by David Larson
“So,” Mike said in complete amazement, “if all things are connected, and all things contain this energy, then you should all be like a bunch of Buddhists here. Kill nothing and harm nothing.”
“If we were,” She said, “then we would not have used our science to understand what we were looking at. We would have taken our knowledge to only a certain level and then used a knee jerk reaction to govern how we used it.”
“Kind of like we do,” Mike said.
“I’m not trying to be hurtful here, but yes. We don’t kill animals because they have the ability to feel pain, and plants don’t. We know this from the experiments we’ve conducted along the same lines as what I’m talking about here. The aura around an animal goes crazy when there’s pain involved. When a plant is killed the essence simply dissipates out into the collective.”
“So I guess I have two questions,” Mike said. “What do you do with the vessels, and what is this place?”
“As for the first,” she said “…and open your mind WAY up here…we take them to a processing center and reconstitute them as fertilizer.”
Mike was instantly horrified and conflicted. He was trying to keep up and be open-minded. But, the thought of tossing grandma on a compost pile was, at best, ghoulish.
“That’s prying my mind open about as far as it can go,” he said.
“It’s only the vessel, Mike, and there is absolutely no sense in wasting it in false reverence. As for the what is this place part. Well, I think you’re going to really enjoy it.”
Sixteen:
Mike followed Tawny farther down the path until they came to a case on a post, that was near the right side of the pathway. Tawny stopped and opened it. Inside were rows of what looked to be Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses. But again, Mike was pretty sure they weren’t.
“Here,” Tawny said handing a pair to Mike. “Hold on to these, but don’t put them on until I tell you to.”
Her excitement was almost palpable.
“OK,” Mike said. Whatever was just around the corner of this garden path had to be something pretty special. The woman that lived on the most beautifully amazing planet in the galaxy seemed to be about to wet her pants in anticipation of showing off this apparently rare treasure.
They walked through another trellis that was also covered with wisteria, but this one had the addition of amazingly thick and beautiful rose bushes on each side. The blooms were the size of softballs, and the aroma was nearly overpowering.
They continued through the trellis, and a little farther down the path. Eventually the flora of Hale spread out to reveal an amazingly beautiful open space that easily several hundred Earth acres large. Giant live oaks lined the entire perimeter of the opening. The area was filled with thousands of flat black pedestals lined up about 6 feet apart. It reminded Mike of the grave stones he had seen in Arlington Cemetery.
Narrow gravel pathways were woven between the pedestals like some giant pieces of fabric. Wild flowers grew everywhere in flaming flamboyant colors that swam together, blending in places, and separated into distinct patterns in others. Harp-playing butterflies flitted everywhere. Dragonflies, or the idea of dragonflies, zipped in and out of flowers droning around in self-important patterns that seemed to be complete, controlled chaos. Of course, the beagle sized hummingbirds were in tremendous supply here, but there were also millions of fireflies floating in and out of the grass and flowers.
Amazingly, all of these insects and animal life never became obtrusive to the people visiting the area. Not like flies, mosquitoes, or gnats on earth. Instead they kept to themselves and seemed to part to allow people to pass.
The air was filled with the sound of something that sounded like crickets, but, as usual, wasn’t really. They trilled softly in a way that seemed as though they were actually composing some sort of natural music that accompanied and accentuated the harp-playing butterflies. The sound was low, ancillary, and smooth as the feel of silk on a baby’s face.
“OK,” Tawny said, “put the glasses on now.”
Mike didn’t really want to. The sunlight wasn’t too bright, and he didn’t want to see this most beautiful of places through any sort of filter at all.
“Go on,” Tawny said as she pushed his arm a little. “Put them on. I’ll make sure you keep standing up right.”
She already had hers on, and the statement Tawny had made about holding him up seemed like a genuine promise. After all the times he was physically overcome by his surroundings on this planet, Mike was certain the possibility of him passing out or at least losing his balance was very real.
Mike slowly slid on the Ray-Bans, and his knees buckled just a little. He felt Tawny’s arm around his waist supporting him. As soon as the glasses were on it looked as though Mike was standing in the middle of a super nova. Wisps of gas in every single pastel color imaginable floated and swirled around them. As people, animals, and birds moved through the Technicolor vapor, it would swirl around them like fog. The fireflies were radiant now. Their lights sparked and flared like tiny brightly colorful fireworks popping off everywhere around them.
Mike reached out with his hand and swished it back and forth in front of him. The fog danced and swirled offering Mike his own little surreal light show. He looked at Tawny and could see an aura of soft pink and lavender light dancing around her. She was smiling, and the light shown brightest around her head.
“What…” Mike stumbled with his words. “What am I…What am I looking at here?”
“This is it Mike,” She said.
“What?” Mike asked, as he tried to touch the vapor.
“This is the essence of everything,” She said. “This is the fabric that connects all living things. Everything that’s organic is connected by what you’re looking at now.”
Tawny spread her arms out over her head and turned around in a circle. “This is life Mike. This is it.”
