Amara

Gnosis Temple

Chapter 1 The sun directly overhead a courtyard filled with people standing neatly spaced in union their children out before them quietly raging peacefully embracing and in the center a small man standing larger than the rest – a pillar to the others a prism dividing the light into each of them. Who is Simon? In the beginning there was nothing; no problems, no worries, no happiness and no joy. Then came lucidity and self-awareness and the child which was running on auto pilot was now more than a system in motion. Next came an understanding; of love and pain and religion and all of the other things that are misunderstood throughout one’s life. And finally came logic and logic was like a warm blanket that covered the mind of the child and kept it warm and safe and allowed it to grasp that which was previously unattainable. Along with the logic came the idea that all things have a beginning and an end. It was this seed of an idea that grew to be a flowering thorn bush that would pierce into all of his other thoughts. His resentment grew towards that beginning given to him and toward the gift of life given to him by his creator only to be taken away in the end. This life is on loan he understood, and the gift is no gift at all. So the grievance became the heart of him, for the offense was of his soul – and the grudge sustained. Until one day the vein that supplied his brain with the liquid of life gave in and the child fell into a dream. And in the beginning there was nothing. Lespin Tomis? She asked as she entered the last line of text to be catalogued for today. This line bringing her halfway to her goal of transferring all hard copies of information into the data base for easy access. Forty five of the ninety years worth of documents that were filled out signed off on and eventually deposited into boxes stored in a basement of this long standing institution. Patient after patient and page after page the work was tedious and unrewarding especially for Cadi who was only months from receiving her masters in psychology. However she was intent on finishing the arduous task mainly because it was her idea and Cadi finishes what she starts. It’s just the type of person that she is, honest, caring, mindful and determined. She’s the kind of woman that is ever present in you mind. She is beautiful with perfectly set soft brown eyes that were disarming when their gaze was set on you – eyes which she now turned to Ms. Travertine, the head nurse. Yes Ms. Travertine responded in her overly assertive tone – which stemmed from the resentment for yet another starlet still wet behind the ears coming into her building and soon to question the policies and procedures that she herself had enforced successfully for the last three decades. There was no question as to her success, Ms. Travertine ran a tight ship and in the few months that this frail little thing has been here she’d already splashed around in her pool with her crusade for technological advancement. Yes Cadi may have turned some heads but it was the discipline that Ms. Travertine had maintained over time that kept this ship afloat. She wasn’t about to budge an inch. “Discipline,” she repeated to herself, the lines on her forehead hardening and continuing out loud to Cadi. “It seems the powers that be have deemed it fit to charge you with his care from now on. I’m to ask you what schedule he should adhere to from now on,” and her rigid features softened for a moment while falling into the depths of peace in Cadi’s eyes but she held fast before her guard let down and the moment passed while she studied Cadi waiting for a response. Tell me about him, Cadi said. He came to us from Nevae House under state mandate to balance allocation of government children when he was about eight or so and put in the children’s wing. Then slowly worked his way over to where he is now. From what I understand he is in a self induced coma from which he wakes occasionally but the doctors can’t seem to keep him lucid. He has been that way his whole life so I’m not sure what there is to be done with him. And family, where are they? Cadi asked. None to speak of according to the file he was found on one of the towering boulders in Paradigm Gardens. So what is his current schedule? He has physical therapy daily and once a week he is taken into the garden for a few hours as per his previous physician’s directions. That’s nice – I like that, Cadi said, well let’s continue the routine until I get to know him. “Very well,” Ms. Travertine answered as she turned away. She seems sweet but trust has to be earned she insisted to herself walking away. This is the house of Simon G. Steepl. This is the house of insanity because everything in this house is in an utterly complete state of sanity. The furniture is straightened, the dishes are clean, the silver is polished and everything is as it should be. All has a place and all is in its place because everything is in order in Simon’s