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artsy-moonwalker · 3 years

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Would you go into more details about your OC’s backstories?? They all look so cool 😆

I would love to! Thank you so much for this question :)

I'm going to focus distinctly on their childhood for these descriptions.

(mentions of drug addiciton, war, and violence)

Before I get into their backstories, it is important to address their environmental situation for context.

In their childhood, there was a civil war going on within America. This is a fictional war, of course, taking place in the early 2000s. Lenis, Everest, Flint, and Darryon all have their parts to play, and the war affects the four in different ways. While Lenis, Everest, and Flint are trying to escape war from their hometown and cross the country, Darryon and his siblings are attending shelters and risk their lives trying to help in any way they can.

So now that we have some context of their biggest childhood dilemma, let's get into the four individually. I won't go into complete detail to avoid any spoilers I'd like to share later on, but I will dive into their personalities and importance. I don't know how long this post will be, but I'll try to keep it as short as I can.

Lenis, 13 years old - tall, blond, a bit tan, a distinct scar on his left jaw, brown eyes

Lenis lives in a small town in Ohio. It's a bit run down, and his house is in bad shape. Considering his family is lower class, he doesn't have much money to spend, and he gets by with what he has. He lives with his two strict parents, him being an only child. But he takes care of a stray cat that lives in a forest behind his home that he calls "Otter." Whenever he tries to get the cat to stay in the house, his parents don't allow it. They can't exactly afford to take care of an animal, especially when they have to pay for his monthly medication and doctor visits.

He has a bone condition where his bones are incredibly fragile. He can't walk for very long, and running is even worse on him. It doesn't take a lot of force to break a bone either, and he's had to visit the doctor numerous times for fractures and snaps. So he has a medication that helps him not feel the aching as much, and allows him to walk or run for a time. He is in no way a strong person. His physical strength is constantly challenged and he feels like a burden to those he loves whenever they have to make sacrifices to just to help him. Especially when it comes to his best friend, Everest.

He is always being protected by Everest. He's taken multiple punches for him, he has to carry him sometimes, he can't do a lot of outdoor activities with him due to how easy it is to get injured. Lenis hates this. He hates being held back and he hates that his best friend has to be held back too because of it. He often tells Everest that he can do things himself, but that ends with him getting hurt more than not.

Lenis really is a grateful and humble soul. He tries to find the good in every situation no matter how painful it can be. This is especially apparent for his friends. If anything is troubling them, he will do what he can to get them through it. His optimism was a lot more prominent when he was a child, though. After escaping war, he finds it difficult to find the good in bad situations. But that doesn't mean he won't try to. It's safe to say the light in his eyes are faded as he grew older.

Everest, 13 years old - short, red head, blue eyes

This is Lenis' best friend, that's how everyone at his school titles him. Because he is constantly by his side more than he is alone. He knew Lenis since he was a toddler due to their mothers being friends, and ever since then, Lenis would nickname him "Evvy." Everest was always like a brother to him. He was incredibly protective and would often put Lenis before him.

Emotions and Everest don't exactly work well together. He tends to be reserved. Cold and bitter, even. If he's showing any extreme emotion, it tends to be anger or frustration. But he has a soft spot for Lenis. He's really one of the only people around him that can make him smile. Other than his mom, of course, who he lives with down the street from Lenis. His mother was pregnant before he left home; his father having left after a short and abrupt divorce. Little information was given to him about why that occurred. But his mom was happier, and that's what he wanted. He was never close with his father anyway.

Everest knows that his protectiveness over his friends, especially Lenis, can be a fault at times. He's gotten hurt many times due to it, both mentally and physically. And it isn't even because his friends are defenseless. He knows they can protect themselves if they need to, but he cannot help himself. He can't let them get hurt if he can stop it. He speaks bluntly, and his words may go over a few lines, or he may be prone to starting arguments, but he is incredibly selfless. He means well in every action he takes despite all of that.

Flint, 12 years old - short, black buzz cut, large dark eyes

Flint is a troubled child to say the least. He's callous towards others, he seems to only care about himself, and he isn't afraid to use force and threaten violence. He was Lenis' biggest bully after ending his friendship with him in a desperate fit to steal his pain medicine. Yes, Lenis and him were friends before that. And Flint truly wanted to continue the friendship, but he needed those pills. Lenis wasn't going to just give them to him. So he had to resort to violence, thus harming Lenis, and regretting it later.

It's easy to think that maybe Flint had a drug addiction, and stole Lenis' pills because of that. But that isn't the case at all. It wasn't because of an addiction, it was for a much deeper reason.

His younger sister, Penny, was facing a horrible sickness that was going to kill her if she didn't get the right treatments. His mother, being constantly intoxicated with alcohol, spent all of her money on things she didn't need. So she couldn't afford Penny to have any treatment at all. Flint, who has been basically raising his little sister, decided to take matters into his own hands, and find any possible way to make her feel better. Even if it meant harming Lenis for some pills.

Flint loves his sister more than anyone. Or loved, at least. She unfortunately didn't make it long after the pain medicine incident.

He wants to be good, he really does. But Flint is difficult to get along with. Especially with Everest. Much like the red head, Flint has a short temper, and they always fight with each other. But also like Everest, he has a soft spot for Lenis (he is sort of like the peacemaker of the group). Flint is incredibly emotional, and he always says what's on his mind, even if they're not so nice things. He feels regretful for a lot of things, though. He's trying to be a better person, and befriending Lenis again is something he is determined to do.

Darryon, 12 years old - Average height, black curly hair, dark eyes, has an intense burn scar along his face

Darryon lives in California with his siblings, and only his siblings. His parents died in a car crash while they were on their way home from a relative's house. The war was breaking out, and they were caught up in it at the worst possible time. Darryon's oldest brother was a soldier in the war, and his oldest sister was her younger siblings' guardian while he was gone. He has five siblings, not counting himself. Three girls and two boys. And he is very close with each of them, especially his oldest sister, Carlitha. She followed shelters, and he did the same. For a long time, she was concerned for his wellbeing considering just how dangerous a job like this was. They were always venturing in war zones and had to face many hardships. But even at a young age, Darryon wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. His parents' death were a big motivator in his efforts, and he found that helping others get through the war was an effective coping mechanism.

He didn't go through these hardships without consequences, though. On one occasion, a shelter he was attending got bombed, and he was caught in the flames, leaving the brutal burn marks you see on him now. These marks filled the mouths of the other kids at his school when he tried going back. But how can anyone go back to a normal life after that? Luckily he had a good group of friends to back him up during his good and hard nights.

He has a very distinct sense of humor, and finds it easy to entertain himself when no one is around. Some of the kids at his school think he's weird because of his behavior at times. He talks to himself out loud, he has a funny laugh, he has a few imaginary friends (one stays with him even in his adulthood), etc. But he embraces those things more than anything, and his friends don't care, so why should he?

When he isn't helping at a shelter, he finds time for himself or his family. For example, he's very fascinated with nature, and enjoys drawing what he sees around him in a sketchbook. He's pretty good at it too. What started as drawings of birds or gardens soon turned into drawings of burnt landscapes and debris of towns. He liked to draw the people he would meet in shelters as well, and he kept every drawing, not knowing if that person survived after they parted ways or not.

Darryon's story does collide with the others at some point. He and his sister go to great lengths around the country, of course they're going to befriend Lenis, Everest, and Flint at some point, and it will certainly stay that way.

