Rapture

[Zulegoona]

Lights in the night sky grow brighter and move into a dodecagon. A flash of blinding white light, and the vault of heaven opens. The Rapture? Sort of, Larry's space alien friends have come to scoop us all up tents, trailers, rented RVs, booze, Burners, Art, and all. This Rapture is a leave no trace event.

What would the ramifications be on world politics, religion, economics, our non-burner friends.

The temptation is to think we are more important to the world than we are but still 30,000 people disappearing from a Nevada desert would certainly have an impact.

What would it be?

What would happen to us if we had to spend more than a few weeks together?

[Silver]

The absolutly first thought that came to me was 'think about how happy BBR would be".

I need to think about the rest of it.

[BAS]

Hmmm..., my first thought was "run out of water", but I have always been a pessimist...! Anyway, I haven't actually made it out there yet, so I don't know the "lay of the land" enough to make an educated guess.

FWIW, when I started researching getting ready for going to BM, one of my first thoughts was "What would it be like if civilization collasped while I was out there? Would BRC become a permanent city? Sort of like that place in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome?" (Since then, I seem to recalling reading that the playa FLOODS yearly, so the city can be only semi-permanent at best....)

[Simply Joel]

Lights in the night sky grow brighter and move into a dodecagon. A flash of blinding white light, and the vault of heaven opens. The Rapture? Sort of, Larry's space alien friends have come to scoop us all up tents, trailers, rented RVs, booze, Burners, Art, and all. This Rapture is a leave no trace event.

What would the ramifications be on world politics, religion, economics, our non-burner friends.

The temptation is to think we are more important to the world than we are but still 30,000 people disappearing from a Nevada desert would certainly have an impact.

What would it be?

What would happen to us if we had to spend more than a few weeks together?

The pessimist within me thinks a rapture in the Nevada desert would be a 3-4 week blip on the TV screen.

The activist in me would like to know what 30,000 people not "buying" anything, no commerce once per week.... then 300,000, then 3 million... a large snowballing day of non-commerce... but this thought should be another thread.

[DancingTofu]

Damn my luck! Damn, damn and damn! Why the hell couldn't I have stuck around for 2 more hours! Lisa wasn't feeling good, the first couple days of acclimating are never tons of fun, and then she got horrible cramps on top of that. So after asking around camp, I decided to catch the shuttle into Gerlach and get some tampons for her.

The few of us got back on the bus, but it wasn't there when we got back. The whole city... gone. We're all looking at each other- what the fuck? - trying to figure out if we've gone crazy or what. We're all seeing - or not seeing, really - the same thing. Empty playa. Did we get lost, find our way onto the playa at the wrong spot? We drive around a while, looping this arm of the playa. We can still see all the tracks in the dust, the roadways crinkled up from the water trucks going by, footprints in the resulting mud...

We're scared. Shitless. And all the JOTS are gone too. Damn! "I didn't see anything about this in the What Where When," someone jokes weakly. I'm sitting, face pressed to the window, mouth dry. Gone. How can they be... gone? Everything, gone? You think it feels weird once the Man's burned, shit, it's nothing to this.

Pan, our driver, kills the engine. We're a little ways out from Center Camp... where Center Camp was. He opens the doors, and looks back at the 6 of us. "Well?" He nods out the door.

There seems to be nothing to say to that. He climbs slowly out, and once we see that he hasn't disappeared the instant his feet touch the playa, we follow. It's the same old playa, it feels no different underfoot. The city, it seems, was not swallowed into the earth. What other option? I look up. The sky is empty. The silence is creepy... beyond creepy. There's just.... nothing. Not the nothing of a dust storm, I can see and breathe just fine, thank you. It's not even the nothing of the late night deep-playa journey, you can always see the lights, then. This is an altogether scarier type of nothing. I'm shaking, clutching the stupid tampons for dear life.

One of the guys has hunkered down and is examining the playa minutely. He's got both palms pressed to the ground, feeling for something. Damned if I know what. The girl biside me in the pink sequined top and killer sunglasses is staring straight up into the sky. Most of the rest of us are still looking around for the missing city. The guy in lederhosen and the whole German get-up, what ever it's called, is the first to wander away from our little group. The feather in his pointy hat is drooping down, and looks quite sad.

