A reunion of worlds by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

Crossing over

They haven’t aged a bit but the people around them have. Anthony and Regina are alone at night and neither can sleep. It is the two AM syndrome. That is where your mind is stuck in between dreaming and being awake. You cannot control your thoughts.

Regina realizes that Anthony is sobbing. She turns to him and rubs his back.

“What’s wrong my darling?”

“Man was never meant to live this long. I remember too much and it makes me very sad. Look at us. You are just as beautiful as you were the day we met. You and I are in our nineties. We have children in their forties, grandchildren. Rick and his wives, Brad, Brenda, Maribell and Rose have all crossed over. For the gods sake Gloria is now sixty and feeling her age. Kile’s son is now Zorn. Arron is gone.

I don’t want to see our children die!

I have never told anyone this but long ago, when Gloria met us, she knew but I told her mentally not to say what she was going to reveal. You know that I remember my past life. What you don’t know is that, when I finished my god training, I then remembered all my past lives. Life after life, death after death, starting from my age of twelve when my parents died from the virus.”

Turning to face her and waited for her mind to catch up to what I just said.

“What was that child’s name?” She asks dreading what she knows is the answer.

“Billy Barker” I tell her. “I remember all the loves and each death from my parents then to Blaze and all the wives and children for ten’s of thousands of years. Births, marriages and deaths. I did not know any of it until the gods told me that it was what I needed to bear. I don’t want to see our children die!”

I continue to cry like a baby. The weight of all that has come crashing down on me like someone caught in a cave in and feels that air growing stale.

After a long silence, I come back from the edge. I tell her that I’m now okay. She tells me that starting in the morning, we need to get everything in order,

“In one week, I want you to open that final door and we will cross over. I want our children there. Including the grandchildren. I would like to have representatives from our old world here, Randan and this world. We need to first consult Gloria and release her from your request for her to remain silent. I will call her in the morning.”

There was no use to try to go to sleep but we hugged each other until the morning light.

Regina called Gloria and asked her to come over.

“Gloria, when we first met, you knew but I asked you to be silent. I release you from that. We have decided that it is time for us to leave for the final life. In one week we will go.”

She takes my hand, “I know that this has been a burden that no one should have had thrust on them.” Gloria says “I will say that you of all people need that final life. I need to say something to Billy.”

She stops and a voice from the ages past talks to me. “My flock leader, my mate, it is time for you to come home. Anthony, thank you for carrying him this final distance. I will now take him and all the others now. You two will be welcomed here by all of those who you both have helped. The gods have informed the two other worlds of your departure. The leaders will have only a few people come to see you both off. Regina, thank you for taking care of all of them. You had that extremely large family you wanted. I will see you then, flock sister.”

Gloria comes back. She calls Kile here and fills him in. I look at both. They look worn out, sad but happy. Regina reaches out to both of them. Grabs a hand of each.

“You both are invited to go with us. You both have had a long and sometimes hard road to travel. If you would like, it’s only a door. Think about it. You have a week.”

Both look at each other. As they do, Gloria smiles as we see a person appear that Gloria has known all her life. She hugs that woman. It is her namesake, grandma Gloria.

Grandma Gloria speaks to her grandchildren. “You both can come and be at peace. It really has been a long time for you both. Gloria, I long for you to fly with your mother and me. Go talk with your mates. They will be welcome to come. Anthony, Regina, thank you. Those who cross in the week’s end, will leave their bodies here. Kile make this known and make the arrangements for all the remains to be placed in the mausoleum.”

We are again alone.

Kile and Gloria have their mate flash here. Both Ryan and Mica come here and are brought up to speed by Kile. Their mates also look tired.

“I really feel like it is time for us to go.” Kile tells Mica. He says something to Mica that hits home with me. “I do not want to live so long that I see one of my children die.”

That breaks me up and I start crying again.

Both Ryan and Mica agree on going.

“Gloria” I ask her, “would you please make what you know about me known over the CNC. Kile, Ryan, Mica I ask you to turn on CNC. Regina knows and we don’t need to hear.”

Gloria does just that. She also has CNC send the message to the other two worlds through the proper channels. Per my request, I have her say that I just revealed this to her and the gods confirmed.

They went to their homes and gathered their children to tell them of their decisions to leave with us. Our children have flashed here when they heard the CNC. Our five know that we had made our decision.

Looking at them, both of us know that it is the right decision.

I, as head of the family, speak. “We made it known to you, when you were old enough, that we are immortal. Your mother and I now could pass for your children. We freely choose to go. It has been a long time for us. We actually are now over ninety years old in this life. That is long enough.”

