“You must make your allegiance to the new Messiah,” announced a voice inside his head. Barry Spears didn’t notice anything untoward but Oscar looked at Paul strangely.
“Paul, you okay?”
“If you’ll just excuse me for a moment,” Paul said, then, trying not to stumble or cry out, he got up and headed for the rest rooms.
Paul was relieved. It was empty. It had to be empty to do what he had to do. He went to the washbasin and unzipped his fly. He took out his genitals and quickly washed them under a cold tap. He followed the words of the voice in his head.
“I pledge myself to the new messiah,” he intoned under his breath. Then he slipped off his shoes and socks and as quickly as he could and washed his feet, then his face and hands. A noise alerted him. He heard the outer door open. Continuing to chant the mantra, he gathered up his shoes and socks and ran into a cubicle, locking the door just as someone entered the washroom.
He sat down on the toilet seat and dried his feet before pulling on his socks and shoes. This is crazy, he thought. Just what was he doing?
Five minutes ago he was talking to, or listening to, a client over lunch. Suddenly, he was acting completely out of character following the instructions of a disembodied voice. He tried to analyze the reason but he couldn’t delay too long. Something about the atmosphere surrounding the voice sent a chill of fear and belief along his spine. It was as though the voice was telling him the real truth, the truth behind the scenes, the truth that stripped away all the surface beliefs he held, all the human, everyday behaviour patterns and dug its claws into his psyche. And it did it instantly. That was the remarkable thing about it.
He left the washroom glancing at his watch. The others greeted him and glanced at him to see if he was unwell. He smiled a reassurance. Barry Spears looked at his watch and waved away the waiter who had appeared with the dessert menu.
“We have to get back to the coal face, Paul,” he said, giving Paul his full throttle corporate smile. “I’ll say this. I’m impressed. For a guy who should be in bed with an aspirin, you did well. I like your report, Paul. We just need to kick the ideas around now that we’ve had a chance to talk to you in more depth.”
Spears stood up. Immediately, Oscar, Mark and Louis rose to their feet. One by one they shook Paul’s hand, nodding with a degree of approval. But, you couldn’t tell with guys like those. They were clones, clever ones, but clones nevertheless. Barry grabbed Paul’s hand in a python-like grip and swung it up and down. Paul imagined those hands around the neck of someone Barry didn’t like and knew why he was where he was.
“Good to see you, Paul,” he growled. “We’ll be in touch real soon.” Then all four were gone leaving Paul and the dark shadow lurking in his brain in their wake.
Slowly, Paul picked up his briefcase and thought about the meeting. He couldn’t tell how it went. They were probably talking to half-a-dozen IT consultants and some big firms would be in that list. He was a one-man band but then, he could hire help if he needed it. He had made that clear.
Their departure resulted in a strange kind of vacuum. Well, he couldn’t have done any better under the circumstances. He was a solo operator but he thought they would go for ideas and personality instead of size, but then again, they were corporates.
He was looking forward to getting home. But he knew also he had to do something about this. Maybe he should go and see someone. Malone was no help. He had plenty of wacky ideas but no practical solutions except wait and it will all pass over. Paul didn’t like to use the word possession but that is what was starting to take place. It would only be a matter of time before it would start to show and get noticed. And then what? And then he could only guess what might happen. It might seem totally implausible standing here in this swanky restaurant, but he could find himself in a white padded cell being interviewed by psychiatrists if he wasn’t careful.
He decided to start by visiting his local spiritualist church and having a free healing session. The healers sometimes had clairvoyant visions during the healing sessions that they told you about.
Maybe he would go tonight.
The return drive turned into a nightmare. Paul drove out of the city towards the highway heading north. His head began to buzz with half whispers, odd words, screams and laughter. He called desperately for the angels, the only entities that could help him. And they came, briefly.