house. Simon likes order because Simon is successful and Simon is successful because Simon is logical. Simon is calm and collected and he hasn’t said a word all day. He hasn’t had to. He has been alone all day. He spent the whole of it maintaining his garden by cutting and pruning and tilling and grooming his landscape. He takes pride in his garden and finds it soothing to invest his energy into the earth. It makes him feel connected in a way that his ancestors must have felt. More than that he likes the fact that it exhausts him and exhausted sleep brings fruitful dreams. This is what he is thinking as he lays in bed eyes closed and waiting to drift into slumber. It begins. His breathing slows and his heart rate accommodates as he enters the hypnogogic state, the half-reality state or the grey area of perception that bridges the gap between your waking life and your dream life. While on this bridge just as his lucidity begins to drift away for the night his mind discharges a breath from his subconscious in the form of a tribal drum booming so loud that the walls must have shook. Instantaneously Simon is upright in his bed surveying the damage that isn’t there. He sits there for a moment alert and confused wondering whether he should check the doors for signs of an intruder but the house lays in the quiet still of a dead planet floating in the vacuum of space. So he lays back down because this has happened before weeks ago the same noise. The drum had awakened him mid-sleep but then he did check the doors and the house and in his unease stayed up the rest of the night. Not tonight though; tonight he won’t give in. So he lays there quiet and calm and listens to the silence. Boom and it’s crystal clear like his head is inside the drum, but he doesn’t open his eyes. He grows calmer now realizing the sound is in his head and again the drum. The sound simultaneously reeling in his consciousness and releasing his subconscious self. And again, but he notices something in the background now – somewhere in the silence. He drifts deeper into slumber as he hears the voices faint and in the distance and the drum softer this time. Familiar voices growing closer and are almost clear now and the drum. Whose voice is that, he asked himself – so familiar. Suddenly he is aware of himself lying in bed listening to the chaotic symphony in his head. DAMN IT, he yells at the ceiling fully awake and let down by the premature end to what seemed to be an interesting dream. Eyes open he looks to the clock on his nightstand beaming sarcastically 12:01. So he closes his eyes and tries to sleep but his mind is cloudy and he can’t relax. 12:30 and his body is uncomfortable so he turns over. 1:15 he’s on his back again wondering which part of the brain the drum comes from. 2:30 and he is thinking about time travel and whether or not it is possible. He has never been able to decide because he always gets locked into the same question. If you go back in time and shoot your father before you were conceived then who shot your father? It’s a question with no answer and Simon doesn’t waste time on questions that don’t have answers ---- unless he can’t sleep. 3:14 and he is concentrating on his breathing and he is trying to meditate. Lolia Glosso, she is the pins and needles you would feel in your brain upon recirculation if a brain could fall asleep like an arm or a leg. Maybe he can slip past her into his office without her noticing. Simon treats her like a disease you’re not supposed to have but she is completely attached to him and does everything she can to engage him currently to no fruition. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she was more subtle—a word here, a phrase in passing but it’s all or nothing with Lolia Glosso. He makes it to his office but it’s all in vain because he’ll still have to see her at the staff meeting where she’ll undoubtedly sit right next to him praising his every gesture and making mental poems about his every little everything. She’ll do her best to speak for Simon whenever she can – a subliminal message that she can complete his thoughts and maybe his life. Simon wouldn’t dream of it. If Lolia had it her way she would always speak for Simon but like everyone else in the world Simon has made a habit of disregarding the wisdom that the Lolia Glosso’s of the world might possess. And the drum! In his office? But this isn’t his office. He’s still sleeping. He can feel the walls in his room closing in around his bed – slowly invading – slowly advancing and he decides to give in and releasing his fear he takes in a breath. He listens to the voices that crawl in his head as he lay down. Familiar voices speaking in fragments of familiar conversations some recent and some from long ago – some voices not so familiar at all, they traverse his mind simultaneously in broken rhythm rising and falling around him with crescendo as they pass creating a song that keeps playing and the drum that keeps beating constant