by David Pugh
‘So, Remus, can you tell us anything you have learned from today?’ I asked my old friend.
‘I too have much to learn, my brother. I not understand what happening; you find spirit brother, I see mine, when find Rama, then know I know, like you.’
That was possibly the longest and most profound sentence I’d ever heard Remus speak.
‘We shall find him soon,’ I reassured the palm tapper, ‘look how we found this lady here, our sister, Subhadra.’
We stood up washed off the ritual signs and patterns, put on our clothes and in some semblance of lucidity walked down the corridor and climbed the shaft into the sunrise.
‘Have you been up here all night?’ I asked a grumpy Om Pekesh.
‘Yes, I have!’ he snapped, ‘I am too old for camping out, good thing I had my army sleeping bag.’
‘Where’s Papu?’ I enquired.
Om pointed at a high rock, where Papu was greeting the dawn, in what seemed to be a trance state.
‘He came up an hour ago,’ the kingmaker continued, ‘I suppose we’ll have to wait for him to come down; he drank something, what was it?’
‘You don’t want to know!’ I laughed and Shizuko giggled.
The day warmed while we waited for the priest, after about two hours he came down the hill, smiling like Moses descending from Mt Sinai.
‘Well, what have you learned?’ I asked the priest.
‘We have to find Ramachiranjiv to complete the transformation of you three,’ Papu replied.
‘So where do we find him?’ Om Pekesh enquired.
‘Rishikesh,’ the priest replied.
‘Your vision told you that?’ I enquired.
‘Oh, no need of visions,’ the Brahmin smiled, ‘my sources at the Jagannath Dham told me days ago.’
Chapter 84: The Angel of the Kalinga Utkal Express
Jeffrey’s Journal Continued
It was decided that Remus, Shizuko and I would embark on the forty-eight-hour train ride to Haridwar, spend one night there, and in the morning take the local train to downtown Rishikesh. The idea was that the three of us could talk about how we were to present ourselves to the world. As I was the one who had the most experience in this mystic universe and the dream of world harmony we were intending to sell to people, I began making notes, while the other two shot questions at me. We had booked a four-berth first-class private carriage, so I was about to shout at the person who was sliding our door open. We had already had our tickets checked, the bedding for two nights delivered and meal orders taken. I froze mid-sentence and welcomed the person in,
‘I really didn’t expect to see you on a train,’ Remus was open-mouthed.
‘God!’ was all Remus could manage.
‘Just Issa, please,’ the smiling visitor greeted us with a nod, especially towards Shizuko.
‘Is this your younger brother?’ she asked me, she was obviously seeing him as the 1970s bearded hippie.
‘Oh, he’s even closer than a brother,’ I assured her, ‘he could well be the real me.’
Shizuko looked a little baffled, ‘Well, he’s welcome if he can make sense of what’s happening to us; I’m still a bit lost.’
‘In that case, Ms Ichigo,’ Issa’s smile beamed at her, ‘Let me bring in someone who knows you really well.’
‘Wait a minute; this is only a four-berth cabin,’ I said.
‘This lady is quite small and will be very happy to share with Shizuko,’ Issa slid the door back and guided a slight young Japanese woman into the cabin, ‘She has waited all her life to speak to her mother.’
There was an electric tension in the small room; Shizuko was backing into the corner of her top bunk, fear racking her body, that sort of fear that grips you when think you’ve seen a ghost.
‘No, no!’ she screamed, ‘It’s not possible,’ she was more than terrified, ‘Please take her away; it’s not possible, you do not exist!’
Issa tried to calm her by saying, ‘But you recognise Tenshi Tengoku, she was part of you for eight weeks, you have an eternal bond.’
‘No! No, I’m sorry, it was all a mistake, I’m sorry! Sorry!’ Shizuko was petrified.
It was safe to say that I was panic-stricken too, of all the utterly strange things I had learned and witnessed in the previous years, nothing had prepared me for this. The young woman climbed the bunk bed ladder and crawled like a baby towards the sobbing older woman. It truly was like a scene from a Japanese ghost movie.
Tenshi stroked her mother’s head, ‘There, there,’ she said in Japanese, ‘You have given me a beautiful life, more beautiful than if you had given birth to me; I have lived a life among the stars.’
Somehow her words were translating in my head, in this universal language Issa had spoken about. I learned that Tenshi’s conception had taken place as a result of a burst condom, during a Dora Yaki film shoot; her father was the director and co-star. Shizuko said she wasn’t prepared for raising her child in what was just the beginning of a successful career in the pornography industry, it just didn’t seem right to her. When a scan revealed a major birth defect, she decided that termination was the only option for her; she wasn’t ready to be the mother of a normal child, less so a child that would need constant attention and countless years of surgical intervention along with a life of pain.
