1.

Father John awoke to the rhythmic melody of two finches communicating from a distance. He opened his eyes slowly to the blinding midday sun that was somehow directly overhead and burning through the thick mixture of mucus that encrusted his eyelids. Just a little present from the sandman, he thought, and obviously the result of a much needed and long restful sleep.

            As he orientated himself to his surroundings, he quickly realized he had no idea where he was or how he got there. He slowly sat up to peer over the tall amber grass that had served as his bed and scanned 270 degrees left to right, then repositioning and stretching behind to see if he could catch a glimpse of something that would remind him of his whereabouts. Nothing. Just a large open field that stretched as far as he could see in an equidistance from where he sat. Alarmed and slightly nervous that he would wake up in such as strange environment, he quickly stood, hoping to notice a road or building that would trigger his memory. Again, nothing but open field.

            There was, however, an object a good four or five hundred yards ahead, sitting in the middle of the pasture. He squinted to see if he could focus in and figure out what it was, but it was too far and the sun and waving grass seemed to play tricks as his over-rested eyes tried to render a description.

            As he slowly meandered toward the object, he thoroughly canvassed his memories of the night before, helplessly trying to find a clue to where he might be. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember anything past the events of yesterday afternoon.

Everything from the time he packed his bags and left the hellhole he had been living in for two weeks after he left the ministry was clear as day. Jessica had dropped him off at the Greyhound station just outside of Richmond. After listening to her condescending consolation of his pitiful fall from grace, he told her he was taking a bus to see his sister in Dallas. But truth was he needed to get away from her and just be alone with his thoughts and figure out what he was going to do by himself. So he waited for her to leave, walked out across the street to Aaron’s Used Cars, and laid out seven crisp hundred-dollar bills for the ’74 Caddy convertible back in the corner of the lot.

            The next eighteen hours, since he’d left that car lot, were like a spiritual rebirth for him. The day was sunny and warm, the night crisp and clear. He soaked in the beauty of God’s many masterful canvases that painted his long drive west as the hypnotic clumpity-clump of his tires against the road set his mind at ease. With the roof down, he breathed in the fresh air, reveling in his newfound freedom. Free from the ritual-bound daily rut of the ministry that had imprisoned him for the past twenty-two years. Free to enjoy life, and enjoy God, as it was meant to be. Connected to the spiritual force he first discovered as a young surveyor. Connected to the wonder of nature that seemed to breathe the very existence of life, energy, and fulfillment, free to anybody who wanted to take a few minutes from their meaningless daily routines and discover it for themselves.

Now here he was a day later, wrapped fully in this new freedom, alone with nature at last. Wading through a field of tall grass with warm sunshine massaging his shoulders, his mind was clear and fresh.

            He stopped to check his position and noticed he was now within a hundred yards of the object. From here it almost looked like a person sitting down in the tall grass. He jogged to within fifty feet and stopped suddenly, realizing that it was a man heavily meditating in the lotus position, wearing nothing but some kind of loincloth. Not wanting to disturb him, he quietly paced to within talking distance and stood there observing this odd but peaceful sight.

            The man was in his mid thirties, wiry and fit, with long brown hair that draped just past his tanned shoulders. His matching well-kept beard gave him an uncanny resemblance to…

            That’s when it hit him square in the middle of his head, why he couldn’t remember anything past driving on the open road the night before. Had he been so caught up in his own thoughts that he lost control of his conscious actions and drove his car off a cliff, or into a tree? Could this be heaven, or some type of staging ground for entrance into heaven?

            He took a quick step back and a deep breath to calm the quick flood of panic that was now washing through his veins.

2.

“And what can I do for you, today?” the AAA agent asked as Patti spread some brochures down on her desk.

            “Not quite sure, but I know I want to head west somewhere. Was hoping you could shed some light on a decision.”

            “That’s what we’re here for. By the way, my name is Jill.”

            “Pleased to meet you, Jill. You can call me Patti.” She reached to shake Jill’s outstretched hand.

            “Judging from your brochures, looks like you have your mind set on something outdoors. Let’s see, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon. When do you want to take this vacation?”

            “Well it’s more of a retreat actually, and as soon as possible.”

            “So you want to spend the holidays in the mountains.”

            “That’s where the signs seem to be steering me.”

            “Interesting choice of words,” Jill said with a smile. “How many in your party?”

            “Just me for now, but I will be meeting the others from the retreat when I get there.”

            Jill looked at her, a little confused at first, then added, “I’m not sure if any of these places have organized retreats this time of the year.”

            “I’m pretty sure this isn’t an organized retreat. It will just be six of us.”

            “Oh,” Jill answered. “So you are arranging this retreat and would like to know which park is best suited for the accommodations. Where will the others be joining you from?”

