The Conductor

by Ronald Johnson

  The Conductor

  Truth Unveiled

  The Conductor

  Truth Unveiled

  By R. Jay Jay Johnson

  R. Jay Jay Johnson Publications

  Oxon Hill, MD

  Published by:

  R. Jay Jay Johnson Publications

  5017 Lealand Drive

  Oxon Hill, MD 20745

  http://www.rjayjayjohnson.me/

  Ron John son, Pub lisher

  Quality Press, Production Coordinator

  Jessica Tribble, Editor

  The Printed Page, Cover & Text Layout

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieved system without written permission from the authors, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  R. Jay Jay Johnson Publications Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases, sales promotions, fund raising or educational purposes.

  © Copyright 2008 by Ron Johnson and R. Jay Jay Johnson Publications

  ISBN # 978-0-9817795-0-8

  Dedication

  To my father, in the spirit of the African oral tradition of our ancestors. You were my first Story Teller. You recited stories to me and my brother, at our request, over and over again.

  Acknowledgments

  I am thankful for being born of the family tree of Edgar and Henrietta Johnson. I was always being reminded that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to do because I was a Johnson.

  Thanks to my dad for teaching me to excel in everything I set out to do.

  Thanks to Dawayne Williams for being a trailblazer and showing me the way to accomplishing this goal of getting published.

  Thanks to Yvonne Rose of Quality Press for your encouragement.

  Contents

  Chapter 1. Inprisoned and Escaped

  Chapter 2. Realities

  Chapter 3. No Escape

  Chapter 4. Destiny

  Chapter 5. Encounter With Truth

  Conclusion

  Final Journal Entry

  Chapter 1

  Inprisoned and Escaped

  “Reality comes like an onion in layers that we can peel back one layer at a time. I guess if it didn’t we would have to accept it all in one big wad, and then it would seem so unreal. Right now, I’m Ok with layers.”

  —Journal Entry: 5/28/06

  Shackles advance across the floor in rhythm with shackles at the waist and wrist. A prisoner in a light blue jumpsuit is escorted by guards, like herdsmen leading a bull to slaughter. In the front of the courtroom a door opens. In steps a judge in a long flowing gown. All rise as he makes his entrance. Once the judge is seated, all present sit except the prisoner and guards. The judge clears his throat and speaks, “In the case of the State vs. Gotar of Sindra, case number 121895, the defendant was found guilty as charged for being delinquent in paying debts owed to his creditors. We are here to sentence the prisoner to serve time at a debtors’ prison for unpaid debts owed. Before I announce the sentence, would the prisoner like to speak?”

  The prisoner raises his head, “Yes, I’d like to ask the court for mercy, your Honor.”

  “The prisoner’s request is noted for the record. According to article 54 of statute 218 and the Debt Agreement Laws of this jurisdiction, the prisoner is sentenced to a minimum of thirty-five years of hard labor in a debtors’ prison assembly line.”

  The prisoner takes a deep breath and contains his emotions. Sobbing echoes through the court room as the guards lead the prisoner out. A woman lunges forward. One of the guards stiff arms her. She falls backward and two small children begin to cry. The prisoner’s downcast head snaps up and turns in the direction of the woman and children. In a reflex reaction, the prisoner all at once breaks the chains of his shackles by extending his arms and legs in an outward motion from his body. In this single liberating motion, the guards are propelled backward. One of the guards recovers and grabs the prisoner from behind with an arm around his neck. The prisoner grabs the guard’s arm and exerts a bone-crushing grip that makes the guard’s arm go limp. The prisoner turns around and faces the guard. He delivers a blow that knocks him across the room.

