It was irrational to feel he might never step back into this body again, but the emotion still gripped him beyond all rationality. He couldn’t control it.
Now he wanted her there to at least say good-bye.
His heart rate picked up again. He was starting to have another attack. If he was going to go, he had to go now.
He closed his browser tabs, saved the document he’d been working on (a paper theorizing that astral energy was the dark energy holding the universe together; he wasn’t sure of it because he couldn’t do the experiments himself, but he had hopes it would trigger someone else to look into it later—in order to prove him wrong, if nothing else,) and shut down his laptop.
After a few seconds, he closed the screen and pushed the laptop swing table away. He was panting now, despite the work of the O2 machine. No more time. He had to go.
His heart clenched.
I’m not done yet . I know this life, this earth. I’m used to it here; I’m not done!
He closed his eyes, focused on the distant sparks of light that appeared above him like stars—not real stars, but nexuses of energy—and released his awareness toward them. He separated from his body easily, like a balloon with a cut string.
For a moment he glanced back. The heart monitor was going ape shit and the nurses outside his room were getting up, tossing their pens onto their paperwork. Everything looked like it was moving in slow motion.
Just outside his doorway, Scarlett was watching him.
She’d come early.
He smiled and he watched as his body, twitching and shaking on the bed, smiled too. He looked back at Scarlett.
She wasn’t watching his body. She was watching him, the real Pax, floating up toward the ceiling, traveling to the astral plane. How could she do that? Even Terry didn’t know.
She waved a tiny, secret wave at him and ducked out of the doorway as the squad of nurses pounded through.
He waved back, suddenly more hopeful, though he wasn’t sure whether she saw him or not—wasn’t even sure what “waving back” meant in this context. Then he left earth behind.
Terkun’shuks’pai felt the boy travel through the empty space between the planes, the mana pacha . Reaching out for the boy’s astral energy, Terkun’shuks’pai pulled it toward him.
He was in his usual place, a pacha he’d created and modified across the eons. It was distant from the White City, the capital of the astral plane, and far removed from the politics and idiocy of that beautiful, but often impractical, place.
Earth was Terkun’shuks’pai’s obsession. It always had been and now…
Now it was much, much more important.
He looked over his pacha as he waited. His pacha was an imitation of something he’d found on Earth three hundred years before, as the boy counted such things. A valley next to a mountain, and in the center of it, a humble house made of thin wood and paper, built solely for the purpose of serving tea. On Earth, the valley was said to be haunted by suicides, but if any ghosts were in the pacha , they were of a different nature.
It was a peaceful spot, inviting reflection and vision: it heightened Terkun’shuks’pai’s awareness of both the impermanence of all things and the nearly infinite stretch of the astral time scale, which was longer than that of universes. It had trees and plants, birds and animals. Streams and hot springs were filled pools of still, steaming water that reflected the clouds, the leaves, almost the wind itself. It was as real as he could make it, which was very real indeed.
It even had biting mosquitoes. Without flaws, perfection could be oppressive.
Considering what he was asking the boy to do, it was fitting they meet at the place Terkun’shuks’pai valued most, to show they were both going to take risks, although he couldn’t expect the boy to understand the subtleties of the invitation.
Terkun’shuks’pai concentrated and was in the center of his pacha, in his tea house, kneeling on the
Now he wanted her there to at least say good-bye.
His heart rate picked up again. He was starting to have another attack. If he was going to go, he had to go now.
He closed his browser tabs, saved the document he’d been working on (a paper theorizing that astral energy was the dark energy holding the universe together; he wasn’t sure of it because he couldn’t do the experiments himself, but he had hopes it would trigger someone else to look into it later—in order to prove him wrong, if nothing else,) and shut down his laptop.
After a few seconds, he closed the screen and pushed the laptop swing table away. He was panting now, despite the work of the O2 machine. No more time. He had to go.
His heart clenched.
I’m not done yet . I know this life, this earth. I’m used to it here; I’m not done!
He closed his eyes, focused on the distant sparks of light that appeared above him like stars—not real stars, but nexuses of energy—and released his awareness toward them. He separated from his body easily, like a balloon with a cut string.
For a moment he glanced back. The heart monitor was going ape shit and the nurses outside his room were getting up, tossing their pens onto their paperwork. Everything looked like it was moving in slow motion.
Just outside his doorway, Scarlett was watching him.
She’d come early.
He smiled and he watched as his body, twitching and shaking on the bed, smiled too. He looked back at Scarlett.
She wasn’t watching his body. She was watching him, the real Pax, floating up toward the ceiling, traveling to the astral plane. How could she do that? Even Terry didn’t know.
She waved a tiny, secret wave at him and ducked out of the doorway as the squad of nurses pounded through.
He waved back, suddenly more hopeful, though he wasn’t sure whether she saw him or not—wasn’t even sure what “waving back” meant in this context. Then he left earth behind.
Terkun’shuks’pai felt the boy travel through the empty space between the planes, the mana pacha . Reaching out for the boy’s astral energy, Terkun’shuks’pai pulled it toward him.
He was in his usual place, a pacha he’d created and modified across the eons. It was distant from the White City, the capital of the astral plane, and far removed from the politics and idiocy of that beautiful, but often impractical, place.
Earth was Terkun’shuks’pai’s obsession. It always had been and now…
Now it was much, much more important.
He looked over his pacha as he waited. His pacha was an imitation of something he’d found on Earth three hundred years before, as the boy counted such things. A valley next to a mountain, and in the center of it, a humble house made of thin wood and paper, built solely for the purpose of serving tea. On Earth, the valley was said to be haunted by suicides, but if any ghosts were in the pacha , they were of a different nature.
It was a peaceful spot, inviting reflection and vision: it heightened Terkun’shuks’pai’s awareness of both the impermanence of all things and the nearly infinite stretch of the astral time scale, which was longer than that of universes. It had trees and plants, birds and animals. Streams and hot springs were filled pools of still, steaming water that reflected the clouds, the leaves, almost the wind itself. It was as real as he could make it, which was very real indeed.
It even had biting mosquitoes. Without flaws, perfection could be oppressive.
Considering what he was asking the boy to do, it was fitting they meet at the place Terkun’shuks’pai valued most, to show they were both going to take risks, although he couldn’t expect the boy to understand the subtleties of the invitation.
Terkun’shuks’pai concentrated and was in the center of his pacha, in his tea house, kneeling on the
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