The Awakened Time Traveller

“Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Tell me, you feel it.”

My body slowly disappeared from view, Hannah’s hand, holding mine, dissolved before my eyes. The long white down feathers of the dreamcatcher danced as the prism of light sped through its centre.

“Breathe, breathe, you’ll land soon. I’ll see you when you get back Danny. Trust it. You know it exists. Trust it, baby. See you soon Danny.”

Molecularly, my lover and my apartment dissolved into nothingness.

In slow motion, frame after frame, I fell backwards down a splintering stained glassed vortex; staring back at every particle of my body deconstructing in the hyperspace above me. Hannah’s voice was ever more muted. My mind was thrown back to falling in the deep end at the local outdoor pool during the summer of 1981. Parents’ frantic shouting became a muted drawling whisper.

Faster I fell, my arms no longer part of my physicality. I knew I was observing my descent through my soul and not my eyes. Hurtling now at warp speed, I wondered how my reconnection would feel. Hannah’s words were ringing in my mind, echoing ‘trust it Danny trust it.’ It was a moment we had dreamt of. We knew there was more, we knew we had something. It had all started with a dream. We knew it existed, we just knew it. We’d unlocked in three months of lockdown what the wisest and most intelligent people to grace this earth had chased for thousands of years. The fearless and blissful plain where life and death became one, where molecular resonation and order was governed by positive worldly actions and thoughts. A place whose conditions of entry were purity, love and empathy.

I knew where my re-entry point would be. I knew exactly what I’d be looking at. The heavy virgin snow-covered arches of the boulevard of aged trees lead to Chateau De Blanchfort in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southeastern France. It would be the next time I felt physical matter in and around myself, my subconscious mind reconstructing my new reality. Heavyweight snow making the branches bend and bow over the perfectly white carpeted road with its giant snowdrift walls. The stillness and clarity of the silence, the shards of cold air, the vapours of my hot breath stretching out in front of my face, every snowdrop with its own DNA and identity.

It had all the requirements of a classic dream travel portal. Our preparations had made me ask many questions. Soon I’d feel the coldness underfoot and all the answers would become clear. Merging with such purity and innocence was a reward for our persistence, our trust and our courage over the last few months. We’d debated long into the many nights of lockdown about what was pure. Virgin snow with no environmental pollution was the only thing I could think of.

“Hey baby, hey. Wake up. Are you ok? You’re having a nightmare, Danny.”

My eyes opened, the wide thin blades of the fan slowly turning above my head. The thin brass chain danced an irregular beat to the whirring clockwise fan.

“Hold the thought, hold the feeling, hold the sights and sounds. Hold them, feel them, touch them.” Hannah’s directions pleaded with me to transfer from dream state to waking as seamlessly as possible.

“What are you seeing? Tell me.” The nib of Hannah’s fountain pen scratched the well worn thick textured paper of her dream book. She’d picked it up with a huge amethyst conch like crystal from Glastonbury in England before lockdown. Her pilgrimage to The Tor and Challis Well fuelled her obsession with ‘unlocking the door’ as she described it.

“Cool. Tell me the final thing you remember.”

“The limp body in the trunk of the car had simply got out and walked. The old mechanic, wrinkled face, dark eyes, had warned me they would be back for revenge. There were bright orange sparks from his workshop. I could smell lavender, like really strong lavender.”

“Wow, you know it’s all ok? You do know they can’t hurt you? I love the lavender Danny.”

I laughed and swung my legs over the bed.

“Not yet, he can’t but what happens when I finally depart? I wonder if he’ll be on the other side?” My question hung in the air, today was the day.

The old oak floor felt alive under my feet. As every morning, a tall glass of green juice sat on the small round table that served to divide our open plan apartment. We’d been locked down together now for twenty months, the global pandemic had pushed us to literally exist as one entity. Neither of us had spoken to another adult during his time. We’d spent weeks deep-diving through hours and days of research into exactly what was going on in the world. Hannah was convinced it was definitely a spiritual war we were all involved in.

“Don’t forget your water first.”

We’d been purifying ourselves in preparation for our respective journeys. Out went the Oreos, the bacon and the bagels. In came a small organic box of vegetables we grew on our roof terrace. We purchased a water purification system to eliminate lead, fluoride and graphene oxide. I was finally convinced to embrace the large pot of Spirulina green powder that sat on the kitchen side. I’d actually grown to like it.

What was for sure, was that both of us, after suffering the mother of all colds, felt energetically invincible and strong as if a thick film of heat had galvanised our aura into a bulletproof shield.

“Colds and flu are essential for the body and soul to detox.” Hannah’s silver lining attitude was as infectious as her smile.

