Suddenly my mind went back to when I was a child. That year remained very vivid to me. My parents and grandmother lived in a very old Victorian house, large enough for several families and it was directly behind the Central Methodist Church. I had the fortune of being able to play knights and cowboys in that large churchyard, enclosed by tall bushes that gave complete seclusion.
           Thoughts came splattering into my mind so rapidly that my heart beat faster. I saw myself as I had been in the fourth grade. I was at home in a working class suburb of Chicago, Illinois, it was fall and the rains were heavy outside again on this Sunday. I sat in a window seat, in a walk-in closet and read the Sunday morning newspaper. I had already gone to Sunday School and was convinced that this Sunday would be spent indoors, reading, doing homework and getting ready for school on Monday. I was in the fourth grade, and continued reading the Sunday Newspaper. My eye caught a byline entitled, “The People of Atlantis.”
           I thought as I read there were some facts that were wrong. It wasn’t Atlantis but more like Atlantia. It wasn’t in the Mediterranean Sea but in the Atlantic Ocean. It didn’t cease to exist because of a natural calamity but because of an internal war between groups, one of which was more or less peaceful and the other group: very warlike. The warrior group had the goal of conquering the rest of the world and enslaving them. And a final difference was that the article stated that the people of Atlantis were red-skinned. In actuality we were a golden color. Most of us were blue-eyed and had soft golden tans.
           In the space of a few seconds I saw a scene that had always bothered me because as a child I didn’t understand the event.
           I saw myself in a torn tunic, using a shepherds’ staff because my leg had a large gash in it. It was bandaged and had stopped bleeding. I felt no pain, although my right leg appeared swollen.
           It seemed as though I led a small group of weary Atlantians, who showed dirt and dust on their bodies. We were lightly clad men and boys in tunics and briefs and women and girls wore sheer hip length and knee length dresses as we proceeded slowly up toward what today is called The Iberian Peninsula: Spain. Behind us, and we would turn and look back. Our motherland, Atlantia, was in the throes of a great destruction. Most of the group never understood the power of the destruction. None of us had been involved with the great power development. The explosions were fearful and reached toward the highest parts of the skies, darkening the world as we progressed farther and farther away from our home.
           Along with various scenes I heard words as though a great voice narrated what I saw in my mind. When I didn’t understand the great destruction a voice would sound in the background and explain the events.
           Almost every time I saw this scene, I would look down and view my shoes. I don’t know why. They weren’t shoes as we think about them today. They were held onto our feet, our bodies by a
           magnetic force that I never did understand. I think they were mostly a leather-like material, although I don’t recall they were leather. I wondered why when I saw this terrifying scene, this scene of a great exodus, the destruction of my country, many thousands of years ago, the sadness on the faces of the small group as we trod forward into hostile lands, why, why, would I think about how great the shoes were. I don’t even recall what we called them. I do know they were not ever referred to as shoes. And, the narration in my ears didn’t mention the word for them.
           I saw myself look backward and down into what is now termed the Atlantic Ocean and knew that my nation, my home, would soon cease to exist.
           Tears were on the faces of all of the people of the small group of twenty-five or so sad souls. We knew we were headed into hostile territory because most stories that got back to us ordinary citizens, concerned tales about the brutal Atlantians. These tales for the most part were not true. Most of us were not brutal. Some were though. And that apparently caused the great discussions in the halls of Atlantian government to turn hostile amongst government personnel, causing the government to turn on itself and initiate the great destruction from the center of Atlantia..
           The warriors dominated the legal and political governments of Atlantia and were the people that other nation groups knew the most about. The world didn’t know that there were hundreds of thousands of Atlantians that were peaceful people and only wanted to live in peace with everyone. Although it was common knowledge in Atlantia that other groups populating the earth were subhuman. This term was used often in classrooms and all Atlantians understood the true meaning. It meant that Atlantians were a superior group and were intended to dominate the world.

