Warlock, page 33
It passed past me, and I saw a few more flashes. It was moving to the village.
Everything whirled inside of my head, I misunderstand everything that was inside – sides of the world, my senses – they were misplaced, wrong. I was like a short circuit inside of my head. But one thought was brighter than other, and seems more solid it was about edge. I thought that what I see now wasn't the end of possible, there may be other things, much greater, much more powerful. Things that we may call gods.
I can smell it even now. Something rotten, I think that there everything rots, and that’s how it feed itself.
I hear it stamps – they resonate in my mind and stomach and see it’s blood between the “bandages”.
So, doc, what’s the diagnosis? ”
“Diary entry #55.
Another day that I took from something like a copy machine. Breakfast, study with Mara, some practice, dinner, talking with parents, some meditation, and going to bed.
This algorithm driving me crazy. I’m tired of it.
Oh, perfect, parent’s fighting…
Fuck you, diary!”
“Diary entry #56.
Another missed day. I found another missed fucking day!
I called Mara, but he mumbled something in a low tired voice.
It’s a madhouse when you turn on your devices and see that you jumped over yesterday. It’s a scary madhouse when you understand that you lived yesterday, and done something, and maybe even act like yourself, but do not remember it. It’s driving you crazy, when you point to yourself that yesterday day lived instead of you tulpa, personality that you created in your mind and gives a life to it. One of my fingers was cut.
Fuck… I’m tired and I’m scared…
Mom was in a bad mood, and later I discovered a cause – father do not sleep last night at home. He phoned and told that he stayed at work, that he has some release, and mother cried at him, and got drunk. She tried to say something about her headache today because of weather and I stayed silent. I want to say something: “Yeah? And that alcohol smell is also because of bad weather? Your vomit at down is also weather?”
But I stayed silent. I stayed aside.
Everyone here destroys his life in his own way – I am with the madness, mom – drinking her brains off, father… Hm. I don’t know his drug, but I can assume that he found some girl. And after this thought I hear voice in my head:
“We can try to found who she is.”
“Oh, hello, Mara. I ask for you in the morning, but you…”
She cut me off in a dull voice:
“I do not want to talk then. So, you want to know the truth, or you want to bitching me?”
Oh, I’ll find the way to make you sorry about that, and I’m even know how, but that I leave for a next missed day. And today I’ll play by your rules:
“How?”
“You need to take something that your father keeps close to him.”
“Like what?”
“Underwear,” answered Mara, and when I start to answer that she’s out of her mind, she said. “Shirt may be fine too. Cissy.”
I think about this a little, and then said:
“Ok. I’ll think about this. May I ask you what do you draw yesterday in my notebook?”
She answered with the same tired voice, but now in have something stubborn:
“Our. Notebook. It was practice. I tried to connect something. Not successful. But I prepared you something for day after tomorrow,”
I frowned and even begin putting a question:
“And what would be…” and then I understood that it would be the day of my turning to school. “Oh, right. What do you prepare?”
“You can take it from the left corner on the desk.”
I drop a sign on my study place and saw nothing.
“There’s nothing there.”
I hear her deep exhaling, and answer in a flat voice:
“Antony, you must be understand, that I chose my words with a high attention. I do not say “you can see it there.” Just “take”.”
I sat on my chair, and still there was nothing lying on my desk. But hell, I saw a lot of mad things last time, so I drop my palm in the place that she told me and felt something different from wooden texture of the table. Something small and cool. I drew my palm to myself without raising from the surface, and look under it only when it was near me. It was a coin. I took it and look under the lamp light – it has two dots and brown hexagon on it. From the first sign I knew that it was my own blood, and that is the reason of a cut on my finger. My mind was a mess.
“What’s this?”
I hear her smiling:
“A coin,” answered her. “You can call it your lucky nuke coin. If something goes wrong tomorrow – just drop it on your enemy.”
I look at a small disk of metal that in your world mean a small amount of money and tried to guess in what weird stuff Mara turn it in my own world? I’m feeling that earth slowly slide from my feet, and next second I’ll see that moon turn into the cat, and chess will tell me an interesting story about space-time.
Fuck it, I want to sleep.
Good night, my dirty diary.”
“Diary entry #57.
First day at school after a crash.
It was a total emptiness. Everybody looks at me, and I’m feeling dead instead of that scum, who’s a photo is situated in the main hall. Fuck him, and he was a trash!
Everything around is also dead. On the scale of thousand, oh fuck it – even a hundred years are a great deal, and you may say that hundred and a half – and everybody who’s you know or just born – is dead. And if you think about it – everyone around is dead too. Zombie apocalypse happened yesterday, congratulations!
We live this second, and next one – car, sarcoma, some meteor, or, fuck it – heart attack because of a lot of masturbation (yeah, guys, hairy hands are not the deal). And you’re dead.
