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Presence
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"There are people who come around here and they bring
butterflies with 'em." Jeremy fought his lungs to keep
the smoke in as he spoke.
"What?" Dez laughed as she received the smoldering glass
pipe. "Like, pets? The butterflies are their pets, er,
what are you talking about?" Dez took her hit and passed
the piece to Erin, who hastily drew in a lungful and passed
it on to Bert.
"No, they're like, well, I guess maybe they're pets,
I don't know. They come and stay for a few days and a
ton of butterflies always show up. That's their thing,
you see?" Jeremy's explanation had the stranded friends
giddy with confused laughter.
"What do you mean that's their thing? How do you get into
butterflies in the first place?" Bert chuckled as he stoked
the fire in the stove with an old cast iron poker. The heat
from the lemony flames was intense on his face. Times like
these were what it's all about, he thought as he reclined
eagerly back into the dusty tweed couch.
"It's this couple, and sometimes a companion or two, but
they come every now and then. They go up the creek just
past that Indian plot, where that RV is, and they put up
this dome. And the butterflies just come. I mean swarms of
them." Jeremy knocked out the ash from the bowl of the pipe
and began reloading it from a large bag of buds in his lap.
Jeremy was the caretaker of the Springs, and had invited
Dez and the boys to come up and stay while the rest of
the staff was on vacation in Brazil. Of course, their
stay was off the record. They had come up the weekend
before with a half-dozen other friends. Everyone with a
job or somewhere to be drove back down into the valley,
leaving Dez, Bert, and Erin behind. The plan was for Jack
and Rae to come back up with supplies after a couple of
days. But no one returned. The night after everyone left,
a heavy snowstorm blew through, knocking out the power
and closing all the narrow mountain roads for miles.
Jeremey had brought over a bag of frozen french fries along
with some other staples like pre-packaged oatmeal. He gave
the band a key to the wood shed and a whell barrow to haul
firewood back to their cabin. However much they needed.
"So they summon the butterflies, is that it? With this
dome? They don't actually bring them then, as pets
at least" Dez plucked on Erin's unplugged Telecaster,
daydreaming about the kind of power one must have to
summon butterflies--the kind of self-discipline it
must require. This whole place was filled with mystery
for her. She had first come up with her brother Rae the
previous fall to visit the sweathouse. She had experienced
her first deep and sustained meditation then.
The Springs was an old resort, built in the 40s among the
cedars and pines of a narrow creek canyon, right on top of
a very rich mineral spring. There were a dozen old cabins
and a lodge connected by wooden footbridges spanning the
creekbed of serpentine and granite boulders. The mineral
springs were sacred ground for several local religious
groups. Pilgrims and peace-seekers sought the Springs as
a rare haven. The nearest settlement was 20 miles by car
through a single lane of winding dirt road. There were no
neighbors; no through traffic.
"What's special about this dome?" Bert asked. "What's it
made out of?"
"Well that's the other weird thing about this. You're not
gonna believe it, though." Jeremey passed the freshly
loaded pipe to Dez, who, feeling somewhat honored to
receive the green hit, laid the guitar down across her lap
and leaned forward in her seat as if to express a lack of
doubt in Jeremy's tale.
"Crystal. Crystal and cast iron." Dez glanced at the
ceiling for a moment, imagining what such a structure
would look like, how it would be built. She lit a corner
of the bowl and watched the sticky herb bubble under the
flame. Jeremy had surprised her with a little hash. In a
coughing fit, Dez stumbled into the unlit kitchen for a
glass of water.
"Crystal? How big is this fucking thing? They haul that all
in here?" Bert rejoined skeptically, partly in disbelief,
and partly just to stoke the flames of their host's
mysterious anecdote.
"They backpack in," Jeremy replied, grinning with wild
firelit eyes. "Probably hitchhike, but all they have with
them is their gear. No domes, for sure." Jeremy sparked
his lighter and held the flame near the hash, puffing
heartily on the pipe until it began to smolder. He drew
in a lungful and held out the piece to Erin.
"I'm good, I think I'm gonna crash actually." Erin stood
up without emerging from his burrow of blankets and started
for the bedroom.
