All right, I agreed, there is no problem from the Macro perspective-but I don't live at that level! Where I live, there are lots of problems, and at the moment the most important one is saving Carol from death and me from losing 2150. This would lie resolved successfully if I would just cooperate with Elgon. Then I could dedicate the rest of my life to finding a way to return to the Macro society. But would I?
I was left completely alone for the rest of that long day and evening while I agonized over what I should tell Elgon in the morning. By the time evening came, I was completely, exhausted, having come to the conclusion that I would choose life for Carol, and, thus, life for me on Elgon's Micro Island. Sleep finally came, bringing with it a ghastly nightmare.
I dreamed that I was dressed in long black robes sitting as a judge in a vast desert. In front of me as far as I could see there stretched a long line of people whom I must judge. According to the bailiff standing beside me they had all committed some crime requiring the death penalty. As I listened to each person's explanation of his crime, however, it seemed to me that they all pleaded in such a moving and piteous fashion that I waived the death penalty for each and every one of them. They cheered, thanked, praised me because I chose life for all who came before me.
Then the scene changed to another part of the desert and I found myself walking with the bailiff at my side through a gigantic prison yard where all those whom I had saved from death were shackled by a great ball and chain so that they could barely move. Now instead of praising and thanking me they were all cursing me. I was appalled to see that they were all afflicted with some hideous disease that was destroying their bodies by slowly eating the flesh from their bones. Somehow I felt compelled to look at every one of these prisoners whose lives I had saved and who were now such grotesque and horrifying victims of a plague that slowly and painfully ate away their bodies.
I heard one call out to me. Turning to him, I shuddered and awoke in tears of terror, for the prisoner who last cursed me for saving his life was Karl!
I felt sick at my stomach with self-hatred to think that I could do that to Karl even in a dream.
Why would I have such a dream? What could it possibly mean? As I asked this question I remembered the words of Rana, "All pain, misery, and disease are the results of resisting that which is inevitable-that which we ourselves have chosen to grow on."
Then what was the solution? Again I could almost hear Rana saying, "The only way to balance negative actions is with positive actions. Thus, loving acceptance balances all. The only sin anyone ever commits is denial of the perfection of what is."
Then my dream, I decided, must have been created by my higher self to show me the consequences of trying to deny the perfection-the necessity-of what is. Did this mean that I should take the other path and let Carol die?
Had I let Karl die in the past? Is that why he was in my dream?
From some cranny of my mind came two replays; one in which Karl was finishing off a pint bottle of carrot juice, and one in which Carol was getting her usual from the mechanism in the cafeteria-carrot juice.
Then a double exposure-Carol's 1976 "past" life review of herself as a black student fighting pollution, and Karl ranting about industrial pollution.
My mind raced.
But she's a girl-the girl I love, my soul mate, my Alpha mate!
And Karl? He's a man-the man I most love, my best friend, my stepbrother, my roommate!
"Oh, my God!" I thought out loud. "Oh, my everloving God!"
I grasped my arms across my chest and rocked back and forth in my pain, conflict, agony, fear, and joy.
When I finally got it all together and accepted the perfection of this new insight, I went downstairs and laid the news on Karl and Neda.
It hit them just about the way it hit me, and we all ended up in tears of joy and amazement at the incredible perfection of the eternal plaid of our lives.
The big question remained. Should I let Carol-Karl?-die?
I spent the rest of the day trying to answer this question and by evening I admitted to Karl and Neda that the thought of watching Carol die when I could have prevented it was just more than I could take. We talked far into the night with Karl arguing that my decision to save Carol and myself was the only sane and decent one, and with Neda arguing that I should ask my higher self for the answer and follow it, no matter how difficult.
I just shook my head, then went back to my apartment. Once in bed I didn't want to go to sleep until I was sure of my decision for Elgon, so I tossed and turned until finally in desperation I remembered Carol's advice whenever I was particularly frustrated: Macro contact recall.
As I focused my mind on my last contact with the Macro self I felt the anxiety and tension begin flowing out of my body. The rhythm and depth of my breathing changed and again the unspeakable union of all opposites led to the ultimate experience of that which is beyond time, space, and words.
I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes I saw both Sela and Elgon bending over me. Then I heard Elgon say, "I'm glad you're finally awake. We're ready for your decision."
Without thinking I replied, "I've decided to learn the lessons I came here to learn and permit Carol to do the same."
"You mean you are willing to watch her die before your very eyes?" Sela said.
When I didn't reply Sela pointed-to the video screen. "Are you sure you can live with that decision?"
I looked across the room at the giant video screen. The picture of Carol had changed. Instead of lying on the floor of a barren room she was now spread-eagled against a wall in the courtyard with manacles at her wrists and ankles. Her body was naked and obviously conscious because it seemed to be writhing in pain. A close-up picture of her face revealed that her catatonic trance had been ended, for her eyes were open and staring at something before her. Then the picture changed and I saw what she was looking at-a howling, screaming mob of Micro Islanders who were being restrained by a high steel-like mesh fence.
"If we raise that fence," Elgon said, "that mob will stone her to death for advocating birth control and refusing to bear children. Since she's a foreigner, the penalty for those crimes is death. Are you sure you won't cooperate with us, Jon?"
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
Elgon and Sela observed me intently without speaking and the silence between us grew until suddenly Elgon nodded his head and the audible sound from the video panel increased.
I tried not to look at the screen but my eyes seem to have a life of their own. I stared at the mob which was now pouring through the opened fence, racing to large piles of small, sharp, quartz-like stones that were piled several feet in front of Carol.
For the next half-hour I watched the mob-men, women, and children-throw the small sharp stones at Carol's suffering body. I watched the whole gory process from the first superficial cuts on her beautiful legs, arms, breasts, and face until her whole body was covered with gaping bloody wounds, and finally to the sight of one eye gone and the other hanging by a shred of tissue down her torn and bloody cheek. Since the stones were small, they left her conscious till the very last, her lovely body literally hanging in shreds from her bones.
Even with the memory of my most recent Macro contact fresh in my mind that half-hour was the most excruciatingly painful of my entire life.
Elgon broke the silence. "It's one thing, Jon, to watch another person die like this. It's quite another to experience it yourself."
With these words Elgon summoned a number of his followers who led me out of the palace to the same courtyard wall from which the remains of my beloved Carol were now being removed so that I could take their place. As they hurled me forward my feet were gouged by the sharp white stones now stained red with her blood.