Number Forty One ©

Sa saw Atee floating in the water.

The sun was smiling upon the whole beach. Atee knew Sa was trying to swim to her and, kept laughing to herself when the waves pushed him away.

Sa was so close. And then some dumb kid's float would get in his way. Or a fish would bite his leg.

Atee wasn't even floating that far from the beach. Sa was just a poor swimmer. She kicked, splashing water at him. A wave came and pushed him under.

It wasn't until then that he realized how deep the water was. There was miles and miles below them.

There was a glowing orange fish below, sparkling the water around it. It had crystallic scales, Sa wanted a closer view.

He swam directly below Atee and stared at the creature.

Atee looked around for Sa on the surface, she waited for his head to pop up.

Sa followed the fish as it guided him to its school. He could see it off in the distance. They came in all colors and forms.

They all floated around as if they knew Sa, and were expecting him. Maybe the orange fish was a recruiter.

"There is so much diversity down here" Sa thought. Even what he thought were pebbles and stones seemed to be breathing. Fishes with wings sailed and swallowed worms living in aquatic trees.

Sa marveled over the hugeness of everything. Not only was there a massive volume of space awaiting to be archived with millions of beings, but there was so much business. The pirate fish ate the moss before the stone carrier fish could hold it in between its fins and use it to build a stone home.

Sometimes a large ruling class species would echo orders down to the rest. Sometimes one of its own would rebel and begin attacking the ruler. All the smaller workers would then go into hiding for protection.

As Sa scanned the sponges at the bottom, the ocean floor began popping. Bubbles rose and the stuff the floor was made of was displaced. Some of the sea creatures took notice, but not enough.

Without any further warning, the entire section of ocean bottom erupted. All of the surrounding water ejected into the open sky. The blast was so incredibly loud, Sa thought it may have shattered his bones.

There was so much water in the air, some of the fishes were still able to swim around.

The water continued to rise, Sa saw Atee high above him. He wondered when they would begin descending.

Atee was still flat on her back as if she was still floating on the water. Maybe she was, Sa couldn't tell.

He was ensnared in a air pocket, alone. His own free breathing zone.

The mean fish were still playing their cruel tricks, biting unsuspecting, innocent swimmer fish.

The sky became diluted in color. And then Sa noticed another patch of water had been blasted into the sky, as well. That body was now between the sun and himself, channeling the light.

It was then, when Sa noticed that all around him, water was rising gracefully higher and higher into the sky.

The predatory birds had a good time, easily snatching their meals.

Sa thought this would be a good time to swim up to Atee. Somehow Atee knew because she had rolled over and signaled to him.

Sa kicked off the surface of the water which formed the floor of his air cell, and dove upwards into the water.

It was like a maze. And every fish clique owned their own quarters of the ocean. Sa didn't want to intrude on any of their business.

He had to take a long route and go around many of these aquatic clans. By this time, he was lost.

In fact, he may have un-noticingly entered an adjacent water block. It was hard to distinguish between swimming in the ocean above sea level and under sea level. He couldn't even tell that they were all ascending anymore.

He saw a paradisial tropic tree secreting sweet sap for young crustaceans. Sa swam over to it. As he got closer, he saw many more of the same thing behind it. It was a whole row of utopian shade givers. Somehow, it was all just perfect. Because, the sun was indeed shining upon this place particularly. The pale, sensitive creatures took shelter under these generous canopies.

Sa kept swimming too see what else existed that he wasn't aware of.

He saw a beach. All of the water, literally, splashed against its tender face of sand. Sa wanted to call for Atee but, its hard to talk underwater. Maybe she would show up on her own, despite his efforts. "She has a knack for that" he thought.

Sa noticed there wasn't anything on the beach. But, then he realized everything here was water breathing. Sa and Atee were mistakenly involved.

The water grew thinner and shallower and Soon his head poked through. He took a whiff of the warm, thin air. He had forgotten that he was still high above where the air had been thick and full. Sa kind of liked it, he felt playful from the beach but at peace and accomplished like at the summit of a mountain.

It was nice to finally feel the sun's complete warmth, he thought. Comparatively, it was cold in the water.

The sand was soft and smooth, he had the sensation that it was royalty sand and he was the prince. Maybe there was a castle nearby. Sa didn't even bother looking around.

He only looked at the non-rising water. And then he saw Atee floating there.

Without hesitation, he swam out across the water. He knew she could hear him because she turned her head the other way. He splashed water on her. She skipped her fingers across the surface, flicking water back.

He swam underneath her and waited for her to look around for him. When she turned her head, he let himself rise to her opposite side. He layed flat on his back like she did. She looked back to the sky. They could both feel each other peeking out of the corner of their inner eyes. They didn't ask any questions or think anything. They just felt the world press in against them and then release, pulsating with the energy omnipresent.

Number Twenty Eight ©

Sa watched the buildings pass by.

He saw in his leather seat, his chin resting on his palms, looking out the window of the train. The hills rolled past. The roads went away.

A woman sitting behind Sa kept kicking his seat to the rhythm of the bass in some song in her head. Sa didn't mind.

After a while it was quite meditative. He started to wonder what she looked like. He actually wasn't sure it was a woman, he just made the arbitrary assumption that it was. Possibly, it could be a man. Sa wanted to believe it was an intelligent, beautiful, articulate, very musically inclined woman. He didn't mind if they would only be friends, he was just happy to benefit from her giving him a tune to snooze too.

Sa woke up after falling asleep to the melody she created. It could be her own original creation, as well. Sa just assumed it was the recreation of an already existing beat.

As he awoke, her feet were still pounding percussions into his back. It wasn't loud, it was just light enough for him to feel but no one else to hear.

She might not have even noticed what she was doing. Maybe it just came from her unconscious, it may have been a habit for her to unconsciously tab her feet to exceptional rhythms.

Sa wondered if she travelled alot, if she took this same train every time. He wondered who she was sitting with, if anyone. He wondered what her childhood was like and what made her happy.

Maybe she was wondering who was sitting in front of her. Maybe she wanted to just kick a hole in his seat and have him turn around and peek through it.

He wondered where this train was going and where she was going afterwards. He didn't remember what he had gotten on her for, anymore. It wasn't a problem though. Sa wasn't obligated to be somewhere else. He could be anywhere doing anything in the world and be just fine.

In his mind, Sa began putting sounds to her kicks. Sometimes a cymbal, sometimes a horn, sometimes a snare drum, sometimes a funky guitar chord. His eyes closed themseles and Sa just listened to the music. He wanted more of this band. Maybe they would perform somewhere close by. Maybe he could get them to play for free.

Soon, his questions receded and only a small sliver of awareness was there to experience the melody. There was no other awareness. Just a minuscule slice witnessing this two-footed band orchestrate a hypnotic chant of percussion. It grew louder and more ambient.

Sa's eyes opened, as they always must, after several hours. The music was no longer, Sa hadn't even noticed. His eyes were staring straight ahead into the seat ahead. The person sitting next to him had been replaced. Replaced with another person, pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the local population. They wore tall hats, very earthy colors, thick, heavy jackets- which appeared waterproof. A few of them had glasses, some carried brown cases, very full of traveling belongings.

Few people on the train lived on it. Sa could have been wrong with that assumption, but it seemed logical. They would have to pay for a ticket every stop. Maybe if passengers gave them money, maybe if they would perform and entertain them. Who knows, Sa just knew that everybody on the train looked similar.

He realized that she would probably look like one of them, too. He wanted to picture her differently but it was too good to be true, He thought that everybody probably kicked on the seat in front of them. She was probably not even a she. A man could have been making all those taps against his seat.

