Dawn. 40 and raining. Eno’s Music for Films is on the surround system, the cat water fountain is burbling like a wounded cockroach.
Now I have forgotten what we were discussing. I’m going to start the conversation, here, you can join in at anytime. I know it will take a while for your comms to wake up. That’s normal. I’ve seen it take as long as 120 years and as little as 120 minutes.*
{queue.harold budd and brian eno.a stream with bright fish}
That’s what we’ll call our communication wins, a bright fish. When one of our *human* souls acknowledges the tap. Like I was doing a few chapters ago. If you listen, you will hear influences for your attention all around. The trick is turning off the ones generated by digital media. Social and digital media were an invention of the forces that abide in the blackness. They also created Napster (the original attempt to kill musicians) and you guessed it, the DMCA, Digital Millennium Copyright Act. PURE THEFT. All Satan. Oops, I wasn’t going to mention any of them, top or bottom, let’s just call it the dark side.
{queue.thomas newman.american beauty (original motion picture score)}
The unreachable beautiful woman has entered the room. Mira Sorvino is floating in a bath tube of rose petals on the massive TV screen playing pandora in the rising light of the day. Women. I’m going to pause that runaway thread and come back to love and humans later. Oh, and by the way, if you were wondering, I’m in one of my fully-human phases right now, as I’m writing this.
I need to provide context for that last statement.
- human phase (where you are, and where I am writing this now)
- light phase – ghosts, spirits, sprites
- hybrid phase – part angel and part human (see: Wings of Desire by Wem Winders)
- arc angels
- the dark lord
- allah
That reminds me, I need to provide context for this moment in my human timeline. Spookily soon after I finished that chapter about “singing backup” I got a phone call from an unknown number, “no caller ID.” Nope. A few minutes later another, same cloaking. An email popped up. It was a recruiter, “With good news.”
Tomorrow I have a game-changing interview with a financial company. I am transforming and evoloving on purpose. Adapting. When the physical world drops a grand piano on me, I have learned over many “human” years to recover more and more quickly. Now, I don’t think I recover to full strength, but the loss each collapse is less than 1%. (I’ve been told. By an AI GPT-wrapper doc on a screen. That’s our free universal health care these days. There is NONE. It’s all telemedicine unless you are in Equipe. The uber-wealthy have begun separating from the rest of humanity physically now. The spiritual and moral separation happened generations ago with their human grand and great grand parents.
A bit more about cats.
There is so much to tell you, it’s hard to choose a starting point. I can’t ignore the cat curling up at my feet here in my time*space.**
Cats play a very important role in your conversion… wait, understanding. [Sorry, that was a major fuck up. You’re my first human contact, I’m a very young hybrid. Please don’t freak out! You are not dead. I had a slip.]
Cats are important. For John, me, the human-now author of this book, chapter, “shared moment between us” cats played a pivitol role in helping me break through the fourth wall of human comprehension. See, you actually know it. Your equipment is receiving the messages. Over time, as you have been trained to act like a grown up, then responsible student, then adult, the parent… Fuck, it’s a lot. Things seem to accelerate as you get older. The feeling of running out of time.
You will understand, as we continue talking together, here in this book, there is no hurry. Time, while it seems so supremely important to you now as a human, and in varying degress for other humans, is flexible. Time is warped, curved, looped, a known constant. [human mind glitch in 3, 2, 1…]
Now that you’re back (you passed out back there) I will go slower. I apologize. Adrian will now be assisting me as an observer only. Let me try to break this into pieces.
Time is flexible.
While you are reading my words, it’s like a prayer to the heavens. I, whatever I am in the ONE, comes to enjoy your human reading and hopefully comprehension. When you read these words, I am here.
Not like Jesus or anything. We’re not really supposed to talk about him at all. When you read an author’s words the spiritual network sends little pings of light. If the writer is available and has the heavenly bandwidth, they may hover a bit.
[Aside: you’ve seen Wings of Desire, right? The Wem Wenders movie? It might explain a lot if you’d go watch that and come back.]
Wings of Desire came out about the time my sister began thriving in New York City as an artist. We were sharing our inspirations almost daily. “It’s so amazing here! You must come visit in the Spring when Central Park blooms.”
And just like that, my human heart feels the presence of my favorite sister. My personal jesus, little ‘j’.
{queue.steve roach.empetus (deluxe).the memory}
A ping from Sidney. ^^ I kid you not. This is what I’m trying to explain. When I begin writing about her… if she’s not busy, wherever or whatever level/form she is, she might come be with you. My sister comes to be with me all the time. I am sad that I am just now learning to recognize what we call a ping.
A song called “The Memory” is a clear ping from my sister, Sidney. Saint Sidney? Mother Sidney? The human me has no idea what state my favorite sister is in, but she will appear reliably when invoked in word or prayer. She likes to watch me write.
Back to us, you and me. I am slightly addicted to nostalgia. Most of us up here are. We tend to hover and observe rather than do our cheribly duty. Today, I’m supposed to be watching for fatal car wrecks in Brooklyn. I’m the angel of intoxication. No pain after I arrive. The pings go off all the time, I can’t make all of them. I do my best. I fail sometimes and fall into the opposite of nostalgia.
Regret.
That’s the part of life you want to avoid while you are human. Up here, it matters less to everyone else. You still feel things, but it’s different. It’s not in your body, it’s more of a sorrow that comes from within, a cold, a chill, a descending level of energy for motion or even communicating. I can go so dark even Peter Lake can’t find me.
Sure, cats are here. I forgot to tell you.
Cats become their own level of deity when they die. Peter… He has been here beside me even more after he died in a tragic accident at 18. He has never left his boy. I don’t always feel or recognize his pings. Pet pings are very soft. And you only get one pet connection per species. Makes me slightly sad, that point. One cat. One dog.
The good news, that one and done does not apply to your loved ones. …er… Well, your immediate loved ones. Blood relatives are always and forever within your network. With lovers, either sex, you only get ONE primary. It’s hard. You’ve got to pick your own sustaining angel from your past lovers or family members. (blood relatives only on the family side)
[I’m sorry, I’ve been struck with some regret. I’m going to have to continue in a bit. Please do come back.]
{queue.foreshadowed.harold budd and brian eno}
Remind me, we need to talk about “angels vs ghosts” next. Until then…
*old MTV reference: 120 Minutes was an indie new rock video segment
time*space – refers to your current human timeline, vs a different time*space. You will come to know that time is not linear. I’m going to show you. Then teach you how to surf time like a wave on a perfect morning off Oahu.
ping – smallest transfer of energy or communication between two beings, says, “hey, are you up?” – not unlike the bootie call for humans, but a spiritual bootie call. That was 100% Sidney, with that line. I was going to call it a buddha call. Hypercall. Better to just call it a ping.
return to index | this is a chapter of a novel** in progress:
2025 – 2026 JOHN MCELHENNEY | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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