Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

By Neil A. Hogan

I don’t mind waiting. What’s a few more years when I’ve been around for thousands? Though, I must say, this is incredibly boring. Just sitting here, waiting for somebody advanced enough, evolved enough, peaceful enough, to come. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to reach this kind of advancement. I know you’ll find me. I just have to wait a little longer. But most of you don’t even know I exist.

I’ve told this story in so many different ways to get your attention, but you still haven’t really developed your telepathy that well, have you? I have to hope, though. One day, someone will get my thoughts and be able to find me.

So, here’s that story again, in case someone on our world will hear.

Well, in case someone on our world will think.

Do you remember the Lemurians? The third epoch of humanity, you could say. They lived about 53,000 years ago. They had harnessed the invisible energies of the planet and created a spiritual life on this world. They could take anything natural and imbue it with Earth energies, and make it do what they wanted.

Every single one of them was a magician. The forerunners of your countless magic stories. Every time you read a story with magic, you are connecting to the Lemurian civilization in some way.

I’m from there. Though the magic gave me a much longer life than any of them.

Well, I’ve heard people saying ‘show, don’t tell’ and so here’s one point of view of my birth.

“Jarl, Sorg and Reet. Are you ready?”

Turin looked down at his three young acolytes positioned at each point of an equilateral triangle. Through their specific powers he would create a new being. One that would transcend space and time. One that would bring even more energy and power to their world. A being so powerful that he would take the position of king.

Oh, did I tell you that they thought I was a king? This was before king’s even existed. I was the first, you could say. Sorry to interrupt.

“Focus,” said Turin. “Focus on the space between you. The space in the center of the triangle. Put all your energy into bringing this being forth. He will begin the new hierarchy, where everyone looks towards the advisory position. He will unite all the groups on the continent. He will use his power to help the Lemurians to live for eternity.”

The acolytes stretched out their arms, expanding their senses into the center of the planet. They felt the connection to Gaia and pulled the energy through them, concentrating. Soon a powerful beam of light surrounded each of them, and they focused it and aimed it towards the center.

Above them, floating on a mat, Turin used his own energy to encompass everything in a sphere, holding the new power so that it didn’t dissipate. He’d practiced this before and knew that it would work for a short time. But this was no simple magic trick. This time he was drawing on the consciousness of the universe itself, and a sacrifice would need to be made.

The power built, there was a blinding flash, and the three men collapsed to the floor.

Recovering, they looked up and saw Turin seemingly frozen above them, and then simply fading away, his empty mat zigzagging to the floor not far away.

“Turin,” yelled Sorg, distraught.

Reet went over to Sorg, and helped him up. “He told me that he may not survive this, and that we would be the first group to be lead by the new king.”

They turned and faced the new being that lay on the ground in front of them.

“That’s the new King?” asked Jarl.

“Good morning,” I said, immediately understanding their language. “Is someone going to help me up?”

“Amazing,” said Reet.

Okay, so my birth wasn’t that exciting. And Turin is fine. He just increased his frequency enough that he shifted to one of the higher dimensions a lot faster than that whole dying process people still go through.

Still, I’m grateful for him. He put me right at the top of the Lemurian hierarchy. Though, it was purely ceremonial, much like your presidents and prime ministers today. I helped guide them but guiding lazy people was pretty exhausting, as you can probably imagine, and I soon began to tire of the existence. There was nothing I could do, though. I was trapped as much as they were.

You would think that a civilization that had mastered the esoteric arts could exist forever, hence my creation. But many were just interested in the magic, and never took an interest in the world around them. I would say they were all incredibly lazy. Their magic was used akin to telekinesis. They sat in their tree-grown chairs and had fruit and vegetables picked by animals and brought to them, or they just floated them over. Most of their lives were spent in the sun lazing about doing nothing. The only real activity was the endless events and festivals they put on, which didn’t really need much organizing. A raise of a finger and tables would grow, covered with food, then I’d be trotted out to say a few words.

I was involved in so many boring ceremonies, you would fall over in exhaustion just thinking about them. I was always there to see a newly born infant master its first trick. I would light up their lives and help them to be confident in their knowingness of their use of the power of the planet. Sadly, their first trick was usually to bring themselves food. A hand outstretched, an apple-like fruit plucked from a nearby branch and floated over to them, or for the more advanced, simply appearing from somewhere in their hand. I would create fire lights in the sky and play music. Or whatever was appropriate.

Then I would be taken back to my little building to wait for the next ceremony or event. I was beginning to despair at their childishness. Then again, due to their indolence, or deaths as a result of childbirth, no one really lasted past 38.

