Random Thoughts

Part One…

	We knew when the storm front blew in that year 
that we were in for a long hard winter.  It blew snow 
for three days after Labor Day, by Wednesday there 
were banks of snowdrifts lining all of the streets.  
Everyone knew that it was a little odd, but for the 
most part people just went on about their daily 
occupation, endowed with the integrity that only 
certainty of purpose could provide.

	And so it began, as all things begin, 
somewhere near the beginning, enough that it makes no 
difference.  For you see, this was the end of winter, 
and as such, it had its own little set of 
circumstances surrounding its death.  Cities were 
poised on the brink, civilizations could fall, and 
walls come crashing down.  It was, in a sense, a 
nightmare growing in on itself, all the thoughts we 
have entertained but briefly then brushed aside thrust 
bold stark naked and screaming in our face.  

	It might have been different, it might have 
been easier, if it had all vanished in a cloud of 
smoke, if there had been an end to civilization as we 
knew it, but instead it was all a huge 
misunderstanding.  Oops, the world didn’t end as 
scheduled, but we have a remarkable assortment of 
weapons just in case it does.  Such is life.



*

This is how it all went down, how it all came about, 
what really and truly caused all the shit that you 
hear about vaguely in the back of the latest Newspeak, 
you see only the barest tip of the iceberg that lurks 
in our collective unconsciousness.  We already fought 
the battle, but the war is still a’brewing.

*



	It began sometime in the early nineties, me, a 
few of my associates, and a couple of randomly passing 
strangers was all simultaneously exposed to the crack 
between worlds.  I was thrust headlong into that 
twilight realm where both the world of the spirits and 
the material world are superimposed over each other 
and the trees spoke with me.  For that entire evening, 
we were at the mercy of the entities, which inhabit 
the spiritual realms.  It was a nightmarish 
environment, and we were tormented in every 
conceivable manner.

	That was when the wars began.  The battle 
lines were drawn between mage and coven, between the 
fey and the sidhe, between the manitou and the 
daemon.  It was the first gauntlet to be thrown into 
the ring, but it took years for me and my allies to 
even recognize the significance of that evening.

	Oh, we knew about the occult at that point, we 
had played with tarot and Ouija and other toys of the 
supernatural, but we didn’t understand the reality of 
the forces that were arrayed against us.  I, for one, 
should have been much more prepared for the onslaught 
of the spirits, but I guess I wasn’t aware they could 
be that hostile.  We were the trespassers that 
evening, not they, and they defended themselves upon 
us.



*



	Death waits for its victims in the place 
between time and space, it watches the world we 
inhabit through mirrors, behind reflections, beneath 
the placid surface of lakes.  It sends its messengers 
to walk with us in dreams, and it guides us into the 
realm of shadows when finally we fall into its 
clutches.

	It seems to me that I have spent most of my 
life contemplating death, and because of this 
obsession I have been driven to strange uncharted 
depths of philosophy and madness.  I find myself 
consumed with the need for release, to lose myself 
into a raging mass of new stimuli, to explore new 
realms of being.  I want to travel, escape into new 
surroundings, cross over into new horizons, and enter 
a different life.

	I found this reality we all agree upon to be 
too solid for my liking.  It is defiant and cruel; it 
reeks of guilt, shame, and age.  For me there is only 
the release of sleep and dream, then a quick plunge 
into the harsh brutality of the work-a-day nonsense.  
We are meant for more than this corporate fodder and I 
for one mean to slip this yoke.

	I know there are no green pastures, each has 
its own unique shit-brown hue, yet there is no other 
goal to plan for, nor dream to follow but this one of 
mine, to find a reality that is at once chaotic and 
magical, structured and fae.  I have no roadmap, only 
a tugging inside my chest, leading me onward.

	It is a siren song I hear it haunts me with 
its intensity, and drives me onward.  I am twisted 
into its essence, and I feel that it pulls me like a 
muse, like a shadow is pulled by its caster.  I find 
truth in the vague notions of meaning, and taste 
purity in the false dawn of the morning.

	We’ve been taught that perfection is laying in 
wait beyond this life of struggles, that if we are but 
pure, we will live eternally in the bliss of the 
light.  Perfection and perfect will, romanticized 
religion for the faint of heart who suffer from the 
fear of death.  I, for one, know only the scars I’ve 
endured.  I have not slipped beyond the veil and 
returned with some great understanding, although I 
have seen that veil lift for but a second, long enough 
to bring me to the understanding that I not only wish 
to live, but to be fully alive.
	I want to be more than the mere sum of my 
parts, I want to be mythic, to be legendary.  I have 
my heroes, those brave souls who existed beyond their 
social constraints, whose light shines on after their 
death, who continue to exist in words and ideas long 
after their time has passed.  I want this for myself.

	Is this too much responsibility; am I prideful 
and greedy in this desire?  I cannot know until I 
reach the destination.  I know full well the 
weaknesses, the depravity within my soul.  I can see 
it, pinned beneath my passive surface, chained deep 
within my heart.  It stays there, tempts me, 
constantly forcing me to confront my darkness.

	Yet there is also a part of my soul which 
guides me, comforts me, and allows me to maintain my 
purpose.  It leads me through the turmoil and the 
chaos of this slow procedure, provides calming advice 
as I stumble along my path.

