vOYAGE:O'Side

by Francis Kroncke

CHAPTER 6

  Frak has been unsure about his queering with Jerd. He misunderstood at first when he saw two men embracing in bed. In time, he accepted it, as he has so many queer thoughts and event. But as to his own embracing of Jerd, he has no way to image it or find a word. It is just as how perplexed he felt when he first encountered hor and the magnetic needle, now compass. This queering is something one had to see, observe, make part of one’s new sense, then accept. So in time he has come to accept Jerd as a revelation from Our Father. How else?

  This queering with Jerd is not something which has come to him in an easy and incremental fashion. Rather it has hit him like a bolt of lightning—like the exploding lance of light that he has seen sunder a mast or two, usually on a dry night without expectation. Like that explosion of light, one day, while inside his room, there was a knock on the door...Jerd enters—never to leave!

  What annoys, fascinates, amazes, intrigues and baffles Frak is that Jerd so readily accepts the relationship. So readily makes submission part of his being, not just his everyday habits, but as part of himself. Jerd is not simply a ritual co-celebrant, no, it’s quickly evident that he lives to submit—that submission fulfills him. Since Jerd is a male, it perplexes Frak how this can be so. But Jerd goes about the day happy and chatty; sing-songing at times. Frak thinks long and hard about the queerness of Jerd. What is Our Father revealing through him—through us?

  Up to this time, during all their travels, neither Frak nor Brok has ever discerned the circularity of their route. Now, insightfully, Frak does...that they are rounding a globe. At first, they simply go this way and that with the wind, trusting in the protection of Our Father. Brok states that he himself is not unlike the small compass needle—his to go this way and that driven by the mystical and magical presence of Our Father, of his Will.

  “Will,” Brok explains, demands unswerving trust in wherever the ocean wind blows them...trusting that it is where Our Father wants us to go. As such will is the word which fits Frak’s insight into the maps and their memory of the past and their enabling travel into the future—maps make them aware and in the presence of His Will. Through the maps Our Father has allowed Frak to see as He sees, to remember as He remembers. More! To be present with Him. Maps lead them to souls upon whom they feast...to lade the ship for their longed for passage to the far-away land of heaven.

  What Frak senses is that he and only he knows that Our Father is on the ship with them—always! has been and will be.

  At moments, Frak’s mind shut down—over-loaded, satiated, drowned in all the queer knowing and feelings that course through him day after day like ocean waves endlessly pounding the beach. The interconnection between all that he is sensing becomes most clear through his and the crew’s first encounter with another strange, alien, and queer spiritual vision.

  Vision. Back then, there had been only one vision...singular because there was no knowledge of any other. Magx was a Wiz and Lon was the Moon. Frak and his people knew only this. It was knowledge which knew of no other vision. Life was simple, not complex.

  In like manner—simply listening to Our Father...for though he has adopted and embodied Brok’s ways of thinking and feeling, Frak is still a simple soul, so where there had been Lon and Magx there is now only Our Father...it is an easy substitution...life is still simple, not complex.

  It wi also simply accepted that Jerd has come to him—Our Father wills it! It has never crossed Frak’s mind, not an image does he hold, of the ritual of submitting except as the special ceremony where new males formed a bond with and are accepted by the crew—as mates. For him, it’s practice and meaning resonates with the long-forgotten ritual the sharing of his blood with Magx in the ceremony of big. There, Magx carefully pricked his magical third-hand-of-one-finger and let blood flow—a streamlet of blood which he pressed against Frak’s penis. Cock to cock they became one is one. But this cock sharing was a reserved ritual, a special highlight of the bonding ritual initiation of big. Now, it has become a daily act between Frak and Jerd, as regular as eating breakfast upon rising.

  All Frak’s insight into and understanding of the vision of Our Father is about to change...as he follows a map, one he knows will take him to the land of the Nephi...little does he know about how their vision will also radically alter his own, once again.

  The Nephi. In Frak’s mind he is in his private room back at the moment of discovery, drawing the map which, unaware but incrementally revealing, leads to them.

  The Nephi. On his map, their land rises up at the top of the incredibly long coastal land which Frak draws, combining its length and breath, as a snake’s hood...like the unforgettable king of snakes which had hypnotized him and killed a man with one strike back after a take away in a jungle which teemed with snakes...so he finds his hand drawing this map as hypnotically as the king snake had frozen his eyes and drew him closer. He draws the land starting with a thin tail—which he now realizes is where the raging tempest beset them when they had sailed so far south that south had become north...that place where the storms had been most fierce and when Thanksgiving and Sacrifice was first made known to Frak...it is this land that begins as a tail in the south and ends in a broad shroud up north...ending after the warm turned to hot, so hot that none of them dared to beach and attack the coastal settlements, not for a full moon cycle. Following this snaky route, only now as the torrid heat ebbs and cooler breezes temper their sails and brows do they arrive in the land of the Nephi, which he soon comes to learn rules almost the whole northern sector of the snake’s hood.

