Twenty-First Century Nostradamus

What do prophets do with what they know? This is a short story based on an idea I had for a novel.

Twenty-First Century Nostradamus

 

                Excited and on edge, adrenaline rushed through my veins as I traveled to remote Costa Rica facing what I was sure would be the greatest interview of my career. At only 22 years old, my chosen career as a journalist had proven insipid and paying publications sporadic even though I had tried my best. I posted twice daily to my personal blog which was visited by only a scant hundred visitors a day. I participated in other national blogs with a single big story in the Washington Post, a piece about modern politicians’ blatant ignorance of history. Apparently, this small column got his attention.

                By his, I mean Doctor Jamis McKleeny. Dr. McKleeny became a worldwide sensation fifteen years ago when he suddenly, inexplicably began predicting world events. At first, he wasn’t taken seriously with his story appearing in tabloids headlined as the “Twenty-first Century Nostradamus. This fame didn’t last long however because of his amazing ability to truly predict the future. His accuracy rate, carefully monitored by the media hovered at the moment around 89 percent which is phenomenal seeing most modern day prophets get a lot of press when they hit one correct out of twenty-five predictions. 

                Doctor McKleeny by degree and extensive experience was an archeologist and the fact that he became a soothsayer of sorts seemed by all accounts a quite bizarre diversion. Before his spectacular ability came to light, he had undertaken archeological excavations around the world in Northern Great Britain, Egypt, and the Americas before dropping out of sight and foretelling the future. No one knew what had happened to him before his first prediction of an election’s outcome. His prediction proved correct though the media called it a lucky guess. Since then, he correctly predicted deaths of prominent individuals, terrorist attacks around the world, and significant scientific discoveries. We in the mainstream media had no idea how many predictions he actually made that went unannounced because he never released his predictions to one particular contact. No one knew where he resided until he contacted me inviting me to an interview as long as I agreed to total secrecy.

In fact, Doctor McKleeny through a go-between arranged all my travel connections including several unnecessary hops between second-rate airports. The doctor instructed me to be vigilant and to ensure throughout my travels that I was not followed. His strict instructions included that if I determined someone was following me I should abandon my trip, turn back and alternate provisions would be made. He stringently instructed me to leave all electronic devices at home and to not tell anyone, he had repeated in his text, anyone of my plans. That was fine with me for I didn’t have many people to tell even if I blogged it which of course I didn’t.

To me, his arrangements bordered on paranoia, but I wasn’t about to say an affronting word.  Despite the required hoop-jumping, I jumped on the chance to interview an honest-to-goodness world phenom, so whatever it took�"of course I agreed. This, I was sure, would be my big break! My heart bumped hard in my chest the entire trip, but more so after I boarded the small boat to cross a lake before the last leg where a four-wheel drive vehicle awaited me. I would proceed from there alone.

                Costa Rica proved to be a beautiful place�"a hot, humid oppressive steam bath of a place but nevertheless a beautiful paradise. Besides being considered green, environmental friendly, it looked to me like a good place to get lost. The Range Rover sat exactly where the doctor had explained, and I pulled the single key from my pocket. Finding the final instructions between a couple bricks in the nearby retaining wall, I scanned the handwritten note, started the engine, and motored off.  Along the twisty trail I continued on forcing myself to go slow and careful despite my heart racing to what lay ahead for me�"a huge serial story that would surely lead to a high-paying journalistic position. Yet, my mind spun back with the lingering question of why me?  

                A pull off from the two-track trail, in actuality a jungle parking space appeared on the right at the appropriate distance from where I started the Rover. I pulled in and parked. Doctor McKleeny’s instruction had informed me that it was a bit more than a two mile hike though had reassured me that I couldn’t get lost. Pulling out my overnight bag and a bottle of water, I strode off down the foot trail.

 Instantly immersed in the deep jungle, the symphony of wild animal and bird calls surrounded me and with a deep expectant breath, the smell of heavy green, oxygenated air filled my lungs. I briefly scanned the trail for venomous snakes though my enthusiasm overcame any slithery fear I harbored.  That enthusiasm was quickly dashed when something huge crashed through the underbrush disturbingly close. I froze until I determined it had moved on to pursue other prey. The hike ended when I came to a clearing. A round open-air thatched roofed building in the style of a yurt stood high on stilts with a three-sectioned wooden stair rising to the surrounding porch. A pair of colorful parrots hopped about on the railing. I proceeded up the stairs.

                After three or four steps, a man coughed and a hoarse voice called out, “Must be the visiting journalist!”

                “Yes�"sir!” I called back. I announced my name. “Is that you, Doctor McKleeny?”

