THE METAMORPH

by Joseph Kerrick

© Copyright 1993 by Joseph Kerrick

This document may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, as long
as the Copyright notice is included.

They sat on a little hill in Golden Gate Park, the bearded young man and fresh-petalled girl, as
the Sun rose over the
trees and slowly roused their friends who had slept in the meadow. The two untangled their
limbs from embrace and
looked at each other a long time.

It was she who withdrew from the eyelock first. She looked at the ground and frowned, and
rubbed her hands
together, as if breaking a spell. "Peter," she said, "I can`t do it."

He still sparkled, not sensing the change. He said, "How can there be anything you and I can't
do?"

She stood and stretched to the sky, the new Sun pink on her skin. Then she folded her arms and
looked away from
him into the distance. After a time of silence, he became at last aware that something was
breached between them.

"All right," he said, "what can't you do?"

"The Farm."

If the air hadn't been so still, she might not have heard him suddenly inhale. "The Colony," he
said. "You don't want
to live there?"

"A colony of ragamuffins." Her back was still turned. "A colony of misfits. A colony of...."

She felt her neck hackle, and swiveled around compulsively, and saw his look of brokenhearted
astonishment. Then
she sat down and took his hand and said, "Peter, I'm so sorry."

She saw him making a conscious effort to recover his composure. "Coagulating the stone", he
called it. And then his
breath was even, and he said, "Melissa, how long has this been going on inside you? I thought I
was all tapped in.
How did I miss it? What the halleluah is going on?"
"I don't believe in it any more," she said.

"In what? The Earth Colony?"

"The transformation of the world."

He sat back, breathing sharply again. His hand slipped out of hers.

She continued: "I can't live like this any more. I admit, sometimes it feels like Paradise, but it's
just too much of a
drudge most of the time. I want to go back to hot showers and electric lights and wall-to-wall
carpets and real beds
and... and...."

"To middle-class life." His voice was absolutely expressionless.

"Yes, as horrible as it sounds, yes! And school. I want to go back to school."

After a short and disgusted sulk, Peter said, "If that's really what you want to do, I guess you'll
do it. Back to Lit and
Sociology?"

"No. I've thought it over very carefully. I want something different now."

"And what might that be?"

"I... I'd rather not say."

He shook himself all over and looked away. "You're really messin' with my head now."

"I'm not! I mean, I don't want to. I know it's all very sudden, and

I can feel your hurt, and I hurt pretty bad myself. And if I wasn't oh, so totally sure that this is
the way I have to go, I'd
never, ever do this to us."

"Us," he repeated, and looked her in the eyes. "What happened? What's really going on?"

She tried to look away, and failed. They stared into each other, their hands embracing.
Something silent happened.
"You still love me," he said.

"Yes."

"And you remember what happened the first night and all those other times."
"Yes."

"Then why?"

With a tremendous effort she unplugged herself from his eyesockets.

"What I said. It's why. It's true."

"Gabrielle!" He said it so loudly that some of the people in sleeping bags at the bottom of the hill
looked up and
wondered.

Melissa recoiled as if shocked, then folded her arms and looked toward the Sun. "No. Gabrielle
was all right. I said it
was all right, and it's still all right. It has nothing to do with it. And it's for the best anyway,
because now you can be
on the farm with Gabrielle."

"Damn!" said Peter. Melissa started in genuine alarm; he hardly ever used the word. "Damn," he
said again, pounding
the ground with his fist. "That's it! What an idiot I am. I've blown it. I've lost you."

She opened her mouth to insist, "That's NOT it," but a barb from his eye struck her silent.

He lay flat on his back in the grass and suffered pangs of thought for a long time. She felt frozen,
immobile, as if she
couldn't flutter an eyelash or clear her throat. Their friends down the slope rustled around and
whispered in the
stillness.

At last, from the ground, he said, "Please tell me what you're going to do in school. What kind of
degree do you want
to get?"

She was skewered now; she had to answer. "An MBA."

And now Peter's cool was totally blown. He rolled up on an elbow, goggled at her, and rattled
off as if tranced: "An
M...B...A. That's what you said?"

"Yes."

"BIZ-ness? Melissa, have you gone CRAZY?"

She knew there was no hope for it now. She stood up, delivered a last flickering glance to his
wild eyes, then turned
and started walking down the hill. She avoided the bedroom in the meadow, instead heading
for the line of trees
beyond which was the path leading out of the park. Her long straight hair blew in the breeze,
her sandals squished on
the dewy ground, her dress creased up the way it did, barely covering her behind.

When she reached the trees, a woman's voice called after her: "Melissa, your purse. Your jacket
an' everything."
Melissa did not turn or break step. It was gone, all of it, finished. There was nothing in her purse
anyway but a dollar
in change, two tampons, birth control pills, and a partly-smoked joint. They were welcome to
toke it up among them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On a spring day four years later, Melissa bubbled exuberantly into the Caffe Trieste in North
Beach, with one of her
graduating classmates. His name was Jim.

They sat with big caffelattes and enthused about the future. "I still don't know how you did it,"
said Jim. "A Master's
in jig time."

"Well, I had a lot of credits from before I dropped out," said Melissa modestly,

"And you worked like a dog relentlessly and squeezed courses sideways into your schedule."

"Oh, thank God it's over!"

"And also you happen to be brilliant."

"Why, thank YOU, Jim."

"It's true."

"I know," she said, and they broke down together in a chorus of snickering giggles.

They clinked their glasses in toasts to success, wealth, happiness. After a few more volleys of
high-spirited
conversation, Jim bade fare-well and good luck, and departed.

Released into reverie, Melissa's mind flooded with university scenes past and with fantasies of
business future. Her
heart, or at least her head, was full as she stared into her empty glass. Then she looked up and
saw Peter.

She didn't know if he had been looking at her before her eyes found his, or even how he could
have been sitting at
that table in the corner without her being aware of it. It was as if he had coagulated on the
instant from an invisible
world.

And how she wished that she could disappear into a different one! The past feelings cascaded
back, and memories of a
large order of experience that could never be shoehorned into the tiny classrooms she had just
left, nor, she suspected,
into the steel-girded office towers to which she aspired.

She closed her eyes and rubbed them, then fiddled with her glass and napkin. In those few
moments, her will and
accreted identity reasserted themselves, and she knew that her future would not be threatened
by this compelling
spectre from the past.

He hadn't moved a hairbreadth. He was still staring at her. Feeling drafted by fate into a
melodrama, she went over
and joined him at his table. This time she brought her purse. It contained over a hundred
dollars, a Mastercard, a
gold-plated fountain pen that had been a gift from her parents, and a full portfolio of
identification.

There was no chair on the opposite side of the small square table, so she had to sit on the bench
next to him. From
this proximity - inside his aura, as they used to say - she looked at him and saw that he had
changed. Gone was his
colorful hippie garb, his outlandish hats and costumes. He wore tattered jeans and sneakers
now, and a shapeless,
nondescript shirt. He still sported his beard, but it was shorter and not neatly trimmed. And
for the first time ever,
she saw short hair on the back of his head.

"You sure look different," he said.

And she realized that, indeed, she too had changed. She was wearing a pantsuit that must look
extremely straight to
him. Her hair was done up in a stylish do.

"But you're still Melissa," he added. "Thank God."

It crossed her mind to say, "Well, naturally", but his seriousness checked her. Instead she said,
"How's Gabrielle?"

"Who? Oh, that's right, that's why you split, 'cause of what happened with her at Woodstock.
I've never seen her
since. Didn't want to. Couldn't."

She digested this for a moment, and then the associations came back. "And what about the
farm?"

"Ah, the Earth Colony. That's still going to happen, someday, because it has to. But I couldn't
make it happen after
you split. It needs a pair of soulmates at the center of it."

"You never had any problem getting women. If you didn't want Gabrielle, I'd have thought
you'd find someone else
pretty quickly."

"You really don't understand, do you? You're my soulmate. There's only one, and a man's lucky
to meet up with her
at all in any given incarnation."

She faltered then. He saw it, and pounced on her with his eyes. And again, as in those days that
seemed to her now
like a past incarnation, she was trapped: she couldn't look away. She knew what he wanted,
and had to say it - it was
true: "I still love you."

He sighed and leaned back, still looking at her. "Of course," he said.

After a silence, she said, "Can I buy you a coffee?"

"Nope. I quit."

"Really?" He used to down quarts of cappucino in a single evening.

"Yep. Everything else, too."

"You gave up drugs?"

"Pot, acid, hash, mushrooms, alcohol, caffeine, tobacco - all psycho-active substances. Even
this," he said, fondling the
sugar bowl.

She was amazed, and looked it. It was hard to imagine Peter without... substances. Then she
reflected and said,
"Well, I did too, you know. I gave up drugs. Not the other stuff - the coffee and sugar and social
drinking. But drugs."

"Now you're addicted to something worse," he said,

She was confused for a second, till her memory of his perspective returned. "Oh - straight
society?"

"It's a killer. The soul, if not the body. And usually that too."

"We'll see."

"So when're you going into business?"

"Real soon. I got my degree today."

He whistled. "Synchronicity. Here we be."

"You mean, like you're divinely appointed to stop me?"

"Can't do that, if you're not of a mind."

"I'm not," she asserted, and it was so.

"Right," he agreed, "I can see it."

They both sat back and exhaled in the same motion. But they still looked at each other, and
neither made a move to
leave.

"Now that we got that worked out," said Peter, "Would you be interested in hearing a little
about my trip?"

"Thought you said you quit acid."

"Well. y' know, the terminology sticks. And it's useful. Why, lately I've been hearing people talk
that way who never
did a drug in their life."

"I noticed that too, at college. So anyway, sure, let's talk."

He went to the counter and brought back a caffalatte for her and a pot of herb tea for himself.
And then he laid out
his trip.
Remember how I used to talk about metamorphosis, comparing people to butterflies an' stuff?
Well, I think I was
onto something then, except that the drugs made it look too easy. I think the right use of
psychedelics is to let 'em
give you a glimpse of what's possible, then chuck 'em and build yourself up till you can do it on
your own steam."

"You make it sound like body-building."

"It's soul-building."

"And how exactly do you build a soul?"

"That's what I've spent the last four years learning about. And I'm still only in kindergarden on
it. Us smartass hippies
thought we knew it all --- just trip on up and talk to God, or become God. But we didn't know
anything about HOW
to do it. All we knew was drop a bunch of acid."

"So," said Melissa, "you've discovered there are other ways. But I seem to recall that we got
pretty high sometimes
when we made love, even without drugs. We became God for a moment, together."

Petre's face sparked up. He put his hand on hers. She started to pull it away, but relented. "I'm
glad you remember,"
he said; "I'm so glad." He squeezed her hand and then let go.