            “Again, I’m not sure of the who, what, or where in this endeavor. All I can go on is that I am to meet two teenagers, an old man, a young girl, and the priest.” Patti saw from the look on Jill’s face that she was starting to get a little annoyed at the evasiveness of her answers.

            “Let me try to explain a little better, Jill. I’m not a psychic, or a nut job, or anything like that, but I do live my life by a very simple rule. Pay attention to what life shows you and it will lead you to where you want to go. Now, I have been having dreams for the past few nights that I am part of this group or will be part of this group. Never had a psychic vision before, but these dreams are too hard to ignore. I know that we will be meeting in the next week or two and the rendezvous will occur in a majestically scenic area with snow- covered mountains surrounding the area. I picked up these brochures and none of them are standing out convincingly enough for me to just pack up and head there with such short notice. I know I will most likely get some signs on the journey pointing me to the correct location, but I want to at least start off heading in the right direction. In fact, the main reason I am here is because one of the signs pointed me in here to you.”

            “Thank you, Patti. I appreciate you opening up like that, and no, I don’t think you are a psycho weirdo. In fact, I believe in following signs myself, but often get too caught up in day-to-day stuff to truly pay attention to them. But there must be something to it, because I pulled this out of a pile of old brochures we were discarding a few months ago, when the peak season ended. It just caught my eye, so I grabbed it and put it in my desk, with a premonition that someone would be asking me for it.”

            She pulled out a twelve-page brochure for the Grand Teton in Wyoming and placed it on the desk in front of Patti. She could tell by the excitement in Patti’s eyes that this is what she was looking for.

            “That’s it!” Patti exclaimed, looking at the picture of the front cover. “Those are the mountains in my dream.”

            “It’s funny, I never even gave this brochure a second thought when I put it in my files. Did it almost as a subconscious act, you know, a better keep this just in case I need it type of thing. May I ask what signs brought you in here today? I’m fascinated by the coincidence.”

            Patti, still smiling, said, “I was checking out Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, and Yosemite on the web. None of them stood out as the right place. The mountains in Yosemite looked close enough to my vision, but my gut feeling kept pointing toward Yellowstone. Problem was I couldn’t find pictures of mountains on the site I was on, just the geyser. So I was conflicted that I was not reading my intuitions properly and needed a stronger sign. And I got that when I opened my mail this morning.”

            “Your mail?” Jill asked.

            “Yeah, this kind of stood out like a sore thumb.” She handed Jill a direct-mail piece from AAA headquarters that ironically read, “Looking to take a road trip but not sure where you’re going? Stop by your local AAA office, and our agents will be happy to assist you.”

            “So, do you want me to arrange accommodations just for you or for the entire party?”

            “Not sure if everyone will make it. But let’s go ahead and book the rooms anyway.”

3.

“Hector, you have to take a look at this.”

            “Whatcha got?” Hector asked as he peered through the lens of the newly acquired transmission electron microscope George Pearson had been working with for the past two days.

            “Don’t see anything, George,” Hector finally said after a few minutes of adjustments and fine tuning.

            “Exactly,” George squealed back enthusiastically.

            “I’m not following you, George.”

            “Doctor, you’re looking at one of the aluminum alloy B-grade samples, coated with the seventeen.”

            “There’s nothing here, Pearson. State your point and let me get back to my work,” Hector grated back a little rougher than he meant, but he was under a seventy-two-hour deadline to record and submit his finding on his breakthrough DQ-17 compound, or chance having to wait another six months to have his discovery published. The last thing he needed was one of his interns playing hide and go seek games.

            “But Doctor, that is my point. The alloy is still on the slide. You just can’t see it anymore. Watch this.” He injected the DQ-17 onto the sample.

            Hector stared in amazement as he watched tiny crystals piece together out of thin air, forming the alloy sample he first expected to see when he came over. “Oh my god, George, what is going on?”

            “Well sir, as you know I have been working on solutions, using various molecular variations of the DQ-17 formula, to see if we can break down the compound once it is applied. Until today, I had no luck. I am still in awe at the durability of your discovery. However, today I planned on using simple erosive. Again, there was no change with any of the sodium solutions or even the stringent acids. They just repelled off like water. But when I applied the hydrogen sulfide mixture, the sample immediately disappeared.”

            “What do you mean by disappeared, George? Became translucent? Or burned up? Do you think it is extreme rapid oxidation?”

            “No sir, it just disappeared. Couldn’t believe it at first. Went through a few samples and even played the video feed back at one-eighth speed to catch the reaction in slow motion, but it is instantaneous. Besides, how can something that instantly combusts automatically restore to an unaffected flawless state with just the application of our formula?”

            “I don’t know, George. Six weeks ago, if you’d told me I would soon realize my dream of developing a compound that could be applied to virtually any element or object and instantaneously acquire it’s attributes, permeating any physical flaws, I wouldn’t have believed it. And two minutes ago, if you’d told me you were going to take that formula and turn it in to a magical potion to turn anything invisible, I would have laughed at the joke.

