Not the Ends

          The roads were full.  The windows in the cars were tinted.  Little lights hidden in the corners of the back dash.  Enough antennas to give you the fear they were there to read your thoughts.  You can hear them buzz into their mics,  "Busted tail light.  He's got the fear.  Look at him squirm."  Always looking for a way, a way to get me in the worst position.  But how did they know?  Who did they know?  Who told them?  It was Dindy.  I was sure. 
         The sharks swarmed, but stayed at bay.  What kept them from their frenzied attack?  This field around me, psychic paranoia?  They picked up on it, they wanted me to lead them to Dindy.  But Dindy was the one who told them about me.  Dindy was stewed and low-slung.  He couldn't help them if he wanted to.    But... maybe if he didn't want to, he could.  Dindy beaconed in the miles ahead.  No need to give the sharks blood in the water. I signaled right and exited the flow. The ride would be full of caution and suspicion, of that I was sure.
         Dindy's abode was only five minutes to drive from the flow.  But this trip would be different.  Already the road side dropped to an abyss.  Every shadow cast on the road by the electric pale moonlight opened up crevasses.  Crevasses to the world we were damned to travel through at some point on our journey. 
         I told Dindy we were going.  He was to be packed and ready for me when I got there.  I expected little resistance.  I was the events-planner.  He was grateful to come along on any trip I had arranged.  He didn't know what lay ahead.  But he knew he could imagine what might. 
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         My last event found us covered from head to toe in white cooking flour, walking the streets of Miami while searching for the real truth to the Bay of Pigs folly.  We were sure that of all the Cuban refugees in the city someone would have true knowledge of who tipped off Castro. 
         "You must," I proclaimed, "tell us.  As patriots of America we demand true knowledge."
         My English must have been to pure for her.  She stared into my soul intensely but gave no answer.  She looked Cuban.  Could have been Puerto Rican, Guatemalan. 
         We might have had better luck finding the truth if we had swam to Cuba ourselves floating along in a cloud of pasty cooking powder. 
         Of course that was not the reason for going to Miami but that ended up being the sole reason for staying.  We got the vibe of all the dead airmen and soldiers who were killed in the blunder.  We knew then that we must do what it took to find the answer.  No matter how many drugstores or dives it took us mopping the floor with our tongues.  We were determined patriots.
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         But this trip was not to reach such faulty heights.  We had only let our imaginations run too wild. 
         We had control. 
         I had control.
         The supplies gathered for the trip were of the oddest lot.  All precariously stuffed in a pink and yellow Care Bears knapsack.  Clothes of course.  The ones I had on right now were too ferocious to even spend much time looking at.  The shirt attacked my neck, but offered no pain.  An oddity I investigate later.  A leather belt cut into thirteen equal strips running length wise from the buckle.  Almost as to suggest some Biblical sadists whip.  A myriad of color coded cookie boxes for the nourishment of the weary along the way.  A bottle of five-hundred milligram vitamin C tablets.  (Dindy insisted.  Says, "better safe than with a head cold"  whatever that means.) 
         And the most important yet oddest piece, the trophy.  The reason for the trip.  Standing, well laying right now, at four feet tall, glimmering with all the might of a newly polished piece of red stained glass.  Three posts with tiers bracing the posts every foot or so.  The posts have ornate carvings in their wooden facade.  Diamond etched pressings adorn the white marble base, to give it that worn look.  The figure on top of the four foot tall trophy imitates a man kneeling with his face completely smashed against the ground.  Complete servitude!  The plaque that covers the front of the white marble base reads,
         "The Trophy of Humility
         Presented to Mesa Peak
         Church of the Lord"
         
