Timeless **not done**

I was selected to use <i>the machine</i>.

The scientist hadn't published anything about it in the mainstream magazines. <I>Popular Science</i> hadn't whispered a word. <I>Discover Magazine</i> didn't have a clue. The staff at <I>American Scientist</i> hadn't been told a single thing. But the only bit of news ever breathed about it, an ad, was right there in front of me.

<B>Wanted: Man or Woman of Cosmological, Historical, and a Physics science background. A health record of three years or more.</b>

That was it. There was nothing left except the address which, as I learned when I Googled it, was only a few miles out of the city surrounded by forest in hill country.

Before I tell you about my journey I need to tell you about myself. I was thirty-nine years old and I was in need of a job. I also had a background as an anthropologist and a unique interest in the stars, the galaxies, and the universe in general. My wife had always been befuddled about that- how I was basically a professor of the most narcissist science- anthropology- and a student of the most selfless- astronomy and cosmology. I think she would've supported my choice to join the team.

I say think, because she wasn't alive to be there. Nine months before she had died at the hands of a clump of cancerous cells. The word 'think' might be a little too underrated of a term. I <I>know</i> she would've wanted me to join the team. We both had had an interest in science, all the way since we were little kindergardeners on the playground. She wasn't a tomboy by a long shot- way too pretty for it- but when I came by with my little green caterpillars she would allow her self to get swept away in my inaccurate counting of 'cater-legs.' Through Junior High and High School and through college the sharing remained the same. She would tell me of her science experiment that showed how the chances of 'Uno' cards could be played to make you win in a minimum of thirty turns and I in turn would show her how the Mongol empires had expanded and contracted based off cultural acceptance.

We were sweethearts.

And that is exactly why I know she would've wanted me to take the job. Besides- I need the money after nine months of joblessness.

Three days after reading the ad I went to the address. Stepping out of the car I found myself at the bottom of a round, silver tower about five stories high.

Greeted almost immediately I was ushered into the tower were a psychologist asked me basic questions. "How old was I" and "when was the last time I was sick." All of the questions didn't really phase me, I had asked the same ones when I had to travel abroad. The interview was going good up to that point. The psychologist was scribbling notes and asking me more friendly questions as if I would be a good candidate.

Then he asked if I had any family. Without thinking I answered in return: "My wife is deceased- no children."

He frowned immediately and his pen became invisible as it sped up. There was silence for the next few moments as he wrote and I twiddled my thumbs. Then he bid me farewell and told me that they would call me.

As I drove home through the green hillside I thought of my last nine months of depressed sitcom watching- they never, ever call. That is, unless they are scientist, and they did call. The answer was on my messaging machine. <I>Yes.</I>

I was selected to use <i>the machine</i>.

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Three weeks later I had a full understanding of what I was know laying in. A large pod-shaped device filled with water, magnets, and wires. It was the OPM, or the Omnipotent machine. A mixture of science and guess work the machine had the potential to carry a consciousness- a human consciousness- anywhere at anytime in the universe.

Three weeks later I was also strapped down into it. Water covered my stripped body and darkness surrounded me. There was no air available to me except a tube that ran straight into my lungs. A hum, a quiet, constant hum, filled my ears only interrupted by brief "Are you okay" messages from the team.

Then the countdown began. The hum almost disappeared as the directors and assistants and countless other people went down the checklist. The water was fine. The pumps and generators were fine. The extraction process was optimal as well. Everything they needed was ready: the machine to simply be turned on.

And it was.

The mixture of voices, the sounds of people, stopped in an instance. Silence lingered for a short time afterwards before there was a sudden hum. The sound of electricity, of metal, all came into my ears in a long, loud roar. It almost felt as if the water around me was losing its density as it shook in the sound-waves and then it became denser.

Heat was the next sensation I felt. It burned through my chest and I felt it boil my blood. At first it was barely tangible in the cold water, but the exponential change caught me unaware and surged through my body.

