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HEREafter Book One: A Mild Case of Death. Volume One.
by James C. Harwood

    Long ago, an expedition to Earth fails. A violent mutiny results in a star ship falling from orbit and being destroyed. Eventually, the souls of the dead aliens are reincarnated, born into Earth human life. As they grow up on present day Earth, they begin to remember their past in dreams and nightmares. Slowly, by various methods, they become reunited and recover their ship's technology. Then, by other methods, they raise the money needed to construct a new star ship. 12,301 alien souls were on the expedition to Earth. Each of them, from different perspectives, has at least one story to tell about their home planets, the long voyage and failed expedition, their many human reincarnations, and now their present day quest to find a way back to the home and way of life they remember. These are their stories . . .

Introduction

A MILD CASE OF DEATH

    A Mild Case of death focuses on the interview of Thomas Jefferson Harrow by John Paul Drake. Harrow has the soul of an alien, reincarnated –born into Earth human life, after having died as result of the crash of an alien star ship while on an expedition to this planet.

    Ascending into Heaven is the norm, but reincarnations may take place under special circumstances. A great war in Heaven placed Earth under a spiritual quarantine, trapping all Earth human souls and all of the alien souls from the expedition into a series of reincarnations until the quarantine could be lifted after the end of the war. Christ Jesus, a Creator Son, was sent to Earth to liberate the souls of Earth and lift the spiritual quarantine.

    Before being born into his final reincarnation on Earth, to become Thomas Jefferson Harrow, this alien, who was known as Mutamur Tempus Omnia, is given the choice of ascending into Heaven or returning for one final reincarnation and a special mission. Why would Mutamur choose Earth over Heaven? To be reunited with his alien wife, who has already made the choice to return to Earth for one final reincarnation.

    Drake works for Clueo Private Investigations agency. Clueo is Latin, meaning “I hear myself called, am named.” The CPI is known to specialize in missing persons cases, but is actually a front for the search for Earth humans with alien souls. Drake is one of them, interviewing each of the alien souls as they are located.

    Why are most of the alien souls choosing to return for one final reincarnation on Earth? Slowly, by various methods, they are becoming reunited, and are recovering their star ship technology. By other methods, they are raising the money needed to construct a new ship. They intend to return to their home worlds, in human form, aboard Earth’s first star ship. Each alien soul has a different story to tell, about their home planets, the long voyage and failed expedition, their many human reincarnations, and now their present day quest to find a way back to the home and way of life they remember. This is one of their stories.

Chapter 1

TERRANTUS

8:00am, Saturday, 2 October 1993
Clueo Private Investigations agency; Dallas, Texas

CASE SUBJECT: HEREafter Caerulian Memories.
SOURCE NAME: Thomas Jefferson Harrow.
INVESTIGATOR: John Paul Drake.
TRANSCRIPT: 931002-0800. Voices recorded as follows…

[Transcript interview format leads into narration and dialog format.]

