Twenty-Nine Cozy Bears

13

Tehran, Iran

The two other men traveling with them began unloading the lumber with pallet jacks as soon as the back hold opened up on the airstrip. They worked fast, with little talking. As they moved the lumber down the long ramp to the concrete pad, their eyes constantly scanned the area. So intensely did they search the distance for any approach, Alek and Luca began searching as well.

The man was going to ask them what their worry could be, but they gave no opportunity. As soon as the six large stacks of wood were off the plane, the hull doors closed and the engines started winding up. It was a sin for enlisted men to move that quickly, he thought to himself, but as he lifted his eyes toward the tower, four white pickup trucks turned from the access road on to the concrete strips of the runway, heading in their direction fast.

"Da, we are going to have company, Captain," Luca said, as he stepped up beside him. "Any suggestions on how not to get shot?"

"Don't ask nefarious questions," he suggested.

"Like, 'where is your nuclear power project, we are here to help?" Luca asked.

"Exactly like that one."

"I understand. What will you be doing?"

"Standing behind the lumber."

Their plane must have received clearance to take off, because it turned onto one of the main air strips on its six sets of wheels under the belly and began powering for the horizon.

"You didn't happen to bring any of that weed with you, did you Luca?" Alek asked as he joined them behind one of the stacks of wood.

"No."

"Good. These people have zero sense of humor about that."

"You should do the talking," Luca said, "After all, you are the Talent."

Alek offered a lazy smile, "That's true."

"Don't get us shot." Luca said, his voice becoming tense.

"Keep your cool, Luca,' the man said as the truck breaks winded and then scraped bringing the trucks to a stop.

In the bed of each truck stood two men who leaned on the cab in front of them, while holding AK-47 military rifles. They didn't attempt to aim the weapons at the three Russians, but the weapons were intimidating just the same.

The man was sure he would have been more nervous, if not for the affect the sunlight was having on him. It wasn't hot, in fact the day was very agreeable. The sky above had no flaw in the perfect field of blue fire. to the highest empyrean the clarity held the mind with glimpses of the divine. The mountains framed the city with rich brown ramparts whose peaks shone with pearl and reflected sunlight.

Looking down at his hand, he splayed his fingers in the yellow energy and rolled his wrist, enjoying the textural tapestry of changing temperatures, and golden warmth seeping through his button shirt into his heart.

I am Russian, he thought to himself, but Tehran is where I wish to die when the time comes. Here, is where soul-sleep could be slumber.

The truck doors open. The drivers, all men stood by their open doors, at parade-rest. The men in the truck beds remained where they were. From the passenger sides three women, one from each truck, wearing what appeared to be short sleeve military uniforms with dark blue hijabs covering their heads, and draped onto their shoulders, stepped down and made their way over to the lumber pile the men put between themselves and the AK-47s.

The woman in the middle looked at the lumber and raised a puzzled eyebrow, which was a sane response. The one to her right looked out of the corners of her eyes to the one in the middle, and carefully held a neutral expression. The one to the left blazed like an angel, like a sword of justice in the man's eyes.

She was not any more or less beautiful than the other two. The man was not deprived of the nurturing or presence of women. He had his sister, and his mother. There was even a cousin who came into the city on the weekends. Lovers too. And yet, if this woman came another step forward he felt he would burst into a blinding hot pillar of white phosphorus.

Her eyes were halos of gold, which felt as if they shone with their own internal power rather than mere reflected colors which drained the universe of energy, rather than adding to the world. She added to the world. His envisioning of her took him into what he thought of as cyberspace, which is the only place he felt his skills allowed him the ability to shine and add to the life experience, rather than consume.

That was what this aurora... this presence ... this inexplicable attraction — how it had its hands around his throat, throttling him. She was reflecting his purest feeling of self back to him — as in: I am one too.

You do it too, she says somehow and he hears her voice and observes her lips moving...

Do what? his voice says, and he felt the words expel from his lungs and through his lips.

There is the sound of a girl giggling, while running in circles with her arms wide open and her face to the sun at noon.

Shine, she says, and as she says, she becomes for an instant the running girl with her face to the sun, feeling the miracle of flight. The she is herself — her now — her.

I want this, with you. How this is. What is this? Are we this? he asked. His voice halting as he stumbled for words that meant something close to being as real as "this" and coming up with hands full of sand and tumbleweed.

I hoped you knew, she said, and there is a touch of worry in her voice now that puts mortality into this new place of being he has discovered. So like cyberspace.

That flash of worry; of light flickering; bothered him. Can she not see how powerful she is? Can you not see yourself? Your power?

Power is like names, it is what others give us.

You can have mine for a while, if you need it.

I need you.

Of course you do, I am Russian. Everyone needs us!

I am Iranian.

You are Persian. Intellect. Discovery. The science of light, the use of zero. You are a Sumerian poet, in the temple of Inanna. Finally I understand the fanciful words of Rumi. "I have no more words. Let soul speak with soul, I am dust on your door."

You are the fertile crescent, When I must finally die, from your arms I will go and make smooth the way for you to follow.

Then the earth shook, and tossed him away...

He woke with a start. Turbulents were jostling the cargo plane like a sparrow in a maelstrom

"Easy," Alek said, shouting above the ambient noise filling the cargo area. The man turned and sat forward, finding Alek grinning at him from the chair to his right, "still have another three hours before when land." Alek informed him.We will cross over into Iranian airspace in about thirty minutes.

The man stretched out his legs. Alek said something but the hollow area vibration noise shaking everything, garbled his words into juice. "What?"

"I just asked if it was a good dream?"

The man turned away into the chair without answering. He never dreamed. Not since he was a child, but the only ones he remembered were nightmares.