If you read this far, thank you! I really hope this little introduction to them has intrigued you, and if not, that's okay too :) I want to share more about them later on, and I plan to write out chapters to get the full story soon as well. I've been working on this story for more than a year now in private, and I'm really having fun, so I'm excited to share it with you. Thank you again!

#war story #lenis dosh #everest howsare #flint dean #darryon clifton #penny dean #carlitha clifton

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msannieoakley1999 · 5 years

Text

The Confusion

Chapter 1

You know how as life progresses and childhood falls away with the busyness of adulthood that you forget the tiniest of details even those with the most significance? It was in the dim reaches of my misty past that I realized I must have been about three years old the first time it happened. Laying in my bed at night wishing that I didn’t have to go to sleep. I closed my eyes as tight as I could and focused on playing in the afternoon sun. Suddenly, I was in the warmth and brightness of a perfect summer day. My toys were all about me, my sister beside me. I looked at her, she looked at me and we smiled. I picked up a toy and began to play. It was the greatest time of my life and it seemed to span on for hours, until Mom called us in for dinner. Just as quickly as it had begun, I woke up in my bed to the first pale streams of morning light filtering through the bedroom window.

I told my mother about how I closed my eyes and was able to play with my sister again at breakfast and she just nodded and smiled, saying, “It sounds like the most perfect, lovely dream, dear.” And that was it, it was just a dream. Similar events happened for years afterwards and came to a halt around my 12th birthday. My “dreams” weren’t as vivid as soon as the monthly visitor showed up, but that didn’t stop me from trying. I laid in bed one night, my eyes shut so tightly I feared they would adhere to each other, I wished upon every fiber of my being to know a time before my womanhood had arrived. I drifted slowly into a dream so lifelike that I began to believe something was up.

“Julia? Are you okay?”

“What? Huh? Um...I guess so?”

“What’s wrong?”

“This all feels familiar. It’s like I’ve been here and done all of this before.”

Laura threw her head back and laughed a deep, belly laugh. “You couldn’t have been here or done this before. I would remember.”

As I looked around, I knew exactly what she meant. She was about to take the stage for her solo at the spring choir concert. She only ever did that once. I had gone with her to the green room after the 6th grade choir had come off the stage. I figured I would be there for support because I knew she was nervous.

Laura rose from her seat, patted me on the head, and said, “Thanks for the laugh. That definitely eased the nerves. Wish me luck!”

And before I could think about it, I said, “Break a leg!”

That was not more than four weeks ago. I sat in the green room and watched her solo from the closed circuit stream. She did wonderfully. As I had known she would, but she did so all over again. It was so much deja vu that I pinched myself. I pinched myself so hard that a dark purple bruise began to form. I felt it and didn’t wake up.

Laura re-appeared in the green room and hugged me with excitement. Just like I knew she would. The conversation unfolded as I remembered it had. After the concert had finished, we went for ice cream and we all smiled. We went home and got ready for bed. As I laid in my bed, I wished it wouldn’t end. But slowly, my eyes closed and when they opened next, I was the same 12 year old girl with a period that I had been when I fell asleep.

Laura came bouncing into my room to wake me up.

“Get up sleepy head. Mom made pancakes.” Suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks. “Whoa, where did you get that from?”

I looked down at my bare arm and there was a huge bruise on it. In the exact same place I had been dreaming I pinched myself.

“I don’t know. I must have bumped it in my sleep.” Laura walked over to the side of the bed and raised my arm to look closer at it. I pulled my arm away quickly.

“Julia, you sleep in a soft bed and there’s nothing hard next to your bed. Were you sleep walking and ran into something?”

“Did I used to sleepwalk?”

“I’ve never seen you do it, but maybe it’s something you do now that you are a woman.” She giggled.

“It’s so weird. I had a dream last night that I was pinching myself. I pinched myself so hard a bruise formed. Maybe I did that to myself in my sleep?”

“Julia, that’s weird.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Laura and I went down to our pancake breakfast. Mom was very fascinated by the bruise and Dad was somewhat indifferent until he realized I didn’t wake up when it happened. As I ate my pancakes, Mom and Dad discussed a doctor’s visit just to make sure that it wasn’t anything to worry about. It was settled, a bruise that significant required a trip just to make sure that it wouldn’t keep happening.

The following Monday, Mom got an appointment set up. A week or two passed and she took me to the appointment. By then the bruise had faded, but Mom had taken a few pictures and had them ready for the doctor to take a look at during the course of the appointment. As soon as he came in, Mom launched right into her fears and worries. The doctor looked over the pictures and reassured her that there was nothing to be concerned about. Sometimes pre-teens and teens do things that they don’t remember, but the body does. He told her to keep a close eye on me and should the bruises become more plentiful, he’d order a blood panel to make sure there wasn’t anything serious to worry about. After that the “dreams” all but stopped. No more bruises and thus Mom shrugged it off as a one off, bizarre teen thing.

I finished middle school and high school without any further time lapses. At my graduation party, I looked back at all of my accomplishments and remembered those heady days of youth where I could dream myself into the past. I truly began to believe that my youth was the only reason I would vividly dream about past events. It had left a print, however, and I had made the decision to go to college as a history major.

Having traversed all of my younger years with my sister by my side, until she herself went off to college, stepping out on my own seemed a daunting task, but one I embraced with wide eyed optimism. The real world had not ever affected me. I was always protected by my family. It was my everything. They supported me and kept me from making missteps that would derail my bright future. But I soon would be on my own without the safety net as my chosen school was nearly 100 miles from “home.”

I stayed on campus for my first year. I made all sorts of new friends and had the structure I needed to have to continue to feel safe and assured in my goals. The first semester passed with no incident. And the second followed much the same way. A group of friends decided to not live on campus for our sophomore year. We found a place together just off campus and moved in. I made weekend trips home, but worked most of the summer to pay bills and save up for tuition.

My sophomore year of college was slightly more difficult. The course work required more attention and thus I spent long hours studying between class and work. It wasn’t easy, but I was stubborn and determined to pass. Things in our apartment began to come unglued when several friends really started to heavily party. Sometimes bringing it back in the early morning hours. Three of us were serious students who worked, slept, studied, and never missed a class. The two others found freedom to be more enjoyable, skipped class, partied, brought back messes and noise that bothered the three of us who were diligent in our academic pursuits.

As our lease came to a close, the three of us who were planning to return knew that we couldn’t continue with the other two who were interfering with our goals. I spent an evening on the phone with my sister who was graduating from college soon and considering her Master’s degree at my school. She was waiting on an acceptance letter. She didn’t want to say anything until she knew for sure it was happening. She said she’d be happy to come take up the portion of the lease from the partiers. Her only request is that she could bring her boyfriend with her without me saying anything to our parents. He was a bit of a secret, but she said they were getting serious and she thought he might be the one.

I waited for days to get a call from her saying that she’d been accepted and would be moving in after graduation. Her boyfriend would move in after that. Everything seemed to be going the way I wanted. I was going to have my sister with me and I’d be able to get through my junior year of college with no real issues.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. My sister moved in and my first semester of my junior year seemed to start uneventfully. I was digging deeper into my major and met a transfer student, Evan, who was into the same history I was. Some people love Europian history, but I was utterly fascinated with early American history. Something about the turmoil and upheaval, the war, the drama, the mystery and intrigue of a new world being created between “white” men and natives was just fascinating to me. I was particularly intrigued with the events surrounding the signing of the Treaty of Greene Ville. The area was a hotbed of tension between the westward expanding colonials and the natives trying desperately to hold onto their lands. The area was rife with history if only one would look close enough. Greenville became the home of Annie Oakley and I was so hopelessly in love with the whole idea of natives, colonials, cowboys, and in the midst there was this crazy woman who didn’t seem to ever miss her mark.