         I work for a small Currier service.  One just big enough to warrant a travel for the Mesa Peak Church of the Lord.  I've delivered fresh fish to Kansas.  Plastic diploma rings to New Haven. Fertility tests to Kentucky. Shotgun barrels to Reno.  Reams of cotton press paper to Zion.  You name it, maybe I've delivered it to somewhere you've heard of.  Now I'm taking a four foot trophy to the humble congregation of Mesa Peak Church of the Lord.  It looks so fragile one wrong turn one sharp turn and the servant on top will be in need of a super glue enema.
         For now my incomplete and altered concentration should be focused on the road escaping in front of me.  Is it raining?  Can't be.  The shadow crevasses still haunt my tires on the road.  Good God, why is the sun barreling towards me?!  Has my Tempo mutated into a rocket ship?  Where are my goggles?  I must protect my eyes from the rays of the double sun in my face.  The sun is behind me.  The moon retakes it's horror on the road.  The cockpit of my Tempo melds its self with the rhythm of "Mr. Tambourine Man".  More evidence of my outer terrestrial journey. The change on the dash floats to it's own movement.  Gravity has no control over the copper and nickel.  They collide with asteroidal force, melding together.  Now a twenty-seven cent piece floats in front of my eyes.  Obscuring the view of my descent into the non-exsisting abyss.
         Dindy will make sense of this.  His inabilty to comprehend most, gives him the talent to understand the small things in life with great consequence.  That is why he must come with me on the trip.  That is why I tell myself he comes.  His house must be very close.  I've driven far too long not to come to the mud drive way.  Have I passed my companions house?  This is great peril I lead my self into.  Dindy lives in a semi-civil area.  Beyond him semi and civil are dropped and replaced with fantastic incivility to its fullest.  Cars in the yard hover in tall weed skirts growing from the ground.  "Dale", "Jr.", "Trickel" are all epitomized on flags and stickers plastered to the sides of houses that could be stolen with the right kind of truck. 
         But i'm not too far.  I see the house just ahead of me.  Dindy has left the light on in the back for me.  How did he know I would need guidance?  Dindy always seems to be prepared but for what, he doesn't know.  Maybe another good reason he splits my journeys.  I slide the Tempo rocket up the muddy way.  New tires were never important.  I thought if they could hold air they could serve their purpose, traction be damned.  I drive careful anyways.  Was it my caution that caused careful driving.  Or my knowledge of faulty equipment that spurred the caution. 
         "I was," Dindy's mother explained, "always meaning to get that driveway paved, but the boys father said his friends in California were more important."
         I didn't really see what friends in California had to do with a driveway being paved.  But she thought it was important enough to mention every time it rained.  The rain would come and in started the old gash about the friends in California.  She made Dindy feel like the friends were his fault.  Dindy be damned.  He didn't even know who the people were.  He hardly saw his father.  Why would a father talk to his son about some friends he had half way across the country?  They were probably all truck drivers anyways.  Modern gypsies with a mission.  What good would it do to tell your son who your friends are when they don't have any import in the boys life?  She thought maybe because he hardly spoke a word to her he had said something to Dindy about the friends in California.
         
         I pulled up to the house.  It was an intensely dramatic compound.  The vibes emanating were luminous.  The rain?  Something was dripping from the side of the compound.  Black tar from a new roof?  The substance eluded me when I went to investigate.  The muck that oozed from the Earth beckoned me to stay.  I knew I had plans.  I had to evade the invitation if I was to escape.  As I walked, the flowers dripped.  Hydrangea, morning glory, jasmine, and dandelions dropped their metallic colors slowly to the ground.  I spied the reason for their loss.  Such beauty unimaginable to the lay person.  I will be their ambassador to the outside world.  The trees are in the wood nearby.  They howl with electricity from their pulpus bones.  The moon commands their charge.  I am drawn to the currents they tend.  The moon is immensely too far.  But it controls the energy of the trees.  Another invitation I deny.  I search for the door.  I feel like a scientist in a new corner of the world.  I have to remember what I see! 
         The landscape is ominous in its entirety.  I have to take in what is in front of me. 
         Confusion swells. 
         Pulse quickens. 
         "Take my mind!" I scream. 
         Who was I talking to?  Could I see them?  The form came quickly then vanished.  A spector, come to steal my sanity!?!  I screamed but no one seemed to hear.  I dropped to my knees.  I invited the Earth to take me.  At least she would let me keep my wits.  Then a force came behind me.  Wrapped itself around my shoulders.  I turned with the expectation of a hollow face.  It would bid me fare well to this life.  But it was the keeper of the door that I searched.  I was right.  Dindy knew I would need guidance.
         
