Chapter 2

Alekzander, thirteen, sat on a blanket-covered wooden box supported at both ends by a concrete block. Helena sat comfortably beside him. Each had one of their arms around the other. A thick and scratchy Hudson's Bay blanket was over their shoulders to keep them warm in the cool, late March weather.

The mine was completely dry, but a cold rain fell heavily just outside the door. One could faintly hear thunder in the distance. Alekzander did not have to look at the walls to know that perhaps they would get lucky and see the odd luminescence. An old coal oil lamp had given some light, but it was now placed in its box to keep the large open area of the mine almost pitch black.

Helena Lowca sat holding the boy beside her, thinking about his sometimes-strange qualities. He was only thirteen, but he was much brighter than boys three years older. Still, his slight build reminded her of boys even younger than he actually was. He was fun to be with, either studying or playing monopoly. She knew he was only her foster brother, but she sometimes wished the relationship would be different. She liked the shy boy even before he came into her family. The only problem was that he was still a boy, even if a smart one.

She liked to be called Helen in the school both attended. She was in grade eleven, and Alex was in nine. His birthday cruelly made him wait another half year before going to school. This didn't seem to matter much, because he managed to skip two grades. She was five foot even and had long dark brown hair cascading down her back. She was two and a half years older than her best friend. She outweighed the boy by almost twenty pounds, but all of these differences did not seem to matter. Boys her age were seen as loutish at best, and obnoxious at worse. Alekzander treated her differently than any of their other friends. All the girls liked to talk to him, especially when schoolwork was involved. The boys, though, got equal time with Alekzander. One day, she figured, when he found the difference between the genders, she would want to be there, and first in line.

They acted much closer than brother and sister and the only other person in this select group was her younger brother Aron. They had played together since infants, and Helen was sure her parents thought that the two would make a couple, one day. Helen was not against this idea, and encouraged her parents' choice.

Thunder rumbled outside again, as lightning struck the ground nearby. The wall began to take on a soft glow.

Alekzander said, "I have been listening to the thunder and I think the centre of the storm is coming this way. Some of the long hairs on your arm seem to be moving in the electrostatic field."

She pulled one arm away from the boy and tucked it behind her back. The movement opened the blanket and both felt the cool, humid air enter. "Look at your own arms. Mine are not hairy."

"Of course they are. I felt them. My arms are pretty bare still. Your arm is not bad looking. They are just something like Murray's."

"Murray is a boy. Are you saying I have a boy's arms?"

The lightning crashed nearby again and Alekzander could feel the hairs on the back of his head separate. "No, but you do have strong arms. You beat me all the time when we swim or wrestle. You do smell better than Murray. He has that horse of his, and he always smells as if he just came from the stable."

"Ah! So now I smell just better than a horse." She moved purposely like her mother and slipped off her shoe. The faint light from the wall had grown brighter, and this allowed Alekzander to see the fight starting. He abandoned his warm spot and got up to run.

"I'll teach you, Alekzander Kramarz."

Alekzander ran to one side and abruptly stopped as a light shoe zinged by his head. "I am sorry, Helen. You smell much better than Prancer." Helen hid her smile and threatened the smaller boy like their parents usually did. She took the other shoe off and followed the boy in the dark room with her eyes and ears, ready to launch her last missile.

The hairs on both children's arms almost stood up and the strange illumination came from the wall. When Alekzander looked at the wall, the shoe travelled towards his body. Alekzander had been waiting for this and jumped out of the way of the shoe, and directly toward the wall. Before his hands touched the cold, rough surface, the wall burst into even more glorious life. He felt momentarily very odd, as if stretched far beyond what a body could take. Energy flew into him, and his body twisted in a spastic way and he fell against the wall and slid to the rough floor.

Helen woke up slowly. She felt her head pounding, for some reason. This was much worse that any time she had ever felt before. The room was dark, and her eyes stared out trying to perceive anything. The memory came back slowly because of the pain with each movement she made. Her last image was of Alex leaning off balance. The wall had flared very brightly and light seemed to come from Alex like the pictures in the church windows.

