You only had to wait.”
Heather remembered. She closed her eyes to see more clearly and envisioned herself wrapped in Adam’s arms under the fi g tree. The storm was coming toward them and the gray sky had turned their bright world into a nightmare they had never known. Shame fi lled their souls and they wanted only to cover themselves and hide.
God presented Himself to them through the storm.
The thunder was His voice, the lightning was His presence, and the crashing waves were His anger. He had told them of His plan for man and how they had destroyed all that He had created. He told Eve she would continue to reincarnate, as man, woman and animal, and at the end of each life she would have to decide on its continued existence. The sin had been born in her heart and since she had wanted to make the decisions, she was cursed to do so for as long as she chose. He had deeply implanted a message that would always tell her when her death was near.
11:11
The number had come to her many times before. It had warned her of the end whenever her lives came to a close. The number had gained power throughout all the years Heather had been in existence and she understood why. It wasn’t just the predictor that warned her of her sins and her mortality. It was a premonition of an important 376
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time in the future. It was the last second on the Mayan calendar and the last second of the existence God planned for them. Heather had been trying to redeem her sins and fi x what she had broken for thousands of years but had come no closer to doing so than she had when she started.
The calendar had only three years left. Time was running out.
It was to be her burden and hers alone. After each of her lives, Heather returned to this same place, to the same painful lessons. At the end of each life, she was given the power of choice. She could surrender the world and allow Him destroy all that He had created so that He could begin again. She could allow Him to undo the existence of Adam and Eve and everything that followed in His effort to create the perfect world.
Heather didn’t want to give up. She knew that she was at the end of her life as Heather and that she had only a few short years to make things right. She knew that 2012 was right around the corner and that the others had started seeing the signs too. But she still didn’t want to give up. She still had faith in the world and wanted to fi nd a way to add more time to their dying calendar. A thought occurred to her and Heather wondered why her decisions had to be made alone.
“What about Adam?” she asked.
“He’s in the room where you left him. He’s waiting for your answer too,” Carol answered grimly. “As long as the world exists, Adam will exist with it.”
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“Why is he so angry with me?” she asked.
“He’s angry because he blames you for his fall. He’s never come to understand his role in the lust you two created together under that tree. His punishment is to reincarnate over and over again until you say it’s over and he has lived many terrible lives, not all human. He has no power over his existence and he wants for you to end it.”
“Why doesn’t he have any power?”
“God took it from him. Adam blamed you for what you’d done and because he blamed his lack of power, he was stripped of it.”
“He fi nds you every lifetime and tries to make you end it,” Mickey offered. “He shows you hate and rage and pain and he tries to make you fail.”
Though it was new information, she wasn’t surprised.
She remembered the time he befriended her mother and abducted her when she was fi ve years old. He had done terrible things to her in the body of that woman and Heather had blocked it out so that she could continue.
Questions vied to take control and one made it through the fi ltering process.
“What about Jade?” Heather asked. “Why is her baby important to the world?”
Her voice was rushed and she made great efforts to slow down. The ghosts of the people she had loved and lost turned to each other and gave knowing looks. Heather wanted to know what they knew but she stayed quiet.
“If you decide to go back, you will be her baby, Heather,” Carol answered.
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She fought the panic and allowed herself to take comfort from their words. She would be born to her sister and remain close to her sons. Her new mother would be good to her and would raise her with love. She and Jade had a connection and Heather decided if she could include her sister in the fi ght to save the world, humankind might still have a chance.
The tears she cried weren’t only from her life as Heather. They came from the sea of all of the lives she had lived. She had dipped into the collective unconscious and been allowed to feel everything she had forgotten.
Heather closed her eyes and clenched her hands into tight fi sts. Carol touched her hand until she released the white-knuckled squeeze. The feel of her former motherin-law’s soft skin was better than a caress to her heart and Heather thought about the decision she had to make.
She slowly opened the fi sts and placed her hands on her lap with palms facing the ceiling. She needed to remember the lessons she’d learned as Heather in order to walk away from it. She felt as though she was losing Heather as she absorbed reality and she missed her already.
“You’re letting go of Heather, that’s true but she’ll always be a part of you, Eve,” Carol said softly.
Hearing the name she had always known felt natural for her and she answered to it as she always had.
“I know,” she replied.
“You’ll bring Heather with you, just as you brought the rest of them,” Mickey added.
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She thought about the rest of them. She had loved others. Others had been part of her family. She remembered their presence. She knew that some of them traveled with her from one life to another and wondered when the rebirth would occur.
“You have to remember,” Carol said, obviously in tune to all of her thoughts. “You have to remember the bad and the good. You have to remember the love and the hate and understand the balance for rebirth to succeed.”