Acceleration, like on a rocket, was the next thing I felt. It was a powerful blast that pressed violently upon me. It shook me as it tried to squash me and I could feel the wires and tubes around me- floating as if nothing was happening.

I tried to cry out next. The heat, the pressure, it was too much for me. It was creating pain that I was sure couldn't be expected to in such an experiment. Had any moon astronaut been forced to stand on the sun? Had any acceleration  test forced a person to bear witness to thousands of G's?

No, but then I felt I was. I just wanted the heat to go away. I wanted the pressure to let me relax. I wanted it to be at peace. I wanted to fade. I wanted to slip away. I wanted to die. I wanted to be free.

And then it did...
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My sanity came back as the very fabric of my being was wrenched away from my body. I was able to think again but I was still surrounded by a permeating darkness. There was no heat as there had been before. No heat, at all in fact. It was cold... kind of. It didn't chill me like it would as if I had been in a snow storm or even in light wind chill. It was just not <i>painful</i>.

Cold and the darkness didn't scare me like I thought they would. The cold was just cold and the darkness was just dark. If anything then the only two attributes of the 'place' I exsisted felt expectant. Yes, that is the word. "Expectant." I was too. The machine had sent me on a roller coaster for more then just blackness and cold. It had sent me to probe the universe!

Then I realized I was not alone. There was something else within this darkness that gave the cold its 'expectancy.' I would've turned, or tried to look if that had been possible but it wasn't. I realized, as I tried to see, that <I>it</I> was coming closer.
I felt its presence near mine.

I tried to run but I couldn't!

I tried to scream out but I could!

The thing stopped approaching me only a few milimeters away (though in this realm of nothing it was hard to tell) and I felt it almost reach out, passing an arm in front of me. It emanated what it felt as I suppose I had done. Warmth, compassion and love- all of these things filled me as I trembled.

Then before me, what seemed to be hundreds of miles away, there was a flash of light. Within seconds the flash grew setting the darkness and cold ablaze. Heat rushed passed me, but did not burn. The light was brighter then anything I had ever seen, but did not blind me. The love of the being behind me swelled as he looked down on me and I <I>was</i> overcome by wonder.

Then the light began to fade and I felt my mind, my soul, and the fabric of my being throne begin to dissappate with it. Before I lost it though I was able to 'hear' (/feel) words of the being. "Let there be..."

The feelings that had overwhelmed me before, the power and the magnificence, made me realize something as I faded.

It creates.
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When I 'awoke' the feelings of love and compassion that had been absorbed by me still flittered across my exsistence. Comprehending what I had just witnessed was near impossible but I immedietly (and as a scientist) began wondering: was it a strange failure or a stunning success for the machine?

The answer would have to come later becuase I was drifting once again into "something." This something had light, it had color, and as it came into focus: had stuff.

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The yellow grass fields of the sub-Sahara rocked gently in the wind and sparse collections of trees stood upright like little oasis's of shade under the blaring yellow sun above.  A herd of antelope grazed quietly, unaware of anything but their hunger. Beside the massive herd was a small lake barely three-hundred meters across. The water wasn't still in the center were the wind touched fervently causing small waves tto ripple out. There ripples travelled all the way to the shore before they died out and it is what was on the shore that caught my attention.

A young woman.

When my eyes (or my senses, as I was bodiess) fell upon her I was shocked for several reasons. The first was that she was alone. From my position above (and somehow from the side, and from the front, and from the back) I felt that she was in danger of something but I could not see it or feel it. My mind was forciblly focused on her- and she happened to be naked.

Her dark, almost ebony like skin glistened in the sunlight. She had a round, fit, almost perfectly athletic body unmatched above any I had seen from my time. Her hair was undone though as if she hadn't seen a specialist in weeks. Her legs were hairy as well when compared to the modern African woman and if I had a mouth I would've let it hang open.

