Tal, a conversation with an alien

Tal, a conversation with an alien

Prologue

He called himself Tal, though I do not know his name. He also called himself an alien, though I do not know if he spoke the truth. I met him only once, when he invited himself into my home, and stayed, claiming to be hiding from something. When we first met, I thought he was insane. Now looking back, after months of reading, analyzing, thinking, and struggling, I have grown comfortable with the possibility that he was, what he said he was.

Certainly
my claim should not come as a great shock to you. Plenty of people profess to have had conversations with ‘higher beings’ such as angels, demons, aliens, spirits, and gods. In the distant past, when these types of claims were taken more seriously, the consequences rarely ended advantageously for the claimant. Most of these people were ridiculed, ostracized, or burned at the stake. Now these claims often mean a book deal, a small social media following and an occasional TV show appearance. None of these possibilities appeal to me. I am a private person. I like my quiet and comfortable life. Yet I experienced something, and have had the growing urge to share what I have experienced.

I am not a writer. I am not
even good at writing things down, and this is because I rarely need to do so. You see, while I admit I lack something in the creativity department I do have a rare ability. I am a synesthete. This means that according to psychologists, I suffer from a neurological condition called synesthesia. This condition is usually described as a crossover of the senses or a combining of the senses. Most synesthetes typically combine colors with sounds or numbers. Musical pitches or numbers come alive with color in their mind. There are many different possible combinations, and I have a rare type called spacial sequence synesthesia. I see numbers, letters, even words, in different spatial positions. Some numbers will be to the right, some the left, above or below me. The numbers or letters always occupy the same locations; I won't see the number eight for instance, anywhere except in one specific location. Thus, my memory is connected to my sense of space. For me to confuse a date, or juxtapose a word with another, would be similar to you deciding to take a nap and walking into your kitchen instead of your bedroom. I have read that this condition may have some relation to hyperthymestic syndrome. People suffering from this disorder remember everything in perfect detail throughout most of their life. I would say I have some symptoms of that disorder as well, though it is not overwhelming to the point that memories dominate my thoughts. I can choose to forget.

I
think of my ability to remember as normal, so I am often amazed at how truly scatterbrained and forgetful actual normal people are. This leads to my main objection to their myriad of claims of communication with higher beings. Whether their claims are true or not doesn't concern me. My problem with these people and their testimonies is a purely procedural one. Let us even accept that they did discuss the facts of life with a higher intelligence. Being altruistic, they did not want to keep this information to themselves. Yet they were certainly unable to remember the exact details of such a conversation. Words would have been mixed up, ideas juxtaposed, concepts forgotten or created. They would have written what they remembered of their experience, what they, in the end, understood. Their personal ideas and interpretations used to fill in the blanks of their memory and understanding. Yet the bravely trudged on. Paraphrasing, approximating, and extrapolating. The pure, unaltered words of their muse may have been truly amazing to anyone that heard them directly. However, most people are normal, and thus their very human testimony must be questioned. And historically it was, usually to their detriment. Unless perhaps one was truly bold and claimed knowledge from the ultimate higher power, some one true God. Put your words into the mouth of a greater God, and they call you a prophet. Put your words into the mouth of a lesser god, and they call you insane. Though my guest’s abilities could be interpreted as those belonging to a god of at least the lesser variety, he did not claim any level of godhood, and I have no desire to be personally judged for the content of this book. Yet, I do know that the way I look at the world has changed since I first spoke to him. Even now, months later, I am still coming to terms with the meaning of what Tal said, and I have a desire to share our conversation. Thanks to the emergence of online publishing, I can write down our conversation anonymously, privately, and with no outside interference. I write it down word for word. You can come to your own understanding and your own conclusion. 

As I relive the spaces of our conversation in my mind, I certainly have regrets
. I do not want to act as an apologist for myself, but in retrospect, I wish I had asked some different questions. Anyone going to school in the modern era will have heard their teachers tell them, "There are no stupid questions" and perhaps this is true. However, there are questions you wish you could take back, and questions you wish you had asked. In reading some of my questions and responses in this dialogue, I hope you will not think of me as completely ignorant of science. I am a true believer in the method and, I think, understand it better than most, though my education in it was the standard basics taught in school. For those of you who are very familiar with modern physics, some of the initial topics of our conversation may be redundant, as Tal had to explain these concepts to me. In my defense, it is not because I was ignorant; I have read books about physics, psychology and philosophy. But as they say, knowing and understanding are two different things.

