The Fifth Battalion

by Michael Priv

  “Can you locate Bill?” Jane asked, focusing my attention on the incident at hand. I surveyed the trench, looking for Bill. One of about a dozen soldiers cowering in the trench closest to me was unmistakably Bill, although he looked completely different. He was using the bombardment as “downtime” to shave, shaking off the suds onto his already very dirty boots. The soldier grinned at me, “Bosches will never find my dead body unshaven! Never!” his irritating falsetto was drowned by the explosions. The soldier was dark, small and hairy, and spoke French. Yet, unmistakably, he was Bill. Not just because he resembled Bill in his housekeeping habits. There was a certain familiar feel to Bill, as it turned out, and I picked up on it. Also, his eyes. Wow. I recognized something in his eyes.

  “He seemed to have the same eyes. How could that be? That couldn’t be, right?” I opened my eyes again. “ Aha. Eyes are a good thing to pay attention to. Some aspect of the way one looks at the world through the eyes doesn’t change when you pass from one life into another, helping us recognize our spiritual companions through time. Very good on spotting that. But eyes were not the only thing, was it? Did you feel the vibe?

  “I did feel something.”

  Jane nodded energetically, “That’s the vibe. Very good, Norm. Let’s continue. Okay with you?”

  I really needed to think. “Actually, hold on, Jane, let me get my bearings here.”

  “Sure,” Jane readily agreed. “Tell me.”

  I threw my head back onto the high headrest of the immense armchair, “What the hell? Am I going crazy? This is nuts, Jane.” “Why? Because life and the world are organized differently than you thought?”

  “Well, yeah! Way different.” “Could it be that the way you thought was crazy and now you’re becoming saner? Just five hundred years ago all the ‘sane’ people believed that Earth was flat, and only ‘crazies’ insisted it wasn’t. The truth comes out sooner or later. And when it does, that is the only time we take a step forward in our development. Do you want to make that step forward? Think about it.”

  I thought about it and saw the point. I knew what I experienced in that trench. Or in Spain in my earlier recollection. Those memories could have been easily written off to imagination, but, honestly, I knew I wasthere, I livedthere, regardless of my reactions. So where did that put me? Into the precise moment of now, on the cutting edge of the time stream, which could well have no end. Wow! The eternity! If I re-experienced two incidents from the past, there could be many others, a continuous record. Huge!

  “Are we talking about a kind of immortality here?”

  “You tell me!” She beamed.

  I looked around her office with new eyes. “I don’t know everything, but whoever I really am, I’m definitely more than just a twenty-six-year-old lab technician. I see it now. I was a soldier before, now I’m a chemist, tomorrow, who knows. I can be anything.”

  I suddenly realized that my suicidal thoughts seemed ridiculous now, even shameful. I decided to keep it to myself in case they resurfaced later and I ended up looking foolish. It struck me that looking at life from the viewpoint of eternity, my insecurities made no sense. But my discoveries were too new, too outlandish. Honestly, I wasn’t completely sure they were even true.

  “Anything else?” Jane prodded with interest.

  “I have a past, so I may have a future, you know? Jane, thank you. This is really awesome!”

  “You’re most welcome. Very well done! Ready to continue? Let’s find an earlier meeting with Bill.”

  I closed my eyes, eagerly willing my attention to go back, back, back… I felt giddy as if suspended in the middle of a vast, white emptiness. Surprisingly, the sensation was not unpleasant. Actually, I enjoyed it quite a bit and the more so the longer I held the contact with it, until in a few seconds I felt exhilarated, indescribable, awesome. Wait, I knew this sensation of the expanding inner space— the sensation of being in the presence of a great man. And I knew that great man, too.

  An enormous white-stone, sun-lit great hall with palm trees and flower gardens inside came into focus. A tall stone-carved podium in the center was surrounded by curved stone benches, forming concentric circles around the podium. Exquisitely carved pillars supported ornate ceiling high above. Balconies, terraces, and elaborate balustrades made the immense structure seem light and airy. Then I saw him. A tall man, cleanly shaven, in white robes, with a full head of raven-black hair, salt-and-pepper on the temples, approached us, as we stood at attention before him. The entire moment felt significant.