The feeling of danger persisted though, even when the woman seemed perfectly at ease. She neared the water's edge hesistantly and picked up a stone. Stepping forward one foot after another she squashed into the mud. Moments later she hurtled the small rock into the water six feet infront of her and kicked the mud that her feet had begun to sink into. The splashes made the water murky before her, but the quick movement of fish and other living things was obvious when looking through it.

My ability to see in three-hundred-sixty degrees was new to me but the ability to see through things came next- I saw beneath the water a reptile swimming furiosly away from where the woman had thrown her stone and kicked her mud. I almost smiled; the naked vixen had been scaring away predators.

I calmed down for the moment as well. She had it all under her own control. Slowly and reluctantly she bended downwards towards the water. It was natural I assumed, for a person in the wild to me almost universally paranoid, an endless feeling of fear. It just didn't seem right for her to be that scared; she didn't deserve it.

But then my eyes, my new almost omnipotent vision showed me why she should have stayed alert: a lioness was in the grasses behind her. Prowling low to the ground it was impossible to see, even from above, without the help of what I assumed was <i>the machine</i>.

In horror I realized what the lioness's prey was and in terror I tried to call out. The woman began to drink quickly now, a rushed security in the middle of fear, but she wouldn't move. She had no idea that she was about to be made into a human meal.

Then I felt the feline's brain become active, and a feeling of accomplishment rushed over me and then- I heard the low growl as if I was just in front of it. A dreadful purr that was welcoming of death.

I tried to close my eyes to stop from seeing the massacre that was about to occur, but to no avail. The woman dropped the water she had cupped in her hands and her eyes grew wide as the creature walked towards her, pondering its easy meal. Oh, how I wanted to shut my eyes! Before me was a human being, stripped of all the technology I held dear! Here was a descendent of Eve! Here was an innocent soul that would be devoured my irrational beast!

Then there was a growl of surprise from the large beast. The girl's eyes grew wide and I was startled as well. My eyesight allowed me to cut through the dust that had suddenly been flung up in the struggle. A son of Adam, a man, with stone and wood was on top of the lion. He rode the creature like an ancient knight. Stab after stab he tried to decimate the creature that had threatened the maiden. Stab after stab I felt the lioness become weaker.

For what seemed like hours the primordial man and the primordial cat fought over the woman's life- for her right to live or die. For what seemed like hours I watched the magnificence of the beast; the ingenuity of the man. For what seemed like hours I felt as if I had been drawn into the battle itself. I was not sure if it was myself or the machine doing it to me- but it was overwhelming. I could feel the man's adreniline pumping through his veins. I could feel his anxiety for the girl. I could feel his anger that she was in trouble. I urged him to win.

And he did. The lioness let out a final short cry- an outburst of surrender, defeat, and death.

Panting heavily the man, dark skinned, muscular, and partly nude (he wore a lioncloth- his society, tribe or whatever was apparently not as fine with pure nudity as the womans's), turned to the woman. His face was stern and almost angry. He moved towards her one step, and she moved back one. He paused, and then moved two steps. This time she stayed still even though her body was shifted to run at any moment.

It looked as if another conflict could begin at any moment but then a simple little smile peeled from the man's lips. Then it opened. And he laughed. The girl, not taken aback as I was, laughed too.

When they had finished the man growled. At least, that's what it sounded like. I could find no language in the ancient human's sounds, but they conveyed their emotions elegantly. Peace and warmth echoed in the air. For minutes they spoke, drawing closer and closer until I realized something.

They were secure with each other. That endless fear and terror that I felt emanate from the girl before was gone. She was completely at peace, not just because the man had defended her, but because it was <I>this</i> particular man. They had known each other before, that was evident in their rambling growls.

I would've smiled if I had lips.

It secures.
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When I looked back on the events that occurred I wondered how the single man was able to take down such a ferocious creature. The creature was weaker I think. It was starving and separated from its pack- the way lions hunt. So, coupled together the starvation and the lack of support drastically weakened the lioness's chances (though it <I>was</i> a creature in its prime).

