SATURDAY SESSIONS # 5

# 5

In Lemuria, you don't buy anything at all, as such; whatever you need is delivered to your door. Tailors come to your home to tailor your clothes for you.  Artificial intelligence, robots, do all the manual work here, so anybody who wants to work does it voluntarily, simply because they love doing it.                                                          
At least, that's what we're told.  Whether it's true or not, is another story.  Life here isn't work-driven, they tell us, because everybody feels a deep sense of joy in serving others and being of use to society at large.                                                           
Basically, Lemurians are more interested in being than in doing. We are human beings, they say, not human doings. Work, as we know it back home, just doesn't exist here. They probably don't even have a word for it. As volunteers, if they find the area of service that matches their true essence in which they can maximise their contribution to the whole, they're overjoyed. Even sweeping the streets, for example - not that the streets need any sweeping in this city!  I can see for myself how physical work of any kind is just not practised or even needed here in Lemuria. Even the buildings look natural, tree-high, curved, no sharp angles; it's as if they'd sprung up from the soil. 

Everything seems to be accomplished with the least possible effort. It's all team-work here. People either create things or monitor them. Anything devised by Lemurians and manufactured by the robots has to be easy to handle, non-toxic, and above all, can be used later as something else after it has outlived its original purpose.  

All living things are respected in Lemuria, even everything that grows in the ground.  Having said that, they grow really luscious fruit and vegetables here for the consumption of official visitors like me who stay at the Welcome Hotel.  What we had for breakfast at the hotel was tastier than anything I can imagine; my mouth waters even to think about it. I'm only sorry I can't bring back a sample to my family and friends, if only to prove that I'm not exaggerating.                      

Our flight landed at the one and only terminal at the one and only airport in the whole of the continent of  Lemuria. It's on an island, about two hours, on the map, from the nearest shore. Two hours on one of our own aircraft, I mean, but our planes are not allowed to land here. My mouth fell open in sheer amazement when I disembarked in Lemuria with my colleagues in less than five minutes on board an intriguing glass vehicle which made no noise at all. Don't ask me how they do it because we just don't know. We may be from the QSA but we don't even know what our employers know and we certainly don't know what the politicians know in their smart suits behind closed doors at Government Buildings. We don't even know what they don't know. 
One thing we do know, however, is that they know little or nothing about Lemuria.                    

No one speaks here in Lemuria because the Lemurians communicate telepathically. Thoughts or ideas are delivered in parcels or chunks, not in a linear way, as we do, when we communicate using language. Thanks to the popular press at home, very few people actually believe this about the Lemurians, claiming that they spread that rumour in order to remain private and unapproachable. Having said that, our guide did tell us this morning that nobody has ever heard a Lemurian speak.  Linguists back home have been unable to decode the Lemurian written language which, they tell us, is virtually indecipherable.  For my part, I can't imagine a more effective and advanced way of communication than telepathy.  It would certainly save a lot of time spent back home at the QSA trying to make sense of some of the spurious submissions that come in from the offices of the pharmaceutical factories and their companies or worse still, the vague and equivocal directives from Government Buildings.                                     

The peace here is really soothing, the tranquillity, the deep silence, broken only by those exotic little birds and their exuberant birdsong.  The bench I'm sitting on, made from some unrecognisable material, looks hard and durable, but it's actually quite soft and snug. It could be used as a bed. Huh, no wonder...no wonder...I feel so...so ss....     
I hear a woman's voice.                                                                           Jordan!...Jordan... 
It's Lucy! 
'I'm sorry, Jordan, but you fell off the couch! Are you all right?'
I'm lying on the carpet, laughing hysterically. Then I jump back up onto the sofa and plead with Lucy to send me back to Lemuria.
'Lemuria?' she laughs.  'Never heard of it!... But you have my interest! And by the way, my clients generally don't go to sleep and fall off the sofa! In fact, they don't go to sleep at all! That's not part of the plan!...What's Lemuria? Where is it?'
'Whatever it is, Lucy, wherever it is...it's amazing! But it couldn't have been a dream, could it? It just couldn't have been! It felt so authentic!'
'Let's get started on the recording while it's still fresh in your memory!'                   
She listens excitedly to my story as we record it on the phone.  She tells me that it is most unusual for a client to participate and engage so coherently and at such length in a past life story.  She's as keen as I am to let me continue with the adventure. 
'Let's see if we can get you back there. Ready?'                                       
Switching to her soft, soothing, hypnotic voice, Lucy starts the countdown.

You can catch up on the first four chunks of the story here:

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# 6 next Saturday!  😄

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SATURDAY SESSIONS # 4

Welcome to SATURDAY SESSIONS # 4, featuring The Compromise, a story about healing through past-life regression.
Jordan finds himself in the lost continent of Lemuria, where a  peaceful, exotic and highly-advanced civilisation is said to have flourished some 50,000 years ago.



CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1889920

# 4

My hiking shoes were really snug. I was wearing a onesie.  Blue, light and comfortable.  Cotton, I think, open neck, perfect for this climate. There was a logo embossed on my breast-pocket which looked like a microscope with some indecipherable lettering beneath it. Where am I?  Huh, must have dozed off. Didn't realise I was so tired.                                                                                                        
I had slipped away from my group and our guide at the hotel and switched off my phone. From the looks I was getting, I knew that I was out-of-bounds and unwelcome. I sat on a circular street bench. Everything was curvy or circular in this city. Multi-coloured  birds hopped about at my feet and one even landed on my lap and started to sing. I felt such a thrill to be trusted by the bird and even serenaded with such gusto!
  
                                                                                                                                                    
People's bodies looked supple and lithe, like dancers. I observed the gentle couples nonchalantly strolling by. They wore comfortable, loose clothing with amazing colour combinations that seemed to shift in front of my very eyes. They were all quite tall and their skin was white, very white, unlike mine, unlike anybody I'd ever met back home. Many of them had ginger-coloured hair which they all wore long, women and men.  Big, brown, almond-shaped eyes with large eyebrows and long eyelids seemed to be a common feature of these graceful people who radiated a sense of peace and stillness. I'd heard from a colleague, who had been here once, that the absence of stress was the reason why there was no chronic illness of any kind in Lemuria. At least, that's the official version, he laughed,  and joked about secret underground hospitals and Lemurian propaganda. The guide had told us on the flight that the first thing we'd notice was the peace and quiet here. No traffic. And of course, the Lemurians don't speak.                                                                                                                                
I'm a PhD graduate in Chemistry working for the Quality Standards Authority which oversees the regulation of Health & Safety standards at all the laboratories and research centres, companies and institutions, across the continent. Two thousand one hundred and seven employees turn up for work at the same high-rise building every morning.  I head up a team of one hundred and forty-nine people on floors fifty-seven and fifty-eight of the building. After five years' work at the QSA, where I was an employee with the Division responsible for overseeing quality standards in the arms industry, group leaders like me are offered a bonus trip to Lemuria. The promotion from being an employee at the Defence Division to unit manager at Health came as a bit of a surprise, I have to admit. Although I'm sure it had to do with a recommendation I'd submitted two years ago on a nerve agent which eventually led to a faster, more efficient and cost-effective deployment of a certain chemical weapon in the theatre of war. It's a colourless, odourless, organophosphorus compound which causes paralysis leading to suffocation within a maximum period of less than five minutes, significantly more effective and humane than the original product which had been sent to us for approval.  I even got an award, as it quite rare for an employee at the QSA regulatory body to revert to the manufacturers and submit his own suggestions for improvement. At the award ceremony, to the great amusement of all present, the product was officially nick-named The Flyspray, as two of the active ingredients in my submission, tetramethrin and d-phenothrin, are commonly used in pesticides which inhibit the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, block the nerve impulses and rapidly precipitate muscular paralysis and suffocation.                                                                            

They had briefed us a bit on what they knew about Lemuria and though the  tour was meant to be a perk, it was an open secret that the purpose of the trip was really meant to be a fact-finding mission based on the hope that we'd return with some new insights or innovations.  Field trips to this continent for research purposes are notoriously difficult,  as there is little or no access to anything of real interest to us and our society back home. The fact that everything  in this place is so different makes it at once fascinating, but at the same time impossible, to compare or line up with our own specific needs and requirements back home.                                                                    

Regular tourists are not welcome here. That's why I couldn't bring Croescia with me, or Jarok, our ten-year-old child.  But most tourists wouldn't  be interested in Lemuria anyway.  For example, they don't use money here. There are no shops, no bars, no restaurants.  As you know, tourists like to spend money, otherwise they don't feel it's a real holiday.  I mean, why would they work themselves to the bone throughout the year to save a bit of money if they couldn't splash out once in a while on a holiday?  To go to a place with no drink available, of course, would be unthinkable.  As for shopping, well, I'm not into shopping myself but Croescia and Jarok love it. So for them, Lemuria would be struck off the list. Where's the fun wandering around a city, they might ask, if they can't spend their money in the shops?  Although now that I think of it, where's the fun in that?  Did I love shopping when I was Jarok's age?  Maybe.  But for as long as I can remember, I could never quite get the rationale behind the love of shopping.  Women, in particular, I only once met a woman who didn't love shopping.  It must be the excitement of trying on that dress or fitting on those shoes followed by the excitement of looking forward to actually wearing the stuff later. And of course, owning it. But where's the fun in that?  Maybe I need to get out more. Or maybe I'm more Lemurian than I think!                                

(Continued next Saturday!)

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If you missed the first three chunks, you can catch up here:

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