fairytale of turkey creek

Once upon a time a man, nearly my identical twin, had an office and a job at a great office park by Turkey Creek. Working late past sunset on the summer solstice he took a short break to walk among the trees. There appeared before him in the moonlight a ghost of a centuries dead Karankawa hunter, tall and broad and near naked. The ghost spoke to him of secrets, of a treasure, and of a curse. My near-twin respects curses, likes treasures, and can keep secrets, so he attended well to that Karnkawa's tales. They parted in peace and my near-twin returned to his office and to his computer. It might have freaked out a few people to see this ghost, or maybe more what the ghost said, but he it did not faze. He has seen stranger things even than that I have been told.

Time passed with no more sign of Karankawas, ghosts, curses, or treasures. And my near-twin kept the Karankawa's secrets. Early one Saturday morning near the end of the summer he was walking through the Addicks Reservoir across the fence from the Turkey Creek offices. A large hawk with a red tail called to him from the branch of a birch tree. And then it spoke in perfect English, "when you see or hear something you do not understand, then and there is where you dig for gold. That is how it has always been done. Never forget the predominance of poverty amongst gold prospectors."

That is a lot of English syllables for a hawk and so my near-twin decided it was not a hawk. Gold is a treasure and poverty a curse and pursuing what you do not understand sounded oddly parallel to the Karankawa ghost's secrets from months before. As he turned away to walk back to the car the hawk called to his back: "shepherd who goes, up by the sheepcotes, if you should happen to see, the one I most desire, tell him I sicken suffer and die".

That night he dreamt. He was a boy in a Shaolin monastary with a shaved head and an old blind monk said to him "when you can walk silent across the raised floor in your office at Turkey Creek, it will be time for you to leave". This was what Jung's Elgeyo medicine man described as a Big Dream, such as they no longer had since the white man had come to Africa. It also sounded quite a bit like the secret of the Karankawa ghost, except no it was not that exactly either.

There was one last natural wonder in my near-twin's mysterious year. There are two great poplar trees outside his office window, and in December the air became cold and all the leaves on the poplars turned bright red overnight. One day they were green and losing their hue. The next morning there were tens thousands bright crimson red poplar leaves. And three days later they all fell onto the ground. Need I add that this also was eerily reminiscent of one of the secrets of the Karankawa ghost, except of course it was not exactly that either.