"I'M MERELY A BEAT AWAY"
MY COSMIC CONVERSATION WITH CRAIG
Over the phone, in a conversation where every hum and crackle of the line seemed charged with the potential of the supernatural, I waited for the voice of the channeler who held the promise of reaching beyond. Doubt wrestled with hope—a heart grappling with the silence left in my brother Craig's four-month absence. As the channeler spoke, her voice softened, and a profound quiet settled as if the universe leaned in to listen.
Through the receiver, a symphony of static played its prelude, and then, transcending it, came the essence of Craig—his words, articulate and clear as though shaped by his voice. This wasn’t the literal timbre of his speech but rather his thoughts and character, animated through the channeler’s unique gift, stitching together the here with the hereafter.
What unfolded next was a revelation, a narrative imbued with my brother’s eternal spirit. It was a conversation spanned distances immeasurable by miles, a heart-to-heart drawing of a line straight through the heavenly spheres. It was from this telephonic exchange, sacred in its intimacy that the passage below was born—a chronicle of love’s enduring thread, a tale transcribed in the echoes between the silences, a connection reaffirmed, ever just a beat away from the divine.
MY COSMIC CONVERSATION WITH CRAIG
In the thrumming heart of the city, where the skyline was a jagged heartbeat of glass and steel, stood an edifice unlike any other. Craig said it was more than a building—a beacon, a portal. With its spiraling granite white steps speckled with midnight, the structure invited the bold and creative to ascend, twist around the corner, and enter a realm of infinite possibilities.
This structure is where I would craft my stories, where words danced at the speed of light, spun into existence by the specter of a comic book hero, my “Flash Gordon” muse, a symbol of swift brilliance. He had become my avatar, the super-writer who channeled energy into the narrative with a flamboyant style that flirted with the winds of imagination. This image, now an emblem of my Flash Fiction, had been a gift from Craig, a symbol of our soulful connection.
The city’s rhythm halted, a sudden stillness as if the world itself inhaled, holding its breath. Then, a tremor through the foundations of what I know to be real, a visceral jolt. I glanced upwards, my brother’s recent whispers of otherworldly connections now echoing in my ears as the once tranquil blue sky convulsed. A vast and unnatural shadow cleaved through the expanse—a behemoth disc, an ominous harbinger wrapped in a shroud of luminescent green that spilled across the city’s architecture.
Panic birthed chaos below as humanity erupted into a symphony of screams and cries, a collective terror that swept through the streets. However, I remained rooted, a solitary island in a sea of frenzy, an inexplicable serenity anchoring me to the spot. “Craig?” I whispered, my voice contrasting with the bedlam around me. “Is this them? Is this the connection you spoke of?"
There was a pause, then a knowing affirmation: “Yes, the threshold has been crossed. Witness with courage.”
As the spacecraft descended, a hush settled over the terrified crowd. Four royal figures within, their capes a cascade of celestial majesty, stood at the brink of our understanding. Then, their thoughts, silent yet thunderous, resonated within the minds of those who dared to listen. “We come in peace,” they communicated an ethereal echo that filled the consciousness of the gathered souls. Their presence demanded nothing less than our full attention.
“We have teachings to share,” they continued their voice a harmonious blend of authority and tranquility. The air crackled with the power of their message, their unusual need for Uranium pronounced with a gravity that tugged at the very core of our being. It was not a demand but a trade of monumental implications—a fragment of our planet’s essence for the enlightenment of our species.
“And what will this new consciousness entail?” I found myself asking, my words spilling into the vacuum of silence around me, my voice the connecting thread.
In response, a harmony of voices filled my head, the visitors’ reply suffusing my being. “A vision beyond your physical confines,” they offered. “A unity of mind and cosmos.”
I stood there, the liaison between two worlds, one foot in the familiar, the other stepping into the unknown. The exchange—a trade of earthly riches for celestial wisdom—hung in the balance, the decision resting in the hands of those brave enough to embrace a higher state of being.
Craig’s voice came to me then, a channeler’s gift, speaking of fluid at the brain’s hidden depths—a key to my elevation. He spoke of a world beyond, where sensational rays and musical notes were sustenance for the soul, where bands of paper-thin streams of light nourished the spirit. His words, a symphony, lifted me toward a vision that pierced the veil of the mundane—a snow-capped portal atop the world.
