21

 Kumo

Johnny hid at the kitchen entrance so he could find out who his mother was talking to. It was the closest place to the front door that someone could hide without being seen and still hear what was being said.

He had not been there when the doorbell rang but he went to the front of the house when he felt his mother’s anxiety.

“… and we’re hopeful you would have information regarding his whereabouts,” a deep voice said.

“Again I don’t know,” his mother reacted. “I haven’t had any contact with my brother-in-law for quite some time. In fact the last time he was here, he told me he would never be coming back.”

“We find that highly unlikely,” the voice said. “We have information that he never left the Cleveland area.”

“That might be true, but he hasn’t contacted me,” Margaret said with a very bitter tone in her voice. Johnny wasn’t sure whether she was more annoyed with this man or with uncle Robert for not coming back.

“Well, if you do hear from him, please call us at this number,” another even deeper voice said.

Margaret closed the door. Johnny poked his head out from the kitchen doorway.

Margaret spotted him.

“Were you listening?” she demanded to know.

Johnny went to his mother and hugged her.

“Yes.”

Margaret sighed. Then she hugged him back – tightly.

The card the man gave her was still in her hand and close to Johnny’s face. He clearly saw the FBI logo.

Clunk.

The mail slot in the front door had opened, giving Margaret a scare. She let go of Johnny in time to see a single letter slide through it and land on the floor.

“Now what?”

She reached down to claim it, ripped it open and started to tremble slightly when she opened the letter and read it.

Johnny instantly thought his heart was going to explode. Margaret’s anxiety had just shot up another notch. He moved to her side as if to hug her again and peered sideways at the letter. It was from the IRS.

“Mom?”

Margaret lowered the letter and Johnny could see a tear in her eye.

“What is it mom?”

Margaret stood silent for a moment.

“Nothing dear,” she lied. “Nothing you should concern yourself with.”

Johnny knew better.

“Mom, I know what you’re saying is not true.”

Margaret let out a sob.

“Damn you,” she cried. “Why can’t you be like other kids?”

The statement hung in the air for a moment. Then she gave in.

“Alright, if you insist, Johnny.” It was obvious she didn’t expect him to understand the incredible problem with which she had been presented. “It’s a letter from the IRS asking me to provide the records from your dad’s and uncle’s company for the past 7 years for a review. They think there were some irregularities in the last tax returns.”

She turned away from her son, not able to stand his piercing yet loving stare.

“What else can go wrong?” she questioned the universe before walking away.

Johnny watched her leave, then felt his own anxiety rise.

The phone rang.

It was for his sister who grabbed it and glared at him: Go away!

And there was something about the ring that sounded different to him.

Johnny went to his room only to have the strange sensation that it held a presence that felt like it was coming from the cup … the cup that held the card from his uncle.

Johnny walked slowly over to the dresser. For once in his life he was his age, a scared boy who had no clue what actions to take or what they might produce. With everyone else in his life, he always told them exactly what they needed to hear. Right now he couldn’t tell himself what he needed to do.

Then, quite suddenly, he left his body.

He felt no fear, but saw himself frozen in mid grab, reaching for the cup.

He was a disembodied spirit floating above his body and, from that perspective, everything was unusually clear. But his brain was paralyzed by fear and doubt and in such a confused state could not provide him with a rational course of action.

However, the floating version of himself somehow knew what needed to be done. There were no questions … no doubts. Uncle Robert had given him the card to use in an urgent situation. The fact that there was now a phone number on the card where previously there had been none, indicated the number was meant to be phoned. And, since it was not there before meant the time to phone it was now. Johnny’s heart was clear on that, even if his brain was not.

Johnny returned to his body. He suffered a moment of severe disorientation, questioning whether what just happened had really happened. But the feeling of certainty he experienced while out of his body was so strong that he had little doubt that it occurred. He calmly pulled out the card, went to the phone in the upstairs hall and dialed the number.