“When a person dies,” Tawny grabbed both of his hands. “This is what leaves the vessel that has been carrying it through life. All of this is what makes up you, and me, and these trees, and the flowers, and animals. When you die, whatever you are leaves your body, and mixes with all of this.”
“How can I see it?” Mike asked, clearly stunned and forgetting about his glasses.
“The glasses,” Tawny said. “They are designed to see the essence of life that is constantly around you.”
“Is this only here?” Mike asked in amazement. “I mean, is this floating around everyplace?”
“Of course, it is,” Tawny said. “This is life, like I said. And life is everyplace. When you, or anything else for that matter dies, it leaves the container and blends with all the rest of this. The only thing we don’t know is how this essence finds its way into the vessel in the first place.”
Mike was walking slowly around in circles like he was in the middle of a dream. And in essence that’s exactly where he was. He was trying with every fiber of his being to accept the reality that he was swimming around in a sea of life. The depth of everything he had learned in the quick snap of a finger was unquestionably beyond the scope of his grasp. In the deepest subconscious caverns of his mind, he understood that he wasn’t just walking in this wildly colorful state of being only in this place. He was in it all the time, in every waking, and every unconscious moment since he had been on Hale.
“Is this the way it is on earth?” Mike asked.
“Of course it is,” Tawny said. “Life is constant and flowing. It never stops, slows, or changes. People, no matter what age don’t live or die. They simply exist in this state for time eternal. That existence moves through a plane of time as it occupies an organic vessel, then it moves back into the collective. We’ve never seen the overall cloud grow or diminish, so the assumption is that life in this form is finite. So, your essence, or more accurately, the part of the group essence that animates your organic vehicle, has always existed. After it leaves you it may be part of a tree, or a bird, or another human. It always has existe
d, and it always will be here.”
“What are all of these black posts then?” Mike asked. “Do they transmit whatever signal these glasses use?”
“No,” Tawny said, “we certainly aren’t simply clinical to a fault here. When someone dies, or to be more factual,” she hesitated and gestured across the field “considering where we’re standing, when someone’s vessel dies, we don’t just throw them on compost pile and move on. We wanted to have a memorial celebrating the time that a person was able to spend among us. These posts are their memorials.”
Mike walked over to one of the posts and examined it.
“I don’t see a name or date or anything here,” He said. “Is this one that hasn’t been engraved yet?”
“Pass your hand over the top of it,” Tawny said.
Mike passed his hand over the flat top on the pedestal he was standing next to. Instantly a man about six inches tall was standing on the surface. The person looked whole. He appeared to have actual substance; not like a hologram on Earth that was translucent, but totally opaque instead.
“Hey there friend,” the tiny man said. “How are you this fine day?”
“Is he real?” Mike said. Tawny could have told him anything at this point and he would have gone along with it.
“Not the way you’re asking,” Tawny said. “From the time that people on this planet are born they start making a celebration log. When they pass into the vastness of what you see around you, their log is placed in one of these markers. You can visit anyone you like at any of these markers.”
“How do you keep track of who’s at what marker?” He asked her.
“There’s a computer record of everyone here, and that can be accessed through your chip. But if you already know where the marker is, and you want to remember its position, just tap your temple.”
Mike was just staring at her.
“Give it a try,” Tawny said. “Just look at the marker and tap your chip.”
Mike looked at the small man that was now sitting on a chair on top of the marker. He reached up and tapped his temple. Instantly a red beam of light shot up out of the ground around the base of the marker and rose into the sky until it was out of sight.
Mike looked back at Tawny.
“Is this always here then?” He asked.
“Until you remove it,”
“How do I do that?” he asked.
“Just slide your finger backward across the chip.”
He did, and the beam of red light sunk back down into the ground and out of sight.
“Can I see the beam without the glasses?” He asked.
“No,” she said, “but the only thing you would mark is here. And who would want to be here without the glasses on?”
“Why isn’t he saying anything?” Mike asked indicating the small man sitting in the pedestal. “Is it broken, or do I have to put a coin in it?”
Tawny laughed.
“It’s designed to respond to you,” She said. “There are a series of questions and comments you can make that the program will respond to. Try talking to him and see where it goes.”
Mike turned and looked at the man on the pedestal. He knew he was going to feel silly talking to a projection. But then he thought about how much time he had spent on Earth yelling at the news on television.
“Good morning,” Mike said. “How are you?”
“Hey there,” the man said smiling. “I’m just peachy. How’s by you?”
“Uh,” Mike said just a little taken aback “I’m actually pretty great right now. Thanks for asking.”
The man simply smiled back at him. Mike cast a sidelong glance at Tawny. She motioned forward with her chin.
“What’s your name?” Mike asked.
“I’m Linus,” The man said “what’s your name?”
Mike smiled at the man. The man smiled back.
“Uh,” Mike said as he searched for words that might move the conversation forward. “My name is Mike. What was your specialty here on Hale?”
“I was a farmer,” the man said as he got up from the chair and took a step toward Mike. “I loved that work. Every single day I was in the fields working the soil and producing food for my community. I can’t even begin to tell you how energizing it was to plant a seed and stand back to watch it grow into a full size plant that was going to produce the sustenance we need to exist.”
