Project Earth I: Origin

by Lidier Fernandez

  After realizing we had done most of the work I decide to step up and do the rest of it.

  I signal Gina to get in the truck with Sarah and drive home while I jump on the back. She jumps in and heads home.

  “Sure! That ship is going inside the garage, now!” I tell them with full intention of making it so.

  I move it right above the garage and lower it slowly. Gina makes sure the roof closes right on time.

  “Well done girls! These guys need oxygen, let’s get them out!” I say while reaching for what appears to be a door latch.

  It doesn’t work, so I shout to Jon furiously, “How do I open the God damn door Jon?”

  “You can’t. It only opens from the inside,” he whispers to me.

  “Well, why don’t you open it?”

  “My body is not responding,” he says.

  I become more furious, and command him by shouting, “Jon! You go and make your body move and open that door! I ORDER YOU!”

  There is silence for a few seconds, but inside of me I have no doubt that he is going to do it. I hear a “clank” and the door starts to open slowly. I walk towards the door and as it opens fully, I launch forward to catch Jon’s body as it falls lifelessly to the ground. I immediately bring him inside the house into a ventilated room. Gina and Sarah stay with him while I run back to the ship to get Leo’s body. I find him slumped in a chair in front of some screens and control panels. I lift his body and carry him inside the house where I place him in a bed, next to Jon’s.

  “We can’t bring any doctors here Gina. The best thing we can do is make sure they get lots of oxygen.”

  “And water,” she says as she runs to the kitchen.

  “Here is Sarah, guys!” I tell them, placing her closer to them. “She can be the best medicine when someone doesn’t feel well.” I turn to Sarah, “Sarah, please help them come back, they are our friends, and probably the best ones we will ever have.” Small tears start to roll down my face; they are very small though.

  “I know they are still here. They just need a little time,” I say to myself.

  A sudden rumbling sound makes the whole house shake.

  “What in the world was that?” Gina asks.

  “Fighter jets,” I say. “They must have detected the ship, and decided to come and check out this location.” We look at each other worried.

  “I think we are safe,” says Jon as he opens his eyes.

  “Jon! You scared us brother,” I say to him. More tears roll down our faces again—happy tears this time. We all give him a hug.

  “How is Leo, Jon? Can you tell?” Gina asks.

  “He is back too. Let’s give him a moment. Place Sarah closer to him—that sure helps!”

  “What can we get you Jon?” I inquire.

  “Perhaps some water?” says Gina.

  “Water is fine for now. Thanks Gina. We mainly need to get our bodies oxygenated.” He keeps breathing deeply.

  Jon is about five feet tall and very skinny. His eyes are big and blue, very similar to how they are pictured in some science fiction movies. They remind me of Yoda’s eyes in Star Wars. His ears are rather small and human-like. So are his mouth and nose. His arms and legs are very skinny. They have a foul smell, maybe from a lack of hygiene and being inside the ship for so long.

  Leo finally wakes up and starts to talk, “Hi guys. Thanks for saving us.” Sarah smiles at him and gets all wiggly. She is happy and she knows she did her job.

  It is a funny sensation being with them. They bring back vague memories of times past. Their bodies, their voice, even their scent. They have very different bodies, and yet I feel they are part of my family, or I feel like I am a part of theirs. I can tell Gina and Sarah feel happy about their presence too, and as they recover, we start to feel the energy we originally perceived around the lake. As their bodies recover, they also recover their strength as beings.

  “We can leave you guys alone, if you want to rest, perhaps take a nap, or whatever you need,” I tell them.

  Gina gets closer to them, “I am sorry, and excuse our lack of hospitality, you must be so hungry. Would you like to try some of our food, we are about to make some dinner?”

  “We want to eat, certainly, but we must get ourselves cleaned first. Can we use your facilities, please?” Jon asks politely.

  “Sure!” says Gina, “We call it bathroom Jon. There are towels, shampoo, toiletries, and let us know if you need anything else.”