  Until now, the Nephi are known only to Brok, but he knows them solely as a seafaring people—having encountered them more than once and, although they shared stories of their travels, his respect for them was always tempered by a suspicion that they said less as they spoke more. He does not consider them friendly seafarers. Moreover, he has never been here before to their homeland—not even as a guest on their ships, only meeting with them on the common lands they explored. His knowledge about them consists of tales told to him by his fathers but only after he swore his lips to secrecy. Tales told in hushed tones, at times whispered to him—muffled words real and spectral; ethereal—Wizard incantations and secrets. Secrets which said that if you ever discover their homeland that it would be best to avoid disembarking, rather, Pray to the Father and flee!

  So when Frak brings him the map—this freshly sketched and measured map of where they had been and...with eyes cold as a dead man’s...of where they are going, Brok drops to his knees, throws himself prostrate before Frak and moans—bellows a sound beyond cry and plea, with a quavering forlorn trill that creeps slowly up Frak’s legs, wraps itself like a serpent coiling about his body—a horrifying sound that whirls and swirls around his head, so blinding him with a light so harsh and achingly painful that at once Frak senses that it is alive—a living light...as such Frak’s vision of the Nephi opens unto him.

  This is not a vision once seen and then forgotten, no, it alters his sight...a vision which is a way of seeing. Oddly, Brok’s condition quickly reverses....he rises up, swats at and shakes his robes as if dusting off after a trek on a muddy day, but standing as if nothing much has just happened—no words to Frak, simply Brok stepping back and going about his day. Our Father speaks in mysterious ways!

  Henceforth, for Frak there is never to be another day which is just a day as previously known. No, now he can see, so he intuits, peer deeply as Our Father wants him to so sense—it is his to intensely peer and so behold! Our Father’s Will...that he meet the Nephi.

  Peering. All around Frak sees the light and the dark, the clear and the muddied, the hard and the soft, the true and the false—through intense, at times, passionate peering, he moves forward as the Father’s chosen servant.

  Frak leaves his cabin as he hears Brok call to the troops. Brok stands upon his ledge in regal posture and with stentorian voice begins to prepare the crew. “Nephi,” he names them. Then as to their number, he raises his arms, circl
ing time and again to impress upon his troops how numerous they are...more numerous than the jungle trees of the hot lands...more numerous than the mountains of snow in the north lands.

  Brok’s dance-like hand and arm movements draws them all into a tight, conspiratorial clutch. He lowers his voice almost to a whispers, revealing his tactics. To raid such a tribe they will have to sneak ashore... after lowering the raiding boats and rowing half-way, all hunched over, they are to slip into the water, swim near blindly under a darkling moon with just their chins skimming the waves, then wade to the beach and catch them by surprise...startle and confuse them with terror at sunrise! There is no other way, Brok shouts: “Deus Vult—It is Our Father’s Will!” As Brok’s clan fathers had whispered this secret, so is he attacking the Nephi...all know that there is no other way to battle them because they are a most fierce and brave people...ones who possess a special power—as the tales warn, who “turn humans into swine! Into slithering snakes! Into raging madmen who cut out and eat their own hearts!” With such images does Brok curdle their hearts so that they—crew, one and all—will dread confronting, be driven to mercilessly slaughter all...but at a deeper level Brok wants them to fearfully respect these Nephi. He knows that they have a mighty vision which can change the world—which he does not want his troops to hear, become enchanted by...for he knows that the Nephi’s greatest weapon is not one that slays the flesh but which controls the mind. For him, the are evil soul-feasters!

  As the Brok’s revered Wizards had decreed, so he repeats over and over—Fear them! For they are a people of uncountable number and of a howling power—of a spiritual power so potent that it can turn invisible spirits into living being...turn animals into humans...most terribly, raise the dead!

  Brok spins tale after tale as they have been mysteriously secreted to him...one about how the Nephi had sailed down from the stars...not just from the stars as the sky of Earth, but from stars as Earths of their own. It is dumbfounding and heart-numbing, yet since Brok, a chosen servant says it, it is truth...as revealing Our Father’s will.

  Oh, so true! Is Frak’s reaction as he listens to Brok. But Frak has moved beyond Brok’s knowledge—he has been raised by Our Father to a priestly role...to one whom Our Father has chosen to be One with here on Earth. This honored election and anointment was revealed to him during the recent strange encounter with Brok where Brok had cast himself on the ground moaning but rose seemingly totally unaware of the vision that had been opened for Frak. Only Frak now knows that he sees in an especially queer manner—he peers as the Nephi peer...their vision is his vision.

  Frak’s vision reveals that the Nephi have been living among humans for thousands of years. More, that at every moment they are in direct conversation with their own queer God and work His hand. In their special way, they have brought innumerable souls from other worlds and embodied them in human form. Could Frak explain to Brok and the crew that there are other worlds? The crew has accepted that there are strange lands—what Frak calls queer lands—but beyond the stars? It would all seem too preposterous; too queer.

  Brok, until now steadfastly true to his sworn secrecy, knows that he has to share one secret...he hopes that it will strengthen the crew’s belief in his leadership—lingering in his mind is a suspicion about Frak, about his real purpose on this voyage...deep down in the darkling corners of his mind he wonders, Is Frak one of them? How else did we get here? So Brok speaks about having seen one of the Nephi’s holy plates—which had been given to them by their God. Of all the holy things stolen and taken away by Brok’s father’s-father’s-fathers, this golden plate he boasts, “Is the most powerful! It’s magic makes the dead never to die!”

