SATURDAY SESSIONS #44 (Final episode next week!)

What's happening? Why am I up here, looking down? No, no!  It can't be! It couldn't be!

It's an ICU. Doctors, nurses, all over the place. Look, there's Croescia and Jarok looking in through the glass door. They're crying. What happened to me? Must have been my heart. Was it the heart? Yes, I see them now, the pads, there's the EKG, the IV-line, defibrillator, ventilator. Heart. 

Please bring me back. Please, please! 

He's shaking his head. The nurse is talking to Croescia. I understand him. I feel his frustration. I feel what the nurse feels. No! If only I could reach them now, Croescia, Jarok, just for a minute, talk to them, whisper in their ear, tell them I'm fine, happy, fit, light as a feather, never felt better in my life! If only I could hug Jarok, kiss the tears from Croescia's cheeks! Why am I not unhappy? Croescia! Jarok! Look up! Look up! What is wrong with me? Why am I so full of joy? But of course! Everything is so familiar here!  I've been here before! I've retUrned! That's why! I'm home! Thank you, Solari! Thank you, Xendo! Thank you, Zol!  Croescia and Jarok, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. It will take a bit of time but time marches on, as they say, and they'll be fine. I know it in my heart. My heart, ha-ha! But it feels like that, it feels so much like that now. The joy. It's our true nature. That's what they said in Lemuria! That's what they told me! Wait, what's that music? What are those sounds? They're coming from me, I feel so light, my light body, body of light, will I ever see, ever touch again? Now I remember! It was one of the things I looked forward to before I arrived here on Earth, the senses, touch in particular, the rarity, the preciousness of touch,  the petals of a rose, a fistful of pebbles, the silky thighs and breasts of Croescia, even though we never touch at all, ha-ha-ha! as I tried to tell my friends at the hotel!  Who are these shimmering, kaleidoscopic beings around me, blending through me, the music, they are the music, we are the music, blending, sifting through one another. Look! There! It's my life, all before me, like a Lemurian hologram!  Xalak Zolthin?  But I was only seven! He was six! I kicked him in the shin and he cried. I am Xalak. I am hurt. I am everybody, everybody I hurt. Older now, every moment, every thought is there, my parents, siblings, Croescia, Jarok, I absorb it all in an instant. But what is that? In the distance? 
What is  that shimmering, shining light?                    

      

                                                               

                                                                ********

What's happening? Why am I up here, looking down? Who is that on the sofa? No, no, it can't be! It couldn't be! 

What are those sounds? They're coming from me, I feel so light, light as a feather, my light body, body of light...Who are these shimmering, kaleidoscopic beings around me, blending through me, they are the music, we are the music, as we blend together, sift through one another. Everything seems so familiar here! But of course it is! I've been here before! I've retUrned!...

Look! It's my life, all before me, highlights, like a hologram, every detail, I can grasp it all in an instant! Ah, all the selfish little things I did in life! Ah, my lonely childhood, my miserable life...There's Maria!...There's Jason!...I was asleep, sleepwalking, I could have been there for them, I could have....

Look! The joyful moments now...Ha-ha! I'd forgotten I'd ever had any joyful moments as a child....now the early years with Maria, with Jason!  Ha! There's Cathy, at last! Look at that! Wow. I'd forgotten all about that, those people, all of them, I'd forgotten all about all of them!  Look! Look! What's that? In the distance?  That shimmering, shining light...Listen!  It's the song! The song!  May the pure light within you...guide you on your way...

'Lucy!' I cry, gurgling, gasping for breath, as I get to my feet from the sofa.

'Oh my God, I thought I'd lost you! There's an ambulance on the way!'

'What? Why?'

'You had no pulse, Jordan! I gave you CPR! What happened?'

'Call off the ambulance, Lucy, please! Tell them I'm fine.'

'No way! Is there anyone I can call?'

'Family? No. My partner, maybe. But I don't want her to know about this.'

'Then I'll go with you. To the hospital. It could happen again, you know. You never told me you had a weak heart.'

'But I don't. What about our recording?  Jordan died in Atlantis! He was the one with the weak heart! We must record before I forget!'

'Phew!...That's...amazing!  First things first. If they decide to keep you there for a while and if they allow it, we can do the recording in the hospital together. Deal?'

They give me the all clear at the hospital and as there was a bed free, they suggested I spend a couple of hours there for observation. Lucy was allowed to stay with me. She drew the curtains for some privacy, wondering why they couldn't provide wireless earphones for the patients instead of imposing that incessant TV noise on everyone in the ward.