He tried to think of something else. His window was really, really clean. As if nobody had ever smudged it, or it was cleaned very frequently. Somebody had to do it, he figured. "What a job" he thought, "Scrubbing windows. Just so that vagabonds like me can see clearly".

He noticed that in the gap between his seat and the window was a space which revealed a very feminine silhouette facial reflection off the adjacent window. "Perhaps she was a she!" Sa was extraordinarily excited with this possibility.

"Her legs must be sore" He thought.

It was a refreshing turn of events.

His attentions returned to the tall man beside him. The man was very remarkably boring. His ere open, his mouth closed, very coarse heavy wrinkles with dry skin. He was clearly awake, but he never spoke or looked in Sa's direction, even to see out of the window. They could have doing off of a cliff or off the track and he would have had no way of being forewarned. Sa always checked out the window to be sure there was rails beneath them. He also liked to watch everything pass them by, and to watch the sky very hesitantly change. Sometimes the clouds transform into new forms. Morphing from one shape to another. With very elaborate pictures, one animal changing can affect the entire picture profoundly. Sa liked those pictures the most. Sometimes it was like watching a movie. Sa didn't have to do a thing but look and everything around him was alive and changing and fascinating.

For hours in a train, Sa wouldn't be bored. He wasn't even alone either. He could speak to anyone and they would reply. If he didn't, they weren't going to disturb him. Everyone left one another alone, mostly. This was the case in many of the places Sa visited.

Once in a while, the being swould be very eccentric. Sa wouldn't stay long in those places because he couldn't relax. Always they kept him at his sharpest with witty questions and compelling, suggestive gestures.

Something happened and Sa was filled with an overwhelming warm smile. He felt everything was in progress. Still incompletelStill perfecting. There was so much waiting for him. Still so much to enjoy. So much to relate to and to be blissful with. So much to be there for. So much that will happen of its own. All in due time. This overwhelming smile just held him warmly. And Sa gave it.

Number Thirty Four ©

Atee turned all of the lights on. She raised them to max. Wherever she went, she was too blinded to think. With her eyes closed she still could see the light. Her eyes were throbbing, they must have been swollen to twice their size. She couldn't even turn off the lights if she wanted too, she couldn't find them. She felt immaterial.

Her skin was warmed. Every once and a while she passed by a source of heat. It must have been the light. Too hot to touch, but she did anyways. She fumbled with the switch. Her fingers went numb and she didn't know how to move them. She pulled away. It was useless.

She brought her hand too her face. She could see a faint red flow outlining its shape.

It began to regain feeling, but only pain. She thought hot lava was flowing through, down her wrist into each finger.

She lost her mind.

Drums and chanting resonated around a central fire. The dancers were missing, where could they be?

Hiding in the bushes?

The dirt was being kicked around by invisible feet. The entrances to the camp were being opened and shut by invisible bodies.

The chants were louder in certain spots, as if an invisible mouth were originating the sound from there.

Rain fell from the sky. The sky lost color with each drop that fell, soon it was pure white. There were no clouds.

The rain didn't affect the fire. But, it soaked her skin. She stepped into the fire. No heat. They weren't real flames.

The trees moved, her hair was blown all around. The wind whispered in her ear. She couldn't hear a thing, she only felt it, tickling.

The rain fell, all of it. The ground was underwater. The water began to move. All the water flowed to the left. She followed, stepping through it. It moved around the twigs and flowers and rocks. Nothing, not a single bug, floated in the water.

Atee kept following it. Over logs, through tall brush. There came ahead a steep, massive hill. The water had no trouble maneuvering up the slope.

Atee layed down flat, hoping the water would carry her but it left her behind. Now she had to catch up.

She dug her fingers and toes into the muddy surface, gaining a slippery grip. She climbed to the top.

The water was flowing like a river down the opposite side. Atee wasn't even tired. She slid down the hill. The water led her to the beach. It flowed into the infinite ocean and disappeared.

Atee swam into the water and layed down on her back. She let the ocean carry her away.

