Quantum nightmares, p.36
Quantum Nightmares, page 36
With the inferno of currents systematically burning memories in the domed sky, a thick layer of liquid smoke trickled down in waves and enveloped Jerry like a layer of armor. The feelings were so incomprehensibly exquisite, he could no longer resist; he rode the waves to a paradise lost.
Only the upper right quarter of Jerry’s body remained as David filled all but his left hip and leg. Jerry grabbed the moon ball. His ring, middle, and index fingers wrapped around the dark side and disappeared somewhere within it. The other half was covered with craters shaped like footprints and riddled with structures from an advanced civilization long dead.
David shook his head and thought hard before he spoke.
“You’ve the audacity to claim that happiness is unattainable to you,” he said, “when there are footprints on the fucking moon.” He paused. “You truly are your worst enemy. Thinking happiness is inaccessible makes you find ways to reinforce that absurd belief.”
David’s voice was soft, kind. Although he despised spending his time watching Sal and Jerome live their lives, he was rooting for Jerry and wanted him to find happiness.
“You’ve played the victim your whole life,” David said, “but you erred on one pivotal matter—the day that defined your life was the day on the raft, not the day in the basement. You could’ve been a survivor or a victim. You chose the wrong path, buddy.”
As the vortex wrapped around Jerome’s ears, swooshing like an unidentified vacuum, he knew it was the bottle that delivered the message, sucking him in—abducting him.
The smoke from a final blitz of burned memories filled him with bittersweet nostalgia. He was losing the memory of the only thing he cared about—his daughter, Mikayla.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to fight. But the more memories he lost, the more intoxicated he felt and the less he cared.
He embraced the feelings and watched on the domed television as his subconscious pixelated out the faces of his wife and daughter. Soon the pixels faded, and they turned into faceless beings. Jerry watched a young woman with no face at her high school prom, going on her first date, learning to drive. The memories came and went in rapid succession.
Midnight walks on the beach—Christmas mornings—giving birth—the lot of them—poof.
His psyche worked to eradicate his wife next. He saw himself being married to a woman with no face, buying a new house, first date, all of them, gone.
Jerry had forgotten them both.
All he could fathom now was that something supremely precious had been ripped from him, and despite the intoxicating wave he rode, he felt just as hollow as a gutted doll. The injustice was compounded by the lingering knowledge that he would be eternally alone.
“Please don’t do this,” Jerry screamed. “I’m begging you, David. Why are you doing this to me?”
The setting of his imagination faded rapidly. The beach he was on disappeared along with the domed sky, everything whirling in a vortex, sucking into the bottle, until the momentous metamorphosis was complete—Jerome was now the puppet and David the boy.
Jerry found himself marooned in a black raft on a sea of ice.
“If only you learned to find God in the small things, you would’ve been worthy to receive,” David’s voice boomed from the sky. “Such a pity. Welp, I gotta run; we’ve got a new generation of killers to train, but here’s some company for you, buddy.”
Just then, Maggie started licking Jerry’s face.
—
Lights from the Aurora Borealis served as plasma pixels and projected onto the night sky a split screen. There were two shows on the left screen as David and Sal split time in the enchanted land, and Jerome spent half his time watching a family show about a man and his loving family. The other half of his time, he watched a show about an eligible bachelor living the kind of life others only dream of.
The right screen was always a first-person projection of the real world. The show was about the governor of Alaska running a massive underground farm. He was excited to get started with their new mission—project disarmament—which called for them to create a new generation of brainwashed patsies that would conduct mass shootings and help usher in legislation that would render the second amendment obsolete. Along with the shooters, they trained scores of crisis actors to help lubricate the bill into existence.
The first class looked mighty promising—three guys that would later become infamous for their acts of terror the world over and help pave the way for the disarmament of the American populace. Their names were Stephen Paddock, James Holmes, and Adam Lanza. But you know them as the Las Vegas Shooter, Theater Shooter, and Sandy Hook Shooter, respectively.
