Gaia

by Jeff Gardiner

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hoarsely, before sniffing and clearing his throat.

  ‘You don’t need to apologise, my falcon. You only need to know that I love you and am here for you.’

  ‘I love you too, Ala.’

  We didn’t kiss. We didn’t need to. I knew he loved me and that was enough for me. It gave me all the strength I required. At that moment, I knew we had something bigger than our own private lives to worry about. I wanted to be strong and knew that I could do this better than Falco. And that was my epiphany.

  It wasn’t about Falco. It was about us. Together.

  Falco was on my wavelength.

  ‘I’ve been an idiot, Ala.’ He rubbed his red eyes with the heel of one palm.

  ‘No, no. Hush. Don’t be so hard on yourself—’

  ‘I let it take control of me. I thought I could do it alone. I thought I was awesome, but I’m not. I’m an idiotic little boy who’s frightened and alone. I can’t do this any more. I need you. I need Guy. I don’t know who Gaia is. I think I’ve made things worse – not better. All those people expect me to have the answers … but I don’t have any.’

  His voice broke and he went into another coughing fit.

  I caught him up again in my arms and rubbed his back.

  ‘Why is it up to me? Why do they look to me? I’m a nobody …’ He breathed heavily and cleared his throat.

  ‘Sh-sh-sh. Hush now. Don’t say that. You’re an amazing person. Look at all that you’ve achieved. You’ve done more in a few years than most do in their lifetime. Everybody is someone. You, more than most. Don’t let me hear you say these things.’

  He let me go and slumped onto a nearby rock; all his energy spent. His eyes closed and his head lolled involuntarily. I pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

  ‘Are you ready to go back now and face the world?’

  ‘I don’t have the energy to fly all that way across to Britain.’

  ‘No, of course. Well, we can be hypocrites just once and go by aeroplane. If we can just get to Reykjavik, I’ll make a few calls to Kerry and get a flight booked back to London. She can send us our passports or we’ll make some grovelling phone calls.’

  ‘Can you get me some food and we’ll set off for Reykjavik today. We can go slowly with lots of stops.’

  ‘Of course. I can get you fish, but if you fancy puffin then you’ll have to get that yourself.’

  He laughed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Something was beginning to bother me increasingly; when I caught fish, as Delphinus, or even insects or snails as Hoopoe, how could I be sure that I wasn’t killing a numen? With more and more people finding their spirit animals, it brought the issues of natural selection and food chains to mind with greater clarity. I thought sadly about Ceta and whether she’d one day be the victim of whale hunters, like her parents had been.

  Life was changing beyond our ability to keep up with the changes and to rationalise them in our minds, or into sensible new laws or ways of living.

  Having to ignore my fears, I caught more fish for us, and decided to cook it for us to enjoy a meal together as two people united facing a scary, unpredictable future. I wanted to appreciate this moment of calm and contentment before hurling ourselves back into whatever awaited us back in the real world.

  We got into Heathrow mid-morning and had a taxi pick us up directly from the plane and take us to the Gaia Headquarters in central London, where Luke worked and lived.

  Falco’s reappearance caused mayhem in the media, and he was followed around, as ever, by paparazzi and groupies.

  ‘I remember why I wanted to become a recluse now.’

  Luke visited his parents on a number of occasions. Each time he returned in a mood of sombre silence, and wouldn’t let me into his personal space – physically or mentally.

  ‘Let me come with you next time, Luke.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he muttered, refusing to even hug me before disappearing to his apartment. I respected his wish to be alone.

  Luke’s return was met with a mixed reaction. The vast majority gave him a hero’s welcome. He was the only one who could save us from natural disasters that continued to inflict various parts of the world. There were some in power who tried to push certain media outlets to demonise him, but the general public, on the whole, trusted Luke more than they trusted politicians and the media, both so obviously manipulated by the rich and those in power.

  With riots and civil disobedience continuing, Luke tried to speak out in an effort to stop violence or unnecessary unrest. Floods, earthquakes and freak storms became so common that most were not even mentioned as newsworthy any more.

