Between

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. That made sense, but here now, floating in space, he wasn't so sure it was as simple as that. It would seem obvious why you shouldn't be able to hear a scream because it should be impossible for anyone to scream. If you are floating in space without a suit, you will freeze immediately, which should happen, so it's not hearing the scream that is a problem but having time to scream. However, that has all changed now because, in the last short while, he screamed twice and once while floating up here in space.

The first scream came as he left his vehicle and floated up through the roof. It was an automatic reaction like when you dive into cold water, and he still wasn't sure if it was a scream, a yell, or a gasp, maybe all of those; it happened both quickly and slowly, which he was still trying to understand. It was hard to comprehend what had happened and what was still happening to him as he floated further out and away.

He went over the events again to try and understand and work it out. Driving along the highway at night, a light in the sky, no, all around him is a better description, and everything stops. Not stops as in the radio turns off and the lights and the engine stop like in movies, but stranger than that, just a complete stop of everything, no sound, no engine, no movement, nothing. Oddly, the sudden stop was not accompanied by a lurch forward which is how it should occur, just a complete stop.

Nothing at all for what seemed like, well, he wasn't sure, seconds, minutes, hours? Then slowly floating up and out of his seat, through the seat belt, not that it doesn’t exist or comes off, just through it. He tries to grip the wheel, and it just slips through his fingers, like it is there but not, and the same with the roof, not going through a gap in the roof, just like it's not there, simply passing through it. Then his body goes from a sitting position to straightening out into a standing position, except there is nothing to stand on. As he leaves the car, he makes a noise, maybe a scream. It was all a blur, his black Camry suddenly seen from above and transparent so that he could see inside.

Oddly, his view of the car, the road, and the world around him, is not normal. As he strains to look at the car with his feet dangling in the air, he becomes aware that he is seeing everything through an odd sort of square frame, and that frame moves wherever he looks; on either side of the frame, there are more frames, multiples all layered so that the first frames on either side of the main frame are visible. The subsequent frames are layered closer together, each one less visible; it is like looking at a film strip or a collection of photos fanned out on a table. Each frame is identical except for one crucial part, himself.

The frame just before the frame he is viewing has him inside of the car driving, the frames after the current frame also have him in the car, but the frame that seems stuck, this main one, is his car with nobody in it, just an empty car and everything is just stopped. No lights moving, no sense of motion at all. It's like this frame is a snapshot, and the frames before and after are a video, and he is in all the frames except this one, the one he is looking through in the middle.

He shifts his gaze, and the frame moves; wherever he looks, it's the same, lights of cars on the highway are frozen still in the main frame, but the earlier frames and the later ones all have the lights moving. Looking back at his car, which is getting ever smaller, it's still not moving, in this center frame at least, the apparent conclusion he decides is that somehow the world around him seems stuck on one particular frame, and he is the only thing moving in that frame. He looks down at his legs and feet; its the opposite; in this frame, the one that seems stuck, this view, there are his legs and feet just floating in the air, but in the earlier frames and the subsequent frames, no legs or feet, just the ground gently receding. I'm not in the car in this frame, but I am in the air, but in the previous frames and in the ones after, I am not in the air but in the car. That to him seemed like he was caught in what, some kind of vortex?

It struck him as odd that he has this time to reflect on what is happening, but that is because you can’t scream forever; at some point, danger just becomes normalized, or at least that is how it seems. It’s not precisely that, though, he decides; he looks around and tests his senses. It's like in a dream, but also not; it's too real and so should be terrifying, but somehow, it's not; it's like his senses are somewhat dull, as if you have been drinking too much and you feel off, dulled, hazy. But not exactly that either, he decides.

He is high now, very high, the car lights are dots, and receding maybe faster, he thinks. There is no noise at all, no wind, no sense of motion other than the fact that he can see the world getting smaller, further away. No sound is not correct, though; there is sound, he heard the scream, and he can grind his teeth, expel air make noise, and that is normal, but outside of his body, no sound at all.