"Alex!" She yelled. Not waiting for an answer she called again, but not quite as loud. She scrambled on hands and knees across the rough stone floor looking for Alex. She found the wall, but no Alex. Turning around she saw some dust particles illuminated very faintly above the lantern box. She cautiously made her way to it. She released the catch on the box, and the lantern came into view. Though not very bright, it temporarily blinded her. She reached into the baffled box and burnt her fingers on the hot surface before getting the thick wire handle of the lantern.

With the lantern in hand, she stood to look around. Alex was against the wall, crumpled in a heap. She quickly ran to him and stumbled in her haste. She set the lantern on the floor and kneeled down to look at the boy she thought so much about. She pulled him away from the wall to see his face and found it bleeding from a nasty gash on his forehead. The blood was dry, and thankfully no more was coming out. His hair was matted with the sticky substance, and his face looked deathly in the light from the lantern.

He did not wake up when he was moved, and this put a great fear into her. She put her ear by Alex's mouth, and was very relieved to hear his breathing. "Alex, Alex, wake up, please. Oh, wake up." Alex was not responding, and she gently laid him back down and walked quickly across the floor to the blanket on the box. She came back quickly, and almost knocked the lantern over. She started to grab for it, but it stabilised itself.

Satisfied that it was safe, she carefully sat on the cold, rough rock and put the spread-out blanket on her lap and pulled the smaller boy's head onto her lap. The ends of the blanket were wrapped around the boy to keep him warm. Every few minutes she called his name. After the second time she sobbed as she did this and tears fell onto Alex's head.

Her cries changed till she was crying out loud. The sobs had given way to grief that she had never known before. Soon, she found that she was trying to find help that people have sought for thousands of years. Her prayer went out, and she explained how much she loved the boy. The decision to get help finally came to her. Somebody would have to be able to help him. She got up very stiffly and laid Alex back down as if he was a baby. She started to run out, stopped and got her coat and Alex's and laid them over his comatose body.

Helen fell four times before she made it to the family home.

Loud crying and even louder conversation almost woke Alex up. The conversation paused and sleep retook him.

Roch Lowca sat on one side of the hospital bed and her sister Eva sat on the other. Between them was the small, barely moving body of Alekzander. There was a gauze bandage on his head, and the boy looked peaceful. His hospital gown covered a nasty burn on his neck and chest.

Roch said, "I should never have let poor Alekzander go out into the storm. I knew that mine was dangerous, and I did nothing to stop him. It's all my fault."

Eva had her hand on the bed holding Alex's other hand, and she told her distraught sister, "You are wrong Roch. The boy is small, but his mind is like a man's. He was doing as he should. There is no way you could have kept him from that place. He has his father's disposition, and you remember what it was like to get his father to change his mind once it was made."

"But he is only a baby," she implored.

"He is a young man whose body has not caught up to his brain. He will be all right. It was just the knock on the head that makes him sleep. It has only been a day and a half. Give him time."

Roch was not convinced, and fingered her rosary beads one more time. She held onto Alex's hand and started to say the set of prayers one more time. Surely Saint Mariah, (Polish for Saint Mary), would understand a mother's grief.

Much later Alex hears a masculine voice. Alex faintly opens his eyes to see his foster father standing at the foot of the bed talking to his wife. This dream is very vivid, Alex thinks as his eyes close one more time and he goes back to sleep.

Bright light is shining through the window and, although disoriented, he does manage to flex his hand. His body shifts a little bit, and he goes back to sleep. The two adults around the bed talk excitedly in Polish, talking of what happened, and what it might infer. They are now very happy, thinking the prospects of his recovery are much more probable. More prayers are now said, but now they are ones of thanks.

