I am writing this on Graham’s computer in Amber’s spare bedroom and I have
been staring at the blank screen for over half an hour, at a loss on how to
begin explaining why I am here. I have witnessed some extremely disturbing
things over the last twenty-four hours and I feel incredibly numb and very
confused. I don’t know whether I am scared or relieved, happy or sad, or whether
to burst into tears or hysterical laughter.
It all started on Tuesday night. Alex threatened to leave again and he
sat at the bottom of our bed listing his grievances with our relationship until
3am in the morning. I tried hard to counter every complaint that he made and I spent
all night convincing him to stay, but it was a hopeless task. He wasn't
speaking to me by the time he left for work this morning and I would normally
be upset by this, but, if I am entirely honest, Alex is the least of my concerns
right now. I am too obsessed with the whereabouts of my notebook to care. Even
now I am worrying about whether I have left it at Elmfield house and whether
Leonard has read it. I have not heard from Leonard for over a week now and I cannot
bear the thought that it has upset him.
Although I realised that I should wait for a phone call from Leonard
before making another journey to Elmfield House (he gets agitated when people arrive
at the house unannounced) I became so desperate to recover my notebook that I
decided to pay him a visit yesterday morning, regardless of an invitation. I
sat at the back of the bus on the way to Elmfield House contemplating what I
would say to Leonard because the last thing that I want to do is offend or hurt
him, particularly since he plays such an important and central role in my life
now. Alex is distancing himself from me, Amber will not discuss anything beyond
her personal life and the situation with Luke is becoming increasingly intense by
the day. I don't even have a God anymore. And even though I am deeply fond of
Leonard, at the same time I am angry with him for taking my comfortable life
away from me and replacing it with a series of irrational fears and
unanswerable questions.
As my stop approached I became
incredibly nervous and I had second thoughts about visiting Elmfield House, so
I stayed on the bus and continued along the route until I passed by St.
Bartholomew’s Church. St. Bart's has always been my secret sanctuary in which I
can hide away and it has never failed to comfort me when I have been in desperate
need of consolation and reassurance and so, with this in mind, I decided to pay
an impromptu visit to the church, this time as a customer rather than an employee.
I gathered my belongings together and got off the bus at the next stop and
walked the short distance back to the church building, then passed under the
lych gate and walked quietly along the path through the graveyard and into the
porch. Rummaging through my bag, I took out my flat keys, selected the long
black church key, slipped the key into the lock of the old wooden door, took
hold of the cold metal handle and gently opened the door.
I was greeted by cool,
undisturbed air and the strong smell of furniture polish and I was pleased to
discover that the church was empty. There were no flower ladies or cleaning
ladies to contend with, for which I was thankful. I was not in the mood for a
conversation. The peaceful silence inside the building always has a calming
effect upon me, but this time it was accompanied by a grave sense of
disappointment. Perhaps the influence of Hollywood has a greater hold on me
than I had realised, but I had anticipated some kind of supernatural reaction
to my presence when I entered the building. However nothing had changed and no-one
seemingly cared that I was there.
I closed the door behind me, then
quietly made my way up the aisle and stood at the altar rail, flaunting myself defiantly
in full view of the large wooden crucifix and the frail, bronze Jesus hanging
before me, his face turned away. As I stood at the altar rail studying the
despondent figure on the cross I was filled with a strange mix of compassion
and anger. I have attended church regularly for some years now and I have spent
countless evenings alone in the organ loft drilling hymns over and over for a
Sunday service and throughout all this time I have desperately wanted to see or
hear something – anything that will reassure me that there is a spiritual realm
that exists beyond the drudgery of this world and that a divine authority is
watching over me. And in all these years now
was the moment that I needed to make a connection and now was the time that I needed to feel the reassurance of a godly
presence. But, as always, I was met with an empty stillness and the building felt
like an empty shell.
“If you are my saviour,” I muttered to myself, “then why will you not answer
me?”
Silence. My frustration quickly escalated to seething anger and I
whispered under my breath and with a child-like defiance: “You are no more
alive than the stones in this place…”
Again there was no reaction. The body on the cross looked lifeless and
apathetic, oblivious to my presence like a sleeping guard. And then a thought
came to me. Why should I wait patiently for the invitation to be extended? Why
should I not provoke a response? For how long will I allow Luke’s teachings to
lie dormant and for how long am I going to fill my head with dead languages and
arcane riddles before I test whether their spark is still alive? And so, taking
advantage of the quiet solitude inside the building, I stepped past the altar
rail, climbed the two stone steps and placed my hands on the front of the wooden
altar. I closed my eyes and concentrated hard and sure enough words and images
from The Omega Course began to flood
into my consciousness – countless snippets of sentences that I remembered from the
late nights that I have spent studying these ancient texts - and I felt the
overwhelming sense of authority that came with a deeply profound understanding
of them. If heaven will not reach out to me, I thought, then I will reach up
and drag it down to me.
“I address the spirit of this great and powerful biaiothanatos,” I
whispered, “Send your holy spirits to me, that they may obey me and transform
me into a vessel of eternal life. If you hear me then you must obey me.”
No reaction.
“You MUST obey me. Look into my heart and see who is calling to you. For
you are I and I am you.”
Again, silence. I could hear the distant
roar of traffic on the main street. Life continued as usual and without giving
me a second thought. ‘There is no ear to hear my threats,’ I thought to myself,
‘just as there is no ear to hear my prayers’.
