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Jonel Abellanosa

Remote Viewing into the Past

 

 

An excerpt from a novel in progress

 

Training intensely how to shield his mind while remote viewing, or how to yield false or misleading thoughts in case mental intrusions felt extremely powerful, Armand spent most of the day remote-viewing, scanning the Island of Cebu. Certain areas in Cebu City didn’t have to be scanned, but he still scoured these places, and in as few as 3 hours he was convinced Mariano-Lopez Saavedra was neither in downtown nor in uptown Cebu City. He then focused his spatial scours northward, self-conscious and alert to possible mental intrusions suggesting Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s mental barriers – manned by his army of mind readers and intrusive detectors tasked to protect his mind’s inviolability, his thoughts’ fierce privacy. Armand likewise failed to find Mariano Lopez-Saavedra in the southern towns.

 

Days turned into weeks, and it began to feel like a leisurely exercise, as though he were walking along Boracay’s shorelines, taking his time, ambling barefoot in a time its waters sparkled with transparency, human profligacy and indifference not yet polluting its crystalline fame. And then his vision soared like the falcon, as he searched the Islands of Mindanao through the bird’s-eye-view. He realized the southern parts of the Philippines the greenest, mountains like heads of unkempt hair – thick crowns hosting the most exotic birds in Southeast Asia like the Monkey-eating Eagle. He saw pockets of conflicted areas. He saw rebels and terror groups. Patchworks of Mindanaoan colors – earthenware, tribal costumes, mosques, durian, rice cakes and more – astonished him into delightful reflections, taking him longer to finish his search of Mariano Lopez-Saavedra on the Islands of Mindanao.

 

A month had passed when he turned his hunting eye on Luzon. It had become burdensome, his bedside table full of cigarette butts, the floor with empty cans of Red Horse beer. He wanted to bring his girlfriend, Joanne, to the safehouse. He realized he could be exposing her to dangers should she be detected by Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s army of mind readers. Once or twice a week he’d travel to the nearby town of Liloan for supplies and to call her by long-distance phone from a convenient store. He’d told her he’d be spending more or less 2 months outside the Philippines. Armand had read Joanne’s mind and knew of her ideas and speculations as to the nature of his work. It amused him she kept wondering if he was a travelling salesman, if he sold cars, insurance or homes. She’s 10 years his senior. A discreet person, she’s not inquisitive but respects privacies. She works for travel agencies as translator for Japanese and South Korean tourists, often also as a tour guide. Armand met her in a travel expo in Bangkok, which served as the backdrop for Armand to meet his new CIA handler, who to his surprise informed him he’d be working as a remote viewer for Section 51 until further notice. After a couple of martinis in the adjoining bar in the hotel where the travel expo was held, Armand and Joanne made torrid love in a motel room near the Wat Pho Temple of the Reclining Buddha. She turned out to be Cebuano. After a few minutes of consideration, his lover sleeping in his embrace, Armand shrugged off this “geographic detail” as merely a coincidence. Armand was sure she isn’t immortal, and thus couldn’t read his mind. Back in Cebu, they met in restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and cafes. They made love as often as twice a week, some productive weeks every day. Expanding his search to Southeast Asian countries, he realized he missed most the smell of fading heat from Joanne’s scruff after lovemaking, her sweat wafting smells of string beans. As he quaffed beer in a can, he’d see her in his mind’s eye. He’d look for her in Cebu City, remote-viewing the room she rented near the house with the fountain centered in its garden. He’d follow her in his seeing mind as she went for groceries, as she went alone to see a movie, as she went through her work as a translator and tour guide for Japanese and South Korean tourists enjoying Cebu City’s tourist spots. Watching her remotely, Armand thought she’s a dedicated woman, someone who sought solace in her work, and in her dedication she seemed fulfilled, and it showed in the way she carried herself with sprightly strides, the way she’d seem to float. But vigor’s insistence in her mobility seemed a betrayal of a deep-set pain, perhaps something earthshaking or uprooting in her past making her persist for gestural joviality. He wanted to ask her why she hasn’t settled down, but he thought the question too childish. She’s no doubt broken like everyone else. She’s no doubt putting up a happy façade like everyone else. They’ve been together more than a year, and she’s never asked him about the nature of his work. He thought such a respect for private spaces deserved reciprocity.

 

