Chester Fields (3 page)

He hung out in the teachers’ lounge for a while, and he hung out around the group of kids that had been his tormentors. One of them in particular, named Tommy, seemed vaguely aware of his presence. Not that he knew it was Chester’s spirit that was there of course, but Chester could definitely tell he was spooked. Chester said that was when he started to really enjoy himself. He shared a lot about that day with me; in fact we talked right up until noon when I suggested we take a break. We ordered some sandwiches in for lunch. I caught up on my notes and some paperwork while Chester listened to his MP3 player.

When we were finishing our lunch I asked Chester if he was ready to continue. He said he was. I had a feeling he was having trouble getting past the point he was at in his story. He had been stuck on his floating around at school for the past half hour. I wondered if he was having trouble figuring out where to go next with a story he was making up, or if he was genuinely apprehensive about telling the next part of a fantasy he wholeheartedly believed in. At this point, I wasn’t sure which, but it was my job to figure that out. So I decided to try to nudge him forward in his narrative. I said, “Chester, a while ago you said it would start getting weird, but I get the feeling you’re tentative about moving onto what you have to tell me. Would that be a fair statement?”

“Yes sir” he said, his head tilted slightly down, and crossing his feet as he answered.

“Hey, Chester”, I said, “the name is Rich, remember? And I understand it’s not easy for you to talk about this, but at the same time you’ve done a great job so far, and I admire you for that. You are doing just fine. Let me remind you that what we discuss is between you and me. My reports and what I relay to anyone else is a quick summary. Not only is it the law that I don’t break your confidence, but it’s a matter of ethics that I’m bound by. And I prefer you not talk about it until you’re absolutely ready, I just wanted to say that to you so you don’t hold back out of that sort of concern, okay?” That helped loosen him back up a bit. It seemed like we were ready to go forward. A lot of people are reluctant to talk out of similar concerns. Like I said before, I have a lot of years in the business. But never in a million years could I have predicted the things Chester Fields was about to share with me.

I took our lunch trash out of our drab little room to the reception area, threw it away and went back. When I got there I knew something was up by the look on Chester’s face.

He said to me, “I know what I’m telling you is farfetched, but the rest is even more incredible. And I know you say you’re being open minded; but I also know you’ve got to be having trouble with what I’m telling you. So before we proceed further, I want to go out of body to prove what I’m telling you is true.”

“Chester, I’m not entertaining doubts at this point. I’m just listening”, I said in a steady tone.  But I figured I’d better be totally honest and told him I was sure I’d find some other explanation for what he had already told me and would tell me, once I had all the information I wanted. I thought if he was going to continue to insist he could do this, and that he could prove it, then we may as well get there now.  He told me he would go out of body right in front of me, “float” out to the reception area, and find something very specific to tell me that was going on out there. Then we’d go out there and try to verify it. Though I agreed to do this, I was kind of hesitant. I was wondering if it wouldn’t be better to let him finish telling me everything, before we did this. I was afraid once he was “found out”, it could hurt the bond we were creating with each other. But at the same time, finding him out could also put us on a fast track to finding out what happened with the three boys.

He put his head down on the table into his arms and I could see he was trying to relax himself. After a few minutes, he lifted his head and leaned back, letting his arms go limp at his sides, and chin nearly on his chest. Another few minutes of that and he opened his eyes, and told me he couldn’t relax enough to do it. He asked if we could go to his room, or if I would mind leaving the room. I agreed to leave the room figuring I may as well indulge him all the way at this point. I didn’t close the door quite all the way; leaving it cracked open as I left. I took a few steps down the hall I was in, and looked out to and around the reception area.

There was a man probably in his thirties, with a woman; probably his wife, walking across the lobby. An elderly gentleman stopped walking to let them pass in front of him, before slowly heading over in the direction of B wing. A moment later I quietly stepped back toward our room; leaned forward, and peaked into the room. Chester was curled up in the fetal position on top of the table! I remember thinking,
man
;
I sure hope he doesn’t have too hard a time accepting the fact that he can’t really do this.