                “Of course, you’ve found me,” the doctor said appearing next to the parrots. “How do you like my jungle getaway?” He coughed a couple times.

                “Never being out of the states, I find your adopted countryside beautiful�"breathtaking and�"”

                “Hot, humid, and unnerving?”

                “Yes, those words would describe my initial impressions of Costa Rica,” I said as I climbed the stairs.

 I took in the doctor’s appearance from my low vantage point, and I realized that there had been no recent pictures of Doctor McKleeny for over twenty years. He had aged tremendously in that time. With pure white hair and beard, he stood gaunt and bent. I took the last step to the porch and presented my hand which he lightly gripped.

                “Such a pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said. “I’m honored to have this opportunity to interview you.”

                He paused before answering with a glance aside. “Ah, I hope I meet  your expectations.” He covered a cough with his fist. “Though, I must honestly tell you that I lured you here on false pretenses.”

                I realized I backed a partial step away from the seemingly harmless old prophet, but I didn’t know if my step was a natural retreat after a handshake or if I sensed a sinister tone to Doctor McKleeny’s pronouncement.  I shook it off with an internal reprimand not to jump to conclusions. I scanned around from the elevated porch.

                “This is truly paradise,” I said with a gesture. I smiled over my shoulder to the doctor. “Despite my agreement with you in its’ uncomfortable qualities.”

                “You will grow used to those qualities as time goes on,” the doctor said with a certain look in his eye. “But�"excuse me�"I do not get visitors here as you surmised. Here, let me take your bag.” He reached for it.

                “No, no sir. You shouldn’t�"do�"that.”

                The doctor glared at me and clenched his boney fists. “You didn’t bring something you weren’t supposed to, did you?”

                “NO! No sir.” I said with a gulp. “No electronics like you asked. I’ll interview you with paper and pen only. I’m sorry, I only meant you shouldn’t carry my bag�"in�"your�"”

                “My condition? I see; it is that obvious.” He shook his white mopped head gravely. “Your perceptions are correct for my health is failing.” He forced a grin. “Too many hot, dirty, dust, mildewed places I worked in over the years. Too much stress, too little human companionship. Here, let’s sit.” He smiled and offered a bamboo chair. “I’ll pour us some of my homebrewed fruit juice to help us relax�"get to know one another.” The first gleam appeared in his eye. “This stuff makes me feel a bit better out here alone.”  He poured a thick orange juice into tall glass goblets. I thanked him and took a sip. The thick, sweet, and smooth liqueur coated my tongue, and its alcohol content was evident.  I pulled out my unused notebook and opened it up. I began writing. Doctor McKleeny eyed me with an air of what I perceived as resentment.

                “I studied your bio, doctor. You are married, right?”

                “Yes, I once was. Bonnie was a beautiful, robust woman. Love of my life. She produced my beautiful daughter, who I think is about your age by now.”

                “I didn’t pursue looking up your wife and daughter�"ah?”

                “Both fine, living in Scotland at Bonnie’s folks’ old estate which is professionally guarded from prying cameras and cutthroat journalists�"Oh! Sorry for that broad-based characterization.” He took a deep breath and wiped his sharp nose with a knuckle and sniffed. “Ah, refocusing and cutting to the chase, Bonnie left me after I acquired the curse�"the ability. It frightened her to her soul.” His eyes glossed and tears formed.  “Me too.”  He got up and walked away for several minutes.

With the waning of the day, the jungle’s sound shifted subtly from a bird and animal chorus to one insect based. When he returned, I silently assisted the frail doctor lower the insect nets around the perimeter of his elevated home. 

                Upon returning, we chatted on past the falling of dusk and into the night on topics such as his early and college life, his numerous archeological digs, and his other accomplishments, but eventually Doctor McKleeny seemed to wilt under the heat of my intense interrogation and he begged to cut it short. I agreed even though we didn’t touch upon his miraculous ability�"or did he consider it a curse as he seemed to let slip earlier on. My curiosity was piqued, but I would have to remain that way�"unsated.  

                  Doctor McKleeny’s jungle home was one room and so of course shared the space in sleeping arrangements�"he on one side, I on the other. In the middle of the night, he got up and with a whisper of the fabric slinked through the insect netting and went outside. I didn’t spy nor pursue.

                Without any more information gleaned from him the next day, his actions were repeated on the second night as well, but I let it go considerate of the doctor’s position, age, and health. On the third night after another day of nothing revealed, the doctor “beating around the bush” as you might say metaphorically, I decided to clandestinely follow the doctor. As before, he went out through the insect netting out to the porch and down the stairs. I couldn’t follow down the stairs without being seen or heard so I waited a few moments after he disappeared under the house. I recalled from our chatting strolls that a small solid block of construction resided under the middle of the house. I barely noticed it thinking it was just part of the foundation for the elevated house.

