Black Jack

climb to a loftier height.

  - Chinese proverb

  It was only when Black saw his mother approach him, a gaily wrapped present clutched in her hands, her face full of devotion and love, that the full horror of Green’s revelations hit him. She dropped the present to the floor and rushed to him, her eyes sick with fear.

  ‘What is it?’ she begged, again and again, but he could only stare back. A despairing mute. That an occult brethren of darkness and not humanity was in control of Earth, or its own destiny was too fantastic to believe, yet… What if it was true, and all of humanity had been fooled and betrayed? A part of him was bewildered, and another petrified. In the end she had pulled up a chair to his bed, but despite her best efforts had fallen asleep sitting upright. He watched her sleeping and for the first time in his life he pitied her. She was being milked like a cow and she hadn’t the slightest clue. Black turned his attention toward the TV screen. It had always comforted him, but that night he registered it as a blur of moving colors. Even the news could not hold his attention.

  He remembered the prayers he had said during his lifetime, all his hopes of a miraculous recovery. Now he wondered: did God even exist? And if there was one what good was a god that let you be food for inter-dimensional predators?

  All night long his mind roved restlessly. He didn’t want to believe any of it, but so much of it made sense and answered his deepest worries. Until now there had seemed to be no point in human existence. One spent all one’s life gathering love, money, and power, but no matter how rich, powerful or loved one was, always one died alone, and every single atom gathered from the Earth wrenched back. But now he could see that even the homeless tramp living on top of a rubbish dump was of great value to ‘someone’.

  In the morning his mother tried to call in a day off, but there was an emergency of sorts, a broken pipe having led to a flooded kitchen floor. There was cleaning to be done, and urgently. Besides, it was obvious there was nothing she could do for Black. She opened his present for him - to his surprise, finally, adult pajamas.

  ‘I’ll be home early tonight,’ she said, and kissed him goodbye.

  After she left a strange thing happened to him. The numb shock evaporated and in its place came, first, hurt like he had never thought possible, then a terrible, terrible rage. It was an emotion he had never experienced before, and its effect inside his frozen body was spectacular. It built up like a tempest, the air exiting his nostrils in a trembling rush. It galvanized him into a large and powerful force. His rage had a target: Green. Green whom he had naively trusted and loved was a cunning trickster - he had betrayed him - for what purpose he did not know yet. But the idea that greatness could be achieved from the experience of being planted in a garden and secretly harvested was ludicrous. Only a fool would believe it.

  So what if the present controllers preferred red sludge to milky white? Both were manipulating humans to further their own needs. Whatever their secret plans, he wanted no part of them. Never would he contribute to the continued enslavement of humankind. He desperately wished there was some way for him to warn humanity, at the very least his poor mother.

  3.29p.m. Green arrived and extracted Black from his body. Immediately, Black opened his mouth to begin his prepared tirade, but Green held up a silencing hand. Black noticed the sadness in his beautiful eyes. All the wonderful fractals on his face and body appeared not only more faded, but processed so slowly they seemed rigid or almost crystalline in nature. In his mind came an image of Green tumbling and soaring ahead of him in the velvet blackness of space, all the fractals glowing brightly, his eyes full of laughter. How happy they had been then. And just like that the spectacular fury he had been stoking for hours extinguished. The truth was he didn’t want Green to leave him. He would miss him terribly. Green was the only friend he had ever had, and he loved him.

  ‘You claim to love me, but you won’t even hear me out,’ Green said. ‘If you no longer desire to keep your part of the agreement, that is your choice. This is the planet of free will. My duty is done even if you don’t do yours. However…’ He held his hand out to him. ‘Before I leave there is something I want you to see.’

  Black hesitated. He had promised to withhold judgment until he had heard everything, and there was also his insatiable curiosity that told him, what harm can come of one little trip? He reached out for the proffered hand, and instantly he was taken to the edge of a forest.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Scotland.’ Green turned to him. ‘You have to be psychically modified to enter. May I?’

