Usually there was a hot girl who sat in the front left row who made the experience tolerable. They would always exchange glances during the communion procession and Kai would imagine the day that more than glances would be exchanged. But she wasn’t there today, and Kai was deprived of this grand finale because life, under the direction of God Himself, insisted on eradicating even the smallest of indulgences from his meander.
In total there were maybe one or two of the Catholic songs that moved him, but today none of their digits graced the wooden hymnal number display. Rigid wood. Rigid chairs.
The congregation groaned its responses like a hypnotized mass inducing their own brainwashing. ‘No wonder they believe this stuff, they repeat it in unison once a week for their entire existence. Do these people question the utterances that so unconsciously proceed from their trained tongues?’ Up and down, up and down, sometimes on his knees. Kai noticed the common thread that this varying elevation bore to the emotional rollercoaster of life. Yet it was tamed by timing and rigorous recitations. Just like the illusion of order that rituals of life create.
This time, Kai prayed something besides his usual “Help me” prayer. But the dismissive words were a mere formality: “God please heal me. Please provide for me.” Were they heeded?
The priest was talking about the beatitudes…the same beatitudes. Those lines of text that had been spoken about for years, decades, centuries, til the millennia drained the black out of the texts and they were as grey as the priest’s melancholy tone as he mumbled on.
Paul. Something about having your mind renewed. Life can’t be renewed. Once it’s gone it’s gone. Daydream…
CHAPTER 6: Synthetic Green Therapist
A few weeks into his pre-Life crisis, Kai remembered something that used to bring the color back to his world. He remembered an excitement and magic that rivaled any other, and it was time to bring that old friend out of the box.
Sweet Mary-Jane.
Kai had started smoking weed when he was 16 after a buddy in high school introduced him to it. His buddy liked to think of himself as avant-garde. You know the type: the 16 going on 40 guy who’s all about culture and sophistication, who smirks at the ignorance of his fellow teenagers while graciously endowing them with undeserved snippets of his wisdom from his handle on this joke called life. A rationalist, an atheist, a reader. He was a friend, and if he smoked weed it can’t be that bad.
Kai had taken on weed like a love affair. It started out with the thrill, rebellion, and newness. Soon it facilitated relationships, and then turned into one itself. It morphed into a social way to have out-of-this-world experiences with friends, where laughter and adventure overflowed their previously disenchanted realities. It was larger than life, and it was hard to believe how much Kai used to look forward to it sometimes.
After high school the crowd split like so many do, and that level of friendship became increasingly harder to find. The world set soul buddies on divergent paths. During his working holidays to Britain, weed became the common ground that mutually exclusive entities could stand on. It paved the way for friendships with everyone from British Chav gangsters, to Rastas who used to know Bob Marley, as well as Camden Town punks, and Irish musicians. Similarly to alcohol, but involving more depth and subtlety, weed was a chance to shake the shackles of conventional stereotypes and view the world anew.
It was a girl that he traveled around with for a while who had shaken his relationship with weed a year ago. Menacing individual who finally convinced Kai to take a break from it. She did this partly out of a desire for control, partly out of jealousy at the recognition of a love affair with a (seemingly) inanimate object, partly out of misunderstanding about it, and a slim sliver to do with genuine concern for Kai’s well-being. The fights about smoking had reliably ruined each trip, and Kai got over the drama. He ditched the weed for a few weeks to keep her happy, and then ditched her. He hadn’t started smoking again, though, cos he was on his way home, and wanted to be on form when he arrived. Weed tended to make him lethargic and slow-witted.
But now he needed something to combat this depressed state. Weed had always helped him digest and reframe reality, providing an outside perspective on problems that Kai was too close to. Kai’s flirts with death in the mugging incident and the oceanic jaw-miss had changed something about reality. He wasn’t sure what, and he could certainly use some synthetic perspective on it. He had made up his mind: he was going to smoke again. Aristotle had said that happiness depends on ourselves, and old Jefferson had backed da brudda up by saying that a person is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be. Kai had decided to trust in the dead guys’ testimonies and make himself happy.