            “So here is what I want you to do,” he continued. “Figure it out, tear it apart, record it, and make damn sure it is what it appears to be, because if you are going to demonstrate it at next week’s conference, you’d better be able to defend it in front of thousands of the world’s greatest thinking minds.”

            “What do you mean if I am going to demonstrate it? I have not been invited to the conference.”

            “I’m inviting you, George. Do you think I want to stand up there and take either the credit or the heat from the disbelievers for greatest scientific discover of the millennium?”

            “You should, Doctor, it’s your formula.”

            “No, I need to get back to the paper I’m working on. This is too premature to redirect the study and still hit the deadline, but I want to spring it on the audience at the convention, like the first time a magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat. I will present everything up to date that is in the paper, and then call you out to present an interesting application we recently discovered using the formula.”

            “What kind of demonstration do you have in mind?”

            “I don’t think we will convince everyone by showing video loops of the samples we are currently using. I’d like to try it on larger objects of different materials—say, a bowling ball, a plant, and a steel beam. We will set up video cameras and a monitoring system so everyone can view it up close.”

            “How do you want to apply the solution?” George asked.

            “That is up to you to figure out. Take charge of the staff and get cracking. I don’t have to say again the importance of having all your ducks in a row. We need a hypothesis for what is causing this reaction, some solid evidence of what is happening, and controls in place to make sure there are no harmful side effects. Don’t want you accidentally making your hand disappear, or worse yet, losing it for good.”

            “Shouldn’t Doctor Speakman take charge of this effort, if you are going put the whole staff on this?” George asked.

            “Nonsense, I want you in charge, George. I will speak to Jerry and fill him in on what’s going on and make sure you get full cooperation from everyone.”

            “Thank you, sir.”

            “George, stop calling me sir. You can call me Hector, Rodriquez, or Doctor, but sir seems too military for me. I am still a civilian.”

            “Yes, Doctor.”

4.

John stood trembling as he watched him slowly open his eyes.

            “It’s great to see you, John,” he said with a smile.

            John dropped to his knees and bowed. “Lord, I know I am not worthy but please forgive me of my sins and I will forever serve you.”

            “John, stop all that bowing stuff and come sit with me,” he replied.

            John sat up, still trembling, finally mustering up enough courage to ask, “Lord, am I dead or dreaming?”

            “ ‘Row, row, row your boat,’ ” he simply replied.

            “I’m sorry?”

            “ ‘Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.’ ”

            “Are you saying I am only dreaming? Is this a warning, that I still have a chance if I change my ways?” John asked cautiously. “If I stop sinning and set myself straight, I can still join you in your kingdom?”

            “I make no promises of what you can expect when you wake from your dreams, only the simple advice that if you marvel, enjoy, and learn from your current dreams, everything else will fall in place.”

            “Lord, are you suggesting that I just sit back and wait? Shouldn’t I preach your word and help lead others to your kingdom?” John asked.

             “When I was living your dream, my spiritual advisor would always tell me that if I stopped looking for the man in God, I would eventually find the God in man.”

            John looked at him a little perplexed, trying to compute the meaning behind that statement.

            “It took me years to truly understand what he was saying, but once I did, it made total sense,” he continued. “For the benefit of time, I will try to summarize the meanings for you now, and you can do with them what you want.”

            “Meanings?” John asked, curious that it could have several.

            “Yes. First off, I discovered through working closely with this advisor that the only difference between religions was the concept of the man. Whether it be the man who brought the message about God, or God as a man.”

            “You mean that all religions would basically be the same if we just take you, Buddha, Mohammad, or the Messiah who hasn’t come yet out of the picture?”

            He smiled and laughed out loud. “So that is why you keep calling me Lord. You think that I am Jesus.”

            “Aren’t you?” John asked meekly.

            “No. My name is Roy. And yes, like Jesus, Buddha, any of the others, and you, I am just a man, a man who has taken it upon myself to help explain to others how to connect and become a true part of the force.”

            “The force?” John asked. “Like in Star Wars?”

            “Yes. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What I am saying is that all these men have taught people to connect spiritually, through their method of teaching. Their followers then turned around and made them the focus of the religion, instead of the bearer of the message. And likewise the concept of a God himself differs greatly from an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne to a nonphysical thinking soul with omnipotent powers to rule the forces of nature by his wills and desires. But if you take the messenger, the physical God and/or the nonphysical yet thinking God out of the picture, what do you have?”

            “A set of rules to live by?”

            “Or a set of guidelines that show you how to connect to a higher power,” Roy answered. “Yes, everyone one needs rules of nature to follow—love one another, be kind, don’t hurt or kill anyone, and so on—but we will consider these standard guidelines that will be enforced by society. The main premise behind religion is to connect to the spiritual world through prayer or meditation.”

            “To connect to God,” John corrected.