‘I’m here to tell you that I love you,’ the Star Child stroked her mother’s face, ‘You gave me the gift of Cosmic Life, you know my name translates as Angel Heaven; well, that is what I became.’
Tenshi was speaking to us all, inside our heads in this language that is more like pure thought and concept. She told us that at seven weeks her pineal gland developed and dimethyltryptamine began to be made. This is the time when the dead are invited into the new life form that is being created, the forty-nine days spoken of in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The young foetus’ first recollection was of the faces gazing at her, asking permission to enter her consciousness; the tiny creature reviewed them all. Then the choice was made for her, suddenly she was among the stars, the hardware of the organic computer that creates all thought and being. She saw it was so beautiful, that all she desired was to be part of the cosmic software.
Here on the train she saw the pain that her mother was going through and reached out to her, reassuring her that her child was happy beyond the imagining of the so-called real world. The Star Child then touched Shizuko’s pineal gland with her cosmic finger and a surge of unimaginable happiness filled her mother, taking every trace of guilt away.
Shizuko was now beaming, full of the joy of this divine moment and the love of all existence flowed through the two women, bringing happiness to all in the speeding carriage, along the corridors and throughout the train. If anyone viewed the train as it hurtled through the darkness of the Indian night, they may well have seen it glowing and would have believed that Kali herself had boarded her express.
I found myself hugging Issa, now in the form of my young sickly self, and for a moment we became one in our appearance, the strong middle-aged man I should have loved to have been but never was. At this moment it was reaffirmed to me that age was an irrelevance, time did not matter, happiness ageless. Issa then broke away from me,
‘Your friend is having a problem, amidst all this happiness,’ Issa told me, ‘ask Remus to voice his worry.’
‘Jeffrey, my brother,’ the Gambian was looking shame-faced but continued, ‘Dream sex in cave temple, I tell you I fuck Dora Yaki, I not see her young like you.’
Remus was almost ashen, ‘I no fuck Dora Yaki, no fuck Shizuko, I fuck that girl!’
All eyes were on Tenshi Tengoku, a silence filled the small compartment and even Issa seemed lost for words.
Chapter 85: The Dreams Beyond Philosophy
The shock of Remus’ revelation stunned us all; something like dread filled the compartment. Tenshi gave Remus a cheeky little wave, while holding on to her stunned mother.
‘I don’t understand this?’ Issa looked shocked, wh
ich really worried me.
‘Wait, wait, you don’t know about this?’ I looked searingly at the man who was supposed to know everything.
‘I can’t be everywhere, despite what you believe,’ Issa was looking confused, I never imagined I would see an expression like this on his face, ‘Imagine channel surfing countless billions of TV stations, then you might understand how we, the Chosen Ones, have to work!’
‘Tell us, girl, what made you play this trick on your mother?’ Issa questioned Tenshi, ‘It is not our place to interfere like this!’
Issa asked her to pause before answering, he could see that we three new Chosen Ones were in different states of confusion.
He explained that the tiny Tenshi had been taken from her mother’s body and placed in the Cosmic Incubator, where chosen foetuses were nourished. Inside this universal womb, where all humanity began, any birth defects were corrected. The child was raised and educated in what was close to what humans consider real time. Occasionally, the Star Child was allowed to walk the streets of what should have been her human birth environment. She had often visited her grandmother, who had made an instant bond with the girl she thought an orphan child and looked forward to her visits.
‘I loved Obaasan, she used to tell me about what you were like when you were a little girl,’ Tenshi told her weeping mother.
‘When I was a young teen I sneaked into some of your film sets Kaachan,’ the Star Child giggled, ‘It was so funny seeing some of the things you did, but I was always being chased out, the crew couldn’t understand how a child kept getting in.’
‘I heard the story about the naughty child from the technicians,’ Shizuko looked a little embarrassed, something she rarely felt, ‘What must you have thought?’
‘I wanted to try those things, they looked fun!’ the angel replied, ‘You see in our astral bodies we don’t really do the wet things, we have no need to eat and drink but come to your plane to experience what it is like.’
‘So you visited your Obaasan; I wish I had been there, would I have recognised you?’ Shizuko was feeling a strong sense of love for her newly discovered child.
‘Yes, you would have known me,’ the angel hugged her mother, ‘Just like you know that what you are hearing tonight is true, I couldn’t have met you then, as the cosmic balance might have tilted, now you are prepared.’
‘But you endangered the equilibrium by interfering in your mother’s inception into our realm, Tenshi,’ Issa looked stern; something dark was disturbing him, ‘What made you do it?’
