by Dan Edmund
Chapter 17 - Lost!
When I woke up early next morning, Harry was gone. Neither my parents nor anyone else had seen him since last night. We had all been too full of good cheer after the Love Feast to have noticed, but now I knew something was wrong. I had to find him. The first place that came to mind was the Resurrection Sanctuary. However, upon my arrival, I discovered that he was not there. I searched the surrounding area, calling out to him several times, but to no avail. I prayed for help and then thought of Cory. Perhaps he could track him down. I hurried back home and fortunately found my canine friend nearby.
"Find Harry!" I ordered. Cory nudged his nose into my hand. I sighed. I realized that he was never trained to track. Yet, deep within me, the thought of using him remained. I decided to find something belonging to Harry, then came back with his sleeping robe, which I then held under his snout. "Smell, Cory, smell! This is Harry. Go find Harry!" I commanded. Cory wagged his tail and jumped upon me, almost knocking me to the ground. "No, Cory, this is not a game! Find Harry!" I said, as I again placed the garment near his snout.
Cory gave a solitary bark, then sniffed around various places outside our house. He barked once more and, with his snout still near the ground, ran up the southbound trail. I hastily followed, and soon we were past the construction area and into the forest and hills beyond our village. Cory then left the main trail and headed up a nearby mountain. I knew Harry was in no physical danger, yet I was again worried about his mental state. I thus gave a silent prayer of thanks when I saw him sitting on a large, flat boulder, about a hundred feet away.
"Harry!" I yelled.
Startled, his face shot towards me. Even at this distance, I could see he was annoyed. However, I forced a smile and walked up to him, with Cory by my side.
"So, what do you want now?" he snapped.
I hesitated for a moment, then answered softly, "I don't want anything. I'm only here because I'm concerned about you." I ignored his sarcastic snigger, then added, "Last night, we all thought that everything was finally okay with you, but this morning, well...you just disappeared. Why?"
He pathetically shook his head. "I had another one of those lucid dreams, or more likely, I returned back to reality."
"What do you mean? Do you still think that you're -"
"Dreaming!" he finished my sentence. He forced a hollow laugh, then cradled his face into his hands.
I sat next to him and placed a sympathetic arm around his shoulder. "Harry, it's your third day here. Why can't you accept the way things are? Don't you like it here?" I asked, dumbfounded that he should still think he was dreaming.
He expressed a sullen look and sighed. "Yes! Yes! This is probably one of the most beautiful, tranquil and felicitous places imaginable. It really seems to be like some tropical island resort one goes to for a holiday, where one lies in one's hammock, with a martini in one's hand and watching the waves roll in."
"So what's wrong with that? What's wrong with everyone being relaxed and happy?"
He sighed once more. "That's just it. It seems everybody around here is drunk, even stupefied with happiness. It's as if they were all taking some kind of happiness pill, or cocaine, or whatever, but without the unpleasant side effects. That's a fool's paradise, a silly dream, nothing else! That's certainly not reality." He paused, shook his head, then added, "The Incas used to chew upon the coca leaves for pleasure and supposedly spiritual insight. That's also how life here appears to me, only worse."
"But nobody is feeding you on drugs."
"No, then what about yesterday, up on that mountain?"
"On Mount Anastasis, when the Divine Light came upon you? But Harry, that was not -"
"Yes, yes!" he said irritably. "It seemed great at the time, although I now think it must have been some kind of brainwashing."
"Brainwashing! You call that brainwashing when you're shown divine kindness and love?" I asked indignantly, thinking he was lucky to have come out of it alive.
He shrugged his shoulders, then pushed my arm aside. "I don't know. I just don't know! Perhaps, for a while, after that strange experience in that light, I was beginning to accept this world as something real, that was until last night, when we walked back home."
"From the Love Feast, you mean?"
"Yes, after seeing the Southern Cross. As I had explained, it's not visible from the latitude of Oregon."
