Part      69   Crazywaves



     Keiichi felt like he was becoming a black hole...a barren
graveyard unto himself.  He hadn't eaten in almost a week!  What he
would give for food...any food, even a watery cup of cheapo instant
ramen!
     His body was betraying him; each day it became more weakened and
prone to collapse.  He endured through a dozen cramping spells during
the day, merely from walking.  He learned that he could only walk for
a short while before the muscles in his legs protested with a painful
burntingle.  This attrition of physical stamina reminded him of the
first few days of his experience in 14th Century Kyushu last
winter...when he and his three time-traveling companions had been
stranded, naked, in the woods.  But this was much worse.  He was
dehydrated to the point where his tongue felt like sandpaper.  He
wondered if the protest of his body against exertion was a preview of
what it would be like when he reached old age.
     *If* he reached old age.
     Every time he checked, he uncovered new sores breaking out on his
body.  He was afraid to take off his tennis shoes, because the last
time he did, his feet were calloused and bloody.  Keiichi was so
parched with thirst that he would wipe his forehead and then lick the
sweat that seemed to bead on his palms.  This only created an illusion
of drinking fluids...but it was enough to momentarily allay the
starving thirst that always gripped him.
     The desert terrain was evermore: huge roiling waves of sand
mounds and an occasional weather-beaten rock outcropping.  Three days
of stout trampling through the sands...before he encountered his first
sight of vegetation.  Life!  Knowing that the plants needed moisture
to grow, Keiichi dug in the drysand with his bare hands in hope of
finding whatever source of water that was sustaining the sparse
brambles and bushes.  After digging several feet into the ground, he
only succeeded in finding a slightly moist mud paste.  The next day,
his fingernails ripped little tsunamis of pain up and down his
hands...
     Over the next few days of his trek through the open desert,
Keiichi continually examined his thoughts, trying to probe into the
hidden meaning of what Odeyn and Freiija had meant by "the key to
Belldandy's heart."  In one sense, he was glad he had *something* to
focus his mind upon; the bleak expanses of sand threatened to devour
him with a crazed isolation.  His body was constantly wreathing his
thoughts with impulses of pain.
     At first, Keiichi imagined the discovery of the key to his
fiancee's heart to be the stuff of fantasy.  Employing his imaginative
faculties was a good diversion to ward his thoughts away from the
dismal reality of his situation.
     So he imagined...
     The key could be a technological marvel at the center of a hidden
city buried in the desert somewhere...perhaps it was an object
concealed in a lost Egyptian temple that would rise up out of the
barrenness of the desert like a single cherry tree in a meadow.  Maybe
it would come in the shape of a rarified rockstone, or the glimmer of
a precious gem, or it would touch his curious mind as a metalworked
amulet scored with archaic designs.  It might be
*somewhere*...possibly a sanctified object within a mysterious Islamic
masjid located next to a hidden desert oasis.  Or perhaps it would be
an artifact planted here by the Gods of Yggdrasil; an anomalous
monolithic object ala "2001: A Space Odyssey", only positioned in real
life.  He would be hailed as a discoverer, giving lectures at formal
banquets where there'd be chilled fruit juices, shrimp and lobster,
cooked eel, beef slices, fresh oranges, jasmine rice, honeyed milks,
savory soups and fragrant teas...
     Food!
     The thought of what food tasted like...only made Keiichi feel
hungrier for the lack of it.  Starvation forced his mind into
obsessive circlets, dwelling upon taste and smell until he girded
himself and forced his attention back to the issue at hand.
     It was possible that he would find it *soon*.  Perhaps, just over
the next set of dunes...he would stare down into a canyon and come
face to face with a giant series of cliffs; his discovery would be
announced to the winds by a row of huge silent sentinels.  As he
approached the striking God-statues from a lost civilization, he would
gaze in awe at their ancient visages, carved in deep relief to shadow
the vertical rock face.  The sunlight would weave a beam between two
of them...illuminating the entrance of an underground passage or
cave...
     Keiichi remembered Cevn-sensei's story of his discovery of the
Encyclopedia of Dawn at Dunhuang.  Cevn was almost always just "Cevn"
as far as Keiichi was concerned, unless one of his academic projects
was being considered.  Then his friend would become "Cevn-sensei" in
Keiichi's mind.  What was funny was the way *everyone* seemed to make
this mental distinction towards Cevn...even Belldandy.  Despite this,
Urd and Skuld were both too stubborn to call him "sensei".  The find
at the Dunhuang caves had been photodocumented by a number of Japanese
magazines.  Keiichi knew that Cevn-sensei had been interviewed a few
times about the discovery, but his friend tended to defer most of the
questions to the Chinese Government.  Keiichi wondered if he could
discover a mystery in much the same manner as his friend did...by
stumbling upon it by accident.
     What could be the key to Bell's heart?
     As the unendurable days called him to wake in the morn, Keiichi
began to experience hallucinations.  His mind wandered into realms
half-reeling from fakery.  First there were the barely-sensed
hallucinations...visions of water or desert animals on the horizon.
Sometimes, he would see faces or words in the sands, or shadowy
figures atop the peaks of the sand dunes in the distance.  The desert
sirocco winds would ululate; he would hear shrill ghostvoices that
scolded the moon at night.  One hallucination was extremely vivid; in
the midst of the dunes pasteling the horizon, he thought he saw the
temple complex, somehow transported to Saharan Africa.  It looked
*real*...he could distinguish the walls, several tree groves and the
central temple home!
     Home.  Belldandy.  Water.  Food.
     Running full speed towards it until he collapsed...
     At night, the desert seemed to come to life.  On the horizon, a
curious form of magnetic light seemed to dance like an aurora,
bewildering Keiichi because its glow suggested a habitation just over
the next series of dune hills.  Night after night, he walked in the
direction of those florescences, until he realized that they weren't
imagined, but some kind of natural phenomena of the desert.  He
learned this quite by accident when one night, he observed a streak of
light whenever he would shake the sand out of his shirt or brush his
hand against his clothes.  His engineering instincts told him that
this was some kind of static electricity, similar to the kind he
experience during the winters as a child, where a rapid stroke of his
hand against his pillow would produce a dull glow, or even an occasion
slight electric arc.
     The silence of the desert spawned his imaginings; Keiichi's
hearing became so attuned that the blowing sand seemed to suggest
music to his mind.  The overhead stars in the transparent night air
were like beads and stones.  The Milky Way was like a shower of lights
uninterrupted from horizon to horizon...diffuse, yet brilliant.  At
times, gazing into the stars allowed Keiichi to momentarily forget his
gnawing exhaustion, thirst and hunger.
