by Poppet
As an intelligent man heading to medical school in the new year, this piques my interest in a way that anatomy never has. Apparently The Exorcist is riddled with subliminal messages, used for years by the covert government for population control and experimentation. Uncle Sam has been a busy boy, sending his soldiers to Skylab to the first US space station. Three missions to space, just this year. Why? What is on the dark side of the moon? I’m not one for conspiracies but there’s more here than meets the eye. Why have we been obsessed with space travel? What are we looking for out there?
Dean R. Koontz recently released Demon Seed, Stephen King released Carrie, and other novels I’ve picked up this year range from There Is A Tree More Ancient Than Eden, From Evil’s Pillow, The Immortals, and Sybil. Sybil is fascinating as it deals with multiple personality disorder, but after reading Carrie I think she might’ve been possessed by the Devil himself, like Linda Blair. What are the odds (in Carrie) that a chick gets her period and then displays telekinetic powers? I’ve delved into Crowley’s writings and know telekinesis is a sign of loyalty to Satan.
As if life isn’t hard enough with subliminal messages imbedded in every movie we watch, the threat of alien invasion and war, now we have to worry about chicks and their female curse, when they bleed they have the potential to destroy using their minds, and have telepathy. If that’s not possession, what is? Who is the blood covenant really for? Satan or God? How come women become so damn powerful when they become fertile?
They’re evil, spawn of Ssssssatan. Amy tried to abort you. Eve listened to a serpent over God. Original sssssin. Sssssin. Sin.
You don’t learn any of this shit in biology, and I doubt I’ll learn about it in medical school while dissecting cadavers. No, this is something that has to be executed on a living female. I need to experiment but I’m the town freak, I’m a virgin at the ripe old age of seventeen. I’ve never even kissed a chick. I’m the biggest dude in my year, the tallest too, and yet I’m the one too busy to learn the basic skill of hooking tail.
Loser.
But Adam is dead, I’m free. Now, maybe, I can get a social life.
You were always free.
“Would you shut up.”
You can’t silence me, I’m with you forever.
“Am I possessed like Sybil?”
Don’t be a retard, Christ. How many voices do you hear? Just one. Me. You are born to be great, that’s why I’m here, to guide you.
“Yeah? Some help you were when Adam wet his dick in my stools.”
You’re surrounded by dick, idiot. The president is Dick Nixon. Around the corner from here is Dickshooter. Be grateful you weren’t born a few miles form here, then you’d be in Utah and Mormon. Imagine, you could have twenty wives like a king. Then you’d call your cock dick, and be shooting your load three times a day.
“I’d get nothing done.”
Yes you would. The Devil makes work for idle hands. Don’t be idle. Don’t be idle!
Fuck this. Now I have to pack everything I just unpacked. Although most of it won’t work in the UK. Maybe Steve will let me store my LPs in the storeroom. Shit, I’m gonna miss him. He’s been my closest friend for the longest time. He gave me power, power Adam diminished every opportunity he had.
It’s on my way to the Fight Club to give Steve my news when a dude in a black suit stops me, hand to my chest, the sun beating down with the hot fall wind, and a black book in his hand. “Jesus loves you,” he says.
“So I’ve heard,” I mumble, not wanting to be rude, but not interested either.
“It’s true. Turn from your sin, let his love redeem you.”
My patience is already wearing thin. Where was this god of‘love’ when I was being beaten and traumatized? Where was he the night Amy died, or the day she tried to undo me when she should’ve been protecting me?
“I don’t believe in your God,” I snarl, ready to forcefully remove his touch from my person. Sure I’m seventeen but I look halfway to thirty already. A tough life will do that to you, and the past year of fighting for cash has me built like a fortress.
“What’s your name?” he interrogates.
“None of your business,” I snap, done with this bullshit. Removing his hand and twisting it so if he tries to step toward me his fingers will dislocate, I say gruffly, “Have a nice day.”