Heather thought about the world and of the bad that came with it. Soldiers fell from bullets, their heads exploding for the sake of freedom. Pedophiles touched children and ignored the scars they caused and of the monsters they created. Men raped women and children while nations taught prejudice and hatred. Fires destroyed, disease fl ourished and everyone forgot where they came from.
Heather realized that if she came back, she would be in danger immediately. Someone would be looking for her, someone who wanted the world to end and whose loss of hope and control had become the catalyst for spreading even more hatred. Someone who was patiently counting until the last second on the clock ticked an explosive ending to everything in existence. Someone who would be very unhappy to see her reborn and fear her ability to beg God for more time. But that’s exactly what she planned to do. She had to convince God that man should be given another chance, another calendar.
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Images of Dr. Angel took up what space was left in her mind. She wondered why he hadn’t made an appearance in her dream and considered that he may not have been real all along. She thought maybe she had created him in her effort to maintain sanity in Heather’s world. He had been gentle and patient; he hadn’t abandoned her or abused her in any way. He had known her better than anyone and he had always guided her to the answers she knew in her heart.
“Dr. Angel?” she asked softly. “He was never real?”
“No, honey, he’s real. He’s been with you for a very long time. You keep him with you to remind you and to direct you. In Heather’s life, you made him your doctor but in other lives he’s been your husband, your father and your child. If you continue, you’ll fi nd him again.”
She thought of Billy or Adam; she wasn�
��t sure what name to call him in her head. He was two different men who shared one soul and it was the hardest reality to grasp. He would be looking for her.
The voice from nowhere spoke. It was her own voice but she knew it didn’t come from any part of her. It was God. It had always been God calling out to her in her own voice. She thought of the phone call she received during her mother’s dinner and got goose bumps, then found it strange that she could still be affl icted by such a human reaction.
He had always been with her and had always stayed close. Though the religions and their teachings had been wrong, many of the followers had found goodness of 381
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heart because of it. They had organized their beliefs into a community, fi nding it easier to believe the unbelievable as a group. They gained strength from their faith and didn’t deserve to be pitied or abandoned, just as they had no right to judge the next person.
She looked at her in-laws and smiled at them.
Weightlessness came with understanding and her perceptions were no longer coming from Heather. It was the acknowledgment of the One she had always been.
Heather had only been her latest lesson, her most recent reality. She wondered if she even had a body anymore and felt relieved when she looked down to see that she was still standing upon legs.
“Do you remember?” Mickey asked.
She nodded. Despite all of her questions still demanding their moment, she needed the answer to only one more.
“Is this punishment? Is He angry with me?” she asked.
“No, sweetie,” Mickey said. “You’re not being punished. He loves you so much and you serve an important purpose. Don’t forget, he created you. He knew the choices you would make and He put you by Adam’s side anyway.”
Heather walked past the glass that separated the investigation room from the one they were in. She opened the door and walked inside. Nobody was there but a long wooden coffee table sat alone in the middle of the room.
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It waited for her answer to the ultimate question, as did everyone in the rooms she had already visited.
Heather walked over to the coffee table and bowed her head. After a silent prayer, she lifted her head slowly and smiled. Without hesitation, she lifted her legs one at a time and climbed onto the table. As she lifted her hands into the air, tears glistened in her eyes and she smiled.
“I’m going back,” she said just before she jumped.
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Chapter 32
Wish You Were Here
Jade screamed as the doctors pulled the baby from her womb.
After cleaning his tiny, messy body, the kind pudgy nurse placed Jade’s newborn in her arms and she looked deeply into the eyes of her fi rst child. She looked at him through tears. Jade cried out of happiness at her the arrival of her son and out of grief for the departure of her sister.
The waiting room was fi lled with friends and family.
Her father sat in a hard chair as he awaited news of his grandson’s birth. A clean bandage covered the area of his neck where he had been grazed by the minister’s bullet.
He stared at the clock on the wall and couldn’t help but smile. It was 11:11 in the evening and the wind whistled as it passed the open window of the break room.
Laurie, Tim and John sat close by as they prayed for a safe and healthy birth. They had only just come from the morgue downstairs where they kissed Heather goodbye one last time. Tommy and Jack were at home with their dads, trying to prepare for a new life without their mother.
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Erin and Angie banged on the soda machine to retrieve their snack or their lost coins. Their anger came more from the loss of their friend than the loss of their soda.
Frankie and Jeannie sat in chairs in the corner, staring off into space. Lisa and her family sat huddled together in an adjacent lobby. None of them spoke to each other or anyone else. Their grief fi lled the room and suspended sound.
