My Library

had ignorantly rushed in many times in the early period, so I certainly qualified. I began to call it the Defooling Treatment. The presumption I made was that my Greater Self (soul?) always knew what it was doing. I had learned from it how a homing device loosely called ident was utilized; this was like a signal you could follow to the source of that place or being. In this one instance of Defooling, I had rolled out of body in the early morning, and after releasing the second, I expressed the mild observation that it would be nice to visit a near-human culture that was in time-space and that I could understand. Immediately the ident Z-55 flashed into me, so I reached and stretched. There was a slight sense of movement and I was in front of a slightly glowing figure. Other, similar figures were in the background. Beyond, nothing. The figure opened. (Well, Robert, we meet again.) I flickered. (Uh, yes.) (Still digging out the secrets of the universe?) This wasn’t what I expected. It definitely wasn’t any near-human culture, and this being seemed to know me. Some mistake in the ident, but the radiation did seem familiar. I didn’t want to ask the obvious, but I had to. (Where am I?) The figure smoothed. (Outermost ring, Robert. One more final cycle in-human and that will be it. For me.) I flickered. (I don’t have a percept on the Z-55 ident, but I know you.) Z-55 rolled. (After all those hours putting music together … The run to Cuba back in the fifties to record in Havana …) The percept came bright and sure in me. Of course I knew him. Even then I called him an old soul! I vibrated strongly. (Lou! Sure! The Z-55 ident threw me. You seem different. It’s great to be with you again!) Z-55/LOU smoothed. (Well, I’ve had a couple more in-human runs since we were together, so Lou is sort of covered over a little.) I turned inward. Lou, one of the most gentle of persons I had ever met … musician, arranger, orchestra conductor … quietly living through his life and his work … hours and days we spent together … working far into the night developing melody lines … chord progressions, orchestrations … then our paths