The pressure quickly overwhelmed me. I could no longer accept it. Then as I began to struggle against it the end came very suddenly. I lost consciousness and awoke back in 1976.
My room was dark. It was only 4 a.m.
I quickly decided to go back to sleep and see what had happened to me back to 2150. While it took me some time to calm my mind from the vivid memory of the crushing vise, I at last managed to fall asleep and awakened back in the canopied bed with Sela bending over me.
The moment I opened my eyes she said, “You are a fool, Jon Two.”
I smiled at her in Karl’s wry cynical way and said, “I see you no longer keep up the pretense that I’m a level ten.”
“That’s right,” she replied. “We’ve discovered that your Macro powers are very limited. You’ll hardly be attaining level three in these next few days.
“But that’s not why I was calling you a fool. Don’t you realize that if you leave your body unprotected while you’re gone from it on the astral plane someone who knows how‑as I do‑‑can sever the silver cord and separate you permanently from your physical body?”
“Yes,” I said. “I knew this, but you want me to become a permanent ‘live’ resident of Micro Island, not a dead one. My propaganda value would be worthless if I was dead.”
Sela gave me her sensuous look in which her tongue touched her lips in a kissing motion before she said, “I don’t want you dead, Jon. I want you as my lover, and I know that unless you help us complete your time translation that magnificent body of yours will soon die, and your mind will be lost 174 years in the past.”
“Sela,” I said, “I no longer desire a micro existence.”
‘But you have no choice,” she replied. “You can either live on Micro Island in 2150 in a well‑run micro society or you can live in 1976 in a chaotic micro society.”
When I didn’t reply to this she finally gave a long sigh of resignation and said, “You leave us no other choice but to release Carol to find her own way back to the Macro society. You realize, of course, that since she will not obey our laws she will be put to death.”
“That’s murder!” I said.
“It’s not murder,” she replied. “When a person chooses to break laws that she knows will cause her death, that’s suicide. Of course, you can always prevent her death by agreeing to become a permanent resident of Micro Island.”
“Give me more time,” I said. “Let me think about this.”
“You’ve had plenty of time, Jon,” she said, “but to show our generosity we’ll give you one more day. If by tomorrow morning you have not decided to cooperate with us we will release Carol and you can watch her cause her own death.”
After a long silence Sela left and I began pacing about my prison suite trying vainly to discover the solution that Rana said was already in my mind. What was it, I wondered? What would appear the worst possible decision I could make? Well, from one view point, it would be defying Elgon and refusing his terms. That would humble my pride because I would not only lose Carol, but also my chance to live in 2150.
Yes, without a doubt the hardest thing for me to do would be to watch Carol being executed by the Micro Islanders‑especially knowing that I could have prevented it.
I remembered Rana saying, “But nothing is terrible from the Macro view. Things can only be terrible from the micro perspective, which is too limited to see that we live in a perfectly just and balanced‑ macrocosm in which we experience only what we have chosen.”
Then if Carol dies, I thought, she will have chosen it and it will bother me only to the extent that I view her as a possession of mine that I can lose. We can have anything we desire and believe in sufficiently, say the Macro philosophers, and since each soul has free will and absolute Macro power there is no problem.
All right, I agreed, there is no problem from the Macro perspective‑but I don’t live at that level! Where I live, there are lots of problems, and at the moment the most important one is saving Carol from death and me from losing 2150. This would lie resolved successfully if I would just cooperate with Elgon. Then I could dedicate the rest of my life to finding a way to return to the Macro society. But would I?
I was left completely alone for the rest of that long day and evening while I agonized over what I should tell Elgon in the morning. By the time evening came, I was completely, exhausted, having come to the conclusion that I would choose life for Carol, and, thus, life for me on Elgon’s Micro Island. Sleep finally came, bringing with it a ghastly nightmare.
I dreamed that I was dressed in long black robes sitting as a judge in a vast desert. In front of me as far as I could see there stretched a long line of people whom I must judge. According to the bailiff standing beside me they had all committed some crime requiring the death penalty. As I listened to each person’s explanation of his crime, however, it seemed to me that they all pleaded in such a moving and piteous fashion that I waived the death penalty for each and every one of them. They cheered, thanked, praised me because I chose life for all who came before me.
Then the scene changed to another part of the desert and I found myself walking with the bailiff at my side through a gigantic prison yard where all those whom I had saved from death were shackled by a great ball and chain so that they could barely move. Now instead of praising and thanking me they were all cursing me. I was appalled to see that they were all afflicted with some hideous disease that was destroying their bodies by slowly eating the flesh from their bones. Somehow I felt compelled to look at every one of these prisoners whose lives I had saved and who were now such grotesque and horrifying victims of a plague that slowly and painfully ate away their bodies.
