NDE 2012
An editor of a military sci-fi magazine receives an incredible email stating the impossible: a soldier has come back to life after being killed in Afghanistan. He wants to write his own story, but… should he, or rather can he? Is this a hoax? A prank? Is it a revelation from beyond? How much do we know about the mysteries of the universe—our greater homeworld, still unexplored, for the most part? How much are we ready to venture… into the future? You be the judge.
NDE 2012
By Bob Bello
A novelized radio drama episode
from the sci-fi series, Timewreck
Editor: Rob Preston
Cover: Austin Pickrell
Illustrations: Emmy Bello
24-MAR-2012, 10:30 P.M.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible,
then whatever remains, however improbable,
must be the truth.”—Sherlock Holmes
THE LAPTOP BLEEPED behind me. It was late, and I was already in my pajamas, brushing my teeth, concerned with waking up early for tomorrow’s Military Sci-Fi Convention in downtown Washington, D.C.
“You’ve got mail!” announced my electronic AOL buddy assistant.
I rinsed and hurried back in my hotel room to check if it was Dorothy. My Irish wife loved videochatting with me—saving a lousy buck from long distance phone calls in all this Recession madness with the global economy going to hell—so I thought she sent me an email instead.
I leaned over the desk, its ashtray’s smell hitting my nose with the power of an old grenade, when the initials of an unknown sender, appearing almost anonymous, made me blink with slight confusion.
To: Editor@Outpost33.com
From: NewMe61@Yahoo.com
Title: Seeking your editorial advice
Date: March 24, 2012, 10:01:05 P.M.
Dear Editor:
Have you seen the movie “Flatliners” with Julia Roberts? Something similar happened to me in atheist USSR in 1982. I knew nothing about afterlife and I freaked out like crazy! Dead on the operation table, I saw something like incorporeal beings around me, which people call angels or aliens or ghosts or whatever you name them in America these days. The point is that they come from a higher dimension, which exists all around us. We are inside their world, so to speak, just as we look at a paper cartoon character, calling it 2D drawing or flat animation. Theirs is much higher than 4D or 10D, I must tell you.
Back in the 1980s no serious Soviet scientist suspected for real that our world is 11-Dimensional, which now is an accepted scientific fact, at least by the string theorists and the proponents of the Theory of Everything, most of who are quantum mechanics. But back then, for a talk like that the KGB threatened me with a labor camp for being “ideologically incorrect”, because I couldn’t keep my tongue behind my teeth. The Glasnost and Perestroika was just around the corner and we all smelled the political wind of change in the air. Some were afraid of arrests, but I spoke up boldly, no matter what. To me the truth was more than my small life.
Anyway, in that multidimensional world I was befriended with one particular person, whose name I never learned because there they don’t have or even need names. They know one another by thoughts and they don’t hide their mind, just like flowers don’t hide their aroma. It is unexplainable with human words. Time to time my friend appears to me in my dreams and talks to me, but not with words. It’s like associations or telepathy, I guess. I hope I’m not scaring you, but so far everything he shows me turns to be true in a week or less. Most of it is personal. He doesn’t want me to make this a witch business ;-) But sometimes he shows me things about our world, which is scary. People are not allowed to know the future in such details, so every time he shows me something about our planet he asks me to swear that I will not tell anyone. Other times, he asks me to share this or that with a friend, who is on deadly path. I guess, up there this other world has its strict rules of non-interference with our timeline. I know I sound like a sci-fi cuckoo, but I don’t even read sci-fi.
Please understand that I don’t tell this to everyone. I only speak of it like a hypothetical quantum physics theory. Not even some of my relatives know it, because they are Communists, for who life is absolutely meaningless. A flux of nature, they call it. Mistake of the Universe! O, holy ignorance! Only my closest friends know my near death experience. I keep it private. I am not a prophet or witch. I am only allowed to see in slow motion what was downloaded in my head on the operation table, when I died in 1982.