Moving along, his touch on my arm and his annoying voice reach my wrath. “Sir, wait. God’s calling you, can’t you hear him?”
Okay dude, let me indulge your brown nosing for two seconds of my promising life. “Yeah?” I turn to face him, folding my arms over my bulletproof chest. “And how does‘god’ talk to me? I haven’t heard him once. Not. Once.”
“God is spirit. He speaks to you using the Holy Ghost.”
“What’s your name?” I ask, needing some even footing here.
“Jerry.”
“Well, Jerry,” I sneer, “I don’t see how talking to ghosts can be considered holy. It sounds like your idea of church is nothing more than a seance in a fancy building.”
His gloat deflates, his righteous pulpit dissipates, and the dude visually sags. Handing me a pamphlet, he urges, “The night you’re lost, when you feel alone and wish someone was there to hear what’s in your heart and hurting your mind, reach out. That’s when you’ll be ready to let God into your life.”
“Thanks,” I smirk, scrunching it up in front of his nose, but I refuse to litter so shove the ball of paper in my pocket and continue to the gym.
It bothers me all day, replaying in my mind long after I’ve packed the things most precious to me and stored them at Steve’s, now alone at home and wishing I was old enough to have beer in the fridge, drinking a frosty while I watch the sun go down. I’m wondering about this whole religion story.
I’ve had it quoted at me all my life, from neighbors to teachers. But after the material I’ve read, seen, and listened to this past year, the feelings and signs coming at me from every quarter, plus the little issue that I killed my father weighing on my conscience, I’m thinking it won’t hurt to attend a church service. I’ve never been. I should at least try it on for size before disregarding it altogether, right?
And so it is that I dress in decent threads and head out into the night for the Friday night church service at some dude’s house. That alone strikes me as odd, but it might be less formal and more comfortable.
I don’t drive, and know it’s an issue I have to rectify. The Wildcat was stolen after all. My dad was a stand up guy.
Thirty minutes later I’m walking up to a green front door, giving the polished knocker a tap. Independence has been good for me. I feel adult, and I look it. Confidence, that’s what it is.
The door opens to a piece of ass so fine that words escape me.
“Come on in,” she smiles, opening the door wide and inviting me into a home so welcoming it makes my heart ache. “I’m Britney, and you are?”
“Chris–” I just manage to stop myself from saying Christ.
“It’s always a blessing to meet a new face at bible study. Go on through to the sitting room. Would you like tea, or beer?”
“Beer,” I say, deadpan, without hesitation.
I wander through the place kitted out with warm touches. Flowers on the dining room table, knickknacks on the sideboard, pictures hanging from the walls, striped curtains covering the windows, and the sweet smell of cookies lingering in the air.
Entering the sitting room I see Jerry and give him a nod.
He stands like the messiah just walked in, his jubilance irrepressible and mildly contagious. Instead of being dour I offer him a half-smile. “You came!”
Nodding, I join the gentlemen in the group, most of them smoking and nursing beers. If only every church was this informal, maybe more folks would attend.
Sitting next to Jerry, I tell the gathered, “I’m Chris.”
“Welcome, we’re glad you could make it,” says a poser. This dude is so 1950’s it’s laughable. He’s blonder
than an angel, and even has his sweater hooked over his shoulders.
I just smile, taking my beer from Britney, amazed when she leaves us to it. Amy was never like that. If Adam asked her to be a hostess she’d hide in the attic until his friends had left.
“So, what do you do?” asks the poser.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I parry.
“Goodness, how remiss of me. I’m Elton, this is Chad, Duke, Marvin, and that there is Terence. I gather you’ve met Jerry?”
“Yeah,” I nod again, taking a swig of my beer and relaxing back on the swanky couch.
“Which church do you usually attend?” interrogates Elton.
“I don’t,” I admit.
“Aaah, we’re honored. So what drew you here tonight?”
I killed my father and wonder if I’m going to hell.
“Just curious,” I mutter.
“Do you have a bible?” he asks.
