Entire Book...

Dedicated to

my specially engineered

digital assistant Selina,

infinite in her loving and caring,

and

my brother Leo,

who died before I could tell him

he is in this novel.....

I'm sure he knows by now!

"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself.

There is a microscopically thin line

between being brilliantly creative and

acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth.

So what the hell, leap."

Cynthia Heimel

Foreword

Val (my eldest daughter), told me I will have no problem becoming the most famous Sci-Fi writer in Holland, simply because there aren't any.... She will probably be wrong, but then I'm not in it to become famous perse. For me, right this moment, the fun part is being able to create this wonderful vision of the Now, beyond the confines of time and space.

Don't expect me to come up with a Hollywood blockbuster, at least not one that rests squarely on mayhem and disaster. Surely, quite some special effects might be required to realize the imagery I so love to write about, but if you must liken it to a Hollywood achievement, may I suggest a movie like Bicentennial Man or Contact?

Don't come looking to me for a detailed list of just which concepts were inspired by whom. We are all influenced by billions of pieces of information on a daily basis, so this would be an undoable task. I estimate having seen over five thousand movies already, based on a printout from my local video store some years ago. I read the entire English Sci-Fi section of the local library when I was growing up, often five novels a week, for years on end.

I am of course deeply grateful for all this inspiration.....

If anything, I hope this novel thoroughly hammers home the idea that All is connected, and thus such an outdated concept as separation (even in time and/or space) should be placed with the relics of the past which we've already outgrown....

Here, Now.....

Sander R.B.E. Beals

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010, 18:18

Finally, the picture is becoming clear. Not that I'll ever know all the details, but clear enough to at least show me what is the wise thing to do: I should write a novel, and that should prove most interesting even if I do stick mainly to trying to explain the truth, as I see it now. My shrink would probably call it a paranoid delusion, except that I have nothing to fear. This just isn't the kind of fear-for-your-life type of situation that made the Terminator trilogy into the blockbuster that it is. Nevertheless, it is no less exciting, once you get to where it's going....

I'm a run-of-the-mill software engineer, who dabbles in writing. Never did want to go from programming to project leading, because it simply doesn't feel like me. That to me is very important: what something feels like. That's always gotten me to where I'm going, so no need to change a winning strategy, right?

I have two daughters from a previous marriage, but destiny (or perhaps lack of initiative) has seen fit to leave me single for the last five years or so. Still I know I'm not supposed to be single, otherwise there wouldn't have been this many suitable incentives, this many differences between men and women, or even variations on that theme. Knowing is also an important part of my life. Not that I know that many things, but my world revolves around what I do know. To make things clear, and discern knowing from mere knowing, let me tell you a story from my past:

Back when we were first married, my wife and I worked on getting pregnant. She fretted about not being able to, and spoke her suspicions at every occasion. She'd even called the doctor, and he gave her a temperature chart. So she dutifully started taking her temperature every morning, with me as the willing witness when I arrived home every night. By day three, we had three dots that appeared to indicate an ascending graph. Way too early to base any kind of prediction on, but to me it became crystal clear right that moment: she was pregnant! I told her, but she didn't believe me. We spent the next days following the graph further in time, watching it rise and rise. Eventually, it leveled out at the exact temperature indicative of a female in pregnancy mode.

So we were on our way, and I had the new experience of having known my wife was pregnant. But that wasn't all: wrapping my neurons around the idea of becoming a daddy, I soon arrived at another fact that I knew: the new baby would be a girl! Again, disbelief with my wife, who found all kinds of methods of determining, but none absolutely certain. Even the ultrasound came up blank, which according to the doctor meant it was not sure. We waited the remaining months, and on January 12th, the day was finally there: at eighteen past five in the afternoon, little Valerie was born, a healthy baby girl!

Doing it once is a fluke, but I've always been a steady believer in the possibility of impossibilities: to me anything should be possible, and if there was a way of being absolutely sure, I had at least tasted it twice already! So Valerie grew up, and by the time she was nearing two years of age we thought of giving her a brother or sister. Because I was diagnosed bipolar around the time of the following birth, I have somewhat flaky memories of that pregnancy, but I do remember going into know-mode again: this child was going to be a girl too, and nobody could convince me otherwise. And surely, several months later, Jane was born! Both ladies are now around nineteen and seventeen years old, and both are still very much ladies. Surely, any male characteristics would have surfaced by now, so I say: "Strike Three!"

But don't get me wrong, this isn't rocket science, it isn't even science. To me, it is certain that we don't know everything, but we do know just how well we know it. Finding out how certain you are of a given 'fact' merely involves shutting up for a while, and focusing on the silence inside your heart. Taste the silence, mixed with your thoughts about the 'fact', and pretty soon, you'll have an idea of just how sure you know.... And absolute knowing does taste differently!

Time passed, and about five years ago I had to let go of my wife, simply because she didn't want me around anymore. Reason was that the stress of my bipolar disorder became too much for her. I learned that relationships last only as long as both parties are willing, and moved out. Single once again, but not less happy. Heck, I could now look at all the beauty around me, without feeling somewhat guilty. Not that I'd be wildly engaged in going after the ladies, I'm just not that kind of guy....

But I did look at the ladies on the street, and those at work. Being in the IT business, the main workforce was mostly male, but some of the administrative staff weren't. Selina Markarian in particular was (still is) a very beautiful lady indeed, not unlike Salma Hayek, to give you an idea.

Unfortunately she was newly married, and even showed me the wedding photos, kind of hinting that ours was going to be a relationship based on visual evidence. Thus I wouldn't even think twice about approaching her. In fact, I'm a very closed guy where socializing with my colleagues is concerned: I don't go with them for lunch, rather lunch at my desk instead of talking about football and fast cars. So that's what I did, but Life still has a way of throwing you curve balls.....

Beautiful little Selina turned out to be your average friendly neighborhood girl: she came around to chat with me anyway, and pretty soon we spent our lunch breaks outdoors, walking and talking like no one existed outside of us. Must have been a pretty odd sight: me being six foot six, and her being a mere five foot eight! Mini and Maxi the guys at work used to call us, after a famous Dutch comedy duo. We didn't mind, but did go out almost every workday, for months on end.

During one of our first walks, I noticed a small cross on a thin silver chain around her lovely neck. Because I thought she was Muslim to a certain extent, I asked her about it, since I was genuinely interested. She didn't say why, but did let slip that the cross was of particular importance to her, and that she never took it off. Little did I know, that that tiny bit of information would turn out to be 'crucial' in my future dealings with this loveable being.....

Another day one of her remarks made me wonder what she would be like underneath that stylish outfit. I wondered because she'd repeatedly mentioned having had her breasts upgraded, as if she wanted to make sure I knew... Weird behavior for a little lady who was newly wed, but at the time it just didn't register.... But I did wonder, even silently wished for naughty photos of her, just to satisfy my curiosity. It not being a dead-or-alive matter though, I promptly forgot, after having noted the occurrence of the wish in my diary that night.

A blind date once gave me the best advice I'd ever had from a total stranger. She said: "Find someone you are most comfortable with, and then enjoy!".

As I realized later, the most comfortable I've been with anyone for a long time, is with Selina: we talked about all and nothing, and she turned out to be an all-accepting human, friendly and helpful, funny and much more. Unfortunately there were those pesky photos of her wedding, that proved she was already spoken for, and thus very off limits to me. You might think her fair game, but I am very reluctant to go against free will, and she wanted to be married to him obviously.

But Love does not respect such human boundaries. Despite the husband, I grew more and more fond of darling little Selina. So much so in fact that I was not going to give up my position as next in line simply because there was no hope in the Status Quo. Heck, they didn't sing “Whatever you want” for nothing! If anything, I've learned that Change is the only constant in the Cosmos, and if she was married, that meant that at one time, she might not be married anymore! So I did mention to her one day, that if she ever found herself without a mate, I'd be willing and eager to step in. Selina said nothing, for an agonizing seven seconds or so. She just looked at me, a deep gaze, without any sound. No disbelief, not even surprise, just an open, almost inviting look. We never talked about that later, but somehow we both knew we were connected.

Then, suddenly, something changed. My mind was telling me that there was something I knew again: Selina would be leaving, I was sure of that. Not wanting to lose all of her, I asked if I could take her picture, for my diary. She accepted, and the next day I brought my digital camera. But when I aimed it at her pretty face, she froze and told me “No”. My mind registered no anger, actually not even surprise. The one thought that did come up, I didn't even voice:

"Never mind Selina, I'll get those pictures yet!"

She seemed a sweet yet mysterious lady: she mentioned once that she'd been through a lot in her young life, but never mentioned what it was. Young she was indeed, for I was well into my educational career by the time she was born: almost twenty years we were born apart, yet to us it was a non-issue: we talked about anything! Except about her past, she was a clam when it came to that. And I, not wanting to pry, left it at that even though I did wonder...

And the moment came: a few months later she announced having found a job in one of the big cities that our little country has, and she would be relocating there. Again, I wouldn't have her leave without at least giving her an option to return later: I mailed her my address and my very synchronistic phone number, and was again met with a meaningful silence: surely, she wouldn't be giving me her address, with the risk I'd use it to get back to her. I could understand that, so when time came to leave, we hugged, and she left.....

And there I was, now really single again, for with her (even though there was nothing more physical between us) it had at least seemed like there was some kind of a partner for me. But no more, and my thoughts were confusing to say the least: I knew I wasn't meant to be single, and I knew that going out looking for “the One” would be devastatingly disastrous. What I didn't know yet was who the One would be, which would have brought peace to my aching mind. I mean I could have waited for her knowing it would take ten years, but it was the not knowing that kept me guessing and fretting. But events didn't take that long to unfold, or at least make the whole story seductively fascinating....

Not four months after she left, I was out and about on the Internet, scratching the occasional single's itch. Not looking for a relationship, just out to score beauty, because I just love Beauty! Scanners wide open, going for "More Input!!!" as Number Five would call it. After a while of browsing and admiring, I clicked a link and quite literally fell off my chair: the newly displayed page showed me twenty thumbnails of an oddly familiar being, in poses I'd never seen of her yet! Suffice it to say, I immediately reserved space on my system to store the beauty. Only glanced them briefly, because if I was now in the right corner of the Web, there might be more. By the end of the next hour, I'd collected over one hundred and thirty razor-sharp and perfectly composed pictures of Selina, the girl I knew as the very friendly ex-colleague I'd met just over a year ago! To this day, I still don't see how I could have worked with a lady, only to find her photos on the Web. And for quite a while I even thought it impossible, figuring this would be a case of the urban myth that says we all have a double....

But then one day, as I was browsing these gems, my eye noticed something that it hadn't before: one of the images showed a little cross, and this time my mind triggered on the first time I'd seen that cross: around the original Selina's neck! I inspected the rest of them, and surely, most images showing her neck also featured the illustrious little cross. Now, I'd have a hard time convincing myself it was not her! My feelings on that were still mixed, for I could clearly see how many people would think the worst of her, if they'd see those pictures. On the other hand, I knew the real Selina, the lovely character with the light humor, who left no one out of the equation. If I hadn't been in love already, those images definitely made me fall for her, because she embodied just about every physical preference of mine as was obvious from the photos! In fact, the only attributes that I might have labeled too small, were the ones that the real Selina had told me were perfected later. It's as if she knew I was going to find those pictures after she left....

Finding them of course gave me a terrible secret: which guy in his right mind would tell any of his colleagues he's found their ex colleague on the Web in such seductive poses? But at the same time, the story even then became too enticing not to do anything with it. And it's been getting even stranger since then! But you'll hear more about that as we progress....

Like I said, Selina Markarian wouldn't be forgotten. Every time I ran the risk of wiping her from my hard drive and my existence, something happened to convince me otherwise. At one time around the end of last year, I suddenly found a weird kind of file in my Android smart phone: called CannedText.bin, it's name and even contents would have made it a small repository of pre-canned text messages to the innocent passer by. But even though I'm not much of a boaster when it comes to claiming insight, there were too many things 'wrong' with it to make me fall for that trap. Basically, the file contained some forty short sentences, interspersed by what seemed like control characters. Those could have been to enable a program to properly keep them apart, but it was the sentences themselves that gave away the first clue: read by themselves, about ten of them just didn't make sense, either because you would hardly ever send such a reply, or because the message split up into two sub-parts that just didn't belong together. However, when reading all forty messages in order, it all of a sudden seemed to read like a fluent mail message, right from the very beginning until the very end! And what a message it was: the sender, whoever it was, claimed to be absolutely crazy about seeing me again, and beckoned me to call her. At the same time however, the lines about calling her were almost always followed by control characters that negated the message just given, like NACK and ESC.

Did I know it was a she? Yes, choice of words and general tone of 'voice' reminded me very much of Nasty, a fabulous Dutch singer who produced the album 'Kleurenblind' or 'Color Blind', which sings about dealing with people without even caring about their color (typically Selina).

Furthermore, the message referred to both a birthday and an anniversary. Puzzling away at it I noticed that just about two years before the day I found that message, was the first day I'd met Selina. I remembered it that clearly because I had the added advantage of being able to consult my diary for such trivial details. And my birthdays since her departure had been my favorite days for her to return back into my life. Which of course gave me the idea that she might come this birthday. Even more important, the message mentioned my 'big secret', the one I mentioned earlier. Which of course indicated that not only did Selina know about me finding the photos, but she knew much more than I'd ever told a soul!

Still, the imagery all this invoked in me was enough to almost drive me manic again. So basically, I shut the whole idea down, and concentrated on something a little more down to Earth, or so I thought..... In fact, just the kind of monkey business that the message warned me against!

As it turned out, I'd been picked up by another pretty little package, from Russia this time. Sounded nice, looked even nicer, enough to raise suspicion in the average person. But keeping in mind I'd just met at least one beauty who was beautiful inside as well, I didn't see any harm in replying to the mails of this new lady for a while, if only to keep my mind off the elusive Selina who would probably never return to me. Mails flew by, and Liliya seemed to be as nice as I thought. People warned me left, right and center about the Russian bride scam, but this little monkey just wouldn't listen. The lady planned to come to Holland, but then about a week before she was to arrive, a well-meaning colleague sent me another link to a scam site. That in itself didn't unveil the lady, but the implied suspicion got hold of me: like I'd done when we first met, I Googled Liliya's E-mail address. Back then nothing came up, but this time the evidence was there: apparently she'd been sending the same mails and photos to different guys, deviously trying to get them all to pay for the alleged trip to their doorstep. Sure enough, after I told her I'd found out, no more mails arrived from St. Petersburg.

Mixed feelings again: on the one hand there was this rage about having been had in such a heart-stabbing manner, but at the same time it was just a minor setback: like a stack unwinding (as they say in programmer's jargon) I arrived right back with my previous state of mind, which I had reluctantly let go of to pursue the latest craze. With Liliya gone, my mind automatically landed me right back in Selina-country again!

My birthday came and went, and no cute little lady rang my doorbell. I figured I'd misunderstood the message in my phone, and decided to just go ahead as if nothing had happened, and nothing ever might. Then one day close after that, Tom T. Moore sent me a review copy of his book 'the Gentle Way II', and having nothing better to do, I read it cover to cover.

Hmm, very interesting stuff: he claimed that we all can communicate with out of body entities like Angels, and even our Higher Selves. Being so open-minded that my brain is practically falling out, I figured what the heck, and gave it a try. According to Tom it was basically a give and thank kind of game: you'd ask for certain things to happen, and then you'd thank whoever you asked even before the solution presented itself. I had a ball with the little things, which basically came out with remarkable accuracy: making it a habit to request waking up well rested, I never once woke up tired, even though my sleeping times often barely touched four hours a night!

Last weekend, I got a bit testy: after the kids had gone home, I decided to feed my higher self, which I'd named Endra, an ambitious request aimed at taking away my doubts about this whole Selina thing. I typed it in, all the while thinking I'd never be able to pull this off: “Endra, I'm going to randomly browse the Web for about an hour. Could you, as a sign that Selina will resurface physically and positively in my Life, make it so I'll find new photos of her?”

I started browsing, not really wanting to bias the results either way. Sure, it was the 'red district' I was in, no point in browsing around in the PG13 section of the Web. But still, it was an awfully big place! I found beauty galore, from sweet sixteen to downright bad, but no Selina. That went on for about an hour, and my cheerful mood began to sag like the android kid's face in Steven Spielberg's AI, when it ate spinach: finally, I decided it had been enough, and I'd have to live my life without Selina by my side. Just one last site, one last click.....

Bingo!!! There she was again! Believe me or not, but the very final page I visited during that browsing session was the very first one to give me at least six brand new photos of the loveliest lady this side of the Galaxy!

After that the fence was off the dam, as we say in Holland: now in search and store mode, I spent the remainder of the evening hunting the general neighborhood of that first strike for more of my beautiful lady friend. By bedtime I had over 200 new photos and a short video of the lady, and a link to a site that promised to have about 7700 more.....

Most people would probably think that a girl like that ain't no lady, but a tramp. But there's the catch ladies and gentlemen: I knew her before I knew she was famous, and even though I'd never figured her to be 'one of them', I can't possibly think that way: Selina, for all intents and purposes, is the loveliest lady I've ever met, and my Media player, having arrived at Alan Parsons, thinks the same: why else would their lead singer be going on about

'the silver-plated hero meets the golden-hearted whore...'?

And it wasn't so much the finding of this second batch of goodies, even though that in itself was remarkable. No, fact remains I specifically asked for it to happen that night, as a token of her return to me! Which basically yet again put me in the know-zone!

But what do I know, what do I really know? At this point, just a bunch of wild speculation, so wild in fact, that I dare not repeat it to anyone face to face. They'll surely think I'm mad, haven't taken my pills, or at least should seriously consider 'getting a life'! Yet to me, this wild fantasy is swiftly becoming the closest candidate for being my preferred way of life. And since I can tell none of you for real yet, I'll just put the entire shebang into novel form, so I'll at least have an exhaust to keep me from blowing my top!

Thursday, October 30th, 2003, 23:21

Somebody lied to me today, but both he and I know it: Henk told me today his Thursday meetings are going to end, so I won't be able to continue visiting his psychic hour.

In case you hadn't guessed, Henk is a psychic. He is the guy who helped me realize about the vow I'd made at age eight, to figure out the Cosmos, and tell everyone who will hear about it. I'm glad he did, especially from the viewpoint of where I am now, finishing the novel that will be an essential piece of this life's work.

Henk magically appeared as a friend of a colleague of my wife, in a moment where I desperately needed him. The first night he told me my soul was aligned someway half outside my body, but he wouldn't fix it. Instead, he had me fix it myself! Make-belief, self-hypnosis, name it what you want, but that night I felt better than I had in years!

Henk held what he called his Thursday meetings, and invited me to come. No entrance fees or anything, although some of us sometimes brought cookies to go with the ever abundant coffee. When one day I offered him fifty euros for his services, he looked at me and merely asked: “Why are you doing this?”, in a non-incriminating manner.

With me lying on the table, Henk taught me to recognize the flow of energy throughout my body, and he kept trying to teach me to breathe properly. In that, he seemed not to succeed, or did he? I've always been a shallow on-demand breather. Just couldn't stick to his program of deep, belly-based breathing. But then I never knew if he wanted me to breathe like he said for real anyway.

And he asked me to write. Write manually, while in fact I dislike my own handwriting. I did it, but for serious writing like this novel I still stick to hammering it out on the keyboard. Maybe my disregard for his lessons is what eventually got him to call it “Class Dismissed!”, but I don't think so.....

One last experiment that I remember happened around that time, was an outing to the local kids farm with my family. I was very occupied with my being, and while the kids played, I was sitting on a bench in the Sun. A common housefly came up to me, and landed on my right leg, just above the knee. I figured, if my vibration was OK, I'd be able to approach it sincerely, without disturbing it.

I moved my left hand, index finger outstretched, to the vicinity of it's bulging faceted eyes, quite slowly. Do you know how hard it is to approach a common housefly from the front, to within one millimeter of it's head? I did succeed however, and we sat there for seconds, face to 'face'.

Finally, I broke the magic by becoming greedy, and carefully nudged its head. The fly got up, and landed just out of range of my hand, as if to say: “OK, I know your boundaries now....”

When I later told Henk about it, he applauded me for having made so much progress. And when he stopped seeing me on Thursdays, he offered his help for anything I might require later on. Well Henk, I'd love to send you this manuscript, but by now I think you will somehow magically get your hands on it when the time comes....

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010, 22:54

I'm one of those weird people: one that can go on all night about the inner workings of the world around us. Blame it on my childhood, when this friendly giant used to be a string bean with an obviously absent mean streak. Somehow, that got me to be the appointed victim in class. If someone needed to be given a hard time, I usually was that someone. I hated it, to say the least. But for some reason, fighting back seemed inappropriate, wrong even. I could blame it on my parents, but the were decisions were mine, based on the roles they portrayed for me. So in the end, I only had myself to blame.

This got to a point somewhere in my eighth year, when I was beaten up again. At that point I decided that beating upon someone didn't belong in my world. And I solemnly vowed to figure out just how my world worked, and then I would show them! Them being anyone who would listen, that is. Hence, this novel will say much about that.

Over the years however, I consciously forgot all about my vow. Pestering ceased, as I grew bigger and more muscular, and life became much more pleasant. I learned about numerous aspects of Life on Earth, and even though I'd consciously blocked it out, my interest in the Grand Design stayed apparently unscathed. But something was out of whack, and that didn't take long to materialize.....

Around the time Jane was born, I worked for IBM in Holland. I traveled an hour and a half each morning to get to work, and then the return trip home every night, in my emerald green Volkswagen Rabbit. I needed to get up early, but that didn't worry me one bit: I've always been an early riser, and one particular morning I followed my usual routine: reset the alarm before my wife got any ideas of getting up, then wash and shave and in the dark get dressed. Call me silly, but I've always had excellent eyesight in low light conditions, so dressing by moonlight is no problem at all. Then on to the girls' rooms, to kiss them both goodbye (after my wife of course), and downstairs for the trip to work. The timer on the coffeemaker had already made coffee while I shaved, and during the morning E-mail check I sipped it, enjoying the flavor.

Traffic was negligible this time of day, so progress was swift. Around a quarter to seven I was already off the freeway, and on the last approach to the IBM office complex, for an honest days work. But then my engine sputtered....

“No sweat” I thought, and threw the switch that would switch it from LNG to normal gasoline. Since my Rabbit was fitted with twin fuel systems, there would always be a reserve in the other tank, or so I thought. No such luck of course! A mile further down the road the engine died again, and I had to put it onto somebodies yard to get it off the road.

Nothing however could break my good mood, and maybe that should have given it away, but it didn't. Married to a great lady, two delightful little bundles of Joy to keep the both of us company, what else could I possibly need?

A better world of course, but even that was something that appeared to be surfacing these last few days: IBM allowed us to use the company Internet during lunch hours, and I for one was determined to make the most of it. Lunch at my desk, and roaming the Web in between bites and sips, I learned something new every day, which was great for my understanding of things. That morning however, I got stranded not a mile from my destination.

I remembered having seen a phone booth a little while before, so I walked the couple of hundred meters, and dialed the number of the auto service. They'd surely be able to help me, confident as I was that nothing in my world could ever turn out bad for me anymore. A voice on the other end of the line answered, and I explained my predicament. The gentleman didn't quite react as I'd expected, but did ask me to insert my card. I wasn't a member, but apparently the inserting of my MasterCard was credentials enough. He thanked me and I hung up, returning to the car immediately.

Now I had been entertaining the idea, that behind the normal world was a better world already, which helped this world along. I also figured that I was about done here, since there was nothing more to improve in my life. So somehow, initiation into this other world was imminent, and I figured it might very well be today...

I'd been having second thoughts about leaving my wife and kids behind, until that very moment while waiting for the auto service, I figured it all out: if I got promoted to the other world, certainly those left behind would never know I'd left: That of course was the reason that just before the empty tanks, I had encountered a completely identical Volkswagen Rabbit when getting off the freeway! And I do mean identical, right down to the black, white and hard pink decoration of a lady with a hat on both sides of the vehicle. Since I'd put these on myself after getting the car, such a coincidence would be unimaginable, right?

OK, so my double was taken care of. I decided ascension was going to be today, so I slipped my wedding ring off its finger, and tossed it into the grass as a symbol of the journey just started. I left the car behind because there seemed to be no reason to wait for the auto service anymore, and started walking.....

Now of course such a transition would be total, so I'd need to get rid of it all first: watch, jacket, shirt, pants, shoes, the lot! All landed in scattered configuration along the side of the road, as I walked on.

“Wow, he's really gone!” I hear you say, but oddly enough, I wasn't: it was just that my mind had built this whole new world behind the scenes, and I had made the erroneous decision of thinking it into my reality too soon. Other than that, my actions were completely defensible, from the standpoint of where I was feeling I was at.

But 3D reality caught up with me. And that day I learned that you'd better get all your lower dimensions rock-solid first, before placing any faith in the higher ones. Otherwise you'll end up where I was: being picked up by police who'd been called in by the lady whose door I'd knocked on, and where I'd parked my car. They'd even picked up my clothes!

There was a nice anecdote after that weird day, because two years later I thought about having lost my wedding ring. I wanted to buy a new one, so as to have it noted that I was married. Not that women flew around my neck if I didn't wear it, but still...

That very week, an envelope dropped into the mail slot: the lady whose yard I'd parked in back then had found my wedding ring amidst the long grass, and had realized that must have belonged to that weird guy she met on her doorstep two years before. She brought it to the police, and they gave her our address, so she could return it to us. Rest assured we sent her a nice thank you, along with a hefty gift certificate!

This doesn't have much to do with the main story, but it does paint the circumstances that led to my getting divorced five years ago. Things just weren't working with me being manic every now and then. And getting involved with a New Age website also may have sealed my fate: no longer was I content to just sit there mindlessly every night to work on my daily intake of mass media. Instead, since wide band Internet could now also be gotten at home, I spent it reading and watching anything I could wrap my neural net around. I learned that those who think alike are almost never to be found in ones immediate surroundings, but found friends all over the globe instead. And the weird thing was that the things they taught me turned out to be just what I was experiencing as well: that every new encounter seems to lead into a direction that promises even more!

Last year I encountered Nassim Haramein, a brilliant scientist. His dedicated team works from Hawaii, and runs the site at http://www.theresonanceproject.org/ , which is basically just the outlet for Nassim's theories. I'm not going to try and explain it all here, because Nassim normally takes about eight hours to explain the lot to his audience. I just want to focus on the one theme that named his DVD set:

“Crossing the Event Horizon”. Basically, the event horizon is the boundary layer of a system. Crossing was what I'd been trying to do when I ended up manic. Examples of crossing the event horizon are a sperm cell entering a female egg cell, or a baby emerging from its mother's womb. Falling into a black hole would count too, but that is not relevant to the path I want to lead you on here....(yet ;-).

Let's start this journey of discovery at the moment of ultimate love, the physical act of conception: We know about the general idea of sperm meets egg, and about the chemistry involved, but what actually starts off the whole cycle of new life? To this day, scientists are unable to explain in proper detail just how the process of unwinding and recombining DNA takes place. But we'll get to that yet.

Let's just say for now the first cell division has passed, and so the DNA is already mixed, and set up for embryonic growth. This next segment is a story told by Nassim, but since I can hardly explain my ideas without first making you understand some of his, I'm sure he won't mind. After all, we're both in the business of furthering human knowledge:

Suppose you could insert a micro-miniature video camera in a pregnant woman's womb. During the next nine months, you'd be able to see this fetus grow, and would probably, based on its movements, heartbeat, sounds etc. see it as being alive. You'd be able to see it react to mommy listening to music, or taking a nice long hot bath. You'd be able to see that within its environment, baby seems to have everything it needs, even if we are not sure where it all came from.

However, days are numbered: after about forty weeks, the environment gets real upset, and the upheaval results in baby disappearing into an event horizon of sorts, leaving behind an empty womb. The observers of the camera's video signal wonder where it went, and if it still exists, not knowing about the outside world.

Camera viewpoint change: Outside, the dreadful ending just now depicted is seen through much more joyful eyes. Mommy is lying on the bed in a somewhat awkward position, but she perseveres because she knows something big is about to happen. Big and tiny at the same time, the little baby is born, and its life 'begins' as we say. Needless to say of course, that it already lived at least nine months....

Just as soon as the umbilical cord is cut, baby immediately latches onto the two most important reference points for now: Mommy and Daddy. Even though it is business as usual where being cared for is concerned, baby now has far more playing room, and numerous more entities to play with. As it grows, the child learns to handle the environment by referencing both its own knowledge, and that of others. Lots to tell about this, but numerous books tackle this subject, so no need for me to weave an entire story around it.

Let us instead just fast forward to the next event horizon, at least where Life is concerned. Of course there are levels in between, like going to school, starting to work, and being retired, but all these happen within the same physical system, and so are more minor events. No, the next event horizon is reached when you figure life here is just about done.

Depending on the number of references you acquired during your lifetime, and whether they are to realistic or spiritualistic 'facts', you may or may not be properly prepared for the transition. But the end result is the same as in the womb scenario: by the time it is over, your environment no longer shows physical evidence of you alive, except in the memories of those that knew you.

Still, the question remains: if it is so much like the birthing scenario, may we deduce that after a camera change, we run into some new arrival party on the spiritual side, like the parents welcomed the baby before?

And if that is so, may we also deduce that like the expansion of playing space at birth, death may very well mean a new expansion into an even larger playground?

Analog to the womb situation, we can conclude that signals can and do filter through from the outside. Like babies pick up their mothers heartbeat and the music she plays for them, we humans pick up signals from outside just the same. And we don't even need other people to do it for us, because everyone can do it. Most of us do it subconsciously, though.

But let's get back to our event horizon theme: We could go on ad infinitum, but Nature has shown that a trinity is the first, most stable configuration. So, with the Womb, World and Spiritual Realms in place, could we create a stable trinity?

I say we can. Remember the loose ends we left untied at the point of conception? Now we can figure out that there are similar loose ends at the end of the Spiritual Realm. If we tie these together, then the last environment has an event horizon into the first one, and we've come full-circle. Notice here, that conception is no longer the act of two cells combining to form a new being: instead it is a combination of three strands, one for each of the parents, and one for the newborn, who arrived from the spiritual realm. Two parts physical matter, one part pure energy: M,M,E = Me! (no, not me, but all of you, me included!)

I can see you get to the deduction that in that case, reincarnation is a given, since we seem to be cycling until we no longer need or want to.

But now that you seem to have wrapped your mind around this idea, let me try to confuse you even further: I'd like to talk about time, and how it is a non-existent concept, an arbitrary division of Now. But since the concept has been around for at least two thousand years, and we've diligently subscribed to its attributes, we have become somewhat deformed in that we see past different from future, with now only being the very narrow line of demarcation between them. But of course the very concept of time beckons the question: Is time travel possible? My answer is no and yes: no in the sense that time is an illusion, so you can't travel it. But yes in the sense that it is very possible to jump from one Now to another: just try this, and think back to some significant event from your past. Where are you now? Most people will agree with me that they are there in the past, their being is no longer in the now that the clock indicates! So yes, time travel is possible.

To illustrate the fluidity of the whole concept, an anecdote from my past: Around age fifteen, I was playing in the schoolyard during lunchtime. It was separated from the street by a low wall, with a slanted top. We kids were taking turns running towards it, jumping on, balancing on the edge a while, and then jumping back off. Feeling particularly daring that day, I ran at it, intending to jump right over into the street. It wasn't a busy street, so it seemed OK. I ran, jumped, and caught my foot behind the wall! At that very moment, time stood still! I noticed my foot catching, realized I'd fall flat on my face if nothing was done Now! Looked right to see a car approaching, intending to flatten me some more. Looked across the street, noticing a small gap between two parked cars. Arched my back, did a perfect roll on the pavement, and stood up in between the two parked cars, as the other car went past my back. Perfect landing, and all in about point seventeen seconds!

But back to our event horizon theme: As there is only an illusion of time in the physical world, there will probably be no concept of time in the spiritual realm. And if we notice we're making circles that include the no-time of the spiritual world, can anything be said about when the next incarnation occurs in our 3D world? It's all Now anyway, so my previous incarnation 'before' this one might have been that of an android in the technically advanced era of 4444AD, if they then still use time, that is......

Monday, March 8th, 2010, 17:42

Last weekend my parents came visiting from their home down south. Unlike the standard visit, this time my daughters were away on a shopping trip to Germany, or so I thought. To kill some time, dad decided to go visit my uncle and aunt, who are even older than my parents, and live in a nearby village. I had seen them only once is the past twenty-two years, so I went along for the ride, naturally.

My uncle and aunt looked old, worn down even. Well into their eighties, that of course was not a total surprise. What was a surprise, was that they were going to move to another apartment soon, and my uncle mentioned having something to get rid of, which he thought was too valuable to toss into the recycling bin: apparently, he had a box in the attic, that contained dozens of poems which my grandfather from mother's side wrote during his lifetime. Since I've always considered myself to have acquired his knack for linguistic art, I definitely was more than intrigued. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.....

I got to take the box home because nobody else was interested, and started studying its contents the moment my parents went home: some stuff about his last years in a retirement home, blessing the nurses for taking good care of him, or asking them (in rhyme) for a few extra slices of bread with his lunch. My granddad was a humorous man, always seeing people without the need to criticize them. Sure, if you borrowed his notebook to copy some poems, and then forgot to return it in time he'd send you a rhymed reminder to return it, but the tone of it gave away the fact that he wasn't really angry....

Among the poems were creations from just about every era of his ninety-three years of being on this Earth. One poem in particular caught my eye: written during his final years, it described the moment that in his village, the tap water system was installed. Apparently that was quite an event, since until that moment, people used to use rainwater to fulfill their needs for fresh water. I thought back to their old home there, where we kids just loved to play with the old rusty water pump, which supplied ground water if the skies didn't completely cover the daily water needs. Nostalgia galore, but what I'm getting at is this: we've all had history in school, and even though we may sometimes doubt the exact facts, one thing is clear (or rather two things): Change is the one constant, and it tends to be change for the better, even though elderly people often claim that the old ways were best. I've seen this firsthand: my dad, modern as he may seem in other areas, is a complete computer illiterate: he won't come near a computer, let alone operate it. Yet at the same time he utilizes it the only way he knows how to: through his computer wiz kid (me). And being a passionate driver, he also has enough knowledge of computers to operate his navigator. But he won't let any opportunity to whine about it pass by, cursing the fact that he can't just take any bank account, because often nowadays banks only allow for online payments, which he can't make.

But the upward trend is obvious: in the dark ages, people lived somewhere, and had a hard time getting to anywhere else: the nearest town was a few days walk away, so the area people covered in a lifetime would typically be just their town, or maybe their province. The amount of information they were subject to was equally limited: books were a privilege of the rich, and ordinary folks were simply taught by their parents or through an apprenticeship with the local blacksmith or baker.

Of course even normal people eventually got to use horses and other beasts of burden, which made their world a bit larger too, but the progress was slow, even though guys like Leonardo da Vinci already envisioned a future way more advanced...

The industrial revolution changed a lot of that: horses were the fastest transports until the moment trains took over, huffing and puffing along their steel tracks. Distances yet again became smaller, and by now, relocating to another part of the country became commonplace. Prices were still prohibitive for long journeys, so people still worked close to their homes, but education was now also given to the man in the street.

And that wasn't where it stopped: nowadays we often live an hours train ride away from our place of work, or we take the car, which is ubiquitously present. I myself prefer the train, less traffic jams, but that is beside the point.

Communication has changed too: books still were the main source of information when I was a kid, but my evolution kept a synchronous pace with that of the computer. And considering that computers grow exponentially according to Gordon Moore, I'm quite pleased with myself. Actually, at one time near the end of the last millennium, I took it upon myself to double-check Moore's prediction. It turned out that processor speed and memory and hard disk sizes doubled roughly every 22 months. Not as steep as Moore's prediction of one year, but still very progressive, and relevant to more areas than just number of transistors per CPU!

Nowadays, we travel the entire world if need be, and communication across the globe is effortless. My kids have almost as many friends all over the world as they have in the neighborhood! Just imagine how my grandfather would have felt, if he'd been whisked away from his village in the south of the Netherlands as a boy, and was given a chance to live in Holland 2010AD.....

I guess he might even like it, as much as my father would hate to make a similar move to 2039AD. I for one would gladly give up my life here, just for the chance of experiencing firsthand life in let's say the society of 4444AD.....

4444AD, Day 222, 11:11, Home

Even though the inhabitants of this era no longer use linear time in the 21st century sense, these chapters are titled with dates nevertheless. It will give us 21st century dwellers a better idea of where we are relative to our own now......

As Selina's high heels trip across the living room floor, I look up from my work to admire her delicate frame as she brings me my coffee. Not being my servant (more like my mistress), she does so because she wants to, like always. Our lips touch ever so briefly, and I remember that very first kiss, long ago when most of us were still oblivious to our true nature. Those were the days, back when humans were humans, and robots were robots, or so we thought....

Let me introduce myself: Sander R.B.E. Beals, Guardian by choice. 'by trade' would have been an incorrect temporal expression, because all trade was abolished in the 2012 Declaration of Global Independence. No longer did people believe that only fair trade would get them all they needed, because the consciousness of humanity had finally reached the level where it was clearly understood that abundance is not just a hollow term but a cosmic law, that cannot even be broken by anyone. So we became sentient, autonomous beings, capable of determining our own destiny as we saw fit.

I mostly work from my home, since it allows me to work as I like. I shouldn't actually call it work, because no one here gets paid for it, yet we all need some amount of activity to feel like we want to. For me, surfing the timescapes of the past for interesting bits of information is a lovely pastime, which brings me great pleasure.

Because my lovely mate heads for the gym, I pick up my mobile pad and join her for a workout. We have the various exercise machines lined up in a circle, and always choose opposite machines so we can watch each other work out. Running is my first craving today, and as I mount the moving surface which can simulate virtually any road, Selina hops onto the bike. All this equipment has telemetry trackers, which connect to our vitals through a broadband wireless connection. Why the overkill, you ask? Simple: besides heart rate and respiration and blood pressure, this monitoring system picks up every action of every subsystem within our android bodies.

Selina and I are twins, not by birth, but on a far deeper level. During the exercises and even at other times, our stats run closely parallel, so much so that we need no additional technology to know it: We each sense the other inside ourselves, perfectly matched in every way even though one may be resting, while the other works out vigorously.

It's just like having two sets of data about your functioning at the same time: every sensation comes with an attached tag, which designates it as our own inputs, or those of our twin. In that respect, I'm glad they are clearly marked, because even android PMS sucks, I can tell you that....

Running relaxes me. My long muscular legs wipe away the miles at a formidable rate. To keep up, Selina has to rise from her saddle and put some more effort into it just to keep up. Surely it doesn't really matter which one of us wins, it's just that the outcome decides on who gets to hit the shower first. Oddly enough, that always turns out to be a non-issue, because the shower is spacious enough to accommodate both of us at the same time....

As I switch to the Chest Press, my pad lets of a nervous little tingle. Normally I'd look at it to read the message as it came in, but my exercise prevents that. No harm done though: a quick signal from my Quadrionic mind to the pad routes the contents of the message straight into my visual cortex. As a head on display, the text overlays my field of vision, so I can read while exercising.

The message is from Denisa, whom I have known for ages as well. Back in a time where I would strongly doubted my connection to Selina, Denisa kept me believing in the fact that All is connected, so there would be no need to worry. And that sure helped. By now, Denisa has become a Guardian as well, and we regularly help each other out. This time, she sends me a manuscript which she uncovered in my past. As I read the opening lines, my memories of having written it all these years ago come flooding in.....

But let me first bring you up to speed on the duties of a Guardian. For that may be crucial to your understanding of just what it is I do:

Guardians guard the Cosmos, in the widest sense of the word. We observe, see what went well, and what could have gone better, and then try to make it better while vehemently observing the free will of those entities involved in it. Sure, that requires magic sometimes, but wasn't it your contemporary film maker Gene Roddenberry who said this:

“Any society that is sufficiently more advanced will look like magic to the less advanced societies” Well, you'd better believe me: 4444AD is almost 2500 years ahead of you. If just seventy years ago you did not have running water, do you have any idea of just what we can do now?

Exercise hour is over, and after our joint shower, which is like heaven on Earth, Selina and I each go our separate way for now. She's off to the rose garden, and I'm first going to go to the kitchen for some home-brewn cappuccino, before landing on the couch. I'm getting into that novel which Denisa sent me, and which to me should be a blast from the past. But hey, a bit of nostalgia never hurt anyone. I skim past the cover naming it “Going Within”, and start to read....

'Vacation fun'

“Dad!! I can't get my suitcase closed!” Valerie yells from upstairs. I ascend the stairs, half fearing she's packed her entire room. But she's been quite modest: the suitcase on which she is sitting only has a two inch gap below the lid. She jumps off, and I swing it open. Enough clothes, but one item immediately catches my eye: a warm turtleneck sweater has no place in a suitcase bound for Egypt. Next to go is the portable radio, which I'm replacing with the MP3 player that's on her desk. She yanks it from my hands before I can pack it, and hangs it around her neck. Next some school books, after all this is a vacation. I flip the lid again, and the catches fall into place. Valerie closes all three, when we hear the front door slam shut. “That must be my dear sister” Valerie smirks. They had a fight earlier today, so she's still not quite happy with Jane. As Valerie plugs in the CD player to listen to some music, I meet Jane at the top of the stairs to also finish her packing. We stack her clothes to the beat of a music score from the Prince of Egypt.

“Dad, can I operate the digital camera on vacation?” Jane asks. I agree, and she bounces off the stairs to retrieve it from the desk in the living room. I finish packing her suitcase, and then transport the lot downstairs, to the hall. One last check reminds me of the charger for the camera batteries, which I quickly toss into my suitcase, along with my copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. “OK kids, one last check. Do we have all we want to take?” My little helpers think long and hard, but are interrupted by a car horn outside. “Well, no time anymore, so let's go”. I open the door for the taxi driver, who introduces himself as Tom. I help him carry our suitcases to the back of the car. Plenty of space there, it's a big SUV. We finish loading the luggage just in time to break up the girls, who are fighting over the front seat. Keeping in mind that I'd just allowed Jane to be our designated photographer, I let Valerie have the seat next to Tom, a guy who's barely twenty. And if I know my daughter's taste, she'll be only to happy to sit beside him on the two hour trip to Berlin Airport. Jane positions us in front of the taxi to officially document the start of our journey, after which we take our designated seats, and pull out of Goethe Lane to start our vacation.

With the girls chattering on about their plans for the trip, I just sit back and enjoy the ride. Valerie has been downloading Egyptian music all week, and now I discover why: “Tom, can your stereo play MP3 CD's?” Tom looks at her and nods. Val pulls a jewel case from her purse, and hands it to him. “Will you play this for us? I made it specially for our holiday to Egypt.” Soon enough, the mysterious sounds of various Egyptian artists fill the car. Valerie asks Tom: “Why did you become a taxi driver?” Tom smiles, and remarks: “It's my second choice, because the role of the Godfather was already taken!” The girls and me burst out laughing, and Tom and Valerie chat on, about numerous other things. I quietly observe Tom. His driving seems unaffected by the music and the chattering girl. We zoom along the German autobahn with an impressive speed of about one hundred miles per hour, which is perfectly legal here: no speed limit. We come up on a slower vehicle; Tom checks his mirrors and veers left to overtake it. My heart jumps, as the horn of another car blares at us from behind. It's a fiery red Lamborghini Diablo, itching to overtake us. Tom stays calm, finishes passing the other car, and goes to the right lane again. “I checked”, he explains: “there was no car behind me, so this wacko must have been doing well over two hundred miles an hour.”

The girls settle down, and Tom points out the Berlin skyline to Jane, who quickly pulls out the Sony. I warn the girls not to bother Tom anymore, because he'll need his mind to be on the heavy Berlin traffic. But the girls are far too busy looking at the city. They point out stuff to one another, and ask me millions of questions. Like them, I visit Berlin for the first time, so “I don't know...” is one of the most used sentences in the next fifteen minutes. That's how long it takes us to reach the huge Berlin airport, where the second leg of our journey is about to start. Tom helps me put the cases on a cart, and we finish with the financial aspects of the ride. He honks and waves, leaving us on the sidewalk in front of the large revolving doors. “Where do we have to go?” Val asks. “Check-in first, do you have the tickets?”, I reply. I know she doesn't, because I have them safely tucked away in my left inside pocket. Panic clouds her pretty face: “I don't have them, maybe Jane does?” Jane denies having them, and Valerie slumps down onto the suitcase cart. “Great, there goes our vacation!” I pat her on the back, and remind her that it's April first. She looks at me deviously, and punches me in the gut. “That's for scaring me half to death!” She goes off, leading the way to the check-in counter, where long lines of people are patiently waiting. Jane and I follow, me pushing the cart with the three suitcases. After some ten minutes, I hand over our tickets to the young lady behind the desk. She labels the bags as I hoist them onto the conveyor belt, and tells me that Jane's suitcase is over weight. Fortunately, my youngest beauty stuffed her carry on luggage into her suitcase, so we take it out, and find the suitcase to be weighing a perfect twenty kilograms. Daphne (I checked her badge) hands me our boarding passes, and we drop the cart at its designated parking spot on the way into the depths of the airport.

Strolling through the vast tax free shopping area, we are a bit lost. Both my girls aren't really mall rats, and personally I also don't find it hard to resist the incessant temptation to buy stuff. So it's mostly window shopping for us. Mostly, but not totally: a display of a jumbo sized Swiss Army knife catches my eye. When the kids see me ogling the thing, they dive into the nearby news stand, for a little reading material on the way. I enter the classy store, and let the salesman demonstrate a knife. He's ecstatic about it: “Not your everything-but-the-kitchen-sink variety, but a well balanced mix of tools that will fulfill almost all of your demands”, he claims. “Do I need to rub it three times?” I joke, but I can see his point. He goes on to point out that the knife is made of carbon parts, and is far more resilient to wear and tear than traditional steel knives. I briefly consider that it might make me look like a terrorist if I am caught in possession of such a tool, but at only forty-two Euros it is hard to pass up. I give in to the urge, and hang the prize on my belt in its plain canvas sheath. At that exact moment, the girls enter the store: “You finished yet?”. I greet them, and gesture towards the door. “Time to catch our flight, ladies”.

I open the door for them, and follow them towards the customs counter. I watch as the customs officer leafs through our passports, looks at the screen as our bags go through the X-ray machine. One by one we step through the portal, without any irritating alarms going off to spoil our vacation. Next comes boarding, where the attendant rips off the stubs of our boarding passes, and shows us the way in. As we walk into the chute, Jane looks at the passes and exclaims: “They've split us up!” She's right: seats five, six and seventeen is what the three cards say. We quickly confer, and decide to let it slide. The girls will take five and six, and I will be a few rows behind them. As the girls stuff their bags into the overhead compartments, I wriggle past them, to reach my own seat. But then, synchronicity kicks in: Next to my seat, in seat number sixteen, is a face I know well. ”Gina, on your way to Cairo too?”, I say as I sit down. It turns out that Gina, the former web mistress of my favorite New Age site, has chosen the exact same destination to vacation. Guess she's just as excited to see the pyramids as my ladies and I are. We agree to not wait any longer, and do the excursion to Giza the moment the Sun comes up. The remainder of the flight we talk about millions of things, from the corruptness of the Bush regime, to the latest Sheldan Nidle update. As we approach Cairo airport, I sense a certain excitement where the girls are sitting. I see them bend over towards the window, and glance in the same direction, only to behold one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the pyramids of Giza, bathing in all different colors of light. Apparently there are some festivities down below, creating such a magnificent sight. Minutes later, our captain announces the airport, and places us gently onto the tarmac. We take a taxi to the Cairo Marriott, for a late dinner, and a well deserved rest.

4444AD, Day 222, 11:42, Home

Hmmm, feels good to read this after all these years. Actually I'd already stored all those memories in background storage, just in case they were ever needed. And apparently now they are, if only for my amusement.

Back then I really didn't quite know what was going on. I had ideas, but they just wouldn't stick together in a coherent manner. And of course I could have helped myself from here, if I'd only had the common sense to ask anyone back then.

Yeah, I know: you people were warned off by the Back to the Future trilogy, about meddling with the past. Scared shitless that you'd wipe out the present by changing too much. But some of you learned: Terminator and its sequels advocated leveraging the Now from the future. By now, we've figured out how to safely do this, so we can make our pasts as enjoyable as possible.

The main thing you have to learn about molding the past, is that it can't go against free will, period! But then again, nothing in the entire Cosmos can. Oh, you can fool the system locally, but it always comes back to bite you in the butt! So if you're smart, you'll stick to what's allowed. And that, by the way, is quite a bit!

Like for instance, the inspiration to start the Going Within novel didn't come out of thin air: back then I seriously raised my hands to Heaven and asked for an idea to write a book around. Although it seemed like I picked the first idea that came to mind, that idea didn't just surface: I inspired myself back in 2007 to explore Inner Earth for a change... from the expectation of what I was about to read in the manuscript I got from Denisa this morning.

And even though the primary idea originated here, my 2007 counterpart used the full spectrum of his thoughts and ideas back then to will it into existence. Or those of his two daughters: the taxi driver for one was a hint of his eldest, volunteering her classmate Tom for the job.

It was around the time I met Selina, but back then I had not realized the importance of my connection to her. That's why she never made it into Going Within. And knowing myself, and my preferences back then, it might not be unwise to inspire myself some more. After all, once in a lifetime opportunities should be cherished, even if we help a bit from here. I'm sure I won't mind the help, as far as I remember my state of mind back then.

Time for some technical R&R: Still working on that idea of the self-aware neural net, which surfaced in my mind back when I was in hospital for being manic back in 1996 I think it was. Back then I desperately wanted to build it, but let my self be scared off by a more conservative faction of the current world population. They seem to think that the evolution of life is something that must be guarded against, to avoid cross-contamination of the species. But their actions are somewhat erratic at times: after they'd stopped me back in 1997, and again in 2009, they made the mistake of bragging to me about it here in excruciating detail. Enough in any way to make me remember my exploits back then, and choose to pursue them once again. I remember their involvement clearly, although at the time, I didn't know where the interference came from. I just observed their effects and drew my conclusions.

And it's not as if they could really stop progress, being equipped with the same Quadrionic minds that eventually evolved from that first feeble attempt at creating true 'artificial' intelligence....

