This excerpt from my Science Fiction Romance OVERMIND is based on a series of stunning visions I had.

 

The Lawman had golden amber eyes that reflected the rays of the rising sun. Compelling, sphinx-like eyes under slashing black brows. 

Gazing into those mysterious eyes, Dr. Carter was spellbound. If only he could look long enough. Stare deeply enough into those cryptic golden eyes – Then at long last – I will finally understand… 

The Singing Voices rose in a full, deep-throated humming that vibrated through Carter’s very being. The crystal clear vision of a long forgotten experience flashed before his eyes – 

He was a boy again, walking through a lush green field near his old home in Virginia. As he walked, a flash of bright scarlet and black at his feet caught his youthful eye. The budding scientist stopped. Knelt to investigate. 

Before his eyes was revealed a group of scarlet and black bugs, all on one green leaf. The boy Carter studied the bugs a few moments. Just bugs. Dismissed them and passed on, to the rest of his life as a successful scientist. 

He never thought of those red and black insects again. In his mind the incident was entirely forgotten, as if it never happened. 

But IT had happened. Some part of his brain had recorded this very ordinary incident in perfect detail. And suddenly he was THERE again. But this time his sight was so vastly magnified, he was there on that leaf with the insects. 

One of the bugs was eating, placidly chewing on the edge of the leaf. Two other bugs were gently touching antennas, clearly communicating. Another pair were calmly having sex.

It came to Carter that these were not just a bunch of insensate insects sitting on a leaf. This was a society of tiny beings locked in their own world. Locked into their own microcosm. Their own unique dimension. And their whole world was this one green leaf.  

Suddenly Carter’s vision changed. He found himself suspended in deep space. He was surrounded by boundless blackness and far away twinkling lights. Before his eyes was revealed a pair of immense stone feet. Feet so monumental they filled the entire scope of his vision. 

He could see no higher, no wider than these infinitely huge stone feet suspended in space. Majestic. Mysterious. 

Placed straight ahead, side by side, the feet resembled those of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh seated on a towering throne of stone. Feet so immense, Carter was dwarfed to insect size in comparison. His limited vision could not see the entire image. Could not comprehend this boundless majesty suspended eternally in time and space… 

The vision flashed and was gone. Carter found himself back in the barren Nevada desert, standing with a group of confused FBI and military police. Thunderstruck, he gazed blindly around the barren landscape. 

Caught in a state of extreme Cognitive Dissonance, Carter could not take much more without breaking. Out of habit he began twisting the gold ring he wore on his right hand, thumb rubbing the inlaid black onyx. His father had given him the ring when he graduated from high school. Back when things were still sometimes good between them. 

Inside the ring was engraved – Reggie – Love Always Dad. He never took it off. For some reason he flashed on that happy day. Felt his father’s presence. Missed him. Deeply.   

`REGGIE’ – a Voice called out, clear as day. 

A sharp pang stabbed the doctor’s heart. He would know that Voice, that unique inflection, anywhere. 

`DAD?!’ Carter’s head jerked up. Swiveled around. A world of wishing and longing in his cry. 

Impossible. Dad is dead. His logical mind said. It was an auditory hallucination. Still Carter was sure he heard his father’s Voice.

Dr. Carter was a man of science above all. He knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Still, an eerie chill shivered his body. Then he `saw’ something that rendered him speechless. 

His father. Standing before him. 

What shocked Carter most was that this was not the sad haggard face of the bitter old man he remembered at the end. This was DAD in his prime. Except for the stunning fact that his father had never looked this good in `real’ life.

During the early years of Carter’s boyhood, his father exuded positive energy. That was before a strange bitterness, jealousy, anger and deceit had infected and twisted his father’s mind.

The mood swings were so violent, so intense, it was as if his father was possessed. Of course that was ridiculous. Psychologists would label his father’s extreme mood swings as `bipolar’ and `schizophrenic’. Dr. Carter fully agreed. 

Carter rarely dreamed anymore. He didn’t allow himself to dream. His dreams frightened and disturbed him too much. But there was that one dream…Of his father being burned alive. Of his father’s face contorted in agony as red hot flames consumed the lower half of his body.

