3
" Leave the train!”
More soldiers meet Fez and his loyal companion, “This way,” one shouts, “step into the circle!” Fez glances down, at a large circle scribed into the ground, and walks into the centre with Gnash skittering in behind him, at which point he addresses the soldiers.
“Did you know the philosopher Gurdjieff wrote about his encounters with the Yezidis—how he once saw a Yezidi boy distraught, struggling to break out of a circle drawn in the ground by other boys. Try as he might the boy just couldn’t step outside of the circle. The other boys teased and taunted him until Gurdjieff erased part of the circle, whereby the boy was able to escape. Perhaps the philosopher wants us to think carefully about the Yezidis—perhaps you should think carefully about me.” Out of the floor a circular glass wall made of toughened glass shoots up, stopping at a circular lip in the ceiling, trapping them like a ship in a bottle. “A prison—how quaint, never been in a prison before. When do I get my medication?” No one answers, but Fez spies a security camera in the ceiling and stares into its lens. “You think that I think you can’t hear me, but I know that you don’t know I can.”
“What’s he on about?” one of the operators asks in the control room.
“Something about us hearing him. "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
4
" Next up is the Elb of Fire and Fusion, it phases in front of them. Its entrance is impressive, for under its translucent shell an orbital symmetry, as one by one it mimics the atoms of the heavy elements. A surreal animation. “< This Elb has only one sin to list, the greatest of them all—nuclear annihilation. Behold the future winds of change. >” The set changes to a view from the international space-station, the entire crew looking through the window at the beauty of Gaia, but something amiss can be seen in their expressions. A grave seriousness that something is aloof, foreboding. “< I give you mutually assured destruction. As you can witness… >” From the space-station the planet Earth is viewed. A serene blue marble, peaceful, passive, when one of the crew points to a white spot, then another. More follow, leading to a chain-reaction, as the blue planet appears to twinkle in space. The whiteness hails the day of reckoning. “< This is the possibility which man makes certain. What say you Zara Hanson, seeing this glimpse of man’s future? > "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
5
" Okay,” she exhales, closes her eyes and dissolves her mind to a state of emptiness. Inside her head, an instinct, a compulsion triggers her next action. “I’m ready…”
Zara slowly reaches forward, touches the Tetragrammaton with her index and middle finger, nothing at first, then an odd sensation, a feeling of divine power and knowledge. “It’s beautiful,” a surge of information overwhelms her senses—she turns her palms face up, as she does they turn transparent to reveal the constellations, “I am that which is not, born from the imperishable stars. "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
7
" There is a tale, you really wish to hear it?”
“Yes, we want to hear it!”
“This I’ve got to hear,” Fez says, downing another shot of green-mist. Æther tells the tale…
“It is the late nineteenth century, the last days of the Silk Road in China,” he grabs his staff and stomps it to the ground. “It was a time of great change on Terra, but the old ways still flourished—the ways of the warrior!
“Now a merchant’s caravan was making the perilous journey along the Silk Road accompanied by bodyguards, an infamous Chinese boxer and his band of brothers. Stopped in their tracks they did, on seeing from the west a strong wind picking up, a sandstorm brewing. Unseen by the travellers, high in the sky a flying saucer flew overhead—the Yún! In the distance it landed, then no sooner had it started, the sandstorm began to dissipate, as if it had never been. The sand cloud cleared to reveal a lone figure, a Grey. The Ascetic known as Oracle of the Four Winds. The one that never dies, whom for the sake of this account we shall call Lives-a-long-time.
“The story goes on to tell how Lives-a-long-time held up a hand for the caravan to stop, upon which the leader dismounted from his camel, and said to the Ascetic, ‘What is it you want demon, you dare to stop Wang-Yin?’ ‘I do!’ said Lives-a-longtime, at which Wang-Yin roared: ‘Then prepare to taste my ironpalm heavy-as-the-world! "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
9
" Zara slowly reaches forward, touches the Tetragrammaton with her index and middle finger, nothing at first, then an odd sensation, a feeling of divine power and knowledge. “It’s beautiful,” a surge of information overwhelms her senses—she turns her palms face up, as she does they turn transparent to reveal the constellations, “I am that which is not, born from the imperishable stars.” With that said her skin transforms a dark blue, filled with a star-blue sky, photons of rainbow-light encircle her body; she stops dead, lifeless, in a suspended state of animation. Just then she finds herself above, looking down at the pyramid, at herself, the entire universe all stopped dead in single frozen moment of time. And then it is all gone, she awakes in another place, another time-line. Ancient Egypt. The Pyramids of Giza. "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
11
" The defence shall cross-examine Zara Hanson,” he beckons her forward. “Would you tell the court how long we have known each other?”
“Well…” taken aback, she ponders how best to answer, “you could say days, but then again you could say several lifetimes. It feels like I’ve known you my whole life.”
“And in this time, would you say you trust my judgement?”
Unsure where this is going, she gives a terse reply.
“I’ve no reason not to.”
“I ask that you trust my defence and do not draw any forgone conclusions.”
“Okay?” Zara nods, her brow knits together with a look of curiosity. What’s he up to?
“Zara Hanson, what is love?”
“Well, you won’t find it anywhere near these jelly-beans,” she looks at the Elb.
“Please, tell us what love is—not that which it is not.”
“What is love?” Zara raises an eyebrow and smiles, “It is something indescribable, to categorise it would do its power a disservice.”
“And yet categorise it we must.” Ansebe’s skin changes its tone, pigments diversify a hypnotic effect, influencing her emotions, “Please—what is love? "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
15
" Perhaps it’s fate,” Zara says, supping tonic-water from a beaker, “I just had the weirdest dream, but it seemed so real.”
“A dream?” Æther asks curiously, as he gives her more water, “Take your time.”
“It was vivid, so real,” she raises her eyebrows, “I was lost in it. It was like parts of me were scattered all over time itself. The past, future and present all in an endless causality loop, every moment co-creating slices of time. "
― J.L. Haynes , Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol
