Redemption: Supernatural Time-Traveling Romance with Sci-fi and Metaphysics (16 page)

~

“I don’t understand it, Rob,”
said Ann as she stepped out of the shower. “I had expected these nightmares to
pass after going to the psychic. Several weeks passed, but if anything the
dreams are more worrying than ever. It’s gotten worse instead of better.”

“That is all part of your
journey, my lady,” Rob replied, looking out from the screen of the E-A device
sitting by the sink. “Consider the Buddha’s journey to enlightenment or Jesus’
journey through the cross to the resurrection. The greater the destination, the
harder the journey must be.”

Ann considered this as she began
to towel herself dry. “I guess I can accept that,” she said eventually, “but
from what I’ve seen on my two visits to the psychic, my what did she call it? My
reincarnation chain has hardly been a series of victories. In the first life I
lost my son, Wu, having only just given birth to him, and ended up killing
myself. And in the second I failed to save the woman I loved and died of a
heart attack. I achieved nothing!”

“Nothing?” Rob raised an eyebrow
at this and shook his head. “But, my lady, sacrifice has always been a
necessary part of the greatest journey.”

Ann stopped drying her hair to
look questioningly at him. “Sacrifice?”

“Of course sacrifice! Or did you
think you gave up those lives without reason?”

“Well…” she continued drying her
hair as she tried to think. “Maybe,” she conceded. “But I didn’t really achieve
anything. I didn’t get Wu back or save Alfreda. Even if I did sacrifice myself,
what was it all for?”

“Answer this then: when you were
living in the Stone Age, why did you die?”

Ann shrugged as she picked up the
E-A device and headed back out into the bedroom. “Because I shoved a spear
through my heart.” She winced again at the thought of that sharpened stick
pushing into her body and placed a hand on her chest.

“No,” said Rob, now watching her
from the bedside table. “That was
how
you died. I asked
why
.”

“Because that big, murdering
bastard was going to get me!” Ann jabbed crossly at the SmartHome screen on the
wardrobe, selecting a red trouser suit. Immediately a wooden panel slipped back
and the requested suit slid out on a rail.

“And what was that ‘big,
murdering bastard’ going to do with you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, pulling
on the underwear that had appeared through another panel. “Rape me? Beat me?
Keep me as a slave wife?”

“All of the above, no doubt. So
why did you decide to kill yourself?”

“Well, it’s obvious isn’t it?
Death has to be preferable to such a life. I died for freedom.”

“For freedom!” Rob agreed. “And
what about your death as the Roman priest?”

“Egyptian priest.”

“Indeed.”

“That was just a heart attack,
wasn’t it?”

Rob sighed and gave her a long
meaningful look as Ann pulled on her trousers and tucked in her blouse. “Again,
that was
how
you died. Ask yourself
why.
”

“Because I had been running and
pushed my body too hard?”

“Okay… and why had you been
running?”

“To save Alfreda’s life, to
rescue the woman I loved.”

“So why did you die? For what
reason?”

Ann finished buttoning up her
jacket and stood up straight, suddenly realizing what Rob was getting at. “I
died for love.”

“Exactly!” said Rob with a
beaming smile. “You sacrificed yourself for freedom and for love. That’s good
karma right there, my lady, huge steps on the path to redemption.”

“Redemption?” Ann looked puzzled
for a moment, trying to remember where she had heard that word recently. “The
psychic mentioned that at the end of our last session, when she was going on
about reincarnation chains and other weird stuff.”

“Perhaps it would be worth
talking with her again and finding out what she meant?”

“I’m not so sure, Rob,” she said,
picking up the device and walking towards the front door of her apartment. “Maybe
my past lives weren’t as pointless as I thought they were, but that doesn’t
change the fact that my nightmares have gotten worse since I went to see that
old woman. I don’t want to risk them getting even worse still!”

“That’s entirely your choice, my
lady. It is your life—your journey—and only you can really make
that decision.”

