Читать книгу Soulmates - A.J. Mitar, A. J. Mitar - Страница 3

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Supreme happiness. Absolute peace of mind. I had never felt that way. That surreal tranquility had taken over my entire being, as if universal peace had inundated me through my extremities and my mind had been left completely void of any thought. I felt as if I were floating but, at the same time, supported by a semi-solid surface. There was a warm breeze caressing my skin. I wanted to remain there, in that state, forever.

This is a very pleasant dream… Where am I?

My memory came back spontaneously, rearranging itself as if my life could be rebuilt automatically, step by step. Each piece of the puzzle was coming together and each empty space was being filled. I was aware of myself once again. In that brief moment, I realized I was in a typical state of wakefulness. However, when my most recent memories came back to me, I woke up right away.

I sat up immediately, out of breath, as if I were awakening from a nightmare. But it hadn’t been a nightmare… It was real life.

I started to study my surroundings, frantically looking at everything around me, searching for a clue or anything that could help me understand what was going on, but nothing seemed like it was supposed to be. I was sitting at a shore, but the water in front of me was practically still, so I assumed it was a lake. I also saw some mountains in the horizon. Then I looked at my own body―I was naked. And that was what shocked me the most.

This is a very charming place―I thought, as I continued to observe the weird landscape. Maybe I'm dead… Maybe I went to my happy place, to another part of my existence. I was fantasizing, searching my brain for a possible explanation, no matter how bizarre it might sound.

I saw a small grove across from the lake. It had very large, tall oak trees that were almost sixty feet tall, which is not common in my region. However, what really caught my eye was a narrow path to my left that went deep into the grove. It seemed like a dirt road created by constant traffic from people or animals.

The sun was rising behind the mountains, casting just enough light on the vegetation. I also noticed that the weather was perfect. Even though I was naked, I felt pretty comfortable. I believe it must have been about seventy to seventy-five degrees, but a warm breeze was brushing through my skin. All I could do was get up and let my legs carry me further than my eyes could see. And I had my eyes set on that narrow path.

I stood up, trying to get the blood flowing back to my legs. Standing at five-seven feet tall, I could see a familiar shape about a quarter-mile away from me. It was someone lying on the sand. It would have been impossible for me to see it if I hadn’t stood up. My heart was racing as I ran towards that other person. Maybe I could get some answers. For better or worse, I wasn't all alone in that place.

As I got closer, the shape became clearer and increasingly more familiar. It was a woman, who was also naked. She was lying on her stomach. I was able to identify the feminine shape of her backside, hips, and waist. When I was only a few feet away, I made a positive identification because of her old-fashioned hairstyle: short hair, right below her chin, in a dirty-blond shade that was so familiar to me. I also recognized her new fluorescent tattoo on her right triceps. Yes! That's her… Angelica!

She was sleeping in an uncomfortable position, with her face against the rough sand and her arms extended on either side, slightly turned outwards. Even though I was beside myself when I saw a friendly face―or body―I was deeply ashamed of noticing her nudity, even though I was doing it unconsciously. I felt I was cheating on my best friend Tommy when I let my eyes wonder through his wife's intimate parts.

That was when I thought, Wait a minute… What would the better option be? Should she wake up to see a man squatting over her? Even though we've known each other forever, the sight of me in that position will scare her more than it's necessary. She'll already have to deal with the fact that she's waking up, completely naked, in an unknown place… For the love of God, she doesn't need to be staring at my genitals on top of that!

I looked around, trying to find anything to cover my private parts, but there was nothing I could use. Dammit… An oak branch wouldn't provide much comfort, would it? The most logical reaction was to stay away, wait for her to wake up and give her time to gradually adapt to that situation without any added trauma.

Actually, I only had to wait another ten minutes before Angelica started to wake up. From a safe distance, I watched her panicking when she woke up in an unknown place. She looked around and noticed I was there. Following her most basic instinct, she started running toward me.

“Alex… Alex! What's going on? Where are we?” she yelled before she reached me.

When she was about six feet away, she looked at me from head to toe and realized that we were dressed up as Adam and Eve. I could feel her gaze moving up through my body and stopping in one area in particular. That's really great! Here I am, naked in front of my best friend, and all she does is analyze my physical attributes.

I pretended I was running away, covering my family jewels with my hands, but in a natural way. Angelica blushed, showing that she was embarrassed by that situation, and decided to cover herself as well―she put her right arm over her chest and used her left hand to try to hide her pubes. Apart from hiding our shame, we were both intrigued by the circumstances we had found ourselves in.