All panic had subsided, at least for now; he is now surprisingly comfortable with the rise above the earth, as odd as that seemed to him. He is good with and fascinated by the fact that he can see the planet's curvature and see land masses blend into one giant tapestry.

The next wave of panic that hit was when he realized that he was leaving the planet, which, while gradual, is punctuated by that moment when space became the place he was actually in, and earth just floated below. Panic, that familiar feeling, started to rush in. Could he breathe air? How would he? Why wasn't he cold? All were questions that flooded his thoughts for a few moments, and then as before it subsided, a feeling of peace returned.

Space should be cold, and there should be no way to breathe; you should be frozen solid. But he felt just fine; he lifted his hands to see if there was some bubble or field around him that protected him, but nothing, just a constant temperature, and no difficulty breathing, at least after the panic subsided.

It is like a movie, he thought, or some interactive virtual video game where it feels natural, but it's not. This seems real; it's not like a dream or a virtual world; it's just too big, too real, and too precise.

He could now take in all of space, which was better than anything he had ever seen. Astronauts talk about how it is hard to describe or capture on camera. Years ago, he had got a glimpse of space during a trip to the mountains, it was a clear night, and the resort he was at had a power failure, so he and some friends were caught in a parking lot, and the skies opened for them. For years after, he tried to explain just how amazing the skies were. In our world that is polluted with light, we mostly see a black sky dotted with white stars, but that night the sky was primarily white, millions of stars all clustered across the night sky, and there were little patches of black interspersed among the stars, and this is what he saw now, just a vista of stars everywhere a white blanket all around him.

The earth was so blue and white, so bright, and with a glow around the edges that you don’t see on the moon, at least not that he had ever seen. He was also aware that he must at some point have increased speed because it doesn’t seem like he has been up here long, but it's hard to tell everything is confused; there is no sense of motion other than things getting smaller or larger.

He scanned all around, taking in the size of everything, and shifted his gaze to see the moon, and there it was, to the left of the moon, a ship just floating.

The frames still showed up in his vision, and so in this view, this main frame in the center, the ‘now frame’ contained a view of part of the moon, the stars, black expanse, and the floating ship, growing larger by the moment, in the frame before, and the frame after, the same view of the moon, but no ship.

How clever, he thought, no ship, then ship, and then no ship frame by frame. So, if someone is on a space station and looks out the window, there is no ship because the ship is only in the frozen frame. I am in the frozen frame the same as the ship, frozen on earth as I float from the car, and frozen here as I zoom towards the ship; very smart, that is how they do it.

The ship had no visible open port, no sliding door or bay, just a seamless white blueish hull. As he approached, one section became transparent just the way his car had, and through this transparent section, he floated, slowing now and then gently coming to a stop in a space inside, a room. He felt his feet connect, the transparency went opaque again, the stars vanished, and he realized that he had arrived.

No windows and no walls, or at least he couldn’t define a wall, just a white room with a very faint blue tinge, no furniture, no light fixtures but light all around, an even light that just filled the space, no doors, no sound, or hum of any kind, just silence. He shifted his feet; he heard the soft scraping on the surface; although it was muffled clearly, he could hear some things, but there was simply nothing to hear other than his movements.

Lots of questions, many reasons to be afraid but strangely, just a calm feeling, no fear or anxiety at all.

Obvious questions, what is he supposed to do? Wait. But wait for what, or who, what now?

'Hello,' he said quietly, mainly to see if he could hear his voice, to see if there was an echo, to make sure that he could still speak.

‘Hello," came the response, faster than he expected, with no time to even think about how his voice sounded.

‘Here I am.” That sounded like a weird thing to say, he decided, but it was the only thing that came to mind, the first thing.

‘Yes”.

A conversation had started with something not from his world; he decided to test that further. “You brought me here?”

“Yes”

The obvious question, the most practical question, would, of course, be why, but he was not sure that he wanted that answer right away, so he instead asked, “You do this often; people make this trip?”

