In my bedroom, I have just thrown myself on the bed. The face of my mom is staring at me, her eyes penetrate my soul like two mystic sapphires. I can only suspect that she knew something. The bag is at my side on the blue bedspread of my bed, lying there like a gigantic purple orchid. I am scared of that thing, but I am bracing myself with courage, and with my right hand I am searching inside the bag. I feel the scroll and I pull it out slowly. I open the roll. Again there are letters, elegant and beautiful in black ink:
You are both citizens of the same country. Nevertheless, you live here. Make this your own country.
Only Juan is at home. I think there are things that need to be said between us. He is seated at the kitchen table, looking at his phone, just for something to do.
"There is coffee, Carlito. Help yourself." It is clear that Juan has been awaiting me.
I seat myself, my cup is steaming. I always take my coffee bitter and black. Just like my mom.
"Why don't you ever put anything in your coffee?"
"I like the strong bitter taste."
"My crazy little brother."
"Always crazy, Alonso. What about the tattoo?" I point to the tattoo of the feather on the left side of Juan's neck.
"I got it done yesterday. Some time ago I saw it in dreams. Finally I did it."
"I saw it in the desert."
"When we were on our way to the hospital?"
"Yes,"
"How odd!"
He offers me cookies from the bag. I pick one that is chocolate.
"Carlito, that guy leaving the café today. Who is he?
"His name is Ángel. We met in the hospital.
"And before."
"And before."
"Where?"
"In the desert."
You know, I saw with you?"
"Alonso please. Can we talk about it some other day?"
"We will talk about this right now little brother. Right now."
I look at my fingers, where the chocolate cookie has left stains that seem almost black. While my adoptive brother looks again at his phone, I reach for a napkin...
"Carlito", says Juan. I saw Ángel in the desert. When I reached you in the early morning..."
"Alonso, please."
Without mercy, Juan continues. "You were lying together on the ground, very close. Like lovers. Ángel was awake. I greeted him. When he knew who I was, he got up and ran away.
"You mean to say that you two know each other?"
"From the university."
"How?"
"We were both in the same anthropology class. We were friends. and then...."
My brother lowers his head, as though underneath a very heavy weight.
"Then what, brother?"
"Then...then...we ...."
Juan reaches for his phone. He picks it up in order to check something. Instinctively I grab it and hold it in my fist.
"Alonso. Now tell me everything. Tell me everything."
"And you and Ángel. What happened...between you both, I mean.
"Nothing. I don't recall much. Only that we were both lost in the desert when we found each other. Very little else."
"Nothing between you...nothing.. inappropriate."
"I only recall that we were sleeping. It was cold, and we lay close for warmth. Nothing else. But I remember very little else. Just that Ángel was a true angel sent to rescue me. And tell me, Juan, about your previous relationship with him, in the university."
"You guessed right, brother." He is talking almost in a whisper, his head again lowered. "There isn't a lot to reveal to you. You have already busted me."
"You have never dated girls, Juan."
"Neither have you, little brother. Neither have you."
I let go of his phone, and I take his hand. With my other hand I
gently stroke my brother's forearm. He covers my hand with his own, and we are held in our shared solitude at the kitchen table, before the return of our sister and her husband...
Ángel and I are sitting in the same café. This will be our third visit here in as many weeks. We have sketchbooks, pencil crayons and coloured pens. Ángel is working on a drawing of a very colourful dragon, gold, magenta and scarlet. We have hardly exchanged a single word. Two weeks ago Juan and I spoke when he revealed to me the truth of their relationship. With great skill Ángel colours the wing of his dragon, with a shade of yellow rather like saffron. He is truly creating an absolute wonder. Very talented, Ángel. I am struggling to correctly remember that night when we slept together in the desert. Nothing really sexual happened between us, that is very clear to me, although Ángel was naked and there was a blanket covering us. Nothing else. Totally innocent. I only recall that I slept. Nothing more.
"Juan and I spoke ". I say dryly.
Ángel says nothing. Now he is drawing with lime green. He glances at my page.
"So we both know."
"Huh?"
"It used to be black. Remember?"
"The serpent."
"Yes, Crazy, the serpent." Ángel has given me this nickname. Crazy. A gesture of his affection.
"What do you mean, Ángel?"
"Don´t you remember the plumed serpent?"
"That is was huge, and..."
"We are citizens of the same country."
"Ángel. What about you and Juan. In the desert, I mean."
He drops onto the table the sky blue pencil He looks at me firmly.
"There isn't a lot to say", he says calmly. We were sleeping. I was naked, you weren't."
But I clearly recall that we only slept, nothing else, but he wasn't about to explain anything to my ex-boyfriend, and especially not about his Canadian little brother. Without saying anything to Juan, I got dressed and left.
"And then what did you do?"
"I wasn't in my right mind. I found the highway, and this very kind couple drove me to the hospital. Nothing else to say." He raises up his arms in order to stretch. "Let's go to the park, Crazy, shall we?"
