Little Cherine Book 04 - BPost031
“I have prepared some of your favourite dishes. I’ll bring the mezedes first.” She began to nag at her husband and made him bring us our soft drinks and salad while she brought us the grilled halloumi, olives, little meatballs and fried sliced aubergines. With tiny Cypriot cucumbers, that we all reckon are the sweetest in the world, the tomatoes drenched in origami, olive oil and coarse salt, with a plate filled with spring onions, the starters and salad were almost enough to satisfy our hunger.
2401
The main course was fish grilled in foil with a splattering of thick green olive oil, coarse salt, black pepper and slices of lemon. When the foil was removed, a thick creamy mixture of olive oil and lemon juice was poured over it. The fish came with french fries and sliced baby marrow baked in a tomato and onion sauce. We all sat back with distended tummies, happy grins on our faces. Robbie had fielded our questions during the meal, refusing to answer how he cooked our meal.
The old lady asked us if we are ready for desert and we groaned. Robbie stood up.
“We’ll be back. A walk along the beach will make space for your dessert and coffee.”
Am I glad it did! Dessert was a meringue cake (a Pavlova) filled with beaten fresh cream and raspberries (I wonder if they were from Meli’s world?). We let Robbie enjoy his coffee and cigarette and then we climbed into him. Cherine was grinning and not taking part in our grilling. For once, wisely, I shut my mouth and searched through the memories of Cherine and found my answer. I had to go back all the way to when they first met. He used to cook for her and this was his favourite cake, either with raspberries or chestnut and vanilla puree.
Once I had seen the truth, they all picked it up from me and Dommi turned to Robbie in mock ferocity. “You made us suffer when I could not cook and you knew how to cook like this!?”
“Would you have learned if I had not? Anyway, I do not know how to make those Greek dishes I love, and you’ve learnt to cook them so perfectly!”
When we returned home we played games until we were all yawning. It had been such a lovely evening we were tempted to use our healers, but Robbie asked that we go to bed. Soon as we undressed he pulled me into his arms.
“Have you instructed your healer?”
“No.” I was confused and stammered. “I was not expecting it to be tonight.”
“Would you like it to be tonight?” I nodded, my mouth dry. “We’ll sleep for a couple of hours, that should give your healer plenty of time.”
He took me in his arms and soothingly rubbed my back until I fell asleep. I’d been so certain I would not, too excited to imagine sleep daring.
It was nearly dawn when I woke up. The others were still asleep, but I knew that they would wake up as soon as Robbie brought my body to a fever. I was not surprised to find him looking up into the sky, a thoughtful look as he watched our ‘stars’, the Sparklers.
“What is it Robbie?”
“The Sparklers, look at them my love.”
I did, but saw nothing strange. For this once he did not try to force me to use my brains and explained. “Had you noticed that so many of them are Thinkers?”
Now that he mentioned it I saw he was right. It did not surprise me, after all, the kind of adventure we are on would surely interest their Thinkers? I said so.
“Quite right my love. What else could it mean though?”
I thought of that world they are able to create for us. “Oh Robbie, they didn’t!”
He grinned. “Not that my love, what else?”
By now everyone was awake, apart from Lucy and Noelle.
My eyes widened in amazement. “Solomon!?”
His eyes were laughing. “Well, if he wants to play games, let him. Today we have our own games to play.”
I looked at him and a hollow feeling grew in my tummy, it was time, we were going to make our baby!
2402
He was chuckling now. “After that big supper your tummy is hollow?”
I hit him playfully. “Don’t tease Robbie. This is too important.”
His arm came around me. “Yes, it is my love.”
I had first tensed up, but then my body was on fire, just like that, within an instant. Robbie sent his healer into me and cooled my body. I moaned.
“Let’s make this last a long time and be very special, my love.” Happily I curled up against him.
When he said a ‘long time’ I found out he meant it. At first he only held me, our fingers gently caressing each other, almost in a non-erotic way, just loving each other. This was lovely and I was happy to take my cue from him. We both opened our minds and bodies to the other and it was wonderful for me to feel how my fingers give him so much pleasure.
