A Step of Faith (19 page)

Most surprising to me was that the room was filled with people, maybe forty or more, all dressed in the same yellow T-shirts. They all stared at us as we entered, looking curiously at me. I felt like a stray their “master” had brought home. Near the center of the room were two long dining tables. As we entered, El said to a young man with long, dark blue hair, “DarEl, bring us something to eat.”

“Yes, Master. What would please my Master?”

“Surprise us,” he said. The young man quickly disappeared behind a white door splattered with blue and red paint. “Come,” El said to me, gesturing. Every eye in the room was still on us as I followed him to the first table.

“Sit. Please,” he said.

We sat down on a long bench lined with red vinyl cushions.

A stunningly beautiful redheaded woman walked up to us and knelt in front of El. “How may I serve my Master?”

“Bring us something to drink,” El replied. “My usual. And some tea. What will you have?” he asked me.

“Just water,” I said.

She glanced at me, then back at El. “Yes, Master.” She leaned down and kissed his feet, then stood, hurrying off behind the white door. I watched in amazement. El seemed used to such adoration.

The man with blue hair quickly returned, carrying a bowl of red hummus and a stoneware plate piled with pita bread.

“Your service is accepted, DarEl.”

The man smiled. “Thank you, Master. Praise Master.”

El motioned to the bowl. “Eat. It’s quite good. It’s hummus with red chili.” He dipped a triangular piece of bread into the bowl, scooping up a dollop of hummus. “Tell me, Alan, before you were a sojourner, what did you do?”

Just then the redheaded woman returned carrying our drinks on a tray. She set a glass of red wine on the table in front of El, followed by a teacup and a teapot. She poured the tea, then put in a spoonful of sugar, stirred it, then looked at El. “May I serve my master anything else?”

“I am satisfied, my dear. Your service is accepted.”

“Thank you,” she said. She handed me a glass of water, knelt again and kissed El’s feet, then took the tray and walked away. I waited until El looked back at me.

“I was in advertising,” I said.

He nodded. “We are in similar fields then. We both are engineers of the mind. Are you a religious man?”

“Not particularly.”

“Do you believe in a God?”

“Yes.”

“Do
you
believe in the Bible?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“You
think
so?” He gazed intently into my eyes. “Have you even read it?”

“Parts,” I admitted.

He shook his head condescendingly. “
Parts
,” he said. “Then you do not really believe it. Or, at least, that it might lead to your eternal salvation. Otherwise you would cling to it as an overboard sailor clings to a life ring.” He lifted his glass of wine and drank. “Unlike you, I’ve read the Bible more times than I can remember. I’m more fascinated by it each time I read it. As I said before, the truth of the Bible must be understood in context.”

He leaned toward me. “The Bible is as ancient as time, but more modern than ours. To the enlightened, the book describes spaceships and interstellar beings, rocket launches, weapons of mass destruction, holograms and, most importantly, the origin of the species.”

“What species?” I asked.

“
Our
species, of course. You see, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, it’s all truth, contextually shaded, but as truthful as today’s newspaper.” He grinned. “Actually, given the state of today’s media bias, more truthful. In fact, DNA evidence has proven conclusively that our entire species descended from a single female. This isn’t conjecture, it’s proven fact. The idea that mankind gradually descended from monkeys is intellectually absurd. What do you think of that?”

“I think most scientists would disagree with you.”

He smiled. “Only the foolish ones. You see, scientists are just as dogmatic as the religious. Maybe more so. They rarely change their minds, they just die off and the next generation’s thinking emerges. The difference between
them and me is that I have a viable explanation for the species and they don’t.

“You see, even the most ardent Darwinist must admit that there is a fundamental flaw in his belief when it comes to the evolution of human beings. For millions of years, hominids, a half-ape, half-man beast, roamed the world. Then suddenly, boom”—he flourished his hands dramatically—“there are homo sapiens. Intelligent, self-aware, language-speaking beings capable of building pyramids, advancing complex mathematical formulas, understanding advanced aerodynamics and mapping the universe. They even performed successful brain surgery. Yes, there was successful brain surgery more than a thousand years ago. We have the archeological evidence.”

