What the Soul Sees

Our family always wondered where Grandpa Joe had gotten the money to start the ranch, all those years ago. The story that he told us was that during the Great Depression, his family had been on the brink of losing their farm. He told us that he had taken on a few extra jobs, and eventually had enough money to grow crops on the farm, and to buy horses. I always thought there was more to the story. Today, the ranch has grown massively, and has become a very profitable family business. We grow wheat, barley, and canola. We have horses for lessons, with acres for riding. We also have a bed and breakfast.

When Grandpa Joe passed away, my mom came across a box of journals. There were many journals, of all different colours. No one even knew he journaled, but he must have been doing it for many years.

I picked up one, a small black notebook, and opened it to the first page. Any guilt I had about the prospect of reading my grandpa’s journal vanished when I read the words he had scrawled on the first page: “To my loving family. If I am gone now, please read my story”.

The 28th of January, 1930:

Today, Father took a job in a mill in town. He told us that he had to or we would lose the farm. Him working this job means that Theresa, Mother, and I are going to have to run what’s left of the farm. We only have three chickens left, and have had to move them into our farmhouse to keep them warm.

The 1st of March, 1930:

Father left early this morning again. I think it was about 3:30 am. He walked down the road to where the bus was picking up the workers for the mill. I heard him leave, and knew I had to get up soon to feed the chickens.

I was laying in my bed, staring at the ceiling, when I saw a bright light pass my window. I sat up and went to the window. Outside there was snow, but the sky was dark and cloudy. I didn’t see any source of bright light.

I went back into bed, but was unable to fall asleep. When the clock showed that it was 4:00 am, I got out of bed and pulled my wool sweater over my long underwear, and put on my knit pants. I lit a candle and walked to the kitchen to boil some water.

I realized we had no water in the house, so I took a bucket and went outside to the well. I pulled the pin and water slowly came out the spigot. As I was doing this, I heard a noise from the barn. Initially, I thought that it was just our horse Daisy. Then I remembered that Father had recently sold Daisy in order to be able to buy some medicine for Mother, when she was sick.

I blew out my candle and crept towards the barn. As I approached, I saw a light was shining from the cracks in the wood. I threw open the door, and saw a beautiful woman sitting there. She had long hair, and, to my shock, I realized it was her hair that was emitting the light. The rest of her skin almost glowed.

“Hello, Miss,” I said questioningly. “Can I help you?”

The voice I heard back, was high-pitched, but melodic. “My spaceship has crashed. I need help with repairing it.”

“Spaceship? Do you mean your car?” I asked.

“Car. I do not know what a car is. I want to get home.”

“Miss, where is home?” I inquired.

In response, she just walked to look out the barn and tilted her head up at the sky. Her eyes had a blank look. The clouds slowly moved and exposed the moon. “There,” she said pointing.

She told me she came from the moon. I thought about how incredulous that sounded, but as I looked at her illuminated hair and glowing skin, I realized I believed her.

The 6th of March, 1930:

The past few days have been quite busy. I decided to keep the woman in the barn a secret from Father, Mother, and Theresa, I wasn’t sure how they would react to this space creature. I didn’t want them to be scared, and I also didn’t want them to call the authorities.

When I asked her name, she told me to call her Margaret. I didn’t think this sounded like a space name, but decided not to tell her.

If I had any doubts whether she was from space, they vanished when she showed me where her spaceship had crash. From what I had read in literature, spaceships were supposed to be flying disks, but this spaceship was more like an airplane. However, this “airplane” had no windows. It had a metallic body that also seemed to glow like Margaret’s hair.

“How do you see where you are going when there are no windows?” I asked.

“My kind is different than you. We don’t see with our eyes, we see with our souls.”

Having left grade school after the eighth grade I missed out on biological science classes, but I wasn’t even sure what a soul was.

She continued, “Our souls direct us to see what is needed. There is an important distinction for us between needs and wants.”

“Alright,” I said, “but your spaceship crashed. Why was that needed?”

Margaret just turned her head to me. “I don’t know yet. Must fix the spaceship, so it can be ready for when it needs to leave.”

This engine was not like the one I had seen in Father’s car. Like her hair and the spaceship itself, it also seemed to be glowing. Radiating some sort of energy. Although it had a fainter glow. The problem seemed to be coming from where a portion of the engine, likely the fuel tank, had fallen off the housing. I guessed that the vibration of the engine as it was flying had loosened the nuts and bolts that were holding the tank in place. This housing was was leaking a liquid, which I guessed to be fuel.

