CHAPTER 28

It was about self-worth. I was important. Now, I barely have the confidence to walk across the street to get a crust of bread. The voices in my head have become like psychic termites. People use to look at me and smile. Now they put their hands up to their nose when I approach. Are they smelling fear approaching? My name held importance, a status in the hierarchy of things. Now, I cannot get a loan, a dinner date. I keep seeing these words flashing across my name "account overdrawn."

The pillars of my belief system have been pulled down. You find yourself reaching into your pockets for a miracle. I can't even pay the tax on anything. I'm not one for handouts. I always wanted to maintain the image of superiority, divine rights. Now I am seen as homeless. Condemned buildings are my homes. I still have an apartment but I'm rarely there. I wander the streets of New York. I walk to anchor a light grid.

Even the rain can't outdo my tears. Faith is missing. There are no milk carton campaigns to return it. And you know the backstabbing gossip is like an icy wind. I can't begin to tell you how many knife wounds are in my back.

Pray for the drink to end it all. Being drunk or high I don't have to remember this life I was born into and live in the Eden I've constructed in my madness and search garbage bins for my gourmet meals and steal overheard conversations to make as my memories. No one wants to look at me. They hope a hole will open in the ground and I'd fall in it and hope the city will regulate me to a few blocks in the eyesore of the city. Don't want to discourage or disenchant someone's vision of abundance. When you think you have the world by the balls, someone pulls the rug from under your feet. What's everyone's favorite phrase. "I've fallen and I can't get up." There has been a scarcity in my life. Where is the love? Was I misappropriating the word for other uses? Have I played into my joke…lie…miscalculated truth.

Excerpt from "The Underground Letters of a Heretic"

He was in Central Park again. He would die here soon. He smelled charred wood. And he saw the Statute of Liberty walking out of a cluster of trees. She was in a pissed mood. She was making grunting noises as she approached the debris. She lifted her skirt and stepped over the charred remains and walked into another gathering of trees.

He heard someone moaning. The sound was like a thread in a labyrinth and he followed it until he came upon a Politician sitting on the partial remains of the wings a small chartered plane.

"You okay."

"Do I look okay? My plane crashed because I no longer supported the Great Lie. The skies are no longer friendly."

"Who are you?"

"I wouldn't wear the Mask of Pluto anymore. The truth had to be known. I can no longer be invisible."

"Well, I see you pretty well."

"I'm a Politician who lied to the public. Distracted them, used media hype to divert them from the laws that were being created to subjugate freedom as well as free will."

"Maybe the crash created a head injury."

"I can see your original form, why can't you hear me. God was on my side until I wouldn't wear his mask. Then I was labeled a dissenter. The Shadow Dwellers maintained their stronghold based on fears. Take out the opposition by whatever methods will serve the Shadow Dwellers. Do you realize humans are being prepared to be served up as a feast, a harvest and we have sold them to the Slavers willingly? They bring death. And I finally woke up to their true plans. It was survival of the fittest and they see themselves as the fittest. I am no longer a willing servant."

"And now, you're stuck on the astral plane."

"How many addictions do you have to avoid the truth?"

"I'm not sitting on the remains of a plane rambling."

"You are an architect of death. I see the sign of the scorpion in your hand."

"I pissed him out like I'm pissing off this conversation."

A voice interrupted as if over a loud speaker. "All thoughts unattended will be confiscated and burn."

 

They both ignored the announcement.

"My feelings got in the way of my duty. They wanted my mind back under house detection. My righteousness will have no grander days. I fear even the dead will haunt me for my transgressions."

"It's a bitch being in debt," Michael said.

"I don't want anybody's soul anymore. I just want my own. I don't want to be this media hero for people to pay homage to. You know wars are constructs to harvest emotional energies. The phallus must be fed."

"Why does guilt kick in once the damage is done? Why couldn't you put on the breaks before? Your crisis in consciousness will not save the victims you help create."

"Yes, I help create staged events to trigger certain emotions. Yes, I was a wheeler dealer in human souls. But you will wander lost like so many but I can see that this solitary thing you will become will be the way. Too late for me; I need to sit here; stay in this moment; I'm afraid to move; if I move, the Shadow Dwellers will find me."

The Statute of Liberty walked out from the gathering of trees, looked around, "Where am I supposed to stand to gather the weak and weary. There is no pedestal in sight when you need one." S/he looked down and realized s/he was standing on broken pieces of a rainbow and continued walking as Michael walked a different direction.