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This was about twenty years ago now. I was working as a temporary secretary in some small insurance office. I was young and shy and had pretty bad manners. I didn't talk to the other folks in the office much; this was my second day. The day before I had made lots of stupid mistakes doing really simple stuff, and all morning that Wednesday I kept feeling a constant tug of some flat, dispassionate kind of dread. Maybe there wasn't enough air in the office. Maybe I was just too young to feel comfortable anywhere.
The office was in one of those two-story stucco buildings they built in the 60s and 70s. It surrounded a rectangular courtyard and the stairs to the second story were slabs of concrete stacked in a green metal frame. All along the second floor there was a suspended walkway that passed by the office doors, which were hollow plywood with brass-plated door knobs that had corroded and felt rough to the touch. Another suspended walkway crossed the middle of the rectangle and from there a stairway descended to a cool, enclosed garden court. Smooth river pebbles were pressed into the concrete slabs of the stairs and walks. Some of the planters had philodendrons sprawling in them, others were just dusty.
I stepped out to lunch a bit early that day, around eleven-thirty, and wandered down towards the courtyard. It was cool and damp there in the shade, nicer than it would be on the sidewalk outside. I didn't know the neighborhood at all and wondered where I could get some lunch.
Down in the courtyard there were several small groups of women standing around and chatting. One girl was down on one knee tending a fire of stubby logs that was burning in one of the dusty planters. I stopped near the bottom of the stairs to watch her, leaning on the rail. Standing next to the fire were three tall women in pale kaftans. A little ways from them was a small group of five or six girls gathered around a dark-haired lady in her late twenties. Her hair was short, wavy and wiry, and she was thin, but her face had some strength in its lines -- a roundness in the point of her chin and nose. Her eyes seemed intelligent, but at the moment they were dazed and worried. Her thin smart hands were fidgeting about, touching her cheek, her hair, as she looked quickly over her shoulder, then bowed her head to receive reassurances from the girls standing with her.
I noticed that there was getting to be more women waiting about in the courtyard, and I wondered what they were all doing there. I asked a quiet girl with glasses what was going on. She said, "A Manifestation." I wasn't quite sure what that meant, so I wandered around and listened to the various quiet conversations that were going on. What I got from what they were saying was that there was going to be a Manifestation of the Goddess near where the fire was burning and that nervous young woman was going to Become the Goddess. This didn't mean much to me, but there was no way I was leaving for lunch before I saw whatever it was.
Probably close to fifty women had shown up and were standing around on the stairs and in the courtyard. The conversations started to get a little louder and most of the women were beginning to glance more often toward the fire. I got a real sense that everyone expected something to happen soon. Someone said, "Look, the fire's gone out." And, sure enough the fire was smoldering and smoking, as the fire tender girl had her back to it, talking to some other girls nearby. The fire tender looked around, kind of worried and the tall kaftan-wearing woman said, "Don't worry about it, it's almost time."
That exchange drew everyone's attention to the spot in the courtyard where the smoke was rising. The three central women stepped forward and looked out at the crowd, the fire tender girl looked a little disheveled, and the woman who was to Become the Goddess moved away from her entourage and looked curiously at the smoking heap of coals. There was a slight breeze that lifted the little hairs near my face and tickled my cheeks -- just that -- and the dozens of conversations stopped. A tiny trail of smoke was still rising from the embers. Then, without warning, a great column of rushing red fire, of gigantic roar, of fearsome energy, shot up from the center of the embers and into the sky as far as you could imagine. It was an intense burning thing rushing heavenward faster than we could believe. Somehow, I could feel the rush of this dread column through the hollow of my body, filling my heart, my throat, my head, to nearly bursting. I felt its rumble in my veins, and the roar deafened us all so that the world seemed absolutely silent and the moment seemed unending and self-contained. The woman who was to Become the Goddess stepped forward into the column of flame and stood still within it. And nothing happened. She just stood there looking out at us.
The next thing I knew I heard a man's voice behind me, a young impetuous voice speaking to his friend, "They said there was some women's meeting out here. Look, there's Ann and Stacey." I looked around at him and he said to me, "So, what's it all about?" I looked back at the courtyard and most of the people from the offices were coming out for the lunch hour and the fire was gone and the women who had been wearing kaftans were gone and the fire tender was gone and the one who Became the Goddess and her entourage were all gone.
"I don't quite know for sure." I said. I stood still for a minute, swallowing the secret gem. Then I asked, "Where do you go around here to get a good sandwich?"
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