In retrospect, it was pretty obvious that Leah was a recruiter. The single most obvious give-away was the amazing speed by which I managed to get into her pants in that perfect lady-killer way that, till then, I had only heard about (and tried vainly, many times, to emulate from my how-to guy-zines). Inexplicably though, in the midst of my post-coital glow that gave an extra bounce to my undeniable virility, I didn't demonstrate much critical thinking. Obviously, it wasn't at all unusual to me that a smoking-hot broad like Leah would be attracted to a desperately horny, sunken-chested line cook who was a few pounds shy of being downright skeletal.
The realization that Leah might not be as taken with me as I would have liked to think eventually did sink in, along with her increasingly frequent absences from the Center (and thus my bed) on “business” and with her progression from regular applications of sensual caresses and long crotch-rubbing hugs, to robotically chaste, sibling-like pats on the back. It all became heart-wrenchingly obvious when the other guys at the Center, who had initially been looking at me and Leah with what I had interpreted to be jealous dagger-eyed moony-faces, flat out told me that they also had had their own all-too-brief sojourn between Leah's legs.
By then, however, the minor matter of having been used and manipulated didn't really matter, as I had been successfully absorbed into the blissed-out ranks of the Powaah Witnesses. Yeah, yeah, so I converted pretty quick. Look, don't give me hard time about it. You try being surrounded by a steady flow of hugs, positive reinforcement and gratuitous validation, and see whether or not you wouldn't want to stay and get more.
I may not have been the most huggiest of guys to begin with, but I had to say that it actually got kind of nice being constantly given long hugs for one reason or another, or often for no reason at all. Of course, it helped that there was a whole lot of casual fornication going on – just as an expression of the Universal Love and Affection of the Powaah – which helped smooth any tender feelings I might have had about Leah casting me off like spent bycatch.
Plentiful sex aside, and this was saying a lot, it was pretty great to become a Powaah Witness. A major attractant was the fact that the work it entailed was pretty mild and left up to us to interpret what it meant to work for the Powaah. In principle, as you may think it should be – seeing as how we were totally dedicated to the Powaah and all that shebang – we'd be working ourselves to the bone and outdoing each other with feats of productive work for the glory of the Powaah. The rather more pleasant reality was that the “work” involved a whole lot of puttering around punctuated by a lot of singing, crying and hugging.
Honestly, when I'd been given my first shift, I'd been prepared to get my hands dirty and do some hard labor; though, admittedly, I was mainly thinking that I'd be winning Leah back by demonstrating how good of Powaah Witness I'd become. But, as I soon realized, there was absolutely no worry about my impressing people – which had less to do with my ability to work in itself, but with how little was expected.
There I was an hour into huffing and puffing with a digging fork, flipping clods of soil and wrestling with weeds, when I looked over to the others who had been assigned with me to the farm, and saw that they hadn't budged from the spot where we'd started. Apparently, after their initial listless attempts at digging resulted in resistance from the material reality of the soil, they realized that the soil wasn't ready to be worked, and that they could help it feel ready by sitting in a circle, holding hands, and singing Powaah mantras.
Sit and sing versus sweat and groan? Not a terribly hard choice to make. I could get used used to this kind of “digging.” Shit... if that was all the “work” I was expected to do along with some occasional bout of brain-dead cooking, count me in! Do about the tenth of the work I was used to and get praised for it and have plentiful sex? Sign me up! What was this Powaah business you were talking about? I'm a believer! I'll sing and hug and dance around as much you like!
Similarly, when I was put in the kitchen (my being a “chef” and all), it didn't take much more than a few minutes of cutting before someone burst into tears over some existential anxiety (possibly the horrifingly aggressive act of cutting), and we all dropped everything, scurried over, and gave each other long Powaah-swapping hugs – which continued about once every fifteen minutes until dinner time. It was then that I figured out it didn't take much to impress the folks at the Center: all I had to do was some half-assed work that would have gotten me fired anywhere else in the Empire, but that garnered gushing amazement and made them want me to stay there forever and ever. But, just to be sure I wouldn't be kicked out of paradise, I sealed the deal and my position by breaking out my supply of “smoke essence” and became known for my instantly-famous sauced-drenched, smoky, simuli-animal-substance logs.
