The Bliss Conspiracy, page 1
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The Bliss Conspiracy
Ehud Peled
Copyright © 2021 Ehud Peled
All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.
Translation: Ziona Sasson
Contact: peledu46@gmail.com
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
A flash of lightning that pierced the black sky illuminated something strange on the wooden steps.
A dark, leaden night. Low clouds. Torrential rains. Recurring thunderous clashes between cloud masses close to the ground. Bright flashes of razor-sharp bolts of lightning. A dark forest whose storm-thrashed trees wrestle with each other like a frenzied, death-starved pack of wolves.
All that is missing to create the perfect setting is the blood-curdling scream of a midnight owl.
At the edge of the forest is a narrow, rundown, asphalt road. Near the road stands a single house. Its shutters are closed. Its chimney is smoking. A small, bare lamp hangs over the front door, swinging like a pendulum, throwing its pale light onto the gravel patch like a crazy, nervous watchdog chasing its own tail.
The day that Amen bought this isolated house, the setting was totally different. It was in the spring, and it was noontime. The forest lay lazy and calm, like a satiated herd of sheep. The skies were a clear blue. The air was still and warm. Around the house, fire-red poppy flowers and yellow buttercups were in full bloom.
The rooftops of the nearby town floated beyond the flat hill, not too near, not too far.
All this suited Amen perfectly.
Up until two years ago, he was a simple bank clerk. But then his father died, leaving him a small apartment and a heavy bank account. Amen sold the apartment and quit his job. He bought the house at the edge of the forest and decided to dedicate the next three years of his life to confronting and actualizing an old urge that was stuck like a thorn in his butt since childhood: the burning desire to write a book.
Actually, the thunder and lightning didn’t bother Amen at all. On the contrary. As he sat languidly in his armchair, dressed in his velvety gym suit, across from the dancing flames in the fireplace and the bluish light flickering from the TV screen, the stormy sounds from outside soothed him like a pleasant melody − especially the drip-drop drumming of the rain.
The TV screen was running an “enchanting thriller” (as described in the papers), a film noir filled with mystery. That is, beautiful women revealing snowy white uplifted breasts, filmed at strange angles, and a complicated, convoluted plot that even a brain trust with Darwin, Freud, and Einstein might find difficult to figure out.
For the last 10 minutes, Amen kept hearing strange sounds, like a weak screeching or a grating groan randomly repeated. At first he thought they came from the film’s soundtrack. But after muting the sound of the TV, he could discern that the sounds were coming from the direction of the front door. He thought that maybe it was a cat, even though he hadn’t seen one near his house even once since moving in.
Amen sank deeply into the armchair, totally caught up in the movie’s suspense. He had already managed to ignore the growing pressure on his bladder, as well as the curiosity urging him to get up and check the source of the monotonous groans that mixed in with the medley of the abundant nocturnal night noises.
Finally, the movie ended. The mystery remained unsolved. Amen turned off the TV and got up to go to the bathroom.
Just as he returned to the living room with a sense of relief, once again that annoying moaning sound came from the direction of the front door. This time, in a small pocket of wind, it was sharper and clearer. Amen looked at the brown wooden board that, like a fortified wall, separated the safe warmth of his house from the outside.
He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid at all – for sure. It was not in his nature to be afraid; otherwise he wouldn’t be living alone in an isolated house on the edge of a forest. But just how long can one keep on hesitating? He hesitated a bit longer and opened the door.
He immediately identified a human body lying across his doorstep.
CHAPTER TWO
Most days in the Swedish city of Gothenburg are gray, but it was a particularly gloomy and rainy day when the body of a young man was found lying on the rear cement patio of the Four Seasons Hotel.
A rather superficial police investigation quickly revealed that the Swede’s name was Peter Hansen, a 34-year-old bachelor born in Stockholm, who had worked as a gas station attendant just 150 feet from the hotel and had jumped to his death from one of the hotel windowsills.
The pockets of the deceased were empty. We will never know exactly why he had reached this desperate decision, but a significant clue could be found in the testimony given by a dull-eyed young woman with acne scars covering her forehead who had arrived at the nearby police station to hand over a thin backpack that contained several items of clothing and other personal items belonging to the deceased.
In a small voice, the woman related to a low-ranking detective that she had met this young man about a month earlier at a local pub, and that he continued to live at her place for 10 days after their relationship had turned sour. That same morning she had asked him to leave her flat and get out of her life. Resentfully, she was forced to go to the central morgue, escorted by a police officer, to identify the body.