            “Yes, but once you put a label on this spiritual force as a single being, physical or mental, that being will take the attributes in your mind as a person and thus cloud the concept of a spiritual force.”

            “So you believe there is no God?” John asked.

            “I believe that every living thing is made up of an energy that flows through the universe. This energy collectively makes up the spiritual forces that drive nature in this world, that world, or the next world. When you pray you are opening yourself to allow the force within you to draw upon this energy, becoming more aware of it, using it, working with it. This energy has no mind or emotions of its own, but reacts to all those that are connected.”

            “So you are saying that I am just as much God, as you are God, as my dog is God, and that tree is God.”

            “Exactly.”

            “And that God does not control us, or guide us, or judge us, or love us, but we control and guide God.”

            “Right again.”

            “So if we are God, then we can control nature.”

            “That is a different lesson, but yes, we have the power to use the force in whatever way we want. The only limitations are the ones we set for ourselves.”

            “So if we all have this power, how come we don’t use it?” John asked. “I mean, I was never able to perform any miracles.”

            “You must first realize you have the power and then know how to use it,” Roy answered. “But even so, everyone at some point in their lives has utilized this power.”

            “How so?”

            “Have you ever wished really hard for something and got it?”

            “Yeah, once when I was about six years old, I really wanted one of those View-Masters—you know, those things that let you see slides that are put on a wheel. I don’t even remember why I wanted one so bad, but I remember asking my mother to get me one and she told me I would either have to save my allowance or wait for Christmas. Either way, it would have taken me almost a year to save enough money or wait for Santa to bring one. So every night I would pray real hard that I would get one sooner, and wouldn’t you know it, a few days later, when I was taking the bus back from school, I looked down under the seat in front of me and there was one just sitting there. I told the bus driver I’d found it and asked if he wanted to keep it in case anybody came looking for it, all the time holding my breath that he wouldn’t. He just looked at me and smiled, saying, ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers.’ So I kept it and never even felt guilty, because I knew it was meant for me. A prayer come true.”

            “And it was, only the prayer was answered by you, not a person who lives in the sky called God.”

            “How did I make it appear?” John asked.

            “By thinking about it, picturing it in your mind, and more importantly, knowing without a doubt that one would soon mysteriously appear for you.”

            “So why doesn’t this happen more often?”

            “Because most people believe it is impossible. Even when they see the evidence, they chalk it up to some other explanation. In the case of your View-Finder, they would say it was just a coincidence that some poor kid left his on the bus and you were lucky enough to find it. But in reality, coincidences are really just the end result of positive or negative energy projections.”

            “Negative too?” John asked.

            “Yes, of course. You will project whatever you strongly believe in. Haven’t you ever noticed that without a doubt, bad things will always happen to people who worry about them?”

            “Yeah, some people seem to be plagued by disaster and bad luck.”

            “Only its not bad luck. They are so caught up in negativity that they truly assume it will happen to them, and if they believe with all their heart that it will…”

            “It does!” John jumped in. “I once knew some one so deathly afraid of coming down with cancer that he avoided everything that would cause it. He stayed as far away from people who smoked as he possibly could, never went in the sun with anything less than a thirty SPF sunscreen, avoided certain foods. And wouldn’t you know it, he contracted the disease when he was twenty-five.”

            “He was so positive he would be afflicted by it that he willed it upon himself.”

            “Yes, that’s what I heard one of his dear friends say at his funeral.”

            “Makes you think that there may be some substance behind this, doesn’t it?”

            “Yeah, but those who seem to have all the luck, the ones who everything they touch seems to turn to gold, are just people who positively project their thoughts and have the insight that if they believe, it will come true. And those who have the same power with negative projection have bad things happen. So why have there not been many cases of true miracles? I mean, most of these things are small scale. You don’t see people making fish from bread and wine from water,” John said.

            “Good point. This is mainly because, up until now, besides some of the great preachers and visionaries you mentioned before, no one could break the mental barrier known as physical law.”

            “Mental barrier?”

            “Yes, mental barrier, because if you believed that every physical creation is just a mental projection of positive energy, you would be able to train yourself to change, create, and eliminate everything in the physical world mentally. So there has been a very powerful law implanted in everybody’s mind to prohibit this.”

            “And what is that law?”

            “The law that it is physically impossible to do it,” Roy answered. “If people believe they can’t just make things happen with their mind, they prevent themselves from doing it.”

            “You said up until now. Is that about to change?”

            “Yes,” Roy said. “And you and I will be a big part of it.”

            “How so?” John asked.

