“Come on, Leon. It’s a bad one out there… don’t tempt fate. We’ve got five bedrooms, under floor heating… breakfast in bed…”
“I’m off, cheerio,” he was already half way to the lobby, pulling on his jacket. “I’ve left the recordings… don’t want to spoil your fun, now do I?”
“Oh, Leon!” Nancy scolded him. “Come and sit down here at once! You’re not going to be able to sleep anyway.”
“Is someone going to make sure that I close the door properly?” he called back. “Nance, please don’t forget to bring the recordings to the office.”
They could hear his hand turning the door handle. Like a man possessed, he was unstoppable, almost obsessed;
“Toodeloo,” his farewell sounded like the last post of a bugle note.
Catherine had given hot pursuit to see him out, she smiled and shrugged as she returned; uncharacteristically he hadn’t even stopped to hug her goodbye.
The sound of his departing engine left them in a cloud of dread.
“More coffee… cocoa… something stronger?” Catherine offered, lifting the light dimmer to its maximum intensity. A severe uneasiness had crept in and it took a while for them to ease back toward the conversation.
“What I’ve been most curious about is this General who is also a Bishop,” Jacky posed, “I thought that’s a strange Karma. I mean… from a reincarnation perspective… you’re supposed to improve as a person with each passing life? Does it mean then that a soldier is a click above a priest in the hierarchy…? I mean, he’s back as a soldier…”
“I’m sorry that Leon’s gone, Jacks. He explained it so well,” Catherine took up the challenge of explaining it. “Your spirit amounts to more than just your brain and the chemistry that gives you thought and memory. Your spirit is you. It’s what makes you who you are. That’s why you are not me.”
It sounded so silly now that she’d said it. She racked her brain a moment, searching for Leon’s exact words and excellent examples;
“Look, if my body’s organs are transplanted into you, then they will become part of you, they won’t be part of me anymore. If they ever get brain transplants right, then we’ll be able to answer whether we really do amount to more than simple chemical reactions. But…”
She stalled, running out of facts, second guessing whether it was anywhere close to what Leon had said—or just what she’d hoped he was saying;
“…I don’t know. It sounded simple when he explained it.”
The dead of night was pierced by a siren, the threads of its wailing woven into the howls of the wind through the trees, until the sound was swallowed by a ferocious volley of hail against the window pains.
In spite of the central heating Nancy pulled her cardigan tighter about herself;
“I’ll be using a room if you don’t mind.”
“No chance of that, you’ll sleep in our bed!” Jacky insisted, confirming it with a nod from Catherine.
A strange scent wafted into the room, it smelled for all the world like lilacs. Three sets of nostrils flared, testing its odd appearance against the improbability of its existence. Catherine was the only one to verbalize their collective thoughts.
“That’s odd…”
Nancy took the next turn at trying to pick up on the explanation that had defeated Catherine;
“Karma says that the personality that you are, in spite of your experiences in this life, is an indication of who you were before. Your experiences during this lifetime will alter you in certain ways and you’ll then carry those traits that you learn now… your loyalty and aggression… hunger for power, onward to your next life.”
“But that doesn’t answer how Roger, the General, could have slipped from the apparently higher ideals of Fernando the priest,” Jacky insisted.
“I’m getting there,” Nancy said, and then hoped that she would. “Roger… the soldier… was born to a country at war, and even though he’d apparently been a shy and gentle child, the discipline and authoritarian side of his former personality turned him into a natural warrior leader. Killing is wrong, according to Fernando’s insight in the spirit world. Despite that, it hadn’t given him any qualms about burning people at the inquisition’s stake during his own lifetime! At that time he had been operating according to, and a victim of, the prevailing wisdom of his age.”
Jacky was bewildered by the complexity of the nebulous hypothesis and seeing this, Nancy tried to sum up her explanation as concisely as possible;
“The spirit world is like a locker room where you review what you’re going to do on the playing field of terrestrial life. You plan your strategies of how to achieve the goals. God is…”
“Good is…” Catherine corrected her.
“You’re right, Cath, sorry. Good is the prevailing wisdom that holds together the team, comprised of the rest of us. Good invented the game and made up the rules,” Nancy indicated all of creation symbolized by the game. “And, like in a locker room, the character that we hope to be when we’re planning to be brave and strong and smart, is not necessarily the player that we discover that we are when we’re faced with all the problems that life throws at us. Money, religion, power…. Whatever it is that motivates us can be represented by a ball in this parable. But the ball doesn’t always bounce exactly right and our team mates don’t always pass straight or defend properly…”
Since they appeared to understand, Nancy pressed onward;
“…Sometimes when our game’s over, we think we’ve won according to our rules and we win in the eyes of other’s who have the same rulebook. Yet in reality, according to the true rule book which we don’t get to see during our terrestrial lives, we might have lost.”
This wasn’t how Leon had explained it, but Catherine thought that it had nonetheless been a fine analogy. She spurred Nancy for more understanding;
“So, according to the Gospel of Saint Nancy, we’re all… and I mean all of the teams… errrr… all the nations and religions of the earth, we’re all playing without being able to refer to the total rule book here on Earth? We only get to discover whether we’ve won, lost or been disqualified once the game’s over and we’re back in the locker room of heaven?” She frowned.
