Ama fell in love with her creation and moved from Galactic Center to incarnate within it as Earth, to experience being as a planetary life form. This act is unprecedented in the timeline of this Universe and begins a chain of events that take life and consciousness in a completely new direction. In this, the Universe delights. Part 1 Ocean Calls Chapter 1 The Boat Attention! There was a loud slam, then a creaking that tugged at Diamonds consciousness. In her dream she was swimming fast, deep under the sea. She swung her hips in rhythmic pulses and shot through the water like a spiraling jet. Diamond sensed the light of the sun, or moon, far above, a glowing disc that sent its light shifting through the depths in grand crystalline towers, she shot forward through them. Her lithe form was painted by the glow of the beams dancing on her opalescent skin, lighting her up, making her flicker through the water. Every combination of light bent upon itself in parallels and crosses on the young girls aquatic body. She dove and felt the rush of warmth flow down her sides as she exhaled the sea. Crack! thud....wet sounds, is that dripping? Diamond was called urgently out of her deep sleep. As she returned to the waking world, she felt water lapping at her hand which was draped off the bed towards the floor. With tingling muscles and a dream slipping fog she came to realize that the water touching her fingers was a call to panic, that it definitely should not be there. She scrambled her feet to the floor and wiped her eyes clear with salty fingers. She was the first to wake, and the first to stand in the cabin that was quickly filling with seawater. We're taking on water, she thought, wake them, where's the jackets? Her mother called out suddenly in the dark, "Jim! Wake up! Jim! Jim! We're sinking!" "Mom!" Diamond yelled, "what should I do?" Diamonds father awoke and ran to the deck of their small Tartan sailboat, looking around them he saw debris in the water, but the air was still, and the ocean was moving in the strangest way. What happened? Why were they taking on water? Where was the dingy? By now Gold was awake too, his little feet dangling off his hammock and hands clutching a plastic dinosaur, it was making RAWR sounds as the boat began to spin. Jim steadied himself in the churn and realized there was a crack running the length of the boat bow to stern, the electronics near the tiller had been smashed by the boom that had drooped too low and was now lazily swinging over the water. No radar, he thought, send a mayday….the radio! Diamond and her mother Lee gathered life jackets from compartments under their bunks. Scrambling, Lee gathered her son out of his hammock and tried to get him into his jacket. With a jerk, the boat spun faster now and they were thrown to the sides of the hull, it lurched sideways as books and dishes began to fall on them. They covered their heads and tried to right themselves against the pitching hull. Reaching for the radio handset near the helm, Jim lost his grip on a backstay that broke suddenly and with a loud crack, he and the mast together fell into the ocean. "JIM!" Lee cried, hearing the violent sounds. Diamond still had her fathers jacket in her hand and pulled herself up the ladder to the deck, her mother close behind her. The starboard rails of the boat were in the water now and she was looking into the deep, into a whirlpool gaining momentum. Further out, just beyond them, the sea was calm. Strange. She saw silver flashes in the calm at the edge of the gyre, flickers of light gleaming. The sea everywhere else was black, the night was black, and the stars formed a faint dizzy spin of circles above as their boat was tugged faster. Diamond tried to steady herself holding the hand grips on the roof above the cabin and ducking under the swinging boom. She tried to focus past the edge where it was still while their accelerating spin picked up speed, pulling at her. Where is he? He should’ve come up. Something was moving just beneath the surface. Looking for her father in the water she caught sight of a blue-white glow coming from the depths beneath them. Something is under us! Diamond spotted her father and a glowing orb that was lit up like an underwater moon, moving incredibly fast. She could see her father’s dark form outlined against the shining orb, it seemed to have attached to him. It looked like he was being absorbed by it. Her heart began to pound. What is that? She watched as her father was taken by the glowing orb and they descended deep into the spiraling waters. The light flickered as it grew smaller, and then was gone. Lee was yelling. Diamond, unable to answer at first, was stunned and staring into the depths. She struggled to find words to answer her mom.... "He's gone," was all she could say. Lee was now at her daughters side glaring into the center of the impossible whirlpool incredulously. Their boat corkscrewed around in a tightening circle and they began to realize that they were likely soon to be joining Jim in the depths. Gold started to cry out from the cabin and was fumbling with the clasps on the child size life jacket his mother had been helping him into when Jim had fallen. Diamond wondered if it would be any use, the boat was groaning wildly and they would soon be consumed by the depths. What was that light? Where did it take my dad? She was in shock and was jolted by her mother yelling, “Diamond! Help your brother, I have to put out a mayday.” Searching, Lee found the radio handset cable dangling from the smashed box, but the handset itself was gone. Somewhere in the depths it was still held in Jim's immobilized hand.

