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The Light - Twenty love, no emotion there, only the deathly silence. The gray beings were cold, unsmiling, and uncommunicative. The little room reminded Teddy of a doctor’s office, filled with cabinets, counters, and strange machinery. In the middle of the room stood a shiny metallic plate, taller than he was, suspended a few inches above the floor. It had a small shelf or foot support upon which the beings placed him, with his back against the cold metal plate. It was hard for him to see clearly in this room, for it was lit only by a soft, hazy, bluish ambience that had no discernible source. Someone else entered the room, a woman with burgundy red hair, bluntly cut, with bangs. Her face was rouged and her lips darkly painted. She wore a white lab coat, as if she were a doctor’s assistant. “Remove your clothes,” she told him mentally. “No,” Teddy thought back at her. “I don’t want to.” Ignoring his protests, the woman and the gray beings forcibly undressed him, and then she walked over to a counter top area where many lights pulsated. Teddy saw large screens above the counter and other devices he couldn’t identify. The woman pushed some buttons or switches or something, Teddy wasn’t really sure, and then the metal plate against which he was standing began to change colors. “The wall’s kind of lit up behind me,” Ted told Barbara. “T’ve got the feeling they’re across the room looking at me. It looks like an X-ray and they can see through me. Or maybe what’s on the wall behind me is telling them something. The wall is funny behind me, and these eyes are watching from across the room. They’re looking at me, they’re talking about what they’re seeing on the wall. It has to do with me.” He paused, concentrating on his interior images. “They’ve done something to me,” he resumed, “and they’ re seeing, they’re looking to see how it is.” What had seemed solid metal behind him now seemed more like a window through which colored lights shone. Teddy saw that on the screens above the counter a series of images appeared. At first he recognized images of his bone structure, and then the image changed to show blood vessels. Next he could make out what Masquerade of Angels 198 The Light - Twenty appeared to be his internal organs, and as each image changed, it seemed this device was recording absolutely everything about his body. It was even counting the number of hairs on his head. Teddy was startled when the plate against which he stood sud- denly moved, tilting slowly back until it was horizontal, like a table. He raised his head and saw the gray beings approach. They carried a strange device that reminded him of headphones, which they posi- tioned on his head so that it covered his ears. Noise came from the device, puzzling at first but growing painful as it continued. He didn’t like this noise, he wanted the headphones off his head, and he wanted to get out of that office and away from these beings. The woman returned from the counter area with a glass in her hand. It was filled with a green liquid, and Teddy was amazed by the way the liquid glowed in the dimly lit room. “Drink it,” she communicated, holding out the glass. “No,” Teddy shook his head. “I want to go home.” “Drink it now,” she insisted, “or you cannot go home. If you want to go home, you must mind me as you do your mother.” “You’re not my mother,” he thought back at her, but she was unmoved. “After you drink this,” she continued, “you can go home.” No emotion came from the woman, but Teddy was scared into submission. Without another word, he took the glass and drank the glowing liquid. Immediately he became sick, nauseated, and pain flared up as if his insides were on fire. He lay back on the table, growing sicker, until he vomited. Tendrils of green liquid dribbled down his mouth and chin, still glowing, but at least he no longer felt ill. And then, as if he were standing a few feet away from the table, Teddy could see his body lying there motionless. “Am I dead?” he wondered. Something cloudy and formless began to rise up from the small body. Teddy was amazed as he watched this mass slowly coalesce into a beautiful image of himself, and he saw that it was attached by a bottom tendril to drops of the green liquid on his face. “It’s my soul!” he thought in amazement. The miniature image turned toward the red-headed woman and looked at her. Teddy could feel great emotion coming from this form. He felt it was showing pure love and total, instant forgiveness Masquerade of Angels 199