No One to Blame

30,000 miles beyond the Kuiper belt

If you've ever put together a shelving unit from IKEA, you may have ended up with a few leftover screws or washers, maybe even a bracket or two. That's the Kuiper belt, a junkyard of material left over from the forming of our solar system. It is also the nursery where comets are born by way of Jupiter's gravity.

The belt is also a great hiding spot for any alien race to park and observe the life inhabited blue wonder, known as 'Terra' to the sentient universe. What are the odds, with so many rare occurrences needing to take place, that this world would even exist.

One such race of extraterrestrials known only as the WATCHERS, to those that know of their existence, was currently parked just past the Kuiper belt doing what they do best...watching. With advanced technologies far beyond that of any others in the universe, they watched the little blue marble known by its inhabitants as 'Earth'.

Any other time their chief science officer and the 6 scientists that worked under him, would be studying the molten core that lay in the center of the blue marble. They were studying earth's core because they were hoping to replicate it for their other pet project, creating artificial planets. The universe contains an uncountable number of planets but molten metal cores are so extremely rare. When they do find a planet with an active core they have standing orders to learn all they could, from its magnetic build up, to its life expectancy.

But not today. Today the powers that be have these Highly intelligent scientists watching a small town on Long Island. To be even more precise, they were actually watching one individual human that greatly concerned them. The individual, Robert Spinelli, was currently in possession of two life forces. This definitely should not be! As far as the ancient alien race knew, it was the first time since the formation of the universe that this had happened, making Robert Spinelli the most unique living creature in existence. The group of scientists should have been overjoyed to study such a specimen. But what troubled them was that it was by a mistake of their own making that he even exists, and that goes against everything the WATCHERS believed.

To better grasp the situation you have to first understand that the WATCHERS have a rule of non-interference with other races' development and/or history. That is not to say that they won't use this time portal technology to tweak their own timeline as long as no other beings in the universe are affected.

They have managed to follow this one rule for millions of years without serious incident...until recently. You see the ability to alter events through time manipulation has finally backfired on them. It should have been a routine time jump to retrieve a downed vessel that crash landed on earth in the year of 1981. The council determined that they could not leave a ship, full of highly advanced tech, to be discovered by Earth's inhabitants. They knew full well what these primitive people would do to themselves if they discovered the downed vessel before the WATCHERS could retrieve it.

What the ancient beings didn't account for was that at the same exact moment they opened a time vortex in earth year 2018, an experiment involving a super collider on earth had simultaneously failed miserably, sending out an energy pulse that greatly expanded the vortex allowing Robert Spinellis ascending life force to get pulled in alongside the Time vessel. They didn't know why his life force didn't continue ascending once the unintended stowaway reached 1981 but without ascending, there was only one place this life force could have gone and that was the body of his younger self. Problem was, 18 year old Robert Spinelli already had a life force inhabiting his physical form so now he was in possession of two, an 18 year olds and a 55 year olds.

Some of these advanced beings were convinced that they needed to right this catastrophe by going back and stopping themselves from causing it in the first place. Others of their kind argued that the supreme law was not broken since they did not purposely set out to cause this unique situation. And any action purposely taken now would be a violation of said law. While there was an even smaller group of them that did not care for the law of non-interference and were secretly intrigued by Robert Spinelli and his...situation. And it was this group that decided to secretly help this unique human to better understand his predicament. So while the rest of the WATCHERS were debating what action they should take, this small group set about trying to communicate clandestinely with the human boy.

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The morning after the party

I woke the next morning to an empty house so I took a quick shower, got dressed and went downstairs to make something to eat. After a hearty breakfast of generic cereal (my family was on a thin budget) I decided to go for a run. Might as well get started on that whole living healthier thing. Before I could step one foot out the door, the house phone rang. I waited for the answering machine to pick up so I could see who was calling.

"Yo! Pick up it's Tony! I said..."

"Hey Tony. I was just about to call you. Last night was insane! Are you planning to go back there today?" I asked my best friend, trying to sound like my 18 year old self.

