To gain faith in the reality of the presence of Midwayers in our daily lives, it is essential for us to accept that our present understanding of time must be severely flawed.  Time is a relatively unknown manufactured product, and for us to see this commodity as being multi-faceted necessitates the need for us to stretch our imagination to the utter limit.  We may then well comprehend time to be many-sided, but we are unlikely to ever truly understand its anatomy.

To us mortals, every second that ticks away pushes the Great Master's birth further back into history… by just one second.  And every hour that passes brings our next birthday sixty minutes closer… precisely… guaranteed.
      Time can be measured to the billionth of a second.  But that is grasping the concept of time from our mortal viewpoint -- through our human tunnel vision of the wildcard that is time.
      For should that "human linear time concept" be accurate, there would be no room for prophesy.  Indeed, there would be no room for retroactive prophecy, and all our "spooky" intuitive flashes would be mere coincidences.

There was a time -- in the early seventies -- when the Primary Midwayer, Andrea, could only converse with her mortal student for just twenty or twenty five seconds.  The effort of reaching down to our facet of time would swiftly leave her completely exhausted, and about to collapse.
      There is a new energy now -- improved circuitry -- and through her extensive efforts at linguistics, she, and a number of other Primary Midwayers, can deal directly with their human students in a number of languages.
      This will greatly make up for our planetary shortage of the innately more adept Secondary Midwayers.

On November 30 of 2001, Andrea suggested: "… many people still do not comprehend that we share your space, and that we are only fractionally separated in time.  Also, they are unfamiliar with the method whereby Primary Midwayers come into being.  As well, they are at a loss about the first, second, and third phases involved in the birthing of the Secondary Midwayers."
      She went on to say: "I would also like to note that many individuals lack sufficient knowledge of us to simply accept us in faith.  We would like for you to write about us as a matter of priority."
      I told her, "OK."
      That was easily said, "Yes, Ma'am.  Three bags full."  But now I've got to put it all together, and that may not be so easy.  However, Mathew and Claire will assist, as always.
      This writing will bring many individuals closer to an understanding of the function of our Midway Cousins, we trust, we hope, we pray.
      If it fails, it won't be for the lack of trying.

Being the middle child in a family with seven offspring gave me a precarious position in the hierarchy.  The bigger kids could, and did, push me around.  The smaller siblings would tattletale on me for the most doubtful of reasons.
      It was best for me "to go quietly", learn to run fast, and become a skillful negotiator… just in case.  But the ability from a young age " to see things of the future", coupled with great innate stubbornness, made my living with the group almost precarious at times.
      For me to regularly predict what would happen later that afternoon, tomorrow morning, or early in the week to come… and to be spot on accurate about those predictions… spooked those around me, and pushed me toward the fringe of my group.
      It certainly made no sense to me when I was told, "You can't say what happens when it hasn't happened yet.  You can't do that!"
      I knew I could do it, because I was danged well doing it day after day.  So were my mom, and my maternal grandfather.  But neither of them questioned the reality of time, because people hardly ever confronted them about their psychic observations.  I was frequently interrogated, but I knew that if I spoke about an event beforehand, and it then happened right on queue, prediction had to be a fact.  Time and again I needed to defend the accuracy of my predictions.  In retrospect!
      And because of this, the "concept of linear time" became a big fat joke to me.

These constant psychic experiences demanded for me to find an explanation for my knowing what tomorrow would bring, as well as my perceiving events of a distant past in far-away places.  These “psychic hits” served as constant reminders that the product called time was not “linear.”
      An event, so it appeared, began to happen slowly, faintly.  Then, suddenly, it did happen.  And after that, the event was really still happening, but fading ever so gently.
      It was as if time existed as an unhurried ocean wave, rising, forming a crest in its own good time -- the actual event.  Then it receded at a leisurely pace.  But, maybe, time only had those properties if you were a dreamer of a kid.  And if you were not a dreamer, perhaps the "event wave of time" would simply slam onto the “beach of realization,” and the event would only exist in that very moment, although, perhaps, in lingering memory.
      Then, as an inconsequential déjà vu rather puzzled me, and a major event occurred without prior warning, my "time-wave theory" fell apart.  I felt I should have long ago foreseen the much bigger event, and not have picked up on the insignificant happening.  The rise of that “major-event-wave” should have been noticeable for days, weeks even.