The lingering anticipation of smoking brought an invigorating intensity to Kai’s pulse while he assembled his paraphernalia in his backpack. He had successfully negotiated the alleys of Green Market Square the day before to purchase a parcel from a Rasta’s stacked hat for R50. He had been duped before when trying to buy weed in London, instead walking away with a luscious bundle of potpourri made from fragranced dried rose petals. Not the kind of pot he was looking for. He and his buddy had smoked it anyway to get their £10’s worth. It tasted like burnt rip off. Surprisingly, the Capetonian dealers were fairly honest in their exchanges. And the honesty of his home-town druggies had endowed him with a green ticket to another reality, sitting neatly tucked away in the side pocket of his backpack.
The excitement was tangible as he and JP hiked through the deep green pine trees that filled their nostrils with the fresh odor of nature. The woods on the outskirts of the city were calm and yet vibrant with a latent sense of adventure. Half of the fun was looking for the perfect spot to smoke. Cape Town in the spring is a painter’s color pallet brimming with African vitality.
The boys discovered a lively, dancing river that sang sweet serendipity to them. It was nature’s way of leading the journey with her enchanted bread crumbs. By following the shushing stream, all the while dotting in and out of a conversation about the politics of girls, Kai and JP found the location. An overhanging Willow tree with emerald green tufts of grass invited them to a portal - destination expected, but never certain.
The exhilaration involved in the ritual of smelling, feeling, and then lighting the joint rivaled the best moments in surfing, and in fact life in general. Kai paused for a moment to imbibe the energy before imbibing the smoke.
A few heated breaths and involuntary coughs later, a warm familiarity began to set in. The customary heart pounding announced the advent of a different state of consciousness as the expanse between Kai and the surrounding trees became more vacant and tangible. His vision became clearer. JP’s face morphed into what seemed like its untainted state – that of a dear human friend who was known to the core of his being. Radiant eyes and held-back smiles burst into freeing laughter. Suddenly they shared a common breath, an unspoken brotherly intimacy. A different, more cerebral intimacy than the one that alcohol creates.
Kai soon got down to business, shaking off his mental excursions and honing in on the target: processing the shark attack. It seemed completely different now: tragic yet natural, a shortened cycle on a wheel we’re all riding. Colorful. There was a glory in that kind of death that few get to inherit the legacy of. Acceptance. Rudi beamed down on the forest in transcendent peace. A peace that was contagious, and Kai felt serenity at last.
Weed had saved him. He had been reunited with a long lost acquaintance and wasn’t about to lose her anytime soon.
PART 2: DIFFERENTIATED SPLIT
San Francisco, California – Kai’s 22nd rotation around the sun
CHAPTER 7: The White
Rabbit Rears his Head
Kai’s green travel companion had become his bff, and had kept him company on journeys through mind and matter. After another 2-year series of sporadic working adventures in the UK, Chicago, and South Carolina, the guiding Forces continued their Westward pull and led him to San Francisco.
Why West? Historically the Western frontier has always represented the furthest quests of freedom away from the known Old World and towards something uniquely your own. Kai had noticed that the western coasts of multiple continents and countries bore this semblance.
But journeys away from inhabited territory cost cash as well as comfort, and at this particular point in Kai’s venture he was running low on both. Almost out of money and living on a newfound friend’s couch, he had just started taking catering gigs to fund the awe-inspiring succession of parties and surf sessions. Kai never stuck a job out for too long; they got boring fast. He still couldn’t see himself in a conventional career, drained of his vitality. Traveling satiated his need for novelty, and he was feeling invigorated by the life and vibrancy of California.
Throughout human civilization, there have always been focal points at which culture was on the forefront of being created. In the 5th century BC, Athens was the place to be; in the 200 AD, Rome was where it was happening; all the cool kids were rocking London in the 1800’s. And now, in the 21st century, California the spot! It was where global culture was being created, and Kai had wanted to be a part of it for as long as he could remember. Marijuana had just been legalized, and Kai was excited about the direction that Cali was leading the youth.
The idiosyncratic characters in Cali seemed to be his kind of people – laid back and animated, creative and friendly. Add to that girls galore, and seemingly easy ones at that, and Kai had reached the epitome of GPS coordinates according to his current way of functioning.
He loved America ‘cos it was the only country where people were truly fascinated by the fact that he was foreign. The English didn’t give two jolly well hoots. But here his accent was a passport to endless conversation, and a real asset when it came to seizing opportunities. Carpe diem – he seized many a chance, and many a girl!
One particular Tuesday, the salty morning air summoned him through the sliding screen door of his buddy’s Jerry’s house. Jerry had unknowingly returned Kai to his childhood living situation by letting him exist out of a corner of the lounge. The beckoning of the outside world managed to overpower the perpetual lure of continued slumber. Kai got up and found that his brother was just waking up too.