Drake
Thomas Harrow, I must inform you, for legal reasons, this is being recorded. And I must now confirm you have no objection.
Harrow
I understand. No objection. Proceed.
Drake
For the record, regarding your present life, state your full name, place of birth, date of birth, and your age.
Harrow
Thomas Jefferson Harrow. Kansas City, Kansas. March 5, 1956. 37.
Drake
Parents still living?
Harrow
Yes. Still living in Kansas City. Their home is on the Kansas side, and my father still has his oil business office a few blocks over on the Missouri side.
Drake
Any brothers and/or sisters?
Harrow
One sister. Lucy. Four years older. Moved to England, summer of ’75. Married a British physician in ’79. One daughter, about age 10 now.
Drake
And you?
Harrow
No children.
Drake
Marital status?
Harrow
That’s a bit difficult to explain . . . regarding that part about “until death do us part.” Or not.
Drake
I understand. We’ll eventually get back to that subject and cover it in detail.
Harrow
Right.
Drake
What is the name of your father’s business?
Harrow
That’s relevant?
Drake
Perhaps. I’ve known people in the oil business . . . some of them looking for more than just oil.
Harrow
Ah, yes. The Harrow-Wells Oil Company. My paternal grandfather and Mr. Wells started it back in 1935. They were both killed in the crash of their small plane in 1949. Wells didn’t have any family. Ownership passed on to my father alone. When he is gone, it will pass on to me.
Drake
What did you study in college?
Harrow
Architecture. Architectural drafting, landscape architecture, map drafting, some business management, and business psychology. Also, some geology.
Drake
You never went into any of those fields?
Harrow
My interest became focused on the job I had throughout my school years since age 16 when I started part time. I’ve worked for that same employer ever since then. Everything I’ve learned about electronics and sound systems has been from on-the-job training. Even so, this kind of work has felt familiar to me . . . as if I were born with relating knowledge and previous experience.
Drake
What brought you to Dallas?
Harrow
The job. My employer, Liberty Bell Sound Systems, which is headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas, opened a branch here in January of 1978. I transferred during my vacation in May of 1978. I’ve been installing and servicing sound systems in all kinds of businesses, clubs, and even some churches, ever since then.
Drake
I’ve been informed, that back during June of this year, you installed a sound system in the new Dallas branch of the Sanitas Health Clubs, headquartered in London, England. The grand opening of the location here in Dallas was July 4, 1993.
Harrow
That’s right.
Drake
For the record. Jill Moreland, manager of the Dallas branch of the Sanitas Health Clubs, who I am also acquainted with, told me about you, told you about me. Aside from our other mutual friend, FBI special agent Dean Charles Kay… So, here you are –here we are.
Harrow
Here after.
Drake
Yes. And you’ve had some history of sleep disorders?
Harrow
Some sleepwalking, during pre-teen years. Occasionally, as an adult. I’d awaken the morning after such occasions with some unexplainable scratches on my body, and feeling like I performed hard labor all night.
Drake
I was briefly told about your history of unusual dreams.
Harrow
Dreams, barely remembered upon awakening. And nightmares, which will never fade away.
Drake
What makes those dreams or nightmares so unusual or so different from any others?
Harrow
Perspective point of view. In normal dreams, I can see myself, as I am today, or as I have been at some point during this life. The normal viewpoint is from out-of-body. In the unusual dreams, and nightmares, the viewpoint is through the eyes of another person. I can only see what that person looks like when he happens to look at himself in a mirror, or catches his reflection upon some other kind of reflective surface. Those faces in the mirrors are not always the same. I do not know them from this life, but I have the feeling they might be mine from past lives . . . although I do not presently remember any details or events of those lives with Earth human faces. The nightmares present one face, always the same, which is not Earth human. It is human-like, but not of this world . . . and not of this time.
Drake
Fuel, oxygen, electrical spark, your car runs. Glucose, hemoglobin, divine spark, we live. The energy of the total cells of the body produces the unconscious mind. The energy of the cells of the brain produces the conscious mind, and the subconscious mind therein. Apart from the physical body we can see, there is the superphysical body, what we call the soul. The energy of the soul produces the superconscious mind, that which we truly are, that which survives the death of the physical body. The transfer of memory from the brain to the soul is usually one-way, but occasionally there is feedback during sleep. So, tell me, what it is that is different about that face.
Harrow
Mainly the eyes. They are vertical ovals, unlike the mainly horizontal oval-shaped eyes of most Earth humans today. Also, it is not just the face that is alien. A hand reaches up to touch the looking glass. It has two opposing thumbs on the same hand, between which are three fingers –each a joint longer than Earth human fingers.
Drake
That must be a Landor from the planet Langenth.
Harrow
Yes. LAN-dors. LAN-genth.
Drake
Tell me what you remember through your first, or most recent, or most vivid dream or nightmare, which has disturbed your sleep. Please provide as much detail as possible.
Harrow
There is one particular nightmare, which I first began having in fragments during the last week of May in 1963, when I was age 7. Soon after my birthday, this year, the fragments finally came together… like the pieces of a jigsaw picture puzzle, to form a more complete memory of those events remembered through dreams and nightmares. In the first fragment, I became conscious in a place not of this world, and a time just before this life…

