I often came here at sunset to watch the crimson and amethyst coloured skies. One could sit on the viewing chair and see a panoramic view of the landscape: Crooked omlar trees reaching ninety metres into the sky cast their long shadows on the wet, reddish brown ground where a seasonal river meandered between large, flowering cactus plants. This was my favourite time of year. The annual rains were just finishing and the temperature as low as nineteen degrees celcius. The distant grass-covered hills of Jaimbalar, stirred happy memories of years gone by when Nor-man’di skipped down the walkways to the learning centre. Far behind them the Transipor precipice towered, its top lost in the late spring mist. Soon temperatures would soar once more, the river would run dry, and the grass wither and die.
Still very alert and in full control of my mind, I booted up my old desktop computer and opened my journal file reading the previous entry I’d made some fifteen years earlier:
April 17th. 2121 — Chiron-del succeeded his mother, Logosti, as Sovereign Head of State and was a great leader, but he never married nor had offspring. Fortunately Logosti and Zultrane hatched two further sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom carried on the royal line.
In time Olan met Sisika, a beautiful New-Race girl, who became his bride and bore him many children. I cried tears of joy at their bonding ceremony.
I never returned to earth nor married, although I lived with David Holmes for several years. We eventually parted quite amicably. I had been dedicated to rearing and acting as a nursemaid to the many generations of this family (after all, they were my family too), but David never quite shared the same affinity with them. He wanted me all for himself.
I gathered my thoughts for a moment before adding another, well overdue entry:
December 17th. 2136 —Now old and frail, I am looking forward to celebrating my one-hundredth birthday in less than three years time. I don’t go out in the heat anymore; my body wouldn’t take it. Instead, I stay in the air-conditioned palace. The cheeky royal youngsters call my room the icebox suite because I like to keep it under twenty degrees Celsius. They prefer to play out in the midday sun rather than visit me in there so at least I get some peace and quiet. I’m still popular with them though, and several still meet me in the Grand Hall to watch the sun set over the Transipor rocks each evening. It’s become quite a tradition.
Olan visited me today with the wonderful news that everyone has longed to hear for so long. He has found a way of restoring the lost years and is finally ready to take up his birth right as Sovereign Head of State!
Because of his work, future generations, including his own children, will live out their intended natural lifespan of one hundred and twenty years. I wish Howard could have lived long enough to see this. He left us over a decade ago. He never met anyone special after Chrissy. She was always his first and only love.
Today marks the anniversary of a very special day: the day, sixty-three years ago, when I arrived on Theta Dayton Four—so it is fitting that this is the date of my final entry. Now the lost years have been returned to the New Race Aapa people my journal is complete.
I signed it ‘Belinda L. Cagney’, saved the file and closed the laptop for the last time. I knew my last entry was not as eloquently written as I would have liked it to be, but at ninety-seven years old it was the best I could do. I sat back and looked at the view through the grand floor-to-ceiling windows that filled the length of the Great Hall. I often came here to reflect on the wonderful New Race People I had known during my long life.
I touched the transponder pendant that I still wore around my neck. For a moment I saw Howard and Chrissy in my mind’s eye. It was my birthday long ago on planet Earth and Howard was struggling to take a small, pretty box out of his jacket pocket.
“Here, give it to me,” Chrissy was saying, smiling. “This is from the two of us.”
I opened the box she had handed me. Inside was the platinum transponder locket.
Howard was grinning, “You have no excuse not to keep in touch now … and you have to transfer over and visit us often. Who knows, we may even get you into space one day.”
“Not a chance!” I told them.
How differently things had turned out. My dream had been to stay on Earth immersed in my oil painting, selling my completed canvasses to famous art galleries and private collectors across the world. I might even have got married. Instead I had lived out my life on Theta Dayton Four. I never did return to Earth.
“Thank you Howard,” I whispered. I had no regrets.
I tapped the locket twice with a fingernail and spoke Olan’s name. When he answered I asked him to transfer over.
A few minutes later he was sitting beside me on the viewing seat: a tall, well toned, handsome man in his prime of life. (Maybe Howard wasn’t teasing me when he said that Olan didn’t have time to grow really tall on Earth. This Olan had reached seven feet four inches.)
I had one last favour to ask of him.
He agreed and that night transferred to Omicron City taking my completed journal with him. He placed it in a specially made aperture at the back of his statue where it would be safe for future generations of long living New-Race Peoples: their history would be preserved.
~~~
Many millennia later it was discovered and lovingly restored by a person who placed it in a museum in Old Omicron City.
It was noted that Olan had returned to his statue many years after first placing the journal in the aperture and had added a concluding entry to the journal:
December 2193 — Bally I have included this postscript as a tribute for all you did for me. You were my mother and friend … twice. There have been many times in my New Life that I have remembered a portion of those first seven days on earth — I remember our perfect day.
I only wish that I could have done more for you. Without your input in my life I wouldn’t be the man or the leader I am today.
Holding your hand, long ago, as you departed this life brought back memories of how you held my hand on a similar occasion on earth. You did the same for me; you were always there for me.
