My Problem with Peyote

Eight clocks struck in the church, so what? I was awake; I hadn't been asleep. The villagers knew what time it was without recourse to clocks. They had the agrarian rhythm; the cock crowing kept them on the beat. I was lying on the stoop of the church. At least I must have been. It felt like I was floating above it. The straw hat over my face, I peeped out from under it. The unseen observer: as if no-one would notice a levitating tramp on the threshold of the Church of Sta. Maria Inmaculada. If I was three feet up, that is. Thing was, if I was defying gravity, so were the ants marching across the hat. The damn' bells stopped; I could listen to the crickets conversing in their indio clicks. I saw a figure glide by the church wall. Didn't nuns have feet? A baby wailed; young to know what kind of village he'd woken up in.

I felt the cold stone on my back, but not the bump of falling. The night's visions had been disturbingly unoriginal; a talking lizard, called himself Gordon; a naked woman, natch.

'Search within,' Gordon had said.

'Within what?' I'd asked him

A long tongue, much longer than his body, had flicked out, lassoing a stag beetle that he'd devoured with a crunching sound. He'd smacked the edges of his mouth, in the absence of lips.

'Within a week,' he'd rasped.

Then 'I am woman.'

It had been self evident, since all she'd worn were extensive tattoos.

'I am man,' I'd replied.

'Asshole!'

She wasn't my type, anyway. Tall, fertility goddess-shaped; all tits,belly and ass. I preferred power-dressing city types. Now that would have been original, in this pueblo.

The clocks had resolved into the singular, the quarter chimed. I stood up. Crossed the dusty street as the bus pulled up. I took a seat next to an old lady and her goat. The paperback was uncomfortable in my back pocket. I gave it to the goat. He'd finished Castañeda before the bus pulled out of Perdido.