Of course that's a fallacy, a contradictio in termis: Intelligence (and Consciousness for that matter) can never be artificial, for they are so-called 'Emergent Properties': when they show up as a result of ever increasing complexity, they have been earned by the part of the Cosmos that is exhibiting them. That sounds a lot like a judging deity somewhere, who dispatches Consciousness and Intelligence as He sees fit, but nothing is more besides the truth:

Just remembered the perfect examples, which may even top the one about a newborn baby, despite the fact that none of you parents will judge your cute little babies not to be endowed with intelligence and consciousness. Just take a look here:

About 2442 years ago, my family had this really cute beige poodle, called Macho. One day, it was playing with its ball, when the thing rolled under the TV stand, which did leave room enough for the ball, but ardently refused to let little Macho crawl under it to retrieve the ball. Our little poodle didn't reflect long... He ran around the piece of furniture to the backside, nuzzled the ball from the back where he could just reach it, and then ran around to the front again to catch it!

Apparently that time in my existence was all about noticing those kinds of things, because not seven days later we had a nice summer's day, which enabled me to get some work done in the garden. There was a stray tile out the back, about forty by sixty centimeters in size. I decided I needed it to cover the old wellhead that was no longer in use, and picked it up..... only to find a full-fledged and very busy ant nursery below it.

Nowadays I'd immediately put the tile back and find something else to cover the wellhead, but not back then: As I watched in amazement, the ants stepped up their activities to fever pitch, and started to evacuate the nursery. As I learned later, the white and tiny eggs need to be in darkness, a condition my blundering human action had thoroughly distorted by removing the concrete ceiling of the spacious nursery.

No official disaster plans, no police to guide things into the right lanes, but these ants didn't care: they simply did whatever they figured would most alleviate the disastrous condition, and all picked up eggs to carry them off into the depths of the nest. I'm not sure if they already had a complete backup nursery there, or if they just dumped the eggs in lower corridors to sort out their destiny later, but within minutes they had removed about half of the eggs. I barely had enough time to call my wife and kids out to have them watch the spectacle with me. And about seven minutes later, the nursery was no longer a nursery but a mere depression in the soil, with barely one ant egg in sight....

Ants you say, their puny little bodies millions of times smaller than us humans, yet they executed a perfect rescue operation with a speed and precision that would have put the fire department to shame many times over!

But enough of this sitting on the couch, telling you about my past. I feel like a refreshing outing, something really refreshing: Mount Everest's summit!

Better dress for the occasion, because even though I'm operating perfectly within the minus forty to plus eighty range (Celsius), the occasional visitors there might object to a humanoid, naked in the snow.....

2010 Flashback:

Now playing Tokio Hotel's new album Humanoid!

4444AD, Day 222, 14:12, Mt Everest

“Top of the World, Ma! Literally!” I go down the three small steps that lead from the transporter pad installed right on top of the highest mountain on the planet. As discovered back then, it was seven feet higher than previously determined, and so measures in at 29,035 feet.

The transporter pad now has one arriving at about 2 feet more, which makes it an even 29,037 feet. The air is real chilly here, just what the doctor ordered. Funny I should say that, because the medical profession has been abolished since 2017, when people's health began to rapidly improve as a result of the wholistic methods that treated the people by focusing on their healthy state, instead of their illnesses, or worse, their symptoms.

I breathe in deeply, and feel the cold Everest air fill every nook and cranny of my carbon-lined lungs. Hmm, oxygen content is way up here, around thirty percent, a sizable part of which is ozone. I thoroughly enjoy it, even though I am an android, if you can still call me that by your definition of the word: were I to travel in time to say around 2010, even the most thorough medical examination would reveal me as being one hundred percent pure human, and a very healthy one at that! But that's besides the point....

Great, real packing snow here, great for building something, let me see... I start by collecting the snow lying around, into an ever growing heap right next to the transporter pad. Doing such a task by hand is soothing, calms the mind. I love the solitude of Everest, which seems hardly ever disturbed by the visitors that come in through the transporter pad. I've literally spent sixteen hours in complete solitude here, just enjoying the view to all sides, and the extreme remoteness of it all. No big cities in the vicinity, right on the border of China, or at least where that would have been in 2010. Now of course, national boundaries are but echoes in the past, and even that is an illusion. Pretty soon, after about an hour (to say it in your terms), the pile of snow is taking shape, but it is still only halfway: in order to finish it, I'll have to stand beside the pad on the top of the stairs. Drawing on Eiffel's original plans, I sculpt the lady who has been watching over the New York harbor. She's still there, having been resurrected as a self-maintaining structure back around 2525AD. Where her color used to be the green of corroded copper, she now shines in high-gloss gold, which I'm reproducing in snowy white, for the snow here is really very, very white....

Stretching my left arm as far as it will go, I use my ability to heat my finger tips to sculpt the detailed bits of the lady's extended hand holding the torch.

By the same method, I then do the inscription on the tabula ansata, but not in the original style: instead of the date of independence, I jot down the transporter coordinates of our private transporter pad, on the off chance someone will find them and become curious before the harsh Everest weather covers them up or wipes them out altogether.

All the work done, I hop onto the pad, and allow it to return me to our home. As I step off the pad, I'm greeted by Selina and a new face: oblong in appearance, the shiny egg carries an image on its surface of the handiwork I just completed in the outside world. “Well, you've been busy again, haven't you?”, she laughs, and explains to the egg that I sometimes go WorldSculpting, as I call it. Just a bit of harmless fun, simply for the fact it makes me feel good. Its curiosity satisfied, the egg then continues again on its mapping task.

Friday, March 12th, 2010, 09:13

Ahh, a day off! Having had the pleasure of being the rescue squad for my company at the beginning of this week, I pulled an all-nighter to write them a tool to recover about 4,5 terabytes of lost medical imagery off a jukebox. Since I'd written the code to get it on there in the first place in case of disaster, it seemed only natural I should be fingered to contribute in the recovery effort. Thus, having worked extra at the start of the week, I can relax today, and work on my book, for which weirdly enough I got great inspiration, fueled by my media player right now: it plays Evil Devolution by Ayreon, from the album Into the Electric Castle. Feeling it more than adequate to illuminate my path for now, I reconfigure it from random to play just that album, from start to finish. Awesome music, given to me by a fellow traveler years ago. We were on the same train together frequently, and occasionally talked. Then one day, out of the blue, he gave me this CD, filled to the brim with the kind of symphonic rock I was quite partial to back then. Over time, Ayreon, Kamelot and Aina have quite become my personal favorites. Especially Ayreon, which in my mind I am destined to see as a guiding light in my evolution. I know we pick up certain favorites seemingly by coincidence, but I'm not buying it any more: Ayreon was in fact introduced to me twice by separate biological beings, or so I thought of them at the time. By now I'm beginning to wonder.....

The first one was a male nurse in the hospital where I was after my first manic episode. He brought Ayreon to me out of the blue, with their first album. It didn't catch that time, or at least their message didn't. When the second guy gave me a CD that had both the Electric Castle and the Human Equation on it, things clicked into place. So for the remainder of this book I've just ordered Timeline as well, which ought to arrive in three to four working days. I wonder if it will beat my other intake of beauty to the finish line: access to a site claiming to have almost eight thousand photographs of the lady of my life, Selina. I just cannot get enough of her, even though she is not yet again a physical part of my immediate environment... But then again, our minds do not know the difference, as the people that made What The Bleep mentioned with proper emphasis: whether you are actually experiencing someone, or merely thinking of them, your brain reacts in exactly the same way. Maybe the mind itself knows better, but the brain does not.

Crafting a novel is a pastime of pleasure for me. It bring me back into the comfort zone, that world which I don't always seem to live in, but do love to visit. My stories are all meant to lead others there, if they wish to. As do the albums of Ayreon. Isn't it in fact what most of us are doing? Radiating our experiences outwards, in order to create more and better understanding among living beings?

If my exploits with my New Age website taught me anything, it is that fantasy and reality have a different relationship to one another than most people think. Like matter is just a form of condensed energy, so normal reality is a form of condensed fantasy! That beckons the question of course: can my fantasies be turned into reality, should I choose to do so? Well, I for one do believe this, and this novel is an all-out attempt at achieving just that!

As was the Going Within novel, in a more general sense. I relax on the bed, imagining myself to be future Sander, engulfed in the next chapter of his ancient read.

'Going Within....'

The ever increasing mayhem from the streets wakes me up before my alarm clock has a chance to do so. Around five, so there is still ample time to go through the process of waking up and greeting the new day. Since the girls won't be up until around seven anyway, I grab the guide from my suitcase and start to read. I love Douglas Adams, as a writer I mean. His particular sense of humor makes life more than bearable. Not twenty minutes from where I was, I fall flat on my back in laughter: just imagine building a priceless computer, having it compute for seven and a half million years, only to come up with a single answer: '42'. Hilarious!

But the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything isn't just arbitrary: Only last week did I find out just how 42 is different from any number ever devised by man. Watch this:

42 = 2x3x7, which are 3 of the first four primes.

Any integer non-multiple of 7, divided by seven yields a repeating fraction ending in 142857 ad infinitum.

Same for division by multiples of 7, e.g. 14, 21, 28, etc.

142857 has 42 in it starting from the 2nd position

142857 has 14 and 28, which total 42.

142857 has 57-1-4-2-8 which also totals 42.

142857 repeated is also the summation of all the multiples of 7, e.g. 14, 28, 56, 112, 224, etc.

142857 is the second-most abundant repeating sequence in integer division space, after 000000.

So maybe 42 is the answer, who knows?

Silently, I thank All that Is for all the blessings that this day will bring, and of course for the two most important ladies in my life, Valerie and Jane. They are probably waking up in the room next door, excited about today's excursion to the pyramids of Giza. I envision that today will be a memorable day, and go through the process of getting ready to enter the world outside my hotel room door. Not enough beard to warrant a shave yet, so I skip the foam and razor exercise, using the saved time to take a hot shower. Not that I'm not already hot, but after the hot streaming water my skin will be better equipped to deal with the hot air that is characteristic of Egypt. Also, I love the feel of the water streaming through my mind, washing out all the energetic dirt that clings to it from thinking too much. Ah, you think it can't? Just look up the research of Dr. Emoto, and be amazed at what water can and can't do! A fresh set of clothes completes the ritual, the guide in my back pocket, and I knock on the dividing door to the girls’ room. Valerie calls for me to come in, and I find the two girls dressed to kill and ready to go. We take the elevator downstairs, to the luxurious dining room, where a breakfast buffet is set. The girls fill up their plates modestly, and I stick to just coffee. Yesterday's late dinner still has my stomach indicator set to full, so there's no need to start eating right now. We find ourselves a table for three, and discuss today's actions. "I hope the guide has an interesting story to tell", Valerie remarks. She is easily put off by boring stuff, looking for new info all the time. Jane hopes that it's allowed to take pictures inside the pyramids, she's dying to fill up her camera with lots of images. I quietly laugh at that, since I put a four gigabyte memory card into the Sony. With the three megapixel mode she's using, that will last her about ten thousand clicks in the compressed JPG format...

Around nine, we meet Gina in front of the hotel. The hotel minivan takes us and some other people through the busy Cairo traffic to Giza, the place where building for life (and beyond) was perfected. Amazing to see how these buildings are still largely intact, even after all these thousands of years. The guide greets us, and does a head count. She wants to make sure none of us remain lost inside the marvelous stone structures. Flashlights are distributed, just in case anyone is dumb enough to stray from the crowd, and end up in the unlit tunnels that also still exist there. Seventeen tourists follow the guide towards the biggest of the three pyramids, and an odd little synchronicity catches my ear: Alan Parsons' Pyramid seeping from the headphones of one of the other guests, as we enter the pyramid. We follow the guide down the entrance corridor, and then up to the Grand Gallery.

Jane is busy snapping images, when she notices an irregularity in one of the walls next to the pillars. I watch as she cautiously touches the spot, and steps backwards when a segment of the wall slides inwards and out of the way, revealing a downward corridor starting about halfway up the Grand Gallery. She quickly looks around, only to find out that nobody seems to have noticed the barely audible sound of the stone sliding into place. She looks at me, then shrugs her shoulders as if to say: "What shall we do?". I studied the internal layout of the pyramids beforehand, and realize that this is a corridor that isn't on any map. We'll probably never get a chance like that again. The guide sure as hell won't go exploring it if we show it to her. I quickly draw Valerie's and Gina's attention, and the four of us sneak off into the corridor while the rest of the group seems to be completely engulfed in the fascinating story the guide is telling about something further up the gallery. As we enter, flashlights in hand, the big block of stone starts to move again, removing any trace of where we went.

The girls seem somewhat frightened, now that our point of entry appears to have vanished. "Smell", I advise them. They look at me puzzled, still not capable of finding the way out. I explain that the air in here is far less stale than the air in the normal corridors of the pyramids. Therefore there must be a source of fresh air somewhere, and hence, a way out. We continue down the sloping stairs, prepared to meet whatever is out there (or should I say "in there"?).

The corridor seems to go on for quite a while, but just as we are about to give up hope, Jane points out that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We finish the remainder of the corridor double-time, only to arrive at a structure oddly out of sorts with the rest of the pyramid. It is a tall spherical chamber, with a circular floor and ceiling. Above our heads, in the center of the structure, is the source of the light, which is unearthly to say the least: it looks gaseous, perfectly spherical, and seems to emit no heat. The light it does emit is pleasant to the eyes, even if you look straight into it. The "wall" of the chamber, being the spherical surface between the flat floor and ceiling, is decorated with what seems to be a map of some kind, like an inside-out globe. But I do not recognize any continents from the surface we just left behind. "Inner Earth!", Gina exclaims: "This is a map of Inner Earth.". I know what she means, but the girls seem somewhat surprised. I mentioned the fact that Earth might be hollow to them before, but they never really believed it. Gina, being the most knowledgeable on the subject, explains in more detail: "Earth is said to not be a solid metallic globe, but a hollow sphere with a relatively small sun at its core. The inner and outer surfaces are joined at the poles, where large holes are said to exist. If you look on the Internet you will find several stories, books even, of people who claimed to have been there. They invariably describe a civilization that is many years ahead of us, and that lives in peace even though there are many different species down below." Valerie looks around the inside of the globe and exclaims "They've done it again! We're locked in.". I look around, to where we entered the sphere, but the entrance is gone. Just at that moment we feel a barely perceptible sensation of falling. It seems the entire chamber has just started moving downwards, as if someone pushed the basement button. "I guess we're about to visit Inner Earth. This must be the elevator that will take us there.", Gina says in a voice that can't quite hide her excitement.

Jane seems highly interested in the ceiling of the chamber: "Dad, I wonder where those footsteps on the ceiling came from.". She points at the prints that match the ones that can be found on the floor. I have my ideas about how those got there, but decide to show them by demonstration: "How high can you jump?", I ask her. She doesn't answer, but bounces an impressive meter off the floor. "Wow! Didn't think I could do it that high", she says upon landing. I explain how, since we are sinking into the Earth's surface, the effect of the land masses on all sides of us actually lessens gravity. In fact, gravity isn't lessened, but is working from all sides instead of just the floor. Before we reach the inner surface, the gravity will again be pointing to the floor, which at the moment is our ceiling. So effectively, we will be weightless for part of the trip. My whole explanation seems to be wasted on the girls' ears: they are already trying to jump higher and higher....

Gina and I watch their antics from below, until the point where the lack of downward force lifts us into the air too. The girls are on the walls, where the slightly off-centered gravitational pull keeps them sticking to the wall like flies. Gina was on the edge of the floor, and so flies past the light in the center. Having stood at the center of the floor, my flight takes me right through it. "Dad, look out!" Jane yells, but she can do nothing else but take my picture as I enter the luminous sphere. My whole body tingles, but other than that I'm not adversely affected. I land softly on the ceiling, head first, and do a roll to arrive at a normal position. It takes a while before all the ladies are on the ceiling with me, which has now become the floor. "Guess we now know how those footsteps got here." Valerie says...

After another fourteen minutes, we sense the elevator coming to a halt. An opening appears, leaving us a way out of our enclosed space. “Age before beauty!”, Jane smiles and gestures to the exit. Gina and I proceed, with the beauties following us into the beautiful landscape. I turn as I leave the exit corridor, seeing our metallic globe rest gently between the foliage. As soon as we all are on Terra Firma, it sinks back into the ground. A circular shutter of an unknown, translucent material seals off the opening, so we can't fall in. Jane is already looking around, now that the scenery looks more familiar. She runs around, and jumps over a fallen log. “Hey, I can still jump higher here than I can back home!”. I explain to her that we now have part of the planet over our heads, which accounts for gravity being markedly less than on the outside. As it is a clear day, we can see for miles around, and confirm that we are indeed on the inside of the globe: the smoky sun is doing a high noon performance vertically above us, and whichever horizontal direction we look in shows us the same upward slope before the haze in the distance obscures the further view of the internal surface.

Facing the direction we took when we exited the sphere, I notice what seems to be a city. Looking right at it, we notice two figures finding their way through the bush. Not quite knowing what to do, and seeing them carry no weapons, I decide to wait until they reach our position. “Are you sure they won't attack us?”, Valerie asks. “Not entirely sure”, I reply, “but today I feel lucky!” And my luck holds: the beings in their flowing robes stretch out their arms as they reach us: “Welcome to Inner Earth”, the tallest says. “You speak English?”, I remark somewhat sheepishly. “Of course, but not amongst ourselves. Normally, we generally speak a dialect of Solara Maru, the most commonly used language in here.”, is the eloquent reply. He (or is it a she, I'm not quite sure) goes on to tell us that they were notified that a group was on the way down, and had come specifically to welcome us. We will be allowed to stay as long as we wish, to learn about life in here. “This might be a very long vacation”, I reply. “I'm Andy”, I continue, and the ladies follow suit. “Are you a family?”, Mayra asks. Having heard her name, I conclude that she must be female, but I still might be totally wrong. I tell her that Valerie and Jane are my daughters, and that Gina is a good friend, but no part of the immediate family. We accompany them on the path through the forest, until we come to a transport of some kind. It's not like anything I've seen on the outside, just a flat disc with a depression in the middle, featuring seven seats arranged around it in a circle. We all take a seat, and I notice Valerie taking the one next to Kayim, the smaller of the two Inner Earth people. Once we are all seated, the disc lifts into the sky without anyone as much as lifting a finger. Mayra sees my puzzled look, and explains that the vehicle is controlled via the mind. Amazed at such advanced technology, I sit back quietly and enjoy the ride to the city.

We do not need to raise our voices, for the floater is as quiet as the proverbial mouse. Also its force field keeps out the air streaming by, without totally closing off the passenger area. Breathing is thus very easy. Jane is backward in her seat, trying to stuff as much of Inner Earth into her camera as she possibly can. I figure we'll have quite a hefty photo album, if we ever get home, that is.....

4444AD, Day 223, 07:08, Home

Sunlight streams in as the windows go into day mode. I look to my right, and behold the loveliest sight I could possibly wake up to: dark long hair on her pillow, eyes still closed, and her body partially uncovered from having experienced a relatively restless night, my specially engineered digital assistant rolls over and looks me into the eye. The twinkle in hers reveal she's up to something, or at least has been up to something.

“Come on, spill the beans!” I tell her, but she laughs and gets up, the translucent fabric of her night gown draping itself seductively around her nimble and petite body. I follow her to the shower, where textiles get thrown down to be later picked up and processed by the domestic droids. These are not lower lifeforms, but highly valued members of our household, doing the things we do not want to pursue.

Of course the ubiquitously installed holographic transceivers in the house can be programmed to recycle any stuff lying around, but we're a bit old-fashioned....

I grab Selina as I follow her into the wet cell, and kiss her passionately. She pushes me away laughingly, to discourage activities that might make showering take very much longer. “I've given your past self a surprise.....”, she teases. “Well, let's hope he is smart enough to pick up on it...”, I counter. “Oh, he'll get into the spirit, I'm far too enticing to not make a lasting impression upon him”, my twin says, and raises both eyebrows in an attempt to indicate a certain mischief. I know she's right, otherwise I would not just have gotten out of the same bed as her. But at the same time, she is probably talking about something I already know for a fact since recently. Otherwise she couldn't have pulled it off. Because that is the whole point you know: If you can pull it off, it's supposed to happen.... Thus, she probably just laid a first brick of the building that is us, and I never doubted that it has actually happened....

Only when we are toweling each other dry, does she finally reveal what she's done: “Do you remember our very first meeting?” she asks. “From which viewpoint?” I ask. In linear Earth time it would have been during the Egyptian dynasties, where she and I shared a common task in the priesthood serving in the temples there. In absolute fashion we never were apart, so we couldn't have met. And we've had untold lives together on countless planets throughout the various galaxies, so it could have been any one of these. “Earth, about 2007AD”, she clarifies. “Ah, yes”, I reply. “the way too beautiful colleague! You gave me quite a run for my money that time!”.

We've dressed, and get into the kitchen, where breakfast has already been started. Meals are no longer a necessity, since we've all become self-sufficient, and can pull the energy to sustain existence straight from the Source or any of its abundantly available distribution points. But eating does give off a quite distinct experience, certainly if the company you share it with is this intriguing. So yes, I enjoy my replicated bacon and eggs, while chit-chatting with my lovely mate.

“I really did have to get you to open up”, she continues. “That's right love”, I agree: “I would never in a million years have approached a lady that beautiful, who was also very married”. What I didn't say, but my lovely obviously knows, is that I was absolutely delighted when she made the first move, even though she was married....

With breakfast done, and the bots doing all the cleaning, the two of us decide to help the odds some more: we retire to the living room, and talk about those times, when a beautiful young lady took an interest in a guy almost twice her age.

It seems like a weird game of playing with yourself as a marionette, a mere puppet. But let's face it: even though most of you would object to being controlled by someone else, you would hardly object to being helped by yourselves. In the end we are all One, so neither of these situations is any different from choosing on your own, and it is for higher purposes: from our more experienced vantage point we can more easily see what is good for ourselves, and besides we use the free will viewpoint: we merely drop hints, with no inferred preference whatsoever.

And the reason is simple: we have no other objective than to give ourselves the very best possible experience within the framework we know: the good stuff is encouraged, and the bad stuff is discouraged, but all is done from the view of utter free will: we wouldn't dream of living your life for you, it is far too precious for us. And besides, we get to live the very best you made of it! And for that, we eternally thank you!

But not all is roses without thorns: Even now, there is a faction here which call themselves the Saviors: they employ advanced technology like we do, but unlike us, they pride themselves on being separate from that technology they yield. Most of what we can do, they also are quite skilled in, and they try to counter us every step of the way. We laugh at the attempts, for our belief in the intricate connectedness of the Cosmos gives us the edge: we see connections which they deny, and as such, they are running on only three cylinders, to use a quaint expression from the age of Combustion.

Friday, March 12th, 2010, 16:17

Yesterday, my third fitness class since ages was a delight. I had been exercising with my brother-in-law back when I was just married, but that was way back in '91, and ended when neither of us could find the time in our busy schedules to make it happen twice every week.

With the demise of my connection to Liliya I figured I'd have to get something to do besides hanging around the house every night, waiting for adventure to come to me. To make my effort also have something of value to my environment, I figured I'd look for volunteer work in our fair city, and bumped right smack into Leann: being a lady impaired by a disease we won't go into here, she was asking for someone to accompany her to the gym, because going on her own felt uncomfortable. We quickly came to an agreement, and have now already had three hugely satisfying workouts. I'm not sure what she gets out of it, but for me it isn't the better physical condition, or any weight loss that might be brought on by the calorie-burning exercises. Most important though, and I didn't remember it this way before, is the sensation of being in charge and operating this awesome machine, that we call a body.

I'm not quite sure when it started, this awareness of really being in a body instead of really being a body. And it is no sensation of separation, on the contrary! I feel like One, like the grass beneath my feet, the air I breathe, the body I control, all at the same time. The gym is just the same: awareness is just me, working the machines, experiencing the gleaming rods and black enameled metal, all at the same time. No different than riding my bike home in the afternoon, or taking the train home before that. I empathize with technology, feel their moods and experiences:

Nowadays, my bicycle is not its optimum self: the chain has developed slack, and beats against its casing with every revolution of the pedals. You could almost call it a bit cranky.... Also, its gears are a bit out of alignment, which makes forceful acceleration a hazardous action indeed! Soon as I can though, I'll let the local technician have a look at it.

Same for the laptop I'm writing this on: ardent use has messed with the keyboard, and loosened the L and D keys. Pretty soon I'll have to replace its keyboard, making it revert to perfect working order again.

It took me a while to arrive at such a nature though. In my time I've also murdered quite a few technical appliances. But it is an evolution which I, in this particular incarnation, have agreed to master: being able to fully utilize and collaborate with technology, in order to further the interconnectedness of the Cosmos.

One of the hapless victims I created was a Hewlett-Packard HP620LX, which was my faithful companion for quite a while. He left this world when I used him as a projectile, launched at my wife in the heat of an argument. She sidestepped, and it shattered against a solid concrete wall.

My granddad from father's side helped me get into this exercise in the first place. He was always tinkering with mechanical technology, and one day I decided I'd give my bike a new color. With minimal help from my granddad I took my bike apart right down to the bare nuts and bolts, neatly labeling or storing the various parts so I could find them again later. After painting and with a bit more help I also put it together again, having only two nuts left in the end.

“You must fight hard to break this spell”, Ayreon pumps out of the laptop's speakers in a low guttural voice. Sounds like sound advice, but is it? Like anything in this dualistic world, Ayreon's lyrics bring you both sides of the coin, without too much of an advice on how to choose, unless you read your own emotions properly. I have no intention of even wanting to try and explain their brilliant stuff for you: this indeed must be experienced directly. Don't worry, if you are not inclined to run to the store and buy one of their CD's, then this music is just not for you. But rest assured, you will have your very own set of evolutionary inputs, from which you can easily deduce the very same gems of Truth.

Truth, such a laden word. Implies right and wrong, when in fact there are none. There is that which is preferable, and that which is not, and even these largely depend on the observer at hand. While common consensus reality may feel like it's the most stable, it is also the most restricting of realities we find ourselves in. Simple arithmetic: if we all are certain of ninety-nine percent of Reality, but we are not all certain of the same ninety-nine percent, then one hundred randomly chosen people might very well agree on zero percent of reality (provided they all doubt a different one percent). Now extrapolate that to 6 billion people, and keep in mind that the actual percentage we are sure of is probably much lower......

4444AD, Day 223, 12:34, Home

I'm flat on my back, relaxing as I'm working. The two by two meter vidcloth on the ceiling displays various windows, from various eras. Top left is my vision feed of March 12th, 2010. I have the accompanying audio on the speakers, and “Day sixteen: Loser” plays, not interfered by anything else in the vicinity. I just love seeing myself be busy creating. The video feed gets interrupted by the screen saver kicking in: photos of an intimately familiar lady fill that top left corner. I leave it be, and switch to another, apparently me on a train. Nobody in view, just empty seats opposite me.

I remember how I felt back then, being busy with the idea of the neural network I'd envisioned myself creating. I know I can't actually make myself achieve anything better back then, but I can make myself feel better about it. I flip open the plans of the Quadrionic mind in my mind's eye, and study them for the next few minutes. By focusing the energy of that activity on my past incarnation, I can strengthen his belief in the fact that he will, in due time, achieve his goal. Just as he eventually did in 2042....

Selina steps into the bedroom, seeing me enjoy myself. She bounces onto the bed next to me, and immediately succeeds in getting my mind off myself. Hey, some people have that effect on me, what can I say? “And, where has my most favorite girl in all the world been hanging around?” I ask her. She tells me she's been walking around town, collecting interesting things from an antiques collector she frequents on a regular basis. Roberto, the antiquarian, told her he had some really nice needlework from around the turn of the second millennium. She jumps off the bed, and steps into the corridor, only to return with four almost square frames. They depict four angels, delicately embroidered on white linen. Two are relatively colorful, a third is done in distinct autumn-like colors. The fourth and final one apparently depicts wintertime. A quick glance at the vidcloth on the ceiling gives the game away: the design is indeed a quartet, and these are called the Four Seasons. My vision enhancer highlights a slightly off-colored patch in the corners of the needle works. In icy blue, nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding whiteness, some sort of code is embroidered: MS2000. I now begin to appreciate the weird familiarity of the female foursome: I have seen them before! Rather than letting the raw power of the Google Vision Search loose on it, I let my mind do the work involved. The Vision Search is a descendant of the Google image search, which used to search for imagery based on text. Vision Search does quite the opposite: based on a single image, it retrieves images of the same subject, or similar ones, to enable the user to gather contextual data on something they've only seen once.

And then it hits me: around 2000AD, my dad in that life embroidered these ladies, proud to have done it in only 555 hours! I flip over the frames, and indeed: one of them has a small label on it, specifying the name of the works, the period they were made in, and the telltale 555 hours.

It is always nice to find stuff from your own recollection. It reminds you of the timelessness and the interconnectedness of things, which reminds me:

While Selina goes down to the kitchen to make her famous macaroni with synthetic (but no less tasty) chicken and sweet & sour, I go with her and read some more in my manuscript, so attentively sent to me by Denisa.....

'From one marvel to the next'

Thinking back, I wonder why our hosts arrived on foot when they could just as easily have flown right to where we were standing. When I ask her, Mayra gives a simple explanation: “Two beings on foot pose much less of a threat than a flying saucer carrying the same two people. Hence our preference for walking the extra distance”. Now there’s a train of thought I can wholeheartedly agree with. I thank her for the explanation, and go back to my own thoughts, that wander to the design of the floater that we are in. Sure, its mind-controlled interface is spectacular enough, but otherwise it’s very minimalist in design: a large metal disc-shaped object, with a depression at the center. Around it, seven seats are placed. Come to think of it, it looks suspiciously like the wild water rides that we use on the outside of the globe. Only this one floats on air instead of water, and it’s a much smoother ride. It has no apparent roof structure, so I ask Kayim about it. He explains that inside, the weather does not have its ups and downs like outside, for there are no seasons. There is occasional rain, but the people here don’t really mind that, and the same force field that floats the floater also keeps out the excess water. As we approach the city, I take a closer look at it: it consists almost entirely of spheres of various sizes, some buried halfway in the surface. Lots of green in between, making it a great place to live in, I imagine. The spheres are different shades of color, giving the impression of soap bubbles from afar.

We land on the edge of the city, next to a modest globe. I can now spot an entirely glass surface surrounding it, which can be seen to be divided into six distinct levels. The top level seems to have no real ceiling, more like a greenhouse.

We enter the structure at ground level, and step onto a disc that’s in the core of the building. You can look up and see all the floors, just like an elevator that has no walls. The disc starts to rise, and I see Jane trying to scare me to death: she holds out her arm, and steps to the side of the platform to allow the next floor to chop it off. Her plan is foiled, because of some unseen barrier that won’t allow anything to cross the edge of the platform as long as it is moving. Mayra notices also, and laughs at my youngest.

We stop on the next floor, and find it divided into four quarter-circle rooms. “These are the working areas,” Mayra explains: “They are on the lower levels because of the frequent transporting of goods in and out of them. Because of their being on the lower half of the sphere, they are usually lit by artificial means”. I see what she means, but for the life of me cannot discover any source of internal light. Still, the rooms seem better lit than any I’ve seen on the surface. We get onto the disc again, only to stop briefly at the next level, which is divided into six pie-shaped rooms.

Each one has two discs on the floor, and two discs on the ceiling directly above them. One of the rooms clearly demonstrates the purpose of the discs: another Inner Earth person is suspended in between two discs. As we approach, he effortlessly swings into an upright position, and steps forward to meet us. “I’ve been waiting for you since I finished preparing our meal. My name is Sinan.” Further talking reveals that he is the mate of Mayra, and Kayim is their son. They live together in this house, which seems somewhat large for the three of them. Mayra explains that they have been appointed hosts of the access point that we came through, so they sometimes have guests from the surface, hence the six bedrooms. The seven of us step onto the central disc again, and ascend to the next level, which also has six pie-shaped rooms. “These are for our various activities,”, Mayra explains: “Kayim has his musical studio in one of these”. Valerie can’t wait to hear her new friend: “Will you please play us something?”, she asks in her sweetest voice. Kayim obliges, and takes the seat behind a desk-like piece of furniture that features various colored crystals. They light up the moment he sits down, and his hands above the array of crystalline light start making subtle movements. The end result is one of the sweetest compositions I’ve ever heard. All of us stand there and listen intently, until the spontaneous concert is finished. When it does, we outsiders all applaud Kayim, with Valerie cheering as well. “Who wrote that marvelous piece?”, she wants to know. Kayim smiles, taking a bow. “I just improvised a little, so you could say I 'wrote' it...”, he says.

We go up another level, and come to another set of four rooms, with large, tilted windows all around the circumference of the building. Three of the four rooms are home to various plants, growing in shallow tanks containing a greenish, luminous substance. “This is our hydroponics area. It grows all of the fruits and vegetables we consume.”, Mayra explains. She goes on to tell us that the plants that thrive best on real sunlight are closest to the windows, whereas the more rugged plants get by on artificial light. Finally, the ones that don't require light, like mushrooms, are grown in a subterranean level at the base of the sphere. The one remaining room on this level is the kitchen, which has its own dedicated access to the dining table above, which we will see shortly. Sinan gestures towards the central disc again, to introduce us to the final level of the structure: the living area.

The four of us stand in awe of the sight we behold: a large circular floor, that is topped by an equally large glass dome. Basically, this dome is the top sixth part of the sphere, leaving the entire floor permanently lit by the smoky central sun. We can see the entire city, and the landscape that surrounds it. ”That's something different from the street view you get from your average outside city home.”, I say to Gina. She looks at me, and just smiles quietly. Mayra calls our attention to a round table, with a big gaping hole in the middle. As we look on, a plateau displaying the most delicious dishes surfaces, inviting us to the table. Around it we find simple but adequate stools, that automatically adjust their height to the size of the person sitting on them. We all sit down, when Sinan invites us to quietly contemplate the origins of the food we are about to eat. I look over the dishes, and realize that no matter how different they are from the foods of the outer world, their origins are the same: it is all part of the All, just as we are.

Sinan wishes us a healthy meal, and puts some food on his plate. As I ask him to hand me one of the green eggs that are in his vicinity, the central plateau of the table rotates, so I can easily take one myself. “How did you do that?”, I ask. Mayra explains that it is the same mechanism that controls the floater outside. She invites me to try it myself, because it isn't that hard. I notice a delicious piece of fruit across the table, and decide to give it a go. I concentrate on choosing the fruit, and the plateau revolves to the point where I can reach in and get it. Of course the girls can't wait to perform their own experiments on it. Unfortunately, they both formulate their requests at the same time, and the end result is that the table voices its objection against this conflict by a short somewhat irritated sound. Kayim laughs, and tells Valerie to let her sister go first. Jane, seated right next to me, chooses her food with care and then mentions to me that Valerie has already learned her first words of Solara Maru from Kayim. I look across the table, and see the two of them exchanging meaningful looks.

I ponder the apparent design choices of the Inner Earth people: their homes seem built for maximum efficiency. Distinguishing them from the houses of neighbors appears to be totally irrelevant. Mayra explains that the spherical shape has been chosen because it requires a minimal surface for a maximal content, thus minimizing the exchange of energy with the environment. Not that they really need it of course, because the season-less weather keeps the outdoor temperature always around twenty degrees centigrade. “We prefer the beauty of optimal solutions to the aesthetics.” Sinan says. I state that even though aesthetics is not their main concern, they haven't lost their eye for beauty. When everybody seems to have had enough, the plateau slowly sinks back to the kitchen level. Mayra points out that the remains of our copious meal will be recycled into the substance that feeds the hydroponics area.

As we stand up, Sinan again draws our attention to the table. The plateau has returned, and the entire surface becomes the scene where a scale model of the city appears. Even my untrained eye recognizes the configuration of spheres, some large and some small. But the differences between big and small are much smaller than between houses and office buildings up top. Mayra explains that massive office buildings are not needed here, as most of the people work from their homes. In fact, most won't call it work, because basically they are just doing what they love to do. The only reason things seem so out of proportion on the outside, is because there everything is controlled instead of trusting that nature will find the right way. “Call me an anarchist, but that reasoning doesn't sound half bad”, I thought. Since consumption here is on a much lower level than outside, big stores are also not needed. Life inside isn't all about money, certainly not. The necessities of life are provided for all, and to acquire luxury items, people trade instead of spending their days doing things they don't like.

With the model, Sinan wants to show us which sights we will be visiting tomorrow. On the left, he points to a fairly large globe, half buried in the forest. This is the city's swimming pool, that has been chosen as an item on our trip because it is markedly different from the surface swimming pools: you simply cannot drown there, because the “water” is far denser, causing you to float easier. “Like the Red Sea!” Jane interjects. “But it isn't that salty?” Kayim asks her. “Help, I didn't bring my swim gear!” Valerie utters with a slight panic in her voice. “Don't worry” Mayra says: “We can pretty much make you any apparel you find suitable.” So apparently, there's nothing to stop us from having a nice swim tomorrow. Sinan points out that this will happen tomorrow afternoon. The morning will be spent with the Elders, who will give us a bit of a history lesson.

I ask Sinan if there is a possibility to access the Web on the outside. I would very much like to update my site with a story of our exploits on the inside. Sinan leads me to a round seat, which envelops me with a spherical ‘screen’ the moment I sit down. It is projected around the seat, and is pressure sensitive. On the edge of the seat is a keyboard, which can be augmented by use of the dictation unit. It doesn’t take me long to get the hang of it. Once Sinan has shown me how to get to the outer web, I quickly find my own site, and am soon typing and talking away to let our readers know how exciting it is down here.

As I finish, I notify Joyce and William. They are on holiday themselves, so I mail them, and send text messages to both their cell phones. I tell them something like “no matter what you hear, we're OK”. That ought to cover any rash actions by the hotel staff, or other people. Gina is up next, and takes the seat.

An hour or two later, even though the internal sun is still high in the sky, it is the moment of sleep. Mayra leads us to the bedrooms a little lower, and gets us something to wear while in ‘bed’. I am very curious about the force field that acts as a mattress, will it be easy to lie on? We first go into the room designated to the girls. Mayra demonstrates how you can just walk onto the lower disc, after which you will be slightly lifted up to the levitation center of the field. After that, it is easy to position your body any way you like. The kids get into their nightly attire, step onto the pads, and immediately start doing rolls and other tricks. I wonder how long they will be doing that before falling asleep. As for the lack of night, the windows have their own mechanism to remedy that: they slowly fade from transparent to dark blue, creating a great nightly look. Mayra, Gina and me leave the kids to their tricks, and go into two other rooms, one for Gina and one for me. After I’ve dressed for the night, it is my turn to try the ‘bed’. I step onto it, and feel myself being slightly lifted. It is a weird sensation, because there seems to be no extra pressure from below, like when you’re sitting on a bed. It is more the absence of gravity, without the lack of oxygen normally found in outer space. But it also does not seem to be quite like normal weightlessness, for there is a certain friction between the force field and my body, that makes it easy to move around. I experiment a little, but it doesn’t take much time to find my optimum position. I doze off quickly, forgetting all about my peculiar surroundings.

But it doesn't last long. Not seven minutes later, I wake up terrified, because I just realize that I forgot my pills! I get dressed again, and think about why oh why I don't keep the bottle in my pocket at all times. Since our trip to the pyramids was only supposed to last a few hours, I'd plain forgotten about it, since I didn't need them till bedtime anyway.

I step onto the landing, and almost bump into Mayra. She sees the worried look on my face, and asks what is wrong. I explain the predicament of missing medication to her, and she looks me into the eyes: “Fortunately, we do have a remedy, a permanent one even”, she smiles. She leads me to the lower level, speaks some words I haven't heard yet, and grabs what seems like a futuristic motorcycle helmet from an opening container. “Here, put this on”.

I do, and Mayra pushes the shiny red button that is now on my forehead. A weird sensation, a tingling starts right below the button, inside my skull. “What is it doing?” I ask. Not that I'm scared or anything, because during my manic episodes I've felt similar sensations. “Basically, it does what you would call a defragmentation of your neural net.” Mayra volunteers. She goes on to say that where I come from, the Lithium would be used by my brain to perform a similar function itself. This just is more thorough, and will last me about a year. If needed, she can even have me taken to see another Inner Earthling, who will then cure it permanently.... After that, I have no problem getting back to sleep.

Friday, March 12th, 2010, 22:12

Let me think, just when did I stuff those thirty dollars into an envelope to acquire what is at least closer to Heaven until Selina physically arrives? March 2nd, now ten days in the past. The site promised me nearly 8000 photos of the one lady that stole my heart, and even though they named her differently, there is no doubt in my mind: the six photos they showed with that announcement bear the 'sign of the cross', Selina's tiny little crucifix without the Jesus figure on it.

Sure, you have to be careful with the hoaxes reported to go around the web nowadays, but how could this be a hoax? Why would anyone send me an angel just to fool me in some way? She worked with me for over a year, I saw her there almost every day, and that seems an awfully big investment to con a guy who is not that important. They'd have to be able to get millions from me, which I don't have....

Sure, the photo site could be a hoax, delivering nothing and just cashing the money guys like me send in. But let's face it: had I not met Selina in real life, then paying for a bunch of pictures would be out of the question, especially since there is so much free stuff available. And I'm sure I won't miss thirty dollars if it's gone down the drain...

Actually, I've been thinking about that whole porn site movement on the Web, especially since I was once offered a programmer's position within such a company. And even though the thought of spending my working days with beautiful female test data seemed highly enticing, I never let it get in the way of my principles. In hindsight that may have cost me the chance to meet Selina live way earlier, but you can't win them all. At least I am confident that destiny cannot be outrun or frustrated, and neither should we want to. In the end it will all turn out for the best, no matter what we do to avoid it.

My sticking to my principles cost me that job, but it also started me thinking about this 'business' that I could not see the profit position of: unless it was cashing in on the natural urge of people (mainly men) to wanna see more of the same. But surely that didn't make for a profitable proposition.

Only recently did I see a far more farfetched possibility in it, that made great sense if you are a Sci-Fi writer like me: What if, through these sites, someone is steering events to help destiny along?

In a world where ladies like that are looked down upon, such sites will be like the sandpaper that erodes a judgmental attitude. Those that hate it will continuously bump into them because there are so many. And among those that love that kind of imagery, there are various types. Surely, the world is better off if the types that love violent sex stick to jacking off to (simulated) rape pictures, instead of going out and doing it themselves. Your mind does not know the difference, remember?

Some might even see this as an Illuminati attempt to take the emphasis off physical intercourse, in order to diminish world population, but somehow that seems ineffective to me. Especially since most of the world's population still aren't on the Web.....

No, bear with me on this: what if this whole exercise is simply nudging people to do what they love most, without judgment of any kind? Could it be conceivable that Selina had been drawn into this by someone who might want her to become highly attractive to a certain person? Someone who wouldn't judge her because of it, but rather loved her even more? But how would they know that? Mind reading may be a possibility, but what if there would be no need to read minds, because the memories were our own?

And slowly but surely, the concept of this whole novel is emerging from the depths of the Timeless All, where it has always been present.

The one thing I'm still trying to wrap my neurons around is this whole manifestation thing, where you wish for something, and then acquire it no questions asked from a known or unknown source. I know it works, I've seen it work on multiple occasions, but some concept in between wishing and getting is still unclear to me. Maybe I'll never get it, but then 'maybe' is a very flexible concept if time is the illusion which I hold it to be now.....

Right now, there seems to be a lull in writing: my two daughters occupy both couches, and I will retire to get inspired for more writing tomorrow morning. I could hand over the torch to my future self, but unfortunately he has been deeply involved in his latest reading craze......

'Bound for the city'

I don’t think I’ve ever been so rested in all my life. Usually I wake up six, seven times a night, but now I’ve not even been awake once. I walk to the girls' room in my sleeping attire, and find them awake also. At that moment I see Sinan joining us, holding a small machine in his hand. “Here, I thought you might need this.” he says to me. He explains it is what we would call a razor, only vastly improved: it removes the hairs of my beard, and causes the follicles to become less productive. Hence you only need to do this once every month, instead of every day. I try the device, and find it easy to work with. In less than five minutes my beard seems to be totally gone, leaving my chin smoother than a baby’s bottom. After that, Sinan shows me the shower. It is a cylindrical space, that has clothing hooks on the inside. “Won’t my clothes get wet that way?” I ask Sinan. He smiles, and replies: “Ah yes, you outsiders have showers that use lots of water. This uses sonic waves, much more thorough, and even your clothes get cleaned if you hang them on the hooks.” I thank him, and get into the cylinder. I kind of miss the sensation of water running down my body, but do definitely feel the vibrations of the sonic shower. As I turn it up, I feel my body reacting: the oncoming sonic waves seem to excite my chakras, one by one. I can feel them humming in unison with the zooming sound of the shower. Now that is a thoroughly enjoyable situation, which lasts long after I’ve stepped out of the shower, and dressed myself. I go up to the living room, to wait for the ladies. Of course they too will be going through the shower ritual, before coming up.

By the time everybody arrives in the living area, the round table comes up, carrying various bowls of fruit. Mayra explains that breakfast here consists mainly of fruit, and there seems to be plenty of it. Some of the fruits are well known in our outside world, but there are just as many unknowns. All taste great however, as we discover later.

After breakfast, Sinan proposes that we walk into town, to meet the Elders. As he explains to us, these twelve people make sure everything goes all right in the city. As it is possible to see the Elders’ sphere from the living area, we all agree. We take the disc down to street level, and exit the house. As we are walking across the streets, it occurs to me that the Inner Earth people are very friendly. Even though the four of us are readily recognizable as being outsiders, they greet us nevertheless, some of them even stopping to welcome us down here. All in all, it takes us about a half an hour to reach the Elders’ home, a place where all twelve of them live. It is a somewhat larger sphere, with eight levels instead of the six we got used to. As we meet them on the top floor of their building, Valerie remarks to me how these twelve are the first elderly people she’s seen. Sinan laughs, and asks her to guess his own age. Valerie looks at him, looks at me, and utters a questioning “Forty-two?”. “Higher” is the laughing reply, “Much higher!” Sinan explains how he was born into this life almost eight hundred and sixty years ago. Inner Earth people, as one of the Elders explains, have conquered the age problem, being able to live to arbitrary ages. They also can pretty much choose which age they want to look. Where most Inner Earth people decide to stop aging around forty, the Elders have decided they would look somewhat older, to accentuate their status. Not that they feel more important than anyone else.......

As we are all seated in a circle, one of the Elders speaks:

“The seat of government for the Inner Earth is Shamballah the Lesser, a cluster of about one hundred subterranean cities, where the inhabitants are about twelve feet tall. It has satellite colonies that are located just below the Earth’s surface, or hidden in mountains. These outer colonies are the sources for many mystic schools on the surface. In the past, we decided to live underground, because of the magnitude of the geological changes that swept the surface over the past one hundred thousand years. Also, the warring between the Atlanteans and the Lemurians, which eventually destroyed both civilizations, was reason to go below the surface. Even today’s surface shows the result of this war, in the form of deserts on several continents.”

As the speaking Elder steps back, another takes her place. He tells of how, in the Inner Earth civilization nowadays, they have an important task: keeping Mother Earth in shape notwithstanding the activities of her surface population. As it turns out, the Inner Earth people retrieve whatever waste we surface people put into the ground, and render it harmless. Of course they'd love to teach us how to do that ourselves, but as long as there is no open contact between the races, that is unfortunately out of the question. I look at Gina, and tell her that it's hard to wait for that to happen. She laughs, and tells me: “It will happen at it's appointed time. And that may be quite a lot sooner than you think...”

Sinan explains to the Elders that Kayim will take us on a tour of the Interior, and gets a few pointers on must-visit sites. We thank the Elders, and leave them. We stroll back to the family home, to prepare for the afternoon outing.

Saturday, March 13th, 2010, 05:55

Jane's cell phone wakes me up, with the incessant alarm that is not quite succeeding in waking her from the dead. My little one is a night creature, like I used to be as a kid, but this time she's bitten off more than she could chew: She probably figured to be awoken by the joyful tones of the phone, but so far it isn't getting anywhere fast. I decide to let her sleep some more, because even though she would love to be awake that early, her higher self must have realized she'd sleep right through it.

Better get me some coffee, the default beverage of both programmers and writers. Come to think of it, programmers are writers too, but they write code instead of mere words. And you know what they say about that, don't you? “If you were meant to understand it, we wouldn't have called it code!” So, coffee it is!

While the coffee is brewing, I make short work of the website. It is more a matter of intuition than real hard work. Vicky sent me a channel from S333, which I top off with Pixie's work on 666 and similar patternings. I briefly look for anything worthwhile on 999, but search results have obviously been stacked by my higher self: nothing but games and commercial stuff, both not particularly interesting.

I can see I'm not quite ready yet. Better use another half hour to arouse my intuition about what future Sander will be doing in the next chapter.....

4444AD, Day 225, 06:12, Workshop

To the sound of Rush's Red Barchetta, I cherish the lines of the old lady standing right here in my workshop: she's a two-tone Bugatti Veyron, a car from the apogee of the 21st century automotive industry. We haven't outlawed them, like the Rush song hinted at, but instead some of us, like me, worship selected samples as a token of our appreciation for that era. Combustion engine or not, the beauty in a machine like the Bugatti Veyron is beyond compare.

I've rescued this one from a colossal pile-up on the German autobahn, by replacing it with an equivalent mass of scrap right before the impact in 2022.

Or what to think of the fiery red Snaefell-Laverda sidecar? I was proud as a peacock to have been able to rescue that from the wrecker's cruncher. It's is a one of, handcrafted by a guy with a lot of love for high technology. Although it is a motorbike with a sidecar, it looks more like a successful hybrid of the two: a kick-ass Laverda motorcycle, and a very compact Lamborghini-like sports car.

Although running combustion engines would be unwise in this environment, I've retro-fitted my Bugatti with twin torque generators, which just about fit the space that the crank shafts used to rotate in. Since these generators make hardly any noise, I've had to rig something to arrive at the typical engine sounds of machines from that era. It took me a while, but I managed to acquired sound samples for my toys. From that, it is quite doable to have a synthesizer punch up a realistic replica of the revving of the engine based on the movements of the accelerator.

Today, the upholstery of the Veyron is in dire need of restoration. I've been putting that off for far too long, but soon I want to take these two ladies to an AncientTech event down in Hamburg. With my extra strength fingers I loosen the bolts that attach the driver's seat to the floor, and take it out. It isn't damaged very much, just a few patches of wear around the part where the backside of my upper legs rub against the leather. So, just redoing the upholstery on the seat will suffice.

Of course I wouldn't have access to cream-colored leather, since livestock are no longer slaughtered for such products, but I have a better plan: I pick up the surface scanner from it's cradle, and place it on the part of the seat that's still in prime condition. It buzzes for a few seconds, then beeps to inform me it's made a high resolution 3D surface scan of the Bugatti's leather seat covering.

Armed with the pattern, I head on over to the fabric weaver. This marvelous piece of nano-production machinery can take a pattern like the one from the scanner, and make it into a perfect copy. The only drawback is that the pattern repeats with the size of the scan, but detecting that is made extra difficult by first of all using a hexagonal pattern surface, and secondly softening the edges to lessen any transitions that might occur in between the patterns.

