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As Jake listened to Jessie and Angie tell the story of Miss Annabelle, the college student began to imagine this attractive couple 27 years ago.
"What did you and Jessie do for fun in those days?" Jake asked, looking at Angie. She laughed.
"We loved to go dancing," she said. "We still do. We'd go to movies, drive to the ocean. But mostly, we had fun every day just experiencing freedom. Growing up trapped in poverty, surrounded by crime and danger, lets you feel your freedom once you have it. And it feels good. We loved going on walks and bike rides. We still do. Memories of growing up in poverty and crime never leave you. Enjoying our freedom never stops." Angie reached over and held Jessie's hand. Jessie and Angie were genuinely happy. Jake smiled at the irony: their stressed-out childhoods caused them to enjoy life more as adults.
Jake had led a somewhat sheltered life, and he knew it. But he felt close to Jessie and Angie, unusually close for having known them for just a few hours. Why? he wondered. Then he thought maybe he knew why: although he had always been insulated from hard times, he was nevertheless always a bit of a rebel...and very independent. He grew up in a nice, middle-class home, but ever since he was a teenager, he always had a job; he paid his own way through college; he was very honest, made his own decisions, and did not particularly follow the trend. Jake had a tendency to resist authority. These seemed to be some common traits in Jessie and Angie...and certainly Miss Annabelle.
"What did she do for fun?" Jake asked.
"Teach," Jessie said. "That was her greatest fun, which included developing her lectures -- those masterpieces. I'm a wiser man today because of her. She would spend hours after school preparing her lectures -- polishing those for the next day, developing bits and pieces for future lectures. She was consumed by those twelve children. And, I believe, she did a lot of deep thinking about those kids' personal lives...like helping Sally, Rico, Cathy and encouraging budding talent in other kids like Ian and Teddy. ...It's amazing how I still remember the names of those kids. I guess Angie and I got pretty attached to them through Miss Annabelle."
"And she became our best friend," Angie added. "We were her only adult friends at first. The three of us would occasionally go bike riding, have dinner and long talks, and the three of us would even go dancing sometimes. She loved her freedom, like us. She had a hard life before coming to Cheektowaga."
Jake suddenly had lots of questions. He wanted to know about Miss Annabelle's past before she taught at Duncan Elementary School. He wanted to know what happened to her after teaching there. Also, he wanted to know why this pretty lady did not have a man in her life.
But, as the questions were growing in his head, Angie said, "It's late guys. We'll continue this tomorrow. Come on, Jake, I'll show you your room. ...Oh, wait a minute, I almost forgot...stay here." In a minute Angie returned with a photo album. "We'll look through this tomorrow, but I just wanted to show you what she looked like."
As Jake looked at a 5 X 7 photo, the world around him went silent. He immediately noticed her gentle features. He studied her -- first her pretty face, her expression, her eyes. They were vibrant, beyond blue...they were lavender. She looked so full of life...and so feminine. Her soft auburn hair amplified her eyes. Now that he knew about her, the picture meant much more. He tried to imagine her having lunch every day with the children...and then shooting down the school board. Her body was small, small bones, but with very appealing proportions. Most striking of all, however, was looking at her not feature by feature, but as a whole: she looked happy. ...As Jake studied the picture closely, Angie smiled. Few men could resist the attraction of that little package called Miss Annabelle.
*
Jake woke the next morning in the little guest room feeling refreshed. He got up in time to see Angie and Jessie walking around the house gathering a house key, a water bottle, and some other gadget. They were wearing matching sweats, and they looked like a couple of teenagers rearing to go.
"Good morning, Jake," Angie said, spotting him first. There's some scrambled eggs and bacon on the stove, and raisin bread in the fridge."
"Thank you," Jake said, wondering what the lovebirds were up to.
"We're going riding," Jessie said. His job did not start until 11:00 a.m. at the school. Every morning Jessie and Angie went for long rides through the suburbs and out into the country. They loved their mornings...and their nights. They loved their time together.
"Now I know how you two stay so fit and trim," Jake yelled after them as they bounced out the door.
He noticed Angie had left the photo album on the kitchen table for him along with breakfast. He went straight for the photo album, his curiosity too much, and he started at the beginning. There they were, Jessie and Angie, in their early 30s, looking just like they do now except Jessie's hair was a shade darker in those days and their skin was a little smoother. Otherwise, they looked this morning like they did back then. As Jake turned the pages, he noticed in all the pictures of Jessie and Angie, they looked happy together, like they did this morning.
