1
She had crossed two million light years to see him. She was only eight years old when she first heard about him from her older brother, the adventurous young surfer who liked to travel to distant worlds to find perfect waves. She listened with delight to his stories from the beautiful water planet, which orbited a small star located about two thirds of the way out along one of the spiral arms of their neighbouring galaxy.
She loved hearing about the friends her brother made. She especially loved hearing about Flynn, the dog, over and over. She also repeatedly asked her brother,
‘Tell me about Adam again. Speak to me of his personality. Was he strong? Was he courageous?’
Her brother’s inspiring tales completely enchanted her and she began to dream about visiting the water planet herself. He said that it was as beautiful a planet as he had ever visited. She knew, though, that the planet was still young, like a child, and was therefore still at an early stage of its maturation. Consequently, it was categorised as a stealth planet, meaning that a visit required strict protocols. Deep within her she could feel her young spirit rebel against all protocols. She felt that they were restricting her freedom. But her teacher was wise and patient. He was fully aware of the independent nature of the young spirit within her and he knew how to teach it restraint without dimming it in the process. She was nineteen, nubile, fully trained and travelling on her first, solo, intergalactic voyage. She had come to the water planet and she had come to see Adam.
Everything changed about five years before. Firstly, she was told of the coming catastrophe involving the beautiful water planet. Then something else happened, something that surprised not only her, but her brother as well. Up to then, Adam was a pleasant memory from an exciting visit to another world. He was also one of only a handful of Earth humans who were, at that time, on a short list for relocation. Then suddenly, one day, he emerged in the mind plane, the plane of telepathic communication.
She knew from her earliest teachings that telepathy was a mind activity, not a brain activity. She understood that the mind existed outside of time and space and that it was universal and everywhere. That was why telepaths could communicate with each other
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across uncountable light years as though they were right next to each other. The brain was made of matter. It was part of the body. The brain could only think, while the mind knew. It was just how it was. Her teacher had always explained it thus,
‘There is only one infinity
And
There is only one eternity
And
It is called the mind’
Her brother was the first to notice Adam via the fine mind thread that had grown between them through their friendship at Broken Head. He couldn’t believe that now, all of a sudden, Adam was popping up in the mind plane. When he was on the water planet, surfing and hanging out with Adam, he got no indication from him that he was even remotely close to becoming telepathic. It didn’t take him long to work out that Adam was messing about with a drug that was somehow stimulating him towards the practice of deep meditation.
She tuned into Adam right back then, right at the beginning. First, she did it through her brother, then on her own, after she established her own thread with him. She couldn’t maintain any kind of sustained communication however. In telepathic terms, Adam was like a newborn babe. She watched him and she listened to him and she shared every one of his small triumphs, and every one of his many failures, with him. On her planet, it was impossible to witness the struggles of a newborn telepath. There, all children were born fully telepathic. There was no record of a time when it was not so, although it was generally accepted that such a time must have existed in the far, far distant history of her people. After a period of studying him, she realised that his venture into the telepathic world was not going to be permanent. In a way he was cheating, and because of that he would one day soon need to revert back to ordinary, sub-telepathic life. She knew, as well, that while he was performing his experiments, he needed help. He also needed to know two things. He needed to know the true nature of his own being and he needed to know something about his planet, something that everyone on Rama had known for thousands of years. She asked her teacher to help and, because he was a kind, compassionate man, he agreed. He worked with Adam for years, patiently intensifying his concentration
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before he was able to reveal to him the slightest truths about his being. Then, one day, even his teacher could not approach him as something far greater, something completely mysterious, even to the teacher, swept Adam away and took him to a place even the teacher had never seen. Upon his return, the teacher knew that his work with Adam was over.
Occasionally, she worked with Adam helping with his concentration exercises. She used many of the distractions she herself had learnt from her teacher. It was her hand that sprinkled the black dust past Adam’s concentration point. But she couldn’t always be there for him. He would pop up in the mind plane at the oddest times. Even his teacher was absent occasionally. Those were his strangest and most frightening experiences. Full telepathic communication with Adam was virtually impossible, but one time she and her brother got through with a nice reality and they managed to send their love to him.
The more she worked with Adam, the more her fondness for him grew, until, one day, she made a conscious decision to volunteer to participate in one of the most honourable causes her people had ever embarked on. As a result, she had to pay him a visit. Her family expressed a great deal of pride in her for what she was doing.
They were a family of travellers. The activity had been in their family for thousands of generations. They owned four ships, all with intergalactic capability. There were two solo ships, one double and a larger family vessel, which tended to sit in the garage most of the time. The kids preferred to travel solo on their exploratory adventures while mum and dad tended to use the double. They mainly travelled as a family group, in the big ship, when they were visiting friends or family in neighbouring star systems.
2
She floated just above the ground, in the darkness, hiding behind a bush. She was no more than twenty feet from him. She could finally see his face in the light of his campfire. ‘What a beautiful man,’ she thought to herself. She wanted to move closer, but dared not. She knew that he was sensing her presence already and she was actively calming him. Every cell in her body wanted to be close to him, to speak to him and to touch him physically.
She found him by using telepathic navigation. She literally followed the mind thread established between them and flew towards him. Without Adam it would have been impossible for her to find his location. He was like a guiding beacon pointing the way towards himself.
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The velocity of intergalactic flight, or to be more precise, intergalactic sailing, was at the speed of light squared. At this speed she travelled as pure energy, as a wave.
However, she didn’t notice any change in herself during the transitory transformation.
She remembered what her teacher always said.
‘In truth, in the very truth, we all, every one of us, are naught but pure energy already.’
She left Rama while Adam was still collecting firewood for his campfire by the river.
