The other day I awoke with a start. A loud noise roused me from my well deserved and much needed slumbers...after fixing a cup of coffee, i went downstairs to the front door. Someone had slipped a brochure under the door
" Visit wonderful Missouri" ...I thought to myself what an odd advertisement, who the heck goes vacationing in Missouri? hmm...I looked at the picture on the cover- a man with a fishing pole was walking into a wooded area, a stream was off to his left . He looked like a very pale oriental ... had a sly look about him... I shrugged it off and went to the library.
As I bent over the computer to see my emails, something to my left caught my attention. I turned to look- it was a book... the title was "Missouri, the Show me State." There was no author- it was anonymous. Hmm.
I flipped through the book...i could tell it was very boring ...halfway through I found a business card stuck inside- "PC troubleshooting for Intelligence Executives...No problem is too hard to handle, reasonable rates...Solon N. Sisane" who would name their kid Solon? His brother is probably named 'Hector'...
I wondered what this card meant...the area code for the phone number was for Washington DC. I put the card in my wallet and returned to my internet-ing.
Let me go back in time a bit....I moved into a nice 97 year old house about ten years ago, I had a few immediate neighbors at the time, but gradually, the building I lived in began to empty out. Everyone left, and left me alone. I spend my time wandering from floor to floor, enjoying the solitude and quiet.
One morning I woke up to find a squirrel clawing into my windowsill. I chased it off, but it kept coming back. It burrowed into my wall,and I had to seal the hole with caulking...but no matter what i did, the squirrel kept attacking my window ledge. I knew it was the same squirrel every time, since this one had a oddly shaped tail, with weird hair shaped in an unnatural pattern. When I would travel away from home through the alleys, it would be there to greet me with its beady mocking eyes... 400 yards from home. It would follow me though the alleys... I grew exasperated and started to throw rocks at the little monster. No matter what I did, it always managed to burrow itself into my bedroom wall, and I suppose it would sleep there, with only about four inches of thin wall separating it from me during the night. I cursed that devil squirrel. This went on for two years.
Finally, it vanished. I dont know what became of it. I noticed that it had mysteriously given up and had seemingly fled. I opened my window and examined the damage to the sill. I saw its claw marks...and I saw some of it hair. I picked up a strand to examine- it felt funny. I got my magnifying glass to see better- it had all the proper coloration of a squirrel hair, but it wasn't one- it was a synthetic fiber.
That night I called the DeeCee number on the card. The tones sounded unusual...then I heard a recorded message. The voice said "please leave a message"....I almost fell out of my chair- it was my own voice- I was listening to myself.
Six months ago I bought some grapes. I ate some out of the bag on my porch, and accidentally dropped one, it rolled out of reach yet not out of sight,,,,Later that day I finished off the bag while I was upstairs watching TV....I dropped another grape, it rolled out of view and I forgot about it.
As the days passed, I would walk by the grape that was outside. I noticed the gradual decay and the apparent assault upon it by microbes and the elements, After a week it was gone.
A few days ago I discovered the lost grape from upstairs- I looked close. It was unchanged. I don't mean just well preserved, I mean it was pristine-it looked like it was still edible, and I knew this grape had been under the chair for six months, since that was the last time I bought grapes. Hmmm.
The next day, I tried calling the number again. It was disconnected. The operator had no record of the number.
I went online to try to Google the number and the name on the card. Nothing.
Late Saturday night I was on my front porch, surfing the net. I noticed a white bronco drive slowly by....then it came back around...it drove very slowly by my house, the driver kept staring at me. He drove around the block and came around again for a third time...very slow, and staring intently at me again...he almost stopped in the midle of the road just to stare straight at me. Creepy. This happened four times in about fifteen minutes, then he spun off for good.
What was that about? The man driving the bronco looked familiar..I didn't like any of this at all...then I realized in a flash- I gulped hard- he was the fisher- man on the cover of the Missouri brochure !
That night I had that dream again, The one about the crash. A plane goes down, it cracks up over the desert. Im seriously hurt, but at least im alive. No one else survives...But tonight, the airplane debris pieces kept shifting, changing form...I crawled along the desert floor, clutching weeds and pebbles...I bled...a radio was nearby-maybe it still worked? Then the debris shape shifted...what was left of the plane was transformed into something circular. Odd engine parts I could see...I was having a hard time breathing. I saw a shadow cross over me- I saw a US army officer peering down at me, his face contorted in look of wild amazement. I lift my hand up, as if to plea for succor and mercy...then i remember being carried away on a stretcher, as I was taken away from what was left of a saucer-like craft.
