JOAN SPENCER - PAULA AUSTIN
1
Paula Austin was a happy baby. She was bouncy and full of life. Her mother Kim spent lots of time with her, usually with five-year-old Loreen right beside her. Dan wasn’t around much because of his two jobs, but he tried to spend every weekend playing with all three children. A typical nine-year-old, Thomas was the only one in the family that paid little attention to Paula. He was too distracted by friends, sports, television and homework.
Sarah came over every day from across the street to lend a hand to Kim. The Austin family called her “Aunt” as an honorary title because of her closeness with them. Sarah would spend hours feeding, changing, and amusing Paula. She had done the same with Tommy and Loreen when they were infants. Sarah and Kim were inseparable friends. Kim never felt an ounce of jealousy toward Sarah, even though all three of Kim’s kids hardly knew which of the two was “Mama” until they turned six months.
Everything with Paula was perfectly normal through the first three months. At that point she began to see and recognize the people around her. She responded to a game of peek-a-boo or a knee-bounce, but she never laughed for very long. Sarah was first to notice it, and then Kim confirmed it. The only way they could describe it was that Paula got distracted very easily. The eerie part of it was that the moment Paula stopped laughing, she switched to a vacant, almost catatonic stare. They could snap her out of it easily enough, but it was disturbing nonetheless. And it always followed laughter!
Paula began to sleep poorly at three months. She tossed and turned whenever she slept, and frequently woke up screaming. Sarah caught her in the crib a few times staring into space after a nap. When that happened, Sarah had to shake her gently to snap her out of it.
The problems seemed to increase as Paula approached six months. She began to resist naps. She cried any time she was left alone in her crib or playpen. It was obvious to Kim that Paula was afraid to go to sleep. Kim deduced that Paula was having nightmares, but she had no idea what to do about it. They just assumed that Paula felt insecure, so Kim and Sarah started to hold Paula more. They talked to her and sang to her as much as they could. They walked her in the stroller and played with her constantly.
Nothing helped. It got worse and worse until Paula turned ten months old. That seemed to be a turning point. Her nightmares seemed to cease abruptly and she stopped fussing when they put her down for naps. Everything now seemed quite normal, except she still developed that vacant stare quite often.
At one year, Paula was bubbly and curious and affectionate beyond belief. She had a delightful way of throwing her face into people’s chests to “hug” them. And she loved to snuggle up into Kim’s or Sarah’s lap and babble away in baby talk. She would also sit for hours while her mother read children’s books to her. She helped turn pages the best she could, and her eyes drank in every detail of the colorful pictures on each page.
Kim began taking Paula on long walks in the stroller whenever the weather was warm enough. Loreen and Tommy were at school, so Kim had lots of time to spend alone with Paula. She felt something very special with Paula. It was beyond motherly love. It came from the way that Paula seemed to express wonder in life and nature; the way she cocked her head to study a bird or a tree or another baby. Kim knew that Paula was destined to make a difference in this world.
.....
Joan knew she was in a new body. She was deeply troubled by the whole idea of it. But the moment she tried to contemplate the death conduit, the processing and the journey through the void, the memories eluded her. She felt like she was chasing pigeons; the way they flew away the moment you approached. In no time at all she could only remember two things. She was Joan and she was not alone in her body.
She could hardly see. She heard lots of unrecognizable sounds. Her senses of taste and smell were dull. She could feel pain. People were handling her, feeding her and hugging her. She patiently existed waiting for things to unfold before her.
As her vision slowly sharpened, she became aware of the many people in her life. And the vision aided her in separating the sounds in her world. She began to recognize the names and the sounds of Mama, Papa, Sarah, Loreen and Tommy. Mama and Sarah were the ones who touched her and cared for her the most. When they were around she felt warm and wonderful inside. They addressed her as Paula, even though she knew her name was Joan.
This body she occupied was disconnected from her. It just moved and did things on its own, but she could feel things from it. The more she became aware of the feelings the body generated, the more control she was able to exercise on it. She was fascinated with her body. It was all dark brown. So were the people around her. She expected everyone to be pink.
She mastered control of her body to the point that she could make her little arms and hands do some of the things she willed them to do. She could touch and feel things, but movement was still quite jerky. She was able to make eye contact with the people around her and it felt good. Then she began to have unexpected feelings. It seemed that just when she really felt good, she would suddenly feel bad. It was confusing.