She arrived just before sunset and parked herself about one-hundred-thousand feet directly above him. There she waited for darkness to descend upon the tiny camp and its reclusive occupant.
She parked her silver ship amongst some tall scrub, just down the river and around a small bend. She knew that he was the only human within miles of her, except for the occasional car speeding along the long, straight highway about a mile to the east of them.
In order to be able to sneak up on him silently, she dressed herself in her levitation suit.
Her levitation suit was a one-piece, body-hugging costume, with a hood, socks and gloves. The only parts of the body not covered by the suit material were the eyes. These were always protected by special, tightly-fitting, polychromatic, almond-shaped goggles.
Basically, the brighter the glare the darker the goggles. At night, in total darkness, the goggles became completely clear, and if willed, gave her perfect, full-colour, night vision.
In flight she liked to follow the contours of the ground, flying amongst the trees or between buildings. Another useful feature of the suit was its chameleon effect. By changing colours, it could blend with whatever environment it happened to be in. This pretty-much rendered her invisible. Even the goggles harmonised their colour with the rest of the suit. For example, if she stood in front of a red-brick wall, or a green, leafy bush, the suit perfectly mimicked the bricks or leaves, making her appear to melt into the background. All the functions of the suit were affected through non-thought alone, in the same fashion as how one lifts one’s arm or turns one’s head. This was called mind control.
Thus, it was almost impossible to see her if she was in camouflage mode. The kids on Rama, being kids, went in exactly the opposite direction. They loved to make elaborate colour patterns in their suits and always tried to outdo each other with more outrageous designs. The hood and goggles were mainly worn when the suit was being used for flight, otherwise they were pulled off the head and allowed to hang behind the neck.
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Incorporated in the material, and running down the arms, across the shoulders, down the back, over the buttocks and down the back of the legs, were panels of gravity membrane called sails. When activated, they began to develop gravity lift and began to move her as gently, or as rapidly, as she wanted. Her non-thoughts were transmitted through the hood and down through the suit into the panels.
She flew the few-hundred yards from her hidden spaceship to his campfire. She floated the last twenty feet only inches above the ground. She tried to be as silent as she could, but she knew that he would sense her presence through their shared mind thread.
She tried to remain calm as she concentrated on keeping him calm, but she couldn’t subdue the thump, thump, thump of her heart within her breast, beating excitedly out of control at finally seeing him right there in front of her. She watched him for hours as he lay there in his sleeping bag, occasionally rising to place some wood on his small campfire or to take a sip from his warm drink. Tears began streaming from her eyes as she felt his thoughts and feelings and remembered his valiant struggles within the mind plane. The main thing was that she was with him now. She suddenly felt an inner happiness, and contentment, and a feeling that she could not wait for the day when they would meet, although she knew that that day was still some time away. She needed to prepare her deception, as was the protocol, and he needed to be ready. She understood that he was still too entwined with events from his recent past to be fully open to the unfolding of a completely new chapter in his life.
It must have been around midnight when he finally placed the last of the dead branches on his campfire and spread out his sleeping bag back inside his tent. He still had a strong feeling of a presence of someone very near. He remembered the feeling of Scott at Broken Head all those years before. Strangely it felt like that same feeling was there now, by the Murrumbidgee, so very near to him. He was feeling a friendship, and love.
‘It’s so strange,’ he thought to himself. He paused for a long time, just prior to entering his tent, and listened and looked out into the darkness, curiously in the direction that he thought the feelings were coming from. She froze completely as he looked directly at her. He stood there motionless staring into the darkness for what seemed like an eternity. Although she was no more than twenty feet from him, she was confident that he could not see her because her whole body was the colour of pitch black. She felt her heartbeat again as, for the first time, she was able to gaze directly into his ‘beautifully-
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expressive’ eyes. Eventually he turned back towards the fire, gave it a little prod with a stick and finally entered his small tent to drift away into a restful, deep sleep.
She returned back to her ship, peeled off her suit and launched into the night sky to park herself high above him at the edge of the atmosphere.
3
Next morning was Sunday morning. He would have to drive all day to get back home in time to go to work on Monday. He loved a long drive, especially in country Australia.
He always got the same feeling if he drove far enough away from civilization. It was a feeling that the land he was driving through was alive and that its spirit was holding him in its embrace.
One week before, nothing was real, or maybe everything was real, he wasn’t sure.
His mind had been shocked into an acute paralysis. He could remember a time, one week before, when he hung onto rationality by a fine thread. He remembered that he managed to totally short-circuit his whole nervous system. He was scared and he was acting through the motions of life by instinct alone. He had been taken beyond imagination and he had been brought back. He couldn’t talk to anyone. His only thought was survival, to get through the next second, to breathe the next breath, to take the next step. He had to get away, far away, from people. He desperately needed silence and the wide-open spaces. Then, as the week passed and he had himself a fill of emptiness, things began to crystallize within him. Slowly, everything began to make sense. The old reality was gone.
It was replaced by the new, boundless, endless and timeless reality within which he now dwelt forever, as spirit. His body was just a vessel, a vehicle, a magnificent machine of biotechnology, a method to experience the adventure of life, as a human, in a reality he grew and perceived as his universe. But that wasn’t him. He knew that now. And he knew that he knew it because he took the trouble to find out for himself.
While driving home, he thought about life and death and what he now perceived as the illusion of mortality. As his thoughts became clearer, he pulled his car over by the side of the road, retrieved his journal from his bag and wrote another entry.
Sunday, August 26, 1979, 3.30pm.
