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  He stood with his back to me while I peed. There was nothing to wipe on so I used the edge of the robe thinking that if the dwelling cleansed me when I entered then it would be cleaned anyway.

  “How could a place be so advanced and be so primitive at the same time?” I wondered.

  “You need to get some, what you call, sleep right now so we can go see Irene early in the morning.”

  I usually don’t sleep well in strange place but I slept like the dead.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Breakfast was an assortment of fruit. I didn’t recognize it at first because the strawberries and blueberries were the size of apples. There was something I thought was a mango but it was almost as big as the little girl. The woman cut it up with what looked like a saw.

  The fruit was delicious. I was thinking that if they didn’t have those foreign objects in their brains they would probably live to be over a hundred.

  The man asked if I was ready to go on our hike and I realized the other two didn’t know about Irene.

  I always enjoyed hiking and I was feeling serene. I looked at him and asked, “Can I call you Joe? I can’t remember all these letters and numbers. How did that come about anyway?”

  He laughed, “You can call me Joe but just around my family and Irene. It’s like a pet’s name. It’s considered an insult. How many Joe’s have you known in your lifetime? And some with the same last name”

  “A lot, why?”

  “Didn’t it get confusing to try to explain which Joe you were talking about?’

  “Oh, so what you’re saying is that with this system of naming people there’s no two people with the same name?”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  I just had to ask what I asked next, even though I knew it was rude, because I was so attracted to him, “Why do you and your wife sleep on separate balls?”

  He laughed so hard he ended up sitting down on the ground. He finally finished laughing and drew a deep breath, “She’s my sister.”

  Oh joy, oh joy, “Why is that so funny?”

  “It’s not the relationship that’s funny. It’s that you called the refresh pads balls. Balls is what we call a man’s, well you know.”

  I could feel myself blushing. He put his palm to my cheek and I’ve never had anything turn me on so much in my life or two lives or whatever. I didn’t understand it. He had only touched my cheek.

  “I know. Me too,” he said and I knew he wanted me like I wanted him. But I was married. No I was dead, so I wasn’t married in this life. How confusing!

  As we continued on up the mountain I realized I had never felt so at peace before in my life or ever.

  “We’re almost to the entrance of the cave. I’ll introduce you to her then I’ll leave you two alone. I’m going to walk some more if that’s all right with you.”

  “Thank you,” I said and thought about putting my hand on his cheek but didn’t have the nerve. It had felt too intimate.

  She was sitting on the floor of the cave facing the entrance. Her eyes were closed like she was meditating but she seemed to sense us and told us to enter without opening her eyes.

  We entered and sat on the floor side by side facing her. When she did open her eyes she looked at me and said, “You’re the one who has come. I believe I can help you.”

  She looked at Joe, “You can go. I will see you later. We have much to discuss.”

  Without a word or a glance at me he left. I studied her. She had gray hair that went to her waist and she wore it down and parted in the middle. She didn’t look old enough to have the gray hair because there were no lines on her face. She was wearing a white cotton skirt and black sleeveless tee shirt but no shoes. She looked like she was dressed for my time.

  “I have something for you,” she said and got up and came back with what looked like a bathing cap in my time. But it appeared to have scars and then I understood why she was giving it to me.

  “Yes, it will protect you. You need to always wear it when you are outside where you’ll be seen. If the museum authorities see you with all that beautiful red curly hair they will put you in the museum and make you perform.”

  “That’s what Joe told me.”

  She laughed and I thought she was absolutely beautiful, “Is that what you call him? It’s a pet’s name you know just like mine, which is Irene by the way. And what is your name? I want to say Amber but that’s not just right.”

  “It’s Ashley.”

  “Ah, yes. And you’re from the 1970s?”

  “That’s right. Do you know how I got here?”

  “Yes I do but I don’t know if you’re ready to hear it.”

  “I promise you I am. Please, if you know tell me.”

  “First I have to ask you some questions. What did you believe about the afterlife in your time?”

  “Heaven, hell, God, the devil. You had to admit you were a sinner and ask Jesus to come into your heart and forgive you for being a sinner. But I’m not sure I bought into that. I mean, I was raised like that but it never really made a whole lot of sense to me. To tell you the truth, I always leaned toward reincarnation.”

  She looked at me with eyes as black as coal and I felt like she could see into my soul, “I’ll tell you my story.

  “I was born in 2329 in a small town. My family was farmers.”

  “Was there many farmers in your time?”

  “Yes, many farmers. You see just before I was born, people had started returning to the older way of eating. They were tired of eating chemicals like nitrates and phosphorous, etc. and wanted healthy food.

  “As more and more people became educated about natural foods and the benefits of eating fresh, the pre-packaged food industries went under.”

  “We didn’t have all that much pre-packaged food and chemical foods like you’re talking about in my time. That must have happened later.”

