“Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.”
- Samuel Ullman

I suppose it was vanity, but if I was going to start engraving images on my body, I wanted them to be perfect. As a result, I was almost out of paper, so I sent the Disciple to get some more. Currently, we were squatting in someone's hunting cabin, but the sun was shining for the first time in days, so I decided to go outside and find a warm spot to relax.  I stretched out under a tree, looking out over a small meadow, and began to work on a design of Freedo and Rizzo.  Rizzo sat on my head, picking through my hair as if he thought he could find something interesting there, and Freedo took the opportunity to chase anything and everything he thought he might have seen in the meadow.

Soon, Freedo's bark turned angry, and he whined and bolted for me. Rizzo darted into the back of my shirt as Freedo came barreling toward me like his life depended on it.  As he got to me and bolted past, the heavens opened up and it began to pour.

I grabbed my pad and started to hightail it back to the cabin. I had learned not to ignore my instincts lately, and the downpour had ruined any chance of sketching.  Suddenly, there was a crashing sound, and the bald man from earlier, the “vampire,” came tearing after me at a break-neck pace.

Damn it, I knew I should have brought my staff with me...the Disciple would not be happy.  I ran towards the cabin, frantically searching for something to use as a weapon along the way.  He was coming fast, so I gave up and made for the cabin.  I crashed through the door, grabbed my staff, and spun around, standing in the doorway.

But nothing was there.  Panicking I stared into the rain, afraid he might reappear at any second, until something crashed into me from inside the house, tackling me to the ground,  and pinning my staff underneath me.  My teeth slammed together hard, and I nearly blacked out.  I could feel his teeth trying to bite into my shoulder, while he pushed my face into the mud, and twisted my arm behind me.

I fought back, pushing him off me as best I could, and yelled for Freedo, hoping he would help me.  I tried rolling around to get at the staff.  It seemed like as good a time as any to try to do…something else…so I yelled at him, "Leave me be! You are not real to me."  Well...he still sure as hell weighed enough to be real.

Barking and growling more viciously than I had ever heard him before, Freedo grabbed onto his leg, giving me a chance to use a technique I had learned recently to free my arm.  He gave up on trying to bite me, and went for simply smothering me in the mud instead.  I struggled to keep my head off the ground, but his weight was crushing me. 

After what seemed like forever in this untenable position, I realized he was purposefully trying not to let me look at him, or touch him.  He released his grip on my head, and while I choked and gasped, he grabbed a large rock from nearby, and brought it down on my back.  It should have cracked my skull, but somehow it didn't.  I'd never hurt so much in my life, but I managed to keep going.  He brought it down again, this time on the arm covering my head, and while lifting the rock a third time, Freedo seized his arm and tried to shake the rock loose.  Instead, the vampire started to shake Freedo off, holding me down with just his weight and his free arm.

Since it was obvious he was trying to avoid being seen, I was determined to get a look at him.  He shook Freedo off forcibly, and Freedo whimpered as he hit the wall. This threw him off balance, though, and I twisted over onto my side, grabbing his arm and pulling him fully off balance onto the ground. We were now lying facing each other on our sides, at arm’s length, his legs wrapped around me.  His right arm was pinned by mine in the mud and I was lying on my left arm while his was on my jaw, trying to force my head away.

It wasn't until later that I realized why he was trying not to let me look at him.  At the time, it seemed to do nothing.

I began to realize he was getting stronger, instead tired, so I tried to roll away from his grasp, closing my eyes and ducking away from him.  I rolled out of his grasp and kicked at him and he seemed to let me go to re-approach the situation. We both struggled to our feet in the mud as the rain poured down.  He pulled out a knife and Freedo returned back into the fray, biting into his arm.

I reached down to try and grab the staff, still lying in the mud next to the doorway, but avoided letting him touch me. Freedo managed to buy me the opening to grab the staff, but this time he was thrown so violently and so far I lost sight of him in the rain.

I held the staff in front of me, trying to imagine he wasn’t there, but he definitely was, and he took several swipes at me to remind me.  Damn it!  I didn't understand what these "powers" were supposed to do.  They didn't seem to be helping me at all.

Now that we were on even footing I knew it was more important than ever to stop him from drawing power by touching me, so I tried to just take him down.  Letting my reflexes take over, I was able to block his attacks and sweep his feet out from under him.  I slammed my staff into his head while he was on the ground, but he took the blow, and reached up, grabbing the end of the staff and attempting to wrench it out of my hands. 

It was at this point that The Disciple appeared, like an apparition forming out of the mist and rain.  I shouted to him, "Help me!"

His answer was infuriating.  “You can end this situation when you choose Miss Wright. Will you rely on others always, or can you care for yourself? He and those like him will take what you care for from you as long as you let them. This ends when you make it end.  It's time to leave the nest little bird."  He went inside to put the supplies away.

I swore at his receding form and doubled my efforts.  I concentrated, but the vampire was able to take an incredible beating, and we were both still struggling over the staff, using it to keep the distance between us.

The Disciple appeared again, "You’re second guessing yourself.  You’re better than him."

Nothing else seemed to help, so I tried to rely on my instincts and training.  There we were, him on the ground, and me on my feet, struggling over the staff, and I wanted this creature gone, once and for all.  With a powerful kick I split the staff in half, causing him to fall back in the mud surprised…just long enough for me to slam the broken end into his chest.  He sunk into the mud, blood gurgling out of the wound, and convulsed several times before finally expiring. 

As he lay there, I leaned over him, studying him more carefully than I had time to before.  He looked like a stereotypical “Hell's Angel,” bald, with a few tattoos.  He was wearing a leather jacket laced with bones, and a necklace of teeth.  On his belt were several things that belonged to me, along with nearly a dozen dog collars.

