Withining - Prologue

                                              Prologue

              Perls aligned the psychological structure humans must possess to effectively engage this world into four layers of protective neurosis. The first two layers he defined as the empty small talk utilized to placate others, gain approval and negotiate through society – layers most people never delve beneath until the very moment of their death – while the third layer is depicted as a cloak to cover feelings of being empty and lost, allowing the construction of individual character defenses. But it is beneath Perls fourth and final layer that a terrible revelation exists; a knowledge few have discovered and lived beyond to collaborate a naked, indisputable truth. Of these survivors, none have returned unscathed – returned sane.
          Hidden away within the subconscious of each member of mankind is the fractal antennae exposing the veritable, multiple realities of our universe. But humans must deny themselves to successfully reside within their communal ignorance, thus repeatedly submitting the very survival of the human race unto the deeds of the ultimate realists: schizophrenics who are no longer able to inhabit the world’s essential neurosis.
          And with all we schizophrenics have discovered, we have come to realize how stunningly accurate Pascal was in summing up mankind’s protective neurotic state: Men are so necessarily mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness…indeed, the madness of knowing.
                                              -Father Jacob Campbell: from the archives of LXX

         
          “Possession?”
          Though whispered exclusively for the venerable Father Jacob Campbell’s highly qualified consideration, nonetheless the young priest’s single word query spattered a profusion of dread across the chamber to ignite alarm within the widening eyes of the two eavesdropping altar boys. Shifting his focus beyond the heavily time-sculpted face of Father Jacob, the newly ordained cleric slipped into the youths’ eyes and witnessed his question accelerate to an inferno fueled by a seemingly endless quantity of kindling – a seemingly endless accumulation of indoctrinated fear, supplied by countless religious teachings and stockpiled within the hearts of mankind throughout the millenniums.
          “Ha, he caught you!  Well you snoops, he’s only playing,” the lightsome fib, accompanied with a smile that begat scores of newborn wrinkles on Father Jacob’s face, doused the anxiousness of both young boys. “Good one, James, though it was in poor taste,” the short, strongly knit man added for further deceiving affect, narrowing his blue eyes up to the blonde-haired priest.
          Father Jacob turned back to the alter boys and softened his gaze.  “Why don’t you spies go to the lounge and get yourselves a couple of sodas. Father James can come get you when we’re ready for Mass to begin.”
          With their espionage unnervingly exposed the two boys used the opportunity given them to escape to the hallway, closing the chamber door. Father Jacob’s eyes remained on the door.
          “No James, it’s not possession. Not with this one,” he answered, disposing the inquisitiveness of the young priest. Five decades of performing exorcisms gave enough credence to the old man’s statement to thwart any further questions on the matter. Father Jacob turned to James. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “He is what he is.”
          Just as I am what I am, Father James grasped the unspoken part of the message he distilled from the sage eyes fixed on him. He has his abilities, like I have my gift of receiving random thoughts through peoples’ eyes.
          “Of course the boy has his abilities, just as you have your –” Father Jacob watched the synchronized jig of the amber irises of the young priest. The old man smiled, nodded his head once and turned away. “So you know your primary assignment is to use your gift to work with him, though I feel there’s nothing you can do for the boy. Besides, his mother knows how to control him. Amy went through the same phase when she was his age. Anyway, it’s been almost a year since her pup has… well, since anything unfortunate has happened. She’s done an incredible job as the little whelp’s keeper.”
          “As the little whelp’s keeper?” Father James’ resented, his narrowing eyes corrugating his brow below brushed-back blonde bangs. “Like he’s a dog? Jacob, you’re poking fun at a four-year-old deaf-mute!”
          The old man turned back; his blue irises glistened sadly, painfully. He wiped the aqueous anguish from his eyes with his left hand, exposing on his ring finger a wide band adorned with a pair of silver spiders in relief, their opposing fangs opened wide and clutching a large rainbow moonstone.
          Oh…not a joke! – James did not need his gift to interpret the reply.