  The guard lies unconscious. The prisoner bolts across the room and sweeps up the woman and two small children into his arms. In a flash, he leaps across the room to the sill of a window and kicks out the glass. As the prisoner rocks backward and then forward preparing to leap out of the window, a guard aims a device in the direction of the prisoner and squeezes a button. A beam of light emitted from the device illuminates a portion of the plastic collar worn by the prisoner. His body slumps forward, and his limbs seem to become weighted down. The collar has imposed an artificial gravitational force that has rendered him powerless. The physical prowess demonstrated a few seconds earlier has left him. The guard cautions him, “We are on the eighth floor. Jump now and you and your family will plummet to your deaths.” The guards assist the woman and children down from the window-sill. They yank the prisoner backward. His heels hit the floor with a loud thump, and he is dragged out of the courtroom.

  Beyond the quiet inner recess of space, a spacecraft hovers. The quiet sanctum is interrupted by a streaking spacecraft.

  The attention of the passenger of the hovering spacecraft is arrested. “What in Hades was that?”

  The passenger of the spacecraft pursues the streaking craft. “Why are you in such a hurry?” The passenger draws within sight of the craft to make visual contact. “A government craft all the way out here?” He attempts to hail the craft.

  “This is Aldar the bounty hunter; please identify yourself.” He pauses. “Are you in need of assistance?” Still no answer. “Hmm, don’t want to talk? Maybe there’s a bounty on your head.” Aldar continues the pursuit. Suddenly, the control panel of Aldar’s spacecraft begins to register strange readings. His spacecraft begins to shake abruptly. Aldar focuses his attention on the control panel. He is unable to steer the craft as it is propelled forward at an alarming velocity. As he looks up from the control panel, he sees the government craft disappear before his eyes in a flash of light. The same flash of light consumes him and his spacecraft. His spacecraft begins to free fall into a dark hole. His body is introduced to various physical stresses that amount to torture. His brain searches for a way to escape the pain. His efforts are futile as the pain propels itself to a higher level of unbearable discomfort. Every cavity of his body is filled with pain. His body feels like it is about to explode. He involuntarily emits tears from his eyes, mucous from his nose, urine from his bladder, and feces from his bowels.

  There’s a second flash of light, and Aldar’s spacecraft picks up speed as it continues to tumble through space. The velocity of the craft accelerates, and the cabin of the craft becomes unbearably hot. The internal pressure within the cabin forces the breath within Aldar’s lungs out of his nostrils. Aldar gasps for air. The heat from the friction on the hull of the spacecraft intensifies. The inside walls of the spacecraft begin to illuminate. The sound of the friction on the outside walls of the spacecraft renders Aldar deaf as it continues to free-fall. Aldar begins to choke as the spacecraft’s cabin fills with smoke.

  Two balls of light race across the top of the vegetation of a lush planet; the balls of light disappear from view followed by a large boom with a flash of light. The large boom is followed by an after quake and a second flash
of light.

  From the smoldering wreckage of a spacecraft, emerges a figure. A head rises above the slumped shoulders of the victim. The exposed charred face of the survivor is Gotar who was recently sentenced to the debtors’ prison.

  Chapter 2

  Realities

  “The past has sowed seeds that have taken root and matured in my present reality, and the future reaps the harvest for all my tomorrows.”

  —Journal Entry: 10/10/06

  From the bowels of the public subway system come the echoes of voices and laughter. “Man, Will can’t drink. I took him out for his birthday, and he got so drunk. I was trying to holler at this shorty at the other end of the bar. We were just starting to feel one another, when the bartender said, ‘Man you’d better come get your friend; he’s stoned.’”

  The roar of a coming train drowns out the talk and laughter at the subway platform. When the train comes to a stop, the doors open and passengers board the train. Once the train leaves the platform, the original monologue continues.

  “Yeah man I had to drag him out of the bar before I could finish hollerin’ at that shorty.” The storyteller’s com pan ions begin to laugh. The storyteller makes eye contact with another passenger. “Hey, what you looking at? You looking all down my throat like you got a problem with me. What’s up? I’m talking to you man. What’s the matter with you? You can’t speak? You deaf or something?” The passenger being addressed is the shipwrecked space traveler. He gropes to understand the tone of the inquiry with a puzzled facial expression. The storyteller comes over to where the space traveler is seated and stands over him:

  “You don’t speak English? Well let’s see if you understand this.” The storyteller swings a punch at the head of the space traveler. The space traveler ducks the punch and jumps to his feet.