Chapter 2 Shona Shona stacked as many round shells as she could find starting with the biggest on bottom. She hunted the sand around her searching for the small Chinese hat shells that she liked to poke a hole in and thread on a string. She was busy on the beach most hours of the day and had chocolate brown skin with long curly straw colored hair. She was the child of a non-native couple, Maita and Christopher. The two had arrived when they were brought to the Island by some sort of fortuitous current. Their arrival had initially been a shock to the isolated Leumer tribe who had previously viewed off island humans as a dangerously savage and greedy, a race of devils capable of the most heinous crimes against nature, and of course, they were not completely wrong. In the case of Shonas parents however, this description of outsiders was wholly inaccurate. They had worked as part of a team that had been traveling the world to document the breakdown of the reefs due to ocean acidification and other forms of pollution. They had been swept overboard mysteriously during a night watch by a rogue wave and though their ship searched for them for hours, they were eventually given up as lost to the sea. Strange lights had been witnessed and reported by the crew in the days around the time of their disappearance although nobody ever suspected the two events were connected. Shonas parents had lived on the island for about 3 months before they conceived her. When her mother Maita started to show, the Leumer began leaving gifts just outside the little makeshift camp as was their tradition for the expecting. They had observed the couple and sensed that contrary to other experiences of humans these two were not a threat. Maita and Christopher were startled at first but warmed that they were obviously not alone. Maita had deep black skin. Her grandparents had come from Zimbabwe and Christopher was a blond and blue eyed Swede. Among the gifts they found was a mixture of aloe and coconut oil which Christopher found to be a great remedy for his relentless sunburning. Just before Shona was born, the Leumer began to be more bold about revealing themselves and finally let the couple find them dropping off a batch of oysters near the beach trail that led to their camp. Maita saw a slim youth and his mother and called out to them. “Hello? Thank you” she said. Christopher beckoned to them with his hands smiling and patted the area next to him in invitation to sit. The mother smiled and waved back, but turned with her son back down the trail. Maita and Chris got up to follow them but only found their footprints in the sand that led to the waters edge and disappeared into the waves. [Some years pass, Shona grows into a youth] Shona stood up first to share her dream. All of the Leumer tribe were gathered for the daily breakfast Dream Feast. She sensed upon waking that her last dream of the night was particularly significant and that it held power and promise for the tribe and more importantly, for the seas and the planet in general. Now in her teens, she had shared many dreams and had long since been recognized for her powerful sight as a dreamer. Her lens was clear, the elders would say and they payed close attention whenever she stood to speak. “I’m out in the water with Daddy and we’re talking with Guet Tut (Grandfather Turtle), he’s telling us that someone new has arrived at the island and we will need to help her. He says she comes from the Machine World but that she has been brought here on purpose by Ama” Some of the tribe shifted and whispered as usually Ama was only spoken of in high ritual for transformations and healing. Ama was their creator and was the Leumer name for the spirit of the planet who had originally come from Galactic Center. She was a creator spirit who formed worlds and seeded life on them. The Leumer legends told that Ama had fallen in love with one of her creations and had chosen to leave Galactic Center to incarnate inside of her creation so that she could be intimate with it, so she could embody it literally. It was normally forbidden to say her name outside of ritual out of respect and so as not to dilute her attention when they truly needed to call upon her. Shona continued. “Guet Tut said Ama told him to help her get to shore or she would drown and that she needed