Alex has dreams of being back home. He can almost hear the voices of some of his loved ones. Helen comes to him during his dream. She is dressed in one of his favourite dresses. Her steps are quick but she slows very much as she gets close. When only a foot away, she stops and leans forward to kiss Alex on the cheek. Another dream is of his being at home in his old bed, hearing Roch prepare breakfast in the kitchen. Aron gets out of his bed, and the seven year old crosses the floor and jumps on Alex to wake him up. Alex is Aron's hero, and the sun would not shine without his big brother making it happen. The feeling is true for Alex, too.

Roch and Aunt Eva saw the body's slight movements, and fingered their rosaries and give ten Ave Marias, a paternoster and then a Gloria Padre. They sometimes mumble their prayers, so as to not disturb each other.

An intermittent time later Alex found himself in school again. It was grade eight, and he was graduating at the top of his class. Everybody else was tall or big. He had skipped grade two and five to get where he was. Mrs. Snyder had kissed his cheek when the others were not around. Both had tears in their eyes as if they would never see each other again. Samantha Soleski had given her own kiss when the grade seven girl was able to get him into a quiet spot.

The methodical voice almost got him to awake. It was like church, but you weren't supposed to sleep there, though some did. The water startled him for a moment as it was traced on his forehead. The words seemed to be mumbled, but it was easier to understand just what the Latin words meant now.

Alex opened his eyes, but could only do this a small amount. A voice to his right caused him to try to turn his head but like his eyelids, the muscles would not completely obey his commands. Out of the corner of one eye he did catch the image of his foster mother. His eyes opened wider in wonder, and he tried to get up to hold her before she disappeared. At the same time he tried to get his voice to say, "Mom!" Nothing came out, and Alex was now really concerned. His muscles would not obey him, though, as if he had been paralysed for a long period of time. He tried to raise his hands, but he could hardly make them move.

Roch felt the movement. Her eyes had been closed to rest. She had been in the hospital for days, and she was exhausted, both physically and mentally. She jumped to her feet without relinquishing the small hand she had held for so many hours. With the eyes now open and staring at her, she can take it no more and bends over and hugs the boy, as if her strength could somehow be transferred into the young body.

Alex can feel his shoulder almost get dislocated, but at the same time he can smell the small dab of perfume and motherly body odour. Never was a dream this realistic. He could feel the large breasts that are comfortably pushing into him as well. Some stray hairs from the under the hat on her head tickled his face.

Words came to him now, in Polish, about how he was missed. Seconds later thanks were given to God and Mary. Aunt Eva had stood and placed her own hand on his shoulder to let both know that he was alive. Alex thought frantically now. "How could this be? Sight, sound, touch and smell all say that this is real. Is it possible after all these years that there really is a heaven, and that is where I now am. Surely these people would be in no other place.

Running was faintly heard over the loud voices. More speech was heard in English. Somebody was commanding to get some room. A pretty nurse interposed her body on one side of the bed, while an old, white-haired doctor came on the other side. The male figure was Dr. Smiles. He was the doctor for much of the town up to recent times. The town was growing, and the doctor was getting on in years. He had even performed the delivery when Alex was born. This was also true for many in town who were younger than thirty.

Alex was laid back and the doctor examined him. "How are you doing my boy?"

Alex wanted to talk, but had no way of doing so. The muscles just would not obey his commands. He tried to move his arms but again nothing happened; only his right hand was able to move, and that was only a twitch. Alex went through the major muscle groups and tried to see which he could get to follow his commands. The eyelids moved slowly, and he was able to move his head from side to side, but only a short distance and with much difficulty. The toes would move on both feet, but with the same lethargic response.

When no obvious response was given, Dr. Smiles took his hand and held open the left eyelid as he examined the pupil. When the other eye was checked he moved a bit and took out his stethoscope and placed the ends in his ears. The nurse assisted and helped the doctor get at the bare skin on the chest to listen to the heart. The pulse was soon checked as the doctor looked at his wristwatch.

