It’s been said the first person on Earth who will live to be 150 years old has already been born. It’s also been said, the way we are fouling the Earth, we may have just 30 years before Doomsday. That sucks for that first person, and anyone else who may still be around.
I, whatever I am now, leave the building by the door whose overhead sign says ‘Entrance’. Yes, it says entrance, not exit, to a whole new world. Since I haven’t yet come across a mirror, only my limbs and chest down are discernible to my vision. These ‘parts’ appear to be underwater, with an iridescence some chameleons have. My ‘legs’ are still there, but not necessary for transport. I move as if on a segway, those gyroscopic scooters I’d seen more and more on Earth. Leaning forward propels me toward the point I look at, and will to reach. Tilting my ‘head’ or lifting my chin slows my advance or changes direction from left to right.
I clearly remember once when I was ‘alive’ on Earth, having a dream which granted me these capabilities. It seemed so real, gliding like a bird on a whim. I woke up, remembering all of it, wondering if an apnea episode nudged me close to death, before heaving me back to life, sitting up in bed, panting. I looked in the bathroom mirror after this episode, and my head looked the same. After being left at this Ark, alone, without the other ‘chosen few’, I’m not sure what image will greet me. What I can see of ‘myself’, I’m not sure I’ll recognize my head and face.
I stop and stand erect, rotating slowly, trying to absorb the panoramic vista around me. I’m standing in the parking lot of the ‘new’ Ark. The building and environs were struck from the same master plan as the ‘old’ building on Earth, the difference I can compare to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, before and after being cleaned. The buildings, the trees, the cars, the streets, the sky, the clouds… everything has an electric vibrancy that seems to make life more alive, beyond anything I’ve ever felt before. The air molecules seem to have a mild current which keeps everyone’s batteries charged.
A mirror, I need to find a mirror. The building next to the Ark is a newer, yet similar style structure with mirror-like, anti-glare windows. Yes, now I remember: the classic Federal style Ark building on Earth next to an ugly, modern styled parking structure. An eyesore, not like the complementing structure here. I set my thoughts to go towards this building, but I’m distracted by the amalgamated populace around me. Modern corporal beings mingle with ghostly shapes similar to mine, who, based on attire, span the historical timeline.
Quite a sight different, to say the least. Very dreamlike, yet I know I’m not.
I need to ask ‘someone’ about this, after I whisk myself toward the nearest pane of that new building. As I approach it, I begin to feel my lower legs and feet beneath me…
Walking again! Five or six paces bring me next to the reflective pane. The image is me as I remember, before all of this began, yet I’m now a ‘spirit’ with an aura, less watery and more defined, as if the tear ducts in my eyes have drained.
I’ve said before, moments have replaced aging and time for me in Matrilinium. Moments aren’t measured, but several passed before I hear a voice, my first since arriving here.
“You’re new. When did you get here?”
I turn toward her, soon enough to catch her last sentence, which is delivered to my ears without her lips moving: her thoughts are being translated for my understanding.
Before me stands a beautiful, exotic young woman dressed in a light pink cottony toga, exposing only her arms, and her toes through her sandals. She has a light bronze tone to her skin, the kind that can be from a biracial union a few generations ago, or just a perfect tan from the sun. Her being as such would only belong on a movie set about ancient Greece, Rome, or Egypt, for earthly entertainment. Yet, here she is, walking among the styles of dress which span millennia.
Staring at this panoply of aged attires, I notice moment-to-moment scenes, and the people in them are in constant ‘flux’ in my field of vision. Think of staring at wall tiles where the peripheral grout lines vanish, then reappear, depending on your optical fix. I’ve had dreams where forms and features evolve and leap from one to another. Matrilinium feels like a dream, but I have to tell myself again: it isn’t. I look again at the young lady, who has remained a constant form despite my visual wanderings. She is still smiling, patiently awaiting my response. I’m hoping she can answer my questions. I start asking, without moving my lips.
“Yes, I am new. Can you explain what’s going on here? Among us ‘spirits,’ I see still ‘living’ people going about their business. Some look like students, professors, or support staff of the college! Is life still going on, as I used to know it?”
She pauses, and her face glows, brighter than the vibrant air around her, brighter than the clear, cloudless sky. She smiles as she sends her thoughts to me.