Evan was also incredibly focused on the history of the midwest, specifically in Western Ohio and Eastern Indiana between the 1700’s and early 1900’s. His family was from that area and his hope was to go back and become a history teacher either in middle or high school. He had goals and it seemed we were on the same page. We spent long hours studying for tests and papers at the library, a coffee shop, or in the commons. Until we began spending more and more time together to do things other than studying.

Laura would pick on me for having a boyfriend, but Evan and I had never discussed ever being anything more than friends. If we weren’t studying, we would walk the mall, go for bike rides, and during the colder months, I taught him to ice skate. We had so much fun together. He quickly became my best friend. And somewhere after Christmas, but before New Year’s of my Junior year, I realized I had caught feelings for him.

We spent New Year’s Eve with him and a few other friends. As midnight rolled in, Evan embraced me and kissed me gently at first and then as the cheers continued a bit more fervently. I wasn’t opposed at all, but I was confused. He had never said anything at all to me about having feelings for me. When we finally came up for air, I kept my eyes closed and my forehead on his. It felt good having someone by my side that was meshing so perfectly with everything I wanted for my life. I drank the moment in, a new year, a new love, and a new goal.

Evan and I had conversations after that during winter break where we discussed what we were and decided that we enjoyed each other too much to not continue to see where we would go. Our second semester of our Junior year had us busy with work for our majors, but with his minor in education, our schedules didn’t mesh as well. My schedule was crazy and my job would throw me shifts during the day so I could take a couple night classes that I needed for my major. One night, as I was walking home from my class, I became aware that something wasn’t quite right. I looked around and didn’t see anything. I did as my father had taught me and put my keys between my fingers so that should I have to fight someone off, I’d pack a bit more of a punch. I started to walk a little faster. I turned down my street and hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps before I was grabbed from behind.

The keys fell from my hand. I tried to remember anything from a self defense class I took with my sister in high school and came up with nothing. I was awash in panic knowing what was about to happen. It happened too much to women. I wasn’t out partying or showing too much skin. I knew that the victim blaming would happen, but I had on long boot cut jeans, a big coat and a scarf with a knit hat as the spring nights were still chilly walking home. There was nothing about my appearance that made me an easy target. The only thing I can think of is that he had watched me and knew who I was and what route I took. He had figured me out and that made me a victim.

His hand was over my mouth as he ran me head first into the dumpster behind my apartment building. I was dazed and pinned against the dumpster. I heard the zipper of his pants and felt him press himself against me. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to be present. I wanted to lift myself out of my body and my mind. I could hear him breathing behind me, he nearly hissed with excitement. He had his full weight pinning me to the dumpster. He kicked my right leg out and then my left leg out so I was standing wide legged. Keeping his arm across my shoulders and all of his weight against me, I felt him reach for my pants with his other arm.

Before I could think, he had my pants pulled down to my hips and was panting. He slipped his hand into my underwear and it was in that moment I screamed. He pulled his hand out of my underwear and bashed my head against the dumpster. I felt the blood running down my face and knew I was suffering from a concussion. I didn’t say anything else. In that moment, I closed my eyes. I closed them as tight as I could. The tighter I squeezed my eyelids shut, the farther I seemed to fall from earth. Soon, I realized I had lost consciousness.

I woke what seemed like seconds later, but on a bright day, in green grass with trees all around. I rubbed my head slightly and pulled my hand up to look at it. There was no blood. I started checking myself over. I had a knit hat and scarf, but my coat was gone. In its place was a woolen blanket. I checked down farther to realize my jeans were gone and had been replaced with a full skirt. I was unscathed other than the odd state of dress I found myself.

As I looked around, I saw nothing distinguishable. No buildings, no people, no cars, no streets. I stood up without feeling any ill effects from having my head bashed. I called out, “Hello?” There was no response. I took a step and realized something felt odd. I pulled up the skirts to see my shoes were gone and had been replaced with something akin to boots. They were laced up and I had on wool socks. And it appeared I had on pantaloons. I was sufficiently confused. Perhaps my attacker was a history student and he had drugged me and dressed me up like a pioneer woman of the 1800’s. All of the clothing seemed incredibly accurate for that period. Only a historian could have gotten some of those details correct.

Finally realizing that the only thing holding me back was my hang up with my clothing. I started heading towards the trees. As I was about to enter the underbrush, I thought I saw something move off to my right. I turned and looked, seeing nothing. I figured if I just walked into the woods I’d find a trail or a stream or something that I could follow to civilization. Under the trees there was serenity. It was so quiet, save a bird or two chirping. The occasional bee would buzz by, but there were no sounds. It became quite disconcerting. I finally found a trail. I looked up to the sky to see where the sun was to try and determine direction. There was still dew on the plants and the sun was off to my left. I knew I was facing South. The trail faced East and West and I had no idea which way would take me to civilization. I began walking East in the hopes that I would find something, anything that would steer me.

I had walked for maybe twenty minutes when I came to a large creek. I began following it as it was flowing eastward and I figured eventually I would find someone with a house on it. I heard the slightest rustling in the underbrush and began to think I wasn’t alone. As I continued to walk, I’d occasionally look around and see nothing even though I felt as though I was being followed. The creek bent southward slightly, but I followed it to a wooden bridge. I crossed the bridge and followed the creek.

I saw something in the distance that looked like a building. I picked up my pace, but soon had to slow down. I hadn’t eaten anything and the skirts and everything were so heavy that I was having trouble continuing. But the site of a possible building gave me hope that I’d soon be back to my apartment, my sister, my school, my life, and could move past the whole sordid affair.

However, as I approached the building something was off. It was all wood and there were battlements. It looked like the colonial forts of the 1700’s and 1800’s. There were men atop the battlements. One spotted me and pointed his rifle at me.

“Halt, do not come any closer. State your name and business.”

I forgot my name for a moment and what my business would have been. Quick to come up with something, I gave them the first name I could think of and as much of the truth as I could remember. “My name is Julia Hollinger. I was attacked and woke up in a field back that way.”

“Julia Hollinger? Are you kin to John Hollinger?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that I was attacked and I ended up wearing different clothes in a field I don’t know how I got into.”

“Wait there.”

He disappeared a moment and returned with someone wearing a dark blue dress coat. The man in the blue coat called out, “Are you okay?”

I responded, “I think so. I don’t know what happened to me.”

The man in the blue coat pointed behind me. I turned and looked to see figures moving in the trees behind me. A dark skinned man came out of the trees. He was dressed all in leathers and had paint on his face and a feather in his hair. His hair was dark and long. He was everything I would expect a native man to look like and seemed familiar. I’d seen his face before. Where, though? It had to have been a movie or maybe a book. It was a book. A history book. He looked exactly like Tecumseh from my Ohio history book.

I was about to call out to him when he raised an arm. I went to raise my arm in response when an arrow shot above my head into the fort. The blue coat man called to me, “Ms. Hollinger, hurry, to the gate!”