There was nothing much I could do about it. I was limited by their limitations. No one wanted to do any work, or learn anything new that might mean work. I could see a change coming and I couldn’t find anyone that wanted to be trained in a way to help with the change. Laziness was in their genes.

If the land didn’t give them everything they needed, and all they needed to do was simply flick their wrist to shift what they wanted from a parallel world to here, why would they ever do any work? This was the problem with this period of humanity. This is reflected in many countries today where money has replaced magic. It is rare for a person born into riches to not be lazy.

But I digress.

One of the positives about them was that the Lemurians were generally quite peaceful. If there was a conflict it would be minor, and usually solved with magic. When they had the power to stop time and jump back a few hours, what was the point in even starting a conflict anyway? Or, as everyone had almost equal amounts of magic, they could disintegrate their opponents in seconds. No one feared this. It was simply a fact. Most Lemurians were too tired or lazy to ever have an argument anyway. They just couldn’t be bothered.

The irony was that this incredibly powerful civilization couldn’t be arsed to look into their own group future. They were too busy worrying about which person to sleep with next, or which reality they would pull a drink from this time. Most had no idea until it was too late. Yes, even with me telling them that the end was nigh. They just thought it was another chance to have a party.

I tried to tell them that the Earth was changing, and our country was sinking. The population undulated like a reef, and I rarely had the same person with me twice. After telling millions over thousands of years I’d had enough, and I stopped.

With millions in a valley in the middle of a landmass going under, most of the civilization perished in that great sinking. The final tsunami left no survivors, and left me trapped in one of the buildings underwater. There had been some who had managed to escape to other countries before the end, less magical countries. And you know what ancient, superstitious tribes might think of people with magic. Most of the refugees were either killed or chained up.

The ones that survived the encounters with non Lemurians knew what had to be done. Reviewing the Lemurian history and seeing the future of humanity meant the last of the Lemurians erected a stronger veil over the magic of the planet. They had seen how the world would develop from there and decided that an epoch like the Lemurians could never happen again. Hardship had to follow for humanity to advance.

There aren’t that many real magicians in our day now. Real magicians would be incredibly overweight, and die early. As soon as they realized they only had to leave their beds to go to the toilet, they would rarely ever leave it. Those born as magicians usually died in their beds, which is why you rarely ever hear of them.

You know, after a millennia of telling people they were going to die and them ignoring me. Then seeing them die, I had begun to get a little annoyed. And so, as you can probably imagine, being away from people for awhile had been somewhat a relief. As it turned out, it was another 10,000 years before I felt up to speaking with people again.

I have perfect recall, and can access events across space and time anyway, so in a sense I can always be there. Physically, though, I’m stuck where I am. I didn’t learn the skill of teleportation when I could have. And, since the veil was erected, even though I know now how to do it, I cannot.

Oh, I’m sorry. Rambling again. Giving too much detail. Stuck on my own for so long, it’s great to be able to send these thoughts out again and know someone will hear them.

Where was I? Oh yes.

As fate would have it, a new group found me. Or rather, I found it. Well, founded might be the better word.

It was about 31,000 years ago that the epoch now known as the Atlanteans had their beginnings. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I might have caused them to come into existence. I’d been sending out every story I could think of to get people’s attention, stuck where I was. I’d even traveled astrally to the stars and found better technology that could be used on our planet, spreading that information, too.

10,000 years stuck where I was, I had to do something, didn’t I? And so, the Atlanteans began to rise. First a person different to a tribe would come up with a new invention. The tribe would appreciate the invention and use it and learn from it, then offer improvements. As more of the tribe got into the inventiveness idea, they began to access more of my stories, invent more things. Their grass and mud huts were replaced by stones, cement, concrete. Engineering and chemistry flourished and soon massive buildings with huge columns were built. They mastered levitation using sound waves, and found the chemical mixture that will temporarily melt rock. They used the energy of crystals to power their homes and vehicles, and traveled the world in balloon ships. Over about 18,000 years the Atlanteans expanded across the globe, creating all sorts of fantastic cities, until the entire planet became known as Atlantis.

I think my greatest invention was the interlinked pyramids that I encouraged everyone to build across the world. They tapped into the energy of the planet and spread it through the ether, allowing power to be used from anywhere. A resonating frequency that gave the Earth its hum. Aerial vehicles were developed that used the power, and other technological marvels that enabled communication across vast distances, much like your wifi and data towers do today.

But the pyramids had a greater purpose. To increase my own electrical output so that the Atlanteans would find me. Technology that enabled deep sea diving was developed, and I was retrieved from my Lemurian prison and placed in an important position within this new society. While not quite a king, I think I was treated more like an oracle. I gave them all the technology they wanted, and answered all their questions. For several millennia it was a wonderful time.