The doctor came out and announced to the group that the baby had arrived, alive and well. Although everyone was happy, no hands went joyously into the air and no cheer escaped the group. Heather had only died of a drug overdose hours before and none of them was truly capable of joy quite yet.
After allowing the nurses to take her baby away so that she could have a short nap, Jade closed her eyes and imagined her sister. She remembered her last words.
Look for me, she had said.
The nurses arrived at the nursery and placed the new child into his tiny waiting hospital bed. They cleared his nose and his mouth and tested his refl exes. They cooed over the way he seemed to smile already and at how happy their new little resident was. He didn’t cry or fuss or demand their attention. On the contrary, the baby boy seemed perfectly at peace.
The young nurse who wheeled him in noticed a man looking through the glass. She assumed by the way he stared at the infant that he must be family. She gathered her purse and keys and gave orders to the nurse at shift 385
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change. When she walked out of the nursery, she glanced back at the happy man who still smiled and stared at the child.
“He’s a good baby already,” she said and walked down the hall before exiting the double doors.
“Yes,” he answered distractedly after the nurse had already walked out. He was smiling and appeared mesmerized. The man walked toward the glass and placed a hand against it as though he longed to touch the infant.
He pulled a red bandana from his pocket and knotted it at the back of his head, all the while staring at the brand new baby boy in the blue bassinet.
“All is fi nally well,” he said softly as he reached his hand into the other pocket.
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Chapter Titles
Each chapter is named for a favorite song.
Chapter
1 Christian Woman by Type O Negative Chapter 2 Witchy Woman by The Eagles Chapter
3 Rage Against the Machine (album) by Rage Against the Machine
Chapter 4 November Rain by Guns and Roses Chapter 5 Live to Tell by Madonna Chapter
6 Psycho by Puddle of Mud Chapter
7 True Colors by Cyndi Lauper Chapter 8 Love Me Dead by Ludo Chapter 9 Gone Away by The Offspring Chapter 10 Lightning Crashes by Live Chapter 11 Strawberry Fields by The Beatles Chapter 12 Dreams by The Cranberries Chapter 13 Somebody Told Me by The Killers Chapter 14 Like A Prayer by Madonna Chapter 15 Like A Pill by Pink Chapter 16 Pretty Piece of Flesh by One Inch Punch Chapter 17 Take on Me by Aha Chapter 18 I Miss You by Blink 182
Chapter 19 Again by Lenny Kravitz Chapter 20 I’ve Never Been to Me by Charlene Chapter 21 Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes Chapter 22 The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring Chapter 23 Sister Christian by Knight Ranger Chapter 24 Like A Stone by Audioslave Chapter 25 The Red by Chevelle 387
Chapter 26 Nymphetamine by Cradle of Filth
Chapter 27 This Woman’s Work by Maxwell Chapter 28 Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm Chapter 29 Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground Chapter 30 Hate Me by Blue October Chapter 31 Imagine by The Beatles Chapter 32 Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
Credit also goes to the following for inspiring certain parts of the story Edgar Cayce: Philosopher
Talking Heads: Psycho Killer Smashing Pumpkins: Bullets with Butterfl y Wings Tommie Who and Colleen Farrell: Legacy Steven Tyler: Come Together God: Creator
Satan: Destroyer
Adam and Eve: Mom and Dad
Ellie Crystal: Author and Webmaster Antonio Banderas: Actor
All organized religion
The Cheesecake Factor: Great restaurant Family Guy: Funniest show ever
Music Box Dancer: Frank Mills The Mayans: Little geniuses
Jimmy Eat World: Great band
Skipper and Gilligan: Gilligan’s Island Jim Morrison: Legendary artist
&
nbsp; Steven Tyler: Inspiration for every man I chose Bloody Mary: Inspiration for fear Makers of Xanax: Inspiration for nothing
About the
author
Doreen Serrano is a social
worker who lives in Valrico,
Florida with her two sons. She
has degrees in human services and criminal justice and has always known she would one day write a book. The story of 11:11 is one based on true events and deeply seated in her personal take on reality.
Doreen has written her way into good situations and out of bad ones since she was very young. As she struggled with her personal dilemmas and signs she couldn’t ignore, Doreen decided to fi nally share her story on paper.
During the journey of writing her book, Doreen watched as her story started to evolve and head toward an ending even she didn’t foresee. When asked why she fi nally decided to tell her tale, she answered, “I couldn’t tell it until I lived it.”
Please visit our website at www.JimSamInc.com
to order additional copies.
JimSam Inc. Publishing
P.O. Box 3363
Riverview, FL 33568
813.748.9523
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