Every day we live
brings us one day closer
to becoming a child
once again
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Satisfied, he closed his journal, put it away and began driving again. He thought to himself,
‘I wish Nancy was here right now. I really need to talk to her. I want to tell her how death is a myth, how we go on forever and how exciting that realisation is. We are spirit, eternal spirit. This body, this life, this place, is just something we go through for the adventure.’
He breathed in deeply, like a prisoner who had just been released. He soaked up the beauty of the countryside as he cruised up the Hume Highway towards Sydney. Then, suddenly, almost as if a spark had gone off in his head, he thought to himself,
‘I think I need to make a change. I think I need to leave the city. I’m going to have to leave. I’ve got to sell up, everything, and move out to a better place. God knows there are better places. I’m going to leave the jackhammers, the sirens, the loudspeakers and the blank faces. I’m going to find a place in the sun, with trees, lots of trees and lots of sky, and simpler people who smile a lot. Yes, that’s what I’ve got to do. My freedom is out there, I just have to receive it.’
Michelle noticed the change in him immediately. It was as if he was on a permanent high. She could see it in his eyes, which now burned with a distant gaze, like a man living in a dream.
4
‘I think that you are making a mistake, Adam. You are on the threshold of a very successful career in this city. Everyone is talking about you. All my friends and associates see you. You must take time to really consider if what you are contemplating is the best for your future. Look, if it’s money, I can assure you that the bank will stand behind you.’
‘It’s not the money, George, and I do value success in my profession. I know that I’ve been lucky, really lucky, to stumble into such an established practice so early in life, but something has come up and I can’t really talk about it. I just know what I’ve got to do. I just wanted to thank the bank for backing me with the loans for the surgery and flat. I’m going to sell everything that I own in this city and I’m going to pay those loans off. That’s the main thing I came to see you about, and to thank you for your help and financial advice over the last five years. Truly, thanks mate.’
The bank manager just looked at Adam across his desk. He looked deeply into his eyes. He knew that he didn’t mean a word that he said to him, not in his heart. His own
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spirit, shackled into conformity decades before, yearned to make the great escape as well, but it did not possess the kind of courage required for such a rebellious act.
‘All I can do is wish you luck in whatever you do in the future, Adam, and if you should ever require the services of our bank, please don’t hesitate to come and see me.’
‘Thanks, George, thanks heaps, I’ll remember that.’
5
A few days later, on Saturday, the first day of spring, 1979, Adam enjoyed an exhilarating, late-afternoon flight over the Stanwell valley. He landed on the beach well before sunset. He finished his flight with lazy, wide circles around the perimeter of the whole landing area. The wind was generating lift almost down to ground level, so it was possible to delay the landing approach and make the descent very gradual. As he circled the picturesque valley, admiring its beauty, colourfully lit by the afternoon sun, Adam suddenly felt as though he was looking at it for the first time. It hit him in a moment. He flew around into his final approach and glided gently to a landing on the beach. He stepped out of his harness, backed away from his glider and stared into the valley as if hypnotised. He began to talk to himself.
‘Why haven’t I seen it before? Look at it, it’s absolutely beautiful. It must be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It’s like I’m seeing it in 3D for the first time. I can see each individual tree standing out. I can see all the colours of the spectrum … like … like …
for the first time.’
As he stood there by the side of his hang glider, marvelling at the beauty of the valley, a young local kid walked up to him. It was Danny.
‘Pack up your glider for a dollar, Adam? I’ll even carry it into the park for you, no extra charge.’
‘Sure, Dan. What a beaut afternoon. You live here, don’t you?’
‘You know I do. How was your flight? I watched your approach. It was real cool.’
‘Thanks, Dan.’
‘Did you hear about Tim jumpin off the Harbour Bridge at three o’clock in the mornin? He jumped right off the top of the arch. They went up there, him an a couple of his mates, an another one of his mates had the getaway car waitin somewhere near Luna Park. They set up his kite on top of the arches an they reckon he used a couple of painter’s boards an put em across the arches, an he walked the planks an just jumped off into the darkness about three in the mornin. Did you hear about that?’
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‘No, Dan, you’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘No way, Adam, it’s the truth. They reckon he did a couple of wingovers on the way down, then came in for a perfect landin in the park right next to his mate’s car. They packed up the glider real quick and got out of there before the coppers showed up. They reckon that the coppers found out about it, though, an came around to Tim’s place a couple o days later an took him in. They reckon that they kept him at the station for three days, askin him questions an threatenin him, but Tim never opened his mouth for three days. They reckon he didn’t say a word an didn’t eat for three whole days, until they let him go. What a legend, eh Adam?’
‘He was already a legend, Dan. Are you sure about the story?’
‘Sure I’m sure, ask anybody. It really, really happened.’
Adam shook his head and tried to refocus on his own thoughts. He gazed at the surroundings and asked,
‘Dan, what’s it like living here, in the Park I mean?’
‘Well, I reckon it’s great, but I never lived no place else, so I wouldn’t know what livin anyplace else’d be like, but it’s unreal livin here. When we visit Sydney, I don’t know how people can live there. It’s crazy, an the people are crazy, an all the cars. Sometimes I go an stay with Steve an Arnold, when they take me flyin to Kurnell. They’re teachin me to fly, an it’s good, but I couldn’t live there, no way.’
‘I’m thinking of moving down here, Dan. If you hear of a house going for sale, can you let me know? I’d really appreciate it. I think that I’m falling in love with this place.’
Adam sat on one of the logs surrounding the car park and imagined himself living in Stanwell Park, while Danny busied himself packing up his glider.
‘This place is like an island, Dan. It’s surrounded on one side by the ocean and on the other three sides by one-thousand-foot escarpment.’
‘Yeah, an it’s miles away from the next place, an we got our own beach, an sometimes the surf goes right off.’