Have you heard that NDE patients see their past like in rewinding movie? With me it was the opposite. I saw my future instead, in very high speed. It was like a video download in my head. And when the time for something crucial comes, I see that cosmic person in my dreams, showing me slow motion of that high speed “movie”. That’s all. Believe me, I am not selling you a story. I am not taking drugs. I am not an alcoholic or schizophrenic. Now you tell me: am I crazy? I spoke to our military psychiatrist, for this NDE happened when I was in the Army, but he said that I am fully normal. No daydreaming, no ghosts, no visions with voices. He encouraged me to study quantum physics, which he said speaks exactly about that, but from a scientific point of view. So I did. Science was my passion. Before the army I wanted to be a teacher. But now I don’t know which is better: to write a science theory paper or sci-fi novel? I don’t want them to label me idiot or wacko, much less UFO maniac. So I found your magazine website and I decided to ask you for advice.
P.S. I read all books of the American theoretical physicist Michiu Kaku while I studied quantum mechanics in St. Petersburg, and I am amazed that he speaks about what I saw as if he had died on my operation table. Ah, yes, I almost forgot. For reference you may contact Dr. Gorev of the Military Hospital in Ugarinsk, Russia (DrGenGorev@MilH003.ru) where I was hospitalized.
Truly yours,
Sergeant B.V.B.
Zheton Nr. AE-089953 (my dog tag)
Intellectually smashed from what I just read—after all, I am Jewish and all matters of faith and spirituality have been in my family for thousands of generations—I immediately decided to contact the Russian doctor. I had to check out the credibility of this testimony, written in one breath, full of emotional typos. Even if it were just an idea for a sci-fi story, presented to me in a mishmash way by an aspiring writer, I had to know if it were based on some real experience. If not for anything else, then at least to give it a rest, so I could have a goodnight sleep before the Military Sci-Fi Convention. The actor William Shatner was going to be there, along with his good old buddy Leonard Nimoy. I am also expected to give a speech on my magazine’s main sub-genre. Lately, there is a whole movement, or rather emerging tradition, to mix it with supernatural, futurology, transhumanism and post-apocalyptic sci-fi, so the readers wanted live Q&A on these new tendencies. Not to mention, I had to be sharp before the event. And I had to be precise while doing interviews with the Hollywood legends for our podcast, or I would risk asking the wrong questions, which I knew I would regret big time. Then I’d have to try and edit it all till Kingdom come, in order to publish it with “mental gymnastics,” as we editors put it in private.
I cracked my knuckles and clicked the Forward icon, typing fast:
Dear Dr. Gorev:
I’m the Editor of Outpost 33, an American magazine for military science fiction. On March 24, 2012 I received an email from a Russian individual, who contacted me with publishing advice. Please read the forward message and come back to me with any confirmation you might have.
Sincerely,
Joshua W. Rosenthal, Editor
OUTPOST 33 MAGAZINE
www.Outpost33.com
“Freedom ain’t free!”
While my mind was still preoccupied with the subject, I hit the Reply icon on the original message and wrote the NDE man a quick note:
Dear BVB:
You want my professional advice? Tell NO one, or they’ll lock you up! :-) Write a nice sci-fi story out of your juicy experience and everyone will accept it naturally as good science fiction. My advice is, stay alive to fight another day. And I promise I will publish it in our magazine, if you make it at least a little bit military-SF-oriented. Make your main character a space marine sergeant from 2020, who establishes contact with some incorporeal alien while in a coma, after being deadly wounded in orbital combat of our own Space War. Heaven is my witness, I already love it!
Looking forward to reading your serialized novelette,
Joshua W. Rosenthal, Editor
OUTPOST 33 MAGAZINE
www.Outpost33.com
“Freedom ain’t free!”
I stroked my trimmed beard, sensing a bit of the toothpaste on my right cheek, and decided to take a quick, refreshing shower before plunging into bed with more than pleasure. Man, I was exhausted. Editing submissions in the airplane all the way from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the Capital City for six hours straight! Does work ever end? But hey, I love my job and I cherish these stories. There’s no end to human imagination and hope for a better world—that’s what fascinates me nonstop.
