Christmas in Nagaloka

Christmas in Nagaloka

My name is Jennifer Lufthenshal. I am a 21 year old college student trying for a master’s degree in ethno botany at the prestigious University of Colorado in Boulder.  My minor study is music, and I consider myself a reasonably good cello player.  I make extra money playing chamber music for weddings, store openings, anniversaries and other kinds of private events.

I even have a boyfriend, Jack. He is handsome, tattooed, the local bad boy who is also the local ecstasy dealer and who dreams of being a death metal rock star in Hollywood.  I have divorced but loving parents. Mother, an alcoholic librarian in Mississippi and dad a car salesman here in Boulder. Needless to say, I live with dad. Mom’s alcoholism makes it hard to live with her, so when the court ordered me to choose, I chose Boulder, which is also dad’s home town.

I also went to another planet for Christmas. And I am going to tell you all about it.

It was Christmas 2012. Against all odds, the world had not come to an end, the aliens had not announced that they ran the US Government, war still raged on in the Middle East, and my boyfriend Jack got busted. It was the morning before Christmas, and I was really depressed.

Dad was trying to cheer me up.

He made my favorite breakfast for us. Chocolate chip pancakes and Irish-cream cappuccino. I was thinking about the fact that Jack was not going to be with me to open his Christmas presents. That also meant that I would spend Christmas with dad. This was a seriously depressing issue for me, since spending Christmas with dad was a bit like spending any other day with dad. Dad was notoriously lacking in Christmas spirit.

Taking note of my state, Dad decided I needed some real cheery medicine to get over my gloom and doom about Jack’s arrest.

Dad decided that we should go to the Pearl Street Mall to take some pictures with Santa Claus and buy some fun stuff and maybe catch a movie...

He was like that. Buying stuff was his way of making sure I was okay.

On the way to the mall, I noticed a tiny little storefront with a red neon "Tarot" sign outside, a pentagram on the window and dark curtains. The sign was flashing on and off, indicating that the card reader was inside, and working. I asked dad to take me there first.

Dad was reluctant.

My grandfather and grandmother were staunch Lutherans from North Dakota, and although dad was not a practicing Lutheran, a lot of the religious mambo jumbo from "oma" and "opa" (as they liked to be called in their old language) rubbed off on him. He was not religious, but he was deeply superstitious.

But I would not be denied, so I gave him "the look", an irresistible frown, something that looks more or less like the sad-looking kittens on belated birthday cards, the puppy who needs to be fed and a baby who needs the diaper changed. Dad is utterly susceptible to "the look" and he will do almost anything I ask him if I apply it to him. I know this trick so well, that I only allow myself to give him “the look” during a real emergency.

This was a real emergency. The idea of having him sit me on a Pedophile Santa’s knees and then have my picture taken was terrifying beyond words.

We parked without too much difficulty, got out, stepped through a large pile of snow accumulated on the sidewalk and were soon at the door of the Tarot establishment. The red neon Tarot sign with the ominous looking neon pentagram underneath hung in front of a large purple curtain, all this behind an elegant half-oval window. The curtain was not totally shut, and I could see behind the curtain a small room with many bookcases stacked with expensive looking leather bound books. Tan, old looking leather furniture and an ancient copper tube light were the only other things visible from outside. Under the neon pentagram there was a little paper written in flawless calligraphy taped to the window from the inside. It read; "Please Ring the Bell for Service".

I looked at dad. He shrugged his shoulders and rang the bell, which was to one side of the gorgeous wooden door with dark cut-glass windows. The sound of the bell was from Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" played out in a disturbing digital chime. It was slightly out of tune.

Nothing happened. Dad played the chime again. This time, inside, someone coughed. Then a strong male voice with a strange European accent that was not easily recognized called out to us:  "Hold on, I'm coming".

"Were' in trouble now". Said dad, nudging me on the ribs with his elbow and smiling broadly.

We heard soft footsteps on the other side of the door and the lock being unlocked. The door opened with creak. And behind the door was the strangest man I have ever seen. He was huge, well over six feet tall, and thin, very, very thin. He was wearing what I can only describe as a robe, long flowing blue-cotton cloth, inlaid with all manner of starry motifs, and lined with some kind of white fur. The robe was tied with a huge black leather belt and the man wore matching black leather boots. On his head was a huge conical hat from another time. On his face a long white beard that reached all the way to his belly. He looked like... Merlin.