I wander on my own for a while, tears pouring down my face, precious water dripping onto the bare playa. It's like when my older brother teased me the summer before I went away to first grade, that since I would be gone all day, that one day he and Mom and Dad would pack up and move away and not tell me where they went. Home is... gone. Lisa is gone. I went to get her the stupid fucking tampons, and she leaves. Leaves me behind. I don't care where, or how, they've all gone - I want to be there too!

It's hot. And quiet. One by one we gather again in the scant shade of the bus. Painted up as it is, it's the last remnant of our glorious city. I close my eyes and lean against a tire, trying to imagine that the city is actually out there, trying to tell myself that I'm just wearing earplugs and having a really weird dream; trying, in my mind to put everything back where it belongs.

"Occam never fucking imagined this," one guy says after a while.

"Occam didn't have an imagination, that's kind of the point," argues Sequin Girl.

"But think about it, what is the simplest expanation for this?" Philosopher Guy insists.

"Simplest explanation is, we're all crazy. Mass hallucination. Or it's all a dream, some fucked up, intense dream that I can't wake up from," Lederhosen Man mutters. A loud thunk beside me, he's slammed his head into the bus, I guess. "I'm passed out in center camp, I must have eaten some shrooms or something, and the power's gone out, so it's all quiet. That's all. I'll snap out of it eventually..."

"Would you all shut up?" I growl. "I'm trying to imagine us a way to follow them."

"That's the way, maybe," says a voice I don't recognize. I open my eyes. It's the woman with tiger striped dyed hair, she's taken off her loose blouse and sarong she was wearing into town, and I see that she's transformed herself with a combination of body paint and strategically placed fake fur. It's very impressive. She keeps talking while I stare. "Maybe if we can figure out how they left, we can find a way to follow them."

"Well, that's what I was saying," Philosopher Guy cut in. "What really happened? What IS real?"

"Ok," says Tiger Woman, playing along. "What do we know for sure? Are we all agreed that, aside from everything being... gone... the world seems normal? Up is still up, down is down, all that?"

I groaned and reached for my water. Shit. Empty.

[Tiahaar]

Dancing Tofu you are good! Will there be more, will their fate be told???

[robotland]

...will I be seeing "When the Rapture comes this mutant vehicle will be empty" bumperstickers?

[ronski]

Nice writing, Tofu.

Not to yank any chains, but doesn't this scenario have way too much in common with the whole Left Behind mythos?

Scary.

[RingO'Fire]

BRA-VO TO-FU! Excellent story! Hell yeah!

[Zulegoona]

I see no reason dancing Tofu's great start on a story can't be intermixed with other discussion, let's flow on with a number of different channels.

Simply Joel, " The pessimist within me thinks a rapture in the Nevada desert would be a 3-4 week blip on the TV screen. "

Maybe depending on the other news........

week one
Without TV footage of it happening, the media would soon get tired of showing images of empty Playa, the ranch, and Black Rock Rick being taken in for questioning. There would be some pictures of Burning man '04 that news organizations like the Reno paper and others would have sent out, and some from people who left early. There would be interviews with locals and people from BLM, FBI, Homeland security, and any of the other myriad of agencies that had officers or agents at the event. [ this stretches into the second week ] More interviews with friends and relatives of some of the missing. ( if you can't have pictures of the thing happening show pictures of people crying about it.) Wild accusations from all corners, a number of organizations trying to take credit for it. Right wing religious leaders and radio personalities declaring the Devil took back his own, good reddens. Left wing movement leaders and blogers declaring it was a government plot and cover-up. Quickly thrown together documentaries about Larry Harvey and his cult followers reminiscing of Jim Jones.

Even with all that it would drop off the radar quickly at least till after the election because the polls would be to inconclusive for the campaign spin Doctors to figure out how to use it.

[theCryptofishist]

Quickly thrown together documentaries about Larry Harvey and his cult followers reminiscing of Jim Jones.

Ah yes, the quickie paperback. If you were "left behind" how bad would you feel about going commercial, breaking the rules and selling your story to a ghost writer?

[Bob]

....What would happen to us if we had to spend more than a few weeks together?

Does that include people who stopped going to Burning Man?

[Zulegoona]

Bob

Does that include people who stopped going to Burning Man?

Have your lost your faith Brother?....

