Science Fiction Fantasy / SF Novel / eBook

Those Who Live Forever

Drinks Are On Me

All Frodge saw was black. 'Just a minute,' he thought. 'If I am dead, I should not be thinking. Drip-head would have made sure that I was dead, unless I knocked him off as well.'

“Excuse me Mr Frodge,” came a frightened voice from nearby.

“Who are you, and for that matter, where am I? The Hospital Ship must be light years away,” returned Frodge.

“You are not in the Hospital Ship Mr Frodge. Try opening your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just think of opening your eyes,” said the stranger, “and you will.” This he did.

To his left, Frodge saw a white figure, and T.T. Teckachi was standing over him. “Oh frap,” he said or thought he said.

T.T. Teckachi looked down at Frodge and muttered, 'I got you this time Pinky. My people shall honor me like no other,' but without opening his mouth.

“It is telepathy,” spoke the stranger. “It will soon come back to you. You are dead. Correction, your body is dead but your mind lives on.”

It was all coming back now. Past experiences, past lives and past loves. The Entity From Within Frodge began to realize how limited his living memory was again.

“The reconditioning will take time,” said the stranger, “as your memories, when you are alive, are limited to that life only.”

“Just a minute,” said the Entity From Within Frodge as he floated up from his ex-body and surveyed the damage. It was as bad as he had thought. He would have won the fight if the stranger had not appeared so early and put him off his stroke.

“I, um,” stuttered the stranger, “apologize for that,” pointing at the corpse on the gravel.

“None necessary,” said the Entity From Within Frodge in a calm thought. “I should not have seen you standing there.”

'This,' thought the stranger, 'was true.' Normally an Intelligence or Entity, call it a Spirit if you like, while in the body, is unable to detect other entities around him because of the shielding of the nervous system in his / her brain. The brain itself is like a Faraday Cage, preventing the entity from leaving its prison. On a very small number of occasions the Intelligence briefly escapes for a fraction of a second before being sucked back in. During this time it is free from electrical disturbances and can communicate with, and hence see, Free Floating Entities, more familiar to the living as ghosts. This phenomenon was experienced by Frodge.

Telepathy takes this principle one step further. Such interpersonal communication takes place when two intelligences escape the cage and make contact with each other. This is rather difficult, as the two people involved need to be in trances for their conversations to last any length of time. Just think of all the laboratory experiments that have failed.

A third phenomenon, a sudden outburst of electrical energy from an intelligence, can be so strong, that it breaks through the cage of the person that it is aimed at for a fraction of a second. Unknown to Frodge, during the last moments of his mortal life, in his flashback, his fiancée tasted gravel and felt a lump in her throat. This was embarrassing, for it happened during an aerobics class. It did not occur to her thirty-six hours later, when she heard the news, that her beloved died fifty thousand light years away at that same time.

He also surprised a certain young lady on a planet a considerable distance away who thought Frodge as just a piecing of her uninhibited fantasies until Klonoa saw him standing in front of her desk.

'Oh well,' thought the Entity From Within Frodge. 'I was just beginning to enjoy that life.' He smiled at the stranger. “Eugene isn't it?” He spoke, pointing at him. “I heard about you some tens of thousands of years ago. Your reputation precedes you.” His memory was coming back.

“Dillan actually,” said Dillan. “I've lived since then.”

“Hey, Korkinsttoff.” The Entity From Within Frodge swung his head around. “Sorry,” said the voice. “How's life Frodge? Or should I say death?”

“Uccalamin you old fox,” he replied. “What brings you all the way from New Zappolona?”

“That dump at the other end of this Universe? Boring place,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin.

“That's the one,” said the Entity From Within Frodge.

“I died fifty-two million years ago,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin.

“What? And you did not bother to look me up in the Astral Directory?” The Entity From Within Frodge grinned.

“Having a life can be disorienting you know. It takes a while to pick up where you left off the last time you were dead,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin.

“It takes a while, but not fifty-two million years,” said the Entity From Within Frodge. “How about giving me the rundown on your latter day history over a pint?”

“I know a good haunt you have not tried yet,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin.

