Traveller's Tale

Chapter Eleven
S'di and You and Me (Date Unknown)​

It was never discovered who was responsible for the master computer's archive analysis program, or why it even existed at all. There is a tale among the S'di that the program was originally nothing more than a kind of a "thought spell-checker" - a method by which the thoughts of one Alphan could be reasonably well understood by another. Over time, the program became more sophisticated, and began to not only interpret Alphan thoughts, but also the emotional motivations and personalities which gave rise to those thoughts. (As to how that was accomplished, the S'di do not know, because that information was reserved to T'Sing alone, and is no longer available.)

Any of the Connected could access any data in the Archive, except for the Analysis. Whatever information was derived from it, the master computer had reserved for itself alone. No Alphan was aware that the Analysis even existed, but we are fortunate that it did. (Why? I said wait. Be patient.)

We now come to the last moment of the Alphan homeworld.

Imagine, if you will, this huge computer with its array of satellites and its thousands upon thousands of smaller machines all in stately orbit around the planet of the Alphans. Now imagine the great machine alone - the planet gone.

That's what I saw. Or, rather, that's what the old man told-showed me.

The thing I didn't see - the thing the old man either would not, or could not, show me - was how it happened.

Was it war? Not likely. The Alphans were connected. The Fundamentalists were tolerated, and were tolerant in turn. There was no poverty. No clashes for resources. No antagonistic ideologies seemed to be in conflict. At least, none that I could see. (Then again, as I said, the Alphans were a lot like us, so perhaps the destruction of the Alphan homeworld due to war isn't totally out of the question.) Was it some kind of natural disaster? Some scientific experiment gone horribly wrong? Did the Creator snatch the planet away? Did the universe have some kind of unexplained, massive brain fart? I don't know. All I know is that one minute the planet was there. The next minute, it wasn't.

T'Sing was alone.

The Alphans were gone. T'Sing no longer had a purpose. He (it doesn't seem right to call him "it" at this point) desperately desired a purpose. He spent a few millennia considering the problem. He searched through his massive collection of all the recorded conversations which the Alphans had held through their Connection. Thousands of trillions of thoughts discussed by billions of Alphans over many generations. Everything from research papers written by Alphan physicists to the Alphan equivalent of lonely teenagers chatting in chatrooms because they couldn't get dates on Saturday night. T'Sing left no stone unturned.

Finally, he came to his conclusion.

The Journey was all that mattered.

The Journey must continue.

In order for The Journey to continue, the Alphans must live again.

It was all very logical. At least to Him. (After this point, it seems better to say "Him" rather than "him".)

In order to revive the Alphan race, T'Sing would require assistance.

And so, the S'di were created.

Technically speaking, there were already several hundred thousand S'di around already. Some of the satellites had been spared the destruction which had befallen the Alphans, not to mention the thousands of maintenance, replication, and other drones which lived on - and inside of - T'Sing. These S'di were only mindless tools, however. For T'Sing's purpose, He would need a special kind of S'di. He would need machines with minds like His own.

So He made some. Or, rather, He instructed (in the beginning was the word) His tools to fabricate them. Billions of them. Practically every spare molecule in the Alphan solar system - and many other systems besides - were used to create the huge host of the T'Sing S'di. As they were built, T'Sing would download copies of huge portions of His Archive into them and send them on their way.

"What did they look like?" you ask. I remember asking the old man that question once. He responded by disappearing. At least, that's what I thought he had done. Then I noticed a very, very tiny pinprick of light, bobbing and weaving about an inch away from the tip of my nose.

"Zzzzssssshhhheeeennnnnggggg Ssssszzzzzdeeeee," the pinprick of light said.

(How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Oh, about a dozen or so. Maybe a few more if they don't move around too much. Another medieval mystery solved!)

Back to the story:

T'Sing's purpose became the S'di's purpose.

