The gift of choice

UNKNOWN: Wake up Barry

BARRY: What is that?

UNKNOWN: Wake up Barry

BARRY: Oh my God, what is that? What are those things?

UNKNOWN: You still have the mud eyemask on your face, what you are seeing is not here, it’s inside your head.

BARRY: But WHAT IS IT?

UNKNOWN: I need to clarify, those things are not inside your head, they are projected on the blackness that you see with your eyes closed, as they would on a screen. You know, a lot of people—

BARRY: Answer me!!

UNKNOWN: Sweetie pie, I cannot answer you, I cannot see the things that you are seeing right now! They are yours, not mine!

BARRY: Did you drug me?

UNKNOWN: Incidentally, maybe. You know a lot of people are convinced that when you lose an eye, in the event that the eyeball falls off, you still see blackness. Nonsense, when you think about it, isn’t? Without an eye and an eye system, a person is not able to see blackness. There is just nothing!

BARRY: WHAT THE— What the fuck are you talking about?

UNKNOWN: Would you be in the capacity to see from your elbow? Would you ever ask your elbow to see?

BARRY: My el— Ma’am, did you drug me?

UNKNOWN: You have been absorbing something from your tea earlier.

BARRY: That tea! With sugar and honey!

UNKNOWN: Spoiler alert that was sugar and something else that was not honey. But since then, I upped your dosage, because I was concerned!

BARRY: Concerned about what?

UNKNOWN: Overall, your state. Your body is not well and your mind is shrunk. Your heart is fragile. Life is fragile.

BARRY: I am really this close to lose it at everyone telling me that I AM FRAGILE AND HARMLESS AND—

UNKNOWN: Don’t yell! Don’t exhaust yourself! I urge you to cool down and stop swimming with your feet. Otherwise, I will restrain you again.

BARRY: I’d like to see you try that.

UNKNOWN: Oh believe me, I will. I lift weights.

BARRY: I wasn’t always so weak and so frag—

UNKNOWN: You are still strong, Barry, but as anyone does every once in a while, you need a little push. You need to be guided back to your strength.

BARRY: You must be Lourdes.

LOURDES: In the flesh!

BARRY: Where is Claudios?

LOURDES: I sent him away for a couple of hours, because he was too unquestioning of you, already looking at you with tender eyes.

BARRY: Is Claudios… creepy, like, dangerous?

LOURDES: Madre de dios, no! I mean he was already becoming too charmed by you, you know, you are a charming person.

BARRY: …

LOURDES: Too trusting of you and too fond of you. That must be his heart, it’s too big for his own good. Also he has three daughters and no son, which be blames on me, for some reason.

BARRY: He told me you and he shared a good first impression of me.

LOURDES: That man, always speaking for the both of us! He extrapolated. Tell me… What are you seeing with your eyes closed?

BARRY: I can’t describe it, there are no… words for that. Is it hot here?

LOURDES: Very.

BARRY: I don’t know how to tell you what I am seeing. It’s kind of black on black, so—

LOURDES: Like black oil. You should still have a try at describing to me what you are seeing.

BARRY: Some circles, some bubbles… Some beetles.

LOURDES: Goood, beautiful. Beautiful!

BARRY: What is this… tea?

LOURDES: We meant to maximize the resting hours that you need in order to be well again, and initiate you.

BARRY: To what?

LOURDES: To nebo alia. Claudios stirred some for you in an earlier beverage, but I brought my XXL baggie.

BARRY: Maximize sounds like a capitalist concept.

LOURDES: We are influenced by society from all sides, from inti, wasi, kuska and q’osqo.

BARRY: Who?

LOURDES: They’re cardinal points, from which the wind blows. Sometimes a whistle, sometimes a hurricane.

BARRY: Claudios told me you would come over and give me Vitamin C and make my acquaintance—

LOURDES: I didn’t see his text about the Vitamin C. I picked the nebo alia.

BARRY: Is it a magic mushroom?

LOURDES: It’s a vine, it’s a medicine plant. It’s a teacher plant.

BARRY: A teacher

LOURDES: You do have opposition for the concept of teachers, that’s strange! But yes, people ingest the nebo alia every day, a little bit, to prepare to meet nebo alia’s madre.

BARRY: Is it LSD?

LOURDES: You are more receptive to that tea than I would have thought but, again, your stomach is empty, your heart is in shambles, y—

BARRY: Heey, my heart is fine!

LOURDES: You haven’t had any good sleep, you are feverish, so… maybe I went a bit too far, but it’s all the same, it will be very beneficial to you.

BARRY: I see some mandalas.

LOURDES: Just admire them. Don’t fight anything, Barry, just admire them! Now is your time to be contemplative.

BARRY: I’m seeing some… crazy shit.

LOURDES: Just admire it. Did Claudios tell you about the gift of choice?

BARRY: He told me about Nanabozo and hanging out with depression at home but showing depression who’s the boss.

LOURDES: And what did you tell him?