'This is St. James's Hospital, isn't it?  Ha-ha. Just my luck.'

'Why? Is there anything wrong?'

'No, no. Not at all! Let's do the recording. OK?'

On finishing the recording behind the closed curtains, we hear the clatter of plates and smell the fried chicken. 

'Poor chickens,' she remarks. 'A sixty-day lifespan of hell, hormones and antibiotics to end up in a sick patient's stomach. As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. Tolstoy said that. I wonder if more people have died in war than in peace since he died?'

She's brought a gift for me, wrapped and tied with a red ribbon.

'I'll put it into your jacket pocket,' she says, 'in case you forget it.'

'It's the CD, isn't it? Thank you so much, Lucy! You and that soundtrack have led me to the most important turning point in my life. And I mean turning point, because my life has already changed, thanks to you!'

I tell her about the NDE, how exhilarating it felt to be up there looking down. I felt pure joy, I tell her, so much so that I really didn't want to return. In fact I hated being dragged back into my body. Coming back was like a birth, a painful, unwelcome birth. I tell her about Jordan's death, or retUrn, I should say, in Atlantis, and how similar it was to my own NDE.

'Isn't it amazing, Lucy? My highlight reel was for this lifetime. So if, according to the Lemurian definition of time, we live a potentially infinite number of lives each life, a film-like review will take place for each of those lives. You know, somehow I had the feeling while I was up there in the ceiling, that it was possible to see every single one of those highlights all at the same time! Maybe we do! How mad is that, eh?'

'You may be the first person in history, Jordan, to have experienced two NDEs at the same time!'

'No, actually,' I grin, 'only one. Jordan Karpathian didn't come back!'

'Oh yes he did,' says Lucy. 'For the umpteenth time. He's right here in front of me!'

'Karpathian? I've disowned him, Lucy! He's a bloody coward. He betrayed me.'

Lucy laughs.

'You know, Lucy, it struck me on the way into the hospital today that my interaction with those beings of light was just another way of relating to the other beings here on Earth. What I mean to say is, you and I are also beings of light, and if we could only tap into our subtle energy bodies, we'd hear some of that blended music when we interact with one another. Does that sound crazy?'

'Not to me, it doesn't!  I've been studying the energy body for twenty years. The ancients called us children of light. It's only in the twentieth century that this knowledge has been rediscovered by the physicists. They describe us as frozen light.'

'The Lemurians told me that all those parallel universes, or parallel realities, are right here, now, here and now. I'm sure the afterlife is also right here and now, you now, that we can tap into it at will by a mere shift in consciousness.'

'In other words, we don't have to die to get there! I've read about this. People from different cultures all over the world have been able to do this. Australian Dreamtime, for example. Ever heard of it? That, if you ask me, is an experience of the afterlife.'

'I actually felt more alive than I've ever been. Maybe it should be called an NLE, a Near Life Experience, instead! It's what they were telling me all the time, the Lemurians. The implicate order is real, the explicate order is unreal! But the blending of light, of sound vibrations, of music, this merging, Lucy, this, how will I put it, this undivided unity of consciousness was pure love, pure joy!'

For a moment I am tempted to tell her about my problem, the cancer, my prognosis, but no, I decide against it. Why should I burden her with all that? Or?

'Lucy.'

'Yes?' 

No. I baulk again at the fence. For some inexplicable reason, I'm not going to tell her. Maybe it's a superstition which I'm not even consciously aware of. Maybe I'm afraid she'll tell me what I don't want to know, that this kind of therapy is only for chronic pain or phobias or traumas or whatever. Not for me. Not for cancer patients.

We hug and I thank her for everything and tell her I'll be over to see her tomorrow and she leaves. 

I'm thinking maybe I should see Cathy but I don't know what ward she's on so I leave the bed and start wandering about the hospital and who do I bump into but the oncologist himself, Dr McKiernan.

Well not quite bump into; I just see him with his clipboard at the end of the corridor. He's probably the last person I wanted to see here, but maybe I should be biting the bullet. It feels a bit like checking my account on internet banking, or not checking it, I should say, for fear of what I'll see, and in the meantime, just hoping for the best every time I use my card.  I have to admit, though, McKiernan is one of nature's gentlemen.  I suppose he should be retired by now, but I think he's very attached to his patients. There's something poignant, almost tragic about his expression, as if he were apologising for being what he is, an oncologist.  Or even for being alive, while every one of his patients is dying all around him. He'd sit on the edge of the desk, never behind it, or he'd sit on a chair or on a stool right beside me, showing real, genuine compassion for my plight.  Now, even more so, I guess, as I've opted out of the treatment. 