and inviting it calls to him. Simon focuses on the moment trying not to force it and allowing the calmness to wash over him to guide him inside of himself. He is walking down a street now and thick drops like pebbles fall down from the clouds above exploding on the asphalt. Gradually he is lifted by the small of his back by his own ambition and he is flying now. Up he climbs past the reach of the rain arrows that plummet shot from the sky’s bow toward the earth and up past the stars that fall beneath him. Climbing up until he reaches a place beyond light and past all distractions – a place of calmness, a bubble of peace floating in the ocean of chaos where he was all that existed; where no light entered and yet he could see where there was no air to fill his lungs and yet he could breathe. In the darkness alone and at peace he exists. Off in the distance a change in the environment something traveling towards him out of the primal emptiness of space– a fluttered plane of light infinite in dimension it charges at him yet he does not falter. It threatens his life and yet he does not fear. He sees the violently rushing unknown attacking and somewhere inside him he knows that no harm will come from this collision and as it closes in he spreads his hands out in front of him raises his arms out to embrace it and it connects with all of him at once. For a moment they are one as it passes through him. Simon is the light is Simon. And for that moment there was none – inexistence for two entities which had only ever known existence – an eternity in that moment. It was beautiful like the instant before creation and frightening like the moment of birth. Though, born as one they fell divided ripped apart and whole again to rise separate to continue their individual journeys. The liquid fluttering plane of light traveling constant away from him as he watched and felt it inside him still from the lifetime they had shared. He had found symmetry in himself, in the light and a perfect symmetry to all things part of a greater truth; the truth of inexistence. He traveled on into the light of darkness – then further to the force that controls it, to the force that is guiding him and beyond to the force that made him. He tries desperately to suppress his feelings and sterilize the locus swarm of emotions like a snow storm exploding inside him and inhibiting his ability to experience fully what was happening. He is dreaming but is it real. In the dream, life is impossible and in life – dream is. Real is life is the dream. He lets his mind wander through thoughts of cohesion of the world all around him while maintaining his lucidity and focusing on the images and phrases, the sounds and the smells as they surround him and releases control of the moment allows himself to be part of the process. He listens to the secrets in chaos they’re trying to guide him deeper inside of himself and he gives in and in an echoing loudness whispers give me all, give me myself. A mercurial disc shaped mirror no larger than a thought materializes in front of him. It assembles from the nothing all around him like it was always there waiting to be willed into reality, a mirror from nothing, substance from the void. From the void – something From the void – something From the void – something Hi Lespin, I’m Cadi she said as she seated herself on the concrete bench adjacent his all terrain hospital bed currently in its half seated position. She had chosen their first meeting to take place in the garden for two reasons one she felt it might be more stimulating an environment possibly making it easier to reach Lespin. The second reason was if she was wrong about the first at least she would enjoy some time in the beautiful landscape. Can you tell me your name, she asked after starting the digital recorder she used in all her sessions. However her voice would be the more prominent if not the only voice on these sessions with Lespin. She had read enough of his file to understand that his responses over the years were few and far between and often completely incoherent. However there were several things within his file that were intriguing. For instance he is not completely unresponsive to stimuli. He will eat if food is brought to his lips. He opens his eyes and on clear days he seems to look out the window. The most interesting though was a series of scans which had been administered sporadically throughout the years. The scans were done with the hopes of finding a tumor or some sort of neural malady to be the root cause of his condition. Though nothing was found what plagued the doctors was though he seemed to be comatose Lespin showed no brain atrophy which in coma patients as time spent in a comatose state increases so does the amount of brain decay. They pulled the plug on him when he was fifteen years old a few more doctors on the list of deserters in Lespin’s life. It is what lead to other tests which yielded an unusually high amount of brain activity