“Yes… sort of… I don’t really know, because I’m making this up as I go along,” Nancy admitted.
“And… all that without a nightcap… it sounds pretty bloody inspired to me. Perhaps Leon’s jumped into you,” Jacky teased.
“Let me continue then… why don’t I…” Nancy assumed Leon’s voice and mannerism.
When they were again done laughing, Nancy went back to her ad lib narration and amateur philosophizing;
“…Perhaps all the world is playing the game with extracts from the rule book. Each team, or religion or nation, has got some chapters. Some of the rules overlap, others appear to contradict one another. But if they could all be condensed and put into perspective, then the whole thing might work out…”
She thought for a moment, finding a universal example to illustrate her point better.
“…If you took the tennis rule book and divided it up between various novice players, you’d be sure to have confusion. Assume they knew nothing of the game. One fellow’s rules would state categorically that hitting the ball into the tramlines is out. Another would have the rule about serving. It would speak of a ball bouncing beyond the service line also as being out. He would also be correct in applying that rule.”
A light bulb illuminated in Catherine’s head and she filled in the end of Nancy’s explanation. “But hitting into the tramlines is in, if you happen to be playing doubles. And hitting beyond the service line is okay if…”
It was silly talk now, and they all knew it—lighthearted fun; something to take their minds off of the storm and forbidding gloominess of the afternoon’s events and the weeks that preceded it.
Jacky wasn’t to be left out either, she leapt to override Catherine, completing the final sequence of the parallel;
�
��…provided that you’re not serving! Dead right, Nance! We should launch a new philosophy, Tennissssaism. No, better yet, make it a religion! Launching a religion is the best way to make money out of desperate people.”
It put them all into fits of laughter.
“What we need to do is compare our various parts of the rules. That way we could get on with the game and quit fighting about the rules!”
“Definitely! That’s why, up until now, this game we call life has been a fiasco. We keep on perceiving opponents and calling their ball ‘out’, or ‘foul’, without bothering to assess how their rules relate to ours…”
Nancy laughed at the goofy ideas that kept rolling forward, but somewhere in them were nuggets of truth.
“…The problem is that the referees are corrupt and they’ve got no intention of helping us piece the game together. Remember that those in control of the game are getting paid by the hour. The longer they sustain the confusion, the more wealth they accumulate; the more of the game they own.”
“And the more irreplaceable they’ll appear to be,” Jacky added, “…sorting it all out for us.”
“Sure… they’ve also got the microphone and you can never argue with the person who has the microphone,” Nancy observed.
“So what we need is a players organization?” Catherine suggested.
“Organizations are committees and committees always get hijacked because it’s back to money. Is there a ‘democracy’ around this globe where the umpires don’t siphon money away into private accounts?”
Nancy’s words brought their high ideals of moments earlier crashing into the dusty earth of reality. They sat in silence, each considering the world’s problems through the prism of tennis.
“What’s the solution?” Catherine eventually posed aloud what they had all been thinking.
“Individual players must wake up to the fact that it’s a game with one overriding aim. Playing together makes it all worthwhile. Rules will always be necessary in order to play but the rules are not the object of playing. Religion is not the reason for living, it is supposed to be a way of achieving a better life on earth. And there need only be one overriding philosophic teaching; uphold that which is productive, fair and just,” Nancy paused.
Catherine picked up the baton of wisdom that Nancy had carried thus far;
“Umpires need only be obeyed if their calls are fair, not simply because they benefit one side for the moment… the next bad call is likely to go against you, because the umpire’s playing to always be umpire, he doesn’t care whose on court… who wins and who loses… divide and rule.”
They were pondering the impossibility of the world overcoming the odds, when the phone rang.
The caller ID said it was Kevin, and Catherine answered.
She went serious, monosyllabic, frowning—and then she got up and began to pace with the phone at her ear.
When she came to sit down, she had worrying news;
“He’s isolated something which I can’t give you many details about because it’s all Greek to me, but there’s definitely something in the patch that isn’t kosher. It’s powerful and it’s highly compatible with the body’s own adrenaline. He said it’d therefore be almost impossible to trace in the blood. And guess what… from what he could see it seems to be highly volatile. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.”
They went on, poking and prodding at the fresh subject, and by the time their discussions were at an inconclusive end, it was the very early hours of Friday morning, far too late to tackle the originally intended subject of Fernando’s hypnosis session.
Catherine had determined that she would follow the matter of the narcotic through to its legal conclusion. She would subject herself to a more rigorous medical examination and have Leon advise the military to do the same.
In addition, she would brief her attorney to prepare documents to sue both Kenneth Torrington and LifeGames Corporation.
When the exhausted trio finally bedded down together, the perfume of lilacs was still lingering in their nostrils.
Chapter 31
Petals rained in a shower of beautiful purple and white hues. They settled onto the lid of the plain pine coffin that was already being absorbed into the thick mud at the pit’s base.
Lilacs had been Leon’s favorite flower and these petals were all from his own private garden.
