“You can’t be here! You’re not authorized! You don’t have the papers! You don’t even have the secret key! You can’t be here! NOW GO AWAY!” The angry man waved his arms as if he could scare away small birds. The layers of robes hung flaccid from his arms, and the weight of all the yards of heavy cloth drove him to exhaustion before he had finished yelling at me. I remained standing beside my car, half smiling and half smirking as I watched him nearly pass out.
“You’ll see! I’ll get the guards! I’ll get the Power that rules this place! And you’ll be sorry! I’ll watch them cut you up into little pieces and you’ll be thrown out with the rest of the undeserving and the charlatans!” Wheezing, he fell over as he turned. I heard all the amulets and trinkets hidden by his robes clanking as he fell on top of them. His cone hat tumbled into a puddle of mud. Now four times as angry, he gathers himself and his soiled items up and storms off as fast as his out of shape legs would carry him.
In the far distance, on a hill overlooking this city, a palace of pure gold gleamed in a shaft of sunlight. I chuckled and leaned against the car. I was waiting for something to be delivered from there. A piece of information, but I wasn’t sure how it would appear. I was at the right spot and at the right time. I hoped that anger display didn’t distract me from it.
Once the area I was in was a great and thriving city. The blocks of sixteen-story buildings were crumbling and half abandoned now, but you could see what the facades used to be. At first, it seemed wrong that in a country of power, wealth, and control, there would be a slum. But it all comes down to what you consider power. This slum is allowed to remain rundown for a purpose.
It serves to scare the other districts and keep them in line. “Do as I say or this will happen to you and there will be no one that can save you.”
But in the supposed lack of control that dominates this district, there is opportunity for power if you know how to look. Not all wealth is material. The trick is knowing when to use the tangible and when to wield the intangible.
“What a terrible little man. The more he loads himself up with things, the less he makes of himself under them. Those are only supposed to be symbols. They aren’t supposed to a substitute for actually living one’s life.” I turn around and find someone else has come to my car from the passenger’s side. He gives the appearance of being elderly but I don’t trust it. So what if his hair is hued in various shades of “cloud” and his beard even whiter. So what if his skin is sagging from excessive sun exposure and the way muscles lose their tone as they age. So what if he appears delicate and frail, as if a sneeze would shatter him.
I know I’m dreaming, and nothing I see is what it appears to be.
His hair is curly in the way you see on the heads of cruel Greek youths just before they look at you and sneer. The finger curls and ringlets inspire all sorts of naughty and decadent thoughts, which while amusing, give me cause for alarm because I keep my sexdrive on lockdown when traveling. His form may have been larger in his youth, but what remains is no slouch. There is strength hiding under the loose white clothing. But what gives him away is his eyes. Even though he is backlit by the sun, his eyes are bright, shining, and almost sparking with electricity.
His smiles quite maliciously as I inspect him. The curl in his sneer makes his words almost musical. “Get in, loser. Let’s see if your driving makes me cringe as promised.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer, but enters the unlocked passenger side. He is chuckling as he buckles up.
He didn’t just say… ooOOOOoooo! That bastard! I open the driver’s door and glare at the sitting man. “God damn, it, Zeus! Do you not have any fucking respect for other people’s property?”
“Nope.”
I roll my eyes and throw my arms up with a sigh of exasperation. Zeus laughs deeply, allowing the timbre of his voice to rumble the ground under me.
“Fine, you fucker.” I get in the car and buckle up as the steering wheel self-adjusts to my preferences. “I guess you’re navigating mother… wait… you know what, I can’t call you that. You never did have sex with your mother! But just saying ‘sisterfucker’ lacks the right tone of disrespect. How the hell am I going to keep up my reputation of being impious if I don’t have any proper expletives to throw at you? Bah!”
Zeus laughed again with mirth. “I’d say you’re doing a good job of it. And yes, I’m navigating. Trust me?”
“As if I have a choice!” I turn to look at him, and see his face is now stern with granite severity. I adjust my tone appropriately. “Yes, Zeus, Jupiter, Lord of Chesed. I trust your navigation skills and will follow them for this venture.”
I swear I felt a shockwave as the stoney expression shatters and he grins to shame the sun again. “Perfect! We’re going to leave out of here going west.”
I put the car in gear and start forward with intention of turning around once I’ve cleared some potentially tire-shredding debris. As I do, I pass the still huffing man. When I turn around in front of him, he sees who is riding with me and starts hurling a new set of expletives and pejoratives at me.
