Make IT Real! - Sander R.B.E. Beals (self help books to read .txt) 📗

claim that the internal factors of a lover are the most important, above and beyond any external factors. Well, I for one won't: to me both internal and external factors are equally important, and neither can be disregarded. But it is somewhat miraculous, that one lady could check all the boxes on my list of "I'd love her to have / be ....". None are absolutely essential of course, but just imagine seeing someone ace that list... Wouldn't you be impressed, to say the least?

So had it been a hoax, then somebody would have sent her after me, which would account for her having gotten involved with me despite my shyness. But still, what kind of hoax would it be, if they hired someone to pose as my colleague for over a year? What could be important enough to warrant such an investment? It's not like I'm famous or rich.... On the other hand, Selina might just know something which I didn't back then.....

Maybe I'm just not devious enough to figure it all out, but at least there is Occam's razor, which basically says that the most simple solution tends to be the right one. Now I could probably concoct a very intricate hoax that would attempt to trick me into something, but what could be simpler than the existence of the All That Is, which seems out to give us whatever we want, in any way possible, if we but ask? I know, I know, you'd want proof, right? Unmistakeable proof that (S)He exists. I'm hoping this whole story will at least raise reasonable doubt in your minds, because absolute proof, although I hate to say it, just isn't available.

And I won't be using the word God much in this story, finding it to be unjustly laden with incorrect associations. Just let's entertain the thought for a while, that there is a mechanism at work, as yet unfathomed, that is aiming to get any of us all we want from life.

You can try to uncover it, like I have from about when I was eight years old, but you will only get terribly close. Close, but no cigar: in the end, you are left with but One Choice: to believe, or not.

No book, including this one, can actually make that choice for you. It is a choice you make... for yourself! Based on what you saw in the past, you will or won't perceive a certain trend in your experiences. If you see it, then choosing becomes easier, the leap of faith becomes a mere hop. But the choice is still yours, nobody will want to take it from you.

Same difference with me: I'll have to trust this to end well, before it actually will. And even though I'm not yet in a place where trust comes naturally, I'm getting there. It is like I'm having to write the perfect ending to this story, without being able to assure myself it actually will end this way. Currently, I just have the faith it will end well, but I am not at all sure about the particulars of the eventual solution. But does it need to happen the way I foresee it? Isn't just knowing that the end result will far exceed my wildest expectations enough to instill the required trust? Should be, right? So let's just finish this novel on the double!

But don't think for just one moment I'm trying to conjure a perfect servant or anything like that. Apart from that being a violation of the personal gain rule which is said to govern this magic, it might also be a violation of Selina's free will. And I'd rather do the rest of my lives without her, than to have her be something which she doesn't actually want to be....

Actually, I love her for her strong will, her outspoken opinions, and her talkative nature. I'm a reactor when it comes to communication, so someone who gives me plenty of chances to honestly react is just up my alley.

And what, if anything, do I have to offer her? First of all, a deep acceptance of just who she is, regardless of what happened in the past. Choices are there to be made, and judging a choice as bad in hindsight is just as much violating anyone's free will as it is when you forbid them to do something. Worse even, because the prevalent idea is that the past cannot be changed anymore. So you are actually blaming someone for having done something, without them having the option to not do it after all..... But then again, that's old reasoning. Just read on and see how it ends.... Maybe the ending will reveal some of the other things she could love me for.

4444AD, Day 227, 12:17, Home

Having remembered my dream about the designer home the other night, I figure it's about time I found out what its relevance is to me. From memory I reckon it was along the IJssel river, about a mile downstream from the old bridge, opposite the industrial harbor of Zutphen. Unfortunately, that was during a time when that place was still solidly on dry land. Back then, locations were given in old-fashioned latitude and longitude, a system that originated several centuries earlier, from the marine tradition.

Nowadays, we use intuitive locating, so I'll have no need to access ancient books and stuff to find out where it went. Heck, just thinking of it might get me there, but often using other means is more relaxing. Sure, there are those of us who (beyond their own bodies) use no tools at all. These purists go by the motto that if they cannot do it themselves, they are not meant to do it. And believe it or not, the more successful of these can actually transport themselves across immense distances. But since they methodically avoid quite a vast array of technological aids, one cannot say they are accepting the whole of their cosmos.