Theory upon theory was "invented", only to be discarded in turn.  My comprehension of non-linear time was growing, however.  But multi-faceted time would never be fully understood.
      Was I being educated from age four to about age ten?
      There are memories of a frequent Visitor to my home -- A Guest, unseen by other members of my family -- a Guest who did not ever share a meal with us.
      To the child I was, he was simply "the Man who ate no dinners".  He was the Midwayer, MNO-8, later renamed, Dr. Mendoza.

Not until the Australian summer of 1971/1972, and in a near-death trance, did I meet up again with the Midwayers.  The experiences of my youth were almost completely forgotten, although their "11.11 courtesy wake-up calls" persisted throughout the years.  I now saw those who were to become my constant Companions as mere ghosts.
      I figured that the Midwayer Chief, ABC-22, Bzutu, was obviously a red man, who probably died a violent death in an intertribal war.  Such a shame that was!  Here was someone of obviously great potential; his life snuffed out at around my age, just thirty-two years.
      His gorgeous female Companion, MNO-6, or Simone, looked even younger than us, and appeared to be wearing a skin-tight blue jumpsuit.  In fact, that was just her natural skin tone.  Although she was surely quite dead, she seemed to have retained her sense of humor.  She was plain cheeky.
      The Primary Midwayer, Andrea, though clearly observed by me, looked rather gray, and time-distant.  I concluded she must have died in ancient times, and might be in a process of slow dissolution.
      I tried to convince the Midwayer Chief he should go back to North America, find his old teepee, or his dead body, and realize he had truly expired.  Australia was hardly his home.  But the Midwayer wanted none of my advice.
      "I am Warrior.  I am Chief.  I am Shaman.  I am Teacher," he told me.
      Yeah, right.  And I am Mickey Mouse, I thought.
      They would soon prove to be very much alive -- the most potent Allies in our Inter-species Alliance -- the 11.11 Progress Platoon.

.. ..
Urantia's Midwayers
Part 2 -- the 1,984 Secondary Midwayers

To gain faith in the reality of the presence of Midwayers in our daily lives, it is essential for us to accept that our present understanding of time must be severely flawed.  Time is a relatively unknown manufactured product, and for us to see this commodity as being multi-faceted necessitates the need for us to stretch our imagination to the utter limit.  We may then well comprehend time to be many-sided, but we are unlikely to ever truly understand its anatomy.

She Was "Different".

People said my maternal grandfather could find anything with a fresh "wiggly rod" cut from a willow or elm tree.  He could find underground water, and simply know the depth at which it ran, the flow rate, the purity.  He could even find a golden wedding band, high up in a thieving magpie's nest, since the rod would point to it.  For the price of a strong black coffee and a quality cigar, "Gramps" would go anywhere to be of service to both stranger and kin.
      Of his many children, his youngest daughter bar two inherited her father's psychic skills, but she credited her favorite Celestial, Saint Christopher, with all her astounding successes over a lifetime of service to others.
     As a teenager she predicted she would have many children, one of which would also commune with "that trusted Saint of the Seafarers".  Anne Barnard, petite wife of the tall Frenchman, tended to have momentary absences after which she made those predictions no one would ever doubt.  These things just happened.  She was "kinda different".
      But "that one of her kids" had very little contact with other-than-human Entities until after he left Europe, got married, bought a home, and started a business.  Then it all began.  Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it all came back again.
      There were many "pictures of the future", occasional voices, but to this ardent pupil of some of the most eminent psychology lecturers to be found, the disembodied voices were exceedingly worrisome.
      Something had to happen.

Edward Willis

It was with the assistance of one of my most knowledgeable abnormal psychology lecturers, Professor Dr. Edward Willis that I learned how to attain a deep meditative state.  Willis taught me how to map-dowse for oil, gold, water and lost items, as well as walk white-hot 1000 degrees Celsius coals and razor-sharp broken glass without suffering burns or cuts.
      It is to "Teddy" Willis I owe my introduction to "the Spirit Guides", whom I immediately determined to be ghosts.
      Being far more capable of seeing the Creatures of the Midway Realm, rather than of hearing them, it took me months to realize they were alive and capable of doing almost anything a human could do, and much, much more.  But it was their brilliant sense of the ludicrous that convinced me they were not just benign ghosts, but a positive Force, placed in their facet of time by the Creators of all there is.

