On June 8, 2008, Chapa and Stoli the Stolen, through their rapid pace of walking and the things Chapa had taught Stoli, penetrated layers of consciousness that allowed them a dimensional transition. They were still on Earth, but they had left behind the 'visible world'—which is the movie, or as Chapa calls it, 'the boundaries of the image' within which we live—and to us, who live in this 'movie', they became invisible.
I was close to the crosswalk at the Gaza-Metudela intersection, walking slower than them. They were already on the crosswalk, on the other side of which lies 'Mifgash Sigmund', nearly reaching the opposite sidewalk, when suddenly they were gone. Yet I knew they were still in the world, and I thought I might still be able to see them. Suddenly, I really wanted to see them—to tell them that I regretted my decision and did want to come with them on the journey. But I could no longer find them.
For a whole month, as Stoli the Stolen recounted after returning alone, Chapa trained him to enter a state of "disappearance," which was not actually a disappearance from their perspective. Even so, "it requires special mental preparation. You wouldn't have been able to handle it," Stoli consoled me, "because you didn't do the training—because you kept refusing to join the journey, even though several times since winter, Chapa tried to persuade you to join."
And what do you see in the other dimension when you enter it?
"The same world, just a slightly changing landscape. We are in another dimension, but not in another time—though that is possible too, but Chapa didn't teach us that."
My view was that with the machine we built years ago on Chapa's instructions, it would have been possible. Upon that idea, I built the story of the 'Alternative History', where a single malfunctioning component sent us all into "possible-time." But good luck finding the remnants of that machine now, if they still exist anywhere.
So being in another dimension still means being right here and now—the watches on our wrists keep behaving as usual, and the date is still the same date. Yet, the landscape changes and continues to gradually shift, "and it takes a little time to register it, until you realize that you've crossed dimensions."
"Did you lose sight of me, too?"
"I don't know, because we didn't turn back. In fact," Stoli adopted Chapa's phrasing, "it's possible we lost you even before you stopped seeing us."
And after another short stretch of walking, they reached the place from which spaceships launch.
המרחפים (אפילוג 2)
היום האחרון The Last Day
EpilogueEpilogue
אפילוג – ההיסטוריילטרנטיבית (הברקים)
"The place spaceships launch from" – or perhaps more accurately, "the space from which movements originate" – really looked like a massive airport at the center of a lit valley. From its four corners, four white pillars stood tall, giving the space the appearance of a sukkah whose construction had been started but never finished. To Stoli's eyes, no spaceships or other vessels were visible at all—only swift trails of light rising and descending. They apparently hitched a ride on one of these 'trails' until they reached the vicinity of a 'jump point', and then Stoli knew they were far from Earth. There, they caught another 'launch' that brought them near another 'jump station'. Between station and station, they kept walking fast – and faster still. Rest was available to them only during the launches and at the stations themselves before the jump occurred.
At all the stations and launches, there is a force that balances the weightlessness of space, so Stoli the Stolen did not feel its absence. But he sometimes felt as though he had no body – something similar to what I described in the Alternative History when writing about the first return to Earth after a very long time: that we turned into pure energy inside bolts of lightning, and only on the ground, slowly, did we materialize again…
אפילוג – ההיסטוריילטרנטיבית (הברקים)
When Chapa disappeared, Stoli understood—without anyone having to tell him—that he needed to keep up that same fast walk, not stopping to wait even at the stations, but heading straight for the jumps if he ever wished to return to Earth.
He also had to memorize the details of the stations, deeply appreciating Chapa, who throughout the journey had rehearsed them with him almost obsessively.
"It sounds like you didn't enjoy being in space very much," I said. Over the years Chapa spent promising us a voyage through space, I had imagined it all quite differently.
"True," Stoli confirmed. "Chapa said it himself—we belong to the classes that have to walk their path through space, not the ones who float."
(the Kit) "When will you take us there?"
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By the way, Stoli and Chapa's journey began on June 8th; close to midnight, they launched from the planet. Stoli returned to Earth on the morning of October 16th (it was during the intermediate days of Sukkot; that same morning, I discovered coffee had spilled on my cell phone and I had to replace it, and all my text messages were erased. During those hours, according to him, Stoli tried dozens of times to call me from the Taba border crossing where he was held up. Only the next day did Shefa contact me and tell me that Stoli had returned, alone). If the departure time and the return time are equal in duration, Chapa's disappearance in the 'cosmic now' falls around August 13th.