  We decided to ignore the inevitable documentaries, news reports, Internet reactions and newspaper articles and editorials. We’d had enough of all that and it only made Luke miserable.

  I insisted he rest, while I spoke to Gaia’s governing body about Gene.

  ‘He’s disappeared off the face of the Earth,’ Hudor said with one eyebrow raised.

  ‘No doubt with a great deal of our money,’ Vriksha added wryly.

  ‘I wonder if he was working alone?’ I was only really mumbling my thought aloud.

  ‘Shall we leave the conspiracy theories to the media and the Internet geeks?’ Hudor said with a laugh.

  ‘But what if there is a group behind all this?’ Vriksha pre-empted my question.

  ‘Then they are bigger than us and better at hiding,’ Hudor replied.

  ‘Luke and I will go and speak to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary. We need to get the police to search for Gene. How the hell can someone just disappear off the face of the Earth?’ I narrowed my eyes.

  Hudor stood up. ‘Well, Luke managed to do it for a while.’

  I shrugged and conceded the point. ‘I’m still going to carry anti-wasp spray with me everywhere I go.’

  ‘What function do wasps serve anyway?’ Kerry asked.

  ‘I believe they are delicious fried in soy sauce and ginger,’ Vriksha replied. ‘At least, according to my Japanese friends who also insist that wasp larvae are even more delicious than caviar.’

  ‘Well, thanks for those excellent suggestions, Vriksha,’ I replied with a grin. ‘Make sure they are minuted and actioned for our next meeting.’

  Everyone laughed, far more than sounded natural. With everything that had happened we needed to laugh more than anything else.

  As Luke slept, my phone kept pinging alarming headlines at me:

  “‘Death toll in earthquake passes 10,000’;

  ‘Time is running out, say leading scientists’;

  ‘Rising sea levels leave millions homeless’;

  ‘Eco-refugee crisis’;

  ‘Armageddon that feelin’ we’re all gonna die!’;

  ‘The effects of global warming: malnutrition, malaria, water shortage’;

  ‘Goodbye cruel world’”

  ‘Gaia is certainly redressing the balance, don’t you think?’ Hudor said.

  ‘In the only way she knows how,’ I replied. ‘We caused this mess, so we deserve what’s coming to us.’

  ‘Is she trying to destroy the whole planet? Or just killing off humanity?’

  ‘She surely wouldn’t kill all innocent creatures? There’s only one species that’s guilty of destruction on this scale.’

  ‘Like Noah’s flood all over again – but with a twist.’

  ‘Although Gaia is not an angry god,’ I insisted. ‘But it seems a good plan to wipe the slate clean and start again.’

  ‘No, I agree,’ Hudor said, nodding. ‘Gaia does not feel the ridiculous jealousies and anger that we humans experience. She looks at things in quite a different way. Much more … long-term, would you say?’

  ‘Yes. Most ecological problems are resolved over time with tiny adjustments. Humans have changed things too quickly and now drastic measures are the only answer.’

  ‘Your word “adjustment” is quite right, my dear. It’s better than “punishment”. Gai
a just is. We must not make the mistake of thinking of her like some malevolent god or spirit.’

  ‘True, Hudor. Gaia just is. She has done nothing wrong. We have.’

  The door opened and we both spun around as the figure of a young man entered into the room.

  ‘And now we’ve pushed things too far.’

  Luke stopped and stood still; upright and impressive. A boy beyond his years, seemingly unaffected by the craziness of what his life had become.

  ‘I think I understand now how to find Gaia.’

  Hudor looked at me and then nodded. ‘Go on.’

  Luke held out his hands towards us.

  ‘We’ve been out there taking a lead and guiding people. Don’t get me wrong – none of that work is wasted. It’s just that we can’t do this on our own. Not me. Not you. It will take us all. Together.’