We put our art materials in our backpacks. Ángel precedes me to the door, walking with the elegant grace of a dancer. It seems to me that all eyes are on him in the café. Here we are strangers. We are always going to be strangers.
There are few people in the park although it is Saturday. We find a concrete bench by the fountain. A gentle stream of water is splashing. Between Ángel and I there is a space the size of a child. I place my backpack in the space between us.
"Did you bring it?"
"The bag?"
"But what else?"
I pull from my backpack the maroon velvet bag. I search inside. There is nothing.
"Did you leave it in the house?"
"I always return the scroll into the bag."
"What are we going to do?''
"What can we do? The bag has a mind of its own, its own will. It is a living being."
The stream of water continues. Like the eternal fountain.
"Do you know this fountain?"
"Is there anything worth knowing?"
"It is a spring."
"Huh?"
"Don't be an idiot Crazy. It is one of the springs."
"What springs?"
Have you forgotten our mission?"
"We were sick."
"Doesn't matter, Crazy, we had our work to do. There is no other recourse."
"It´s one of the sacred springs?"
"Yes, Grasshopper."
We are approached by a blonde woman. She is very pretty, but doesn't look Mexican. Suddenly I know her. She works as a server in the café.
"Hi, Celeste", says Angel.
"What's up?" she says. Suddenly, Celeste reaches for the velvet bag, she grabs it, and searches inside. She pulls out the scroll. She returns to me the bag. Remaining standing, she opens the scroll and starts to read...
"
"Long ago, before this Mother earth was formed, just after the birth of the universe, there was in the cosmos a huge war. The Prince of Light intended to replace the Great Eternal Sovereign. He who made all that exists. The Prince of Light was the great Singer, directing all the choirs of heaven. His voice, his beauty, were without rival or equal. Resplendent with the refulgent magnificence of all the stars. And he intended to become the same God that made him. But the prince fell with such force as to create in heaven a great rupture, a breach so enormous that included among the fallen many innocent celestial beings, unable to defend themselves. So, along with the prince and his demonic companions, were also dragged down the innocents, before they could distance themselves from the conflict. They fell to the new earth, those helpless celestial beings, where also came the prince of light, now in the form of the black serpent. He has been seeking the celestial innocents, to force them to become loyal to him. And they resolutely refuse to do this, and so that the Black Serpent has been hunting them down, to destroy and devour them. But the Great Eternal Sovereign has taken compassion, and to protect his chosen servants, he has enclosed them in a protected chamber, four and twenty of them, meanwhile, the same Great Sovereign came to earth in order to rescue the human children from the fangs of the Black Serpent. Born as a mortal infant to a young mortal girl, to live as a moral and imperfect human among other human beings. He grew, and dedicated his life to the salvation and rescue of all the lost people, including those that murdered him in a most cruel and horrible manner because he was the very personification of love, because love is the Great Eternal Sovereign whose very heart is total love,. Therefore, the prince of light could not overturn his creator, because only love can conquer love, and only by love can it be conquered..."
Celeste pauses. All is silent except for the splashing of the stream from the fountain. Without looking at us, she continues,,,
"Although the Great Eternal Sovereign died, murdered by the same people that he loved, because he is love and because that love is the true foundation of life, and the very essence of all existence, he could not remain dead. He broke the chains of death, freeing himself from the prison of mortality, having visited the land of the dead in order to set them all free, filling them with the same life that is Him. And this he accomplished because, being life, even more love and it is love that gives life, He imparted to his friends the same breath of love, the Holy Spirit in order to empower us that we might share and show forth throughout the world his message, the message of Eternal Love, the very Heart of the Great Sovereign Lord. But, not even his first disciples, the great Apostles, could comprehend correctly the same message that saved them. They gave priority to power and to the true doctrines without giving due emphasis to the even more important love without which there would be neither substance nor existence for any of them. And for this reason, they greatly devalued slowly but surely the Great Divine Message, over the centuries, diminishing the power because now they were missing the essence of love. For this reason, a thousand years later, the institution of the great Sovereign Lord, the church catholic and orthodox, was divided by a great rupture, splitting into two separate murderous and bloody institutions, thirsty for the same power that murdered the Great Sovereign Lord whom they presumed to adore, worship and honour.
"There remained this matter of the Black Serpent, previously the Prince of Light. Not exactly disempowered by the death of the Great Sovereign, something changed, because it was already about to diminish. In his great wrath, he threw a tantrum, and unleashed his evil over the entire earth, especially the institution of the church, now the bloodiest institution in the whole world. Despite the evil that still burns in human hearts the Serpent has been weakened, but not before devastating many times over the very earth itself. Now the curse is changing its course. Each time even more his very acts are being made into something redemptive. Now when he bites someone, his venom turns into a healing serum, and what would previously just sicken, weaken and destroy, now redeems and transforms the lives of his victims. Now the Serpent is transformed into an instrument of grace, the servant of God!"