‘It’s been a few years since I’ve had a good surf. The flying and my work kind of took its place, but I’ve had some great times surfing up the coast when I was younger. Have you ever been up the coast, up around Byron and places like that?’
‘Naah. Except for sometimes goin to Sydney or Wollongong, this place has been me whole world since I was born, but I love it here an I’ve met people from all over the world, right here. They just keep comin through on their travels, an in the evenins I come over
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to their vans an talk to em an they tell me stories about all the places they’ve been to, an where they’ve come from. It’s like if I can’t go out into the world, the world comes to me.’
Danny smiled broadly as he said that. Adam just looked at him and the beautiful environment around them. He had decided on the place he would try to make his new home.
6
Later, as he drove back towards Sydney, Adam dropped in on Zeke. As he drove up behind his hut, he saw that Glenn’s car was already parked there. Aureole opened the heavy, old, wooden door in response to Adam’s knock, undoubtedly because Zeke was still having trouble getting around. She welcomed him in.
‘Adam, come in, join the party.’
The inside of the hut reeked of ganja and the new Gerry Rafferty album, City to City, was softly playing through the speakers. The three of them were having a hilarious conversation when Adam arrived.
‘Did you hear about Tim, Adam?’
They all laughed, even Zeke, even though it hurt him to laugh.
‘About him jumping off the Harbour Bridge?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah, Danny told me today. So, it’s true?’
‘You bet. The cops caught his two mates as they climbed back down off the bridge.
They frightened them so much that they gave away Tim’s address. They came around there the next day and picked him up for questioning. They took him to the station and started screaming at him, and scaring him, trying to get him to own up to what he did. But how cool was he? They interrogated him like that for three days, made every threat, promised to go easy on him, but he never uttered a word. He just sat there, like a deaf mute, for three whole days, with the cops screaming in his ears, getting all frustrated, and he just ignored them like they weren’t even there.’
Aureole added her little bit.
‘Everyone is talking about Timmy, about his brilliant fly from the bridge in the night and about his cool in the police.’
‘What’s that music?’ Adam asked. ‘It’s unreal.’
Aureole showed Adam the album cover.
‘We buy it for Ziki, for present. You like it, Ziki?’
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‘Love it, Aureole, thanks heaps. It’s been ages since anybody’s bought me anythin.’
‘Hey, I’ve got an announcement to make.’ The others all looked at Adam. ‘I’ve decided to move down to Stanwell Park, to live.’
‘Whoah, Adam,’ Glenn exclaimed, ‘that’s a big move!’
‘Especially for a hang glider pilot,’ Zeke added as he clumsily leaned forward and handed Adam a loaded pipe.
Adam took a careful tug on the pipe, held the smoke in for a while, breathed it out and said,
‘I’m looking for a house, nothing fancy, just as long as it’s in the Park.’
‘Wow, that is really big news.’ Aureole commented.
Adam had another toke on the pipe as the conversation took a natural pause.
As Zeke’s homegrown began to go to Adam’s head, his attention focussed on the ambiance of the interior of the hut. His friends’ faces were warmly lit by the flickering firelight, casting shimmering shadows on the walls. His gaze momentarily locked onto Aureole’s exquisite face. He thought to himself that maybe he had never seen such a beautiful woman in his whole life. She was even more gorgeous than Nancy, and God knew that his Nancy could make a whole crowd turn and stare. He thought that Nancy’s beauty was ‘fresh’, while Aureole’s was ‘smouldering’. He then looked at Zeke’s face. It had a huge scar running across it, and even after all this time, he could still make out where they took out the stitches. Adam thought that he looked like one of those old pirates you see in the movies, with his black eyepatch covering his left eye socket. As he looked around the room, his thoughts drifted to how his universe could change its form. A few hours before, he was soaring in limitless space, and now he was sitting in a tiny, warm room with three very special people. Then, as Zeke’s smoke really kicked in, he thought,
‘This must all happen in the mind. That’s where we all meet and that’s where we all exist. It’s everywhere and it’s everything.’
He refocussed on Zeke’s face and noticed that Zeke was looking at him now, straight in the eyes. He smiled a casual smile and commented,
‘Bloody good stuff, Zeke.’ Then he turned to Aureole and asked her, ‘Have you been getting much airtime, Aureole?’
‘Heeps, every day.’
Glenn weighed in, ‘She can’t get enough of it. She won’t stay on the ground, but at least she’s nice and light.’
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‘Sank you, cheri. I love flying. I love it so much that Glenn will teach me and I will solo one day.’ She changed the subject. ‘It will be nice to visit you in your new house.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t have to be new,’ Adam responded.
‘There aren’t many pilots that actually live down here,’ said Glenn. ‘You’ll be one of the first. You’ll always be aware of the local conditions because you’ll be a local. You could really get into the flying living down here.’
‘It’s only an idea at this stage. There’s a fair bit to do before it can happen. I haven’t even figured out the first step yet.’
7
Two weeks passed between flights for Adam. He liked to land on the beach at the end of the day, lay his glider on the lawn in the park and while away the time in spirited conversation with the other pilots. The conversations were usually highly animated with expressive hand gestures as the pilots described their flights to each other. Every day the young band of adventurers gained new insights into the secret art and lore of foot-launched, weightshift-controlled flight, and amazingly, almost as if it was decreed by some higher power, this whole, magnificent, human phenomenon unfolded, like a beautiful flower, in total secrecy from the rest of the world.
Adam was always one of the last to pack up. He often finished the job in darkness, lit only by the cool, monochromatic light of the solitary streetlight. He had just zipped up his glider bag when Danny materialised out of the black.
‘Hey, Adam.’