  I stepped forward and took his right hand, and immediately got a strong sense of becoming someone other than myself. Luke’s thoughts and personality were, at first, alien and uncomfortable, but I quickly became familiar with them. Could he read my thoughts and feelings too? My instincts and awareness were somehow … broader than before – less limited.

  And then Hudor invaded my consciousness. He had combined with us until my understanding of Hudor was as complete as that of myself and of Luke. I breathed with and for them, and our hearts pumped the same blood. Hudor’s fears and joys were mine. I spoke with Luke’s voice.

  In this strange trinity I felt stronger: resilient and powerful, with more energy and focus. I understood things clearly that I hadn’t before. The collective knowledge and learning of three minds, plus the instincts from our different numens.

  I wonder if it still works after transformation. I think these were my words. It was hard to say. I certainly thought them, but were they my thoughts?

  The idea of changing turned into reality as we transformed together. Not into our animal shapes at all, but something resembling light and darkness, sound and silence, form and formlessness. We became something completely other; utterly incomprehensible. And yet it made total sense. We completed each other.

  At that moment – and I had no way of measuring time – we inhabited an entirely different plane of existence. The sense of place was as ambiguous as my sense of identity. We were nowhere and everywhere. Time did not tick along in a linear fashion. It neither ran nor stopped. Perhaps the best way I can explain it is that in that moment of life – however long it was in human, normal terms – place and time were unidentifiable. They didn’t exist. More than that … they just did not matter. In eternity, time is irrelevant. Beyond what is physical, place becomes meaningless. Other things become way more important.

  In this context, human worries and concerns become trivial. Our personal moans and problems are relatively insignificant. There’s a much bigger picture out there, which we miss because we’re whingeing about inconsequential actions that slightly dented our egos. How pathetic. The world is dying and yet some of us will have a tantrum when we can’t get a signal on our mobile phone. Get a grip people!

  Our connection was more than physical. Our minds, our spirits, our Chi were all conjoined.

  Does this conjunction require a physical connection? we asked.

  We should try to connect just using our minds, we replied.

  Then a burning sensation ripped through me as I lost a part of myself, and fell back through a short, dark yet burning gateway.

  I was back again. Myself. In front of me, Luke reeled as if drunk, and Hudor was on his knees pressing his temple with his thumbs. My head throbbed, as did my hands and feet. Shutting my eyes tightly to relieve their dryness only hurt my head more acutely, so I sat myself on the floor and tried to recall exactly what had happened. A spasm coursed through me and both my legs suddenly ached with a squeezing cramp. I lay down and tried to stretch them upwards and splay my toes to relieve the piercing agony.

  Hudor was experiencing something similar, while Luke seemed to be having trouble bending his fingers which had swollen visibly. He circled his shoulders, which clunked a few times with a gristly clicking. His legs trembled but he remained upright, shaking his arms to get the blood circulating and back into his darkening fingers.

  Of all the things I’d been through over the years that was the most wonderful and yet terrifying. Mostly because I had no idea what had really happened. It had been such a strange and inexplicable experience, it was difficult to find anything I’d undergone before to compare with it. I’d still had an awareness of myself, but at the same time, I had become Luke and Hudor. And yet … with the three of us joined, we had also become something else. But what?

  At last, Luke collapsed beside us on the floor, where we looked at each other and giggled. Mirth swept over as our chuckles turned to sniggers, then to snorting belly laughter until it lapsed into manic screams of uncontrolled hysteria. It was a beautiful, precious moment: a bubble protecting us from the chaos going on in the rest of the world.

  I slept there for many hours. One of the others thought to cover me with two blankets and had raised my head on a cushion. I woke to whispering voices next to me.

  ‘Hello, Ala.’

  Luke disappeared and returned with a mug of green tea, which pleasantly warmed my cracked lips. Hudor sat at the other end of the room.

  ‘Are you ready to try the next logical step?’ Hudor asked.