and showed all the implications of a normally conscious person which was obviously incompatible with the observations. Beyond the reach of modern medicine was the final conclusion and yet here he lay in the open air heart pumping, lungs breathing and mind racing. Unresponsive she said as she clicked off the recorder. Simon sees himself as he is – his true face in the mirror disc. It all becomes clearer as he stares at it the mirror, the pattern and its symmetry and the figure that’s been hiding. It is he that he is finding. He reaches out and in through the mirror and touches his true face as the mirror shatters and the pieces fall down and all around him. He reaches for them all as he realizes that they are already in his hands. They were always in his hands and in his head. He looks down at his hands and sees the geometry of the glass shards piled piece for piece in a symmetrically jumbled organization and the symmetry of his hands and of it all—a beautifully mirrored universe in a parallel with another but more connected like they existed on two sides of the same mirror and those paired with two others and on and on all twisted together in parallel spirals like an unending D.N.A. model and Simon in the center holding his mirrored image in his hands feeling humbled and more important than ever in his life like he was outside the pattern and beyond the elegance. He felt like he was something else. It felt like he was the fulcrum on the scale of decision upon which god’s thoughts had once rested. Just as he had to crawl before he could walk he had to sleep before he could wake and know the void to understand anything else. More completely aware than ever in his life Simon chooses to wake up and he opens his eyes. His reality seamlessly continues from his experience into a penetrating stare at the ceiling completely lucid he sees more vividly the colors of his room in the darkness. The bluish tint mixed with grey on his ceiling from the light streaming in through the cracks in his window reminding him of the unending string that connects all things as he sits up and thinks into the empty room this is real—far as I know it is always real and so it must always be a dream; but from this dream I will never wake. He pictures the D.N.A. and his size in respect to the vastness of it and how the structure that it composed must be so massive that his senses were incapable of perceiving the whole of this creature. Could this be God he wonders to the room. Could we be such a tiny piece – the universe as a whole only an active neuron in his brain and only slightly affecting him though he is completely unaware of us? “Am I a dream I just had?” He asks himself. Simon felt a deep despair and at the same time more defined like his extremities and the boundaries of his body were finite though connected to everything – all part of the same line drawn before time which has been growing and evolving ever since. Despair, he mouthed silently, would a tree know despair standing proudly everyday of his life? And he thought of his friend, Nopom Pichyp, who had always been able to bring him into the world again from hibernation. Nopom Pichyp, he always seemed aware of reality although not altogether part of it like he was himself anchored in the world just outside of reality and thus able to objectively view it. They had been friends since childhood and later worked together as fisherman, Simon’s first job, a job that Simon held until a dream he had in which an older man was speaking to a large group of people from his ship. In the dream the older man upon finishing his speech to the people turned toward Simon and said to him. The time for catching fish is over, it is time for… – and the dream ended. After the dream it was Nopom who woke Simon to the significance and power of dreams in life. Dreams are easy, Nopom said, you see the mind is collecting information every waking moment underneath the trivial thoughts you have your brain is raging with excitement and in order to simplify the data your mind creates a language of symbols which represent larger ideas. Dreams occur when there is an anomaly in the cataloguing of information. There is usually only three anomalies the brain may find a shortage of something say happiness or self esteem and it sends out a fantasy to balance the equation. Or it may find a pattern in which case it sends a warning. The third is when the information doesn’t fit the system so it must be reanalyzed either way no two minds speak the same language so whatever it is it means to you is probably what it means. Morning Lespin, she called out as she entered the room with her tablet in one hand and a garden variety cafeteria tray in the other, what’s it gonna be today? Shall we stare at the walls for a while or maybe a lamp, she asked as she set the food on the table next to Lespin’s bed completely oblivious to the curious eyes following her around the room. You don’t mind if I eat do you? She added absently.

