Cursing Charlie

Cursing Charlie

         We sat, with the Arizona heat falling away. Eyes that I once knew stared through the canyon; through it, reading it without invitation. Below, thick streams of red whipped in violent motion. There is nothing to mind here, but in his words, “There is always a reason to mind the mind.”
         The pair of us were content to be still the long day full. Life is what you breathe in. The canyon air fills our lungs then leaves with every ounce of wrong that ever occurred. These times are us, us alive.
         Charlie reminds me of a shaman. Maybe our souls have united for the simple reason that we compliment each other in the strongest sense. We know each other through and through yet are laced together as one. Our patterns differ so, yet nothing arises to harm that gentle tranquility that came so effortlessly. I speak in rings and he speaks in cubes. Still we mesh and become that prime example.
         Traveling for hours without destination, we came across this canyon. Something hypnotic leads us to the edge. A feeling came over me, possibly Charlie as well, that we were standing only mere miles from the sun itself. Heat concentrated to cold. By this, no words needed to tell of meaning or honest emotion.
         Charlie, being the shaman that he is, seems apathetic when he is seeping with intelligence. Zeus! He stares at the world with such nonchalance! Or is that me? The separation...I am never sure. I remember the stick trees he drew. He told me the world was a forest. In the middle of the desert, he tells me that the earth is a forest. Curiosity being me, I did not let him get away with such an enigmatic statement as that.
         “Then why are there no leaves on the trees?”
         “It is a world without expectations.”
         “A world without questions? People expect answers, you know.”
         “Telepathy, kid. Telepathy.”
         “That is invasion.”
“Get out of the fold. Why do you look for a reason when there is no reason at all?”
         “It is nature.”
         “You are a product of your environment. You are one of the trees with leaves.”
         “And what is a world without expectations?”
         “Utopia of a minor kind.”
         “What else do the leafless trees represent?”
         “Is there always something more? You are a greedy child at Christmas-always wanting another gift.”
         “So what is the point?”
         “You are the prime example of unrelenting expectancy.”
         My mind never can supply when he rants. I do listen with sharp ears, but still I am running my brain to an unknown place. I am a hamster, running until the moon gives out.
         Charlie knows I love his wisdom. The no-name canyon is his place to let it run rampant. Charlie is beautiful like that. Such a rarity in life is the reality in reality. In some ways, I wish to trap him in a jar with tiny punctures to breathe from, but Charlie is Charlie-born at the hands of open spaces.
         I realized this one afternoon as I was walking on rocks. I hopped on another and onto a rattlesnake. It hissed as to claim the burnt-orange earth. Charlie entered my thoughts as I went to other rocks. Charlie belonged where he was, just parallel to the rattlesnake. Charlie is one of the trees without leaves. He is surviving that way because he survives without them. Naturally.
         “You have the right to conduct me in whatever fashion,” Jack White entered singing Expecting. It summed up my relationship with Charlie. Whatever went through him with significance he brought to me and taught me; but Charlie has always known the limits of expectations and existence. He may just have the key to truth. He has mastered the gray.
         Sitting on the edge of the canyon, a lizard climbed into my lap. Am I magnetic? I picked up the lizard and let it play through my fingers. Charlie just watched; probably amazed I had let it touch me at all. To satisfy his watch I held it nose to nose with me. The lizard did not seem to fear me at all. I considered it a small miracle in the grand scheme. I placed the no-sex-specific lizard on my shoulder and refocused my vision on the seeming abyss.
         “Karma is the way of life, is it not?” Charlie’s words of wisdom resurfaced.
         “Low blow, kid. Low blow.”
         “Why thank you.”
         “It likes you. Your karma attracts and pacifies the lizard. That is what I meant.”
         I closed and directed my eyes to the sun and let it invade me. My legs dangled and made the sand detour. Still the lizard rested on my shoulder.
         “What would be the first thing you would say if you were this lizard?”
         With a minimal amount of concentration, Charlie spurted, “I ran into a cactus!”
         “I love you in the easiest way, Charlie. Poor lizard.” I laughed with my eyes still separated from the sights around.
         “And I you.” He ran his fingers through my hair so lightly I almost could not feel him at all. I opened my eyes flash and the canyon appeared lime in color. That blazing ball did such marvelous things.
         One early morn we arrived barely ahead of the dawn. China swirled in me, “I can feel the distance as you breathe. Sometimes I think you want me to touch you. How can I when you build that great wall around you? In your eyes I saw a future together, but you just look away in the distance.”
         Charlie spoke. “A cigar-smoking angel once said, ‘You are alone here, so if you jump, you best jump far.’ In a sense, you agree?”
         “Charlie, we live in that sense.”
         “Then shall we celebrate?”
         “Wait for the sun, Charlie.”
         China blared siren-like. I let it escape now. “You are right next to me. I think that you can hear me. It is funny how the distance learns to grow. I can feel the distance. I can feel the distance. I can feel the distance getting close.”
         “Bravo, my love.”
         “I escape into your escape.” Charlie smiles.
         “Do you still remember how to dream your own dream?”
         I nod my head. “It is across the sky, Charlie.”
         “Go, go, go, go now, circus girl without a safety net.” At this moment precise, the dawn showed herself fully awake, alive to the desolate desert.
         My head turns to the right, to see Charlie’s eyes. We know. I nod again and say, “Shall we go across the sky?”