Hellucination (Wrath Limited Edition)

by Stephen Biro

  Everyone boos until I raise my hands for silence. The metal music picks up in tempo as my rant continues.

  “The beast has had his day. This country was founded on Mammon! The people of this land were originally killed because of greed. Capitalism is just another name for greed. We have been fooling the rest of the world by saying freedom and capitalism will make this world a better place, pushing these tracts of our government’s founding principles.”

  (I was bewildered at the intensity and the throngs of people as I sat behind the eyeballs of myself.)

  “Most of us live on the street or in houses we don’t own. Wall Street gave then it took. The government gave, and then they took it back for the greedy and brought the ruin of America and the industrialized nations to its knees. All the countries with cheap labor used by the greedy were tapped out at the point that each country’s citizen was almost at the point of living decently, so the greedy took their corporations and jobs to the next impoverished country. In their wake, they left the hungry, the needy. They left the dreams of a better life, smashed, rolled over with a steam roller. And the first country that capitalism destroyed, was its own.”

  I pace the stage as the music and lights reach a fever pitch.

  “Every one of you has been looked down on because of your beliefs, because you followed me as I follow Him! We all believe in our Lord! We all want a personal friendship with the Lord and not just an imaginary one. We all want to worship the Lord in the way that we found in our hearts and not behind a wall of brick and stone.”

  The crowd goes insane with jubilation as my pacing becomes more frantic.

  “We had put up with going against the word of God for so long that we are beaten down. We have been led to the slaughter by the god of corruption and greed, and we will not take it any longer!”

  The congregation applauds and screams hallelujahs!

  “This world is sick of the misery and devastation of the greed of man! We will take it back! We will destroy the worshippers of the golden calf! We will smite those who gave their souls to the Devil. We will find those who destroy this world while trying to steal our salvation by forcing us to worship the gods of their own making! They’re leaving us with sickness and death because it was in the fine print of a contract from the Devil we never signed and we certainly have never seen!”

  I begin to cry on stage, and the crowd becomes silent.

  “There is enough food and medical supplies in this world to heal and feed everyone of this planet. The Lord gave us this planet to take care of all people, not just some of us.”

  I wipe tears from my eyes as the music becomes more ominous in tone.

  “The vengeful Lord smote his enemies! The Lord said he would one day visit the Israelite’s sins upon them. For worshipping the golden calf while Moses was in communion with God!”

  The music gets heavier. The crowd gets restless.

  “God’s green earth can no longer sustain itself for those who worship the golden calf. Those who have put this planet in jeopardy shall no longer live. We have been working hard for this day to come, and we have help from every God-fearing being on this planet. Many will say they believe, when in their hearts, they truly worship Mammon.”

  I feel pain and frustration in heart and soul. The world’s devastation and destitution feels like a death surrounding everyone.

  “Pay attention to the marks on the doors and the buildings of those to be saved. Spare the children unless their names are marked in the Book of Black. Admonish those in the Book of Sleep and heal those in the Book of Life.”

  “Not an innocent soul, not a one, will be harmed tonight. But a corrupt soul will be used to wake those who sleep, and the streets will run red with the blood of the worshippers of the calf!”

  I bow my head as the music suddenly stops.

  “May the Lord God forgive us for it is now, finally, war. The soldiers of misfortune have overtaken the God-fearing people of this world. We have been killed and left to die over greed. We cannot survive this world, for soon, the damned will be left alone on this planet. And when the damned breed, future innocent souls will be born into this world of the dead. We go out tonight to take back the world for the innocents of the earth and for the future souls you create, Lord.”

  “Please forgive us! Please give us the strength to accomplish the salvation of the world! We only do this to save those in need! The Meek … shall now … inherit the earth!”

  I begin to scream it.

  “The Meek shall now inherit the earth! The Meek shall now inherit the earth!”

  All over the world, people chant the words, over and over again.

  “THE MEEK SHALL NOW INHERIT THE EARTH!”

  “THE MEEK SHALL NOW INHERIT THE EARTH!”

  I fall to my knees as the people leave the stadium, chanting. I pray The Lord’s Prayer, words that will forever echo in my mind.

  “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

  MORPHEUS RETURNS AND THE SPLITTING OF THE EGO

  I sat on my couch, dazed and a little confused. I opened my eyes and noticed Morpheus sitting on the love seat right next to me. I was still groggy from my onstage appearance and full of questions. Morpheus wasn’t wearing his leather getup from the movies but rather a nice grey suit and dark sunglasses. I leaned over and put the empty balloon down on the coffee table.

  “What’s with the sunglasses?”

  “You already know the answer,” he chuckled.

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “I don’t want you to look into my eyes anymore.”

  I picked up a pack of Marlboros and slid one out.

  “Do you want one?” I asked.

  “No, you go right ahead.”

  I lit the cigarette and took a hearty pull off it.

  “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for the soul,” he said. He then stood and paced a little. “Don’t you have some questions for me?”

