.

What happened here? asks Brian. He indicates the display. Engineers create the current Sea by an irrigation accident. Land developers and farmers make the most of it. But what I see now is decay and abandoned structures.

Neglect, says Paula. Scientists told us the Sea would evaporate without preventive measures and the state didn’t react quickly enough. They also said the Sea would dry up by 2000 but we’re still here. We’re not giving up. She places four paperbacks by the box. I’ll take these, Jane.

With a few mumbled curses at her walker, Paula maneuvers her way out.

From a vacation place to a forgotten place, says Brian.

People are fickle and the weather changes, I say. Palm Springs and the Salton Sea had their heyday and then people went to Las Vegas. Then came the drought. Not everyone can take the heat out here.

Brian nods at my shawl. Doesn’t seem to bother you though.

Part of my condition. I’m always chilly. I wish I could tell him I’m more used to the heat from a blue sun named Yiqal.

Brian studies the display again, then says, I’m staying at the Sunset Lodge. Know anything about it?

Pretty standard motel, I say. But if you hear noise, don’t worry. That’s just Luis shouting at the UFO.

Brian pales.

It’s all right, he’s trying to communicate with it, I say. Anyway, if you and your crew need something to eat, the Rose Beach Market has lunch and dinner specials.

This place is filled with surprises, says Brian. How long have you been out here?

Four months. I was living in Germany, but I wanted to go back home. I applied for and received a grant to start a library here as part of the renewal project. I wave my hand at the bookshelves. You see, this couple I knew, Tuzek and Yilani, they were both librarians and…

I stop, reminding myself to be a normal person, not a crank talking about an alien civilization.

What happened in Germany? asks Brian.

I partied too hard at Oktoberfest.

That’s an event I’d like to attend, he says. Make a documentary. That’s in Munich, right?

Right. But it isn’t all about beer and fun. Munich is also the place where the Nazi Party got started.

With an inward grown, I sit down at my desk. No. Oh no. Any mention of the Nazis is a deal breaker. Probably a boner killer. Not that I should be focusing on boners and…

Instead of outrage, Brian looks intrigued. That’s right, the beer hall putsch, he says. I can see a good documentary. Munich yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The city of the Nazis becomes the city of Oktoberfest, and now the city of refugees.

Good idea, I say. But don’t drink and take drugs. Or drink and run around. Just don’t drink, film.

He laughs. But why attend Oktoberfest then? Anyway, thanks for the information, I have to go meet my cameraman. We’re scouting other locations. Are there any restaurants around here besides the market?

You should try the Skylight Grill over in Salty Beach. They opened recently and need the business. I take a stack of books from a box to shelve. If you’re looking for another location, check out the General Patton museum.

That’s a great idea, thanks.

After Brian leaves, the room feels emptier. I remind myself that I’m not ready to date yet. First I have to focus on making a life for myself.

The purpose of life as the Gardener taught me, is to develop consciousness and to live in harmony with the Way of Weaving.

It’s inspirational and a big goal to live up to. Sometimes I feel like I’m falling short.

Tuzek once grumbled that the Gardener was a lofty bastard who always had to be right. The Dancer then would nod, fan himself, and say, Otto, we ought to have fun. It’s not all solemn recitations. Sometimes we need to go out and sleep under the stars.

For the first time since my arrival back on Earth, I think about sleeping under the stars.

Police Report

At 2:00 PM on Sunday, residents reported a man wearing a straw hat and walking through the Salton Sea communities who resembled Senator Samuel Newcombe, the former Republican presidential candidate. He was last seen in Stony Beach looking out at the Sea and chanting.

At 1:00 AM on Monday, the station received an anonymous call reporting sounds of thunder, lightning strikes, and a silver disk-shaped object flying over the Sea. A unit was dispatched but when it arrived, the Sea was quiet and the sky empty.

Staff consulted with area resident Luis Hernandez who stated that the UFO was a messenger. He stated that after the last earthquake swarm under the Sea, parallel worlds were created.

Hernandez’s wife, Maria, objected, stating that Luis had taken too many mushrooms when he studied with a curandero.

Living the Way: Messenger of Shadows

Living in fear creates a prison for the soul. This fear separates you

from your First Star-given core. Fight back against the fear.

--the Teachings

After my near-death experience, the light of the cosmos got into my mind. It won’t stop. I don’t want it to stop.

