In a Vulture's Shadow

"Put a rusty nail in it!" Obsidian Knife chastised me as we drilled some rough-and-tumble skills for controlling the opponent's inside. My thumb stab to his ear drum wasn't yet weaponized enough for him. My grave error of affording my enemy a moment of safety would not go unpunished. He kicked at me as he further berated me and my Twinkie-flavored white-bread culture. I laughed in response but minded those bullwhip front kicks. His kicks were lightning-fast. He had a habit of obliterating an opponent's knees on the trajectory up to their nutsack with his rocket-powered foot. In addition, he could cover far more distance than you might guess by exploding forward off his back leg.  His kicking skills contained a wicked "rusty nail.: An opponent never has the luxury of safety. That is a commodity for which we are perpetually out of stock. Now, severe injury, maiming, permanent disfigurement, crippling, and, of course, straight-up death, on the other hand...well,

Snapping my Dream Journal shut hard with his hand, he shot me a defeated but vengeful glance, then looked away with a long, annoyed sigh. I knew he had conceded to my argument and his conditions, concessions I am confident he never thought he'd have to make, were about to follow. I've kept a dream journal for decades, and from 1999 to 2004, my dreams were preoccupied with Global Cataclysms, Large-scale UFO events speaking with Crystal Skulls, and what had become the Nahali, or Toltec Tradition.  In one dream entry, in particular, a lucid dream, I detailed my delivering the soul of recently passed-over Carlos Castaneda out of captivity, freeing him from the clutches of "inorganic beings." In our escape from the penumbral labyrinth, I was almost captured. Carlos Castaneda returned the favor, and together, we watched each other's backs as we opened doorways to our proper and respective abodes. Before he left, Carlos told me.  "My line is broken, my unit failed,