We became distracted by the Sparklers. They had descended and were circling not far above us, their luminance causing our skins to appear to have a greenish cast.
Robbie brushed the hair out of his eyes and peered up at them. “Now they are voyeurs?”
I giggled. “Sol must have told them we are going to create a baby.”
“They’re making me look like the Hulk. Not very erotic! Let me adjust the lighting.”
I put my hand on his chest, “Please don’t Robbie. I think they can see us better when we are green.”
He stared into my eyes for a moment, which left me breathless, his green eyes dark and sombre. He turned to Cherine. “You have a lot to answer for.”
“Me!? What did I do?”
“You heard her, not only she doesn’t mind them watching us, she even wants to help them see better! Dommi and the girls are always saying that because you were the first you set the pattern and are responsible for the way they think.”
That kind of teasing always provokes a reaction and they were all tempted to attack him with their pillows so I quickly turned his face to me and laughed. “Our baby will be a part of their world Robbie. Let them celebrate with us.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call the Anadir to come and watch?”
That gave me the giggles, I love it when he sets himself up like that. “I bet you would not mind if we called Ashiir to come and watch. I suspect you would even want her to join in.”
Instead of laughing he looked a little despondent. “I’m going to miss seeing Ordinx.”
“What do you mean? I’m certain he’ll visit often!”
“As an Anadir love. Not as the sweet girl I’m used to seeing in our home.”
I also felt a pang. “She belongs to the past my love. I think he would appear as a male now, since marrying Ashiir.” I can’t believe it! He was actually heart-sore, with so many girls he misses her!
“Sam, he’s just talking to delay you. It will soon be daylight and then he won’t be green anymore. Kiss him, that’s the only way to shut him up.”
He gave a mock fierce look at Dommi, but I ran my fingers through his hair. “I’ll wait Robbie, if that is what you want. I want you to be happy when we create our little girl.”
He softly brushed his lips across mine and I felt a tingle. He murmured softly, “I’m talking too much.” and I felt his lips softly tease their way across my face. Gently his hands rubbed along my arms until they reached my fingers. He laced our fingers and pulled my arms out.
2403
“Oh Sammy girl, what a blessing it is that you came to me!” I did not need any gifts to see the tenderness and deep love in his eyes and my whole body and heart ached with the love I felt for him. All I could do was lightly run my fingers over his face and as he felt my love for him he whispered, “It is almost unbearable my love.” I knew exactly what he meant.
I knew that he had planned on turning me over to massage my back, but I was already so limp, my body felt as if all my strength had deserted me and he saw it was not needed. Instead his caresses gently searched for ways to warm me with his love and need for me. That awesome energy he takes from the void to create our spaceship-world, it felt as if he had now placed it within my body, a white-hot heat that shot out from the tip of my spine, through my lower tummy and from there it spread out so that even my fingertips seemed to be alive to the tiniest touch of his skin.
Perhaps my feelings added to the glow of the Sparklers gave him the idea, for I felt him reach out to me and he did something to our bodies. Suddenly it almost felt as if we were dancing in the void, exchange kissing. He had extended and strengthened our auras so that wherever our flesh touches, our auras actually sink into each other, becoming one. Even as the girls crowded around in wonder, awed by the glow and our sharing of bodies, minds, hearts and souls, I felt the tears; this was too beautiful, where before I had yearned for him to penetrate me as deeply as possible, to reach into my womb, I now yearned to have all of myself become one with him. Suddenly I realised the symbolic reason.
“Oh Robbie, this is how it will be for our baby, the joining of you and I. We will be one in her.”
He was leaning on his elbows so as not to crush my tiny body and his face was above mine. I felt his tears fall on my cheeks and then almost savage in his need he crushed me to him, rolling us over so that his weight would not hurt me - as if I would have cared. To feel the size and weight of him, if it had caused any pain would have been delicious.
I think what we were feeling was too beautiful for us to make love, but then Aganthi painted a picture in our minds with her question that suddenly lit a fire in both Robbie and I.
“Cher, when he puts his penis in her, will that energy around it go inside her also?”