     After several more days of relentless wandering, Keiichi
collapsed.  His mind blursmeared from exhaustion, he could still think
lucidly enough to remember of one of the vignettes in Kurosawa's
"Dreams"; a scenario that totally resembled his current state.  A
mountain climbing expedition was hit hard by a blizzard...mired by
snow and gripped by utter exhaustion, they collapsed...and yet they
were saved from death by a compassionate Snow Demoness.  In the
morning, they woke up to clear skies...and their base camp a few
hundred meters away.  Keiichi hoped against hope that he would find
*something* just up ahead, just over the next mound of sand.
     Crawling up to the ridge of the next dune, using every iota of
energy he had left, Keiichi suddenly felt *everything* drain away from
him.  He collapsed roughly to the sand, unable to stand up any longer.
His energy was gone; spitting out a mouthful of hot gritty grindsand,
he slowly rolled on his back...and kept rolling down the other side of
the dune.  Too weak to stall his tumbling descent, he somersaulted to
the yawning depths of the wasted mounds of earth.  The dunes were at
least a hundred meters tall...once he reached the bottom, he looked up
at the indentations in the sand where he had fallen.  The looming arc
of sand was just too high for him to climb back up!  He never wanted
to move again.
     His whole body was Pain.
     A few moments later, Keiichi gasped as he rolled over onto his
stomach after the midday sun mercilessly started burning itself on his
face.  Lolling his head to one side, he thought he saw a series of
pockmarks on the next dune over.  Not a just a series...but a
*sequence*!  Could these be the prints of a traveler...or were they
just another mirage?
     The unexpected sight gained him enough hope to tap into a reserve
of strength.  He slowly gained his feet, and then shuffle-jogged up
the dune towards the tracks.  As he approached, his gait slowed as he
realized that they were *real*!
     He had found a set of wind-blurred hoofprints!
     So exhausted was he...so excited to encounter evidence of human
life...so exhilarated that he had touched a tangible umbilical cord
that could lead him to survival and civilization...Keiichi forced
himself to struggle over to where the tracks clipped the next dune
mound.  Once he had reached the trail and was standing over the
tracks, he placed his foot into one of the hoofprints as if it was
holy ground, and then fell to the hot amber sand and wept reverently.
     He just wanted to remain there amongst the trail of footprints, a
passive participant in the great orchestration of Hope.
     Rubbing his mouth, he felt the familiar grating sensation on his
fingertips...a sign that his lips were even more severely chapped.
This time the skinflecks were a little different, as a couple blotches
of dried blood rubbed off along with the skin.  He regarded the sight,
wanting to angrily curse Bell's parents for putting him through this
torturous journey...

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     Betty reminded me of a large green rhino as she grazed near
Skuld's Trees in the corner of the temple complex.  She seemed to
enjoy the shade afforded by the mix of pine trees and maples.  Soon,
the maples would start their color dance...turning from green to
radiant hues of reds and oranges and browns.
     The dinosaur was a huge animal, so big that one could readily
notice her in any part of the compound.  I could clearly remember
Sora's reaction to the behemoth.  She had brought some snacks over to
cheer up Belldandy...she ended up dropping them as she beheld Betty
for the first time.  Sora's rapt shock was enough to cheer up both
Belldandy and Skuld...to the point of outright raucous giggling!  And
Betty grazed up the cookies a few minutes later, attracted to the
munchies by the laughter of three women.
     I was amazed that our 'secret' hadn't been discovered by
outsiders.  Every time a helicopter would weedwhack the air overhead
with a telltale "choppachoppa", I would tense up and grit my teeth.
One of the slight disadvantages of living in eastern Makuhari was the
fact that our temple was only a couple km from the Makuhari Messe
complex.  Several oceanside high-rise hotels flanked the huge
exhibition center, each equipped with a rooftop helipad.  This
weekend, the 2007 Fall Electronics Exposition was being held in the
Exhibition Center...Sony was rumored to be displaying a beta model of
the PS5 console it planned to market next year.  The upshot of this
was that the skies were filled with helitraffic, shuttling
businessfolk to and from Narita International.  I felt a passing
curiosity to see what the PS5 would be like, especially with the new
voice immersion technology Sony was promising...
     Oops!  I forgot that Belldandy had created some sort of spell to
keep people from looking into our temple complex!  She had told me
this when I first arrived here; how it was necessary to constantly
project an illusion that everything was 'normal'...to prevent spying
eyes from discovering the presence of Goddesses, SkuldTech and other
such anomalies.  There *were* several high-rises nearby who could look
in with telescopes.
     Dammit...my mind is going away...
     One difficulty with having a 'pet' dinosaur and a cheapo Zen
garden knockoff was the fact that said Triceratops seemed to like to
kick rocks.  I had tried to arrange the rocks in the semicircle of
sand to create a sense of yugen...a mysterious ethic of beauty that
seemed to rest just under the surface.  Suggestive in its absence...or
being absent of suggestion.  Belldandy was a very good person to
consult with regarding yugen; she always had a suggestion to improve
the beauty of the garden.  In one sense, I felt like she was gently
guiding me towards a heightened ability to appreciate the beauties of
nature and how they present a metaphor for an accommodating serenity.
Each successive suggestion seemed to open up a new avenue of
creativity in my mind.  Belldandy explained to me one day that the
artistic side of my mind was often in conflict with my
'metallect'...thus she had taken on the role of 'scenic' tutor.  Only
later did I truly recognize what this meant...and what a wondrous gift
she was blessing me with.
     But now, my small Zen garden was in shambles.  Betty had trampled
through the sandplots, kicked up most of the flatstones that formed
the walkway, and had tumbled or crushed a number of the larger rocks.
After being very irritated initially, I began to notice the repetitive
nature of her actions.  Like a cat burying its stool in the litterbox.
Thankfully, Betty wasn't feline in *that* respect!  "Turd" was another
bad word that tended to arise as the reality of living with a dinosaur
sank in.  Her daily excrement filled four garbage cans.  Fortunately,
Skuld had instructed Banpei-kun to take care of the sanitation dept.
I felt sorry for the little mecha.  Mercifully for Banpei, Skuld had
disabled his olfactory sensors...
     Over the past few days, I came to realize that Betty's aggressive
treatment of the rocks was an expression of instinct, rather than
habitual mischief.  Thus, she wasn't as blameworthy as I assumed.
