Memory, before confirmation

I should take a moment to tell you about my team. It's September 13, Friday... and one of my RSS feeds has turned up with some remembered material from a super soldier. I saw it and realized I needed to record down what I myself remember before reading the article and listening to the interview, lest I color my memory or confuse things up.

I'm going to talk about what I thought was my past life, an alter ego who was in the military. I named her Taus, as I've mentioned before, but the truth is I have no idea what her name is or even if she has a name. She considered herself very beautiful, but she was also untouchable. That only made her more pretty, she thought, because there were so many who could not have her. And we always want that which we cannot have.

In the real world, the story starts when she's very small being taken through her bedroom window to meet the hunters and hang out. There was one time she knew she was being placed back in her bed after an adventure, and she could feel the presence in her room. "Don't open your eyes," a woman's voice kept saying. "Don't open your eyes. Don't open your eyes."

So she opened them - she probably would have kept them closed out of fear, but being told not to open your eyes will get a human to do that every time. Next to her was a silhouette, something she can only describe as a big-headed burglar. It was a small man and his head was shaped like one of those caps from the 1880's, like Andy Cap.

She screamed, and of course her parents came running. She told them there had been someone in the room, but who would believe her? No one of course. It was just a dream.

For the rest of the time I will talk about here, she was plagued with night terrors. She was either running for her life, fighting something, being told about the end of the world, watching people die... the list goes on and on. At first her parents always came running, but then came the night when she was about 6 when no one came no matter how much she cried and wept. From then on her night terrors were faced alone. 36 years later she still has them on occasion, when visited by a bad spirit. The spirit always leaves disappointed: she isn't that scared of night terrors anymore.

In the other world she started out in the Pit, working there under Gromatesch. Maybe she was 3 or 4. He was a reptilian, and he lorded over things holding this staff that had a gem in the top. Gromatesch would kick her sometimes to get her out of the way, but overall she wasn't acknowledged by him much. I may have pictures I drew of it when I was in high school still. I'd have to look. He was a gatekeeper, and she was just a small servant who fetched and carried for him. In this Pit people were kept in cages, kept low to the ground, where they had to eat and sleep in their own filth. She had gotten used to the smell there, where it was stifling hot. In the distance you could hear people scream on occasion, or cry.

When she was only slightly older, she was moved to another division to work under a man who she always called Black. Black as in his name. Black because he tended to wear Black suits. He was nice and talked to her like she was a real person, and she liked being treated like a little adult. Most of the time with him that I can remember was spent doing things around his office or running down the halls of the complex. It seems as though she could go just about anywhere she wanted to, because she was "Black's Pet", and there are half-remembered hints of games involving colors and shapes. Complex puzzles, and if you go deeper a white room.

It was during those early years she also underwent various other treatments - none of which I can really remember until something on the TV happens to make me uncomfortable. The clearest memory of those treatments is being pulled under sand, having to watch people drown. Nights when she was asked to leave her parents in return for promises of ponies, living in big rich houses, and other luxuries. (She almost went one night, but at the last minute gave a tearful goodbye to her mother and awoke crying back home with her parents where she belonged.)

Only slightly older, and she was sent to the camp in the jungle forest. I'm just not sure the jungle times weren't made up, so I hold those memories in high suspicion. But I can still remember the layout of where things were, the packed dirt of the area. It had a high wooden fence of tall stakes. The gate, which was wide enough for a small car or perhaps a jeep, faced I think to the west. I tend to put gates to the west, so that's probably just a think. You're enter into the gate and see the area. It was roundish. Starting from the left and going around: there was a longish area with stalls and woven doors. Maybe quarters. Maybe horse stalls. I never went into them.

Next to that there was a small storage area with boxes and by that, the place where equipment was kept. Mostly I think it was radios and other things for communication. Next to that was an open area with a pole holding up a vinyl tarp. Then there's a space that I can't remember what was there, but I think of water when I try. And by that, the largish tent directly to the right and a few paces from the gate. That's always where she went directly. She'd report there and inside was a skinny man with black hair. He was like a young Black. She thought of him as "greasy" and he was horrible. He'd kick her and yell at her like she was a dog. He'd send her out into the jungle and from there she had to find the "rebel pockets", the places where people who were resisting the government would build little villages and hide them.