But trick isn’t here. Trick is in thoughts about death. If you’ll think – wait for it, I’ll buy it later – and then, minute after some dickhead shit shot you in the park – you’re loose that thing that you wanted to buy. Other case – you buy it, and that dickhead thought about laundry instead of killing people. You have a thing that you wanted, but thoughts about death took tomorrow dreams from you. Death wins again!
So, what’s a point, you ask? Think, or not – you lose anyway. Yeah, suckers! Now you’re right! Jim, tell them what they won! And Jim would say you – you won another day on the Earth among such losers as you are, with Death walking nearby. Live with it – death rule your live as he or she or fuck it – it wants.
And the main trick is not forget about caped grim figure, main thing is always remember about it. Some Slavic nationality have a proverb – if you feel good – go to the cemetery, and if you feel bad – go to the cemetery. And you know what – today was another day at the cemetery named “my fucking life”, in the corner named “school”.
Al stuff that happened today – test, hitting me with a shoulder from one guy that left from the former bully gang, and drunk mom at home arguing with father, and even sex with Mara – all this stuff only a wind on the cemetery.
Enjoy!”
“Diary entry #58.
Today was a thought day.
Actually, it was yesterday, because now I’m writing it in a four of the morning.
Three main things happened today.
First one was the results of the test. We wrote it day before, and now I know that I pass it with a nice result. Fred and Mary was astonished – they knew that I haven’t enough time and brains to prepare properly. So, on the lunchtime I agreed to tell them how I done that. I ask them:
“What do you saw?”
Mary was confused, but Fred understood me, and said:
“You’re looking to the side. As if you’re read answers from something ahead of you. That technique would be helpful next week, if…”
I waved with my head:
“There is no special technique, as you said… Look, I’ll try to show you.”
I gave them three papers and cover them with their bags:
“I ask you to write three numbers, and think about them with all your strength”
Mary smiled:
“This is some trick?”
Mara that stood behind her shoulders smirked:
“Antony, maybe we’ll forget about this, huh? They’re even so not imagine…”
I looked at her for a split second and turned to Mary:
“Three numbers, ok?”
They obeyed, turn papers over, and closed their eyes. Mara looked at me with a sarcastic smile:
“It depends on me, huh? Ok, we need something from them anyway. Mary – three-five-seven, Fred – three-two-nine,”
I had repeated numbers to them and wait for a second, so they can check space behind them – is there some mirrors, or something like a camera above them.
“How…”, Fred begins, but I interrupted:
“Do you familiar with a concept of tulpa?”
Mary waved with her head, and Fred frowned:
“Something like mental projection…”
“Something like this,” answered I. “I trained it before the crash, but after it – it became something bigger than just projection. I can perform things like that.”
Mary looked at me for a moment, and then asked:
“Ok, I see how it can help you, but we?”
I smiled:
“Let’s make a reverse thing. I’ll think about three figures. It’s easier than numbers at first. And you’ll draw them. Ok?”
They looked at me, as I’m totally mental, but took pencils in their hands once again. This time they placed bags between them and covered their drawings from me with a hands. Mara touched their heads lightly with her hands, and look at me:
“So?”
I thought at her:
“Let’s go. Rectangle. Circle. And hexagon.”
She smiled and saw they drawing. But then I saw tension on her face, and her hands trembling. She looked at me with a blind eyes, and say me in a low voice:
“Hurry them up.”
I look at her for a second and say to them:
“Stop”
Mara took her hands off from their heads, and stepped back wearily. She looked aside, then on me, but it seems that she doesn’t see a thing, and then – puff, and just a grey smoke left. Friends looked at me with a confused glares. I said at last:
“Ok. They must be one circle, one rectangle and hexagon.”
And of course they were there. To be honest – not in the same order, and Fred draw a rhomb instead of a rectangle, but hey! They were all there. Hexagon rules – it’s not a trivial figure, you know? So, they believe me, and we set our meeting in the one local diner. I asked her why not that forest where we had talk some time ago, and she said that she, of course, wouldn’t show them all that I knew, but they need to see some things beyond.
In the evening I had visited my shrink, Norman Elvoy.
He was glad to see me in a good mood, asked something about school and test, and all that stuff. Mara helped me with her voice, without showing herself, and shrink was pretty pleased with our talk. But I have another plan instead of Mara’s. I said:
“Mr. Elvoy, you have a lot of patients like me? With head injuries?”
He thought for a second and answered:
“Not, really. There were a couple, but mostly them injures was caused by sport, or something like this. Shakes are a frequent thing. Why?”
I said with a light tone:
“I know that our brain is a pretty strange thing – someone forgot how to write, someone does not see the faces, and so on. Interested in what you got in your practice.”
He smiled:
“Nothing like that. I think that such cases are rare, and it’s almost in all cases is a medicament treatment.”
I smiled in an answer:
“And if I’ll see something that wouldn’t belong to this world what tablets do I need to buy?”
“Nice trick,” Mara said. “You’ll be sorry for this,”
He frowned:
“Do I need to worry?”