her to be given sea breath as soon as we find her.” She waited a few seconds to let the whispers die down and continued, “He said to take her through the Shark Cave straight to the Merkama, and that she would no longer have a heartbeat, so we needed to hurry, he said Do Not take her over land....and to have everyone there ready to start the whirlpool and call the Lika, um…” Shona paused, “and, she is coming when the sun hits water this evening.” Whispers filled the chamber. When everyone was silent again, she added, “I woke up in the dream and remembered I was dreaming and Guet Tut said ‘good now you know that this dream is important and you will remember to take it back with you when you wake’.” The elders nodded quietly while others rustled again, whispering and shushhhhing “and so Daddy and me are going out to find her if you want to help, and I want to ask if you’ll give us permission to bring her through Shark Cave.” Shona’s father looked at her strangely, realizing more and more about her as she spoke, especially when sharing these dreams. The child only stood when her dreams had truth. He had no choice but to believe her. Re-animating a lost soul was not the tribes’ way as far as he knew, but she seemed to know so much beyond what they had been taught so far.. and, though it had been years, he was still adjusting to her new physical form. The Elder Zon, who was holding leader title this moon stood and turning first with a nod to Shona’s parents and then to Shona said, “Dearest child, speaker of language from many worlds, we grant you permission if you find such a girl out in the water to bring her to our treasured Merkama, to bring her through Shark Cave, we will speak with our brothers there and arrange your passage.” She turned to sit, and spun back round at Shona, adding with unexpected warmth, “I look forward to swimming with our new friend.”

Chapter 3 Taken Jim hit the water with a hard splash in only his robe and deck boots which quickly filled with water as he scratched back toward the surface for a breath. He was conscious of the thick sack of his robe tangling clumsily all around him and knew he had to be calm to right himself out of it, or he would continue to plunge deeper into the turbulent waters. Ignoring the disorienting tumble, he paused to quickly push his toe against his opposite heel dropping a boot off while pulling his arms out of the sleeves of the swollen robe. After getting the second boot off, he felt like he must be moving towards the surface. Paddling his way upwards, struggling to hold on to the handset of the radio... to make it back onboard and put out a call. He waited to feel air on his face. He imagined he could see the surface and was about to take a breath when a blinding light came from under the boat and immobilized him firmly. He was suddenly aware that his body was unresponsive and that his limbs were frozen and held strongly by a unknowable force. As the last of his air gave out and his chest began to lurch uncontrollably, a presence appeared and seemed to inject him with calm and he was shocked when he took a very easy unforced inhalation of water, and then was suddenly flying through the water with increasing speed. The seawater filled his lungs and moved through him as he lost consciousness. Clutching the rail of the tattered boat, Diamond and her mother frantically stared at the place in the sea where Jim had been, they both had seen what had happened but neither had any idea where to put it, it would not fit. Diamond replayed the scene in her mind, they’d watched him be taken by something unexplainable, deep into the sea. “Mom, what was that? It just....it just took him...” “Diamond, I said go help your brother, get him buckled while I look for your Dad, give me his jacket.” Diamond handed her mother her fathers life-jacket and went below to help her brother who was now on his jackets second buckle, unaware of what had happened on deck. She was stunned replaying the sight of that light coming for him in her mind, but helping her brother brought a new focus and she was able to momentarily forget the hair standing up on her whole body. “Where’s Daddy?” Gold asked her weakly. “I don’t know, I’m sorry, Gold....he fell in the water and we can’t see where he went” “It’s o.k,” Gold said, “he’s a good swimmer.” She didn’t