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.
Our pace is half again the speed of walking, and as such, we pass through quite a few ‘corporals’, also heading toward the Ark. The feeling is one of warmth to us as we swoosh the atoms and cells of their beings, and notice some of them shiver in return. Shades of me and ‘Slick’ Sampson my first night at the Ark on Earth when he playfully passed through me. Spirits feel warmth, corporals feel chills. The back door happens to close in our faces as we pass through it, and onto the basketball court…
I need to stop here to explain to those just joining our journey: The Ark here is the gym at Sunnyside College, like the one on Earth at the same school there. You’ll see, as I’m finding out, things are much different, and better, here.
Charmion and I continue across the court in the same manner, toward the door which leads to the swimming pool downstairs. While floating down the stairs, I can’t help but notice how outdoor-fresh the air is inside the Ark, even down into the pool area; not a whiff of the pervasive chlorine like the old Ark.
No one is using the pool, and its glassy surface lacks even one ripple. We can see members of the Sunnyside swim team preparing to plunge into practice laps. There is a fog above the water, where we notice new ‘spirits’ arising from the pool, released and redeemed from their time in the black yoke. Most of them float upward through the ceiling and walls to the outside, while some remain poolside, bewildered and disbelieving they are really here, their final ablution complete.
One of these new spirits walks gingerly towards us, or rather toward Charmion, dressed the same way as my first friend here. She’s unremarkable, plain rather than beautiful, and to this point, Charmion has no reaction to her. This lady begins to speak and Charmion shakingly sinks to her knees as she recognizes the voice. Most women look quite different without makeup, and this one fools Charmion, until she hears that voice.
“Charmion, I’ve missed you so much! Arise, child, it is a new day for us.”
This is not the raving beauty Cleopatra from so many film depictions on Earth. Even imagining her with makeup and jewelry would not allow her to live up to the stellar image her lore creates. Yet her gestures, mannerisms, and her commanding voice as she speaks project nobility. She reaches for Charmion’s hands to draw her up from the floor into her embrace, and sends these thoughts to her.
“We aren’t Queen and handmaiden anymore; rather we are sisters, as if we came from the same womb. The stations we had in life are no more; I am no longer your queen. Friendship and love between us are all that matter now.”
I hover about ten feet away from their reunion. Both are oblivious to my presence, and I’m about to float away from the scene. This time, I think, through the ceiling and to the outside as the other spirits are doing, not to remind myself about the steps back upstairs and the chlorine at the old Ark. I’m about to peel away when Charmion’s thought tethers me back to them.
“John, say hi to Cleopatra, from Earth!”
Charmion knows my name! I had to ask hers, yet I hadn’t given mine to her. She knows more than my name, as I’m about to find out.
“John, don’t worry. Soon you will be able to read minds also. There are no secrets among the spirits on Matrilinium.”
The former Queen of the Nile ‘asks’ me, “John, did you just arrive also?”
She asks quizzically, as she studies my early 21st century attire, and my facial features. I ‘say’ my first words to a queen of any kind in my life.
“Yes, but my circumstances were different than yours…”
Charmion cuts me off, finishes my explanation before I start it, and then some.
“My lady, John was taken before his time on Earth to observe and learn how things are, and how things were, on Matrilinium. He didn’t ‘die’ of natural causes, rather, his spirit was summoned here by the design of ‘He’ and ‘She’, the creators of this World. Everything they observed on Earth that went wrong, they fixed here. For example, the water on Matrilinium is the source for all hormones, and it has a balance to it; for example, just enough testosterone and estrogen for the bedroom. As a result, men have not dominated the affairs of people, governments, and countries, and women have maintained their influence in these areas, just as they originally did on Earth. In fact, my lady, you’re quite the hero of your time here. There were no wars between Egypt and the Roman Empire while you were queen, and it was a golden era for both of them, such were the benefits each shared. Caesar and Anthony from Earth have not yet arrived here, their burdens even heavier than yours. You may meet their counterparts here, should you choose, and learn they behaved quite differently than those you knew on Earth. However, there is a price to doing this. What was nearly the same were the ages that you three died here. You were accidentally bitten by a snake, Caesar died of a seizure, and Anthony’s chariot overturned onto him. John is going to chronicle these differences of events between the two worlds, how women’s influence is equal or greater here, and the Creators have assured him his messages will be received on Earth, which is in the throes of self-destruction, its endgame near, unless it can learn from Matrilinium. He will become its historian as he wanders this planet, seeing its past and present, in an effort to save our first home.”
Cleopatra has a frozen look on her face, her whole body actually, as if she’s a statue in a museum. After a few moments, she utters one word.
“Oh.”
She becomes more animated again as she addresses the both of us.
“Charmion and John, call me Cleo. My, or I should say our realm, as spirits, is one of equality. The need for power and struggle to compete are bygone. On Earth, I tried to use my power as Queen to protect Egypt and my people from the Roman invaders. I used every wile, and all the guile I possessed, yet I went too far, and like most who try to harness power, I was corrupted. I’d like to find ‘myself’ here on Matrilinium, to see how I was able to do it ‘right’. Come, Charmion, and John, why don’t you come too. It’ll be fun!”
Her eyes flutter and her lips purse as she sends this thought to me, suggesting she still kept some of her old ‘tools’ to ply her wares. Charmion is not amused, though I think for a different reason.