Alex was laid back and the doctor's thoughts were saddened. It looked like some of the higher functions of the boy's brain were damaged. There was a possibility that this would only be a temporary inconvenience, but usually it was not.

"This is horrible," I thought. How was I going to get a message out? The feelings were so strong now. The members of my family, who were dead these many years, were now alive and I could not tell them how much I loved each and every one of them.

At first a tear started to form in one eye, then in the other. Everybody was looking at him. Doctor Smiles was being bombarded by questions from the two nearly hysterical women. The doctor was trying to be as noncommittal as possible, and finally he looked at the young boy and saw the tears and a small movement of the nose as he sniffed.

The kind doctor looked around and ignored the women and found a few tissues. He sat on the bed again and wiped the eyes and tried to get the boy to blow his nose. A strong effort got a very small puff of air.

"Ladies," when they did not listen he said again, "Ladies, the boy is having difficulties because you are upsetting him. He has tears and blew his nose. He can probably understand us. Give the boy a chance to tell us what he wants." The women had quieted and the doctor continued. "Alex, can you understand us?"

I could do little except blink once. This brought a lot of smiles and then more questions came. "Do you hurt anywhere?"

The doctor got a double blink, and everybody relaxed a little more. The questions continued. I wanted desperately to know about Helen and had no way of asking. I was getting tired, but fought hard to get my mouth to move. The blinking continued till I was able to open my mouth a small amount, and then close it again. Finally, I was able to put together enough data from what I heard to know that Helen had been the one to run for help. She was fine now, and back in school.

The doctor and the nurse got me sitting up with one leg over the other. He reached into his pocket and took out the triangular Taylor hammer and tapped the patellar tendon to check the reflex. I knew that this only checked that the path to the spinal cord was intact. This would activate a path to the motor (efferent) nerves leading back to the same muscle. The knee jerk is a purely spinal reflex response to find nerve damage or other interference with the spinal-cord motor mechanisms.

The test was a success from my point of view. Since I was up, he looked at the damage to my forehead and checked for any other trauma, including the burn on my neck and chest. I was laid back now, and I had to close my eyes a moment. All this effort seemed to sap most of my energy.

I must have slept. My eyelids flashed open and I moved my eyes a bit within my limited response. I could control my neck partially and saw mother and then Aunt Eva. I was afraid of sleeping now for fear that they would disappear forever when I slept. Mother said in Polish, "I will stay for a while, and you should go for a nap." I could see that she was even more worn out than me.

Later I woke up and saw Helen bending over the bed. She was just standing there and looking at me. She could have been there a long time. Her hand, though, was on the bed and holding my hand. I could feel her strong but delicate hand holding mine. I looked at her now, and recorded her image in my mind. I had no idea when, and if, she would disappear from me again. My mouth opened, but I was still unable to speak. My tongue was just able to go out and touch my dry lips. I moved my mouth again and again, as I tried to gain some mastery of my muscles.

Mother was still here and Helen must have thought that I was trying to whisper. She bent down to put her ear close to my mouth. She was so close now that I could smell the soap we always used to use, and her own body odour. I could feel the stray hairs and smell her scent. This brought back all the memories of her, and I felt so good to be finally at home again.

I could not form audible words but I was able to touch her ear with the tip of my tongue. She pulled off quickly and then put her ear back. I did this again and she just sighed. Mother was asking, "What did he say?"

"He didn't give me words but he did touch my ear. He is trying to talk to us." Before another question could be asked, a different nurse came in. She went to the IV stand and put a new bag of glucose solution and took the connection out of the nearly empty bag. She checked the rate that drops fell, and while looking at me she said, "Well, Alex, that is you supper. The sooner you gain the use of your body, the sooner you can get solid food."

Within a half hour I had to pee and there was nothing I could do about it. I wet the bed and felt shame at doing this. I was not a baby, but I knew that my thirteenth birthday had passed long ago. Mom must have caught on, for she left and I was just lying on a wet bed and looking at Helen.

