Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

“He isn’t going to paint any escapes today for any of you,” Morrell said. “I can guarantee that. He’s escaped from jails and prisons all over the world, and I’m sure he could slip out of this one with no problem, but he has never taken any inmates with him. He has some very definite ideas about that. So don’t even begin thinking along those lines. No, this man is a magician who can escape from anything, handcuffs, chains; he’s been known to even seem to walk through solid walls. He says it’s all a trick, a secret only he knows. Other people say he has a magic power. You’ll have to figure that out yourselves. I don’t think he is going to escape from anything today.”

  Morrell turned around to look at me, and I shook my head. He turned back to the crowd.

  Morrell went on: “Not today. Today he’s going to entertain you with some other kind of magic tricks. I don’t know what they are. He wouldn’t tell us a thing. He’s very mysterious, and I know he’s going to fool you, because, like the man says, ‘The hand is quicker than the eye!’ All right, you mugs— settle down and quit spitting tobacco. Straighten up and show some respect. This man has performed for the kings of Europe and Presidents. He’s somebody, and could lick any of you. Here he is: Harry Houdini.”

  It was a good introduction, and one I wasn’t expecting. I stepped forward to big, solid applause from the inmates. They were ‘with’ me, and this was Morrell’s doing. I had watched him as he spoke to the crowd. He spoke simply, straightforwardly, with no theatrical or rhetorical flourishes. But I have never seen an orator before or since hold a crowd in control as I saw Morrell hold that crowd of inmates that day. Yes, there were those who shouted out at him, but they were just getting in on the act. Morrell had the respect of all those hardened criminals. I later found out that he was known to them all. Those who did not know him from his time as an inmate had heard about him from those who did know him. He was a much bigger legend among those men than I could ever hope to be anywhere else. As we say in the show business, he was ‘a tough act to follow’. I began:

  “Good day, men. I want to thank Warden Tompkins and Ed Morrell for bringing me here today and making such fine speeches and introductions. I usually perform on an elaborate stage with many props and assistants. But a good magician is supposed to be able to perform anywhere, so today I’m going to try to be a good magician. I know you fellows don’t get much in the way of entertainment, so I hope my show will bring a little interest to your day.

  “I bet a lot of you fellows got in here by trying to get something for nothing. Well, you can’t get something for nothing by crime, not in the long run, as all of you should know by now, but if you know how to use a little magic, you can get something for nothing, and that’s what I want to show you today.”

  I took off my coat and hat and handed them to Jack.

  “Thanks, Jack. Oh, by the way, fellows, this is Jack London, here, the famous Jack London who wrote Call of the Wild.”

  Jack took a bow to the applause of the inmates.

  “He’s just written a book based on Ed Morrell here. It’s called Star Rover. It’s an interesting book, I’ve just finished reading it, and it was good. Do you have a copy of it in your prison library, Warden?”

  “Yes, we do,” Warden Johnston said.

  “That’s good. Now, I’m going to roll up my sleeves, so you can see there’s nothing hidden.

  “You know, money is a very mysterious thing. When we need it most, it seems to disappear right out of our hands. But if we just use a little magic— a little hocus pocus— like this—“

  I waved my hand in the air.

  “Money will come to us— like this.”

  I reached out with my right hand and plucked a solid gold coin— a double eagle— out of the air.

  “And like this—“

  I plucked another gold coin out of the air with my left hand. I held both coins up for all to see.

  “That’s one way to do it,” I said, dropping the coin in my left hand into my right.

  “Let me have my hat, Jack.”

  Jack held out my hat and I took it in my empty left hand. I dropped the two gold coins into the hat.

  “That’s one way to do it. Here’s another.”

  I reached up into the air, showing my empty hand, grabbed at nothing, and then opened my palm over my hat. A cascade of gold coins tumbled down from my right palm. The crowd of inmates broke into applause.

  “That’s Niagara Falls. I do that whenever I run up a big bill.”

  The inmates laughed loudly. I pocketed the coins, and went over to Jack and got my coat and put it back on.

  “Now I’ve been known in my day to play a few hands of poker. I’ve never cheated.”

  I looked away and paused. The inmates hooted and laughed.

  “What? Do you mean to say you think I would stoop so low as to cheat? Oh, no. Never. I only do magic, and magic is not cheating. That’s right. I always tell the people I’m playing with that I’m a magician. Sometimes they don’t believe me, but they do after they see all their money disappear.”

