Vibrations: Harmonic Magic Book 1 (3 page)

From the corner of his eye, Sam caught the slight motion of a trembling bush. The weak breeze was not enough to move the foliage as it was moving. He felt some force or intuition drawing his attention there. It seemed to radiate some kind of warmth that went straight to his brain. Going within himself, as he did when he meditated, he projected his mind, his imagination, toward the bush and was surprised when he was able to discern life within it. He narrowed his focus to be more receptive. Images of food, small furred figures that emanated warmth, and larger shapes with long teeth that caused his skin to prickle with goose bumps entered his mind.

Intuitively, he projected his thoughts in the form of other images, ones of himself in an elongated form, as if viewed from ground level looking upward. Along with these, he projected a feeling of warmth, compassion, and comfort. Then he waited.

After several minutes, a small, brown furry face poked out of the bush, looked to the left and the right, then looked directly at him. As its eyes met his, the creature’s widened and the face retreated back into the bush. Several seconds later, it emerged again, this time followed by a short round body covered entirely in brown fur with a thin tail that looked somewhat like a bottle-brush. At first, Sam thought it may have been a large beaver, but the tail and face were all wrong. He decided that it looked more like a lemur than a beaver, but he knew that was not correct either.

The creature’s little face was whiskered and wise-looking while at the same time being filled with the wonder of innocence. Its small teeth looked better suited to fruit than meat, Sam was happy to see. Large, luminous green eyes, which were still wide in trepidation were oddly without pupils. As the little creature padded over on raccoon-like paws, Sam noticed its furry round ears twitching. Looking into those eyes, Sam could see intelligence.

While the the little figure was scampering toward him, he remained perfectly still so as not to frighten it. The creature, shaking visibly, approached him, stopping mere inches from his foot. Bending slowly, Sam leaned over and offered his hand to the furry head. Because it seemed right to do so, he concentrated on sending comforting thoughts to the strange animal to make sure it didn’t become frightened.

Sniffing his hand, the little creature seemed to make up its mind and immediately presented the top of its head, pushing it against Sam’s hand. Taking this as his cue, Sam lightly petted its furry head, scratching its ears briefly. The friendship being sealed, the little animal curled up at his feet and closed its eyes. Calm, comfortable feelings floated from the animal into his mind. It seemed that he had made a friend in this strange world.
A good start
, he thought to himself.

“What will I call you?” Sam said to the creature. It looked up at him, blinked its large green eyes, closed them slowly, and put its head back down. Feelings of comfort seeped into Sam’s mind.
Well, no help there.
.

Thinking of how the little creature skipped across the forest and clearing floor when it came to him, he had an idea. “Skitter,” he said. “How about I call you Skitter?” As he said this, he sent images of the creature itself skittering across the ground, coming toward Sam.

The creature looked up again, narrowed its expressive eyes in thought, and then clucked contentedly, all the while sending Sam feelings of agreement…and something else. Was that humor? Shaking his head, he petted the creature gently. “Skitter it is. I’m Sam. Nice to meet you.” But Skitter was already dozing, emanating feelings of safety and contentment.

After sitting and petting the napping creature for as long as it took him to recount his experiences in the last—how long was it? Three hours, according to his watch—he made a decision. Projecting images of home to his little companion, he stood. Skitter, obviously understanding his sendings, chittered softly and bounded into the vegetation. Sam watched his new friend disappear and then turned to go back into his house. He had decided on his course of action and now all that remained was to try out his theory.

He went inside and seated himself comfortably in his meditation room again, slipped easily into a regular breathing pattern, and felt the familiar calm settle over him. Again visualizing the single atom, he progressed through the same process as earlier, doing so more quickly because of his newfound familiarity with it. When he neared the point at which his entire body was vibrating, he modified his oscillations to match those he had started with earlier in the day. Control felt easier than the first time, and when he felt that the oscillations were correct, he felt a slight lurch and opened his eyes.

Sam rushed out the door, through the house, and into the street. He was pleasantly surprised that his neighborhood was back, complete with neighbors walking and children playing. Nodding his head slightly, he resolved to continue experimenting with this new experience after he finished with his work shift.

His work shift! Sam hated being late, but he had spent hours on his journey. His watch displayed the time like an accusation. It was nearly 3:00 PM. His shift started at 3:00! He sprinted to his bedroom and began changing clothes quickly when he noticed the clock on his nightstand. It displayed the time as 10:59 AM. Puzzled, he picked up his cell phone from the dresser and checked the time. Scratching his head, he realized that the clock was correct; it was only now turning 11:00 AM. Apparently the time spent in that other place, wherever that was, didn’t take any time from
this
place, though he was there for hours. For a moment, he thought that he had gone insane. He shook his head again, wondering at the implications, and then set about eating and preparing to go to work, resolved to unravel this great mystery into which he had landed himself.

*****

Skitter was afraid when he first saw the creature. Though it did not look like the great shaggy four-legged animals that hunted him and the rest of his community, it was rather large and scary. How did it balance on only two appendages that way?

“Skitter” was not his name, of course. Citizens had no need of names when they could communicate directly, mind to mind, with pictures and feelings that were more accurate than any words could be. Even the term “words” was confusing to Skitter. When the term came unbidden to his mind during the connection with the strange creature (the descriptor “man” was in his mind from the contact), it did not make sense. Even the label “Citizen” was something taken from the man’s mind and not something he had ever thought of before. It seemed to fit, though. He
was
a member of his group, his “community” (another word from the man), and the word seemed to indicate the free flow of cooperative efforts carried out in the community. Words. What an interesting concept.

