Harmony

No-one said much on the way back to the village after Suria’s monologue. The waves of peace did arrive soon after she stopped speaking, surprising her. Nonetheless, they were all out of words anyway. They got back as the sun was quite low in the sky, and Suria was tired, both physically and emotionally. No matter how bad she had tried to make herself feel, she couldn’t achieve it. She wondered why she was trying to make herself feel that way. Perhaps it was a way of helping her understand her situation – their situation. It didn’t really work, so she gave up and tried to relax and enjoy the scenery. It was kind of a relief to have said what she said. For two weeks she’d been hanging onto threads of thoughts, never quite surfacing, never quite coalescing into what she wanted. Now they had. This was no experiment. This was a lifestyle.

They weren’t being held here against their will. They weren’t captives. Captives weren’t given total freedom and a special place to live. Above all, it didn’t feel right to think that they were somehow imprisoned here and if they tried to leave they would be rounded up and sent back. The more she went down that line of thinking, the more she was able to find roadblocks to it; reasons why it wasn’t true. The waves of peace, for starters. They were coming from somewhere quite special and were being sent to them all when they needed them. Somehow, whoever was responsible for them had knowledge that they were having negative emotions and could correct them remotely. Suria knew of mental telepathy, but didn’t know how it worked, or if it could be controlled. Apparently these people, whoever they were, had found a way. They must be truly amazing and she couldn’t wait to meet them.

The always welcome but still mystifying waves of peace. Perhaps the biggest mystery of all. She assumed they were coming from the same people who had written the message and set up the village. All of this came from a place of benevolence. Every time she felt the waves of peace rushing in, they had a loving, caring quality to them. She recalled her words to Pixie on her first day with her: it was like the embrace of parents, but it was more than that. It was from a higher place than just parents, although she wasn’t aiming to trivialise the special love that mothers and fathers can give. Love she knew she had experienced, but just couldn’t remember.

No, the waves of peace came from a place of joy, love, safety and surety that promised so much. They gave her and her companions the sense that whatever happened, the end goal of their current situation would be something higher and more noble than they could ever dream of. This particular feeling, on the rare occasions it came, made her yearn for the place they came from. To always be there and never have to leave. Getting to the source of these waves was one of the goals she treasured the most, within her current existence. That place promised so much, and it was worth striving for. She hoped she’d find out some day who was sending them and how they were able to do it. Thoughts of this quest – finding out who sent the waves of peace and where from – overrode her former melancholia. She now felt bad and even a little foolish about inflicting that on everyone.

Suria apologised to the group as they all ate their dinner in the kitchen area of the community centre. Gimi immediately told her not to worry and said he was grateful for her thoughts. She spoke more on how this place was benevolent and not harmful, and that it could be some time before they knew what its purpose was, and what their parts in it would be. Gimi agreed, saying that patience was all they needed for now.

Before long, the conversation had returned to fun things and plans for the following days, along with some anticipation as to what the next message would reveal. The consensus view was that there would be answers this time. Answers to their memory situation, and their reason for being in this village, together. Maybe it was premature to think this way, Tau had said, but it was okay to hope for now.

The general consensus amongst the group was to wait for the next message and aim to follow its directions as much as possible. If, as was generally agreed, the authors of the message also constructed the village, their wisdom must be respected. The village was evidence of their intelligence and planning. Thus, they all resolved to wait, and continued village life as before. Suria loved being in the village, and the lifestyle it afforded, so she no problem at all with this decision.

The days blurred into each other and life became comfortable and easy. Suria got involved in the gardening group, surprising herself with how much she enjoyed simply being present with some of the unusual plants and trees within the garden; trimming them, raking leaves, and gently watering some of the smaller ones. It was quite therapeutic. Her words on the way down the mountain were soon forgotten as she busied herself helping around the village.

Many of the villagers had started projects. Rivo had located a telescope in the outdoor equipment room in the community centre and was using it to map the progress of the moon along with some of the planets. He also found a book that contained planetary positions on certain dates in the library. It was called an ephemeris, he said, and he was then able to match up his observed planetary positions relative to the horizon and determine that it was indeed September 1975. Pixie’s arrival had been on the 6th of September, he said, and the aircraft six had woken up on the 11th. The message had arrived on the 12th, and so the next one was due on the 26th.

