What Dreams May Come (13 page)

I began to occupy myself with other things.

First of all, our father. I saw him once, Robert. He is in another part of Summerland. Albert took me to see him and I had a talk with him, then left.

Does that sound strange to you? I feel it will in light of your relationship with him. I’m sorry if it strikes a discordant note; but blood is not thicker than water here. Rapport is a matter of thoughts, not genes. Simply stated, he died before I got a chance to know him. He and Mom were separated when I was a young child so that there could be no affinity. Accordingly, though I was pleased to see him and he to see me, neither of us felt any compelling urge to further the relationship. He is a fine man though. He had his problems but his dignity is unquestionable.

“Here, we are divided by sympathies rather than miles,” Albeit said. You’ve seen, in personal detail, how powerful my union is with Ann and our children. And I’m certain that, if Mom were to pass over as I “dictate” this journal to you, our relationship would be much closer since it was so in life.

Uncle Eddy and Aunt Vera aren’t together. He lives simply, in a lovely spot where he gardens. I always felt that he was not fulfilled in life. Here, he is.

Aunt Vera has found the “heaven” she desired and believed she would find—totally religious. She goes to church almost constantly. I saw the edifice. It looks exactly like the church she attended on earth. The ceremony is identical too, Albert informed me. “You see, Chris, we were right,” Aunt Vera said to me. And, as long as she believes it, her Summerland will be contained within the boundaries of that conviction. There’s nothing wrong with it. She’s happy. It’s just that she’s limited. To repeat: there is more.

One final item. I discovered that Ian had been praying for me without telling anyone. Albert told me that my post-death state would have been far worse except for that. “A prayer for help always eases that experience,” were his words.

I return now to my account.

It began at Albert’s house; a gathering of his friends. I’ll say it was evening since there was a kind of twilight in the sky, a soft and restful half-illumination.

I won’t attempt to tell you everything they spoke about. Although they tried to make me part of the conversation, most of it was far beyond my understanding. They spoke, at length, about the realms “above” this one. Levels at which the progressing soul becomes at one with God—formless, independent of time and substance though still aware of personal identity. Their discussion was intriguing but as far over my head as it was over Katie’s.

I thought I was only part of the background. Yet, when I thought—in reaction to the gathering and what they were saying—And all of us are dead, Albert turned to me with a smile. “On the contrary,” he said. “All of us are very much alive.”

I apologized for the thought.

“No need for that.” He lay his hand on my shoulder and gripped it firmly. “I know it’s difficult. And consider this. If you, here, can think that, visualize how much more difficult it is for anyone on earth to conceive of afterlife.”

I wondered if he were trying to reassure me about Ann’s inability to conceive of it.

“It certainly is one of the great pities of the world that virtually no one has any idea what to expect when death comes,” Leona remarked.

“If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease,” said a man named Warren. “Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about the end of their lives.” “Couldn’t something be invented which would allow the human eye to see what occurs at that moment of death?” I asked, trying not to think of Ann.

“Someday it will be invented,” a woman named Jennifer told me. “A camera-like device which will photograph the departure of the true self from the body.”

“What’s needed even more, though,” Albert said, “is a ’science of dying’—physical and mental aids to accelerate and ease the separation of bodies.” He looked at me. “Those things I mentioned earlier,” he reminded me. “Will people ever have that science?” I asked. “They should have it already,” he answered. “No one should be unprepared for survival. Information regarding it has been available for centuries.”

“For example,” said another of his friends; a man named Phillip. ” ‘As to man’s survival after so-called death, he sees as before, he hears and speaks as before; smells and tastes; and when touched he feels the touch as before. He also longs, desires, craves, thinks, reflects, loves, wills as before. In a word, when a man passes from one life into the other, it is like passing from one place into another carrying with him all the things he had possessed in himself as a man.’ Swedenborg wrote those words in the eighteenth century.”

“Wouldn’t the problem be solved immediately if direct communication were devised?” I. asked. I looked at Albert. “That ‘wireless’ you spoke of earlier.”

