Visions - In my Minds Eye., ARTHUR HOWE [good beach reads .TXT] 📗

countries around the world and generated 80% of the fuel sources. The article was bragging that England would have a 7% surplus by the end of 2021. The previous Regime’s had hidden these technologies for years to protect their Fossil Fuel investments.
The announcer, touching his earpiece, advised viewers that the Podcast would be switching to the Second Origin – Free Earth Day ceremony shortly.
When the picture switched to the Harare stadium, John sat forward in his chair. As the Camera panned around the stadium, John’s pride swelled as it passed over the main stage where it briefly, caught Juliette, sitting smiling and animated only three seats away from the Committee Chairperson for the event.
Probably twenty thousand people filled the stadium, John thought, quickly scanning the crowds.
What was wonderful for John to see, was the melting pot of different people from different races, creeds, cultures, religions and social groups, all standing around, smiling, waiting to join in the celebrations of such a wondrous event.
The Master of Ceremonies was taking the podium and John recognised a somewhat older than he recalled, Kofi Annan, as he stepped up to the microphone. The retired United Nations Head had been willingly brought back into the limelight when the Big War ended. Apart from providing a familiar, trustworthy face to the millions, he had played a huge stabilising part in the War Crimes Trials, seeking justice and compassion where others may have faltered.
“So, Ladies, Gentlemen and Members of our World Community, I take great pleasure in asking our first Chairperson, to take the podium for this momentous occasion. Let us give a warm welcome to Martin Luther King Junior, the Fourth.” Annan announced, as he applauded and turned to greet the incoming Chairperson.
The camera focused on King as he left his seat and stood before the podium to the tumultuous applause of the crowd.
John found himself applauding the Podcast, so engrossed was he with the day that had finally arrived.
What happened next, defied John’s comprehension.
One second, King was standing smiling and applauding the crowd, and the next second, a big, black, dot appeared in his forehead. King twitched, smiled a nervous sort of smile, and then collapsed in a heap behind the podium.
John stood up rapidly, his heart racing, trying to understand what he had just seen.
“Oh My God, please don’t let this be true!” he thought as the camera darted around the grounds and the stage, looking for the source of this disturbance.
The screen went back to a black, blank picture.
“We interrupt this Podcast, to bring you some breaking news………” the announcer said, a shocked and serious tone to his voice.
John felt tightness in his chest, squeezing him almost from the inside outwards.
John’s knees felt suddenly weak and he stumbled backwards into his easy chair, trying to steady himself.
The pain was sharp now, right across his chest and under his arms.
He reached sideways to the small table trying desperately to find his heart medication but realising that in his attempt to sit down, he had knocked the table over. The pain was so intense that he couldn’t even move from the spot he was in.
“Yes……. We now have confirmation…….” The announcer continued.
John’s heart stopped beating.
“The tragic news is that Martin Luther King Junior, the Fourth, has been assassinated and has been pronounced Dead at the scene by Doctors in the stadium………….” the announcer continued.
“Officials at the ceremony have just announced that a single, sniper, has been detained on the outskirts of the stadium and that he is claiming to be a member of the Right Wing Radical group known as “The Brothers of Bush”, a rebel group, still active in small cells around the world”.
John’s brain stopped functioning a couple of minutes after his heart lost its beat.
“Oh God, please……… Please don’t let history repeat itself………..” was John’s final thought as he slowly faded out of this world.


VISIONS – IN MY MIND’S EYE

VISIONS – IN MY MIND’S EYE

BY ARTHUR HOWE

I first started to have visions when I was about nine or ten years old.

This was about the first time my Mom allowed us to go down to the beachfront without her. Before my brother and I became responsible enough to walk the half mile from our cottage in Brally Road, to the steps which led down to the beach.

Before that, my brother Tim, who was two years older than me, was considered just a little bit too irresponsible, having once been struck by a car, albeit not too seriously, when he was around nine years old.

My Mom said Tim walked around in a world of his own. Maybe he was having visions too? He certainly never spoke to me about them.

It was on the beach when I first saw the pictures inside my head.

My Visions.

Quite a few people who read this will be familiar with the build up to the visions, and maybe some will even realise what has happened to them, once I’ve explained what is really going on.

I was lying back in the sand where I’d scooped out a depression for my body and laid a towel down neatly inside it. I closed my eyes and shuffled my body, forcing the sand to mould to my shape.

It was a warm day by British standards with temperatures expected to get into the seventies.

The light permeating my eyelids glowed a golden orangey-red.

There’s no perspective, no dimension to what you see when you look at the inside of your eyelids with the sun shining through, but if you focus carefully, you can see all kinds of objects floating around inside your eyes. Little black bits, translucent shapes, amoeba-like object, which follow your eyes around as you move them within your sockets.