"So that's real," he continued, "but what I've learned is that sex is like drugs in a way."

"What? Sex is a drug too, like liquor and sugar?"

"Not exactly. But it has a similar side effect. It blows you out."

She couldn't help laughing. "Sometimes it did."

After just a flash of a smile, he went on: "Anything that makes you high makes you low
afterwards. Action-reaction,
cause and effect. Instant karma. Or the law of balance, as I've taken to calling it. I didn't notice
it about sex until I
gave up all the substances. But there it was. And so I became celibate."

Her jaw dropped. "Celibate! You?"

Like a medieval monk. I don't even think about sex. Or fantasize, or give a pretty girl a second
glance. Not even a
first glance, if I'm paying attention.".
"I can't believe it."

"It's true. I gave up drugs right after you split -- I did one more big acid trip to, like, imprint my
objective, and then it
was cold turkey. I kicked off the other substances over the next few months, and broke up with
my last lover a few
months after that."

"So you've "been celibate for over three years. And this is helping you to... build a soul?"

"It really is. By not blowing out all my energy on petty gratifications and momentary pleasures,
I carry around a head
of steam all the time that's at least as big as what I used to need about a nickel of pot to whomp
up. Remember how I
learned to control my breathing so that I could keep it together on acid? When I do it now I get
high - just like that,
tripping out on thin air, you could say. Or all I have to do is focus my head a certain way, or even
just think about it,
and I'm there. I'm there right now - or I mean here. After a few more years I figure I'll work my
way up to the acid
level, without the acid. I'll crack out of the chrysalis and fly."

"Oh," she said, "it has to do with that alchemical stuff you were into - 'coagulating the stone' and
such?"

"I was just a dilettante at it then, like all the druggie spirit-trippers. For real alchemy you need
lots and lots of patient,
slow work, over long, long periods of time. My stone is still in a very amorphous state, but when
I finally coagulate it,
it'll last forever."

"Forever," she repeated. "Peter, I've got to go. I have a schedule these days, especially today. My
parents are visiting
me...."

"Ah, for the big event."

"Right, and I have to meet them in a little while downtown."

"Cool. I won't detain you in your rite of passage. Are you going back to the East Coast with
them?"

"Nope. I got a great job offer from a big firm right down on Market Street. I like San Francisco.
I'm going to stay."
Her career almost melted along with her heart at the sight of his child-wide ingenuous grin,
"See you around," he said,

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It didn't happen until four more years had passed, even though Melissa sometimes frequented
the general areas of
their old haunts. Early one summer evening she drove from work to the Haight to pick up an
item at a specialty shop
there. As she strolled past the Ashbury intersection, some punk kids sitting on a stoop in their
outrageous raiment and
mutilated hair snickered at her business suit. She ignored them, but when she had gotten a
quarter of a block, down
the street she heard someone behind her call "Melissa!" She turned to see a big punk sprinting
toward her. He had a
purple spiked Mohawk and was wearing a black leather vest over a bare chest, combat boots,
and, as she saw when
he got closer, a gold safety pin in his left earlobe. Her first impulse was to either run or scream
for the police - but he
knew her name, so she held her breath and stood her ground.

He was still two lopes away when she made contact with the laughing eyes and baby grin.
"Peter!"

There must have been something instantly euphoric about the sudden transition from fear to
recognition. What else
could explain what happened next? For Melissa suddenly threw out her arms and Peter flew
into them, and picked
her up in a big hug and whirled her around till her pumps came off and clattered on the
sidewalk in opposite
directions.

The Haight is almost as indifferent as Manhattan to the presence of strange characters and
bizarre behavior; but as
these two people, obviously members of alien and enemy species, crossed the barrier of
conflicting images and
embraced, a goodly number of bystanders lost their cool. Thus the straight folk and the punks
alike were momentarily
united in spirit as they all gaped incredulously at the spectacle. Only the aging hippies were
excluded from the
communion, convinced in their bitterness that now they beheld the conclusive proof that they
had for-ever lost touch
with what was going on in the world.

They twirled to a stop, the two unlikely dancing partners. He put her down, and a fog of
recongealing personae
clouded their vanishing abandonment. Standing there in her stockinged feet, Melissa said, "Um,
gee, well... Hi"

"Hi," said Peter.

The world seemed to go `round an entire revolution in a flash, right while they were looking at
each other, and
return to the same spot and the same moment from which it started. This time Peter said, "So
how's business?"

"It's good," said Melissa, "it's real good. I'm doing great, and the company is expanding, and...
and...."

"Is that what they make you wear?"

"What? Oh - this is what I happened to wear today, yes. Except wow, where are my shoes?"

They quickly reconnoitered and each came up with a pump. She put them on, and Peter said,
"You look like a man on
top and the Avon Lady below."

Her cheeks puffed out in a brief splutter, but she recovered and said, "Well hey, man, you look
like nothing I've ever
seen before in my life.

I mean, what's your trip this time, Peter?"

"Same one."

"It doesn't look like it."

"Sure it does. You just repeated verbatim what all the straight people used to say about us in
the Sixties. 'Ain't seen
nuthin' like you before. You must be some kinda FREAK.' Or have you forgotten?"

"God, you're right!"

"Yep. 'Hippie' doesn't work any more 'cause it's old hat. When I wised up to that, my new
friends were kind enough
to show me where it's at these days. They're really nice people too, when you get to know 'em.
Want to meet them?"

"I, ah, don't think I'm dressed for the occasion."

"I agree. I just asked to be polite. But listen, I'd love to talk. How about you?"
"Yes. But I have to pick something up before the store closes. It'll only take five minutes."

"Great. I'll meet you in ten minutes at the end of the street. Right at the beginning of the park."

"I still know my way around here," she said. "See you then,"

She arrived first, and sat down on the grass. It felt good to do that again, even though her
narrow skirt prevented her
from sitting comfortably cross-legged. Soon Peter came, and she was surprised to see that he
was accompanied by one
of the punks who had been sitting with him on the corner. She was even more surprised when
they got closer and
she realized that this nearly bald-headed creature was a girl.

Melissa stood up. Peter said, "Hope you weren't waiting long. This is Cindy. Cindy, Melissa."

Cindy held out a hand with a black lace fingerless glove on it. As Melissa took it and shook it,
she noticed the spiked
wristband. It was evidently functional - it kept the sleeve of her oversized leather jacket from
encroaching over the
wrist.

"I didn't expect any of the folks would want to join the conversation," said Peter to Melissa, "but
Cindy was curious."

"Curious?"

"Yeah, she doesn't believe that anybody who looks like you could possibly have anything on the
ball, and I'm hoping
to prove her wrong."

Cindy turned on him and fairly snarled: "That's RUDE, Pete! What the hell you hafta go an'
tattle for? I mean, that
was a private conversation. And besides, you prob'ly hurt your friend's feelings."

"Whoa!" said Peter, fending off her vibes with a defensive gesture; "sorry. But Melissa knows
what a damn fool I am,
so I didn't expect her to be offended. But if she is - well, I'm sorry, Melissa."

Pleasantly bemused by the whole exchange, Melissa said, "I forgive you, Peter."

They walked along the winding paths then cut through the trees to a spot that Peter and
Melissa knew from the cycle
of events now past. They sat down; Cindy pulled out a quart bottle of apple juice she had
brought and passed it
around. Then Peter looked at Melissa and said: "So you really like what you're doing?"
She sucked in her breath. "It's intense," she said. "It's exciting and challenging, but it's also...
well, dirty. For awhile I
just wouldn't do the nasty things to people that everybody else did. Then I saw that if I kept on
that way, I would...
fail. I wouldn't make it, I'd be crushed underfoot by the stampede. So I got into it, and it felt
terrible, but now it's
like... routine. And the better I get at it, the further along I get in the hierarchy. It's like a secret
shared by ail the
people who do well and move up -- like a conspiracy, but a sort of psychic one; so many things
are understood
without being openly spoken of. Except now I'm just getting to the level where I'm discovering
that they are spoken
of, but in a kind of jargon, almost a code language, that's not understood by outsiders even if
they overhear. Which is
good, because if they did, it would seem really awful to them."

"God," said Cindy, "I knew it! I just knew it. My father's a big corporation turd, and he never
admitted anything near
what you just did, but I could tell from his vibes and from listening between the lines. But it's
great to hear somebody
come right out and say it: business is a bunch of shit. No offense."

"Which raises an interesting question," said Peter. "You don't find it so shitty any more,
Melissa? It's all just routine?
Part of the challenge?"

For a moment, Melissa's eyes kept shifting involuntarily from his to hers. Then she blurted out:
"I guess I'm not at a
business conference here."

Peter and Cindy convulsed in helpless guffaws. "Nope!" they said, almost in unison.

Then Peter conjured his self-control, and said clemently, "I guess we'd better cool it. I can see
that you don't have it
all sorted out, Melissa. But look...." He held her eyes silently with his until Cindy stopped
laughing. Then he said,
"You haven't lost your soul yet, because you can still be critical of what's going on, and were
willing to tell us about
it. But it sure looks to me like you're getting sucked into it pretty deep. I wish there were some
way I could put out a
hand and keep you from going under. What are you after in that crazy game, anyway?"

Melissa scowled, and was silent for a time. Then she said, "Ail^ right. I don't think I'm going to
get to the very top
of the heap in my company, or some other company, but I think I'll wind up close enough to the
top that I'll have
some say in things on a scale big enough to make a difference."

"Make a difference for who?"

"For, you know, people. I'm already the first woman who's ever held my present position. That
makes a difference
for women."

Cindy snortled. "So you're going to save the world for female business executives,"

Melissa continued undaunted. "And I'll have enough money that I won't have to think about
money. I'll be able to
do whatever I want. And so will my children."

"Ah," said Peter, "so you still want to have children."

"Of course."

"When?"

"Soon enough. Pretty soon, actually. There's a guy in another company I like a lot. We're
talking about getting
married."

"How are you going to raise kids and still work at this 'intense' job?"

"There are ways. Other women have done it."

"Yeah," said Cindy, "my friend Sylvia's mom did that."

"There, you see?"

"...and Sylvia is completely psychotic and screwed up. Whenever anybody mentions her
mother, she starts screaming,
'I'll kill the bitch!'"

Melissa was pained, but Peter stepped in and said, "If you really know what you're doing, I hope
you succeed at it.
But my own feelings haven't changed from back when we were together: this present society is
an abomination on
the face of the Earth. It tears the humanity out of its people and turns them into zombies.
Whatever's in control of
this species at this point of its history is inhuman and unholy, and until and unless a better
spirit takes it over, the only
alternative is for people to split from this society altogether and start a new one. That way the
seeds will be sown for
a transformed human race after the current system collapses."

"So," said Melissa, "you're still planning to get the farm, or Colony?"