Have we met? He asked with a hoarse voice and a half smile.

Lespin? She turned with astonishment. Can you hear me? Are you talking to me? She fumbled out as she turned and witnessed the confident eyes of her coma patient blazing into hers.

Who else should I be talking to; he replied as he glanced around the room and added after a hesitation. You’re the only one here.

Will yes, but I’ve been coming here for months and you never spoke to me before she answered noticing the obvious change in life and color in his body now apparent in his face.

Yes that’s probably true, he said as he shifted his body with all his strength to search for some comfort to his exhausted and weak muscles. I hope you will pardon my manners. I’m not sure how long I have.

How long you have till what? She asked as she pulled a chair closer to his bed and sat down. Until I – leave again.

And where will you go? She blurted quickly hoping with all of herself that he would keep talking. Somewhere else I’m not exactly sure.

Well why don’t you stay a while, she answered pressing the call button by the bed, maybe you’ll like it here.

While some prisoners may have the keys to their cells I’m not one of those prisoners. He said more to himself than to her then asked what did you say your name was?

I am Cadi Ancir one of your doctors she said and I’m delighted to meet you Mr. and paused hopeful for a correct response as she clicked on her digital recorder. Tomis, he stated, Lespin Tomis but I’m sure you know that don’t you.

Yes but I wasn’t sure if you did she replied smiling. So what kind of prisoner are you?

Another kind, a new one maybe – I’m not sure I’ve never had the chance to find out really. Maybe this has happened before or again either way you are the first person I’ve spoken to in about 7 years – by myself at least. Well 7 years his time it might be different here.

Time? Time might be different here?

It might be, he said shutting his eyes for rest from the blinding light all around, I’ve noticed some things are different but not many. Languages are almost exactly the same that’s why I think that this has happened before.

What has happened? Someone like me – a shadowless passenger, a tethered soul.

And who has you prisoner?

That’s the question isn’t it. He said slowly.

But you are free now aren’t you? No, this is just 30 minutes in the yard then back to solitary.

And who will come to take you from the yard back to your cell? It doesn’t matter.

Then why not answer? Because you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

How could you know what I’ll believe? I just know. Besides you’ll think I’m crazy.

Well crazy, troubled or pees on his pillows – either way you won’t be leaving anytime soon so what’s the difference, she said with a smile that lifted her right eyebrow.

All right, I believe that this universe is traveling in synchronicity with another universe in which there exists a planet that is home to a man my age that periodically pulls me or rather my consciousness out of this body through this synchronistic motion and takes it into his body in his world. While I am there I am able to see, smell, taste, hear, and feel all that he does. He lives his life and I watch helpless and irrelevant.

What’s it like, Cadi asked after a long pause, watching someone live their life?

He drew a deep breath and turned his eyes to the window where just beyond he saw an old man sitting with what seemed two granddaughters laughing as they chased each other around him. It’s like watching television all day everyday only you can never change the channel. After a while you start to forget you are even there. At first I didn’t even know I wasn’t him. It wasn’t until I jumped into my body that reality was broken for me. For a short time I lived as what seems the way most people do, but before I could get comfortable, though, I was snatched back into his mind and into my prison.

Then how do you get back here?

It happens when he sleeps sometimes. When his mind stops – it seems to trigger a release and I am flushed back into my body. First my sight goes cloudy black and it fills in from all sides toward the center like a camera shutter closing then one by one my nerves seem to be cut and my senses explode into fire. Then it feels like a vacuum and my body gets compressed from all sides then my senses numb with an ice cold bath and one by one my nerves snap back on with what feels like tiny lightning bolts throughout my body. My vision fades in like a television powering on I hear a crack like a tree snapped and I’m here. Until he’s lucid then I am yanked back there in the same way.

Does it hurt, she asked as she simultaneously wondered where the nurses were and which abnormal psych category this fell into. Either way the key is to keep him talking she thought because it’s all being recorded. Not exactly, he replied searching for a description. It’s full of sensation but different from any others I know. So you believe me?

No but I would like to hear more. Well at least you’re honest. He replied as he discovered the muscles in his legs shifting and flexing them as he felt the flares of pain escaping the lava flow of blood struggling to match the increased heart rate of a body in use.