Mother came back with a nurse and some clean linen. She went through the correct practice to change the bed with a patient still in it. Mother refused to leave, and Helen just stayed, too. My gown was soon removed and a new one was put on. My head was moved enough for me to catch a look, and I found my plumbing had not changed since I last looked.

This shocked me for it was as if I had two sets of memories. One of course would be the mind of the boy that inhabited this body. I had detected none of his presence and wondered if he and I had changed places. Even that seemed to be wrong. I could see myself in the mine in 2004 with only a bit of trauma.

I had long since subtracted my present age from my other body and knew I had regressed 53 years. It was spring now and it was fall in my former life, so an extra half year was added to the total. It was now 1951, and in three months Helen would be dead again.

Some of the family soon came in and talked to me. They knew about my difficulties and just asked simple questions that could be answered with a yea or a nay. A few minutes later dad came in with Aron hidden behind him. I knew that at this time, children were not allowed into the hospital unless they were patients. Aron worked his way around the roomful of adults and came close to my right side. Mother gave way a bit, and he came as close as he could.

When dad finished asking me how I felt, I could only reply with one blink. Josef continued, "What can we do for you?" I was unable to ask anything and eventually he saw the error he made.

I was able to force my head to turn to see Aron. He had just turned eight, and he still looked like a cute little boy. I tried my best to smile at him, but I did not know what my face really looked like. He did reach out and put his hand on my bare arm, and a restrained smile was displayed, as if offering me strength and hope.

Aunt Eva was there beside her sister trying to give support, and now perhaps share in the joy of someone coming back to them whom they thought lost.

Dad still looked concerned. We had a pretty good relationship. He was fairly strict, but gave up some free time to be with his family. At times, even when we were doing chores together, he would talk of his own upbringing and mention the peculiarities of each of his relatives. Like all parents, he always had more work to do as a child, and less reward for doing it.

The next week, a specialist came to evaluate my condition. I pushed myself to learn how to use my muscles. I caught him mentioning bilateral hemiplegia and thought him far off the mark. I had my own diagnosis and thought it prudent to not mention it to him even if I could. There was a good chance he would stay then and try to find the depth of my knowledge, instead of giving me my freedom.

When I was fourteen, I had got into some serious fights and decided to build my body up. Even after six months of effort, the fights still happened, even though I was much larger. I made a punching bag and worked on it as best I could. Anytime there was a fight, I analysed what happened and how it was conducted. At least a fifth of the time I was actually an active participant. When I started to win the occasional fights, I just found that the bullies then wanted reinforcements to make sure I stayed in my proper place.

My previous life had shown me the error of my ways in this. I was not going to let any of that continue, especially when I knew that I would eventually get into a few scrapes when I went back to school. My weakened state, though, might cause me to keep my mouth shut, but would not keep me from taking on bullies fighting people far weaker than them.

Talking became possible, but I was still very weak. I pushed myself very hard in every waking moment. Doctor Smiles suggested that I remain stationary, but I had my own medical licence and had much more access to many problems. He, of course, had many years of practical experience to draw on. He did relent when I questioned the underpinning of his arguments. He knew that I was very bright and along with my photographic memory had learned more than many people older than me. He had been instrumental in getting the school board to let me skip two grades.

Mom came by and helped me walk around the room. There was no physiotherapeutic section, so I had to rely on just walking. Most of the time it was just mom and Aunt Eva. She spent lots of her time with me, but she had her own family hours from North Bay. I also relied on the nursing staff to walk around. At every opportunity I would try to cajole some of them to help me exercise. Helen was not allowed in sometimes, but the nurses seemed to have vision problems on a few occasions. We walked down the main hall very many times, till I had to shoo her off for her meals or rest.

