Dandy Darkly

Grave Cliche

Mrs. Bond looked down at little fourth grade me, all dark eyes, pale skin and serious demeanor and cautiously asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

My reply, "Dead."

The class had done water color and crayon drawings of our future ambitions, all of them worthy of inclusion on any family refrigerator. There were brave astronauts, United States presidents, happy mommies... and mine. I'd drawn a house with smoke swirleys coming from the chimney. My dog, Possum, woofed in the front yard, and beneath the meticulously drawn blades of green grass was a little coffin. And there I slept. My arms folded across my chest.  

The principal called my mother, of course. It hadn't been the first time. Wouldn't be the last.

Having met the dead version of myself almost two weeks ago, I wonder if ten year old Dandy Darkly would find some bit of comfort knowing his revelatory artistry eventually comes to fruition. But then again, it doesn't take a psychic to know we all end up dead. It's the coming back from the grave that's the tricky part.

And about that...  

I am a bit concerned that I'm all icky and Voldemort-ified when I, presumably, have my First Death and come back. Really? Tattered robes? Skeletal frame? Black coffee with no milk? As an out and proud gay necromancer, I'd hope to be more of a fashion icon for aspiring young, gay exorcists... 

I've been processing what I saw that night on the floor of my former waitressing job. And also considering what to do with the Metrocard given to me by the alternate-me, the rotting self who finally responded when I conjured a witch's brew in search of an identity. The brew was a nasty one, really old recipe. ... I can't help but smile because... as vain as it sounds, the rotting me seemed pleased that I'd decided to use such a dark means to communicate with it. 

I remember rotting me squatting above waitressing me. It was bitchy. Very me. Everything was freezing cold. I do remember flashes of something else though, a blue business suit. I really want to believe it was me. A future me who eventually regains his power and comes all the way back in time to save me!

That's awfully sentimental, ain't it? There's really no room for sentiment around these parts. More than likely future me ends up pledging my eternal soul to some lower power, who in turn gives future me enough influence to put the dominoes in  motion to my ultimate demise... And let's consider those flashes of the the blue suit, and the cliche nature of the robes, the swarm of flies, the skeleton... this entity, whether it truly was me or an illusion, was deliciously malevolent, enticingly so...

Sure bells and whistles are sounding off, but when gauzy sentiment meets power hungry madness, the resulting combination is wonderfully distracting.

I haven't discussed any of this Ms. Margerie. She had been helping me down a less wicked path as of late, but now... I honestly can't live like this. Powerless. Useless. So fuck it. If this is the path back to even some sliver of the abilities I once had, I'll be skipping down that aisle wearing toddler skin slippers. I mean it! Line the toddlers up!

... Alas, who am I kidding? Of course I have reservations. I'm not the soulless demon in booth twelve. Yet. I can't help but think some (all?) of my past misdeeds are the reason this shitstorm was brought down on my goat's blood drinking ass. But I can't start playing mind games. Thinking about past lives or future selves. I have "Lost" for that. All I can focus on is the present. And presently I have this worn out, expired Metrocard given to me by an undead future version of myself.

I need to do research before I swipe this thing at a train station. I've written before how such places are powerful areas of spiritual influence. I also need to read up on accounts of meeting oneself, dead or otherwise. 

At least research is painless.

Overhead Projector

It was 1998, I was on the last flight out from Albuquerque to Atlanta, heading home to visit the family for Thanksgiving. Originally my departure was scheduled for that morning, but bad weather in Washington DC grounded my connecting flight. Ten hours, almost as many martinis (1998 was my martini year) and two plates of chicken fingers later, I sat crammed in a tiny regional jet flying above the desert en route to Georgia.

With a screaming infant next to me, I put my Shania Twain CD (1998 was my country year) into my portable player. With my face against the scratched Plexiglas, I stared into the night sky quietly mouthing You're Still The One.

The ground below was a mosaic of orange street lights. They seemed to scatter in a pattern that suggested a higher power simply dropped a handful of glitter on the center of each town and allowed the shining points of light to rest wherever they may.

Above, the yellow stars matched the Earth's man made jewels in equal splendor. It was a cloudless night and the space outside that humid, oppressive cabin seemed to call to me. Shania's words lulled me to sleep, even as l'infant miserable tried his damnest to keep me awake...

...

...

The jet's engines throttled and shook the sky around me. I drifted lazily and slowly opened my eyes - and sure enough there was the plane, my plane, flying away from me... and I was simply hanging in the air. The distant city lights beneath me glowed with even greater intensity, as did the stars above. And there I was, a non-corporeal entity, swaying in the indigo night sky.

It was neat.

Then I began to panic. Was I dead? I had to be dead. The Void got me. THE VOID GOT ME! This was the Der erste Tod (First Death) which I'd read about in the rare mysticism books I'd uncovered in Berlin! Think. THINK! What were the causal factors that led to my demise. The baby caused me to put on my headphones. The headphones caused me to go to sleep ... and I must have suffocated against the window. The screaming baby was an agent of The Void? The Void is Shania Twain! I paused. Obviously there was a flaw in my logic. I took a deep breath -- although I wasn't breathing, and the flight attendent asked me if I cared for a beverage.