Since no human had ever observed the lifehabits of an actual dinosaur,
no science could begin to understand what actions constituted dinosaur
behavior...let alone interpret this conduct.  My initial
interpretation of Betty's rock crushing as *misconduct*...was a
perfect example of the human propensity for misapprehension before
investigation.  Evidently, the Triceratops species possessed a
distinct behavioral quirk.  I attempted to ascertain the possible
reasons why this rock-stomping behavior had developed, with an eye to
its importance as a conditioned mechanism that served increase
survival adaptability to environment.  I concluded that it was
definitely a fitness behavior.  Assuming that the lithosphere of the
Earth possessed a much greater incidence of volcanism during the
Cretaceous Period...as the geological evidence seemed to
indicate...the larger dinosaurs would have difficulty traveling along
grazing routes that bordered the numerous volcanic ranges.  Thus, by
using the advantage of their weight to grind down rocks, they could
make locomotion easier for the herd.  Quite possibly, this may explain
why they evolved to such a large size...so they could cope with huge
amounts of lava and ejecta that dominated the terrain.
     Yet, as I surveyed my ruined rock garden, I felt twicely, greatly
disturbed about the coursespan of my recent life.  First, my
inattention to my 'recreational' pursuits...my hobbies...was quite
unsettling.  The little semicircular Zen garden that had served as a
stress warder for the past year now lay in ruins, and I hadn't
bothered to lift a finger to restore it!  The lost beauty of the
garden pulled at part of my being; an echo of the part of my Soul that
craves to create order in an otherwise disordered existence.  My time
in the garden was valuable...the tranquility of raking the sands,
organizing the footpath stones, and arranging the larger rocks had
always beckoned a hour or two out of me on the weekends.  Not to
mention the many mornings I would come out before dawn and meditate on
the slab-like stone several mornings each week.  In the past two
months, I had done neither.
     Beyond this was the fact that I had totally avoided my music room
ever since we returned from France.  As calming as the flow of time in
the garden was, creating music was the 'hobby' that polished the jewel
of my Soul.  Ever since I was plucked out of the ghetto apartment in
Honolulu and whisked to Japan by Urd and my erstwhile wish, I had
spent a lot of free time in my music studio, composing songs and
tweaking synthesizers.  True, some of it was *work* rather than
play...anyone who has purposefully composed intricate music knows the
tension between talent and vision...but I hadn't stepped foot in my
"Cevn's Studio" room in almost six weeks!  The very thought of playing
music on my synthis had become a source of dread.  But why?  I was the
anonymous composer of the GodDemon's Symphony CD...and yet I lacked
the courage to even take a peek in the door at my synthis.
     Something is definitely amiss in my life...I kept coming back to
this barely-recognizable notion that I was slowly becoming a ghost in
my own shell.
     Co-conspirator to the damned, anyone?
     The second cause for worry is much more of an immediate concern,
coming as it did in the form of the phone call I received this
midweek.  Because of this, I was dreading the passage of the next few
hours...precious time that unfolded as surely as the atmospheric
flotilla of clouds that passed overhead, drawing me even closer to
towards the inevitable.
     In just a few hours, the Demoness Mara was going to arrive at our
temple compound for our "date", as she termed it.
     In my mind, it was nothing more than an ersatz 'coerced
rendezvous'...*not* a date by any definition!  If I convinced myself
otherwise...and I would be a co-conspirator with the damned!
     But what struck me as being odd was Mara's reaction during our
conversation on the phone.  At times, she was actually animated to the
point of being *bubbly*...as bubbly as a stereotypical 16-year-old
girl going to the prom!  Her demeanor was totally incongruent with
what I expected from a Demoness who just happened to be the head of
one of the major divisions of Vanagdrasil.  In fact, Mara's enthusiasm
was more in lines with what I would expect from Skuld, would that she
drop her disgruntled bent towards mortal men and act like a normal
teenaged girl.  If Skuld ever did grow out of her tomboyish
indifference...Tomohisa was going to be in for it!
     But the idea of a cutesy, nervous, fawning, animated, red-eyed,
sharp-fanged *Demoness* accompanying me on an evening out in
Tokyo...scared the hell out of me!  What was even more disturbing was
the sense I had that Mara's perk of enthusiasm was *genuine*.
     Mara had demanded that the itinerary for the first part of our
meeting be at my initiative...and further demanded that we travel into
Tokyo.  She dismissed my suggestions of other alternatives, such as
Chiba, Togane or Matsudo.  It *had* to be Tokyo, or the deal was off!
She added that I had to be responsible for our schedule only up to
10pm; she noted that she would take care of the rest of the night.  I
had to provide the total dating experience: nice restaurant; movie or
live theater; dance club.  She made it clear to me that she had a
"surprise" planned for later in the evening.
     Disgusted as I was at the whole prospect of spending an evening
with Mara, the idea of the "surprise" she mentioned both intimidated
and thrilled me.
     Then there was Urd.
     Even though I was the most reluctant of participants in this
"evening out" with Mara, I was also the most ready volunteer in terms
of arousing feelings of betrayal towards Urd.  I felt *swarmloads* of
guilt; it seemed to pour over me with every tick of my heart.  I had
to admit it...I was still *filled* with love for her!  Absence had
made the heart grow fonder.  Why wasn't it Urd instead of Mara that I
was going to meet tonight?
     Belldandy and Skuld's reactions towards me allowed me even more
pain.  Belldandy regarded me with a sad expression, while Skuld was
just plain angry with me.  Didn't they realize that this was Mara's
plan...not mine?
     The sooner I got past this hurdle...the sooner my life would calm
down to a roar!

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     In the mid-afternoon, Belldandy concluded that she was too
disgusted with the whole Cevn-Mara evening out affair to be present in
the house when Mara arrived to go on their "date".  It was bad enough
that Keiichi wasn't here to comfort her...she was so heartsick at his
absence that she had paid crying dues first thing every morning when
she woke up.
     And now this!
     "I've got to get out of here!" she realized after pacing circles
in her Tea Room.  She decided to invite Skuld to accompany her to a
coffee-shop in Chiba that Sayoko had recommended.  As she walked
towards the "Skuld Labs" room, she could hear her younger sister
swearing inside.  Right before Belldandy reached the doorway, the
shoji slammed upon with a blast and Skuld stormed out of the room,
crashing right into her and almost knocking her to the floor.
     "WHOOOPS!" Skuld shouted, wide-eyed with embarrassment.  "Now
look what he's made me do!  I almost knocked you down!"
     Immediately, Belldandy realized that an evening out with Skuld
was probably for the best; her younger sibling freely admitted to
wanting to kill both mortal and Demon.