Im walking down the street a few blocks from home. I see a woman waiting for a bus-she is about 35, the last vestiges of her youth are about to slip away from her. she is attractive, wearing a light blue dress.She is also blind, with the white cane, big dark glasses and everything. I walk across the street- Ive seen her before, about 20 times in the last year or so, always either going to or away from that bus stop. I walk across the street diagonally from her...in my peripheral vision I notice something. Her head and eyes are following me. I suddenly snap my head back, to look straight at her, She abruptly turns her face away. "So she's not blind after all. hmm"
I lay awake in bed, full of dread. What to do, what to do..? I thought that maybe I would write a book- A short one that has the Golden Rule from every culture explained on each page....I imagine printing up this book and giving it away, and world peace breaks out due to the influence of my universal pamphlet. My book will change the world! As I lay there pondering my new project, I heard a voice- very clear and loud, yet metallic and inside my head "He's quite odd, isn't he?" another metallic voice answered and sharply said to me "Disregard the project"...afterwards I fell into a black despair...
The third floor where I live is a special place. Even though my habits have deteriorated a bit in the last few years, people say I haven't physically aged much in a decade or more. A month ago I had some pork chops and beer, and watched a movie. I guess im depressed, since i never bothered to throw the bones or bottles away. I don't need to. Just like the grape, the bones are still pliable and ready to throw to a canine- they wont rot. The empty beer bottles wont attract any bugs. Nothing decays inside the room on the third floor. Some force rejuvenates cells on a moment to moment basis- or at least thats what I think. I'm not saying that anything inexplicable or supernatural is occurring, maybe its just a quirk of materials and geometry. what ever the cause, the effect is real.
In my secret room from the past... I seek the future.
I'm in my local watering hole, downing my fourth beer...a young seedy guy in a grey trench coat saddles up to the bar next to me....I'm studying my Russian....He says he's from the DC area and that he has lived here for about a year...he claimed that he went to that bar a lot, but since I went there all the time, and I had never seen him in there before, I knew he was lying. Before I knew it, we were talking about who killed President Kennedy...The man seemed to know my ideas about this issue; his speculations perfectly reflected information that I had just read in in some (very) minor book, a work that I thought had brought new material to the fore...Ideas about what really happend on that day are always evolving within the minds of those of us who take the time to ponder...this was the only subject that interested him. I suddenly felt uneasy and excused myself. I exited the bar and walked home in the light rain. Despite his claim that he went to that place all the time, I never saw him again. As I opened my door and stood in the dark foyer, it dawned on me. I never told him my name- but he knew it anyway.
The needle was pushed into my arm. I tried to break free from the chair, but the straps were too tightly bound. I saw the box the drug came out of. I strained hard to see the label(s)...The nurse was unpleasant, all huffy and bothered. I saw the letters- the box had the word 'adrenaline' written on it. I think the word 'adrenaline' was even mentioned between the nurse and a nearby attendant ...I mouthed the word 'adrenaline' to the nurse. She snapped "This IS NOT adrenaline" She got up in my face, I could feel her fetid, stale breath on my cheek "I want you to repeat after me- 'this is not adrenaline' ! "
I knew better- even in my drugged state, I could still read English. A few moments later, the real chaos began...
I found myself in southern Missouri, in the Ozark mountains... the middle of nowhere. The nearest country store was about ten miles away. The state police had an APB-'all points bulletin' out on me, for auto theft. The funny thing was, the car that I had supposedly stolen was serenely parked in a pasture nearby. I didn't steal it.
April 21, 1984, about 11:ooam....the moment of my awakening. My third eye chakra opened wide-it felt like a cord anchored to my forehead was being pulled...I felt the fluttering of invisible eyelids. God told me then that I would never physically die.
I'm in a dark wood by myself. I am miles from civilization and anyone else. I try to sleep on the ground- I never use a tent in the wild.
I see the creature- eight feet tall, on two legs, half ape, half man. A glowing orb is in its hands....After that night, ideas concerning the coming apocalypse begin the dominate my thoughts.
"Would you like to find out?" The debris was typical for an abandoned warehouse- bottles, plaster, wire, broken brick...spray painted messages warned non-gang members away. The man before me was almost old; he carried himself with a knowing dignity. He looked donnish, I was sure he must have been a professor by profession. A professor on crack or something..."Why?" What is this all about?" I spoke slowly...A week earlier I recieved a letter...the letter contained information that motivated me to come here, to a run down section of Philadelphia, where I eventually encountered the missives author. "I am here to tell you all- if you could compress the universe into a ball, and squeeze everything together, hold it up with your hand, examine it "...I heard the faint sound of footsteps overhead-someone else was here, hiding out of sight.
"Do you believe in fate?" ...
"What am I suppose to do, redeem the universe, save humanity or some such nonsense?"
His eyes narrowed..."Nothing so trivial as that."