Cherine shivered, “God!!”
I went wild. I wanted him inside me, I needed to feel him filling me from my toes to the top of my head, his love motes caressing all of my body, inside and outside. The glow around Robbie also flared and I knew my wish would come true, that he would burn me with his love and passion and that I would not survive it. I did not care.
Cherine, Dommi and then the others began to pummel him as they screamed, “The world Robert, it is fading, you’ll kill everyone!!” It all meant nothing to us and Cherine struggled to pull me away from him, but his arms were crushing me to him. Suddenly Solomon appeared as a man and wrapping his arms around me, pulled me away. He stood a few metres away from Robbie and still the two of us tried to reach for the other in our overpowering compulsion to join as one. Solomon had no chance against the two of us, but Cherine called to the protector and suddenly it was there, preventing our motes from reaching each other. With a scream I fainted.
When I came to it was to the haunted eyes of my father, dark rings around his eyes as he faced what had nearly happened and tore at himself with his guilt. I felt I was wet and saw water was pouring through holes in the shell.
“Robbie, the world, fix it. I’m okay, fix the world!”
Still dazed and in shock he just stared at me. He lifted his gaze, saw the damage and his body collapsed. We knew he had left to repair it by bringing in more energy from the void. Within minutes the holes closed and we all sat shivering with fear and shock at what had nearly happened. Diana, my mother, felt my pain and guilt and her arms were the first ones around me and she held me tightly as I sobbed for what had nearly happened and for the loss, the tearing that split my Robbie and I.
When Robbie returned he stayed distant from me, for we both still felt the powerful need to become one. Aganthi had lit him a cigarette, but it just stayed in his hand as he stared at me. Meli came to me and caressed my face.
“Samantha, it was so beautiful you made the world cry.”
I was so keyed up I burst out laughing and then cried again. “Daddy, I’m so sorry, it was my fault. I wanted you inside me so much!!”
2404
Abruptly his face changed. He looked at me with anger. “I did not expect that of you Sam! Just because you helped me find a flaw, now you want to take all the glory for yourself!”
I could not think and just stared at him. The girls were staring at him with bemused expressions. Solomon laughed and sat down.
“This I have to hear.”
Robbie grinned at him and then he looked at me, his eyes soft but amused. “Girlie, that sure was powerful, even the protector got caught up in it. Just as well Solomon came along. Are you feeling confused by what I said?”
“Very.”
“What if we were under attack and I’d needed to draw as much energy as possible? Think about it love. At such a time I might have also forgotten to keep the various parts of me apart. There is a pull all the time for the parts of myself to come together and under such conditions it would have happened. I have now changed the way I’ve split myself. The protector will know what to do next time and under any adverse conditions the protector will only allow communication between my parts. I will be allowed to send energy but not to withdraw.”
Cherine broke the mood by clapping. “Girls, that was brilliant! Not only has he made Sam feel good about what happened, but he has also made sure nobody attacks him. He has managed to make himself the hero!”
Solomon did not join in the laughter. “Cherine, Robert has often admitted that you are all still learning. We nearly had a disaster and he would have been excused if he had allowed himself to become afraid. Instead he learnt from his mistake and thought ahead, preventing this from happening again. I am pleased with him.”
I could see Cherine felt bad. “Solomon, you are right, but Cherine was applauding him because she knows what motivates him. I bet you while he was repairing the damage he was concentrating on how to make me feel good about it and only thought of future dangers for that reason. Cherine, if his need to protect me has resulted in his protecting all of us when under attack, then I’m glad he needs to protect me. I’m so glad he fell in love with you when you were a child or else he might not have been so protective.”
*Nice swerve and thank you baby.*
*Welcome. What are we going to do now dad? You’ve still got half of our daughter, I want her.*
“Solomon, I have no objection to you watching us make love as a Sparkler. As a man you are not welcome.”
“As Sol?”
“I thought you were going to stay at home to help our baby Cherine?”
“I do not have the same limitations you have Robert. I’m capable of spending time here and there every day. The same way you are able to send the protector to bring your food.”
