The boy had a long walk home. He was $400 richer but felt poorer than he had even been in his entire life. As if until this moment, his spirit had been begging for coins on the streets. He felt powerful, but at the same time very weak for yielding such power. 

He was struggling to keep his ego in check. It was all he could do to stop himself from throwing his hands into the sky and screaming that he was God. 

He found his grandmother humming a gospel song to herself as he walked into the house, stirring a big pot of gumbo.

“Hi baby.” She said to him cheerfully as he kissed her on the cheek.

“Hi grandma.” He peered into the pot smelling the rich seafood aroma steaming from the broth. 

“What’s the occasion?” He asked.

“You cooked me breakfast.” She said with a huge grin on her face. “So I’m cooking you dinner.”

They smiled at each other.

“Thanks grandma.” He said.

“Thank you baby.” She said as she started to cry again. The boy hugged her. “Your grandpa would be so proud of you.” She sobbed.

“You can’t keep making a habit out of this.” The boy replied with a laugh as he felt his eyes begin to water, a sense of deep compassion swelling up in the middle of his chest. He rubbed his grandmother’s back saying, “Ima go out back for a while then come in and take a shower, Ok?” He asked.

“Ok.” She managed to say.

The boy made his way towards the shed, wiping away tears from his face as he smiled. Once inside his sanctuary, he went straight to his grow box where the light buzzed and the fan whirred. He opened it and looked at his plant, frosty crystals and orange hairs beginning to form on the buds emerging from the purple stems.

He placed his hands together and closed his eyes, silently praying over the plant. He didn’t utter a word, no Namaste, no Our Father. Just a warm, silent acknowledgement that all things are born, live, and die; but the life we do live is beautiful.

He opened his eyes and spritzed the bottom of the plant with water until it was moist. He closed the door, locked it, and sat down to roll a joint. 

He was thinking about the man who got shot as he twisted the rolling paper into completion. He probably had a family, parents that definitely missed him. How easily that could have been him in another time, another life.

Maybe even the one he was living had he continued to make certain decisions. He was thankful for the old man, feeling like he had saved him from some unforeseen doom. He wanted to show his gratitude by learning everything the old man had to teach him.

Maybe one day he could take over the store. He leaned back in his chair, puffing away as he contemplated the future.

After his shower, and a big bowl of gumbo, the boy retired to his room to finally read the book the old man had given him. He learned that mushrooms were actually the fruit of an organism called mycelium, and that people have been using mushrooms for ages, in all parts of the world.

He learned how to cultivate mushrooms, sterilize equipment, build containers, and prevent contamination. It was all very labor intensive, and he could see why the old man said it was more like alchemy than gardening. He felt like he was a scientist by the time he put the book down to fall asleep. 

He was thinking about school. He had dropped out only a couple of months ago, and already he felt like he knew what he wanted to do with his life. He started thinking of a poem in his head...

‘Microbes explode upon eons of code,

The force is strong you can feel it echo.

Crescendo into cosmos,

a visual manifesto.

Lights twinkle,

space dust erupts like volcanoes.’

Suddenly he felt as if there was some kind of force attempting to pull his spirit away from his body. The middle of his chest lunged forward with a WHOOM that he felt throughout his entire being. 

He clutched at his chest, what the hell was that, he thought. 

Then again, WHOOM, his body lunged forward again as he sat upright on his bed. 

He felt panicked but calm at the same time. Was he having a heart attack? It felt as if something was trying to physically separate his soul from his body.

A third WHOOM hit him, but his body did not lunge forward.

Instead, he saw the bed he was sitting on from a birds eye view, as if he was on the ceiling. Then he saw his grandmother’s house, and the entire neighborhood it resided in. He realized he was ascending upwards at a rapid pace and couldn’t stop it. As soon as it happened, it stopped. He was looking down into space.

A black void of matter, where he could see black entities with no faces trying to claw their way to where he was now standing, but they weren’t able to penetrate the realm upon which he now stood.

As he looked up, he realized he was in a kind of room that seemed to have no end or beginning to it. He was surrounded by light, it was an entire dimension of light! He turned around and felt a frightening pulse radiate through him, as before him stood at least 13 enormous transparent men.

They felt as if they were each the size of an entire planet. Each one different, but all were accompanied with a warriors garment, and an aura of power he had never felt before. It radiated from them as the sun radiates warmth. He felt dwarfed, infinitely small compared to the gods that he now stood before.

He felt as if he should attack them before they squashed him like a bug, when one of the men grabbed him with a ferocity that he would never feel again, with an intense and mighty hand he was pulled to him until they were face to face. He could see the long gnarled beard and eyes that spoke of all the rage in the universe. He felt rather than heard a voice boom inside of him. 

“You can’t kill me.” And with that, he was let go. 

He was now falling through space, almost floating downwards to a destination he did not know. On his journey, which felt like an eternity, he witnessed the miracles of the universe with his eyes. Pillars and clusters of colored gasses so vibrant and exclusive it was as if they were living entities. He could feel them singing to him, talking with him as he passed them by. If he could kiss them he would, they were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. No amount of sunsets or green grasses could compare to the gumbo pot of purity that he was witnessing.

THUD.

He felt himself slam hard into his body. His body took a deep, primordial breath inward as if he was a newborn baby. He opened his eyes, and upon exhalation, he bursted into tears. They weren’t tears of sadness, or joy, or even madness. It was a glory. Tears ran down his face as rain falls from heaven.

His physical mind was processing what his spiritual mind had just witnessed, but the images were too magnificent for his mind to comprehend. His brain was being overwhelmed the same way a computer overloads from excess data. His spirit felt a sense of longing to experience what he had just seen.

He sat in silence, and wept.

Next Chapter: The Prophet