The Urantia Papers

Although Willis understood, at least strongly suspected, I had met up with Midwayers, he never spoke of them to me.  Willis actually owned a copy of the Urantia Book, treasured it, but felt my association with "that powerful group of Spirit Guides" should evolve as they saw fit.  I remember joking to him about "my Guides" having numbers printed on their sports attire, even though they "traveled" just about au naturel.
      Willis said not a thing!
      And not until about four years ago (shortly before Christmas of 1997) did I come into the possession of the Fifth Epochal Revelation.  By that time, about eighty percent of my documentation about the 11.11 Progress Platoon had been completed, edited and rewritten.
      After some loudly offered advice of my co-students, I also felt disinclined to change the "homegrown" terminology.  The Midwayer Chief, ABC-22 quite agreed with my friends' opinions.
      Finding that pre-loved Urantia Book in a public library dispersal sale, paying just one dollar for it, and finding it was spot on accurate with everything my Spirit Guardians had told me, just about blew me away.  Here was something that represented to me more value than all Christmas and birthday presents I had ever received.
      Here was final confirmation, too, that I had never lost the story line.

"Ah-Bé-Cé-Tu-Tu".

"I'm George Barnard," I told the red-skinned "Spirit Guide."
      "We all ways know you," sounded his immediate, assertive answer.  He volunteered no more information.  That seemed a little thoughtless of him.
      "So?  What's your name then?" I bluntly asked this Red Man I had instantly mistaken for the ghost of someone who had long ago expired.
      "Ah-Bé-Cé-Tu-Tu", he told me loud and clear.  It made no sense whatever.
      "What's your surname then?" I insisted.  That information would likely allow me to place him somewhere on the globe.  I would then be able to send him packing to where he rightly belonged.
      "Ah-Bé-Cé-Tu-Tu", he shouted.  Here was a near-naked ghost quickly running out of patience with me, or so it seemed.
      "Can you spell that for me?"  I now demanded his answer.
      "It is never written, George Barnard."
      For a common ghost, it appeared his mind was still very much with it.  It seemed, also, that apart from having no surname, he also lacked paper to write on.  Unless he came from a small tribe and only ever had a spoken language, or drew pictures on buffalo hides.
      I felt sorry for him, and decided to keep him, as well as the other three that were with him at the time.  I would try to get to know them all better, then send them home to where they belonged.  My family wouldn't mind them being around.  These ghosts all looked trustworthy enough.  So sad they all died at a young age, I thought.
      Their seemingly dismal fate bothered me a lot.

In Retrospect

At the time I first met the 11.11 Progress Platoon Midwayers in Australia, English was not my default language.  Early after my arrival there, I had learned to count in the language, but preferred to continue to use French, Dutch or German, especially when spelling.  It was so much easier.
      Ah-Bé-Cé-Tu-Tu was obviously ABC-Two-Two, or ABC-22.
      But in the way our Midway Cousins implant their thoughts on (send their messages to) our brains and minds, they are restricted to the limit of our personal, regularly used vocabulary.  Not until some days after I met up with another member of our Platoon, MNO-8, did I finally break the obvious alphabetical/numerical code.
      At that time I told them all that I was not going to invent any more names for them.  I was also unwilling to address this new "Spirit Guardian" by his social security code, or his vintage car's numberplate.  People have names, and even dead people have names.  I was still convinced they had been human before they had become Spirit Guardians.
      "You think of a name for him!" I grumbled.
      It took less than a second for the Seraphim in Authority to rename the Midwayer.
      He is now Dr. Mendoza, and was for many years the greatest contributor in my clinical work with previously attempted, and new, threatening suicide cases.
      For those of you who own and read a Urantia Book, try to imagine the endless confusion that is created when one is confronted with "an alien species" that walks through walls, plunges through ceilings, seemingly materializes from thin air, speaks four languages, and even "minds you of your manners" when you curse.
      And, please, recognize the revelationary treasure you possess in having the UBook.
      Imagine also the frustration experienced by the Midwayers when having to educate their human students… starting at Kindergarten level in this case.