"Absolutely. Though I have to admit that the progress toward it has been mostly spiritual."

They sat and let the silence revolve among them for a short while. Then Melissa asked Cindy,
"And what do YOU do?"

She grinned. "I dance a lot. I hang out. I do surreptitious things for spending money. I keep
one jump ahead of the
goons my parents send after me. And I listen to Pete's trips. He's a million laughs. Right, you
dirty ol' man?"

"Some kids are just easily amused," he said, running his hand over the dome of her peachfuzz
head. And then they
kissed. It was so fluid and heedless that it was a moment before the sight of them doing it fully
registered on Melissa's
senses. Her face flushed. Then she became annoyed at herself for reacting like this, which only
made her flush again.
And still she couldn't help remarking to herself that the girl was at least ten years younger than
him.

Re-gathering her aplomb, she asked Peter: "Are you still celibate?"

She had expected this crack to be answered with another torrent of titters, but neither of them
even chuckled as Peter
said, "Not exactly.

Do you know anything about Tantra?"

"Tibetan sex?"

"There are ways to attain sexual union without squandering the energy. It's subtle, and tricky,
and sometimes it
doesn't work if you're not an extremely skilled adept. But it can get pretty amazing even for
amateurs like us. I can
have my cake and still eat a piece of it now and then." And this time, Cindy giggled.

"How about drugs and coffee and stuff?" asked Melissa. "Have you gone back to any of those,
like maybe
occasionally?"
"Nope. Still one hundred percent substance-free." He seemed to pull within himself for a
moment, then continued: "I
think I've begun the metamorphosis. The effects are subtle; if I wasn't paying such constant
attention, I wouldn't even
notice them. But they're there. When you saw me last time, at the Trieste, I was in my cocoon
phase - my chrysalis.
Now I can feel those butterfly wings starting to sprout from my back and break out."

"That's really what it feels like?"

"That's a metaphor, a kind of magical image. It explains what's happening so well that even
your primal unconscious
mind understands it. It's an imprint - y'know, like what we used to do on acid trips. 'Oh wow,
man, lookit this
butterfly! I'm really gettin' off on this butterfly, man. Oh God, oh wow, I'm turnin' INTO a
butterfly, man!' And then
everybody'd have to grab hold to keep ya from flyin' away. Or trying to. But now I can
understand that even though
it's real, it's not immediate. It takes a long time to build a soul. Oh, and since we had that last
talk, I found out
there's another name for it. It's sometimes called the solar body."

"Does that have a special significance?"

"Yes. There's a direct connection with the Sun, but beyond that it gets pretty abstruse. I can
say, though, that it
distinguishes it from what we used to call the astral body in our freak days."

Melissa laughed. "Yes, I remember Stephanie and Bill used to astral project all the time. Or they
said they did."

"I'm sure they did -- coupla genuine space cases there, I hope they've found someplace to land
by now. But that's the
thing: EVERYONE has an astral body. It's universal. It's just a fancy name for the emotional part
of us. It's given to us
along with the physical body when we come into this world. But practically no one has a solar
body - not one that
amounts to much, anyway. The solar body is a do-it-yourself project.

"As I say, it's a lot of subtle, delicate, patient work, and depends on a large constant charge of
natural physiological
energy, I could never have done it when I was on drugs, with all those ups and downs. Drug use
would blow it out."

Melissa ruminated briefly on all this, then said, "Well, I'm glad you feel that you're making
progress, Peter. That
you're, y' know, doing what you need to do. I'm truly glad."

"Thank you," he said. She was disappointed; she was hoping he would have added, "I'm glad
you are too."

The conversation lulled after that, and they all walked back toward the street. As they re-
emerged at the foot of
Haight, some past association jiggled a wire in Melissa's head, and she said, "Gee, it's the tenth
anniversary of the
Summer of Love."

"Why, so 'tis," said Peter, as Cindy sniggered. "And that fact has not gone unnoticed amongst the
new wave of
revolutionary youth. They are commemorating it with a new celebration." He waved his arm
dramatically around.
"Welcome to the Summer of Hate."

Cindy laughed aloud at Melissa's double-take. "Peter, you can't be serious."

"As ever I be. Tell her, Cindy."

"This time it's slammin' in the streets," she said, rotating her spiked fist in the air. "The hippies
get conniptions, and we
roll 'em if they're too obnoxious."

Melissa was genuinely upset. "So are YOU celebrating hate?" she said to Peter,

"I can appreciate the irony. The Haight has finally lived up to its name."

"But YOU were a hippie!"

"They've forgiven me my sins. I have kept abreast of the surging currents of social change."

"Ol' Pete's a geezer in some ways," said Cindy, "but deep down he's really cool. And he can slam
an' thrash with the
meanest motherpunks on the street."

Peter raised his fist at this, and waved it in the air, and began making big stylized strides up the
street. Cindy followed
suit. Peter suddenly doubled back, and the two of them bumped together, bounced off, then
strutted around and did
it again, all the while waving their fists in the air and laughing. Melissa felt like she was
watching the strange mating
ritual of some weird stickleback or crocodilian species -- some-thing alien, with spikes and
leather and simmering
subdued violence. And there was Peter in the thick of it. She beheld his changeling adaptability,
and marveled.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On the fourth of July seven years later, Melissa took the BART across the Bay to Berkeley. She
emerged at Ashby
Avenue, and went the rounds of the flea market in the station parking lot. She bought some
quaint paraphernalia,
including a pair of earrings and a handmade necklace of small polished stones interspersed
with beads. She put on her
new jewelry, and walked the few blocks up to Telegraph Avenue.

She browsed in the bookstores for an hour, bought a couple of volumes, and decided to go and
dip into them at a
woodsy spot she liked by the creek on campus. As she walked across Sproule Plaza, however,
her trajectory was
arrested by a curious sight. A gaggle of people in unusual garb was trooping in a long, slow,
casual line from
somewhere beyond Sather Gate toward Telegraph Avenue. A young man in a jester's suit with
scepter conversed
with a girl who could have been a princess from the same period, except that her skirt was
considerably shorter.
There were some variations on the theme of postmodern futurism, taken to a science-fictional
extreme. A young
woman in spandex tights was turning easy cartwheels, evidently as a way of punctuating her
conversation with
several people in the little parade. At the head of it ail, and obviously leading it, was a man in a
cavalier hat and
other Renaissance regalia, holding a staff cradled in the crook of his arm like a drum major. He
was chatting with a
woman who walked beside him. His manner was such that it might have been only the two of
them out for a
holiday stroll, and a dozen theatrical characters just happened to have been attracted along in
their wake. The man,
as Melissa this time realized immediately, was Peter.

She hastened around to a spot in advance of the line of march, and stood there. Thus, as she
had hoped, Peter's eye
fell on her, and he halted in abrupt astonishment. They exclaimed each other's names and
embraced again, while the
costumed crew gradually conglomerated around them.

"How long has it been this time?" asked Melissa.

"I forget," said Peter. "Too long." Then he turned to the crowd and said, "Hey, everybody, this
is my old and dear
friend, Melissa. We were hippies in the Sixties together." And then he began introducing them
all to her. The
woman who had been walking next to him looked about his age and had a sort of turban on her
head with an amulet
in the center of it. Melissa took her name to be Jeannie, but then Peter specified that it was
spelled G-E-N-I. He
gestured at the various folks and said, "This is Parsifal, Athena, Paracelsus, Cinderella, Captain
Kirk, Maya, Ganymede,
Guinevere, Ulysses, Nebula, Valkyrie, and" -- indicating the man in the jester's outfit -- "Lord
John the Loony."

The dramatis personae made various bows and flutterings as Peter called their role. Then
Melissa said, "I'm... I'm
awestricken to meet all of you." At this the characters clapped and whistled, and Lord John
roiled on the ground
shouting, "No, no, don't strike me with your awe any longer!"

But Melissa was struck again, now by the up-close elegance of Peter's costume. The jacket, or
tunic, seemed to be
woven of green and autumn leaves. The forest-green trousers were close-fitting velour, not
tights as she had originally
thought. His high-topped moccasins were bound up with leather thongs. He was still clean-
shaven, as he had been
as a punk. His staff was an almost perfectly straight natural branch, its handle a gnarl in which
could easily be
imagined the features of a human face. On one side of his cavalier hat was a large orange
plume, and affixed to the
front of the band was a talisman: a metallic butterfly with delicate gold wings.

"And who are YOU supposed to be?" she asked.

"Why, I'm Peter, of course."

"Yes, I know, but I mean...."

Her stutter was interrupted as one of the throng shouted what sounded like "Ee-oh Pan."
Ulysses, looking every inch
the pagan, flew into a dance of prancing motions, chanting "IO Pan, IO Pan...." Melissa was still
confused, until Geni
graciously stepped forward, and, with an introductory gesture toward Peter, said: "PETER Pan."

"Ooh!" said Melissa. "Oh, of course! You are, you really are."
There was a chorus of AWRIGHTs and YEAHs from the gathering, and then with a gentle bow
Peter said, "At your
service."

They proceeded leisurely down Telegraph Avenue, the fifteen of them, spreading out again into
a snake or a
gerrymander. Melissa now walked with Peter at the head of the phalanx, Geni falling back into
converse with others.
Melissa noticed a couple of double-takes and dumbfounded stares from passersby, but the
savoir-faire of the street
merchants and most other people revealed that this strange and colorful tribe must be a
common sight on the
Avenue. *But then*, she reminded herself, *Telegraph is famous for costumes loonies.* As if in
answer to her thought,
they came abreast of the Polka-Dot Man, standing at the Durant intersection in his head-to-toe
outfit of red dots on
white, making incomprehensible sweeps and beckonings of his arms and hands toward the hills
in the distance. "Hi,
William," said Peter, at which the figure momentarily broke off his contortioning and said
brightly, "Hi, Peter. Nice
day." Then he turned back to his mysterious business, as they all filed by and around him, an
anemone in a sea of
pedestrians, anchored to a ground of being only he could see and feel.

Melissa was popping with curiosity about the what, why, and wherefore of this remarkable
mélange of people, but
she found that she didn't have the slightest idea of how to ask. Inappropriate questions to pose
floated into her head,
like *What planet are you all from?* and similar inanities. Finally she said to Peter, "So what are
you all up to?"

"Well," he said, "we're just coming from a house on Northside where some of us live, and we're
on our way to the
Cafe Med, When there are more people around on campus we usually cut a few capers along the
way, but it's pretty
empty right now. If we hadn't run into you it would've been a completely boring trek."

