Sandy
I awoke with Mary at my side in her underwear. Rich and Tina were gone. We looked out the window and saw them in the water by a dock, a hundred feet from us, cavorting and splashing each other and naked. We decided to join them for a bath. There was no running water here or electricity, Amish to the core.
We tore off our undergarments and followed, first through a cold fog and then into the even colder waters of the Klamath river. Once again the sensation of the cold air and the colder water were almost as exhilarating as the feeling of sunshine on our skin two days before. It was as if ‘life’ itself were slapping us on the face and saying, ‘this is it, this is your birthright’. The freezing cold water almost stopped us knee deep. But Tina was beckoning us in, waving her arm and yelling some thirty feet away, up to her neck. So we joined them and bathed in joy.
As we were coming out after a very brief dip, to return to our camper and dress, I noticed the two children were hiding in the trees close to it, peeking at us and laughing. The girl looked about twelve. The boy a few years younger. When I waved they ran away, as if scared.
While we were dressing, before returning to the lodge I felt compelled to speak: “Look, these people are religious, fanatically so. Our behavior, sleeping together and bathing nude might disturb them profoundly. But I don’t care. I’m not going to change my ways and you shouldn’t either. We’re free and can do whatever we want. We’re not going to lose all that we’ve gained in a single week. I’m alive again in every sense. If they can’t accept us, I say we get out of here. But first we need to gather all the intelligence we can. I’m sure they can tolerate us for a few days and they want to know what we know just as much. If they don’t they’re idiots. Maybe that’s why John left”.
That’s where my speech stopped but not my thinking. ‘Religion is just as fake as the alter world of the pleasure palaces that destroyed us. It’s not real and makes us lead a delusional life. It certainly caused a thousand wars in its variations, Muslims fighting Christians, Jews stubbornly opposing all, killing millions of men and nipping countless women and children’s lives in the bud, in so called holy wars. How stupid to escape from one form of illusion and jump right back into another, equally duped. Maybe humankind is completely flawed and doesn’t deserve to live, like the dinosaurs and all the other creatures that suffered mass extinctions.
We entered the lodge to a huge spread of a bountiful breakfast with our new family standing around the table, impeccably dressed in black and smiling. The children were there. The coffee was delicious, the eggs, bacon, fresh bread, butter, overwhelming us in flavors. We ate ravenously. But this was a good change because we were regaining the body mass we needed, the muscles, all those things which had atrophied in a bed-ridden life.
After the feast and my fourth cup of coffee I began to expiate to the table a full and colorful calendar account of my past life, my courtship with Mary, my early university days, our growing love, in bowdlerized vocabulary, which our company seemed to enjoy in their bland world without any variation or hint of entertainment. I noticed that the twelve year old girl was particularly intrigued with my story, beaming smiles.
This is exactly what I hated about such lackluster lives, lived to an exact schedule of activities, of duties in a daily routine of functions and mindlessly repeating prayers, with a thousand prohibitions and ten acceptable, allowable, polite responses to any situation. How could they be so stupid, so prejudiced, throwing their hands to their eyes at the sight of anything not exactly like their blindered lives like horses.
I returned to the camper alone, to meditate my next move. Rich and Tina and Mary stayed behind to help our hosts clean table and do whatever else to be of use. Much to my surprise there was a soft knock on the door and the girl came in. Her name was Sandy and she had short, sandy colored hair, a pug nose and pretty eyes.
“I loved your tale and I could tell you don’t like it here. I’m sorry we spied on you this morning. I don’t like it here either and if you do go away, could you please take me with you. I don’t belong with these people. They beat me. John brought me here when he found me with another man named Jake. I lived high up in the mountains in Idaho and they found my parents and me. I was only eight. They brought us down but on the trip here my parents and Jake were killed by the flying machines. It was horrible, but life here is the same. Will you please take me away? I like you”.
I was touched by her story. “We’ll see” I said, “it was insightful of you to see my predicament. You must be a very intelligent girl. We have no agenda and we’re going to stay a few days more to find out what we can, if there are other clans like this further North. I’ll have to talk to my mates. But I will promise you this: If they agree we’ll take you away with us when we go.
She smiled brightly and took my hand and then slipped out the door. One new development. I laid back on the couch of the camper and almost wanted to disappear back into dreamland and void my head of all thought.