            “Here, come sit by me and I will show you,” Roy answered. He waited a few seconds for John to shift positions, then lifted his outstretched arm to eye level, and moved it as far as he could to the left, almost touching John, who was now sitting by his side. John sat staring in amazement as Roy slowly moved his arm in a fluid motion to the right. The entire horizon and landscape seem to change where the hand passed. It was almost as if they were on a movie studio set, and Roy was pulling back the screen from one scene, revealing a totally new scene sitting behind it. The flat land with wavy amber grass changed to lush rolling hills. The cloudless blue sky that engulfed a majority of the background above the horizon line was slowly replaced by a grandiose mountain range that not only added a new sense of depth to his visual perception, but seemed to change his energy flow. He suddenly seemed more connected to nature as he breathed in the fresh new cooler air, which replaced the warm stale air of his previous settings.

            John turned, scanning 360 degrees, totally amazed that he now was transported somewhere else with the simple wave of the hand. Could it be that easy? Was life just a dream that you could mold, rearrange, or totally change on a whim? Or was this just a lovely dream that had no connection to the physical world, thus being of mind it only could be easily changed by the mind? It seemed too real to be just a dream. He could feel the wet dew-soaked grass he now sat on, as well as the chill of the crisp breeze that surged past the back of his neck.

            “Where are we?” John asked.

            “A place that lives in both of our memories as the most pivotal point in our lives.”

            “I admit that this place does bring a warm, comfortable feeling to me, as if it is a place I am well familiar with, but I am fairly certain that I have never been here before in my life,” John answered.

            Roy just pointed down the hill a bit where a man was talking to two teenagers and pointing toward the sky. As John squinted his eyes a bit he realized he was the man. It was like watching a home video of an event he had no recollection of being at.

            Roy finally answered, “Because of the perplexity of time and its pliable plane we are engulfed in, this event has already happened in my perception, but is yet to occur in yours.”

            “So when does this take place, and does that mean you are the boy in this vision?”

            Roy simply answered, “You are on your way to meet me now.”

5.

“Are you Poppy?” the desk clerk at Bob’s Country Cabins asked as they walked up to the counter.

            “That’s what my friends call me, but how did you know?”

            “I’m sorry, I don’t have your last name in our system, otherwise I would have been more formal.”

            “No, by all means please call me Poppy,” he continued. “I was just curious as to how you knew who I was.”

            “Oh,” she replied, “it’s just that we don’t get a lot of guests up here this time of the year. A Ms. Patti McKenna booked three cabins last week with instructions to put you, your granddaughter, and her friend in cabin number four. It’s a two bedroom with a pullout couch. She said if you are not comfortable with those arrangements you can go ahead and switch upon arrival. She also has cabin number two booked for her and a girl named Julia, and cabin number five booked for a Father John and Dr. Rodriguez.”

            “It seems Ms. McKenna has things under control. I think these arrangements should do just fine,” he said, turning to Gina, “unless you wish to bunk up with Patty and Julia, in which case Roy and I can take cabin number two.”

            Gina blushed and gave him a you do that and you can sleep in the doghouse for all I care stare down.

            “I guess we’ll stick with the original arrangements then,” he said to the clerk, who proceeded to run everything through the system and handed them their keys.

6.

The loud long whistle bellowing through the new dawn air woke Julia from her deep sleep. She stared out the window as the train hustled past the tall redwoods that outlined Lake Tahoe. Although completely terrified and anxious she would not meet up with the woman in her dream, leaving her lost and lonely in the middle nowhere, she appeared quite calm and peaceful as she stared out the window, mulling over her itinerary one more time.

            This train would drop her off in Salt Lake City, a good two hundred miles from her final destination. She supposed she would catch a Greyhound the rest of the way, but was still unclear to exactly where she would be meeting this woman.

            Just barely a teenager, the new morning sun basking on her face seemed to outline a new maturity, as she contemplated whether her actions over the past few days were truly a result of following her instincts and the dream, or if she was using that as an excuse to run away from the terrible rift she was creating between her mother and father.

            Either way she decided it didn’t matter. It dawned on her that no matter how much pain her parents were going through with her sudden disappearance, it was bound to bring them closer together again. And if the dream did pan out, it was her obligation to meet this Patti woman, because something big was brewing, and she was a key part of it. And the last thing she wanted was to be responsible for changing the outcome to be more like the dreams that had preceded this new intuitive vision.

7.

“Cheers, Cheers, the gang’s all here,” Poppy said as he opened the door to his cabin at dusk Friday evening. Gina and Roy got up to greet John, Patti, and Julia as they entered the room.

            “I’m sure no one needs any formal introductions, but I am anxious to hear everyone’s stories, fill you all in to why we are here. and answer any questions you may have, but first things first. Roy here was just about to order some pizza and drinks. I’m sure you are all famished from your long journeys.”

            “Actually, sir, Julia and I stopped at Pies On Pizza on the way over. Picked up a vegetarian, pepperoni and sausage, and a plain cheese, as well as two bottles of Coke and a Fresca. Hope that is OK for everyone.”