                Slowly and carefully I crept down the stairs peering about to the right, left, and behind whichever direction my orientation afforded a view of where the doctor might have gone. On the ground level, I circled under the house and on the far side espied a crack with an eerie yellowish glow emanating forth. I hadn’t noticed a door there before, and immediately pondered the purpose of this room or more innately, why the doctor would leave the door ajar when inside. I moved in closer, tilted my head aside and peered through the fissure.

                Doctor McKleeny sat at a small table facing to the left so I had a profiled view of him. Before him lay a metallic egg-shaped orb that had opened up clam-like and the glow emitted from within the orb. The doctor wore a headband with some sort of flat metallic wafers against his forehead. The doctor sat there in what I can only define as a meditative state. Craning my neck in the awkward position, I watched in fascination.  We remained bolt motionless, he serenely wearing his headband and I, keenly observing, that is until he suddenly jerked and trembled. His head went down and then with a gasp, flipped his head backward, his neck arched tightly like a bow.  After a couple moments, the doctor relaxed and trembled once again with a cough.  A tired smile formed on his face as he turned to the door. I snapped my face away.

                “I thought you may give in to your curiosity last night,” he said to the door. “Come in. Please.”

                Coming close again, I gripped the door edge and opened it. I took in the plain, nondescript chamber, but instantly turned to stare at the orb on the table. Close up, I could see clearly that it was similarly textured like a walnut or more shockingly a metallic brain cracked open though the inside mirrored the three square wafers the doctor wore on his forehead.  He pulled off the headband and set it down. I identified the elastic headband of the type attached to a head-mounted lamp including the corporate logo, but those wafers it attached to were something else entirely.  The three wafers, I saw now were interlocked with latches of some sort and the center one had an imprinted stylized eye on it, one I had seen before but couldn’t exactly place in my heightened state of enthrallment.     

                “On your first day here, you asked about my most prized archeological find. Well, this is it.” The doctor said indicating the orb.

                “What�"what is it, exactly? What does it do? Where did you find it? Where did it come from?” My head spun with questions and possibilities and implications to those potentials. “I didn’t see any reference to it in your bio. Did you find it after you dropped out of sight�"and came here?”      

                “Easy young man, all in good time. There are no references to this�"because only one other living person knows of its existence�"my wife. I dropped out of sight, as you put my self-exile because of it.”  The doctor coughed. “Where I found it? It actually found me through a colleague who no longer breathes the free air. I had access to the university’s testing lab, and so he brought it to me to analyze. Interestingly, nothing I had could penetrate this shell, and being metallic, which composition is yet to be identified, and I was unable to carbon date it.” He paused to take a rasping breath. I wanted to tell him to stop or take it easy, but I was too enthralled. He smiled. “Obviously, I put this headband on it because the original disintegrated the first time I opened the capsule, but the dust remained substantial enough to date.”  He paused for my dry-mouthed question.

                “When is it from?”

                He shook his head. “It predates any manmade object ever tested. Of course, I disavowed the results thinking it had to be a mistake in my procedures or the equipment.  The second, the third and other tests all confirmed that first conclusion.”

                I sucked in a hard breath. “So�"how old is that?”

                “Beyond old, beyond ancient, beyond prehistory.”

                I stared in rapt examination bending closer to the object. “Can I touch it?” The doctor nodded.

                I stroked the orb. The metallic surface felt cold and slick like silicone. The molded depressions inside where the wafers apparently lay were clean and perfectly formed. The wafers themselves were smooth with the fixtures on them to hold them together and to the headband were molded as one piece. All the pieces were meticulously fabricated. I realized the protracted silence enveloped our small space.

                “These appear to be of a modern manufacture.”

                “Yes, they give that appearance, but the minute evidence convinced me otherwise.”

                My mind relaxed enough to focus on the most important matter. “You had it on your head�"what does it do?” I asked but looking back, I wished I hadn’t asked him, and he hadn’t told me.

                “Blatantly, it foretells the future.”

                “This is how you do it?” I pondered that a split-second. “But it is ancient you say?”

                “Yes�"in one respect.” He said succinctly as he placed the square wafers into their corresponding depressions. The clam orb slowly closed to put out the glow it emitted.

                “How do you open it? I see no latches or buttons.”

                “Here sit, you try it.” Doctor McKleeny rose from his chair and offered it to me. I sat with the orb before me. “Do you meditate?”

                “I’ve tried it but don’t often, you know�"”                

                “At least you have an idea. Hold the orb like a fragile egg with cupped hands. Now, close your eyes, empty your mind, calm your heart, and expose your soul.”

