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

of the Reich come by. I've always felt very strongly about that song, even back when I first heard about it. In fact, Queensrijche somehow maneuvered itself into my life's experience: whenever I went to other concerts, they would all of a sudden be the supporting act, which is somehow odd considering they originated in Seattle, and then allowed me to rock to their tunes no less than three times in Holland over the years. Somehow though, even back in '85, Queen of the Reich was my absolute favorite. And just now, when hearing it again, the latches clicked in place: it sings of an inevitable encounter with the queen, so I wondered at that moment whether they meant the queen of this novel...

Which was then immediately answered in the affirmative, when Geoff Tate sang: “It's the sign of the cross you'll find ahead!” Well, it seems I've found it, but it's not nearly as fearful as Queensrijche sang it all those years ago.

4444AD, Day 238, 08:18, Home

I don't know what has gotten into me. Normally, I wake up nice and cheerful, but today I feel totally listless. And it isn't that my twin has left, Selina is still very much alive, and being the perfect sleeping beauty right by my side.

OK, full systems check right now, but that does not reveal anything out of the ordinary. So it's not my current incarnation that is the problem. I get into the shower, because that often flushes out any energetic impurities that might plague me. This time however, the hot and abundantly flowing water refrains from making me feel better. After a full seventeen minutes of it, I decide it's no good, and get out to towel off. These lousy feeling must have come from one of my other incarnations, because I know I don't feel like this.

Well, there's a surefire way of finding out, as Selina once taught me: focus on your heart, and just ask the question to it. Pretty soon then, the image will become clear. So I do just that, and am somewhat surprised to find myself at the end of 2009AD, with my past self who actually wrote the book I'm currently reading.

Knowing where the problem came from is enough to alleviate the symptoms for now. I decide to read some more until Selina wakes up too, so we can figure out what needs to be put right in my past self's life. She has always been the more creative when it comes to fixing the past. Me, I'm more of a fix the future kinda guy.....

'the Home of the Crystalline Water'

The walls of the city are a marvel of construction: perfectly fitted blocks of stone, that show no traces of mortar in between. It reminds me of some of the buildings I've seen on TV shows about the ancient Mayans: they too built with sub-millimeter accuracy, which is quite a feat even with today's tools. Perhaps there is some sort of connection here? Back then, I thought that Nature had overgrown much of the ruins there, but out here the outlook is much the same: copious amounts of green, interlaced with ribbons of glistening water, that give the city its name. I look up as we pass under the massive city gate, and find that the seemingly archaic building style doesn't reflect the technological prowess of the inhabitants. A small scanning device of some sort is tacked onto the center stone, right above our heads. No sign of wires, not even hidden below the surface of it, so this gizmo is probably wireless in some way. “I wouldn't be surprised if we will be met by someone”, I say to my traveling companions. Before they can even look surprised, an answer comes from one of the people nearby: “Yes, we do want to welcome you to our magnificent city.” The figure in long flowing robes steps up to me, and identifies himself as Taquatl, our guide during our stay in the city. His features are definitely South American, probably even Mayan. I ask him about it, and he tells us that his city is right below the palace of Palenque, a famous building left over from the Mayan civilization. There is even a passageway from the inside Palenque's palace right into the heart of the city. So the similarities in building style were certainly not entirely coincidental.

Taquatl leads us through the sloping streets to a building that is apparently some sort of hotel. As it is around the end of the day, he will leave us there to rest and recuperate, and will pick us up tomorrow. As we go in, we are greeted by a lady who is obviously running things around here. “Just in time for supper!”, she exclaims, and tells us to leave our bags behind. Up top we would have thought twice about just dropping our bags in a hallway, but out here there is no risk of theft. So we do as she asks, and follow her into the dining room, to a large round table that seems built especially for us: just enough seats to accommodate us, and already set as if they were expecting us. At the center of the table is a fountain, one that creates a spherical bubble of water. I remember having something like this up top, but also saw much larger versions of it as we walked through the city. So large in fact, that I wondered how in Earth it could ever work. Unless of course, the surface tension of the water here is far higher than that of normal water. Not much time to ponder that though: a few of our hosts come into the dining room with truly fantastic dishes, that are placed onto the table surrounding the spherical fountain. Jane gets off her seat, to record the feast with her Cybershot. I ask her how the memory card is doing, but she tells me not to worry: it's only ten percent full.