          I looked at John.
           “You don’t remember Atlantia?” he asked.
           “I don’t know,” I said. Then, while I didn’t remember him, I didn’t know what to say about my childhood memories, recollections of Atlantia and actually hesitated because he still smiled. I didn’t know for certain if he joked with me or not. “Tell me,” I said trying to appear disbelieving. “Were we friends in Atlantia?”
           “Of course. Great friends. And I don’t know why!”
           “Why do you say that?” I pushed his resume to one side. I was more interested in John’s conversation than I was in interviewing him. I already knew I wanted to hire him.
           “You played tricks on me and cheated me almost all of the time.”
           We laughed.
           “Not only in Atlantia, but later in some Arab country. We were bedouins...”
           “Bedouins?” I gushed. “That sounds funny.”
           “Not to me it wasn’t. You sold me two sick camels. I needed two more camels to add to my caravan. They needed to carry heavy loads of merchandise: silks, perfumes, and water. And you cheated me!”
           “And are you certain we were friends?”
           “Very certain. Outside of my wife, you were my favorite person.”
           “In past lives,” I said.
           “In past lives,” he replied.
           We were silent for a long moment. “Some day I’ll tell you another story, that really is beyond belief...”
           “I’d be interested in hearing it,” I said.
           “Only this time, you weren’t involved,” he said. “Maybe you were late in getting back. I don’t know. At least I don’t recall that you were involved.”
           I looked down at his shiny shoes. He glanced down at them. John smiled.
           “It’s funny the things one remembers,” he said.
           “What?” I said, almost shouting. I stared at his shoes and then mine.
           “Do you remember the discussions we had about how the clabo stayed on our feet?”
           “Clabo?” I said and knew immediately that clabo meant shoes or footwear. “You remember the name for shoes?” I asked.
           “Yeah and I remember that you were always concerned about your feet. I don’t know why because you had a physical build that was always admired...”
           “Really?”
           “Yep. But, you were always inquisitive. You were a young officer in the Atlantian Army and I was in the Atlantian Navy. You wanted me to switch to the Army...”

           John continued to talk. I listened intently. As he talked I told my secretary to hold my calls. I didn’t want to miss any of what he told me. It was like he was reading from a history textbook about a civilization that for most of the world was only legend or unproven rumors, but to me and apparently John Harper, John’s words were part of our past lives.
           Of course I hired John. I put him in charge of documentation for the trainer project. He did very well. We were always together at work, conferring many times during the course of a work day, but we didn’t socialize. It never occurred to me to socialize, although I had told my wife about John.
           My boss gave a victory party on the eve of trainer sell- off to the U.S. Navy. This meant that my company personnel and navy personnel got together and celebrated. Spouses were included although few spouses came to these parties. Many of the participants drank more than they should have, although neither John nor I drank heavily. A single highball or Martini, yes, but not three, four or five just to get drunk.
           John was late in arriving at this evening celebration and I sensed all was not well. He missed the main speech by our boss followed by the Commander’s words about how great the trainer was, how marvelously correct the trainer’s responses were and how pleased the government was with the trainer. He missed a lot because they complimented John and myself with regards to the documentation, especially the detail in the Test Procedure Documents.
           When he did arrive, it was a different John Harper, a troubled man, than I had know the last several months. He went to the punch bowl and drank two quick cups of spiked punch. He looked up, saw me, wiped his mouth with a small cocktail napkin and lowered his eyelids. I knew something was not right with John.
           I stared at him as he slowly approached me. He stopped standing a few feet from me.
           “What is it?” I asked.
           “This may not be the time or place, but I think it’s time I told you about the Mirror Image!”
           “The what?” I asked.
           “Let’s go out of the terrace,” he said as he took my elbow. We walked out of the large room, through the French doors out onto the wide terrace. I felt a sorrow that wasn’t mine. I shivered as the night air surrounded us. I know I was going to hear not only a strange tale from John’s past but something that would affect my life. I leaned against the concrete rail as John looked up at me and began to speak.

