16/
JANNET ARRIVES TO PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PDX, BY 4.00 AM, JULY 16TH. The flight to New York leaves at a little after 5.00 am and she is in New York 5 hours later. After a 45-minute layover, she boards a second flight to Madrid, which is a 7-hour flight. Jannet arrives to Madrid, very early Thursday, July 17th. It is 5.30 am. Jannet is aware that Mari Belen does not prefer to do airport runs. Jannet sleepily takes an airport shuttle into the Embajadores sector of Madrid, to her usual apartment hotel accommodations. There are flowers and a card waiting, from Mari Belen, waiting for her in her apartment hotel rooms. The large flat screen monitor is posted on one of the walls. She sleeps.
°
Mari Belen and Jannet plan to maintain their normal schedule for the brief two-week stint in Madrid. Jannet has a return flight on August 1st. Jannet spends evenings, overnight, and early mornings with Mari Belen and the rest of the day or days at her apartment hotel or wandering about Madrid. Sara Jean has booked an irregular schedule of consultations.
The first free days for Mari Belen, a Sunday and a Monday, the two spend 48 hours together to the exclusion of other family members. The weather is quite hot in Madrid in July, therefore the women dress casually to some extent; this included high quality Capri and cargo pants, silk or linen t-shirts, and pricey roman gladiator women’s sandals; this is a unique departure, although a temporary one, for Mari Belen. They also make several diverting visits to a few new and unknown sectors of Madrid, unknown to Jannet, which Mari Belen has orchestrated. Despite Mari Belen’s intention to maintain private time with Jannet throughout these two free days, Mari Belen does find herself, very often, encountering friends, acquaintances, or other work associates and facing the consequences of prolonged greetings and conversations. Jannet, of course, is interested in the new faces and in each new location that she encounters.
On Tuesday morning, Mari Belen is off to work and Jannet returns to the apartment hotel for personal correspondences, and private time; in the late afternoon she is scheduled for consultation sessions on Skype. In the late morning, she spontaneously decides to visit the outlet mall at Las Rozas Village in the far NW Madrid; her last visit was a few months in the past. After she confirms the proper directions with hotel manager, a metro train and then a bus, she commences her journey. Although she is looking forward to an afternoon of browsing, shopping, and lunch, there is an erratic irritating tug at the back of her mind. When she tries to visualize what she is sensing, her efforts only provoke an unusual internalized dark gray floating fog and not her customary representational depictions. Something or someone is blocking her exertions. Unfortunately, her unease only increases as she approaches the outlet mall. Surprisingly as soon as she departs the bus at the outlet mall, she pauses and she decides to re-board the bus and to return back the Metro and back to the apartment hotel. Her sensory mechanisms are strongly indicating, however elusively, that someone might be watching her. For the moment, she decides not to inform Mari Belen until she has more proof. This day becomes a perfectly wretched day.
Jannet is hesitant about discussing her suspicions with Mari Belen but she is also not presented with an opportunity. The two women barely talk before Mari Belen rushes back to the police offices the next morning. Mari Belen had arrived home very late the night before and this morning she leaves early. However today Jannet has promised Mari Belen that she would report to the police offices for an informal session of questions, with the three investigators, about a few of their cold cases. She can present her concerns at that time.
In the early afternoon she walks out of the apartment hotel. Jannet is preoccupied with thoughts of a crusty bocadillo and a fruity glass of wine, at a close by bar, when she stumbles on the sidewalk and falls inadvertently on her rear. The results are a considerable rip in her leggings, so she walks back, with a slight limp, to the apartment hotel building. She takes the elevator in lieu of her usual routine of walking up two flights of stairs. As the elevator door opens, she notices a maintenance approaching her apartment and producing a key card.
“¿Discuple?” Jannet questions; she does not recognize this particular hotel staff member but she reasons that perhaps he is new. The service man explains that he has a work order for her unit, and he cites that it is a routine maintenance procedure. But before Jannet can respond he quite impulsively excuses himself and vows to return at a more convenient time for the maintenance service call. Jannet, who is more concerned with changing clothes and her impending lunch, discounts the encounter.
Several minutes later she exits the lobby of the apartment hotel for a second time, this early afternoon, carefully focusing on walking to the bar for lunch. About 35 minutes later, after lunch, she will take a taxi to Calle Miguel Angel.
°
Jannet arrives to the police offices only to sit for almost an hour, waiting. She is then ushered into the familiar departmental situation room area. Mari Belen, Carlos Jon, and Umberto are present, along with a supervisor or two and the support staff. A special introduction is made for the benefit of a new legal counsel team member, a woman who is a replacement. In general, Jannet is comfortable with the activities and conversations of this group but she displays a rare nervousness on this occasion. She is concerned by a reoccurring visual loop, in her mind, of the serviceman that she had encountered earlier. Then she is surprised when Umberto speaks up.
“¿Hay algo? ¿Que occurío, hoy?”
Jannet becomes aware that the question is directed at her. She becomes aware that the three investigators are now strongly focused on her. She senses their collective intuitions and observances working fiercely. She notes holographic colors, subtle colors, swirling about them and directing itself towards her. Everyone is facing her now and the administrative staff is recording her and typing about her.
Jannet knows the drill, so she recounts her day, carefully starting her day with her initial morning activities at the apartment hotel and succinctly continuing on, hour by hour, event by event, until her arrival at the police offices. She also includes her suspicions about someone possibly tracking her and watching her, on another recent occasion, but she has no concrete proof to support that particular allegation.
“I am sorry. I should have spoken up sooner.” The American woman is penitent.
“Let focus on the hotel. Did you know the service man, and is he a regular employee at the apartment hotel?” Carlo Jon requests; his intensity is palpable.
