Star Struck
© Tim Barker (1999)
The stars were bright that night but it didn’t make them any easier to grasp. Tom sat on the embankment with his arms outstretched, clasping impossibly at distant suns and planets. Failing to capture the apparitions he decided to photograph them, proceeding to frame several within a dual index finger and thumb combination. By winking Tom hoped to imbue an imprint of the spiritual, as well as material, qualities of the subject matter. Navigating the hemisphere and randomly selecting vaguely rectangular exemplars he would retain snapshots of the night skies which could be extrapolated to form a complete blueprint of the Heavenly bodies at the dawn of the Third Millennium. Who knows, maybe he would witness a descending shooting star as it pierced Earth’s atmosphere bringing the Messianic messenger on a collision with Time itself and subsequently screwing up the artificial A.D., B.C., A.C. ? Just when they’d mostly reconfigured the computers’ dates. The programmers would go mad, Christ would be landed with a huge maintenance bill but that would be the last of his worries.
“Tom ! Come get some more of this White Lightning before we drink it all !”
It was his woman, Elaine, shouting. Nice girl, if a little stupid. But they all were weren’t they ? Come to think of it though, he knew a few canny lasses who’d put some of his mates to shame, especially those on the Estates pushing the pills and shit. He toked on his butt end then threw it into the night sky watching the orange tracer shot signify a direct hit.
“Oi ! You wanker ! Do you want some of this cider or what ?” Elaine shouted.
“Yeah, I do !” It was the only ‘I do’ she’d get out of him. “I can’t be sober when we enter the next millennium. We have a duty to be arse-holed !”
They spent the next hour or so drinking and smoking. Elaine had scored an ounce of bush and they’d necked the pills much, much earlier. It was 11:57 by Tom’s atomically-synchronised wristwatch and they were giggling nicely. Tom was just thrusting his hand down Elaine’s top when there was a blinding white flash accompanied by a deafening explosion. Tom was jettisoned an unknown distance through the air and, lucky for him, landed on something soft. He couldn’t see a thing though. Realising that he must have been temporarily blinded by the bright light he remained calm and instead wondered if Elaine had been harmed.
“Elaine ? ELAINE ?” Tom called out but to no avail, there was no reply.
“Shit.” He muttered to himself.
Flailing around in his temporary state of darkness Tom put out his arms in order to stand up but was surprised at the consistency and texture which his hands encountered. The ground felt extremely smooth yet sticky at the same time. It certainly didn’t feel like the gravel or scrub in the disused railway line. He panicked.
“Hello ! Anybody ? Help ! I need help !”
There was absolutely no reply, in fact there was an eerie utter lack of noise. Although still concerned about Elaine’s safety it no longer remained his highest priority. He badly needed his sight back to ascertain his situation. Then someone spoke. Without speaking.
Hello. We are one. You are one. We have travelled to your dimension to communicate on a matter of urgency. Please remain calm.
Tom’s mind was reeling. Had he lost the plot ? No, he couldn’t have done, there never was one !
That’s good, retain your sense of humour.
“What the fuck have you done with my girlfriend you Bastards ?”
Elaine is safe, do not worry. We are concerned with you. No harm will come to your girlfriend.
Shit, Tom thought, she gets off Scot free and I’m subjected to this mental torture.
Please don’t look at it like that. We are here to help your race. You have attained a psychopharmacological pinnacle enabling us to contact your mind directly. We can supply you with techno-spiritual blueprints and associated Guardian moral frameworks which will relegate your race’s pitiful grievances to the annals of history. Armed with this knowledge your species will enter a new dimension in its evolutionary development. You will begin to appreciate the unseen and previously unattainable. These new insights will usher in a New Age of peace and solidarity releasing Humankind to explore New Territories.
“Are you serious ? You think that hippy shit will change us ? We’re all basically out to get what we can. Whoever you are...just, just wake up ! We may have ousted the Yuppies and Tories but we all learned from the sixties, they just believed their pipe dreams and got nowhere. We may be the Chemical Generation but we work too. I mean, our heads may be in the clouds but our feet are firmly on the ground !”
You will make a good spokesperson. Your generation have already commenced on the road to metamorphosis. You may not realise it but your collective state of mind is more in tune with the other inter-dimensional inhabitants. As we said, you have reached the summit of human mental abilities. Now it is time for you to take the next step and with our help expand you consciousness.
“I like my consciousness expanding when I feel like it. If I wanted permanent damage then I’d drill a hole in my head, trepan ! Just get the fuck out of my head and send me back to my girlfriend so I can see in the New Millennium the way I like it!”
We’re sorry, you have no choice. You, as an individual, have been selected as a conduit. Ultimately, all Existence is at stake. You must realise the importance of the Enlightenment of your race, an importance which so obviously supplants any egocentric concerns of your own. Prepare to receive.
Tom subsequently experienced complete darkness, a tingling sensation throughout his body, a multitude of intense feelings. Tom touched the hand of God, bowed before Mohammed, lay down with Buddha, rejoiced at the feet of Allah and walked with Shiva in the gardens of Babylon. A hundred prophets, Bodhisattvas and deities came to pay their respects, leaving a million different remnants of their visit ranging from petals to perfumes, from notions to nuances, from expressions to expectations. Who wouldn’t be affected ?
Tom regained consciousness to find Elaine desperately slapping his face in an attempt to rouse him.
“Tom ! Tom ! Come on Tom, don’t go now. Tom !”
“It’s OK E.” He muttered. “I’m OK.”
“Oh Tom, I was so worried, I thought I’d lost you !” She thrust her arms around him and embraced him with a bear hug.
“Steady on girl ! You’re going to suffocate me !”
Elaine eased off a little.
“I was afraid I’d lost you baby ! It’d all be my fault. Never again ! Too far, too far !”
“Yeah, it was pretty far. Listen babe, I have to tell everyone. I played host to inter-dimensional beings while I was out. I know how to bring about world peace and take Humans onto the next step of the evolutionary ladder. I need to start telling everybody straight away. I know so much, listen...”
Tom proceeded to recount his experiences but Elaine wasn’t convinced. She decided to take him to Accident and Emergency at the infirmary in the hope that they could calm him down and bring him back to reality. On the way to the hospital Tom was ranting and raving about various hair-brained schemes and gadgets which Elaine put down to his delusive state brought on by the narcotics concoction. Elaine just gently guided him to A and E, he didn’t take much persuading as he seemed quite oblivious to his surroundings.
Once in the building Tom seemed to suddenly realise where he was and began shouting at the patients for being “slaves”, “warmongers” and “robots”. It didn’t take long for him to attract the unwanted attention of the security guards who promptly pinned him down as the duty doctor administered a high dosage of chlorpromazine much to Tom’s horror. Tom was taken to a nearby secure psychiatric ward and locked in a small white room with no windows, a bed, integral lighting and an air-conditioning vent.
It would be months before Tom was released upon the community at large in which time he had been reconditioned by a combination of major drugs and intense therapy. In effect his pivotal encounter with distant beings had been erased from his memory like a cured cancer. At night Tom would aimlessly amble around town dosed up on anti-psychotics, periodically looking up towards the night sky. And as he stared into the darkness something hidden deep in his psyche told him that light years away there was still a faint glimmer of hope.