Chapter 16 - Page 222 - Flying To America

   Finally Jim shut his eyes, but he still couldn’t sleep. He noticed that the sound of the engines was getting quieter. He could hear a humming sound. It grew louder. The humming sound began to pulsate then, after a few seconds, it faded away. Jim opened his eyes, but all he could see was a soft blue glow. He tried to close his eyes and open them again, but still all he could see was the blueness.

   Jim didn’t know if he was asleep or awake. He heard himself speak, but his lips didn’t move. “Father,” he yelled, “is this a vision or is it just a dream?”

   Suddenly a huge image of the earth materialized, fifty feet tall and fifty feet wide. As the earth turned, he could see an outline of each country. As Jim tried to figure out what this meant, he saw ten beams of light shoot out toward him. The beams were like brilliant white rays from a ray gun, and each came from a different point around the world. The rays hit Jim and pulled him to each of the ten places. He could see ten images of himself leave his body at the same time, each drawn to the country from which the beam originated. Each beam set their image of Jim on the ground and disappeared.

   Jim discovered he could choose the image whose eyes he used to view the earth. He chose to view his surroundings through the image of himself in the United States.

   The world image vanished; now Jim could see trees, roads, and buildings. The ground began to shudder and move under his feet, and he knew the movement could only be an earthquake. He realized all ten versions of himself felt the earth shake, in all ten countries where they stood. Large crevasses split the ground all around them.

   Through the eyes of his United States image, he saw skyscrapers falling like rocks in Los Angeles. Cars were being thrown in every direction. Fires burned out of control.