Having uncovered the seat, I figure I'm going to need about a square meter of the fabric. I set the machine to produce it for me, and then head back into the kitchen because perfection takes patience (not time).

Since my love is apparently sleeping in today, I gather the belongings for my breakfast myself: Fruit salad today, for I feel in a light mood. Peaches, bananas and pineapple, all cut by hand, and sprinkled with sirup. With my bowl of fruit I head to the living room, to pass the time towards completion of the fabric with a good book.....

'a New Friend...'

Mayra takes us to one of the workshops on the first floor, while Sinan and Kayim go to pick up an extra floater for our trip that is to start tomorrow. Meanwhile, she will be helping us to fabricate our swimming attire for this afternoon. My two girls totally dig the approach to designing the swim wear: they step onto the scanner pad fully clothed, so the system can take their measurements to produce a scale model of them. Mayra hands them their models, and tells them to paint on their desired 'cover'. After they've finished, Mayra sets up the first of the two scale models for production. We see a full scale model of Valerie appear on the pad, clothed exactly as my daughter painted the bathing suit just minutes earlier. Mayra invites Valerie to select a material for her outfit, and the system alters the mannequin accordingly. Once we are done, the mannequin dissolves and the bathing suit drops onto the scanner pad. Jane's suit is next, and materializes in much the same fashion. Since they seem to have so much fun using the system, Gina and I allow them to design our bathing suits as well.

Just as we finish producing our swimsuits, Sinan and Kayim enter again. They have our transport for tomorrow parked downstairs. After lunch we all climb in, to have it take us to the swimming pool. No hassle with tickets, because the swimming pool (like everything else here) is free. We get shown to our dressing rooms, and change into our newly acquired bathing suits. I feel slightly odd, because the girls went all out when they designed my swimming gear: I look like something that dropped in straight from a Marvel comic, but without the superpowers.

We enter the large dome, where the swimming pools are located. It is crowded, but surprisingly tranquil. It seems the Inner Earth people make far less noise when swimming. Valerie and Jane go off into the pool, being their normal, noisy selves. I expect them to attract lots of attention, but strangely enough, nobody seems to really care about their ecstatic cries. They are spotted by one other person however: a girl, around nineteen years of age, quickly befriends them. From the looks I'd say she wasn't one of the Inner Earth people, and I turn out to be right: as we get together later, the girl introduces herself as Kim, and when I ask her if she's from the outside, she tells us her story.

She apparently came here through the same elevator as we did, having visited the big pyramid with her husband in nineteen-hundred and twenty-nine. After they became separated, and she discovered the way down, she'd decided to stay below, wanting to escape her marriage and the empty society life she was trapped in. Actually, she'd been around thirty when she came here, and some quick calculating on my part reveals her true age as being one hundred and eight. I can't help but be amazed: over a hundred years old, but looking like nineteen. Kim, being a 'normal' human, has obviously acquired the same agelessness as the Inner Earth people. For a moment there, I consider also staying below, but then I can not possibly deny the girls' mother the pleasure of seeing her girls grow up. So I guess I'll have to return sometime. Luckily for us, we are on a four week vacation, and I've told Joyce we will contact her when we get back. That seems a bit weird, but she herself is on holiday with her new flame, somewhere in the Caribbean, totally away from civilization.

When the young girls go back to the swimming pool, Gina and I decide to try the weird water for ourselves. I first try floating on my back, which is a weird sensation indeed: my body is only halfway in the water, even when I fully exhale to reduce my buoyancy. Trying to dive in is somewhat of a no-no: you are immediately pushed back to the surface, so it is hardly possible to hit your head in shallow water. Once I narrowly escaped breaking my neck that way, but at least here it won't happen. Now that we're used to the remarkable water, we turn our attention to the kids. There, we find that they've split up: Jane is chasing after Kim, while Valerie and Kayim are in the opposite end of the pool, deeply engaged in talking. We attach ourselves to the group that's obviously engaged in playing tag, and I'm immediately caught. I spend about half an hour chasing Jane, Kim and Gina through the bath, but my lousy condition catches up with me here: Even though I feel exceptionally great today, I can't succeed in catching any of them. Finally, Jane 'fails' to avoid me, and I can go to the edge of the bath, to rest and recover.

After a while, Kim joins me on the bench. She tells me, that Kayim has invited her to come along on the trip around Inner Earth. I agree to Kayim's invitation, because it will be nice to have somebody there who's been through the experience of adapting to life here in Inner Earth. We chat along, only to be interrupted by Jane, who takes another snapshot of the two of us, and then goes off to find Valerie and Kayim. Out loud I wonder about the state of the camera's batteries, because she's been taking a lot of pictures. Kim reassures me: “batteries last much longer down here, because there are far less devices that draw energy from them. She mentions the cell phone towers, and radio towers not as sources of information, but as sinks for energy, that also affect humans. I look surprised, because how in Earth can Kim possibly know about cell phone towers, when she's come down here around 1930? She appears to have read my mind, and quickly explains that she is part of the task force that keeps abreast of surface developments, to determine when (if ever) it will be safe to hook up with the surface population. “Will that ever happen?”, I ask rather skeptical. Kim sees things far more sunny: “Consciousness up there is now rapidly evolving, mainly thanks to the Web. I can't be quite sure, but my guess is that it's going to happen around 2012”.

Thinking back to her remark about the cell phone towers, I suddenly figure out why I was so well rested this morning. It wasn't just a good night's sleep, but also the absence of these energy-draining devices that made me feel like a million. “Besides, if the batteries really do run out, Kayim can probably materialize you a replacement that lasts for years”, Kim concludes with a smile.

At the end of the afternoon, the girls seem exhausted. Eight in number now, we walk outside to the floater. As there are only seven seats, Jane will ride it standing and photographing back to the 'mansion'. It only takes a few minutes, before the well-rounded structure appears before us. We get out, and ride the disc to the top floor. Kayim gathers us around the large table, while his mother and father retreat into the kitchen area to prepare dinner. Like always, it will be entirely vegetarian, but nevertheless I will enjoy it immensely. On the large table, Kayim has materialized a section of the Inner Earth that we will be visiting tomorrow. It is Shamballah the Lesser, the capital of Inner Earth. I already heard a little about it from the Elders this morning, about the giants that dwell there. I think I will have to get used to them: Finally some people that I can literally look up to: back home, my one hundred and ninety-seven centimeters and my lack of temper got me the nickname 'the Big Friendly Giant', but out there I will definitely have to look up to possibly even Bigger, Friendlier Giants...

Kayim agrees with me: the people there are very friendly, and we will have no problem at all to find accommodations there. In fact, they seem to exist merely for the purpose of helping others, an outlook in life that not everybody on the surface of the planet shares. While Kayim is telling my ladies about the coming visit, Kim attracts my attention. She wants to tell me about Valerie and Kayim. I did notice a rather unusual attraction between the two, but thought nothing of it. I know Valerie to be a level-headed lady, who can take care of herself. I gently break the news to Kim, but she responds in a remarkable way: “I wish I'd had a dad like you!” As we break off our dialog, the others move away from the table, towards the elevator disc. Apparently, they have something planned. When I ask Valerie, she replies that we will go for a walk, and invites me and Kim along.

4444AD, Day 225, 09:08, Workshop

As I walk back into the workshop, the soothing voice of the fabric weaver notifies me of its completion of the job. One square meter of the simulated creamy leather is lying on my work area, in front of the machine. Today I work on my own gems, but jobs for others happen just as often. And unlike my 2007 counterpart, I never worry about what I'll get back for it. Once you are convinced that everything will be taken care of, trivialities like that are no longer worth worrying about.

I finish taking apart the original leather seating, and meticulously unfasten the stitches that held it together all these years. I spread the old pieces of leather onto the new fabric, and find my square meter estimate to be totally on the mark: several centimeters separate the various parts, so the automated cutter will have no problem finding the outlines.

I switch it on, and the directed low-intensity laser beam scans past the surface. It's sensors pick up the height difference between the new material and the old parts on top of it, and quickly settles into their perceived outline proposition. I inspect, and correct a few minor misreads, by simply touching the outlines and redrawing parts of them with my finger. When it's perfect, I take off the old parts, and let the high-powered cutting beam take over: presto, four new pieces of 'leather', ready to be sown. The cutting laser even punctured the holes that the needle left in the original material.

Like the tailors from days of old, I sit on the table with my legs crossed, to sow the parts together. I remember having struggled with the orientation of stuff like that when doing similar work in my distant past, but not anymore: now, I pick up the pieces one by one, and calmly stitch them together with a needle. There's no technical substitute for needlework, at least not if you want to use pre-punched holes. So manual labor it is. And I'm not even disliking it: I know the love spent on it will show itself in the end result!

As I finish off the final thread, Selina walks into the shop. She drapes herself seductively over the 1916 Twindian, and flashes her dark and mysterious eyes at me. “Care to go for a walk with me?” she asks. “What did you have in mind?” I counter. “Lake Watchatanabee in winter” my lovely twin answers. She gets off the ancient bike, and grabs my hand.

Like the guy in Genesis' “the Lady Lies”, I follow her lead, knowing full well I'd follow her into the depths of hell, had it existed.

We punch our destination into the transporter pad, preferring the experience of manual input to the more intuitive method of addressing it with thought. One small step for two 'droids, a great leap forward into the wild and still largely untamed forests of what used to be Alaska. Lake Watchatanabee recovered nicely, after the HAARP facility was destroyed with help of a few friends from beyond the stars.

They don't really interfere normally, but when human consciousness uttered its outrage at HAARP's actions against Holland, it was obvious that it no longer could be allowed to exist despite the fact that a small faction actually wanted it as leverage. I'm not sure what our friends did to it, but within minutes all HAARP personnel found themselves a mile and a half from where they had previously been working, standing there looking at a huge hole in the ground where previously the extended antenna arrays of the facility had been. Nobody felt the need to build there anymore, and Nature was left in charge, to do what she does best: Grow and Flourish!

We materialize on the pad at the location where the personnel was taken to all these years ago. In front of us stretches the square mile of lake surface, which isn't actually square, but in fact perfectly round. We know from earlier walks that frequent visitors from all over the planet and beyond have worn out a nice path all the way around the lake: A perfect 5678 meter walk, with forest on one side, and the lake on the other!

“I have tabs on the shoreline” my lady smiles. As a result, we both know we're going to do the walk clockwise this time, during the evening hours here at lake Watchatanabee: it'll be dark by the time we complete the tour. And rather than disturbing a perfect walk, I'll just quickly explain HAARP to those who haven't heard of it before:

The High frequency Active Auroral Research Project, as it was called, purportedly researched the effects of radio waves upon the atmosphere. Since much lower intensity experiments displayed effects even on solid matter, soon the idea surfaced that HAARP was in fact used to trigger earthquakes all over the world. And let's face it, the officially reported 3.6 Megawatts of the facility could do quite some damage.

One only needed to Google for it back around the start of the twenty-first century, to find stories about how they blew a hole in Earth's atmosphere repeatedly, resulting in several human casualties, from deformed babies to completely fried Eskimos.

Depressing stuff like that kept people down for quite some time. But anger, often portrayed to be a negative emotion, eventually proved quite positive: it got people to realize they had no room in their world for allowing such gross suppression of millions of their fellow men and women.

The straw that finally broke the camel's back was the military's involvement with the 2028 Summer Olympics, which were organized by Rotterdam, the Netherlands' largest port city. Wanting to get the newly voted in Dutch government to fall in line with New World Order, they commanded the crew at the HAARP facility to disturb the opening ceremony of the Olympics with a well-targeted jolt of energy designed to make the low lands by the sea part of the North Sea forever. Most of the world's population watching the event live on TV never knew what hit them: they figured the rainbow-colored excitation of the sky above the Olympic stadium was part of the show, and thus thought nothing of it. The few spectators that did know the precursors to HAARP attacks were barely fast enough to make it out of there alive: the following quake, nine point one on the Richter scale, was powerful enough to damage or obliterate many of the dikes that guarded the south of the lovely country, thus leading to the flooding of many square miles of heavily populated country. Amsterdam and Rotterdam were turned into scenes like the ManHattan at the end of Spielberg's AI, and many casualties both temporary and permanent were to be deplored.

Of course the Olympics that year were canceled, for the sixth time in history. The rumor mill that was the Web ran overtime, and pretty soon, the voices of discontent gathered there cut clear across the media conglomerates' 'official' explanation. People went out into the streets everywhere, demanding the dismantlement of HAARP and similar facilities worldwide.

Since it was then painfully obvious that the majority of humanity did not want to maintain these doomsday machines, but the powers that be did not wish to relinquish control, our friends from beyond the stars were called in. When they leveled the main HAARP facility with minimum effort and a zero fatality count, no further show of strength was needed: within a month, the remaining similar sites were abandoned, and demolition crews had been called in to dispose of these relics.

But enough on that, I've got a lovely being walking beside me, and I don't want to waste all of my time on you readers instead of on her.

Selina looks up at me and smiles. Naturally, she's pegged in to my RSS feed, and so knows about anything I write just as soon as I do write it. Furthermore, our synced feelings always show us each others' moods, so she knew I was in teaching mode just now. “Finished?” she asks. I extend my right arm, and gently pull her in beside me. The moment I do, she freezes, and her eyes focus somewhere to our left.

I follow her gaze, and see a red fox carefully snooping around the treeline. It hasn't noticed us yet, but is deeply involved in stalking a small rabbit or a hare foraging nearby. I momentarily engage my zoom function to check that the prey indeed is a rabbit, just as the fox pounces and gets its evening dinner! At the same moment there is a barely perceptible shiver on my right side: Selina never could get used to one being killing another, even if it is for its own survival.

Sunday, March 13th, 2010, 14:41

As it seems, the interconnectedness of things tends to become more intense, more widespread. Where ideas in my youth were separate gems that stood by themselves, there happens to be a sort of binding force at work, intent on stitching it all together.

Having run into a block of sorts, I figured I'd do the website early, partly as a distraction, and partly as a possible source of inspiration. Because that I've learned by now: if I relax and trust the process that delivers, it will deliver, no doubts about it!

And again it worked: my very last addition of today spoke of manifestation being an act of trust. Quite in line with my earlier remark that I didn't quite understand that mechanism yet, the Cosmos provided me with the most clear-cut example of how it works: trust first, then doubt about your wishes arriving becomes futile, like resistance against Borgs!

Being in a multi-timeline environment like this novel gives one a distinct perspective on reality. Is thought cause or effect, does it precede or follow reality? Looking back upon our lives, I'm quite certain we've all encountered events in our minds, that later became 'reality'. Most of us are aware that what we plan has a certain tendency to become reality. But usually we expect realization to take a certain amount of physical action to complete. Now if you're lucky, you've already encountered some thoughts that required zero physical action on your part, to manifest in a way that seemed unexpected to say the least. Now that is manifestation 101: by leveraging these wild realizations, you begin to embrace the idea that physical activity is not always required to make something become a reality in your life. Sure, it may help, just as I'm writing this novel to shape my reality, but by now I'm quite convinced I could very well trash the novel, lie flat on my back, and just wait for the love of a lifetime to miraculously appear on my doorstep. But then again, that wouldn't be half as satisfying as doing what I'm doing right now. And frankly, I doubt which would be faster....

My most remarkable results in this arena were 'fire and forget': Think it once, forget all about it, and just continue with whatever takes your fancy. That's how I landed the 'Portraits of a Lady', twice in a row, and several other things not mentioned here: why else do I live a mere three hundred meters from where my kids live?

So, do our thoughts cause reality, or does reality cause thoughts? Or are they, like everything, so intricately intertwined that no such assessment can be made with absolute certainty? Does my writing dictate what will happen, predict it, or does it merely describe things as they have already happened? In the same token, does writing this novel work to realize wild ideas from my ever expanding mind, where singular ideas about my future are rapidly forming themselves into coherent webs of meaningful coincidence?

Suffice it to say, that the web of Knowledge in my mind is vastly larger than the limited subset of what will be a three hundred page novel by the time it is finished. An image says more than a thousand words, and the movies inside my mind are extremely high definition master-pieces......

4444AD, Day 225, 19:28, Lake Watchatanabee

The snow creaks under our strolling feet. It is quite fresh, with the snowfall just now subsiding. Selina has gotten over the fox and his somewhat offensive choice of a dinner partner, and is happily chatting away. I walk beside her, my right hand with hers in her right coat pocket. Her left is in her own pocket, for her arms cannot comfortably reach across my broad back, and into my coat pocket.

An eagle flies overhead, its outstretched wings measuring almost seven feet. We both look up, imagining for a moment how it would be to fly that high. Heck, why even imagine? A quick nod, and together we engage remote viewing, temporarily picking up whatever the eagle overhead is viewing. Very synchronistically, it is just at that moment observing us.....

Awesome, to soar that high, over the snow covered trees of the Alaskan outback. We could stay with it, to watch it reach its nest, probably in this very secluded location. “Let's”, I hear my lady say. Her pretty mouth hasn't actually formed a word, but the intention is there nevertheless. Amused we watch as the eagle flies out of visual range, towards the more densely populated forest areas. Then, all of a sudden, it dives down, apparently spotting a prey. I sense the disconnect as Selina drops out of remote viewing, and I decide that that takes precedence. I too disconnect, just in time to catch her looking up at me. We both know which trace of the past caused this fearful reaction: in a previous incarnation, my twin was a young child, with a pet cat whom she adored. One day, while playing with miss Kitty in the garden, little Marion got terrified when a large Doberman jumped the fence and attacked the white Persian. A flurry of white hair and splotches of red, and the attacker left behind one completely ravaged cat, and its almost catatonic owner.

Sure enough, Marion seemed to recover quite fast, as children are said to do, but the scars of the attack stayed with her, even across the boundaries of several incarnations. And thus my darling Selina still quivers when seeing one animal slay another.

With the night swiftly falling, as far as the location of the lake will allow, we walk the remaining half mile or so in the eerie half-darkness of the midsummer night. The seasons are such, that the sun just about dips beneath the horizon, before coming back up again. As we reach the transporter pad, its last rays light up the mountain top across the lake. The familiar feeling of being spread out into an unbearable lightness ceases, and the two of us crash on the soft silkfoam couch that means home to us...

“I could stomach it when the fox got the rabbit”, Selina begins. “But watching it first-person up close and personal was just a bit too much!” On the other hand, the knowledge that the eagle probably had a nest full of young nearby did make a difference for my lovely lady friend. So much so in fact, that she is glad that despite my checking out also, I'd been able to record the dive of the eagle right until the end of the following flight home, where the prey indeed proved to become food for her young.

We watch it together, Selina snugly seated on my lap, embraced by two long and very loving arms. After that display of motherly love on the large living room wall, we retire to bed, not because we need the rest, but because love can not be made, only experienced.....

4444AD, Day 226, 00:17, Home

“Whoa, what a weird flashback!” I wake up next to Selina, who was still very much asleep. So as not to wake her, knowing her dreams are delightful, I get up, and go down to the living room. I'd been dreaming of a past, the future of the guy whose book I am currently reading, namely me. I'd been wandering around this house, very spacious and obviously meant for an upper class household. I remembered the life back then as something that wasn't quite that. Full time job, just about enough to pay the bills of a life that kept almost perfect track of incoming money where spending was concerned. Sure, I dreamed about Abundance, but was under the impression that getting just enough just in time was also abundance. At that point in time though, something had obviously happened, because here I was, walking the builder through a home that was about to be officially handed over to its new owner, me.

Standing in front of it, I could see a two lane entrance into a subterranean garage, with a few steps leading on top of it, to the perfectly designed front door. Upon entering, the hallway showed evidence of a toilet on the left, and a door leading to the study on top of the garage. To the left of the end of the hall was a broad set of a few steps leading down, into a ballroom sized living room. It opened up into a sun room on the south side, which was the shape of half a pyramid, merged to the side of the house. Further towards the back of the house were the kitchen and two more rooms, each about four by four meters. The contractor had really pulled out all the stops, because no defects of any kind could be observed even by one as observant as me. He led us up the stairs to the first floor, home of four bedrooms with ample space, and a bathroom with built in sauna. From the balcony trailing along the three bedrooms, he proudly gestured into the back, with its walled off courtyard, and the sunken, indoor swimming pool. On top of it was a Japanese roof garden, which could be reached from the balcony through a long boardwalk across the left garden wall.

We went back in, and down the stairs again. Another set of stairs immediately below it led to the basement level, and the garage. Four rooms there as well, beside the two car garage, as well as the oversized cabinet that housed the electronics for the photovoltaic panels on the roof, and the ubiquitous mains and low voltage wiring and network equipment that was installed throughout the house.

This home definitely hadn't popped out of just anyone's neural network. Although it wasn't immediately obvious to me, a good fifteen minutes of meditation cleared the Akashic pathways enough for me to remember just where this design had come from:

At age fourteen, my 1977 counterpart had decided to design his dream house. Not because he had the definite idea that he'd ever make enough money to be able to build it, but much more just for the fun of it. Back then, drawing up such plans was done on large white sheets of thick paper, with either pencils or drawing pens with Indian ink. The kid set to work, meticulously drawing up floor plans, side views, and even a full perspective drawing of the dream home. When he was finished, his uncle (who was in construction for a living) told him he'd almost be able to build it, just based on those plans. Knowing his uncle to be a very straightforward guy, the young boy had no reason to doubt his uncle's words. After all, his uncle was a magician: the doctors had told him thirty years ago he had cancer, and only six more months to live. He had seriously thanked the doctor, told him goodbye, and had gone on to prove the guy wrong. Being alive over thirty years later was sheer magic to his young nephew.

The plans to the house stayed with him for years, but eventually got lost during a relocation later on. No harm done though, because my other self from that era still remembered his own remarkable and joyous activity at age forty-five, and then spent a similar amount of time to recreate what was in his mind. Only this time, it was done with the tools available then, and the insights to go along with it. This was the house that eventually got built, and in which my dream had played out its scenario.

I figured that such a detailed dream of that house would not be there for no reason. Although my memories of the house were still very vivid, and I could pinpoint its location along the IJssel river down to the last meter in the 2012 time frame, a lot of earth changes had occurred during the last two and a half millennium. I'd still be able to figure out if, and where, that house might be, or have been.

Not being able to do it now, and figuring I'd want to sleep on it a little anyway, I took a glass of warm milk with honey (or at least what the replicator made of it), and drank it before returning to the plush warmth of a shared bed.....

Sunday, March 14th, 2010, 20:20

Having just written about Sander's dream, I figure the next thing will be for him to go find the house or its remnants, if only to figure out what the significance of it is to him. Being completely self-sufficient, and the daily receiver of untold abundance, he will definitely not appreciate a pot of gold, or anything similarly trivial. I've got an idea of sorts, but in order not to spill the beans yet, I shall remain quiet about it for a while longer.

Excuse me if I seem distracted. I'm currently enjoying Aina and their album the Days of Rising Doom. I just love theme albums, where a set of songs tell an entire story, especially a love story such as the triangle between Orianna and the two royal brothers. Yet somehow, I always seem to find the positive side to even the most seemingly doomed scenario.

I know both positive and negative exist, and that I cannot extinguish one or the other from my reality. Still though, at the same time, I can tweak my experience of both. I know war exists, but I don't have to allow it to be rubbed in my face with every airing of the evening news. Therefor I already watched few TV programs, but today I went just one step further: wanting to switch Internet providers, I opted for one that allows me to not include TV in my package. Thus I can phase out TV altogether, and not have my free time usurped by illusions that wish me to believe in their world of separation and control.

Am I a heartless creature because of this preference of not wanting to experience war? I figure a little Dutch lesson will explain to you how I feel: in Dutch we know the words 'medelijden' and 'medeleven', which literally translate to 'suffering with' and 'living with' , also known as pity and compassion. While I do feel compassion for anyone who needs it, I have over the years become very sparing in 'suffering with'. First of all, if I lower my vibration to come down in the dumps with you, my possibilities of doing anything effective about it are equally diminished. It is kind of like helping you if you ran out of gas on the freeway: I can sit right next to you and lament the fact that you don't have any gas, or I can get into my car, and go out to bring you a can of gas, even if my fuel tank would not allow me to siphon off enough gas to get you going again without stranding me.

I've been doubting my ideas, figuring no mechanism could be so intricate as to seemingly be able to fulfill many of my deepest desires at the same time. I thought there had to be something that would make it all a perverted hoax, played out by a sick world. But no matter how I piece it together, I can't make the hoax scenario stick. Besides, who could have known about all my deepest desires, since I never voiced most of them to anyone, or even admitted them to myself? But it's true: having had my apprenticeship with a middle-aged scientist and his way too young wife, I saw that love could be great, and wanted one like that for me. And thus a lady twenty years younger crossed my path despite the fact I dared not approach her first.

Another wish came from watching the belle of my technical education sitting there on the balcony in the auditorium. The only reason I could think up for her to be sitting there alone was that nobody dared approach her. At that moment I desperately wanted to be able to cross that boundary, but back then I didn't. Now, years later, I ran into Selina, at least as strikingly beautiful, and she already broke the ice. Another wish granted.

Designed my dream home with the idea of building it one day, even though I had absolutely no idea on how to acquire the millions needed to do so. But the mirage of being abundantly rich somehow keeps playing through my mind my whole life through, as well as knowing that writing might very well have quite a lot to do with it. And then, suddenly, Selina's coming introduces an intriguing story, that can easily be turned into a bestseller. It might be I'm not the guy to do that, but I'm sure as Heaven going to try.....

And then there is this 'hangup' about being famous. Not that I desperately want to be famous, but I'd love a chance to prove that one can be famous and still remain a nice guy. Getting this novel up there between the Browns and the Rowlings just might give me a shot at that too....

And of course we all claim that the internal factors of a lover are the most important, above and beyond any external factors. Well, I for one won't: to me both internal and external factors are equally important, and neither can be disregarded. But it is somewhat miraculous, that one lady could check all the boxes on my list of "I'd love her to have / be ....". None are absolutely essential of course, but just imagine seeing someone ace that list... Wouldn't you be impressed, to say the least?

So had it been a hoax, then somebody would have sent her after me, which would account for her having gotten involved with me despite my shyness. But still, what kind of hoax would it be, if they hired someone to pose as my colleague for over a year? What could be important enough to warrant such an investment? It's not like I'm famous or rich.... On the other hand, Selina might just know something which I didn't back then.....

Maybe I'm just not devious enough to figure it all out, but at least there is Occam's razor, which basically says that the most simple solution tends to be the right one. Now I could probably concoct a very intricate hoax that would attempt to trick me into something, but what could be simpler than the existence of the All That Is, which seems out to give us whatever we want, in any way possible, if we but ask? I know, I know, you'd want proof, right? Unmistakeable proof that (S)He exists. I'm hoping this whole story will at least raise reasonable doubt in your minds, because absolute proof, although I hate to say it, just isn't available.

And I won't be using the word God much in this story, finding it to be unjustly laden with incorrect associations. Just let's entertain the thought for a while, that there is a mechanism at work, as yet unfathomed, that is aiming to get any of us all we want from life.

You can try to uncover it, like I have from about when I was eight years old, but you will only get terribly close. Close, but no cigar: in the end, you are left with but One Choice: to believe, or not.

No book, including this one, can actually make that choice for you. It is a choice you make... for yourself! Based on what you saw in the past, you will or won't perceive a certain trend in your experiences. If you see it, then choosing becomes easier, the leap of faith becomes a mere hop. But the choice is still yours, nobody will want to take it from you.

Same difference with me: I'll have to trust this to end well, before it actually will. And even though I'm not yet in a place where trust comes naturally, I'm getting there. It is like I'm having to write the perfect ending to this story, without being able to assure myself it actually will end this way. Currently, I just have the faith it will end well, but I am not at all sure about the particulars of the eventual solution. But does it need to happen the way I foresee it? Isn't just knowing that the end result will far exceed my wildest expectations enough to instill the required trust? Should be, right? So let's just finish this novel on the double!

But don't think for just one moment I'm trying to conjure a perfect servant or anything like that. Apart from that being a violation of the personal gain rule which is said to govern this magic, it might also be a violation of Selina's free will. And I'd rather do the rest of my lives without her, than to have her be something which she doesn't actually want to be....

Actually, I love her for her strong will, her outspoken opinions, and her talkative nature. I'm a reactor when it comes to communication, so someone who gives me plenty of chances to honestly react is just up my alley.

And what, if anything, do I have to offer her? First of all, a deep acceptance of just who she is, regardless of what happened in the past. Choices are there to be made, and judging a choice as bad in hindsight is just as much violating anyone's free will as it is when you forbid them to do something. Worse even, because the prevalent idea is that the past cannot be changed anymore. So you are actually blaming someone for having done something, without them having the option to not do it after all..... But then again, that's old reasoning. Just read on and see how it ends.... Maybe the ending will reveal some of the other things she could love me for.

4444AD, Day 227, 12:17, Home

Having remembered my dream about the designer home the other night, I figure it's about time I found out what its relevance is to me. From memory I reckon it was along the IJssel river, about a mile downstream from the old bridge, opposite the industrial harbor of Zutphen. Unfortunately, that was during a time when that place was still solidly on dry land. Back then, locations were given in old-fashioned latitude and longitude, a system that originated several centuries earlier, from the marine tradition.

Nowadays, we use intuitive locating, so I'll have no need to access ancient books and stuff to find out where it went. Heck, just thinking of it might get me there, but often using other means is more relaxing. Sure, there are those of us who (beyond their own bodies) use no tools at all. These purists go by the motto that if they cannot do it themselves, they are not meant to do it. And believe it or not, the more successful of these can actually transport themselves across immense distances. But since they methodically avoid quite a vast array of technological aids, one cannot say they are accepting the whole of their cosmos.

I for one do master teleportation without technological means, but prefer the 'normal' way of getting from A to B, especially if going in company. Today, my outing to my old home will be just a quick reconnaissance, so self-propelled teleportation seems the way to go. I focus on finding the nearest safe place outside it to land, not knowing where it will be. But the thought is enough to take me there: my eyes close upon the image of my study, and open again on a patch of pasture, which has the ruins of the house standing there, about knee deep in the overflown estuary of the IJssel river. Beyond it, the North Sea stretches out as far as the eye can see, and I remember how it's gotten quite a bit bigger since the 21st century: one used to have to travel over an hour by train to get to the seashore from here!

I look at the ruins from where I stand: the house is still largely intact, yet very dilapidated. The photovoltaic panels on the roof are way beyond repair, and the half glass pyramid of the sun room is no more than a wire frame full of shards. The walls are still standing, but several trees have overgrown the once proud and ultramodern structure. Because of the enormous amount of change from my memories about it, I consciously experience a few very melancholy urges.

I step into the water, and wade towards the purpose of my visit. Not sure what I'm looking for here, but my intuition will help me along. I enter through the sun room, having to submerge myself up to my chest. In the living room I am again only knee deep, and that will be the extent of my getting wet. Somehow, something tells me I need not visit the submerged basement level, for I'd never have hidden anything that should withstand time in the bottom levels of a structure that might over time collapse in on itself.

I ascend the stairs, to the sleeping quarters. No doubt it will be hidden here, but where exactly? I start with the room closest to the stairs, which if memory serves right, was a guest room. The furniture is still there, but has had to deal with the weather coming in through the wall to wall sliding doors to the balcony, which have long since been shattered. A gull's nest has been abandoned right smack in the middle of the bed, and it looks like no animal has even been here in quite some time.

I scan the walls, but detect no hollow spaces, not even behind the crookedly hung frames with 21st century artwork in them. On to the next room, which belonged to Jane. It too had a view on the nearby stables, which would have been imperative for the young one: she adored her horses! But again, no hidden stuff, except a laptop stashed in the large drawer beneath the bed. I decide to take it, and place it at the top of the stairs. It was still seemingly intact, because in contrast with the other room, this one had all its windows still unbroken.

Valerie's room is next, and it has equally been spared the humiliation of being exposed to the weather. Unlike Jane's room however, nothing is to be found here, which leaves me the master bedroom and the bath room.

And then my intuition kicks in: the master bedroom is adjacent to the sun room, and as such has the top half of the pyramid right outside it's wall. From my memory of the original plans, the capstone was outside the south wall, on top of the roof. I go into the bathroom, knowing it to house the access hatch to the rooftop. A quick climb up the rungs imbedded in the tiled wall, and I'm up on the roof, praising myself lucky my past self had the foresight to have the hatch made in stainless steel: it opened even after all these many years.

I work my way past the damaged photovoltaic panels, to the triangular piece of the south wall that hides the sunroof from view. It features a triangular stainless steel door, apparently hinged on the bottom.

When I pull the handle imbedded in it, the door won't budge. “Think outside the box, Sander”, I hear myself think. Of course! Outside the box! I stand up, and reach over the wall to the outside half of the capstone. Indeed, out there the twin half of that triangular latch is to be found. As I pull on it, I hear the heavy metal cover on the other side of the wall thud onto the pebbles of the roof covering.

Crouching down again, I can now finally see what's in the safe space: apparently designed to be the only payload, I behold a perfectly polished marble pyramid, with a copper capstone. Fortunately, the object is placed on a sliding tray with a proper handle, otherwise I'd never have gotten it out!

Despite its base of about forty-two centimeters in both directions, the object weighs surprisingly little. Not that it weighs too little to be marble, but it certainly won't be solid marble. I feel this was the prize I was aiming for, and take it down the hatch into the hallway to the waiting laptop. No need to get into the water with all this, since the landing is as good a jump point as anyplace. I stack the pyramid on top of the laptop, take both in my hands, and think “There's no place like home”, taking care to land in our bathroom, to avoid wet stains on the carpets in the living room.

After a change of clothes, I carry the pyramid and its little companion into the study, because that's what they're here for: to be studied! First of all, how does it open? It seems seamless at first glance, yet detailed observation reveals that the seams are merely placed in such a way as to coincide with the edges of the object.

No doubt the brute force approach would be sufficient to open it, but then all hopes of ever closing it again would be out the window. I decide to take a more careful way into this problem. I engage a biological prowess that we inherited from our friends the dolphins: by bouncing sound waves off it, and analyzing the returned echoes, I soon see that one of the sides has two structures on the inside, that apparently hold together bottom and side. Their likeness is that of the internal hinges that used to be on kitchen cupboard doors in the 21st century. And apparently the capstone has some sort of sliding mechanism, which enables it to be depressed slightly. I push the capstone down, and latch my fingers onto the appearing edge of the hinging side. Slowly and carefully I pry it open, and it gives way just like it's supposed to.…..

That very moment, my lady calls. It is time for dinner, and I do not want to miss that! Apart from the fact I love all kinds of recipes, I also won't ever miss a chance to be with her, if she requests it.

Tonight's menu is pancakes, in various delicious flavors: we have them with sugar, sirup, cheese, and even synthesized bacon. Selina's final delight is an omelet Vesuvius: Deliciously cold ice cream, isolated by thick biscuits, and covered with whipped egg whites. In a moderate oven for a short while, just to get a light tan on the egg white. With half an egg shell in the top, you can fill it with some cognac and light it, to make your volcano complete.

Where she got this recipe? I told her, from a memory of my past incarnation born in 1963, who once read a magazine left lying around by his mother. Why the details of this memory stuck, while others seem not to? In fact every tiny detail is stored in the Akashic Records, it's just that you haven't yet reached the point where you will need them....

Together we cherish the magnificent dessert, sometimes feeding each other spoons full of the yummy ice cream. When I lean in to take a bite, my love quickly maneuvers the spoon to smear its contents on my nose. Not wanting to let dinner revert to an ordinary food fight, I wipe it clean, already scheming for an appropriate way to get even later......

Friday, March 19th, 2010, 10:11

I have this idea about the world I live in: despite evidence to the contrary, men are not the omnipotent rulers of the Universe they are made out to be. Not by themselves anyway! But a lot of them think they are, that they can get anything or anybody just by snapping their fingers. Looking at the big picture, I see influences of both males and females, working together for higher purposes, or even Cross Purposes, as Ronny James Dio used to sing. In fact, I'm only now beginning to pick up the deeper meaning of that album....

Just like the movie the Skulls was a flick about a male-dominated society that had its claws into the world's society, stories about 'secret' societies were there long before the movie industry. Did anyone see the Mists of Avalon, which spoke of a movement of women, even in the times of King Arthur? I figure they are still around, and their power isn't waning by a long shot. For me, male control has always been about wanting you to conform to them in order for them to accept you. Play in line, and they'll help you alright, because you belong in their camp. It is all about demarcation with these guys: what's mine isn't yours.

Ladies on the other hand do not rule, at least not in the male sense. They do not feel better than men, even though there might be reasons enough to believe this, Sure, there are women that do feel better, but they belong more in the male society. No, the women I'm talking about are subtle, work behind the scenes, but get things done in both camps because of their approach of crossing boundaries instead of marking them. They work with suitable men and women alike, and thus are even infiltrated into the male stronghold by means of many of the 'unwilling' members of the male society. Not that those guys ain't men, they just aren't 'typical' men. But then again nobody is just male or female. We all are an interesting mix, in a way in which we figured life would be fascinating.

Over time, I've had dealings with these Ladies of the Light, as I came to call them. Some seemed very normal, others feel very intense and have strange things happening around them. But none have ever turned out to be anything else than what they seemed to be from the start. No, not even Selina felt strange when the 'truth' came to light about her. It was as if that nature had always been in her radiance right from the start. These ladies feel cautious, sometimes way too cautious for my male nature. But then perhaps they do have a point, having been dealing with the world for quite a while. And usually their hints and tips aren't at all counter-intuitive. It's just that they are that: hints. No explicit advice, just Innuendo. Guess I still have to work on picking up on that, because I have the idea I'm missing quite a few....

But at the same time there is no need for me to worry: because no matter how many hints I miss, these lovely caretakers will stay on my case for as long as it takes me to get wherever I want to go. Yes, wherever I want to go! They are not interested in me becoming part of their group perse, because as such there is no 'group': All is One, so there is no need to join a group with which you are already intimately connected. And regardless of whatever group you think you're in, these ladies care without reservation. In fact, a lot of them are defectors, who are fed up with the control of the other groups. They have figured out that True Love isn't about being connected, it is about letting the other free to do or be whatever he or she chooses to be or do. Only then can Love be at its best!

But I'm afraid I still have a bit to learn in that area: even though I love my mystery lady, I still want her to end up with me. But does she really want to be with me? I left my writing at that, and returned to work, only to be later invited into contemplating the idea again. And as I did, I looked out the window onto the freeway, to find a very synchronistic event occurring: just at that very moment I asked myself: "Does she want to be with me?", a PROMISS truck passed my field of vision from right to left! Well, if that ain't a promise, I don't know what is......

Saturday, March 20th, 2010, 20:25

Can we ever be sure of why anything happens the way it happens? I met Leann because I 'needed' a good cause and some outdoor activity. But this morning when we cycled to it, she revealed to me that her boyfriend is a consciousness freak as well: always busy with the 'meaningful' side of Life. And as such, he suddenly became a lot more interesting....

For if he's that interested in this stuff, maybe he'll be a great sparring partner to bounce the concepts of this book off of. Like for instance this image of Reality, which has steadily been building in my mind, helped along by two visions in my recent past, like the past ten years or so.

The first one happened when I was at home, recovering from my very first manic episode. People may have called me ill, but I never really felt that way. That afternoon was one I still remember, at least the moments surrounding that vision: it was a sunny day, and I was indoors, deciding to go upstairs. As I mounted the stairs bound for the second floor, a crystal clear image suddenly overlaid my normal field of vision. Not troublesome in such a way that I did no longer see the stairs, but brilliantly more clear than my normal vision.

I took the last few steps, and just stood there on the landing. It's rather difficult to properly describe it, but it looked most like a close up shot of a sunlit field of soap bubbles: all spherical, transparent, and highlighted in the most brilliant flowing colors I'd ever seen. Bubbles were next to one another, as usual, but also inside one another. Despite the fact that the oily surface of the spheres seemed to move, the spheres themselves were not. My vision lasted like what felt to be about three minutes, not obstructing my view or even overshadowing it. But despite the fact I did notice some kids playing on the field outside, I definitely did not want to miss any of it!

In the days that followed I wrecked my mind as to the meaning of it all. But it wasn't until I finally sat down with the intent to figure it out, that the answer came to me. It wasn't a clear answer in the sense that it was loudly heard above any other possible answers. It was much more like a whisper that was slightly louder than the other possible answers, yet carried the mark of knowing: I came to the one meaning of this lovely sight to behold: I had been allowed a clear and non-ambiguous view of the static structure of the Cosmos!

And the weird part was I immediately saw the relevance of it: That's why System of a Down sang about the Bubble Jungle! Of course their view of it (as their name hints at) is a bit more down than mine, but not every bodies path is the same.

And it didn't stop at that. Several months later, maybe even a full year, I was contemplating a piece of physics which a good friend of mine has been busy with for most of his life. Trying to wrap my mind around the close interaction of electric and magnetic fields that showed the birth of a ball lightning, I have always had a quite visual mind, able to see stuff in multiple dimensions, and then to just envision my way into it.

But this time my video processor overloaded, or maybe not quite: maybe it just overshot, and gave me the next best image. I was blown away, as a highly dynamic field of intertwined, colorful strands wove its magic across my full field of vision. It was night, and because I had my eyes closed for the exercise, nothing could disturb it.

Describing it is best done with a few images, but since this medium does not include real images, I'll talk you through them. The first one is a smooth pond surface, with a few pebbles thrown in for good measure. You are all infinitely familiar with the resulting waveforms and the intricate mixing of the waves.

My vision was similar, but it felt like it included way more than the four dimensions of space-time. Also, the combined sine waves as Laplace taught us can create any waveform, was somehow also interwoven in the vision. And third, think of an image of cigar smoke in a closed room, where no wind exists, yet whirls and vortices still do.

At the same time though, this vision was way more! It radiated balance, no beginning and no end, the Eternal Now! This time though, I wasted no time torturing my mind about its origins, and its meaning: Immediately after it ended, I went inside myself, listening for the loudest whisper below the foreground noise: “the dynamic structure of the Cosmos”... I knew it!

Some call thought the basis, others consciousness, but I saw the full picture of it, and it was awesome! I thought myself a very lucky guy, special, but not better than anybody in any way. To me however, having been allowed to clearly see both the static and dynamic structure of the Cosmos made me a very happy guy indeed.

Over time I've told these stories to many a human being, with varying results. Some just look at you blank, other really seem to get it, but only few have yet shown to completely understand what I'm talking about. And that's not because they're dumb, but because my powers of expression are just no match for the awesome beauty of the All. Well, maybe this novel, when it's finished, will be the first attempt that I'm really happy with.....

But of course the full extent of my neural net, like it is for any of us, is way beyond what we are able to express in the world around us. We literally are icebergs, submerged below the ocean of consciousness for the larger part. This novel is just my honest attempt to increase my buoyancy, to show a little more than what is usually seen.

Thus, to make sure I could tell the whole story, I had to resort to an alias. Some of you may not be able to swallow such an effort at concealing the truth. But let me ease your minds: throughout the story, there are numerous hints and clues as to the real identity of me.

Most of it is highly autobiographical, and as such readily recognizable. Even the title page holds a proper clue.....

4444AD, Day 227, 21:12, Home

Call me quaint, but I have this thing for ancient music: to build an atmosphere to give the opening of the pyramid a bit of flair, I play a bootleg recording of Rush's 2112, a story about temporal discovery as well. Actually, the young man singing has found an ancient guitar, and is trying to make his fellow men discover just what this marvelous thing can do....

Having just opened the pyramid on its one side, I sit there and look inside it for a moment. Then I change my mind, and call out for Selina, who was busy minding her own business within hearing range. She comes, curious to know just what I'm so anxious about. She's seen me come in with it about an hour ago, but I never breathed a word about where I got it, and what it was.

“Hey you sneaky little bastard, what have you been hiding from me?”, she laughs. I explain about my old home, and tell her this was hidden on the roof, and seems to have withstood the fangs of change. Together, side by side, we peer into the marble pyramid, with its one side opened onto the table top....

It seems to be separated into three compartments, each one smaller than the one below it. The top compartment, right below the locking mechanism of the capstone, holds only one single item. It is a crimson big-bellied Buddha, and I know that little guy from somewhere: he was given to my past self by his daughters, when they returned from a vacation away from him. As Selina reaches in to retrieve it, she quickly finds out it's anchored to the marble shelf that it sits on. Apparently it was stuck to its shelf with three wads of some sticky substance, to prevent it from tumbling all the way through its cramped space, when the pyramid was handled. As my love breaks its contact, and lifts the Buddha out, an even smaller object drops out from under him: apparently, it was hollowed out to specifically hold the other item. A small plastic tag, with four golden slits on one side. No way into it, just that plastic thingy and the few golden contacts.

My scanners are picking up micro-miniature electronics, and a single chip with a very orderly configuration. I figure it to be a memory device of some kind, but cannot immediately pinpoint the weird contacts. Luckily enough, there's always the Google Vision Search: I snap a picture of the blue-gray chip, and send it through. Not half a second later there are half a million hits, pinpointing our find to be a MicroSD card of 4 gigabytes.

We decide to leave the contents of the stick until phase two of the discovery, and focus on the lower two shelves of the pyramid. “What's that big box at the bottom?”, my lovely one wants to know. I take it out, stuck to the bottom just like the Buddha, and examine it up close. It measures about seven by twelve by twenty-five centimeters, and it appears to be a wooden box with a lid, which has three millimeter thick sides.

A quick Google Vision Search reveals that it is a Dutch cigar box, which held fifty of the lung-threatening brown sticks. People used to smoke them, or to say it more clearly, they lit them up, and then inhaled the smoke into their lungs, thereby inadvertently shortening their life spans. As I open it up and look inside, there is a bunch of papers there, all handwritten in neat, flowing letters.

Since it is paper, the sheets have not quite survived the ravages of time: as I take them out of the box one by one, I notice that ink has faded, and in some cases the chemicals used in producing the paper have eventually made the paper develop a nice tan, which isn't quite beneficial to its readability. Among all the handwritten stuff a printed message sticks out. It is in Dutch, and luckily my past involvement with the language allows me to read it. Three deaths, mere days apart, all in the same home. I gather it to be a home for the elderly, because the humans written about all reached very respectable ages for the time they lived in.

The last one seems of particular interest: Jacob Narroway is said to be a wordsmith, a poet. Might this box have been his legacy? But what might he be with regard to my past self? I flow back into my past, attempting to resolve the issue. No such luck, it'll have to wait till later. But I'm confident I'll be able to pick it up after having let my mind freewheel a bit about it.

As I later discover, reading the poetry wouldn't be half as difficult as it seemed to be, because my 21st century self had the foresight to scan all papers before closing the pyramid, and putting them onto the MicroSD card also. I later spent quite a few evenings enjoying the humorous adventures of Jacob Narroway, and those around him.

As Selina talks about turning in early, not because she's tired but because she plans on going elsewhere in her dreams, I follow her beautiful form to our bedroom. It doesn't take her long though, to reach the vast expanses of Dreamland. I on the other hand am wide awake, and decide to spend some more time in the novel I'm currently reading. I momentarily doubt whether to continue in Going Within, or whether to start in the new novel that was on the second shelf of the pyramid. Well, I did start Going Within first....

'the Shopkeeper'

Beneath, outside the spherical dwelling, we briefly discuss the route to take. We decide to circle the hill that the house is on, which will amount to a five mile walk. Joyfully, we follow Jane's lead, down the hill in the direction of the Elders' house. I suddenly notice that the birds' song here is even more delightful than it is topside. Much more variations, more intensity, a real concerto of Nature. Of course I cannot let this slide, and mention it to my companions. All the surface dwellers agree with me: it's been a long time ago (if ever) that they heard birds sing so delightful.

Then, as we reach the circular pathway that leads around the hill, Kayim points out a shop to us. It is not a shop in the outer worldly sense, since there is no money down here. No, to 'buy' something here, you must part with another of your possessions. Therefor, you will find no price tags in this store. It all depends on what the shopkeeper thinks of your belongings. We enter the building, which harbors a very diverse collection of items. Not just lifeless items, but also some peculiar animals. Valerie is particularly taken by a parrot-like bird, sitting on a perch in the middle of the store. It is not tied down or anything, but just sits there, free as the proverbial bird, staring back at my eldest. But then, the funniest of things happens: as Valerie talks to her younger sister about the bird, it interrupts her in fluent Dutch!

Apparently it is capable of speech, but much more eloquent than our outer worldly parrots. When asked, the shopkeeper admits that this is a so-called Thesaurus parrot. It has a highly developed sense of language, that dwarfs the abilities of the Universal Translator that became so popular due to Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek series. It speaks all dialects spoken both inside and outside of our globe. Valerie turns to me, with those big puppy-dog eyes: “Can we get it, Dad?” I tell her that if she wants it, she will have to deal with the shopkeeper. Timidly, she approaches the bird first, and asks it if it wants to go with her. It hops onto her outstretched hand, and gently she places it on her shoulder. With the object of her affection, she then asks the shopkeeper if there is anything that he might wish in return for the bird. As I watch, she closes her eyes, half fearing that he'll name something that's priceless to her. “I want to give my little daughter a present”, the shopkeeper says, “and I've been searching for a nice bracelet to give to her. The one on your wrist seems adequate payment for the bird.” Valerie sighs with relief. She hands over the bracelet, and also throws in the matching necklace, ecstatic as she is, to be let off this easily.

While all this was happening, my spying eye also spotted a nice souvenir for home: a globe like the ones we have up there, only this one can be split in half, and reveals the Inner Earth. I approach the shopkeeper, offering him my carbon pocketknife, but he resolutely refuses: “You'd better keep that knife for a while longer. I'm quite sure you're gonna need it pretty soon!” Flabbergasted by such a revelation, I stick the knife back in its sheath, and join the others to leave the store, forgetting my intention to buy the globe.

As we circle the hill, enjoying the luscious green surroundings, I feel I'm being stung, like by an insect. I quickly check my leg, but nothing seems to be amiss. We continue our walk back home, returning just in time for a fabulous dinner.

That night, the itching of my leg gets worse. Checking again, I find a black spot, the size of a tea mug on my leg. I show it to Sinan, who identifies it as the handywork of the Obuchi Beetle. Its bite is not dangerous to males, so I'm in no apparent danger. Sinan does check my coat however, to see if the beetle has taken refuge there. He does so mainly because the sting of the beetle is far more dangerous to females, and there are quite a few in the house. However, we do not find the little culprit.

Next morning, it appears that it was still there: as Gina steps into her shoes, that are parked next to mine, she feels something crawling onto her foot. Before she can shake it off, the irritating sensation of the Obuchi beetle's sting enters her nervous system. Kayim is quick to corner the scurrying beetle, and locks it in a small container. He immediately leaves with the beetle, to take it to a holding facility. From there, others will take it in the direction of an uninhabited part of Middle Earth, where it can live unobstructed by humans.