  Black nodded. He didn’t have to wait long before he felt as if he was a deck of microscopic slices being very rapidly flicked, shuffled, and allowed to drop one on top of another. The sensation was painless and quickly over.

  They stepped into the forest; its interior was dim and cool. He understood instantly that it was in a magical place. For it was exactly how he had imagined the forest Hansel and Gretel had been abandoned in would look. There were no dead leaves and his bare feet sunk into the rich, black dirt. A silver birch was growing next to him and he touched it. His hand did not go through it. ‘Am I physical?’

  ‘No, but you have been momentarily altered to be of the same frequency as this dimension so there is the illusion of physicality.’

  Green pointed to a brilliant light radiating through the trees.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘A unicorn.’

  ‘Unicorns are real?’ Black gasped.

  ‘Of course. They hold the frequency of divine love for this world, and since they need an extremely high, pure vibration to do that, they have to keep away from humans. Would you like to meet it?’

  ‘I would love to meet it, but I thought only virgins could.’

  ‘Don’t you qualify?’

  Black had to smile. The anger was all gone. There was nothing left, but an enduring love for his only friend.

  ‘The virgin thing is actually an allusion to purity. However, there is an etiquette in dealing with them. Approach it slowly and stop when you are about six feet away. Go ahead; I will wait here for you.’

  It was the creature’s golden spiral horn that first became visible. The rest remained a vague shape inside the large, misty cocoon of light that radiated from it. About six feet away Black came to a stop. It was still not possible to see properly through the light. The unicorn lifted its head from the ground and rose slowly. Black gasped in awe. It was huge, perhaps twelve feet high, with a glowing, pure white body, a translucent mane and tail, and huge, purple hoofs. It was the most extraordinary thing Black had ever seen.

  Slowly, it turned its head and looked at him. It was a moment he would never forget. The intensely beautiful, purple eyes radiated a magnificent love, truly not of this world and beyond anything he could ever have imagined. His body began to vibrate. He was mesmerized by the heavenly creature. He never wanted to leave it.

  The unicorn did not speak telepathically the way Green did, but Black simply knew that it wanted him to come closer.

  In a daze he stepped forward until he was near enough to touch the magical beast.

  In the same way he been invited to come closer he was warmly welcomed to the forest and told that he was the oldest unicorn in service to humanity. Thousands of years it had lived there, and would do so for as long as necessary. Black gazed into the unicorn’s enchanted eyes, and realized that in all that time the unicorn had gained no knowledge whatsoever, only wisdom.

  Something shifted in the unicorn’s eyes and he was privy to an image of himself lying on a bed in a white room, wearing a skullcap with electrodes that were attached to high-tech equipment. He had a hunch that it was not a hospital, but somewhere secret. Then: a split second image of a girl - her back was to him; she had long, golden hair, which hung in a thick, long braid down her back. Then she too was gone.

  All we have is what each of us is prepared to give. Although, mind you, service is not the same as servitude.

  Bending his great
head, the unicorn dropped the tip of its horn into Black’s palm. The sliver was no bigger than Black’s fingernail. My gift to you. Black looked at the unexpected gift. It dazzled his eyes briefly before melting into liquid gold, which seeped into the skin of his palm. Black looked into the large, kind eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, and the unicorn neighed as a horse does, but it was the most musical sound Black had ever heard. Then it walked away, a serene giant.

  Black felt Green appear beside him.

  ‘He gave me the tip of his horn.’

  ‘The pure and blameless may receive such gifts. When Earth was still a paradise, unicorns were not so shy. They lived openly amongst man. There was no spoken language then, but what you shared today with him. The Earth was different then too. It did not have an atmosphere so there was no decay or putrefaction, no electromagnetic field, no astral net cast around it. And man was not the puny thing he has become today, but a magical being. Bestowed with great powers and wisdom, he was the divine keeper of an astounding array of knowledge; a living library and a memory circuit for the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms in Earth’s biosphere. He did not need to eat to survive, even the thought of eating the flesh of another being to sustain himself could never have occurred. He ingested only divine life force emanations and retained intact memories of all his past lives, and all the forms he had taken. He could enter and exit his body with ease very much as you are doing now.’