After turning a few pages, he saw her again -- Miss Annabelle -- standing with Angie, arms around each other like schoolgirl friends. Right away, he was studying the petite fair-skinned woman. She held the secret to life, he thought. This beautiful woman knew the secret so few people ever know. She had discovered the key to power over life, which every human being seeks, but so few attain. He thought about her passing that key on to her students. Now, I'll discover that key, too, he realized.
He wanted to track down the other nine children in that class to see what became of them. Were they living average lives? he wondered. Or did they have a little of the magic that caused their three classmates to become living legends?
When Jessie and Angie returned, Jake asked them, "What about the other nine kids in her class, do you know what happened to them?"
"Ambitious people tend to move out of this little town," Jessie said. "None of them live here anymore."
*
At 10:40, Jake jumped in the car with Jessie. He wanted to spend the day with him at the school and brought along some books to study while Jessie worked. On the way, Jake said, "I noticed the pictures of Miss Annabelle with you and Angie stopped after about a year. What happened to her?"
"Jennifer," Jessie said.
"What?"
"Her first name is Jennifer. We always addressed her as Miss Annabelle around the school. But to Angie and me, at home she was Jennifer. I think we were the only ones at that time who called her by her first name."
"Did she teach another class the next year?"
"No, the school board finally got her. They fired her. It was a mess. She was devastated. But, on the other hand, she was able to fight them back until the end of the year. She loved her twelve students. All she hoped for was to finish the year. And she got it."
One teacher, twelve kids, three of whom became the biggest phenoms of the decade. Jake wondered what dynamos would have risen and what discoveries for the world might have been if she were teaching these past 27 years.
"Where is she now?" Jake asked.
"I don't know. No one does. The court put a restraining order on her. She could not visit the school or any of the kids. To her, that was like her own kids were taken away. She couldn't take it emotionally and left. We got a postcard a month later saying she was OK, but that she could not come back. She said she painfully missed us and the kids, but it would be best not to see Angie and me. There was no return address. Angie tried to track her down with no luck. I don't know...her world died here, Jake. She had to go. She was a wonderful part of our lives. We still miss her."
The tragedy seemed huge to Jake. "But she handled the school board so well."
"Oh yes she did! She was good, man she was good. She was a fighter. And her fearlessness was the only reason she lasted the school year."
"What happened after the emergency school board meeting?" Jake asked.
Jessie continued the story, "It all started the Monday morning after Thanksgiving..."
*
"Good morning, everyone," Miss Annabelle said, feeling extra cheerful after having found two adult friends in Jessie and Angie over the long four-day weekend. "Did you all have a happy Thanksgiving?"
The twelve children looked different than the other children at Duncan Elementary School. These twelve children looked glad to be back to school. Not one child came in late. And in the hallways, Miss Annabelle's students could be seen rushing straight to class, more interested in the lectures in the classroom than the chatter in the halls.
Miss Annabelle's students always did their homework and did it well. After three months of school, parents still could barely believe their children's enthusiasm. Her first lecture of each day was always on a general topic, and the kids were encouraged to interact during this lecture. This was the prize lecture many parents and kids not in her class listened to loyally.
The four other lectures that followed each day were science, math, literature, and history. Although those lectures were more specialized to the subject, they too were fascinating and sparkling with broad-sweeping integrations. She designed her lectures weeks, even months in advance. And it was one of those future-planned science lectures, which she was preparing for delivery on the last week of school, that was unexpectedly prompted this Monday morning during her first lecture. She started her first lecture simply enough. The topic was, fittingly, about rumors and gossip.
"How many of you know what rumors are?" About a third of the hands went up.
"How about gossip?" About half the hands went up.
She went on to explain that rumors and gossip caused appearances that we must see through...to what is. "Rumors and gossip build a big scenario about something, but they offer no evidence."
Ian Scott, who had taken a growing interest in the cosmos ever since his father took him to the observatory, raised his hand. He shocked the class and Miss Annabelle when he said, "That means God must be a rumor."
Miss Annabelle was in a predicament. She knew that any more controversy could cause her to get fired and lose these children. And she knew that Ian, a budding scientist, was right -- there was no evidence but lots of talk, just as she had defined rumors. All eyes stared at her, waiting for her answer.
