Destiny: Book of Light Read online

  Things however have a way of turning on you. Gathered under a tree and huddled around a trash can of burning wood and trash an argument broke out. One of the regulars claimed that Sean had taken his drink. Although Sean tried to calm him, he only got more worked up, until he swung a punch. Sean caught his arm, and broke his elbow so severely the bone burst through the skin. Screaming in agony the bums’ friends moved in on Sean. He pulled out two silenced Desert Eagles and began by shutting the screaming man up, and then moved onto dropping the surrounding scabby, experts of whatever version of this world that they were living in.

  These people, being old, seemed to affect Sean in a different way. At first he saw it as them being helpless, feeble old people that he was gunning down. Then it began to dawn on him that these were the bottom rung of the ladder and you can only go up from here. Remorse once again ran for cover at his wrath. Yet this wasn’t his plan. It was only Thursday night and he knew that he would have to adapt and make his move now, it wasn’t going to be as much money but it was either that or try to rob the place while police investigate the murder of twelve homeless people across the street. He reloaded each of the guns and stood outside the door. The figure “1” on the door was hanging upside down, Sean fixed it and smiled. He kicked the door down and went in smiling and firing. He moved quickly, the first six in the front room took him about a single second. They were all lying around fucked beyond this world and beyond the next. The music dampened the noise of the door coming down and the already silenced gun fire. Swiftly into the kitchen he took note of about two grand in cash on the table and went through the hall to the bedrooms. The first door he smashed in, a couple were fucking like wild animals and the female left out a scream, they both their heads exploded on impact of Sean’s bullets leaving brain matter all over the headboard of the bed, but Sean realized that the scream would have been heard.

  He quickly moved, keeping low to the door he had just kicked in. The door of the next room had opened and Sean could see in the reflection of the handle of the door across the hall, a heavy skinhead with a double barreled shotgun. The man slowly moved out through the arch of his doorway and keeping low and using the reflection as a guide, Sean slowly raised his arm with gun in hand from within his doorway to the point where it was touching the man's chin. He squeezed the trigger and as the shotgun hit the floor he moved into the room taking out three others who were holding Uzis and not one got a shot off. The best part of 30 grand lay on the table smiling to Sean. There were a couple of ounces of coke as well but this was of no use to him, dealing would be too much trouble, but a bit for himself could never hurt. He took the money and a heap of coke, and left.

  He set up camp in an apartment block across from the junkies. Unfortunately this meant killing the old man that lived there, but fortunately he had the bottle of whiskey which he had previously stolen from the bum along with the mound of coke he had stuffed into a bag and into his pocket. That night his mind bounced from the four walls surrounding him. Each taunting him with guilt, fear, outright terror and an evil presence that should not have been there. The drugs he continued to snort frantically up his nose began to hit him. It became the escape, more and more and through more terror. He was dragged by rage. This drug he did not approve of. Yes it was clean and enjoyable. But all other drugs have an effect on your views of the world in front of you, whereas coke actually has an effect on peoples personalities, giving way for ego complexes, paranoia and more and more people become dependent on it.

  This was the war that stood in front of him. He applauded all other forms of drugs, but this he was going to rid the world of. Waking up with flashbacks of through and through horror, he struggled to look out the blinding light coming from the window. He had adapted to darkness and the world seemed new to him. His eyes slowly adjusted to the light and when in focus Sean realized what he was looking at. As far as he could see there were flashing blue lights. He sat up and pulled out his .45s. He crouched by the window and angled it so he couldn’t see out. With a perfect sight down the barrel of the gun he slowly moved until he could see a gap of about a millimeter, then two, then five, then ten. It dawned on him. They weren’t here for him. He decided that he wasn’t going to live his life in other worlds through drugs. He was going to be a snake of this world, and he was going to spend all of his days left on this planet living in what he saw as the real world and exploiting those that did not. With exceptions of course.

  Just as planned the pimple assed druggy stumbled down the road, freaked when he saw the cops, tensed up, and kept walking. Shadowing brought Sean to a warehouse by the docks. This was money. This was going to take time. Sean now slept in the abandoned cargo containers during the day and lived at night. He moved in shadows rarely leaving the docks with exception of getting food, for a month, gathering knowledge. Patience was the weapon and with it he built a map of this organization, he knew everything he needed. He even went so far as to sneak into the warehouse so as to hear conversations and get an idea of the layout. He could move freely and undetected by these simpletons. Now that he had all the information he needed and knew that he could destroy the whole place, he walked away. Beginning again on the streets he started to look for drugs. Although he was tempted by the urges that flowed through his veins to snort the contents of the bag handed to him by the street dealer, he didn’t. This wasn’t about running from the problem, this was about running through it all. Because the urges were quite hard to handle, he was resorted to venting his hunger by strangling the dealer with only his index finger and thumb clasped around his windpipe. He stared through the lower form as if he were nothing, and then he was nothing. His skull cracked as it walloped off the ground. Somewhere between the silence and that sound Sean felt the slightest remorse for this other life he had brought to an end, but it was getting way too easy. He searched the dealers pockets for anything he could use. Anything that could further his knowledge on the structures that were laid out in front of him. The hidden structures that can only be seen by those who aren’t too wrapped up in their own lives to realize are going on all around them. Besides about 300 pounds the only other things he found were his mobile phone and a sheet of acid. "So it is to be acid tonight?” he thought. But the mobile phone would be useful in his climb.