‘Hey, Danny, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you. I would have loved a pack up today.’
‘I was home. Hey, I heard about a house that’s gonna go for sale. I know the old lady that owns it. I can show it to you. The place is locked up tonight because she went to visit her daughter in Sydney, but she said it was OK to look around the outside of it.’
‘Where is it?’
Danny turned and pointed into the darkness in the general direction of the hill.
‘It’s just over there, just under the top-landin area an a bit to the left, an about a third of the way up the slope.’
Adam stared into the darkness trying to imagine the place.
‘We can have a look at it if you wanna drive over there,’ Danny suggested.
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‘Let’s go. Hey, mind giving me a hand putting the glider on the roof, Dan? I can’t wait to see it. Do you think we’ll see anything in this darkness?’
‘I reckon you’ll get a pretty good idea.’
Adam drove along the narrow, winding lanes that traversed the steep slopes of the northern hill, guided by Danny.
‘Here it is.’
They parked, stepped out of the Charger and walked to the bottom of a very steep driveway.
‘You can’t see the house from down here. Let’s go up.’
They walked up the long, steep, concrete driveway.
‘There seem to be a lot of trees here, Dan.’
‘Oh yeah, the whole lower part of the block is natural bush with big gum trees on it.
You can just make em out. Check em out.’
As they climbed to the top of the driveway, Danny said,
‘Turn around.’
Adam turned around and gasped.
‘Wow!’
The view from the front yard was breathtaking. He could see the lights of the Park shining through the trunks of the tall eucalypts, and in the distance, stretching out like a string of Christmas lights, all the way to the southern horizon, was the south coast with the lights of Wollongong shining, like a distant galaxy, thirty-five miles away. In the moonless visibility, the house could only be seen as a dark silhouette.
‘It’s nice and small.’ Adam observed.
‘Actually, it’s bigger than it looks. There’s a back half.’
Adam walked up to the corner of the house and ran his hand down the wall.
‘It’s brick.’
After walking around the house a couple of times, trying to visualise it in daylight, they stepped onto the wooden veranda in front.
‘Look at that view, Danny. It’s like a Van Gogh. I love the balance between the mountains and the sea, and the line of lights, and the big sky, wow, what a spectacular view of the southern sky.’ Adam looked at Danny. ‘Dan, I think this is it. I’m already starting to feel like I belong here.’
‘But you ain’t even seen it.’
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‘I’ve seen enough, thanks to you. Really, from my heart, thanks, Dan. You’ll have to introduce me to the old lady.’
A few days later, Adam ‘scratched’ a few patients and drove down to Stanwell, in the mid-afternoon, to meet the old lady and properly inspect the house. She looked him up and down and said,
‘I know what it’s worth and I know what I need to get for it.’
She told him her price to which he instantly replied,
‘I’ll take it.’
Adam placed his surgery and his Bondi unit on the market the very next morning.
The surgery sold in four days and the unit, with the million-dollar view from the spacious, east-facing balcony and adjoining kitchen, not to mention the two-car, lock-up garage, sold in eight days for a motza. Adam was able to pay off all his loans, buy the house, move in and have a little left over to see him through the transition.
8
In the evening of his last day at the surgery, Adam stayed back after Michelle left to go home. It had been over a month since his last gas trip. The time had come for the ‘magic space’ and Adam to part ways. He always understood the necessity for a closure to this adventure. He understood that there was a beginning, middle and end to everything in nature and selling his surgery was going to terminate this trip. So, he thought that he ought to have a farewell session, being nostalgic, remembering Nancy, being more kicked back and even playing some music while on the gas. He wanted his last blast to be more like the great parties they used to have in the old days when everybody laughed their brains out and ended up sitting on the floor because they couldn’t fall any further from there.
He played Caravanserai as he focussed on the familiar, ballpoint dot marked on the wall above the gas machine. He set his focus on his first breath. He executed an easy, slow, first in-breath, followed by a smooth, steadying, first out-breath. Soon the sound of the music began to fade into an echoing distance. There was a certain faith and a core belief one had to have to just let go the way he did. An hour and a half later, he frantically scribbled an entry into his journal.
Friday, September 28, 1979, 8.00pm. I’ve just had this amazing experience. I don’t know what to make of it. A hand appeared. I think that it was the same hand that sprinkled the black dust. This time the hand was holding a pencil. I was concentrating on my dot. I felt
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something intensify my concentration. Amazingly, staying focussed on the dot became more effortless. The hand began to draw on the wall. It drew a circle, then another smaller one to the right of it. The hand drew slowly, with precision and purpose. It continued to draw a series of smaller and larger circles, running from left to right, out from the first, largest one.
As soon as the hand drew a ring around the seventh circle, I recognised that I was looking at a drawing of our solar system. Then the hand went higher, up above the line of planets, and out to the right. It then drew, with a little more speed, from right to left, a downward-descending, parabolic curve towards the sun. As the line approached the sun, it curved down close to Venus and then hooked itself around it. Then the hand continued to draw the line, much more slowly now, in a short, parabolic curve, aiming directly at the third planet. It ended its path dead-centre of the third planet, the Earth. Then the hand disappeared and the surgery wall, that the drawing was on, changed into an ancient, weathered, stone wall, and chiselled into the stones was the same drawing. Then I remember the diagram dissolve away and the surgery wall return back to its normal appearance.
There is one other thing I remember. It is very strange. I heard some words. A voice said, ‘I have nothing for the future.’ That was it. I scrambled madly for my journal so I could get the memory down before I lost it.