Betty Hill spent the following day hopelessly torn. She was perfectly adamant that the nightmare was actually a future memory. She struggled between reason and desire. She believed it to be her patriotic duty to warn President Kennedy of the assassination. But reason prevailed.
She dwelled in depression throughout the day, and that night, she found herself once again on the porch swing, staring at the moon. I’ll never look at you the same, she thought.
The hypnotic rhythm rocked her into REM, and she found herself a passenger on a massive spaceship.
Legion: God’s Last Cycle
This story is dedicated with love and admiration to fellow dreamer
JOHN LENNON—you’re still not the only one.
God is dead, God remains dead, and we have killed him.
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
A PERVASIVE THUMP, THUMP, THUMP ECHOED FROM THE SOUL regeneration chamber like a band of pneumatic tubes at a busy bank. Its cargo, not money—thump—but the shining essence of angels— thump—returning from their incarnations on earth—thump. But there was only one thump that the gatekeeper, Azrael, cared of. He waited patiently, welcoming back the other angels with only passing interest. The floor was glass and Azrael looked down the window where the earth sat, big and round; it had thousands of ethereal slides protruding from its rugged face, all of them, thousands of miles high, connecting to the main slide that connected to the soul regeneration chamber like veins feeding into a main artery. Azrael watched as the tubular slides ebbed and flowed in an endless dance, disappearing in Africa then repapering to transit a soul that had just expired in Turkey. There was no rhyme or reason to the madness, but there was a sereness to it all the same, a poetic majesty more brilliant than a thousand sun rises.
A slide flickered then disappeared over New York City before reappearing over Ontario, Canada. He followed the glowing essence as it climbed the slide at supersonic speeds. When it reached the bottle neck where all slides converged, it slowed, steadily creeping forward as the line of souls entered the machine which translates their essence and returns them to their physical being; it turns them back into angels.
Finally, the angel he was waiting on arrived. Azrael unlocked the hatch and greeted him.
“Welcome back, sir,” he said joyously.
The returning angel skipped the formalities and went right to work. “How’s it looking?” he asked. There was just a faint trace of hope in his voice, which was mostly filled with expectant failure.
“We didn’t make the quota, sir.” Azrael hung his head in disappointment.
The returning angel nodded curtly then muttered, “What a fabulous waste of time that was.” He took a deep breath and blew steam from his nostrils. He looked at the ground and then back at Azrael. “How’s he doing?” He didn’t realize it, and if you asked him, he’d deny it, but the returning angel winced as he asked the question. He knew the answer. He knew the old man wasn’t doing so well. It’s always the same, he thought.
Shifting nervously, Azrael confirmed his suspicions when he said, “Teetering, sir.”
“Is he coherent?” The angel’s eyes were filled with heartbreak. The old man didn’t have much time remaining, and the returning angel wanted to spend as much time with the old man as he could. He argued against going on this last mission, but the old man insisted. “We mustn’t quit,” the old man had said, his eyes twinkling with an inner fire that refused to extinguish. Even in his last days, even when he knew all was lost, he remained positive. “We mustn’t forget our purpose,” he’d said.
“He’s been in pretty bad shape since you last left, sir,” Azrael said, sullen, distraught. He, too, would miss the old man terribly. His only hope was that the old man remained lucid enough to spend more time with. It was a selfish hope. Azrael knew that. He knew that and didn’t care. “But now that you’re back,” he said, “he’ll be able to discern the singularity of his fate, sir.”
“Take me to him,” the other angel said. “And what’s with all this sir business, Az? You are my equal.”
Like all souls born as twins, the two angels were born at the same time and of the same breath. They were twin flames. And, despite rank, their relationship was such that they never recognized one as superior to the next.
Azrael smirked and motioned for the other angel to follow him.