Suria was quite impressed with his work. He modestly stated that they had already narrowed the year and month down, and he just needed to do enough observations using the telescope and the book as a guide, and he could then determine the date precisely. This gave them all some comfort to know what the actual date was. It grounded them all, and no-one was prouder of Rivo than Prina. She even kissed him on the cheek in front of the group, without thinking anything of it. Despite this, Suria still did not assume a relationship and was pleased that none of the other group members had even begun a conversation in her hearing about the two of them. The respect for each other’s boundaries, relationship choices, and personal freedom, was gratifying.

Arias and Rocsi had taken to jogging in the past week and were out and about as Suria, Pixie and Le were having coffee. Suria had no idea where they got the energy for it. Especially at this hour of the day. She knew they would back it up again for volleyball after lunch and be just as active then too. It amazed her.

Suria reflected on a moment of excitement a few days back. Three deer – a buck and two does – had wandered right into the village. Bia had spotted them and quietly alerted the rest of those in the near vicinity, including Suria, that something special was happening. Suria had observed from the back window in the kitchen as they slowly made their way to the garden. Bia cautiously moved outside, not wishing to alarm them. Although mostly all of them had done some work in the garden in the past two weeks, it was Bia who had taken charge of it. She had been doing a lot of reading on the various trees and plants in it and could quote plant names easily. There were at least two dozen different trees or plants in there, from all over the world, she said.

On this occasion Bia was torn, she said, between not wanting to scare the deer and protecting her plants. She needn’t have worried, as Suria soon found out. Remembering that Rivo had knowledge of animals, potentially from his career before the village, she had gone and fetched him from the clothing room, where he was watching Prina work. Prina tagged along too as they went to the back of the outdoor equipment room, to enter the garden. Rivo had carefully gone outside to join Bia while Suria and Prina observed from the doorway. Together Bia and Rivo went right up to the deer, but not quite close enough to touch them.

Rivo had said, after they both came back inside, that they could swear they heard the deer’s thoughts. Bia had quietly said in a loving voice to the buck that the garden was not something she wanted them to eat. Both she and Rivo were certain they heard “okay, no problems, we’ll just look elsewhere then” or words to that effect, in their minds. The buck and the two does had then turned and walked out of the village to the west. The fact that both Bia and Rivo heard the same sentiment was evidence they weren’t making it up. Suria was astonished at this revelation. Both Rivo and Bia vowed to take them some fruit and nuts, which Rivo said were foods they would like, the next time they visited. They hadn’t returned since, although it had only been three days.

Tau, too, had relished his task of making dinner for the group, which they all ate together. Breakfast and lunch was simply from the food machines, at everyone’s convenience, but Tau delighted in making dinner for all of them, often with Rocsi’s help. She and Tau had become quite good friends over the past week or so. Suria would never have predicted this. Tau was responsible, practical and down to earth, and often went for periods of time without saying much. When he spoke it was relevant and well thought out. Rocsi was his polar opposite. She was the most extraverted of all of them, but when she was with Tau, she was reserved and quiet. She was at peace when she was around him, and he clearly enjoyed her company too.

Rocsi took delight in helping create the dishes, which were presented buffet style along the kitchen bench near the seating area. She also spent some time drawing up a colourful menu, with calligraphic designs on it, and little signs describing what was in each dish. It never failed to delight her. Rocsi and Tau also laid out candles and place settings, and Rais, bless him, had encouraged them to sit in different chairs, so as to always work on engaging with each other. Suria thought this was a great concept. The whole setting was gorgeous and welcoming whenever Suria walked in for dinner. Tau and Rocsi’s satisfaction at the group’s enjoyment of their creation was gratifying to see.

Rais too, had developed his friendship with Neca, from that first emotional moment when they saw the message and she hugged him almost without warning. They were often heard having discussions in Arabic when other group members were around. Once Suria walked in on them doing this and they both apologised; explaining what they were discussing so that she didn’t feel put out, they said. She had told them not to worry and to keep talking in their own language if they wanted to. It must have been nice to do so. Neca told her that English was widely spoken in Egypt due to many years of English occupation, so it was easy for her to speak it most of the time.