I asked my Mom once what they were and she very cleverly told me that they were the cleaners, put there by God to destroy any harmful bacteria that tried to get into your brain through your eyeballs.

The black bits, she said, were those objects, bits of sand, grit, and poisons in the air, hell-bent on getting to your brain and making a zombie out of you. It’s funny what you’ll believe when you’re that age.

I must explain here that my state of consciousness was 100%. I wasn’t falling off to sleep or dozing. I could hear everything going on around me, kids playing in the sand and the surf. I could smell the sea air and Ice cream and even someone’s egg mayonnaise sandwiches, which I could hear being unwrapped from their greaseproof paper.

No, I was fully conscious, aware of everything going on around me.

At the same time, I was focusing on the amoeboid like objects inside my eyelids, trying to see if they were really moving or if it was just my eyes relaxing that made them appear to move.

There was no flash of light or suddenness to what happened next.

In the bottom right hand corner of my vision, a shape materialised, complete in its form. I could clearly see a girl maybe twelve or thirteen years old, a knitted hairband holding back her long plaited hair. I wasn’t looking directly at this image but rather seeing it in the periphery.

I turned my inner gaze towards the little girl who was smiling to someone. She suddenly stopped whatever it was she was doing and turned her head and looked straight towards me. It was as if she had felt me intruding upon her private world and didn’t like what was happening.

She looked straight towards me, a look of shock on her pretty face and then she faded away.

Even though the actual image had gone, I held on to that mental image for quite a while trying to recall exact details of what she looked like and what she was wearing, hoping later to recall where I had seen her before and to work out why she suddenly materialised inside my head.

That didn’t happen until about three weeks later.

This time, I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep at about nine thirty that night.

In the darkness of my bedroom, I’d been rubbing my eyes rather hard, trying to work away the tiredness. When I closed my eyes, the area where I had been rubbing was much lighter and brighter than the rest of my darkened eyelids. Like little stars inside my eyes, I watched as they too, followed my drifting eyes around inside the sockets.

There, in the bottom right hand corner, it happened again.

The little girl, hairband and all, was now standing out vividly inside my eyelids, only this time, she was very different. Her eyes wereleaking tearsand were scrunched up. Her mouth was bound by some sort of flower-patterned cloth that had been tied tightly causing her chin to hang down, probably by her trying to get more air in her mouth.

Or to scream maybe?

She had on the same blue cardigan and white blouse that now looked a little dirty and crumpled. Her eyes held a look of tortured fear.

I didn’t want to look directly at the image for fear of losing it again, but this time, I could feel the little girls eyes, trying desperately to call to me, to get my attention.

I looked slowly towards her and she looked directly in front of her using her eyes to direct me, telling me to look, not at her, but at what she was seeing.

I followed her gaze until a new image formed in my head.

A man was there, in the same place with her, tall and broad, balding at the back of his head. Only his back was visible as he scratched at something on the long table he was working at. He was standing as he worked and I could see the texture of his tweed jacket and worn collar of the shirt that sat above it. I could see there were spots, yellow pimples on the back of his neck and a ruddy, patchy, sort of complexion running from the back of his neck, around to his ear.

He turned around suddenly, mouthing something through broken and stained teeth, as his hand swung forward and smacked the little girl hard across her face. I almost felt the smack as it connected and tensioned my body where I lay in the bed. The vision faded completely.

I must mention here that I waspretty good with a pencil or crayons and in fact, always got very good marks for my artwork at school.

I sat up, switched on the bedside lamp, and eased out of bed so as not to make too much noise.

From my dressing table desk, I took out a set of pastel crayons my Aunt Myrtle had given me for a birthday. She said she saw my artistic talent and handed me a whole bunch of pens, inks, crayons, and different types of paper. “ Maybe when you get famous, you’ll remember me” she’d joked.

I first started sketching my Mind-girl, taking care to get the eyes and facial colouring just right. The position of the hairband and the gag around her mouth took a little longer to recall, but eventually, I was happy with the results.

I then sketched the Baldy-man who was in the room with her. I couldn’t quite get the face rightand focused more on the hair, lank and greasy, as well as the blotchy patches on his neck and side of his ear. I wasn’t entirely happy with this one but decided to fine tune it, next time I got one of my visions.

Eventually I fell asleep, my mind confused by what I had seen a few minutes earlier and thought about the abrupt ending. I decided that I must not react physically if ever I saw something that shocked me like that. I didn’t want to lose contact with these visions.

There was nothing more for the next few weeks.

I’d gotten up early that Friday, wanting to get to my Friend