My Library

up so calmly under … (INSPEC will serve as well as any other.) But I couldn’t let it alone. As shaken as I was, I knew I had to ask, because I had known they were greater, but how much greater now might be a depth … (We are created, just as you are created. More than that, it is important that you obtain from your own percept. In your own—how do you put it? —time, you will find the reason for this.) Suddenly, I felt a strong, urgent signal pulling at the back of me. I resisted at first, not wanting to leave, but the signal was persistent. With the warm pattern of understanding from my INSPEC friend, I turned and followed the signal. Instantly, I was hovering over my physical body. There below me was my second body. I slid into it easily, then into the physical. My right arm was tingling due to lack of circulation. I evidently had been lying on it at an angle. I flexed the arm several times, musing as I had so many times before: Suppose there were no signal to return, how long would I stay away, would I never return? It was then, lying there in the darkness, listening to the whippoorwill and the night crickets outside, the soft earth-scented breeze flowing in through the open window, feeling the hot warmth of our little dog Steamboat sleeping contentedly against the soles of my feet, the even breathing of Nancy sleeping beside me—that I felt the wetness of my cheeks and a few remaining tears in my eyes. And I remembered. Not much, but I remembered! I sat up in bed, wanting to jump up and shout in incomprehensible joy. Steamboat raised his head and looked at me curiously, then dropped back. My wife shifted position as I sat up, then gradually resumed her even breathing rhythm. I would not wake her, she needed her rest and recharge. I lay back and remembered. Sometime before dawn, I, too, fell asleep.