Arias and Bia, too, would sometimes speak Spanish together, which Suria was glad of. She wished somehow that some of the others, like Le, Rais and Rivo for instance, had people who understood them, as English was their second language. They constantly said that they didn’t mind, they understood everyone quite adequately, and were happy to speak English.

Neca wasn’t spending as much time painting as she had thought she would. She had told Suria the day before that she wanted to paint a number of landscapes, and apart from the village painting, none of her other planned paintings had happened yet. What she did find, she said, was a cartooning instruction book in the library, and she was studying that and practicing her cartooning. It was taking time away from her painting, but she was greatly enjoying it.

Le, much to Suria’s delight and to everyone else’s as far as she could tell, was continuing to play the piano for an hour or two daily. The sounds of it could be heard from anywhere in the community centre whenever Le started playing. Often when she started up, conversations tended to peter out, and everyone who was nearby simply engaged in quiet activities while they listened to her play. Suria loved that it was at random times of the day too, because then it always surprised her when she started hearing the first soft notes of the piano.

When he wasn’t jogging with Rocsi or organising the volleyball games, Suria often saw Arias out walking, exploring the surrounds of the village and keeping a log of what he found. He had also recently been engaging with Pixie and herself in philosophical discussions about the nature of happiness, and whether it was the ultimate goal of humans. His thoughts were that happiness was vitally important to individuals, contentment even more so, but that the ultimate aim of any human should be to further the best interests of the whole race, as much as they possibly could, within their means. In little ways or big, whatever one felt capable of doing, service to others should be the focus. The opposite of greed and corruption. That had been their post-dinner discussion the night before, for instance, and there had been other such discussions which quite a few of them had joined in. When Suria first met Arias, she wasn’t aware he was interested in philosophy. She always enjoyed it when he started up a conversation along those lines.

Pixie for her part had been writing everything that had happened to her and the group down in a series of journals. She wanted to chronicle their experiences. It might be important someday, she said. It had become her favourite pastime. She was getting quite good at writing, and particularly at capturing the essence of what had happened, ignoring trivial details, but not the fun things or the jokes and laughter. They were vitally important, she said. Her writings made fascinating reading for quite a few of the group, such that she occasionally had to deal with questions about when she was going to release anything new for comment.

Suria and Gimi had set themselves the task of doing personality profiles for the group. With her background in psychology and his in anthropology, they were both keen to do this and motivated to find out why they all got along so well. It had taken less time than they thought it would. They tried to make their discussions with each of their friends light and casual, not aiming to put pressure on them at all. Their main aim was to see if anyone needed help, or if the group was having any issues, based on their earlier discussions about negative memories and flashbacks when they were up on the plateau overlooking the valley.

The two of them had reached some interesting conclusions. The collective thinking amongst the group was that they were all amazed by the technology in the village. The array of intelligently designed machines, aimed at making their day-to-day lives easy and enjoyable, was of constant delight to them all. Neither did anyone have any knowledge of how the buildings were powered, or where the water was stored or pumped. There were no electricity lines and no circuit boards anywhere. Nor were there any power points or cables. No telephones were to be found, which everyone thought was quite strange. All portable electronic devices such as Le’s keyboard and things like lamps and fans had power but no battery compartments or external cords. Yet they worked. The technology provoked wonder in them all.

The village was also optimised in a way that kept them engaged with enough tasks so that they felt useful and busy, but still with a good amount of free time to indulge in the things they loved to do. Village life was proving to be calming and relaxing for all of them. They all loved being there and working together as a team in helping sustain it.

Then there was the group cohesion. It was almost as if they had been selected to be there together, such was their overall compatibility. Given that the consensus was still at this stage that this whole set up was an experiment of some sort, or something similar at least, this didn’t surprise either Suria or Gimi.

There were two major problems, however. The first was that their lost memories were still a significant mystery, if not necessarily being something that caused them psychological discomfort. The second problem was the recent revelations of flashbacks and memory leaks. They were more widespread amongst the group than first thought, and this was something they would need to keep watch on. These two problems were most likely intertwined. They all held out much hope that the next message would alleviate or solve both of these problems.

On the morning of September 25, the day before the next message, Suria was again having her traditional post breakfast coffee with Le and Pixie on the balcony. It was cooler now than it had first been earlier in September, so they had been dressing more warmly for the past few mornings. After a peaceful silence amongst the three of them, Suria casually volunteered a thought.

