Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah Read online

  Preface

  It was a question I heard more than once, after Jonathan Seagull was published. "what are you going to write next, Richard? After Jonathan, what?"

  I answered then that I didn't have to write anything next, not a word, and that all my books together said everything that I had asked them to say. Having starved for a while, the car repossessed and that sort of thing, it was sort of fun not to have to work to midnights.

  Still, every summer or so I took my antique biplane out in the green-meadow seas of midwest America, flew passengers for three-dollar rides and began to feel an old tension again - there was something left to say, and I hadn't said it.

  I do not enjoy writing at all. If I can turn my back on an idea, out there in the dark, if I can avoid opening the door to it, I won't even reach for a pencil.

  But once in a while there's a great dynamite-burst of flying glass and brick and splinters through the front wall and someone stalks over the rubble, seizes me by the throat and gently says, "I will not let you go until you set me in words, on paper." That's how I met Illusions.

  There in the Midwest, even, I'd lie on my back practicing cloud-vaporizing, and I couldn't get the story out of my mind...what if somebody came along who was really good at this, who could teach me how my world works and how to control it? What if I could meet a super-advanced...what if a Siddhartha or a Jesus came into our time, with the power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them? And what if i could meet this person, if he were flying a biplane and landed in the same meadow with me? What would he say, what would he be like?

  Maybe he wouldn't be like the messiah on the oil-streaked grass-stained pages of my journal, maybe he wouldn't say anything this book says. But then again, the things this one told me: that we magnetize into our lives whatever we hold in our thought, for instance - if that is true, then somehow I have brought myself to this moment for a reason, and so have you. perhaps it is no coincidence that your holding this book; perhaps there's something about these adventures that you came here to remember. I choose to think so. And I choose to think my messiah is perched out there on some other dimension, not fiction at all, watching us both, and laughing for the fun of it happening just the way we've planned it to be.

  Richard Bach

  1

  1. There was a master come unto the earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne.

  2. The master learned of this world in the public schools of Indiana, and as he grew in his trade as a mechanic of automobiles.

  3. But the master had learnings from other lands and other schools, from other lives that he had lived. He remembered these, and remembering became wise and strong, so that others saw his strength and came to him for council.

  4. The master believed that he had the power to help himself and all of mankind. And as he believed so it was for him, so that others saw his power and came to him to be healed of their many troubles and their many diseased.

  5. The master believed that it is well for any man to think upon himself as a son of God, and as he believed, so it was. And the shops and garages where he worked became crowded and jammed with those who sought his learning and his touch; and the streets outside with those who longed only that the shadow of his passing might fall upon them and change their lives.

  6. IT CAME TO PASS, BECAUSE OF THE CROWDS, THAT THE SEVERAL FOREMEN AND SHOP MANAGERS BID THE MASTER LEAVE HIS TOOLS AND GO HIS WAY, FOR SO TIGHTLY WAS HE THRONGED THAT NEITHER HE NOR OTHER MECHANICS HAD ROOM TO WORK UPON THE AUTOMOBILES.

  7. SO IT WAS THAT HE WENT INTO THE COUNTRYSIDE, AND PEOPLE FOLLOWING BEGAN TO CALL HIM MESSIAH, AND WORKER OF MIRACLES; AND AS THEY BELIEVED, SO IT WAS.

  8. IF A STORM PASSED AS HE SPOKE, NOT A RAINDROP TOUCHED A LISTENERS HEAD; THE LAST OF THE MULTITUDE HEARD HIS WORDS AS CLEARLY AS THE FIRST, NO MATTER LIGHTNING NOR THUNDER IN THE SKY ABOUT. AND ALWAYS HE SPOKE TO THEM IN PARABLES.

  9. AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, "WITHIN EACH OF US LIES THE POWER OF OUR CONSENT TO HEALTH AND TO SICKNESS, TO RICHES AND TO POVERTY, TO FREEDOM AND TO SLAVERY. IT IS WE WHO CONTROL THESE, AND NOT ANOTHER.

  10. A MILL-MAN SPOKE AND SAID "EASY WORDS FOR YOU MASTER, FOR YOU ARE GUIDED AS WE ARE NOT, AND NEED NOT TOIL AS WE TOIL. A MAN HAS TO WORK FOR A LIVING IN THIS WORLD."

  11. THE MASTER ANSWERED AND SAID, "ONCE THERE LIVED A VILLAGE OF CREATURES ALONG THE BOTTOM OF A GREAT CRYSTAL RIVER.

  12. "THE CURRENT OF THE RIVER SWEPT SILENTLY OVER THEM ALL-YOUNG AND OLD, RICH AND POOR, GOOD AND EVIL, THE CURRENT GOING ITS OWN WAY, KNOWING ONLY ITS OWN CRYSTAL SELF.

