She listened carefully, and out of the inky darkness below her
came a brief but explosive sound like air suddenly released from a ballon, followed immediately by
the sound of a gush of water becoming a waterfall. Above her came a hissing sound as light rain
fell softly on a metal roof. From her right came the calls of frogs and tropical birds. Slowly
evolving electronic tones came mostly from her left but also from behind her, where she could hear
people talking but couldn't make out the words.
There was no sound at all coming from directly in front of
her. From out of that utterly black field of silence a cylindrical patch of glowing red light was
criss-crossed with a jumble of dark lines slowly coalescing into the shape of a long, narrow,
menacing face, one of it's red eyes suddenly sparking into a brighter glow as the face turned to
look toward her right. As the face continued to rotate the lines coming into view on the left began
to form the disjointed shape of a man pulling a rickshaw, then the red light dimmed and the image
became unorganized.
Luna carefully positioned the glowing end of her cigarette so
it dimly illuminated the triangular gap between the toilet seat and her vagina, and just as she
tapped the cigarette to release the ash a tiny feeling of terror rippled upward through her chest as
she imagined the ember igniting her fart and sending flames out the gap to scorch her carefully
trimmed pubic hair, but the embers just hit the water with a surprisingly loud hiss.
She tried again to see faces and shapes in the glowing embers
of the cigarette without success, then her face twisted and contorted in an effort to avoid getting
smoke in her eyes as she held the cigarette in her mouth, needing both hands to fumble in the
darkness and pull some toilet paper from the roll.
"Hey, there is a line out here!" said a young man's voice
through the bathroom door behind her and to her right. It was Fredy, the obnoxious surfer dude who
thinks he is God's gift to women but is really just a skinny, unrealistic dreamer who every month or
so has a new plan to make millions and change the world but he never actually does anything.
Luna turned on the light and let the cigarette fall on top of
the toilet paper floating in the water, wondering if the tiny brown circle that formed around the
now black cherry was from the wet paper being burned or color being leached from the tobacco. She
pushed the handle and watched the small raft spin then disappear, relieved that the butt went down
and she wouldn't have to reach in to retrieve it -- sometimes they don't go down, ya know.
As Luna opened the door Fredy practically fell on top of her.
He was stumbling drunk and had been leaning his head against the door. Some of his long, bleached
blond hair was caught in his mouth and he spilled his drink on his Hawaiian shirt, baggy shorts and
"slippas," the name local Hawaiians use for flip-flop sandals.
"Jeeze Louise!" he said as he tried to regain his balance.
"This is a two-way street, ya know."
Luna stepped out into the unusually large entry of a small
but interesting house where a couple dozen people we scattered in small groups. To her left were
french doors covered with beveled glass windows leading to a large, tiled, covered porch (lani) that
ran the length of the building and wrapped around the other side of the kitchen -- where the lani
became an uncovered, wooden deck. From where she stood in the entry Luna could look through a large
passthrough in the wall to see the kitchen with it's new, cherry-stained wood cabinets and
sparkling, black granite counters. Beyond that was the beveled glass door to the kitchen deck with
its white, wooden railing high above the surrounding ground. The entry was about 20 feet long, 10
feet wide and had a high vaulted ceiling with a large fan rotating slowly in the center. At the far
end the entry opened into a large living room with hardwood floors and a vaulted ceiling of stained
wood and beams. Artwork crowded the walls. especially in the entry, except of course, for the
passthrough, with its wide, black granite counter flecked with tiny bits of copper glinting here and
there.
"Just ignore him," said Angela as the door slammed shut
behind Fredy.
"That guy is such a pig," said Luna. "I can't believe Conrad
would invite him to the party."
"I doubt he was invited," said Angela. "Conrad has a lot of
strange friends but they are all really cool when you get to know them."
A moment later the bathroom door flew open and Fredy bumped
into both of them as he came stumbling out.
"Excusem mua!" he muttered, spinning to regain his balance
while trying to do an exaggerated bow, then he disappeared into the small crowd.
"The jerk didn't even flush," said Luna, "let alone clean up
his spilled drink."
Angela reached into the passthrough and pulled a handful of
paper towels off the rack in the kitchen. "I'll wipe up his mess," she said, "but first I really
need to pee."
"You pee and I'll wipe it up," said Luna. They both entered
the bathroom and closed the door.
Angela sighed with relief as a tiny fart and rushing
waterfall came out before the toilet tank had even finished filling, or maybe the sigh was a
reaction to seeing Luna get on all fours on the floor, causing her super-sexy, heart-shaped ass and
yellow thong swimsuit bottom to peek out from under her red T-shirt. Before the sigh could be
recognized as attraction, which it may or may not have been, it was soon followed by envy and a tiny
bit of resentment. Angela is a blond, middle-aged white woman, tall and thin with small sagging
breasts, broad hips and a flat ass she hated. Luna is young and fit, eastern European or perhaps
hispanic, almost muscular with a tiny waist and small, firm breasts, flawless skin, long dark hair
and sparkling dark eyes that are so beautiful when she smiles it is hard to look away from them.