I began to run, but the skirts were impossible to move in. I hiked them up and started to stride quicker only to be struck in the shoulder with an arrow. I fell forward just as I was reaching the gate. I lost consciousness as the gate opened and men in blue coats pulled me through into the safety of the fort.

Hours passed and when I woke, I was in a hospital bed. Mom, Dad, and Julia were sitting around the room. Mom and Dad were dozing against each other in one corner. Julia was next to the bed looking at her cell phone. Julia looked up, her eyes red, and met my stare. She gasped and rushed to me and hugged me. Mom and Dad stirred and when they saw me looking at them, they rushed over. Julia let me go so that Mom and Dad could hug me. She left the room to find a doctor or a nurse, I’m unsure. Mom sat on one side of the bed and Dad on the other.

I reached for my shoulder. The pain was there, but there was no arrow. Mom shrieked and Dad stood up and ran from the room. When I pulled my hand away from my shoulder, it was covered in blood. Mom grabbed a towel and placed it against my shoulder.

“Julia, what happened?”

I was about to answer when the pain in my head seared through my body and I lost consciousness again. The next time I woke, Mom was sitting next to Julia by the bed. Julia saw me first and grabbed my hand. She nudged Mom who moved her chair closer and also grabbed my hand.

“Julia, don’t move. You’ve been attacked. You have severe head trauma that’s causing your brain to bleed. The excitement from before caused you to slip back into a coma. If you understand, blink twice.”

I heard what my mom was saying and so I blinked twice. But it didn’t seem to be making much sense. I was fine when the arrow hit me.

“The doctor says that they were so busy trying to get the brain trauma under control that they didn’t notice that you had a puncture wound in your shoulder that wasn’t bleeding until we agitated it. They’ve closed it up, but the head trauma is still very serious and you need to take it easy. Do you think you can talk?”

I nodded.

“Julia, honey, do you remember what happened to you?”

“I was attacked.”

Laura started to cry.

“Yes, dear, you were. What do you remember?”

My voice was just a whisper. “I was walking through the woods, in a dress from the 1800’s, and I found a fort. The fort got attacked by natives and I was shot by an arrow.”

Confusion washed over Mom’s face and Laura began to weep. Mom started to shake her head and I could see the tears welling up in her eyes.

“No, Julia, honey, that must have been a dream. You were walking home from class last Tuesday and a classmate attacked and raped you.”

Confusion washed over me. Raped? I wasn’t raped. I was shot with an arrow. The sicko attacked me, knocked me out, drugged me, dressed me up, and dumped me in a field. Perhaps he raped me when I was unconscious, but I didn’t remember that at all. I could feel my own hot tears forming. And I looked at Mom and at Laura, knowing they knew the whole story.

“Tell me what happened.” Mom looked at Laura and nodded. Laura sat forward in her chair.

“Tuesday night, you weren’t home when you were supposed to be. I figured maybe you were spending time with Evan. I texted you and you didn’t answer. When midnight rolled around, I went through your stuff and found Evan’s phone number. I called him, he was sleeping, and said he hadn’t seen you all day. I knew something happened, Julia. I’m so sorry.” Laura began to weep. Mom wrapped an arm around her and told her to keep going. “I threw on my coat and started to retrace the route you would have walked from your class. I got to the end of the street and I found your keys near the dumpsters. As I got close to them, I saw your coat laying on the ground next to the dumpster. Then I saw a shoe and then torn pieces of jeans.” Laura paused, trying to hold back her sobs. “You were on the ground, behind the dumpster, half naked, bleeding from your head. I called 911. Cops and ambulances and fire trucks. They put me in the back of a police car. I heard the cops telling Mom and Dad they were taking you to Saint Mary’s Hospital and to meet them there. The cop got in the car and we followed your ambulance.” Laura broke down sobbing quietly.

Mom rubbed Laura’s shoulder slightly. “Honey, you’ve been here for three days. They had you in a medical induced coma to try and reduce swelling in your brain. You were raped,” Mom started crying, “but they caught him and they have all the evidence they need to put him away for a long time. He even confessed. There will be no trial, but there is a very nice detective who wants your side of the story. Do you remember anything at all?”

I swallowed hard aware of the dryness in my mouth, but not on my cheeks. The tears had started to fall as the assault came back to me. I whispered all that I remembered and Mom and Laura sat quietly crying next to the bed. I knew I felt sore all over, inside and out, but some part of me couldn’t believe I had been raped. I knew when I was attacked it was going to happen, but to have no recollection of it at all and then to graphically remember being shot with an arrow, it was all too much.

After we all were a touch more calm, I asked about the shoulder wound. “What caused the wound in my shoulder?”

“The doctor doesn’t know for sure. He said he didn’t remember seeing it before when they were doing surgery, but that occasionally puncture wounds can go unnoticed until the clot is disturbed. With the bleeding from your head, they cleaned you up without ever really seeing it until it started bleeding when you woke up.” Mom looked confused and unsure if her explanation made sense.

“I wasn’t shot with an arrow?”

“No, Julia, you weren’t shot with an arrow. The detectives are looking for a weapon that matches the wound, but haven’t found anything. They think it was probably a screwdriver or something.”

That couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. I felt it. I felt it. And then, I remembered the bruise. It couldn’t be possible. It just couldn’t be. Could it?

The next few days I fell in and out of sleep with a constant stream of friends and well wishers. The most frequent being family and Evan. Eventually, when all seriousness was in the past, the doctors released me without ever giving further information about the wound in my shoulder. My parents stayed with me and my sister at our place for a while to make sure I was settling in okay. Of course, this meant her boyfriend had to clear out for a few days, but he was more than willing to do that.

One evening, as I was getting into bed, I could hear Mom, Dad, and Laura getting into a heated debate. Mom and Dad wanted to move me home and when I was ready that I could come back to school. Laura disagreed and told them that I should stay right where I was because my doctors and friends and support network, except for my parents, were here. As they argued back and forth, exhaustion took over and I closed my eyes tightly. I just wanted to get away for awhile, to put all of the drama around me down for just a moment. As I fell into sleep, the sound of shouting turned into something different. It was something quieter and totally male.

As consciousness began to return, I could hear the faint sounds of whispering. At first it sounded like someone whispering in church, but as I became more and more aware, I realized it was a man telling another man to get someone. I blinked my eyes open and began to attempt to sit up.

“Now, now, miss, you don’t want to be moving quickly. Just lay still a moment.”

Realizing I felt dizzy, I laid back for a moment looking up at the ceiling. Where was I? The ceiling was made entirely of wood. Had Mom and Dad taken me to a cabin in the woods? I felt itchy and warm all over. I lifted my arm to see I was back in full dress complete with shift, corset, petticoat, and skirts. It would appear I was back to the fort, perhaps?

Into the room walked the man with the blue coat. With him was a stout looking older man. They approached the bed, which I realized was much too uncomfortable for my liking.

“Well, Ms. Hollinger, it would appear the fever has broken and you are well on your way to recovery,” said the man in the blue coat. “This is Doctor Smith who has been looking after you while you convalesce. How are you feeling?”

Ms. Hollinger? Who is that? Was that me? Then I remembered in the fog of approaching the fort that I had given them Evan’s last name as mine. It was the first name I could think of in my bewilderment. I became aware that I hadn’t responded and so I cleared my throat and spoke up.