The villages were always well sheltered and inside was real village life. She resembled the people who lived there so she was perfect. She'd show up and they'd take her to be a child from another ruined village, bring her in, feed her, set her to a chore, and sometimes even forget she was there. After a day she'd slip back, contact the greasy man, give him their location, and the last time barely got out of the village in time before the air strike came. She stood on the edge of the village watching things burn and hearing people cry, but she felt nothing. She did this twice at least.

In the real world, her parents would watch documentaries with her and her brother. Documentaries about Pompeii always excited the night terrors because she always relived another past life in which she died young. Documentaries about UFOs - back then no one knew about abductions or thought of abductees as crazy people, and she had no idea her night visions and daydreams were real - fueled the imagination. She wanted to meet the aliens she decided, so age 10 she started going to her back yard and mentally calling the ETs.

Now there are those who say the MKultra and kidnap op program find abductees after they've become so, but who is to say it can't also be the other way around? In her case, something she always knew from infanthood, she was an old soul. She even had a sense of who she was, things she had done, and things she could take up doing. She knew she had been important once, and she also knew that once doesn't always apply to the now. She spent hours every morning doing yoga in the living room floor, age 4. She had no idea what yoga was. It was just part of her routine, as if she'd always been doing it. (She is now fat and doesn't do it anymore, btw.) She littered the woods around the house with booby traps and paths, hiding places, and thought of plots daily to handle invaders should they come. She had no idea why she did it, it was just who she was. She'd always done things like this. She'd always played with fire.

So about age 10 her night terrors changed, and she decided meeting the aliens wasn't such a nifty idea anymore. At first her dolls would come to life after everyone was asleep. She used to scream, wake everyone, and thus escape the "death" the dolls planned for her. So they shut down her ability to scream, so that she spent those dreams trying and trying to scream... straining her vocal chords and not producing a sound. And then they would catch her. She never could remember what they did to her. She could only remember the terror and dreaded the dreams. It got so she never played with her dolls anymore and felt uncomfortable having them face her with their blank eyes.

Nearing teenage years and the night terrors changed into a bright light coming to collect her. In that light she was going to die, she always knew, and the dolls would come. They'd cut her open in the white room while she was awake - trying to kill her. Always trying to kill her.

She wanted to escape the real world so badly. It was a frightening place. It was a place doomed to end, and even though she had no way out she wanted a way out. So she and her older brother looked into alternative realities, portals, Earth timelines, whatever they thought could get them away. They tried opening mirrors, random spots in the woods, they didn't care. Anyplace was better than there.

Shortly after her menarche, a blonde man came through the mirror. She named him George, but he never gave her his name. He took her places: boat rides on the local river, had her help him solve some crimes, and made love to her in the reeds. She really began to look forward to going to sleep, to seeing him again.

But the last time she saw him was in an abandoned house where she had to look into a mirror to see him. He asked her to marry him, and at first she said yes. She really did like him. But suddenly a woman in red velvet skirts came from far away - she was an ancestor from very distant that was irritated she had to come. But she was the only one willing because this child's soul does not belong with the family. "When you hear the puppies barking, watch out for your soul." The puppies barked and the girl turned to her lover, aghast. "You're just using me! No I won't marry you! I rebuke you!"

He was gone, but not forgotten... and heartbroken. He'd come at night for a while, and the room would get very cold. Objects began to sling across the room at her head: bottles, heavy things. Her father finally came one night and told George to go away and not come back. That was the last she ever saw of George.

For months after that her belly swelled. Her mother told her at first that this was normal after a first period, but as time went on she started to wear her clothes baggier and baggier. She didn't swell completely like a woman 9 months along, but she certainly felt heavy and expectant. After a while her mother began to ask her, are you pregnant. Are you pregnant.

She said no of course, because George had only been a demon and a dream. She was still a virgin.

