[Welcome to our weekly fiction interlude. You can start at the beginning of the Dottie story here.]
“Now, then. I should say that strictly speaking, I have performed my duties. You have been indoctrinated into the Plane of Energy, the vows have been performed, you know of the whispers. Given the extraordinary circumstances, however, I am happy to answer any questions you may have. We still don’t have word about where they’ve taken the survivors, and when we do, I will accompany those of you searching for loved ones. In the meantime, though, I am happy to answer your questions. It is, after all, good manners. Furthermore, Juba will conduct the questioning with the Spanish crowd separately, it will save us a little time.” Ralph nodded to Jubo, who then spoke to the Spanish group. The Spanish group followed him, some ten yards down the fence so that they couldn’t be overheard.
“All right then. If you please,” Ralph continued. Hands went up. “I suspect many of you have the same questions, so I will just work front to back. And we will continue to pause for the translations,” he added, remembering that there was no guide to the Plane for the Dutch, or the German man or the French woman.
“Oh. One more thing. This is optional. If you like, you may go now. Not,” he hastened to add, “that I ever could have stopped you.”
Pause. Translations.
The French speaking woman said something to the woman who was her translator, looking quite whimsically sophisticated with her big bow and pears. The translator looked at Ralph. “She wants to know if anything can hurt her in this… Plane.”
“Not a thing,” Ralph said serenely.
“Rien.” The translator says to the woman.
A smile widens across the French woman’s face. She looked at the group. “Adieu.” She said, and, with that, she floated through the fence and away from the airport.
“Anyone else?” Ralph said, indifferent to the woman’s departure. The American French-speaking translator woman in pearls rejoined the American group.
Perhaps a dozen people begin to move away from the group. Some walked, like the living, some seemed to be dragging themselves, looking almost like ski jumpers in air.
“Farewell, and good luck,” Ralph said gamely to the departing. “Right then.”
He nodded to an elderly woman in the front of the American group.
“How do we get home?” She asks. “We want to go home. “
“Yes. First let me say home is a rather mortal concept. It’s not strictly necessary for a soul in this plane to have a home, and in any case we can’t eat or sleep. It’s common upon first entering the Plane to want to return to your home. And indeed, I see no reason why any of you would want to stay here in the Canary Islands. For my part, I’ve not yet been home since I passed into this plane. The choice is yours. That being said, the quickest way to get around in the Plane is by a process we call jumping. But, I should say, the process to me seems somewhat, er, frightening. Others choose to move around the old fashioned way. By floating. The choice is yours.”
“What is jumping?” The woman pressed.
“Well, you see, we can go anywhere we want. Our speed seems to be consistent and universal. It is about 6.8 kilometers per hour. All of us.”
“What’s that in miles?” an American shouted from the back of the crowd.
“About 4.2 miles per hour. All of us. No racing in our world, I’m afraid. Though that is not strictly true. Routes matter. We can fly into the sky, into the ground. We can go through the Earth. This might be somewhat quicker, but it is rather difficult, as there are no roads or signs and most people find it unpleasant to spend a month in darkness. One thing we know, however, is that our position on the planet, is relative to the planet. When we leave the planet, our position is relative to the Earth-Moon system. Should we leave that system, our position stays relevant to the solar system. And so on. The phenomenon, I’m told, is known as Aristarchus’ Second Law and — to answer your question — I don’t know who Aristarchus was, nor do I know his first law. It’s all a bit over my head, I’m afraid.”
He continued. “You are American, correct?” The woman nodded. “Well, then, should you choose, right now, you could begin floating about that direction, I think,” Ralph pointed with his left hand to his left and slightly forward, “and in a little over of month you would make land.”
The woman gasped “A month!”
“Yes, correct,” Ralph affirmed. “But, there is a quicker way. We call this jumping. The general idea is that you float up into the sky, and out of the atmosphere, wait for a minute or an hour or two – however long you need for the earth to turn the proper amount – and then descend. In this manner, east-west distances can be covered relatively quickly. This does not work with north-south distances, unfortunately. In any case, we can get you to America relatively quickly. From there, you will need to make your own way home. We, like the living, tend to use major roads, especially at first. The whole practice of getting around, you’ll find, is something of an art and takes some practice. We cannot handle maps, after all.”
