The Valley of Fire - Chapter Three.

Lake Mead lies below the Hoover Dam and is the focal point of the one-and-a-half million acres of

The Valley of Fire, Nevada, where Josh spent 40 days.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It includes twenty-five miles of the Colorado River and a smaller lake, Lake Mohave.

It is a man-made lake, a large, flooded area of desert. Far below the surface lie the ghostly remnants of several small villages as well as relics of even older settlements. Thousands of visitors go boating, fishing, camping, swimming and hiking there every year; the weather being sunny and hot, rising to 110 °F in midsummer. All around the lake there are hidden coves and flooded canyons that can only be reached by boat.

To the north end of Lake Mead, the Valley of Fire is composed of an ancient and un-nerving landscape of petrified dunes, fossilized trees, strangely shaped rocks and sandstone cliffs. At sunset here, the rocks glow and blaze like Uluru, Australia and, away from the tourist trails, canny wild animals blend easily with the shadows cast by vermillion, scarlet and golden rock.

In the beginning, Josh was in hell. He lived in a world composed of all-pervading torture, simultaneously fire and ice. Every fear and inadequacy he had ever experienced engulfed him; every uncomfortable memory from birth to the present day came back multiplied, torn apart, amplified and filled with remorse, anger, anguish and hopelessness. He — and he no longer knew who or what “he” might be — was consumed by hatred, terror and uncertainty. How long that lasted in our time, no one could know. In his time it was a terrible, terrible eternity. It seemed as though he was being attacked by demonic forces from all sides, the agony unbearable and irredeemable. Then, one crystal-clear thought emerged. “This is not outside of me; this is within me. I am attacking myself.”

Then it cleared and the demons were resolved. A deep harmony spread throughout the Universe that was Josh and Josh himself was healed, whole and at peace.

Most of the time that he spent in the desert, he slept or dreamt. Sometimes he walked and sometimes he sat. Much of the time he sat on one particular rock; it seemed to him to be a very nice rock. Every night he lay on his back on the ground out in the open air and watched the stars turn in their courses with a wonder that consumed him. A city boy, he had rarely seen the glory of a sky without light pollution. But this one was magical. Every star seemed to be a living being with a story to tell. There was so much to learn. The music of the spheres played in every atom of his being.

A part of him knew that he was crazy. Some of him remembered coming out of some water and standing, breathless and confused about whether those who had rescued him were actually there. He was sure there had been presences — someone, something? He had been cushioned in the fall and pulled up from the deeps by a thousand gentle hands. But on the red sand of the beach there was nothing.

There was nothing anywhere.

Nothing but the desert and the no-thing-ness.

He walked until he was tired, then sat until he slept. He dreamt until he woke, hungry, thirsty and stiff and aware, too, that he had some kind of a head injury and that there was dried blood all over his face and neck.

Gingerly he touched the wound but he could only feel it for a second and then there was what seemed to be a rush of light and air and laughter and he knew he must be mad because it was no longer there.

Thoughts of food assailed him. Water there seemed to be in plenty: the cave behind where he was sitting contained a spring of cool, running water. He frowned for a moment; had that been there earlier? Did it matter? He went in and drank and it was cool and fresh and delicious.

A small part of his brain tried to warn him about tainted water. He ignored it.

He slept on the floor of the cave and dreamt of the pink-icing cup cakes with a bright red cherry on top that his mother had made for him in England when he was a boy. He had loved them until he discovered that they were made with cochineal — crushed beetles. Then he would never touch them again. She made the cakes with Ribena icing after that but it wasn’t the same.

In the cool dusk, when he woke, there was a canvas rucksack — of a kind of a camouflage color — sitting by the rock at the entrance of the cave. He looked around but no one seemed to be claiming it so he opened it up.

Inside was a Tupperware box of pink iced cakes each with a cherry on the top.

He had eaten three before he remembered the dream.

He had eaten four before he remembered the cochineal.

He ate the rest.

“Well I’m over that one,” he thought, dispassionately observing the Tupperware box disappearing.

The tiny thoughts inside protested about that; added that this was an appalling diet and insisted that he got up and found vegetables or fruit or protein.

“What a daft thought,” he said.

Instead, he lost himself in the night sky for seven hours, orbiting the great gas giant, Jupiter before discovering the even greater mysteries of Orion and, at one point, just west of Betelgeuse, the thought of bacon sandwiches drifted across his mind. Now Josh was not a totally observant Jew but he didn’t eat pork or shellfish unless he was being polite. It had always seemed unkind to others to maintain an ancient law in the face of unwitting hospitality. After all, loving-kindness was greater even than truth — his Dad had taught him that in synagogue.

So he wasn’t surprised to find bacon sandwiches in the rucksack at dawn when the light show was over and the angels had left. They were sandwiched in British white bread, still warm and totally, totally delicious.

“Okay, I’m over that one too,” he thought.

From then on, food was not a problem, though he did sometimes find that the canned orange soda got up his nose.

When they asked him later, he would sometimes speak of the demons and the incredible release when he had gone from them but he would never tell anyone all about the magic of this time. It was indescribable and, more importantly, it was none of their business. There was such joy in the memory of this ultra-real, impossible, existence in the desert that often helped in the face of the imaginary world that everyone seemed to live in outside of it. He had learnt as a child not to take out treasure only to watch others tarnish it before his eyes. And how could anyone who had never experienced what he had experienced ever understand? Of course, afterwards, he still spoke with and listened to those light-forms who had talked with him in the desert and he would give a taste of what he had experienced to anyone in his new life who genuinely sought a real understanding, but they were in the minority. The phrase “casting pearls before swine” was politically incorrect so he just said “ask me again in a year” when questioned, which usually filtered out those seeking a quick spiritual fix or a thrill.

On some days, he talked with a bobcat that made him chuckle with its tempting suggestions. On others he talked with Gemma, his Uncle Frank and people he had known before … before … well, earlier. Sometimes he spoke with the wrens or the eagles. Mostly he just listened.

If anyone had asked him then if he knew that Gemma was dead, he would have said, “Nobody dies” and dismissed the question. In the desert everything is very much more real.

Eventually, with a sigh and the realization that it was time to begin the work and, anyway, that his legs were getting stiff from sitting, his beard was itchy and he really fancied some pancakes and maple syrup, he got up in the dark before the dawn and walked the seven miles to the Valley of Fire Visitor Centre.