The Will

Dear Roman,

Before my solicitor, Benjamine Hargreaves from Parker & Marchand, gives you the rundown on the contents of my will, hopefully for your sake, not item by item, I have asked him to send you this letter a day in advance. Be assured, the lion’s share of my estate and personal belongings is yours, as they were always meant to be. Still, I wanted to have an opportunity to share what I have discovered in the hope it goes some way to explaining my silence about my work, which was all under a non-disclosure agreement, you understand. There are other reasons that I need to give you, which I warn you, you will find hard to process. While my clammy body is likely now laid out in the undertaker’s, pumped full of formaldehyde, please destroy this letter when you have read it; I do not want you facing any legal backlash from sharing what I am about to disclose to you. I can’t help wondering if this is the first handwritten letter you have received in the age of emails and texts. As a side note, do not mourn me, as you will see further along this letter; that would be a misinformed emotive response. I have seen things I cannot even describe.

I must begin with an apology. I have not been the greatest father in this brief life. The nature of my work made it impossible to be two things fully at once, and I chose a path I found impossible to deviate from. Please believe me, I care deeply about you. I am, however, a profoundly selfish bugger when it comes to exploring this world and discovering its secrets, as you know. I think it may have paid off, however.

I have to admit, when I started the latest four-month expedition to the Javari Valley in the Amazon, for the pharmaceutical research company NewWorld Medicines, I was extraordinarily single-minded in purpose to the exclusion of all else. NewWorld Medicines paid me very well, but I also believed in their mission, as most good medicines are from plant properties, you understand. I was trying to find a tree, a new species, that had been rumoured to have hallucinogenic chemicals. It was brought to the research company’s attention by crude rock paintings discovered in the remotest, darkest corner of the Amazon jungle. It was from a first-contact tribe, and after the initial horror of meeting Westerners, some intelligence on their existence was gleaned, including the plants they used for remedies and, well, much more, it turned out. The tribe apparently rarely ate or cooked with the plant, but when they did, it was for emergencies, like perceived existential threats. We had a very basic interpretation of what they knew. Shared knowledge was mostly pictorial. No one really knew their language or how to talk to them. The way we live depends on the world around us; sometimes the world gives you something you cannot understand, neither in the way it works nor the power it gives.

I must also tell you, I have, in the name of research, taken opium, peyote, savia, and many reality-bending drugs, even the lanmaoa asiaica mushroom that, when eaten raw, makes you see tiny people in bright colours all around as standard, and it’s very strange. Everyone who eats this mushroom sees these tiny people, and no scientist knows why. In the Amazon, many plants affect your perception, so it was a treasure trove for me. For instance, on my previous trip, we investigated what’s known as chacruna, these leaves that give you intensely vivid visions for about half a day. All of these strange and often terrifying natural drugs, I have taken in the name of research, and in my stride. I have tried to discern very specialist medical uses, and also weaponisation, with mixed success, from all of them.

To my most recent and poignant story, which led to this letter, I need to start from the beginning for context. I was part of a six-person research team, with four additional local guides. After leaving the raw but tangible comforts of the peripheral villages, we travelled very deep into the rainforest to an assigned location, using inflatable canoes travelling up the river’s tributaries to avoid traversing the dense jungle fauna by foot, which frankly would have been impossible. When we stopped to camp at any inlet we could find, we would always instantly discover new species without having to venture far, and not just fauna and insects. Did you realise that we are losing species faster than we discover them? This is one of the greatest ages of extinction. I photographed a vividly patterned spider the size of a dinner plate, and I am sure it was a new species of tarantula, even bigger than the Goliath. We didn’t see it until we disturbed it while lashing up the first hammock; such was its remarkable camouflage. It created quite a fuss through the team, I can tell you.

When we arrived at the coordinates of the tribe’s first contact, we were exhausted and had burned through supplies, partly from all our discoveries delaying and distracting us, and partly due to two of our team suffering from dysentery and another developing jungle foot. His wet skin was peeling off with every attempt to walk. It must have been unimaginable pain. Luckily, we had morphine in abundance, so he kept going regardless of his skinless feet. No one was going back until the expedition was over; it was in our small print, and we did not want to be in debt to the company, which was their threat if we aborted the mission.

The tribe had vanished completely. There was evidence of their lives, like their huts, but no sign of any people at all. It was eerie. I wondered if they had all died of some infection picked up from first contact, but there were no bodies, so we did not understand. I deduced they were just away, perhaps hiding from us. I would not blame them. I understood that some tribes just kill you for being new or different, so we were lucky to have any intelligence from them. We ventured deeper into the trees and bush. It was hard work, and then a few hours into Day 78 of the expedition, we found what we were looking for. It was a small tree with tiny purple flowers. Did you know purple is not a real colour? It’s our eyes being confused by light wavelengths, but that’s another story, but please do look it up.