  “That should do it. We know that we are very stinky,” says Leo, “Sorry about that,” he looks a bit ashamed.

  “No worries, feel like this is your home,” I say to them, to make them feel welcome and comfortable.

  “Thanks, brother, we will be out soon,” says Jon as he gets up and takes his first steps. Gina and I head to the kitchen, relieved.

  Chapter 21

  Our Visitors

  “Lee!” says Gina, very surprised while grabbing my wounded hands, “Your hands…oh my God!”

  “They will be fine babe. Some skin came off, that’s all.”

  “It looks more like you kept them on the hot stove for a while!”

  “I am actually going to disinfect them now,” I tell her while squeezing half a lemon on them, grimacing in pain. She turns around to avoid the sight.

  After about forty-five minutes of cooking, we have come up with enough things for them to try. We hope they can eat some of our food as we had not even checked with them what they eat. Who knows what kind of diet they have. We figure at this point they would probably be willing to try anything.

  They come into the room fresh and clean, and we sit down and wait for them to begin putting food on their plates.

  “Well…I guess we are going to start,” says Jon as he grabs a plate. “We will have a bit of everything and let you know if we have trouble assimilating any of it. Our bodies are able to digest many types of food due to our travels around the universe. We have had the worst and the best you can imagine,” says Jon while Leo nods his small head.

  “Well okay,” says Gina, “you won’t hurt our feelings if you tell us you don’t like some of the food. We can also find other options as needed.”

  “I also want to let you know that we use as much organic food as we can, less chemicals you know,” I tell them.

  “Organic is good!” says Leo, as he grabs a spoon full of some Japanese soup—one of my favorites. “This is good!” he says, looking at Jon while pointing at the soup. “You must try that Jon.”

  “I normally put some of the noodles and rice into the soup, that’s the best.” I comment while reaching for the noodles and then the rice bowl.

  “Temperature is also perfect,” says Jon. “All of this is good guys.”

  “Glad you like it! Wait until you try the barbequed meat I make! Perhaps I can make you some tomorrow. You also have to try my coffee,” I say.

  “We will be happy to try everything, but just remember we are not used to eating so much. Don’t feel bad if we don’t eat a lot,” says Jon.

  “It will save them money,” says Leo. We all laugh.

  “I love your sense of humor,” I comment.

  “We get energy from the sun and other stars too,” Jon adds. “Wow, I wish I could do that, it would save us more money on food,” I comment and we keep laughing.

  “They try everything and they like everything—noodles soup, rice, salad and fish. Their conclusion is that before today they had not yet tried the best food there is! Their eyes had grown bigger and brighter while eating our very simple but delicious meal.

  They not only felt welcome, but I could feel that they got their hope back. Minute by minute I could feel their powerful presence returning.

  I realize that even though they are very strong and powerful beings, just like us, they have weaknesses. When our bodies are weak, depleted or ill, our emotions, hopes, and spiritual strength can also be on the ground.

  We spend another two hours
at the table, sharing stories and experiences, and get into full and lively conversation.

  While at the table, I see that Jon notices my wounded hands and just as we are about to go to bed he gets close to me and grabs them. He looks deeply into my eyes for about ten seconds. My hands feel warm and sort of tingling. He lets go of them and I know something had happened to them. I lift them up to have a closer look in the light and I cannot believe what I see. They are healed, completely. I show them to Gina and she is speechless. I had felt his energy going through my whole body, and my hands weren’t the only thing he had fixed.

  I feel compelled to deliver a small speech, “Thanks for coming to us. We have proven to make a strong team and are going to do a lot of good in this world, but we are also going to have fun. Like Jon said to me once, ‘Have fun, no matter what else you do’,” we all laugh and I go on, “and tomorrow, we will get up, have some breakfast, and then we can check out the ship.”

