Jumping (11 page)

“Then one day many years later
you
came, and I felt our bond. I was amazed at how much better I felt having you there. You changed the feeling in the house, introducing air and light, and your presence focused me, brought me to my senses. I knew myself again, and I began to see my side in the story, to believe I had a side to anchor in. But to really believe it, I desperately needed someone who could see it, too. I needed a witness. Someone who could know that I hadn't meant to abandon my children, that I hadn't caused my husband to kill me, and that he was seriously deranged.

“That night I determined to come down the stairs. There was such a peace and quiet in the house as I hadn't ever felt there. I was drawn to that peace as surely as a moth to a flame. It was the only way I could see to get home to myself. It felt safe enough to try. I couldn't have imagined the power of your listening. I would have been afraid to hope for that. My words, as I spoke them, showed me that it had all been real; your listening showed me that the telling could be borne, and that by telling them, the events could be understood, through compassion, and forgiven.

“You didn't judge, you had compassion—I could feel it. Not pity, but woman-to-woman compassion. You knew that you yourself had come close to feeling forced to enter an unwanted marriage, but you'd been able to choose for yourself, to say no. Your family had seen to your education, so you had a way to be, on your own in the world. You recognized the ways we were alike, and I was made whole by that. By your being
you
, you showed me how to be
me
—calm and compassionate with myself, forgiving, understanding.

“We do it because we love each other, now and always. I thank you. I thank you for honoring our bond, and making progress possible for both of us.”

Kahil looks at me. I have tears in my eyes, and he does, too. “Did you see me the next morning in the mirror upstairs, when I came to say good bye?” he asks.

“I think I did,” I say, surprised at the surging memory of another lifetime. “I remember seeing a face, surrounded by stars, with such a feeling of joy emanating from it that I was overcome.”

“That was me!” he laughs. “You reintroduced me to my joy. I thought it was lost to me forever.”

Miles stops us as this point, overcome by the last story. He pauses to pull out his handkerchief and noisily blow his nose.

“Of course, I've heard about stories like that from that time—arranged marriages, cruel or indifferent husbands, the feelings of women disregarded—but never from someone who was there. Wow.”

It feels very real to me, too. I have to get up and move around. I go to the window and open it, in search of fresh air to blow away the lingering effects of that story. I'm beginning to get a clue about the bond Duncan Robert shares with his cohort, though it's unlike anything I've ever heard of.

I look at Duncan Robert and think about how he has all the indicators needed for a psychiatric explanation of what he's experienced—the missing father, the sometimes tense family life as a result, all begetting a childhood quest to be seen, heard, valued. As an only child, he'd probably have a strong imagination and be good at dissociation. I knew from my own research that his experiences would be labeled ‘anomalous,’ the equivalent of ‘crazy’ for us laypeople. His stories would be cataloged with alien abductions, extraterrestrial visitations, ghosts, spirits, and all the other trivialized other-worldly stories. Why was I finding value in it? Maybe I just saw it as a legitimate part of reporting, especially since these kinds of stories were increasing, across the world. In the past no legitimate newspaper would have even considered them. I liked to think I bowed to a higher god than sensationalism, but this is pretty sensational. How far could we go with this and still believe?

“Let's order some lunch,” Duncan Robert says into our silence, calling us back to ourselves. “I've got some menus here. Take a look. I think I'm actually hungry.” He laughs.

I realize I'm starving. Miles decides he's going to have a club sandwich, with fries, so I know he's hungry, too. I feel like breakfast, so I order scrambled eggs and toast, with a side of fruit. Duncan Robert orders a large bowl of vegetable soup and a side salad, which seems like a lot for him, too. While we wait for the food, we settle back into our places, except for Miles, who lies on the floor, to stretch his spine, he says. I stretch out on the couch.

I ask Duncan Robert what it was like, to hear his life told to him in that larger way.

