The group dispersed in pairs. The Wait Zone was an ever-changing scene based on the beliefs of the new arrivals. Smoldering fires and the echoes of protesting sufferers gave way to the delicate sounds of harp music flowing through pearly gates over golden streets. His students would enter these places as they dared to work with those who feared suffering their hellish dreams and escort those who had finally grown bored with their heavenly havens.
Jahni strolled toward the lift area where guides were surrounded by balls of light, misty figures, and what appeared to be glowing three-dimensional beings. All were variations of how humans believed they would appear in the so-called “next realm”. They were about to learn just how many realms there were. Guides and groups were rising upward on cylinders of light lifting them into a sky that was so bright it was as if they were moving into the sun itself. Jahni smiled. It was his favorite ride.
As he walked he could hear a combination of sounds coming out of the fog of consciousness he was more or less ignoring. His least favorite aspect of the Wait Zone was the presence of drug addicts. They tended to be rude and invasive. As if his thoughts had invited the experience, a man walked out of the mist and started talking to Jahni.
“You think you’re special?” Jahni eyed the man trying to determine how the man was seeing him. While his human students were free to choose whom they would help, as a guide, once he was engaged, Jahni was obliged to participate. The man reached out and leaned on Jahni.
“Don’t do that,” Jahni requested, pulling away from the man.
“Awwww, whatsamatter?” the man mocked with an ugly expression toward Jahni, “I could use a little support.”
Turning, the man threw himself into an expensive winged back chair that appeared as he landed. The man stared as if he were mindlessly watching television. His eyes were red and his expression had turned to one of self-pity. His looks were neat and clean although his breath clearly indicated an extreme level of intoxication.
Jahni recognized that this man was different from the street junkies who showed up just as long as their highs lasted. While Guides are obliged to participate in the dreams of humans no matter how insane, they do not have to cooperate and there is no rule against obtaining additional information if they choose to be helpful. Jahni observed the man before him. While he was clearly drunk and there was no way to help him with reason, there was also something very needy about him. Something behind being wasted that Jahni wished to understand.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yeah, get me a bottle of Brut.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why not? Wha’d’you care?” The man’s tone conveyed a sense of futility.
“Perhaps there’s something else I could help you with? Something that might suit you better?” Jahni suggested.
“I am tired of not getting what I need because of someone else’s agenda!” The drunken character complained.
Jahni scanned the man for data from the field and immediately bumped into a thread that ran straight to Hrim. He was surprised. This guy is related to Hrim’s project? Jahni wondered. I thought he quit chemical dependency a long time ago. Jahni felt a little deeper into the field and saw a circle of people all extending threads toward one another with such frequency a web-like pattern developed. In addition to Hrim, Jahni saw Tetta was there too. Jahni looked down at the man sleeping in the chair.
What are you doing here? he thought.
I’m waiting. The man dreamed in response.
For what? Jahni asked.
A chance to make it up to her, the man replied in his sleep. I can’t help it, I love her.
Jahni couldn’t determine whom in the scene, including the drunk, could possibly be the one Hrim had described as undecided between living and dying. The possibilities tickled Jahni’s love for working in the field, even if they were hinged on a drunk who was wasting his life. He loved the work he had learned to do as an apprentice of Hrim and suddenly longed for the chance to be back in the mix. He decided to visit Hrim to learn more about the case.
Looking up he saw one member of his students juggling a dozen balls of light that were all clamoring to get on the lift. He returned his gaze to the sleeping drunk. I have to go now, sleep well, and consider learning a thing or two about moderation. The drunk muttered something Jahni couldn’t understand. Thoughts are so much easier than slurred words, he thought.
Pause, pause, pause...
Karen Bradford ran her hand through her dark hair and blinked in annoyance at the fluorescent light overhead. She never liked fluorescents. The buzz they made was irritating and their light was anything but natural. She knew the gray roots showing through her hair looked like hell in the light, but that really didn’t matter right now. With as little sleep as she was getting, she knew she looked like hell in any light.
Putting her hand lightly on her daughter’s hand she moved her fingers to the palm, away from the needles and tubes, and gently stroked the underside. She watched as a machine controlled her daughter’s breathing. Her chest rose and dropped in an unnatural way. She searched her face for some sign her beautiful daughter was stirring back to awareness. But it did not appear she was about to open her eyes anytime soon.
Karen knew the doctors were waiting for her response. She wondered what kind of guessing game this was supposed to be. There was no way she could choose to shut it down. Her daughter was only 36 years old. There’s plenty of time, she thought. C’mon baby.
The curtain around the bed moved and Karen recognized the nurse named Paul. “I need to take some readings.” He waited for Karen to move away from the intravenous sacks hanging from a pole beside the bed.
“Alright, I need a stretch anyway.” Karen gave her daughter’s hand a squeeze and stood up. “I’ll be right back, baby.” She whispered to her daughter. For a moment she felt weak and stumbled one step backward. She smiled at Paul who reached toward her supportively. “I’m okay.”