As they stepped out of the bathroom Angela excused herself to
rejoin the party and Luna began studying the various art pieces. The first painting was solid blue
with a metal frame. Luna wondered how modern artists seem to make a fortune selling paintings which
depict nothing at all and was disappointed to see such garbage, but as she stepped passed she
noticed what looked like shapes being reflected in the deep, dark blue. The painted surface was not
perfectly flat. It appeared as if thick layers of spray paint had been applied using masking tape,
then the tape removed to form lines and shapes before everything was covered with the glossy blue.
The rounded edges of each shape created thin lines of reflected light, and as Luna stepped past an
image suddenly appeared, a screaming face and bony hands pushing out through a thin rubber membrane,
causing Luna to step backward, almost gasping.
The next painting was mounted on a deep frame which stood
several inches out from the wall. It appeared to be a fairly uninteresting scene of a telescope
mounted on a tripod in an empty room. The telescope was positioned between two almost closed
curtains and pointed toward a high rise building across the way. The eyepiece of the telescope was
three-dimensional and protruded outward from the image, and there was a light glowing inside it.
Luna stepped up and peered into the eyepiece, which was just a tube without a lens. She was
surprised to find herself looking into a slightly angled mirror set several inches back from the
surface of the paining. The mirror reflected a second scene painted on the back of the first. The
image was round and blurred at the edges, creating the impression of looking through a real
telescope into the open window of a nearby apartment, where a naked, beautiful young woman was
propped up in bed holding a book in one hand while apparently fondling herself with the other.
"This guy is fucking weird," said Luna, essentially talking
to herself as she continued looking through the eyepiece.
"But it is a clever piece, don't you think?" said a man's
voice she didn't recognize. "If you look carefully at the image inside you will notice the
proportions have been stretched to maintain proper perspective even though you are looking at an
angle in the mirror."
Luna looked up to see an attractive but very skinny,
extremely tall caucasian man in his mid-thirties with long, wavy, light brown hair. He looked as if
a normal sized person had been stretched to be almost 7-feet-tall and had the look of someone from
seventeenth century Europe, because his short jacket, which was completely covered with small,
embroidered faces, had lapels which were cut so they curved toward the back. He was wearing white
vinyl platform boots mostly covered by tight, light-blue stretch denim jeans with embroidered seams.
He had a seemingly impossible small waist under a white corset with light blue vertical boning,
which was worn over a white, ruffled, long-sleeved shirt which was open in front revealing the
cleavage of round, firm, D-cup breasts.
Luna's mouth fell open, but seeing the man's genuinely happy
face with a million dollar smile she had to smile herself.
"I'm Koda," he said, taking her hands in his. "We will meet
again in about twenty years."
Luna suddenly felt dizzy and confused. The next instant she
was waking up in bed, astounded at how real the dream had seemed, and for a moment it was difficult
for her to accept that she was again in her fifties, single, somewhat overweight, living in a tiny
apartment in New Jersey with a high stress job working as an editor for an online entertainment
magazine. Her frustrating life rushed back into reality along with the traffic noise and the sound
of her cell phone ringing. It was Randy, her boss.
"How would you like a week in Hawaii doing an interview with
a crazy genius?" he asked.
"Who is it?"
"Some old guy no one has heard of. Refers to himself an idea
artist. Writes books and music. Claims he can teach anyone how to be psychic in just minutes, and
now he is using crowdfunding to finance an invention that is supposed to enable people to see with
their ears. Gladys thinks he's legit. I think he's a nut case. Either way there is a good story
in it."
"What's his name?"
"That is one of the things we want you to find out. He uses
a pseudonym, Koda."
"Fuck me," she muttered.
"What did you say?"
Luna knew Randy wouldn't believe her if she told him she had
just met the guy in a dream. She couldn't actually believe it herself.
"I'm in," she said
Luna was feeling rather nervous as she drove the rental car
away from the Hilo airport on the big island. As she began her drive to Koda's place in the rain
forest, where she was invited to stay in his guesthouse for a few days, she wondered why he had left
very specific instructions insisting she arrive at dusk. She was still thinking about the dream and
knew there were things going on in this universe she couldn't explain, that Koda might actually be
seven-feet-tall and have big boobs, but that was ridiculous. Still, he claimed he could show people
how to use psychic abilities, and that dream was definitely no coincidence. She had growing
concerns that the guy might use some form of mind control on her but she finally convinced herself
that such things aren't possible and came back to reality.
As darkness began to fall the GPS map on her smartphone lead
her down different highways then directed her onto a narrow, paved road with trimmed grass
shoulders. The road climbed upward over undulating lava flows that caused the road to rise and fall
every few seconds. She was surrounded by dense green plant life. There were houses on large lots
on either side at first, then only on her left. To the right was dense rain forest growth, bushes
and grasses forming an impenetrable wall of green under mostly tall, thin trees and occasional palms
of different types. Many of the houses she passed were either difficult or impossible to see from
the road because they were set so far back behind the brush, but most of those she could see were
well maintained. Some indicated affluence with fences made of lava rock walls and paved driveways,
but most driveways were dirt. Other homes were surrounded by fruit trees. There were many empty
lots still covered with the dense growth which prevented any view of the 14,000-foot volcano which
formed the island.