            “Ms. McKenna, your intuitive abilities are stronger than I had hoped for. Not only did you have enough sense to book our rooms well in advance, but you picked up the exact order Roy had just written down to call in. Even got the soda order right, God forbid you forgot the Fresca, and my sweet young granddaughter would have had your head,” Poppy said, causing Royer to snicker a little louder than he expected.

            “Well, the Fresca, was a no-brainer, it kind of jumped out at us.”

            “More like fell on my foot,” Julia said, “as I reached behind it to pick up the Coke. I was about to put it back on the shelf when Ms. McKenna said we might as well buy it also, since it made such a valiant effort to get our attention. Thought she was just joking around.”

            “Thought you were looking at me kind of funny when he actually rang it up and put it in the bag. I forget sometimes that not everyone has tuned in to such obvious signs. And please everyone, call me Patti. ‘Ms. McKenna’ sounds so formal, and I don’t know about you guys, but I feel I know you all so well through the dreams we have been sharing for the past few weeks. In fact I feel I know you all better than my own family.”

            “Hear, hear,” John replied. “Don’t think any of us would have made this trip if not for the strong connection we share.”

            “Well put, John,” Poppy said. “Please sit down and take a load off, I’m sure it has been a long day for you all. Roy and Gina, why don’t you go and bring in the food, and give Ms. McK—I mean Patti a chance to relax for a while.”

            “You are too kind, but I’d be more than happy to—”

            “Nonsense, just point the kids in the right direction and they will bring it in,” he said.

            “Backseat of the red Olds parked in front. Should be open,” she replied with a smile.

8.

“I’m sure you are all curious to find out why we are gathered here today,” Poppy said after Julia finished telling her story of how Patti met her at the train station, just in the nick of time, before she took off to get on a bus and wander aimlessly throughout the Northwest.

            “That’s the understatement of the year,” John replied as he reached for the last slice of the pepperoni pie.

            “Well, to tell you the truth, Father, I am just as curious as the rest of you, but I will tell you what I think is happening,” Poppy said.

            “By all means, if you have a clue, please fill us in, because I’m sure none of us have the foggiest idea what has been happening the last couple of weeks,” John mumbled through a mouthful.

            “Father, please let the man speak,” Patti intervened.

            “Thank you, Patti, but everyone is welcome to speak freely at any time. I am not here with an agenda, and by no means do I feel I have the only explanation. I just felt the obligation to get things started since I am the elder of the group.”

            “Well, please continue.”

            “Thank you. Let me start off by saying I am a sound believer that life consists of five equally important energy states, that which is physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and intuitive. The ultimate goal is to learn how to utilize these energy states harmoniously, without placing too much emphasis on one particular area to achieve Nirvana, Heaven, or whatever you wish to call it.

            “I also believe that one travels through various lives to learn what one can about these states and live out various situational working scenarios to explore how to combine these states for the best outcome. In other words, the best way to learn is through trial and error.

            “Now, all of us here in this life are living in a training ground for a physical world, which quite simply means we need to learn how to interweave our mental, spiritual, emotional, and intuitive skills to achieve the most of our physical situations. Is everyone with me so far?” He stopped, awaiting an answer from someone in the group, and after a long silence added, “Please everyone, I would like this to be an open discussion, as I mentioned. I don’t presume to have the only explanation for what is going on, so please feel free to chime in if you disagree with what I am saying or if you have something to add. Your comments are definitely welcomed.”

            Again there was a moment of silence, and then Patti spoke up. “We’re sorry, Poppy, it’s just that what you said seems to make so much sense. It seems so obvious, although it goes against what most of us were brought up to believe about life, that it’s amazing I never thought of it that way before.”

            “I’m with Patti,” John added. “Until recently, I thought I knew what my purpose in this world was, but lately everything I preached seems to be just scratching the surface and never getting to the true meaning of what one needs to do to connect spiritually. Your two-minute summary of the meaning of life said so much more than I have accomplished saying in the past twenty years.”

            “As I said, it is just my take on what is going on, and although it may sound new to you, I believe you are all in tune with this theory somehow or you would not be here today.”

            “How so?” John asked. “I mean, I am fascinated to study more of what you are saying, but why exactly I am here, and what is my role in the overall picture?”

            “Don’t you see, Father, you are a representative for the spiritual state. I assume I am somehow supposed to educate or utilize my intuitive abilities for whatever we are in line to do, and my guess is that Julia, Roy, and Gina in some way make up the physical, emotional, and mental pieces of the puzzle,” Patti speculated.

            “That’s pretty close, Patti. I am just along for the ride, but Julia will help the world connect with their emotions, and my sweet Roy here is definitely mental!” Gina added with a playful tease.

            “Mental! I resent that, Miss Tagalong,” Royer joked back.

            After a quick wave of laughter filtered through the small group, Julia spoke up in a sweet, innocent voice. “Excuse me, but how am I supposed to help the world connect to their emotions? And if we all represent one of the five energy states, who is the physical ambassador?”