'Jordan!' he says, with a big smile. 'How nice to see you again! But if I remember correctly, your scan is not due for another few weeks. Is everything OK? '

I ask him if there was any way at all he could fit me in for a scan this afternoon. Taken aback, he wants to know why. I tell him, awkwardly, that it has to do with reassurance. That's all. I need reassurance that things are as bad as he tells me they are. He's trying to read between the lines and probably figures I'm sitting on the fence about the treatment. He reflects for a few moments and says he'll do his best to squeeze me in. Unless there's a cancellation, he thinks, there's no guarantee I can get it done today. If I could wait around for a while, he'll text me to let me know.

Eventually, I find Cathy who is surprised and delighted to see me. She has all of ten minutes for me in the canteen over a cup of coffee. As we sip our coffee, she asks me if there's anything wrong.  I assure her everything is fine. I just wanted to see her, just for a few minutes, just to be with her. In fact, maybe we could go home together after her work.  I'd just chill out here, read a bit, go for a walk around the grounds. 

'Are you sure you're OK, love?'  she asks, with a concerned smile, as she gets up to leave.

'Yeah, sure! Why do you ask?'

'Well, I don't know. You seem so... '

'So...?'  I repeat, teasingly. 

'So, I don't know, clingy? Ha-ha! Yes. Clingy! Are you sure you're OK?'

She kisses me and holds my face between her hands, gazing into my eyes.

'Yeah, maybe I'm a little clingy today. I just love the attention, Nurse Cathy!'

'If you ask me, I think it's this regression business that's affecting you. That's what I believe. But if it is, keep it up, will you? I love it!' she laughs, blowing me a kiss as she leaves the canteen.

I go downstairs to the waiting area and find a free seat. How many of these people around me here are on death row?  Does it show in your face if you're on death row? That feeling of acceptance. Of what is, what was, what must be. Of betrayal.  Betrayed by life itself and all its false promises.  What's going on in their minds? Unfinished business? Ah yes, it's always unfinished business of one kind or another, isn't it?  Death, the predator, springs without passion from the tall grass. We, the prey, succumb. 

After about an hour or so of contemplation, daydreaming, checking an e-mail or two on my phone, hoping for that text from McKiernan before the battery runs down, I get up to stretch my legs and who should appear with a clipboard in her hand but Cathy herself.

'You again!' she laughs. 'What are you doing down here? It's much nicer upstairs. At least while you're waiting you have windows and can see the sky!' 

I tell her I was just wandering about, exploring, feeling what it's like to be one of her patients, that kind of thing, but then McKiernan turns up again, engrossed in his own clipboard. Cathy has to go and so off she skips, chirping that she'll see me when she's off-duty, which won't be long. She stops to chat with McKiernan and I sit again and pretend to be looking at my phone, keeping my head down, but noticing now that they're glancing in my direction. Cathy must have told him we were together. She drops the clipboard and puts her hand to her mouth. She scurries back to me. I stand up to greet her and she slaps me in the face.

'How could you do that to me?' she pleads, tears streaming down her cheeks.

'I'm really, really sorry, Cathy! I didn't want to change anything. At least for as long as was possible.'

'What the hell do you mean by that?'

The heads of all the waiting patients are now turned towards us. She grabs me by the arm and we walk hurriedly towards McKiernan. She ushers us both into a corner, huddled out of sight from the bewildered patients.

'What do you mean you didn't want to change anything? You have pancreatic cancer! How could you not tell me about this?'
'I wanted to be your partner, Cathy. For as long as I could. Not your patient.'
She bursts into tears on McKiernan's shoulder. He just looks at me in helpless pity. Then Cathy apologies to McKiernan, fetches her clipboard from the floor and rushes upstairs without once  looking back.                                                                                                                         

