Lockdown

Lockdown 

(by Rosemary Clarke)

One day in late November last year I was digging out a box of books from my late mum, trying hard to put many of them in the 'get rid of' pile which was growing ever bigger. I heard a small sharp scrabbling noise at the bottom; I thought it was a mouse; that was all I needed!  Carefully I moved the books aside and peered down...to find a tiny black kitten trying to find its way out of the place where its mother had put it.  I gently lifted it out and sat it on my lap it just sat there with no idea where it was at all.  Later on when the mother came back, a feral cat, she disowned him after trying to teach him to hunt and having him sit there in a daze: then came the seizures.  He started to shake uncontrollably and shudder around the room as if he were some sort of macabre windup toy and when it stopped he would scream, just once but so pitifully it hurt just to hear him.  I became a surrogate mother and, after taking him to the vets found he had epilepsy which had left him almost blind and brain-damaged.  Well, one brain-damaged creature to another I decided to help and pronounced a lockdown; he couldn't go out of the house without me and I would act as his eyes until he got used to using his other senses.

The vet had said that he would have many other seizures but doses of penicillin and steroid injections would lessen them, so much so that now he hardly has one a week.  Jojo, that's what I've called him, has now learnt to get through the cat flap with the other cats and can sit quite happily in the garden without me but I still watch through the window.  He has a long way to go yet but let's hope that one day he can be an independent cat and the lockdown can cease; I don't care, he's given me something else to think of instead of my worries and mum's death so I would say it's good news all round!  Here's to the JoJo's of this world, may they thrive and prosper and teach all of us that it's not so bad being us.

©  Copywrite of author

Time travel

Time travel & other dimensions

(by Len Morgan)

“Time is what stops everything from happening at once.” a quote from John Wheeler (Inventor of the term: black hole).

Time travel is impossible.  If it has happened we would know; there would be evidence of tampering or profiteering... Or would there?

Rules for ‘Time travel’ must be simple and inviolate:-

·        Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

·        Matter cannot exist twice in the same place and time. So, if matter is transmitted, the equivalent matter must be transmitted elsewhere, to a different place where it never previously existed; another dimension?  Out of time?  More likely to the present, replacing the traveller.   They would change places at the same instant.

·        Travellers affecting the past or the future would create a new timeline.  The old one continues unaffected, rejecting any time anomaly.

·        Nobody can take advantage of knowledge gained in the future since nothing can be brought back either physically or as a memory.  Travellers would develop selective amnesia; they can’t remember what hasn’t yet happened or may never happen in their newly created timeline.

.-…-.

In a harmonious Universe there is an absence of contradiction and few points of conflict; time may be incapable of creating alternative paths but where outside influences create possible alternatives they will come to pass and things will start to get interesting. In a straight-line path, the outcome is harmony, a changeless state.

Not all the gods were content to rule an unchanging static timeline.

They argued that chaos should be loosed in the universe, to destroy harmony forever.   They believed that the lesser races should be imbued with self-determination, and they willed it so.

  

“Let chaos reign" said the counsel. 

 And, the chairperson said, “Let there be light!”

Time Lines

Pristine virginal snow softens the angular lines of rock and ice; layer upon layer down through the permafrost.   This is an effete world, a hibernal place, where any life would have ceased to exist whilst it was still an inchoate single cell.  The snow deepens its multi-crusted existence eternally constant.   If humans ever walked here, they would have experienced an orgasmic delight in the satisfying crunch accompanying each hypothetical footfall.   Seemingly infinite layers of snow, hoar frost, dust, snow, hoar frost, dust, built up layer on layer; a veritable Vienetta in construction since the dawn of time, like the coats of paint on an old door, or the multi-layered skins of an onion.

Time has no meaning here; the aeon and the nanosecond are just crude representations that fail to give meaning to the static reality.  The rarefied atmosphere and the dry sub-zero temperature would suck the warmth and life from any living creature, ending its existence before it could take a single step or draw its first breath on this inclement virginal world.

