To the left, several rows of those crappy chair desks that numbed my ass for endless, pointless hours in school. To the right, at the head of the class, a woman in a blue, jumpsuity uniform similar to our pilot’s, stands before a whiteboard. It occurs to me that the color of her uniform is quite nearly that of the line we followed to the door. Interesting.

As she turns to face us I see that she is rather young, early twenties, about five foot six, slim but somewhat broad across the shoulders and hips. Her attractive face is broken up by heavy, black framed glasses, behind which her eyes are a lighter shade of blue than her uniform, and her dark hair is pulled back into a severe bun. I suppose she is trying to make herself look more stern and teacherly, but it’s not working for me. She is half my age, with maybe a quarter of my experience, and looks like a little girl playing dress up. Then she confirms it by trying to wipe the corner of her eye through the glasses and only succeeding in pushing them askew on her face.

After briefly glaring the class down to a slightly lower volume she says, “Good, you’re all here. If you’ll take your seats we can begin.”

A quick glance reveals three empty seats. A single one in a near row, and two (one in front of the other) farther across the room. The frizzy haired girl is still my shadow and Hector seems like an enthusiastically social creature, so when I give him a sideways nod towards the single seat he heads for it like we had this planned all along. Walking in front of the teacher to our seats, I lean in slightly and say softly, “You really should take those glasses off so you can see, they’re not helping your cause.”

I hear a very soft, frizzy haired giggle-snort behind me as the teacher’s mouth falls slightly agape and her cheeks flush bright red. Nevertheless, she retains her composure and, as we take our seats, removes the glasses and inserts them into the top drawer of her teacher desk, which is in front and slightly to the side of the white board.

Then she straightens up and addresses the class, “I’m Mrs. C. Welcome to advanced orientation. You have been selected for this program because your Vibratory Levels are, or in most cases, have the potential to be, within the parameters of Level Five Operators. This course is to teach you the significance of Vibratory Levels, how you can influence them, and how they can affect the world around you.”

“Excuse me,” raising my hand like a kid in school, “but shouldn’t we be starting with the Law of One and The Source?”

Mrs. C, who is in the process of writing a variety of numbers with the notation for hertz behind them on the white board turns around with her mouth set in a firm line, "We don’t have time for any of those kind of frivolous, fantastical notions, Mr…?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how you’re going to teach anyone here anything without starting from The Source. It’s like trying to write without knowing about words or do math without numbers.”

“Well, as you seem to be so knowledgeable, perhaps you would like to teach the class and I can have a relaxing break?” she says sarcastically.

“As a matter of fact,” rising to my feet, “I very much would. But, only if the other people in here vote me in. This is their time too, and I don’t want to force myself on people who don’t want to listen to what I have to say, but if they do, I’m pretty sure I can impart a better understanding of what you’re trying to get across.” I turn towards the class, “So what do y’all think?”

An earsplitting whistle gets everyone’s attention, and everyone looks at Hector, who has his hand in the air and a face splitting grin, “I rode up here with this dude. I don’t know if he knows any more than this chick, but I bet he does, and I can guarantee you he’ll be way more fun!”

And just like that a sea of hands rise from their desks. I can’t help but laugh and give Hector a thumbs up. I walk to the head of the class and Mrs. C has jets of steam shooting out her ears. To her credit, she is not about to deprive me of my opportunity to make a complete fool out of myself.

She speaks softly in the direction of my chin, “You have six hours, better make ‘em count. Anyone who doesn’t pass the test at the end has to repeat the class, that’s gonna’ make you real popular… and if they all fail, you’re out.”

I face the class, still laughing to myself as Mrs. C takes a seat in the back to watch the show, “Hi, I’m Aaron, and I’ll be your instructor on this evening’s new episode of Moon Valley High.”

Amidst the wave of chuckles and light applause running through the room, there is a sudden scraping of chair legs on the floor followed by a wall shaking, “Oh, HELL no!”

I recognize the voice, and sure enough, storming up the aisle from the back corner where I couldn’t really see, is Shari, a bartender from a local watering hole I frequent. She’s five foot ten, fair complected, dark haired, built like a brick shithouse, and clearly pissed off.

“What the fuck have you gotten me into?” she verbally assaults, “If you think pulling some stunt like this is going to get me to go out with you, you can go jump up your own ass, after I get done kicking it!”