“Then lead the way,” said the Entity From Within Frodge with hand movements, “and I'll follow my nose.”

“Ahem,” came a familiar voice, clearing his throat.

“Dillan my good man! That could only be you,” shouted the Entity From Within Uccalamin before turning around to look at the white figure.

“I must remind Mr Frodge not to forget to sign the register,” said Dillon, attempting to ignore the last remark.

“I'll bear that in mind,” said the Entity From Within Frodge as the Entity From Within Dillan evaporated.

“Now I know why you lost the fight,” proclaimed the Entity From Within Uccalamin, as he too, dispersed into thin air only to reappear a second later. “Are you coming or not?" These were his words before fading once more.

'Now if I remember correctly,' thought the Entity From Within Frodge, 'just thinking of the person is all I need to do to follow him.' There was a rush of air followed by what seemed like a ten minute journey (2.5 million light years). 'Well,' thought the Entity From Within Frodge. 'This trip is boring. I think I'll raise the blind.' He told himself to see, and he did.

Even though he had done this ten to the power of an overwhelming number of times that would take the brains of an Lethanigion the age of the Universe to calculate (which would be difficult), the act of flying free of any mortal restrictions still amazed Frodge.

The calculations were difficult, for Lethanigions were troublesome on two accounts. First, nobody (even time travelers) actually knew the rough age of the Universe, so the time taken for a Lethanigion to complete the project was therefore undefined. Secondly, an average Lethanigion only lived for about 12.77593658257672095615670 Earth years, give or take 0.528474628 hours. At this point in time the race was employed to find out the exact average age of a Lethanigion, frustrated at alien races pressing for solutions to such menial problems as, 'How old is the Universe?' or, 'Why is Frodge 'Strafer' Reeport so amazed?' This interference was stressful, and required adjustments in the Mean Life Expectancy figure. If outsiders had just left them alone until the Mean Life Expectancy problem was solved, which would have taken a year or two, the Universe question could have then been taken up.

One Lethanigion, after a spout of boredom, calculated the chances that outsiders left them alone, but gave up after running out of naughts after the decimal point. His government caught him siding from the Mean Life Expectancy task and had him executed on the spot. Such a harsh act was unheard of in all the planet's history and infuriated a small group from the quaint town of Clamp-Upon-Flidge who had, that very day, filed their results at the town hall. The least pleased was the chairman, who having lived for around 12.7759365825766736529 years, had to give up all hope of being the first average person to die. He died anyway.

The Entity From Within Frodge stopped and looked. He had now traversed the Local Group to the Milky Way. Not far away, was a blue furry biped surfing upon the outer stratosphere of his planet. “How's your dream going?” The Entity From Within Frodge shouted across the vacuum of space.

“Fine,” the creature replied, while squeezing imaginary water out of his fur with his sharp white talons. “But this sea looks a bit watered down.”

“That's not water,” commented the Entity From Within Frodge. “You're surfing on your upper atmosphere.”

The blue furry creature suddenly realized what the Entity From Within Frodge had said, turned a paler blue, fell off his surfboard, plummeted, fizzled, and woke up with a bump, thinking he had desecrated holy ground with his splattered, charcoaled pulp. Concluding it was just another harmless dream, he turned over and laid back down, if not shakily.

'Oops,' thought the Entity From Within Frodge.

Remembering what he was going to do, the Entity From Within Frodge thought again of Uccalamin and once more found himself on his merry way. This time he saw planets, planetoids, stars, and other astronomical bodies as he spirited off. Flying through a solar prominence, the Entity From Within Frodge remembered, was not the most of intelligent things to do, especially when he found himself catapulted backwards head over tail, struck by weak atomic forces (magnetic force) produced by a solar flare. He was lucky not to have got himself caught in an electrical loop, which would have trapped him like the brain's Faraday cage until the field weakened enough to enable him to escape. Many entities have found themselves sucked into and warped through Black Holes because of this electrical field trap. The trip home, after such an event, is long and hard as even entities take a while to travel the billions of mega light years between universes.

