Unraveling Newman Blake Read online

  Unraveling Newman Blake

  Title Page

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Unraveling

  Newman Blake

  By Costa James John

  Edited by Roxanne Fagri

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark. The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Odette, my beloved soulmate and inspiration.

  A while earlier…

  “I am not a wealthy man. If you choose to follow me, we will struggle.” Amber stares at his back curiously. “Maybe one day we will make it, and you will have all the luxuries and comfort you deserve, and maybe we won’t. We may die together, old, with no money and only each other. That is the long and hard road.”

  He pauses.

  “But there is also a short road. Let me explain. I recently met with a life insurance broker, and took out life insurance to the value of $20 million. Should I die right now, you will be the beneficiary of that money. What will you be able to do with that money? You will never have to work again. You will never have to worry about paying bills. You can buy a massive house, and a car and all the things you never had. You can travel the world, and still have enough to relax and do what you want to do in comfort”

  He stretches out his hands, his back still facing her, his face towards the crevice.

  “You deserve all this, and more.” He pauses again. “I want to be the one who offers his life for you. I want to be the one.”

  “What are you saying Newman?”

  “What I am saying is this: give me a small nudge, and I will fall. I will fall to my death.”

  Chapter one

  Newman Blake found himself in the rather unfortunate position of being dead. Well, at least he thought he was dead. He seemed to exist in a void, sitting on a street bench in the dark. The only light was from street lamps scattered amongst desolate buildings. There was the occasional rat that raced along the sidewalk, but no sign of people, until one fateful hour when he heard what sounded like laughter.

  The laughter had a demented ring to it. And it didn’t stop. Wherever Newman walked the hysterical echo followed. He did not know where these unholy guffaws were coming from until out of nowhere it appeared in a burst of flames.

  In the middle of the street evolved a clown of some sort. “Hello Nu-nu,” it shrieked.

  Newman was startled.

  “Oh Nu-nu, why do you look so surprised? Lost hope of bumping into anyone?”

  “Who are you?”

  “All in appropriate time, Nu-nu. First we have some unfinished business to attend to.”

  It let out an evil bellow of laughter that rocked from building to building, and then briskly swaggered towards him. “Not sure what this place is, Nu-nu?”

  “Where am I?”

  “Consider yourself crossing through the doors of fantasy and the doors of reality.” The clown clicks its fingers, and suddenly music comes out of nowhere. The music is that of The Doors, ‘…this is the end, my only friend the end…’

  “How did you do that?”

  The clown roars with laughter. The beat plays on. “I have many tricks up my sleeve,” he says. He pulls something out of his coat sleeve. It is a framed photo of Newman’s wife.

  “Recognize this?”

  “Amber … where is she?”

  “Never mind that. You never used to worry about where your soul would go when you were with her, so why do you worry now. You stand there wondering why you are apart from your dear, dear Amber. You are a fool.”

  “I never made any decision like that.”

  “From the time you were born until now, all the decisions you have made have sent you to this place.”

  “I never made any decisions like that. What do you mean?”

  “Let me refresh your memory, dear Nu-nu.” He clicks his fingers and the ground starts shaking and all that can be heard is hysterical laughter as everything goes black.

  Chapter two

  It is dark, but Newman can see a light. He is not sure whether he is dreaming or about to wake up. But he is familiar with this particular state of mind. He has been here before. Was it yesterday, or was it last week? Am I falling asleep or am I waking up? I am probably not sleeping, otherwise I wouldn't be so aware of everything, but I am tired and everything is a little vague.

  Newman sees horses and carriages, dogs and faraway places, birthday candles and gold.

  He sees the birthday candles again. He remembers himself at age seven, looking through the keyhole of his bedroom to see if anyone was awake.

  Are my parents awake? What's the time? Still 3AM. I have only got a few more hours to wait before my birthday and my birthday present. What will it be? I know I asked for a bicycle, but my Mommy said maybe I would get a train set. What is the time? Three. What if I get the train set? Will my Daddy show me how to use it? Will I have to wait a year for the bicycle? My parents went to sleep such a long time ago. How many hours until they wake up?