Pictures of lines on a thin material made from trees flashed through his mind, but along with it, the idea of a means of communication, obviously crude, was connected. Skitter had seen scratchings on stone that looked similar, but had no way of determining if the markings were related. It mattered little, he supposed.

It surprised Skitter when the large object suddenly appeared in the forest. He had been looking in the other direction searching for the succulent roots he loved so much, and when he turned around, the object was there, blocking out some of the sunlight. It was frightening!

Even more surprising was when he felt his mind being filled with images. He looked around for the presence of another Citizen, but there were none near. The images were coming from the man! The communication was crude, such as a very young Citizen would use, but it had the intended result: Skitter saw that the man did not mean him any harm.

On top of the surprise of the communication itself was that Skitter could see and understand things that he never would have otherwise, just by letting memories and knowledge from the man flow into his mind. In this way, he not only learned the difficult concept of “words” or “labels,” but he saw a bit of what the man knew of the world. What was this place in his memories, a place with hard, flat strips on the ground, towering structures, and more of the huge, two-legged creatures than he would have thought the world could contain?

As the man tried in his crude way to send feelings of safety and comfort, Skitter read in his inferior mind that he really did not mean any harm. Had he meant “deception,” a term at first unfamiliar to the Citizen, Skitter would have known. So, he ambled up to the man and mimicked the memories of “pets” he saw in the man’s mind, just to make sure the man did not get scared in his dealings with a superior species.

It seemed to work. The man allowed Skitter to snuffle his hand (what is that action for, anyway?) and then was pleased when the Citizen lay down at the man’s feet. Sending crude messages of contentment, the man started to stroke the fur on Skitter’s head and ears. Surprisingly, it felt good, and he found that his eyes were growing heavy. Content, he lowered his head, closed his eyes, and napped.

When the man squeaked and screeched at him, Skitter was not sure at first what it was doing. Picking up stray thoughts from the man’s mind, though, he deduced that the sounds indicated the way the man communicated. He caught the meaning from the man’s thoughts: he wanted to “name” him. The images of Skitter making his way across the clearing were comical and obviously skewed according to the man’s viewpoint. Could the man not see the perfect mix of grace and caution with which Skitter moved?

“Skitter” was the name the man came up with. It was a descriptive term for how the Citizen moved, at least in the man’s perspective. When Skitter detected that the man was asking him a question, he sent an affirmative thought, finding it entertaining and humorous that the crude creature had to put a label on him. Sarcastically (another great word from the man’s mind) chittering and clucking to mock the man’s sounds, Skitter smirked and laughed inwardly. This strange creature was adorable in its simplicity.

Soon, the man sent more crude images, this time of feelings of home. Skitter realized that the man wanted Skitter to go home for some reason. Perhaps he was going to do something dangerous with that large, unwieldy body of his. Looking up at “Sam”—that was the label the man gave himself—he got up and smoothly and gracefully made his way back into the covering of the bushes.

Skitter watched with curiosity as the odd creature went back into its den. He had never seen, let alone met, a creature such as that, but admittedly, Skitter’s experience was limited to his small colony of Citizens.

What really excited Skitter—yes, he would keep the label because it was interesting to him; he’d never had a “nickname,” or any name at all, for that matter—was that he had communicated with the man. The communication was crude, but it held promise of improvement with practice. The Citizen desired to communicate with the man again and looked forward to doing so.

While thinking on this, watching from the safety of the low-lying vegetation in which he was hunkering, the man’s den suddenly disappeared. No, not suddenly. Skitter detected a slight vibration, a shimmer, just before the entire den disappeared. Very interesting. Skitter hoped the man would return. He would like to learn more about this primitive creature.

For now, though, Skitter would have to explain to the community what had just happened. Trembling excitedly, he scuttled through the bushes toward the dwellings of his community.

2

Work that night was a blur. Excited about his discovery, Sam moved on autopilot, performing the same tasks he did every day, tasks that were second nature, while his mind was filled with questions about his experience.. He operated his forklift, moving items from one area to another in the warehouse or loading trucks mindlessly. His best friend, Nick, worked the same shift, in a different area of the manufacturing plant. As he repeated the same question for Sam for the third time during lunch break, he stopped talking, snapped his fingers in front of Sam’s face, and asked: “So, what’s the deal? Are you in love or something?”

Sam shook his head and looked at Nick. “Huh? What? Oh, sorry. I’m a little distracted, have a few things on my mind.”

“Uh-oh,” Nick retorted, “sounds like you have another mystery of the universe that needs solving. What is it this time?”

Laughing, Sam smiled at his friend. “Oh, it’s not a big deal. I’m just trying to figure something out. I’ll let you know if it becomes something interesting.”

Seeming satisfied, Nick shook his shaggy head and turned his attention to his sandwich. Sam reflected that one of the great things about his friend was that he was so laid-back. He would not ask Sam again until Sam was ready to tell him about it. He found it strange that he was reluctant to describe his adventure. It was probably just that he wanted to be sure he experienced what he thought he did before mentioning it, that he didn’t imagine the whole thing. Yeah, that was it.

Looking over at his friend, he marveled how much he had changed over the years they had known each other. It used to be that Nick was the smaller of the two, the skinnier one. It was definitely different now. At least three inches taller than Sam’s average 5’10” frame, he was also twice as wide. Not wide as in fat. No, he had very little body fat. He was fit and strong and just…well, large. His long black hair sat on his skull like a very dirty mop and Sam thought that he could only remember maybe three or four times he had ever seen it neatly combed. Hmmmmm. Senior pictures, prom, when their friend Tim got married…and…nope, that was it. He just wasn’t one for primping…or combing…or expending any effort on his looks in general.