Dive to Oblivion

8

Mimi Slater had been waiting for them to arrive all day long. When the white U.S. Navy van finally pulled into the driveway, and the two uniformed officers solemnly climbed out, it was almost anticlimactic. She had inwardly known that her husband would never be coming home again from the first moment she heard the news report that the Lewis and Clark was missing, earlier that morning. And now true to custom, the U.S. Navy was taking the time to inform their own of the true extent of the tragedy that had befallen them.

Yet reality really hit home when they somberly informed her that Peter was officially listed as missing at sea. This meant that they had yet to find his body, or those of his shipmates for that matter. Being a submariner’s wife, Mimi knew that if her husband was ever involved in a serious accident while on patrol, the chances were almost nil that his remains would ever be located. Such was the unforgiving nature of the elements he sailed beneath.

Though there was always the slimmest chance that the Lewis and Clark was not sunk, and that the crew was still very much alive, Mimi didn’t dare deceive herself.

The arrival of the two officers at her door meant that all hope was forever lost, and to think otherwise was pure self-delusion.

She bravely accepted their sincere condolences, and stubbornly refused their offer of assistance. When they finally left, and she locked the door behind them, she found herself so numbed by shock that not even tears would fall. But all of this quickly changed when she returned to the living room, and spotted the family gram that she had received only yesterday.

The tears began welling up in her eyes when she reached for this single-page dispatch, which she had lovingly placed on top of the glass coffee table. Sent by her husband in honor of her thirty-seventh birthday, it had been initially received with the greatest of joy.

Little did she ever realize at the time, that this would be her last communique from the man that she adoringly called Dutch.

She cried, reread the family gram and wept once more. And thus went the coldest, loneliest day of her life.

Later that evening, she managed to drink some tea, and to call Tina Bressler, the wife of Peter’s XO. Earlier in the summer, Tina had told Mimi that she was expecting their third child. And now this baby would have to grow up without its birth father.

As it turned out, Tina was too distraught to come to the phone, and after expressing her sympathy to Tina’s mother, Mimi returned to the couch to continue her lonely vigil. It was well after midnight when she pulled out a photo album and began leafing through it. Since they had never been fortunate enough to have children, these pictures were all that remained of a glorious, twenty-year relationship.

She began in the back of the album, where the most recent photos had been placed. This series chronicled their summer trip to Catalina Island. One of Peter’s submarine buddies, who was based out of San Diego, had lent them his twenty-eight-foot sailboat, and it was on this vessel that they crossed over to the island.

The voyage itself was a great adventure, and she scanned the various shots of herself and Peter at the boat’s helm, beside its mast, and inside the rather cramped cabin.

She fondly viewed a photo showing Catalina’s Avalon harbor. They had arrived at dusk, and there was just enough light left for them to photograph the famed Casino, the Wrigley mansion, and the colorful collection of boats anchored before the quaint seaside village.

The next series of shots had been taken the following day, when they initiated their exploration of the island.

They began with a hike up to the Wrigley Memorial, where William Wrigley Jr. of chewing-gum fame had been buried. A botanical garden had been planted beside the art-deco memorial tower, and Peter made certain to get pictures of the many unusual indigenous plants and cacti there.

Per the suggestion of a group of locals, they hiked up into the hills behind the memorial. Peter had taken several shots of Mimi as they climbed a trail high up onto a surrounding ridge. From this lofty vantage point, they could clearly see Avalon and the smog-enshrouded coast of Southern California, twenty-eight miles in the distance.

Yet it was in the opposite direction that a truly magnificent view of nearby San Clemente island was encountered.

Peter tried to capture this vista with several photographs showing the sparkling channel of water separating the two islands. One of these pictures showed a sleek U.S. Navy cruiser. Of course, Peter was thrilled by this sighting, and explained in detail how the Navy used San Clemente as a weapons test-range.