What happened next was … to say the least … very strange. He heard the phone ring once then a voice spoke, not from within the phone but right beside him!

The problem with the voice and the presence that went with it, was that Johnny could not feel it. It was like it came from somewhere else and the presence did not belong to it … or with it … or something.

It was terribly confusing.

For the first time in his life Johnny was about to have the same experience as everyone else on the planet when they talked to someone and couldn’t feel them the way Johnny could.

“Finally!” a voice said.

He whirled around.

“Who are you?”

“Kumo.”

Johnny just stared at the little, four-foot tall bald man wearing a striped blue suit and sporting an enormously long, white beard.

“What … what are you?” Johnny babbled.

“Kumo,” the little man repeated and did something quite remarkable. He proceeded to bounce around the room like a cartoon character. To Johnny he seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

When he finished bouncing, he stood quite serenely in front of Johnny and smiled.

“I am someone from the thirteenth level.”

Johnny’s initial fear had disappeared but he was totally confused.

“As you perceive,” the little man continued, “I am not here in the same way you are, but everywhere as your eyes have seen.”

“I don’t understand …”

“Nothing can help you with that, Johnny Twigum, except yourself.”

Johnny quickly grasped the rules of the game. Asking Kumo questions about himself would not yield any meaningful information. But his name was the word on the card Robert had given him.

“What’s your connection to my uncle?”

“Your uncle has tried to connect with me for years. As have several others. But no one has been able to fully do so. You have been trying since I entered this room and have not been successful. But, to answer your question, Robert has no connection to me.”

“How come I can’t feel you?”

“I just told you. You cannot connect with me.”

“Why not?”

Kumo laughed.

“That would involve a very long explanation. Do you want to have that now or is there something more urgent you need to know?”

Johnny thought about it for a moment. The urgency was gone and his natural curiosity kicked in.

“I want the explanation.”

Kumo again laughed.

“Very well, have a seat.”

Kumo put on a stern face then squatted on the floor with his small, spindly legs crossed.

“First I have to tell you about chakras.”

Johnny had never heard the word, “Chakras?”

“That’s what you human beings call them.”

Johnny got nervous. Kumo’s words implied that he was not human.

“You aren’t human?”

Kumo laughed long and hard.

“Do I look human?”

It was a rhetorical question.

“What are you then?” Johnny asked.

“What and who I am is beyond the concepts you are able to hold in your mind, but since you need an answer, call me a gnome. That’s what a lot of you have called us for thousands of years.”

Gnome? A funny word Johnny remembered from childhood fairy tales because it started with a silent G you didn’t pronounce. You just said Nome. It calmed Johnny down. If other humans had given Kumo’s kind a name that wasn’t scary, then he had no reason to be afraid.

“Chakras are the energy centers in the body. There are seven on the body and five above it.”

“What’s an energy center?”

“A place where external energy enters and leaves your energy field as you interact with other energy fields.”

“Oh,” Johnny said. He didn’t understand.

Kumo shook his head.

“Okay … I see this will take longer than we have. Perhaps we should do this another time.”

Johnny felt annoyed and discomforted at the same time. “No, I’d like to know now.”

Kumo rose up, approached Johnny and looked at his forehead very closely.

“Very well, I guess you are ready … barely.”

The gnome reached out and touched Johnny on his forehead just above his eyes.

It felt like someone had just shocked him with electricity and he jumped back with a gasp.

“What did you do?”

“I opened your sixth chakra as wide as it would go. It was open anyway … enough for you to feel others but not enough for you to see what I need to show you.” Then he commanded: “Look at me.”

Johnny looked very closely. His vision was not quite normal. Colors seemed to be swimming in front of him.

“Don’t peer at me intently like that,” the little man said. “Just look with your eyes unfocused.”

Johnny did his best, relaxing his ocular focus and expecting the world to go slightly blurry. Instead he saw that the colors were not random movements in front of his eyes. There were patterns that swam about Kumo … in and out of his body in seven places.

