Life...

It's like those computer games. That no geriatric over thirty seems to understand.

Life...

It's as if you sat in front of the screen. Your hands are put on the controls. Someone pops a coin in the slot.

That's all. No explanations. No rules. Unless you count "left-right", "up-down" and "fire". And some incomprehensible printing on a little panel at the side.

Coloured lights are moving down the screen. You jiggle the lever experimentally. A yellow blob moves in response.

Ah - that must be you.

Encouraged, you press the "fire" button.

All hell breaks loose. The other lights break up their orderly progress and begin a whirling dervish act. The machine blares out beeble-eeble-eeble-ee noises.

And you're a hundred points down before you know what you're supposed to be doing.

That's life. Where...

...you find you've begun to play the game before you have the faintest idea of the rules. Or what you're up against. Or what the object is.

Little wonder most folk get scared after a few abortive starts. And are content to sit through the game moving their light in some safe, restricted area.

What is the object of the game?

Now - you may be fulfilled looking after the kids and growing veges and leaning over a gate watching the sunset. We're not knocking it. No way.

You may be fulfilled putting oils on canvas, building up the outlines, spotting in the highlights, showing a little bit of what you feel to those who study the painting. We're not knocking it. No way.

You may travel. Or study. Or sing. Or have a little job that you're pleased as punch to do well.

And if you're fulfilled - we're not knocking it. No way.

But merely "being fulfilled" doesn't have to be enough. When God's involved, events begin to slide into higher gear.

The thing to remember is that the moment we start to move beyond Murphy's Law into a relationship with our Dad - life becomes a total jack-up.

Not in some cosy bluebirds-and-candyfloss sense. Padded cells are safe and comfortable. Regular meals and all that. But that's not living.

When God organises things, they're a bit of a challenge.

We've come to expect this. Okay, there are such things as coincidences. (Though, just to be grumpy and argumentative for a moment - who's to say that even the odd, isolated coincidence is nowt but the product of random, haphazard chance). But for sixteen years now we've been living in the expectation that life is being set up for us.

Doesn't mean we're a "success" by everyone's standards. Our bank balance can squat around the absolute zero mark easy as rise into the telephone numbers. We're happy with body carpet and a walk-in pantry - but we're equally used to living in a shell of a house with nothing (like nothing) indoors: no power, no plumbing, no nothing.

If that's not "success", it's at least satisfying. Take, f'rinstance, this book you're reading. Okay, in printed form it wasn't the slickest, glossiest bit of typography you'd ever seen. Some aspects of it were downright tatty.

But we made it. Like - every bit. From go to whoa. From the first scribbles in old exercise books. The endless discussions on what to put in, what to leave out. The typing and retyping. That's usual, but -

That's not all. There's the printing.

We had this crazy hunch to say to a friend to let us know if he ever saw a little offset press going for peanuts. Just a hunch - and our finances were on the ebb tide. He sort of shrugged. Didn't exactly say that pigs might fly, but you could see he didn't think we'd be inundated with offers.

Pause of a month or two. Phone call from friend. "You two still want a press?" Why not? It's no crazier that anything else we've gotten into.

"You did say peanuts. You'd get a platemaker, fuser and goodness knows how many boxes of chemicals thrown in. It's not exactly modern, but it must be worth more than the asking price." We said okay. And a few days later watched as an odd assortment of machinery and cartons was delivered to our door. We wrote a cheque - a small one - that left our bank balance close to vanishing.

Now, printing is quite an art. Us - we never got beyond mis-spelling our names with a John Bull outfit when we were adorable little kiddies. Or something.

The handbook wasn't helpful. Translated from the Japanese. Into a variety of English that was mind-bogglingly obscure.

Plus - the printing press was somewhat neglected. It had been sitting sadly in some southern shed until its rollers had seized solid. And, like my dear old Aunt Beatrice, a press does not travel well. All the jolting on Northlands famous roads had upset the delicate innards. Parallels and pressures (whatever they were) all needed tender, loving care. And our response to small mechanisms was to reach for a larger hammer.

For the first four weeks everything (like everything) went wrong. We produced solid black sheets of paper. The plates disintegrated before our bewildered gaze. The feed rollers would grab great wads of brightly virginal paper, crumple them viciously, then thrust them into the maw of the machine to spit them contemptuously out at the far end a fraction of a second later.

We never actually quarrelled. But there was a cautious politeness during those weeks.

Then, when we'd stripped down nigh on every spring and lever and roller and reassembled it more or less correctly - we started getting results. Words and things. Legible, almost.

Now, normal people would potter around producing a few sheets of headed notepaper for friends' birthdays.

But not us. It had to be a book. (Not this one. "Beyond Small Cords". That's an advert, if you haven't already read it.) With all the fun of folding up hundreds of big printed sheets so the pages came in the right order. Mostly.

Small Cords Press had begun.

The point we're trying to make is that Dad wants to e-x-p-a-n-d us. Get us to try new, impossible things. Leave yesterday's rut; try our hand at tomorrow's excitement.

And see how even negative events can be jacked up by Him. It's all part of what Jesus called "the Kingdom of God".

Take our burglary. (Apologies to any of you who've read this in our first book, but we reckon it's worth repeating).

We'd gone to town for our usual weekly spending spree. Came back tired but happy to find both ranchsliders wide open.

