Boulder reached out to enlarge the picture flowing above the converter. “Meat!” He pointed to the two drumsticks on the plate that lay neatly next to a baked potato and some salad.
“Shh,” I said and kept my full attention on the film.
“So you see, Mom?” Nicole’s face came back into view. “I won’t starve, in case you’re worried about that, and I know you are because you worry about everything. Remember I love you and I’ll shoot some more video from my room later.” She blew a kiss. “Bye, Mom.”
Boulder crossed his arms while I eagerly brought up the next video. It showed Nicole in her room, and she introduced her roommate, a shy-looking young woman with lots of black make-up and blue hair.
“Wow, you think that was the fashion back then?” Boulder asked me. “The blue hair, I mean.”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see any other people with blue hair in the dining hall.”
There were other short videos of Nicole showing her mom around the campus, and every one of those videos was a treasure to me. Then there was a music video with something that made me blink from the heavy use of the bass.
“This is great!” Boulder grinned and rocked his foot to the rhythm. “The girl has good taste in music.”
“She’s not a girl, but clearly a young woman,” I corrected him, “and I don’t think that awful music has any positive vibrations.” I reached out to stop the music but Boulder wouldn’t let me.
“I wanna hear it.”
After three minutes suffering through the rock music I moved on to the next video.
“Hey, Mom, I hope you’re doing better and that the doctors will let you come home soon. I miss you so much and can’t wait to see you in a few weeks, but here’s a treat for you. It’s my favorite poem by Hera Bosley, and I hope it will speak to you as it does to me. It’s called ‘The Army of the Chosen Ones.’”
The video changed to a new setting. This time a pretty woman with long brown hair sat in a living room with a candle burning behind her. When she began speaking it sounded melodic but it wasn’t singing. It was spoken poetry and I leaned closer, taking in every word.
Grateful, but in the same breath, inadequate.
How could I ever possibly live up to the task at hand?
You see, my soul is not ascending.
My soul has descended to come here and live out this life.
Old soul is not an adequate description of me.
No, I am ancient.
I am beyond time and space.
I am beyond words and black and white definitions.
I am ethereal and I am light.
I am sound and I am vibration.
I am you and you are me.
We are the chosen ones.
We have been called here to transmute and transform.
What an honor,
Oh, but, what a fucking mess.
There are days where it would be easier to go back to higher dimensions from whence I came.
No, I cry, this is too hard. This is beyond repair. This hurts too much.
