it came as a flash of blinding white light, and then a face, her face, laughing like a child, she was throwing snow at me, it was making her double over and giggle. i kept falling over, i was standing on ice, 'not fair' i shouted as she laughed. it was pre soft apocalypse, we were in a place called canada, on holiday, jesus it was our honeymoon, i remembered. we had gone out walking and come across the lake where everyone was skating, i was showing off and she stood there throwing snowballs at me. in the background the city stood and i watched the sunlight blaze through the towers, the glass just burnt orange and there in the foreground she stood with that light, it made her skin shine. and then in the tide of knowing i came back to the strange room with the memory man and elektra. she was smiling at me, it had worked.
'i remember your name, it was alice, you were alice.'
she laughed, 'i can't recall being alice.'


later we drank some sweet tea and ate some kind of cake the ishmael had brought for us. ishmael smoked a pipe with some strange smelling tobacco, i liked the smell and tried some, it made me light headed.
'what are you studying, all these maps and charts ishmael?'
'i have spent my life studying these charts, from the library in rome, under the ground, you probably never even heard about it but it's a legendary place amongst schoolers. i study the stars and the cycles of the universe, this universe, ancient knowledge buried deep within lost civilisations, structures, myth, religion and symbols.'
'yeah but why study this...history.'
'because we need to understand the future, we need to know what happened in the soft apocalypse and why. i have to know the answer,' his eyes pleaded with mine, 'what caused it, don't you want to know?'
'maybe i'm not supposed to know, maybe it is what it is, that's why i can't recall the old life, can you?'
'it was chaotic, lots of unrest, the west was on a knife edge, countries that were clearly defined seemed to break down, the power structures were all collapsing due to greed and the dependancy on finite resources, people put value on false things, idolatry, fame, glamour and money. we were lost, a species that needed reigning in.'
'i don't remember, was it that bad?'
elektra flicked through a book of drawings. she smiled at me listening.
the memory man nodded his head, 'yes, it was the ending of a cycle, we were at a transition, you see the universe is cyclic, it follows patterns. there have been many civilisations, some have possessed very powerful technology but never enough to understand itself. that was the realm of the native peoples who left clues for us, they build temples that show the way, structures that represent movements of the heavens, i think i understand it now, as we shift each transition phase heralds a new kind of evolution, a distinct change in consciousness. live evolves.'
'i've heard that theory, i'm familiar with it. it's part of the mayan understanding, the calendar.'
'it's beyond mayan but yes, i can show you something, do you have time?'
'they will be after us, they know i have not carried out my assignment and they probably know why. we don't have much time.'
the old man was fidgeting with some sort of head gear, it was a helmet linked up to some sort of wide ultra band cable, there were two visors that he brought down over my face, the first was a deep blue the second black, no light seemed to penetrate. 
i began to relax, my breathing felt strange, exaggerated, i couldn't hear any sounds but felt my chest rise and lower. suddenly a display lit up, a star chart, superimposed with pyramid looking statistical display, the star chart seemed to be rotating and then one by one the levels of the pyramid filled with text, starting with the creation of this universe and each level up showed a shorter block with a new level of consciousness, and each level had a title and each title had a date and when we came to the current year i could see the title was 'universal consciousness'  with each level the star map seemed to swirl around us, showing the movement of the universe, it was changing and influencing the steps, each full cycle seemed to match the levels beginning, and i could see star charts within star charts, i zoomed in on a local one, and there was our solar system, planets coming out of alignment. the soft apocalypse had been an event, part of a process. i understood, but still had heaps of questions. i could see that the period of the soft apocalypse was shorted that the previous periods apocalypse, which was the second world war according to the information. then there was a new set of information, it was called 8 division sky place. there was an arrow that intersected the other intersections, it appeared stuck as it came out from between my eyes right into the centre of the other lines, intersecting all the calenders, where they met a golden heart emblem seemed to radiate. that was eight division sky place. the scene went blank, i slipped the helm,et off my head, 'what was that?' 
'that,' the memory man whispered, 'is all this,' he waved around the room, 'it's everything, all research, it's the answer.'
'what's eight division sky place, where is it?'
the old man gave me a wry look sipped his tea and muttered something under his breath, and then a burst of blood exploded over his chest. i was sure i could smell strawberries.
elektra ran at me, dragging me down low, she had a weapon in her hand and was firing out of the window, the noise was overwhelming, every sound suddenly exaggerated itself, even visually i could make out details that would normally be lost, elektra's hair follicles, the grim look of determination, the way her lips glowed, the smell of the coffee, the strange heat that filled the room. she dragged me outside and we ran down the steps we had climbed jumping over the crumpled mass of bodies, some seemed dazed and other lay still. when we got to the courtyard we clambered over the wall and ran towards the market place where we could loose ourselves in the maze of streets and crowds. 
'it's the JIN, we're being hunted.'
'we can't keep running, sooner or later we have to make a stand.'
'we need to lay low, think out a strategy.' 
'what was that strawberry smell?'
'it's the post apocalypse shift, the bullets change, they are non lethal.'
'strawberries, some one has a sense of humour.'
a group of men gathered by a huge wall, they were making a loud noise and the flow of the people seemed to drag towards the cacophony. we walked away from the commotion, elektra looked worried, 'things are changing, the bullets are strawberries, and look at that,' she pointed at the guards who stood by the checkpoint near the american section, one by one their uniforms changed into, sergeant peppers uniforms, the guns and pistols changed to flowers, 'it's all speeding up, there's no way of knowing what will happen.'
'we should find this place, 8 division place.'
'maybe it's in the sky.'
'it's beginning to sound familiar, the more i hear it the more i recognise something about it, from the past, from before.'
'was it a place you knew.'
suddenly the mobile phones started falling from the skies, it was raining mobiles, each one ringing. i picked one up, 'music.'
setting it to the speaker option we heard the strange music, 'fear is the mind killer, love the liberator.'
around us the city began to crumble, towers seemed to change shape, angles became curved, walls started to adjust their tone and texture, the narrow cobble stone street became grass and wild flowers started popping up everywhere, some people screamed in panic, others stood around looking bemused and confused. 
elektra seemed to suddenly morph into a bird, a huge great big macaw, her feathers were a deep blue and purple but her eyes were the same pale eyes, reflecting me, my feathers a regal purple. 
we flew high above the city, we soared and glided along the thermals that took us higher and higher until the landscape below us transformed from a densely populated city into an old growth rainforest, there were some buildings left untouched, but covered with vines and creepers, teeming with life, there were no humans left, lots of insects, birds and small furry creatures, all quietly adjusting to a new life. 
soon things passed from my mind, the past passed, for both of us, all we knew was one another. peace had come, the kingdom of heaven on earth, thy will be done.
we flew north, following an instinctive pull, we knew no pain, no sorrow, we knew nothing save for our love and the need to live fully and joyfully, we were together and that was all that mattered and we were part of something grand we didn't need to understand, a creation so vast and magnificent and loving, so infinitely  complex all names and labels are wasted in attempts to capture it, so we sang and made music, and the universe listened.