Section 4; How to be a Spiritual Cockroach

Section 4: How to be a Spiritual Cockroach.

There is a beach on a distant planet that I nearly enjoy. Where the cacophony of the universe is lowered to a distant drone and the indigo sands stretch out for miles. My vision is less muddled here and I can watch the three suns fall and the nine moons rise over the roaring sea. There at dusk and at dawn is when the long-tailed bird begins its majestic ritual. It appears from the dark nowhere of the heavens above to begin a furious descent downward that ends in a violent plunge into the dark waters where it disappears momentarily only to resurface seemingly larger and more colorful than when it arrived. It rises back into the cloudless sky, bucking and snorting, to disappear where it once came from leaving behind a trail of fiery orbs that fall helplessly back into the wild sea.

They never had anything like that back home, but I remember catching some pretty big Sturgeon. Steelheads, big ornery fish whose ancestors existed on Earth before the humans arrived. We’d head out early in the morning, load the gear under the stars then make the drive North for another two hours before we reached the frozen shoreline. I’d wake the boys and we’d pull our homemade ice shack across the ice. Before the sun cracked over the Eastern horizon, we would have the lines dropped, and our hot cocoa at the ready. That was my way of telling them I loved them, because the words always failed me.

Here on the tropical planet I see humans wandering the beach inside a purple haze of sea mist. They wander from out of the lush jungle behind me in small groups, only at night, to explore and gather supplies. I only started coming here after they escaped their colony prisons for a better life- seems as if I can only exist where the humans travel. Like a spiritual cockroach I travel unknowing and unwillingly throughout their gnawing endeavors and hand wringing wrongdoings.

They seem to have a better way here in the green fauna though, I will give the devils credit where credit is due. It’s probably because they are wary of being found but they keep their footprint soft and cover the tracks, as they travel in small, mostly peaceful, bands of mixed-race humans. They forage, some meditate or worship. Imagine it doesn’t hurt but I call ‘em pray dogs with all that ritualization. I did bring the boys on Sundays, but I was never a true believer like Emma. If I recall correctly, I had become somewhat withdrawn, and skeptical along my earth journey. I had driven cargo trucks through the yellow smoke and unrelenting heat under heavy artillery fire and watched the bodies splinter. I was not in the worship club. No God could let that happen. There were children, the same age the boys at home, torn in half along the highway. I couldn’t think the same way ever again.

On the purple beach I think I can hear the surf in nature’s perfect time. A young woman sits down next to me as I track the multi-colored avian from sea to sky. She watches the bird for several trips before breaking into uncontrollable tears. The waves grow larger and larger and eventually the tide takes her into the arms of the ocean. I am helpless.

Her fellowship will discover the body ashore the next morning and then return her back to the ocean aboard a flaming boat; some customs never die.

The tide rolls in, the tide rolls out, they endure here.