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Chapter 20

 Dead Wrong

PART II: Wonder Light

When I awoke the image of the murdered man sitting by his kitchen table, his unseeing eyes staring wide into nothingness, his mouth distorted in a scream of demise, his body coloured in a deep shade of death with a striking sangria-red cut running all the way through his throat, but positioned as were he just absentmindedly and peacefully contemplating for a moment – the image burned with a feverishly bright intensity in my brain. And within my own body I felt the woman's insecurities, her desperation, her confusion and bewilderment, her intense pain, and the parallel incompatible feeling of relief she'd experienced when being met like a pleasant human being for the first time she could remember, a feeling she just couldn't absorb. Each one of these sensations so forceful in itself, so powerfully concentrated as had they, each in itself, a life of its own. And now, now they were executing a war against each other were loosing meant being put to death forever. And the winner – in her mind there could be only one – gained access to total control over her life.
          I tried to get all of this out of my system. But I simply couldn't. The image and the strongly concentrated, contradictory feelings stayed with me as I fell back in yet another weary sleep.
          I found myself in what apparently was my own apartment, but it was dirty and unfamiliar. I looked around and spotted two or three vermin walking about. Despite being so small they were strangely distinctive in appearance, diminutive versions of shellfish, with black shiny shells. Having vermin in my apartment was creepy and I thought I had to extinguish them before they propagated. But they disappeared, like had they been aware I was onto them. As I searched around to find where they had hid my eyes fell on three or four little dogs lying on the floor. When I saw them I remembered they were my dogs, but I had totally forgotten about them and so I hadn't fed them for a long, long time.
          Now they just laid there, very still, looking at me with exhausted eyes. I panicked and knew I had to feed them right away, this very second, but, I didn't know what food to give them. I had this feeling, see, I had to give them something new because it was important for them to get a varied, good and nutritious diet, and I had fed them the same food over and over for too long.
          I thought desperately about this – what could I give them? – and then my eyes fell on an aquarium standing by the right wall. Small fish swum in it and I remembered they were also mine, but like the dogs I had forgotten about them and so I hadn't fed them either for a very long time. Now they were swimming so slowly, as had they barely any strength left in their little bodies. At least I knew what to feed them so I hastily ran to the can with fish food standing next to the aquarium, only to discover it was empty.
          I felt desperation grew rapidly inside of me. I ran to the pet shop down the corner and bought a new can of fish food and ran home again, but when I got back I couldn't open the door. I realized I had closed it behind me when I left and forgotten to take the keys with me. This filled me with a sense of sheer and absolute hopelessness I'd never felt before. I just didn't know what to do.
          I just stood there, in front of the locked door, looking in at what went down in my unavailable apartment; my dogs lying on the floor, their exhausted eyes barely able now to stay open, but for brief moments their gaze met mine and I could see how they were wondering why I didn't help them; my aquarium fish swimming so very slowly, and decelerating still by the minute. And the vermin, increasing in number, size and good health, as were they feeding off of my beloved pet's life-force. There had to be hundreds of them by now. Creepy, creepy animals. The ones I could see most clearly looked just like crayfish, only they were walking on two legs and their, by comparison, big claws therefore were like arms they held up into the air as they walked about with a smug sneer on their nasty faces.
         Suddenly an image magnified in my mind, as if what I saw was taking place inside a big bubble; I saw how I had killed one of the crayfish-vermin before, by squeezing my index finger onto its stomach. I had pushed hard because its shell was very resilient. As I pushed my finger ever harder onto its stomach I looked into the creatures' eyes. It was the cold eyes of a soulless animal, but then, the very moment just before it knew it would die this changed. It was as if, at that moment, it became aware it held life inside, and when that happened its eyes like 'soulified'.
          It reached up its legs and claws and opened up its moth, getting ready to let life out. Seeing this got to me, deeply. I wanted to stop, I didn't want to take a life being aware of itself, but I was totally convinced that should I let it live it would go back into being a mean soulless black cancer; the vermin it really was. And, in accord with its nature, it would propagate and subsequently take over my home totally. So I closed my eyes and killed it.
          The bubble image vanished, and once again I faced what was taking place in my home right there and then. I saw the animals I loved slowly dying, I saw the cocky vermin flourishing. They walked around in their shiny black shells, glaring at me now and again with a malice and triumphant glance in their eyes. The sight sank my heart, and discourage took hold of me. And yet, I just couldn't refrain from feeling for the vermin also. I felt like had they something truly innocent about them, in spite of everything, like were the victorious merriness they radiated really just a naive and childlike sensation. Yes, like were they thinking: "Ha ha, we won!", as was it all a game to them. A child's game – cruel, but innocent because they didn't know what they were doing.
          But at the same time I doubted, I doubted at the very core of my being, if they really were that innocent. They could just-as-well be what they appeared to be: dark, cocky, cancerous evil-workers, true vermin sent from Satan Himself. Oh yes, that malicious man knew just how to play on my heart. He knew the innocence of children was my soft spot. But then again, what if they were truly innocent? What if Evil was working its way through my brain by connecting my intellect to my fear and that way twisting my understanding, making me doubt what I felt in my heart? What if I saw them through a mind-mirror warped with fright and doubt were they appeared to me as cocky vermin and hence made me believe I had to extinguish them, when they really were as innocent as unknowing children?
          I wanted to do something – anything – to stop what was going on from happening, but for the first time ever I found I had no means to do it, I just didn't know how to distinguish good from evil, and I had no strength left in me to fight. I was cruelly unable to impede or prevent in any way what took place before my very eyes. Completely drained of energy hope abandoned me, and I fell down on my knees and cried. I didn't want to cry, I wanted to help my beloved animals and take myself out of this whole situation, but there was nothing more I could do.
          I cried like I've never cried in my life. I prayed Jesus would help the true innocent, I wanted so much to do it myself but I couldn't – how could I when hope and strength was gone and I could no longer separate good from evil? I pleaded with God to please make all of this just disappear, I didn't want to see it no more, any of it, I didn't want to be here anymore. I simply hadn't the strength to go on. I wanted, no, I needed for Him to take it all away. But He didn't. I woke up. 4. 16 am.