Am I The Only Fool?

During the day, my growing firm kept me busy, but almost each night I would check to see if the Spirit Guardians were "still at home".  Each time I learned more about them.  They didn't eat, had no need to sleep, and were unable to forget anything.
      Their IQs were simply unmeasurable, and any joke I chanced to play on them was spoiled before it was told.  They were capable of "picking it from my brain" in the merest of instants.  But was I the only fool they were toying with, the only student they were teaching, the only unusual character who was hearing their voices and following their advice?
     I had to look back in time, for no one I knew had heard of Spirit Guides with codes instead of names.
      The heroine of the French nation had heard voices and followed the advice of "Saints".  Of course, Joan of Arc was my heroine, too.
     "Elle est chez nous," came the answer.  She is (was) with us.  She belongs with us.  The Midway Chief confirmed that Jehanne d'Arc had been trained by them, and obviously with the sanction of the Midwayers' Seraphic Superiors.  Jehanne, although long ago expired, was still considered as "belonging".  They would not give me the code or codes of those who worked with the Maid of Orleans, nor would they confirm that Nostradamus had worked with Dreyfus, or DEF-5.

The Price To Pay

Even today, the involvement with Urantia Midwayers will have people glance at you sideways, it can break up your family into two camps -- them and us.  It can still get you killed, maimed, or at least discredited and financially ruined by those fundamentalists who "know all about it", yet never heard from, or even glanced at, a Midwayer.
      On one occasion, when I let fly with some rude language, Bzutu said, "There is no braver fool in the universes than he who uses the Master's name in vain."  I took it my Spirit Guardians were Christians, just like me.  The concept of multiple universes was intriguing, but the remark also prompted me to re-read some of Dante Alighieri's work.  His Guide, Beatrice, could well have been one of their elusive kinds.
      Was she Bé-Ah-Tri-Ce (Ah-Bé-Ce-Tri, or ABC-3)?  It turned out she really was, and she came to visit me to let me know how pleased she was that someone (human) had finally figured out what great and good work she had done with "the truth and perceived reality of that time in our spiritual evolution".
      There are simply no words to describe what it is like to be hugged by a Creature that knows only love.

But Things Have Changed

From the outset I understood there were just One-Thousand-One-Hundred-and-Eleven of them.  To my mind they were "Les Mille-Cent-et-Onze Esprits Gardiens du Domaine Séraphique" and as we became more involved, I concerned myself with their pathetically small number, to care for so many of us humans.  I guessed, I really took up too much of their precious time.
      Mistakenly, I counted in this number the more time-distant Primary Midwayer, Andrea.  I also included the Morontia Companion I met up with… the Seraphim… the Cherubim, but not the Avatar, or Melchizedek.
      On inquiring I was told, "We lost many of few."  It was clear the planet had been short-changed with Midwayers in the first place, and, even then, we lost some more of this small number of hard-working Guys.
      But things have changed, and they will keep on changing.  The so-called Rebels, sorely missed by their Loyal Relatives, are all back with us now according to the Midwayer Chief, ABC-22.  When I asked him if we could expect to notice a great increase of Midwayer activity at our level because of their being freed, he said, "I understand the 873 to be innately more capable on average then are the 1,111, since the former are closer to you in their make-up".
      It would do us well to remember that sometimes justice may be served when an entity is incarcerated.  Sometimes justice is served when he or she is finally released.  But the Master's forgiveness knows no bounds ever.
      The circuits, too, are being re-opened bit by bit, so as not to produce any severe psychic shocks to us all.

Even now, I often still wonder why the Midwayers chose to educate me in isolation.  Seriously, they could have dumped a Urantia Book into my crib.
      Perhaps it was meant to be this way.
 
 

Copyright © George Mathieu Barnard -- The 11.11 Spirit Guardian Documents
..

During my years of practice, there were two colleagues I used to frequently share case histories, therapies and analyses with, for to my judgment there probably is no greater responsibility one can accept than the care for "someone's mind gone off the rails".  No stone must be left unturned in searching out the answers.