Do you know the sinking feeling? We tiptoed cautiously indoors to find we'd been given a thorough going over. Nothing damaged, but drawers turned out and mattresses up- ended. And a lengthy list of goodies gone.

Kitchen and workshop equipment, mainly. All the usual items that can be sold no-questions-asked in a pub for a few dollars.

It's perishing well traumatic. And it wasn't helped by the gallant police being too busy to come out. Nor by the fact that we kept noticing further things missing for some time after.

Prolongs the agony, that does.

Now, you need to know that we don't have insurance. That's a personal thing with us, but due to a couple of incidents we'd left that sort of business strictly between us and God some years ago. Both times (a brand-new vehicle trapped by the tide, a roof ripped off in a hurricane) we had comprehensive insurance, but the companies concerned wrote the fine print, so all we got was a slow, sad smile. No payout.

So this time, after our reactions levelled out (it takes a while) we said "okay, God, it would have been the easiest matter to get us back home early or something. But you didn't. Over to you, then".

Three months later (to the day; some things are a bit precise) a neighbour dropped in. He wanted to run power cables across our land as a short cut.

We weren't excited. A view is a view. We have nice views.

He pointed out that the cables could go across a bit of swamp that was out of sight from our house. In which case, said we, fair 'nuff. Go for it.

At which remark he pulled out a loaded cheque-book and wrote us one for eighteen hundred bucks: half of what he saved in taking the power wires the short way round.

That cheque replaced our nicked goodies with brand new items. Just like that.

We're not saying don't insure. Mind you - it's usually good to read the fine print and make sure you really are covered, not just bamboozled by a fast-talking salesman.

But what we're saying is this. Life's getting complicated. Maybe you've noticed. And statistics are pretty depressing regarding all the negative things that can happen.

Why be a statistic? In the Kingdom of God, everything is jacked up.

No, it doesn't mean we sail through on cloud nine. Padded cells are safe 'n' cozy, but there is more fun outside, even if there is more danger.

The thing is - the more direct our relationship with God is, the more we find every event is tailormade. By Him, for us.

Okay, some of it's bloomin' uncomfortable. We don't always understand what's going on, not for some time after. But it DOES compute. Always with the personal touch.

Oh, by the way - there's a punchline to the story. Another neighbour (not the cheque-book one) got done over by the same folk who flogged our stuff.

He was fully insured. Current market values and all that. The only snag was - and is - that although he lost almost $4000-worth of gear, he's not going to get one cent from the insurance company.

Something in the fine print, his solicitor informs him.

But let's take life one step further.

Because sometimes...

There's more to the game than even everyday life being jacked up.

And the oddest clues, the strongest hints keep being slipped in.

You must decide for yourself what makes a hint. We can give suggestions, but we're not bothered about proving anything.

Just that, the way we see it, the hints are pointing away from here. Out to there.

Suggesting that there are Gateways. That lead from this world. To a different wavelength.

And as you talk to people, gain their confidence, sometimes they tell you the clues that they've picked up.

He was training for the priesthood.

Which was typical of the young men in his family's circle of friends. But a death warrant in Holland at that stage of the German occupation.

The Gestapo had begun a house-to-house search. It was hopeless to hide from their machine-like thoroughness, but it seemed better than nothing to cower in the cellar under the kitchen. The trapdoor was under a rug, the big table had been dragged from the centre of the room to stand over it.

You delay death by a few seconds and feel you've achieved something.

The air in the cellar hadn't even begun to smell stale when he heard brisk, authoritative footsteps in the room above. There was a word of command. Then the sound of first the table, then the rug being drawn aside.

The trapdoor was flung open with a crash. Two Gestapo officers stood silhouetted in the opening, pistols in hand.

Wearily he climbed out. And watched in utter amazement and disbelief as they tucked the guns into their holsters. One offered him a cigarette.

Their look was of amused disapproval.

"It isn't safe, hiding in a place like that. Get a pencil and paper and write down what we tell you."

His pencil moved briskly at the dictation of the two men. They spelled out details of the search patterns. Of the concealment which was ineffective. And of techniques which would succeed.

Finally they made him take a note of their official numbers.

"After the war, perhaps you can find us and we can talk in more relaxed circumstances."

They left. And the young man gathered his friends and began instructing them.

Eileen and I met the priest concerned. His eyes twinkled as he told the story.

"You know", he said, "we were able to stay one jump ahead of the Gestapo for the remainder of the war. But that wasn't all."

He looked pensive. Forty years hadn't dimmed the effect of the incident on him.

"After the war I made a point of going to the German military records office. I had the serial numbers of those officers, remember. But the numbers didn't relate to anybody of any rank whatever. Those officers didn't exist." He stared down at his hands. "I've always had the feeling that they weren't Germans. That - they were a couple of angels."

There are similar straight-faced throwaways woven into the prosaic historical and theological writings of the Bible.

They aren't always used to emphasise a point. Or give prestige to some character.

Jacob is involved in one of his perennial spots of family trouble and is travelling from A to B. On the way, as he goes through Mahanaim, he meets a company of angels.

And? And nothing.

The story continues with no further reference to them.

Or there's Paul.

Meticulous, scholarly. Who breaks off a rather tetchy letter to one of his more unruly groups of converts to tell them about someone he knew a few years back.