Two galaxies. Two planets. Gaia and Mayavi. Connection or coincidence? Shamans who went back and forth between the planets

A group of outcasts who went strange and found their other selves.

Cosmic flower. Axe. A lost argyle sock.

Wava qayi, the place where the Bard of Mayavi gate-crashed a pool party.

The alien heritage museum. The hero suspended in a giant web, his mind turned inside out, then outside in by a spider’s venom.

The nations of Tella, Luganaland, Davaniland, and Zella.

The Weaving. The Wiring. Mad scientists.

The fall of the Tellan republic.

The Weavers, sentient arachnids who worked with the goddess Mayavi to create and maintain life on the planet.

Sixteen hunter-kings taken from the forest and turned into mechanical puppets to direct the data traffic of a virtual reality named the Wiring. During the Unfolding, their spirits went back to the forest.

A town named Bajavix, later named Wonne.

A professor who taught Middle High German poetry and played the hu’yashi .

Markus, the other Child of Mayavi. A young man born to be the planet’s shaman but who became the generator of the Wiring, then freed by his father, the Bard of Mayavi.

You’ll remember us, you’ll tell them about Mayavi and Yiqal? Markus asked me before we parted.

A pair of blue crystal and silver earrings. A journey to a ruined city. A hypothetical question.

Spring equinox. Myth. Regeneration.

Tala qu fe, the good old days of joy and magic.

But dark threads ran through that weaving. There was also a doctor who worked on a mad scientist project which he hid from the others. A project he still worked on despite his colleague’s warnings and the planet’s backlash.

Then, Dark Fire. Fear. Destruction.

The Telendi proverb you can take down the tree, but you can never destroy the root.

And at the end of the universe is that magnificent roaring presence known as First Star, the source, the Great Love. And beyond First Star was the terrible Eka-To-Pes, but even beyond this awful entity, was Ma’xana, the Wholeness behind all.

Be a warrior now for the human spirit, Jane, the Star told me before it sent me back to Earth.

My journey into the enormous fire heart of First Star and merging with the golden light-music-love strings that make up the Great Weaving of all of the multiple universes and parallel worlds of Life.

These thoughts and images from my NDE follow me during my morning walk. Going t’sha, as the Gardener called it.

Lyra tells me it takes time to adjust after an NDE. I understand, but what is my purpose? What am I supposed to do with the Teachings? How do I evolve consciousness and make a living at the same time?

And I miss the Strange Ones. But not the Dark Fire Man.

I stop at the Sea’s edge. The water is dark blue with bodies of dead fish bobbing and lingering in the late October heat. The stink of dead fish surrounds me, mixing with my longing for that other world of light and love.

I didn’t know what happened to the Dark Fire Man until I’d gone through First Star’s heart. Three months later, the memory came to me: an angry man sitting in his office surrounded by his official portraits, an axe in his hands. His wife and followers telling him the supernova was happening, it was time to go. The ghost of he who was Great Old Zern, the head Weaver, holding the Dark Fire Man’s blue-eyed gaze with his eight eyes.

In those eight eyes were the endings of all stories, including that of the Dark Fire Man who finally, came to the understanding of who he had been: a creator of a dream he used to hypnotize others that turned into the nightmare he always wanted to escape, a pawn in the cosmic struggle between love and power. A man who collapsed into a bunker and died from the hell of his own making. A boy frightened of his father.

These realizations crushed the Dark Fire Man as he took the final breath of the consciousness that had been named Adolf Hitler.

A nightmare ends, a new dream begins.

I look into the Sea. Beyond the dead fish something stirs. Images flicker across the water.

Armies. Weapons. Fear.

Conflict. Global. War.

I step back, then look at the water again. A new image forms.

A woman in a hospital bed. A casket at a funeral. A headstone. Jane Winkelmeier-McBride (b. November 3, 1992, Chicago, Illinois – d. September 21, 2016, Hauptstadt der Bewegung, Deutschland).

I take several steps back, shaking. What was that?

Your parallel past, says a voice.

I turn and find a strange figure before me.

Strange people are not unusual at the Salton Sea. I’m one of them. But I haven’t seen this person before.