“What are those?” he whispered.

When he spoke some color moved out of his own body and into Kumo’s.

“You are seeing my chakras interacting with the environment. When you ask a question you interact with my chakras. And my answers flow back into you as you understand what I say.”

Sure enough Johnny saw other colors swirling into his own body after they left Kumo’s.

Johnny looked bright eyed.

“Do not be alarmed. This happens all the time. When you feel people you are aware of this energy transfer. Now you are seeing it.” He sat back. “So, Johnny Twigum, tell me how I feel.”

Johnny looked at Kumo. He felt a twinge of fear and trembled.

“Big and dangerous,” he squeaked meekly.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” The gnome laughed until he fell over and his sense of humor eased Johnny’s fear.

“You feel my energy but cannot read it. I have much more than the average human and you are just not skilled at reading it. But let us continue.”

Kumo sat up rigid again.

“In a lifetime … if a human is lucky … all seven chakras open and they have access to the ‘heavenly’ or universal energies.”

Johnny looked at Kumo and then himself and could kind of make out where these seven chakras were located. But he still wanted proof of what he was seeing,

“Where are these chakras?” he asked.

“One is located on the groin and is responsible for basic energies such as sex. You will be interested in that kind of energy soon. You are entering puberty.”

Johnny blushed a bit. Girls were no longer the oddly annoying half of humanity they used to be and were starting to look better than he remembered.

“One is responsible for basic survival stuff like food. People who get ‘stuck’ in the first chakra are usually addicted to sex or food.”

Johnny knew about addictions. His mother had pounded into his head how terrible and bad they were and he hoped he never got one.

“Two is located slightly above and to the left of one and is responsible for ancestor, family and clan energies. People who get stuck in two are like those who seek revenge because you did something to their clan.

“Three is located to the left of the belly button and is responsible for the ego and the self. People who get stuck in three cannot understand others, have no empathy for them and are usually petty and selfish.

Four is located to the right of the heart and is responsible for emotional energies. People who get stuck in four are like martyrs. They can only help others to the detriment of themselves. Ninety percent of the world is stuck in the first four chakras.”

Johnny could not help but feel overwhelmed with the flood of information coming at him.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because you asked me to.”

“I know I asked you, but I mean what use is this information to me?”

“That question can only be answered as time goes on,” the gnome explained. “All information is useful and we use it or ignore it as we please.”

Johnny couldn’t remember a gnome in any fairy tale his mother read to him being as smart as this.

“But perhaps you meant to ask what use is this information to you in the context of one of your first questions, ‘why can’t you connect to me?’ Well the problem with learning is that people always want to see the answer before doing the work of comprehending the basics. Young humans have always had this problem, but the era you live is the instant gratification generation which has even more of an issue with formula. Indeed the world is moving to a point where knowledge will be able to be pumped into those brains of yours … but that still leaves the problem of you humans not knowing what to do with that knowledge. I am merely giving you the prerequisite knowledge you need to be able to understand how to connect with others and not get stuck in their places where they are stuck by being able to recognize what it is. You will still need to practice this knowledge after I have given it to you … if you can remember it at all … I have one student on this planet that I have to explain what he needs to learn over and over again until he gets it …but I believe you will prove to be different.”

Johnny was beginning to understand.

“My brain hurts already.”

“Get used to it, it will only get worse from here on,” Kumo said then laughed very loudly.

Johnny was a bit miffed.

“Just tell me what I need to know.”

“Alright. Back to the chakras. Ready?”

“Yes.”

Johnny listened intently.

“Number five is located in the throat and is responsible for the ability to communicate the lower four energies to the world. People who are stuck in five, babble on and on. I should point out that people who are stuck in a chakra can never use a higher one. So if you are stuck in the lower four you never use five. And most people never get the chance to get stuck in five, because they never get past four!”

“I see.”

“Good!” the gnome exclaimed. “Five allows people to voice what they have discovered. Six – sometimes called the third eye – is located in the forehead and is responsible for non-ocular vision or seeing through the veil of the universe. People who get stuck here usually become preachers or psychics.