"Why don't you just sleep in here by the fire?" Dez asked
in a coarse voice as she returned from the kitchen. Her
throat was hot with spicy tar. "It's cold as fuck in there,
and dark."
"I'll be alright. Just wanna get some sleep." The crew
said goodnight, and Erin disappeared into the void beyond
the bedroom doorway. He felt for the edge of the creaky
old bed and climbed in. He was eager for the morning and
for this all to be over.
Unlike Dez and Bert, he had not enjoyed the past three days
stranded at the Springs. Erin had expected this trip to the
Springs to be their chance to produce some material for
their debut album, which he expected to be a hit. It had
to be. He lugged along his entire home studio--computer,
interface, keyboard, monitors, guitars, microphones. The
day the rest of the crew left, he had stayed behind
while Dez and Bert hiked up the creek and then up to the
snow-capped peak of its mountain shoulder. While Bert and
Dez descended the mountain to beat the unexpected snow
storm to the cabin, Erin was oblivious of the weather and
the world outside his impromptu studio. He had spent the
weekend working on making hits, emerging only to smoke and
eat. Once the power cut out, the cabin was nothing but a
cold and dusty prison of boredum. He was a victim of his
company, he felt. They should be doing everything they
can to get the demo together, but here they were wasting
time in the woods. He was bitter at the fact that Dez and
Bert had enjoyed themselves so much. Their enjoyment was
a lack of dedication to the band, he concluded. The sound
of their jovial conversation in the next room spun his
busy thoughts further into spiteful rationalizations of
his misery's cause.
"So where does this dome come from then? Is it big?" Dez
took Erin's place beside the stove, and noticed how much
the heat radiated from the thick, old iron. She thought
maybe that's why Erin had insulated himself within so
many blankets.
"Ya know the gazebo thing out on the footbridge? It's
about that size. You can go inside of it."
"Have you been inside?" Bert asked before promptly hitting
and passing the pipe to prevent the hash from burning
itself out.
"I have." Jeremy gazed out of the window to his right a
moment, realizing that the dying fire had made the stars
and silhouettes of towering cedars against them visible. He
started to get up to tend the fire, but Bert was already
stirring the coals. He threw on another piece of splintery
pine, and soon the world collapsed again around the walls
of the small sitting room.
"There's this other guy who lives down in town, he comes
up here every once in a while. He's some kind of homeopath
or spiritual healer or something. But he claims he's from
the future."
"Wait wait wait, I'm still on the dome thing," Dez
said. "What's inside? What's it for?"
"Butterflies. Swarms of them. Just hanging out all in
there, in and around it. Fluttering around. They say
the butterflies just follow them wherever they go. The
dome attracts them they say." Dez took her turn of the
pipe. "But where does the dome come from? That's the
thing."
"They told me it just appears. Like it was already
there. Well, what they actually said was that it comes
for the butterflies. It's some kind of healing thing, I
think. They used to camp where this old Indian guy lived,
in that camper that's up the creek. He used to be really
sick, that's why he came up here apparently. I don't know
how they knew each other. But he's not around anymore. I
haven't seen him or the butterfly people up here for a
while now. Nobody has. I went to check on him a while
back and there was no one there. The door was unlocked,
and all of his stuff was inside, undisturbed. He might be
camping out somewhere up the creek, I guess. But if he is
he hasn't been lighting any fires. I keep an eye out for
campfire smoke, but so far, no signs of him."
Dez and Bert were suddenly a little spooked by the dark
edges of the room. The mystery of the story inspired an
exciting kind of fear in them, causing them to shudder
against its electricity. Dez picked up the guitar
again. She felt vulnerable in the seat facing the
curtainless window behind Jeremy.
"Maybe that mountain lion got 'em," said Dez. "Nearly got
us." The day of the storm, Dez and Bert had discovered
large cougar tracks in the snow next to their own as they
descended from the peak. The spotting hastened their
already quickened pace, having seen the massive storm
blowing in from the summit.
"Maybe the mountain lion was him," Jeremy half-joked.