“I feel confused.”

“Confusion is common after such hysterics. Not to mention the fever. What were you doing wondering beyond the wall?” Asked Dr. Smith.

“I was attacked and woke up there.”

“Who attacked you?”

I thought for a moment. I didn’t know who had attacked me. I recalled my mother saying it was a classmate, but I didn’t know who exactly.

“I didn’t see my attacker. He hit me from behind. When I woke, I was in the field, dressed in these clothes, and unsure of where I was.”

The doctor looked at the man in the dark blue coat and told him it was not uncommon for the savages to abduct women from villages and brutalize them in the wild leaving them there to die. The doctor speculated that this was the case seeing as the natives had followed me to the fort and laid siege upon the fort for hours after I took an arrow to the shoulder.

“I apologize, I don’t remember much of that day, could you please tell me exactly what has happened?” I requested.

The man in the dark blue coat stepped forward. “Begging my pardon, Ms. Hollinger, I am General Anthony Wayne. I am with the Legion of the United States. I am here at the pleasure of President George Washington to fight the savages that are resisting our God given rights to these lands. I am brokering a treaty of peace between us and the savages. I arrived a few days ago to meet with the leaders of the tribes in these parts and found you wandering to the gate of this fort.”

“My apologies, may I inquire as to which fort?”

Wayne looked at the doctor who nodded and he continued. “This is Fort Greene Ville. Have you heard of it?”

I had, but in history books. I knew the fort no longer stood and there were monuments to mark its existence. I was definitely dreaming or really in the 1700’s.

“What year is it?” I asked.

“Why it is the year of our Lord 1795,” replied the doctor.

Shocked for a moment, I nodded. I looked back at General Wayne, feeling very faint, and requested he continue.

“It was as I came to the gate that I saw the savages in the trees behind you. They began firing on the fort and you when you were struck with an arrow. We pulled you through the gate and have been tending to your wounds since.”

“Wounds?”

The doctor stepped forward. “You had a bump to your head and you were struck by an arrow. I patched the arrow wound as best I could, but the injury to your head was going to require time to see if you would survive.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Four days. You have recovered miraculously. Is there family nearby that we can dispatch a rider to inform?”

I thought for a moment and realized that I had no connections. If I truly was in 1795, I wouldn’t have even had family in the country. My family sailed from England in 1854. I didn’t know enough about Evan’s family to even begin to have an idea of who they would have been. I looked up into the doctor’s concerned face and my eyes began to well with tears.

Dr. Smith sat on the edge of the bed. “Dear miss, I did not mean to overwhelm you. We’ll send word to John Hollinger that a relative has turned up in the wild and that he should come collect you.” I nodded not realizing the implications of what was to come.

“Dr. Smith, I leave Ms. Hollinger in your capable hands. I have preparations I must make. I shall take my leave.” General Wayne turned to me, “Ms. Hollinger, I wish you safe travels back to your family and health to continue God’s will for your life.” And General Wayne turned to leave.

A soldier by the name of Welch came into the room and was greeted by Dr. Smith. They assisted me in sitting up slowly. I felt as I had when I fell asleep in my bed, in the future. My head was spinning, slightly hazy, and my shoulder was sore.

“I must say, Ms. Hollinger, this wound to your shoulder has healed so quickly. I cannot think of a time when I saw anything like it. And I’ve been tending to the wounded in these parts for a very long time.”

Perhaps it was modern medicine that he should be remarking upon, but I didn’t dare say such a thing to him. It was still a time when those with delusions were locked up or killed for being a witch. And if I knew what was about to happen, that would make me a person to be feared and thus they would do away with me. I smiled and nodded.

I spent the day with Dr. Smith. He walked me up and down the inner fort walls, staying clear of the men as much as possible. Many of the men posted in the fort had been away from family for a while. Women were scarce at this outpost as it was dangerous and no real place for a lady. Late in the afternoon, a rider was dispatched to head east towards the village to send notice to John Hollinger that he should retrieve me. I had no fear that I would miss him entirely. Perhaps I would slip back into a fever and wake again in my bed, 224 years in the future.

After a very light dinner of bread and coffee, I was escorted by Welch back to the room I woke in to succumb to exhaustion. The events of the day swirled in my hand and sleep claimed me rather quickly. It was a fitful sleep, however, no dreams and interruptions aplenty. It was the wee hours of the morning when the alarm went up. I’m not sure what woke me, but soon there was so much commotion that sleeping was nigh impossible. I rose from the bed and went to the door. I could hear the heavy thud of footsteps from men running outside my door. I reached for the door handle and as I did, in barged Dr. Smith.

“Quick, my lady, hide under the bed. The savages have entered the fort. We are under attack.”

In just a shift, I strode quickly over to the bed and crawled under it. The fort had erupted into a cacophony of sound. There was pistol and musket fire, screaming and yelling, some in voices that made no sense to my ears. I heard Dr. Smith bar the door and walk to the bed. He sat down on top of the bed.

“Have no fear, my dear, this shall all be over shortly. I will sit here to protect you by distraction.”

I have no recollection of how long I cowered under the bed until finally a great thump came on the door. Dr. Smith whispered, “Say nothing, my lady. The savages have found us. Help should come quickly.” I heard Dr. Smith fiddling with something metal, then the sound of powder, followed by the sound of metal scraping metal. I realized he was loading a black powder pistol. The sound at the door grew in intensity, until the thumping all but stopped. The doctor rose from the bed and went to the door. He removed the bar and began to open the door and as he did a native pushed through and knocked Dr. Smith to the ground and then used the butt of his musket to knock the doctor out.

The natives looked around and appeared to be appeased until one looked under the bed. He reached for me and I screamed. He pulled me kicking and thrashing from under the bed and threw me over his shoulder. He and several like him left the room and went to a portion of the wall where ropes were hanging. In no time at all, he was over the wall and running through the dark with me on his shoulder. It jostled me so that I could not continue screaming as I struggled to catch my breath.

We crossed the creek to find horses that were being held by still more natives. In complete shock, I remained silent as the natives put me on horseback and my captor climbed behind me. They quickly bound my hands and off we trotted to break into a full gallop. Horse riding was not one of my past times and thus, I bounced around on the back of the horse and nearly fell off. However, the captor held me tightly and used his considerable body weight to pin me against him so that body mirrored his own.

We rode for quite a while until the first pastel wisps of clouds formed about the horizon indicating the coming sun. In the shadows of the early morning stood several structures. I was unsure of their distinction, but they were definitely not teepees.

As we rode closer to the settlement, I could see that it was just a small outcropping of natives living there, but there were women and children. We trotted past them straight to a worn, but well painted structure. Still puzzled, I remained silent as I dismounted the horse feeling every ache and pain of being wounded and riding bareback across the countryside. There was no more denying it, I had travelled back in time and was about to come face to face with natives. I knew this time was not a pleasant one for white people and natives, but I had hoped that should I just comply, they’d not kill me. Ever present in my mind was the bruise. Whatever happened to me here, would happen to me in the future. I had to carefully mind my words and action or I could lose everything.

We walked up to the structure and entered to a warm dark dwelling of many natives. All of whom sat up immediately. Words were exchanged and a man was roused towards the back of the dwelling. He sat up and looked towards us. He rose and walked over to us. He looked down at my hands and then into my eyes.

“Are you the one who rose from the field?”