“Did you have any other jobs?”
“Sure, I was also a mechanic. But that’s kind of natural. If you have equipment that you’re going to use to produce food, then you really need to be pretty good at fixing it. You could wait around for someone else that could fix things, but that wastes quite a lot of time. And time, brother, is something that should absolutely never be frittered away. Eventually, we all end up sitting on a pedestal in the middle of paradise having conversations with tourists.”
Mike was a little embarrassed. He felt as though he had offended Linus. Perhaps he had bothered him when he was in the middle of something important. Wait, how could that be? Linus was dead. Mike was swinging wildly at a life preserver to stay afloat in reality.
“Ah,” Mike said to the man.
“How do I turn it off?” He said in a side whisper to Tawny.
“I don’t know,” she said. “How do you normally end a conversation? By the way, he’s not an it. This is Linus. He just told you that.”
“Ah,” Mike said to Linus. “Thank you? And, ah, have a pleasant day.”
“See ya brother,” Linus said. “And don’t forget, life is short, so don’t count your monkeys until they weave a basket.”
Linus stepped back to the chair and sat down. Then he snapped out of existence.
“What the hell was that?” Mike said to Tawny.
“What?” Tawny asked.
“That last part about a monkey and a basket.” He said.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what we call humor,” She said. “Get it?”
“So my first personal link to the dead was a smart ass?” Mike said.
“Seems like it,” she said. “But honestly, isn’t this the same thing as when you meet people on the street, or at work, or whatever? You get what you get.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I guess it is.”
“Are you ready to leave?” Tawny asked. “We could go back and get something to eat.”
Mike didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay in that field, wearing those glasses, with this amazing woman for the rest of his life. In fact, he could die right here and be happy. He started to think about getting his celebration log started. I mean how bad would that be if he joined this collective and didn’t have a log to be included in this magical place. Where would Twany go when she wanted to talk to him? He had to get on that right away. Just like writing a will back on Earth.
Mike and Tawny walked back on the path that had taken them to this place. As they walked Tawny reached over slipped her hand gently into Mikes. The gesture nearly struck Mike down, right then and there. He was walking along a path serenaded by musical insects, swishing through an ethereal pastel fog that was in fact the essence of life, fireflies still putting on a tiny firework display just for them, and the most amazing woman in the world…no…in the universe, was holding his hand.
The idea that Tawny felt the same way he did was intoxicating to him. The fact that he had been dancing, up close and personal with Bob a few days before was lost on him. The fact that Brizio had actually reached over and held his hand once while they were walking to dinner was lost on him. That incident was extremely off-putting for Mike. His first feeling was to tell Briz that he wasn’t gay. He was going to say he was flattered, but no thanks. Then he felt that he was being too socially constipated for this new society of his. Maybe that’s just what they did here, and he flowed with it.
But now, as he floated down the along the path with the love of his life, all of those life lesson and all of the personal advancements he had made, were balled up and sky-hooked into the waste basket. Clearly
Tawny felt the same way for him that he felt for her, and they were going to spend the rest of their lives to together on Hale raising their children.
After they passed through the trellis and left the field of life, Tawny took her glasses off and replaced them in the case near the path. Mike reached up to remove his and hesitated. He looked back at Tawny one more time. Her exquisite beauty accentuated by the magical mist swirling around her. Her smile radiated like a soft beacon of hope for a fulfilled life.
He pulled the glasses from his face and felt actual physical pain. Just like the pain a junkie would feel as they pulled the spike out of their arm, knowing that it was the last time they would roll out on the velvet blanket of a skag high.
And knowing they had been lying to themselves all along.
Seventeen:
Mike felt like he had as a kid, when his parents had taken him to the Cedar Point amusement park. At the time, the largest roller coaster in the country was there, the Blue Streak. That thing was absolutely huge, and the all wood frame made it look like a giant sleeping dragon that had curled up for a nap between the lesser rides. Mike had tried to take his mind off the fact that his parents had, for some mystifying reason, entered into a mutually-assured destructive death pact that apparently included him. Waiting in line under the hot Northwestern Ohio sun was terrible and excruciating. It was what he imagined it would be like to be standing in front of a firing squad, blind-folded, and every few minutes the commander would say, “READY…AIM…hold on, we need to sort this out some more.”
Eventually they were under the roof of the queue that snaked back and forth, constantly moving unconscious people up a ramp, and ever closer to their immanent demise. Mike was so keyed up that he was positively vibrating. His mind was about to explode when a gate in front of his father opened and both he and his mother hustled him up to the very first car in a line of sky blue death boxes.
That feeling he had as the blue python of his darkest nightmares slowly slid out of the staging area and started to click its way ever up ward was exactly what he was feeling now. Bob had asked him if he wanted to have some fun. ‘Fun’ to Bob could have included anything under the sun, and probably did. Sky diving, base jumping, being on the receiving end of a knife and hatchet throwing competition…pretty much any or all of those could have been included in the list.