	I know I want more, I know I want to be heard, 
to motivate thought, to spark conversation.  I know I 
want more than that, I want to correct, to teach, and 
to inspire.  I want to carry the torch in the quest 
for fire, to brave the darkness and return with the 
treasure from the abyss.



*



	Sometime around midnight, gas stations and 
streetlights, neon gasses lending their brilliance to 
the otherwise mundane orange hues.  On foot again, 
heading towards the apartment, Eric found himself 
mumbling a phrase over and over.

	“Demons to the left of me, demons to the 
right, demons up ahead of me, demons out of sight.”  
It seemed to come from somewhere other than his mind, 
as if it was a mantra.  He held his hands out to 
either side, extended fingers splayed out in positions 
of power.

	The mantra continued, seemingly of its own 
design.  The words had become more than mere sounds, 
contained a deeper significance, a meaning that 
transcended the mundane.  Eric could literally feel a 
sphere of power encircling him, its borders defined by 
the tips of his fingers.  Outside of the sphere there 
lurked an essence of malevolent intelligence, a lurker 
that had been both drawn to and yet repulsed by the 
subtle magicks Eric was working.

	-Am I responsible for this? -  Eric wondered, 
still repeating the phrase.  -Do I summon the demons 
or hold them back? -

	By the time he reached his apartment he 
realized that the presence had faded, and the words 
became only that, mere words.  Yet even though the 
sensation of being surrounded by evil had faded, the 
memory had not, and Eric found himself unable to sleep.

	-What does it all mean? -



*

	The letter from Eliot was on his desk, and 
while the sun crept on around the Earth, somewhere on 
the far eastern side of the horizon, Eric read it over 
one more time.  Bits of it were smudged by coffee 
stains and ink blots, and there was a bit of what 
appeared to be pot resin smeared along the center 
crease of the letter.



“You can’t just keep running from situations.  It’s 
never going to pass you by; you’re going to pass it 
by.  It’s like, if you actually wanted to find 
whatever it is you’re looking for, you gotta be able 
to see what you’re looking at, but as it is you don’t 
see anything except what you expect to see.

“Don’t you get it?  It’s right here, smack dab in the 
center of this whole fucking mess.  If this isn’t the 
solution to our problems, then nothing’s gonna help us.

“This is something we all gotta face, all of us, 
together.  Without this to guide us, we are nowhere, 
and this is something I need to ask you for help 
on, ‘cause without your help I don’t think we’ll make 
it.



	Eric sat back from the letter.  Eliot knew 
more than he dared write, knew a lot more about what 
was wrong with the world than Eric ever cared to know, 
and he sounded desperate.  Eliot wasn’t the type to 
request a favor, never had been, but this seemed 
downright urgent.

	The rest of the letter became even more 
esoteric, almost as if it was written in code.

“A lot of things have changed since the last time we 
were together.  The doors are no longer simply made of 
crystal.  They too have changed.  See, history 
solidifies.

“That’s the simple truth of time, that time grows 
rigid.  It leaves itself as a sort of sculpture; it 
hardens into a kind of living thing, an eternal 
encrustation in the Universal Mind.

	This brought back the memories of the gates 
Eliot had showed him some three or more years 
earlier.  There were still scars on his arms from the 
fractured mirror that had come to life before him, 
that had reached out and grabbed hold of him during 
the ritual they had been attempting.  Eliot had called 
the spirits that night, half expecting his attempt to 
prove pointless, but going through the motions all the 
same.

	From that moment on Eric had known that all 
was not as simple as he had feared it to be.  There 
were entities beyond the normal daylight technological 
façade that could not be categorized, could not be 
explained away.  It was a vindication of his private 
fantasies, and the most terrifying experience of his 
life.

	Eliot reacted quite differently.  He became, 
to paraphrase his own admissions, extremely pissed off 
at the spiritual force that had come to call.  It 
became an obsession, a constant source of irritation 
that he had not been able to subdue or constrain the 
entity he had unwittingly called forth.

	Within a month of the incident Eric and Eliot 
had parted company.  It was gradual, but in the end 
Eric felt it was for the best.  Eliot had his own path 
to follow, as did Eric, and the memories were set 
aside as time passed.

	Now, with the arrival of the letter earlier in 
the day, it all came flooding back.  Eric could even 
feel the scars on his arms, scars that had faded away 
in the intervening years.  The scars returned now, 
purple and throbbing against his skin, standing out as 
if lit from within by some internal fire.



*

	-Focus, concentrate.  This is not real.  This 
cannot happen. -  He tried to convince himself to 
ignore the scars that stood out on his flesh as he 
looked at the books that lined the back of his desk.  
The letter lay before him, now folded back into a 
comfortable looking bundle, the words hidden from view.

*



	On the desk behind the books there was a 
phrase Eliot had written down in a poetic fit sometime 
during their roommate years, & Eric cleared away all 
the debris of doodles & artwork to see it more 
clearly.  It seemed prophetic in a way.



*

 “The future will be spent in greater chains & more 
prohibitive social castes than ever before…  There 
will arise a technoelite, a neo-mafia of transracial 
street gangs & workers…  There will be a need for the 
masses as consumers, & that & that alone shall they 
live for…”



	Beneath it lay the journal of his last seven 
years, bits & fragments of recollections, musings, & 
essays on the nature of his reality, the reality he 
had come to understand, that hid between the veils, 
places where only poetry made sense.