Tenshi addressed herself directly to her mother, ‘As I grew up I visited Oita often, to learn what life would have been like for me had I had a normal birth. As I became a teenager I began to have affairs with boys and girls I liked, so many popular songs are about falling in love with an angel. It was only recently that I met this nice cosmic couple; they were the first of us that I had met who were in a relationship. I thought we had to remain solo entities, so I was intrigued by their love for each other. I visited them often; they had this otherworldly palace in the Negev Desert, built on a high ridge. From there it looks like you can see the entire world, and they were so wealthy in human terms, it felt as if they owned everything they could see.’
‘I know this place, my soul twin was tempted there,’ Issa was looking very concerned.
Tenshi continued, ‘It is so easy for us to travel anywhere on this planet, we could go to Rishikesh now to greet your train, but Issa said we had to find a space to talk and help the three of you develop as Chosen Ones.’
‘Get back to the palace, Tenshi, from what Issa has told me I’m guessing I know who this couple is,’ I was feeling very apprehensive about what I might hear.
‘I thought them so charming,’ the girl was still cuddling her mother, ‘they seem to have their own rules of cosmic existence, telling me that I like them was superhuman; I’d never thought like that. They had servants most of whom adored them but on my last visit they had a guest staying there. This was the first time I had thought of the concept of friendship; we are shown to be complete in ourselves, friendship being a human need. This guest looked like an African man who appeared to be charming, a new arrival in our realm they said. I didn’t like this being at first, but he was kind enough to me, until he tried to put his hand up my skirt, I was so shocked. I was fascinated by human sexuality, when we are in our astral form we just don’t think about it; it’s the game people play and it is fun when you are in human form. The couple had what you can imagine as a huge 3D widescreen TV, we don’t need such devices as we can see what we choose and go where we choose; it is part of the beauty of our existence. On the screen was the scene of you three in the temple cave, the couple and the black man were getting some form of entertainment, watching your initiation taking place. I felt uncomfortable, some people see angels as cosmic voyeurs but I’d never experienced Cosmic Sex and found myself, for want of better words, turned on. The African pointed at Remus here and said that they had once been friends in the dream world. He asked if I had had sex with a black man in human realm; I hadn’t and he suggested I take on the guise of my young mother, when she was Dora Yaki. He called it Cosmic Cosplay and it sounded fun, Kaachan was with Jeffrey and suddenly I found myself next to Remus in a pink schoolgirl uniform. He’d never seen Dora Yaki, so I could have Cosmic Sex with him as myself, it was fun but I was left confused as to why I agreed to do this, now I feel seduced but not by Remus, here but by that other black man.’
‘I don’t understand, I did have sex with Remus,’ the shocked mother looked at her child, ‘I had his semen inside me!’
‘I merged with you, mother, and as I am a part of you, you didn’t notice,’ Tenshi looked a little guilty.
‘Damn it, Issa, this is not right!’ I was angry for the first time in many months, ‘I know who that couple were and who the evil black bastard is!’
Remus was repeating, ‘God no! God no! Not be!’
‘Yes, Jeffrey, you know and I’m sorry I missed this,’ Issa was feeling a sense of failure for the first time in possibly a thousand years, ‘Ananias and Sapphira are still looking for their revenge on humankind, but somehow the spirit of your Bob Jatta has joined with them.’
‘What do you mean, somehow?’ I was angry with my spirit guide, ‘You are supposed to be omniscient, that’s why people turn to you!’
‘They don’t turn to me, remember I stayed behind and let my other self to go through a human death,’ I could never imagine seeing Issa like this, he looked frail, ‘I felt so guilty the day he died that I took on his pain, Jeffrey, you’ve never questioned me about these scars.’
Issa showed me the palms of his hands and indicated his bare feet. It was true I hadn’t really noticed as my gaze was always drawn to his beautiful face.
‘The day my twin died it was as if his body returned into mine, and it was at that moment when we became one again, that I became a Chosen One and was given the Holy Spirit power,’ Issa lifted his shirt to show me the scar from the spear.
I touched the old wound and more knowledge entered me, ‘So it was you, the Issa I now see, who returned to Jerusalem and appeared to Mary and the disciples.’
‘Yes,’ Issa replied, ‘I brought the Holy Spirit to the remaining apostles but they were not ready to become Chosen Ones, they were in fear for their mortal lives.’
‘Even though they had been so close to Jesus they never really understood his message,’ Issa explained that though they were basically good men, they had little education in other religions and their understanding had come through the veil drawn by Judaism. The disciples never learned how to use the immense power they had been given and Peter had abused it when he turned the Cosmic Spirit on Ananias and Sapphira.
‘The Jatta man has discovered some similar source of immense power; he has become an agent of the Void, and the last thing he wants is you three preaching universal peace,’ Issa then told us that he had to leave but the girl should stay to watch our backs.
Chapter 86: The School for Stolen Children
‘Jeffrey, Bob Jatta alive?’ Remus looked deeply troubled.
‘I think Ms Tengoku should answer that question,’ I looked to the girl for a reply.