“In time, that, too, will happen,” Albert said. “Our scientists are at work on it constantly. It’s a tremendously difficult problem though.”

“It would certainly make our work easier if mere were such a wireless,” said another of Albert’s friends; a man named Arthur.

I looked at him in surprise. It was the first time, since I’d arrived in Summerland, that I’d heard an inflection of bitterness in anyone’s voice.

Albert put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I remember how distraught I was when I first began our work.”

“It seems to grow more difficult all the time,” Arthur said. “So few people, who come across, possess awareness of any kind. All they bring along with them are worthless values. All they desire is a continuation of what they had in life no matter how misguided or degraded.” He looked at Albert with a pained expression. “Will those people ever progress?” he asked. “Even with our help?”

As they continued talking, I could feel myself becoming apprehensive once again. What exactly was Albert’s work? I wondered. And to what dark places did it take him?

Worst of all, why did I continue to associate this anxiety with Ann? It made no sense to me. She possessed awareness. Her values weren’t worthless. She wasn’t misguided and she could never be called degraded.

Why, then, was I unable to break this dismaying connection?

The return of nightmare

ALBERT ENDED THE conversation by announcing that he had a surprise for me. We all departed from his house and, while the others traveled ahead by thought, Albert suggested that he and I walk a while, Katie joining us.

“I could tell that Arthur’s words disturbed you,” he said. “They shouldn’t. The people he referred to have nothing to do with you.”

“Why do I keep worrying about Ann then?” I asked.

“You’re still concerned about her. It will take some time before that ends. But there’s no connection between Ann and what Arthur was talking about.”

I nodded, wanting to believe him. “I wish, to God, there were direct communication,” I said. “A few words between us and everything would be resolved.” I looked at him. “Will it ever happen?” I asked.

“It must, one day,” he said. “It is a complex problem though. Not one of distance, as I’ve indicated, but of difference in vibration and belief. At present, only the most advanced psychics on earth can cope with it.”

“Why can’t everyone on earth handle it?” I asked.

“They could, with proper training,” Albert said. “The only ones we know of that can do it, though, are those born with the gift—or who acquire it by accident.”

“The gift?”

“An ability to utilize the etheric senses despite their encapsulation in the physical body.”

“Can’t I find a psychic with that ability?” I asked. “Communicate with him? With her?”

“What if that person wasn’t anywhere near your wife?” he said. “More likely, what if you did manage to communicate with such a person, he or she transmitted the message to your wife and she refused to believe it?”

I nodded, sighing. “And the one time I might have communicated,” I recalled, “it went so badly that it probably destroyed any possibility of Ann’s ever believing.”

“That was unfortunate,” Albert agreed.

“And he saw me,” I said, dismayed by the memory. “He actually read my lips.”

“He, also, thought your discarded double was you,” Albert reminded me.

“That was hideous,” I said.

He put an arm across my shoulders. “Try to have faith, Chris,” he told me. “Ann will be with you; it’s meant to be. And, in the meantime, perhaps a thought relay might help.”

I looked at him curiously.

“Sometimes a group of minds can join forces to contact someone left on earth,” he explained. “Not in words,” he added quickly, seeing my expression. “In feeling. Seeking to impart a sense of comfort and assurance.”

“Would you do this?” I asked.

“I’ll set it up as soon as possible,” he said. “Put your hand on Katie now and take my hand.

I did so and, immediately, found myself beside him at the edge of an enormous amphitheatre which was below ground level. It was crowded with people.

“Where are we?” I asked, straightening up from Katie.

“Behind the Hall of Music,” he said.

I looked around. It was a stunning spot in the twilight illumination, the descending amphitheatre surrounded by lawns and masses of beautiful flowers with tall trees in the background.

“Is there going to be a concert?” I asked.

“Here’s someone to explain it to you,” Albert said, smiling. He turned me around.

