Equinox

 

You keep on driving your 1992 Voyager up towards Manchester. Fall ends early in Vermont, which means you’re disappointed. You wanted to see the foliage in all its glory when you jumped off the mountain. You felt the colors would have added beauty to the entire endeavor. Now there will probably be a frost when you leap.

No matter.

The Master – or rather the Interpreters – have made it clear that the only way to re-enter the Prism is to jump from a great height. You’re driven to follow their suggestion.

“Driven.”

Indeed that’s the word that best describes your Journey as a Cyclical Pioneer. After first learning about The Master on the band’s website that night after the concert, you purchased his book, “Time Delay,” and subsequently read of his education.

And you were enchanted.

The entire narrative of the Master’s autobiography – from the campus of Yale, to the desolate Rhode Island beach where he met The Educator, to his final understanding of the Cyclical Prism – engrossed you. The central message of the work – as you understood it – was that you, yes you, could achieve what the Master eventually did.

Indeed, you could physically journey up through the Aurora Borealis or down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. You could interactively communicate with animals and distant life forms, as well as with your own reflection, which could converse with you on its own. The power to actually see, hear, and engage in strange matters could be yours – with the right guidance.

“But that’s what this guy’s teachings are all about,” your cousin, a student at the Rabbinical Seminary of America, told you. “Power. Not the love of God or man, but the love of power.”

You argued furiously that The Master’s message was completely positive, the culmination of all previous faiths and forms of learning. For its foundation rested not in the love of power, but in the knowledge and development of the self. 

“There’s that word again,” your cousin interrupted.

“What word?”

“Self,” he smiled wryly. “All your master’s teachings are about the self.”

By that point, however, you weren’t about to be convinced by anyone who spoke against the Master. For, after contacting one of the Interpreters via Twitter, you went to several of the Master’s workshops and then – unbelievably – were invited to learn at the Master’s own compound.

What memorable days those were. The Master would sometimes leave the security of his private room to float in and out of the many other rooms in the enormous home. Sometimes he would speak to you directly – even on occasion asking a small favor; to pick up juice or water from the store, perhaps. Yet it was like he was the one doing a favor for you, so great was the honor of his request.

As time went on, of course, you broke entirely with your family – something the Master himself said all Cyclical Pioneers must eventually do. It was hard, yet not as hard as you had feared it would be.

For you now lived in the Master’s House, studied the Master’s Teachings, and had sex with the Master’s Interpreters (former doctoral candidates, all - beautiful, statuesque, and filled with knowledge, both of physical pleasure and of the Teachings).  In short, you had your own family unit now - you were a part of the Prism.

As the Master himself told you after you had hung up on your weeping mother, you had learned to put on the emotional armor that all Pioneers needed for their journey.

********************

“Space.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s where the Master says I’m from…space.”

You rolled over onto you side. She was lying on her back, naked and only half covered by the thin bed sheet.

“Where in space?”

She waited a long time before answering.

“I forget. He told me exactly where once, but I forget.”

“Don’t you believe what he’s told you?”

Another long pause.

“I don’t know.”

A chill slowly worked its way up your spine. Ethereal was an Interpreter. According to her birth certificate she was twenty-six, but the Master had informed all of you in the compound that she was ageless.

And now here she was talking to you. Like this.

“Sometimes the Master dismisses certain Pioneers,” Ethereal said, “just like that…just to keep the rest of us on our toes.”

You rolled over and asked her to share the bed sheet with you.

********************

Driving through the trendy and quaint New England wealth of Manchester, you tighten your grip on the wheel of the Voyager. Passing the Equinox Resort you realize you’ll be at the mountain it’s named for within minutes. Now is the time to let your learning, your experience and your training as a Cyclical Pioneer be your compass.

“Once you jump,” Eminence, the oldest and most informed of the Interpreters told you earlier this morning, “your own will shall pull you towards the prism rather than towards the earth.”

“But I was told the prism is here with all of you.”

“And so it is,” she replied. “Yet because of your waywardness, you must now prove your obedience.”

“And those are the thoughts of the Master?” you asked.

********************

Pulling into the toll house on Skyline Drive, you breathe in deeply. The trail is closed for the season, so you will have to do a bit of walking. No matter. You know full well that you won’t have to climb to the top of Equinox in order to get high enough to make your leap.

You get out of the Voyager with the engine still running. There is no more need for you to carry out ridiculous tasks such as removing keys from ignitions and closing vehicle doors. You are now on a mission of far greater importance than the petty missions the Mundanes find themselves trapped in daily.

********************

“You’ve broken away from the cycle,” Ethereal told you over the phone just yesterday. “Yet the Master has found a door through which you can re-enter the Prism.”

“And that door is beyond the edge of a cliff.”

“Don’t you trust the Master?”

“You didn’t seem too trusting of him that night in bed.”

A long pause.

“I was mistaken, that night. Adrift. I was jealous of Eminence…of her knowledge and the favor the Master shows her.”

“Did you have to jump off a cliff to return?”

Another long pause.

“We each must find our own entrance,” she said, finally. “The Master’s told you as much himself.”

“The Master told me a lot of things. Then he told me completely different things. The Master says a lot.”

“We’re all you have,” she responded sweetly. “All that’s left for you is the Prism.”

You didn’t respond – but you knew she was right. Family. Career. Future plans. Personal identity. All were gone.

“Come to the compound at sunrise,” she continued. “Eminence will provide you with final instructions.”

“Not the Master?”

“You’re not worthy enough to remake his acquaintance yet.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be waiting…after you return to the Prism.”

“But not before I make the jump.”

A final long pause.

“Remember the Teachings,” she said. “You have so much left to learn. Perhaps you’ll find that, like me, you’re actually from some place far from here.”

Like the song of a siren, her words had already begun to draw you back in.

********************

You push yourself up the slick, damp path. You will soon be with the others once again. Each long step gets you closer to obedience, closer to where the Master wants you to be. By taking away all you had the Master allowed you see that the Prism was all you ever needed. You understand that now. Indeed, you feel like all your doubt, all that poison the Mundanes refer to as “common sense,” has been shed.

You pause to catch your breath. Looking to your right you see that you are quite high up. What’s more, there’s a rocky drop no more than a few yards away, one which goes straight down about two hundred feet.

Here, you decide, is where you’ll make your leap.

Checking to make sure the drop is steep enough to kill a mere Mundane, you step back in order to give yourself a running start. You think of what you will eventually learn after you make the jump.

Perhaps you will learn to travel into the past or future, just like the Master does. Or perhaps, like Ethereal, you will learn that you’re a timeless being from beyond the petty sight and knowledge of man.

You race forward.

Then you slip on wet leaves and slide over the edge of the cliff, a good ten feet away from where you intended to make the jump.

Before you even realize what has happened, you find your entire body dangling over the steep drop. Yet it isn’t your will that’s keeping you from crashing to earth – it’s your fingers, which; in a subconscious desire for survival, have grabbed onto a large, jutting stone.

You don’t think of letting go. Not now.

Without even realizing it, you reach for a crevice higher up the cliff with your free hand.

You find another crevice after that. Then another. Then another.

Pulling yourself back onto the damp earth, you roll onto your back. Looking up at the late afternoon sky, you see the moon is already starting to form – as are several stars.

After a moment, you get to your feet and begin making your way back down the mountain. It’s night when you finally (and with great difficulty) get to the bottom. The Voyager is still there with the driver’s side door open, its engine humming in the darkness.