"Now comes the Black Serpent's final transformation. Not in a beautiful and powerful angel, but as a bird, like the phoenix of myth and legend. We have now surrounded the Serpent, invoking the most primordial hymns, It has lost its evil power, and now is transformed, not into an angel but into another creature of the air. And now the Plumed Serpent will fly forever as the swallow, singing and echoing its jubilant anthem, and now finally we are set free, the imprisoned and shackled citizens of heaven Now w have surrounded the Serpent, the four and twenty elders, joining with the Plumed Serpent in the primordial hymn, jubilant and celebrating the great liberation that is now about to unchain and redeem the earth and all its inhabitants from their state of prolonged lamentation."
Suddenly, Celeste fixes her eyes on us, blue like sapphires, like her name, and she invokes: "Both of you, Spark of God, and Blessing of Gratitude, both of you are exalted princes among the celestials. Like me, the Great Celeste. We sang together with the angelic choirs of the very foundation of the universe, before this entire Earth And we were dragged down by the rebellion of the Prince of Light, to chain us in the Earth, and for this cause we were incarnated as mortal humans, humbled and despised. Our chains have gravely wounded us. You have been incapacitated by mental illness, and I by poverty and many trials and difficulties in my daily life of which I cannot tell anything for now. But this was the will and purpose of the Great Eternal Sovereign. Like Him, we also have had to learn the very humility of the same human misery in order to teach us not only the love divine but also the very human love, imperfect and mortal, without which we cannot reach our own perfection. For this reason the mortal is married to the divine, so that the resurrected divine body of Jesus still carries the wounds of the nails and his torture. We also carry in redemptive form the very wounds of our pain and suffering...
"Ángel and Carlos, unfortunately, the divine will doesn't promise us a lot of change in our earthly circumstances. In fact, we are predestined to remain in such a humble and degrading state, not as punishment but for our perfection. There is something about our vulnerable and fragile condition that invites the light, because the light is founded in divine love, and in order to perfect oneself it is necessary for our problematic state of being. I am going to continue working as a food server. Then within a couple of years, I am going to get married to one of our customers, and thus I will grow in the divine perfection. I will give birth to and raise two children, a girl and a boy in order to learn the very sufferings of what it is to be a mother. Both of you, Carlos and Ángel, are going to go on having psychological problems until you are old. They are going to be less severe but you are always going to be needing support from others, and from each other, and so your brotherly friendship is going to flourish between the two of you. Also, your symptoms of psychosis are going to facilitate for you both contact with our heavenly brethren and with the very cosmic reality, our true inheritance. The boundaries between both realities are always going to be blurred for you. They are doorways. Accept and celebrate this. We will be meeting together quite often, also we will be communicating with each other in dreams.
It was my brother Juan who woke us from our sleep on the bench, myself, Ángel and Celeste, supporting us by our shoulders. Now it is almost nightfall. We are all seated at the kitchen table, with coffee and bread and chocolate. I have already asked what we are going to do for the night since we have three empty bedrooms. Juan has agreed. It seems very important that we all sleep tonight under the same roof. Anyway, Juan and Ángel both seem reconciled. We speak very little, only about politics and art. Juan appears to be very intrigued with our drawings. Celeste is the first to go to bed, then Ángel, and now we are sitting alone, Juan and me. Yolanda and Raúl are away on vacation. Suddenly I bring my finger to the feather tattoo on my brother's neck. I stroke it very gently, then I pull back my finger. Juan smiles at me, then suddenly I feel overwhelmed by fatigue. My brother helps me to my bed, and again smiles at me, telling me good night, turns off the light, and leaves after closing the door...
We have an early breakfast, just after daybreak. the table is overflowing with abundance: granola, fruit, cheese, bread, eggs, jam, coffee and juice. The morning light caresses us from the windows. Juan serves us with great skill, gentleness and kindness. He won't let me do anything. He is treating me as though I am some fragile being, like a broken toy. I am fragile. I am a fragile person. like my friends. There appears to be nothing bitter between Juan and Ángel. Neither do I want to imagine what might have happened between them. Because I am jealously possessive of Ángel, and I feel very protective of my brother. It seems odd that we are together. I can hardly recall anything from the previous night. I find it odd that we are together. We were sleeping on the bench in front of the fountain: Celeste resting her head on my shoulder, and the shoulder of Ángel supporting my head. No one has asked yet how we ended up all of us here at the breakfast table in our home. Not one single word have we exchanged this morning. We appear to be like a table of contemplative monks.
I don't know why, but I have brought from my bedroom the maroon velvet bag and it is hanging from my chair. Juan is asking Celeste about the café she works in, and ever since saying good morning, these are the first words we have spoken at breakfast. During their chat, I reach into the bag. There is something soft, almost like silk inside. I take out the golden feather that fell from the Serpent during his metamorphosis. It is an iridescent golden splendour, shining in the morning light that pours through the window. I put the feather in the centre of the table, and suddenly we are all focussed on this shining marvel from other worlds. Outside the window I hear the faint anthem of the swallow.
Fin