“Yes, there are and have been others."

The voice is hard to pin down; he is not sure if he is hearing it or if it's in his head. It was like a good pair of earphones, where the music seems in the middle of your head rather than coming from outside. It's a female voice, maybe, but he can’t be sure; it's not like any voice he has heard before.

"We understand that you have concerns ."The voice said. "You are safe here; we are here to help."

“Help?’

“Yes.”

“With what, help what?”

"With everything, we can help best by working through people like you.”

He considers that and the implications. “Have you been here for a long time?”

“Yes.”

He waited, just silence; no further explanation was coming. "Okay, so how does it work? How is it possible for me to get here and not feel anything, to be able to breathe in space?”

"You are in a bubble, a bubble in time; it allows you to move through space in ways you cannot outside of the bubble; that is the best way to think about it. It's not completely accurate, but it best explains it.”

‘And the frames, that is how the world looks inside the bubble?”

"No, we do that so you can see how it works; humans are visual, and it's easier to understand if you see it that way." With that, the frames in his view disappeared, and his vision became normal again.

Apparently, they decided he didn't need them any longer, he thought. “That is the only way to get here; you can't simply have me fall asleep or just show up here?”

“Yes. We could.

“Really?’. He was irritated with that answer. “So, it's better to have someone go through that terrifying experience, perhaps have a heart attack? And again, I don't really understand why I can be floating in space and not freeze and why I can breathe normally?”

"Yes, it's better this way.” The answer comes with no apology or inflection, just stated matter-of-factly. ‘Where are you right now.?”

“Where am I?”

“Yes”

“Well,” He looks around. “I seem to be in some kind of space vehicle, I guess, floating above the earth.”

“How do you know that?”

“How? well, I traveled here, floated zoomed up.”

“Yes, you saw exactly how you got here and where we are, but suppose you simply woke up here, then would you believe you were here?”

“Maybe, yes…well, you could show me a window, perhaps.”

"You would believe that?

He pondered that question for a few moments; who hasn’t looked out the window at space in a theme park, on a ride, or in a movie theatre, he guessed that most people would not believe it, and maybe he wouldn't either. "No, likely not; humans are skeptical, aren't we, so yes, I understand, I think.”

"Yes, by design, your species is skeptical; that his how you got to this point by always putting safety first, to be skeptical and question everything; some of you still believe that your world is flat."

Good point there; he resisted saying that there weren’t many people who were flat earthers because there were a lot of people that were skeptical about everything else in the world, so he got what they were saying.

“To answer your other questions, you can breathe because you are not breathing, you don’t need to here, you can’t, it's not possible. In the same way, you can’t get cold. You see, the only way to use up air is you must use air for a period of time, and you have to be in a cold environment for a period of time; being cold is temperature plus the time you are in it, breathing is the amount of air and how long you are using it. In a bubble, there is no time. To put it in an even simpler way, the last breath you took in your vehicle will last you here, and the temperature you were at in the car is your temperature here.”

“But I feel like I am breathing.”

“Yes, your body will do that automatically, but it doesn’t need air.”

Fascinating, he thought about that for a moment, “for how long would it last forever?”

"That is a linear question; humans are linear in their thinking. It is better to say that inside this bubble is one state and outside is a different state; time doesn't factor.”

“Linear?”

“Yes, like many species, humans are linear; everything has an end and order. Time ends, land ends, oceans, the sky you can see, lives, stories, your movies, books, everything you know has an end, so everything you think of is, in terms of an eventual end, linear. But that is only for you.”

It made sense as they explained it. Do they not have the understanding of the end, he wondered? Are they saying they live forever?

“But to answer some of your other questions.” They continued. "Did you feel afraid or like you were going to have a heart attack?”

He slowly shook his head but realized he wasn't sure they could see him. "No, not really; I'm not sure why, in the beginning, I should have been more afraid.”

‘You were never in danger, and you knew that; you had two moments when you resisted and automatically reacted, once when we took control and started then process and then when you felt like you were leaving the safety of your planet. It is a normal reaction.”