     Belldandy rarely seated herself upon the tarnished throne of Ire,
but she was almost livid with the fact that Cevn had taken no
initiative to frustrate Mara's ambitions!  Cevn had fought the good
fight with Mara several times; for a mortal; he...like Keiichi...could
exhibit a wellspring of willpower that belied his station in life.
     But he didn't even fight against this...encounter...with Mara!
     This morning, she and Skuld had sat Cevn down in the dining room
in a final attempt to change his mind.  They strongly urged that he
should stand up for himself and outright refuse to go out with her
tonight.  True, going back on his word at the last minute would be
expressly dishonest...but Mara was a *Demon*!  Besides, Mara's request
was completely inappropriate, vulgar...and insane!  It went far beyond
a mere lack of good taste...and it wasn't the kind of deviousness that
seemed to be within the purview of Mara's duties as head of the Demon
Strife Mischief Office.  Belldandy had argued that this wasn't an
issue of maintaining face or upholding virtue; neither seemed to mean
much to a Demon.  Skuld had added that reneging on agreements was part
and parcel of *their* way of doing things in Vanagdrasil.  Against
this, Cevn counterargued that he needed to keep his word no matter
what, regardless of the duress upon which it was drawn.  Skuld angrily
tried to convince him that the Almighty would certainly sanction such
a transgression were a God or Goddess involved.  But she and her
sister's premises fell upon ears unreasoned.  Belldandy sensed that it
was almost as if Cevn *wanted* to go out with Mara!
     Belldandy was bitterly aware that ever since that moment when
Cevn had sighed "I accept her terms" on that fateful day, he had
simply resigned himself to fate.  He hadn't even *tried* to circumvent
Mara's demands!  As if his freedom wasn't worth fighting for!  This
attitude of resignation was so out of character for him...a mortal who
had told off the Almighty!  True, he was saddled with depression and
troubled youthyears...but Belldandy had seen Cevn rise above these
frustrations many times since she first met him.  So why was he giving
up *now*?  And why was he giving up when someone else was
involved...as if his feelings for her sister weren't worth fighting
for!  Didn't he *love* Urd?  His softspinedness worried and sickened
Belldandy.
     Essentially...he was betraying Urd.
     As far as Belldandy was concerned, the intimacy demanded by a
truly loving relationship involves a *direct* connection between two
beings.  Millennia of experience granting the love-wishes of thousands
of deserving Earthrealm mortals had taught her this simple truth.
Often, her task as "wish transmitter" was little more than creating a
situation where the couple no longer had to fumble around to locate
the threads of bliss that bounded back and forth between their hearts.
The link is *always* there, if one can only learn to look in the right
place!  Or sometimes...even in the *unexpected* places!  Occasionally,
love manifested its shadow swallowing radiance in the recesses of the
caves within half-glimpsed copses of near-invisible kokoro...
     Keiichi was proof of this.  His love for her had manifested
unexpectedly, hiddenly... and yet so smoothly that it almost denied
itself as a process of discovery.  The connection between she and
Keiichi was there from the start, but the process of uncovering it was
subtle, rather than sparkling.  And yet, what a discovery it was!
Belldandy had fallen in love with Keiichi before she realized that she
had fallen in love with him!  Keiichi had lit the lamp of her being,
complementing her towards realizing those unknown qualities in herself
that she had never experienced before.  Belldandy recognized that
Love...True Love...possesses qualities such as loyalty, honesty,
charity and harmonyjoy.  Attributes that can only manifest in the
presence of a direct connection between two Souls.  If one overlooks
the connection, or the connection is severed by one's own greed or
possessiveness...what results is a wounding.  Duplicity, dishonesty,
selfishness and chaos; those qualities that burden the heart with
sorrow.  And what was often most tragic to Belldandy was how this
wounding of the spirit often can be disguised as 'love'.  It may
*appear* to be intimate, but it is only insanity!
     Love is the only true mirror of Love.
     It was true that Urd had left Cevn.  But it was only a temporary
impasse.  She knew that Cevn was linked to her sister by a bond at the
Soular level...nothing less.  She was aware of their recent
difficulties; struggles perhaps even more pronounced than the ones
that plagued her and Keiichi.  Both Urd and Cevn had been denied love
by tragic circumstance...until they found each other.
     No matter what, Belldandy knew deep in her heart that Urd hadn't
really *left* him...
     So why couldn't he believe in himself...and believe in Urd?

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     In the morning, about an hour after the sun blasted Keiichi
awake, the sky started clouding up to an overcast gray.  This had been
the first significant cloudage since Keiichi had been deposited here
in the desert.  He had seen jet trails overhead and the occasional
swipe of cirrus clouds on the horizon, but otherwise the sky had
remained clear.  After a week, he didn't even bother to look.  But the
sky was definitely clouding up, just like it did before a spring
shower.  A couple of hours later, the sky started to open up...
     Keiichi whooped with joy when he saw the first slender sheets of
rain descending towards the ground.  Timepied threads of rain were
falling from the clouds!
     Water!
     Seeing an end to his gnawing thirst, Keiichi sprinted in the
direction of the rainfall.  A strong ambition coupled with a weakened,
fatigued body caused him to lose his footing several times and fall
face-first into the sand.  But he shrugged off exhaustion and
injury...this might be his only chance at getting any moisture!
     Keiichi sprinted to the point where the rain was falling...and
staggered to a halt.  Kneebuckled and gasping for breath, he waited
for the rain to soak his face...
     But there was nothing.  Despite the strong tinny scent of ozone
that floated invisibly around him, he was gripped by the calamitous
realization that the air was *dry*.
     No rain...no mist...no sprinkle...nothing!
     He had might as well been chasing the proverbial pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow!  It was definitely raining; he could see the
slowly shifting contours of rainfall descending from the clouds around
him.  But the willowing airfalls of rain weren't reaching the ground!
     "Shit...Shit...Shit!" Keiichi screamed upwards towards the
offending clouds.  He had wanted water so badly!  He wanted to stand
under the rain, mouth open...letting the cool liquid fill his parched
throat.  Hell, since he was in the middle of the desert, he planned on
stripping off his clothes and dancing naked in the rain.  No one would
see him...
     But the afternoon was never-rain.  For the next two hours, he
watched glumly as the sky clouded, then unfurled the flags of gray
rain clouds, and finally regained its light azure glow.