“I don't know if I can explain it. First, I could feel myself expand,” he says. “I began to see myself as so much larger than I'd ever thought, spreading out across the Universe, touching time in various places, interacting with it in a way that fed my spirit. Then, I could see how the members of my cohort were spreading with me, and we were like a river through time and space. The fact that we weren't separate made us much more helpful to each other and to all those we came in contact with—even if they were killing us!” He laughs.

“It isn't easy to play all the parts we do. Think about it. Earth is a pretty violent place, and we don't seem to get the lessons very quickly!” He pauses to think a minute. “To answer your question, those stories are life-changing information, and my life has been changed by them.”

I feel pretty sure Miles's life and my life have been changed, too, and we've only heard the stories second hand. That's how much power they have.

There's a knock at the door, and lunch is served. I don't think we spend more than twenty minutes consuming it, without much talk. We put the trays outside the door, so we won't be disturbed, and get ourselves our hot tea. We settle back into our places, and I take a minute to sharpen a few pencils and turn to a fresh page in my notebook. Miles makes a couple of brief notes in his notebook, and puts it back on the coffee table. Duncan Robert, who has been sitting quietly, begins again:

The group on the ledge agreed to a small break after Kahil's story, and Guy and I talked while he fixed me another cup of tea and made some toast over the fire. I get the sense the others don't need to eat, but I'm grateful for the warmth and sustenance of it.

I'm still spinning after that deeply moving story and feel I have to get back in balance. I ask Guy about this place where we are. He tells me that the tunnel system runs underneath most of the world, connecting its major places. It has been there tens of thousands of years, and much commerce and trade has gone on within it. People have lived in the tunnels, too, when the ash from erupting volcanoes made agriculture impossible and dropped outside temperatures uncomfortably low. People have stayed there to avoid robbers, bandits, and warring tribes. They've birthed their children there, bred their animals, ground their crops there. People have created quiet places of study, contemplation and ceremony. As much has gone on in the tunnels as above them, he assures me, if not more.

I find this incredible, but I decide to believe him.

He notes my momentary struggle with disbelief, says, “Even UFO activity!” and laughs. “After all, we all come from the stars anyway. By my reckoning, I think we're now somewhere under the Carpathian Arch.” I look at him questioningly, and he says, “I think it's Romania nowadays. Borders have been moved a lot, what with all the wars and political dealings, but don't get me started on the uselessness of borders—or wars!” He laughs again, shaking his head.

“This one,” he gestures to what I now think of as my tunnel, “connects Romania to Egypt and on to Tibet. Afghanistan is connected to it, too, and Russia. You have no idea. There's so much more that you don't know than you do, while you're on Earth. Oh, there are those who do know, but they still believe that power resides in secrets, so they're keeping them.

“Funny, when we're on Earth we don't fear these secret keepers—we trust them with our money, we elect them to high office, we allow them dominion over our children—but we do fear the extraterrestrials, even though many of them have given us nothing but help. True, some don't have such altruistic motives, but I think we're usually capable of telling the difference.”

He sees my question and says, “Oh yes, extraterrestrials showed us how to make homes underground and above, how to grow things and manage resources, such as water and minerals and energy and our own health.” He hands me my thermos cup of tea and puts the toast in my other hand.

“They've offered us service, and were often our first examples of that.”

I'm drinking my tea, eating my toast and feeling better for it, mentally zoning out for the moment, as I do when I'm overwhelmed by incoming information. I look up to ask Guy another question and notice, seemingly out of nowhere, a great horned owl sitting opposite me, near Lynette. It startles me, and I start to scoot back, away from the fire. Lynette laughs and says, “He's here for you, you know.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, thinking of all the old Native American stories connecting owls with death.

“A little too Harry-Potterish for you?” she asks playfully. “He's got a bond with you, too. He's your totem. He's why you have an owl calendar in your kitchen and why Reggie gave you that little owl fetish you still carry. He comes to help you in that way animals do, showing you your connection to the natural forces as your guides. He keeps you close to the outdoors, where you find renewal. He's part of why you haven't given up. His name is Anai, but he can tell you that himself.”

