The Extraction, Pt 4, Pox and Darius Are Born Again

Finally, after what seemed like forever, we made it to Ollantaytambo and the Temple of the Sun. The temple served as both a church and a military fort back in the day when this place was a thriving metropolis; back before the Spanish raped and pillaged the land. Some say it was even before the Incas were any more than an afterthought in their father’s upper thigh. All Darius knew is that it was beautiful and amazing and somewhat insane that, even today, the meticulous architecture of the place could not be replicated despite all our 'advanced' tools.

Amazingly, they had arrived early but only had to wait ten minutes before the shaman showed up. He was jolly and happy; he didn’t seem to have a care in the world and what was even more astounding was that he was white. He looked a lot like Terrance McKenna. The sherpas (guides) spoke briefly to him in what Darius realized was some bastard hybrid of the Portuguese and Spanish languages and then fled not long thereafter. It seemed they had no real relationship and Darius felt a little deflated that he had not acted on his rude impulses earlier. He could have had and should have had a lot more fun with them, especially on the road, driving. Admittedly, they were all a little worse for wear after that bone jarring plane ride they had all just barely survived. Except for Pox, she had been silent basically all day today. Speechless from anticipation, bored, preoccupied or terrified, Darius couldn’t really tell. He had tried to talk to her a few times and he was pretty certain their link was still there but nothing but dead silence in return. 

‘Pox, we’re here. Pox?’

‘Let me be the first to formally welcome you two to Ollantaytambo, the Temple of the Sun,’ the Shaman bowed low in a some local cultural tradition that Darius had, until now, somehow missed.’

‘What? Oh…Thank you!’ Darius was stunned because he had put the tape in the knapsack that was currently slung behind his back but quickly regathered his moorings and bowed in return.

‘What?’ Pox finally decided to communicate. 

Darius , a half-formed word on his lips, was just about to make it auditory but the Shaman piped in just ahead of him.

 ‘Pox! Welcome. We are so glad you are here! Unfortunate that your circumstances are as they are but we’ll be on top of the Temple in just a few moments and we’ll see what we can do about getting you out of there and into here again.’

‘Hmmmppph.’

’You do want to come out of there, don’t you Pox?’ The Shaman’s countenance was as jolly as ever as he asked but foreshadowing too as if he was sensing her thoughts.

‘I haven’t really been up to thinking about anything else.’

‘But…?’

‘I have to admit that by the time Darius found me I was already convinced I was never getting out of here, Trying to make the best of it, I was trying to do all I could to get used to it. I was basically resigned to being stuck in here forever or until the tape got tossed in a landfill, pissed on by a dog and then gnawed on by a rat until it’s exposed to the sun and all the rest of the elements so who knows what would happen to me then, or at least what currently passes for ‘me’ now. And even though I tried my best to embrace my fate,  every now and again I sent out frantic signals in every direction I could think of, hoping beyond hope that, I don’t know, someone, somewhere might hear me and know I was stuck in here. And maybe even a little hope too that that someone might be Darius and even if he couldn’t get me out maybe he would watch the tape and somehow get trapped in here with me. But I kind of knew that the last was just some sort of selfish flight of fancy. ’

‘Oh, Pox. You poor darling.’ Darius said, full of empathy, sadness and a quixotically ironic sense of anticipated elation all swirling around in him all at the same time.

The Shaman went on undeterred, ‘Well there's a good chance we CAN get you out Pox. And if it’s any solace the experiment involves both what you’d call ‘real’ science AND the ‘meta’ physical. Some of us have come to realize that there really is no distinction between the two and any such categorization is really just the taxonomy of Illusion (Darius’ eyes scrunched up in recognition of something so familiar but not quite placable as the Shaman said this, he really did look like Terr…)- which works fine for short term survival but can have disastrous on the longevity of a species and may in fact lead to extinction on such a large scale that it has yet to be seen on earth.

‘Forgive my digression, that was a subject I studied long ago and there's no need to bog you down in the details of , but what we’re going to attempt has never actually been done before.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t worry, Pox. You’re not the first person to ever have been inside a tape, you’re just, how can I put this best, the least initiated. That’s why, knowingly or not, Incandeza’s attempts to make the perfect ‘entertainment’ were foolishly ignorant at best and fiendishly nefarious at best.’ Just then the wraith began to swirl around Pox’s electro-magnetic signature, taunting and mocking but not saying anything. That Pox could even sense it gave her a feeling that there was so much more out there that she and everyone else, corporeal or not, for that matter, just didn’t know. Couldn’t know. Like dark matter, dark energy and how many other dimensions existed outside the three that most could perceive? Surely, that she still existed, in whatever conscious form that might be, was proof that there had to be more than just the three most could sense and see.

