Dear diary,
Lucy and I now decide to turn our faces away from the battle that has flared up in Eden, so that the clash of those who are warring is behind us; and we begin to walk in a straight line, with no intention other than to put distance between ourselves and the ongoing conflict. And our friends Tara and Venessa see us leaving, and they decide to follow after us; then others follow them; so there is a sizable amount of inhabitants from Eden who end up participating in our exodus. We do not leave the land entirely — this isn’t like the rumored Fall of the Angels, where they decided to abandon the Sky and go live on the Land below; but we do manage to lure about thirty percent of the Edenic populace to translocate. I think we were all just tired of the infighting. And, as I said, Lucy and I set out alone first: we are the pioneers; then, after about fifteen moments, the rest of our comrades look up and say: “Ooh, I wanna join!” — So, for the first few billion eons of our trek, our followers remain about a parasang behind us.
Now, when Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, that whole initial generation died in the wilderness, and only their children got to see the Promised Land — even Moses himself died and was hand-buried personally by Jehovah, as it is written in the scroll called Deuteronomy (34:5-6)... “So Moses the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Moab, and Jehovah buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” — But when Lucy and I leave Eden with a third of its populace, we travel for much more than just a single generation, although nobody dies. Moreover, none of us produce any offspring during our travels, and we never reach any land that we want to settle. That’s not to say that we don’t like the lands that we pass thru — it’s just more satisfying to stop for a moment and enjoy the scenery; then continue journeying after a spell. We have no desire to put down roots. We are proudly nomadic.
So, as I established: in the beginning, Lucy and I are out in front, alone, with our pack of strays and hangers-on following at a distance. The first thing that I encounter of any interest is a cup from an instant-coffee franchise that has been discarded and is lying on the grass. Using my grabber to grab this cup, I then carry it for a few kilometers until we come to a recycling bin, where I dispose of it properly.
Then, continuing to walk at a leisurely pace, enjoying the scenery, which is swampland and mist with the occasional bush, at about sixteen o’clock according to my sundial, Lucy gasps and sez:
“Look there!” She stops and points.
“What is it?” I say.
“A tree on the horizon,” replies Lucy, “and one of its branches is gnarly.”
“My guess is that that branch is dead,” I say, squinting at the tree in question.
“Let’s run to get a closer look,” Lucy sez.
So we both sprint until we reach the tree. We confirm that its gnarly branch is, in fact, deceased. Lucy uses a chainsaw to remove the limb, and it drops to the grass with a thud. I then tie one end of a hempen rope around the thickest part of the branch (the thing is enormous), and I tie the other end of the rope to my trailer hitch. Starting my pickup, I repeatedly tap the accelerator, which causes the engine to rev; then I stomp down firmly on its pedal to give the machine full power: Now, shifting out of neutral into gear, the tires spin and kick up mud for miles, but eventually I get some traction and the vehicle begins to heft the gigantic tree-branch forward.
There is a shallow swamp straight ahead — I am able to drive directly into the water, which comes up to the top of my tires but no further, so I don’t entirely submerge the pickup in this swamp; and I keep going until I come out on the other side, thus leaving the amputated limb in its green depths. I then dive in and swim down to the bottom and try to tug at the knot that I tied in the rope, but it will not budge; so I come back to the surface and gasp for air.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy yells from the shoreline. Her voice echoes all over the mist-plagued landscape.
“I can’t get the rope untied,” I say, with green algae from the swamp all over my face. “I’ll need to cut the line with my utility knife.”
So I do the dead-man’s float until I reach the shore, and rummage around in the pockets of my swimming trunks until I find my utility knife; then I saw at the hempen rope until it snaps.
“I hope we’ll be able to find another rope when we get to the next clearing,” I say. “For this was the last of the ropes that I brought in my suitcase.”
“We’ll find a substitute,” sez Lucy; “I’m sure of it.”
“You’re optimistic about this?” I say.
