VOICES FROM THE PAST

Suddenly, out of the blue, something occurs that triggers off your memory mechanism and fires the neurons involved in the original experience.

You can't hear them, but they travel effortlessly, noiselessly across the vast emptiness that separates their world from ours. They creep into the optical fibre cables that criss cross their way into our homes and then, as if by magic, a miracle of modern technology converts them into an intelligible language and they come splashing out in alpha-numerical codes across our PC screen. 

Recently, in the last couple of years in fact, I went through this process three times. The original events occurred several decades ago and the memories came flooding back, bringing with them deep feelings of fondness and love and friendship, as the sound of laughter rang in my ears. But then again melancholy appeared and feelings of sadness and nostalgia crept in and an occasional tear escaped. Doesn’t time fly!

Technology! That’s what did it; modern technology in the shape of computers and associated tools and utilities such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, blogs, etc. If your name appears anywhere, you’re sure to be found!

The first one to trace me, about two years ago, was my best man – at my wedding! I hadn’t seen him since shortly after I got married, and though we corresponded for a year or two we soon lost contact as we both emigrated and got on with our separate lives.

Soon after, I got a mail from a woman asking me if I was the boy she’d played with when she was a teen in an African republic. I’d been there during the summer and was about 17 at the time. We were neighbours and did spend a lot of time together, swimming and partying, and generally behaving the way colonial kids behave. The holiday came to an end and I went back home to school. She stayed on with her family and later emigrated to another continent..

Finally, a few weeks ago, I got the shock of my life when I read a comment in my blog. Initially, I didn’t realise who it was from, but a second comment left me in no doubts. Someone, a very special someone, had read one of my posts and got in touch.

Now, so many years after we all parted, a new kind of contact has been restored, electronically, via email. Stories and pictures are exchanged and we reminisce about the experiences we shared and tell each other about the lives we lead. Hopefully in the future, meetings can be arranged and visits organised.

I thought I’d try and trace some of my school friends and work colleagues and found one big drawback: most girls of course have got married and changed their surnames!



LATE HAVE I LOVED THEE

This is neither about Ethel Mannin’s nor St Augustine’s books. It’s about an old woman I neglected during several years and whose memory haunts me even today. I last saw her on her death bed, in coma, surrounded by some of her children and grandchildren. The sight moved me to write this short poem:

The happy face
has gone,
and in its place
a line or two to mark the passing of the years.
The tears
like waterfalls have carved their way
and left their trace.

Tonight, sitting at my desk by the open window, refreshed by a cool Mediterranean breeze, after another hot summer day, I can’t help thinking about her quiet dignity and resignation in the face of the abysmal darkness that surrounded her. As I approach the twilight of my years, I realise what a phone call, or even a few lines, from time to time, would have meant for her.

Kennedy said: “Think not of what your country can do for you, but rather of what you can do for your country.”

I say: “Think not of what your parents can do for you, but rather of what you can do for your parents.”

I’m sorry, mum; so much more I could have done.

NOW FOR THE SECOND BOOK

Having found an on-line publisher - lulu.com - and published one book already, the logical next step was to publish a second one (I've got another six in line!).

This one's called 'los doce garbanzos', which translated from the original Spanish means 'the twelve chick-peas'. The story takes place in Morocco, in a small village near Tangiers, where a young boy discovers, on the death of his father, the amazing power of faith. It highlights, above all, the values of culture and education.

The book was written mainly for adolescents, especially my grandson,... and for those who went through that difficult stage in years gone by.

FIRST BOOK OUT - AT LAST

After patiently pursuing publishers for half a decade, I must confess I was beginning to get a bit downhearted in view of the many rejects I got from them.  My agent, bless her heart, said the time was wrong, the industry was in a pitiful state, nobody wanted to risk their money on an unknown writer... I could go on!

A few months back I discovered an online-publisher who seemed to offer the ideal solution. I'm refering to lulu.com. So, I entered their blog and started to investigate, and lo and behold, I found it wasn't all that difficult. (If you're thinking of publishing you could do a lot worse than try them.)

Anyway, after  weeks of learning to cope with the tools they offer you - it really isn't difficult, it's just that I'm a slow learner! - I finally managed to put together a fairly decent piece of work. It's entitled: Historias de Ajedrez, and, yes, I'm afraid it's in Spanish!

It's a collection of short stories, - six in all, - revolving around chess. Those of you who have followed my blog will be familiar with my frequent references to this game/sport and my absolute devotion to anything relating to it. BUT it is not a technical book! I'm not really good enough for that...yet! As I said, it's just a few stories I've put together based on some of my experiences in the fascionating world of chess.

I'm now working on the English version, though it will be a few months before it's ready. In the meantime, if you're Spanish is good enough you might like to have a crack at it. You can go to http://www.lulu.com/ and type in my name in the search engine, or you can go straight to my author page: www.lulu.com/spotlight(joerahal.
Happy reading! 

HOW MANY SOULS CAN HEAVEN HOLD?

Some people might think this is a daft question. I mean, how much space does a soul actually occupy? I don’t now if anyone has ever tried to calculate this, but I did read somewhere that a soul weighs about 21 grams. If that’s so, then it follows that it must take up some space.


But let’s just go back in time, a few thousand years, say, to the beginning of man. Is there a date for the creation of man? I mean, did God create man in the year… whatever BC? Or do we all agree that man evolved gradually over the ages. If the first possibility is true, then it should be reasonably easy to calculate, give o take a few hundred thousand years, how many people have seen the light of day between then and now. Consequently, we can also work out the maximum number of souls that could have gone to heaven in that time, assuming ALL HUMAN BEINGS HAVE HAD A SOUL.

However, if the second option is the correct one, then we must ask the following question:

WHEN EXACTLY DID MAN ACQUIRE A SOUL?

The world population today is around 7 billion people. However, an estimate of the total number of people who have ever lived was prepared by Carl Haub of the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau in 1995, and subsequently updated in 2002; the updated figure totalled approximately 106 billion.

DOES THAT MEAN 106 BILLION SOULS?

Well I can’t pretend to have the necessary skill or knowledge to answer that question, or any other, for that matter, related to souls. But I’d certainly sleep better if someone provided me with simple answers, in terms I can easily understand, to two questions that have been bothering me for some time now.

HOW MANY SOULS CAN HEAVEN HOLD? and
WILL THERE BE ROOM ENOUGHFOR ME?

I searched the bible for an explanation and found 147 references to the word “soul”, but none of them throws any light on its real meaning. For those who want to read more on this subject, I recommend the following link with a complete on-line transcription of The New Jerusalem Bible :

http://www.catholic.org/bible/