Soul:
Tell me how you met Heather.
Brain:
You surely already know.
Soul:
But let me hear how you describe it.
Brain:
Okay. Well, it was September of 1996
and we had both just moved to Dallas, Texas to work for Delta Airlines in their
reservations department. We were in the same training class.
Soul:
Uh huh. Why did you both decide that
moving to Dallas to work for an airline was the right move?
Brain:
For me, I loved the aviation industry
and was already working part-time for Delta in Little Rock, Arkansas in baggage.
Everything was going along just fine, so I can’t explain why I, out of the
blue, decided to move to Dallas and interview for a reservations position. It
was as if a light went off in my mind, directing me toward Dallas. I had never
considered working for any other part of Delta prior to that. It was supposed
to be a temp gig while I figured out my real life since I had recently burned
out on college. To make a long story short, I called the offices in Dallas,
flew down on my day off, and filled out an application.
Soul:
Just like that? Sounds easy enough.
And then you were hired?
Brain:
Not exactly. During the application
process I was required to take a typing test to see if I qualified for the
position since making reservations took place on a device that was completely
foreign to me in 1996.
Soul:
What?
Brain:
A computer. I typed 11 words a
minute, including the mistakes and thought for sure I was not going to get
hired. I typed like I had no fingers at all. However, the guy hired me for the
next training class anyway.
Soul:
It was almost as if you already had
the job before you even interviewed or took the typing test.
Brain:
Either that or the Delta recruiter
had started drinking early in the morning.
Soul:
Why was there a typing test?
Brain:
Because the entire industry was just
moving away from written tickets to computer based tickets and I was getting in
on the ground floor of the new computerized airline age.
Soul:
What about Heather?
Brain:
For Heather we have to go back five
months to April of 1996. She was still in Portland Oregon working at a bakery
that she loved. She was doing well there, but all of a sudden, her boss sat her
down one Friday and said, “We’re letting you go.”
Soul:
Out of the blue?
Brain:
Yeah. Her boss said she didn’t feel
Heather was fulfilling her potential and simply told her to go home.
Soul:
But the airline business was her
potential?
Brain:
Now you sound like me.
Soul:
I am you; but go on.
Brain:
The airline job was going to lead to
something much better – but we didn’t know it at the time.
Soul:
That sounds like something I would
say. Continue.
Brain:
Heather went back to her apartment,
very upset and not totally understanding why her boss, whom she loved, would
fire her. Heather later told me that her boss was quite sincere about the whole
thing and honestly felt that Heather was wasting her time at the bakery. Heather
was only 18 at the time and hadn’t put much thought into her future.
Soul:
That’s typical of teenagers. What
happened at her apartment?
Brain:
Heather walked in, turned on the television,
went to pee, and started crying because she had no idea what she was going to
do. However, as she was urinating, she heard something that piqued her
interest.
Soul:
What?
Brain:
A commercial playing from the
television in the other room – a commercial she had seen running in the
background a million times but never gave much attention.
Soul:
What was it?
Brain:
A commercial about an airline school;
one where they teach people how to work in the airline industry. They teach
students how to ticket planes, railways, and hotels.
Soul:
You know what I’m thinking…
Brain:
No doubt the same thing I was when I
heard about it. No one needs to go to school to learn how to work in the
airline industry. When an airline hires someone, the airline puts the new hire
through their own training class; but Heather didn’t know that beforehand. None
of the students did.
But here’s the thing. As one of the
perks for paying for the school, they help students find jobs in aviation by inviting
airline recruiters to the school to interview newly graduated students.
Soul:
Sure…
Brain:
Are You losing interest?
Soul:
I’m just waiting for the good part.
Brain:
Let me know when you hear it. Anyway,
Heather was suddenly inspired so she got off the toilet, dried her tears, and
went down to the school before they closed for the day. When she arrived they told
her that the next classes start on Monday. They also told her the tuition was
five thousand dollars for five months of education. To say the least, Heather
did not have five thousand dollars for the school and figured she had just
wasted her time.