  The rocking motion of the train causes the space traveler to stumble backward into the arms of one of the storyteller’s companions. The space traveler is held with his arms behind his back. The storyteller begins to punch the space traveler again and again in his face and abdomen. The space traveler is weak as a kitten and unable to free himself. A student on the train witnessing the attack holds his head down cringing with every blow and moan from the space traveler. The storyteller’s companion loosens the grip of the slumping space traveler’s body. The rocking motion of the train propels the space traveler to the floor at the feet of the student. The space traveler attempts to pull himself up off the floor. He reaches up and clutches the knee of the student. A jolt of energy like an electric charge is transmitted from his fingertips into the body of the student, making his limbs stiff as boards. The student unintentionally kicks the storyteller as he approaches. “Who you kickin? This ain’t no World Cup soccer match!”

  The storyteller strikes a Kung Fu pose. “Do you think your feeble kick is a worthy defense against my razor sharp Kung Fu?” The storyteller’s companions join him in striking martial arts poses. The student jumps to his feet. The storyteller leaps toward the student launching a lighting quick kick. The student steps to the side to avoid contact. The storyteller launches kick after kick forcing the student back until he runs out of space to retreat to. The storyteller bellows out a screeching scream as he leaps forward to deliver a punishing blow to the student. The student raises his hands in defense and catches the storyteller’s foot in mid air. They both pause in bewilderment; neither anticipates this response. The student looks most bewildered, as if he has stumbled upon a buried treasure. In utter shock and fear, the student flips the storyteller backward. To match the challenge of the student, the two companions of the storyteller double-team the student. They attack him from the front and back.

  They scream in unison and simultaneously leap forward to kick the student. The student twists his torso to the left and raises his right arm. Bringing his arm down, he clamps down on the foot of the attacker from the rear. And with his left hand, catches the foot of the attacker from the front. Still not comfortable with his newfound prowess, the student pauses again in amazement. Suddenly, he pushes the front attacker to the side and in an instant spins around and catches the out-stretched leg of the attacker from the rear before his foot touches the floor. Then he pushes the attacker backward.

  “Later for this choreographed Kung Fu fighting; I’m ready to go thuggish roughish on this dude” The storyteller and his companions gather themselves together and pull out a knife, metal pipe and nunchakus. Suddenly, the student is surrounded by the three attackers, with no means of escape. The attacker with the nunchakus puts on a threatening display with his weapon, slicing through the air going from one hand to the other. The student instantly drops his head and, like a bull, rushes toward the midsection of the nunchaku attacker. The head butt causes the attacker to crumple over. The student grabs the back of the attacker’s legs and lifts him up off his feet and over his back to land on the attacker holding the metal pipe behind him. The two attackers both fall backward with the breaking motion of the train. Turning to the storyteller with the knife, the student grabs his arm and exerts bone-crushing pressure that makes the storyteller scream and drop the knife. With his other hand the student grabs the storyteller up by his collar, lifts him off his feet, and tosses him to the other side of the train. The shipwrecked space traveler lays on the floor of the train in awe of what he has witnessed. When the doors of the train open, the student grabs his backpack and exits the train with lightning-fast speed.

  Above ground, accompanied by only his shadow on the sidewalk, the student walks quickly along the dusky dim lit streets. “I must be hallucinating. But I don’t feel tired. Was that real?” He pants. “I can’t do that type of stuff; that’s not normal. I’m not strong. Why did they have to beat on that guy like that? What was that strange feeling when he touched me? And where did he come from?” The student stops and spins around. Standing there in front of him is the shipwrecked space traveler.

  The space traveler holds up a mechanical device.

