by Arwen Jayne
Tyra rolled her eyes. She walked over to it for a closer look.
Simon watched her attentively, as if waiting for something. “Put your hand on it and close your eyes”.
Tyra did just that, on impulse first caressing the rock then placing her right hand firmly in place. She closed her eyes, her inner focus being drawn into her third eye, just above and between her eyebrows. There was a flash of blue light as if a doorway had opened in her mind. “Where the hell have you been?” A loud and very angry masculine voice reverberated in her mind.
Tyra reeled back, breaking the connection and starring at the rock in disbelief. “It’s alive!”
Simon chuckled. “Very much so. Actually everything is ‘alive’ as you call it but Thex didn’t start out as that piece of rock, he was once a living breathing man like me. Let me have a word with him for a sec”. He walked over to the the crystal and rested his forehead against it for a moment or two then moved away. “Try again now”.
The rock’s a him? Tyra reached her hand out again to touch the rock, closed her eyes again remade the connection in her mind. “Hello Thex?”
A little less anger seemed to roll through her mind this time. “At least say my name right, it’s a ‘th’ as in ‘those’ not a ‘th’ as in ‘thing’ and I’m sorry” said the voice in her head “I’ve been trapped in here a very, very long time. I've been waiting for you since you were born. I’ve wanted you from that moment but everyone, first Simon and then Jack and Annie, kept telling me to wait, to wait. All-spirit do they have any idea of how long I’ve waited?”
“I, um...” Her mum had met Thex? Tyra was so lost for words to express how she felt, talking to a rock, she ended up with only questions. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry, what do you want from me, how can I help?”
“You are the prophesied one who can free me. I just need you to love me Tyra, love me and accept me, please”. The man’s plea tore at Tyra’s soul.
“I don't see how love alone is going to free you. You're the one aren't you that's been in my dreams my whole life. I certainly have affection for you even if I wouldn't go as far as calling it love but I don't see how any of that is going to get you out of that rock”.
Simon thinks there is a way. It was long ago foretold that humans would be born with compassion so strong that they could release us but first they would need to liberate themselves and learn to love us.
Simon and Tyra stayed with Thex for a while, Tyra getting to know him a bit and Simon having a discussion with him she wasn’t privy to. Thex’s final words to Tyra had been to “surrender yourself to Simon's teaching. You have much to learn, and I’m being selfish when I say the sooner you learn the better for me, please Tyra.” When they left Tyra had very damp eyes.
Back upstairs in the kitchen Simon leaned against the cupboard. He had the handgun back in his hand. “We need to go into town. I need to work tonight and we need to sort out about your guns. There are times that I might need to be elsewhere and you’ll need to be able to protect yourself”. He winced. “Unfortunately they got to your uncle when I was last away. I felt his terror but came back too late.” He let out a deep sigh then handed the gun to Tyra. “This is a Walther PPK, made famous I believe by a certain fictional spy. It takes a nine millimetre round and has the advantage that the front sight and the trigger guard aren’t likely to catch on clothing if you have to pull it out of an inside pocket quickly. It will kill at close range. Make sure you have it on you at ALL times”.
Tyra felt the weight of the gun in her hand, not too heavy. “I have a gun license for a basic shotgun and rifle for vermin control but nothing like this or the amount of weapons that must be in that safe. The police are going to say I don’t have an adequate reason for them”.
Simon nodded. “That’s why we need to go into Boswell, we’ll give them a reason.”
“And report last night,” Tyra could hardly forget her fright from the evening before.
“We won’t because the cops can’t touch ‘them’, and it would be dangerous for them to even try. We’ll go to the pub instead”.
Tyra raised her eyebrows, she still didn’t even know who ‘them’ was, but she was starting to get a sense of Simon’s character and guessed he’d only explain further when he felt like it.
Tyra thought Simon would have zapped himself into town rather than ride with her in the car but he seemed happy enough to be a passenger. She put the Sube into low gear and kept the revs up, vaguely remembering her four-wheel driving instructor having once said that these 4WD station wagons didn’t have a lot of torque low down. Although none of the car nerds she’d ever met seemed to be able to explain exactly what torque was. She secretly expected they didn’t really know either. Once she got going she kept a steady pace until they were up and out of the crater. Whether by Simon’s mental powers or luck the trip out wasn’t too bad. She’d have to look at getting a better track benched into the hill, whatever that would cost she didn’t want to think about right now.
“Simon, I’ve had a recurring nightmare all my life. Not about me but about a gorgeous man with long fine braids of blue black hair. That’s Thex?”
“You know it is.”
“Oh come on please, what about a bit of ‘what-when-why’?”
