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From that night forward, the practice gradually became less difficult, each success clearing the way for the next.
After the first year's practice, we could meet together out-of-body several times a month; the suspicion that we were visitors on the planet grew till we could smile at each other, interested observers, in the middle of the evening news.
Because of our practice, the death-and-tragedy we saw on Channel Five were not death and tragedy; they were the
comings and goings, the adventures of spirits of infinite power. The evening news turned for us from grim horror into a broadcast of classes, of tests to be taken, of social investment opportunities, challenges and gauntlets thrown down.
"Good evening, America, I'm Nancy Newsperson. Here's tonight's list of horrors around the world. Spiritual swashbucklers, you want advancement-through-rescue, listen up: in the Middle East today . . ." She reads, hoping rescuers are tuned in. "Next we have our list of Failures in Government! Anyone out there enjoy repairing bureaucratic disasters? After a brief commercial break, we'll open a crate of Assorted Severe Problems. If you've got solutions, be sure to watch!"
We had hoped from out-of-body practice to learn to be master and not victim of the body and its death. We hadn't guessed that thrown in with the lesson would come a perspective that would change everything else-when we turn from victim into master, what do we do with our power?
One evening after writing, as I poured cat-food and mini-marshmallows into a tray to set out for our nightly visit from Racquel Raccoon, Leslie came to supervise. She had left her computer early, to tune in the state of the world.
"See anything on the news," I said, "that you'd like to invest in?"
"Stopping the nukes, stopping war, as always. Space colonies, maybe; saving the environment, of course, and the whales, endangered animals."
The food tray looked delicious, when I squinted through raccoon-eyes.
"Too many marshmallows," she said, taking some off the heap. "We are feeding Racquel, not Hoggie."
"I thought she might like a few extra tonight. The more marshmallows she has, the less she'll want to eat little birds, or something."
Without a word, Leslie put back the extra marshmallows and went to make a place ready on the couch for us.
I put out the raccoon-food, then curled next to my wife in the living room.
"The best opportunity, I think, is Individual advancement," I said. "You and me, learning . . . there's something we can control!"
"Not out-of-body flitting off to other levels, did you notice that?" she teased. "Are we not quite ready to say goodbye to our little planet?"
"Not quite ready," I said. "It's enough to know we can leave it, now, whenever we want. We may be foreigners on Earth, wookie, but we've got seniority! Years of education in how to use the body, the civilization, ideas, the language. How to change things. Not ready to throw that away yet. I'm glad I didn't kill myself a long time ago, before I found you."
She looked at me, curious. "Did you know you were trying to kill yourself?"
"Not consciously, I don't think. But neither do I think my close calls were accidental. Loneliness was such a problem, back then, I wouldn't have minded dying, it would have been a new adventure."
"What would it have felt like," she said, "to have killed yourself and then found that your soulmate was still on earth, waiting for you?"
The words froze in the air. Had I come closer to that than
I knew? We sat together on our rented couch, twilight fading to dark outside.
"GRF!" I said. "What a thought!"
Suicide, like murder-uncreativel Anyone desperate enough for suicide, I thought, should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.
I took her hand, in the dark. "What a thought!" I said. "There I am, just having killed myself, separating from my dead body, and then realizing, too late ... I would have met you, by coincidence, on my way through Los Angeles to New Zealand, except I've just killed myself! 'Oh, no!' I would have said. 'What a goose I've been!'"
"Poor dead goose," she said. "But you could always start another lifetime."
"Sure, I could. And I'd be forty years younger than you."
"Since when have we started counting ages?" She was laughing at my antibirthday campaign.
"It's not the age, as much as we'd be out of sync. You'd say something about peace-marches or Banthas, and I'd sit there a dull rock and say, 'What?' And another lifetime would be so inconvenient! Can you imagine turning into a baby again? Learning . . . how to walk? Life as a teenager? How we survived adolescence in the first place, it's a wonder. But to be eighteen, to be twenty-four again? That's more sacrifice than I'm prepared to make for at least another thousand years; more likely never, thank you. I'd rather be a harp-seal."
"I'll be a harp-seal with you," she said. "But if this is our last Earth-life for centuries, we should make the very best we can of it. What do other lifetimes matter? Like things