“Seven is on top of the head and is responsible for your connection to God and the universe. Once people get here they rarely get stuck … but those who do can go in two directions. They can be dangerous fanatics or enlightened visionaries, not to be confused with people who fail to differentiate religious beliefs from energies that are stuck in the first four chakras.”

Johnny’s head was spinning.

“Huh?”

Kumo laughed.

“Don’t worry. You will rarely meet anyone stuck at seven or higher.”

“Okay,” Johnny said meekly.

“I must teach you in this manner, Johnny, for I can only instruct in ways you are capable of understanding. When you truly connect with me your ability to understand may improve.”

Then he seemed unable to contain his laughter and Johnny got irritated. Kumo seemed to be mocking him.

“What’s so funny?” he demanded to know.

“Dealing with humans is always so humorous,” the little creature admitted. “What is so obvious to me is so difficult for you.”

“Is that any reason to laugh?”

“I am laughing at the method of my teaching rather than the student. So have no fear. It is the words themselves that are so humorous. Unless you are a gnome, I am afraid you will not get it.”

“I’m trying …” Johnny protested.

“Good,” Kumo smiled. “It gets more interesting from here on, because while the first seven chakras have been well documented by your race, the next five have not. These have been reserved by secretive societies as exclusive enlightened knowledge.”

Johnny wondered if Kumo was considering the fact that he was only twelve years old.

“These chakras are usually stuck in all humans once they get language. They become unstuck as they open their chakras again. You are so unlikely to find anyone stuck in these upper chakras that it is almost pointless for me to explain what it means to be stuck here.”

Oh, good, Johnny thought. Something he doesn’t have to explain.

“Eight is all human knowledge. Call it the human library. When a human goes to that library, any question they have can be answered. But people can get stuck there too and are usually called seers.” Then he added a caveat. “But all seven lower chakras need to be open or you cannot visit the library.”

Johnny had heard the word psychic. His mother told him they were all fakes who thought they could see things other people couldn’t. He was curious.

“What’s the difference between a psychic and a seer?”

“Psychics get stuck at the sixth chakra and seers at the eighth.”

He was laughing again and dammit, that was getting annoying. “How about talking in language I can understand?”

“Okay … the sixth chakra is called the third eye … the ability to see what is around you that you cannot perceive with your other senses. Things you cannot touch or taste or see or smell. Psychics use this energy center to interpret the world. But their interpretations are filtered by their brains. They can make mistakes. A seer, on the other hand, will know stuff one hundred percent as long as they do not get stuck in any of the lower seven chakras.”

“I see.”

“Nine is our connection to everyone we know. There are energy lines that extend out to everyone that you ever met – alive or dead. People who get stuck in that chakra have usually taken drugs and are awed by the fact that they can feel people like you do.”

Johnny was shocked.

“I never touched any drugs!”

“No, you have not. You are unique in the world, Johnny Twigum. You have the largest ninth chakra on the planet.”

Johnny was over-whelmed. Seven billion people lived on the Earth and he was unique! Boy, did that ever explain a lot!

“But you are sort of stuck here,” the gnome said sadly. “And in order to become unstuck you will need to wrap yourself in your luminous cocoon and spin it to break all the lines.”

Johnny’s brain short-circuited.

“Whaaaaa…?”

“Those are the words you need to hear, even if you don’t understand them right now.”

“Sort of stuck?” Johnny asked. “What does that mean?”

“You may be the most proficient ninth chakra user on your world, but you have never gone through the steps necessary to get there. So you will not understand anything I have to say to you until you actually take that journey.”

Johnny sprang the question he had pondered all his life.

“How could I be like this?”

“Maybe you were just born that way,” the gnome suggested. “Would that be understandable for now?”

Johnny paused. He knew what he was like. He knew that he could feel everyone he met except this strange creature in front of him who was obviously alive even if he looked like a plaster lawn ornament.

