The temple was about
twice as far from center camp as the man had been the previous evening.
Again, the recommendation was "don't take your bike." On the way out
there I passed a simple bonfire where the man had been the previous
evening. Somebody told me that this was still the man's fire. People
had been adding fuel to it all day. Things like the unpainted wooden
art projects they didn't want to take home.
I kept walking. I was part of a loosely connected group of group of
burners, just two or three at time separated by quite a bit of space. I
looked up at the sky at some point. There was a streak of flame growing
way up there. I kept watching and realized that it was a parachuter
with a huge flame tail. Then I realized there were three or four other
ones up there to. One of them was headed for the ground MUCH faster
than the others, who were more like hovering. I kept watching and the
guy got closer and closer to the ground. I kept thinking "deploy your
chute and stop falling." The freefall type kept zooming down. What a
concept. Pondering mortality on the way to a temple burn after watching
a flaming burner die because his chute didn't open.
There wasn't so much
other pagentry for the Temple burn. We walked out to where it was, and
then
found a spot upwind from where the ash was going to fly. Mostly people
were quiet, but there was some murmer of conversation.
By this time I
could hear some people sobbing. The temple just quietly burned.
Sometimes the sound of a timber falling
punctuated the general roar of flames.
I saw the above on the post of a street
sign.
By this time exodus had started. I was
walking near the edge of the road because there was always another
heavily loaded vehicle headed for the exit going by. I think these
speed bumps had been added by somebody that got tired of the dust
storms that rushing cars kicked up. They were the only traffic calming
measure I saw on
the playa.
That phone booth
where you could talk to God was keeping the couple in it positively
riveted. It was hard for me to shake the feeling that on the other end
of the line was some frat boy playing with them. But then, maybe that
God has evolved since the time I picked up the phone, many years ago
now.