Help! Aliens are Inhabiting My Roaches!
I wake up. It is sometime in the midmorning, about 10 A.M. I do not get up at
any particular time. I have no real need to. I live on social services and live in low-income
housing. I have no job to go to and no real schedule. I lie in bed wondering if it is worth
getting up at all. I could sleep all day and it wouldn't matter at all.
Nevertheless, I get up and prepare my breakfast - some cereal and milk, and a pot
of coffee. I make my bed and comb my hair. I spend a long time combing my hair. I fix a
cup of coffee and pour three heaping spoonfuls of sugar and a large dollop of somewhat
sour milk into it. With pleasure, I stir the contents around and around. I drink my coffee
and gaze idly out the window at a single tree which is green in the middle and turning
yellow on the edges. I use that tree as a focal point, something to concentrate on.
I take my medication. If I didn't take my medication, I'd start seeing funny things
on the walls and hearing weird stuff in my head that would be like sound tracks for science
fiction movies. Then the vampires would get hold of me and start controlling me
according to their whims. The vampires are nasty creatures and they like to torture
people's minds.
I wonder what to do with my day. I have nothing in particular to do. No
appointments with doctors or social service workers. I don't go to school. I could take a
walk somewhere. Maybe I should write a book - but about what? I could visit a friend
who is equally destitute as myself.
Sometimes this kind of boredom makes me feel like I'm in jail. It's like counting the
bricks on the wall of one's cell or doing puzzles in one's head. Maybe I should take up
doing crossword puzzles or playing games on my computer.
My low-income housing apartment isn't really too bad as far as that goes. It
consists of two small rooms and a bathroom. It's fairly clean and well-maintained, although
there's occasional cockroaches that are impossible to eradicate. It's on the seventh floor of
a large concrete complex and even has a little concrete porch. There's a picture window in
front of the porch. Looking in a level direction, one can see low mountains and hills on the
horizon. Looking down, the view is rather gross - a busy street and a bunch of warehouses
with the Interstate just a half mile away. There's a lot of traffic noise.
This is housing for the elderly and handicapped. There's mostly old people here,
which often makes me feel like I'm in a nursing home before my time. One nice thing
about that is the old people don't make a lot of noise, turn in early, and don't have wild
parties. Sometimes, though, I wish there were more younger people and there were some
parties to break the monotony of this place.
I got into here and on social services because of some handicaps. I've got "mental
problems". I put that in quotes because I don't think I really have problems, but that's how
I come across to those who examined me - especially after I started making unauthorized
speeches to people on street corners.
I sometimes wonder why it had been so hard for me to find jobs. Is it because I
refuse to wear ties? (They feel like a hangman's noose around my neck, choking me to
death.) Is it because I cut my hair with unsharpened scissors with a bowl? (I look rather
like a Franciscan monk - or Moe of the Three Stooges.) Is it because I can't afford a good
pair of shoes? (The only pair of shoes I have look like they have been chewed up by rats
and have gaping holes in the soles. And they stink horribly - as do my hole-infested socks.)
Could it be because no matter what I say I appear to be lying through my teeth?
(I'm probably far more honest than anyone they actually hire.) Perhaps it's because I never
look them in the eye and never smile. (And why should I? Why should I benefit those
bastards with a friendly look?) Perhaps it's because I stammer and stutter the whole time.
(They make me nervous, those creeps.)
Is it because I am utterly incompetent? I cannot type fast enough. I cannot move
things off a conveyor belt fast enough. I cannot talk fast enough. I cannot sell things. I
cannot fix things. I don't have the right education for what they're looking for.
However, I think there's more to it than mere appearances and skills. I think they
don't want to hire me because they can see that I'm far more intelligent and creative than
they are. They feel threatened by that. They can see that I refuse to adhere to the sheer
stupidity of this society.
I look around me when I go through the lobby downstairs of this place. There's old
ladies in wheel chairs who idly spin around in circles and gaze languidly at everyone who
passes by. Old men who look like drunken bums stand around and puff on filterless
cigarettes. A cripple walks awkwardly to the elevator, everyone giving him wide berth.
