A Heavy Dose of Reality
“It’s a good thing the Zweischenadler is there.”
“What do you mean?” my father asked.
“Don’t you see it? In the sky above the Korten? It will swoop in and pluck out their eyes.”
Guardian and Father scanned the colored glass scene with puzzled expressions.
“There’s no Zweichenadler,” Father said, looking at me, “in the story or at all. You’ve made it up.”
“Yes, just like you made up the Korten. Yet, for some reason, when you make things up, they become real and when I do, they don’t.”
Father stared at me. First, he looked worried. Then, a smile, was it admiration or exasperation, slowly spread over his face. And then, he seemed to look beyond me as if someone was there.
“Hello, my dear,” Father said.
I turned around. It was Carmen.
“Carmen! How did you get here?!”
“Oh, I have my ways. We’ve got a lot to talk about, Althea. Where do you want to go where we could chat and relax?”
“The Farmhouse,” we both said at the same time and laughed.
“Jinx!” Carmen said. “I guess I know you.” She lifted up a colored glass panel of a scene I recognized: the seating area in The Farmhouse restaurant in Evanston. She affixed it to the stone wall and said, “You first.”
Back to Earth, I took in a deep breath. We let the waitress know we’d like a table for two and soon we were eating chicken and coffee roasted turnips.
“It’s second breakfast,” I said. “I feel like a Hobbit.”
“You look like a Hobbit, too, little munchkin. Are you ready for me to lay on a heavy dose of reality?”
“Spread it thick,” I said, leaning forward, hands folded, elbows on the table.
“Reality is a funny concept. It relies so much on our perspective and caters to our emotions. I don’t think anyone can truly say that something is real or isn’t real. If it’s in your mind, if you see it, then it begins to have a shape and a life. Do you agree?”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure. Isn’t there an objective reality? You believe in God, don’t you?”
“Yes. And yes, I do think there is an objective reality. The problem is, we don’t know what it is. We glimpse it from time to time.”
“So, if there is an objective reality, then some things are real and some things aren’t.”
“True. However, we don’t know which is which, do we?”
“We have our five senses. The things we touch, taste, see, smell, hear. They’re real.” I took a bite of the chicken. “This food is real, I hope.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I touch it, taste it, see it, smell it, and when I poke my fork into it like this, I can even hear it.”
“What if you’re dreaming? In a dream, it would seem real, correct?”
“Yes.”
“How would you know if you were dreaming?”
“I wouldn’t until I woke up.”
“So now, wake up.”
Carmen snapped her fingers and we were standing in the forest outside the Library.
“How’d you do that without colored glass?”
“Oh, this?” She snapped her fingers again and we were at the table in my childhood home.
“How are you doing this? I’m starting to think you’re Q from Star Trek.”
“I wish!” Carmen said and laughed.
Seated at the table was my Father. “You’ve played computer games before, Althea? Simulations? This is my design,” he said, “Welcome to my program.”
“We’re in a simulation?!”
“I tried to make this part look as much like our home as I could,” Father said. “Does it? I didn’t have much time.”
“You did a good job,” Carmen said.
“So, this is all just happening in my mind. Is that right?”
“Yes,” said Carmen slowly, looking straight at me.
“And you are not real, but do you represent real people?”
“I represent your father and Carmen represents your mother,” Father said. “We’re your guides.”
“And where is my real body? Am I plugged into a machine?”
“I created this as a training simulation for possible crew members heading to Lux. It’s designed to give them a chance to experience new worlds and gain problem solving skills. There are a number of tasks that must be completed before the trainee can exit the program. You’ve completed most of the tasks, but there are still a few more that have to be done before it will shut down. I must say that you’ve done quite well and gotten high marks. We’d hire you, Althea, if we could.”
“There’s something we need you to do,” said Carmen, “and you’ll have to trust us that it’s important.”
“Yes,” said Father. “I modified the program for you. I’m sure there are some glitches because I didn’t have much time, but I did the best I could.”
“We need you to go to Lux. We need you to learn the language and find an archaeological artifact,” Carmen said.
“You see,” Father said, “Learning the Lux language was already in the training program. What wasn’t there was the artifact, so I put it into the program as quickly as I could. You need to find it in Lux. It’s critical. When the simulation ends, you’ve got to be able to retrace the steps, find it, and share it with the people of Lux.”
“We’ve had this war with Lux for so long now and they’ve just about wiped us out,” Father said looking at Carmen and taking her hand.
“You’ll recognize it from Earth, Althea,” said Carmen. “If you show it to them, you’ll be able to prove that their people came from Earth originally.”
“Actually, you’ll probably need to act as a guide. Point the people of Lux in the right direction and let them discover it themselves. It’ll snowball from there. To do that, you’ll need to be fluent in their language and understand their culture.”
“And that is why we were manipulating you to go to Lux. Not to harm you, Althea, but in hopes of saving you and others.”
“Do you understand?” Father asked.
I didn’t say anything. My head was spinning. Nothing had been real. All in my head. Oliver and our children. My brother Pintor. The Library.
“What about Anches? Is Anches real?”
They looked at each other.
“You’re going to have to come to your own terms about how you’ll define reality,” said Carmen at last. “Go to Lux. The life you live with Anches there will be real to you. There’s no hurry. Time is not a consideration. You’ll carry within you everything that happens. There’s nothing more real than the places visited by the mind and the heart.”
“Just make sure that you know exactly where that artifact is. That’s the most important thing,” said Father.
My parents. Yet, not my parents. Were they alive beyond this simulation? They probably weren’t or the simulation wouldn’t be necessary. It occurred to me that being hooked up to a simulation had given me the chance to know them and I might not have been able to otherwise. Everything – Father, Carmen, Guardian, the Welchefarben, Pintor, Anches – was going to pass away. I would wake from this and start over. Nothing but my mind and my heart would last. I suppose that’s not really starting over completely. Perhaps there was a way to look at it that I was building toward something new that could also be good. It was up to me to make the most of the time I had with those I loved who would no longer be there when I came to the end of the simulation.
“Okay,” I said, “I will go to Lux. But first, I have a request. I’d like a vacation with you both and Pintor and Anches. To a beach island on Earth. And, I know it’s a stretch, but could some Welchefarben come with us?”
Next: Places of the Mind and Heart
This is the twenty-third part in a series of stories. Following are the previous installments starting with the first:
1. The Library
2. Listen, Move, Hide, Repeat
3. A Necessary State of Alarm
4. Anches
5. A Question in Colored Glass
6. How a Lifetime Friendship Began
7. In the World I Created
8. To Make Things Right Again
9. Escape from the Library
10. Pintor’s World
11. Vincente
12. What I Didn’t See Coming
13. First Person Binary
14. Closing the Loop
15. Finding Kali
16. Escape from Smort
17. Lux Earth Wars
18. Tenerife
19. Pintor’s News
20. Taking Control
21. Meeting Fuschia Putty
22. The Man Behind the Curtain