“You have made good lives for yourselves. We are proud of each of you and our grandchildren.” Regina tells them. “If we were normal, this would be our time anyways. We are tired.”

“I’m sorry to dump this on you but you will get to see us off.” I tell them. “There will be a party that day. At a certain point, we will go into a side room along with Kile, Mica, Gloria and Ryan. We will sit down in chairs and I will open the door to that final life. Our souls will go through. You will know when the door is closed. Arrangements are being made. Our bodies will be in the Satten mausoleum. You will not have to worry about that.”

They told us that they knew that this day was coming.

Our eldest tells us that they could see, when we felt no one was around, you were tired. We were told that they had already prepared for this. Each thanked us for being good parents. We hugged and they each flashed out to their own homes to gather their mostly adult children.

People were in and out that week. Every loose end was taken care of. The week went quick. There was a large party at the Jenkins Mansion. Everyone there knew almost all those in attendance. All three worlds were represented.

There were tales that are still told to this day. Tales of valor, love, family and sorrow. We laughed, cried and got embarrassed at those.

The time was drawing near. First my family gathered. Forced happy smiles on all as we said our goodbyes and entered the room. This was repeated with the others and they entered and sat. The one half god of all dual appeared in the hall. The other half was with us. In unison, they told us and the gathered what was going to happen.

“All be happy. What is about to happen is unlike what happened to mortals. Anthony and Regina are immortal. To leave their bodies here requires the gods of all. None of them will feel any pain in the crossing. That is the same for all here. When it is your time, the second you leave this body, you no longer feel the pains of this body. Rejoice, it is done. They are now celebrating with their loved ones in the final life.”

The gods of all leave. The immediate families go one by one into the room. Each of the six are now smiling and all are now at peace. They sit in those chairs, in a line, hands joined in a chain.

Gloria’s granddaughter, Gloria the third, Now speaks. “Grandmother Gloria thanks all of you. She is now going to take flight with great grandmother Brenda, Gloria the first and Blaze and Sky feather. She says that all are finally relaxed.”

It is the new generation’s worlds. All the old ones are now gone. The worlds have declared that they all need to remember the lessons learned from all that have passed. They call for a day to remember them. At the behest of the Sattens and Jenkins on that day, they will open the mausoleum for reverent visitors.

Remembrance day is the only day of the year that the mausoleum is open to the public, there is always a dawn to dusk line. All in line at dusk are allowed their turn but the line is closed. No photography or other imaging devices are allowed.

There on the main floor are the Sattens and Grandens. On the lower floor are the six. They see all of us holding hands, seated on the chairs we sat on when we left. There is an empty chair by itself, then Anthony, Regina, Kile, Mica, Gloria and Ryan. There is a plaque that tells you who each is. It also says that the empty chair is Billy Barker’s.

On the same floor are Brad and his wives. Seated on a long couch, they are facing a very large flat screen. Their plaque says each name but tells the people to imagine what they are watching.

Author’s note

Of late I have been trying to fill in the blanks. Separate stories but they turn out to have similar traces. I wrote the Demon’s Daughter but it left with Gloria and Kile being born and Rose pregnant with Arron. Then I wrote the Flock leader’s journey.

Earlier this year I wrote a story about Zorn and joined the first two into a trilogy. Separately I wrote about Randen, The adventure of a life time and a follow up about Elrick.

The first portion of this book was going to be a stand alone but the god of mercy reminded me that I was leaving the remainder of the souls being left hanging. I needed to tell about them. That is why I have brought it back to Billy.

I have other books I have started but they will have to wait. I have started a book about the imps but have hit a wall. I am having things fall off of their stable positions. Strange noises and irritating grit on the floor. I am always barefoot. Sometimes my morning coffee tastes different. The imps are waiting for me to finish.

I do not want to get them further irritated but I do want to write things I enjoy reading.

Now to satisfy the imps, but I let them know that inspiration wins.

OKAY, OKAY, I SURRENDER. Imps win.

Here is a short bonus about the imp history

It starts where the human pushed out of time meets the imps

From “Time has thrown me out.”

After five sleeps, it is the only way I have to tell any time. I get up and step outside to find there are bunch of small pointed rocks scattered everywhere. I figure that I must have not looked when I stopped. Just kick the stones out of the way. There was laughter.

“I told you that it only works on others not a fellow time outsider.” There is now a multitude of laughter.

“You need to come out here and explain yourselves. We need to talk.”

The laughter has ceased. There was a big discussion between a few of them. The leader tells me that if I try anything, regardless of what we were told by the woman, We will turn off your food ability and we will run away.