It was as they prepared to return to Avalon, that she took a very special picture of her husband that she enlarged, framed, and placed on the mantel. She had caught him thoughtfully staring out to the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific. The sun had been directly behind her, and perfectly illuminated his ruggedly handsome face. His determined stare, blondish-brown hair, and sharply dimpled chin gave him additional character, and he could have easily passed for a middle-aged version of the actor Kirk Douglas. For the rest of her life, this would be how she would always picture Peter, so handsome, so curious, with the eyes of a poet and the heart of a silent warrior.

Finding herself close to breaking out into tears once more, she turned to the front of the album. The first photo had been taken on the night they met, almost twenty years ago. It was snapped inside the Naval Academy auditorium, and showed Mimi decked out as Minnie Mouse, and Peter dressed as a little Dutch boy.

Somehow he had managed to see beyond her huge artificial mouse ears and erect whiskers, and as he always said, fell in love with her at first sight. Mimi was but an impressionable teenager at the time, and she found herself enchanted by the tall, dashing midshipman, who bravely limped around all evening in hand-carved wooden shoes, that were much too narrow for his wide feet.

Quickly flipping through the pages of the album now, Mimi caught brief glances of spirited Navy football games, hay rides, sailing trips on the Chesapeake Bay, and other glimpses of their whirlwind romance, that abruptly ended when the two officers knocked on her door. And now to be left with only these snapshots, and memories of a love that could never be duplicated in this lifetime.

Mimi’s grief found temporary solace when sleep finally overcame her. Without bothering even to undress, she stumbled into the bedroom and crawled beneath the comforter. She slept soundly at first, drained by sorrow and longing. Then dreams took her on another trip through her past, and she watched as Peter was commissioned, waved goodbye to him for the first time from the pier in Groton, and even enjoyed a canoe float trip with her parents, on the Buffalo river in her home state of Arkansas.

She awoke to the cold before the dawn, and stared out at the empty place on the bed beside her. Being a submariner’s wife, she was used to sleeping alone for half the months of a year. But this was different — her beloved called on a patrol from which he’d never return.

Long drained of tears, she could only lie there and moan in silence. And again it was sleep that came and rescued her from her forlorn sorrow.

The sun was well into the morning sky when the ringing telephone awoke Mimi from her slumber. She didn’t respond at first. But the ringing persisted, and to silence the incessant racket she reached out towards her nightstand and pulled the handset to her ear.

“Hello,” she mumbled.

“Mrs. Slater?” said a scratchy, high-pitched female voice with a definite Brooklyn accent.

“Is this Mrs. Peter Slater?”

“Who is this?” quizzed Mimi, still groggy from sleep.

“You don’t know me, Mrs. Slater. I’m Dr. Elizabeth, and I have a message for you from Dutch.”

This last word caught Mimi’s full attention, and she bolted upright, with the phone nestled tightly to her ear.

“Did you say, Dutch? Who is this?” “Like I said, Mrs. Slater. I’m Dr. Elizabeth, and Dutch was the name of the fellow who asked me to contact you.”

“Look, lady,” spat Mimi.

“I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but I don’t find this whole thing the least bit funny.”

“Neither do I, Mouse,” replied the caller, who sincerely added, “I don’t blame you for being suspicious, honi’d feel the same way if I was in your place. And all I can ask of you is to at least hear me out. After all, this is long distance.”

“How did you know to call me Mouse?” asked Mimi, her curiosity fully aroused.

“And who told you about Dutch?”

“Why your husband, of course. Although we didn’t communicate with each other as long as I would have liked, I believe he passed on enough information for me to convince you that I’m legit.”

“And when did you speak to him?” questioned Mimi breathlessly.

“Although the initial contact took place several days ago, our actual link wasn’t finalized until just this morning.”

“You spoke with Peter this morning!” exclaimed Mimi, her doubts all but forgotten.

