Chapter Thirty-One
The other side of paradise must look this, Samuel thought to
himself as he woke up, stretching his feelings to see if anything was near that
might affect him and his companions. It was something he didn't like to talk
about. His ability to sense danger and to see around him without using his
eyes. At least his physical eyes. He knew better though. Not all eyes were
physical, which is why most popular Buddhist literature and India literature,
as well as the American dollar bill used a third eye as symbols.
The ability to see into worlds normally invisible to man had
enabled him to save his and Jimbo's lives many a time. It was a gift and he
also knew that if he misused it, he could lose it. Many a pyschic and occultist
found such gifts and used them to covet fame and fortune, and unfortunately
fell from Grace and lost their powers over time. The hidden world was a gift to
man and not a treasure to be spent on common things.
He sat up.
Nanny was sleeping on her side, curled up into a fetal
position inside her sleeping bag. Her mouth was slightly open and drooling
slightly. He smiled, then looked at his best friend and long time partner and
companion. Jimbo was laying on his back with his hands folded across his chest
like a dead man. But dead he wasn't. He was snoring loud enough to scare off a
rattlesnake, but even that noise didn't bother Nanny, who had been more tired
than she pretended to be.
Samuel smiled again. People were such complex and yet simple
creations. They were layered with seemingly complex motivations and habits,
that usually unwound to the same things...the same basic desires and needs: to
be loved, to be wanted, to be cared for.
He cared deeply for both of them, even if Nanny was just a
momentary friend, she was still precious to him. He felt a disturbance and
turned to see Al seated in a lotus posture next to him, his eyes flashing with
amusement.
"Sam, your thoughts do you credit."
"Thanks, old timer." He answered with a grin.
Al held up a thumb. "You should live so long."
"I'll consider that after I'm seated at your table in
heaven." Samuel retorted.
Al laughed. He laughed at most things, but Samuel knew he
had a huge heart and cared deeply about life. He had been such a man in his
earthly years as well. Once he had sat with Samuel when he was imprisoned by a cult in Egypt and
explained to him how tormented he had felt for a time by the way his
information had brought about the death of tens of thousands with the atomic
bomb, and later the fears of so many millions during the Cold War.
"Angels shouldn't have to apologize for what they've
done." Al had told him.
Samuel had laughed. "You're no angel, Al."
Al had smiled, but not responded to that, which immediately
got Samuel to thinking maybe he had missed something in his observations.
"So what now?" Samuel asked in his mind.
Al shrugged. "Some secrets are better left untouched,
but you and Jim have never been ones to do that, have you?
Samuel nodded. "Got me in one."
"And second." Al continued. "I wouldn't want
you to do anything differently. A closed mind is a loop that ends in self
defeat and acrimony. Hail to the hearty soul who dares to climb the stairway to
knowledge, and hence to self discovery and heaven."
"Man!" Samuel thought. "You sure are wordy
this morning."
"I've had my morning manna." Al said jokingly,
then manifested a piece of cloud in his right hand and began eating on it.
Samuel laughed so loud that Nanny woke up. "Eveything
all right?"
She sat up, rubbing her eyes, looking at the amusement on
Samuel's face.
"Perfect." He responded. "Just talking with
an old friend."
"Oh, him!" She said, nodding at Al, who gave her a
thumbs up too. "He and Marilyn sang me to sleep last night. They sound
cute together."
"More like off key." Samuel shot back.
Nanny laughed. "But lovable."
Al gave her two thumbs up and vanished.
"Does he always do that too?" She asked, finally
all the way awake.
"It's his way of saying good-bye." Samuel said
with a shrug. "No accounting for the manners of man or angel, especially
angels."
"I thought you said he wasn't an angel."
Samuel did a double take. "You can read minds
too?"
"Sometimes, especially when I'm relaxed." She
said. "So now what?"
"We eat and hike." Jimbo growled, sitting up to
yawn. "You two gotta go yapping and break into a man's dreams. I was just
about to eat a ten piece pizza loaded with everything." He complained.
Nanny and Samuel laughed.
They spent the next ten minutes packing and going to the
bathroom in various places outside, but when through they met at a large leaf
that was perfect to sit comfortably upon, like a soft green sofa.
Nanny bounced on it like a child a few times, then looked at
Samuel. "I wish we had these trees back home."
"Yeah. So they can be cut down and destroyed like all
our other forests." Samuel groused angrily.
She sighed. "Why can't people see that we're all part
of a big chain, that if you break one link, you break all of them?"
"Oh, I think they see it." Jimbo said, yawning
again. "They just like the touch of money and power more than the love and
affection of those they could help."
Nanny had no response to that.
Samuel touched her right arm lightly and pressed it.
"If you look at the world as a school, then it's not so bad."
"How so?" She asked. "We're too old to be in
school."
"Nanny, there's not a soul on earth that's not in
school. The whole planet's a school."
Jimbo snorted. "Yeah, this outlaw here thinks we're all
here to learn how to get along and play nice."
"Well that's not happening." Nanny replied. She
remembered her first grade and the two bullies that had shoved her into the mud
that day and how she had met them twenty years later and they were executives
in the forest service, stealing public funds. "Not at all."
Samuel touched her again. "Don't judge them so harshly.
Some do change. And even if not in this life..."
"Another, if you believe everything my hairy faced
partner spouts from those pretty lips of his."
Samuel scowled at Jimbo and he laughed. It was a running joke between them about
Samuel being virtually hairless and having very feminine lips.
Samuel stood up and shrugged on his backpack. It was mostly
dry now and didn't feel so chilled as it had the day before.
Samuel threw Nanny's to her and she shrugged into hers, and
he shouldered his with a shrug, not even straining. They had barely emptied the
treasure trove he kept in that pack. It had to weight about a hundred pounds,
and he carried it like it was no heavier than a feather. Strong man.
At least that's what Nanny thought.
Samuel knew Jimbo was strong in many ways, besides the physical
and one way which had kept them in friendship for decades. Jimbo had a big
heart. Big as the state he was born in: Texas.
A shadow came across them. They turned to look. The floating
city was passing to the North West this morning. It eclipsed the bright light
above them, which seemed to radiate from everywhere and a great shadow passed
over them momentarily.
"So now what?" Nanny asked.
Samuel felt the presence above him and wondered that
himself. The people of the city were conscious of them, but doing nothing about
it. That got him to thinking about a great many things, and mostly not good.
"We keep on moving West."
"Why?" Nanny asked.
Jimbo touched her arm and pointed.
She turned to look and on the other side of the teepee was
a huge inscription on the tree from
which the leaves had fallen. "For those who pass this way, know that you
are not alone and we have passed this way before....Jules."
"Oh my God!" Nanny cried out. "He really did
go to the Center of the Earth!"
