by SJ Cavaletti
“Wow,” I said, my voice like smoke, “I have no idea what this temple is but…”
“Feels special, right?” Simone said, her voice also soft, as it felt appropriate to whisper.
The structure, like an inverted funnel, reached at least three stories, over fifty feet high, reaching its elegant, pointed spire to the heavens. It appeared to be fully clad in gold leaf, blinding at certain angles in the strong desert sun. The bottom layer of this structure was tiered, terraced. Mostly enclosed but with the occasional window carved out of the golden layers to let in air to its visitors.
Simone unloaded my wheelchair from the chariot and we went nearer. As we did, the ancient and soothing sound of Tibetan singing bowls welcomed us, and somehow urged us to take a vow of silence. The surrounding Gypsies seemed solemn, too.
We found a singular door and went inside.
It was completely hollow inside to inside of the spiky spire. It was dim, but the sun outside cast just enough light inside to feel like we moved by candlelight. In the center of the round space sat the singing bowls. Three women, two with braids and one with a shaved head, eyes closed, stroking their mallets along the rims of the different sized bowls. An orchestra of peace.
Strewn from side to side, and throughout the space were washing lines of string, and attached to that, hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny envelopes of all shapes and colors. Some with writing. Some without.
Simone and I made our way around, walking in a circle in awe, our thoughts floating away involuntarily, as if taken over by the spirit of the place. But then, a low hanging envelope caught my eye.
It read: Prayer for the Universe. I heard a nearby group of Gypsies whispering and broke my silence. “What are all these notes?” I asked Simone, quietly.
“Not sure.”
“They’re prayers, wishes…” a voice said behind me.
Simone looked behind and I turned around the see a very short woman, not much taller than I was in my chair. She continued, “Do you mind if I put mine there?” She pointed to the low hanging string next to me. “Not sure if I can reach any others.”
I moved out of the way. “Of course.”
She attached her envelope with a silky ribbon. She had created the envelope with care. An intricate design painted on it and a wax seal.
Short Lady turned to us when she finished and Simone and I suddenly realized we’d been staring. But Short Lady didn’t mind.
“I take it you two haven’t ever been to Uyu? If you don’t know what the temple’s about?” Her elfish face asked.
“First timers,” Simone said.
“Well, you’ll have to leave something here,” Short Lady purred. She dug around in her bag and handed us each an envelope, just like the one she’d hung, with identical string and two pencils like the ones handed out at mini-golf.
“Oh… wow… thanks…” I took mine, almost bashful from the sudden, undeserved gift. Warmth illuminated Simone’s face. This felt special.
“Put anything you want in there. There’s a card to write on. Words that you want to reach the heavens. The whole temple will go up in smoke on the last night and with it, our dreams just might reach the powers that be.”
Short Lady smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling with crow’s feet, giving it away that despite her girlish size, her wisdom might very well have been years deep. “I got to go. Have a great burn.” And she left.
I handed one envelope and a pencil to Simone. She stared at it with the same level of contemplation I felt in my heart, too, right now.
It reminded me of the time that El and I had talked about three wishes. We had just finished an epic sex session, only about six months into our courtship. We were in bed, my head on his bare chest, trailing a finger from his sternum to his belly button, listening to his heartbeat into my ear.
“If you had three wishes, what would you want?” He had asked.
“Fuck. That’s tough.” I thought, but not too long because if it were a real-life situation, I would have stewed on it for weeks before uttering a damn word to the genie. But this was just a game. “Okay, world peace. A totally balanced planet, like I mean, there’s enough resource for everyone and we stop killing the damn place and also… maybe one for me? So… I don’t want to get any diseases that are really painful. Whatever that means. Though I know leaving interpretation to a genie would be dangerous.”
El thought about my choices but didn’t comment on them.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Yeah, yours are really good. The first two I might have to copycat but my third? I want healthy children.”