“A hundred thousand years ago, more or less, a species of being that was trapped between the planes of existence wanted out. We think they might have been the souls of some of the more evolved dinosaur predators that roamed your earth before an asteroid hit them 650,000 years ago. Most life reincarnated into equivalent animal forms but possibly not all. Life in The Between probably isn’t that great so we guess it was a case of the grass being very much greener on the other side. They’re basically egoistic greed driven creatures but they didn’t want to suffer on the plane of existence below them, which is where they really belong, so they went to the next level above instead. Over time they had evolved in The Between and developed technology. They found a way to use a substance called dark light, a kind of anti-light if you will, to create doorways to this plane. They have more of an affinity with the mineral world than they do plant or animal life. Your world and others like it were rich in durable minerals and pretty gems so they decided that this part of the universe would be a good place ‘set up shop’, build an empire and have a life of luxury. They hid so well on your planet that most of your kind have never suspected they even exist, except very early on when they openly posed as gods. Thex and his team tried to stop them from entering your plane of existence in the first place or at the very least to engage them in battle and force them back to where they came from. The Din as we call them used one of their dark light portals to enter directly onto Thex’s ship and they also used a variant of the same technology to trap Thex and his surviving crew members in a form of matter from which they were unable to use their mental powers to escape from.”
“So where do I come in?”
“There’s a prophecy that says that ‘the heart of stone by love be freed’.”
“So I have to fall in love with him or something?”
“Not in the limited human sense of love. Our love is one of total acceptance of another, an acceptance so deep we do not try to change the other. We don’t try and own, possess or control each other like most human spouses do. We enjoy the outer personality and container of the person as a unique and temporary expression of the all-spirit and honour it as such. Although to be perfectly frank our lives are not quite as temporary as yours. At the same time we acknowledge that the eternal all-spirit within each of us is one and the same. Our true love is when we love another person literally as part of ourselves and we don’t necessarily limit it to one person as your kind often do”.
Tyra frowned “But why me? Couldn’t one of you have done that? And let’s be honest here, the guy seems nice but how am I going to make myself love him? Most of all, how is all that going to free him from the stone?”
“To be perfectly honest we don’t know why it needs a human a
lthough the development of compassion is one the key lessons of this plane and we believe it's what's needed to get him and the others free. Many of us have come and tried to connect with the trapped but while we can love them it doesn’t seem to be enough to reascend them out of their current form back into their true form. I did the ritual of union with Thex but to no avail, although our minds are now linked most of the time and he has experienced much of this world through me. When I first had the prophecy...”
“Whoa up there! You’re the one who had the prophecy? You’re the boy in my dream?”
Simon simply nodded, he wasn’t one to spend time confirming the obvious. “Thex’s father asked me to do a follow up prophecy. What I got was pictures instead of words. The all-spirit showed me seven humans, on the brink of ascension from their own plane of existence, who would learn our ways of love, find enlightenment and liberate both themselves and the trapped. It showed me a way. I’ve been waiting thousands upon thousands of years for you humans to get your act together and reach the point you could help us. Humans nearly evolved to that point twelve thousand years ago when the last global culture reached its peak. They were mostly coastal sea-going people, living throughout the ice free tropics and subtropics. They all but got wiped out when the climate warmed. All thanks to the enemy messing with this planet’s ionosphere so that they could have a planet warmer to their lizard liking. When the temperature reached a critical threshold point a sudden mass melting of the glaciers flooded most of the urban areas of the time under a couple of hundred feet of water and silt. Human civilization only recently re-evolved to the necessary stage, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, about the same time most humans started realising that the planet’s resources were running out and that both the biosphere and the world economy were on borrowed time.”
“But Simon, or is it Shimon, I’m just a soon to be retired librarian. If you wanted an enlightened person you should have gone looking for a sage in India or Tibet or maybe some new-ager in California. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to achieve what you want from me.”
“You can call me Simon, it's a more modern name that your culture relates to easier. I was named Shimon as I can at times hear the will of the all-spirit, Shimon simply means one who hears. Liberating yourself it isn’t something you ‘achieve’, in fact quite the opposite. We need to undo you. As for love, you don’t fall into it, you simply remove the blockages in in its way. If you will accept me (he emphasised the ‘accept’) I will guide you.”
They both lapsed into thought for the rest of the trip into town.
Tyra wondered how you go about ‘undoing’ a person. She’d finally gotten some information but she wasn’t liking it. She felt like she was being set up to fail big time. Maybe Simon was getting alzheimers in his old age, after all 100,000 years was an awfully long time to remember a prophecy. She peered intently down the road.
In the passenger seat Simon did his best to refrain from laughing as he read Tyra’s thoughts. For Simon time was just another mental construct.
6
Sergeant Michael Wilson looked up from his desk and groaned. “Simon, to what do I owe the misfortune...”
“Oh, don’t be like that Michael. I happened to hear those government money grubbers down south were cutting funding for the town’s youth centre and thought I might help out”. Simon handed Michael a fairly thick unsealed envelope.
Michael looked inside the envelope and drew breath, a frown wrinkling his brow. “That would certainly keep the centre going for the kids but I’ve got to ask you Simon, this is not a bribe for anything is it?”