“YOU CAN’T DO THAT! YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM WITH YOU! YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED! HOW DARE YOU! YOU GET BACK IN YOUR PLACE YOU… YOU… HEATHEN!”
Zeus held up his thumb between his fingers towards the red-faced man. The authority-deprived man stopped yelling on recognizing the obscene gesture and just sputtered into shocked silence. “There. I will never be expected to do that to him, so when he reports what he has seen, he’ll say that you had conjured up an imposter to ride with you just to exasperate him.”
I dodged the debris easily and continued west as directed. “Yea, but I’ll be reporting what I see as well. That means two different and conflicting accounts. And that assumes he actually remembers what he has seen. I’m sure what he perceived of that scene will differ drastically from how I’m perceiving it. And that’s before the bias of personal interpretation kicks in.”
“Not my problem. Nor is it yours. You do not exist to be a stepstool for others. You keep forgetting that. Keep to the left here, we’re taking the bypass.”
I turned when directed and saw I was avoiding a tangle of tollways and blocked passages far below us. Zeus explained that one of the passages was my personal expression of the Path of Teth I had walked recently.
The bypass delivered me to a military base. He directed me to pull up to an imposing building guarded by unblinking troops in bright and shining armor. Warning me not to step out of the car for any reason, he exited promising he would return quickly.
The distant sound of drilling troops assaulted my ear when he opened his door. It was all the information I needed to know where I was.
If these were the elite version of the Fearless Legion, I most definitely did not want to try my luck. I was a good driver, and kept my ass firmly planted in the driver’s seat.
Before my curiosity could convince me to start looking for ways to sneak into the building, the passenger door opened. Zeus, still in nondescript loose white clothes and sandals entered the car. His mouth was smiling but his eyes were clouded with angry thunder.
“Well, that was fun. Let us go to the next stop.”
My curiosity shut the hell up and I simply asked which direction to go.
At the gate to the base, the main road branched into several directions. None of which had an identifying sign, of course. Zeus pointed to a trimmed area of grass and told me to drive there.
“Excuse you. Do you know how sacrosanct the military holds their fields? No one fucks up their detailing. No. One. The only way I’m going to drive on the Commandant’s grass is if the Commandant directs me. And even that is a maybe.”
“My dear… Who orders the Commandant?”
I pulled up to the designated spot and stopped while still on asphalt. I turned my head and gave him quite impious stinkeye, while he sat there smirking smugly.
“Only because I trust your navigation skills, you bastard.” His laughter drowned out the engine as I stomped the gas. The car lurched over the curb. I was expecting to feel the trimmed ground give a little under the weight of the car.
Instead, the car bounced off the curb onto a sudden stretch of asphalt. A hidden road revealed itself before me, traveling forward about a hundred feet before rising unsupported into the air.
“Well, fuck me.” I continued driving in wonder as we traveled across another bypass.
“That can be arranged. I happen to know someone very good at fucking. I’m sure favorable conditions can be assembled quickly.”
“The only reason I’m not giving you more dirty looks is because I have to keep my eyes on the road. And the only reason I’m not flipping you off is because I think that would cross the line. However, you ass-chaser, I’m filing an official complaint!”
His laughter filled the cabin of the car as even I chuckled. I did not feel threatened, and despite the numerous myths that upheld his reputation, I did not feel like I had been targeted as his prey.
The onboard GPS indicated that the aerial bypass had originally started south, but was now proceeding southeast. I saw the road was going to split soon, with the turnoff descending to what I assumed would be the realm of the Sun.
“We’re skipping that place for now. Take the bypass all the way to the end. There will be more turnoffs later. Stay on this heading.”
He remained silent as I drove past the other turnoffs. Despite seeing the Gold Palace, recognizing Zeus, and recognizing the legions, I still had not consciously understood what paradigm I was driving through. All I knew is I started off in one place, drove west for a while, then was now driving southeast. Mapping out the directions in my head, a memory was trying to surface. It made my head itch.
The bypass descended and entered a realm that reminded me of summer in Georgia. Hot and sticky. Even with the windows rolled up and the air conditioning at full blast, I broke out into a sweat. Thunderstorms argued in the distance.
The air was sultry and quick to smother any sort of polite and proper thinking. My libido exerted itself with renewed vigor. For once I was glad I was not exhibiting external genitals in this dream because I was aroused despite all attempts not to be.
