As we looked out over the glistening water of the Gulf of Mexico, Yewell nodded his head toward the softly lapping waves where pelicans and seagulls bobbed and dived, and asked, “Do you see much difference between this scene and the scenarios you humans call life?”
I watched another pelican plunge after a fish before answering. “Life is generally a lot less wet.”
Yewell blinked.
“You Estralarians don’t have much of a sense of humor, do you?” I chided.
“We’ve got a wonderful sense of humor. For example, I think it’s quite humorous that what you intended as a joke on what should be common sense is in actuality a complete fallacy.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “It’s all one body of water. We’re all one. Got it.”
“There’s actually more to it than that,” Yewell said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I’m looking at the Gulf of Mexico. It’s just a bunch of water.”
“Is it?” He looked at me with a quizzical smile that gestured at the burgeoning sense of humor hiding just beneath the surface of his peaceful facade.
That one look mirrored the life that teemed in the sea which only moments ago I dismissed as simple wetness. I was drawn into the glimmer of his dark, almond eyes where dolphins frolicked, fish schooled, coral blossomed, tides ebbed, currents flowed, seaweed
danced, and sea life in all of its variances slithered, sashayed, stampeded, and stormed through the nefarious underworld that had previously been hidden from my sight and consciousness.
Yewell’s smile grew with mine, the glimmer in his eye changing to a glint and the vision of life in the sea transmogrified into his view of the planet, one big blue orb with intermittent patches of green swirled with wisps of white. The vision of the large drop of water known as a planet zoomed in when I saw each drop of the swirled, white clouds as tiny droplets of water. The majority of the surface bubbled and churned, even that which I knowingly construed as land morphed and shimmied as time had its way with it, erosion eating at the edges and smoothing mountains into valleys.
The vision coalesced onto my own body sitting on the swimming sands, continuing my journey through the cellular level of my being where the majority of my makeup was still composed of ninety-six percent of churning water.
Yewell blinked again, bringing me back to the present moment. “Not quite so arid now, is it?” He laughed heartily.
“Point taken,” I said to my chagrin. “I gotta say, this Estralarian mind meld thing is pretty bitchin’.”
“Yeah,” he laughed, “I get that a lot.”
I looked out over the water again. “So what does it mean?”
“Mean?”
“Yeah. What’s the point?”
“The point?” He grazed his long fingers across his slender chin. “There is no point. It’s water.”
“But what are you trying to tell me?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re being difficult.”
“At times it is.”
“So then what’s the difference between this and life as I know it?”
“Nothing but the point you bring to it.”
“The point I bring to it?”
“Of course. Life consists of the same dancing, frolicking, blossoming, ebbing, and flowing currents that encompass all of that. There are no points in flow. You add the points in.” He paused and
pointed to the water just as a pelican plunged into the water after a fish. “What’s the point of that?”
“To get a fish, I guess.”
“Is that the point of pelicans then? To catch fish?”
“I suppose.”
“Then what about those?” He gestured to a few other pelicans bobbing contentedly in the surf.
“Are they not getting the point?”
“No, they’re just resting. They’ll get their fish in their own time.”
“Hmmmm. When is their time?”
“I don’t know. That’s up to them.” And then it dawned on me. “So if they’re resting, the point is to rest. If they’re fishing, the point is to fish. And if they’re eating the point is to eat. They decide the point just like I decide the point of whatever I’m doing.”
I sat for a moment, watching the birds bob and dive, float and fly, wondering if I’d ever seen a stressed out pelican.
“So then what’s the point?” Yewell finally asked.
I stretched my fingers into the sand behind me and leaned back with a smile.
“To watch the flow.”
This is an excerpt from How to Survive an Estralarian Mind Meld. Come back weekly for the next part or order your copy in ebook or paperback today!