 Welcome to a parallel timeline in which the Earth’s orbit is a few million miles further removed from the sun – the result of an event that happened close to the dawn of creation – culminating in this barren dead place.

Plants failed to develop here, photosynthesis didn't happen so the atmosphere was never conducive to life as we know it.  Life never became extinct, as, in some parallel timelines, it simply failed to materialize. 

There are timelines where dinosaurs still roam the earth, while in others, insects rule. There are branches of our own line where the cold war heated up and life ended in an incandescent fireball.  When an event comes to pass all the infinite possibilities cease.  

When all possibilities have been resolved the timelines become immutable and fixed; we call that timeline the past.  But, there are still possibilities in the present, and in the future.

Alternative timelines exist, like branches on an infinite tree of life. If humans were able to cross over to another twig, branch, or bough, where our kind never existed would we be able to start again? 

By correcting all our past mistakes, begin anew?

Or, would we be destined to repeat them?

©  Copywrite of author

First Contact

Final Disclosure

First Contact

Another from By Christopher Mathews 

There had been rumours and sightings for years of course.  Since Rendlesham Forest in 1980 and before that the Roswell incident in the US.  But no official recognition, no government acknowledgement that they existed at all, just blunt official denial.  People, being what they are, made up their own minds or more accurately, their imaginations, there were no facts.  

Seventy-four years of speculation came to an abrupt end on the last day of March 2020 when government official disclosure was made obsolete in a most dramatic way.  Every internet site, every TV and radio station, every mobile phone carried the same chilling announcement.

“Do not be alarmed we have taken control of your communications networks. This message is from the Intergalactic High Council. Humanity has at last come of age.  Your race was seeded by this council eons ago over infinite space.  You are now on the threshold of solar colonisation, soon you will discover interstellar travel.  

But your science and technology have outstripped your wisdom.  You lack self-control, in this you are infants, you will destroy one another and the Earth.  You cannot be trusted to govern yourselves; you cannot yet be allowed to spread beyond your world.

Humanity is therefore now under the guardianship of our Interstellar Caretaker, ANSAT.  He will meet your world leaders to discuss the transition.  Forty solar cycles from now ANSAT will address your world.”

This announcement sounded wise and benign, even fatherly, but was heavy with the threat of absolute and irresistible power.  The same broadcast was repeated over and over for twenty-four hours, and then communications went back to normal.  But the interruption had caused chaos, aeroplanes and stock-markets around the globe both crashed. The delicate balance of modern life, so dependent on technology that we have come to rely upon had been exposed as fragile, and we all knew it.  But mankind was poised on the threshold of a new epoch, nothing would ever be the same again.

Over the intervening weeks, the world’s press was fixated on this one story, almost to the exclusion of all else. Examining every implication and possible outcome. Respected scientists, from every discipline, clamoured to give their insights.  Many came forward to say they had been monitoring the massive spaceships in orbit around our little planet for years.  but were forbidden to speak out.  

Fringe new age cult groups as well as many mainstream religious leaders like the Pope held massive gatherings. Offering their welcome, announcing ANSAT as a saviour, the twelfth Imam, the coming messiah, whilst desperately trying to accommodate this paradigm shift into their traditions.

2

The sense of anticipation mixed with real dread was palpable. No one doubted the truth of the announcement or the validity of their claim. Decentres were swiftly and silently ‘disappeared.’

The same worldwide announcement was made every seven days throughout the months of April and May, just as spring was coming into full bloom.  

On the fortieth day, all the phone and TV screens changed to a live feed from the White House lawn, in America.   The world’s press was busy setting up cameras. Leaders from all over the planet were gathered.  Our own Queen, along with all the royal crowned heads were there. The leaders of the world’s religions were distinct in their colourful finery, and most shocking were rulers of nations, which under normal circumstances would never be seen at the same gathering.