  “Yes it did. By the 21st century, people were eating more and more food substitutes like chemicals. There were thousands of doctors and everyone had a doctor. The doctors were so busy there didn’t seem to ever be enough doctors to go around.

  “Doctors were giving people more chemicals to try and cure the things that were caused by the chemicals in the first place.

  “Finally, a few of the doctors began to notice a correlation between what people ate and took as medicine and the many illnesses. Before long there was a doctor war and the pharmaceutical companies were right in there fighting with the traditional doctors. The government was involved in the form of the FDA, the food and drug administration.”

  “Wait a minute! Are you talking about a real war, like a civil war?”

  “No, this one involved money and also the government got involved. Many of the natural healers were arrested and imprisoned because they were prescribing natural herbs and roots etc. that wasn’t approved by the FDA.

  “My father was one of the doctors who was arrested and spent altogether two years in prison. Every time he got out, he would go back to practicing natural healing even after they took his license away from him.”

  “Wow!” I said, “He sounds like a brave man. What happened to him next?”

  She laughed, “By arresting him, the government made a hero out of him. I think people were beginning to see that eating natural and avoiding chemicals was much healthier and my father, being a doctor helped more and more people turn to natural healing and healthy living.

  “When I was about thirteen, my father took all his life savings and bought a farm. There were several of his patients who did the same. Some of these people were other doctors and lawyers but they were from all walks of life.

  “By the time I was in my twenties, a larger part of the population had turned to natural healing and nutrition. The doctors began to have a hard time, financially.

  “By the time I had children and grandchildren of my own, the only reason anyone went to a doctor was if they had an accident.”

  I thought about what she had shared with me, “
It looks like the natural foods have held throughout the time since you lived before. But what is this about these implants?

  “I mean, it looks like they have moved ahead too much in the technology field. And how did you escape getting your brain cut open and implanted with all those wires and things?”

  She laughed, “There were computers during your time?”

  “Yeah, but not that many people knew much about them.”

  “Right, well, by the time I was born computers were so common everyone had one and knew how to use them as easily as they did the telephone in your time. By that way, we also had what was called cellular phones, or cell phones for short.

  “I’ve read about this a lot and from what I can see, the computers started out very large. They could fill a huge room. They got smaller and smaller over the years and by the time I was born they were about the size of the palm of my hand.

  “They were making them even smaller by the time I died which was the year 2425 at the age of 97.”

  “Wow! You lived to be 97? What did you die of?”

  She laughed again, “I crashed my skywheel.”

  “You crashed your what?”

  She was giggling now, “It’s a vehicle that goes through the air although they don’t seem to have them anymore. I don’t know why. They were so much more efficient than your automobile.”

  I wanted to hear so much more from her but just then I heard Joe call from down the hillside that he was coming up.

  He smiled at me as he came inside and I felt as turned on as when he had put his palm on my cheek.

  “We’re not done yet,” Irene told Joe. “Why don’t you go on back and let Ashley spend the night here?”

  I was torn between going back with Joe and being with him alone during the trip back, and staying and hearing more of Irene’s story.

  They sat looking at me and I realized they were waiting for me to make up my mind.

  As tempting as being with Joe was, I chose to stay with Irene even though it meant sleeping in a cave. I had never even camped out before.

  I walked Joe to the entrance of the cave and he took my hand and turned it over and lightly touched my wrist and I felt chills run over my body and I actually gasped.

  He smiled and left without a word. I regretted my decision for a few seconds until the chills went away and Irene called me back into the cave.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Irene looked like she was meditating again but when I came close she opened her eyes and said, “I know, I would have wanted him in my day too.”

  “Do you know how he does that? I wish he was a normal man without those implants. I’d like to see what he looks like with long hair and a pair of bellbottom jeans,”

  She laughed, “You want a hippie. Isn’t that what they were called?”

  I shrugged, “I suppose so. But he doesn’t need to have hair and wear jeans to attract me. I’ve never wanted a man so badly in my life.”

  “Okay, where were we?” she asked.

  “You were telling me about your flying saucer.”

  “My skywheel, yes. I feel very lucky. I got to see many changes take place during my lifetime. I can remember ground vehicles when I was a child but they were impractical. You had to have roads which took up space.

  “I got my first skywheel when I was 17 and boy was I excited. I couldn’t wait to take it up.”

  “How did you keep from running into each other? What kind of fuel did it use? I have so many questions.”

  “I can see that. No fuel was needed or available. The oil fields had been depleted before I was born but I’ve read about them. The smoke and pollution from the refineries almost destroyed the atmosphere.

  “From what I read in ancient history books, the generations before mine almost destroyed itself with chemicals, wars, and every kind of pollution it could invent. It was almost as if they tried to think up everything they could to see how strong they were.”

  “But, there had to be some source of energy that got the thing in the air,” I said.

  “I can’t explain this part very well because I’m not very scientific, but from what I understand, the skywheels worked on the same principle as the ancient sailboats. It used no energy except natural energy.”