I glanced over to check on my passenger, only to find him studying my facial expressions with a very gloating smirk. I chewed on my tongue and kept my expletives to myself as he expressed his mirth with low and suddenly threatening tones.
A grand mansion was at the end of the road. Decorated gaudily by someone that wanted everyone to know just how important, beautiful, and extravagant they were, I found myself utterly disgusted by the display. And even more disgusted by the increase in desire stoked by the environment.
“Yes, well, that is a critical fault of yours. You don’t know how to celebrate yourself. You don’t need to conquer countries to have a victory party, you know.” Zeus was openly enjoying my discomfort, even as he was dressing me down.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I did not mean to serve so much vitriol into my words. I hoped I hadn’t crossed the line.
“It means, maybe you should spend some time with Aphrodite. You might learn a thing.”
I had no impious remark to throw at him. No facial expression for him to mock. No gesture to dismiss the suggestion with. I suddenly realized where I was, and what paradigm I had been driving.
I wanted nothing to do with the sphere of Netzach, the realm of Venus. I have worked too damn hard to keep my sexuality from being used as a weapon against myself, and god fucking dammit, I’m not going to let myself be broken again in that way.
I donned the most stoic expression I could summon and silently drove to the side door of the mansion as indicated. Thankfully, my driving companion said nothing further even as he fiercely studied my every blink and involuntary reaction.
“Sit. Stay. Good girl.” Zeus’ words were thrown under his arm as he exited the car. I wanted to respond with anger, but in this sphere, any emotion is amplified. I could only sit and think of grey and neutral things so I won’t be carried away by my feelings.
It was very hard not to chew my own tongue off.
When he returned, his clothes were still that brilliant white. He brought with him a bit of the local atmosphere. Clingy and damp. Where one would jump into a shower to be drier than the humidity soaking every inch of cloth. Before the car door closed, I heard bright and happy laughter, followed by an inviting purr that turned up my libido to 11.
He closed the door, and I turned over the engine. He directed me back onto a different bypass, promising me that I only had one more stop to make, and then he would give me what I had been waiting for all this time. Information on how to proceed after successfully traversing the Path of Teth.
He tried talking to me once we were above the spheres, but I wasn’t having any of it. I had conflicting desires and emotions to complete processing after my brief exposure to Netzach. Amor es un arma y deseo es un cuchillo. I was disgusted by my libido, and felt humiliated under Zeus’ constant inspection and obvious delight at my discomforts.
The landscape of Hod was dry and hilly. I recognized several places in the distance as I drove to a post-modern villa built on the top of a hill. Grapevines descended one side of the hill, while a forest guarded a cave I was surprised to know was there without looking.
It wasn’t until I caught myself looking for a vase of [flowers], that I realized who had brought me here before and in what guise. Indeed, he was waiting for me to pull up to the main entrance of the villa. Dressed in a sharp suit of warm clay brown with gold trim, he was smoking a fag in all the ways that made it look cool.
I did not call to him, though. I may have a passing familiarity with him, but this isn’t my show. I pulled up within arm’s reach of the figure. He reached out and opened the passenger door.
“Good evening, my Lord. I hope your journey was pleasant and without incident.” He bowed slightly as he held the car door open. Zeus exited without comment to him or me and strode into the villa as if it were his all this time.
The sharp dressed figure said nothing to me as he closed the door firmly. I resumed the role of the ignorant driver and stared blankly ahead as he regarded me impassively. He nodded once, then turned and crossed the quickly increasing distance between him and Zeus with two respectful steps.
They entered the villa and left my sight.
I wanted to spew great servings of expletives. I wanted to find something to rend into pieces and set fire to what was left. I was angry, and ashamed, and horrified, and felt abused and violated. I wanted to cry. I wanted to rage. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
But I also wanted to see this to the end.
Fuck.
Voices slid around each other in conspiratorial tones. “And I expect it to be done quickly.” “Yes, my Lord.”
The sharp figure stepped quickly and with respect around Zeus and opened the car door. Bowing slightly as he held it open, he wished Zeus a pleasant return trip and success to his ventures. Zeus entered the car and sat without comment. The figure closed the door gently, verified it was secure, then bowed before turning and entering the villa alone.
Zeus waited until the figure was out of sight before speaking.
