I woke, my eyes not wanting to open, not wanting to see, my eyelids seared by an early Mexican sun. I was ill. Rather, I was experiencing the sensation that was illness and the lingering suspicion that I was wallowing in a dusty place. When my eyes did finally open, my hung-over suspicion was confirmed. I know there is no sense to this, no ordained logic or capacity to grasp the holes poked through my quasi-dimensional cloud cover. But still, you see what you see and it's best to smile a tender smile. I was indeed lost; somewhere between where I had started and where I'll end up.

I'll begin simply with what I remember. I was walking the streets of Manzanillo whereupon I came across a guy and a girl selling beaded things such as necklaces and other trinkets. I sought them out from across little park because they looked like they'd have something I was looking for. That something is called mota. Thus, the trolling began for the green weed.

As I looked through the necklaces, I'd utter an occasional "bonita" or "me gusta" but never with much enthusiasm, which prompted the girl to stop beading and look up. I knelt down, looked into her deep brown eyes and said, "Yo miro para mota." Glances were exchanged between the two compatriots and the guy said they didn't have any.

I began to apologize in meager Spanish. He put up his hand to stop me. "My brother, perhaps you'd like something else?" Perhaps I would, my brother, perhaps I would…and what it be, might I ask, if I may be so bold, if I may?

A momentary glance was exchanged between the two, a hand reaches into a knapsack, and reveals a smaller bag. I eagerly anticipate whatever treasure is being unveiled. From the smaller bag, the girl pulls out a worm, a very green worm, and holds it up. The worm is dead. Dead or really still.

"What do I do with that?" A curious look of confusion passing over my face.

With a gesture, he responded, "You eat."

I eat it? Something tells me that I'll be getting more than I looked for if I do. And I do after a moment of reflection. I put it in my mouth, I swallow, and it's gone. The worst part is over, I think.

"My brother, tonight you are a stranger to yourself, tomorrow you'll never know yourself better."

"How much do I…" I started while pulling out my wallet. A hand stopped me, the girl's hand, and her face made a quick look (a tilt of the head to the left, a subtle crook of her lips, and a slight raising of the eyebrows) to say not to ask. Not to insult.

I stand. I smile. The girl smiles back. A gentle smile. I look over at the guy. Same gentle smile. Gentle smiles that say we love you, now go and be. Be yourself. Be anything. Just be.

And I begin walking, first near the docks along the shore and then through the streets of the city center, meandering about. I walk into a café not far from the park. It's half internet café, half silver jewelry shop. A German owns it and lives above it with his two Mexican daughters. I buy a silver skull pendant from the older daughter, and while she's hanging it on a string of leather cord, I decide to chat her up.

"I am reborn," I say in German, but she doesn't speak German, just Spanish and English. She smiles. A gentle smile. The father and I talk about how he came to live in Mexico. Backpacking, he said, through Mexico. Somewhere between where he started and where he was, he met his love, their mother. A gesture towards the two girls. Their mother is gone now.

The German asks how I come to be in Manzanillo. I'm on a ship. A big bulk freighter, but I don't know the German words for bulk freighter so I say that part in English. I was off for the afternoon and night and thought I'd see the town. Did I like it? I did, I do, I'd return. I must see Las Jadas, I am told. Yes, I must.

A taxi takes me there, but I haven't any idea what it is or where I am going. I pass the port, a sign pointing its way so many miles to Mexico City, and an American sports bar. All this through the woods to grandmother's house we go and we end up stopped in front of a security checkpoint that hides a windy road. The window is rolled down. Sí, Las Jadas, the driver said rather impressed. A flashlight beam in my face. A gringo. Yes, open the gate, we have a gringo.

What Las Jadas is is a resort. A fine, first class resort not meant for the likes of me. An outdoor tropical paradise with a hotel, cabanas, expensive boutiques. All of it, right there on the water where sailboats are moored. It's a place where west coasters go for holiday, for spring break and fancy vacations. Lovely. Everything would be perfect if it weren't for the knowledge that Americans flock to it. It's off-season, however, and therefore perfectly nice.