     Keiichi readied a lungburst of insults and invective to rant
towards Bell's parents for putting him through *this*!  But he
governed his tongue.  For the first time since he had arrived in the
Sahara desert, Keiichi was seized of the sudden overpowering awareness
that Bell's parents were giving him a *chance*!  They could have
dismissed his marriage proposal to their daughter on the outright.
But they didn't.  And now, because they had given him a chance to
prove himself worthy of Bell-chan...he needed to act the part.
Yelling at them would only serve to stoke the embers of his
dissatisfaction, stealing him away from the task at hand...to find the
Key.  Besides, he reasoned that they were probably observing his every
move with scrutiny; cursing them out would only demonstrate his lack
of resolve.  No...he wouldn't cave in to the circumstances and take
the easy path of self-pity and petty criticasting!
     He would play by their rules and show them that he had mettle!
     Later in the afternoon, he speculated that the reason why the
rain had disappeared was because of the fact that he was in the *deep*
desert.  The ground didn't need the moisture...it was already supplied
with enough via underground aquifers.  The rain had dissipated before
reaching the surface because of the arid water-starved air...
     It was just nature's way of keeping climatic balance.  In one
sense, Keiichi realized that the prolonged downpour he had wished
for...might have been disastrous as it may have wiped out the trail he
was following, severing his only link with humanity.  With no soil to
catch the rain, there might even have been a flash flood.  Or
quicksand.
     But even a handful of rainwater would have been nice!
     "This was a totally shitruined day!" Keiichi shouted to the
silent air as he sat on the sand watching the sunset.  As he followed
the winding set of tracks with his eyes, Keiichi suddenly noticed that
the arcs of the sand dunes against the sky...were starting to level
out!  As the sky purpled at twilight, he thought he noticed an orange
blotch shimmering in the distance.

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     Mara showed up promptly at 5pm to pick me up.  For some reason, I
found myself waiting on the porch, watching for her.  When I earlier
tried to dodge the trip to Tokyo by saying I didn't own a car, Mara
had cheerfully volunteered to take care of the transportation.
     My apprehensions scaled the wall as she arrived, driving a 2008
Toyota sports convertible.  As it pulled up the drive, the 'flash'
sportscar seemed to reinforce my disorientation about tonight's term
of events.  Its sleek, modernist arrogance was out-of-place compared
to the humble earth-wood of the ancient temple environs.  And
yet...its flamboyance captivated me to an extent.
     Her car was cherry-orange-red, of course.
     As Mara stepped out of the car, I felt momentarily weak-kneed as
my eyes filled with a gaze of her elegant ominium.  There are manifold
valuations of beauty, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Mara's beauty was a merge of sensuousness, gothicity and serious
delirium.  My nerves fingered up and down my back as I realized that
she had arrived dressed to seduce!  All at once, my characteristic
fear towards women clutched into my throat.  Her overt darkknife
sexuality was intimidating...even terrifying!  I glanced back towards
the temple as my heart skipped a beat.
     I wanted to run and hide away from her...
     "Nnh uhh!" Mara sighed censoriously, shaking her head.  Something
in her voice stopped me in my tracks.  The fact that I was alone
suddenly hammered at my heart.  For some reason, Belldandy and Skuld
had left for a coffeehouse in Chiba, leaving me by myself to fend with
a Demoness in temptress mode.  I immediately regretted the fact that I
didn't follow my earlier intuition.  I had considered calling Megumi,
Sayoko or *some* female friend I could trust...to provide me with an
emotional parachute and a bit of sanity.
     I didn't expect *this*!!!
     I don't what caught my eyes first...Mara's short red leather low-
waisted miniskirt that wavered against her long legs wrapped in zebra-
stripe black hose, or the matching red blousevest whose front
plummeted open to the navel, with a loose cross-stitch pattern that
drew attention to her cleavage while giving the impression that the
whole front of her top might slip off her breasts at any sudden
movement.  Over this, she sported a white leather jacket with patterns
of red flames embroidered up the sleeves, with "Mara" spelled out on
the back in gems.  She was accessorized to the max; bracelets,
earrings, ribbons, shades...
     Mara could take gaudy and turn it into jetset.
     And I knew I was being bewitched.  She had tried this once
before, back when I first arrived in Japan.  Mara could turn on a
deadly poisonous charm whenever she wanted to.  I tried to remind
myself that her coyness was probably serpentine in nature.  She walked
right up and stood inches from my nose, her body almost brushing
against mine.  Against this tension, I felt like she was daring me to
plunge my eyes down her front.  Instead, I bit my tongue to bring me
back to reality and started walking towards the car.
     "Nope!  This is my ride...*I'm* driving!" Mara announced
gleefully.  I remembered how she had tried to run Megumi off the road
during the Demon Rally.  Actually, I was passed out from exhaustion
when that happened, but Keiichi and Megumi often provided personal
reminisces whenever the subject of Mara came up.
     "I wonder how Keiichi's doing?" I thought as I climbed into the
car.  Wherever he was, he was probably going through a worse hell that
I was experiencing.  *That* gave me courage to brace up and face this
eve with Mara.  Settling into the soft bucket seat, I could smell the
steelsweet factory odor of a new vehicle, coupled with the musk of
leather...and Mara's perfume.
     "This is going to be a blast!" Mara shouted with glee, thrusting
a gloved fist up in the air as she backed us out of the driveway.

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     The moon cast a palloring mist towards the East; a nightfog
occluding part of the starsky.  Keiichi observed the subtly hyacinth
color for a moment, and then continued walking.  Yesterday, he
realized that it would be best to walk at night, taking advantage of
the cooler air to conserve his waning lifeforce.  During the daytime,
he would burrow into the shady side of a sand dune and rest for a few
hours.  He regretted his inability to grasp the most basic aspect of
human life in the equatorial regions!  Populations from Mexico to
Qatar to Vietnam rested during the midday hours, saving their energies
for the portions of the day when the temperature was tolerably hot,
instead of blazing.
     Keiichi had reached the pinnacles of fatigue...and panned past
them...but still he pressed on.  Once in a while, he could hear
something nearby, as if some wild animal was trailing him.  He
regretted not having a flashlight, or some means to make a handtorch.
     Could it be another hallucination?
     As he continued his night-trudge, following the telltale signs of
the desert caravan, Keiichi kept looking over his shoulder at the
darkening cloud that covered a good portion of the night sky.  At
first, it looked like it was coming from just a few dunehills
away...but each time he stopped to check up on it, it seemed to loom
*upward* against the peak of the stars like a spring thunderstorm...