After a mile or so the map told her she was approaching her
destination and a large open area appeared on her left. Luna's eyes grew wide. The property was
twice as large as the previous lots and it glowed.
The first thing she noticed was a huge diamond, 30-feet tall and
just as wide near the top, appearing to be balanced on its tip in the center of a glowing swimming
pool. The tip of the diamond appeared to be no more than 2 or 3 feet across where it rose out of
the water and Luna had trouble believing such a large building, which was covered with mirrored
glass, could stand without falling over.
The diamond and pool were in the center of a large flat area
on her left. All along the front of the property, behind a wide, lawn-covered park strip, a low
wall built with stones of black lava was topped with a short, black, iron fence with gold-colored,
ornate metal work centered every 20 feet. Behind the wall and fence stood a row of short palms.
Beyond them, on the right side of the property, other types of palms, and bushes trimmed to form
geometric shapes, were scattered across smoothly undulating lava flows covered by lawn cut as short
as a golf course green. High up on a hill 150 feet from the road stood a brown and white house
elevated on piers hidden by white trellis skirting. The large covered porch in front wraps around
the left side of the house and looks down across the sloping lawn to a pond lined with lava-rock
walls. A dozen large, black and white muskogee ducks were playing in and around the pond. Two
small hills between the fence and pond are partially covered with what look like giant house plants
10-feet across. Water tumbles out of the pond over a small waterfall into a thin stream that runs
between the two low hills and abruptly ends under a grated arch in the wall by the park strip.
The house, water, palms and everything else glowed in soft,
slowly changing colors from light sources which were hidden, in the ground, behind low rock walls,
or in cans at the base of trees. The effect was absolutely magical.
As Luna pulled into the paved driveway entrance the ornate iron
gate immediately began to roll to the side. Palm trees lined the driveway and wrapped around the
pond on her left, and on the right was a huge banyan tree, its wall of multiple trunks running
parallel with the driveway and supporting a towering canopy of small, dark green leaves, all subtly
lit from beneath.
Short rock walls edged both sides of the slightly curving
driveway. On her right was a flower bed 4-feet-deep in front of the high wall of green banyan
leaves. Every few feet inside the flower bed were rows of about a dozen triangular-shaped tubes
about 5-feet-high that went off at an angle. They were painted with what at first appeared to be
chaotic splotches of color, but as Luna's view came directly in line with each row of tubes they
appeared to form a single wall and all those splotches of color combined to form an image. The
first was a Hawaiian girl with a flower in her hair, the next a surfer riding a wave.
Luna didn't see what the other images were because her attention
shifted to the other side of the driveway where half a dozen small boxes with open fronts stood on
short poles. Inside each box were what appeared to be illuminated statues. In the first was a girl
in a bikini whose head and breasts turned to face Luna as she passed, but there was something very
weird about it so Luna backed the car up to take a second look. The head and breasts moved so they
always pointed directly at her. After a moment Luna suddenly realized that she was looking at
painted, folded metal and both the 3-D effect and movement were optical illusions. Dragons, robots
and other creatures all turned to watch her as she drove slowly past a waterfall at the end of the
pond, the illuminated water slowly turning from red to purple to blue.
At that point the driveway began to climb a slope and
split to form a circle around a heart-shaped island built with thick lava walls topped with colorful
plants and flowers. The top surface of the heart-shaped island sloped down toward her but the brick
floor was level inside where benches lined the inner walls. In the center a life-sized statue of a
naked female toddler stood with her hands on her knees, grinning broadly as she looked back at the
water changing color as it flowed out from between her legs to fill a small basin.
To the right of the driveway island was a covered
parking area under the far end of the banyan tree, where an old, red sports car and black pickup
truck were parked. Next to the vehicles, behind the wall of banyan trunks she had just passed, the
giant canopy of the tree enclosed a large depression with a gravel floor where tendrils dropping
from the branches above formed a sparse forest of tree trunks supporting the branches of the main
tree high above. One of the tree trunks formed a coiled spiral wide enough to climb up inside of it
to reach a wooden platform about 10-feet up in the tree. Luna could see two coils of wire shaped
the same way leading to other branches, and she suddenly realized that the wire was used to train
the many hairlike tendrils coming down from the branches so they would retain the coiled shape once
the tendrils touched the ground and became new tree trunks. The entire secluded area under the tree
was softly lit in dim white light casting pale shadows which moved ever so slightly in the breeze.
A light rain began to fall.
Just beyond the top of the driveway circle, between the
house on the left and a rather plain looking brown building with white trim on the right, a large
metal water catchment tank sits behind a waterfall and small pool surrounded by flowers. A
profusion of pink roses covers the lattice near the stairs at the front corner of the house and
climb like towers in the center and back corner of the south wall.