“Out of the atmosphere! Mister, you must be out of your gourd!”
“I confess,” continued Ralph, “That I find Jumping to be a terrifying concept as well. I myself have not done it. In any case, I believe we can arrange a group jump for you all. I will consult with Juba, and send message to the Center of the Whispers. Those of you that want to head back to America - or continental Europe - soon, we can arrange this in the coming hours.”
The woman turned to her husband and began chattering – at least she has her husband – thought Dorothea ruefully before catching herself. No, no, this means Bill is still alive.
“Next,” said Ralph, pointing to the next hand.
Another American, elderly woman. “So we can move anywhere?”
“Quite right. Up, down, into the sky, into the ground.”
“How do we do that?”
“Just think it,” Ralph said patiently.
And with that, the woman floated into the air. “Oh! My! How do I get down?”
“The same,” he said.
She landed on the ground.
“You’ll find that you don’t need to walk, though many of us still go through the motions - we especially endeavor to appear living when we first meet someone entering our plane to not confuse them. But we can simply float. It doesn’t matter. None of this exhausts us in any way.”
Ralph nodded to the next questioner — it is Arthur. “So… how do we tell who is living and who is dead?”
“Ah. Yes. Apologies. It is so second nature to me now I forgot. The short answer is you can just tell. The longer answer. You will notice that those in the plane seem slightly crisper, slightly clearer, and you can hear them more clearly, over longer distances. The living… I liken it to looking through a thin layer of Cellophane.”
Dorothea looked around her. Everyone seemed in clear focus, as did the world around her.
“The effect is confined to living beings,” Ralph said, as if intuiting the crowd’s thoughts. “When you depart here and interact with the living, it will be obvious, even at large distances - several hundred yards, I dare say.”
A question from a Dutchman. The Captain listens, then translated. “He wants to know — and I was wondering the same thing — how we got away from the aircraft. Were we blown out? Where are our bodies?”
“Ah yes. Right. Though of course I don’t know, I suspect that most of you were killed instantly in the crash, or burned inside the plane. If you died near your body, you would have seen it - a most disconcerting sensation, I should add,” Ralph seemed to be remembering his own death. “Though it does make the process of accepting this world easier when one sees their own body, I imagine. In any case, I suspect you were carried from the crash on the energy eddies that stream across our world.”
The Captain began to translate then stopped and turned to Ralph. “Energy eddies?”
“Well, yes. Though to be honest I don’t know that we really know they are eddies or energy. In any case, consensus seems to believe that our world is covered in invisible waves of energy, and they can move us when we are not consciously controlling our bodies. Though we cannot sleep, so it is difficult for us to stop controlling our bodies. Many people spend years in this plane trying to rid themselves of conscious control of their bodies and ‘ride the eddies,’ so to speak. It can appear to be almost a religion to some people, though this is all hearsay from The Center of the Whispers. I, myself have not met such a follower. In fact, this accident is the first time I have personally seen any evidence of the energy eddies, though the event does seem to confirm the popular theory. I believe your bodies, while in a state still trying to process what had happened, were empty enough of conscious control that the energy eddies carried you away from the wreckage. By the time you came to, your conscious mind interpreted the situation and set your body down on the ground like it would if you were blown from the wreckage.” Ralph paused. The captain looked at him with skepticism, but turned and attempted to translate the answer to the Dutch nonetheless.
“I should add, too, the same principle applies to walking. Because you didn’t know you were capable of anything else, your movements in this world, up to now, have mimicked the world of the living, so you’ve moved one foot in front of the other. Mere mental habit, it is. Not necessary in this world. Strictly optional.”
As these words were processed and translated, both large groups seemed to start churning, as people processed this new reality. The effect looked like some large silent disco, with bodies moving up and down, turning in circles, rippling and weaving.
“Questions?” Ralph said, attempting to master the crowd and regain their focus.
Another question from the Dutch crowd. The captain translates. “So. No god? Nothing? Does that mean? Do they have no beliefs here?”
Ralph shrugged. “It is as in the living world. Perhaps millions of beliefs. Just… different.”
The captain pressed him. “Are there any obvious, popular philosophies or beliefs?”