Dinner, as it turns out, is again a feast of new tastes and smells. Although fully vegetarian, it comprises of fruits and vegetables that I never tasted in my life, not even during my stay here in Inner Earth. Apparently, diversity down here is just as rich as it is up there. Being seated right next to Gina, I inquire as to her health. The cheerful answer that I receive leaves no doubt in my mind: Gina is back to her usual, light-hearted self, and will suffer no aftereffects from the beetle's sting. I decide to go for a risky dish: there are some large mushrooms on the plate right in front of me. They are greenish, with yellow dots, and quite large: the one I put on my plate covers everything but the outer rim. For a moment I ponder my mother's advice never to eat mushrooms unless I know they aren't poisonous, but decide to let it slip. I know enough of the people down here to trust their thoroughness in this matter. Carefully cutting out a slice, I taste it, briefly thinking about the steak monologue from the Matrix. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should be ashamed of yourself (not really). But may I respectfully request that you rent the DVD just as soon as you can tear yourself away from this novel?

The matrix reference isn't even half bad: My awareness of my surroundings is definitely changing as I eat the rest of the mushroom. Hey, I don't grow any bigger or smaller, but reality does seem far less real. I'm beginning to pick up traces of conversations, which at first I take to be conversations in the room itself. But then, a familiar voice enters my mind: Joyce, the girls' mother, is wondering how her darlings are doing on vacation with daddy. Her friend William is quick to suggest that we will get along fine, and will have lots to tell when we get back in about two-and-a-half weeks. I chuckle, and say out loud: “If only you knew”. “Knew what?” Gina asks. And I'm back in reality, explaining to her how my eating of that mushroom somehow enabled me to hear a conversation halfway across the globe, on the outer surface. She is not at all surprised, having experienced something similar when visiting her friend Dieter Braun, also known as Indian in the Machine. He is a very gifted musician, and I love to play his music when I am at home.

As it is still early, we decide to take a stroll around town before retiring to bed. The company splits up, with Valerie, Kim and Kayim going one way, and Gina, Jane and me taking the other route. The translator bird is left in the care of our hostess, who will look after it until we return. The other trio is quickly heading for the central tower, leaving us to determine our own course. Jane first wants to visit one of the large spherical fountains, to shoot some photos there. We find one just a few blocks away, about three meters high. “Can't you get inside it? That would be a nice shot!” Jane laughs. She is determined to see us get wet. But not this guy: I poke my finger into the watery wall, way above my head. Like a set of curtains, it comes apart making an opening that Gina can step through easily. I then follow my finger into the globe, and let the curtain drop again. Jane sees her plan foiled, but then she didn't know that I had previous experience with fountains like that. After she's taken some shots of the exterior, we allow her to come in, to make some more of the interior. Then we exit the sphere, and continue on our walk.

As we stroll along, a puppy approaches Jane. Now my youngest darling loves puppies, but she looks twice at this one before reaching to pick it up: it has six legs, instead of the usual four. Other than that, it looks like a perfect copy of our poodle named Macho, when he was still young. Jane plays with it a while, takes some pictures to show to her big sister, and reluctantly follows as we continue again.

We walk along a wall that's literally loaded with flowers. As Jane aims to pick one, I remind her that she has better tools to take home the beauty of them. She grins sheepishly, and pulls out the camera instead. “But how about the fragrance?”, she asks. I tell her to smell the flowers, while looking at them. That way, her mind will associate the smell with the image, and the photographic image will then later be able to trigger the memory of the smell. No need to take a flower, which won't last long without the plant anyway.

We get back to our lodgings way before the others. I wonder what they will tell us when they get back. For now, it is time to explore our rooms. One for Kayim and myself, one for Gina, and a big one for the three girls. I load up all the bags, and climb the winding stairway to the sleeping quarters. My room has a magnificent view of the city, with the central tower smack in the middle of it. With my glasses on, I can just see three figures on top of the tower. I see them waving, but I figure they must be waving at someone else, because they couldn't see me at this distance. Later I am told, Kayim did see me because his eyes are better than ours.

It gather the tower in the center is like the spherical fountains that we see everywhere. However, I see no water to complete the image. But upon their return, Kayim and the girls tell us that the tower is indeed like those spherical fountains, but the medium transported is energy. The field contains the