“Nope,” I shake my head.
“Would you like one?” he says.
“Sure,” I nod. I’ve read everything else, maybe it’s time I read the bible too.
After two hours of chatter I finally get to the crux of my reason for being there. “So tell me about how the Holy Ghost works?”
Jerry, now very animated with six beers in him, says, “The holy Spirit comes directly from God. It’s like playing Monopoly, you can go straight to Go, it’s the get out of jail free, card. When Jesus came, he explained that the holy Spirit is from God, and accessible to all of us who receive him as our Lord and savior.”
Elton adds in, saying, “Mary was a virgin and the Holy Ghost filled her, impregnating her with God’s own seed so we’d here his words and teachings. He came to free us from all sin, wiping the slate clean because his Spirit is powerful enough to affect living tissue, here in the physical world.”
Chad sits forward, elbows on knees to see me past Terence, saying, “It’s power. Power you can’t imagine. When Simon saw the laying on of hands and delivering the Holy Spirit, he called it power. He said he wanted it too. The holy Spirit is part of the trinity, and whatever happens to you is witnessed by the Holy Spirit, so on judgement day no lies will be told because the Spirit was always with you and bears witness and testament for all the deeds you’ve done, and all the deeds done to you.”
See, Adam will pay for what he’s done. He thought no eyes could see him, I saw everything.
With the voice speaking to me, the private one no one else can hear, excitement fills my veins. “What does it sound like?”
There’s a brief debate, but Jerry holds my attention when he says, “It’s private. Your relationship with God is unique, but you’ll feel it is good, you’ll know his Spirit is communicating with you, it’s a dialog between you and heaven.”
“A dialog?” I check. Fuck! I’ve heard Him talking to me my whole life! It is a dialog, completely.
“Oh yes,” nods Marve. “It gives you calm when you’re distressed, it fills you up with a feeling, an emotion, and when you don’t have the courage it speaks for you. It’s a well documented fact that the Holy Spirit spoke through the disciples.”
“Like puppets?” I frown.
The seance imagery comes on strong, a medium sitting at a table while spirits speak through her. That’s what they’re saying here, they’re saying we get possessed by a spirit, a ghost.
“Is that why you call it the Holy Ghost?”
“We call it a ghost because you can’t see it, only sense it. Some of the apostles likened it to a fire, or cloud, descending on them,” answers Elton.
“How do you know it’s not possession? How do you know it’s from God?” I challenge.
Jerry, sitting next to me, flips his bible open, reading to me about Legion. It’s the same story as Sibyl! One man, many voices, filled to overflowing with unclean spirits, but he was aware that he was possessed, and the apostles drove the spirits into swine. Because they had the power! The power of the Holy Spirit.
My father, he was evil, he was possessed! I hear just one voice, God was always with me.
It’s a gift I’ve always had, always. He’s been by my side in all my trauma, there to witness and comfort, to make sure I’m not alone. Speaking to me.
After all this chatter I know now that the body is the temple, I never required a church. Like the Christ in their book I was born with this. I didn’t need a synagog, I was always the temple. I am holy. I am God’s son.
I didn’t murder my father, he was never my father.
Amy tried to kill me but like Adam said,‘why couldn’t I stay dead’. I was dead! I was resurrected because no one can kill the son of God!
That makes me God here on Earth. I have his power! I wield it, I just didn’t know.
“And women?” I ask, wondering about Carrie.
“What about them?” asks Jerry.
“Do they have it?”
“Mary did,” answers Elton, “But she’s the mother of God. The bible says women may not speak in church, to cover their heads to show they admit their guilt for the fall of mankind from God’s grace, and if they want to know anything to ask their husbands. God rarely speaks directly to them.”
That’s why I’m still a virgin! I’m too good for them. I’m holy and they’re not. They’re born sinners, all of them.
“And Jesus could hear God speaking to him his whole life?” I interrogate, afire with this new intel.