“I will agree to anything. I just want to talk.” With that. I sit and cross my legs. There are a couple a dozen of these very small people that appear. They are all the same size, around six inches. The boss comes up to me.

“Pixies” I mutter out loud and the leader gets angry.

“Don’t ever disrespect us like that. We’re imps. Those pixies would never live up to our reputation. We are the correctors of time. From minor mishaps to fatal incidents. We are proud. Pixies are nothing but flirts. Before you even ask, the woman told us of your task on this world. We told her that we needed a test for our sake. That’s why the rocks. If you were hostile, we would have left but you weren’t. We have been following you. You must have some of our blood in you. Removing all those belts and undoing the zippers, that really must have been a sight.”

Imps

Time means nothing to my fellows and myself. So I will just say long ago, the god of time was chosen from someone outside of the imps. Before him we were on a world that we roamed and were guided by a woman god.

The retired gods later found that their replacements were never up to the task. They were all related with unresolved baggage from their previous roles. Their cleanup crew was a mated pair of a male human and a female mouse humanoid. They were both elevated to the role of god of all.

They reformed the whole concept of the gods, with the approval of the Supreme Creator. Their task was to choose the new gods. They pared down thirteen gods down to five.

That is when I was chosen to be the next god of time. My name is Sam and my lovely mate is Eva.

Before I was chosen to be the god of time, I was a normal imp but I held a distinct dishonor of being the one and only imp to be trapped in a prank gone wrong. We imps were warned that the cleanup crew’s winter area had a skating ice pond. It was frozen solid.

What we weren’t told was that the god of time had put a spell, a trap, that would allow an imp to transport into the ice but the spell did not allow the imp to get out. Only someone coming upon the imp could form a door and free the imp.

I did not heed the warning and became trapped. With no concept of the flow of time, we are outside time, I do not know how long I was trapped but it felt like forever. Terry, the human cleanup male, found me and released me. I was traumatized and stayed with him for a while.

I still do not like ice.

When the old gods called out the failed gods, they told Terry and Olga that they would be the god of all and they would be allowed to pick some of the gods, Olga immediately thought of me. Her choice was approved, I and my mate were summoned.

Terry gave me and my mate the ability to remember names and they named both of us.

My mate and I enjoyed a long reign. I as the god of time and she as my mate. There came a time that we knew that we needed to retire and go to the final life.

This is why I feel the need to write down our history.

As imps, we do not remember names and most do not remember how long we have been or our ancestry. The Supreme Creator has given, in my reign, the position of god of time, the knowledge of our history.

I want everyone to know of our misunderstood history and our role in the universe. This is why I write this. I do not know if I will forget because both my mate and I want to return to our six inch size. I feel that I won’t but just in case.

In the beginning, we imps were just a minor magical creature. No one really paid any attention to us. We were just small creatures that went unnoticed. Our magical curse so to speak. We would try to settle but people would encroach in our area.

They never saw us or our homes so they would cut down our trees. Plow our homes asunder and just made our life miserable.

We started to try to get them to notice by doing things that never should happen. On a calm day, papers would blow away. When they chased the paper and almost catch it, it would again catch wind. That was us running with the paper.

We would push things off shelves and various other things. They would not see us. They even went to the point of calling those things as ghost or poltergeist caused. They would call in a priest to exorcise the demon spirits.

Come on, that was us! All we wanted is to be noticed.

Finally we decided that we would start just playing pranks. Might as well have fun. Since they never saw us, we moved in with them. Ate their food, messed with their stuff by moving things to an area that they never would have placed them there.

That item they dropped would always roll or bounce under something that is almost impossible to move. We had a ball. When they entered the mechanical age, all those things that should not jam, jammed with the oddest things.

We had a life span of around a hundred years. Each new generation had its own new pranks. When we got to the point that we were too old, we would just fade away. Our fellow imps would forget those ones.

Call it a blessing or a curse, we did not know any different. We just forgot. We forgot why we started to prank. We forgot our origin. Hell, we even forgot our own names. Those things did not matter anymore.

We discovered over the years that we loved the alcohol. Going into a bar, as a group, we would drink out of their glasses. The only thing is that we had to make sure that we drank then moved on because we needed to relieved ourselves. The person would take a drink and most often spit it out. They started to call it skunk beer. The bar owner would take a sip, spit and replace the keg.

Our biggest laugh would be when we watched the owner call in the people who made the beer and had them sample the bad beer. The bar owner would get mad when he was told that there is nothing wrong. He would find that it was just that good beer.

All the things we did, we no longer knew why and did not care. We were just being what we are, imps.