           “Do you remember that I told you that I was a pilot in World War II?”
           “Yeah,” I said. “I was still a kid...”
           “Well, Farley, my friend, you were just late in getting back to this planet...”
           We laughed again. I frowned. “What’s up?” I pulled myself up and sat on the railing.
           “I was a pilot in the U. S. Air Force...”
           “Yeah...”
           I meant his young woman, well, I was twenty-two and she was twenty...”
           I nodded.
           “She meant everything to me. I loved her so much that it hurt. I stopped catting around, had a physical to make certain I didn’t have any strange diseases. You know what I mean...”
           I nodded again.
           She lived in an area of London not too far from the airfield where I was stationed. I couldn’t believe how masculine I felt when I held her in my arms. She was mine. All mine. A feeling and an experience unsurpassed in my life.
           I understood John’s meaning.
           I flew bombing missions over Europe and Germany and would think only of her even when the flak from German anti- aircraft guns was heavy. I knew I wouldn’t be harmed or anything and that I would get back from a mission.
           “Well, one afternoon we returned from a bombing raid and I saw that the area around the airbase had many buildings that were destroyed and others were still burning. The German Air Force had made a daytime raid on the airbase.”
           “My heart beat rapidly. I couldn’t land, get out of my aircraft change and catch a bus into the small hamlet. My bombardier buddy went with me.”
           “The two story building Marion lived in was bombed out. They had a row of covered bodies and were allowing no persons close to the buildings. They said they didn’t know whether or not unexploded bombs remained.”
           “I told the official in charge that my fiancé lived in the building that had been destroyed and I didn’t wait for permission. I rushed passed him and he made no attempt to stop me. My buddy stood next to me as uncovered the faces and bodies of dead and burned men and women, children, pets, and finally I heard a moan. I glanced down the row of blanket covered bodies, looked at my buddy and we rushed to the stirring body. I raised the blanket. Marion looked up at me. She shook her head slowly. I didn’t understand what she meant. She raised her hand toward me and caressed my cheek. She was weak. I knew she was dying.”
           “My love,” she said. Her voice was faint. “I wrote you a note. I didn’t think it would happen this soon, though.”
           “I leaned down closer to her. She told me she would be back and we would be together again, but it would not be the next time. Then she said two things to me that I have never forgotten. She told me to take her ring, that she would be back for it, and secondly, the next time was not the time. When she died, the next time, I would also die shortly thereafter. The third time would be magic!”
           “I looked down at her hand and she nodded for me to remove her engagement ring. The ring I had given a few weeks before. Her hand and fingers were horribly burned. The flesh peeled of her hand as I moved the ring forward. I was in great pain as I slid the ring down her finger. She didn’t react. God had spared her the pain of her death.”
           “I cried as I took the ring, wrapped it in a handkerchief and bent down to kiss her lips. She had no tears. Her body was void of an abundance of fluid but she looked at me and I knew I had pure love from a woman that was now leaving my life.”
           “I felt the steadying hand of my buddy on my shoulder as Marion ceased to breath. I kissed her one more time, stood, turned to my buddy and cried on his shoulder. He cried too.”
           “I looked up as an police official approached me. I had
           seen him before.”
           “Bad news, is it, Yank?” he said. His words were solemn.
           “It’s Miss Marion, isn’t it?” he asked, pulling the top of the blanket away from her face. “T’s a rotten shame. So young, so beautiful, so friendly a lass.”
           “May I take her...”
           “He looked at me and asked. “Will you be making arrangements for burial?”
           “Yes,” I said. “She has no family.”
           “Bless you, Yank,” he said. “And you know how sorry I am about Miss Marion.”
           “Thank you constable, sir,” I said.
           I hand John a handkerchief and he took it.
           “I have never forgotten what she said about the ring and about we won’t be together the second time, but the third time will be magic.”
          
          

