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And beasts they were, Ice realized when they got past the last of the luggage to where the compartment was roomier and warmer, the scent of animal musk heavy in the air, the gentle sounds of snorts and grunts coming from the mildly sedated furry passengers headed halfway across the world, presumably with their human companions seated above with seatbelts fastened and tray-tables tucked.
Indy gasped as she moved past Ice, dragging him by the arm to the open space in the center of what appeared to be the pet-section of this passenger jet. The area was lined with spacious travel-cages, each lashed securely to the metal frames on the side-walls.
Ice counted six cages in total, all occupied by lazily lounging canine tenants. “Well, shit. Looks like we’re travelling with a bunch of returning American ex-pats or Indian pet-lovers moving to America with their best friends.” He smiled and shook his head, not sure what to make of it—not just the situation but the feeling in his heart when he saw Indy once again show signs of sanity in those wild-but-vacant eyes.
Ice’s heart beat wildly as his mind spun up images of his laughing parents in the form of grinning ghosts, snickering spirits. He tried to tell himself that a Boeing 747 seated almost five hundred passengers, which made it entirely reasonable that six pets were on board.
This isn’t magical, he told himself sternly.
This isn’t mystical, he reminded himself hotly.
Maybe this isn’t even real, he suggested to himself in a last-ditch attempt to rationalize what felt like fate, to reason away what felt like destiny, to push away what felt like providence.
But then Indy led him to the center of that U-shaped magical horseshoe of furry friendliness, looked up into his eyes, pulled him down to the floor dead center of what felt like a vortex of safe, loving physical energy.
And Ice couldn’t tell himself a damn thing anymore.
He just followed her lead, let himself slip into this strange psychic space of peaceful physical energy, where words were meaningless and thoughts were trivial and the intelligence of the mind was overshadowed by the wisdom of the body.
And now they were on the floor, lying pressed together like two spoons on a padded drop-cloth, Indy’s face turned away from his as Ice held her from behind, his body warming hers like a blanket, his eyes closed just like hers, his heart open just like hers as the baggage-doors closed on the outside world and the throttles opened with a comforting rumble and their magical mystical capsule began to move, began to roll, began to rise.
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Indy felt herself rise. Not just physically but in some other unnamable way. She was only vaguely aware of her specific surroundings, but something had definitely changed, was still changing.
She tried to move her body, then realized she was connected to another body.
His body.
Indy tried to speak his name but the words wouldn’t come. Her vision was just nonsensical colors, swirling patterns of textural luminosity. But the colors were brighter now, like something was pushing away that overwhelming dark cloud that had dropped heavy and harsh over her, suffocating her from the inside, throttling her from within.
She curled up tighter in her fetal position, shut her eyes, panic briefly rising up her throat that the dark shroud of physical emotion would suffocate her again, like it had once so long ago, back when her brain was still forming, her eyes barely able to focus.
Suddenly she got a flash of what had transpired. Not a visual memory but just that shadowy sensation of being smothered, shut down, silenced.
Indy tried to speak, but her voice had been taken from her by the sudden release of those smothering memories recorded in her flesh decades ago. She understood what had happened, even though some faint inner voice still reminded her she was on a drug and she couldn’t trust anything right now, certainly not memories which couldn’t be seen, only felt.
But she trusted these arms around her, Indy thought as she pushed her spoon-curled body back against his, felt him hold her tighter, the sort of tightness that was safe not suffocating, protective not painful, releasing not restricting.
Now her body began to relax, slow and gradual, from the inside out, starting with her innermost depths. She closed her eyes and let her mind follow this strange opening-up process, like a flower unfolding its fresh new petals in anticipation of spring, an infant uncurling its tiny fists in anticipation of love.
The kind of love that the body experienced as safety, shelter, security.
Unconditional love.
A gasp emerged from Indy’s lips as she felt their bodies connecting in the strangest way, starting from the inside out even though the contact was only skin deep, just on the surface. She didn’t understand it but she accepted it, welcomed it, opened herself up to it like that unfurling flower, that awakening infant.
She sighed out a breath as her senses expanded, like her awareness was being extended by this strange joining of her body with his. She listened in awe to their deepest physical processes, was acutely aware of not just two beating hearts and four breathing lungs but trillions of chattering cells, those microscopic fractals of life communicating excitedly with each other in the deepest levels of their shared body-consciousness, making it clear that even the tiniest particle was bursting with life, overflowing with joy, yearning to expand, aching to experience.
Experience love.
Physical love.
“Where are we?” she whispered now, her eyelids fluttering open, letting in splinters of sight, fragmented forms that vaguely resembled physical objects that had names in the real world. “Are those . . . cages?”
He moved against her from behind. She felt him raise his head. She tried to turn to look at him but found she couldn’t move. She did remember his name, though. That was probably a good sign, wasn’t it?
“Relax,” Ice whispered, his breath swirling through her hair. “Yeah, those are cages. We’re on the plane, Indy. Pressurized temperature-controlled pet-safe area of the cargo hold.”