There was a preview for a movie about a drug which lets you relive someone else's memories. A guy was reliving the memories of his dead wife. I was, thinking of time when mind melds and personality constructs, and memory drugs are real. I was thinking of an adventure but I know of none.
 
He walked over to the girl and said hello. She was sitting on a piece of driftwood, reading. "What are you reading?", he said.
 
"The Fall, by Camus. Are you looking for a place to camp?"
 
He was, and being a little nervous, he continued down the beach. After resting on the sand, thinking of aloneness, thinking mostly, he had nothing to lose, he walked back, and asked if he might camp near her. They sat around a driftwood fire that night, talking, and just watching the fire. It was an unnatural yellow, and she remarked it must be from the sodium in the salt-soaked wood.
 
Actually neither of them had come alone, or were out there alone. I do not want you to think that there are so many single travelers walking along the coast. Had his friend not spoken to the two other girls Seven might not have said anything to her. Had her friends not been with her, she might not have been on the coast, reading a book, after a day of running around on the beach. They had gone swimming, and they had been rained on, and they were drying bathing suits, and what looked like bras and underwear on sticks around the campfire. Had there not been so many others, they might not have said as much, they might not have felt as comfortable, they might not have had the fun they did.
 
There being time, "I have all the time in the world, I just need something to do." Seven said, they rode with the girls back to Montana.
 
"What are you thinking?"
 
"I want to go home now" "nothing really comes to mind when I think of home, just the idea....I think of the homes I've had, but they are not mine now"
 
"How did you get that name, Ivan?"
 
"Even, they thought I was an even tempered baby. My mom wanted to call me evening, but. ."
 
Plot, did you say plot? If I had a plot I would not be doing this right now. What are the best stories, and what am I trying to do here? I want to create a world for myself, imaginary people, and places, well, real people and real places, and give myself the experiencing of associations, and feelings of just exploring imagination. Wyeth would try to catch a feeling that he felt, and the landscape would transform, and a portrait would express his feelings and associations. But a painted written world is not the real one, maybe a rememberance, the world of the author becomes the world of the reader, so I will try.
 
"And Seven, how is it to be a number?"
 
"I am the seventh son, and so my name, Seven"
 
"What is the significance of the the Seventh son of the Seventh son? I think I knew it once, but I have forgotten"
 
And so have I.
"The seventh son is particularly unlucky, in the days of birthright and birth order, but a seventh son of a seventh son is such a poor fellow, he is seen as scary luck, I am just a seventh son, and I know nothing of the other six, just my sisters"
 
"It is the question of being human, the doubt of being human, feeling something is there, but not knowing what it is. We, not having religion, know it, a lot who have religion know it too I think, but I will not ask them, because their answer means nothing to me"
 
Seven loves Megan, but are these chars all the same people, namely all the author? Charles is different, he will do business. Even is different, she is so content. Jaime is different she is like the physical of Seven, but Seven knows not what she is thinking. Because Megan, was a scary unknown, Seven has filled her in. She is a still unkown. Why did she look at him strangely.
 
"What were you thinking the first night we met, were you looking at me, Megan?"
 
"Yes I saw you see me, I thought you might be gay, laying there in the sand, Charles sitting on the log around the fire. You reminded me of someone I know, a scary guy at my school, mean and alone, so I looked at you that way, I don't really know, I's just curious, and I wanted to know, and I loved the harshness of that guy, his stupid, singleminded commitment to his individual. He had a way for himself then. I think he may be clueless, doubtful now, and in fact be you."
 
And so she has become me, and talks only of me.
 
"Oh, Megan, " Seven said,
 
And they all went to the beach, as is their wont. They walked up the coast a ways, no one came this far up at night except the fishermen, and lay down on the sand. There was a moon, and a huge cloud was moving across the bay, and it covered the moon, and it was dark. Jaime said, "I'm losing my religion" Even with the plasma eyes looked toward the waves.
 
 
There was a wind a constant wind that blew ripples in the sand and made sand dunes wherever people put those little wood and wire fences. Already the sand was filling in the windward side of the four people.
 
I have no stories to tell, and we have nothing to say, we have only to be here the four of us together, just to be. It doesn't matter what we do, we could say something, but we don't, we cannot say anything. I just sit here and look at you three, the moon has come back out now and you are ghosts. We can have ambitions, and hopes, or you can. I have found heaven here, already, and I never want to leave.
 
They all feel together; and they know Seven's death.
 
"When I die, Seven says, I don't know what will happen" I will be apart of the earth, my little bubble spirit will no longer be separate.
 
So what can they do, what do they do what will they do, or will the sand slowly bury them, as it will anyways.
 
 
 
They continued on across the country in Megan's truck, after even finished high school. The guys had done odd jobs in Bozeman.
 
Even wanted to go to africa, Megan wanted to go to New York, so that was where they went. Seven was there for the ride. They had quite nothing to do, no purpose really, other than knowing eachother. So they went to the Met and looked at all the paintings, they walked along the water on a drizzly New York day.
 