Ahh! It burned Carter’s heart to remember it. But it was just a dream. Not a sign. 

As a boy Carter had worshipped the ground his father walked on. Dad was so buoyant, so full of positive, constructive energy. And his father had imbued his son with self belief in his own talents, in all that Carter was capable of accomplishing in life. His generous father, who was incapable of passing someone in need without giving money or aid. 

By the time Carter entered his teenage years, his father had begun to change. Drastically. Even to the point of despising and furiously rejecting his own son. By the time Carter reached adulthood, he and his father were estranged. 

But in that moment when Carter `saw’ his father again, mere words could not convey the radiance streaming from his father’s face. It was sublime. Surreal. Carter could not remember his father ever looking so Alive so happy. 

His father said nothing. Just stood there looking at him. Looking through him. The vision appeared and was gone. A flash so riveting it would stay with Carter forever. 

A chilling realization fizzed through Carter’s mind. As a scientist, this strange vision of his father presented a deeply puzzling conundrum. For he knew himself incapable of imagining such sublime radiance streaming from his father’s face. 

After all he still carried a deep sense of anger at his father for all the wasted years. For all unnecessary, torturous mental pain. Now, as a confirmed atheist, this vision of DAD was beyond Carter’s realm of conceptualization. 

He scoffed at Believers. They were `simple-minded cowards who only believe in God because they fear death’. Well educated, intelligent people like himself know that Man has no Soul. Dust to Dust and that’s all. 

It came to Carter – Such logic compares to what that ancient Scythian sage said of the Olympics – `Only the Greeks would make those who never excelled in sport the judges of those who do’.

Standing there, dazed, Carter’s intense frustration and fury over Alien’s escape evaporated. He found himself fighting to control an avalanche of explosive illogical thoughts and emotions. Intense feelings flooded not only his mind, but gripped his entire body. Feelings which he avoided the way most people avoid rattlesnakes.

Eyes burning with unshed tears, he wanted to sob out loud. To open his arms and laugh at the sky. He wanted to sink to his knees. To rock back and forth – Thank You! Thank You GOD…! 

By a powerful exertion of will Carter kept his rampant emotions in check for fear of what the Others might think. Can’t let them see me cracking up.

He gazed around. The Singing Voices were silent – as if they were but a figment of his imagination. The smiling Lawman with the golden eyes that reflected the rising sun was also gone. As if he never was. 

Was it all just an illusion? A trick of the Mind? 

But Whose Mind?

Carter remembered the t shirt he had proudly worn at Virginia Tech. On it was emblazoned – ‘People who believe in imaginary friends are stupid.’ 

What does Science really know about reality? How many dimensions are there? Where did this ever-expanding Universe come from? 

From the `Big Bang’? Hah. Something from Nothing. From the Void. A theory. All theories. 

I don’t know fuck all.

And then Carter the man, experienced the strangest thought of all – I wonder what Margie Crestwood is doing tonight?

He felt a deep desire to see and feel the real Margie. The living, loving being behind the veil. 

But I don’t even LIKE Margie? 

Because of something…something irrelevant was blocking my vision. 

 

The doctor’s eyes flicked east, to witness the giant pulsating, red-orange ball of plasma rising over the desert horizon. 

Wow – The SUN. 

The sun was literally shaking, throwing off incredible eruptions of pink, purple and turquoise energy. The sun was bouncing, dancing and spinning before his eyes, blasting out waves of brilliant fiery force. 

Strange, even the earth’s horizon seemed to be rolling. Pulsating. Vibrating. As if the solid earth under his feet was joined with the sun in a vast multi-dimensional force field. 

Stunning, intense golden orange, royal blue, pink and lavender blazed across the majestic rippling lake and clear, boundless sky. Overtaken by an indescribable feeling of awe, Carter felt the Earth turning under his feet. Coming Alive. 

Spiraling toward the Coming of the Light. 

And it came to Carter that he had never seen the sun before… 

 

Nihil sine Deo