          Whoa! Something nasty hidden inside him, Father James construed, watching the old fat man waddle past and exit through the open doors of the chapel. Cold, dead eyes! He shuddered. Picked up his name – Ian Matthews. Couldn’t read anything else in them… probably a good thing! Need to remember to tell Jacob about him.
          Father James smiled, leaned over and shook the tiny hand of the squirming seven-year-old orphan as she waited her turn to meet the new priest, wondering if he would correctly guess her name.  “Thank-you for coming, little Miss Kari O’Reilly,” he spoke after a quick glance. The redhead’s unhinged mouth and expanding sky blue eyes exhibited collective awe and fright as she scurried behind an accompanying nun’s frock.
          Father James continued his parting conversations with the parishioners; still, his thoughts remained with the strange fat man.
          Why did he take a seat in their pew? – recalling how, though the chapel was packed to the point of standing room only to meet the new priest with the remarkable gift, the long pew at the rear of the chapel occupied by the small blonde-haired woman, her ten year-old daughter and the deaf-mute, four-year-old boy remained empty on either side of them – exactly as Father Jacob had said it would be. Oddly, the old fat man had entered at mid-service and seated himself in the pew at one end.
          “Yes, and thank-you Robert. I’m very happy to meet you too. So, we’ll see you next week?” Father James asked of the tall man now before him, though he had an answer before he had finished the question. No, of course we won’t be seeing you. I see you have tickets to the Yankees and Red Sox game next week.
          He shifted his eyes away from Robert’s to the next person in line, and drew a sharp breath. “Good…good afternoon, Mrs. Antonini,” he managed, gazing down to the bright green eyes of the small, slender blonde-haired woman.  Oh, dear God…so beautiful!
          A few years ago James thought would have been an admission of a young man’s attraction to the desirous physical attributes of the twenty-nine year-old woman. But since a particular day four years past, upon receiving his divine gift, physical attraction was now a severely depressed motivation for him. The enthralling feeling Father James had was of a much more enlightened kind.
          “Welcome to our parish, Father. Please, call me Amy,” her voice flowed with such elegance – such…such allure! But Father James hardly discerned the welcome, helplessly entangled within the bright, unblinking eyes. She continued, “This is my daughter, Jenny – oh, then I guess you already knew that!”
          He knew. He had met up with the girl’s eyes during Communion. A particular byproduct of Father’s James unique ability was being able to extract the names of each and every person he met by looking into their eyes. Though held in wonderment for this feat, it was really a rather insignificant aspect of his gift.
          Father James shifted his eyes to the small ten-year old and showed a delighted smile. “Hello, Jenny. My, but aren’t you just the perfect image of your mother!”
          Yes, you most definitely are, he continued to himself, gazing into the equally bright green eyes of the young blonde-haired girl. Jenny smiled, shifting her restless eyes away. What a charming smile you have, too!
          “And this is my son, Sam.” Amy glanced down to the black-haired, four-year-old at her hip.
          The boy had held his face down throughout the service, as he continued to do so now, and did not leave his seat to participate in the morning’s ceremony. Father James had yet to witness his notorious eyes. Sam’s mother tightened her slender arm she had draped across the youth’s shoulders. The young deaf-mute lifted his down-turned face.
          “My Lord!” James gasped.
          He had prepared. His meticulous preparation for this first meeting with the ostracized boy was such that no horror – no terror could possibly exist to have any outward affect on him. Yes, he had readied himself for this first look into the boy’s infamous eyes. Even so his astonishment burst forth, but of neither fright nor loathing.
          Midnight blue, unfathomable, expansive irises – the encompassing impression of floating adrift in a moonless night sky overwhelmed Father James divinely gifted mind. He wrenched his eyes away, relying on Amy Antonini’s bright green eyes to reorient his whirling consciousness. He forced a grin.
          “Sam – named after my favorite prophet.” James knelt down on one knee to level himself to that of the four-year-old, though holding his perplexed eyes up to the young boy’s mother. But I didn’t get that name from his eyes…Lord Jesus! I didn’t get any name!
          “Actually it’s not Samuel, just Sam. It’s a Latin acronym. He’s named after an angel.” Amy smiled down to the boy.
          “An angel…a Latin acronym?” Father James remained kneeling as he perused the mental library he had accumulated from the past several years of seminary studies, but to no avail. The answer he did not find in the boy’s dark eyes was not there either. He shifted to the earlier discussion he had with Father Jacob in preparation of this initial meeting.
          “Be careful, James, please be careful of those eyes of his! If they start to change, look away,” Father Jacob’s words revisited him. “With your gift, there’s no telling what may happen to you!”
          Yes, but no information as to an angel with the Latin acronym “SAM”.
          Father James continued his search.
          “James,” Father Jacob’s part of the conversation continued to playback in his mind. “Do you remember when you received your gift?”
          “Four years ago,” he remembered answering.
          “I mean, do you know the exact date?” Father Jacob had asked, turning away.
          “Absolutely. I was jolted awake so hard I fell out of bed. It was in the early morning hours of May thirteenth.”
          The old man’s powerful shoulders had dropped, as if a seemingly greater burden than even they could bear had descended onto them. “The Church has attested that exact date to be the day thousands of others were given their gifts as well.”
          James winced as he recalled Father Jacob’s point to the conversation: “It’s the date documented on his birth certificate.” Equally compelling to James, he suddenly realized Father Jacob had not once spoken the boy’s name.
          The young priest sighed. No information existed within him as to an angel the boy may have been named after. He would have to ask the boy’s mother. Father James shifted from one knee to the next and glanced ahead. He froze.
          They changed!
          “No…please, no!” the tormented plea desecrated the hallowed chapel; a strangely serene silence strangled his suffering scream. God help me! James’ mind implored what his voice could no longer manage.
          No help arrived. Too late for James as he withdrew deep inside himself, falling toward the dark isolation within, desperate to escape the boy’s magnetic black irises and of the terrible annihilation emitted from them. Father James spiraled further into internal blackness, departing the superficial world he had known – fleeing the manifestation of a name no living human soul was ever equipped to know.