explain anything and just agreed, “Yes, he is,” then added, “and so are you.” Lee peered down the hatch and looked at the two kids. She felt like she was being torn in half, yet there in front of her were two reasons to hold it together. She could not slip towards the despair that was like tar in her gut, reaching into every muscle, vein, and bone. Two reasons. She tried to imagine what to do next, when a soft ripping sound began, and then became a loud crack as the boat shuddered and split open beneath her. It was as though someone was peeling apart two halves of an orange the way it suddenly opened up, bow to stern, neatly split clean all the way through the keel. That’s strange, Lee thought as she fell through the empty space towards the kids, so neat. Diamond was just finishing the last clasp on Golds jacket when she heard the crack. She looked up to see the inside of the bow split open and a dark wall of water pause for a nanosecond, then rush in. Reaching mid fall Lee got a hold of one of the straps of Gold’s jacket. The boat exploded all around them into fragments. They were thrown by the rush of water towards the stern which was splitting apart ahead of them, and then out into the sea. Clutching Gold by the Jacket, Lee held on to her son and prayed that they all made it to the surface as she tumbled with the wreckage and debris around her. She had no idea which way was up. Lee was totally disoriented as she felt the spin of the accelerating gyre tug on them. Clawing one-handed and kicking, she made it to the surface and thrust Gold above her watching for him to take a breath. He gasped with a panicked look on his small moon face and grabbed for his mom. Diamond surfaced next to them without a sound and scanned her mom and brother. She was calm and beyond shock now. She was not terrified for some reason, not resigned either. She was ready. The whirlpool spun them round, it was hard to stay on the surface. A strange tingling suddenly erupted all over her body as tho the water was being electrified. She saw lights in the water again, some blinked and then they all flickered out. For a moment everything went dark around them and they bumped and spiraled through the water, floating in their jackets amidst the debris. Diamond barely had time to wonder what had happened. The strange tingling continued. Beneath them, a glow began to illuminate everything around them. Diamond could now see her brothers little face again looking alert and terrified. She locked eyes with him and watched as his face grew brighter in the reflected glow. Another bright orb arrived rapidly heading towards them up from the depths directly beneath them. The light was blinding and looked identical to the one that took her father. With quick and disturbing “ploomp” sounds, her mother and brother were pulled underwater. The water was charged with an intense electricity and she heard crackling on the surface. The bright orb descended quickly beneath her again and everything went dark. She was alone. Hardly breathing, she waited, darkness coming in slow motion all around her. She could hear the clatter of wood and debris in the water, but could now see nothing. Even the sky seemed black. She spun around in the gyre floating in her life jacket and shivering. There was no thought in her head. Thoughts left her when she followed her brothers startled gaze underneath the water and lost it in a blinding second to the chaotic depths. Diamond felt instinctively around her for something to grab onto, there were boat pieces all around her but they seemed to be quickly vanishing. They were being drawn towards the center and sucked under by the current. She fought its inescapable gravity as it pulled her towards the center. She wondered if it would pull her under or if her life jacket would keep her on the surface against its force. She felt helpless to fight it as her adrenaline pumped muscles began to twitch and cramp. She waited for the lights that had come for the rest of her family to return for her, spinning as the gyre battled the floatation of her lifejacket and pulled at her, but she never saw them. She caught one last glimpse of the star filled sky as she reached the center of the whirlpool and was pulled under. The blackness of the sea surrounded her as her own light began to flicker and blink out.

