Chapter 1
I can feel her watching me. Her gaze follows me, her eyes haunt me, like a shadow wandering the corridors of my mind and I wonder, has she always been here? Which leads to the question of where, exactly, is here? It’s hot but not unpleasantly so, at least not here on the banks of the mighty river. The black sands of the river’s valley are hot beneath my sandaled feet but the breeze wafting over the opalescent waters is surprisingly cool and redolent with the fragrance of cinnamon and frankincense, juniper and myrrh. Her scents. Like the weight of her gaze her scent remains with me and permeates all that I do, whether I’m meditating on the banks of her river or running to catch the uptown bus her scent lingers and all I want is to be with her, all I need she provides and I know I am hers without question, as I have always been.
The distant, jarring clamor a ringing telephone slicing through the serene setting I lift my gaze to the clock hanging on the office wall, it’s hands standing at 3:16. I still had an hour and sixteen minutes before quitting time and I watch as the clock’s second hand inches it’s way along it’s familiar route. I could see her eyes shimmering in the clock’s face, watching me, waiting for me and my gaze ticks to the scorpion on the corner of my desk, the wicked barb of it’s stinger gleaming in the overhead fluorescent lights as it flexes it’s segmented tail.
Has it always been there? I ask myself and I take a careful look around at the other cubicles cramping the small office where I work as a data processor. None of my fellow co-workers seem to have noticed the arachnid, not that they would. They tended to be oblivious to anything that didn’t directly relate to them and I turn my gaze back to the scorpion, watching as it’s joined by a second, than a third. She had sent them for me. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew and I shift my gaze to the row of windows running the length of the northern wall. Sheeted with the ice of an Ohio February the telephone lines outside were heavy with swallows and doves, not normal for this time of year and I take another look around to see if my co-workers had noticed anything unusual. They were still oblivious and a shiver of anticipation vibrates deep within me as I watch a pair of hawks dip and glide past the windows. My gaze returns to the scorpions. There were five of them now and I watch as a sixth one joins his brethren. I could see her eyes in theirs and I turn my attention back to the window and the birds who were watching me with her eyes.
“We don’t pay you to stare out the window.” my supervisor’s voice a meaningless buzz lost to the distant drumming that begins to call her children to her altar I turn my eyes to the monitor I sit at. Like my supervisor’s words the code scrolling across the screen, a language I had gone to college to learn and earn a pair of degrees in, was now foreign to me, meaningless and I take one last look around at my fellow workers sitting in their cookie cutter cubicles staring blankly at their computer screens, their fingers working mindlessly at their keyboards. We were plugged in, connected through their identical headsets. We were drones, working mindlessly in a collective hive and I tremble as the pounding of her priests' drums grows louder, more insistent. She was watching me. She was waiting for me and, my shivers having grown to tremors of excitement I get to my feet. Removing my headset with a trembling hand I drop it to my desk where it hits my keyboards with a quiet clack, falling to the floor as I turn and leave my cubicle. The number of scorpions had grown from six to an even dozen and I follow their processional down the row of cubicles towards the exit where I stand for a moment, staring out at the ice and snow blanketing the sidewalk and parking lot.
She was waiting for me. I could see her eyes shining with love and wisdom in the winter grey of the overcast sky and, pushing open the door I step outside to where the black desert sands are hot beneath my sandaled feet.