People wait for a ride from the local bus to the local grocery store or to the welfare office .
I wonder to myself: "What did I do to deserve this?" How is it possible that I,
once upon a time, a rich kid going to Harvard University could wind up in circumstances
like this? Is this, or somewhere like it, where I'm going to spend the rest of my life? I
ponder the horror of it. I feel like I've been condemned to a prison of my own making.
I grew up in fairly wealthy circumstances. I was a rich kid who had servants in a
little mansion in the suburbs of Boston. My father, a mystery man who I rarely saw, made
a lot of money dealing in stocks and bonds. My mother was a drunkard who popped
barbiturates. She weeped a lot and argued with my father when he came home, probably
about all the girlfriends he had when he was away on his "business trips".
I think I determined at an early age that I did not want to grow up to be like my
father and wanted to live a completely unconventional lifestyle. I was a little intellectual
when I was a kid and read books all the time. I was especially fascinated by science,
metaphysics, and the arts. I was especially able to indulge in that when I went to Harvard
and got into drugs, long hair, and weird music. I decided I wanted to be a creative person
and decided to major in Creative Writing. My father blew his sockets at this and
threatened to take me out of school, but I stood my ground.
I went on to get a Master's Degree, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. I was not
especially concerned at the time what I would do for a living; somehow I figured I'd just get
a teacher's job of some sort or conduct workshops among writers. I had no idea what I
was in for. This was shortly before the good times of the 50's - 60's were over and a long
crippling probably permanent economic depression set in.
When I got out of school, I discovered all my creative education was basically for
zilch. The sort of teacher positions I'd fantasized about were rare and had long waiting
lists. I tried to start up workshops but no one showed up, or those who did had no money.
I wound up working a long series of pretty idiotic jobs: cleaning person, clerk,
factory worker, telephone sales, store worker, selling blood, selling my soul, etc., etc. I
found I could not stand to work at such jobs longer than a few months to several months at
a time, which made my resume rather shoddy as time went on, and this made me
increasingly unemployable. I was not able to say anything about my education, for this
would simply make the employers consider me overqualified. I had to keep my mouth
zipped about it as though I were a secret agent in a foreign and hostile country. I was often
an alcoholic and serious drug user during these times.
The only thing that kept me going during this time was the fact that my father had
died of a heart attack shortly after I got my M.F.A. (probably because of my choice?). He
did not leave quite as much money as expected, due to mismanagement of funds (probably
on those girlfriends of his). So I managed to get by on that along with the meager pay of
those occasional jobs.
Then, to continue this sob story, times got rougher. Unemployment statistics grew
due to lack of work and too many people around. Only the most competitive people got
jobs and even they had a hard time, uncertain whether their jobs would last.
I found myself doing shittier and shittier work, if I was able to find work at all. I
turned 40 and the money left behind by my father ran out. I often lived in the streets or
shared places in crowded circumstances. (Rents were going up astronomically with the
increase in unemployment.)
One day, sitting in a park contemplating the lack of unemployment in a stray
newspaper someone had tossed in a garbage can, I thought about what to do next. (1.) I
can't find a job. (2.) I would be unable to get social services unless I can come up with a
disability. As I noted pigeons eating crumbs of someone's lunch on the sidewalk,
inspiration hit me. I would go crazy. To this day, I'm not quite sure whether I actually
went crazy or if I was just faking it. Perhaps acting it out brought on the real thing. Or
maybe you have to be crazy to want to go crazy.
I proceeded with this plan. First of all, I started walking in the street and
deliberately started bumping into people. That was fun. I started talking to myself and
saying gibberish, twisting words around in the most absurd way I could. My M.F.A. was
finally coming in handy here; I'd simply take regular grammatical structure and say things
the opposite of the way they're supposed to be said. I took out my pen and started writing
some of this on the walls.