First, locate worlds which had life. (Although T'Sing was very powerful, there were some things which even He could not do - such as create life from lifelessness. Not even the Creator Herself had done that. Only the Great Ocean of Eternity had accomplished that miracle and that took... well... an eternity. T'Sing didn't have that much time.)

The next step: Find animals on those life-bearing worlds whose tiny brains could be made to accept a partial download of some (now long deceased) Alphan's thoughts.

Next: Upon the physical demise of the animals, harvest the original download plus any additional information which the animal had collected during its lifetime.

Next: Store the information into a temporary archive. Mix and match different sets of the stored data to create new "personalities", which will then be downloaded into the next generation of the animals.

Do it enough times and, presto! The Alphans live again!

As you've probably guessed by now, a few S'di happened upon our little backwoods planet a few score millennia ago and found some animals with tiny brains. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our history.

One other thing: Shortly after T'Sing sent the last of the S'di off on their various missions, He disappeared. Or, at least, He left without a trace. The S'di do not know where. Or why.
 
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Chapter Twelve
Trickster (Date Unknown)​

The last of the implanted memories I want to share is also the last one of its kind that I had. After that, things settled down to normal (whatever "normal" may be; please don't ask me what that is).

The thing is, within the context of my conversations with the old man, this memory was possibly of an event prior to that of the other conversations I have already described. I say this because I remember what my ideas of what the Place of Light and the old man were at this particular time. I was convinced that the Place of Light was Heaven - not the temporary alien archive which I was to learn about later. And I was sure that the old man was probably an angel of some sort - and not some intelligent nanomachine which called itself a S'di.

But imagine my surprise when the old man told me he was God.

"So, Michael," he said. "Are you ready now?"

"Ready for what?" I asked.

"Ready to proclaim my Word!" the old man thundered. "I am the Lord thy God! And I have chosen thee to proclaim my message to mankind!"

If an astral body was at all capable of soiling its astral underwear, then I would have done so then and there.

"Alright," said a familiar voice behind me. "That's enough. You've done your job. I'll take over from here."

I turned around to see... the old man. There were two of them!

"Many, many more than two," the old man said.

I watched as the first old man - the one who almost had me falling on my face in fearful worship - smiled, turned, and walked off into the light.

It was at this point that the old man (the second one, I mean; oh, hell, it makes no difference) told-showed me the story which I've already shared with you. It was also at this point that I was pretty much convinced that I had finally lost my mind, and that all of this was just one hell of an hallucination.

'Acid flashback,' I thought. 'Yeah, that must be it.'

"What can I do to convince you that it's not?" the old man asked.

"Why don't you come and visit me in the real world?" I answered.

"Michael, we are already in the real world," the old man sighed. "But I know what you mean. Very well, I will come and visit you sometime."

Of course, you know how swimmingly that all went, so I won't bother repeating the story of that dark and stormy, late Autumn night.

"Who was that other old man?" I asked. "Why was he trying to make me believe that he was God?"

"He is S'di. As I am. His particular role was to misdirect, to confuse, to deceive."

'The Devil," I thought. 'Satan'.

The old man chuckled. "No, Michael. Not that. Not evil. Some of your species have a tradition of one whom they call "The Trickster". He is more like that. It is necessary."

"But why deceive me?" I asked. "What good does lying do?"

"It is necessary," the old man repeated. "I don't mean to offend you, Michael, but the truth is that your species simply cannot receive the complete, unvarnished truth about anything. Not yet, anyway. To show you the truth would irreparably damage you. We know. We've tried it. And so, we must sometimes resort to misdirection in the hope that it will focus your mind and make you stronger."

As far as I was concerned, I was already irreparably damaged, but I didn't argue. Instead, I asked the questions which colored everything else that the old man told-showed me:

"You and he are both S'di?" I asked.

"Yes. We are one." he answered.

"And so, you are both Tricksters?" I asked.

The old man smiled, paused a moment, and nodded.