Bally I love you and I always will,
Love Olan.
The End
Other books written by Lynette Sloane also available on Kindle:
Displaced in Time: (novel/fiction)
The office clerk placed a large brown and white picture of a First World War soldier onto the desk in front of my friend, Lucinda.
She exclaimed, “If I met him, if he walked into this room right now, I would fall in love with him straight away.”
Impossible, of course, but what if it were possible? What if you could travel through time and meet your soul mate?
Displaced in time is the story of Jeff, a photographer, who lives in 2007, and Lillian, a primary school teacher, who lives in 1912. We follow them through the next five years of their lives as they start corresponding though time. Life is harder for Lillian as she lives through the events of the First World War, but Jeff has his share of trials too.
With the invention of time travel the time barrier no longer exists. Time has become fluid. We can travel anywhere or anywhen. This is the fourth dimension. We can lay aside the conventional way of thinking about the order of events and view Lillian and Jeff’s story as a continual time line, the dates and year they live in almost become irrelevant.
But this is more than a love story. Throw in some adventure, time travel, a group of people who are fighting to restore the original timeline and their enemy, Strada, a psychopathic genius, who will stop at nothing to keep mankind on the road to destruction, and you have Displaced in Time.
Empty Planet: (novel/fiction)
Empty Planet is an adventure story …
Drawn into a world where every human has disappeared, Steve is initially terrified. Within minutes the world returns to normality. His family and friends are back and don’t understand why he is so upset. A few years later everyone disappears again, only this time it appears that they have been gone
much longer. His house smells damp and mould patches have appeared on the curtains and peeling wallpaper. Weeds, shrubs and small trees grow through every crack in the road and pavements, and feral dogs hunt in packs, yet hours later normality returns.
This happens many times as Steve grows up, sometimes the solitude and disarray lasting for hours or even days. Over time he learns to accept these intermittent adventures and soon meets other people like himself, but what or who is behind these disappearances? Why does everyone keep disappearing, and each time they vanish why does it appear that more time has elapsed? Why does everyone suddenly reappear as if they had never been away and why has Steve been chosen to experience an Empty Planet?
If you woke up and found every human being gone, your home, street and whole cities lying derelict, flooded, and overrun with weeds, grasses, bushes, creeping ivy, trees, and wild animals, what would you do?
This is just the beginning of Steve’s life-long adventure, which in time affects his family, his relationships, and everyone on the planet.
The Storm Girl: (short story (11,037 words)/fiction)
The Storm Girl is set in the year 882 AD. It starts with a brief overview of life in early medieval England, and continues with the story of Annis and Garrick, a couple who have longed for a child. After 28 years of marriage they have slowly accepted that this will never happen.
One night a terrific storm rages in the bay, a storm much fiercer that anyone can remember. Early the next morning the couple walk down to the nearby beach where Annis discovers an abandoned, newborn baby.
They take the baby home and raise her as their own. But where did she come from, and where is the mysterious place that beckons her return? Certainly not the immediate area, no one has raven hair, tanned skin, and cornflower blue eyes around these parts.
Why have violent storms raged intermittently ever since she was found? Will The Storm Girl stay with her adopted family and Wulfric, the man she falls in love with during her teenage years, or will she return to her people, leaving everyone who loves her broken hearted?
The Storm Girl has been enjoyed by teens, young adults, and adults of all ages.
Shattered Dreams—Renewed Hope: (biography/non-fiction)
Born in the aftermath of World War II, life deals Les Deane many blows and over the years he makes many bad decisions.
He engages in a world of crime, becoming a gangster with one of the most ruthless and notorious gangs of 1960’s London. Consequently, he spends time in several prisons and remand centers where he receives vicious beatings from numerous prison officers.
Soon after his release from Norwich Prison, whilst totally disillusioned by all he has experienced, he drops out of society to become a tramp. The next five years are spent living on the streets, each day a struggle to survive. At times, he trudges the streets, having not eaten for a week, existing in the soaking wet and biting cold. He becomes an alcoholic—this is the only way to block out the cold on the long winter nights.
Summer months produce easier times, and sometimes even humour can be found—such as, when joined by two other tramps, he unsuccessfully tried to catch a duck in an old blanket, with the consequence of all three of them ending up in a pond.
This part of the story shows the dignity and humanity of street-people, who were someone’s baby, warm and loved. Now they are homeless, treated with contempt and even rejected by parts of the Church.
After five years on the streets, his health is failing and only later does he realise how near to death he is. Finally he is taken in by a family, whose love and care help him become a reformed character, eventually finding his faith in God and becoming a Church Minister.
Today, he is Pastor and Manager of Author of Life Ministries, a Christian music and ministry group which ministers at various Churches throughout the country. Having preached at more than 200 different churches over a five-year period he has been asked on numerous occasions to write his biography.
Shattered Dreams – Renewed hope is his story. It is also available for sale in hard copy form at taskjesus.co.uk
New World Rising: A story of hope born out of tragedy Page 11