Chester Fields

by Charles Kohlberg

  “Bill; it’s Rich Stanley; uh, did you by any chance just tell someone you were going mall walking?” I asked him sheepishly. In a very defensive tone, he answered by asking if I was somehow on his line; I had to lean against the wall for support. It’s funny, but I already knew what I was going to tell him if he said he had. I guess that means that at least on some level, I already believed Chester. I told Mars that yes, when I had picked up my conference room phone; I thought I’d heard his voice telling someone he was going mall walking, and that we must have crossed wires. That was an easy sell. He was obviously more concerned about someone hearing him lie to his wife than anything else. Mall walking is the last thing in the world Bill Mars would bother doing. He seemed flustered and quickly got off the line, not even thinking to ask me how it was going with Chester. Not that I would’ve had any idea what to tell him. In all the confusion, I felt, he still dropped about ten notches on my ladder of respect when I put two and two together that he was probably cheating on his lovely wife, Pang.

  Chester and I then agreed to take a bathroom break, which I really needed so I could “collect myself”. My tension grew as I walked down C wing and saw one of the nurses there had red hair; a fresh stain on the front of her uniform, and a blue mug on the desk in front of her. I don’t know what the other nurse there, Bridges; that I had talked to on the phone; could’ve been thinking. First, I hung up on her, and then I came walking down towards her station. Her face dropped a little when she saw me, but I’d already seen enough; I turned around and went back the other way. Oh well; she had a mystery of her own to figure out that day. In light of what was going on, I decided I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Chester. I called my receptionist, Sally, at her home, and asked her to reschedule my Friday appointments for me. I called Ruth, and told her I’d be staying in Easton that night and probably not coming home until late the following afternoon.

  “Chester, Chester, Chester, I don’t know where to begin”, I said when we reconvened. I decided in that moment I’d just go for it and ask him straight out. It felt like the right time to do so “Well, you’ve proven to me that you have some very unusual talents, so how about if we just get right to you telling me your version of what happened to those three boys.” I didn’t think anything he’d say could surprise me after what had just happened. I knew the status of the boys he claimed to have harmed, so he couldn’t put anything past me in that regard. Sadly, they were all comatose, essentially brain dead, but stable on life support.

  Chester said, “Well, I have been dying to get this off my chest; I mean really get this off my chest, to someone that might understand.” I nodded. “You know how I told you what I do; meditate to the point where I can open the door?” I nodded again. “And you know how I end up at the watchtower, from where I can close my “eyes” to have the out of body experience?” He kept right on talking as I nodded yet again. “Well, when I said it feels like God there, it’s not that I feel better or greater than anyone. It’s just that in that place, I am at one with all the knowledge in the entire universe. From there, at the watchtower, I can see the whole of creation, and I know how it was made, along with everything else there is to know. And there are different perspectives. In one way you can see the web of energy I mentioned that goes everywhere. From another, you can see all the universes lined up, down below you; countless numbers of them. They’re almost like pages in a book, like slices from the outside, but unimaginably large on the inside. They’re all right there, it’s so wild,” he said excitedly. “The key to this whole thing is that mental door I mentioned. Like I said, I can meditate to a state where I can feel I’m at this door. I open it and start to fall, but I have control so I stop, and come back up to the watchtower. I’m able to stay there and bask in the knowledge of everything, or I can go on to do astral projection if I want. Now if someone else is taken there, they can’t access the door. And remember; going through the door means control. They just fall and they can’t stop themselves like I can stop myself. And I can’t stop them either. So they fall and keep right on falling! Eventually they fall across the multitude of universes, so their essence is left spread out across what is essentially, eternity.

  What I mean is, if you try to enter the area of the watchtower without accessing the door, which is exactly what’s happening when someone else brings you there; you are gone. By gone I mean ending up in limbo; just bits of energy spread out over eternity. Such people remain as entities to themselves, but not in this world, or any other. There’s too little of them in any one place to be more than a blip of energy, so they end up being completely alone, with all the knowledge in the universe, but with no stimuli; nothing to do with it.

