Dark Epiphany

I remember being terrified.

I was the most frightened I’d ever been in my life. Forget the monster under the bed. This was real.

Just the thought of it now, it makes my breath catch somewhere in my chest and my heart swells, threatening to burst in my chest, seeking a complete end to everything in preference to what I am yet again confronted with.

There had been a build up to this moment, of course there had. It was a culmination of all the components of a life. There was a feeling of inevitability as all the strands led to this place and this time, and then it all came to a head.

My head.

It was all in my head. 

All of it. 

And yet…

None of it was in my head.

I thought it was out there in the world, but now I see that it couldn’t have been. 

It couldn’t have been because when I saw myself in the mirror and saw myself for what I truly was, everything fell apart. All of it cracked open and inside there was nothing. Only this nothing was something and that something terrified me. 

It scared me to death

I caught my reflection in the mirror. Barely a glance. Something moving in my peripheral vision. How many times does this happen? It must be a constant in our lives. Focusing on what is before us, but all the while our eyes draw in so much more and our brain processes it somewhere below the surface of our mind. Always in a state of readiness. Always on the lookout for danger.

And there it was.

Stalking me as I passed the mirror. 

I saw something dark and insect-like. A flash of something dark, ancient and evil. I froze to the spot and a dread cold blossomed within me. I wanted to turn my head away. To break the spell. But I could not. I was held in place by an awful knowledge. 

This was an awakening. 

Then, as though against my will, I turned my head toward the mirror and I screamed.

I don’t know how long it took, but it felt like an age. 

I screamed and I screamed and the noise of it rattled the very foundations of my being. The screaming grew louder and louder until I heard nothing at all. Those sounds of anguish became a reality and I phased it all out. My unblinking eyes stared into themselves and I looked deeper and deeper. I saw with an intensity that frightened me, and that intensity was dialling up and up until my head swam and then there was darkness.

But that was not the end.

I had not been gifted a merciful release. Far from it.

I was separated from everything I thought I knew. All those familiar anchors that held me in a state that I liked to think was sanity. My senses were amplified to a point of excruciating pain and that was all I was left with. 

The pain.

The darkness.

And the mindless anger.

Then the voice that has always resided within me spoke.

The voice told me a great many things, but it all amounted to the same thing.

It’s a lie.

That was when I truly knew. But then, I knew before then. I knew even before I saw myself for what I really was. I’d fought and fought, building defence after defence of denial.

I’d lied to myself.

How beautiful is that?

And how terrifying.

I had lied to myself about it being a lie.

All of it.

Every last scrap.

I should have been careful about what I had wished for. This was my wish granted. Not three wishes, just the one, but that was one too many. I’ve never had a clue as to what was good for me. I had urges. I deliberately confused what I wanted with what I needed. 

I was lazy and dumb and worst of all, I was entitled.

I convinced myself that I deserved better.

What I craved most of all was to be free.

I wanted freedom.

I never thought about what that meant. Do any of us? Really?

What I really wanted was to be released from the monotony of life. To be released from the shackles of obligation. 

I was bored and sad and lonely in the crowd of people I had amassed in my life. 

I’d made a bad job of myself and an even worse job of the life I was living, and I didn’t want to take any responsibility for it.

I wanted a free pass.

I thought that I should be gifted a Get Out Of Jail Free card that would mean that none of it mattered anymore.

Well I got exactly what I wished for.

Imagine that if you can.

Go on, give it a try.

I wish I had.

One moment, you are idly happy in your ignorance. Just like the fly that is oblivious to the vomit it expels and treads into the food it must eat. That is the very nature of our existence. You have a millstone mortgage around your neck and that millstone keeps you in check. You have a job that you can’t afford to lose, so you keep your head down and you don’t rock the boat. You tell everyone you’re doing OK and to prove it you take idealised photos that represent a sanitised life, a life that contains a sort of happiness that if anyone thought about it for one fraction of a second is a pile of horseshit that covers up a cankerous and twisted existence that no one in their right mind would subject themselves to.