I heard one call out to me. Turning to him, I shuddered and awoke in tears of terror, for the prisoner who last cursed me for saving his life was Karl!
I felt sick at my stomach with self‑hatred to think that I could do that to Karl even in a dream.
Why would I have such a dream? What could it possibly mean? As I asked this question I remembered the words of Rana, “All pain, misery, and disease are the results of resisting that which is inevitable‑that which we ourselves have chosen to grow on.”
Then what was the solution? Again I could almost hear Rana saying, “The only way to balance negative actions is with positive actions. Thus, loving acceptance balances all. The only sin anyone ever commits is denial of the perfection of what is.”
Then my dream, I decided, must have been created by my higher self to show me the consequences of trying to deny the perfection‑the necessity‑of what is. Did this mean that I should take the other path and let Carol die?
Had I let Karl die in the past? Is that why he was in my dream?
From some cranny of my mind came two replays; one in which Karl was finishing off a pint bottle of carrot juice, and one in which Carol was getting her usual from the mechanism in the cafeteria‑carrot juice.
Then a double exposure‑Carol’s 1976 “past” life review of herself as a black student fighting pollution, and Karl ranting about industrial pollution.
My mind raced.
But she’s a girl‑the girl I love, my soul mate, my Alpha mate!
And Karl? He’s a man‑the man I most love, my best friend, my stepbrother, my roommate!
“Oh, my God!” I thought out loud. “Oh, my everloving God!”
I grasped my arms across my chest and rocked back and forth in my pain, conflict, agony, fear, and joy.
When I finally got it all together and accepted the perfection of this new insight, I went downstairs and laid the news on Karl and Neda.
It hit them just about the way it hit me, and we all ended up in tears of joy and amazement at the incredible perfection of the eternal plaid of our lives.
The big question remained. Should I let Carol‑Karl?‑die?
I spent the rest of the day trying to answer this question and by evening I admitted to Karl and Neda that the thought of watching Carol die when I could have
prevented it was just more than I could take. We talked far into the night with Karl arguing that my decision to save Carol and myself was the only sane and decent one, and with Neda arguing that I should ask my higher self for the answer and follow it, no matter how difficult.
I just shook my head, then went back to my apartment. Once in bed I didn’t want to go to sleep until I was sure of my decision for Elgon, so I tossed and turned until finally in desperation I remembered Carol’s advice whenever I was particularly frustrated: Macro contact recall.
As I focused my mind on my last contact with the Macro self I felt the anxiety and tension begin flowing out of my body. The rhythm and depth of my breathing changed and again the unspeakable union of all opposites led to the ultimate experience of that which is beyond time, space, and words.
I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes I saw both Sela and Elgon bending over me. Then I heard Elgon say, “I’m glad you’re finally awake. We’re ready for your decision.”
Without thinking I replied, “I’ve decided to learn the lessons I came here to learn and permit Carol to do the same.”
“You mean you are willing to watch her die before your very eyes?” Sela said.
When I didn’t reply Sela pointed‑to the video screen. “Are you sure you can live with that decision?”
I looked across the room at the giant video screen. The picture of Carol had changed. Instead of lying on the floor of a barren room she was now spread‑eagled against a wall in the courtyard with manacles at her wrists and ankles. Her body was naked and obviously conscious because it seemed to be writhing in pain. A close‑up picture of her face revealed that her catatonic trance had been ended, for her eyes were open and staring at something before her. Then the picture changed and I saw what she was looking at‑a howling, screaming mob of Micro Islanders who were being restrained by a high steel‑like mesh fence.
“If we raise that fence,” Elgon said, “that mob will stone her to death for advocating birth control and refusing to bear children. Since she’s a foreigner, the penalty for those crimes is death. Are you sure you won’t cooperate with us, Jon?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
Elgon and Sela observed me intently without speaking and the silence between us grew until suddenly Elgon nodded his head and the audible sound from the video panel increased.
I tried not to look at the screen but my eyes seem to have a life of their own. I stared at the mob which was now pouring through the opened fence, racing to large piles of small, sharp, quartz‑like stones that were piled several feet in front of Carol.
For the next half‑hour I watched the mob‑men, women, and children‑throw the small sharp stones at Carol’s suffering body. I watched the whole gory process from the first superficial cuts on her beautiful legs, arms, breasts, and face until her whole body was covered with gaping bloody wounds, and finally to the sight of one eye gone and the other hanging by a shred of tissue down her torn and bloody cheek. Since the stones were small, they left her conscious till the very last, her lovely body literally hanging in shreds from her bones.