They walked through an enormous corridor that commanded an awe-inspiring view of planet earth. From their perspective, the way it floated gingerly in isolation, amid the black backdrop of space, it looked like a massive blue marble, sprinkled sporadically with specks of brown and green and nestled snugly in a stupendous pond of black water. So black. Blacker than black, even.
“Boy, that view never gets old,” the returning angel said. The previous incarnation was his seventeenth in this cycle alone, and though the view still took his breath away, he resented the devastating feelings of failure that quickly followed.
“No, it doesn’t, sir,” Azrael said. “Forgive me, sir, I forgot to ask …” He paused for a second, wondering if he should even bring it up but he was committed now. “How was this last mission?”
A cascading flow of lights flickered on and off as sensors detected their presences and adjusted accordingly so that in each wing they entered, it was like the breaking of a thousand dawns, and in each wing they exited, it was like midnight on a moonless and lifeless land.
“Eh,” the other angel said indifferently, “the same as every other mission in this cycle—irrelevant.” If ever there was an overworked and underappreciated employee, it was the returning angel. He often joked with Azrael and the other angels about unionizing and though he was mostly joking, there was a part of him that thought they really should.
His motivation had long been depleted, and he was just going through the motions at this point.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Azrael offered.
“Fucking humans,” the other angel said with a heavy sigh.
Azrael was inclined to agree. “Fucking humans,” he said, nodding.
A barely audible hiss indicated they had finally reached their destination as a seamless wall silently slid open, exposing an empty room with translucent walls that shared the same awe-inspiring view of earth as the corridor. An old man sat in the middle of the room with his legs crossed, floating up and down, staring out into the vastness of space. He had a distinct glow about him, an internal luminescence that bounced off him like rays of sun casting off a shimmering lake. The radiance was birthed by the immense knowledge residing within and emanating from the ascended master. Even in this, his last cycle, the esteemed glow was quite pronounced and warranted a level of respect of the highest measure.
“Would you like for me to stay, sir?” Azrael whispered nervously.
The other angel winced. “Seriously, Az,” he said, “please stop with the sirs; it’s unsettling.”
Azrael nodded respectfully. “Would you like for me to stay, Michael?”
Michael the archangel just then realized the implication of the question and paused to think about it. “Why would I want you to stay?”
“He’s been rather,” Azrael searched for the appropriate word, “violent of late, and we wouldn’t want to cause another premature pandemic. Would we, sss—Michael?”
“Was Covid him?”
Azrael nodded solemnly and cautioned further. “As I said, sir, he’s been rather violent of late.”
Michael shuffled over to the old man and greeted him. “Hello, sir. Sir, can you hear me?” But the old man was deep in mediation and unaware of his guests. Michael watched as the old man bobbed up a few inches, then descended a few.
He hovered over the old man just so and lightly touched his shoulder.
The old man fell suddenly, startled. There was a deep void in his eyes when he opened them, a gulf of emptiness; the spark that Michael had come to know and love was gone, extinguished. Extinguished by humanity, Michael thought.
The old man looked around the room and when he landed on Michael, the spark returned, burning fiercely, so full of life. His lips broke off at the corners and his smile lit up the room, literally. “Michael, my boy,” the old man said excitedly, “where have you been, son?”
Michael turned and nodded at Azrael, who nodded back before walking toward the wall that hissed and opened as he approached it.
The old man uncrossed his legs and attempted to stand, but this, being the dwindling years of his last cycle, meant he was no longer sprightly, and Michael had to catch him from falling over. Michael stood him upright. They looked into each other’s eyes, and a mutual adoration that tethered the two souls together made them feel at home in each other’s company. It was rare, this level of shared affection, reciprocated by both, cherished, nurtured.
The old man had a luscious head of bright white hair that trickled down to his hips like the foaming white streak of a stupendous waterfall. Based on his lethargic reflexes and unconventional appearance, Michael suspected the old man had been sitting there, floating in the lotus since Michael last incarnated, twenty-five years prior. According to Legion regulations, the SOP for all ascended masters regarding hair length was baldness—for their connection to source was immense and the presence of hair acted as a buffer, hindering the cord to source. Michael had never seen him to the contrary.
