DO YOU SEE ANYONE ELSE?
Oh, not Oh, my God, my Cod.
WHAT IS IT?
No! You’ll spoil it/me! I cannot! Don’t you see my station, my purpose? It must be my purpose! I have no other! Get away! No!
WHAT IS IT!
Melinda. Floating, naked. Floating toward the cross. Not Stay away! Stay away! My purpose!
STOP IT.
Help! Help me! Don’t you touch me, not you. You’re naked, naked, naked! Stop her!
SNAP OUT OF IT! STOP DREAMING!
I—
QUIET. COMPOSE YOURSELF. I WILL INTERPRET YOUR DREAM. THOUGH I MUST SAY THAT THIS THROWS A NEW LIGHT ON YOUR PSYCHE.
DO YOU SEE WHY YOU ARE THE ONE ON THE CROSS? NO NEED TO ANSWER. YOU SEE YOURSELF AS CHRIST—WHAT A NEW ANGLE!—MORE PRECISELY, AS THE SECOND COMING. THERE ARE PARALLELS, OF COURSE. YOUR VIRGIN BIRTH, FOR EXAMPLE. AND YOUR SUPERHUMAN POWERS. YOU WERE NOT ABLE TO SEE A PURPOSE TO YOUR LIFE, SO YOU CHOSE TO CAST YOURSELF IN THE ROLE OF A SAVIOR. IT SERVES A DOUBLE PURPOSE: FIRST, IT REINFORCES ALL YOUR CHRISTIAN MORES AND VALUES THAT YOU WERE TAUGHT AT AC FROM BIRTH; SECONDLY, IT GIVES PURPOSE AND MEANING NOT ONLY TO YOUR LIFE BUT TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSE WHICH SOMETIMES SEEMS CHAOTIC TO YOU-THE WARS AND ALL.
I am thirsty.
IN A MOMENT. YOU SEE MORSFAGEN CASTING DICE, FOR HE DESPISES AND ONLY USES YOU FOR HIS OWN BENEFIT. THE CLOAK SYMBOLIZES YOUR LIFE. THERE SEEMS TO BE A HINT OF THE FUTURE IN YOUR DREAM HERE, AND YOU SHOULD BEWARE THE MAN.
Go on.
YOU SEE CHILD AS A THREAT TO YOUR NEATLY BUILT THEORY. HE IS ANOTHER VIRGIN BIRTH. YOU REALIZE THAT HE HAS BUILT THE SAME SECOND COMING THEORY TO EXPLAIN HIS OWN LIFE PURPOSE. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SINCE HE HAS MET YOU, HIS LIFE PURPOSE HAS BEEN SHATTERED AND HE IS HUNTING FOR ANOTHER ANSWER. YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT. YOU DON’T WANT TO HUNT.
THE WOMAN, MELINDA, IS ALSO A THREAT TO YOUR PURPOSE (OR RATHER THE FANTASY PURPOSE YOU HAVE CREATED FOR YOURSELF). CHRIST COULD NOT FALL PHYSICALLY IN LOVE WITH A WOMAN. BUT YOU HAVE. ADMIT IT. THIS IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE. LISTEN AND KNOW THAT YOUR PURPOSE IS TO LOVE AND COMFORT—AND BE LOVED.
Could that be a purpose?
IT IS THE OLDEST PURPOSE. WASH YOURSELF CLEAN OF FALSE PURPOSES. THE REASON YOU LIVE IS TO LOVE. DON’T SEARCH FOR LARGER MEANINGS, FOR THE WHY OF THE WORLD OR THE REASON IN HATE AND WAR. BE SATISFIED THAT YOU NOW KNOW YOURSELF. IT IS A WISE MAN WHO KNOWS HIMSELF.
VI
I slept well, waking refreshed at about ten o’clock. My insides felt warm and free—as if a large, cold chunk of frozen emotions had been melted within. It was freedom for the first time in a lifetime. The machine was much more than the name Mechanical Psychiatrist implied. It was David with his harp, talking of dreams.
I went to AC only for money this time, not to demonstrate my superhumanness, my wild talents. With a few more paychecks in my pocket, my Melinda and I could be vagabonds for an eternity—escaping the ugliness, the filth.
I parachuted from the hex room down into the labyrinth, not trusting to stairs that might have been there yesterday and not today . . .
There was a clacking of hooves on rock.
There was an outline like a child’s scrawl, not so definite, not so real as the day before.
An indefinite form with a vague odor of musk and all textures of dark hair that fell like night mists.
“Get out!”
I mean you no harm at all.
“And I wish not to harm you. Get out.”
Yesterday I fashioned a mighty sword from the very air itself. Do not forget that.
“I beg of you to leave. You are in danger.”
From what?
“I cannot say. It is in the knowing that the danger lies.”
I swung the sword, and he dissipated into an eerie blue vapor that clung to the walls until the wind whistled in to blow it away.
Two hours into the session, as I was sprawled on the dirt shelf above the pit, grasping at thoughts and diverting, them toward the waterspout, a “G” drifted out, and with another level of my mind, I grasped at it and traced it. G to Grass . . . which is dark Green and bendinG over the hills . . . toppinG the hills to see GGGGG … G … G … God God God God God God God like a whirlwind moan-inG and babblinG over the Glens, cominG, cominG, twistinG relentlessly onward toward me . . . G … G …