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By Root 501 0

she was back in the Grand Canyon, right at the place where the Hopi claimed to have come up into the fourth world. She saw the little handprint, just as she’d seen it the day she was hiking with Sue. In fact, the person she saw standing near the little handprint looked like Sue, but when she looked hard she saw it wasn’t. It was a Hopi man with a piece of rag around his head. The rag was dark; indigo, as she looked at it; wonderful against his bronze skin. He was wearing a long white cotton shirt, some kind of homemade sandals, and that was all. He said to her: You have been puzzled about how we could live so long underground.

Why would I be puzzled about that? asked Kate. Everybody lives longer underground than above it. She was thinking of dead people in graves.

The man was old but he didn’t look particularly old. He looked like he’d been the same age all his life. When he was a small boy, she felt, he’d been a miniature of himself. He’d probably always worn the exact same clothes too.

You have wondered how we sustained ourselves, he said. And how we grew crops without sun.

Now she noticed there were people standing in back of him. A woman of his own age and demeanor came to stand beside him.

We are never separate, he said, turning to the woman, who smiled.

We could never leave each other, she said.

A young man stepped forward. In the night, he said, we came up into the fourth world to plant. We have never gone anywhere without our seeds. He produced a tiny, colorfully decorated pot with a teeny hole in its top. We carried our food, to last a thousand years, in a pot of this size.

We made it, said the women, nodding at the little pot and standing behind the couple and the young man; above or below, the earth is always abundant. To know the mind of clay, that is to know everything about survival.

And when we came up, finally, to stay, we chose a place that looked like where we had been, said the older man. That is why we have lived on top of mesas and had our fields far below. Where we live aboveground looks like where we lived so long underground. While underground we climbed up to plant, aboveground we climb down.

You cannot get a grain of corn in this hole, said Kate, fussily. You can’t get sunflower seeds in here either. On the other hand, she seemed to be saying this from inside the tiny pot.

All around her, as if in an echo chamber, she heard the people laughing.

She is very funny, one of them said.

And so tall, said another. We must save her to plant another year.

What was this thing about her and corn, Kate wondered. For now she seemed to be a very tall cornstalk. With big heavy ears of corn hanging off her like tits.

Corn used to be small, the older man said.

Really? said Kate.

Even so, we did not carry it in the little pot. It was always carried in a leather pouch, close to the heart.

Why was that? asked Kate, now back to herself, or whoever she was in this dream.

Because it is as dear as one’s child.

Why is it as dear as one’s child?

The world may lose corn, said the woman standing with the older man.

But perhaps its children are no longer dear, said the younger man, who had been joined by a woman his own age.

A baby materialized near Kate’s feet and looked up at her. One of its legs was planted in the ground. A small cloud appeared right over its head and released a shower of rain to water it.

She awoke to the sound of moths. They were flying around the reading light she had left on near her bed. Not as large as the ones in the Amazon, they were still sizeable; white and silver and feathery gray. She studied them for a moment before turning out the light and going back to sleep.

I had a very Alice-in-Wonderland dream last night! she said to Yolo next morning. I was visited by the Hopi community that used to live in the Grand Canyon.

He was on his way to the gym. Cool, he said, flying out the door.

Yolo discovered that if he did laps, if he used the treadmill, if he took long walks and long naps, he could keep his mind off smoking, some of the time.

I am so nervous, he said at dinner,