Sometimes when writing a long-form piece like a novel, you find yourself wandering down paths that don’t end up going anywhere, at least anywhere that helps the story.
This one of those digressions that I rediscovered while cleaning out an old laptop that is not long for this world. I can remember where I was when I wrote it, high on a ridge over Fairfax, California, looking out the window of the little home office that I quickly threw together after the COVID pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt.
I was lucky enough to be trapped in a honeypot where my view was across a wooded canyon. A few houses up the hill the road dead-ended at open space where my dog Biscuit and I could look down on the failure of modern civilization.
Originally, I had the idea of making Burn Your Starry Crown a trilogy, checking in each time the tale-tail comet came back around, ultimately ending as an outer space yarn. I became disavowed of that idea as I quickly realized it was completely out of my ability to pull off. Maybe some day.
As distinctly as I remember where I was, I have little-to-no idea what the heck I was thinking and/or smoking here. Enjoy.
When the teacher became aware, he was cast out of a warm world of water and salt. He liked to think that he had been born of the biggest womb in the world: the Pacific Ocean. He was delivered, not squalling, but gasping for air on a pile of lava rocks; laid out like a sacrifice. But to whom should he be offered up? The teacher could think of no one.
Nor could he imagine what chain of events led to his ignoble presentation; brined and bleeding from his corporal brushes with sharp coral. Nothing left to do but get on with it, he supposed, with very few clues as to what it might possibly entail.
The teacher… did he always think of himself as a teacher? Did he actually have a name? He struggled to his feet and spoke the two words he remembered from somewhere; “I am.” His voice was parched and unfamiliar to him, but the intent was very recognizable. He knew he had been cast here for an important purpose, but exactly what that was might have to wait. He was famished.
A lone figure appeared out of the dense growth surrounding the beach carrying a large polished plank with a fin attached. Perhaps some kind of shark totem, he thought. That’s a good sign, he recognized; and apparently he knew what a shark was.
The man was tanned and had the bleached white hair of someone who spent his days in and around the ocean. When the figure saw the teacher standing naked on the heiau, he dropped his totem and spoke the two words that came to define their relationship going forward.
“Holy shit.”
Román Leão 