Then I got out on an intersection and started directing traffic. Isn't that what crazy
people are supposed to do? I remember a crazy man in our local neighborhood when I
was growing up who used to do that. Somehow this became too normal for me, though.
I decided to get on street corners and proceeded to make speeches. They'd go
something like this:
"THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS A BIG FISH, A SLIMY
OCTOPUS WHO IS LURKING IN THE INNERMOST RECESSES OF YOUR MIND!
THE OCTOPUS OF SLIMY BEATITUDE INHABITS THE YELLOW INTERIOR OF
THE MACBURGER! ALL YOU ROBOTS BETTER PAY HEED AND LISTEN FOR
YOUR MINDS ARE BEING BUGGED BY YOGSHOGGOTH, THE DARK ONE
UNDER! FART YOUR BRAINS OUT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FOR THE
MEDIA IS FEEDING YOU POIGNANT BEANS OF SLIPERRY PENISES AND
VAGINAS FUCKING ETERNALLY SINCE TIME BEGAN!"
I'd shriek this stuff at the top of my lungs and flap my arms and legs up and down
like a bird trying to fly. I must say I began to find this a rather enjoyable experience,
having the freedom to be completely crazy, unbound by any sense of conventionality at all.
Needless to say, this did catch the attention of the local authorities who did not like
people acting like this. They slapped me around, at first convinced that I had o.d.'d on
some powerful hallucinogenic drug. I continued to shriek mad inanities in the police car
and in jail. When a doctor had determined I was not on any drugs, he shook his head and
told an ambulance to come. I was put in a state hospital for the mentally insane. I smiled
inwardly; I had achieved my goal.
In the state hospital, the doctors peered into my head and picked my brains trying
to extract whatever vestiges of sanity of me they possibly could. I refused to give them any
satisfaction. I had developed a kind of E.S.P. and I could see what they were doing, so I
would simply do the opposite of what they expected me to do.
In my white patient uniform I wandered up and down the halls, muttering the
obligatory inanities to myself and staring at the wallpaper. You know, if you stare at the
walls long enough, you'd be amazed at the sheer variety of hallucinations you'll eventually
see. I often felt like I was plunging into another world. I'd become lost for hours in this
before one of the attendants led me down to have supper or go to bed.
With my extrasensory perception, I discovered a rather horrible thing: There are
these vampires from Alpha Centauri, the closest stellar system to us, that are occupying the
mind of the human race. The vampires tell the humans to do horrible things to themselves
and to each other. This is the whole reason people are so fucked up. I could see these
vampires inside my own head and I had to invoke higher powers to vanish them from my
head, so I was free of them. However, the vampires in the doctor's head were onto me and
they were determined to eradicate me before I could spread the word.
They gave me weird pills that would wipe out my memory of what I'd discovered.
But I learned how to pretend to swallow the pills and spit them out somewhere else. A
couple of times, they tried to give me shock treatments, but I wasn't going to allow them to
succeed in wiping out my knowledge of what they were really doing. I just gritted my teeth
and bore it.
I noticed with horror how the vampires had completely destroyed the minds of the
various mental patients in the hospital. I was probably the only sane one there. The
doctors and nurses were controlled like puppets by the vampires in their minds.
My next strategy was to act like I didn't know anything about any of this and
pretend that I was getting a little better so I could get out of there. I was classified as some
kind of "paranoid schizophrenic" and thrown into the clutches of the social workers.
Because of my difficulties in functioning in the real world, being such a creative
romantic, I was put on S.S.D.I. and into this low income housing situation for the
handicapped and elderly. I receive medical assistance and food stamps. All in all, you
can't beat it, if you can stand the humiliation.
There's a lot of work involved in it, too. That's something people who don't have it
don't know about. You always have to fill out forms, long extensive forms that are even
worse than income tax forms. And for every item you put on those forms, you have to
come up with some legal proof of it. They just never take your word for it and believe
you're poor and unable to function. You have to see social workers and doctors all the
time to come up with this proof. I suppose they know that the majority of people who
need this stuff would have a hard time having the persistence to do these forms. For
example, someone who has just come off the streets, lives in a garbage bin, and is about to
keel over from starvation isn't going to be able to fill out a bunch of forms each twenty
pages long. All he wants is a little money to get some food to see straight again. And a lot
of those people are uneducated and can barely write or talk intelligibly.