I shook my head in dismay and laughed. "Oh, Harry, and it's only because of seeing the Southern Cross that you can't believe this world to be real! Besides, I told you that we're only presuming to be in Oregon, or somewhere in that region, because that's what it seems. But the world has changed so much that we can't be sure."
Cory nudged his nose into Harry's arm. To my surprise, he did not push him away. "No! No! You don't understand. There's much more to it than that. It has to do with lucid dreams."
"What about them?" I asked, fearing yet another lecture on a subject I did not want to hear.
"What I'm trying to say is that last night in bed, I focused on the Southern Cross. I remembered from past occasions that sometimes in dreams, when I became aware of something incongruous, like the Southern Cross appearing in full view in the Northern Hemisphere, I would suddenly become totally conscious within the dream, giving the dream a sense of reality, although, of course, the reality was only illusionary."
"Harry, you can see and feel that everything around you is real. Besides, as I already told you, this is your third day here. How much more evidence do you need?"
"Yes, yes, I know all that! My apocalyptic dream also seemed to have lasted that long within my dream, although, of course, in reality it was only for one night. However, let me continue. I was in bed, thinking about the appearance of the Southern Cross, when I fell asleep and began to dream, or what seemed to be a dream from this current perspective. Do you know what it was about?"
"I have no idea, but I'm sure you'll tell me."
"I dreamt I woke up in my old bedroom in New York, thinking what an incredible dream I just had, meaning, naturally enough, this place here."
"But Harry, we've been through all this before. Of course, we still have dreams, especially if we've just arrived. I mean, I still dream of Jen -"
"No! No! Let me continue. I woke up and told my wife about this paradise I had dreamt about, and how real it had all seemed. Of course, she only laughed it off. However, it really appeared as if I was back home again with my wife. For the first time in a long time, we even had breakfast together. We even decided to go to the campus together in the same car! However, as soon as we went, I suddenly felt strangely sick and disorientated. The last thing I then wanted to do was face thirty students and lecture them on Francis Bacon's Novum Organum, ironically a philosophical book that deals with methods of acquiring knowledge. Then, for some reason, I thought of Bacon's utopian book, New Atlantis, which then reminded me of my lucid paradisiacal dream." Then, staring directly into my eyes, he said, "Now visualize this! I then became simultaneously conscious of both sitting in the car with my wife, and lying in bed in your house, as if I were at two places at once! However, that only lasted for a second or so before I woke up and realized that I was back here again."
"And so nice to have you back!" I added, attempting to ease the tension with some humor.
He glared at me. "Hah! For you it may seem funny, but I don't seem to know what's real anymore, and what's not!" He heaved a sigh. "However, do you see the conundrum? Was I dreaming that I was dreaming? A dream within a dream! Right now, I feel like the Chinese Taoist sage, Chuang Tse, who supposedly said something like, 'I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.'"
"But you're not a butterfly. You're still the same person, only now living in Paradise."
He shook his head in disgust. "You just don't seem to understand, do you? I've always been a realist and a philosophical materialist, however, I know from personal experiences that there are different perceptions, whether
through hypnosis, hallucinogenic drugs or, as in my case, lucid dreams. Have you ever read Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception?"
"No, I haven't."
He sniggered. "I didn't expect that you did. Actually, neither did I, only Roger discussed it with me a couple of times. It's by the same author who wrote the famous dystopian novel, Brave New World. But supposedly this Huxley, as an experiment, took the hallucinogenic drug called mescaline, then carefully observed what he saw, and later wrote it down in his book called The Doors of Perception. In it he wrote that everyday things, even chairs, suddenly took on totally new perspectives. For instance, when Huxley was shown a reproduction of a self-portrait by Cezanne, the painting supposedly developed a third dimension that actually came to life." Sighing, he asked, "So, is that what's happened to me? Have I been induced with some kind of drug? Am I hallucinating? Or am I still only dreaming? Or have I entered into another dimension or parallel universe, as some theoretical physicists believe may exist? Or perhaps, as Roger and other paranormal researchers, as well as Spiritualists might tell me, I might even have entered into some spirit realm like 'Summerland,' supposedly some kind of heaven or something which is closest and most resembling the Earth, with its beautiful scenery, animals and people, where things seem real and solid as the Earth, but without the pain and suffering involved." He ran his fingers through his hair. "According to Roger, there even might be different paradises for each religion based on their teachings, as strong belief systems supposedly control the afterlife." He then laughed sarcastically. "I told Roger he was mad!" Harry sighed, then laughed once again, not sarcastically, but pitifully. "No, I suppose I'm the one that has gone mad since I'm having these crazy dreams and hallucinations myself."
