The Institute Page #9

let it fall down.

And then you sort of get into

this womblike state, where

you're laying down.

And Carolee was right next to

me.

I felt very safe.

And right then, somebody from

the Jejune Institute either

moved a chair or just got a

little bit too close and kicked

me in the head, like, really

hard.

And that ended up being a pretty

good way of summing up my entire

experience at the

Jejune Institute.

And allow yourself to stretch

and to touch each other and to

touch the biofiber that's all

around you and reconnect to life

as you ought to live it!

And breathe deep of the

succulence of your life, this

transformed life, and make your

way beyond the perimeter of the

chute.

Ahh!

And join us.

Join our people.

So, do we still think that

this is just a game?

Let's talk about reality and

illusion.

Are you pretending to be here,

hmm?

I am not.

I am present, right here, right

now.

And I feel your presence, too,

all of you.

Perhaps this very moment is us

waking from the dream,

collectively awakening.

Aha!

That feels good, doesn't it?

Remember the day you walked into

the induction center?

I promised you two things.

One...

That you'd begin to notice the

divine occurring all around you

in a thousand miniscule ways.

And two...

For those dark horses with the

spirit to look up and see, a

recondite family awaits.

Look around you.

We are that family.

And this?

This is only the beginning.

Okay.

Lock the doors and release the

poisonous gas, please.

Huh?

Scared you, didn't I?

Well, guess what?

Yes. Thank you.

I get scared, too.

Even I didn't know what was

going to happen here today.

I acknowledge how far you all

have come, and I honor you.

Eva bless.

Thank you.

Carolee turns to me, and she

says, "We lost. We did it wrong.

We lost. We lost the game. "

And I felt so much like

Charlie Bucket, that there was

something that we had... over

the course of the day, we were

supposed to do something with

the coins maybe that we didn't

do.

I just... I felt like it was

stopped short, like this

wonderful arc had just gone

poof! And fallen into the

ground.

I'm kind of ashamed to admit it,

but I went into kind of a

monthlong, like, funk

afterwards, because I felt like

I had been duped.

If we had taken action, it

would be very real, very weird

action.

I don't think anybody wanted to

do that.

Everybody wanted to be

entertained.

So, it just felt like, "Man, the

book was good, but the ending

was weird. "

You know, that doesn't change

the fact that I really enjoyed

the story.

I think it's the Organeil

factor.

Nobody wanted to... who wants to

attack an old man?

You know?

He's an actor, you know?

I'm gonna take it that

seriously.

I think if you looked up

"jejune" in the dictionary, you

would find that it is... like, a

jejune endeavor is a pointless

endeavor that will never

actually get anywhere.

You know?

I think maybe what they really

missed was exactly what was kind

of fulfilled at the end.

I mean, there's a moment when

Wile Coyote runs off that cliff

and wheels his legs for a minute

and looks down before he falls

and has that pause midair,

suspended by nothing but his own

momentum, before he collapses.

And I'm not sure in this moment

whether I'm referring to Jeff or

to the players, but there was

that moment throughout that day.

I think maybe if you don't look

down, you'll never fall.

There was this sense that

people were expecting this final

event to play out in a

science-fiction and fantasy

realm in which there were

shootouts and chases and things.

And I think there was an element

of wanting to punish those

players who seemed to be missing

what the real story was, and

that was about Eva.

Back in the late 1980s, I was

a runaway.

I made my way eventually to

San Francisco.

And the Coit Tower seemed to me

like some kind of a spiritual

lightning rod or something.

So, I started hanging around

there.

To occupy myself, I began to

make little art projects...

animals or mosaics.

And eventually I started making

these little scenes in the

crevices in the stone walls.

One of them was this scene with

a camp, kind of a hobo train car

and some street kids gathering

together.

A few days later, I found that

someone else had added a new

scene, which was this beautiful

scene that was also kind of

spooky.

There were flowers and a tree

and a ship in the background

with some strange kind of

pilgrims there.

A couple of days after that, I

was starting a new one, and I

made this sort of room or stage

and left it mostly unfinished.

The next day, I hid nearby and

watched.

This girl came, and she added a

light and the letters "E" and

"W" down by the door.

Then, she put these birds in, as

if the light was lifting them

into the sky.

I think that's when I felt safe

enough, finally, to approach

her.

And we met that day and became

friends.

She asked me if I understood

about the light, about those

letters, about a place she

called "elsewhere," a way of

being and playing in the world

that somehow changed everything;

a game, sort of, but without any

rules, a way of being in the

world that was powerful and

enchanted.

I met Eva after a show at the

Stone on Broadway, and she ended

up crashing at my parents' house

for about a month in the garage.

And it was during those times

that she and I would meditate.

It was kind of a form of

meditation, and she would guide

me down these paths towards this

place called "elsewhere. "

And elsewhere was neither here

nor there,

and it was this

entire universe and this entire

tribe and with this imagined

history.

It was very intricate and

detailed and went back a long

way.

I think that, like every bit of

art or creativity that I produce

is in some way inspired by her.

It was during the time that I

was in treatment that she went

missing, and it wasn't totally

unusual, you know, for her to

skip out for a little while.

But then there began to be these

theories of either an abduction

or a suicide, and I don't think

it was suicide.

You know, there's the

algorithm, right, that

Blair Lucien came up with.

I think we got a glimpse, a

little glimpse, of the algorithm

in action in the sense that

there were moments where the

ordinary world was transformed

into something different,

something full of potential and

full of mystery in a way that we

don't usually experience.

I don't know if there is a

conclusion.

I don't know how it ended.

I never looked up on the message

boards or anything or really

necessarily asked anyone.

So, for me, it could still be

happening.

And I know they closed down the

building, but as far as I know,

the war is still being waged on

the street.

And that's fun.

It's fun that way.

I do miss the

Jejune Institute a lot, and I

still talk to people about it.

People... well, I have a dog,

and her name is Jejune.

Yeah, definitely this is

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