Ben Soul

by Richard George

cornhusker’s lotion. It took several applications and a couple of days to heal the soreness. Notta rang up DiConti and had him bring home a child gate that same day.

  She-Who-Smells-Like-Flowers took to standing for long periods looking over the woven-wire fence between the manor yard and the pasture. Hyacinth could no longer wander at will across the yard. Hyacinth and the unicorn in llama disguise slowly learned to communicate mentally, since they couldn’t get together. She-Who-Shuns-Males tried, at first, to keep her cría from the fence, but eventually gave up. She was a llama mother, and in some measure rejoiced that her cría was growing up.

  Notta hovered over Hyacinth for several days, afraid to let the child out of her sight. Emma noticed Notta’s demeanor, and, of course, had heard about Hyacinth’s escapade. Little by little she engaged Notta’s interest in other things than her child. It was not the first time a wise grandmother prevented a mother’s concern from smothering a child. When she deemed Notta sufficiently distracted, Emma took Hyacinth to see the llamas. They soon made it a daily habit, weather permitting. Ermentrude kept guard, however, even through her naps. She did not sleep soundly until well after Hyacinth’s third birthday.

  The Villainous Villainess

  Pondering the Abyssal

  The Swami Rirenda Fendabenda always consulted the I Ching soon after breakfast. He first wrote a question across the top of his open notebook page. Today it was, “Do my dreams from last night portend good fortune or ill fortune?” Then he laid down his pen, folded his hands, and bowed three times to the joss sticks burning before the three Boddhisattvas. He put three cash, small round Chinese coins with square holes, in a cup made of ostrich leather. He shook the three coins in their leather cup. Then he cast them on the altar before the Boddhisattvas. The coins slid softly to a stop at the base of the clay statues. Each showed a side with two characters. The Swami drew a broken line on the notebook page beside him. In the break he drew a small circle.

  He scooped up the coins and returned them to the cup. He shook the cup and threw them again. One of the coins showed the four characters; the other coins showed the side with two characters. The swami drew a solid line above the broken line. Again he cast the coins. This time one of the coins showed two characters, and the other two landed with the four-character face showing. The Swami drew a broken line. He frowned. The trigram K’an, which symbolized water, always disturbed him. A fortune teller had warned him in his adolescence to avoid sailing, swimming, and other water sports, because great harm lay in the water waiting for him.

  The three remaining coin casts built a second K’an trigram on the first. The ideogram was K’an, the Double Water, commonly called the Abyssal. The Swami sighed, and opened his I Ching. The reading for the Judgment said, “The Abyssal doubled (Danger!); if you are sincere in your heart, you will succeed in your actions.” The Symbol said, “Water flows unending into the deep places, this is a symbol of doubled water. The superior man maintains his virtue and continues teaching.”

  The Swami also consulted the saying for the first line, since all the coins had shown the same face). It read, “Bottom six: water flows again and again. One falls into the water pit. Misfortune ensues.” The Swami carefully copied these comments into his notebook. He shook his head. “I hate water signs,” he muttered.

  The changing bottom line formed the sixtieth ideogram, “Limitation.” He consulted the I Ching again. The Judgment for this ideogram read, “Limitation; success. Do not persevere in galling limitation.” The Symbol section read, “Water over the Lake is the image of Limitation. The superior man creates numbers and measures, and measures correct conduct against virtue.” The Swami wrote these things in his notebook.

  He wrote in his notebook, “This ideogram portends darkness. Some danger waits in my forward path. With good fortune, I may recognize it in time to avert it. I do not wish to stumble into any pits. Moderation is key, I think, at this moment. I shall let my bottle of Ripper Ridge Riesling rest a while longer.” He tapped his teeth with the top of his pen. He sighed and put his notebook, the I Ching, the coins, and the cup in a drawer on the side of the desk that held the Boddhisattvas. Restless, he decided to go out walking.

