Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997 Pearl Publishing
"The Power of Myth is the cornerstone of the 'Inaugural
Enigma'. Mythos is the 'Black Bitch' of the universe…it's
the wildcard in the game of life."
Bubba and Alexis stared at the writing on the first sheet of paper on their neat, organized pile. It was a large pile, representing lifetimes of research on the concept of the Inaugural Enigma. Research that had begun with the acquisition of the sheet of paper that Bubba and Alexis were now pondering upon.
It was in the handwriting of the Fool.
Bubba set the Fool's quote aside, picked up the rest of the pile
and heaved it behind him, into the corner of the room. He set
the Fool's quote in between the two of them, and turned to Alexis.
"We begin."
Alexis sat silently, staring at the sheet of paper lying on the
floor in front of her. She lay back and stretched out on the rug.
She closed her eyes and let her mind go blank, once again. She
could feel Bubba's mind, equally quiescent, on the other side
of the sheet of paper, with the Fool's quote abiding placidly
between them, speaking to them from across the centuries.
"Bubba…", Alexis sat silent for a moment, waiting
for the question to gain its full shape in her mind, then continued,
"What makes myth real?"
Bubba opened his eyes, and thought about this for several minutes.
He sensed that it was a question that had the power to remove
the veil that had hung over their eyes regarding the full meaning
of the Fool's quote.
"Belief, for one thing, I suppose." Bubba said, then
added, "At least, belief opens the door, I am sure."
"I think you're right, about that.", Alexis said, thoughtfully.
"I remember when I was a young girl…last year,"
she giggled, then composed herself, "I had read 'Cinderella',
a small book from the Antiquities Library, and I wanted it to
be real, for me. I wanted it so very badly, I thought about it
all the time, and wished for it and wished for it. And then came
my eleventh birthday, and I wished so very much that I had a father.
Every birthday, I had always wished that I had a father to share
it with, to watch me grow up, and tell me what a big girl I was
getting to be. To put his big, strong arms around me and hug me-and
to love me.
"And when it came time to blow out my birthday candles, I
couldn't decide which to wish for, this time, a father, or for
Prince Charming. So I wished for both. And then the Cowboy came."
Alexis grew silent, lost in thought, and Bubba knew what she was
reliving in her memories.
The Cowboy had dropped by to speak to Bubba about a rendezvous they had planned later on in the week. He was on his way to a highly important InterNet security meeting, and said he could stay only a few moments. Priscilla offered him the last piece of Alexis' birthday cake, and had her take it to him. The Cowboy could see how sad the youngster was, so he made an effort to cheer her up, but she was having none of it.
The Cowboy didn't press the point, he merely made polite social talk with Priscilla and Bubba, but while doing so, he walked over to a table where some uninflated 'birthday balloons' lay. He picked them up and fiddled with them, blowing them up and twisting and joining them as he talked. He ignored Alexis, who was watching with increasing interest as the balloons became a large multi-colored bouquet of flowers, one with a magical artistic sense about it.
By the time he finished, the bouquet was marvelous, and Alexis had become totally transfixed on it. The Cowboy turned with a smile towards her, handed it to her and said, "For the 'birthday girl'."
Bubba knew now that Alexis' wishes-both of them-had taken a small step towards becoming real that day. And it had something to do with the ability of a fable, such as 'Cinderella', to inspire belief, and the tradition of 'birthday wishes' to inspire hope, and something to do with 'desire', which was common to both.
"Hope, belief and desire.", Bubba said. "The beginning
steps on the Road to Reality."
Alexis and Bubba closed their eyes and quieted their minds, once again. They drifted silently on the Tao, where the past, present and future walk hand-in-hand with destiny.
"Belief…", Alexis said, suddenly.
Bubba opened his eyes.
"I believed in the fable, in 'Cinderella. I believed that it was real. Not that it happened. Not exactly…"
"It was real.", Bubba replied, matter of factly.
"It was?", Alexis questioned.
"Of course, it was.", Bubba insisted. "In the realm of fable, of course."
Seeing the look of uncertainty in Alexis' eyes, he continued,
"The realm of fable, of story-telling, is a realm of possibilities.
In a fable, that which is possible-by the very telling
of it-is made real…in the realm of possibilities."
"It is made really possible." Bubba said, then expanded what he was espousing even further. "The telling of the fable makes it possible, in our mind, for it to be real-for us."
"Yes, yes.", Alexis was excited. "It made it possible for it be real for me. So then I could hope for it."
"Not exactly.", Bubba responded. "It allowed you to have hope. It allowed hope to exist And hope-that it might be possible for you-allowed you, on your eleventh birthday, to wish for it."
"And it came true!", Alexis exclaimed.
"The Cowboy put off his important meeting so he could take
me to the Antiquities Wildlife Farm, and he bought me a ride on
a real, live camel, and sugar-whips, and did all the things that
a real father would do. It was the best birthday of my life."
Alexis was close to tears, from the memory.
"And now…", her reminisces had brought her back
to the last few days, and the Cowboy's present predicament. "…and
now, wishing doesn't seem to be enough."
"Perhaps," Bubba suggested, "because we are wishing…without hope."