  Placed under his tongue like a sweet. So innocent yet so pure. He sat there playing video games surrounded by the mess of a life left behind by the dealer, as it dissolved, as if like butter under his tongue. An hour passed and he decided to step out for a breath of fresh air. As he stepped over pizza boxes and beer cans he picked up a pair of sunglasses that had been lying next to the tv. He placed them on his head like you see all those stupid Americans doing. As he stepped into the fresh air he took a deep breath and got a little light headed. He decided he had better sit down so he pulled an arm chair out to the garden, if you could call it that. Ivy scaled all the walls, bits of rusted tools lay scattered through the long grass that tried to grow through the garbage blanket. He dropped into the chair.

  "Hello father. Hello again and a thousand more for all the times I remained silent. The days are dark now my old friend. The days are dark and the dark is filled with moving shadows. Shadows of evil. How did it come to where I am? I can’t see your face any longer. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve forgotten or because you’ve abandoned me, but when I close my eyes I no longer see you. My heart aches at the thought of the friendship we could have had while you were alive. We were both too stubborn, old man, and time doesn’t wait for stubbornness. I know that you’re always going to be a part of me. You created me and I feel your influence. But I have gone further now father. Further than you ever went. I’ve lived my life the way you had hoped, making a few fuck ups along the way, but I tried to fall into place and live. Hold onto that which was most precious and sacred. My connections to other lives. But my love turned against me and I can’t fall into place anymore. I’m beyond redemption. I’ve long passed the point of no return. I know that this isn’t
what you would have chosen for me, but hey that’s life. I’m not asking you to condone what I am. I just want to put your mind at ease. Probably for my own sake at some level. I just want you to know that none of this is your fault in anyway. You were a great man and you did all that could ever have been expected. I fucked up, not you. A drink some time old friend? See ya around."

  With the sun glasses on the whole sky moved in waves with the music playing in the background. With the glasses off the sky was still. He figured it was better to wear them. He emerged in unity with everything around him. He began to explore the new world he saw. Peering into bushes and all other forms of nature. It all became clear to him. Beauty in connections. Everything was beautiful. He picked up a guitar that had been lying around and began to play. It was second nature to him. He hadn't played in years but he didn't even have to think about what he was doing. He sat there and played all day, until night crept in. He looked down at his hands and he couldn't believe how well he was playing. So much so that it began to freak him out. He threw down the guitar and looked up to the sky. The night was not as beautiful as the day. The drug was turning on him. The sky started to cave in on him. "FUCK!"

  He saw the evil in his head. All the people he had killed began to appear all around him. They just stood there. They didn't move and they didn't say anything, but their eyes followed him. He tried to run but everywhere he went they would just reappear. He could do nothing but curl up in a ball under a blanket. He knew it was just the drug. Cold sweats crawled up and down his back as shear terror was unleashed in him. He figured if he stayed right here then he could do no harm to himself and that this horror would pass, and it did. He gained control of the freak out and once he had control of it he was higher than ever before. It was as if he came through to another world. Everything was relative, his place on this planet. The vastness of the planet and the rest of the beyond.

  I see the world differently now. I see waves harmonizing everything. Harmonizing them in pain, but beautiful pain. Pain that stems so much. Pain that nurtures hatred, lust, revenge and so on. Pain that carries with it so many memories down through the ages. Memories that no man should posses, or travel these roads. The acid is kicking in strong now. "This is a batch of Morocco’s finest black," I said. "Come join us?" I said.

  "I will," she said.

  I passed the second number to her, allowing her to spark it up. She did, and as the light from the cherry lit up her face, I was reminded again of just how much I loved her. Some time later, when we had gone through the best part of a quarter, the blind man spoke through the silence, with the exception of smoke related necessity.

  "Some people say that they would hate to live in the past. But just like the fact that I don't have a sense of sight, makes no difference to me, because I don't know what I'm missing, or any other life besides the one I have. Would we miss the media? Maybe people wouldn't like to live in the past because they already know the benefits of the media and modern technology. But if u didn't know what you were missing, would it be better to not be controlled by advertising, and massive corporations?"

  I looked at him with the best, falsely constructed, interested face that I could manage, which seemed pointless on a count of his blindness, but yet I found a comfort in it. My wife looked intrigued. So to please her I tried to keep up appearances. Again he spoke.

