Chapter Thirty Four. Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land

From the moment the white marble universe came crashing into the pit of the vase, Derby knew that all hell was about to break loose. With each bounce of the shiny white globe against the inside of the delicate vase, he felt as if he was tossed out of a bed, which his body remembered being in. Even though at the moment he had no body that he knew of and couldn't remember quite the last time he was in a bed.

"Kaboom. Ping. Pong. Varoom."

And Derby's world was shaking. "What the hell is going on?," Derby asked himself as he tried to stabilize his body which he currently wasn't housed in.

The kaboom and ping, pong, varoom was heard a second time, as if it had been screamed from the top of the Grand Canyon, along with "Hello!" Then the recall echo came again, this time with less volume--kaboom, ping, pong, varoom.

So Derby decided to add his voice to the mix as he screamed, "Helloooooo?!"

And the salute came back as an echo, "Hello." Then after a minute another, "hello," and then a third more mellow echo, "hello."

To Derby's utter amazement, as he looked out without eyes, and without a head to hold the eyes, and without a neck to look up with, and without his normal long torso to hold his neck, he saw what appeared to be a monster face staring down from the heavens. And with the vision of the monster from above came the sound of "Fe, fi, fo, fum," except the words were, "Derby my boy! Are you quite well?"

The monster was Umpa! Derby felt a sense of relief, nearly convinced after all this time that he was simply consciousness held in suspension.

"Umpa," he yelled to hear the recall, "Umpa, Umpa, umpa, umpa." He continued, "Is that you," then "that you. you. you. you"

"Yes my boy," said the monster head of Umpa from above, who was simply his normal Buddha self looking down into the vase. Umpa continued to instruct our hero. "I need you to look with your eyes, without seeing and see without looking."

Derby raised his non-existent arm to scratch his non-existent head. "Look with my eyes (which I don't have as far as I can tell) without seeing and see without looking?" What the hell is that suppose to mean?

But as he tried to follow the big man's recommendation, he imagined seeing his arm holding his hand scratching his head. And he saw it!

"As things start to come into focus, you will become very concerned about what you see," warned Umpa. He continued, "Your marble settled in the blue. This explains so much! But now we will no longer be able to hide the surprise which will no doubt cause you grave concern."

Derby felt the knot in his stomach as his body became more and more clear to the eyes in his head.

"You see," said Umpa, "That even though your deepest self is extremely Yang, you have a Yin influence in the second position, which is stabilized with five Yang layers underneath it."

Derby was totally at a loss to know what any of this meant but mostly he was so shocked by what he was seeing of his person, that he was unable to focus on much else except his body.

"But then," Umpa continued, "your marble settled in the crystal clear blue influence of water. Your fire inside will be overwhelmingly repositioned as your water will steam. And you will learn to accept your yin influences which are so close to the top of your total psychic self.

"I want to hear my voice," said Derby as he tested the reverb in the valley, to hear the reply, "voice, voice, voice."

Exactly as he was afraid to learn. The echo was of Jeninqua's voice. Derby assumed he was in Jeninqua's body. But he wasn't.