  He spoke Persian with a rich Fahlevi accent, betraying a person of prominence, as well as an erudite, “Greetings my dear Grach, Droog, good to see you, my boys! Eternally grateful for your service and loyalty!” The man’s kind eyes sparkled from his handsome face. He seemed completely relaxed.

  “Great to see you too, General, Sir!” I barked. He knew my name! How flattering. Grach was me. I was Grach. And Droog? I glanced at the guy next to me, startled by my complete lack of surprise at the sight of the matted hair, dinged-up fish-scale-style breast plates, splattered with dirt and blood, a short leather tunic and well-worn hilts of a sword and two daggers on his belt, and the gaunt, all muscle and sinew, no-nonsense demeanor of a wary soldier. A glance down my own chest revealed body armor of the same kind. A battle axe weighed comfortingly from a leather strap under my left arm. I didn’t have to look to know that I’d find my akhtan,my short double-edged sword, in a wooden sheath hanging from a loop on my right hip. We both wore smallish round shields on our backs. Droog’s shield, cracked in the middle, seemed to have been trampled by an elephant—so dinged up and dented the steel plating was. I knew mine didn’t look any better.

  “ No generals here. Call me Manes,” the great man in front of us said with a kind smile. “This is a Manichei temple. We teach Light. We are not big on military sensibilities.”

  “Yes, Manes, General, Sir!” Droog belted out, still at attention. “No, Droog, just Manes, no general and no sir and stand at ease,” General corrected patiently. “Yes, Manes, we understand,” I nudged Droog with my elbow and assumed the at-ease position in a way of an example: feet shoulder-width apart and both hands on the small of my back. Droog followed suit.

  Manes threw his head back and laughed an easy laughter of a man with not a worry in the world. I continued, “Sir… Manes, we carry bad news, I’m afraid. The Shahanshah, King Shapur, is after you. He wants you and your religion gone and forgotten in all of Persia, Anatolia, Armenia, Assyria, Iraq, and other outlining kingdoms and beyond. Any traces of Manichei are to be erased forever. The Priests summoned us to protect you. On a short notice they were only able to muster a detachment about two hundred strong. At Susa we faced a full regiment of King Shapur’s elite troops, Javidans, the Immortals, and we lost.”

  “I know,” Manes replied. “You fought a fierce battle against a vastly superior force, and you fought well. As always, you made me proud and grateful. Now the fight is over. Leave while you can.”

  “ Sir, Manes, we just had the holy crap pounded out of us at Susa,” Droog interjected. “One hell of massacre. We are not leaving. We took out a whole bunch of the motherfuckers, begging your pardon. Why stop now?”

  “We galloped here all night to warn you,” I interrupted. “They’re coming for you right behind us. You need to run now. We’ll cover your retreat.” He really had to leave immediately.

  Manes seemed unperturbed, his robe white and spotless, his fingers twined, arms relaxed, resting on his belly. He peered straight into my eyes and the same giddy sensation of a huge space opening in me washed over me. I felt that the space inside was native to me— the real me. My breath caught.

  “I do not run,” Manes said with a smile, but the power of those words made the hair stand on my neck. “Then fight! We’ll fight at your side!” Droog exclaimed. We heard many hooves outside the temple. Too late. “The two of us plus any temple guards, we’ll stave their silly heads in for them. Any guards at this temple?”

 
“We don’t keep guards at the temple and we don’t fight,” Manes replied easily. “And we don’t stave in heads. And we don’t run,” he repeated himself. “This is the home of Light. We practice Light. We do not practice anything else. I sent away all my staff, followers and disciples. No fighting. I wanted to face King’s troops alone to avoid the bloodshed.”

  “But, General, Sir…” I started when the doors flew open and hundreds of Javidans with their swards drawn flooded the great hall. Droog and I whipped out our swards and snatched the shields off our backs. We took position at Manes’ sides. My heart squeezed briefly as I looked into the hateful eyes of some of the attackers. After the losses we inflicted at Susa the day before we could expect no mercy. I knew this was going to be a very short battle. Here we die.