Am I expecting too much, I asked myself, enjoying the cool water, trying to make everyone a great sci-fi storyteller? The latter was my nickname, which Dorothy had given me in college, while we studied journalism together at UNM. Me, yeah right, I became the journalists’ prodigal son, switching over to the Dark Side of the Fiction Force. And not just any fiction but sci-fi—the very devil as it were—the disgrace to any serious paper or magazine publisher. While Dorothy, whom I had nicknamed Mrs. Oz for obvious reasons (unless you’ve never read The Wizard of Oz), she became a legendary columnist on topics like domestic violence. She, the faithful angel—the dream of every editor! Though neither of her bosses, obsessed with their so-called “realistic documentarism” and “pure factology” knew that she was secretly reading my sci-fi mag, editing shorts for me, ha-ha-ha! Not to mention—
“You’ve got mail!” the laptop parroted again as I was out of the stall, putting on the hotel bathrobe, scented with lavender detergent.
To: Editor@Outpost33.com
From: DrGenGorev@MilH003.ru
Title: Re: Concerning one of your former patients
Date: March 25, 2012, 7:16:15 a.m. GMT
Dear Editor:
I don’t know if I should call this pun or cynical sick joke from one of your sci-fi readers, but for your information there was a patient with that kind of story in our military hospital, whose medical details I cannot disclose even today. Not for political reasons, of course. It is still a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality just like it is in America. However, I am inclined to inform you that the patient in question died in 1989 as a Soviet Army correspondent in Afghanistan, during the withdrawal of our troops from the region. His body was never fully recovered, but we received what you call his “dog tags” with some of his remains.
If I may suggest, for the sake of his relatives and orphaned children, please DO NOT publish this email or whatever story you may receive from God knows what sick person! This is cruel to the man’s memory! Your publication will only shock his family and put them all over again through a totally unnecessary turmoil. I beg you in their behalf to reconsider. You know, it is 2012. The mass euphoria about the end of the world according to that ancient Mayan calendar is getting everyone into media lunacy! No, please don’t become one of those yellow-press sensationalist publishers. From what I see on your website, you have a very reputable magazine, helping veterans overcome their war trauma by encouraging them to write and thus relieve their overstress. This is commendable, Mister Rosenthal!
P.S. I just received a call from our hospital webmaster, who checked out NewMe61@Yahoo.com and told me that there is no such account. Apparently it was deleted as soon as you received that fake dubious email. I am sorry, but I believe you have been duped by a cheap impostor, whose intentions are abhorring and shameless or dark and disturbing.
Cordially yours,
Dr. Gen. Nikolay Z. Gorev
Chief of ER Surgery Ward
While still reading the prompt reply of the Russian general, my videochat popped on AIM and hissed in my face with something that, in the days of VHF and UHF television, we used to call “Indian carpets.”
I thought it was my wife, but the image was fuzzy, black-and-white, splotched with static, as though it were non-digital transmission patched to NASA from the International Space Station, or something. As soon as I recognized the likeness of a human figure, the video worsened with smeared echoes of shadows in negative, but the man opened his arms and said, “You see, I’m alive!” He nodded several times. “I’m alive, right?”
“That you certainly are,” I mumbled, not sure what to say. “Where are you calling from? Is that a videophone? The reception is terrible.”
He stepped back, and I saw … No, impossible!
“Are these astronauts?” Duh, what else! People in spacesuits, taking regolith probes or doing whatever, but … “Is that a Lunar Base they’re building behind you? Since when?” No, I told myself. This is fake! Then I voiced my unbelief, “Is this a joke of some kind? Who are you, sir?”
Fluctuating quite cosmically, the image fixed itself for a second, as if only to show me that the man wasn’t in a military uniform—or rather he was, but it looked like a Samurai outfit, without the swords. I even made myself believe he was ninja—if there were ninjas in space! Then … I blinked with an attempt of a smile. “Is this a Star War’s Jedi costume?”
