Our archeological expedition is high up a steep sandstone crag, on steps shaped like footprints (which they are--worn in, over centuries). The wind's so fierce I worry we'll be blown off.

Through a rectangular window in the rock, our guide points out the main ruin far below. Pyramids. But Egyptian, Andean, Mexican? I can feel veins of power in the ruins. Our leader's been tracing them--and USING them. Dangerous!

Much later. Years later! I'm in the backyard of my parents' house, here in Mexico City. The Archeologist reburied the ancient power sites, and our modern city grew on top. My father hands me an opera glass and points north to downtown. To the naked eye, it looks like San Francisco--hills, bridges, the Transamerica Pyramid, fog. But through the glass... I see Tenochtitlán instead! Frisco's famous foggy hills are really more pyramids, hidden and sealed.

Fuss with the focus, but it stays fuzzy. I compare the skyscrapers in the glass to the naked-eye towers around me. The discrepancies aren't obvious at first--similar heights. But more towers, and yes, taller too, in the glass. Several buildings over 300 meters. This can't be the San Francisco I know, OR Mexico City! Time seems wrong too. Cars zoom around twice as fast as they should. The future? And not a good one. In the glass I see huge ugly slums hidden to my flesh-eyes.

I fear this monstrous, invisible city.

Time is my road out. I lead the expedition south into a zone of evening. On the road of time, night and day are places--strips a few hundred miles wide. Time is zebra-colored! It's two or three hundred miles to the next band of day. Distance traveled must be divided by two, since time outside my car is at least twice normal; progress double-speed.

Zebra Highway can take you into past or future, but near the crumbling sea-cliffs of Devil's Slide, I turn off onto a little dirt winding road--a sideroad of time. We stop and park by the House of Melinda. I keep thinking she's Sweet Melinda, the Goddess of Gloom, from that old Dylan song. She does live here in perpetual night, and she is sweet, but lower case--just plain Melinda. A bit of an earth-mother, Melinda's always helpful.

I'm hoping Melinda can find a certain friendly byway of time I'm hunting, radical yet rural. A time we can live in.

I get out and stretch, intending to knock, but then tell my friends "Rather than disturb her so late at night, let's sleep in the car, and see her in the morning--" I stop confused, as I recall that around here, tomorrow never comes. "I mean... when we wake."

Campfires light up, down in the valley ahead of us. Are they flickering twice normal speed?

When veins of white fire creep out from the red dots, I'm too tired to feel more than surprise. Veins of light, favoring the valleys. Near the horizon, a vast flash of light. Alien, terrifying. The next valley blasts white--it's no explosion, but a silent brilliance like day. Yet sourceless--no core. The nearest valley flashes... and veins start to creep up our valley. I fear we'll go blind when it blazes. Pyramid power turns fierce when repressed!

I shout "Get in the car! "and we run for it. But the steep sandy road heaves and slips toward the sea-cliff. The car starts to tilt, a wheel goes over... I see it's doomed.

So... I push it off.

And time splits! On one fork the car's still there, can fall and take us with it, and we must get round it to Melinda's house... Yet the car's gone too--splashed in the sea far below. I split the time-branch!

My friend and I struggle to keep from going over several times, climb up to solid ground at last. He saves my life more than once, I act as an anchor to pull him up to road at the end. I feel guilty for not helping him more, earlier. As if I cheat, I'm lazy, unhelpful. Must save his life more OFTEN!

We never do see Melinda, but in the end, we do find a compromise place to live, a town of about 400,000, with lots of nature around it. Sorry about the weak, trail-off end. But I was grateful for any single end at all. Healed the split.

Because you don't know what confusion means till you've had to live on two timelines at once.

WAKING NOTES

• Day and night as geographic zones = from John Varley's novel Titan, set on an alien space habitat with permanent daylit, crepuscular and night-zones inside a huge torus.
• The night land = dreaming itself. I've been manifesting odd new abilities mostly at night--more alert in my dreams than awake! Not that that's bizarre for me--I often rehearse hard new skills in dreams--perspective drawing, Chinese. My background is California hippie; we're supposed to downplay competition (and competence) under an aw-shucks, easygoing façade. But diagnostic, predictive & telepathic dreams...
• Buried pyramid-power appears as veins of fierce light = my own repressed power is starting to burst out with a vengeance.
• Sweet Melinda, the Goddess of Gloom: from the Dylan song Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
• Devil's Slide, car goes over the edge, faultline in time: south of San Francisco; Highway 1 traverses a cliff created by the San Andreas Fault. Notorious for crashes (spectacular, even terrifying views) & slides (the rock's weak, pulped by the fault's relentless grind). [2023 note: now rebuilt inland away from the fault. But before it was rerouted, I drove it many times--nervously.]
• My friend, who I feel guilty for not helping and protecting more = my body!
• The car I roll off the cliff: my 'role'? Self-image, or others' image of me?
• Is the time-split warning that a hard choice is looming? Or warning me I must learn to choose in general? In my life, I've mostly taken what comes, rarely steering much. Maybe the only way forward now is through a zone of, not light, not dark, but... decision. Decisive forks in the road of time.

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