Return of the Nabis

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But Randy heard it at the top of her final workout at sunrise the day after Jalen gave her the signal to prepare the cabinet. She was hanging upside down from the parallel bars on her rooftop deck overlooking a sweltering Battery Park City. As the blood rushed to her brain, the beads of sweat trickled down her mostly shaven head to the nape of her neck where they pooled at the bottom of her hourglass tattoo.

The moon was right where she was told it would be, low on the horizon, slight, glistening silver, winking at her intelligently. Her state was high and vibrating so that the scream bypassed her ears and went straight through every pore. The goosebumps throughout her body airlifted her into a knowing that sparked paroxysms of laughter and tears that barely seemed her own. She let them crash against her like waves before she summersaulted back onto her feet. Now the knowing was spreading softly through her body, settling into her cells. She slid her sunglasses onto her slippery skin and headed straight to the restaurant on the Hudson River. Jalen was right, she now knew exactly what to do.

The previous day reached a feverish temperature of 104 in NYC and Randy and Jalen were meeting for iced Rooibos tea at Randy’s restaurant, as usual at 4:30, just as they had for the past five years for the singular purpose of Jalen prepping Randy for the occasion of the impending scream of Helean.

Jalen walked through the door with a more worried look that day, sat down solemnly, and looked Randy straight in the eye: “I don’t really miss the future, but the time has come, Randy”. Randy, having developed a somewhat humorous tone with Jalen, flicked Jalen’s silken scarf off her bald head. “Very funny” she said chuckling nervously now, realizing Jalen rarely uttered her name.

Jalen said nothing, and just held her expression.

Randy was stunned, serious now too, matching Jalen’s tone.

“No, no. You mean it’s about to happen? It was a hoax, right? You just made it up to get my attention. Why should I care about the scream?”

“Don’t say that Randy. You’ll care when you realize what it means. My whole purpose for coming back to this god damn greenhouse was to prepare you for this specific event,” she paused for a charged moment, “not for our love,” she said hiccuping almost. I’ve been trying to explain it all to you, but you can’t possibly understand the cosmic forces involved in this mess. We’ve travelled multiple cycles through time to bring this moment to fruition and we can’t fuck it up this time- I can’t let that happen,” she said.

“Ouch, so you’re saying this, this impending scream means more to you than us?”

“Oh my gosh, Randy, please, you’ll understand everything really soon now, don’t waste your time misinterpreting things. Remember: focus mind, focus body, then focus mind over body and find what the moment is asking of you.”

“It’s asking me to be mad at you!” Randy gave Jalen her back.

It had been years of Jalen training Randy so that she would know what to do when the scream awakened her: meditations, sun soaks, head inversions of all kinds, harsh physical workouts, elixirs, talismans, and myriad challenges that Randy barely took seriously, but her love for Jalen made it all intriguing and tolerable. Randy had been orphaned at a young age during the great floods and none had ever taken an interest in her. So, when Jalen one day knocked on Randy’s door and claimed that she was the sought after heroine of some cosmic drama, Randy was flattered and hooked on the new narrative.

Jalen had searched several galaxies before finding Randy. The coordinates fit several star systems with their own versions of ‘earth’ and led Jalen down some unsavory tracks on parallel dimensions. Once she landed on ‘Earth Kazari 2040’, as the Nabis called it, it was a breeze from there. Several 7th dimensional beings were already hovering over Randy to signal her location and they led Jalen right to her restaurant in her third dimensional form.

She met all the criteria, and was just as Helean had described her, working diligently as the owner of an East Village restaurant. ‘Tall, flat headed with large green eyes enhanced by thick eyeliner, a single tattoo on the back of her neck, a crooked smile, and confident air. She’ll greet you under an oversized Murano blown glass chandelier with earth’s blue green hues set in a bronze armature depicting chiseled angel wings. The main scent of the venue will be that of melted butter and lemon, the texture of the walls, stucco. In the back of the restaurant by the bread and water station, you will find a cupboard with a guitar and a large collection of antique winged hearts hanging from rusty nails. She’ll tell you that she inherited them from her mother, but that will be a lie. She goes by Randy though her true name is Randaleen and it was given to her by me, though she will have never heard of me.’

Randy remembered the moment she met Jalen and all the years of prep work. She appeared bereft suddenly, stunned by the news of the impending scream. “Are you sure?” She asked dove-eyed.

Jalen took Randy’s hand. “Like I said, I’ve never been more sure. I know you’ve been amusing me all these years, but you’re about to find out everything. Be patient, it’s only a short while from here. ” She paused again, and kept her gaze low, as though embarrassed: “you’ll never see me the same way again.”

Randy hadn’t seen Jalen make that facial expression before. She was confused, off kilter, as though the person she had admired for five years had suddenly prostrated herself in front of her. She took a few steps back and couldn’t find what she was feeling. It was like stepping into a different movie, where all roles were reversed. All she could do now was perfunctorily follow the instructions Jalen had left her, but there was no more Jalen.

She turned to the cabinet. Jalen had told her she would one day use as a dressing room, theater, altar, and time machine all at once. She understood this on some level based on the Nabis teachings, but could she sense it now with her body like Jalen had said she would? Not at all. It was just the fucking bread, water, napkins station at the back of the restaurant that she had painstakingly decorated with her collection of brass winged hearts. Vintage and antique was always better, she convinced herself, in a world where everything was automated, including the wait staff. Heck, she had even lied about the origin of the winged hearts and still Jalen seemed to read so much into her chosen decor. Maybe she wasn’t the right Randy, she feared.

* * *

Randy walked briskly and confidently towards the restaurant. She kept checking her thoughts to see if she could find Randy in there still. She felt reassured anytime she remembered the great floods of 2030 - as tragic as they were for her, they were a bulwark memory in Randy’s experience. Randy was still there, but all perception was now altered, and Randy’s memories existed along several other plot lines.

She entered the cabinet. She put on some make up. Eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, blush almost seemed to form magically on her face, and she thought of all the rock stars before her who had done that, like they knew the secret that Jalen had taught her of the power of playing with androgyny and transfiguration. She recalled now how the future was a place where bodily appearance and all other aspects of self could change with just a thought. She recalled how Jalen laughed that folks didn’t use this ability: “you’re only in the beginning stages of all of this- it amazes me how little you all access your abilities,” she quipped one day. Much of Jalen’s mission was to teach Randy some of these “skills”.

Randy grew her hair and her extremities, and slipped on a voluptuous body like it was a dress. She grabbed the largest of the winged hearts, placed it on her torso as a shield, and started walking barefoot towards the river. The river would be cold, she thought, but that would help her move into her next dimensional body. She looked up at the skyline, and saw several flickering horizons with buildings coming and going through time. More and more realities were opening themselves up to her. As the ascension began, chills moved through Randy’s multitudinous bodies as the reality that Jalen had raped Helean on the 9th dimension dawned on her. Was she now a pawn in Jalen’s multiverse? Despite all of the epiphanies of the moment, she realized she knew very little.

“