  Newman hears a noise and jumps up to see. He looks through the keyhole and there is nothing. He quickly looks out the window to see if it might be light yet, and then looks at the time. Still three - this going to take forever, well at least another four hours. Maybe my parents will wake up at six. Then I would only have to wait for three hours. Three hours is not that bad. What if I do get a bicycle? Will I still get a train set next year? It's only a few hours to wait. What is the time? Oh ... still three.

  "Happy birthday! Happy birthday!" the voices echo. The champagne pops and laughter flows. What new level of intoxication will I reach tonight? "Twenty-one today!" says the banner, or is it a banner? He looks a little closer and sees the curtains with balloons tied to them. Newman is not in his seventh birthday anymore...not at all...this was when he was a little older. I have finished school...not a memory I would like to remember...but now it's my twenty-first birthday and I am going to forget all my worries. Newman is going to take the magic pill. Well at least that's what it was called amongst the youth of his time. LSD, Acid...I don't care what it is called, I am going to party tonight. So, Newman takes the pill and washes it down with some champagne.

  Not much later Newman is sitting in the corner of a dark room and looking ahead at everything he can see. The sound of the music is creating tunnels and chasms, almost black holes in front of him. He can hear the voices...the beautiful singing voices, and the music forms new tunnels in front of him. Tunnels that go to infinity. Th
ey are powerful and mystical and the music makes them. Let me look into one.

  Newman gets up and looks into the chasm. Suddenly the song changes and all the tunnels start vanishing away. A new song starts playing. It doesn't matter, because this song is even more beautiful than the last one. What was the song anyway? I can't remember, but it doesn't matter because this song is so beautiful.

  He starts seeing clouds and sky. He feels himself drifting into the clouds and the more the voice sings, the warmer and more relaxed he feels. He is flying and he feels at peace. If only this feeling would last forever. The more he flies, the more peaceful he feels as the clouds whisk past him. The song ends and Newman starts falling to earth. He is falling faster and faster. He is going to hit the ground any second. "Oh, my God, I am falling. I am going to die." Newman feels himself falling and the ground is getting closer. Newman starts screaming in absolute terror. He is going to die. Newman keeps on falling and falling, the fear of death gripping hold of his being.

  With the fear of certain death before him, Newman spends the entire evening of his twenty-first birthday falling to the ground, in what he believes is going to be certain death, but he never hits the ground.

  I remember that, I never hit the ground. I was just heavily drugged up and hallucinating. But where am I now? Am I still sleeping? Maybe I am hallucinating.

  Chapter three

  Newman is back in the void. He is a little shaken up. “That was my youth. What is this place? Where is Amber? What have you done with her?”

  The clown sniggers, “Don’t you understand Nu-nu? You wouldn’t be apart from her in the first place if you hadn’t turned your back on God."

  “I didn’t turn my back on God. When did I do that? That was my youth, I was harmless.”

  “Yes, but it was the decisions you made in your youth that led you to the denial.”

  “What denial? I never denied anything.”

  “Oh, on the contrary Nu-nu, on the contrary. You turned your back on God and that is why you are apart from your beloved wife.”

  Newman stares at the clown. He doesn’t know where he is nor what the clown is talking about.

  “You doubt me?” says the clown in a pious tone.

  He snaps his fingers. The ground starts shaking, and everything goes black.

  Chapter four

  Newman sees himself as a young man sitting in front of his computer in his apartment. He connects to the Internet. In want of an answer he searches. He remembers this day, he has lived it before.

  In the midst of the massive media explosion called the Internet, surely there must be an answer to my grief.

  Like a chicken without a head, he wantonly grasps at a couple of loose associations, and “bang” he has some keywords with which to seek.

  Chess;

  Venus; and

  Solitude.

  Hmm. Not too bad in foresight, but let hindsight be the judge of my pursuit.

  Link after link, link after link, following and chasing.

  He clicks away, absorbing and reading all that is striking, moving through the words and imagery like an eyeball being manipulated by sporadic whims. The more he looks the more his mind absorbs.