One of these colleagues was the Lithuanian-born Veronah Miller -- my devil's advocate -- who strongly believed the universe to be an accident, and the human mind to represent the ultimate, unexplored last dimension.  Although Veronah came to use many of my visualization therapies, she pitied me for my proposing the results of my research work to be owed entirely to the assistance of my "Spirit Guardian Friends."  I greatly missed Veronah when I moved my family, business, and clinic some five hundred miles to the north of our big city.

In her often critical and outspoken ways, she was perhaps a stabilizing influence in my work, for Veronah was all logic, memory, and continued further psych research, although zero intuition.  She went by the book.  Doggedly determined, she would never let go of any of her patients, until she had done all she could to cure whatever ailed them.  Today, in her mid-seventies, wealthy and childless, this contributor continues to practice with great success.  Veronah simply loves to help people of all kinds.

Natalie was the younger, and lesser qualified of these two, yet she took on some of the most difficult cases -- "outright disasters" -- not even Veronah would dare touch.  There were instances when a mere glance at a new patient would give Natalie all the information she needed to accept, and begin to treat, the new patient.

In her well-appointed clinic, the counselor gave the appearance of a nineteen-sixty hippie with her strings of beads and crystals all over the place.  But looks can be deceiving.  This youngster was sharp.  She was all feminine intuition, and she boldly relied on what so swiftly "filtered into her mind", and seemingly from nowhere.  Natalie believed she might have studied her profession in countless previous incarnations.  That belief gave her confidence -- her trust in her deep mind already having all the answers.

To my numerous requests to know if either of my colleagues was ever receiving assistance from the 1,111, I would never get an answer.  I suspected that at least the younger of the two women would be receiving regular subliminal input, but I would never know.

Jean-Paul Delavalle was at least ten years older than Natalie.  When I got to know the couple, the husband was designing and building homes.  Approximately every six months he completed another custom-made residence of quality, having done all of the work by himself.  Jean-Paul had become an architect/builder after having spent fifteen years in Australia's tropical north as a pest exterminator, where, according to this jovial man, "the termites are as big as silver dollars and can eat the legs clean off your bed in one night whilst you remain fast asleep".

But in those early days people weren't too fussed about wearing safety gear when spraying poisons to keep those insects at bay.  Jean-Paul had ingested much of what was meant to kill the termites.  The poison had built up in Jean-Paul's liver, and was now effecting his pancreas, which was no longer functioning properly.  The Delavalles, too, had moved away -- some twelve hundred miles separating us.  And Jean-Paul was going downhill fast.

Jean-Paul was only drinking some fluid now and then.  He had wasted away, and only regular morphine injections kept him free from pain.  My family and I were lucky to still see our friend just eight days before he died, but we knew the dreaded telephone call would soon come.  At least, we were granted the opportunity to say our good-byes.

One evening, as one of my youngsters was doing her homework in the clinic, whilst I updated some therapies, Natalie Jean came on the line.  "George," she said, "Jean-Paul died just five minutes ago… and I can't go back into that room!"

"Go back," I told her.  "He's still around.  Go back, and tell him how much you love him.  He needs you there."

She began to sob and cry, "Oh, God!  Oh, God!  I can't!  I'm washed up, George.  I haven't slept for days and days.  I'm sick.  I'm fatigued.  I'm at risk!  How can I live without my best mate?"  She was dissolving in a flood of tears.  Jean-Paul had long known he was dying, but in the last few hours there had been a heart-rending scene in his "prison room".  He had been raving at her, and accusing her of serious misbehavior during their marriage.  Natalie was utterly distraught.

"Go back into that room!" I told her bluntly.  "Do as you're flipping well told, Natalie.  Jean-Paul will try to come back to you, and he'll be very frightened if you're not there."

"Oh, God!  I can't!" she cried.  "He's dead!  He stopped breathing!"

"Damned well do it, Woman!" I shouted at her.  The line went dead.

The seventh grader at the end of my desk had overheard all of the conversation -- all of Natalie Jean's loud pleading and sorrow, and all of my stern words.  Danielle looked shocked, ashen-faced, and quite undone.  Her "Uncle Jean-Paul" was a great entertainer, and my children all loved that man, his jokes, stories and tricks.  Hearing of his demise and hearing what I had blurted at his poor widow had been a double shock to her.

"How can you say that, Daddy?" the white-faced child demanded to know at last.  There was a look of disgust on her face.  Intuitively she moved away from me.