           Then John told me an even more extraordinary story. Marion’s funeral was attended only by his close air force friends and buddies. It was a lonely funeral. She had only lived in her small apartment near the airbase for a few months before she met John Harper and had not had time to work at the base and make new friends.
           The war ended before his last mission and he returned to the United States. He went back to college and graduated with an engineering degree. He went to work for a company that sold equipment to various universities and he had occasion to visit another friend, in the East, who was a professor of parapsychology.
           Most of John’s time involved meeting managers and company owners and he tried to sell them various tools and equipment. One day he kept an appointment with the manager of a company and walked into the manager’s outer office. The secretary rubbed her hand and finger and looked up at John. At first he didn’t notice anything different about the young woman. He guessed she was about twenty- five. But suddenly her mannerisms brought back memories of Marion and he hadn’t thought about Marion for a long time.
           “What’s the matter with your hand?” John asked.
           “Oh, it’s this allergy of mine. I can’t wear a ring. My finance wanted me to wear this engagement ring on this finger and I get a rash every time I put a ring on this finger.” She spread her fingers and looked at her hand.
           “Why do you think that you get the rash?” John asked.
           “I don’t know. I’ve always been sensitive to rings on that finger. And, only that finger. Now, isn’t that a strange thing?”
           “It is, indeed,” John said.
           The buzzer rang.
           “Is Mr. Harper here?” the voice asked.
           “Yes, he’s here,” she answered.
           How did she know my name is Harper? John thought.
           Then she said, “You’re name is John Harper, isn’t it?”
           “Yes,” John said and nodded.

           John sat in the manager’s office and felt like a robot talking his products, their cost-effectiveness. His mind couldn’t see anything but the woman’s hand and finger.
           “What is you secretaries name?” John asked.
           “Miriam,” the man replied. “Oh,” he said. “Her name is Miriam Jones. She’s engaged to be married.” He leaned back in his swivel chair. “Why do you ask?”
           “She looks familiar to me.”
           “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
           “Yes, John said. “I wonder if she I could impose on you, I shall pay her or you fort her time. I need to have a letter written. It’s personal and I would like her to type it for me, if I could dictate it to her.”
           “No problem. We often help sales persons this way. You may have to take her to lunch though, if she’s willing. And, by the way, leave you order form here and I’ll fill in the supplies and equipment I want to purchase.”
           John thanked the manager and walked out of the office.

           John told me he took the woman to lunch, they got along very well, and she did not appear to be a stranger to him. He dictated the letter and told her it was a letter to his wife. In actuality it was the letter that his former fiancé had mailed to him, in England, before she died. He requested she write it in longhand as opposed to taking dictation. She agreed. And then he asked her to type the note. He said all he wanted was her hand written note. He told her to type the note only as a ruse. So she would think the letter was an important letter to his wife.
           John told me that after she handed him the typed note, she asked if he wanted a plain envelope. He replied he had one and would mail the letter himself. She smiled.
           He left the office, called his friend at the paranormal research lab, told him his thoughts, which were. This woman he had just met was the reincarnation of his former fiancé and John requested from his friend that one of his handwriting experts examine the two notes. His friend sensed John’s anxiety and agreed to an immediate analysis. After the analysis, he told John, the script was from the same person. Morever, two words were misspelled both in Marion’s note and the note written by Miriam. The word meeting was misspelled as meating and the word tomorrow was misspelled as tommorrow.
           “There’s no doubt. The two notes were written by the same person. His friend thanked the analyst who left the room. He stopped at the door. “It’s curious too.”
           “What’s curious?” John asked.
           There is a flavor of English education in the two notes. You say that these women are American?”
           “No, I didn’t say that?” John said.
           “Well, I would guess they were educated in England,” the man said and shut the door.
           “I would like to talk to Miriam, if that would be possible.”
           “I don’t know. I don’t know her well. Maybe she wouldn’t want to.”
          

           Well, John told me she agreed to a regression session and during regression she was told she was sitting in a movie theater watching a love story. She psycho-analyst led her through the story. He recounted the bombing scene and told her she saw bodies of dead and dying people under blue blankets.
           She nodded and said. “That one over there is me!”
           John said he gasped and knew Miriam was indeed Marion.
           A photographer from the photo lab came in and handed a report to John’s friend. He smiled at John and glanced at Miriam. “Indeed a mirror image,” he said and walked out of the room.
           John knew the meaning of the term, Mirror Image. A mirror contains the opposite of any object. His friend agreed and John put the two photographs, one of Miriam and one of Marion side by side and showed them to me.

  
Marion         Miriam

           The next few days, John was not himself and asked me if he could be excused from work for a short time. Of course I agreed. No other person, even my wife knew the story. He couldn’t tell the story to the world because his and her spouse would not understand. Both Miriam and John knew they couldn’t understand and they knew why.
           I sat at my desk a few days later when the telephone rang. I know what the call was about.