"Well him or not, he must have stalked us up from the
creek. I doubt he would have attacked us out in the open
up there above the tree line. I wish we could have enjoyed
it a little longer. That view..." Bert sleepily gazed
into the crackling fire, remembering the intensity of the
shock from first beholding the vastness of Mt. Eddys. Its
massive snow cap had made them feel small atop their own
high peak. Under different circumstances, the two siblings
would have continued along the ridge to Eddys' summit.
Dez's glazed-over eyes stared into the spent ashes of
the pipe. "It felt timeless up there. Like time itself
is so vast that it turns in on itself, or something. I
can't explain. That kind of stuff always makes me think of
pre-human times, like when dinosaurs were around. But it
feels more like a memory than a thought. Like everything
overlaps, like everything is always happening all at once."
The winter weary group mused and speculated, passing
the pipe around and around, taking turns strumming the
guitar. They let the fire die down and began nodding off
with it.
"I'd better get some shut-eye. Long day tomorrow, and
I'm pretty pooped from walking through all that snow
today." Dez yawned as she stretched her long legs forward.
"And you've gotta do it again tomorrow," said Jeremy.
Earlier that morning, she and Jeremy had walked through
a foot and a half of snow for several miles down the
road until they were able to get some reception. Luckily
they had gotten a hold of Pop, who would take a detour on
his route to pick Dez up further down the road the next
day. Dez would have to drive all the way back up from the
valley on her own to get Erin and Bert.
Jeremy quietly stumbled back to his own cabin. Bert was
already asleep on the moss green couch, still wearing
his coat and beanie. Dez stirred the subdued embers in
the stove, readying them for one last stab of pine for
the night. She reached toward the stack and realized that
kindling was all that was left. She considered letting the
fire burn out while they slept, but the little cabin was
already cold enough even with a fire burning. She wouldn't
have time to build another in the morning and knew she'd
want one before her trek, so she decided to do a quick
firewood run to the shed.
Dez put on her coat and sneakers, and jerked the stubborn
front door open as quietly as she could. Stepping onto
the porch, she felt slightly disoriented by the deafening
silence of the night. The snow-encumbered woods absorbed
what little noise was stirred up in the noir. The sound of
the stubborn old door closing behind her seemed to travel
barely as far as her own ears, which felt like they had
been plugged with cotton balls. She extended her jaw
instinctively to try and pop them. She felt vulnerable
being unable to see and hear clearly, as if she were being
observed by the night itself. She was overcome with the
curious feeling that she'd interrupted something, walked
onto stage in the middle of an act. She stood against the
wall of the cabin a moment to let her eyes adjust and get
her bearings.
Dez stared into the darkness, letting her eyes seize upon
the details in her surroundings. The only light in the
canyon was that of the stars reeling overhead. They were so
numerous that it felt as if she were wrapped up in them;
a blanket of distant cosmic bodies. Their needle points
began puncturing the silent glare of the night, dominating
the scene. Their being so prominent yet inaccessible
inspired a frightful awe in Dez as she pondered the scale
of everything present in that moment. They appear so
close and clustered together, she thought, but they are
all isolated in their own corners of the universe. She
wondered how old the light was that was beginning to
illuminate the features of the woods around her. Some had
travelled for centuries, millenia. At least one of those
stars must be as many light years away as she was old,
she told herself. Some of this light was born with her,
and had travelled unfathomable distances only to meet
her here in the depths of an alpine ravine. She wondered
about the light from that star travelling in the opposite
direction. Whose night was it illuminating?
Feeling more acquainted with the night, Dez started for
the wheelbarrow only to discover that it was nowhere in
sight. Jeremy must have taken it to bring wood up to his
cabin, she assumed. She decided that she'd carry back just
an armful of wood for the night and morning. She carefully
descended the frozen slope down to the lichen-riddled
footbridge. The band had all helped Jeremy shovel the
snow from the bridges the morning after the storm. The
wood underneath her feet felt springy and soft, like
the spongy remnants of a termite-infested log. The
gentle murmur of the creek grew to a steady roar as she
approached the main flow. The minerals encrusted on the
rocks around a springhead below were clearly visible in
the starlight. Steam spilled over the top of the rocks,
and drifted downstream atop the modest rapids of the
swollen creek.