And I was looking at her. She was looking at me. I was back in my body, back in my seat and back on the plane. I shrieked. The baby started shrieking, people around me began to moan. His mother gave me the NASTIEST LOOK EVER. The puzzled stewardess apologized in that customer-servicey way for apparently somehow startling me. Turns out that I hadn't been asleep. I'd just been sitting there staring at her while she asked me repeatedly if I wanted a soft drink. On the floor Shania faintly sang from my discarded headphones.

I declined the offer of a Fresca, and waited while the beverage cart passed. I excused myself to the restroom and splashed cold water on my face. I wasn't dead. I had experienced my first astral projection.

From Wikipedia:

Astral projection (or astral travel) is a paranormal interpretation of an out-of-body experience achieved either awake or via lucid dreaming or deep meditation. The concept of astral projection assumes the existence of another body, separate from the physical body and capable of traveling to non-physical planes of existence.

And there you have it: my spirit drifted out of the cage and came to sit in what my paranormal psyche still considers it's safe place, a dark purple sky squashed by two glorious washes of twinkling stars. To this day when I (rarely) meditate into an astral state, that is always the starting point for my non-physical journey.

I'm not sure why exactly. My meditation instructor, Mr. Patel (he's a burly, mustached macho man who I naturally nicknamed Yogi Bear), is inclined to believe the contentment of the initial location: going home, the sensation of flight and the serene view outside the window, were all factors in why I begin my astral travels at that very spot.

Regardless, astral projection isn't something I particularly enjoy. Whereas Mr. Patel routinely passes his consciousness between the worlds of the Spirit and Man, I'm a little too attracted to my own body, not to mention Mr. Patel's. Woof. I'm more than content to keep my soul inside my body and my body securely on the ground.

Shells

When I first die - which may not be the end but possibly a new beginning - I hope it is a quick death. Such lamentable tales of destruction I've heard. Woeful spirits who believed a suicide would be an escape from the pain - only to discover there exists a world of torment worse than the crippling arthritis, a scorned heart, the emotional pain of our seemingly broken shells.

I remember happier moments in my earlier life. Not to imply I'm old, when one is faced with the potential of immortality, age becomes a non-issue, but those sunny mental snapshots - often spent at the beach - nevertheless had a shadow cast across them. However nothing like the darkness I face on a day-to-day basis. The spooks and chills of my youth were quaint by comparison.

I was obsessed with shells - worn down by the ceaseless waves - of our world but strangely alien. I would throw the unbroken ones back into the water hoping (with the optimism of a chubby thirteen year old) that a cartoon critter would find a home, maybe even sing a song in celebration. But once a shell is empty (our shells included) it's simply fuel for cars - dinosaur bones and diamonds - dog shit on the sidewalk - discarded bubble gum that will outlast humanity's presumptive notions that we're the beginning, the middle and the end. There's much more than you'd guess hiding in the shadow's of our Starbucks and Wal-Marts.

I learned to accept the shadows cast across my childhood. Even when I figured out that no one else could perceive the things I could see, still I carried on - and tried to be like everyone else. I knew the naked man standing waste deep in the waves wasn't supposed to be there. White and pale, so thin, covered in seaweed and jagged bite marks. The phantom tried to speak to me, desperate to find his shell. Poor thing.

To be utterly cliche: I see dead people.

That was my first encounter with a fully realized spirit manifestation. First time I'd seen a naked man too. (I wasn't particularly put off by either.) I write these words from a place of shameful, exhilarating narcissism, but also I've been searching for some means of solace for these sad souls who speak to me. Because when we voluntarily separate from our shells, all we have to greet us is The Void.

The Void is better defined by what it is not. The Void is not Hell. The Void is not the Devil. It happily accepts such labels, because Man's perceptions of wicked things only make it stronger. The Void is not Evil, but angry souls are courted by it. The Void is a middle ground between the physical and spirit worlds, but it's not Limbo either. It's not a place. It's not a person. But as humans we feel the need to personify everything we can't explain. So The Void becomes a person by way of our own narcissism. As tales of horror were spoken, The Void made them real. Now The Void writes it's own stories. The Void is the darkest dreams of a collective humanity, brought to life by us. We control The Void as much as it controls us - and most importantly our deceased souls.

Some souls aren't strong enough to manifest themselves. The Void's hold is too powerful. There are time honored means in which to coax them out. Such ritual I’m happy to share because The Void is knocking at my door. The only option I have is to educate while I’m able. I don’t know. Can The Void affect its grasp upon the Internet? An entity similar to The Void in that it is a created space of thoughts, feelings and fears. I’m conflicted in using such a relatively young (by comparison to The Void which grew from the shadows of Mankind's first cave fire) tool to share these secrets.

The Void abhors progress. If there’s one constant regarding my enemy and friend is that simple fact. Purveyors of the art can get very stuck on tradition, it is the not-so-subtle influence of The Void that limits us to tossing bones or holding hands during a séance when more sophisticated means are begging to be discovered. I digress, however.

Suffice to say, the closer The Void stalks, the more at peace I am with my fate. For the first time in a long while, I am content in this aching, farting cage of tendon and bone, and though my shell be well worn, still I wear it well.