The Free Radical

This strange short story from the December 2013 Newsletter has suddenly come to the fore. There are certain starseeds and channellers who are currently suggesting that a disconnection from our personal identities is in the offing for humanity at this time. We are being forcibly disconnected from the old familiar grid of our ‘knowing’ and will subsequently be connected to a new– or perhaps truly ancient– grid with soul and purpose.

I’ve decided to recirculate this story in preparation for what could be a very disorienting time. I’ve included the author narration with musical accompaniment for your convenience and enjoyment.

(Author narration; background music: The Romantic Warrior by Return to Forever / Transitory Highs by EJ Gold)

Edwin’s Note: Niels has suggested that we begin with the end; I concur. But before we dive right in I would point out that any and all of my interjections and elaborations spring from my own personal understanding of the Muse. My interpretations are by no means absolute. Perhaps Niels alone knows the this-and-that of everything Mused, but he does not dogmatically impose them on me. Remember I am but an all-too-fallible guide. Now having said that, I will admit that I don’t really know whether the following story takes place in our own Earth reality, a parallel or alternative Earth reality, within the inner continuum of Mi-Fu, or somewhere else entirely. We may just find out in due time. And so let us begin with…

The End Game

Memory… wherein does it reside? The fruitless search for the elusive engram– that hypothetical base unit of memory– has yielded hardly more than a deepening of the mystery for the location of specific recallable events. Where are they stored? Hint: not in brains.

Perhaps it is almost obvious that any physical occurrence is indelibly written or “stored” within the context of the occurrence itself. That is to say that whatever happens alters the very structure of physical reality and therefore is “stored” as the very changes comprising such an ever-dynamic reality. Everything which happens changes the structure of reality moment to moment… and for as long as the universe endures, not a single occurrence is lost or forgotten in the long chain of causality.

Memories exist outside of ourselves… at this point of perception.

This point of perception, our current moment in time, is inside-out. We see our memories as belonging solely to us– unquestionably. We regard them as internal affairs– strictly. And more than anything else, memories are what we use most to arrive at our own self-identities. It is for this reason that the loss of memory, particularly during our declining years, frightens us so. We seem to forget who we are… as though such sacred self-knowledge could ever be eroded by our own human frailties.

Recall that this point of perception is inside-out… and perhaps backwards as well.

So let us jump now to an undisclosed moment in time when the Earth’s magnetic field suddenly plummeted to zero. Why should such a happenstance effect memory? The explanation is beyond the scope of our purposes here, so let us just accept that it does. The effect, in a nutshell, is that of total personal memory erasure. It is not, in fact, an actual erasure, but rather a disconnection between the memories and the identities attempting to adhere to them. To those affected, however, it would seem like a complete personal memory deletion… like wiping the hard-drive of a computer… except that we humans are deeply programmed on so many levels.

Such a moment occurred. The duration of its occurrence is irrelevant since once the disconnection was made, there was no subsequent automatic restoration to “normal” memory retrieval. The disconnection endured in an awkward moment of truth.

Stacey had just finished loading the groceries into her car. It was grocery shopping day, and the main task was nearly done. All that remained now was getting them home and put away. Just as she lifted the key to the ignition, the awkward moment of truth intervened. Stacey forgot herself– completely.

All memory instantly dropped away. She knew not who she was or where she lived. She had no recollection even of how she lived. The key in her hand was as meaningless to her as the metal box of her car housing her temporarily in this moment of truth… with the groceries– these strange alien companions.

A moment of what-the-fuck panic seemed most reasonable, and Stacey had always been most reasonable. She panicked with a determined dignity and decorum welling up from an untouchable place within. She searched about peering through the windows of her car, trying to take stock of the total situation.

She was in a place of many domiciles, tightly packed variations of the metal box she sat within. The vast majority of them appeared to be empty, but here and there she could make out the panicked faces of her neighbors. The ability to read body language and emotional expression was something wholly beyond any reliance on conscious memory. Perhaps others were experiencing the very same… unknown… she was experiencing. She would have liked to go and speak with them. For the rudiments of language too required no conscious memory, no self-identity. But for the time being, Stacey was unable to remember how to open the car door.
* * *
Thomas had always been lucky. When the awkward moment of truth came upon him, he had been walking his dog in the park. The moment dropped like a waterfall from the sky, washing all self-recollection from his very bones to seep instantly into the parched Earth beneath his feet. Tom’s identity was buried instantly in muddied inaccessible unmarked graves. He stood as though naked, frozen to the spot, the loop of a dog leash around his wrist.

The dog barked and looked up at him questioningly. Tom wondered whether he was meant to understand the creature’s utterance. After all, they were tied together, obviously partners of some sort. He reached his free hand down to the dog’s head and gently laid it between his ears. The dog sat down contentedly, wagging its tail above the short grass of the park’s lawn, and looked up to his master who scratched now behind his ears. Allies… even friends, for sure, reasoned Tom. He was thankful for the companionship in such a bewildering and awkward moment.

