"Barbeguru"

Orson said we were going to meet the Creator.

"I'm sorry, what?"

               Before that, he'd said we were going to climb. I was okay with climbing; out of all the thing Orson had me try, it had given me the clearest head, and the most focus. It was something about the physicality and the attention I needed to pay to hand and foot placement. Climbing peaks all over Washington and California gave me peace in the wake of the divorce, losing my dog, and being fired. Orson had given me too many methods for getting my life back on track since he’d taken me under his wing a few months ago: kombucha tea, meditation, charcoal cleanses, wilderness living. Climbing was Orson's first success; I should have thought more about that before I followed him up here.
                "The creator," Orson repeated. A beatific expression made an uneasy home on his face. With his wispy, blond beard, he looked like a skeletal billy goat. He'd gone for either "mystic guru" or "wise hermit" and somehow missed both. Why did it take so long to realize that? I glanced down the way we'd come, but the canopy was so far below that my head swam. The summit above us hid in grey clouds. My first cloudy day in Hawaii.

               "We need to head back," I said. "I'm getting height-sick." He shook his head. He began to pack up our gear.

               "We're so close, Casey. We're so close to the source," Orson said. I stared down at the steep incline up which we'd come yesterday. This was a two-person climb. I sat numb. Orson glanced at me. He had the fire of the devout in his face. I threw on my harness and haversack; before Orson finished with the camp stove, I was already lining up our first row of pitons. He made a noise in his throat.

               "I--feel more comfortable, today, with the mountain," I said. "I. I'll take lead. Okay?" Orson eye's still glowed with zealotry. I thought he would argue with me. He gave the clouded summit a forlorn look, but he gestured for me to start.

                 It wasn't a hard climb; porous rocks jutted out every which way from the dusty surface, and the space between made good placements for pitons. I didn't know this mountain, though. Orson muttered to himself while I searched the best place to anchor us. I apologized for being too slow. I had to shout over the breathtaking wind blowing at us from behind. It pinned us in place now, but yesterday I'd almost been blown off the mountain. If Orson said something, I didn't catch it. I moved to find another foothold, put down my weight--and then, I slid as the mountain betrayed me.

                 "Rock!" I couldn't afford to look down, but I knew my warning was too late when the guide rope went taut. "Orson!" The rope held. I stared at the one piton between myself and my guru's full weight; he didn't weigh all that much, but it was more than I could take on with all this gear. "Orse?" Silence. I jammed my toes as far as they could go into the crevices and crannies I'd found, and I risked a glance downward.

                 Orson dangled by the harness around the seat of his pants. He stared up at the grey clouds above us; there was a red gash on his nut-brown forehead. It bled freely into his glazed eyes.

                 "Orson! Where the fuck's your helmet?" He shook himself. The piton shifted. We slipped, just a little, but my legs began to tremble.

                 "Sorry, Casey," Orson rasped. He worked his long-fingered hands into the mountain. The weight on the piton lessened. "We can't fall. We have so far to rise."

              It wasn't that far. It took us another hour and a half to make it, and that was only because I made damn sure each piton found home before I looped the guide rope through it. I reached up to find another handhold--and found at least a handspan of flat space. I boosted myself up; the further I reached, the more flatness I found. I hauled myself up onto the ledge, helped Orson up, and turned to sit on my butt. We sat together, panting and staring downward.

           The flat space continued for maybe five feet before the stone began to slope--pretty steeply--downward. The caldera I had expected. The red-veined blackness in the pit of the mountain gave me pause. I smelled sulfur, now, and I already felt the heat.

          "It's active?" I asked. Orson shrugged at me with one shoulder as he worked the kinks out of the other arm.

          "It's alive." He hadn't wiped the blood off of his brow; his eyes were alight with that feral glow, again. Orson stood up and offered me his hands. "C'mon. We didn't climb up just to stay back, did we?" I let him haul me up.

           We eased our way downward. I scrambled to pick a path through the scree. Orson outpaced me quickly. He made it all the way to the drop-off; I was about halfway down, and the heat was already too intense. I kept sliding when I tried to stop. I came to a rest beside him; rocks I displaced tumbled down into the magma. We stared down into the pulsing, bubbling heart.

           "Skydiving," I croaked. I tried to push myself backward on my butt. "Why didn't we take up skydiving? Adrenaline, make you feel alive. I'm alive." My voice cracked. Orson extended his hand to me, and he helped me up. Somehow, from up here, the magmatic glow colored his face red.

            "You're alive," he agreed. "And so is He."

             I expected his shove; I pushed back. We stalemated for a moment, until my flailing hand clawed across Orson's forehead and the gash began to bleed again. He cursed, and wiped away the blood with his forearm. Droplets of blood fell into the rotten-egg void. I imagined I heard the hiss as they hit the magma, far below.

            Not that far below. The magma swelled up toward us. Orson had his back to the pit, now, but he saw my widening eyes.

            "He lives!" he said. He tried, one more time, to either shove me into the lava or to throw us both in--I'm not sure. But the ground underneath me was firm, and I held us both steady. I watched the magma flow up the vent toward us. Ozone filled my nose, and the roar of a furnace deafened my ears. I realized I'd lost the sensation of broiling while I tussled with Orson.

              Magma kissed the edge of the crater, and I expected to be swamped. It stopped. Only the patch directly behind us continued to rise. It moved like a slow-motion video of a flower in bloom, rising up into the shape of--a woman. Veins of orange threaded through her obsidian skin, and fire bled from her eyes.

            Orson had his back to her; he could only see the orange light reflected on my face. He had no way to prepare for it when the magma leaned forward against him. His clothing--and maybe his skin--burst into flame. He screamed. His arms twisted out of my grip and then his hands clamped down on mine.

           "Oh, God!" Was that him, or me? The lava woman wrapped her arms around his chest. She rested her head on his shoulder and whispered something--in some lilting language I didn't know--into his ear. She didn't seem to notice how his clothing continued to catch fire, that his hair burst into flame, or that he was still screaming. Her arms brushed mine. I should have been in agony, but I only felt the touch of stone on flesh. Orson begged her to let him go. It must have been the wrong thing to say, because her molten face creased. She tightened her arms, instead, and began to pull him back.

          He still had his arms on mine, clinging, as he was burned to the bone and she hauled him down. The rock under my feet held steady, and I pried myself away. The molten woman smiled, just once, and then she dissolved into magma and flowed over Orson. A mouthful of lava cut off his scream, and then he was gone. The lava ebbed. Orson was dead. I was stranded. 

          If you want gods, go somewhere else. Hawaii can only give you the volcano.

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