Now, I felt myself rising only a few feet above my body, as if I were standing directly behind myself.

  Yes. I must surely be asleep or drugged.

  I also sense that someone is standing before me as well. A man smaller than me, although I don’t know how I know this. But I sense him there, standing before me. A small man.

  Dreaming.

  How else to explain that I feel myself standing outside of my body, and see the shape and outline of a man standing before me, a small man? I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know what is happening to me.

  But I do know that I somehow feel separate from my body, separate but still connected, a sensation I am not fully prepared for, but one that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. In fact, it feels liberating. It feels like freedom.

  Freedom from my own mind.

  Somehow, I continue to sense the smallish man standing in front of me. Not quite seeing, but perceiving somehow. Surely my imagination. And just as that thought crosses my mind, another thought appears.

  And not just a thought.

  A single word:

  Vibration.

  I focus on the word, because it is not a word I normally use, not in this context. And as I focus on the word, I felt its truth. Yes, that’s it. I am sensing the vibration of the man before me. How I sense it, I don’t know. What, exactly, vibration means, in this context, I don’t know that either. But this word feels right. I am perceiving his vibration.

  And not just his vibration. I can see me, too. But my perspective is somehow from above. As if I am standing directly above my sitting body. Above and behind a little. It’s as if I have somehow stepped into my imagination…

  There I am, sitting on the cushioned square, with a small, gray-haired man holding my hands. My imagination, surely. Yes, obviously. But somehow more than my imagination. Much more. All surrounded in a staticy, blue-green light.

  What’s happening?

  And for an answer, I get the surprise of my life when I hear the softest of whispers appear in my thoughts, a whisper with the hint of a Chinese accent. A whisper that appears, seemingly, just inside my ear:

  “You are seeing, Lee Jordan.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The sound is so starling, so life-changing, that I gasp and try to sit back.

  Except the man in front of me doesn’t release my hands, doesn’t allow me to sit back. Doesn’t allow me to move much at all.

  So strong.

  I feel myself breathing evenly through the tube in my throat, a tube that leads directly into my lungs. The tube uses an artificial filter. It has to. I have no other way to extract pollutants and impurities from the air.

  Am I asleep? I hear myself ask, the words forming haphazardly in my thoughts, scattered and almost incoherent, not as cleanly and neatly as the accented words.

  Who, exactly, do you expect to answer this question, Lee? Your subconscious mind? If so, the mind can play all sorts of tricks on you. You know this better than most.

  Then who’s speaking to me? I ask, now using the back of my tongue to sub-vocalize each word carefully.

  No need to form the words, Lee, comes the voice again. We are here together, in this place without words. In this place of vibration. Thoughts are vibration, you know. As is everything that comes to you and from you. As is everything that fills the world and the Universe. I am here to teach you to see the vibration.

  Are you sure I’m not dreaming?

  In that moment, the man before me squeezes my physical hands. The gesture is small, but it sends a jolt through me, and briefly rockets me back into my body, I gasp and raise my head and I am back in the living room again, feeling the warmth of his hands, the softness of the cushion, the slight tingling of blood being cut off to my right foot.

  I think you know who sent me here, Lee.

  Jack, I think, forming the word at the back of my throat, despite being told not to. I wasn’t used to speaking with my thoughts. Hell, who would be?

  Jack goes by many names, Lee.

  I imagine he does.

  Good, you are doing good. Let the thoughts flow.

  You can really hear my thoughts?

  I can, Lee.

  All of them?

  The ones I choose to focus on. The ones I believe are relevant to our present situation. Those thoughts come to me freely. Those thoughts vibrate similarly. I tune in to that vibration.

  Am I dead?

  Not yet, Lee. But if you keep talking about that gun in your drawer, then you might be before your time.

  I have a time?

  We all do, Lee. Many of them. A few of yours have come and gone.

  What do you mean?

  Windows. Or exit points.

  The explosion, I think.

  That was one, certainly. Others have been each time you sit next to your dresser, contemplating the gun.

  I think about that often.

  Too often, Lee. Let it go. The voice in my head continues: There have been other exit points, but each time, you’ve refused them and continued on.

  A person can do that?

  They can, Lee. And I am not in your head. Not really. In our present state, we are speaking to each other rather naturally.

  Through vibration?

  Right, Lee.

  Is this what it’s like to be dead?

  Very similar, but not similar. Remember, I am not dead either. I am a man, like you.

  I nearly snort. In fact, I think I might have snorted. A vibrational snort, maybe. You hardly seem like any man I know.

  I feel him smile. Or perhaps I am seeing him smile. He does seem to be taking on my shape in my mind’s eye. Hard to know. But I do know he’s smiling, somehow.

  More words appear in my thoughts: I am just a man who has some skills.

  What kind of skills? And why are you here?

  There is a long pause…and then I feel him squeeze my hands back in the physical world. Finally, the words appear in my mind—or wherever the hell they are appearing: I am here, Lee, to help you see.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  I nearly open my eyes.

