by Sarah Noffke
I shrug. “But how?”
The woman taps her head. “We create our land here and although you can’t color your world, I wonder if intention still works for you. When I was living I could dream travel, going anywhere I desired using my intention. This works for all souls here in this land,” she says.
“Dream travel,” I say, and it sparks a new memory, a host of memories actually. And then I know who I was, who I used to be. I know shades of him. He was bad and good and powerful and never wrong… And…
“Just make the intention, Ren Lewis,” the woman says and blinks into the light, the one like a bulb. And then from her ethereal form she says, “You have little time. I sense more dangers are on their way.”
And then I look out at the bay and the ocean and notice the large wave rolling forward. A tsunami, no doubt a result of the earthquake.
All these memories flashing in my mind bring new ones. I close my eyes. “I am Ren Lewis. I intend to go to where my body spent much time in London. I am Ren Lewis. I am Ren Lewis.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Every experience seems new, and yet it doesn’t. In the recesses of the mind I don’t know if I have or not, there’s a connection that sparks and then dissipates as I move through a silver tunnel. This experience is brand new. Not new. It is my first time, and also not. It is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of unfeeling. Of experiencing the unexperience of this all. I am lost and yet I’m here. I’m me and yet I don’t fully know who that is.
I drop out of the tunnel—the transport, I’m guessing—and land in a room. A set of rooms. The walls are blue. Paintings hang on the wall. Furniture sits in corners. I have no opinion on the space, and yet an instinct tells me I should. I should care about the act of sitting in the armchair. The books lining one wall have meaning to someone. Is it me?
My hand finds the silver doorknob to a room. A bedroom, I notice upon entering. A man’s room, maybe. There are more doors. Behind one is a polished bathroom with gray tiles. There are shavings on the sink. Only a few. The person who lived here was tidy, I observe.
I have red hair, that’s what the woman said. But the shavings are gray. Everything is gray. This man who is me. I am Ren… What was my other name? Lowell? Lois? Lewis? Yes, Ren Lewis. I am Ren. Reynold, actually. Wait, where did that come from? Reynold was my father…
Something pops in my chest. I gaze down. The gray suit looks no different, but something thumped under it. Then I remember my prior thought. I had a father. I was a man who was born. I had a family. Had… Do I have a family? Why am I here? There was an extremely good reason. A person. A girl, maybe. Did I have a daughter? Again the thump in my chest. Now it brings a sharp pain. I suck in a gasp with the lungs I don’t have.
Thump. Thump.
My hand claps to my chest. The fire starts in my arm and spreads up to my shoulder and then like a bolt of lightning it strikes at my torso. I slam down to my knees, the tile clapping against my bones. My fingers find the door frame and with an energy I didn’t assume I’d have under this pain, I pull myself up. And then I see it. The face I wear stares back at me in the mirror.
“Hello, Ren,” I hear a voice say. My voice. “Who are you? Why are you here?” I ask the figure and he copies me. Gray eyes stare back at me. They aren’t gray though. In the real world, the right world, the one where people’s souls are intact, my eyes have color. They are green.
Wait, how did I know that? And yet, it must be true. I have my mum’s eyes. And the rough assault on my chest sends me backwards. My shoulders knock into the wall. The tile smacks against my head.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The beating in my chest is too fast. And yet, something beats in my chest, which I should be glad for, if I knew how to be such things. I reach out for the shelf beside me, but the image of myself in the mirror, grimacing with violent suffering, steals my focus and I slide to the ground. My head careens with the toilet and then the floor. Warmth covers my forehead, but I only give notice to the stinging sensation. It is a feeling. I’m having a feeling and it’s offensive in its level of discomfort. To feel my body is a burden I did not know I had. And yet, my body feels for a reason. One that makes me have a soul.
Something is oozing down over my eyelid. From my place lying between the vanity and loo I press my hand to my forehead. Blood that is neither red nor gray covers my fingertips. Then I notice there’s a twinge of color to my surroundings. Just a twinge. It isn’t gray and yet, the lightness of the colors around me makes me blink to clear my vision. It doesn’t help.
And then an explosion detonates in my chest. I smack both hands to my heart. My heart. I have a heart. And it’s beating out. I’m dying. My body is dying. The organ in my chest races at lightning speed. Heavy, rough beats that feel like my heart is trying to escape my chest assault me one after another. My mouth opens to scream, but only a hot breath escapes. And then there is no breath. The racing, wild beating of my heart ends with a final strike, one so violent it screams across my body. And then my head falls to the side.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The tile is cold on my cheek. My cheek. I feel cold. I feel. The bathroom is a blur of almost-pastels. The towel hanging on the wall is a light green, but my instinct tells me it is darker. I push up from the floor, aware that I feel the tile under my fingertips. I feel. My body feels. But there’s no beating in my chest. That sensation of a heart before is gone. I’m also aware that I’m not breathing. I’m just being.
