Today was a solemn day.
Information Screeners were put up everywhere, their screens enlarged for all to see. Many people wore either their bests suits and dresses or were dressed in a simple black robe. The lights were dimmed. Many held a small candle in their hand as they watched the white, flowered coffin of Ambren Salus, the Master Pilot, be pushed across a white stage for all to see. The Senior Pilots stood again in a straight line, faces tone cold and hard. Marisol's face was streaked wet with tears, and Thyra looked straight at the ground as the coffin was pushed towards a small altar for the deceased man.
Then the screeners shut down.
There was silence. Then someone shouted. Another shouted. Soon the guardias were filled with shouting and confusion.
The screeners turned back on but it wasn't the funeral. It was a young woman.
She stood in a place filled with dark trees and tall grass, where in the distance large mountains nearly touched the top of a dark sky. She was dirty and disheveled, but her eyes held light and fire. She spoke only a single sentence, but she spoke it with a loud and clear voice that echoed into the guardias like an angel from heaven.
"You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level."
Everyone was silent. Who was this woman? Where did she come from? Everyone noted the place she was standing in. There was nowhere in any of the guardias that had forests and mountains. There was only one place where such landscapes existed.
The surface.
The screener returned to the scene of the funeral. The coffin was in the altar now, but all the Senior Pilots stared at their cameras and screeners in disbelief. Andelia turned around and said something to Kyser that was not picked up by the screeners. Kyser shook his head vigorously while Andelia nodded her head even more vigorously. Then Kyser waved a hand at something and the screeners shut down.
The robotic female voice chimed, "Technical errors have been experienced. Please be patient while we try to solve the problem."
(Quote from Eckhart Tolle)