Adam never ever breathed Nitrous Oxide again, except for the times when he went to the dentist for his teeth. However, he didn’t see it all go away immediately. It took two years for total feeling in his extremities to come back, and his balance, well, that just kept improving very slowly. He also had his memories to live with for the rest of his life. He certainly remembered that drawing of the solar system, the firmament and celestial chord, and the angel. He remembered the white bird and his teacher, and the secret symbol burned permanently into his brain. After a while, he thought of it all as something the human race was heading towards in its natural evolutionary development. After many more years, it all finally crystallised into an understanding that he just got a little peek into the big right now, that was all, and that was what telepathy was.
9
It was the middle of December, 1979, before Adam finally emerged from his transitional hibernation. He spent his first two and a half months in Stanwell Park lying on his couch, or sitting on his veranda, in a mindless stupor, blown out on his new view and a bunch of potent home-grown that he scored off Zeke. He didn’t fly for a whole three months and was quite happy to just sit on his veranda and watch them silently soaring
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high above him. On the windy, easterly days, he watched them glide across to Mitchell’s and work their gliders up the precipitous east face, finally getting lit up like candles by the setting afternoon sun as they rose gracefully, like soaring eagles, above the thousand-foot summit of the now-conquered mountain.
Adam had his first flight, as a local, a week before Christmas. He launched into a fifteen-knot, velvet-smooth southeaster. The wind was so smooth that he experienced moments when he actually forgot that he was flying. He landed at dusk and felt like the old feeling had come back again.
He knew that he was going to have to start working soon. His savings were running down, but Christmas was coming, and the New Year, and a new decade with it. Everything shut down for a month anyway, so he made a decision that he would look for work in February. He figured that he’d be all right till then if he kept a low profile. He continued to enjoy long, blissful days of peaceful contentment just hanging around his beautiful new house.
10
On Christmas Day, Adam left early to visit his parents. He was hoping to get back in time to catch the predicted afternoon easterly wind. He launched skyward at 3.00pm on the last Christmas Day of the Seventies. His thoughts always drifted to Nancy on every Christmas Day.
‘Three years today, Nancy.’
He climbed-out to fifteen-hundred feet in front of Mitchell’s and cruised south around Coalcliff, then down the escarpment all the way to Bulli Pass. He rose above two-thousand feet down there. When he returned to Mitchell’s, he still had two-thousand feet.
He aimed his ship at Bald Hill, far below him on the other side of the valley, and pulled the bar all the way in. He streaked across the valley, like a dart, in a sustained, shallow, high-speed dive. He ended his flight with a low, downwind landing approach, skimming the tops of the trees in the process, flying deep into the valley where he executed a spectacular, high-bank, stalling, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree, hammerhead turn back into the wind, no more than a hundred feet above the football field, and coolly finished his flight with a pinpoint landing on the grass, right in the middle of the pack-up area. He dropped his glider where he landed and, while scanning the park for a friend, casually stepped out of his harness.
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Almost immediately, something caught his eye. It was a picture, an airbrush, painted on the side of a white camper van that was parked in the car park. He recognised it instantly. It was a picture of perfect barrels breaking at Broken Head, just as he remembered it. He noticed that the jagged headland was depicted perfectly. Even the old fence was there. He hypnotically froze on the image for a moment, superimposing it over his memories of over a decade before.
He had nearly completed packing-up his glider when he spotted her for the first time. She looked like a gazelle in a wetsuit. He thought to himself,
‘Wow, how could anyone be so thin and look so athletic at the same time?’
She was walking up the beach towards him, carrying her surfboard underarm. He paused and watched her walk towards the car park. She placed her board down next to the van that had been attracting so much of his attention. She sneakily retrieved her keys from their hiding place in the front bumper, opened up her van to get a towel, then disappeared into the women’s showers. It was at about this point that he realised that he was staring. He didn’t think that she noticed though. She came back out of the showers wearing only a brief, olive-green bikini and carrying her wetsuit and towel. Her skin was the dark brown colour of a deep suntan. She hadn’t combed her hair, which was straight and long, hanging about half way down her back. It was a light brown colour with blond streaks in it, like sun bleaches. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She returned to her van, dressed herself in her jeans and T-shirt and put away her things. When she was done, she set up her little gas cooker and started boiling some water for a cup of coffee.
Adam lifted his packed-up hang glider and placed it on top of his car. He strapped it down, took a silent, deep breath, turned around and walked over towards her van.
‘Is that a picture of Broken Head?’ he asked pointing at the picture.
‘This picture? Why yes, it is,’ she responded all friendly like.
He was standing not more than six feet away from her now, seeing her face much more clearly. It was beautiful, like a child’s face, with beautiful lips and almond eyes, and a nose like Claudia. The colour of her eyes was green, like emerald that shone like opal.
Her wet, sun-bleached hair hung down the left side of her face, partially concealing some of the radiance of her beauty, like the young Lauren just after a shower.
‘It’s just how I remember it,’ he said.
‘It’s how I imagined it,’ she replied.
‘Oh, you’re the artist?’
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‘Oh yeah. I’ve got a little compressor and an airbrush kit on board. I do the odd painting for friends and people I meet … er … along the way …’
Her sentence trailed off as their eyes met. Then she picked it up again.
‘I surfed Broken Head not more than a month ago. Six-foot, deep, thin barrels.’
‘Wow, it’s amazing to hear someone speak like that again. It’s been a while for me.
Do I detect a slight accent?’
‘I’m from California. I live in Manhattan Beach, down in the South Bay area. Have you ever heard of it?’
‘Oh, er, once I think.’
‘Was that you streakin across the valley?’ Adam nodded. ‘I watched you from the water. It was so cool, man.’
The sun was just beginning to set behind the escarpment.
‘Are you travelling in the van?’
‘Yeah, I’ve been on the road, in Australia, surfin for four months now.’