Robbie closed his eyes and his body fell over. I felt his energy surround me and found myself outside our spaceship-world. I looked around and saw that he had made himself the void. It is scary seeing the powerful forces of the void, but I felt safe within the capsule that held his body and myself. The surface I lay on felt soft and warm. Robbie opened his eyes.
“In here we have air and privacy. Give me a second love while I adjust to splitting myself again.”
“Robbie, can we go back please?”
“What!?”
“We can’t make our baby without the others. Please?”
He slapped his forehead dramatically. “Oh boy! They are going to skin me alive!”
I laughed. “Gina will love hearing about how she was conceived!”
2405
“Gina?”
Shy now, I confessed. “I asked Solomon to bring with him a Sparkler that is holding the soul of a little Italian girl. She is here, waiting for us.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know Robbie. I could not speak with her, I only felt how sweet she is.”
“We better go back. Sam?”
“Yes dad?”
“Thanks.”
I was not clear what he was thanking me for, but I could not ask, as I was feeling queasy during the transition back to our loves.
Robbie was beaming as he gave Sol a hug and kiss. He then asked why the Sparklers were interested in watching us make love.
“Sam has a special quality that endears her to all of us, for she has grown since first meeting us. She has no reservations that all who are aliens to your species are friendly and has an insatiable appetite for knowledge about us. Why do you think Ordinx was able to feel her at the time of her birth and call her friend-to-be of the Anadir? For her to be conceiving a child with you is a moment of history. It will be an honour for us to say we were here.”
“Sol?”
“Yes Robert?”
“I think you are all nuts!”
“I shall pass on your opinion of us, but please do not be distressed when my people show you how honoured they are by your compliment.”
“Cherine?”
“Are they depressing you love?”
He nodded. “This is not fun anymore. When we get back, can the two of us leave for a new alternate world, one without us? What is the point of being a crazy Robert in a world of crazy Cherinians?”
“That won’t help love, you’ll infect them also.”
I think I am too soft and patient, listening to the banter when I should be grabbing him and making love so that my precious Gina can come to me, but I love seeing him in a silly mood.
“Sam, how would you like us to go to the garden island? To see the flower of my heart in such a beautiful setting would do me good.”
Aganthi and Jade had created the garden and they flushed with pleasure.
“Thank you Robbie. Little Gina will be pleased that we conceived her in a place of such beauty.”
Robbie had made it a rule that none of us are ever allowed to jump to the island, we have to use the little boat. Since we were all going, he made an exception to his rule.
The island is surrounded by a maze, hedges that blossom once a year. Once you are through the maze, the heart is a garden of bushes, flowers of a great variety and range of colours that always seem to be in blossom. At the center is an old well with rose bushes growing alongside it. There are only two colours by the well, white and black roses. To the one side is a weeping willow tree. We spread blankets on the soft green grass and everyone sprawled around us. If Cherine was not linking us, I think I would have felt shy.
2406
“Robbie, someday our daughter will look into our memories and hearts and she will see that mostly it was you loving me. Will you let this time be the joy of my loving you?”
“Your heart makes love to me every day, all day. I am yours to love my baby Sam.”
At other times a rough cheek, not freshly shaved, irritates me. Don’t ask me why, but that same prickly scratchiness at this moment combined with the hard strength of his arms around me made me feel soft, warm and safe and that made my body react so that I loved the feeling as I kissed and rubbed my cheeks against his. His eyes were so filled with love that I had to kiss them closed or else I felt I would drown in them. There is a sweetness to his scent when he makes himself a youngster that makes me dizzy, but I prefer his adult male scent. The hair on his chest, which is not really thick or plentiful, is coarse against my skin and I was tempted to slide up to his face again just for the pleasure of sliding down against it.
His fingers by now were playing with my hair and sometimes massaging my scalp. Mostly though he would pull my long hair upwards, luxuriating in the silky thickness.
I was not trying to light a fire in him. I wanted his body to feel loved. My fingers were digging slightly into his muscles while my lips paid homage, speaking flesh to flesh of my adoration. When I’d reached his feet I began the return journey, pleased with the way his body had responded to being loved by me. What I had not planned on was the way his heart responded. If not for our baby girl waiting, I could have basked in the glow and been satisfied.