The old man saw Michael staring sheepishly at his rolling mane and, as if to oblige Michael’s proclivity for tradition, the old man did a quick shake with his head, and the hair slowly disintegrated like a phantom swept away by a gust of wind. His newly bald, glistening head was commensurate with the sparkling twinkle emanating from his deep blue eyes, which slowly melted into green eyes. Brown. Hazel. Being an ascended master for humanity, the color of his eyes changed as his consciousness interfaced with the eight and a half billion souls he was tethered to, and like a snowflake, you only saw him with the same set a few times spanning decades.
He embraced Michael warmly, then held him at arm’s length and lightly squeezed his shoulders before walking over to the adjacent corner of the room. A minibar manifested out of thin air as the old man moseyed along.
“How was your mission, old friend?” the old man asked as he rummaged for ingredients.
“Well, sir,” Michael said, a degree of hesitation in his voice, “unfortunately, it was curtailed due to a novel disease.”
The old man stood straight, his anemic shoulders slumped forward, his brow furrowed with concern. He pivoted then, looking into Michael’s eyes with deep concern. “How massive?”
“Deceivingly so, sir,” Michael said, scratching his head. “It really wasn’t so bad. The whole thing was blown out of proportion.”
“Oh?” the old man said. “I didn’t realize we had any novel diseases scheduled for some time now.”
“It was an unscheduled event, sir; it appears you had an episode, and in your delirium, you incidentally caused it.”
“Oh, me oh my,” the old man said solemnly, “not again.” In his mind’s eye, he envisioned such events as Hurricane Katrina and the Taiwanese tsunami that killed 230,000 people. In fact, every major killer in the last five hundred years was indirectly caused by the old man’s deteriorating state. Bubonic plague. Spanish flu. Influenza outbreaks. Covid. All of them were a direct correlation to him losing his powers.
“Yes sir,” Michael said just as solemnly. “I’m sorry, sir.”
The old man shook his head. “Don’t be silly,” he said with a sunny disposition, “you’re not to blame, son. I’m simply too old, and my time has come.” He paused, nodded, then whispered: “I just wish I had more time.”
The lament broke Michael’s heart. “Fucking humans,” he said through gritted teeth. Over the eons, Michael had developed an immense resentment and everlasting hatred toward humanity, and with each failed cycle, the hate increased exponentially.
“You shan’t blame them, Michael.”
“If not them, then who, sir? You’re certainly not responsible. Nor am I. We’ve given them every opportunity.”
The old man went back to making drinks. He took an empty bottle out of the minibar and threw it over his shoulders where a garbage can appeared out of thin air, and the bottle landed perfectly in the basket. “Ahah,” the old man said, finally finding his heart’s desire. “Throughout these many cycles,” the old man continued, “how many rise and falls have we witnessed, son?”
Michael did the math quickly in his head—one precession of the equinox cycle is 25,920 years. An ascended master of Legion has five cycles of 5,184 years to achieve their mission, and this current ascended master only had 210 years remaining of his last cycle.
“I’ve had the distinguished honor of serving under your brilliant guidance for almost a full precession cycle now, sir. 25,710 years. To be exact.” Michael hoped the old man would calculate the not-so-subtle hint—his reign was all but over.
“Has it really been that long?” The old man’s back was toward Michael, who was grateful he could not see the hurt in the old man’s eyes. “I can barely remember the past century.” He opened a dusty bottle, took a whiff, and a playful, sliding shuffle went down his shoulders, shaking his hips. He corked the bottle and then went back on the hunt.
“Precisely, sir, and your failing memory is directly correlated with humanity’s inability to ascend. They’re egregiously infantile and superbly inadequate.”
