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Arthur Bigges, an Earth Leader who had seen firsthand the remarkable transformation of Earth civilization since his boyhood years in the 1960’s, opened the monthly meeting of the Steering Committee for Policy Toward the World of Hope. Hope was an Earth colony planet in the middle of nowhere.

“Today we have with us- again- Mr. Gunther Martin. As so many times previous, Mr. Martin will be sitting in with us, helping us further shape and refine policy for the World of Hope.”

Across the table from Ldr. Bright, one of the original members of the committee joked, “Gunther’s here so often, we might as well make him an official member.”

The rest laughed and agreed.

Gunther Martin chuckled good-naturedly. He shook his head and said, “No, but thank you very much for the suggestion. I cannot commit to these meetings on a regular schedule- Martinology keeps me very busy, as you good folk very much know.”

Ldr. Bigges smiled knowingly. “We know, Mr. Martin, we know. Speaking of Martinology, I hope you gave the workers off today, for we know what holiday it is today- even though we are here anyway, working-“

“Yes, it’s the Day the Dreamer Woke Up Day,” somebody replied.

“Correct- Dr. Simon Somnum finally awoke, way back on November 21, 1963. And then he set about to waking up the rest of us.”

The day that the "Dreamer" woke up, November 21, 1963, has long been celebrated by certain idealists of Earth for its significance in changing a man who then changed the world.

Dr. Simon Somnum had been a theorist pondering the possibility of alternate timelines. He had wondered if, when a person was faced with a choice, did that person indeed choose one thing, with the resultant consequences, but also, did that same person also choose something else, resulting in another set of consequences, thus creating different timelines simultaneously with each choice that was faced, because, indeed, the man actually made both choices at the same time, but then not in the same timeline.

November 21, 1963, was the day Dr. Somnum was to give a lecture on that very subject at a prestigious university in Texas. However, things turned out differently than what he had planned, because, after he had developed car trouble a few blocks away from the place of his scheduled speech, he managed to contact a service garage to fetch his car within the hour, and then he began that fateful walk the last few streets to the university, hoping to make his destination and be on time, or at least as close to being on time as possible.

And then the old woman carrying a paper bag full of groceries stumbled before him, spilling her fresh produce all over the pavement. Dr. Somnum briefly considered pretending he didn't see her and just continuing on, since he was running late already. He dismissed that thought and turned back to help her gather her things. As he did so, that was when the life-changing event happened.

Twenty feet down the path he would have been hurrying along, had he not stopped to help the woman, was where it all happened. A heavy oversized piano, of all things, being hoisted by a crane to the penthouse atop the nearby apartment building, suddenly snapped the cable holding it in midair. It plummeted to the concrete below, smashing with a discordant thwang, knocking a deep hole, practically a crater, into the walkway.

The doctor caught his breath. "I- I should have been at that very spot, where the piano fell! Why, if I hadn't stopped to help you gather your groceries, ma'm--" He involuntarily shook from a chill running down his spine.

Dr. Somnum decided then and there to change his speech. Such a close brush with death changes a man's perspective about what's important.

Dr. Somnum preached that day how he realized alternate timelines were logically impossible, and even if they were not, so what? What good could come from wasting one's time pursuing such intellectual entertainment? Would that bring peace to the Earth? He spoke how he had stopped to help the lady, not out of choice, but because he in fact had no choice. That was who he was. He disbelieved in freewill, dismissing it as a mere fantasy. So much for being able to make different choices leading to different timelines. And if there were freewill, how could a man make all possible choices by making each choice in a separating universe? Then where would be the freewill anyway, or the responsibility for exercising such freewill, if all possible choices are made at the same time, anyway? How could that be? No, it made more sense to accept man was a mere animal, a clever one at that, admittedly, but one that merely reacted to stimuli reflexively.