         "Dindy, you knew I would come?"  Confusion precipitated from my words.
         "Yes Carl.  Where are the keys?"
         "The metal vibrated radiation.  I had to get rid of them!"
         "Where did you get rid of them, Carl?"
         "On the far side of the ship"  I pointed to the Tempo and Dindy understood.
         He followed my footsteps around to the other side of the car and found the keys in a pile of leaves next to the car's tires.  After he gathered the keys he left me kneeling on the ground and went inside the house.  Cognitive thinking crept back into my mind with soft explosions.  I knew Dindy was here but where did he go?  He found me, then lost me again.  Will he be back in time to make the trip?  He should be ready, we have miles to travel.  I heard the screen door slam.  The sound of the exploding spring snapped at me.  Dindy came out with his driving gloves on.  He looked Inzo Ferrari like, if only he had the glasses and a scarf.  Maybe a mad German Nazi doctor.  Willing to practice his evil medicine.  I would  be his lab rat.  He would massage my cortex.  Groom my thoughts.  Bend me to his evil will.  I was the puppet, Dindy was the master of the strings. 
         "Where are we taking this thing?"  Dindy prodded.
         "They,"  I squeaked, "said the servant makes you humble."
         "Yeah? I hope he 's humble enough for the both of us."  Dindy's quip for the moment.
         "Where is Mesa Peak Church of the Lord?"  He needed to know.
         "Did you know it is a church of millionaires only members.  Real ritzy.  I think the trophy is something to make themselves feel better about all the money they bring in every week."  I read that somewhere.
         Dindy packed all of his things in the trunk and then moved the trophy to the back seat.  I told him to put the safety belt around the trophy.  He just flashed a quick grin and let the seat fly back.
         "No!" I screamed.
         But he knew it wouldn't hurt it.  He thought it would be funny to go against my wishes.  I slid into the seat next to Dindy and he started the car.  The retro boosters were about to ignite as he choked the car into reverse.  I thought I should warn him but he would find out soon enough.
         "I thought you've had enough driving for the night why don't I drive for awhile.  Let you enjoy the trip."  Dindy was thoughtful.
         "Thanks, but watch out for the holes.  They tried to get me, but I was able to evade with cat-like reflexes."  As I flittered my hands in front of Dindys eyes.
         "The holes?"
         "Yeah.  Don't you see them?"  I asked.  "You haven't hit one yet!"
         "Oh yeah,"  Dindy said sarcasticly, "the holes....  There they are."
         Dindy peeked up over the dash to look through the top of the windshield.  He began to speak
         "What a nice moon we have to-"
         Then suddenly everything vanished.  The road.  The trees growing out of the abyss.  This wasn't an hallucination!  We began to hover on plains of soft crushed coal.  The car continued.  We did not vanish.  We were left to tell the tale of vanishing country side.  Something had chosen us to carry on the yarn of the disappearing Earth.  I gathered to scream.  My ribcage would not support my bellow.  How could this happen.  I tried to reason with my poisoned mind.  No use.  My brain would only register what it reflected.  Now it was total darkness.  Nothing to reason.  Nothing to comprehend.  I looked over at the driver.  Why was Dindy in the den of zen calmness?  Did he not realize our peril?  Our immanent doom into nothingness.  He just sat there; the master of his controls.  I sat there wishing his calmness were contagious.  Could he really accept oblivion with such monk-like dedication?  I  prepared myself for the demise.  The quick coming death of existing in nothingness.  How could we have survived so long?  What kept our heads above the water? 
         Then out of the darkness I perceived faint laughter.  Like music floating down a windy beach.  The music was eclipsed by the crashing waves.  The laughter persisted.  It confused me even more.  Who the hell would laugh right now.  Doom immanent.  Death's at a galloping gait for us.  Then the laughter grew and the world around me reappeared.  Bright as the afternoon sun after leaving a cave.  Enlightenment was at hand and I was present for its arrival.  I felt waves of joy.  Shedding scales of horror.  The world was mine to see again.  But the laughter that proceeded the return of the world had stopped.  Dindy's calmness was evident.  He knew of the disappearance long before it came.  He even planned for it. 
         "Huh huh.  That was fun.  Didn't think I'd get that far."          
         "Are you fucking crazy?!  We just lost our selves back there."  My fumes filled the car.
         "Oh, I'm soorrryy.  Did that freak you out?"
         "Your'e a fucking lunatic!  A real inhabitant of the moon!"
         "Just a joke.  Calm yourself.  Here take this."
         He handed me a pill.  He found it in my bag.  The ones he insisted I bring.  Why couldn't he bring them if he wanted them so bad.
         "What is it?  Will it cure my ills?  I need no ingestion now."  Very intense.  "Why do the windows bubble, but not break?"  Explanations are needed but are slow to come.
         "Just take it.  It will sooth your mind.  Calm your chakra."
         My number five chakra was in need of complete overhaul.  Yogi... beneficial to survival... times of peace... repentance for derangement.  My head screams for a new locale but my body cannot oblige.  I am trapped in the ship for duration.  The trip will end when I am cleansed.  With the pill on my tongue, it explodes with bursts of citrus.  Down the back of  my throat.  My chakra is in need of overhaul.
         Cleansing came soon and I was able to sleep.  The night reverberated normality.  After extreme fits of rage my mind relinquished itself to rest.  No longer in the grip of confusion. Terror.  Tomorrow will be the same differences I am used to.