Hell I don't know they're Larry's friends, go to the ( dear Larry Harvey ) thread http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?t=3246 as them to pick you up on the way.

[Silver]

Thought about it for a bit. If it happened while the Man was burning, there would be live feeds from the internet and news orgs., all hell would break loose here on earth. Everything from new cults (a job opportunity for those who could not make it or left early!) to congressional hearings. As for how we got along over time that would largely depend on where we went and what we got to do when we got there. The advantage of it happening at the burn would be that the yahoos would provide us a 'them' without requiring us to develop our own 'them'. This is not to say that we would not break off into our own groups (or develop them ad hoc), basic human nature.

Now, if it happened say, 2 AM on Tuesday there would still be witnesses from the road but there would not be the live feed and the impact would be much less. Cults would still develop and there would a boatload of investigations but since it was not on TV it would be less 'real' for most folks and in general most people would write it off as hoax or that we had all decamped to a commune in the Amazon. There would be less people 'taken' and it would be much easier to write off. With less people on site and more generally hard-core or want to be hard core I think it would take longer for 'those people' to develop.

And, I was wrong, BRR would be happy initially but when every UFO, er type and every New Ager started showing up year round and on Labor day he would be truly unhappy.

[DancingTofu]

Thanks, all, for the compliments! And sorry about the weird tense problems. I get that way when I'm writing stream-of-sleepiness. But hey, I finish my chores, and then they pay me to surf the web for another 4 hours. (Shh... don't tell, or they'll give me more work. Lucky for me, none of the managers ever stay all night. )

ronski: I was unfamiliar with the Left Behind mythos, as you put it. Then I asked Jeeves, and it seems that anything having to do with the Rapture is going to come away kinda smelling like that. Same topic, same basic problem - dealing with those, well, left behind. It's a lot easier to imagine the default world with X-amount of people of X-persuasion gone, than it is to create an entirely different world where those people are swept off to. Not that I'm saying it can't be done, or done well, and be a great story... Anyway, enough ramble.

I'll work on filling out a decent continuation of the 7 burners' story. But first, a bit of homework.

Tchuss!

[DancingTofu]

It's been about three hours since we got the shock of our lives, all of Black Rock City gone. A few of my fellows have been debating reality and the existence of the senses for the past hour or so. I'm trying to tune them out, for the most part. It would be an interesting conversation under normal circumstances, which these most certainly are NOT. I'm out of water, but no one really has any to share. None of us brought much for the short trip into town. I suppose we'll have to leave the playa before long, just... go back home.

Tiger Woman leaves off mid-paragraph and looks out past where the gates stood. I gave one of the greeters a mango on the way in a few days ago. I wonder what the hell became of it... and him. There's a van coming towards us from the road, a caravan, actually. Two smaller cars follow the blue van. They don't look like news crews or cops or anything...

More Burners, arriving, it seems. They pull up around the bus, the only thing on the playa. One driver yells out the window to us "What the Holy Flying Fuck!?" I'm tired. I just shrug. Lederhosen Man, apparently still hoping that it's all in his head, yells "Welcome to the nightmare!"

No one else rushes in to explain things, so I ask for water. A short woman hops out of her hatchback and brings me a waterbottle. "How long have you been out here? Where is... everything?"

"Thanks," I say. "It's been a few hours since we went into town for some shit." I nudge the tampons with my toe and take a drink.

"We got back, and everyone was gone, just like you see," the Playa Inspector says in an exhausted voice.

"That's impossible!" a guy from the van says, staring around.

"See for yourself." Sequin Girl spreads her arms wide, showing off the nothing surrounding us. "Look, you can still see all the roads, and back behind us are the holes from the huge center camp pillars."

"Well now, that's what we've been discussing." Philosopher Guy starts talking over her. He does that a lot. "Given the evidence we can gather-"

"Gather with our undeniably falliable senses!" Tiger Woman interjects. Those two have really hit it off. They're driving me fucking nuts. The newcomers are understandibly bewildered. I don't think a discourse on how we percieve reality is going to make things any clearer.

"Yes, since we have nothing more reliable than ourselves and our senses-"

"What he's saying is that even if it is impossible, as far as we can tell, it's real," Pan snaps. He's been pretty mellow so far, I'm kinda surprised at him. "Welcome to our insanity, or reality, or illusion, whatever the fuck this is."