There is a fact that pervades all Americans abroad and it's simply this: Two Americans will usually not speak to each other when elsewhere if they are strangers. Take a Brit, a German, an Aussie, an Argentine and couple one of them with an American and you're sure to get a conversation. But, you put a man from Cleveland with a man from Birmingham (that's in Alabama) and there won't be a peep, if even a nod of recognition. Regional differences aside, that is, though I will consent that a man from Birmingham could probably strike up a conversation with a llama.

That's all fluff and filler, though, for the lapse in my train of thought. Lapse and hesitation because this is when it began. When it began.

Along one of the tree-lined paths of the fabulous Las Jadas, the first sensation of something not being quite right came over me. I feel ill, vomitous, but it passes. It's not sickness or, it's not yet. I've had to sit. By the side of the pool I find a spot where I can lay myself down and splash water on my face. My face. Light sparkles off the water, reflects on my face, in my eyes. Spider webs of light reflected off the pool shines up on the main hotel, writhing in motion. Reflection. Light. Light reflection on my face and I smile a gentle smile.

I dangle my feet over the edge and put my feet in the pool, shoes and all. Socks and pants legs and all other parts of my body that are there 'bouts in between. The bottom of my pants are drowning, but they aren't living so that's okay. Euphoria. I don't care. I lean back and look up at the Mexican night filled with Mexican stars. They blur, they move, they come back into focus and then they dance. They dance and drop from the sky and deep, brown, kind eyes are smiling at me. Be.

All light fades away and I'm in darkness, a void, a place I've never been. The Siberian night of the mind. My mind sees everything that my mind cannot. There is no color, no texture, no depth, no velocity, no time. Nothing. Everything is still and tranquil. Everything is. I am. But am I?

I am something that glistens when wet. Green fountains spurt forth into the venomous world a gel of joy. So rested me by the tumtum tree.

I am in a cave, I am of the cave, I am clawing my way through the mud. I am face to face with a white bunny with blue eyes. He is holding a green egg with yellow spots. Gingerly, he smiles a tender smile. He is in my way.

"This is the king's highway," he begins, "All who pass here must pay the tax."

"But you're a bunny. A white fluffy bunny with one floppy ear and a tender smile."

"What is your business here," quipped the bunny.

"I don't quite know. I'm seeking something I may never find."

"Don't we all…"

Was it a question or a statement or both? I hadn't time to philosophize the question when I noticed the green egg sparkle.

"What's that you've got there?"

"It's a present I'm waiting to give someone." The green egg was now resting by his feet.

"Anyone in particular?"

"No one of much matter unless they can use it themselves."

"Say, bunny, who are you and why are you here?"

"This is the king's highway-"

"Yes, I've established whose highway this is, but what is your business here?"

"I'm the white bunny of truth. And this here is my egg. If you pat my head, I give you the egg."

"So there's some sort of quest or challenge I have to undertake to accomplish this if so inclined? I have to race you or seek an oracle?"

"No, no such nonsense. Leave that for mythology. All you have to do is pat my head."

"And I get the egg?"

"Yours at a price."

"Now there's a price. I knew it. And it is?"

"The egg will hatch and in it there'll be a white bunny, much like myself. That white bunny will have an egg, much like this one. So long as you have your bunny in your hand, you'll never be able to lie or avoid telling the truth. An honest bunny for you."

"Funny, bunny. That all seems a bit hokey, doesn't it?"

"You ask a lot of questions without listening. Life is too short to be clever. Just be."

"I am."

"Are you?"

"I don't know."

"That's what I thought."

"So, what do you have to do with the king's highway?"

"I'm here to point the way away from it. To point the way to the rabbit trail. Not everyone will take an egg from me because they fear being poisoned by the truth."

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't?"

"Aren't we all?"

"We are."

"Well, pat my head and lightly mind you, and let me go about my way. There's other stories I've got to get myself written into and life's too short."