Matt had joined him on the last leg of his Western crusade, and their joint awakening led them to hit the obligatory joint in the bathroom before beginning their careless surf escapade.
The familiar moist smell of plant engulfed them seconds before the tingles of altered consciousness did. While Matt smoked a cigarette outside after a satisfactory level of intoxication had been attained, Kai went back into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He’d never looked this intently at himself before.
Ancient eyes looked back at him. ‘What a strange creature you are... Look at these hands… Primitive claw-like protrusions. Why do you look so familiar? How can you be a meaningless animal? You’ve got aspects of God in you.’ Kai sensed an intriguing urge to pray and, being one for following intuition, did.
“God please send your Holy Spirit into me and fill me with you.” He’d heard his uncle pray like this before. It was an innocent enough request, and not the first time it had been made. But unbeknownst to Kai, something was different this time.
The prayer ended, and then it happened. Unexpectedly, grippingly, and yet naturally.
The room darkened around Kai’s illuminated face in the mirror and a red, smoke-like light filled the air. It didn’t seem too out of the ordinary and felt organic, wonderful. Alice hadn’t noticed that the talking rabbit was strange initially. These preliminary effects lured Kai into thinking that anything was possible. He was 5 again and magic existed.
"One can't believe impossible things," Alice said.
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," replied the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Kai smiled with a pregnant buoyancy at the thought. His joy was ready to burst. And then it did. His mind’s eye was flooded with a vision of fire coming down to embrace him and engulfing his being in its other-worldly glow.
Now this vision was of a type that we’re all accustomed to, but seldom recognize. It’s the spontaneous mental image of a loved one’s face; a visual flash of the exit you need to remember to take while driving. Somewhat subjective, the experience was made all the more real by an objective surge of energy before the light bulb in the bathroom blew. Pop!
Darkness. But a vivid darkness. The room was full, and Kai was open. He felt more alive than he had in years. And he was gratefully perplexed.
It seemed like the experience was over. So he opened the door and decidedly resumed the mission of getting his wetsuit from the garage. ‘Ooo this is gonna be an epic surf; I’m all revved up by like I’ve been infused with power.’ He pushed opened the heavy door of the garage. An old dog who had made his home there put every ounce of energy he had left in his fading body into dragging himself up off the floor and staggering over to greet Kai, the gentle hint of a wag present in his tail.
“Hello boy!” Kai had always been a sucker for dogs and their innocent and unconditional love. He felt compelled to minister to this dog, being in the sad and incapacitated state that it was in. Although since he was a teenager Kai shied away from hugging dogs because of the smell they left on his clothes that could affect his chances of getting girls, he shook that ideology off with a vigor that the dog lacked and pressed his body into the dog’s. The next sequence of events might not have happened if he wasn’t willing to get dirty.
He was immediately glad of the decision he had made, as tangible happiness started flowing from the canine’s body to his. Kai held the dog’s head up toward his own and looked in his eyes. That’s when he heard it.
Again, it wasn’t an audible hearing, in the same way that the vision of the fire wasn’t a visual seeing. But it was an unspoken understanding that was being communicated in the ether, or a recognition of an emotional statement in the dog’s eyes. However you could describe it, the dog ‘said’ “This is nice.”
Wait, what?! Kai jumped back at the assault to his worldview. The dog tilted his head to one side as if watching for Kai’s next response.
“Did you just communicate with me?!” Kai barked the English words at the dog. The dog took a quick jump backwards himself, his age no longer weighing him down.
“No way, can you understand me?!” came the inaudible response from the dog. “Ok what is this?” the dog asked as he picked up a stuffed doll off the floor with his mouth. Just like the subjective nature of the fire vision made way to a more objective energy sense that something was really happening here, this interaction had just broken out of Kai’s mind into tangible reality. The dog was actually outwardly responding to this interaction!
“That’s a stupid toy doll thing!” Kai snapped, an increasing franticness in his voice.
“Ok what’s this?” the dog asked as he put down the doll and picked up a ball.
“It’s a frieken ball!” Kai rushed the words out, mind progressively blown. At this the dog put down the ball and bounced around in a circle. Kai’s reality shattered in these instants, and his worldview crumbled like a teenager rediscovering that there is a Santa Clause. He switched into an alternate mode in a rather sudden exchange and all of the sudden the communication channel gushed into an ocean of understanding. A critical mass point in Kai’s consciousness had been reached. Was this the onset of the schizophrenia that had killed his father and caused his cousins to murder? Was the weed laced with LSD or something? Was this really happening?