The second building has wooden garage doors, a recessed
entrance to an apartment and is surround by colorful plants in planter boxes. The corner of a
wooden deck behind the right side of the building can be seen just beyond an avocado tree.
Again Luna stopped the car. This time to wait for a mother
duck and her ducklings to pass -- eight were pure yellow-orange and three more had dark grey
splotches. Luna couldn't see if the ducklings had gotten out of her way, so she simply waited,
watching the misty rain gathering into tiny droplets on the car windows. The mist blurred her view
of the world slowly changing color around her, and she was suddenly hit by the fear that everything
she was experiencing might actually be a dream.
At that moment a very tall man in a hooded robe
appeared at the top of the stairs to the house. His robe slowly changed color from white to blue to
purple and he appeared to float slowly down the stairs, gliding downward as if he were levitating.
A sudden rush of anxiety forced Luna to turn the wipers on
and through the windshield she saw the man stop at the bottom of the stairs. With a sweeping
gesture of his arm he directed her to park in the space under the avocado tree.
Luna just stared at him, and as the wiper again swept across
the windshield her vision became clear. The man was not wearing a robe, but had a huge white beach
towel pulled up over his head to keep the rain off, and the towel continued to change color till he
stepped further away from the lights shining down on him from under the roof above.
He waited some distance away as Luna parked the car
and gathered her things. Stepping out of the car she noticed the towel was folded over his left arm
because the rain had stopped.
"They have a saying here," he said smiling. "If you
don't like the weather in Hawaii, wait five minutes. Aloha. I'm Koda."
He was about six-foot-four and very thin, wearing a
fitted, black dress shirt tucked into light-blue jeans without a belt, and clean, new, black
athletic shoes. His long, wavy, light brown hair was full and flowing, brushed back away from his
face and sprinkled with hints of grey, the thinning ends reaching nearly to his elbows. His
forehead is creased with deep, horizontal lines, a mass of wrinkles surround his smiling blue-green
eyes and his entire, very tan face seemed to glow amid an explosion of deep smile lines. Luna
thought he looked both very old and young like a child at the same time, and he was certainly very
friendly.
"You must be Luna," he said, extending his hand.
"Thanks for coming. Let me show you where you will be staying."
"There is something I have to ask you first," said
Luna.
"You must me wondering how the diamond building doesn't
simply fall over," he said, grinning. "First we dug the hole for the swimming pool, then crossed 4
steel beams so they intersected at the eventual height of the water, then we covered the bottom half
of the beams with tons of huge rocks and concrete. That thing will never fall over."
Luna appeared to be looking for words.
Koda continued. "You're wondering how you get in the
building, right? One of the glass panels folds down and stretches over the pool like a drawbridge.
It has stairs built into it that lead to a spiral staircase that goes up through the center of the
building to one large room on top."
"That seems very clever," said Luna, "but I wanted to ask you
something else."
"From your expression I'm guessing it is a serious question,"
said Koda. He tilted his head to the side and looked down at the ground, almost pouting like a
little kid as he sighed deeply, then looked up at her grinning broadly.
"How about we save all the serious stuff for later?" he said
enthusiastically. "I want to show you what I have created here in the ohana -- that means 'family'
in Hawaiian so it's what everyone around here calls their guesthouse, the place where family stays
when they come to visit. I think you will like staying in my groovy little pad."
Koda stepped into the recessed entry on the west side of the
plain brown building and opened the door of a cabinet under a cubby hole to show her where the
snorkeling equipment, coolers and beach towels were kept. Then he opened the white door with its
many beveled glass windows and invited Luna to walk through first.
A round kitchen table with four, padded swivel chairs was the
first thing she encountered, then she noticed the full sized fridge and a kitchen counter and
cabinets against the north wall. A reclining leather love seat faced a black-glass topped coffee
table and a projection screen covering the entire east wall next to an open doorway by the counter.
Beneath the screen was a brown futon. Most of the south wall was covered by a huge, wood-framed
cloth tapestry featuring the prism and rainbow colors of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album
cover, with the sliding glass door to the deck on the right. An end table matching the coffee table
was to the right of the love seat with a lava lamp glowing in the dim light. An entertainment
center was next to that under the large tapestry.
"People leave stuff here all the time," said Koda,
opening the door of the fridge to show the door was half-full of various condiments. He then opened
the cabinet doors above the counter where along with dishes and glasses many more basic foods were
stored. He showed Luna how to light the small gas stove with a barbecue lighter, showed her where
the trash bags, paper towels, cleaning
supplies, toaster oven and crock pot were, then reach into open shelves under the microwave and set
a plastic tub with a dish rack inside it on the counter next to the sink.
"The dishes need to be washed and put away before you
leave," he said. "Now let me show you the cool stuff."
Now might be a good time to play
"Chrome Rabbit on Illuminated Chessboard"
by
Psychic Trance Fur
quietly in the background.