My daily ritual took me to the bathroom first. Standing, peeing into the toilet my mind focused on the old mechanics face. The deep contours of a stressful life had been etched into his brow. His huge, oil-stained hands had seen many years of hard graft. I examined the contents of my pee - clear was good. Clear meant I was totally hydrated, totally in tune. I knew I was optimally functioning as I was designed.

“Yes, babe.”

I sat at the table staring back at our giant bed. Hannah sat effortlessly cross-legged on the thick oat coloured duvet. She flicked through her dream book, her blonde hair draped neatly over her shoulder, her face beautifully youthful. She literally looked eighteen with no makeup on. Our age difference often provoked unsubtle stares from the dead eyes of the ‘shedders’ on our occasional forays into the outside world.

We’d met five years ago. I’d stopped to tie the laces of my new sneakers as they flapped around my foot. It'd been a sliding doors moment. The heavy hiss of breaks and air-locked doors opening made me look up from my shoe. Her eyes caught mine through the dirt-stained window of the Greyhound bus that had stopped to let people off. She was on her way to Philadelphia to see her brother. In the fifteen or so seconds our eyes had locked, we had been catapulted into a vacuum. The only thing that moved was my heart.

The bus’s heavy doors swung closed. Without prompting, she stood up, grabbed her bag and disappeared towards the front of the bus. I willed her to get off. I had no idea why, but we had to talk. Our eyes had laid the foundation of something to be explored. The front doors catapulted her onto the sidewalk. She walked towards me at pace, her long blonde hair bouncing in its tight ponytail, her tired pull along blue suitcase crashing against the kerb. Once again, our eyes locked, her smile erupted over her face. I stood to greet her.

“Hey Mr, did you feel that too? Did you feel that too? Tell me you felt it. Tell me I’ve missed my bus for the same feeling.”

“Yes, I felt it. Yes!”

I’d never hugged a stranger before, let alone kissed one. She let go of the suitcase handle and leapt towards me. I had no option other than to catch her. Her hands gripped the back of my head. Our lips met, cannons exploded in my head. After what felt like a lifetime, I let her down slowly. Her giant blue crystal Disney eyes were glazed with emotion. People had stopped all around us watching the fairytale begin.

“Hi, I’m Danny.” I held out my hand. She delicately, yet firmly, held it. Pulses of electric energy charged through our grip.

“Hi, I’m Hannah. Wanna grab a coffee or some water?” She pointed to the tiny organic vegan coffee house over my shoulder.

I picked up her heavy suitcase, her hand still in mine, gripping tightly. In time, she would tell me our first embrace was a melting hug, a coming together of ancient souls.

I closed what I thought would be my eyes. This would be the furthest I’d ever taken myself. This was it. My last deep dive meditation had given me the answers and the courage for this important journey. That was two weeks ago. I’d been watching my breath for over two hours. It was the point where no new thoughts arrived and the gateway to my intuition would be passed through. A journey into the frequency and vibrations of our parallel existence. My translucent meditation guide with a gentle and kind aura, beckoned me forward, always reassuring.

“Don’t be afraid. Remember fear is low vibration. This is what you are walking the earth for, this is your destiny.”

Two weeks later, here I was. As instructed, when my feet connected, I held out my arms wide to the side and counted. Seven would be long enough but I paused and silently pushed to ten to make sure. Cold air enveloped me, I felt a sense of relief and calm. It was exactly as planned.

I checked my solar flare watch, blood pressure 110/ 52, heart rate 61, energy 98%, time 02.31, date 18th November 1773. The full moon illuminated the boulevard of bending trees, the white glare reverberated and bounced off everything. I took my first step, a soft ‘carump’ followed by the next. I knew my job, I knew the way. I’d rehearsed this so many times in my meditations and on my walks. The luminous golden threads pulsed with light around my ankles.

“It’ll never get caught on anything, it’ll be with you every step of the way.” Hannah’s matter fact voice echoed in my head.

King Louis XV would have left for his birthplace of Versailles, his deteriorating health naturally summoning him to his place of birth. He would pass away in May next year. The subsequent course of events would change the world forever. Little did King Louis XV know, that two years to the day of his death in May 1776 the very thing I’d come to steal would end up in the wrong hands of Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Illuminati. The Illuminati was the secret group of wealthy men who believed that money would enhance their spiritual existence and bring them closer to God.

The events of 2021 had sped up their desperate search. The tentacles of the global elite had entwined in all aspects of our lives. The vast group of infinite wealth was attempting to find what I had come here for. Hannah had shown me that the many stories throughout history of the Holy Grail, King Arthur and the sword in the stone and even Dan Brown’s Divinci Code were all smoke screens. These famous myths and legends served to divert those would-be explorers who would inevitably chase life’s ultimate prize.