Who was "transferred" - whether out-of-body or in it he isn't sure - to an area he labels "the third heaven".

And? And nothing.

Having whetted our curiosity, he says he isn't allowed to go into details concerning what goes on out there. And he gets back to the subject in hand.

Flip the pages for yourself. Tantalising references to Melchizedec. Who wasn't born, who didn't die. To Peter walking on Lake Kinneret as if anyone can adjust the surface tension when they choose to.

Some of the wacky stories have a clearly stated purpose.

Some don't.

Why tell us that Enoch got on well enough with his Dad to walk straight out of this scene and into whatever lies beyond? Why tell us, for heaven's sake?

Is someone trying to annoy us?

Tantalise us?

Say something like "guess what used to happen long before you crowd were born: tough the show closed ages ago. Never mind. You can read about it, can't you".

Like you missed the party but I brought you a funny hat to play with.

God doesn't do that.

Murphy might. Not our Dad.

So what's the guts, then? Why the clever business slid in without comment.

Every religion has angels. Miracles.

Always an essential part of the story.

But how come the Bible throws them in for free?

Whatever happened to King Arthur? Or Barbarossa? Or Thomas the Rimer?

Where did they go?

What if we have a standing invitation to drop in anytime? To see Dad. To look around His place. Settle, if we like the scenery. Or spend the winter there, if our chilblains tend to play up.

If you've the right sort of wife - and if she's landed with he right type of husband - you can talk about things like that.

Like - wouldn't it be neat if we could just pop through into another wavelength. Find a Gateway and walk in. Crazy, eh! Why not? Are we good enough? Course we are - we're His kids. That's the only passport that'd be valid for a trip like that.

Problem.

Find a Gateway.

Jacob "just happened" to find one at Bethel. Donkey's years ago. And although we'd experienced something valid there, it was only a pointer.

Not a way in.

It has to be real.

D'you know what we mean by "real"? Ultimately there's no such thing as miracle or magic. Those are only local, dialect words to say "Dunno how it happened, but it did". Because, ultimately, everything is real. The spirit realm is real. God is real. Angels, archangels, principalities, powers, fairies, goblins, Murphy. Okay, the laws they follow may be different from the ones we're familiar with. And in God's case, He's not subject to them, He writes 'em.

But there is nothing ethereal about the spirit world. It just has the disconcerting quality of being largely invisible to our eyesight.

If you dismiss invisibility as nonsense, remember three extremely common substances can be totally invisible. They can only be "seen" by virtue of any impurities in them, or by light refracted off them. What are they?

Which, significantly, the Bible uses as metaphors of the spirit realm. Ponder that.

So, the spirit level has to be real. Possibly "more real" than this level.

Which suggests that, where it impinges on this world it is likely to make its presence felt.

Okay. How? The answer, unexpectedly, is to be found in Wellington's DSIR - the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Now, there's a no-nonsense place for you. The people there, whatever their private foibles and idiosyncrasies, are not given to flights of fancy at the public's expense.

So if the next few paragraphs sound more Asimov that Anderson, don't blame us. Blame the boffins.

Did you know that there are places on this planet where the force of gravity is significantly and measurably warped.

Areas where a pound of butter - or whatever the wretched metric equivalent happens to be - doesn't weigh a pound any more. Less in one spot. More in another.

The DSIR knows. Geologists know. The New Zealand government knows.

And a survey of the entire land system of both North and South Islands has been made. You can buy copies of the results: beautifully printed maps, drawn to several scales, with the variations in gravitational forces shown in glorious Technicolor®.

Very clearly on these maps can be seen the points of extreme variation.

The gravitational anomalies.

The "reason" for the existence of these anomalies is unclear. Gravity isn't a force that is easy to experiment with. For one thing it is incredibly weak.

Most of us think of it as immensely powerful. Dates back to when we first fell off our bike.

Weak. It takes the entire mass of the earth to attract an object the size of a one-pound lump of butter with a force of one pound. (I'm serious - compare that with what a magnet can do to a lump of iron and you'll see the difference.)

So, although it is generally believed that gravitational anomalies are caused by vast underground pockets of extremely dense rock or extremely light rock, no-one can be too sure. And sometimes a "positive" anomaly can occur in the same geological type of region as a "negative" anomaly. Tricky.

But they're there.

And dear old N.Z. has one of the most coherent sets of maps of the beasties to be found anywhere in the world. Even the scientists engaged in gravitational research at Britain's South Kensington Science Museum have (at the time of writing) only surveyed a few areas of Britain, and the results are not yet available in map form.

Good old N.Z.

The question, of course, is "so what?"

It's often the only question worth asking.

Let's tell you what happened when we tried to find an answer to that question.

* * *

Our livingroom was in chaos.

Gravitational maps were everywhere. Big, colourful, they made it hard for Eileen to reach me with a cup of coffee.

We looked in fascination at the concentric, irregularly-shaped blodges of colour which deepened in tone at the heart of each anomaly.

"That looks an interesting one." Eileen compared it with the scale printed in the margin. "Mm - it's as extreme as anything recorded here."

"Where is it?"

"Wanganui way. Bit to the south. Wouldn't it be fun to go there and see if you felt like floating away."

