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<sup><h6> “I’ve tried, I even thought of jumping to Derrick and asking him to take me to a dance or party, but I know he loves me and I don’t love him, so it would not be fair to him.”</h6></sup>
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<p><center><a href="https://steemit.com/sfandf-fiction/@arthur.grafo/little-cherine-book-03-post054">Previous Post 054</a></center></p>
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<p><h3><center>1570</center></h3></p>
<p>Rob turned and looked at her, until she also turned and stared back. “Lillian, I like Derrick and if you are not going to give him a chance, then I am thinking of approaching him, to see whether he wants to be linked. Can you imagine what crazy thoughts must be going through his mind since Prime Robert told him about us, and yet he has kept our secret. To me, it shows he is loyal to you and has a good heart.”</p>
<p>“I don’t care what you do. I just don’t want to love him - or anyone else. I don’t want to love.” To Rob, her reply proved to him that he had been right to wait for her.</p>
<p>Since she has been to the void and exchange kissed and been part of a golden circle of love, her distress showed him that her problem is more serious than he’d thought. He decided he must bring her to have a few sessions with our Themi.</p>
<p>“Cherine and I are going to visit the prime family, why don’t you come with us…at the least a change of…worlds, should do you some good.” Once he had reassured her that she will be welcomed by us, she agreed to come with them.</p>
<p>We gave her twenty four hours to get used to the fact that she is in our reality, and then Dommi took charge, not bothering to wait for Themi to be free to visit us.</p>
<p>“I’m going to offer you a choice, Lillian. Either you travel with a couple of our wives to visit places you have never seen, or else you join those girls who are secretly helping children from poor families, including the gypsy kids and other beggars, by using their healers to strengthen them so that they can endure starvation and bad treatment without also suffering from ill health.”</p>
<p>As we’d expected, Lillian chose to help.</p>
<p>Samantha - The following is a sharing by Lillian. There are certain parts of her story that touch on ours and we want it in our diary, so she agreed that I write of her experiences for her, as if she were writing. Uniquely, she also chose to share many of her thoughts by speaking aloud; I don’t why, but this kind of double sharing does make the sharing feel deeper - perhaps it is because the speaking prevented me from only concentrating on her emotions. By that I mean that I am using my body to hear her, so I become or remain more conscious of myself, whereas sharing mind-to-mind causes me to immerse myself within her mind and forget how separate an entity I am, with my own feelings colouring my attitudes to her experiences and thoughts.</p>
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<p><h5>I am not a city girl, I’ve lived my entire life in a town which is small enough for everybody to know everybody else. I’ve never had a hankering to live in a city and the idea of being part of a faceless crowd frightens me. I love the comfort of feeling I belong, am part of a community of good people. When I had planned to move to London, it was not out of choice; it was mostly a move I planned out of desperation - exactly for the reason that I needed to get out of our town where everybody knows me, as decent people will shame my family with their words and side glances, because of my foolishness. <br>
Marian, of my reality, did try to soothe my feelings by explaining that whatever my foolishness, it happened because I fell in love and believed what I was told by an unscrupulous man, not because I am evil or out of selfishness. I do not find it that easy to excuse or forgive myself. I have, since I first understood what the girls at school talked about, found myself critical of them and their casual attitude towards sex and, in the privacy of my mind, was harsh in my judgements of them. That I should then allow a married man, with children, to seduce me still hurts and shocks me.<br>
When Dommi offered me the two choices, I did not need to sense her emoting, for I am not that stupid. I know she is hoping that keeping myself occupied with the problems of others will help me break out of the rut my thoughts are imprisoned within. I hope it works, even if I am only freed of just the worst of it.</h5>
<h5>On the first day, it was decided that it may be better I go only with Aganthi. I had not thought it through and was dressed nicely, already waiting for Aganthi in the sittingroom. She looked to be in her twenties, her features were altered and she…looked ordinary. The Cherinian special magnetism was gone, as was the ‘glow’ they all have. She realised why I was staring at her and posed for me.<br>