“Most of the religions of the Plane of the Living have analogs in the Plane of Energy. Religious belief is as vigorous and varied here as in the living plane. I suppose there are two other major religious topics unique this plane, however. Those would be Eve, and The Destination.”
The Captain translated and waited for more from Ralph. “Well?”
Ralph hesitated. “I should state that I do not find either of these mysteries particularly compelling just yet in my existence in the plane. And I am perhaps not the right man for the job of explaining them. I was never a particularly religious man in the Living Plane and my existence here suits me. So I will endeavor to provide a high level explanation but leave you to interpret your own beliefs. Is that acceptable?”
The captain nodded. Then translated.
When he was done, Ralph continued. “All right then, I suppose the best way to explain this is to start with the animals. Have you noticed what appears to be ash continually streaming into the sky?”
Translations. The crowd looked around the field in which they stood. Dorothea had noticed this earlier. She thought it was ash from the wreckage.
“The ash is deceased animal life, and it is flying into space.”
“What?” said a man from the American crowd.
“Yes. Insects. Bacteria. No one is sure where the line is exactly between plants and animals. But it all flies into space.”
“Into space?” The man interrogated incredulously.
“Yes. And, what’s more, it all floats off in the same direction.”
“God god, this is ridiculous,” the man threw up his hands.
Next to Dorothea, Violet whispered “Far out.”
Ralph continued, he can see he opened a can of worms — no pun intended — he didn’t really want to get into. I think I’ve done my part here, he mused. He was beginning to want to get on with his non-life. But I got myself into this, so I’ll finish it. Good English manners.
“Let me explain. All animal life, upon dying, does not stay in this world. Or I should say virtually all. There are a few - very few - pets in this world. Animals that have bonded so strongly with a specific person, and both of their deaths happen in each other’s immediate vicinity and close to the same time. It is extraordinarily rare. There are a few shepherds in the mountains here that have accomplished it. They are held in high esteem. In any case,” Ralph was getting off topic and wanted to stay on track, “by and large, animals, when they die, fly off into space. All of them. In the same direction. Should you decide to spend some time here on Tenerife, the Center of the Whispers can point you to a spot on a cliff where you’re likely to see an orca or a dolphin float into space. It is really quite a majestic sight.” He paused. It was clear he enjoyed that view.
He continued. “What’s more is that they all fly in the same direction. Now, this I have to take on trust, since it does not appear that they are flying in the same direction. Because, what I’m told is, they are flying in the same direction to a fixed point outside of our solar system. And as the earth rotates, and the earth spins around the sun, the direction changes. This causes daily and seasonal variations of the direction, much like tides or eclipse watching. The sight you see around you now — with what appears to be ash rising from the ground — only happens for a portion of the day, and the time of day changes throughout the year. It’s all very complex. The Center of the Whispers can point you to an expert if you’re interested in the topic. The animals, I should add, are also visible at night. A lovelier site than a dying orca leaving the sea and heading into space on a clear moonlit night I have yet to see in this world.”
After translating, the captain listened to the poser of the original question. “He wants to know how then does this enter into religion?”
“But isn’t it obvious you see?” Ralph implored. “No, no, I suppose not. It didn’t occur to me for a week after coming to this Plane. The mystery of the animals introduce two great questions for our world. Where are they going, and why don’t humans go? That is it. I will leave the rest to you.”
“Which brings us to the concept of Eve. There is a particularly strong sect in this Plane of people who believe in evolution and, therefore, that there is a first being who was more human than animal. Therefore they could make a choice to stay here, on Earth, rather than following instinct and leaving with the other animals. This first being has many names — she’s universally assumed to be a woman — but most in the English and Western world refer to her as Eve. Eve, perhaps more than Joseph, Mary and the Heavenly Father, figures quite prominently in many religions in this Plane.”
Ralph was ready to put this to an end, but still hands went up. He was saved, however, by an interruption.
A whistle sounded in the distance, again robotic and strange.
Just a mix for you today, old and new. God, that Lemon Twigs album just keeps giving. And found a few more gems on the new Wedding Present after two listens.
Finally, I would like to wish two of my best friends, Frank and Jussi, happy birthday, and, as ever, take a moment to pause and remember Phil Perry, who passed away on this day in 1996. You are still missed.