  I got a big laugh on that one. I had my coat back on.

  “Of course, to play cards, you need cards. Even a green mark knows that.”

  I looked down at one of the inmates. All the other men started laughing and jeering.

  “Settle down!” the guard shouted over the megaphone.

  “So, if I can’t get a deck of cards any other way, I just use magic— like this.”

  I held up my right hand and showed my empty palm, and then turned my hand over and showed the back of my hand and knuckles.

  “Nothing there— or so it seems!”

  I turned my hand over. A full deck of cards opened in my hand into a fan.

  “Ah, there they are!”

  I turned my hand over and closed the deck. I turned my hand around and showed my palm empty again.

  “Well, they were here.”

  I turned my hand back over and then opened it again. A card appeared between my fingertips.

  “There’s one of them.”

  I dropped the card into my hat.

  “And another.”

  Another card swung up in my fingers. I dropped it into my hat as well. I began plucking a succession of cards from the air and dropping them into my hat. I finally stopped and looked down into my hat.

  “Maybe that’s enough cards for a game. Let’s see.”

  I swept my hat out toward the crowd, showing them that the interior of the hat’s crown was empty. The inmates applauded. I put on my hat and held up my empty palms.

  “Not even one card?”

  I pulled a card from the air again and held it up.

  “Well, there’s one, at least. What can we do with one card? It’s not enough for a game. What else can we do with one card? You know, I’ve flown airplanes in various parts of the world, and sometimes I’ve wondered if I could make a playing card fly. Think a playing card could fly?”

  The inmates all shouted “No!”

  “Well, then, what do you say to this?”

  I tossed the playing card out into the air. It sailed in a great arc over the heads of the inmates and then returned to my hand.

  “That’s it. You can applaud now.”

  The crowd broke into applause.

  “That’s called the ‘boom-a-rang’. I learned that from an Australian Aborigine. He came to watch me fly my plane and he said his people had been doing that for years with sticks, and he showed me how to fly a boom-a-rang stick. And then I showed him how to fly a playing card. I must’ve shown him too well, for later I played poker with him and he kept coming up with four aces. He must’ve been doing some boom-a-ranging there, I think.”

  That got more laughter.

  “You know, people think all I ever do is escape from boxes and chains and other forms of confinement, but I started out my career making silks appear from no where— like this.”

  I began pulling a chain of silks from my closed fists, each one a different, bright color. I let all the silks
fall to the floor of the platform in a heap.

  “I call that one ‘Noah’s Flood.’”

  The inmates applauded.

  I picked up the silks in a single bunch, shook them, and spun the whole bundle in a circle. Suddenly they transformed into a single, giant rainbow-striped silk.

  “And that’s the rainbow after the Flood.”

  I folded up the rainbow silk, and then snapped it apart. Out of the folds two white pigeons flew out into the air and over the heads of the inmates.

  “And that’s the doves Noah sent out.”

  The inmates applauded loudly. The two doves— my pet white pigeons Nip and Tuck— circled above the crowd and then each of them landed on one of my shoulders. I took them in my hands and bowed. Warden Johnston came forward applauding. I said quietly to the Warden:

  “I have more tricks, but this is the place for me to quit. Keep ‘em wanting more.”

  “Very good,” Johnston said.

  Johnston stepped forward, and I stepped back.

  “That’s it, men. That’s the show. Let’s give another round of applause to our guests today, Ed Morrell, Jack London, and Harry Houdini!”

  The inmates applauded even louder and whistled. Everyone in our group on the platform began moving down the steps and through the door on the side. While no one was looking, I slipped Nip and Tuck into their loads hidden inside my coat.

  Morrell walked alongside Johnston, and said to him, “I’d like to show Jack and Houdini the dungeon.”

  “Sure you want to go back down there?” Johnston asked.

  “I don’t want to go down there, but I think they need to see it,” Morrell said.

  “Well,” Johnston said, “I can arrange it. Why don’t you all wait here in this room while I check with the guards.”

  “All right,” Morrell said.

  Morrell, Jack, and I went into a room down the hall from the warden’s office. It was a records room, its walls lined with filing cabinets. We sat down at an oak table by a large window that looked out on the prison yard. Down below many of the inmates still stood in clusters or milled about the yard.

