XVII.

Marc Uriah had spent the last however many weeks reading extensively. He’d gotten through a fourth of the Hebrew Scriptures, half the New Testament, a third of the Koran, several of the Buddhist Sutras, some of the Hindu Vedas, and completed a number of more modern books on supernatural phenomena and religious experiences. He’d also bought himself a couple of LSD capsules from a high end drug dealer he knew through a psychologist friend, though he hadn’t mustered the nerve to ingest one yet. As one would imagine, he was not getting much sleep and his head was filled to the brim with ideas.

For instance: it seemed clear to him now that there was more to the Universe than mere objects caught in space. Others, like him, throughout the course of human history, had had encounters of some sort or another with images or intelligences that could not be explained by scientific methodology. Some, many of whom were modern, rational people, had come away from these experiences with physical evidence that the manifestation had indeed occurred. They bore scars, felt physical aches, or, better still, found themselves healed of long standing infirmities.

The ancients seemed to have no issue whatsoever with this. They were quite comfortable living in a world well-populated by beings beyond detection. Of course, there was no consensus as to what these beings were. Some thought them to be gods, some thought them to be ghosts. What the beings were, though, wasn’t overly important to Marc Uriah. What mattered to him was that he wasn’t alone in his encounter. And, that the only reason he felt crazy as a result of it was the surrounding culture.

There were many gifts science imparted to man. Medicine chief among them. But also: cross-continental travel and communication, the proliferation of information, a staggering blow to global poverty, more comfortable living conditions, and so on. But with these gifts came a poison pill. The Overton window regarding rational thought shrank. Excised from polite, public conversation was any talk of the supernatural. Relegating those like Marc Uriah to the fringes of society, as were the Unclean spoken of in the biblical book of Leviticus.

All this, Marc Uriah had settled in his mind. Still, other questions remained.

Why were these interactions relegated to a minority of people? Was there some temperamental disposition that made them more or less likely? Was there some purpose to the interactions? If so, were the forces behind them in control of more than we cared to admit? Had empires been built at their command? What of churches, faiths, philosophies? Were wars waged, passions stirred, all under their influence?

And: could all this be understood by a single man?

Marc Uriah took in a shot of whiskey. His tolerance for the drink had grown strong, like a well-worked muscle. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand then set down the glass on his desk. He opened one of his books and proceeded to read.

It was on the topic of shamanism. The ancient shamans, Marc Uriah had learned, were known to have a special connection to the “otherworld.” They communicated with it via dreams and visions, sometimes under the influence of psychotropic herbs. This is why Marc Uriah procured those tablets of acid. He intended to go back to where he’d been, in the manner of the shaman.

When? He didn’t know. It was no small thing to alter one’s consciousness. There were risks involved. According to his psychologist friend, a bad trip could cause violent episodes of paranoia, anxiety, and depression. There were even those, though rare, who came away from the experience with permanent psychosis. However, the writer had already decided, he was willing to take the risk, if it meant getting some answers.

Just…not yet.

For now, he was content to read of the shamanic experience.

Some commonalities seemed to be: starting in a peaceful place in nature, like a beach or forest, then encountering some spirit being, who may or may not look human, and finally, opening a dialogue with the spirit being, wherein questions are asked, and, sometimes, answers are given. Through all this, there is light, beaming into one’s soul, sending signals into one’s body, directing the whole endeavor.

Similar to what he’d experienced.

He finished the book and laid it down. He poured himself another shot and downed it in a gulp. Then, he got up. For a second, the world went woozy. Though his alcohol tolerance was strong, he had drunk a lot that day. Stumbling, he went to the door and called out, “Claire!”

She wasn’t home. He’d forgotten she had work that day. As a University professor, she worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and, in the state Marc Uriah was in, it was difficult to keep track of dates. Since he was intoxicated, he’d been wanting her to, in her infinite sweetness, get him some food. But, it seemed he was meant to fend for himself.

Alone in his home, he made his way wavering down the hall.

“Bloody walls,” he said to himself, “I wish they’d keep still and stop spinning around me.”

They refused to cooperate. Still, he pressed on.

He managed to reach his staircase without incident. There, he took firm hold of the banister and leaned on it heavily as he descended, one step at a time. Right foot up, right foot down, the other waiting patient until the first was on secure ground. It took a great degree of concentration. So much so, that he only barely noticed the prickle at his neck.

But, he did notice. It was like a breath, light and cold, exhaled direct on his skin. Slowly, he turned to look for the source. There was nothing behind him. Assuming it was a figment of his drunken imagination, he resumed his careful proceedings down the stairs.

As soon as he did, the breath came to him again. It caused his hairs to prick up, his arms to goose-pimple. For a moment, his mind went very sober, sharp as when he wrote. The systems in him meant to pick up on predators suddenly came alive.

“Is there someone here?” Marc Uriah said.

No response, but the heightening of his heart rate.

Again, he looked behind him and again, he saw nothing.

“If there is, you have nothing to fear from me,” he said, remembering his reading. It could be one of the entities he now knew haunted our world unseen. He said this hoping that if one of these beings was there, it would not hesitate to interact with him more directly.

Only, as soon as the words left him, a sense of shame came over him, like one felt when being laughed at by a crowd. It caused him to moisten at the armpits, to clench at the chest, to burn at the belly. All this was made all the worse by his unknowing. Was any of this real? Or was it psychosomatic? Was he being visited from beyond? Or was he simply suffering from an acute case of over-reading tinged with over-drinking?

His eyes darted about. His ears perked, searching for sounds.

Still, he could detect nothing.

He breathed out a sigh and continued down the stairs. This time, he made it to the bottom. His body continued on alert, though nothing seemed to be following him.

In the kitchen, he prepared himself a sandwich. Quaking hands laid ingredients atop each other: whole wheat bread, thin, deli-cut turkey slices, tomatoes, kale, spinach leaves, and some pepper. Another bread slice sealed in the goodness. He carried his trembling plate to the table and sat down.

Taking a bite, his nerves finally settled. Food had a way of doing that for him. A few bites in, and he let his mind wander. Inexplicably, it arrived at a most unusual place. He recalled a cartoon strip he’d read in the newspaper, oh, going on fifteen years ago now.

It was of a boy whose world fragmented into post-modern art. The boy could not make heads or tails of anything around him. All shapes previously familiar were now misshapen, jagged, and hanging off each other. As he travelled through this alien world, the boy despaired, because nothing made sense to him anymore. The punchline of the strip was, the boy had just argued with his father and been presented with an alternate perspective, and the post-modern world was a visual representation of what had happened to his mind. He solved his issue by closing his mind and asserting, without further thought, that his father was wrong.

“It was a bloody good cartoon,” said Marc Uriah, a little smile overtaking his lips.

It was immediately interrupted. An onrush of the breath came to him then, sweeping over his frame like a wave. A frigid current passed through his arms, his spine, his groin. A pang of terror formed down deep in his innards, built, then emerged from him in the form of a scream.

The scream was halted by a sudden growl coming from everywhere. Marc Uriah spun, searched in every direction. Nothing visible was there but the growl persisted, persisted and grew louder. Marc Uriah stood, meaning to run away (to where, who knew but God Himself?). But as he sprung up, his knees crashed against the bottom of the table, BANG, and the pain sent him reeling backward into his chair. Tangling himself in the chair legs, he tripped, and, bringing the chair with him, he soon found himself on the floor. Wounded and scared, he lay there wincing, unable to prevent whatever was to happen to him.

That’s when a voice, small and just by the writer’s ear, spoke to him and said:

You’ve cast too wide a net.

And then, the ordeal was done.