Koda stepped through the doorway into the darkened
bedroom and reached up above his head, then disappeared to Luna's right. As she stepped into the
room the first thing she noticed was that it was painted black and Koda was turning on a black light
above the black curtained window above the bed. The bed had a fancy looking red and black comforter
and matching throw pillows, and covering most of the east wall was another huge, wood framed
tapestry, filled with repeating patterns radiating out from several locations. Black light posters
glowed brightly as Koda turned on a third black light high on the east wall and Luna looked up to
see the entire ceiling covered with the glowing image of a galaxy and stars painted with black light
paint. Being in that room felt like being in a different universe.
Koda pulled back the black curtains hiding the closet
to show her where the extra bedding, fan, broom, etc., were kept, then he turned on a small
globe-shaped night light sitting on one of the night stands that were on either side of the bed.
Blue clouds and random streaks of bright red light moved inside the globe.
"If you unscrew the cover like this," said Koda, "the
light will project on the ceiling."
Now the galaxy had faint blue dust clouds and bright
streaks of red laser light randomly appearing and briefly moving across the stars.
"This room is awesome," said Luna.
"Yeah, the guests seem to really like it," said Koda.
"They like the bathroom too," he said, smiling like a mischievous kid.
He slid the pocket door with its stained glass windows
into its slot in the north wall of the bedroom and stepped up onto the black, granite tile floor of
the bathroom The walls were painted grey but most of the wall to the left was covered by two very
large mirrors butted together. Directly ahead were heavy, dark tinted glass shower doors above a
white bathtub surrounded with brownish-grey marble tile trimmed with black granite. On the right
the vanity had a black granite countertop with a white marble sink set deep into it. Above the sink
was a chrome and tinted-plastic waterfall faucet, and above that a medicine cabinet with 3 mirrored
doors which could be opened to provide different angles of reflection. Above the mirror was a long,
narrow light fixture, and above that, near the vaulted ceiling, was a large vinyl print of a what
looked like a face made with bright flamelike colors and realistic eyes drawn in silver above what
appeared to be a green nose. The bright colors looked out of place in the otherwise classy room.
"There are two light switches here," said Koda. "The
one on top is normal, but the switch on the bottom does something special."
Koda flipped the switch and Luna suddenly noticed a
large, rectangular infinity light mounted on the ceiling. The edges of the rectangle were lined
with bright LEDs slowly changing color. A 2-way mirror on the bottom reflected part of the light
back into a regular mirror placed just above the lights. This caused the single row of colored
lights to look like dozens of rows stacked one above the other, gradually fading in brightness till
the lights disappeared, forming the illusion of a 3-dimensional box extending nearly two feet up
through the ceiling.
Luna had seen infinity lights before, but not since the
seventies, and they didn't constantly change color like this one did.
"That looks really cool," she said.
"Ah. But did you notice the sink?"
Luna suddenly became aware that the sink was glowing
and changing color in sync with the infinity light. Now that is something she had never seen
before.
"Wow. That's interesting," she said.
Koda opened the door of the vanity and showed her how
he had arranged a long strip of of tiny LED lights in a spiral under the sink so the light would
radiate through the translucent white marble.
"It cost a fortune to build this bathroom," he said,
"but once I get hooked on an idea I can become quite obsessive about making it real. When you turn
on the tap here blue LED lights come on inside it, and the lights turn red when the water gets hot.
The shower head also has LEDs in it that constantly change the color of the water coming out near
the shower head."
"Isn't there a danger of being electrocuted if
something goes wrong?" asked Luna.
"Not at all," said Koda. "The power is generated by
the water spinning a little magnetic disk inside a coil of wire and it produces less power than a
flashlight.
"If you look at the Flame Face image above the medicine
cabinet," he continued, "you will see how the colors in the image change as color of the light
shining on it changes, which changes the shape of the face."
"I think I will really enjoy staying here," said Luna.
"Thank you for allowing me to come."
"It is totally my pleasure," said Koda as he began
turning off the lighting. "I really enjoy being able to show people my creative work.
"Oh, by the way," he said as they stepped out of the
bathroom into the bedroom. "The TV mounted on the wall here only works with the blu-ray player but
not the satellite TV, and you can use this cable here on the desk to plug the computer speakers into
your laptop or phone, or you can use the surround sound system on the projection TV if you want to
listen to CDs."
"Since you brought up sound systems," said Luna, "would
you like to tell me about your invention that enables people to see with their ears?"
"Sure, if you'd like," said Koda. "Let's go out and
sit on the deck and I will explain how it works."
They walked out of the bedroom, through the kitchen area,
then through the sliding glass doors onto the deck, and as Luna slowly scanned the area a quiet sigh
escaped from her half open mouth. Koda grinned like a little kid who was totally proud of some
magic trick he had just pulled off.
"Pretty cool place, don't you think?" he said, barely able to
contain his child-like pride.
"I can hardly believe it's real," she said.
"If you'd like, you can ask me that question we put off
before," said Koda.
Luna sighed again, reluctant to take her gaze away from the
environment softly glowing around her.
"I have never met you before now," she said, "but about a
week ago I had a strange dream and you were in it, only you were younger. It sounds crazy, but the
moment I woke up from that dream I received a phone call and was assigned to do this interview with
you. I am positive it was you I saw in that dream. Do you know anything about it?"