She grinned as she explained, “I don’t have to listen in to your thoughts, I know what I and Wendy and Theresa thought when we first started, and we were all wrong, as I bet you are. I look like someone else so as to be certain nobody identifies me, but the rest is for different reasons than you are imagining. Lilliana, which is what I must call you - unless you prefer to use another name, I use my real name as it won’t cause anyone to think of me as being Aganthi Teller. The softness and happy look of being a Cherinian would not make a difference, I’m not making myself look ordinary and a little bit hard and tired because of those I want to help. With them we will have no contact and we shall keep our distance. But if we walk in those areas looking like rich girls slumming it, we will never have a moment to ourselves, there will be many who will want to take advantage of us and many who will resent us - plus there will be more attempts to rob us.”<br>
She took my hand in hers as she sat by me. “Even if we make ourselves ugly and look very poor, there will still be those who will try to steal from us and those who will try to rape us. How much do you know about yourself Lilliana?”<br>
“I’m not certain I understand the question, Aganthi.”<br>
“Do you think of yourself as being one person who has good and bad sides to her, with hopefully the good parts dominating?”<br>
“Yes.”<br>
“Most people think of themselves in that way. When judging others, so as to decide whether I am safe or not, I prefer to think of people as having three parts to them. The one is the good, the other is the bad, and the third is the one which listens or obeys the part it is inclined towards at that time. For instance, imagine a very bad person who also likes to think of himself as bad and takes pride in it, usually also boasting about how hard and bad he is. For some reason you find yourself at his mercy or needing his help and, without him understanding why, he helps you. Such a person will see his action as being ‘wrong’. He’ll convince himself that you somehow tricked him into helping you and he will be angry with you. Have you met any people like that?”<br>
I gave it some thought and shook my head. “No, I think that even the bad people I’ve met like to think of themselves as being good.”<br>
“Where we are going, we are bound to meet the kind of person I’m talking about. Luckily we can sense them and avoid having to interact with them, but sometimes they impose their presence on us. During our first visits, I suggest you do as I do - we can discuss it afterwards, should you feel that what I did was wrong.” She smiled. “Until Robert and Cherine tell us that we can bring in more people for linking, we are also going to be avoiding the very good people. I can tell you from now that this will be far more difficult than avoiding the very bad. You’ll want to meet them and avoiding them will feel wrong. Such people seem to have a compulsion to help and since we will seem to be two ordinary young woman who have had a few bitter experiences, they will want to show us that life can be good if we change the way we think. They tend to break my heart, Lilliana, so I stay away from them whenever I can.”<br>
I asked, “Do we help only children with our healers?”<br>
She looked troubled as she answered, “Some of us insist we should help everyone, but I stick to helping children only…most of the time.”<br>
I waited, hoping she would give me her reasons, but she seemed lost in her thoughts, so I finally asked, “Why don’t you want to help adults? Doesn’t their suffering hurt you also?”<br>
As if she had not heard me, she continued, “When we decide to heal someone, we have to do it very slowly. If they are only feeling better two or three days later, they have forgotten our momentary presence by then. Our healers don’t usually need to spend all that time with them, so we can find two or three people to heal, but they must not be in the same area. Once we have chosen them, then the healers split their time so that they are healed slowly. If we could heal them quickly, maybe healing ten to twenty people a day with each healer and we had thousands of healers helping us, I would heal more adults. Most of the health problems are caused by poor diet and way of life, whereas with children, almost all of them are ill due to bad diet and or poor hygiene. They are not to blame and for me to see a child needing my help and to know I cannot, because I am busy healing an adult - it does not feel right to me.”<br>
“It seems to be a lot more complicated than I expected…are you sure I should come with? What if I make a mistake?”<br>
She lightly squeezed the hand she was holding, as she reassured me, “We have all made mistakes - it is more difficult than you think it is, to make a mistake than can turn into a catastrophe.”<br>
“Can’t I share from you and the others so that I don’t make the same mistakes?”<br>
Aganthi grinned. “Our Roberto has asked us not to, he says we must each make our own mistakes and find our own ways of correcting them. That way, he says, maybe one of us finds a better way than the others did.”<br>
A smiling Irene came to me, placed her little hands on my cheeks and kissed me lightly. “Lillian, the more you talk about it with my mother, the more afraid you will become - it is better you do what you can today and ask her your questions after you have returned.”</h5></p>