They were quite grateful, but I began to see their future, and it wasn’t a pretty one.

Different environments and different cultures formed, and wars began across countries. My fault, I’m afraid. The Atlanteans began to love the idea of power, and using my knowledge, developed technology imbued with the scant amount of magic still available in the world. They created artificial intelligence, robots, and also new kinds of beings. Criminals and slaves had their heads swapped for animal heads. They even made multiple copies of me, and used my other selves in wars against their enemies. They couldn’t see that their enemies were their family.

It made no sense to me. It was a brutal and sadistic time, and I still feel guilty about it. I blame myself for the entire 18,000 years or so of this epoch. Many of you now think of Atlantis with some wistfulness, but it was a horrible place near the end. I was so distraught at their brutality and obsession with power that they had to be destroyed.

Let me stream you the final day.

“Cho-Jar, another one is coming,” yelled Jo-Sun.

An explosion rocked the air as a meteorite took out one of the aerial vehicles. The fiery ball sheared the pipe-shaped travellator cleanly in two, and it plummeted to the ground, dust exploding towards Jo-Sun as he shelted Cho-Jar from the worst of it.

“I don’t think I can go on,” cried Cho-Jar, gripping her belly. “I think it’s time.”

Tears came to Jo-Sun’s eyes, and he waved his hands around. “There’s nothing left. Your family is gone. The bombardments are just going to continue. We can’t go by air now. We have to get to the sea travellator.”

Cho-Jar was silent and when Jo-Sun took his hand away from her back, it was covered in blood. He turned her head up and cried at her sightless eyes. A shard from the explosion had struck her, and she had died instantly.

Then, the light on her face seemed to brighten, and for a moment Jo-Sun thought he would see her spirit leave her. But then the light grew blinding, and he reached down and gripped her body, his arm around their unmoving unborn child, as the meteorite exploded like a thousand suns above them.

Moments after the crater formed, the ocean rushed in to fill it, sinking the remains of Atlantis forever.

A sad scene, and one that I feel extremely guilty about. Many innocents died in the destruction. Though, as they were the ones that had helped create the despotic regimes that ruled them, and voted crazy leader after crazy leader into power, were they really innocent?

I say guilty, as it was me. As someone who existed before the Lemurian veil, I still had some tricks up my sleeve, so to speak, and so I used the energy of the Atlanteans against them, pulling a comet off its path.

It was a simple spell, but once the orbit of the comet had been changed, quite unbreakable. Over the course of twenty years, chunks of the comet rained down on the main Atlantean city, destroying the power base, and most of the population with it, throwing the most powerful civilization in the history of our world into disarray.

By 10,804 BC, as you measure time, there was nothing left of the Atlanteans. The cometary bombardments had shifted the axis of the planet slightly, and many of Atlantis’ coastal cities around the world sank beneath the new bulging equator, like the Lemurians before them.

And me with it. Sunk without a trace, again. Trapped inside one of the Atlantean buildings, now at the bottom of the ocean. My chosen punishment. I had to destroy them, for the betterment of future humanity. But I had to punish myself as well. I judged myself guilty and sentenced myself to 10,000 years isolation from humanity.

Even so, it wasn’t the greatest of punishments. I could still move my mind anywhere. With all of the universe available to me to astrally explore, I didn’t need my physical expression much at all.

When 10,000 orbits had passed, I made a decision to be involved again. And, perhaps, get myself rescued from my underwater cell. I began sending out my stories again. I felt that humanity had begun to deal with its problems, get back on its feet, and with magic all but forgotten, there was a chance that they could develop again. This time I didn’t send that many stories about magic. I focused more on the technology that the Atlanteans had discovered as well as that which I had found on my travels in the universe. I sent stories about treasures, lost items, special things, to encourage exploration. But the agrarian and religious societies kept burning people who picked up on my ideas. Every few decades I’d try, and every time someone would be burned.

It was most distressing.

Now realizing I was probably immortal, rapidly approaching the ripe old age of 50,000 years, I thought then the best thing to do was to just send out my location in images and in multiple languages. I sent streaming holograms of water along with the concrete building I was trapped in.

But people kept interpreting it as though I was near a lake and stuck in a stone!

This went on for over a thousand years. No one could work out what I wanted. Everyone kept making up new stories and legends about me. I was beginning to despair.

And then, the 1800s happened. My goodness. What an opportunity! How many fantastic minds suddenly flourished and came up with many fantastic inventions that launched humanity into the fifth epoch. How incredible. I was struck with joy. I immediately began broadcasting on a progress level. If someone thought of a particular invention, I would broadcast the next step. If they created that, I would broadcast the next model. I could weave the world how I wanted. Entangled webs pulling people across the planet together to work on new and exciting inventions.