“Where are we? Tell me! Answer me!” Angelica could no longer fight back the tears and started sobbing. “Where the hell have we ended up? How did we get here?”

“I can't really take a wild guess as of now,” I said, looking down and thinking that we had to analyze everything first and try to gather more facts. “Can you remember anything?”

“I remember that odd object hovering over us,” she said, wiping away her tears with her left hand. “Your car went off the road, then you were carrying me… I could hear Tommy's voice! I was looking for Lorenzo… Where's my baby? What happened to him? Is he alright? Tell me! I was running toward Tommy, then this blinding light came and… Next thing I know I woke up here,” she started sobbing again.

“Listen… Let's try to arrange all these weird events in chronological order. We need to look at this clearly.”

Angelica knelled down on the sand. She had the facial expression of someone who was getting ready to listen to something unbelievable, albeit elementary.

“We were going down the road when a mysterious object got closer. I'd say it was a UFO…”

Angelica seemed to agree with me, keeping her eyes wide open and nodding, while shaking a little bit. I noticed goose bumps covered her skin, despite the pleasant temperature.

“By what I could see, it was an unknown aircraft equipped with a technology that is not compatible with what we have right now, in 2023… I've never seen anything like those rays―they were incredible, like an alien weapon. That object abducted us with those rays.”

Angelica started to look confused, as if that theory taken from a “Twilight Zone” episode sounded extremely unbelievable to her. However, I had known her long enough to admire her open-mindedness. She was trying to adapt to that out-of-the-ordinary situation and recover from my verborrhea.

“Alex, I know you as an IT Consultant who is passionate about science fiction. I trust your observations, but there's something I need to ask you: Please analyze this situation carefully, without letting it be contaminated by your fan-boy fantasies.”

I was offended for a split second, but decided to leave that debate aside for the time being. “I know it sounds like a sci-fi movie, but that's exactly what I saw with my own eyes: you evaporated when you were struck by that ray… You disappeared into thin air. I was struck too, and that's how we both ended up here,” I added.

“Are you trying to tell me that it was the ray of light that brought us here?”

“At first, when I saw you disappearing, I thought it was some sort of disintegrating weapon. I feared the worst―that you had died. Then, I was hit as well, and I had that same sensation you described: I saw a blinding white light and, then, there was only silence… I woke up here, with you, in this unknown place. Since we're not dead, I can only assume those rays were actually part of a teletransporter… All in all, we were abducted!”

She showed signs of agreement and her body languages clearly indicated that I had found a crack in her shield of skepticism. Deep down, she was an intelligent woman and, despite my fantastic explanation, it all sounded logical and probable to her.

“Well, were we teletransported by that aircraft to this place then?” she asked. “But, where are we? Why would someone bring us here?”

We had been in that unknown place for only a few minutes and had little to go by as far as finding answers to all those questions. “What do you want me to say, Angelica? We don't have any clue to create a satisfactory theory… And, there's more: all these arguments I just shared with you are nothing but conjectures. For all I know, we might as well be dead, in a limbo, waiting to go to the other side. What the hell do I know? We should just try to find someone who can help us. How about we start over there? Let's walk there and explore this area going down that path,” I said, taking her by the hand and showing her the trail through the oak grove.

She hesitated for a moment, but then agreed to follow me. Being careful not to expose our genitals too much, we followed our way towards the unknown.

That oak grove was nothing but a small group of trees that are unknown to most people living in the Po Valley area, but largely found throughout the rest of the Italian peninsula. I knew them well because I had observed the indigenous vegetation in other parts of the country during my business trips. These trees were enormous and its branches were so intertwined that they created a thick dome that was almost impenetrable to sunlight. I thought about locating ourselves geographically by looking at the sky, then I cursed myself for never having pursued a passion I had since I was a boy: Astronomy.

“Do you know anything about astronomy?” I asked.

“Do you really think this is the time and place to joke around?” she asked rhetorically.

Maybe… If I could use my rudimentary knowledge in astronomy, I'd be capable of locating us, even if it were in a generalized way… We could at least know in each hemisphere we are. If I were able to find the Northern Star, that would tell me we're in the southern hemisphere; if I found the Southern Cross, that would mean we're in the northern hemisphere―I thought, stretching my astronomy fundamentals. I made a deal with myself that I'd pay attention to the stars as soon as dark, clear skies were presented to me.

As we walked, I glanced at Angelica, her breasts bouncing with each step. She was no longer covering them, because she wanted to pay attention to the unknown path, too.

