“The cluster is not yet there.”
“Yet! There is no yet, it has already passed. I have no knowledge of that past except that the cluster is forming; nobody would let me act if I really knew the exact course of an event. We change things only by guessing possible futures. Humans do the same, on a different level of course. There is no shame in this; you are still young. Every choice is a selection from a pool of alternative available paths. Shall I cross the street now or later? Shall I cross the street here or there? Simple choices creating their own timelines. Those bloody crawlers are driving us, and the clusters are really bad.”
“Are you able to absorb this information?” Her voice was inside my mind, the voice of a friend whispering mysterious things, recalling some old memories of mine – a child full of life and curiosity, enjoying new experiences and asking many questions about many things – while all the other dream settings retained the appearance of a real world. When did this child disappear? Not when. Why? “I will take it as a good omen that you asked those questions.”
“Crawlers are ancient minds; many of them were once Saurians and human beings. Subtle minds, they know how to shape the timelines.”
“Guessing?” The old man threw an incredulous stare at her. Once, I observed a child having a magician’s trick explained to him; the same stare was in his eyes: a whole world disappeared for him, replaced by the feeling of loss. When the magic vanishes, you step into the adult phase of life, not necessarily an enjoyable process.
“I have my own limitations. Restraint is something that you still have to understand, or rather to acknowledge.” She shrugged with natural indifference, as if to underline her opinion. “One of my past aspects was not able to interfere and sent a warning – to the Complete Me – into the future. Something was preventing any corrective action from that timeline. Things that may happen there can tear the time fabric and subtly disturb the evolution of intelligent life for many thousands of years.”
“Acting from this timeline … sounds … dangerous.” The old man was not really sure what to say.
“Dangerous? If Time discovers my actions, I can be obliterated. Is that dangerous enough for you?”
“What do you want from us?” Yes, what do you want from us? I unconsciously mimicked him. Nobody wants anything; it’s only your imagination. Enjoy the dream.
“To dream. The cluster here speaks of mistakes leading to planetary misery … your misery. You have lost almost everything, even your dreams; they no longer belong to you – a mass culture dominated by special interest groups … indirect mind control.”
“We are in a transitional phase; things will get better in time,” the old man unconvincingly protested.
“What ‘better’ can you expect from a society where crooks are revered as glorious figures?” She glanced at me: “Have you any opinion on this?” I desperately shook my head; all I wanted was to go home. “And you expect these 'I have no opinion' zombies to lead the transition?”
“Give him some time. No one is ready to meet his future without proper training.”
“Is he ready for training?”
“You know better than me.” His voice was now sure and sharp, as if retaliating.
“Maybe I know, but maybe I am wrong, or maybe he is the wrong person to train.” Anger surfaced in her voice. It is not my fault... That moment, I perceived a terrible necessity in the strange dream, still unclear for me, ready to be unveiled if I passed the test. You already failed a test. Then why am I here? Waiting for clarity, an urge to curse them cleared everything in its path. What the hell do you want from us? From me…? While I searched for something juicier than ‘hell’, a flickering of understanding passed between them, and she glanced at me while vanishing. What do you want? Her voice trailed behind: “You are in danger; your future has been skillfully led in the direction of a world without too many expectations. You must dare to dream, you must fight for your right to dream. If not, I will try to … pity you.” The old man vanished too, just after her last word.
“Send me home!” I shouted and ran to the door – the door crumbled.
“There is no place to go when the ship is sinking,” the walls whispered.
“This is not a ship.”
“It is a symbol. Symbols have no limits, only imagination has. A hall is crumbling, or maybe a world is crumbling. The word destined to change your lifeline was spoken, and the door let it pass.” Layoffs… I will lose my job. It’s only a dream. “Strong will is needed to start a new life. Have you that will?” Another column fell, a stone rolled to my feet. I tried to jump; I could not. “Feel the breeze!” A familiar pair of eyes opened above me. The wind howled through holes in the walls, enlarging them, crushing the stones, swirling the dust, filling my mouth. This is not a breeze. I imagined a ship behind my closed eyes, and softer wind; light pierced through my eyelids. I opened them slowly: sea, blue sky and a ship – solid wood under my feet. My mind did this... A splash woke me, and the wood trembled.