I had to think for a moment. It dawned on me that they had been watching me in the field the first time I woke up in 1795.

“Yes, that was me.”

Suddenly, every person in the dwelling rose to their feet. Some began to quietly chant while others ran out the door. The man behind me, holding the rope that bound my hands let the rope drop. Immediately the man in front of me untied the rope around my hands.

“I am Lalewithaka. Behind you is my brother, Tecumseh. I have waited for you.”

Say what? He waited for me? I was unsure if I was dreaming. Perhaps I was delusional. Would I wake in a mental hospital delirious with stories of natives and colonials? I was trying to figure out what was going on when the man in front of me spoke to the people still in the dwelling and they dispersed, including the man behind me.

The man in front of me took my hand and led me to the fire. He walked over to a wood pile and grabbed a log and tossed it onto the fire. He laid down a hide next to the fire and bid me to sit. He laid a second one beside it and sat down next to me.

Looking into the fire, he began, “Many moons ago I dreamt of a white woman who appeared in the eye of an owl. Her skin pale and her eyes curious. Her course was to guide the owl between the past and the future. She would approach her people only to be pierced by an arrow of Tecumseh. With that mark, Tecumseh was to bring her to me so that she could confirm my visions and make me a prophet.” He paused to poke at the fire, but his stare never left the flames. “You have come and I am convinced I am a prophet. I have asked for these signs and visions my entire life. I have listened to them all, but still doubted. Until you arrived.” He sighed heavily and rose from his feet.

Looking at him, it was apparent he was about my age. I could smell him. It was a mixture of sweat, earth, smoke, and alcohol. He grabbed another log and placed it on the fire before returning to his seated position.

“Tell me, what do the gods want from me.” He remained fixed on the flames. I knew nothing of native life. I did not know how to answer him and was afraid to answer him incorrectly.

“I am unaware. I am sorry.”

“Do not be sorry. There is always confusion between the spirits when they change from air to person. You will find clarity and when you do, you will answer me. What do you know about how you came to be in that field?”

“I was attacked by a man. He hit my head and when I woke, I was in the field, dressed with close that were not my own. I rose and walked to the fort where I was struck with an arrow. I slept for four days. The night after I woke, the fort was attacked and I was taken.”

“There is more. There is more you are not telling me. You do not lie. But you do not speak the truth. What time do you come from?”

How did he know? He couldn’t have known. I sat bewildered, unsure how to respond.

“I have seen it. I have seen the plague of white man on our lands. I have seen them destroy everything we hold dear. I have seen the death of horses and the rise of beasts that consume the world. I have seen what is to come. You cannot scare me more than my visions have.”

“I was born in the year 1997. I was attacked and raped by a man in 2019. I have always been able to close my eyes and exist in another time. My body in that time feels the effects of the time I went to. Anything that happens to me here, happens to me there. I don’t know how.”

He nodded thoughtfully listening to me. I couldn’t believe I had said what I had said, but I couldn’t hold onto it any longer. And if he truly had seen my coming, he would know anyway.

“Is what I have seen what comes to pass?” He accepted my explanation without any question.

“Horses are not dead, but they are not as plentiful. And we did create machines that are destroying the planet.”

“Thank you. Will you stay with me so that we can discuss all that I have seen?”

I realized it was an invitation and not a threat. I was in a time that was not my own. How was I to refuse the knowledge of the inner workings of his tribe when this had been my life’s purpose before I blinked myself into the past? I knew his name. I knew his brother’s name. I knew where I was and I knew what was about to happen. I had arrived in 1795, before the signing of the Treaty of Greene Ville. I was in the camp of a Shawnee Tribe that belonged to Lalewithaka and Tecumseh as they made their last futile efforts to oppose a treaty with further settlement and concessions to the west of Fort Greene Ville.

I knew I was in no immediate danger as the subject of a vision. There was a certain amount of protection to be expected if the gods were responsible for my appearance and thus I was treated not like the white woman I was, but as an instrument of the many spirits of the world. I nodded my agreement to remain. What had I agreed to?

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The Iowa Town Where Marianne Williamson Is Already President

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-iowa-town-where-marianne-williamson-is-already-president/

The Iowa Town Where Marianne Williamson Is Already President

Photos by KC McGinnis for Politico Magazine

Adam Wren is a contributing editor atPolitico MagazineandIndianapolis Monthly.

FAIRFIELD, Iowa—Inside the Raj, an idyllic French country-style spa and resort nestled among cornfields in southeastern Iowa, I asked for the gemstone light therapy, which promised to deluge me with inner peace, expand my consciousness and increase my energy.

But they told me I wasn’t ready. So I had to settle for the tongue reading and pulse assessment. Several minutes into having a bald and shoeless Australian stranger peering at my papillae, I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

I had traveled to Fairfield and nearby Maharishi Vedic City to try to understand the appeal of Marianne Williamson, a spiritual guru running for president. She’s been an object of fascination with the political pundit class, often as the butt of their snarky tweets, but also because her appearances attract hundreds on the campaign trail and thousands on the lecture circuit. She’s been a best-selling author for more than 20years and—not unlike the current president—has a powerful grassroots appeal in precincts far from the knowing zip codes of Washington and New York.

On Thursday, less than a month before the Iowa caucuses, Williamson laid off her entire staff but didn’t suspend her campaign. “The point of my candidacy has been to tell the heart’s truth and that does not cost money,” she wrote. There are a few places in the country where her heart’s truth resonates more than others. If you look at the highest densities of Williamson donors around the U.S.—as depicted in an August analysis by theNew York Times—most fall in the places you might expect: Northern California, Hawaii and seekers’ capitals like Sedona, Arizona. But one is right in the heartland—in fact within a short drive of the gabled white farmhouse made famous inAmerican Gothic.

In these neighboring southeast Iowa burgs of Vedic City and Fairfield—farming communities, dotted by a Family Video, a Pizza King and a Tractor Supply store—Williamson might as well already be president. Long before she declared her 2020 candidacy for the Democratic nomination, Williamson had been cultivating this part of Iowa, holding a number of events for herself-help business—drawing visitors to local haunts such as Revelations, a quirky cafe that prominently sells her books, and staying at the Raj, the resort owned by Williamson’s friends and donors Rogers and Candace Badgett. She campaigned here seven times in 2019—nearly a quarter of the town’s 29 presidential campaign stops, according to theDes Moines Registercandidate tracker.

Head northwest of the Fairfield town square a few blocks, past Everybody’s Whole Foods store, stocked with the finest foods from America’s first all-organic city, and you’ll begin to find out why this place has seen so much Williamson. This is the home of Maharishi International University, a school founded in 1974 by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a famous neo-Hindu practitioner and guru to the Beach Boys and the Beatles. On the edge of campus, the Maharishi Tower of Invincibility towers above the horizon. I would later learn it’s a sign of “perfect inner coherence and integration,” making the space around it “impermeable to disorderly outside influences,” according to MaharishiTower.org.

The tower guards two giant domes that hover above the flat Midwestern earth like golden, grounded flying saucers. Inside these two domes, twice a day, nearly 1,000 locals gather—women in one, men in the other—to take part in transcendental meditation, a key part of Maharishi’s teachings, and yogic flying, a kind of cross-legged hopping that practitioners say can mimic flying. It’s a practice they believe makes the world a more peaceful place. Adherents say that if they can get the square root of 1 percent of the U.S. population—about 1,900 people—here meditating simultaneously, their brain waves can materially improve the world and elevate humankind’s collective consciousness, staving off wars, recessions and, according to a recent dissertation published by a doctoral candidate at the university, car accidents.