  Johnston stood at the door.

  Johnston said, “I’ll have a guard posted out here in the hall. If any of you need anything, just knock, and he’ll get it for you.”

  Johnston closed the door. I looked at Jack who gave me a nod, and then looked over to Morrell.

  “So what do you think you can do for me, Morrell?” I asked.

  “Maybe I can help you get rid of that muddy spot in your aura, or at least see what it’s all about. Jack told me that something bad happened to you last night.”

  “What did you tell him, Jack?” I asked.

  “Just that you had a shock to your system,” Jack said.

  “How much does he know about what we’re involved with?” I asked.

  “He knows about the time displacements on my ranch. That’s why I took an interest in Ed’s story. I had already begun to see through the philosophy of material monism. What I was experiencing on the ranch completed demolished that edifice. But I was lost and groping for answers and I despaired of finding any answers. And, in all honesty, I still grope for answers. But Ed has shown me a glimmering of a something that I had never fully recognized before, but I now know it was that old glory of youthful passion— when I harked to the call from over and beyond— that whispered me on to win to the mystery at the back of life and behind the stars.”

  I looked at Jack’s face. I had never seen him with that expression before, an expression of longing and frustrated hope, an expression of youth in a man in whom youth was fading. I looked over to Morrell.

  “Do you think you have the answers to life, Morrell?” I asked.

  “No big answers,” Morrell replied, “just little ones. I’m working on the little answers. That’s all I’m able to do.”

  “And you think you can remove the strain from this muscle in my neck,” I said.

  “It’s not really in the muscles of your neck,” Morrell said. “It just feels that way to you. It’s some kind of damage in your astral body, and you’re feeling it as a physical sensation.”

  “So how can you clear this up?” I asked.

  “Can you tell me what happened to you last night?” Morrell asked.

  I looked over to Jack.

  Jack said, “Ed can be trusted with your life. You can tell him anything about last night and he will never breathe a word to another living soul. I can guarantee that.”

  Morrell said, “I will keep your secrets, Houdini. I already know many of them.”

  I looked into Morrell’s eyes. A strange feeling came over me, a feeling of the familiar. Somehow I knew that Morrell knew things about me that no other person on earth knew, and, strangely, I felt that I knew things about him that no one else ever knew or ever would know. I knew that Morrell had it in him to be a killer, a cold-blooded killer. But I also knew that he had conquered that impulse within himself. He had conquered it with the help of some higher power, perhaps the power of God. I could see his triumph as a light in his eyes, a light of calm and peace— a peace I envied.

  “All right,” I said. “I will tell you what happened to me last night. You can never tell anyone else, unless I give you permission. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” Morrell said solemnly.

  I began telling Morrell what happened. I told him about the Martians, the human beings who inhabited the planet Mars and who were trying to invade our world by stealth. I told him about Nikola Tesla’s secret battle with the Martians. And then I told him about what happened to me the night before, how I encountered the bell-shaped object on the floor of the Pacific, how the fish-like head appeared above it and spoke to me, and how that head had tried to kill me by manipulating my breathing tube with electrostatic forces.

  “And afterwards,” I said, “I didn’t feel the same. I felt like I was in somebody else’s body. We did a test. We have a machine that can view and measure the etheric field of the human body. I was told that my etheric field is out of resonance with my electromagnetic field. We suspect that I have changed places with a duplicate version of myself in a parallel universe, another parallel track of time. That is, we think that my etheric body and my mind and soul are from another universe, that my mind has come from another universe. That’s it. That’s my story. What do you make of it, Morrell?”

  Ed Morrell shook his head. He stood up and looked out the window to the prison yard below.

  “I don’t know if I can help you,” Morrell said. “I have even more doubts, now that you’ve told me your situation. But I can tell you a few things about what’s been happening to you. Maybe you already know all of it, but I can tell you if you’re interested.”

  “Tell me what you know,” I said.

  “Have you ever heard of something called NYMZA?” Morrell asked.

  I sat very still.

  “What do you know about it?” I asked.