"No, Harry, none of these things are happening to you. However, try to understand that -"
"What would you know!" he snapped. "Despite your music and education, you have just led your simple life of religious fantasy, and now it has seemingly come true for you. However, my experiences are different to yours, don't you understand? Even last night, my lucid dream, or other life, or God knows what, took me back to the academic life that I loved. Now, here I am back again, and this life seems like reality. But what is reality? What is reality?" he bellowed, working himself up into an ever increasing frenzy.
To calm him down, I stretched out my hand towards him. "Here, touch it!" I implored.
"What for?"
"Touch it!" I now demanded.
Reluctantly, he touched the tip of my middle finger.
"There, does it seem real to you?" I asked.
He gave an ironic laugh. "In my type of lucid dreams, everything seems real." He suddenly became silent, drooping his shoulders even further. Finally, he moaned, "I just want to go on with my normal life, to study and teach history, and odd as it sounds, to see my wife again and somehow rebuild the love that was lost."
Seeing him now as he was, I wondered why the Light and the power of God on Mount Anastasis had not provided a permanent psychological cure; even a miraculous conversion, something akin to Paul on the road to Damascus. However, I continued reasoning with him. "As I already said, you just have to let go and enjoy this world. And I'm quite sure that you'll soon be with your family again, including your mother. Just imagine how nice it will be for you to see her again. Also, I'm sure you'll soon love this place as much as everybody else."
He spluttered another sarcastic laugh, and suddenly his whole demeanor changed once more. It seemed incredible how quickly his personality could change. Gone were his feelings of confusion; he was now the arrogant and bombastic lecturer once again.
"What? This backwoods, culturally deficient society! By God, apart from your music, this world has even less culture than William Morris's News From Nowhere. Although being fanatical artisans, at least they were not fanatical Christians. This is more like Andreae's utopian world, Christianopolis, who believed, like you people, in the resurrection of the flesh, and also that education should only be studied under the 'direction of the Holy Spirit.' However, even this screwball religious fantasy world had at least a library, and not just two nonsensical sacred texts. By God, man, books, and by that I mean good books, the great works of literature, as well as the rest of the arts, raise the whole soul and consciousness of not just the individual, but the entire society. This is not just true of the arts, but also of history, science, philosophy, and all the other academic disciplines I can think of."
"Our sacred texts are not nonsense!" I countered. "Besides, we do have culture. We may not have operas, ballet, theatres, cinemas, libraries, scientific laboratories or the Internet, but we do lots of other enjoyable and wholesome activities here, including music, painting -"
"Painting!" he hollered. "That's just it! Where are the great masterpieces of Michelangelo, Durer or Rembrandt? In comparison to their works, the paintings here are just amateurish rubbish!"
"All right, even if that's true, so what! Life here sure beats rushing around everywhere, trying to race against the clock, trying to get promotions, more money, and more luxury material things we don't need. We have love, happiness and perfect health, which we can enjoy forever."
He snorted. "Even if this world were to be real and not a dream or hallucination, I'm a scholar, not some carefree hippy or beachcomber! Can't you understand? I need challenging and interesting mental work, and since history is my passion, I need to do historical research, and write and publish my results, and achieve the scholarly recognition I feel I deserve."
"But at what cost? In your former life, were you truly happy? You told me about your unhappy marriage, the World Trade Center disaster you saw, the trauma you suffered, the nightmares you had, the tranquillizers you needed." I gently touched his arm. "Do you really think that your life was happier then than it is now?"
He hesitated before replying somewhat unconvincingly, "I was."