I knew him in an instant, Robert. There was very little difference in the way he looked. His appearance was one of vigorous health but he hadn’t grown younger, looking much as I remembered him. “Uncle!” I cried.

“Hello, Chris!” he greeted me. We embraced each other, then he looked at me. “So you’re with us now,” he said, smiling.

I nodded, smiling back. Uncle Sven was always my favorite, as you know.

“Katie, my girl,” he said, stooping to pet her. She was obviously pleased to see him.

He stood up, smiling at me again. “You’re surprised at how I look,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say.

“A natural curiosity,” he said. “One can remain at any age one chooses here. I prefer this one. Wouldn’t it be silly to have nothing but young people here?” I had to laugh at the quizzical look he gave Albert.

Albert laughed too, then told me he was going to try and arrange for the thought relay.

After he was gone, I explained about Ann and Uncle nodded. “Good, the relay will help,” he said. “I’ve seen it work.”

His confident manner made me feel much better. I even managed a smile. “So you’re working in music,” I said. “I’m not surprised.”

“Yes, music was always a great love,” he said. He gestured toward the grass. “Let’s sit,” he said. “You’ll like it better here than in the amphitheatre; I won’t tell you why, I’ll let you be surprised.”

We sat and Katie lay beside us. “Is there a lot of music here?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, it plays a large role in Summerland,” he answered. “Not only as diversion but as a way by which a person can achieve higher levels.”

“What is it you do?” I asked.

“I specialize in the study of the best methods of conveying musical inspiration to those who have a talent for composition on earth,” he said. “Our studies are tabulated and transferred to another group who consider the best means of communicating with these talented people. A third group does the actual transmission. Then—but I’ll tell you about it later, the concert is about to start.” How he knew I couldn’t tell since everything was out of sight beneath ground level.

He was right though; it was about to begin. I know you’re not a classical music lover, Robert, but it might intrigue you to read that the main composition to be performed was Beethoven’s Eleventh Symphony.

I saw quickly why Uncle had suggested that we sit above the level of the amphitheatre. Listening is not the whole experience.

No sooner had the orchestra begun to play—an unfamiliar overture by Berlioz—than a flat, circular surface of light rose from it to float level with the topmost seats.

As the music continued, this circular sheet of light became more dense, forming a foundation for what followed.

First, four columns of light shot up into the air at equal spaces. These long, tapering pinnacles of luminosity remained poised, then descended slowly to become broader until they resembled four circular towers each topped with a dome.

Now the basic surface of light had thickened and risen slowly to form a dome above the entire amphitheatre. This continued to rise until it was higher than the four columns. There, the immense musical form remained stationary.

Soon, the most delicate of colors began diffusing throughout the structure. As the music went on, this coloration altered constantly, one subtle shade blending into the next.

Because I couldn’t see the amphitheatre, orchestra or audience, it was as though some kind of magical architecture was taking place in front of me. I learned that all music emits shapes and color but not every composition creates such vivid formations.

The value of any musical thought form depends on the purity of its melodies and harmonics. In essence, the composer is a builder of sound, creating edifices of visible music.

“Does it vanish when the music ends?” I whispered, then realized that, since we spoke by thought, I didn’t have to whisper.

“Not immediately,” he answered. “Time must be allowed between pieces for the form to dissolve so as not to conflict with the next one.”

I was so enchanted by the shimmering architecture that I was scarcely conscious of the music which created it. I recalled that Scriabin had tried combining light and music and wondered if that inspiration had come from Summerland.

I, also, thought how Ann would love this sight.

The beauty of the color reminded me of a sunset she and I had watched together at Sequoia.

This was not the trip we made when Ian was a baby. This was sixteen years later, our first camping trip without the children.

We took a walk our first afternoon in the Dorst Creek campground; a two-mile hike to Muir Grove. The trail was narrow and I walked behind her, thinking more than once, how cute she was with her jeans and white sneakers, her red and white jacket tied around her waist, scuffing the dust as she moved, looking around with childlike curiosity, stumbling often because she didn’t watch the path. Nearing fifty, Robert, and she seemed younger to me than ever.

