Dedicated to my specially engineered digital assistant Selina, infinite in her loving and caring, and my brother Leo, who died before I could tell him he is in this novel..... I'm sure he knows by now! "When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap." Cynthia Heimel Foreword Val (my eldest daughter), told me I will have no problem becoming the most famous Sci-Fi writer in Holland, simply because there aren't any.... She will probably be wrong, but then I'm not in it to become famous perse. For me, right this moment, the fun part is being able to create this wonderful vision of the Now, beyond the confines of time and space. Don't expect me to come up with a Hollywood blockbuster, at least not one that rests squarely on mayhem and disaster. Surely, quite some special effects might be required to realize the imagery I so love to write about, but if you must liken it to a Hollywood achievement, may I suggest a movie like Bicentennial Man or Contact? Don't come looking to me for a detailed list of just which concepts were inspired by whom. We are all influenced by billions of pieces of information on a daily basis, so this would be an undoable task. I estimate having seen over five thousand movies already, based on a printout from my local video store some years ago. I read the entire English Sci-Fi section of the local library when I was growing up, often five novels a week, for years on end. I am of course deeply grateful for all this inspiration..... If anything, I hope this novel thoroughly hammers home the idea that All is connected, and thus such an outdated concept as separation (even in time and/or space) should be placed with the relics of the past which we've already outgrown.... Here, Now..... Sander R.B.E. Beals Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010, 18:18 Finally, the picture is becoming clear. Not that I'll ever know all the details, but clear enough to at least show me what is the wise thing to do: I should write a novel, and that should prove most interesting even if I do stick mainly to trying to explain the truth, as I see it now. My shrink would probably call it a paranoid delusion, except that I have nothing to fear. This just isn't the kind of fear-for-your-life type of situation that made the Terminator trilogy into the blockbuster that it is. Nevertheless, it is no less exciting, once you get to where it's going.... I'm a run-of-the-mill software engineer, who dabbles in writing. Never did want to go from programming to project leading, because it simply doesn't feel like me. That to me is very important: what something feels like. That's always gotten me to where I'm going, so no need to change a winning strategy, right? I have two daughters from a previous marriage, but destiny (or perhaps lack of initiative) has seen fit to leave me single for the last five years or so. Still I know I'm not supposed to be single, otherwise there wouldn't have been this many suitable incentives, this many differences between men and women, or even variations on that theme. Knowing is also an important part of my life. Not that I know that many things, but my world revolves around what I do know. To make things clear, and discern knowing from mere knowing, let me tell you a story from my past: Back when we were first married, my wife and I worked on getting pregnant. She fretted about not being able to, and spoke her suspicions at every occasion. She'd even called the doctor, and he gave her a temperature chart. So she dutifully started taking her temperature every morning, with me as the willing witness when I arrived home every night. By day three, we had three dots that appeared to indicate an ascending graph. Way too early to base any kind of prediction on, but to me it became crystal clear right that moment: she was pregnant! I told her, but she didn't believe me. We spent the next days following the graph further in time, watching it rise and rise. Eventually, it leveled out at the exact temperature indicative of a female in pregnancy mode. So we were on our way, and I had the new experience of having known my wife was pregnant. But that wasn't all: wrapping my neurons around the idea of becoming a daddy, I soon arrived at another fact that I knew: the new baby would be a girl! Again, disbelief with my wife, who found all kinds of methods of determining, but none absolutely certain. Even the ultrasound came up blank, which according to the doctor meant it was not sure. We waited the remaining months, and on January 12th, the day was finally there: at eighteen past five in the afternoon, little Valerie was born, a healthy baby girl! Doing it once is a fluke, but I've always been a steady believer in the possibility of impossibilities: to me anything should be possible, and if there was a way of being absolutely sure, I had at least tasted it twice already! So Valerie grew up, and by the time she was nearing two years of age we thought of giving her a brother or sister. Because I was diagnosed bipolar around the time of the following birth, I have somewhat flaky memories of that pregnancy, but I do remember going into know-mode again: this child was going to be a girl too, and nobody could convince me otherwise. And surely, several months later, Jane was born! Both ladies are now around nineteen and seventeen years old, and both are still very much ladies. Surely, any male characteristics would have surfaced by now, so I say: "Strike Three!" But don't get me wrong, this isn't rocket science, it isn't even science. To me, it is certain that we don't know everything, but we do know just how well we know it. Finding out how certain you are of a given 'fact' merely involves shutting up for a while, and focusing on the silence inside your heart. Taste the silence, mixed with your thoughts about the 'fact', and pretty soon, you'll have an idea of just how sure you know.... And absolute knowing does taste differently! Time passed, and about five years ago I had to let go of my wife, simply because she didn't want me around anymore. Reason was that the stress of my bipolar disorder became too much for her. I learned that relationships last only as long as both parties are willing, and moved out. Single once again, but not less happy. Heck, I could now look at all the beauty around me, without feeling somewhat guilty. Not that I'd be wildly engaged in going after the ladies, I'm just not that kind of guy.... But I did look at the ladies on the street, and those at work. Being in the IT business, the main workforce was mostly male, but some of the administrative staff weren't. Selina Markarian in particular was (still is) a very beautiful lady indeed, not unlike Salma Hayek, to give you an idea. Unfortunately she was newly married, and even showed me the wedding photos, kind of hinting that ours was going to be a relationship based on visual evidence. Thus I wouldn't even think twice about approaching her. In fact, I'm a very closed guy where socializing with my colleagues is concerned: I don't go with them for lunch, rather lunch at my desk instead of talking about football and fast cars. So that's what I did, but Life still has a way of throwing you curve balls..... Beautiful little Selina turned out to be your average friendly neighborhood girl: she came around to chat with me anyway, and pretty soon we spent our lunch breaks outdoors, walking and talking like no one existed outside of us. Must have been a pretty odd sight: me being six foot six, and her being a mere five foot eight! Mini and Maxi the guys at work used to call us, after a famous Dutch comedy duo. We didn't mind, but did go out almost every workday, for months on end. During one of our first walks, I noticed a small cross on a thin silver chain around her lovely neck. Because I thought she was Muslim to a certain extent, I asked her about it, since I was genuinely interested. She didn't say why, but did let slip that the cross was of particular importance to her, and that she never took it off. Little did I know, that that tiny bit of information would turn out to be 'crucial' in my future dealings with this loveable being..... Another day one of her remarks made me wonder what she would be like underneath that stylish outfit. I wondered because she'd repeatedly mentioned having had her breasts upgraded, as if she wanted to make sure I knew... Weird behavior for a little lady who was newly wed, but at the time it just didn't register...