The Fall of Martin Orchard

I was recovering from a long bilious flight and checked in to a cheap and dingy 3-star hotel room. The hotel was located on a small block nestled into the busy and crowded city of Cairo. The noise from the heavy traffic, combined with the non-stop humming from the old and dirty air-condition stopped me from sleeping. This destroyed any chance of me recovering from my 17-hour flight from Sydney. The night was young, so I decided that I should explore this magical city of Cairo on my own. My guided tours were to begin tomorrow morning and I had no plans for the rest of today. I was always a firm believer in walking around in a new city on my own is the best way to experience it. I like to stir myself away from the typical tourist traps and the heavily-time constricted trips. This way one can see the genuine hustle and bustle and the everyday life of a city’s inhabitants and beauty of the culture. I took the remote control and switched off the old wooden-framed vintage television. I was about to leave the dilapidated hotel room, when I felt a rush of hesitation and anxiety overwhelm me. Humans tend to overestimate certain dangers. I am, for instance, often afraid of shark attacks when swimming in Australian waters, although shark attacks are scarce. Although excited that I was in Cairo, I feared getting targeted in a terrorist attack. Such things occur often in Egypt, according to the media that continuously influence the population. The fear was amplified by the fact that my loving partner of many years, sweet, gentle Elaine, had refused to travel with me to Cairo. Elaine had cited the risk of a terrorist attack as her main reason for not going. Eventually, I brushed off my negative thoughts and calmed myself down. I reminded myself that my everyday choices were more important. My daily actions, such as my diet and exercise, have a larger impact on my life expectancy than terrorist attacks will ever have. I walked around in Cairo, absorbing everything the magical and lustrous city had to offer. I enjoyed smelling the fragrances and photographing the historic buildings. After walking for hours, I came across a sizeable Egyptian Bazaar.  I am not a big fan of shopping, but I remembered that Elaine had asked for a tin of Egyptian perfume. I also wanted to eat something, and the food there smelled delightful.   ***   After eating an authentic Egyptian meal, I felt a bit fazed by the noise and the massive commotion at the bazaar. Whenever I travel overseas, I always stand out as an obvious tourist, as I am very tall, and I look very North European. It’s the price that I must pay for being 190 centimetres (6’3”) tall man with a North European Swedish bloodline. My looks attracted a myriad of salesmen, and they were all trying to peddle me different trinkets. I felt the stress and discomfort coming upon me, as I dislike crowds and people pushing things upon me. After rejecting dozens of street peddlers, I finally came across something I wanted. It was a shimmering blue crystal sold from a healing crystal market stand, located at the far end of the dingy market.   I studied the mysterious blue crystal for a while. I tried to contact the presumed seller, an old Egyptian woman, who was squatting behind an old wooden table. She was smirking and showed off her yellow teeth and the wart on her big nose. But, why did I want a crystal? I pondered the question, and I couldn’t come up with any sensible explanation. I have never had any interests in gemstones or healing crystals my. But this enchanting crystal was shining with a bright and wondrous blue light. It was so beautiful that it looked as if the crystal was talking to me. This was something I hadn’t experienced since I ingested LSD and magic mushrooms in my rebellious youth. I took it up with my two fingers, laid it in my hand and stared at it for a long time. I felt completely mesmerised by its beauty for what felt like an eternity.   “Can I help you, Good Sir?” The rasping sound of the lady seller was suddenly interrupted by a young Egyptian man that appeared from the back end of the squalid shop.   I came back to my senses when the store clerk approached me. How long had it been? The other street peddlers had swarmed to me like bees, but this Egyptian man had taken his time and given me the chance to study his products first. I examined the man, he looked different. While the others wore typical Middle-Eastern garments, this Egyptian man looked like a time traveller. Or at least was participating in some sort of a Renaissance fair.   “How much is this crystal...?”, I stuttered with a confused voice. “For you sir, this beautiful Zeto crystal is only 1500 pounds!” Said the salesman confidently. 