Now it was time for me to set him on fire, I rubbed my body against his legs and he moaned.
“I’m sorry, I can’t wait anymore. Please!”
He pulled me up to him and rolled over. The weight of him felt as if it satisfied some need I had in my bones. His lips teased at mine and then his tongue entered deeply, playing with mine. He kissed my face and suddenly his lips held my nipple and he licked it. The fire he sent down only added to the ache and I called out. I could feel his hands were trembling with his need. Suddenly he pulled away and I could feel the self-control he was forcing on himself, not that I could understand why.
“We’ll do it again love, but less intensely.” Before I could ask what he meant I saw him glowing again. The aura was not as deep this time, less than half a centimetre from his skin. Both our bodies were trembling as if we were being overloaded with sensations not meant to be experienced. By now I was weeping uncontrollably as I pulled at him.
I was a virgin again, but I do not think either of us cared. The feeling of his aura entering me drove me frantic with lust while it also was a sharing of the soul that made our love a thing of sweetness that had me swinging through a gamut of emotions I could not control. Was the sheath an additional fire, a burning as my inner flesh felt itself loved? I cannot say. His hips thrust a few times at me with wild abandon and then he arched, thrusting as deeply as he could and we both cried out, not even feeling the hands of the girls that were caressing us. He just pumped and pumped and I thought that he would fill me up. My nails dug into him pulling him to me as my own convulsions tried to steal my senses, but this was my baby coming to me and I fought back, screaming.
Within seconds of him being drained, his hips were thrusting at me again, but I could feel how the pleasure was only an agony driving him. The girls were convulsing as they had shared with us, but the feelings of his body, the wildness in his mind, they began to frighten me and I pushed at him, fighting to force him out of me. I am far too small and I could not force him away. My own desperate needs did not help me either.
Suddenly Jade broke out of the sharing and she changed to an adult. She grabbed hold of Robbie and pulled, even grabbing at his hair and yanking, hoping perhaps the pain would bring him to his senses. The pain was only a part of his agony and drove him wilder.
Suddenly all pain, agony, lust, all the need to force our bodies to become one died!
Cherine had also broken out of the sharing and she reached into us and took it all from us and she screamed with the doubled madness that hit her. She passed out, but her body continued to convulse. Aganthi was the first to react and then all the rest. They dove into her mind and body, sharing her pain so that her body calmed.
2407
Robbie sat up, his eyes haunted as he stared at me. He looked around and saw the suffering. I do not know where he found the strength, but he seemed to waver before my eyes and he split into two, then four and so on until there were enough of him for there to be one Robbie for each of our loves. He did not waste time on foreplay and made love to each according to their needs. Those still true virgins he did not penetrate and when they all were satiated and calm and he withdrew back into himself, hours had passed and we had overshot our target.
We returned to the fire-world, none of us speaking while he was busy. When he turned to us again, his face looked drained, dark rings around his eyes, but he still managed to give us a rueful smile. “I’m sorry my loves. That must be the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”
Solomon appeared. “Could you explain Robert?”
“Our daughter is to be the first child of our matter reality to be born in the void, so I wanted our lovemaking to be a combination of our bodies and of the dancing we do in the void. I was able to power the soul so that it extended out of the body and we exchange kissed wherever our bodies touched. The second time was foolish of me; we were already crazed from the first experiment and I should have waited for the second time to be at some other time. Our bodies and minds were already overloaded and the joy was almost only suffering.”
Ordinx and Ashiir arrived and everything had to be explained to them again. By now I had withdrawn, my mind buried deep within myself as I watched through my healer. The egg divided and divided again and I sent it to Robbie and my family so that they could all share this moment with me. Poor Robbie felt as if it was happening within his own body - which he loved, but also felt is weird.