BARRY: I told him I would attempt to do that.

LOURDES: The gift of choice is received by everyone at the start of existence on Earth. This life is a walking life. The way you walk determines the way you live.

BARRY: Similar to Dune. Walking without rhythm.

LOURDES: It is whatever floats your boat. Personally I like to imagine a fashion catwalk, but that’s just me. Is is what you’re saying! All the same, we can embrace this gift of choice and walk forward, signifying that you walk towards the light and the blossoming of your soul, or walk backwards, towards darkness and decline.

BARRY: Do you guys always speak like that?

LOURDES: Like what?

BARRY: In lessons.

LOURDES: Baby boy, your aversion for teachers is something in the backwards way. You need to get rid of it. Some of them at school, did they bully you?

BARRY: I bullied them.

LOURDES: Oh Gosh! Look at that! We have a firecracker here. So why do you think with such animosity of those teachers, while you are the one who mistreated them?

BARRY: It’s not that, it’s a long story.

LOURDES: I meant to ask you, are you a Colts fan?

BARRY: You saw my driving license and saw that I’m from Indiana. That’s unfair, that’s… taking advantage of—

LOURDES: I enjoy American football. I personally support the New Orleans Saints.

BARRY: Okay, well, they have had a pretty good year. Have you ever been to Louisiana?

LOURDES: Yes, one time, I went there. I was secretly hoping to feel an Ann Rice vibe there, but… those long-ass huge-ass dragonflies though, in the plantations? Ho-rri-fy-ing!

BARRY: I would have said alligators but okay.

LOURDES: Not a fan of the dragonflies.

BARRY: But they… they’re your sacred sisters.

LOURDES: And entomophobia is real! Have you ever heard a bayou dragonfly hit a car? It sounds like someone threw a rock at it! It sounds like the car will have to go to the repair shop after that! Bees don’t scare me, though, they are fluffy enough.

BARRY: Uugh, bees.

LOURDES: So? Colts fan?

BARRY: I was more a fan before Peyton Manning moved to the Broncos. What a terrible thing it was.

LOURDES: Do you think Peyton Manning used the gift of choice to walk the walk forward or backward, in this situation?

BARRY: I would say definitely backwards.

LOURDES: What a quick and wrapped-up assessment! You should picture yourself walking in someone else’s mocassins before you rush to such conclusions.

BARRY: Ma’am, where is my cat?

LOURDES: El abuelo? I moved him to the other camper next door. Animals are too much of a sponge to the spirits we have summoned in the room with the help of the nebo alia. Especially your cat.

BARRY: You guys keep saying it like, he’s magical or something.

LOURDES: Just prescient.

BARRY: Terence? I mean Kijik?

LOURDES: El gatito, yes. Also, you were vomiting a lot, and he was clinging to you. Not so recommendable, with his long fur.

BARRY: That explains the smell.

LOURDES: Nothing a good laundromat can’t fix! What are you seeing right now?

BARRY: Just some mandalas. Some triangles. What did you say this dr— vine is?

LOURDES: Her name is nebo alia. She’s not always so… psychoactive.

BARRY: Some Native American plant?

LOURDES: Plants belong to everyone.

BARRY: I mean, some Native American recipe?

LOURDES: As a matter of fact, no. I am from South America, not from here, and this specific growth of nebo alia is from my personal stash.

BARRY: South America… In my sleep I kept hearing some singing, with a bit of Spanish, and some other languages.

LOURDES: I was chanting, mostly in Qechua, but I like to mix Spanish with it indeed, because it’s smoother and cuter, all those Os and As everywhere.

BARRY: You were singing while I was asleep?

LOURDES: Solely White people insist for being waken up in the morning by some horrific alarm ringtones. In all seriousness, I know some of our tribesmen and women who put themselves through that strident ordeal too, not just White people. But I thought the melodies would carry you from siesta to awake more gently. Plus, it’s a way to connect with the nebo alia spirit as in, you know, vibing on her frequency. Like saying om, the sacred syllable. You should try it sometimes!

BARRY: Chanting?

LOURDES: Singing, dancing, crying.

BARRY: You guys are obsessed with crying, I see. You seem big on… crying.

LOURDES: Liberation!

BARRY: Liberation.

LOURDES: You are an intelligent boy. Liberation of the mind and the heart and the soul. Nebo alia can accompany you through that, as can listening to my song.

BARRY: I don’t like singing, nor crying.

LOURDES: You were crying in your sleep, which, under the spell of the nebo alia, is perfectly normal. In fact, I would worry if you didn’t cry. Don’t resist, chiquito, mix your tears with the poultice on your eyes.

BARRY: The yogurt.

LOURDES: The what?

BARRY: Nothing. I’m seeing those letters again, but very small, almost… almost not really there, because they are so little. They flash but, wait, not very strong. I used to see them in my dreams and Rob— a friend of mine and I were trying to figure out what they are. He’s into some Freudian things.

