I’m not leaving the trap. I’m resisting the energy. I’m fighting. I’m angry. I feel betrayed!
I sense my non-verbalized thoughts at the time.
Why did they have to ruin it! It was so fun!
Suddenly I feel surrounded and enclosed within something. At the time it was a new sensation— that of being surrounded by something. And strangely enough the ingredient of curiosity enters in and holds me there in that position in the trap.
But my emotion becomes harsher because I don’t want to be here now, but this thing seems to hold me here. I realize another new sensation, this time it is the sensation of claustrophobia.
As I recount the incident in my mind, I know what has happened. An energy mirror has been placed around me. And yet, at the time I did not know. I had no idea.
I feel a differentiation between myself in the present and myself in the past. Like a high voltage wire has been strung between me in this trap so many many eons ago and me here in the present holding on to Espree’s hand.
I feel my power! I had such incredible power then! I feel myself pushing against this thing that seems to be surrounding me. I explode an impulse of energy outward in anger – with a force that must be enough to explode a star—even a galaxy!
“Oh, my god!”
The force comes back at me with equal intensity!
“Oh no!”
I know what has happened, but at the time I did not. The force was my own energy reflected back at me.
“I thought it was from another source! But it was me!”
And I realize the diabolical, insidious genius of this trap. That was the lie―a lie that there was something more powerful, something superior to me. If something is superior, then you become subject to it. It becomes your master—and therefore you become its slave.
I feel the anger. I feel myself pushing harder and harder against it and each time I feel the force coming back harder. I push again and again as my anger growing more and more intense.
I do not know how long I fought—maybe hours, maybe years, time was so insignificant then. Eventually I feel my anger begin to wane and new thoughts begin to pervade my consciousness―thoughts I had never experienced before. I begin to believe I cannot win!
I feel fear. I am afraid. There seems to be a force out there that I cannot overcome―a mystery out there that I cannot understand.
“This is the first time! The first time I lost control. The first time I doubted myself.”
I doubted myself. Only then was I trapped―trapped in a mystery.
I feel myself giving in, succumbing to the trap. The fear has descended into grief and the grief has become apathy.
I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to fight anymore because I can’t seem to win.
“Look at the trap Tim. Look at it directly, just the trap. You can do it.”
I suddenly remember the previous incident with the Mind Fabricator—the time I descended into that terrible state of hopelessness. I’m doing it again now and it’s become a pattern—one that has been repeated over and over again since the beginning of time—the beginning of my time.
“Look at it directly please,” says Espree.
I turn my attention to the incident —to the energy, just the energy, because that was all it was about, energy. I feel it. It is just energy.
FRRROOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!
I’ve never been hit by a nuclear blast, but I imagine this is the feeling. But amazingly enough it does not actually hit me. I WAS THE ONE THAT CREATED IT. You can’t get hit by something you created! A gun can’t shot itself—if it actually shoots.
And the damn breaks. If ever a damn broke, this was the damn. If ever the phrase “my life passed before my eyes” was an understatement, this understated it, because my LIVES passed before my eyes. Right then, at that moment millions of lives passed before my eyes. And the term “fission” never had a more appropriate meaning.
The energy mirror around me is disintegrating. Each weld that was created in the Mind Fabricator, in its turn bursts into a nothing. The light display in the spirit trap had nothing on this display. Imagine yourself sitting in the middle of a galaxy, dense with billions of stars. Imagine each stat exploding into nothing, rapidly, all around you in a grand disintegration show. And imagine each star—as it explodes—returning all of its power and all of its life to you.
And it doesn’t matter what each one means. It doesn’t matter what each implantation created in the Mind Fabricator means—because everything, EVERYTHING is based upon one thing:
The resistance you created when you were zapped in the Spirit Trap and everything since then has been a response to the problem created by the Spirit Trap—which created more problems, which created more responses and on and on for the last umpteen billion years.
EVERYTHING has been a solution to the Spirit Trap―SINCE the Spirit Trap.
Now there is no Spirit Trap, and I no longer need to solve the problem.
“Oh my god!” I say. I feel myself separating from the incident of the Spirit Trap. It falls away from my consciousness and I realize I am here, back in present time with Espree. I am no longer in the trap. I am no longer fighting, I am just here!
I stare at Espree. “UNTIL THIS VERY MOMENT—THROUGH THE EONS OF TIME, CONTINUOUSLY AND CONSTANTLY―I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING THIS!”
I see an uncertain look on Espree’s face.
She’s looking at my body.
And I’m not there.
I see Espree looking at the direction of my body, but I am above, and to the side and I’m laughing. She looks up and locates me.
“Oh my god! You did it!”
“WE did it.”
“I look down at my body. How do you operate these things? I can’t seem to find any of the controls!”
Espree is laughing! She knows exactly what I mean.
“Just permeate it Tim. You’ll find them again.”
I move myself into the body and permeate its space. OK, I’m getting it. Just move it. Don’t use the muscles, that’s too confusing; just place a thought on the body part and that tell it what to do.
The big fat smile on my face is silly, but I don’t care. I park myself behind my eyeballs and look out.
That’s better.
I look at Espree. She is as bright as she has ever looked.
She smiles and leans forward. “How does it feel Tim? Does it feel familiar, or strange?”
I consider that, “It’s familiar!
“And do you know what’s wild? This trap I have been in for such a long time seems completely unfamiliar. Like a strange set of circumstances from some distant past.”
“What happened Tim?”
“I saw how it all begins. I realized that I have been engaged in this fight since it began however millions, billions, whatever years ago. I have been fighting, resisting, struggling ever since! And I did not know I was fighting! BUT I WAS!
