Phht... and Faith

Mary met Jim in high school. Mary acted in the school play, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. Mary as Snoopy doing the dance of joy for supper time made the whole crowd laugh and applaud. The insane joy moved over Jim. He fell instantly in love with Mary’s energetic and happy dog portrayal. He thought what an amazing woman. His friend Priscilla arranged a meeting with her friend Mary.

Mary fell in love with the serious and logical Jim. She started calling him Jimmy on their first date. She is still the only person alive other than his mom that has ever called him Jimmy. Jimmy asked Mary if she liked sushi. She enthusiastically told him yes as long as it had no animals. They practiced using the chopsticks and feeding each other. Mary loved animals of all types. Jim loved biology. After he met Mary he no longer dissected them. Honestly he would rather study live animals than dead ones.

Mary and Jim loved to walk in the back country. They saw all the hidden parts of the forest. They walked quietly at dawn and saw a doe and her fawns. They packed a wholesome lunch of tempeh, kidney-bean, hummus, red peppers, and spicy sauces. It crunched in their mouth, being delightful as they sat on a hollowed out log.

Jim looked deep into the log and found a black stone. It looked perfect for skipping in the lake. He noticed several other black stones of different shapes underneath some leaves. None of the other stones seemed appropriate for skipping so he left them behind. He positioned himself in rock-skipping position. Just as he began flagellating his arm in practice to throw he noticed distinct scratch-marks underneath on one side of the stone. The stone felt warm as if the sun had warmed it just a few moments before. When he brushed the stone with his hand the scratches revealed themselves to be printed words in English. He needed a magnifying glass to read them:

The Jinn are my people. Our numbers have declined over the years. The singular for a person from my realm is called a Jinni. But in our language we call ourselves an unpronounceable name in most all earthly languages, it would be something that sounds like Phht... . Being invisible allows us to be as myth and unreal. We sometimes come into the human realm to explore and see if it is our time. Some have called us angels, other demons. We are simply beings like all others. We do not cause mental illness. We do not need to be exorcised. We are pure energy that can interact as needed with regular matter just as Einstein surmised in his famous equation e equals m c squared.

A misconception about us is wish granting. Even those wishes we can fulfill we will not unless we think it merits ethical purpose for the world. The story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp has nothing to do with us. It is a figment of someone’s imagination. Also we do not have brown skin, our color as I said is as the wind, or deep dark space. We are hidden in plain sight, even our shelters deep below ground are invisible to all other beings. We essentially move in another realm.

One thing we have learned to do that no other being on planet Earth has managed is to build a time machine. In it we travel backwards, we travel forward. Since we are invisible, no one is the wiser about what effects our kind has accomplished.

Jim felt of course that someone or a gang of someones must be pulling a prank on him. In fact he didn't just feel that way he had certainty. He looked around for someone holding a camera. Mary on the other hand thought that maybe the Jinn had etched the words on the rock. She had faith in the unseen, the mysterious. Every being, plant, and animal were her friends. Once she looked a moose right in the eye and took its picture. She told Jimmy all about that. She told him, she believed the Jinn exist. They decided to hang onto the rock and walk further.

Mary and Jim went up the long path exploring for new species of insects and plants. Their dog lucky followed off-leash. They entered a cave next to the trail. Lucky sensed something in the cave. Lucky began sniffing and barking. Then in mid-air the dog began licking at something. It’s tongue moved as if plastered invisibly to something. Suddenly Lucky yelped and moved sideways as if someone or something had stepped on his foot.

Jim flashed his phones light where lucky had stepped and found another black stone.

Using the magnifying glass again revealed more:

The first time ship travel went only a couple of minutes back into the past. Since Jinn are invisible and usually do not react with ‘real’ matter and do not register with humans. Despite all the confusing and difficult paradoxes to so called time-travel. It is fortunately or unfortunately possible. The past and the future are malleable. The journey to forever can be taken in an eye-wink.

It described the incredulous story of possible time-travel. Jim would bet his whiskers that this had to be another prank. Mary once again had faith that no the Jinn must be honoring them with knowledge held secret and that Jim should respect it.

Jim being a show-me kind of guy only expressed scorn at such a notion. This hurt Mary’s feelings. Jim apologized and said he was sorry. He told her he had a very hard time believing things or notions that he could not understand or see.

She asked him why? Had not science spoke of dark matter and dark energy. He told her that the evidence made it necessary to theorize about such ideas. But still there lie controversy about whether a new theory of gravity might be necessary, she countered and yet you do not scorn those ideas.

Jim took the stone home and showed it to his dad who worked in a Geology lab. Frank took the stone to the lab and looked at the stone under an electron microscope. Strange contents were revealed under the powerful instrument. Each part of the etchings had these aliens elements. Frank like Jim was not taken by the unexplained. He simply felt he needed to do more tests. He believed that this could not be real. Also he told Jim there are too many philosophical paradoxes for time travel to be possible.

The first time ship travel went only a couple of minutes back into the past. Since Jinn are invisible and usually do not react with ‘real’ matter and do not register with humans. Despite all the confusing and difficult paradoxes to so called time-travel. It is fortunately or unfortunately possible. The past and the future are malleable. The journey to forever can be taken in an eye-wink.

Jim thought about the stone and about how Lucky had licked the air as if something invisible like dark matter had been present. He tried to form a theory about how that could be in the cave. Maybe the cave trapped the dark matter there. Then he thought about the incredulous idea of the time machine could maybe be real. Maybe the invisible people, the Jinn, could see what humans could not yet see. He decided to go back to the cave with Lucky.

As they entered the cave, Jim felt a subtle breeze. Then Lucky jumped up and landed in mid-air on something unforeseen. Suddenly Jim heard a voice. “

“Hi Jim my name is Phht... I understood you are a show me kinda guy”, spoke a disembodied voice.

“What in…”, Jim said.

Suddenly Jim stood on top of the deck of a sailing ship. Jim sort of understood the speech he was hearing. The ship captain and others were taken aback by Jim. They looked frightened and Jim did not feel safe either. He ran off the ship and recognized that he was near the cave.

Jim entered the cave.

“So Jim, what do ya think”, said Phht… .

Jim said nothing. Then a rock began to be carved invisibly by Phht. Right then the crew followed Jim into the cave. The rock moved to the back of the cave. Jim tried to explain what had happened without revealing too much.

The next day Mary entered the cave where she thought Jim had gone back to. She found nothing but a third black rock. It did not say much. Mary had faith that the rock spoke a certain truth. Somethings did not need to be explained.

She later went home and looked at it with a magnifying glass:

In my 201st year, I began learning English when our family moved to England. We hitched a ride to America aboard the Mayflower. We watched our human friends suffer that brutal winter. We did help them where we could…

Of course later Mary found an interesting article with the picture of a painting of a man titled simply: James. It looked a lot like Jim. According to the newspaper story the artifacts with the painting were found near Plymouth and were believed to be a couple centuries old.

Mary returned to the cave weekly and called out Jim’s name. But no reply came. Mary still had faith that some day a reply would come. She really missed Jim and hoped to join him someday. She knew no time paradox would stop her.