“I’M GOING to guide us in a simple meditation,” Kevin told his friends.
“A meditation?” Cauley asked. “No magic? I mean, I was hoping for some magic.”
Kevin shook his head. “No magic. Except for the magic that is always there around us.”
“Oh,” Cauley said. “I was hoping for….” His voice faded away.
“For what?” Kevin asked, and then quite suddenly knew.
“Nothing,” Cauley replied quietly, lowering his head, his face totally lost in shadow now.
“Cauley,” Kevin said, his voice barely above a whisper. God. Was Cauley hoping for some kind of magical healing ritual? If so, it was certainly nothing he knew how to do.
He got up from his chair and went to one knee, ignoring the melting snow. Reaching out, he took Cauley’s gloved hand in his own. “I don’t know how to work magic. Not really. Nothing more than any of us.”
Cauley lifted his face and, God, in the light from the flames his face looked almost like a death mask. “Why did this have to happen to me?”
Kevin had no idea how to answer. Did anyone? His mother had asked the same kind of question when his father had an affair on her.
“Why, Kevin? Why? Why did he do it? Was it me?”
He hadn’t known what to say to her then, and he had no idea what to say to Cauley now. But that look on his old lover’s face begged him to say something.
“I… I don’t know, my sweet friend—”
“Friend,” Cauley whispered.
“I don’t know why anything happens. Not really. I know that I believe what my Wiccan friends say at Festival. That we all come from the… well, they say the Goddess. And to her we will return. It’s a circle. None of us will live forever.” He looked up into the falling snow and Cauley followed his example. The big flakes fell on their faces, and when they looked at each other again, Cauley’s eyelashes looked like downy feathers. In seconds they melted away into tiny drops, catching the firelight like crystals.
“We are all the same,” Kevin said. “Us. The snow. The fire. We’re made up of stars. We’ve been around forever, and we return to that energy, and we come back again and again. I believe that.”
“Will I come back?”
In some form, thought Kevin.
“I think it would make me happy if I came back as a snowflake and I could fall on your face.”
Kevin’s heart swelled with both love and sorrow at those words, and he couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss Cauley on the mouth. He kissed him hard. Fully. Nothing chaste about it. He wanted Cauley to feel the love he would always have for him.
When he sat back, Cauley gasped. “Oh, Kevin.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “Thank you for that.”
Kevin swallowed hard, nodded.
“So let’s get on with your meditation,” Cauley said with a little laugh.
“You got it,” Kevin said. “And I have one little ritual planned as well.”
“There we go!” Cauley exclaimed. “I knew we could get something in there!”
So Kevin returned to his chair, caught Theresa’s eyes (she had been so quiet), brushed away the little snow that had accumulated on his seat (this close to the heat of the fire it was like they were in a protective bubble), and sat down. “All right, then. Everyone close their eyes.”
Theresa did as bid, and through the flickering of the flames, he could see Cauley had as well.
“Now. I want you to imagine that you are standing. You turn away from the fire, and you walk into the dark. Feel it all around you. But wait! Surprise. It’s not cold. If anything, it’s nothing. Just very comfortable. Perfect….
“Then… there ahead of you… you see a door. It’s red. There is a single light on that door and you go to it and open it. You are not afraid. You know there is something good inside waiting for you. And yes! To your surprise you are looking out at a beautiful summer day and you are surrounded by a field of red zinnias.”
He was using part of the Queer God Ritual from Men’s Festival, but modifying it for his own use. Making it simpler. That ritual could go on for a long time, and he had an idea that Cauley was good for maybe a half hour more out here. Maybe less.
“See them? Can you see the zinnias?”
“Yes,” said Theresa. “I—I can….”
“I think so,” Cauley said. “Yes. Me too…. May I pick one?”
“Yes,” Kevin said. “Pick as many as you want.”
“Just one,” whispered Cauley.
“Now we are going to walk through the field. We don’t hurt them. They almost seem to part for us. And as we walk, we see something ahead. The red… it’s ending. They seem to be getting taller. Oranger. And yes! It’s poppies!”
“Like in The Wizard of Oz,” Cauley said with delight.
“But these aren’t deadly. They don’t want us to go to sleep. They fill us with their orange. Orange light. Orange life. And just like the zinnias, they part for us….”
“I’m picking one of these too,” Cauley said.
“Me too,” Theresa said. “I love poppies.”
“And look guys! Up ahead.” Kevin could see it all as well. A field that went forever. But…
“…but up ahead the flowers are changing again. Yellow! It’s yellow sunflowers. All different shapes and sizes. And yellow. See them?” He could. “Feel them….”
“So beautiful,” said Theresa. “Warm.”
“Yes,” Kevin agreed. “So warm. Like heat on sore muscles. Or warm water on tired feet.”
“Warm,” Cauley said in a voice Kevin could barely hear. “Picking one….”
“And we’re walking… walking….”
“I think it’s changing again,” said Cauley.