Dez followed the shovelled path off the bridge and into a
large clearning bordered by the main lodge, a few small
cabins, and the woodshed. As she approached the shed,
she could see a dark figure near the doorway. It was
the wheelbarrow. Dez paused for a moment, alert and
slightly confused. Maybe Jeremey was getting some wood,
she thought. But the door was closed, and she hadn't
heard any noise from inside. She concluded that they must
have smoked too much and that someone had dumbly left the
wheelbarrow and all the wood behind on the last firewood
run. Still surprised by her discovery, Dez approached the
door of the shed cautiously. "Hello?" she called, wondering
if Jeremy hadn't come out for wood afterall. The sound of
her voice disturbed the calm silence of the night, and she
suddenly felt conspicuous, like it was observing her again.
She slowly opened the door to the shed, feeling naked in
its darkness as it poured out into the night. She reached
for the lantern hanging on the inside of the door and
turned it on. Cords of wood were suddenly staring her
in the face, their intense shadows grimacing meanly. Dez
stared back at them a moment, unsure what to do next. She
grabbed the lantern from off the hook and held it into the
open night behind her. The unfocused light illuminated
her immediate surroundings, drawing a boundary between
her and the world inaccessible beyond the lamplight's
radius. Dez realized the folly of her decision, and feeling
uneasily conspicuous, quickly disengaged the switch on the
lantern. Everything was black. The lantern light had ruined
her night vision, and she stood for a beat letting her eyes
readjust. She returned the lantern to its hook, and as she
closed the door to the shed, she felt the weight of the
night upon her shoulders. The presence of something within
it was palpable--she was sure that she was not alone.
Too scared and blind to look, she quickly grabbed the
handles of the wheelbarrow and began pushing it back to
the cabin at a steady but brisk pace. Holding something
made her feel less vulnerable, and she squeezed the
handles to dissipate the fear that was swelling within
her. She heaved the wheelbarrow up a small slope and onto
the footbridge. Its wheel against the planks of the deck
created a rhythmic whir that made her feel more conspicuous
and impeded her ability to perceive what was happening in
her surroundings. Dez hurried her pace to build enough
momentum to push the barrow up the embankment to their
cabin, rounded the peak, and quickly parked under the main
window beside the front door. She proceeded to remove a
few blocks of wood with a forced steadiness and calm as
if to convince herself and whoever was watching that she
was not afraid. With her hands full, Dez shoved the door
open with her shoulder, causing it to swing open and bang
loudly against the wall.
Bert jumped up startled. "What the fuck, what's going
on...what are you doing, Dez?"
"Just bringing some wood in, sorry. Had my hands full." She
dropped the wood in a pile on the floor, and went to
close the door. She paused for a moment looking out into
the soft blur.
"It's cold as fuck dude, you're letting the night in,"
Bert complained as he begrudgingly got up to stoke the
fire. Dez shoved the door tightly shut, and considered
locking it. She glanced back at Bert shoving a fresh block
of pine into the coals. He left the stove door open a
moment to enjoy the heat. He noticed Dez staring blankly
at him. "Wanna smoke a bowl? A little night cap?" he asked.
After a quick toke, Dez nodded off and was up again before
the sun. She built up the fire from its remaining embers
and boiled a kettle of Ceylon on top of the stove.
In the gray hour of dawn, Dez started down the road--in
that calm window when all the nocturnal creatures have
retreated to their burrows and before all the diurnal crew
has yet to emerge from theirs. It was even quieter than
the night, she thought. And perfectly still. She trudged
bravely through the snow as the morning brightened. Her
stiff leg muscles quickly thawed as they stamped along
the tracks they had made the day before. After only
a short distance, she was fully awake and alert--and
hot. Dez peeled off her jacket and tied it snugly around
her waist. Her cloudy breaths puffed out into the morning
air like exhuast.