"Wow!" said Koda. "That's a cool story. It must have
really messed with your head." He laughed and slapped his knee. "If that had happened to me I
would be super-interested in meeting the other person it involved because it means some sort of
psychic connection is going on. Don't you agree?"
"I don't know how to explain it," said Luna.
"I don't either," said Koda. "I'm sorry to tell you
that I had no conscious part in that experience. But let me tell you one of my most important Koda
Quotes: There is a rational explanation for everything, even if that explanation has yet to be
discovered. If something happens in this universe, there is a rational explanation for it. It is
possible that a rational investigation of the facts could result in discovering that gods or fairies
or poker playing chipmunks are behind such events, but to make assumptions without evidence is pure
insanity. Too many people have a spiritual experience they can't explain so they accept whatever
religious dogma is readily available.
"Here's another Koda Quote: The average person's choice of
religion has far more to do with geographic location than a serious pursuit of the truth. Most
Americans are Christian, most Arabs are Muslim, most Indians are Hindu, etc. It takes years to
study the teachings of every religion so it is no wonder most people don't bother. But when you
accept one explanation on faith alone, you are expected to accept all the rest of the irrational
dogma along with it, and that leads to people believing some completely insane and dangerous ideas
that often result in war and violence. The wiser path is to acknowledge the reality of spiritual
experience then use reason and logic to investigate how and why such things happen."
"But I have no clue how to even begin such an investigation,"
said Luna.
"You can always search on the internet, and there are many
thousands of books on the subject of spirituality."
Luna sighed. "But that sounds as difficult as studying every
religion."
"That's why I wrote Rational Spirituality," said Koda.
"I spent decades trying to figure out how the universe works so I would understand how psychic
phenomena can happen. When I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of things I wrote that book as a
sort of reference describing everything I had learned. It took me 5 years."
"Does that mean you know why I had that dream? asked Luna.
"I have a pretty good understanding of how the dreaming
dimension appears to operate," said Koda. "For example, people can realize they are dreaming and
take conscious control and do anything they want. That is called lucid dreaming. And more than one
person can share the same dream. That's called double dreaming. My book provides exercises that
can enable people to learn how to do both those things. As for that particular dream you told me
about…"
Koda moved very close to Luna and whispered in her ear.
"It seems to me... that the event you described... could turn out
to be... nothing more than a literary device used to interest someone in a story."
Luna recoiled away from him then stood with both hands
on her hips and spoke defiantly.
"But that would be author intrusion!" she said. "That
would ruin the illusion of reality and plop the reader right back in their own world. You are a
writer and should know better!"
"Hey! Don't blame me," said Koda. "I'm just a character in
this story, and there is no point in getting so excited. We all know what is going on. Nearly
every person who publishes a book hopes to make money from it so I am not doing anything that every
other writer doesn't do."
"Is that you talking or is the author putting words in your
mouth?"
"Of course this is me," said Koda. "You are acting like some
all powerful being is controlling all our thoughts and actions, creating the whole world around us.
Believe me. I busted my ass making this place look this awesome."
Luna looked around her and saw an enchanting wonderland.
Before her was a large pond fed by a stream tumbling in from the east, and there were two waterfalls
toward the south. There were brilliantly colored koi swimming in the glowing blue pond. The many
palm trees and other tropical plants were slowly changing color from lights hidden out of sight
below them. At the far side of the pond, between the stream coming in on her left and a sparking,
color changing waterfall, a miniature village sat on a bay with lights glowing in the windows and a
miniature river turning a waterwheel. Beached near the tiny dock were a sailboat and submarine.
"The boats are radio controlled," said Koda, "but no, the
submarine won't submerge."
Left of the stream a wide, lawn covered path disappeared as
it ran east deep into the back yard. North of the path, in a partly secluded area surrounded by
elephant grass and bamboo, a small stream circled behind two ohia log benches next to a
lava-rock-walled fire pit, with concentric rings of different colored gravel radiating out from the
center
East of the large pond an arched, wooden bridge crossed over
the stream between two palm trees on the other side which curved up and away from the path between
them. There was a smaller pond east of the bridge, fed by water flowing out of a pool and tumbling
down into the back pond on either side of an orange tree. Behind the tree, on the other side of a
narrow strip of lawn that ran the length of the yard behind the ponds, the front of a hobbit house
had been built into the side of a five-foot-tall hill. Further east of the back pond was a
treehouse, and north of that pond a gazebo stood in the middle of a vegetable garden. East of the
gazebo, the umbrella-like canopy of an albizia tree towered one-hundred feet high, the white
branches lit softly by flood lights out of sight below. Almost everything in the yard glowed dimly
and much of it changed color.
"All this is so beautiful I feel like I might be dreaming,"
said Luna.
"You might be," said Koda. "When we are lucid in a dream we
have the power of a god, the power to create our own reality. The truth is, we are all gods and can
create the events and conditions we desire in the real world. We just need to learn how."