So what have you tried to do about your situation? What’s the escape plan? I don’t think there is an escape for me he said with a tired laugh and sullen eyes.

Will you try something for me then? She asked with the same look she gave to policemen to get out of speeding tickets. What’s that he asked with a deviant half smile?

Try to make contact with him. Let him know you’re there. I have tried that.

I assumed as much but maybe you missed something. Look for signs that you exist there; maybe he responds to you in ways you haven’t noticed. Yell at him when he looks at the mirror or something. Just try it when you go back, ok? Alr—

What? What do you say, will you try, she asked as she leaned in close enough to notice the complete vacancy in his eyes. Eyes like glass she remarked to herself as the nurse walked in. Awake and sitting in bed his mind turning with the spinning of the drum which was now silent but an explosion of which the effects had not yet been fully realized. The explosion so large the fallout had left a hazy cloud of ash that had saturated everything. Simon had walked to the beat of that drum his whole life. He always loved the way it made things clean like they had been purified by fire. Often he had fantasized about setting flames just to watch them grow. He loved the way that fire is under no control just an elemental purpose of purity. He had dreamt of setting himself ablaze so that he would burn and cleanse himself in order to rid his body of all the impurities that live in his skin and in his bones – in his very D.N.A. He dreamt of watching the flame grow so large that it would cover the world and burn and cleans her body of all the impurities that live in her skin. It would rid her of the human infection. Maybe he would use kerosene. It always looked so pure. It would be a message to the future inhabitants of the earth, whatever creature it might be, like a tapestry that told of all the failures of humans but it would never fade or phase. Its message would be clear in the warm glow and the brilliant light that was made by a pure flame. That imagined flame had been his comfort for a long time. During those months spent in isolation from the world just Simon and his thoughts. He hadn’t spoken then either. It never really felt like months to Simon though, more like a few days all blended together and muted like everything was so loud that it was quiet and calm like a grey sky. It was a different life he had during those months. It was a gap in time for him. He remembered going in and coming out but not much in between. The vision in his mind of the world in a blaze being purified was a release when the counselors would try to preach their second hand faith to him so they could bring him closer to God when Simon had lived and acted every moment as if he was under the watchful eye and scrutiny of the creator. How deluded, they seemed to Simon, to believe that they knew more about the creator than anyone else. How naïve it is to believe everything in a book written by men. God gave you the gift of life Cadi Ancir, a counselor, had said to him time and time again. Use that gift and take pride in the fact that god had a purpose and a plan for you that you can not deviate from. You couldn’t deviate from anything with Cadi around. She was born on time, lived on time, breathed in time and even her heart beat in time. Cadi Ancir would probably die right on schedule for she is a human clock. Simon doesn’t like clocks or mirrors for that matter because he has never felt comfortable looking at them; it’s like they hide something out in the open like a secret so obvious you would never notice. He also never liked when Cadi would refer to life as a gift given by God. In his private one way conversations with God Simon would occasionally mention that he felt the gift was wasted on him. It was all in vain the price to make him when every second was wasted on the thought that God might come and reclaim him. Simon in all his conversations could never quite say the words that spoke all of the things that he had thought to tell God but felt that God alone could change him and take those thoughts out of his head to leave him satisfied with his life and what he had made of it. Instead Simon never felt he had reached his potential – he was good at everything, everywhere he would look he saw something he could improve but never anything that inspired him. He always felt like he had let God down, like he was stuck in a dream, caught in a trance or trapped in a maze with only one way out but lost and left without cause to find it – as though his only chance of finding it escaped him always. He couldn’t find or see the gift god gave to him and still time staggered on in a way that only the insane would carry on which is for the sake of carrying on. How shitty, he thought at the time, that if I can’t deviate from God’s plan then God’s plan for me was a life of mediocrity. It was the lowest time in Simon’s life and he was done with life. He was ready to be put in a box and buried in the half-light of his life. Just discard me and let the pieces scatter, he felt, I’ve no need for my earthly dissentions. I’ve no need to be