  “No fighting in my Temple!” Manes raised his voice for the first time. I was surprised by his steely glare. “Sheath your weapons!” Neither of us so much as twitched to comply. The King Shapur’s Spahbed, the Commander, a hard man in his forties resplended in the plumage of King’s high officer’s battle gear, made his way forward.

  “Manes, you are under arrest for blasphemy and instigating riots against King Shapur I,” he declared. “My orders come from the Great Shahanashah Shapur I personally to arrest you and deliver you safely to the Bishapur prison for trial and sentencing.”

  “I speak for Manes,” I said. “You want him, you come see me.” The soldiers, angered by my words, pushed closer. A bearded, swarthy one thrust his spear in my direction, hateful, eyeing me intently.

  “There will be no murder at the Temple of Light,” Manes stated with finality. “Manichei religion will not be denigrated! Grach, Droog, lower your weapons.”

  “They’ll gut us anyway,” Droog said, glancing in my direction. “Right, Grach? You wonna go in style?” King’s Spahbed raised his voice, “If we wanted you dead, you’d be dead already. The entire aswaranis here against you, my entire regiment.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Droog in terrupted, sneering his contempt. “Maybe you started out with your entire aswaran against one unarmed man but now, since we chopped off the head of it at Susa, you got only the ass of your regiment here. I see nothing but buttholes. Look at that one!” Droog pointed at a random soldier with his sword. “The ugliest butthole I’ve ever seen!”

  “He must have come out from his mother’s ass instead of the usual place,” I concurred.

  “A good one, Grach! His mother was a very confused woman!” Droog doubled down in raucous laughter.

  The soldier, against whom the insults had been leveled, looked severely constipated or as if he was about to have an apoplectic fit. “Sheath your weapons immediately, both of you!” Manes bellowed. “And shut up! There will be no desecration of my Temple with violence!”

  Reluctantly, both Droog and I lowered our weapons.

  Their Commander chewed on his bearded lip thoughtfully. “ I will not make martyrs out of you two. I don’t even want you as slaves. A hundred lashes each for insulting King’s elite guards. Then we’ll throw you onto the garbage heap like the trash you are.”

  The soldiers shoved and pushed, ripping our armor, weapons and clothing off us. I saw Manes being led away with his head held high. Towering above the crowd, he turned to look at us at the tall gates.

  Our eyes met across the great hall. “Find me some other time!” Manes shouted. “Find me! I want to talk to you!”

  “Yes, General, Sir!” I shouted after him, straining to see him just a second longer. “We will find you! Iwill find you, I promise!”

  4

  Jane stared at me. I stared at Jane. “Persia,” I said. The incident I just saw weighed me down a lot more than the battle axe I used to lag around. I didn’t feel like explaining anything. Turned out I didn’t have to. Did I discern pity mixed with understanding in Jane’s eyes?

  “Manes?” she asked in a hushed voice. “He spent the rest of his life in prison and died there for his religion, which ruled from Palestine to Iraq and from Constantinople to China for at least a thousand years after his death. I didn’t survive Susa. Bill filled me in. Wish I could be there at the Temple with you guys.”

  I stared at Jane. Did her husband honestly believe he knew her? Does anybody ever truly know anybody?

  “The battle at Susa and the imprisonment of Manes. We had our asses kicked. Isn’t that what you remembered?” Jane asked. “No clue what I saw. The only thing I know is we let them take him. I made a promise. Who was that guy anyway?”

  “Who, Manes?”

  “Yes. We called him ‘General’.”

  “Our Commanding Officer, General Brell, in one of his reincarnations.” “ The Fifth Battalion?”

  Jane nodded.

  I went through the incident in my mind. “Quite a guy. I suppose we should have fought the bastards. We just let them take him.” “I understand, Norm , but such were the circumstances. There was more to that, I’m sure. This is hard. But I want you to consider this question for a moment: so what?”

  “That’s the question , so what?”

  “Yes, that’s the question. So what?”