An inspection by the census registrar revealed that the young man’s parents had divorced long ago and both had left the country for unknown destinations.
But an aunt, his mother’s sister, was discovered living in Malmö. However, she expressed no interest in her nephew, and so the body was transferred to a charitable organization to see to the burial rites.
Before the body was removed from the morgue, several samples of skin were taken, as is standard procedure. These were put in flat, sealed glass jars that were then put into a special case and sent to the Faculty of Medicine at the university. These samples, like many others before them, were handed over to a pair of researchers, the brothers Hans and Lars Kornbach.
This was the last sample to be sent to the brothers’ research study, whose initial results had been published at a Conference for Research of the Soul, held at the university three months after the tragic death of Peter Hansen. The innovative research carried out by the two young scientists amazed their colleagues − as well as the entire world − with a claim that they had indisputably succeeded in identifying the “suicide gene.”
Research on the genome of the “suicide lineup,” whose tissue samples had been carefully examined over the last five years, exposed a clear and unequivocal correlation with a specific genetic segment found in all the studied cases of individuals who had ended their lives tragically, and that were not found at all in the chromosomes of the control group.
Although this study was loaded with scientific and technical details, the exciting discovery made the headlines throughout the world, and in the Scandinavian media in particular.
The Kornbach brothers starred in color chrome articles in the weekend news supplements, and for a while were even a popular item on television talk shows.
The claim, which suggested that the cause of the especially high suicide rate in Scandinavian countries lies in the presence of an objective genetic defect, was perceived to some degree to rehabilitate the Scandinavian lifestyle and provide a full reprieve of the factors that had been held responsible for the dark suicide statistics until now.
Scientists and researchers expressed their hope that, based on this genetic discovery, a cure would be available within a few years to treat the blue melancholy of the northern populace.
No one imagined that instead of improving the quality of life of millions of people and saving the lives of thousands of others, this discovery would be disgracefully exploited by an unholy alliance that would develop between greedy individuals and messianic clerical elements.
CHAPTER THREE
Those who believe in an entity that is beyond human comprehension may claim that everything that happens on Earth is the direct result of a plan or of circumstances orchestrated by a hidden force. Since such a claim is based on faith and relates to a conjectural reality, it can be neither proven nor disproven.
Since the dawn of humanity, the finest minds among theologians and philosophers have been coping with the question of Divine Intervention vs. Man’s Free Will. All moral doctrines stem directly from the one and only question: Is the small, fragile human, whose life is like a passing shadow, at all responsible for his actions, and is he free to direct the course of his life via autonomous decision-making that grows initially, uniquely, independently, and exclusively, from the flaccid gray matter inside his skull.
“Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery” – supreme moral commandments handed down to us by Moses on Mt. Sinai – remain valid, constant, and relevant only if we have discretionary free choice. On the other hand, if Pharaoh hadn’t commanded that “Every newborn son of the Jews is to be thrown into the Nile River,” and were it not for the courage of the Hebrew midwives, and were it not for the resourcefulness of Miriam, sister of Moses, and the basket of reeds, and were it not for the fact that the big crocodiles in the Nile River were satiated, and were it not for Pharaoh’s daughter who pulled the reed basket with little Moses ashore, and were it not for…
Moses, who gave us the Mosaic Laws, the Torah, on Mt. Sinai – was this nothing more than a mere accidental chain of events? One single chance out of hundreds of thousands? So if even one single link were missing, the Mosaic Laws would not have been given, or perhaps not to Moses and not on Mt. Sinai, and perhaps not to the People of Israel…
And if a Divine plan does exist, how far does it reach, how far is everything predetermined, and what – if anything – is left to the free choice of Man?
As we keep turning these wondrous thoughts over in our minds, it so happened that the father of a senior priest in Paris had a brother, the priest’s uncle, who was an avowed atheist and who had an only son, the priest’s cousin. The two cousins, who were complete opposites in their nature, lived near each other and befriended one another.
Both were named Stefan, after their grandfather.
The first Stefan decided to devote his life to God, whereas the second Stefan, who was a pharmacist by profession, never entertained the thought of the existence of a Divine entity, or any other entity, that controls his caprices or whose commands he has to obey or follow.
When the second Stefan died of cancer, his son Alexander was but 14 years old. His father’s cousin, who was by then a man of stature and was marked by all as headed for greatness in the church hierarchy, took little Alexander under his care, and treated him like his own flesh and blood.