King Louis never took his prized possession with him, for fear of bandits along the way. It was one thing to lose a king, another to lose the sacred blood of Christ. Centuries of kings, queens, emperors, sovereigns, tsar and overlords had searched for a simple rectangular black bottle with its impregnable silver stopper. The legend was, he or she who is full of faith, purity and connected to the universe can open the seal. Once opened, those that consume the blood of Christ will set the world free of greed, famine, lust, sloth and conflict. A new bloodline would be created to connect the realms of the physical and spiritual together in a harmony of abundance and love.

The tiniest drop delivered everlasting life, health and universal ascendency. Every conflict known to man had been over the small black bottle. It was my job to change its destiny and that of mankind. I would deliver it to its rightful hand, but I had limited time.

I began counting my steps. Thirty-three and I would turn left, another thirty-three and the wooden door in the ground would be in front of me. The black bottle was kept in a crystal pyramid under constant guard. The king’s fiercest knights would protect it, all of them giants, giants wiped from our history books, giants whose decedents still protected the powerful elite.

Few knew of the secret tunnel. It would lead me directly under the crystal pyramid. I heaved at the giant tarnished brass ring handle on the floor. The weight of the snow added to my task. My breath created fine clouds of mist. This heavy door was the only reason I’d come instead of Hannah. Her disappointment had been clear as it dawned on us that the eighty-three kilos of weight of gathered door and snow would be too much for her. Looking behind, my footprints did little to protect me, it was now or never. The coo of a barn owl made me jump, it’s sudden take off above me scattering a drizzle of snow over my arms and shoulders. I had seventeen minutes to get back.

Several deep slippery steps down and I was inside the cool stone low tunnel. Using all my strength, I heaved the door back closed. Instantly, I was plunged into pitch darkness, my golden cords my only light. The tunnel made me bend uncomfortably forward. I contemplated whether to crawl. Its dull acoustics slowly added creeping claustrophobia throughout my body. ‘Breathe Danny, breathe’. I began counting my steps, 234 would see me to the end of the tunnel. The glow from my cord allowed me to see a few feet in front. I steadied my breathing and synchronised it with the number of steps, in for six, out for seven. Eighteen breaths and I would be there.

Fourteen breaths and I slammed into a cold damp wall. Panic immediately took hold. I caught my breath, my mind suddenly blind. I touched my solar flare. Blood pressure 152/98, heart rate 126, energy 62%. ‘Breathe Danny breathe’. I knew I’d counted correctly. Our preparations were perfect. During the dark winter of the second lockdown, we were allowed out only for our daily hour of exercise. I’d practised the whole thing. The X889 DNA surveillance drones over our heads couldn’t detect my internal meditation and obsessive counting.

My fingers touched the wall in front. Layers of cold slate-like stone were compressed tightly together. To the side, the stones were much larger. It was a new wall. I tapped my watch twice, the timer softly glowed 11 minutes 21 seconds. The wall looked immovable.

“Think, Danny, think.”

There must be a lever, there must be a way. Instinctively, I pushed my shoulder into the wall. Nothing. My hands scurried across the wall, the irregular bumps and layers making no sense. Then it occurred to me. Words and thoughts, not force, would open it. Energy, not effort. King Louis XV loved all things Voltaire whom he’d embraced as confidant before the recent seven-year war. I racked my brain, so many magnificent quotes flooded my mind.

Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. I repeated it again and again. Nothing moved.

Fuck. Another tap. 161/100, 134, 51%. Another tap. 8 minutes 33 seconds.

‘Think Danny.’ It came to me. ‘Of course’.

It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love. Again and again, I repeated the quote. The heavy grind of stone on stone moved on itself. I had no idea how much or what would be revealed but I kept going with Voltaire. A gap big enough to squeeze sideways though appeared. I took my chance. The energy shifted immediately inside the capsule. It was time to levitate. It was a skill that I’d developed in each of my meditations. Hannah would tell me, “We are just molecular beings vibrating at a particular frequency, anything is possible.”

My feet left the ground, catching my balance with my hands, slowly elevating up the inside of the tall vertical passage. It was all happening so quickly. Rubbing the palms of my hands on my jacket in anticipation of the imprint key on the roof, my legs steadied on the invisible vacuum pushing me up. Another tap, 6 minutes 12 seconds. I afforded myself a smile.

As soon as I made contact with the stone above my head, it would be my thoughts that became the ongoing reality. A reality where anything can be made to happen. It was a time for supreme clarity. Things would only fail if my thoughts created a negative outcome. I felt calm again. I paused to take three slow deep breaths.

‘Let's do this Danny’.

