by Sarah Noffke
“It’s my book of secrets. Everything I know about this world and the things that most people don’t.”
“Oughtn’t the book be bigger?” she says.
I regard the pocket-sized book. “You’ll be surprised at how much information is in there.”
“Why are you giving it to me?” she asks, real disbelief in her voice. Adelaide really doesn’t get it… yet.
“Adelaide, you’re my legacy. You’re what I leave behind. My greatest gift to this world, and I trust you with the vast knowledge I’ve acquired while on earth. I believe it is in good hands with you,” I say, tapping the top of the book in her hands.
She pulls the book up and presses it to her chest. “Yes, I’ll keep it safe. I’ll use the knowledge wisely. I promise,” she says, and I hear the tears in her voice but she’s staying strong, knowing that’s what I desire in this moment.
“Good,” I say and press the button for the door. With one last look at my daughter I smile, and it’s a sincere one. “I love you always,” I say, repeating my mum’s last words to me before she died.
“Goodbye, Ren,” she says in a whisper.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pops gives me a disappointed scowl when I exit Adelaide’s room. “You left him alone,” he says, indicating Lucien, sitting in the exact place where I abandoned him.
“What can I say, I’m a deserter,” I say, approaching my room at the end of the hallway.
“Well, we just won’t ask Ren to watch you anymore,” Pops says in a baby voice, ruffling the redhead’s hair.
That shouldn’t be a problem, I think as I run my finger over the button for my door. I pause. Turn. Stare at the man on the carpet, playing with the child like he’s a kid himself still. He’s in his nineties now, but no one would guess that looking at him. How have my pops’s eyes never dulled? Each year they sparkle with the love he genuinely feels for the life he lives. Of course, that spark renewed more so once I introduced Adelaide and then Lucien to him. I don’t regret being the unloving child my parents didn’t deserve, but I’m grateful that he has more children to lavish with his love. I almost think they are deserving of the unyielding affection that man will bestow upon them. I know with full certainty that there isn’t anything Adelaide or Lucien can ever do to lose my pops’s favor. I tested that for myself and I know that man loves me unconditionally. If there is any good in me, it is because I had parents who loved me despite the monster. They knew I was wicked and yet, they chose to see only the good in me.
I turn and regard Adelaide’s door, where I hear a soft muffled cry. It has taken me my entire life to understand how a parent could love a child so completely, as my father always did. Now I get it, a notion I thoroughly never expected to understand or feel for myself.
The giggling of the child on the carpet steals my attention. I turn and watch the boy and man playing. There’s a bond already well established between these two. It’s evident in the way they both seem so at ease with each other. I guess I never appreciated how a father and a son are endeared to one another, regardless of whether they don’t see the world similarly. I realize now that I’m who I am because of who my father is, and everything about that is perfectly fine.
“Goodbye, Pops,” I say, pressing the button for my room.
He holds up his large hand. “Night, son. See you tomorrow,” he says, his eyes mostly still on Lucien.
The door glides back behind me. My pops was the one person I couldn’t dare to say a proper goodbye to. There was no way I could tell him what I plan to do. To have the scorned look he would have undoubtedly given me forever ingrained in my memory would be too much. He won’t understand when tomorrow I don’t awake. He will be so very hurt when he finds out what I’ve done. But my pops will forgive me, and that I know with confidence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I lie down on the bed, not having removed my suit. The two openers rest in my breast pocket. And in my hand is the list of coordinates where I might find portals to the other realms. With a focused mind I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
This is where they will find my body dead tomorrow.
***
The silver transport is long, a series of twists and turns. This first location is quite far from the Institute. It’s funny that I’ve always thought of dream traveling as a type of transportation using the wormholes of consciousness. It’s all truly interconnected, the premises that make up our world.
The sun peeks just over a mountain range which is a guarded by the Guanabara Bay. I know that as soon as I eye the city spread around it. Rio de Janeiro. And I know from my high vantage point exactly where I’m standing. Instead of first turning to look at one of the New Seven Wonders of the World at my back, I look up at the heavens.
“Very funny, God. You’re fucking hilarious,” I say out loud.
Then I turn and find exactly what I knew would be behind me. The Christ the Redeemer statue stands tall, hands outstretched. The morning sun grazes over the surface of Jesus’s calm face. I won’t for a minute consider it’s a coincidence that a wormhole is located in this place known as a symbol of Christianity. My guess is that the energy spread by worshipers probably powers the portal. Or maybe the passage has been witnessed here because of the number of visitors who hike up to Corcovado Mountain to gaze at the statue. Everything is energy, though, so I’m guessing my first assumption is correct. Humans have no idea how much their thoughts and emotions fuel the elements of this world. However, at this early hour, I have Jesus all to myself. There are no Middlings in the physical realm strolling around on the platform. And in the dreamscape I don’t feel the cold fog that is drifting over the bay, about to cloak the city in wet air.
I slip one of the openers from my pocket with a strong hope that the portal it opens takes me to the Land of the Souls and not back to the physical realm. Aiden suggested that I observe the space, if it was large like this one, with too many potential areas where the portal could be. I just hope it’s not on the top of Christ’s fucking head, because I’m not dream traveling up there. Heights make me want to barf.
