by Steve Lang
"Do you remember anything from before you were here in this room?" Bethany asked.
"Yes, I was sitting in a field of red and yellow flowers, looking at the barn my family owned. I was a little girl then, on my family farm, and my mother was there hanging clothes, and daddy was working on the tractor. It was so nice being there again. But, they had both been dead for so long." She said.
The lady trailed off and began to stare at the floor again.
"Then what happened? After the farm when you were a little girl? Was there anything else?" Shaun asked.
"Oh yes, there was my husband Jeffrey. I was married, you know. For something like fifty years, I think. I can’t quite remember. I do know it was a long time though, because we were both so in love, and oh, it hurt me so badly when he died." The woman said.
She began to cry again.
"What happened to Jeffrey?" Shaun asked.
"I’m not quite sure… no, wait… it was a city bus. It hit him while was crossing the street one day. The driver looked down for a minute." She said.
"Your husband was killed by a bus? That’s horrible. I’m so sorry." Bethany said.
"I cried so much after that. He was all I had in the world." The woman said.
They suddenly received an image of a bathtub, filled with bloody water, and they could clearly see her floating in the pool with a straight razor laying on the edge of the tub. This woman was a suicide.
"I remember going to sleep in my bathtub, and then I woke up in that field as a girl. The dream seemed so real, and then when I saw Jeffrey get hit by that bus, I became so sad and then I was here. I’ve been here in this God-forsaken room ever since."
Bethany fixed Shaun with a wide-eyed terrified glance.
"What is this place?" Shaun mumbled.
Static emanated over the loudspeaker again.
"Number 43 please, step through the door labeled Observation." A voice said.
Bethany looked at her robe and then back to Shaun. Her eyes were wide with panic.
"Bethany, it will be OK. Go through the door." Shaun smiled.
She threw her arms around his neck, and he held her close.
"I love you." Bethany said.
"I love you, too." Shaun replied.
The door reappeared for her, so Bethany walked over, opened it, and before she vanished from sight, Shaun saw her smile. Then the wall was solid once more.
"Well, it looks like it’s just you and me, my dear." Shaun said.
"They never call me." The woman went back to her pile of magazines.
On the table was a Time magazine from the 1970s, and on the front cover was picture of a little bookstore called the Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. The magazine was doing an exposé on the store’s owner Calvin Tower, and his longevity as a book retailer. Shaun thought the bookstore seemed familiar for some reason, but he couldn’t recall anything specific. When Shaun turned around, a pretty blonde woman was sitting beside him in a bathrobe. He almost fell over from the start, but managed to retain his cool and have a seat across from her. Shaun was just about to strike up a conversation with her and then he heard static across the loudspeaker once again.
"Number 44 please, step through the door labeled Observation." A voice said.
"Well, that’s me. Ladies, have a nice day." Shaun said.
He walked to the door and opened it. On the other side stood his mother and father. Shaun smiled and walked through. They both approached Shaun and each gave him a hug. Shaun was in a darkened room with stadium seats, and a movie theater projection screen down at the end of a short series of stairs.
"Mom, Dad? What are you two doing here?" Shaun asked.
"Have a seat, and we’ll explain. The show is just about to start." Mom said.
"We’ve been expecting you, you know?" Dad said.
"How long have you been waiting? Where am I? This whole thing makes no sense, where’s Bethany?" Shaun asked.
"Bethany is fine, and you two may see each other again someday." Mom said.
"Yes, you may see her again. If that is what you want to do." Dad said.
"I don’t understand." Shaun said.
"You’re in an observation room. It’s sort of like a movie theater, and you’ll have an opportunity to decide whether you would like to go back and live on earth once more." Mom said.
"You won’t look the same as you do now, and your parents will not be the same, but if you choose this life and accept responsibility for it, you can go back and live again." Dad said.
"Is that what Bethany chose to do?" Shaun asked.
"She did." Dad said.