Earth Year A.D. 1955
Buffer-space, Earth Corridor

    There were nightmares, which would never fade away. And there were dreams of a life, barely remembered upon awakening. But what I had awakened from, and where, was a struggle to know.
    Awareness… sensations… beginning of consciousness. I felt cold. Discomfort, being a hard surface under my back, with several edges from one side to the other. Pain, in the form of a headache. Some dizziness, as if I were fading in and out. Pressure on my ears, but no sounds heard, so far, a kind of silence echoing silence. Bad taste in my mouth, being the flavor of recently having eaten something burned during cooking. Then my mouth turned dry, and I became extremely thirsty. I tried to swallow, and as I did, the pressure on my ears was released. Then I could hear . . . the sound of wind . . . yet I did not feel it upon me.
    I tried taking in a deep breath . . . and doing so gave me energy, as if the air itself contained energy, or whatever I breathed in.
    I slowly opened my eyes . . . and found darkness slowly giving way to a dimly lit haziness. Fog? I sniffed the air . . . discovering the crisp smell of fresh-fallen snow. But I couldn’t see any snow, and it would have been the last place a Christian would expect to find snow, anyway. I believe it simply was the purity of the place, a cool mistiness, not too difficult to breathe.
    I noticed my clothing . . . appeared to be a one-piece leisure-work jumpsuit, made of a dark blue material . . . charred to black ash in a few places, and torn in some other places. Black boots on my feet appeared to be in fairly good condition. No blood . . . no burned skin . . . I did not appear to be injured, although I felt like hell.
    From my back, I rolled over onto my right side. Then I realized I had awakened on stairs. My feet were pointing down the stairs, or so I assumed –based on my position and what I believed to be the force of natural gravity. A form of stone-like material, the stairs felt to my touch, cold and hard. It looked like rock had been melted and poured to form the stairs. They appeared to be new.
    I tried to become better oriented . . . thinking in terms of up the stairs being north, although being diagonally upward. Still on my right side, I was facing west. At that moment, the source of light came into focus . . . the eyes of my soul adjusting . . . to reveal . . . stars. Countless brilliant stars. I leaned over carefully, to look over the side of the stairs, straight down below me, to view . . . more stars. No ground. Nothing to support the stairs, there, apparently in open space. I felt more dizziness, so I leaned back for a while.
    There is no air in space, you know. But, what sounded like wind –I mean, air blowing against something, I could not at first identify. Then it became louder. I began to sense its direction, although I could not yet actually feel anything blowing against me.
    Again, I looked below the stairs . . . carefully leaning slightly over the side. You see, there were no handrails to grasp. However, upon leaning further over the side, I felt the force of gravity move with me. It held me to the side of the stairs, being only about two feet thick. Then I discovered I could move around to the underside. It had the same design of steps as the topside. Gravity on the underside was as strong, and it held me as securely as it did upon the topside.
    The source of the sound became closer. I looked in the direction I still considered to be west . . . and about forty-five degrees of what had become up from the underside or down from the topside. I watched it approach . . . slowly coming into focus . . . what appeared to be an ancient three mast sailing ship. However, the sails of that ship, I then realized, were designed to catch the wind of the stars. The solar wind, or something like it. As the ship came closer, more details came into focus. I could see some of the crew, out walking around upon the exposed top deck . . . and all of them wearing spacesuits! I felt a momentary sense of panic, knowing I had no such protection –no spacesuit. But then fascination overwhelmed the panic as I continued to watch.
    The ship was up-side-down, from my viewpoint, so I crawled back around to the topside of the stairs . . . putting my view of the ship right-side-up, as if it mattered. Designed in the likeness of an ancient sailing ship for voyages upon oceans of water, it was –or would be –a spaceship on voyages between worlds, in a realm between the physical universe and the spiritual universe . . . and a timeship on voyages between what will be, and what was –so long ago.
    Why that design? I felt like I might eventually discover the answer in another place and time.
    I turned around to face east and look over the other side of the stairway, as it passed under the stairway from west to east. As it did so, I could see one of the crew, on the top deck, wave up to me! So surprised was I that I did not think to wave back until the ship was nearly out of sight. Should I have wondered who he was –or will be? For time travelers, of a kind, answers can come before questions. Who am I, here after, that he may be, there after?
    Next, I looked down the stairs . . . to the point where they vanished into perspective . . . the point appearing to be down on a planet. Was the stairway really going down to that planet? –or coming up from that planet? I guess it depends more on whether one is more optimistic or more pessimistic, one way or the other. The stairway didn’t actually touch the surface of the planet. If it had, it would likely have been pulled along by the planet’s rotation, if the stairs were real, rather than an illusion, I concluded. Although there was some cloud cover, I could see continents and oceans. The visible landmasses looked like they could be fitted together, like the pieces of a giant jigsaw picture puzzle. With that thought, part of my memory was triggered.
    As you no doubt know, from other interviews, some of the members of the expedition referred to it as “Jigsaw” –the “jigsaw planet” –because of the shape of the continents, appearing to have once been part of a single large landmass. The first Mercatorian astronomers to be recognized as discovering it, named it “Novel.” Not “novel” like a book, but by the definition of being a new, strange, unusual world.