The tree was about as high as an apple tree, with ash-coloured bark, and roots that tangled over the soil like fingers. The purple flowers were sparse on the branches, as was the odd long brown fruit that it bore on the branch tips. We plucked, gathered, and bagged samples, and we took a series of cuttings. On further inspection of the area, we found small saplings and bagged them too before putting them in one of our cases. Mission accomplished, we thought, and that night we decided to stay in the huts left by the villagers. It was dark, the jungle was making its night ruckus, and we were ill and tired, so we took advantage of the raised wooden floors and broad leaves entwined into conical rooftops. Dr Jenner made us soup, adding some herbs she dug out of the ground and one of the fruits from the tree. She had analysed it already with her little gizmo and found it had no toxins she recognised with her chemical markers. ‘It’s just fruit,’ she told us. I didn’t realise at the time that Dr Jenner was riding on a pledge for a bonus from the company to experiment beyond the parameters we expected.

That night I fell asleep very quickly. My muscles were spent, but more than that, a sense of serenity overcame me. I awoke in broad daylight. Now, this will seem strange, but I awoke in a desert, the Nevada desert, I believe. Now this is where it gets a little hard to fathom, so bear with me. I got up; my mouth was dry, I could feel the heat from the sun, taste the dust in the breeze, and feel the sand under my toes. When I realised I was naked, it became apparent to me I was likely not actually there, and yet it felt very real, not like a dream at all. I had been thinking of Nevada as I had drifted off, and it was there in the desert that I realised I recognised the spot; it was the trail up to my old research lodge from the Peyote experiments I did for the US Army. I moved toward the lodge, which was very remote, I should add, and I realised I was floating; I could feel my limbs and hear my heartbeat. I looked behind me and saw a silver, almost translucent cord trailing off over the horizon, and it seemed to be attached to the back of my skull, like I was a fish on a hook with a line anchored back to my physical body beyond the horizon. I had travelled by the power of thought to this destination. I kept going toward the lodge and there was an army jeep outside, so I intentionally pushed my ethereal body toward the door and to my surprise, went right through it. When I was on the other side, an officer and a scientist were in mid-discussion about something intense, but they turned toward me when they saw me.

The scientist stumbled backwards and yelled out while the soldier drew his sidearm and shouted at me. It was something like: ‘What are you?! What do you want?” I looked down, and I was hovering, a ghostly pale human effigy. It made me feel vulnerable, and I panicked, and that is rare for me; I do not panic, ever.

At that moment, I wanted to be awake for real, and so I woke up. It was then that I realised my physical body had moved too, but just a few miles downriver, onto the gravel of the inlet where we discovered the giant spider. I confess it was still dark, so I spun around, afraid, thinking of that huge arachnid living nearby. The dawn broke soon after as I stood there with the deep river oozing beside me, and I was alone, more alone than I had ever been in my life. I decided to stay and wait. It was the only strategy I trusted. If I wandered off, I’d never be found; I knew that was true.

At the end of that day, sure enough, I saw just the one blue two-man canoe gently coming in my direction. I waved, and I saw Dr Jenner with her trademark wide-brimmed beige hat over her dyed black bangs. She looked surprised, shocked even, and she turned and paddled toward me to my relief.

What I know now, is that when you eat the fruit, handle the bark or any part of that tree, you gain this ability to travel when you sleep, to anywhere you think of. The trance-like state it puts you in before you drift off focuses your mind on where you feel you should go. All the team, apart from Jenner and me, were never found. When you are in your dream-travel state, when you think of your return journey, that is where time and space place your physical self. Without knowing this or preparation, you could end up anywhere, perhaps anywhere in the Universe.

I eventually got the truth out of Dr Jenner; she was a wily one, but she was impressed I had returned, and I was extremely valuable to them from then on, as the sole survivor, and my experiences were like a guidebook for the next attempts at this out-of-body travel. I got it, and I forgave her and NewWorld Medicines. Knowledge is the engine of all progress, and sacrifices are inevitable.

There is one item in my inventory of belongings that you need to take special care of. It is my bed. My deathbed, no doubt. Sleep is like nightly practice for the real thing, you know, but the real thing is a dream state unlike any other. I made the headboard out of the special wood. We called the tree we grew in the lab, the luminary, and I took a sample of this bark home before we ever returned any of our findings to the research lab. It was my bargaining chip with Jenner in return for my full cooperation, which involved an unbearable amount of blood tests and experiments, I can tell you.

The military was getting involved with NewWorld Medicines, as they often do. I saw the writing on the wall for me. I was never going to give away all of what I learned. The truth is, my body as you know it, is just a seashore shell. I am still here. I am watching you now, and at the end of this letter I will reveal myself to you, so do not be alarmed when you see me.

I have left instructions for ethereal travel. I have made a kind of rough guidebook which you must, and I mean must, read if you are to sleep in the bed. In essence, it’s about purpose, and then it’s about practice; get those things right, and you will be immortal. My solicitor will hand this to you tomorrow in a briefcase, and the lock code is 7364. Please read all of what I have recorded very carefully. Consider me a test pilot of this new supersonic jet. It is just like that.

Finally, there is no death. You will see. The luminary taught us that, and now I know how to travel with my silver cord free of my body; it is wrapped around me and rooted in the places I tell it. It is omniscience. It is wonderful. You will see me soon, and I hope we may travel together. The most important thing is to relax, focus, and be directional with intent. Know what you want. There are no limits to what you can do.

Yours, with all my love,

Dad.

P.S. Now look over your shoulder. And there is no need to scream.