* * * * *

It's Saturday afternoon, now. The newcomers, the ones that have stayed, have taken care of the seven of us without shelter or water. I'd say about half of the people who have driven out to our tiny encampment have turned around again, telling themselves some lie about Burning Man being cancelled this year, and how it's only us hardcore freaks out here, clinging to a dream. I don't even know how many have driven by on the road, seen that there is no city, and left again.

There must be about 400 of us now, those of us who kept our eyes open, and believed them. The original seven of us have earned our keep, telling the story over and over again. Philosopher Guy has been talking about it nonstop; he and Tiger Woman have quite a following by now, scores of them debating eveything at all hours of the day and night. I'm camping with a few quieter souls on the edge of things.

Those that brought timber and supplies for art projects have been hauling everything out to where the Man ought to be. Most of us have been spending the days building a replacement Man and Temple. They're on a drastically smaller scale, and the Temple is basically a tent, but the projects give us something to do. We all seem to feel a lot better if we can be doing something constructive. The Temple is really peaceful and beautiful. I've been helping with the paintings.

Lots of people have been meditating in the Temple, but no one has found a way to follow the city yet. If it actually has gone somewhere we can follow. Shit, I'm starting to sound like the Philosopher's Club.

We're going to burn our Man tonight, before the moon rises. I don't know if we've protected the playa from burn scars, or what, but I don't think it's really going to matter. It's not like there are any Earth Guardians left to harass us about it, or like we need to get permits for next year. We're all facing it in our own ways, but, this is the end. It's... too weird. Some of our group may get together again, we've certainly grown close in the last couple days, but Burning Man is gone. It really feels like a funeral of sorts, the last pyre of the Man.

When I think about it, I really dread going back home. What am I going to tell Lisa's family? How can I explain... any of this? But for the most part, it's not on my mind. It's like I'm carrying this assurance in my heart, that somehow, it will be ok. I've no idea why I feel this way, but the people I've mentioned it to describe feeling the same way. It's all building up to our Burn. Something will happen then, it has to. It just... has to.

[diane o'thirst]

Sun's answer: I'd make 'em swing by Lane County and pick up my horse and cat. At fit-pitched-point.

Ascendant's answer: This tribe doesn't have the market cornered on genius and creativity. The world will go on and burn without us. What I'm more worried about is cabin fever: all of us together in an enclosed space! I'd fuckin' <b><u>NEED</b></u> fur-baby therapy, Jackson!

Moon's answer: <i>Bring it o-o-o-o-o-o-o-onnnnnnnnnnn!!!</i>

[Zulegoona]

Yeah, I'd worry about and miss my dog's too. So gee if we all got to pickup our give the options to our loved ones and pickup our pets, and some of the great stuff we didn't bring to the Burn, it had better be a big ship. And it had better be a short trip.

Transplanted to a virgin world it wouldn't take long for us to spread out individually and in groups. There may be a core group that sets up a community were we make planet-fall, but curiosity to see what was over the next hill would be a strong draw.

Given the opportunity to establish a government, laws, the organizations needed to make a community work would be a daunting challenge. I don't see an opportunity for rampant materialism, but can a gift economy really work in the long run?

As social animals we, like packs of wolves and dogs, herds of horses, troops of chimps, and most other social animals you can think of seem to have an inherent need to have a ranking system. There are natural leaders, and followers, but beyond that people establish a part of there identity by comparing themselves to others. Some society's have done this by using material worth, like the number of horses or cattle a person has, others by using adherence to established values, the most generous, or pious. Church ladies? Burner than thou? How would it shake out in our relatively small community?

[diane o'thirst]

Yes, it does open up a whole 'nother can o' worms, doesn't it? ;D

Let's go on a flight of fancy here and give the Rapture aliens a set of powers that to our current technological level and/or mindset would read as "supernatural," since they've obviously got their space travel act together. Say the ship is a Dyson sphere, roughly translated. What it really is is more like the stable in C.S. Lewis's "Last Battle," or that thing that Dr. Who used to fly around the multiverse in — a Sphere of Holding, basically. More room on the inside than on the outside. Could be done by using non-Euclidean geometry.