~

A short while later, Ann eased
her car into the parking lot of the A.I.I. building and headed up to the Sales
and Marketing floor. She was still somewhat preoccupied with thoughts about
past lives and about her evening with Michael, and so she didn’t immediately
notice the strange atmosphere in the office. Where before people had been
rushing back and forth and colleagues had been chatting loudly with one
another, now people were moving slowly and quietly, and speaking to each other
in hushed tones. It wasn’t until Linda walked past, wearing another flowery
dress and trailing perfume, and failed to wish her a good morning that Ann
realized something wasn’t quite right.

“Linda,” she said. “What’s going
on?”

Linda stopped and turned to face
her, and Ann noticed there were tears in her eyes. “Haven’t you heard?” she
asked.

“Heard what? What’s happened?”

“It’s Peter.”

Ann glanced over Linda’s shoulder
to look at Peter’s desk, but it was empty. “What about him?”

“He had an accident on his way
into work this morning.”

“An accident?”

“Apparently he crashed into a
stationery truck as he pulled out of the tunnel. According to the SmartDrive
system, he had been watching the film
Bullitt
on his windshield and came tearing up the ramp like Steve McQueen. Such a
tragedy! I blame the SmartDrive system. Whose idea was it to offer movies?”

 
“So how is Peter?” asked Ann, trying to get back to the
matter at hand.

“He’s struggling for his life in
the Memorial Hospital.”

Ann’s eyes widened in concern. “Struggling
for his life? He was hurt badly then?”

“They’re not sure if he’s going
to pull through.” Linda’s voice broke and she fought to control herself,
blinking her eyes and clearing her throat. “It’s awful, Ann. Peter may not live!”

Chapter Fifteen

H
aving received word that Peter had come out of surgery, Ann left
the A.I.I. building shortly after lunch and headed to the Memorial Hospital.
She got Rob to take her to the nearest florist on the way so she could buy some
flowers on behalf of the team at work, but when she arrived she found that
Peter was still unconscious.

As Ann stood and at looked at
him, the most cheerful guy from her team, lying in the hospital bed surrounded
by beeping machines, his body hung all about with tubes, she felt herself
almost overcome by a terrible sense of sadness and loss.

After a few minutes, Ann walked
to the head of the bed. She placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder and laid the
flowers carefully on the bedside table.

“See you soon, Peter,” she said
softly and, as she turned away, she added, “You’d better not be late for work
on Monday.”

~

“Peter may not live!”
Linda’s words
rang in Ann’s head.

How awful it is
!
Mi’s Lu died very young.
He was probably seventeen or eighteen years old. And Alfreda died in her
twenties. Peter is thirty-four. He’s not even halfway through his life. He
might have a mom and dad still alive, and perhaps a girlfriend missing him…

Thinking about Peter’s mother
reminded her of her own lost son, Wu, his tiny hands at her swollen breast, his
mouth
greedily
sucking
her milk and tears
splashed into
her eyes. Feelings of compassion washed her over.

“Poor, poor Peter! How sad it is…
I need someone to talk to.”

~

“I need someone to talk to,”
said Ann, looking at Nina as she stirred her cappuccino. They were sitting at
one of the tables on the paved area at the front of the small café on the
lakefront. “I guess it’s the shock - Peter’s accident just came out of nowhere.”

Nina sipped her drink and set it
down with a wave of her hand. “Oh, I know, darling. It was the same with me and
Louis. You remember Louis, don’t you?”

“Remind me. Was he one of your
men?”

“One of my men?” said Nina, in
mock indignation. “You make it sound like I’m some sort of floozy.” She smiled
suddenly. “And, yes, he was one of my men. Italian. A real charmer.”

“What happened to him?” asked
Ann, holding her cup in both hands and letting the coffee fumes begin to calm
her nerves.

“He walked in front of a bus on a
day trip to Milwaukee. Not on purpose, you understand, but it was terribly
distressing all the same.”

“That’s awful, Nina. Was he okay?”

“Louis?” Nina frowned and shook
her head, quickly flicking the stray hair from her eyes. “No, poor Louis was
quite dead, sweetie.”

“What? How old was he?”

“Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?
Something like that.”

“My god, really? That’s so young.
What’s the purpose of such a life,” she wondered, half-speaking to herself, “to
be born, go through the pains of growing up and working to better yourself only
for it all to be snatched away as you reach your prime?”