Heather:
I don’t have the money.
Recruiter:
That’s okay. You can apply for financial aid. But because it’s Friday,
you will have to wait three months for the next class since the paperwork won’t
go through before Monday.
Soul:
What a bummer. But if she had to wait
for the next class, how would you two have made it into the same Delta Airlines
training class?
Brain:
Heather applied for the financial aid
and the recruiter said, “We might as well give you the grand tour.” So they
walked around for fifteen minutes, meeting teachers and hearing the sales pitch
on why Heather should attend in three months.
By the time the tour was over and they
had made it back around to the front offices, her financial aid package had already
been approved.
Soul:
In only fifteen minutes?
Brain:
Yes.
Recruiter:
Heather. It looks as though your financial aid loan has been approved.
Heather:
Really?
Recruiter:
I know. We have never had one get approved that fast – ever. It looks
like you can start on Monday if you like.
Brain:
Needless to say, five months later,
when Heather finished the classes and knew all there was to know about
ticketing planes, trains and hotels, she was allowed to interview with the airline
recruiters that were arriving.
Soul:
Whew! Never before in the history of
the school had a loan package been approved so fast. Amazing. And then she got
hired with Delta?
Brain:
Right. But this one was unique.
Soul:
Why?
Brain:
Because, not only had Delta never
previously agreed to come to the school to recruit students, they have never since
been back. It was a one-time deal that Heather would have missed had she not
made it into that particular class on that Monday five months prior. It was
like it was meant to be.
Soul:
Like somehow the Universe turned its
wheels just so Heather could get fired from the bakery out of the blue, hear the commercial, go to the school, get the impossible
last minute funding that had never happened before, graduate and get hired by
an airline that came to the school only once in the history of the world, flew
her to Dallas for training and met you…
Brain:
Exactly. They hired a total of five
students out of three hundred; but it was as if they were only there for
Heather.
Soul:
Now we’re getting to the good part.
Brain:
It gets even more interesting.
Soul:
Then it was love at first sight?
Brain:
Hardly…
We didn’t even notice each other. Out
of sixty new-hires in the Delta training class, she wasn’t even on my radar.
She sat on the very last row of the class with the ones who thought they were
cool, and I sat on the very first row where all the geeks were. She made
friends with a completely different group of people than I did.
Soul:
Huh. Consciousness orchestrated all
those events to get you two in the same building and you didn’t even know the
other existed.
Brain:
Right – but as you may say –
Consciousness wasn’t done with us yet.
Soul:
Interesting. Do tell.
Brain:
About two weeks into the class, we
all began working on Delta’s new reservation computer system. We each had a computer
at our desk and I was nervous about putting my eleven word-per-minute skills to
work.
Soul:
(Laughing)
Brain:
We were about half way through the
second or third day of using the new computer system when Heather’s computer
mysteriously stopped working.
Soul:
Hmm…
Brain:
Yeah. Out of sixty students, it was
hers that went out and was unrecoverable, as it turned out.
Soul:
That is mysterious. Go on.
Brain:
Even stranger was the fact that she
had fifteen other people on that back row with her that she could have paired
up with to share computers. But instead, the instructor moved her all the way
to the front of the class and paired her with me.
Soul:
Even more mysterious. I bet you
noticed Heather then.
Brain:
Actually, the first words out of my
mouth were, “Don’t break my computer.” That set the tone – she was immediately
annoyed with me but I thought I was being funny.
Soul:
Wow. You must be a relationship
genius.
Brain:
Ha ha. Why do you say that?
Soul:
Because you have no savvy, suave
tact; yet, she still ended up with you.
Brain:
Well, that just shows how something
much more brilliant than I was at play.
Soul:
Ooh, more interesting stuff. Go on.
Brain:
We spent a couple of days sitting
together working on the computer, but nothing in particular happened. No fun
conversation, no immediate attraction, no flirting. Nothing. I was too focused
on the class.
But one morning on the elevator as I
was getting off and she was getting on, the strangest thing happened. I noticed
her.
Soul:
Yes? Why did you notice her then?
