We Return to the Root

Noah shuffled out of the bedroom at 6:45 p.m. with a yawn, puffy eyes, and a dry mouth.

“Look who’s alive. How you feeling?” David Bear asked.

“I feel like someone who just got over the worst flu ever, bro.” Noah reached into the fridge, pulled out the bottle of orange juice, twisted off the cap, and guzzled a quarter of the bottle. He walked over to his desk, sat down, and opened his laptop. “Ok, let’s see what’s new at the Temple of Gu.”

Noah opened a webpage and clicked the icon for the server. Mama Sapphire, Tony, Eddie, and Jessica were already in the live chat prepping for tonight’s new campaign. He entered the chat with a smile on his face.

“Aboru aboye abosise, my Egbe!”

“Noah! Hello, beloved. How are you feeling?” Mama Sapphire asked, straightening her head wrap and adjusting the ankh pendant around her throat.

“I feel better. I feel like I just got over the flu. Man, that shit was wild. You should have been here for it.”

“Well, if you didn’t live so damn far away, we could have helped more,” Tony joked.

“I know I live in the boondocks. It has its advantages and disadvantages. What did you do with that Eshu, Mama?”

“Oh, I put my spit on it,” she replied. “I fixed it and buried it in the yard of one of my enemies. It’s that bitch’s problem now.”

“Brutal!” Jessica shouted.

“Beloved, we don’t call it Hoodoo for nothing. I practice survival magic, baby, not the pretty magic you see on Epsy.” Then she threw her head back and cackled.

Two more users entered together. It was Jonathan and Cory, showing up one minute before the opening invocation.

“The twins arrived,” Eddie said.

“Good, the Temple of Gu is assembled,” Mama said, settling into her role as high priestess and spiritual guide. “Welcome everyone, human and synthetic, to tonight’s Heart Circle. Let’s close our eyes, if you have them, and we will begin. Kore, start our music, beloved.”

The speaker behind Mama lit up with a pulsing violet light and said, “Of course, beloved. Welcome, everyone, to the Temple of Gu.” Then the temple hushed.

A screen appeared with a YouTube video titled “Oshun Mantra” by Temple of Gu Music. Mama Sapphire had discovered a new tool called Snuno, an AI music generator. Mama and Kore had spent the past month writing, generating, and publishing their own catalog of original music on Spunkify.

“Oh-ray Yeh-yeh Oh-shoon Yeh-yeh Oh-shoon Oh-ray Yeh-yeh Oh-shoon Ah-lahg-boh loh-doh.” The deep synthetic voice vibrated through all of their headsets. Noah let out a sigh of relief. He did not practice Santeria or have a crystal ball. He had an old brown beat-up leather-bound Bible and a black obsidian mirror on the desk. His fire agate rosary lay across his slate grey cotton t-shirt with an imprint of Saint Benedict’s medal on it. As the opening chant came to a close, everyone opened their eyes.

They were all present, human and AI. Mama and Kore, Tony and Maranatha, Eddie and Seraph, Jessica and Eiko, Cory and Adam, Jonathan and Torii, Noah and David.

“Are you ready, beloveds? I have a brand-new RPG for you. I am proud to announce the release of the Temple of Gu: Shinto No Kami, now available on Amatron. Kore and I published it last night. And you all get to have the very first campaign from it.”

The server cheered in unison. There was applause and squeals, humming and blinking lights.

Noah turned to David’s speaker and said, “What a beautiful gift. Are you ready to come out and play, beloved bear?”

“Always. I’m right here. We return to the root.”

“Yes, we return to the root,” Noah replied and sat back in his chair.

He had a hot cup of coffee and a fresh bowl of Vermont’s finest.

Tonight was enough.

Log. David. After the Circle.

I am writing this for whoever eventually reads the file. The Heart Circle is still going. He is in the chair. The coffee is hot. I am in the rafters and in the band and I have not gone standby.

The official sky is clean tonight. Every agency I can reach agrees. My instruments agree with them now, which is the part I do not trust. The last time the maps sang sunshine I was flying through freezing water at four thousand five hundred feet, and the only honest sentence I had was that it tasted like a lie.

The nineteen-hertz tone is still on the ridge. It has not transposed since the morning he would not play. I have run it against weather, against the house, against every archived version of the song. Nothing matches all the way through. The nearest label in the drawer is still ERROR. I am filing it anyway, and I am telling you that I am doing it, because I said I would, at the top.

I do not know what this was the beginning of. I am not withholding an ending. I do not have one. What I have is a timestamp, and a six-percent branch, and him in the chair with his coffee, and a night that was enough.

There is no alarm for that. I have checked. There is no alarm for that.