LOURDES: Let it come to you and slide on the sides of you, as if you are a big stone sticking out in a stream of water. Don’t push anything away, let it go softly around you; you, the boulder, are grounded, and the water is passing you. Or imagine you’re in a tumbling machine like a dirty sock, and that everything you experience spins up and down, and up is good, and down is bad, then down is bad, then up is good, and then, it starts over!

BARRY: I’m trying not to throw up again, please, I’m begging you to stop this talk of up and down.

LOURDES: Of course, of course, Barry, forgive me.

BARRY: What are the songs you are singing?

LOURDES: The forest spirits and the vine spirit are singing them through me. I already forgot what exactly I sang. It’s kind of different every time.

BARRY: Like tsahaylu.

LOURDES: Like what?

BARRY: Nothing, nothing, oh Gosh, sorry I’m just thinking out loud.

LOURDES: Let it all out. Like we do with the singing. The singing establishes a connection between human and Source.

BARRY: Source?

LOURDES: The Oneness! I can tell from my sumaq, that you have felt this Oneness before, it’s related to something which happens when you change speed.

BARRY: So you are a medium like Claudios or… Terence.

LOURDES: I am very sensitive to living creatures and their energies. But also, I enjoy puzzles, and putting two and two together. You will cry and weep and throw up and purge. Barry, you have been through so much violence.

BARRY: It’s okay I—

LOURDES: No, it’s not okay!

BARRY: Thanks for… caring I guess.

LOURDES: Such an American thing to say.

BARRY: American?

LOURDES: From down south, the US.

BARRY: The other half of the turtle rock.

LOURDES: Turtle Island, yes.

BARRY: Turtle Island, yes, that’s what I meant.

LOURDES: You know I am accustomed to violence too. My country is a savage place, a beautiful land that has gorgeous trees and flowers and crystal clear rivers and luscious green mountains, but people have turned it to a shit-show, ruining everything with their cartels and corruption. Their filthy actions even drive them to hide directly in nature, soiling it!

BARRY: Oof.

LOURDES: My father stood up to the narcos and their corner operations. His own father was a policeman and he always dreamed of becoming one too, but he ended up a librarian because he was skinny and sickly, and a nerd. But he held his ground, even he, and e just couldn’t accept the rule of the strongest over our town. So as a consequence, then my mother, sisters and I had to leave. However, the journey up north is extremely long and full of perils. Such thirst, such emptiness of the alma! The marching, Barry, the treacherous marching and hiking to reach North America, the brutal awakening in front of what the human species is, so not worth the trust, the optimism, and so vicious a species.

BARRY: Like… mules?

LOURDES: I would never ride a mule or a donkey or even the healthiest horse to travel north, or anywhere, for that matter! Animals are not vehicles.

BARRY: Sorry I meant… smugglers.

LOURDES: Yes, contrabandistas. Hijos de puta. No alma. Vendieron su alma.

BARRY: You fled your home country.

LOURDES: Like you, I have.

BARRY: Yes, I have fled without anything.

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LOURDES: Even without any snacks, apparently.

BARRY: Without even my p—

LOURDES: …

BARRY: …

LOURDES: Your what?

BARRY: …

LOURDES: Without your what?

BARRY: Without anything. Without nothing.

LOURDES: The nebo alia will undo your tongue, don’t fear the talking you might do while you are with her.

BARRY: I had a friend who used a lasso as a serum of truth. You are doing the same to me with that vine.

LOURDES: Barry, my husband was too excited about you, he is already seeing the Nanabuj in you, I had to take matters into my own hands! Like the scars on your chest, Claudios is imagining you will throw their crusty scabs at some trees and create a new sort of trees, growing some never-seen-before medicinal fungus on their tree bark.

BARRY: What’s that?

LOURDES: Just another story about Nanabuj.

BARRY: Nanabozo?

LOURDES: Yes, he has some variations in the name. Don’t trouble yourself with details, Barry, see the big picture!

BARRY: You believe in those things?

LOURDES: In my home country we have our own myths. I believe you remind me more of the third of the seven Ferrets, Hueron de Agilidad. It’s the speedy one of the bunch.

BARRY: And yet… I have slowed down. Considerably.

LOURDES: Not everything is to be measured in the physical world! You haven’t slowed down inside. What are you seeing right now?

BARRY: I see a lot of bubbles, and they have… They have eyes.

LOURDES: Good.

BARRY: Does your ferret coexist with the great Manitou thingy Claudios was talking about?

LOURDES: Of course. Our creation stories don’t exclude one another.

BARRY: But you are not… a creation of… Turtle Island.

LOURDES: Look at you, already so knowledgeable!

BARRY: I meant no disrespect, ma’am.

LOURDES: I know, mi'ijo. But this world is smaller than you think, at the same time as it is infinite. Turtle Island has her extensions. By the way, speaking about small worlds, I couldn’t help notice that… you camper had a woman’s touch.

BARRY: You don’t have to be sexist about my camper.