This new direction in his thinking made him consider the varied and diverse ways of thinking throughout the world by different peoples and cultures. He concluded that this diversity of ways of thinking caused uncountable problems for humanity, each individual and each group pulling in so many different directions at once for different goals, making harmonization and world peace impossible. The solution must be to channel these diverse ways of thinking into a single pathway, a uniform understanding of what was best for the collective whole of the race. Unity in diversity. Worldwide.

Excitedly, he tried to stop the President of the United States the next day, as his motorcade made its way through Dallas. He wanted to share with the national leader his vision of how to achieve world peace.

Instead, he got himself tossed in jail for disrupting the President's entourage. The Secret Service, spooked by the matter, redirected the President's route.

Later that day, the President actually went to visit Dr. Somnum in lockup, to find out what his interruption was all about. He had heard of the doctor, and now he wanted to hear what the doctor himself had to say. The President frowned on the Dreamer's ideas. "Sounds like Communism to me!" However, he realized Dr. Somnum meant no harm, and so arranged for his release. One thing he had to agree with the well-intentioned doctor about, however, was that there must only be one universe, so make the best of the one they had.

Frustrated because the leader of the country paid his ideas little mind, Dr. Somnum decided to share his views with other leaders of the whole world, and their peoples. The world needed to wake up! He would wake them! He would share his dream with them!

Over the years, more and more influential people picked up his viewpoint. Many world leaders liked to hear what he had to say. He could not have reached so many with his message, had it not been for many wealthy people sponsoring his efforts. His dream became a global movement.

Of course, not everyone shared his vision, which took on a push for a world government body, to direct planned regional blocs of nations and countries toward a universal good for all. "What of checks and balances between different nations?" some of the throwbacks fretted. “”Why give up our right to self-rule our own neighborhood to some bureaucrat who lives on the other side of the world?” Rather than try to explain anything to those kind of people, who seemed incapable of understanding anyway, the leaders of the movement simply ignored them. The press and tv news stations were very helpful in that way of dealing with those opposing Dr. Somnum's ideas, because they seldom covered any of the dissent and awareness rallies.

The world became smaller as the countries formed into zones and started to work on co-operating with each other. Communication systems grew, thanks to advances in technology, so it became a small matter for a man in Asia to call his brother in North America. And travel increased as well, folks going here and there, to and fro, making it easier for the man in Asia to actually visit his brother in North America. As the trend towards globalization of everything grew and grew, everything seemed to be working out, fulfilling Dr. Somnum's wonderful dream. At first, anyway.

It didn't take long for many to realize there were two kinds of countries and zones in the world- the haves and the have-nots. Despite all the advances and co-operation, it became apparent to many that not everyone enjoyed the same benefits and prosperity these regional zones were supposed to provide. The have-nots discovered the haves were not as willing to share as the have-nots had expected.

Dr. Somnum saw that the globalization process, rather than reducing tensions and fears of wars, had the opposite effect. And the shortages from disasters in the 80's and 90's added kindling to the smoldering situation. To make matters worse, Dr. Somnum finally realized, not all his wealthy sponsors helped him out of a sense of altruism. Only too late, much too late, did he realize that they wanted to find new people to exploit, or to gain positions of power so that they could help run the world, so that they could be the elite running things the way they desired. And, of course, for their efforts, the elite would be compensated accordingly, or so those deceivers had expected it to be.

Dr. Somnum became ill, watching his dream become a nightmare. His aging body suffered failing health. The doctor fell into a deep depression because of the mess of the world his message had caused.

A well-known evangelist visited his bed of sickness. He did his best to explain to Dr. Somnum the reason his plan could not work. He told him of the Four Spiritual Laws of life, and of the sin-factor each person had inherited from fallen Adam. Until sin, the fly in the ointment, was removed, humanity could never achieve a paradise.

Dr. Somnum rejected the idea of sin. Being a secularist, he considered man an animal, he told the evangelist. Man needed to be trained, tamed the right way, and Somnum's dream could still become a reality. Dr. Somnum just couldn't figure out how. But- the doctor was very vocal about his next assertion- religion couldn't solve the problem. No, that is what helped to make the problem, since so many different religions helped divide the world. What the world needed, Dr. Somnum reasoned, was a unified religion. Yes, maybe in that way, religion actually could solve the situation. After all, one religion was as good as another, so why not just blend them all together...