He’s tall and dressed like a magician, in a dark suit with tails and a top hat. His face is as pale as a death mask. Behind him flap shadowy, bat-like shapes. Before him is a small, collapsible table with a deck of playing cards.

The magician picks up the deck and shuffles it. His movements are fast, the cards a blur. Hypnosis and sleepiness come over me as he shuffles. He puts the deck down, then spreads the cards across the table.

Pick a card, Jane, he says.

I shake myself out of my hypnosis. I don’t think so. Not until I know who you are.

Your mentor taught you well, he says.

How do you know about him? About me?

The magician holds up his wand. Stardust falls from it.

In the beginning, he says, was First Star. It created the universes and the inhabitants in each universe. And within each universe, it designated sibling planets.

Like Gaia and Mayavi, I say. Sister planets.

Yes, says the magician. The people on Mayavi remembered that connection for a long time. But the people on Gaia forgot.

Why?

The magician smiles and shuffles the cards. In the beginning, First Star also designated sibling deities. Once we were bonded pairs, a single unit within the heart of First Star. Then the Star sent us out to become planetary entities. In my pair, one went to Andromeda. The other came here.

But who are you?

The magician doffs his top hat. "I’m known as the starless angel or the messenger of shadows. Many called me a conjurer. The ancient Indian philosophers knew me as Mayavi, and the poet Valmiki described some of my adventures in the Ramayana. Then the Theosophists saw me as an embodiment of the imagination."

I stare at him in confusion. What? Mayavi is a goddess on a planet in Andromeda.

In that galaxy, yes, says the magician. But I am the Mayavi on Earth. Her other part.

The id to her ego?

Something like that, he says. He waves his wand at the water, at the flickering image of my headstone. On a parallel Earth in Universe 349b, you didn’t make it.

That’s why I feel odd, I say.

Yes, you’re not supposed to exist, he says. And neither should this Sea.

I back away from him. I’m here because the Strange Ones gave me life.

Ah, yes, the males-who-give-birth theme in mythology, he says. Very amusing.

I pull my shawl around myself. Who are you really?

The magician holds up his wand and says,

I’m a trickster,

Maya’s cosmic player.

Illusions to illuminate,

Collusions to obfuscate.

A storyteller, a rogue,

Misdirection as lead.

There’s one in each galaxy,

A weaver of tales,

The spinner of star arms.

I tell all the stories

While everyone sleeps.

My mentor told me something similar, I say.

But not the same, says the Mayavi of Earth. The universe is a variation upon variations. A dream.

The Earth is a fairy tale.

It can be, he says. The Mayavi on the planet in the Andromeda galaxy used her tricks and stories to awaken people. I was supposed to do the same on Earth and did that sometimes. But the people here like to sleep. As I learned during my life in India, it became more fun to trick people. He grins. Then I came to the United States for bigger opportunities.

Some people eventually wake up to tricks.

But you forget one thing, says the magician. People on Earth are weak-minded and addicted to fear. They love the adrenalin rush, the feeling of power, the soothe of self-righteousness, the delight in judging the other. Never mind those feelings are temporary and illusory. They feel good and that’s what counts. If someone else is wrong then they never have to face themselves. Fear is more profitable than love. So I weave dream tales of horror and people think they’re real.

You’re telling lies, I say. Keeping us in a virtual reality. Using narrative to dehumanize others.

Mayavi shrugs. I’ve been casting spells for thousands of years, he says. People are easy to manipulate even in stable times. As for unstable times…

He laughs and I shudder.

On this Earth, he says, New Deal darling Linda Callahan won the election. Some people think she communicates with aliens. Some think she’s not able to prevent another world war or lead the country if that happens. Others simply don’t like having a female president. With the dreams generated from these negative emotions, I can feed my army. And as a general once said, an army moves on its stomach.

The trickster waves his wand at the bat-like entities flapping around him. My army, my shadows here fly across the world and whisper into dreamers’ minds.

You’re planting thought viruses.

He makes an airy shrug. It’s fun. And easy, as people are suggestible. However, on another Earth, Samuel Newcombe won. A stirring tale of war, a thumping good time with guns. He pauses to prop his hand against his chin with a mock thoughtful look. But is our dignified old Yankee blue blood up to the challenge?

Then we should help the Newcombe world.

I wouldn’t bother, he says. They love violence over there.

Meaning they fear freedom and prefer tyranny, I say. How many universes are there?