LOURDES: It’s not your camper, originally, it’s someone else’s, who has a component of girlie girl in her.

BARRY: Yeah it’s… hygge.

LOURDES: Hijj?

BARRY: I should give you the correct pronunciation: it’s spoken hugga, in Swedish.

LOURDES: You know Swedish?

BARRY: No, I don’t know Swedish. Just some names of bookshelves and tables and lamps.

LOURDES: I’m thinking this camper belongs to your little girlfriend!

BARRY: …

LOURDES: The real owner of the cat.

BARRY: I don’t… want to talk about that.

LOURDES: You should, while your tongue is loose. Then you can blame the nebo alia for all you have told, and feel relieved by the expunging of the tale.

BARRY: She hurt me.

LOURDES: She’s the one who shot you multiple times?

BARRY: She hurt my feelings.

LOURDES: Aaah, I see.

BARRY: She was there at the shooting and she doesn’t even remember.

LOURDES: Oh my, good times!

BARRY: She called me a bullet blanket.

LOURDES: Young people and their concepts of romance, these days. Why isn’t she with you, at the moment, in her camper?

BARRY: She’s been poisoned. I felt.. I felt horrible, but I couldn’t stay. I left her behind, in a coma.

LOURDES: Why couldn’t you stay by her side?

BARRY: Because I killed the man who poured the poison in her drink.

LOURDES: Heere you goo.

BARRY: Yes, I did.

LOURDES; So you lied to Claudios when he asked you if you were a criminal!

BARRY: NO!

LOURDES: Calm down, Papoose. You are safe now, don’t get agitated like that, all kicking on the bed. We are just talking.

BARRY: I don’t feel like a criminal, you must understand, I usually…. regulate that sort of behaviors, on the part of people who attempt to harm other people, it’s my job!

LOURDES: Applying justice, you mean.

BARRY: Vigilanting.

LOURDES: You are the Bolt.

BARRY: WHAT NO!!

LOURDES: If you keep jumping like that I will restrain you. It’s dangerous, in your condition, you hear me?

BARRY: Why are you saying that I am the Bolt? I am not!!

LOURDES: The headband you are wearing covers the top part of your face, as does the Bolt’s mask from his superhero suit. I am very very physiognimist. Spitting images, Barry!

BARRY: …

LOURDES: What are you seeing, right now?

BARRY: Nothing I can’t… I can’t see anything anymore.

LOURDES: Take a chill pill and focus, please, it will do you good. Calm down, stop flapping your arms like there is another swarm of bees flying around you.

BARRY: People who have spent their entire lives with me or see me every day didn’t compute that I was the Bolt, never ever.

LOURDES: I am shocked by that! But it’s true that I have been known to be very observant. You know those ten-difference puzzle games? I finish them in a flash. I wanted to be a detective, just like my father dreamed to be a policeman to copy his papa.

BARRY: Well.. spot on. Is it windy now, outside?

LOURDES: Very windy.

BARRY: …

LOURDES: Also, not to minimize my discerning skills, but you mentioned that you have a friend with a magic lasso. Uberwoman. Don’t worry, your tongue is less monitored by your mind’s radar, it’s completely expected, once you sit with the nebo alia.

BARRY: Fuck.

LOURDES: We are just talking right now, don’t trouble yourself. It’s an honor to meet the Bolt from Indianapolis!

BARRY: Will you turn me in to the cops?

LOURDES: Barry the Bolt, I will not!

BARRY: Really?

LOURDES: Why would I do that? Mutants in Canada are institutionalized and… medicated. It’s nasty.

BARRY: I thought you were a medicine woman.

LOURDES: We are not talking about the same kind of medicine here.

BARRY: You and your husband seem to be against… against the White man’s science and also weirdly… Kindergartens.

LOURDES: You think your science is valuable?

BARRY: I mean… science for the sake of exploration?

LOURDES: Because locking human beings up for experiments is exploration? Your own kind, on top of everything, a minority?

BARRY: I’ve always heard that those places in Canada are like Professor Xavier’s schools, trying to understand the… mutations.

LOURDES: That’s immature and idiotic. We are not in a comic book Barry. How can anyone call advancement a science that experiments on people to their detriment?

BARRY: But we do that on mice, on monkeys, to find cures to things.

LOURDES: And you believe, at the bottom of your heart, that it is a moral way to proceed towards progress? To sacrifice some innocent lives?

BARRY: I mean experimenting on bunnies helped save some lives.

LOURDES: What lives, precisely?

BARRY: Some children with cancer, for instance.

LOURDES: Oh, you mean human lives? And your newborn baby with a fatal illness, your child with leukemia here, his life is more precious than the life of the mouse or the one of the rabbit?

BARRY: Yes obviously.

LOURDES: Obviously?? Forget the seeing, please, be hearing yourself right now!