  “Yes. Are you God?” I asked.

  “I’m not allowed to answer that.”

  “Why, is it written, or is it something God doesn’t want you to say?”

  “Nice try, but I can’t say.”

  He walked back to the love seat and sat.

  “You’re a mystery to us, Stephen Biro. We know what you’re trying to do, and we know that you’re actually doing it. Better men have come this way, the road less traveled, and they usually give up. Usually the physical side effects make them stop. But not you.”

  I lifted my hand and watched it tremble, like Parkinson’s disease. I shook it off and said, “I don’t care about my body or my health. I know what will make me die happy, and that’s to know and find God.”

  “You’ve been close to death many times. I could even say that you have died but then I would be wrong, strictly speaking. Let’s say a part of you has died and you’re wanting to—no, needing to— replace it.”

  “So what is going on and why haven’t—?”

  “You are going through what most people on this planet would kill for. You’re coming across ideas and realities that some of the greatest men in history have experienced. So far, you have experienced what certain religions have based their complete teachings on. It’s not good enough for you.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m looking for true reality and for what I am really up against.”

  “So, you’re ‘up against’ something? Are you saying you have an enemy? Are you saying God is your enemy?”

  “I never said that. Let me say it in a different way: I need to know the score and the actual rules of the game, not just here on earth but beyond this reality. Beyond what my five senses can understand. I need to know the real game behind all of this.”

  Disappointingly, Morpheus then quoted Morpheus, “What if I gave you the opportunity to know everything that you wanted to know but your life would forever be changed and you may never come back.”

  “I’d say, ‘This isn’t the movie and I’m not Neo.’”

  �
�But it is the same quest, no? Neo’s quest in the film has been a pursuit for men for as long as they have been alive. If it helps, you can close your eyes.”

  “I prefer the visual.”

  He reached into his jacket and produced two pills: One red and the other—you guessed it—blue.

  “You take the blue pill,” he said, “And the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

  “You can’t rip straight dialogue from the Matrix!” I laughed. “You could have done something different!”

  Morpheus just continued to hold his hand out for me to pick.

  My mind began racing. I wasn’t on Nitrous so something was different here. This wasn’t the fucking Matrix. This was my reality, trying to find God. The movie had nothing to do with God, so let’s start with that.

  I had a choice: red or blue. Blue has always signified Heaven, and red has always signified Hell. Even in Final Approach, it was a blue Heaven and red Hell. So the blue pill was the one I should take. I believed in God, but this entity in the guise of Morpheus (or really more of Laurence Fishburne when he’s out of the leather costume) could have been fucking with my head. Or could he really have been offering the truth—but in the red pill? Red is chaos, fire and lust all wrapped up in one beautiful color. Blue is peaceful, tranquil and has a loving feeling if it’s in the right hue.

  I reached out and picked the blue pill.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “Because this isn’t the movie. Wisdom, knowledge and peace are always calm, always serene. Blue has never been a color that warns, tells you to stop or signifies danger. Red does.”

  “You’re even more of a mystery than we thought, Mr. Biro. You’ve made your choice; let’s hope it’s the right one for your sake.”

  He slowly dissipated, leaving a trail of electrified particles in his wake. I reached for my cigarette in the ashtray and lit it, taking a couple drags. Then I reached for the cracker and slipped another cartridge into it. As I reached for the balloon, I noticed the TV had been playing static the whole time.

  “That isn’t what I expected.”

  Actually, I didn’t know what to expect since I turned down the entity’s offer. It offered me the truth—but whose truth? It wasn’t just a hallucination either. Not for that long. I couldn’t even be certain it was the same thing I had met before. I couldn’t see its eyes, probably because it didn’t want me to see whether it was the same entity or not. It didn’t want me to look inside it. I became confused about everything.

  I took a hit off of the balloon and held it in.

  Maybe the different things I experienced were stored in the DNA of every person? Or maybe I was coming across old thoughts that still circulated across our world long after the thinker had passed. If our bodies are alive because of electricity in our mind, and if our thoughts were minute electrical sparks that jumped between synapses, maybe those sparks not only finished the thought in our minds but went beyond the mind!

  Maybe energy floats all around us that are leftover ideas and thoughts of people who earlier lived on this earth. Maybe this energy sometimes connects with our own mind’s synapses, turning our thoughts into theirs?

  Or maybe I was just schizophrenic and totally insane. I took another hit off of the nitrous balloon. I held it in and then blew out the gas.

  I didn’t fucking know, but I kept doing this because it felt like progress. Even if I was fucking out of my mind, it made sense to me.

  My head became warm. I felt that I could be aware of every thought and every electrical discharge zipping around in my brain. Shivers ran down my spine and the hairs on my head tried to stand straight up. A dull throbbing rippled through my skull. I clutched the sides of my head as the throbbing became a pulse. It was a heartbeat rhythm but it quickly turned excruciatingly painful, and it felt like as if my brain was tearing apart.

