“I said you serve me now. I have made you thus.”
“I serve no one,” he said back defiantly.
“You do now.”
- -
RECALLING
destiny
Smith
{Central Australian Desert – 30 years ago}
“Can I offer you a glass of water?”
“Why?”
“Surely you must be thirsty?”
“No.”
“Please, wash your face at least.” She hands him a glass of water and pulls a handkerchief from her breast pocket.
“Many thanks Miss Alison …”
The woman stops at the mention of her name, for she does not remember giving it to the man. “I don’t recall us being introduced?” she says, perplexed.
“When dig, pull … hole, touch … see as seen.” He nods, pouring the contents of the glass over his hands and washing himself.
“I don’t follow,” she replies, handing a flask of water to top up his glass.
Only an hour previously, Alison Benchley and her team of three native men had dug the man opposite her out of a deep excavation. An excavation deep in the central Australian desert, hundreds of miles from anything resembling civilization.
They’d uncovered a head from the sandy dig at first and after clearing away the sand, the head had opened its eyes and looked at them.
It was alive.
Initially he was completely naked, except for a loincloth, when they eventually pulled him out, but now Alison had lent him a pair of blue coveralls from her truck.
The man was tall, even compared to Alison and she was thankful her father had also been a large man, it’s his coveralls she lends to the strange man. Funny, she thought, that she’d kept her father’s clothes after he had passed. She inadvertently packed his clothes without even thinking and now Smith had donned them.
“When touch … see as seen.”
“Again, I don’t follow,” Alison replies, wiping the flies from her eyes.
It was a particularly hot day in the outback and to top it off a heavy wind swirled the dust around their campsite, making things very dry, hot and dirty. After pulling the man from the hole they had retreated to the inside of a tent.
“Many thanks.”
“For digging you out of a random hole in the middle of the Australian desert? Yeah you’re welcome.”
“Alison … father, done great work, discover many sites since flood.”
“What flood?”
“Giant fire fall … sky … big ocean, big flood come destroy. Sleep long time.”
“Right,” she looks perplexed. “How do you know my father?”
“When touch, see as seen.”
“Ok, that’s good,” she rubs her head. “I still can’t fathom the reason for you even being here, how you’re alive.”
“Worry?”
“About a nearly seven-foot-tall black man, of no discernible descent, who I just dug out of a large excavation in the middle of the desert …” Her eyes roll, “I would say yes, worried, I have a few questions.”
“Know find, yes?”
“We were working on folklore, ancient texts. No matter how they translate it doesn’t begin to describe what is happening now. Yes, I had hoped to find something out here … but you …?”
“Because help … help you,” he smiles. “Long time in sand.”
“How long? How long have you been buried in there?”
“Cannot see sky, cannot count.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Buried, cannot see, no sky, no answer.”
“Fair point,” she concedes, thinking he was referring to the fact he couldn’t count the passing of the sun, stars and moon as a reference point for time. “You were bound at the hands with these ...” she hands a set of metallic looking shackles to him. “And I also found a bunch of spears nearby.”
“Shackled … by Fahwad,” he looks them over in his hands. “Pyramid.”
“What are these things, I have never seen this type of metal on Earth before?”
“Come ship.”
“What ship?”
“Fahwad ship.”
“I don’t see any oceans out here, do you?”
“No ocean now, before yes,” he replies. “Much different.” He looks out the tent flaps at the desert scene.
“What, the landscape?”
“Earth change … flood come. See as seen … now different after great fire in sky.”
“Fire?”
“Great fire in sky,” he gestates with his arms.
“Of course it did.” She was beginning to question his sanity.
“Land change ... now dry, before … big flood.”
“Ok,” she muses. “I’m starting to get the impression you were buried here for a very long time?”
“Don’t know,” he says, looking around the tent with wide eyes. “When night fall, can look star, tell time.”
“I’m not much of an astronomer, what are you talking about?”
“Rotate, the land, around sun, around star … tell time.”
“You can read the stars and tell time? That’s impressive.”
“Which way Atlantis?”
“Atlantis?”
“Must go place.”
“Atlantis? We can’t go there!”
“Why?”
“Because it doesn’t exist.”
“Atlantis real.”
“Not anymore it isn’t.”
“Yes ... real … fire fall … flood come …”
“So, you’re telling me the tales are true then? That Atlantis is real?”
“Yes.”
“Well if it was true it’s not anymore, it’s gone, disappeared, not here anymore.”
“Disappear?”
