‘Maybe she spoke with me.’

‘Maybe?’

‘Look, I’ll stay out of the zone. I was planning on quitting football anyway.’

‘Manny, this is way beyond your football career. This is about you finally accepting who and what we really are.’

‘Here we go again.’

A violet tinge appears in Jacob’s eyes as he loses his temper. Grabbing an empty chair, he flings it over the balcony rail.

Manny’s eyes widen. ‘Well, well, what happened to Mister Transcendental Meditation?’

‘Immanuel, for once, would you please just shut your mouth and listen!’ Jacob closes his eyes and breathes, slowing his pulse, regaining his composure. ‘Have you ever experienced a déjà vu, that strange feeling that you’ve lived through a particular scene or situation before.’

‘I know what a déjà vu is.’

‘And what if you had lived through a particular moment before? What if the concepts of time and space are mere byproducts of our three-dimensional existence, which binds us … anchors us, if you will, to the physical world.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘There’s so much we don’t know about existence. What really happens when we die? Is there really an afterlife? Do we possess a soul? Does God exist? The answers to these questions are not available to us because they lie in another dimension, a realm of eternity where there is no concept of time, only pure life force … pure existence … hyperspace.

‘There’s a fundamental level of quantum existence all around us. Awareness of this energy field comes hard to most people. Certain individuals, Buddhist monks, for instance, can train their minds to look deep into the soul. You and I were born with this ability—an ability that others spend their entire lives hoping to achieve.’

‘Meaning what? You can see dead people?’

Jacob shakes his head. ‘Forget everything you think you know about life and death. Our physical bodies are nothing more than flesh-and-bone suits inhabited by the soul, which, in essence, is quantum energy. We may die physically, but spiritually our souls continue to exist. What separates you and me from the rest of humanity is that we have the genetic ability to move back and forth within the nexus, both physically and mentally, without having to die.’

‘I don’t understand?’

‘The nexus is an existence that bridges the worlds of the physical and spiritual, the “ether” that out-of-body travelers have historically described. Scores of people have crossed through it and come back to tell us about it. A person dies. He sees a bright light and finds himself drawn toward its soothing embrace. Perhaps he’s escorted through the light by a deceased loved one, assigned to provide guidance. And then—whoosh—the dead man is miraculously revived and all that is left are his memories of the journey and a lasting sense that he will never again fear the unknown.’

‘Like Evelyn Strongin?’

‘Yes, like Evelyn Strongin.’