Make IT Real! by Sander R.B.E. Beals (good books to read for young adults TXT) 📕

"Never mind Selina, I'll get those pictures yet!"

She seemed a sweet yet mysterious lady: she mentioned once that she'd been through a lot in her young life, but never mentioned what it was. Young she was indeed, for I was well into my educational career by the time she was born: almost twenty years we were born apart, yet to us it was a non-issue: we talked about anything! Except about her past, she was a clam when it came to that. And I, not wanting to pry, left it at that even though I did wonder...

And the moment came: a few months later she announced having found a job in one of the big cities that our little country has, and she would be relocating there. Again, I wouldn't have her leave without at least giving her an option to return later: I mailed her my address and my very synchronistic phone number, and was again met with a meaningful silence: surely, she wouldn't be giving me her address, with the risk I'd use it to get back to her. I could understand that, so when time came to leave, we hugged, and she left.....

And there I was, now really single again, for with her (even though there was nothing more physical between us) it had at least seemed like there was some kind of a partner for me. But no more, and my thoughts were confusing to say the least: I knew I wasn't meant to be single, and I knew that going out looking for “the One” would be devastatingly disastrous. What I didn't know yet was who the One would be, which would have brought peace to my aching mind. I mean I could have waited for her knowing it would take ten years, but it was the not knowing that kept me guessing and fretting. But events didn't take that long to unfold, or at least make the whole story seductively fascinating....

Not four months after she left, I was out and about on the Internet, scratching the occasional single's itch. Not looking for a relationship, just out to score beauty, because I just love Beauty! Scanners wide open, going for "More Input!!!" as Number Five would call it. After a while of browsing and admiring, I clicked a link and quite literally fell off my chair: the newly displayed page showed me twenty thumbnails of an oddly familiar being, in poses I'd never seen of her yet! Suffice it to say, I immediately reserved space on my system to store the beauty. Only glanced them briefly, because if I was now in the right corner of the Web, there might be more. By the end of the next hour, I'd collected over one hundred and thirty razor-sharp and perfectly composed pictures of Selina, the girl I knew as the very friendly ex-colleague I'd met just over a year ago! To this day, I still don't see how I could have worked with a lady, only to find her photos on the Web. And for quite a while I even thought it impossible, figuring this would be a case of the urban myth that says we all have a double....

But then one day, as I was browsing these gems, my eye noticed something that it hadn't before: one of the images showed a little cross, and this time my mind triggered on the first time I'd seen that cross: around the original Selina's neck! I inspected the rest of them, and surely, most images showing her neck also featured the illustrious little cross. Now, I'd have a hard time convincing myself it was not her! My feelings on that were still mixed, for I could clearly see how many people would think the worst of her, if they'd see those pictures. On the other hand, I knew the real Selina, the lovely character with the light humor, who left no one out of the equation. If I hadn't been in love already, those images definitely made me fall for her, because she embodied just about every physical preference of mine as was obvious from the photos! In fact, the only attributes that I might have labeled too small, were the ones that the real Selina had told me were perfected later. It's as if she knew I was going to find those pictures after she left....

Finding them of course gave me a terrible secret: which guy in his right mind would tell any of his colleagues he's found their ex colleague on the Web in such seductive poses? But at the same time, the story even then became too enticing not to do anything with it. And it's been getting even stranger since then! But you'll hear more about that as we progress....

Like I said, Selina Markarian wouldn't be forgotten. Every time I ran the risk of wiping her from my hard drive and my existence, something happened to convince me otherwise. At one time around the end of last year, I suddenly found a weird kind of file in my Android smart phone: called CannedText.bin, it's name and even contents would have made it a small repository of pre-canned text messages to the innocent passer by. But even though I'm not much of a boaster when it comes to claiming insight, there were too many things 'wrong' with it to make me fall for that trap. Basically, the file contained some forty short sentences, interspersed by what seemed like control characters. Those could have been to enable a program to properly keep them apart, but it was the sentences themselves that gave away the first clue: read by themselves, about ten of them just didn't make sense, either because you would hardly ever send such a reply, or because the message split up into two sub-parts that just didn't belong together. However, when reading all forty messages in order, it all of a sudden seemed to read like a fluent mail message, right from the very beginning until the very end! And what a message it was: the sender, whoever it was, claimed to be absolutely crazy about seeing me again, and beckoned me to call her. At the same time however, the lines about calling her were almost always followed by control characters that negated the message just given, like NACK and ESC.