  The only interaction the ones that have fallen can ever have with any particular universe or anyone in them; is a one way street; as sort of a muse, like a transcending impulse or thought, on the web. That part of them can inspire someone. But there’s no feedback on their end, and it’s just an idea to the person that catches the idea or thought. From their side, they’re in what feels like a sort of deprivation tank, but with eternal infinite knowledge. On ours they are nothing more than a tiny spark on the energy field of a trillion different realms.”

  I was absolutely amazed at what this kid was saying to me. It was clear what he was implying about the three boys lying comatose. If he was serious, he had to be crazy, and if he wasn’t, he was downright cruel. But what was even scarier; is there was a chance he was at least partially correct about it! I mean how in the hell else could he have done what he did? “And the boys?” I asked, “Are you saying this is what happened to them?”

  “A real astral projector can take anyone else there as long as they’re sleeping or a meditative state. But there’s always the control problem once they’re there. In short, they’re now and forever spread out across creation,” he said with a half smile, his face almost lighting up. “I didn’t realize that would happen at the time I took them there you know. I just wanted to give them a good scare, and make sure they were going to stay away from me. I realized when I was out of my body; that I could take others there to the watch tower. So yes I did sort of hijack their souls, and took them to the watch tower, but I thought I’d be able to put them back.

  When you’re there, you know everything. You are at one with all the knowledge there is. But in a normal waking state, and even an out of body state, a human mind doesn’t have the capacity to hold all that knowledge. It’s too much. You have to be one with it to access it. So when I brought them there, as soon as I opened my “eyes” at the watch tower I understood what would happen, but by then it was too late. So they fell, and landed across multiple universes. It was like watching a drop of water spread across the top edge of a book.

  My true intention was to enlighten them about how their victims feel being bullied, and I admit I hoped to maybe scare the crap out of them, and I’ll admit, get some payback. Mostly though it was to make sure they’d leave me alone. But no sooner than I got them there; they were gone beyond retrieval. I really didn’t mean for it to happen, but, you know what? They’re not really dead, even if they unplug the life supports, and their bodies die, they’ll still be living out there; and they’ll live there forever too. Even though they’re across the multi-verse, they’re still themselves. They just can’t be among, see, or hear, anything else, because they can’t materialize in any one universe, and again, the reason is that they’re in so many. So when you come down to it, I really didn’t hurt them, did I?” he asked in a humble tone, but at the same time with what I sensed as a defiant attitude.

  So, was Chester joking with me, flat out lying, or had he gone crazy at that point? Or was I crazy? As it all churned about in my mind, I felt nauseated and hoped I would wake up from a dream to find my beautiful wife beside me. But before I could even speak up he assured me that he was dead serious, and absolutely not lying or even misinterpreting! The only thing I could think to do; was to get him to explain it all over again from the b
eginning and look for inconsistencies. We spent the next hour or so doing just that. And though I understood his explanation by now, I had to hear it a part of it again, so I asked, “Chester; clarify what you meant when you said you only understand when you’re out there, and what is it that’s preventing us from just going in and getting them back?” I asked.

  “Well, to answer the second part first, with all the particles of their essences divided among trillions of universes. It would take an eternity to collect them again, and that is assuming we could. And doing so is something I can’t wrap my mind around in this state. See, everything is perfectly clear when you’re there; and open to all the knowledge of the universes. In there, one can solve any computation. I can understand the how and why of everything when I’m in there. I can understand how to take you apart and put you back together, atom, by atom. But out here all I can tell you is their spirits, their essence, is spread out over eternity. I can’t understand the exact nature of it unless I’m there and at one with all the knowledge. That’s because the mind I have here can only retain a limited amount of the information I have there, due to the physical limitations of my brain. But one good thing I know Dr. Stanley, is those boys have that very knowledge where they are, the knowledge of the universe. Chester advised me a second time, “This place; this watchtower is what the Buddha called Nirvana.”