“You knew how I was doing the whole time?”

“Yes”

“Why am I not afraid, even now?”

“It's the bubble; it's hard to be afraid inside the bubble.”

“Why?”

“It's because you know you are in a bubble.”

“Because of the frames, that is why you create those?”

"No, those help the understanding; it’s a visual clue. The bubble is something that all species understand at their core because things stop. You can’t be hurt in a bubble, so that is sensed; those moments in the beginning and leaving the planet are just reactions, like birth, an automatic response but faint. In a bubble, you can’t be hurt, so fear doesn't exist in the way it does out of the bubble; fear is just a way to protect the species. No danger means no fear. It's the same way birds know which way to fly and when and how fish can get back to the same river; it's inside them, automatic.”

“The frames show me back in the car, the later ones, so I assume I am back at some point?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand the bubble.”

“It is complex.”

He shifts around slightly and looks all around, but there is nothing new to see and hard to orientate given everything is one color and no hard edges. All these questions about how and why seem to be the only way to figure out if he is in danger, and this whole relaxed, unafraid feeling continues to wash over him.

“Yes, but I'm not sure it makes sense. I am not a scientist or an expert, but time isn’t slowed, is what you are saying just stopped? Time is stopped there, and we are outside of time. Except, that can’t be true because time is passing now in some form, isn’t it?”

“That is a good question and observation. The bubble is a way to explain it to a species that is used to thinking in a linear pattern. Here is another way to look at it. Let's say that it wasn't a bubble, and we simply picked you up out of the car, and it continued without you, then at some point it leaves the road, crashes, and people come to simply find an empty car, and that all happens while we are talking. Later though, at some point, we send you back to the car, just after the exact moment you left the car so that the accident never happens; what would be the difference, and what would the result be in both of those scenarios?”

He ran that notion around for a moment. “Yes, Well… I suppose there would be no difference; it would end similarly. I would be gone but then not gone.”

“Yes, neither explanation is exactly correct, but they both give you a sense of how it works so that you can understand it based on your world’s frames of reference.”

He nods as he wraps his mind around the concept. “Okay, I understand, I think.” He searches for what he wants to know next, most perhaps. “So how does the process work? People come here to help, and then they go back. Do they remember, will I?”.

“People that are selected and those that choose to stay, remember everything; that is how we can help them to help.”

“And the others go back and don’t remember?”

“Yes.”

“But the selected ones go back and talk about their experience?”

“No, none of them talk about it.”

“Then some of the people not selected remember, and they talk about it?”

“No.”

“But some must, somehow they remember pieces?’

“No, if they choose not to help or are not selected, then they were never here; we place them back just before the event; there is nothing for them to remember?”

“Then who is talking, all those people with out-of-body experiences and trips to places like this?”

“Those people were never here.”

He lets that sink in. “There are more like you?’

“No, we are the only ones here in your galaxy."

"I am confused; then how can all those stories be explained?"

“The bubble, how we create it, it leaves remnants, most cannot detect it, but a few, those that are not ready to be selected but are still more advanced, they can sense those remnants, and they read into it, project out and think that they know, that they have been here or seen, experienced something.”

“uh, I’m not sure.”

“Think about it this way, let’s say you look up and see an airplane; you can describe that airplane to others. But if you look up and instead see a smoke trail across the sky, you know that an airplane just passed, and you can make assumptions about what kind of airplane, how high it was, and how fast it may have been moving. But it was only in the first scenario that you actually saw an airplane.”

“The bubble, and what you do, leaves a kind of smoke trail?

“Yes.”

“Could you not stop those people from talking and sharing what they think they experienced.”

“Yes.”

Silence. He thought about that for a moment in the silence. "So, you simply choose not to?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Arriving here, this experience doesn't feel completely foreign to you; that is because, in a way, you have experienced it through film, books, culture, and all those reality shows. Sometimes it is easier to feel it's real, based on familiar experiences rather than discover it for the first time.”