Stepping through the conical gateway, my form dissolved into pure energy, scattered like stardust across the universe only to coalesce once more in a realm undefined by physics—a place of waves and currents that pulsed through me, a sense of unity within the cosmic tapestry.
Everything here was white, unblemished by shadow or stain, a blank page in the book of existence. And Craig, my brother, my guide, merged with me through vibrations of color and sound—a prismatic connection transcending the physical plane.
Craig’s final words lingered in the air as if carried by the light itself:
“Ride the beams of light, for that is my vessel now. Upon it, the essence of every tale ever told awaits discovery. And do not forget, brother; I’m merely a beat away.”
Craig’s wisdom bathed me in a serene light as I stood, reflecting upon our shared journey—a path I already marked by the metaphysical and illuminated by my love for my deceased son, Samuel, whose soul journey was eternally etched in the pages of my novel Between Two Gates: A Young Man’s Quest Toward Birth.
Turning from the spaceship’s otherworldly glow, a profound and sacred transformation unfolded within me. I was returning to my creative haven, a sanctuary where the seeds of inspiration blossomed into realms of possibility, now with Craig’s spirit shepherding me into uncharted domains of imagination.
With each heartbeat, I found harmony with the universe's celestial rhythm. Craig’s essence and Sam’s legacy intertwined in this rhythm, guiding my hand with an invisible but palpable presence. My writing evolved beyond mere tales to become vessels of the extraordinary, intricate weavings from the loom of the cosmos itself. This communion with the soul world, a bond forged in the heartache and beauty of loss, transformed my words into living threads of the infinite tapestry.
Each line I penned in this new chapter was a tribute, a beacon of the eternal connections between me and my son and brother. In the dance of the infinite, where Craig’s voice and Samuel’s laughter resonated in every beat that transcended the bounds of time, our spirits were forever intertwined, united by the undying rhythm of love and the written word, all just a beat away.
P.S. On this 9th day of March, we honor the anniversary of your earthly sojourn, Craig, as you weave through the heavenly spheres, preparing for your new day of birth. Let the cosmos be graced with the harmony of your essence. With every word from my pen, know it carries the essence of joy and love you've sown within us. To you, dear brother, a toast to the perpetual mirth of our intertwined spirits and the timeless melody of our enduring bond.
My Cosmic Muse of Flash Fiction
Craig's connection to the realm beyond was as vivid and electric as the bolt of a Flash Gordon comic strip—a pulse of light in the vastness of the unknown. In our channeling session, his descriptions transcended mere words; they painted pictures of a cosmic odyssey, a spaceship adorned with an emerald aura, and visitors from the stars, with Craig among them, embodying the very essence of adventure and discovery that Flash Fiction stories thrive upon.
His narrative wasn't just a tale from the afterlife; it was a metaphorical masterpiece, a reference to the spirited image I had crafted as the face of my new genre of writing. In his celestial form, Craig mirrored the Flash Gordon-esque muse I envisioned—a hero navigating the endless expanse, quick as a comet’s tail, blazing through adventures distilled into the purest essence of storytelling.
The green light he spoke of was not just a part of his otherworldly description; it was a beacon, symbolizing the vibrant energy of Flash Fiction, a genre where each word must count, where each sentence is a brush stroke in a vivid tableau of imagination. Craig, my guide, now assumed the role of my muse, a guardian traversing the interstellar realms of creativity and the subconscious, tapping into the universal wellspring of narrative power.
As I took to the keyboard, the images he imparted infused my writing with a new dynamism. The spaceship he sailed on became an emblem of the journey each story promised, the green light a signal of go—a command to dive headlong into the narrative. And in the visitors, the ethereal beings of light, I saw reflections of characters yet to be born, each a shard of the larger narrative orbiting the core of my tales.
Brother by blood, Craig had transcended into something more—he was now my cosmic brother in arms, a fellow traveler in the realm of Flash Fiction. Together, our connection was a conduit for tales that spoke of the human condition, adventures that spanned galaxies, and stories that, much like the channeling session that inspired them, bridged the here and the beyond.