I lift my gaze to the statue before me, which was erected to provide a sense of peace to the Christian followers.
“Why are you such a big fucking deal?” I say to the soapstone statue of Jesus. “I better get a bloody landmark statue when I’m gone. I bet I saved more people than you.”
I’m just about to tell Christ another thing or two when I notice something close to the statue. At its base there’s a reflection, but the area is cast in shadow so that doesn’t seem right. As I approach, the reflection disappears and reappears. Again and again. It’s almost like a trick on the eye. I turn to gauge if the rising sun could be the cause of this, but it isn’t touching the base of the statue yet with its rays. And when I turn back around, I see it more clearly out of the corner of my eye. It’s a rim, just as Aiden described. And then I eye the opener and notice a faint blue light is glowing on the top. However, it isn’t strong enough. That’s what my instinct tells me. Three more steps bring me to the place where I’d see the rim of the supposed portal, but it disappears completely. However, the strip on the top of the opener now glows bright blue.
“Looks like I’ve found your little shortcut,” I say to the heavens. Actually, according to gross science, these passages are merely remnants of general relativity, whatever the fuck that means.
If this opener works then the act of it sensing the wormhole will stabilize it for a short minute, making it dense. In essence, it’s taking an invisible door and illuminating and then unlocking it.
“Here goes everything,” I say, placing the opener just above my head where I remember seeing the reflective light. And I actually suck in a breath when the device sticks in the air, like it’s stuck to an invisible wall. I’ve seen many things in my life, but nothing quite like this. It’s almost like the pairing of science and spirituality, briefly meeting for my purposes. Who would have ever thought?
Knowing I must be quick, I press the button on the bottom of the opener and the cord drops out, dangling in the cool Brazilian air. The chain resists only slightly when I tug it downward. Then I hear a sharp click and I release the string, and gradually a light hovers and then it separates, streaking a line behind it. The two points circle in opposite directions until they arch and then meet at the bottom, illuminating a large circle. Then the light seeps in to the center of the circle until there’s a bright hole in front of me. I may be the only person who has ever seen the sight before me. An open wormhole. I hold my breath. Lift up my foot. And step through to the other side.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The world I step into is not the physical realm. I know that at once. The sky in the physical realm would be the same one I just witnessed in the dreamscape, but the one that hangs over me here is dark. It’s not like a night sky, but more like an inky purplish one. And as I blink at it, I can see further out to space than ever before. My vision seems to zoom in on distant stars and planets, while still seeing it all from a distance. Everything in this realm is the same, and yet different. Rio de Janeiro is still the same city, maybe darker in some places, and lighter in others. I turn and the biggest astonishment yet meets my vision. Christ the Redeemer is gone. The more-than-one-hundred-foot statue has disappeared. The pedestal where it sat in the dreamscape is just a blank space lit by the sun that still rises in the dark sky.
I’m not granted another quiet second to study the strange world around me because the ground begins to vibrate. At first it’s a soft rumbling, but then the stone under my feet cracks and the earthquake intensifies. I’m at the top of a mountain where I can only go down, but thankfully there’s not a massive statue which can fall on me. My feet lose their balance on the ground that is now rolling, like I’m standing on a surfboard and riding a wave. I allow the momentum to bring me down to the ground, where I hit it faster than my reflexes can process. My chin knocks into the stone floor, but my hands break the fall’s severity. And all around me Rio de Janeiro moves, but it’s a blur in my vision. The ground further splits in places. My legs slip into a giant crack that instantly is formed. Can I die in the Land of the Souls? I guess I always considered I’d be defeated by the task, rather than die.
And then the shaking lessens, like simmering water being pulled off the stove. I roll to the left, to a place that has fewer cracks, which are still splitting, creating a chasm a few feet away. Now I push to my feet and pieces of me start to break off. Literally, as if I’m made of stone like the statue of Jesus, I crumble. A scream like no other I’ve ever witnessed bursts out of my mouth. My hands appear like a sand castle being broken down by the wind. And the pain isn’t quite pain. It feels as though something inside me is being emptied. I never realized how full I was inside until this moment, where I’m being sucked out from within. And the scream. It’s unending. Mostly connected to the terror I feel. I never thought there was anything to be afraid of losing, but right now what is being taken from me feels like the greatest tragedy. An enormous panic sweeps through my mind, cloaking me in a darkness of fear. I fall to my knees, my palms meeting the stone. I gulp for breath, but I’m suffocating. I try and process what’s happening, but I can’t think past the fear. And then I feel nothing. Not a single thing. All at once, I’m empty.
I have no body.
I have no mind.
I have no heart.
I’ve lost my soul.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A light hovers over me. It brings my vision back into focus. At least I think it’s my vision. I don’t know what I am anymore. I don’t know who I am anymore. How could I not be who I am? And to lose myself. I note that this all should be tragic. Was that a thought I just had? Somehow I’m thinking. I know it. But this isn’t how I’m used to thinking. I seem to be merely observing. No opinions. Just unbiased thoughts. Like untouched consciousness. I am a hollow observer. No feelings. No attitudes. No ideas. No bodily sensations. I’m nothing.
