Terra’s Dilemma – An excerpt from The Corporeal Pull

Terra sat next to her portal. Her eyes seemed trained on the images within, but her mind raced with the tension of her new found perspective.

Before Terra had met Liam, she would have served endlessly. She was happy in her position; she was helpful here. She had an expressed purpose, and she could use her vision to match and guide. She could move the mortal creations through to the corporeal realm with the confidence that they were serving a greater purpose. It encompassed her focus. Terra carefully studied the temperament of each individual. She postulated the possible outcomes of each placement. Of course, there were some placements that would be simpler and some that would be difficult, some even painful; that was part of the placement. The intent was not to punish, but to push an entity towards a specific lesson or a precise portion of personal identity that was then molded and fine-tuned by honing in a mortal life. Each human life also had a place in the greater plan of the One. Terra had no control over that element. She could choose between certain placements that were given to her, but she could not alter the selections because that would change the part that each person was intended to play in the plan. Each lifespan created a tiny thread that would become part of a greater tapestry of beauty woven and perfected by the omniscient creator. Truly, it was an honor to do her part.

The corporeal entities had the full recall of temporal life when they were free of the mortal form, but while interred in the body, they were only aware of the experiences that they had while in that form. Terra had met many intriguing individuals who had seen and experienced so much in their mortal life. Some individuals experienced bodily life more than one time. Once freed from their bodies personal memories were no longer clouded by the frail capacity of a mortal brain. The inner soul stored every nuance of each entity’s eternity with perfect clarity. She had witnessed the lives of famous people whose lives had made a great difference in the grand scheme of mortality. Abraham Lincoln had endured considerable personal pain and tragedy which tempered him in his ability and resolve to make the effects that he was intended to make. He stood immovable as his country crumbled down. The issue of basic human rights was enough to erode the fabric of a nation. His resolve was sufficient to tip the scale in favor of a proclamation that eventually freed thousands of souls who were suffering in slavery. Some of those who had made the most difference had no mortal acclaim at all.

There was once a woman who had followed her faith and led others towards a moral life in a desolate desert part of the world that is often forgotten. When she died, nobody remembered her name, yet she changed the lives of thousands for the better as she educated the people from that village, and armed them with knowledge of how to obtain and purify drinking water, avoid the ravages of AIDS and work towards a more peaceful existence despite guerrilla factions.

Liam’s case came to Terra like any other. She was to place him on Earth for his term of service. Surprisingly, she had less control over his placement; typically, she had several options. She would look in on each one to examine the situation before sending a new life force to a transition to mortality. However, Liam had only two options for placement. He was made for a specific purpose. The intriguing thing was that there was no notation as to why he had been made for so narrow a purpose. Of course, it was not her place to question the infinite wisdom of the One, but she could not look away.

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Terra peered into portal one. It was one of the two options for Liam. The place was a primitive shack in the middle of a swampy forest. The area was once a wildlife preserve. It had been sheltered from the onslaught of man. The nature preserve had been intended for animals and wildlife to have some small piece of home left over after the daunting urban sprawl had left many parts of the earth desolate and used up. When that had been the case, the place had undoubtedly been one of the unspoiled beauty and harmony. It was hard to see that now. During the years of civil unrest and political shifts, the importance of preserving this piece of the natural beauty of the word fell by the way side. Factories utilized this lull in popular attention to use the area as a chemical and heavy machinery dumping ground. True, the trees and bushes had sought to cover these blatant wounds in the landscape, but the damage was done; this fragile ecosystem and been forever thrown out of its natural balance. Algae grew in the puddles in unnatural shades choking out the wildlife that once lived beneath. Cockroaches scuttled about openly feeding on the rot of what was left of healthy life.

It was here that the woman hid from the world. Her shelter was no better than a shanty. She moved through her daily life at a slow waddle. It was obvious how she had come to this impasse. What was not self-evident was what direction she would take from here. Free will is a tricky thing. Terra wondered idly what sort of being the woman’s guide was. Maybe the woman was one of the lost souls, or perhaps she had been claimed by the scourge. The latter option seemed more likely. Her stomach was strangely descended from the weight of the unborn life that she carried in her womb. She was aimless and feverish from the withdrawal she suffered. It racked through her body in spasms when she let down her guard. The tract marks on her arms told another piece of her story. Truly, her body told a story of a sad life filled with poor decisions. She was a prostitute by trade. When she had been younger and less “with child” it had afforded her a simple existence of bare necessities and substance abuse. Her pregnancy brought that piece meal existence to a close. No man would pay for a hugely pregnant hooker. No men to draw an income from meant a lack of income.