This situation is too ridiculous for words. I’m laughing so hard that I can barely talk, but I manage to gesture around at the totality of Moon Valley High and say, “You think I did all this? To try and get to you? Bitch you’re givin’ me WAY too much credit!”

She looks around, still steaming, but realizing I have a point, and says, “Fuck this shit, I’m outta’ here!” then yells back to the corner she came from, “Hey Beej, you comin’?”

A shorter, blonder, slightly less striking woman stands up, looking very confused, and almost meekly follows Shari as she storms out the door and down the hall the way we came. I recognize the blond as B.J., another bartender from the same bar. At this point all I can do is shake my head and laugh. As the room erupts in catcalls and applause all I can think is that if I could make up shit like this I’d have a goddamn lucrative career on my hands. When I glance over at Mrs. C, she is wearing a look of utter disbelief.

“Damn, professor! You sure know how to get a party started!” laughs Hector, clapping louder than anybody else, “Fuckin’ A!”

I do my best Gilligan’s Island ‘who me, what’d I do’ look and let the crowd run with it. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

As I begin to get my laughter under control I straighten up and address the class, “Ok, before we get started, I got a question for y’all. We’re on the fuckin’ moon right? Is anybody else disappointed with the complete lack of zero gravity we’ve experienced so far?”

That gets some chuckles and a few ‘Yeahs!' and ‘What’s up with thats?' as I walk up to the white board and wipe it clean. I draw a generic outline of a human figure and draw circles at ankles, knees, thighs, belly, chest, head, and just above the head. While I’m doing this I ask the class, “How many of you are familiar with Chakras?”, and move on to labeling the circles with colors, starting from bottom to top, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

When I turn around there are a good number of hands in the air, maybe a third of the class, “Ok, good,” I say, “Now do any of you understand how chakras relate to vibration? And do any of you know about The Source?”

A nerdy looking guy raises his hand and I point at him and nod, “Each chakra up is a higher vibration, right?” he says.

“Yes,” I say, “Now this is a little tangled, but if you can hang with me you’ll understand. Do any of y’all play guitar?”

About twelve hands around the room go up, “Ok, so do you guys know how you can have three or four identical guitars on the wall at the store and they all play and sound different?” about five of those heads nod — the real players.

“Ok, so that’s us.” I say, “We’re all from the same factory. We all come from The Source. In fact everything comes from The Source; everything you see, feel, touch, smell, hear, it’s all vibration, and so are we. We all vibrate at different frequencies, as do the things around us. That’s why I can’t put my hand through this wall.” I walk over to the wall and punch a fist sized hole in it. “Ok, that’s way thinner than I expected, but you know what I mean.” The class breaks up in laughter.

Mrs. C coughs loudly from her seat in the back of the class. I laugh to myself and get on with it.

“Alright, so anyway, the deal is, yes, each chakra is a higher vibration than the next, moving up. We all have all the chakras, everybody does, BUT, we’re not all in tune. In fact, most people, if you could strum our chakras like guitar strings, would sound fuckin’ awful. And here’s where we start getting into what Mrs. C back there was aiming at without having a good point of reference to shoot from.”

At this point I have everybody’s attention, including Mrs. C, who actually appears as if she’s ready to learn something. Ok, this is new, but moving on…

“The lowest chakra is our bass, this is our root note where we start from. Each further chakra is a harmonic of that note, not necessarily an octave, but it can be depending on your individual frequency makeup. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s a fifth or a sixth or a whatever, as long as it’s in tune, if you understand what I’m saying. The main goal is that when all your chakras vibrate together they play a chord, that’s IN TUNE with itself. It doesn’t matter if it’s major or minor or a goddamned augmented ninth as long as it’s in tune with itself. We are each an individual instrument that vibrates according to its own unique harmonic qualities. The point is not for us all to be uniformly the same, but for us each to optimize ourselves to our natural tendencies so that we may all play the part to which we are best suited better than anyone else. Does any of this make sense?”

There is a general murmur of agreement through the classroom, and one of the guitar players I noticed earlier raises her hand, “Ok, I understand what you’re getting at sir, and it makes a lot of sense. But what I don’t understand is, how do we tune ourselves?”

“Ok, first, don’t fuckin’ call me sir! I’m a goddamn no account class clown who’s been sent up here to make a complete fool out of himself and I intend to do just that. Do you understand me missy?”