“I guess so.”

Johnny sounded vague but was strangely satisfied with this information. Was it his connection to the eighth chakra that let him know this information was correct? Was that why he always knew exactly what to say? Because he had a connection to that ‘library’ Kumo told him about. Had he somehow become a ‘seer’ and never knew it until Kumo forced him into this way of thinking? Was that what Kumo meant by using the information?

Johnny smiled.

Kumo smiled back at him.

Johnny was getting it!

“The tenth chakra will be very difficult for you to understand,” Kumo was saying, as if everything he was saying wasn’t difficult to understand. “Many languages have a vocabulary that makes it so much easier to convey this information … like Sanskrit in ancient India … but words in English that you can understand will be difficult for me to find.”

“Well, try,” Johnny said. What else could a twelve-year-old suggest?

“Okay. Here we go. You will have to keep your cocoon spinning to fully understand them … and I can see that your cocoon merely twists back and forth in vibrational harmony with your existence.”

Johnny was truly confused and his confusion twisted his face into a frustrated expression. Kumo imitated the expression. Johnny laughed and Kumo was quick to join him’

“Lines form easily on you,” the gnome commented once he stopped laughing. “They will be extremely hard for you to break. But do not confuse these lines with the connection to the ascended beings that swim in the tenth chakra energy streams. People who get stuck here are said to have halos. They get the best of advice …”

Kumo laughed, “I have been accused of staying too long in this energy.”

Johnny was taken aback by this statement and looked atop Kumo’s head almost expecting to see a halo. To his surprise he saw one! But it changed colors rapidly and then started spinning until it blurred to white. Kumo laughed.

“Do not be fooled by my trickery. I am so totally versed in tenth chakra energy that I can make my halo look like anything I want.”

“Uh huh …”

“People who are stuck here in the tenth chakra cannot. There are many other beings in that energy stream but they will not pay any attention to you unless you have mastered that energy.”

“Then why are you paying attention to me?” Johnny wanted to know.

Kumo laughed until tears came down his cheeks. Eventually he stopped laughing long enough to say:

“Because you called me.”

But that just started Kumo off laughing again. It was a full five minutes before he could compose himself enough to continue again.

“The eleventh chakra is your connection to other worlds and dimensions. It is how you can go to be other people, but just know that properties of this world may not apply. People who get stuck here are stark raving mad … because when you get here you have only two choices, be yourself or not …”

Kumo looked hard at Johnny who had no idea what he was talking about. He guessed the little man was describing what he still needed to learn, but if the words didn’t make sense, how was he supposed to learn anything?

Kumo was boring holes into Johnny with his stare and Johnny was getting more and more agitated by the moment. Then the gnome said:

“Twelve is the connection to the gates. People who get stuck there, die.”

“Wait a minute … I don’t like the sound of that!”

“Of course you don’t. That is why you must choose who opens your gates very carefully. You can literally burn your energy body to a crisp and that will kill your physical body. That is why you need to choose carefully to successfully open your twelve gates.”

“Gates?” Johnny asked. “What gates? I thought we were talking about chakras!”

“We are. Once you open your twelve chakras, you have access to the gates the universe uses to direct energy through each chakra. And once the energy starts to pour through, you should be able to control your manifestation ability better and you can even choose to ascend if you wish.”

“Manifestation? Ascend?”

“What have you been doing up until now? What about that wraith you manifested … dangerous business that.”

“You know about that?”

“Of course I do. I just said it, didn’t I? And I would hope that you don’t choose to get to the thirteenth level and ascend at this moment in time … at least until the ripples have passed.”

“I don’t know what ascending is,” Johnny reacted, “and what are the ripples?”

Kumo smiled, was about to explain, but put on a most serious look and looked towards the door.

Just before it opened Kumo’s chakras sent colors through the door.

 

You can learn more about Claude’s book at http://www.timestopper.com/books/johnnysripple