Our kind were always around a total of fifty imps. Never saw anything wrong with it. We roamed when we got bored. Never caring what we did . As long as we had fun and partied.

There came that fateful day. We were having our usual hang over. We sobered up really fast when we noticed that everything has stopped. All the people were like statues. Birds in the air were just stopped in the air but did not fall. Even the breeze was gone.

Now we were worried.

The gods appeared before us

“Your group has come to our attention.” The woman said, “Your pranks, by themselves, are just harmless but we are offering you a permanent role in correcting evil. Your pranks will now be used for correction but also getting a rid of ones that cannot be salvaged. You flavor those drinks but you will now be able to use those pranks in a meaningful way. Torment certain individuals to get them to correct their ways.

We will visit you to transport you to those areas that need your expertise. One of you will be in charge. Why are you wandering off?”

We were bored. “Too many words. Our head hurts. We’re going for a drink.”

We all were frozen in our tracks. The woman crossed her arms and said,

“Now you will stay frozen until you hear us out. You are out of time. You will never age and never have children until the big imp shows. We will give you assignments to carry out. Fail to follow your assignments is not ,,,”

She does not get to finish. One by one we fell asleep. She can be boring. She does one thing that we imps would never have figured that someone could be so cruel. She wakes us all up and casts magic on the females.

“Your females will get bored with you and chase you out.”

“What the hell?!” That got our attention

“Now that you are back with me. You will still be able to visit when they need you but you will become a bother and they will chase you out. Another thing, you are now no longer in time. You will not age or reproduce. Again, only when the tall imp comes will you again start to have children.“

We are trying to stay awake. It is hard but we try to listen. She captures our attention when she explains that some of the humans will be so evil that you can torment them then cause accidents that will eliminate them.

She forgets one thing, we become bored easily.

Allowed to do our usual pranks, we got along with her. From time to time she would transport us to different areas of this world to wreak havoc on someone or an entire population.

Those were fun but there came a time where we were told that the large imp was coming. We were told that he would be a human that will be cast out of time by the god of time. He will need to complete a few tests but the first test would be your last here on this world.

We told her that an outsider will need to be accepted by us, We would have to watch that person for a while. If we do not like him, we will not accept him. We have our ways to get rid of that person.

She tells us that she accepts that condition. “Follow that one until you are satisfied. Watch and I feel that you will like that one.”

There was the one. He was moving when all were statues. He started to try to wake some of them. We laughed when he groped a few females. We rode on his trailer while he drove around trying to find someone who could move.

He stopped and went to sleep in his trailer and we scattered sharp pebbles so he would step on them. He woke and just pushed them away. It was decided to confront him.

We relayed the instructions to him that the woman told us. We never realized or bothered to notice but the instructions we received from her never were forgotten.

The man drove to where our women were. The woman’s leader sassed him. They were told, by the woman, that the large imp was chosen and to be ready. He stood there and basically told her off. We all laughed. The women took over the trailer and had us build.

He knew of a place that had furnishing in our size. The women were very pleased.

With our help, the large imp passed all the gods tests. That female leader grew to his size.

Now he made a home land for all of us. It has a large home for them but there are a lot of houses that are our size. All have drive ways and have golf carts our size. We even made a drive in

Having a home land of our own. That was something that stirred old memories but those quickly disappeared. It is nice that we are no longer tied to that frozen world Even if it was only tied to the god’s home. We have fun.

Since we now have a homeland, our mates started to produce children. Now there are more of us, we have been invited, in groups, to relax at the god home. It is wonderful. Once again, we can see the results of our pranks.

The god of all must be like us. We found his pool and we sank to the bottom and a few of us floated face down on the water. He falls for it every time. He dives in to rescue and as he is deep in the water, we get up and laugh.

It is so much better to be able to see the actual results in person.

We imps are now in a population explosion. Under the gods of all, some of ours are no longer tied exclusive to me, the god of time. The sage fortress system now has their own imp squads. They are still related to time but they mostly answer to the sage.

Now the Supreme Creator has taken over the selection of the five god positions. The new ones have been chosen. Eva and I have chosen to return back to our original six inch size.

We were allowed to live in the final life that time that those failed gods were punished. All of us were relaxed but after a while we needed to prank. It’s our nature. In the final life, maybe we will make our own area.

All I know is that I want a dual seat plane so Eva and I can just fly as far and as long as we wish. That will be nice. I for one can remember history. I remember the first days when we just wanted to be noticed and live in peace.

I know that in that final life there will be our own place that is respected. We should be at peace. We may even give up flavoring but commando carts are still on the table. We should be able to find a pool or two.