Illusions II: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student (Kindle Single) Read Free Page B

the grass whisking on the wheels…”
       “Is there any chance you thought the crash was too violent for you to see? Do you think that you might have created an image that never happened, for you to remember?”
       Maybe. It’s never happened before, I thought.
       He took a little book from his shirt pocket, opened it. He looked at me, not at the page, and told me what the words said : “Nobody comes to Earth to dodge problems. We come here to take ‘em on.”
       I hope not me, I thought. I’ll dodge this problem, please. “I have to take my memories for true.  Not an image, this is my memory! I was one inch from…” l blinked. “Your Messiah’s Handbook! It’s still with you? ”
       “You’ve promised to believe what you remember, even when it isn’t true? This is not the Handbook. It’s…” he closed the book, read the title: “… Lesser Maxims and Short Silences.”
       “Lesser Maxims? Not as powerful as the Handbook ?”
       He handed the little book to me,
    Why you and why now? Because you asked it to be this way.
    This disaster is the chance you prayed for, your wish come true.
       I prayed for this?  Nearly dying? I don’t remember praying for an airplane crash. Why was this event the one I prayed for?  Why me?
       Because it was right on the edge of impossible, that’s why. Because it would require absolute determination, day after week, month after month, and then it could have a host of difficulties. I needed to know whether my beliefs would overcome every one of the problems.
       The doctors were required to talk about what could happen, how my life would never be the same again. I’d be required to smother every one of their beliefs with my own, beliefs I called true.
       They could call on all of the knowledge of material Western medicine, I could call on what I thought was spirit, hold to it even though it didn’t appear to my senses.
       I am a perfect expression of perfect Love, here and now.
       That mattered to me more than living in this world, this body. I didn’t know that, before.
       I shook my head, turned the page.
       *** 
       Unsuccessful Animal Inventions: 
         Wolves on Stilts. 
       ***
         “ Wolves on Stilts? How does that affect my life, Don?”
       “It’s a Lesser Maxim. It may not affect your life at all.”
         “Oh. Who wrote this odd book? You keep it in your pocket.”
       “You.”
       “M.”
       “You don’t believe me, do you?”
       “N.”
       “Turn to the last page.”
       I did. I had written an introduction, my caring for the sheep of ideas never printed, signed my name to it.
       “ Wolves on stilts?”
       “You’re kind,” he said. “How many sheep would love to see the wolves practicing?”
       I smiled. “Some. Never published? I forget.”
       “Maybe you’ll change about forgotten memories, maybe you won’t.”
       “I want to remember what happened to me and Puff, Don, not what my mind put in its place!”
       “Interesting,” he said. “Do you want to see it again, the landing as it happened in the belief you prayed for, not as you remember?”
       “Yes!”
       “Will you know that whatever appears to you, it isn’t real?”
       “ I am a perfect expression of perfect Love.”
       He smiled, nodded, one time.
   and all at once, morning gone, I was aloft in a clear bright afternoon. I didn’t dream it, I was flying again, Puff turning toward the farm field. I was thinking nothing but the landing. Wheels are down, flaps are down. I was a quarter-mile from the land, didn’t need to see the instrument panel.
   The canopy was open, I could hear the airspeed. It sounded a little fast, I moved the throttle down, a few engine revolutions.  A little high, want a nice smooth landing on the grass, what a beautiful day it is, we’re living a painting, aren’t we, Puff?
   She didn’t answer. She just listened, told me