“Paul,” said Guardian Angel. “There are wayward spirit forms attracted to the electro-magnetic field you are generating from your own thought forms. You must use the mantra when you have to. These episodes will come and go. The dark force is aware of you and your destiny. This is why all this is happening to you. You must learn to combat the force yourself.”
“That’s easier said than done,” snapped Paul. “I guess you don’t drive cars where you are but we do here and I need to concentrate.”
“We will be with you,” said Guardian Angel. “But the dark force is gathering strength.”
Paul was cruising along a three-lane highway when an insidious voice whispered.
“Die, die, you want to die. Turn the wheel. That’s all you have to do. What do you have to live for? Your wife does not love you. Your children will leave you. When they do, your wife will leave you also.”
Paul began to chant. “Ru-Ah, Ru-Ah, Ru-Ah.” “He will not help you. Crash the car. You will be free of all worry and fear. There will be no more depression, no more frustration and pain. There is only freedom awaiting you. The angels are not angels. They are making a fool of you. There are no angels. There is nothing that can save you.“
Paul’s palms were sweating and painful from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. He forced himself to control the car but he when he saw a turn off approaching he spun the car into the left lane. There was no traffic, just fields rolling either side of the road. He turned into a farm track and headed towards a clump of trees swaying in a light breeze. He was lucky. He had managed to get off the road in time. He was aching for a piss. It had suddenly come over him. He knew in the back of his mind that the angels were behind it. The impulse to relieve himself had an almost angelic quality about it as though he was about to expel the dark force and the insidious rasping voice through his urinary system. It seemed appropriate somehow.
He slammed on the brakes and hurriedly pushed open his door leaving the engine running and his door swinging behind him. He unzipped his fly, almost wetting himself with the effort of containing himself and then came the bliss of peeing uncontrollably.
Paul breathed deeply with relief. He couldn’t care less if anyone was watching. After a minute or so, when he would normally expect to cease and dry up, he just continued. He wasn’t able to stop. Then a new fear engulfed him. Suppose he couldn’t stop, ever. Don’t be crazy, he told himself. He was getting rid of all those crazed spirit forms in the only appropriate way.
He gave it a little longer and still his urine flowed unabated. He did not feel the usual satisfaction. He felt nothing except for an awareness of the flow. The car engine was still running. He looked around and saw nothing except farmland planted with spring wheat, a flock of pigeons circling nearby and heard nothing but the distant rumble of the highway traffic. Still he continued. Now he was starting to panic. He couldn’t stop urinating. This was physically not possible to achieve. No human being could continue when his bladder was empty since it only held several pints of liquid. He began to pray. He visualized his angel group, hoping desperately that they were what they said they were and not dark, evil forces intent on harming him. Finally, he visualized the name Ru-Ah and repeated it whilst trying to stop the flow.
He began to retch simultaneously and could feel a presence somewhere in his mind that was orchestrating events for his own good. Maybe he was expelling evil spirits, Maybe this was a form of exorcism. If it was he prayed for it to succeed and to end. He began to breathe deeply and deliberately, expanding his lower ribcage and exhaling slowly. Each time he exhaled he imagined he was expellin
g whatever spirit was inside him. It did help but not completely.
As though a faucet was suddenly turned off, his agonizing urination ceased. He almost cried with relief of another kind. What a situation to be in? Imagine being unable to stop. What in God’s name could you do?
Paul stumbled back to the car and turned off the engine. He needed to just stand for a while in silence, trying to get himself together. His mind was clear, at least for the moment. The angry tinnitus of spiritual contact was absent. Paul prayed then for the first time since the whole sorry business began. If ever he had doubted what was happening to him was real then recent events had proven it to him.
Paul had an analytical nature. He would worry and gnaw at a problem or an issue until he had resolved it or admitted defeat. This was no different. The episodes showed no signs of abating and, to tell the truth, he felt a real bond with the angel group. If anyone tried to convince him they were just figments of his imagination he would have vehemently denied it. He could not make head nor tail of the other experiences, but anything that could cause him to react physically like he had just done did not emanate from his imagination.