"Yes, can I help you?" He asked with his strange accent. I could be German or Dutch or something similar.

"Huh.. we came about the Tarot." I said.

"Ah, yes, you want me to read your cards?" He asked.

"Well, how much does it cost?" Asked dad.

"The reading is only 40 dollars." He said.

"How long do you take?" I asked.

"Well, my dear, that depends on you, really, and what you want to know." He replied. And then, smiling, the opened the door wide and stepped to one side motioning for us to come through..

"Do come in. It's cold outside." He said.

We did.

And as we did, I felt something.  Something weird. Something unnamable and exciting, and terrible and actually… No. I can’t explain it. It makes no sense. It’s only as if his door was a doorway to a totally different world, a world like ours but also very different. A world that we can only see in dreams and hallucinations. And yet, nothing happened. We just went in. That was it. Just walked, through a door, into a living room full of books.

The room was larger than we could see form the outside, due to the fact that a large part of the room was separated by an exotic oriental curtain. The man opened the curtain and motioned us to sit on a couple of leather backed chairs facing a large desk behind which lie a huge and ancient looking hard-wood “throne”.  He sat there and I imagined myself transported to another time again. As if this scene had occurred since the dark ages, and somehow, we had just traveled back to King Arthur’s court.

Dad and I sat facing the old man, who pulled out a bundle wrapped in ancient silk cloth and bound by a red ribbon. He began to open the bundle in the middle of the empty desk. Inside were some large, fancy cards, seemingly made from thick ancient cardboard. He shuffled them briefly and carefully set them all on the table on three rows of seven cards and one on the outside. There were 22 of them all in total.

“Choose one card and turn it over.” He said.

“Wait… First I want to know your name.” I replied.

“My name is Nasrudin. Now choose one card and turn it over.”

I looked at the 22 cards on the table. The design on the back of the cards was a pattern that made me vaguely remember old circus posters. I choose the card that was outside of the three rows of seven cards. It showed the old color drawing of a man in a chariot pulled by two horses, one black and one black.

“The Chariot. You are about to make a trip. A very, very long trip.” He said. “Now turn another.”

I grabbed the first card on the first row on the extreme right. It showed a man with a weird hat wearing a red tunic in front of a table where there were a large gold coin, a sword, a cup and a wooden staff.

“The Magician. You are about to meet a very powerful magician. It is he who will send you on your trip.” Said the old man. And I thought to myself that I had just met that magician he was talking about. “Turn over the last card.”

I chose the last card on the extreme left of the third row. When I turned it over, I saw a naked couple, kissing under the watchful eye of a severe-looking angel with a flaming sword.

“The Lovers.” Said the old man, and sighed visibly. “Your trip will take you to meet the great love of your life. It is that love who is calling you from far, far away.”

“Is that it?” I asked, a little upset. The reading sounded ridiculous. A sham. I thought it should tell me more important things, things about myself.

“Do you really want to turn over another card?” the old man asked me, dangerously.

It was weird. His question, posed in a perfectly neutral tone, but with what I construed to be a perverse look on his eyes terrified me.  The whole room seemed otherworldly and suddenly cold and uncomfortable.  

Why?

Noting my uncomfortable state, dad piped up.

“I will turn one over.”

“Fine.” Said the old man, and sighed again.

Dad chose the card in the center. It showed a hideous beast with horns, tail and a trident on his demonic claws.

“The Devil.” You will face your greatest fear.

Quickly, the old man grabbed all the cards and folded them back up on the cloth, tying them tightly with the ribbon.

“Is that all? That’s not worth forty dollars, old man. This is a sham.” Said dad, slightly annoyed.

“A deal is a deal, right?” winked the old man.

Grudgingly, dad pulled out two twenty dollar bills.

“You are really a thief, old man. But it’s okay. I warned my daughter not to come, and now at least she learnt not to trust charlatans who read cards. Come on, kid, let’s go. Don’t’ bother to walk us out, I know the way.”

The old man smiled widely. He put the money under his desk.

Dad and I walked back to the door and opened it.

Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw next.

We were no longer in Colorado. In fact, we were no longer anywhere near planet earth. The world which waited outside the door of the tiny house of the strange old man was a world of dreams, of fantasy, of madness. It was that place we visit in our dreams and we barely remember because if we were able to see it clearly it would drive us insane. It was chaos creating its own chaotic order.

