"Please relax."

"I am relaxed."

I perceived a gentle smile, although I realized that I could not see. No matter, a smile just the same. "I will try."

"Now, we will begin the journey."

"I can't go on a journey. I have not ended the first journey yet."

"We can take you."

"I can't go though. I'm not done here."

"There is much for you on this journey."

"It's not for me. I can't go without finishing here. I have a calling here."

The smile. The gentle smile became deceitful. "We can take you. You will forget this in an instant. It just seems this way to you because you can't see where we are going yet."

"I can't go. Not now."

I blinked my eyes open. I sat in the chair staring at sample tattoo designs on the wall. I imagined a drunk young seaman in some port pointing and saying "That one."

I closed my eyes, remembering where I came from. The beginning. The long journey. The first of three lives that we each live. It's how we get here, before we live this life. The second life is what we know now, and most of the time it's all we can see. The third journey is the one we so often ether question or look forward to. The third life is the one that begins when we leave here, after our second life is done.

The idea that we are living in our second life is comforting because it gives us a past and gives us a future. To think anything else is upsetting.

But I'm here, in this second life. The middle one. The way I came was dark and far. I remember hearing murmuring, I remember talking heads that hovered under lights and over me. There were strange sounds, strange feelings, instruments and implements. Nothing that existed in that space is possible for me to describe other than my feelings.

I felt anticipation, the same as I do now. When I live my third life, I suppose I will no longer feel this. I felt no memories, as I do now. I expect that in my third life I will feel memories even stronger than I do now, but I don't know. I barely remember the first one so it's hard to say.

Things become slowly clearer as we go along. Just the same as when we are born into this life, we understand so little, and only when we are ready to leave do we understand enough to do the job we came for. And now as I reflect, the memories of my first two lives are becoming strong together. I hope it is not too late.

I'm sure I am not being clear though. So allow me. There are a lot of people who believe in their memories of spending time somewhere else, not on this planet. They have trouble placing the memories though. Sometimes they believe that they think they saw supernatural beings. Angels. Aliens. But they don't realize what they looked like themselves at the time. They don't realize that this was not in this lifetime, but in the one before.

You may ask me how I know these things, when I'm telling you that none of us remember. The truth is that I came at the wrong time. I don't really belong here, and I need to go back. If I don't go back then I won't be able to enter properly, and I won't be able to exit. I need to get back or I will be wandering this earth longer than Cain himself.

How I got here sounds like pure fantasy, but everything I am telling you is the truth. I was born like anyone else is born. That's how everyone arrives in their second life. The problem is that I did not complete my first life and perish there. I was taken aboard a travelling ship and brought over. As we passed into this lifetime, my person responded naturally, and became born to a mother. The others, the ones who brought me here did not become born because they are already living in their third life. They may travel in between as they desire.

Pure fantasy? No, fantasy would be a happier story. Living the second life, knowing that this second life doesn't count toward my eternal quota, I know I need to get back and complete my first life. Immortality there is preventing me from living my second life. There is no way out of here without going back. There must be some way out of here.

When I get back, I hope I don't stay there long. I don't know why. It would seem like a chance to be younger, but after all I've learned, I can't wait to be here and make it count. Being younger isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Getting back is no easy thing, but I have a plan. I need to get a lot closer to the pole. If I get close enough to the pole then there is a long enough daylight window to be able to find a travelling ship.

The travelling ship I came on can't be called. There are no inter-world bus stops but that does not preclude hitching a ride. Knowing where and how to hop on are the key.

I can get back there so I can come back here, so I can go on. It's the only way. First thing is to get out of this crazy political boundary I landed in. Canada is not that far away.

But before you start to think this is amazing, realize that these lives are only the application of an illusion we carry with us as the heaviest baggage of all. In truth, all of it has happened already, and none of it has happened yet. It is all now. Time is not a factor. The universe is occurring at once. We can only perceive it at the fixed rate of time we recognize, which provides the appearance of time. We are a fait accomplis. So there is nothing wonderful in knowing the future or the past. Everything in relation to time is a perversion.

Knowing this, what is my journey after all? Practically nothing. But yet somehow it is critically important.

"Howzzat?"

"Hunh?"

"How's that?"

I looked at my arm and I saw the red mark from those years ago. I saw the tattoo freshly inked and although they didn't look quite the same, I knew the connection between the two. "Perfect."

I paid the tattoer and I walked outside into summer's dusk. Summer sent a refreshingly cool breeze to kiss me for a moment and then let me warm my way down the street. Late evening small town traffic pushed muscle cars and economy cars between stop lights while music drifted between car windows.

"Music," I thought. Music is the greatest embarrasment of time. If time is truly an illusion then music is less than that. It has never existed.

And in some instant I had moved on, looking for a "next" that I didn't even believe in.