"Um, no thanks, I have to-" I pointed to my door across the hall.

"It's already made," he said, standing aside and gesturing for me to enter. "Dragon fruit zinger."

"Oh. OK." I was fl.u.s.tered, trying not to look at his crotch or dwell on the words "dragon fruit."

I went into the living room, which was basically the same as mine but with the furniture arranged haphazardly, or seemingly not arranged at all. There were a million plants everywhere, and the sun was streaming in through the east-facing windows. It smelled like pot and tea and wet soil. Fecund. Pleasant. He must have just watered. There was soft piano music playing on an old-fashioned record player, and the small pops and clicks of needle on vinyl made a rich, soothing sound.

It was very peaceful until Eldrich came in with my tea and proceeded to sit cross-legged in this tall Addams Familytype chair directly across from the low vinyl sofa where I was seated. Here's the thing: he still hadn't put any clothes on. Once again, I was almost eye level with his package, but now there was no escape. Or no escape until I finished my tea-have you ever tried to guzzle hot tea? What's worse, sitting on the ottoman between us was a stack of junk mail and on top of the pile was a glossy Burger King flyer, advertising a sandwich called the Angry Whopper.

So there I was, drinking dragon fruit tea, with the Angry Whopper directly in my sightline, trying to focus on what we were talking about, which was how long I had lived in the building, what I was studying at school, how I got involved with the website, etc., etc., but I can't honestly remember because the entire time I was really just trying not to laugh, thinking about Eldrich's big old donkey d.i.c.k and imagining how I was going to tell it to John.

John

Eldrich was full of c.r.a.p. Which, as it turns out, was great for me. In the days leading up to the first social, he was still playing the taciturn card-This is your thing, John. This isn't my thing. I'm far too modest and retiring to ever become involved in a thing like this. To be honest, I wasn't even sure if he would show up to our little party, and had no idea if he'd been reading the website posts or not. I emailed him the link at least half a dozen times, and even went so far as to jam hard copies of website correspondence under his door, but whenever I tried to talk to him about anything to do with the site or its users, he would get all vague and cagey. He would change the subject. Nevertheless, on the morning of our first official gathering, there he was, right on time, looking like Jesus Christ in a billowing cotton tunic, hemp genie pants and sun-baked Birkenstocks, pressing the flesh and welcoming the flock like a good guru should. He seemed to know all the people and their tales of weird.

Eldrich, obviously, had been reading all along.

Amy invited forty individuals to our rooftop party (thirty-one from the website), and twenty-nine showed up. I invested a hundred of my own bucks for refreshments, and within ten minutes every plate was picked clean. No one seemed to care though. Even super-rich dude, who was probably used to the snazziest catering, appeared content with a handful of Cheetos and a plastic tumbler of lemonade. I finally got a chance to meet the guy. He introduced himself as "Phil," but I later learned that his real name was Chen Xi Quan and that he was originally from Singapore. He was short and pudgy, with sallow skin and teeth all askew in blackish-purple gums-like a cemetery after a mudslide. He had no chin to speak of and large, oddly gelatinous eyeb.a.l.l.s that reminded me of cloudy aquarium water that needed to be cleaned. He was an affable fellow, though-instantly chummy, with a high-pitched, giggly laugh. When I asked about his watch, he whipped it off and handed it to me to examine. "Parmagiani Fleurier," I said, reading the brand as I strapped it on my wrist. "Interesting design."

"You see it when you're driving." He pointed to the face on the side of the cylinder, and mimed holding his hands on a steering wheel.

"Ah."

"It was a good deal," he said, trying hard not to smile. "Only a hundred and eighty-seven thousand."

This was a routine he evidently enjoyed performing. Now I was supposed to play my part, i.e., gasp with disbelief and either pretend to walk away with the treasure or tear it off as if its very value were burning my flesh. But I just stared at the thing, seemingly unruffled. "Well," I said, "it's a pretty nice wrist.w.a.tch." In other words, what a colossal waste of cash, you dunderhead. He seemed to get my inference. As I handed it back, he told me it had actually been a gift from his father, who saw him admire it in a store once. "He thought it would make me happy. Nice things don't make you happy."

Ordinarily, I would have said, "But they don't make you unhappy, do they, bro? Not like c.r.a.ppy old things that break down and actually incite misery." But given the circ.u.mstances, I just nodded in agreement and said, "Eldrich has some very profound insights on happiness."

"Yes," he said, giggling and squeezing my upper arm. "You're a good-looking fellow."