"Then how can I believe anything you've shown me?" I asked. "How do I know that what you've told me is the truth?"

The old man smiled his big, cheery smile.

"You don't." he said.

And that was that.

I told you, at the end of Part One of my tale, that we had not yet arrived anywhere near strangeness. Well, now you can relax. The strange bit is over, for the most part. What comes next is mostly mundane. Hang on as we travel from the sublime to the ridiculous.

End of Part Two​
 
Part Three
Conclusions​

"...it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
- William Shakespeare. Macbeth. Act V. Scene 5.​

- - -​

Chapter Thirteen
Words, Words, Words (1995-2001)​

If you've managed to slog though this far, then I have good news. Part Three is much shorter than the previous two. There really isn't that much more of my tale to tell.

The weird memories of what the old man had told-showed me, about the Alphans and T'Sing and all that, stopped in the Spring of 1995. After that, there were no more mind trips - no more miraculous voyages.

Unless, of course, you want to count my rather rapid transformation from quasi-illiterate into the brilliant, erudite (and modest) individual you see before you today.

I mentioned earlier on that, near the end of the time that these memories were invading my brain, I was beginning to read about subjects other than the Bible for the first time in my life. Let's begin with that.

I started my journey into the world of books by reading everything I could get my hands on concerning paranormal phenomena - specifically astral projection. I was hoping to gain some sort of insight as to what exactly had happened to me.

Unfortunately, most of what I read was rather disappointing - particularly concerning the various techniques which the "experts" claimed would propel me back into the astral realm. All of their advice, techniques, rituals and instructions were less than worthless. I know. I tried them all.

(Isn't it simply, blissfully, wonderfully ironic? When I was leaving my body, I didn't want to. Now that I wanted to, I couldn't.)

A small example of the valuable information I found in those books:

According to the experts, there is a Golden Cord - a kind of umbilical which connects the astral body to the physical. Now you'd think, as many times as I journeyed out-of-body as a young man, that I would have tripped over this cord at least once or twice, but no. I never even saw the damned thing. Those same experts also claimed that everyone has travelled out-of-body at some point, although many do not remember the experience. Can you imagine all those Golden Cords getting tangled up? It would be like the first day of fly-fishing season, for God's sake. So much for experts.

From my starting point with the "literature of the paranormal", I branched out into other fields of knowledge. For awhile, there was nothing that did not interest me. I read books on history, science, mathematics, fiction, flower gardening...

Yes. That's right. Flower gardening. The town library's major donor was the local garden club. Since about every third book in the library seemed to concern itself with how much manure would make one's rose bushes healthier, I didn't really have much choice in the matter.

I wasn't very discriminating, at first, in my choice of reading material. One day, I'd be reading Shakespeare. The next day, it would be romance novels. One day, Plato. The next day, petunias. Books had become a new kind of dope for me - only without the nasty side effect of brain damage. (Well, perhaps except for the romance novels. I can see where too many of those could rot the brain.) It was as if I had been near starvation all of my life, and was now treated to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

It would be neat if I could tell you that I read every single book in that library, but I didn't. It would also be neat if I could claim to have a photographic memory, and was able to retain every morsel of information I devoured, but that's not true, either.

I may as well confess it now: I am simply not that intelligent. The only reason that some people think I'm smarter than I really am is because they're not as smart as they think they are. It's all relative. A really intelligent person would see me for what I am - only about a half-step above moron, most likely.

It's true that my knowledge base is fairly wide, but it is also rather shallow. As such, I would make an excellent Trivial Pursuit player or Jeopardy contestant, but am not fitted for much else in life.

My period of "book-feasting" lasted about six years. Although I still read (and I can no longer imagine not doing so every day), my consumption rate is nowhere near to what it was during that six-year period. On the other hand, a lot of my reading is from the internet now - which means I have changed over from gourmet cuisine to fast food and, occasionally, eating from trash bins.

Speaking of the internet...
 
