Outlands Community USA

ROY: As long as we keep it interesting, I'm down with that. Good to have you home, by the way.

LLAM: Thank you! Shouldn't that be "btw?"

ROY: Oh my goodness, yes! This will be on the Internet! I fergot!

LLAM: Looks like Lily is off to a flying start. She ran right past us in the boot camp thing. It took us four years and here it is, what, a month? And she's in full gear! I love it!

ROY: Well, you told us that we were the first of our kind, and don't forget - you had me to deal with as far as making progress.

LLAM: (rolls his eyes) Yes, we did, didn't we! But I'm terribly glad that she has done so much in so short a space! Did you see that "thank you" she left for us at Deviant Art? It made me want to cry for joy.

ROY: Same here. How many groups are there now?

LLAM: Well, there's Angel Cove - and she was "here" long before Outlands; Black Sinobi; the lady in Florida; Jackie still has a few entities around her; Anwarii has her group; Lily down in Texas; and although he hasn't said anything - yet - Swaroop has a group - but he's trying to figure out what's going on. Lastly there is Joey up in Canada. Nine.

ROY: I count the same way, Llam.

LLAM: Well, for all I know, you might use different number systems if it took your fancy!

ROY: (laughs) This is true! I suppose that Irlene and the dolphins ought to count as another group. Which is the perfect segue into the second item on our list. You tell 'em.

LLAM: Very well. For those of you who follow the Community's goings on closely, one of the original Dolphin girls, Eva Carr, is moving to the mid-North Atlantic in the Sargasso Sea. Eri will be with her as her guiding deva. others will be joining her, Brynna said she would like to take part in that. Although they will maintain contact with the dolphins and whales, they are there to scope out the place, there is a lot going on in the area which needs our attention. The sea floor is undergoing significant changes and some of the fish and crustaceans have undergone minor but significant evolutionary changes for the better. So we should be getting some news from them over the next while.

ROY: Cool! Now, I must get on you about something you said the other day. You pretty much implied that Iwas going to live a long time. You never tell us anything like that, so what's up with that?

LLAM: Well, just to make it interesting, what did that man you helped out say to you? "you're going to live a long time." You will. Partly it's in your genetic make-up, you come from long lived stock. But there's something else. Your genetic make-up also includes a peculiar sequence which makes it really hard to kill you. Grigori Rasputin had the same gene.

ROY: Oh, that's good news....me an' Rasputin. (rolls his eyes)

LLAM: You could have gone his route but you didn't. If you think about it, there are a lot of parallels btween you both.

ROY: Like WHAT!?, fer chrissakes?

LLAM: You both are known for a lifelong interest in spiritual matters, You both have very unorthodox views about sexuality - he viewed sexual intimacy as a form of communion with god, something which you hung onto until a couple of years ago. You both are known for being able to get the attention of some very important people. And it is just plain hard to kill someone with that gene. How many times should you have died?

ROY: At least five. I did die twice. So did a number of people in the Community, like eleven. Okay, you made your point - but I will not be enticing the Bushes into bed with me any time soon, the way he did with the Tsar and Tsarina.

LLAM: Also, you both have some healing ability.

ROY: Llam, you keep talking about him in present-tense. He's DEAD.

LLAM: He reincarnated. He knows who he was.

ROY: It's not Dave Chappelle, is it?

LLAM: No. But he's living in Toronto.

ROY: And you're not telling me anything more either, right?

LLAM: Right, simply because I don't know any more. Oh, he's like thirteen.

ROY: Alright. (pauses) This thing about me living for a long time, it's weird how the whole topic came about, at least from my end. You recall about four days ago that I had said that I don't mind getting old, I don't have a problem with dying, but I do not want ot be decrepit or an invalid for twenty or thirty years.

LLAM: If you do become less limited in your physical abilities, I mean because of your arthritis and emphysema, you'll still be quite active. And what you're talking about is different from what other older mortal humans live with. They don't want to die so they opt for staying alive hooked up to all kinds of equipment, and taking all kinds of medication. They are afraid that they're going to hell.

ROY: Okay, yeh, I'm not afraid of that crap anymore. You know about that dream that I had.

LLAM: Where the world was so, that no matter what anyone did, they were going to hell when they died? Pretty vivid.