***
Again, my vision opens to observe a buzzing light overhead. It zooms by. I don’t remember where I just was. Everything went away. I went away. Actually, I don’t know where I am. But I am… I don’t know what I am. I don’t know anything. And yet I do. I’m lost and yet there is no I, so am I lost?
My mind blanks. My vision too. Again the blackness.
***
“You’re going to have to work harder if you don’t want to slip into the nothingness,” a voice says above me. Maybe all around me.
The light. It’s overhead again. A soft, twinkling light, like a Christmas bulb sitting alone in the gray sky. The sky is gray. There is a sky. Who am I that observes this gray sky? I am…
“Stand up. That might help,” the voice says. It’s a woman’s voice; her accent is Spanish.
“I cannot stand. I do not have a body,” I say, and hear a voice which is so familiar, and yet…
“Then how did you speak?” the woman says, and the bulb of light zooms to the side of me.
I did speak. At least, I think that was my voice. But how? And how is there a me who spoke?
“You’re wearing a suit. You are a man. You need to connect with the shell you’ve left behind or you will fade into the nothingness,” the woman says at my side. My side… who am I?
I am a man... the woman had said.
“You have red hair. It is a lovely shade. You are a middle-aged man, one unlike any we have here,” the woman says. “Now stand up.”
I don’t know how. I don’t remember.
“Roll to your side. Yes, you have a side. Roll over and push up. Just know that it’s instructions that you own, somewhere in the back of your consciousness. You can pull it from the universal mind. You don’t need the information in your mind, which I realize you must have lost,” the woman says, and her voice is warm and meant to comfort. That is my simple observation.
And I do as she says. I intend to use the data for the “how” of standing that’s logged in this universal mind. And then I, this nothing being, is moving. I roll to my side, push up using a gray hand, and then rock until I’m standing.
And the world around me is gray. Just many varying shades of gray. There is no color, but I’m not sure why this matters. Shouldn’t Rio de Janeiro be full of color? Then I stare down at my body. I, in fact, do have a body. It is gray as well. And then the light zooms around me, but there is no sensation connected with the action. The light speeds away, around the broken plaza, and then lands just before this thing that is me. And suddenly the light blossoms into a figure. A woman dressed in an emerald green dress. Her black hair is parted down the middle and braided and tied into a bun on the top of her head.
“Do you know who you are?” she says.
I shake the head on my shoulders.
“I do not know either, but I saw what happened. You feel like a shell to me and it’s because you lost your soul, didn’t you?” she says.
I shrug shoulders which seem foreign to me.
The woman flickers into the light, hovering a few feet off the ground. Then she reappears, but now she isn’t a she at all. A man, old and dressed in slacks and a white shirt, stands where the woman was.
“You don’t belong here, do you?” the man says, his accent Scottish.
“Where is here?” I say, sensing I know the answer, but not able to connect to the idea.
“The Land of the Souls,” he says and then pop, he’s a light again. And then the woman is before me once more.
That’s right. The Land of the Souls. And I came for a reason. An important one. But I don’t recall it. Who am I?
“You’re slipping again,” the woman says, snapping gray fingers at me. “Stay focused or you will fade into the nothingness.”
“I need to find something, don’t I?” I say, my voice so low.
“Souls are made of three parts,” she says.
“Body, mind, and heart,” I say, but the words
don’t feel like mine. And why should they? Who am I?
“Yes,” the woman says. And then she flickers and a young Chinese girl with hair to her waist stands where the woman was.
“I must reassemble my soul,” I say, and this triggers a memory. I have a memory. I blink at the girl, as though she will tell me the answer that I’m searching for, but then the strangest words fall out of my mouth. “I am Ren Lewis… I was… I lost him.”
The young girl nods. “I saw you before your soul split. You had a personality. You were confident. Not just an observer. You were thinking and feeling. Now you are a shell,” she says.
I remember entering the Land of the Souls now… kind of. I turn, remembering the statue—
“It is back,” I say, pointing at the statue of the man named Christ which my memory said was gone before.
“The way the Land of the Souls works is that we construct everything instantly based on how we feel about it. When you first arrived the statue was gone, is that right?” the girl says.
I nod and then the girl is gone. Only a light and suddenly she bursts into the figure of the Spanish woman, stoic and tall. “That must be because you don’t believe in Jesus.”
“I don’t know what I believe. I hardly know who I am,” I say.
“In our land, how you feel about things changes how they appear. What you know about things changes how you see them. Those who have had more experiences through many lives, see more. It is the reason we continue to evolve through the process of reincarnation,” she says.
“So your world here looks different to you, doesn’t it? Can you see the statue of Jesus?” I say.
She nods proudly, her eyes on the gray statue. “Oh yes, and he’s beautiful in my world.” Then she turns to me and morphs into the old man again. “Your world is probably the way it looks in the physical realm, is that right?”