They arrived forthwith at the Café Mediterranean (to give it its formal name), and entered like
an occupying army.
Two scouts found an empty table, a large one near the front, while the main battalion stood in
line for their drinks. A
couple of infantry fanned out in search of unused chairs, and carried them back to their table.
Soon the others arrived
at it laden down with espresso, tea, and Italian sodas, crumpets and cakes and croissants. When
it was filled up, they
begged permission of the couple at the neighboring table to use the other half, and it was
granted. Even then there
was not enough space for the entire entourage, and a few had to settle for territory at more
distant tables. But the
motherland expanded as other customers left, and eventually the group found itself in
possession of three large
consecutive tables. Their collective aura dominated the space of this, the grandest cafe on
Telegraph Avenue, Even the
people in the upper deck couldn't help but react to the spectacle, in subtle ways noticeable to
the socially and
psychically sensitive.

The opening volley of small talk included Melissa telling the group what she did for a living.
There was a chorus of
conflicting reactions, from Cindy-like sniggers to a saucer-eyed "Wow, I never met a business
executive before!"

When the buzz died down, Peter drew her full attention and asked: "Are you married?"

"No," she said.

"Change your mind about that guy you mentioned last time?"

"He got transferred to a branch in the Midwest."

"Ah, true love."

Melissa winced, and said, "I've got a couple of other prospects. But I'm in a higher position in a
bigger company now,
and work keeps me pretty occupied."

"It sounds very... all-encompassing. Is there anything left over?"

"Yes," she said defensively, "there's plenty."

His voice was gentle and tentative as he said, "In that last talk we had, you were critical of some
of the moral aspects
of how business is conducted, and you said that you were adjusting to it, but still seemed to
have a conflict. I wonder
how that situation has developed since then?"

She seemed honestly puzzled as she replied, "Your memory's better than mine, I guess. I don't
recall exactly...." Her
voice trailed off. He said nothing, and she squinted at the tabletop, thinking. After several
moments she emitted an
abrupt "Oh!" Speaking half to herself, she said: "Yes, I remember. I was still naive then. I had
leftover hippie beliefs. I
hadn't learned...." Her eyes met Peter's, and she stopped talking as if startled - or as if she had
suddenly realized to
whom she was speaking.

"Melissa," he said, "I'm worried about you." It was the voice of a father to a child.

She waved her hands, exorcising the weighty persona. "Come on, Peter, I'm cool. Everything's
okay. I'm doing what I
have to do, and enjoying it. I'm still me. I'm growing as a person and performing valuable work
in the world. It's,
y'know, groovy, man."

He couldn't help but laugh. "I guess I'll have to take your word for it," he said - "for now."

"So what about you?" she asked. "What made you change from a punk into Peter Pan? Are you
still friends with
Cindy?" She made a glancing scan of the faces of the people at the tables, wondering if one of
them might be Cindy, as
transmogrified as Peter.

Peter said, "About a year after I saw you in the Haight that time, Cindy went back to her
parents. She was sick of not
having a purpose, but she didn't realize that that's what she was sick of, and so she couldn't
think of anything better
to do about how she felt than surrender to her parents' demand to rejoin the system.

"I hung out with the punks for another year or so after that. Lotta refuse there, can't deny it; the
general quality's not
nearly as high as it was in our old freak circles." He was interrupted by a "Harrumph!" from one
of the group at the
next table. Grinning, he added: "Or as it is in certain new and even freakier circles. But I met a
few good souls among
the punks, and two or three of 'em are still in the sort of meta-physical spiderweb I'm building,
just like Marge and
Dennis and maybe some other of our old friends still are."

"Margie and Dennis? Really? How are they? Where are they? What are they doing?"

"They're okay. They've got a little place up in Mendocino. Coupla kids, too. They're saving up for
a bigger place. Some
of us are going to go in on it with them. Real estate is high. There's a lot of old hippies up there
who got rich -- well,
maybe not by your standards. But Marge and Denny want to get some land for the Earth
Colony, and they're making
new friends among the folks up there. They're already friends with everybody you see here. We
all spend some time
up there now an' then; we camp out and visit Marge and Denny, and meet their neighbors."

"Wow," said Melissa, "you're actually making progress toward your dream."

"Sure. I always knew it would be only a matter of time. But the ac-tual, physical Colony is only
one part of the
objective. The main thing is the metamorphosis."

"You mean your personal spiritual changes?"

"Not just mine. A lot of people changed in the Sixties, some for the better, some for worse. After
awhile a lot of them
changed back, as we know." He was in eye contact with Melissa as he said this, but there was
not a shade of
condemnation nor even irony in his voice. "I think people are capable of permanent, large-scale
change for the better.
Some of them may even be able to do it in the system - I don't know for sure because I haven't
spent any time in
there. I do know it's possible out here, because I've been doing it for the past twenty years; and
I suspect it may be a
lot easier to do it out here than in there.

"Now it's gotten to the point where I'm meeting people who agree with this, and I'm showing
them that it's possible
to survive outside the system, and to change -- to begin the metamorphosis, or to continue it
from whatever stage
they're at. It's not true that you have to quit at a certain point and settle for being a grub or a
caterpillar for the rest of
your life, crawling on the ground and eating leaves. You can grow those wings and fly, and drink
the nectar that's
there in the sunflowers for humans who go through all their stages of metamorphosis."

She said, "Sunflowers?"

"Solar flowers. Metaphysical sources of nourishment for people with fully-developed solar
bodies. That's all butterflies
live on, the nectar in the flowers. And maybe a little pollen,"

Parsifal spoke, reciting: "'And pluck till time and times are done/ The silver apples of the
Moon/ The golden apples of
the Sun.'"

"That's lovely!" said Melissa with a clap of her hands. "Peter, I can't deny that I'm charmed by
the way you make the
soul into a butterfly."

"He wasn't the first," said Ulysses. "The ancient Greek word for 'butterfly' was *psyche* -- the
same word that they
used for the human soul."

"It's been noticed in other cultures too," said Valkyrie. "The parallel between human spiritual
transformation and the
life cycle of butter-flies is just there, and anybody who knows anything about the soul is bound
to pick up on it."

"Yes," said Melissa, "I can see it. But what about the Sun? I honestly don't know what to make of
solar bodies and
golden apples and everything."

Athena, a striking blonde girl in a tunic, sat very erect and stared pellucidly at Melissa as she
said, "My father Zeus is of
the Sun. So are all the noble Gods of our species. If God is real, then he is the Sun, and the Moon
is his consort. Even
the materialists admit that the Sun is the source of all life on Earth. And the goal of the spiritual
path is to return to
the source -- to God,"

"Athena, you're beautiful and brilliant," said Captain Kirk, but you're too damn parochial. If you
had ever walked on
the planets of other suns, other stars, as I have, you'd realize that God is a lot bigger than just ol'
Sol up there."

"I've lived on Olympus and I've been to outer space," said Ganymede, a remarkably handsome
youth, and I think that
all stars, including our Sun, are just portals to a spiritual reality beyond them -- a Great Central
Sun that shine through
all the physical suns as though windows. So, Kirk, I wish that you and Athena wouldn't argue
about it so much,
because you're both right."

Cinderella, she of the princess mini-dress, said "You people get so abstract! The metamorphosis
starts in the heart and
the sun is the heart. It's real feelings and marvelous experiences and psychic miracles."

Maya -- who could as well have been called Snow White, such was the delightful contrast
between her black hair and
porcelain skin -- said "I think the astronomical stuff can be very experiential. As each one of us
develops our solar
body, we become like the Sun. We radiate energy, we shed light into the world. Eventually the
solar body grows to
the point where it begins to attract planets." She looked at Peter who smiled modestly. "But the
planets themselves
can develop into suns. All of us can do it, and the planets in the solar system are doing it. Way
back at the beginning
of the century, Gurdjieff said that the planets are heating up, and Jupiter in particular, because
it's the closest to
becoming a sun. He was speaking from metaphysical wisdom, but the scientists thought he was
a charlatan because
all their theories said that the planets are cooling down, and that they do not turn into stars.
Then when they started
sending out space probes to the planets, they discovered that sure enough, Jupiter is gradually
getting hotter, not
cooler. They still don't have a theory to explain it."

Suddenly Peter startled them all by sitting up erect in his chair, his face brightening, his eyes
alert. "Tinkerbell's
coming," he announced.

Melissa, meanwhile, was so awash in the heady tenor of the conversation that she would not
have been surprised to
see a tiny winged female creature fly in through a window and alight on the table. But she men-
tally snapped her
fingers to break the spell, and realized he must be speaking of another flesh-and-blood and full-
sized person with a
fairy-tale name. She wondered how he knew she was coming.

"Are you sure?" asked Geni.

"It's never a hundred percent," said Peter, "but I'm about as sure as I can be. Give it about ten
seconds." He began to
make rhythmic up-and-down motions with his hand, indicating the seconds. All the people
were silent. Some of them
looked expectantly toward the door.

Ten seconds passed, then twelve. Doubtful looks darkened a couple of countenances. Then
someone said, "Ah!"
Someone else said, "Wow!" Peter broke into a Sunlike grin and said, "Bingo!"

"Hi, Tink!" said a chorus of voices to a petite and astonishingly beautiful young woman who
walked through the door.

"Hi, Peter!" said Tinkerbell. "Hi, everybody."

She had a garland of wildflowers in her hair, and the hem of her green and white dress was cut
in a large sawtooth
pattern, mimicking the Disney version of Tinkerbell's raiment. She came over to the table.
People looked around
everywhere, but there wasn't a chair. A couple of them began to rise to offer her theirs, but she
said, "That's all right,"
and fluidly moved between the bodies and settled on Peter's lap. In virtually the same graceful
wave of motion, she
draped her arms around his neck and they shared a long, languorous kiss.

For Melissa it was Cindy all over again, except that her face must have turned twice as red,
because this time, as she
noted, the girl was at least twenty years younger than Peter. She wondered if Tinkerbell was
out of her teens.

"So what's happening in Neverland today?" asked Tinkerbell when the kiss was over. "Any
pirates?"

"Nary a one," said Peter, "but we have someone even better. This is Melissa, who was friends
with me in the Sixties."

"Pleased to meet you," said Tinkerbell, extending a hand which Melissa shook. "Were you
lovers too?"

Melissa was taken aback by the ingenuous temerity of the question, but managed a
straightforward "Yes."

"How could you tell?" asked Peter.

"Women's intuition, I guess," said Tinkerbell. Melissa realized that the girl had sensed her
jealousy.

Tinkerbell arose from Peter's lap, saying, "I see a chair over there," and stepped in its direction.
But Ulysses, who was
near it at the other table, snatched it up and passed it over the heads of the seated people. Space
was made, and the
chair was set down next to Peter. This maneuver involved the concerted movement of a
number of hands and bodies,
but it happened swiftly and smoothly, as if orchestrated by a veritable group mind.

"So how could YOU tell, Peter?" said Nebula, the spandex-clad cartwheeler.

"Hmm? How could I tell what?"