So what would she do with an infant? What type of mother could she be? As a guide, mortal thought was open to Terra. She could not discern the private musings of the other guides around her, or of those who in the Tweens, who were not her charges. However, this woman, mortal, yet barely sentient was readable to her. She was clear but certainly not understandable. Her thoughts were alternating from drowning the child at birth to leaving it here for whom or whatever found it. Truly, bringing the child into her daily life was not an option. Terra could see the appeal of these options in the woman’s thoughts. She could see the woman’s complete lack of remorse. In her mind, this disposal of the life she would bear was an act of self-preservation. She could see no moral qualm with the possible solutions to her problem. Her thoughts only dwelled on her next fix. How soon could that be? When would she be able to resume her life the way she knew it… the way she chose it? The infant was inconsequential for her in the same way most people felt about stepping on an ant.

It was so ironic that Terra could see the woman’s thoughts as they formed on earth, but any in existence in the Tweens, the thoughts of others were completely silent. She had once been told that this was a way of keeping things peaceful here where all could pass through. In reality, it was a blessing for Terra to keep her own thoughts private, especially those pertaining to Liam! It would be hard for the others to understand her intrigue.

As Terra observed the woman whose mortal name was Katrina, she heard her mind slowly focus on the acts that had led her to this shameful condition; the situation was disgraceful not because she was with child, but because of the neglect and damaged state that she allowed her body to sink into. She was convinced that the deciding act had been one she had performed with Mink, a street pharmacist who had been known to occasionally take in women of ill repute and support their habits in a sheltering kind of way or eliminate their problems altogether in a cold and more permanent fashion. Although there were other patrons, she had not been as careless with them as she had with Mink. She wanted to win his favor, to be allowed to carry on under his shelter and enabling hand. She had been successful in winning him over until this; this was not what she had wanted. This conception would surely move Katrina’s name to the list of those who were no longer useful to Mink. She knew that if he learned her secret, she would be silenced permanently. He would think no more of eliminating her for his convenience as she would for her own child.

Terra shuttered at the idol thoughts that rang only as an empty promise in the mind of Katrina. The child within her womb had a small chance of survival. This child’s birth was meant to either affect the mother’s path, or go on to alter paths in another fashion. The lifespan of the child would make that determination.

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Portal two was a different shade of the same sorrow. Carol had once been a beautiful girl. She had dark chestnut hair, and blue almond-shaped eyes. Her skin was somewhat fair, and her features were refined. She was a child of fortune. He parents had doted on her endlessly. She had her looks, her intelligence and a promising future when she left for college. Truly, college was the decision that she was intended to make. It was the stair step to her eventual goal. She would use these life skills to make her contribution to the world. However, free will got in her way.

In this case, Carol had not made the decision that made her mortal life one of sorrow. She had been on her way to college when things went terribly wrong. The bus on which she was a passenger had swerved to avoid a drunk driver. When the bus went off course, it happened to be on a bridge over a river. The bus careened through the side of the railing like a hot knife through butter. It only gained speed as it plummeted into the water below; the bus became a flying death trap. The driver was the first to die. He was killed by the initial impact. The other passengers were submerged under the water below. Thirty-seven living souls went into that river; three came out alive. Carol was among the living, but she did not know that. The lack of oxygen damaged her mortal brain. Her immortal essence remained. It was unable to leave her strong young body, yet she was trapped in isolation in her own existence. She could no longer use her human form to navigate the mortal world. So she lingered; aware of her own existence yet separate from the mortal shell that now held her prisoner.