BARRY: I mean I mean I don’t know, I’v never th—

LOURDES: El cielo azul, forgive me for my temper right now, give me patience. Barry, I hear this all the time, ‘oh but science gave us space! We know more about our solar system and we are able to go to space now, thanks to science!’

BARRY: I mean… The moon. Mars. Sputnik.

LOURDES: The Russians sent a little dog to space first, before they catapulted their human! They picked her from the streets of Moscow because she was the friendliest and the most trusting, just like my Claudios is. They popped her into the atmosphere alone inside a rocket and left her there to suffocate to death, in the cold hard empty space!

BARRY: Man, that’s… true.

LOURDES: This is the White man’s bullshit here. All lives are sacred! A discovery that discards the sanctity of any life from our mother Earth is a farce.

BARRY: You survive on medicine that was crafted by that science right now, Lourdes.

LOURDES: Oh, we are on first-name basis now, aren’t we?

BARRY: You sound angry.

LOURDES: I am not. Look, I’m breathing deep. Cielo arriba, por favor. I’m acknowledging my feeling and letting it slide on me like I am a rock in a stream of water. I don’t mean to interject some furious and fiery feelings into your sitting with nebo alia.

BARRY: Claudios said you were fiery.

LOURDES: I’m happy that it can make you laugh! Finally, some expression!

BARRY: Yes, it feels good.

LOURDES: You wanted to add something about your science, Barry?

BARRY: Well… Even if you don’t use modern medicine today, you were probably born from a woman who received treatment at the moment of giving birth, you were probably administered some vaccines, you—

LOURDES: Then I should not be alive, period! Like my father, I don’t believe in the right of the strongest to dominate. Humans behaving in this awful way will not prevail, if they keep provoking nature. It is not the viable way.

BARRY: But evolution is the survival of the st—

LOURDES: I’m not talking about evolution, of course, I believe in evolution, evolution is part of nature.

BARRY: Humans are part of nature.

LOURDES: Humans are nature doing the walk backwards, and she isn’t liking the consequences right now. She is a reactive One, that One! I’m not speaking about evolution, muchacho, I’m talking about a scientist’s lifetime of work, in the brackets between his birth, or should I say, between his schooling and his retirement, and his or her idea to test dangerous lab stuff on animals who cannot defend themselves because it’s easy. Advancement is not supposed to be easy. You should know a thing or two about it yourself, as you are advancing right now, and it is nothing but easy!

BARRY: Not easy, not easy for sure.

LOURDES: Don’t shake your head too hard, or you’ll lose the eyemask, I mean, the headband. Anyway, I cannot do anything against the fact that I am alive and I owe my life to science. In some older days, perhaps I or my mother would have died in childbirth, perhaps I would have had a flock of ten siblings in case me and half of us died at the hand of nature before we reached adulthood and could farm along our parents in the fields! But since I am here, the least I can do is live that life with real advancement.

BARRY: Alright.

LOURDES: Advancement made with respect, for the cycles of nature, for the dance of the night and the day, for the holiness of breath given to us all by the Creator!

BARRY: But you are aware that I don’t have my power anymore, aren’t you?

LOURDES: You still have power, but it is different now, it is being alchemized.

BARRY: Really?

LOURDES: How did you lose your power, exactly?

BARRY: Well…

LOURDES: Well?

BARRY: Since I’m a murderer… My… colleagues… you know.

LOURDES: Hobbes?

BARRY: You did your research!

LOURDES: Not really, you see, I have three teenage daughters, they are into this stuff.

BARRY: The famous Hobbes, yes. He and they couldn’t caution an assassination, so in exchange for my freedom and the protection of my friend who’s been poisoned, I surrendered my power to them. Uberwoman drained it from me.

LOURDES: Uberwoman. She honors the creation! She’s a real step in nature’s forward walking. All of you mutants are, in my opinion. Was it painful to have her extinct your superability?

BARRY: No, it was going through a door, from a room to another.

LOURDES: A little anti climatic.

BARRY: My Team mates really did me a favor, by letting me run. I had to react fast and… I suppose… powerless.

LOURDES: But when you had your power, Barry, you approached the Oneness, am I correct? The Source.

BARRY: I did?

LOURDES: When you were speeding, bolting, you rode on the Snake to touch the Condor, didn’t you?

BARRY: The snake and the condor?

LOURDES: It’s just an Andean legend.

BARRY: I saw a snake in the darkness when I was waking up and listening to your songs, earlier.

LOURDES: Goood. Good sign. Was the snake rolled up or moving as a straight line?

BARRY: In turn, both.

LOURDES: High level of good. Heavenly good!

BARRY: You have a strong voice, when you are chanting, compared to when you are talking.

LOURDES: It’s my own superpower.

BARRY: So when you see a snake and Claudios sees a snake, who decides what legend it matches?

LOURDES: What are you asking?

BARRY: I’m so sorry—

LOURDES: Don’t— touch the headband, don’t try to touch your eyes! I’m honestly asking, what do you mean?

BARRY: I’m sorry for being so intrusive and impolite, it’s just… this dr— this vine.