  The men are silenced by this singular claim. Brok’s words fascinate. He is truly a chosen servant! courses through their collective mind.

  Brok conjures an enchantment through his mighty wizard words. The crew is clenched in an absorbed silence as they watch Brok act out his first encounter with the golden plate...how he with magical incantation approached it...how through proper homage the magic of the plate became his. In their collective imagining, the crew sees Brok gaze upon the Nephi plates and they are enthralled in unison with him as the plates throb golden and spike with flares of a most grand and bedazzling power.

  Brok trembles such that they see and tremble with him as he recounts that he has read the plate, using his magical power as a chosen servant. Yet, what he next tells them, strikes all dumb, deeply mute and numb in body, mind, and soul. He shares that the golden plate spoke to him...that as he read it he was transported to a time and a place of a most powerful dream, a time and a place where he saw himself as an eternal being—ethereal, a body of light, not of flesh...as a mighty power not unlike Our Father. Ah! He knows that they cannot hold this revelation, that it is too, too queer. So he states that his mighty power is surely not equal to Our Father, but like his—a power which enables humans to live forever among the stars and when they so desire to descend into a male body to couple with women to create beings to populate other stars. What? How? All this Brok struggles to explain, but within a breath he senses that he has failed to instill in them the full depth and queerness of this fearsome knowledge—failed, except for Frak.

  Frak clearly understands all. Arrrggghh! Suspicion rises one again as Brok fears Frak’s insight, his own mighty power. Not that Frak will usurp his leadership or seek to kill him but that he has a more intimate knowledge of Our Father—jealous...that Frak is even someone greater than all the favored chosen sons.

  In truth, Frak has grasped why they have to invade the Nephi. It is Our Father’s Will! Clearly, it is His Will that Brok on this voyage should discover this land of the Nephi, raid and steal more golden plates. Frak could read Brok’s mind and heart before Brok could hear himself talk or feel. Frak hears the Wizards and fathers so charging Brok to steal the magical and potent golden plates of the Nephi!

  What Frak knows which Brok does not is that—to conquer the Nephi—it has to be an invasion from within, not from without—more of a betrayal than a raid and battle. So Frak is compelled to speak, steps forward and draws the crew to him while they are one mind in this collective fascination...step up and reveal what only he knows to be Our Father’s Will.

  Yet, Frak knows deeply that his stepping forward might be taken as a challenge, more, as the usurpation of Brok’s authority and leadership, but he must...so, blessed by Our Father, he speaks with such authority and command that it is near impossible for Brok and the crew to resist him. However, although he speaks clearly, they do not understand all, only partially. More, although he does nothing overtly to directly diminish Brok, it is clear and evident that the crew is resisting him and with collective furtive eyes searching out Brok’s reaction.

  Awake! Brok yields and so does the crew—submitted! because, as he labors to unfold the vision to them, from out of his mouth Frak has ceased to reference “I,” rather, “Our Father says …” and all believe him—most fervently does Brok believe. At this moment, in words of affirmation by Brok, the crew hears, “Frak is not only a chosen servant but a High Priest of Our Father!”

  In this way, so prepared, do they sail into a bay—leaving only Jerd aboard the ship...a bay whose safe passage none could spy except Frak...all trusting him as he stands side-by-side with Brok—nobly upright with map unfurled at arm’s length eyeing the land and then back to the map, then from map to the land... sentinel: firmly issuing orders...stern shouts which are instant commands, unleashes instant actions—sails lowered, oars dropped, a smaller sail unfurled, then others lowered...truly, the crew is enchanted, obedient and entranced by the words of their High Priest...soon they enter a bay—a tiny, almost hidden body of water that emerges seemingly out of nowhere just after rowing away from a large, inviting but—as High Priest Frak states—seductive false bay which they ignore only after Frak’s insistent warning that it is still the land of the snake, that it is a bay of venomous poison...true to his words, as they sail b
y, Brok up in the crow’s nest observes it as a slice of land so barren that nothing physical or spiritual can exist there, so does Brok calle down to Frak...Frak nodding a confirming true...all this which ends just before a second bay appears—one which bursts open from out of nowhere, flies open like a thunder-cracking explosion, rises up with such suddenness and force that the crew collectively gasps, although none hears a sound because their souls are magically soothed upon sailing into a blue embrace, a sweet kiss of sun-bright, cloudless air...in a flash, all are wrapped within an embraced feeling of friendly welcome...they continue to sail into a harbor, into a tranquility which pleasures them in body and soul in ways no words or images can capture.

  At the entrance—left of the harbor there rises a majestic point, high above, almost piercing the sky, which is lined with people welcoming them. Upon this highest point the Nephi have raised a golden cross—a cruciform figure similar to the sign Brok uses in anointments, yet a bit queer—an entity of stupendous fascination, of such majesty and dazzling splendor that it seems to them to be a golden key, to be a kind of magical key, one which proclaims that the land they are entering contains queer truths of the most amazing kind ...so does Frak translates all that is happening as it happens to Brok and the crew...they without a hint of resistance are submitting to Frak’s wisdom...as they sail farther into the bay all around they find the land to be blanketed with human life and activities—buildings appear and disappear from eye’s range; streets crisscrossing and impossible to number...the whole landscape is a bustling, active, enticing, confounding bubbling of human energy which reaches out to the ship and draws it in as a big fish is drawn smoothly out of the water and into the fishing boat upon a deftly cast hook.