I walked back out to the reception area for half a minute or so, looking around, kicking myself for not recording this session. At the same time, I checked behind me a few times to make sure Chester wasn’t trying to pull anything. Then I thought
what the hell am I doing, bothering with this while this kid tries to pull some sort of parlor trick on me
. Rather than rush back though, I closed my eyes and relaxed my neck while taking in a deep breath. As I let it out I would almost swear I heard “
come on back now”
, either whispered in my ear, or
in my mind
I thought, as a chill went down my spine. I stepped quickly back to the room. When I opened the door Chester was lying on the table with his head propped up on his elbow.

With a wry grin he asked, “Did you hear me, or feel me?”

Again, chills down my spine. “Hey, I’d just like to know what
you
saw out there, okay?” I said.

Looking me straight in the eye, he described the clothing and basic appearance of the three people from out in the lobby. I think I started to smile, as I realized he could have easily seen those three people walk across the parking lot on their way into the building, from the window in the room we were in.

Before I could say a word, Chester spoke up, “As you know there’s an entrance on the other side of the building that we can’t see. If you were to check with those people, you’d find the couple came in from that side entrance. I know that because I only saw the old guy come in the front entrance. The point is, I know the others are there,” he said. The front entrance he referred to was the entrance we could see the approach to out the window of our conference room.  “I’ve been looking out the window the whole time and I know I didn’t see the other two come in this entrance. I also know that had you turned onto C wing, you would’ve seen Nurse Waddington, and that sloppy looking orderly; whose name I can’t quite remember. And that’s not the only place I went either,” he continued. If you call the C wing nurses’ station at 7739, you’ll find out that the nurse with the red hair there, they called her Kelly, spilt her drink just a minute ago. It was either coffee or tea, or, uh, whatever it was; it was in a blue mug,” he said a little more excitedly, “and I stopped by Dr. Mars’ office too. And I think he just told his wife, or someone he called “dear” over the phone, that he was about to go mall walking. The extension number labeled on his phone is 7730.”

“Okay Chester; hang on a minute, and we’ll check”, I told him calmly and reassuringly. Still, the freaking hairs on the back of my neck were standing as I dialed the nurse’s station. The phone rang, and at that time things felt like they started happening in slow motion. I kept thinking I shouldn’t even be taking part in this. But I couldn’t help myself after what had just happened!

“C wing, Nurse Bridges” the voice on the other end answered. There was a lump in my throat. “Hello-o?” she said impatiently.

“C-can I speak to Kelly?” I asked meekly.

“She had to step away for a minute, can you call back?” she said, sounding a little rushed.

I was dumbfounded and just said “Uh, where - - when will she be back?”

“
Who’s
calling?” said Nurse Bridges sounding more and more irritated.

Realizing that, hey, I’m a doctor, on par with Doctor William Mars, who ran the entire facility, I spoke more assertively, “This is Doctor Stanley calling,
where - is 
Kelly?”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry Doctor Stanley; we just had a little accident here. Kelly’s spilled coffee on herself and it’s all over the desk, and, well, it got on some of the files-“.
Click
. I hung up. I took an outside line and dialed Bill Mars’ cell phone. Though I was nearly sick to my stomach with anxiety, I was reasonably sure, and I must say very, very hopeful that Dr. Mars didn’t
ever
go mall walking! He picked up his cell, and I asked him if he was in his office. He said he was on his way out, to an, “er, appointment”. I let out a sigh of relief, but then I thought I should ask him to be sure.