Like a house of mirrors, he says. Only they’re funhouse mirrors. Each reflection becomes more distorted. You’re living in one of the more habitable universes. Some are darkness and scratchy underwear.

I shiver. What do you want from me?

Mayavi waves his wand at my head. You had an experience in Andromeda and came back with knowledge. You achieved a higher consciousness and that disturbs my work here on Earth.

I’m here to live my purpose as First Star explained to me.

Oh yes, First Star, that blabbering ball of gas. Mayavi of Earth rolls his eyes. Useful in the beginning, now a silly old star detached from its creations.

For the first time a sliver of doubt enters my thoughts about First Star. I experienced its warmth and love and yet, and yet…the Star is rather far away from daily life.

With your abilities, you could go far in my army, Jane-of-two-worlds, says Mayavi. It’s easy. Open the door to that stone house that surrounds you and let me in.

With a start, I come out of my doubts and say, No.

We could make beautiful propaganda together, he says. More stories for the supersecret news people love. And oh, if you work for me, I won’t tell people you’re part extraterrestrial.

No, I say. You’re not the Mayavi I know.

I turn and hurry away. Ten paces away I look over my shoulder.

Mayavi lifts his top hat at me. Until we meet again, dear Jane. I still haven’t told you about my plans to free Eka-To-Pes from behind the trapezoid gate.

A shudder comes over me at the sound of that dread name. I hurry away again, then sneak a peek ten more paces later.

Mayavi the trickster is gone.

I shiver again and keep walking. This trickster was a shadow, an ephemeral thought, a bad feeling that tricks the mind, that lulls it to sleep with illusions, that paralyzes it with fear.

Besides, we at the Sea are not supposed to be sleepers. We are the eco-alarm clock people. We stay alert.

I hurry home but the odd feeling pursues me. The headstone in the other universe. RIP, parallel Jane.

Halfway down Rose Street, I pause. If I’m dead on another Earth, does that mean I’m with Alfred? Did I go with him to wherever?

I continue home, reminding myself it’s a gift to be alive. But a part of me wishes I were with my jalen zet, my beloved one.

I brush off the encounter with the trickster as a feeling left over from my NDE. But anxiety remains. Too many people are calling for alien disclosure and not because they want a recipe exchange.

From Jane’s Notebooks

The recipe for talunqi, by the Gardener

Assemble your ingredients:

Flour, baking soda, egg, sugar, water, milk, spices, and starlight

Jellied shum fruit

Passion

Wonder

Instructions:

While mixing the cookie dough, perform the Seventeen Recitations of Mau. The full five hundred is preferred but time may be an issue.

Take a cup of starlight. Mix with a nebula. Add sugar and thoughts.

Place in the dough in the refrigerator for two hours. As you wait, perform the prayers:

Praise Mayavi, the planet that supports us, for all of the gifts and blessings She gives to us.

Praise Yiqal, the sun that shines on us, for the illumination She gives to us.

Praise Mau, the domestic god. May his paws knead your lap, may he sleep on your couch, may he leave hair on your clothing.

Praise Ipensi, the agricultural goddess. May your wheat and corn grow tall.

Praise Ijati, the chaos goddess, who invented this recipe when she felt compelled to leave her shifting throne room to find a lover.

Preheat the oven. When the dough is ready, take it out, and roll into small balls. Place servings of jellied shum fruit into each ball of dough.

While the cookies bake in the oven, perform the Tenth Dance of Mau, to ensure proper consistency. Music helps; we recommend the Most Solemn and Amazing Chants of F’bav, the Solarian monk of the Vulani era.

Remember the secret ingredient is butter.

Also, the one of Voq indicated to me that during his last years on Earth as a resident of Hamburg, restaurants that served Chinese food also offered fortunes with their cookies. He suggested I might try this for talunqi.

*

Since we don’t have shum fruit on Earth, I substitute with strawberry preserves. As I bake the cookies, a memory fragment passes through my mind:

*

The tall, lanky figure of the Bard looms in the doorway of the stone house.

Gardener, he says in a rumbling voice. The cookie you sent to me contained a message.

The Gardener steps forward, a short, thin, bearded figure, his blue eyes lit by an alien sun. And what was the message? he asks.

The cookie said… The Bard’s rumble drops off into a peevish tone. It said I was overbearing.