“The ship is sinking,” I complained, feeling as if being cheated.
“There are no ships here, just crumbling worlds. Are you ready?” Ready for what? The eyes pointed to another sinking ship. “You are the next in the line. If they fail, you fail: these two worlds are linked together from a past that is already forgotten.”
Their words haunted me all night. ‘He is not yet ready to meet his future.’ What the hell does that mean? And training, what training? What world? What do these nightmare zombies have to do with my future? Leave me alone!
*
“Normal people would respect the appointment time...” I bit my tongue so as not to shoot back: this is a neurology establishment; most patients aren’t going to be normal. Normal… What does normal really mean? Waiting until the doctor was free; I took a seat, close to an old man with a familiar look smiling briefly in my direction and returned a mechanical smile. Why am I here? Because you need help. Your last dream in the office... The bloody dream haunted me again: I lost track of the meeting, an ageless old man, Merlin, giving me the Holy Grail containing an invincibility potion, me taking it in the dream while actually seizing my manager’s coffee, drinking half of it and spilling the rest on his bald head, believing it to be a statue of King Arthur. And the coffee was hot. “Next time you might use a knife,” my friends worried. I will never use a knife. Are you sure?
The doctor looked at me with uncomfortable eyes and a professional smile: blah, blah, blah bullshit, you are looking very well, how are you doing, we have a kind of a problem, don’t worry, a minor one, a possible small tumor, very small, if it really is a tumor, I must emphasize that, or maybe it is only a strange calcification, occurring in the area of the pineal gland. Take a glass of water, again don’t worry, we will destroy the killer with nice shots of chemicals and radiate it to hell until nothing remains. Nothing … of my brain?
“That’s my brain!” Pressure boiled inside me, and went out like a hiss. “My brain.” I stood up, the doctor made a step back.
“The standard procedure. Very common, we know how to do it.” I went out clutching the consent papers and the sick-leave note, haunted by an image of a bald head; weird, a social stereotype stronger than the fear of death.
“I know how you are feeling.” A hoarse voice followed me downstairs, the old man who had been sitting in the waiting room previously.
“The hell you do!”
“I had the same problem when doctors were using snake oil for curing it.” He smiled gently, as if trying to calm a distressed child. “You need to talk, and you need to know; the world of dreams is a wonderful gift.” More like a curse, old man. Ignore him; he’s just looking for money.
“Ah, a soothsayer looking for terminally sick people to take advantage of their suffering. Of course you will cure me; I only have to let you look in a crystal ball, each séance payable in advance.” He glanced at me in silence. No easy money for you today. I almost smiled.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
I remembered the déjà vu sensation from the doctor’s office. “Famous clairvoyant in TV spots?”
“Think about Merlin.” Merlin... Very good joke, old man. I wanted to laugh, but a feeling restrained me. Sometimes we have to discard our logic and trust feelings. Trust your gut, my grandpa used to say, a good saying – sometimes. A flashback of Merlin handing the Holy Grail to an excited young knight came back to me. And yes, he was that Merlin, and also the old man in the castle.
“So, ahh ... mmh, so how do you ... are you really Merlin?”