The man came closer to the camera again, blew some of the lunar dust from its lens, and said with an incredibly genuine, warm smile, “It’s me, dear editor, Borya. Boris Vassilievich Belkin: B.V.B.” He laughed and moved the camera up, showing me the earth—the only bluish fleck in the perpetually black-and-white sky. His face coming in view again, the image quivered and suddenly appeared in sepia with rainbow auras.
“I know, I owe you an explanation,” he said. “We have lots of work to do, but … as always, I have to convince you of my existence, correct? So be it, Mr. Rosenthal, let’s do it your way. Then we’ll talk, when you are ready to listen and trust me as to an equal. Your wife will call in a second to tell you the good news of your junior coming into the world.” He shook his head, chuckling, “Congratulations my friend! Well done!”
While he was still wagging his finger at me, winking right into the camera lens, which was set on autofocus, my wife’s face superimposed over his, just like a movie effect. “Storyteller, ye listenin’ ta me? I said I’m pregnant, dummy! Ye’re gonna be a father!” When Dorothy was frustrated or embarrassed, she unwittingly switched to her Irish accent, displaying her alpha female character. “Our li’l Rosie’s gonna have a cute li’l sibling, exactly as she’d dreamt tha other night! Remember? She said they’re playing in a sandbox, on tha Moon … Ye there, luv? Hello?”
“Uh … a Junior?” my mouth blundered, without me actually being involved in that spontaneous movement of my lips. “On the Moon?”
Dorothy giggled, fixing her thick red hair, her freckles almost sparkling all over her face like twinkling stars. “Eh, could be a gal. Don’t get yer male hopes high, Daddy. Rosie said she couldn’t see if it were a boy or a girl. It’s not like we can wish upon a star and wave a magic wand…”
Whatever she said next escaped my ears, because the TV set turned on behind me, apparently being programmed to automatically show the late night news. It was CNN, talking about some hostage situation in a Machu Picchu hotel-resort in Peru, obviously linked to the 2012 end-of-the-world euphoria. But then it clicked, flipping through the channels, and I thought I was sitting on the remote, pressing the buttons with my involuntary fidgeting. My mouth gaped, and not because I spotted the remote next to the flatscreen LCD TV, but because the clicking stopped on the NASA-TV channel. They—to add to my respiratory reaction, not to call it hyperventilation—spoke about their plans for building a moon base at the Rim of Shackleton, close to the North Pole, where sunlight is available nearly year-round. The preliminary plans were for 2015, as we had all known for a decade already, but the scheduling had to be moved to a sooner date, all having to do with the present energy crisis. But when they mentioned that the lunar regolith contains Helium-3, able to power the whole earth with free energy for an entire Millennium, I just about jumped up and swirled in my chair facing my laptop.
“Honey, did you—!” But Dorothy was gone. Regulating my breathing, I gawked at the videochat, which enlarged itself in full view without me touching any hotkey. For a moment, it seemed the TV was reflected in my LCD like in a mirror, while in fact it was the same transmission—only live from the Moon! What? I sprang to my feet, my head bouncing between the television set and my laptop like a restless ping-pong.
Yes, NASA broadcasted the same thing, but in a 3D simulation, while that on my screen was a real video feed of their expedite lunar mining that was to start next month! I could see their new hydrogen rov-ers and the mini-space-shuttle on the makeshift landing strip. I could see the Lunar Base habitat modules, appearing like big boilers, and lots, lots of storage containers piled up around—all of it from the … future?
The video shut down abruptly and went back to small view, because a chat message appeared in the textbox:
NewMe61: Do you believe me now?
Editor: I don’t know what to say! I’m shaking! Is this for real?
NewMe61: You better believe it, sir!
NewMe61: It is as real as your Junior is, who is still invisible to you!
Editor: But what do I do now? You said we have WORK to do?
NewMe61: One step at a time, my dear friend. First you have to realize that as I had a cosmic friend in high places, so now you have one: ME.
Editor: No, what do I have do? What am I expected to do?