  It fucking was! It was wrenching itself apart, both internally and outwardly. And my soul seemed to be splitting along with my head. My consciousness tore inside my mind, unable to fully choose which side to escape to.

  A disintegrating line cut right down the middle of my skull. I fell to my knees and held my head as it tore apart!

  I expected blood and brains to spill down my face, but instead blue and red protoplasm slinked out of my head and slowly pulled apart from each other. The red and blue became two separate entities. The red was from the left side of my head, and the blue was from my right.

  They were both still connected to my consciousness, because I could feel it as an anchor. I could feel myself being pulled to the left and to the right and then back again. The protoplasm began to show expressions as faces formed out of the gooey matter. And they began fighting like two king cobras, slashing at each other with teeth that grew longer and sharper as each second passed.

  They fought as I was going insane.

  I screamed in indescribable torment. The pain became too unbearable, and my vision failed as darkness overwhelmed me. I fell hard enough for my head to feel the cement under my apartment’s thin carpet.

  I faded away, not knowing which side won.

  I came to and just looked around for a while. But all I could see was my entertainment center from my vantage on the floor. I crawled towards the love seat and pulled myself up.

  I looked around at the normal reality of it all and realized I had turned down the one chance at finding the truth. I was shattered. Devastated. Lost.

  Even after all I went through, I couldn’t sleep and I quickly became a mess. Crying, laughing, screaming—nothing I did made me feel right.

  And then I noticed something horrifying. I noticed my mind was putting me down and having me think the worst about everything. I tried thinking I didn’t believe all my own negativity. But even as I thought that, a part of myself continued to batter me down.

  I heard me say that I hated myself, that I’m a liar who lies to myself all the time. The thoughts kept coming and I had no choice but to listen. I freaked out. I’ve always been by myself in my head and have never heard other voices, especially not ones that just wanted to ruin me.

  I walked into my bedroom and flopped down on the bed, still listening to my mind beat me down. I wanted to fall asleep but couldn’t. So I just laid there and listened.

  “Why am I thinking this? I don’t feel this way about myself.”

  Then I heard it. I actually fucking heard it. It said, “Yes, you do.”

  “I’m a good man, or at least I try to be,” I retorted.

  “No you’re not. You’re an evil man up to evil things.”

  My heart beat faster as I suspected my trips to the other side had brought back a demon. I thought I’d been possessed. My mind was a flutter of everything and anything. It was like having two hundred butterflies flying around in my skull, every butterfly was a thought or an idea that was either against each other or flew in harmony.

  I jumped out of bed and stormed into the living room, pacing.

  It became quiet suddenly. I stood there for seven seconds when I heard, “I’m worthless.”

  “I’m not worthless,” I said aloud.

  “Yes you are. You’re nothing in this world.”

  The explanation I still come up with is possession. Full-blown, spin-your-head, puke pea soup, in-the-Devil’s custody. I calmed down and tried talking to it.

  “Who are you?”

  Silence.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Nothing. I decided to stay silent.

  “I think I should jerk off.”

  I didn’t think that! Sexual thoughts were the furthest thing from my mind at that moment. (Thinking you’re possessed sort of tames the libido!).

  Then I heard, “I’m such an asshole. I hate myself and everything about me.”

  I felt it! Dear God, I felt it! I felt where those last thoughts originated! They came from
my left side! I’ve never felt that before. I continued to pay attention.

  This time, I heard, “It’s okay. It’s all right. You’re a good man.”

  I began to become more peaceful. My worries eased until I heard from my left side again.

  “I hate myself.”

  My right side countered, “It’s okay. Just don’t listen to him.”

  I tilted my head down, in a total freefall of reality. Shit! I was not only possessed; I was possessed by two beings! One apparently good, and one apparently bad! I held my head in my hands as I began to ask questions.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Fucking you up.”

  “Trying to help you.”

  “What are you?” I asked.

  A second passes and I hear, “God.” “The Devil.”

  I knew what sides each came from. “Great!” I told myself. “I’ve been trying to find God, and I found the Devil as well!”

  Now pacing, I asked, “What do I do now?”

  “Relax.”

  “Kill yourself!”

  I begin to cry, lost in a new world where I can suddenly hear God and the Devil.

  “I can’t take this!” I scream. I only hear one response this time.

  “Then you must kill yourself. It is the only thing that will bring you relief. You wanted this and now you got it.”

  I got up and walked over to my computer.

  *

  You sit in the usual place in my apartment, behind the desk. You watch the younger me approach, and you jump out of the leather chair, trying to slink your way towards the kitchen in time. You pray I don’t bump into you, but I do. My shoulder goes right through you without even a ripple. You jump into the kitchen to find the older me leaning against the stove.

  “Don’t worry, my younger self can’t hear or feel you right now. I am, er, he is too busy fighting the personal demons.”

  “If you watch me on the computer,” I continue, “I’m going to be pulling up sites on possession and on talking to God and the Devil.”