I snorted. "What if it's the other sort, and you find you've put weight on, all of a sudden?" A realist, that's me.

"There's something printed faintly in the centre of the anomaly," Eileen said.

The word was Ratana. Ratana Pa.

Either you know or you don't. It doesn't matter, because events connected with that area have been well documented. You can visit the spot. Talk to people. Study microfilmed copies of the newspapers. And whatever evidence you chuck, you are still left with a hard core of facts. Let's spell them out. And remember - we're not fronting for this or any other group. Not nohow.

Back in 1918 a young Maori, T.W. Ratana was sitting outside his home on the coast below Wanganui. A cloud came out of the sea, and a voice spoke to him out of the cloud. Ratana heard the voice say he had been chosen to deliver the Maori people from their bondage to evil spirits. He was to turn them to the one true God, healing them of their diseases, taking neither the credit for the miracles nor the money which would be offered.

And the holy angels would be with him.

It wasn't long before the Maori people were flocking to the out-of-the-way spot to hear and see Ratana for themselves.

There were miracles aplenty. Today a large room is filled with wheel chairs, braces and other discarded appliances left by those who were healed. Dark powers of the tohunga were broken, evil spirits were exorcised, people who had been delivered were taught to avoid further trouble. And from time to time in full view of the gathered crowds, by day and by night - angels would appear.

Check the evidence for yourselves. And when you do, remember this occurred on the site of New Zealand's most intense gravitational anomaly - many, many years before the presence of such a phenomenon had been discovered.

Ratanaism was - at the outset - an extremely pure, highly effective, supernaturally based religion.

Forget the glib get-out "coincidence". The fact remains: a major paranormal event took place at an extreme area of gravitational anomaly. As if the junction - the Gateway - between this world and Elsewhere affects the delicate fabric of forces we call reality.

Compare also Cape Reinga, where tradition maintains that spirits leap off in their journey to the next world. Another Gateway. Another gravitational anomaly.

We wanted to go and see for ourselves. Not at Ratana Pa or Cape Reinga; not somewhere done over by tourists and tradition. Nor at the one near Breaksea Sound. We're not mountaineers.

"How about Pouto?" I suggested. "Pouto?" said Eileen. "Never heard of it. How do we get there?"

Easy. A brisk run from Dargaville to the tip of the peninsula shielding the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour. We arrived late and camped overnight.

The next morning was one of those odd days the north does so well. A westerly blowing strong-to-gale-force, whipping up a heavy sea that kept all small craft well within the harbour. Only two large fishing vessels were working the Tasman on the horizon. Yet the day was brilliant. Sunny. A few small clouds sped across the sky.

Perfect for the five mile walk to the site of the anomaly.

The tide had begun to ebb as we set out. The sand was hard under our bare feet; the beach was a wide, flat expanse. We were soon out of sight of the Pouto settlement and the old identities settling in for a day's fishing on the beach.

The walk was pleasant. Interesting, too, as a distant noisome blob proved to be a large, very dead whale. We passed on, leaving hundreds of seabirds to their banquet.

The day hadn't changed. Blazing sunshine, the strong westerly, a heaving sea, ebb tide. But now we were passing a headland - a long line of cliff - and the mood of the place altered.

"Feels decidedly unsafe," I commented, looking across at the cliff every now and then as if the feeling originated from there.

The cliff ended, giving place to a succession of sandhills. "Look!" Eileen said.

There, set high above the beach, was the squat outline of a disused wooden lighthouse. We had reached the epicentre of "our" gravitational anomaly.

It was an easy scramble to the top of the first sandhill. We climbed and looked around. The beach and the pounding sea was desolate, save for the two boats still visible out in the Tasman.

Okay. But we hadn't come all this way for the scenery. And whatever spacewarp was responsible for jiggering gravity around us just wasn't doing anything to get us excited. If we were standing at a Gateway, the traffic was pretty light.

Eileen, however, is pragmatical. Makes bullets for me to fire, she does. "Aren't to going to do anything?" she asked.

Like what? "Okay," I said loudly to nothing in particular. "We're here. Come and get us."

Eileen's expression clearly disapproved of that last sentence. "Charming!" she muttered.

Pause. Wind. Sun. Sea. Sand. That was all.

We slithered down the sandhill towards the beach and...

"What the heck?" There, in the surf, was a four-metre speedboat coming diagonally in to shore. Directly towards us.

Minutes ago the sea had been empty. Now this little craft, with two men in bright yellow wet weather gear was plunging and rearing through the breaking waves.

In our direction.

"How could they have seen us? We were obscured by the cliff as we came down the dune. And there'd been nothing visible from on top. Let's show 'em we're not in trouble or anything. We'll wave, then walk on."

We waved. Very deliberately first one man waved. Then the other. Then, having made sure we had seen them, the one at the wheel swung the boat ninety degrees to port and headed diagonally into the Tasman. And vanished. Not "went out of sight". One moment it was there. Then there was nothing. The sea was empty, apart from the two fishing vessels on the horizon.

We walked back. Along the stretch by the cliff which had earlier felt so menacing. There was still something there. But this time there was a barrier between it and us. Through which it couldn't pass.

Back at Pouto the same old identities were still fishing on the beach. No, nothing had gone out of the harbour. Something that small would have been swamped in seconds. Across from the other side, perhaps?