Armand concluded Mariano Lopez-Saavedra wasn’t in Southeast Asia, and promptly relayed the information through established protocols to Section 51. He didn’t know where next to focus his search. He then received instruction to focus on Europe, particularly Amsterdam in North Holland, Amsterdam the capital city and municipality of the Netherlands. As he focused his searing attention on 52.3702° N, 4.8952° E, he noticed a strange palpitation that seemed localized in the front parts of his head. As he viewed an area in the coordinates he started feeling dizzy, tasting a sourness in his breaths. He lit a cigarette and took in a long, deep draft of calming Marlboro. He followed with his meandering mind the winding roads, the cobblestone pathways, and he felt the yellowish peace of a misty night dense with flickering gaslights. And in the freeflow of being a casual observer he started hearing horseshoe sounds, lulling with repetition. And then he saw the horses, carriages they draw, navigating both ways of the melancholy road. Armand saw the drunkard, bottle of moonshine in hand, his back against the brick wall. The whole scene seemed strange, with its sfumato effects on perception – blurred lines, dulled edges, the feeling of inertia mistakable as stillness or languor. “Hypnotic,” Armand thought, this smoky or hazy scene in downtown Amsterdam. It was while almost falling asleep, his eyelids heavy with boredom, that he glimpsed the figure of a walking man having the physical dimensions of Mariano Lopez-Saavedra, with a lilting gait so characteristic of his sense of accomplishment but which now seemed a bit reserved. The person seemed not going anywhere fast, his paces bearing telltale signs of aimlessness, as though his thoughts didn’t reflect the language of his paces. Instinct made Armand push his seeing eye ahead of the man, and in a few seconds he wouldn’t be sure if he should be surprised or not. There’s no doubt the man Armand saw walking on one of Amsterdam’s dimlit alleyways was Mariano Lopez-Saavedra. His salt-and-pepper hair looked a lot shaggier. He seemed chubbier and stockier, his coat looking tighter. Armand willed his focus to zoom in on Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s face, and he realized it was unkempt, as though it had been weeks since Mariano Lopez-Saavedra last shaved. His cheeks seemed a bit puffed, the skin on his jowls a bit stretched, as though he’d put on extra pounds. Armand remembered Victoria’s words about a fatter Edward Herrmann. There seemed a melancholy air with which Mariano Lopez-Saavedra carried himself. Armand realized he may have been wandering Amsterdam’s streets for days, like someone homeless, his 2-piece suit looking soiled and heavy with dirt. Armand focused again on Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s face, and he recognized greasy spots, patches on his cheeks reminding of dirt. Mariano Lopez-Saavedra looked like someone who hadn’t known a bathroom’s amenities for days. He looked like someone who’d wandered across the city without destination, full of pointlessness. He looked like someone traipsing, as if he didn’t want what he was doing but had no choice. Armand wondered if it was wise to read Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s mind.

 

Armand followed him, and Mariano Lopez-Saavedra soon looked like someone drunk, pacing and pacing aimlessly. Armand noticed his facial expression, realizing he’s watching someone walk and walk and walk as though he’d had enough of life, had had enough of what life had to offer. Armand asked himself if he’s watching someone about to commit suicide. He wondered if he’s following someone drowned in life’s existential questions, and seemed to have arrived at a conclusion, or decision.

 

Armand felt amused, wondering why such thoughts entered his mind. He followed Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s aimless walk, which strangely seemed to look leisurely. Strange that Mariano Lopez-Saavedra looked like one of the nocturnal denizens of a ghostly part of Amsterdam, his light-colored trouser awkwardly short by today’s style, its cuffed leg openings showing his ankles and that he wore no socks. When Armand saw Mariano Lopez-Saavedra’s tattered leather shoes he recognized the possible pain from the man’s feet obtruding his gait.

 

Armand isn’t aware he’s part of an experiment by a Section 51 unit of physicists dealing with what they simply call “Time.” In the densest portion of the Island of St. Lazarus’ forested parts stands a structure made of light, concrete and vegetation, which houses what members of the “Time” unit fondly call – “The Vestibule.” The phase of the so-called “Time Experiment” that now includes Armand investigates and aims to reinforce current understanding and technologies involving what they call “folds,” “creases,” “gaps,” “pulses,” “waves” and “holes” in the space-time continuum. It aims to develop new technologies to “harness all of time’s possibilities vis-à-vis man’s evolution as a sentient, fully aware and spiritual being of free will.” They’ve been trying to establish if the human mind – with the proper powers and training – can perceive events happening hundreds of years in the past. Armand’s mind has been deemed one of the most powerful on the planet, thus he’s been chosen to participate in this phase of the experiment.

 

An analyst following Armand’s remote-viewing in real time via one of the computer terminals notices a wind-tossed folded sheet of newspaper, as the person who would be known centuries later as Mariano Lopez-Saavedra nears a lamp-lighted corner and might take the anticipated right turn. The analyst’s mind and nervous system have been interfaced with the computer software, so he reflexively mentally orders the software to perform certain tasks, bypassing the looping subroutine following Armand’s seeing eye.

 

After a few seconds the analyst nods – the emotion the nod creates, which the ultra-powerful and super intelligent sensor has detected, the equivalent of hitting the ↵ “Enter” key of a traditional computer keyboard. Instantly the newspaper vanishes. He waits a couple of minutes to establish if Armand has noticed the vanishing. Then, just to make sure Armand hasn’t noticed, he asks 2 of the mind readers present to find out if Armand has noticed the newspaper on the pavement has suddenly vanished, warning the mind readers to be extra careful as Armand might notice the mental intrusion, which, the analyst says, is unlikely as Armand is deeply engaged in remote viewing. After 13 minutes or so the mind readers conclude Armand hasn’t noticed the vanishing newspaper, assuring the analyst Armand hasn’t detected their mental intrusion. The computer monitor still shows what Armand is seeing without “folds” and “creases” that would have suggested his detection of mental intrusion. The analyst heaves a sigh of relief, and continues eating his thermostabilized lunch on a tray equipped with magnets, springs and Velcro to keep the food, spoon and fork (if unused) from floating. He quickly teleported the newspaper from the scene Armand is seeing into another place in Amsterdam because he was sure the newspaper bore the date – August 10, 1768 – and he was afraid Armand, known for his curiosity and his aptitude for quick mental calculations and associations, might see it. Armand mustn’t know yet he’s taking part in 1 of the most advanced experiments dealing with time that Section 51 is conducting.

 

 

 

A previous contributor to Danse Macabre, Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, Poetry Kanto, McNeese Review, Mojave River Review and Star*Line. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars award. His fourth poetry collection, Songs from My Mind’s Tree, has been published in early 2018 by Clare Songbirds Publishing House (New York), which will also publish his collection, Multiverse. His poetry collection, Sounds in Grasses Parting, is forthcoming from Moran Press. His first speculative poetry collection, Pan’s Saxophone, is forthcoming from Weasel Press.

 

 

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