Margaret must have read my mind, “I have more fuel stored in the cargo, more than enough to get me to where I need to go next.”

“Alright,” I said. “First, we need to find the missing piece, and then we need to figure out a way for the nuts and bolts not to fall off again when the engine is in use.”

The 10th of March, 1930:

We had an awful cold snap over the past few days, so I wasn’t able to help Margaret search for the missing piece to the engine, until yesterday. I was out chopping fire wood, and stocking up on water from our neighbours well down the way, because our well had frozen.

Apparently Margaret’s spaceship kept her warm, because she turned down my offers to hide in the farmhouse.

Finally after three days of frigid temperatures, I was able to head out last night to help Margaret with the search. After examining the positioning of the spaceship, I was concerned that maybe the piece had fallen off miles away, and that we would never be able to find it. The spaceship was in a cluster of trees in a wooded area behind our house. No one would be able to see it, unless they walked into the trees. What was a miracle, was that the spaceship hadn’t taken out any of the trees. It was almost like it dropped vertically right into the centre.

I sat down on a stump to think about how we were going to find the piece, when I saw something glistening in snow under the spaceship. I crouched down and shimmied the left half of my body under the spaceship to reach it. When I pulled my hand back, I was staring at the missing fuel tank!

Margaret and I ran to the engine. It was accessible from inside the spaceship, under a metallic hatch. We examined the tank for any damage. Fortunately, it looked to be in good condition. I fitted the tank into the engine housing. Margaret handed me several nuts and bolts. These were different than any nuts and bolts I had ever seen. The nuts had tiny holes drilled into them, and the bolts had both threaded and notched sections. Once the bolts were in the housing, I added the nuts and tightened them with my fingers. Margaret then handed me a tool that seem to be connected to a compressed air supply. To my surprise the tool fit perfectly around each nut. I pulled on the little trigger and it made a loud noise, tightening each nut onto the bolt.

“There,” I exclaimed, “all done!”

Margaret looked at me, indicating the nuts and bolts, “What if those two pieces become disconnected again?”

I pondered this, as I looked around the spaceship, taking it in for the first time. There was suits and helmets in the corner. On the other side was a seat, which I supposed was the pilot’s seat. Although, it seemed odd, because the pilot would not be able to see outside. Along the wall was a work bench. I stood up to examine it further, and my eyes fell on several long strands of metallic wire, then on a tool resembling a pair of pliers. I suddenly had an idea!

I took several of the wires and twisted them together with the plier-like tool. I then fed the wire through tiny holes in the tops of the nuts, continuing to twist the wire as I went. From threading the nuts onto the bolts, I knew that they loosened when twisted counterclockwise. For each nut, I then tightened the wires to the right, and tied them to a nearby handle. I thought the handle was part of the design to lift the engine out.

“There you go!” I exclaimed. “It won’t be possible for the nuts to loosen now.”

Margaret poured the fuel into the engine, and then went to the pilot’s seat. She pushed something on the dash and the engined roared to life. The dash illuminated, and she reached out and touched a button that was labelled “Home”. A timer, on the dash, started counting down from two minutes.

“Thank you for your help!” Margaret smiled at me for the first time. I didn’t know space people smiled. She pushed another button, and a compartment in the dash opened. She reached into it, and withdrew something. She then turned and handed it to me.

I looked down in shock. They were dollar bills! It was a thick pile of bills too. I counted as quickly as I could. “This is $20,000! I cannot accept this.”

“It is a gift, to say thank you. It is legitimate, this currency will be accepted by your institutions.”

“But where did it come from?” I inquired.

“Like I said, I don’t see with my eyes. I see with my soul, and my soul only shows me what is needed. I see your family and you need help. Your world is in a terrible state.”

The timer was counting down, there was only ten seconds remaining.

“You must leave now,” Margaret said shoving me out of the spaceship.

“But wait,” I cried from outside in the snow, “if you can see what is needed, why couldn’t you figure out how to fix the engine yourself?”

Another smile as the door closed. “That wasn’t what I needed to see.”

And like that, the spaceship shot straight up into the night. I watched it, expecting it to head to the moon, to take her home. However, it shot out away from the moon, out into the dark universe, to wherever she was needed next.