“Easy does it, hon. Take a couple of deep breaths and listen closely to what I have to say. You see, I’m what you call a psychic healer. I’m a New Yorker, who just set up shop near Charleston, in my niece’s place on the Isle of Palms. If you care to check my references, just give Geraldo, Oprah, or Sally Jesse a ring.

They all know Dr. Elizabeth, as well as their millions of viewers. But that’s another story, and this is costin’ me sixty cents a minute as it is. Anyway, like I was sayin’, your husband came to me while I was in trance, and asked me to let you know that he hopes all your champagne wishes and caviar dreams come true. Do the letters C’YA” mean anything to you, hon?”

Mimi’s only reaction was startled silence, which prompted her caller to speak out quickly.

“If you’re still there, honi want you to know that I’m only passin’ this info on as a public service. I ain’t no charity, and I work solely on donations. Hon, are you there?”

“I’m … sorry,” stuttered Mimi, who finally summoned the words to express herself.

“But I can’t help but think that this is all a sick joke of some sort.”

“I understand, ho nit only natural to feel that way.

All I can tell you is to listen to your heart. And if you want to talk more, just call me for an appointment.”

Not about to let this mysterious caller hang up without getting some additional information, and with nothing to lose, Mimi allowed her instincts to guide her reply.

“Dr. Elizabeth, you’ve got to tell me more about Peter. Isle of Palms is less than an hour’s drive from here. Can I see you this afternoon?”

“Hon, I seriously doubt that I could keep you away even if I had a full schedule, which I don’t. So here’s my address and telephone number. And if you can get your kiester into gear, I’ll even throw in lunch with your reading, all for the same fifty-dollar donation.”

Mimi’s hand was excitedly shaking as she copied down the caller’s address and phone number. When she finally hung up the telephone, she had the distinct impression that the woman that she had just talked to hadn’t been real at all, but merely a figment of her imagination. And then doubt clouded her consciousness.

Surely this Dr. Elizabeth was only a slick opportunist, who had heard about the Lewis and Clark on the news, and was playing on Mimi’s grief to make a quick buck. But if that was the case, how did she know about their family gram passwords? No one knew this code but Peter and herself. And besides, the dispatches themselves were sent via the same discreet, top-secret Navy channels over which operational orders were delivered.

Overhearing such a broadcast would be all but impossible. That meant that she either somehow got a copy of the message from the censor’s office, or was indeed a psychic like she said.

Though Mimi’s rational mind cautioned her that Dr. Elizabeth was nothing but a fraud, her intuition urged her to check the woman out. On the recommendations of friends, Mimi had visited various psychics in the Charleston area several times before. In one instance, she even dragged Peter along. Though she never became an occult fanatic, she did read her horoscope everyday, and enjoyed having her tarot cards, palm, and aura read from time to time.

Much of the advice that she got from these psychics was nothing but good old-fashioned common sense, delivered with a degree of poetic imagery. Yet sometimes they hit upon personal things that were revelations, and it was in these rare moments that Mimi was a true believer.

Until Dr. Elizabeth awoke her, she had never even considered contacting one of her local psychics to learn Peter’s fate. And now that she had this opportunity practically thrown in her lap, she didn’t dare walk away from it.

With a new sense of purpose guiding her onwards, she rolled out of bed and headed straight for the shower. She then dressed herself simply in jeans and a sweater, and with a bare minimum of makeup on her face, bravely headed into the outside world.

She had long since missed morning rush hour, and the drive to Isle of Palms was completed more quickly than she had anticipated. The weather was gorgeous, with a bright blue sky that seemed to darken as she came closer to the sea.

The address that Dr. Elizabeth had given her belonged to a quaint, English-style cottage, whose backyard merged into a wide sandy beach, with the crashing Atlantic the nearest neighbor. Strangely enough, she felt completely at ease here, experiencing none of the normal anxieties that would usually be generated when meeting a stranger in this manner.