In the mirror I catch the image of the me again. He has light red hair and I was right, the eyes are green, but his are too light. Mint green. And then in the mirror I catch something. A queasy sensation rumbles in my stomach. The feeling is offsetting and yet, I feel. How can I complain about feeling? With slow steps I turn, taking in the image of my dead body on the ground. I spin back around to the mirror to double check. Yes, I’m still here. But then there is also the me on the ground. The one who died. The one who suffered a heart attack and breathes no more. I hold up my hand, which has a smidge of tan color to it, the freckles not quite orange.
The hand I’m holding up slides to my face, stroking my jaw. I’ve recovered the first part of my soul. By experiencing my body’s death, I recaptured the eros part of my spirit. This thought jars me. I had prepared for this journey. Now I know it, but I don’t know how. And I don’t know why I’m here still, but I do know that if I’ve recovered the part of my body related to my soul, then I need to find the one connected to my mind. Logos. That word pops out of the ether and straight into my thoughts. I have thoughts. But I’m not thinking. Not with the same agility that I should. Thoughts just occur to me, but I’m not critically constructing them.
Without knowing I’m going to, I walk for the door and through the residence, the one where I lived. Maybe… My feet stop when they bring me to the shelf lined with leather-bound volumes. There’s a lifetime of reading in this one place. Again, I’m surprised when my body reaches out without a warning. It appears to be operating on its own, maybe out of instinct. My fingers pause on a large book with a shiny red cover. The Dream Travelers Codex. It’s a book I have read, I somehow remember. No, I wrote it. I contributed… I don’t remember the details. Pulling the book from the shelf, I flip to a halfway point. The pages are thick and smell fresh, like the book is new and was never read. I scan the first page, not looking for anything. My instinct tells me that I need to focus on the end result and the “how” will appear. I want to find the place where I can recover my logos, the part of my soul connected to my mind.
Then I turn the page and two words leap off of it. They are followed by a series of images in my mind. Hundreds, no, thousands of images. A lifetime of memories are connected with that location. And that place was important. Important to me. To the world. My eyes fall back on those two words. Yes, that’s where I need to go next. To the Lucidite Institute.
***
An earthquake knocks me off my feet
just as I dream travel to the Lucidite Institute. The ground is back under my feet when I arrive in a darkened room, one that’s lit by a soft blue light. It reflects off the glass walls, which partially enclose the conference room where I stand. The surface of the conference room table is slick under my fingertips. A flash of memories streaks across my vision. I spent many hours at the front of this table. I led many meetings here. But I still don’t know who I was. A powerful man…maybe. A leader, but of what? Did I do important things?
I press both my hands down on the surface of the table, leaning over it. The position immediately triggers another memory. It’s of me standing in the exact same position, my head down and a nasty grimace on my freckled face.
“Do you want the world to spin off its axis and spiral willy-nilly through space until it’s sucked up by a black hole?” I say, but I don’t know who I’m talking to. The room is filled with people, their faces looking drawn from the way the dark blue light casts against them.
“No, sir,” a young man says. He has black dreadlocks and skin to match their color. “I’m just saying—”
“Shut the fuck up and listen to what I’m saying. We are going to allow the missile to hit—”
“But sir—”
“Do you know where the most intelligent minds in the world are housed?” the man who is me says.
“In this room,” the guy says.
“Correct. Now honestly, out of all of these brilliant minds, who do you think is superior in their reasoning? And don’t give me lip service, boy,” I say.
“There is no doubt that it is you, Ren,” he says.
“Exactly. Now let me tell you something. Sometimes we step in and save the village from the attack. Sometimes we save the corporation from bankruptcy. Sometimes we prevent the shooting, landslide, or explosion. And sometimes we allow it to happen. The key to running a strategic department that intervenes in the world’s affairs is to know when to act and when to sit back and turn one’s head. The missile hitting will be unfortunate, but the news reporters saw a different future if we prevent it. And using my first-class logic, I’ve determined that allowing it to happen is the better scenario. Lives will be lost, but the end result will have an impact on how that city operates for the next century. Sometimes allowing tragedies to happen creates a necessary evolution. Societies progress the most when they fall on their knees and we want to help and save lives, but not at the expense of progress. I caution you in your approach. It needs to be holistic or otherwise you’re going to end up creating a bunch of apes because you never allow the people you save to face the adversity that would cause real soul searching and redemption.”
The room is silent after the speech I give. Then the guy nods his head. “I didn’t see all of that before, but that makes perfect sense,” he says.
“Of course it does, because I’m a fucking genius,” I say and then the vision is gone. I’m released from it to find myself shaking at the table’s edge.
I press back until I feel the seat behind me and sit. My head crowds my hands at once, my elbows on the surface of the table. Immediately a throbbing hits at the back of my skull. I reach for the spot, but then I’m overwhelmed by the voices. A million words, all said at the same time, echo in my head. They are everything I’ve ever heard flooding my brain at once. How can a person remember everything they’ve ever heard? And yet, I know I’m that person. The most intelligent mind in the world. And as the voices grow louder, I realize I’m losing my mind. Then the flashes careen with my visional cortex. A seemingly infinite string of images pours through my brain. The weight of it makes me drop my head and it collides with the surface of the table, just as the room spins and the voices take shape into images in the room. I’m surrounded by people. Thousands of people. And they’re all talking. Their voices speed up until they are all speaking on fast-forward. The dizziness makes me slide out of the seat and roll to the ground, which is crawling with tiny black bugs. I try to push up, but the people are pressing into me. Hover over me. And then their individual words become the same. A chorus that overwhelms my sense. They chant over and over again, “Save us. Save us. Save us.”