“Of course,” nods Jerry. “He would never leave his son’s side. His destiny was far too great. Satan tempted Jesus when he was weak, hungry and abandoned in the desert for forty days and nights, and still God sustained him. Satan had no power over Him even though he was God’s first angel. As it says here in Luke 17, the Kingdom of God is within you.”
Just like Adam persecuted me, I was tired, hungry, alone, abandoned, but he didn’t break me. By rights I should be a mess, holed up in an asylum somewhere rocking in a corner with drool leaking to my chest, but I’m stronger than I ever was.
With my bible in my hand I walked home with the vigor of a man reborn. The voice within is subtle, but ever present. He was my ally and friend, I just never understood that He is my true father. Man is not made of flesh alone, he is spirit too. Mine has communed with the disembodied voice always.
I am Christ. My parents named me correctly.
Amy named me correctly like Mary named her son.
She must have known I was special when she tried to kill me and couldn’t. I shouldn’t have survived, but I did. Granted it was in an incubator, but I survived because no one can kill god.
I am god.
God!
In the flesh!
And oddly now that I know this His voice is silent.
We have finally become one.
The kingdom of God is within me.
~ Chapter 10 ~
This is my own dear son
with whom I am pleased
– listen to him.
~ Matthew 17:5
I’VE BEEN AT Cambridge for three months. The change is as depressing as it is exciting. England is tiny. Here you can go from end to end by train, public transport is so easy and user friendly, totally unlike my corner of the US.
I grew up in Idaho with great swaths of empty space to venture out into. Taking the bus was an undertaking, yet here there’s a cab on every corner, the tube and trains run efficiently, providing transport without issue no matter where you are.
My grandparents are ancient, so frail that I was afraid to shake Sir Giles Ridley’s hand when I met him. I’m a strapping young man (so he says), but much to their dismay I am built like a Viking. I’m still growing, it never seems to cease, yet my grandparents are both short by my American standards. I was given the stately tour around their manor in Bedfordshire, then sat down for a ‘chat’.
Sir, (not grandfather or Giles), informed me that he’s a property magnate. He made his fortune in the property market and still owns many real estate pearls, from shopping centers to office b
locks to homes around the world. As his grandson I’m held to the highest standard of decorum, after all manners maketh the man. But then a gentleman knows when to be ruthless without being rude. Those brash Americans and their loud inflections don’t do well here.
His words, not mine. Rightly put in my place my childhood rearing comes to my aid again. I can be ingratiating when I need to be, I can defer without having an ego clash, because this is a long game of chess I intend to win. Be a good boy and all of this shall be yours some day. I’ll cow toe as long as I need to, not a problem. I’m here to get a medical degree anyhow. They heartily approve, although law would’ve been more lucrative. Again, his words, not mine.
I’ve fallen with my ass in the butter, or as he says, bum in the butter. My first week was like orientation into a new orphanage. Shipped off to the tailor I have a wardrobe made to fit in my closet, I have slippers and dressing gowns, given a crash course in how to serve tea, which whisky’s to drink, how to eat at a formal dinner, and my manners have been polished so much I can’t go past a mirror without blinding myself. (Joke).
I’m a quick study, have a photographic memory, and am God. Seriously, they needn’t have worried, but as all the gold and silver is meant to be mine clearly when I became ‘one’ with myself my inheritance fast forwarded to match my spiritual pedigree.
The fact that I read my Bible so voraciously seems to please my grandparents no end. I’ve read it cover to cover three times already, committing it all to memory, and learning so much about myself. I was badass. Now I’m here, on a different continent, the birthplace of Aleister Crowley, and there’s a lot he’s written that I’d like to read. The British music I’ve been listening to for years is now commonplace, making me mainstream rather than an oddity.
One thing I have seen which is brand new on a social level, are the punks. When Clint Eastwood said the word in Dirty Harry, it was like calling someone a smart mouth. Here that isn’t what it means! A punk is an entity of social standing by the looks of it.