Thoughts started going through her mind. They weren’t even in the form of recognizable sounds or words, but she understood them anyway. The thoughts were that of guilt. She kept feeling like she was doing something wrong. And the bad thoughts always followed good ones. People around her found ways to make her laugh. That was such a wonderful, all-consuming feeling. Then guilt would suddenly sweep over her. She had visions of things she couldn’t identify. She tried to focus...to remember.
She would lie in her crib for a nap, and then vivid images flashed through her mind. It’s wrong....It’s wrong. The words came to her, but she didn’t recognize them. She felt the guilt every time she went to sleep. It got so bad that she did everything she could to stay awake. But sleep and guilt always prevailed. She began to cry in frustration and fear whenever the feelings came over her.
Mama was magical to Joan. Mama appeared whenever she felt scared. It was like Mama could read her mind. Mama held her so comfortably, and the way she smelled was always friendly and reassuring. The same was true of Sarah, but Mama was the best. Joan began to feel overwhelming love for her mother.
Mama and Sarah started taking Joan for walks. Joan sat in the stroller and felt the breeze flow around her face. And the smells were so nice and so interesting. She was curious about everything she saw. The walks were different every time. She always found new and wonderful things to look at.
The guilt came more frequently as Joan progressed. She was learning words, names of things, how to crawl, and how to do more with her hands. As she learned, the joy she felt intensified, but so did the guilt. She began to concentrate on the guilt. It had to be stopped or it would ruin all the good times she would ever have.
She began to grasp language, and that helped her sort out what the guilt feeling really was. She had a vision one night, and it all suddenly became clear to her. Joan ran away and was bad! She realized somehow that the bad Joan was different from the Joan that was called Paula. After that vision, she didn’t get the bad feelings in her sleep anymore. But even though the guilt was gone, she began to wonder what bad thing the other Joan had done.
Life was good again and Joan just loved everything and everyone. She loved hugging and being hugged. She was learning so much and communicating too. She managed to say words that others understood. That gave her such mind-boggling control over the world. She just asked for a bottle and it was brought to her. The same was true for her bippy (Aunt Sarah called it a pacifier), her toys and her books. But her speech was nothing compared to the words she understood. She had to work on talking. It seemed important that she be able to say all the words that she could understand. And she wanted to find words to express what the other Joan felt.
2
At fifteen months, Paula was making rapid progress in all areas. She was definitely the smartest child that the Austins had ever known. Kim could see the magic in this child as nobody else could. She recognized how clever Paula was at putting phrases together and at figuring out the little games of “which hand” that Kim played with her. Paula’s fascination with nature was another wondrous thing that Kim saw. No other child of hers had studied birds and trees and other people like Paula did. Watching Paula learn became the most exciting thing in Kim’s life. She dedicated herself to educating this mystical child of hers.
Paula was talking like a three-year-old by the time she turned eighteen months. She was walking and exploring everywhere. She started drawing with pencil and paper, and sometimes Kim could actually recognize the things she drew. And Paula loved books more than anything else in the world. She loved to hear her mother read stories, and she always had to make sure she got to see all the pictures in the books.
Kim had special sessions with Paula where she would read from older children’s books and let Paula ask her questions. This expanded Paula’s vocabulary well beyond the normal day-to-day conversational words. Kim had a notion to get Paula’s IQ tested, but she decided that she didn’t really want to know what it was. She found the idea of a super-intelligent child rather intimidating. For the present she decided to just do everything she could to help Paula progress.
Aunt Sarah and Paula became close also. Sarah didn’t have the patience or the knowledge to systematically educate a child like Paula. But she had a way of holding Paula and talking to her that was hypnotic. Paula adored sitting on Sarah’s lap and listening to her tell stories of what it was like when Sarah was little.
At two, Paula was getting too smart for Kim to handle, so she went to the school district to speak with some people in the gifted program. They were very anxious to meet with and test Paula, but Kim declined. But they didn’t give up. They gave Kim a bunch of material to read, and asked if they could talk about it again after she read it.
Kim took it all home and read it. She wasn’t happy with what it said, but she realized it was probably true. Paula was going to require some special pre-school educational program if she was to reach her true potential. Kim called the school and talked about it. She told them they weren’t well-to-do and she wanted to know the costs. They told her they could set Paula up in a program that charged only what each family could afford. That was a relief to Kim, and she agreed to bring Paula for testing.
The day they went for testing, Dan took the day off. The evaluators said they wanted to meet both parents. That supposedly helped them decide what was the best program for each child. Dan was convinced that they were really testing him too, and he didn’t particularly like it. He cooperated mainly because of Kim’s insistence.