The non sequitur threw me for a moment. I laughed loud and was about to say, "That's what Mama tells me," but he was already moving away when my mouth found the words. I saw him give Eldrich an effusive high-five and a great big hug, then he took off, though not before slipping something into the donation box I had set up by the patio door. Later, when Amy and I emptied it, we found a dozen toonies and loonies, a few crumpled fives and tens, and one very crisp hundred-dollar bill. Amy was all excited. And equally piqued when I told her I was keeping the cash to pay for expenses. She refused to have s.e.x with me that night, even though I a.s.sured her there would be many more donation boxes to empty in the future. Whatever. I took the stiff hundred-dollar bill and slid it into my wallet-a colourful woven thing that one of my ex-girlfriends had bought in Guatemala. It looked good in there. Like a business man on holiday.

I decided that "Phil" was a swell guy, and I would get to know him better.

Amy

The first meeting was a pain in the b.u.t.t. Even though I was back at school and already extremely busy, I was somehow charged with making pinwheel sandwiches for forty people. Fun fun fun. John promised to help, but all he did was pay for supplies and help me carry stuff home from the corner. Then he f.u.c.ked off to some screening of a friend's short film, while I spent the day up to my elbows in egg, tuna and salmon salad. The apartment reeked for a week. The sandwiches looked pretty, though. I make great party sandwiches.

I think John's original intention had been to hold the event at Eldrich's place, but Eldrich wasn't exactly down with the plan in the early days, so that wasn't going to happen. Then John tried to persuade me to have it at our place, but I refused. Who knew what kind of degenerates were going to show up? Did I really want a bunch of spiritually starved sociopaths tracking bedbugs into my apartment? No thank you. I thought we should just do a picnic in the park where Eldrich usually busked-familiar, safe, easy to disperse if things got weird-but John thought it wasn't official enough. Also, he didn't want to attract attention from suspicious Mommy types-especially if some super-freaks decided to attend. I compromised and said we could hold it out on the rooftop terrace, as long as he agreed that n.o.body could use the bathroom in our apartment. And if it rained, tough luck. No one was coming in. He grudgingly agreed.

Almost everybody who I invited showed up. Unfortunately, Heather, the one person I was actually hoping to see, didn't make it. We'd been corresponding through the website quite a bit, and even though we'd never met, I considered her a friend. She was traumatized by the loss of her child and was suffering from PTSD, but she wasn't totally bonkers like some of the others. Wayne, for example, our UFO nut job, who arrived with a big-a.s.s SLR digital camera and proceeded to photograph all the satellite dishes on the roof of our building and the buildings around us, as if they were picking up alien messages instead of the latest episode of Modern Family. Or dippy Anne-Marie, who insisted on greeting everyone forehead to forehead so she could feel their energy. Or wild-eyed Tyson who was completely covered in religious tattoos: a giant crucifix that started on the back of his neck, then sprouted elaborate wings all across his shoulder blades, Jesus Christ nailed to the cross and bleeding all down his left arm, and another Christ-this one in extreme close-up with a woeful expression and a blood-dripping th.o.r.n.y crown, on the right arm. He also had G.o.d'S SOLDIER tattooed as a kind of word bracelet, and a pair of realistic-looking hands clasped in prayer, with rays of light shooting out all around them, on the side of his tree-trunk neck.

Can you say "crazy-town"?

Eldrich took it all in stride, though, and seemed to adore everybody. There was a lot of hugging. Far too much hugging for a group of people who had never met before. And there were a few uncomfortable minutes when Eldrich jumped atop a plastic milk crate and recited a fable about a young man who stood in the centre of town, boasting about his beautiful, perfect heart. All the villagers gathered around to marvel at his pristine muscle. But then an old man approached and said that his tattered and torn heart was the superior heart because it was missing pieces that he had given away, and because it was scarred from emotional upheavals, blah blah blah. All the villagers scoffed and turned away. But the young man saw that it was true, and wept, and tore a piece of his heart out and put it in the old man's heart and they walked away arm in arm. Or something like that.

I was fully expecting our villagers to scoff and turn away, but instead everyone erupted into applause. And this one guy named Drew actually started blubbering like a baby and didn't stop until Eldrich went over and cradled him in his arms. I remember thinking: The freaks have found each other ... and it's on my terrace. Super-duper.

John, of course, had a grand time. First he wolfed down half the sandwiches that were intended for guests, then he spent the rest of the party stalking (and flirting with) Phil Chan, Eldrich's wealthy benefactor. Poor Phil. John had him wound around his finger from the get-go.