Dreams are times when an entity escapes from his / her physical host for a lengthy unit of time. Most people can honestly say they have flown in their dreams. The brain, in relaxing, allows a door to be opened through which the entity can partially stretch. It can not fully escape, for sufficient brain activity holds tight to a part of the entity. One foot is stuck in the door, so to speak. When the brain awakes, the whole entity is sucked back in. Only upon death, when the brain's electrical activity ceases, is the entity released from its bond, as the Entity From Within Frodge is now. Many people claim to, and actually have experienced the 'Out Of Body Experience' or OOBE phenomenon. A lot of these experiences are interpreted as vivid dreams where the individual finds himself or herself pulled along by fate. Popular consensus, if you could call it popular, as the science is still young, is that the subconscious controls all OOBE activity, the brain being the conscious. This is in fact contrary to actuality. The subconscious is the brain, carrying on all house-keeping duties while leaving the Entity to think.

Suddenly a thought flooded into the Entity From Within Frodge's thoughts. Almost immediately, he found himself whizzing towards Uranus. Seeing the planet out of the corner of his vision, as he did not now have eyes, caused a questioning of its existence, which in turn caused the Entity From Within Frodge to change direction. On the way, he stopped off at Pluto, pausing to have a look. 'What a barren place,' he thought. 'Must be the frozen cracked methane ice. Well, at least it will grow popular when that star turns red giant.'

“Are you coming or not?” The Entity From Within Uccalamin shouted from the ledge opposite and once more dispersed, this time leaving a pale green mist in his wake.

'Life will develop here sometime,' thought the Entity From Within Frodge, touching the snow resting upon the black conglomeration on which he stood. It felt very cold and slippery. This is understandable, as the snow was a few degrees above absolute zero. Even entities can produce heat, melting the touched snow, making it slide on the fluid formed. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so his feet therefore froze to provide the heat to his hand.

Waking himself up, the Entity From Within Frodge once more thought of the Entity From Within Uccalamin, stretched out, and headed for Earth. Exactly how many times he had done this before he did not know, just ever since he could remember, and that felt like forever. The deep green-blue surface of Uranus flashed by.

'Ouch,' thought the Entity From Within Frodge, closing his eyes. A second later he shot out the other side of the moon Miranda rubbing his nose. Becoming accustomed to being physically dead can take a while.

The Entity From Within Frodge was determined to fly through the rings of Saturn so he deviated two thousand million miles to do so. On his final approach to Earth he flew through IRAS and GEOSAT, and confused a Russian aboard his shuttle by making a globule of water floating in front of the cosmonaut's face split into four parts, two of which entered each ear. The other two flew up each nostril. Unlike the poor Russian, his fellow cosmonauts found the whole incident very amusing.

Air felt warm as the Entity From Within Frodge impacted the stratosphere. By the time he hit the troposphere, the air rushing passed his imaginary fingers and blowing back what he thought was his hair was much stronger. The pure energy of an entity allows for touch. You must have heard of poltergeists, entities unable to make a successful transition from mortality to remembering who they actually are, frustrated by living people ignoring them, who turn to violence. Objects get thrown and living people get hurt. Do not get me wrong, for a lot of these poltergeists are very friendly and playful.

America looked dry. 'Must be the summer.' The Entity From Within Frodge felt the psi of millions of working people. Japan looked interesting. North Asia and more noticeably Russia were swarming in astral projections. A friendly Omsk production worker insisted on explaining to the Entity From Within Frodge about his day's work over a bottle of vodka. Vladimir was very pleased with his contribution towards the public kitty. The Entity From Within Frodge decided to have one glass, slap the worker on the back and excuse himself.

The Entity From Within Frodge found the Entity From Within Uccalamin at the bar of a little pub in Cornwall. Where about in Cornwall he did not know because the route he took from the sky lacked meaningful signposts.

It was approaching 8:30pm. “Now this is what I call a pub,” exclaimed the Entity From Within Frodge. It looked as though it had been constructed from the internal organs of an old ship. Wooden beams climbed the walls, surrounded by plaster. Lanterns hung from the walls and a larger one swung from the ceiling, giving the walls living shadows. “How are you doing?” The Entity From Within Frodge shouted.