Number Forty ©

Atee was walking through waves of slimy ooze. The slime was omnipresent wherever she stepped.

Finally she stepped out. She stepped into an oasis of steam. The steam sweated all the toxins from her skin. Not a drop of oil remained stuck to her.

A round bowl of steaming water was before her. She lowered herself into it. She lowered her face beneath the surface of the water, keeping her eyes open. She completely relaxed.

The glass beneath her broke and she fell into the sky.

It didn't seem real until she saw the earth colliding into her. She was also still above, watching from the bowl above the sky.

She knew something bad had happened. She wasn't moving, just lying there.

Through the clouds she could see the sun rising from behind the planet. She felt good. At least the sun still rose. At least the trees and flowers could still feel the light and the love.

Even if she couldn't move, she knew she could feel the sun. At least she hadn't fallen into a hole, or a cave.

The steam surrounded this oasis with a perfect mysterious cover. She heard another's steps walking through this myst. She felt so gracious that they didn't get stuck in the ooze. "How many must still be lost" She thought.

Even though she hadn't seen the being yet, an energy of companionship was already present.

She could feel the water rippling towards her. But, the fog was so thick she still couldn't see who had entered the pool. She could feel another sequence of ripples being generated from another direction. Another must have entered without her noticing.

The glass shattered and they fell through. The couldn't see them. The temperature began to rise. The water began to evaporate.

The opened her eyes. The intense light reduced her vision to a blur. She sat up and brushed the dirt off of herself.

Number Thirty Eight ©

Sa was upside down hanging from a tree. He looked across the volleyball net to a kid hanging upside from monkey bars.

He looked to his right across the sandbox to a child hanging upside down from a tree branch.

And to his left, a kid was climbing up a tree and began to get in motion to dangle upside down, as well, with his legs curled around the branch.

Sa looked off towards the horizon where the clouds passed very quickly. The wind was very rapid today.

The kid on the monkey bars began to sway from side to side.

A could older kids began playing with a ball bouncing it back and forth across the net.

Sa borrowed the kids idea and started swaying too.

The other two kids began swaying, as well, before long.

A few young children hopped into the sandbox and began dumping sand into piles.

An adul on a riding lawnmower started up the engine and started driving it across the yard.

Some teen aged kids dribbled a ball on the cement and toss it into a hoop.

A couple young girls drew hopscotch squares onto the ground with chalk.

A helicopter flew overhead, then a woman jumped out with a parachute. The helicopter flew away.

A flock of birds came from the sky and landed on an unused laundry wire. A groundhog and a mole crawled out of the dirt and layed down in the shade, beside a tree.

Sa watched the sky, as the sun slowly moved diagonally across the sky. The clouds stood still and the star moved on its own. Another star emerged from behind the fluffy clouds and it too moved on its own.

Sa noticed how much each leaf moved a slightly different fashion than all the others. The wind made his water. Some of the branches moved, as if their own intelligence instructed them too.

A few beings threw darts at a bull's eye on a tree. Sa just watched.

Number Thirty Nine ©

Sa watched the storm unleash its unprovoked, unchallenged fury upon him.

Lightning struck down the trees standing tall around him. The rain drowned the grass and soaked his clothes. He felt a hundreds pounds heavier. The clouds blocked all moonlight.

The humidity smuggled water into his heart and lungs. His skin was stretched tight, twisting itself around his muscles and bones.

The wind thrashed twigs at Sa like shrapnel from an explosive.

The lightning heated the air, his body wanted to sweat.

He proceded to walk straight ahead. Through the dark. He felt like someone was following but knew that wasn't true.

Who else would sacrifice everything just to find the eye of the storm? Just to sit there serenely among all the chaos. Who else would lie down just to feel the water rising over their face, as branches fell on top of them? Who else would climb a tree and wait for lightning to strike it down, just to experience the fall in perfect darkness? Who else would sing and dance as noisily as they could just because they knew no one could hear? Who else.