“Do you think we're… we're still in Italy?” she asked me, looking left and right, studying the landscape.

“I don't know,” I shrugged. “But the landscape is similar,” I tried to give her a more comforting answer. “The water in the lake, the vegetation, the mountains in the distance… It all points to the great lakes in northern Italy. I just don't know which one…”

Angelica was shivering and hadn't notice the margins of the lake and the mountains, but I had paid attention to every detail and thought our surroundings looked similar to those of Lake Como or Garda. However, one crucial thing was missing: the several villages along the coast. As far as I could see, there were no traces of civilization anywhere.

After we walked about a mile and a quarter down the winding path, we finally reached the edge of the grove. About fifty yards away from that corridor of trees, we found a weird welcome sign. Our jaws dropped when we saw a square green sign with a male and a female silhouette. The images were drawn side by side and had one hand up, as if they were saying hello to us. That reminded me of the messages we sent to space last century…

“What does this mean?” Angelica had stopped suddenly and her muscles were tense. “Is someone waiting for us? Dammit, what's going on?”

We had to keep going to find out. We took a few more steps out of the grove. That's when we were able to admire the futuristic, majestic building erected at the bottom of a hill. It was a very large farmhouse with an exuberant garden and bushes. I started walking faster, pulling Angelica by the hand.

Once we approached the farmhouse, we stopped to admire it. The house was white and had a post-modern look with large stained-glass windows all over the place. It looked like a “V” with a flat base. There was a terrace on the concave part of it, with a splendid wooden porch. Next to it, there was a trapeze-shaped pool and everything was surrounded by orchids arranged in a complex design.

The construction material had actually called my attention. It wasn't cement or metal, and it reflected light in a weird way―at least a way I had never seen before, because it was luminescent. Does anyone live there?―I wondered.

We followed a path around the pool, crossed the terrace, and approached the entrance, where there were two openings. They were two common doors with a knob, one on the right and another one on the left, each displaying the corresponding silhouette of a man or a woman.

“Wrong door… It must be the bathroom,” I said.

“It's true…” Angelica couldn't help but laugh, and her face lit up to highlight her beauty. “I needed to go anyway. Excuse me.”

Unbelievable! She's about to go in through that door by herself. She's either going nuts, or she's under the influence of a mysterious force―I thought as I watched her acting so recklessly.

Angelica opened the door as naturally as possible and went in. After being shocked for a moment, I tried to follow her, but something unexpected happened: I wasn't able to go in. I tried to cross the threshold of that weird door, but it just didn't happen. A mysterious force did not allow me to take a step further. It was a repelling force, just like the one that occurs between two magnets when the polarities are charged the same. The more effort I made to go in, the stronger the force repelling me was.

I walked about fifteen feet backwards and ran towards the door with as much force as my body mass and speed could generate. Then I was thrown some six feet away from the door, which finally closed to separate me from Angelica. I pushed against the door with my shoulder, I kicked it, I pounded on it, but it was all in vain. What a strange material… It’s similar to wood, but much stronger—I thought as I saw I couldn’t really damage it. I wasn’t able to leave a single scratch on it.

“Angelica! Angelica!” I yelled her name to no avail. I was unable to communicate with my friend.

Then I tried the other door, the one displaying the male silhouette. I placed my shaky hand on the knob, turned it and crossed the threshold without any issues.

The wonders of that day never ceased to amaze me. I just stood there, admiring the beauty of that luxurious place. It was as if I had entered a castle of one thousand and one nights owned by an oil tycoon from Russia.

It had one gigantic, open room with designated areas. It was well furnished and practical, like those houses in the decoration magazines my wife likes so much. I was impressed by the large, relaxing Jacuzzi, the sauna, and complete gym with a stationary bike, treadmill and other multipurpose machines—all of them equipped with state-of-the-art holographic technology. There was an island in the kitchen, which seemed to have all modern appliances known to man, including self-cleaning technology—which I had never seen with my own eyes because I’ve always assumed it was something only rich people could afford. Then there was the multimedia center with the usual TVC system (TV + computer), in addition to some devices that, as an IT Consultant, I was ashamed to say I could not recognize. Apparently, that house had one single floor and high ceiling—160 feet high, actually. The walls inside and around the perimeter were transparent, made of a glass-like material that was abundant throughout the house.