            “Ambassadors,” Poppy said in a pondering voice. “So insightfully put for such an innocent sweet child. Yes, please consider yourselves ambassadors for your energy state. For although your main objective will be to educate the world on each of your specialties over the next few years, the job is not to be teachers but liaisons, helping lost souls discover and get acquainted with each of these states on their own.

            “Julia, your job, as liaison to the state of emotion, is to help the world connect to their own emotions through your amazing talents as the sweetest, most powerful singing voice to emerge in a thousand years.”

            She blushed uncomfortably at the praise.

            “As for the delegate for the physical world, and yes I use the word delegate, because he is not with us yet, and I am not clear if he will even join our tour de force, his name is Hector Rodriquez.”

            “I’m not sure I follow,” Patti asked. “If Hector represents the physical energy, wouldn’t he be the most integral part of this group?”

            “Yes, while everyone here is equally important in the overall picture, Hector’s job will be to open the door for all of you by showing the world that physical states are not as they really appear to be. I believe that he accomplishes this by accident and not as a structured lesson.”

            “Meaning?” John solicited.

            “Meaning that if we don’t get Hector on our side, the dreams from a few weeks ago may become a reality,” Royer injected.

            Julia looked shaken. “You mean they weren’t just dreams? Are they visions of what may actually happen?”

            “Or what has already happened,” Gina added.

            “All right you two,” Poppy said to Gina and Roy. “You’re getting way ahead of the group and causing unnecessary anxiety.”

            “Sorry,” they replied in unison.

            “Don’t be. Poppy said we are to speak our minds, so if this all fits into your theory, please fill us in so we can figure out what’s in store and, more importantly, figure out what we need to do to fix it,” Patti asserted.

            “Once again, Ms. McKenna, you are right, but if you would bear with me for a few more minutes I would like to present the rest of my theory. If the group still is sold on its viability, we can work together from there to figure out the next steps. If not, we can discuss other theories and find a consensus on which way we are most leaning as a group.”

            “On two conditions.”

            “Yes?”

            “Number one, from this moment on, I will only answer to Patti, so please, with all respect, drop the formalities. And number two, I hope I speak for the group, but I don’t think we have any other theories, and this one seems to be right on target, so let’s not waste precious time by debating whether yours holds merit or not and just trust our instincts that it must be true, no matter how absurd what you are about to say sounds. All in favor raise your hand.”

            Everyone except Poppy raised their hand, prompting Patti to conclude, “So please continue, and we will give our uninterrupted, undivided attention, until you are finished covering the bases.”

            “Thank you. And agreed on both accounts. Now to fill you in on what I feel is really happening, the thought is that while every living soul goes through various lives in various worlds to learn how to utilize the different energy states in harmony with their surroundings, there is some type of mysterious shakeout that occurs or occurred at some point in time that eliminates all these training worlds simultaneously. When this happens, every living creature that is not in touch with their energy cycles will lose touch with them totally.” He paused to judge the effects this statement had on the group.

            “What do you mean will lose touch?” Julia finally asked.

            “Imagine life as you know it is a dream, and likewise all other training worlds are like dreams,” he answered. “You can go through this dream unaware of what is happening and just go with the flow of where the dream brings you. But when you wake up, chances are you will not remember much of what really happened in that dream—what you were feeling, sensing, and so on. It will in effect seem just like a dream and quickly fade from your memory. However, if during your dream you become conscious that you are dreaming, you can pay attention to what is happening, change what is happening, and in effect truly be in tune to the surroundings of your dreams. Since you are dreaming with your conscious mind, everything will be in your conscious mind. So in effect when you awake, it will be much easier to remember what was happening, what you were feeling, and what you were sensing during that dream. It will feel real.”

            “So you’re saying that when this occurrence happens, people who are living this life will forget everything that happened when this world is destroyed.”

            “Exactly, and that is what usually happens when someone dies. But typically they just awaken in another dream and start all over again, learning to work with the five energy states from scratch. If by chance they remember something from a previous life, they will bring it with them and use it to help guide them through their new life. Only when this occurrence happens, there will be no other dream to move on to. No other worlds where the energy states are laid out in front of them. So if they have nothing to take forward from conscious involvement, they will have nothing when the worlds dissolve.”

            “Just like in the dream we had!” John exclaimed suddenly, realizing the severity of what was happening. “Are we in danger of slipping into an existence of nothingness?”

            “No, Father, I believe we are safe. As long as we begin to live a conscious life from here on out, we can utilize what we remember to create a new life and new world for ourselves, or progress to the ultimate stage, depending on how fast we learn to utilize these states,” Poppy replied.

            “So you’re saying our mission is to teach others to live a conscious life as well, and take them with us. Sort of modern-day Noahs,” Patti stated.

            “Exactly.”