The man's chances where heightened too. The feelings that overflowed from him and onto me. The concern for the girl, the hate for the animal, and other instinctual feeling's I couldn't describe; they all tempered and honed the man's intelligence and his strength turning him into the weapon that only a master forge could've made.

After I though I began to once again fade into 'something' but I was thrust violently downward as I moved into 'something.' Suddenly I felt as if I existed and was 'something.'

I was.
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For the first time I felt something hit me. It was a man, dressed in light cloth that covered him from head to toe. Then another man hit me. And another. I was in a crowd. This transition from being an omnipotent expression of though was awkward as I stumbled amongst people.

I looked at my hair. Well, not my hair exactly. It was longer, much longer, then my hair at home. And the clothes that I wore felt gritty and worn against my skin. It wasn't like it had been at home- soft and comfortable- not at all.

I heard jeering and the people around me began to move. I was pushed backwards one moment and the next I felt myself hurled forwards. Jeering began to get louder from my left and I turned, trying to see the commotion. I felt a hit on the back of my head next, a random movement of the crowd and fell forward's into an opening of the crowd.

Silence. Plain, unsympathetic silence. It pierced me as I felt hundreds of eyes single me out. I looked up before me. There was a man. His clothes were tattered and worn, decimated by beating. His eyes watched me too. I looked up into them. Eyes filled with compassion and sympathy. His understanding gaze gripped me and I immediately began to barrage myself with questions.

Why was he dressed so poorly? Why had a crowd come to follow this exhausted fellow? Why did he deserve the pain he felt?

He didn't.

"Adepto sursum Jew." A soldier commanded in Latin.

I was pulled upwards next and onto my feet. A cold, uncaring grip. The soldier looked towards the man in the tattered clothes and I noticed a large, wooden gross on his back. "Habitum Crux crucis ut ultio ultionis."

My body moved without me telling it to, actually, I realized that I didn't have a single power over it. I could understand what he said: I'd have to help carry the Cross for punishment for getting in the way.

Within seconds my body was under the crushing weight of the wooden death tool. I didn't know how the man beside me kept going even with the shiny swords of the soldiers so close. I brushed against the man and he kept his gaze on me. The eyes strengthened me and his expression was that of gratefulness.

We began to move.

Step over step we moved, carrying the rugged piece of wood along the road. The jeers of the crowds and the soldier's sounded aloud and I could here them precisely.  "Golgotha." The name was repeated again and again:
"Take him to Golgotha!"
"Kill him on the hill!"
"May Golgotha shine red with blood!"

The cries terrified me but the man strengthened me even though he knew were we where going. <I>The Place of the Skull</i>.

I could see it in the distance soon. The hill, a place of beauty that didn't seem to deserve its name, was only a few hundred meters away. That when he, the man, in the most quiet, gentle voice imaginable, spoke to me.

"Simon my child." He said. "Do you know who you help cope with the grave?"

My voice was not my own, and answered. "No, I am sorry."

"Then wait until I have passed." The voice, to my surprise did not sound afraid, though anxiety seemed to be bottled inside of it.

The cross was taken from me as we neared and the soldier's threw me away from them. I watched as a stranger would watch.

The soldier's took his clothes.  Set upon the Cross he began to hang there. Hour after hour went by and the people continued to insult him. Not just your average Joe, but the rich and even priests. I watched silently, pouring out my heart to myself.

When the crowd dispersed there were none but the soldier and the women that cried.  I watched until a woman came to me. "Why are you here?" She said.

Taken aback, I answered (well, not me, the body I was in), "I helped carry his Cross. Who is he?"

The woman was even more taken aback. "You don't know?"

"No."

"He is our Lord Jesus Christ."

I felt a surge go though my mind and I heard the cry of, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," fill my head. My mind was lifted once again into infinity and thrown into an endless sea as I heard the words of a new beginning.

It saves.
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