Anyway, say they <i>don't</i> take us to "another planet" but the non-Euclidean Dyson sphere becomes our home, and it's set up along Escherian spatial lines: meaning, capsulized infinity. Probably easier to wrap your head around than one thinks, we'd just read it as "goes forever." Lots of room to move around in. Speaking personally, my cat would be upset at first, then get used to it, then have a blast with it; horse would go straight to "have a blast" because he's smarter than the cat and a little braver to begin with As for me I'd feel fulfilled and be constantly in the throes of giddiness: read, I'd be having a blast

Let's further speculate that the aliens have the ability to change our physiognomies such that life isn't necessarily immortal, but at least extended and rejuvenation happens continually. This is accomplished by airborne innoculation by nanites upon entry into the sphere. (The aliens would obviously come up with this technology because most interstellar travel would require something along those lines — nobody wants to hibernate their way through the journey of a lifetime.)

More when the computer lets me...

[theCryptofishist]

My references:
Mysterium. Robert Charles? Anton? Wilson
Island in the Sea of Time. S.M. Stirling

[Ranger Genius]

How about some Phillip Jose Farmer? Ooh, ooh, I get to play Richard Francis Burton!

[theCryptofishist]

I'd forgotten the Farmer.

[Ranger Genius]

It was one of the first things that sprang to mind for me..especially re: the leavers-behind, as opposed to the left-behind. God I love that series, especially The Fabulous Riverboat.

Is my signature too big?

[cowboyangel]

our el-presedente believes in that rapture stuff....all these folks will have their clothes torn off, ascend into the sky, look down upon their smitten enemies burning in hell while god cheers on the whole stupid thing....Bush really believes this! That's why the fanatical support for insane Israeli anti-Palestinian policies, the breading of the red cow, the christian $$$ flowing into illegal settlements.....gosh.....
I am very happy with my dog, who would do a much better job as president
(Poodles are very smart...watch out Mr. Bush!)

[BAS]

I am very happy with my dog, who would do a much better job as president
(Poodles are very smart...watch out Mr. Bush!)

VOTE POODLE 2004!

[Zulegoona]

“look the rocks are pretty much the same, every thing is in the same relationship as it was, your camp is still over there, my Van is still here. The only thing that’s different is the playa it’s now covered in giant bluestem.”

The thumping sound of the music goes quiet camp by camp, the growl of the big generators also are silenced by there tenders. Every one is milling around, many are dumbstruck trying to comprehend what has befallen them. The sounds of weeping, and people talking in low nerves tones, broken by some guy yelling a couple of streets away; “ What’d you freaks do to me! You fucken bustards! What the fuck did you put in my beer!” In the other direction at the end of the block by the potty cluster a larger gal dressed only in leopard spot paint stood alone hysterically screaming,” FUCK, FUCK, FUCK” as she tried to cover her breasts. A couple of people from a near by camp go to her drape a brightly colored piece of fabric over her shoulders which she clutches, calming her they usher her back to there camp.

It’s late morning, the sun is high and there is a light breeze blowing, it’s only about eighty degrees. Only a moment before it had been night, well dark, probably around three a.m..

As people start to snap out of there collectively bewildered daze most began to make there way back to there camps. The crowded streets and the tall grass made it impossible to bike. The call went out and was echoed across all of Black Rock City, “ Go to the Man, go to the man”. People who had been in there own camps joined the rest of us, every one heading to the man. Art cars, a few flatbed trucks, and a couple of busses picked as many people as they could carry and lead the way. Most walked in silence, others talked quietly, occasionally thee would be a call of recognition and people would rush together, hug and continue on, holding each other.

A guy ahead of me yells out, “ hey look at this,” A number of us gather around what looked like a half buried mostly rusted away skeleton of what once must have been a car black plastic body panels stick out of the dirt in a few places. “ looks like it’s been here a couple of hundred years,” Just then a prairie dog sized rodent runs out from under one of the body panels and scurries for cover in the tall grass. One of the woman mutters, “ black rock Rick‘s, still here”. We continue on.


anyone else care to take it from here?

[DancingTofu]

The sky isn't really blue this evening, it's just kinda washed out, white-grey, stark. It's like the heat and the dryness have leeched even the memory of blue from the sky. The heat-haze outlines all the surfaces: tents, cars, the Man himself, in unknowing imitation of the flames to come.