That made sense; he thought back to his first visit to New York City and a feeling of Deja Vue, that feeling that he could not shake that he had been there before. Returning from the trip, he talked to many people who said the same thing, that you see the city in so many movies and TV shows growing up that by the time you get there, it all feels like you know the place, the people, the rhythm of the city.

“What about the photos and videos, all of those lights and ships, people didn’t imagine those?”

“Those are not ours; they are yours; they are your technology.”

"Oh, ours!" A thought occurred to him. "You helped with that?"

“Yes.”

“You said not everyone is selected, some people come here, and they are sent back; you also said they may not choose to stay?"

“Yes, it is a choice, and some people don’t fit the program.”

“What percent...?" he searched for words to fill in, choose, or elected, but as he was exploring, the answer came right back.

“89.24%”

“That is very precise.”

“Yes.”

“Why do people come and get rejected? Can't you choose people that will fit or are inclined?”

"People must make the trip, and once they are here, we can determine better if they will be a fit."

“This is all anyone sees, this room. Is there more that I get to see?”

With that, the wall to his right started to shimmer and fade, and slowly a window appeared, a large oval window, and through it, the earth in all its glory, over to the left, the moon and stars everywhere.

"This might help you," said the voice. "Sometimes it takes a while for people to prepare for this view; it's often best to feel the safety of being inside."

It did help, he decided; it helped feel connected and that he was somewhere real and comforting to know that he was still close to the earth and not zipping away. He walked closer to the window and reached out. Smooth, like glass but no temperature, just there, but somehow not there. He scanned the window; it was large and had a thick border around it, and that border had what looked like old-fashioned rivets every six inches or so. That puzzled him; it didn't seem right somehow. He ran his fingers over the raised bumps as he asked, “are these necessary?”

“No, it seems disconcerting to have a gap in the wall that just opens to space, so we create this to make things more normal for you."

He nodded, and then another thought occurred to him; he had said, are these necessary? He had not said what he meant. "You can see me.?"

“We are aware of and understand your movements.”

He knows that it is neither yes nor no; perhaps it's a linear question, likely beyond our understanding. “Will I get to see you?”

“Perhaps, but not now.”

“Why?”

“It’s a complicated process, two species from different galaxies, different environments, it takes time to prepare and manage. It became a much easier process to communicate once you had technology on earth that you could talk to and that could talk back to you. Just a voice in the air like this."

“Yes, I imagine it would be easier.” Acceptance of the familiar, he thought. "It's lucky, I guess, that we created those.”

“You believe that was a random happening?”

He is aware that this was one of the few times they asked a question and not simply answered; he assumed that is a significant progression. "You helped with that?

“Yes.”

He scanned the earth. "You gave us some technology, or you said that you helped us create it?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t or haven’t given us the bubble?”

“No.”

He traced the outline of the earth as he thought about that. "Because we can’t be trusted with that.?

“Not now.”

“In the future?”

“Perhaps”

Yes, we would likely mess that up thoroughly, he thought; we are not exactly good with what we have right now. He looks up at where the ceiling should be; although he quite can’t make out where things start and stop, it also makes no sense that they are up in that direction, but he directs his comments there anyway.

"Honestly, I am not sure how I can help. You must know that I am not a scientist, not a politician, and I don't have much desire to become one; I don't head up a large technology company or anything like that. Yes, I am a CEO but of only a midsize corporation, and it's a parking company, so unless you have a need to park spaceships somewhere, I am not sure how I can help?"

"People help in various ways; we select based on many needs."

"Okay, I still am not sure how I can make a difference, look at the size of it." He waves his hand in the direction of home, earth; he feels very small from this perspective; the notion of helping seems overwhelming, daunting.

“You can write.”

It's a statement, not a question; he gets that much but doesn't make sense. “I’m not sure that is true.”

"You like to write."

“Yes, but liking to write is very different from can write.”

“People tell you that you write well, and you like to write.”

“Some people, but not lots of people.”