“Maybe you could use a break?” Paul suggested. “How about a little food, or sleep?”
“I just took a nap, but I will check the cafeteria for something.” Karen agreed as she pulled back the curtain and walked out into the intensive care unit. She glanced back, “You know where to find me.”
Turning around Karen nearly walked into a tall dark man who seemed to hover around Amelia’s area on the unit more than anyone else.
“Can I help you?” she asked with the kind of sigh she had adapted to indicate that the very sight of him was painful to her.
“Mrs. Bradford,” he started.
“Please, this has gone on long enough and I’m tired of it.” She waved her hand in his face. “Call me Karen.”
“Karen,” the man began again, “the doctors tell me there’s no change.” Amelia’s mother bristled at the statement of the obvious.
“You never know what changes there might be, Detective. That shouldn’t matter to your investigation anyway. All you have to do is get the person who did this.”
“Ma’am, I know.” Karen bristled again. She hated the word “ma’am” more than her daughter did.
“So why are you here?” She stomped her foot, then faltered as she took a step forward. Detective Alvarez reached his hand under her elbow and supported her long enough for her to regain her balance.
“Detective, I am exhausted.” Karen forcefully pulled her elbow away from the detective’s hand. “My daughter is not yet a murder victim and I don’t intend to make her one. If you have anything positive to say, I suggest you do so.”
“Can I buy you some dinner?” the detective quickly offered.
In the midst of all the rushing and visiting friends, meters going off and codes sounding on the unit, Karen Bradford felt isolated and alone. The curtain moved behind her and Paul stepped out.
“You’re still here?” Paul asked tapping his pen on the clipboard.
“I have no where more important to be.”
“You won’t be here much long
er if you don’t get something to eat.” Paul wagged the pen in the air.
“I just asked her to have some dinner with me,” the detective volunteered again ducking down and trying to catch Karen’s gaze.
“Okay, okay!” Karen covered her face and squeezed her head with her fingertips as if that could help her growing caffeine headache. “I’ll eat!”
Detective Alvarez nudged gently on her elbow and Karen didn’t pull away even though that would have been her usual instinct. Amelia’s mother was proud of how tough she was. She was the helper, the one who was always there for someone else, always able to help.
Two days before she had just walked through the front door after a busy day of running last minute errands preparing for their trip when the call came. Too late, I’m done for the day! She had thought as she picked up the phone expecting to hear her daughter’s voice making additional requests. Instead it had been Detective Alvarez advising her of the situation. She hadn’t been home in a week. Neither of them had gotten onboard a plane that day, but the turbulence had never stopped.
Next to hospital chapels, hospital cafeterias are the most likely place to be empty. Karen Bradford had now visited them both. Karen hadn’t felt safe in the dim darkness of the chapel and didn’t feel hungry looking at the overly bright white reflective cafeteria. White tables reflected white fluorescent light. Where is the ambiance? Karen wondered.
Detective Alvarez steered Karen through the doors. She had been resisting eating anything, not just the cafeteria food. All she had taken the first 24 hours had been coffee to stay awake. She had given up coffee along with smoking, and had become a vegetarian all in the same month three years earlier, but one by one she feared her habits might change.
Karen looked apologizingly at the woman behind the glass case as she sneered at the vat of reconstituted powdered mashed potatoes. Meatloaf with gravy and green beans with ham came on to her tray next. She glanced behind her. Detective Alvarez wasn’t pushing a tray.
“Excuse me, detective. But don’t you think you ought to eat something too? After all you have to be strong to solve this mess.” The Detective stepped back and grabbed a tray.
The caffeine headache pounded at Karen’s head. It was amazing how quickly the addiction could come back. She looked at the meatloaf. I’m still a vegetarian, she thought, I just happen to be eating meat right now. Karen renewed her conviction to not smoke. She couldn’t imagine how she could explain to Amelia that she had to smoke in order to survive the ordeal her daughter was experiencing. No, that won’t fly.
While detective Alvarez paid for the meals Karen stood looking at the empty room filled with tables. For a moment she felt like she did on the last day of school when the children had left. There was always the thrill of summer vacation and the melancholy of knowing she wouldn’t see certain children again.
This summer had been different. Though the circumstances of taking the trip were unfortunate for Amelia, Karen had been thrilled with the prospect of going to India with her daughter. It was something she had never dreamed possible and a memory she looked forward to making.
Detective Alvarez stepped up next to Karen and then nodded toward a table as if he were seating her in a busy restaurant. “This way?” he motioned with his tray. She followed. The pair sat their trays on the table and put themselves in the uncomfortable orange bowl-shaped chairs. Karen obligingly picked up her fork and toyed with her mashed potatoes as she picked up her coffee and drank it black. She had always been a sugar and cream coffee drinker. Not giving herself the sweet and enriching additives was almost a decision in line with her present level of hardship. She was determined not to enjoy anything until she could do so with her daughter.
