42 Mirror

It was incredible yet true—how could this happen—halos, lights, spirits, truths, loves, joys, all true, all true, perfect, all of the most amazing and most unbelievable, most ideal and beautiful stories and rumors and legends and myths of yearning and hope I had ever heard, ever read and they were all true, they had all come true for me. For me! Why me, why me, why had I been chosen to see and to hear and to know in this way? But it seemed now that we would all know. What had I done? What did this mean? What was I supposed to do—

To say?

How was I to proceed?

I had done not doing.

I had stopped cold.

I had shut my mouth.

I had refused to move.

"What is it?" they asked.

Buddha:

It's all suffering.

It's all suffering.

It's all suffering.

It's all suffering.

It's all suffering.

It's all suffering.

Then five hundred years later:

Jesus Christ—

Jesus Christ—

Jesus Christ—

Jesus Christ—

Jesus Christ—

Jesus Christ—

To me, to me!

The Messianic secrets, the Eleusinian mysteries!

People, people everywhere.

Think!

Think!

I read and made notes, put two and two together, stopped separating my sundry lives one from the other, I put myself on the same plane as the masters and rulers, ego be damned and pride, I'd dare to be great, there was only the present and I had finished with criticism, to hell with it, no limitations but those in my own feeble mind.

God!

There was a hell to it, there was a hell to it.

Mind reeled.

Midafternoon on the Saturday before Easter I was the only diner in Lucy's Garden of Eatin. Sitting alone in my booth I felt like I had been dead two thousand years and had just risen from the dead.

Alive!

Just as Jesus would have felt.

Awake!

If things wouldn't add up one way maybe they would another.

It was possible.

Yes—

Crazier things had happened.

The thought entered my head—

I was Jesus!

No—

That was insanity.

Sick—

I had gone mad.

Yes.

I had lost my mind.

Indeed.

I was insane.

Evil.

The thought entered my head—

I was Judas!

No—

Insanity two.

I grieved the loss of my mind.

Jesus.

Crazy.

Judas.

Crazy.

Jesus.

Crazy.

Judas.

Crazy.

I became an insect, an ugly bug.

Cockroach.

Fly.

To my horror I realized

To my horror I realized

Deranged!

I rose.

I walked back down the hill and into my basement.

Dirt.

I took a spot beside the hundred-year-old boiler.

Dust.

I hunkered there on the dust and dirt like Milton's toad.

Squat and sad.

Wart.

I was a demon lost in hell.

Then the Christian paradigm shattered.

Disintegrated.

Pulverized.

Atomized.

Evaporated.

Free!

I was free.

I stood and walked outside to blue sky and white sun.

Life without idea.

I could quit, quit cold, quit flat, stop, look, and listen, so I had, I had—

I had.

I had stopped going through the motions.

I had read and studied holy books and books about holy books.

I had done what John had asked me to do and I had stopped doing what he had said I ought not do anymore.

I had stopped lying.

I had confessed everything.

I had given up secrets, all of my secrets, I had nothing to hide anymore.

I didn't care what anyone else now thought.

Free—

I was finished with them, secrets, lies, promises, excuses, apologies, I didn't want them anymore, I'd had enough of them, I had repudiated them, repudiated secrecy, I wanted no more lies, no more hidden, nothing concealed.

Forever—

I would rather have been dead than have secrets.

Dead!

I did only shine, shine, shine, shine and wait, think, dream, see, know and be silent, watch, look and listen, think, study, remember and wait, be patient and shine, wait and shine.

I was a mirror only and I could only reflect.

I wanted no more.

I was dead and a reflection only.

Dead.

I was an intellectual catastrophe.

I was a ruin.