The bunny gets a pat and I get as payment one green egg with yellow spots. He starts down a trail, motions for me to follow, and scampers out of sight. Best to be off the king's highway, it's bound to be lined by thieves, paved by thieves. I've already proven its filth by crawling through the mud of it.

This path off the king's highway led to a shack. It was littered with friends I had had my entire life and friends I've yet to meet. The place was decorated with folk art with quotes painted brightly on wood. "Your mind is infinite." "Consumerism is a cash cow."

But the friends were slowly packing up their things and moving on, leaving the shack and disappearing through the door, not to return. It may have been minutes, it may have been years, and all were gone save one. Me. I packed a Ziploc bag full of my possessions and took a long look around.

It was time to go. I was holding onto something that was gone. An ideal? People? All? Gone. Vanished. Moving on.

The moon is shining down, glimmering against the night sky, in the night sky, somewhere a million infinite miles away reachable only by rocket ship of some sort or another. The moon.

"Señor? Señor? Excuse me, Señor. Are you to need assistance? Your pants are in the pool and the shoes too."

"Soy del mundo," I said.

"Sí, very good, but the shoes in the pool sir?"

My eyes focus and the moon becomes a balding man with square plastic glasses. Another lapse in my train of thought. My train derailed. In honor of the human interrupting me, I pull my wet legs out of the water and stand. The sky is a sweet cerulean blue; clouds and stars absent. Yes, shoes in the pool, is there something wrong with that?

"Maybe I am lost," I announce. "Do you know they way?"

"To where, sir?"

"I'm not sure."

"Are you a guest?"

"Aren't we all?"

"What is your room number, sir?"

"What?"

"Which room are you to stay in?"

"Room. Yes, room." Room and space to play, somewhere to go far, far away. I need to go where the moose and the buffalo roam. Roam. Room.

By standing, I was able to move. The effects of this worm are by far more than I had ever experienced with the psuedo-psychometric drugs bought and sold in the halls of America's schools. My legs, moving in conjunction with the rest of my body and guided slightly by the concerned hotel man on my side, found way to the lobby. I searched my vocabulary for the word that is the same in every language in the world. Taxi. Mr. Buras will take his taxi now.

I crawled into the passenger seat of the taxi summoned for me and muttered a word or two. The words were enough to get the taxi moving and headed somewhere I had yet to discover. I tried to process words, both in English and in Spanish, but there was nothing but a dissonant, garbled sound. Burbling warbles with the Mexican radio.

The taxi stops in front of a red door prompting the driver to turn and face me. He's speaking and motioning to the door. I have no idea what he is saying because my ability to comprehend any language is lost. All sound is distorted and the sounds waves bounce off of me and ripple away into the far reaches of space until they disappear or cause a tsunami.

I try and open the door, but I can't figure out how the handle works. I push, pull, turn, twist and still nothing. Nothing but a Mexican pointing to a red door and sound emanating from his mouth. He is a dragon, his fire breath engulfing me in flames. Burn mighty Aphrodite! His eyes stalk me like prey and when he points again, his fingers turn to snakes. The car is on fire from his breath and I wish I had a regurgitated clove of garlic to fend it off. Just as I am about to be engulfed by the flames, the door opens and fresh air extinguishes it all.

A manicured hand pulls me from the seat.

"Poppy, you come now. You come now with Mariposa."

A field of poppies and one mariposa, one butterfly, flitting around gaily to each and every one. A million poppies and in the center, me. "You come now," and I get up, I allow myself to be pulled up. If I had the strength to resist, I doubt if I'd have the will to. In my stupor, she's pulling me along, the willing child, ever deeper into the field.

Behind the red door, there are couches with men sitting on them. Women flow through, sit, touch the men's hands, sometimes bringing a drink, sometimes hoisting them out of their seat and down a hall. I am down a hall, down a long stained brown hall, behind a brown door, under brown sheets with a brown woman that has red lips. Everything is animalistic, everything is raw, and instead of what is, it is the tango.