A scornful laugh. A weatherbeaten hand pointing out the sandbar in mid-channel. Nothing could pass through.

What, then? Those fishermen all gave the same answer: "It's another world, out by the lighthouse."

We can't prove anything about that day at Pouto. But for Eileen and me, those two men were angels. Not sentimental, effeminate, winged Byzantine illusions. Two dirt-under-their- fingernails blokes in wet-weather gear, who appeared through the Gateway to confirm our search. And - as the guardian variety - to let their charges know they were being looked after.

And the odd feeling at the headland?

Back home a car stopped and we struck up a conversation with the driver. He mentioned he was involved in restoring a wooden lighthouse.

"At Pouto?" Eileen and I asked simultaneously. It was.

We produced our anomaly maps. Told him the story. He didn't laugh; the area was familiar to him. And finally he said: "That feeling as you walked by the cliff. Know what it was?" We didn't. "That's a Taniwha. Lives deep in the rock. The Maori people built a pa close to the spot because of its power. In the old days they would have known how to summon it for defence."

Little wonder we'd felt uneasy on our outward trip. And presumably our two-men-in-a-boat had given it the gypsy's warning on their way through.

Interesting things, gravitational anomalies. But we're not suggesting you write to the DSIR for a set of maps. You can, of course, to check on the validity of our facts. That's never a bad idea. But if we'd wanted you to go anomaly-hunting, we'd have found some way to retail the charts, or conned a boffin into letting us reprint them under licence. Making a buck on the deal. It's not where it's at, though.

Sure we think there's enough evidence that gravitational anomalies are Gateways into Next Door. That's not the point. The point is that those on the maps are the big, static fellows. There can just as easy be little 'uns, temporary ones near where you are.

Finding one of them is just a matter of choosing to, same as everything else. Believing the system works. For no better reason than that God is your Dad. You're His kid. The sky's the limit. And the object of the game is to take a walk through a Gateway - wherever you find one - and take up the invitation to drop in and say hi.

To be accurate, that's the immediate object. But no way is it the end. More like a beginning. As if we'd spent a long time running on the spot at the starting point.

And by going through, we start to head in the right direction.

* * *

This is the final chapter in this book.

It's up to you to write the next one.

From your experience. From whatever you discover. We've suggested Gateways. Great. But use the idea as a springboard. Don't let it restrict you.

Remember that one quality of infinity is that it (or, more accurately, He) is infinite.

Don't gaze goggle-eyed at someone's diary of paranormal events and think you'll never attain such heights of spirituality. Hopefully you've learned that being good enough doesn't enter into it at all.

Nor do you have to settle for going that way if it honestly bores you to tears. One of the categorical statements made about God says in effect not only is He perfectly able to meet any of your demands - He can also go several steps better than your wildest imaginings.

And if your imagination is anything like our imagination, that could mean you're in for the ride of a lifetime.

Just don't settle for anything less.

Murphy's oldest ploy had been to teach folk the soul level as the ultimate. With the bait that "they would be as gods!"

Big deal. Except that Jesus taught the spirit level - where folk are part of God. Quite a bit better.

So don't let anyone talk you out of escaping the rat-race of normal, soul-level life. Mysticism is too good to be left to mystics.

Look - up 'till now, the stories in this book have been factual. Written the way they happened, more or less. Only the occasional name has been changed to protect the guilty.

Now, let's try something different. Fiction. Parable, if you prefer. But, like we said, you'll still have to write your own next chapter...

* * *

He'd had the dream again

Oh, there was no question of its being a nightmare or anything. Quite the opposite - as soon as it began, Peter was caught up in excitement and expectancy.

And there was none of the fuzziness, the lack of detail that usually characterised his dreams. This one, this strange recurring one, had a crispness, a clarity, a freshness about it that made him wonder if it could be somehow - real.

Each time, the same dream. One moment Peter was part of the straggling crowd that crosses at the Bank Street intersection when the lights go red and the buzzer sounds. The next moment he stopped. Abruptly. Only half-way across. Staring into the sky.

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" An elderly blue-rinse-and- handbag waddled squarely into the back of him. Momentarily he lost his balance and sidestepped, jostling a couple of Maori youths.

"Hey, watch it, will you!"

Peter was scarcely aware of them. He was still staring, frowning, into the brilliance of a near cloudless sky.

"Look," he said. "Look. Up there."

But the lights changed. The traffic surged forward. And a Toyota, impatient to turn down Cameron Street, was blowing its peremptory horn and nuzzling at his heels.

Somehow Peter found the kerb and was swept along the pavement by the passers-by.

"Look," he said again. "Can you see it?"

The man with the RSA badge on his lapel shook away Peter's hand. "Shouldn't be allowed," he grumbled. "Fellow like that, this hour of the day."

"Wha's he on about?" A gum-chewing girl was slouched in the entrance to North Ten. Her companion looked up briefly. "Seen somethin'. Plane an' that, prob'ly." She sniffed. Part habit, part comment, part necessity.

Peter ran down Cameron Street, apologising to trodden toes and bumped ribs. At the corner, where the road becomes a pedestrian mall and traffic swings sharp left into Rathbone Street, he again halted.

There is a clear view to where the near-sheer face of Parahaki stands above the Hatea River.

"Look!" he called desperately. "Will somebody look up there. Please."

