LINK. Lucella Campbell
clearly leaned towards becoming physical, but separation from the whole for him was unthinkable. He placed his dilemma before the Alturan community, requesting a temporary stay in the realm of the physical, while maintaining a connection with Altura. They made it clear that a choice of being human would require full immersion. There were no halfway measures. They tested his resolve by presenting him with a parade of scenarios representing what his decision could mean. Satisfied that his pull to the physical was almost inevitable, as a parting gift, it was agreed that he would be allowed memories of Altura after his incarnation into physical form, even though active participation in that world would no longer be an option. The parting was a wrenching experience on both sides, but the Alturan community facilitated his entry into the world of the physical.
And now, he had gotten what he’d asked for. He remembered one of the legends about the Earth that he had learned of while on Altura, and the moral of that story – "Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it." And now here he was, sitting before the almond tree, trying to get acquainted with these strange sensations and the heavy weighted down mass that was his human condition.
IV.
In the nearby village of Placencia, life chugged along at its usual easy pace, completely oblivious to the developments right on its doorstep. But oblivion was normal for the people of Placencia. Barely attached to the mainland of Belize, Placencia had carved out its own existence in a symbiotic relationship with the sea that surrounded it on all but one side. It was an existence, oblivious to the hustle and bustle of Belize City two hundred miles away, oblivious to the political machinations and the tensions that wove a tenuous web around its many ethnicities.
Placencia was like a place forgotten on the edge of time, but happily so. It was as if time had found in Placencia a place of rest, and it took on a different quality here. Folks here felt no compulsion to enter the rat race. One almost expected to see the small, colorful, wooden houses fold in their raised stilts, and settle down for an afternoon siesta, especially on those steamy, hot May days. But somehow it never got to that. Maybe because the sobering breezes from the surrounding sea knew just when to bring their cooling influences to bear on the situation.
Every morning, windows everywhere would ease open, letting in the faint morning rays in a daily ritual to greet the dawn. But the village did not come fully alive until at least three hours later, when men and women ambled off to their various tasks on sea and land, and children skipped off in merry bands to the school house on the edge of the village. It was not at all unusual for many of these people to go about barefoot, by choice, their movement made easier by the sandy soil that coated most of the village. No one stood on ceremony here.
Placencia laid claim to the narrowest main street in the world. Only three feet in breadth, at its widest point, this cement ribbon stretched across the heart of the village, forcing all traffic to traverse the one larger back street. A web of well-worn footpaths connected the rest of the village. On the end of one of these footpaths at the edge of the village and nestled in the embrace of the foothills was the house and garden that was the pride of the village. The garden was truly a fairy’s paradise – a cascade of color and scents orchestrated to bring pleasure to the senses. And the white cottage with its lilac detail was the perfect complement to the garden, its ornate porch circling the entire house. There Dax and his grandmother lived in the cocoon that was Placencia. And now nearby, within this nurturing haven, a life form was making its entry into the world, cutting off the umbilical cord that had linked it to its homeland, Altura.
Dax was the village mascot. He was a rambunctious twelve year old, so well-loved in the village that every house was like his home. This had been so ever since both his parents had died instantly in that collision with the oil tanker four years ago. They were on their way to the hospital in the nearby town of Dangriga, where Dax was to have a new baby sister. Dax was beside himself with delight when he had found out that he was having a sister. He led off all the shopping excursions for baby items in the city, choosing her furniture, her tiny woolen booties, her clothes and that musical overhang for the cradle that he loved so much. He would listen to the wonderfully soothing lullaby, over and over again in anticipation of her coming. He was planning to lull her to sleep with it, singing it in his own voice.
On the day that she was to be born, it had taken all of his grandmother’s powers of persuasion to get him to agree to stay with her while his parents went off to the hospital. And now…he would never know what it was like to hold his baby sister, after all of that practice with his cousin’s dolls. He would never feel his mother’s loving squeeze or play soccer again with his dad. Everyone had said how lucky he was that he had not gone to the hospital, lucky that he had not been in the car crash. But he did not feel lucky. For a very long time he wished that he had been there and gotten it over with.
For weeks he could not be seen outside of his grandmother’s house. He could not be seen outside of his room. On that issue, his grandmother’s powers of persuasion had no influence. Dax simply did not want to be here. Food, people, play, school, friends – none of it held any interest for him. In one fell swoop, he had lost everything that mattered to him, and life now and ever had no meaning. Recognizing that the grandmother could not handle the situation alone, after several weeks, the school and the entire village intervened. Faced with the relentless efforts of that undaunted battalion of people, Dax s l o w l y emerged from his world of darkness and began to embrace life. And so he became, first, the ward of the entire village and then its mascot, as he rekindled his buoyant spirit.
With the entire territory as his home ground, Dax was often seen flitting across the village from place to place. He was special assistant to Mr. Williams, the village shopkeeper, delivery boy for the weekly paper, altar boy for Fr. Nicholas and gas attendant to the local gas station on Saturday afternoons. Still, he found time for the Old People’s Home, the school basketball team and his grandmother’s chores. He was quite the little businessman too, hoarding up his earning in the local savings bank and requiring a monthly statement.
All of this early stimulation had left in him a yearning to know more. He had an ever-expanding curiosity, and he constantly bombarded his elders with a barrage of questions, which often they could not fathom.
"Why were we put here on Earth?"
"What makes planes stay up in the air?"
"How does the music get into my radio when I turn it on?"
"Are there other people in the universe?"
"Where do people go when they die?"
In his restless search for answers, he discovered the world of books. Every evening after eight, he could be found crouched in the corner of his room enthralled in yet another book.
"You’re well ahead of your age, boy," his grandmother would say.
And Dax would chuckle knowingly.
His powers of observation were highly tuned and every day added volumes to his reservoir of questions and findings. For most of the villagers, the wide expanse of open fields and the woods that bordered the village was simply a gift of nature, a beautiful extension of their cozy village and a place where their cattle could roam and graze freely. For Dax, it was a living laboratory. He studied intently the angling of a bird’s wing as it took off and maintained flight. Their formation as they moved out in flock was a study in organization to him.
The graceful unfolding of the daffodil, as it bared its delicate self to the oncoming day, was an exercise in trust. The scurrying antics of the rabbit at play, the heightened awareness of the deer in sudden flight, the community spirit of a team of ants intent on hoarding food for the whole, the mating rituals of animals in heat, the calming influence of early morning dew, the variation of wind songs, the enchanting lullaby of night sounds, the subtle varied patterns of blades of grass – all held a fascination for him and in turn they unveiled their secrets to him. He learned to anticipate the weather by listening keenly to the changing melodies of the wind. From the deer, he had learned to hear beyond the hills. From all the wood creatures, he had learned to read the patterns of the ground. When he could not be found in the village, inevitably, he would be in the woods lying inert, seemingly idle, his eyes trained on some detail of nature.
And