“Well, the legends say it was wiped out, that it was swallowed by the ocean, but that’s just legend passed down through an old Greek storyteller. Today we only have theories, well more like conspiracy theories, on what was the lost city of Atlantis and what became of it. I’m sorry mister, but if it did exist, it appears it was wiped out thousands of years ago.”
The man frowns at the information, seemingly troubled by it. But if the look on his face is troubled then Alison’s is far beyond it, for if the man truly knew of Atlantis he was very old indeed.
“I don’t know much about that stuff, but there was only one man who wrote about it, a Greek man called Plato. He mentioned it twice in his books, but no other record exists for the place. Like I said, I don’t really know that much.”
“Yes … do,” he replies, nodding his head.
“Yes?” she queries. “Can you read my mind?”
“No read ... See as seen.”
“Well I do know there were a great many civilizations going back ten to twelve thousand years or so ago. I’ve read and researched mainstream information on it, but still no solid evidence has come from it. I mean man is only just starting to unravel the mysteries of the past, you only have to look at places such as Göbekli Tepe or Adam’s Calendar, they’re only recent discoveries.”
“Calendar. Who Adam?” he asks.
“You know it?”
“Yes … walk Earth ... see many.”
“Wow. If that’s true then I think I just wet my pants.”
The man leans back in his seat at her comment, looking strangely at her pants.
“I didn’t mean literally,” she slaps her hand on her thigh and laughs. “You’re just a marvel to me.”
He smiles again.
“You know I’ve spent my life and my father spent his life, trying to unravel the mysteries of the past and now … somehow, I sit here with you. I am truly amazed mister.”
“Forgotten past
… hidden secrets … man not care Earth.”
“Yes,” Alison hung her head. “It would seem you have arisen to a very different world my friend, one where everyone in it believes in falsehood.”
“Atlantis fall … same reason.”
“I can only hope to understand a fragment of what you do about the true history of Earth, about where it all went wrong.”
“Much time in sand … think …”
“Ok,” she wonders, amazed and bedazzled at the same time. The man has just spent an uncountable amount of time buried alive and still remains calm, even placid. “Perhaps you can tell me who put you in there then? You mentioned someone called Fahwad, did he shackle you and bury you out here?”
“Fahwad, not bury,” the man replies, holding up the chains. “Shackle.”
“And who is he?”
“Fahwad.”
“Yes, but I mean who is he? Is he some person of importance?”
“Fahwad.”
“It doesn’t matter … This Fahwad guy, he put you in the shackles, why?”
“Fahwad afraid, Smith help Sera …”
“So he was afraid and then put you in that hole?”
“Fire from sky hit ocean,” he makes big explosive noise’s and waves his hands. “Fire make flood … big flood come … destroy all.”
“Ok, a giant flood, caused by a falling comet … it destroyed everything and is the reason you ended up here buried under a mountain of sand?”
“Yes.”
“You were taken in the waves wake, that’s how you ended here, a tsunami?”
“Yes.”
“Well that confirms my father’s theory about the last mass extinction.”
“Yes.”
“And pray do tell, how is it you survived down in there? As soon as I wiped the dust from your face you were awake, your eyes just popped open like you were alive the whole time.”
“Awake … long time before dig.”
“Okay,” she gazes at him, stunned. “How did you manage to survive that?”
“Buried ... not dead.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Cannot die …”
Alison leans back in her chair, looking the man over for a moment. She would’ve doubted what he said, only she’s just witnessed it to be true. He is alive after being buried in a sandy grave for a few thousand years, she truly did unearth the find of a lifetime.
“In sand, much time think …”
“Yes?” Alison leans in.
“Alison geologist.”
“And?”
“Study earth … understand earth.”
“Ok, and where is this taking us?”
“Need help?”
“Yes?’
“Help … geologist.”
“You need a geologist for something?”
“Yes. Also, friend.”
“What friend?”
“Friend, friend who dig earth over there.” He points in a random direction over the horizon, to which Alison turns and checks. Smith points to a very specific area, an area she knew.
“How could you know that?”
“See as seen.”
“Ok,” Alison replies. “Mister do you mean to tell me you can read my mind?”
“No. See as seen.”
“See as seen,” she repeats what he’s said. “You mean to tell me that everything I have seen, in my life, you can see also?”
“Yes.”
“Whoa.” It clicks inside her head, raising the hairs on the back of her head.
“Friends?”
“Who?”
“Mountain.” Smith still points in the same direction.
“What about them?”
“Must go.”
“What? You want to go there?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Must go.”
“What? Why?”
“Find … under earth … buried.”