  “Okay”, I said, “you said when you’re there, you could take me apart and reassemble me atom by atom, then why can’t you reassemble the boys atom by atom, while you’re there?

  “Maybe I misspoke,” Chester said. “When I’m there, I know how to take you apart and put you back together atom by atom, but I don’t think I could actually do it! It’s not a physical type of existence there. I have no body!”

  I asked, “Can they speak to one another, or others like them? And are there others like them?”

  As he told me before, he shook his head “no” while looking a little sad. “It’s not possible. There aren’t enough of them in any one place to be aware of anything else. They’re totally unaware of any presence other than their own. As I said, from their perspective it’s like they’re in a deprivation tank. There are a number of essences in that same predicament for various reasons, but they’re not aware of each other.”

  “Chester,” I asked, “Now you’d already been to the watchtower place several times before you brought the boys there, correct?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And when you we’re at that place you we’re at one with all knowledge there is, correct?

  Yes,” he said again.

  “You said you didn’t know you couldn’t bring them back until the moment you got there with them in tow. But you’d already been there, so why didn’t you know what would happen to them before you brought them there?” I asked.

  “I already told you Doctor Stanley,” he said. “You can’t bring all that knowledge with you when you leave. Our brains are finite. Ninety-nine, point nine, nine, nine percent of what’s there, stays there. You can’t remember but a little more than you already know now. Most of what I knew when I was there is gone. If I had considered bringing them there before I left there, I ‘m sure I would have remembered that fact after I left, but I didn’t decide to bring them there until later, when I was transporting around.”

  That’s convenient I thought, he can’t explain, know, or remember the impossible, unless he’s in a place where he can’t communicate from. I questioned him a lot that afternoon, and believe me, I grilled him. And he said he understood that I needed to grill him like this due to his claim being so remarkable. Chester said some people that had been dropped across the parallel universes were brought there and others found their way there, with drugs and/or meditation. He couldn’t tell me who took them there. Although I nodded when he told me there were those like him that brought the others in, I just couldn’t buy all of this. He explained how he floated out of his body and into each of the boys when they were at home sleeping, and took them all together up to the watchtower. And as he told me repeatedly, it was only once he’d taken them there, when he realized he couldn’t get them back.

  So I had Chester telling me something that was impossible as I knew it, yet me and the hospital lab had no better explanation for what happened, at least up until now. If they had all taken a particular drug, or inhalant, or were even poisoned, wasn’t it strange that they all made it home and past their parents in good standing. Was it possible that Chester was able to taint the boy’s weed with an unknown delayed action poison?! As much as I continued to have doubts, I had to admire his consistency. Yes, Chester had some sort of extraordinary talent, but I was hopeful it was along the lines of selling them bad drugs, or maybe even spiking a food or drink of theirs when he was floating around “out of his body”. The fact I was even thinking along those lines was evident of how desperate was getting.

  The other item he enlightened me about really blew my mind. That was his explanation for what he had said about bits of them becoming inspirations to others. He said that over time, there were countless entities that have wound up spread across the entire energy field, and sliced up among the universes. Those slices of what are now simple energy; move in parallel within their individual universes. Though those individuals still exist only unto themselves, a random slice or piece of them can interact with or affect someone else. Those former individuals now only affect others in a given universe as a ripple in the energy field which can form an idea. Complete beings more sensitive to the field are hence more open to the ripples and can catch the ideas! But they don’t know that’s actually what they’re doing. He said that typically, more open, meditative, creative type people are most receptive to catching these transcending thoughts or being touched by the ripples. The way he explained it was, that most artists, like songwriters, painters, or writers, typically find their best work is that which they describe as something that just “comes to them”, rather than what they work out in minute detail. For a while there, this young man, for the most part still a child; had me contemplating whether or not the ideas of our greatest talents are mostly transcending thoughts of disembodied spirits; stuck across parallel universes!