Heads turned. Eyes followed the pointing finger. "Is he still at it?" "Just a Friendship coming in to land at Onerahi." "Nothing to make a fuss about." "You feeling okay?" "A few clouds, that's all. Carrying on like that."

He wasn't drunk. It might have been easier if he were. Because now it was out of sight, and plainly the hostile faces around him had seen nothing.

Peter flushed as he realised so many people were staring at him. He turned away abruptly and walked on, along Rathbone Street, towards Parahaki.

He had seen it.

One moment the February sun was beating down on him. The next, a sudden shadow spread over the road, bringing relief from the heat of high summer. And with it, the oddest feeling.

Peter thought for a moment, choosing the correct word. It had been a feeling of wonder. Evoking memories of childhood. Memories almost forgotten: sitting nose to nose with his own, his very own puppy, looking into its big brown eyes; running through tall grass and sending up a dance of the tiniest pale blue butterflies; waking in the night from dreams so real and so marvellous, of which no detail remained, only that he longed to dream again.

All this, from a shadow in the street.

Peter had looked up. And what he had seen had made him cry out and behave as if he were drunk.

Overhead, moving in silence through the sky, had been a massive, jagged oblong of rock.

The incongruity of it had done quiet violence to his mind.

The rock - he had only seen the underside - had been rough, stratified. A sheer granite mountain face suspended over the city like a ponderous ceiling.

Deep crevices, ledges, cracks and fissures ran upwards into the heart of the monolith. No quarried stone, this; it was natural, if such an object could be described in so absurd a way.

The rock had slid overhead, blotting out most of the summer sky. It had seemed close enough to touch. Which was patently ridiculous. But when Peter had run along the pavement to watched the colossal bulk of the rock swing in silent majesty towards Parahaki, he had realised it would only miss the summit by the narrowest of margins.

Indeed, had it missed?

For trailing from the edges of that immense slab - Peter was thinking of it as being as large as a city - were long fronds. Tendrils. Creepers which hinted at lush vegetation out of sight above.

In his imagination he pictured a little world of hills and valleys, streams and forests on the upper surface of the rock. And the vines which hung from the sides had surely grazed the very top of Parahaki before the immensity of it all was swallowed up by distance and the brilliance of the sky.

Peter began the long tiring walk to the top of Parahaki.

It was late afternoon. Only a few tourists were standing around the monument at the summit. Enjoying the view beyond the parapet or clicking cameras at each other. In a pushchair a toddler grizzled and was ignored by its parents.

Peter stalked up and down, scanning the sky, looking for the slightest sign of anything unusual on the horizon. He peered at every wisp of cloud, pacing from one vantage point to another until his behaviour attracted the attention of those standing around.

"Drugs, I shouldn't wonder." "Don't look at him. Those sort are just exhibitionists." "Could do with the police on duty up here. I mean, it's not right, is it!"

Abruptly, the toddler stopped grizzling, and began to clap sticky, fat hands together. Its mother noticed and went over to the pushchair.

"What did you say, darling? Say it again. What's a pity?"

The child was waving and shouting now. "P'etty, p'etty."

"Oh - pretty. Yes, aren't they. Nice birdies. Look, Arthur," she turned to her husband. "Quite a large flock of birds. Not migrating, surely? Not this time of year."

Peter spun round. Once again the shadow had fallen, blocking off the summer heat. Above, but now so terribly near, slid the edge of the great rock.

So close, he felt crushed under it. Able to distinguish small cracks and irregularities in the stony nether face. Each leaf, each tendril and fibre of the trailing vines.

"Look't him. Gone crazy." "He'll kill himself. Up on the parapet like that. Stop him, Arthur. Do something." "Knew he was acting funny, moment I saw him. This mist has just made him worse."

The long side of the tremendous aerial slab was directly overhead, cutting through the sky like a knife. The creepers were within his grasp as he stood, arms outstretched, on the low wall. But the vines were too thin, and snapped of as he attempted to grasp them.

"I say - do be careful. Why don't you come down. Perhaps we could talk things over." "Oughtn't to be allowed. Upsetting. Mark my words, he'll hurt himself." "P'etty, mummy. P'etty."

Denser vines swung past. Leaves whipped and stung Peter's face, making it hard to keep his balance. He staggered, arms flailing wildly, and found himself grasping a tough tendril, thick as a hawser. He tightened his hold and was jerked off his precarious perch.

Now he had no choice. He had to climb.

Abruptly Peter realised that he had little idea of what to do. It was desperation and the adrenalin pumping into his bloodstream that gave his legs strength to grip the vine, and to heave up with hands that were slippery with sweat.

He was swinging like a pendulum. Below him the ground was a complex patchwork of houses and paddocks, threaded together by ribbons of roadway. Still he climbed, wind whistling in his ears. And nearly lost his grasp as his head crashed into something unyielding.

The underside of the rock itself. Sparing one hand, he reached out and touched it. Solid, worn, incalculably old and - to his sudden delight - fissured to afford a handhold.

There was a moment of undignified scrambling and near- disaster as he made the transfer from the vine to the security of the rock. But he was there. Heart pounding, each breath a tearing pain in his chest, vision red and blurred. But he was there.