Chapter 4 High School Diamond was about to finish what had been the worst year of her school life. She had done well with her studies, but socially she struggled for the first time in all her years at school. Everyone changed this year, and mostly not for the better. Kids that had been allies since kindergarten had turned into unrecognizable beasts and she found herself dreading the day each morning she woke. Jim walked into the kitchen and popped an espresso canister into the machine on the counter. It gurgled out his coffee in a frothy tan stream. Diamond sat at the table and hung her head over her cereal bowl. Cradling his coffee, Jim sat down across from her. “Good morning hon.” “Morning Dad.” “Ca va?” “Fine.” “Pourquois?” “Dad!” Diamond wasn’t feeling French this morning. “Ok, Sorry, desole....je suis tres desole...” Jim smiled. Diamond sunk deeper into her hair and bowl cocoon. “C’mon what’s goin on” he asked. “School is full of jackals and adults that pretend to know things” “That’s all?” “Daaad! I’m sick of it!” Jim mused that she had a ways to go to high school graduation, and college if she chose. Jim had news for Diamond. “Diamond honey, I have a cool surprise.” “What?” Diamond grumbled. “Look at me please, sit up.” Diamond collected her tresses off of the table and straightened. She looked at her dad. “We’re taking the trip.” Jim gleamed. “What?!” Diamond was instantly changed. “I got the time off and we’re going on the sail down to Mazatlan this summer, right after school gets out.” Diamond screamed and Jim jumped. “Ow....so.....Jesus...can you quiet down?.” Diamond was up and dancing around the kitchen. “Can you stand to go to school a while longer?” Jim asked. Diamond curled her lip and snarled, “Yes Matey, I’ll swab their decks to get to the southern seas, arrrr, I’ll scarf up their silly fables to get me to warm waters, arrrr, I’ll pierce my lobes at the equators edge!” Diamond staggered with her imaginary crutch and wooden leg over to Jim and hugged him. “i’m sooo exited mon pere.” Diamond kissed her dad on the forehead, grabbed her bag and ran out the door to school. Jim wondered how he would break the rest of the news to her. That he had a new job and they might not be coming back here after the summer. He had until the fall before he started full time with them, before they had his labs built in the new facility. He’d decided to use the time to make good on a dream they had wished for every time they sailed his prize possession around the San Francisco Bay and up and down the California coast. The dream was that they would pass by the Faralon islands just outside the Golden Gate and turn south and just keep going. As Diamond left her driveway that morning on the way to school she saw Karolyne and quickly looked away. A queasy feeling grew within her. She braced for the impact as Karolyne stomped over quickly joining Diamonds fast pace. “Does your mom know you’re wearing that much makeup?” Karolyne interrogated. “Did your mom drop you a-lot?” Diamond retorted. “My mom says girls who wear lots of makeup at our age are being inappropriate… Does your mom let you, does she know?” Diamond groaned audibly and glared at Karolyne. Many of the other girls in their class were wearing makeup by now, Diamond was somewhere in the middle of the curve. “Yea Karolyne, she knows.” Diamond picked up her pace. “Why do you wear makeup?” “Why do clowns cry when they surf the crimson wave?” “You’re so weird.” Karolyne ran ahead and chanted after her: “Diamonds and Pearls, what a weird girl” a stupid rhyme that a boy made up years ago and had stuck. He didn’t even go to their school anymore. Diamond imagined that southward turn with the sails above her and the sun on her left rising up over the far off california foothills. “Diamond and pearls, she married a squirrel” Karolyne faded off spotting another young sinner in need of her superior opinions and policing. Diamond walked quickly towards the school feeling irate and burdened as usual, but also triumphant with the news of the trip. Karolyne wasn’t the worst of it, Diamond thought steeling herself, she was just insecure and bossy. Diamond knew better than to take her on. The morning had already been complicated by the new arrival of her womanhood, she menstruated for the first time and had to run to her parents bathroom for help. Diamond’s mother had let her wear some makeup to celebrate what was actually mortifying her. It was all so strange, but kinda sweet of Mom, she thought. She was a late bloomer compared to most of the other girls, her mom had made her wait until her menses came to let her wear makeup. Diamond didn't’ mind actually, unlike most of her peers she was in no hurry for adulthood. Karolyne would find anything she could to make drama with Diamond, had been doing it since Jr High, she was insecure and always trying to elevate herself above the others, always the bossy one, Diamond had long ago dismissed her superiority complex. So, as for