“Matrilinium is the end of the rainbow which began on Earth. It’s the place where eternity begins for the departed upon arrival here. All the ‘spirits’ you see here, arrive ‘after a fashion’. I mean each being is born an innocent. Some lead exemplary first lives, and arrive here quickly upon their passing, having to spend little time in the black yoke of redemption. Others plunge into evil the first chance given them, and have spent thousands of years in the yoke in order to rehab and return to their first level of innocence. Everyone has a full circle whose beginning they return to, however long it takes! Forgiveness is a constant of the Universe, the fulcrum to Its balance, which keeps it going!”
The black yoke! Yes, I remember it from the ship of spirits, the ‘heaven’ where Nemacole spirits continued to ply their way of life as they did on Earth in their ‘mattered’ form. The exotic young woman is telling me every soul did count, no matter how long its circle took to return it to goodness. I want to believe her, but that means Evil can be a winner. Do and screw whatever and whoever you want, it doesn’t matter in the end, after you do your time. Not what our ‘Spiritual Advisors,’ ‘He’ and ‘She,’ who coached and channelled my efforts on Earth to get here have told me. I should say, ‘told us,’ instead of ‘told me’. I’m forgetting to mention our small group, all of whom, save me, were taken back to Earth after a quick visit here. I was to stay, ‘He’ and ‘She’, those Superior Beings told me, to chronicle Matrilinium for consumption on the crumbling Earth, to right that ship back towards its promise. They said ‘not all deserved to be saved.’ Yet, the opposite is what the young woman believes, and with wholehearted goodness she expresses it. It appears to be an anchor of her faith. She continues.
“You are right about the ‘corporals’. Their ‘first’ life is still subject to time here on Matrilinium, just as ours was on Earth, but we, and the rest of the ‘spirits’ here are still living, just that we are all beyond time. The ‘corporals’ cannot see us, but we can see them. We can see them going about their lives here, as we should have on Earth, but I’ll let you find this out for yourself.”
Contrasting beliefs exist on Matrilinium. For now, that’s how I’ll leave it.
The girl continues to energetically smile and look at me, awaiting my next question, like a happy tour guide who loves her job. I’m beginning to think we didn’t just bump into each other. Despite the churning nature of evolving images before me, there’s a design here, and that thought became a constant, an anchor to stabilize me. Right now, she is also my anchor, whom I need to discover more about.
“Please tell me more about you, and when you got here.”
Her aura brightens even more, causing me to squint, as she sends her brain wave to me.
“My name is Charmion. I was a handmaiden to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. I got here shortly after I passed on Earth. I’ve been told the moment she will return to me will be soon, and this makes me so happy!”
Two things she says, and a third thought causes a return message from me.
“Who told you? Why does this make you happy? Where is she ‘returning’?”
“None of us know, including the corporals, Who puts thoughts in our heads. This is the way it’s always been done. We all accept this, and we are not to know why. I am happy because she was so good to me, realizing the depth of my devotion to her. She was not good to many; for that she has paid long and dearly. She will be returning at the Ark’s pool, of course!”
I’m puzzled enough to press on about her devotion to Cleopatra, before and after her passing, and now, as a constant feeling for the Queen’s return. I would think that surviving Cleo once would be enough for anyone. My quizzical look tosses this thought toward her.
“Why would you still happily want to be with her?”
Her effusive smile melts a bit toward serenity as she answers.
“My time as a ‘corporal’ was blessed with peace, though I was surrounded by war, killing, pestilence, poverty, famine, and all the other ills and treachery of those times, yet I was immune to them. Ever since I could remember, my Queen sheltered and cared for me as a child before I became a woman, and then I took care of her. I’ve always felt I was born to do only what I could do for her. It was the only purpose I’d known in life. I was lucky to have this station, and I was very good at it. I understood my fortunes in life would begin and end with the Queen. My acceptance of this held much weight on my life’s ledger, and I only spent what seemed like a few moments in the black yoke.”
After her thought relay passes to me, she stiffens to an erectness which makes her seem taller, then beams another smile, so infectious, I smile, too, while hearing her latest thought.
“She’s at the Ark waiting for me now. Come, I want you to meet her.”
Off we float toward the back door…