“I assume you know who that is. Or rather, which ‘who’ you are used to seeing.”
I never looked towards him, but kept both hands on my lap and my visage pointing forward. “I do, Sir.”
“Sir? Now you become formal? What did my son do to anger you?”
I rubbed my teeth with my tongue. “A private matter, Sir.” A non-answer, neither confirming nor denying the probing assumption. Truth be honest, I wasn’t upset with the lord of this sphere. But I was raging pissed at Zeus. This wasn’t the time to bring that up, or I would have to confront why. And I was not prepared for that conversation, not awake nor dreaming.
Zeus said nothing for a few minutes. I reached up to turn over the ignition. He quickly grabbed my hand. I couldn’t decide if his touch was so cold it burned, or so hot it felt ice cold. “Before you prepare to leave, I want to impart to you what you have been seeking. You wanted direction to proceed, yes? I know you are waiting for [a certain map] to be prepared and delivered to you, but that is external to your ventures here. You sought what is to be your next focus…”
He took my hand and placed it on his leg, high upon his thigh. The fabric of his clothes were very thin, so thin that I could feel each individual hair on his thigh. When I looked in reflex, he took my chin with his other hand and turned my face towards the villa.
“Here. Come here. To [him].”
I pursed my lips in annoyed understanding and nodded as much as his grip would allow. He patted by hand on his thigh and released me.
“Very well, now take me back.”
I turned over the ignition, chided him for not putting his seat belt on right away, and drove away from the villa without giving him a chance to buckle up in an obvious act of passive aggression.
The return to his ‘country’ was quick and without incident. As the bypass ended in the same slum I started off in, I realized I didn’t see any turnoffs on the way back. But if that was Hod I just left, then there are two paths between there and Chesed. Certainly I had to have seen a turnoff for Tiphareth.
I asked Zeus which path allowed me to go directly from Hod to Chesed. Without a pause he replied, “Path Thirty-Three.”.
I raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “There’s no path numbered thirty-three. It’s the twenty-two Major Arcana plus the ten sephiroth. That makes thirty-two paths on the Tree [of Life].”
“Do you know more than I? I tell you, there is a thirty-third path, and you just navigated it.”
Zeus’ tone was more than just the prideful bluffing I would expect when I challenged him. He was quite blunt about it, and reiterated there were thirty-three paths. To end the discussion, he reminded me how there are many intentional errors in the “old writings”, and that not all knowledge is true.
Okay. I’ll let it drop. When I wake up, I’ll check the diagrams and the notes.
I drove to the very spot where I had picked him up. To our combined amusement, the angry robed man was there. He shrieked to see us, and ran into one of the dilapidated buildings, crying loudly about impiety and improper procedure as he went.
Zeus tapped me on the leg and gestured that I exit the car with him. “One last thing, if you have the stomach and the understanding for it.” He was smiling like he was at first, full of mischief and play.
He produced a clear glass from nothing as I walked around the car to him. Holding one nostril closed, he blew his nose into the glass, filling it with a clear and thick liquid.
He handed it to me while brightly declaring, “Bottom’s up!”.
Ew.
No.
Fuck you.
What?!
“If this is how you’re going to fuck me, there isn’t a pantheon in existence that will stop me from trying to beat your ass. Don’t think I’m ignorant of the forms and methods you have used to impregnate others!”
Zeus laughed. A happy and cheery laugh. Somewhat infectious, it only made me more suspicious.
“You are ignorant, if you are relying on what you see. Just because I appear to you in a human form does not make what I emanate a human thing. I give to you of that which is within me. If you understand, or want to understand, then drink. If you do not understand, or can not get past the visceral appearance of it, then pour it out. You will not offend me. You just reveal the level of your understanding.”
I stood there, holding a glass full of snot, and catching myself actually contemplating downing it. As I consider it, I notice the caliber of Zeus’ laughter was changing. I look up at him, just in time to watch his white clothing gleam brightly as he transforms himself into a shaft of sunshine.
I raised the glass in a gesture of salute, and quickly swallowed the substance before my human senses could remind me where the fluid was exuded from.
Sweet. Like a fruit. With a delicate aftertaste of something bright and tangy. The taste equivalent of a fading dream. It reminded me of lychees.
The shaft of sunshine caught me as the other components of the fluid came into play.
Hits harder than Rummer John’s rum.
That was my last coherent thought before my senses were overwhelmed and the dream ended.