“Oh no, I am only the Merlin in your Field Dreams; as you are the apprentice in mine.” Field Dreams… I felt an increasing urge to say something, but nothing came; I only wet my lips with my tongue and stared at him. “It’s related to our oversized pineal glands; you have no tumor, contrary to what that hopeless doctor was telling you.” Curiosity rose, and hope; maybe the doctor was wrong, maybe I didn’t have a tumor. We cling to promises made by any impostor. Hope: we need it, and they know it. “The pineal gland is our secret gate into the universe. Mind is a powerful tool; use it to unlock the door.” Mind? My mind took a break; his words were too strange for a normal person to handle. Gate? What gate? Am I really normal? What does normal mean? You already asked this. And? When I tried to ask more, the old man was already gone. He knew that I would come here…
*
Commuting is boring, one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening, the same road, the same bus, the same chairs – uncomfortable chairs. Half of our life is spent in a chair. The blonde sitting in front of me has very nice long hair. I try to imagine her face. I always play this game when a woman is sitting in front of me; I do not know why the game never works with men, and only sometimes works with children. I close my eyes, calling up her face. She is young and nice, and of course blonde. This day I am lucky, the face is clear and expressive, her eyes looking into mine, a heavy gaze filled with tension.
“Help us!” I forced myself to ignore the message, to stop the invasion. “Help us. Factions want to destroy our world. They don’t take prisoners, all my people will die.” Her eyes were crying, and I suddenly remembered seeing her face before.
“Who are you?” I forgot my decision to ignore the dream.
“I am Delena of the Munti.” The young girl with the wolves... She is an adult now. Beautiful... This can be a nice dream.
“Do you remember me?”
“That’s not important. There is not much time left. Help us!” The face disappeared, and my real life came back, with the people around me pretending to ignore the idiot talking to no one on the bus.
“The note has no validity; you had already received the layoff notice.” My boss threw the doctor note with two fingers, as if being dirty. I tried to catch it with suddenly numb fingers; I failed. Bastard! His eyes thinned and closed with unhidden satisfaction.
“You just had an orgasm,” I barked, trying to be ironic, but he caught the bitterness in my tone; his eyes opened again.
“It is a sad day, my dear colleague.” The wide smile underlined his deep sadness. “Nothing displeases me more than firing people but, you ... you don’t really fit in our team, and we have a wonderful team.” Oh, yes, you, your wife, your brother, your nephews, three of them ... wonderful. “The official layoff notice was given to you yesterday in this office by the Human Resources manager. Your colleague Martin was witness.” He smiled again. Your wife and nephew…
“This is a forgery!” I shouted. “I never received it. Where is my signature on the document?”
“You refused to sign it.” He pushed forward a piece of paper. Again that smile; it was killing me more than the kick I had just received. I recognized his wife’s signature and the HR stamp, and brushed the paper away. Is he right? No! I was at the doctor yesterday. “That’s the door,” he pointed with his coffee cup. My hand involuntarily clutched on the golf club sitting on his desk. What if? That bald head. Don’t be stupid. He caught my eyes and his smile disappeared. I moved the club slightly forward under his arm. “What are you...? Security!”
“I am leaving.” I stood up pressing on the club’s head with my palm. The club shifted, hitting his hand, and the coffee spilled on him. “Sorry, I did not see it.” That was stupid. I know, I just couldn’t stop myself. I went out feeling his gaze on my back. On weak legs it took longer than I expected, but no more barking followed me. I closed the door and stared at the wall, as white and blank as my mind was. I lost my job…
“Our guest for today, a well-known Princeton economist comes with good news.” The presenter lady had a lovely voice; when the financial guru talked the magic disappeared. “The confidence index is rising...” If you turn the index picture upside down. “The number of people actively seeking a job is down...” Of course it went down; they are no longer looking for a job because there are no more jobs. “Our banks are now safer, thanks to our decisive approach in recapitalizing them.” The only rule you know is to transfer money from our pockets into theirs. Soon you will take my house, if I cannot pay the mortgage anymore. Oh shit! We are so insignificant, we can each of us fail completely unnoticed, and no one cares. I grabbed another bottle of wine. Where the hell is the corkscrew? Everything is turned up-side down these days.
“Good evening neighbor, would you care to join me to finish this marvelous wine?” His head had just appeared over the hedge; I have a kind of magnetism when I am drinking. “Just let me find the corkscrew first; it went away hearing about so much economic happiness. Ah, here it is. See? This is a commodity, and wine is also a commodity. I am getting poorer with each swallow of these wonderful thought-killing drops, but it is so good to numb your brain this way. Even I am a commodity, and you are commodity. That’s how the system is working now.”