‘Are you travelling with anybody?’
‘Naah, I travel on my own. I hook up with other travelling surfers every now and then and cruise the coast with them for a while and pick up a few secrets along the way.
But my main focus are the waves.’
‘Four months, you say?’
‘Yeah, I’ve been everywhere. Crescent, Scott’s, Angourie, Byron, I just love the Byron scene, man, Coolangatta, Burleigh, and all the way up to Noosa, which was my best time.
I surfed the amazing points of Noosa every day I was there. I’ve pretty much had every place good. It’s been the most amazing surfin trip ever. Would you like a cup of coffee?
I’m making one anyway.’
‘Oh, only if it doesn’t put you out. I wouldn’t want to drink your last cup of coffee.’
‘Nonsense, I’ve got plenty of coffee as long as you don’t mind the two-dollar stuff. I figure once it’s instant it’s all the same anyway, so why pay ten bucks for somethin you can get for two.’
‘I am in absolute concurrence with you on that point … and you’ve been to Broken Head?’
She smiled, ‘Yeah, and I surfed the legendary waves.’
‘It’s been over ten years since it happened to me, but they are still the best waves I’ve ever ridden. And you sprayed the picture on your van, there?’
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‘Yup, and there is a picture of Granite Bay on the other side. That’s an awesome place
… ahh … ahh …?’
‘Oh, sorry, I’m Adam.’
‘Granite is also an awesome place, Adam.’
Her heart missed a beat the moment she first spoke his name to his face.
‘Could I ask you your name?’
‘It’s Liberty … Libby … Lib.’
‘I like Libby.’
‘Oh, you do? Adam is a nice name as well. Cream and sugar? It’s powdered cream but the sugar’s real.’
She spooned some cream and sugar into the plastic cup and stirred very slowly as she looked him straight in the eyes and gave him a beaming, childlike smile. As she handed him his coffee he commented,
‘Your eyes are so green and clear, like opals.’
‘Probably too much sun.’
‘Where do you stay at night?’
‘I sleep in my van. It never ceases to amaze me how little space a person needs to be comfortable. I have my bed, my board goes inside and I can park anywhere I want. The van is like … like my spaceship. Where do you live?’
‘Just over there on the side of the hill.’ He pointed towards his house. ‘I’ve been living there for about three months now, nearly as long as you’ve been travelling up and down the east coast. You seem so young to be on such an epic expedition.’
‘I’m nineteen.’
‘You look …’ He paused mid-sentence.
‘Yeah, I know, I look years younger, like a kid.’
‘Boy, this tastes like the best coffee I’ve ever tasted,’ he quickly changed the subject.
‘Oh yeah? You don’t get around much, do you?’
‘Definitely not as much as you, Liberty … er, Libby. So, you’re going to stay here tonight?’
‘Yeah, the car park is perfect. I’ve got everything I need here and I can get out there early and score the offshore breeze.’
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‘Look … ah, Libby … ah … I fancy myself as a bit of ahh … chef … and ah … and ah …
it’s as easy to cook for two … and ah … and ah … I have a very cosy carport for the, ah …
the, er, ah … spaceship. It even has a view …’
‘Are you inviting me for dinner?’
‘Well, er … yes. It would be my pleasure to …’
‘Then I accept, but it’ll take me about ten minutes to get ready.’
‘Take your time cause I’ve got nowhere to go and the rest of my life to get there.’
She loved the cheesy grin that came with that quip.
He sat on a log and watched her wash the cups, dry them and put everything away neatly. About ten minutes later she followed him through the narrow lanes to the bottom of his driveway.
‘I’m not driving up there, it’s too steep.’
‘Come on, just line the van up and take a run-up. It’s easy.’
The first time, she stalled the engine half way up the driveway, but with a more determined go she made it up to the carport on her second attempt.
‘Wow, look at the view,’ she said excitedly. ‘You can check the surf out from up here and what a nice little Christmas tree.’
Right at that moment, she was the only view he was interested in. He asked her if she ate meat and she said that she did, but in small quantities. He made a veal and vegetable stir-fry. She asked him if he smoked and he replied,
‘Oh, you know … ahm … mainly on special occasions.’
She stepped out to her van and brought back a small, green-velvet, drawstring bag.
She opened the top and took out a beautifully-ornate, solid-gold container and a small, elaborately-carved, white, ceramic pipe.
‘Hello, hello, what’s going on here? I might have something to go with that as well.’
‘Are you shocked?’
‘Not with you Californians. Your reputation precedes you, you know.’
‘I’ve been smoking since I was seven.’
‘Crikey! … You know, I feel so honoured tonight. I’ve only been living here for three months and already I’ve got a guest from clear the other side of the world. You may as well be from another planet you’re from so far away.’
She laughed out loud,
‘Yeah, but it’s not me who’s from so far away, it’s you.’
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‘Have you always lived in California?’
‘Have I always lived in California? Ahh … no. I was born in Maine. My dad was a boat builder. He owned a business with his brother. We lived there for ten years. They were the happiest years of my life. Growing up as a family, having a mom and dad who loved each other, playing on the beach all day …’
‘Sounds idyllic.’
‘It was, until my dad and my uncle disappeared at sea one night. I was ten years old when that happened. Neither they nor their boat were ever seen again. In the end they thought that their boat may have hit a floating container and sunk, with possibly them trapped in it, but that was only a theory. There was never any evidence.’
‘Wow, that must have been hard to take.’
‘It was, especially for mom. She sold the business and moved us to California. I made a very good friend there, a girl named Jamie. She’s my age and people say that we look like twins. Things were OK for a while and I got into surfing with Jamie … then mom got sick and died. I was fifteen when that happened. I’ve been with Jamie ever since. I was more friends with mom than mother and daughter, especially after my dad disappeared.’