"You didn't hear? Word got back to Mr. and Mrs. Henderson about the attempted rape and the party that they never gave permsion to throw. Suffice it to say the rest of the party is canceled." Tony sadly informed me.

"Dude, there will be other parties. So did you decide which school you're going to?" Tony had been accepted to a handful of colleges, three of them Ivy league. His mathematical skills were without question so he was leaning towards computer science.

"That's easy, I chose MIT. I get a full ride as long as I play basketball, so everything is paid for, dorm included. I'll be close enough to travel home on holidays and 3 day weekends." He proudly proclaimed.

"I just enrolled in Suffolk community college to start in September. I also enrolled in Harvard business school, Wharton business and Yale." I said knowing Tony was going to question my choices and the fact that I'm no longer interested in the military.

"Okay, what happened to you going into the military because you couldn't afford to go to school?" He asked as expected.

"I've had a change of heart. Before you ask, I'll get a part time job to pay my tuition. When I finally get accepted to one of my other 3 choices I'll figure something out." I explained knowing that was not going to cut it with my best friend.

"A part time job might be enough to pay for Suffolk but 'figure something out' is not a sound plan especially for a business major." Tony said.

"Look I know it's not the perfect plan but since I don't have parents that can pay my way then it's the best I could come up with for now." I said before changing the subject. I couldn't just say 'I'm going to pay for school with gambling winnings.' "I'm thinking we need one more major party before we both go off to be adults for the rest of our lives." I suggested.

"Well there is the Smiths point beach party the football team is throwing and unlike their previous parties, this one is open invite. Are you in?"

"Does a bear shit in the woods? What time amigo?" I asked.

"It starts at 8pm but I figure 9 or 10 for us. Be prepared to get swamped with questions about kicking Kurt's ass last night. You know his parents refused to bail him out and it's likely he'll get a 5 year sentence since it's his second offense. First time he was charged with breaking and entering but copped out to trespassing and got 3 years probation which he was still serving when he was arrested." Tony happily informed me.

"Well it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. What about his two buddies? I know they were cuffed and placed in separate squad cars." I asked.

"Yeah, about that, since they never got the chance to do anything to Gina and they're willing to testify against Kurt, they got to walk free. The one you kicked through the door is telling anyone who'll listen that you snuck up on him and hit him when his back was turned. And since he played football, there's a really good chance he'll be at the party." Tony warned me.

"Thanks for the heads up, they'll probably feel emboldened after not being charged like their buddy Kurt was so I'll be keeping an eye out for them." I hung up thinking if there was going to be a confrontation, the beach would be the perfect place.

I headed out wearing sweats and a tee-shirt I got in a three mile run, which is unusual since I shouldn't have been able to get past one mile. I wasn't doing much running at 18, I didn't appreciate the benefits of stamina until the military taught it to me. By mile two I knew I could put in many more miles and by mile three I wasn't even slightly winded. This was definitely out of the ordinary, so I decided to head home to test my endurance in other ways. Once home, I went to my man cave (basement) and assembled my weight set putting 150 lbs on the barbell. I did 30 reps with no signs of tiring so I added 100 lbs and did another 30 reps. Though I was ecstatic about my new found strength, I was also concerned about what it all meant. As grateful as I was to not only be alive but also to have a second chance at getting it right, I still wondered, 'why me'. When I was in Korea, my sensei showed us the benefits of meditation. If he was here now he would say "Haksaeng, in order to unlock your body's true potential, you must first harness your mind's potential through meditation."