Then one night she dreamed of giving birth to a baby girl. The birth happened in her bedroom and she was attended by men in black suits who took the child right away from her. She can't remember if they said anything to her. Her belly went flat and she resumed a normal cycle average to any teenage girl.

But the alternate world changed forever. At first she was chased in her dreams by the men in black suits who wanted to capture her. She gained the power to turn into a wolf and run away, which she sometimes would do. But on another level she returned to being Black's Pet. She was older now, so she also would go with the black suits to run errands. After the errands in the hall and the office, she'd leave the holding area immediately upon return and go down the hall as quickly as she could. There was a nursery there, where her little girl was being kept. She was allowed to visit as much as she willed, and for a while that was enough. The nurse would meet her at the door and put the baby in her arms, and for a while all was right with the world.

But when the child began to walk she decided that was no longer enough. She began to kidnap the child. She'd take the girl with her, run to the hangars, grab a plane or some small flying vehicle and take off. Those dreams always ended with being chased by a big Kodiak bear. With a single swipe of its claws it could tear apart metal roofs like a knife through butter. To this day she hates bears.

There were other times, too, when she was called to shapeshift. Often it was a wolf, a small black one, and she'd spend the night running with the neighborhood dogs. One night she got into a fight with the alpha male and she woke up with scratches all over her face the next morning. She never changed like that again, but she kept expecting there would be a permanent change one day. She always thought that would be into a wolf, but one night she awoke knowing she had changed and stumbled out of her room. She made it to a mirror by the front door and looked. She gasped, "No," because she wasn't a wolf as she had always hoped. She was a phoenix - bright red and fiery with feather down for hair and red staring eyes with slitted pupils. It was a shock to her system that night, so she stumbled out the front door and fainted on the grass. She woke the next morning in her bed with no idea if that was even real.

There were often times, about once a year, that she found herself in someone else's body. They were girls that usually shared some trait with her in some way - it always surprised her, though, if she was in the body of a blonde. In various locations around the world, she would spend the night isolated while the men in the other room prepared to sacrifice her. Sometimes she felt trapped and wanted out, wept and once even did try to escape. The end was always the same with the alter and the knife, or the water, or even just symbolically killing her by having her sing about it. Year after year after year... it didn't stop until she was in her thirties only a few years ago.

She named her astral daughter "Jennifie" because Jennifer means White, and Jennifie looked just like her pale blonde father. When Jennifie got older she wold help her mother on missions. When she was about 14, she came to see her mother one last time. She showed her mother a set of buffalo tracks and another set of symbols - now forgotten - as a message for the future. And then "Taus" never saw her baby again.

She still misses her.

She became an "untouchable" - her word - meaning she was to stay pure and have no sexual relations with anybody. It was a confusing time. There are memories of looking down on the concept of sex slaves and feeling sorry for them... while at the same time feeling incredible amounts of envy. She wondered what it was like: was it as good as the owners seemed to think it was? And why wasn't she pretty enough to be taken to bed too?

These feelings tore into her psyche, and she still has problems from it today.

Things went silent in the other world for a while. "Taus" married, had children, and settled down for a bit before her ex husband was hit on the head and got abusive. The most that happened to her during this time was living in the forest and setting the guards by the road: tall thing, leaflike creatures with a bow and arrow in hand. To keep her from leaving.

From there it's been a struggle to put information together, to figure out what happened when, to understand. Digging up memories she also figured out that while she was handling her children she was also working her way up through the ranks. Her contact with Black grew less and less, but he was still always there. She made it into an elite team that she called The Six - although when one member died she started calling them The Five. So they could have had any name.

They wore black suits, which also served as temperature controlling armor, and spent some time in a tundra environment. She was not a nice person during this time, she was shocked to remember. It took her a long time to come to terms with that - but it can only make sense. She started out calling in air strikes. Why shouldn't she graduate to handling them herself?

They worked as a team on some missions, but mostly they commanded over others and would meet to discuss plans and future movements. She loved those guys and misses them to this day. Two girls, four guys. Later four guys and only her. One's name was Paul, so she always has thought. But she could be wrong. He saved her once, but she can't remember how now.