  ‘Are you referring to Atlantis?’

  ‘Do not think that human history is only a few thousands of years old. History is another great fraud perpetuated on mankind. It was millions of years ago when physical reality was in accordance with divine will.’

  ‘What really happened to us?’

  ‘Perhaps that is best explained to you by one of your own kind. Same time tomorrow?’

  Black nodded. He would hear Green out.

  Auribus tenere lupum

  (I hold a wolf by the ears)

  He walked quickly into the minimarket, his body tense with anticipation, and waited impatiently for her. She was reaching for a carton of milk when he could bear it no longer. He walked down the aisle and brushed his body against her arm, firm, smooth - in his dreams - cinnamon before it was powdered.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ he said.

  Their eyes met. Hers, he was profoundly disappointed to note, unlike his outrageously vivid fantasies were a void of sexual knowledge, almost that of an innocent child.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she muttered, apparently unsettled by his bold stare, and turned away hurriedly.

  ‘Wait, don’t you live in the flat opposite mine?’

  Bumi turned back slowly. Took in the thick, curly hair held down with a generous dollop of something greasy, the large, bulging eyes, the wiry moustache, the reddish tongue that flicked out to wet the puce lips that had been curved to appear as if they were smiling, but were not. And the great unwashed smell of him.

  Without welcome in her eyes, ‘Do I?’

  He flushed badly, but his dark skin hid it well. ‘Yes, yes, on Kessler Road. I rent one of the upstairs rooms in number 22, and you are in 5, aren’t you?’

  She looked at him cautiously, then. A neighbor, an unnecessary inconvenience. Of course, the window encrusted with pigeon droppings.

  It couldn’t have been more obvious, she was uninterested, but he ploughed on determinedly. ‘I sometimes see you going to work.’ A pause. Another odd smile. ‘I know the family downstairs, you see. We are old friends from Calcutta. My name is Veera.’

  Bumi borrowed the stiff, formal tone Lady Carrington employed in her dealings with tradesmen. ‘Well, nice to make your acquaintance, Veera, but I am late and have to rush.’ She turned away. Without the carton of milk.

  ‘You forgot to tell me your name.’

  He saw her hesitate.

  To be rude might bring worse consequences. ‘Bumi,’ she said, and before more could be gleaned, hurried away. Bothered, spontaneously recognizing danger.

  He watched her go, her cheap coat flapping in the wind, and thought, she’s hiding something. And his interest quickened. A hunter on the scent.

  Bumi found her feet moving faster and faster. No milk for her coffee tomorrow morning. She felt disturbed. She had always managed to keep everyone at arms length, but this one was different. Some deep instinct warned her to be careful, very careful. Something about his eyes. Too close together. Too full of sex and badness, as her aunt would say. He would not be quenched as easily as Lord Carrington’s dinner guest. She fretted about the problem he posed all the way home, but when she opened the door to her son’s room her fears became soap bubbles that touch something real and collapse into nothing.

  She clasped her palms to her cheeks. ‘Oh my God! Black, your hands,’ she cried. ‘They’ve straightened out.’ As if unable to believe her own eyes, she grasped his hands in hers and examined them closely. ‘It’s a miracle,’ she whispered, kissing them repeatedly and reverently. Suddenly she stopped and frowned. Her fingers left his hands and moved swiftly over his body. She raised an incredulous face to him and declared, ‘I know you’ll think I’ve gone mad, but with God as my witness, you’re bigger now than you were this morning.’

  And God said, ‘Let US make man in OUR Image, after OUR likeness.’

  - Genesis 1:26

  The question is who are the ‘us’ and ‘our’?