  13. "EACH CREATURE IN ITS OWN WAY CLUNG TIGHTLY TO THE TWIGS AND ROCKS OF THE RIVER BOTTOM, FOR CLINGING WAS THEIR WAY OF LIFE, AND RESISTING THE CURRENT WHAT EACH HAD LEARNED FROM BIRTH.

  14. "BUT ONE CREATURE SAID AT LAST, 'I AM TIRED OF CLINGING. THOUGH I CANNOT SEE IT WITH MY OWN EYES, I TRUST THAT THE CURRENT KNOWS WHERE IT IS GOING. I SHALL LET GO, AND LET IT TAKE ME WHERE IT WILL. CLINGING, I SHALL DIE OF BOREDOM.'

  15. "THE OTHER CREATURES LAUGHED AND SAID, 'FOOL! LET GO, AND THAT CURRENT YOU WORSHIP WILL THROW YOU TUMBLED AND SMASHED ACROSS THE ROCKS, AND YOU WILL DIE QUICKER THAN BOREDOM!'

  16. "BUT THE ONE HEEDED THEM NOT, AND TAKING A BREATH DID LET GO, AND AT ONCE WAS TUMBLED AND SMASHED BY THE CURRENT ACROSS THE ROCKS.

  17. "YET IN TIME, AS THE CREATURE REFUSED TO CLING AGAIN, THE CURRENT LIFTED HIM FREE FROM THE BOTTOM, AND HE WAS BRUISED AND HURT NO MORE.

  18. "AND THE CREATURES DOWNSTREAM, TO WHOM HE WAS A STRANGER,

  CRIED, 'SEE A MIRACLE! A CREATURE LIKE OURSELVES, YET HE FLIES! SEE THE MESSIAH COME TO SAVE US ALL.

  19. "AND THE ONE CARRIED IN THE CURRENT SAID, 'I AM NO MORE MESSIAH THAN YOU. THE RIVER DELIGHTS TO LIFT US FREE, IF ONLY WE DARE TO LET GO. OUR TRUE WORK IS THIS VOYAGE, THIS ADVENTURE.'

  20. "BUT THEY CRIED THE MORE, 'SAVIOR!' ALL THE WHILE CLINGING TO THE ROCKS, AND WHEN THEY LOOKED AGAIN HE WAS GONE, AND THEY WERE LEFT ALONE MAKING LEGENDS OF A SAVIOR."

  21. AND IT CAME TO PASS WHEN HE SAW THAT THE MULTITUDE THRONGED HIM THE MORE DAY ON DAY, TIGHTER AND CLOSER AND FIERCER THAN EVER THEY HAD, WHEN HE SAW THAT THEY PRESSED HIM TO HEAL THEM WITHOUT REST, AND FEED THEM ALWAYS WITH HIS MIRACLES, TO LEARN FOR THEM AND TO LIVE THEIR LIVES, HE WENT ALONE THAT DAY UNTO A HILLTOP APART, AND THERE HE PRAYED.

  22. AND HE SAID IN HIS HEART, INFINITE RADIANT IS, IF IT BE THEY WILL, LET THIS CUP PASS FROM ME, LET ME LAY ASIDE THIS IMPOSSIBLE TASK. I CANNOT LIVE THE LIFE OF ONE OTHER SOUL, YET TEN THOUSAND CRY TO ME FOR LIFE. I'M SORRY I ALLOWED IT ALL TO HAPPEN. IF IT BE THY WILL, LET ME GO BACK TO MY ENGINES AND MY TOOLS AND LET ME LIVE AS OTHER MEN.

  23. A VOICE SPOKE TO HIM ON THE HILLTOP, A VOICE NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE, LOUD NOR SOFT, A VOICE INFINITELY KIND. AND THE VOICE SAID UNTO HIM, "NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE. FOR WHAT IS THY WILL IS MINE FOR THEE. GO THY WAY AS OTHER MEN, AND BE THOU HAPPY ON THE EARTH."

  24. AND HEARING, THE MASTER WAS GLAD, AND GAVE THANKS AND CAME DOWN FROM THE HILLTOP HUMMING A LITTLE MECHANIC'S SONG. AND WHEN THE THRONG PRESSED HIM WITH ITS WOES, BESEECHING HIM TO HEAL FOR IT AND LEARN FOR IT AND FEED IT NONSTOP FROM HIS UNDERSTANDING AND TO ENTERTAIN IT WITH HIS WONDERS, HE SMILED UPON THE MULTITUDE AND SAID PLEASANTLY UNTO THEM "I QUIT."

  25. FOR A MOMENT THE MULTITUDE WAS STRICKEN DUMB WITH ASTONISHMENT.

  26. AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, "IF A MAN TOLD GOD THAT HE MOST WANTED TO HELP THE SUFFERING WORLD, NO MATTER THE PRICE TO HIMSELF, AND GOD TOLD HIM WHAT HE SHOULD DO, SHOULD THE MAN DO AS HE IS TOLD?"