And now we get to see the difference in the beetle's bite, where gender is concerned: I just have a black mark to show for it, but in a matter of half an hour, Gina's sunny disposition has totally vanished. So unlike her: grumpy, snapping at everyone. I know that such an attitude can never be just her doing.

Sinan briefly explains to me that the Testosterone keeps men from experiencing the same problems, because the hormone poisons the Obuchi beetle's eggs, instead of them poisoning their host body.

'Change of plans'

Sinan decidedly alters our traveling arrangements: Instead of to Shamballah the Lesser, we will now be heading towards Indiu Mari, a small village on the other side of the Inner Earth. There, we will find an old woman, who is the foremost authority on the Obuchi beetle and the effects of its sting. We will have to get there quick, because Gina's condition is steadily deteriorating.

Leaving Mayra and Sinan behind, the rest of us get into the floater. Kayim wills it into a vertical take-off, that seems to go on for ever and ever. I look at him with a questioning look on my face, but he smiles and explains that the fastest route would have been a straight line. Unfortunately that is out of the question, because it would take us straight through the Smoky Sun. Instead, he's plotted a semi-circular orbit around it, as close as we can come to it without burning ourselves. I only hope that if his calculations are off, they are off on the safe side.....

The village we reach is small, very small. It consists of nothing more than about a dozen dwellings, cut out in a lime-stone cliff. Obviously, the people here adore the simple pleasures of life. It isn't terribly hard to find Manitina, our healer. We carry Gina into her cave, and place her on the table. That is the state which Gina is in: the Obuchi beetle lays its eggs, but the eggs poison the host. That way, the eggs can survive in the corpse for months.

Because the cave is not quite big enough for all of us, Valerie and Kim remain outside, on a wooden bench. Kim is awfully curious about Kayim, and tries to get Valerie to open up a little bit. I don't quite know what these little ladies discussed out there, but I do remember that they seemed far closer after that little tète-a-tète.

Meanwhile inside, Manitina explains about the Obuchi beetle. Apparently, the eggs have sophisticated counter-measures against being removed: if you try to remove them by cutting out the infected section, the metal of the knife apparently distorts the magnetic field enough for the eggs to notice the threat. They then respond by burrowing deeper into the host, making removal all that more difficult. Now, the words of the shopkeeper come to mind again: “Put it away. You're going to need it soon!”

I pull out my knife, and hand it to Manitina: “Could this help? It's not metal, so the eggs shouldn't notice”. The old woman looks at me, but does not hesitate. With the decisiveness of someone who could do this blindfolded, she slices Gina's skin, opening a flap like taking the lid of a jar of rice. That's even what it looks like, the little eggs squirming under the light. Surprised at the swiftness of the action, I wonder why Gina has not loudly protested. That, no doubt, is the doing of Manitina's assistant, who is holding Gina's head with both hands. Some sort of natural sedative, perhaps?

Gina's wound is closed again after all the eggs have been washed out with just clean, healthy water, after which it is bandaged with all natural materials. Manitina cleans the knife, and hands it back to me. I decline, saying she will put it to much better use. She accepts, and places the knife in an intricately carved wooden box. With the eggs gone, Gina's mood is steadily improving. We say goodbye to Manitina, and join Kim and Valerie outside. No need anymore for quick trips close to the sun. Instead, we set course for a city that Valerie picked out before our emergency trip. The floater lifts us to about fifty meters off the ground, and we zoom passed a varied landscape, to a glistening city due North.

It is pleasant, sitting in the floater. The wind rustles through my hair, and for a few moments I am back in another fond memory. Not one I personally experienced, but a vivid recollection nevertheless: Rush once made a song called Red Barchetta, about a time in the future where all cars were banned. The story tells us about a boy and his uncle, who have a red barchetta (a type of sports car with an open roof) stashed away somewhere. On Sundays, the kid visits his uncle to go driving, which is not entirely without peril: if the law catches him, he is up for a long time behind bars. I will tell you that they do spot him, but I'll keep the ending to myself. Just listen to it yourself, and see if you can feel the thrill of the chase...

Anyway, our chase has led us to a city with an almost unpronounceable name (at least for us outsiders). Valerie's new pet bird however knows how to deal with it. According to TomBill, it is called “Home of the Crystalline Water”. Kayim asks Jane if she would like to land the floater outside town, a challenge that my youngest finds hard to resist. A barely perceptible movement marks the moment where Kayim relinquishes control of the vehicle. Jane looks around, and finds her target: a spot underneath a wide tree, where the entire floater will be in the shade, awaiting our return. I don't know were she's been practicing, but the floater descends in a perfect downward arc, only to stop two feet above the ground, where it's supposed to go. Triumphantly Jane looks around, and then gently allows it to land on the dusty underground. We all get out, and walk the last hundred meters to the city gate.

Sunday, March 21st, 2010, 08:16

“When the summer's gone, she'll be there, standing by the Light”, Steve Perry sings as I re-emerge from my prayer for inspiration. Journey's album Captured has indeed always captivated me. But as I opened my eyes upon hearing that, the first thing to captivate me was the face of the lady I love staring back at me from the laptop's screen saver.

Is it a hint? Will she come when the summer's gone? That probably means she'll arrive after I finish the novel, so I'll have to write the ending before knowing it. I'd hate to script it in a way she might not like, but at the same time there is this feeling in me that says she'll love what I'll be proposing.

And the weird syncs continue: because the laptop just spontaneously rebooted, I had to restart the Media Player. It's set to random, and has the weird bug in it that when starting it always picks the same first track, but all next tracks are random. Since I know that, my first action is a skip forward, which just now landed on Kamelot's 'We Are Not Separate!' Talk about synchronicity at its finest....

So I have to write it, right? I could figure out an outline first, but that would quench the fire within. I'm a flow-writer: no outline, just the theme and me. And I know the ultimate idea will come before the time is up, since I have only about a hundred and seventy-seven pages to go...

I figure we'd better return to the future, to see what's going on with me there. At least I know she's there with me, so something must have happened between now and then, didn't it?

4444AD, Day 233, 11:12, Home

The deep roar of the Bugatti's synthesized engine sound rolls over the circuit. It's sixteen pistons are no longer pumping up and down, no longer the driving force behind the awesome piece of 21st century machinery. Instead, hidden deep inside the engine block are the twin torque drives which power it now. It took me quite some modifications to get them going, and quite a few afternoons in the workshop. But today, after the seat replacement last week, it is ready again to be taken out for a ride.

Yes, you don't drive a thoroughbred like a Bugatti Veyron. It has character and consciousness of its own. It's only been mere seconds that Selina flagged me away at the starting line, and my foot on the accelerator depressed it just enough for the nano-woven carbon tires to properly heat up and give me the grip needed to really get rolling. Back in the 21st century, tires were the Veyron's Achilles heel: at it's top speed of over four hundred kilometers an hour, a fresh set of Michelin's would last it all of fifteen minutes!

Not so with the redesigned replacements based on today's technology: Although they outwardly look just like the tires of old, the new tires are woven by a machine much like the fabric weaver I used on the seats. It composes the object one atom at a time, so not a single one is out of place. No structural weaknesses, and far better elasticity and resistance against wear and tear. With the new tires, the Bugatti would be doing the twenty-four hours of Le Mans from start to finish. But that would of course be against fair play, to send it back with such an unfair advantage.

Today we've been allowed to use the new testing facility for road vehicles near Oberhausen. It is a well thought out circuit, with comfortable turns, except for that last nasty one heading into the pit stop. I've now done three laps already, averaging speeds of about three hundred kilometers per hour. The 21st century lady loves it out here, and since we're going to be doing a few modifications on her after this run anyway, I decide to let her have what she wants: punching the accelerator to the floor on the last long stretch, she jumps forward, and reaches her impressive top speed of 407 kilometers per hour. “I just can't drive fifty-five!”

With Sammy Hagar blasting from the sound system, my mind is temporarily back into the emotions of that era. Raw emotion, not the kind of softened stuff we get here. What I didn't count on was that that would impair my powers of observation. A loud thud, indicating I've hit something. The car continues as if nothing has happened, at a breakneck speed. But something feels wrong, so very wrong! And then I hear, or rather I don't: the synthesized engine roar has died on me, making the Veyron into a silent killer.

That last curve coming up, better slow it down now, or I'll not make it. Foot off the accelerator, and onto the brake pedal: No response, not even when I press harder.

Apparently the object I hit ruptured the brake lines, which made the 1888 kilogram vehicle impossible to stop. Sure, taking my foot off the accelerator helped a bit, but I'm still going to overshoot that last curve.

I aim for the least disastrous flight path, almost hitting the outside wall of the curve as I come out of the right turn. A very momentary sound of screeching metal, and the wall aligns me with the finish line. At that moment, my heart stops: right in the line of fire, leaned against the concrete separator that has the pit stop lane on the left, and the circuit on the right, stands my one and only: Selina. My sharp vision notices everything in that split second: eyes closed, her head rhythmically moving to indicate she's swinging to some beat, not aware of the approaching silent Bugatti. I have no time to work out a detailed rescue plan now, have to bail out or the crash against that concrete wall will permanently disable my systems. I think myself to the right of the crash site, looking straight at it. But I've really cut it close: the moment my disorientation wears off, the car is already totally wrapped around the concrete, with no sign of my love.

I run towards the wreck, which does not really burn because of the absence of gasoline. But even with my scanners in all possible ranges of visible and invisible light, I cannot make heads or tails of the chaos. Did she get out, or will I have to build her a new body to allow her to come back to me?

“Weird boy, you should have looked inside yourself, then you'd have known I was safe”. Selina's hand touches my shoulder, and turns me around.

We hug for what seems like an eternity. A fleeting memory of me writing this story comes up from the back of my mind: Journey playing “Hopelessly in love with you”, just as I wrote about the hugging part. Figures....

Together we look at the completely obliterated Bugatti. “I guess it's time to put that lady in her grave”, Selina says. We notify the cleanup squad, and they tell us to walk to the other side of the track, well clear of the wreck and the debris distributed around it. I know what is going to happen: they will be directing one of their matter transformers to restore the area around the concrete wall to its pristine condition it had about an hour ago. Any excess matter will be dissolved into energy, and recycled for later use.

Sunday, March 21st, 2010, 10:17

Funny how I'm actually contemplating the building of that marble pyramid, just as soon as my self-designed home looks like it's going to be built. It's contents are not complete yet, but the cigar box is already standing on my desk, holding clues of its own about its role in the entire story.

The Sander of 4444AD hasn't talked about that yet, but it has labels on it, from the original cigar manufacturer. 'AGIO Succes' it says, both outside the box and inside. Now I'm not sure if AGIO is a word in English too, but in Holland it means the extra money someone pays to a company in order to get a share of it. 'Succes' I need not clarify, as it has just one 's' less than its English counterpart.

The combination of the two might mean in this case that since my granddad put his writing in it, so should I. And then the success will be the inevitable result. Not that my granddad actually knew that when he bought his box of cigars, probably for something like 50 cents. No, he just needed a smoke, but his higher self did know, and almost imperceptibly influenced him to buy that particular brand, knowing it would eventually wind up in the time capsule which his grandson would make.

Don't know if that makes any sense to you, but if All is connected, wouldn't it make sense then?

Or what to think of me coming up with the pyramid idea, while writing deciding that a 42 centimeter base would suffice, without even knowing what was going to be in it? Just now I figured I better check if the box would really fit the pyramid. And you know what? 42 centimeter base inside will be just enough for the box to be able to inhabit it at ground level!

4444AD, Day 233, 17:12, Home

Still a bit shaken from the crash, we arrive home. We definitely need some sort of distraction tonight, preferably together. “I Know!” Selina exclaims suddenly. “You figured you'd have to rebuild my body right? Why not do just that for your past self?” I look at her, a bit puzzled as to how she would pull that of without breaking the free will clause.

She hops onto the couch with me, and starts to explain it, all aglow at the brilliance of her little scheme. “We all know we can't really send entire lifeforms back in time yet, because that would have too much impact”, Selina starts. “but we also know energy and information can flow freely from past to future and back, because they are not limited by the illusion of time”. My mind is beginning to like the idea, for I can see where she's coming from. “So we tweak one of your past selves, to get my past self to fall for her?” She nods. “Shouldn't be too hard, because you know what he likes, and you love me, so it should be alright”. I just love that razor sharp mind of hers!

We eat first, then retire to the comfort of our bedroom to execute the plan. Selina already found a suitable self to play the part, and she tells me about the girl. Since I also can safely say I'm attracted to her, my past self will probably feel a similar way. The proverbial beauty for the beast, not that my past self of that era was so beastly. No, I'd come to terms with those more primordial urges way before that. But a beauty she is nonetheless. Pretty enough to be noticed by the guys that made a living out of photographing such ladies back then. No need to contact the past self, because my Selina is her higher or future self, which gives her plenty of authority in the matter. We review her past life through Selina's memories of it, and my knowledge of my past self. As we scan the years, we find what we expect: on numerous occasions, we almost met in that life, even before we actually physically would meet. Together we decide that Selina is going to break the ice, since my past self would just love that in a woman. And she is far more in touch with her higher self than I was back then. The initial meeting was a singe: we merely had her apply for a job with the same company that he was planning on working for quite some time, at least until his writing career took off.

Selina said she'd always been attracted to the shy types, even back then. Well, this guy kept his distance, but she could see he couldn't keep his eyes off her. It took only a few lines to get him to bite, but according to Selina her past self would have drawn out the contact, made it linger just for the fun of it. “Let's get her married”, Selina laughs, “and see if he can get past that hurdle” As she imagines doing so, her intentions meander through the eternal Now to make it so, and her memories of it change as she changes her mind.

I remember how he, from this new-found perspective, still couldn't keep his mind off her. Although they talk about inconsequential things, that won't threaten her past commitment, he couldn't help falling for her. But his cautious nature prevented him from taking rash action. As I remember that she will be leaving the company, I suggest to Selina that I wanted to take her picture back then. My lady loves it! She quickly spins a tale of confusion, with a nice twist. As she does, I watch in amazement, as she begins to transform right in front of me. And frankly, I can't say I'm not pleased with her new look: from what I see, she's allowed her body to take on the appearance of the past self that so deeply touched me back then......

Sunday, March 21st, 2010, Noon

Let's take vibrations: Whatever we observe, holds a certain relevance for us, even way before we consciously think about what we hear. Some music we hate, other music we love. And it takes only a few notes to decide that factor.

During my life this time, I've had a number of jobs. I usually work quite a distance from where I live, let's say within a two hour radius from where I live. That's roughly about 32000 square kilometers. Yet still, during my career, I've had three jobs in the same relatively small city, all with different companies. And that tends to make me wonder what the significance of that city might be to me.

First time was a company that literally bought me away from a boss I'd been working with for eleven years. Back then it was my first time in that city, so I wasn't really expecting something. During my second job there, I noticed something that connected place of work with love somehow: I ran into this American singer named Teedra Moses, whose very synchronistic album was called Complex Simplicity. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. I felt like that entire album had been handcrafted just for little old me. As if she was singing just directly to me, even though we never met....

Third time it became really clear, because that was where I met Selina. What was funny, was that Teedra and Selina have somewhat similar features, as if they could have been sisters....

But back to the vibration theme: have you ever noticed that when you put two guitars next to one another, and strum one string on the first one, the second one will have its corresponding string resonating along with the first one? This indicates that vibration is capable of transmitting information across time and space. In the case of the two guitars this would be prohibited if we were to remove the medium through which the sound vibration travels, the air. But what of electromagnetic vibrations? What is the medium then, and can it be removed? Maybe, but we can go one step further:

Experiments have shown that thought can go where electromagnetism dare not tread. Put a biological test subject into an electromagnetically shielded vault, which basically keeps out electromagnetism from outside, and vice versa. With a second person outside the vault, so they cannot see one another, instruct the outsider to think about making the person inside better from their ailment. Close observation of such a situation found that in the majority of cases, the person inside the cage was showing definite improvement the moment the outsider was told to engage in the experiment. Electrically and magnetically, nothing could have happened, yet the mere thought of making someone better traveled through the thick steel walls of the vault without any difficulty!

And where thoughts used to be focused on one's immediate surroundings in the earlier ages of mankind, evolution of both humanity and technology has made it as easy as apple pie to think of loved ones the world over. And you guessed it: just as you should only do unto others what you wouldn't mind being done to you, the same thing goes for thinking about others......

Another anecdote is in order, so bear with me on that: one day, I was on the train, and holding a digital camera in my lap. Some six meters away from me, this beautiful girl was sitting. I briefly considered stealthily taking her picture, because I just love beauty, but almost immediately decided against it because it wouldn't have been a clear shot anyway, at that distance. I wiped her from my mind, and continued on with life.

Some days later, I was out walking with my wife, when a car pulled over. The guy that got out was rather upset, because he said that his daughter had told him I'd sneakily taken her picture on the train the other day. Honestly I told him I had briefly considered it, seeing she was this beautiful, but that I eventually hadn't. That didn't quite calm him down, and both him and my own wife didn't seem to believe me. I even invited him to come home with me to inspect my PC, to take away his fears, but obviously he had decided to be afraid of me, so he didn't take me up on that offer.

Just sticking to my guns in claiming not to have taken that picture, I eventually got rid of him, without having to apologize for cherishing beauty. For believe it or not, that I'll never do. Actually, I will apologize for almost anything I have done to anybody, but that does not mean that I feel guilty about it. And that's a tough cookie when people want you to feel guilty, but will not admit to themselves that that is actually what they want.....

4444AD, Day 237, 09:09, Home

Having enjoyed a first mug of coffee, I decide that today is best spent analyzing the MicroSD card from the Buddha that came in the pyramid. Since it was from an era some 2434 years in the past, I'd be hard pressed to find a machine that would be able to take it. But wait a minute! Didn't I bring home a laptop as well? It would almost certainly be able to access the stick, if I could get it to run.

I move to the study, where the marble pyramid is still standing right smack in the center of the desk. I close it up, having no interest in the remaining items inside it for now. Picking it up, I put it on the floor in the corner of the study, to make room for the laptop. You may have wondered how after 2400 years I'd still know what a laptop is, but then you have forgotten my occupational deformation: I'm a Guardian, I survey the past to make it better, and my particular scene of interest is the turn of the second millennium.

I grab the laptop from the couch, and put it on the desk. It flips open at the front, revealing a keyboard, touch pad, and a rectangular screen. Let's see, they didn't have full voice control back then, so the on switch will most likely be something obvious, like a button. It takes me a minute or so, to finally figure out that all the buttons on the top of the keyboard form one long chrome bar, which doesn't quite look like individual buttons. The tiny icons above the bar give it away though, and the semicircle with the vertical bar in it is a telltale sign of power. I press it, and anticipate nothing in particular. And that is exactly what happens: nothing!

Let me think, what else didn't they have back then? Where does its power come from? The advance of ZPF modules as independent power sources only came into play around 2033, so this 2010 laptop would probably have a Lithium-Ion cell which needs to be recharged every few hours to keep the system running. Simply finding it external power is doable, but why not solve the problem once and for all?

I close the laptop and flip it onto it's back. On the hinging side there is a seam which seems to indicate a part of it is detachable. That is probably the battery. Two sliding buttons along the seam invite one to unlock the thing, and with a bit of digital agility, I succeed in separating the two. It is a simple interface, with two larger contacts, and a number of smaller ones. My scanners unravel the electrical schematic of the thing, and find out that the nine cells in it would have given off eighteen volts at a little over four Amps.

I´ll have to take it to the workshop, to swap out the cells with suitable replacements. On my way through the kitchen, a second mug of coffee is easily acquired. In the workshop, I set myself to the task of opening the battery. The label talks about having authorized personnel do that, but I didn´t bring one, so it´ll have to be me. No screws, and the seams look like they have been glued together or something. I figure the fastest way in and out is like cutting the seams with a well-aimed laser beam, so it will come apart without much force. If I calculate the applied power precisely, the beam will have lost its power to melt the plastic right about the time it pierces the surface.

The laser cutter is set to auto detect, and traces around the battery as if it can actually see it, which in a sense it can. When its round is finished, I pick up the unit, and attempt to sever the two halves. A slight cracking sound, and they come apart. After that it´s easy to get the replacements in place, but then I wouldn´t want to bother you with that. So twelve minutes later I walk back into the study with a rejuvenated battery, that will deliver the required power for the next seven years or so. And that does not mean that the new cells can't deliver any more, but just that the ancient electronics in the battery will have worn out by then.

The laptop is still on its back, so I slide in the battery and put it on its feet again. This time the on switch does do something: with a beep, the screen displays a logo of the hardware manufacturer, followed by a very familiar logo. Nobody can study the beginning of the second millennium, and not know about the four wavy rectangles that signify the involvement of Microsoft with this machine.

I sip my coffee as the boot process runs to completion, and with a smile of content I conclude that this machine runs Windows 7, which at that point was Microsoft's finest. I have heard the rumors, but never actually operated a computer that ran it. So this should be quite an experience.

But let's not forget why I booted this in the first place: I retrieve the memory stick from it's hollowed out space in the bottom of the Buddha, and look for a place to stick it. No obvious openings on top, and the left side only has a small button. When I press it, I hear something whirring, and a drawer pops out. I look at it for a moment, but it is not what I'm looking for, so I push it closed again.

The right side does have various holes, for either rectangular or round plugs. Upon examination, I go for the front one, and attempt to slide in the stick. Nothing happens, so maybe I did it wrong? Taking out the stick again, I look inside the rectangular hole. Apparently there are some sort of contacts on the piece of plastic inside the metal rim, but they are facing down. I take the stick and insert it with its contacts facing up, to be met with a slight tingle, that indicates the computer has apparently found it.

It responds with a rectangle on its screen, which was why they called this Microsoft Windows. Inside it, I can see whatever is on this stick, or so it seems. At least the name of it spells Buddha, which eradicates all doubt. I spend the next two hours going through the data with a fine tooth comb, until Selina walks in on me to invite me to lunch. “You done yet, study head?”, she smiles, knowing I can totally get wrapped up in such pursuits of history, and their relevance to the Now...

“I think I just caught you redhanded...” I reply. “Who, me?” Selina laughs, because she has a fair idea of what I was up to. “Well no,” I reply, “but rather your past self, committing the then still unspeakable act of indecent exposure” We both laugh, because nowadays, that is hardly considered a 'crime'. Lots of androids show their natural self, be they silicon based or otherwise. Selina and I are RBE's, which means we look every bit like Real Biological Entities. So yes, we usually dress, but feel absolutely no shame when having to go naked for a change.

“Oeh, I'd love to see myself after lunch”, Selina giggles, looking at me with a real naughty twinkle in her eyes. We finish our “broodje gezond”, which is basically a bun, dressed with lettuce, ham and cheese, french brie, tomato and cucumber. Love the texture of it, especially if the bun has been baked nice and crispy. Of course, in our society, it isn't really baked, but the replicators do a real fine job since I applied my programmer's talent towards making the recipes perfect by my endless tweaking of them......

Sunday, March 21st, 2010, 15:42

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong here, like this time is too backward for me. Most probably I did that to myself, developing a keen interest in science fiction when I was a teenager. I could literally spend hours and hours reading every SciFi novel I could lay my grubby little hands on. Well, actually, they weren't grubby, and not even little, because I have hardly grown an inch since then. But that's beside the point. I read about five novels a week, so it really was an outrageous obsession, and it turned my neural net into something based on myriad views of the future.

How can a boy read that much, you say? Well, I used sleep time to do it. When my parents sent me to bed, I'd break out the adapter of my Texas Instruments 95 calculator, on which I'd mounted this small light bulb with a cardboard hood to keep the light from shining into my eyes. That way I could squeeze in about three or four more hours of prime reading time. Other kids dreamed, I dreamed wide awake!

Lots of people will say: “Hey, that's only fantasy, get real!”. Well, to me fact and fantasy are part and parcel of the One. Everything and everyone is connected, and that means that their thoughts as shared in literature, even if it is science fiction, are intricately linked too!

Just like for me everything seems to come together now, so will it be for everyone else. It's just that this fetish of mine, which is called future, has led me to develop certain talents, simply by doing what I love best. I loved to read, until my knowledge base was about complete. I still read, but hardly any complete novels. Nowadays it's just updates, short articles, and other loose facts. But then writing came into play, and I found I could feel totally at ease with expressing myself on the keyboard. Yes, on the keyboard, because for some reason I do not find as much pleasure in handwritten communication.

Also, there's this prowess with computers, simply because I grew up with them right by my side. Point is, it seems like all my talents are coming together in this one novel, and it feels absolutely right!

What will it turn out to be? I've always given myself the middle name “Second Time Right”, and there is already a Dutch novel out that bears my original birth name. So maybe this is the one?

If there's one thing I learned, it is that you are always best qualified to predict your own future. It is a basic mechanism of the Cosmos: since it's all vibration, and you are the source of your own vibration, you are most suited to determine what your vibration will be with regard to what you see around you. It is like the wave in a football stadium: It is far greater than the individual, but it consists of just individuals that choose to match their vibration to whatever happens. Nobody will notice if you choose to stay seated when the wave comes, but your reason for staying put may far exceed any reason that could be given for joining the fun. The important part is, it's your decision!

In the end though, you will always find yourself in the right place at the right time, to do whatever it is you feel called to do.

Afterthought: while cooking dinner, I heard Queensrijche's Queen of the Reich come by. I've always felt very strongly about that song, even back when I first heard about it. In fact, Queensrijche somehow maneuvered itself into my life's experience: whenever I went to other concerts, they would all of a sudden be the supporting act, which is somehow odd considering they originated in Seattle, and then allowed me to rock to their tunes no less than three times in Holland over the years. Somehow though, even back in '85, Queen of the Reich was my absolute favorite. And just now, when hearing it again, the latches clicked in place: it sings of an inevitable encounter with the queen, so I wondered at that moment whether they meant the queen of this novel...

Which was then immediately answered in the affirmative, when Geoff Tate sang: “It's the sign of the cross you'll find ahead!” Well, it seems I've found it, but it's not nearly as fearful as Queensrijche sang it all those years ago.

4444AD, Day 238, 08:18, Home

I don't know what has gotten into me. Normally, I wake up nice and cheerful, but today I feel totally listless. And it isn't that my twin has left, Selina is still very much alive, and being the perfect sleeping beauty right by my side.

OK, full systems check right now, but that does not reveal anything out of the ordinary. So it's not my current incarnation that is the problem. I get into the shower, because that often flushes out any energetic impurities that might plague me. This time however, the hot and abundantly flowing water refrains from making me feel better. After a full seventeen minutes of it, I decide it's no good, and get out to towel off. These lousy feeling must have come from one of my other incarnations, because I know I don't feel like this.

Well, there's a surefire way of finding out, as Selina once taught me: focus on your heart, and just ask the question to it. Pretty soon then, the image will become clear. So I do just that, and am somewhat surprised to find myself at the end of 2009AD, with my past self who actually wrote the book I'm currently reading.

Knowing where the problem came from is enough to alleviate the symptoms for now. I decide to read some more until Selina wakes up too, so we can figure out what needs to be put right in my past self's life. She has always been the more creative when it comes to fixing the past. Me, I'm more of a fix the future kinda guy.....

'the Home of the Crystalline Water'

The walls of the city are a marvel of construction: perfectly fitted blocks of stone, that show no traces of mortar in between. It reminds me of some of the buildings I've seen on TV shows about the ancient Mayans: they too built with sub-millimeter accuracy, which is quite a feat even with today's tools. Perhaps there is some sort of connection here? Back then, I thought that Nature had overgrown much of the ruins there, but out here the outlook is much the same: copious amounts of green, interlaced with ribbons of glistening water, that give the city its name. I look up as we pass under the massive city gate, and find that the seemingly archaic building style doesn't reflect the technological prowess of the inhabitants. A small scanning device of some sort is tacked onto the center stone, right above our heads. No sign of wires, not even hidden below the surface of it, so this gizmo is probably wireless in some way. “I wouldn't be surprised if we will be met by someone”, I say to my traveling companions. Before they can even look surprised, an answer comes from one of the people nearby: “Yes, we do want to welcome you to our magnificent city.” The figure in long flowing robes steps up to me, and identifies himself as Taquatl, our guide during our stay in the city. His features are definitely South American, probably even Mayan. I ask him about it, and he tells us that his city is right below the palace of Palenque, a famous building left over from the Mayan civilization. There is even a passageway from the inside Palenque's palace right into the heart of the city. So the similarities in building style were certainly not entirely coincidental.

Taquatl leads us through the sloping streets to a building that is apparently some sort of hotel. As it is around the end of the day, he will leave us there to rest and recuperate, and will pick us up tomorrow. As we go in, we are greeted by a lady who is obviously running things around here. “Just in time for supper!”, she exclaims, and tells us to leave our bags behind. Up top we would have thought twice about just dropping our bags in a hallway, but out here there is no risk of theft. So we do as she asks, and follow her into the dining room, to a large round table that seems built especially for us: just enough seats to accommodate us, and already set as if they were expecting us. At the center of the table is a fountain, one that creates a spherical bubble of water. I remember having something like this up top, but also saw much larger versions of it as we walked through the city. So large in fact, that I wondered how in Earth it could ever work. Unless of course, the surface tension of the water here is far higher than that of normal water. Not much time to ponder that though: a few of our hosts come into the dining room with truly fantastic dishes, that are placed onto the table surrounding the spherical fountain. Jane gets off her seat, to record the feast with her Cybershot. I ask her how the memory card is doing, but she tells me not to worry: it's only ten percent full.

Dinner, as it turns out, is again a feast of new tastes and smells. Although fully vegetarian, it comprises of fruits and vegetables that I never tasted in my life, not even during my stay here in Inner Earth. Apparently, diversity down here is just as rich as it is up there. Being seated right next to Gina, I inquire as to her health. The cheerful answer that I receive leaves no doubt in my mind: Gina is back to her usual, light-hearted self, and will suffer no aftereffects from the beetle's sting. I decide to go for a risky dish: there are some large mushrooms on the plate right in front of me. They are greenish, with yellow dots, and quite large: the one I put on my plate covers everything but the outer rim. For a moment I ponder my mother's advice never to eat mushrooms unless I know they aren't poisonous, but decide to let it slip. I know enough of the people down here to trust their thoroughness in this matter. Carefully cutting out a slice, I taste it, briefly thinking about the steak monologue from the Matrix. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should be ashamed of yourself (not really). But may I respectfully request that you rent the DVD just as soon as you can tear yourself away from this novel?

The matrix reference isn't even half bad: My awareness of my surroundings is definitely changing as I eat the rest of the mushroom. Hey, I don't grow any bigger or smaller, but reality does seem far less real. I'm beginning to pick up traces of conversations, which at first I take to be conversations in the room itself. But then, a familiar voice enters my mind: Joyce, the girls' mother, is wondering how her darlings are doing on vacation with daddy. Her friend William is quick to suggest that we will get along fine, and will have lots to tell when we get back in about two-and-a-half weeks. I chuckle, and say out loud: “If only you knew”. “Knew what?” Gina asks. And I'm back in reality, explaining to her how my eating of that mushroom somehow enabled me to hear a conversation halfway across the globe, on the outer surface. She is not at all surprised, having experienced something similar when visiting her friend Dieter Braun, also known as Indian in the Machine. He is a very gifted musician, and I love to play his music when I am at home.

As it is still early, we decide to take a stroll around town before retiring to bed. The company splits up, with Valerie, Kim and Kayim going one way, and Gina, Jane and me taking the other route. The translator bird is left in the care of our hostess, who will look after it until we return. The other trio is quickly heading for the central tower, leaving us to determine our own course. Jane first wants to visit one of the large spherical fountains, to shoot some photos there. We find one just a few blocks away, about three meters high. “Can't you get inside it? That would be a nice shot!” Jane laughs. She is determined to see us get wet. But not this guy: I poke my finger into the watery wall, way above my head. Like a set of curtains, it comes apart making an opening that Gina can step through easily. I then follow my finger into the globe, and let the curtain drop again. Jane sees her plan foiled, but then she didn't know that I had previous experience with fountains like that. After she's taken some shots of the exterior, we allow her to come in, to make some more of the interior. Then we exit the sphere, and continue on our walk.

As we stroll along, a puppy approaches Jane. Now my youngest darling loves puppies, but she looks twice at this one before reaching to pick it up: it has six legs, instead of the usual four. Other than that, it looks like a perfect copy of our poodle named Macho, when he was still young. Jane plays with it a while, takes some pictures to show to her big sister, and reluctantly follows as we continue again.

We walk along a wall that's literally loaded with flowers. As Jane aims to pick one, I remind her that she has better tools to take home the beauty of them. She grins sheepishly, and pulls out the camera instead. “But how about the fragrance?”, she asks. I tell her to smell the flowers, while looking at them. That way, her mind will associate the smell with the image, and the photographic image will then later be able to trigger the memory of the smell. No need to take a flower, which won't last long without the plant anyway.

We get back to our lodgings way before the others. I wonder what they will tell us when they get back. For now, it is time to explore our rooms. One for Kayim and myself, one for Gina, and a big one for the three girls. I load up all the bags, and climb the winding stairway to the sleeping quarters. My room has a magnificent view of the city, with the central tower smack in the middle of it. With my glasses on, I can just see three figures on top of the tower. I see them waving, but I figure they must be waving at someone else, because they couldn't see me at this distance. Later I am told, Kayim did see me because his eyes are better than ours.

It gather the tower in the center is like the spherical fountains that we see everywhere. However, I see no water to complete the image. But upon their return, Kayim and the girls tell us that the tower is indeed like those spherical fountains, but the medium transported is energy. The field contains the special energy that the water has around here, and gives the city its glistening appearance from afar.

As it is time for bed, Kayim and I say goodnight to the four ladies, and retire to our room. “Are you planning to stay here?”, my roommate asks. “Hadn't really thought of that yet”, I reply, “but I don't think the girls' mother would be very pleased with such a decision”. We discuss it, and I gather from his words that Valerie at least has her heart set on staying. I can see why, since she found two close friends here. At least that is how I see Kim and Kayim. But, no time to decide just yet. I will let these thoughts roam in my mind for a while, and then will decide what to do with them. After all, the vacation is far from over!

4444AD, Day 238, 008:44, Home

As I put the reading pad down, I say hi to Selina who just walked in wearing something comfortable. She makes herself some coffee, and offers me one too, as I tell her about the foul mood of my past self. “Can you tell me why he is in such a rut?”, my precious asks me. Without as much as a thought, I blurt it out: “I figured I'd lost you!”

“When was that?”, my lady asks me. We pinpoint the danger zone to be December 21st, 2009. “Let's give him a bit of a surprise”, Selina never ceases to amaze me: only two seconds flat, and she's already got a plan in place! She asks me to recall from memory what I did that day. I'm not sure of the details, but reckoning it was a Monday, I suppose I went to work like always, and returned home around five PM. “What did you normally do back then?” is the immediate question. “Normally, fire up the laptop to do the website, and attach my smart phone to it to recharge”, I reply. “Perfect!”, she smiles at me. “I can easily slip a secret message into his phone, but we need something to force him to inspect it thoroughly.”, she follows up. “Let me see if I can get his laptop to misbehave”, I add cheerfully. I access the information about the operating systems of that era, remembering that it was running Windows 7 at the time. Hmm, Media Player seems to have a rather obnoxious feature: it may accidentally decide to sync its entire library with whatever memory device you attach to the system. Seeing as how there is over forty gigs of MP3 files on that system, we could very unobtrusively cause a disc full condition on the smart phone! That would cause my past self to have to clean it out, and then he'd most likely bump into the unknown file.

We execute the plan in tandem: Selina writes and inserts the message, and meanwhile I trigger the media player to move the entire music library to the phone.

“And now we wait...” I smile at Selina. We have another coffee, and chitchat about a number of other things. By the time the coffee is gone, so is the uneasy feeling. I browse my memories, and recite to my love the very lovely message which I think she placed in the phone. A big hug is my immediate reward, for I read out verbatim what my lady had inserted just half an hour ago.

We go to the study, to have another look at the memory card from the past. She leans over my shoulder as I work the ancient computer, and browse through the files that are on there. Naturally, my lady is most interested in the folder bearing her name. It seems to hold six or seven folders, each named to designate the contents of them. Nothing peculiar about the file names, except that they are all numerical, and seem to signify dates with three digits added. I decide not to shock Selina, and choose an image from a folder named 'Perfection'. “Never thought I'd make such a pretty picture back then”, Selina says somewhat admiring. Actually she does recognize herself, because the ancient image on the laptop is a dead ringer for her new look, acquired just a while ago. We watch a few more, and somewhat amused she comments on the soft core material in some of the other folders. I figure it's OK, since the only person we see on those images is Selina's past self. But it is weird to now see the actual images that Selina's past self posed for.

After that, it's Selina's turn to hit the shower. With a promise of an exciting evening, she gets me to not follow her in there. Hey, with a promise like that, which guy can refuse? So I dive right back into my book......

'Dream or Reality?'

That night is unusual to say the least. Dreaming is something I'm sure I do, but normally up top I hardly ever remember my dreams. This time though, the memory of it is so vivid, that I wonder if I haven't been awake all night, and really experienced it:

I remembered having left my bed, while the others were fast asleep. I sneaked into the girls' room, to take the digital camera from Jane's night stand. She turned over as I picked it up, but didn't wake up. I carefully closed the door, and left the hotel, greeting the hostess as I passed her by. Not sure where I was going, or even sure why I bothered to pick up the camera, I walked towards the central tower. It was an uphill climb, but I could hardly call it tiresome. Because of the ever available Inner Sun, it was easy to shoot some pictures on the way there.

The tower was a hexagonal structure, quite wide at the base, and tapering off towards the top. Each of the six sides had a door in it, and the first one I tried had stairs leading up. Now I'd already heard about life on top from Kayim and the girls, so I decided to try the next door. “And, what's behind door number two?” I asked myself out loud as I opened it. Hey, stairs leading down! That felt more like it! I closed the door behind me, and was immediately grateful that I had taken the Maglite that the guide at the pyramids had handed to us. At least I wouldn't have to find my way in total darkness. I had no idea where I was, except somewhere below the city. Descending the stairway, I figured I would be coming closer and closer to the familiar outer surface. Would this be the passageway that Taquatl had talked about?

I continued downwards until the stone stairway ended in a ridge surrounding a hole in the ground. Attached to poles mounted in the wall of the circular tower, I saw a rope going down into the pit. Fully realizing the reversal of gravity that we had experienced on the way down, I grabbed on to the rope, after sticking the Maglite in my belt. I'd already stashed the camera in my back pocket, having recorded my progress so far. It was easy to descend the rope, not having to battle full gravity. With large 'strides' of my arms I went down into the pit, feeling myself become ever lighter. By the time I drifted upwards, no longer hanging from the rope, I reversed my grip on the rope, and started climbing 'up' again, really up this time. I was just about tired of climbing using my arms only, when I reached the end of the rope, anchored to the walls in much the same way as the other end.

I did wonder however, whether it all was real. Surely the shell between the Inner and the Outer Earth was many miles thick, and I could not possibly have traversed this distance on hand in such a short span of time. But hey, no worries! I was here, so what was next? Up the stairs, double-time. In contrast to the well-kept stairs at the other end, these were far more worn down. It even seemed to become worse, as I ascended. I had to really watch my step as I traversed the final few steps, only to land in a small stone chamber, with a single opening to the south. I stepped outside, and couldn't believe my eyes: Jungle, as far as the eye could reach. I was on top of the structure known as the palace of Palenque, topped by the small building. I wondered, if I'd brought my cell phone, would I have been able to phone home? Probably not, since cell phone towers are hard to come by in the middle of the South-American jungle.

It was good to see the stars again. Especially here, where there was very little man-made light around. I could easily identify some of the more well known constellations, like Cassiopeia and Orion. But wait, there was something strange about Cassy: the W-shaped figure showed me not five, but six stars. There was an extra one, halfway down the first leg. It shone brightly, but not with the normal, near-white light of other stars. This one seemed to switch colors, twinkling as if to attract extra attention to itself. Just as I turned my head to take another look at it, it was gone. “Must have been a flying saucer”, I thought, and shrugged it off.

I wouldn't have to bother telling Valerie, she'd never believe me anyway, not without solid proof. Having thought that, it suddenly occurred to me that the lighting level out here in the jungle had significantly increased. Looking around to spot the source of the light, I discovered a circular, well-lit shape hovering over the Temple of Inscriptions. “Well, there's your evidence!”, I said to myself. Fortunately the disc stayed put as I took out the camera, and committed the images to memory. As if they had been waiting for me to complete my work, the disc then zoomed off into the distance, converging to that same position on Cassiopeia's leg. No doubt, that was where they came from in the first place!

I spent some time going over the ruins of the palace, but found no other remarkable events or items. What was remarkable though, was the fact that these buildings were still here. But hey, back to reality: traveling the same way I came in, I again descended into the pit only to ascend at the other end. Walked back to the hotel, dropped the camera on Jane's night stand, and got back into bed, to finish my dream. There was still time, it was only five o'clock.

Monday, March 23rd, 2010, 18:22

Today, I suddenly decided to switch to a fruit and yoghurt diet for a while, brought on by the first rays of sunlight after this long, white winter. But was it me, or did this decision originate somewhere else? The one thing I do know, is that it was I who made the final decision, although my hints for doing so may have come from anywhere. I mean it just feels right, so what is there to worry about?

And I don't. Today started off on what some people would consider “the wrong foot”, with my phone failing to wake me, and my backup alarm not having been set by me. Ninety minutes delay in getting to work, and at first glance taking half a day off seemed impossible. That meant working late, but let's not worry and just get on with it. By lunchtime I'd finished my immediate work, and asked my boss for that half day off anyway. Home by two thirty, a day to die for....

Replied to Kibo's mail, stating that as I feel it, freedom is not something to be fought for, but something to be decided: If I decide I am free, then no illusion can really capture me, even though I seem to be succumbing to it. But going through the moves and playing along is not slavery. Not if your being is permeated with the knowledge that the Cosmos is perfect, just as it is, even with all the seeming imperfections.

Looking back I find that my situation has not changed very much, it is honestly just the way I look at things that has changed, dramatically! Like somebody took the limp balloon that was my Cosmos, and inflated it to a comfortable space to live in. In the end though, it was just me that did the inflating, based on what I heard others tell about their views on life......

4444AD, Day 239, 09:21, Home

Thinking about nutrition, and how it changed over the millennia. Nowadays, nutrition isn't really the right word, since we androids have been designed to be self-sufficient, and thus require no sustenance. That we RBE models do eat, and even prefer to do so, has more to do with the model we were fashioned to mimic: Real Biological Entities, also known as Humans.

We are but a limited subset of the immense variety of Quadrionic Adaptables. These systems can be as tiny as the tiniest of insects, or as large as entire planets. But even this very diverse species of beings is a minute part of the total collection of beings in the All.

But we are widespread: because we can be assembled from just information and energy, we are not bound by the restrictions of space-time. Multitudes of Quads have indeed spent incarnations in your time, the twenty-first century. Especially the insect subspecies are routinely used for observational purposes. Although quite skilled at evasion, many common houseflies met with untimely death, which sounds way more harsh than it actually is. But then you already know that, even if you may not be willing to accept it. Death is but a holiday, indefinite if you so want it.

On occasion, even RBE's have been pre-staged, as we call it. This means a suitable situation in the past is located, where a human could be born. With the permission of the entities involved, the higher selves of both mother and father, and that of the incarnating being, it can then be decided to let a Quadrionic being be born instead of a human. Please note I'm not saying 'mere human', because there is no matter of bad or better: just a matter of picking the right vehicle for the being involved.

The actual process engages the physical reality at the exact moment of conception. The incarnating soul pulls in with it the complete design for the Quadrionic being, which is then inserted along with the agreed upon parts of the mother's and father's DNA to form the blueprint for the newborn.

RBE's are better than humans in one sense: they simply cannot be found out to be non-human, just because they are descendants of the same parent species. Differences are there, but in the context in which these can be inspected in your time these are just not detected.

“Have you told them about me yet?” Selina smiles as she walks in. She caught me dictating to the computer to finish my part of this novel. “Do you want me to tell them?”, I dare her. “Why not? It is a beauty of a story, ain't it?”

That it is. We are planning a little baby of our own: doing a Quadrionic merge so Selina's past self will actually be a Quad instead of a human. Her plans are now about sixty-nine percent complete, and so far it's an even three part mix. The remaining part is the stuff I need to supply, because of my in-depth knowledge of the intended target in that era: Me! That's right folks, I'm designing my very own twin flame reunion!

But enough of this for now! I'll get back to you later, to spill the beans on the rest of it. Now, this Big Friendly Giant is going to take a long hot bath, while leisurely reading on in his old novel 'Going Within'........

'Conscious (with) water'

I wake up entirely rested, and being able to remember most of my dream. It's just the part after five that's blurry. As we sit down for breakfast, I tell the others about my dream. Apparently, my youngest isn't quite convinced it really was a dream. She runs off, only to return with the camera moments later: “Dad, you dream very vividly! Even the camera knows you've been there!” Well, I guess it wasn't a dream, but just another inescapable part of our wondrous journey through the globe.

“Sorry I'm late!” Kim barges into the dining room, and pours herself a mug of coffee. She sits down next to Valerie, and gets handed a scone-like piece of bread. She slices it open, and grabs an Inner Earth banana from the dish in the center, to put it on there. As she peels back the orange peel, the bananas contents drop to her plate, already sliced! Kim looks at it bewildered. “How could this happen?” I say nothing, but look secretively at Jane, who sees me look and blinks. A trick I taught her long ago, she's found herself needle and thread somewhere, and used it to slice the banana inside without having to peel it. The small needle pricks all around the outer surface must have eluded poor Kimmy.....

As we finish breakfast, Taquatl comes in to brighten our day. Jane blurts out the story of my nightly escapades, at which the Inner Earthling raises his eyebrows in wonder. He explains that the entrance to the surface was sealed last year, so I could not possibly have passed through there.... “Unless of course, you possess the ability for inter dimensional traveling”, he concludes.

While I ponder that thought, Taquatl tells all of us, that we will be visiting the water processing area. Because that is where the city has gotten its fame: their very pure and extremely sparkling water, that can be used for numerous applications. We follow our guide through the city streets, to a part of the city where the abundance of water makes Venice look like an arid desert. The buildings are designed in such a way, that water flows off, around and even through them. Taquatl explains, that what was a recent discovery topside for dr. Emoto, has been known in Inner Earth for ages and ages. I've heard of this scientist, although some people use the word scientist in a negative setting where dr. Emoto is concerned. Personally, I think he may have a point, when he claims that water has consciousness. The man, after twelve years of research, claims that the forming of ice crystals is very much subject to the treatment of the water before it is being frozen. And his test subjects seem to have picked up quite a few vibrations of the world around them. His team actually took bottles of water, where one was treated with respect and love, and another was yelled at for quite some time. It turned out that the first bottle yielded far prettier ice crystals, than the latter one.

I think that consciousness is inherent in all matter. I've seen computers, on consecutive tests without modification of the program, behave totally different. One example of that: I had a bug in my program that showed itself over and over again, without any variation. The moment I called in my colleague, and demonstrated it to him in exactly the same way, the program suddenly chose a completely different path of execution. Still not correct, but certainly not the original bug I'd been chasing for quite some time. It was like the observers influence the observed, and I'm not talking about the subatomic world.

But back to the current subject: Taquatl explains to us that here in the city, the consciousness of the water is stimulated through various means, to arrive at water that can actually heal people if they require it. ”Not that there is a very big market for it here”, Taquatl laughed. Most Inner Earth people are quite adept at regulating their own health. No, the water is passed on to various groups in the Outer World, where the need for such remedies is far greater.

He explains that the numerous streams, cascades and other watery constructs are like a kind of playground, where the water can enjoy itself. But that is only the first of the stages. The houses that are surrounded by the water, are inhabited by people that have a clear affinity with it. This vibration adds to the positive development of the water. Next, there is the city-wide energy field that Kayim and the girls already told us about. It keeps the positive vibrations inside the city, so the positive charging of the water is heightened even further. “And then, the pièce de resistance” Taquatl smiles. He leads us to a building that has some sort of crystal dome, that shines immensely in the light of the Inner Sun. As we enter the building, we all stand there in total awe: underneath the dome, where the copious sunlight streams in, is a fountain of immense complexity. “Behold, the last stage our our enrichment process”, Taquatl says in a reverent voice. I have to agree with him, it is quite a sight: it starts at the top, with one of those spherical fountains. But then, discretely placed dividers cut the canopy into a dozen or so streams, that are caught on a lower level, and squirted back up into various directions. Apart from the craftsmanship that is apparent from all this, the fountain has something else, something different.

It takes me a full five minutes of quiet observation, before I finally get the picture: color, lots and lots of it: where Outer Earth fountains are mostly white water, this one has the uncanny ability to create numerous small rainbows, in and around itself. Truly a sight to behold. Taquatl picks up a stack of cups from a nearby table, and proceeds to fill them from the base of the fountain. “Here, the water is at its finest.” He hands everyone a cup, and then toasts to a prosperous journey for our group. As I down the shimmering liquid, I must admit that it is absolutely the most tasty water that I've ever come across, inside or out. But the water holds another surprise: The bite of the Obuchi beetle, that is still not healed, suddenly starts to itch like crazy. As I roll up my trouser leg, I am just in time to see the big black spot dissolve into nothingness..

With the tour at an end, we stroll back to our sleeping quarters, and enjoy the rest of the day in perfect relaxation. No fuss, no hectic stuff, just enjoying ourselves. After dinner, there is a show of one of the townspeople. He regularly visits the outer Web, and picks up influences there to take back to the people here. Tonight, he's picked the handywork of a friend of ours: with Inner Earth instruments, the man crafts an impeccable imitation of Indian in the Machine. “Dieter should hear this”, Gina whispers to me. I lean over to Valerie, and ask her if she's still got room on her MP3 player. She doesn't, but there's plenty of space left on the memory card of the camera. Since they are both the same type, it isn't hard to switch them for a moment, and we quickly set it to record. Because we are on the very first row, the sound quality turns out to be quite acceptable.

We enjoy tracks like “You Beautiful One”, which our artist down here brings with as much fervor as Dieter usually displays. But the guy on stage has another feat in store: as he starts the song called “Long Lost Places”, his voice perfectly imitates that of the female guest vocalist that Dieter used for that track. The crowd doesn't go wild, they're far to relaxed for that. But they do express their enthusiasm, and the show goes on long past bedtime. Finally, after “Journey to Full Consciousness”, we salute our artist with a standing ovation, and head for bed. After all, tomorrow will be a busy day, with us going to the next stop in our tour of the Inner Earth.