  “What’s that?”

  The space traveler presses a button on the device. He holds it up to his ear awaiting a response.

  “What’s that?” The student’s voice is heard coming from the device.

  The space traveler presses another button and, a strange language is heard coming from the device. He takes comfort in what he hears and smiles. The space traveler speaks with an unknown tongue into the device. He presses a button and the student hears, “This is a Language Decoder.”

  “Who are you?” The shipwrecked space traveler records the student’s inquiry with the language decoder. He presses a button and it translates the student’s words into his native tongue. The space traveler responds. He speaks into the device and presses the translation button.

  The student hears, “I am a citizen from a distant star far, far away.”

  “Man, you blowing me.”

  The space traveler records the student’s response. He presses the translation button on his decoder. He doesn’t understand the translation of the student’s response. The space traveler looks at the student, shrugs his shoulders, lifts his eyebrows and smiles. The student turns and vanishes in a flash.

  Standing on the porch outside his home, the student approaches the entrance. Once inside, he hears, “Caleb is that you?”

  “Yes Grandma.”

  “You’re home early; dinner is not ready yet.”

  “We got out early today. The teacher said we could leave after we had finished taking the test.”

  Caleb’s grandmother enters the foyer. “Okay, ‘cause you know I usually have your dinner ready by the time you get home, but you’re a half hour early.” The powder-white- haired lady says as she adjusts her apron. “You Okay, baby?” She observes that Caleb looks flushed and is out of breath.

  “I’m Okay.”

  “Were you chased home by some of those thugs on the street?”

  “No. I’m going upstairs to do some homework before dinner.” Caleb climbs the stairs up to his room. In his room
, seated at his desk, he pulls out a journal and begins to write. “Every time I make physical contact with someone and they touch me, things happen that are not normal. First there were the voices and now this guy touches me, and all of a sudden I’ve got these supernatural powers. And on top of that, he claims he’s a space alien. This is not real!” He turns to an earlier passage in his journal and reads. “Reality comes like an onion in layers that we can peel back, one layer at a time.”

  He takes a deep breath and writes: “Was this real or just a hallucination? If it was all in my head then how do I explain that weird physical sensation that I felt when that guy touched me? It was like an electric pulse that went through my body. It suspended my heartbeat, my breathing, my thoughts and all my senses. My body felt revved-up like a racing car dragster. When those guys attacked me, the starting light turned green and then it was on. I grabbed them and tossed them aside with ease, like I was the Incredible Hulk. And when I decided to flee the scene, I moved so quickly that everything around me was a blur. Then that guy had that strange talking box translating everything we said. It couldn’t have happened. This shouldn’t happen, not right now.”

  He closes his journal and pushes his chair back from the desk. He slouches down in the chair with his hands folded and stares out into space.

  At breakfast the next morning, Caleb’s grandmother inquires, “Caleb how did you sleep last night?”

  “I slept pretty well.”

  “I could see the light on in your room from underneath your door. It was on all night.”

  “I fell asleep with the light on. I was up studying. What were you doing up that time of night?”

  “I was praying.”

  “What were you praying about?”

  “Praying for the Lord’s intervention and his mercies. When your brother lived on the streets addicted to that crack, I prayed for his deliverance. When you became ill and had to be hospitalized, I asked the Lord to heal you and bring you home. But things got worse before they got better. Your parents split up and got divorced. Your brother got so bad that he’d do anything for that crack. He would lie, steal, and even put himself in harm’s way to get those drugs. And you were in and out of hospitals, with none of the prescribed medicines working to bring you relief. Your parents gave up and left your brother to die on the streets and you to be institutionalized in a mental hospital. But I kept praying, and you got well enough to be discharged to come to live with me. I pray because Heaven sends gifts to men. But the heart fears because it does not think itself worthy of these gifts from Heaven. I’ve learned to accept the gifts from Heaven. They are usually for my benefit and the benefit of others around me.”