<p><h5>We’ve returned from my first day at healing work and I’m feeling too jumbled inside, both in my emotions and my thoughts, for me to think clearly. Aganthi told me she is not taking me to the poorest districts or to those where the homeless children create their shelters. The suburb we went to is inhabited by poor people, but at least many of them have some kind of job or get a small grant from the social services. I was surprised at how many families live with their parent or parents, because they receive a pension. I have the feeling (it could just be my ignorance, because of my growing up in a small town) that many of those sponging off their parents and others, could find a job, but they lack the will to improve their own lives.</h5></p>
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<p><h3><center>1572</center></h3></p>
<p><h5>I sent my healer to one adult who was suffering from a bad skin condition and he was scratching so hard that he was bleeding in a number of places. My healer reported that his problem is caused by an accumulation of sweat and dirt, as he never washes himself. After that, once I’d also realised how many children need help, I avoided sensing the adults and only concentrated on those who are my real age or younger.<br>
I had thought that only the rich don’t care about the poor, but after today I have realised that even many of those of us from a middle-income bracket do not allow ourselves empathy for those in need, perhaps it is because we are only a couple of steps away from being in their shoes. I’m not making excuses, for there are many who have the courage to allow their own fears to goad them into growing their hearts so that they experience empathy for those more unfortunate than them.<br>
Sam, I had not realised until now, we can say we feel pity and compassion, kindness and hardness, or hate and love, but it is not strictly speaking correct to say the same of empathy. With empathy, we don’t feel it, we need to open ourselves into the blossoming of experiencing empathy for another. Perhaps it is the reason why we can feel, for instance, love or compassion and so on, without it wreaking any major or permanent changes in our hearts, for the feeling of any of those emotions can fade away, whereas, placing ourselves within the mind and heart of another creates a radical change to our own heart, for now we know how the other feels or thinks. Empathy can, and maybe does, open us to love and compassion, but I had not realised that such a nice-sounding word, which I’ve always considered as being entwined and part of love, can be so scary - I’m glad I am not a Cherine.</h5></p>
<p><h5>At the end of my second day, Sam did not come to share from me, but today, our third day, Sam shared and then spoke to me.<br>
“Do you know about our Cherinian court - or Council?”<br>
“Yes…has there been a hearing?”<br>
“Not during these last few weeks, but I am thinking of laying a charge against a Cherinian. If you know that somebody is treating a person in a prejudiced manner, far harsher than they are with anyone else, would you report them for being unfair - and deliberately damaging the self-worth of their victim? Think of it as someone being bullied; they are not physically hurting their victim, but they are stealing from their victim all that gives value to their life.”<br>
“According to what Robert has said, I guess so.”<br>
“If I tell you about the person who is causing the harm, would you take the charges to the Council? I don’t like being the one who always does so.”<br>
“If…I guess so, if the harm is also evident to me.”<br>
Samantha sighed, as if greatly relieved. “Thank you - I’ll owe you one. Lillian, I need you to lay a charge against Lillian - yourself. You have been treating yourself in a manner far harsher than you would find acceptable if the person you are blaming was someone else. In other words, because your victim cannot fight back, you have been bullying her.”<br>
“Are you serious?” I saw she is being very serious about it. “Come on Samantha, you know that I’d become the laughing stock of the Cherinians of both our realities.”<br>
Sam shrugged. “I’m not interested in that aspect of it, I am more concerned with providing everyone with an example.”<br>
I refused to do it - I guess she will have to do it if she is really being serious about it.</h5></p>
<p><h5>When we left home this morning, I did not see Sam before leaving, so I did not know whether she has reported me. My thoughts kept on returning to what she had said and how I would feel if I am called to appear before the Council. I even, for a while, decided that if I am called, I will refuse to appear. Of course I soon changed my mind, for I realised that if I refuse, it will only make me look guilty.<br>
Luckily, being so distracted did not affect the number of children I helped, but it did lead to some unpleasantness. I had taken a cold drink out of the fridge at a kiosk and was standing in front of the little window for paying, lost in my thoughts. The kiosk man (the peripterás), said, ‘next’ and I automatically stretched out my arm to hand him the money. My arm was knocked aside by a girl of about twenty and she screamed at me for not waiting my turn. Unluckily for me, all she was saying was being ‘translated’, thanks to my being linked to girls who speak Greek, and it included the equivalents of the swear words she was using. I’m not used to language that raw and I blushed. The blush was not consistent with the my appearance, so my apparent vulnerability called to her ‘bully’ instincts and she became even more poisonous as she ranted at me. I was not doing a very good job of defending myself verbally, so Aganthi stepped in.<br>
