Seven-X (28 page)

Within me, I feel this sense of loss and the loss of sense. For I smell nothing and the frozen air, which fills my lungs, leaves my body void of feeling. Have the drugs of sin dried my mouth, ravaged the flavor of life, and left my tasteless breath forming the shapes of my tormenters as I exhale; only for me to recognize my murderers as I begin to drift away from myself. 

Has the intoxication of substances, chemicals, fetid food and contaminated water nurtured something within me, that I cannot bear to live with any longer. 

A monster, who destroyed me from the inside out, slowly deconstructing my organs before lulling me into this false and final sleep.

My thoughts are now the only things I have left. They are the only things I still cherish.  A lifetime of memories is stashed in this hard drive of my brain, now driven by a decreased heartbeat and frozen mind.  Is this my last attachment to this world? 

Is this the end of my story? 

My heart no longer beats, my blood no longer flows. I am void of feeling. As I feel my final breath leak out, I realize it is no longer my mind dreaming. I am leaving this body. 

The substance of earth begins to fade from my consciousness, and the noise of life quiets itself in preparation for my departure. My final gift of life is my last thought bestowed upon me, separating me from my body.

I think of — THOSE I LOVE.

I did love Melody, but my heart ran too shallow to really express that love. The pain of heartbreak, created that shield around me that wouldn’t let her see the love I should have offered. 

I know I loved Kennedy. That kind of LOVE IS ENDURING.  It’s not shattered by years. Not yielded by memory. Not tested by time. That love was in my own very blood and it carries on, because their will always be a part of me, in my daughter. I call her by name. My lips mutter “Kennedy” and that faint sound and vision of her face, comforts me as I slide into this timeless horizon.

 All that was pure within me, within my blood was hers at conception.  And with Jamie’s blood we became one and gave her life. 

This blood was harvested in love at conception. But somewhere in time, our bond was broken, and our love for each other grew cold. That cold seeped into Kennedy the same way it infected us. We became contaminated with ill will, malice, regret, fear and anger. It spread throughout our beings. It spread throughout our blood and I never remembered it happening. 

There are so many things in my life that I could never bring to mind until this moment, when the totality of my life’s journey is laid bare before me. Those things were locked away in this box of unconscious memory, hidden until now.

 These little moments of pain, neglect, suffering and death. These dark moments I inhaled and kept within me, while I exhaled the freely given breath of life, and did not appreciate its simple majesty. 

My mind clenched down on the thoughts that brought death for some unknown reason. And so this little thought, this little moment, this little act of negativity slipped inside me, and burrowed itself deep within the walls of my heart, unnoticed.  

And these thoughts, deeds, words, they are alive. They are tiny organisms of demonic blood that grew and fed off each other. 

The bitterness, the jealousy, the envy, the pain, the hate, the rage, the doubt, the fear, the wrath, the lust, the uncertainty of hope; they all feed and grow and like a pregnancy, the embryo of this monster begins to form within us, until the entity is conceived. These are the parasitic seeds of a demon.

A fallen angel. An evil spirit, which contaminates my blood and grows within me unnoticed.  And I morphed into this mixed species, part human, part God, part demon. It is what I am now, my evolution as I depart from here.

I am conscious. I feel fully alive, but I am not in my body. I’m back inside that void, that chasm I entered in my dream, or as I now clearly see, my nightmare. 

It is a black emptiness without sound or light, without form or texture. Without smell or taste.  Without life!

The most terrifying part of this place is that I know time does not exist in the way I had experienced on earth. I could be stuck alone, in this void for eternity, or however long I am to be held prisoner here to reflect on my life. 

It feels worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s more terrifying than anything I’ve seen or heard or watched in a movie. This feeling penetrates me to my core. This reality forces me to writhe in torment. 

There is no more earth. My life no longer belongs to this planet, but it goes on. There is something more and I am going to witness it for another lifetime. And I have no idea how long this lifetime will last. I’m impatiently waiting to find one of the lights to take me somewhere. Something to pull me in any direction toward anything!  Anything!  Anything! 

I cannot bear the thought of nothing any longer of being alone in this void. This paralyzing fear penetrates every fiber of my being, or whatever life I am still experiencing. 

There is feeling without senses.  There is reality without experience. And every part of me screams in a voice I cannot hear. Every part of me trembles in a body I cannot feel. Every part of me cries from eyes I cannot see. 

And I realize that there is no taste to death. There is no sting. Only transition. 

And like a butterfly in the cocoon, when I break this shell, I will find life on the other side. 

But in this moment, in this time, I linger in the depth of the womb. Everything I was. Everything I am is nothing. I am merely an embryo again. But what is carrying me? What is going to birth me again? What if I am in the belly of a demon? About to be conceived into eternal torment. 

Would that torment be better than this emptiness? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Emptiness nourishes my pain and it grows deeper within me.  

It is an agonizing crush on whatever part of me is still alive. I need to fill this void. 

I need to take a hold of something. 

I want to feel something. 

Taste something. 

See something. 

Hear something. 

Smell something. 

Anything! Anything! Anything! 

I’ll take anything. Any substance to ignite my senses. There has to be something in this universe to cling to. Something to give me hope! It can’t be nothing! 
I need something!

Then, in this fraction of a moment. In this abyss, void of substance, in the timeless endless, horizon, the silence was broken with a voice. 