‘Most folks who used to go messing around with magnetics, not many do that much anymore given that this particular medium, the VHS tape, is a rather outdated technology. It’s all blu-rays, wifi and to some extent quantum crystals now, which is just burgeoning for wide spread dissemination.

‘Anyway, it’s good that you brought Darius because we need a vessel for the Ayahua - metaphysical part of the experiment. My technical advisors have already placed the magnets at just the right spaces and angles for maximum success and extraction probability - we hope -. As I’ve said this is the first time we’ve actually attempted this and planning will only take us so far in a venture this nascent but just to reassure you again; people do go into tapes and other things all the time; and maybe they’re a little dazed for a time but they do always eventually find their way back to this realm.’

‘Okay. You’ve convinced me and I’m ready to try,’ Pox thought aloud.

The Shaman closed his eyes, crossed his thumbs and brought the tips of his index fingers together in front of his face. ‘OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMM,’ His voice was all at the same time deep, light, ancient, ageless and guttural. When he opened his eyes again they had all been transported to the top of the Temple of the Sun even though there were no stairs to speak of, none that Darius could discern anyway.

The acolytes were feeding a fire over which rested a rather large stone caldron of water that was just beginning to boil. Beside it was a heaping pile of what Darius could only assume was the Ayahuasca root. It certainly wasn’t something he’d ever seen before except in pictures. It seemed like a lot but he also knew that most journeys of this type were strictly for purposes of a very personal introspection and healing (even if it could benefit everyone; not one where more than one cooperating with each other were integral to success of the proposed mission.

‘Darius, are you ready?’

‘Yes, but can I ask you one question first? Are you Terrance McKenna?’

A strange, almost quizzical, confused look washed over the Shaman’s face. ‘Huh. Well. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time but I really don’t know. I can tell you this, though, I’m not not Terrance McKenna. I may once have been him I suppose but I’ve rather transcended the limiting notion of being now.’

‘Fascinating! I’m ready whenever you are.’

‘Slowly feed the root into the cauldron and when you’ve put it all in there, wait until it’s good and steaming and put your head over it and inhale deeply.’

‘No drinking or smoking of anything?’

‘For our purposes the drinking is not needed. Smoking is harmful and inhaling the vapors has the same basic effect.’

Darius fed the branches in one by one as instructed. About an hour later he put the last branch into the pot which was now a brown, semi-viscous soupy bubbling mixture. The steam began to rise and he stuck his face above the pot. He could feel the warmth as his nostrils and lungs began to expand and fill with the steam. He felt like a child trying to clear his sinuses in an exercise that every old-school doctor on the planet guaranteed would work. After three inhales, the inside of his head felt rather woozy and then he was gone. He blinked out of existence and into the tape. 

Darius wasn’t quite sure what to do; he only knew where he was and that Pox was there. He instinctually wrapped his ‘arms’ around her and they were thrown/flung far out into an inky-black place that was somewhat familiar to Darius but was utterly foreign to Pox.

Darius tried to be as reassuring as possible. ‘Pox, don’t worry. This is just another part of the universe that our limiting eyes don’t normally let us see and if we encounter any beings just remember their intentions are benevolent and they won’t bring you or me any harm. And shoot at least we seem to be out of that God-forsaken tape now.

Just then, they heard a large, all encompassing sucking sound and looked toward it. There was a tiny sliver of the brightest white light that either of them had ever known and it grew with every moment as they floated toward it. The closer they got the more shallow their breath became until they couldn’t breathe at all - the notion of breathing here may have been moot but so many years of involuntary, reflexive habit was hard to break.

Back on top of the Temple the viscous liquid inside the cauldron was rolling and boiling. The Shaman and his acolytes stood around the rim of the pot chanting in some ancient language. 

One big ectoplasmic, placenta-like bubble began to form and expand out of the caldron. It was pink and fleshy looking with splotches of crimson-blue smattered throughout. It began to expand and stretch over different portions of the surface of the bubble. The Shaman instructed that the cauldron be tipped on its side.

The Ayahuasca ‘mud’ and thinner liquid spilled on to the floor at the top of the Temple and then out rolled the writhing bubble. The Shaman ran over and quickly tore it open with a deft insertion of his fingers and freed the heads of both Darius and Pox.

Darius was fully awake and breathing but Pox wasn’t moving. He quickly wiped the placental fluid from her face and then slapped her gently.  She started to inhale deeply as the acolytes began to pull them from the membranous shell that encased them.