I saw Angelica out of the corner of my eye and started to yell and jump up and down to get her attention, but she was too busy admiring the house, or maybe looking for something to wear. In such a well-decorated house, I’m sure you’ll find some fabric that suits your style. It would be nice to finally cover our naked bodies—I thought, looking for something as well.

The decoration followed a western style, so I knew I had to look through closets and drawers. Angelica went on in her pursuit on the other side of the wall and I decided to look through the furniture. Nothing… All closets and drawers were completely empty.

I went into a room that had a king-size bed, confirming that it was meant to be a bedroom. The closets were also empty and there weren’t even sheets or blankets to improvise a toga. Nothing at all… It was as if someone was conspiring against us, so that we would keep our Adam and Eve costumes.

The bed was made of wood boards and, on top of it, there was a mattress covered with a silky fabric, and two classic pillows made of synthetic rubber. There was another door in the room, and I saw Angelica suddenly coming in.

“Man! There’s only one bedroom with a double bed!”

“I’m glad you’re happy to see me, too. No need to throw a party, though,” I said ironically, after confirming that I wasn’t among her priorities.

None of us needed to be a brain surgeon in order to understand that nobody lived in that house. Angelica had searched all rooms and knew there was only one bedroom, which we’d have to share.

“So, it looks like nobody lives here…”

“Do you really think this house is completely empty and was put together specially for us?” I asked, flabbergasted.

Angelica turned her back to me, hiding her breasts and pubic area, but exposing other important physical attributes.

“Did you see the signs? I’ve started to suspect that’s the case, exactly.”

I hadn’t seen any signs, but maybe it had been my oversight, because I was too distracted looking for other things.

“Look at the walls. There are some drawings leading to the bedroom.”

“Say it, Angelica… What’s on your mind?”

She hesitated for a second before trying to express her thoughts in a confused, disorganized way, as if she herself were unsure of what she was saying, as if it were all a figment of her arbitrary female intuition.

“You know… This house… We’re both naked… There is only one path leading us here and nobody else around. Where are the owners? And, most importantly, where are we? These signs on the walls are everywhere…”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying to say anything; it’s just a feeling. Maybe I’m wrong,” she shook her head.

Those half-formed sentences brought to mind the picture of a white canvas with a few fragmented brush strokes here and there, which didn’t allow me to see the complete picture.

I tried to go out the other door, the one in front of Angelica, but it happened again: that invisible force didn’t allow me to go any further.

This time, Angelica witnessed what was happening and panic set in her blue-greenish eyes. She went around the bed and tried to walk out of the same door, but had no issues doing so. She sighed in relief after being terrified at the idea of being stuck in that room with me forever. Then she tried to leave the bedroom through the door I had used, and this time she was the one affected by the repulsive force. Actually, it was as if someone had designed a confined area: I couldn’t go to Angelica’s side of the house and vice-versa. Still, I couldn’t understand the reason behind all that.

“Why can’t I go out? I can’t see anything in front of me that wouldn’t let me out!” Angelica yelled in fear.

I had a theory: it was some kind of force field, a technology we didn’t know about, one of those things we see in sci-fi movies. But, what is creating this force field? Is it magnetic force? No… We’re not made of ferromagnetic material, so it wouldn’t have any effect on us—I thought, trying to make the most of my knowledge in physics. I couldn’t come up with explanations as a theory physicist could, because I had only seen the basics in college. My intuition, combined with my wild imagination, was telling me that it could be a gravitational field. Who could have designed this technology, though? Could this be a top-secret military experiment? Or maybe a huge corporation is behind it… Then, again, it could be an alien nation! I was deeply immersed in my fantasies, trying to find an explanation, but it was only a theory so far.

Angelica was a successful physician working in one of the most reputable hospitals in Florence. I usually enjoyed talking to her because she had incredible people skills. She was eloquent and knew how to carry on a conversation with a variety of arguments. She could improvise and portray herself as a politician, educator, business executive, or athlete, even though she was none of that. She followed her intuition but, at the same time, she was pragmatic. In sum: we agreed on many things because she would listen to me and, above all, I loved listening to her. We were great friends, even though now I was trying to imagine how our lives would have been in an alternate reality, as I let myself be carried by fantasies down a forbidden road.

I stopped to reflect on that day. I was only kidding myself, thinking I was living a nightmare, or that it had all been my imagination: the UFO, those rays, that strange place… Angelica and I, together… All those hours I spent inspecting every inch of that mysterious environment. It had been a day full of doubts and unanswered questions. However, the night soon came and darkness enveloped me once again. I was suddenly in a state of deep sleep.