         The sun began to peek over the tree line in the far ground.  The landscape screaming by the car shed its grey ghost cloak.  Here comes the sun.  Bathing the surroundings in the ultra violet embrace of day.  I woke with vague memories of the night before.  Schizophrenic snapshots of a poisoned mind.  Dindy still remained diligent in his duties.  His driving was superb.  I turned around in the seat to gander at the trophy in the back.  How the hell I remembered to bring it, I'll never know.  But that was where we were headed, Mesa Peak Church of the Lord. 
         The name itself told a tale.  Mesa Peak.  How could there be a peak on a mesa.  It was beyond me to understand.  And I'm sure- as far as the members are concerned- it is beyond me to even try to attempt to understand their logic.  They are the ones who chose the name and if I was to understand it I would have to be a member of their sect.  They are the type that would supplant all knowledge with the knowledge that suites them best.  If physics and logic grain against their thoughts they would strike physical realities from the market place and substitute reality with their own. 
         The members bodies glowed of bionic ambiance.  Gadgets clipped to every loop.  Protruding from every orifice.  In the real world if you talked to someone who no one else could see you were aptly labeled "crazy".  But again these members replace this thought with their ability to talk to thin air.  Then they look at you and you can see it crammed into their ear.  Hanging there held on by the plaster of wax.  And then it begins to envelope their entire head.  They have become slaves to the ability to talk on the run, gab in the street, litterate in the gutter.  They must never ever again be "out of contact".  They are soooo busy they must have complete control.  They must know every thing there is to know.  No knowledge must escape them.  They must be kept on the up and up at all times. 
         The radiation emitted from their gadgets will undoubtedly affect their off spring.  Their children will be born with perfect wax for the holding of their gadgets.  The wax will begin to clog the inner workings of their ears.  They will eventually need electronic assistance to hear and the gadgets will be a natural part of their body.  No sound from the outside world will be heard.  The only form of communication will be trough the gadgets in their ears.
         Their children would run rampant in the sewers of their education.  They would teach the teachers in their ways of amorality.  The children are the future, correct?  Then why would we not want them to teach us?  Their infinite wisdom must be of some use.  The ones entrusted with their education must know little to nothing of what the real world will place before these children.
         "Why do we need to learn this?  We'll never use this in real life." snaps the bundle of joy.
         "Well... uh... because you might have a... uh... job where you need to calculate the... uh... exact distance... uh... between trains." 
         They must not have taught, "how-to-have-a-spine" in college.
         ("Because I said so you little fuck!  It'll be on the test.  So learn it.  Not to mention it expands your ability to learn."  If only I were a teacher.)
         The members are a very selective group.  Their affluent accomplishments allows them the luxury of selection.  One couple attempted to join their congregation having made their money through a pyramidal scheme of on-line commerce.  When they pulled up to the church for Sunday morning service in their VW Passat the glares they received caused the couple to regret not having bought the flashier Benz they had considered.  They felt they could better cope with themselves knowing that they had saved money in not buying the more exuberant auto.  Frugality, to the members, was apparently a sign of financial weakness.  They could not or would not grasp the concept of saving. 
         This ill contempt for monetary awareness shone light on the fact that the members had little thought for the future.  They would only contemplate the present.  What they could receive and flaunt now.  Not what might come in the years down the road.  No, that did not concern the members.  They were sure that God had allowed them to obtain their wealth.  They were sure that He would in no way allow them to ever go without.  God would look out for them.  He would be the sole responsible entity for their budgetary needs. 
         As the couple walked towards the church they over heard some of the most garrulous conversations unbecoming of a church parking lot.  They were reeling from the the snippets of conversations they heard. 
         "Money is so easy.... just hard to clean."
         