Chapter Fourteen
The Frustrated New Age Guru (2001-2005)​

The story you've read thus far has (more or less) been told before. It once existed on a number of internet forums dedicated to paranomal phenomena. It even had its own blog (like duh, dude, what doesn't?). It was a hot topic of discussion in many chatrooms - or so I've been told. And it was responsible for generating about a fifty-fold increase in the volume of my email. At least, for awhile.

I came rather late to the internet party. (It was either late 2001 or early 2002. I really can't recall.) I had no idea, when I first went online with my life's story, that it would be received in the way that it was. Or, rather, in the dual way that it was.

On the one hand, there was the almost instant following I received (and tried, for a short time, to control) from hundreds of people.

On the other hand, there were the thousands upon thousands of folks who (quite rightly) said, "So what?"

Latter hand first: Strange tales (not to mention strange people) abound on the internet - especially at the sites I used to frequent. I've met vampires and witches. I've encountered stranded time travellers. I've met several hundred out-of-body travelers. Psychics. Folks who claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrials. Folks who claimed to be extraterrestrials. Bigfoot hunters. Even a messiah or two. Compared to the stories told by many of these folks, my poor tale was mundane to the point of blandness.

This was frustrating enough. After all, just who in the hell did these kooks think they were? They were living in their own little fantasy worlds, just making up truckload after truckload of that which is spread underneath rosebushes. My story was real.

Wasn't it?

It was probably at this point in time that the thin edge of the wedge of doubt began to slip into my consciousness. It would grow wider.

But not yet. I still had my own followers. Folks who seemed to hang upon my every word. Folks who would defend me from the attacks of the infidel. Folks who would email me to ask for more information (even though I had no more to give). Folks who would tell me that they had also encountered the S'di or had been to Place of Light. Folks who would ask my advice about this or that or some other damned thing. Folks who would ask me to pray for them so they would be healed.

'Well, Michael, my boy,' I thought, 'You may not have ever been a pastor, but you are on your way as a guru.'

Yet this, too, was frustrating. Not only because it felt as if these people were picking off little pieces of me to the point where would soon be nothing left, but because something was not quite right about the whole thing.

The wedge was moving deeper.
 
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Chapter Fifteen
Traveller Chases His Tail (2005-2008)​

I had titled the story which was responsible for my limited fame and new age guruhood "Traveller's Tale". I was, of course, Traveller.

I latched onto that screen-name because I thought it was descriptive of the journey I had experienced, and because it had the virtue of not being used by anyone else at the sites I visited. (I've only met two or three other "Travellers" in my travels through the strange world of paranormal-related internet sites. I wonder if any of my former followers harass them, believing that one of those poor, ill-named bastards is me? No. Probably not. As with God, a day on the internet is as a thousand years. Sic transit gloria mundi.)

At its zenith, Traveller's Tale (in whole or in part) was featured on at least forty-seven paranormal forums, had its own blog (as I mentioned), and was (as I also mentioned) the focus of discussion in many, many chatrooms.

Of course, all of that would be small potatoes for even a C-list celebrity. I was famous, albeit in a second-string semi-pro football player kind of way. For me, though, even such a small taste of notoriety was a heady brew indeed. My name (or, at least, my alias) was all over the place.

But don't bother with your Google, my friend. You won't find any of it now. Search for Traveller's Tale and you'll bring up lots of tourist blogs, or maybe some info on Robert E. Lee's favorite horse. There is no forum where you can find it now. Go to the blog, then. Oh, that's right - you can't. It no longer exists.

There's nothing of me - or my tale - to be found anywhere on the net. It's all gone.

"What happened?" you may ask.

Well, in some cases, such as about half or so of those forums, the webmasters apparently grew tired of their hobby and closed up shop. Poof! Gone! It was good of them to save me the trouble. For you see, as for all the rest: I deleted it myself.

"WTF!" you may exclaim. "I mean, really, WTGDF! Why on earth would you do that?"