“I really am not so familiar with the maintenance staff but I do know all of the maids and of course, I am familiar with the management.” She replies cleanly, she knows that crisp statements are the best and what is expected of her. She notes that the three investigators conduct a barely visible but silent exchange. She notes the exchange as a series of wave-like lines of lights between the three. Jannet intuits that a request for the complete and concise description of the man, will be forthcoming. She provides the description in advance of their request.
°
It is Mari Belen’s turn to drive the police vehicle this week, the three investigators and Jannet are motoring towards the apartment hotel. Jannet is allowed to sit in the front passenger-side seat. She sends a text to Sara Jean cancelling consultation sessions. Additionally, she frequently turns toward the two men in the back seat. Jannet has asked after their respective backgrounds and the two men, in turn, provide a truncated history.
Jannet learns, on the rapid drive, that Carlos Jon Reyes is married, only three and a half years, with no children. He started his studies with law at university but switched to criminal justice. His wife had been his long-time girlfriend but he suddenly proposed to her, after a particularly severe on-the-job accident four years ago. Jannet discovers that Umberto Chaves Ramirez is not married but he does have a long-time girlfriend, who wants to get married. Umberto has been interested in police work since high school. He pursued criminal justice at university. Umberto volunteers, as an athletic coach, at his former high school, when he has free time.
Jannet and the two male police investigators are all in their mid-thirties and they discover that there are actually quite a few common or overlapping areas of interest between them.
At the apartment hotel, the investigators initially question the manager-on-duty. The hotel manager, Adaluz, has been enjoying an off day; she is contacted by phone and she confirms that there have been no recent calls for work as provided for by an outside contractor. They discover that there is no regular maintenance staff fitting Jannet’s description. There is a small amount of cameras on the outside and the inside of the apartment hotel but only a vague visual impression is provided of the suspected intruder after the surveillance cameras’ footage is reviewed. The three investigators examine Jannet’s rooms and talk to staff. There are two separate staff members, who remember seeing the man. They had assumed that he was an outside service contractor. They also remember that he was wearing a work uniform and work gloves.
85 minutes later, Jannet checks out of the apartment hotel. She has all of her belongings and the large flat screen monitor. She is accompanied by three police investigators.
°
Jannet spends the duration of her Madrid stay at Mari Belen’s apartment but she maintains her standard routines. There is a return trip to the police offices and Jannet fields many generalized questions, all connected to cold cases in which she has provided some amount of information, to date. She is also asked to comment on a few other different cases which are unknown to her. She is not asked to visualize or to initiate a trance state. She does continue to experience a vague sensation of uneasiness. She assumes that she might be a little uncomfortable around the newest member of the team, Flor de Luz Abeyta, the legal counsel who replaced the departing attorney.
°
Tess is just released now from a rest period; these rest periods are very infrequent and normally it has a duration of less than an hour. She becomes re-alert in Jannet’s apartment in Portland. As she prepares to embark for several tasks, she spontaneously decides on an in-person visit with Jannet in Madrid. At the same time, she sends a holographic projection, of herself, to another time/space coordinate to meet with several other family members, other spirit guides. She now mentally locates Jannet and she projects to that location. Jannet is walking along a section of the Calle de Alcalá. This street is renowned as one of the oldest and picaresque byways in Madrid. It is populated with many famous buildings and intriguing neighborhoods. At the moment that Tess encounters Jannet, she is mesmerized with the façade of El Edificio Metrópolis at the intersection with the Gran Via. Tess senses the moment when Jannet senses her. They walk in silence northeast on Calle de Alcalá until they reach the boundaries of Parque Buen Retiro.
“You are preparing me for something, is that correct?” Jannet communicates mentally.
“We are all lifelong learners. However, specific to your question, you do have various purposes for your present existence and this includes a training component.”
“So this is for my next existence after this lifetime?”
“Yes, except from my perspective, you are already on the job, so to speak. Only that person is another version of you. In general, the existence, after a human incarnation period, is not a vacation-period or a static/non-active period, rather it can be considered as a next step in your development as a more fully actualized being. However, for the moment, you should not entertain any preoccupation about that existence. Focus on this one and, by the way, you can be fairly confident, but of course not completely assured, of a reasonably adequate-length and interesting life span for this existence.”
It is unfortunate but the question of her death, Jannet’s departure from this existence, pops us automatically with her mind.
Tess responds to unasked question right way. “There are four or five likely probabilities for your departure from this existence. I can provide dates, times, and circumstances if you are interested?”
“No, thank you! And now I can see where my humor gene comes from.” At that point, both women stop walking. Fortuitously, they pause at a copse of shady trees; it is a very warm July morning. Jannet offers Tess her water bottle which is tucked in her backpack.
“Thank you. This body does indeed require water and since I will not provide it with any food; this body fully utilized 100% of the water provided to it.” They have stopped on the sidewalk and they are looking through the elegant metal bars of the tall perimeter fence of the park. They face the green vastness of the park.
°
Jannet has managed to work in a very few consultation sessions during her recent Madrid tenure. She has however hoped to maintain some regular contact with Sara Jean and with Grace and she has been, more or less, successful. In one conversation, Sara Jean reports that the Deckers insist on meeting with Jannet. And in a different conversation with Grace, Jannet continues to encourage Grace’s practice and exercises. She also recommends discretion/secretiveness on Grace’s part concerning her activities.
During Mari Belen’s second weekend, free days of a Sunday and a Monday, there is a family gathering. Mari Belen, her sister with her nieces, and Jannet crowds into her sister’s van for the quick trip to Toledo. Jannet will be departing on Thursday, the 30th. She is experiencing two conflicting emotions; she will be concurrently happy to be returning to Portland and she will be sad to be leaving Madrid.