After Phil left, John seemed eager to wrap things up. He had set out a donation box and was obviously dying to see what was in there. Phil had very generously donated a hundred-dollar bill, which John swooped up like a hawk with a rabbit. He said it was for the food, but I was with him for the shopping and couldn't help but notice that he'd only spent seventy-two bucks and change. He took the rest of the money-fifty-six dollars-to pay for web hosting, and the postering he had done. He said we would hold another gathering soon, and that, because of all my help, I could keep half the proceeds of that. I told him I didn't give a s.h.i.t about proceeds, but I wasn't making any more pinwheel sandwiches.

I have to say, it was kind of bizarre how jazzed John was by that hundred-dollar bill. I think it gave him an actual hard-on, since he put the cash in his wallet and then immediately tried to mount me on the living-room floor. I found his monetary excitement off-putting. Plus the apartment stank of chopped egg. I think that was the first time I didn't want to have s.e.x when he initiated. And maybe the first sign that we were very different people. Anyway, a few days after our initial gathering, Eldrich came by and asked me to show him how to log on to the site to post. That's when he started putting messages directly on the splash page. That's when he began corresponding with his people.

Friends, Tender Hearts, Explorers ...

Life is a gift. Seekers such as yourselves know this. Others who are less aware squander the gift through misuse or, more commonly, under-use. Some even throw the gift away.

Our greatest goal is to make the most of the gift. To do this, we must find our Absolute Self-not who others expect us to be, not who society says we should be-but our true, authentic self. Only as our Absolute Self can we commune with the All Powerful. But how do we do it?

Can a seed take root in a quiet garden? Yes. Can a seed take root in a roiling sea? No. Can our Absolute Self take root in quiet contemplation? Yes. Can our Absolute Self take root in a flurry of emotional gyration? No. Just as we wouldn't toss a seed into a whirlpool and expect it to grow, we can't expect our True Self to grow in a vortex of regret, bitterness, anger, blame, self-recrimination, intolerance, unforgiveness, guilt, shame, desire, or self-consciousness. These toxic elements poison our waters. We must purify to find stillness and see our true selves reflected.

Let us purify together.

Your Absolute Self is waiting to be discovered.

With love and optimism,

Eldrich

John

I celebrated Eldrich's first website post in the most appropriate way I could think of: with a bag of Meyer lemons and a bottle of vodka. Amy and I got rightly hammered on my very cold, very excellent martinis (straight up, with a citrus twist). She danced interpretively (pretty) to the new Tom Waits (wild) and then let me do things no woman has let me do before. A memorable night.

I think it's safe to say that we discovered our Absolut selves.

Amy

Eldrich was a joke to John. A very useful joke.

I admit that Eldrich's early website posts were a bit airy-fairy, maybe a tad exalted. But there was usually something in them, something true and compelling. To me, anyway. John thought they were complete rubbish. He said that Eldrich never really said anything, or just said the same vague spiritual thing over and over again, which is why they worked. And, oh man, did they ever. Our hits went up exponentially when Eldrich took over the postings. That's when we got our first visitors from outside Toronto. That's when we first heard from Mushroom Steve.

Steve

Dudes/Dudettes, my name's Steve. Nice to virtually meet you. I'm in the Peg right now, but I'm originally from Quebec. I think I must be the first person ever to move from Montreal to Winnipeg. :) It's usually the other way around. When people ask about it, I say I needed to find a worse winter, so it was either this or St. John's. :) Seriously though, there was some personal BS that I needed to escape, and since I have family in Alberta, I decided on Manitoba. Ha ha! But seriously, I'm not into that whole cowboy, pickup truck, oil-sands vibe. I like Winnipeg. It's comfortable. I can wear my pyjamas to the store and no one notices or gives a s.h.i.t, right? But I've been here a couple of years now and I'm thinking it's time to push on. More BS. Surprise, surprise. I have a part-time job in the kitchen at Thai Origins, really good people, good food, but I've been seriously thinking of checking out the Centre of the Universe. :) Burned some bridges in Vancouver a while back, so I think Toronto's my next destination. I see you're headquartered there. I've been reading all the comments about your recent open house and it sounds like it was pretty frickin' cool and good vibes all around. Are you having another one soon? My guess is I'll probably be splitting in the next week or so, so maybe you can let me know. It's freakin' freezing here, dudes! We got snow already. Yesterday was minus twenty-five. OK. I'll keep checking the site. Peace out!

Eldrich

Dear Steve, Our next meeting will take place on Sat.u.r.day, November 12, at 55 Hawton Blvd, apartment 1203. You are most welcome. Please join us. We will be having a potluck luncheon beginning at noon and ending whenever we grow weary of connecting and discovering.