Final episode next week! Catch up on: gregoryrosenstock.blogspot.com    

www.gregoryrosenstock.com            

SATURDAY SESSIONS # 43

My replacement was already waiting awkwardly at the office door, all set to take over. It seems everybody except me had already been aware of my change of status. He congratulated me on my promotion and wished me a happy holiday. 
I gathered my personal effects and placed them in a cardboard box, just like they do in the movies when they get fired. Flovia accompanied me to the ground floor and invited me to join her in the canteen for a coffee before I left. 
She wondered, disingenuously, I think, if Maschick had offered me an early retirement, but I said no, he was promoting me to Government Buildings. 
'Ah, of course,' she said. 'The safer option.' 
'Why? Why do you say that? Don't you think I'll have even more influence there? OK, there'll be restrictions, that's obvious, but I'll be working with the Government, with it, not just for it.'
'More influence? You must be joking, Jordan. What rock have you been living under for the past ten years? You have to take an oath when you work for the Government. If they interpret anything you say or do in public to be in breach of the letter of the oath, you're out on the street with no benefits. Unemployable. They might even jail you for treason, if they feel like it, and throw away the key.'
'Surely it can't be that bad!'
'The oath, Jordan, is a gagging pact, plain and simple,' she continued, as she sipped her coffee. 'Look, I know the job with the Minister is a peach, but most of us will support you if you refuse to accept it. We're behind you. We'll go on strike. With solidarity like that, they'd rather give in to our demands than risk even more bad press. Your interviews have gone viral. You have more followers on the social media than a lot of our celebrities combined! Although you yourself are the only one in the country who doesn't seem to be aware of it!'
'C'mon, Flovia. You're exaggerating. But you say demands, what demands do you mean, exactly?'
'Your demands! The demands of the QSA to override Government decisions on the sale, provision or distribution of whatever it is we, we the QSA, have deemed to be unsafe or unhealthy - even unnecessary! We can finally make our work meaningful, Jordan, and take them on! Can you not see that? We can help create the kind of society you aspire to. The society we aspire to!'  
'They'd shut us down. The whole QSA.'
'Not a hope! It would be a PR disaster.'
'Look, Flovia, we may not have taken the oath at the QSA but I just found out that we didn't have to. You don't know what you're dealing with here. You have a husband and child. Our friends, our colleagues, we all have young families. Strike, you say? And then what? We'd all be unemployable. One way or another, they'd make sure of that. Or even worse. Our lives and the lives of our families might be in danger.'
'You're joking!'
'Maschick may come across to you as normal, friendly even.  But there are others pulling his strings. Even the suits in Government Buildings have people pulling their strings. Accidents happen. Maschick himself said it. He used those very words! I felt I was in some kind of a gangster movie! I wonder if he'd already known about the  threatening phone-call we got directly after the show.'   
'You've been threatened?'
'The caller knew Jarok's name. How would we have known my wife's number?'
'Could have been a hoax, there are no shortage of lunatics out there. And why wouldn't they know Jarok's name? You're a celebrity, aren't you? But I'm so, so sorry, Jordan! It must be very distressful for you all! Listen, all I'm saying is this: give it some thought, will you? We can beat them. And they know it. If they try to oppose us, they won't have a leg to stand on. All the more reason now after what you've just said. It's our children's future we're talking about here! Think about it, will you?  Please! Follow your heart!  

                                                           ******

My navy-blue, brass-buttoned blazer with the Lion Crest of Atlantis on the breast pocket wasn't as comfortable as the onesie I wore at the QSA.  My office was right next to the Minister's. I'll never see Lemuria again. It's not one of the perks. Employees at Government Buildings are disqualified for security reasons, they tell me. But even at the QSA, it wasn't really a perk at all, as I quickly found out in my new job. It was a form of espionage, believe it or not, part of some half-baked, hope-based plan to glean whatever we could from the visit. A worse bunch of bumbling, incompetent, alcoholic spies is hard to imagine. Gullible PhD nerds in their onesies who weren't even told they were spies. Of course, that might have been part of the plan to deceive the Lemurians and get them to reveal some of their secrets. What a farce. And then what happens? Along comes wide-eyed Jordan, slips the net, gets handed an insider's view of Lemuria on a plate, the kind of information the authorities in Atlantis would salivate for - and what do they end up doing? They crucify the messenger. That's what they do. On a golden crucifix.

Anyway, at least we're out of danger now. No more threats. That week off they gave me was the tipping point. Jarok went missing. Croescia nearly lost her mind. We didn't know whether to call the police or not, you know, whether we could trust them. But it was a storm in a tea-cup.  Jarok and his friends simply got lost somewhere in the neighbourhood.  Nevertheless, the fear remained. There's always some unstable crackpot out there looking for attention, or in need of affection, as the Lemurians might say. Yeah, sure, that's all very well as long as you and your family are not asleep in bed when they set the house on fire.

So I took the oath. Yes. I took the oath. 
Most of my job here now is proofing, collating, or relaying reports that hit my desk from the new QC manager at Health QSA.  I'm sure that guy who took over from me is harmless and well-meaning, but if truth be told, he's a puppet. He's been bought. Just like me. Anything approved by the QSA gets rubber-stamped by me and automatic approval by the Minister, although he's not the worst of them, I suppose. The truth will out in the end, he confided in me one evening over a drink. After all, he added, with a wink, all heresies end in truth!  But it was hard to know whose side he was on or how much he really believed in what he was doing. His ironic approach to his work, though, was something of a comfort. Maybe he was like me, although I could never imagine him as a friend. Nevertheless, what should I call it, his ambivalence, was something of a redeeming factor.  I mean, in spite of his job, in spite of his complete lack of responsibility to the people, he had a mind of his own, well-hidden as it was, well-protected. And so, I somehow managed to convince myself that I wasn't alone in having reluctantly taken the oath. 