Brain:
Because I suddenly remembered
something crazy and I told her as she passed me to get on the elevator to go
get her morning coffee.
Soul:
What did you say?
Brain:
I was very cool about it. But just as
the elevator doors were about to close, I turned and said, “I had a dream about
you last night.”
Soul:
Oh I’ve heard some crummy pick-up
lines but that was cheesy.
Brain:
Maybe – but it wasn’t a pick-up line.
I really did have a dream of her; I just hadn’t remembered it until I saw her
that morning.
Soul:
What kind of dream was it?
Brain:
It was a dream of light.
Soul:
Indeed. Continue.
Brain:
In the dream, I walked into a room.
The room was made completely of a soft, white light. This may seem weird to
explain, but I will do my best.
I could not see the corners, the
ceiling or the floor distinctly, but knew it was a room. It was an
understanding that I just knew. In
the middle of the room was a spiral staircase that extended upwards, beyond
where I could see; but only because I never looked up to see where it went.
Soul:
Why not?
Brain:
Because I was too captivated by whom
I saw sitting on the staircase.
Soul:
Heather.
Brain:
Heather.
Although I could not tell where the
floor of light met the walls of light, I could tell there was a floor somehow.
The stairs sort of hazed into light and melded into the floor. Heather was sitting
about midway up the stairs just before the first spiral turn; she was smiling
and leaning forward on her elbows just slightly, having never spoken a word.
Soul:
Go on…
Brain:
This next part is the most
interesting part, I think.
Soul:
Intriguing.
Brain:
Now I say I saw Heather sitting on a
stair case, but the actual look of her was somewhat different.
Soul:
How so?
Brain:
She had no face.
Soul:
No face?
Brain:
And no body.
Soul:
Indeed. Continue.
Brain:
She had no Earthly type bodily
features; yet, I was aware of who this being
was. Heather was also made of light. Her smiling face, her hair that fell
forward over her face; her legs and the way her posture looked when she sat. It
was all her, but it was all light. I know this may sound strange.
Soul:
To me? Never. Go on.
Now here’s the thing - although she
was only light, she was still everything. That is, I barely knew Heather in the
physical sense, but I still recognized all of her subtleties and nuances as if
I had known her forever. I simply knew all of who she was, even before I knew
who she was. Does that make sense?
Soul:
Absolutely. Tell me more.
Brain:
Her hair was light, but I understood
it to be blonde strands that could move like hair. Her face was a soft, white
light; no smile wrinkles, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, or expressions; yet, I
could see her smile wrinkles, her
eyes, her nose, her mouth and her expression of absolute happiness as she sat
there smiling at me.
Every part of her was light, but I
could still understand that she had dimensions. I was even aware that she was
wearing one of her favorite outfits, even though, looking back I remember
seeing only light. I understood what she was wearing and could see that in my
mind.
Let me try to say it this way: she
was one light, but she had many parts that I fully understood as separate items
and characteristics.
Soul:
It seems your awareness in this dream
state flowed effortlessly through the subconscious. However, I can see the
difficulty you are having trying to re-create the understanding through the
cognitive mind. That is because you are trying to use the rules and vocabulary
of your physical training to express the multiple aspects of Consciousness you
experienced at once. Try to say it without thinking about it.
Brain:
Easy for you to say. All I do is
think – I am a brain. But here goes.
When I met Heather, she was a whisp
of light that emanated all she ever was and all she will ever be all at once.
Soul:
Perfect.
Brain:
Reflecting on it now, I can see that
Consciousness must have been thinking, “This guy is a thick as a brick. I
better send him a dream he won’t soon forget.”
Soul:
I think you’re on to something, my
friend.
Brain:
Only I did forget about the dream
until I saw her the next day. Then it all came rushing back out of the blue.
But one thing is for sure; I haven’t forgotten about it since. I remember it
like it was five minutes ago.
Soul:
And perhaps you are just clever
enough by now to realize that nothing happens simply out of the blue.
Brain:
I’m beginning to catch on to that.