  But I don’t. Not yet. First of all, I really don’t believe this is happening. Second, I haven’t felt threatened. Third, I’m enjoying this relaxed state of mind I’ve found myself in. It’s peaceful, blissful. I feel free. Free from my mind, where I spend all my days and nights, forever and ever……and ever.

  His hands squeeze mine gently.

  Shall I continue, Lee?

  Please, I think, and as the word comes and goes, I wonder again if I am doing nothing more than having a conversation with myself. Or asleep in bed, spooning with my dog.

  If so, appears the lightly accented words, then it’s not so bad a conversation, eh?

  I smile at this and nod and feel myself drifting gently above my sitting body, floating perhaps, yet still moored to my body below. I do not know if I am really floating or imagining I’m floating. If I am in my head, or outside of my body.

  Maybe a little of everything, comes John’s thoughts.

  Fat lot of good that does me.

  You’re doing great, Lee.

  For a newbie?

  I sense a smile, then: Yes, but you have been doing this for longer than you know.

  Doing what?

  Vibrating, perceiving, knowing, understand, feeling.

  Who are you?

  I am a healer.

  Jacky said you are a master’s master.

  A title I did not give myself, but I am honored to receive it.

  Why does he call you a master’s master?

  Because I’ve been doing this for a while, Lee.

  Doing what?

  Manipulating the energy around me, focusing it, using it, working with it, guiding it, directing it.

  Through martial arts? I ask.

  At first. Martial arts is a very physical representative of flowing energy—energy we call chi, although others call it prana or well-being or the Holy Spirit. It is the same stuff, and it can all be directed.

  Directed how?

  By giving your attention to what you want. Some of us are better than others. Some of us spend a lifetime—many lifetimes—learning how to direct it.

  Do you help others?

  Yes, Lee.

  Are you an angel?

  We can all be angels, if we so choose. We can all be devils, too.

  You choose to help others?

  I do.

  Where are we right now?

  Here, in your apartment.

  I don’t feel like I’m in my apartment. I feel…higher somehow.

  I have raised your vibration, Lee, so that you can meet me in this place.

  What place?

  The frequency of healing.

  That makes no sense.

  Maybe not, but it will.

  Fine. So our bodies vibrate…lower?

  Correct.

  How am I vibrating higher?

  I am helping you, Lee. I am guiding you up through the frequencies.

  This is all very weird.

  I imagine so, come his words.

  But also…comfortable too, I add.

  You have been here before, Lee. In fact, this is where your higher self resides.

  Higher self?

  Your soul.

  This is a lot to take in.

  I imagine it is.

  I’m enjoying this communication, I say. I am enjoying the freedom of it, the speed of it.

  I imagine so, Lee.

  Can I talk to others like this?

  Of course.

  But they will need to meet me up here, in this higher frequency.

  Very good.

  But not everyone can, I say.

  No, but all have the ability.

  Fat lot of good that does me.

  I sense him smiling. Now, are you ready?

  I am…I think.

  Good. Now open your eyes.

  But I don’t have eyes.

  Here you do, Lee. Just as you have ears and a voice to speak.

  I think I understand, but I’m not sure. In this place—this place of vibration and spirit—there are no physical maladies. Or so I think.

  I do not know how to open my eyes.

  Try, Lee.

  I’d been seeing swirling images and shadows during my unlikely conversation with John Wang, but I mostly thought they were my imagination, but now, I am not so sure. I have never imagined such light and shadows before. I live in my imagination. I know it well. The light I am seeing—a swirling, bluish light—is new to me. Just as hearing John Wang’s voice just inside my ear is new to me.

  I spend the next few moments struggling with self-doubt, questioning my sanity, my wakefulness, my coherence, and, when I finally push past all the questions and concerns and confusion, I decide that this is worth pursuing, this is worth taking seriously. I decide that a lot has gone into this moment in time. Whether real or imaginary, I had nothing to lose in seeing this through. Literally. To see through the darkness. If possible.

  I don’t understand what’s happening.

  Do you need to understand, Lee?

  It would be nice.

  A small chuckle washes over me gently. I don’t so much hear it, as feel it. And now a long string of words, softly accented, appear in my thoughts: Very well. Everything is made of vibration, Lee. Even modern science is finally catching up with this concept.

  Fine, I think. So the world is made of vibration. That still doesn’t help me see the vibration. Unless you forget: I don’t have eyes. I have nothing.

  You have more than eyes, Lee. You are much, much more than your physical apparatus. You have spiritual eyes, so to speak. You must learn to open them.

  We are silent for a few moments. Hell, maybe longer than a few moments. I feel myself sort of…drifting in the place between places, this world of good vibrations.

  How am I hearing? I ask.

  You are interpreting the vibrations, Lee. It is easier for you to believe that you can hear in this space, than to believe you can see.

  So, that’s what it comes down to? I ask. Belief?

  That has always been it, Lee. Since time immemorial.

  But I do not know how to open my eyes, I say again. I’m feeling some anxiety now. Panic.

