Forbidden Teacher

Flash Fiction = Tripping balls on Mt. Wilson

Aaron lifts the top bun from his dollar cheeseburger. Two dots, one yellow, one red, stipple the cold gray patty. Two soggy pickle shavings stare at him like the welcoming eyes of an old friend. He sets the burger on the dash behind the steering wheel. This will be it. His last stand against the suffocation of societal niceties and post pubescent expectation.

He inches his hand into the pocket of his tight jeans, one suffocating thrust at a time until his finger nudges the flimsy plastic. He pinches a corner and eases the transparent plastic bag from the clutches of his pants. He dangles it before his eyes like a hypnotist’s watch. A thousand moths bombard his stomach, threatening to climb his throat and fly from his mouth. He knows he’s in for a wild ride, and once the ticket’s torn, there’s no turning back.

Plucking a slender, crooked, driftwood-like stem from the bag, he places it in the center of the sad, open-faced burger, adorning a nose to accompany those droopy eyes. Next, he retrieves a bright golden cap, shriveled, plated in what looks like rusted gold leaf. Aaron runs his index finger across the top, feeling the tiny bumps and waves, amazed that something so small could harness such power.

After placing two caps and a stem on the patty, he places the bun back on the burger and smashes it between his hands. Aaron consumes a fifth in a single brave strike. It tastes just as he expected: like pink slime beef and musty sunflower seeds. He chews fast, through the terrible flavor and anticipatory fear.

The burger is gone. Aaron sits for a bit, staring out at the lights of Los Angeles, feeling both sad that he’s alone and relieved that no one is around to taint his experience. Aaron needs something. Anything. A force to get him out of the funk and confusion of daily life in this fucked up rat race. He hopes for enlightenment, but he’ll settle for a little fun.

Staring out at the microbial movement in the petri dish of Angelinos and San Gabrielites, moving their motorized death boxes frantically about the cage of boulevards and avenues, streets and places, ways and drives, lights begin to trace. Headlights pointing north, toward his mountainous outpost line the streets, one after another, and disappear as they make their rights and their lefts, on their way to nowhere. What worthwhile destination could they possibly be headed for? Right here, on top of Mt. Wilson, is the only somewhere. If only they could feel what Aaron felt now.

High in the sky. High on the land. High in the mind, body, spirit. This is exactly where he was meant to be.

Aaron’s feet melt through the floorboards, and his hands through the steering wheel. The sweet sound of violins sway in his skull like a toy ship in a child’s tub. The Cranberries, linger all about his body, under his skin, through his bones, into the cosmos, contained between the pulsing thrusts of his heart.

“Yes, I have to,” he replies.

A red aura, bursting, flys out of his chest. A throbbing cardinal of the meatiest sort.

“Yes, I still have to,” he answers again.

Brilliant. Sorrowful. Unlike another, just like the rest. Beautiful. Free. Alive. Letting it linger.

Leave, Aaron, his heart beckons.

Moving his head to the left, his face flows like a river, churning upon itself. He pulls the handle, loosens his heels from the floorboard, and floats with the door as it carries him into the cool night air. Dolores’s sweet, hypnotic vibrations are replaced by rustling. Stardust swinging through the brittle brush, carrying the sweet scent of baked desert plants through the valleys and over the peaks of this rocky temple.

Skating east, Aaron unbuttons his shirt, tossing the damp rag to the waving floor, allowing the breeze to dance upon his gleaming chest, cooling, healing. Where his heart once was, the glow of the yellow moon reminds the universe that he is but a celestial child, still in need of nurturing. Hovering toward the edge of the cliff line, he finds his home atop a cool slab of granite. An ancient scab, flaked from a higher elevation long ago, much longer than he can fathom.

The stony cushion sends a cool sting into his shoulder blades at first, then, as he sinks in, the radiation from its core tells a comforting tale of a warm afternoon, not long since passed. Stars waltz above his glowing face, coming closer, falling deep down into his soul. Into that dark abyss the stars shine a light on the painted cave walls of his consciousness, revealing all truths, stamped there before the beginning of time, yet hidden in the commotion and confusion of ‘life,’ always there to taste, but never to be consumed, until now.

Arron must hold on to this.

Forever.

And give it freely.

Will they believe him? That it’s all so fucking simple.

Dirt and pebbles crunch at the mouth of the access road. The backlit, perforated, black canvas of the heavens strobe with blues and reds, and reds and blues, and blues and reds. Cyclically, warning, creeping, wailing with vibrations of authoritarian ignorance. Aaron crawls from his beautiful cave of awakening, pointing his chin back to the earth, aiming his eyes at the black and white beast to the west, birthing two plump blueberries from its hips. The light within fades, PD approaches, and Aaron falls back into the thing we call ‘life.’