Raka’s Discovery

What a nuisance, Raka thought as the gold-filled pince-nez spectacles fell off his nose yet again. He cursed the defective eyesight of this latest body—that of the old physics teacher Professor Meiss. He sorely missed his razor-sharp dragon vision.

The ungraded papers of Meiss’s students were stacked on the professor’s desk. Raka knew he had to keep up appearances, and grading papers were one of a professor’s tasks. He considered them for a moment, then grunted in resignation, picking up the stack. He shuffled through the papers, searching for Albert’s work. Finding it among the others, he scanned it, shaking his head in disapproval. The upstart’s report had insufficient validation, just scrawled notes with no proof.

As the dragon pondered Albert’s lack of thoroughness, students began drifting into the classroom. At the very last moment, Marcel Grossman scurried in with Albert at his side. Bored with the old textbooks used in the class, the duo often took themselves to the Café Metropole on the banks of the Limmat River where they drank iced cappuccino. It was their favorite place to meet and debate the latest discoveries in physics. They only attended class often enough to avoid being kicked out of the university. They found the discussions at the café far more interesting.

As he entered the classroom, Albert looked around. He missed Mileva. He sorely regretted that she had been spooked by the mysterious events that had transpired during their outing in the Sihl Forest. While Albert had dismissed the incident as nothing, he had yet to calm her fears.

Resigned to another class that would be less than fulfilling, and thinking what a waste of time the next period’s chemistry class would be, Albert drew nearer to Raka’s desk. Professor Meiss glanced up and watched the young man with interest. As he stared at him, Raka’s perception of Albert seemed to blur. The professor took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and blinked several times.

With his spectacles off and not being distracted by the real scene around him, Raka found his intuitive vision suddenly asserting itself. This had happened to him from time to time, and he had not ever discovered a way to control it. No longer looking with his physical eyes, Raka’s vision sharpened and he stifled a gasp at what was revealed to him. Raka knew past life existences could superimpose themselves over a physical body in intuitive sight, but he was not prepared for what Albert’s features had transformed into. It was a face that was sickeningly familiar; it was none other than his twin brother, Arka, from their lifetime on Atlantis! The dragon reached out to his desk to steady himself as remembered scenes of that lifetime overwhelmed his awareness. He whirled away to hide his reaction. NO, NO, NO, this cannot be! He shouted silently.

As his past life memories awakened, so did his rage toward his twin. His breathing quickened, and he glanced down to see his nails growing into dragon claws. He quickly sucked in two deep breaths to contain himself. Slowly, his temper calmed, and his dragon claws returned to human fingernails. Taking in another calming breath, he tucked away his hatred for the moment and turned back to face the class. Raka looked around and noticed the students hard at work. He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen open your books to page 136.” The murmuring in the class fell silent as the students sought the assigned page in their books. With a sigh, Albert leafed through his writing and settled himself in for a long, boring lecture. Feeling particularly distracted, he tuned out the talk and lost himself in his thoughts. He was jarred from his daydreaming when the boy at the desk next to him nudged him as he was packing up his books. Shaking his head, Albert packed up his own study materials and headed to his next class, Chemistry. He had little use for the subject but needed it to graduate, so he did his best to get through it.