Carol lingered, trapped inside her body for a long time. Her family did not come. They mourned for her loss; they felt it in every way; but the body that they buried and grieved over was not Carol’s. The severity of the injuries that the bus passengers had suffered had made identification of the casualties difficult to pin down. The young woman who had been buried in her place had been an orphan, also on her way to college. Nobody remained to look for her; nobody came to see if the hospitalized girl was who she was thought to be. That young lady’s name was Kelsey. The medical charts in Carol’s room all read Kelsey Troy. Carol did not know if she was anywhere or anyone. She only knew that she was trapped within herself. She did not know that she could not be released from this half way existence because her body was now a ward-of-the-state. Kelsey had no next of kin to advocate her.

Time went by and slowly Carol’s body healed, though cruelly the mind, she needed to control it did not improve. Her beauty did return as she healed and although Carol did not notice her physical rejuvenation, others did. For some, it was a bittersweet twist. The nurses both envied and pitied her as she lay beautiful yet inanimate. Others noticed as well; cruel others who sought only to take advantage of her perilous situation. It began with one of the men who cleaned the floors of the long-term care wing that housed Carol’s body and forced it to continue without her. He had visited her room over and over on his nightly rounds. Had anybody taken the time to notice they would have realized that the floors in the area were being cleaned more often and thoroughly than any others on in the wing. He only stood and stared at Carol at first; when nobody noticed the time that he spent there by her side he grew more and more brazen. His bravery led to recklessness that led to cruel deeds. He repeatedly ravaged her knowing she had no way to make a complaint. As if that was not enough, he brought others to participate in more of the same. It was a blessing that Carol could not know any of this. The result was conception. The strong body that held Carol so firmly now also held a secret passenger. A passenger who would have nobody but a comatose mother as an incubator and a rapist sire who would never take credit or responsibility for his actions, much less be brought to justice.

Carol’s thoughts were a stark contrast to Katrina’s. She quietly hummed to herself bored. She longed to be set free. She missed her family and friends from her mortal life and wondered what would have been if not for this strange twist of fate. There was no malaise towards the men who had victimized her body. She was not aware of that. Terra wondered if Carol would be informed of the child her body carried when she was finally returned to the Tweens. There was no malaise towards her unborn child. Though the child occupied her body, Carol was completely unaware of the budding life force. She was a consciousness separate from her body. The body acted as a vessel, an incubator and a jail all at once.

The child would be born to no one, a ward-of-the-state like the mother. The infant would be considered evidence of a heinous crime that could not be distributed among the public until its mystery was solved. The case would never be solved. The perpetrator, upon noticing the gradual change of Carol’s body left the area to return into the country of his origin. He had destroyed the falsified work visa that had allowed him to stay in the facility. He disappeared from the area as completely as a fish into the ocean. He would never be found. He was untraceable. The child born from their union was destined to be trapped in limbo, in many ways just as the mother who he would never know.

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Terra adjusted the portal so that she could perceive what scenarios each situation would lead to. No matter how she adjusted the scenario, Liam was intended to become a sort of living martyr. His pain in life would change the course of thousands of life times. He was meant to take away a great part of the evil Scourge that was consuming the mortal world.

The threat of the Scourge was known to the guides. They made every attempt to steer their charges from its path, but it was plain to Terra that either course would take Liam on a collision course with this dark force. It seemed that he was intended to battle this menace and regain some footing against its spread. There was the risk that he would be completely lost during the process; or worse, consumed and assimilated by the darkness. There had been many campaigns to rid the world of the Scourge, but all had failed. There were rumors, mostly told in whispers that the Scourge could not be stopped. Some guides even believed that the Scourge would ultimately consume the world of man. Terra had always sided with the optimistic vantage point who maintained that should the source of the Scourge be eliminated; the problem would finally be resolved. The trouble was the simple fact that a true source had never been made known to the population of the Tweens, if it was truly known at all. Now she was feeling less confident.

The idea of dropping Liam into the course of the Scourge and hoping that he would emerge victorious seemed foolhardy at best. Seeing that there was no other option triggered a wave of panic that seemed to crush Terra from the inside out. She felt herself sink to the floor of her workspace in sorrow. There she pulled her knees to her chest and let the sobbing shake her until she succumbed totally. Terra remained upon the floor in a spent heap for an untold length of time. What need did she have to push herself forward? She wished that there was a way that the scourge could take her instead. At least then the loss would not seem as great.