I swallowed my disappointment and stepped
away from the altar but before I could turn around to leave I was wrenched to
an immediate awareness of myself and I realised that something was seriously
wrong. It all happened so suddenly but I can remember every precise detail of
the ordeal. At first I felt a warm tingling spreading across my neck and
shoulders as though I had stepped directly into the rays of the mid-day summer
sun and for a moment the feeling was quite pleasant, almost enjoyable, but then
the warmth moved outwards across my right shoulder and upwards into my ear and
it quickly intensified until it was an uncomfortable burning feeling on the
right side of my neck. My face instantly flushed and, fearing that I would
vomit or faint, I closed my eyes tightly and gripped onto the altar, rocking my
head gently from side to side to relieve the growing pressure. The
uncomfortable feeling settled momentarily, but then an unbearably sharp pain pierced
straight through my chest and my eyes were ripped open by a prickling sensation
that burst from the base of my spine and tore up my back like thousands of glass
shards scratching at my skin, washing over my shoulders and spilling down over
my chest like freezing cold water. I cried out, turned and stumbled down the
aisle in a desperate attempt to find help, but after only a few steps I fell
backwards and sat down on the cold stone floor of the church, gripping the side
of my throat and holding my breath to ride out the pain. My heart thundered in
my chest, the pain in the right side of my neck was unbearably sharp as though
my throat had been cut open from ear to shoulder and my head filled with
pressure to the extent that I feared that I might fall straight back down onto
the floor if I attempted to stand.
After a few minutes the
pressure in my head dispersed and the pain in my neck was reduced to an
uncomfortably prickly but bearable heat and I managed to drag myself onto the front
pew and sit for a while, trying to steady my breathing. When the pain finally
subsided and I was sure that I could move without injuring myself further, I stood
out of the pew and made to leave the church, but as I stood out of my seat a
sickening sense of terror gripped me and I was unable to move a muscle. I was
rooted to the spot by the most alarming sensation that made my scalp tingle and
every hair on my head stand on end. I wasn’t alone in the church. They were
nearby. I could feel them behind me, each one of them. In fact every pew in the
church was filled with them. I could see them in my mind’s eye and when I
closed my eyes they came sharply into focus; the thin ethereal figures waiting
obediently in the pews, sat upright and to attention like an army of men awaiting
orders. Most of them were very faint and they seemed to flicker in-and-out like
an interrupted television signal but some (I suspect the ones that rested only
a few metres away in the churchyard) appeared solid like living people and they
were clearly distressed and confused by their incorporeal state. And amongst
them were the most bizarre creatures that I have ever seen - horrifically gaunt
and wraithlike men (some contorted into the vilest positions), curious
long-haired beasts with human eyes and short bird beaks and small monkey-like
animals that stared with wild eyes, screamed silently and stretched their arms
into the air like a child desperately begging to be picked up by its mother.
I was afraid to turn around
for fear that I would see them with my own eyes, but I could feel their despair
pouring into me and I was overcome by a dreadful sadness that threatened to
reduce me to tears at any moment. I knew who they were. Each one of them. They
were the pitiful and tragic creatures that had been abused for centuries and
placed into chains for the amusement of cruel magicians and curious individuals
who toy with ancient rituals and arcane spells. Curious individuals like myself.
I was terribly ashamed and I wanted to confront them so that I could apologise
and beg forgiveness, but at the same time I was possessed by an overwhelming
sense of acceptance and achievement that swelled my heart to bursting point. At
last I had been heard, and I was thankful.
My attention was once again drawn towards the altar and as my eye rested
on the crucifix I noticed that it looked different somehow. I could see greater
detail on it than before, but not only could I see the finer detail, I could feel it. I could feel the grain of the old wood
and the cold, smooth bronze of the Jesus figurine. And as I extended my gaze
outwards into the main body of the church, I realised that I could feel every
fibre of the building. I could touch the hard wood of the rafters. I could run
my fingers across the rough texture of the walls. I could even smell the
flowers in the porch outside. And not only could I feel the objects around me but I could project my sense
of self, my aura, my physical power, the energy that radiated from my back and
chest outwards in every direction until it touched the floor, walls and
ceiling. And it did not stop there. The energy seemed to pierce straight
through the walls, stretching out for miles in every direction beyond the
church building. I was possessed by an overwhelming sense of empowerment and tremendous
physical strength like nothing that I have ever felt before.
My body felt like stone.
My chest felt like armour.
I was invulnerable.
And it was at that moment
that I understood. I understood why the church walls had been silent for so
long. I understood that I have not received a response because I have been
making offerings in an empty tomb. He is not here. As I studied the figure on
the cross I realised that I have already heard his voice and I have heard it nearly
every day for almost a year. His voice echoes all around me. I hear his voice speaking
through Leonard and I hear his voice speaking through Luke. They have taught me
not to surrender to my mortality. They have taught me not to be a willing lamb
to the slaughter. They have taught me to fight for my rightful place amongst
the gods. Leonard is right, we entrust our hopes and desires to divine heroes
that we fashion out of common men while we fail to realise that we possess our
only true means of salvation within ourselves.
I stood carefully and stepped into the aisle, deliberately keeping my
line of sight low to avoid catching sight of something seated in the pews that
could terrify me beyond belief. I strode
down the aisle and my footsteps reverberated around the empty walls. There
was no quiet respect this time.
I didn’t care if the gods heard me. Each
loud footstep defiled the sanctity of
the place.
I am here.
Listen to me.
I passed by the old statues and icons that stared at the floor and
avoided my gaze. Maybe they could sense the mechanics of change whirring deep
inside me. I would not call it arrogance but rather a new-found self-confidence.
I have always believed that I am no better than the next person, but as I
walked out of the church building and along the main street I felt greater than
everyone in the entire world.
