He is gone.  Left without a word.  All Oliver and I found were some images, a dream’s description and a list of instructions about his house and pets.

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The stone dropped.  I felt its rough edge slip from my fingers.  In that moment the dream started yet at that moment, I felt I had let go of something important, something I had been clinging to for a long time with no memory of why.  The stone fell to the ground landing in white, powdery sand.  The impact scattered debris right and left and when settled, my old talisman took form.

The design brought tears to my eyes.  For too long I have be on a path leading from this one scrawling in the sand.  No more I thought and tried to erase it with my foot.  But it wouldn’t erase.  Even with the sand soft and my foot sweeping back and forth the design remained.  Dropping to my knees I dug deeply but the markings lingered.  This was too much.  Life as I have known it began with this portent and now apparently, everything it represents is a sham.

I collapsed, my entire body shook with violent sobs.  I was wracked by anger, grief and loss.  Tears flowed uncontrollably as moans and screams poured from my mouth.  I vented like this till exhausted then just curled up on the sand with nothing left.  I laid there as the sun went down and came up eleven times.  On the eleventh sunrise, a large gummy glob landed on my face.  I wiped at it but a slimy residue just smeared sticky on my cheek.

Even though the sun was blocked, heat still caressed my face and body.  Looking up, I saw a dragon.  Not one of Oliver’s dragons but a beast unimaginably large.  It grunted, moved away and shook its head.  There was no fear.  What did I care if I was blasted by flame or eaten?  Besides, I knew this was a dream.  It walked around me and sat.  The eyes were kind.  With a claw, it drew another familiar design in the sand; the triangle made of lines from an Oliver dream I had months ago.  First row had four short vertical lines, then three below, two below that and ending with a single dash capping the apex of an upside down triangle.

The dragon leaned back on its haunches and looked down at me.

“You want to talk?” I asked.

It should its head.

“Then talk.”

And it did.  The voice was much softer than I would have guessed from an animal so big.  It was Grandfather’s.

“Pissed, aren’t ya‘,” the dragon responded.

“Leave me alone!”

“Not gonna‘.”

“You’re not Melanie’s father, are you?”

“Never said I was.  Nice tidbit to help package up your insanity, though.”

“Nothing is real?  I’ve made it all up?”

“What’s real?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then you’re not a lost cause.  Let’s walk.”

We began strolling through the desert like old friends.  And to be honest, it felt normal, walking and talking with this very large beast.

“You were looking for closure.  But, Moses, this is only the beginning.”

“Beginning?”

“Yes.  Pieces are in motion.  We all play our parts.”

“Cogs in the machine?”

The dragon stopped, put a clawed paw on my shoulder, and stared off looking at the far horizon.

“The machine doesn’t use cogs.  It’s more fluid with concepts unconceivable yet so simple.  You just need to keep walking.”

And with that he pointed towards a line of shadow people.  They walked towards what I can only describe as a vortex of spinning energy and stars.  I walked, too.

“Keep walking.  Find the pieces and oneness will be yours.”

“You always were full of shit.”

“And always will be.”

I kept walking.  Closing in on the first shadow figure I felt pulled as if by a magnet.  The figure didn’t turn around just kept trudging on.  I tried to leave the line but was trapped, the pull too great.  Then the figure before me began to dissolve.  Like grains of sand merging his granular parts became part of me.  When he was completely gone, I felt stronger, less angst filled.  The line of shadow people strung out in front of me heading straight on to the vortex.

I walked up to the next shadow person and absorbed it,too.  Then the next and the next and the next and on down the line until I stood alone in front of the vortex.  Its maw  lay open like a swirling mouth of teeth.  The outer edges were lined with stars and gas clouds.  In the center was a pin point of light.  I reached for it and was sucked in grain by grain as if slowly releasing each shadow person I had absorbed.  And just before the last fragment of my soul felt the pull from the other side, a voice stated simply, “You are your own fundamental.  You have only to find your scale, your life, your universe.”

If the vortex finished devouring me, I will never know.   As with all dreams I woke too early.  I’ll not try to interpret this vision.  I will follow the only concrete action given; Iwill walk.  Australian Aborigines call it walkabout.  Shamans take to the wilderness for years on end, and now I too will trek for a while lost in the wastelands of the moment.  No longer will I look for answers but only follow the call of dreams.

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I don’t know where Moses has gone, when or if he will return.  I will do what I can to continue his work and presently that is helping Oliver acclimate to this world.

Melanie Matthews