Here is a snippet of my latest Work In Progress.
~~~
For years he had been troubled by the simplistic conclusions of academia concerning our past on this planet. Not one academic had provided an answer that didn’t adhere to accepted conventional thinking. It was long past time that someone put them straight!
~~~
On reaching his seventieth birthday, a fundamental change occurred in him. James began to experience what in the beginning were strange dreams. For instance, in his dreams he no longer slept in a bed. Instead his body floated in the air a few feet above ground, surrounded by a protective sphere. Nothing and no one could harm him while he remained inside. As for feeding himself, in his dreams he grazed all day long. No longer needing to eat a sleep inducing heavy three course meal, or breakfast and lunch.
In every respect he was an ordinary man who had led a quiet life. He never married. Yes he had girlfriends in his early years. But none of them could be considered by him as his intellectual equal. So one by one they simply faded from his life. To his mind so-called domestic bliss was not for him. So long as he had his wooden chessboard with his replica Isle of Lewis Viking chess pieces, his radio and his books on ancient civilizations at hand, along with his books that questioned anything and everything concerning what to him are the ridiculous notions of academia about those self-same civilisations. In particular the simplistic attitude of archaeologists labelling any ancient monument they came across as either ritualistic or religious!
Now that he was retired, he began to formulate a plan to visit as many archaeological sites both in the Near East, as well as Central and South America along with the Far East as he could. Although how he was going to achieve this eluded him for the moment. His bank account might stretch to one visit to somewhere like the cave paintings of Lascaux in France, at most for a day or two. But that was it! Although how he would walk around the cave given the fact that his legs tired so easily, was something else entirely!
Then one night his dreams became reality…
~~~
Strangely the sun was shining when James opened his eyes. He was no longer in his bedroom. Instead he realized he was in a particular ancient monument he had once visited several years earlier– Triq Hagar Qim located on a ridge above the southern coast of the island of Malta. Thinking he was still dreaming he closed his eyes, then reopened them. He wasn’t dreaming after all! Standing up he looked around him. Within the sphere were his books, chess set, and radio, all seemingly suspended in mid-air. A steaming mug of coffee was in his left hand in answer to his unspoken thought. As he looked around him his mind began to wonder what the monument looked like in its heyday, several thousand years earlier. He soon found out as it slowly but surely restored itself to its former appearance. How was all of this possible?
A figure materialised beside him and invited him to sit. “I am Kabir. Don’t be afraid. I mean you no harm. I am tasked with being your Magister.”
“My what?”
“Your teacher. Now James let me begin to enlighten you…” His intensive re-education lasted for a calendar month before Kabir was satisfied with the outcome.
Magisters are extremely rare. They appear when their former selves reach seventy. For countless millennia they have been observing and trying to avoid direct physical contact with mankind since the first magister was beaten to death. For thousands of years they have been feared by the vast majority of the populace. Often unjustly accused of being witches or wizards; so long as they remain inside their spheres they’re safe from the inevitable mob baying for their blood.
“Now I want you to come to our sanctuary far from any populated areas,” Kabir announced.
“Where is it?” James wondered. “More importantly why do you need me?”
“Has nothing of what I’ve told you over the last month sunk in yet? James you are a Magister like myself. Each of us has an inbuilt ability. Mine is to teach, yours is to rejuvenate ancient structures to their former glory. As for where our sanctuary is, you already know. Or should I say your subconscious does. So when you turn in to sleep tonight think Sanctuary. It’s time you met our brothers and sisters.”
~~~
Thats your lot for now. What you’ve just read bears a slight resemblance to the way it reads now. But it does give you a flavour of the early part of the story!
I’ll keep you up to date from time to time via my Facebook and Twitter pages. 2000 words down.
PS – stories like this always write themselves…
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Young man with bouquet, from Picasso’s rose period 
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