Seven had no special skills no, special talents, but he wanted to go with these people to Portugal, and get around the mediterranean. He did not want to work a disgusting job, like data entry. He found a job as a teacher in northern california, the Humboldt-Arcata region. In the summer he would go with Even and her friends to Africa, and the next summer they would go to Portugal, and start their way walking around the mediterranean sea. Seven taught geography and Literature at a private highschool (because they required no certificate). Even came to Arcata, and worked the local press. She printed the paper, she was a sort of technician, and eventually became like a manager of the printing division. She was writing, because, when they left for Afrique, she would loose her job, and writing would be a way she could work anywhere, anytime, and travel.
 
Charles had gone to Malaysia to teach english for a year and a half. He would miss Africa, but he would be there for the Mediterranean trip.
 
Since Charles wanted to go to africa, and jaime wanted to go to Ireland, they decided to travel in this order: Ireland, Africa, then the Med. Seven was a patient guy.
 
It would seem funny if they all came to Arcata, like they were following Seven, but that is not how it was. Seven liked to be free, but he knew he was nothing by himself, so mostly, he followed them. They wanted Ideas, they were not all the same people so would they all go to arcata? They would not, but this is a story.
 
People don't just have the same group of friends. They move around, go places where they know no one, and start again. They will write their friends, and visit, because they do love eachother. The more you share experiences, the more you are apart of eachother's lives, and the less you want to loose the other.
 
For whatever reason, these people stuck together. The three girls were best friends, so they stuck together, the big question is Seven. You see, there is little reason they would tolerate him, except wanting a guy around, which, I suppose, is possible. Not for any practical or animal reason, but just for the experience of his feeling, A guys feeling may be a little different from a woman's, and at any rate, Seven would go along on any adventure, and was patient and quiet, but he could be just as mindlessly stupid, talking and singing, as they were. Charles didn't mind Seven, nor Seven Charles. Seven liked guys where there was no competing, no shows of manliness, no attempting to be better than the other. Guys like guys who are just friendly, who just say hi. Guys who are not cool. Sure he may be smarter or stronger, or almost done with school, and I'm just starting, but I don't lose anything by telling him something. He won't laugh, or take it out and pound me with it later. He won't try to hike me into the ground. He asks questions and listens. That is what Charles does. I don't know that Seven asks as many questions of Charles. "They are cautious, or they always have a certain disinterest in talking or examining the other so they let it slide. They let the secrets slide, and they just be together. There is time and time enough to know the whole of the other that is expressible. There is always time when you wait for death.
Seven and Charles weren't in any conflict for the attention of the femmes. Charles thought Megan was so much like his girlfriend in Germany, but Megan looked strangely at Seven, and I do not know what she was thinking. Seven liked even, because she was reading a book when he first saw her, and he liked Jaime, because she was rough and not pretty to look at, like him. Seven and Jaime were pretty to look at for the experience their skins and faces showed, but they were not pretty like model pretty. I don't know why Charles liked Jaime, but he really did. And what did Seven think about Megan? Undecided right now
 
"What are you thinking, Megan?, some distant thought...?"
 
'you asked,' she thought, 'you're so beautiful' 'I don't want to tell you I want to be at home, I want to be where you all are not, where I am alone'
 
"I, I don't know" "I am thinking...." "I'm thinking about being home away from here where its just my parents, I know I'll run out of things to do, but I can be alone, I can eat what I want, there are no worries there, a warm house, a bed, and I willn't have to work there, I will have time to read"
 
"I can't really feel these things because I love you guys, and I want to be here... so what is it... Home is like normal society, like real jobs, with kids, with churches and cars and grandparents and vacations. So I'm not a complete radical, I sometimes want that comfort of doing what everyone else is doing of being apart of something big and accepted. Home is like that warm hole in society, where I can go, but not really be apart of the bigness, mindlessness, thoughtlessness, I can go there and feel apart of it. There is so much insecurity with what we do. We could all be teachers, and stay together, and have time to explore, I suppose, but as teachers, we are apart of it, no doubts, we are doing something useful, and we are not entirely free. Paradox. The desire for aloneness and freedom, and the desire to be a part, to feel apart of a small community, a larger community, a community like you, a community of friends. I want to be an artist, but they always ask, do I still have the talent and the vision?, and they only get to ask that if they succeed first.
 
They don't need to ask that unless they are creating when they have no vision, when they are creating without feeling. You either know or you don't know if the feeling is there. If you doubt you have the vision, if you are put out on assignment, if you are given what to do, you have to doubt, you are messed. You doubt that your work will be accepted by society. You doubt that they will love it. If you always love it, and that is your only concern, you are there, you are the artist. Do you push yourself or always work when you have feeling"
 
That is to be an artist, if you start to think about the money and appeal, you are messed. If you want to communicate, you have to fit in to the way we communicate, else others will not understand, will not be interested, and you are ineffectual to all but yourself. So I love you.
 
So you have to think about what others see.
 
What of the teacher then, such a messy occupation. If you can get by as an artist, get by. We will help you."
 
"I stay with you, and I have a sadness, I go home, and I have a sadness, I forget it at times with you guys, it is always there though"
 
"I have that sadness too, Megan, it is always there, and we do forget"