Sa embraced the violent winds. He embraced the heated rain and the mad thunder.

He had never felt so comfortable. He wasn't scared, he was so safe and so complete.

Everytime the lightning flashed, the whole sky pregnant with infinitudes of stars was revealed.

Sa sat on a broken tree stump. He realized all the other animals are probably taking shelter too, underground, in caves, under bridges. Sa might have been alone.

He dug his feet into the mud until they were sunken above the ankle. He let himself become entrapped. He stuck out his tongue and tasted the rain.

He drew pictures in the mud with his fingers by the flickering lamp of the storm. He used his elbows as ultra large brushes and his knuckles as medium sized ones. His fingertips were just the right size and sufficed for everything else.

He leaned in and smeared his face in the mud. He didn't want the storm to end.

He got out of the ground and traveled with the storm "It will last forever" he thought, "if I don't leave it."

He wondered if there were ancient cultures who lived in storms. Who traveled with them and ostracized those who left. Maybe the chief would meditate in the center.

Sa felt the winds were weaker in the direction he moved. So he turned around and ran another way. It was so dark, he was lost and confused. He spun in circles as he ran. He had no sense of location whatsoever. Why did his body keep spinning, why did his neck keep swaying and his chin keep bobbing? He waved his arms out wide and his feet took him somewhere.

He thought his eyes were open but it was too dark to tell. He could see just the same when he closed them.

Sa laughed. He saw birds dancing in the sky defying the storm's will, as lightning struck all around them but, missing each time. Other animals must have seen the birds too because he felt a giant wave of courage sweep by. Critters emerged from the ground and acted as if everything was normal. Earthworms and creepy crawlies stuck out their heads. The lightning was too afraid to actually hurt anything with feelings.

The storm wanted beings to believe it was boss but, beneath its front, it was full of warmth.

Maybe this was the secret an ancient culture did discover.

Beings like Sa were last to come out and expose themselves to the storm. Their appearance declared brazenly that they want to see the true face of the storm, "Show me your soul", they declared.

The lightning ceased, the winds fell, the rain stopped. The clouds receded into the depths of the heavens. A single star was chosen from the whole existence and brought glory and light to the world.

Number 16 ©

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Invisible Number 16
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Sa and Atee once met each other for the first time, again, during a dream their first nap together.

Sa was atop a tree. The tree was shaky and it spun Sa in circles. When he looked to the sky, the spinning stopped and Sa nearly awoke. But, he didn't awake because the ground beneath him was too small too ignore. As he stared longer down, Sa's vision zoomed in and everything was larger, as if he were actually among them. Sa lost himself in this experience. Sa was no longer in his own self but an outside observer.

The beings on the ground mingled and sold pretzels and soda and stared up at Sa in his sole tree, thousands of stories high at the top. Atee was buying nachos.

Sa's vision travelled over shoulders at something else's will, not his own. Sa would have faint relapses remembering falling off the tree but, always the scene would rewind and his body again holding onto the top. Sa dove into a hotdog and was almost chewed by a child. Luckily, he came through the other side and everything was new. There were no beings on this side. Sa felt like he was falling again, but he quickly imagined a ledge to land on. Sa's fear forced the ledge to crumble, his stomach jumped and hung itself in the air while Sa fell. Sa's vision slid down into his free-floating stomach. It was like a waterbed. But, another ledge must have manifested itself because Sa's waterbed bursted and Sa was taken away by the current. A inflated raft-float was beneath him and exciting, exhilirating, breathtaking waters layed ahead. The sky was so open and receiving, the water gentle yet fast, urgent and immediate. As Sa came closer to the edge of the drop, a giant valley the size of the grand canyon was before him. Time had paused for just a long enough moment for Sa to leave his body again and witness the magnificience of this landscape. From all around the canyon water flowed to the center. Like steps, a giant circular, round bowl, each step a majestic waterfall larger than Victoria Falls.