We move, two old lovers reunited, dressed in red in a blue jungle. A car passes every so often, a horn honking as it goes by. An orchestra is lit by the woeful moonlight to match the rhythm of our movements. A symphony of lust, of passion, of a butterfly flitting about crazily and I am drunk on the milk of her blossoming flower. In the end a crash, a reckless collision, an intrusion and an explosion. I disappear inside her and with me, my future.

I fall asleep and I awake to, am awoken by, the gentle shaking of my shoulder. I have dozed off in delirium and feel dozed over, but as my eyelids peel open, my vision is sparkly. Little stars glimmer and when Mariposa comes into view, her face glitters.

"Poppy, you sound like animal when you sleep." When she says animal, I hear ahn-nee-mahl.

She snorts and contorts her esophagus and makes every other horrid sound she learned to make in grade school.

"Like ahn-nee-mahl," and she growls like a lion.

I am sweaty and I feel a small bead of sweat crawl from the top of my forehead down to my left ear via my face. I have to move. I have to have movement. I am like animal; I've procreated and now I need to run, to go anywhere. To be away from where I've been and chase my own tail for a change.

"I want to play with the animals," I inform her.

"Yes! You are animal!" she says with great triumph and claws at my chest.

I sit up. I bounce up until I am on all fours and my naked butt is in the air. I pounce on her. After pinning her, I begin preening her with my tongue. She claws at the back of my head and my shoulders with ferocity. All the while screaming, "Animal! Animal!"

I become the animal once again this night, so moved by the purring and pouncing and clawing and cooing and preening. When I am done, I wash up in the sink and pick my clothes up from the floor. I want to play with the animals. I want to pet mountain goats and eat peyote and disappear into cavernous places.

"Vamos," I tell her.

"Donde?" she responds.

"Outside," I say, only to be met with a confused look. I search for the words to help her understand what is in my mind, finding that the subtle matriculation of thoughts are conveyable in quick bursts of pigeon Spanish.

"Yo quiero jugar con los animales," but I fear I've used the wrong words.

Instead of heading for the door to show the comprehension of the urgency for the task to be undertaken, she laughs and crashes down on the bed. I grab her hand and pull at her naked body.

"ROPAS!" she yells. I let go and she crashes down again. Yes, very good, right, ropas. Best for both of us to have on clothes. Hers were still strewn about the room and mine were bundles under my left arm.

I toss her what scattered pieces I find and haphazardly dress myself. Time is not only of the essence, it is essence itself if such a thing be possible.

Within minutes, we dart from behind the red door and into the street in what could be described as a cross between chaotic fury and calm resolve. Privately, I call this the walk of compassionate conservatism as I'm trying to walk with a purpose yet save my energy for when it's really needed. My mind is reeling and I am moments away from bending over and vomiting, which happens with great, spurting thunder before we've cleared the end of the block.

"Poppy!"

"No," my hand extends to keep her an arm's length away, "soy bueno."

The sickness passes as quickly as it had come and I was off and trotting again, Mariposa's hand tightly in mine. Her shoes click-clacketing on the cobblestones. The sound echoed in my head. I am the fearless lion and she my ruby-footed friend.

Despite the sounds of the city, music filled my head; an auditory flashback of black women singing melodic chorus higher and higher and a lone white voice, a lone male voice, trailing, "There's someone in my head, but it's not me." I am going away and somewhere, there's someone else moving in like a gopher, digging deeper, more complicated paths.

I am moving forward without any one direction. A whisper comes to mind. "Make haste." I am searching for something. An ideal. Something guided by the night and found in the light. My untutored mind wraps around itself and asks what is important. What is important?

Courage, my friend. Stay the course. Fidelity to principle, my friend. Know thyself. Congeniality, my friend. Know others. Wisdom, my friend. Seek knowledge for knowledge sake. Control, my friend. Master yourself.