"I’m going back so I can find her then." Shaun said.
"It doesn’t work like that. You have to watch the entire movie of your life, and then if you decide to go back you are under contractual obligation to complete your next life before you can come back here again and chose another." Mom said.
"Yes, you have to complete that life in the order of the events that unfold. There may be situations that rise that take you off the timeline and events shown to you in a few moments. That’s what free will is all about. What you are about to see is the most likely outcome, based on statistical analysis, but it’s not set in stone."
"Do I have to choose this life? What if I don’t like the choices I make that are show to me?" Shaun asked.
"What you choose to do when you go back is up to you. Your memory of past lives will be reduced to a level of your consciousness that will only manifest itself in dreams, or feelings of déjà vu." Dad said.
"What about Bethany? How will I find her if I don’t look like myself and she doesn’t look like herself?" Shaun asked.
"The two of you have found each other before, many, many times. Some souls are just matched that way." Mom said.
"What about the sad woman in the waiting room? She’s doomed to that little room, forever?" Shaun asked.
"No, but she has to learn her lesson and she is waiting on a guide to bring her to the center of learning. Suicides have to work through the problems they were unable to cope with in their life. We help them through it through classes and visits from loved ones. Re-education makes the likelihood of another suicide less probable. If she had waited three more days, her life in that body would have been terminated under natural circumstances. But she’s just one tragic case. There are millions and billions of rooms just like the one you were in with suicide cases who are waiting for class." Dad said.
"We feel that it motivates clients to take a more serious approach to life reentry." Mom said.
"So, you aren’t my real parents, are you?"
"We all come from the creator, so I guess you could say yes and no. We’re as much your parents as you are ours, or anybody’s. Even your parents in the last life were projections of a greater consciousness that guides and directs all in the vast multiverse."
"Multiverse? There’s more than one universe?" Shaun asked.
They both nodded and smiled at Shaun. He could feel the warmth of their love for him, and fake or not. It was just like being home when he was a kid. The images sledding down a large hill together in an inner tube flashed in his mind and he smiled back.
"When does the movie begin?" Shaun asked.
"Right now, at conception."
The screen came to life, and Shaun felt as if he were suddenly transported to an adult theater. Two sweaty people were rolling around together on a large bed, neither of them looking older than their early twenties.
"Young parents? I can work with that." Shaun smiled.
Mom and Dad smiled at him and pointed toward the screen.
Shaun missed the climax, but then the camera zoomed in to an army of tiny swimming sperm making their way to the glowing egg in wait. The egg was well defended by shields, but one little guy made it through as the others perished in a sea of darkness. Nine months passed in the blink of an eye, and soon the baby was pushed out of temporary storage into the waking world. In no time the baby was a toddler, crawling and th
en walking like a drunken sea captain as he explored his surroundings on jelly legs. Images of childhood, laughter, and family love swarmed the screen. His parents had been there for his first steps, for all of the teeth he lost as a small child, and all the scrapes and bruises.
On the screen, Shaun watched how one day his father stopped coming home, and mom seemed very sad.
"Your father dies in an industrial accident, and not long after you lose your mother to cancer." Dad said.
"That doesn’t sound great!" Shaun said.
"Life is what it is. You have to accept the good with the bad, and good is just about to come around the corner." Mom said.
Shaun was twelve now, and living with his grandparents in the country. One day he was walking down the dirt road from their house, dragging a stick in the dirt and feeling sorry that his parents were both dead, when he looked up to see a beautiful brown haired girl with her hair tied back in a ponytail walking toward him from the opposite direction. He could see them talking, and then the movie flashed forward a few years and they were making out in the back seat of his car.
"This is getting better." Shaun said.
"Keep watching." Dad said.
Flash forward a few more years and they were each wearing wedding bands and Shaun could see that a baby was on the way. The children grew in a loving family, and soon they were off to college and starting families of their own. Shaun and his wife were very old now, and had traveled most of the world in their retirement years. One night she drifted off to sleep and didn’t wake up the next morning. Shaun, not having her there is not far behind, and he too dies of natural causes, quietly in the night.
