LINK. Lucella Campbell
as he skipped along, his light shoulder bag flailing in the wind. In it, he always carried a pencil and pad and some bathing trunks in case he decided to take a plunge in the nearby lake. As he came to his favorite clearing in the interior of the woods, he noticed a figure in the distance, crouched under the almond tree. This took him completely by surprise as he had never before run into anyone here. The people from the village usually limited themselves to the open fields or the edge of the woods. As he moved closer, his mouth dropped open in surprise. The figure was unclothed. He did not know whether to move in closer or run away. He stayed put.
The Alturan too was caught in a morass of confusion. Suddenly out of nowhere, the sounds in the air had shifted, and there were these piercing notes that somehow held together in a jaunty rhythm. He could hear new movements through the trees. Again, he could feel his body registering a range of emotions, but through it all he stayed still, not knowing what to make of it. He had sighted the human, before Dax had caught a glimpse of him. This human carried a strong aura. He squinted to perceive more clearly the pervasive colors. Blue, violet and white hues gave off a sense of buoyancy and well-being. He relaxed in the certainty of his unfolding destiny.
And now, no more than thirty yards separated them as they faced each other across the opening. Dax made his way across in a semi daze.
"Are you alright? Who are you? What happened? How did you get here?" Dax was the first to speak. But, then again, the flow of language came naturally to him.
Not getting any answer from the stranger, Dax pointed to his nakedness, "What happened to your clothes?"
Stretching out his hand to the stranger, Dax slowly helped him up to his feet.
The stranger wobbled on his feet as his full weight hit the ground, and Dax had to grab on to his shoulders to steady him. This was like watching the unsteady rhythm of a newborn calf finding its legs. How could this be? The person before him had to be about eighteen years old. But there he was, caught up in what seemed like a novel discovery of his legs. Ever so slowly, he raised his right leg, halting it in midair as if to test its weight.
In contrast to his former weightlessness on Altura to the stranger, this limb felt as if it were made of solid steel. Haltingly, carefully, he placed it on the ground, following the process with his left leg, and then back to his right leg. But as he got used to it, he seemed to discover a magic in the mechanics of his leg movements. He had of course seen humans walking around on his previous observation visits from Altura, but he had not yet really associated that activity with himself. Now he recognized fully that various parts of his body could be made to move. He began to fully explore the process, regaining the movement of his arms and fingers uncovered earlier and then discovering elbow movement, shoulder movement. For Dax looking on, it was like watching that old spiritual hymn in pantomime:-
The ankle bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the hip bone;
…………………………………………………
The shoulder bone connected to the neck bone.
And the stranger explored every last connection, first slowly and then with increasing speed. Soon, he was flailing his arms wildly back and forth and kicking his legs up in a frenzy.
Watching these strange antics, Dax found himself caught in the wonder of the moment. It was like watching motor development in a baby, but on fast forward – a two year process collapsed into minutes. At this point, the stranger’s discovery had reached its crescendo. There he was in the middle of the clearing, completely enthralled in a celebration of movement – hopping, skipping, jumping, twirling, leaping, arms flailing wildly, moving to a silent drummer. And then the silence was suddenly broken with loud whooping as if the stranger had also just found his voice.
His gaze fixated on this naked abandon, Dax felt transported into another world – a world of innocence and wonder, where life was a celebration, a world where truth in its essence was being unwrapped. He knew without a doubt that this stranger marked a crossroads in his life, from which there was no retreat.
The stranger’s movements had now developed a fluid quality to it. Everything about him held one entranced. But it was his face that commanded the most attention. It was the face of an angel, a living work in warmth and true compassion. That gentleness of form and spirit was tempered however by the firm set of his jaw line, which spoke of an underlying resoluteness. His eyes were orbs of clear luminosity as if they held the wisdom of all time. His gaze was at once knowing, yet non-judging, and one felt rested in that comfort. In his face was the gentleness of a soft embrace, the decisiveness of the boardroom and the playfulness of summer clouds. Around his lips there seemed always to linger the promise of a smile, and as he broke into a grin, one could not help but be caught up in the sheer abandon of its unbridled glee.
And then as if suddenly remembering Dax’s existence, the stranger halted in mid-twirl and made his way towards him. To him, it was as if his moments of wild abandon had served not only to shake loose his limbs, but it seemed that an increasing acceptance of his physical existence served to coordinate his faculties. He could feel the ease of coordination of all of his movements – hands, feet and every joint. And mentally it felt as if all of the information about the physical form and this planet that he had stored up while on Altura was suddenly shaken free and downloaded into him. Now that he had mastered movement, he felt a driving urge to discover how his mental capacities would unfold in word and voice.
And with that, he turned to Dax. "OK, I guess you can see that this is all very new for me," he said haltingly. "Very…how you say it? Confusing. You ask – Who am I? Standing here, right now, I’m still trying to understand that. I am originally from Altura. That much I know. The rest is a long story. It is good that our paths cross. I clearly have a lot to learn. I will need your help. And there’s a lot that I too can share. We’re in for quite a ride. But where do we start?"
"Well, maybe a good place to start is with your clothes. What did you do with them? For some reason being naked does not seem to bother you, but it would bother just about everyone else. Lucky for you, I always keep a pair of trunks in my bag. Here you can have this," said Dax, dipping into his satchel and coming up with the pair of red and white striped bath trunks. "And while you’re at it, why don’t you just borrow my shirt. I have a t-shirt underneath. And then you can tell me about this place Altura. Where is it?"
"It’s okay," responded the stranger. "I’m comfortable like this. I quite like the feel of the breeze against my body."
Dax was completely taken aback. "You don’t understand. This is not something you can have a choice about. Normal people don’t run around naked. It’s just not done. How can you not know that? Where have you been? What kind of place do you come from?"
"What is so wrong with being just as I am? Why do people need extra layers? That’s so unnatural." All the same, he allowed Dax to help him into his clothes. His solo attempts to do so had made it clear that he did not know which opening in the clothes belonged with which limb. Dax was dumbfounded. This person had to be at least eighteen, yet he had not yet mastered the basics. Somehow, sometime he would get to the bottom of this mystery, but for now he needed to sort out what would be the next step.
The stranger remained silent for a while, lost in deep thought, and then he turned to Dax, "I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I can see that it’s going to take a lot of time and patience before I get it right. And I’m going to need all the help I can get from you. So, I guess I might as well start off by filling you in on how I got here."
"First, tell me your name. I’m Dax."
"Name?" muttered the stranger, looking quizzically at Dax, "What’s that?"
"Well it’s uh, in a sense a sort of special label you’re given to distinguish you."
"Well on Altura, I was a link to other worlds. So, I suppose that’s as close as I come to a name. On Altura, we are known by the function or special quality we contribute to the whole."
"Pleased to meet you Link,"