                “But I�" “He shushed me.

                “With no other thought, will the capsule to open. Say it in your mind�"slowly and repeatedly. Sssshhh, no word, no superfluous thoughts.”

                I found I was holding my breath when I suddenly felt my lungs aching. I gasped air. After a couple minutes, I let go and opened my eyes. “Doesn’t work for me. It knows only you.”

                “NO!” He shouted in an outburst that made me jump. He calmed. “No. Not true. You just have to become one with the capsule.”

                I looked at him. “You keep calling it a capsule. Why?”

                “No matter right now,” he said pointing. “Try again. The same way, but as you ask it to open know that it will open. Remove all doubt.”

                I did as he instructed and after a scant minute my mind felt like it reached inside the orb through my fingers and I “saw” tiny latches dissolve inside the orb. With eyes still closed, I knew that it had opened.

                “Good, GOOD my friend!” the doctor exclaimed. “Look now; take the next step in the revealing. You want to�"put on the headstone chips.”

                “Headstones?” I asked. He only gestured to continue.

                I gingerly picked up the headband to withdraw the chips from their depressions. The three chips I noticed hinged on their fixtures while I examined them. I looked to the doctor questioning, but he signaled me to put it on. Stretching out the band and pulling it down over my hair, I released the tension to let the chips reside on my bare forehead. A tingle crept across my skin, and my already dim earthly surroundings dimmed. Another place emerged in my mind’s eye. Now I remembered the imprinted eye from ancient Egypt, the Eye of Ra. A voice whispered indistinct words in another language. The voice was my own�"in my mind. I tried to decipher the language but it was like nothing I had ever been exposed to. Slowly, I lost track of time, a word here and there began whispering in English. Simple words, like the, a, and, home, human, and soon recognizable words became more numerous at a rapid pace. Soon, English words had replaced all the unfamiliar words.

                Shocking me, it told of happenings in our world. Events I recalled doctor McKleeny had predicted.  Abruptly, it stopped. My mind reached for what spoke to me.  Just as abruptly, it announced my full name and said it recognized me. It continued with an introduction of sorts.

                “Welcome. I am the historian from the beforetime, and I tell you these things from the end of time, the time when the realm of man ends. I wish that I could inform you that there is no end of man, but I cannot lie to you my child. You have replaced the one who came before you that also heard my voice. There have been others before, there will be more after you. Listen closely, do as I edify for I anoint you as the Seer. On the day after the fifth moon from this point henceforth, a vast conurbation will perish in fire�"”

                I snatched the headband from my head and rubbed my eyes which I found wet with tears.

                “I saw it! Horrible scenes! What have you done to me?” I cried, with a sobbing quivering voice, but I intrinsically knew the answer.

                Doctor McKleeny appeared grim. “I’m sorry, but it had to be done. You have replaced me as the Seer.”

                “But you�"you tricked me! You gave me no warning, no idea what this was, how you foretold the future.”

                “Would you have taken it�"the responsibility? The awful weight of the world’s future?”

                “But what can I do with this knowledge?”        

                 “Do as you may, do as you see fit,” the doctor said plainly. “It is a responsibility beyond anyone on this planet, assuredly, but the chips and I have selected you. I’ve read everything you’ve written and determined that your heart is true and reasoning is sound, logical and rational. Your societal standing is ideal for your task”

                “But me? My societal standing? How could you decide on me? How can I exist in the city? How can I coexist with anyone�"in the future�"if I wanted to?”

                “You understand how I have lived for all these years. You must make your own decisions�"accommodations.”

                “But why? Why couldn’t you carried on or ignored the capsule?”

                “It called to me and wouldn’t release me until someone else has replaced me.”

                “What you have done is cruel!”

                “Cruel? No, not really,” Doctor McKleeny said calmly. “You, now, are in essence the most powerful man on Earth. It’s up to you to do with your knowledge as you seem fit.”

                I slumped. “Why couldn’t you have continued?”

                “I’m sure as the Seer you saw why.”

                I reviewed what I saw. There was so much I saw in that short time. “Oh.” I said simply.

                “Yes. I am dying. Worse yet for me, I know exactly when. My wife and daughter await me in Scotland willing to accommodate me during my last few days on Earth.” Doctor McKleeny said with teary eyes. He gestured about. “I leave all this, the infrastructure of my network and contacts, and a minor fortune�"all to you. I hope you wield the knowledge you attain wisely, but I know the beginning will be difficult for you because I have seen it.”

Doctor Jamis McKleeny stood there glancing between the capsule and me. I thought he had doubts about letting it go, but eventually he simply said, “Goodbye, Seer,” and he departed.