He shook his head. “What a culture we live in. We are swimming in an ocean of information, and drowning in ignorance. In the late 1800s archeologists discovered the ancient Sumerian cuneiform texts, writings of earth’s oldest-known civilization. When scholars translated their writings, what they discovered surprised them. The Sumerian tablets actually agreed with the Old Testament; the genesis of the earth, the Garden of Eden, even the story of Noah and the Great Flood. Of course, even the oldest Chinese writings, carved into tortoiseshells, tell of the great flood. You do believe in Noah and his ark, don’t you?”

“Not literally,” I said.

His brow fell with disappointment. “If not literally, then how?”

“Noah’s ark isn’t feasible. You couldn’t carry that many creatures and their food in a boat ten times the size the Bible describes.”

El grinned. “You could, of course, if you were carrying their DNA.”

“DNA?”

“Exactly. Truth, my friend, is found in the gray space between religion and science.”

“DNA wasn’t discovered until the 1950s.”

“No, that’s when it was
re
discovered. We modern humans want to believe that we are at the pinnacle of evolution and intellectual thought.” He said this with a mocking grin. “So we conveniently ignore everything counter to that belief, including architectural marvels that are thousands of years old that we cannot duplicate today. We are not more intelligent. Greater cultures have lived and died, not just in the universe, but on this planet.

“Did you know that in 1913 a farmer in a tiny South African town called Boskop discovered a skull unlike anything anyone had seen before? It was so unusual that it made its way to the top scientists and anthropologists around the world. What was so unusual about the skull was its dimensions. The skull was larger than ours, but its face was smaller. In fact, it was less apelike than we are. You might have seen these pictures—they’re the same face we see in people’s descriptions of today’s aliens.

“At first, scientists thought that these skulls might be an anomaly, an aberration, caused by a disease, like hydrocephalus, or some such thing. But this theory was quickly disproven when scores of similar skulls were discovered.

“These beings had brains twenty-five percent larger than ours. Scientists estimate that their average IQ would be close to 150, which means, on average, they were geniuses.” He leaned forward. “Do you understand what I’m saying? They were smarter than us. They were more
advanced than us. We are an intellectual step backward.” He leaned forward again. “If you still haven’t caught my deeper meaning, let me spell it out for you, Alan.
They
were not us. We are not alone.” He studied my eyes for my reaction. “The evidence is everywhere, carved into the records of our earth. On every continent there are carvings and hieroglyphs of spacemen and spaceships. They are described in great detail in the Bible. Just open to Ezekiel.”

“You’re talking about aliens,” I said. “You believe in UFOs?”

“My belief system isn’t predicated on faith. I have
knowledge
. And the term UFO is a misnomer. The crafts you’re referring to aren’t really
unidentified
flying objects if they’ve been identified, are they?”

“Are you saying that you’ve seen them?” I asked.

“Seen them, touched them, with gloves, of course, they’re remarkably hot once they’ve traveled in our atmosphere, I’ve even been inside them. But it’s not the crafts—it’s the pilots I find most intriguing. Seeing them for the first time, if you don’t wet yourself, is a mind flush. Trust me, everything you think you know about the world is immediately down the toilet. The first time I saw them, it took me days to stop shaking.”

I just looked at him.

“Of course you’re skeptical. It’s safer that way. But believe me, they are as real as you or me.”

“You’re telling me that you’ve seen an alien from another planet?”

He smiled. “I’ve sat in councils with them. I would say that we are, intellectually, like children next to them, but I would be doing them a disservice in the representation. We are more like apes, our spiritual and mental
development so rudimentary, it would be like enrolling a chimpanzee in advanced Harvard physics and theology classes. Their translators speak our crude language so exquisitely, it’s like listening to Mozart.” He leaned forward. “Let me teach you something, Alan. Have you ever wondered why it is that whenever there’s a major technical breakthrough, it seems to appear around the globe at the same time—advancements like the pyramids, the airplane, the electric filament or radio waves? That’s because when the Guardians believe our species is ready to advance the idea is released to us.”

