The Way has become dark and I am afraid; clouds massed above me are turbulent, thundering loudly. My Guide has assured me that Light can never die but my mind is shrouded in doubt as thick as the darkness surrounding me. I stumble on a stone, cursing my carelessness. I must keep going. I went through the Abyss that time and survived by counting stars, I remind myself; I will live to survive this time by using logic.
In this dread night there are demons laughing at and mocking me, bidding me welcome to their realm. I have met them before and have learned to know better by now so I resist, gritting my teeth. Their jeers remind me that the Shopkeeper is not here this time and that nobody can save me; my many crimes have led me here and it is time for me to pay. I force these thoughts away from me with effort. My Guide has told me it is possible to walk away from hell. I must believe.
It has become windy and I am buffeted from all sides. Disorientated, I hit my head, hard, against a rock. Curses again. Shaking uncontrollably, I hide behind it, stars whirling in my head. Now rain comes and with it cold arrives in shards. I cry out into the empty, howling wind, nobody to hear me. So I tie myself up tight into a ball and try to think.
I have my virtual coin in my hair and have thus far have managed to keep it safe. I have chosen it to represent hope, the existence of which was proven to me by my Guide through sheer force of logic. It is simply so, I was taught, that since the realm of possibility has by definition to include the set of every thing imaginable within the scope of this broad universe in which, perhaps by accident but more likely by design, we happen to find ourselves, by extrapolation, hope must exist or there would be no word for it. I could not argue.
Thus there must be hope and the fact that I was given a coin by a stranger through and act of kindness has also now proven the existence of mercy, I now realise. I repeat these things to myself again and again. There is hope and there is mercy. My Guide has even said that there is more along the Way along with an abundance of many other splendid things, but for the moment I am unable to visualise all of this, it is too much - I can expand upon my lexicon later. Mercy and hope. Hope and mercy. Mercy and hope. Exist.
My first encounter with the demons occurred during the time I was consigned to the Hospital. I went mad one day and was forcibly imprisoned there. I was informed that the reason had to do with a drug I had ingested and that this decision on my part had been a bad one, which wisdom I struggled to understand at the time, though it did eventually dawn on me that what the doctors told me was indubitably true. I will never forget the look of sadness and pity on the face of my son as he watched being taken away. I doubt I will ever be able to forgive myself.
In that place there was no comfort. The nurses kept me behind bars and though I ate what they fed me to keep alive I could not taste it. Days went by in monochrome succession; I could not tell them apart because there was no clock with which to measure them; the walls were blank as my mind became after the obligatory injection had been administered. The medicine was specifically designed, I was told, to keep demons at bay. Now they have come back to terrify me.
I must face them again as part of my journey, my Guide has told me; I must walk through the fire as part of the process, even though courage will certainly be required. I do not want to, I do not want to remember, I do not wish to recall the shame I felt, nor the dread at being kept in that place nor the shrieks of the souls who suffered there alongside me. How desperately I wanted to leave! But I was prohibited by the same Law which had deprived me of my personhood. No, I do not want to remember, but I must. For once I must do as I am told.
In principle my rights were restored to me when I was finally allowed to leave the Hospital, but in truth what sense of self I may or may not have possessed beforehand has never returned. Upon my release I promptly fell asleep again, this time in a bush. In this period of time, the duration of which I do not know, I travelled in my dreams to many places, empty zones of desolation, revisiting the people I had known but unable to converse with them. I had become a ghost.
At some point, purely by chance it seems, I stumbled upon a meeting of some kind. There were people holding hands and praying. They were real, not imagined, and they beckoned me to come in. I was sceptical at first but since I had nowhere else to go I tentatively entered the door. They invited me to pray with them. I did, and in this way was introduced to my Guide, who led me to the boarding house where I was given shelter.
A pinprick of light! Just a flicker! Do I see it there, on what may be some horizon? The flicker comes and goes. I must trust in it. Holding myself to myself I keep vigil for signs. I am shivering now with fever. I must, I must go onward. There is no alternative. I must believe. I must hold on to hope. Mercy exists. I must not sleep. I must believe, according to the logic I was handed by my Guide. Mercy and hope. I must believe. Hope and mercy. I must believe.