Artist
The creature raced ahead of me, coiling on itself, like a serpent. But then I caught up with it. As we speeded together, I became aware of something I already knew?the creature was really la Catalina. All of a sudden, la Catalina, in the flesh, was next to me. We moved effortlessly. It was as if we were stationary, only posed in a bodily gesture of movement and speed, while the scenery around us was being moved, giving the impression of enormous acceleration.
Our racing stopped as suddenly as it had started, and then I was alone with la Catalina in a different world. There was not a single recognizable feature in it. There was an intense glare and heat coming from what seemed to be the ground, a ground covered with huge rocks. Or at least they seemed to be rocks. They had the color of sandstone, but they had no weight; they were like chunks of sponge tissue. I could send them hurling around by only leaning on them. I became so fascinated with my strength that I was oblivious to anything else. I had assessed, in whatever way, that the chunks of seemingly weightless material opposed resistance to me. It was my superior strength that sent them hurling around. I tried to grab them with my hands, and I realized that my entire body had changed. La Catalina was looking at me. She was again the grotesque creature she had been before, and so was I. I could not see myself, but I knew that both of us were exactly alike. An indescribable joy possessed me, as if joy were some force that came from outside me. La Catalina and I cavorted, and twisted, and played until I had no more thoughts, or feelings, or human awareness in any degree. Yet, I was definitely aware. My awareness was a vague knowledge that gave me confidence; it was a limitless trust, a physical certainty of my existence, not in the sense of a human feeling of individuality, but in the sense of a presence that was everything. Then, everything came again into human focus all at once. La Catalina was holding my hand. We were walking on the desert floor among the desert shrubs. I had the immediate and painful realization that the desert rocks and hard clumps of dirt were horribly injurious to my bare feet. We came to a spot clear of vegetation. Don Juan and Genaro were there.