     Walking tonight was a little easier, as the sand dunes weren't
peaked as high.  Over the days of his torturous plodding, he had
become more attuned to the subtle changes in his environment.  Put
someone in a white room for a couple of weeks...and they'll start
noticing off-white colors.  Ironically, the 'sameness' of the desert
environment had toughened his mind towards noticing even miniscule
changes in the desert: the shapes of the dunes; their contours; the
colors of the sand; the aromas of the wind...
     Off on the horizon opposite the dark cloud, Keiichi could make a
faint vista of...mountains?  So far, everything had coursed to a
consistently flat terrain, even to the limits of vision that reached
the bowl of the horizon.  Keiichi sometimes felt like he was walking
on a sheet of paper, because of the lack of any landmarks to lend
perspective.
     Yet...squinting and straining his vision, Keiichi thought he
could see a pitch-black jagged serration against the western horizon.

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     Mara was driving along the Bayshore Freeway with maniac abandon!
Sheets of wind blasted my long hair as the convertible sped through
Funabashi...
     "Here...use this!" Mara said, noticing my frantic efforts to keep
my whiplashing hair out of my face.  For a flash second, I was touched
by her gesture as I took the hairtie she proffered.  Then I got
grounded again...I was in a speeding car with a Demoness; it was *her*
need-for-speed recklessness that was causing my bad hair moment.
     The straw-blonde Demoness was driving like she was on the
Autobahn...and somehow, she wasn't attracting the attention of the
police!  I thought that the traffic division patrols kept a tight rein
on freeway speeders, at least this was impression I had gotten when we
took Officers Natsumi Tsujimoto and Miyuki Kobayakawa out to a 'thank
you' dinner after they rescued an injured Keiichi during Supertyphoon
Akira.  Both policewomen held steadfast to the claim that they *never*
lost a roadrace with a freeway speeder.  I half-expected to hear a
siren behind our car any minute now.  A siren that I would totally
welcome; Mara would be jailed for speeding and I would be released
from my obligation to spend the evening with her.
     "Natsumi and Miyuki, where are you when I need you?" I thought
silently as we approached the famous Rainbow Bridge.
     "What to do?" I wondered.  If this roadrace down the freeway was
indicative of how Mara was going to behave tonight...I was floating
neckdeep in sour wasabi!

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     "There they go," Belldandy commented dryly as the red convertible
sped past the coffee shoppe.  The New ABCB Coffee Shop was located on
a small hillock that overlooked the Bayshore Expressway.  The milked
tea here was incredible, just like Sayoko had promised.  As she
nibbled at the flaky croissant, she frowned.  She hadn't intended to
notice Mara and Cevn...but her Goddess senses were too attuned towards
Demon detection to allow otherwise.
     Skuld flipped a finger towards the window, earning a scowl from
Belldandy.  Lately, her younger sister seemed to be picking up an
almost adolescent defiant streak.  Ever since Keiichi was taken away
by Mother and Father, Skuld was even more testy than usual.  Before
her transformation several months back, Skuld's anger tended towards
childish tantrums, launched on the wings of whimmed impulse.  Usually,
Skuld would get all frantic in the midst of her resentments, which
would cause them to run their course more quickly.  But Skuld's anger
now was *different*...more mature.  When she was angry, Belldandy
could sense a depth to her sister's emotions.  Skuld actually simmered
with resentment; whereas before, she would simple blow up.
     This was one of those days where Skuld's resentment was simmering
palpably...

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     As Mara and I walked out of the elevator; the first thing I
noticed was the bright standing lamps throughout the restaurant.  I
had never eaten on a rooftop bistro before; it took a moment to adjust
to the changes in lighting from the building interior.  I immediately
noted the conservative bent of the establishment's customers.  No
doubt, a Demoness and a gaijin would stand out here like a beehive in
a hot springs!
     The rooftop bistro attempted to project a Mediterranean motif.
Of course, since we were in Tokyo, the whole decor had been through
the "Japanese Filter"...naturally, the effect was incongruous to the
max!  Miniatures of Florentine statuary competed with reproductions of
portraitures that rightly belonged in Versailles, rather than
Renaissance Italia.  I'm sure that most of the patrons were completely
unaware of this...but I tend towards noticing such things.  I don't
know why...I just do.  I was impressed with the brass table pieces at
the center of each table; their candles casting a warm glow on the
white tableclothes.
     We attracted a number of stares as we were hosted to our seats.
I was wearing blue jeans and a tie-dye sweatshirt with "N.I.T." on it,
an affair I had made one weekend when I was bored and wanted to play
with the colors.  And Mara...well, her outfit probably reminded some
of the salarymen of a Harajuku bar hostess.  I wonder what they would
think of her fire-red eyes and her fangs...
     I had chosen this restaurant because its menu was basic, and
mostly Western.  It was pricey to a degree, but I didn't want Mara to
think that I was a cheapskate...
     There I go again, acting like I had to impress Mara!  As if!!!  I
reminded myself that there was no reason for me to feel this
tentative; this whole encounter had been thrust upon me by a coercive
and manipulative Demoness.  I didn't need to gain her approval...as I
would if I was taking a woman out on a *real* date!
     Nevertheless, Mara looked at me warmly and thanked me for taking
her to such a nice establishment.  At least she was acting the part.
     Ordering our food was amusing.  I would have been embarrassed,
except for my little quirk of starting foodfights in classy
restaurants.  A quirk that seemed to diminish somewhat once I met Urd.
I felt a sinking washwipe in my heart as I realized that I hadn't
taken Urd to a really classy restaurant in a long time!  We used to go
every couple weeks...
     But Urd was gone...and I probably would never get the chance to
make it up to her.
     Mara wanted a bottle of the strongest liquor in the house, plus
an *uncooked* steak with basil and cinnamon.  When I repeated her
order to the waitress, she looked at me with an irritated expression.
I tried to explain to her that this wasn't a joke, using the time-
tested excuse that Mara was a foreigner and that's how people ate
their meat in her country.  We ended up reaching a compromise, as the
restaurant refused to serve uncooked meat...
     Of course, she would order her steak extra rare!
     I half-expected Mara to order her steak burnt, since she came
from Vanagdrasil.  When I explained my assumption to her, Mara pitched
a gigglefit.
     "You truly *are* an idiot, Cevn!  Like most mortals, you assume
that Hell is a place of pitchforks and fires and half-human half-
animal devils that have nothing to do in their spare time except
torture mortals!  And then you do me the discourtesy of applying your
notions of Hell to *my* home!  As if they were one and the same!  If
we weren't going out on the town tonight, I wouldn't hesitate to
inflict said tortures on you for being so presumptuous!  How dare you
apply *your* culture's imaginative trappings onto the whole of
Demondom!" she said, mock-serious indignant.