We were inside the same building we came in, but now, it was in a totally different street, paved with blood-red bricks, and not a car or anything remotely similar to the place we had just come from. All around us weird, oddly shaped structures challenged our reason and sense of reality. There was a huge red stone cat with otherworldly beings of every imaginable shape and form, some even formless and indescribable came in and out of the mouth and anus. Another building was a huge crab. An igloo, pyramids, Mayan temples, structures which I had never even dreamed of before. Yet another was a snail shell. A total anarchic and unimaginable collection of unnamable structures, some too strange to explain in simple words.

And of course, multitudes and multitudes of nightmare creatures.  Every single one from my childhood fairy stories was there. Trolls, dragons, giants, dwarfs… but also some that I had never imagined could be possible, gigantic insect hybrids with human heads, amorphous giant amoebas, alien things which defied all reasonable description. Hundreds. Thousands of these things walking, standing, flying, slithering, levitating all around me. Some mounted others. And mostly sinister of all, perfectly ordinary humans dressed in a variety of outfits fitting various different time-periods walking among the oddities, engaging them in conversation, mounting them, even kissing them.

And a cacophony of sounds that assaulted my ears as they had never been assaulted before. Weird music, voices, animal-like sounds… and sounds that I can’t explain because they do not pertain to our reality at all.

Dad screamed an oath. He never swore before in my life, but the oath came quite loud and quickly, he closed the door, pushing against it, as if that would banish the insanity we had just seen.

He turned on our host and screamed another epitaph at him, and grabbed him by the arm.

“What in the hell have you done?”

“Nothing.” The old man shook himself free from dad with surprising force.

“What… What’s out there?” Dad said, now full of fear of the old man, his fury gone, replaced by the voice of a little child who is lost and has to ask a policeman where his parent might be.

I sensed that dad’s control over his emotional stability was slipping rapidly. It’s a strange thing to see one’s father slip into madness. The strength and severity of his acts suddenly disappeared and I understood perfectly that he was no longer in control, and he had ALWAYS been in control. I could see it in his eyes.

But even more perplexing was the fact that I somehow was holding on to my own sanity without too much effort. It was as if suddenly appearing in another world was perfectly normal, an everyday thing to do for me. My mind was more preoccupied with dad’s suffering and how to return to our world than with the absolute ridiculous situation we were in.

Dad looked around the room, lost, tired, and collapsed on one of the seats, putting his hands over his face to prevent me from seeing him crying. He was certainly not prepared for what was happening to us.

“You are the magician, right? In the cards…?” I asked the old man, who simply sat behind his desk smiling.

“You are right.”

“And you brought me here to meet somebody. Somebody who will fall in love with me?”

“Again, you are right.”

“And once I meet this person, will things return to normal?”

“Well, that depends on what you consider normal, Jennifer.”

“You know, I don’t remember telling you my name.”

“You didn’t. But in fact, you meeting me here was no accident. In fact, I was asked to do a service, and our chance encounter plays a part in that service. Allow me to explain, please sit down. I will have something brought to your father so he feels better.”

The old man clapped his hand and suddenly a tiny yellow creature dressed in a butler’s uniform came in with a tray upon which were tree cups and a jar full of warm tea. The goblin served each one of us a cup of tea, and lastly, he gave me dad one, patting him gently on the shoulder, and urging him to drink. Dad looked at the weird little fellow and nodded, thankfully, taking careful sips form the drink.

“You are in the planet Nagaloka, in a place called Lollipop City, which is kind of a city-state of sorts, ruled by three wise elders, a gnome, an elf and a human. You are here because I found out that you have a common destiny with a friend of mine, Rodrigo Ruiz, a great and powerful sorcerer. He asked me to check who would be the mother of his children, and I discovered it would be you.” He smiled.

“Well, you must be wrong. I already love somebody.” I said, indignant.  

 “It’s wrong to kidnap girls to marry them off.” Said dad, a little recuperated. The goblin poured more tea for him.

“Oh, you can go home whenever you want, Jennifer.  All you have to do is go through the door.”

“Seriously? I don’t think I really want to open the door, old man.” I said, now angry.