Alexander, who was blessed with a brilliant mind and had harbored great ambitions since childhood, treated his guardian with the greatest respect and politeness − not only out of gratitude, but also because he understood that it might be to his benefit. However, despite the many attempts made by the honest cleric to raise Alexander in the right spirit, his young nephew’s piety was as distant from him as Heaven was from Earth. He perceived all mankind, including his uncle, as mere stepping stones on the path he would climb in order to achieve all that his heart desired.
When Alexander grew up and left to learn a trade and conquer the world, he remained in close touch with his benefactor and was careful to visit him at his home several times a year. It was during one of these visits that Stefan bared his soul to Alexander and expressed his deep sorrow over the general retreat of the power of faith, particularly among the populace of the European continent and, even more so, among the younger generation whose members chase after immediate gratification and refrain from attending church.
“The pace of modern life doesn’t leave people any time for true reflection on their internal world and on the wonders of Creation all around them. For nearly 200 years, mankind has been allured by the bustling city life, which conceals from them every patch of sky and leaves them with nothing sacred to calm their soul, to feel spiritually uplifted, and to connect them to all that is exalted and sublime.”
“In that case, if it is important to you,” Alexander said, “then you must focus on the education of the youth.”
“Today’s youth,” Stefan sighed, “is as superficial and flat as the computer screens that do their thinking for them, that they stare at day and night. This constant staring and gazing will, God forbid, bring upon us once again the reign of chaos in the world,” Stefan sighed. “Today’s youngsters are lustful. They worship the golden calf.”
Alexander, whose nostrils filled with the lush aromas of the midday meal coming from the kitchen, had no special interest in the future of religious faith or its development. But the word “gold” did catch his attention.
Even though more than 3,000 years had passed since that momentous event at which the Israelites deserted their leader who disappeared up Mt. Sinai and replaced the invisible, shapeless, imageless GOD with a statue they had cast from the utensils and jewelry they brought with them from Egypt, the glitter of that yellowish metal never lost any of its brilliance. Now the very thought of it filled the nephew’s eyes with glistening affection, as his brilliant mind, highly developed business sense, and maneuvering skills came alive.
Alexander knew for sure that even if the church was losing its spiritual assets, its material assets filled its basements with treasures. If only he could find the formula that replaces the material with the spiritual, he would perhaps become the first alchemist to actually transform spirit into matter. Thus, everyone would benefit − those who attain bliss, and those who attain wealth.
CHAPTER FOUR
The body was so tattered, so limp, so raggedy, wet, and slippery, that Amen could hardly find a part to grab onto in order to hold it or carry or drag it into the house.
He kicked the door shut behind him, tottered with his burden through the entryway and then dropped this limp alien onto the living room rug. It was only then, by the light of the halogen ceiling fixture, that he was able to determine that it was a young woman.
She was wrapped in the vestiges of what had once been a dress and was now water-soaked tatters draped around her like seaweed and other strange creatures.
The woman’s long hair fell across her face, down the side of her neck to her chest, and then twisted like a mud snake around exposed breasts that were plastered with leaves and grass. Her eyes were closed. Her exposed upper thighs, covered with scratches and mud, revealed the edge of her red panties.
Amen felt a rush of excitement, but his heart didn’t miss a beat. With perfect equanimity, he took a thin woolen blanket from the sofa, shook it out slightly, then covered the half-naked woman from her ankles to her neck. He knelt down and bent over her, examining her face and discovering with a sense of relief that this body was still breathing.
He stood up and went over to the wireless phone next to the TV set. He must call the police immediately and inform them of the road accident that apparently had occurred just a short while back on the secluded road near his house, and report the unconscious survivor who the storm had spewed onto his doorstep.
Just as he was about to press the last digit, he heard a sound behind his back. Amen turned around. The alien, who was resurrected, was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes wide open, one arm stretched out towards him and in her hand a gun that was aimed more or less between his eyes.
Amen slowly put down the phone. He wasn’t frightened by the gun pointing at him, but was curious and surprised.
That’s right. He wasn’t frightened, and there were three reasons for that: First, as mentioned earlier, he was a very level-headed guy who isn’t easily spooked. Second, because the woman’s bare breasts – the blanket had dropped down around her feet – were such a firm, protruding presence, that he was simply unable to concentrate on the immediate threat in his face. Third: “Lady, I suggest you stop pointing the gun at me. It’s very unsafe, and besides, it’s useless because there are no bullets in it.”