At this, the whole class, including the stolid Mrs. C behind her clipboard shield in the back, completely breaks up, and my erstwhile questioner cracks a huge smile and gives me a big OK sign.

“Second, that is a most excellent question. The answer is, you must harmonize your body, mind, and spirit. Now before you all groan and facepalm, I know this all sounds like some new age guru bullshit. The problem is that it’s true. No way around it. The deeper meaning behind it is that we must work hard towards feeling good about who we are in every facet, which sounds simple but is, in fact, exceedingly difficult because it encompasses our entire being. It’s not just working on our physical bodies so that we are healthy and feel attractive and beautiful and confident in our appearance. It’s not just learning and continuing to grow intellectually so that we feel confident in tackling whatever challenges life presents us with. It’s not just unclenching our ego to realize that we are all small pieces of a single, vast, universal consciousness. It is all of these things, and more, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

A slender girl off to the side raises her hand, “Do you do a lot of yoga?”

“Nope, never done yoga in my life. Why?”

“It’s just that… you sound a lot like my yoga teacher right now. And that’s good, I really like her, she’s very wise.”

“Um, ok. Thank you very much, I appreciate that more than you know. What the fuck am I doing here? Wait, did I say that out loud?”

“Fuck yeah you did!” pipes up Hector, “You’re killin’ it Boss, go on!”

I give Hector the finger, “Dude thanks, and also fuck you.”

“Yeah, I picked that up from the finger, and you’re welcome, Sir!” he laughs, and when I smile and chuckle the rest of the room goes with it. Even if the class doesn’t get top test scores, I should get an award for the most entertaining class ever attempted to be taught.

“What the fuck ever. Anyway, tuning yourself is a combination of diet, exercise, and mental focus, in the simplest possible terms. I can’t tell you exactly how to do it, because it’s different for everybody. I could tell you some of the things that have worked for me, but I’m still a work in progress and I don’t have answers, just suggestions, and only if you ask for them. Ok? And save that for after class ‘cause we got shit to cover.” And about twenty hands drop to their desks. I just smile and shake my head, unable to believe these folks are taking me this seriously so quickly.

“Alright, everybody understand the basics of chakras, vibration and tuning?”

Hector turns around in his seat and gathers the class, leading them all in a violent, military, “YES SIR!”

“Very good. Fuck you very much. We’ll go with that, you cocksuckers,” I laugh, “Now, on to the theory of action and intent.”

“Alright, now I’m going to assume that you are generally familiar with the idea of karma.” There is a general nod of assent from the class, “So I want to present to you the notion that the exact same action can have different karmic repercussions depending on the intent behind it. I’d like to make a physical demonstration of this and I’ll need a volunteer from the studio audience.” Most of the hands in the class go up, one is noticeably not. “Hector, would you join me at the front of the class please.” It’s not a question. As he drags his ass out of his desk chair I go over and rummage through the teacher desk drawers and find what I’m hoping to. Mrs. C glowers at me from behind her clipboard but everyone else has accepted me as ‘teacher’ and doesn’t find it odd that I’m going through her desk.

I go over to Hector and put my arm around his shoulder and turn so our backs are to the class and our heads are close together, “Hey man,” he says, “you know I was just kidding with that stuff, right? I like you man. What are you gonna do to me?”

“Relax bro,” I whisper in his ear, I open my hand and show him what I pulled out of the teacher desk, an Atomic Fireball cinnamon candy, commonly found in teacher desks everywhere for reasons unbeknownst to us mere students, “You’re gonna suck on this and follow my lead through two scenarios, ok? End of each one I’m gonna punch my palm right in front of your face and you’re gonna whip your head and spit red all over the white board there, got me? It’ll make an impression.”

He smiles big as I palm him the candy, pops it in his mouth, sucks, and straightens his face, “Alright, to your corner,” I tell him, and he nods and goes to the far end of the board, I do the same, and turn towards the class.

“In this example, this random guy is walking along,” Hector begins walking towards me, “and I’m gonna fuck ‘im up and take his shit,” as Hector gets up to me I punch my palm right in front of his nose and his head whips to the side and sprays red spit all over the white board. Damn this guy is good. I make a show of comforting him, making sure he’s ok, and without saying anything he motions that he’s alright and makes it back to his starting point.