Up till now, there hasn't been much of a party vibe to this strange gathering - other than the drinking, I suppose. There's an intensity to everything we're doing, including the drugs and alchohol. Perhaps, if one of us can just find a way to open our minds wide enough, this will finally make sense, or we can find a way to follow. The atmosphere is so heavy, the air pressing down on everyone - the way it felt on 9/11. Like we're all grieving something so huge we can't even begin to think about it.

The sun sinks quietly behind the mountains, with no fanfare of sunset. The wind dies down, the evening cools off. We've only got a couple of generators, but one of them is powering a largeish set of speakers, now, for some reason, playing "The Entertainer." All around me, people are cutting loose, people that have been working so hard the last couple days, finally, I don't know, resigned to the weirdness? The feeling is changing. All the work that can be done has been, and now we see what comes next, I guess.

People are gathering around the Man, who is not glowing, not raising his arms. We circle in close, closer than perhaps we should, but there aren't any Rangers here to make us back off. It's gonna be a small burn, anyway, there's not all that much wood. Someone has let loose a few of those paper-hot-air-balloon things. They drift up overhead, glowing and flickering. They're beautiful, peaceful. I love them, and bless whoever sent them up, for giving me this much peace, anyway. As I watch, the one highest up catches fire entirely, and the flames fall back to earth. It burns out before it lands.

About 20 fire dancers are between us and the Man, twirling and whirling to the music that someone has set up near by. A few people are going around, speaking quietly with the dancers, and next someone is trying to get the Man lit. We're cheering and screaming, and finally flames start licking up one leg, then the other. I'm watching, with tears on my face, shouting and jumping. I'm so angry and so sad. Everyone else is gone, and I so want to be there, back with Lisa and my campmates and everyone.

The fire has reached the top of the Man, and is swirling around, as if looking for somewhere else to go. Any moment now, he's going to collapse... which way? But he doesn't fall... and doesn't fall. This is getting weird. The yells die down slowly, slowly, as one by one people realize that something isn't right. It's only a small Man, and he's been burning for 10 minutes... 15... 20... and still he doesn't fall, no arm crumbling to ash, nothing.

People are yelling again, and pointing. Black flames, like those that boiled from the ceilings of the Temple last year, are outlining the Man's legs. There are no flames in between, and it looks like nothing so much as... a gateway. People are walking closer, for a better look. I push my way forward, and look through. Although people from both sides have come up, I can't see them through the legs. There's a shimmer of heat, but where I should have been able to see another's face peering back at me, there's nothing. Just darkness, and a hint of green.

The guy beside me straightens up, takes a swig of whatever he's drinking, and hands the cup to his friend, saying "Hold this." He squares his shoulders purposefully and sprints the few yards that seperate us from the fire. People are shouting at him; his friend, clutching the cup, runs after him, trying to stop him, but she's too late. He's reached the Man, and run through the flames, and is gone.

His friend runs around to the other side, yelling for him, but I hear her scream "He's gone! Mike! Where are you?" Mike does not reappear from the crowd. It's not a joke... Others have gathered closer to the fire, reaching toward the gateway. Many are looking nervously up, perhaps wondering when the Man will fall and crush us all. It's does't look to me like he's going anywhere, though.

By now a couple more people have run or stepped through, from both sides. As I watch, a middle aged couple kiss, grab each other's hands, and run through with huge grins on their faces. All I can think about is Lisa. What if these strange black flames somehow lead to where she's gone? What if they lead somewhere else entirely. But what if she is there, waiting for me?

Before I realize that I've decided, I'm walking towards the fire, wearing the same grin the couple wore. I quicken my pace, and pretty soon I'm running headlong into the fire. It's hot, but no hotter than the noontime sun. The tears on my cheeks are drying, and... I'm through. It's still hot. I keep running. Oh no... Looking around, it seems as if I've only made it to the other side of the Man. It must have been an optical illusion, that I couldn't see through the legs. The Man is still above me, burning, and people are yelling and pointing.

I jog away from the heat of the fire, and turn around to see if anyone else is stupid enough to try running the fire. But.... the Man is about 4 times as big as he was. The ground under my feet is not playa. I stare at it, and bounce on my toes a little. It's... grass. Singed and trampled, but it's grass all right. Excited now, I look around at the people staring at me. At first I don't recognize anyone, but I'm thrilled. After all, I knew almost everyone's face back at the deserted playa.