  I stared at Jane. Yes, indeed, so what? I felt better. “That was then. Now is now. Ready to move on?” Jane asked. “Hang on, let me think.”

  “Take your time,” Jane readily agreed.

  The eternity, sure death, no death, maybe death, a kaleidoscope of new information and emotions swirled in my head. I reached for something solid to steady my racing mind and grabbed the only thing I was sure about: Linda, my love, my one and only. A rock-solid relationship, a complete certainty. Two hearts beating as one. She loved me to pieces and vice-versa. Searing-hot sex, instantaneous, explosive arousal, bone-crushing orgasms—for both of us. A mindblowing bliss. How could we have possibly been so good together? Not a single disagreement in over two years? Come on. The truth stared me in the face. I knew Linda before this life. We’d been together for who knows how long. That would explain so much.

  “Dr. Rosenthal, could we help Linda remember?” I held my breath waiting for her reply.

  With a furrowed brow, Jane leaned forward at the desk, staring at me intensely. “No, we can’t help her.” My heart sunk. “You should not tell Linda these things. First, she would never believe you. That’s the way she is hypnotically wired. She is not allowed to believe you. She might be stronger than the power of suggestion leveled at her under pain, and that could all go okay, but more likely it won’t. If you applied any kind of psychotherapy, like regression therapy, to Linda or other…” Jane stumbled, looking for a word, “people like her, they may go mad. Many of them have. I’m not kidding you. Truly sorry for the bad news.” Jane leaned back in her chair again.

  “Why?” I was shocked by what I just heard. “You’ re very different, Norm. You didn’t have the brainwashing treatment that she went through—and pretty much everybody else you know. A very important difference. I wasn’t planning to be the one bringing you up to speed. I thought Bill was going to do that, but I will give you the general overview right now. Are you up to the whole truth?”

  Suddenly, I wasn’t at all sure I was ready. “That you are an extraterrestrial like Bill?” I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. This was too much. I felt overwhelmed with my new discoveries. I felt squashed.

  Jane looked deep into my eyes. “I know, we should give it all a few days to settle. It’s just that we have to hurry. You are under surveillance. Things will quickly get worse. You must get briefed. Can you handle it?” Jane asked, deeply concerned.

  “Are you an extraterrestrial?” I asked point blank. Deliberately, Jane put down a pen she was twiddling and leaned forward, staring me in the eye from across her desk. “Yes, I am. So are you. We are all extraterrestrials on this planet. Not a single man, woman or child you have ever met or will ever meet or hear of, or read about, none of them, none of us originated here on this planet.” She raised her immaculate eyebrows at me, as if expecting questions. I kept silent. What could I say? Or
should I have just bolted out of here? To what? And what about the three incidents I had just lived through? Or had I?

  Jane got up, adjusting her skirt elegantly, and walked around the office, a good-looking, middle class, sexy extraterrestrial—just like all of us, apparently.

  “This entire planet is a prison facility,” Jane paused and looked at me again, questioningly. I didn’t say a word. She continued, “Populated exclusively and only by convicts, duly convicted for their crimes in a court of law and sentenced to the worst punishment extant, the forever dead sentence, reserved exclusively for recidivists. The worst crimes there are warrant the nastiest form of a death sentence. It goes beyond simply killing the body as it involves permanently impairing the long-term memory of the condemned. They don’t remember who they really are and where they came from, so they can’t even get an idea of returning. They won’t ever go back. They’re destroyed and banished forever as spirits.”

  What a bunch of bull!I thought without conviction. “Do you have any evidence?” I asked. “Or am I supposed to just accept this idiocy without any proof?” “I don’t have any proof for you,” Jane shrugged. “Just look around, I suppose, the rampant criminality which permeates entire societies, the global politics, the current US administration. See if it rings true for you. Consider the past lives incidents you just remembered—to the degree that you trust them to be true.”

  “ No hard evidence?”

  “None.”

  I gave it some thought. “Okay, let’s hear all of it and I’ll ponder on it later. So, we are all criminals sentenced here in the court of law?”