  I began yawning and she said, “What kind of hostess am I? I’ve given you no food or drink and now I’ve kept you up yamming.”

  She got up and went to the back of the cave and made a turn and disappeared and I realized there was another room to the cave. She came back with a bowl of fruit and vegetables and what looked like a loaf of bread.

  I hadn’t realized I was so hungry until I started eating. We soon finished everything down to the last crumb and drank all the tea she had brewed. Everything was delicious. I yawned again.

  “Come on,” she said. “I have a place for you to sleep.”

  I dreaded sleeping on the floor of the cave even if she had a sleeping bag but she led me to the back of the cave and rolled out two of the weird balls like the ones from the family I had been with.

  I relaxed and let it fit to my body. We had, at one point during the evening taken a bathroom break outside the cave behind a bush.

  As I was drifting off to sleep, I could hear her mumbling and I thought she was meditating but then I heard her say, “I will deliver her if you’ll let me out.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I woke up the next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of Irene humming. I stretched and sat up and the material adjusted to give me support and comfort.

  I sat watching her without her knowing I was awake and I saw a table and two chairs I hadn’t noticed before. They looked like they were made out of the same material as the balls.

  When I stepped down onto the floor of the cave it seemed to have a cushiony feel to it that I hadn’t noticed before.

  As I approached the table, she looked up and saw me, “Have a seat and help yourself,” she said.

  The content of the breakfast surprised me. There was bacon and eggs with toast and wonderful coffee. I was so amazed I looked at her with a question in my eyes and she said, “I don’t understand it either.”

  “But, where did this food come from? I’ve seen no chickens or pigs around here and I have a feeling neither have you.”

  “No, I haven’t.

  If I hadn’t been so hungry, I probably wouldn’t have even tasted the food but I took a bite of the bacon and it was the best I had ever had. The eggs were perfect and the coffee was pure perfection. Just as I was wishing I had cream and sugar, I noticed a small pitcher of cream and a small bowl of sugar on the table I hadn’t noticed before.

  I laughed so hard I felt like I was on the edge of hysteria and it scared me. Then I started crying. I felt like I was losing my mind.

  Irene got up and took me into her arms and I began to calm down so much I felt like I had been given a tranquilizer.

  We finished eating and I excused myself and went to find a bush to go behind and when I came back in, the dishes, the food and the table and chairs were gone. I was afraid to ask and instead sat down on the floor of the cave and waited for her to continue her story.

  “I had a wonderful life, Ashley. I had children and grandchildren and a wonderful husband. I still miss them a great deal.

  “The day I crashed my skywheel, I was trying to see how close to the ground I could get before pulling back up but I miscalculated.

  “When I came to, I didn’t realize I had died. I looked all over for my skywheel and couldn’t find it. When I came upon this cave I came in thinking I would spend the night here and try to find the skywheel in the morning.

  “I didn’t like worrying my family but had no way to contact them without the skywheel. I had left my cell phone in there.

  “I spent several days sleeping in the cave at night and looking for my skywheel during the day before I realized something was off. For one thing, all I had to do when I felt hungry was wish I had a certain food and it would appear.”


  I stood up and began pacing the cave, “Are you trying to tell me this cave has some sort of magical powers?”

  “It’s more than that, Ashley. It’s actually a living thing and will not let you go once it has bonded with you. You woke up this morning wishing you had a cup of coffee, am I right.”

  “Yes, everything I wished I had was on the table including the table and chairs.”

  “I’m sure they had the saying in your time, ‘be careful what you wish for?’ That saying is very true here. Try not to want anything. I’ve learned to eat off the trees and bushes surrounding the cave.

  “I keep thinking that if I depend on it less and less, then I can eventually leave.”

  I had a hard time taking in what she was saying, “If it gives you everything you want, why do you want to leave? From what I’ve seen of the rest of this place, this is better than out there where you have to get stuff implanted into your brain.”

  “It doesn’t matter what’s out there, Ashley. A prison is a prison.”

  “What happens if you do try to leave? It lets you go outside.”

  “Yes it does and at first I didn’t understand that I couldn’t leave. It will let me leave for a little while but then brings me back. The first time I tried to leave I saw all the people walking around with shaved heads. When I tried to approach one of them, I blacked out and the next thing I knew, I was back here.

  “That’s why I was so glad to meet Joe. He was the first person I was able to talk to since I’ve been here.”

  “Do you know how long you’ve been here?”

  “At least a hundred years.”

  “Is it going to let me leave?”

  “I don’t know, Ashley. Now that you’ve accepted it’s hospitality it might not.”

  I was suddenly furious, “You know, I heard you last night as I was going to sleep promise it that you would deliver me if it would let you go.

  “How could you do that? I thought you were being kind when you asked me to spend the night, but you weren’t being kind, you were being selfish.”