TIME'S UP

First we go where water flows up hill – to the Mystery Spot near Santa Cruz. Truly, impossible things are going on all the time, so long as no one takes them seriously. We have Science Fiction and Fantasy for the masses. So we can ask – is an autobiographical novel recycled reality, or mere Muse droppings? Might an Ouija's skittery planchette outdo subconscious fraud? It will be serious business if it sells books.

But do not venture, however, to say that words in their dictionaries, celebrated in respectable conversations, are secretly conspiring to surf the Mystery once again.

Awe, shoot! We're not rebels, just subversives stepping unsuspected into the elevator. See, we passed by in the clear. At floor Two we got off wearing elevator shoes, and not a single raised eyebrow. Ordinary conversations in coffee shops and kayaks went on without a pause, completely immune to our pun, which left unasked, as a result, the crucial question: Had we plotted an escape?

As just one example of our success, consider stellar chandeliers. Or take great pioneers such as Galileo or Newton paddling out through the usual, usual and assuming that everything would be sorted out when their wave came in. There were arguments onshore, of course, about UFOs and proper nomenclature. But once underway these were unimportant. It would be for those who mine the depths of our etymology to discover, much as an archaeologist digging into slaughterhouse earth, that the ground actually stores screams of cattle. One might assume this has little to do with a shopping cart's squeaky wheel. The correspondence is arcane. But it would seem that cattle have about much voice in supermarket life as a dangling wheel.

Sticking strictly to the letter of definitions, swallowing the etymology whole, is probably all that can be expected of the casual visitor. The usual perusal will do in that case. Nonetheless, we have infiltrated some imaginations without need of exhausting arguments. Even a proponent of the most Standard Model must concede a Mystery at the Spot. Buried deep in our domain is an “imaginary” that is entangled with the heart of calculus, linked to the Spot in ways Einstein would call “spooky action at a distance.”

Going up?

Floor Two – mezzanine .. . .



The Ferris wheel candy man is spinning tales.

“Stay away from the Japanese tea garden. Didn't you know? After the quake, these ladies brought folding chairs to the hill, set them up, and watched the city burn. They had decided, having no television to watch, that it would be better than meeting with the History Club and, providentially, it was all on the same day.”

Cotton candy is an iffy business.

“Mina,” he said, “tell us about your strange dream.”

She should get if off her heaving chest. The whole bunch of them could stick around, and why not? One good description, told well, is worth a thousand pictures. There were no cell phones. Mina gave her dress a little tug.

“Well, you wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't, except it was just as real . . . like waking up and seriously not knowing where you are. The front steps were not where they should be. The tree across the street, same persimmon as ever, but filled with pregnant balloons. Ladies, haven't you had this dream?”

Murmurs and blushes. A fidgeting of fingers as though engaged with involuntary knitting. Mrs. Cratchet spoke next.

“Maybe we we shouldn't admit this, but haven't we? Ihave to admit the obvious, as sure as we see all that smoke and smell the fried butterflies.”

It could be seen that not much was being done to battle the fires below. “In the meantime, Mina,” prompted candy man , “what about that tree across the street?”

She took a deep breath. “His name was Erhard, he said. Werner Erhard. And this was his prequel. San Francisco, before our very eyes, was being prepared. Think of it as being spaded under, the ground being sown with seeds of EST. And that is the tree, as you will see.”

“Wow!” said Mrs. Cratchet. “The History Club will never be the same again. Girls, we're the first to have gotten our history from the horses' mouth. So to speak. You know that old saying about closing the barn door after the horse is out? We'll have it done before the horse gets in. That horse is out there now, making cotton candy, no one knowing any better. And we'll have it in our notes before the book is written. And when it's done, no one will believe it.”

Mina gave her dress another little tug.