Written on a piece of stationary from Motel 6.

“There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
 - Albert Einstein

So...today has been...a journey.  I don't think the world is ready for what I have to say, but I have to write it down, if only to keep myself somewhat sane.  So I'm going to start a journal.  For now, I just have this crappy hotel stationary, but tomorrow I'll make sure and buy a nice journal, maybe staple these pages in the front.

So, it had been raining all day at work.  I kept seeing "that guy" out of the corner of my eye, and once, I swear I saw a robed, hooded figure outside, walking in front of the glass entry doors.  I was just getting ready to start my closing routine when the hooded figure appeared in my computer!  It scared me, and I started.  It was only for a minute, though, so I figured I just had a virus.  I was in the middle of writing an e-mail to tech support when a kid called me over ot help him on one of the workstations.

We were just starting to move from the "helping" phase to the "doing your work for you" phase when the hooded man walked in the front door of the library.  I asked him if I could help him, and he said he was here to teach and serve his master, then he kneeled in front of me.  The kid turned and asked me another question, and I told him I wasn't talking to him.  Then he started saying something about not noticing I was on my cell phone.  It was when I was telling him there was no cell phone use in the library that I finally realized he couldn't see or hear the man in front of me...or at least he was acting like it.

I was convinced it was just a prank now, so I moved my foot a little and kicked the man in front of me.  He was definitely there.  I could feel him.  He asks me if I wish him to move, again calling me Master.  So, I motion towards the back office, in case anyone else could see me...and couldn't see him.  I was already feeling crazy, didn't want to give anyone else that impression.  We walked to the office, passing some coworkers on the way, who also acted as if he wasn't there.  While the kid might have been trying some prank, I doubt they were in on it.  It was just getting weirder and weirder.

I closed the door, and asked him why no one could see him.  He said something about them being only "Shadow," and so they couldn't pierce his veil.  So I asked him more...and he told me.  I don't think I can even remember how everything went, but he insisted I was a goddess, and he had to teach me to use my powers because I was in danger, and without me the whole world was in danger.  It was all very heady, so after a couple of minutes, I decided perhaps it was a discussion better had at home.  Besides, it didn't seem like I was gonna be able to stop this...guy?...from following me anyway.

When we went to leave, Wanda walked right into him as we walked out of the door, and fell to the floor.  As I helped her up, she also acted like nothing was there...like she had tripped, or stumbled.  I didn't know what to make of it (not sure I do now either), so I just decided to head home.

We slogged home through the rain, with the disciple (that's what he calls himself) complaining that it wasn't safe to be out in the open.  I told him if he wanted us to drive a car, he could pay for it.  His answer to that was to tell me that I could have anything I put my mind to...literally.  I wanted to ask more about it, but when we got home, the apartment had been broken into.  Freedo was no where to be seen, and Rizzo's cage was knocked over.

The disciple insisted this was the work of a "vampire,'  who fed off my god-ness, and was trying to take my stuff.  He said that thing was going to kill my pets.  There was no way I was letting that happen, so against his objections, I told him to find Freedo and Rizzo.  He tried to tell me I wasn't strong enough to face this guy, but I wasn't gonna let him hurt them.  Luckily, we didn't have to go to far.  Freedo had somehow managed to pick up Rizzo and jump out the window and onto another balcony.  We found him there, wet and shivering, and the disciple just jumped over there, grabbed them both with one hand, and jumped back to the window, grabbing it easily with the other...all while we were ten floors above the ground!  Quite a display.

Once everyone was safe inside, I started questioning him more.  Again, he insisted I was a goddess, and that I had powers he had to train me to use.  He said the guy I had been seeing was this vampire thing, and that he would continue to hunt me down.  I was finding this all hard to believe, so I asked him about this world I was supposed to be goddess of, and about these shadows he kept talking about.  Apparently, once there was nothing - he called it void.  (Big surprise.)  Then, into the void came thought...chaos.  Then, will to shape that thought.  And the first gods used their will to shape the thought into a city, which cast its reflection into the chaos a thousand thousand times over, creating these "shadow" realities, like the one we were in.  But the city was destroyed by the gods in a great act of betrayal, and soon they, themselves, were destroyed as well.  Internecine struggles and all that.  But...the gods had spread their seed throughout these shadows, and I had a small part of the gods in me, and that made me a god as well.  Supposedly, one of the few "real" things in all of these shadows.

Oh...and because the city was destroyed, the original void was taking over the universe, and the only one who could stop it was...me.  And any other gods that might be left...once I/we learned these powers he's supposed to teach me.  When I asked about him, he said he had once been with a god of war, and become more real, but he was broken now, and a disciple at this monastery where they took oaths to seek out these children of the gods so we could fix the world.  Great.  No problem.  I'll get right on that, and then we'll have dinner.

Throughout all this exposition, he kept insisting that I was in danger, and I had to learn these powers that he would teach me, that it was the only thing that could protect me.  And he offered to prove it to me.  Why not?  What have I got to lose?  We went over to move some of the furniture in the living room, so we could start.  When we picked up the couch, Freedo got under it...and then he let go of his end!  I tried to yell at Freedo to move..and then I noticed.  I was holding up the couch by myself!  I almost dropped it again in surprise.  It was tough, but I was holding up a couch!  Maybe he had something going for him, so I told him to go ahead and teach me.  Then he tells me he doesn't know what powers I have!  That only I do.  God!  Mr. Miyagi wasn't half this bad.

We must had gone round and round on that, with me asking what I could do, and him saying only I could know, and that if I didn't believe I could do it, I wouldn't be able to.  How frustrating!  Finally, I gave up on that, and started asking about him, and why he didn't just show up the first or second time I saw him.  He seemed surprise, and when I told him more about exactly what happened from my point of view, he said he had an idea what my power was.

So we spent the next hour or so doing some exercise where he had me look in a mirror, then visualize what's in the mirror, like I was supposed to visualize something else than what was actually there, and it would work.  Obviously, it didn't.  So he tried something else.  He had me close my eyes, and sketch the "vampire," then try to visualize him in the mirror.  I tried for what seemed like forever, and it seemed like nothing was happening.  Until I opened my eyes.  Then I saw him in the window!  And in the TV, and in the glass door of the bookcase...everywhere I looked, he was in the reflections, taunting me from the corners of my eyes.  The disciple quickly tore up the paper, and said that I had found his mind.  And that it was no longer safe.

After some back and forth, I agreed to stay in a hotel for the night, and we found a motel six nearby that would take pets.  He said he didn't need to rest, and would stand guard...and that he is.  I don't know if I can fall asleep with someone in the room like this, but at least Freedo and Rizzo are here.

I leave you with this, my future reader, myself...

“Are you upset little friend? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don't worry...I'm here. The flood waters will recede, the famine will end, the sun will shine tomorrow, and I will always be here to take care of you."
- Charlie Brown to Snoopy