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.