"But you can write, and it's not hard to write what you know, what you have experienced.”

He nodded; yes, easy to write what I experienced, he thought, I could not make any of this up, and I don't have to in this case. "You are saying I could write about this, and you would be okay with it?’

“We can help.”

“Help? You mean help to determine how much I write and what I write?’

“Yes.”

“About this so far?”

“Yes, and anything else you help with.”

The idea is appealing, but it has all kinds of problems. "Even if I wrote something, I am not Stephen King; I am not a well-known author; you could get an author who has a following, I imagine?”

Silence just no response, which he assumes is no, for who knows what reason. "Nobody is going to get to read it; I wouldn't have a wide audience, I can’t get it published, I don't know how I am not sure it makes any sense."

"We can help; we know where it will be published, the right people will read it; we don't want the masses, we want the right people. “

There it was, he thought; that was how it would happen. He scanned the earth and picked out North America, focusing on roughly where he thought Washington was located. There is no landing on the white house lawn, no "take me to your leader" moment. Just a slow, very slow acceptance, a blending of technology and matching up of minds and hopefully values. In corporate terms, not a buyout, not an aggressive takeover, just a gentle merging of two entities that hopefully makes the surviving entity better for both groups.

"When I was lifted out of my car at that moment, the chances of me being a) the right fit for you and b) wanting to help was 89.24%?"

“Yes.”

"Through the process, I decide if I want to help, and you determine fit. Is it a long process?'

"That is the process, and no, it's not long."

“Do you know what my percentage chance is?”

“100%”

That answer comes back without a pause at all, he notes. That is the real difference between humans and these, well, these what? He couldn't decide, people, beings? That sounds too sci-fi to use that term. Any human would pause just slightly; you would hear it in their voice because the impact of 100% has implications, and the person would be evaluating how it lands, how to say it, to deliver the news. But this is a simple, quick, 100%, no apology, no excitement, just the fact. Its as if it has been anticipated as a question or perhaps that it has been answered many times before. How many times, hundreds, thousands, millions?

“100%, that seems certain. So, I have free will, and I can decide not to help and simply return, but you are saying that I won’t choose that?

“Yes.”

"How can you be so sure? I could simply say no thanks, and that is it?”

"You will not. It is complicated; we simply know."

"I don't have to give you an answer then; you somehow know?"

“It usually helps if you say it.”

“I see.” Clearly, they have done this many times before he thought. He ran his hand across the window while he thought about that fact. "Other than writing what I have experienced, there are other ways I can help?"

"Yes, there are several ways that you can help."

“So, I would help, and somehow that will make a difference?”

“Yes, we would help you to help. We will also help you so that you don’t have any illnesses and any issues we be cleared up.”

“Issues, I have issues? “

"Nothing serious, but we will ensure that there is nothing serious. You currently take medication for a thyroid. We will make sure that stays stable."

“Really, can you fix it, so I don't have to take a pill daily?"

“Yes, we could, but we won't."

"Why?' He hates taking that pill every day; he would give anything never to have to take a pill again.

"Your doctor would think it is odd that a thyroid heals itself somehow. But if you ever move cities or change doctors, then yes, we will fix that."

He lets that sink in and scans the planet in front of him; up here, it's not people; it's easy to not even think about the people; it's just water, land, clouds, and stars, far more stars than land or water, more stars than people he imagines. All the things he thought were important seem just so trivial up here and in this place.

He turns his back to the window and leans against the glass; it's good to feel a hard surface on his back; he feels grounded and lets it take his weight. He fills his cheeks with air and blows it out, the international gesture for OMG, what have I got myself into, and what am I going to do now?

There are so many questions that he has, who are they, where from, why do they care, who else has been up here, how long they have been here, the obvious questions that anyone should want to know quickly. However, none of those questions seem to make sense now, it is hard for him to understand what he is feeling, but none of it seems truly important; he can only think of one question that makes any sense at all, so he went with that.

“So, where and how do we start?’