  27. "OF COURSE, MASTER!" CRIED THE MANY. "IT SHOULD BE PLEASURE FOR HIM TO SUFFER THE TORTURES OF HELL ITSELF, SHOULD GOD ASK IT!"
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  28. "NO MATTER WHAT THE TORTURES, NOR HOW DIFFICULT THE TASK?"

  29. "HONOR TO BE NAILED TO A TREE AND BURNED, IF SO BE THAT GOD HAS ASKED," SAID THEY.

  30. " AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO," THE MASTER SAID UNTO THE MULTITUDE, "IF GOD SPOKE DIRECTLY TO YOUR FACE AND SAID, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' WHAT WOULD YOU DO THEN?"

  31. AND THE MULTITUDE WAS SILENT, NOT A VOICE, NOT A SOUND WAS HEARD UPON THE HILLSIDES, ACROSS THE VALLEYS WHERE THEY STOOD.

  32. AND THE MASTER SAID UNTO THE SILENCE, "IN THE PATH OF OUR HAPPINESS SHALL WE FIND THE LEARNING FOR WHICH WE HAVE CHOSEN THIS LIFETIME. SO IT IS THAT I HAVE LEARNED THIS DAY, AND CHOOSE TO LEAVE YOU NOW TO WALK YOUR OWN PATH, AS YOU PLEASE."

  33. AND HE WENT HIS WAY THROUGH THE CROWDS AND LEFT THEM, AND HE RETURNED TO THE WORLD OF MEN AND MACHINES.

  2

  It was toward the middle of the summer that I met Donald Shimoda. In four years' flying, I had never found another pilot in the line of work I do: flying with the wind from town to town, selling rides in an old biplane, three dollars for ten minutes in the air. But one day just north of Ferris, Illinois, I looked down from the cockpit of my fleet and there was an old Travel Air 4000, gold and white, landed pretty as you please in the lemon-emerald hay.

  Mine's a free life, but it does get lonely, sometimes. I saw the biplane there, thought about it for a few seconds, and decided it would be no harm to drop in. Throttle back to idle, a full-rudder slip,

  and the Fleet and I fell sideways toward the ground. Wind in the flying wires, that gentle good sound, the slow pok-pok of the old engine loafing its propeller around. Goggles up to better watch the landing. Cornstalks a green-leaf jungle swishing close below, flicker of a fence and then just-cut hay as far as I could see. Stick and rudder out of the slip, a nice little round-out above the land, hay brushing the tires, then the familiar calm crashing rattle of hard ground under-wheel, slowing, slowing and now a quick burst of noise and power to taxi beside the other plane and stop. throttle back, switch off, the soft clack-clack of the propeller spinning down to stop in the total quiet of July.

  The pilot of the Travel Air sat in the hay, his back against the left wheel of his airplane, and he watched me.

  For half a minute I watched him, too, looking at the mystery of his calm. I wouldn't have been so cool just to sit there and watch another plane land in a field with me and park ten yards away. I nodded, liking him without knowing why. You looked lonely",, I said across the distance between us.

  "So did you."

  "Don't mean to bother you. If I'm one too many, I'll be on my way."

  "No. I've been waiting for you:'

  I smiled at that. "Sorry I'm late."

  "That's all right."

  I pulled off my helmet and goggles, climbed out of the cockpit and stepped to the ground. This feels good, when you've been a couple hours in the Fleet.

  "Hope you don't mind ham and cheese," he said. "Ham and cheese and maybe an ant." No handshake, no introduction of any kind.

  He was not a large man. Hair to his shoulders, blacker than the rubber of the tire he leaned against. Eyes dark as hawk's eyes, the kind I like in a friend, and in anyone else make me uncomfortable indeed. He could have been a karate master on his way to some violent demonstration.

  I accepted the sandwich and a thermos cup of water. "Who are you anyway?" I said. "Years, I've been hopping rides never seen another barnstormer out in the fields."

  "Not much else I'm fit to do," he said happily enough. "A little mechanicking, welding, roughneck a bit, skinning Cats; I stay in one place too long, I get problems. So I made the airplane and now I'm in the barn storming business."

  "What kind of Cat?" I've been mad for diesel tractors since I was a kid.

  "D-Eights, D-Nines. Just for a little while, in Ohio."

  "D-Nines! Big as a house! Double compound low gear, can they really push a mountain?"

  "There are better ways of moving mountains," he said with a smile that lasted for maybe a tenth of a second.

  I leaned for a minute against the lower wing of his plane, watching him. A trick of the light. . . it was hard to look at the man closely. As if there were a light around his head, fading the background a faint, misty silver.

  "Something wrong?" he asked.