"I didn't really say it," I told her.  "I was made to say it.  I didn't even know, Danielle, but it was important, and it will happen.  Truly."  I was as shocked as was my child by that thoughtless outburst of mine.  "Jean-Paul will try to come back to her, Kiddo."

The youngster nodded, but that disapproving look remained.  There were Spirit Guardians in the clinic, in the homestead, in the family's cars.  She new.  They had been around to talk with her when she was still a toddler, and until she was about six-and-a-half years old.

During the following morning, Natalie came back on the line.  Jean-Paul had indeed "come back to her", she told me.  He had looked so serene, even healthy.  They had spoken for an hour at least about the wonderful life they had together.  Against all odds, Natalie, "the neglected girl most likely" at age fourteen, and Jean-Paul, the orphan boy so regularly beaten senseless by his stepfather, had cemented a wonderful, even enviable, relationship of many years.  "See you later, Sweetheart," he had told her.  Then he closed his eyes and slipped away.

"George, he saw your Spirit People!" Natalie told me.  "And he was shown where he will be.  It's a beautiful place!  There's green grass, and rivers, and so many Angels!  And, George, I would have missed all that if you hadn't told me to go back to him."

"Will you document it for me, Natalie," I asked.

There was a lengthy silence, and then she said, "I don't think so.  It was too private."

Often I am asked what it is Midwayers actually do.  The short answer is; "They care for us."
 
 

He had been a university lecturer for a period of three decades.  He was in his eighties now, still fit and active, and writing his extensive memoirs in our university town.  For the old man and the much younger George Barnard to meet up seemed a bit of a coincidence, but the Spirit Guardians’ rookie student no longer believed in coincidences.

Things were simply meant to be.  The universe was a highly organized venture, belonging to all the infinite numbers of Creature/Organizers who dwelt within its confines.  There was always something new to be experienced for even the lowest of creatures -- evolutionary humans.

The learned old man directed his visitor to his minuscule office.  He did not want anyone else to overhear his story.  There was disbelief all around him, he said.  There was a total lack of understanding of the Spirit World.  Irreverence!  And, sometimes, even verbal abuse was directed at the scholar.  Then he openly questioned why he should actually confide in George.  But of his own accord, he decided he must tell his story.

The rookie sensed it.  Here was something worth knowing -- something "meant to be".  The clever old guy shuffled his big stack of papers about.  He finally retrieved a few pages from the stack, but placed them to one side.  It seemed he only wanted to prove to George Mathieu that he had actually documented something.  He did not want the younger man to read it.

“I was only a child at the time, George,” he said, “very ill, and paralyzed because of the disease I had contracted.  I was bedridden for almost two long years.  Helpless.  And one day, when I was at home alone, a fire started in the electrical wiring of my home, near the heater.  The room filled with smoke, but I couldn’t get out of the place.  I couldn’t move!  I would have choked, or I would have burnt to death.  Someone came in and rescued me. He calmly picked me up, carried me through the hall and the smoke, and placed me on the lawn, a safe distance from the burning house.  But he was not a man.  He was a Spirit!  And then, he left.  He disappeared into thin air.”

Barnard smiled.  “I know a whole bunch of them,” he admitted.

“Don’t you laugh!” the professor shouted at him in anger.

“I’m not laughing.  My face is always like this.  And I do know a whole bunch of them,” Barnard insisted.  “Honest.  I’m not fooling.  What was his name, or number?”

The professor sized up the rookie, cautiously, still in two minds about going on with his story.  “What was his number, you say?” he asked.

“Yeah.  If he was a Spirit Guardian, he either had a name, or a number, but probably both.  It helps speed up communication in their realm.  Their language is almost pure math from what I have gathered.”

“He didn’t have a number, George.”

“Well, did he say his jolly name,” Barnard asked, still amused.

“Oh, yes!  I inquired about his name, of course I did.  That is, after I thanked him for saving my life.  He said his name was Mongo-Zulu.  He did in fact look like he was both, yellow and black.  A mixture of the two races.”

“I don’t know him,” Barnard admitted.  “I know some of his brothers, or cousins, and only one of his sisters, or nieces.  I don’t know precisely… second cousins… whatever.  They belong to a Celestial Army.  They are called the Eleven-Eleven, les Mille-Cent-et-Onze.  I call them all Spirit Guardians.  They don’t mind.  What was he wearing?”