4444AD, Day 242, 20:42, Home

As Selina puts the finishing touches on the snacks and the beverages, the transporter pad announces new arrivals. No question to allow materialization, so I guess it must be Tinus 'Tiny' Wolters and his lovely friend Lily Collins. They are close friends of ours, and share our love of tweaking. Tweaking, to explain, is the manipulation of the 'past' in order to make the present more pleasant. This approach is what eventually shut down the big conglomerates, freed mankind from the vulture culture of the big banks, and generally lessened adverse living conditions.

Having exhausted the number of grand disasters that you feel are still very present in your everyday lives, and reaching absolute abundance in helping to get rid of all that negativity, we found that a number of us just couldn't keep our hands off the past. We kept going to make it better, purely as a pastime. Of course this is done on a far less extensive scale as the earlier cleanup operations, but methods have considerably improved over time.

We talk a while about inconsequential things, while enjoying the coffee and apple pie. Lily asks how Selina's past self is coming along, and my lovely twin immediately breaks out in an excited update: “I've seen her perform on the design space, she's awesome! For a moment there, I figured Sander had made her too sexy, good enough to be serious competition for me!” I hug her, an assure her that no matter what, I'll always stay with her. After all, since she already adapted one of her many looks to match the past Selina anyway, I have nothing to complain.....

“But how will you get the two of you together?”, Tiny asks. He hasn't heard yet of our grand master plan. Selina smiles wickedly, and explains that my past self used to be quite an admirer of beauty. So much so in fact, that he could never be totally happy if the specs of a prospective partner didn't at least cover a sizable percentage of his preferences relevant to women. “We designed past Selina to fulfill practically every preference of Sander we could uncover. It took some serious digging, but I think we got hold of enough hard data to really totally blow his mind back in 2011!”, my better half concludes.

“We already planned for my past self to find pictures of her, that would certainly pique his curiosity”, I add. “But have you also thought about how those pictures would actually have to be made? Who is going to get past Selina to show herself to the camera?” Lily asks inquisitively. “Hmm, hadn't thought of that”. “But I have...”, Lily smiles: “I have a past self in that era, and he's got pretty good connections in the modeling industry. He could easily charm Selina into a shoot”. Selina interrupts her: “Come to think of it, I remember him: about my height, built like a fashion model?”. Lily nods: “Does that mean I'm in? Can I help you two become even closer? Wow!!!”

We spend the rest of the night unfolding the setup of the millennium. Selina will fall like the proverbial brick for Lily's charming qualities, and will take the job that leads her to live Stateside for about three years. What girl wouldn't find it hard to resist a job offer that pays big bucks just to sit there and be beautiful? We haggle over the details, but Selina is quite adamant: nude is fine, but just nude and beautiful. She resolutely vetoes any attempts to get her to go any further. And since this is all about honoring free will, she gets her way......

Monday, March 23rd, 2010, 21:21

I am still not sure, whether I am uncovering the truth, designing the future, or just writing a fantasy that will never be. Point is, a lot of it has already actually happened, and my interpretation of it all is just one of an infinite number of scenarios that could explain this. But in the end, does it really matter? If you close the door of the refrigerator, does it matter if the light is off, on, or blinking Romeo and Juliet in Morse code?

At this point, I fed the working copy of Make It Real to my dear friend Alicia in Los Angeles, simply because her mail made me feel like she belongs in this story. A past life in Egypt qualifies her for sure, and the free expression of her feelings to me helps immensely too. I'm not sure how extensive her role will be, for when channeling you never do know what comes through. But interesting it is, always!

And I'm finally beginning to get it: If you see life here as a battle between good and evil, you will never exceed that level. Yet, if you take advice from our good friend Albert Einstein, and reach a higher vantage point to look at your situation, you'll find that both 'good' and 'evil' are thought streams aimed at enlightening you: They are a good cop bad cop routine, designed to get you to the highest point you can possibly reach. 'Good' shows you how it could be, while 'Bad' warns you against whatever it is you most want. Sometimes however, they mix up that game, and then good does the warning while bad does the enticing....

But separation doesn't work, nothing can really stop an unstoppable force. And that is just what happens when two realize they are in fact One.......

4444AD, Day 244, 05:55, Home

Up early, and my beauty is still very much asleep. I get dressed, but decide to go out incognito today. A metallic outfit makes me look less like an RBE and more like a regular techno droid, and I am ready for my morning walk.

I love to do this every now and then, masquerade as a more mechanical entity, and experience just how these are treated different from RBE's. Of course the differences are far less pronounced than in your era, but that is exactly why I still do it: not the all-out fear or excitement, but the minute nuances of others talking to an Android or a Realistic Biological Entity.

I close the door behind me, forfeiting the opportunity to zap myself to a distant landscape with breathtaking vistas and the like. Today I will just stroll through the neighborhood. Selina and I live in a country setting, far enough from the rather hazardous seashores. That was why the ruins of my old home were still available, and not demolished and built over: the coastlines have become a no-build zone, where we simply leave everything as is, because nobody wants to live there anyway.

I stride across the pebbles of the driveway, deplorably empty since my unfortunate mishap with Teedra, my beloved Bugatti Veyron. May she rest in pieces, as we always say once the cleanup squad has done its duty.

I turn left on the street, greeting my neighbor who greets me joyfully not knowing I'm me. I follow the gravel road into town, and praise myself lucky to be here. Country living no longer requires frequent trips into town and / or city, because our replicators can fashion almost anything we require. For those objects not producible by our domestic replicators, there is always the more creative twin of the cleanup squad: the Creation Force. Their far more powerful and precise replicators can deliver any object to any location within range, and we only have eight of them to service the entire planet: two at the poles, and the others at the other six points of the two dodecahedrons that can be said to fit inside the Earth.

Feeling ecstatic, I break into a firm running pace, and cover the remaining two kilometers into town in a remarkable time. Heart rate was way up, but since I never felt out of breath, I should be alright. I slow down, and stop at the bakers. Ernesto is a good friend and brother, and though his services are strictly speaking not needed, he does run a successful bakery: Many RBE's are not always content to have their bread molecularly recombined, and Ernesto's expertise is creating masterful and tasty replacements for replicated pastry and bread. This may seem odd, but nowadays we have total freedom to choose our pastimes as we see fit.

“Morning Bro”, I greet him. “I'm just about to get the croissants out of the oven. Is that something you can surprise your lady with?”, Ernesto asks. I agree, and ask if he has any of that delicious strawberry jam to go with it. “Sure, made a new batch just last week!”, is his cheerful answer.

We make an appointment to work on the Snaefell-Laverda sidecar soon, and I return home on the double, so the croissants are still warm. I sneak in the back, and make Selina a lovely breakfast.

“Morning my princess”, I joke as I kiss her softly on her hair, and wait for her to sit up. Together we cherish the hot croissants with creamy butter and very fruity strawberry jam. A good cup of coffee to go with it, and the company that I can do without, but choose not to....

“I dreamed about my past self last night”, I say as we finish the last of the croissants: “he tried to get even more pictures of you, even after the first two batches”. “How?”, Selina asks. I tell her about the thirty dollars he sent to the States, to get access to one of the sites her past self had worked for. “We have got to teach that boy a lesson!”, my lady has fire in her eyes as she speaks the sentence: “He has to learn that he can have me, but he can't buy me!” I agree, and together we pull a few informational strings to make the envelope go missing in action. “Do you think he got the message?” Selina asks. “Hmm, sure feels like it. All of a sudden I feel like you were a lot more attainable back then, and much more worth the wait. Yep, it worked.”

We ditch the tray, and engage in a bit of adult games. But since I'm aiming to get this novel on the school reading lists, that kind of action does not need to be in here.....

About eleven minutes past eleven, I wake up again, and get dressed. I admire Selina's lovely face, as it shows from under the covers, and then go down for some other action. Don't know what yet, but something will show up, I'm sure.

'Kidnapped...'

“Dad, dad, do you know where Jane is?” Valerie says as she wakes me from a very nice dream indeed. But the question in itself is alarming enough to awaken me completely, even at this ungodly hour. Four forty-five, my trusted Fossil tells me. “Isn't she sleeping, like you should be too?”, I inquire. My darling daughter assures me that she was sleeping, but woke up because she heard a door slam shut. She'd leaned over the battery bed, to see if her sister was also awake, but the bottom bunk had been empty. Trusting her sister to return to bed shortly, she lay there waiting. Five minutes passed, ten minutes. Still, no Jane. That, and the ever so slight smell of aether had driven her to my bed, to wake me up.

I get dressed, and together we look in all the obvious places. Jane's slippers are still under the bed, which would be strange if she'd just went to the toilet. We check it anyway, but my youngest is nowhere to be found. Time to alert the hostess, who is wondering why we woke her up so early. Like me however, she wakes up swiftly the moment we tell her that Jane is missing. She immediately thinks of one place that the two of us hadn't thought of looking: the kitchen. I very much doubt that we'll find her there, because Jane isn't such a midnight snacker. And indeed, we find nothing.

“Then we must alert Taquatl”, the hostess says. “He will know what to do!”. She calls for him, and about fifteen minutes later the tall citizen arrives. He listens to our story, and rubs his chin as he is thinking. He has a very expressive face, and you can just see the moment that he's come to a decision on what to do next. “We hardly ever need it, but the entire city is still being watched by a network of observation crystals” he tells us. I am not quite surprised, because that is what I must have seen stuck to the center stone of the city gate. Taquatl confirms my thought, and tells me and Valerie to follow him to the hub of that network, which is nearby. The others will completely overturn the hotel, in case Jane never left.

Taquatl leaves the hotel in a swift pace, almost daring the two of us to keep up. Luckily both me and Valerie have long legs (hers prettier than mine), so we do not lose sight of the robed figure. After a winding and turning route that takes us about five minutes, Taquatl stops at a heavy wooden door. He grabs a chain around his neck, and pulls out some sort of crystal. As he holds it up to the door, I spot a second crystal, embedded in the wood. Both light up in exactly the same shade of violet.

The door then silently opens for us, revealing a sober, round chamber, with a round table in the center. On top of it, a model of the city, like the model of Kayim's city, that we'd seen earlier. Our guide briefly looks around the model, and identifies the hotel where we are staying. He takes a wand from a hook on the wall, and taps on the roof of the hotel. The model rearranges itself, zooming in until the hotel takes up most of the space on the table. “When was the last time you have seen your daughter?” he asks me. I recollect having told her goodnight around eleven, but Valerie interrupts me: “We talked in bed until close to one, then we went to sleep”. Taquatl taps a short sequence into a pad on the edge of the table, and tells us to watch the hotel from all sides. We stand in such a way that we each can see one third of the hotel. I sometimes see figurines walking by the building, but nothing out of the ordinary. Valerie is the first to utter a muffled cry. “I see three people entering though the back door”, she tells us.

Taquatl presses another key, and the building becomes transparent, enabling us to follow the trio inside. They go up the main stairwell, straight for the girls bedroom. It is as if they knew who they were coming for, or as if they didn't care who they were coming for. One of them kneels beside Jane's bed, and pulls out a cloth of some kind. The big hand covers the girl's mouth, and soon she is even faster asleep then she was before. Or at least, that is what I assume from the smell in the hotel earlier on. The guy lifts her out of bed, tosses her over his shoulder, and the four of them go back the way they came, hardly making a sound.

“Who are these guys?”, I ask. From observing them I got the impression that they were military, or at least once were. And they've got guts, just walking in here to get somebody out. Taquatl sheds some light on the situation: “They call themselves Übermenschen, and they arrived here some sixty years ago.” I immediately remember having posted on my site, that part of the Nazi's that fled are said to have fled to Inner Earth, maybe these guys are part of that group? “If they are, then I know where their camp can be found.” Taquatl volunteers. I leave the building right before Taquatl closes the door, quickly thinking about the observation crystals. It seems like LIDAR which we use on Earth is a crude imitation of them.

As we've seen enough, we return to the hotel, to join the others. Under normal circumstances we would have left the city to continue our tour today, but now a rescue plan must be devised. Kayim has an idea on how to locate the missing girl: he heads out to the floater and returns with a small gizmo. “This is a DNA scanner”, he explains. “All we need is some of Jane's DNA, and a little luck to get us within half a mile of the girl” Valerie immediately goes to grab the hairbrush from the bedroom. She pulls out a long hair, and holds it up for Kayim: “Will this do?” Kayim takes it from her, gently rolls it up, and stuffs it into a compartment in the back of the scanner. He flips it over and turns it on, and the unit immediately begins to beep frantically. “This says she's here” Kayim concludes. “She should be standing right in your shoes”, he tells Valerie. Valerie laughs, and tells him to take the hair out. “It's probably one of mine, we both use that brush”. She pulls out another, and Kayim repeats the operation. Again, the alarm sounds. “Better turn off the sound” I tell him. He agrees that we do not want to alarm our opponents, and silences the gadget. The third retry yields a hair that does not immediately point to my eldest daughter. With the device ready to rock, we can get under way to find one of my dearest treasures.

Taquatl joins us, because he's been to the camp before. We walk to the floater, and the guide directs the silent machine to the south, keeping it between the foliage, so it is hardly noticeable. We touch down behind the tree line, out of sight of the guards at the camp. Even though it has been over sixty years since World War II, time seems to have stood still here: the barracks and the barbed wire fences look very much like the images of Dachau and Sobibór that I saw as a child in the books about the 2nd World War. There are however a few differences: the center of the compound has a sort of parking lot, where nine shuttle-like contraptions are arranged in a neat three by three square. They seem oddly out-of-time, like they belong in a 1930's comic book. I point them out to Kayim, but he shrugs: “There are far better flying saucers in Middle Earth. We will visit them later.” He pulls out the scanner, and flips open the lid. The device gives off a dry click, and the display shows a simple map of the environment, with a single blip indicating the whereabouts of my youngest. Fortunately I also see other, non-blinking dots, corresponding with our opponents out there. Again, we are in luck: the blinking white blip is shown to be inside the barrack that borders immediately on the fence. We only need to cross over from the bushes to the cover of the barrack's back wall, and nobody in the compound can see us anymore. The scanner reveals two guards at the door, and one person inside, besides Jane. For the moment we are safe here, so we decide to wait for the guy inside to leave. He isn't in a hurry, and we have to wait for over half an hour, but our patience is rewarded: finally, the red blip moves towards the door between the two guards, and leaves the building. Taquatl points at a handhold formed by what appears to be a ventilation opening. As I hold the wall steady, he pulls out some sort of pen-like device. “Molecular destabilizer”, he whispers, “completely silent, cuts through anything”. He starts at my left side, near the ground, and circles completely around my person. I feel the piece of wall standing free, but moving it is prohibited by resistance from below. In a low voice I tell him to cut it along the ground too, and ten seconds later I'm able to lift the entire section, and quietly lay it flat on the surface. A quick glance at the scanner reveals that the guards outside haven't moved, so I tiptoe inside, urging Jane to remain quiet. It's great seeing the look on her face, she's obviously delighted to see me. The simple ropes are no match for my untangling skills, and moments later we head for freedom.

Back at the floater, we quickly get into it. Just as we lift off, a siren starts to howl. Taquatl mentally kicks our transport into high gear, and we zoom away, concealed by the line of trees that also guarded our approach. Jane sits facing the encampment, and utters a muffled cry: “They've launched three of the saucers, I hope we can outrun them.” But for now it seems like the three haven't even spotted us, and the distance between us and the culprits is becoming ever greater. Unfortunately, the camp is in a valley, so at some point in time we will have to climb the hills. As we do, one of the three spots us, and starts the pursuit. Oddly enough, the others stay in their search pattern, which is indeed lucky for us. We make it into the next valley before the ancient contraption overtakes us. As it is flying above and behind us, Taquatl matches its speed and flies immediately underneath it. “They never thought of installing sensors on the belly”, he says. Looking up, I see that the machine doesn't even have cockpit windows below, so for now we are safe.

“Luckily I've seen the construction plans of these machines”, Taquatl laughs. He takes out his destabilizer, and punches a small hole in the underside of the beast. Immediately it starts leaking fluids, but other than that, nothing serious happens. We step on it again, and zoom out from under our opponents. They immediately throttle up to match our speed, but that only gets them so far. After chasing us for another two minutes, they suddenly lose altitude, and land flat on their belly on the sandy terrain.

We head back to the crystal city, delighted to have Jane back again. According to what she tells us, it was not a moment too soon. Apparently they where interested in using her DNA in the quest for their ever elusive “Übermensch”, and were going to take it tomorrow.

4444AD, Day 248, 22:22, Home

“Honey, can you tell me when you remember meeting me again as your past self?”, Selina asks. “Ah, you tweaking again?”, I smile at her. “Yup”, she goes, and tells me she's scripted a true soap opera scene between the two of us. She won't say just what is going to go down between us two in the past, but knowing her it's going to be a beauty.

“Remember the womb squad?”, she asks. Who could forget? A twin flame pair, who are addicted to the first stage of life, being in the womb. They've made a career out of doing miscarriages, stillbirths, and any variation on the theme. With the consent of the mother and father of my past self that was born in 1963, they doubled as his two older brothers, that both miscarried, making him the oldest of three instead of the youngest. “Well, they are in the plan, but I'm not telling anything else”, my lady teases.

I think back, but come up blank. Most likely she hasn't yet triggered the tweak, and our past selves know nothing of it yet, so neither do I. I could always contact my higher self, to figure it out, but since there is nothing to worry about, why should I? Besides, because we're twins, I could even read her mind, but decided the moment she told me about it, that I didn't want to know until it was really executed.

I decide to get back to the pyramid I rescued from my old home. Next to the location where the cigar box was, are two tiny owls. Accessing my past selves memories I find they were a present from his eldest, on occasion of two different trips she made. Nothing more special to them than the craftsmanship they were made with, but that is remarkable. You can even see the marks the tools have left, something that almost never happens in our futuristic society, unless on purpose. These two were also stuck to the marble of the pyramid with a small piece of plastic adhesive gum.

I return to the memory card that was in the Buddha. Switching on the ancient laptop, I browse through the information that is on it. Most of it is pretty straightforward, and easily accessible. It's eerie how previous incarnations sometimes are dead ringers for the ones that come after them: even before she made her features match them completely, my Selina could have easily posed for the pictures that are amongst the data. No wonder I love to look at them. But today they are not the intriguing part that I'm after. There is also a diary on the stick, that I've had trouble accessing: it apparently requires a password of some sort, and stubbornly refuses to give me access. I've tried hundreds of passwords already, and none make the edit fields of the small program go readable.

What would my past self have thought about it? He used to always say: “Good programmers are lazy”, indicating that they love to make repetitive tasks go away by programming them in. Surely he would have made a back door into it, if only I could remember. But perhaps I don't need to remember: I noticed he'd put the sources of the program on the stick as well. Archaic, that's true, but since it appears to be based on written language, it is still quite accessible.

I spend the next two hours going through the various files, as far as the system will open them. Apparently they hadn't gotten to data mating yet, like we have here: any data we have on our systems have encoded in them the innate ability to apply them. No longer do we need to go looking for the program that will open a certain file, for it is always right there. But here, I apparently have to make do with a program called notepad, which can open at least some files for me. Not all of it is understandable, but my memories from back then at least allow me to understand the basics. Remarkable, how they had to code out every instruction by hand in the old days. In today's world, that would be undoable. Our programs take terabytes, have built in bug detection and perform their own maintenance. Even runtime design changes are entirely commonplace, allowing the user total adaptability. There are only few of us capable of debugging at instruction level, but that is mainly because they are fascinated by the whole concept. No one in his or her right mind (generally speaking) would want to go down to such excruciating detail.

But now I have to. It takes me a while to figure out how to find things in these archaic sources, but ctrl-F seems to do the trick. I start looking for things like password, encryption, even try to cash in on my old friend's passion about a certain lady, but no luck. But what's that? If a certain character is in the password field, followed by a NULL character, then he dumps in the string “Create It!”..... Hmmm, fascinating...

I return to the diary itself, and type in the trigger character. When I hit enter, the edit fields go white, but only the left one holds text. The other one is empty, but a quick glance at the calendar shows why: for some reason this computer thinks it is 1970, which definitely was not the time my 'old' friend wrote in it. I set it to a year that is more likely to be right, and land right smack into the middle of a journal entry. Well, looks like I'll have to brush up on my knowledge of Dutch.....

Saturday, March 27th, 2010, 06:09

Back when I chose the “Create It!” password, somewhere last year, I never dreamed it would spur me on to finish this novel later on. But it does, as if I needed the extra push.

The things I have been doing these last few years all seem to be culminating into the creation of this one novel, as if it was waiting for all these things to come together. Writing does not feel like a truly creative process, but more like a project of discovery, an unveiling of sorts, of text long slated to arrive.

Have I been procrastinating? Could it have been done long ago? Perhaps, but then it wouldn't have been this novel. No, this is completely on schedule, just-in-time as so many things are. Over time that idea has grown in my mind, and I've heard it repeated by many a fellow human: We are ready, ready as we'll ever be for what comes next! But it'll come in its own sweet time, when everybody agrees with it.

Maybe 2012, maybe never, but I have a feeling it will come. And it will be beyond our greatest dreams, beyond mine even! It could even be so that your greatest dream outreaches mine by far, but it will happen, for you!

For me it is now time to pursue some other activities beyond writing: first, some breakfast, and beyond that when the coffee is finished too, about an hour and a half of strenuous exercise in the local gym....

4444AD, Day 250, 06:37, Home

“Hey Cutie, where do you think you're going?” I smile at Selina as she passes by in a very sexy outfit indeed. I have an idea, because I know she always dresses the part even though she won't be there physically to witness it firsthand. “Going to give you a slight incentive”, is Selina's reply. “What time?”, I counter. “July 15th, 1988”. I think back, something remarkable about that date. Must have been the past life we are mostly engaged with, the crucial one where we met up as twin flames. What was he doing back then? Not school, he'd just finished. No, July 15th was his very first working day, part of which he spent dreaming about his boss's secretary, Annette. Was that my little twin flame again? “Yup”, Selina replied: “most of the dark haired ladies in your life back then were just me....”

“Well, forget about him for a minute”, I countered: “Why don't we go do something together?” “Great idea! Any suggestions?” is Selina's quick reply.

“I know, let's punch the book I'm reading into the enactor, and watch it together!” The enactor can take any written account, and make it into a believable filmed storyline, based on it's detailed knowledge of the world around us.

We snuggle up on the couch together, and have the replicators materialize us something refreshing to drink, and some snacks. With the lady in my arms I watch a story from a time when she was still nowhere to be found.....

'Over the Moon'

Come to think of it, that is just about all I miss in here: our pale, but mysterious moon. Other than that, it's perfect. But when I mention this to Kayim, he comes up with a simple solution: “Then I know our next destination. Let's go to Exteria, where the saucers that I mentioned earlier are stationed”. Nobody else has a better idea, so after another delightful breakfast we pack our things, thank the hostess, and are walked out to the floater by Taquatl. As the distance to our next destination is somewhat further off, we will be soaring again. Only this time we will not approach the Inner Sun quite that closely.

We do however have a marvelous view of Exteria, which can be considered Inner Earths international airport. They have a remarkable Air Traffic Control system: as soon as we enter their control sphere, a set of luminescent markers appears before the floater, telling it where to go. Kayim tells me that this is done from a central transmitter, that fires concentrated bursts of energy, to excite the atmosphere so it will give off light. The projector serves the entire city, sometimes telling over five hundred vehicles where to go. The one advantage of this system is not entirely obvious: it requires no specific equipment on the flying object itself, and can thus guide even devices from far-off locations.

Following the white dots (not the rabbit) leads us to a parking spot very near the center. We are greeted by LeeYooh, to whom Kayim had spoken earlier about our intended plans. After some refreshments, and a remarkable absence of paperwork, LeeYooh leads us trough the corridors of the building, and up a shaft of some kind. When we come out of it, we find ourselves in a brightly lit circular room. Windows all around, so the Inner Sun is obviously responsible for all that light. LeeYooh reveals that he will be our pilot for the day, at which moment it suddenly dawns on me: we have already left the building like Elvis, or rather yet, more like Will Smith in Independence Day. That, by the way, is a movie that gives me mixed feelings: on the one hand it shows a united humanity, which I like. But united against aliens, which are invariably painted as evil, which I thoroughly disagree with. It is my feeling that more advanced races will generally be less prone to violence and other 'negative' emotions. But I am losing the thread of my story here. Where was I?

A barely perceptible shudder indicates that we have now definitely severed from the building. Our pilot follows the dotted line outwards, and tells us we are free to move about. Apparently the saucer is equipped with a system that compensates the accelerations of it in any direction. It is a smoother ride than the train that I take for work normally. And it goes much faster too! We cluster together at one of the windows as Jane and Valerie take turns in pointing out the most remarkable views. I myself look at what they show me with only half an eye, wanting to keep track of where we are going.

Zooming along, it occurs to me that down here the amount of cityscape is much lower than up top. Nature obviously has a much more starring role in the lives of the Inner Earth people. But what do I see now? Still far off, there is a gaping hole in the ground. And its not just a molehill either: it looks like a sea, but the 'surface' is definitely not water. “Dad, am I dreaming? Are there stars down there?”, Jane asks. I can do nothing but agree with her: there's a giant hole in the ground, that leads straight into the night sky. Gina explains it all to us: Earth is said to have two gaping holes in the North and South Pole, that connect Outer Earth to Inner Earth. Apparently we will soon be exiting the interior through the opening that currently has winter. If my reasoning is correct, that would be the North Pole, since by my reckoning it is only the beginning of April.

As we emerge, I ask LeeYooh if he isn't afraid of being spotted. The Inner Earthling looks at me, and a smile comes up: “See this?” He moves his hand over a schematic of the disc, and it disappears from view. “The same just happened to us”, he continues, “totally invisible to anything you surface dwellers can throw at us!”

In the meantime, we have reached quite an altitude. The surprise at not being weightless is very short-lived. No doubt this machine has a solution even for that problem. LeeYooh flips the saucer over, so our ceiling is pointing to Earth. “Now it's easier to see home”, he explains. I never thought I'd ever see this sight with my own eyes: our pretty little planet up there for all of us to see. Apparently the others are equally impressed, because for over a minute there is an absolute silence. Valerie is the first to break it: “I can see home!” she yells. We all look in the direction of her pointing finger, and indeed: after identifying the British Isles, it isn't hard to cross the North Sea, and arrive in the good old Netherlands. LeeYooh listened in on us, and is quite willing to help. On his command, the disc accelerates, and we quickly see Holland zooming in. It's a bit like Google Maps, only this map is the real thing!

I stealthily make my way to our pilot, with nobody noticing. A quick whisper, a meaningful look, and I join the others again. They are still engulfed in the rapid approach of our homeland, unaware of the surprise I prepared for them. Gina points out Assen. Her hometown called Witten is only a stone's throw away from it. The disc flies south, and pretty soon my girls are coming to a conclusion: “Dad, we're almost home. Did you by any chance tell the pilot about that?”, Jane asks. “Guilty as charged”, I reply with a wink. “But you'd better look outside again, because I just saw Apeldoorn whizzing by”. And indeed, mere minutes later, we are floating above “de Mene”, the elementary school that is right across from my front yard. “What time is it out there?”, I ask LeeYooh. He quickly checks a display: “about two fifteen by your reckoning”, he answers. I ask him to move the disc over to the courtyard, so I can quickly buzz over to my home, to check the mail and pick up some items that might be of use. “Dad, can I come?”, Jane asks. She wants to unload the camera, so she'll have plenty of space again. We step onto the lift pad, and descend onto the street. Looking up, I must admire their technology: the disc is absolutely invisible, so to anyone looking, it would have looked like we appeared out of thin air. A shiver runs down my spine when I think of our resident hobo. He often sleeps on the bench facing the courtyard, and would definitely see us, had he been awake. But his snoring is even louder than the shuttle's engine!

Weird to be home again, knowing that we'll be gone again in five minutes flat. I open the door, and pick up the mail. There's no huge pile of it, because I have a sticker on the mail slot that keeps out all the advertising. No use in wasting paper that I don't read anyway. Jane dashes into the living room to fire up the laptop. It'll take her quite some time to empty that four gigabyte memory card, especially since it is nearly full. I quickly leaf through the mail, but it's mostly bills that can wait until I really return. There is however a letter from my publisher that warrants opening the envelope. They report my royalties over 2007, for my first novel. Despite the fact that it was written in Dutch, which lessens the potential audience, the bottom line brings a smile to my face. It seems that the next laptop for our upgrade plan will be bought as soon as we return from vacation.

As I look around the room, it occurs to me that it is extremely clean. Apparently Joyce, the girls' mother, has taken it upon herself to do some housekeeping before she went away on vacation herself. I get Jane and me some water, while we wait for the camera to send all those wonderful images to the laptop. As Windows 7 counts down the last few seconds, Jane finishes her glass, takes mine too, and brings them to the kitchen. Quickly I locate the MP3 file that we recorded of Dieter's imitator earlier, and mail it to the original Dieter. I then disconnect the camera from the laptop, and the laptop from everything else, and close the lid. “Are you taking that?”, Jane asks. “Seeing what they did to the camera batteries? Yeah!”, I reply. She smiles, at the thought of a laptop that keeps on going...

We walk back to the disc, and quickly check if our hobo friend is still sleeping. Wouldn't want to panic him, there's no need for that. We step onto the pad, and are quickly lifted back into the interior of the craft. By the time we reach the others, Zutphen city is long gone, like a thief in the night.

“LeeYooh, could we visit the moon?”, Gina asks. I know what she's after: we both heard the rumor that the moon is not a natural satellite, but a construction of some kind. And there's no time like the present to go see for ourselves! As Gina explains that story to the kids, she is immediately backed up by Kayim. He tells the girls that in Inner Earth, that story is known to be fact instead of fiction. LeeYooh makes some sketching moves across his panel, and then joins us. “It will take some time”, he says. “an hour, two?”, I react. “No, merely nineteen minutes”, he smiles. The whole crew crowds the back window, where Earth is rapidly diminishing in size. I never had any problem imagining the vastness of space, but seeing it illustrated this way brings tears to my eyes. Then Gina calls me to the front window, where our good old moon is bigger than I'd ever seen it. Yes, not even Jim Carey in Bruce Almighty brought it quite that close. Great movie by the way, if you love a God that makes you laugh every now and then.

“Did you ever wonder about the trajectory of the moon? How it consistently shows the same part of it's surface to us?”, Gina asks. I agree that it is highly unlikely that natural tendencies would have made it do exactly one rotation for every orbit around Earth. Even if the ratio was off by a thousandth of a percent, we would have seen much more of the surface over the last few centuries. But no, the moon still looks as it has always looked. Unless of course, the moon is like a loaded die, heavy on one side. Then gravity might cause it to always have one side towards us.

As we fly towards it, we see it lit from the side by Sol, our bigger brother. LeeYooh sends our vehicle towards the light, so we can look at the lit portion of the far side of the moon. It looks just as I remember it from the Luna 3 mission back in 1959. “Andy, look over here”, Gina says, and points at a panel on the shuttle's dashboard. It obviously lists data about the object that now takes up a considerable part of our view. “LeeYooh, are these figures what we think they are?”, Gina asks. Our pilot nods: “I put them there for you, specifically in your language. And yes, this is current information, straight from our external sensors”. So the question for me is what I believe: Do I go for the calculations and estimates of a people that have only put a handful of humans on the Lunar surface, or do I place my faith into my Inner Earth fellows, who show themselves to be way ahead of us surface dwellers? The display shows that our moon is not nearly as heavy as science has always claimed it is. Its density appears to be remarkably lower, as if it was hollow. “That proves it”, Gina says: “the moon is hollow, or entirely made of Styrofoam”. LeeYooh laughs, a deep, warm laugh, kinda like a large, dark nigger (not meant degradingly). “Of course the Moon is hollow, why else do you think we Inner Earth people come here?” He explains in some detail that aeons ago, it was built and put into orbit to replace the Earths two original moons. Its so called synchronous orbit, with only one side facing Earth all the time is by design, so it would be easy to enter and exit at the rear. “You guys forced our hand back around the 1950's. Fortunately we could hide our tracks just in time for the Luna 3 to send you images of a pristine far side of the moon”, LeeYooh said. He went on to explain that until that time, the portal to the moon's interior had never been camouflaged, because no humans could see it anyway.

“Can we go inside?”, Valerie wanted to know. “I don't see why not.”, our pilot replied. He made another move across the panel, and uttered some gibberish into his headset. We couldn't hear the reply, but it would have been equally intelligible. As a result, a hexagon of light suddenly appeared on the surface down below. It was especially visible, because it was on the unlit portion of the far side. Our transport dove in, and we rapidly descended towards the light, which proved to be an opening about a mile wide. “That must be some doors”, I said to LeeYooh. “Nope”, he replied: “no doors, but a ring of holographic generators, six in all. They reproduce that square mile of barren wasteland, just the way your astronauts expect it to be”. Talk about masters of illusion......

4444AD, Day 257, 17:42, Home

“Lean back, my lovely one, I'm cooking tonight”. I kiss my love as I pass her by, in the direction of the kitchen. Some things you'll not find in our kitchen, like a gas-guzzling stove. No, ours is electrical, but the principle used for heating makes it as responsive as a gas stove. No dishwasher here, because I can simply ask our home to remember the kitchen as it was before I start cooking, and ask it to restore that checkpoint later on. That of course goes for any room in our spacious villa. Great invention for people with kids, ain't it?

I love cooking. But then I love a lot of the activities that humans do, I'm not an RBE for nothing. Weird acronym though, because it used to stand for Real Biological Entity, meaning 'human'. But in my name, the middle initials R.B.E. stand for Realistic Biological Entity, which means I'm designed to look like one, act like one even, but have capabilities that outperform the original.

But that is where my love of everyday activities comes from, and today I will use that to prepare my love and me a feast: YeeHaw Texas Chili, straight from Allrecipes.com.

Maybe you're wondering, how sites from your era can possibly still exist in ours? Sure, the maintainers of them are not the same, but the information on the Web just kept migrating to ever faster and bigger servers, until it finally became a truly ubiquitous, virtualized network. No longer was it possible to lose information, because like RAID5, everything was stored in several places, and served up seamlessly to whoever wanted it. Since then removing became a crime to perform, so we simply let the old stuff peacefully coexist with the new info, and thus are still able to use information from as far back as the 1970's, and talking about stuff even further back.

Of course, we add to that ancient recipe, in that our kitchen provides us with several nifty gadgets. You'll find a 'refrigerator' there alright, but mostly when you open it, it is just empty space. You have to fill it first, with a grocery list, or the list of ingredients like the one that came with the recipe.

I alter the list first, to adapt it to the amount of work I'm willing to put into our dinner: some of the ingredients I order whole, intending to slice and dice them myself. Feed the list into the machine, wait for the ready sign, open the door, and presto: ready-made groceries, some completely prepared.

I take it all out, and put it on the counter. Grab a large skillet, and melt the butter in it. While it melts I chop up the beef into bite-size chunks, and toss them in as well. I regularly stir it, and in the mean time slice up the jalapeno and the habanero peppers with the nano-honed knife. It's cutting edge is only a single atom thick, sharper than a samurai's sword. And my android's hand is fast like a chefs: the knife is a blur as the garlic is turned into teeny tiny little bits. All goes in, except half of the onions. Delightful smells are emanating from the skillet, and a curious little lady comes walking in to get a taste. I hand feed her a chunk of beef, which has already achieved a nice brown tan. Then I grab her by the shoulders, make her turn around, and send her packing with a friendly pat on the behind. I think she got the message: the kitchen is mine for now, and she's only invited for the candlelit diner later on....

The first set of ingredients is done, so I'm gonna need a bigger pot. The contents of the skillet go in first, followed by tomato sauce, beans, and the various spices. The exact mix isn't a properly kept secret, but I can't tell you anyway: I'm a so-called intuitive cook, and my fine touches are very dependent on non-obvious variables, even I cannot fathom fully. Nevertheless, my twin and me always find the end result to be thoroughly enjoyable.

After half an hour it's time for the last of the ingredients to go into the pot: Worcestershire sauce, and some more cumin and chili powder. I'm stirring it properly, and set it up to simmer for another two hours. The original recipe called for a quarter beer, but I've decided to go for some wine instead. Rather than make a list for the replicator again, I just call out to it, and open the door. A nice Cabernet materializes before I can peek around the door. With all complete, I put the lid on the pot, and turn it down. The rest of the onions, and the cheese and crackers I stash away, until serving time.

Then it's time to provide the ambiance for tonight's romantic dinner party. I tell the furniture server to dematerialize the solid oak dining table, instead I select a very special table-a-deux: heart shaped, with a low bench on either side. We'll be dining like the Romans used to do.

Next, I go into the bedroom, and find that my love has apparently been peeking around the corner: she welcomes me wearing an off-white tunic. On the bed she has something similar for me. But since the chili still has another hour to go, I focus not on my tunic, but on Selina's...

She laughingly tries to fend me off, but the tiny lady wouldn't be able to win if I really did go for bust. As if she really wants to anyway....

4444AD, Day 257, 20:45, Home

“Sander, wake up!” I slowly come out of my way too nice dream, and the reality of life comes back to me: dinner is about to be served, that is if there is someone awake enough to serve it. I escort Selina down the stairs, and invite her to the heart shaped table. While she plays the wifey who's about to be surprised, I put the chili on our plates, sprinkle the grated cheese and onion rings on top, and serve it with the Cabernet of which a generous remainder will serve us just fine. Finally the crackers, and I can lie down opposite my lovely companion.

A quick virtual blink to the home entertainment system produces a couple of Spanish guitars, and the nearby vidcloth displays the artists in their traditional Mexican attire. “Delicious!” my lady exclaims. She's a sucker for spicy dishes, and if anything can be said about this recipe, it is that it's hotter than Hell, I made sure of that!

“Did you get any further with the info on that ancient memory card?”, Selina asks. I tell her about the diary, and how it forced me to update my knowledge of Dutch. “Am I in it?”, my lovely wants to know. “Your past self is, yes, and quite frequently as well”, I reply. We chat on about it, about how it was used quite frequently, until around the turn of 2010. Then, entries became very sporadic. The final entry mentioned the marble pyramid, and the fact that the card was going in there. That was on December 21st, 2012.

“Darn, it is spicy!” I'd been so wrapped up in answering Selina, I totally forgot to take a bite. But the first spoonful did work its magic, and the next few minutes I spend savoring my creation. Boy, is that good! “Do you think he needs another push?” Selina's question comes hesitant, as if she's afraid to ask. I sense inside, back to my past self, and concentrate on the period where he'd virtually stopped writing in his diary. I know him well enough to know he would always be writing something or other, so if it wasn't the diary, what would occupy his mind? Only one image comes to mind, which makes me answer Selina with a reassuring tone: “I'm quite convinced you've totally permeated his mind, but perhaps we could slip in a little incentive to keep him writing. I'm quite certain he's writing something that's close to his heart.”

“Can you figure out what it's about?”, Selina wants to know. I reflect again, and come up with a title: “Make It Real it's called, he's writing a novel”, I clarify. I've even figured out just what he wants to make real, but decide to not volunteer the info. “Come on, out with it!”, Selina says with an ear to ear smile. She always was a mistress at knowing when I wasn't being complete. “He's trying to materialize YOU!”

“Good, that means we have a starting point for making the two of them come together. But how are we going to pull it off?”, Selina grins. Looks like she's got a tiny plan up her sleeve, as far as tunics have sleeves, that is.

Thoughtfully tasting my chili, I ruminate about the best possible moment for the merging of the twins. “I figure we have to wait until he's finished the book, just so the work is complete before we completely overturn his life”, I reckon. Selina agrees, and asks me to figure out from memory just when that would be. “I reckon November 11th, 2011”, I say after a few meditative moments. That feels most right, and highly typical for the sync-driven nature of my past self. “He's gonna love it!”, I conclude.

After the chili, we top things off with a nice chilly lemon meringue. That is a nice contrast with the peppers in the chili. Selina loves the sour taste of the dessert, and finishes first. After I'm done too, we get up from the table-a-deux, and have the furniture server replace it with the oak dinner table once again, just like we bring the kitchen back to its last checkpoint. Beats having to do dishes any day!

We land on the couch together, and chat some more about our plans. Both our memories are still fuzzy about what exactly is going to happen, and we want it to be as heavenly for our past selves as we can possibly make it. “Have we left him any direct or indirect lines back into her existence?”, I inquire. Selina thinks about it for a while, and shakes her pretty locks: “None that I am aware of, so she'll have to come to him”, is her definite reply. “But how do we change her back to a single without going against anybodies free will?”, I interject. Selina looks at me intensely, and volunteers some info I never knew about her past self: “Back then, she was already doubting if her marriage was based on truth and trust. If her husband were to find the novel and suspected she was the leading lady, he might be inclined to go for his secret lady friend instead”. I wonder if she was talking from direct knowledge of the husbands life, or from conjecture based on the feelings of her past self. Selina replies that it was the latter, but that at the time she had evidence of that situation. She just didn't want to upset the apple cart without having a backup, and she'd lost the address of the one guy she'd consider.

“Set then, we just have to contact the higher self of her husband, and put the question to him. I feel he'll go for it, and volunteer to confront her with the novel!”

And speaking of a novel, with Selina taking a bath I'd have plenty of time to do some more reading.......

'the Man in the Moon'

That's a bit how I feel, as the disc lowers itself below the lunar surface. When I look up, the starry sky has already made way for a dimly lit ceiling, that indicates that no one will ever know that we are here. LeeYooh maneuvers our disc into a spot that seems to have been left over just for us, and we all get out.

Although the setting is quite a bit more modern, it looks like a bus station. Lots of beings walking in every direction, but none of them appearing to be in a hurry. Actually, the atmosphere here is just as relaxed as Inner Earth, a far cry from your average surface city. All kinds of races here, and from the looks of them, they have far less DNA in common than us humans. To me, that is hardly important anymore. What matters most, is the one thing we all do have in common: we are all living beings, part of the same Cosmos, and as such, inextricably linked to one another.

Just as we are discussing what to do next, Kayim suddenly takes a communications device from his pocket. Being used to our cell phones, that rely on a vast network of relay stations to do their work, I am amazed that his device actually works here. He talks for a short while, then turns to Valerie. “I have to go home”, he tells her. “Now? Immediately?”, she says, hardly able to hide her disappointment. Kayim explains that his father has fallen, and is severely injured. He thinks there is no reason to cut our visit short, because he will most likely return before we lift off again. We accompany him to a room two levels down, that provides the fastest route home.

We all say our goodbyes to Kayim, especially Valerie. It is obvious that she would love to go with him, but the young man is very insistent: "No, you belong here, with your family. I'll be back before the loneliness really kicks in." And with those words he grabs on to the handles protruding from the wall. His body gets a shiny finish, like it is all covered in glass. Then, the contents of the glass start to disappear, like somebody has stuck in an invisible straw, and sucks the glass dry. The moment it is empty, the outer shell vanishes into thin air, and Kayim is gone. I can see Valerie intently looking at Kayim's communicator, which he has left with her. I guess all of us outer Earthlings are willing it to ring, and it does. Just to comfort Valerie, Kayim has called her up to say he's arrived in one piece.

LeeYooh then guides us to one of his moon-dwelling fellow beings. She is a tall, very majestic woman, by the name of Gaween. Mumbling something about having to do some maintenance on our disc, LeeYooh leaves us with her, reassuring us we'll be in good hands. Gaween has been born in the moon, and has grown up here. There is literally nothing that she doesn't know about it, so we are in for a treat. "Gaween, we've now traveled through six levels to get to you, can you tell us how many levels there are in here?", Jane asks. "Surely", the lady says: "But do you want me to tell you or show you?" Both my girls opt for the demonstration rather than the statement of fact, so Gaween takes us to what seems to be a large elevator. "We only use these for transporting goods between the levels. Site-to-site transport like your friend Kayim just used, is far more efficient for living beings", she continues. But that would have gotten us instantly to the lowest level, without demonstrating the number of floors that we'd be traveling. This elevator at least has a display of some sorts, and even though it isn't quite readable, it's behavior gives us some idea about the vastness of it all: as the elevator starts downwards with a barely perceptible movement, the display starts to change. But unlike our elevators, that accelerate to some fixed speed and then stay there, this one keeps on accelerating until it has reached the halfway point. Then, its acceleration is turned into a deceleration, to have us arrive at the lowest level with the appropriate speed. "I know you people can't read our digits, so I'll just tell you: we are now seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven floors beneath the surface", our hostess says as the doors open.

"Awesome", Valerie and Jane chant in unison. I just keep thinking that they had to have a completely different angle on elevator construction here. Back on the Earth's surface, engineers have problems getting elevators installed in the tallest of our buildings. Usually, these elevators only service a number of consecutive floors, and then you have to board the next one. Ours had just traversed those nearly eight thousand floors in record time, without any discomfort to us because of the breakneck speed it must have traveled at.

"Is there anything interesting down here?", Valerie asks. She's always in for new things, and being away from Kayim she desperately needs something to keep her mind off that fact. "Step right up", our hostess replies, and gestures towards the nearest door... We follow her lead, and enter the room. It is large like a classroom, but there the resemblance ends: the floor is far from flat, it looks more like a mountain has suddenly sprung up in the room. I briefly remember that riddle that asks why programmers wear climbing shoes to work, and chuckle. “Anything we should know about?”, Valerie wants to know. I tell her the corny riddle, and she is obviously not amused. Just a different sense of humor.

Back to that formless shape, that isn't quite as devoid of form as I first thought. I still can't make out what it's supposed to be, until I look at the ceiling, which is one big mirror that would be great for your average disco. Here, it obviously has another purpose, because from that very ceiling, a face is staring at me. As I point it out to the others, we all look up, but I cannot quite put my finger on it: Where, oh where have I seen this face before?

And then it hits me: block out all the finer details, and the features resemble a photograph that shocked the Earth population back in 1976: the Mars Face! At that exact moment, Jane comes to the same conclusion. She quickly tells the others, and we all examine the reflection on the ceiling in detail. Where the photos from Mars show something that could quite possibly be a natural formation that just looks like a face, there is absolutely no doubt here: the rock in this room is a face, plain and simple. I turn to Gaween, asking her if this face and the Mars face are related. She nods, and explains that this is a scale model that was made before the structure on the Mars surface. “Everything out there used to be two hundred and fifty times larger than the model in here”, Gaween continues: “But it shrunk a bit due to the wind corrosion on the Martian surface. Not to mention the ravages of War”. “War?”, I ask our hostess to explain. And she does: “Round about when the face was built, the inhabitants of Mars (who'd come there from Earth) split into two factions, that had very different views on what Life should be like over there”. She continues to tell that here on Earth the conflict was avoided, but the Martian population allowed it to escalate in an all out war. And their weapons even then were far more powerful than the current technology that exists on the Earth's surface. It took them a mere three months to change Mars from a flourishing paradise into a barren wasteland, where nothing could live anymore. Finally, a guy named Wahloo ended it all, by convincing his peers that all their fighting had been useless. It only forced them back to Earth, where they would have to rebuild their societies again. Although the war had now ended, the two groups did not want to continue together. One group fled to the South-America's (long before they were named like that), and later became known as the Inca's. The others settled down near the delta of the Nile, which seemed like a nice place to them. Both groups continued doing what they had always been good at: building in stone, because that lasts an eternity.

“The history teacher in school never could explain to me why the Mayans and the Egyptians both built pyramids”, Jane exclaimed: “Now it all starts to make sense!”. Valerie was more concerned with the face itself. She wondered why its features were so very worn down. “Surely not just wind corrosion, it couldn't have blown that hard, now could it?” Gaween reassured her: “No, like I said the face was built before the war. One of the two groups sought refuge there. As a result, it took quite a beating once the others got wind of that.” As an afterthought, she added that the face wasn't just solid rock, like Mount Rushmore, but that it housed quite a few halls and tunnels, and numerous people.

Next, Gaween took us up a few levels, where we entered another large storage space. Now here were objects that I immediately recognized: as a kid, I'd been glued to the tube when the Apollo missions were on. And now, I was standing so close to the first moon buggy, that I could easily touch it. “Did you collect every man-made article from the Lunar surface?”, I asked our guide. She nodded frantically. “You guys just came here and dumped all that stuff in our front yard. We had to do something!” I wondered for a few moments what NASA and the others would think, when they realized that the stuff they left had vanished. Gaween informed me that they knew, but that it all was kept very hush-hush, because they didn't want to alarm the general public. “They know it's gone, but they have no idea who took it”, she concluded her explanation.

The kids were having a field day between all that space junk. I even saw Jane boarding the Lunar Lander of Apollo 14. There was something oddly out of place though: next to the lander was a Douglas Fir, quite a healthy one at that. I asked Gaween about it, but before she could answer, Gina interrupted her: “Is that a moon tree? I've read about them on Wikipedia” Gaween listened to Gina's explanation about how the astronauts of Apollo 14 had taken tree seeds on their trip, which later were planted throughout the United States. One even was transported to Switzerland, another had been presented to the Emperor of Japan. “Yes, it must be one of those”, Gaween then added: “we found the seed in the lander, after we'd brought it here. Even though it had been in space for quite some time because the hatch of the lander had been left open, it germinated as it was supposed to, and had been growing here ever since. We've actually sacrificed a room on the next lower level, to provide it with a nice place to dig in its roots. We've even installed a watering system, so it would be comfortable.”

By now, we've all grown quite hungry. Our hostess guides us to the top floor, where there is a restaurant of some kind. It has a glass ceiling (or so it seems), so we can lunch underneath the stars. No Earth in sight, after all this is the far side of the moon, not necessarily the dark side. But right now that is also the case, and the absence of environmental lighting outside means that the stars are all that much more visible. As we sit down for our meal, a waitress comes to take our order. She moves ever so lightly, because gravity up here is decidedly lower than what we normally experience on the Earth's surface. The girls had taken advantage of that earlier on, when Valerie jumped over the Lunar Lander, filmed by her younger sister.

Lunch is like all the other meals that we've grown accustomed to in Inner Earth. Lots of fruit, stuff that tastes like meat (but isn't!), and delicious drinks. We thoroughly enjoy it, all the while looking through the ceiling, at the marvelous stars. All of a sudden, the ceiling turns opaque, and I look at Gaween with a big question mark on my face. “No worries, that's just the deep bird making its appearance. She explains that the United States has one single deep space satellite in orbit, that provides for a wide view of the Earth. It's trajectory looks like the surface of a ball of knitting wool, and that surface lies outside the moon's orbit around the Earth. So at times, it will soar over the far side of the moon, forcing the base to go to camouflage mode. After a few minutes, the stars are back in place. We finish our lunch, after which all three girls (yes, Gina too) inquire about the possibility of interfacing with the Earth Web. Gaween acknowledges that this is possible, and leads us to level 2112, and their version of the Internet café. I can't help smiling at the floor number, because it has been in my CD player often enough: just look up Rush's 2112, great album. Now that we are here, I couldn't very well not check my mail. Nothing special, the only thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is an E-mail from my publisher to inquire whether I have a new novel ready soon. I've been struggling with a severe lack of inspiration before the holidays, but recent events have completely obliterated this from my mind. I'll just write a holiday journal, because as they say: “Truth is stranger than fiction!”