(You may, of course, be asking yourself how anything got done at the Center seeing as how people only barely worked. One answer would be that the will of the Powaah was simply so wonderful-amazing-mysterious-powerful (in a non-patriarchal way)-awesome-o-so-awesome and it moved so crazily unfathomably and miraculously. Another answer would be that there was a small army of low-wage local Tusken labourers in the background getting things done and finishing our half-done tasks. Now this might have been a reality-check for the incredible greatness of the Powaah, but, since we ignored the Tuskans and avoided talking to them at all costs, they were essentially invisible – which made it possible for us to live our privileged spiritually enlightened life while dedicating all our “labor” to the Powaah. Sure, it might seem a touch on the unfair side, but the right (and convenient) way to think about it was that we were giving those poor, primitive, undeveloped buggers an opportunity to earn credits so they can eventually scratch their way out of their own backwards state.)
For full disclosure, my rapid conversion was also helped along by a dizzying regime of detoxifying fasting and cleanses. Damned toxins. I never knew I had so many accumulating in me. Much to my regret, it was only when I started discovering my myriad of allergies and sensitivities that I realized the error of my toxic, addictive ways. What a difference I felt when I started to cut out all the delicious foods I used to stuff down my gullet all willy-nilly. Clearly, I had to undergo all the cleanses I could to purify the sack of contaminated goo my body had become.
With gusto did I swallow liters upon liters of Bantha oil, just to vomit it back up; and then undergo the digestive-water-irrigator through not only the front but the back-end; and then force down the über-fibers of Alderan nuts (the botanical kind) to scour out my intestines until they were squeaky clean. Ahhhhhhh.... How light and wonderful I felt! Fast after satisfying fast, cleanse after cleanly cleanse, I felt more and more pure with a vague sense that my brain was floating in a puddle of blinding bright light – where everything was great, agreeable, and not terribly difficult to convince me of anything at all.
I was in the middle of my Green Fluid Fast (consisting of an hourly glass of liquefied, de-fibered, de-mineralized, de-oxidized strictly green-leafed vegetables) when I bumped into Mike in one of the more secluded areas of the Center. He was sprawled on the ground underneath the shade of a spindly tree looking aimlessly into the clouds. Given our skills, we'd been assigned to different parts of the Center, and we hadn't seen much of each other since we had arrived (and stayed). What I did know, however, was that he was taking his “casting off” by Haan poorly, hence the aimless looking into the clouds in which I detected no small amount of mournfulness and possibly a hint of resentment. I sat down next to him, and pointed my glass of goop in his direction,
“Juice?”
“Nah, I'm on the Master Purification. I'm not allowed fluids until dusk.” Mike budged slightly to look at me; with all our fasts and cleanses, we had limited energy and had to conserve where we could. “What are you on these days?”
“The Green Fluid Fast.”
“Yeah, I did that last week. Wasn't crazy about having the green shits all day.”
“I hear ya. I've only got two more
days, and I'll switch over to the Carbon-Fiber Cleanse.”
“Whoa. That's with the funnel and the wire-clamps, right?”
“Yep, and the metal grill.”
“Hard core. I'll bet you'll feel great.”
“I hope so. I've been having these weird bumps come up around nipples ever since I did that week of the Electric Cups, so I'm hoping the Carbon-Fiber Cleanse will take care of that.”
“That must be some wild toxic-shit coming out of you.”
“Can you imagine all the shit that's been kicking around from the time we were with the Empire?”
“All those fumes we were breathing in?”
“And that radiation and radio-waves messing with our cells?”
“Fuuuuuck...”
“Shit...”
“To hell with the Empire.”
“Fuck yeah.”
Not surprisingly, we'd joined the general all-for-love and down-with-oppression sentiments at the Centre, and turned our backs on the Empire. We, having been Empire Service-men, you might have thought it would have been hard or galaxy-shaking for us to do so, but it wasn't really all that hard for a couple of reasons. First, it's not like we were slapping on camo-facepaint and taking up arms against the Empire, which even we weren't stupid enough to do; we were only taking part of a harmless and very much passive group that had no risk of threatening any institutions at all. Second, it's not like we were idiots: we weren't blind to the injustices, the atrocities, the systemic inequities that made the Empire what it was; after all, we'd been on the frontlines of committing them and the enforcing the status-quo. It just never really bothered us that much seeing as how we were on the winning team and reaping the benefits of the might that made it right.
