Walking Backwards - Episode 21
Seven years after Rick’s death, Drew receives a gift from Rick and Drew and Ann decides that he will be a contractor no more.
This is the twenty-first episode of Walking Backwards, the third collection of not quite true tales of Texas. Previous collections are:
The Cold Days of Summer - If you are new to these tales and the type who likes to know how things started I would recommend starting here.
The Hollow Men - the second collection of not quite true tales of Texas.
New episodes are posted (almost) every Sunday. You can move easily between episodes via links to the previous and next episode.
If you are new to these not quite true tales of Texas but are the type who likes to dive right in you could start with the prologue to Walking Backwards. The prologue provides a summary of the first two collections and descriptions of the major characters you will be reading about in Walking backwards.
In our previous episode, episode 20 of Walking Backwards, Drew comes to the conclusion that some revelations requires patience, begins to see little miracles and senses that everything is changing.
Seven years after
At the end of January 1996 a package from Odessa was waiting for me when I got home. The return address said Anders on 11th street. Rae and Ann wanted to see what it was but I ate dinner before I opened it.
Inside the package was a letter and another package. The second package contained a second letter from Rick and a report binder. The title on the cover of the report binder was “Peeling the Onion.”
The first letter was dated January, 23, 1996, seven years after Rick's death. It read:
Drew,
Rick told me to send this package to you seven years after his death. He said you would be ready for it by that time and that you would also need it. That's all he said.
I hope you and yours are well. The next time you are in Odessa, please drop by. We would love to see you.
Mr. Anders
The second letter was a little older.
May 20, 1988
Drew,
Not sure how long I have left in this world but when you read this it will be seven years after my death. I've been working on this for you for some time. It is a collection of powerful words, words that can, if you let them, help you in your life. But first you must earn the words, so I have another test, or in this case, another forty tests for you.
Look at the report binder. After the title page the next twenty pages are mostly blank, save for some text at the top and middle of the page. These are the puzzles. Notice the 21st page is blank save for a thick red line along the top and right edges of the page. Don't look beyond this page until you are ready and you're not ready until you have solved at least one puzzle.
I trust that you won't look until you have earned the right to look. You were never the type to open Christmas presents before Christmas day. You weren't tempted then, don't be tempted now. The rest of the composition book explains each puzzle on its own page, what I was thinking of when I came up with the puzzle and what the words of the puzzle mean to me.
Here are the rules.
Solve any puzzle you want when you want to. You don't have to solve the puzzles in any sequence. If you want to start with the 23rd, fine, or you can start with the seventh, the 39th. The order you solve the puzzleds doesn't matter, every puzzle is independent of each other, and yet they build on each other. Each puzzle has value, but when all are solved the resulting value is greater than the sum of the individual values.
When you solve a puzzle use the blank lines below it to capture your thoughts on the puzzle. Once you have solved a puzzle feel free to read my notes on it.
You can solve a puzzle and read its meaning one at a time, or in bunches, your choice.
Just don't cheat!
You might get frustrated. That's okay, just walk away, let your mind think, then come back to it. Each puzzle is logical and there is a common pattern to all of the puzzles. Once you solve the first few I think you will find you can solve some of the others quickly. But you don't have to solve the puzzles in one fell swoop. In fact, I recommend you don't. Solve them as you need to. Let your life tell you what puzzles to solve when. Let your intuition guide you, trust it and you will do well.
Your friend in life and in death,
Rick Anders
I looked over the report binder. I skimmed the first twenty pages. I saw the thick red line. I didn't look past it.
Ann and Rae both asked questions. They are not like me, they are sorely tempted by the Christmas present with their name on it. I handed the letters to Ann but I held on to the composition book.
“Drew, what does this mean? This is just weird. Who would say 'your friend in life and in death?' That's not what normal people say.”
“Rick wasn't normal. I can't say for sure, but Rick is serious, he means for me to solve the puzzles, so I will.”
“When are you going to start?”
“Not today.”
I folded the letters and placed them inside the cover of the report binder and placed the report binder in my desk drawer.
I woke up the next morning before Ann or Rae. I wanted to look at “Peeling the Onion” in private. I opened it to the second page. At the top of the page the text read 1T5020. That was it, nothing more. Then halfway down the second page was the second puzzle: 3N7281 and nothing more.
Rick said there was a consistent pattern. From the two samples it looked like a number followed by a letter, and then four numbers. I flipped through a few more pages. My pattern was busted for I saw: BMM816, 4237sP and O2P35. I skimmed through the rest of the puzzles, the only immediate pattern I saw was each puzzle consisted of letters and numbers but there was no consistent format I could see.
I put the book down. The strings seemed to be keys, keys to something as they were too short to stand up on their own. It was a code of some kind, but a code to what? What could Rick be telling me? More importantly, which Rick wrote this down? Was it Rick my friend? Was it Rick who believed he was God? Some strange combination of the two or something else entirely?
I thought about this for a few minutes and decided to see if I could either eliminate or prove a few things. If this was Rick my friend, there are no obvious reference points I could rely on. If it was Rick who believed he was God then the strings might be keys to religious material of some kind.
I skimmed through the puzzles again and when I came across O2P35 again something told me to start with it.
O2P35
I took the easy route and began with the Bible. I walked into our living room, scanned the bookcase and found Ann's Catholic Bible. I sat down at my desk and opened Ann's Bible.
The Old and New Testament. Perhaps the O stood for the Old Testament? Okay, scanning for books that begin with P, I find two, Psalms and Proverbs. I don't find anything like the second book of P*, like 1 Kings and 2 Kings. Two books start with P, Psalms and Proverbs, in order. The second book of P*. Wait, the second book of P* would be Proverbs. 35? There are 31 chapters in Proverbs. I go to chapter 3, verse 5 and find “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and do not rely on your own understanding.” Sounds like a very Rick as God kind of thing to say. I write Proverbs 3:5 below O2P35 in the composition book and think. I turn to the red page, flipped quickly past the first few pages until I find a page that starts in bold large letters O2P35 and I read.