led to temptation any longer because already I will fail the test, the dissection of my life and its worth as I’m sure that almost all of us will, given God’s mediocre plans. So forgive all of our own trespasses as we too forgive our own separation from god and our own refraction out of the light of God. Let me go, he would ask the world, let me slip into the darkness all alone and let the memories get buried right along with me. Like the breaking of a cellophane wrapper around a book of knowledge let me pierce into the next existence from this one and discover the knowledge that is held there. Put my body in the ground, he wanted, and let the worms that crawl inside eat until they fill the empty space inside themselves. Let them wonder why they even started out at all. And to the creator all that he could ask was that he carry him through the door in the corner out of this dimension along the path that leads to nowhere and anywhere and everywhere. And then one day he was shaken out of sleep by a loud noise in the ward and as he lay there waiting to fall asleep it occurred to him that he was a part of the human race. And he wondered which part he represented. What was it that he Simon G Steepl represented of the human race? He knew that in the grand machine that is the cosmos where eternities are needed for a single revolution of the system that humans had only lasted but a blink of an eye and Simon a great deal less than that. Soon he would part of this earth such a waste of a birth. And they would lay a cloth upon his face. Soon Simon would die and no one would remember him. Though what would be lost with his passing? Which trait did he posses that no other could claim? Without answer he decided that at the end – at the very end when it was all said and done he would not feel pity for himself. He would not beg forgiveness for his actions and he would feel no shame for his life. He would second-guess none of his choices. Instead he would storm the gates of passage from this realm to the next. He could claim his divine right and burst through the division screaming into the void it is I. I that have walked the path through the window to see the light and had a compass to guide my sight with only my visions to hold my hand as I read the symbol that knows all names in the place where time rains down to be collected in the valley of the lost creatures that remain unseen and with features unclean. I who did breathe the air that was filled with a fragrance from the flowers that were not there. I who couldn’t help but stare blinded into oblivion which wrapped like a spiral that had no end but swallowed the sun like a snake devours its rat. I who when overwhelmed by my senses allowed my mind to be torn apart and break free of the touch I had come to know and give birth to other senses which manifested in the shape of a form that I had never known. It is I who was pulled deeper and deeper into the abyss to lose myself in the mercy and lost my shape in the reflection and lost my thoughts for resurrection. And in that small concrete tomb with padded walls he accepted that he was Simon G. Steepl whatever that may be and he made peace with himself. He drifted peacefully to sleep that night with the drum and tapped into the ocean that hovered above the world collecting the rivers and streams of information and thoughts from all humans and he swum in the water allowing waves of insight to splash against his face. The ocean was just outside the window and he swam across it that night and it changed him. He gave of himself to the ocean and the ocean gave a bit of itself. And the bit had fallen on him like an asteroid or like a surge of electricity that had funneled into his brain. His mind had been jump-started but it overloaded and he fainted in his sleep. When he woke the next morning he didn’t remember it but he was fine and he hadn’t remembered for years till this moment in his room alone in the darkness. He felt as though he was now ready to remember. He felt as though he was now able to initiate the experience at will. So he waited patiently for the asteroid tumbling down from the cosmic awareness carrying with it a greater knowledge. The asteroid had traveled such a long way to choose Simon to land on and he felt lucky and able and willing to collide – to give of himself again in order to live with purpose. Down and down it fell towards Simon ever so patiently waiting. Collide into me, he thought, take me back into the ocean. And it did in an explosion of light and color, a brilliant light that showered his head and ripped open both his eyes and his mind at once. And he was born again in the beauty of the light as the intelligence flowed in and he realized that he was naked before. He looked with his entire mind – eyes fixed in the center of the light and peered into the center of the ocean. He saw there the animals that live inside the light, human souls evolved beyond humanity, that glowed and were growing and ever flowing as they swept by each other in the current and changed in colors with each new connection. They were all so vivid in color and clarity those beautiful beings and the light of the ocean was growing