"How did you know that Tinkerbell was coming?"

Cinderella said, "Just another everyday psychic miracle."

"What did you do, Peter," scolded Tinkerbell, "psych me out again?"

"I picked up your cone," said Peter. "It gets more unmistakable every time."

"Does it have anything to do with pheromones?" asked Paracelsus.

"Not in this case," said Peter; "she was too far away. But every living thing projects a cone of
energy around it -- an
extension of the aura. Some people have bigger and intenser cones than others. And they can
be apperceived by
other people, especially when there's a relation-ship of whatever degree of intimacy."

"That's amazing," said Melissa.

"No," said Peter, "it's natural. Animals can do it. Our primal ancestors could do it. There's no
reason why we
shouldn't be able to do it."

"So that's what a solar body does?" she asked.

"That's one of the things, yes. A very minor one."

There was more talk around the table of psychic powers, spiritual development, love, death,
and metaphysics.
Melissa was stimulated, but found no resolution to her underlying puzzlement at the basic
nature of this group of
people. She wondered if it might all make perfect sense if only she "could suspend her disbelief
and accept them all as
the Gods and mythical figures whose roles they acted. If she entered into the verisimilitude,
would she suddenly
understand? But how could she do that? Would she have to cast aside her accepted identity
and become an
archetype herself? And if so, which one? What had made Athena decide to become a Goddess,
or Guinevere a
queen? Was Parsifal in search of the Grail? Did Captain Kirk travel to astral planets? Had
Cinderella been left
neglected by the fireside as a child?

The collective conversation encountered a pause. Peter, perhaps noticing that Melissa had
grown silent and
thoughtful, said to her, "Would you like to go outside for awhile and have a private talk?"

Collecting herself from reverie, Melissa said, "Why, yes, I would. I'd like that very much." Then
looking around the
table, she added: "Not that the conversation here hasn't been delightful and fascinating and
unique." As she and Peter
got up to leave, there was a smattering of affirmations: "Nice to meet you, Melissa", "See you
later", etcetera. And she
noticed that Tinkerbell squeezed Peter's hand in parting.

They walked around to People's Park, which is directly in back of the block of buildings that
contains the Cafe Med.
There were people strolling or sitting in the sun in clumps and singles. Peter and Melissa
selected a spot right at the
edge of the treeline, so that they could move from sun to shade at their leisure. As soon as they
had sat down on the
grass, Melissa fingered the leaves on Peter's jacket. "They even feel real," she said.

"Yes, they're genuine imitations. They last longer that way. I got them from a place that makes
very artful plants for
office decor and stuff. Money-back guarantee if some employee doesn't water them within the
first week. Then I
sewed 'em on."

"It's beautiful."

"It's authentic in one sense: it's what Peter Pan wore in Barrie's book. The green tights and
pixie hat are strictly
Disney. The real Peter Pan wore nothing but leaves. So that's what I do sometimes in
Mendocino - I go around in
just the leaf-tunic. It's real comfortable."

"I'll bet."

"Would you like to come up there with us some weekend? Or even on your vacation?"

She was startled by this invitation to establish ongoing social relations, for the prospect had not
occurred to her. Were
their worlds ready to re-intersect? She didn't think so.

"That's kind of you, Peter," she said, "but frankly, I can't imagine how I could ever fit into your...
your.... See, there's
the problem: I don't even know how to talk about your collection of friends, let alone
understand what all of you are
doing with this real-life role-playing game."

"That's not bad!" he said with genuine admiration. "In fact, that's one of the best first
assessments anyone has ever
made of us. A 'real-life role-playing game'. You understand better than you give yourself credit
for. It wouldn't take
you long at all to catch on to the whole trip."
"But WHY? I mean, given that that's what you're doing, why are you doing it? Why go around
playing games all the
time?"

"Why not?" he grinned, "It's fun."

"It beats working, huh?"

"Ah, those lazy hippies! Some of 'em never wise up. But seriously, Melissa, what we're
embarked on here, my crew
and I, is the greatest work that human beings can do. You can see that it ^s a lot of fun, but it's
very hard too. It takes
courage, self-discipline, and the patience of angels."

"That's just what I don't understand," she insisted: "exactly what are you really doing? What's
the point? What's it all
about?"

"Okay," he said, "since you ask. It's just a method to affect metamorphosis. It's based on what
we did as hippies, but
it's a stage or three beyond that.

"Most people just identify with the sick little roles they're offered by society, and so they lead
sick little neurotic lives.
They fall for the mind-control trick that makes them believe that the roles, and the personalities
that go with them,
are their real selves. And they don't think that there are any alternatives to who or what they
can be.

"If you remember anything real at all from your Sixties experience, you know that all roles are
basically arbitrary, even
though some are better than others and some suit a given individual better than others. Roles
are just a function of a
social context.

"So what I've done is to spin out a context -- I'm also Spider-Man, by the way -- in which people
can play the deepest,
realest roles they can imagine, on the grandest scale. Once you realize that you've got a choice,
there's no reason why
you shouldn't choose the best. And even if the role is beyond you in a practical sense, it elevates
your spirit trying to
live up to it. Someone who's honestly trying to become a God is bound to be a nobler human
being than someone
who's trying to become an accountant.
"Of the people you met today, Captain Kirk is probably the clearest example. He was a total
science fiction nerd and
computer lunatic. The only time he ever came out of his shell was at Star Trek conventions.
He'd put on the costume
and be Captain Kirk for a weekend, and it was great - he'd be decisive and commanding and
extroverted, and the girls
would fawn all over him. Then he'd come home and be this mousey little character who'd only
say 'boo' to his
computer.

"When I met him, and scoped out what the story was, I immediately said to him, 'Why not be
Captain Kirk all the
time?' His eyes lit up like suns, and -- well, you've seen him. He's a very high quality young
man who's well on his
way to activating his full potential.

"Whew!" said Melissa, "that clarifies a lot. It gives me a handle on what you're doing."

"Yep. There's method to my madness."

"But let me ask: does he still have his computer?"

"Yes, but he's not obsessed with it. In fact, he's teaching me how to use it."

Melissa could not hold back a laugh. "I'm sorry," she giggled, "it's just such an anomalous
image. You, sitting at a
computer.

"Wonders never cease," he said.

They sat in silence for awhile, watching the progress of the sunlight and shadows. Finally he
turned to her and
murmured, "Melissa. When sue was fully within his eyes, he said: "I can't believe that a woman
like you is leading a
cold, lonely life with nothing but business to light your fire.

She was stung, but didn't look away. This time her eyes were defying him - she would not be
pulled back into his
orbit,

"There are compensations," she said. Her voice was toneless but unwavering. She did not even
blink. She didn't dare.
"There are satisfactions that you know nothing about."

"Power," he countered, and he had her. Her eyes fell to the ground before her will could stop
them.
"Some things are just obvious," he said. "You don't need to put on a monkey suit and go into the
mess to find out."

He said again, "Melissa", and tried to take her hands. She pulled them away.

"Look," she said, "I'm doing what I'm doing, and I don't care what you think about it. And
you're not going to get me
to stop doing it. Not now, not ever!" She stood up, folded her arms, and turned her back on
him. But she did not
walk away.

She heard him sigh. Then he was standing beside her, looking in the same direction she was.
"You'll stop eventually,"
he said, "no matter if I'm in the picture or not. Nobody has forever in this little caterpillar
world. But you can't
blame me for trying to save you some karma."

"I'll tend to my own karma, if you don't mind."

"And then naturally there's the selfish reason. You can't blame me for trying to get back the
woman I love."

She turned and glared into his eyes. "How chivalrous of you to invite me into a threesome with
Tinkerbell! Like you
invited Gabrielle into our relationship at Woodstock. Well, at least with this one we could pass
in polite society -
people would think she's our daughter!!"

Peter's face was filled with pain. He was not able to speak, and neither one of them broke the
long eye contact that
resulted. At last he gathered himself and said, "If you come back to me it'll be just the two of us
forever."

"I thought you said that nothing is forever in this world."

"There are others."

"Ah! So you're going to take me to the astral... oops, I mean the solar plane with you, to reign
for eternity over your
little menagerie of planets -- your... your cult followers, or whatever they are."

"You're way off base, Melissa. Every one of those people is a sovereign soul. You are too, and in
your heart of hearts
you know I've always honored that. But you're my soulmate and we're bound together - and
yes, I dearly wish I could
dig you out of that business hell you're burrowing yourself into."

"What if I don't WANT to be 'dug out'?"

"Sometimes a soul actually changes from angelic to demonic, where it consciously wills evil to
others, and its own
self-destruction. You're not that far gone yet. You're running away from something you don't
want to deal with, and
you're doing a good job of shutting down all your higher faculties so that you don't remember
what you're running
from.

"Well. Mister God Incarnate, since you know my soul so much better than I do myself, maybe
you can tell me just
exactly what I'm supposed to be running away from."

"I don't have to. The stuff that's happening today is intended to jog your memory."

"I see! Again our meeting is divinely appointed to save me from my-self. Well, forget it, Peter..."
She turned away
again, and this time began to walk off. "...I hope you're very happy in your high and loony
universe. As for me, I'm
going to... to...."

"You're going to keep running."

She spun on her heel and screamed at him: "Yes! And you'll never catch me, never!" And then
she actually did run,
across the park and back to Telegraph Avenue. She didn't stop until she was well past the point
where intervening
buildings blocked his sight of her. Then she walked rapidly back to the BART, and sped across
the Bay to the City.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It seemed to Melissa like an eternity later when in the chill mists of an autumn evening she
came out of her office
building and found Peter playing a guitar on the sidewalk half a block down Battery Street. He
was alone this time,
and they spotted each other simultaneously. She had an urge to continue walking on past him,
but the constraint of
fate snared her as surely as the spider's web nets the fly. She stood in front of him and listened
as he finished the song
he was performing, all the while staring into her eyes. It was a Sixties ditty:

And the seasons go 'round and 'round,

The painted ponies go up and down;
We're captive on the carousel of time,
We can't go back, we can only look
Behind to where we've been,
And go 'round and 'round and 'round
In the circle game.

Another bystander clapped, threw some change into Peter's guitar case, then walked off.
Melissa noticed that Peter
looked more rough-hewn than the last time: he wore a deerskin coat with tassels, jeans,
mountain boots, and a fur
hat which was unusual in that it had a visor. His beard was back.

He didn't speak at the end of the song. He seemed content to stand there basking in the silent
eye contact. At length
she said tersely: "What now?"

He chuckled. "No more small talk, I see. Melissa, you've gotten as hard as nails."

"Is this how you're surviving these days?"

"Nope. This is just for fun. I wanted to keep occupied while I was waiting."

"What have you been waiting for?"

"You."

This time the urge was to run. She controlled it, and said, "Do you mean to tell me you've been
out here waiting for
me to come along?"