The testing took the entire day, and it was grueling. When all was said and done, they wanted Paula in their pre-school program, but said she couldn’t start until she was three. Until then, they recommended a special tutor that was trained to handle children as young as Paula. The tutor would come to their house twice a week for four hours a session. The charge would normally be ninety dollars a week, but with their income and dependents, it would be only twenty-five dollars. Kim and Dan both agreed.
The first day that Miss Dora Driscoll came to see Paula, she brought a ton of things with her for Kim and Dan to read. She suggested that Kim be present at every session for two reasons. First, it would make Paula more comfortable; second, the questions Paula would inevitably ask wouldn’t make sense unless Kim was there.
.....
Joan was anxious to please Mama and Sarah. She made every effort to impress them with how smart she was. They laughed with joy when she spoke the new words that she learned. And when they played “which hand”, Mama loved it when Joan picked the hand that carried the coin. Joan was good at it too. She figured out that Mama always moved the thumb on the hand that held the coin, but Mama acted so surprised when Joan pointed to that hand.
When Joan got better at walking, the world became so much easier to explore. Mama and Sarah took her to the park where she could walk all around and see the birds and the grass and other children playing on swings and slides. She tried talking to other children her own size, but they never answered.
When Mama got Joan her first pencil and paper, it was exciting. Now she had a way to show her mother many of the wonderful things she knew but couldn’t find words to explain. She could see how much her mother liked her drawings. Best of all, Mama seemed to understand from the drawings that Joan needed to learn more words. When Mama started reading to Joan from the big-person books, that was the best thing ever. Joan asked what everything meant and Mama explained. Joan couldn’t wait until she could read those books herself.
Aunt Sarah often held Joan on her lap and told stories about when Sarah was little. The stories fascinated Joan. They churned up memories deep inside of her; memories she couldn’t understand. She could have listened for days at a time, but Aunt Sarah never seemed to have as much time as Joan wanted.
Joan had a wonderful cake for her second birthday. It had candles to blow out, everyone sang “happy birthday”, and she got lots of nice presents to open. The best present she got was a big box of crayons and a book to color in. She colored some of the pictures, but decided she preferred to make her own pictures. So Mama got her big books of blank paper to draw in, and she filled them up in no time at all. The pictures seemed to flow from a place deep inside of her, and sometimes Joan herself was surprised by what she drew.
The day Mama and Papa took Joan to the school was scary. The whole building looked familiar to her, inside and outside. They asked so many questions and made Joan look at drawings, put shapes in their own special holes, read words and count numbers. It was the hardest work Joan had ever done. It wasn’t fun. But there was something so familiar about it. Joan felt compelled to search her memory to find out why.
The day Miss Dora came to the house was the strangest day of Joan’s whole life. The moment Joan laid eyes on her, the feelings deep inside began to come out.
3
Dora Driscoll was all business. She spent a good deal of time with Kim before they sat down with Paula. But something went awry immediately. Paula’s reaction to Miss Dora was totally unexpected. She stared at her face, then looked her up and down with the most horrified look in her eyes. Her mouth was wide open. She began to shake from fear, then ran to her room screaming.
Dora and Kim looked at each other in amazement. Dora was about to speak, but Kim beat her to the punch. “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” she said apologetically. “Paula loves everyone.”
“Do you think it’s because I’m white? If that’s a problem, we can get someone else.”
Kim cut her off, “I don’t think that’s it at all. If you just give me a moment, I’ll try to talk with her alone. Please just make yourself comfortable, and I shouldn’t be long. I feel so embarrassed.”
Dora nodded and smiled. “Really, Kim, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ll wait right here while you talk with her.”
Kim politely excused herself, and headed for Paula’s room.
.....
Joan was shocked. It was the most dreadful thing that had ever happened to her. She looked at this woman’s face and she knew her. She was scared to death of her, and she had no idea why. She turned and fled for her room.
By the time she reached her doorway, she understood part of the answer. The woman was the image of Joan Spencer. But who was Joan Spencer? She closed her door and sat down on the floor. She covered her eyes and leaned forward as the tears flowed uncontrollably.
Images of Joan Spencer flooded her thoughts. She remembered her family and her friends. She remembered her school, and it was so similar to the school her Mama and Papa had taken her to only a week before. She remembered the accident. She remembered the cells and the processing. She remembered Oren. She knew where she was now and why.
It all came so quickly to her that she could hardly believe it. She sat straight up and put her hands in front of her. The thoughts she had as an infant came back. It’s wrong.....It’s wrong. Joan ran away and was bad.