With her doubts all but forgotten, she anxiously walked up to the heavy oaken front door and knocked three times.

“Who’s there?” asked a familiar, high-pitched voice from inside the house.

“It’s Mimi Slater.”

There was the dull clicking sound of a deadbolt being unlocked and a door swung open to reveal a short, overweight, white woman in her fifties. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses, and she wore an abundance of pinkish red rouge on her cheeks, and matching lipstick that seemed to blend with the bright colors of her loose-fitting Hawaiian muumuu. On first appearance, she certainly seemed pleasant enough, though a bit of an eccentric all the same.

“Do come in, hon,” she said with a warm smile.

“My, you sure made good time getting over here. It seems like we just got off the phone.”

The house was tastefully decorated, with a predominance of white wicker furniture and plenty of green plants. There was a good deal of antique marine paraphernalia hung on the walls, and it fit in perfectly with the wonderful ocean view from the adjoining screened-in porch.

“You can credit my niece for all the furnishings,” said Dr. Elizabeth.

“I always said that she would have made a great interior decorator.”

“What does she do for a living?” questioned Mimi, who watched a large, black Persian cat emerge from the kitchen to check her out.

“She’s a magazine travel writer of all things,” answered Dr. Elizabeth.

“That one should have been born with wings instead of legs. Right now, she’s touring Asia, and won’t be back until winter.

So when she asked me to house-sit, how could I refuse?

I’ll tell ya, hon, this sure beats fightin’ the crowds on the Upper West Side.”

There was a hint of incense in the air, and Mimi could just hear the crashing surf in the distance.

“Please join me on the porch for some herb tea, hon. That’s where I feel most comfortable doing my readings.”

Mimi noted how her host pronounced the h in herb as in the man’s name, and she couldn’t help comparing her to the character of Minnie Castevets, in the movie version of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby. She vibrated a trusting innocence, that made Mimi feel as if she were visiting a long-lost aunt. With this impression in mind, she followed her to the porch, and sat down in one of two comfortable wicker rockers.

While Dr. Elizabeth went to get the tea, Mimi gazed out the room’s massive, screened-in windows. The crashing sound of the surf was a bit more noticeable here, as well as the distinctive cries of the local sea birds. There wasn’t a soul on the beach, where white sand was rippled into ridges tufted with green grass.

The cat made its presence known by gently rubbing up against Mimi’s leg. It was one of the largest Persians that she had ever seen, and as Mimi bent over to scratch its head, she saw that it had strikingly clear blue eyes, that appeared almost ethereal.

“My, now that’s certainly most unusual,” observed Dr. Elizabeth as she arrived pushing a tea cart.

“Usually Isis keeps well away from strangers.”

“So your name’s Isis,” said Mimi, while continuing to stroke the Persian’s silky fur mane.

“That sure is an unusual name.”

“Isis was a most revered Egyptian goddess,” revealed Dr. Elizabeth.

“She was the wife of Osiris, the sun god.”

Satisfied that the newly arrived human was a friend, Isis sauntered over to the screen to peer out at the circling gulls. This left Mimi’s hands free to accept a delicate bone-china cup, filled with a steaming hot, light green liquid.

“I hope you enjoy this tea, ho nit a combination of chamomile flowers, spearmint leaves, orange blossoms, and rosebuds. I blend it myself.”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Mimi, who took a sip from her cup and pleasingly nodded.

“You know, honi hated to have to call you out of the blue like I did, but I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. I’ve seen the news, and can just imagine what you’re goin’ through right now. But that’s just another reason why I had to go and bother you.”

“Please tell me about Peter, Dr. Elizabeth,” pleaded Mimi.

“Is he still alive? And if so, where is he?”

As the psychic settled down into the rocker beside her guest, she reached out and softly grasped Mimi’s hand.