If all the communication Kai had experienced in his life up to that point was as simplistic and linear as texting, now an HD-TV level of information began to pour into Kai’s consciousness. Instantly Kai was aware of the dog’s struggles, what life was like in that garage, the inevitable passageway toward death that the dog was embarking on, and how his owners were too consumed in their own existences to do much more than merely sustain his. It wasn’t a complaint, it was more of a heartbreaking testimony and it affected Kai deeply. Was this dog unique in that it could communicate? Is this a kind of Dr. Doolittle ability that Kai had just tapped into, with which he would be able to communicate with all animals? If this was all just a weed trip then how come nothing even remotely similar to this had happened in the 6 years he had been smoking? He couldn’t wait to find out the answers to these questions, and even the HD-TV stream of information couldn’t satiate his newly discovered and overwhelming fascination with this fresh reality he found himself inhabiting.
As if in answer to these questions, messages started filtering into his consciousness. Understandings. Conversations. He couldn’t wait to share this with his brother. And with that the garage door burst open as the universe delivered an affirmative response to his request. The screaming that had ensued from Kai’s excitability had startled Matt into thinking that Kai might be in trouble and he veered into the garage with a look of concern on his face.
“What’s going on man?” he asked, poised for action.
“Matt check this out, oh my word, I can communicate with this dog!” Kai snapped loudly. He told the dog to sit and the dog obliged, all the while with a suspicious look on his canine face.
“Who is this?” the dog wanted to know.
“It’s Matt, my brother, he’s cool. Show him!”
But nothing. Like a dream in which you lose your voice when you need it the most, the dog refused to grant Kai this further substantiation of the objectivity of his encounter. Kai understood the dog’s hesitancy, despite how disappointing it was, and led Matt out of the garage.
By this point the messages from other realms – these voices in Kai’s head - were more tangible and audible, and began consuming more of his attention. So much so, in fact, that Kai could barely break a train of thought. He released himself in increments to their control as the possibility that these were just his own thoughts diminished in direct proportion to his inhibitions.
All the while Matt was dangling between panic and intrigue, not knowing what to do with this craziness that he had never seen in his brother before. Kai told Matt to take notes and remember all of this. He then proceeded to pace back and forth in the house, dictating both parts of the schizophrenic dialogue that was hijacking his consciousness. It wasn’t a literal dialogue in Kai’s mind of course, as it was the same barrage of information and paradigm shifts that transcended regular communication like texting is inferior to the HD-TV.
“Who are you?”
“Evolved consciousness that doesn’t have its origins on Earth. These are frequencies you are tuning into that have always been there, lying unperturbed by the passage of time, and rarely being tapped into because of your obsession with chyros.”
“What is the point of all this?”
“It’s an expansion of Life itself. You are evolving. You can no longer be content living in the dead things of the world – the manmade prisons that are material, psychological, and societal. The realm of magic that you thought was lost never was. You were. This is the realm of Fairy Tales. The reason you’re drawn to them is because they are a subconscious memory and yearning for a world that’s enchanted. Which is exactly what reality is.”
“Why me?”
“You opened yourself up to it. You are learning that you’re psychic.”
“No way, I’m psychic! Yes! I always kinda knew that I was. Matt, I’m psychic man! You’ll see!”
Kai grabbed Matt and hugged him with a voracity and urgency that he hadn’t let out in years. All the societal obstacles and modes of interacting that had developed between the two during the times they had spent apart while each traveling the world with their separate agendas dissolved. Kai looked into his gaping blue eyes and saw straight into the soul of the little boy who had been his sidekick for their first decades of life. He realized how much more he had missed him than the glimmers of his conscious mind allowed him to know, and saw him again for the first time in years. There was no stopping the flood of tears that poured forth the mingled emotions of relief and happiness at their reunion, and sadness and regret at the elapsed time span.
“I love you man, I’ve missed you” Kai gawked.
Matt all the while co-operated like the newly re-employed sidekick that he was. Kai’s mom flashed through his mind’s eye and he couldn’t wait to talk to her. Kai began to think of all the special people in his life who now seemed like extensions of himself, like ligaments as opposed to the estranged entities in which he had become accustome