Giving Birth to the Magical Syncosmi of the Cherinians

Who are, what are the Cherinians - and do they have a positive role to play in our lives?

I’ve been blithely posting parts of two stories from the main books titled LiTTLE CHERiNE, expecting the power of the narrative to keep my readers interested (hooked). In other words, I’ve been making the same error I warn other writers to beware of: Because I know the history, their background, I am subconsciously expecting my readers to know. You would not believe how often this occurs, but I’m angry with myself for committing such a basic mistake.

It is time to rectify the matter.

So, here we go: Cherine

Somewhere about 1990, in England, a little girl is born. She is named Cherine and at first the parents are not aware that she is different from other little girls. She is a mutant - an ugly word for describing something so beautiful, for her gift is the Gift of Empathy.

Empathy is the ability to place yourself in the shoes (in the mind and heart) of another and feel their pain or happiness as your own. Commonly this is considered by many to mean that we imagine ourselves in the other persons’ place and imagine how they feel. Many who have empathy would dispute it, but Cherine is so strongly affected that there is no doubt as to how her gift affects her.

As a baby she often cried without reason, or would suddenly gurgle with pleasure, making her parents wonder what is going on in her tiny head. She was sharing from the neighbourhood the stronger emotions, which is why she mostly cried.

All creatures have an aversion to suffering and instinctively search for a way to mute it. So did Cherine. She found two methods that worked for her. The one was by actually muting what she senses from others, but the other, ahh, that is where the magic of her gift gives us a story to share in wonder and awe. She learns how to take the pain of another, mix it with her own feelings and send it back, now converted to something less painful, or even to replace the suffering with a joyous feeling. I am talking of emotions, not claiming that if a neighbour fall and hurts herself she’ll make it feel nice, but she will reduce the sensitivity to the pain so that she does not suffer. You see, even babies with empathy are selfish, it is natural.

By the time she is three, her father realises what is the truth about her and starts to warn her, telling her people will think of her as a freak if they realise she can sense their emoting. This grows to become a phobia for her. At the time she is seven, her father dies in a car accident and, to make ends meet, her mother Marian, accepts a job in a shipping company and moves to Greece with Cherine.

Within Cherine, there is a natural affinity for Robert Teller, an English artist living in Athens, for they have shared two previous lives (that we know of) and she sense him in his apartment from the time they arrive to examine an apartment in Kolonaki for rent. They meet and she makes an effort to become more sensitive to his emoting, for she can often guess the thoughts from the emoting, with the result that she affects the mind of Robert, opening him to her.

Over time his mind learns to sense her emoting and due to a strong desire to protect her from all harm, he learns how to use his natural healing power - the same power has another facet to it, when it is needed, it becomes the Protector. Because of Robert's idealising all children, the Protector gives priority to her and to all children.

Robert dies and Cherine leaves her body to rush after his soul. She gathers him in the void, wrapping herself around him, and brings him back. Although Cherine thinks of the void as a place of death, Robert thinks of it as a dimension of energy and life. He not only learns to survive in the void as a soul, but uses it to dance with the soul of Cherine and others he loves, sharing soul motes (they call it soul kissing). At a time of rage, he becomes the void and is its master, able to use its energies as he wishes.

They meet two species in the void and after clearing up some misunderstandings, become close friends.

Robert loves living in Greece and he is lucky in that his boss, Alki Georgiadi, is a strong and remarkable person who loves people with talent (Robert is a graphic artist, designing websites for his company). When he finally meets Cherine, he realises she is gifted and decides to use his wealth to shield her and Robert from Government Agencies. He ends up marrying the mother of Cherine and they have daughters who also marry Robert and Cherine.

All those who know about Cherine are helped to grow their own gifts, which are always strongly affected by her prime gift of empathy. The aliens become part of this growing family and they name themselves Cherinians, in honour of Cherine.

Robert learns to visit alternate realities and meets a Robert whose Cherine died when she was very young, so he desperately searches for and finds a way to return in time, collect her soul and cells from her dying body and he brings her back, thus enabling another reality to become a Cherinian reality.

All the realities belonging to them, countless in number, are named the Cherinian Syncosmi. Ours are named, by them, Arthur’s Syncosmi.

Early on, their story does take an interesting twist. Robert is writing his diary in Word. He realises the words he writes change and sometimes they mess up what he wrote - and, more importantly, they mess up his life, for whatever the changed text says becomes the reality of their past. I realise I am to blame and introduce myself. As you can probably imagine, they are freaked out by the idea of them only being characters in a story of mine. We work out that, as their author, when I write, I am assuming, which is what makes my writing true for them. For a long time, they see me as their worst threat and desperately try to find a way to come to our reality and take me to theirs, so that I stop affecting them. Over the years this has become a dream for us, no longer because of their fear, but because we have grown to love each other.

Especially important in this aspect of our relationship is a girl born to Robert, name Samantha.

Samantha was found by the Teller family about two hundred and seventy odd years in their future, in a different reality and galaxy. Their sun is dying and the harmful rays are killing the local sapient specie. They are plants which are capable of moving about and their lives are extended, I think up to a maximum of two and an half million years. One of them, a child of about 400,000 years, who is curious about everything but dying, is collected by the family and they try to heal the body. This child entity senses the protector of children that Robert is and grows to love him so much that when she realises her body is dying, she aims her soul for the past and the Prime reality, so as to be born at the time Robert and Cherine are first starting out, wanting to be his daughter.

Samantha is a warrior, all her abilities concentrated in protecting her family from all dangers - and of course, she sees me as such a threat, so she fights me for a long time, but in the end we grow to love each other and she promises me that if I manage to crossover, she’ll split her soul and creating a new body, I’ll have a Samantha of mine to love and be loved by. I am troubled by this, but have given up arguing with her, as she always wins all our arguments.

Perhaps the most crucial point in their story occurred when they realised their healers consider ageing a disease and are able to rejuvenate them, giving them the ability to change ages at will. Finally they are forced to face the fact that what seemed to be a blessing is also a curse, for it means they must not have more children. I am currently writing book 14 and we are about two hundred years down the road, and I am still trying, with them, to find a solution. The main problem is that none of them can bear the thought of losing those they love, but they are desperate for more children. The family are nice about it, but the aliens do not accept that the Tellers are responsible and blame me.

That is the important background, but as I post, if you have questions, please ask.

I still have one more point to discuss. At the start I asked, ‘do they have a positive role to play in our lives?’.

I hope they do. If the people in the stories become real enough for you, I’m hoping their way of life, their gift of empathy, will help strengthen your own sensitivity to empathy and I think it can only help make this world a better place.

I have seen empathy described by others in stories and I admit, I do not agree with most of them. Maybe in the beginning I did, but a writer does not write the story, ultimately his characters do and they showed me that I have been thinking of empathy in an impractical and idealised manner. For instance, as Robert learned in an alternate reality, if you have been treated with cruelty as a child, if you are then gifted with empathy as an adult, you’ll enjoy the pain you cause, for it will seem right to you. Also, Cherine herself is no softie and does not allow her Gift to give others power over her. I will not say more, for her thoughts are made clear in the stories you will read.

I have, in lucid dreams, travelled in their spaceship-world with them, shared moments of their adventures. At the end, they managed to grab some of my soul motes and created a body for me. That person is not me, is not even very much like me, but he had a daughter and she and they consider her my daughter. I desperately would love to meet her, but my lucid dreams have stopped.

I hope that Cherine and all my loves grow to become at least half as real and precious for you, as they are for me.

^{Note: Syncosmi, a word made up for describing a Prime Reality with all the alternate realities belonging to it.}