“Darling, I really do understand
how shocking this all is for you. As I remember, it took me ages to get over
what happened to poor Louis. I don’t think I got my head straight again until I
met Gregory. You remember him don’t you?”

“Gregory?” Ann thought for a
moment as she sipped her drink and looked out across the lake. “He wasn’t the
chef, was he?”

A slightly dreamy look passed
over Nina’s face. “That’s right. Gregory the chef. The things that man could do
with a whisk and a spatula!”

“So how long after Louis’
accident did you start seeing him?”

“Oh, it was ages, darling. Two
weeks at least.”

“Really?” said Ann, with more
than a hint of irony. “A whole two weeks? However did you last so long?”

“I know what you’re thinking,”
said Nina with a wave of her hand. “You think two weeks wasn’t that long, that
I should have been mourning dear Louis.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I couldn’t just mope about
forever. It wouldn’t have done Louis any good. And it wouldn’t have done me any
good either. Life is for the living, darling, and if there’s one thing a dead
person would tell you it’s to get on and live your life. Or at least they would
if they weren’t dead, of course. That’s what your colleague, Paul, would say.”

“You mean Peter?”

Nina frowned. “Who’s Peter?”

“My work colleague!” said Ann,
giving Nina a look of disbelief. Sometimes she really despaired of her friend.
“The one who had the accident. And he’s not dead, he’s going to make it!” Ann
stood up with the intention of leaving the café and Nina.

“Of course he will live, darling.
Please sit back down.” Nina moved a chair closer to Ann. “And I’m sure he
wouldn’t want you looking miserable all day. Get on with life! The show must go
on!” She waved an expansive hand at the skyscrapers towering over them.
“There’s a whole city here waiting for you, offering you everything you could
possibly want. Get stuck in, girl, while there’s still time!”

“We can enjoy it, but Peter
can’t,” said Ann. A tear dropped from her eye.

“But he will recover and join you
for the show!”

Ann smiled
weakly. They sat in a silence for a while observing the lakefront.
Eventually, Nina set her empty cup down on the table and leaned
forward conspiratorially. “Talking about everyone you could possibly want,” she
said. “How are things going with the lovely Michael?”

“Now that would be telling!” said
Ann, a broad smile finally easing its way across her face.

“Well, telling is exactly what
I’m after. Have you seen him again?”

“Maybe.”

“Either you have or you haven’t.”

“Well, I guess it depends if you
include dinner at the Fleur-de-Lis followed by a little dancing at the
Windermere as seeing him.”

Nina raised her eyebrows,
impressed at her friend’s progress. “Nice work! Tell me all about it.”

~

“Tell me all about it,” said
Ann, as she steered her car through the city center. “I want all the info
you’ve got on this reincarnation chain thing.” Having left the café slightly
later than expected, she had decided it was not worth returning to the office.
Instead she felt like driving to help clear her head and mull things over with
a little help from Rob.

“Certainly, my lady,” he said,
bowing his head slightly. “As you know it has to do with your life stream,
which, as you have seen, is made up of many individual lives. It’s a cycle of
reincarnation. Birth, life and death, birth, life and death.”

“But it’s not a
never-ending
cycle, is it?”

“No. Each life is built on the
former lives, progressing towards the ultimate goal.”

“Of breaking free from that chain,”
said Ann, interrupting him.

“Exactly.”

“What was it you called it again?
It was named after a classic rock group, wasn’t it Oasis or something?”

“Nirvana,” said Rob, suspecting
Ann was playing with him. “And the band was named after that ultimate goal,
rather than the other way round.”

“So, is everyone caught in this
reincarnation chain?”

“All humans are, yes.”

“And my work colleague, Peter?”
 
Ann asked after a moment of thinking.

“Of course. He will have had
other lives before he was Peter, and no doubt he will have many lives after
this one. As will you, my lady. And at this speed, that next life may come
sooner than you expect.”

Ann glanced at Rob, frowning, “What
do you mean?”

“The car,” said Rob. “You are
travelling twelve miles an hour above the specified limit for this road.”

Ann sighed, easing her foot off
the gas. “Driving too fast, moving too slow. I have to say, Rob, I don’t feel
like I’m making much progress at the moment.”