I am alone, standing on a hill, staring out at a vast valley. Lighting sets the sky afire and a laurel of victory crowns my head. All of Rome will hail me when the bloodbath is over. A blazing banner reaches across the midnight sky, "en toutoi nika."

Whose victory is this? Whose victory will this be?

"When you are at the chill river of death…" a voice says and fades away.

"When the night is at its darkest…"

"More precious than rubies…"

"Open your eyes and lift your head heavenward…"

I collapse, tears streaming down my face. Everything and nothing is real. I am lying on the pavement looking at the golden doors open. I was a simple man and I am fading away. I am a simple man.

"You are a simple man," the white rabbit says, walking up from behind to enjoy the hilltop view. He looks up at the banner and lets out a sigh.

"Yes," I agree matter of factly.

"Where have you been in your mind?" he asks.

"I'm not quite sure."

"Then why are you crying?"

"Because I'm lost," I tell him.

"Don't you see? Everybody is lost. No one ever really knows who they are or where they're going. No one knows himself that well. The purpose is to find the medium between who you are and who you think you are. It's the coefficient in how you move through life. Whew, that's a mouthful."

I said nothing. What could I say? What do you tell a white, fuzzy bunny when it starts spouting philosophy?

With that, the white, fuzzy bunny reached over and gave me a pat on the back.

"It's never as bad as it seems."

"Is it that bad?"

"I'm afraid it is."

"What do I do?" I ask.

"Whatever it is your supposed to."

"Which is?"

"Who's the silly rabbit now? It's all about finding the answers out on your own. What did I tell you earlier?"

"That you have other stories to get written into."

"Right, but that wasn't what I was looking for. I said, 'just be.' Now, haven't you spent enough time slumped on this dingy corner hallucinating? Get up and move on. There are other stories, remember? You can't dwell in just one."

"But I threw up."

"Good, there begins the journey. Now you can really begin."

Friendly bunny bends down, rubs my head compassionately, and stands.

"This is the last time you'll see me, I hope, for your sake more than mine."

"Where will I go?"

"There is a cosmic land between those two ears of your, visit it for a change. Go where no man has ever gone before. No western man, that is."

A chuckle and a wave and down the hillside he goes. The fire emblazoned sky with words written on it fades into a wall, graffiti painted on the side in bright orange, yellow and red. I need to go, there are animals in the desert in need of my playfulness.

A taxi pulls alongside the curb as though ordained by god herself. The taxi is inviting because it can take me out of where I was. Mariposa is tugging at my arm. She wants me to go one way; I want to go another, I need to go another. I hop in and shout the word for desert.

"No hombre," is the response.

"Medio de vía de Cuidad de México."

"No hombre."

"Rápido amigo, yo tengo un conejo loco y es muy importante."
"Okay, okay." The second international word that need no translation.

The drive to Mexico City is a long one and one that I do not intend to complete. I've learned the hard way that you can get let off in a taxi anywhere if you tell them that you haven't any money. Sometimes you get a friendly and justly deserved beating, but it will get you where you need to go. What I perceive to be half way through the desert, somewhere between Manzanillo and Mexico City, I play pigeon Spanish with the driver. Through our conversation, I drop the fact that I have no money, though I do and just don't want to share. The tires of the car screech to a halt and the yelling in a foreign tongue commences.

I get out, assuming by the foul gestures that I am no longer wanted. He'll show me, he'll leave me in the middle of the desert. And then, there I am, where I wanted to go all the while, though I am not exactly certain it's anywhere I'd want to be. The taxi speeds ahead, dust flying everywhere, and takes a u-turn to head straight for me. At the last moment, he swerves and curses and spits and speeds away, the one twinkling rear light disappearing into the distance.

One light twinkling in the distance gaining near null and void and the shut down of all amalgamations of thought dismissed. Everything that was once big and important can be or has been found wanting, found little where once there was largess. Think it all away and, with timid lucidity, remember there's sand beneath my feet and I an no longer bigger than any of the millions of grains spread around me. I kneel, jellied knees quivering and calling me to crawl.