I smiled wider, trying to say in a pleasure tone:
“Nope. I knew the rules – see something – tell it to the doctor,” I look at him with a worry. “Hope that you’re real, after all.”
Norman Elvoy looked at me a couple of seconds, and relaxed:
“Ok, then I’ll recommend you some sedatives. Maybe something like clozapine, but short course. But you can’t but them by yourself – just by the receipt. In your former country doctors doesn’t gives receipts to patients?”
I shrugged:
“No, actually. There receipt is a prescription. Just you don’t forget all that medicines names. Or if a drugstore does something by themselves – then you need a receipt too. But other drugs – almost free. Or rather this way – the smaller town, the more freely you can buy some drugs.”
“I see,” said shrink thinking about all that I said. “But here, you can’t by something stronger then vitamins by yourself, so, once again – if something would bother you – just say to me, ok?”
I nodded:
“Ok”
So, this is being the end of this consultation, and in the doorway, where I shook hand of a shrink, I hear Mara’s voice:
“And now I’ll show you what you’ll get, if you don’t listen to me.”
And then something happened. It was a strange thing, like someone drop me under the water, not deep, but thick of water caused some deafness. Then I found much more accurate description, when I found that I can’t control myself – I was locked down behind a thick glass, allowed to see what Mara do with my body.
She (I) went to the dinner at eleven o’clock, as we agreed before, where Fred and Mary wait for a talk. Mara told them short story of her creation and receiving freedom. That was half a lie, but a lie in core points. For example, she said them that I can control her totally, and if I want – switch her off, or that in a hospital I felt that she would me a lead to deeper consciousness of myself. Bullshit.
Then she said rather a believable story about trick with a figures that she shows today at the lunch time. She said that as brain consist of brain cells, that can provide electricity, you can receive a picture of it, and you can effect on it with a picture and if your brain can work like a speaker, it may be also used as microphone either. And she thinks that this switch was turned in the crash. Hell’ if it occurs to me to sit in front of her and listen all that – I’ll believe in her totally. And then she led them to the outside, where small rain was going. They stood a little bit farther a dinner’s parking lot, just a couple of steps besides, in that area where no lights were shining. And there she took out from my pants a knife, and said:
“This is rather a spiritual thing, and I’m afraid this is the best way to connect us,” she drove a blade up on my hand, and looking on drops that wetted the ground below us, said, “I connect me with Fred and Mary to touch world beyond of ours”
She gave a knife to the Fred. He looked at me, but didn’t recognize any change in me. I tried to cry, to tell him with my thoughts something – but all I heard was Mara’s laugh. He cut his palm, and repeat all that Mara said. Next was Mary.
When they asked me what all this means, Mara said that we fixed some crack between worlds with our blood – in the witch hour we spilled our blood on the crossroads.
“But there is no crossr…,” begin Fred, and saw how Mara shows him sign of a dinner. Of course it was “Crossroads.” “Is that counts?”
Mara nodded with a smile:
“Yes. People choose names not without reason. No matter, they think about it or just an intuition. This is a crossroads, and now I’ll show you what you meet soon.”
And then she begat to talk. Sentences, words, letters, all meshed up in a solid ligature. It was a hypnosis like she ones used to me, but now I saw how it effects on somebody else. Despite night and darkness, I saw everything pretty clear. First, they looked as a puzzled people, I think they were at that second – listening word-rubbish from a friend. Words tried to mesh up with previous and next to them, but special order kept them from mixing, but to Fred and Mary they were a mash. And then, in ten or twenty seconds they began to breathe too heavy, their faces became pale, and they eyes closing. In one little flash of the second I saw their both eyes rolled, fucking zombies stood against me. Word by word, letter by letter, now you can’t find where is end or start for any of them, it was endless necklace, where pearls were vowels and consonants. They remind me ghosts, or rather shells without innards, they stood with a half-opened mouths and white eyes in the middle of the night in the dead end of a parking lot! Fuck! Maras voice almost become a hum, low, buzzing in the darkest parts of their brains. Writing this word and my hands trembling!
And then, Mary’s legs became soft, and she nearly fell on the ground. Mara keeps her straight by holding her, next was Fred – he swiveled to another side, and Mara almost let him drop. Both of them were on their legs, soft ones, but they stood without any help. They rub their eyes do not understanding what was it, but only I know what. It was an assurance. Mara closed to them all ways of talking about her to others. Psychological embargo.
“We had done a lot of things today,” She said with my voice. “And we all need rest”
Guys were so embarrassed that even can’t find what to answer to Mara, and went home almost silent.
And now I’m here, my filthy diary. Alone. Mara left me when I entered my room, she said “And this was even not all of my strength”. Her voice was too weak, but I hear that it was absolutely serious. Without any attempt to scare me. Just facts. “Imagine what I can if you really irritate me.” And then was silence. I’m scared and tired.
