Merge by Walter Mosley

Author:Walter Mosley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

“No.”

I wanted nothing more than to be a blade of grass at base of her, the Touchstone. I could be a fluttery crystal wing floating through the sky destined to become a mountain or the germ of a single thought.

“No.”

I could fight the gray withering death. I knew what it was to struggle and battle. All the Ido knew was how to come together.

“No.”

With all my heart and being I strained to stay in the dream of the Ido. The Ido where I was also we, where past was now and future held no shadows. Ido, where mind was not certainty but musical improvisation that never stopped playing to a world where dance and breath were one.

* * *

WHEN I OPENED MY EYES I was on the floor. Pete and Cylla and Gorda sat around me. They all had their hands on me. They seemed worried.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We almost lost you, brothah,” Pete said.

This made me smile. He was looking down on me, caring maybe for the first time about who I was and what I felt.

“We were never friends before were we, Pete?”

“How could we be, man? We didn’t know nuthin’.”

Gorda moved her hand up higher on my thigh. It was then that I realized I was naked.

“You drifted after a place that is only in our minds,” Pete’s ideal woman said to me. “You would have disappeared if we had not held on to you.”

I felt their psychic embrace still. It was as if I were being tethered by webbing or thick glue. Inwardly I sighed, realizing that the dream of Ido would never be a reality for me. I was of the belligerent Earth, child of violence and dysfunction. My only hope was to transform my world as Ido life had informed me.

I stood up feeling strong and hopeful. Cylla had brought me clean clothes. I dressed quickly while my friends talked in low tones. The world was in my hands and with every motion I felt history being made.

“Ready to go?” I said to Pete.

“Let’s hop to it,” Pete replied.

* * *

THE GIRLS SAID that they would take a walk while we attended to business.

On the street my old-new friend and I walked slowly, side by side. He was slimmer, darker skinned by a shade or two. He’d put on one of my suits because his clothes were destroyed by the transition. There was a smile on his face. Pete kept looking around at strangers and dogs on leashes, at birds fluttering and even at zipping insects here and there.

“Do you think that we’ve been brainwashed?” I asked him.

“Brainwashed?” he declared. “Here you done died twice in one day and you worried about bein’ brainwashed?”

“Do you think they’re tryin’ to use us to take over the world?” I said.

“No. Do you?”

“I have to ask, man. What we’re doin’ is serious shit here. Once it gets started it’s not gonna stop.”

“It’s already started, brothah. It’s already that.”

* * *

HILDA ARDMAN ANSWERED our knock. She was light

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