  Frak—through the future-sight vision he has received as High Priest—has already seen what is to come—he continues to interpret the scene as they approach a landing pier where a small troupe of ceremonially clad Nephi wait to greet them. The Nephi are a tall and strong people, broad of shoulder, sun-bright of hair, ocean blue-green of eyes, with a fiery look that cleaves the air in two. Frak immediately takes to them, instantly admires them, aches to befriend them.

  Upon docking, a simply dressed but authoritatively mannered figure, surrounded by a swell of stalwart males, all exuberantly dressed—flamboyant in colors with bright hues and dark, ebony shades that mix in geometric patterns unknown, near unimaginable to Frak—all stalwart in height and muscle and bearing, they stand unarmed but evincing fearless strength—this greeter raises his voice and with a disarming cadence announces to his people that “King Benjamin” has invited “these angels” to his court.

  As all start to process together, something unusual happens to Frak, only him, not the others. He is arrested by a smell, a sniff, an inhale which comes to him in Greeting!...comes and flushes him as the drug gom does but not with its blackout and numbing, no, Frak is Greeted as if with a kiss—the beckoning kiss of a lover...not as he has known in sexual embrace but as he has observed the rose beckoning the bee.

  In court, upon first sight, King Benjamin rises from his throne and without hesitation, somewhat eagerly, walks towards them. His are kingly unfaltering strides—strong and muscular. Strides which are an aspect of flight...flight and light, for King Benjamin is robed by a brilliance of cloth, a cloak more like a cloud, a cloud more like a bursting forth of a waterfall catching one unawares—King Benjamin is a brilliance of luminosity, a throb of alabaster light—a glow laced with pulses of blue and yellow and grey, these vibrating as he walks, these a soothing delight to the eyes, a fascination, a manifestation which all in all is not so much blinding as overpowering—again, waterfall and waves cresting upon one’s eyes—hypnotizing . Yes, the King is a sight, a presence, a gasp and gulp within their being never before encountered—an enchantment of a sacral presence, so is King Benjamin.

  King Benjamin strides right up to Brok, locks forearms with him and searches near eyeball to eyeball for an intense moment, then clasps him with arms straight-out, his muscular hands clamping Brok’s shoulders...clasps and grasps and shouts, “Welcome! Angel on High.” A great shout of joy thunders and rolls as these words are spoken.

  Staggered, baffled, amazed—only Frak silently chuckles and is amused. King Benjamin leads Brok to a seat beside his throne, all the time uttering “Welcome!” time and again as they cross the hall together. Once seated the King has his Wizards—the only way Brok can understand their role—these wizards set before him a golden plate.

  King Benjamin leans forward and reads, speaks in words which neither Brok nor Frak understand but which cause the people to sigh and exhale in adoration—Glory be!

  The King says to Brok, “I remember you.” Brok is now yet more bewildered than ever. His instincts are to reach for his dagger and slay the king—to kill the king and so scatter his people— Brok is King Slayer!...but Frak steps to his side and whispers, “Something on this golden plate describes you.” This only further confounds and dismays Brok.

  As the King curiously gazes upon Brok’s head so Frak interprets, “Your fiery hair. They believe you have been here before.”

  And so it is. For King Benjamin smiles broadly and contentedly—not betraying one aspect of fear or giving in to any warrior trained intuitions about the evil intent of these strangers—he smiles and touches the fringe of Brok’s flocking curls.

  “The fire of the Angel on High!”

  The Nephi shout with words of praise and celebration.

  The rest of the day and night is spent in pleasured conversation, in feasting and in uninhibited sensual indulgence.

  While Frak knows that certain Wizards, like Brok and now himself, can read magical and ancient documents—look at sacred lines and drawings and interpret them—what astounds him about the Nephi is that they write everything down on tablets—everything...even claiming that they have tablets which tell about how the world was created, where people came from, and what God’s Will for all is. Frak knows from his vision that they do not call their queer God “Father.” All of this—the fact of writing, the fact of their being ancient stories in writing, the fact that there was a God who was not Brok’s God, Our Father...all this pushes Frak into deep thought and meditation. That night, he lays in his bed but never sleeps. He is dreaming dreams more vivid and thundering and blistering than ever has he experienced amidst storms and the anger of the sea.

  Within this dreaming it comes to Frak—as map making is the Father’s writing...equally amazing is that the writings of the Nephi are their God’s map!

  Frak rises up, brain on fire, hands craving to draw...to draw the Nephi God’s map.

  Thereafter, as Frak listens to the King’s conversation, in his mind such words transform into lines and images on a map.

  In the morning, King Benjamin welcomes them to the new day and proclaims them “angel messengers” of God—not angel messenger of a queer God, but as of the Nephi’s God. King Benjamin labors with Brok, and he soon understands—Frak sees maps drawing themselves before his eyes—all understand that the Nephi God is also a father, but a father named in words and sounds which neither Brok nor Frak have ever before heard: Yahweh, Eloihim, Messiah.