            “My only concern is, say we do learn how to tap the energy states and take them with us after this world dissolves. How certain are you that we can bring them with us or even utilize them without the presence of a training world?” she continued.

            “Not very. As discussed, these are all just theories, and I’m not sure if they have been proven yet.”

            “That’s my question,” John asked. “You said before that this mysterious shakeout may have already occurred in the past, and Gina had suggested that the dreams may not be a vision of the future, but a vision of past events.”

            “More a memory,” Gina corrected. “Poppy feels that we were all connected at a moment in time before right now, only in the future, where we had created a new training ground to teach those who followed us how to connect to the energy states. But we were too late and the cosmic blip, Hector’s creation, or whatever you want to believe happened or will happen, followed us, in effect obliterating that world and all those who weren’t ready to bring with them what they’d learned.”

            “Oh, this is beginning to make too much sense,” Patti said with a shiver. “That first set of dreams we had where we were on the beach and the sky rips apart—that actually happened to us, only some time in the future, and since the six of us were living consciously at the time we were able to bring it with us to not a new life, but back in time to our current life.”

            “Something like that,” Poppy agreed.

            “In one of those dreams, I remember arguing with Hector right before the sky ripped apart,” Royer started. “So, is Hector the creator of this mysterious mishap?”

            “Again, I claim to be no expert on these matters, especially on components of space and time. But I do believe we were all together at some point in the past or future and have brought back conscious memories of these events. Whether Hector’s so-called creation is the cause or effect of this phenomenon has yet to be determined, but I believe it might be the latter.”

            “How so?” Roy asked.

            “Say, for example, some other world-threatening occurrence was soon to take place, like some kind of nuclear devastation, or a comet crashing toward earth—”

            “—or chemical warfare,” Gina threw in from out of the blue. For some reason this suggestion made so much sense to Roy that he suddenly became dizzy.

            “And you were able to gather a large group of people to follow you to an alternate reality…,” Roy heard Poppy continue, off in the distance, as if he were now in another room. His mind quickly searched for a reason why the chemical warfare reference Gina made sounded so eerily familiar, as images of gas mask–wearing soldiers carrying wheelbarrows full of dead bodies popped in his head. He looked at Gina and could tell by her colorless expression that she was experiencing the same bizarre déjà vu. “…to train them to create new worlds to bring everyone to. But while you were in this alternate reality, the occurrence did happen, and everybody but the ones you took along with you were lost. What would you do?”

            “Find a way to do it again,” John answered for the group.

            “And if by the grace of the spirits, this was accomplishable, what then?”

            “With hindsight we could hopefully start earlier, to make sure we had time to do it right,” Royer answered.

            “Or find a way to stop what occurred in the first place,” Gina added somberly.

            “So you’re saying that somehow the spirits that be enabled us all to remember things that have not taken place yet, at the same time in the form of dreams, to prompt us to get together on time this time around?” Patti asked.

            Poppy nodded.

            “But something else is happening that might make this pre-matinee gathering a moot point after all. Isn’t there?” She directed her question to Gina.

             Gina looked at Roy for help, prompting him to start off with, “I think what was to happen is changing not only by the fact that we are getting together, but by the fact that Hector may have chosen the other route of stopping the occurrence somehow. Only by stopping the original tragedy, he created a new one that is worse than the first, and is irreversible.”

            “Roy and I just shared an experience we must have had, or were suppose to have,” Gina continued. “I mean, we feel the devastation was supposed to be some type of chemical warfare that wipes out a majority of the human population. The dream of Roy and Hector arguing on the beach must have been about how we needed to fix the situation. I’m sure Roy was discussing trying to get back and do it earlier, and Hector was adamant about stopping it all together. I think the sky ripping apart was a result of what Hector winds up inventing.”

            “So what now?” John asked.

            “If our goal is to prepare the world for the events to come, and more importantly teach others to live a conscious life as they explore the different energy states so they can take their training with them, we must first learn to do it ourselves.”

            “So you will be training the trainers?” John asked Poppy.

            He just smiled. “No, Father, my role in this is more as gatherer of the trainers, which for the most part I have already done. From here on out you are on your own. I will, however, suggest that you break into teams of two to not only perfect your own skills but also to train for teaching your partner as well. When you feel comfortable in that aspect, you can then switch partners and train them in the skill you learned from your previous partner. I suggest we start with Father John and Royer as Team One and Julia and Patti in Team Two. Gina will guide you and keep things moving after I depart tomorrow.”

            “You’re leaving us tomorrow?” Julia jumped in nervously. “Where are you going? How are we going to know what to do?”

            “I need to finish my job—see if I can get Hector to join our little task force and try to put off his plan of saving the world on his own for now. As for what you need to do, I do not have the answer; it needs to come from each of you individually. Please trust your own abilities and never doubt your instincts. A fine skill Ms. Mc…Patti will train you on in detail.”