The Guardian 

A thundering sound was followed by the shocking sight of a gigantic liquid spaceship landing on the White House lawn.  A hatch opened with a cold metallic hissing sound.  The dignitaries parted as all eyes turned to look upon a terrifying sight.  Countless numbers of 7-foot-tall non-human creatures emerged. Human-like, but only just enough to be recognisable. These looked like monsters made from the discarded remains of all sorts of reptilian creatures.  Their appearance was softened, but not wholly disguised by the fact that they were clothed in what could be, either royal livery or more sinisterly military uniforms.  Each was carrying a long complicated metallic blue object, which ambiguously, could be a royal sceptre or a weapon. They were leading, what to everyone’s relief was a man, a very normal-looking man.  He was rather tall and slender, possibly of Scandinavian or Nordic ancestry.  He approached a microphone set up upon a dais.  His tall, mute entourage fanned out, shoulder-to-shoulder in an arc behind him, obscuring completely the world leaders.  Earth was looking on, holding its breath.

He spoke with a soft engaging voice, delivered in a clear and refined English accent.  Afterwards, others told me that he had an educated American accent or spoke in perfect fluent French.  It seems to me that each person heard him in the voice they instinctively most trusted.  Oddly, none of the recordings made of that announcement can be recovered, they were all blank.  Finally, he cleared his throat and addressed the waiting world…

“My children, it is a real joy to us to that humanity has at last come of age.  But you are like adolescents who have discovered the first strength of manhood, but not the maturity to wield it.  Think of me as your guardian, taking care that you do not destroy yourselves before you can walk on your own. Or, if you prefer, as a schoolteacher settling squabbles in the playground.

I represent the will of the Intergalactic High Council of Sentient Beings who in their beneficence wish to invite mankind to our table when you are ready. Until that time, you must submit to our custodianship.

3

Your leaders have therefore agreed to surrender their power and authority to me, for a while.  I have crossed the vast expanse of space over millions of years in peace and friendship to… 

But here, his soft voice and seductively reasonable words were abruptly interrupted by a break in the transmission.  A dishevelled looking old man appeared in what was obviously a makeshift studio.  He was half recognisable as the leading physicist who had been appointed by our government to meet with the interstellar delegation when first contact was made, but soon after had mysteriously disappeared.

 The unmasking

“He lies; they are not what they claim to be.  They have not travelled across space to bring benevolence. They have always walked among us.  They flatter with the notion that humanity has come of age or with an invitation to the high table of sentient beings, but they have appeared to subjugate humanity.  They impress with technology because it is in technology and science that we have placed our faith.  We have abandoned the God who made us and have surrendered to the demons who would enslave us.

History is littered with their malevolent presence bringing oppression and misery to mankind.  They are interdimensional beings; they occupied the shadows, the dark matter, they are the goblins and ghosts, the demigods and demons of ancient literature they are the Nephilim of the bible, the devils and the fallen angels of history reinvented as space beings. Subjugation is their plan; they seek to bring hell to earth and obliterate the Imago Dei and re-make man in their own image.

Ansat is nothing more than a demon masquerading as an Angel of light. He came to deceive and enslave humanity in chains of darkness and proclaim himself as God…..

But here the screen went blank, all screens went blank, all communication went blank, each of us was now alone, facing an uncertain future.

By Christopher Mathews ~ March 2020                                            ©  Copywrite of author

An Essex Tale

The Hooded Monk

By Christopher Mathews  

It’s not just me, other people have seen him too. A strange grey cloaked figure, translucent in brilliant sunshine and ghostly white by moonlight. People rarely see his face, which is almost always hooded, he looks through them, occupying the same space, but walking in another time. Reports go back hundreds of years recording these sightings. Being a scientist, I don’t hold with such nonsense. The inexplicable is often ascribed to magic or spirits, demons, or ghosts. Such explanations are the cheap stock in trade of lazy thinkers and the gullible. At least, that’s what I would have said until my own strange encounter.