I am larva. I am less than that. I am a single-celled, microscopic thing that is invisible. I slither down to my belly and crawl. The child has been born. I walk, Christ has risen. The world is blood-washed in bright colors, stone-washed in pale opaque blues of loneliness and serenity, faded and sparkling. Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine nights later, I am in a Mexican desert. The sounds of night are alive, are crawling about, hopping about, chirping, singing. I am compelled to wonder off the road and sit against a rock to look into the layers of night sky. To watch the stars dance. The cacti are my audience.

I verbally expound the nature of my being. I am here to be. There is nothing significant about me, but I am significant to some around me. I vanish; I disappear into the many multi-layered folds of self and disintegrate further until all my being dissipates like dew touching all. Prickly things reach out to me, needful things, and I know better than to slap it away. I've been bitten before on a peyote night by a fierce jumping cholla. I hug life emphatically and the wolves howl, the cherubs scowl and I surface my submarine psyche for air.

I am in the middle of the stars, their brightness telling their distance. The cameras never catch what the man can and I can-can the proverbial dance of el sinistre. Witches and widows linger in the shadows and the phrase comes to mind, "Is, such as I, that you are." Words of a prophet. Where is that white rabbit now? Deep inside a pocket? I have truth for you, there is no truth, only subtle subjugation of will.

I can go on for days like this, somewhere in the limbo of the mind, but I'm awakening. Awakening to sleep with giants, to leap from mountaintops, to soar with croaking buzzards hungry in their plight. I have been to the valley of Jericho, seen timbered walls, fought off salt barons and whimsical cotton gods alike and I am here.

I am here and I am content and all else is bullocks. There is a rabid transparency in the world, in the hearts and minds of plastic-bred children, in the psyche of the modern, western soul. I'll have no part of it. I will cross the river Jordan and wade my way to bliss. There'll be no parting rivers, feet stomping or hallelujahs over it, just a resounding calm. Can I get an amen? Now fall face first into the glory of the lord and know redemption, know salvation, know rest and tranquility, know thyself.

There are dawns and then there is the dawn and I have awoken to something bright, but not blinding. More than the morning has come. I have arrived. I was ill and wallowing in a dusty place and it had never been more evident than when it was actually occurring. Long before it occurred, it was my reality. I was indeed a tired a man and I never realized it.

I wasn't born to chase after white rabbits on someone else's highway, I was taught that. I wasn't born to do a lot of the things I was taught. I've come to a red door, alright, and I know there are sweet candies on the other side, but I'm no whore myself so why should I ask someone else to be one for me?

When the light shines in the west, it is because the day is soon turning to darkness. I've been in that darkness and no ready made contingency is going to win a war that doesn't exist. The battle is within me and it's been lost for way too long. I will dangle my feet no longer. With that, the sermon is over. The church of what's happening now will close its doors.

I stand and dust myself off and begin following what I believe to be my footprints in the sand, back to the road where I was abandoned. I look in each direction when I get to the road and determine that it is just as long one way as it is the other. Nothing is left to do but walk.

After a short while an old bus comes clamoring up from the horizon and crustily screeches to a halt.

"Amigo, ¿Donde vas?"

"No se. ¿Que vía para Estados Unidos?"

The driver looks at me like the crazy gringo I must look like.

"Otra vía," he gestures with his thumb pointing behind him. "Esta bus va a la estado de Chiapas."

"Okay. Yo voy contigo."

"Okay. Treinta pesos."

And that was my mad escape into the jungles of Mexico, eschewing job and responsibility, possessions and debt, and leaving my old self dead in the desert. All of it started with a worm, a man I called brother, and a journey that introduced me to my own strangers and made them my friends. A bus ride to tranquility far from cities and televisions and People magazine. A start of something new with nothing more than the clothes I had on. Perhaps foolish and yet perhaps just the thing. Never has it been clearer and I smile a gentle smile as I disappear into the distance, away from all those who think they knew me.