"We put live leukemia virus in the Yellow fever vaccine"
I found myself in Sturgis, South Dakota, about a week ahead of the bikers- they have an annual pow-wow here. A girl and a guy- he was born on the same day as I was- November 22-President Kennedy's death date-were traveling with me. They had a fight and parted company-she went with me for the day. Later she decided to go back into town...He saw us together...and started yelling from down the street. He was roaring drunk. He came toward me in a rage "Bro, don't you know what it means to be in the family?" He pulled a knife out- it was big. Before I could react,he lunged toward me and tried to plunge the blade into my side. At that moment, a certain thought entered my mind..."Not again. This is the third time someone has tried to stab me to death."
The American spy agency during world war two was called the OSS. This became the CIA in 1948-9. In the early days of atomic energy, we didn't know anything about how it would effect people. Soldiers would be almost routinely dosed with radiation, to monitor the result- all of this was done without the soldiers consent, which was a violation of the Nuremberg code.
A very small amount of radiation to alter a genetic allele.
I'm running hard and fast....I have to get away. I look back- several of my pursuers are moving through the woods towards me. I run and run through the forest, until I fall down in an exhausted heap on the leaf strewn ground. How much time has passed?
I spot one of them. I think he's alone- I lost the others, hes been separated from his comrades. I break cover from behind a tree- I raise my rifle to my shoulder... "Pow!" Damn, I missed... a desperate gunfight ensues. We hid behind trees, we would break cover long enough to fire at each other, then dash behind the next tree. I tried to get farther and farther away..."Pow!" I felt a sharp sting- Ive been grazed by a bullet, it got a piece of my hip. Luckily, I had some blubber there. I kept running, zigzagging away through the trees. "Blam" Ow! My free hand instinctively went up to my neck to feel the hurt... Christ sakes,now Ive been shot in the neck!
I won't run anymore. Feeling the wound, I quickly determined that this, too, was a flesh wound, it wasn't too serious.A trickle of blood dripped down my neck onto my shirt and the ground. Both of us froze where we were ,trying to remain safe behind trees. I wont retreat anymore. We took a few almost random shots at each other, then waited in silence for what seemed like an eternity. My heart was thumping so loud I'm sure my attacker could hear it...At almost the same instant, both of us stepped out from the cover of each of our trees to get off a shot..."Ka-pow-pow!!" The man fell down like a rock...I felt a sudden sense of relief, yet my fear did not subside ...After what seemed like a long time, I made my way to the body of the man who, just moments before, had been trying to kill me...I had to make sure he was dead. I got him right between the eyes.
What do I do now? I was breathing very hard, I couldn't catch my breath, my head was spinning. I threw up.
I dailed my own phone number from my own phone. A strange voice answered. "Who is this?" I was flabbergasted. A rough voice on the other end said "You shouldn't have done that. you shouldn't have called" and hung up. Weird.
Everything was shifting, shapes lost their solidity and morphed into new configurations and ideas. I saw a luminous being- it looked like a cactus and the Charlie Brown cartoon of the 'great pumpkin', with maybe a bit of a scarecrow mixed in...it spoke (telepathically) to me... "Don't you know ? Its all a trick."
In 1869, Karl Edward Von Hartmann wrote a peculiar philosophic tome.The Unconscious rules, and it is essentially Will, anf this controls reason, the secondary aspect. Existence recognizes its misery, and will eventually organize a scheme to end it all- not just life, but an attempt will be made to snuff out the multiverse, to allow the Unconscious to reach its goal of nothingness.
Who or what is correct? Is the Devil really God?
"Yes, I have traveled far..." My words were too slow and measured...My plane had landed- Europe was far away. I was a few hundred yards away from the White House in D.C.. I had walked into the Octagon House a few moments earlier and asked for a tour. I knew about the rumors concerning this building...The tour lady said construction was going on in the basement, and nobody was there anyway...she did not want to give a tour to just one person. I insisted. I wanted to see the basement. Down the stairs we went- we stood in front of some large plywood that stood upright, blocking some construction going down what could have been a tunnel. She took special note of my T-shirt (It advertised some bar in Zurich, Switzerland) We were alone, just me and her. Even though it was against the rules, she lit up a cigarette. She looked at me quizzically, attempting to figure me out. I noticed her book of matches- they were crisp and brand new. They came from some watering hole from a small town in Missouri. I pointed toward the construction..."Whats behind that panel?"
Ten years have passed. It was a damn near close thing- I almost failed. But I did succeed, I won and accomplished my mission. I'm resting on a hilltop, laying on my back, watching the night sky. I understand now- we were meant to fade away. Suddenly I felt the ground tremor beneath me, as I saw a twinkling star in the sky flicker out...I gazed around at the world for one last time, as the Moon broke up into a million fragments, which then hurtled toward the Earth.
It is done, Amen.