  Frak knows that there is power in these names, which King Benjamin stresses are “holy names,” so he commits them to eternal memory—drawing a map with each name.

  Frak wonders whether the Nephi God is truly Our Father...or treacherously a demon god, a devil—Dev!—are all the names and titles they give to Him but lures to lead them astray, away from doing the Father’s Will? But he says nothing about this to Brok.

  The tales King Benjamin recounts repeatedly reveal that in the land of the Nephi there is much harmony, but that there had once been much discord. Frak listens as the King swells in rhapsodic memory of his people’s past. He tells of their journey in a ship bigger than any ship that was ever built...an “ark”—not so dissimilar to Brok’s ship, but twenty-times larger—which sailed away from a far-far-far distant land that the ocean had
consumed. A land which they no longer name because they hold it to be fallen into “sin”—sin which is a concept and a sound queer to Frak, and so he inquires.

  King Benjamin stupefies Frak with the tale of Adam and Eve. He lays a great golden plate before him and recounts the story of a once perfect Paradise from which all have been expelled. An expulsion keyed upon the lying and deception of the female, named Eve. It was she, so Benjamin stated boldly and forthrightly, whom the Messiah was coming to redeem, to save, to finally “Restore to Perfection, again.”

  King Benjamin told Frak—for by this time, in the depth of deepest night, Brok has fallen asleep—he shares intimately and secretively solely with Frak...sharedsthis not by the will of himself, so he realizes, but by that of Yahweh...for this stranger, this Frak, has a secret which King Benjamin senses he also has to know...true, while Brok is the “angel on high” itias Frak who is the dreamer and the prophet— who has a new story, whom King Benjamin believes has a golden plate of his own...in this moment, King Benjamin shares “a terrible burden which Elohim has commanded be shared with you.”

  They withdraw from the King’s room. King Benjamin leads Frak slowly down a curving and winding loop of steps into a subterranean chamber. Frak quietly follows with heart-shuddering trepidation, for caves carry only deeply suppressed but as deeply unsettling memories of Magx. Magx after days in “the belly of the moonless”—of him returning ashen in face, bleary-eyed and with hair matted and spots torn out, sections totally ripped out with scabs thick and clumpy. Magx—speechless and stumbling, to lie for days in the sun where Frak nursed him with meager draughts of water and mere crumbs and seeds...this all he could take until it was the moon which healed him, this Frak knew...until he was Magx again. Never to Frak did Magx say why or what the journey into the belly of the moonless was for.

  At this moment, it is he, Frak, fear-gripped but step-by-step sinuously descending into a moonless belly, following a king, one who strides and steps with victorious confidence, holding a torch on high, coiling down and down and down and around and across and under an arch and then into a room that is two men high and three wide but not moonless, rather eerily flushed by a brilliant sunshine, no, not sunshine...no, not sunshine but it hurts like bright noonday blazing light in the hot season...every area of his head hurts—eyes which have nothing else but sun words with which to describe this light, this which is light but not light...fiery, but not burning hot...heavy blanketing as if almost watery, more a presence as if a light alive, this brightness...but it is the stones which stop him, shut him down, throw a darkness over his brain—no words, no images, for the source of the brightness is a flurry of light-bolts striking forth from two stones—stones set in a shiny silver breastplate bigger and thicker and of such substance that Frak sees himself falling down onto his knees and from his knees full prone, stretched out onto the floor, there without words but with fists beating the ground, hammering the ground, thumping the ground...King Benjamin laughs heartily but sympathetically at Frak’s profound misunderstanding...he knows it is pure and stark fear that grinds Frak...knows that of all feelings fear is not the most powerful one bestowed by the Urim and Thummin.

  The stones—the King points and names them, “Urim and Thummin”—are so alive that Frak sees them even though he has buried his eyes as far back into the darkness of his skull as his muscles and sheer will enable him. Lo! It is not Frak who peers but the stones that peer through him!

  The peering sunlight of these marvels flare into his soul and brighten his mind with the ferocity which the ship’s dragon eye-stones engender upon savages and barbarians...an image he now knows in this instant of revealing light is false—that the ship’s dragon’s eyes are false stones, because these, these...he stands, rises without effort, is beside King Benjamin...suddenly Awake!—Frak starts to giggle, then choke-laughs, then bursts out into a hard belly laugh...being consumed by laughter, from barely a squeak into a snorting guffaw into a shrieking high-pitched tone of ecstatic raucous screech...delight, furious delight, maddening delight...a flurry and flutter of mirth and merry which finally erupts into a yipping, giggling, feet jiggling and hopping laughter of his full body—it is the merriment of one enjoying a hearty and pleasurable joke...sheer foolishness, with an old friend.