“Fine thanks”' said the Entity swinging from the lantern on the ceiling.

“About time too,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin. “Your beer was getting warm. In case you had not noticed, this is a haunted pub.”

“Really?”

“I feel sorry for the landlord,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin.

“Cheers,” said the Entity From Within Frodge, raising his glass. The landlord was not surprised to see the glass lift itself, but a tourist was. She did not expect her glass to empty its contents in front of her face. Jim, the landlord, with the help of the young lady's boyfriend, pulled her up onto the sofa in the corner by the stone, spark spitting fireplace where she came round.

“This place has been haunted for many centuries,” the landlord was explaining. “Ever since a smuggler was hanged for the murder of one of His Majesty's guards.”

“That's him now,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin to the Entity From Within Frodge, pointing in the direction of the toilet door. “I have tried to persuade him that he is dead but he will have nothing of it. A classic case of Post Mortal Syndrome. In a few hundred years, though, he will recover and remember who he actually is. These weak minded entities are a real embarrassment.” A tall lanky ghost of a smuggler came in, picked up a glass of stout that had been left on the side for him, drank it, turned the empty glass upside down (it, for some reason, being his most entertaining maneuver of the day), and walked back out again.

“That's him there,” explained the landlord to his bewildered visitors. “The trouble is that the news has spread in as much that many more ghosts have turned up on my doorstep. I have brought in mediums, exorcists, and ghost hunters, but the ghosts just play pranks or keep quiet until they leave.”

Expressions of doubt about the landlords sanity crossed his customers' faces.

“Your shift,” said the Early Shift Entity while dropping from the ceiling to the one who had just floated in. This new Late Shift Entity floated up to the ceiling and soon had the lantern swinging again. “Just time for a drink before I pop over to that castle hotel in Nottingham,” said the Early Shift Entity to the Entity From Within Frodge and the Entity From Within Uccalamin.

“I came here,” said the slim, brown haired, well dressed boyfriend, “because I read that it was haunted, but no way did I believe it to be to this extent.”

“Where are you from?” asked the landlord while bringing over fresh drinks.

“Godalming, near Guildford in Surrey,” he replied. “It's a lot different from this. We're just at the end of our holiday and heading home.”

“How do you find our lovely countryside?” asked Jim.

“Very nice. It has quite a history, though the weather this last week has more to be desired.”

Finding the conversation interesting, the Entity From Within Frodge's glass, followed very closely by the Entity From Within Frodge himself, wandered over.

“Hello,” said Jim. The Entity From Within Frodge ignored him.

At the sight of the glass, the young lady jumped up in fright and bumped into the Entity From Within Frodge. The Entity From Within Frodge moved back, trying not to spill any more drink but found himself being pulled forward. He turned to look at the Entity From Within Uccalamin. “Damn,” he said, “she's pregnant.”

The Entity From Within Uccalamin dropped his glass and rushed over. With all his might, he could not pull the Entity From Within Frodge, who was already up to his knees in the woman's uterus, free. The lantern on the ceiling rattled as the swinging Late Shift Entity flew down to help. The Early Shift Entity had already left for Nottingham. Pulling together, they were still unable to free him.

“Forget it,” said the Entity From Within Uccalamin, letting go. “Lets face it. You are going to be born again. I think it's rude for you not to wait until after you told me about your doings in the last fifty two million years.” The Entity From Within Frodge was now up to his waist. “Dillan won't like it either,” the Entity From Within Uccalamin continued, picking up his glass from the floor. It was broken, so he walked through the bar to pour another. “You have not registered yet.”

The Entity From Within Frodge's head was poking out of her womb. “I'll tell you about it later,” he thought. “In the meantime, I think,” pausing to look around, “I am going to be somewhat preoccupied for the next sixty years.” The Entity From Within Frodge's head disappeared. The Faraday cage of the newly conceived child had claimed its victim. “Naughty, naughty,” began his last immortal thought of the day. “Mummy and daddy are not married.”

As the brain took hold, all memories irrelevant to this new life were locked out. All he now knew was the heat of his mother and the beat of her heart.