ordered sandwiches, pickles, potato salad, soup, bottled sweet drinks, tossed salad and blueberry pie. There was a small table in the corner, and Tim spread the food across it. The three of them sat on wooden stools and unfolded the sandwiches that were wrapped neatly in white, waxed paper.
Tup eagerly mashed her teeth into a three-cheese, lettuce and tomato on rye and moaned with obvious pleasure at the flavor of the Grey Poupon that was slathered on the cheese. Jeff bit into his sandwich but haplessly pulled a piece of lettuce that flapped ridiculously over his chin. Tim laughed and pounded his fist on the table, “Did your dentures slip? Get a grip. A polygrip!” Tup slapped her thigh while raspberry-lemon iced tea splurted from her nose with a snorting sound. In a rage, Jeff clenched a napkin in haste, wiped his face, crushed the napkin in his fist and bounced it off the table.
As Tup ate, Tim ogled her slightly protruding cleavage and Jeff clenched his teeth in a rage. Something in his mind snapped, and he felt an uncontrollably strong impulse to throw the table over, beat Tim to a pulp and slap Tup squarely across the face...alien or not. He felt this strong impulse for violence surge outward from the pit of his stomach. His head felt like it would explode and he wanted to destroy something or hit someone. However, Jeff knew he would regret any violence on his part and tried hard to control his temper. It took several minutes for the feeling to pass, “Common, Jeff...control yourself.”
He tried not to visualize himself striking either of them because he was on the verge of acting out his aggressions as it was. Jeff bit his lower lip as he attempted to get his breathing back to normal. Still, thoughts of striking the duo came intermittently between breaths that were excessively charged with tension and stress. Jeff knew he was not a violent man, but there were rare moments when he had to work hard at preserving his humanity. In moments such as this...his body was ready to act aggressively as an excessive amount of adrenalin surged through his body.
When Jeff finally looked into Tup’s eyes, he flinched. She was stone silent and had observed enough to know where he was coming from. He grappled his disheveled sandwich with trembling fingers and clumsily shuffled the flopping cheese and lettuce back into it. Tup calmly picked up a half-stick of celery, crunched into it and gulped down two bottles of Brambleberry Juiced Tea. Then she pointed the celery at Jeff and said, “Did you notice that the tears I splattered on you yesterday afternoon have disappeared?” Jeff looked at her angrily and said, “No, but I wish you would.”
Jeff wasn’t sure at what time the tears vanished, but he secretly felt deeply relieved. Tup added, “And I’m not pregnant, silly goose! We’re not even from the same dimension...loosen up Jeff!” In a flash, Jeff realized Tup was teasing him, and he burned with a new sense of determination to rid himself of her at all costs.
Tup grabbed Tim’s bottle of raspberry-lemon iced tea, slugged it down and looked knowingly into Jeff’s eyes. She pushed the empty bottle to the center of the table and tapped Jeff on the arm with her celery, “Selective amnesia is what you need.” Then she tapped Tim and repeated the same words.
Instantly, Tim and Jeff looked at Tup and both felt a little awkward. They remembered seeing her from somewhere, but they weren’t sure who she was or how she happened to be with them. Tup immediately introduced herself as an acquaintance who often ran into them because they frequented the same lunch spots.
With another tap of the celery, both men had a faint but pleasant remembrance of her imprinted on the edge of their consciousness. Each recalled a hazy sense of having seen her around town.
Tup tapped the table and a subtle, gossamer etheric strand of consciousness rippled across town and throughout Planet Earth, giving everyone who met her same faint, pleasant remembrance of having met her before.
She bit into the celery again and lightly touched Jeff’s arm, saying, “As water into wine, I’ll taint thy mind to do my bidding.” Jeff looked up from his sandwich and said sheepishly, “I’m sorry, Miss, I don’t recall your name.” Tup turned to Tim and said, “You’ll please excuse Jeff; I want to speak with him in private.”
A little dazed, Tim said, “Sure…a…” She interjected, “Tup. My name is Grizzle Knott Tup, but my friends call me Tup.” Jeff re-wrapped the sandwiches, bagged the goodies and exited the deli with Tup into the street. The two walked arm in arm as they headed for a nearby park bench. Jeff was almost curious as he shuffled across the street and wondered, “Where did I first meet this woman...who cares...?”
What happened next isn’t possible because next doesn’t happen in non-linear space and time. Suffice it to say that Jeff thought many things and one day reasoned that all events in the past and future are happening in the eternal present. You see, what unfolds before your basic Earth perception has already unfolded in another holographic dimension of universal perception where all is. And Tup utilized the knowledge of this knowledge for her own selfish purposes. Some beings are selfish. And some beings are stupid. But all beings are learning.