NewMe61: For now go to bed and have a nice sleep. I will talk to you in your dreams, as my interdimensional friend had guided me all these years.
Editor: But Gorev said you died in 1989? True??
NewMe61: Died? Yes, physically. Death is only the beginning of life, my friend. All chicks leave their eggshell and turn into birds. Caterpillars leave their larva and soar the sky as butterflies. Wood burns in the fire and turns into smoke and warmth, mingling with the cosmos on molecular level. Oh come on now, this is basic science, you know it! Energy can neither be produced nor totally destroyed. It is only converted from one form to another. And so have I, like billions before me. Then you.
Editor: Am I dreaming? Is this really happening? Are we chatting in my dream, Borya? Tell me? Give me a tangible sign! Solid proof!
NewMe61: If your junior is not tangible and if NASA going back to the Moon is not solid enough for you, Mr. Skeptic Storyteller, then even if a dead man rises from the death you will NOT believe either. Not in a million years!
Editor: I’m sorry, this is too much to swallow, pal. I think I’m going nuts!!!!
NewMe61: Which is why you should go to bed and sleep. Till then. Ciao.
The laptop shut down abruptly. I checked my battery. The charger was plugged in into the outlet. This was not supposed to happen. Unless … yeah, unless my laptop had just passed away, killed in the line of duty. Dead more than anyone surviving a Near Death Experience! I felt my blood rushing into my face like a burst of lava billowing from the depths of the unknown beneath us. What was I going to do now? My speech was in that fried hard drive; my emails, my magazine designs, illustrations, short stories—everything. Ouch!
Like a good watchdog that doesn’t trust a bone thrown to him by a stranger, I smelled the carcass of my faithful laptop. Lappy, I used to call it, talking to it in “she” form, when I was puzzled or experienced writer’s block. She—this amazing piece of technology with her voice-recognition and speech-to-text tools—was my soul mate, my buddy, my comrade-in-arms, if you will. She was my guidance councilor in time of need and hardship; my compass in the valley of the shadow, as I used to say. And now … now she was dead, and with that, all my dreams for releasing my new issue in time, or giving my speech at the Military Sci-Fi Convention, for that matter. Bummer! Yep, tomorrow was definitely going to be a day of disaster for my small periodical, which barely survived the giant competition of the multi-million budget magazines anyway.
I don’t remember when I crawled into bed or fell asleep. Don’t even know what I dreamt. Nonetheless, at 7:00 AM punctual my wakeup call came through, ringing the bell in my head with no mercy.
I jumped in my damp sheets, my lungs that of a tiger, chasing something all night through the jungles of his deforested paradise.
“Was that a dream?” I ran to the desk, sniffing Lappy from afar as I beset its tiny keyboard. Sensing no smell of burnt microchips, I saw my old mate waking, and dropped in the chair with relief.
Strange enough, it didn’t have to boot up. Although I knew precisely that the poor thing had shut down on me last night, the hard drive simply came out of hibernation, as if the system was never turned off. But as soon as my blurry sight made out what’s on the screen, I figured what had actually happened. It was worse than my heavy morning breath.
“Dang it!” I grunted, sleepily signing in with my username and password. Doors—the newest prodigy OS of Microsoft—was restored to its last backup, because my brand new 8X Core AMD Prelude was a next-gen smart-chip “robot.” That little beast asked no human for advice.
“Good morning, Mr. Rosenthal,” said its female TTS voice assistant. My Lappy was MIA, indeed. “Where do you want to go today, sir?”
Browsing through the folders, there was no need for anyone to tell me that I wouldn’t find there any evidence of that last night’s videochat or its text session. It was supposed to be recorded live, but…
I fleetingly signed in to my AOL satellite server. Not a trace of any email correspondence with Borya or Dr. Gorev. What? Why? No way! My terrabite hard drive is gone—not the whole server in orbit! Huh?
