The Unexpected Occurrence of Thaddeus Hobble Read Online Free PDF Page A

be more specific?’
    â€˜Does The Space not show you?’
    â€˜I see what I wish to see – not what I do not.’
    â€˜Then you must keep it that way – no being would want to see what I have seen. There is untold darkness to come for the human race. A mere two hundred years from now, for example, millions will die by one man.’
    â€˜How can one man kill millions all by himself?’
    â€˜By controlling and influencing others. The Space even gives me a name – he will be called Hitler. I have made notes, I will make it my goal to stop him before he starts with his wickedness.’ Peter tapped the pocket where he’d just placed his trusty notebook.
    The pair looked up at the house before them – vast, endless in height and so very cold. The wind blew strong, slapping them with a severe, albeit brief, chill. Pale stones bled lazily into each other to make the walls, as rusty brown bars hid the windows. The men held their nerve as images flashed through their minds, images of a blood-stained corpse lying strewn in the woody grounds behind the building. The Space was showing them – when they stretched their minds in that direction, of course. Peter took hold of the brass knocker on the door and thrashed it three times. Soon it opened, a young woman stepping aside to let the men enter. Her deep brown eyes kept their gaze away from the new presence in her hall as she fumbled to keep her long dark hair under control in the rushing wind. She slammed the door shut and shot away before having a single word uttered to her. Peter and Stephen glanced at each other, before their sight fell once again on the mystery beauty exiting the room.
    â€˜She is a fine looking woman,’ Stephen uttered.
    â€˜I didn’t like her dress, it was a sickly green,’ Peter replied.
    â€˜You don’t need to like her dress… tis what lies
under
the dress that should interest you.’
    â€˜I cannot see what is under the dress.’
    â€˜Stretch your mind, my friend,’ Stephen trilled, ‘The Space allows many pleasures.’ He winked at his cohort, who immediately felt uneasy. The Great Collective? They were surely destined to greater things than these kinds of seedy actions. Stephen could see Peter was displeased. ‘You are a stranger with the women, Peter – you never allow yourself the base joys of the human body.’
    â€˜Perhaps I am saving myself for the right woman, or perhaps I cannot allow myself to grow close to a woman because I know I will die at thirty-six.’
    Stephen laughed. ‘That does not halt your ability to enjoy dalliances here and there. I, too, am like you in many ways but…’ he trailed off, looking away at images etched into his mind from prior lives.
    â€˜Go on,’ Peter encouraged, half-knowing what was coming.
    â€˜There is a woman, one woman, who keeps me from committing in the here and now. She comes to me, right at the end, just standing to deliver me to the next world. But no, I never get there – I am reborn and come back to life as Stephen Noble again in this world. She is a vision of perfection in all her intense golden hue. And, I know who she is.’
    Peter, with some trepidation, asked: ‘Who?’
    â€˜She is the
one
, the woman of my existence who waits for me in my final life. We shall be together at the end.’
    â€˜I see,’ Peter whispered, turning from his friend. He thrust all his energy into sealing his mind right now, forcing a shell around himself as Stephen stood deep in thought. He wanted – had to – block any way of his mind being revealed to Stephen, because he too saw the same woman and
knew
that she would be with
him
and not Stephen in his final life. ‘How do you know we will have a final life?’ Peter eventually asked him.
    â€˜Even endlessness must cease in the end, surely?’
    It seemed like there was a gust of wind carrying Thaddeus Hobble