I'm not surprised there are animals down here. I just didn't know any of them might be for me. I give a little bow to the owl, who gives a friendly bow of his head back. His eyes, with their nictitating membrane moving up and down, seem to have a life of their own, so I can't be sure where he's looking, and he swivels his head around in a way that seems impossible. But he's incredibly beautiful, feathers gleaming in the firelight, eyes an intense highlighter yellow, completely self-possessed as he fluffs his feathers and settles into his spot. He makes contented little chirps. He's come to listen, too.

“This is a good time for me to tell my story,” says the other man, who is medium height and build, his features suggesting Southeast Asia. He looks at me across the fire, his beautiful black eyes and hair gleaming in its light, as I sip my tea. “My name is Uche,” he says with a kind smile, “and you and I have been together in many lives, too—husband and wife, mother and child, and so forth.” He smiles again as he feels my question about our apparent outward differences.

“Sometimes this color, sometimes another—colors have their own lessons but are ultimately meaningless,” he answers. “We all have ‘a bond stronger than life,’ as we like to say. My story involves you and me and a few others, who aren't with us tonight, it's one of my favorites.

“We were together on Atlantis. We lived in one of its larger cities and were considered fairly prosperous. We were friends and co-workers, and raised our children together. We were engaged in what we liked to call the ‘health and hygiene’ of the government-regulated work force who made up the industrial and technical workers of Atlantis. We were responsible for those who provided essential maintenance of the giant crystals that provided our energy, as well as the workers assigned to the production of food and necessary other goods. We determined and managed their births, their work, their family planning, their disputes, their deaths. Nothing happened to them that we didn't know about, and many of their children shared our birthdays and carried our names. We knew they were not as us and never would be, because we had controlled their genetic development. No more than one-sixth of our genetic materials had been introduced into their own original animal materials, to create useful intelligence without enabling a move to dominance. This was part of a huge intergalactic experiment to create a super slave race that would ensure the protection of necessary resources for the continuation of the intergalactic races. We believed the project was a success and we had created the most productive, efficient, cooperative slaves possible.

“This is why Atlantis accomplished much in the areas of transportation, energy transference, transmutation of metals, and so forth. At its peak, it had millions of citizens, and we needed a trained and focused population of workers we could depend on to keep it all going and progressing. We did our jobs and did them well, and expected these workers to do the same.

“Yes, you might call them ‘slaves,’ but we didn't. We thought of them as a vital working population in partnership with us for shared progress. We treated them well—they didn't want for food or shelter or medical attention; they weren't over-worked, in fact they even got holidays. We took care of them. We thought of ourselves as good people, by the standards of our time. We did not think of ourselves as ‘bad’ people. But of course we were. By any proper definition that included depriving someone else of their right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness, we were ‘bad’ indeed.

“Oh, our job had some concern with ‘health and hygiene,’ but it was mainly involved with suppressing and sterilizing the workers, so we could control and limit their activities and reproduction for our own purposes. Their existence made ours possible.

“We couldn't have them producing either too many or not enough children, or getting too many other ideas of their own. Sterilization and genetic work allowed us to control and maintain sex, size, and docility, along with their reproductive capacity. We were trying to clean up some genetic damage, too, from earlier extraterrestrial races that had engaged in experimentation to create the slaves on Earth to begin with. Of course we had to engage in some experimentation as well, in the beginning, though we felt we handled that pretty responsibly, disposing of the less successful results discreetly.

One night—you may remember this—we had gone together to a closed session called by our highest government officials for those of us who oversee the slaves. This was unusual and quite hush-hush. We knew something serious must have happened and we were curious. We went to the Auditorium of the Crystals and watched as the ruling council filed in from a side door onto the stage. All twelve members of our ruling council were present and sat at a raised table in front of us. They took turns speaking, beginning with the most senior member.