"But aren't you doing this interview to make money because
you are basically broke?" asked Luna. "Your efforts to make millions don't seem to have worked so
well in the past."
"Your character isn't supposed to know that yet," said
Koda," but yeah, I've always been the starving artist type." He sighed deeply. "The reasons for my
poverty are complicated and result from my values and beliefs, which were initially formed in
childhood.
"It may seem like a complete contradiction," he said, "but is
is possible to be certain that we create the overall conditions we experience in our lives as a
result of our thoughts, attitudes, emotions and beliefs -- that's called the law of attraction --"
"Yes," said Luna. "I am familiar with that idea."
" -- Yet we can still find ourselves unable to change the
conditions we experience, because we are unable to change our beliefs.
"When I was a kid," he went on, "my dad used to come home
from work every day, and just as he'd walk through the door he'd sing four words mimicking the four
tones of a doorbell just to let everyone know he was home. Ding, dong, ding, dong, became,
'I-hate-my-job.' I suppose he thought it was funny, but hearing that five days a week, year after
year, made me believe I would rather be dead than work a regular job for the rest of my life. I
also developed the belief that making money was difficult and you had to do things you didn't want
to do to get it. Those are negative beliefs which became deeply ingrained by years of constant
reinforcement, and I have been experiencing the results of holding those beliefs all my life -- which
is obvious evidence that the law of attraction works like a charm.
"At the same time, I also became inspired to find ways of
making lots of money in more enjoyable ways. I started writing music thinking I could release
albums and sit back collecting royalties all my life, and do the same thing writing books. I tried
to come up with inventions like Audio Animation and inertial propulsion. I spent decades, my whole
life, working my tail off and never making a dime in profit on any of it --because I could never
shake the belief that making money was hard and unpleasant. I believed I would always be poor.
"I also believed being famous would suck. I wanted my work
to be famous, not my face, so I didn't play music live or go out promoting my books. But it doesn't
matter how good a product is if no one knows it exists.
"All of that is essentially proof that the law of attraction
has been working all my life, but it has been working against me. My goal with this crowdfunded
book is to describe how reality appears to operate so readers will understand how to alter their
limiting beliefs and create the life they want to live. To achieve that goal I have to fix my own
life. As I make the transition from being poor and alone and weird -- to well off financially, in
love and weird -- readers will hopefully discover how to make similar transitions in their own
lives."
"If you are going to talk forever, can we please sit down
somewhere?" asked Luna.
"Oh, yeah, sorry," said Koda. "I thought I was already
sitting in front of my computer."
They sat down in folding chairs on the deck.
"Is this where I talk about how people can see 3-dimensional
images happening in every direction around them at once, without having to turn one's head?" asked
Koda.
"I'm sure that is all very interesting," said Luna,
"but how did you pay for all this if you are so broke?" asked Luna.
"I didn't," said Koda. "Except for everything inside
the ohana, most of the cool stuff doesn't actually exist yet."
Koda stood up, walked over to the lighting control
panel on the wall of the ohana and began turning off switches. As he did, the illuminated areas
completely changed. The huge albizia trees remained but the lawns around them became rough ground
full of holes and rocks and exposed tree roots, the back pond became nearly dry, the bridge over the
stream disappeared along with the stream, leaving a 3-foot-deep ravine in its place. The main pond
went dry exposing a pile of cracked lava near the center. The 10-foot-wide lawn covered path that
ran along the large pond and to the left of the stream became black cinder (popcorn-like volcanic
soil) with rocks lining each side to hold up the edges. The fire pit with its expanding circles of
different color gravel became 2 logs laying on very uneven ground. Only the wooden deck remained,
along with the glow of red light rope hidden in the eves. Even the roof above the deck had
disappeared.
"My dad died in 2011," said Koda. "I used to live in a
place I built in the barn behind his house in Salt Lake City, where I was able to pursue my creative
projects and only needed to help maintain his large yard in exchange for room and board. I worked
occasional part time jobs in order to have a bit of money to spend but I could hardly ever afford to
eat out or go to a movie.
"I inherited over a quarter million dollars when my dad died
but lost my place to live, so I moved here and bought this place for $115k. It was a total dive,
completely run down with the house falling apart and the forest having taken over the whole place.
It took me a year just to clear the growth from the road out front to the albizia trees, and over
the last 3 months I have made 43, 33-mile round trips hauling cinder and base course in my truck,
which is beating the truck to death, trying to smooth out some of the ground so I can eventually cut
the lawns with a mower rather than a weed whacker. It takes me a week of 4-6 hour days to weed
whack this place, every 3 weeks, which is a complete waste of my skills and talents. I used every
bit of money I had to remodel the house and get the guesthouse fixed up so I could use it as a
vacation rental.
"My income is limited to what the rental brings in,
plus less than $5 a month from book and music sales. I have been spending every dime on this place
but I finally realized I will never come up with $15k for pond liners and pumps, let alone all the
other work that needs to be done here, unless I do something designed to make money. That's why I
decided to write this rather unusual story."
"I thought the story was being written by someone named
Candi Nova?" said Luna.