                "Yeah, it took my aunt seven trips to the bank just to get it all in for me."
         
                "The diamond was slightly offset in the platinum so I took it out of the jewelers commission."
         
                "You would be surprised how many times you can use your dead mothers name before anyone catches on.  Even then they usually don't care.  They just want the money.  I mean who wouldn't, right?"
         
                "How do you make your toilet paper last so long?"
         "Double-ply.  They don't know it, but if your smart you can make two rolls out of one."
         "Your'e a genius!"
         "Old family secret passed down through the ages."
         When the couple reached the church house they found a pew right away.  Hoping to evade any conversations about their financial story they buried their heads into the churches bulletin.
         "What God has Called The Church To Do with Your Money."
         
                "To Show Our Appreciation For Your Donation."
         
                "In room 1475, 'How God Wants You To Enrich His Church'."
         
                "Quarterly Report of Budgetary Expenditures."
         As the service began the pastor asked every one to stand and greet the person next to them.  The couple in the VW Passat received only snide glances and phrases mumbled behind hands hiding the face.  When the greeting was done the congregation was asked to have a seat for the reception of the "offering".  Just then a large five gallon bucket was being passed down every row.  The checks and bills had begun to fill the buckets even before they reached the new couple in the middle of the pew.  Being only visiting they felt no obligation, no spirit leading them, to contribute to the bucket.  As they passed the bucket to their right what else could they expect but more hushed and mumbled phrases. 
         "Do they not know...."
         
                "That's Gods money."
         
                "Do they not feel Him?"
         The pastor began his sermon.  Some of the congregation did not agree or simply did not want to hear what sermon the pastor had prepared.  And they let him know too.  With outbursts like what you would expect to hear from an angry town mod in an angry town meeting.  Maybe about how the mayor had no plan to save the beautiful green trees surrounding the town from the big shot developer from the next town over.
         "This isn't what we pay you for.  We want to hear about how our offerings are bettering the church!"
         
                "You'd better shape up preach'.  Or you want be long in that pulpit!"
         
                "Does any one else want to hear about how we have impacted the community around us?!"
         The crowd erupted into a chorus of "Yeahs!".  From all different chords the congregation persuaded the pastor to ad lib and improv his entire sermon.  He had no where else to go.  The church owned his house, his car and even payed for his children to go to the private school that the church also ran. 
         In the middle of the improvisational sermon a deacon of the church came to the pew the new couple were sitting in and asked them to step out into the vestibule with him.  As they walked towards the back of the church the deacon assured them that he meant no embarrassment for them.  But of course that was just the line he use to make himself feel better for the unease that he could feel behind him.
         "I'm sorry to pull you out like this, but we here at Mesa Peak Church of the Lord would like to extend to you a hand of brotherhood.  We would like to know if you folks would be interested in joining our fine house of worship?
         "Well, we were looking for a new place of worship.  We thought that we would visit today.  We always noticed the nicely manicured lawn and facade of the church. 
         "Well I'm just pleased to hear your description of our house of worship.  We try immensely to obtain a perfect standing in the community.  If you folks would like to fill out our "new visitors" questionnaire we would love to go over it and call you folks about joining our place of worship.
         The deacon handed the questionnaire to the husband.  As he began to read the first line of the questionnaire the husband let the paper slip from between his fingers.  He made no attempt to snatch it from its slow descent to the ground.  As it landed on the ground he looked up at the deacon and saw a smirk of approval on his face.  The husband grabbed his wife's hand and led her out of the church doors.  As the couple made their way back to the car the wife protested to know what caused him to drop the questionnaire to the ground.
         "The first question on the paper, honey, was, 'What was our yearly income?'  It had a blank spot followed by six zeroes."