She knew that her answer had to be honest, yet an honest answer that questioned the existence of God could be used by the school board to stir up discontent and eventually to get her fired. Yet, she knew she couldn't effectively not answer the question.
Without a choice, she started into the science lecture she was preparing for the last week of school, just before the summer break when the resulting controversy could not easily build momentum.
"I will answer that question as honestly as I can. First, who in here believes that intelligent life exists out there on other planets?" Most if not all the children raised their hands. "When you consider the size and mass of our universe, and the ease for lower life forms to develop and start the process of evolution, it becomes statistically overwhelming that the Universe is full of intelligent beings like us. Now, I want you to consider where we are now with space travel and exploration." Suddenly Ian's hand went up and Miss Annabelle nodded to him.
"Oh, it's nothing compared to what is being planned for the future. We've walked on the moon, but now they're talking about commercial flights to the moon and resorts on the moon."
"Imagine that!" Miss Annabelle said. "Look how fast progress happens, especially once businesses get involved. In 1936, we completed the technology to control nature on a grand scale: we completed Hoover Dam to control the Colorado River. That accomplishment, to control nature on a grand scale, took man thousands of years -- from the dawn of human consciousness to 1936. But then, it took just another 33 years to travel to the moon. And, as Ian opened our eyes to: when space development becomes commercial and businesses learn to profit from it, especially if left free from political agendas and if able to pursue profits that make capitalism work, then what was not long ago `one giant leap for mankind' will become commonplace. ...In other words, knowledge and progress when free of political forces, increase not linearly but geometrically." Miss Annabelle went to the chalkboard and drew both the straight-line incline of a linear increase and the upward-curving incline of a geometrical increase.
"If businesses are left alone by regulatory bureaucrats, and in a few years we are vacationing on the moon, where will we be in a few decades or, with geometrical increase in knowledge, even a few years after lunar vacations?"
"Vacationing on Mars!" Ian shouted out, sitting on the edge of his seat.
"Or, businesses might be corralling and harvesting asteroids for our needs -- perhaps mining raw materials or setting up orbiting cities for an expanding civilization. Now, I want you to stretch your minds a bit: What will we be doing with space development a few hundred years ahead? What do you think Ian?"
Ian thought for a moment, then he said, "We'd probably control everything in our solar system."
"Goodness yes, Ian...I'd say at least everything in our solar system. Now, Ian, try this question: What would we be doing with space development a few thousand years ahead?"
"We'd probably control everything in our galaxy...or maybe even sooner because of that geometric curve you drew on the board," he answered without hesitation.
"Now, Ian, what would we -- or any intelligent being, for that matter -- be doing with space development a few million years ahead?"
"Wow, would they control everything in our Universe?" Ian asked.
"Yes, they would," Miss Annabelle said matter of factly. And when considering how big and how old our Universe is, there's intelligent life out there not just a few years into computer-driven high technology and space exploration, but millions of years."
"Do those super advanced beings control the Universe?" Ian asked.
"It stands to reason, doesn't it?" Miss Annabelle said. "They would have the technology to corral matter and create big-bang explosions, perhaps creating a galaxy for some beneficial purpose to balance gravitational forces or for other unimagined reasons. As far out as I can think, logic seems to dictate that intelligent people like us control the cosmos."
"Wouldn't there be some bad star wars?" Johnny asked.
"Actually, no," Miss Annabelle said, smiling. "Every planet inhabited with intelligent beings reaches a point called the Nuclear Decision Threshold. We have reached that point on Earth. We have the nuclear power to destroy civilization. Now, we either learn how to end irrationality and war, or we will eventually destroy ourselves. To advance significantly beyond this Nuclear Threshold, our civilization must discover how to end irrational political power and its wars and terrorism. Once this is figured out, and only if it is, an intelligent civilization advances limitlessly and eternally. Those super advanced beings then join the pure, benevolent Civilization of the Universe. In that civilization free of irrationality and war, everything and everyone is focused on building values for others. And those values grow geometrically to enormous values like eliminating disease...even death."
Ian, always so astute, finally voiced it: "So, intelligent beings like us control the cosmos -- not a mythical thing called God."
After a pause, Miss Annabelle answered: "It would seem so." She felt anxious acknowledging his comment. She was worried what the school board would do with this lecture. "When you pierce through to the essence of the Universe, intelligent beings rather obviously control the cosmos. But if we back down to the appearances of things, then we could say that God controls the cosmos."