“When people will practice meditation together in a large enough group, it has an effect of calming the atmosphere for an extended distance,” Ed Malloy, Fairfield’s nine-term Democratic mayor, told me on a recent visit.

“It’s very real,” said Fred Travis, a professor and chairman of the Department of Maharishi Vedic Science.

Of the nearly dozen residents I spoke with on my trip—from Malloy to a local café owner—all seemed to know Williamson and support her candidacy (though Sen. Bernie Sanders and, given her peacenik platform, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard drew some support, too). And, as remote as these followers of the late Maharishi might seem from in-the-know politics, they are also more relevant than you might think: The people of Jefferson County are classic Obama-Trump voters—Obama won the county by 16 points in 2012, but it flipped for Trump by half a point in 2016.

In September, on the International Day of Peace, Williamson spoke to a crowd gathered here at a local events center. “How insane is it that we have one day that we dedicate to peace?” She asked the audience. “International Day of Peace. One day. So much we could say that 364 days of the year seem pretty much dedicated to war.”

For the next hour or so, she outlined her vision for the country, before leading the audience in a 10-minute guided meditation. “As each of us, in our own hearts, in our own way, look to the creative force from whence peace comes, now we gather in that deeper place, in that perfect place, that place within the human heart, deep within the human psyche, we enter there. We enter there. We enter there.”

The crowd sat in silence.

***

If you build it, they willOm.That was more or less the sentiment that led Rogers and Candace Badgett in the early 1990s to build—in the middle of cornfields—a $7 million, 36,000-square-foot spa known as the Raj, a health retreatdedicated to Ayurvedic, an Indian school of alternative medicine advanced by the Maharishi. (“People don’t useom”in transcendental meditation,” Candace would later tell me, when I ventured the comparison betweenField of Dreamsand the Raj. “It’s a different type of meditation.”)

The Raj is in Maharishi Vedic City, a few miles north of Fairfield and the university. Vedic City, which Oprah Winfrey once called “America’s most unusual town,” follows “natural law”: It’s illegal there to sell nonorganic food and all the buildings face east—in accordance with a spiritual school of architecture believed to promote health and prosperity—and are topped by a golden architectural flourish called a kalash, better connecting residents to heaven. Incorporated as a city on July 25, 2001, Vedic City—named for the Sanskrit word “veda,” meaning life—is more or less the Raj and a collection of houses. Badgett is the town’s mayor.

As I pulled up to the hotel in the middle of seemingly nowhere, I found a half-dozen luxury cars parked out front. As I would later discover, the resort only accepts 15 guests at a time; the enhanced day spa experience is $595 a day, for up to 21 days. It is almost always full.

Inside, as I waited for Rogers and Candace, I perused a menu of spa treatments. My eyes settled upon something called Maharishi Light Therapy with Gems. For $120, I could get the Regular Beamer ($250 for the Big Beamer), a treatment which promised “higher states of consciousness.” After a long time on the campaign trail, it sounded nice, whatever it was. (I would later learn the treatment essentially sends light beams into your body through gems. Practitioners believe the stone’s crystalline molecular structure gives the light a restorative effect. The Big Beamer, by the way, “utilizes 12 times the number of gemstones for a more amplified and therapeutic effect.”)

Rogers, born in Western Kentucky, made his money in coal and oil investments and helped his family acquire the Boston Red Sox in the 1980s before moving here in the 1990s to deepen his transcendental meditation practice and be close to the university. In Iowa, he met Candace, a TM practitioner who grew up in Cleveland. (Their experience is not uncommon, I would learn. Everyone in Fairfield and Vedic City seems to come from somewhere else, drawn by the towns’ peaceful ethos: There are people from all 50 states here, and some 80 different countries. Filmmaker David Lynch, a TM devotee, is a town fixture, having established a master’s in film program at the university.)

Rogers and Candace took me into the parlor, the same room where they’ve entertained Williamson during her stays. The couple befriended Williamson years ago. The place has become something of a home away from home for the candidate, the Badgetts said. After her 2014 failed California congressional campaign, Williamson accepted an invitation from Candace to decompress here. Which treatments did Williamson prefer? We don’t have to go there,” Candace replied. “That’s kind of her private life.”

Over the next hour, the Badgetts sang the praises of Williamson. “I think they misunderstand her brilliance and her practicality because she talks about love, and love seems very kind of abstract,” Candace said. “Marianne’s understanding of love is much more profound than what people take it to be, because she’s just talking about an underlying field of intelligence in reality, and you come back to physics … that there is an underlying field of intelligence that gives rise to matter. … She understands the whole concept of collective consciousness, and that you need to raise collective consciousness to address issues.”

I kept the conversation more or less on politics and asked about Williamson’s lack of experience in most policy areas. The Badgetts informed me that transcendental meditation is more of a policy tool than you’d think:It has lessened conflict in war zones. From 1988 to 1990, 8,000 people known as the TM-Sidhas practiced meditation in the Middle East. Believers say this group was responsible for achieving a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War, the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the end of the Cold War and, in Mozambique alone, a “12.4% economic growth rate, inflation reducing from 70% to 2% and a liquidation of the national debt,” according to WorldPeaceGroup.org. “The biggest problem is that people probably think it’s a cult or probably New Agey,” Candace told me. “I don’t think people generally appreciate the way it’s evidence-based.”

Later, in the all-organic, non-GMO vegetarian dining room downstairs, I met with Travis, the Maharishi University professor and director of its Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition. He wanted me to know that what I had just heard from the Badgetts wasn’t bunk. He mentioned that one doctoral candidate at the college recently examined the number of car accidents surrounding Fairfield and found that accidents increased the farther you went from the city. “People here are aware that we don’t live in a classical world,” Travis told me over a meal of vegetarian lasagna, broccoli and turnips. “We live in a quantum world.”

The claim to be able to promulgate peace and safety through meditation is one of Williamson and Fairfield’s less controversial beliefs. Williamson has questioned mandatory vaccines. She has written that “sickness is an illusion and does not exist” and that “cancer and AIDS and other physical illnesses are physical manifestations of a psychic scream.” None of this is “evidence-based” or backed by science.

Those pseudoscientific beliefs seem to be shared, in part, by residents of Fairfield. Immunization data from the Iowa Department of Public Health from 2013-2014 found that Maharishi School, the town’s K-12 school, had state’s the lowest vaccination rate, with only 47 percent of the school’s 178 students being vaccinated. Jefferson County had the state’s second-highest rate of vaccination exemptions that year, according to theDes Moines Register.

There is also no credible scientific evidence that sending light through gemstones can cure the body.

In my conversation with the Badgetts at the Raj, I asked what would happen to me if I purchased the gem therapy.

“Different people have different reactions,” Rogers told me.

Should I give it a try right now? I asked Candace.

“I don’t think so,” she said. It needed to be done with a larger program, she told me. I wasn’t ready. Instead, I got the tongue checkup.

I also underwent an Ayurveda Pulse Assessment, which, according to the Raj website, is a diagnostic exam in which an “expert can feel the level of imbalance in the body, even before specific symptoms of imbalance become manifest.”