  He begins to understand a concept and reads further. He investigates to find that the topic is rather enlightening. Maybe the answers are here. Maybe …

  After hours of search and constant stimulation, something happens. He comes to a so-called paradigm shift. The seed is sown in his mind, and the question is asked.

  Surely in this infinite abundance of information there must be a portal to God? Surely God can communicate with man through this medium. He would be able to be anonymous, yet he could communicate. Surely if God existed he would show himself in miraculous ways over the Internet.

  The answer is simple. Yes, God must be on the Internet somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding him.

  So, he begins his search…

  Well let’s see… hmm …where do I start? One thing is for sure, he decides, I am going to need some sort of a methodology to narrow down the search. First Newman must define the parameters. Let me define the parameters first. What does the Internet consist of? Information … knowledge ... mainly knowledge. Knowledge in different forms. All different kinds of knowledge from law through to love. Knowledge of different countries, people and beliefs. Knowledge in the form of text, pictures, videos and even emotions. There is knowledge about everything here … and possibly even a portal to God.

  Let me start by going to a search engine and typing in “portal”. So, Newman does exactly that. A flash of white from the screen lights up the room as an array of words and sentences populate the screen.

  Voice portal

  Communication portal

  Portal of hope

  The science of portals

  And many others

  Newman is a little overwhelmed by all these different links and is forced to make a decision. So, he clicks on “Portal of Hope” and the room is lit up in a bright yellow and then green as the screen takes his eyes and imagination into a whole new dimension.

  He follows the words closely with his eyes.

  Woman saves children from sinking bus and drowns.

  Mary Lou Palmer from Minnesota was feeding the ducks at her local lake earlier today when the tragedy occurred. A school bus carrying 18 school children steered completely off the bridge and head first into the water.

  The bus started to sink and Mary Lou jumped in and swam towards the accident to help. She arrived at the spot where the bus had landed and took a deep breath and swam towards the door of the bus. She struggled to get the door open, only to find that the bus driver was dead. She pulled children out two and three at a time, taking them to the surface and helping them to safety.

  There was no way that she was going to get them all out and take them to the surface, so she decided to take them out of the bus and push them upwards to safety. As Mary Lou pushed child after child, she started getting weaker. She knew that if she didn’t get oxygen soon she would pass out. There was one child left, but she knew she didn’t have enough breath to save him. With her last strength, she swam to the child at the back of the bus and got him to the door of the bus, and as she pushed the child to safety, she passed out and drowned. All the children survived.

  Newman stops for a second and reflects. This is not a portal to God. I am certainly not going to find God here, let me try some new keywords. So, he goes back to the search engine and types in a new key word. This time he types “God”.

  The room is lit up again as the colors of light from the monitor illuminate the darkness of his room. The links this time:

  God and Love

  Tribes claim to be mediators of God

  Acting God

  In the name of God

  He clicks on the link about the tribes and off he goes into the colors of the screen. He reads:

  East African witchdoctors claim to be given the cure for Aids by God.

  In the rural areas of East Africa, it is reported that witch doctors are telling their so-called patients that in order for them to cure their Aids; God had told them they should have sexual intercourse with virgins.

  The result of this advice, it is reported, is that there is a spate of baby rapes in the eastern African region. Men of all ages are raping babies, and the police are trying everything in their power to stop this terror on humanity. Baby rape statistics have now reached a world-high as more and more innocent babies and their families are becoming victims, of not only rape, but also Aids and subsequent death.

  He stops reading and thinks for a couple of seconds. I am certainly not going to find God here. Let me go to the link “Acting God”. So, he does.

  On the screen the following words appear:

  Doctor in Australia accused of acting God.

  There is a dispute between a Doctor in the Australia and activists on the concept of euthanasia. This doctor from Sydney terminated the life of his wife of 20 years, because
she was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. The doctor, who is up for charges of murder, says that he was putting her out of her pain and misery.

  This doctor allegedly injected her repeatedly with insulin between her toes, slowly killing her. When asked for comment, the Doctor said, "If I had left her to die under natural circumstances, her suffering would have been prolonged. I was God in the situation, because I was the only one who could stop her pain.” It is reported the man claimed a considerable sum of life insurance on her death.