Floating; sailing slowly without a ship, effortlessly moving forward, zero gravity. I look down and see that I have on large plastic white gloves and boots. I suddenly realize that I am looking through a glass bubble. I am in a space suit with no tether and no space ship. I topple a bit in my new awareness and see the great blue marble below, Planet Earth. How did I get in this situation?

I return to face my destiny and re-position myself to look forward in the direction I am gently approaching. There is someone up ahead with tools working on a huge machine. As I get closer I see that it is a satellite. Approaching contact, I can now see a young, handsome man and strangely, unlike me, he has on no space suit. My space suit starts to melt away. “Hi,” he says. Now I am chatting with a satellite repair man and we are both wearing blue jeans and tee-shirts in outer space. Neither of us have on space suits but it all seems to make perfect sense.

His name is Vegan Murugan. He introduces himself. He starts to eat official NASA concentrated squeeze food from a plastic wrapper marked MRI and he assures me it is vegan. “I can’t stand this space food,” he grumbles and gleefully shouts, “This one is fixed.” He shuts the final compartment he was working on and puts the food wrapper in his pocket. “How about some real vegan food?” he asks, “Come on, I know a place that serves the best vegan green papaya salad you will ever eat.”

From nowhere appears a peacock that resembles a motorcycle in an avant-garde sort of way. I jump on the back and we start flying in an ever descending, approaching orbit towards Earth. There is something magical about the meeting of atmosphere and space. It is somehow exhilarating and refreshing to fly there in an open-air vehicle with luminescent feathers. Below are many bonfires, or so it seems. “Those are spiritual lights that reach to the heavens, lighting up each time there is a victory for the Vegan Way,” he calls out to me. Vegan Murugan is the God of Vegan Victory. “Vegan Vijay, Ki Jaya,” he hollers as he lifts his right hand in the air to wave at all the people that became vegan, served vegan food, spared an animals life or made a vegan presentation or a vegan decision and their action lit a bonfire of righteousness.

Suddenly Vegan Murugan tells me the papaya salad is over there where he is pointing. I notice he has separated from me and he is flying away towards what looks like the Himalayas. I am floating again, toppling, returning and then…I suddenly awake from my sleep. I must have dozed off. My notepad is still playing the South Indian Puja to the very God I had been visiting. I remember putting on this three-hour YouTube video of a group of old men in India who were wearing white cloaks, sitting on the floor of a temple, singing Sanskrit off key thinking it would help me rest for a short nap after having had a sleepless night last evening. I floated back into my body and awoke upon re-entry feeling alive, rested, happy, alert and fulfilled. I had been in the presence of God. This was not something I would ever forget.

I had to shower and leave quickly, I overslept with my quick shut eye. I had to meet a friend at a vegan Thai restaurant and you will never guess what we ordered.