ROY: That's the way I actually see Western culture. People would like to believe in a good and loving god, that they will "go to heaven," but they all have this unrealistic certainty that they're damned. There are so many, too many people who, deep down, believe that. It colors the whole world in an awful way. So they will do anything to stay alive. Anything. Me, I wanna let go, but I made my promises to be here, so it's immaterial.

LLAM: You're overlooking one pertinent fact about yourself, my friend. You are possibly the most cunning and inventive mortal human I've ever met.

ROY: (face brightens) Really!? Llam!

LLAM: You would find a way to be mobile and doing your thing if you had no arms or legs and were deaf and blind. And you'd cackle with glee the whole

time!

ROY: (looking smug) Yes, I would, wouldn't I? But it really doesn't matter in the long run, I'll live quite well as far as possible, I mean, no matter how decrepit I get - but I still don't cotton to the idea. I mean to move as far away from Judeo-Christian concepts as I can. I don't know that it's possible to be free altogether, but if I someday am not recognized as having to do with the whole tradition that would be fine.

LLAM: What about those Christians who seek to "save" you?

ROY: Look, pal, I'm not the one that doesn't need saving at this point, it's THEM. They need to be saved from the most hideous idea we have going on the planet.

LLAM: That's pretty rough!

ROY: Llam! We get told that "God is love." What a beautiful idea! Then it comes about that because we sin we are separate from God. So there's no way out except to "accept Jesus as my savior." Which sounds pretty easy: you confess that you're a sinner, you ask him for forgivenss and into your life and you're all quits with the past. Only, like Soviet Communism, it doesn't work because it can't work. And it's not "love" that underlies the whole thing, it's FEAR. Believe it or go straight to hell. Somewhere we lost the idea of a God of love. Perversity, the devil - their devil - couldn't have come up with anything better than this!

LLAM: From my vantage of eternity there is no accounting for evil if you believe in a good god.

ROY: Llam, you're exposing yourself here......

LLAM: I know it, and it's deliberate. (brow wrinkles and nostrils flare) You poor bastards have suffered enough! It is in your biological make-up to fear, to get angry and to act on these things. If it weren't an amoeba would have gotten the whole lot of you when you were still single-cell creatures. Get a frigging cigarette and keep typing!

ROY: Uhh, yessir.

LLAM: I think that it's time that we devas took a stand with you mortal and immortal humans. We don't endure fear or illness, we have nothing which preys upon us, I mean there are no predators looking to have one of us for lunch. As far as I can tell we are eternal, I have no remembrance of being born, of being young and growing up, I have always been - at least that is how it seems. Maybe there was a time when I was not but I have no knowledge of it. Now although you are immortal you have to go through multitudinous changes before you arrive at a stable existence that even comes close to ours. Look at Seima: one of the first humans, millions of years old, a deva of another class but one with an origin. Someday that'll be you - but someday when, unless the universe speeds up the evolution of everyone alive today, you've a bit of a wait. So it is time that we took part in your lives as our brothers and sisters, and to stop playing our aloof and eternal selves. Get this part, none of us will be "fighting your battles for you," that's still your preserve, but the rest of humanity is going to become much more aware of us in the next few years. We want to force the hands of fear that are strangling your world. It's one thing to sit here in the unobstructed and watch the generations go flying by like the seconds ticking away on one of those damned clocks of yours. That's ended today. We will be standing by you.

ROY: (silence)

LLAM: Weren't ready for that, were you? (laughs)

ROY: .......no.

LLAM: Good! But think about it. You became aware of Seima seventeen years ago and it took you that long to get here. Lily has been aware of hers for a month, Joey for a few days and they're right up here with us.

ROY: But that was part of the plan all along, right?

LLAM: Absolutely correct, my friend! The domino effect is happening as we speak. Here's a little scenario for you: the controlling forces of the world attempt to interfere with one or another of you. Only, you have insights gained from the unobstructed, your levels of fear are going down and you're not going to be hurt by them. Or stopped or much troubled. And you have us to guide you.

ROY: I guess that explains the intuition I've had as of late, that we are becoming invisible to the world.

LLAM: More like, not noticed. "Where are those Outlanders?" Right under your noses! And they go looking for what they will not see because you cannot exist - science says so! The church says so! Psychology says so! And here you all are, Outlanding away and laughing about it!

ROY: That is inspiring. Wow.

LLAM: So let us close and get this posted! (laughing uproariously)