  "I wonder why it is human nature to kill. War as it exists today, obviously didn't exist before. But what about when war didn't exist at all, and people only fought for mating rights, or food. The days when we as a race were more like animals than humans. Would there be more death then, or now. In that case does that mean that because the main amount of killing of our own race nowadays is organized into a category called war, that we are more civilized than our animal ancestors?"

  Once again what he said went straight over my head. It began to stress me out that this guy, blind or not, had more intelligence than me, and could bond with my wife on a plain that I could never reach, who by now was totally involved with every word he spoke. I lit up another with the hope that somehow it would manage to console me. And again he spoke.

  "I wonder what it is like to be a tortured mind. To feel pain that hopefully I'll never know, nor will most people. The torments of war. Abused children. Insanity. To be blind. All these simple words we give to some things that are so complicated. How are these words supposed to do so much pain justice?"

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up and made my apologies; I said I was going for a walk. I could hear his mutters of wisdom as I strolled out the door. I had hoped my wife would notice something was wrong like she usually did, and come after me to see if I was ok, but she didn’t.

  I wandered alone down by the river. The night was wild. It had a feeling of evil to it, which I later put down to my own state of mind. The river, dark and withholding, moved silently, south, carrying with it, its murky secrets. My mind meandered along side it. All the thinking had tired me out, and I picked a spot next to the bank amidst the reeds, to sit among. After rolling, I put flame to quite an impressive number. It must have taken me an hour to build, but the time flew, as the novelty of an occupied mind took preference over the paranoia that went with thinking about my wife.

  There used to be a day when we were happy, though it seemed like a distant dream, when we laughed. Unfortunately through the erosion of a structured and efficient life, dedicated to living in modern society, we became distant. I studied the habitat around me. Each member living in sync with some, and at odds with others. Life seemed much simpler. No tax, or money, or stress. I wish that just for one day I could be like that. Just to let my mind rest, and recuperate. As the joint got smaller, so too did I begin to lie back. The grass my sheets, and the reeds my blanket. With the little creatures of this earth as my company I settled in for the night.

  I almost had forgotten about it. I sat up as if a child was being given candy. I reached into my pocket and took it out. Sheltering it in my hands it was as if it shone in the moonlight. I’m not sure what they had called this one, green hand, or green monster, or something. Either way it was acid all the same. This was my way out of this particular problem, just like the last time I took it, was a solution to whatever problem I may have had then. I popped it under my tongue, and set about building another.

  The best part of an hour had passed and I was on my way up. I was beginning to see the night life of the river with new eyes. I loved this feeling and I knew that it was just the beginning, but nothing could have prepared me for what was going to happen. The trip at first was pleasant and going on, just the way it was meant to. My mind opened, as is the effect of acid. I began hallucinating, and felt at one with nature. I knew that in every acid trip, you came up, then, after a while, you would freak out, and then you would gain control of the freaking out and become higher than ever before. That was the way it went for me anyway.

  Something happened just around when I should have started to freak. I became tired. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to sleep with a head full of acid. It didn’t really matter though because I couldn’t fight it and if I tried I would only end up giving myself an aneurism or something. My eyes closed. I woke in blackness and with a strange pain in my heart, one I had never felt before. I thought this was it. I surely had died and reached hell. All the worst stories of what hell was meant to be like, burning for all eternity and so on, were nothing but a freckle on the sun in comparison to this. I took a deep breath, and then realized despite being convinced I was dead, I could breath. I moved my right hand and felt something soft and familiar in my grasp. It was the arm of my chair. I heard my own voice come from somewhere else around me, and I heard it with more clarity than anything I had ever heard previously.

  "This is a batch of Morocco’s finest black," I said. Then I got a razor sharp pain that sliced through my brain, and as it did so I felt a rush of information, and memories that weren’t mine, infest my mind, and then relief. "Come join us?"
I said.

  Even worse then before the pain returned not only did it slice through my brain this, time but the pain in my heart got increasingly worse, and then relief. "I will," it was my wife’s voice, I roared. Never the less another screeching pain tore through my mind, and again my heart felt like it was been ripped out through my chest, and as this was happening, I realized what was happening.

  It was the strangest thing, you see with all this information I was getting I was still in blackness, and I knew these weren’t my memories. So then it occurred to me, I couldn’t see, but not only was I blind, these memories belonged to the blind man who I had previously left sitting in my place, in the exact chair that I was sitting in now, and then relief, except for the pain in my heart.

  The sounds I heard after that were the sounds that had happened the previous night. Even though I was in the mind of the blind man, I could hear myself talking and the rustling of papers as I rolled, and yet my hands were motionless. I was now a mind with the mind of the blind man that I had resented. I began to hear his voice in my head.