“Yes, I believe that karma will scribble a note on its detective pad, to inform itself that you have done a good deed. Karma will write: ‘Reminder about Bryan Ray the nomad: he deserves a treat, because he removed that dead branch from the highway, where it was blocking traffic.’ Thus you shall be rewarded openly with great treasure when we get to the next clearing. Amen, I predict that you shall stumble upon a new hempen rope that is coiled up like a pythoness in the lawn. And the startled little rope shall slither into your suitcase and fall fast asleep, because it has found its new perma-home.”
I smile when I hear this. “I sure hope you’re right, Luce.”
So we walk North-Northwest for another few eons and eventually come to a clearing. I end up not even realizing that I’m stumbling over a serpent that is coiled up on the ground; and the creature bites me over and over, and it injects me with venom thru its sharp fangs. “Now you are vaccinated,” I hallucinate that it sez. But then I use a turkey baster to suck the poison out of my bloodstream, before it can paralyze me or cause my throat to swell up and cut off my air supply. (A turkey baster is not normally employed for this purpose, but one often needs to use commonplace tools in amazing new ways when one is adventuring in Eden. In the general run of things, such a baster would allow a housewife to coat her turkey in delicious juices throughout the cooking process, keeping her meat both moist and delicious.) Then I make friends with this snake who bit me; and he accepts my offer of a permanent home in my suitcase, just like Lucy prophesied. I allow him to use a submarine-sandwich bun for a bed.
Then Lucy and I keep walking because we’re not tired and the temperature is perfect. It’s an overcast day, and the atmosphere is generally shrouded in gloom: I’m not joking when I say that I prefer this type of scene. I hate when the sun is bright: that feels too vulgar. It’s better when the weather seems even-keeled, muted and miserable — this acts as a foil to set off one’s own innate cheerfulness. I don’t like to compete with the sun to prove who’s the most insanely manic. That can get stressful. I’d rather win the championship by simply having the judges vote for me before the match begins. This way, you don’t even need to throw any punches, and your hair looks fantastic.
Thus we stroll and stroll and stroll. We stop at a kiosk that is selling cotton candy, and I show the vendor how to transform her stationary shop into a mobile cart that sells hotdogs. Then I show the vendor herself how to transition into a man. Then I buy two dogs from this fellow and wave goodbye. (She has a fully functioning male body now, which she uses to immediately impregnate a robotic female grizzly bear who has been wooing her since the late ’80s.)
But now we come to a section of Eden that has really dry grass: it’s all yellow and prickly (just like the grass in our house’s yard) — it’s even painful to walk on with bare feet. So Lucy and I go into a cave and find a goat at the back, lying at the base of the cold wall, and we purchase a pair of loafers fit for a business executive to wear, and we also buy a pair of glass slippers.
I now ask Lucy: “Which ones do you want?” I hold up the loafers in one hand and the slippers in the other.
“I can’t see anything back here — the cave’s too dark,” sez Lucy. Then she gropes with her hands out in front of her until her fingers and palms find the head of the goat: she caresses his face all over, to make sure that it’s really the goat from whom we purchased the footwear a moment ago, and she sez: “Mr. Satan, do you have a couple matchbooks that we could buy as well?” (We christened our new friend Mr. Satan, which is the same way that we labeled the serpent who now resides in my attaché — even tho it’s a little confusing to title everyone identically, we really like that name.) And the goat gives Lucy two matchbooks — one whose torches give off heat without light; and the other whose torches offer light without heat. This information is written in braille on the strike-side of each matchbook; that’s how she knows which one to choose from, even tho the darkness is total. So, Lucy uses the “heatless” variety, in order to see what I’m holding up for her to choose. “Let there be light,” she quips, before igniting the match. Then she eyes the shoes in my hands and sez:
“Oh, I’ll take the slippers.”
So I pass those to her, and they fit her feet perfectly. And I myself slip into the loafers. Then we head back out on the road again...
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