Quide and sixty Apresoline, plus half a bottle of wine. All that remained of his medication was a bottle of Miles Nervine. Fat was technically dead.
Spiritually, he was dead, too.
Either he had seen God too soon or he had seen him too late. In any case, it had done him no good at all in terms of survival. Encountering the living God had not helped to equip him for the tasks of ordinary endurance, which ordinary men, not so favored, handle.
But it could also be pointed out -- and Kevin had done so --
that Fat had accomplished something else in addition to seeing God. Kevin had phoned him up one day in excitement, having in his possession another book by Mircea Eliade.
"Listen!" Kevin said. "You know what Eliade says about the dream-time of the Australian bushmen? He says that anthropologists are wrong in assuming that the dream-time is time in the past. Eliade says that it's another kind of time going on right now, which the bushmen break through and into, the age of the heroes and their deeds. Wait; I'll read you the part." An interval of silence. "Fuck," Kevin then said. "I can't find it. But the way they prepare for it is to undergo dreadful pain; it's their ritual of initiation. You were in a lot of pain when you had your experience; you had that impacted wisdom tooth and you were
--
" On the phone Kevin lowered his voice; he had been shouting. "You remember. Afraid about the authorities getting you."
"I was nuts," Fat had answered. "They weren't after me."
"But you thought they were and you were so scared you fucking couldn't sleep at night, night after night. And you underwent sensory deprivation."
"Well, I lay in bed unable to sleep."
"You started seeing colors. Floating colors." Kevin had begun to shout again in excitement; when his cynicism vanished he became manic. "That's described in
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
;that's the trip across to the next world. You were mentally dying! From stress and fear! That's how it's done -- reaching into the next reality! The dream-time!"
Right now Fat sat on the plastic and chrome couch mentally dying; in fact he was already mentally dead, and in the room he had left, the experts were deciding his fate, passing sentence and judgment on what remained of him. It is proper that technically qualified non-lunatics should sit in judgment on lunatics. How could things be otherwise?
"If they could just get across to the dream-time!" Kevin shouted. "That's the only
real
time; all the real events happen in the dream-time! The actions of the gods!"
Beside Fat the huge old lady held a plastic pan; for hours she had been trying to throw up the Thorazine they had forced on her; she believed, she rasped at Fat, that the Thorazine had poison in it, by which her husband -- who had penetrated the top levels of the hospital staff under a variety of names -- intended to finish killing her.
"You found your way into the upper realm," Kevin declared. "Isn't that how you put it in your journal?"
#48. Two realms there are, upper and lower. The upper, derived from hyperuniverse I or Yang, Form I of Parmenides, is sentient and volitional. The lower realm, or Yin, Form II of Parmenides, is mechanical, driven by blind, efficient cause, deterministic and without intelligence, since it emanates from a dead source. In ancient times it was termed "astral determinism." We are trapped, by and large, in the lower realm, but are, through the sacraments, by means of the plasmate, extricated. Until astral determinism is broken, we are not even aware of it, so occluded are we. "The Empire never ended."
A small, pretty, dark-haired girl walked silently past Fat and the huge old woman, carrying her shoes. At breakfast time she had tried to smash a window using her shoes and
then, having failed, knocked down a six-foot-high black technician. Now the girl had about her the presence of absolute calm.
"The Empire never ended," Fat quoted to himself. That one sentence appeared over and over again in
Spiritually, he was dead, too.
Either he had seen God too soon or he had seen him too late. In any case, it had done him no good at all in terms of survival. Encountering the living God had not helped to equip him for the tasks of ordinary endurance, which ordinary men, not so favored, handle.
But it could also be pointed out -- and Kevin had done so --
that Fat had accomplished something else in addition to seeing God. Kevin had phoned him up one day in excitement, having in his possession another book by Mircea Eliade.
"Listen!" Kevin said. "You know what Eliade says about the dream-time of the Australian bushmen? He says that anthropologists are wrong in assuming that the dream-time is time in the past. Eliade says that it's another kind of time going on right now, which the bushmen break through and into, the age of the heroes and their deeds. Wait; I'll read you the part." An interval of silence. "Fuck," Kevin then said. "I can't find it. But the way they prepare for it is to undergo dreadful pain; it's their ritual of initiation. You were in a lot of pain when you had your experience; you had that impacted wisdom tooth and you were
--
" On the phone Kevin lowered his voice; he had been shouting. "You remember. Afraid about the authorities getting you."
"I was nuts," Fat had answered. "They weren't after me."
"But you thought they were and you were so scared you fucking couldn't sleep at night, night after night. And you underwent sensory deprivation."
"Well, I lay in bed unable to sleep."
"You started seeing colors. Floating colors." Kevin had begun to shout again in excitement; when his cynicism vanished he became manic. "That's described in
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
;that's the trip across to the next world. You were mentally dying! From stress and fear! That's how it's done -- reaching into the next reality! The dream-time!"
Right now Fat sat on the plastic and chrome couch mentally dying; in fact he was already mentally dead, and in the room he had left, the experts were deciding his fate, passing sentence and judgment on what remained of him. It is proper that technically qualified non-lunatics should sit in judgment on lunatics. How could things be otherwise?
"If they could just get across to the dream-time!" Kevin shouted. "That's the only
real
time; all the real events happen in the dream-time! The actions of the gods!"
Beside Fat the huge old lady held a plastic pan; for hours she had been trying to throw up the Thorazine they had forced on her; she believed, she rasped at Fat, that the Thorazine had poison in it, by which her husband -- who had penetrated the top levels of the hospital staff under a variety of names -- intended to finish killing her.
"You found your way into the upper realm," Kevin declared. "Isn't that how you put it in your journal?"
#48. Two realms there are, upper and lower. The upper, derived from hyperuniverse I or Yang, Form I of Parmenides, is sentient and volitional. The lower realm, or Yin, Form II of Parmenides, is mechanical, driven by blind, efficient cause, deterministic and without intelligence, since it emanates from a dead source. In ancient times it was termed "astral determinism." We are trapped, by and large, in the lower realm, but are, through the sacraments, by means of the plasmate, extricated. Until astral determinism is broken, we are not even aware of it, so occluded are we. "The Empire never ended."
A small, pretty, dark-haired girl walked silently past Fat and the huge old woman, carrying her shoes. At breakfast time she had tried to smash a window using her shoes and
then, having failed, knocked down a six-foot-high black technician. Now the girl had about her the presence of absolute calm.
"The Empire never ended," Fat quoted to himself. That one sentence appeared over and over again in
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