The cool stone under my palms shifted effortlessly. My weightless ascent through the large rectangular hole was slow and deliberate. The soft golden light from my ankles slowly illuminated the ancient chamber. The enormous door frame was at least four meters high. Artefacts and giant mosaics added splendour to this latter-day safety deposit box. Molecularly, I filled the room. I knew how to dissolve myself and more importantly, I knew how to dissolve and merge with other forms of matter.

This was it. Like anything rehearsed hundreds of times, it felt like it wasn’t actually happening. The enormity of my task was lost in the mundanity of repetition. The chamber was more vast and opulent than I’d anticipated. I had a brief flashback to the Sistine Chapel with Hannah. She was determined to shatter my reality by exposing the Vatican for what it was. None of this would have been possible without rewriting history. Re-learning my existence had been surprisingly liberating. It allowed me to understand my vast and limitless energetic potential. I checked my solar flare. 4 minutes and 12 seconds remaining. My heart rate pulsed at a steady 43 bpm. I pressed the preset exit date. Sunday 26th December 2021. It was time.

Hovering weightlessly over the crystal pyramid, the thick walls of the black bottle softly bounced with a multitude of cascading rainbows as the amber light from my ankles turned the darkness into light. I aligned my thoughts and emotions one final time. I started to spin. My visualisation of the glass pyramid lifting and the black bottle molecularly becoming part of my exit vortex consumed every atom of my soul. Faster, I turned. Once I’d reached 112 revolutions a minute my relocation would begin. I’d need to hold my position for thirty-three seconds. Everything was a symbol, everything a meaning.

My mind clutched the bottle to my chest. Its softened and worn edges pushed against my heart. Faster I turned, the golden threads now adding to the propulsion. My own personal tornado, gathering speed. A whirling dervish. A state of bliss consumed me, like nothing I’d ever known. Luminous green numerical digits crawled up and around the chamber. My DNA was deconstructing. I’d be locking into 112 rpm at any moment. A surge of energy pushed me on. Thirty-three seconds more and I’d be sitting in front of Hannah’s big smile. Her excited eyes would fill me with warmth and eternal love. I began counting down twenty- eight, twenty- seven, twenty- six.

The piercing slam of metal hinges being ripped open, like a shard of glass cutting through perfect skin, jolted my helter-skelter storm. I tried to block it out. I could hear heavy blades being dragged along the floor, deep earth-shattering guttural noises erupting throughout the ancient chamber. Flashes of hot molten steel like the blows of a blacksmith’s heavy anvil splintered and bounced. There was more shouting, controlled shouting, like chanting. They were chanting the familiar Hebrew Kabbalist chant of Malchut, Yesod, Hod, Netzac, in time with the heavy blows of their swords. Their rage and aggression erupted with every repetition of the sacred sequence of their mantra. Eleven, ten, nine, I was locked in. The only way to stop me was to evoke their Arc Angels and take down my exit. Still they chanted, Binah, Chochmah. Seven, six, five.

A piercing white light started to take over through the top of my skull. The pace of the luminous green DNA codes was now at warp speed. Splintering stain glass reappeared. Four, three, two, one. A high pitched tinnitus sound rocked my head, the heavy air bounced and reverberated, a magnetic suction like a large intake of a final breath. The distant sound of anger, anguish and pain of the giant protectors was muted and silent.

Slow-motion, white yellow mist fell and separated into solid matter. In an instant, the sweet smell of lavender took over every sense of my altered state.

“Slowly Danny, slowly. Take your time baby.”

And there she was, sitting in a circle of tea-cup candles, small cones of lavender incense burning all around. Tears the size of pearls rolled down her flawless cheeks, her bright blue eyes glazed, brighter than ever.

I took in the room. Everything was as it was before I left. As planned, I was sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor opposite Hannah.

“Show me, Danny, show me.” Hannah’s impatient excitement was obvious.

Both of my hands were still clasped tightly to my heart. My fingers slowly became aware of the worn edges of the rectangular bottle. In the light of the room, the intricate design on the silver stopper was mesmeric and its craftsmanship was beyond anything I’d ever seen.

Nervously, Hannah held out her tiny hands as if to cup rainwater. I placed the bottle gently in her fingers. She gazed back and forth between me and the bottle in her hand.

“We did it, Danny, we did it.”

“We just need to get it to her now.”

I tapped my solar flare. HR 47, Blood pressure 105/54, Energy 33%.

“I know you’re good Danny. It was never in doubt. This is why you exist, I knew you were special.”

The all too familiar sound of sirens broke our moment in two. Curfew had begun. The electricity would be cut off at any moment. I held out my hands and nodded. Hannah placed the bottle down between us and slipped her hands on top of mine. It was time to merge.