It took me several months to get on the S.S.D.I. When they finally made a
decision, they rejected me and then I had to make an appeal, which was another long
drawn-out process involving even more forms. Really, it's like a job in itself just to get this
stuff and then to keep it.
I wonder if it's worth it. I suppose with an equal amount of effort, I could had been
trying to find work - and netted some kind of job for the trouble. But somehow I wouldn't
expect to find much work and only of the lowliest kind, where I'm at right now. I'm not
sure that wouldn't be less humiliating than being on social services.
I have to admit that I feel bad about taking advantage of it. I hate the idea of just
living on the dole and not contributing anything back. Perhaps I could do some kind of
volunteer work just to feel like I'm giving something back. One draw-back about that is
they find out about that, they might just say you're able to work again and take you off the
dole. It's all a really fucked up system that doesn't really encourage people to want to go
back to work, even though that's what they say they want.
It's all because of those damn vampires. Those vampires make people do things in
the craziest and most illogical ways. The vampires have control of the system.
When I pass through the lobby, halls, and elevator of this building, I can see all the
people in wheelchairs just staring at me, wondering what my handicap is since I'm so
obviously able-bodied. An old man, a long stream of saliva pouring out his mouth, gazes
lewdly at me, as if to say, "What's so special about you, boy?" Men standing around
chattering waiting for the bus killing time suddenly stop when they see me and look at me
with sheer hate. Old ladies look at me cautiously with suspicion. That's because the
vampires have got them.
I just know they're all watching me. It's just a matter of time before they'll all
pound down my door and burn me alive like a witch at the stake like a mob maddened in a
frenzy at odd and unusual characters who stand out from the crowd.
Am I just pretending to be crazy or am I really crazy?
I can't handle the cockroaches in this place. Cockroaches are probably the slimiest,
greasiest, sleaziest vermin I can think of. I don't think I've ever lived in a place with
cockroaches before. They are the signs of my impending downfall into the bowels of hell.
I've tried to kill them in every way I can think of. I've tried to hit them with a
flyswatter but they always scurry out just in the nick of time. Sometimes, in desperation, I
poke my finger at one on the wall, making a grotesque roach hors de vour on the tip of my
finger. I've laid out roach boxes; after awhile, there are hundreds of them in there,
wiggling their little legs in agony. I've sprayed them with insect spray, nearly poisoning
myself in the process. The management once had us clear out our cupboards to spray
entire apartments. This worked for a few weeks, yet one by one, they come back until
there's hundreds of them again. It's almost as if every attempt to kill them just makes them
breed even more; I think they get off on it.
I'm pretty sure they're secret agents from Alpha Centauri. They're spying on me.
They have little cameras inside them. They're recording every action of mine. Every time
I talk to myself, every bite I have for dinner, every time I read, every time I masturbate -
they've got it all down on little tapes inside themselves which they transmit back to their
home star.
They drive me out of my mind. I scream and rage against them, but they only
laugh at me.
One time I woke up in the middle of the night to go pee and, when I turned on the
light, I found them crawling everywhere. There were hundreds of them, scurrying out of
sight. Enraged, I started stomping on them screaming at the top of my voice:
"TAKE THAT (STOMP) AND THAT (STOMP)! YOU GODDAMNED
LITTLE SHITHEADS WITH THOSE WHIRLING CAMERAS IN YOUR BRAINS!
DON'T YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YOU! YOU
STUPID VAMPIRES FROM OUTER SPACE AREN'T GOING TO SPY ON ME
ANYMORE! I REFUSE TO LET YOU LIVE! I HATE YOU FUCKING VAMPIRES!
JUST GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! GET OUT OF MY LIFE!"