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A maddening rage took hold of me. Life is just a pointless, meaningless journey from nothing to nothing and everything in between is just pain to endure – for no reason at all. There is no God. It's all a lie. All of it a fucking cruel lie. I never asked for this, I never wanted life. I tried my very best to die already in the womb. But no, I had to survive. You laughed then, didn't You? The few fun moments I've had I could just as well be without, all they really have accomplished is putting a sharper frame around the hurt, the pain, the anguish of being alive. How many times now have I asked You to please, please take my life and spare someone else's, someone stupid enough to enjoy this shitty existence? Why should I live to endure all the misery that spells 'my life', when there are so many who want their lives only to have it taken from them? Why? The truth is, there is no reason. I have but one wish left in me, one thing I ask of You God: please let me die.
          But You won't give that to me, will Ya? No, every morning I wake up to a new day I don't want. Tell me, are You taking some kind of sick pleasure in watching me suffer? In letting me live, and take life from those who still holds some brainless belief they have something to live for? You know I don't have anything to live for, fuck, I don't even want anything to live for, not anymore. You took that away from me a long time ago – didn't You? I can't do this no more. I can't. I don't have the strength. If You won't do it, I will. I'm not afraid of Your judgement. I know You're unfair so it doesn't matter. I should've ended my life when the thought first crossed my mind, You remember, I was twelve. But no, in my idiocy I convinced myself there was still hope; something good might just show up behind the next corner. But it never did, did it? And it never will. I know this now, well, You and me both. Hell, I must have gone completely mad because I'm still talking to You as if You existed. You don't. I don't believe in You.
          After my outburst there came an empty silence, that kind of silence which, by itself somehow, opens up a still room in space and time for thoughts and sensations to come about at their own pace, in a peaceful and sort of contemplative manner, if you know what I mean. I believe it was there for mere seconds, although it could've been much longer, I have no means of telling because I couldn't sense time here. Time was simply not in it. I don't know what happened in that space of stillness but from within it I suddenly found myself asking God forgiveness for my harsh words. I don't know why I did it, I'm not in the habit of asking forgiveness of anyone, see. I just did somehow, yes, for the first time in my life I said to Him: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so cruel, please forgive me." But I still wanted to be released

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I wish I could let her know she's just one step away from entering her new path. If I could only find a way to somehow let this knowledge sip in between the walls now darkening her vision. Maybe I could take the shape of a puny wind, a tiny feathery breath touching her heart? Yes, I think I'll do that! She will listen to her heart if only I speak the language she recognizes. The veiling grey is about to fade away, and then, then she will see her new path just as clearly as I do, aglow and glimmering in crimson, gold, and warm amber, a path illumined by the soothing sunbeams which comes directly from the Living Heart. 
          I have to go via her heart to reach through to her with what I know, because she sure won't understand any of this with her mind, not now, not for as long as it is held captured in the poisonous web of evil. But she will, eventually, comprehend it, when we meet again she will see and she will understand.
          Oh, don't you worry, she will recognize me! You see, I'm the one she's waiting for.