Still, the unprecedented peeing session seemed to have done the trick, at least, until he reached home. Rory had returned and was playing with Sabre in the garden. With a shock, Paul chided himself for being so selfish. He had allowed himself to become obsessed with these spiritual infestations to the extent that he had been neglecting his children. He made some coffee and strolled out into the garden to the raised terraced area where he lounged back in his garden seat. His son looked anything but gay. How could he have half-believed that nonsense. And yet, maybe it had been an insight into a previous or future life?
“So, Australia. When did you get the urge to go there?” he asked Rory.
The young man paused and patted the dog, eagerly panting at his feet.
“I’ve wanted to get out of this country for a long time, Dad,” he replied.
“Don’t you think you have any future here?”
“I just hate the place. I just need to see more of the world. I know you and mom want the best for me and all but, I’m not a career type of guy.”
“Maybe you’re not,” said Paul. “You know that whatever you choose to do, even if it means drifting a bit till you find something, you have our support.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know we’ll miss you, don’t you?”
“Sure I do, Dad. I’ll miss you too.”
“Still, it won’t be forever, will it?”
Rory shrugged. “It could be. Depends on what happens. I just want to travel free and take whatever comes.”
“I can understand that,” said Paul.
Then, there was no more to say. You could go on and on talking around and around but the words would just be words. Paul felt close to Rory then, aware that he didn’t know him as well as he thought he did.
Rory had his mother’s looks. Paul knew that he had to tell him how much he loved him. Maybe he would wait until the right moment. Then he thought of the angels and the new light of the world and of death and possible rebirth or oblivion. And he knew then that there was no right time.
“Hey,” he said. “You know I love don’t you?”
Rory looked up. “I love you too, Pa,” he said. “I will always love you.”
Paul just smiled and started to say something. But he felt his throat constrict.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’m just going to make some calls.”
Sabre ran off with a frisbee between his teeth and Rory chased him.
As Paul went back indoors he began to feel the now familiar contraction of his solar plexus. He made it to the office and checked out the location of the spiritualist church. Kate was not due back till late because of a meeting and Annie could take care of herself. He would go tonight. He called and a rather dusty voice answered. Paul explained he needed to see a medium or clairvoyant who could deal with psychic vampires. This was the best way of putting it, he felt.
If anyone would know who could help him someone in the church ought to. There was a silence at the other end.
“Maybe I can help you,” she said. “My name is Clara.”
“I didn’t want to contact some commercial operation,” said Paul clumsily, not sure how to explain himself.
“You don’t have to worry,” said Clara. “I understand perfectly. If I can help you I will. But I cannot make any promises.”
“Thank you. Are you free this evening?”
“Yes. I can sense something around you. Come and see me as soon as you can,” said Clara now sounding more interested. “I am a healing clairvoyant spiritualist,” she went on. “I do not charge for helping people. I do not run a business or cast horoscopes. I am not a commercial psychic,” she told him with a degree of disdain.
“I’ll come in a couple of hours then,” said Paul. He replaced the receiver and filed away his notes from today. He felt as though he had done something positive. He was still battling against the onset of the paralyzing fear he had experienced earlier. He never wanted to go through anything like that again and yet, he knew he was going to and had to prepare himself. He could sense the arrival of his angel group and experienced such relief. The lump in his stomach eased away. Maybe this Clara woman could help. He would still call Romy in any case once he could find her card.
“Paul.” It surprised and shocked him and indicated just how real he was starting to think the angels were.
“Paul,” said Guardian Angel. “You have been going through a difficult time.”
“You bet I have,” Paul blinked for yes and projected the answer.
“We are going to take you on a journey,” said Prosperity Angel.
“We will also show you a way in which you can protect yourself from spiritual attacks.” Development Angel told him. “You must use Rose Quartz, Garnet, Amber, Topaz, Emerald, Tourmaline, Turquoise, Sodalite and Malachite. Put them into a black bag and keep them with you. They will be charged by us through you and they will serve to protect you from the worst attacks of the dark force.”