People were pounding on the walls of my apartment. An old man who lived next
door to me knocked on my door and said: "Listen, son, I think you better get a hold on
yourself! You're gonna get in a lot of trouble if you keep going on like that!"
"WELL, YOU BETTER WATCH OUT BECAUSE THOSE LITTLE
ROACHES ARE WATCHING YOU, TOO! YOU'RE PROBABLY POSSESSED BY
VAMPIRES, TOO!" I slammed the door in his face. My relations with my neighbors
weren't going to be very improved because of this.
Another knock on my door. It was the local police officer who watched over this
building. He was probably another agent from Arcturus. But I figured I better play it
straight. I didn't exactly want to go back to the state hospital again. So I said:
"Oh, sorry about the ruckus, officer, hee, heee, heee. I must have had another
nightmare. They get to me every once in a while, uh, hee, hee. Must have forgotten to
take my medication tonight."
Although he seemed suspicious that maybe I was doing drugs, I placated him.
Gee, maybe I better take my medication more regularly.
I don't know what I would do without my computer. My computer is an anchor
that keeps me relatively sane in this insane situation. My computer is my dear pet that I
caress with my fingers and croon softly to.
I have a word processor and I type up stuff like this that is manifesting in my head.
There is something about putting it into silicon chips that preserves it. The silicon chips are
my primary archives. I am the proud librarian.
Then there is the internet. The internet gets me out of this place and transported
anywhere all over the world. The internet is my primary connection with the world. I
jump from one thing to another, having no focus in particular. I write email to
anything/body that interests me. It doesn't really matter what the message is, what I'm
actually writing is: "Is anybody out there?" How thrilled I am when I get a message back
and can start up an email relationship. I'm trying to start a chatline for people who think
they're possessed by vampires, but so far not too many people have responded. I guess I
can't blame them; you can't be too careful.
I am often up until 3 A.M. doing this sort of thing. On the walls, the cockroaches
avidly record my behavior.
I once wrote a short piece of writing that I took and read at an open mike poetry
reading at a local cafe:
THE INVISIBLE MAN
I am the Invisible Man...
No one can see into the depths of my soul...
I deliberately make myself invisible...
I walk among them - I do not say a word...
I know if I make myself known...
They simply would not understand.
They only see what I wear or what I possess...
They are unable to see who I really am.
I cry out for mercy...
I beg for recognition...
I beseech someone to understand me...
To reach out to me...
I open my mouth - I cannot make a sound...
I try to grab someone - my hand goes right through them.
Tentatively someone will reach out to me...
It's as if I'm not there.
Ah, lonely curse that this is...
Little do they know my Secret...
I see the Ecstasy of a Flower...
The Wonder of a Single Falling Leaf...
The Glory of an Exploding Star...
But they cannot see it with me.
I have my own language...
But they cannot speak it with me.
Nor can I understand their world...
I cannot understand why they value numbers so much...
Or the significance of possession...
Or why war and tyranny is so glorified.
Their fashions and customs which matter so much to them - all a game to me.
I betray my true spirit to speak to them in their own language...
All my attempts to do so inevitably fail.
Ah, if I could only find another kindred spirit...
In this desolate world of robotic people...
If I could only find someone who could share with me...
The multi-colored ever-changing hues of a sunset...
The tinkling of a single stream deep in the forest...
In Profound Silence we can share a Knowledge impossible to put into words...
And, at last, to You, Dear Friend, can I become Visible.
Although I read this with great fervor and emotion, the applause at the end of this
was somewhat scanty. As I got down from the stage and took my seat, people either
looked at me funny or looked away from me kind of embarrassed as if it were a disease
they might catch. No one came up to me and commented about it.
I tended to avoid the poetry reading night at the cafe after this.
I had a girlfriend who was also on S.S.I. She was schizophrenic. Her whole
problem was she thought everyone was abandoning her. No matter how much I asserted
my affection for her, she tended to believe I was lying to her. She kept insisting that I keep
telling her I cared about her.