Rayleigh is such an ordinary small town in Essex. But even the oldest among us know our town only through a brief sixty years or so of change. We only ever experience a fragment of time: the ‘now’ when our fleeting lives leave their small mark and are gone. We have very little sense of the great expanse of history, a history that goes back and back, beyond memory, beyond record, with only fragments left to us. The great Anglican martyrs, Thomas Causton and John Ardeley were burnt at the stake for their beliefs right here in our busy, ordinary High Street, right outside where Boots is now. Busy shoppers bustle past, oblivious of those momentous events. Some people claim you can still smell burning flesh on the anniversary of their martyrdom. What part had Holy Trinity Church, just yards away played in these great events, the truth is now lost in time. They say, “History is written by the winning side.” Perhaps the clergy stood looking on in self-righteous silence or holding the cloaks of those who stoked the blaze as the ignorant crowd gibbered and jeered at the spectacle. But towering over all is the great Rayleigh Mount itself. An unnatural mass dominating the summit of the town, like the bald head of some great giant asleep under the soil. It is said that ancient historic sites are saturated with the events of the past which seep into the earth, and on certain days percolates out through the pourers and fissures into the present. This must have been just such a day.

Most days I walk along the path that circles Rayleigh Mount. Its earthworks the only remnants of a Norman Motte and Bailey Castle. Long stripped of the timber structures that gave it power. Who knows what treasures of gold and silver lie conceals in its earthy depths, only seen by the badgers who burrow deep into the soil and back in time. They do not value such things. To me, it’s a peaceful refuge in a busy work schedule, half an hour spent in an island of nature, surrounded by a boiling sea of modernity. There’s always someone different to see; A group of small excitable children on a nature trail, herded like sheep by stressful teachers. An elderly couple with a picknick. Giggling teenagers taking the shortcut back to school, talking, not to each other but texting on their mobile. And once a nude sunbather. But this was winter, at dusk, just after the feeble sun had done its best to warm the earth. Everything was bathed in pale silvery moonlight. I had the whole place to myself, or so I thought.

At the base of the Mount, I saw a hooded figure on his knees in a posture of prayer. He seemed startled at my presence and on rising to his feet walked quickly and fitfully away, gripped by some awful fear, head darting from left to right as if terrified by unseen tormentors. What struck me was that the route he took did not exist, he did not follow the natural undulation of the ground or the well-worn gravel path but seemed to come by some unknown track through hedges and trees. His feet would sometimes shuffle through the soil as if wading through water, and other times as if walking three feet above the ground. I followed at a discrete distance. Climbing upwards he would occasionally stoop to go through some unseen doorway or stop to open a gate he alone could see. He appeared to be skirting around a wall that did not exist. It was as if his experience of the physical landscape was different from ours. This stirred some strange half remembered memory in me, and like a flash of insight I realised he was following the layout I had seen on a sketch of the castle. When he reached the summit of the Mount a ghastly, silent, anguished cry rang out from him. He was looking out over something I could not see. I came up the rough wooden steps quietly and cautiously when he turned and looked right into my face. A jolt the fear flooded me. He pointed a shaking finger and as if pleading said, ‘The whole town is ablaze; I see every hovel on fire with orange glowing embers. I, I see long lines of men carrying red torches in procession, leading prisoners away, and military columns ablaze with unnatural white lights approaching, marching in pairs. You! Have you come to torment me in this bleak region of Hades? Have I been cast into hell, has doomsday come at last? Or are you a guide sent from heaven above to rescue me…’ The rest was lost, he broke down in sobs and fell silent to his knees again lost in despair. At that moment it was if the thin membrane that separates the present from the past had been perforated. For a brief moment I gazed into his time, and he glimpsed into ours. Had he seen a vision of coming judgement or was it just the ribbon of car head and taillights leading up towards the town and the warm glow of house lights he described. For one brief moment I saw our world through his eyes.

Copyright Christopher Mathews