The two of them looked at one another for a brief moment, then
closed their eyes, and returned, once again, to letting the gentle
breeze of the Tao pick them up and carry them, on the wings of
a whisper, into the eternal now.
Bubba rose, stretching his limbs out as far as possible, in order to bring them back to the world of motion, and watched as Alexis awoke and opened her eyes to a new dawn.
"I must go, now, to join your mother and a few others in
preparing for whatever is coming, even though we have absolutely
no idea what that might be." , he said, bending down to give
Alexis a kiss.
"Your part in our little play has ended, since it is a little
late to be recruiting, I believe, so why don't you stay here and
continue where we left off, last night."
"O.K.", Alexis said, stretching her own limbs out lazily. "I don't have the 'answer', but I did get the right 'question', in a dream, last night. I can't remember what it was, not in the least, but it's a start It sounds kind of strange to say it like that, but do you know what I mean?."
"Yes, indeed.", Bubba said with a chuckle. "Been there, done that."
Bubba departed after telling Alexis that she would be perfectly safe as long as she stayed put. It seems that Gomez's henchmen had been seeking out Bubba Rom Dos and his compatriots, with no success, so it appeared that his 'safe house' was indeed 'safe'.
Alexis was not troubled by Bubba's departure, or by being left
on her own to deal with what seemed to be an insurmountable problem.
Yesterday, it would have been quite the opposite, but today, for
some reason, it was not so. Today, she was a woman-a woman with
a purpose. And she was not about to let anything, even hopelessness,
deflect her from that purpose.
Alexis, for the thousandth time, looked down at the quote from the Fool.
This time, as she looked at the quote, she felt a gentle breeze blowing in the room-a breeze that seemed to be a breath, a breath that was everywhere at once, that moved, but without direction, without source, that just was.
And the breath seemed to be the same breath that spoke to her in her dream the night before. A breath which, as she looked at the quote of the Fool, asked a riddle. A simple riddle, the riddle of a child.
"The Power of Myth is the cornerstone of the 'Inaugural Enigma'. Mythos is the 'Black Bitch' of the universe…it's the wildcard in the game of life."
"What is it that, not having it, one can give it away, nonetheless, and, in doing so, gain possession of it themselves?"
The question came floating, pervading her mind, tickling
the nerves of her brain, and evoking a memory. The memory was
of her eleventh birthday, once again, later in the day, when Alexis
was saying goodbye to the Cowboy and thanking him for spending
the whole afternoon with her, even though he missed his meeting.
"No, thank you.", the Cowboy had told Alexis',
grinning and obviously meaning it.
"I was only going to the meeting to quit, anyway.", he had shared with her, absent-mindedly, as he fixed up her balloon bouquet, which she had clung to all through the long day, and was a bit worse for the wear.
"Quit your job?", Alexis had asked him.
"Quit everything.", was the Cowboy's cryptic reply, as his gaze scanned the horizon, seeming to focus, at each single point and everywhere, at the same time, on something unseen.
Then the Cowboy had looked at her softly, gently lifted her chin
with the tips of his fingers, and bent slowly down to kiss her
exquisitely, to her wide-eyed astonishment, on the lips.
"Thank you, Alexis.", he had said, then turned and strode
off like a man on a mission.
Alexis had stood there-for minutes or for hours, it didn't really matter, because time had stopped-gazing at the wonderful bouquet the Cowboy had made for her…just for her…and fantasizing that he had gone off to conquer the world, and that he would one day return, to lie it at her feet.
Priscilla had opened the door to the apartment, to let out the
cat, and saw her daughter standing there, motionless, lost in
thought. Priscilla had stuck her head out, glanced about, looked
at her daughter somewhat quizzically, then, with an inner shrug,
said,
"Oh, you're back."
But she wasn't, really. She was still somewhere far away.
When Alexis went to bed, that night, she lay there thinking about her wish…her wishes.
She had 'come back down to earth', by this time, and realized that, though it had been a magical day, her life had not really changed. The Cowboy was not her father, he was just a nice man who took pity on a sad girl and helped her to have a wonderful birthday. And he wasn't her Prince Charming, she was just an eleven year-old girl he had thanked with a kiss-her first kiss…a wonderful kiss-because he had a nice time with her that afternoon. He was a gentleman.
But for one day, she had had a father, a 'birthday father' to do all the things that a father is supposed to do with his daughter on her birthday. And for one day, she had had a Prince Charming, who kissed her on the lips-instead of on the forehead, like a little girl-and strode off to conquer the world for her.
Alexis had drifted off to sleep filled with contentment, happy for what the Cowboy had given her, if only for one day, because she had now know that it was possible for both of her wishes to come true, some day. And she was happy that she had been able to give him something in return, though she wasn't quite sure what it was, only that he had thanked her for it…and that it had something to do with 'not quitting'.
"What is it that, not having it, one can give it away, nonetheless, and, in doing so, gain possession of it, themselves?"
"Hope.", Alexis said, returning to the present. She
leapt to her feet, "I gave him hope-hope which he
didn't have, but had still given it to me!"
Alexis dug out a fresh change of clothes from her overnight bag,
and jumped into the shower. Despite the danger of leaving the
'safe house', she needed to go out for a short while.
She knew how to save the Cowboy!
Chapter 28 - The Power of Myth