BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 18.2

                                                                                           ÆSH

The sun blinked through the latticework of fern trees. Iris was up already, plucking petals off flowers and putting them in her mouth. Neel was rummaging the ground with his foot, one hand held high holding twigs like chopsticks. Raë was sleeping, head resting on a rock, her mouth wide open. I saw Neel bend down and pick something off the ground with his makeshift chopsticks. He tiptoed towards Raë and dropped what looked like a fat leathery worm into her mouth. Raë jerked her head forward, she heaved, spitting, coughing, hawking. Neel's laughter drowned the chirping and the buzzing of the afternoon forest sounds. Raë rose up as though to chase him, but slumped back into her sleeping bag just as quickly, lulled into that peaceful bliss that I was also experiencing.

The secret lore had come to pass. The spores had induced a collective dream ... and we survived ... the hallucination or whatever it was, we had survived. Though at one point, I wasn't sure if I'd ever wake up.

Light was beginning to fade. I looked at the time, it was 3:30 pm. "We should head back," I said, sitting up. "If we don't reach our dorms by 7 the school will send out a search party after us."

They nodded in agreement. We started collecting our things, making certain to pick up all the litter - leaving no trace or imprint of our night's sojourn. Once packed, we readied ourselves to journey back to campus.

We tunneled through the waterfall and were confronted by a thick fog. It seemed as though in preparation for sleep, the forest had pulled over its shoulder a sheet of opaque mist, folding us in with its dream. Wading through the forest, shards of colorful images morphed in and out of my blurred reality. Flickers of visions rose up in my head and disappeared like mirages before I could get an accurate reading on them.

But then step by step, bit by bit, it came to me: the fire-breathing monster, the galloping blaze of fire. My metamorphosis, my transmutation. I became an element, taking on the geometry of water. I recalled a war, a clash between fire and water. I was water and Raë was fire. I was at war with Raë!

Raë, the fire monster. She was anger, she was rage. Exploding in all directions, annihilating all that came in her way. She was a weaponized element, drawing wrath from the core of her female experience.

My eyes searched for her through the mist. She looked innocuous, almost tender in the afternoon haze. Her hair fluid in the breeze, her form moving with the grace of a yogini. I picked up a trail of her scent. An ineffable tug pulled me in her direction. I inched closer, pacing with her shoulder to shoulder.

Neel and Yinka were out of range, visibility was low and I couldn't see them. When a rocky incline confronted us, I gave Raë my hand, she took it without resisting this time. We helped pick off spiders and bugs with alien looking eyes that attached themselves to our hair and clothes.

We walked in silence, nearly for an hour, taking in the riot of colors, listening to the language of the forest that kept varying with each progressive step. We stopped for a drink of water and that's when Raë broke her silence.

"That cut on your wrist ... what's the story?" she asked.

The story behind my scars. At some point in life you'll have to explain the story behind your scars. This is the day to come clean. I spoke the easy truth because it came naturally to me.

Without resistance, without hesitation, I said, "I tried to kill myself."

Raë stopped short of her breath then gently asked, "Why?"

"Because it felt like that was the only option I had."

"When you were in prison?"

"Yes."