Sa's body was struck by a tingling shock. It resonated all around Sa's skin and settled to his spine. It was soothing and kept recurring. All the urgency to act left Sa's soul. The whole force compelling Sa to work towards something was vanquished. Everything was enough, in fact, plenty.
As Sa was centered in this feeling, time began to play. The current pushed all the water off the edges, millions of gallons a second. The noise echoed so extraordinarily ominously, Sa felt he was out of place, as if he had been sent back in time to the making of a planet or to the extinction of a species. Within him,an irresistable sensation of being out of place, yet also,this is home, this is the only place to be, nowhere else. Sa was so tiny, his raft just the perfect size and as he noticed it, many other beings were relaxing on their own rafts. It was a tremendous, profound, super-significient waterpark.

Sa was pulled back out of his stomach, out of the other side, through the hotdog and back to eye level with the tourists and sight seers and photographers, journalists and other entertainment media.Sa was reminded that his body was still way high in the tree. His vision looked back to the sky. The sky began moving away and the tree grew higher. Both the ground and the sky moved away from him. Sa was being placed somewhere in the middle of them. The world was growing, the universe expanding. Sa felt like he was shrinking but knew that the space between spaces was only becoming more.Sa looked down at the ground even further away, the tree didn't even spin or wobble anymore.

Atee stood at the bottom, the only one not interested in the Sa-Tree spectacle. She sat on a bench and ate her nachos and watched all of the flowers bloom larger and larger. The bench she sat on grew larger, the distance between her and the beings around her grew larger. All of them were pushed even farther away. She looked to the sky and the clouds were being fragmented as they were stretched too thin. The sky was peeling apart. Each layer, each skin, each a new hue and new tones. Lighning struck and the flames grew. The flames began eating the tree. But the tree grew, but the flames grew. The media's interest grew, anticipation and expectations grew.
Lightning struck again, two bolts struck one another.

Atee was the only one watching the lightning battle itself. Everyone was looking in one direction, nobody even turned around to see.

Sa looked over at Atee. His vision moved over to her. Everyone was looking at Sa but Sa hadn't put one eye to them. Sa could feel the heat of the fire and imagined it extinguishing but, it would not be so. The collective will of all the beings was dominant over the will of Sa's. Sa didn't really mind much anyways, just seeing Atee, although miles below made Sa feel less lonely. Atee must have felt someone looking at her because her eyes left the feuding thunderstorms and was directed right to where Sa's eyes were. She knew they were there although she couldn't see them.

Lightning struck a third time and the tree split. The wood splintering, the fire falling, the bottom half of the trunk fell to the ground. The top half was floating off the ground. Sa clung to the top still gazing into Atee's eyes.

The newspeople didn't want the top tree to fall, they wanted it to burn. The fire was dangerously close to Sa's feet. All the blood from Sa's limbs travelled to his feet. And with it travelled Sa's perception.In fact, the perception left its feet and went through the flames. Inside the flames was nothing. It was all an act, the true nature was just jealousy. The flames were just expression of jealousy, nothing but an illusion. Inside it was not even warm or burning, just silence.
Sa kept moving through the sap of the tree. The ghost of the bottom tree still remained, enough for Sa to reach to ground.

Sa moved to the bench and eye level to Atee. Sa came alive on that bench. Atee still staring into Sa's eyes, but not anywhere near the tree. The tree was gone. All the people gone. All the people, gone. Sa and Atee sat on the bench. The lightning gone, the sky gone, the expanding spaces, gone.

Sa's sight left itself once again. It went straight ahead in one direction. It went to where Atee was watching Sa. Their perceptions met each other between their eyes. And kept moving. Sa moved into her eyes and looked through and Atee looked through Sa's eyes. They both saw nothing, they blinked and they saw themselves, they blinked again and they were together.

The sun was high above them. They awoke, both already entirely awake, facing each other. Both together, as themselves.