A part of my being was enmeshed in a fight and has been going on ever since! Do you realize how much energy I have been devoting to this? How much of my very being has been involved and consumed in fighting this fight that began when I first entered the Spirit Trap!!!”
“Listen to me Espree. You must understand this. It was my fault—my responsibility. You had nothing to do with it.”
I look at Espree and I am happy. I see that eons of blame, eons of “responsibility’ and regret have been taken off her shoulders.
And I see the tears begin to well in her eyes as the burden is released.
No words are necessary now.
We both fall into each others’ arms, laughing and sobbing at the same time.
I don’t know which is better, becoming released from the influence of the Spirit Trappers or the happiness I feel for Espree’s release from our burden.
I think it is the latter.
Espree smiles.
“Would you like to take a stroll around my universe? Just for a little while?”
“Lead the way.
’
We both sit back in our chairs and smile, our eyes go blank and we are gone.
CHAPTER 26
A SECOND LATER…
Doyle and Turse are arguing as usual.
“Why ya have to be so pessimistic Doyle, we’re doing fine,” says Turse for the 2000th time.
Doyle is about to open his mouth and retort for the 2001st time but something just happened―something real strange.
His mouth opens, his finger raises to its patronizing position and stops beside his open mouth. His ridge slowly deflates and falls over.
Something happened.
Suddenly this is all so petty.
He smiles and turns his attention to the room, looking around him―as if he’d never noticed the room before. Maybe he hasn’t.
“What are we doing here Turse?”
“Huh?”
“What are we doing?”
“Well, uh, well we’re trappin?” says Turse more as a question―he really isn’t sure.
Doyle looks at the big sphere, then at the display screen showing a false image of the trap zone.
“There’s nothing there.” He says nodding at the display.
“Whatdaya mean there’s nothing there?”
“There’s nothing there Turse,” says Doyle, chuckling.
Turse is confused. Doyle is acting like he’s been smoking too much snarf. He’s goofy.
“How can you tell there’s nothin’ there, we haven’t even turned it on….”
“It’s over Turse. It’s over.”
“What’s over?”
“There’s no more EHF―or whatever it is, or was. There’s nothin’ to trap. Let’s go home.”
“I don’t wanna go home Turse. Like you was sayin’ we can’t leave until we got a full load. What the heck’s wrong with you anyway?”
Doyle strolls over to the control seat on the Bridge and sits down, swiveling around to the controls.
“I’m gonna take that job on Ethrana,” he says over his shoulder.
“Whadaya mean? You mean that delivery route?”
Now Turse stops arguing and for the first time in his whole life, he turns a light shade of green, his ridge flops over and he relaxes.
“Ya know, my cousin has a good job on Arlongian and he did say they’re hiring…”
Doyle glows happy and flips a switch. The trap display goes dark and the globe goes dim.
Doyle fires the engines and sets a course for home.
250 light years away Trap Ship 48890-1C-01992-J is fully lit.
That’s what they say when the trap is sprung and the trappers are gathered around the globe setting their mirrors. In this case there are 4 trappers seated at the controls frantically working the joysticks to place the mirrors. The globe is filled with hundreds of glowing dots marking the locations of the spirits in the trap zone.
The dots suddenly disappear.
The trappers stop and stare.
“What the heck…”
The same thing happens simultaneously with the 28 million other Trap Ships.
The remaining 16.5 billion ships will detect no EHF showing in any of their globes when they spring their traps.
Word will spread like wildfire throughout the universe. The price of EHF will rise to astronomical heights, but none will be found. The robot market will boom, the economy is destined to plunge into chaos.
At least for a while.
I know what happened. It’s not that I did anything, but something did happen to me.
The energy mirror that surrounded me is gone and the circuitry that it held in place has disintegrated.
Apparently this phenomenon is not an individual thing—it’s a group thing. Like an evil cancer, the mechanisms of the Spirit Trap and the Mind Fabricator are interwoven into the very fabric of this universe.
But a spirit is not woven into the fabric. A free spirit is not IN this universe. Their space is everywhere and anywhere—undefined by physical barriers such as matter and space, therefore their knowingness is everywhere. Now that I have discovered the mechanism of the Spirit Trap, it has somehow become known to all.
And when a spirit enters this universe it will now know about such traps—because I do.
I understand and therefore we all understand. We are all a part of a knowingness, until we become isolated and “individual” by being located in an area by such things as an energy mirror. We are not unaware of each others’ thoughts unless we are forced to hide.
When I discovered the truth, we all did—all the free spirits―because we are not closed in and individuated. Now they all know and no spirit will ever be confused and suppressed by the energy mirror and they will never fall for the Spirit Trap.
That is the good news.
Here’s the bad news―unfortunately for you.
Those who have been trapped are still trapped. They are still encased in the mystery of the energy mirror and the circuitry installed by the Mind Fabricator. They cannot see the trap or the Mechanical Mind. They think they are a body that thinks with a brain.
As Espree and I have learned, you cannot tell another the truth and free them. They must discover it for themselves.
If you are reading this, you are still isolated into a mirror, in a mind, in a brain in a body, confined to a planet, introverted and enmeshed into this physical universe.
And you must be helped. You too must be freed. I have realized that until you are, I will never be free—I am part of you and you are a part of me—and we will remain trapped as long as one of us still exists within the confines of a body, trapped in a Mechanical Mind.
And now I know my purpose. We know, Espree and I.
As Espree showed me how to discover the truth, that is now what I must do for all of you.
I will be in touch.
THE END
Total Amnesia: Forgotten Lives Page 22