  I pause and then realize I meant to ask them about their Base, “Oh, I meant to ask…”

  Jon cuts me off to answer my question, before I even finish asking. “Our people at the Base don’t think we made it, but since we have not reported back they must be wondering what happened to us. We must try to either fix the generator, or find a way to supply power to the communication system so we can talk to them and let them know we are alright.”

  “I’m sure we can figure something out tomorrow. Can we use electricity?” I ask as ideas start to pop into my head.

  “Maybe,” says Leo.

  “Stuff here runs on either 110 or 220 volts—frequency is 60Hertz,” I tell him.

  “We are not so familiar with that, but we could research a little bit,” says Jon.

  “Well, do you think you can handle an Earth computer?” Gina asks.

  “We probably can,” says Leo.

  “Alright, feel free to use the computer, if you don’t want to sleep all night, like we do. See what you can find out about doing a voltage conversion to power-up the ship’s communication system. Gina, Sarah, and I are going to get some rest now.”

  “Sure, you deserve a lot of rest, have a good night. We will see you in the morning and thanks again,” says Jon, placing a hand on Gina’s shoulder and one on mine.

  Gina and I slip into bed and find we are not as sleepy as we had thought. So much excitement, our life has changed so much, as if we are living a dream. We keep talking about our visitors. They are so different. They know so much and yet, they are so calm, so sane, and so humble. They will be even more energized in the morning after having some rest.

  Chapter 22

  The Ship

  I get up early, at 6 am, the next day. Gina and Sarah are still sleeping beauties, as I like to call them. Jon and Leo are already up. I first show them how to make coffee. They think it is very interesting, the brewing and all that stuff.

  They try my coffee and Jon’s conclusion is, “I like the aroma more than the taste.”

  “It’s okay, no hard feelings. You will get used to it,” I tell them. “Sometimes, it takes time to get used to the best things in life.” They smile.

  We then go to take a look at BZ-2—their ship, which is still coated with mud. They show me the various controls and panels. There isn’t much to see, as there is no power or energy to show how things work. The thing is dead, nevertheless interesting.

  “Here is the last thing that was working,” says Leo while pointing at the generator. A very interesting piece of equipment embedded in the back side of the ship.

  They also show me some shelves where they store their food supplies—completely empty. A small bathroom where they...you know.

  “Don’t!” says Jon, as he steps in front of me to block the bathroom door with his body. “You don’t want to go there,” he says. We laugh. I could certainly tell that there was a strong odor coming from within.

  Lastly, two big “drawers” with small beds inside, similar to pull-out beds, where they take naps. There are only two drawers, even though there were three passengers. The trick is that only two could be napping at the same time. There would always be one flying the ship or guarding it.

  Jon opens one of the drawers and there is a corpse in it. “He is the third passenger, who passed away soon after the crash,” Jon explains. “We stored him there in a special sealed bag after having treated his dead body, as you can see.” He opens the zipper bag and shows me the dead body. I had totally forgotten about their third passenger up to this point.

  “What’s the plan with him?” I ask.

  “Not sure…it’s just a body,” says Jon.

  “I will adhere to your rituals, and respectfully do as you please,” I say to them, showing respect for the dead one.

  “There isn’t much to do with a dead body,” says Leo, “It has served its purpose. We normally burn them or disintegrate them. They are dead! We are very respectful towards people or beings. A dead body is a dead body as the being is not contained in it anymore.”

  “I see. Maybe you can take it back to the Base, I don’t really have the means to cook or disintegrate him here,” I voice.

  “We can will work it out,” says Leo.

  Jon turns to me and says, “I did some research about your electricity last night and found out we can make the communication systems work if we feed it with 15 volts AC. But the frequency needs to be 100 Hertz, square wave, as opposed to the 60 Hertz sine wave that you currently have. So we need to change that,” he explains.