The cookie speaks truth, says the Gardener. It is a critique intended to improve your understanding of yourself. As I did on Earth, I provided honest information to correct our policies.

All right, yes, but you could have said it in a nicer way, says the Bard.

I did, says the Gardener. With a cookie.

You were always stubborn, says the Bard. Then and now. He takes a flyer out the pocket of his jeans. Anyway, I came over to tell you that Markus has a yashok game tomorrow night. I hope you’ll come.

Of course we will, says the Gardener, accepting the flyer.

Good, says the Bard. "And tell the Dancer to wear bicycle shorts under his cheer squad outfit. Every time he does the go-ya shaya-go step, the skirt flips too much."

Not to worry, says the Gardener. He’s skilled in pom-pom deployment.

*

I take out the first tray of cookies and set them on the counter to cool. When they’re ready, I’ll put them in a wooden box. Per the Gardener’s instructions in Magic in the Kitchen, the cookbook he assembled with the Dancer with Tuzek the Librarian’s typing help. Then I’ll deliver them to the senior center along with their book requests.

When I first brought talunqi cookies to a church potluck, everyone complimented me about them. Claudette asked me where I got the recipe. I could only smile and tell her it’s a family recipe, handed down over many generations.

I leave out the part that most of those generations lived on another planet in another galaxy.

The Filmmaker’s Quest: Shadowed

At the Salton Sea. Brian paces up and down a short length of beach, alone.

Brian: Why can’t I think of a topic? Where is my vision?

Looks out at the Sea, then at the beach.

Brian: I felt ok back in LA, but my mind now feels vague. Shadowed. Even under this sun.

A bat-shaped shadow flaps overhead but Brian doesn’t see it. The shadow hovers over him and hisses.

Shadow: You can’t finish this project.

Brian: I mean, what if I can’t finish this project?

Shadow: You suck.

Brian: I mean, what if I suck?

The shadow flaps.

Brian: She’s blue. I didn’t want to be rude. But I’ve never seen that before. And her eyes have these silver flecks in them.

Shadow: Because she’s a freak. An ugly girl. She doesn’t count.

Brian: Because she’s….

The shadow flaps and waits.

Brian: She’s…

Shadow: Say it!

Brian: She’s… beautiful.

The shadow emits a shriek like a bat sending sonar to hell. Brian claps his hands to the sides of his head and grimaces.

Shadow: (shrieking) Wrong, wrong, wrong! If you people start loving each other, we’ll be out of work. Hate her, hate!

Brian: (puts hand on forehead) Where did this headache come from? I hope I’m not getting the Fatigue Flu. I should go back to the motel.

He walks back in the direction of Rose Beach. Behind him the shadow flaps.

Shadow: If I could laugh, I would. Humans are so easy.

The shadow raises itself and flies over the Sea. More fish die in its wake.

From Jane’s Notebooks: Gaia

On the planet Mayavi, the Strange Ones could communicate with the planetary goddess. Mayavi once said to the Dancer that Gaia supports her people and how do we repay her? With selfishness, greed, and war.

Last night while going t’she, the evening walkabout, I heard this:

Call of Gaia

Listen, not much time is left.

Wake up from your illusions.

There are no lines but spirals,

Beginnings head toward endings,

Endings reveal new beginnings.

Today’s choices create tomorrow,

But if you do not care

To consider what you choose,

There will be no tomorrow.

Part II

Living the Way: Teacher

Help the young to open the door to their wholeness and potential.

--the Teachings

At the library, I check my email and find the message I’ve been waiting for.

Dear Jane,

It seems that despite the turmoil you went through in those last moments, the Dancer gave you the right numbers. I was able to match his lucky numbers with a bank account statement from Friedrich’s papers. And yes, it’s a bank in Switzerland.

It could take a while before I can get an audience with a banker, let alone the money, if it still exists and the account did not close. You may recall how long it took Holocaust survivors and their families to access money they store there. Our situation is more complicated, given the people involved in creating the account. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I hope to come out to California soon to see you and Karla.

Your Uncle Sebastian

The Swiss bank account, a leftover from my German grandfather and his strange doings for the Nazi regime.

Getting the money is a long shot. But it proves that my journey to the planet Mayavi and my encounter with the Strange Ones was real.

For a moment I want to take out my