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A new dream dragged me down. I was headed for an appointment with a professor to discuss a theory. Even if it was uncommon for most professors it was often the case with him to meet with his students in his apartment. In real life he doesn't live there anymore and I'm not a student anymore so I don't know why I returned there, to that specific place and time. Anyway, I was in the entrance hall of the tenant building he lived in and about to park my bike, but I just couldn't decide were to put it. I wanted it to be somewhere safe from vandalism, and still not blocking any spaces. I tried different spots but no one felt right. I just couldn't decide were to leave it.
          When I'd moved my bike for the fifth or sixths time two persons came down the stairs. I hadn't seen them before but I knew anyway they came from their meeting with the professor, and so it was high time for me to get up there. But I still couldn't make up my mind were to put my bike. For some reason I began pretending as if I was just about to lock it and then I should hurry up the stairs for my meeting. But, I couldn't leave my bike at this particular spot either, so I continued my act, now pretending as if there was something wrong with the lock. I did that to stall, thinking it would buy me time so the two persons who had just finished their session with the professor should walk past me and get out without paying me any attention. But instead of leaving they stopped at the foot the the staircase and began discussing with each other, just a few feet away from where I stood. After a while, when I was still standing there pretending to having problems locking my bike, they gave me a funny look like: 'what is she doing??? why is she still standing there pretending to lock her bike? there must be something wrong with her…' This felt awkward so I took my bike and moved it yet again.
          As I was just thinking to myself 'you have to leave it, it's as simple as that, park your bike somewhere, anywhere, why not at this very spot, it's a perfectly good spot, it's so unimportant where you leave your bike, really it is!', I happened to look out the window of the tenant door, and to my utter surprise some fifty or so paces away I saw the glorious sun I'd seen once before in my dreams. That strange but wonderfully enchanting sun, shining in crimson, gold, and warm amber, the sun holding my gaze as I died. The very moment I laid eyes on it everything but the sun ceased to have importance. I left my bike right where it was and ran out towards it. It seemed to me like were it hanging just above the treetops in the small green not far away. The professor I should've met with stood on the balcony and when he saw me running away he shouted: "Hey! Where are you going, shouldn't you come here?!" It gave me the feeling he couldn't see the sun, but I didn't want to stop and ask him about it, or explain. I just cast a short eye over my shoulder and hastily replied I hadn't the time right now, and kept running towards the sun.
          When I got a bit closer I saw it wasn't really a sun. Or, it wasn't any ordinary sun, it looked like an outlandish combination of a sun and a space ship. It was huge, and its colour and radiation totally enthralled me. I glanced around quickly. The light had drawn other people there as well, not as many as I had expected, but more and more turned up from every direction, although not by far as many as I should've guessed. As I ran there I wasn't thinking anything, but somewhere in the back of my head I held a conviction this light would draw thousands and thousands of people to it, being so huge and so bright and so enormously captivating. This puzzled me so I asked someone standing nearby about it, and got the answer: 'Not everyone can see the Light'. I knew when I heard the answer it was true, I knew it to be so, and yet it mystified me, I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. By the expression on the faces of those who had gathered here it was plain they'd been drawn to this sun in the same marvellously captivating way I had. How was it even possible for this immense light not to be seen by all and everyone, near and far? No, this went beyond my grasping.
          After a while I asked someone else in the crowd what this strange light was, but he or she – I don't remember which – told me no one knew. It didn't bother my though, I couldn't keep my eyes off of this enthralling Wonderlight. No one there could. Elated by its glowing, glistening, brilliant luminosity we all gazed up at it in awe, and it's mystic, promising light reflected back on us, colouring our faces in its wonderful blend of crimson, gold, and warm amber. We gazed at it, and we waited. For what we didn't know. And there I woke up, wrapped in the strangest peaceful feeling ever. 7 am.