“That day will come,” said Rob
with his most charming smile. “You just need to be patient, my lady. The little
things matter just as much as the big things. They all work together in the
process of karma.”

“Little things like what?”

With barely a moment’s
hesitation, Rob said, “Take your visit to the hospital this afternoon. You
didn’t have to go and see your injured colleague. And yet you took the time to
do it.”

“What little good that did. Peter
didn’t even know I was there.”

“That is not what matters when it
comes to karma. Whether people see your good or not, that is of little
consequence. It is what God sees that counts.”

“So even little things like that
help in my progress towards Nirvana? That’s certainly nice to know if it’s
true. I have to admit, Rob, what with Peter’s accident, my relationship with
Michael and the two visits to the psychic, I feel like I’m running on empty at
the moment.” She paused at a set of traffic lights, momentarily lost in
thought. “Rob,” she said suddenly.

“Yes, my lady,” said Rob, eager
as always.

“Do you think I should carry on
with this whole process of unearthing my past and finding out about my life
stream, about my true self?”

“As it says in the Bible: ‘Seek
and ye shall find’.”

As if coming to a decision, Ann
flicked the indicators to signal right and set off from the lights. “Can you
map out the best route back to the psychic’s place?”

Rob nodded happily. “On it right
now.”

~

Ann looked around nervously as
she climbed out of the car. Although this was the third time she had visited
this area in the last couple of weeks, she still found the place unnerving. The
empty streets and the deserted shop windows gave her a sense of sadness and
foreboding. It was certainly not a friendly area.

Having set the car to
ultra-secure mode, Ann hurried along to the alleyway and ducked into the
shadows. The children, who had been playing there when she first visited with
Nina, were back again. This time they were kicking around an old football that
was only half-filled with air. As Ann made her way along the alley, one of the
boys struck the ball, which made a dull, hollow sound, and it landed by Ann’s
feet. It did not bounce. She was about to kick it back to the children, but
realized, just in time, that she was wearing heels. Instead she bent down and
picked it up.

“Hey!” said the boy, irritably. “That’s
our ball! Give it back!”

Ann tossed the ball to him and,
shaking her head, carried on until she arrived at the doorway to the psychic’s
home.

As she pushed her way through the
bead curtain, the old lady’s voice came from a room somewhere in the back of
the house.

“Go on in, Ann. I’ll be there in
a minute.”

How does she always know?
Ann
wondered, but opened the door to her right without a word and sat down on the
couch. A few minutes later the psychic appeared carrying a tray with two cups
and a steaming teapot.

“Cup of tea, my dear?” asked the
psychic.

“Tea?” said Ann, surprised. “I
can’t say I’m much of a tea drinker. Coffee’s more my thing.”

“Oh, but this is a
special
tea.” The old woman gave her a
mysterious look. “It’ll help you relax.”

“Fine. I’ll give it a shot.”

She sat there, growing
increasingly impatient, as the psychic slowly stirred the contents of the tea
pot and poured it, little by little, through a strainer, first into one cup and
then into the other. At last, she picked up a cup and placed it on a saucer
before inching it towards Ann with a shaky hand.

Taking a sip, Ann immediately felt
refreshed and calmed. She hadn’t realized quite how uptight and tense she had
been feeling until, as if by magic, the feeling dropped away from her.

“What’s in this stuff?” she asked.

“Tea, of course. Just like I
said.”

Ann narrowed her eyes
suspiciously. “Is that all?”

The psychic nodded as Ann took
another sip. “Tea, yes. And a little cocaine.”

Ann almost spat out the tea and
began to choke. “Cocaine?” she managed to say between coughs.

“Just my little joke,” said the
old woman, her eyes sparkling mischievously. “It’s just tea and a few herbs.
Legal
herbs! It’ll help you relax, my
dear, and rest after your day’s ordeals.”

“I won’t ask you how you know
about my day,” said Ann, finally recovering from her coughing fit. “But I
certainly do feel more relaxed. I want to know more about my journey. I want to
have a better understanding of my life stream and where I’m at in that
reincarnation chain.”

The psychic looked at her over
the rim of her teacup. “I see,” she said. “You want to know if your life has
purpose, yes?”