“Ok. Not sure I’m following you here. What are you trying to tell me?”
“Go … mountains?” He taps his chest, then hers.
“You want me to take you to the mountains, to my friends?”
He nods.
“When? Now?”
He nods again.
“I can’t just pack up and leave, I …”
“Why?”
“Well, she’ll want to know why … I can’t just show up with nothing from this dig and join her on hers.”
“Here spear ... here orichalcum … here gold.” the man points at several different area’s surrounding them. “Can dig, can take.”
“Can’t I just show up with you?”
“No.”
“Why?” she objects. “You’ve been my greatest discovery, the greatest discovery ever! And you’re telling me I can’t even tell anyone?”
“Why?”
“Well, I mean, I …” she struggles to think for a second, considering the nature of his question she has to agree with him. Outside of any egoic needs there really isn’t a reason to tell others of her discovery.
She’d been driven to search and to unravel, both by her father and her own reasoning of the world that was. She’d never believed any of the things which were taught to her at school or university, she was a person who believed in what she saw.
In her time with her father she’d seen much evidence alluding to another civilization, several in fact. But in particular to an ancient one that lived on the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years.
She was in search of answers. What’d happened in the past, what had modern man forgotten and was unable to answer. That was why she was out here and the man opposite her had somehow just reminded her of that.
“What’s buried out there, in the camp Lucinda, Suni and Samuel have made?’
“Don’t know.”
“Okay,” Alison replies, confused by his answer. “So why so important?”
“Cannot know if cannot see.”
“That makes sense.”
“Make foreman,” he taps his chest.
“You want me to make you my foreman, what, so that the others don’t suspect?”
He nods.
“And why would I do all this for you?”
“Alison dig earth … Alison understand … Alison find man … Alison find truth.”
“Alison find man, is that what you are?”
“Man … man of earth.”
“Ok man of earth, you want to help me dig something else up then?”
“Yes.”
“Dig up what? What’s up there in the mountains?”
“Something not belong,” he hands back the strange looking manacles she gave him previously, staring her hard in the eyes as he does so.
Alison takes back the manacles and looks them over with a more peculiar look on her face, she knows the materials they’re made from weren’t from this earth, as she’s never seen them before.
“Where did these come from?” She holds them up.
He looks to the sky.
“The Fahwad guy?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s not from here you say?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to help you find more of this stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“… mountains, something in mountains.”
“Oh, and what about this Fahwad guy?”
“Don’t know. Fahwad fall with Sera … not see … mountain, see first.”
“Right. I’m not sure if you’re crazy or I am.” Alison sits back, putting the manacles on a nearby table.
“Must do ... must go.”
“Huh?”
To any other person what
the man is saying would be strange, but to Alison Benchley it was more of a revelation. She’d started this journey because of her father, who had sadly passed. But now she was determined to finish what they’d started together.
Unearthing this man was the beginning of that end.
The beginning of her search for the truth, only it wasn’t turning out anything like what she’d imagined.
Alison had always closely followed the origins of man, anthropology being more than just a hobby. And what’d always driven her the most, was man’s genuine lack of knowledge of his past. Man did not even know where he came from. Sure, science had laid several claims over time, but none were true, all had doubts cast about them.
So she had studied, following any and all research as it became available. She’d visited sites like Gunung Padang, Yonoguni and many more lost ancient civilizations’ in search of answers.
Apparently, Earth had thrived with several ancient cultures around the world and then, without reason, they suddenly disappeared overnight.
She shared a scientific theory that a comet like event had been what’d wiped out these civilizations and now sitting here with this man, he’d confirmed it for her. She wondered if he was there, when it happened. When the comet had fallen and crashed to the Earth, causing the biggest flood in recent history.
For if it was true, then he was well over twelve thousand years old.
“I think I can help you mister.”
“Help … yes.”
“Yes, for now I can help you, but you must do something for me?”
“Yes?”
“I want to know everything … everything that you know.”
“Is all?”
“What else could be more important that knowing where I came from?”
He nods his head, even smiles a little.
“Everything,” she looks him dead in the eye. “To know one’s end, one must know the beginning and nothing can be more important to an intelligent being than discovering its origins.”
“Give hand,” he asks. “Close eyes … close mind.”
She does as he instructs, extending her hands which he takes in his own. He cradles them for a moment before dropping them and reaching up to touch her forehead, kissing her silently and then sitting himself back down.
“Wally!?” Alison calls out of the tent right away, a sense of urgency to her voice.
“Aye Miss,” comes the response.
Recalling Destiny Page 46