Her mother knocked once and entered the room. She asked what was wrong. Joan just shook her head and told her she didn’t want to talk about it. Her mother bent down and kissed her, told her she understood and left.
There would have been no way to talk about this with her mother anyway. The thoughts were coming so quickly that Joan couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Her mind was going into overload as memory after memory revealed themselves to her. But, even with all the knowledge, there was no real understanding of the meaning and consequence of all these memories. This could only come with analysis. Joan knew she had a lot of work to do, but she felt relieved that she finally knew what had happened to her.
4
Kim told Dora Driscoll that Paula would need some time, and they left it that Kim would get in touch with Dora after the situation was resolved.
But Paula changed after that day. Kim was totally puzzled by it all. Paula became introverted. She still conversed when addressed, but she seldom initiated a conversation. There was a significant change in the way she spoke. She was cautious about everything she said, and she seemed to be using words that she hadn’t previously used in everyday conversation. There was a definite maturity in her actions that Kim and Sarah hadn’t seen before.
Kim blamed herself for the change. She felt that she shouldn’t have exposed Paula to the gifted program because it must have traumatized her in some way. She discussed all this with Paula, but Paula denied that her mood change had anything to do with Kim. She wouldn’t tell Kim much more than there was really nothing to worry about. She said she just needed time to learn how to use all the wonderful information that Kim and Sarah had taught her; that part of her brain wasn’t developed enough to use it all.
This really frightened Kim. The kind of mature logic that Paula used in her explanation proved to Kim that Paula’s brain was quite sufficiently developed. Kim told Paula that in her heart she felt something was more wrong than Paula was admitting, but she would give her all the space she needed. Paula thanked her for understanding.
For the next several months, there was little change in Paula’s introverted behavior. She still went for walks and allowed herself to be entertained by Kim and Sarah, but it happened with far less frequency than before, and never at Paula’s own request.
In the months that followed, things got a bit better, and Paula started to come out of her shell. She gradually became her old bubbly self, but Kim had the strangest sensation that it was a false front. It was something to do with the look in Paula’s eyes and her patterns of speech that made Kim suspicious.
.....
It took Joan a few months to fully digest all the memories that had returned to her. Her first attempts to analyze things were quite clumsy. She quickly figured out that her mind was not yet trained to think logically. For two full months she practiced logic problems to stimulate and develop that part of her brain. She then felt proficient enough to begin working on the memories.
After a month or so of working with her memories, she began to understand the significance of the events leading to her reincarnation. She decided that she now had to figure out the broader implications of this knowledge. She knew this would take time, and she was becoming quite aware of her mother’s concern over her behavior. She loved her family dearly, and didn’t want to hurt them. She began to make a conscious effort to behave as she had in the past.
She tried to do all the things that her family expected her to do. She made an effort to request walks, story-telling sessions with Sarah, reading sessions with her mother, and games. She initiated lots of conversations and tried to smile and laugh as much as she could. The whole time, she had to secretly ponder the bigger questions that bothered her. She hoped the new facade would work, but she suspected that her mother saw right through it.
She began to feel totally comfortable with the capabilities of her mind. She felt that she was able to think things through with the same level of skill that the former Joan possessed. But she wasn’t happy with the conclusions that she was coming to.
She was particularly disturbed by the whole aspect of the system that God had created. She began to question God’s wisdom, and she was angry with herself for doing so. Then she began to hate herself for running into the conduit. She knew now that it was a terrible thing to do. She had violated the will of God, and she felt incredible shame and guilt. She wondered what God might do to her when He found out. Then she wondered if He would find out.
She then looked at things from a totally different perspective. She hypothesized that if God did possess infinite wisdom, then His system must make sense. And she carried this through in her thinking, trying to consider all that Oren had told them. The one point that kept haunting her was that God did not choose for mankind to know that souls of evil people were reborn also.
She couldn’t perceive of a world without the concept of Heaven and Hell, or something close to it. She contemplated the concept of good and evil. There was such a delicate balance in the struggle between the two. The continued survival of the world seemed dependent on man’s belief in three things; the existence of God, the reward for goodness, and the punishment for evil.
Joan spent months contemplating the meaning of life. Countless ideas played themselves out in her mind. Nothing seemed to be consistent with the hypothesis of God having infinite wisdom. But the more Joan thought about things, the more convinced she became that it was more than just a hypothesis.