You are loved.

Eldrich

John

The second gathering was kooky and kind of great. We had nearly sixty sweaty Seekers, all bearing macaroni salad or mini-marshmallow brownies or some such toothsome treat, crammed into Eldrich's apartment. In a matter of weeks we had doubled our attendance. And thanks to my inspired conception to make the get-together a potluck, we had leftovers for days, including one particularly fine batch of homemade beet-leaf holopchi, crowned in a creamy dill sauce and transported all the way from Winnipeg by our first long-distance convert, Mushroom Steve. Insert hearty lip-smacking sound effect here.

"Phil," alas, didn't show. According to Eldrich, he had to undergo some kind of medical procedure. At one point, Eldrich hushed the crowd-including the spillover sardine-ing in the bedroom, kitchen and hallways-so we could all take a moment to send positive, healing energy to our "dear friend." Everyone dutifully stopped mingling/masticating, fell silent and focused on ... what? I grudgingly paused midway through a red velvet cupcake and scanned the room. Everyone had their eyes clamped shut. I felt thrillingly alone until I spotted Amy in the corner of the dining nook by the didgeridoo, looking back at me. We smiled at each other and it was a crackling good moment of connection. We were both amused and amazed by the folly we had fashioned. With my eyes locked on Amy's, I went to work on the cupcake, thickly and lasciviously tonguing up a dollop of pink icing. She averted her gaze, shaking with stifled laughter. Eldrich's "moment" of healing silence went on and on. I was about to quietly unb.u.t.ton and waggle my c.o.c.k, when some hapless schmo-I think it was crazy Wayne-flushed the toilet in the bathroom and spoiled my antics (and possibly Phil's expedited recovery).

"Thank you, friends," said Eldrich gravely from his wicker throne after the plumbing-interruptus, and at that very moment, as if he were a cunning Vegas magician with a confederate waiting in the wings, his cell phone began to vibrate and spew the opening bars of some indie hipster hit. "It's Phil!" he announced, beaming at the synchronicity of it. "He says the procedure is done and he's tired but fine!" A self-congratulatory cheer went up around the apartment as if the motley throng had personally scrubbed up and performed a delicate surgery. I tried to exchange a contemptuous smile with Amy, but she wouldn't meet my eye.

She was cheering along with the rest of them.

Amy

It was the second meeting, the one at Eldrich's, that catapulted things to the next level. Mushroom Steve came, but I don't remember him specifically because it was crazy crowded and I was talking mostly to Heather. I know he was there, though, because he left his calling card in the donation box-a homemade paper and Scotch tape envelope with enough psilocybin inside for two. John wanted us to try them together, but I said no thanks. He got pervy enough when he was drunk. The last thing I needed was him hopped up on hallucinogens, trying to maul me in some weird way. Guess what else was in the donation box that day? Nine hundred and seventy-two dollars. Almost a thousand bucks. We couldn't quite believe it. It made no sense. The funny thing was, after the first meeting, John was all like, You can keep half the proceeds from the next gathering, Amy, 'cause of all your wonderful help and support. That changed, of course, as soon as he saw what was in there. Suddenly he was like, We have to start a bank account and We should look into getting charitable status for this thing. He suddenly realized the potential of what he had started. Here was a way to make money that was a lot easier and more reliable than applying for grants and then waiting five months to find out if he could survive for the next six on a pittance. It was a potentially more lucrative thing too, judging by that one afternoon's haul. That's when John started talking about holding meetings every Sat.u.r.day. That's when he started asking me, or more accurately begging me, to take a year off school to help him run the thing. And that's when he set up the Twitter account and persuaded Eldrich to start tweeting.

TheAnswer2Everything

@AnswerInst.i.tute

TheAnswer2Everything @AnswerInst.i.tute Allow your soul to breathe and smile. Allow your soul to laugh.

theanswertoeverything.org 14 Nov TheAnswer2Everything @AnswerInst.i.tute Imagine the light inside of you growing brighter and brighter and brighter.

theanswertoeverything.org 16 Nov TheAnswer2Everything @AnswerInst.i.tute Inhale energy. Exhale pain. Inhale light. Exhale darkness.

theanswertoeverything.org 17 Nov TheAnswer2Everything @AnswerInst.i.tute You are the only you. Do not conform. Confirm.

theanswertoeverything.org 18 Nov TheAnswer2Everything @AnswerInst.i.tute Extremes excite. But tranquility and happiness reside in the centre of all things.