But it was too fast. I hadn’t learned my lesson. I thought technology would make things easier. Completely based on science. Very rational. But it was those that had no science knowledge that wanted to use the technology for their own power. World War I, World War II, and now there’s World War III on the horizon. And this time I can’t send a comet. The entire world is advanced. I had helped bring about the internet, and now everyone was connected, as up to date as anyone else. There was no way a simple comet could destroy a small portion and let a few survive. This would have to be an extinction level event. If I wanted to stop the wars I would have to wipe out everyone.

In the 1950s I began to start the process of switching the poles. A change of frequency here, a volcanic explosion there, and the electromagnetic field of the planet began to tilt. If it flipped it would wipe out most of humanity, with a few surviving underground. I changed the field around the sun to let more radiation out, increasing the speed of the rising temperatures of the planet. I pushed at the foundations of the world, causing more earthquakes.

But it wasn’t all in judgement. Some of these movements were there to awaken the population. But for a very long time, nothing much happened. I was constantly swinging between total annihilation, and hoping that humanity would change.

But then, in the 90s, I finally began to see a change, and I immediately stopped the poles flipping, reduced the earthquakes, and wound back some of the disasters.

A new population had begun to appear. One with all the aspects of the past imbued in them, but with an understanding of what had to be done for the future. It was almost as though they were a newly evolved version. Highly emotional but quick to react to what they perceived as wrong. It wasn’t until your early 2020s that I could clearly see the major change that was happening.

Had my technology created them? Had my constant anxiety for the state of humanity influenced them? Had my interference in the natural order of the world helped to awaken them? I really had no idea. But they were there, and I could see the change coming. But they would not be the ones to fix everything. They would start, but it would be their children that would make the true changes. Those born this century, ready to take on the world from the 2020s would help awaken everyone to the possibility of a new existence. What do you call them now? Gen Alpha?

And best of all, this new generation has telepathy. And they will find me!

I’ve started calling louder, now. The world is going to be bright and wonderful, and I want to be part of it. All my pyramids are under water, snow and forest so I can’t use that system to contact you. I can only send out messages in dreams. And I’m repeating my message again. Find me. I’m here.

I’m easy to spot. The Atlanteans covered me in crystal technology so I’m pretty bright. I’m long and metallic. You could say I look a bit like a sword, though immensely more powerful. A sword with artificial intelligence, with an almost infinite memory capacity as I store everything in the interdimensional spaces between electrons, with thousands of years of human history and technology waiting to be found by someone.

Have you picked up on my idea of using drones to map the seabed? I’ve been broadcasting that one for years.

But, this time I know someone will hear my story. This time, I know it’ll make its way into the dreams and thoughts of Gen Alphas around the world. Someone might even write it down, for those without telepathy. I know I’ll be found eventually.

Just another twenty or so years, and a Gen Alpha will have the resources to retrieve me from my prison beneath the waves.

Who will be the one to pull this sword from its stone prison? Who would have the calibre to extract me?

Who will be the one to use my technology to rebuild the world and finally bring a utopia to the planet?

I don’t mind waiting. I’ve waited 50,000 years already.

Good things come to those who wait.


Neil A.’s note: A draft story. It’s overly long, rambles a bit, has too much repetition, and isn’t that engaging. Trying to get back into writing after my own retreat from the world. I’ll put a bit more work into it a bit later. It has more of a fantasy focus than usual, and I avoided the idea that is generally understood in esoteric circles that the Atlanteans had a lot of help from aliens. Yeah, unusual, I know!

If you’d like to read some of my other stories, (that have already been through the rewrite process!) Hoganthology is now available. Over 47 stories plus other pieces. Find out more here:

Hoganthology Science Fiction and Fantasy Anthology

Fantasy Short Stories Anthology Series Book Two is available for pre-order!

Happy New Year! I’m very pleased to announce that the ebook of Fantasy Short Stories Anthology Series Book Two is now available for pre-order here . The release date is 8th January 2019. The ebook version will become available around then (USA time) and the print version not long after. Pdfs will be emailed to contributors within the week of release.

More about Book Two

Fantasy Short Stories is an anthology series featuring amazing stories by authors from around the world.

In Book Two:

Foe by Francis W. Alexander

Fresh Start by Gustavo Bondoni 

Flypaper by Tom Howard

The Backup by Hannah Steenbock

Layers by Neil A. Hogan

Enjoy more fantasy with Fantasy Short Stories Anthology Series Book Two

I’ll have more news about Alien Dimensions #17 due out in February, very soon!