  What kind of problems did you have?"

  Oh, nothing much. I just like to keep moving these days, same as you."

  I took my sandwich and walked around his plane. It was a 1928 or 1929 machine, and it was completely unscratched. Factories don't make airplanes as new as his was, parked there in the hay. Twenty coats of hand-rubbed butyrate dope, at least, paint like a mirror pulled tight over the wooden ribs of the thing. Don, in old English gold leaf under the rim of his cockpit, and the registration on the map case said, D. W. Shimoda. The instruments were new out or the box, original 1928 flight instruments. varnished-oak control stick and rudder-bar; throttle, mixture, spark advance at the left. You never see spark advances anymore, even on the best-restored antiques. No scratch anywhere, not a patch on the fabric, not a single streak of engine oil from the cowling. Not a blade of straw on the floor of the cockpit, as though his machine hadn't flown at all, but instead had materialized on the spot through some time warp across half a century. I felt an odd creepy cold on my neck.

  "How long you been hopping passengers ?" I called across the plane to him.

  "About a month, now, five weeks."

  He was lying. Five weeks in the fields and I don't care who you are, you've got dirt and oil on the plane and there's straw on the cockpit floor, no matter what. But this machine. . . no oil on the windshield, no flying-hay stains on the leading edges of wings and tail, no bugs smashed on the propeller. That is not possible for an airplane flying through an Illinois summer. I studied the Travel Air another five minutes, and then I went back and sat down in the hay under the wing, facing the pilot. I wasn't afraid, I still liked the guy, but something was wrong.

  "Why are you not telling me the truth?"

  "I have told you the truth, Richard," he said. The name is painted on my air plane, too.

  "A person does not hop passengers for a month in a Travel Air without getting a little oil on the plane, my friend, a little dust? One patch in The fabric? Hay, for God's sake, on the floor?"

  He smiled calmly at me. "There are some things you do not know."

  In that moment he was a strange other planet person. I believed what he said, but I had no way of explaining his jewel air plane parked out in the summer hay field.

  "This is true. But some day I'll know them all. And then you can have my airplane, Donald, because I won t need it to fly. He looked at me with interest, and raised his black eyebrows. "Oh? Tell me."

  I was delighted. Someone wanted to hear my theory! "People couldn't fly for a long time, I don't think, because they didn't think it was possible, so of course they didn't learn the first little principle of aerodynamics. I want to believe that there's another principle somewhere: we don't need airplanes to fly, or move through walls, or get to planets. We can learn how to do that without machines anywhere. If we want to."

  He half-smiled, seriously, and nodded his head one time. "And you think that you will learn what you wish to learn by hopping three-dollar rides out of hayfields. "

  "The only learning that's mattered is what I got on my own, doing what I want to do. There isn't, but if there were a soul on earth who could teach me more of what I want to know than my airplane can, and the sky, I'd be off right now to find him. Or her."

  The dark eyes looked at me level. "Don't you believe you're guided, if you really want to learn this thing?"

  "I'm guided, yes. Isn't everyone ? I've always felt something kind of watching over me, sort of. "

  "And you think you'll be led to a teacher who can help you. "

  "If the teacher doesn't happen to be me, yes."

  "Maybe that's the way it happens," he said.

  A modern new pickup truck hu
shed down the road toward us, raising a thin brown fog of dust, and it stopped by the field. The door opened, an old man got out, and a girl of ten or so. The dust stayed in the air, it was that still.

  "Selling rides, are you?" said the man.

  The field was Donald Shimoda's discovery; I stayed quiet.

  "Will if you want, won't if you don't."

  "And you want the dear Lord's fortune, I suppose."

  "Three dollars cash, sir, for nine, ten minutes in the air. That is thirty-three and one-third cents per minute. And worth it, most people tell me."

  It was an odd bystander-feeling, to sit there idle and listen to the way this fellow worked his trade. I liked what he said, all low key. I had grown so used to my own way of selling rides ("Guaranteed ten degrees cooler upstairs, folks! Come on up where only birds and angels fly! All of this for three dollars only, a dozen quarters from your purse or pocket . . ."), I had forgotten there might be another.

  There's a tension, flying and selling rides alone. I was used to it, but still it was there: if I don't fly passengers, I don't eat. Now when I could sit back, not depending for my dinner on the outcome, I relaxed for once and watched.

  The girl stood back and watched, too. Blonde, brown-eyed, solemn-faced, she was here because her grampa was. She did not want to fly.

  Most often its the other way around, eager kids and cautious elders, but one gets a sense for these things when it's one's livelihood, and I knew that girl wouldn't fly with us if we waited all summer.

  "Which one of you gentlemen . . . ?" the man said.

  Shimoda poured himself a cup of water. "Richard will fly you. I'm still on my lunch hour. Unless you want to wait."