"What do you think? Is this a good life?"
Shaun cocks his head to the side, and smiles.
"I'll take it. When do I leave?" He nods.
Twelve years after his birth to a loving mother and father, both gone way too early, Shaun Tillman was dragging a stick through the dust and stones of a rutted dirt road leading to his grandparent's house. His sadness at losing his mother was overwhelming, and there were days when he couldn't even breathe. After her passing, Shaun's grandparents took him in, and so far everything was going as well as could be expected, except he was just lonely, and he wanted his parents back. Lost in his grief, Shaun almost ran right into the pretty brunette walking toward him. She was dragging her own stick, and smiling at him. He jumped with surprise, which brought a chuckle from her.
"Oh, uh, sorry, uh, I didn't see you standing there."
"Ha ha, don't worry about it. What's your name?" She asked.
"I'm Shaun. Shaun Tillman. What's your name?" Shaun asked.
"Bethany. It always has been." Bethany said.
the cyclops and adriel
“And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. ~ Numbers 13:33
Adriel woke up very early in the morning, dressed, and snuck quietly through her apartment so as to not wake anybody. Her parents were fast asleep, but if they caught her sneaking out again she was sure to be grounded. Adriel looked out the window to see that a new day sun was just beginning to rise over the rainforest. She would have to be fast to catch the sunrise. She quietly closed the door to her apartment and took the elevator down to the first floor. Outside, the world was waking up, and nighttime creatures were turning in after another night in the glorious land of ancient Egypt, twenty-five thousand years before the birth of Christ. In two thousand years the landscape where Adriel lived would be devastated by earthquakes, tidal waves, and endless sand storms. However, her world teemed with lush plant life and endless forests. Adriel took a deep breath of morning air, filled her lungs with its sweetness and smiled as she greeted another new day.
A brachiosaur was happily munching on branches high above her head as Adriel passed by. She touched the great beast's leg with her outstretched arm, and heard it grunt from above the canopy. The dinosaur's skin was leathery and tough, just like a tree trunk. These brachiosaurs were docile creatures and very useful for carrying large blocks of quarried stone for construction of homes and businesses. An iguana raced over her foot, causing Adriel to jump.
"Silly lizard." Adriel said.
As long as the brachiosaur was here she knew there were no tyrannosaurs or velociraptors nearby. Worse yet was the siats, three times bigger than the tyrannosaurus, with just as many teeth, but faster and equally as irascible. The presence of larger plant eaters was like an early warning signal, so if they were running, humans should too. The first morning rays illuminated the crystal capstone atop the largest pyramid, projecting a gorgeous prismatic rainbow across the land. Energy flowed from the sun down through the shafts inside, causing chemical reactions that allowed their machinery to run during the day. At night, her city ran on backup battery power, and the plant held enough juice to supply them for three days without sunlight. Most people took these structures for granted, but not Adriel. Whenever she could sneak out, she would sail across the lake to the Sphinx, climb her back, and marvel at the engineering masterpieces of her people.
After about twenty minutes, Adriel climbed down and decided to go pluck a fresh apple from the trees just beyond her city. All manner of treachery lay beyond their walls, and it was by no means safe for her to venture out alone, but Adriel rationalized that it would only take a few minutes to grab an apple, and she would return in no time. The guards were on a shift change and never noticed the small eleven-year-old girl walk right past them, and out of the open gate. The apple grove was only about a hundred yards from her city, so she jogged over to get under cover before one of the wall sentries spotted her. She disappeared into the trees and found one that had several low hanging red apples. Just as she was reaching for a bright red, juicy apple she heard a snort from the other side of the tree, and then someone coughed.
"Who's out here? Early riser as well, eh?" She asked.