“Hon, your husband contacted me from a place that he’ll never be able to return from. But I can’t really say that he’s deceased. You see, he’s been sent on a cosmic voyage, along with the rest of his crew, to a universe far from this solar system. And it was during this initial transfer that the entity contacted me and made me aware of their plight.”

“I’m afraid that I don’t understand,” replied Mimi, with her slim hopes quickly fading.

“You say Peter’s not dead, but that he’ll never be able to come back home. Then exactly where is he, and what in the world occurred to send him there?”

“My dear, your husband has been conveyed to a distant star, in the constellation Cygnus, the swan. The entity who guides me also comes from this far-off place, and it’s from his lips that I learned of the capstone’s activation.”

“Capstone?” questioned Mimi, her tea completely forgotten.

“Hon, I can tell right off that you’re no stranger to the psychic world. You’ve lived on this earth before, in many previous lives, all of which have contributed to the present high evolutionary state of your soul. In one of these reincarnations, you lived on the continent of Atlantis, so what I’m about to share with you will only be like a trip homeward.

“The great land of Atlantis once occupied a major portion of this earth, lying primarily in the area where today there lies nothing but ocean. Except for the accounts of Plato, details of the Atlantean civilization have been all but wiped from modern man’s consciousness.

And what a shame that is, because there’s so much we could learn from Atlantis and apply today.

“Their advances in the arts and sciences easily outdistanced our current level of technology. This was primarily due to the fact that the Atlanteans were energy independent, having learned to harness the very forces that energize the universe. To tap this dynamic force, they built a pyramid with a specially designed crystal capstone, known as the Tuaoi Stone. Acting as a self sustaining energy relay station, this pyramid was located in an area that’s today known as the Tongue of the Ocean, between the Bahamian island of Andros and Nassau’s New Providence Island.

“In brief, Atlantis fell apart because of a conflict between the forces of peace and those of war. This eternal struggle between good and evil reached its climax when a combination of natural and man-made disasters tore apart the Atlantean continent, with much of its landmass being sucked beneath the sea.

“This was the fate of the crystal capstone. Preprogrammed to activate when the heavens were properly aligned, the Tuaoi Stone continues to draw down the powers of the universe from its current position on the sea floor. Your husband’s warship had the misfortune of passing over the remains of the pyramid at the exact moment that it was energizing. And it was in this manner that he and his crew were tele ported to Cygnus, where they dwell in peace in the land of the Tuaoi entity.”

Dr. Elizabeth appeared emotionally drained upon finishing this strange discourse. And as she sat back in her chair, she let go of Mimi’s hand and momentarily closed her eyes. Beside her, Mimi’s tear-filled gaze centered itself on the crashing surf. With all her hopes of ever again seeing her husband alive completely dashed, she contemplated the mystifying tale that she had just heard.

Once again, she found herself torn in two. Her rational side remained totally skeptical of mystical lost continents and crystal capstones that could magically convey one to the ends of the universe. But how could she account for the psychic’s knowledge of the family gram This puzzling question, and her genuine trust and fondness for her host, overrode her inherent skepticism, and shaped the course of Mimi’s response.

“Dr. Elizabeth, is it possible for you to recontact my husband?”

The psychic’s voice seemed lacking its usual high energy edge as she answered.

“Now that he’s settled in his new home, that would be very difficult, my dear.

Our best chance for success would be to time this effort to coincide with the capstone’s next activation.”

“And when’s that?” asked Mimi as she turned away from the sea to meet her host’s warm smile.

“Hon, you really are a trouper, aren’t you? I like that kind of spirit in a person, and I sure don’t want to disappoint you. So, I’ll tell ya what we can do, to guarantee success in contacting your Dutch. As fate would have it, our next window of opportunity is less than a week away, during the upcoming autumnal equinox.

And to insure that my call to the entity gets through, I think it’s best that we go right to the source. If you don’t mind pickin’ up the tab, a little trip to the Bahamas is just what the ole doc here needs so as to insure that our efforts aren’t wasted.”