“He was nearly naked, he was.  And in the middle of winter, too!”

Barnard nodded. “I know one who goes around just like him.  Tell me, did he have a kind of short, gray hide tied around his waist?  Was he going around in his bare feet?”

The professor’s face clearly indicated Barnard had guessed right.

“You do know them,” he said.  He was only talking to himself -- absentmindedly.

“I know one called Doctor Mendoza.  He is dressed like a real gentleman, that one.  He’s rather a slim Fellow.  But Ahbécétutu, Bzutu, or ABC-22 goes around in a skimpy hide, just like your Mongo-Zulu Friend.  Bzutu is a fierce Warrior, of powerful build, and he is also my immediate Superior.”

“They are subservient to us!” the professor disagreed.

“Hah!  Subservient to their Seraphic Superiors,” Barnard told him.  “We are right down the bottom of the pile, man.  The lowest intelligent life-form of any permanent consequence on any inhabited world in any universe.”  He laughed.  “We are the saddest mistake in all creation.  That’s why we need them to look after us.”

It seemed an argument was brewing right there.  The professor had been teaching for so many years, he had forgotten how to listen to, or learn from, a mere therapist.  He seemed to also have been less than greedy, or badly short-changed, when the humor basket was passed around.

“We are the only inhabited world in the universe,” the professor stated angrily.

The rookie would not argue, but gave it one more try.  “Give me a piece of paper,” he suggested.  “Thank you.  Here goes.  Mendoza, first of all.  Strike out every second letter, and you are left with MNO.  MNO-8 actually, it’s not MNO-A.  Dreyfus, one I only know about.  I never saw him, or her.  Probably involved with good old Nostradamus.  I asked, but I never got a clear answer to that.  Strike out every second letter, and you are left with DEF.  Possibly DEF-5.  Simone, MNO-6, I would say, but pronounce that in French.  My Boss -- permanently on sentinel duty -- is Ahbécétutu, Bzutu, or ABC-22.

Just look at it.  You’ve got ABC, DEF, and if you carry on with that, you get GHI, JKL, and next up come the MNOs.  There’s your Mongo-Zulu -- MNO-Whatever, and here are some of my best Friends… Mendoza, and Simone.”  He smiled at the professor.  “Problem solved, you know one of the Eleven-Elevens, you lucky man.”

But the professor would have none of it.  “They are ancient!  They predate all forms of written language!” he snapped.

“They were a bunch of troublemakers who reorganized themselves,” Barnard told him.  “Well, some of them were up to no good.  I asked about their moral values, and Bzutu told me without a moment’s hesitation.  I believe some of them were even entering our time slot, and taking drugs.  Khat!  But most of them sorted themselves out.  These Guys are as honest as the day is long, truly.  Their alphabetical/numerical codes are only recent.”  They are les Mille-Cent-et-Onze -- no more of them, no less of them."

“I think you had better leave!” the professor told him bluntly.

“Okay.  I’m gone.  Have it your way.”

In the weeks that followed, and on two more occasions, Barnard tried to get in touch with him, but the professor did not want to talk to him again.  He knew it all.  Sadly, he had reached a stage in life when he believed he knew everything there was to know.

“That stubborn old guy frustrated the daylights out of me,” Barnard grunted at the Spirit Guardians.  “He doesn’t want to know you Guys now.  A closed shop mind, he’s got.  Still, at his ripe old age, it couldn’t be long before he does find out, could it now?”

The poor old man would learn no more on his experiential trip on this rock in space.  Barnard felt like a frustrated messenger for the 1,111.

“Do something about your popularity,” he advised the Eleven-Eleven.  “Cause nobody here don’t love you no more.”

Notes:  As a child, the Professor lived in Great Britain.  The Midwayer who saved his life actually deposited the boy in the front yard of the home, on top of the snow.

For years, I wondered why the Midwayer saved this fellow, out of the countless numbers that are left to die in fires.  This man grew up to become a lecturer in -- of all things -- Astrology.  But then, so many people who study Astrology become very spiritual.  It must have been for the positive impact he would have on many others in later years.