So sitting in the lotus position I attempted to focus on my run this morning. I envisioned myself catching my second wind and the sounds of my feet hitting the pavement with each stride. I could feel the morning sun starting to heat the day and as I rounded Avondale lane I could smell freshly cut grass. That's when I saw Mr. Harris as he mowed his lawn. I had just entered the park when I had a vision of the earth from very far away. I was standing on what looked like a floating disk of light. When I looked down at the thing I was standing on I couldn't see my feet due to the long robe I was wearing. I seemed to be on a ship of some sort. Looking about I saw other...beings, and they seemed to be studying the earth. I couldn't make out if they were male or female, at least not due to their body types. Yet the aura around them gave me an indication of their sex for some reason. Out of the six of them one had a purple aura (I believed that was the female) while the rest had silver auras. None were looking at me because they were focused on the earth off in the distance. For a moment I could hear a small voice in my... no it was not in my head, I was in it's head. The voice was calm but I could detect its confusion.

"Can you hear me earthling? Am I using the correct language?"

"Wait... who are you? What's going on? I can hear you but you're speaking French. Wait, why can I understand you even though I never took a French lesson in my life? Again who are you and how is this possible?" I asked in thought.

Switching to English the being, who's mind I was trespassing, explained as best it could.

"How this is happening is simple, I was attempting to communicate with you, which opened our minds to you, it appears you were entering a meditative state just as that was occurring. Since you are a new and unique creature we could not anticipate that you would enter my mind instead of me entering yours. As for who we are, there is no word in your language for our name! You may call us "WATCHERS" as others do or you may refer to us as the "OLD ONES' as we out-dated many star systems! My individual designation is '183'. It was our mistake that sent you back in time. And created this conundrum. We were opening a portal to your earth year 1981 to...undo an accident. You see one of our scout vessels crash landed in your At-lan-tic ocean that earth year but we found out too late to save the crew. The vessel sank too deep for us to retrieve. Our plan was to go back in time to prevent the crash from happening in the first place, which we did. We did not anticipate your life force getting caught in the vortex."

"Wait a minute, when you say my life force, what you really mean is my soul" I asked

"What you call a soul is really your life force. It is also the one common denominator of all life in the universe. Your life force was in the process of ascending when it was pulled in. Once it passed through the vortex, it found itself back in 1981 and was drawn to the only place it could exist, your younger self and it now coexist with your younger selves life force. This is not something we have ever seen or heard of and we are the "OLD ONES". You may be experiencing moments of confusion and moments of extreme clarity. We believe that the confusion will eventually subside. The clarity is but the beginning of your unique situation manifesting itself."

After a slight pause the "Old Ones" continued.

"We have observed certain abnormalities in you that are increasing your natural abilities and may gain you some unnatural abilities as well. As this is all very new to us we can only speculate. Some of our kind are very concerned by this"

"Does this mean you're going to try to send me back?" Robert asked fearing his second chance was temporary at best.

"There are those of our kind that want to try and others that believe it is wrong to do so. There is a very small group of us that want to guide you as you discover what you're capable of and assist you in reaching your full potential. We are that last group, that is why we attempted to communicate with you. But we mustn't be found out. If it is discovered that we assisted you we would be severely punished. Maybe even extinguished." The OLD ONE explained.

"What do you expect of me? You must want something, why else would you risk so much?" I asked even though I feared the answer.

"We are the "WATCHERS". My kind have been watching your solar system since the beginning of its formation. Yet they never interfered. They watched the first beings of your "Earth" get annihilated by an asteroid and they did nothing. My kind argued and debated for years knowing the inevitable outcome. There are so few solar systems in the universe that contain life. This small group of ours feel life is too rare...too precious to leave to chance. We believe it is our duty to ensure your survival yet maintain our anonymity. If we are correct in our assumption of your manifesting abilities, you could relieve us of the responsibility by becoming a guardian of your world. You still have much to learn but we would like to help."

I remained silent while I contemplated all that I was told. How was I supposed to save the earth from asteroids, or other natural disasters? But the OLD ONE, whose mind I occupied, answered before I could even ask the question.