"For about a week or so. Different spots down here."

"How did you know I was even still in town?"

"The same way you'd know if someone cut off a piece of your body and shipped it to
Kalajnazoo. The tricky part was
the fine tuning. But I gradually homed in on your signal, and here you are."

"That stuff still amazes me, Peter. But why did you want to find me?"

"To let you know I'm leaving."

She was startled. "Where are you going?"

"To the Earth Colony."

For a moment, she could only stare in confusion. It was as if he had said "the Solar Lotus-Land"
or "Nirvana". Then it
came real, and she said, "Is it a farm?"

"Nope. You're the one who kept equating it with a farm. I'm more the hunter-gatherer type
myself."

"Is it in Mendocino?"

"Montana."

Again she was startled. "Wow! So you're really going all the way."

"Any farther and we'd be in Canada."

She looked him up and down, as if making an appraisal, or a decision. Then she said, ^All right,
I'd like to hear about
it. Just curious, you understand."

"Oh, of course."

"Should we go somewhere?"

"Anyplace you like."

"Chinatown?"

"Fine."

She had tea and beef teriyaki in the restaurant, and he fruit juice and vegetables. "Is the hunter
a vegetarian?" she
asked.

"Can't stomach factory farm meat. It clouds my Sun inside. Wild stuff's completely different - I
relish it. 'Specially
venison.

"Yes, I understand it has no cholesterol."

"That's right, and better vibes in general. What they do to those cows an' pigs an' chickens is
like something out of
Dante, and every-thing the critters feel goes into the meat, and into the bodies of the people
who eat it. Psychic
poison."
Her hand faltered in bringing the chopsticks to her mouth, but then, resolutely, she continued
to eat.

He told her about the Earth Colony. "We found out that for the price of a small house with a
yard in Mendocino, we
could get several hundred acres of wilderness in northern Montana. It's cheap because nobody
wants to live there.
But that just makes it more perfect for us."

"You mean it's just empty wilderness?"

"It's forested mountain land. It's magnificent."

"But I mean, there's no house or anything?"

"There wasn't when we bought it. Now there's a whopping big log cabin and a couple of
outbuildings. Next year
there'll be more."

"How many people are going to be there?"

"Well, we had people traveling back an' forth to the place all summer, working on it - and sort
of easing their way
into living there. I expect that about ten or twelve adults will hole up there for the winter; Then
depending on how
it goes, there could be twice as many in the spring."

"So are there children?"

"Yep. Danny and Marge's two, and a couple of others."

"Oh! So they're with you - Dennis and Marge."

"They sure are. I said that an Earth Colony needs at least one pair of soulmates at the center of
it, and right now
they're it."

"And the people who were with you in Berkeley last time - they're going to live there too?"

"Almost all of the people you met are still with us, and are coming along - some in the winter,
some in the spring.
Actually, I guess I shouldn't say for sure who'll end up as the permanent colonists. It's all a big
experiment at this
point. How well we survive this first winter, physically and spiritually, will tell a lot. But I have
a strong feeling that
a hard core will emerge, and that most of the crew will be in it."
"I see," said Melissa, and ate for awhile before responding. Finally she said, "And you want me
to be in it too, right?
That's why you came looking for me?"

"No."

She looked at him in frank surprise. He continued: "I accept what happened last time.
Whatever it is that's casting
you off from me is going to take something pretty drastic to fix it."

She wiped her lips with a napkin, tapped a polished nail on the table-top, then said, "How do
you know that I
haven't changed since then? What has it been -- eight, nine years?"

"Come on, Melissa. I knew the moment I laid eyes on you, while I was singing."

She sighed. "Yes, well, why have you found me, then?"

"As long as we were both in the Bay Area, synchronicity could bring us together at the right
moments. Now I'm
pulling up stakes, so I want to make sure that we can still connect, when and if the time is ever
right again. I want to
give you the address of the Earth Colony, and ask you to give me a way to reach you."

"Does the Earth Colony have an address? It sounds so isolated,"

"We have a post office box in the nearest town, which is thirty miles away."

Melissa was silent again for a moment. Her meal was almost finished. "If I refused," she said, "if
I sent you off without
exchanging whereabouts, it would mean that I'd finally escaped. Assuming the Colony is
successful, and you stay in
Montana, our paths wouldn't cross any more."

"Wrong again," he said.

She was nonplused. "What do you mean?"

"I'll say it again. We're soulmates. We have unfinished business. Addresses are one level, but
there are others. If we
lived on different planets, our fate would draw us together in the end."

Somehow her chopsticks clattered to the floor. Her eyes went to the door, as if she were going
to bolt. Instead she
sat back in her chair and thought for a long time.
"All right," she said. "I've got a post office box myself. I've had it for about twenty years, ever
since I got out of
college. It stays the same when I move or change jobs." She took a scrap of paper from her
purse and scribbled on it,
then gave it to him. He gave her one in turn.

"So what about you?" he asked.

"Me? Oh - the same, I guess. Well, not quite. I'm a vice president now."

"Congratulations. Do you love anybody?"

She stared at him with a look almost of alarm. He said, "Besides me, I mean."

"I have a lover," she said, trying for an iciness that melted into a pet.

"So you never had those children."

She was silent.

Peter shifted his center of gravity and said, "Is your lover any good?"

"He's twelve years younger than me!" She blurted this out, then recoiled from her indiscretion.

He grinned. "Well, I guess you must be doing something right, then. Is he a fellow executive?"

"No. He's a... a creative person."

"I see. And does that pay as well as what you do?"

"No. It pays very little."

"Hmm. This wouldn't by any chance be a gigolo you're shacked up with, would it?"

"Damn you, Peter!"

"Sorry," he said, grinning.

Soon afterwards they left the restaurant. "Good luck in the wilderness," she said.

He seemed reluctant to make the parting. "Let me tell you a little story," he said. "It'll only take
a minute. I read once
in a Hindu book that they have a belief that no matter how you've lived your life -- even if
you've sinned up and
down and mocked everything that's holy -- if you say the name of God at the moment of death,
he'll come and take
you to heaven. He won't let the Lord of Death take your soul to the vajra hells, even though you
deserve it. The
author illustrated the point with a tale about a man who had named his son after the supreme
God, Vishnu. The man
was an old reprobate, and was dying in despair. With his last breath he tried to call for his son --
he cried, 'Vishnu!
Vishnu!' And the God Vishnu heard him, and came and saved him from his fate."

Melissa laughed. "It sounds almost Catholic. Say one 'Our Father' and two 'Hail Marys', and all
your sins will be
forgiven."

"Yes," said Peter, "it's definitely an exoteric belief - a fairy tale for people who are children
spiritually. But in this case
there was a deeper element. When the man was younger, he did indeed love Vishnu, and honor
him, which is why
he named his son after him. Then he fell away into worldliness. So it wasn't a trick or an
accident that he called
Vishnu's name and got saved - it was the virtue of his forgotten love leaping across the gap in
time. It was his destiny."

"Somehow I get the feeling that there's supposed to be a moral for me in this."

"Maybe. But it just flashed into my head, and I wanted to tell you."

"Peter, I have to go."

"Okay. I'll be seeing you."

"Good-bye." She held up her hand as it to ward off a possible embrace. He returned the gesture
as a salute and a
parting wave. And then he was gone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The following summer Melissa wrote a letter to Peter asking about the fortunes of the Earth
Colony. She addressed
Marge and Dennis in it too, inquiring about their changes, their children, and their new life. She
got back letters from
all three of them in a big envelope. Peter told her how the dreaded first winter had turned out a
smashing success.
The interpersonal relations of the group had flourished even in snow bound isolation from the
rest of the human race.
 There had been deer hunting and other adventures. They had celebrated all twelve days of
Christmas in a gratifying
Saturnalia. "And at the advent of spring," wrote Peter, "we knew the true primal meaning of
resurrection."

There were now twenty-six people living full-time in the Colony, most of them planning to stay
for the next winter,
and building cabins in preparation for it. Some of the costumed "crew" she had met with Peter
in Berkeley said hi in
the letter. Tinkerbell was not one of them, and Melissa caught her self thinking about the ins
and outs of Peter's
romantic life. She wondered if he now had a lover thirty years younger than him. She had an
urge to tear up the
letters, but put them instead in the bottom of a drawer. And there they stayed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was not until several years into the new millennium that Melissa got another letter from the
Earth Colony. She
noticed that Marge's name, not Peter's, was above the return address.

Marge said that Peter had died,

They weren't sure of the cause. He had liked to meditate on the top of a mountain, and would
sometimes spend
hours, or even whole days, just sitting up there. One night he didn't come back to the cabin. This
wasn't unusual, for
he sometimes slept in the woods, and the next morning a couple of people went to check on
him. They found him
sitting cross-legged in his usual spot. They were about to go away and let him be, but one of
them got a strange
feeling. They looked Peter over very closely, and discovered that he wasn't breathing.

They went back and told the others. It seemed plausible to many that he had mastered a new
level of deep trance,
and that his body functions might be operating on a very subtle basis. Thus they left him
undisturbed, but watched
him carefully. Five days later he still had not moved, and the unmistakable stench of death
became manifest. "It looks
like he's not coming back to his body," Dennis had said.

They held a three-day wake and funeral. Mourning was very grievous, though some had bravely
tried to make a
celebration of it, as Peter would have wanted. Some people told stories of seeing Peter at the
event, of exchanging an
unthinking word or eye contact with him, then startling up into awareness -- "Hey, you're
dead!" -- only to find him
gone.

At the end they planted his corpse like a seed beneath a maple tree, naked into the Earth, as he
had often specified.
"No box for me," he had said.

"That was only a week ago," said Marge in the letter, "but we've all had the most amazing
dreams of him since then.
We know he'll be with us always."

Melissa's condominium commanded a magnificent view. There was the Transamerica Pyramid
superimposed over the
Bay and the Berkeley Hills beyond. For a long time after finishing the letter, she sat on her sofa
apparently looking out
at the view. Her body was as still as Peter's must have been in his last lonely vigil on the
mountaintop; and if truth be
told, her eyes saw exactly as much of the exterior scene. At last she glanced around surprised,
wondering how dusk
had fallen. A practical voice inside her said, "Now I will get up and fix myself some dinner." But
as she shifted her
weight to her feet, the simple act of movement caused something to unclench, like a fist jarred
open in her viscera.
She fell back upon the couch as the sobs came. The anger at her inability to staunch the
wellspring only strengthened
it, and she cried and cried and cried.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When Melissa turned seventy, the board of directors of her company forced her retirement. She
had wanted to go on
and on, and still harbored dreams of the presidency from which she was little more than a
heartbeat away. But her
colleagues pointed out, in respectful terms, that she was clearly past her peak. She had seemed
to lose heart in recent
years, and even interest. The fire and decisiveness were gone; the edge was off her ambition.