I sat up so I could look him in the face. “Surely you wouldn’t waste a wish on that?”
“Why not? It isn’t a given.”
“No, I guess not. But it’s likely, anyway.”
“Likely doesn’t win the race.”
That was the day that we decided we would have three.
Now here I was, standing in some spiritual pagoda in the middle of the desert. I looked up at a million dreams flapping on strings above me, knowing none of my own have yet to come true.
“What are you going to write?” Simone asked as she started writing something on hers.
“I don’t even know.”
Simone went back to concentrating on her own hymn and I took my little pencil in hand, slid an index card out of the pretty envelope and wrote: Forgiveness.
24
Elias
Present Day
Uyu
* * *
“Man, it’s been too long, my brotha!” Drake grabbed me around my shoulders and pulled me in for a man hug as we walked to our bikes.
Our bromance hadn’t been on a date for almost a year. Drake moved to L.A. to be with Maeve only a month after they met at last year’s Uyu. I was happy for him. He and Maeve were perfect for each other. Same interest in music, poetry, leather… the color black. Two deep hearts and individuals with so much potential. And Drake needed a tough woman like Maeve. He was too trusting sometimes, but she was always there to taste the crumbs and make sure he was on the right path.
Happy as I was for him, I really missed Drake. Once Liz left Seattle, my friendship with him was one of the few things I had left of substance. Now that was gone, I had contemplated many runaway options. Doctors For Humanity being one of them. I didn’t need to stay in one place. I didn’t even need to be in a safe place.
We rode out along the crusty surface of the earth, alive only because of the dust particles attacked our heels when we disturbed them with our bike wheels.
Drake and I hit up the temple, because it was a Wednesday kind of thing to do. Along our ride, I told him about DFH and the fact that maybe I needed to take my life of service to the next level.
I told him about the compensation package. He wasn’t impressed. “They don’t pay very much. Shit bro, I made that much every month running gigs.”
“Well, the salary is supposed to reflect commitment to volunteerism,” I suggested.
“Pzzzt. Yeah. And that’s really nice and all but what about your student loans?”
“I barely have anything left on those buuuu…”
The structure before me stopped my thoughts dead. The pagoda. The stupa. The temple. I’d seen it from a distance, but the omnipresent dust haze had obscured its full wonder. Now, closer and on the other side of the sheer curtain of gypsum particles, a golden, exotic-shaped building rose from the ground. It was beautiful and grand but not vulgar. The shape reminded me of an ear trumpet, the old devices in Victorian times, for those who needed help hearing. Like the spirits in the sky listened through the pointed end on top and inside the funnel, whispered all the tiny prayers of us pleading little people below.
We parked our bikes.
“Dude,” Drake said in awe, “This is literally the best temple I’ve ever seen. It’s not as, what’s the word? Not as complex as others in previous years, but damn. That gold is breath-taking.”
I nodded, and
we walked closer. Though from a distance it seemed like a simple upside-down funnel, once closer, the intricate carved out details on the sides of the building showed craftsmanship and a love of beauty.
Drake ran his hand along the side of the gold-painted walls as he followed me to the door. I started to enter but…
“Shit!” I whispered loudly and stopped entering so abruptly that Drake bumped into me.
“Man? What?” He asked.
Silently, I used my hands to shoo Drake back, far back, anywhere but here. He shuffled over his feet, about twenty feet back, then refused. “What the hell, dude. You see a ghost?”
“Liz is in there.”
Drake’s eyes widened, and he put his hand over an o-shaped mouth. “But wait, I thought you two were cool now?”
“We are but…”
But years of wishes. The Uyu temple was the place where once a year, I allowed myself to think about Liz. Not that I didn’t think of her year round, when little things made me think of her smile or her quirky way of looking at the world. It was just that apart from here at Uyu, in the temple, I’d push those thoughts from my mind as quickly as possible.