"As I have said, your abilities will increase exponentially, with some time and guidance. The people of your planet seem to worship/respect those that have mastered the art of industry and finance. We have devised a plan to get you 'ahead of the game' as your people like to say. In fact we have already subtly implemented this plan by infiltrating your REM sleep. You might have noticed your dreams have suddenly taken on a theme. We were trying to feed you information about discoveries that were made in future earth years that if you made them it would provide you with the capital you would need to achieve the goals you set for yourself, 'seed money' I believe is the term. But now that you are able to communicate with us at will, there is no need for us to infiltrate your dream state. This way is so much easier and more efficient. When you end your meditation session you will have retained information on caches of lost treasures and also companies that will have great success, raising their value on your stock exchange in this and the next decade." 183 explained.

The OLD ONE paused, I assumed, to choose his next words carefully. "We have something else to tell you but fear it might upset you and anger is counter productive to any goal you might have. If anything, you should use whatever anger you may experience as fuel to aid in your endeavors. When your mother died in your first timeline, it was not from smoking. It was the food she ate that weakened her immune system and allowed the cancer to take root and grow. The same thing happened to you. Different cancer, same catalyst." Said 183.

I thought about what was just revealed to me. I thought I was eating healthy most of the time, especially when I was stationed in Korea. Very few fast food joints existed and they were predominantly near the base to serve us soldiers. I learned to embrace the local cuisine and culture. When I returned to the States I maintained some of that discipline and never ate fast food or junk food of any kind. I snacked on fruits and nuts. I forgot that I was currently in mental communication with an advanced race of extraterrestrials until I heard the one with the purple aura communicate.

"Yes you did all the right things as far as nutrition goes but you had no way of knowing that almost all foods that are sold in your markets are genetically modified and some are purposely modified to destroy immune systems. You see the powers that be on your planet have implemented a world wide plan to reduce population and make massive amounts of wealth at the same time. Your local farmers who are not growing food from corporate seeds can produce healthy food but they are not allowed to sell to food dispensaries, such as supermarkets and it also has a shorter shelf life. Maybe this is something you might want to rectify." Said the female telepathically.

'At this point I was feeling a bit overwhelmed so I disengaged from my extraterrestrial Zoom call without even so much as a 'see you later' and found myself back in my bedroom sitting in the lotus position. Looking at the clock, I was surprised to find that while it may have felt like an hour or two had past, it was only 2 minutes that had elapsed At 55 years of age I thought I had seen it all or at least heard it all but I never would have guessed I'd one day be in the presence of an ancient alien race and that 'I' would be something they were worried about. At least there was a group of them that secretly wanted to help me. I need to make a list of what was supposedly expected of me.' I reasoned.

"1- They're supposed to be feeding me info that will create opportunities for me to establish a war chest of sorts. 2- There seems to be three factions amongst the aliens. One that wants to send me back to the moment I died. Another that wants to see how this plays out (let the chips fall where they may) and last but definitely my favorite is the smaller group that wants to help me 'Be all I can be'. 3- These aliens are supposedly the oldest beings in the universe and have been watching our planet since the formation of our solar system. They even referred to the dinosaurs as "the first beings" 4- I was supposed to make sure what happened to the dinosaurs doesn't happen to earth's current population. 5- I might have super powers." I counted off.

"This is insane!"

Feeling a bit tired from all the mental stress, I laid down on my childhood bed and drifted off. Before long I started having visions of news reports about a couple walking their property for what could have been the hundredth time when they had come upon a shining object sticking out of the ground. It turned out to be an old pre-turn of the century food can with the lid pushed back into place. When the couple extracted the can they found six more cans underneath the first one. Inside each was gold coins ranging in domination from $5 - $50. It was believed to have been gold stolen during multiple stagecoach robberies perpetrated by none other than the infamous Charles Boles AKA 'Black Bart'. The couple sold the coins as collectibles on Amazon in 2013 for a total of $10,000,000. The vision was so vivid it woke the teen up. Sitting up in my bed, I had an epiphany. 'That means they aren't supposed to make the discovery for another 32 years, shit they probably aren't even born yet.' So buried in Sierra Nevada Northern California was 10 million dollars worth of gold coins just waiting for me to go collect them.