Even with the memory of my most recent Macro contact fresh in my mind that half‑hour was the most excruciatingly painful of my entire life.
Elgon broke the silence. “It’s one thing, Jon, to watch another person die like this. It’s quite another to experience it yourself.”
With these words Elgon summoned a number of his followers who led me out of the palace to the same courtyard wall from which the remains of my beloved Carol were now being removed so that I could take their place. As they hurled me forward my feet were gouged by the sharp white stones now stained red with her blood.
The mob regathered, shouting obscenities and accusations at me as I was thrust against the slaughtering wall, still wet with blood. As they snapped the bloody manacles around my wrists and ankles, my mind became a blur of memories‑Lea, and our brief moments together-Rana and the many lessons I should learn . . . did learn? . . . would learn?‑Neda and her incredible transformation‑Karl, my faithful friend, and the trauma I had brought into his life these past few months‑and his parallel self, my beloved Carol whose warm blood separated me from the coarse brick of the wall behind me.
In the distance I saw Elgon and Sela moving toward me through the crowd. Somehow, though they stood only inches from me now, they seemed also to be miles away. Elgon dipped the tips of his fingers into the red pool below me. Then, wiping his fingers across my chest, he asked me contemptuously if I would like to reconsider my decision. I did not speak, for the answer lay bitterly in my eyes.
Turning his back to me, Elgon bent to pick up two of the red‑stained stones. He held these up for the crowd to see, then handed one to Sela as he turned and, facing me now, cast the first stone.
I heard, deep in the recesses of my mind, the voice of Rana echoing, “In ancient Judea, Jon, the souls of Carol and yourself incarnated into a fierce and proud family. You grew up to be beautiful to look at but vain and proud. You were quick to condemn and more than once self‑righteously joined in the stoning to death of those you condemned.”
I knew why it was happening, but my eyes and my mind were still overflowing with hatred for Elgon.
In my mind Rana’s voice was saying, “The measure of a mind’s evolution is its acceptance of the unacceptable.”
I tried the Macro pause. I tried to think myself into a Macro perspective of loving acceptance. I tried to love and accept Elgon and “what is” as perfect. I tried but to no avail.
Acceptance of the unacceptable‑my final test, and I had failed. I could not lovingly accept Elgon.
There are limits to everything‑even pain‑but with hundreds of jagged stones tearing at my body, the tide of pain soared through me until it‑seemed I could not bear to live another second.
My eyes could no longer see, but to my mind Lea appeared.
“Remember, Jon, the measure of a mind’s evolution is its acceptance of the unacceptable.”
With these words ringing in my mind I awakened in 1976.
CHAPTER 17: Evolation
A month has passed since my death in 2150, and this long separation from the Macro society has been hard to bear. Yet, as I sit here in the warm spring sunshine on the small balcony outside my apartment, I know that I have come to accept this separation, and even the terror and pain of my last hour in that future world.
I no longer condemn or feel any anger toward Elgon, Sela, or anyone else, for I myself chose my experiences.
Anger, like all other violence, is a last desperate attempt by micro beings to deny responsibility for their life situation by blaming it on others. Violence and anger will, therefore, continue until man learns to accept full responsibility for everything that happens within his life. I hope that I have arrived at that point in my soul’s evolution.
And now, Karl, as my mother entrusted me to you, I entrust this journal to you, to do with as you see fit.
Soon I shall come down and join you and Neda for one last meal together. At the end of this evening, I’ll kiss: you both and say that I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Forgive me for writing my farewell instead of speaking it. You are dearer to me than I could ever say.
It’s taken me such a long time to learn that all failure is success‑all death is birth.
I’m going to evolate tonight.
You see, last night I had another vivid dream, Karl. It was a vision. I’ve made a rough sketch of it for you and Neda on the next page.
“Thank you” doesn’t begin to say enough, Karl.
Remember your dreams. I’ll be there. I am with you always.
I love you.
We are one.
‘Bye for now,
Epilogue
Three months have passed since we cremated Jon Lake’s body and scattered the ashes in a woods near our boyhood home. I must admit that at first I had great difficulty accepting Jon’s suicide.
I said that it was a cop‑out and not worthy of his Macro philosophy. However, as the weeks have passed, Neda has chipped away at my micro philosophy until today I see Jon’s action in a very different light.
Perhaps the most important factor altering my viewpoint was a conversation we had with Jon a few nights before he left us. Jon didn’t include it in his journal and I wish he had because it would have reminded me of the Macro society’s view of life and death.
Between Neda and myself we have recalled most of the details of that conversation. As we remember, it began one evening when I remarked about a student in our department who had just committed suicide. I said that suicide was a cop‑out and Jon had replied with the following.
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