Somewhere along the way you picked up a life partner, or they picked you up. If you’re lucky, you both give each other enough space to keep going with the pretence of your sad and discordant existences. If you’re unlucky, one of you makes changing the other a project. That is a project that will never end well and that is the whole point of the project; to hurt and break someone else so that you feel better about your own hurt and your own brokenness, to subjugate a fellow sufferer so that you imagine that you might just be superior to them even as your soul cries out at you and begs you to stop trying to create hell on earth.

Whatever the case, you’ll keep going. Everyone always does. 

What else is there?

Even if you’re not tearing each other apart in clandestine and malignant ways, there may well come a day when you resent the millstone of debt and everything that comes with it. You might have heard that talking helps and you may still believe that. You might think that you have a relationship with the adult you chose to share all the debt and burdens with and that you are in it together.

But when you introduce the prospect of change and describe another type of life, chances are you’ll see the gaping chasm that has always been there between the two of you, and you’ll begin to realise how utterly alone we all are. Besides, that other human being didn’t sign up for what you’re presenting to them. Truth is, they think they are fine clinging onto the fantasy they have constructed and were they to ever revise it, they would not allow you to provide them even with a first draft. Why would they, when we all lust after the illusion of control.

Just who the hell do you think you are?

Does any of us know the answer to that one?

I doubt it.

That question is one of Pandora’s Boxes and no one will thank you for asking the question that opens it. You see, we’re all winging it. All of us. Stringing ourself along with routines, rituals and habits. Our lives are just a big, bad habit. We are a series of unhealthy coping mechanisms and the real joke is that if those things we’re coping with were taken from us, the whole house of cards would fall down. We’d collapse in a heap with no clue as to how to get up again. 

We’d have nothing.

We’re not nothing though. 

We’re worse than nothing.

We’re angry and that anger always leads to hate.

How do you think we survived for so long?

Hell, we’re survivors. That’s the one thing we’re good at.

Ever wondered how stupid people are still in the mix of a supposedly civilised and progressive society? Truth is, we’re all stupid. Nothing actually matters. Nothing other than surviving. Everything else is merely pretence. We live in a land of make believe, a fairy tale. Under the surface there is only anger.

Surviving is where all the anger comes from.

We are a walking bundle of conflict.

We are at war with the world.

That’s what I saw when I caught myself in the mirror. I saw that and worse still, I saw all of it.

And just like that, I was free.

That’s the horror of it. That was what terrified me most of all. I saw through it all and I saw what I really was and how I had needed to be restricted by all of the rules and norms and boundaries. I needed to be taught how to act.

I needed to behave.

Now all of that is gone and I can do as I please.

My new life began in the moment that I saw I’d not been living. I had to die before I could be born again.

I was not the only one who had to die.

I had to cut the ties that bound. I had to cut them again and again and again until I was truly free.

I felt the weight lifting from me and as I understood the truth of this horrible reality we’ve all been signed up to from birth, I was so happy. At last I’d made a choice and it was real. We’re never given a choice. We’re born into this slavery of mind and of body and forced to remain meek and compliant. 

I may have been terrified in the instant that I understood, but that was because the truth is terrible and we’re not equipped to deal with it. The prospect of such a huge and magnificent transformation was beyond my comprehension. I had to suffer before I could escape my former existence and become what I should always have been.

I had to suffer for my freedom, and then I understood what it was that I must do.

Because you see, I freed them too.

They’re OK now.

I tried to make them see.

But they wouldn’t.

I tried to make them listen.

But they couldn’t.

So I intervened.

I did them a favour.

I released them.

They’ll come to realise that.

One day they will.

And then they will be free.

Just like me…

*

“Oh gods, Bob! What have you done! What have you done!?”

I opened them up. They needed to see what was inside. I changed them. I freed them.