Solomon, Ordinx and Ashiir realised something was happening and waited silently, marvelling, as they told us later, at the look on our faces. When we explained, there was rejoicing all the way up to the farthest Sparkler and Ashiir came into my arms. After we cried a little, she asked me in a whisper to teach her how to do the same; to feel and see life starting within her she realised, would be a religious experience.
Other Anadir came to ask Robbie why he had blanked the windows into normal space.
“I have withdrawn my probe. I could not stand to see a world being destroyed.”
They asked which solar system it was, but none of them tried to push him to show it. Knowing what was happening drained all joy from all of us. Robbie moved us back in time, took a look and showed us the planet. He had timed it so that we saw the early part of the attack, which since we were moving backwards in time, lessened until the planet revolved below us in its original beauty. The fire-world had long since pulled back, retreating and Robbie still sat there looking at the world below with tears running down his face. He was oblivious to everything but the pain within him and kept on muttering the word ‘damn’. When he was able to pull himself together he looked at Solomon with wounded eyes.
“Knowing is not the same as seeing Solomon. They were a good race, as fully human as us. I know about time and only creating an alternate reality, but still, it does not feel right to sit here and allow them to be destroyed.”
What could anyone say to him; the words would only have been those he knew already. Dommi sat down in front of him, cross-legged, and put her hands on his knees.
“Please do not take this the wrong way my love. It strikes me that God must suffer in the same way. He gave us free will and has had to sit and watch us torture, rape, kill. Often in His name! Like a God, you too have to sit and watch without using your power to save. We have a mission though, just like God does. We will learn and use our knowledge to save untold worlds in millions of realities. We will give the knowledge to the Sparklers and they will carry it to all these worlds, which the Anadir are mapping. Be brave my love, we cannot save this reality, but they are dying so as to save millions of their brothers and sisters.”
Tenderly he stroked her cheek, but we heard the thought he tried to hide. *This world is full of children.* Oh father! What pain you are holding, why must you bury it within you? Why can’t you share it with us?
2408
A young man appeared and Robbie stood up. He went to him and embraced him. As our protector sank to the ground weeping, Robbie held him, rocking his body as if he held a child. When we felt it was the right time we all went to him, including Solomon, Ordinx and Ashiir and we held him too, trying to send our love and draw some of the pain - which since he is the protector, he would not allow.
When we started this trip it was with the feeling of being on a picnic, an adventure. Today we have all grown a lot older and sadder.
Robbie has speeded up our travelling, sometimes overshooting and having to run with time again to find the fire-world. When he finds a planet he does not allow us to see, but he keeps watch. He says he owes it to them; he must be witness to their deaths. At a time when the Anadir and Solomon were with us, he spoke about it, his voice gentle.
“I have witnessed eight worlds. I do not know how many more, eight thousand…eight hundred thousand? I must carry them all within me for the day we find those who caused this. I will share the deaths with them. The good, the bad, those who had reached an end and those who still were filled with dreams, they will all be part of my gift to them. If they can bear the gift, especially that which is of the children of every race, then I shall seek vengeance and destroy them.”
Even Solomon sees how deep this goes within him and fears. He also rejoices, for Robbie spoke to him and the Anadir.
“Dommi my wife and others believe in a God. I pray that they are right and He gives me the strength and wisdom to find a way to stop this evil. If He does, I will ask that your people help me. We will have to find as many realities as we can, and help or teach them how to save their worlds. Solomon, your people will have a mission again. Ordinx, they will need your help. Will your people give it?”
“How can we help Robert?”
“With each Sparkler an Anadir must travel. The Sparklers will need a physical presence on those worlds to warn them and pass on my message.”
Ordinx nodded. “My people will do as you ask Robert.”
The time came for Gina to come to me. Luckily we were travelling, so Robbie was not watching a world die. He asked that I lie down so that each of our loves may touch me. He sat with my head on his lap, his hands touching my cheeks. The Sparklers descended until they were a green-yellow ceiling over us. I called, “Let my daughter come to me.” and a Sparkler descended until it was about a metre above me.
The soul was released and I waited for her to come. An eternity of minutes passed, but she did not enter. I looked up at Robbie. “Dad, she has not come. Something is wrong.”