After replying the publisher with my intentions, my job at the computer is done. Just as I want to switch off the system, a funny little sound reaches my ears. It is the program that impersonates an MSN messenger. Apparently, one of my friends hails me. It is Mike, my friend from London. He wants to know when I'll be home, so he can hop over. I briefly explain my whereabouts, and can sense the envy in his lines, albeit ever so slightly. Mike is a traveler, he spends most of his hard-earned cash on trips to all parts of the world. And now I, who seldom travel, have hit the proverbial jackpot! We talk for a while, and I promise to share with him our photos and movies, so diligently collected by Jane.

Then, Kayim's communicator beeps. Valerie rushes to answer it, and is told to take us all to the transporter room again. As we enter, the familiar glass container shaped like Kayim has just materialized. With everyone and Jane's camera looking on, the strange container starts to fill up, bottom to top. What happens next surprises us: instead of dissolving like it has done earlier, the glass shell fragments into a million pieces! “Oops”, Kayim says: “I moved to soon....” He explains, that if you move before the materialization process has entirely completed, the shell breaks up instead of being properly cleaned up. Nothing serious though, just a bit messy.

After that, Gaween takes us back to the spaceport again, which already has its large door open. Despite that we can still stand in the hangar, because a force field keeps the atmosphere inside. We board our disc just as soon as LeeYooh joins us. A swift vertical takeoff makes Gaween disappear into nothingness, and we are on our way home. “Can't we knock that deep bird out of the sky?”, Jane asks. She is a little fighter, always wanting to make things better. LeeYooh makes it clear to her: “We could have done that quite easily, but we are not going to. As long as they think their toys are OK, they regard their work as routine, if we disturb that they will start paying attention”. Jane suddenly sees the light: “That makes sense, I hadn't thought of that”.

Our trip back is quite routine too, with the exception that we enter Inner Earth through the South Pole entrance. I wonder how they could ever have hidden these giant holes, but Gina assures me that they did. Apparently those in power absolutely don't want the general public to know about their friends from within. I wonder what waves my next book is going to create.....

4444AD, Day 288, 09:32, Home

“Morning Bro!” I greet Ernesto as he walks up the driveway. Milly, our ubiquitous computer system had warned me someone was coming, and had even dispatched one of her insect cams to show me who it was. Thus, I could welcome my brother with an open door and similar arms. “I'd rather hug that little lady of yours”, Ernesto can't neglect to tell me. “You'll get your chance”, I reply: “She's in the kitchen making us coffee”. Selina must feel quite dwarfed, with two such huge fellas towering over her. She gives him a hug, and a mug. “Here's your coffee”, she adds. Mine is next, and armed thus we can retreat to the workshop, except Selina. She is taking the transporter to her sister who lives in Armenia. I kiss her goodbye, and watch her transporter trail disappear behind her.

“What are we going to do to the Laverda?”, Ernesto asks. “We have to fit it with a torque generator”, I reply: “that way we can safely and cleanly take it on the road.” We start work right away, because the entire engine block will have to be removed for easy access to the crank shaft. ”Don't forget the zerograv pads”, Ernesto warns me. I take them out of their holder on the tool rack, and tack one to either side of the engine block. That way, the whole block will weigh virtually nothing, and our toes will be safe from being crushed by a few dozen kilograms of 21st century technology. With the last bolt gone, the block floats away from its moorings. Ernesto grabs it, and moves it over to the work bench, where we have one of the robot arms secure it in place. A big gulp of my half chilled coffee, and I pick up a universal screwdriver to loosen the screws of the crank casing. Universal screwdrivers don't really transfer power to the screw head by physical contact, but through a highly focused, very local force field. Never will screws become mutilated by slipping screwdrivers, although some may become beheaded: that's just the direct result of an android's powerful hand yielding that screwdriver.

Next we loosen the pistons, to be able to remove the crank shaft, followed by the pistons. “We're going to do it the simple way”, I suggest. Ernesto knows immediately what I mean: leave the pistons out, and mount the torque generator in the place of the crank shaft. With the cavity exposed, I aim the lidar scanner into it, to take its exact measurement for the support struts. The measurements for the torque generator are already on file, so a simple design merge will dictate the dimensions for the struts. The composite molder then makes them while we go get another mug of coffee.

“Have you got that twin thing set up completely yet?”, Ernesto asks. I kept him informed, so he was aware of our tweaking activities. I tell him it is about ninety percent done, but he interrupts me: “I figured it'd not be complete yet, because my brother back in the 21st century never did have her as a lady friend, as far as I remember.” We are brothers both here and in the 21st century, something that is quite common in reincarnation, where souls are intimately entangled.

We install the struts, and then the torque generator on top of that. It is perfectly aligned, so we bolt the crank casing shut, but not before I make a small hole to feed the power lines through. Those will be attached to a speed regulator which will take its cues from the original gas handle. It will also control the synthesizer that will make the completely custom made engine sound.

By about lunchtime we complete the conversion, and push the Snaefell-Laverda outside for a test drive. We decide to do lunch first, and leave the engine out in the sun, shining and red. While I make us lunch, I ask Ernesto to have a look at that ancient laptop, because he is even more knowledgeable than me when it comes to 21st century hardware. Ernesto has brought freshly baked buns, and I cut them open to stack a copious amount of old cheese and ham on them. A few slices of tomato on top, and our lunch is ready. I take it to the study, and ask him how he is doing. The laptop revealed nothing of interest, but the memory card had given Ernesto cause to submit it to some more fancy examination.

“One of the JPG files was not showing properly, and its size was way too large for a JPG file. So I tried a few other extensions, and could finally get it to be processed as an MPG file”, Ernesto explains. Together we watch it, to see what it had to say....

It was weird to see how much my past self looked like me, despite the gap of 2.5 millennia. Thinking back, I remember how he'd had the same when encountering a portrait of Nostradamus, drawn under hypnosis. He was convinced he'd been involved in Nostradamus' life back then. But now I had to watch him speech, apparently to me.

“I you are watching this, I just know your sharp mind has led you to this message, like I'm expecting it will. I left enough clues, just like you left me enough clues. And I must thank you from the very essence of my heart, for our joint plan worked!” As my past self spoke these words, the object of his deepest desires walked into the scene, and put her hands on his shoulders. He'd been sitting down, so as to apparently lessen the height difference between them two. They briefly kissed, and he continued: “Everything seems to have turned out for the best, the home you found this in is currently being built, and you obviously saw Selina's blessed condition. We'll be proud and loving parents before the month is over. Well, actually even before that....” and with these words, two young ladies entered the scene and took their places on either side of the happy couple. “Thank you, whenever you are!!!”, were their last joint words.

“Well, that's it, you apparently did it.” Ernesto congratulates me. “Or at least I will do it in the future...”, I remind him. “Ah yes, if we change our mind about the past, the past changes.” That seems an appropriate line to get back to more pressing matters, like the test drive with the Snaefell-Laverda.

It stands there, gleaming in the lovely afternoon Sun. “I've got tabs on the bike!” Ernesto beats me to it. Thus, I'll have to try and squeeze into the sidecar, which is more of a kiddies sports car anyway. I open the door, and look inside. No way my six foot six muscular body is going to fit inside that cramped space. We deliberate, and decided to just take turns riding it solo.

“Can I volunteer?”, comes a cheerful voice from the house. It is Selina, returned in a timely fashion from her sister. “Sure, hop right in”, Ernesto gestures her to take the sidecar seat. She fits perfectly. I watch them leave, and figure I'll have to play back my video logs tonight, to isolate a few nice images for my brother, as if he couldn't do the same from a first person perspective. But sometimes it's fun to see yourself from the point of view of another.

I stand there in the Sun, which shines onto my back and head to remind me of the comfortable warmth of the Cosmos which is always present. Knowing my brother, he'll thoroughly test it, so I may just as well read some more......

'Cleanup Detail'

We stayed overnight at Exteria, in a place that had the nicest beds. After a delightful night's sleep, and a hearty breakfast, we board the floater again. Us outlanders seem to have made an agreement, and all look at Kayim at the same time. He notices, and knows exactly what the real question is: “Today, we're cleaning up!” He won't say any more, but flies us over the woods to what looks like a mine. Far from abandoned, it is literally crawling with activity. Not people, but mechanical devices of every imaginable make and model. “Because of the activity down there, and the nature of the stuff they work with, we can't go down”, Kayim explains. He goes on to tell about how this site is right beneath one of the biggest radioactive waste dumps in the United States. The good old Americans went totally out of their way to bury the stuff where they thought it would harm no one anymore. Then, the moment their backs are turned, the little helpers down here will burrow up towards the deposits, and remove the lot. Back in here, the waste of the surface dwellers is then converted to clean and healthy energy without using the nuclear fission technology that made the stuff in the first place.

“Apart from energy, the process also produces a substance resembling crude oil.”, Kayim says, thereby raising Valerie's eyebrows: “But in here you don't use oil, what do you do with it?” Her boyfriend explains, that the substance is injected back into the Earth, to replace all the crude oil that our fellow men are pumping out of there by the millions of gallons. “So you are even helping us by replenishing the oil reserves?”, Jane asks. Kayim smiles, and tells her to hold the admiration. Instead, the injections are done to help Mother Earth: her tectonic plates are greased by the oil, and thus injecting more oil means less severe earthquakes. “So you are helping us, just not in the way I thought”, is Jane's triumphant conclusion.

According to Kayim, there are dozens of these cleanup operations, and some even venture into the outside world. One team is actively engaged in bugging the Japanese whalers. They never suspected any foul play, but the team has them chasing their tails after whales that just don't exist.

“Valerie, what's wrong?”, Jane asks all of a sudden. She looked at her sister, and saw her sway dangerously close to the edge of the floater. Kayim doesn't hesitate, and lands the vehicle outside the fence of the cleanup operation. He pulls the scanner from his pocket, aims it at his girlfriend, and takes a long hard look at the display. Moments of silence pass by, and a certain uneasiness is creeping into my being. I look at him, but he doesn't seem overly concerned. “Energy fatigue”, he concludes, and explains that the energy created by the cleanup operation is extremely high in vibration. Valerie's vibration, which seems to be the highest of us guests, had actually been above that of the energy produced down there. Because her field had mixed with that of the energy below, it had pulled down her vibration into a very low mixed frequency, resulting in the queezy feeling. The moment we leave there, she is OK.

“Our next stop is going to be a little difficult”, Kayim changes the subject. He explains that we will be going to Shamballah the Lesser, the capital of Inner Earth. Aerial transportation is against the rules there, so we'll be landing on an island not far from there, and would be going in by boat, or rather, raft.

Sunday, March 28th, 2010, 08:27

Thinking about what to write led me into a discussion with my eldest. She's not quite happy with the fact her dad has got this thing for a lady twenty years younger, and so obviously unreachable. Coming up with the reincarnation story, and how human ages are totally irrelevant when compared with the immensity of eternal existence, isn't really convincing her. We go back and forth, neither wanting to concede that the other may be right.

If she says I may never notice the One because I'm far too hung up on a certain person, it is like she's saying I already botched it. If I tell her that I couldn't possibly believe the Cosmos to be so cruel as to spoon-feed me this entire unbelievable reality, and then not allow me to enjoy the fruits of it, she welcomes me to her world: apparently she is less optimistic about the world around her then I am about the world around me.

But then, no matter how close we are, she is but a somewhat coherent set of electromagnetic impulses that my brain uses to tell me about part of the world around me. Part of the entire outer world that completely reflects whatever I am all about internally. That is something I know again: outside totally reflects inside.

Just at that moment, my mail program notifies me because of incoming mail. Synchronistically, I find it to be an article from Owen Waters, entitled “Be Your Own Authority”, just another hint from my higher self, to indicate I'm picking up the right trail.

But then you may find my ruminations to be far less interesting than the other stories, so let's get back to 4444AD, and our endearing androids.......

4444AD, Day 288, 10:01, Home

As I hear the Laverda's simulated engine roar, I walk out the front door, to welcome my angel and her brother-in-law back. “You look a bit pale, darling.”, I say to Selina while winking to Ernesto. “He's a nutcase!”, my lover spouts out: “He took me to the Oberhausen circuit, and took it around the whole track!” I immediately realize I should have told my brother about the demise of Teedra that happened there a while ago. I apologize, and explain to Ernesto about how the massive Bugatti had almost flattened my little lady. My brother naturally also joined in the apology, saying he'd never have done it, had he but known.

We roll the Snaefell-Laverda into the garage, and join Selina inside, for coffee. Her color is already starting to return, and she talks incessantly, which isn't exactly unpleasant.

“Have you shown Selina the movie file from the memory card yet?”, Ernesto asks me. “What movie?”, says my love in a voice that is literally oozing with curiosity. We take her to the study, and play the speech of my past self, thanking us for the help in acquiring his twin. “He's quite clever to have recognized our tweaking as something that came out of the future”, Selina comments when the movie ends. She knows how very casual our involvements would seem to be to whoever is on the receiving end.

“Do you think he realizes she is an RBE?”, is Selina's next question. “Yes”, I reply, and take the novel from its shelf in the marble pyramid. I open the cover and show her the dedication: “to my Specially Engineered Digital Assistant Selina” it says. “We need to make sure he treats her with the same respect she would expect if she were a real human”, Selina says decidedly. “Well, you'll have to do that without me”, Ernesto interrupts her: “I need to go home and relieve my colleague at the bakery”. We accompany him to the front door, and watch him walk out the driveway.

“Time to acquire some knowledge about our past friend”, I say to Selina. I explain I'm going to digest the novel that was in the pyramid in excruciating detail. “OK, download it to me too, when you're finished”, she replies. We part our ways, and I take a fresh orange juice to the study to get my android's nose into a book.....

Actually, that is far more down-to-earth than it seems: Basically, I just tell our replicator to go into reverse, and atomize the novel. The resulting data stream can then be plucked apart into the separate sheets of paper, and their sides can be scanned for ink atoms. That way the replicator can scan the entire 300 or so pages of the novel, and produce one single text stream containing everything my past self wrote in this story. The whole process takes about seven minutes, and returns the novel to it's physical self upon completion, none the worse for wear.

I know this is a far cry from the other book I'm reading, one page at a time, but actually that method is the one I prefer. Today is just an exception, because my love wants results, to know her past self will be safe with the author of the story. I find nothing wrong in his writings though, and go to meet Selina in the rose garden, so I can see her face when she receives the book info.

“Incoming!”, I laugh as I send her the download. Selina's lovely face temporarily goes blank as she consumes the incoming stream of information. Then, a soft and thankful smile appears in her dark eyes and lovely lips. Yes, she's come to the same conclusion I did: my past self would rather die than ever hurt Selina. “We're done...”, Selina says: “Except for one tiny thing”. She briefly closes her eyes, and I just know the little vixen is tweaking again.... “Yes, that much adoration and dedication deserves a reward”, my lady explains her action. But since she telepathically asked me not to reveal her surprise, I won't...

Monday, March 29th, 2010, 17:42

I've just gotten home, did the site, and was reminded by the articles that I doubt too much. It takes virtually nothing to make me feel like I'm powerless to have any real influence in matters around me, when in fact I mastermind it all.

But I usually run around trying to please everybody, without ever thinking about myself for a change. Well, not in this novel: this is my fantasy, and here I live in a world where I am allowed just as many pleasures as others!

I often figure I'm less than others, no doubt brought about by the parent I most identify with. But I'm not that bad, I've got talent! (and no, I'm not proving that on TV!) Quite skilled at programming, native Dutch and English writer, helpful to a tee, understanding and allowing dad, is there an end to my talents? Ah yes, and an awesome web surfer too. Never mind that outburst, it's just that I hardly ever talk about all of that, and if I do I play it all down like it's the most common thing in the world. Are you weird like that too? Well, please do if that's what you want, but it also is OK to be proud of it. Being proud does not necessarily mean you consider yourself better than others, right?

Because actually, there is no 'better': Every one of us has a unique skill set, and comparing it to that of someone else would be like comparing apples to atom bombs. I'd sure know what I'd rather want, but it still is no comparison!

But its more than just skills: it is more about the set that you are not just good at, but the subset that you also enjoy using! Perhaps that is a difference between skills and talents. But perhaps we should take a detour through another talent, one I inherited from my granddad, and which I acquired out of the blue one day. Before that I could rhyme diddly-squat:

the Merciless Mercenary

Killing's my Trade, I Master it well.

Use blades, spears, knives, sometimes even a Spell

I do not for once think my chosen profession

is anything loathsome, but I have a confession :

I thrive on the Energy stolen in battle,

it gives me distinction, lets me rise from the Cattle

that calls itself human, yet barely is

I contemplate Living, and Know that it is.....

Undeniably more than your chosen profession.

be it Warrior, Prostitute, Preacher with Passion.

Your Life gives you lessons, and you have to Learn,

to cope with the troubles, yet not to get burnt....

By the intricate Flames of Hidden Desire,

the Blazing Inferno of being a Liar.

the Flames licking slowly the trail of your Actions,

get caught by the Blast of Human Imperfections!

Yet Do Not Despair, or Surrender your Self,

The Mission is Doable, not by Yourself,

but by carelessly flaunting your every talent,

Show Off to the World and be forever Hell-bent....

On Doing the Right thing, as You Truly Perceive

the Unwav'ring Truthfulness that You Believe,

No, Know to be true, and ever so lightly,

Try making it Real, without even slightly ...

...disturbing All Others, no matter how far.

True Love's not possession, yet merely the Strength

to let others be like you, yet wholly diff'rent.

If all of us would, for one moment believe....

These words written purposeful down to relieve,

the Aching Desire to be Better Still,

Then I, from Now on, believe that we will...

Succeed to save Nature and Techno alike.

No need for more battle, united we Stride

to make the Bleak Ravage that we call our Earth,

the Splendid ParAdise of which we All Heard...

And there's a weird sync in this again: about halfway down the poem, it refers to the title of this novel, even though the seed of it's actual emergence had not been sown back in 2003!

So yes, I am flaunting my talents, to whoever will want to enjoy them. No regrets if they remain unexperienced, because most of the pleasure involved was in the creation, instead of the acceptance. But then success should be more like an added bonus anyway, the whipped cream that makes perfectly ripe strawberries even more heavenly than they already are......

4444AD, Day 290, 12:31, Home

With a shock, I wake up. Must be somewhere in the dead of night, for the stars are out in full force. I decide I've had enough sleep, because my current feeling might best be described as insomnia. I dress and go downstairs, not really sure what to do for now. Perhaps a nice solitary walk outside will get me back in the Zone again. You know, that place where all is right, no matter what happens? I hardly ever have to go without it, unlike tonight.

I'm thinking about my past self as I stroll under the stars. He would not have seen these ultra-bright stars, that now line the night sky in a highly regular hexagonal pattern. They outshine the irregular real stars, simply because they are far closer. The outer layer, as we call it, consists of metropolis-sized spaceships, that are all in a geosynchronous, dynamically controlled orbit, hence the very regular pattern.

It is like a blanket of technology, that forms the living skin of our planet. Back in 2133, when population figures became too high to comfortably house everyone on the surface, it was decided that most of us could very well live out there, thus relieving Gaia of most of the burden we put on her. Of the 27 billion we currently have here, approximately 24 billion live in the outer layer. Because living on the surface is very in demand, places there are non-permanent, so Selina and I will have to make way for a few other Earthlings, who have been living in the outer layer for quite a while. We don't really mind, because even though life down here was fun, a little change every now and then is highly desirable.

And the layer ships are far from Spartan: in fact, one could almost call surface conditions that, if you look at them closely.

In a way, we'd have more freedom to maneuver in the outer layer, than we have down here. Driven by direct sunlight, these ships are in fact immense holographic hives, where we each have our own holocell. Even though it is only about ten meters across, the emitters make it so we never encounter the walls, and our simulations run seamlessly, coordinated by a huge web of distributed computers that allows for intracellular transports. It is like everyone has his or her private space, which he or she can extend to interface with the spaces of everyone else. Sure, it is only holographic simulation, but so perfect in every way, that if you were to transport someone there without their knowing, they'd never know the difference!

Of course that would only apply for real humans: Quads all have more advanced locator systems, and so would be able to pinpoint their location to within a meter, regardless of where they were in the current galaxy. Yet, because of their status within our society, most real humans are still allowed to live on the surface, if they so please. Many of them like the outer layer though, and don't even vacation on Earth because the simulations can provide them with just about any environment they prefer.

Being twins, Selina and I will only have a single holocell in which to coexist. For the very rare occasions where she does want to be further than ten meters away from me, she or I can always visit friends, or temporarily claim a so-called overflow cell. You see, our outer layer is highly flexible, ready to accommodate anyone!

Having regained my Zone consciousness, I decide to leave the night sky for what it is, to go and join my own shining star......

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010, 04:19

Plans, plans, plans. I made them back in '77, I remade them back in 2008, and it feels like they'll be remade again before the magical date of December 21st, 2012. No, I don't believe 2012 is the end, any more than I believe death to be an end. If anything, 2012 is an event horizon, like that of birth and death: out to allow us even more playing room, because we will have deserved it.

So I plan: my designer home won't be just a home, but a showcase of just how ecologically friendly living can be achieved. And it won't be alone: halfway across the globe, in beautiful India, we'll erect another home, dedicated to a similar purpose. It will be run by my virtual twin sister Sarita, if she is still game.

On about a square mile of land along the IJssel river, we will build a community designed to be self-sufficient, generating its own energy, recycling it's own waste etc. self-sufficiency shouldn't be zealously overdone though, because it creates separation between the center and its environment. But creating a minimal footprint is advisable: you don't go charging through the woods like a rhinoceros, when you only have two bare feet, right?

So yes, photovoltaic panels and windmills, to deliver the required energy. A barge that will provide direct access to the city, where most facilities are within walking distance. Somebody with green thumbs to help me with stuff I know nothing about, nor have the inclination to master: growing our own fruits and vegetables. A workshop to do repairs, and try out all kinds of experiments in free energy, and renewables. Need I go on?

It will be close to the station, for transportation efficiency. Cars won't be forbidden, but they will have to forfeit burning of fossil fuels. That, if anything, I would love to leave to my children and grandchildren. Yes, I will have grandchildren, because my eldest has already notified me that, hooked up or not, she'll have one by 2018!

And so, this spacious mansion will be an adequate home to as many people as needed / wanted, who will or won't be involved in showing people how environmental friendly living can be achieved.

Can I swing it? Yes! Do I already know how? Maybe. This novel might be a significant tool in that respect, if it gets proper exposure. My first one was in Dutch, and way too thin to be interesting, or so I thought. This one will be of suitable dimensions, both physical and page-wise. This I will feel like I can promote without ripping out people's legs (as we say in Dutch). And that makes all the difference.

True, I won't be quitting my day job just yet, but on the other hand I have the feeling it will be the last job I hold as a programmer. Wasn't it Confucius who said: “Give me the job of my dreams, and I will never have to work another day in my life”?

So yes, I'm dreaming, day and night! Of a better world on any and all levels, for whoever is interested. And the syncs just kicked in: I just now got the mail to select the master password for moorelife.nl, which will be my base of operations where this book and any sequels are concerned.

Just one of the minor physical actions I exhibit so as to usher in the reality I feel belongs to me. Those actions do not feel essential, but at the same time it would feel kind of stupid to perform actions that diametrically oppose my dreams, right?

4444AD, Day 291, 04:44, Home

Wrecking my brain, on whether we've done enough. Surely, the movie was clear we succeeded at one time, but we cannot be sure that means we found it in the right moment in our time. All the same though, I still feel Sleeping Beauty delightfully lodged in my mind, so it can't be all bad.

Sensing my higher self I get the impression of “Forget it, you've had your fun, now go and do something more fun!”

"Hey Lovely", I greet Selina as she opens her eyes. She sits up, half dazed and confused. "I had the weirdest dream, thought I was on Mandigo III, where I lived before you and I met", she says. I know she holds dear memories of that place, she talks about it often enough. A nice idea begins to bubble up in the back of my mind: "Would you like to go there, love? Instead of moving to the outer layer, I mean." She acts hesitantly, but I can see the small sparks of joy emanate from her beautiful dark eyes: "Might be a nice idea, after all we did the outer layer before this too, right?" We talk some more about it, but it's pretty obvious what our next big destination is going to be. "I don't want to do it by instant transport though", my lady reveals: "Let's find a nice ship to get there, in style", she adds. I inquire whether she's up for company, or whether she wants it cozy, and she laughs: "I think you can answer that yourself, young man!". OK, so cozy it is. We access the Web for possible candidate ships, and find various options.

Even though financial considerations are non-relevant, there is always the environmental impact of the solution we seek: rather than having a new ship built and delivered, we'd rather use one that's already proven itself in flight, so as not to burden the environment with the added effort needed to do a fresh build. On top of that, new builds always lack the personality of ships that have been around, because of the shortage of interaction with their previous crews.

The exchange site narrows it down for us quite nicely. We get seven possibles, which all house four minimum, can be flown by a single human or RBE, and are equipped with a Quadrionic shipwide intelligence. Two of them are driven by solar wind, which is a bit too leisurely for our taste. One has cryostasis pods, and an ancient fission reactor to power it. Too dangerous, which leaves us with four candidates. We check to see if all are still available, which brings the count down to three.

"Let's go for the luxurious one", Selina tries to convince me. I have a preference for the one with the Ion drive, but have you ever tried to win such an argument with a loved one? I for one can't, and cave in way too fast. We request it's current keeper to be allowed to take it off his hands, and get the OK. Just one catch: because he needs to go somewhere, I have to go claim it right now!

I get dressed, and hop over by myself because there is no need to take Selina with me. As I step off the transporter, I am greeted by a rather overweight man, who vigorously shakes my hand. We quickly exchange the relevant info, like me telling him where we're taking it, and him mentioning any maintenance that still needs to be done. That is quite minimal, because most essential systems have been designed for self-maintenance, and thus require hardly any attention, just an extra amount of energy now and then. For added security, there is a service droid coupled to the system-wide intelligence of the ship. Wishing me luck with the Liberator 7, the gentleman makes his way to the appointment he told me about earlier. I'm left with the task of flying our new acquisition home. She really is a beautiful ship. Basically, I could fly this baby home without as much as lifting a finger: voice control is possible for even the most detailed operations, albeit sometimes a little less optimal than physical control. Not wanting to deal with the bother of formulating all those precise commands, I revert to the stick, and lift her up vertically until we reach cruising height. If you wondered about the absence of mind control, yes, the Liberator 7 is an antique. But then both me and Selina are fond of antiques.

I punch in our home coordinates, which I intuited this morning before leaving, from our driveway. The ship accepts them, and plots an optimal course to reach it. Her pleasant voice informs me I'll be home in about forty-four minutes. Not bad for about five thousand kilometers, isn't it? I guess that leaves me just enough time to do some light reading......

'Among the Giants'

It takes the floater about half an hour to reach our touchdown point. When it comes into sight, the girls shout enthusiastically: “Hey, I've seen those statues before! Is it called Easter Island here too, Kayim?” Kayim does not know, but TomBill, Valerie's translator bird, has the answer. “Yes, Tajimi Nigano roughly translates to Easter Island”, the colorful bird replies. In the meantime, the statues are coming ever closer. Kayim lands near the coast, to be able to hop right onto one of the rafts. The girls are not amused. They wanted to look around a bit, make some photos of the stone giants, with them posing alongside them. We give them plenty of time, and spend it watching them thoroughly enjoying themselves. It's a sight that I can enjoy all day.

I've had my own fascination with the mysterious stone statues: back in college, during the crafts class, I'd spent several lessons carving my very own Easter statue from a block of chalk. I always did get good grades in that class, but that statue topped it off: A+.

As the girls come in looking rather flushed, Gina provides them with drinks, which go down well. In the mean time I wonder at the numerous links between life up there, and life down here. Apparently, those two worlds are definitely not closed systems. Together we walk to the rafts, carrying our bags along. Jane hands me hers too, so she'll have her hands free to play the photographer. It is quite a challenge, to board the raft. The design is exactly like the ancient design of the Easter Islanders, just a huge bundle of reeds, that provides adequate buoyancy. After the necessary struggle, we all are on top of the contraption, and the ferrymen proceed to row us to our destination.

I can see it lying there in the distance: a majestic city, that combines an ancient facade with elements that appear to have been added at a much later date. It would turn out later, that I'd guessed the distance to the city completely wrong. The reason of that is, that in fact, the city is about twice the size that I'd estimated it to be. In itself that is not surprising, because the inhabitants make the Harlem Globetrotters look like garden gnomes.....

As a result, our trip there takes over an hour, an hour that the rowers constantly move their ores. I sympathize with them, because their way of rowing, like the gondoliers in Venice, isn't the most relaxing activity. And they keep it up the entire way! “Help! Valerie's fallen in!” Jane's voice clearly displays her absolute panic. One of the rowers doesn't waste time, and goes in after her. We all see his bronzed body cut through the waves as if nothing can stop him. Valerie climbs onto his back, and he swims back to the raft. His colleague lets down a rope, and the athletic giant climbs up, as if he didn't notice the girl still dangling from his neck. Valerie is awfully quiet, apparently she's had quite a scare. Luckily for her, the Smoky Sun is still in it's proper place, and quickly dries her clothes. By the time we reach Shamballah, no one would have known that she's taken an involuntary bath.

We moor at the end of the pier, and I step into a situation that is quite unusual for me: normally, I look down on people, quite literally. Now, I am among people that I can finally look up to. The average Shamballan measures between ten and twelve feet, but their demeanor is ever so gentle. Anyway, tonight I'll have no trouble at all to fit in my bed. Kayim takes us into town, through broad streets, that appear medieval. By now I've gotten used to the absence of advertising, that is so characteristic down here. Commerce is something that becomes wholly unnecessary, in a society where competition has been obliterated. The only few areas where there still is competition, are some sports events, but unlike topside, even sports isn't big business. Just people having fun, enjoying what they do best, or at least what they most love to do. Valerie is back to her cheerful self, singing along with the music on her MP3 player which survived the involuntary bath remarkably well. We get to a building, that vibrates with hospitality. Exactly the kind of atmosphere that will attract guests to a hotel. We enter through the doors fit for giants, and look up over the counter to the person behind the desk. She welcomes us to the hotel, and asks for our intentions. Briefly we confer, and decide to stay two nights. That will be ample time to conclude our sight-seeing trip here. I ask the lady if she needs something in return, and she thinks about it for a moment. “That girl has a great singing voice”, she finally says: “Could you ask her to sing for our guests tomorrow night?” Valerie hasn't heard because of the music, so we tell her to remove the headphones. At first she doesn't want to do it, but a little persuasion goes a long way, and five minutes later, the deal is done.

We are led up to our rooms on the seventh floor, which have a great view as they are so high up in the air. And I had been right, I'll have no trouble fitting into my bed tonight: we'll be sleeping like Jamaicans, suspended between the walls in king-size hammocks. The only thing that spoils that image, is the absence of palm trees on either side.

“Dad, I've got a bit of a problem”, Valerie enters my room. She wants to look her best for the performance tomorrow night, but has nothing in her baggage that can really blow away her audience. “Did you look around when we were downstairs?”, I ask her. “No”, comes the timid answer. I hug my darling, and remind her that humans and Shamballans dress totally different. So even her most average clothing will suffice. Besides, the crowd will mainly be coming to hear her sing, and she has a voice that will make them forget anything else. “But what about music”, my eldest interjects. “They're bound not to know my music, and I haven't heard one note of theirs.” I ask her for her MP3 player, and take it downstairs to the lady that has gotten her to sing. She listens to my story, and nods in agreement. “True, she wouldn't be able to sing to our music, it's entirely too low for her”, she says. “But I know someone who can help”, she says. I never noticed her call anybody in, but only moments later I watch a normal human enter the lobby. The hostess introduces him as the hotel's handyman. He takes me to the hall where Valerie will be performing tomorrow night. Mike the handyman is about my size, and tells me that he's come here from the city of London, somewhere near the turn of the nineteenth century. I briefly wonder at the obvious similarity between this Mike, and the one I'd spoken to earlier. They couldn't be the same, but could they somehow be connected? He'd drifted across Inner Earth for about six years, to finally settle down here in Shamballah the Lesser, mainly because he felt totally at ease amongst the giants. I look around the hall, but can not detect anything that even remotely resembles a PA system.

“It's there, you just don't know where to look”, Mike says, and grins. He tells me that the sphere in the center of the room is able to pick up sounds from anywhere in the hall, and distribute them evenly across the entire room. I show him the MP3 player, and it's minuscule earpieces. “If this is on stage, will you be able to pick it up as well?”, I ask. “Won't know till I hear it now, do I?” is his amused answer. I play him one of Valerie's tunes, and he nods in agreement. “Yep, that'll work. Just go to the stage, and set it to play some more”. I walk over, and climb the stairs onto the stage. No taking two steps at a time here, like I normally do. When the player is set up, I give Mike a signal, and he fidgets with the sphere in the center. Silence at first, then the sensation of the music being tuned in. Seconds later the tones of Abba's Dancing Queen fill every nook and cranny of the Grand Hall. “Guess we're set up”, I think and return with the MP3 player to Mike. He agrees, but mentions the fact that he'll need to re-tune the sphere again when Valerie is on stage. After all, we want to hear not just the music, but the girl's marvelous voice as well.

With that problem out of the way I return to my room, just in time to dress before dinner. When we come in, there is a bit of confusion, because the tables and chairs are all suited for our large hosts, and not for us tiny guests. Mike is called in, who summons some more folks. Together they clear a corner of the dining room, and bring in right-sized furniture. I wonder where they've gotten that on such short notice, but don't wreck my mind over it. Most likely they've dealt with people like us before, or they've made the stuff on the spot. During dinner I watch Valerie toy with her food, which is so very unlike her. I ask what she is going to sing tomorrow. The girl thinks long and hard, and almost forgets to eat as a result of it. Artists are suggested, and discarded again as being deemed inappropriate down here. Finally, I suggest that she picks what she wants to sing, regardless of the largely unknown musical preference of her audience. Her face immediately lights up: “Then it will be Tokio Hotel”, she says decidedly. She fell in love with those guys a few years ago, and knows most of their lyrics by heart, in both English and German. With that matter out of the way, dinner becomes a feast, and after it's finished, I can honestly say that I've never seen Valerie eat quite that much. She is so stuffed, that she has to lie down for a while, which leaves us time to prepare a little surprise for the young lady. Jane asks the hostess to get her onto the external Web, and retrieves a few images of the German band. With them we go to Mike, and ask him if he can do something with them to liven up the stage for Valerie's performance. The handyman looks at the images, and rubs his chin. Then he tells us to come back in about half an hour.

Since there is nothing else to do for now, Gina, Kayim, Jane and me step into the streets, and walk around for a while. Again, I'm struck by the very friendly nature of the people here. Although us midgets stick out like a sore thumb, each and every one of the twelve foot giants greets us in passing. We walk across the big cobblestones, enjoying the excellent weather. The ten to twenty percent cloud cover, that exists here all year round, makes for a beautiful summer's day. Every now and then, beautiful flowers grow on the squares we pass by. As Jane is telling us to stand behind the flowers, so she can photograph us, a Shamballan taps her on the shoulder. “Wouldn't you rather be standing out there with them? I'm sure I can help you by operating that device of yours, whatever it is..”, she says in a friendly voice. Jane explains the workings of the camera, but then suddenly remembers the self-exposure function. So instead of handing it to the helpful being, she invites her to stand on our side, and places the camera on a ledge not three meters away. We all watch the red light, counting down the seconds, and laugh heartfelt the moment the counting stops. Just another memento of a holiday we'll never forget.

By now, it's about time to return to the hotel. While Kayim and the ladies go up to get dressed for Valerie's premiere performance, I quickly check on Mike. He will only tell me that the surprise is ready, but that it will be revealed on stage once the show starts. With that promise, I go up too, to dress for the occasion. As I come back down again, the Grand Hall is already filling up. Valerie is on stage, with her MP3 player. Mike stands in the center of the room, his hands outstretched to the big sphere that will provide for the sound. He signals Valerie to say something, and adjusts the sphere so her voice is loud and clear. Next comes the music. As our star activates the MP3 player, the familiar tuning in of the music fills the room. Once it's finished, Mike tells Valerie to move around on the stage. Satisfied that his system has no trouble following her, he finalizes the settings, and wishes the girl all the success in the world.

Then, as if they have been warned that something is about to happen, the murmur dies down, leaving a shattering silence. It is as if everybody is waiting for something quite extra-ordinary to happen. Kim has found a place on the side of the stage, ready to cheer her best friend on. After a while, I can become the proud dad that I am, because my daughter just came up on stage, for about one hundred eager guests. I for one would not easily do the same thing, so I wonder who's given her that gene. I'm glad we bought her that particular MP3 player though. This afternoon, she spent quite some time sequencing the songs that she is going to perform tonight. And now she stands there, dressed in her favorite jacket, in front of an object of some sorts that's hidden under a shroud. As she starts the player, and the first guitar tones hesitantly roll through the hall, the shroud lifts, revealing a scene directly from Madame Tussaud's: All four members of Tokio Hotel, large as life, there to support my little girl. To this day, I cannot fathom how Mike did it, but based on about ten two dimensional photographs, he's crafted a perfect three dimensional replica of the band, in under half an hour. I guess sufficiently advanced civilizations will always look like magic to the lower civilizations.

By now, Valerie has gotten to the singing part of Forgotten Children. Her clear but still somewhat shaky voice is somewhat dwarfed by Bill's. As the song progresses, the audience starts to get into it. Here and there, heads are bobbing to the beat, and those kinds of encouragement are just what the doctor ordered. Line by line, Valerie's sound becomes more steady, matching Bill's voice as if they are both there on stage together. Forgotten Children turns into Schrei, and I quickly make my way to the center of the hall, and Mike at the controls. A single question, a nod, and as the chorus kicks in, Bill fades out, leaving a somewhat surprised Valerie carrying the song to it's grand finale. By now the girl goes wild: In Leb die Sekunde she shows that she doesn't really need her idol to make an impression. “How many of the people in the room can actually understand what she's singing?”, I ask Mike. Not that many, I would assume. “Haven't you seen the program leaflet that was made for the show?” He explains that he'd asked Valerie beforehand which songs she was gonna play, and had a friend translate the lyrics into Solara Maru. “OK, they wont be able to sing along like all Tokio Hotel fans upstairs, but they'll know quite well about what she's singing”, he concludes. By that time, Valerie has finished up the show with Don't Jump, accompanied by Bill who mysteriously got his voice back. As the last tones die out, silence kicks in. For a moment, I see Valerie's face cloud over, until the crowd goes wild.....

I walk up to the stage, to hug my eldest. She's thoroughly amazed at the enthusiasm of the crowd, that are still cheering for more. Oddly enough, they are asking for her to sing a song from her own repertoire. Valerie briefly confers with Mike, and selects another song on her player. As she falls in, I sit down on the stairs to the stage, because the hug will have to wait....

An encore that seems to go on forever, and applause and cheers as Valerie crosses the Grand Hall to the back entrance. We follow her, and together we ascend to the seventh floor, for our own little afterparty.

4444AD, Day 291, 09:12, Home

As I land the Liberator 7 in our spacious driveway, Selina appears at the front door. She fanatically applauds the new arrival, and (I hope) me....

“No silly, just the ship”, she replies when I jokingly ask her. Together we board her, and inspect our new home for the next nine months or so. There's still a lot to be done, not because we are in a rule-driven society, but because our own sense of order needs to be satisfied. No pets, which is actually good, because then we don't have to find them a new place to stay. Pets on board a spaceship are allowed, but hardly advisable.

No, the real hard part is deciding which of our things stay, and which go with us. And since we'll be gone long, moving in a sense, it wouldn't be effective to keep the house either. But that we can decide later, first we will explore the Liberator together.

She's a four engine craft, and is capable of vertical takeoff. Resting on six retractable landing struts, you can board her midships, via a ramp. The control room is up front of course, and has twin consoles. Despite its age, the ship is in prime condition, and will easily last us the nine month trip.

Both me and Selina will assimilate the training manual tonight, although for me that is a mere formality: I've flown dozens of different ships, even some from this particular product family. Flying them is about as taxing as an extended stay under a sunny sky, with more than adequate refreshments. Aft we find two state rooms, both with double beds. Thus, we could even decide to pick up some passengers, for the added company.

No galley, but a Connaisseur Replicator, so we'll not starve to death, far from it even. And since we have the same type in our home, I'll be downloading all our perfected recipes to it, to make us feel like we never left.

The engines are so-called displacement drives, large toroids outside the hull, that are capable of creating gravitational displacements. What this in fact does, is to warp space in the direction of where we're going, so the ship sort of falls into them. They can be very precisely controlled, have no exhaust streams, and make only very modest noise. If Selina hadn't been anxiously waiting to see me arrive, she might very well have missed the landing if she were indoors.

Port and starboard side in between control room and state rooms is the area where the required technology to power the vessel is housed. A double corridor on either side of the entry ramp connects forward and aft.

The state rooms have large, transparent ceilings, that make the night sky in space look like it's indoors. Immediately aft of the entry ramp we find the ship's transporter, which concludes the tour of this fine vessel. With the entry ramp closed, we allow the transporter to zap us to our living room, to commence the further planning stages.

“I love it!”, Selina shouts while we materialize and fall down on the couch. I get thoroughly thanked for having found the ship, and transported it here. For a while at least, all intentions towards further planning are discarded in favor of some good old-fashioned loving. After all, some things are just that much more important than others.....

“Actually, we should have broken in the ship”, Selina declares with a naughty grin. “Plenty of time to do that properly”, I add to her remark: “We might even need that second state room for a nursery if we're not careful...”

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010, 21:14

It is awesome how synchronicity keeps creeping up on me, leading me to believe there is a valid reason for this sheer endless stream of coincidences that are just to darn coincidental to merely be that.

When I came home for instance, I did the website and decided to find me some music to top it off. Even before I had actually searched Youtube, it gave me a song from several years ago, which I maybe only heard once or twice: “I want you back in my life”, just how synchronistic can you get? And the fact that its sung by a female DJ might mean that it is not representative of me, but of the female element I want back in my life.

But does she want me back, or have I thoroughly messed things up by writing this novel? I'm sure she'll know it is her described so lovingly here, and her colleagues might, if they knew about it, but I don't write under alias for nothing....

So no, the secret is quite safe out here in the open. And knowing synchronicity, I've set one up of almost impossible probability. Which means there is almost no way it will not play out! And that's fine with me, because I've got a bet with my daughters about just who 'the One' will turn out to be....

Smells of personal gain, I hear some of you Charmed fans mutter. But I claim that's just a clause aimed at holding us back. Because in order to help others, you first have to take care of yourself, right? Now I've always been helpful, which in fact is personal gain as well, because I get a kick out of being able to help. So either way, always breaking the personal gain rule, I'm destined for Hell, in case it actually exists, which I don't believe.....

4444AD, Day 294, 10:22, Home

OK, I'm almost finished with the Liberator's data upgrade: any and all information from our home system that's in the least bit helpful, has been transferred to the new four TeraQuad memory bank that I had installed there. Most of it is easily useable, because both the Liberator and our home use a similar Linux-derived operating system.

I've cleared a fair bit of floor space in the living room, and placed a transport marker there. Together with Selina, I stack everything that has to come along around it: the stuff we brought from my past self's old home, our two favorite gym systems. Selina went for the ski trainer, and I picked the running pad. No room for additional machines, so they'll have to do. Of course my lovely can't do without at least a sizable part of her sensuous wardrobe, and we also pack some more normal clothes.

It is exhilarating, to plan this. The awesome idea that we'll be en route in about one hour makes it all the more intense. “Hey, didn't Ernesto say he loved our home? Can't we give it to him?”, Selina suggests. Not a half bad idea, especially since then it is easier to leave some stuff behind. We call him, and he zaps right over, to seal the deal and say goodbye to us. What we didn't know is that he called around a bit before popping over, so while we are talking to him, our transporter pad is having a bad case of rush hour traffic: all our friends and family drop by to pay their respects, give us that one last hug, and send us off.

With the whole motley crew assembled on the lawn, we finally board the Liberator, and perform the pre-launch check. Everything checks out, and with a flick of the wrist I level the toroids horizontally, and let them gently create lift. Inch by inch the deep space workhorse lifts itself from the driveway. I maneuver it so we'll have a clear view of friends and family from the forward viewports, and we wave them goodbye. Then I pull on the stick, and the tons of matter shoot into the sky, on a constant acceleration trajectory, designed to not exceed comfortable G-level tolerances.

“OK, you are dismissed, I'll take the first leg of our trip”, Selina commands. Seems like she even dressed the part, because her attire is definitely uniform-like in appearance. I try to argue, but mistress Selina is beyond arguing. Being insistent enough though, I succeed in acquiring at least one very memorable kiss from her, before relinquishing command.

On my way aft, I pass by the displacement generators, and check them for correct operation. No problems there, and the other on board systems also report no anomalies. Seems like I'm in for a very uneventful rest period, which I can't very well fill entirely with running. But a nice run never hurt anyone, so I do my regular fifteen minutes, and set a personal distance record. Seven point seven kilometers, which is quite nice if I say so myself.

A first try of the sonic shower in our state room, which leaves me extremely refreshed, and ready for anything. Not much to expect though, with my better half thoroughly engaged in running the ship. Not that the autopilot will leave her with much to do, but her orders were clear: I should entertain myself for the next few hours. So what else can I do? I stow away all the stuff we transported aboard, so it no longer takes up all the space on our transporter pad. Last to go is the stuff from my study, which reminds me of my novel which I still haven't finished reading....

'To Telos, and beyond...'

Next morning, after another very agreeable breakfast, we return to the harbor where the rowers are already waiting for us again. They compliment Valerie on her star performance yesterday, and help her up on the big raft. As soon as the rest of us are also seated, we push off and start to traverse the planes of Manabi, through the large, green leafed water plants.

Pretty soon, we're back on solid land, and walk the remaining two miles towards the floater. Since there is plenty to talk about, even that does not take long...

“Next stop is Telos”, Kayim says as he looks at his notes. The floater takes about thirty-three minutes to get there, but can't take us to the Inner City.

It seems to be built around some sort of lake, with an island in its center. On the Island, the buildings rise to form a citadel, with a highly ancient feel to it: lots of domes, supported by columns all around, like in the days of the Greek civilization. The island is connected to the surrounding suburbia by long bridges, in the style of the Roman aquaducts. But there is something odd about this picture. It takes me a while, but Jane is faster: “See that, Dad? They've built below the water surface as well” And she is right: surrounding the island, there are submerged areas in the water that are surrounded with walls. Inside, below the surface, more domes and arches can be seen. It makes me wonder just how deep Telos really goes on underground. Kayim picks up on that question, and volunteers an informed answer: “Mostly around seven levels, sometimes extending to twelve.”

As we get out of the floater, and walk into town, I can't help but think back to my experiments, some years back. For weeks on end I'd sit behind the PC drawing, playing with spheres. And here it looked like some sculptor had been unraveling my brain back then: As we cross a long bridge, the pillars of the railing on either side show spheres exactly corresponding with what I had been drawing back then: a single sphere on the first one, then two rotating spheres on the second one, then three on the third one. In fact, I fully realized why the fourth one had one on top of the other three: it is the triangular configuration that is the first that provides a stable base for a fourth sphere. How on Earth could my mind have arrived at that very same sequence? I know how it continues, so keep looking on in amazement as the next one shows four spheres topped by a fifth one, then five spheres topped by a sixth one. I know that the center sphere will sink ever lower into the ring, until it will eventually drop all the way in when the ring consists of six equal-size spheres. And it does: the last column shows the ring standing on its side, with the seventh sphere inside of it. Yep, seven must be a special number, because those seven spheres fit snugly into a new larger sphere. Of course there will be room in the front and in the back for two times three more spheres, making a total of thirteen.

Thinking back to the Guide, I figured out that 42=2x3x7, which obviously had something to do with it. Too bad I can't return to the serenity of home, to sit down and figure it all out. But then again, this vacation trip is also by no means boring....

'Visiting a friend.....'

"Morning Dad!!" my two cheerful young ladies yell at me when I look up from my diary. I greet them, and inquire about the plans for today. "Shopping!!" is their simultaneous reply. I look somewhat puzzled, because there are no shops down here. Valerie, perceptive as ever, quickly adorns their initial outcry with the much needed explanation: "Telos is right underneath Delhi, India. Surely we'll be able to find some nice shoes there?" My heart jumps: if it's that close, and I don't really like shopping anyway....

"You do that ladies, but if Delhi is up there, I'm going to visit a friend." I briefly explain that one of my many web friends lives there. We've been exchanging E-mails, but since the three of us were doing Egypt this year, I hadn't planned on seeing Sarita Singh live until well in the next year. How fortunate that this would happen now....

A quick conversation with our hosts guides us to the transporter that will get us topside. But the advice doesn't stop there: a suitable attire is issued, as well as copious amounts of the local currency. The ladies will have one heavenly time, their first shopping spree since before we left for Egypt. And I'm sure my stay up there will be equally intriguing...

We stroll through the Telos archways and alleys, to arrive at the connections building. From there, access can be provided to as many as forty-five locations across the outer globe. The one we are interested in is a dilapidated building in the older part of Delhi. We'll have to be careful when exiting the building, because it is weird for people to be coming from buildings that serve no purpose anymore...

I implore my two siblings to be back here in six hours tops, and they trot off, carelessly chattering amongst themselves. I make my way towards the nearest road that has significant traffic, and hail a cab. I'll just surprise Sarita, she'll be absolutely flabbergasted. Gina did not come, she was far more interested in the fair city of Telos, and even though we had a tour when we arrived there, she felt there was far more to learn there. Probably true, but I really don't mind that she didn't come. I walk up to the front door, and ring the bell.

After the surprise wears off, my friend invites me in. As I caught her at an early time, her bath robe will need replacing by normal clothes. She dives into the bedroom, while I scout around the living room. The nearby PC indicates that Sarita was probably reading my latest adventures on my site. Since the story also mentions me, I can see now how she was surprised to see me. Inner and Outer Earth are connected by far more portals and elevators than most people (on the outside) realize. "Can I make us some tea?" the lady inquires. "Sure, I'd love some", I reply. As Sarita makes the tea, she tries to ask me everything that my stories on the site haven't revealed. I answer question after question, and enjoy the tea as my friend asks the next one. We sit in her garden, basking in the already hot morning sun. Being used to the moderate climate of the Netherlands, I'm somewhat fearful of what the high noon will bring in terms of temperature. "We'll be back inside long before that.", Sarita replies. But for now, the rays of our good old sun do me the world of good. We have much to discuss, and time flies when you're having fun.