I watched as Cory ambled to some nearby rocks, wondering what else I could do or say to help. I knew I had to not only convince him of his death and the reality of this world, but also that he could find happiness and fulfillment in it as well. Yet how? I did not know. Therefore, I resorted to another silent prayer. As I did, ever so faintly, a ray of light came down upon us; a light so subtle that I knew Harry could not see it, although I was sure that its effect would certainly manifest itself somehow. I was right. The light vanished, but I had received a sudden flash of inspiration. And by the sudden tranquil expression on Harry's face, I could see that its miraculous healing process had also been at work.
"Yes, you're right, we are short on books!" I exclaimed. "So what's stopping you from writing your own books here in Paradise? For instance, why not write a book on world history, from paradise lost to paradise regained?"
He sniggered. "Sounds a bit like John Milton to me. Besides, his Paradise Lost and his sequel, Paradise Regained, were works of religious poetry, not history."
"Well, you could write such a history. You could even find and interview people who had been alive after you had died. People who had lived during the disastrous 2040's and 50's, those that had survived even Armageddon, surely a much greater and tumultuous story than you've ever written before. Surely, the most momentous event in history needs to be written, and you being a historian, would be the ideal man for the job. Just think, it would be the first history book in this world. What is this Tacitus, or Herodotus, or Edward Gibbon, or whatever he's called, by comparison with what you can write?" I saw his eyes brightening, so I continued lavishing him with new ideas. "As regards cultural things, don't forget that many millions, even billions of people throughout the ages will be resurrected within the next few hundred years. Just imagine meeting some of the most famous and interesting people throughout history, not just reading about them, but actually meeting them. People like Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Washington, Newton, Einstein, Beethoven, Mozart, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and yes, even the man you wrote your PhD thesis about, Thomas More." Yes
, I had him now, I thought to myself. His eyes not only brightened, they now positively sparkled. "And just imagine, you could write their definitive history because now you have actually met all these people yourself, just as if you had gone back in time and -"
"All right, all right, it sounds terrific!" he said, now smiling. "If this world was real, and what you said was really true. And yet, even if this turns out to be another lucid dream, the idea of meeting up with the greats of history would still intrigue me."
"Of course, it does!" I eagerly exclaimed. "Only this is not imaginary. I assure you, it's all real and true!"
He shook his head. "After the experiences of last night, no, it's only a hypothesis that I will still need to test."
"Sure, go ahead and test it in whatever way you like. However, speaking of culture, just imagine the cultural renaissance that would happen when we have the great painters, musicians, writers, historians, scientists and the like, all alive again, living forever in this wonderful world. Just imagine it all! And you'll be a part of it, perhaps even being a dominant influence in this cultural renaissance!"
I finally made him laugh. "As I said, all right. There's no need to go on and on about it. I get the point." He paused to reflect, then gave another one of his condescending looks. "However, if what you say is really true, don't you think the majority will influence your little minority sect? Just imagine the great social upheaval it would create!"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what happens if all these people would truly come back to life? You will have people coming back from all different ages, different religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds and languages. People may not want to change to your ways. They may prefer to go their own. Then what about the Hitlers, the Napoleons, the Stalins, the Neros and Al Capones? By God! There would be millions of them! Do you think they all will become meek little Christians?" He gave a sarcastic laugh. "There would be power struggles again, the strong preying on the weak. I heard that there would be supposedly thirty-two billion people eventually here on the earth. My God, it would be a Malthusian nightmare! You would have chaos and killings on an unimaginable scale!"
"Oh, Harry! Harry!" I said, shaking my head. "Aren't you forgetting that this world is now ruled directly by God?" I again sympathetically placed my hand on his shoulder. "Don't you understand? God knows everything. God is all-powerful. I mean, you've already seen it for yourself."
He looked at me but remained silent. We then started walking back home together, and just as we took our first few steps, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the same angel again, once more smiling his saintly smile. Then again, he vanished. I was about to tell Harry but quickly decided against it. All in good time, all in good time, I heard an inner voice say.
