C.E. Murphy - Thunderbird Falls

Tiny floating spots of brightness began appearing behind my eyelids, little explosive fireworks. They danced around, staying at a safe distance, which made me wonder how I could tell distance in the space between my eyes and their lids. They—the lights were a they , not the usual floaties I got when I closed my eyes under a bright light source—were waiting for something. For once I wasn’t at a loss as to what it was.

I need him, too . I felt a painful smile curve my mouth just a little, and my bright lights swam as tears burned against my eyelids. I know spirit quests for someone else aren’t supposed to be for selfish reasons, but…I need him, too. Please , I asked one more time. Lend your strength to an old man whose time shouldn’t be now. Not yet .

Half a dozen of the lights erupted, leaping toward me from out of the darkness. I twitched, keeping my eyes closed. Behind my eyelids, animals warred playfully with each other, glowing from within as they jumped and pounced and batted at one another. A wolf stretched into downward-facing-dog, baring his teeth and wagging his tail frantically at a bear that lifted a heavy paw in mock warning. They charged one another, hitting in a spray of fireworks that shot blue and gold through the backs of my eyes, so bright it hurt. I let out a startled yell, flinging my arm over my eyes, which didn’t help at all.

A thick-shouldered ram lowered his head and charged a lion who sat lashing his tail and watching the goings-on with interest. The ram crashed into its shoulder, sending both animals head over heels. The lion roared, a sound like laughter, and together the two creatures rolled into the still-sparring bear and wolf. Another volley of sparks ensued, as crackly and noisy and bright as a static-filled blanket on a dark winter night. An eagle joined the fray, winging down out of the blackness behind my eyelids to slam into the rolling, chortling mess of animals, its claws curled harmlessly into fists as it battered the others with its wings. Below all of them, a badger erupted up from the darkness, making me laugh out loud. It scrambled up the bear’s hide, clearly wanting a chance at the eagle.

Distantly, I heard Judy’s drum falter when I laughed, but my own heartbeat was strong, and the spirit animals rumbling to see who got to help Gary made me feel tremendously better. I took a breath, about to speak to them, when I felt a bump against my foot. It wasn’t the same physical ponderousness that had made me open my eyes when the snake appeared. It felt more like the arrival of these spirit animals, a shower of sparks that lit different parts of my body. I looked down to discover a tortoise waiting patiently at my toes. I crouched, smiling as the other animals continued their playful war. The tortoise blinked slowly at me, and it was everything I could do to keep from picking it up and hugging it. I had the idea tortoises weren’t big on hugs. “Thank you,” I whispered to it. It bobbed its head and put one of its front feet on mine, which I took as an invitation to pick it up, carefully.

My hand touched the shining patterns on its shell, and light slammed into me so hard I lost consciousness.

The first thing I noticed was my head hurt so badly it felt like the top was coming off. Blood pounded in my temples hard enough to make me put stacked odds on being upside-down, but I was afraid to open my eyes and find out. Light seared into me from all sides. I was pretty sure if I opened my eyes, I’d discover that my bones would be dark shapes in my lit-up flesh. The air I breathed was hot, much hotter than the Lower World air, and tasted of dryness. Sand, I thought, and my eyes opened without consulting me on the matter.

At first there was nothing to see, just whiteness so intense it made my eyes try to turn around and crawl into my head. Tears streamed down my forehead and into my hair. I was almost certain I heard sizzling as they beaded and hit the ground somewhere below me. Crushing my eyes closed didn’t help any: the light smashed right through my eyelids as if they weren’t even there, prying out all the imagined places of shadow where my vision was trying to hide. I peeled my lashes open in the tiniest squint I could manage.

The light didn’t recede, but after a dozen head-pounding heartbeats my vision adjusted very slightly. It took a long time to get my eyes all the way open. By the time I had, I could feel sunburn setting into my skin, so deep it felt like my bones were burning.

The sky was white with heat, cloudless and stretching to approximately forever, where it ran into a horizon as blindingly white as the ground below me. The sun was too close and much too hot. If it hadn’t been for the fact my hands were tied behind my back, I’d have thought I could touch it.

I was trussed up like a chicken for Sunday dinner. My ankles were bound together and I hung upside-down from what appeared to be the only tree in Creation. It was about twelve feet tall and so extremely dead that I was astounded its bleached branches could hold my weight. The ground, crystals of sand too tired from the weight of the sun to even glisten, lay about six inches above my head. There were tiny indentations directly below me where my tears had hit and evaporated.

“Help?” My throat was already dry and parched. I swallowed nervously, squinting to eye the sun and the horizon. If it was anything like at home, the distance between the two suggested I’d be dead long before night came. I wriggled around in my ropes, earning myself burns on my ankles and wrists, and a slight swing to change the monotony of just hanging there.

SeattleCop Found Dead In Apartment — Suffered From Sun, Rope Burns . I could see the headline. I wondered what Morrison would think. I wondered where the hell I was. I wondered if I could possibly get myself out of it. I wasn’t panicked; the heat had smashed panic right out of me and pushed me well into numb. But there had to be something I could do before the sun cooked my brain for good. It’d be embarrassing to die here in the white desert without even trying to get out of it.

Start with what I knew. I closed my eyes, not that it did any good against the light, to help myself focus.

I knew I was hanging upside-down on the verge of horrible death by dehydration, according to the backs of my eyelids. “Goddamn it,” I croaked, and opened my eyes again to stare at the expanses of white. One baked crystal gleamed at me. I wondered briefly if it was salt, not sand. Because that made it all better somehow. Shut up and concentrate, Joanne .

My vision started doing interesting things, swimming in and out as it tried to make depth out of featureless grains of sand. I listened for my heartbeat; last time I’d been in a desert of the mind, I’d been dying and my heartbeat was a painfully slow drum. But no: it was bumping along steadily, pounding in my ears and now making me notice the headache all over again. That was probably a good sign.

Choice . The word whispered itself to me. I had a worried moment of wondering whether I was hearing voices or if my own tiny mind had come up with that direction all by itself. After another moment I decided it didn’t matter, as long as I got out of here. If I continued to hear voices, I’d thank them nicely for pointing me in the right direction, and then get medication.

One of the fundamental concepts of shamanism was choice: choosing to believe, choosing to heal, choosing to accept. Once, choosing to accept something that someone else had forced on me had allowed me the power to change it and escape. I let my eyes close again and began the task of acceptance.

It turned out hanging upside-down from a bleached tree in the desert wasn’t the best place to start on the whole acceptance thing. Time wore on and the sun kept burning me. I swallowed on a dry throat more times than I could count, trying to work up a little moisture. Whether I managed to accept my position or if the part of me that held on to disbelief simply dried up and blew away, eventually I started to feel as if I belonged there, the Hanged Joanne in the desert. There was a Tarot card like that. The Hanged Man, not the Hanged Joanne. I remembered Billy enthusiastically telling me about Tarot in general a couple years earlier, while I rolled my eyes and generally behaved like a jerk. I reminded myself to apologize to him—again—if I got out of this. Then I spent a while wondering what it was that the Hanged Man signified, anyway.