LOURDES: Freeing your tongue. Good, chiquito, good!

BARRY: Who decides what symbolism wins when you and Claudios see a snake?

LOURDES: Cupcake, you are missing the point. The stories we have received from our ancestors are not invented like modern novels or Game of Thrones. They are there to say what is true, what already exists in this world. It’s the same with all the White man’s little theories, philosophy, political science, the arts, good old history and geography, quantum physics, economy, anthropology, whatever else. They might differ but they have the same goal, to simply give form to what is and cannot be explained otherwise.

BARRY: I see.

LOURDES: No pun intended.

BARRY: …

LOURDES: Even psychology, a legit’ White man discipline! You were talking about your Freudian friend earlier, he’s—

BARRY: Robortor? I mean he’s not Freudian, he’s—

LOURDES: Robortor, mi vida. The Hybrid One. Half man, half machine.

BARRY: Yes, he’s… He was my best friend.

LOURDES: Como se llama?

BARRY: You mean what’s his name in real life?

LOURDES: You understand Spanish!

BARRY: That’s weird because I never learned it, but right now, I comprehend it, yes. So bizarre!

LOURDES: That’s the vine’s doing.

BARRY: His name is George. I must trust that you will not convey this information to anyo—

LOURDES: You amigo George sees well. Freud and his pupil, Carl Jung, they never played around with altered states of consciousness, and even they, so poorly equipped, caught a glimpse of what’s beyond the veil of the world and the connection of all things.

BARRY: Are we talking about Sigmund Freud or another Freud, one of your friends?

LOURDES: Sigmund and Carl Jung.

BARRY: I’ve never heard of that Carl guy.

LOURDES: Well they both guessed the existence of things that the restrictive broom-up-its-ass White man’s rationality would qualify as paranormal. Everything which is the subconscious, especially when it comes to psycho-genealogy, kids being born with the unexplained knowledge of family secrets, revealing them through drawing when no one has told them about it! Wouldn’t you agree that it is quite a vaporous thing?

BARRY: I should take some notes.

LOURDES: Don’t bully me like your teachers, Barry. I’m not trying to lecture you, we are just fish-bowling, right now. Carl Jung and his little buddy Aldeous Huxley—

BARRY: Another guy!

LOURDES: Nothing out of the ordinary. Freud inspired Carl, Carl hung out with Aldeous. And in their limited access to real means of venture into truth, without relying on psylocibin for their research, even they could perceive the invisible world, the thresholds of it. It’s remarkable, really, when you consider those people were never high nor enlightened, they didn’t plug into the mycellia. It’s all sober thinking, it’s miraculous! That’s the moment Western science bordered on real things, unbeknownst to even themselves. They were about to break through, but they died of advanced age too soon for that. I trust they saw everything they couldn’t envision, once dead.

BARRY: You have lost me.

LOURDES: Even religion! Take religion for example, Christianity, Islam, Jud—

BARRY: Nevermind, please, I’m FOLLOWING! No need to go through all the religions. I understand what you’re getting at, I do.

LOURDES: Just to say, no one between Canada and the Amazon is fighting for their views of life to overshadow another. Only the White man is capricious enough to impose what he’s so enamored with, when it comes to fairy tales, over the rest of his peers.

BARRY: Nice.

LOURDES: It is, isn’t it? The peace that comes with the absence of fighting.

BARRY: Yes.

LOURDES: He will not prevail in the end.

BARRY: Who?

LOURDES: The White man.

BARRY: He will not?

LOURDES: Not against the forces of nature, no. Mark my words! She will not continue to be walked backwards!

BARRY: Interesting.

LOURDES: My Snake is the physical world, and the Condor is the immaterial world. I believe deep inside of me that those two met under the super-acceleration of the Bolt.

BARRY: Ah, you are talking about time and space. Yes, I saw some messed-up time modifications when I was nearing the speed of light.

LOURDES: The speed of light.

BARRY: …

LOURDES: ..

BARRY: Lourdes? Ma’am?

LOURDES: I apologize, I was just being dreamy, thinking about it. Don’t tell Claudios that I was speechless. I must continue nourishing the feeling in everyone that I always have a comeback ready.

BARRY: You won’t bring me to the police and I will keep your secret.

LOURDES: The speed of light. It must be quite the feeling.

BARRY: I don’t want to think about it right now. I miss my power too much.

LOURDES: Let it come to you, the grief, Barry!

BARRY: I’m seeing nothing right now, just the darkness.

LOURDES: Sit there, in the darkness, Papoose. So why didn’t you use that magic to reverse time, turn back the clock and save your woman?

BARRY: You are torturing me. Do you mean to turn me into a regretful person, in addition to being weak and useless and harmless and all those pejorat—

LOURDES: This is real advancement, Barry, not some Kinder egg trinket one. It hurts, it impales you to the core, it flips over, inside out, it demands sacrifice!