  King Benjamin picks up the breastplate by slipping his arms through its thongs. He holds it, poises as a proud warrior would before the start of battle—lifts it high above his head ...the room they are in is transfigured. Like a field of firepots all fired at once, so is the room peopled with an uncountable number, all in flowing white raiments, all with an astral glow about their faces, all speaking but not in words, only in heart expressions...they are all one with Frak, he is with them...they are legion, Frak is legion—all turn towards King Benjamin, he who is now not seen, who has become invisible—one with the Urim and Thummin...its power as oracle, so is a deep sight given to Frak—he peers beyond peering into a distance...a far-vision, sighting a land of hills and thick forests, a landscape which opens before him as the brilliant lights guide him, lights as bright as the hot lands’ sun but shadowing nothing in their brilliance...there walks Frak and as he walks he is aware of others beside him, not persons he can see but he knows that he is not alone, that all are walking towards a moment of great promise...Behold! There is a young man praying, kneeling, absorbed in prayer...his soul speaks out clearly: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given to him.” This is the soul message, its imploration, its confession...it is answered by one descending—a winged creature from out the stars—from one above who blesses him and rights him up and guides him to where wisdom itself is speaking—words coming as if from the inside the Earth...Behold! A set of golden plates were about them...speaking—in a singsong, with a lilting chant, a sound of such sweetness that Frak imagines the tones as birds, flocks of birds landing in a field to eat the wild grain...all this a soothing noise, a rhythm, a beating in his own heart, until it is only his heart...his heart beating—Frak alone, not even the King about, not even the Urim and Thummin, just himself...Frak peers and sees—Awake! The man to whom the stones have spoken is him!

  How they returned to the King’s throne room Frak never ever cares to discern. It was just one moment in eternal rapture and the next waking amidst a nest of pillows and shawls and flower scents and the soft murmur of those ambling about. The King peers at Frak’s eyes, they engage, both smile—it is a bond, the confirmation of a bond—a smile more than happiness, rather that which joins two souls beyond sadness and joy.

  The King does not ask Frak to speak...Frak knew that he wouldn’t, more, that he, himself, did not have an urge to so query or confess.

  All—Nephi and Brok’s troops—see but are dumb of tongue, unable to describe or understand the nature of the amazing dress which Frak now wears. No longer black. No longer his boxed hat. He, now, almost like the king...Frak in simple but luminous white raiment...a simple smooth unadorned band of gold circling his head. As he is now to be, so forever.

  Without doubt, Frak knows that he must soon be on his way—that in so many ways his voyage is just beginning. He looks towards the King for his cue...no longer does he look at Brok nor wonder or worry about what Brok is doing.

  The next day, King Benjamin takes Frak aside and speaks, as if to a son, of “The Final Day”—shares with him “a revelation known only to the Saints”—the revelation of a special day when the Earth will be left behind...when the Nephi will sail upwards into the sky as once they had sailed down from amid the far-reaching stars...the King halts...his face is cold and blanched, as if life itself has left his body..rapture...so does Frak slip into this kingly rapture and Behold! unfurled before them is the map—the map of the Nephi Restored to Perfection!

  Inspired by this vision, Frak darts past the entranced king...in his room he wildly tears at his bedding and rifles through all his belongings...throwing and tossing all about until he finds
his virgin map rolls and his bag of drawing tools. Frak sits at a table and draws and draws...sketches and erases...a design begins to form...Frak is this drawing, it is his body drawing, all the energies from his body, mind and soul merge to serve as brush for the drawing of this Nephi map.

  Done! The map is more wondrous than Darlm’s shawl! Thoughts of her, images of her have been so long absent that Frak images her shawl but does not sound her name.

  Balls of fire! Swirling, cavorting, careening, spinning and spiraling...so is Frak fabulously seeing as Our Father sees.

  For untold hours—past Brok’s waking and his leaving to have breakfast, his exiting the room as if nothing unusual was happening—for these hours Frak sits with and takes King Benjamin on his far-peering voyage, foreshadowing the Nephi’s return to Perfection.

  He unfurls the map and the King becomes his visionary companion, again.

  Behold! The balls of fire are revealed to King Benjamin as where the Nephi are to go on The Final Day. As Frak fingers the map so does the drawing speak to King Benjamin...he never once doubting that the God of Frak is his godly Father—Yahweh and Messiah...he sighs, Maranatha!

  When this flash of shared revelation expires, so does Frak suddenly jolt...staggers jerkily back from his imaginative voyage. Within this visually trifling step he and King Benjamin are shaken and thrown to the ground by a mighty wind which rushes into the room—a muscular, slapping, rattling wind which trashes the room and spins everything into a sucking, death-rattling whirlwind...all within a flash, a moment shared only by Frak and the King.

  Upon its ebbing, both rise. There before them is Frak’s map, now glowing as a golden plate with a carved inscription: Restored to Perfection.

  Frak is inspired, elated, raised to the highest level of mystical and magical fullness that he has ever experienced. He scarcely has words for King Benjamin. Yet, the two have nothing but words—soundless words, imaged words, words of a secret language and a feeling...bonding words, like neither has ever felt before.

  Both know that Our Father has been present, is present, will continue to be present with them...that they are fulfilling His Will.

  As Frak thinks so King Benjamin hears and in Frak’s mind appears the Urim and Thummin...they speak through Frak’s voice, “Know that the females are to submit to the serpent.” Here he discloses a truth which King Benjamin upon grasping swears to lock and inter within his heart...swearing and pledging to promulgate it in secret only to the chosen sons—the Nephi Children of Light...henceforth “Know that the serpent is the cock. That the female is to submit to the cock and to flower with children—with male sons—until she is exhausted and disappears like the husk from the corn.”