“How can I believe any of this?” Paul questioned. “I’ve been told none of you is real. I have already pledged myself to the new messiah, to Ru-Ah.”
“No, Paul,” snapped Punishment Angel. “The dark angel tricked you. You have pledged yourself to him.”
Paul felt a cold knife lance his stomach and slide up through his body. What had he done? He was utterly confused and disoriented. He prayed they would all vanish from his life.
“I want you to relax, Paul,” crooned Development Angel.
“You are about to see beyond life,” said Guardian Angel. “You need to experience this.”
CHAPTER NINE
The spirit made flesh
Colours beyond description swam in front of his eyes as Paul fell into a waking trance. He wasn’t asleep and he was aware of his surroundings. He was conscious of time passing on the one hand and of timelessness on the other simultaneously. It was an extraordinary feeling. He was moving through a familiar landscape that had the quality of a dream but also seemed somehow tangible. A figure emerged out of the distance and he knew at once that he had met the figure before in one of his recent dreams.
It was his mother, or the spirit form of the person who had been his mother. But it was more than that: it was a repository of lifetimes stretching back to a forgotten time, or to no time at all. Images from his childhood swamped his mind, almost as though he had plugged himself into a computer memory link and downloaded snapshots of his life. He was aware with stunning clarity that a life was simply a megabyte of the totality of existence and of consciousness. He was suckling from his mother’s breast in the tiny room they lived in. Then he was immersed in a small tin bath in the scullery being bathed by her, before being wrapped in warm blankets.
Then, in a bewildering switch, his mother’s hand was holding the saddle of his first bicycle as she patiently taught him to ride. It was a g
reen bicycle with a loud bell that he delighted in ringing as he suddenly found himself riding alone along a sunlit track through a formal park dappled with waving shadows.
Now there was sunlight on the long, narrow garden at the back of the house where his father grew vegetables in the thin soil and where Paul played at being comic book heroes like Superman or Batman – as an only child living in his imagination. Then the vision shifted. At the end of the garden he could see again sparks crackling like fireflies into the night sky from the long distance locomotives that rattled and clanked their way along the winding railroad track at the bottom of the steep embankment.
He saw his mother now in their old kitchen scullery, her thin frame bent over the sink with the single cold tap, her chapped hands peeling potatoes, carefully placing the skins into a colander to be used later. She wasted nothing. Even the nettles growing in abundance at the bottom of the garden were transformed into soup. She had been a saint. Everyone said so. She was a martyr to the man she married; a martyr to his disease that dominated all their lives.
With increasing speed the images and memories raced by while Paul stared sightlessly out of his office window. He was overcome with love for his mother and could feel her love for him as a tangible force and energy field. He could sense the love energy generated being spread throughout the universe and yet not moving anywhere. He watched himself as a child listening to her singing the old ballads of her race, watched proudly by his father swinging his crossed leg in time. Paul was suddenly a child again, curling up to her voice crooning a lullaby till he rested easy in sleep.
Now he was older, and he could see her struggling back along the main street with her hands and arms straining to carry her bags of groceries and shopping and he remembered running full speed to help her, the pain in her eyes wounding him. And now the terrifying memory of his father’s first fit, a diabetic reaction of apoplectic proportions. He recalled and recoiled from the wailing from his parents’ bedroom as his father keened in an unearthly voice and his mother cried with fear. He remembered running into the room to see his father, insane and blinded with a strange madness, oblivious of his actions, squeezing his mother’s throat while urinating over the crumpled bedclothes. Paul ripped his father’s hands away with superhuman strength. He watched as later his father, now quiet and docile, was being carried out of the house on a stretcher encased in a strait-jacket. Then Paul smiled at his mother in the flowery dress he remembered most, looking out to sea by a harbour as the gulls wheeled and spun in the salty air. She looked at him and this was the look he had remembered all his life; the look that had haunted and comforted him.
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