Dare The Devil
“I
wonder what you’d think if all the changes didn’t come, for growing old
is only going back to where you’re from.”
--Kansas, Hymn to the Atman
Home again. Mommy
and Daddy’s house. Safe.
No voices. No powers.
Lori was safe too. I had
held her for hours and we talked openly, completely, not like before.
About what I had done, and what had happened. And of course about how sorry I was, but at a certain point
the words became empty, since there is a limit to what words alone can do.
She was fully aware of everything, albeit quite shaken, and
showed no signs of any lingering effects. So
when her family got home I felt it was OK for me to leave her….And I wanted,
needed to get away, because I had some things to do, some things to get rid of,
and I couldn’t stand looking at her mom and dad, knowing what I had brought
into their daughter’s life.
I kissed her cheek, and with a final hug said goodbye.
I needed to take action, and it was not a challenge to know
where to start. My bedroom was
ground zero for my attack on myself and decency, and I had plenty of work to do.
First, the stash box.
I snuck it into the bathroom, and flushed the marijuana and Thai stick
and hashish down the toilet, to join the rest of the sewage where it belonged.
Funny how even after yesterday I hadn’t done that.
Funny.
But I wasn’t laughing.
The truth, the realest real truth, was that even “finding
myself” laying on a school playground asking demons to kill me was not enough
motivation to get rid of the drugs. I
was still, in the back of my mind, in echoes of my mind I did not even know
existed, thinking I could somehow control and adjust and fine-tune the
experience.
Only Lori’s possession (what else to call it?) had
actually touched me. Mere
psychology? I couldn’t possibly
see how. She knew things that she
could not possibly have known. And
there is no video, and I cannot show or prove it to you, but I knew beyond doubt
that the thing that talked to me was not Lori.
Period.
My experiments with drugs and the powers and all had
subjected her to an invasion by a foreign spirit. A very unfriendly one.
I was only grateful that she had not been more seriously
hurt.
Grateful to the core.
It was only that glassy, red-eyed stare, seeing my
sweetheart so not herself, that finally broke-down my walls of delusion
and allowed me to escape.
The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
All she had ever done was love me. Yes, with all of her, including her body, and that was not
good for her. God does not punish
us for our sins. Our sins are their
own punishment, the very thing God’s corrective guidance is meant to save us
from. And with the drugs and
premature intimacy and occultism we were in a hell on earth that only sought to
destroy us, I could see so clearly as I purged my room of all traces of the
spiral into madness.
But what would I use to purge my memory?
And yes, perhaps it is another cliché, but it is also the
truth, that in that one moment I was totally and completely changed forever,
that moment when I looked at her and…
Best not think of it.
But couldn’t forget it either, couldn’t get it out of
my mind…
Nor could I forget that it was I who took her down
that road.
So as I threw away the drugs… and the Satanic rock
albums… and the pipes and the screens and the pipe-cleaners and the old
baggies…and the blasphemous drawings I had made of myself as ruler of the
world, empowered by forces that should not exist in the life of a 15 year old
Christian girl…I also knew with certainty that in order for my commitment to
be real, to give Lori and myself and perhaps, just perhaps our relationship, a
legitimate chance to heal…I knew that I had made love to precious, gorgeous
Lori for the last time.
And I went to bed and covered my head with the blanket, and
continued to cry, a crying that had not seemed to stop but only take a small
pause from earlier when I had experienced such relief when I saw her eyes open
and realized it was her, and not…not…not whatever that unspeakable thing had
been…I did not know exactly what it had been, and did not want to know, and
never would know with mathematical certainty…but I did know I wanted it gone
forever and would do anything and every single thing in my power (oops don’t
use that word, too close, too soon, let’s just say ability) to make
sure it never came back, ever.
And I cried…I cried for sorrow…I cried for relief…I
cried for my stupidity and recklessness and I cried in shock for how close I had
come to doing something irreparably harmful to myself, and I cried in anguish
and begging and pleading that I please Dear God, Please, that I hadn’t allowed
irreparable harm come to Lori.
I didn’t know hurt like that was possible.