Here At the End of All Things

There is a sense here at The Slabs that reality is tenuous and thin. You might be able to reach out in front of you and grasp the very air to gingerly tear it apart like cheesecloth. Reach through to another space and bring back slabs bearing new rules of governance for a different sort of happiness.

We saved Slab City for last in our voyage into loneliness because we knew how alien it would feel. There is a community here, miles from Niland, and we wanted to interact. We wanted to make ourselves known, and to know them.

We watch them from afar, timid and unsure. Will they share their fire and bread? Will we hear their strange songs rising into the night? Our supplies are short, and so is time.

We can’t wait any longer to make contact. The need for sustenance overwhelms our hesitation. We will be bold and forge ahead, no matter what comes.

We encounter Ira and his clan of free folk, living beyond the confines and structures of our society. They explain that they live off of love and pure exuberance. Their cups runneth over in East Jesus, filled to the brim with vitality.

There is a primal dissonance here as we realize that a part of us will always belong. A part of us stays there, buried in the sand with only an X to mark it. And that X will blow away soon enough.

But we have miles to go before we sleep.

We have gone into the wild and found succor there. It is time to go home and ponder our own freedoms.