1500 Egyptian pounds. How much is that in Australian Dollars? I thought to myself. I calculated the figures in my head and figured out the answer, it was over A$100 Australian Dollars. I was confused, and I studied both the Egyptian salesman and the enchanting crystal for a while. I must have misheard him.   “Excuse me, did you say 1500 Egyptian Pounds for this piece of glass?” I asked. “I did, but the price has just gone up. It is now 2,000 Egyptian Pounds!” answered the angry and impatient peddler.   The salesman's answer bewildered me. The street peddlers always lowered their prices at any sign of haggling, but this Egyptian man had increased the price instead. How could this be? I was going to put the crystal away, but I couldn’t, I felt extremely drawn in and compelled to buy it.   “Okay, 2000 Egyptian pounds. That’s a deal.” I said sheepishly, as I paid for the glowing blue crystal and put it in my pocket. After paying for the enchanting gem, I took a cab back to my dingy hotel. My brain was not working, and I desperately needed a good night's sleep.   ***   The following day, I woke up feeling a stabbing pain in my stomach, after a minimal amount of sleep. My choice of food the day before hadn’t been a smart one, and I had spent the entire night throwing up in the bathroom.  I was considering not showing up for the bus ride to the pyramids, but I decided against it and got myself ready to go. I was only spending a few days in Cairo, before flying to Sweden to my dear old parents. Spending my time being sick and self-pitying in this cheap hotel room was not my version of an ideal holiday.   I passed up on the hotel breakfast. Instead, I bought some refreshing mints and other snacks in the corner shop outside of the hotel. I did this to cover up the stench of my vomit from the night before. I didn’t want to risk throwing up on the bus, bringing some mints and a bag of nuts would be handy if I got hungry later. I got on the tour bus. The guide was chirping and sharing some interesting facts about Cairo. At least I believe he did, but my attention was foggy after the rough night. I slipped into a dreamy abyss and fell asleep on the bus.   After what felt like a fleeting time, we had reached the pyramids, and I woke up from my nap feeling a bit better.   ***   A problem that I have, is that the actual world is usually less grand than the idealistic world. The pyramids are the best example I can come up with to exemplify this. In the idealistic sense, the pyramids are majestic, built by thousands of workers over many years. These precise artefacts followed the astronomical movements with almost better accuracy than we can do with modern technology.   But, in my perceived world, I was in the middle of a barren desert watching a pile of crumbling rocks. Not that interesting.   The smiling tour guide approached me and tapped on my shoulder. For an optional fee of 1,000 Egyptian pounds, I could follow a guided tour inside one of the pyramids.  If not, I could sit at the coffee shop and enjoy the scenery for the next few hours. Paying the extra money to crouch around in a dark a cramped tunnel doesn’t sound like the most fun way to spend money. But on the other hand, I was on-site, and maybe the pyramid would look better on the inside? I paid the hefty fee. The tour guide smirked slyly and stuffed the money in his pocket. He seemed worried that people could see him take the money, indicating that this was not an official part of the tour. I was hesitant to go with the guide and wanted my money back, but I had already paid for it and could not go back.   ***   A short while later, I entered the pyramid together with the tour guide and a few other tour participants. As expected, I didn’t enjoy being inside the pyramid. It was dark, packed with stale air and it was too cramped for a big guy like me. Besides, the food poisoning I had the night before hadn’t prepared me for this spelunking adventure.   Suddenly, I felt like I was going to vomit again. Being the last person in the group, I snuck off into a side passage to avoid embarrassment. Out of the blue, I sensed a glowing blue light from my khaki pants. The blue crystal that I bought at the bazaar, which I had forgotten to take out of pocket the night before, felt hot and shone with an eerie blue light. It was sparkling so bright so that it almost lit up the entire room and hurt my eyes. I picked up the crystal from my pocket and I studied it. Suddenly a trap door opened below me, and I slid down a secret passage.  