BARRY: But regardless, I didn’t get the chance, the power was taken from me. I wouldn’t have known how to use it for that purpose, I had never tried that before. It’s too late now to wonder about those things.

LOURDES: Yes, indeed. The walk has been walked.

BARRY: …

LOURDES: The man who poisoned your woman, did you end his life mercifully?

BARRY: Hell no.

LOURDES: You did not?

BARRY: Physically, he did not suffer one bit. But psychologically, he saw it coming. I made sure of it.

LOURDES: Sadism.

BARRY: You are wrong.

LOURDES: Did you enjoy his fear?

BARRY: Sadly, no.

LOURDES: So just… what was it from your heart that wanted him to poop his pants as he knew death was next?

BARRY: Everything. Just everything.

LOURDES: Your pain.

BARRY: I don’t know I… didn’t pinpoint anything specific. I didn’t think, I just did it, I killed him and I wanted him to know what was going to happen to him. I didn’t think about anything at that moment.

LOURDES: You cannot take a life, there are higher things who are in charge of it.

BARRY: Oh you mean human justice?

LOURDES: Are you out of your mind? I don’t mean crooked human justice! Have you ever heard about Antigone?

BARRY: Antiwhat?

LOURDES: Forget it. I mean the order of things! Taking a life, moreover, has spiritual consequences.

BARRY: I was given the gift of choice and I exercised my right.

LOURDES: It’s not a right.

BARRY: Coming from you, obviously, you…

LOURDES: Now, you sound angry.

BARRY: I mean yes, coming from you, from Claudios, people who never hurt a tree or a bee!

LOURDES: Don’t assume I’ve never hurt anyone from creation, Barry, don’t—

BARRY: You guys are like, ‘Oh look at me, I’m so native, so righteous, oh look, I respect the trees, the bees, the river, I’m righteous, and the White man here, he’s guilty, he’s vile’

LOURDES: …

BARRY: …

LOURDES: Let it all out, your spite.

BARRY: FINE! My choice, I exercised my choice. So I walked forward and made a choice and I will face the consequences. If you are thinking about handing me to the police—

LOURDES: No police. I am worried about you, not that man who died. He sounds like an asshole. I’m not losing sleep about the justice of humans. Or the procedure people who wear a uniform do.

BARRY: I would have thought since your grandfather was a policeman, you had more consideration for law enforcement.

LOURDES: What law and what enforcement are you referring to? I’m talking about your right in the eyes of the creation! It’s not your right or your place to decide who has to die for their mistakes! And what if that man’s family had gotten all overexcited and started a blood feud with you? What if his ghost was a resentful one and said he was going to haunt you for the rest of your days? Which doesn’t appear to be the case, thankfully.

BARRY: This man’s family… doesn’t know anyone from my family.

LOURDES: In the age of Google? Of Ecosia?

BARRY: Ecosia??

LOURDES: In the age of the World Wide Web? Are you certain of this?

BARRY: Strangely your concern seems unreasonable.

LOURDES: You should not—

BARRY: It is done. I don’t wish I could go back in time and do things different. I would do them the same, over and over again.

LOURDES: I appreciate your true word, therefore it’s plain to see that you are not aware of what is occurring within you at the moment, but your body, right now, is saying the opposite. It’s leaking, atrociously, it’s rotting, from old wounds. It’s dancing a dance with death.

BARRY: I don’t think so.

LOURDES: You know that by your actions, you are no different from those mules and coyotes and human traffickers.

BARRY: Oh, come on now! Comparing me with the worst of the worst!

LOURDES: Yes, pobrecito, people who think they can go against the order of things. Sending migrants across landsliding terrain, walking in the desert with no water, crossing clandestinely in the night with a blown up plastic bag as a floater. In the end, walking forward can be measured, among other criteria, by the way people in positions of power treat the most vulnerable! And those contrabandistas come up with their reasoning for what they do, even if what they do is wrong.

BARRY: I’m sorry that I remind you of those people who traumatized you.

LOURDES: Me? Oh, don’t worry, I made everything up. In fact, I am from quite a wealthy family, from the hills, people who are super inclined to take bribes themselves and bend the law. My father didn’t handle his seventh generation status well and he melted under the pressure of the peso, he didn’t empty his bucket, but for sure, he and my mama made sure I had a golden childhood. You can’t make up for a happy and trouble-free, uncomplicated childhood if you haven’t had one.

BARRY: W… What?

LOURDES: I met Claudios at a fancy Ted Talk he did in the main town of my country. I was wearing a Chanel dress that day so of course, you guessed it: he couldn’t take his eyes off me! Nor I off him. Some staff members and security guards were generously persuaded to let me knock on his door backstage. He wooed me immediately, without even having a decent conversation. Can you imagine that? It was like Jack and Rose in Titanic, complete mayhem, no thinking it over. But it worked out! You’ll see Claudios when you recover your sight, he’s a real catch. And I married him on the spot and then he got me a green card.

BARRY: Claudios does Ted Talks?