As time went by, the medium and long-term side-effects of new drugs were becoming more problematic to identify or even understand. But the less I was able to explain to the Minister, the happier he was to sign it off peremptorily for approval and distribution. Pharmacologists were digging their heels in now, insisting that health and longevity all hinged on the biotech industry, particularly cutting-edge developments in nanotechnology, targeting cells and molecules. Much of this new medicine was actually contributing to the early deaths of patients, especially the old and the vulnerable, mostly in the treatment of chronic and auto-immune diseases. Auto-immune was a common term used by medical practitioners, though nobody ever seemed to question why the body would want to attack itself in the first place for no apparent reason. Nobody seemed to want to know the real reason for chronic inflammation. 

Naturally, it made me happy and relieved every once in a while, to be given statistics demonstrating that a new drug was proving to be effective. The way I felt now was that it didn't matter anymore whether it was the placebo effect or not, as long as it worked.  So-called effective drugs were more the exception than the rule. As might have been expected, the irony didn't escape me that the word healing never once appeared in any of the reports. But did I really care enough anymore? Was my hope for these patients really sincere? Old, nameless people from nameless places whom I would never, ever see or hear about? Or was it the vain hope, as I switched on my computer each morning at work, that things weren't as bad as they seemed after all?

I'm reversing out of the carpark now, or should I say, the car is. On my way home at last. Shift to the reality you want, or you will keep getting the reality you don't want. Easier said than done, Zol. Fine if you live in a Temple. 
Friday is treat day for Jarok. He asked me to pick up a takeaway Bumper Veal Deal for dinner. Tried to get him to change it to the Bumper Bull Burger, not that it made much of a difference except that at least it was a cow and not a calf. I had to concede in the end. Principles shminciples, as Maschik would say.

Croescia invited one of Jarok's teachers over to the house this weekend. Torture. The wife works for Atlantatak, software components for the arms industry, missiles, drones, helicopters and so on. Used to have to file their reports at the QSA in the old days. 
I miss my young and colourful friends at the QSA. I mightn't have agreed with all of them, but at least they were human. The typical, middle-aged employee working here has all the spontaneity and humour of a robot. 

We have a large house with guest rooms and servants, but it's been months since we were able to persuade one of our friends to stay the night. Even Jarok's friends rarely come to visit any more. I tried to explain to Croescia that everybody is too busy and that maybe we should make a greater effort ourselves to keep in touch. But at least we're safe now. Secure. For our holidays, we can go anywhere we like in the world. Well, anywhere except Lemuria. 

One of my more honest relatives mentioned the other day that I seem to be showing my age lately. Had the old ticker checked last week. Wear and tear, they called it. Wear and tear! Like a frayed sleeve. Wear and tear. From what?  I asked them. Wearing my heart on my sleeve? Ha-ha!  

But at least we're free now. Free from the terror of looking over our shoulder. Free too from the burden of responsibility. 
Ha! Burden. Was it a burden? Yes, maybe it was, maybe it was. But responsibility is always a burden, isn't it? To the people. To the future. A burden Jarok would be proud of in time to come. Even Croescia, in the fullness of time. The burden of truth, Jordan. 
The burden of truth is light. Not like the burden you carry now. 

Ah, let it go. Forget it. Life's too short. Huh, the wipers are on. Is everything automatic in this car? Rain down for the weekend, forecast says. Wipers. Shuh-shush, shuh-shush. March of time. What's that guy doing in the wheelchair? In the middle of the bloody traffic! He's all wet. He'll get himself killed.  Move, man. Move! Huh, good. He's back on the path. It's as if he heard me, ha-ha! Not going anywhere, though, is he? Wheelchair seems to be stuck. Battery. His hair, face, all wet. Poor guy. Hah, there but for fortune.
Shuh-shush, shuh-shush. We'll watch a movie tonight when Jarok is in bed. Could do with a stiff drink. Juniper. Hmm. Cold beer. Weekend tomorrow. At last. I can sleep. Sleep.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

  

# 44 next week! Catch up on: gregoryrosenstock.blogspot.com    

www.gregoryrosenstock.com