“Bill; it’s Rich Stanley; uh, did you by any chance just tell someone you were going mall walking?”  I asked him sheepishly. In a very defensive tone, he answered by asking if I was somehow on his line; I had to lean against the wall for support. It’s funny, but I already knew what I was going to tell him if he said he had. I guess that means that at least on some level, I already believed Chester. I told Mars that yes, when I had picked up my conference room phone; I thought I’d heard his voice telling someone he was going mall walking, and that we must have crossed wires. That was an easy sell. He was obviously more concerned about someone hearing him lie to his wife than anything else.  Mall walking is the last thing in the world Bill Mars would bother doing. He seemed flustered and quickly got off the line, not even thinking to ask me how it was going with Chester. Not that I would’ve had any idea what to tell him. In all the confusion, I felt, he still dropped about ten notches on my ladder of respect when I put two and two together that he was probably cheating on his lovely wife, Pang.

Chester and I then agreed to take a bathroom break, which I really needed so I could “collect myself”. My tension grew as I walked down C wing and saw one of the nurses there had red hair; a fresh stain on the front of her uniform, and a blue mug on the desk in front of her. I don’t know what the other nurse there, Bridges; that I had talked to on the phone; could’ve been thinking. First, I hung up on her, and then I came walking down towards her station. Her face dropped a little when she saw me, but I’d already seen enough; I turned around and went back the other way. Oh well; she had a mystery of her own to figure out that day. In light of what was going on, I decided I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Chester. I called my receptionist, Sally, at her home, and asked her to reschedule my Friday appointments for me. I called Ruth, and told her I’d be staying in Easton that night and probably not coming home until late the following afternoon.

“Chester, Chester, Chester, I don’t know where to begin”, I said when we reconvened. I decided in that moment I’d just go for it and ask him straight out. It felt like the right time to do so “Well, you’ve proven to me that you have some very unusual talents, so how about if we just get right to you telling me your version of what happened to those three boys.” I didn’t think anything he’d say could surprise me after what had just happened. I knew the status of the boys he claimed to have harmed, so he couldn’t put anything past me in that regard. Sadly, they were all comatose, essentially brain dead, but stable on life support.

Chester said, “Well, I have been dying to get this off my chest; I mean really get this off my chest, to someone that might understand.” I nodded. “You know how I told you what I do; meditate to the point where I can open the door?” I nodded again. “And you know how
I
end up at the watchtower, from where I can close my “eyes” to have the out of body experience?” He kept right on talking as I nodded yet again. “Well, when I said it feels like God there, it’s not that I feel better or greater than anyone. It’s just that in that place, I am at one with all the knowledge in the entire universe. From there, at the watchtower, I can see the whole of creation, and I know how it was made, along with everything else there is to know. And there are different perspectives. In one way you can see the web of energy I mentioned that goes everywhere. From another, you can see all the universes lined up, down below you; countless numbers of them. They’re almost like pages in a book, like slices from the outside, but unimaginably large on the inside. They’re all right there, it’s so wild,” he said excitedly. “The key to this whole thing is that mental door I mentioned. Like I said, I can meditate to a state where I can feel I’m at this door. I open it and start to fall, but I have control so I stop, and come back up to the watchtower. I’m able to stay there and bask in the knowledge of everything, or I can go on to do astral projection if I want. Now if someone else is taken there, they can’t access the door. And remember; going through the door means control. They just fall and they can’t stop themselves like I can stop myself. And I can’t stop them either. So they fall and keep right on falling! Eventually they fall across the multitude of universes, so their essence is left spread out across what is essentially, eternity.

What I mean is, if you try to enter the area of the watchtower without accessing the door, which is exactly what’s happening when someone else brings you there; you are gone. By gone I mean ending up in limbo; just bits of energy spread out over eternity. Such people remain as entities to themselves, but not in this world, or any other. There’s too little of them in any one place to be more than a blip of energy, so they end up being completely alone, with all the knowledge in the universe, but with no stimuli; nothing to do with it.

The only interaction the ones that have fallen can ever have with any particular universe or anyone in them; is a one way street; as sort of a muse, like a transcending impulse or thought, on the web. That part of them can inspire someone. But there’s no feedback on their end, and it’s just an idea to the person that catches the idea or thought. From their side, they’re in what feels like a sort of deprivation tank, but with eternal infinite knowledge. On ours they are nothing more than a tiny spark on the energy field of a trillion different realms.”