Proverbs 3:5 is the solution.
If you got something else, sorry, go back and try again.
If Proverbs 3:5 is your solution, congratulations! You succeeded. Keep in mind that this pattern will work for a few other puzzles, but not all, so don't get too excited.
Drew, what does “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and do not rely on your own understanding” mean to you? Depending on when you solved this puzzle, be it the first, last or in-between, the meaning of it may be different. Versus wandering what you're thinking, I'll tell you what I was thinking when I picked this for you.
You can choose to figure out everything, but there are many things beyond humanity’s ability to understand. I realize that is hard for you to accept, Drew, most of your life you have relied on logic and rational thought to make your decisions, to frame your world. But you can't explain everything, can you?
Can you explain this? Me, the dead Rick, talking to you years after I was gone? No, you can't, just as you can't explain why the dead visit you in your dreams and you hear voices and sounds that others do not. Somethings we can not explain. That can drive a rational person insane. Perhaps it has driven you insane?
Or, you can make another choice. Choose to believe there is a guiding process to this world, to this universe. I don't care if you put a name on it or not. The name has never mattered. What matters is faith, faith in something you can not prove.
Drew, place your faith in something. Ease your mind.
I had solved the first puzzle. I thought about what Rick had written to me. Rick wanted me to place my faith in something, to ease my mind. He also said to let my intuition guide me through the puzzles. I hadn't selected O2P35 to solve, but something told me to start with it and I solved it. I thought about what was going on in my life, right now and the past. Right now (by Monday that is) I had to make a decision whether to accept a full time management position at the software company I had been contracting with for the last nine months. I hadn't been an employee at someone else's company since SouthWestern Tanks. That had been nearly twenty years. I had no idea of what that meant now, how it would feel, if I would like it. I had no idea. I wouldn't be able to fully understand the long term consequences of the decision, not by Monday. I had to make a decision with the data I had.
Once Ann woke up we talked about the first puzzle. She was very interested and wanted to solve the next puzzle with me right then and there. I convinced her that we had other things to deal with right now and I told her about the job offer. That settled her down but she insisted we solve the next puzzle together. I said we would. We then looked over the job offer and all of the official papers associated with it. Once I took in to account not having to pay for my own insurance and some of the other benefits of a real company I could see I would come out just a little bit ahead by being an employee instead of contracting. The biggest negative I could see was that I would lose some freedom. In the past, if I wanted to take three weeks off I would just not take on any new work. Once I was an employee I would have a limited amount of time off (four weeks in this case that I could use for vacation, sick leave, any kind of time off) and would have to schedule my time off as it fit the company. That might take some getting used to but to Ann and me the advantages of the new job seemed better than the detriments. While Ann would never admit it to me I had often suspected that she would prefer me being a full time employee than a contractor. Guess it seemed more stable to her.
Monday morning I told the director of development that I accepted his offer. He slapped me on the back, told me this was going to be fun and we worked through the details. My first official day as an employee of AAC Software would be Monday, February 12, 1996. I did negotiate for one extra thing – I could take on writing contracts as long as the contract work did not interfere or compete with my work at AAC Software. VP Words would go into hibernation but it would not die. At the worst, it would be a nice tax write off from time to time.
Ann and I spent a little more time studying “Peeling the Onion.” Not solving puzzles, just getting comfortable with the lay of the land. Rick had come up with a very consistent layout. The first page read:
I hadn't mentioned Rick's reference to what one of the voices has been telling me the last few years. At the time, it didn't seem that important. I was used to Rick knowing things that logically he should not. I wasn't accepting his statement that he was God. Maybe I was accepting there are some things I can't explain. Doesn't mean they are unexplainable, just means I haven't figured out the how and why yet. Give me time, give me time.
Rick had only written on one side (the right hand side) of each page in the report binder. The second through twenty-first pages would have one puzzle at the top of the page and a second puzzle halfway down the page.
The twenty-second page was blank. The twenty-third page was the page with the thick red line across the top of the page. When you looked at the composition book from the top or side you could easily see the red lined page. The page after that was blank, then each page after was devoted to the puzzle solutions. Taking up the top quarter of each page was a puzzle written in large, bold text. A line would be skipped and the solution would be on the next line, followed Rick's explanation. We didn't look at any of the solutions. I wasn't tempted. Ann was. I had solved the first puzzle and should be able to use the solution pattern to solve a few more of the puzzles. The real challenge would be how to recognize and solve the different patterns used for other problems.
Near the end of the pages in the report binder was an interesting page. The letters on the page were upside down and in reverse order.
For most people to read it they would have to turn the page around bottom to top and hold it up to a mirror so the text could be read. Not true for me, I've been looking through a mirror most of my life just trying to see what others were seeing. I read the page without the mirror and without flipping the page over. It read:
The end of the forty.
Drew,
I know you can read this without the mirror, but save reading everything after this paragraph until after you've completed all forty puzzles. By that point you will be ready, may I say, more accepting of this final piece.
Ann asked me what the gibberish on the final page was. I told her it was an inside joke from Rick but I had to save the reveal until I had completed all forty of the puzzles.
I wasn't worried, didn't feel rushed. I took Rick's advice, I would solve the problems in my own time, as I needed them. I would let my life tell me what puzzles to solve and when.
Next week, in Episode 22 of Walking Backwards, the dogs and the dead spin a new lesson for Drew to ponder, and Mark lets Drew know that once again he bas been completely confident but utterly wrong.
love the idea of puzzles without time limits...like life