She'd always go through this thing of breaking up with me and then getting back
together with me. A couple of times, she'd go get laid with some other guy, and the same
thing would come up for her.
The last time I was with her, we were in a park, and I started staring into space and
thinking about whether the birds in the trees were secret agents from Alpha Centauri. She
suddenly up and left me, not saying a word about it. I followed her trying to scope out
what was wrong with her, but she wouldn't talk to me, just kept telling me to go away. Oh,
well, she was crazy, what do you expect?
For some reason, I always keep getting attracted to crazy women like that.
I don't seem to have many friends. Since normal people wouldn't have any idea
what I'm talking about, I tend to find nuttier friends. For example, I have a couple of
manic friends. I enjoy being with manic people because they have such fascinating thought
processes, although they're a little hard to follow when they're extremely manic.
Most of the people I know are all weirdoes. There's a few creative types, a few
crazy types, and maybe a couple of gay and bisexual types. That seems to be my criteria
for who's right for me - they've got to be weird in some way. Like me, they live on the
outskirts of society, barely getting by on one thing or another.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a perfectly normal person for a
friend. Could I handle it?
I'm sitting in one of the local bohemian coffee joints this town has. I'm idly
scribbling my impressions of the place and the people I see in there, a kind of writing
exercise I do when I cannot seem to find any inspiration to work on a real piece of writing
such as a story or poem. There's a lot of intellectual students, many also writing, some
down and out types just hanging out to keep warm, and some skinhead punks bantering in
a corner. The place has used books on walls for people to read in case they get bored.
People are chattering rapidly in proportion to how many cups of coffee they've consumed.
I see Mona pass by. I greet her and invite her to join me for a moment if she has
one to spare. Mona is an artist who does surreal stuff. She always dresses in wild, colorful
clothes. She always does something quite creative in her attire. Stuff that would look
mismatched on the average person looks perfect on her.
"So how's the art going, Mona?"
"Oh, I don't know, I keep painting this thing about a girl chasing a butterfly but I
just can't seem to get it right. I keep starting it over and over again from scratch, but what I
want to do with it eludes me. Maybe the girl's me and the painting is the butterfly, you
know what I mean?"
"Hmmm, sort of. I get that way when I'm trying to write a story. Right now, I'm
writing another one of my autobiographical pieces. I keep doing that and I can't seem to
break the habit. I try to change things around from what actually happened. It's sort of
like re-writing my life. Although I wish I could write something about someone else -
maybe then I'd get somewhere with it. The thing about doing stuff that's personal to you is
you're too involved with it."
"Yeah, that's what's happening with me, too. When I was a little girl I used to like
to chase butterflies all over the yard. Drove my parents crazy, you know. I'm always
trying to catch something I can't get."
"So what else is happening with you? How are things going with Jane?"
"Oh, she and I broke up, didn't you hear? We kept getting into arguments about
clothes. She wanted me to start dressing more straight because she was ashamed to be
seen with me in public. You know, she's got her career to think about and all that. Well,
there's no way I'm going to put up with that one, you know? I gotta have freedom to chose
my own persona. You and that schizy lady still going together?"
"Nah, she walked out on me again. But you know how it is. She'll probably be
calling me up next week to apologize and plead with me for us to get back together. Or
maybe she'll go out with some other guy for a few days and then get tired of him and call
me back again. Strange relationship. It's been going on for a few years now."
"So why don't you just break off with her if she keeps fucking you over like that?"
"I don't know, Mona, she's become a fixture in my life. We don't see eye to eye
about a lot of things, but I guess in some weird way we love each other."
"Sounds like a funny kind of love to me. Say, I have an idea. Why don't we go
around pretending to be lovers? That'll get her thinking about things. See, she knows she
can always come back to you if things don't go right with someone else. If she knows she
doesn't have that kind of tie on you, it'll make her work harder to work things out with
you."
I looked her up and over. "Well, why don't we really be lovers? That way it'll be
more convincing."
"Gee, I don't know. I haven't had a relationship with a man in over five years now.
