Sunset Illusions
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Sunset Illusions Exerpts
'Well,' said Sam, 'That may not be all wrong. Karen's spirit is affecting me terribly right now. It's calling me. I feel like I want to cry. You know, I say I believe time is moving backwards, and I really think that I do believe it. But, there's always that voice inside that reminds me about the possibility that this is all part of some illusion I have to deal with on some other level. Like that one where I'm really somewhere else, dying in the desert and reliving my past backwards. Hell, it may be true. I know there's a chance I'm playing some sick mind game. I may be dead wrong about everything. But, if this works out and Karen comes back tonight, like I think she will, God knows, I'm going to be singing time reversal to the heavens for the rest of my life.'
'I know how you feel, Sam. This is like some surreal dream. I can hardly stand it myself. You know, she may be here with us right now, in the same time, in the same space, only on some other level. Reality is so crazy. It's like you're in the same room with a fly. Two creatures sharing the same time and space, but with no idea of each other's reality.' Sam didn't reply. His mind was elsewhere. Finally in the pitch black of night, with still no hint of morning, Billy said,
'I think it is about time now. Don't you?'
Sam was feeling the need to begin, too. He moved to the patch of freshly turned earth in the deepest corner of his back yard and then he fell to his knees. He began to dig furiously with his shovel. Billy turned on the flashlight and held the light as he waited to take his turn, but Sam would have none of it. He wanted to do this job himself. He dug into earth, so fresh it looked like it had been turned only moments before. The seconds ticked away slowly, as the pile of fresh dirt beside the hole grew higher and higher. Sam's shovel dug deep at first then more carefully as the hole deepened. Near the end, he was digging with his hands. Finally he exposed the long wooden box that the brothers had once, so long ago, carefully lowered into the ground. Sam thought of the tears that had fallen on this box that night. He felt those same tears inside himself now.
Sam freed the pine coffin completely before he climbed out of the hole. The brothers reached down and lifted the heavy pine box to the surface. They carefully carried the precious box into the house through the kitchen and then into the living room. They set it on the floor near the couch. Sam slowly pried off the lid with the claw end of the hammer. It was almost as if this were some secret religious rite. There was a holiness in what they were doing. It felt so strange yet seemed so right. They moved very carefully and slowly. When they finally lifted the lid and pulled back the cover and saw Karen lying so stiff and still, each of the brothers felt the most intense emotions either of them had ever experienced. Sam gasped when he saw his wife lying there. Tears welled up in his eyes.
'You are so beautiful,' Sam whispered as he touched her face. The tears flowed freely from his eyes now and fell beside the coffin.
The brothers gently lifted Karen's body from the box. Sam took her in his arms and carried her upstairs. He placed her on their bed on her favorite sheets and then stood back and stared. It was as if they had been caught up in some wondrous dream. Neither spoke. After a long moment, Billy pulled the sheet up over her still body. He took Sam by the hand and led him downstairs. Both knew that this was going to take a while.
Sam and Billy sat waiting at the kitchen table, silently toying with the coffee cups in their hands. Neither of them felt like talking. Time passed slowly as their minds pondered the incredible wonder of it all. Hushes were strange experiences and no two were the same. Each Hush seemed to have its own energy and flavor. They felt like the silence of funerals, but with the expectant feeling of a new birth. This was the first Hush for them, and they sat quietly reading the experience in their thoughts. The sheer wonder of it left them speechless.
Sam was thinking about the incredible improbability of a Hush. It was amazing to him that the majority of people could accept such an amazing experience without question. It seemed that the only ones who were amazed at what a Hush was, were those who accepted the idea of time reversal. Everyone else seemed to regard it as normal.
The idea of a loved one returning from the dead was almost incomprehensible to Sam, especially when they returned unexpectedly. The surprise ought to be soul shaking. In this new life, you had to get used to life altering experiences passing like storms in the night. With very little warning, experiences build, explode and disappear, leaving a radically changed life and a memory that fades remarkably quickly. He remembered a few Hush stories he had heard somewhere.
A neighbor's daughter, a small child, missing from her home for days, suddenly appeared to her grieving parents. The frightened parents were in the kitchen holding each other as they cried in each other's arms. The mother glanced out the window and saw their missing little girl happily playing in the back yard. The child's sudden appearance shook their very souls with an overwhelming joy. The feelings lasted till evening and then were gone. The memory of the incident passed overnight. The next day not one of the family members remembered that she was ever missing.
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About the Book
Sunset Illusions may be one of the most unusual stories ever told.
In an expanding Universe with forward moving time, Sam Hevi had to do his job, raise his family, and maintain his dignity as a human being. These were not easy tasks in the difficult world he faced.
Sam Hevi, an astronomer and leader of the freedom movement, had to try to live free within a government that didn't believe in freedom. He had to search for truth in a world driven by unquestioned belief, and he had to try to find reality in a life smothered in illusion. These were not easy tasks in the difficult world he faced.
All seemed to be going about as well as could reasonably be expected until the day Sam lost his wife. It was the first blow to his world. The second came with the loss of his brother and best friend in the war. The final blow came toward the end of his life when his only son had him committed to the government's Old Folk's home, an acknowledged warehouse for senile senior citizens. In many ways, this last act was the worst blow of all because it shattered Sam's self-esteem. He was determined that this was the final intolerable indignity he would ever face.
It took some planning, but Sam did make his final escape. At least, that's what he thought.
After his escape, Sam woke up very cold and confused. He realized that something was not quite right. Things were the same and, yet, different at the same time. It took him awhile to find out why, but when he did, he couldn't believe it. He had awakened in a world that looked the same as before, but now the Universe was contracting and time was running backwards. That alone was a shock, especially when he discovered that time was running in reverse and he was going to have to live his life over again, only this time he had to do it backwards.
Welcome to
Sunset Illusions
About the Author
Few of the thousands of students who have taken this author's math and physics classes during a thirty-year teaching career would deny his determination to uncover illusion.
"Illusions are as much a part of our lives as the air and sunshine," this author says. "How can it be otherwise? We know what we think we know through a three pound, Jell-O-like brain that floats in a water sack in our skulls and never sees the light of day. In fact it never 'sees' anything. It only interprets electrical impulses from our eyes. It doesn't hear, touch, smell, or feel anything, ever. It, too, only interprets electrical impulses. We are like jet pilots flying at a thousand miles per hour through the blackness of space with only our instruments to tell us anything about the real world outside the plane. In our case, we have only electrical impulses to tell us anything about the real world outside our heads. It's a wonder that we can know anything, let alone think that we can know everything.
To make up for what our brain is not able to understand, we believe. We then fool ourselves into thinking that what we believe is truth. The failure of many of us to admit that belief is only belief has caused, and is still causing, more pain and suffering on this planet than any other cause born from the mind of man."
In this author's experiences as citizen, teacher, father, soldier, farmer, traveler, and writer, as well as others, he has tried to discover truth behind the illusion and reality behind belief. He wrote Sunset Illusions to further explore man's predicament.
The author invites you to share his investigation into the human dilemma though the eyes of Sam Hevi as he tries to discover TRUTH in a very strange and often confusing world.
The author welcomes you to
Sunset Illusions