“That’s your unique music,” Mark Toomey, an Australian with a doctorate in physiology from Maharishi University, told me after pressing on my radial artery and instructing me to close my eyes. I passed both diagnostics, but Toomey said he could tell I needed to get more rest. “Your pulse feels a bit tired to me, a bit rundown. Are you tired?” The campaign trail didn’t seem to be wearing well on me, he said.

Back at Everybody’s, in Fairfield, Mayor Malloy told me he goes to the Raj for three to five days a year as a matter of preventative health. He wears a ruby ring. (“It’s kind of related to more planetary influences,” he tells me.) He told me Williamson’s policies, including her plan fora new federal Department of Peace, are all built on these Vedic beliefs.

“We’ve had conversations about [mass meditation] as a technology,” Malloy said. He remembers talking with Williamson about the Department of Peace a decade ago. According to her website, Williamson’s new Cabinet agency would “dramatically ramp up the use of proven powers of peace-building, including dialogue, mediation, conflict resolution, economic and social development, restorative justice, public health approaches to violence prevention, trauma-informed systems of care, social and emotional learning in schools, and many others.”

Malloy didn’t strike me as awoo wookind of guy. He moved here from Long Island, New York, 18 years ago. He’s the CEO of fuel brokerage company that has operations in 10 Midwestern states. In 2016, he supported Hillary Clinton. This time around, he told me, Williamson’s ideas weren’t getting the kind of fair media coverage he thinks they deserve.

“All of her political ideas are well-formulated,” Malloy said. “These are things that Marianne has thought through for years. And I understand that mainstream folks listen to them and find them a little bit off-center, outside what they would normally think or say, but there is no debating, and she has thought about these things. They’re not whimsical ideas.”

We talked about the town’s economic surge. Fairfield saw a 4 percent population spike between 2010 and 2015, according to a 2016Des Moines Registerreport, and gained some 700 new jobs in that same time period, even as other rural parts of the state were hollowed out. I asked him whether he thought the meditation and the city’s way of life were responsible for its relative economic success. “When people are dedicated to developing their own growth and potential, there’s a lot of creative dynamism that comes out of that,” Malloy told me. “And the partnerships that are made in that essential relationship of creative dynamism gives rise to the entrepreneurship that you’ve seen here, to the expressions of art. That has the effect whether you’re practicing meditation or not.”

I mentioned the traffic accident study Travis had told me about. That was nothing compared to the other thing that happened, Malloy said.

“Did he tell you about what happened in the Washington, D.C., study?”

***

In the summer of 1993,4,000 practitioners of transcendental meditation descended on Washington with what seemed like a far-fetched aim: lower the district’s crime rate. They set up their two-month experiment in places such as a conference room at the Washington Hilton and at Gallaudet University. They had tried this with a smaller group for a period of 10 years, but it didn’t work. In fact, until 1991, the national office of transcendental meditation had been in Washington, but the Maharishi had grown irritated with the capital’s seeming intransigence to the powers of transcendental meditation; it had worked in war zones, why couldn’t it work in the District of Columbia?

“I would not advise anyone to stay in the pool of mud,” the Maharishi said in defeat.

Go west, the Maharishi told his disciples. And so the national TM headquarters decamped from Washington to Fairfield.

But in 1993, a group of adherents tried to rescue the nation’s capital again. “It would almost be irresponsible if we didn’t bring this knowledge to the leaders of Washington,” Kamal Sunev, a spokesman for the Citizens for a Crime-Free D.C., a TM nonprofit, told theWashington Postat the time.

Malloy was there, and so were the Badgetts. They meditated for up to four hours a day. “We were going to lower crime,” Rogers said. “In the summer. In Washington, D.C.”

The city’spolice chief at the time, Fred Thomas, said the only thing that would stem crime in the summer was a blizzard. But the adherents, undeterred, believed. And so they meditated.

Under the direction of John Hagelin of Maharishi International University, they spent $4.2 million on the program. “This may be the most far-out project we have endorsed, but it may be the most important,” Haeglin told theNew York Times.

Four weeks in, violent crime dropped by 23.3 percent. In news accounts from the time, the Police Department wouldn’t comment on the statistical drop. One Washington investigator raised an eyebrow at the findings, though: “There has been outstanding work by the officers and leaders of the patrol districts,” Winston Robinson, a commander of the 7th District, told the Post. “I’m not kicking meditation. Tell them to keep on meditating. Crime doesn’t stop.”

A 1999 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Social Indicators Research explored the phenomenon, showing that the drop couldn’t be attributed to police staffing. TM adherents and experts chalk it up to something called “super radiance,” in which the positive vibes from those meditating altered the nearby field of consciousness. As a bonus, researchers of transcendental meditation say, then-President Bill Clinton’s approval rating increased, while hospital trauma cases and accidental deaths decreased—all thanks to the meditating, they argue. But one of the paper’s authors compared crimes that occurred to crimes that might have occurred based on a time-series analysis, a suspect methodology.

“You raise the whole consciousness, the consciousness is going through the galaxy, every word coming through your mouth is traveling through the galaxy,” Mila Urana, a homemaker from Fort Salonga, New York, who did a two-week TM shift, told theTimes. “Everything is positive.”

There was a moment, earlier in the campaign, when America—or at least some of America—seemed readyto take a Williamson campaign seriously, envisioning her as a kind of spiritual Trump slayer who could marshal our better angels and point us toward a “politics of love.” Her campaign launched crystal memes and earned its share of mocking coverage. America is a complex place, not least because a town like Fairfield—with its picturesque white gazebo, town square and nine-term Democratic mayors—can coexist with even the most outré beliefs and candidates.

***

The last person I met in Fairfieldwas Betsy Howland, the owner of Revelations, the coffee shop and New-Agey bookstore where Williamson’s books are prominently displayed just off the town square.

Whenever Williamson is in Fairfield, she makes a stop at Revelations. A couple of years ago, Williamson had a secret to share with Howland: “I think I’m going to run for president,” she whispered across the register.

Howland’s three daughters have taken Williamson’s course in miracles offered online. A Methodist, Howland moved here in 1998, leaving her husband, who had the “old beliefs” and didn’t meditate. Before the move,she had run a department store in Sidney, New York, an old Montgomery Ward that, thanks in part to her meditation she said, set sales records. But one day, she asked herself:What’s the most important thing I could do for the world?She decided it was to sell everything and move to Fairfield to contribute to the group coherence and meditation program. Now, between shifts at the store, she meditates at 5 p.m. and 6 a.m.

“I see her vision,” she told me of Williamson. “That’s what we need.” She’s given somewhere around $1,000 to the candidate. “Every time she asks, I send some.” She caucused for Bernie Sanders in 2016. “I think they’d make a good team” in 2020, she told me.

“A lot of the anger and hate and partisanship comes from stresses in the system. And if nothing more, meditation, in my case TM, it helps relieve those stresses.”

After we talked for a while, I told her I had just one more question. Did she think Williamson was unfairly criticized in September when she suggested individuals could use the power of their minds to turn away Hurricane Dorian? “The Bahamas, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas … may all be in our prayers now,” Williamson tweeted on September 4. “Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is a creative use of the power of the mind. Two minutes of prayer, visualization, meditation for those in the way of the storm.”

Minutes later the account deleted the tweet. Her team later said “it was a metaphor.”

In the pregnant pause between my question and her answer, Howland shot me a stern but quizzical look.

“You don’t think you can?”

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