Karolyne and the rest, Diamond reassured herself, she just had to make it through to June. Up until this year Diamond had gotten on well with everyone, always feeling free to be herself. She was openly different, easy with being creative and expressive, and up to a certain age it never occurred to her peers to see her uniqueness as a problem. Throughout grade school and jr. high she had been embraced. But as high school approached the kids began to engage a kind of terror. They began to warn each other of the dangers of standing out, of being seen as different. They gossiped about what awaited them when they switched to high school. They told ominous stories of kids who found themselves cast out by wearing non name-brand clothes, by talking to the “weirdos,” by freely expressing themselves, by being talented in the arts, or taking any risks outside of accepted suburban sporty norms. This year she had suffered the result of all their fears, she had come to represent what was to be avoided. Prior to this year, Diamond didn’t track the subtle movements of criteria among some of the children who were beginning to judge her quietly for not dressing like the others, for singing openly on the playground, for being unaware of popular T.V. plot lines, for being ... different. Before then, her peers never openly criticized her, though they naturally sensed her differences. When she switched to high school, their judgment was in plain view. Girls who had joined her in long nights of sleepover giggling and play, who had been with her since kindergarten, began to fear her. If they were seen talking to Diamond, their social status would be damaged. They would be considered strange too. Outcast, she found herself ignored at lunch by the various groups that she used to eat with. Cliques were forming and she was not being welcomed in any of them. She was weird. She would make small attempts to tone herself down and put on a show of being “normal.” But her colors had flown since the beginning, these kids knew her, and would not soon forget the hazard of authentic personality that she represented. They were pack animals and their greatest fear was to be ostracized, banished from the group, a primal and ubiquitous fear. She had earned her banishment by being too different, too honest, too expressive, they could not make that mistake. Summer break was coming soon, and it’s liberation called out to her like a beacon. She was desperate to sail away from these trolls.

Ch 5 The Cell Jim came to and looked around him. Every surface was lit by a strange faint glow. He was on a table in a large round room and he sensed someone moving just behind him. He couldn’t focus on them as they were moving quickly. His eyes were cloudy and unsuited to see underwater. Was he still underwater? How? He wondered. Jim became aware that he was not breathing and he could not feel his heartbeat. He could not move his body, only his eyes. He could still feel himself and his skin was alive with a static tingling, though none of his muscles would respond. He tried to move all his extremities, fingers, arms, legs, toes...and then his head. Nothing. He was paralyzed. He struggled to remember what had happened.... Our boat was caught in some kind of whirlpool... He glanced down at his unmoving hand and saw it still holding the radio handset limply. O good, he thought sarcastically, I can call for help. He could not fathom where he was or how he was still alive. He struggled to focus, moving just his eyes and looking to his right he saw the indistinct shape. It was working on something at another table next to him. As it moved he caught a glimpse of what looked to be a small child on the table, he watched as it pulled a small shiny blue and orange life jacket up over it’s head and let it drift lazily away from the child. Hmmm, he thought, shouldn’t that float? Aren’t we underwater? The familiarity of the jacket finally jogged him awake fully. That was his boy Gold on the table. Where the hell were they? Where was Diamond and Lee? What happened? The figure moved a bright light over the boy and Jim could blurrily see the crimson color of blood on his head, and as the light moved over him, he saw the blood fade and disappear. A thin layer of hope spread over the dull weight of dread that held him immobile in this strange place. He wondered if it was healing Gold or hurting him. Jim tried to talk, ‘Hel..lo..?’ It only happened in his mind, his lips would not move. How am I not breathing? Jim wondered. I’m not breathing? Stronger now, the light blasted the whole room and it seemed that he could feel it in his bones. He could hear a humming and a foamy hiss as the warming glow overwhelmed him and pressed his eyes shut. He struggled to open them and focus. Something that looked like an ocean at sunrise came into his view thru what seemed to be transparent walls of the room he was in. Outside the flat expanse of a sea horizon took shape and then curved and diminished quickly into a blue ball surrounded by blackness getting smaller, and smaller as tho they were moving away from it at a speed that was unfathomably rapid. The warmth quickly faded and a shiver passed through him as he began to feel cold. “He’s going to be fine” a voice boomed in his head. What? “He’s going to be fine, we picked you three out of a Tong trap. They were harvesting again and so we grabbed you before you got taken. They were hunting you.” The voice sounded young and at the same time, learned. Jim blinked as his vision was almost completely clear now. The voice continued. “We registered another life form with you but could not find her.” Jim sensed more fabrication, the voice was hiding something. “You have another child, yes? Her form was unfamiliar to us and scrambled our finder. Only unregistered species usually jam the finders nose. We’ve registered everything on Ama for millennia, but you guys were carrying someone very unique... what’s with your little family?” There was definitely something about the speaker that felt off to Jim. Jims suspicion grew towards certainty, whoever this was, he was fabricating, hiding something. Jim was baffled as he realized that the figures voice was truly inside of him and he had no control of it’s presence there. It was strange enough that it was there, but even stranger that it was requiring answers too. ‘I’d prefer you’d speak to me outside of my head if I’m to answer all your questions,’ Jim thought, getting worried now whether it was Diamond or Lee to whom the voice referred, it had said “could not find her,” and he’d just now seen Gold. Was that real, he puzzled, picked you three, it had said. “I can stand so you can see me,” the voice answered, “but we will continue to pulse together, not speak. Your mouth is immobilized and our air fluid would stop your heart if you....well it already is stopped, but it would stop ...permanently.” A young man stepped from behind Jim, and came into view at his left. He was normal looking, European, medium built and seemed to be in his early 20’s. “You’re still adapting to the air fluid, we can’t let you convulse, so you are on Omni Support. The ship is living for you, for now.” He let Jim process for a moment then added, “Thanks by the way, for your biodiversity, the ship learns more with everyone that gets plugged in. She’s a smart bird!” Hearing this voice inside his head, Jim felt uncertain, trying to verify his waking state. This must be dreaming , Jim looked at his hands. “It’s not” the young man stared at Jim. Holding Jims gaze, he looked out to Jim’s right where Gold had been laid on a table. There was a dim hazel surface that curved floor to ceiling which then transformed into a clear view of space, dark and immense with an infinity of stars. “Smart bird” the young man said again. Jim wondered at what he’d thought was his boy Gold on the table next to him. His vision had been off. Blurred. Was that real? A trick? “It’s both” the voice said, adding “Its real, and a trick, in that we wanted to comfort you that the child was going to be o.k....that you were near him. Truthfully, he was never in this space with you, though he was and is near by in a heal chamber, Ormus is tending to him, what you saw was real, the brief surgery you saw....his head injury has been healed.” Smiling he turned back from the glimmering wall of space to Jim “I’m Simon” he said.

Pretty soon after the Earthquake Songbird came, she learned our language. Following her birth her Mother immediately learned to speak Baby fluently (of course, and still does to this day), upon waking together they made duets every morning, cooing melodies, squeals, chirps, and giggles and so our singing earthquake became an inquisitive word bird as she learned to match sounds with her Mom. Mom made her mornings amazing and for my calling soon after bedtime stories began, it was a gift given to me by my dad, from his storytelling when I was in her ages, memories I treasure then till now. It came naturally tho Id never done it before, I think osmosis is definitely a thing, a kind of teaching passed in love and presence. Much of the time the Songbird helped with details and had requests. A fountain of characters and adventures were hatched and born over her early childhood years while we invented a world together, stitching it into form like the crickets do here with their songs in these oak filled grassland hills, where we’ve lived 21 years not far from the seas edge. They were stories for bedtime, composed for a launch into fantastic childhood dreaming. The child is grown now and here the story grows with her, out into the world. This tale has its roots in those early and precious bedtime stories, mostly told in a converted hilltop horse barn and also over the phone from a bunch of musician filled tour busses. I imagine it will unfold as hers did, night by night, week by week, as the muse will have it, and come to as many places as we conspire to conjure.