It was weird. I HAD been kidnapped. Dad was right. These weird sorcerous, dimension hopping wizards had snooped on me with their magic balls, and then… and then… kidnapped me!  It was outrageous. It was evil. It was mean!

“Seriously, the door will open wherever I want it to open. If I want to open it in Boulder, it will open in Boulder. I can also take you to Hawaii, Mexico City and Berlin. I just… wanted you to meet somebody before you left.”

“Well, I’m not interested.” I said, more indignant than before.

“But it was in your cards!” He smiled.

“You really think I am going to fall for card tricks with you, old pervert?!” I shouted.

The old man put his face on his palm.

“Look, it took a lot of work to find you, and it took a lot of work to bring you here. And furthermore, I can guarantee you with my omnipresent powers of that you and Santiago Ruiz will be the happiest couple in all the realms, you will have four beautiful children, two girls and two boys, you will be rich, famous, cheerful and always have a perfect wardrobe.”

“I don’t care. You can’t just … snoop my entire existence and then take me to another planet and then expect me to fall in love with some Latin lover I don’t even know. Besides, if you know me as well as you say you do, you should know I am in love with a guy named….”

“Jack’s no good for you, Jenny. You know what I think about him. Maybe you should meet this guy so we can go home. I really want to go back home.” Said dad.

 “What about if I can show you Santiago on my magic mirror? Would you be willing to just see him without him being able to see you?”

“And you’ll let me go home?”

“Of course, unless you decide you want to meet Santiago, in which case you can be my guest for as long as you like. And your dad too..”

“Actually, we rather go home.” Said dad.

“You know, Jennifer, I am known around the universe as one of the best matchmakers around. Only Cupid does a better job than me. It’s one of the services I offer in my Tarot business.  I usually don’t err in these things. I know the human heart intimately.”

“What about Jack?” I asked less sure of myself.

“Jack is no good for you Jen.” Repeated dad from his corner.

“Jack is going to do 15 years of 20 for trafficking heroin. When he comes back out, he will look to you for love, money and then eventually, run off with a younger woman from Denver.” Said the wizard.

“You lie.” I shouted.

“I never lie. Look, I really don’t want to make you angry, I’m just doing a friend a favor, and when Santiago saw you on my mirror, he fell in love instantly with you. All I am asking is that you LOOK at him, and then if you want, then I can have him come over and you both can go home.”

My whole life began to scroll through my memory. Specifically the parts of my whole life where Jack and I were together. Smoking weed. Fighting. Kissing. Fighting again. His promises. His dreams. His drugged out moments.

“Oh, show me your damn mirror once and for all so we can go home, you perverted old wizard. But you better give me your word after I look at this Santiago fool, you will send me and my dad back home.”

“I promise.”

He stood up and motioned me with his finger to follow him. Dad followed us too. We walked to the back of the store, where there was a basement door. He opened the basement door and we descended what seemed like an immense stairs. I felt we walked for miles!

Finally, at the bottom of the stair, we found ourselves in a cavernous laboratory replete with stalagmites and stalactites, tables full of weird instruments and jars full of odd and disturbing things, some of them seemingly alive.

On one of the cavern walls was a gigantic steel framed rectangular mirror, roughly the size of a door. The frame of the mirror was in the shape of a hideous demon with a great opened mouth.

“Mirror, show me Santiago Ruiz”. Said the old man to his mirror.

And suddenly, our reflections were replaced by the absolutely most drop-dead gorgeous elf I had ever seen in my life. Of course, it was love at first sight. My mouth fell open. He was tall, pointy-eared, long dark haired and reminded me of Mr. Spok, my childhood turn on. He was dressed in a gorgeous silk tunic and he was standing next to a weird looking reptilian creature with which he was having a long conversation in a language I did not know at all. He and the reptile were inside a modest home with a large fireplace, modern looking furniture and all manner of artistic but psychedelic decorations.

“Who is he talking to? Who is that lizardman?” I said, mesmerized.

“Oh, that’s Agua, a local Hare-Krishna Priest. He will soon become King of the Universe. Santiago and Agua are old friends. But tell me, would you like to meet him?”

“Yes, but in Colorado. I want to go home first. I will have to trust you, old man.” I said.

Dad saw my face…. And he then he realized. He understood.

The last card. The beast.

He had finally met the devil. A handsome devil at that.

And he was about to face his greatest fear. 

That I had found my true love.