  King Benjamin pauses to ponder the strange revelations of this blessed messenger come from out the sea...this one he knows now to be so much more than a prophet, who is—Somehow!—one carrying the sacred seed—a true son of Adam and so mighty a son of the Almighty Father...but Behold! not as from the past as from the future. Praise be to Our Father!

  The King now understands fully what Brok does but slightly, that Frak is a High Priest—one who is in his flesh the presence of Our Father...Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai,...Messiah, Christ..Creator!

  Shaken, humbled, amazed at all he has yet to know of Our Father, so is King Benjamin. Yet, what to make of this new insight, this actual novel revelation? Have not his people already venerated women? Haven’t they rightly kept their women as obedient? Subservient to their fathers and grandfathers, to their husbands and even their sons? What new message from Our Father is it that the High Priest Frak is revealing?

  “Know that the woman is useful for the body...gloriously bountiful as son-bearer. That she is on this star to become the Earth, and from this Earth shall rise souls to fill the other stars. Know that she can be called Queen, that she can be called Beloved, that she can be called Sweet Honey of Heart, but know that this is but the veil we draw upon her. For the truth which awaits you, which awaits all of us, is that when the Ark departs on The Final Day all women will remain on Earth.”

  Frak continues, “For as with Adam, so from his rib is she born...flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone—all made from him by Him. Behold! She is not an eternal soul. She is a fleshly soul. An Earthly soul. A soul who cannot live, cannot breathe without the male, who is Perfected only by the male...spiritually is Perfected only within the male.”

  Then, Frak concludes with a final revelation that totally destroys all that King Benjamin thought he has known about Our Father...“Behold! There is the Father. Only the Father. So it is. So it shall be in The Final Day when the Nephi shall be Restored to Perfection. Ponder and reflect upon this.”

  Shortly after sharing this revelatory exposition with the King, Frak seeks out Brok, urges and cajoles him to hurriedly gather the crew and swiftly depart this land. He reveals that the Nephi are a special people...more special than even Brok had once understood, that they are queerly chosen sons of the Father...but ones he should flee. He urges, presses Brok—coming finally to explain as best he can that he has had a vision—a vision of the Nephi’s vision...that he has seen that they will rise to fill the land, not only this land of their exile but the whole Earth: “Replenish!” echoes...that once they have filled the Earth that they will sail in ships to the stars and fill the stars...and all people remaining on, and the Earth itself, will be destroyed through storms of fire.

  Brok is mystified, confounded, perplexed...even annoyed at Frak. He has coveted several wives of King Benjamin...has taken a fancy to the jewels in his crown...has lusted after the strong potent liquid in their gourds, whose drinking made the day, all day, a dreaming day—not numbed and sleepy like gom. Unlike Frak, Brok is ready to strike and rout...but he greatly fears Frak’s vision and so resigns himself to leave without booty—“I bow to Our Father’s High Priest’s wisdom!”

  Just as Brok makes this decision, his eyes start to play tricks on him, so it seems to him...for as he looks about the land he so covets, it—for one shuddering, shimmering moment—becomes not as a land of plenty and bustle, but a land of dryness, parched, a land without water...land deserted and barren—where even the water is salty...a land of great thirst...as he rubs his eyes and shakes his head to look once again, so has this strange moment passed. He turns and bows deeply in respect to the High Priest.

  As if reading his mind—which Frak can—Broke hears the admonition, “These are a blessed gen. People of a most powerful dream. It is not right for us to take away from them anything. So Our Father Wills.”

  Brok and the crew angrily, but in collective silence, comply with Frak’s command. Sensing their resistance, to calm them down, to control them, Frak promises them great enjoyments of the flesh before they depart. As agreed with King Benjamin, no pleasures of his kingdom are withheld—he offers succulent meats, sweet fruits, tangy and tasty plants...the pleasures of his women—all, each and any, not restricted as to age, but as each man desires...girls who appear as the King snaps his fingers—flower girls, giggling, with gardens not yet hoed...older women, unto deep sunset, ladies of great marvel whose tongues twitter with bird-magic. Ah! hard cocks and fumbling hands fly to them...unleash in an orgy of ravenous delight...for the crew is narcotically seduced...pleasured in the flesh with touches, licks, nibbling frenzies...as they embrace, as they coupled, as they take these females, so do they comingle their seed, physical and spiritual, with the Nephi.

  King Benjamin has all along planned for this sexually bonding ritual. It is his way of bringing them into his tribe, his family, making them kin...as with but a few others, for Frak the bonding was through the robust pleasures of a young male.

  “A robust young male,” so the King subtly whispers, “As on The Final Day.” Frak is perplexed—but he quickly reads King Benjamin’s eyes and knows that this is what the King has so clearly and shockingly seen when he peered upon the map of the Nephi Restored to Perfection.

  This young male is a special gift from King Benjamin...one he
confides to Frak is of the “joys to come” as it had been of the “joys before the Fall from the Garden.” The King places the clasped hands of the boy into Frak’s accepting hands...then gifts him with a thickly rolled parchment scroll. Frak does not have to ask or guess, he knows that it is a copy of the now golden plated map of the Nephi.