The evangelist pointed out, all religions cannot be right, since they contradict each other. Either there was none right, or only one. The evangelist said, only in one religion did its founder rise from the dead. History suggested the resurrection narrative's authenticity, if one only carefully considered. The evangelist further went on to say that Dr. Somnum had not really "awoken" on that fateful day in 1963, or he would not equate all religions as the same. He said the doctor still slept, but did not know it, and that it was time for him to truly wake up.

No, Dr. Somnum insisted, his dream could work, and he would one day find a way to make it work! Dr. Somnum died a year later, a very disappointed man, as the world teetered on the brink of chaos, each wanting what the other refused to give, and many actually needing more than the available resources could provide.

The international space station, the Peace Lab, was launched with much fanfare, in the hopes that the crew could find answers to the world's needs. It had been put into orbit, away from the world, where controversial experiments could be conducted with the understanding that, if the experiments produced cataclysmic results, at least the Earth should not be contaminated and harmed from the failed testings. But what solved much of the problem was the Peace Lab's tragic accident, which opened the wormhole to some distant, uncharted galaxy, to a planet in the middle of nowhere.

That new world provided new hope for the people of Earth- if only someone could be found to keep order there while the world developed into a colony serving the Earth, a colony that would deliver fuel ore and ample hybrid foods grown on the farms on the new world. The Earth leaders looked for someone to make the planet in the middle of nowhere into the World of Hope, a new hope for humanity, and thus make possible Dr. Somnum's dream, after all.

The Earth Leaders had found such a man- Xavier Bright! He would work with Earth and help them by governing this new land in such a way as to make the colony productive and fruitful. He would send the bountiful prosperity to those struggling on his homeworld . At first, the Leaders delighted in their selection for the position of governor for that world, and for all the goodness which he had attained for Earth by his governing the World of Hope. What a good choice! That was what they thought at first...

“We owe it to Dr. Somnum to make sure that colony planet in the middle of nowhere succeeds in living up to its promise for humanity. We owe it to Mr. Martin, to show that his personal tragedy wasn’t in vain. And so, even though we have the utmost confidence in Gov. Xavier Bright’s abilities to run the World of Hope, we also should send somebody to take a fresh look at things there, who can give him some ideas how to do things with... How should I say this... with more yielding results. And I know just the right man to send-“

The unanticipated interruption of the receptionist- whose normal spot during these meetings was outside the meeting hall at her desk, but now here she was- distracted him a moment. “Yes, Miss Brent?”

She spoke in low tones. A few committee members tried to discretely eavesdrop, but the majority looked away, attempting to honor the Earth Leader’s privacy.

Ldr. Bigges’ cheeks reddened. “What? What??!! How could he burn down my house? Thank God no one was hurt- but just what was that delinquent Osmo doing—“

Ldr. Bigges turned his smoldering eyes turned toward where sat Osmo’s father, Gunther Martin-

-but already his seat was empty, and he gone from the meeting hall.

Out in the reception room, Gunther Martin hastily tried to contact Osmo on the cellphone. “When you get this message, Osmo, don’t dismiss it like it’s nothing serious! You know how Gov. Bright’s been inviting you and your pals to the World of Hope ever since graduation? I suggest you take him up on it as soon as possible- I’ll call him to work out the details; you and your friends do some fast packing. Meanwhile, I’ll also try to calm down Ldr. Bigges before this gets blown out of proportion, although I don’t know how it could not be, considering tge situation. I’ll stall him from taking any action while you take a vacation until things calm down!”

Gunther Martin returned his phone to his pocket and headed back into the meeting hall to face the music for what his son had done, and to placate the Earth Leader before he did anything that might include probably justified incarceration of his son Osmo.

(c) 2011, 2018