A Bright House
Chapter 10

“Science is merely the refinement of everyday thinking.” ~ Albert Einstein

“To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port-holes of a vast spaceship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would replace ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest elements of which - a functional protein or gene - is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?” ~ Dr. Michael Denton

Is “time” a perception or an integral component of the Universe? Does perceiving time, create time? Time as we “know” it, is irrefutably land-based as a building block to that alleged knowledge; it can be influenced by the physical. Atomic clocks of extreme accuracy, when placed simultaneously at sea level and high altitudes, have indicated that those at a higher altitude will actually record time as passing faster, where magnetism and gravity are of less influence. Where then, in this measurable provable result, lies the “truth” about “time”?

Time can appear to be fixed in place, as it is on the wristwatch found where Will Pritchard seems to have left the third dimension. A trail in snow that tells a tale rife with mystery, leading into a swath of old growth forest, concluding at the once visible basin of a small pool of icy water where two forks of a creek have terminated into a subterranean continuation of flow. This thing we call time, with its very passage through our human mathematical counting mechanisms, can act as an alarm. It did in the case of Pritchard when enough of the measurable version of time slipped across the face of the old wall clock in Will’s kitchen... this passing, countable, reality measuring stick grew in direct proportion to the unanswered ringing phone, the knocks at the door, and finally the discovery of the details of constable Pritchard’s last day in Bruce County.

Jenny hummed and sang through her shower as Ray stood on the grass beneath the tree and lost himself to his surroundings. He then moved to the old shed windows, slow stepping, to stop a foot in front of the century glass panes. With many of his visions, or knowings, there came a sense of taste, smell... the most intense of his previous messages had arrived with a note of something burning, almost electrical. Within the sickest feeling of the night prior when he’d concentrated on Jenny, that same perception. There, however attuned as he took hold of the vibrational energy emanating from the shed, something evasive interfered with Ray’s abilities. Was it the momentary joy that filled the mind of the woman upstairs in her shower? Was it his own sense of something larger than either of them, announcing its presence? Perhaps... he focused into the darkness of the shed... this vague but potent loss that he felt from within those walls was in some way protected?

With time being of the essence, and with time being a trick, Ray knew that if he hoped truly to help this beautiful afflicted woman, he would have to be direct about it. The relative calm and tranquility of the city’s islands might lend the opportune moment to delve into details that Jenny would otherwise never impart. This was a crossroads of enormous potential; Ray felt it deeply. Upstairs, in the back room on the second floor, drying herself quickly, Jenny felt it as well. She caught sight of her slightly flushed expression as she wiped steam away from the old medicine cabinet mirror; where have you been?, she thought. That little smile of recognition soon tumbled into the earlier anxiety; what are you doing? There in her home become prison, readying for a few hours outdoors with a stranger wrapped in familiarity, she wondered if people ever truly recognize the critical juncture when it opens up before them.

Ray Townes, peering into window panes that acted as heartbroken eyes into one soul’s life, once knew the vital conjuncture when it appeared to him. His fully opened self would filter so little of the incoming information, it became next to impossible to doubt anything in this world experience. He had seen imminent death come to pass. He knew what it was to catch eyes with a total stranger and to suddenly glimpse entirely private and protected thoughts and visuals. It was a hell at times, but he’d taught himself control to what extent he could, which often included eliminating or reducing the potential... big cities and crowded places were fraught with risk of his being overloaded, and so Ray was careful to eat well, exercise, sleep properly, take care of himself and his “gift”. He respected it, even if it remained such a mystery as to be nothing he could call his own. Toronto thus far, a place he didn’t like at all but for the interesting array of humanity and cultures, had been easy on him, but had it? She was going to change his life. That thought hit home with force as he gathered up the ball of sadness coming through the shed into his gut.

She was going to change his life.

As if summoned by the echo of that knowing in his mind, she appeared at the back doors with a little ”hey...” she wore sunglasses with ludicrously large lenses of a very dark green, set into shocking pink frames with thick plastic arms that vanished into a wide brimmed floppy hat of tightly woven straw. She had braided her hair into a Pippi Longstocking dual rope strand, perhaps intending to or unconsciously mimicking his own thick braid. Corduroy jeans in a well worn patina fit her long legs comfortably but in a way to draw a man’s eye, though Ray had not yet recognized her beauty on that plateau. A plain blue Levi's shirt in faux denim was tucked into her belt-less waistband, the rolled up sleeves bulging in large rings around her elbows. He looked long at her without intending to, or perhaps it only felt that way, and knew that she was wearing his shirt. Had she done that consciously? Was it a means of protection? A “do not trespass”? In their shared eye contact moment, two vastly differing perspectives exchanged energies without awareness of the differences. Jenny saw for the first time very clearly, that this was much more than a man who had casually entered her life to stand in a yard on Bright street. He was no transitory figure. No fugacious magical blossoming hope. She didn’t want to view him as a saviour. Dared not place herself so far ahead of the baby steps unfolding. Had no idea as to her own powers of clairsentience.

Ray, from his eye-locked moments of crystalline viewing, appreciated her appearance as one would admire a delicate antique vase. A vase with hairline fissures running its length, on the verge of shattering irrevocably. In need of tender loving hands to repair. In his many years of coping with the clairvoyance as well as the immense mystery that was his mother, Townes had also found his footing and was at peace in his soul. He was a helper. The family farm provided a means to an end. He had a family of four living there on the upper level and they ran the operation. Rent had been waived and they were paid a reasonable amount of the annual proceeds in bi-weekly increments. The main floor was Ray’s home, though he spent much of the year travelling. His celebrity as a known-to-be-legit psychic had been of the word-of-mouth variety. He didn’t charge for his services but rather accepted gratuities, which were donated to several charities close to his heart.

Yes, one could be forgiven for saying “he is too good to be true”, but ignorance in such a callously selfish species must also be forgiven, love and forgiveness being the species saving attributes.

“You look lovely” he spoke across the yard to Jenny.

"Thank you.”

“Shall we go, then?”

“Yes... let’s” she beamed, this time without a pinch of anxiety.

Where, eventually, they replace the last known location of constable Will Pritchard, a tale is spread out across the snow. First is the initial knee indentations, the hand imprints, and the vomit between. Next, a meandering path of crawling, an abandoned tote bag at the midpoint, then a cap caught up in low lying forest growth. The crawling indents continue for some time into the trees. Two investigating Ontario Provincial Police officers begin to feel slightly ill as they approach the final markings in the snow bed. They both comment on sudden headaches and a general feeling of unrest, anxiety, paranoia. There are no animal prints around the site where Pritchard seems to have disappeared, this being bear, wolf, and coyote country. The day is windless, the forest hushed and determined to keep its secrets. An old Timex watch is found partially buried, on its side, and the officer who picks it up in gloved hands notes the final time frozen... 11:11.

There is so much unknown to these two men. That they are standing on the site of an ancient stream, now buried deep below their boots, still running. That these woods were alive for centuries with the sounds of the Chippewa. That a ley line of prehistoric significance has been a part of this land since the Canadian Shield crust formed and cooled. That they are being watched.