I wonder what it would be like?"
"Well, we could make it an open relationship. You can still be with your
girlfriends, too. That wouldn't bother me much."
"Gee, I'll have to think about it. I really do have to paint that painting, you know.
A new relationship might make me lose my inspiration. I think we may have to do an
astrological analysis of it. I know someone who's really good at that stuff. Maybe I can
barter a painting for her to read tarot cards for me."
"I assure you, regardless of astrology and tarot cards, our paths were meant to cross
at this moment in time and space. By the way, you're not controlled by vampires, are
you?"
"Vampires?" Her overpainted face wrinkled prettily. "Is that some kind of
astrological sign in another culture?"
"You know, the vampires from Arcturus that are controlling everybody's minds.
You're immune to them, aren't you?"
"Uh, excuse me, I just remembered I have an appointment with my massage
therapist. Sorry I gotta go."
"Sure Mona, give me a call and we'll make a date."
"Yeah right. Bye."
She practically ran out. Oh well, maybe she's controlled. And such a nice girl, too.
They got her in the clutches of their talons. What a shame.
I wonder if it is even a remote possibility that I could enter the mainstream of
society. Could I work with the Rehabilitation Program (which I'm required to do, whether
I like it or not) and somehow manage to wear the right clothes and put on the right act in
order to get a normal job? Could I then find a normal woman and marry her, having two
kids and being a happy father and all that? Could I have a bunch of perfectly normal
friends who I do perfectly unwild things with like play cards or golf with? Could I handle
being something like an accountant, a businessman, a stocks and bonds dealer (gulp!)?
Could I sell my soul to all that just to get out of this apartment building full of
creeps, to have a nice new car, to make far more money than I get from my measly welfare
check? Could I put away all my aspirations to be a writer, saying that was just something I
used to do when I was young and foolish?
Could I slowly die within becoming more and more conventional as years pass,
even voting Republican? Could I gradually lose all joy in living, becoming increasingly
stressed out by making more and more money to get the kids through college and buy them
fancy cars? Finally, could I die of a heart attack at the ripe old age of 50, having become
so stressed out by trying to be somebody I know I'm not?
I'd have to think about it. I know I'm obviously not very happy as I am now, but I
know I'd be perfectly miserable in that other direction.
Is there any way out of this dilemma?
I took a bus down to a favorite spot of mine today. (I don't know what I'd do if the
buses did not go all over the place around here.) The bus stop is near a hiking trail I like to
go along. I hiked up to a tower on top of a low mountain.
I slowly contemplated a vast view on all sides. I could see way down into lower
Connecticut and up towards northern Massachusetts. Towards the east, was a rather
peaceful looking view of Belchertown near the Quabbin Reservoir. The air was sharp and
cold; it was towards the end of fall and winter's snows would not be long in coming.
I glanced carefully at the colors in the autumnal trees. What a variety of hues there
were: different shades of yellow, deep red, orange, brown, traces of green. The colors
merged into one another to make a variety of combinations.
I heard a voice in my head: "What is near is just as important as what is far."
There was a good feeling about this voice; I knew it was from a Higher Power and not one
of the vampires. I paid heed to this message.
The Voice continued: "You must go through the situation you are in and
experience it in the fullest intensity. Only then can you emerge from it."
I thought about this. Maybe I was putting people off and being prejudicial towards
them. Perhaps this was what was keeping me in the situation I was in.
"It is true. Those who you regard as unlike you are more like you than you realize.
You must make an effort to speak to them. Then you will realize they have the same
concerns as you do. As you discover one another, things will change of their own accord."
That is all the Voice said to me.
I became chillier and sunset drew near. It was time to go back. I walked back to
the bus stop in a state of inner silence, communicating with the beings in the woods. I was
free of the malevolent spirits that had been haunting me. I felt very calm and had a kind of
happiness that is not contingent on any worldly circumstances. Delightedly, I waded
through piles of leaves kicking them up off the path. A waxing crescent moon grinned at
me through the bare branches.
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