He closed his eyes and his body would have fallen over if a dozen hands had not held him. I watched from within his soul. He searched for her, but could not find her. He came back.
“Solomon, where did she go?”
“We are searching for her.”
He called to his protector and it too began to search.
“Solomon, when she was freed, in which direction did she move?”
“Towards Sam. I thought the soul entered her.”
I tried calling to her but got no reply. If she did not come soon my foetus would die and, just like a silly girl, I began to cry. I felt my heart was breaking. Robbie held me tightly.
“We’ll find her my love.” He was silent for a few seconds and suddenly laughed. “Fuck! I’m stupid!!”
He left his body again, but this time we lost him, he was gone! Afraid now we all sat waiting. We asked Solomon, but he did not know where Robbie was, he’d appeared as a soul and disappeared. “Perhaps he has become the void. If that is what he is doing he will find her.”
Suddenly the Sparklers stirred and Solomon smiled. “He has returned and he holds the soul within him.”
2409
He did not need to tell us. We felt him return and felt the sweetness in him as he held her. He then took her outside our spaceship-world, into the void. There we lost him again for we were travelling not only spatially but also backwards in time. Almost instantly he returned and I felt her enter and become part of my foetus, now my baby girl.
I did not need to speak. All rejoiced with me and when I cried, most of my loves cried too. Dommi sent that wonderful mother love of hers to my baby and I cried again. Robbie had opened his eyes and was watching us and the tenderness and love in him was incredible. I asked him what had happened.
“She sensed the foetus calling for a soul, or rather she felt the emptiness and was drawn. Soon as she realised the child is to be a girl she panicked. Sammy baby, she suffered terribly in her previous life and did not want to be a girl again.
She actually left you and went down through the holds and through the shell and out into the void. I found her there in agony.”
I nodded. “Solomon said you became the void and you’d find her.”
He looked startled and gave a short laugh. “I’d thought I was being clever! I did not think of that, love. I realised that if she was out of the shell she would no longer be travelling backwards in time with us. I went into the void and tried to move back at the same speed we are travelling and forward in time. I found her just in time!”
Cherine asked, “But why did you take her back into the void again?”
“She was frightened. I went out to the void and became the void this time. I held her within a cocoon of energy and played with her until we became friends. Once she accepted my love motes, I was able to talk to her. She explained and I soothed her, giving all the love I could. Once she had calmed down again I tried, as gently as I could to explain to her that in this life she is wanted and loved and being a girl will be a joy for her.”
He sat deep in thought so we waited. “If she had stayed near Earth and had been sent back as a girl again, damaged by the void, what kind of life would she have had? I think the fear would have stayed with her. I suppose she would have grown up hating and fearing men. Sam, you chose well our daughter. We, I, shall do all I can to teach and help her forget her pain.”
He was inundated by reassurance from all his girls that we have confidence in him, that with a man like him she will feel so wonderful about being a girl that she will never want to be a male. He thought that was very funny and laughed.
As we travelled from planet to planet and his heart grew heavy, he would come to me and placing his hand on my belly find some peace so that he could sleep.
He spoke of his pain obliquely only once. “Solomon, Ordinx, I am convinced that all living planets have a soul. Perhaps it is a gestalt soul made of all the life teeming on it. Could it be that the souls we have are tiny splinters that break away from that gestalt because we are self-aware? It makes sense to me and seems a thing to marvel at, but it also frightens me.”
“Why should it frighten you? I only see beauty in your concept.”
“For a number of reasons. Could it be that by becoming Cherinians we are losing out? What if we are supposed to return one day to that gestalt so that we can be complete?”
Ordinx thought about it and discussed it with his fellow Anadir. “I think you are wrong Robert. Perhaps the curse of intelligence and self-awareness means we could not return to the mother soul. What if we start as splinters, but through our many lives we are growing to become souls that mature, and during our growth we are supposed to remain individuals so that we can grow? What if our destiny is for us to grow until we sense it is time for us to come together and become one soul, a soul that understands and has the richness of all human life?”
Robbie laughed. “I prefer your theory. To return to a placid existence, where I no longer am, does not appeal to me.”