“Is there anything you can tell me about your daughter that might help me with my investigation?” Detective Alvarez asked a question Karen was certain he had asked before.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “This is something that would absolutely never happen to my daughter.” Karen felt herself turning emotional and blinked the tears back. She took a deep breath and another sip of the still too hot coffee.
“I just thought you’ve had a little time to think and something might have occurred to you,” the detective clarified.
“What is occurring to me is that you haven’t got a clue!”
“No, I don’t.” Detective Alvarez apologized.
Karen glared at the food sitting on both their plates. “We need to eat.”
“Yes, of course.”
Pressing his fork sideways into overly crisp fried fish, Detective Alvarez chopped it into bite size pieces. Karen watched for a moment and comforted herself with the memory of the dream from her nap at her daughter’s bedside. She looked at the detective who was, for all appearances, as tired and hungry as she was. She regretted the resistance she had expressed toward him and simultaneously was glad for someone who seemed patient enough to withstand it.
“She’s going to be okay,” she told him, remembering the words Amelia had said in the dream. “She’s coming home soon.”
The detective looked deeply into her eyes and smiled reassuringly. “Yes, of course.”
Pause, pause, pause...
Amelia watched in a daze as Jojo was chosen by the captain of one of the softball teams that was forming. Hiram walked out to the mound and took up his position as pitcher.
“Tell me.” Amelia turned to see Tetta approaching.
“What?” Amelia asked, not yet fully cognizant of the futility of pretending she wasn’t thinking about her dream.
“Your dream is very important. What do you think it means?”
“Means?”
“Yes, dreams are very often symbolic of events that may seem unrelated.”
Amelia was distracted as Jojo came up to bat. The ball crossed the plate and the boy did not swing. “Steee-rike One!” the umpire called out.
Watch the first one, Amelia heard a voice in her head say as she saw the boy gauge the pitch for his next shot at the ball. She turned her attention back to Tetta’s question.
“I was in a shoe store,” Amelia remembered. “I was with this man who has been elsewhere in my dreams. Usually he has horns but not this time.”
Amelia watched as Jojo swung hard, connecting with the next pitch and started to run for first base before he dropped the bat.
“I was arguing with him about the shoes.” Amelia glanced down. The very same gold lamé shoes were there on her feet. “He told me I was shopping all wrong.”
Amelia noticed Jojo was heading for second as the ball was tossed to a nearby player. Hold up! Hold up! Amelia thought. Jojo waited as if he could hear her.
“I told him it all starts with the shoes.”
Tetta laughed. “It is easier to find the clothes to go with the shoes than the shoes to go with the clothes,” she agreed.
“But that’s just it Tetta. I don’t know how, but I’m certain that I would never buy these shoes, let alone wear the clothes that go with them. Not by choice anyway!” Amelia was adamant.
“Never?”
“No. These are something someone would wear to a bad wedding.” Amelia stopped. Something clicked into place and just that quickly clicked out of place.
The next player swung and barely moved the ball. Jojo raced to steal third as Hiram jogged in toward the catcher to help retrieve the ball.
“Wedding.” Amelia’s mind clicked again. “His name was David.”
“Whose?”
“The horny man’s name was David.” Amelia’s jaw dropped and she stared at Tetta in wide-eyed amazement. “I think I was going to marry him.”
“You would buy shoes you hated for your own wedding to a man with horns?” Tetta sounded doubtful.
“No.” Amelia searched her non-existent memory.
“He wanted me to buy them.”
“So this David character,” Tetta asked, “he liked gold lamé shoes?”
“No. He was anxious about something, like we didn’t hav
e the time to be messing around over the shoes. He was pushing me to get something – anything – so we could leave the store.”
“What do you think was making him so nervous?”
“I don’t know. He just kept looking out the window like we needed to get someplace.” Amelia remembered the ease with which the horny manager watched her start to leave in her theatre dream. “… or he wanted me to leave.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, never say ‘I don’t know’ when remembering a dream. You lock it out.”
“Oh.” Amelia was sure she didn’t remember anything else.
“Did you buy the shoes?” Tetta asked.
“I must have.” Amelia looked down at her feet.
The crowd cheered and Amelia looked up as Jojo approached home plate along side the softball. “Slide!” she yelled. Jojo hit the ground. His leg crossed the plate before the ball touched him. Jojo was on his feet jumping up and down with his arms held victoriously in the air.
Pause, pause, pause…
Consciousness permeates all things. Within the various frequencies of creation, countless layers of consciousness may be accessed and utilized. This holographic environment is what produced most of the three dimensional experiences humans have today.
Human beings tend to explore probability-generating fields of consciousness arriving at both expected and unexpected outcomes. Combined results of group consciousness have forged little grooves in the stuff that dreams are made of which direct imaginations along popular courses of action.
Those who come to the realization that they can depart from predetermined pathways to create their own new roads often become track jumpers. They can see the storyline they are experiencing and choose a different one. Others become so experienced at making these choices they are no longer subject to the conditions of predetermined consciousness and can move about the planes of existence at will without reason or provocation.
Gold Lame' (That's le-mayy) (Gold Lame' Series) Page 8