by V. M. Franck
A room next to the kitchen was equipped with a hospital bed and all the medical equipment Jessie might need, plus a compliment of nurses and a doctor on call. Guards were stationed in the hallway and throughout the facility. In the hills around the old salt mine additional guards had been added.
Reclining on the rigid bed Jessie was pallid, his eyes sunken back. It shocked me to see him so ill. I clearly remembered the first time at the tomb. The memories were no longer blurred. Perched on an uncomfortable chair beside his bed, I held his hand as he slept. There was little else to do. So little. Love I had known for him two thousand years earlier welled throughout my heart, surprising me with its urgency.
He opened his eyes and gazed into mine, touching a finger to a tear on my cheek.
"How's the recall coming," he said.
"Puttering along," I said. "I got passed the part where you were crucified."
"So you know I didn't die," Jessie said.
"Yes," I said. "I'm wondering how much more there is to remember."
"You'll know when you're done."
"Guess I will," I said, groaning inaudibly.
"Raven?"
"Yes."
"I have a favor to ask?"
Whenever anyone asked for a favor I cringed, afraid something would be ask of me that I could not or would not want to deliver.
"What's that?"
"Promise me you won't do it again."
"Do what again?" I asked.
"Forget yourself."
Tears came then, slipping along my face, dripping to my tee shirt. I wanted to sob, deep cleansing sobs. Instead they emerged two at a time.
"I've had my tears, too," he said, "for that time long ago. Mostly, I think it's because we made it back this time only to find so little has changed. People cling to outdated, inaccurate beliefs that trap them. We tried so hard to get them to hear us back then. It didn't work. I wonder if it will work any better this time."
"We're not doing it the same way."
"True, but my Zen masters were correct. Only when the student is ready need the teacher appear. Any sooner and she will be shouting into a hurricane."
"So why did you decide to come back now?"
"To set things straight about me. They turned me into something I never was."
Jessie held out his wrists. I'd never really looked at them before. Wrists were wrists. I studied his wondering what I was supposed to see. At first there was nothing unusual. In a flickering, scars appeared on both arms. Puncture wounds. He turned them over. On the other sides were exit wounds.
"How did you do that?" I asked. "I thought this dimension wasn't about magic."
"It isn't. We bring into each lifetime remnants of other ones," Jessie said. "Holograms of what we've experienced resonate in our spiritual bodies. Our physical ones change each time, but the others stay around us in gradated layers. They retain residue of everything we've ever experienced."
"So you're saying because your wrists were nailed to a cross, you can draw those images in, and that's what we see here?" I touched the rough scars, but only felt smooth skin.
"That's it," Jessie said. "Everyone can do it once they've quieted themselves enough."
"So you think I could do it, too?" I asked.
"Guaranteed."
The idea entranced me. "How did you get me to see that?"
"It's simple really, once you get the hang of it. I can teach you," Jessie said. "Right now I'm tired, so tired. It's a stubborn thing, this body, so tied to physical limitations."
"I'll leave you to sleep," I said and kissed his forehead.
I found Zak as I headed to the dining room for lunch. He slipped an arm around my shoulder. Mine hugged the backside of his waist.
"Jessie just showed me his wrists," I said. "I assume he showed you, too."
"Yes ma'am."
"Have you ever been able to do anything like that?"
"Only once with his help."
"I don't know how he did it. I mean, he said I can learn, but gees."
"Some would say it's because he's the Christ."
"And what do you say?" I asked.
"We all are," Zak said.
"Jessie said he came back to set things straight. Is that why you came back?"
"You got it."
"But what does it matter? Isn't the point of spirituality to get people to acknowledge our oneness with everything? Don't all religions do that in their own way?"
"I've thought of that," Zak said, his face taking on a philosophical bent. "Believe me, over and over. I've said to myself many times, why bother? I'm not trying to convert anybody. Maybe I should just leave it alone. And then I see the mess religions have gotten everyone into. I've come to believe they are the greatest curses of all. After thousands of years the Middle East is still a quagmire of hate. It's the 'I'm right, and your wrong, and I'm going to kill you because you are different from me,' thing. I feel sorry for all those people, which is why I'm here. What we are doing is about compassion, Raven. And freedom."
"Freedom," I said, exasperated. "It seems people who are the most likely to use that word, are set on creating it in their own image. Freedom according to George or Pat."
"It's a grandstand topic our leaders use to send our kids out to kill someone else's kids," Zak said. "It was that way in the Yeshua lifetime, too. My hope is that when we release the documents, plates and your books, we can initiate the real thing."
"'You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free?'" I said.
"Yes, except that phrase has been misused to justify atrocities. He never meant it to be that way."
"He?"
"Yeshua."
We reached the kitchen. Felipe served spaghetti and clam sauce. Fresh salads and beverages were already on the table. He smiled at me in a way that set my heart to thumping.
Zak grinned and hugged me hard. "I see things are as they should be, once again."
Chapter 32