Today was Friday the thirteenth, the same-day funeral honoring the dictates of Leon’s Jewish heritage.
Catherine surveyed Ken from the privacy of her largest pair of sunglasses. The certainty of his presence at the funeral had been a good part in her selecting this pair, the balance of her reason had been to screen her eyes; her eyes resembled a boxer’s at the end of brutality, swollen and bloodshot from crying.
Ken circulated through the milling crowd like a forlorn hyena, searching for an opportunity to close with his prey; but Catherine had been far cannier than his skulking could match, and she kept him at bay with her deliberately unpredictable movements among the mourners.
The dominating topic among the crowd centered on the mysterious circumstances of Leon’s death.
Although it had been raining hard, police detectives did not link the cause of the accident directly to the weather. The stretch of road where the crash had occurred had been flat, straight and well lit. In addition, it had been very well drained, with no puddles or drifts.
Skid marks on the road surface had indicated heavy braking and swerving by the driver, and finally, the vehicle had body damage that would be consistent with an impact from a medium sized animal, the hair caught in the front grill of the car had been coarse and had evidently matched with the description that Leon had made to paramedics before he had died.
“A goat!”
The revelation had stunned Catherine; the entire area was suburban with no chance of livestock for dozens of miles in any direction. Besides, it was not the ideal climate to rear goats and the appearance of one would be a mystery.
“He was evidently quite insistent, Cath,” Nancy had told her. “He wouldn’t hear of it being a dog. To be certain, they’re going to analyze the hair and a sample of blood that they also found.”
“Let me guess… no trace of the animal?” Catherine had asked cynically.
“No,” Nancy had confirmed.
A shudder of fear had gripped Catherine and she’d tried to act blasé about the details; “Perhaps he saw a goat and ran it down for me… to save me from my fate.”
Nancy had taken the comment for what it was, the reaction of a brave but terrified woman.
The strain and circumstances of Leon’s death plaited with the fresh prophesy for Catherine were too haunting to hear verbalized; she’d held Catherine close and omitted a yet more disturbing enigma to Leon’s closing chapter.
The district coroner had been perplexed. The vehicle had only light damage; damage consistent with a slow speed collision into a mid-sized mammal. The airbags should not even have deployed and there should have been no injuries, much less a fatality.
“…59-year-old male suffering acute death resulting from upper cervical spinal cord injury caused by cervical hyperextension—cervical spondylosis suspected.
Victim attended within 11 minutes of collision report; police report indicates collision with unknown mammal approx. 75 kilograms mass.
First responder Paramedics report victim alive and able to talk, unresponsive physical animation below line of clavicle. Victim reports horned possibly goat-like mammal appearing in roadway in wet stormy conditions. Vehicle airbags deployed.
Intensive care immediately provided, victim became comatose, remained in unconscious state for further 12-minutes until cardiac arrest.
Findings of autopsy: Externally, excoriation on the forehead and the left eyebrow and slight subcutaneous hemorrhage in the dorsum of the nose observed. The intervertebral disk and the anterior longitudinal ligament between the 5th and 6th cervical vertebrae severed with hemorrhaging in
the region of the injuries observed. The 6th cervical spinous process fractured in the direction to the major axis. A part of the posterior root filaments torn and the bleeding points could be observed on front of the 6th cervical spinal cord. On the histopathological examinations, in C2, C5-C6 regions marked ischemic changes and hemorrhagic necrosis could be observed. From these post-mortem results, we diagnosed that the victim died from upper spinal cord trauma due to a stretching consequence of the hyperextentional injury…”
The funeral was at its end and the mourners drifted solemnly toward their cars, departing sporadically as the dwindling groups splintered.
As Catherine steered cautiously through the parking lot, Ken moved into her vehicle’s path. Her initial instinct was to run him flat but sense took a hold over her and she halted.
Wearing his most disarming smile, he began moving toward the driver’s window. Not wishing to create a furor at a funeral she cracked it open a fraction, leaving a letterbox slit for him to speak through. An army of ants ran over her body.
Ken removed his sunglasses and Catherine did not reciprocate. She noted with distaste that his glasses served as a mask to hide clear eyes reflecting no evidence of sorrow.
“Hi, Cath… Very long time, no see…”
“It’s hardly the time or place,” her foot holding the brake shook violently, wanting to kick the accelerator to the floor.
“Don’t be silly, Cath. We’re adults. Let’s get over this. Let’s have a drink. It’s what Leon would have wanted.”
The emotional blackmail made her want to vomit. Her wrath was detonated, weeks of terror and grief turned violent in an explosion of hatred. Not even the decorum of a funeral could brook the tsunami of her derangement.
“The only thing Leon wanted was YOU behind bars,or preferably dead you pig-headed bastard…”
Like something that didn’t belong to her, the tirade had begun as a low rumble boiling from deep inside her chest, but her rebuke rapidly built in volume and pitch to a haranguing assault;
“…We’ve turned out your filthy trough, you fuck. We’ve found the drugs that you’re using for your fucking Time Dilation. You, my evil friend, will in future talk to me only through my lawyers!”
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