Death Valley 2
A man who’s come back from the dead warns you that he may be a hallucination. This makes him seem very reliable. He tells you everything is balance, that there is an ancient network of trading posts where records of all our transactions are kept alive forever. He’s in summer school right now. There were classes he hadn’t finished, perhaps flunked first time through, his current coursework seems only peripherally related. For a while he walked in the gutters, picking up whatever he found there and eating it. Currently he’s doing volunteer work related to generating sunlight in the dark smoky waters at the bottom of the ocean, which is apparently what the world needs. You ask, what happens after graduation? He says, incredulous of his own good fortune, I don’t know.
Peter Cashorali
Peter is a queer psychotherapist, previously working in community mental health and HIV/AIDS, now in private practice in Portland and Los Angeles. He is the author of two books, Gay Fairy Tales (Harper San Franciso 1995) and Gay Folk and Fairy Tales (Faber and Faber, 1997). He has lived through addiction, multiple bereavements and the transitions from youth to midlife and midlife to old age. He believes you can too.
Books
- Fairy Tales: Traditional Stories Retold for Gay Men
- Gay Fairy & Folk Tales: More Traditional Stories Retold for Gay Men
More: https://petercashorali.com
An odd and thought provoking piece that reminds us that everything is balance. Ocean and desert. Life and death. Thank you, Peter.