The girl did things girls always did to me. This time, though, I was not ready to take advantage of the situation. If my body stayed the same, it would be almost a year till I entered puberty. My former memories did seem to drive me toward that goal, though. I felt much like an old man who relied on memory alone to appreciate the finer points of feminine flesh. The memories of the people I went to school with were fresh in my mind, as if of yesterday. Now I could interpret their actions as an adult, and saw that I was partially blind to what was happening around me the first time at this age.

We had a candy striper who volunteered to help. I shamelessly took advantage of the situation and luxuriated in the casual touch. I had my own code of ethics, though, and would not grope or fondle. If I knew that they were interested in me this way, I would have really showed them what I could do. Sadly, none of them saw much in a young, skinny boy who could hardly walk and talked slowly at only a whisper.

Three weeks after the lightning storm I was discharged. I was not fit for school yet, but I would be able to stop placing such a heavy financial burden as the hospital bills on the family's shoulders. Over the years, I had learned that money was both the grease and the fuel that the economy ran on. I was very effective at what I did in my previous life, and at last count I had almost four and a half billion dollars in net assets. Here, I would start with a deficit of a thousand dollars. At this time it was an astronomical sum, when you consider that a grown man made 50 cents an hour.

My mind came up with many plans, but sadly they all required money to start. This commodity was in short supply in our family.

Aunt Eva had to leave for her family in Sudbury. At least her children were mostly grown and could afford to have their mother away. I had to cry a bit at her leaving. She didn't make it down all that often, and I would miss her. She had supported mom when I was at my worse, and supported me when I walked the hospital floor. Dad drove her to the bus station with a large supply of things that our family made a specialty of making. One product clinked a lot and had to be wrapped in cloth and paper.

I still did not understand what had happened in the mine. My future self had been ripped from its own time line and brought into my past. I do not think that I truly left the other setting to come here. I did not know why it felt that way, but it did. This left me with a queasy feeling of what happened to my thirteen-year-old self that had resided in this body. I must have simply spun off a copy of my older self and overwritten my younger consciousness. I did searches through my memory and still found nothing of a younger mirror image. The forces that brought about this situation were much stronger that what any two humans could counter.

My understanding of my weakness was that I had not integrated my mind with my present body. This had to be done within the brain itself. Exercises were the only hope I had. These labours went on all the time. I rarely was still for any reason. Even sitting on the toilet afforded me a chance to do isometric exercises. My brain, though, did seem to work much better. I had a much easier time when I tried to plumb the depths of my knowledge, training and skills. This was all crammed on top of what my former self had, even if the first dozen or so years were the same. When I got bored, I turned to mathematics and found that I could do calculations much faster than in my university days. I could not come up with a reason for this phenomenon. My memory also seemed to be sharper, and facts were easier to recover and integrate with other pieces of data within my head.

Aron came to me all the time with offers of help. I took advantage of it as much as I could without overburdening him. At this time, a family was much more cohesive than at the end of the century. Television, which I had once thought of as a media to educate the masses, had later become a device that would break up a family. I had to admit that a computer could do the same thing. The only similarity here and now was the constant work necessary to run a small farm. Books could do the same as TV, but anyone never had enough time to indulge in this pastime.

I usually stayed close to the walls for support, but I could negotiate even the steps. One close call was enough for me to be even extra careful on those. My voice was coming back, but I still had to converse in a whisper with a child's pitch.

Mom, grandma and grandpa did much of the work on the farm while dad was away working at the mine. Grandpa was a wiry man of 54. His name was Edward Corinz, but nobody called him that. He usually wore an old beret that a fellow countryman gave him before passing on. I got a licking one time for throwing it to Aron like a Frisbee.

Grandma's name was Trina. She had married Grandpa young, and she was now 53. She was short like grandpa, and thin like him, too. Her hair was at least half gray. She looked a bit older than her years from the hard life she had. She was a meek and mild woman to her husband, except when he got into the bimber we made here on the farm. She had a little once in a while, but grandpa and dad were much more serious drinkers and smokers. Trina didn't even smoke and got on Mom's case about that, too.

Chapter 3 »