    Unprecedented, how it was discovered, or perhaps how God revealed it. It was the Most Highs, of the Mercatorian Common Faith, who successfully campaigned to have it renamed “God’s Novel.” But that is another story –a very long story, best told another time. Anyway, I realized then, there on the stairs, that I had awakened beyond my death in the flesh upon that world.
    I turned around and looked up the stairway. Or perhaps I should refer to it, in that direction, as being a starway. I could see at the top of the stairs what appeared to be a colossal space station in the shape of a wheel –with many spokes connected to a cylindrical hub at its center. I expected to see it turning to create artificial gravity, but it was not. And, I could see the stairs appeared to be connected to the outer rim, at a giant door. To the left of the door, from my viewpoint, I noticed three large windows, but couldn’t see through their reflective surfaces. I should mention, I would now estimate the station to be at least 100 miles in diameter.
    I didn’t want to return to God’s Novel, so I stood up and began to walk up the stairs. I wasn’t sure exactly how far I’d have to walk, from where I’d awakened, to where the stairs reached the space station. A few thousand steps, I guessed.

Drake
This, uh, nightmare, about the stairs, always so vivid and complete, as what you’ve so far described?
Harrow
Yes. More or less.
Drake
You believe it is a memory from your Caerulian soul?
Harrow
The nightmare of a memory.
Drake
Is that the end of the stairs nightmare?
Harrow
Almost the end of that fragment, but the nightmare is far from being concluded.
Drake
Dreaming about stairs going up to Heaven, from Earth, is a common dream of many Candians –new souls from Heaven, in the spectrum of white light, assigned to Earth. Dreams about stairs going up to what looks like a space station are only found in the dreams or nightmares of Caerulians, the Mercatorian souls in the spectrum of blue light. What happened next?
Harrow
I’m not sure how long it took me to reach the top of the stairs, but time passed quickly…

    The door at the top of the stairs, on the outer side of the wheel’s rim, was about even with one of its long spokes on the inner side. I now recall the size of the door, using American standards, to be about twenty-four feet tall, eight feet wide. It appeared to be made of solid steel, a blue-gray in color. No doubt very heavy. I figured it would require a significant amount of strength or force to open it. There was no visible keyhole. Good thing. I had no key. A handle, located halfway up in the center, was too high for me to reach. I then thought to myself, if I can’t open the door from the outside, maybe someone or some thing on the inside could open it for me. So I looked for a signaling device. Finding none, I tried knocking…