  “I learned about it in the days when I was an outlaw,” Morrell said. “NYMZA was a secret organization in the Sierra Nevada Mountains back about twenty or thirty years ago. They were the ones who set up the Aero Club, the fellows that built those airships. Some members of the Aero Club helped me and Evans escape the bounty hunters and they also knew some of the ranchers down in the valley who were killed at Mussel Slough. The fellows I knew from the Aero Club said that NYMZA had its central headquarters on Mars, and that they received information from Mars by some kind of direct, mental contact. One of the members I knew told me that he had discovered that a lot of the messages they had been getting from Mars were not from a good source, not what the other members thought it was. This fellow I knew had read a lot and studied a lot, and he had figured out what NYMZA really meant.”

  “What did it mean?” I asked.

  “It literally meant ‘Who? Slay!’” Morrell said.

  “’Who? Slay!’” I repeated. “What does that mean? It doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

>   “That member of the Aero Club had figured it out,” Morrell said. “He was a professor of ancient languages. He had studied Latin and Greek all his life, and he had also studied ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Mayan. This professor told me that NYMZA was a very ancient word that pre-dated all known languages, but that it had survived into ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Latin in somewhat altered forms. For example: nomen in Latin and onyma in Greek are the words from where we derive our English word name. But these Latin and Greek words were only derived from the older Egyptian nym which meant ‘who?’”

  “And all this from a man who can hardly read or write,” Jack said. “Can you believe it?”

  “This all is very interesting,” I said, “but it still doesn’t tell me what NYMZA means.”

  “The answer is found in the old languages,” Morrell said. “The word for ‘who?’ in Egyptian was related to several other words in that language that sounded the same.”

  “Homonyms,” Jack said.

  “That’s it,” Morrell said. “There were a number of words that all were pronounced something like nym, like the words for ‘sleep,’ ‘walk, stride’ ‘to do evil,’ ‘wrongdoer,’ ‘place of slaughter,’ ‘slaughterhouse,’ ‘execution,’ ‘chamber,’ ‘cellar.’”

  “All those ideas,” I asked, “how are they connected?”

  “They tell a story,” Morrell said, “a very ancient story.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “It’s all about the ancient gods who once ruled the earth,” Morrell said. “They weren’t human; they were different kinds of creatures. Some of them looked like they were half-man, half-fish, like that thing you saw last night. They were what you call an amphib— amphib—“

  “Amphibian,” Jack said.

  “That’s it,” Morrell said. “It was these beings who created our human ancestors. We are part them and part ape. The story in the Book of Genesis is a kind of mixed-up version of what really happened. The older stories in the Sumerian records tell a more accurate version. The Sumerians called these fish-men gods Annunaki— ‘Heavenly ones Fallen to Earth.’ They are the ones who interbred with humans at various stages of our ancestors’ development. Some of these fish-men gods were very evil. The fish-men fought a war among their own kind and subdued the evil ones among them. But these beings were so advanced in their knowledge that they could not be easily killed. If one of them was killed he would just immediately reincarnate again with a total, conscious recall of his previous life. So what the fish-men did was to confine the evil ones among them to a particular astral plane for all eternity. That’s why all those nym words in Egyptian mean things like ‘evil’ and ‘slaughterhouse’ and ‘cellar’. The evil ones or wrongdoers, nymi were put to ‘sleep’, nym, in a kind of ‘cellar’ which could also be likened to a ‘slaughterhouse,’ for although these evil beings continually ‘walk or stride’ in that place of confinement, they exist in a kind of living death. And should anyone ask about these evil beings who have been so confined in this living death, one can only reply ‘who?’ nym, for they are forgotten among the living because they have been slain, cut off from life— ‘who?’ nym?— don’t know who, because their names have been taken away from them and this has cut them off from life; they’ve been slain, cut— sa or za— thus, nymsa or NYMZA. The ‘n’ sound was represented by a wavy line, which means waves of energy, and the identity of a thing is its specific frequency wave of energy— that’s its name. The sound ‘m’ meant ‘incarnation’ and so nym meant ‘identity incarnated’— who one is, one’s true ‘name’. So then nymsa meant the ‘name’ ‘cut off’ or ‘slain’; whatever doesn’t have a name can’t incarnate in space and time, so— ‘who? slay!’ nymsa or NYMZA. And thus the word for ‘to veil, to cover brightness,’ nymsa, for the evil ones were associated with brightness, illumination, and the wisdom that comes from the stars, but this intelligence, this brightness of theirs has been veiled— cut off— in the astral plane.”