I.

Here! Now! Who’s this, treading the asphalt in blue air in blue, hair, feet, eyes flaming? I follow him along the boulevard. I can’t help but notice the attachment of fluorescent lighting, the kundalini storm above his head. We take tea in an organic health food store.

“You must be electric,” I say.

He lives in a cave in the canyon, climbs hills to plant flags at night, believes in the psychic development of nations as a matter of course, so easy in the sunny regions.

“I have an electric spine,” he says, “But I come from the North.”

His credentials are impeccable, an infinitely suffering being who remembers his pre-existence in dimensions of blue and gold. Radio waves surround him. He sucks a magnetic coil, frequently taking time to commune with advanced civilisations.

The waiter speaks astrologies, waves the zodiac like a patch of fallen sky. It is not easy to see in the fug of incense. Perhaps I called for more tea. He brings tiny pieces of broken shell in ceramic jars, imitates the sound of rain.
  
Suddenly the sign of the light-being appears all over the city.

I light a candle. Waves of incest fill the sky.

II.

The frequency with which she becomes entangled in these manipulative systems is quite impressive. She’s grown accustomed to wearing white robes. The bricks around our home are constantly shifting.

Light-Being Boy speaks to our mother, our neighbour, our neighbour’s cat, little birds hung from trees in antique cages. Everything’s so tantalising! I ignore tantra and read the Sermon on the Mount.

Later, we visit the ashram in the hills. I expect gardens, gem lined pathways, holy music. The place is a-hum with insects. Even the walls are seeking.

“We all want heaven!” they say.

Light-Being Boy suggests a campaign of sonic terror, building to a crescendo of whales, but soon forgets to act. We talk to a woman who was once an elephant in Bengal. She has friends who follow her breathing with flutes and guitars. This takes patience, and a certain aural acuity.

Suddenly, Light-Being boy is surrounded by tiny snakes. They hiss and bite his leather sandals, wrap around his ankles and toes. He slips into the pond while I whip and crush the snakes with palm branches. Light-Being Boy emerges drinking a glass of red wine, wearing a string of creeping ivy like a sash.

“Hall-ooo!” he calls.

When we leave, the ashram is red and the moon is a magnificent god. I see the stars as messengers, but then again I have always been doomed.

III.

Light-Being Boy insists on a personal audience with the guru. We meet him in the midst of stars. Quite apart from his preternatural calm and polite authenticity, the guru has the charm and poise of a movie actor. He neither sits nor stands. Indeed the brochure tells us he once appeared alongside Cary Grant in a mountain car chase after treatment from a Bulgarian acupuncturist. Grace Kelly is his wife. He moves with the camera along the lighting and the boom mikes. Light-Being boy is irradiated, naturally.

The guru drinks Bourbon and lights an unfiltered cigarette.

“You punks don’t know nothing,” he says.

We are surrounded by cushions and velvet drapes.  I stand back and admire the activity of the virgins who serve in the temple. I pick a tiny bird from the hair of one maiden. It starts to sing. It flies out the window and dies in the heat of the sun.   

“The game’s up, Shorty,” says Light-Being Boy.

Instantly, he falls in love.

IV.

We ride into the desert. Light-Being Boy spreads a blanket on the sand, goes off to meditate while I picnic on Scotch eggs and slabs of luncheon meat. He is approached by wolves, hunchback dwarves, all manner of alien life spinning in the air. The sand begins to bubble. I grow bored, start chipping at the rock with my fingernail. The parade around Light-Being Boy goes on interminably.

Clouds gather. A tunnel of rain falls around Light-Being Boy. Miniature cacti sprout on the palms of his hands and his flesh becomes snow. He starts to levitate. I catch the first whisper of dawn, hold my breath up to the morning star. Everything stops except the ice shower over Light-Being Boy, who at this stage has become transparent. All kinds of mediocre dramas play out on his televisual frame. I catch sight of game shows, Westerns, celebrity makeovers. A tele-evangelist tries to sell me living space in Iowa. I soon fall asleep.

When I awake, Light-Being Boy is standing over me trying to feed me grapes and olives.

“I have no room!” I shout.

He has decided he must love Cult Girl with the love of the ages if he is to rescue her.

The rest of the action is probably impossible. The rest of the action is possibly improbable.  “That is possibly true,” I say, improbably

V.

Light-Being Boy tries to bring the love of the ages into the ashram. He carries it in a silver box and opens it in the courtyard where it rises like smoke and crawls into the cracks in the adobe walls. The devotees become intoxicated; some lie under palm trees or beside the pond in a state of supernal ecstasy. We step around them, trying to pick our favourite from the pantomime of bliss. The guru appears, corpulent and enraged, plucking at the feathers in his beard.

He lays a theory of non-duality on Light-Being Boy, who staggers across the courtyard like a tossed theology. What follows is the duel of the dual/non-dual:

The guru conjures eyes from the atmosphere; eyes, rich and penetrating; eyes, fixed and floating. He insists the eyes are one. Light-Being Boy counters with a jab of existential union, maintains his ontological separation but acknowledges his relational paradigm is in a state of flux. The two roll around in the dust for a while.

During the fracas, I wander into the holy of holies. I find Cult Girl standing at the altar, arms outstretched in a pose of eternal supplication. A stream of tiny bluebirds pours from her mouth to the sound of bells and trinkets. Her eyes are open and empty.

“Where did we go wrong, Cult Girl?” I ask. “How can I help you?”

Without altering her form, she pirouettes and includes me in her glossolalia. I receive the flow of bluebirds willingly, reach a rapture ill defined in books. I promise to devote myself to her cult of cults. She pulls wonders from the sky – the wonder of our father, the wonder of our mother. She shows me childhood and adolescence. I understand her longing.

Postscript I

Light-Being Boy reports an astral conversation between himself and Cult Girl which took place during his time of meditation on desert retreat:

Boy: Cult Girl! Cult Girl! I love you Quilt Girl!

Girl: Save me, Light-Bean Boy!            

Boy: ???  

Boy: Cult Girl! Cult Girl! They’re using television to alter your brain waves.

Girl: They use advertising. They control my mind!

Boy: I’ll save you, Quilt Gril!

Girl: ?#%?

Postscript II – The Electric Spine

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