The Disciple came over and knelt next to me.  “He's been stalking you for awhile.  Practicing on your reflections. He should have practiced more. Well done, Miss Wright." 

He went back inside as Freedo came limping up to me.  I carefully picked up Freedo, and carried him inside, bandaging him up as best I could while looking around for Rizzo.  As I went towards the door after finishing with Freedo, he spoke up again.  "You're trying to find a rat, in the woods, in the rain."  He set my sketchpad on the desk with a pencil. "Use your gifts.”

“How is this going to help me?  It didn't help against him." I motioned to the body.

"I disagree, Miss Wright.  Your power is growing; this is most likely how he found you.  If you want your pet Miss Wright, summon him."  He held out the pencil.  "If you do not like the way I teach, bind me again to my oath. It was you who freed me. Otherwise, Miss Wright, draw."

"Fine." I took the pencil and the pad, and harrumphed down in the chair.

 "Concentrate, something easy to start.  Draw the rat.  Once you reach its mind, give it a simple message, like, ‘Here is food.’"

I began to draw him, in the woods, buried beneath a pile of leaves and branches.  As I began to fill in the details of the sketch, I thought I could feel…something, so I thought about the cabin, and me, and food.  As I was finishing up, Rizzo came tumbling down the stairs, looking for the food.  I handed him some bread.

“You're getting it now.  You can make permanent versions of these with practice, Miss Wright, and then you'll always have them on hand.  If he's going to be so difficult, perhaps he should be your first tattoo…or your brave defender’s here.”

The Disciple began to dispose of the body as I sat at the table, sketching…and thinking.

Je pense donc je suis.

- Rene Descarte

Reality - everything that's happened in the last couple of weeks has really made me rethink my views of reality. What makes something real? A lot of what I thought was real, or not real, has completely changed. The Disciple says that it is only my presence that makes things real. And I have seen the effect that my "presence" has on his "reality." But is it really just my presence?

What defines my presence? Perhaps it's not merely my physical being. How do my thoughts affect that which is real? If I think of something, does it exist? If I forget, does it...cease to exist?

If I forget? If I remember? Apparently, whole...universes, realities, exist at the whim of the one-time gods, of which I am the barest shard. Do they cease to exist at their whim as well? If no one remembers the shadows of the reflections of a city created by the will of a long dead god, was it ever really there to begin with?

Logic would dictate their loss. All of the things which I held dear...the things I still hold dear, would cease to be without my remembrance. And these shadows, created out of a long lost whim...they would wither as well.

The Disciple speaks of no others who hold the shard, although his brothers search.

The memory, then, falls to me. The duty of maintenance, the lives, the fates, the very existence of infinite worlds, rely on my ability to remember them.

I can only hope that my gifts suit the task.

Je pense donc vous etes. 

Sketches

Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.
- Annie Besant, English Reformer

Well, either the Disciple is telling the truth, or I am batshit insane.  And if I'm insane, might as well go along for the ride.

I told him I needed proof.  I needed something that couldn't be in the realm of human experience.  Something so out there, it had to be true.  He said it would be dangerous, but I was ready to take on any danger.  He also said I would have to sacrifice something of myself, be willing to give my blood, before he could do it.  I agreed.

Then he pulled back his hood, and removed his gloves.  I had only ever seen his chin while he was talking, and I assumed it was just a trick of light and shadow.  But as he pushed back the cowl, I saw that his face was a patchwork of...of is and not, of there and not there, of presence and absence.  It was as if Claude Rains was standing there, only not just were the robes floating in air, half of his body was too.  In some places, I could see bones, muscles, skin...in others, the light shown right through.  It was as if his body were nothing, and was riddled with veins of reality, shooting through him to show glimpses of flesh.

After giving me a minute to absorb what I had seen, he drew my eyes to his arm, where a bandage was wrapped around it.  The bandage was used, one that I had discarded after an injury during our practice.  The area around the bandage was nothing, but as he began to remove it, I could that underneath he was fully formed.  He reached out, and pricked my finger with a knife, and as the blood dripped on the nothingness and ran down what would be his arm, he began to come into being...skin, muscle, bone, formed under its path.

I was speechless, but his words broke the silence.  "Is this the proof you seek?"  I nodded, and he held out the vial he wore around his neck.  He had told me before it held the blood of the First Disciple, which gave him form and substance.  I could see it was almost empty, and he drained the last of it in front of me.  I did refill it, although I had not the discipline to do the deed myself, and tears rolled down my face as he plunged the knife into me. 

There is some part of me that still resists, that wants to go back to the ordinary.  But it would be as foolish of me to insist that what is truly real is not, as to insist that what is mere shadow is reality.

Written in a bound paper journal

Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.
- Erich Fromm, German Philosopher

A Strange New World indeed.  The last couple of days have been the journey of a thousand life times.  The Disciple insisted that if we returned to my home, the vampire would find us.  He cautioned not to stay long in a single place, "until you can walk the path between worlds."  So we have been moving from motel to motel, to campgrounds, to the wilderness, and back again.  All the money and possessions I have in the world are in my pocket and on my back.

He trains me to fight, with knife and with staff.   He pushes me a little harder each day, and I seem to do things I would not have thought possible of me before.  At night, I go to sleep, sore and battered, yet rise on the morning as fresh as if I had rested in the finest hotel.  As for him, I have seen him neither eat, nor sleep, nor attend to the most basic of necessities.

He teaches me meditation as well, but so far it seems to yeild nothing but an empty mind.  I wonder at times what I have gotten myself into, yet so far he has not lead me astray.  It seems we are doing the impossible, but...

But, but, but, but, but...we are walking on the razor's edge between what must be real, and what must be fiction.

I must have proof.  Something, anything, that surely cuts across reality and shows, once and for all, that the impossible is, in fact, possible. 

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