She spent a great deal of her time trying to understand how it could be that Oren collapsed. After all, wasn’t Oren one of God’s creations? This particular point was disturbing to her because it seemed to be in direct conflict with the notion of God’s infinite wisdom. She went through it time and again. Even though it felt like blasphemy, she tried to place herself in God’s position. For these mental exercises she tried to imagine herself as all knowing. But she just couldn’t get anywhere with this line of thinking. There was something she must be missing, but she had no clue as to what it might be.
5
Kim gradually accepted the altered personality of Paula. It really wasn’t that bad. It was just different. In a way it was a relief to Kim because she no longer concerned herself with the idea that Paula was going to need special schooling. Kim still read to her and taught her, and Paula seemed to be making progress.
As Paula approached three, she began to talk with Kim about God. Sarah had made mention of God in one of her stories, and Paula jumped on it right away. She asked all about God, and Sarah and Kim found themselves spending hours upon hours discussing the Bible, prayer, religion and Heaven. Kim was pleased with Paula’s interest in God, but she was concerned that it was becoming an obsession. She tried to subtly change the subject as quickly as possible whenever Paula brought up God, but it didn’t work.
During the reading sessions Paula began to ask Kim to read from the Bible rather than the children’s books. Kim was a little reluctant, but gave in. Eventually, Kim came to enjoy the questions that Paula asked about God and religion. The two of them began having philosophical discussions about the Bible. It was intellectually stimulating to Kim as well as Paula. But Paula started to ask such complex questions that Kim was no longer able to add anything of value to the discussions.
As Paula became more and more knowledgeable about religion, Kim saw another change come over her. She began to notice that Paula spoke very confidently about God, almost as if she believed herself to be an authority. This made Kim feel uncomfortable. It seemed to her that this was dangerous ground to be treading. It went against her religious beliefs and training.
.....
Joan was having a rough time figuring things out. She needed someone to bounce ideas off. When Aunt Sarah casually mentioned God to her, she seized the opportunity. She asked innocent questions about God, and got simple answers. Then she was able to steer things into more detailed discussions. She carried the theme over to her mother’s reading sessions, and gradually she brought her mother up to the same level of thinking that Joan was. Now Joan could run ideas by her mother and have the benefit of her wisdom and experience. It turned out to be very helpful to Joan because her mother had such a vast background in Bible studies.
But Joan soon ran up against a barrier with her mother. Any hypothetical questions she proposed were not well received. If her questions involved the idea that God may have done something other than what the Bible said, her mother would emphasize that the Bible was the word of God. There was no getting past this barrier.
Joan finally had a revelation. It had taken her a year to get to this point. It came on her third birthday. Mama and Papa brought her a big cake with glowing candles. Mama told her to make a wish and blow out the candles. She did it and then her Mama whispered in her ear, “God will fulfill your wishes if He can.”
The words were so simple, and Joan knew her mother was really just kidding with her. But they were the most provocative words Joan had ever heard. She pictured those words in big bold letters written clear across the sky. They unlocked the thoughts that had eluded her for so long. All she needed to solve her puzzle were in the three last words...if He can!
It was so simple that she almost cried right there at her own birthday celebration. She had spent so many nights lying awake trying to understand what everything meant. Now here was the answer, and it was so obvious. It explained everything. God wasn’t perfect.
The smoke from the extinguished candles still hovered over the cake. The image of Oren falling to the ground came into her mind. Then she saw the image of that one man that stood up; the one she thought was going to rush to Oren’s aid. And she recalled her surprise when he jumped into the void instead. It was suddenly all so clear to her. Joan Spencer knew exactly what she had to do.
6
Joan and her mother were taking one of their wonderful walks through the park. Joan asked if they could go get hot chocolate like they often did on cold days. They held hands as they walked out of the park and Joan was so pleased. They walked down the familiar sidewalk, and Joan played her silly little game where she had to make sure she stepped on all the cracks in the cement. She looked up at her mother to find her smiling down at her. She smiled back and thought about how much she loved her mother.
They turned the corner and walked down the main street; the one that Joan always hated because of all the noisy traffic. Joan looked all around as the cars went zooming by. They were kicking up all the cinders and dust that got in her eyes all the time. She looked over her shoulder and saw something.
She hoped her mother wouldn’t be angry with her. She timed it perfectly. She pulled her hand from her mother’s, ran a few steps in front of her, and faked tripping over her own feet. She thrust her body out toward the curb and into the street. She could hear her mother screaming and she heard the horn from the truck. She was in the street less than a half-second when the truck smashed into her and threw her little body five feet into the air. She was dead before she hit the ground.