I remember sitting, cross-legged, in the grove with her, side by side, our eyes closed, palms upturned, closely ringed by five immense Sequoia trees, the only sound a faint but steady rushing of wind far above us. A thought occurred to me; the first line of a poem: Wind in the high trees is the voice of God.

Ann loved that afternoon as I did. There was something about nature—in particular the stillness of a forest—to which she reacted well; the total silence seeping into one’s very flesh. Outside of our home, it was one of the few places she felt entirely free of anxieties.

When we walked back to the campground, it was nearing sunset. We stopped at an enormous, sloping rock face that overlooked a vista of giant stands of redwood trees.

We sat there watching the sunset, talking quietly. First about the landscape and what it must have been like before the first man saw it. Then about how man has taken this magnificence and methodically demolished it.

Gradually, we talked about ourselves; our twenty-six years together.

“Twenty-six,” Ann said as though she couldn’t quite believe it. “Where did they go, Chris?”

I smiled and put my arm around her. “They were well spent.”

Ann nodded. “We’ve had our times though.”

“Who hasn’t?” I answered. “It’s better now than ever, that’s all that matters.”

“Yes.” She leaned against me. “Twenty-six years,” she said. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

“I’ll tell you what it seems like,” I told her. “It seems like last week that I spoke to a cute little X-ray technician trainee on the beach in Santa Monica and asked her what time it was and she pointed at a clock.”

She laughed. “I wasn’t very friendly, was I?”

“Oh, I persevered,” I said, squeezing her. “You know, it’s odd. It really does seem like last week. Does Louise actually have two children of her own? Is ‘baby’ Ian on the verge of college? Have we really lived in all those houses, done all those things?”

“We really have, Chief,” Ann said. She grunted, amused. “How many open houses have we gone to at the children’s schools, I wonder? All those desks we sat at, hearing what our kids were being taught.”

“Or what they were doing wrong.”

She smiled. “That too.”

“All those cookies and coffee in Styrofoam cups,” I recalled.

“All those horrible fruit punches.”

I laughed. “Well…” I stroked her back. “I think we did a reasonable job of raising them.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I hope I haven’t hurt them.”

“Hurt them?”

“With my anxieties, my insecurities. I tried to keep it all from them.”

“They’re in good shape, Mother,” I told her. I rubbed her back slowly, looking at her. “So, I might add, are you.”

She looked at me with a tiny smile. “We’ve never had the camper to ourselves before.”

“I hope it doesn’t rock too much at night,” I said. “We’ll be the scandal of the campground.”

She made an amused sound. “I hope not too.”

I sighed and kissed her temple. The sun kept going down, the sky bright red and orange. “I love you, Ann.” I told her.

“And I love you.”

We sat in silence for a while before I asked, “Well, what next?”

“You mean right now?”

“No; in years to come.”

“Oh, we’ll do things,” she told me.

Sitting there, we planned the things we’d do. Lovely plans, Robert. We’d come to Sequoia in the autumn to see the changing colors. We’d camp OB the river at Lodgepole in the spring, before the crowds began arriving. We’d backpack into the high country, maybe even try cross-country skiing in the winter if our backs held out We’d ride a raft down a rushing river; rent a houseboat and sail it through the back rivers of New England. We’d travel to the places in the world we’d never seen. There was no end to the things we could do now that the children were grown and we could spend more time together.

I woke up suddenly. Ann was crying out my name. Confused, I looked around in the darkness, trying to remember where I was.

I heard her cry my name again, and suddenly, remembered. I was in the camper, in Sequoia. It was the middle of the night and she had taken Ginger outside. I’d woken when she left, then fallen back asleep again.

I was out of the camper in seconds. “Ann?!” I shouted. I ran to the front of the truck and looked toward the meadow. There was a flashlight beam.

I began to smile as I started toward it. This had already happened, I knew. She’d walked into the meadow with Ginger and suddenly her flashlight beam had startled a feeding bear. She’d screamed my name in fright and I’d gone running to her, held her in my arms and comforted her.