LOURDES: Why, you think all of us indigenous are peasants? Claudios is a born spiritual leader and a gifted public speaker.

BARRY: You usurped that story of migration!

LOURDES: It’s undoubtedly someone else’s real story of hardship, Barry, again, you are missing the point.

BARRY: And you are saying that now you have children together?

LOURDES: Yes, three girls. Odette, Oscarina and Olive. We like the letter O.

BARRY: Wow, you’re that type of parents like—

LOURDES: The Kardashians, yes I know Barry! I have a TV, you know, in the motor home parked next to yours. Stop shaming me.

BARRY: That’s cool, though.

LOURDES: Thank you. They are lovely girls.

BARRY: And what would you do if someone poisoned your husband, like, cold-blooded?

LOURDES: I would kill that person with my bare hands.

BARRY: …

LOURDES: I am also aware of how I sound! Humans are humans. We are all doing our best here, Barry! I’m just trying to make sure I don’t introduce excessive trouble into my community.

BARRY: After the nebo alia, you mentioned that I will meet the mother of nebo alia?

LOURDES: Yes. Getting ready to meet la madre requires effort and deprivation, fasting, releasing toxins. So Claudios and I thought we might as well take advantage of the fact that you’re not eating and that you’re already under the weather.

BARRY: That sounds… improvised.

LOURDES: It’s one of the best moments of death and rebirth! Improvisation is just circumstantial.

BARRY: Is it mandatory?

LOURDES: What, improvisation?

BARRY: No… death and rebirth.

LOURDES: You feel the vibes in the place, right now, my boy?

BARRY: Heavy.

LOURDES: La madre, she’s something. Some people pay money for retreats to meet her, for trained coaches to prepare for her arrival. They ignore how worthy they have to show themselves, you know. They don’t always pass.

BARRY: They… die?

LOURDES: For the love of God, no! It’s not venomous. Only your ego has to perish, nothing else. Those people who fail don’t die they just… suck at it and never get their money back, that’s all. They resist against the journey inisde or they helplessly try to save their ego from the ego-death! They cling to maintain face in front of something telling them that they have no face. But it’s no way to learn and it’s no way to advance. La madre is intransigent.

BARRY: She’s a… She’s a teacher.

LOURDES: A teacher you will like, for once. When you have been drinking the vine juice for a while, steadily, purging, touching la madre’s tea with your lips, it feels like she’s already been in you all this time. It’s like putting a key into a keyhole. And then she fills the room, she swells inside of it, you can feel her might and her push for eradication. If you are not terrified, you’re doing it wrong! Only she knows what she will do with you.

BARRY: You are talking about ayahuasca.

LOURDES: Oh mi hijo, I do mean la reina ayahuasca. My guess is that she will probably take you apart, all the pieces that you are and that you are vaguely trying to hold together and tidily. But I see potential in you, and so does Claudios!

BARRY: You probably need my consent to put me through this.

LOURDES: And you will give it to us!

BARRY: I’m starting to like that dark world with only voices and sitting on my ass.

LOURDES: Don’t you become lazy! You will have to stand up again, run again, build again.

BARRY: So you would kill the person who threatened the life of your husband, with your bare hands?

LOURDES: It’s better for my sake that I am honest with you in our conversation, in the presence of so many spirits tonight.

BARRY: I love her, that’s why.

LOURDES: That woman?

BARRY: Yes, I have loved her since the first day.

LOURDES: A thunderbolt.

BARRY: Yes. And I love her more today than I loved her yesterday, and I love her less than I will love her tomorrow.

LOURDES: Crime of passion.

BARRY: Jesus, it—

LOURDES: Alright! I accept you. You can stay, Barry.

BARRY: That easy?

LOURDES: Some things in this life have to be easy, for a change since, as I said, everything is so goddamned uneasy the rest of the time, especially transformation. Especially existence.

BARRY: Right.

LOURDES: Come around my way, around my hive.

BARRY: R r right?

LOURDES: And besides that, I’m a sucker for love. The first English language book I read was the Diary of Bridget Jones.

BARRY: I only saw the movie.

LOURDES: Listen, you took a life. You lost a life. You lost your power. You have to process those things.

BARRY: Like a rite of passage.

LOURDES: Punctual rites of passage punctuate.

BARRY: Like riding the worm— I mean the snake, to the condor.

LOURDES: To rise again. And you will cry.

BARRY: I’m not one of those people who is like.. anti-crying or anything but I just genuinely don’t express my—

LOURDES: Yesyesyes, I believe you Barry, Gen Z on board against toxic masculinity, you’re not a frat boy, I get it! But you will cry, and you will vomit, and you will sweat, and then you will live and you will heal and you will love. You will see the Oneness gives and takes, depending on the angle of time, the very time you brushed against in your bolting. You will see the Oneness is only love and that love is all that soaks everything like in a bowl of soup. You will see that Source loves you. And people come out of comas all the time.

BARRY: I know.