The Steps

Storms, hurricanes, earthquakes everywhere, a savior appears, preaching of the end times: rapture, damnation, earth entering an invisible force field, the "Photon Belt." Some say he's Jesus, or Buddha, or some new Master of light. I know he's a fake, cashing in on all these weird calamities. Yet he has some mysterious power over dreams as though he commands the heavens, and the world falls more every day toward chaos.

Jody, my coworker, one of those "selfish ones," loud and foul mouthed, is condemned by this new "Master," conveyed personally, through dreams. I hadn't really liked Jody much, with her abrasive personality, but now I am coming to; these end times at hand, she is comforting.

At the steps to the front door of his technical firm in Palo Alto, California, software technician Egbert Benson will find a voice and a way of battling this dark Master through the unlikely source of a web based social networking game and the soft calm voice of a mysterious stranger. But the clock ticking, the Photon Belt fast approaching, Jody's days numbered, her hope dwindling, Egbert has just one focus, one thought: end this false Master's stranglehold.

THE STEPS, a novel by Arthur Telling, puts a blur and a spin to the cherished notion of hero and villain, good and evil, right and wrong; surprising prospects awaiting Egbert and cohorts, shocking, yet sweet.

Telling has written numerous stories and articles on religion, philosophy and metaphysics, including "A Different Jesus Message" published in the AMORC November 2011 online Rosicrucian Digest.