The park had been relatively deserted. Only a handful of children had been playing on the swings when confusion had dropped from the sky. Tom looked to the children now, hearing their whimpering in the distance. Somehow Tom knew instantly that this predicament was not his alone; they all shared its awkwardness, its bewilderment. He could read it on their faces; it was written in their stiff postures. Tom’s first inkling was to render help. He and the dog went to where the children cried.
* * *
Karen freaked right the fuck out! She was home alone when the power cord to her brain got suddenly pulled. Virtual electricity and any semblance of sanity shot straight out through her ears in a flash of consuming ignorance. Not only did Karen not know who she was; she couldn’t even discern what she was… beyond this suddenly raving maniac, blubbering from room to room in her spacious house, desperately looking for someone who might yet hold the reins of her vanished composure. She wet herself… incidentally in the bathroom, but Karen was too far gone already to make any rational guesses as to what a toilet might be for.

After her initial frenzied romp through the house, searching in vain for the moorings of even the most ephemeral sanity, Karen eventually found the front door. She opened it and stepped out to peer down the streets of her neighborhood still looking for bearings of any sort. What she found instead, much to her horror, was that apparently a few of her neighbors were having an even more difficult time than she was as evidenced by the few crazies screaming and dashing about in a most haphazard way.

Karen ran back into the house and promptly shut the door firmly behind her. And then, most curiously, Karen’s hand– apparently on auto-pilot or infused with ample muscle memory– shot the deadbolt to the locked position. And then she collapsed in a sobbing soggy heap right there against the front door… safely locked inside… of her own misery.
* * *
It can now be told that there were those on and around Earth at that fateful awkward moment who knew the moment was coming. They knew precisely what was to occur. And in such knowing, they knew how to prepare themselves for the eventuality. Furthermore, a significant portion of them knew precisely how to profit from just such a moment.
* * *
Thomas sat in the grass amongst the children. He had no clue as to whether he had ever been a father or not, but the situation naturally drew fatherliness from him regardless. They were all in the very same boat, but the children nevertheless looked to him for guidance and leadership. He knew nothing… and yet he provided what they needed. The dog too followed his lead in providing the simple comfort of friendship based on nothing more than proximity and shared circumstance.

They were calm, talking together, mostly reconfirming to each other that they each were indeed bereft of any personal recollections of culture and identity. They knew nothing of their real biological family ties, but here in the aftermath they were quickly becoming all the family they needed to ride out this storm together. In perfect vulnerability, trust was a familiar treasure to all.
* * *
A man in flowing robes approached the driver side door of Stacey’s car. His face was calm, smiling. He waved to Stacey inside. She instinctively waved back, not knowing what else to do. She smiled unconvincingly. He stopped at the door and reached for the handle. It was locked– something which he immediately communicated to Stacey, though she had no means of understanding what he meant.

“There should be a button or a switch beneath the window that unlocks the door,” he instructed. Stacey promptly located and pressed it. The door clicked and the man tugged at the handle. Fresh air, for which Stacey was quite thankful, streamed inside the open door. The man continued.

“Today is Judgment Day, a time of reckoning for all of humanity. Greetings, I am Jesus Christ.”
* * *
Thomas and the children had followed the man in the flowing robes to Stacey’s car in the grocery store parking lot across the street from the park. There was just something about the way he moved with perfect confidence through the awkward moment which beckoned “Follow me. Follow me.”

They had stood behind but well within earshot when the robed man had introduced himself to Stacey as Jesus Christ. He knew his identity! Thomas envied him that.

“You have your memories,” said Tom, and the man turned in surprise. A shadow of something unidentifiable crossed the robed man’s face before he resumed his calm, confident demeanor.

“Indeed. I know who I am.” He looked upon the children and smiled.

“Has your memory been restored to you, or did you never lose it in the first place?” inquired Tom.

“I have always known who I am. I am the Light and the Way. But the restoration that you seek is well within my purview and power to grant.”

There was something in that answer that just didn’t sit quite right with Tom, even as the children noticeably perked up at the pronouncement, as did Stacey too. What was so special about this Jesus fellow? Why should he be different than all the rest? What special power did he wield?

“You can restore my memory?” asked Stacey excitedly. “For real?”

“Quickly, easily and painlessly,” came the answer in smooth confidence.

“How is it done?” interjected Tom.

“A gentle placement of my fingertip upon your brow, nothing more.”

“Why?” asked Tom suspiciously.

“Why what?” came the quick retort with perhaps a hint of annoyance.

“Why do you alone possess this special power over others?” There was something about this kind of elitism that Tom could not reconcile with a fair and just universe. Certainly he had no specific memory of the universe ever having been just or fair, but deep down inside he simply knew that it was… ultimately.

