My Library

The land below became more rugged, and soon we were skimming between the ranges and peaks of very mountainous terrain. Vegetation was sparse, and snowcaps flashed by as we passed at what seemed Mach 2 speed, or greater. I would be more comfortable with a little safer altitude; my old half-bold pilot experience was coming out. Being half-bold had let me grow old but not gracefully. The sheer snow-laden rocky side of a high ridge came rushing at us. (You can move through it and out the other side. It is no different now.) The ridge was almost upon us. I closed tightly just as we were about to crash. There was a slight change in the texture around me momentarily, and it was gone. I opened, and scanned behind us. The high range was fading in the distance. Passing through physical matter is not yet my habit! Quickly, the earth below was beginning to level out again, the color of the forest changed into lighter greens, and the cleared areas became larger. I tried to remember my geography—we were over the Middle East, I thought … yes, there they were coming up, still the rolling, sandy, near-desert areas, where the oil came from. I scanned in all directions, and saw very symmetrical clusters of trees, but no tanks, no pipelines, no pumping wellheads, nothing to indicate man had ever set foot in the area. Either the oil fields were pumped dry or there was no longer a need for oil. (Both percepts are accurate.) We moved out over water again—Mediterranean Sea?—and higher, faster, a scrap of land blinked by underneath which I could not identify and more water, heavy waves, this must be the Atlantic … land again, a sudden slowing and we landed gently in a field of grass amid rolling hills. I looked around me, wondering why we had stopped at this particular place. It was very faintly familiar. I was standing on a knoll, in a field of rich green grass whose blades were so even they must have been recently mowed … no, not cut, they were growing evenly. The edge of a woods of oak trees, limbs spreading broadly, rose behind me. In the far distance, a series of ascending green-blue ridges formed giant stair steps upward … Why stop here, why at this place?