*****
It was late the next morning when Rosenfeld found himself outside Gavorkian’s door. He had to admit that he was increasingly curious about Gavorkian’s hypothesis of possession. As an atheist, he couldn’t believe in this, but he had spent a good deal of the night on his laptop searching the Internet for information about the subject. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he was now curious. Everything couldn’t have been a coincidence; the synchronicity had reached supernatural proportions …
“A penny for your thoughts,” interrupted Gavorkian.
Out in the hallway, the two men stood and stared longingly down the corridor. Neither knew quite what to do with himself. After an awkward moment or two, they finally strode wordlessly toward the lockdown unit on the south end of the asylum. Rosenfeld was, naturally, leading the way.
“Good morning, Nigel.” Rosenfeld nodded to the guard outside the ward. Nigel Sterling had been a guard at Eastmont for seven years; he kept a journal of all of the patients that had graced these padded cells.
“Morning, Doctors. Are you here to see Shirley? She was ill last night, or so Bender says. But he makes up stories for attention sometimes. You know, on the night Shirley arrived here, he said he saw her crawling on the ceiling! I mean, honestly! How gullible does he think I am?”
“That’s one of the signs!” Gavorkian muttered to Rosenfeld, unable to keep the smirk from his voice.
“Yes, we’re here to see Shirley,” Rosenfeld told Nigel. “Please make sure no one comes in here until we’re done.” The doctor spoke calmly, as if he were just on a routine check, instead of searching for signs of demonic possession. “We don’t know how long this will take, but that doesn’t matter. No one interrupts. Got it?”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” Nigel said and saluted with a boyish glint in his eye.
Rosenfeld and Gavorkian strode once again down the chrome hallway. Stopping outside Shirley’s door, they each took a deep breath before hesitantly sliding open the door.
“You are late,” Shirley stated the moment Rosenfeld had closed the door. “We were expecting you much earlier.”
“We?” Rosenfeld asked skeptically.
“Oh, of course, Ira Rosenfeld, resident nonbeliever. I had forgotten about you; it is we as in me, father, and the great Uktena. Father speaks your language, but with a slightly different accent,” Shirley announced. “If you cannot understand him, I’m afraid I cannot help that.”
Rosenfeld fingered the Dictaphone in his pocket.
“Ah, he has arrived,” Shirley said. Her face began to distort. Her lips were longer, thinner, and paler. The once-blue eyes grayed and became wider. Her features became masculine, and her body gave off a dark aura. Even Rosenfeld sensed the evil wafting from this body.
“Greeeeetingsssss …” The voice slithered from Shirley’s mouth like the snake in the Garden of Eden. Shirley paused before walking over to Gavorkian.
“The great serpent is present,” she said, and her body began to twist and turn, convulsing violently. Her face crumpled in on itself and stretched outward again. Her eyes became black, and her hair appeared to grow. Her legs stretched upward, and she became at least a foot taller. When the metamorphosis was complete just a few moments later, a whole new woman appeared to be standing in front of them.
And, in both of the men’s eyes, she was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She was tall, thin, and pale, with high cheekbones and perfect red lips. Her hair curled wildly, but looked so immaculate that it could not be called messy. Even in Shirley’s nightgown, this woman’s perfect figure was obvious. Her deep, dark eyes engulfed the two men, swallowing them, drawing them in. She was what every man fantasized about. And her voice, as beautiful as it was, made Rosenfeld wary of fixing his gaze upon her, for fear that she would, like Medusa, turn him to stone.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to my world.”
The reality of God
I’ve studied the big
Theory of Everything,
essence of man’s gnosis
missing one sure thing.
Perception is the key,
I’m told in many ways,
logic symbols see
’cross universal says.
Material and abstract
are words to make men chew;
material thoughts are facts,
reactions, standard views.
Abstract cannot return
confirmation, as
imagination burns
one way somewhere, alas.
If I may paraphrase
with words that I have heard,
in truth we know the way;
pure truth speaks God’s own word.
And all of man’s confusion
is only sad illusion
of abstract thought infusion—
perception from intrusion.
Imagination’s purpose
is to extend Creation
not smear the truthful surface
in ego lust temptation.
The words of man are empty
when ears are grounded in
imagination’s fantasy
without God’s truth within.
And man’s clay heart is evil;
in lust and greed he walks,
forever empty dreaming, null,
the ways of wicked chalks.
And all of science studies
in logic rules of man
is just one side and muddies
refracting light in sand.
And in the truth dimension,
no warp of time and space,
spirit through ascension
knows loving life-force grace.
I’ve studied the big
Theory of Everything,
essence of man’s gnosis
misses one sure thing,
the reality of God.