“Now, in this example, this guy is walking up to fuck me up and take my shit,” this time Hector puts his hands up like he’s on the offensive and I punch my palm right under his chin and his head snaps around and spits red all across the top of the white board. This time he backs away from me with one hand up and the other rubbing the side of his face. This is awesome, the class is absolutely petrified.

“Thank you very much Hector, you may return to your seat,” he nods and smiles ‘thank you’ showing a whole mouth full of red teeth, and walks back towards his desk.

“Any questions?” the class is absolutely silent and perfectly still. Me and Hector burst out laughing at the same time as he spits out the candy and holds it up in his palm for the class to see. There is a collective release of breath and some soft chuckles.

“As you can see, I performed the exact same action both times, the only thing that changed was the context and the intention behind it. Can you see how the difference would change the karmic implications?”

A rotund fellow in a Star Wars shirt says, “I never thought about it like that, but it makes perfect sense. The first one is negative, and the second one is positive, but you did the same thing both times.”

“Exactly, and that’s why it’s an important lesson. Actions themselves are not inherently negative or positive. Given the context, and most importantly, the intent behind them, they can be either. And the import of that in this particular context is that, to tune all our chakras to the highest extent, we should all, always endeavor to perform actions with positive intent.”

“Now, moving forward. There are some people who attempt to tune their chakras by skipping over the green one here in the middle.” I point to the figure on the white board, “These people are assholes.” This gets a good laugh. “Seriously, it is traditionally believed that that the green chakra is most closely related to ‘love’. Not in the physical sense, but in not being a jackass to your fellow man. Using the term ‘love’ is easy, but also vague, it could be more accurately described in this context as ‘trying to give a shit about other people while allowing them the freedom to make their own bad decisions’. Don’t worry, the water here will get even murkier before it clears.”

“Certain ideologies would describe the tuning of all the chakras as the path of light, the right hand path, or the path of service to others. The tuning of all but the green chakra is described as the path of darkness, the left hand path, the path of service to self. The best way I can describe the fundamental difference between the two philosophies is, on the path of light, we desire to progress ourselves through raising others to our own level, and the cycle continues. On the path of darkness, we desire to progress ourselves, or at least appear to, by grinding others down so they feel they can never aspire to our position, and the cycle continues. The two paths can be vastly simplified into positive and negative, but given the complexities of interactions between sentient beings I think that’s kind of a cop out. What you really need to remember to understand the two paths is, on the one hand, the cream rises to the top, and on the other, shit rolls downhill. Get it? Got it? Good.”

From her seat at the back of the class Mrs. C is sitting with her mouth agape like this is her first acid trip and the lightbulb in her head just came on and she doesn’t know what to do with it. The rest of the class just murmurs assent so I wade even farther out into uncharted waters. Might as well, I’m already in over my head and out of sight of shore.

“I could get into all kinds of speculation here, but suffice to say there is a cabal, a secret society, of people on the shitty, downhill rolling path. I guarantee you’ve met some of them, and if you think about it you probably know who some of them are. Many can be found in positions of power and authority. Once you know what to look for, they are often easy to spot. Not always though. Remember our example with Hector here, some of these jerks are quite clever, appearing to perform the noblest of deeds, but fueled by the most insidious of intentions. Smiling at your face as they stab you in the back, as it were. Many of these people acquire great wealth and property, but verily I say unto thee, beware the seduction of the shitty path, for though it may be the biggest, most brightly wrapped present under the tree, it contains no joy or substance, only flies and shit and an emptiness that cannot be filled by all the wealth and power in creation.”

Someone breaths, “Dude, that’s heavy.”

“Ok, so; anyway. The creamy path to the top has its pitfalls too, which are equally as bad, or can be, maybe, because they are generally less obvious. So, you wanna be a good guy right? Help people out, raise them up to your level so that they’re able to do the same for someone else down the line? Sounds easy right?”

Most of the class sort of half nods, but one girl shakes her head slightly. I point at her.

“You’ve tried haven’t you, recently?”

Her face reddens a bit and she bites the tip of her tongue before spitting out, ”Yes,” tinged with a bit of bitterness.

“You picked someone you saw potential in, didn’t you? And you thought you could help them, so you poured hope and energy into them until you almost didn’t have any left for yourself before you realized it was like pouring water into a bucket with a great big hole in the bottom, and then you felt like an idiot and an asshat when you finally had to give up on them.”