“Yes. It is. Can you see what it is?”
“Green,” Cauley said. “It’s green! Right? Green?”
“Yes,” said Kevin. “Green, lush ferns.”
“And those flowers you gave me for my birthday last year,” Cauley said, excitement in his voice. “Bells of Ireland or something like that!”
Kevin smiled. Yes. Moluccella laevis. He could see them too. Tall stalks covered in bell-shaped green flowers. One of his favorites, and one day he would live somewhere where he could have an actual garden and grow them himself.
“Yes,” Kevin agreed aloud. “Bells of Ireland. And they radiate life. Green life. Filling us with their growing energy.”
“Picking just a tip,” Cauley said. “A small one. I’m making a bouquet.”
The thought made Kevin smile again.
“We walk. We keep walking. It is a wonderful day. The walking is easy—”
“Flowers parting,” said Cauley.
“—and we don’t get tired. And up ahead….”
“They’re changing,” said Cauley.
“Blue,” said Theresa.
“Blue,” repeated Kevin. “Big, huge hydrangeas. Some as big as your head.”
“Ooooh…,” said Cauley.
“They feel cool,” said Kevin. “Can you feel it? Can you feel the cool?”
“Soothing,” said Theresa.
“Soothing,” echoed Cauley.
“We are walking through a field of hydrangea bushes. Weaving through on a tiny path. And any hurts we have? Any pains? Why, the coolness of the hydrangeas are taking them away.”
“Soothing,” Cauley said again. A whisper.
“And now the bushes seem to be shrinking. Getting smaller. Making way for… indigo. Indigo irises. Stunning, gorgeous irises. So many. Everywhere!”
Kevin was totally lost in the vision he had created for them now. He was there. There completely. He could see Cauley standing to his left, looking strong and healthy like he had on that first day they met in Central Park. He was glowing. Surrounded by a golden aura. Kevin looked to his right, and there was Theresa, looking resplendent. Like a fairy queen. Or a goddess.
He sighed. And moved on. “We keep going,” he said. “Keep walking and look…. There. Just up ahead of us. Shrinking again. And this time for purple violets. Violets as far as we can see.”
Gorgeous.
“But this time, instead of going on, we lay down. We lay right down in the violets. And they are like a warm blanket. A thick blanket. We lay down on our backs.” Kevin could see, now deep in a near hypnotized state. Drifting along…. “And they fluff up around us, and we look up into a beautiful sunny sky. The sky so very blue, with only a puff of pure white cloud, and the light of the sun is so warm, so golden. And the violets. They fill us with their purple power.”
“Queer power,” Cauley said quietly, the awe clear in his voice.
The words surprised Kevin. Purple was the queer color. Had been for thousands of years. Gay men had identified each other by wearing amethyst. But how had Cauley known that?
There really was a kind of magic in the world, he thought.
Kevin all but whispered, “Now my friends—”
A piece of wood popped in the fire pit.
Now is the hard part!
Or at least potentially.
“—this is where we’re going to do a little bit of work. It might sound hard, but it’s worth it. I want you to use your imagination. I want you to think of something that happened this past year that no longer has a place in your life. Something you are done with. Over. See it in your mind, floating over you. Picture it. Picture it blocking your view of the lovely sky.”
Kevin allowed himself to do what he asked of them. Wouldn’t let himself wonder what Cauley might be seeing.
He saw too much time in an office where he no longer worked day to day. He saw a city that, even though he loved it, kept him from the Land that he loved so much. He let a furtive night in an apartment with a man whose name he didn’t know flash there as well—a night that had made him feel so empty afterward, and the memory of an orgasm that wasn’t even very good.
“Now let the sun blaze through it,” he said aloud. “Let the new-coming sun burn it away. Let it banish those images, those thoughts. Let them burn away with the old year.”
He imagined it. The sunlight poured right through the visions in his mind like a bright light through a piece of celluloid. It got brighter and brighter yet didn’t burn his eyes. It only shone through and through and through and then the pictures were… gone.
After a long moment, he said, “Now picture something you want. Something missing in your life. Something you want to come into your life in this New Year. See it…. See it before your eyes… and pull it into your arms.”
And here was the joke—he’d come up with this idea and gotten his friends to go along with it, and he wasn’t even sure what it was that he himself wanted.
But then to his surprise…
Kevin saw words floating before him, dark against the glowing screen of his laptop…
I just wanted u to know I am free! I have finally dumped my loser lovers ass!
And the echo of a thought…
So Wyatt was single now?
And another image—a sweet, short little man, rounded just the way Kevin liked (padded), with a lightly hairy chest, adorable round little butt (oh! Such a sweet little round butt!), and the darkest eyes, puppy eyes. Saw them cuddled on a blanket on the beach at Camp Sanctuary. Almost felt lips against his own, full and soft and so sweet. Heard his laughter—Wyatt’s laughter.
Kevin let out a gasp.