One handhold, one foothold, led to yet others. Climbing was easier now. There was a deep slanting cleft in the side of the rock, an oblique gash that was large enough for him to squeeze into. The wind no longer tore at him clothes. It was a relief to feel sheltered in such an incredible situation.

Still he climbed. The cleft opened out, sloping inwards and upwards in a widening vee. Became a little gulley. A valley with small plants and occasional flowers on its slopes. No longer climbing, he could walk forward with ease.

At last - the head of the valley.

He didn't trouble to look back and down at the earth slipping past below. It never occurred to him. His only thought was of what might lie ahead.

At the brow of the monolith he halted.

The vegetation - the vines, the grasses - grew only in the irregularities on the edges of the rock.

Before him, the massive upper surface appeared to stretch unbroken into the distance.

There was total silence. Somehow even the air was motionless. Only the accelerated beat of his heart disturbed the stillness.

No visible barrier lay in front of him. But he knew that to go forward had to be the consequence of a deliberate choice. Final. Irrevocable.

It scarcely mattered that he was physically incapable of going back. All that counted was the tremendous decision to step out of the region of space and time and matter as he knew it. And to cross the Threshold.

Quietly he made the choice. Walking forward. Out. And into. Becoming aware of passing from an environment both viscid and enervating, one which he had for a lifetime accepted as inevitable and normal...

To a realm for which he had no words. Where he was conscious of every movement his muscles made, the breath he drew, the feel of the rock beneath his feet. Where his mind could register these sensations, observe the surroundings, think, ponder and question.

Yet above all, he was aware of being far, far more than those sensations and observations.

With a wondrous, growing realisation he strode onward. He laughed, because at last he knew.

Ahead, the surface of the rock was no longer flat. Lines of strata became vast steps running in an arc to left and right until lost in the towering clouds which the slab had entered.

Nor was he alone. All around on the mighty stairway were a throng of beings who acknowledged him as he mounted ever higher. As the air became cooler and thinner, silence gave place to vibrant, constantly-changing music.

And shafts of sunlight which glinted through gaps in the clouds paled in the burst of glory which flowed down from above.

His stride became a run, carrying him upward from stair to stair with unhindered ease, with the expectancy, the sheer joy of a child returning home...

And always, always at that point, Peter had woken up. With a feeling of disappointment.

Whatever...whoever was at the summit of those vast stairs remained unknown. Yet, despite his sense of dissatisfaction, Peter was aware that he had chosen to go forward. He hadn't hung back.

So what ever the significance of the strangely repeated dream, it ought to be possible for him to discover its meaning.

He had a few days holiday owing to him, and rang through to tell his boss he'd be taking the rest of the week off. Peter had determined to get to the bottom of what was happening.

After breakfast he walked up Rust Avenue and, on impulse, entered the library. His enquiries might as well begin there.

It wasn't a question of doubting his sanity. Everybody dreams, he told himself with a wry grin. But mostly people don't talk about it. Too personal, too silly, often as not. And if the same story was replayed time and time again, who would know if even half the worthy citizens of Whangarei had had the same experience?

Peter pushed through the swing doors, walked across the library's central open area, and climbed the carpeted stairs leading to the gallery. Near the very beginning of the arrangement of books he found the section he wanted. The rag- bag, hotch-potch, mystic, thaumaturgic and charlatan miscellany of hopelessly unclassifiable events.

He gathered an armful of books from the shelves. The meaning of the pyramids. Flying saucers. Easter island statues. Folklore and legends. Atlantis. Dreams and visions. Exceptions to the orderly world in which most people wish to live.

Peter carried the books downstairs and spread them across one of the tables. He began searching, flicking from page to page, book to book.

"Can I help you?" One of the librarians had been watching him.

He said no. Rather brusquely. Then apologised.

"It's all right," she said. "What are you looking for?"

"An explanation, I suppose," he said. "Of a dream I keep having. Time and time again."

She picked up some of the books, examining the titles.

"What was it about? Flying saucers, from the look of these books." Peter shook his head. Something in her voice prompted him to tell her, as best he could, what had happened.

"...and always, near the top of the stairs, I wake up."

She looked at him quietly for a moment. Then began sorting the books into some kind of sequence.

"The one thing these books have in common is that they document strange sightings, dreams and visions down through history. There's a clear pattern. Each era records seeing things that are typical of the age in question. Go to the Dark Ages - there are monsters and witches. In the Middle Ages people see vast armies dressed in armour, waving banners as they march across the sky. Later on, when everyone is intensely pious, it is always some saint who appears. Or the Virgin. Last century there are literally thousands of accounts of steamships in the clouds, clanking mechanical devices, crewed by strange beings. And -"

"And this century everyone specialises in flying saucers," Peter concluded for her. "An age of high technology. So people's imagination conjures up something which fits the trend. But..."

"Go on," the librarian said.

"I didn't dream about flying saucers. I might have expected to, but always it's a rock."

She nodded. "Dreams are strange things. Some of these books claim that our normal life is far too reasoned. Too orderly. So at night a different part of us takes over: our subconscious mind, whatever that may be. And it functions in pictures and symbols, with none of the logical restriction that we impose on our daytime thinking. Being narrow-minded would seem to be a very common problem, and our subconscious has to work hard to overcome it. That's probably why your dream keeps being repeated. There's some lesson there that you waking mind is - well - too stubborn to learn."