Friends pointed out that she had enough wealth and connections to start her own corporation,
and that on lesser
scales there were a thousand other ways she could keep her hand in and stay active. She told
her friends and potential
collaborators that she would take time to unwind and consider all her options, and then she
would let them know.
She thought about where in the world she might fly for an overdue vacation; or perhaps she
would make an extended
time of it and take a world cruise. As she was thinking about all this, something strange
happened: she discovered that
she didn't really want to do anything at all. She did not even want to get out of bed in the
morning.

She had separated from her last lover years before. Her parents had died years before that. She
had no living relatives
with whom she was close. The faces of her friends and former co-workers went 'round and
'round in her mind like a
video tape loop, but there was not a single one of them whom she wanted to see or talk to.

If she had confided her situation to any clear-headed observer, it would have been obvious
what Melissa wanted. And
before long her body obliged and gave it to her.

She awoke one night with a pain in her chest. As she tried to move, she realized how severe it
was. She struggled to
reach the phone on the night table; she knew that all she had to do was dislodge the receiver
and punch "911", and
help would be dispatched to her address. But the mere act of lifting her arm was agony; it was
made of brick and
would not extend. With a herculean determination she managed to move her hand to the table
and rest it there.
Another burst of effort tipped the receiver off its cradle. Her finger had just touched the "9"
when a thought
penetrated the momentum of her actions: why? And to that question she had no answer at all.

Her will released its grasp on her body, which rolled back into a supine position. She was
paralyzed now with the
pain; she had relinquished her one chance to save herself. She knew she was going to die, and a
terrible fear of it
gripped the inside of her. Her mind's eye cast backwards over the years of her life, scanning the
triumphs and
intrigues she had experienced in her career, the fortunes that she had won, the legions of
people who had served her
and done her bidding as underlings, the pleasure of seeing the force of her will reflected in
morning head-lines. And
none of it mattered now - there was not a drop of blood in it to console her, not a jot of life-
substance to cast into the
vast blackness that descended like a shroud around her.

In absolute terror, she became convinced that her silently screaming mind would endure
forever, floating stone cold
and alone in this blank nihil, a pit that could just as well be coffin-sized or fill infinity.
Desperately she searched the
fading shadows of her life for some scrap of hope, some discarded sliver of information that
might bring precious light
into this hellish night. And then she remembered.

He had told her... something. Something to do, or to say, at the moment of death. Something
that could help, that
could save her. What was it? If only she hadn't been so heedless.

Call somebody, that was it. Nine-one-one was gone forever; what was left? A name, the name
of... oh God, what
was it? God. Ah.

Call on the name of God.

And her spirit writhed into fresh despair, for she had known no God in her life, not any that
meant a thing to her after
the rote of childhood rhymes had weathered away. There was no God, and she was lost. But
why, why had he told
her that? No matter the pangs he had made her suffer, he always said what he said for a reason,
and there was sense
in it.

He?

The fist inside her opened again; a wall crumbled; a barrier dissolved, And now she knew what
she had to do. With
the last vestige of her strength and the last breath in her lungs, she called out:

"Peter!

"Peter!

"PETER!"

The pain exploded with the third cry, for her heart had burst. But the hurt stopped in a
moment, and she saw a light,
afar off. She reached up her hand toward it. It was easy to lift her arm now -- it was effortless.
The light grew, as if at
her fingertips. She realized that it seemed to grow because it was coming closer. Then she
recognized it as a living
creature.

It was a butterfly.
Now she thought it was just above her, and would alight on her finger. But no, it continued to
grow, the efflorescent
butterfly, the imago made of light. Her vision of it shifted scale, and she knew that it was the
size of a man. Then she
saw that it WAS a man. It was Peter, glowing golden like the Sun, with immense and exquisite
butterfly wings
growing right out of his back. They looked so natural on him -- as if he had always worn them,
and she had somehow
never noticed.

He hovered above her now, unquestionably a God, or angel. He reached down his hand toward
her, and for just an
instant their fingertips were poised, the distance of a spark gap between them. Then he grasped
her hand.

"Oh, Peter!" she said, "thank God you're here! I was so afraid...."

He brought a finger of his free hand to his lips and said, "Sshh. Just focus on my eyes for a
minute. We've got to get
you out of that chrysalis."

He tugged gently, and she arose. She could perceive that she was emerging out of something,
and that it was indeed
very much like a shell, or cocoon, or chrysalis. There was a mass of something on her back - it
was shapeless and
matted, and clung to her.

At last her feet came free of the encasement. Peter draped her arm around his neck and said,
"Hold tight." Then he
flew upwards, carrying her with him. They soared up through a tunnel and emerged in a place
of light. Overhead was
what appeared to be the Sun, except that it caused strong feelings in Melissa. She felt love for
everything and
everyone, especially for Peter, and especially for that Sun itself. She felt drawn toward the Sun -
- she wanted to fly up
and merge with it.

As this urge clarified inside her, she felt the strange stuff on her back move, under her volition.
Part of it pulled away
from where it had been sticking to her body, and unfolded itself upwards and outwards,
expanding.

"It'll take a little longer yet," said Peter, "but it's getting there."

"What is it?" asked Melissa; "what's happening?"

"Why, I thought you knew. You're drying your wings in the Sun."

"My WINGS?"

"Of course."

Astounded, she flexed a muscle in her back, and the... WINGS uncrinkled further. And now she
could see that she too,
like Peter, had great, glorious, glowing butterfly wings.

Overcome with wonder, she said, "Peter -- how have I come to be a butterfly?"

"The soul," he said, "can take many forms. Whatever imprint you receive on Earth, provided it
corresponds to the
reality of the life of the soul, will determine how you manifest after death."

She emitted a short gasp. "That's right. I died! Peter, it was awful!" He drew her to him and
hugged her tightly.
"Until... until you came."

"I couldn't have come unless you called," he said. "So you see, that's how it works. Evidently
your strongest concept of
the Spirit, or God, was bound up with me. And your image of the soul was, and is, the one I
imprinted you with: the
butterfly."

She laughed, "So you laid a trip on me again."

"Yep. Mad?"

"Not any more. This is all so amazing. We're young and beautiful and... and alive!"

"You're more beautiful than you've ever been. And you'll like being a butterfly. It has lots of
advantages,"

"Like what?"

"I'll show you. It looks like your wings have dried. Let's fly!"

He took her hand, and they ascended. The sheer pleasure of it enthralled her. They flew in
easy circles until she
had mastered the knack. Then they embarked on a skydance, which grew more graceful and
complex as Melissa's skill
improved, and they learned the mutual subtleties of dyadic flight.
Then they began to fly around each other in tightening circles, hold-ing eye contact. Finally
Peter reached out and
touched Melissa. It was a mere caress on the arm, but it electrified her. She returned the touch,
stroking his arm, and
it created a circuit through which flowed great galvanizing currents of voluptuous juice. For an
instant their eyes
became mirrors: each saw a flash of themself in the other.

She began to sob and clutched herself to his breast. "I'm sorry, Peter," she cried, "I'm so sorry!
How could I have been
so bull-headed. How could I have separated us for all those years?"

He held her and said, "Well, that's finished now. We're here."

"Thank God! Thank God we're here together. It's just so clear now -- what we have, what we
are. I mean, it's love -
and the word is hardly big enough to express it. It... it's everything."

His eyes drew her to his lips. They kissed, and hugged, and tumbled over and over in the air.

Melissa moaned under the sussurus of Peter's touch. "Aah!" she gasped, "everything is so much
more intense than
when we did it on Earth. I can't believe I don't have a body!"

"You do," he said, "an astral body."

"Is that what they are?"

"Just yours. As I explained to you on Earth, mine is a solar body,"

"Oh! That's why you're all gold and I'm silver."

"Ah, you noticed."

"Well, of course. But I thought it was just, y'know, 'The silver apples of the Moon, the golden
apples of the Sun.'"

He laughed uproariously, and pulled her to him, and cartwheeled them into a spiral toward that
strange, loving Sun.
"It is!" he said, "it sure is that too!"


Soon they had mastered the art of abandoning themselves to sensual caress while still
remaining skyborne. "We're
butterflies," said Peter; "it's instinctive."

They stroked and kissed and fondled and rubbed. They did aerial loops in opposite directions,
then came back up
around and let their bodies brush electrically across each other. At times they relished the
exquisite thrill of subtle
touches, and at others they squeezed and sucked and pinched and nipped. And they marveled
at how charged it
all was, and how they had the capacity to bear what on Earth would have been an overload of
ecstasy.

Now the rhythm-of their movements was almost that of a single organism. Their limbs shifted
and flowed in time with
the sibiliant beat of their wings. Their eyes were constant mirrors now, and there was only one
way to sate the
yearning each felt to meld into the other. Peter's golden member hailed Melissa's labia, and
received their kiss. It
gave a thrust, and was engulfed.

And now they flew with the thrust-and-push ullulation, their wings and heartbeats entirely
synched. For now they
were very nearly one as they looped and dove, and pirouetted back toward the Sun. They
played like this for ages,
locked together in timeless expectant ecstasy. And at last, with eyes wide open, they climaxed.

Each flowed into the other through their loins, their hearts, and their eyes. And then there
were not two butterflies
but one, pulsing in love forever beneath the Sun.

But the pulse at length waned, eternity ran down; the creature clove in twain, and a gold and a
silver butterfly
plummeted like twin Icaruses away from the face of the Sun. Their wings caught the breeze,
and they righted
themselves. They joined hands, and floated gently to the ground.

For a long time they lay together in a loose embrace, enjoying the silent flow of telepathic
empathy. Finally Melissa
stirred up from her cuddle against Peter's chest, kissed him, looked at him, and said, "God, how
I love you!"

He kissed her, and said, "How I love YOU, Goddess."

She laughed, delighted. "That's not how I meant it."

"I just enjoyed taking it that way. And it's very close to being true, you know. We're almost
Gods here."
"Peter, this may sound like a naive question, but... where is here? Where are we? What is this
place?"

"It's called the Metasphere."

"Is that like the astral or solar plane?"

"Those are both layers of it. There are other layers too. We're specifically in the Solarsphere,
which is the highest
layer, not counting certain zones of stellar influence."

"But how come we're the only ones? Aren't there other people - other souls around?"

"There are. They're sort of respecting our privacy now. But you can meet them any time you
want. They're a great
bunch - very high folks. As I told you, only a very select crew develop their solar potential."

"But I... I'm only astral."

"They'll still be very pleased to meet you."

"I'm only here because of you."