Finally, I would like to
explain a few technical issues. In my use of punctuation, I used comas and semi colons to emphasize the manner and pace of speech rather than follow strict rules of grammatical correctness. I however resisted the temptation to italicize or bold words or phrases that I believed Tal emphasized, as this would be my personal opinion, and I would prefer that like a performance of a good piece of classical music, the details be left to the interpretation of the individual. I also resisted using quotation marks throughout most of this book, as much of our meeting was a conversation. When I do describe an action or a thought I am having I precede the paragraph with a --. Finally, if you would allow me a small amount of personal creativity, I took the liberty of dividing our conversation into chapters. I gave the chapters names based on the general concepts covered. Though I now sense that Tal was leading me through an organized order of explanation, these explanations were not always linear and some concepts were repeated or clarified later in the conversation. I only separated this book into chapters for convenience and some small dramatic effect, primarily to break up the monotony of blocks and blocks of E-book text.

Thank you,

The author

Meeting

--
There was an Earthquake. Everything shook. This would have been fine if I had not been inside a crowded train station at the time. People were thrown to the ground, the lights went out and the fire alarm went off. I was one of the unfortunate ones knocked over as I was making my way through a crowd carrying some groceries and a large crate of cherry juice that I occasionally purchase at the farmers market. People were running all around me in a panic heading for the exits, but my main priority was my crate of juice. You see I sometimes suffer from gout, which can be quite painful. Cherry juice is one of the best natural remedies; it has very high levels of antioxidants, specifically anthocyanins, which are plant pigments. When I fell, the crate opened and a few bottles rolled out. It took me a few moments of scrambling about to secure them. By the time had gotten all of them back in the crate the earthquake had passed. The emergency lights turned on, and no one seemed to be hurt. Soon things returned to normal, and I arrived at my apartment building in just a few minutes.

--
I was in a hurry, eager to find out the results of a very hotly contested chess tournament being played in London. I currently live on the top floor of an old five-story building. When I entered the lobby, I realized that the only elevator was down due to the power outage. I was not very excited about having to walk the five flights of stairs with my groceries and the large crate of juice. Just as I was preparing myself for the climb, a young man came into the lobby. He was of average height, in his twenties I would guess, with dark hair. He was, in my opinion, quite handsome, though he looked a bit disheveled and pale. He greeted me warmly and asked if I was heading to the fifth floor. I said I was and he immediately offered to carry my crate of juice. I hesitated, but before I could answer, he reached over and deftly took it from my hands with no effort. I thanked him and we began our climb. On the second floor we walked by my slightly insane landlady who was pushing the elevator button repeatedly. I wanted to tell her that there was no power, hence no elevator, but the young man's pace was quick and it was all I could do just to keep up with him. When we reached my door, I looked at him briefly and noticed he was even more pale than before. He didn't look very well. I hurried with the keys. When I opened the door, he went in without saying a word and put the crate in the kitchen. I thanked him, and offered him some water.

Thank you very much, but coul
d I perhaps have a glass of that juice instead?

Well, it
’s pure cherry juice, it sounds quite good, but it actually tastes horrible, I buy it for my gout, it works better than any medicine.

Yes
, I know what it tastes like, could I have a glass please?  

C
ertainly, just a moment, just let me get a bottle out of the crate.

--
I poured the juice and gave it to him. He drank it in one gulp and sat down in the easy chair that was next to my coffee table. I meanwhile opened the drapes to let in some light.

Ah, thank you,
that was delicious. Could I have another please?

--
I hesitated for a moment, but he said nothing and simply stared at me. There was nothing to do but pour him a second glass. He drank the second in the same manner. As I watched him, I noticed his complexion gain color and a slight grin start to appear on his face. Now he asked me again, but this time, with less intensity.

Could I
just have the bottle?

Certainly
, though I am amazed, it is hard for me to drink even a single glass. Cherry juice tastes so bitter, I usually have to dilute it with a lot of water.

--
I handed him the rest of the bottle and he quickly finished it. At this point I was feeling somewhat upset about my empty bottle of juice, as it is very expensive. Meanwhile he was looking quite radiant. I wanted him to move along. I was imagining the possible results of the matches in London; it was the last day of the tournament and a lot was at stake. I tried to make some small talk in an effort to politely get him to leave.

Well, thank you for your help. Who are you visiting here?

Oh, that doesn't matter, could I have a bit more juice?

--
Regretfully, I took another bottle out of the case, opened it and was about to pour him a glass, when he said,

Oh,
you don't need to waste time on that, I'll just take the bottle.

--
I gave it to him and did not sit down. I hoped he would see that I was waiting for him to finish it and leave. This time he did not gulp it down, but leaned back, sipped it slowly, and then said,

When I have my fill of this
juice, I become quite fond of chatting and telling stories.  You are a very kind fellow and we seem to have a few things in common. I see you like chess.

--
He was looking at the chessboard I had set up on the table, and the book 'My Great Predecessors, Part 1' by Gary Kasparov.