Return ... Part 44 ...Desolate Spaces



Pride was my wilderness,
and the demon that led me there was fear.

―Margaret Laurence




Psyche.jpg
Fear and the Psyche



I never really thought much about the end times even when I was a student at university being mentored by Breton who turned out to be the arch-diocesan exorcist.

I figured the next life was another world anyway and conjecturing about it seemed a futile exercise. And I extended that same principle to apply to people's views about The Second Coming.

I practiced 'aversion therapy' as I cynically termed it, avoiding the topic with Breton parrying his inquiries about the state of my soul with cutesy comebacks like, metaphysics gives me heartburn.

Yeah... well, there's no remedy for the acid eating my gut right now and procrastination never worked magic for tragic heroes―just ask Hamlet.



But Frank Clifford is more laid back than Breton.

If I didn't know he and his wife pastored an outreach for the homeless in town I'd figure him for just an ordinary citizen.

What does a believer look like anyway? Hmm, the jury's out on that one.

Anyway, Frank has offered to drop back tomorrow if the weather is better and help me look for that other opening into the tunnel.

Kind of ironic when I think of this nightmare view of the future. We're back to hiding in caves again like primitive man.

"Oh, the primitive world," the academics enthuse, " so pristine and instinctual."

I think not. More like retreating to the cave of the psyche where we cower with all our unspoken fears and pray for deliverance from invisible demons.



Who would have thought an end times government would be autocratic?

But it makes perfect sense I suppose, since the Beast alone would rule from the top with everyone else crushed under his minions' boots, or claws, or webbed feet.

The thought of the disgusting beings fills me with nausea and dread.

Who would have thought?

Yeah, exactly―certainly not me, the Grand Denier and Chief Agnostic, supposedly assigned to do an expose of a clairvoyant when I don't have a clue myself how to think or be.



"You're deep in thought tonight?" Brooke whispers, as she hands me a coffee and slips onto the couch beside me.

She's showered and styled her hair and looks fabulous. I'm aware of the pitfalls of living with two attractive women and it doesn't help when they're particularly alluring.

"Guess I'm letting our isolation get to me―this weather isn't helping either―I love rain but not such rains as these."

"Sounds Shakespearean, Hamlet," she smiles mischievously.

"Can't I wax poetic about an ordeal?"

She feigns a sad pout. "Is that how you see me?"

No, you take my breath away with your beauty.

That's what I really want to say, but simply smile and say, "not exactly."

Talk about damning with faint praise, but what can I do―confess my love to her?



"What do you want to do when this is all over―when things get back to normal? They will get back to normal, won't they?"

Her lower lip is trembling and she rends my heart with her fears.

Against my better judgment, I put an arm around her and draw her close to me.

"It will be over," I whisper in her ear, "and life will resume again. This will all be a bad dream and fade into memory."

She lays her head on my shoulder, content and safe.

This is the way it should be, I muse and stare into the hearth flames and pray we never see Hades.



To be continued…


© 2021, John J Geddes. All rights reserved


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