She was also married, and her relationship with the silver-eyed man can only be described as that of handler and slave. She loved him more than anything, and their marriage was actually a break of the traditional law. But they cleaved to one another and could never think of going to anyone else. Until the day he died in battle and her heart and mind broke in half.

So that in the real world she ended up in a memory rut for a long time, unable to remember anything past her first life in a small valley named Shiro that may or may not be real. She couldn't function, she couldn't do anything much although she tried. There was something broken inside of her and she just didn't know what it was. When she finally did remember silver-eye's death again, she nearly died that time. She suffered a nervous breakdown and her entire mental matrix, so carefully built by her handlers over all that time, had to be rebuilt. Then she began to heal.

But before the nervous breakdown in New Jersey where she lived, she was attacked psychically for the longest time. The leader was a redheaded woman. When she met that woman in the flesh at a local party, she was surprised. And the woman, oblivious, talked long about how she and her group had detected Lucifer living nearby... and they had been working to kill him. Because Lucifer deserved to die.

She was standing outside of her body one time in the apartment and a samurai stepped through the door. He bowed, she bowed, they leaped to the fight. She woke up with scratches on her face and no clue who won. She would really like to know who won.

Black began to spend a lot of time talking to her as the turn of the century grew near. She loved the talks, the lectures, the visits in her apartment, the teachings. And then he was gone and it was time for her to face trial - which everyone must do at the cusp of their age to see if they shall be allowed to live. She was assigned a young man who wore a large sun on his blue robes. She'll never forget how she lay on the couch as he sat down beside her, ran his hand through his brown loose curls, and said, "Um, okay, wow, this is what I have to work with?" She could feel his shock. He had been expecting this dangerous movie grade sexy Angelina Jolene and instead he was sitting next to a dumpy single mother of two having to defend and guide her through the trial. Poor guy, she often thinks to herself. She wonders what became of him. He seemed nice enough.

She can't remember the trial, only the first time standing on the sands at the bottom of the place she calls "Fishbowl" with all of them staring at her. Those horrible eyes.

She isn't dead so she must have been allowed to live. And from there the dream world took the shape that it still holds today 13 years later. She has a triple life.

She sits at the top of the Fishbowl and looks down on the sand. The description of her seat is "on high with stars overhead". There is a canopy around her and she is slightly isolated. There are two groups of men who will attend her: one is seven members, the other is twelve. And from those days on she has been tugged back and forth as good thing are thrown her way and bad things.

Always growing up she had been pushed into being a cruel person, and she just didn't want to be. She'd killed a crab once and that moment was the moment that determined her need to be kind forever. In the end she's not a kind person. Life has not been kind and these days she thinks that being good has only gotten her abused, so she wonders why she bothers. But then there are moments when she really just wants to be good and not do harm.

So sitting on high she is tugged often between good and evil, as if deciding one way or another is important somehow. She doesn't know. When she thinks about it, she gets an image of herself drinking some tea and ignoring the council pressure. Behind her is a window with a stained glass eight-pointed star. It opens into space, and on solstices they will draw or pull the curtains as a symbol of the next government cycle.

Lately there is a new council with three members that have taken to sitting behind her. They think they are closer to her than the other two groups are. She hasn't not made up her mind yet.

And she doesn't remember her times in the Fishbowl very well when she goes. When she goes.

She also is picked up by those in charge of that night's work and goes to underground train stations, portal rooms, and various things. She isn't treated like she was when Black had charge of her. Most of the time she is followed around with people holding clipboards. When she is left alone she'll sneak off like she has always done and look around. There have been a couple of times she was compelled to do her nails, trim her hair, and try to look as nice as possible. Those times always coincided with secret government meetings and other functions. But these days at work are not the fun they used to be.

And in the real world she works for a living. She's got cats and a dog. She puts her dream world into the stories she writes in the hopes that others will remember and say 'Hey, how have you been?' And maybe they can then tell her what happened to the spacestation she was on when it was attacked - she had been shoved into an escape pod by the underlings who were more concerned about her safety than letting her turn around and find out what was going on. And maybe they can tell her - what happened to Paul? Where is her lawyer?

And most importantly: has anybody seen Jennifie?