So, yeah, I guess we did “discover” our consciences, with a good number of remorseful tears shed to prove it (and the hugs that made it all better) – especially since it was our ticket to stay in the loving embrace of the Powaah Witnesses. The only thing that was a hard pill to swallow was paying Jim the Tusken to virtually institutionalize us at our former clinic: our records now showed that our horrendous soul-scaring battle-wounds were proving hard to cure, which eventually would lead to our discharge in a year or so after they had presumably exhausted their resources trying to rewire our brains. Needless to say, it was very very expensive. Ah, well. What price could you possibly put on the priceless gift of happiness and enlightened mind-expansion? Ultimately, as I'd rationalize it to myself many times afterwards, it was a piddling amount to pay to be able to relax, be stress-free, and, y'know, focus on myself for a change.
I swirled around my juice yet again, dreading the last bit of viscous jungle-green ooze, and downed the stuff in one squinting huff. My hourly dose thankfully done, I looked over at Mike again, who was still brooding. Guess it was time for some man-talk again. Giving him a nudge with my foot, I asked, “Dude, you ok?”
Prefaced by a long, long sigh, Mike dramatically covered his face with his hands. “Yeah, I'm fine.”
“You sure? Doesn't look like it.”
“Yeah.”
“You want a hug?”
“Get the fuck away from me.”
“Still stuck on the Haan thing, huh.”
“I swear I'll beat you.”
“Right. See? I'm shitting green, I'm so scared.”
Mike chuckled and let out a resigned sigh. “Man, why'd I have to fall for that guy? I always fall for the wrong one.”
“Just get over it, bro. What about that guy Karl you've been boning?” I replied, cuffing him on the shoulder.
“He's alright I guess. No Haan though,” Mike sighed yet again, emoting ever more sadness. “You know I sometimes wonder if I should even stay...”
“What?” I said genuinely shocked. Sure the Center wasn't perfect, but as far as sinecures go it was pretty up there. “And go back to the Empire? Back to all the fumes? To risking your life for no good reason?”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it, but something about this place...”
Before Mike could finish his thought and our manly sharing of feelings, a loud argument came crashing through behind us, tumbling straight into our midst.
“How can you? How can yooooooou??!” wailed a gaunt man, pulling at his unkempt, dready hair as he pointed an accusatory finger at a somewhat plumpish woman, who, with tears streaming down her face, tried to calm the man with,
“I hear you, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...”
Oooooo... A lover's spat! These were fun to watch and worth sitting up for. Generally, following the Powaah meant you didn't have to follow gender normative coupledom behaviour, but it nevertheless happened, along with the always entertaining consequences of the seemingly inevitable infidelities.
“But I saaaaw you, Alice!” the man said, beating his chest, and shaping his words with effort through his blubbering. “You ate it! You ate a whole burger!”
“Jimmy, I hear you. I really do. But, it was only a bite, and I thought it was a vegetarian patty before I realized it too late,” the woman named Alice placated the wild-eyed Jimmy, for what was likely the gagillionth time.
“But now you have to start your cleanse all over again! We were supposed to be cleanse-buddies,” Jimmy whined, appearing to be calming down, judging the decrease in the flailing of his arms.
Oh, well. That's too bad, I thought, sinking back down to rest on my elbows. This wasn't going to be a passion-storm of wandering crotches, hurt feelings, and make-up sex. Instead, this was the average garden-variety blow-outs that were brought on by any number of possible upsetters; the source of which was not even remotely important, but what was crucial was that the mini-curfuffle effectively forced the undivided attention of anyone present to swivel firmly on the wailing, victimized blow-ee.
In this case, it seemed to have to do with some tacit agreement the two had about their respective search for intestinal purity and thus increased closeness to the Powaah – which everyone thought they agreed on, but never did. As these flare-ups went though, they'd soon be soothing each other with generic expressions of compassion and then drifting into a bout of hugging and heavy petting.
“I know, Jimmy, I know. I hear you. Do you feel heard?”
“I was so sad, Alice. So sad.”
“I can help you process this. Do you feel heard? “
“Yes, I do.”
“Can you tell me what you were feeling?”
“I was feeling abandoned.”
“Ok. I hear that you were feeling abandoned. And that was triggering you?”
“Yeah. It was triggering me.”
“So it was triggering you.”
“Yeah. And it was all so hard to process.”
“I see. You were abandoned, it was triggering and hard to process.”
“Yeah.”
“I'm here, Jimmy. I won't abandon you.”
“Oh, thank you, Alice.”
“We are one with the Powaah. You are not the doer.”
“Yes, I am not the doer. I am one with the Powaah.”