Simon straightened himself as if insulted. “Now Michael, if I’d asked for something then given it to you that would be a bribe but I’ve asked nothing and given it to you so it must be a gift mustn't it?”.
Michael, still frowning dubiously at the envelope, as if it would leap up and bite him at any moment, pushed it to the side of his desk for further consideration. He tilted his head in Tyra’s direction “You haven’t introduced me.”
“Tyra Aguila Goodwin this is Sergeant Michael Wilson, our only and much overworked law enforcement in the town.
Michael extended his hand, firmly grasping Tyra’s hand. “Pleased to meet you Tyra, I’m sorry about your uncle. The CIB are stilling looking into the case but I have to admit it has us puzzled. There hasn’t been any DNA found on the body or at the site it was found. Nothing that would indicate who or even what did it. Forensics will take another look but it doesn’t look hopeful. Are you planning to sell Jack’s place or move into our tiny little town?”
Tyra shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know yet. I just thought I’d better come up and see what needed sorting out here. Mum’s looking after the funeral and the transfer of the family’s trust which Jack administered. I found a gun safe at Uncle Jack’s cabin and hoped I could transfer them into my name rather than hand them in.”
“Hmm”, Michael considered her for a moment. “Do you have a gun license?”
“Yes, here you go”, Tyra placed the card on the sergeant's desk.
Michael looked up Jack Goodwin’s records on the computer. “Your license is only a standard license for a shotgun and a 22 calibre rifle. It appears Jack had some considerable firepower which he had military clearance for but it’s going to be hard to justify a reason for you to keep them”.
“She has a reason”, Simon interrupted. “She’s my new bodyguard”.
Michael choked out a laugh, “you, need a bodyguard?”
Simon raised his eyes attempting an innocent look, “I feel threatened”.
Michael glanced at the envelope on his desk and then eyed Simon, “that I doubt.” Sighing heavily he pulled out some forms and handed them to Tyra to fill in. “I can’t make any promises, the request for a licence upgrade will need to go to head office. In the meantime memorise this, get some training and arrange to get yourself tested for level three certification as an armed security guard and get an up-to-date first aid licence”. He handed Tyra a booklet and a list of the few registered people who could test her. “I’ll give you three months to at least complete the basic training on controlling situations with firearms. If you haven’t progressed that far by then I’m confiscating the guns. At some stage I’ll need to come out to the cabin to view the guns in their storage so I can see that everything is up to current regs.”
Michael glared at Simon “You better not be messing with me Simon. If I find you’re using Tyra to expand your operation I’ll come down on you with the full force of the law. The legislation states that only a one-person operation is allowed. Is that clear?”
Simon smiled the smile of victor, “Perfectly clear.”
Tyra was totally aghast, “did you just bribe the local police officer”?
“Of course not, Michael is far too honest for that”, Simon paused, “but he’s not stupid either. No one in the town wants the youth club to close. I have the kind of money that can make things happen. No, it was just, let’s say an opportunely synchronous transaction.”
“A what?” Opportunely synchronous transaction my ass.
“I expect by next week there might even be some new gym equipment out of that little donation. We’ll even enrol you in a few self defence classes there. I’m thinking Aikido as its more spiritually focused and a little bit of Indonesian Pencak Silat which is an extremely versatile fighting style and will get you fit and nimble on your feet. A couple of the locals are masters.
Tyra’s jaw dropped. “Aren’t you forgetting a little something here? You know, fifty year old sedentary librarian and all that. And what was all that about your one man operation?”.
Simon eyed her uncertainly. “We’ll get to that later. I have a client tonight so you’ll find out all about my business then”.
Tyra knew he was hiding something but guessed it would be futile to pursue it further. She hoped it wasn’t something criminal but if the cop knew about it couldn’t be too bad, could it? If she was going to
find out tonight she’d find out tonight. “What’s next then? You said something about going to the pub”.
The Bush Ranger’s Rest was a worn down small country town pub. It had been built in the eighteen hundreds when bush rangers really did roam the area. It still had the original post and rail fence out front for tying your horse to.
Simon leaned on the lichen covered post and rail, in the shade of a large cootamundra wattle that was just starting to come out into bloom. He reached into his pocket for a small container, took out a pinch of dust and placed it carefully in his palm. “Before we go inside I need to open your eyes to a deeper level of reality. I need to blow a bit of this dust into your eyes. It won’t hurt but your eyes might water for a moment”.
Tyra wasn’t too sure about this but it couldn’t be any stranger than anything else he’d shown her, could it? “It won’t do any long term damage will it?”
“Not at the micro-dose I’m going to use”.
Not exactly reassuring but “okay”.
Tyra’s eyes did indeed water. “Bloody hell, what was that stuff?”
Simon ignored her question and just waited.
The watering stopped and she looked around and … wow! There were little bits of light flittering around the opening blooms of the wattle tree. Tyra looked at Simon and was not entirely surprised to see him encased in bright light, mostly white but with hints of gold, violet and magenta.