Peter was thoughtful.

"You could be right," he admitted. I hope I can find what's behind it all."

He thanked her and left the library.

A thought struck him and he found a nearby phone booth. With a stub of a pencil and the back of a discarded cigarette packet he copied addresses from the directory. Armed with them, Peter began walking.

At the first two addresses, he never penetrated past the front door. The housekeepers or whoever regretted that Peter "didn't belong to us", but assured him he would be made most welcome next Sunday.

The third port of call seemed more promising. He was ushered into a small, booklined study and invited to explain his problem. As briefly as he could, he described his dream of a colossal slab of rock which had moved silently through the sky over Whangarei.

The minister's carefully attentive expression never wavered, but his response was immediate.

"I'm, ah, glad you came to me, Peter - I believe you said that was your name? However, I would be totally unable to help you. Your family doctor perhaps..."

"Aren't dreams and unusual things in the sky part of your religion then?" said Peter, annoyed. "I thought that the Bible -"

"You wouldn't be trying to teach me my job, would you?" smiled the minister. "There are many stories we don't understand. Allegories, no doubt. But now, if you would excuse me."

Peter had one more address left.

"Do you believe in the supernatural?"

It wasn't perhaps the most conventional way of opening a conversation on a clergyman's doorstep. The man blinked, then held the door open for him.

"Yes. I certainly do. Perhaps you'd better come in."

Peter was soon telling his story yet again. The man listened carefully. Nodding. Occasionally asking a pertinent question.

"I believe you," he said finally. "Those things happen more often than most people care to admit. Now, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'm going to lead you in a prayer of renunciation."

"A what?" said Peter.

"Oh, it's quite simple, really. I'll tell you what to say. It's a matter of believing that it won't happen again."

"Why?" The man laughed at him.

"Deceiving spirits! Spiritual counterfeits! We're living in the last days - I wonder if you realise that - and there will by lying signs and wonders" he dropped his voice confidentially, "that would deceive, if possible, the very elect."

"I don't want to renounce the experience," retorted Peter. "I want to understand it. It's no good you just saying it's something bad. How do you know? Have you ever seen anything like that?"

"No," admitted the minister. "But as a believer I would be protected from that kind of thing."

"What about Ezekiel?" Peter demanded.

"What do you mean?" The man was getting to his feet, clearly unwilling to prolong the interview.

"Well, how did Ezekiel know that the wheels and things that appeared in his dreams and visions were okay? And not something evil?"

"I'm afraid I really can't spare the time if you aren't prepared to co-operate. And as for Ezekiel - surely you don't regard yourself as some latter-day prophet, do you?"

And Peter found himself out of the house, the door firmly closed behind him.

"Damn stupid, the lot of them," he muttered, trudging back towards the city centre. Down the long, regular slope of Bank Street, down to Farmers corner, where something - some odd familiarity about the scene - began to tug at the corner of Peter's mind. He started to walk to the other side of the street.

And...one moment he was part of the straggling crowd that crosses Bank Street intersection when the lights go red and the buzzer sounds. The next moment he stopped. Abruptly. Only half-way across. The whole scene was identical to his dream.

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" An elderly blue-rinse-and- handbag waddled squarely into him. Momentarily he lost his balance and sidestepped, jostling a couple of Maori youths. "Hey, watch it, will you!"

Peter was scarcely aware of them. He was staring, frowning into the brilliance of the near-cloudless sky.

And there was nothing there. Nothing.

And the lights had changed. The traffic surged forward. A Toyota, impatient to turn down Cameron Street, was blowing its peremptory horn and nuzzling at his heels.

Somehow Peter found the kerb and was swept along by the passers-by.

Everything was the same as in his dream. The man with the RSA badge. The gum-chewing girl with her companion, slouched in the entrance to North Ten. All the same.

But in the sky - nothing. And then he saw.

The whole scene changed. Or, to be accurate, nothing changed. Not a thing. It was simply that, for the first time, Peter could see. See clearly.

He saw the street. The people. All as part of a vast, infinite plan. Yet also a deliciously simple pattern. In which each being was a thread, a part of the whole design. And at the same time, part of the Designer.

In an instant, Peter knew - knew in a deeper way than he could have imagined possible - that everything had purpose and meaning. Everything, each event, all natural laws. Everything was arranged for a grand purpose. There was no accident, no chance.

Oh, to be sure, some people would plod through life unheeding and unaware of design and Designer, fulfilling their destiny in ways which would appear to them as but the random outcome of thousands of tiny choices and decisions.

Others would get some slight inkling, some faint suspicion of the underlying purpose of life. And stubbornly try to fight it, to smudge the design. They too would fulfil all that was for them, but often in tiresome and tedious ways that would bring them little joy and little satisfaction.

But here and there - more frequently than Peter would have expected - were those who saw. Who were given a glimpse of the design. Whose eyes responded to the light.

As Peter looked down the street, seeing for the first time, he understood the dream that had come to him so often. That which was at the top of the massive staircase was both the Designer and the view of the design. Of course there was much, much more to understand. What, he wondered, was the Rock which had been the steppingstone from mundane reality to the truth which lay beyond all facts?

He would have to ask the Designer.

Perhaps - the thought welled up from somewhere deep within him - perhaps it was Jesus.

* * *