A comforting voice broke though the void into this womb and I felt it divide the darkness, awakening me inside. It was soft, without judgment or anger; but it had unlimited power. I knew that voice could have spoken and shattered me. This cocoon or womb I’m in could have contracted and crushed me into nothingness. But instead it opened like a beautiful flower and these words filled me, saying.

“You’re not going to die? You have a lot to learn.”

And in the nothingness between life and death, something became clear. I began to see the totality of my life’s journey. I saw how the innocent child became the haunted man and I began to drift back towards the light. But the fear, which had broken me before, was absent. I knew that light was not the cold fire of torment, nor was it the warm light of pure love. It was the light of my former life, calling me back home to see my life from this new reality. 

Outside my body, outside my life, there is a different perspective. I can now see myself lying on the hospital bed. 

These creatures, these demons wrap themselves around me. Their blackness covers me like a cloud, and my face is stuck in the realization of my nightmare. Looking down on myself from the outside in, I am able to see this dimension. I see the needful spirits craving my body to survive in. I see my soul.

It’s this small light within me, buried in my heart that is still burning. A tiny speck in the blackness of eternity. My soul is like this beautiful box holding my realization of my life’s memories and how I let them define me. 

I see it boxed with my mind, wrapped with my intellect, tied to my emotions, like a bow on a Christmas present. My soul is this wonderful present I received with my life on this earth.

But I see the monsters feeding on the bow, trying to unwrap me and take me with them. Somehow I know I need that gift inside the box to take with me, to take to the next place, or I will have to go with the demons. 

So what is this part of me that is still alive? A part of me that lives in the box, but is now awakened, living outside my body. 

Is it my spirit?  Is this the part of me that lives on forever? 

Is this the reflection of myself that I saw in the mirror every day of my life and did not recognize? Is this the part of me I heard in these words that live on long after I am gone and seem to speak to me in this state? 

 “
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
 

As I look down on my body, I ask myself if I am fully known.  Is this knowledge merely a fraction of something greater that I must witness face to face. And who is the other face? Before I could decipher that thought, the next words came to me from outside myself.

 “
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. 

But the greatest of these is love.” 

I heard those words before. All this I heard it all before. They were Bible words. The words Annette Dobson parroted back at me in her room with such conviction. I felt those words had power back then, but they live with me now. Those words hit me like the kid who teased me at school. I took his words to heart and thought about them all the time and in some sense, they began to define me.

 Why do we do that with negative words and not these words, which somehow bring life. These words had life in them, because they set something off in me. 

It was love. The greatest thing of all that was left in the universe was love. And in that love, was my life and my spirit. 

And inside the nothingness that seemed so abandoned, so empty, there were three things unseen that remained with me all the time.
Faith. Hope and Love. 

That was the love that Annette spoke about, the love that had no motive other than to give life and heal. The love that had no record of wrongs, but rejoiced in truth. When those words became part of me, they rescued my body. They brought warmth and heat and light back to me.  I was no longer looking down at myself, but I was back in myself, looking up into the light that had divided the black cloud hanging over me, covering me with its wings. 

I began to rediscover my senses. I could faintly feel the warm blanket on my chest. My feet still felt frozen and my hands were stiff.  My extremities felt numb and I couldn’t think straight now that I was back inside my body. I was cold and confused. My eyes were heavy. I could barely keep them open.  

But when those words of love filled my head, this rush of heat entered my brain, like a laser ripping through me, melting off the ice. My blood began to flow. I could feel it awakening every part of my body again. And I knew I was going to live. The blackness over my eyes dissipated, and I could finally see the room again, but no one was there. 

The fluorescent lights kept me company as I lay there, staring at the ceiling. My heart was racing and something was still gnawing at me. Perhaps it was the agitation of being restrained. Of being alive again and wanting to move. Or maybe it was the first sounds I heard above the drone of machines. The sounds of footsteps drawing closer, not knowing who they belonged to, or what would happen next, inside this restrained body I was back inside.  

As my fingers regained sensation, I could feel my audio recorder still in my hand still and I forced my fingers to hit record, as the footsteps grew louder. With all the energy I could muster, I twisted my head as far as it would go and I could to see Dr. Preston walking up to me. 

AUDIO LOG: NOTES

THURSDAY DECEMBER 23, 2010 – 9:07 AM

“Good morning, Eddie. How are you feeling?” Dr. Preston asked.

“Okay, I guess.”  What was I supposed to say? That I have feeling in half my body and my brain is foggy.

 He looked into my eyes with a light, observing me carefully. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

 “Some weird dreams,” I told him, not ready to disclose the truth. “They drugged me up good.”

“You went into shock Eddie,” Dr. Preston said, examining my chart. “Your heart stopped beating and… well… you. Clinically you were dead for three minutes.”

“You serious?” I asked trying to sit up.

“Relax,” he told me. “You need time to recover. You’re lucky to be alive.”  

“I guess,” I said, watching him continue to thumb though my charts.

“It’s miraculous. Your body temperature is almost normal now. There’s no brain tumor. No damage or sign of trauma. Someone’s looking out for you.”

“I feel…  a little out of…” The words slipped out, before I could contemplate a proper response.  I felt dizzy, but I forced myself to lift my head to see what he was doing.