"Is there a God?" a little girl named Debbie asked.
"In thinking over and over again about what I lectured today, I realized that perhaps there is no more need for God. At first, man needed God to explain things we did not know like our existence and our superior intelligence, our beautiful animals and our sophisticated ecosystems. Then, Charles Darwin came along. Remember I mentioned this on our camping trip? His Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection ended the need to explain man and animals in terms of a Majestic Creation or a divine plan. Everything was easily explainable through science. As scientists prove that intelligent beings take over nature and control the cosmos on a grand scale, the need for God creating and controlling the Universe will subside. Something even better and even more secure will replace the idea of God and heaven."
"Man is God," Jeremiah said.
"Yes, Jeremiah," Miss Annabelle concurred.
"Man controls the cosmos," Jeremiah continued.
"God-Man," Miss Annabelle added.
Ian sat on the edge of his chair, eyes big, brain busy. The other children were fascinated by the lecture. Like the first day of school, never had anyone talked to them like this. They felt alive, exhilarated, and they understood what their teacher was saying. In fact, they all had an extraordinarily easy time grasping that the size, mass, and age of the Universe meant that intelligent beings long ago took complete control of the cosmos. And as these children gained more and more control of life, the thought that their cosmic cousins controlled the heavens stimulated their desire to learn.
"Someday I want to say, `let there be light!' and create a galaxy," Ian said.
It's just phenomenal, Miss Annabelle thought, how in 30 minutes children can see through to the essence of things, whereas adults would require years or decades...if they'd ever see through to the essence at all.
*
Jessie and Jake had arrived at the school. The car was noisy and in need of repair, but Jake was in a space that no sound could interrupt; he was deep in thought about Miss Annabelle's breakthrough-thinking about the cosmos. Jake felt his skin crawling as he realized that every major cosmological discovery in the past 27 years pointed strongly to her hypothesis: the discovery of abundant water throughout the Universe, the ease within a planetary system for naturally occurring chemical reactions that start life and its process of evolution through natural selection, the much older age of the Universe than suspected as we see further and further into it. Jake knew that her lecture, as told to him by Jessie 27 years later, was having an impact on his view of himself and his role in life.
When he and Jessie were walking from the car across the parking lot, Jake broke the silence:
"What happened to her tapes? They weren't destroyed were they?" Jake asked, almost feeling panic.
"No, I have a copy of every lecture," Jessie answered with a big smile. Jake stopped Jessie and put his hands on both of his broad shoulders and practically shouted, "That's wonderful! Jessie, you're sitting on a gold mine of knowledge!"
"I know it, Jake. I've known it for 27 years."
"I've got to go back to the house. I've got to start listening to her lectures!"
"Be back by seven," Jessie said with a smile, handing Jake the keys.
*
Angie and Jake pulled the boxes out of the closet. They were full of hundreds of tapes. The lectures were all labeled and in immaculate order. The tapes were old, but Jake could hear her voice. He fell in love with her voice. It was gentle yet strong, just like she looked in her pictures. What a gift those children had, Jake kept thinking as he listened to complex insights into life and human nature communicated so simply and so coherently to her class. ...Now Jake understood why Miss Annabelle spent hours each day preparing those lectures, breaking through to the essences of life and breaking them down into easy-to-chew bites for her students. Listening to tape after tape, Jake had no idea previously that her lectures covered such a wide range of subjects, piercing each one, going down, down, down to the essence, which usually revealed a whole new way of looking at something. The breadth and depth of her lectures captivated Jake as the hours slipped by. Angie had left him alone.
Jake listened to lecture after lecture as Miss Annabelle systemically broke down illusion after illusion. Then, while listening to his ninth lecture, it hit him: he knew why she must finish her year with her students. The sun had gone down and the lecture Jake was listening to was about false authority when he stopped hearing the important words Miss Annabelle spoke...words he had hung onto, every one of them, for the past few hours as she knocked down the matrix of illusions. His thumb pushed the "stop" button on his audio cassette player. Looking straight ahead, but seeing images from another place and time, Jake uttered, "Wow...she's building something huge."
