New life

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Evan Kiedis recalled his favourite Astrophysics lecturer, Dr Fred Kersley always said this when he felt his students were not listening to him. Evan was often distracted. He often wondered why his father wasn’t like Fred. Was a sense of resignation, he could that that is just the just the nature of life and then searched for the classic Rolling Stones song, ‘You can’t always get what you want’ on his iPhone.

Ten years passed and Evan was now in charge of engineering a space capsule that will use the power of quantum mechanics to suspend time and with the power of your mind, be able to enter whatever part of the universe that came closest to inside your brain. This required intense transcendental meditation training for the next year and slowly Evan dissolved his limiting beliefs.

Now with a very open mind, and intense immersion into science fiction readings, Evan was now able to create his gut instinct of where the nearest extra-terrestrial civilization is. For this connection to mind and quantum mechanics to work, it could only come from one person at a time and because it was his chief idea, it had to be Evan that was the test guinea pig. This brilliant mind also had to master the art of lucid dreaming because when his body would go to states of sleep, he would be able to be not lost in dream world and redirect it to the space world his psyche was going to.

Nerves raced through his veins with the unknown feeling of what could happen. What if he was stuck in this new world? His body will still be on earth, but his psyche would be trapped in the interconnected world millions of light years away. Eventually the life body would need more than the life support machine could support. Evan knew that this moment in human existence, we needed the truth that we were not the only life forms creating civilizations. He knew the odds were low, but the universe was too massive for us to be the unique life force.

Anyway, the meditation helped calm his mind and after a year of this he told his team that he felt he was ready to test the capsule. It was set up like a floating tank, so you could truly zone out. Evan was fully naked in this device so his project team members could monitor his body easily for any physiological changes. Breathe was the last words that Evan muttered under his breath, as he slowly stepped closer and closer to his glowing white capsule. His head was spinning because it felt insane being in two worlds at once. However, he had done the mathematics and worked out that everything adds up.

As this middle-aged man opened the capsule to see the glowing light, he felt like was like those near-death experience stories. These ideas he felt skeptical of because he knew that most people had near death experiences in a hospital, where they are often shining light onto you. Ahh, the placebo effect…Evan laughed inside his head. The problem was even though he knew lots of science, he could not stop his hand from shaking. It OK, just embrace fear, he thought. This thought calmed him down as he stepped into the capsule and gradually laid down on the shallow water. Suddenly the lights were flashing, and he heard the voice of the chief technician below out to start closing your eyes and visualise your destination. A trance came over him and all he all could see was a red spiral rotate around his vision. It got more and more intense and then his brain felt like exploding, and a flash of light glared into his eyes. He screamed but it felt like the sound was just internalised.

Suddenly, darkness. Evan pushed open the capsule top and smelt a weird odour. Coughing, he quickly covered his mouth and grabbed the oxygen mask attached to the capsule. With the mask now on, the inquisitive man set eyes on his surroundings. He then remembered he was naked and quickly dressed into his one-piece space suit. It was light and had the ability to detect outside temperatures and then provide the appropriate temperature to the body.

When Evan started wondering he noticed the sky was red. Even wearing the special suit, it was clearly apparent that the temperature was hotter than anything in Earth. Slowly wandering into nowhere, the scientist eventually saw a blue dome. It seemed like an oasis and so Evan moved quicker. It felt like he wasn’t going anywhere. Suddenly, he heard a noise, like a police siren and then in an instant he felt an electric shot charge through his body. It paralysed him and he fell to the floor. All he could do was stare into the smoky haze of the sky above and then felt a needle go into his shoulder and his conscious was gone.

On regaining consciousness Evan saw his naked body was floating upright in a glass container filled with water. Oddly, he could breathe and so touched his face to feel no mask! He realised that maybe the reason is that the water is different to what is in Earth. Suddenly, he heard a below into his ears.

“Intruder, why do you enter our planet?”

Evan, with intense confusion replied.

“How can you speak my language??”

“We have an automatic translator device.”

Evan then realised they must know about Earth. Then the deep voice bellowed again.

“We can let you free but if you must be aware that we have implant a microchip into your brain and if your brain tries to communicate what you saw the chip will scramble any recollection.”

Evan thought to himself that he needed a plan to get the microchip out, but first thing is how does he get out of the water container?

“Can I become a citizen of your planet?” These were the curious word that came out of the only Earthling on this unknown planet.

“It just like your planet, you need to prove you are of value.”

“I’ll do.” Was the reply.

“You rest, and we’ll test you in the morning.”

Evan agreed to this because he already felt drowsy. When he woke up, he was dressed in gym gear. This was uncomfortable to him because he was not a natural athlete.

“Athletics is not my strength!” Evan exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll let you prove yourself in what way you feel fit but based on our assessment you more strength than us, however less intelligence.”

This was weird weirds for the scientist as he was used to things being the other way. Then then voice added some extra information.

“We are worried you are worried that you have unresolved father issues and so we may create a new father for you.”

“How do you know this?” Replied the human.

“We scanned your brain and then the part linked to paternal upbring showed more stress markers.”

The instant response was, “This is too weird to understand but I’ll give it a go.”

The rest of the day Evan followed the orders. It was mostly just instruction to eat and read the manual on life as a Zentarian – the name of the planet was Zentaria. Evan went with the flow because he realised this was the best way to survive. After a good night’s sleep, he woke up to a skinny, green creature wheel towards him. Then he heard something come out of his mouth.

“I’ll be your new father.”

The problem was that you could say this to somebody, but this does not change reality. This meant there was only one reply.

“How?”

“I’ll be a father that encourages you.”

For some reason this did not excite the Earthling and he became defensive.

“I love my father and he cannot be replaced.”

Then an outside voice shouted.

“You are insane and need some education why you have not lived a pleasurable life.”

A realisation then came over Evan, because realised that life was not all about pleasure but rather meaning. Evan could get pleasure from simple things like playing computer games or getting drunk. The problem with these things were that they left a hollow feeling inside. Insight came over this curious man.

“I’ve realised I want to come home. I don’t care if you remove my recollection of all this experience. What I want is something deeper than your planet and my planet can only give this because it has rooted connections.”

Then the only thing he heard was, “As you wish.”

Nothing else was remembered after that. When Evan came out of the capsule this time, he thought nothing had happened, but he did not mind. He told his technicians that it seems like the machine needs some tweaking and said he needs some time alone.

The first thing Evan did when he arrived home was to call his father and said that he loved him and don’t change. Suddenly the future did not seem so important compared the present moment that was filled with love.