As Dez pushed on, the morning began to thaw the world
around her. Soon the gentle trickling of snowmelt and
the subtle music of the forest resettling itself broke
the lingering hush of the frozen night. The farther down
the canyon the road meandered, the greater the flow of the
creek became, and by the time she reached the point where
she and Jeremy had stopped the day before, the crunch of
snow under her weight was obscured by the rushing rapids
and clambering cascades to her left. Dez paused for a
moment to listen and catch her breath. She reached into her
pocket for Jeremy's phone, realizing she had forgotten to
get it from him before she left. She had no doubt that
Pop could find his way through the mountain labrynth
up to the plow point, but it was a long way to walk in
deep snow. What if the trek took longer than they had
figured? What if Pop started back down the hill before Dez
could make it to the main road? She would have no way to
contact him or anybody if something happened along the way.
Realizing how fatigued she was, Dez decided to clamber down
the bank to the creek where she and Jeremy had stopped for
a smoke the day before. She kneeled down and scooped up a
handful of icy water from an emphermal eddy and splashed
it across her flushed face. She scooped up another handful
and gulped it down hastily. Laying back into the snow
on the bank, Dez admired the detailed ribbons of steam
escaping from her sweat-soaked clothing as they twirled
and contorted themselves into obscurity. She amused herself
with the thought that humans bleed clouds if you get them
hot enough.
The creek had become a river of fog as the morning sun
slackened the grip of winter over the canyon. Steam
appeared seemingly from nowhere and everywhere all at
once. A gentle current of newborn clouds accompanied the
snowmelt downstream, dragging itself through the canopy of
the densely wooded ravine. Fixing her gaze upon a cedar
limb above her, Dez was overcome with the sensation that
she was floating upstream. The illusion made her feel
dizzy after a while, and she sat up to regain her bearings.
"Who are you suppoed to be?" In the middle of the creek
stood an impressive rock person made of a dozen or more
precariously balanced large cobblestones. "Wow, how did
we miss you yesterday?" Dez wished she had brought along
her sketchbook to draught its peculiar form. Its body
of oblong boulders seemed impossibly stacked; like the
slightest breeze would send it tumbling downstream, let
alone a snowstorm. "Sure don't look like someone who's been
out in a storm," she muttered to herself, noticing that
no snow had accumulated on or around the rock person. It
seemed unlikely that anyone would be out building rock
people way up an unplowed road, she thought. She looked
around for tracks to find only her own.
Dez left the rock person and continued down the road. Her
legs had stiffened again slightly after stopping to rest,
and for the first hundred yards she started to doubt
whether she could really make it all the way to the plow
point. The remoteness of the Springs, which had always
made it feel like a sanctuary, was beginning to intimidate
her. The deep snow was unforgiving, but Dez hadn't any
choice but to press on.
The fog grew thick as the day ripened. In the deep shade of
the steep ravine walls, it was difficult to discern what
time of day it was. Morning had broken then spilled back
into dusk, she thought. The creek roared along below the
road, but was now invisible. The treeline along its border
extended into nothingness ahead of her. Successions of
indistinct figures emerged from the fog as she approached,
revealing themselves to be harmless flora, but still
Dez remained alert. She found a bit of courage in the
repetitive crunch of snow and the pulse of her shallow
panting. The rhythm of her gradual progress absorbed
her stray throughts as she continued down the narrow
lane.
Dez rounded a sharp corner in the road and found herself
in a particularly narrow section of the canyon. It was
colder, and exceptionally damp. The fog seemed to soak
right into her clothes. She untied her coat from her waist
and hastily redressed herself. For a moment, her wet shirt
felt cold against her bare back, sending an intense chill
up her spine. She fought to hold back the shivers as she
continued trudging through the show. Dez fumbled with
frozen fingertips at the drawstring of her hood. She drew
it in tigthly around her face, and stuffed her gloveless
hands into her coat pockets. Dez was startled by a cold,
hard object in her left coat pocket. She wrapped her
brittle fingers around it to discover that somehow Jeremy's
phone had ended up in there afterall.