“Cleo, as I said, there’s a price to pay for doing this. You may ‘see’ ‘yourself’ here and observe, but you mustn’t make eye contact. I have been told to warn you of this. There are consequences to meeting ‘yourself’, and we spirits on Matrilinium have been strongly discouraged from doing it. Please, Cleo, you just got here, at least take some time to think about what you want to do here?”
“Charmion, I know I just got here, and you’ve been devotedly waiting for my return, but I’ve had this urge since floating out of the pool to do exactly what you’re telling me not to. Maybe some other Force besides the one advising you is advising me. Maybe my destiny here is different than yours, than John’s, and most others.”
Charmion shoots a thought right back at Cleo, arguing like she never would have dared to in the ‘old days.’
“Maybe you’re being tempted? Have you thought of that? What if there aren’t just all ‘good guys’ on Matrilinium?”
Cleo doesn’t seem to grasp the import of Charmion’s plea. She just seems to shrug, hell bent on doing what she wants, as she had been used to. She turns to me, and tries to do something else she was used to.
“John, c’mon. Don’t listen to her. Let’s go have some fun. It’s been awhile for me. Let’s see how much I remember about what I used to be really good at!”
Taken aback by her not-too-subtle offer, which I find both humorous, and sad for her, I laugh as I toss this thought her way.
“Cleo, you’ll be robbing the cradle with me! Look how much older you are! Besides, I’m still in love with my wife, and that love is a full enough vessel to last until she joins me here. I wish you’d listen to Charmion. She seems to know the ropes around here.”
She looks at me with sadness. I guess she isn’t used to being turned down. The sadness quickly turns to scorn, as she thought-waved to the both of us.
“Oh, you two are no fun! Charmion, don’t get too familiar with John until his wife gets here. He’s still in love. Where do I get to meet ‘myself’?”
She says ‘love’ sarcastically, as if it’s just for puppies.
Charmion sighs, almost mournfully, as she ‘tells’ her, “It’s appropriately named ‘Memory Lane’. Just think ‘memory’ and ‘Cleopatra’, and you will be taken there to meet ‘yourself’. We’ll wait here, and be able to see what happens.”
Cleo closes her eyes, presumably doing what Charmion suggested, and she floats through the skylit ceiling of the poolroom. Charmion grabs my hand. I shudder as I think this is a pass. She smiles at me like a sister, the way Plato had in mind, while sending her thoughts.
“John, you and your wife needn’t worry. My hand connected to yours is needed to show you something you still have to learn about how things work on Matrilinium… Close your eyes…”
***
Cleo whisks through a fog which obscures all shapes before her. Gradually the fog thins as her forward motion stops, revealing a ten-foot sandstone obelisk, seeming in every way to have been sculpted by her countrymen. Hieroglyphs on all four sides tell her this is the Memory Lane Charmion has mentioned. Other shapes and forms begin to congeal as Cleo imagines them, and soon she’s standing amidst the great Library of Alexandria, the jewel of knowledge in her homeland. She quickly notices a chronology of spirits, from her contemporaries until recent times. Equally shocking to her are the many ‘corporals’ on Matrilinium accessing the library’s scrolls and other artifacts.
This couldn’t be! Her mind’s short circuiting by what she’s seeing. The Library on Earth had been burned to the ground by Caesar a few years before his death, to her horror, despite her pleas to him. Cleo told herself she must find out how this library survived. She surges ahead to the first contemporary figure she can find, and faces her. Cleo trembles as she realizes who begins talking to her.
“So, we do finally meet. The Library here on Matrilinium has survived, as it should have on Earth. The ancient cultural heritages were not to be destroyed, as the earthly Caesar did, to foster Rome’s ‘glory’. Rather, they were to be expanded and improved. Knowledge and education foster humanism, a honed understanding which thwarts conflict. There have been no wars on Matrilinium, no Dark Ages. You could have seen, and just witnessed how things should have been on Earth. You could have learned all about me, without having to meet. Yet, you did not heed your warning, thus your full circle has ended.”
‘Matrilinium’ Cleo takes a long glance at the newly formed stone statue of herself next to the Library’s main entrance, turns away, never to look back at it, wondering when all new arrivals will listen.
***
By the pool, Charmion lets go of my hand as we both open our eyes. A tear trickles down the rill between her cheek and nose. It seeps into the corner of her mouth, bittersweetly touching her tongue. We both witnessed the meeting of the two Cleos as if in a dream, yet a true telling of the event.
I sigh, and say to her, “I’m so sorry. You’ve waited all this time to see her again, and now she’s gone.”
Charmion manages a faint smile with a fraction of the energy she has shown before.
“It is so sad. For some, redeeming is the easy part. It still is a leap to land on your feet, once you get here.”
“What will you do now?” I ask. “You planned all your waking moments to be with her here, all for naught.”
Charmion sighs only briefly, answering c’est la viely, “I’m taking it as a sign it wasn’t meant to be. I wasn’t meant to be who I was any longer. I want to see the rest of Matrilinium I haven’t seen. The small fraction I have seen is a quantum more than you, John. I’m leaving the business of waiting for someone, to find as much as I can here. I do know enough to be your guide. I’ll be the training wheels on your chariot until Genna gets here, with Plato always between us. Please say yes!”
The beaming smile of hers is back as she awaits my answer. She’s right, I will find out more with her, like how she knows my wife’s name,
“Yes!” I say.