“You’re fuckin’ A right I did,” she explodes, “I did everything I possibly could for that bitch and she just took and took and never did fuck all! Never gave anything back or did anything for herself! Fuck that slut! Fucking useless whore!”

“Good for you! I can tell you’re over it! You have firmly learned this lesson the hard way and now you’re going to help me teach the rest of the class.”

She shoots me a suspicious, confused look, like a cat that just got squirted with a water pistol.

“Tell me, did the bitch ever ask you for help? I mean, not later on when she knew she could maneuver you and manipulated you into doing every little thing for her, but in the very beginning. Did she ask, or did you offer?”

Her initial anger melts into a palpable self loathing as she says, “I offered.”

“And THAT would be your mistake. Don’t beat yourself up about it, it’s a mistake we all make. Most of us more than once. Helping someone only really helps if they’re ready for it. That way they’ll appreciate it, and reciprocate, and help someone else down the line, rather than just take it like it’s owed to them. And,” I spread my arms out to the class, “How do we know when someone is ready for help?”

Silence and blank faces and then she says in a small, questioning voice, “They ask for it?”

“Very good! See? We’re making some real progress now. But, asking for help is only part of the equation; they have to genuinely need it, too. See what I’m getting at? There’s a lot of judgement calls involved here and it’s not nearly so simple as it would appear, on the surface, to be.”

“That’s the fuckin’ truth,” she says.

“Word, sister.”

And she smiles with her tongue between her teeth.

“Alright so, we know someone is ready for help when,” I spread my arms again, “You can tell they need it, and they fuckin’ ask for it!” I hold my hand up to my ear and wave the other to elicit a response.

“When you can tell they need it, and they fuckin’ ask for it!” choirs the class.

“Very good, you’ve each earned a gold star for today! Ok, now what? Let’s see, I seem to recall something about Fifth Level Operating, which would mean, I believe, that we are all here because we are ready to harmonize our green chakra and start tuning the blue. Have I given everybody a good idea of what we’re dealing with here?”

“Fuck yeah, teach!” busts Hector, “Very educational! You get a smiley face stamp for sure!” he gets up halfway out of his seat, turns around and goads the class into chanting, “Smiley Face, Smiley Face, SMILEY FACE!” At which point, with the chant still ongoing, the frizzy headed girl that rode up with us, whom I had almost forgotten about, rises from her seat, walks up to the front of the class like she owns the place in her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, takes a green marker from the tray at the bottom of the white board, walks over to me with a strange smile like she knows something I don’t, and draws a big smiley face on the back of my right hand. Then she replaces the marker and returns to her seat, crossing her arms in front of her on the desk, all the time wearing that same, slightly troubling smile.

I hold my hand up like a trophy of war and the whole class breaks out in whistles, catcalls, and applause. At which point Mrs. C bustles up from the back of the class with her clipboard and a strange, confused smile, and says to me, “I think you’ve covered quite enough for today.”

“OK, if you say so, but we’ve barely scratched the six hours you said I had, so is it okay to take some time to let the class ask personal questions they may have come up with during the lesson?”

“I suppose that would be appropriate,” she says with an odd look on her face. It’s hard to describe, she’s kind of smiling, and kind of blushing, and kind of deathly afraid. I really don’t get it.

I spend the next forty five minutes or so answering questions from the class. Mostly about tuning, the answers to which contain a lot of, ‘Less carbs and red meat, more fruit and vegetables’, ‘Apple cider vinegar, Iodine, Selenium’, ’Spend more time outside in the sun’, ‘Walk, swim, ride a bike’, ‘Less TV and video games, do something artistic, you know? Create. Write, draw, paint, play music, build a hot rod’ etc . . .

During this time Mrs. C walks out into the hall somewhere and comes back after about five minutes. When the Q and A is done, she walks me to the door and owl and hawk, the brown shirts who were at the front door of Moon Valley High when we came in, are standing there.

“Please escort Mr.,” she looks at me.

“Aaron,” I say.

“Please escort Mr. Aaron to the cafeteria to wait while the test is administered and scored,” she says, “I’ll send for you when we’ve finished and we’ll discuss your future — prospects.” She manages to look down her nose at me while looking definitively up at me. Neat trick.