I slid for several seconds until I hit the floor with high speed. I heard a loud cracking noise and I felt a surge of extreme pain through my body. I had landed badly on my right foot and broken it. I looked around and felt panic take its hold over my body. I was injured and alone in a very dark tunnel with no way to get up. I was going to scream for help when something caught my eyes: The blue crystal. In the dark tunnel, it shone stronger than ever before. I felt compelled to crawl over to where it dropped when I fell and pick it up.   ***   Once I picked up the glimmering crystal, I heard a noise. The whole wall had lit up, and it was full of illuminated lines of hieroglyphs that I couldn’t comprehend. The hieroglyphs struck me with feelings of awe and surprise. I noticed that there was a slot in the wall where my blue crystal would fit perfectly. I inserted the crystal into the slot and the entire wall made a loud cracking noise. Suddenly the wall shifted in anti-clockwise motion. The wall blocks began to rotate and filled up its crevices with more blocks that appeared from inside the wall, like an amazing game of Jenga. A luminous and calming bright blue light emerged from the wall crevices. I tried to touch the light, but it seemed like it didn’t have a surface as my hand sunk straight through it. I pulled out my hand from the blue light, and it was still okay. I felt scared and amazed at the same time. I felt compelled to know what was on the other side of the shining wall crevice. Relying on my good leg, I decided to jump into the light and find out what happened next.   I saw a bright flash, and my body drifting through space, travelling faster than the speed of light. Suddenly, I landed. I had ended up in a beautiful courtyard, that looked both ancient and futuristic at the same time.  I have never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life, but at the same time, I felt scared. Where was I, and was this the afterlife?   ***   I looked around, and I saw a group of strange-looking humanoid creatures approaching me. One of them spoke to me.   “Greetings human. I am Ra, and the Zetans next to me are Zeus, Brahma, and Odin. “ “I don’t understand!”, I stammered and continued speaking, “Am I dead?” “Certainly not, as a matter of fact, you’ll never be more alive than today,” Zeus answered. “Enough of the pleasantries”, Odin scoffed. “Did you bring us any offerings?”   The request surprised me, but I didn’t dare to argue with the deities. I remembered that I had some mints and nuts in my pockets, so I took them out and handed them to Odin. He tasted the food and gave me a disapproving look. “What kind of food are you humans eating these days?! This food is full of chemicals and rubbish”, Odin sneered. “I am sorry, I didn’t expect to meet deities today, and I didn’t expect you to ask for offerings”, I replied. “Is that so?”, Zeus asked rhetorically. “Then how come all the ancient scriptures contain the sacrifice of animals, to the gods?”   Zeus’ question confused me, but fortunately, Brahma came to my aid. “Don’t be too harsh on the human for his poor offerings, gentlemen. How could he foresee that he would stumble upon an interdimensional portal? Humans don’t have foresight like we do.”   Brahma turned towards me and spoke. “Thank you for your offerings today, please tell me your name, human.” “I am Martin”, I answered. “Nice to meet you, Martin,” Brahma said before he continued speaking. “Unfortunately, your time here today will be short, so please ask anything you’d like to know before you have to go back.”  “Can you fix my broken foot? It’s so painful.” I moaned. “You are in luck, we still have healing supplies”, Brahma answered. He turned to Ra and spoke “Ra, can you please inject our guest with a Zetan Healing Serum into his right calf?” Ra approached me and injected the serum. At first, it caused immense insufferable pain, but it receded shortly afterwards. In no time the pain was gone, and the foot seemed to have healed.   “What happened?” I asked in amazement. “The serum accelerated your body’s own healing factor by the equivalent of a month’s healing time. Hence you feel the initial immense pain, and then quick healing proceeds.” Ra replied. “So, this is science and not magic?” I asked. “Yes, Advanced science too complicated for you to understand,” Ra replied.   ***   Brahma looked at me and spoke, “Our time is short but let me show you around”. I got up on my feet, and to my great relief, I could walk, albeit with a bit of a limp. I followed Brahma to a beautiful pond, located next to a blooming Lotus Tree. In the pond, I could see a lot of things happening on Earth.   “Master Brahma, if everything on Earth is science and not magic, how can you see all these things from Earth?” I asked. “When we first came across Earth on our travel across the Milky Way eons ago, we dropped millions of nanotechnology drones. We did this so that we could see everything on the planet. These drones were powered with advanced batteries that have almost unlimited battery time. Thus, some of these drones are still sending images to us.” Brahma replied. “Wow!”, I replied. “Yes, when we told your ancestors that we were all-seeing, we were not lying, just explaining to your level of intelligence,” Brahma said. “But are you really gods, and did you create mankind?” I asked. “No. We didn’t create mankind, but we made you what you are. When we came across Homo-Sapiens 70,000 years ago, your species was low-tier animals, close to extinction. My Zetan ancestors altered your genome, and raised your intelligence. We made you what you have become since then.” Brahma replied. “So because the Zetan species is much more advanced than humans, you become Gods to us?” I asked. “Yes. The only real god, The True Maker, works on a cosmological scale. For such an omnipotent being, the daily prayers and actions of individuals become insignificant.” Brahma replied.   Brahma looked at his wristwatch and seemed keen to move on. “Come, there are more things that I have to show you, and time is short”.   Brahma hurried ahead and opened a door. We entered a very advanced computerised archive. I was full of lifelike hologram generators and other amazing technologies. “This is the Zetan archives, if you choose to stay here you can have access to all the knowledge and science of the Universe,” Brahma said. “Even the age-old question of the meaning of life?” I pondered. “Good one, but no. You see, there is no universal answer to that question. The individual has to make up their own answer.” Brahma answered.   I studied the room and all the amazing objects in there for a while and then my eyes fell back on Brahma. Brahma seemed restless and a bit reluctant, but eventually, he spoke. “So, Martin it is time for you to make a choice,” Brahma said. “What choice?” I replied.  “You can either stay here, spend time with us Zetans and learn everything there is about the universe. Or you can go back to humanity on Earth and live in ignorance,” Brahma said. “Why can’t I have both?” I asked. “Because the portal will soon be closing, and once it’s closed, we have no means of opening it from here. If you choose to stay you will have God-like knowledge, but you’ll also suffer from constant hunger and loneliness. You’ll see everyone you care about dying from age through the magical pond.”   ***   I pondered the options for a while. I realised that the choices didn’t only have consequences for me but for everyone else. If I disappeared without a trace, the people I cared about would never get closure. They would always wonder what happened to me. I told Brahma about my decision. He replied: “I see, you choose the easy path of ignorance.” “No, I choose to do what is best for the people I love. Forsaking everyone I care for and who cares for me in the pursuit of knowledge is selfish and cruel!”, I replied.   Brahma studied me for a while. Then Zeus entered the room and spoke: “What did the human choose?”, Zeus asked. “Ignorance,” Brahma replied. “They all do. Only one more thing to do.” Zeus said. After saying this, Zeus pulled me towards him, while Brahma branded my right arm with a luminous tattoo. Zeus then injected me with Zetan Healing Serum while Brahma carried me back to the portal.  The last thing I remember was Brahma repeatedly shouting. “Find Keila Eisenstein, show her the tattoo on your arm, warn her of trusting Rangda the Deceiver!” Before I fell into the glowing abyss and blacked out.   ***   I woke up a few days later in an Egyptian hospital. The doctor told me that I had a psychotic outbreak caused by a rare form of a food-borne parasite. I asked the doctor, “Okay, but can you explain how my broken foot had miraculously healed and a freshly inked tattoo on my arm appeared suddenly overnight?”. He responded with “Both of those wounds are fully healed, and it must have happened over a month ago.” The doctor answered and then left the room.   I decided to keep quiet and not say anything. There was nothing to gain from trying to convince this doctor of an extra-terrestrial encounter. Besides, I wasn’t too sure myself any more what had happened.   A few days later I left the hospital. As I am writing this story while on a plane back to Europe, I only have two questions:   What happened to me, and how did I get this strange glowing tattoo with a map of the world filled with alien symbols?   Who the hell is Keila Eisenstein…?!