  In her cottage Mae Ling took three ordinary American dimes from her change pile. She shook them in her hand like dice, and then cast them on the cloth of her kitchen table. She did this six times and produced the ideogram K’an, the Abyssal. The third time she cast her three dimes showed tails. This meant that for her the third line changed. She read the words for the third line: “Six in the third place means: Forward and backward, abyss on abyss. In danger like this, pause at first and wait, otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss. Do not act in this way.” A second translation she consulted, though less verbose, also advised against action. She also read the Symbol and Judgment for hexagram number forty-eight, the Well. It, too, promised misfortune, and urged cooperative action to overcome it. Mae shook her head. Some turbulence, not yet a fear, stirred in her mind. She put her I Ching away and went out to walk and think in the open air.

  Cooperation suggested consultation. She met the Swami on the path. She had often discussed I Ching results with him before. He understood the process, and had studied the philosophy that underlay the book.

  “Good morning,” she said to him. The wind tousled her black hair. The Swami watched it blow strands away from her bald spot and then cover them up again. For reasons he never explored the process fascinated him.

  “Hello, Mae,” he said. “Bright morning, isn’t it?” The overcast glowed with a pearly fire where the sun threatened to melt it. Glints of silver sparkled on the cove’s waves. Beyond the cove mouth subdued surf splashed gently against the toes of Obaheah and Obadiah. Chill air did not trouble Mae and the Swami. They had lived in the village long enough to consider such temperatures normal. It was the violent summer heat of Las Tumbas that devastated them.

  Mae had her reading glasses on. The mist had cleared slowly from them. She wondered now why the world seemed fuzzy. The Swami said to her, “Been reading already this morning, Mae?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, realizing suddenly her glasses were on her nose. She took them off. The world leaped into relative clarity. She let the reading glasses fall against her breast. She had them on a chain around her neck. “Sad reading,” she said. She shook her head. “I cast the I Ching,” she went on. “I got K’an, the Doubled Water. It is a very sad hexagram.”

  The Swami frowned. A hint of fear entered his eyes. “I, too, got that hexagram this morning,” he said. “What do you suppose that means?” It was most uncommon for both Mae and the Swami to cast the same hexagram on the same morning.

  Mae shook her head. “I would guess it means it applies to more than our individual questions,” she said. “I don’t know that, of course, and the commentaries don’t offer much interpretation for groups instead of individuals.” She rubbed her neck where the chain that held her reading glasses rubbed her skin under her collar. “Still, that we both got it the same morning, that is unusual.”

  “Does anybody else in the village consult the I Ching?” the Swami asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I don’t know of anybody, either.”

  “For the time being, it is best we keep this to ourselves, then,” Mae said. “It troubles me that it may mean something bad is going to happen to all of us.”

  “We can only wait and see. Did you have any changing lines?”

  “Yes, the third. That led me to the Well, number forty-eight. It suggested cooperation may avert misfortune. Did you cast any changing lines?”

  “Yes,” the Swami said, “the first. That led me to number fifty-nine, Limitation. That speaks of limits, measuring, and comparing one’s actions to virtue.”

  “Let us ponder on these things,” Mae said. “I must go now.”

  “I, too, must go. I’m off to c
ollect my mail. Can I get you anything while I’m at Wong’s?”

  “No, thank you. I’m well-stocked on everything. Walk carefully today.”

  “I will. Please do likewise.”

  “Okay.” Mae turned toward her cottage. The Swami walked toward San Danson Station.

  In the desert psychic forces gathered dark thunderclouds over a rusty outcrop above a prison. Under the cove waters the Crablord scuttled uneasily from shellfish bed to halibut fry schools, sampling a little one place and then a little in another. Some disturbance in the universe upset his feeding. Butter whined in her sleep on Ben’s lap. He stroked her rump, quieting her. The young unicorn wept tears she did not understand as she tore the green grass from the ground.

  At El Serrucho Oxidado

  El Serrucho Oxidado Penitentiary takes its name from the saw-toothed sandstone outcropping that dominates the eastern horizon near the prison. The formation is particularly striking in its color, as most of the Sangre Negro Mountains are dark colored basalt. Before European settlement, several tribes of the deserts accounted the sandstone formation a holy place. Seasonally, the tribes came to trade, particularly in coral from the coastal tribes for turquoise from the inland tribes.

  The location is remote. The legislature