He gave me a weird look before answering. “Don’t be so sure; we are more liabilities than commodities in the accounts.”
“That sounds ominous, but sadly true. I just got fired.”
“I am sorry. I am sure that you will find a new job soon.” I dismissed his blah, blah sorry with a wave of my hand. “Everything is turned into a commodity these days: labor, land, society, democracy, even our souls; we are creating a soulless system.” He swiftly changed the subject while I was filling his glass.
Time passes differently after good wine; I call this phenomenon time dilatation. He squeezed the last drop of wine from the second bottle; looking inside with one eye, like an admiral into his spyglass. “It’s empty,” he whispered.
“Our respectable bankers are marvelous professionals, really deserving high bonuses and salaries,” the clown on TV continued while I opened another bottle.
“Sure, they will commit suicide if their bonuses go under ten million.”
“No, no, no, that’s not the answer; it should be the other way around.” His voice raised a notch in protest. “We have to help the poor guys with the rope. Ah, this wine is perfect.” The bankers evaporated from our minds, though the rope lingered for a while. “In one country they did this.” He closed his eyes to remember. “Iceland, I think. They jailed the bankers after their parliament was assaulted by angry voters.” He raised the glass in a gesture of salute. I was not sure if it was for me or for the Icelanders.
Time passed with the funny feeling that as the supply of wine became shorter our diatribes became longer and wobblier. After a while things changed, and both of us went silent. The scornful face on TV still mumbled something about our glorious economy, but who cared about it anymore?
*
“My name is Batranu,” said ‘Merlin’, with no other introduction, “I think you know the name.”
“Yes, 'The old man' in Romanian. Are you Romanian, too?” I stopped, still not sure why I agreed to meet in the restaurant. Don’t play his game…
“Do you remember this?” He ignored my question; the answer was obvious. “Novus ordo seclorum.”
“The Merlin dream, but I have no idea what those Latin words mean.”
“
Yet you answered back correctly: I am ready to serve, magister.”
“I do know Latin in my dreams.” This gave me a good feeling.
“No, you don’t; you just accessed The Field. All the past is there: facts, memories, dreams, thoughts, unfulfilled timelines ... everything – a hidden world waiting to be explored. The pineal gate … your mind is the key for it.” He stopped, leaving his words to slowly expand inside my mind. I have to use my mind to open the gate. I remembered. What gate? A gland is not a gate. You should leave. Let him pay the bill. The distrust rose again, and the ‘bill’ made me smile, comforting me inside. “Vernadsky, Teilhard de Chardin or Dulcan can teach you more about The Field; they’d have called it the noosphere.” That list of strange names was telling me nothing. “The Omega Point,” he swiftly added, surprised by my ignorance. Ashamed, I shook my head and said nothing. “Humanity’s ultimate goal… In time you will learn,” he gave up. “A storm is brewing, and you have a role to play.” What role? What storm? That woman also said something about a storm and some ‘data clusters’. It was a dream. A bad dream. I started to be annoyed by my thoughts, by his superior tone, by the lost evening, by everything. He was in that dream. Just imagination, you try to find reason where there is none. He WAS there. The old man sensed my wavering. “Look at me, what do you see?”
“An old man. Uh ... sorry.”
“No offence taken, it is the correct answer. How old do you think I am?”
“167,” I answered in a blink without thinking. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
“Why? It is the correct answer.”
“I am not an idiot!” The thought that I was talking with a charlatan returned, but I tried to be polite; in the end, he really was much older than me.
“Look into my eyes.” I did so unconditionally, and for the first time perceived how dark his eyes were, and as time almost stopped, I saw little but the eyes, with their deep shadows, suddenly immersing myself in another world, a very old one filled with the history of many places and things both happy and sorrowful.
Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe) Page 2