I for one do master teleportation without technological means, but prefer the 'normal' way of getting from A to B, especially if going in company. Today, my outing to my old home will be just a quick reconnaissance, so self-propelled teleportation seems the way to go. I focus on finding the nearest safe place outside it to land, not knowing where it will be. But the thought is enough to take me there: my eyes close upon the image of my study, and open again on a patch of pasture, which has the ruins of the house standing there, about knee deep in the overflown estuary of the IJssel river. Beyond it, the North Sea stretches out as far as the eye can see, and I remember how it's gotten quite a bit bigger since the 21st century: one used to have to travel over an hour by train to get to the seashore from here!

I look at the ruins from where I stand: the house is still largely intact, yet very dilapidated. The photovoltaic panels on the roof are way beyond repair, and the half glass pyramid of the sun room is no more than a wire frame full of shards. The walls are still standing, but several trees have overgrown the once proud and ultramodern structure. Because of the enormous amount of change from my memories about it, I consciously experience a few very melancholy urges.

I step into the water, and wade towards the purpose of my visit. Not sure what I'm looking for here, but my intuition will help me along. I enter through the sun room, having to submerge myself up to my chest. In the living room I am again only knee deep, and that will be the extent of my getting wet. Somehow, something tells me I need not visit the submerged basement level, for I'd never have hidden anything that should withstand time in the bottom levels of a structure that might over time collapse in on itself.

I ascend the stairs, to the sleeping quarters. No doubt it will be hidden here, but where exactly? I start with the room closest to the stairs, which if memory serves right, was a guest room. The furniture is still there, but has had to deal with the weather coming in through the wall to wall sliding doors to the balcony, which have long since been shattered. A gull's nest has been abandoned right smack in the middle of the bed, and it looks like no animal has even been here in quite some time.

I scan the walls, but detect no hollow spaces, not even behind the crookedly hung frames with 21st century artwork in them. On to the next room, which belonged to Jane. It too had a view on the nearby stables, which would have been imperative for the young one: she adored her horses! But again, no hidden stuff, except a laptop stashed in the large drawer beneath the bed. I decide to take it, and place it at the top of the stairs. It was still seemingly intact, because in contrast with the other room, this one had all its windows still unbroken.

Valerie's room is next, and it has equally been spared the humiliation of being exposed to the weather. Unlike Jane's room however, nothing is to be found here, which leaves me the master bedroom and the bath room.

And then my intuition kicks in: the master bedroom is adjacent to the sun room, and as such has the top half of the pyramid right outside it's wall. From my memory of the original plans, the capstone was outside the south wall, on top of the roof. I go into the bathroom, knowing it to house the access hatch to the rooftop. A quick climb up the rungs imbedded in the tiled wall, and I'm up on the roof, praising myself lucky my past self had the foresight to have the hatch made in stainless steel: it opened even after all these many years.

I work my way past the damaged photovoltaic panels, to the triangular piece of the south wall that hides the sunroof from view. It features a triangular stainless steel door, apparently hinged on the bottom.

When I pull the handle imbedded in it, the door won't budge. “Think outside the box, Sander”, I hear myself think. Of course! Outside the box! I stand up, and reach over the wall to the outside half of the capstone. Indeed, out there the twin half of that triangular latch is to be found. As I pull on it, I hear the heavy metal cover on the other side of the wall thud onto the pebbles of the roof covering.

Crouching down again, I can now finally see what's in the safe space: apparently designed to be the only payload, I behold a perfectly polished marble pyramid, with a copper capstone. Fortunately, the object is placed on a sliding tray with a proper handle, otherwise I'd never have gotten it out!

Despite its base of about forty-two centimeters in both directions, the object weighs surprisingly little. Not that it weighs too little to be marble, but it certainly won't be solid marble. I feel this was the prize I was aiming for, and take it down the hatch into the hallway to the waiting laptop. No need to get into the water with all this, since the landing is as good a jump point as anyplace. I stack the pyramid on top of the laptop, take both in my hands, and think “There's no place like home”, taking care to land in our bathroom, to avoid wet stains on the carpets in the living room.

After a change of clothes, I carry the pyramid and its little companion into the study, because that's what they're here for: to be studied! First of all, how does it open? It seems seamless at first glance, yet detailed observation reveals that the seams are merely placed in such a way as to coincide with the edges