My hands jerk up and cover my head, which seems like it’s filled with smoke that’s about to shoot through my ears. “NO!” I yell. “I don’t know how!” And then all at once the room empties. The people are gone. Their voices too. The bugs vanish. And my mind blanks. Then I open my mouth and words I didn’t know I was going to say fall out. “I don’t know it all,” I say, and then my eyes fall shut and I feel a soft wave carry me away.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Something is pressed into my cheek. And then I know. I know what it is, where I am, and hundreds of things about my surroundings. The way my mind processes now is starkly different than before. I open my eyes to find I was right. I’m lying face down on the blue carpet of the conference room for the strategic department at the Lucidite Institute. It’s located at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Honolulu. The entire history of the Institute flexes in my brain and I’m overwhelmed with the amount of information I can hold in a single thought. The way my mind processes wouldn’t flabbergast me if I didn’t have the prior experience of not thinking. The unknowing I had before the logos of my soul was reunited with me was such a different experience than now. I was blank before and now I’m processing everything in my environment and about my situation with an efficiency to impress.
I press up to a standing position. The blue light in the space is brighter and a shade darker. All the colors in the room are more intense, but still light. My world hasn’t come fully to life. I can’t affect my world yet, as the soul in Rio de Janeiro told me I should be able to do. And I know there are no emotions connected to my thoughts. Each idea is black and white, not filtered through the emotional center. The superior reasoning of my brain tells me that’s wrong. Emotions ground a person’s thoughts. They bring color to the world.
Now I have my memories. Now I know who Ren Lewis is. I remember why I am here, but I’m not sure how I thought it was so important. Why did I care about Dahlia so much? I hear her name in my head and it’s followed by data. No emotions. In my mind I see her smile and it doesn’t light up a connection for me. I traveled into this realm and lost my soul for this person, but I still don’t understand why. However, I know exactly where I need to go to recover the thumos part of my soul. My desires. My passion. My very spirit.
***
The house smells of bread and smoke from the fireplace. Mum made a fresh loaf of bread every day. She always said, “Life is too short to eat day-old bread.”
My childhood home is untouched by age in this realm. I know it’s been shut up since Pops left it, but no dust lines the shelves. I push my hands into my pockets and rotate in a circle, looking for something. Shouldn’t this place, the home I grew up in, bring a host of emotions? The memories sweep through my mind, but they are simply photographic images of a boy and his parents. Sometimes my sister, Lyza, is in the memories, but mostly she isn’t. The more I try to make myself feel something, the more the slippery premise of feeling slides further away. To recover the eros and logos parts of my soul, my body died and I lost my mind. How do I connect with the thumos of my soul?
The hole in the wall I made when I found out my mum was dying is still here. Staring at it only deepens the well of numbness inside me. People die. My mum did. Why does it matter? What should I feel about it?
I take careful, meditative steps through the house, passing a room where I used to sleep. For seventeen years, in that space, my body grew from that of infant to a man. It is what happens when children get older. Lyza’s room is next to mine. I have known her all my life. That is all. There is nothing more to think on that subject. My parents’ room is at the end of the hallway. I push the door back, expecting to find it empty and another roll of emotionless memories associated with the space.
A pale green light hovers over the bed. It’s like the one in Rio de Janeiro, like a smal
l bulb suspended in the air. And I’ve already processed exactly what it is and the implications at lightning speed.
“Mum,” I say, my voice hollow.
And as if being summoned, the vision of my mum appears. It’s translucent, much the same way I remember the woman at the Christ the Redeemer statue. Around the edges of her form are sparks, as though she’s bleeding into the space.
“Hello, Renny,” she says, and a giant smile lights up her face. It’s been over twenty years and I haven’t forgotten that smile. I haven’t forgotten the way her eyes brighten when she smiles.
“What are you doing here?” I say to her, my voice matter-of-fact.
She flickers into the green light again and then an image of a boy appears, but only for a moment. And then she’s back.
“I think the more important question is what are you doing here? I died. I live in the Land of the Souls until I decide to return to the Land of the Living. However, you aren’t dead, are you?” she says, and again that familiar tone to her voice passes over my ears.
“No, I didn’t die to get here. You know that how?” I say.
“Souls have a lighter appearance,” she says, her Irish accent faint, like I remember. “You are solid and not shimmering.”
I stare down at my body. She is right. And I’m not flickering into a light like she does every few seconds or shifting through my different lives. I regard her for a long moment. She shifts many times from her appearance to the boy’s and also into that of a young woman with long black hair. However, she stays longer in the form I know her as in my life.