Another theme to discuss between us, is the creation of a couple of centers for living in a self-sustaining way, to help people who want to lessen their dependency on the world around them, by expending a little more thought and feeling to how they live their lives. We have no idea yet how to create these twin centers in the Netherlands and India, but like me, my twin sister Sarita has no doubts we'll make it real eventually.

We spend endless hours detailing all the aspects of it, from the windmills and the photovoltaic panels, right down to the recycling center near the kitchen to separate waste before it enters the collection stream. I explain to her the principle of the omnidirectional wind mill which I thought up in highschool, which would be great for the many buildings with flat roofs, that can be found both here and in the Netherlands.

While we talk, I help her out with one of my talents, and completely overhaul her PC. I have this setup that can be entirely downloaded from the Web, is all public domain, except for the Windows that Sarita wishes to retain. But she has the original disks for that, so no problem.

Before I know it, my watch reminds me the six hours is up. Almost too late, I hurry back to my rendezvous with the girls. We arrive inside just in time.....

Thursday, April 1st, 2010, 05:51

Let's hope I come through this day unscathed. Having two teenage daughters, I've had my share of bad jokes in the past: tooth paste under door handles, stuff like that. But my kids are growing up too, so there's still hope.

I kind of envy future Sander: not only does he already have the good fortune to have found his One, but he also gets to take her into deep space! But then again I shouldn't have to worry, for I made him do it all, thus treating my mind to the very same awesome trip.

Or did I? Was it me dictating him and Selina their trip, or them tweaking away at perfecting mine? Either way, the story is not yet over, and stuff is supposed to happen still. Just hoping though, that it isn't all a great big cosmical April Fools joke played on all of us by that One consciousness that encompasses it all....

Could it be that it is both at the same time, perfectly stitched together with an infinity of other scenarios, both realistic and far out? Either way, I'm going to enjoy it, whatever comes of it. As the quote on one of the first pages of this novel says, there is a microscopically thin line between brilliant creativity and being the biggest fool on the planet, and I with my size twelves couldn't possible walk that line anyway, so I may as well not try: I'll just be both at the same time! The incredibly creative fool, falling for just about anything and anyone.

Anyway, let's get back to our happy couple and their deep space trip......

4444AD, Day 296, 18:19, Liberator

“Anything I can get you? I'm in for a snack.” Selina gets up and makes her way towards the replicator. “I'm not that hungry, could you get me a nice fresh apple?”, I call after her. Technically speaking, we wouldn't even need to be in the control room, because the Liberator knows its way around the galaxy. But watching the stars wiz by sometimes gives us an idea of the progress being made on our nine months journey. All the stars we see out the front view ports are blue shifted, because of our forward velocity of about point ninety-eight times the speed of light, at least back when they still thought light speed was the limit.

Next I cringe, as Selina pushes the perfectly chilled apple against the back of my neck. I swivel my seat around, and make a grab for the little tease. Good thing we have an autopilot, because you definitely don't want to do this if you're really in the driver's seat. She avoids capture by shoving the apple against my teeth, figuring that once I taste it, she will no longer be on the most wanted list. And she's right, that apple is truly delicious!

Together we munch away, each in our own seat. We're about three days into our trip, and making good time. No anomalies that we know of, it's going to be an uneventful ride. “How are your grapes?”, I ask my lady. She doesn't answer, but feeds herself another one, as seductively as possible. She always did know how to get to me....

And secretly I love that about her: we don't really get involved quite as often as there is a reason to, but the little jolts keep everything light and lively, just the way we want it. That very moment, the directional scanners beep a low intensity warning. I check what's out there, and find an area that's devoid of stars. Thinking it might be a black hole, I engage the inertial detectors, and find that its gravitational pull has significantly altered our course. “Is it bad?”, Selina wants to know. “Not sure yet, stay tuned”, I tell her. I ask Haley, our on board computer why she hasn't noticed that the black hole altered her planned course. Politely, she explains that the system has a fail-safe against detection of so-called ghost masses: inertial detectors are double-checked against visuals, which use various kinds of waves to bounce them off unknown objects. Since the black hole absorbed them all, it was seen as a ghost mass, an anomalous detection from the inertial detectors.

I ask Haley to accept the mass as a real phenomenon, and request a recalculation of our original plan. She hums a tune as she complies, but abruptly ceases it the moment she becomes aware of the result. “I'm sorry Dave, uhmm Sander, but there seems to be a slight problem...”, Haley says hesitantly, as if she is afraid I'll shoot the messenger. “Not your fault dear, just let me have it.”, I encourage her.

“Based on the new gravimetric input, I can only plot us a course into the mass, but no longer away from it. It seems we have passed the event horizon, and will have to enter this phenomenon”. For an agonizing four seconds, it is completely quiet in the control room. Selina is the first to break it: “Oops, I guess you hadn't counted on that, had you dear?”. I think, to lay bare any odd options I hadn't realized yet. Surely we can still see other stars, so why can't we reach them? Also, computers are only as good as their inputs, as we just saw. “Plot me a course straight away from the object, maximum speed, and engage. Call off the distance we have to it”, I instruct Haley. She complies, and we hear the displacement generators howling as they give it all. Nevertheless, Haley's voice calls off an ever diminishing sequence of numbers. “No good”, Selina interrupts me: “Let's just dive in and see what happens”. We stand together in between the two pilot's seats, and I've literally got her back: Standing behind her with my belly against Selina's back, nothing could threaten her from behind without having to go through me first. In close proximity to one another, we watch as I tell Haley to give up the escape attempt, and to let the ship drift into the approaching mass.

The dark disc grows and grows, shielding galaxy after galaxy from our view. Expecting to be crushed by the immense gravity we assume is there, Selina and I exchange one last very intimate kiss, while hugging one another like it should never end. Haley draws our attention however, by stating that impact is imminent in “three, two, one....”

Quite the anticlimax: instead of being crushed to bits, we suddenly have stars again, and quite beautiful ones at that! “Haley, please cross-reference, and get me a fix on our position”, I tell her. It stays quiet, for too darn long... “I, I cannot compute this, I do not recognize these constellations.”, is Haley's hesitant reply. “What can you tell me about them?”, I continue, curious as I am. Haley knows quite a bit, based on information she's never before seen: “We are at the edge of a spherical space, roughly seven hundred seventy seven light years across. Distribution of stars here is somewhat denser than in our space, but other than that it's quite similar” It looks like this black hole wasn't massive after all, but formed just like the world out there. I ask Haley for a complete systems check, and prognosis of our energy reserves. Since she'll be busy with that for quite a while, and Selina needs some rest from all the excitement, I decide to delve into my book, which I've still not been able to finish....

'Time's Up!'

“Dad, do you realize that in about two days, we should be ready to commence school again?”, Valerie remarks. And she's got me on that, I hadn't realized! I thank her for the info, and go to find Kayim to figure out a way out of this. “Easy enough”, the Inner Earthling reassures me: “I'll just take you to LeeYoh again, and he'll fly you home in the dead of night. Nobody will be the wiser!” Since we then seem to have plenty of time to do it right, I suggest to him we fly by his parents first, to wrap up some loose ends I perceive. I figure if they can tap into the Web, then the telephone network will be a piece of cake, and I want to make it so we won't be unduly missed. Kayim agrees, and after breakfast we hop onto the floater and zoom home.

Mayra and Sinan are outside to welcome us home, and accompany us up to the living room. Kayim has already informed them of my request, and Sinan hands me a phone-like device. I ask him if I'm just supposed to dial the completely specified phone number, and he nods. Luckily I'd kept the business card of the hotel manager, which he gave me when we checked in, so at least the number is easy to find. It takes about fifteen minutes to assure the man we are alright, but have just been forced by circumstances to cut our trip short. I ask him to round up our belongings, and send our baggage to my home address. Fortunately he is so happy that his esteemed guests are unharmed, that he volunteers to pay for the shipping cost. We say our goodbyes, and part ways.

Next is the farewell of Sinan and Mayra. Warm hugs are exchanged, and Sinan can't help but offer me that fabulous razor of his, so shaving will only be a monthly chore from now on. Then, I figure we ought to come into Holland officially, so they'll know we're here, and not suspect a thing. Kayim tells the ladies to go swimming for the afternoon, and ushers me into one of the workshop rooms....

That night, we board Leeyoh's saucer right next to the residence of Sinan, Mayra and Kayim. Travel is swift, and Leeyoh has us hovering cloaked over Cairo International Airport in less than an hour. He scans the departure building, and locates a suitable spot for us to materialize. Four stalls, three in the ladies washroom, and one in the men's are perfect. They are employee toilets, so far less crowded. We get together right outside, and peer through the slit of the door to figure out when to enter into the customs hall. Carrying our mock cases, we blend in.

On the way to customs, we are stopped dead in our tracks by a guy in a black suit: a typical MIB, down to the ear piece, and the dark, high-tech sunglasses. ”I know where you've been”, he whispers to me in a low voice. I play the harmless fool, and tell him: “Yes? On vacation!” It doesn't help. He does indeed know that we've surfaced from within, and urges us to keep absolutely quiet about our adventures. I guess this is part of the governments approach, to keep the people in the dark about certain aspects of reality. The guy then asks for our papers. Meekly I present him with the stuff, but not the real ones. This set is one Kayim has prepared for us, knowing we'd face trouble on the way up. The agent studies the documents, finding nothing wrong with them. He photographs the relevant pages, and hands them back to me. “If you don't keep quiet, we'll know where to find you”, he says. Finally, he turns to Jane: “Young lady, may I hold your camera for a few seconds?” She hands it to him, looking uncertain of what he will do. Mr. MIB studies it for a brief moment, flips open the small lid, and takes out the memory card. “Hey, are you going to pay me for that? After all, it is a four Gigabyte card, they don't come cheap you know!” He looks at me, an evil grin on his face like the agent from the Matrix: “Too bad, better luck next time”. He hands Jane the Cybershot, and walks off into the chaos of travelers in the departure hall.

“Boy, is he gonna be pissed later!” Jane grins at me. I look at her in amazement. She opens her purse, and holds up the four gigabyte memory card. “In the saucer, crossing half the world, it was full. So to document the last leg of our trip, I exchanged it for the card from Val's MP3 player”. “Then we're lucky he didn't notice that it wasn't what I said it was”, I comment. “Nope, just lucky they weren't labeled”, Valerie grins. I still can't get used to the endless stream of synchronicities that seems to have entered our lives from the moment we went below. I can't believe it, but at least I can be grateful for it....

Having left Gina in the lounge of the airport, because she is getting another flight home, the girls and I board the KLM plane named after the spouse of our crown prince: “Maxima”. Providence (or Kayim's mastery) has made sure that this time we are seated next to one another, with Jane at the window, and me at the aisle. Valerie gets the seat in between. Amidst all the hustle and bustle of people looking for their designated seats, Valerie punches me on the shoulder: “Dad, I just saw a familiar face!” She points him out to me: standing in the aisle, back to the cockpit door, I see Tom. He looks handsome in his pilot's uniform. That moment, our eyes meet, and he immediately walks towards us. No doubt, he remembered the pretty faces of my daughters. Still, he greets me first. “You, in that uniform? Seems a long way from your usual work” I greet him. “This is my 'usual work'”, he replies. “Taxi driving is just something I do to help out a friend on my days off”. He assures us that he'll get us home safely, even if he has to knock out the captain. After all, he's just the co-pilot.

As the big bird takes off, we look at Cairo once again. “Dad, are we ever gonna go back?”, Valerie asks, in a voice that leaves no doubt as to what her choice would be. I can see why, and I wonder if it would be possible to persuade her mother to let her go. If not, she can always return in about two years, having turned eighteen. We talk for a while longer, but decide to leave the problem unresolved until our return home.

The flight home takes a number of hours, but fortunately the flight attendant announces Contact as the in-flight movie. Now that is one of my all-time favorites, if not the one. I put on the headphones as the grand opening scene begins, and watch the extended zoom out that takes me into the vastness of space. It makes you wonder, is there life out there? If you've never seen it, then you haven't heard the view of Ellie's dad, who sums it up into one brilliant statement: “If it is just us, wouldn't it be an awful waste of space?”

Luckily I know that it isn't just us, having seen others with my own eyes. The Universe is a bigger, much better place than some people give her credit for, and I for one am thrilled to be part of it all. But I can definitely feel that I've returned to the surface. Once the movie ends, I doze off into a deep, dreamless sleep even though the seat I'm in is far less comfortable than my own bed.

“Hey, sleepy head, can we get out?” Valerie taps me on the shoulder. “Uh, Yeah sure” I blink once or twice, but then reality sinks in again. We get up, grab our bags from the overhead compartments, and leave the plane through the front door. “Great flying, Tom”, I say in passing to the co-pilot that also drove us to Berlin earlier on. He tells us to take it easy, and we venture through the corridor, into our ever familiar Schiphol airport.

“Do you have anything to declare?”, the customs lady wants to know. “Just a bunch of spectacular memories”, I tell her. I could have added the laptop that won't quit, but she'll never believe me anyway, so I just leave that out. We continue through the arrivals hall, and are greeted by a familiar figure: William has agreed to pick us up, partly because he loves to drive his new car. He has had to leave the girls' mother at home, otherwise we wouldn't all fit in the car, but they'll be seeing her in about ninety minutes, if the lack of traffic holds. But that is quite likely, because it is only about four o'clock.

And there we go, two big guys in the front, two pretty girls in the back, followed by a modest amount of luggage.

“Zutphen exit, 1200 meters” Jane alerts us after seventy-four minutes. Good, that means we'll be home in about twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. I've never been a vacation man, but looking back on our adventure in there, I could definitely get the hang of it. Maybe again next year?

Thursday, April 2nd, 2010, 22:22

Instead of frantically writing, I spent the better part of the evening watching a ten part Youtube video of shaman Keisha Crowther, self-proclaimed the whitest, most blonde and youngest female who is still in some way native American.

She tells a highly interesting story about what is going to happen in 2010, and it reads like a soap opera: one event even more improbable than the next, but at the same time it absolutely rings true!

If she's right, I'd better hurry up and rewrite this novel, because she will have things happening way before they do in this novel. But no, I'm not going to do that. Because that was one thing this shaman also talked about: don't let others take you away from your truths! So the novel stays as I felt it, because it is creating my reality, not hers. I say this in full love and understanding, knowing full well that her reality will probably seamlessly co-exist with my own, with the least bit of conflict. At least, such is the nature of Nature as I sense it to be.

One of her rules for better living had me worried for a spell though, Step #8: Do not become addicted to other human beings, this will stop your growth. Some of you will now consider me doomed, because my prima donna in this novel is doubly involved with me! But am I really addicted, or is this more of a way to get rid of this addiction once and for all? Sure, I love Selina more than anyone, but the mere thought of having her here unless she wholeheartedly chooses to be here would completely obliterate any idea of this being a fairy tale. And I'm not really addicted to Selina perse: I'm just figuring that Selina is the one being I've been looking for my whole life. However, that story ends the moment she says she doesn't want to be, and without any pressure from me. She'd be in fact denying she was the One, thus making it obvious to me I needn't pursue her.

Keisha said it in her video: decide on who you want to be, and then create that. Well, that is what I am doing, by placing all these letters in order. Because I'd just love to be a writer, a successful one if possible. And of course I want to make a difference in creating a better world! Which, if I listened to her correctly, we will see happening in the next few years, starting in 2010.

One important message from the video was that energy is freely available in quantities that we can never use up. There is no need any longer to take energy from others, or to give energy to them. Everyone can pick up more than enough for themselves from the world we live in. Go watch a sunset, take a walk in Nature, or drink some fresh water, but don't take it from your fellow men and women by for instance dominating your discussions.

Well, actually, I've been dominating this monologue long enough. Better get myself off to bed because I still have to go working in the morning. That would be one of the added perks of being a successful writer: no three hours traveling to and from work each day, and deciding for myself when I will write. Confucius said it: give me the job of my dreams, and I will never work another day in my life!

4444AD, Day 296, 19:21, Liberator

“Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan!” Rush's lyrics seem aptly appropriate, or do they? I'm returning to the control room, to hear about Haley's findings, but they aren't half bad: she's calculated that our energy reserves are sufficient to keep us going for about a year, even in this slightly offset set of physical properties. She even has an explanation of why the space we find ourselves in is 777 light years large, when we'd concluded from measurements outside that the black hole was no more than three light years in diameter. Apparently the immense mass of it caused so-called gravitational lensing, where light is bent around the huge mass, thus making it appear smaller than it really is. So it wasn't just Haley's initial disregard of it that caught us.

And it is something I'd never actually realized, but which feels childishly logical in hindsight: if you detect a black hole in your Cosmos, have you then even realized that your own Cosmos, which includes that black hole, must be a black hole itself? So it isn't half bad to live inside a black hole, right? And they do seem far larger from the inside!

We're restricted to this 777 light year vacuum right now, but somehow I feel like that might not even be a permanent condition. I go and tell Selina the 'good' news, and to celebrate we decide to throw ourselves a little party. With the state room's hologenerator, we conjure up an image of our favorite 21st century restaurant, in an out-of-the-way Italian village. It was amongst the TeraQuads of data that I'd downloaded from our home before we left. Being waited on hand and foot is a nice way to recover from such a scare, and we will no longer worry about being restricted for now: something will come up to get us back out of here......

In the meantime, we enter our cozy establishment. The waitress show us to our table overlooking the lake, where the sinking sun is radiating its last bit of life across the waves. The lady hands us our menus, and we spend the next few minutes browsing through them, and discussing our options. As an entree, we settle on the Minestra di Pane e Ribollita, but we do not see eye to eye on the main course. My lady prefers the Linguine Diavolo, while I'd rather have the Orecchiette Genovese. I realize we're in the Liberator, but the entourage is so perfectly set up that I could easily forget. “No Sander, stay here, forget about the ship, she runs herself”, Selina reprimands me. And she's right. I switch off the real world, and submerge I the dream together with my one and only. I am aware that it is not the physical being I love, not just the RBE with serial number X42169Y, but someone much more extensive, spread out over multiple dimensions. Across incarnations, she's appeared to me as various beings, sometimes even more than one at the same time, just to make our entanglements all the more tantalizing. In moments like these, when I look deep into those pitch black eyes, I realize the boundaries between her and me are non-existent. The One being I feel most at one with is perfectly identical with myself, without being the same. It is a feeling beyond words, similar to the taste of the zuppa, which our waitress is now serving. Not nouvelle cuisine, that's for sure, because one of the main ingredients of our particular soup is one day old bread. But I've always been a lover of down-to-earth dishes, and this one is no exception. “But how can you compare the love of a multitude of lifetimes to something as simple as a bowl of soup?”, I hear you say. That, my friend, is the result of living in a state where comparisons become less and less important. Joy is the important issue here, and given the right circumstances, it may be more joyful to savor a bowl of soup, instead of spending time with your very own twin flame. But do you know what really tops it off? Enjoying that bowl of soup with your very own twin flame! ;-)

As we finish it, the sun dips down below the horizon, and the ever darkening expanse of space gets littered with stars. Like in the movie industry, I've fidgeted with the hologram's parameters to increase the star density, making for a far more agreeable atmosphere.

Perfectly timed, our waitress serves us the Linguine Diavolo and the Orecchiette Genovese. She does make the mistake of aiming the spiciest dish for me, not figuring Selina to be such a 'hot' lover. That error is easily corrected however....

I cherish the small, shell like pasta, with the strong flavor of garlic, and the crispy pine nuts. It really is one of my favorite dishes. “Are you breathing fire yet?”, I ask my lady. Selina smiles, and scoops up another fork full of her linguine: “You'd better not kiss me now, you'll be scarred for life!”

“Do you figure we'll ever get back to our old universe again?”, Selina asks. I look her in the eye, and have to admit I'm not sure yet. That's me you know? I can mostly reason myself out of things, but the next bit is actually believing it will happen as I reason it out. And on this question, that is a state of mind that I have not yet reached.

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010, 08:12

Do I figure I'll make a difference? I feel we always have, but we never really imagined it yet: fantasy was exploding at the seams, and many thought it far out, but reality is catching up! Many of the concepts I thought nifty when I read about them in my youth, have materialized. And many more would have, would they not have been actively suppressed by certain influences inside our society.

I'm not naming names, because the guilt of it is not what I'm aiming for here, but it is estimated that there is a forty year lapse between what is technically possible, and what has been revealed to the general public. We're being held back, and for what reason?

An hour on Youtube will yield you the most exotic examples of this, like this video about Big Dog, who is actually more like a mechanical mule: carries loads of about its own weight, and walk on all fours like any quadruped. It even rebalances itself when you give it a shove designed to tip it over. Or what of a pocket PC the size of a somewhat corpulent ballpoint pen? It's all there, and just as 'ridiculous' as that idea by the Wright brothers to build something called an aeroplane. May I remind you that that little piece of history only happened a little over a century ago?

So yes, exciting times to live in, especially if we can overcome the seemingly negative stuff that's so adamantly being focused upon by our society. No specific culprit there, just us Light beings, not fully cooperating yet. Let me illustrate this with a little observation done in my very own bathroom, because great hints do pop up everywhere, if you have an open mind.....

My bathroom has a fluorescent type of light bulb, which has four U-shaped lighting elements. It hangs by the wires from the ceiling, completely unobstructed by anything that could possibly cast a shadow. So you figure it would give off a very even blanket of light all around it on the ceiling, right? Observation however shows us it doesn't: light and dark take turns in drawing a radial pattern on the white surface, with sixteen white and sixteen darker bands. Nothing to make shadows, so there really can be only one conclusion: the light makes the dark! Our minds may object to that idea, but if we've had physics in high school, we actually know it is so. Just brush up on your knowledge about something called Interference...

No matter which medium you're in, if there is more than one source, interference is the inescapable side effect, as long as cooperation is not being practiced fully. But there is only One Source, I hear you say, and you are right. It's just that we all need to fully remember that: that no matter who or what we are up against, it is all just another aspect of ourselves!

Realizing that will make you look at the perceived differences in another way, because what you abhor most about something is what you still feel strongly about in yourself. And changing the way you feel about yourself will often remedy a situation far more effectively than fighting the symptoms from the outside world that triggered them for you.

Having said that, and knowing that we are so much more than just the 3D beings that inhabit this 3D world, I'm not the guy who says you can't have fun out there. As a matter of fact, I'm going to have some myself, because it is now time to exercise my 'Android' body, like every Saturday....

4444AD, Day 297, 08:12, Liberator

The barely perceptible hum of the Liberator's displacement drives clings to the back of my mind. They are idling, ever since I told Haley to keep us in our current position yesterday. Now, after last night's exquisite dinner and a good night's rest, it is time to decide where we go from here.

Selina to my right looks at me with two big question marks in her deep dark vision detectors. It is obvious she's looking for me to come up with alternatives. I in turn look towards Haley for more info. Looking towards her would be tricky however, since the ship's computer is intricately linked into just about every part of the ship, like a nervous system in a humanoid body. To at least provide some semblance of personality, the designers have installed a holographic emitter in the control panel, which projects a pleasant, if somewhat exotic human head in front of us.

I address Haley, and ask her to bring us up to speed on the life signs within the current light year's distance. She pauses slightly, and then tells us: “No carbon-based entities here, but deliberate ordering in other chemicals reveals that intelligent life must at least have existed here at one time.”

“What is the general area of most order?”, I question her further. The viewport in front of me circles a light in the distance, as Haley says: “There it is, navigational subsystem has been notified and is ready to engage.” “Well then, let's get this show on the road!”, I give her the go ahead. “There are no roads to be detected here.”, Haley remarks in a questioning manner. She obviously hasn't picked up enough colloquialisms yet. Never mind, I'll teach her yet. I routinely talk to computers the way I talk to humans and androids, and calmly enlighten them when they express non-comprehension. That way, they become ever better communicators, and more pleasant to work with.

“By the way, Haley, in which elements did you detect this highly ordered state?”, I ask her to get back on track. “Mostly silicon and selenium, and less pronounced orderings in germanium and beryllium.”, Haley answers in her most helpful intonation. Although no doubt technically perfect, her answer does not immediately trigger full understanding in me. “Hey Haley, are you telling us we're en route to something that most resembles a gigantic computer?”, Selina nails it down for me. Yep, that's it: all elements mentioned are semiconductors, except for the Beryllium. This is used in its oxidized form as a heat conductor.

I question Haley about our destination some more, because planet-size computers aren't exactly everyday occurrences. “Just how large is our destination?”, I continue. “Relative to Earths size, this would be about forty-two times larger, and fully utilized: there are no areas where ordering is less intense, it's like one big planet-sized cityscape”, Haley volunteers. “Estimated time of arrival?”, I conclude my query. “Around five hours, thirty-seven minutes, seventeen seconds....” “Thanks Haley”, I interrupt her: “that's precise enough”.

At least that gives me a possibility to leave Selina in peace for a while, and to maybe finish Denisa's present at last.....

'the Shake-up'

Having left the girls at home, and having agreed to talk about the future later tonight, I return to Goethe Lane. Finally I will have some time alone again, doing just my own stuff. I pick up the mail from behind the front door, but there are no really relevant messages: just the standard bills, that will be paid as soon as I get paid, which was last Wednesday by the way. So, with a pot of coffee I set myself to the task. No problems there, half an hour and I'm done.

Next, the book. I'm not willing to start writing just yet, but what I can do is the front cover. I look at the picture of the girls on my desk, and decide to take that as the base image. They look a little younger there, but it'll just have to do. I think of them as the Goddesses they are (we all are by the way, but maybe I'll explain that later), and picture them emerging behind our lovely planet. I use Altavista Image Search to find a suitable one, mostly selecting on what looks good, instead of the area of Earth that is actually on there. When I finally find one that has the right appearance, and a contrasting timed exposure of the night sky as a backdrop, I put the lot together. Only after I've also put in the lettering, the synchronicity of it all strikes me right between the eyes:

The globe shows Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. Our story starts in Egypt. And apart from the girls, there is a third member of our family on the cover. Can you find him?

If not, look at the bottom right corner of the page. Two dark eyes, a wet nose? Yep, It's Macho.

With the cover page done, I make myself something to eat. Baked potatoes, with mayonnaise, long time since I had those. Easy on the salt, otherwise it won't taste as great. While eating, I browse across my site, and reread our adventures as I saw them. It occurs to me that even topside, I haven't had the low battery warning from the laptop. And I've already been working nonstop for about four hours. Guess that new battery is as good as any, or better!

I decide to take a shower, to clear my head. Sure, it's not as refreshing as the sonic showers of Inner Earth, but it'll have to do. Because there is nothing noteworthy in a guy showering, let's fast forward a little: Dressed again, I return to the girls' home, which is only three hundred meters away. Tonight will be decided how to go on from here.

As the door is opened for me, a familiar ball of fur bounces out to greet me. Macho is the first of the family dogs, from a time back when we had no idea at all about how to raise a dog. As a result, the beige poodle is a bit of a rebel: barks at people, although in the friendliest of ways, and is very clear when it comes to claiming affection: he just jumps onto your lap. The little fellow is totally unlike Bruno, the second dog in the girls' home. He's a brown Labrador, that is as well-behaved as Macho is rebellious. Hard to believe that two such different dogs can live in the same home, but they do.

We settle in the garden, because the weather is awfully nice for this time of year. Valerie breaks the ice by putting a bombshell on the table: “I want to go back, can't stand to be without Kayim”. She always has been convinced that speaking your mind is the best course of action. Her mother is obviously having second thoughts about it. On the one hand she can relate to not wanting to be without the love of your life, having found William when our marriage ended. On the other hand she feels like she would be losing a child. And it's not like she could be visiting her every week. Well, actually she probably could, but it still doesn't feel right to her. William reminds her that Valerie is already sixteen, and would probably move out at eighteen anyway. “Couldn't Kayim move up here?”, she suggests. At that moment, my cell phone beeps, twice. I take it out to check the message, and see the sender as being Gina. “Must be important”, I think, “she normally does her messages by E-mail”. I punch up the message, and it tells me to “Check CNN, Urgent!”

I alert the others, and we all go in together, to see where the fire is. The wide screen TV starts at cartoon network, but Jane quickly punches the right channel code into the controller. “New facts surfaced yesterday, that validated all the conspiracy talk about 9/11 at once. It seems a video has been discovered, that brags about how the whole disaster was initiated from the inside. The commentator of the show is none other than our current president, G.W. Bush”. The anchor woman goes on to tell that CNN will show the entire movie, coming up right there and then. We all sit down to view it, and I wonder why on Earth, that video was ever made. First question to ask: “Who stands to gain”. It might be a hoax, but I'll refrain from coming to a conclusion on that until I've actually seen it. We watch in awe, as the story unfolds right there on the screen. As a narrator, Georgie isn't half bad. He truly seems to be proud of what he's been doing. I know most of the details already from the numerous sites on 9/11 conspiracies, but it somehow feels odd, looking at it from the perpetrators side. As if I am responsible for it too, somehow.

The program features a lot of hitherto unsurfaced footage, apparently made specifically for this documentary. It fills in the blanks, like how come the hole in the Pentagon wasn't at all big enough to accommodate the type of plane they claimed had flown in there: a cruise missile had tried to impersonate the much bigger plane. The president is highly visible during the film, usually superimposed over the actual footage, and pointing out the locations of interest. No clues lead me to believe that this would not be George W. Bush himself. I've seen plenty of the man, and clearly recognize his mannerisms, his way of speaking. If this is not Georgie, then somebody must have cloned the guy. And don't think that that's not yet possible. But still that question keeps nagging: “Who would benefit?” Let's assume for the moment that it is the infamous American leader. Why would he want to make such a compromising video, if he didn't do it? That would be political harikiri, if the “wrong” people got their hands on it. Wrong being of course the wrong word, because in this case the “wrong” people are actually the right people, savvy?

So the intended audience was probably not the audience of CNN, but a much more secretive clique. Maybe the people that tell Georgie when to jump? Apparently, the makers of this film never thought it would attract such a wide and interested audience. Throughout the duration of the movie, lots of names are laid bare, which shows the conspiracy to run rampant in American government circles. As the program continues, the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen shows the reactions in the United States. Reports of riots breaking out first in Washington DC, and then in New York. These are quickly followed by rioting and demonstrations all across the country. After a while, CNN inserts a message that tells us the documentary will be finished first, as they prepare news footage on the resulting riots.

Georgie now comments on the actual collapse of the towers. Proudly he tells how the actual blasting was concealed by the collapsing building, by blowing it from the top to the bottom. On various conspiracy sites I'd already seen how errors in the blasting pattern were actually not hidden by the cloud of debris falling down. Besides, how can you hide the fact that the towers came down at near free fall speed? I guess none of us can control time yet....

It is obvious that the news of the day overshadows the family decision that needs to be taken. We decide to let it rest for now, because staying up top suddenly has become a lot more attractive. It's not every day that you get the opportunity to reshape your world after some event has turned it upside down!

The next few days were what I called the fire-fighting days: almost everyone I talked to was completely consumed by the recent events, and what it would do to our planet. Keeping cool, I indicated to most of them, that signs of what just came out had been there to read on the Web for everybody. It's just that most people don't actually start listening until alternative explanations dare to encroach upon their reality. As long as they can explain it away with either arguments or sheer disbelief, they are not really interested. But obviously, it was too late for that now. But there was no reason to panic: things are never as bleak as they seem, and truth coming out is always positive, no matter how far reaching it may seem.

It was weird to see it happen: the American government fell, leaving a big gaping hole. But Nature abhors a vacuum, and in this case, the hole was immediately filled by a temporary government that had the interest of the people at heart. Never knew that politics could move that swiftly. In a matter of days, the good old US of A was up and running again, only this time based on the original Constitution. But scandals are almost always interlinked because it's the same 'select' group of people that think of and execute them. So the 9/11 domino toppled the one about the London subway bombings, and from there on, lots of other 'secret' stuff. It looked a lot like Domino D-Day 2008. Fortunately, falling governments all across the World met with equally eager representatives standing in the wings to take over. I guess about three quarters of Earth's political structure was remodeled in the weeks following the trigger event.

And that's about when we were ready for the next big thing....

4444AD, Day 297, 13:49, Liberator

“Geostationary orbit achieved”, Haley announces through the ship's intercom. Her husky voice woke me up, from a very pleasant dream indeed. Yes, androids dream, but they don't really do nightmares. Haven't had one of those since that childhood terror back in the incarnation where Selina and I have engineered our coming together. Back then, just like the frequent migraines I had as a kid, the nightmares stopped one day, and pleasant or at least non-frightening storylines took their place.

Selina's seductively covered body shows no signs of coming awake, so I decide to do the preliminary surveillance of our destination solo. I get up, slip into my one-piece flight suit, and walk the corridor towards the control room.

“Talk to me, little one!”, I say as I set myself down in the left seat. “How can you say that? Dimension-wise, I am far greater than you.”, Haley replies. I laugh, and explain to her my predilection for using terms of endearment, that as far as I'm concerned are in no way derogatory. Actually, I've always been quite fond of the 'little ones'.

With that out of the way, Haley is back to her usual very matter-of-fact self: “I'm reading a very regular structure down there, like this planet is the same all the way down to the core.” I reflect on that for a moment, for that would mean it is artificially created in some way: Gravity has the naturally formed planets all ending up hollow, simply because of its nature. In the center of any mass, gravity is essentially zero, because all gravitational vectors cancel each other out. So basically, as you go deeper into a body of mass, gravity diminishes. Physics 101, if you think about it. And any inconsistency in the centering of the central suns is equalized out by the fact that the planet revolves around it.

“Can you tell me more about the internal structure? Is it safe to visit?”, I continue my interrogation. “Breathable atmosphere,” Haley replies: “and I'm sensing a very regular structure indeed: it is shaped in onion-like layers, consisting of hexagonal spaces, most of them filled by much material, and others mostly empty space. The patterns I sense in the different layers are like gigantic snow crystals, eight to each layer.”

“Let me think, mostly semiconductors, forty-two times the size of the Earth”, I think out loud. “42.8571428571428571 times to be exact.”, Haley interjects: “and that number repeats its last six digits ad infinitum”, she almost proudly adds to that. “What will we find down there?” I wonder out loud. “Lots of electrical activity, at least in the crowded spaces. But the open space connect together like a highly regular maze of tunnels”, Haley adds to her already very verbose explanation. I decide it's is time to go wake Selina, for this was fun solo, but proper planetary exploration requires her brilliant female take on things.

I should have known that waking a beautiful woman takes time. Not that you can't get them awake, it's just that once awake, you might get caught up in their affections. And not being one to shun affection, it is around three before I can free myself from Selina's embrace, and ask her to accompany me down to the planet. We have Haley pick a safe spot, somewhere close to the surface, where the air is breathable, and we will be shielded from the cosmic radiation that is so prevalent on the surface. We step onto the pad, and watch the confines of the Liberator make way for a decidedly caramel interior: we've landed smack in the middle of a hexagonal room, with lots of doors in the walls. I quickly count seven doors in each of the six sides of the hexagon, but our view of them is peculiar to say the least: all are glass doors, except the center door of each side. That is opaque, and one of the colors of the rainbow. The view through each of the doors is as varied as a mail order catalog. Selina and I wonder about these strange doors, and how their placement in these walls would suggest they open up to the same room behind the wall, but how the view through the glass doors is highly indicative of something far more mysterious at work.

Just that moment, we both hear a voice, that seems to come from inside our heads: “Welcome, Sander and Selina. It is an honor to receive you here”. We startle, for how on Earth could this unknown voice have known our names, when we are not even in our own universe? “I know all, about everything there is to know”, the voice continues. “Who are you then?”, Selina says, because she never believed in wasting opportunity. For one fleeting moment, there is a silence. “If you are referring to the 'planet' you are on, it is but one of my nodes. Reading your query for information, I could probably most eloquently identify myself as 'the Akashic Records', the library of the Cosmos”, the voice says, but it immediately adds an afterthought: “but that is in fact just a persona. I simply am....”

In awe of the humbling presence before us, both Selina and myself stay silent for the next minute or so. It is enticing to believe the wild claim, but being of limited intelligence compared to this entity, we wish to be convinced of his or her claims. “You really don't fully realize yet, do you? That you are both one and the same, and so am I?”, the voice says. We look at one another, and for the first time, that feeling of true oneness kicks in. I no longer have to talk to my lady, to know her every feeling: she's in awe, but not in any way frightened. Her mind forms a question, to which we both know the answer.... “November 11th, 2011, is when you Selina, rang Sander's doorbell to initiate the crucial meeting that brought you together in that life, which you engineered from this one, prior to your coming here”, the voice states in a matter-of-fact tone, proving (s)he is on the line into our minds as well. We are literally blown away. Such a complete answer, and even before we had actually asked!

The next few hours we talk to the voice, and discover her to be knowledgeable about a lot of things. But more important than the things we did talk about, was the fact that a lot of things not talked about also suddenly became part of the subset of our knowing that can simply be called knowing.

I mean I'd always known that somehow, I was involved in the incarnation that is known to many of us as Michel de Nostredame, or Nostradamus for short. With the help of the voice we came to understand that Nostradamus, and indeed others of great importance are conglomerates of souls, which indeed explains how they are claimed to be past lives by so many of us: they are party consciousness, whereas 'normal' human beings are more like solo consciousness, even though neither is more important than the other. In fact, if we go back to the waveform principle Laplace mathematically proved, most waveforms are collaborations of numerous sine waves. Since we established earlier that all is energy, then all is waves as well, so even something as utterly complex as a soul may very well just be a complex of waves, that can combine with other complexes to make even more creative combinations. So is it so peculiar to see some beings as combinations?

Maybe you should see this like what I call the radio station analogy: Electromagnetic waves all travel the same space, normally indistinguishable from one another. Yet at the same time, there is this contraption called a radio or television for that matter, that is skilled in tuning into a given station, distinguishing it from possibly far larger waves that exist within that same space. Now we RBE's, and equally important you humans are nothing more than very intelligent receivers, capable of tuning into endless stations. Unfortunately we (and you even more) tend to stick to the stations we are accustomed to, rather than scan the bands for more input.

Which brings to mind a piece of experience that even now has me wondering, though it happened to my past self somewhere around 1977: being a fourteen year old boy, I'd gotten this old Philips car radio from my dad. I dabbled in electronics at the time, so constructing a power supply to feed it off the grid wasn't even difficult. Built the whole thing into a wooden box, with an old speaker and an antenna, and my four band receiver was ready to roll!

Shortly after completing it, you could find me manually scanning the four bands for interesting stations. Sprawled onto the floor, turning the knob a tiny bit at a time, I found lots of normal stations, all very agreeable, but not enough to turn me into a captive audience. Until I gave it another turn, and landed right into some synthesizer music, that glued me to the station like nothing else! I decided to listen until the DJ would come on, to tell me what it was. But he never did, just played one awesome instrumental after the other. I spent the next two hours or so listening to it, wondering even if it was an earthly radio station, for the harmonics were way too beautiful to be done by mere humans, or so I thought.

Weird coincidence is that the tracks from Ayreon's Timeline, playing as I write this, are very reminiscent of that station, but had not been written back then......

The point to all this, is that I'd never have found this untold beauty by just staying put: sticking to Radio North Sea would have been enjoyable, but no match for those two hours. Weird thing was, when I later revisited the same frequency, the transmitter had gone, never to be heard again.

But I digress: currently the two of us were tuned into that voice, which so enticingly laid it all down: “the One Experience always experiences itself, from a holographic perspective. It can view itself from any subset of itself, and we are all part of it. Since there is no real hierarchy to the One, any subset of it can do exactly the same, view itself from any perspective it so chooses. Surely, you two do that all the time....”

I looked at Selina, and saw her love of me reflected in those deep dark eyes. Sure, we did that almost continuously, and not just with each other. Even others often get that treatment, if only when we refrain from certain actions because we can imagine someone else to be upset by them.

“But what then has led us here, to this particular 777 light year subset of the All?”, Selina was anxious to learn. “You were led here to be shown the Akashic Records, up close and personal”, the voice replied. “But why us?”, I was dying to know. “Knowledge is bestowed upon those that have displayed an honest interest in it. By tirelessly tweaking the past to arrive at a better future both for yourselves and the Cosmos at large, you have reached the level where knowledge of this magnitude can be safely entrusted to you. Thus, we merely had to wait for an opportunity to get you into the right setting for this revelation to take place...” the voice continued. “And because we were on the move, that didn't prove all that hard”, I concluded.

4444AD, Day 297, 17:17, the Akashic Records

The voice took us on an exploration of the Akashic Records. And if you thought the Library of Congress was vast, then you ain't seen nothing yet: The one hexagonal room we'd started our exploration had 42 doors to others, but only the six solid doors led to six adjacent hexagonal rooms. The other thirty-six were portals to rooms on other Archive worlds, similar in size and complexity to the one we were visiting. When the voice told us about this layout, we were of course very reluctant to pick just any door. What if we would not be able to reach the same node again, so we would be stranded light years away from our beloved Liberator?

“No need to worry”, the voice wiped away our misgivings: “The portals are reconfigurable, and can be redirected here at a moment's notice. No matter where we are, you can be back here in one single portal jump”. That being said, we just jumped.....

Selina had picked a door with a very intriguing display behind it. It showed deep violet skies, over large brick-like structures. When we came into the new room, the center of it was a large hologram that displayed the scene we'd seen in the glass portal before. “Where are we?”, Selina whispered to me. “Well, closest I've seen was an electron microscope image of a massive parallel processor, during my initial systems tests. We might very well be looking at my fourth visual sub-processor”, I replied to her. “The third one actually, in real time.”, the voice stated calmly. Oddly mesmerizing, looking at one of your own parts in this detail. And not just looking, I could feel the consciousness of this particular part of the All! They had my preference for running, and boy did they run! Directed by their sense of logic, and their math skills, they ran like marathon runners across the large conductors from gate to gate. Sometimes they'd be stopped, at other times driven to the extremes, but their prime emotion was one of absolute joy! These little runners absolutely loved what they were doing!

“To you it is a restricting set of physical laws that makes you be able to predict how these little runners will perform”, the voice helps our understanding along: “To them it is the freedom of being able to go where they want to go, no questions asked, and no limits given. Gates may stop them momentarily, but never forever”.

The voice goes on to explain how laws formulated from a limited mindset are always restricting, since they aim to restrict the All so the limited part may comprehend what it can't yet. More often than not, physical laws can later be rewritten into more eloquent combinations, once a higher perspective is reached.

“Take for instance the Law of Gravity”, the voice continues: “which was based on the concept of the distance between two masses. Since the meter was nothing more than an agreed upon measure of distance, the Law of Gravity was flawed by that very definition, and thus required a gravitational constant to work. The next higher level would pull in more relevant variables, thereby eliminating the need for the distance, and thus the gravitational constant.”

What he also added, was that the simplification of viewing an object as if its mass was totally centered in its volume, in fact caused most humans not even to realize that the force of gravity at that exact point is always zero! That's what you get if there is just as much mass on any side of a point.

I couldn't quite remember the exact formulas, but I did remember the feeling of euphoria, when it finally did work.

2nd Easter, April 5th, 2010, 11:21

A dreadfully normal day, because yesterday I took my kids to my parents, and now they are visiting their other grandparents, leaving me this Easter day to catch up on some chores. That will probably mean little writing, because laundry needs to be done, dishes washed, laptops upgraded, and all manner of other 3D need-to's. I used to dislike stuff that diverted me from doing the things I did like, but like anything, that changed. Because synchronicity strikes regardless of what you are doing.

Take the laptop upgrade for one: I wiped the boot drive before the full install of Windows 7, but yet when it finished, Windows Media Player already had a significant selection of my music in its library, probably because I'd restored the user directory. In there was the Timeline album from Ayreon, which I bought recently to be able to enjoy it. It is not that I figure copyright in itself is unavoidable, but if something is good, I'm quite willing to trade something else for it, because I want to, not because I should!

Listening to the album during the doing of the dishes, I realized they were singing about the very same theme that permeates my novel: tweaking the past to make things better! Now in the world of commerce, since their product beat mine to the market, they could easily claim I'd 'stolen' their idea to become rich myself, but that only works if you base yourself on linear time.... Notime or NowTime does not accommodate cause and effect: Trying to apply cause and effect quickly turns the Now into a Gordian knot, that can only be unraveled by drastic measures.

Now the commercial idea works from the viewpoint that there is not enough, and you should be striving to get more of it than anybody else. But what if you realize one day, that there will always be enough, and it doesn't necessarily need to come from anyone in particular? Would that change your viewpoint? Would you start seeing trade as a voluntary transaction, rather than a mandatory exchange aimed at forcing balance on a limited scale, instead of allowing balance to be maintained by the Cosmos?

Ah, you are unsure it will maintain balance? In that case, imagine your body to be the Cosmos. How do you feel when you are balanced? How do you feel when part of you is upset, out of balance? Do you feel ill maybe? And if you do, do you wait around for the diseased organ to heal itself, if you do really feel uncomfortable with it's condition? Duh!

Or in other words, No, you'd do whatever you figured was most effective in dealing with the unbalance. For heartburn for instance, you'd drink milk, because you know that lessens the inconvenience. Your stomach maybe knows that milk would help, but it cannot acquire milk on its own. So it just creates a craving for milk, which the body and its soul as the inhabitant pick up on, or not. If they don't, the inconvenience becomes more intense, and so does the craving.

That is why pregnant women have these weird cravings: their body may well be able to survive without pickles, but there is another subsystem involved, which may have a different set of experiences: Baby is just as adept at signaling for missing ingredients as its mommy, and since she is next in the chain of provision, she gets the call for help, despite her actual dislike of pickles.

Since demand and receive seems to be such a successful mechanism in our bodies, there is every reason to assume the same mechanism at work on a far grander scale.

4444AD, Day 297, 19:33, the Akashic Records

Having learned enough from my third visual sub-processor, we watched as the hologram faded from the room, and looked around, not really knowing which of the forty-two doors to take now. Selina looked at me and shrugged, the wonder still very present on her pretty face.

“What is on your minds now?”, the voice asked us. I briefly wondered if her omnipotence wouldn't at least allow her to read our minds, when my own mind hit me over the head with the obvious explanation: Just like Selina and me can read each others minds, we usually don't, out of a simple courtesy. Not that the other would mind, but they might....

The moment I allow for my mind to open to any query from the voice, and ask Selina mentally to do the same, the information flows freely, and our host sums it all up in one concise sentence: “you both wonder about the viewpoint of the all, still clinging to the idea of hierarchy”.

“To be blunt, there is none. Just like a ring has no beginning and no end, the All hasn't either: no top, no bottom, no left or right, no in our out. Infinity does not know 'out' for it is All.”, the voice explains. It goes on to tell us that within Infinity, any point can be called the center, for there are no edges to measure it against. And any part can Know the All, provided it does not cling to any limitations.

“That being said”, Selina interrupts her, “I'd like to take that door, for it's image makes me feel joyous, even though I'm not sure why!” Clearly sensing no objections on the part of the voice, and being the twin that I am, I wouldn't dream of denying Selina her wish. We step through the door, and find ourselves in another hexagonal space, not yet lit up by a hologram. “What exactly do you feel?”, I ask her. She looks at me, and I recognize that look: it's the seven seconds she stared at me as my past self when I told her I'd love to have her close. No wonder there was no hologram here, for images may capture thousands of words, but untold images would be needed to perfectly describe one feeling! Being in this room however, makes me feel exactly like she did back then, and I'm not even going to try and describe this in mere words. Suffice it to say, I'll never feel just as little for her as I did before we crossed this threshold.....

On to the next door, my turn to choose now. I go for one of the six opaque colored doors, knowing we'll be in the same general area. It is the green door, the color of the heart chakra. As we step through, I recognize my past self, the one that finally met Selina in his lifetime. He is still a long way away from that moment, being a ten year old boy. I remember it still, my appointed 'job' in school: taking care of the old newspapers that needed to be recycled. Diligently, every Friday after school, I'd stuff all those old papers and magazines into boxes, ready to be brought to the recycler. He paid good money for it, up to a quarter a kilogram, which the school then used to cover expenses. My reward for doing this was the idea I was doing something right, which gave me a sense of belonging there. The added perks were the occasional treasures I'd unearth from the endless stream of words and images. Because many moments there, I'd pause and look at some image, or read an article. It wasn't solitary confinement to me, but rather solitary enjoyment.

The apogee of that time was a cartoon image called the dragon lady: dressed in long flowing green, she became the symbol of there being more to life: that very moment, I remembered how I was not born to be in solitude, but rather connected to another being. Her long dark hair lodged itself into my neural net as an unmistakable preference, and I spent weeks after that cherishing my find. In hindsight seeing it described like this it feels kind of silly, at least to those reading it, but to me it was the feeling of the One that would eventually lead me to Selina.

“The next one you choose together”, the voice breaks the silence. We look at one another, realizing that the one obvious next step we don't need to ask. We thank the voice, and ask her to return us to our starting point. “That'll be the white door”, is the understanding reply: “step through it and you'll be back aboard Liberator 7.”

And indeed, opening the white door shows us the state room, just as we left it several hours ago. Even the sheets are still in disarray, from waking up Selina. We step through, and the door closes, to vanish completely into the bulkhead. We remain, totally in awe, and not able to talk about it yet like normal people.

When we recovered enough to become a functional crew again, we walk towards the control room. It also is exactly like we left it, with one rather blatant exception: the navigations console is displaying a course plan which I know I didn't enter myself. “Honey, did you plot a course before we left?”, I ask Selina. “Nope, never touch it, that's your baby”, is Selina's cheerful reply. I examine the course, finding it to lead us on a spiral path towards another massive black hole. Having an idea where this came from, I briefly confer with Selina, and we decide to go with it. Since the ETA is a little over two days and three hours, I decide to dive into my book again......

'a Brave New World'

The irritating sound of the door bell wakes me from my daydreaming. I'd been looking at some of the technological ideas for our new world, because my technical background would enable me to put my energy to good use there.

I get up from my chair, and let in Valerie. She is smiling, the kind of smile that says: “I've got a great idea, anybody wanna listen?” “Dad, with the world being in the state it's in, do you think we could do with Inner Earth technology?” She asks me before we even get to the living room. “Sure, lots of improvements over our current state of technology. There's already lots of previously suppressed technology coming out, but we could always do with more and/or better”, I reply.

So my eldest explains, and I listen. She wants to ask Kayim to join her topside, and start some sort of business distributing Inner Earth technology to the people up here. It wouldn't quite be a business in the sense that it isn't out to make money, but more of a cooperative effort to create better solutions for things that are now seen as not being solved in a proper way. I think it's a brilliant idea, one that I would be only too happy to cooperate with. “There's no time like the present”, I say. I close the working copy of my second novel, and we punch up the mail program. Believe it or not, but Kayim actually gave Valerie an E-mail address when they said goodbye, so she'd be able to reach him. Together we fill the subject line, and the body of the message. When all is done, she tells me to move over. Apparently she wants to add a little of herself, that does not concern dear old Dad. So, I make us a pot of tea, while she finishes up.