"You're my soulmate. Yes,"

She sat and thought for awhile. At length she said, "Peter, maybe you'd better tell me exactly
what the difference is
between a solar and an astral body. Back on Earth, you said everybody's got an astral body and
it's no big deal;
and then you spent the rest of your life building this solar body, one of the select few who do it -
- so it must be very
special. What can it do that an astral body can't?"

Very gently, he said: "For one thing, it can live for a long time."

She was stunned. "You mean I'm going to die... again?"

"Not in the same way you did on Earth, and not till something pretty miraculous happens first,
which I'll show you
soon. But eventually, yes, that would be the natural course. Astral bodies don't have much
staying power. They're
a form that gets impressed onto the ether from the force and identity of a physical life. Once
they're separated from
the physical, they begin to fade and dissipate."
"Oh, Peter!"

He hugged her to him and continued: "That's what normally happens. But in your case we
might be able to find
another way."

"How can that be possible?"

"Solar power. You'll see."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

There passed an interval that is hard to measure, because time in the Metasphere corresponds
only metaphorically
to time on incarnate Earth. But it would be helpful to think in terms of days and weeks and
months going by, as
Peter introduced Melissa to some of his solar friends, con-ducted her on ventures into the astral
to learn about
conditions there and meet some denizens, and explain to her more of the realities of the
discarnate world.
Sometimes they made love, but never again with the explosive climax they attained on that first
flight. "That's
something special that happens immediately after death," he said, "and isn't possible later for
most souls, because
the astral body is already fading. Even the tamer stuff we do makes it dissipate faster. It's the
same principle that
works on Earth: any form of intense release tends to blow out your spiritual substance."

Melissa did not yet feel faded, but there came a day when she could no longer avoid making a
conclusion about
another kind of change that was taking place in her astral body. "Peter," she announced, "I'm
pregnant."

Peter put an arm around her waist -- just below where the wings attached in back -- and with
his other hand gently
poked the bulge in her silver belly. Then he rubbed it caressingly and said, "Aah, it's going to be
a good one. This
is what we made on our great solar peak-out right after you died."

She was befuddled. "How can spirits give birth to babies?"

"They don't," he said. "It's only an egg."

"A WHAT? An EGG?"

"We're butterflies, remember? Our reproductive cycle involves metamorphic stages. The adult
butterfly -- or
'imago', as it's called -- lays eggs. And it doesn't take as long to gestate as a fetus. You're almost
ready to deliver.
Or I should say, to lay."

"I'm going to LAY an EGG?"

"Yes, indeed. Come along, you'll see."

They took wing and swooped down through the silver sheen of the astral zone which girdles
the Earth. This time
they did not stop to visit but continued to descend, right out through the bottom of it. They
traversed regions of
heavier energy and unhappier spirits, until finally they reached the densest and most
negatively-charged zone of
them all: the physical surface of the planet.

"How strange it is now!" said Melissa, as they flew over cities and towns and through massive
waves of collective
human vibrations. "It gives me the chills!"

Peter said, "After awhile you'll get acclimated to it, or at least get over the shock of alienness
and negativity. Try to
focus your attention, and let me know when you begin to pick up anything specific."

"Like what?"

"You'll know when it happens."

Soon Melissa said, "I'm feeling something."

"What's it like?"

"Sensuality."

"Okay," he said, "now we go a little lower."

They dove and leveled off into a sort of slipstream in which they could see individual people
whom they were
passing by in their flight. Or rather, couples.

"They're all making love," said Melissa.

"Yep. How do you feel now?"

"Horny - very horny. And I... I'm being drawn to the people who are fucking. It's like a magnet,
and it's getting
stronger."

"Just hold onto me, for now. What we're looking for is a very special couple, and only you can
find them."

"How do I do that?"

"Just follow your instinct. You'll see, it's easy."

They flew and flew, and ever stronger became Melissa's urge to allow herself to be swept into
the compelling vibe of
copulation. Then suddenly she cried, "Oohh!"

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, but it's over there."

They flew in the direction she pointed, and shortly came upon a beautiful young couple making
love in a broad
meadow surrounded by mountains. It was day, and the Sun shone. "That's them," she said; "it's
overwhelming."

Peter was grinning. "I should've guessed. This is the Earth Colony."

"It is?"

"Yes. That's Jason and Gloria, You never met them. Great kids -- REALLY great. Gloria is Dennis
and Marge's
granddaughter, and Jason is the son of Athena."

"My God, Peter, they look terrific! And now I've got to go to them and... and do something."

"Go for it. Just give yourself up to instinct."

Melissa fluttered down to them and alighted. She hoped she was not too late; she could sense
that Jason was about
to climax at any moment - and so was Gloria, Melissa's silvery, wraithlike form interpenetrated
the physical bodies of
the young man and woman, as she squatted upon them in the posture of a primal woman
preparing to give birth.
Now she could feel the mass in her womb begin to move, to shift position downwards. There
was no pain, only a
delicious, erotic fibrillation, even when her vagina began to expand.
Then Gloria moaned, and she and Jason began to pant, and their bodies convulsed in the
onomatopoeia of
climactic rhythm. At that moment Melissa heaved and grunted, and a spheroid object
completed its passage out of
her womb and into Gloria's. It was indeed an egg, about as big as an ostrich might lay. It shone
with a brilliance like
that of the Sun and Moon intermingled, its color an exact esthetic balance between silver and
gold. With her astral
vision, Melissa, could see that the glowing spirit-egg had nestled itself into a position where
Gloria's ovum was
precisely in the center of it, as if waiting for the physical body to grow out into this soul, and fill
its form with head and
arms and eyes and heart and legs, and fetal being.

Jason and Gloria's breathing subsided, and they lay there, still and happy. Her own task
completed, Melissa spread
her wings, preparing to rise up and away. As she did so, she couldn't resist a look at Gloria's
lovely young face,
filled as it was with love. And something miraculous happened: Gloria returned her look, and
for an instant they were
in mutually-aware eye contact, Gloria looked startled, then amazed, and Melissa swiftly flew
upwards, where she
found Peter floating just above them.

As they turned to leave, they heard Gloria say: "Lover, you won't believe this, but I just saw an
angel! She was so
beautiful, and all glowing with love! She told me that we just made a baby, and that it's going to
be very special, a
great person who's going to help to transform the world. Isn't that amazing? Do you think I'm
crazy?"

"Nope," said Jason, "'cause you'll never guess who I just saw."

"You too? Oh, tell me, tell me!"

"Well, at first I thought it was God, but then I recognized him as Peter."

"Peter! Oh wow, Jason, we're really blessed. And so is this baby."

They hugged each other ecstatically, naked there in the Sun, and Peter and Melissa flew away.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Back in the Solarsphere, Melissa noticed that she was not the same. She became very tired after
short exertions,
and barely had enough energy to fly. One day she looked at her hand, and discovered that she
could see through
it. "I'm fading, Peter," she said, "I'm becoming insubstantial!"

"Yes," he said, "it's about time to do what we have to do."

"Just what ARE we going to do?"

"We're going to take a trip to the Sun."

"And what'll happen there?"

"We'll merge ourselves as best we can, and go into it."

"Go INTO it? Into the Sun? Won't we burn up?"

"We're spirits. We'll be consumed, but there's more to it than that. The unified consciousness
we attain at the
moment of dissolution will merge with the consciousness of the Sun, at least partially."

"Has the Sun consciousness?"

"Of course. The Sun is the central spirit of the solar system."

"Why will our consciousness only partially merge with that of the Sun?"

"Because our joint spirit is only partially pure. All our imperfections and darknesses are going
to get burned away,
and what's left will be fit to unite with the pure light of the Sun."

"That's pretty scary, Peter. Will there be anything significant left over from the... the burning?"

"The purification. Yes, there will: the essence of both of us -- the individual spark that makes
each of us what we
are, and the love that unites us into something bigger than the sum of our separate selves. As
you found out on our
mating flight, the essence of the Sun is love.

Melissa thought silently for a time. Then she asked, "What would happen if we didn't do it?"

"You'd fade out and be gone pretty quickly. Butterflies don't last long in the summer, after they
come out of the
chrysalis. We humans are a lot like the locust, too. It grubs around as a worm underground for
seventeen years,
then comes up into the Sun for a brief month or two as a winged adult - it just makes love, lays
its eggs, and dies."
She looked forlorn. He continued: "But that's the beauty of it. Even though individual
continuity is lost, the whole
basic pattern of our unique psychic endowment goes on - the karmic structures that underlie
our egos, our
personality, our destiny in the Universe."

"In the egg, you mean. The egg will be the soul of the new baby."

"Yes. Gloria will give birth to a child in whom all the important elements of Peter and Melissa
will continue - with new
elements added, of course: he or she will be a new unique individual."

"So this is what's really behind the belief in reincarnation?"

"Yes. This is how it works."

Melissa was thoughtful again, then said: "Peter, if we didn't fuse and go into the Sun, how long
would you be able to
live in your solar body?"

"Assuming that I would continue my self-discipline and development, there's basically no limit.
I'd keep going on to
further stages."

She fell against his chest, and hugged him convulsively. In a whisper she said: "You're giving up
immortality for me."

"Not exactly," he said. "There's a big transition-point in the potentially eternal process. The
ultimate stage in human
development is to graduate from the human -- and that's accomplished by precisely what we're
about to do now
anyway: going into the Sun."

"Is that really true?"

"Yes."

"But there must be a difference."

"Well, if I spent the equivalent of several thousand years, and did a few incarnations as a saint
or avatar, I could
eventually purge all my non-solar elements, all my human imperfections. I could become so
like the Sun that
nothing would be lost by merging with it. Then my further stages of spiritual development
would be those of the Sun
himself."

"So," said Melissa, "there's no way around it: you're sacrificing a big part of yourself to keep
some little spark of me
in existence. Well, I won't let you do it, Peter. I'm just going to stay here and dissolve, and you
can go on and do
what you have to do. I can't bear to deprive you of that."

"It won't work," he said. "I couldn't bear to go on after you stopped. Anyway, I would need my
soulmate to go
through all those other stages with."

Melissa digested this. "Then I really screwed everything up by... getting sidetracked, in my life
down there on Earth."

"There may be a greater destiny at work -- we don't know. Nothing really vital is ever lost,
though potential is often
wasted. The important thing is to make the best use of what we have to work with now."

She sighed deeply. "All right. I guess it's for the best."

He pointed upward to the Sun. "So - are you ready?"

"We're going now?"

"Might as well. There's not much time left."

He took her hand, and infused some of his immense energy into her. Then he flew up and up,
and on into space,
until the Sun was a blinding horizoned sea of flame before them. They mated again, and
became one. The single
winged soul abandoned itself to the ineluctable pull of the Sun's love. Moments later there was
a small flash on the
vast plasmic surface. And then there was only the Sun.

Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100710184511/http://www.alt-
psyche.com:80/metamorph.html