“I am God,” proclaimed Jesus. Stacey and the children gasped while Tom slipped into a quiet almost amused anger.

“Interesting that that wasn’t your opening line,” mused Tom aloud. “What are you selling?” Terms from a merchant culture just seemed to naturally spring to the fore.

“Eternal everlasting life is free for the asking,” countered the robed man. “As it has ever been.”

“Then why now?” pressed Tom. “Why in this moment of greatest vulnerability should God come among us in such a manner granting memories individually? Why take them away in the first place?”

“So that each could face his deepest fear– his unknown self. Already many have not survived this day. This reckoning has taken a terrible toll. Fear is self-consuming if not for my merciful interventions.”

It still seemed to Thomas that he was being given half-truths at best, but at the current cognitive disadvantage he was unable to muster any further argument. Then one of the youngest of the children stepped forward to stand before the robed man.

“Mr. Jesus sir, I’d like to remember who I am. Please.”

The child was lightly touched upon the brow with that exclusive aristocratic finger, and immediately she fell to her knees. Her chin fell to her chest and she began to sob. “I want my mommy. I want my mommy…”

The robed man scooped her up and spoke to the rest. “Walk with me as we find this little one’s parents.”

Stacey abandoned her car and newly purchased groceries to become one of this enigmatic man’s entourage. She followed alongside Tom. Observing with keen awareness they walked up a residential street lined with fancy houses.

“Does the little girl seem better off for knowing?” whispered Tom to Stacey. The girl still sobbed into the shoulder of “God.”

“She’s just frightened,” Stacey whispered back.

“We all are,” insisted Tom, “but now she seems almost inconsolable. There’s something going on here that just ain’t right.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know. How could I possibly know? I don’t know a goddam thing… and yet I know. You know?” Stacey nodded almost imperceptibly.

The little troupe was suddenly outside Karen’s front door. Karen was still a wet and blubbering heap propped against its inside. Jesus knocked and set the little girl down on the stoop. Shrieks of terror answered from inside.

“Do not fear! I have come to save. Please open the door.” The face of bat-shit crazy stabbed through the curtains of the bay window beside the front door. Moments later the deadbolt clicked and the door opened a crack. Karen was incapable of coherent speech. “I return your daughter to you,” said Jesus through the crack.

The door opened wider and the little girl saw her mother. She threw herself upon Karen screaming “Mommy! Mommy!” while Karen scrambled backward muttering “What the fuck! What the fuck!”

There was not a trace of recognition in Karen’s eyes. The robed man stepped up swiftly and made his solemn offer. “I can restore your memories if you’ll permit me.” Karen looked at him ever more dumbfounded, trying to pry the little girl from her waist. The little monster was unrelenting… and finally she nodded to Jesus. And the finger of “God” restored her to her former self with but a touch on the brow.

“Megs! Oh my god, Megs! It’s you!” Karen knelt down for a proper hug, and they both began to cry and blubber and collapsed in a heap. After a time Karen began to mutter quietly again “What the fuck… what the fuck…”

To Tom and Stacey it all seemed rather inappropriate and somewhat ugly.

Eventually, Meagan released her mother to turn to the others outside on the stoop. “C’mon Aaron,” she said. Apparently the oldest boy was her brother. He looked upon the scene in the house with a modicum of disdain.

“Who me?” he said. His sister nodded. The god-man made his offer, and Aaron shook his head, no. “Um… I’d rather not just now,” he said. The disheveled picture of his dysfunctional family seemed somewhat unappealing at the moment. He could clearly see that those who were restored to their former selves were not in any discernible way better off than the others… and perhaps they were worse off. “I need some time to think things through.”

Karen was still incapable of approaching anything resembling reason, and so could not offer her son the correct words of reassurance.

Jesus was perturbed. Clearly this whole escapade had not unfolded according to his designs. He knew not what else to do but make his same offer again. “Anyone else? Who’s next?”

There were no takers. Stacey and Tom and the three remaining children walked down the front steps to take their leave of an insanity none of them could define. The man in the flowing robes looked mildly defeated. He stayed to presumably minister to the broken family he’d helped to restore… or perhaps he stayed for purposes wholly unknown.

The group of six– Thomas, Stacey, the three children and the dog– walked together back to Stacey’s car and its cache of groceries. As they arrived, Tom proclaimed “I am Thomas. I remember myself… from before I ever was born.”

In the days to follow they each discovered that the identities they had long carried with them throughout this lifetime– wedded to their own shoddy memories– were dilapidated ones, distractions to the truth. It had long been talked about on Earth throughout history that there was a veil of forgetting pulled across the human mind, so that human beings never really knew who or what they were. Paradoxically, that veil of forgetting was always comprised of ego’s selective memory. The reset button was that awkward moment when everything familiar periodically falls away… so that all that is real and true and enduring might resurface in those who have prepared the Way.