‘I’m so sorry, Libby.’
‘Don’t be. And my name, Liberty, I think dad was thinking that he was naming another one of his boats. … Jamie and I have a business.’
‘A business, really?’
She smiled broadly as she proudly told him,
‘Yeah. We started a small dog-walking business, which quickly evolved into a dog-minding business. We go to people’s houses, feed their dogs and give them a run-around while their owners are away.’
‘That is so American.’
‘Oh, you think that’s American? Starting a dog walking business?’
‘Yeah, very. I mean think about it, where else in the world would it happen?’
‘I’ve never thought of it like that. It’s just a job. It’s been going well, though. We’ve really got ourselves established. We have an arrangement where we share the work.
Jamie looks after the business for six months while I travel, and then I take care of it the other six months while she travels. It works out great.’
‘Well, this sure changes my perception of you. Now I’m having a successful entrepreneur over for dinner.’
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‘Yeah,’ she replied proudly with that beautiful smile on her lips.
He noticed how her face lit up when she smiled, and when he gazed into her eyes, they beamed like emeralds, like there was light shining out of them. She continued,
‘There was an idea we came up with just before I flew to Australia. Would you like to hear it?’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘Jamie calls it anti-work. There’s this new fad starting in Southern California called doggy-cise. People are starting to find out about the health benefits of taking a dog for a walk. All of a sudden, they all want to hire a dog to take for a walk. They want you to bring it to their house and pick it up from their house, and they’re prepared to pay big bucks for the service. Then there are our regular customers who treat us like gods because we free them from the bruising shackles of dog responsibility. One day, Jamie and I started thinking. We thought how the needs of one group of customers could be fulfilled by the needs of the other.’
‘That’s brilliant, Libby, absolutely brilliant.’
After dinner, Adam started clearing the table.
‘Don’t do that,’ she insisted. ‘Where I come from the cook never washes up.’
‘No, I couldn’t …’
‘Of course you could. When I cook, my work’s done when the cookin’s done.’
She cleaned and washed up, quickly finding her way around his kitchen.
‘You even have a view from here,’ she noticed.
He watched her as she made everything tidy and admired her high standards of domestic self-discipline. When she finished she asked him,
‘Could we sit on the porch outside and look at your view?’
‘Sure. Do you feel like tea?’
‘Tea sounds fine. Got a light?’
‘Yes, I do.’
She opened the small, gold box, took out a pinch of crumbly, brown powder, loaded it into her little, white pipe and handed it to him. As he took it, he asked,
‘California hash?’
‘Actually, I think it comes from further away than that.’
‘Oh, of course, it’d have to.’
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‘There is an ancient, native legend about the particular strain of plant that this, er, hash is made from.’
‘You don’t say?’
She looked him directly in the eyes.
‘Yeah. It is said that this stuff will make you live longer, a lot longer.’
He laughed,
‘Oh really?’
‘It’s very mild, but strong. You only need a small amount of smoke. One hit is usually enough.’
‘Oh, thanks. I’ll be careful.’
‘Is your balance out a bit?’ she enquired. ‘I’ve noticed your walk. I hope it’s not too personal a question.’
‘No no, of course not. My balance went right out there for a while, but it’s actually coming back now. It’s better every day and, interestingly, it has never affected my hang gliding.’
The hours passed in bliss for both of them. He switched off all the lights, except for the Christmas-tree lights, which were softly shining behind them in the window. He played Morning of the Earth, down low, through Nancy’s old Stonehenge Threes. They sat together on the veranda enjoying the evening view and telling each other stories from the past. They both felt a strong, almost gravitational, attraction to each other. He could feel himself being drawn to her like steel to a magnet. They had still not actually made any physical contact yet, and both of them were acutely aware of it. She could feel every cell of her skin yearn to be the first to touch him. Every time one of them got up they would slide their chair fractionally closer to the other on returning. By the end of the evening, they were sitting right next to each other with their feet up on the other two chairs. She mainly spoke about her surf trip while he enjoyed reliving his days at Broken Head. She loved hearing Adam’s stories about Scott. She asked cheeky, penetrating questions about him, like,
‘Was Scott romantic with Maria?’
He replied, ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’
She let out a shocked, ‘awooo,’ and giggled.
‘Why the interest in Scott?’ he enquired. ‘Do you think you might know him from California?’
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‘No no no, it’s just you boys, the way you are.’
Adam had his hand resting on the armrest of his chair. She looked at it and commented,
‘You have very fine hands.’
‘Oh, what, these?’
She looked into his eyes and asked,
‘May I?’
He looked deep into her big, emerald pools and replied, as if in a hypnotic trance,
‘Sure.’
She took his hand in hers and as her fingertips made first contact with his, a small spark zapped between them. He jumped about an inch, reacting to the tiny shock, then casually enquired,
‘What was that?’
‘What was what?’ she replied all innocent like.
‘The spark … electric … thing …’
‘You have very fine, long, artistic fingers, Adam.’
He looked down at her fine-fingered, smooth-skinned hands gently caressing his left hand. He felt the warmth coming from them, and the delicate touch like that of a blind person. He thought to himself, ‘Why do I get the feeling that I’ve seen these hands before?’
She kept holding his hand for the rest of the evening. She just couldn’t make herself let go.
‘This is really strange, Libby, but it feels like I’m sitting with an old friend.’
‘I know exactly how you feel, Adam.’
That night, she slept in her van parked under the carport. She left the side door of the van open all night and went to sleep admiring the spectacular view of the glittering south coast from her pillow.
…….
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