“I really think this is my home. I don’t ever want to leave. It scares me, because maybe someday I’ll have to.” As she spoke, Suria was not expecting a response. She got one anyway.

“I know. I wonder what it will be like to have to go back to our previous lives. I’m not sure I want to either, Suria.” Pixie spoke lazily, stifling a yawn.

Suria glanced at Le. Le had her eyes closed but didn’t appear to be sleeping. The sun was warming them all. They had nothing they needed to do. Only what they wanted to do, whatever it was. At the moment, for Suria, Le and Pixie, it was nothing at all. This was a pleasant existence, for sure. There was a volleyball game later, probably after lunch. As a group they never seemed to have the energy or willpower to do it earlier than that.

Suria took a sip of her coffee. It was still nice and hot. Some birds quietly twittered in the distance. All of the other villagers must be quietly doing things in their houses or out the back of the community centre because she couldn’t hear any other noise. She thought about taking a nap, but she’d just woken up not long ago. She was quite grateful that this lifestyle she was enjoying afforded her so much peace.

Then without warning, Pixie spoke up, startling Suria somewhat. “I had another prison dream last night.”

Suria was silent for a few moments and was preparing a reply when Le beat her to it. “That very random, Pixie.”

“Well,” she replied. “…it wasn’t that long ago that I was sleeping.”

“Yes, me too.” Le sounded dreamy and relaxed. Suria could relate to this. Nonetheless, she thought it was time she entered the conversation.

“It doesn’t sound like it was a bad dream,” she said.

“It wasn’t. It was really nice. This kind lady named Hanna came and let me out of my cell and took me out of the prison. There were no guards this time. She just walked with me until we were out of there.”

“Where did you go?” Suria was intrigued now. She had felt for a while that Pixie’s dreams were allegorical in nature: they were telling a deeper story than what her mind would have otherwise produced in the dream state.

“Just… out. We went into the same forest I saw the first time. I was a little bit fearful we would be chased and caught, but Hanna kept reassuring me that we’d be alright and we’d get to safety. She was lovely.”

Pixie paused and looked at both Suria and Le, but they simply waited for her to continue.

“I suddenly realised I wasn’t in pain anymore. I felt like I do now. The forest was so pretty too! The trees were different to here though. The leaves were a lighter green and there were all sorts of colourful flowers growing amongst the grass. I got lost in that for a moment and then turned around and Hanna was gone. I was sad at her leaving, because she was so nice, and then I woke up.”

“What do you think it means, Pixie?” Suria asked.

“I haven’t really thought about it. To be honest I’m not even sure what caused me to mention it just now.”

“It good to talk about these thing. Maybe it a sign?” Le had a point.

“A sign? Of what?” Pixie clearly hadn’t given the dream much thought.

“That we free. We all free?”

“Le might be right.” Suria picked up on Le’s notion. “Remember when we were walking around the village that first afternoon and you said this place felt refreshing, that you felt refreshed, but you didn’t know what from? Perhaps this is hinting at that.”

“Maybe. I liked how the dream made me feel. The first prison dream was no fun at all. This one had a nice ending, though.”

“Was it like bad dream from few day ago? Like when I first be here?” Le asked.

“No, not at all. I’d rather not...” Pixie’s voice trailed off.

“Sorry! I not mean …”

“No, it’s okay Le. I have a mild form of the waves of peace so it’s all good.”

The mysterious waves of peace. They could never feel bad about anything, because whoever was watching over them, however they did it, wouldn’t let them. “I wish we could meet those special people who are sending us those waves.”

“Yeah. Me too. I wonder where they are and how they know we need them?” Pixie stifled a yawn.

“Maybe next message tell us where they are.” Le sighed.

“I just hope they don’t stall us again.” Suria wasn’t all that confident.

“We’ll find out tomorrow, one way or the other.” At these words from Pixie, the conversation went silent.

Suria fervently hoped that tomorrow, nineteen days after her arrival in the village, would be the last day that she had to deal with having no prior memory. Her friends too. If the message told them all nothing, she wasn’t sure how she was going to deal with it, waves of peace notwithstanding.