Aganthi claimed to be my elder sister and she soon proved herself to be the master of swearing and insults, which she coupled to the feeling of being a physical threat as she crowded in upon the other girl. She paid for her purchase and backed off, swearing for as long as she was in sight. Awed by Aganthi, but also slightly trembling, I was amazed to find Aganthi suddenly laughing. She grabbed me and hugged me tightly.<br>
“You English girl, you are crazy!” and when we arrived home, she told everyone of what had happened and that while the girl had been swearing at me, my healer had sensed she’d had an abortion which had gone wrong and she is likely to die from parts inside her putrefying, so I’d sent the healer to heal her. I wanted to cry when my Cherine made me feel how proud she is of me.</h5></p>
<p>Samantha - I agreed to write of the following events, without analysing them, as I feel it is the responsibility of Lillian to find the answer - or to solve the mystery.</p>
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<p><h3><center>1573</center></h3></p>
<p><h5>Aganthi jumped us to a safe corner she knows for arriving at the edge of Piraeus. A few minutes walk and we seemed to enter another world. I am not only speaking of what my eyes see and my ears hear; there is the sound of children playing, shouting and even fighting, and there is the occasional laugh of an adult, but over all of it lies a sense of misery, a miasma over the human spirit which grows from the loss of hope. I have the feeling that if I spend time here on my own, my own heart will lose the light being a Cherinian has filled it with.<br>
“I don’t understand, the children look as if there is a lot wrong with them, and yet my healer only finds minor problems in most of them. Actually…most of the problems seem to be from physical abuse!”<br>
Aganthi nodded. “Your healer needs more training. Lilliana, most of the children are stunted or not developed according to their age. As for not having urgent problems, it is amazing how children adjust to the circumstances they are forced to endure, Robert says it is the way nature ensures the species survives during hard times.”<br>
A few hours later I was just walking around, absorbed in my own thoughts, for my healer was working with the healer of Aganthi, learning as it heals. I did not notice that I had turned into an alley.<br>
A faint sound, close to me, brought me back to the present and I looked around. I was standing next to a large cardboard box and as the sound was repeated I realised the sound was coming from inside. It sounded like a moan - and I was certain rats and cats don’t moan, so it had to be a person.<br>
Only now did I remember to try and sense the emoting of whoever is in the box. What I felt did not make sense, so I called to Aganthi and let her share from me. She asked me to return to the main road.<br>
“I think you are wrong, Lilliana, he is not on drugs, he is hallucinating. I asked you to meet me here as I was worried. I seemed to sense a second mind within his - the person in the box is, my healer tells me, a boy of about twelve years old, but the other personality is old…very old.” She shuddered. “There is something very evil.”<br>
“You mean, the older one is like…Hettie and Eddie were, it is trying to take over the body?”<br>
“No…wait, Robert says he’ll be here in a few minutes.”<br>
I felt this was my discovery and I should find out the truth, also, I do not want Robert to think he is rescuing me again, so I ignored Aganthi and returning to the box, I sat on the ground and closed my eyes as I concentrated on entering the stormy mind.<br>
I suddenly saw myself among a crowd, yet I could not see any of them clearly, but I could see the one they were killing. They, and I, the boy - or the older one, was killing an angel. As it struggled, with wings spread out, it was torn to pieces and I echoed the distress of the boy as I shot back into my own mind.</h5></p><br>
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<p><center><a href="https://steemit.com/sfandf-fiction/@arthur.grafo/little-cherine-book-03-post056"> Next Post 056</a></center></p>
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<p><h5><i><b>I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love - and should some of it be true for our reality, I hope you will love our Cherine.</b></i></h5></p><br><br><br>
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<h6>Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου<br></h6>(Alexander Zenon Eustace)<br>
<sup>8th September, 2019</sup>
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* posted on PALNet - Steemit - WEKU - CreativeCoin: 8th September, 2019<br>
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