"Good! It's something else to be guilty about!" She wrapped her legs around me. "Do something perverted."

"Okay. Where do you keep the Boy Scouts?"

"In the fridge. Second shelf."

"Mm. Are we going to get any sleep today?"

"You'll sleep in October-"

"But it's such a touristy thing to do-" I protested.

"Foreman invited us," Lizard insisted. "It's a privilege."

I shrugged. "All right," and followed.

We rented bicycles from a stand opposite the beach and pedaled down the busy avenue toward Diamond Head. It loomed like a big ocean wall.

I was amazed at Foreman's energy. I had trouble keeping up with him. I began to be grateful for stop lights. "Over there," he pointed, "that's the Honolulu Zoo. You should go some time. They still have three rhinocerouses. Probably the last three in the world. It'll be something to tell your grandchildren about, won't it! There might not be any more."

The light turned green and he pushed off again. I looked at Lizard, "I thought you said he wanted to talk to me."

"He does." She pushed off after him.

I muttered something unprintable and followed them both. Why bicycles? Why couldn't we have driven? I still hadn't gotten used to the weather here in Hawaii. It was either too hot or too wet, or both at the same time. The locals were saying all the rain was unseasonable. I didn't care. It felt like more excuses.

We rode past some houses, then up a hill and halfway around the crater, up another hill, through a tunnel and out into the wide open center.

I came to a stop just outside the tunnel. And stared. "I've never seen anything like this before."

And then I knew I had. A long long time ago. The memory came floating back. I'd forgotten

When I was nine years old, my mother had taken me to visit a friend of hers, a Chinese lady. The lady had shown me a bowl. She had made me sit down, then she placed it in my lap and put her hands around mine so we both held it at the same time and she told me to look into the bowl. Inside the bowl was a world, little houses of ivory, little trees of jade, little streams of ebony, little people made of gold.

"It's a window into paradise," she said. "It took over a hundred years to make. Four generations of a single family worked on this bowl. It's very valuable, but that's not why I keep it. I keep it because it's also very very beautiful. It's my own private little world."

I looked into that bowl and I felt awe. I couldn't pull my eyes away. I wanted to climb down into that bowl and explore every little copse and gazebo. I wanted to meet the tiny golden ladies under their delicate golden parasols. I wanted to see the ebony animals and birds in the tiny green garden. I wanted to live in that beautiful little world.

That was the feeling I had now, looking down at the center of Diamond Head crater.

It was a private world, a bowl both huge and tiny at the same moment. There was no sense of scale here, no sense of time. We were looking down across a lush green landscape, but not a tame one like the inside of that Chinese grandmother's jade bowl. No, this was a wilderness. It curved away from us into the distance, but the opposite wall of the crater was still too close. The bowl felt small, but the more you looked into it, the bigger it became. You could fall into this world. You could be lost in it and never be heard from again. You would not want to come back. You could hide a secret world here.

In fact, God already had.

The meadow was spread like a green blanket from here to forever. There were some small buildings on one edge of it. There were deep forests all around it, sprawling and lush and bright with blossoms. There were magic things living beyond those trees, I knew. And they came out on moonlit nights and danced on this broad green field, hidden away from the eyes of human beings.

The walls of the crater were a ring of sharp hills; they surrounded us like a hug, tall and sheltering.

The sky was brilliant.

I was frozen in the act of looking. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

I could feel the enchantment here, taste it, smell it. The air smelled of flowers, but there weren't any flowers near us.

"I've never seen anything like this-" I repeated.

Foreman said, "That's why I brought you here. Ready? Come along."

We pedaled down to the center of the crater. There was the inevitable comfort station there. "Do you have to go?" Foreman asked.

"No. Why?"

"Better go now. It'll be a while before you get another chance." I looked at Lizard. She shrugged back. We did as he said. When I came out, he was locking the bicycles into a rack, I said, "I thought that locks were a thing of the past. Wasn't it you who said there's enough for everybody now?"

He nodded. "But not all of it is in Hawaii. And part of the job of being enlightened is to not tempt others to be less than they are."

I said, "We could have driven."

He shook his head. "No, we couldn't. Ah, here's Lizard. Follow me."

He led us off on a trail into the brush. I couldn't stop marveling at the lushness of the growth here. My only previous experience with craters had been the meteor crater at Winslow, Arizona, and that had been mostly barren on the inside. I hadn't known what I had expected to find here inside Diamond Head, certainly not this little piece of paradise.

The trail suddenly turned sideways and upward. It jogged back auud forth across a rocky, tree-covered wall. Everything was dark and shady here. I realized we were hiking up to the top of the crater. I hadn't known that was possible. I followed Lizard and Foreman without much comment. I didn't wonder why they had Inwaght me here, I already knew. This was all supposed to be part of my therapy.

Occasionally we passed people heading downward. They grinned and waved knowingly. They knew what was ahead. They'd been there. We hadn't. At least, I hadn't.

I felt that way with Lizard and Foreman. They always knew what was ahead for me. I never seemed to.

We broke from the brush high on a cliff wall. We could see over thc top of the crater now. The suburbs of Honolulu were scattered high on the green slopes of Oahu. The houses glimmered bright in the crystal air.

The trail wound around, zigged and zagged, and stopped before a hole.

"Well, come on," said Foreman. "First, the tunnel. Then the stairs." He plunged in.

"Where does he get his energy?" I asked Lizard.

"He creates it." She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the darkness. There was a handrail for part of the way.

For a moment, I was absolutely blind.

Lizard stopped me in the tunnel. She came into my arms and found my mouth with hers. The kiss was quick and passionate. "What was that for?" I gasped.

"So you don't forget."

"Forget what'?"

"How much I love you."

"How much do you love me?"

"You'll find out."

Foreman was waiting for us when we came out of the tunnel. "Look," he pointed.

We were at the bottom of a concrete staircase. There were at least a thousand steps to the top. At least, it looked like that many. "Want to catch your breath before we go?"

"Uh . . . "

"How's your heart?"

"I'm young."

"You won't be when we reach the top. Let's go." He started cheerfully up.

He was right. I was a thousand years older at the top.