  “That’s not difficult,” I reply, while the wheels start turning inside my head about building an electrical circuit that is going to do this frequency conversion. “I’ve got a few electronic components in my other garage. I’m sure I can build a simple circuit using some old parts. We should be good!” I add with confidence.

  “You are the man!” says Leo, showing excitement. Jon is excited too.

  We go to the kitchen and find Gina and Sarah already up and busy making breakfast. We sit at the table and the boys start moving the plates and utensils around, without touching them. Sarah is very entertained by it. She points at the moving plates, smiles, and wiggles. Gina and I are fascinated, too.

  “I hope doing this is not considered bad manners,” says Jon.

  “It’s not,” says Gina. “It is just different to us, because we can’t do it. We normally reach for the plates, food, and drinks, or have somebody hand them to us.”

  “But Lee can do it,” says Jon. “He did most of the work moving the ship out of the lake and into the garage.”

  “I still can’t believe that,” I tell them.

  “Come on Lee. Move some things around!” says Leo.

  “Let me try,” I attentively look at a small teaspoon and try to lift it, but there is no movement. “See, I can’t even move that little teaspoon.”

  “Necessity level!” says Jon.

  “What?” I ask.

  “When your necessity level is really high, then you’ll have no considerations. You just do things. You do the so-called impossible,” he adds.

  “But you guys do it even for fun,” says Gina.

  “That’s practice,” says Leo. “When you have done things long enough, due to necessity or just practice, you gain so much confidence in yourself that you can just do things. Unfortunately, it also works the other way around. The less you believe in yourself and the less you practice, the less confident you become. So, it is just a matter of believing in yourself. There is no trick, magic or anything,” he turns around and looks me straight in the eyes and then goes on, “In your case, Lee, remember that you were part of us some time ago, you are no less able than any one of us. You might be out of practice, but that’s all,” he ends and waits for me to come up with a better response.

  “Okay…okay, I guess I should believe in myself a little more,” I voice timidly.

  “No, no, no!” he says. “Not just a little bit more!” he mimics my timid voice. “Lots more! Th
ere is no limit of how much you can believe in yourself.”

  I feel like he finally woke me up with his last statement and so I respond determinedly, “Oh yeah! Then watch this…” I point at my coffee cup and start lifting it slowly…by intention alone. It stays above the table for a moment, then wobbles and falls down on the table spilling its content.

  “Why did you drop it?” Gina asks.

  “I guess I doubted myself for a moment, I wasn’t sure it was real.”

  “That teaches you not to doubt yourself,” says Jon. “That’s one of the things we have seen people do here on Earth. People are very uncertain of themselves, what they do and even who they are…” Jon pauses and scratches his small head while Leo nods at Jon’s comment.

  I feel challenged and impelled to show them that I truly intend to bring back my capabilities. “To hell with that!” I voice in a strong and determined tone of voice. “A while ago I decided I was going to be working on discovering all my potential and become as capable as I possibly can, and that’s what I will do.” I start to point and lift a few utensils from the table with no doubt in my mind, and with full control and certainty, I keep pointing at bigger items and make them move way above the table. They were really surprised. I just decide to be certain about it and I am. It was just a matter of deciding.

  Chapter 23

  Connecting With Another World

  We go back to the ship right after breakfast and spend the following three hours washing and cleaning it inside and out. Jon and I work outside, Gina, Sarah, and Leo inside.

  The ship is amazing, made of a lightweight and yet a very strong material. Jon tells me there is a planet near their Base where they get some of the material to make the fuselage and other parts for their ships. A recent discovery yielded even better material on that same planet, which they have already started using in more recent manufacturing of ships.

  There are three main engines that power the ship’s flight at any given time. Then of course there’s the generator, which is dedicated to generate the electrical power for the communication system, and almost every electrical part of the ship. One of the engines operates with hydrogen. You can pour a gallon of water into the tank and have it run for at least an hour on that alone. There is also a special unit, dedicated to extract the hydrogen from the water. The other two are the plasma engines.