  I feel, way down below in my physical body—a body that I am connected to but somehow drifting above—John Wang release one of my hands. Shockingly, surprisingly, I feel him gently remove my sunglasses. As they slide from my temples and off my face, I hear his words: Then open your physical eyes, Lee.

  You won’t like what you see, I say.

  I’ve seen worse. Now, breathe. Calm down. Good. Breathe. You can do this, Lee. You are hearing me, speaking to me. In fact, your physical lips are moving even now.

  Which made sense. This telepathic stuff, or vibrational stuff, was new to me. Hell, it would be new to anyone. I had no doubt that my physical lips were forming the words that I was sending telepathically. Perhaps seeing would be no different. Perhaps opening my physical eyes would prompt my spiritual eyes. Or something like that.

  Something like that, Lee. Very good…

  Except hearing you and speaking to you could very well be my imagination. Seeing you…seeing you would be something different altogether.

  Like you said, Lee…you have nothing to lose.

  And everything to gain?

  You have no idea, Lee.

  I take in some calming breaths, but I might as well be a distant observer. The physical effort of breathing seems to be happening to someone else or, at best, only as a memory. In this place, at this time, I do not feel disabled or injured or weak or lacking, I feel free and unhindered and expansive. I continue to breathe, slowly. He is right, of course. I am speaking to him—or, at least, to someone, even if it is my own subconscious. Still, if I can hear him and speak to him in this world of vibration…then maybe, just maybe, I can see him, too.

  Maybe.

  Good, Lee, good…comes his voice from a distance, drifting to me as if from across a great void, reverberating over me, surrounding me, lifting me, encouraging me.

  Who are you? I ask.

  Never mind that, Lee…it is time.

  Time for what?

  To open your eyes.

  It had been years since I last opened my eyes willingly. And never in front of anyone. But I do so now, in front of the stranger named John Wang. The stranger who is a master’s master.

  I open my physical eyes, slowly, lifting the sticky, heavy, useless lids, and in so doing, I open something else.

  I open my spiritual eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  I am dreaming.

  I have to be. This can’t be real. What I am seeing…can’t…be…real.

  I am, in fact, not floating above my body. That had been a misperception. A trick of the mind, perhaps. Or an effect of whatever drug I’d been slipped.

  The light. That’s what I see first. Bluish light. No, blue-green light, filtering in through my lids, blasting all the way to the back of my skull. My instinct is to shy away from the light, but this isn’t physical light is it? And I don’t have physical eyes.

  Go with it, Lee, comes a quiet voice just inside my ears. And quit thinking so much. You can think yourself out of this place and back into your body. We don’t want that. Not now.

  I did just that. I quit analyzing, quit questioning.

  I continue staring into the bluish-green light, light which seems to come to me in waves. Pulsating, vibrating waves. If I look deep enough—and I do at first—I can see what I probably shouldn’t be seeing: smaller light particles, zigzagging and swirling, forming the bigger waves.

  I wasn’t drugged. I wasn’t asleep. I wasn’t imagining this. I wasn’t hallucinating. I wasn’t high. I wasn’t giving in to suggestion. I wasn’t dead or crazy. At least, I don’t think so.

  Maybe this is really happening, I think, as the magnificent waves of blue-green light pulse toward me and through me. Through everything, in fact.

  I see more than just the blue-green light. I see everything it illuminated in my apartment, as well—everything it touched and surrounded. Everything, everywhere. Nothing escapes the light. From where it streamed, I don’t have a clue. But I am willing to bet it has always been there.

  What I am seeing? I ask.

  It’s called Source Energy, Lee, it flows continuously, abundantly and powerfully. You are tuned into it. But it is more than light, Lee. You perceive it as light. But it is, in actuality, the vibration of creation you are seeing. It is the source of all creation. The source of all love, light, peace—the source of all that which is good.

  And none that is bad? I ask.

  The light does not determine good or bad, Lee. Bad only occurs when the light is pinched off, closed off, or shut out.

  And then it hit me, and it hit me hard.

  Is this light…God?

  There is a small pause in our dialogue as I watch the glowing particles drift in and out of my existence, flowing, glowing, twisting, vibrating, illuminating, expanding…

  Yes, Lee. Or, more accurately, you are seeing God’s love, pouring to you and through you. Ever it flows. Continuously, abundantly, lovingly, peacefully, eternally. For all time and forever more, you have God’s attention and love and continuous support. It is up to you, and only you, to learn to perceive it.

  I’m not, you know, very religious…

  Does this look like religion, Lee? Are these pages to a dusty old book flowing to you? Or are you seeing God in real time?

  I’m seeing something.

  Something is enough, Lee. Let it flow. Let it flow through you. Feel the love. Feel the appreciation that source has for all that you are doing. You are loved, Lee, even if you don’t know it or believe it or feel it.

  Then what’s the point? I ask.

  There is no point, Lee. You make of this information as you wish. You do with it as you wish. The Creator—the source of the love you are seeing—has no demands, no desires.

  Then why bother? I ask.

  That’s for you to answer, Lee.

  And if my answer is…screw it all?

  Then all would be screwed. But still, you will be loved, and still, He will be there, waiting, flowing.