"Is this it? Did I find you guys? Am I... here?" I shout, to no one in particular. I run up to the nearest people. "What's been going on? Did the others make it here, too? Mike, and that couple?" No one really answers me, but I don't mind, I keep running, yelling for Mike. I see him after a moment, and ask "Is this it? Did we find them?"

"I think so," he says, grinning. "Shit but that was awesome! Hey, where are we, anyway?" he asks the people he's been talking to. "What happened?"

"A few days ago, we were just, like, here, man. Bunches of people have been out scouting the place, but we can't really find an end to it. Like, people just get turned around, no matter how far they try to go. Suddenly they're walking up to the opposite side of the city. It's freaky man, I've done it myself. You're one place, and then it's like your whole body blinks, and you're in the same place, but you're walking toward something different."

"Does that gate thing work the other way, too?" the girl next to the speaker asks.

"I have no idea," Mike says. "Has anyone here tried?"

"No, the Man's only been burning for like five minutes. As soon as he got going, you all started popping out from between his legs. It's bizzare. You came from the playa, then? Maybe it does work backwards."

That idea seemed to leap from mind to mind in the crowd without passing from mouth to mouth. People started pressing forward, desperate, it seemed, to get through before the Man collapsed. I was pushing the other way, though, fighting the tide. Lisa always like to watch the burn from farther back. Usually she was on her stilts, getting a good view where ever she was. Grinning, my only thought was that she should be easier to see that way.

At last I broke free. Out here, word was moving more slowly, perhaps. I didn't attract much attention as I ran around the circumfrence of the crowd, scanning them for anyone on stilts. Every time I saw someone towering over the crowd, I screamed "Lisa!!" None of them turned. Some were too short, others too tall. I knew what she would look like...

I was about halfway around the circle from where I has started, and I saw her. She was wearing the flowing, glowing dress we had made over the winter. She was pacing a little, back and forth, like always, her eyes fixed on the Man. He was still burning, and, like our small Man, showed no sign of crumbling. My throat was suddenly dry, and I could only whisper her name. I pushed through the few people seperating us, and looked up at her. She was crying. Seeing this, I began crying too. It was my sob that got her attention. She glanced down, then stared.

"Joy?" she gasped. I still couldn't speak, but I nodded furiously. "Joy!" she yelled. "How did you..." I just shook my head and hugged her suddenly around one leg. She wobbled a bit, and then touched my hair. "Let me down," she asked. I let her use my shoulders, and she got off the stilts. We embraced, still crying, and turned to watch the Man burn.

[Zulegoona]

DancingTofu,......Wow!

[Bob]

Is my signature too big?

Not if you're ten years old.

[diane o'thirst]

I almost thought it was a mistake to bring Tagie out here, but the money had finally run out; I had no apartment to go home to, no television, no bank accounts, no cards. I said when I bought my beautiful red beast, seven years ago, "Welcome to the rest of your life." I think the Gods were listening because that proved prophetic; this horse, and everything surrounding him, have become my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.

We were contained. Our camp was a mobile creature, a diesel rig pulling a small gooseneck trailer with living quarters. Effectively, an RV capable of housing multiple species: human, horse, cat. Fetelbaum was getting used to his great red housemate because he's a gentle beast and loves anything with a heartbeat. I moved all three of us out here to the Playa because I <i>didn't</i> want to miss Burning Man for anything; when the festival was over, we'd load up, fire up the engine, and move on.

Meritage was a breathtakingly elegant, tall and soulful gelding. I hung a sign around his neck yesterday that read, "Will flirt for cookies" and we made lots of friends. He loved it out here; lots of room to canter, lots of people to schmooze and play with, sparkly things to chase and investigate. And though there were those who yelled at me for bringing a horse <i><b>OUT HERE</i></b>, there were two who gasped, "Omygod, he's BEAUTIFUL! Can we pet him?"

We usually went out riding at dawn and in the evening, and he looked forward to the Playa jaunts. He actually knew when we were going and would pace around in his corral in camp, nickering to me, "Come on! Things are happening out there without us! We must correct that!" And tonight, especially...