itself the more that they connected. He saw that each had distinctly different colorings yet some were more translucent than others. He saw that the ones with more definitive states seemed to be more adept at emitting specific colors to certain souls and when other souls interacted with these souls they seemed to change more dramatically than with the less solidified ones it seemed they had learned from them or had evolved because of them. Gradually the process began to accelerate and quickly all that he could see was an explosion of lights blinking and pulsating until a critical mass was reached and a ripple of change emanated from the center changing all colors to one in sequence leaving a tranquil sea of beautiful souls in harmony. Then as if a new knowledge had been understood and screamed from the center a second ripple lifting higher than the first and traveling outward changing them again from a liquid light state into another more beautiful – they were evolving each of them as the echo of information reached them. Simon watched in awe frozen by the moment. They were shapeless but with form and transparent but with a vividness of color. It appeared as if they had always been this way this part of them inside the previous forms but hidden deep within and in a deep slumber hibernating and waiting for the end of winter. This was the last human form, the form before true awareness before co-creation. The form before the god creature humans could become. Simon, outside the cycle again in the role of an observer taking it all in as it is, calm and collected and at peace in the silence of truth. The silence was his salvation. And then the river of information diverted and he was alone again. Back in the world of noise and incessant distractions with clouded minds always busy. He knew that he must turn them all away – anything that would inhibit his clarity of thought and he needed to find another way to exist in this reality that would allow him to maintain the truth that he had seen. That way he could focus on all of the things that he had become. He could realize the things he had done and move on to actualize the Simon that is one with the all. He wouldn’t waste time searching for endless signs that pointed the way to the road least traveled – he was already upon the path. He was reborn to the fear of something new and something great and was disconnected from his previous life – the umbilical chord had been cut and he had opened his eyes to the indiscernible kaleidoscope of shapes and symbols and colors and possibilities that now invaded his mind. So he let go of all of the things that had scattered away with the winds and shattered away in the void and he let go of all of the theories that had died in the light of knowledge. He felt different now. He was different now. He felt more present. He had always lived in this world but somehow it had become illuminated. The veil of mystery had been lifted and he felt his mind was open as he caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror out of the corner of his eye. Slowly he walked closer to the mirror as he lifted his hand to the side f his face touching the skin and acknowledging the cage that held him. He didn’t notice it at first. It wasn’t until he reached the mirror that he realized his reflected face was in darkness and the only light in the room was coming in from behind his reflection through the mirror. All the lights were off in Simon’s room but the light was on in the room on the other side of the glass. As he stood there considering it, the reflection and the light twisted in on itself and he saw himself years ago sleeping in the ward. It twisted and he saw himself as a young man working on the boat. It twisted further and he saw himself as a child. It twisted and he saw himself being born in a brilliant light and he saw the light divide him. He saw one boy born of his mother. Then in the blinding light one boy split by the light into two boys created from the same body. He saw his brother and the reflected face in darkness on the other side of the mirror – Lespin’s face in shadow on the other side of the mirror. Lespin saw his brother too. The mirror untwisted the drum beat once and the light went out from the room but for four bright eyes looking into each other. Simon was the first to put hand on the glass then Lespin did too and they saw in the glass once again this time lives that hadn’t yet been. They were both helping others to open their eyes to open their minds to believe in themselves. They saw themselves set free their spirits escape and rejoin with the ocean of light. They saw with the ages long past their own deaths the light grow beyond blinding and twist in upon itself taking the souls of humanity into another experience beyond imagination’s reach. Lespin smiled as his vision went cloudy and Simon saw him fade. Simon in his universe and Lespin in his both stepped out and into the sunlight on the path that lay before them. But another in the distance, a boy had just this morning learned how man can turn his brother into slave. And power is as appealing as money is deceiving. Who will stand to show this boy the way? Who is Simon?