And now, the manifestation of her, within the very spot I muttered my hopes and dreams once a year? That was a bit too much. A bit too stigmata for my liking. I wanted my privacy in there and I wanted to give her some, too.
Something caught Drake’s eye behind me. “Simone!” He waved his long, unmissable flagpole arm in the air. “Oh, they’re coming,” he added, quietly, as if I needed to know.
I rolled my eyes. I swallowed down the inevitable and turned to see Liz and Simone coming toward us. She looked delicious, as always. The ground was bumpy as she headed toward us and her juicy, natural breasts did a samba inside her bralette top. Her arms, exposed and tanned, were more toned than ever. But even those details that made my dick twitch didn’t compare to the look on her face.
It reminded me of the first time I woke up to her in the morning when she let herself sleep barefaced next to me. No mask. No augmented reality. Just naked skin. Undressed eyes. And a smile that spoke a truth I didn’t yet know.
This was all harder than I thought. Being “friends.” It was one thing to contact each other via email or the occasional social post, but quite another to have her pheromones fuck me up in person. It was the difference between an addict talking about going to a bar and actually being in one. All I wanted to do was suck her down.
Thankfully, Simone snapped me out of it. “Hey guys,” she sang out. “The temple is gorgeous!”
“I know,” Drake said. “You guys are lucky. Nicest one I’ve ever seen and we’ve been coming, like… five years now?” Drake turned to me to confirm.
“Yup.”
Drake continued, “Last year was a gothic cathedral, and I thought it was unbeatable. Flying buttresses in the middle of the desert? Something you don’t see every day. But it was less spiritual and more ostentatious. You know? This? An atheist wouldn’t refuse to pray here.”
Simone nodded, listening but her averted eyes were more interested in Drake’s pecs.
I wanted to ask Liz what she left inside.. But that was like asking a lawyer to break client confidentiality. It was a non-conversation. So instead I asked, “Where you off to now?”
Liz looked at Simone, then back at me. “We were supposed to ask people here what their favorite installations were, but we were so awestruck we haven’t asked anyone yet. So we’ll ask you… any suggestions? Your favorite art so far?”
“Oh my God,” Drake rushed, excited to play tour guide, “Over at December there are three sea life sculptures. A whale, a jellyfish with huge flowing tentacles and a sea turtle. It will blow your mind. I wanted to go back at night one day. Have you guys seen Seaspiracy?”
He and Maeve had just become vegans and were now evangelists. But I didn’t come to the temple to save the oceans. I came here to save myself.
“Drake. Now’s not the time…”
“Dude. It’s that important.” But thankfully he didn’t preach. “Anyway, regardless of your views on the planet, it’s very, very worth your time.”
Liz’s amused face soaked in Drake’s enthusiasm. I had to admit, something inside me pulled together, seeing Liz interact with my best friend. I had the same feeling the night we were all out. When worlds collide and knit neatly together, it has a way of making you feel whole again.
But all too soon, a glint of light flickered off the edge of the pagoda and stung my eye, reminding me that sometime this week, I’d be ripping off the bandage exposing a very open wound that I was pretty sure neither of us had recovered from.
Liz gave me one last look. Enigmatic eyes haunted by mysterious confessions she’d likely left in an envelope somewhere within that temple. Would I still recognize her writing? Sure as hell I would. Would I look around for the envelope?
No way. I didn’t even want to go in there anymore. Suddenly, I realized that all the things I’d wished to have the courage to say or the chance to speak, all the little pieces of paper I’d sent up to the sky as smoke every year before this one, they’d regenerated like a phoenix into this very moment. Liz was here. I didn’t need to go inside and wish for closure.
The Gods had done what they could and gave me the opportunity. It was my job to take it. The question was… when?
Liz gave a nonchalant wave. “Well guys, see you later, maybe? Have a nice prayer session. Or whatever you call it. You definitely don’t come out of that place the same you went in.”
Simone also waved, and they started off when I called to Liz. “Hey!”
She turned around.