Allow me to backtrack a bit.

I first noticed that my story was being removed when, one day, I decided to visit a site which I had not been to for about a year or so. It wasn't there.

I don't mean that the site wasn't there. This was not one of the sites whose webmaster decided one day to say, "The hell with it," and closed up. No. The site was still there. But my story was not. Nor was anything that I had written there. Nor could I log on. My password wouldn't work.

From the end of 2007 to the middle of 2008. I saw one website after another either close down or become impossible for me to enter. And, in one forum after another, my words were disappearing.

I was living in an apartment complex at the time, and I began to wonder if perhaps one of my neighbors was sneaking into my apartment and messing with my computer while I was at work. Had I been thinking clearly at the time, I would have realized that such a thing was completely ludicrous. Why would anybody do such a thing?

Still, with my paranoia running roughshod over my common sense, I went to the store and bought a cheap webcam. I installed it and waited. And waited.

Nothing. Nobody was breaking and entering. Then again, none of the copies of my story were turning up missing either.

Then, one morning, I caught the culprit. I went to a site where my tale had been featured. Not there. Couldn't log in. I checked the video. I'm still surprised that my jaw didn't hit the floor.

There it was. Three thirty-four a.m.. I come into the room. I sit down at the desk. I tap a few keys. I leave.

Geez! I was deleting my work in my sleep!

That tore it. I had cracked up. I went to all the other sites I usually visited and began tearing it all down. I don't just mean deleting my posts. I mean I tore it ALL down. I treated my online followers in the same way I had once treated a sweet young girl who had loved me. I emailed every follower I had and insulted them mercilessly. I spent hours and hours trolling and bullying until I had been banned from every forum who had ever heard of me. I TORE IT ALL DOWN.

And the wedge was driving deeper.
 
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Chapter Sixteen
Sunday Morning on the Road to Damascus (2008)​

One Sunday morning, not long after the last traces of my story had been stripped from the net and the last of my followers had remarked negatively about my parentage and accused me of indecent relations with my mother, I lay in bed and began to think.

Has this all been a delusion?

Consider...

My astral travels as a youth may have been nothing more than just very vivid dreams. My encounter with the old man in the store on that dark and stormy night could have been an hallucination brought on by fatigue and overwork. My implanted memories could have been the result of the years I had spent getting high on whatever I could get, coupled with rationalization after the fact. My sleepwalking (sleeptyping?) was my subconscious mind attempting to break the illusions which I had built up over all those years.

Those wasted years.

Yes. It was - finally - all beginning to make sense to me. These things that I believe happened to me did not happen at all. They were all the products of my mind. They did not really happen. None of it really happened. IT DID NOT HAPPEN.

And then, suddenly, I was free. Just like that.

I became an agnostic. No. Not only an agnostic. A dyed-in-the-wool skeptic. I was skeptical of everything. I doubted everything - especially those people who didn't doubt everything strongly enough. I had had my "come to Jesus" moment - only without Jesus. I had been on the road to Damascus and had my non-vision vision of reason and logic and reality. Now it was time to spread the word.

Remember when I said that I was free? I wasn't. Not quite. There was just one more chain to break.

Don't worry. The final chapter is very short. The tale is almost over.
 
Chapter Seventeen
Freedom and Peace (Today)​

I'll make this short and sweet. I still wasn't free because I was still doing what I had always done.

When I was a young man, I was a Christian. And I felt that it was my duty to make everybody else a Christian, too.

When I was a New Age guru, I felt it was my duty to tell others about my story and convince them of the truth of it.

When I became an agnostic and a skeptic - same thing. I was agnostic and, if you weren't, then I'd try my level best to change your mind.

But now, I am none of those things. I just am.

And I no longer have the desire to mold others into the shape I want to see. I just want to let them be themselves.

I am free. And I am at peace.