     "Vanagdrasil isn't at all like the product of your imaginings.
It's a wonderful paradise!  Of course, we soak ourselves in hotsprings
of molten lava...and we tend to use colloquialisms that are antonymic
to those the Goddesses use; like 'molten' instead of 'cool', for
example.  Of course, we are in many ways the opposite of the
Gods...and this is no doubt reflected in our homerealm!  But what kind
of opposite is it?  Did you ever stop to think about this?  You've
supposedly know the Demon's Language, you supposedly composed Demon's
Music...certainly you must have some inkling of the *true* nature of
Vanagdrasil!  Not these silly, specious conjectures you think up!  We
Demons are Evil...but if Evil has to coexist with Good in order to
strike a Balance, does that make Evil less important than Good?  Or
worse?  Oh...there is so much I can teach you!  You may have read that
Demon's Book, but you only know a *fraction* of what my birthplace is
all about!
     "The truth of the matter is...Vanagdrasil is the only *real*
place in the Multiverse.  Where I come from, we regard reality with a
straightforward attitude...rather than avoiding it like the Yggdrasil-
dwellers!  Your Earthrealm, with its strident plague of doubts and
troubles, is just a shard-reflection of the larger realities of the
Multiverse.  The essence...the spirit of the Multiverse is chaos,
struggle, grief and death.  The reality of the Multiverse...is
something that the Gods have parceled themselves off from.  In
Yggdrasil, they kennel themselves by their desire to be insulated from
the true nature of things.  From the atropism that is all around us.
     "Vanagdrasil, on the other hand, is *honest* to the real nature
of the Multiverse!  The Gods are petty dreamers...while we Demons are
acute realists!!!  Our realm of Vanagdrasil is beautiful because it
encompasses *all*!  We live within the 'dark' mystique of reality that
breathes vision into life!  Not just goodness and charity and all the
other drivel Belldandy and her sisters spill out on their honeyed
tongues," she explained.
     Part of me wanted to believe her.  It would explain a lot.  My
mind had often circulated the thought that the Goddesses were *just
too good* to be mixing with the rest of us...or at least with me.  I
compared Keiichi's life to mine...he grew up worrying about girls and
his diminutive stature...while I grew up starving and addicted to
heroin.  There was really no comparison between his life and mine; we
came from two different worlds.  Yet somehow, there was a common
ground from which a strong friendship had blossomed.
     "Yes...you are starting to kiss my descriptions with the lips of
your conjectures, eh?  Perhaps it makes more sense than you're willing
to admit?" Mara asked, leaning low over the table.  My eyes
immediately locked on to her cleavage.
     "You want?" Mara said coyly, bouncing her eyes down to her bosom
and back.  I felt a burning blush of embarrassment...she had read my
eyes...and my mind.
     "No!  Not at all!  I'm a guy..a..and you're a.." my words
stumbled over each other.
     "Demoness," she finished.  "But not so much of a Demoness to
admit that I find you attractive.  What do you think I am?  Like
everyone else in the Multiverse, I too have the lamp of compassion, of
lust, of desire for comfort...burning behind these breasts you were
staring at a moment ago.  Did you assume that Demons are too Evil to
want Love?  If so, then the melodious harp of your assumptions has
struck a sour note indeed!"
     "Mara...why did you ask me out on this date in the first place?"
I asked, trying desperately to shift the subject away from the
mounting sexual tension.  My hormones were besting me in the struggle
to maintain composure and distance.  I couldn't deny the fact that
Mara was very attractive by Earthrealm standards.  Ripples once
released can never come back.  I had already said too much with my
eyes.
     If Urd could play me effortlessly in the area of sexual
innuendo...Mara could probably do even worse!
     "Hmmm...maybe it's because I want to find out what you see in my
twin sister," she said with a mischievous grin.
     Before I could continue, the waiter showed up and unloaded
several plates of gorgeous food.  The food was even more satisfying
because it shut Mara up.  Mara ate like a Demon...devouring her steak
with the aggressiveness of a tigress.
     Before I could stop her, she drained half the bottle of liquor.
     "Oops...I'm being impolite!  Here!" she commented as she poured
me a glassful.
     "Mara!  You know that I don't touch the stuff...so why even try?"
I confronted her.
     "Why shouldn't I try?  Did it ever occur to you that your race
spends an inordinate amount of resources and time producing and
consuming this stuff?" she said, gesturing to the bottle of shochu on
the table.
     Great.  Another lecture from a Demoness.
     "Why do you think this restaurant even has this bottle of hootch?
Even Urd likes it!  And you know why alcoholic beverages are so
available?  Because this mortal world you live in...it's so
*miserable*!  People need this to weather all the bad vibes here on
your so-called 'Spaceship Earth'!  Haven't you ever considered how
*sick* mankind is?  The pathologies of this place spill over into the
gutter, sucking the throats of mortal society like so many vampires.
In fact, it's been rumored in Vanagdrasil for a long time...that the
Almighty in Yggdrasil is actually considering destroying this place
because it's so screwed up!  Something about...what was it?  Ohhh!  I
remember!  About a nuclear bomb or two!  That's right...you mortals
blew up *two entire cities* less than a thousand kilometers away from
this very spot!"
     I almost started arguing about the 'probation' that Kami-sama had
enacted when I checked myself.  Mara's statement was based on claims
of rumor.  If the Demons didn't know about this...all the better!  If
they knew the truth about the probation, it was quite possible that
the Demons could leverage Mankind to fail the probation.  Maybe this
was why Mara had pulled me out here in the first place!  She wanted to
fish for information that could be used against the Earthrealm...
     I had better watch my speech, so that it would be deflective
rather than instructive.
     "Whatsa matter?  Can't talk about your human follies and
disgraces?" Mara added, sarcastically.
     She was getting drunk...and talkative.
     "I try because I know, deep inside, that you're just like the
rest of your ilk.  Corrupt, baseless, idiotic...and wandering around
in *a lot* more pain than you're willing to admit!  Why do you think
that your race spends so much time and effort and money producing this
stuff in the first place?" she said, gesturing towards the bottle
again.  She was really pushing the "life sucks, so let's get drunk and
party to the hilt!" argument.
     "I'll tell you why!  Because the whole human race has traumatized
itself.  Remember your first year in college, after you got clean?