2410
Cherine offered him a glimpse at another possibility that filled his soul with a brilliant light. “Robert, what if it happens as Ordinx said, but because of our family and related family belonging to one World, our need will drive us into joining as one mother soul - a mother soul composed of only those who already love each other deeply and who belong together. If it is the same for all of us, then maybe one day there might be trillions of mother souls like us and a new evolution begins so that they also grow, over the billions of years, into families who someday become billions of…super mother souls and then it happens again and again, until we reach the time when we are all one.”
As we tried to envision what she said, our hearts awed by the ideas, Cassie said, “We can only be one on the day that all the mother souls from all the alternate realities join.” Her face was alight with the amazement of what she was picturing and then she added, “And then that one over-soul starts time again and the big bang is not of the physical universe, it is of the over-soul as it splits into uncountable baby souls, which have to go through the same process again, so that someday they too can splinter into new baby souls.”
For a long moment nobody spoke, and then Solomon asked, “Those are a possibility. Robert, you said you fear for a number of reasons. What are the others?”
“If we are a part of the soul of our planet, when Meli creates a world for the Anadir, would they ever feel they are a part of it? Would there be an emptiness, a yearning for something they cannot define?”
“I think not.” Ordinx replied. “Our civilisation was more advanced than yours and we had settled on a number of planets. There were no reports that indicate that there was any such unease. I think you are forgetting something else. If Meli makes us such a world, that world will have a part of her soul and it will be something we treasure and draw comfort from. If we are supposed to ultimately return to the soul of our world, hers would be far sweeter.”
We lived our normal lives. Robbie spent a lot of time at his computer creating designs. They were weird and disturbing, but even so, some of them were incredibly beautiful, or else they moved us without our being able to understand them. He burnt a CD, wrapped it in energy and sent it to Alki with the protector. We had a cam and mike and he included messages from all of us. The protector reported that Alki sat watching picture after picture with tears coursing down his cheeks. He did reply though that these could only go on his ‘art’ site and are of no commercial use.
Watching Robbie work, Meli was amused. “How will Alki explain so many paintings appearing so quickly, one after the other?”
We went on a hike around our world and it amazed even Meli. There were grasslands; forests; rolling hills; places of rock and cliffs (even if they were small). Life seemed to be thriving and we loved the variety of butterflies. Some as tiny as my smallest nail and others as large as birds. Along a part of the inner shell, under a massive ledge, there is a tropical forest, which rises above the rest of the land so that at the top it is a misty land resembling the photos I have seen of tea farms in Ceylon. The underside of the ledge rains for hours every day and the energy from it seemed to beat down like the sun at the equator. Meli said that her worlds run themselves, whereas here, Robbie has to remain aware of every inch of our world and keep everything just right. It was stunning to imagine him doing all that, directing our world and keeping a watch on the fire-world while still being a husband, father, friend and lover to all of us. I think even Cherine has lost that sense of being comfortable with him and is in awe of what he has become.
It is very rarely that the sound of laughter is heard anymore. If Robbie had tried to block us, we would have suffered, and feeling him is an ache that never stops. Every world he sees dying only adds another layer to that ache within us. Often one or more of us will find ourselves crying without any reason.
About six weeks after Gina came to me, we all went into shock. We had been sitting around reading, talking or whatever, struggling to handle the permanent gloom that enshrouds us, when within an instant it disappeared. It was like a sunbeam breaking through a heavy layer of dark clouds and we were all dazed.
Robbie walked in to our lounge smiling.
“Sam darling, please make sure you also apologise to Gina for me. Girls I’m sorry, I’ve been incredibly selfish.”
“What have you done Roberto?”
“What I should have done all along Dommi. I have separated a part of myself which keeps watch. No reason for all of us to suffer for months or years.”
I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love - and should some of it be true for our reality, I hope you will love our Cherine.
Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου
(Alexander Zenon Eustace)11th October, 2019
- posted on Steemit: 11th October, 2019
If you wish to read from an earlier book, from Book 01 to Book 04, use this link button to open the LC Book Index:
