My Library

west … Blue ridges! The percept was total. How many times before had I stood on this very knoll and looked to the west, had made the stairway of rounded hills my launching chute, the flood of living human experience I had attached to this spot, this site … the houses, fences, buildings, roads, all were gone. The lake. The lake was still there. And trees, so many more trees and of varieties I had never seen before, and to the east, there was … water. Water where once was a four-lane highway, water stretching off into the horizon. (We call it Virginia Bay for old times’ sake. Part of the ocean.) BB was very smooth. (You always yelled about the law of change. Some of us hibe here also for old times’ sake.) I blanked. (Hibe?) The woman opened ever so slightly. (We store our favorite human bodies here under the oak trees until we need them.) (Which is not too often,) BB added. I turned inward. Hibe … hibernation. Sure, why not? Simply a vast improvement on the old OOBE pattern. But to leave it lying around under an oak tree … (We put a super Reball around it,) the woman responded, smiling. (It’s so tight not even a virus can get through, so certainly it won’t be bothered by ticks, mosquitoes, or anything larger.) The rote was building fast. “Reball,” short for resonant energy balloon, which we were clumsily trying to generate, with mixed success, an energy field around the body to shield and protect, back when. And there are still ticks, mosquitoes, viruses, and bears no doubt. BB grinned. (No doubt at all.) I looked at him. (What did you mean, not too often?) BB swung to the woman. (You tell him.) The woman opened somewhat wider, and I could feel the attractive radiation diminish, and I knew it was deliberate. I also was sure she knew I would not attempt any further percept of her, if that was the way she wanted it. At least that hadn’t changed either. Women still like to be mysterious. (Not too often is about twice a week, more or less.) She smoothed,