"Yeah, I suppose that is who is writing this, but most
of the time it feels like I am doing all the work. She is a character in my first novel, The
Change, which is another sexually twisted metaphysical thriller that has yet to sell. I have a
feeling Candi is going to show up here pretty soon."
"So is this where you finally tell us about how people
can see with their ears?" ask Luna.
Koda looked at Luna with disbelief.
"Do you want to see some magic," he asked.
"Sure," said Luna.
"Okay. Keep your eye on the tip of my finger."
Koda held up his right index finger and slowly moved it
toward Luna's face, then in a sudden movement he tapped her hard on the forehead. Luna laughed.
"Oh, Gus, the fire hydrant," she said. "That happened before
I came in. Cute story. My boss, Randy, says you are using crowdfunding to develop that invention."
"Not exactly," said Koda. "I came up with that stuff in 1974
and dedicated ten years of my life to getting it financed. One venture capital company offered me a
million dollars, and another offered me 2 million, but both wanted me to provide a test tape to
prove it would work before I could get the money. At the time a test tape would cost $360k to make.
I needed the money to make the tape, and the tape to make the money, so it was a catch 22. After
10 years I had the info published in MIX magazine, a recording industry trade paper, and it was also
mentioned in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. I thought the world was going to beat a
path to my door but nothing came of it."
"So now what?" asked Luna.
"Who knows?" said Koda. "I burned out on that project long
ago. I suppose that if some angel investor wanted to spend the money to set up a company to do the
R&D I would act as a consultant for some cash and a small piece of the pie. More than anything I
would like to be the guy who releases the first album using Audio Animation. I have thought of some
pretty cool effects that should work even if the resolution of the images turns out to be less than
I hope.
"For example. Imagine a spiral that starts expanding outward
horizontally under your feet till it becomes a disk 20-feet across. You simply cause the disk to
slowly tilt backwards. It would be difficult for people to stand on their feet I think and that
could be really fun.
"So I am not trying to raise money to develop the project
myself, but if lots of people like the Gus story on Facebook, etc., I think the right people would
eventually discover the information and get in touch with me, and eventually the project would get
developed."
"What amazes me," said Luna, "is how you managed to come up
with the idea in the first place."
"Ah," said Koda. "That is quite an interesting tale. I talk
about it briefly in the Rational Spirituality book and it has a lot to do with ignorance and LSD.
"Basically, when I was about 16 or 17 my friends and I did
acid and listened to music with our eyes closed. All of us reported seeing brilliant colors moving
in complex, highly detailed patterns in sync with the music, you know, like those pop art posters
done in the 1960s. I naively thought we were all seeing the exact same images, that they had
somehow been programed into the music by "acid rock" musicians and that is why they called it acid
rock, that only people on acid could see the stuff. It didn't take long to learn that some people
saw cartoons instead of patterns and none of us were seeing the same things, that the images had not
been programmed into the music.
"I decided to become a musician and songwriter when I was
20-years-old, and that earlier experience inspired me to look for a way to actually produce those
animated mental images --without needing to be high to see them. My first effort involved using
moving tones to draw 2-dimensional shapes. Panning a sound between speakers would move the location
of the sound horizontally and increasing or decreasing the pitch would move the tone up and down.
The listener would have to know how to interpret those movements, but I thought it would work. When
I finally managed to test the idea using primitive equipment to draw a circle, all I could hear was
was a tone going up and down in pitch as it moved between the speakers. That was an emotionally
devastating failure.
"Not long after I saw a documentary on TV where a guy in a
lab demonstrated how he could position a tone anywhere around a listener sitting in the middle of 4
speakers, so I did a lot of research into psychoacoustics and learned how the human auditory system
localizes the apparent source of sounds. At the time not all the variables were clearly understood,
but I knew how to find all that data by putting microphones in the ears of a dummy head and using a
computer to analyze the recordings. The Audio Animation project was off and running again."
Luna stared blankly at the wood deck.
"I guess not everyone is interested in the technical
details," he said, smiling.
"No really!" she said. "It's fascinating."
"I can tell," said Koda, sarcastically. "I imagine you are
tired after your long flight and would like to get settled in."
"Well, yes" said Luna. "It is six hours later on the east
coast and I can never sleep on a plane. There is something about the idea of strangers watching me
sleep that just seems, well, creepy, I guess… like a crowd of people looking in through my bedroom
window."
"I never thought about that before," said Koda. He laughed.
"Now I wish I had never thought about it. Thanks a lot!"
Koda stepped down off the raised deck onto the lawn as he was
about to go back to the house, then he turned and asked, "What time would you like to do the
interview tomorrow?"
"It has already begun," said Luna, smiling, "but how about 10
AM?"
"That sounds fine," said Koda. "Oh. One more thing. People
staying here often report having vivid dreams. Might have something to do with the energy of the
place, but who knows? See ya in the morning."
They hugged, and even with Koda standing six inches below her
he was still taller than her, and she distinctly felt a pair of breasts pressing against hers.
(a "like" or "share" will refer your friends to the first chapter)