She quickly removed it and struggled to command her fingers
over the tiny mechanical buttons. The LCD screen welcomed
her with a flourescent green glow. There was no service
in this narrow corner of the canyon it appeared. She held
the phone above her head as she walked, watching hopefully
for an indication of signal. Dez pressed some buttons to
reilluminate the screen, accidentally engaging an unwanted
menu. "No, not you, dammit..." She sighed humrously, and
as she lowered the phone down to eye level, she noticed
movement on the road ahead of her. She focused her eyes on
the haze and realized it was flashing orange. She eagerly
stomped through a length of snow and rounded a bend in
the road to discover two orange lights piercing through
the fog at some distance. It was Pop.
Dez shouted in relief, and sloppily threw herself through
the snow toward the flashing emergency blinkers. The red
bead of Pop's cigarette appeared as she approached, and
soon she could see his figure half-sitting on the hood of
his battered brown Nissan. He still had his sunglasses
on. Pop just smiled almost mockingly as Dez struggled
toward him through the last length of undisturbed snow.
"Well, look who's here," Pop teased as Dez threw her
arms around him. She shuffled her feet noisily across the
pavement to the passenger side of the old truck, noticing
the door had no handle. Pop was already opening it for her
from the inside. She flopped herself down on the springy
seat and cupped her hands around the heater vents as Pop
gently maneuvered the gearshift into first.
"You gotta really be easy on it, remember. It won't go
in if you force it. Just gotta kind nudge it in." The
engine purred as Pop turned the truck back down the road,
then rose to a beleagured whine as they gained speed down
the grade. Pop engaged the clutch and gingerly coaxed the
shfiter out of first and then carefully into second. "It's
like that for every gear. Except reverse. You can really
smash it in reverse, it doesn't matter."
Dez felt dazed seeing the world move so quickly all of
a sudden. It felt surreal that she could be still in her
seat--still as a tree even--yet the world would whirl away
behind them. "Why don't you sit back and relax? You forget
something?" Dez allowed herself to relax into the seat,
realizing she was tensely watching the scenerey appear and
disappear around them.
"There's a sandwich for ya there, and some tea," Pop said,
pointing at an ancient green canister on the floor. Dez
picked it up and poured some into the cap. It was too
hot to drink, so she held it carefully in her hands
as the rickety truck careened around the curves of the
mountain road. She felt uneasy to be driving so fast in
such thick fog.
"I got this, Dez," Pop reassured her, "just have some
tea." Pop reached for his lighter and lit a fresh
cigarette. "It's gonna flatten out in a sec here."
The farther down the hill they went, the more daylight
penetrated the thick fog. Soon Dez was squinting to cope
with the blinding glare that resulted. Pop jerked open
the glovebox and handed her a spare pair of sunglasses. As
she put them on, Pop turned onto the main road, and soon
they were crossing the valley floor to the freeway. The
fog completely obscured everything. Dez always loved
the view of Mt. Shasta from this angle, but it was not
there. Nothing was, except a few yards of tarmac and
fencing extending ahead of them. Everything was luminous,
flat white.
"Wow..." Dez glanced over at Pop in astonishment as
he nudged it into fifth and flicked some ash into the
ashtray. "Pretty cool, huh?" Dez stared at the road
appearing from the void just feet in front of them. Fence
posts materialized, hurled past them, and were then gone
again in an instant. A whole lifetime in a flash, Dez
mused. It felt like they were running in place almost;
suspended in time even.
Dez looked around the cab at all its familiar features. Its
overflowing ashtray, the gaping hole where a stereo
had once been, the cigarette burns on the dash, Pop's
cologne and Binaca in the center console and his clipboard
wedged between it and his seat. She looked over at him
out of the corner of her eye. He took a drag from his
cigarette, like he always had and like it seemed he
always would. He reached for his coffee and took a big
gulp of it, like he always did. Dez admired her dad for
moment. His atmosphere made her feel safe and certain,
made her feel like herself--made her different selves
feel continuous. She admired how steady and almost stoic
he was. He seemed changeless to her, like a distant star,
gesturing something profoundly familiar yet infinitely
inacessible and always watching the way ahead.
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