But, as I moved toward the flashlight beam, it changed. I felt myself go cold as I heard the growling of a bear, then Ginger snarling. “Chris!” Ann shrieked.

I rushed across the uneven ground. This isn’t really happening, I remember thinking. It didn’t go this way at all.

Abruptly, I was on them, gasping -at the sight: Ginger fighting with the bear, Ann sprawled on the ground, the flashlight fallen. I snatched it up and pointed it at her, crying out in shock. There was blood on her face, skin hanging loose.

Now the bear hit Ginger on the head and, with a yelp of pain, she fell to the ground. The bear turned toward Ann and I jumped in front of it, bellowing to chase it away. It kept coming and I hit it on the head with the flashlight, breaking it. I felt a bludgeoning pain on my left shoulder and was knocked to the ground. I twisted around. The bear was on Ann again, snarling ferociously.

“Ann!” I tried to stand but couldn’t; my left leg wouldn’t hold my weight and I crumpled back to the ground. Ann screamed as the bear began to maul her. “Oh, my God,” I sobbed. As I crawled toward her, my right hand touched a rock and I picked it up. I lunged at the bear and grabbed its fur, began to smash at its head with the rock. I felt blood running warmly on my hands; Ann’s blood, mine. I howled in rage and horror as I pounded on the bear’s head with the rock. This couldn’t be! It had never happened!

“Chris?”

I started violently, refocusing my eyes.

Albert was standing next to me; the music still played. I looked up at his face. His tight expression harrowed me. “What’s wrong?” I asked. I stood up quickly.

He looked at me with an expression of such anguish that it seemed as though my heart stopped beating. “What is it?” I asked.

“Ann has passed on.”

First, a jolt; as though I’d been struck. Then a feeling of excitement mixed with sorrow. Sorrow for the children, excitement for myself. We’d be together again!

No. The look on Albert’s face did not encourage such a feeling and a sense of cold, aching dread engulfed me. “Please, what is it?” I begged.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Chris, she killed herself,” he said. “She’s cut herself away from you.”

It was the return of nightmare.

One harrowing possibility

I FELT NUMB as I sat on the grass, listening to Albert. He’d led me from the amphitheatre; we were seated in a quiet glade.

I say that I was listening but I really wasn’t. Words and phrases reached my consciousness disjointedly as thoughts of my own opposed the continuity of what he said, Troubled recollections mostly; of the times I’d heard Ann say “If you died, I’d die too.” “If you went first, I don’t think I could make it.”

I knew, then, why I’d felt that sense of constant dread despite the fascinations of my first exposure to Summerland. Somewhere, deep inside, an apprehension had been mounting; an inner knowledge of something terrible about to happen to her.

I knew why I’d had those nightmarish visions of her begging me to save her. Again, in memory, I saw her look of terror as she slid across the cliff edge, sank beneath the churning waters of the pool, fell in bloody shock before the bear’s attack. The cliff and pool and bear had all been symbols of my fear for her, not dreams but premonitions. She’d been pleading for my help, asking me to stop her from doing what she’d felt herself about to do.

Albert’s voice reached my attention. “Because of her childhood traumas, the children grown, your death—” I stared at him. Had he said something about sleeping pills? His thought broke off and he nodded.

“God.” I put my face in my hands and tried to weep. But I could summon nothing; I was empty.

“The death of someone with whom a person has been long and closely associated leaves a literal vacuum in that person’s life,” Albert said. “The streams of psychic energy directed toward that lost someone now have no object.”

Why was he telling me these things? I wondered.

“That sitting may have played a part as well,” he said. “They, sometimes, distort the mental balance.”

I looked up at him; not with understanding.

“Despite what your wife said,” he continued, “I think she hoped there was an afterlife. I think she placed considerable reliance on that sitting. When it turned out to be, from her standpoint, a delusion, she—” His voice trailed off.