“Guardians?”

“That’s what I call them, but that’s only because our inefficient language doesn’t have the proper title for them. They call themselves the Ahn, which roughly means ‘parent’ or ‘enlightened caregiver.’ But most people just call them God. The truth is, they are a collective—a fully cohesive society.”

“You’re telling me that Marconi and the Wright brothers spoke to aliens?”

El grinned. “Heavens, no. As brilliant as those men were, they weren’t ready. Even Moses had to view them through a holographic light wave transmission, which he, out of ignorance, called a burning bush. The Guardians don’t need to reveal themselves to teach us. They have their means of feeding our minds. It’s fascinating, really, a technologically produced telepathy. Think of it as a mental download. They’ll seed a half dozen people at the same time with the same revelation, and let them compete to come out first with the invention—much the same way a farmer will overplant his field to ensure a bountiful harvest.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Alan, I know this is difficult for you to accept. Changing a paradigm is never easy. But think about it. There is nothing more globally ubiquitous than the belief in extraterrestrial existence. The president of Russia spoke of aliens living among us, President Kennedy was caught on tape talking about secret alien captures, even Jimmy Carter publicly claimed to have seen a flying saucer. What surprises me is that you, or anyone else, would be surprised. Or, in this age of ‘reason,’ insist on living in denial.

“It is, perhaps, the only common ground that religionists and scientists share, both fighting to defend the indefensible argument that we are alone in the universe. And why? Because they don’t want to know the truth.”

“Why wouldn’t they want to know the truth?” I said. “It’s in their best interest.”

El laughed. “Is it? Forgive my amusement, but for an advertising man you have a poor understanding of the human mind, Alan. People have always preferred mystery to truth. Most people don’t even know the truth of their own beliefs. Ask them about the inner workings of their own religion or their religion’s history and they pull their heads in like turtles. It’s understandable. Religion is like sausage—it’s best not to know what goes into it.” He laughed again. “But there are those who are not afraid of the truth. People like you and me. It is our obligation and burden to act as shepherds to guide the flock.”

Just then, the blue-haired man brought out our dinner. Sliced turkey breast, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes and gravy. I was as glad for the distraction as I was for the food.

“Ah, time to eat,” El said.

“Looks like Thanksgiving dinner,” I said.

“We
are
thankful,” El said. “Our path is the way of gratitude. Please, allow me to give thanks for this food.”

He raised his hands above his head and said in a loud voice, “Our God, who looks favorably upon thy chosen vessels, we praise Thee for thy goodness and power and our knowledge of Thee, the only truth, the only way, the only salvation. In the name of He who is worthy of worship throughout the universe, Jesus
the
Christ, Amen.”

A chorus of “amens” filled the room. El looked at me. “Please, partake. The food is delicious. DarEl was a chef at the Four Seasons New York before he was enlightened.”

El was right, about the food at least. Everything was exceptional. Thankfully, my host allowed me a moment to eat in silence. As I ate, I observed what was going on around the room. There was a bank of tables near one side where a dozen or more people were sitting with headphones on. There were others reading, all from the same book, a hardcover volume with a bright red and gold cover. A few others were cleaning. Everyone was busy.

A few minutes later I pointed to the group of people with headphones. “What are they listening to?”

El turned around to look at them. “Sermons. They listen for three to four hours a day. Usually after they finish their chores.”

“Whose sermons?”

“Mine, of course.”

“And the red books?”

“The Celestial Scripture. Prophecies I’ve received, including those of the last days before Christ returns and the earth receives its nuclear baptism of fire.”

“Then you believe Christ will return?”

“Of course we do. And what a sight it will be, when
legions of crafts in the thousands and tens of thousands descend upon the earth, ushering in a new age of power and glory. The AhnEl will be there to assist in the transference of that power. Then we will be called up to our rightful place, and the kings and queens of this earth will be as our servants and our enemies will be as dust.”