  I didn’t need an explanation. We were going to see if we could conjoin without physically touching. If we could, then who knew what we could achieve?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  What we found was that when Luke and I physically conjoined we could link with Hudor remotely, if we initiated it. Our joint strength gave us enough power to communicate with him over two miles away. The more we practised the better we got. Then when the three of us merged we were even stronger and could radiate our signals outwards to Vriksha more than ten miles away! Four of us communicated and distantly united with Demi nearly twenty miles away, and so it went on. The more numens we physically merged with, the stronger our ‘call’. We learnt how to mentally conjoin with individuals who were physically nearly a hundred miles away.

  Luke went to the London Gaia Community and I travelled – as Hoopoe – to the Bali Gaia Community in the Indonesian archipelago. With all four thousand of the London Tribe working together, they sent out a message to us over thousands of miles.

  I ‘heard’ it first. I sat with my Indonesian sisters and brothers – holding hands or embracing as one unit in a long, curling chain. It didn’t reach me as a voice, or words. There was no perceptible sound either – so I cannot exactly call it music. No shapes or colours entered my head or sight. It was a knowledge – a knowing. Inside me and yet beyond my control. It didn’t seem to be from my imagination, memory or even my own inner-narrative – which is always extremely active, I admit. This was outside me. External to my ego and id.

  I realise that people have been put into asylums for less. Joan of Arc heard voices and attributed them to God. She won a war and was then burned to death. I’m suspicious of people who claim to hear the voice of God. What differentiates that voice from all the others clamouring inside our complicated minds? But this time I knew it was not my crazed imaginings. Of course I had grown used to the telepathy enjoyed between friends with numens. But this was so very different. Much more focused and powerful. Not a direct thought or a conversation starter.

  This was something that took control of every molecule and atom. Every single one of those billions of particles of me. It consumed every tiny fragment of my psyche. Every feeling, idea, concept I held dear expanded and intensified until I no longer knew myself. I didn’t exist. I wasn’t important. No, that wasn’t right. I was important, but it was a collective significance. We were important: together. My ego disappeared into a collective consciousness. I had a new and more perfect identity.

  We conjoined, and the feeling of harmony, security, companionship, joy and love was incredible. Luke was here wi
th me – with us. I also sensed Vriksha and Kerry, and thousands of others whose faces I envisaged. The possibilities in this state were vast and unending.

  ‘It seems to be working,’ Luke said with a grin. ‘The more of us that join together the stronger we are. Gaia is not a single entity out there. She is the sum of all of us. She exists somewhere within. Imagine if every human on the entire planet joined up together?’

  He hugged me with his signature squeeze. As we embraced, I jolted when something wonderful sparked between us. I pressed my cheek against his and felt the heat of his flesh radiate onto my skin. That warmth spread quickly over me and I wondered if I was going to faint. Was this the effect he had on me now? I blushed, embarrassed that this wonderful young man could bring such feelings out of me. I’d always prided myself on my restraint and self-control, but Luke made me lose control. My insides warmed and I became giddy, gripping him even tighter.

  I tried to pull away for my own dignity and modesty, but my cheek skin stretched taut, attached to Luke’s as if they had been sewn together. Allowing the side of my face to press against his again, I relaxed and assumed that static electricity had been at work, which could be shaken off. I pushed a finger in to separate us, but I couldn’t get my finger between my cheek and his. In fact, the more we moved our heads, the more we melted together.

  ‘Sorry, Ala. I’m not doing anything, I promise,’ Luke said, with an embarrassed giggle. ‘Weird. Not sure what’s going on here.’

  ‘Nor me. We seem to be stuck with each other.’

  ‘Could be worse, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, if I’m going to be attached to somebody, I guess you’ll do,’ I replied. Luke laughed.

  It was a truly odd sensation.

  Our foreheads fused next. We both relaxed and let it occur without panicking. Unspoken, we both understood what was happening. I took his hands in mine, one down each side, and the warmth immediately melted them together. My fingertips hooked into the soft gooey flesh and bones of him. My own must have also turned into dough because when I looked down I saw his fingers poking out from what I think was my wrist, and one large gluey blob of knuckles and veins into which my hand had completely disappeared.