  Although Frak has pleasured with Jerd, and grown in wisdom by submitting through coupling with him, what he experiences as the robust pleasures of this male is a flight beyond imagination which mightily transforms him. Upon savoring the pleasures of this youth, a stunning and delightful shift occurs within Frak’s mind. From this time forward Frak continually hears Our Father’s voice inside his own head...endless words and sentences and images and detailed conversations with Our Father—as such does he understand how he came to see the curves, to grasp their power. He was simply listening to Our Father. So does this blessed and enchanting man-child enable Frak to see. To robustly see that his male body is the map of Our Father. To explore it is the way to discern the full details of the map of The Final Day. That within coupled embrace with this precious youth that he will be able to properly design and interpret their final voyage to the far-away land of the Nephi Restored to Perfection!

  Amazed is Frak because through this young male’s submitting—not as Jerd had submitted—he hears Our Father reveal to him that it is for Frak himself to be now submitted! Submitting himself to realize that he has never before submitted himself, not submitted as one accepting—as this male accepts Frak...accepts him as a female opens to receive him...with yearning...all in Frak’s mind is flowing with images unimaginable at any time ever before in his life...his mind flows his body flows—Frak’s body becomes this other male’s body...merges, melts into, meshes, unites. Awake! As this other submits Frak...not as a prodding submission, no, as an accepting submission...he realizes—is stabbed through the heart by this realization—that the cock which is his is not his but is this other’s whose cock is not his but Frak’s—they are truly and totally and passionately and in wild frenzy orgasmically and insanely each one the other—robustly.

  With the silent speech of the heart each whispers, “My beloved!”

  Their mutual and interpenetrating submission...submission of flesh and spirit, of desire and will, of all that is and all that is not—this submission is that dream state which King Benjamin has revealed to Frak, into which he has taken Frak as he spoke about how Adam had been laid down by Our Father into a dreamy state such that she, the female, Eve could be created. Behold! From out of the embrace of male beloveds is created...created, not born...the female, women—Her.

  So blessed is Frak by this revelation from Our Father. As such has he for the first time ever ritually partaken through this embrace of his beloved of the depthless mystery of the Male Restored to Perfection...of Adam Restored to Perfection...this the profoundest insight of King Benjamin and of their same God, Our Father—that the perfected male has within, all the robust powers of life—giving and dreaming.

  Upon the next morning the crew wakes to find itself anchored off a barren coast of hot dry land. There is not a jot of memory, not a tinkle of sound among them about the Nephi. Nor does Brok do other than bark customary captaining commands to set sail and continue to search out the shore for a more promising land to raid.

  But it is otherwise for Frak. From this blessed shore so does he leave...departs, notably, with a vision and a precious treasure...not however with the robust youth but a treasure of insight and revelation...as Frak steps back onto the ship, he calls for and beckons Jerd—whom he found upon his re-entry into the boat, patiently and with a smile of welcome, standing just outside Frak’s cabin...he, there as if just recently delivered from the stars...he, Frak’s treasure—his robust gift from God, Our Father...the precious Jerd, there in all his youthful sweetness and innocence of eye...they enact the ritual of Thanksgiving as he now hears Our Father direct...without a Sacrifice of a captured one...no, it is to be a ritual of preciousness, of celebration of two beloveds...as they embrace, couple, commune—Awake Jerd is he of whom King Benjamin spoke—the Messiah, the Perfect Male—the person sent by Our Father who redeems the male from the sin of the female as he opens in robust and precious embrace to his beloved and to become beloved.

  As all this happens, Frak does not pause to question...does not pause a heartbeat...not hesitate one flinch to grab Jerd’s hand...Frak moving as a man possessed....snatches Jerd by a fold in his robe and quickly spirits him away. Takes him in, quickly disrobes him and sheds his own clothes...as quickly presses Jerd’s shoulders so that he kneels. Kneels and takes unto himself the rod—now, Rod of Our Father—as King Benjamin has proclaimed that the map so revealed to him. Took into his mouth the rod of Frak—and in the taking transforms it into a sacred rod: holy—the rod which is the sword and spear, the power and the presence of Our Father, Himself. Then, through his High Priestly far-seeing, Frak robustly accepts Jerd’s body by submitting his own. But, again, not bodies prodded, rather pierced—two bodies but one...robustly throbbing such that the distinct images of male and female are no more...will never be again.

  Through this most strangely queer embrace—where each has submitted the other—so is Frak Restored to Perfection and fully anointed as High Priest...not just wizard but as One with the Father...not a servant but as true Son...flesh of His flesh, soul of His soul—by Jerd’s perfect act of robust submission so is severed the ancient bond of earth and sky, so is hacked asunder the bond of moon and sun, so is shattered once and for all and forever the creating lust of male for female...all this effected through their robust submitting...all as the map of the Nephi Restored to Perfection foretold.

  So commences the last leg of the voyage which will sail off on The Final Day into the stars beyond the stars, the heavens beyond the heavens...the voyage Frak knows as the perfect Will of Our Father.