And, on cue, they started hugging and caressing each other's backs, while intermittently looking intensely into the other's eyes and smiling beatifically. Yet another minor drama that blew in and blew out. Notably though, this was one of the fast ones, which was apparently due to Alice being one of the more advanced Powaah practitioners, who could tune into other people's disturbed energy fields, conjure the correct words to unwrinkle them, and explain away all things in the context of the Powaah – like eating burgers despite being theoretically vegetarian.
However, just when it seemed like the moment's high-wire tension was over as Alice and Jimmy disentangled to start to get back to their assigned tasks, another flurry of inflamed passions stormed over in the shape of a wiry, angry woman, who went straight for Alice like a guided missile that exploded with,
“Fucking hell, Alice. There you are! Why the hell didn't you pick me up?” the newly arrived blazing bundle of fury shot at Alice the moment she was within a few f
eet of her.
Jimmy quietly stepped aside and walked quickly away, as Mike and I stood up to watch. Ah! More entertainment!
“Oh, hi, Sally. How are you?” Alice stepped back a touch and donned her softest and gentlest facial expression.
“I asked you a damned question. Where the hell were you? I waited for hours, and I had to hitchhike the way back with all the bins and tables on my back,” Sally growled. As head of the Center's the farm activities, she went to market when Leah couldn't go, but, given the limited access to vehicles, she had to rely on someone to pick her up, which in this case failed to happen.
“I hear you are angry. I understand you are triggered,” said Alice slowly, deploying her Powaah skills, as she nodded seriously with a slight moue of sadness to convey understanding and compassion.
“No, shit! Why can't you answer my goddamned question?” Sally demanded implacably.
“I'm so happy you got back alright. I was worried about you,” Alice smiled again, doing her best to beam all her stores of Powaah Love.
“Where the fuck were you, Alice? I knew shouldn't have trusted you with using the hauler.”
“I hear you.”
“No you fucking don't! If you did, you'd have come to pick me up!”
“I understand.”
“Where the fuck were you?”
“Let's focus our breath and find the Powaah in us...”
“Why won't you answer me?”
“I hear your anger, Sally, but I am having difficulty answering because you're not making me feel safe. I have to feel safe to be able to speak,” Alice said in a serious, chiding tone, and engaging her superior spiritual knowledge of communicating passively with a hint of backhanded aggressiveness.
“Oh, not this again,” Sally groaned, throwing her hands in the air in defeat. Taking a deep breath, she said slowly in a strained, monotonous voice, “Alice, I would like to hear you. Why, pray tell, were you not able to pick me up as you had told me you would?”
“Well, Sally, I really wanted to pick you up, but I felt at that moment it would be better that I performed some self-care and slept,” Alice said reasonably, as she nodded in agreement with herself. “This way I could serve the Powaah and our community better.”
“You took a NAP?” Sally's eyes bulged, as if someone had pumped high pressure air into her skull. For a moment, it looked like her head would blow up into a million grisly bits, but before anything memorable could happen, she stomped off cursing and swearing.
Never a dull moment at the Center, I had to say. So much triggering! So much processing! Yep, just another day at the Tattoo-ine Center of the Powaah. Despite the Center's all-encompassing embrace of Powaah Love, these kinds of “incidents” happened more frequently than not. Frankly, with all the pervasive borderline malnutrition and sleep deprivation that bred tissue-thin sensitivities and flayed emotions, I was surprised I wasn't witness to much much more of the dramatic, tearful incidents that Mike and I were just given front-row seats to.
In the aftermath, Alice stood awkwardly for a few moments in silence not comprehending (or not processing, as it were) what happened, before she noticed Mike and I sitting on the ground. Flicking on her most welcoming smile, she said,
“Oh, hello, Tim! Hello Mike! How are you! It's so good to see you!” which was followed by a pleasantly bland conversation about the weather, innocuous statements and compliments about our tasks and life, and gentle suggestions how to improve our connection with the Powaah. Alice was indeed a very advanced Powaah practitioner. Our conversation was eminently forgettable until this little tidbit came up,
“Did you two hear?” Alice said brightly, looking significantly at the two of us. “Haan and Leah are coming back from their trip tomorrow.”
“What?” Mike and I said simultaneously as we jolted into sharp attention.
“Yes! They're returning with Leah's brother Louke! He's coming to give a talk! Have you met him? He's such a great guy and an amazingly advanced Powaah practitioner. A Powaah Jedi! He's a hero you know...”
CHAPTER 7