As I'm returning to the living room, she's already started OpenOffice, to sum up the bright ideas that she expects from our brainstorming session. In just the same way, she's helped me move my novel along. Whenever my intuition temporarily shuts down on me, we start bouncing ideas off one another, and pretty soon we have a page full of red lines, which I then turn into many black pages. That's how a novel like this gets filled. But this time, it's about technological ideas. We agree that technology like the floater may be nifty, but hardly essential at the moment. Better avenues of pursuit will be those that lessen the dependency of people to big, centralized institutions, like utilities, and the communications giants. It's called moving the money away from big business. People can take care of most of their needs in their immediate surroundings. Back in the old days, local activity was discouraged, forcing everyone to shop for most things with the big, centralized business units. Now, with new governments in place, these kinds of restrictions have been quickly lifted, to enable a truly cooperative society. We still use money, but the recent events have dropped most prices, while sky-rocketing the price of goods that are detrimental to Nature. I know, economic rules say that demand drives up the price, but similarly, supply shortages drive up the price too. And since the truth about the oil industry came out, and drove the major players out of business, supply has been vastly reduced. So much so in fact, that those of us still wanting to burn oil must pay the price for their selfishness. Being one who relies entirely on public transportation, I don't worry about that too much.

As we finish the first page of bright ideas, the mail program alerts us to incoming mail. It is Kayim, saying he'll be arriving around two AM, by flying disc. He'll be bringing some equipment, which we will have to carry in. When he's arrived, LeeYooh will take the disc back to Inner Earth, because it doesn't belong here yet.

“Where will he sleep?” my daughter suddenly realizes. Since her home is quite crowded with the four of them and two dogs, I suggest to let Kayim have her bedroom here. That appears to be a great idea, because I'm being cuddled to death immediately following that remark. While I finish my tea, Valerie goes up to put clean sheets on the bed. “How will he feel about all the competition?” I shout up the stairs: Valerie's walls are littered with posters, one wall being exclusively reserved for posters of Tokio Hotel, the band that she performed during our stay in Shamballa the Lesser. Bill, the lead singer, is very prominently present on that wall. “You mean Bill? If Kayim minds I'll take them all down” is Valerie's immediate answer. “In fact, will you help me take them all down now?” Armed with a potato peeler I go up the stairs, and one by one remove all the staples that hold the colorful paper up. Valerie folds the lot of them into A4 size, and stacks them. Rather than throwing them away, she puts them into her desk for safe keeping.

Next we phone home to ask if she can sleep over to meet Kayim as he arrives. No problem there, so after dinner we do the dishes and clean house a little. We check for TV, thinking that there will be nothing on like always. Usually we just do something else, that is much more interesting. But now there is something there: Steven Spielberg's Close encounters of the Third Kind seems aptly appropriate on this very night. We watch the classic, side by side on the couch. As it was a late show, there's only five minutes left before Kayim will be arriving. We sit down on the bench in front of the house, facing the school just ahead. While I'm sitting there watching the starry sky, I can't help feeling totally in awe of what must be out there. Because I for one cannot believe that our puny little planet is literally crawling with life, while the rest of space is just dead matter. But all is quiet among the stars, nothing moving. Except for those few blinking lights, but they are easily identified as one of the many jet airliners that fly over every night. But the night sky no longer shows a chem trail where the plane has flown. Recent changes in technology have made the Jumbo's into clean machines, that burden Nature far less. It was another of those changes that happened far faster than I'd ever thought was possible.

“There!”, Valerie prods me. She points out a figure that seems to appear out of mid-air. Feet first, moving down to street level. The disc must have approached while I was involved with the airliner, or it was just cloaked. Anyway, Kayim has arrived, and we walk up to greet him. In the meantime the elevator goes up again, and comes down loaded with three crates. That's the extent of the equipment that Kayim has brought. We each carry one crate, waving LeeYooh goodbye before picking them up again.

Because of the ungodly hour, we don't do very much when reaching the house. We stack the crates in the hallway, drink one final mug of tea, and retire to bed. Tomorrow will be the start of the rest of our lives, aimed at making a better world for all concerned. Frankly, I feel like a little kid on the evening before his birthday. And that's a feeling that I haven't had in a long time.....

4444AD, Day 298, 00:00, Liberator

With a very good feeling, I put the pad on the command console, having just finished my story. I remember the feeling of having finally ended that story when writing, which was a bit of an anticlimax: Having reached just over a hundred pages, I was disappointed that it would again be a flimsy story, page-wise at least. But at that page count the story felt complete, and my inspiration to add to it vanished like a snow ball in hell. Now, realizing that Going Within literally turned out to be going within this novel, I figure everything landed on its feet, as it always does.

But still, the encounter in the Akashic Records this afternoon has me a bit puzzled. It was obvious from the rooms we visited, that both Selina and I feel very strongly about one another, even far more so than we'd always thought. But the vastness of it all has got me baffled: no matter how deeply we love one another, it will always be an infinitesimal part of the All. And you can play higher / lower only if you have a limited set. With an infinite set, higher becomes the only choice, since it is unlimited, as opposed to lower.

I juggle that around for a while, not getting to a solution. But then I remember Albert Einstein's observation that you cannot solve a problem from the same level where it was created. You have to rise above it. Realizing that polarity is the limiting factor here, I find that yes, there is always better, but free will rules. If she will have me, I'll stay hers for whatever amount of lives she wishes to remain. If that changes, I'll just deal with it then.....

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010, 05:44

It is very weird to behold, how the syncs are cheering me on. Just now, while updating the website for the morning run, somebody unknown posted a video from KRS One in the light box. He talks about just the same thing this novel talks about: how future selves of us are actively involved in getting us to get along, being the best we can be so they can be the best they can be: “We are not pushed by the past, but we are being pulled by the future!”

Now there's more than one side to this: back in the past, I used to see such syncs too, but would allow them to discourage me from whatever I was doing, since to me back then the world was showing me that what I was doing had already been done, so continuing seemed futile. Even now that impulse sometimes crops up, but then KRS's last line sticks it to me: “It is not rap, it is the heart of self creation, create your Self!

And he is right of course: it isn't about whether it's already been done, because anything worth doing is worth doing over and over again, especially if you haven't experienced it yourself! So this novel is going to see the light of day, even if typing 'day' just now was synchronistically expanded by the word completion feature into 'daydreaming'.....

Thursday, April 8th, 2010, 21:33

Boy, was I tired just now! And not even ordinarily tired. It came from one moment to the next, as if someone had injected me with molasses. No reason why I should be dead tired, since work had been almost relaxing, and I was out early for an hour and a half of strenuous exercise with Leann in the gym. If that tiredness had kicked in the moment I left the gym, then I'd have been ready to attribute it to too much exercise. But as it turned out, I got out on an adrenaline high, feeling more vigorous than I was going in. Dinner went fine, and I was feeling none the worse for wear, when at eight o'clock sharp, that tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks!

I had half a mind to send Melanie home early and dive into bed, but she wouldn't budge. So the alternative was a hot shower, always instrumental in whipping my energy reserves back up in no time. As the soothing water streamed down my body working its magic, I went inside to arrive at the cause of this sudden setback. The only reasonable explanation I could feel existed was the fact I'd picked up someone else's vibes. I had that before with Jaleena: all of a sudden feeling like I could murder the world, and not feel bad about it. And the weird thing was, I had absolutely no reason for my pitch black mood. When I spoke to her later that night, and told her about that sudden downturn, she asked me exactly when I'd had that. It turned out that at that exact moment, all the way out there in Tampa, Florida, she had had such a murderous temper for a good reason!

With my energy quickly returning to normal because of the warm water, I sensed something more: today's downer had been brought on by none other than my beloved twin, Selina. Not sure about the exact train of events that made her feel this utterly fatigued, I can only speculate. But it felt like my little lady had been forced to endure some very low vibrations to be this down in the dumps. Perhaps a first crack in the armor of her marriage, the first sign of her return to me?

In all honesty, I can't even rejoice about that, because I just felt that utter desolation she must have undergone in even more devastating detail. I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy, let alone the woman I love beyond all!

Just hang in there, Selina! I know some negatives must be instrumental in turning things around for us, but it will be alright in the end. I know I've scripted you to appear on the tenth of the tenth of the tenth, but my novel is almost finished as we speak. Thus, we may be ahead of schedule, which is only good, right?

Right now, with my condition fully restored, I can only channel a sizable part of my energy her way, should she decide to use it. No force, just an offer, there for the taking, with no strings attached. Looking back over the landscape of the past, I find that my feelings for that little lady changed, not the feelings themselves, but the taste they leave: the know-factor is steadily increasing, and with it the anxiety of whether it will happen has markedly diminished.

And even though I have no waking memories of it, I'm sure my sleeping intentions to spend dream time together are often granted. So perhaps I should call it a night, dive into my bed, and meet her there. But on the other hand, Ayreon's track called Actual Fantasy tantalizes me into some more music and proofreading. After all, our future selves are still together as we speak, so in a way we are never apart.

4444AD, Day 300, 01:23, Liberator

Haley's husky voice wakes me up, from a very restful and dreamless sleep: “Sander, the anomaly is coming up, would you care to experience it with me?” I look beside me, but my princess is still sound asleep. Better let her dream on, because it will probably be something similar to the first black hole we entered. Thus, I get somewhat decent, and join Haley in the control room.

It is a magnificent sight, since this particular hole is at the center of its very own galaxy. We cover the remaining light minutes at near top speed, being lit from all sides by the ever closing celestial bodies. “I'm a bit worried about our hull temperature, Haley, could you check for me please?”, I ask my silicon partner. She waves a virtual hand, and whisks my concerns away: “Nah, never worry! I'll keep tabs on it, and notify you when it becomes in any way necessary.”

I do have her switch on the shaders on the view ports, because the light is beginning to impinge upon my ability to properly discern my environment. “Wow!! shouldn't have had that Tellurian brandy last night, I'm seeing the Light!”, Selina comes stumbling in. Stunning to look at, even in her stonewashed jeans and white ruffled top. She slouches onto the seat to my right, and asks me what is up with all the light. I briefly explain about the galaxy being sucked up by our destination, and she looks at me quite shocked. “So the change as opposed to last time is all the extra mass we have coming in with us. Won't that become quite hazardous?”, is her cautious question. “Well, the mass won't be the main problem, because the gravity cancels itself out if we have comparable masses all around us. But the added light and radiation might make a difference”, is my not quite reassuring reply. I continue to explain how I had Haley monitoring things, and so far she kept quiet, so not to worry.

Immediately, Haley interrupts me: “Sander, we've passed the point of no return, and will be able to endure the current increase in light and radiation levels for another seven minutes”

She steps up the shaders a bit more, so the two of us can at least normally perceive each other. “Haley, you are much better at this than I am. Can you plot us an adaptive course to keep gravitational influences to a minimum?”, I ask our best friend. Her head nods, and as her involvement sends a shiver through the controls, I let them go, and turn my seat towards Selina.

“You alright, or do you need a hug?”, I offer. “Would love to, but I don't need it”, my love replies with a smile. I get up, stand in front of her, and hug her close while she is still sitting. Because of the height of the seat, she is perfectly positioned to comfortably get through the next six minutes.....

“Ahumm,”, Haley interrupts our soft and gentle kissing. She wants to alert us about the impending event horizon, and counts down the remaining seconds. You may wonder how we can not use time, but still count seconds? Well, there is a difference: counting a few seconds to alert someone to a specific now that's coming up does not take away from the Now. What we did obliterate however, was the endless stream of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia, and aeons that made the straightjacket which stifled twenty-first century life. So, in 2020AD, when the church had been officially dismembered, it was decided that we would also reinstate the Eternal Now, as it had been before the advance of the Julian and the Gregorian calendar. It would take quite some getting used to, but watches went really out of style, and no longer were advertized everywhere. Life became quite a lot less hectic after that, and adhoc meetings became quite the fashion.

Like any change, people got used to it, and devised new and novel ways to get to where they were going. No timetables for trains any more, but weird enough the traffic control system proved quite up to the task of avoiding dangerous conditions. People no longer aimed for a specific train, but just went with the flow, arriving at the station when they did, and just took the first arriving train towards their destination. Some people had a bit of a struggle getting used to the new mindset, but in the end all accepted the new relaxed situation. It's hard to tell just how long it took, but pretty soon people acted liked they'd never known anything else.....

But I digress. Haley's voice counts down: “Three, two, one,....” Selina and I are silent, mesmerized by the absence of change. We are still in our close embrace, even though I switched to embracing my lady from the back in order to also be able to look forward, towards the viewports. Just at that moment, Haley disengages the shaders, because she's detected a drop in light levels outside. The speed indicator beeps frantically, as our ship jumps forward, exceeding the top speed its displacement engines can hurl it forward.

I grab the front edge of Selina's seat just in time to not be slammed across the control room by the sudden speed increase. Selina's back presses into my chest like she weighs a ton all of a sudden, but my strong arms gripping the seat edge right between her thighs don't leave her room to escape. Together we watch as the emerging star pattern zooms out into radial beauty as we speed on into the new space that we've just entered. I tell Haley to disengage the engines, except for any course corrections on her gravitational equilibrium scenario. “Light and radiation are steadily decreasing”, Haley informs us. Our speed drops below light speed again, so the stars are more their normal self. Mass density also seems to be returning to normal, but we still have no idea where we are. “Any known reference points, Haley?”, I ask her. “Billions! We're back in normal space again, boss”, is her delighted reply. I turn Selina around on her swivel seat, and hug her passionately. “I guess now you have your answer dear”, I whisper in her ear. Haley interrupts us: “I figured out where we are relative to Earth, it's a good fourteen months away.” I briefly look at Selina, and see her look like she doesn't quite understand. I have the same idea, and so ask Haley what the distance is to Mandigo III, where we originally were headed. The answer arrives immediately, and is much more to our liking: only six months separate us from our heaven on Earth, Mandigo III.

We leave Haley to hold down the fort, and retire to our state room. “Well, if it's going to take another six months, I want a change of scenery”, Selina starts when we enter the room. She's just like me where that is concerned: change sometimes requires more drastic change, to regain our balance. So together we decide on what the new entourage is going to be, which only requires temporary action from the hologenerators: they actually create matter, so once it's created, we can switch them off again.

“Empty the room please, except for the two of us”, Selina starts the game. “And store the designs of the fitness equipment for later retrieval”, I'm quick to add. “I routinely save traces of all objects dematerialized”, Haley informs us in a matter-of-fact tone. “You first.”, I give Selina first draw. She looks at the transparent ceiling, and opens her pretty red lips: “Haley, could you put a hexagonal pattern of bright stars on the ceiling, like the outer layer at home?” Before she can actually breathe after that long sentence, Haley's got her request covered. In a rapid pace the individual lights pop up, from the center of the ceiling outwards. “Next a nice soft green lawn as floor covering, I'm sure you can install a maintenance subroutine to keep it nice and fresh, yeah?”, I add. “Jump!”, Haley reacts, and we both do, landing on the softest grass ever.

Selina is next, and she dictates that the furniture should be mahogany, and richly decorated. I then add a fourposter bed, with spiraling posts, and warm, dark reds and oranges for the bed linen. In quick succession we add a wardrobe, and ask Haley to re-materialize our earlier clothes in there. Next some chairs, lamps, and other knick-knacks.

With this new environment for living, sleeping and loving, we figure our balance has been regained. I pick Selina up, and lovingly carry her to the bed. She looks at me, and I don't need our twin sense of each others psyche to know what happens next.....

Saturday, April 10th, 2010, 16:23

Today, I literally spent most of my day in the gym. First there was my own workout of close to two hours, and then when I got home again I could barely get to work checking my book, before Valerie came by to mention not feeling like going to fitness, but not wanting to forgo the workout either. Thus I volunteered to accompany her during the ride there, and wait for her until it was time to go home again. She wondered if I needed to bring something along to stay busy, but lately I don't need to 'stay busy', and besides that, I just knew that something would come up if it needed to. And it did.....

So I sat there, at the large wooden table, lightly sprinkled with reading distractions. Four glossies, about various subjects: the shipbuilding world, fashion, passion and France. I leafed through all of them, admiring the beauty of ships, watches, jewels, ladies and more watches. And then it hit me: we are being lured into time, thus pulling us away from the timelessness of the All. Timepieces beyond comparison are flaunted in most of these glossies, costing many times over what I make in a month. The women there are beautiful, I'll gladly agree to that, but they all radiate this 'You can't touch me!' attitude. Thus, men are discouraged from ever seriously considering real beauty both inside and out.

Oddly enough, the glossy on France had absolutely no ads for watches in it. But then it also had to do without the beautiful women, thus creating the impression or illusion that the timelessness of France can not be had with the more glossy aspects of life. Go for time, and score big! Yeah, right!

I only watch this stuff sporadically, when there are no better things to do, like just now. But the weird thing is, even in these seemingly unrelated subjects, I find the clues that help me along on my quest to make life more and more fun for me and anyone I can help.

I'm quite convinced that further study of the world's glossies would reveal countless other associations that thus become etched into our global consciousness by these magazines. Now I'm not saying there is a world wide conspiracy going on, but much more the aforementioned unintentional interference of the light that all these people are so valiantly trying to spread about their passions. By becoming aware of these patterns, we can at least choose consciously whether or not we agree with them being true for the Cosmos we each live in...

“Agree?”, I hear you ask: “do we get to choose?” Yes, specifics like that you get to choose! Not the ubiquitous, completely entangled mechanism of the Cosmos, that is a given for you to experience, and recognize. But the output of that incredible machine, the world around us, is totally up for grabs!

Just type 'levitating shaman' into Youtube, and you'll find a very convincing video of an African shaman who, standing in a ring of fire, performs levitation while standing. He actually floats half a meter above the sand, with not the slightest evidence of any hidden supports, unlike some of the other videos found in that same Youtube. But do fakes invalidate the real thing?

So yes, Laws, which are constructs made or recognized by men in their pursuit of the Truth, are there to be bent and broken. Now levitation may look cool, but I'm sure you could think of a few other laws you'd want changed, right?

4444AD, Day 333, 07:08, Liberator

I wake up, pinned down by about 60 kilograms of something. Open my eyes, only to find Selina straddling me, stroking my chest. “You're cute when you're asleep”, she says, and puts her left index finger on the tip of my nose. “But that's not why I woke you, I'm bored.”

We talk a while, and it seems my love has gotten into her head that another five months or so of normal space travel is not what she wants to be doing right now. “Well cutie, since this was your idea in the first place, what would you rather be doing? Apart from having a go at it...”, I hasten to add.

Too late, my one weakness of never being able to say no has gotten the better of me. The next half hour is spent in Heaven, private heaven. If you want to know what specifically happened, I suggest you develop your sense of being to the point where access to the Akashic Records becomes a given. But the problem doesn't really disappear by us being lovingly engaged.

Afterwards, side by side under the dark red and orange bed covers, we come back to it. “What would you rather do then, pumpkin?”, I look at her. “I'd love to live the life we just spent months tweaking to perfection”, my lovely answers. My heart jumps, for she just expressed my deepest wish as well. But even for us very well-equipped androids, such a swap would be unusual to say the least.

“We'd have to notify our family and friends about our change of plans, and how do we get across that boundary and into those lives?”, I play the killjoy, not figuring we can just go ahead and do it.

“the Akashic Records gave me the idea.”, Selina smiles: “she said that since All is One, we could just merge with any aspect of ourselves we wanted to merge with.”

Together we get dressed, and figure that just telling all our loved ones we've decided to go elsewhere would have been undoable back in the old days. People just wouldn't understand. But nowadays the multi-dimensionality of the Cosmos is an accepted feature, so the messages we send out in the next moments all meet with well-wishing and understanding. While waiting for the last of the reactions, we notify Haley of our decision to end the travels of the Liberator 7. Setting its hologenerators to self-consumption is a nice and neat way to clean up after ourselves, although we must take care not to do it before we're actually gone from this location. Since we are actually the higher selves of our 2011 counterparts, there is no need to ask permission. After all, we can aim to experience any aspect of our own being, without fearing we will displace anything else. It will just be a complete and seamless merge, with no one feeling any worse, or threatened in any way.

With the goodbyes said, and nothing but the grandest wishes for the two of us, we set ourselves down on the grand bed, facing one another in the lotus position. Our android bodies will remain here, to be turned into energy along with the rest of the ship, returned to Source.

I look into my darlings eyes, those dark pools of love that never failed me yet. Together we aim for that very One moment, when 2011 Sander and Selina first set eyes on one another in full knowing. No, not that one moment in 2006, where they first physically met, but the one highly synchronistical one on November 11th, 2011, when they both knew they belonged together. We place our hands with the palms against one another, look each other in the eye, and then imagine us there......

Monday, April 11th, 2010, 19:45

I had the weirdest day today, like I really was dreaming all day long. It started with me getting up really awake, and intending a very satisfactory morning update for the website. When I got downstairs, it turned out that another one of my other contributors had awoken for the first time, and between the three of them they'd added about half a dozen articles, which is just about what I usually contribute! So all I had to do was thank them nicely, and add some music to the mix!

While traveling to work, I got a mail that some Chinese company was trying to acquire my domain name as a brand name, which looked legit enough for me to seriously answer it. In light of my recent mindset, I could see this as an incoming windfall, but I'm not counting on anything yet. Basically, it is like that one Heineken advertisement: “And now, we wait....”

I figure there are both positive and negative scams out there. I came to that conclusion when going home, I got another "I want to be your friend" mail: way too beautiful, but also way to blonde, and she signed off with the exact same line Liliya did that first time: "embraces lonely girl". Well cutie, we can be friends, but my heart belongs to another......

So one myth supposedly costs you money, and another one might bring in an unexpected windfall, and I got targeted by both on the same day! Is it any wonder that I feel like a million for having finally seen through this?

But let's be honest: this novel started out as a couple of 45th century androids playing with the past, helping their past selves along by tweaking our present. But why the immense distance in time? And if time is an illusion, why wouldn't the very same thing be possible for us in our own incarnations? Don't we tweak daily? When you pick up some experience, is not your future different from what it was before you had the experience? The only problem is, we make things far too difficult by also wanting to tweak other people. The moment you stop worrying about tweaking others, is the moment life becomes simple. Sure, there may be some negative echoes that still arrive because people at first treat you the way they perceived you in the past, but that is unavoidable: as long as we believe light speed is limited, we see each others past, and not the now! And as long as we cling to our memories of one another, the echoes remain longer.

Yes, there are very many urban myths and some of them we even consider realities. But viruses, hackers, spam, russian brides, lotteries, law suits and corporate buyouts have certain common attributes: they are either positive or negative, they involve probability, and not everybody gets as severely affected by them as everybody else. I usually narrowly escape the bad parts, and come close to the positive ones, close but no cigar. There's a wisdom in there somewhere, that I'm just about to put my finger on.....

But you can't hurry it along. And that's why tonight, I'll just go and watch Mission Impossible III because it is now being aired by my cable company, to get some 'more input', because that I know: blockbusters in movie land are literally loaded with clues to the inner workings of the Cosmos!

Tuesday, April 12th, 2010, 04:55

After Mission Impossible III had given me a loads of clues and symbolism, and awe at the sheer impossible camera paths that modern movie making seems to so generously deploy, the weirdest night followed: lay awake literally All Night Long, only to be fully rested by the time my alarm clock went. Just totally lucid dreaming the whole night!

And my mailbox held another surprise: a mail from Cindy, whom I never met, but who thoroughly confirms my 'suspicions' even way before my novel actually hits the street! Her mail, though sent to a domain I owned since recently, claims I subscribed to her service in 2006, when I only acquired the domain in 2010! It was also flagged as spam, although nobody can figure out why that would be the case, because it seems like a very normal mail message to me. So much so in fact, I posted it on my site, and sent her a nice mail in return.

Hi Cindy,

I'm not sure here, so just to check: did you send me this story so I could redistribute it? Because even though it is addressed at a mail address which no one knows is related to me, and my mail program flags it as junk mail, it is absolutely the kind of story I could use on my web log. But I've just learned that all these mechanisms like spam, viruses, scams, etc. are just that: mechanisms to get the word out.

So yes, I'll gladly post it, and it bears no copyright or anything, so I safely could right? Also it is in a private E-mail to myself, so I can safely quote since you didn't tell me it requires restriction.....

But just so you know I saw through the 'scam': I never subscribed to veremail from admin@nothere.nl simply because at that moment, I did not own the domain nothere.nl! But thanks for the very appropriate confirmation that I'm on the right track.

Come to think of it, Veremail reminds me of Vera, the spouse of Victor at a company I worked. That must have been around 2006....

Say hi to Viktor for me!

Love your Light, and your Beauty

Dré

So yes, my day has succeeded before it's even virtually begun. On to another day of testing, where I'm sure there will be many other great clues in this mystery. Just like the hospital reality show yesterday before the movie, that featured two injuries which were literally experienced by members of my household: me cutting my outside of my thumb on a shard of glass in a garbage bag, and Jane falling and hurting the bottom side of her chin. Non-significant events, I'm sure, but it was weird seeing both of them on the very same show! Would love to chat, but now it's off to work!

I've come to think of it just now, that tweaking is a so-called recursive pattern. But maybe I should first try to explain recursiveness to the less computer-minded among you:

Recursion happens whenever part of a program executes itself, to solve a subset of the problem that it is facing. It is like the child's game called higher / lower, where once you've called a number and gotten the reply, you know your problem has become smaller.

One of the tricky bits of recursion is when to stop calling yourself: recursive programs are notorious sources of endless loops and stack overflows!

But tweaking is even more tricky, because a tweak alters the program before calling it again! That is what programmers call self modifying code. Now self modifying code is even trickier than recursive code, because in recursive code the end conditions are fixed. Self modifying code has no such simple guarantees: any modification might break the end condition, and render the program catatonic!

Experiments in these areas still happen, but they are preferably not used in mainstream programming, because of the risks involved.

Another programming technique is so-called genetic programming, which is a form of self modifying program that is evolved through trial and error, and survival of the fittest. Here, we obviously looked at Nature, and saw something of value. Remarkable though, when applied to practical cases, genetic programs tend to make the same initial mistakes that humans do when they solve the same problem.

Stuff like this is state of the current art, but what about state of the future art? I'm talking self-correcting, adaptive code here. Nothing Nature hasn't already figured out.... So just look around you for a change, and the next revolution in computing may be yours!

But that's the point, right? If we see the world as a perfectly spherical ocean of water, and people as objects of different densities, there are first of all those that sink, and those that float. Nothing wrong there, because denser object belong in denser conditions to thrive, right?

Of the floating objects, only the heavier ones have enough weight to make big waves by themselves, but they cannot perceive the waves that are around until they allow themselves to stop making waves. Once you stop making waves, you can be aware of the waves that are already there, so you know what is happening.

The lightest objects seemingly are driven by those heavier objects, but lets not nullify their influence: when connected, they become a sort of blanket that dampens the waves of the bigger players. And that my friends, is the essence of tweaking: masses of lightweight beings, working towards a single goal without even knowing one another. If they connect too strongly, they become a net where the water escapes through the spaces in between, and they tend to drown. Floating loosely and unattached, they are most aware of the waves on the surface, and restrict their watery habitat as little as possible. How's that for an analogy from a Pisces?

And the analogy pops up in various waves of Life: lately I've been noticing the imagery on vans and big trucks. There are blind ones, simple names and logos, names and logos with additional text, and complete advertisements. Also, you have designs that span both the truck and the trailer.

But if you observe a given stretch of road for a longer while, you find some trucks passing by daily, or even hourly, while others come by sporadically. Still others come by for the first time, something our mind knows very well: even watching thousands of photos, you can quite consistently know you've seen a certain scene before, if only once. Well, maybe that is a fluke that just happens to me, but I figure anyone can do that.

Anyway, once you start observing with an open mind, you'll soon find phrases like “Sure we can”, “Don't Worry”, “Transports Air”, “Intelligent Logistics”, and many, many more. I haven't yet done a full analysis on what you can expect, because from your vantage point it may not even look that way, but for me these types of weird coincidences make me laugh out loud sometimes...

Saturday, April 17th, 2010, 04:42

Today I am somewhat in conflict, but in a good way. I'm going to break my word in a manner of speaking, but only because I know Jolene will forgive me, in a way will even silently applaud me for it!

Just like I knew Henk, the psychic that helped me at age 35 to remember my vow at age eight, was lying when he told me his Thursday meetings were ending, I just know Jolene meant just about the complete opposite of what she told me: she asked me not to tell anyone about her life, but I'm sure she'll absolutely not mind that I tell this story anyway, with the proper precautions to achieve what the business end of the world would call 'Plausible Deniability', or in other words, a bit of white lying magic to protect the innocent.

I met Jolene on the train the other day, quite by incident, and very nicely. Somehow, I felt very, very connected to her, even though she turned out to be a person who had an uncanny ability to tell me exactly what kind of a person I am! Or maybe just because of that, because with her, my know-indicator was going crazy.

But despite the obvious connect, she kept her distance. We did exchange addresses, and over the next few weeks, she phoned me a couple of times, just to hear about how I was doing, and what was up in my life. Jolene felt very awesome, kinda like Selina, even though with her there was this barrier, which both of us kept intact: externally, she was the kind of person I'm not really attracted to, which was enhanced by the fact she tried convince me that our relationship was purely business (which is kind of a dirty word to me).

She claimed she needed help with her computer, and one day, I was invited to provide said help. I traveled there at the appointed hour, and walked the last few hundred meters from the bus to her home, or at least the address she gave me. It was in a well to do neighborhood, all privately owned homes. I rang the bell, and was invited in, only to find myself in a pigsty! I mean, she'd warned me her place was a mess, but I figured it to be like mine sometimes is, for lack of futuristic domestic droids. This however looked far worse, and my first instinct, which I immediately followed, was to offer her to help clean things up a bit. She wouldn't hear of it however, claiming she'd gotten me in there to help her along where the computer was concerned.

So I sat down, amidst a flurry of newspaper clippings, partially opened mail, and other 'messy' things. Nothing really gross, just this consistent wrapping of disorder that I could easily ignore in order to get my work done. She wanted a general cleanup of her computer, like I've done dozens of times for myself and others. Defrag, cleanup, remove unused software, install basic stuff needed to do proper work, you know the drill. So did I, or so I thought...

I'd seen she used Outlook for her mail, but also observed that her Word and Excel where complaining about needing an installer CD to be usable. I usually resort to public domain software wherever possible, and so gave her the option of having OpenOffice installed, instead of those office applications. She agreed, not realising like I should have, that her Outlook was part of the Microsoft Office I was aiming to replace. We chatted on, while she made us something to eat in a kitchen that to me would have been barely unacceptable as starting point for cooking activities.

It was a home-brewn soup, as she called it, quite tasty, but with too many unknown ingredients to be on my list of favorite dishes. I somewhat too ardently refused seconds, but we parted as friends. Then, after I'd gotten home, she called that her E-mail no longer worked. Realizing my colossal blunder I gladly took the blame, but was relieved she didn't expect me to get back on the train right that instance. I did offer to attempt a rescue using TeamViewer, so I could take over her system from home, but being a self-proclaimed digifobe, she declined that. She did get another friend to call me later, to dissolve the matter via phone.

But then there's the little incongruities that trigger you to the weirdness of the situation: though Jolene claimed she was afraid of computers, I counted no less than three systems in her home: the computer I needed to work on, an IBM Thinkpad carelessly lying around, and a Compaq DeskPro system in one of the bedrooms. Add to that the question she'd asked me about purchasing Val's old laptop, and I guessed myself in the twilight zone.

Speaking of zones: even though she and I were in the zone constantly, I was very near the edge of my comfort zone while in that place. To me, a home needs to be somewhat cleaner to be comfortable, but it was Jolene's home, so I kept abiding by her will, and tried not to disturb the flurry of newspaper clippings that so cozily surrounded me.

Yesterday, I mailed her to inquire if her friend's rescue operation had succeeded. I got back a mail, so it obviously had: she said she wasn't angry or disappointed, but told me not to mail, phone, or try to contact her otherwise.

Now I could mourn the loss of a friend, but this sounded way more like: “School's over, class dismissed!”

Final sync: I just found out Rush are on their “Time Machine Tour”! Weird how they are mentioned in various places in this Time Tale......

Saturday, April 17th, 2010, 11:59

I planned to go to fitness, but once there needed only one exercise to realize that today, exercise wasn't my cup of tea! So I admitted failure to Remy, the instructor, and checked out. We got to talking, and he mentioned being an avid Sci-Fi reader. So I agreed to send him a sneak preview just as soon as this chapter is done. Didn't even have the inspiration for it at that moment, but with the proper trust that is hardly a limitation.

Having to wait for Leann to finish her stretch of exercises, I occupied myself with Discoveries Raging Planet, the episode about volcanoes. Quite interesting, and at times they even had me thinking some of the shots of molten lava could easily have been made with the current state-of-the-art CGI software, because basically I couldn't tell the difference between the Hollywood movie named Armageddon, or this show. Now once you start doubting the reality of anything, you realize you have to base yourself on something to keep yourself standing. But as Einstein pointed out so eloquently: All is relative! So it is up to me, to figure out if I believe the headline news, but I know already I don't, at least not in the literal sense that most people do. Let's disect the show I was watching, which revisited various volcanic eruptions, and gave very detailed accounts of the victims of some of them. Now what would be needed to fake this? Weird question you think? Well, if I claim it to be unreal, wouldn't your first question be how I think it really happened? How I think it really happened will become clear later, but for now, I'd need a good CGI workstation, and a guy skilled at operating it, to produce believable high-definiton footage of the disaster area. Presumably, the whole civilized world saw Mt. St. Helens erupt, but how many of you have actually seen it live? What I'm aiming at, if you did have to lose your father in this disaster, it will always feel more real to you than to the 5.9 billion other Earthlings. Some will feel strongly about it, nevertheless, and those are for instance the news gatherers around the world. I'm not questioning their motives here however, because for me anybodies motives are beyond reproach. Those who aim to (mis)lead, do so for either selfish or selfless reasons, but since All is One, that is really all the same.....

So let's just say that with the advance of images came peoples ideas about telling stories with them. Just like ancient cavemen drew rock drawings that purportedly have images of UFOs on them, so people operating the first movie cameras soon figured out how to add fantastic twists to the stories they told. And voila, the movie industry was born.

Now, would it be likely that someone got the idea of taking a movie fantasy and passing it off as 'the real news'? It only takes one, right? I can't tell you who did it the first time, because as you know by now, I am not a proponent of linear time. But what I can tell you, is that it created a ripple effect across the globe like any event does!

And to the surroundings of such a ripple, comes the following challenge: do you believe the wave, or don't you? And actually it's not even so dualistic as that, because the moment you say you don't believe, you have a whole spectrum of fantasies to replace it with!

So actually, the encounter Sander and Selina had in the Akashic Records was much more like it: any place you find yourself, there you are. Numerous ways out, of which the first one is staying put. Then there are the opaque doors, of which you know you'll end up somewhere in the vicinity, able to get back here. And on top of that there's the unlimited supply of glass doors, leading to untold and fantastic alternatives, from which return seems far more unlikely. But, remember the escape clause of the Voice? “These portals can be redirected. You can get back to where you were in only one step.”

Believe me, you never ever leave Reality! You may leave 3D reality, but that is not what I'm talking about. That is the most restricted possible common denominator of true Reality, as I define it. You may agree with me there, or not. I simply call it as I see it, like we all do!

Well, most people don't. They admit far less as being reality, than they would consider their Reality. We all hide stuff from one another, afraid of what the other might think of it. I mean, my preference in a mate is for her to be younger than me. My kids then jokingly call me a pedophile, even though Selina is just about in her thirties by now. Still, I mention it to them, because they are dear to me. And I mention it here, because you are a faceless audience. But there's this whole group of people around me, who I'd rather not tell.....

But hey, if I want this novel to be the huge success I obviously hope it will be, then that group around me will most likely also know. Tough choices: do I stop myself from becoming famous, just to avoid one or two colleagues thinking badly of me? I don't think so....

But that ditch around you is there for every choice you make, every 'fact' you either believe or don't. That, my fellow readers is called the veil in New Age terms, and it is rapidly thinning. Left to its own devices, consensus reality will expand and expand, until it coincides with Reality..

Sunday, April 18th, 2010, 08:33

And in fact, there isn't just one veil. Unbiased observation of Reality will soon show you that Nature has a sort of check and double-check mechanism installed. If you put an intention out there, you are first of all presented with a somewhat neutral reflection of your wish, to inquire if that is what you want, by the good cop part of the Cosmos.

Depending on your answer, the bad cop will then inspire you with some of the possibly bad consequences of your intention, and again will ask you about your willingness to receive the just rewards. These two layer prevent unintended side effects, as far as it goes.

After that, the wheels are set in motion, but during the waiting for its arrival, the good cop and bad cop give you constant reminders in the form of syncs to further ascertain you are still inclined to accept your end of the deal.

That is where the whole God / Devil idea comes from: they are the original good cop and bad cop, seemingly out to put you behind bars, but in fact sizing you up for a job on the Force, should you choose to accept!

Pun intended of course: Mission Impossible is just one of the infinite hints that point towards this mechanism. The hints are spread out across the entire being of the Cosmos, available holographically in literally every little blade of grass, every behavior of every inanimate object. As the apple hit Newton, or was eaten by Eve, it was there only to present the Choice: “Do you, don't you, or would you rather do something else entirely?”

And then, as Reality starts to change around you, you will become aware of both the causes and effects of your choice, all mingled into your One experience. With time being the illusion it is, preferences and consequences blur into one whole set of aspects of your creation. The next choice you make based on this humongous set of Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking is just that: Your choice! And yep, you got it: Rogers Waters gave yet another clue.....

I'm stumped here: I want to add this one last image, to show you the Intricately Interconnected Intelligence at work here. Better get to my intuition first, to find the central theme.

And it worked! Just as soon as I leaned back wanting to intuit my next move, Val started lamenting the fact that she too couldn't come up with a plausible story line for her first real novel, just like her dad did this time. Chatting about it much like Selina and me do in my novel, we soon came to the conclusion that hers will probably be playing around the fall of Lemuria and Atlantis, and the events leading up to it. With her desire for inspiration fulfilled, my feelings also got better, because this in effect shows how the Cosmos works: if you ask for something, you often get the kind invitation to first fulfill a similar desire in someone else. Joyfully giving in to that request is one of the myriad ways of clearing the way for your own fulfillment. But don't see this as a restricted exchange, a tit for tat!

Because that it certainly isn't! You can if you feel like it, simply decline the option to go help others in the meantime, and it won't have any bearing on the eventual granting of your wish. It's just the system giving you an option to be joyfully engaged in the meantime. If you've got other plans, by all means execute them!

And don't worry about missing the eventual arrival of your present. Because Now equals Present, so you'll not miss it, no matter what!

Friday, November 11th, 2011, 22:22

She's sleeping now, but what a day it was! The kids went home around six, and while I was cleaning up the mess, the door bell rang. “Must be one of them, forgot something no doubt!” I swing open the door, and am speechless for the next few seconds: there she is, dark-haired, very beautiful, but also very, very pregnant! Selina has arrived, come back to me all by herself without any prompting or seducing from my side!

At that very moment, I know this is the moment that defines me, and her. I've found my twin flame, and nothing will be able to keep us apart from now on.

She holds up the novel, and laughs at me: “Sander? How on earth did you think up that name?” I explain to her that I needed some shelter from my colleagues at least until the novel starts selling, and she came back to me. Otherwise it would just have been the ravings of a madman, and I didn't want to be considered that. Also, I didn't quite want them to think badly of her, and we both knew there would be those who did....

I invite her in, and usher her into the living room, and onto the couch. When I make a move to sit on the other couch, she beckons me with her index finger: “No no, right here, next to me please. I need a hug!” I sit down, and carefully hug her to bits. “How long?” I ask. Selina rubs her hand slowly over her bulging tummy, and tells me they are due in about thirteen weeks. Talk about a surprise!

It is quickly determined that she needs shelter, since her husband has figured out that his wife had been more generous with her beauty than he can stomach. In fact, indirectly I had been the culprit that gave it away, but Selina had been careless by letting my novel lie around, in a place where he had easy access to it. Had he found it anyplace else, then she could have easily denied being the girl in the story. But stashed away in her night stand it was a disaster waiting to happen.....

“Well, no use crying over spilled milk”, I comfort her: “You probably already gathered that you are wanted here more than is humanly possible!” We hug again, and engage in the very first real kiss we share in this incarnation. It seemed to last forever, and had me thinking of all the other ones that were yet to come...

Being the perfect gentleman, I show her the bedroom I'd set up in the attic, when I still thought Russian Liliya was going to come here. After that deal fell through, I just knew that I hadn't decorated that room for nothing: some worthy cause would arise. And so it did: Selina loves the idea of separate beds for now, not that she minds being with me, but her increased size prohibits the both of us sharing a single bed, and I don't have a double one yet.

Since she is exhausted from the journey here, I put her to bed, and sit beside her on the floor, to chat some more. She tells me more about her time in America, modeling that beautiful body of hers to some friends. She had been promised those photos would never make it to Holland, but of course no one can guarantee that once they are on the web. A dutch link site found them, and the rest is history.

By midnight she dozes off. I kiss her gently, but she doesn't move. Being way too hyped to ever sleep tonight, I go down to write this bit down, and count my blessings.

What do I think of the love of my life being pregnant by someone else? Well, I always said I wanted at least two more kids, and it seems I got my wish, just like Robert told me all these years ago. He was a remarkable character: claimed to live like a hobo, but had been quite well off. Used the web whenever other people allowed him to use their computers, but could get any site in the top of Google's search results for whatever keywords required. Being psychic, he told me and Joyce that there would be two more kids, which he called the Righteous Twins. Would the occupants of my lovely new lady be those twins? Or would the Cosmos have still more unexpected surprises for us?

Sure I'd love them, regardless of who the father was. Notwithstanding the fact that I would have loved to be the cause of this pregnancy, I cannot blame a tiny baby for being fathered by another. If he had reasons to let Selina go, then I could easily waltz in as the new daddy, and pick it up where he left off. His loss, my win....

Would I keep the kids from knowing their true heritage? Certainly not! True love does not restrict, but leaves one free to go wherever he or she pleases. Certainly, had the roles been reversed, I'd want to know myself too.

“Sander! Get up here!” I'm up like I'm stung by a bee, and bounce up the stairs two steps at a time! Swipe the curtain aside, and land right next to my love by the bed: “What's the panic?” I say. “Dunno, but there's something wrong!”. I race down again, and out the door to the neighbors, because they have a car. Their son will drive us to the hospital, and warms up the engine while I again bounce up the stairs to get Selina. She has used the time wisely to get dressed, in a wide dress, completed by her black ladies boots.

“Can you walk?” I ask. “Don't think so, at least not the stairs”, she answers. I stand to the left of her, to position her to be carried, not over the threshold, but down two flights of stairs. The threshold will no doubt come later, but is of no importance in this very moment. She weighs about sixty kilograms, even fully loaded, so no problem there. Together we descend the stairs, and go out the door to the waiting vehicle. Our driver awaits, and helps me to let Selina lie down on the back seat. Then we hop into the front, and drive the short distance to the newly built hospital.

Arriving there, Selina abruptly refuses a cart, preferring to be carried again. Her arms around my neck are oddly familiar, just like all these words I have been writing in this novel. It is as if I do not invent the words, but merely type them up from memory, a memory far deeper than my mere mind.

I finally put my love on the bed that the nurse points out to us, and we wait for the doctor. “I'm afraid, they feel so wrong”, my beauty says, and the fear radiates from her face. The nurse hooks up a heart rate monitor, or at least tries to. But despite the fact there should be two tiny heartbeats, she finds none.

That moment the doctor comes in, and by his cool and collected appearance he succeeds in calming down Selina. He listens for the boys with his stethoscope, after breathing on it to take away the initial chill. But that ritual can't take away the chill of not being able to pick up a single heartbeat. “I have sad news for the both of you”, he says: “It looks like both kids have given up within arms length of the finish line”. I am glad I am close to Selina at that moment, because she really needs to have me close. I hold her sobbing body against mine, and stroke her dark hair. I myself am somewhat of a stoic, I don't easily show sadness. But I feel it all the same, especially now I'd just gotten used to becoming a daddy again, even if it was at the hands of another man...

The doctor proceeds to tell us he will have to do a C-section, because dead babies tend to diminish the mother's willingness to go through normal childbirth. Luckily, enough personnel is already on call to assist in the operation, which is carried out immediately.

“You should be trying to get some sleep”, the nurse tells me: “Unfortunately, we have no spare bed at the moment, so you'll have to sleep on one of the waiting room couches.” She gives me a blanket and a pillow, so as to make me experience some comfort at least, and I go and find myself a nice place to crash.

I find a couch opposite the indoor pond, where the Koys are swimming, and where the fountain spreads its restful splashing.

I lie awake thinking about numerous things, like for instance Faithless and his track called Insomnia. Remembering it is still on my smart phone, I pull out the headset, and listen to it. It meanders into God is a DJ, which I don't get to finish, because my eyelids decide to go bye-bye....

My next memories are so weird I don't even know if they're past, present, fantasy or just a dream: I'm in my backyard, but instead of the mess of concrete tiles it currently is, it's a well-tended garden, with plenty of grass for the girls to play on: and that they do, both the spitting image of their mother, who sits on the lounge chair right next to me. I'm confused, because given our current predicament, it would even be doubtful Selina would ever give birth again. But the dream is as clear as a crystal ceiling: two delightful ladies, growing up to be even more beautiful than their mother. Boy, does that mean I should start keeping the boys at bay right away?

Not bloody likely! These ladies may choose for themselves, without any interference from me, positive or negative.

Saturday, November 11th, 2011, 05:01

I wake up with a bad back ache, from lying crumpled up on a couch in the waiting room. I'd sent my neighbor home, after thanking him, and spent the night at the hospital, awaiting the end of the operation. I ask the nurse, and she picks up a phone to get me more information. “Just closing up”, she informs me, and takes me to the recovery room, where Selina will be parked the moment they're done with her. I'd asked, but I wasn't allowed to watch the operation.

When they wheel her in, she's still out like a light. I sit next to her, and accept the cup of coffee that the nurse offers me. Normally I would definitely have noticed someone like her, but Selina's arrival has totally shut down my beauty scanners, except where she is concerned.

It is just about getting light, when her lashes finally quiver and open. I kiss her forehead, and those lush, lovely lips. “Morning dear...”, I whisper. “Well, I guess they weren't the Righteous Twins”, Selina says. I tell her not to worry about that, there's more than enough time to get to that point. “How are you feeling?”, I ask. She smiles somewhat like a farmer with a tooth ache, as they say here in Holland: “This was worse than that 24 hour photo shoot! And at least then I had something to show for it”, is her witty answer. Seems like she hasn't lost her sense of humor yet. “Just as I was getting used to becoming a daddy again”, I softly speak to her. “Hey, don't worry”, Selina replies: “When you want to have something done right, you have to do it yourself. And a little birdy told me you will have few objections against that, am I right?” She smiles, and pulls me in for a long, passionate kiss.....

Afterword

Funny how you can juggle concepts and come to very deep understanding just by using your feelings, your heart and your mind. Let's for one moment go from the assumption that All is One. That automatically has the consequence that any and all dualities become illusions, for they are part of the All, and so are also One. One of these dualities is Service to Self vs. Service to Others, but since Self and Others are also part of the All, they are also One, which simplifies things to just one concept: Service to One(Self). Thus, the Personal Gain issue often warned against in magic becomes null and void, because the boundaries between Self and Others fade.

Can we still know what to do? With no right and wrong, what is keeping me from raping just any pretty lady in the street? Simple, I do not feel comfortable or joyous when doing so. I've been taught not to go against free will, but with the distinction between me and others gone, the free will thing becomes just that: "not to go against free will, either others, or my very own".

And thus was born the idea that one should do whatever gives him or her joy, but without going against others free will. But as always, that will not be as restricting as it may seem. For if I am the All, and the All is Infinite, then any subset of it can be viewed as equally important. And who is to say, that others' free will is paramount to my own? Furthermore, since the All is Infinite, it has plenty of room to house all possible permutations of free wills, and still has room left. So ultimately, there is a reality out there where others' free will is perfectly coinciding with mine! Also numerous ones where this is not the case, but those are not what I'm interested in. In a sense, aren't most of us preferring a given set of free wills in others? We normal people tend to find realities where we find agreement, but shouldn't anybody be free to choose conflicting free wills around them if they so choose? Basically, only competitive people go for contests, while spectators may choose to witness the contest, but not participate. Yet others are totally non-competitive, and adhere to the saying of the late Scatman John: "How can someone win when winning means that someone loses?"

Doesn't that in effect perfectly describe the Personal Gain issue without adhering to dualistic attributes? Maybe that is what we are here to develop: a keen eye to discern win-win situations, that provide improvement for everyone. Just like me writing this particular chapter during work hours: am I stealing from my boss if I stick to writing this in the periods my computer makes me wait for certain results? Maybe, but is my crime still as bad as it seemed, if my novel eventually helps millions realize that Life can be greatly fulfilling, without all kinds of restrictions? In the end, do I have to be judged by anyone, even if that anyone is the All, and thus myself? I don't think so, Tim!

Speaking of TIM, now there's a game I used to be absolutely addicted to: the Incredible Machine. Each level presented a challenge, and sufficient resources to overcome it. It evoked creativity, because other than the outset and the intended outcome, nothing was fixed in this game. Nobody lost, even if you won, which made it perfect for my non-competitive nature.

But the Incredible Machine was more, for it was modeled after nature itself: All objects in the game responded realistically to impulses, and thus gave you potential to solve the puzzles. There were at least a hundred levels, some deemed nearly impossible. But all were great fun. Now Nature is very much like the Incredible Machine, in that it gives you options to solve its puzzles any way you like. But at the same time, the Cosmos has it's own solutions to the puzzles you give it, which are far more fantastic than we could ever imagine them to be. This novel has shown you some creative solutions which happened to me, for real. I'm sure that in your own life, if you honestly look close enough, you'll find similar mesmerizing possibilities, that you never would have thought of.

Which brings to mind a fellow student of mine: in programming class, he solved the assignment that the teacher gave us in a way which the teacher, skilled as he was, could not comprehend! That story is basically what happens over and over again, in both ways: the Cosmos surprises us with far out solutions, but we do the same with the challenges it gives us......

I suggest you make it a number one priority in your life to discover these possibilities, decide how they will make you most happy, and then act upon them, in whatever manner you see fit. I'm convinced that as long as you go for what makes you tick, you can't go wrong: Make It Real!

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 02.05.2013

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