“I meant to say that I told Jasmine about the RollerBunny thing. She’s going to be at your camp for two-thirty, if that’s okay? Mind waiting for her and going over? Maeve’s going to join too I think.”
Drake nodded.
Liz smiled, but her blue eyes gave her away. They were just too transparent. Something about seeing the girls made her apprehensive. But it was too late. She should have said something last night because there was no way for me to stop them all from meeting now.
I was apprehensive, too. The thought of Maeve and Jasmine prying into our business was not one I wanted to entertain. And I was pretty sure one of them would. My brain told me to keep these ladies apart unless supervised, but I had promised Drake time today so I couldn’t go. And not telling Jasmine about Dig Deep and the halfpipe would have been selfish. Not the Uyu spirit.
25
Liz
Present Day
Uyu
* * *
It was two-thirty, and I finished rubbing some sunscreen in before heading out to wait for Maeve and Jasmine. Simone had already joined RollerBunny in the common area of camp. I’d sent her out first. Like a bodyguard. Not that she knew it Call me a wimp. I had survived a near death accident and lived to tell the tale, to continue on with my bad self, but some little Hawaiian girl in her twenties made me squirm. I just knew she didn’t like me.
I could feel it in my bones.
Now, it was two-thirty on the dot and I wasn’t one to be late. I hoped Maeve and Jasmine wouldn’t be late either. They weren’t exactly my friends, so I wouldn’t know how to handle something like tardiness. When you know someone, you know if they are a one minute, five minute or ten minute late kind of person.
I took my anxious ass out of the motorhome home, still mumbling to myself about how they better not be late when I turned the corner and saw Maeve’s waify, white skin and Jasmine in her tanned glory.
“Oh, hey!” Simone said. “Just the girl we’ve been waiting for. Got the keys for the chariot, babe?”
I wiggled them in the air. Jasmine tucked her skateboard under her arm (of course she had to be that cool) and she and Maeve came over to me, giving me hugs and hellos. All just like it would be with a gaggle back home. And I had to say, even though these women reminded me of El, they reminded me of myself, too. My entire life, I’d been the woman that surrounded he
rself with other women. I loved female friendships. Cherished them and sought them out.
Which is why the apprehension around Jasmine had to be real? True though, it was like me to be jealous. If El or Jasmine had shown any sort of body language or words resembling lust or love, my insides would have gone mad, straitjacket required.
But nothing like that was happening.
Simone and I had become adept in our system of loading and unloading the chariot. I swooped myself up and made my way to the driver’s stool and she flung my chair aboard. Jasmine and Maeve waited on the side for us to finish, for them to find a place. Jasmine’s long princess-like locks flirted with the breeze. I didn’t even think there was a breeze. Maybe Hawaiians carried one with them.
I turned my attention to RollerBunny and away from the gurgle in my stomach, “Hon, if you want a ride, Simone can get your chair on the platform. You’ll just have to sit on the back with me?”
“I can help, too,” Jasmine said. And for some reason it ached that she was being nice to RB.
He gave the chariot a once over. “Why not? I guess it’ll be like the back of a boat, dangling my feet over the sea of gypsum.”
I was already situated high in my captain’s seat and Simone, Maeve and Jasmine worked to get RollerBunny onto the chariot platform behind me, sitting with his legs out in front of him, facing the back of the vehicle.
Jasmine was the last to leave him. “You okay?”
“Yeah, thanks, chick.”
I wasn’t looking at them, deliberately pretending to fiddle with the controls and have a prolonged look at the gas gauge. But I heard her ask, “How did you end up in a wheelchair?”
She was so natural. She asked, almost as a child does. Like there was no reason not to ask. No reason to pretend to ignore. It has always been my pet peeve when I could see in someone’s eyes they wanted to know about my condition but didn’t ask. Playing it cool. Like people who say they don’t see the color of someone’s skin. Bullshit. Just ask. Acknowledge.