  At this point I had to take a break, and went to sit in Dr. Mars’s office to reflect on the whole matter. This was extraordinary! Chester was an amazing boy if nothing else, and made for an interesting case, but after all this time, what did I have? It was after three o’clock now. I’d have to be more than lucky to get to the bottom of the comatose boys yet today. It would’ve been nice to be able to report something, but I had so much to digest. Yes, lots of information, but nothing useful to report. At that point I started to think; maybe I’m slipping, out-smarted by a sixteen year old. When we began, I figured it was less than a fifty-fifty chance Chester had something to do with hurting the boys. Now, after spending six hours with him, I was still at the same place! But, I told myself ... patience is one of my assets, and solving the out of body trick Chester was doing, had to be done before I could help him. I decided where I’d go next with him and that I wouldn’t worry about having a report for Mars today. He would have to wait until tomorrow morning to see my initial report. Now it was time to get back with Chester.

  “Chester,” I said, startling him a little as I re-entered the room. “Are you tired? Can we keep going today? Tell me what you think.”

  “I feel fine Sir-, Rich,” he said. “As long as it doesn’t inconvenience you, I’m happy to continue.”

  Over the next half hour, things remained very interesting. Since Chester had supposedly been out of his body just a few hours before, with me right there, I decided it was time I asked him to take me out, to his watchtower thing. And that seemed to shake his confidence a little in what he had told me. He repeatedly refused to take me into the “watchtower” so I could try to get the boys back. His claim that no one but he, could stay there without falling into the field was convenient, but I explained to him that as an adult and a doctor in Psychi
atry that I would know how to hold myself together just as well as he could and return from it. In fact, I told him I was sure to be able to do much more than he could there and hence possibly save the other boys. I told him I was very experienced at mediation and would be more of an asset than he knew. Then I asked him, just for a peak so I could see where they were, and that they were alright, and he continued to refuse me.

  Then I suggested he couldn’t know for a fact that he would lose me, because he no longer knew “everything”. Then, I decided it was time to press him a little harder, even if it did risk our rapport. I told him he was frustrating me, and though earlier I really thought he was into something as yet unheard of, I was now beginning to think he was full of crap. Then I added that I was also losing my respect for him. That’s what did the trick. I knew I’d get “there”.

  In a firm tone, Chester told me, “If this is what you want Doctor Stanley, I’ll take you. But I’m only doing this because you want me to so badly. Like I told you, once we go, I know I can’t bring you back.”

  I have to say, that after pressing him to this point, I felt somewhat apprehensive, and maybe even had a trickle of fear. A small part of me, maybe the part that gets scared of ghosts during horror movies regretted the fact I’d convinced him. My ruling thoughts however told me that in reality, the possibilities are very limited. Most likely he’s going to “try”, then fail, and then probably blame it on me not having faith, or not concentrating. But I didn’t see any other way. Until I could get to the bottom of this, I’d have no chance of finding out if he was truly involved with the injuries to the boys. My best guess is it’ll take failing today and maybe then again tomorrow morning a few more times before we have our “breakthrough” where I’ll get my answers. And on the off chance there’s something more to all this, I’ll get whatever help we need. Hmmm, I thought to myself, what kind of help would that be, a psychic, or the best magician I can find! What if it goes totally wrong for me; what if he’s speaking the truth? In that case, I know I can handle anything out “there” that Chester can handle, and in all likelihood, quite a bit more. I guess the very worst case scenario is I could get the kids back and leave the scientific community knocked on their ass! But that’s, ho-hum, of course provided this sixteen year old boy learned more in the past few days than the combined knowledge of billions of other people have through more than ten-thousand years of civilization. “Okay, Chester, what do we do? I asked.