Each major illusion that was vanished, in turn, revealed and snapped into place a new puzzle piece to the growing puzzle picture that would reveal a world of what is, not ruled by a matrix of illusions...a world never seen before in which ordinary people have enormous power. For, they see only what is, causing a completely different mentality. That new mentality -- the next evolution of man -- can build mental puzzles to reveal never-before-seen puzzle pictures for the world. In other words, that new mentality enables the ordinary person to create magnificent values for the world. The mind sees what is, so its ideas and concepts are real and powerful and can be interlocked with other real concepts to begin the process of building mental puzzles that take values to the next level or creates magnificent new values.
Miss Annabelle was building the never-before-seen picture of the illusion-free world of what is that flourished with a new mentality -- the next evolution of man, the God-Man. A whole new world, a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of seeing everything...my god, Jake realized, that's it! That's why three of her students have gone on to change the world! Although the new world is not here yet, Miss Annabelle showed it to them, and their minds had jumped to the next mentality, the mentality of the new world. With that new mentality, they created magnificent values for the world.
Jake now knew that Miss Annabelle was building that puzzle picture of the new world with each lecture. She was painstakingly fitting each piece into place to give her students the picture -- the jumping off point -- to the next evolutionary leap of man. That puzzle picture was the secret key to their life of money, power, and love. And Miss Annabelle knew that if she could not finish the year, she could not complete the puzzle.
She knew what she had to do. No one but she knew what she had to do. She was all alone.
*
"There you are, buddy!" Jessie boomed across the room at Jake.
"What?" Jake said pulling off his earphones looking up at Jessie who was feigning a crossed look. "Oh...Jessie, what time is it?" Jake looked at his watch that said 9:00 p.m. "I...I'm sorry! I lost track of time. ...How'd you get home? How long were you waiting?" Jake really felt bad, like he was now intruding on Jessie and Angie. But then Jessie laughed like a father who had his son worried.
"I knew when I sent you home to those tapes you wouldn't be back to pick me up. So Angie and I planned to make an evening of it." Jessie was laughing.
"We went to Berticini's for an Italian dinner," Angie said, smiling at Jake. "You needed your time with her."
Jake felt immediately relieved. "Thank you, guys," he said sheepishly.
"Here honey. Come over here and have some of this delicious lasagna we ordered for you," Angie said, setting him a place at the dining room table.
"I don't know how I'm going to repay you for what you're doing, but I will," Jake said.
"You're repaying us for what you're doing for our friend," Jessie said, and Angie nodded. "She was something, wasn't she?"
"Yes, she was," Jake said, his thoughts drifting back to her lectures, "Yes, she was."
Seeing the distant look in Jake's eyes, Angie said, "We'll leave you alone tonight, dear." Angie and Jessie went upstairs to retire for the night. When Jessie yawned, his wife pinched him on the cheek, and they giggled like adolescents.
Jake, on the other hand, was full of energy. He would be awake listening and pondering for another five hours or so. After saying "good-night" to Angie and Jessie, he started thinking about this puzzle-picture Miss Annabelle was building.
As Jake listened to lecture after lecture, as illusion after illusion fell, he watched the puzzle picture coming together and growing piece by piece. Miss Annabelle was building the puzzle-picture that would show her students the world in which the next level of the human mind existed -- the God-Man. Showing them that world of no illusions was the only way to enable their minds to make the leap to the next mentality.
Late into the night when Jake's eyes got heavy and he started to doze off, he felt a release of happiness within his body so euphoric that he woke up and no longer felt tired. Then another release of happiness rushed through him. He had never felt these "happiness attacks" before. He was alone, but he had never felt so happy. For the first time, he knew that life had much more meaning than he or his parents had ever known. Another whole world existed, an entirely new level of being. The knowledge that something so much better awaits us sent these releases of happiness through Jake. The heretofore hidden meaning of life at the next level would show itself as Miss Annabelle's puzzle grew and revealed man's true potential that had eluded humanity.
Jake was young, but during the past year, he was beginning to sense the stagnation life ahead had in store for him. But tonight, he knew the secrets to an exciting life lay in those tapes. "Man, this is how Miss Annabelle felt -- so happy," Jake whispered to himself, unaware of the lingering smile on his face. "She was not lonely or sad. She didn't feel like a punished outcast. No, she was experiencing these bursts of happiness every day as she built her puzzle that would release man's limitless potential to those she loved most. She had found that elusive "something more to life", which humanity searched for generation after generation since the dawn of consciousness, but never found. Every day, as she enlightened her students, she would feel and collect the rewards." Despite the painful moments, Jake now realized, her life was beautiful.
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