Out of the blue, I heard someone vomiting in my bathroom, flushing the toilet. Lord, did they send me some drunkard after midnight? Or was I hearing a neighbor through the thin wall? It was a cheap suite, which I was told I might share with a convention newcomer. They weren’t sure.
The bathroom door opened slowly. Believe it or not, my Dorothy showed up, drying her mouth with the back of her hand. Did she fly all the way to D.C. from Albuquerque because our videochat had cut off unceremoniously? Hope she wasn’t suspecting I’m having an affair, huh?
“Honey, did I wake you?” she said, her eyes red like after a bad hangover. “I … I’m pregnant,” she fluffed with slightly swollen lips, and ran back to vomit again. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she wailed through angry tears, “I wanted it to be a good surprise, nooooo-ugh … like this. Ohhh.”
She’d had female problems since puberty and she could never have a normal period or a way of detecting whether she’s pregnant—which we have been trying to accomplish for quite some time now.
I stood up and pulled the curtains. Cold morning light blinded me, piercing in through the balcony. Wait … there was no balcony in my hotel room! Only now it dawned on me that it was I who was back home! Lord Almighty, I wasn’t even in Washington, D.C. yet! But-but…
I looked around like a confused pet coping with new surroundings. That’s why there was no such videochat or email correspondence saved in my laptop. I slapped my forehead. It had never happened! Would it happen? Would it? Or was that just a wacko dream? One of those that mess with your reality perception and confuse you till kingdom come?
Hearing my wife vomiting her guts out, I went to her, helped her cleanup her face, then picked her up in my arms. “Don’t worry, luv,” I imitated her Irish, which always made her laugh. “Me loves ye all tha way ta hell and back ta paradise.” That was our cute saying from college.
She smiled, tried even giggling, though it sounded like a cat meowing for help. Poor thing, she wanted so badly for Rosie to have a sibling. When I tucked her in bed, she was the happiest creature in the world, and I couldn’t help but think, was she carrying a boy? Or had she told me that yesterday, and I, piled up with work, had heard her only subconsciously?
The TV turned on. I cocked my head like a parrot, but then I saw it was she who had turned it on with the remote, so I relaxed next to her.
It was the CNN, finishing a report about a painfully familiar hostage situation in Machu Picchu. Next, they announced NASA’s new plans for building a moon base at the North Pole. That’s when I jumped from the bed like stung by a bee. So it’s true? my mind shrieked. All of it is true?
“Why are you in a hurry?” asked Dorothy. “Your flight to Washington is in four hours. You want to shower? I’ve packed your things.”
I lay next to my wife, hugged her, and I think I heard Borya’s voice in the back of my mind: “You will have time to write your speech in the airplane, my friend. A better one, involving us, from the Nth Dimension. You’ll have plenty of time to edit your writers’ submissions as well. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen already. Where I am, time does not exist. Now tell Dorothy you love her more than your work. Stay with her for an hour or two, pamper her, and then go. I’ll tell you the rest on the way.”
Was he a figment of my imagination? Have I become a full-blown schizophrenic, hearing voices? Was he a wishful thinking of my mental cravings, as any shrink would put it? But why a Russian sergeant, killed in Afghanistan? Why not an American killed in Vietnam or in the Gulf War? Then again, how could I dream of NASA changing their plans for going back to the moon sooner? How could I dream of us having a boy? And the Machu Picchu hostages? Was I a prophet now?
No, I wasn’t sure I could tell Borya’s story to the Military Sci-Fi Convention, though I was certain I could run a background check on his name and that of Dr. Gorev in the airplane. I could always see if they have ever existed, and was there a military hospital in Ugarinsk, or not.
And if they weren’t a product of my overworked mind, the question would be: am I supposed to write Borya’s sci-fi story? Was he a character of my newly born novel, or what? Am I talking with the dead?
Either way, I turned to my wife, kissed her, and told her that I love her more than my work. And that, to say the least, felt like a beginning.
A beginning of the new me.
—-—-—-—-—
Copyright © 2003-2009 Bob Bello. All Rights Reserved! http://scifialmanac.ning.com/
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