  Black found himself standing on a sun-drenched, yellow and orange-brown landscape. Only a few shrubs dotted the rocky land. Black glanced down at himself. He was dressed in a long, loose-fitting, white tunic and trousers. In the empty sky above a lone vulture circled. Black gazed at it in fascination. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Persia, Earth time AD13. I brought you here to tap into the memories of your own species. In there,’ he said, pointing to a rocky hill behind them, ‘is one of the greatest human seers that ever lived.’

  ‘Inside the rock?’

  ‘Is a cave.’

  ‘But there is no entrance.’

  ‘That shouldn’t stop you.’

  He went up the pathway - it was full of loose stones, which he disturbed not - and walked right through the wall of rocks and mud that sealed the secret entrance, an experience that he had to admit, he thoroughly relished. Inside the air was neither damp nor dank, but cool and fresh. He followed the dim, narrow corridor of roughly hewn rock.

  It opened out to a small enclosure, big enough for him to stand upright, but surely too low for the man who sat cross-legged in the light of a single lamp. Dressed in thick, white robes he was bent over his work, which was set on a low wooden table. His fingers were extraordinarily long and tapering, and his feet were bare. There was a stack of leather-bound books on the floor by his side.

  At Black’s appearance he looked up, neither startled nor afraid. His beard was long and gray, but his face was rosy and youthful, and his eyes were calm and full of the music of the soul. He had found something special locked away in that cave. He laid down his writing instrument and gestured for Black to come forward. ‘Welcome, welcome. We have been waiting for you, and I, Jahanbakh, am honored to be the one to receive you,’ he said in Coptic.

  Black stepped into the weak circle of light. ‘Have you really been waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes, really. What year have you come from?’

  ‘2012.’

  ‘That far forward. Well, well.’

  Black looked around the sparse enclosure. Other than an Earthen jug and bowl next to him the small space was completely bare. ‘How long have you been imprisoned here?’

  Jahanbakh’s eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘It looks like a prison to you, but this humble hole in the Earth is where I have chosen to lay my eggs in safety.’ He laughed like a child at the expression on Black’s face. ‘All human endeavors of a spiritual nature are eggs. They wait for the right environment to hatch and grow. I will remain here until I finish my part of this work.’

  ‘What is it that you are working on?’

  He p
ointed to the pile of leather-bound manuscripts. ‘One day when the time is right these works will be discovered in clay jars and be called the Nag Hamadi scrolls. They are crucial to the survival of the human race.’

  ‘Why do they have to be sealed away?’

  ‘If they are not, we fear they will be intercepted, destroyed, or, worse, manipulated to serve the ones they seek to expose.’

  ‘Will you teach me about the fall of man? Why he is no longer the magical being he once was?’

  Jahanbakh exhaled a long breath. ‘Ah, you want to know about man’s greatest foe: the Archons.’

  ‘The Archons?’

  ‘The primordial ones. Long before the sun, the planetary system, Earth or man was formed, they arose in the depths of the cosmos. A phantom species of inorganic cyborgs, they were spawned of elementary matter. Created in error these first androgynous entities resembled aborted human fetuses with oversized heads, huge eyes, and spindly limbs. These grotesque neonates, in their own bizarre way, were alive and aware, and through the fractal process of endless, self-repeating generation they emerged as a massive horde or ‘legion’.’

  ‘Are these neonates you speak of gray?’ Black had once seen a documentary about the true-life stories of people who claimed to have been taken and tortured by creatures of a similar description. They had referred to them as the Grays.

  Jahanbakh frowned. ‘Possibly. They are often pale in appearance and come in the night to abduct souls, but their appearances on Earth must be by necessity sporadic and brief since they are not designed to inhabit an organic environment. Their original habitat was inside the thread-like tunnels extending from the core of the constellation of the Hunter.’

  Inside his head Black heard the translation. Hunter = Orion.

  ‘But as more and more of these shadow beings came into matter, a second variant appeared, an aggressive reptilian humanoid. One of them, a terrifying, lion-faced, serpentine bodied beast, upon first opening his eyes, falsely perceived the limitless quantity of matter around him as his own creation, and arrogantly declared, “It is I, who am God, and there is no other power apart from me”