Thinking it might be someone from the city; she turned around the tree and came face to knee with a giant.
"Hello, little girl." He said in a booming voice.
"Ugh, unk, uh!" Was all she could utter.
In her startled state, Adriel fell backwards and hit the ground with a thump. She grunted and hoped the giant would ignore her and move on, but she was wrong. The giant knelt down as Adriel sat, frozen in place. She looked up and realized that the giant was a cyclops. The cyclops has a large head, is generally bald, and has one giant eye positioned directly in the center of their head, just above the bridge of their nose. It blinked as Adriel tried to think of a way out of her predicament. The cyclopes were mean as snakes, and often added humans to their diet when the mood struck them. They were dragon riders, and tamers of majestic creatures from the old ages; they were the few that still knew how to speak the dragon tongue. Adriel knew this cyclops had not walked all the way out here, but so far there was no sign of his dragon.
"What have we 'ere? You look lost. I'm Henry, pleased to meet you little girl." The cyclops said.
Adriel got up to run, and felt the hot, stinking sulfur breath of Henry's pet dragon on her neck. She closed her eyes and stopped breathing for a moment as her mind played a worst case scenario where would be cooked and gobbled up whole by the large fire breathing beast.
"L-l-let me go, please?" Adriel pleaded.
"Not a chance. You're my new prized possession, til' I eat ya, that is." Henry laughed.
One of the human sentries had seen the top of Henry's head sticking out of the tree tops and fired a laser beam. The shot was a little high and seared Henry's neck, which only served to piss him off. A massive dragon rose up on his back legs in the distance and breathed a gust of fire toward the city.
"No need to stir up the bees, Selk. Let's get our little trophy and take off before things get real interestin'." Henry said.
His neck was singed and he could smell the burned flesh as Selk took to the air with Henry and Adriel on his back. A vimana air ship armed wit
h laser cannons rose from behind the city walls and gave chase as Selk darted with lightning speed. Two more joined the first and an aerial dogfight was under way. Henry put Adriel in the right side bag that was hanging from Selk's saddle. Inside, Adriel became nauseous as the odor of decaying meat struck her nostrils like death carried on a foul wind. She could tell there were bits and pieces of other humans in the bag with her. The dragon swooped and dove through the sky and Adriel tumbled in the bad, mixed with skulls, femurs, rotting chunks of meat, and various weapons left by their owners after being eaten.
A laser hit the bag and Adriel tumbled out, almost falling to the ground, but managed to grab hold of a strap and hang on, dangling in the sky. A dagger rolled out of the torn bag nearly falling to the ground far below, but Adriel grabbed hold of it with her free hand, and put the knife in her right cargo pocket. Adriel scrambled up closer to the bag and held on to the strap with both hands as the vimana's fired one laser after another.
"Idiots! I'm in here, stop firing!" She grumbled.
The dragon turned to the side, slowed his flight, and allowed the vimana's to go right by him, and then he blasted them with fire, cooking two of the ships like turkeys in an oven. They dropped like rocks to the ground while the last one fired a beam that ripped a hole in the dragon's right wing. It screeched, bolted forward and snatched the vimana in its claws. Selk violently shook the flying machine as he crushed it between his razor sharp claws, and then tossed the flying machine away. Henry, and Selk had escaped, and Adriel was still alive.
"Way to go, Selk. I believe that little skirmish just sta'ted a war!" Henry yelled.
"You're blaming me? I acted out of self defense and personal preservation! What about you? You're the one who took the girl. Fool, now the serpent’s going to have your head." Selk replied in dragon’s tongue.
"I'll be fine, it ain't gotta' know. Maybe I can hide her somewhere." Henry said.
"Return her and face judgment. You know we can't afford a war with the humans. Not yet. This type of thing always causes problems with the Nephilim." Selk said. The Nephilim were giants from another world who had seeded earth with human life. They acted as a balance of power and interceded with violent fury whenever warfare erupted against their human experiments.