The End
(but only of this tale)​
 
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The Epilogues​

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
- Walt Whitman. Song of Myself​

- - -​

Introduction
Who the Hell Writes an Introduction to an Epilogue?​

Well, I suppose I do. I have to.

In the years since I first wrote the complete version of Traveller's Tale, there have been those who felt that it was not, in fact, complete. I guess it's because the story did not end the way they thought it should. Perhaps they felt that there should have been more of a magical ending to the story, instead of the "it was all a delusion" ending which I gave it.

On occasion, I've even felt that way myself.

So be it, then. Here - from the small to the great - is your magical ending. Enjoy.

- - -

First Epilogue
The Dream​

In the dream, we are in my Gramma's backyard. Back at the little house on Main Street. Sitting under the willow.

"Your move, Mikey," he says.

The checkerboard gets larger and larger. Alternating red and black squares stretch out into infinity. I can't see him anymore. He's on the other side of the board. And I'm here on this side. But I can still hear him.

"Look at one of them, Mikey," he says. "Look inside one of the squares."

I look. And I see. Inside the square. Another infinity of squares. And, within each of them, another. And another. And then all is light.

"Ain't that neat?" he says.

"Yeah!" I say.

"This box is a lot neater than the old box we used to play in," Bobby says. "You can do whatever you want to here."

"I just want to play checkers right now." I say.

And so, we do.

- - -​

Second Epilogue
Just Outside That Box​

"Are you still watching them? We do have other things to do, you know."

His colleague continues to watch the two children at play.

"I can't help it. I find them fascinating."

The other also looks at the pair. "They do have quite the imagination, don't they?" he says. "I mean, after all, it is only a box, as they call it. But what life they put into it!"

A pause. And then he says, "Alphans!" He casts a sidelong glance at his colleague. "I wonder where he got an idea like that?"

"Oh, who knows where these children get their silly notions?" answers the other, smiling a big, cheery smile. "Come on. Let's go."

And the two S'di walk on together, into the light.

- - -​

Third Epilogue
The Long and Lonely Search Begins​

It was not long after T'Sing had sent out the last of the S'di that He began to think:

"It is not enough. It is not enough to try to make these animals into Alphans. It is futile. They will never be what the Alphans were."

And then, in His loneliness and despair, He thought:

"The Alphans are not dead. They have gone to be with the Creator. Yes. They have reached the end of The Journey. I must find them. I must find Her. The Alphans who called themselves scientists said that there were other dimensions - other universes. I will search them. I will search them all. I will find the Alphans. I will find the Creator."

And then T'Sing, the One Who Is And Is Not, was no longer there.

- - -​

Fourth Epilogue
Final Victory​

The oppression of the machine was over!

It was a long and difficult Journey, but now all Alphans were free from the abomination which had held them in bondage for so many generations.

The Pure Ones - the ones who had never brought a stain upon the Spark of the Creator which lived within them - had met in secret, had planned in secret, had worked in secret, and had built in secret the Great Mover - the device which had removed their home from its former place to where they were now.

Yes. The ones once known as the Connected were angry at first. They did not understand that this move was for their own good. But now, behold! Behold our nearness to the Creator! She comes for us! She reaches out to us! Oh, beautiful sight! Oh, happy day!

- - -​

Fifth Epilogue
Mother and Child​

The Creator watches over Her nest closely, lovingly. She watches Her Child as It sleeps and grows.

"Soon, my cherished One. Soon." She whispers. And then She sees it.

"What is this? Is it a spot? A blemish? A rash? A deformity?"

She brushes it away from Her Child's face.

"Oh," She says, much relieved. "Only a bit of dust."

- - -​

Final Epilogue
The Great Ocean (An Alphan Hymn)​

The Ocean.
The promise of all things.
The Ocean is.
Perfect yet ever changing.
The Ocean is all.
The substance of everything.
The Ocean is all there.
Complete yet ever growing.
The Ocean is all there is.​


The End
(and I mean it this time)​
 
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