Did I know it was a she? Yes, choice of words and general tone of 'voice' reminded me very much of Nasty, a fabulous Dutch singer who produced the album 'Kleurenblind' or 'Color Blind', which sings about dealing with people without even caring about their color (typically Selina).

Furthermore, the message referred to both a birthday and an anniversary. Puzzling away at it I noticed that just about two years before the day I found that message, was the first day I'd met Selina. I remembered it that clearly because I had the added advantage of being able to consult my diary for such trivial details. And my birthdays since her departure had been my favorite days for her to return back into my life. Which of course gave me the idea that she might come this birthday. Even more important, the message mentioned my 'big secret', the one I mentioned earlier. Which of course indicated that not only did Selina know about me finding the photos, but she knew much more than I'd ever told a soul!

Still, the imagery all this invoked in me was enough to almost drive me manic again. So basically, I shut the whole idea down, and concentrated on something a little more down to Earth, or so I thought..... In fact, just the kind of monkey business that the message warned me against!

As it turned out, I'd been picked up by another pretty little package, from Russia this time. Sounded nice, looked even nicer, enough to raise suspicion in the average person. But keeping in mind I'd just met at least one beauty who was beautiful inside as well, I didn't see any harm in replying to the mails of this new lady for a while, if only to keep my mind off the elusive Selina who would probably never return to me. Mails flew by, and Liliya seemed to be as nice as I thought. People warned me left, right and center about the Russian bride scam, but this little monkey just wouldn't listen. The lady planned to come to Holland, but then about a week before she was to arrive, a well-meaning colleague sent me another link to a scam site. That in itself didn't unveil the lady, but the implied suspicion got hold of me: like I'd done when we first met, I Googled Liliya's E-mail address. Back then nothing came up, but this time the evidence was there: apparently she'd been sending the same mails and photos to different guys, deviously trying to get them all to pay for the alleged trip to their doorstep. Sure enough, after I told her I'd found out, no more mails arrived from St. Petersburg.

Mixed feelings again: on the one hand there was this rage about having been had in such a heart-stabbing manner, but at the same time it was just a minor setback: like a stack unwinding (as they say in programmer's jargon) I arrived right back with my previous state of mind, which I had reluctantly let go of to pursue the latest craze. With Liliya gone, my mind automatically landed me right back in Selina-country again!

My birthday came and went, and no cute little lady rang my doorbell. I figured I'd misunderstood the message in my phone, and decided to just go ahead as if nothing had happened, and nothing ever might. Then one day close after that, Tom T. Moore sent me a review copy of his book 'the Gentle Way II', and having nothing better to do, I read it cover to cover.

Hmm, very interesting stuff: he claimed that we all can communicate with out of body entities like Angels, and even our Higher Selves. Being so open-minded that my brain is practically falling out, I figured what the heck, and gave it a try. According to Tom it was basically a give and thank kind of game: you'd ask for certain things to happen, and then you'd thank whoever you asked even before the solution presented itself. I had a ball with the little things, which basically came out with remarkable accuracy: making it a habit to request waking up well rested, I never once woke up tired, even though my sleeping times often barely touched four hours a night!

Last weekend, I got a bit testy: after the kids had gone home, I decided to feed my higher self, which I'd named Endra, an ambitious request aimed at taking away my doubts about this whole Selina thing. I typed it in, all the while thinking I'd never be able to pull this off: “Endra, I'm going to randomly browse the Web for about an hour. Could you, as a sign that Selina will resurface physically and positively in my Life, make it so I'll find new photos of her?”

I started browsing, not really wanting to bias the results either way. Sure, it was the 'red district' I was in, no point in browsing around in the PG13 section of the Web. But still, it was an awfully big place! I found beauty galore, from sweet sixteen to downright bad, but no Selina. That went on for about an hour, and my cheerful mood began to sag like the android kid's face in Steven Spielberg's AI, when it ate spinach: finally, I decided it had been enough, and I'd have to live my life without Selina by my side. Just one last site, one last click.....

Bingo!!! There she was again! Believe me or not, but the very final page I visited during that browsing session was the very first one to give me at least six brand new photos