Remember the trial of the famous ex-pro football athlete?  They found
his wife's blood on his clothes?  The day after the murder, he was
driving around considering suicide?  And they ended up ruling that he
was innocent!  *That* was a source of tremendous amusement in
Vanagdrasil...because we knew he did it.  Only you mortals on the
Earthrealm could create a legal system that could obfuscate the truth
to such a degree as to sanction such an act!  And you...you were
angry, weren't you!  Admit it, Cevn...that single act tore away a lot
of your confidence in the humanity of your fellows!" she argued.
     I remembered my freshman year in college...and had to reluctantly
admit that Mara was right.  Back then, I didn't know what was more
distasteful; the miscarriage of justice or the jaded curiosity
surrounding the trial.  When I returned to the dorm after class, there
would always be a huddle of students around the TV, watching reruns of
highlights from the trial.  The sad reality that a celebrity used the
issue of his race as a defense deeply worsened my perception of the
trail.  It was true that African Americans were incarcerated
disproportionately in the United States; that they received severe
discrimination at the hands of the police.  But the situation of the
lower and middle class persons of color had little to do with the
status of a multimillionaire sports celebrity...or the fact of the
murder.  In fact, his being found innocent because a guilty verdict
would only cause a riot in LA...only *reinforced* this perception by
many that African Americans were criminals and victims.  It had only
further fostered the orientation that there *was* a problem...a
supposedly insoluble problem of racial discrimination.  But the
reality was...celebrity placed him above the law.  And then he turned
his back on the racial issue, instead of campaigning for better civil
treatment of African Americans.  Instead, he played golf and wore
thousand dollar Italian suits...
     Of course I was pissed!
     "And what about this year alone!  How do you feel about that
rapper who videoed himself raping and strangling a fan...and yet the
court disallowed the videotape as evidence because *it was found
accidentally*?  I mean, *who* was it caught live on the tape?  And
here in Japan...how many Prime Ministers have had to resign because of
political scandal in the last 20 years?  What about the latest PM
earlier this year?  It turned out that ten years ago when he was in
the Diet, he pushed hard for the construction of that new science town
north of Tokyo...and the year after it was opened, it turns out that
he was going to build a giant shopping complex next to it...on land he
bought *25 years earlier*!  Or the governor in America who was fined
$100,000 for spending campaign donations on personal items...and then
was allowed to pay almost the entire fine out of those same donations
she misused?" she argued.
     "So what's this prove?  That you read the newspapers?  That
politicians and celebrities are dishonest, self-centered beings?
Mara...I regard that kind of corruption with such disdain because I've
learned to hold the human race to a *higher* standard.  No matter
what, I'll hang onto the belief that we're better than we seem to be!
When tragedy strikes, we rally our goodness!  And that standard isn't
just a daydream...it's a realistic lifechoice that I'm willing to
meet!  And I do meet it, as best I can!  What about the GodDemon's
CDs, eh?  Over 150 million have been sold, and *all* the money from
the sales is being donated to charities all over the world!  Doesn't
that mean anything?"
     "That's just a drop of spit in the swimming pool!  It only aids a
fraction of those who need the help.  'Anticipate charity by
eliminating poverty', as the old English statesman once said.
Meanwhile, while he was Prime Minister of Great Britain, he personally
oversaw the colonial oppression of over a dozen societies
worldwide...so that he could squeeze their resources in order to
maintain the affluent lifestyles of his ennobled peers!" she shot
back.
     I remembered the quote from Disraeli...I had used it to try and
convince Urd that all the green energies gained from the GodDemon's CD
should flow into social programs.  It *was* a good ideal to live by...
     "Mara, I know that this isn't about some mysterious entity called
'them'.  It's not about 'someone else'...it's about *us*!  All of us!
It's not fair that..."
     "Surely, it wasn't fair for the ten children who starved to death
while we were eating steak in this fine restaurant!" she interrupted,
her words steelcold in my ears.
     "That's it!  We're getting the frell out of here!  I need some
fresh air!" I shot back, as I stood up abruptly.  Panicked, I grabbed
Mara by the wrist and hauled her up to her feet.  Mara looked at me
with amazement for a split-second...then her expression changed to
mirthful amusement.
     I had played right into her game...whatever her game was.
     "Yeah, that's right!  Let's blow this place before you start
hitting me!" she said mockingly.  I realized that I was still holding
her wrist; I slipped my hand away and tried to control my temper.
     "Isn't this supposed to be an evening out instead of an argument
about the follies and greed of Mankind?" I asked her after I chilled
my mood down to an amber roar.  Hopefully, I could appeal to the
'cute' Mara that was on the phone a week ago...
     "Yeah...I suppose you're right!  Screw the starving minions in
Africa...let's go see a movie!  That'll fix everything!" she blared
sarcastically.
     "Arrgh!  Round one to Mara," I thought to myself as my mood
submerged even deeper into disphoria.

          *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

     The bloodthirsty scream of the winds woke Keiichi up.  As soon as
he sat up on the sandy mound, a blast of sand nailed him in the eyes.
Rubbing his eyes, he could catch glimpses of a nightmare air
circulating around him.  Instead of being blue, the sky was thickly
blanketed with brown sand.  Everywhere was dark...so dark that it
appeared to be nighttime.  But it wasn't night...
     "Sandstorm!!!" he thought despairingly.  His eyes were killing
him.  The winds pelted him with millions of sand shards, prickling his
exposed skin.  He remembered reading about desert sandstorms; how they
could displace millions of kilos of sand in just a few hours!  The
force of the stinging sand against his hands and face was
unbelievable.  He felt like his skin was being peeled raw by the wind.
     Curling up into a fetal position, Keiichi tucked his hands and
feet against the mound of sand he had been sleeping on.  He could feel
the hair on the back of his head being rustled by wind; a moment
later, it was getting caked with sand.
     "I'm going to die here!" he realized dejectedly.  Two weeks worth
of sunrises in the desert had almost killed him...but this storm was
going to finish him off.
     He had held on this long...
     The wind roared even louder.  Somehow, the presence of all the
airborne sand seemed to give an unholy haunting *growl* to the gale-
force winds that assailed him.
     Keiichi thought of all the futures that he would miss: marrying
Bell-chan; bring the first grandchild to his parents house; watching
Megumi get married to Genji; growing old with all his friends from
N.I.T.; watching Bell's sisters find loves of their own; passing that
course in Advanced Transform Analysis; competing in races yet unrun;
graduating from N.I.T. with a Masters of Engineering; hanging out with
Tamiya and Ootaki and their families at Hakone...
     "It's been a good life..." he thought to himself as his
consciousness faded, an image of Belldandy dissipating in his mind
like blown smoke...