For The Love Of Gods

He’d avoided therapy for an age. This strange concept made little sense to him. The advocates for talking to professionals were all damp squibs. Empty vessels farming out their souls. Too fearful to speak for themselves. Teasing out half-truths with a complete stranger. May as well seat themselves in the confessional and speak of sin with God. Better still, find a scapegoat and send it out into the wilderness.

His amusement at his own failure to see the opportunity presented to him was what sealed the deal in the end. He realised that his hunger for knowledge could be sated within the therapeutic environment. After all, everyone had a book in them and he was an avid reader. Where better to read his favourite subjects than in a library of people?

For thirty years he’d danced to the discordant tune of therapy. The initial sessions he paid for were research. Practice for what was to come. Really he was cautiously dipping his toe in the tepid pool and wondering what he could make of it. Gradually, he stepped from the shadows and made a pretence of sharing. This performance came far too easily to him. He possessed both the aptitude and enjoyment of this new pursuit. Almost felt that he’d been missing out due to his misdirected reticence.

People interested him, and in the margins of their experience he found treasure. Contradictions intrigued him. Exceptions proved the rule. They were sign posts to hidden knowledge. Often he picked at the wallpaper of a dynamic and underneath, the truth was quite the opposite of what was presented to the unsuspecting world. 

The search he’d embarked upon had brought him to each and every one of his destinations. In the laboratory of his mind, as he distilled all that he was down to granules of truth, he hankered after the self-same thing as everyone else; meaning. This existence of his must hold some purpose. The longer he lived the more he was convinced of this. In his unique existence was a truth worth labouring over.

Boredom was the driving force behind his momentum. He feared waking up to discover that he’d fossilised in the thrall of dark disinterest. Lost the will to live and suffocated in the meaningless tangle of moist bedsheets that many chose to lay within in favour of risking all and stepping out into the maelstrom of a world boiling with meaning. And so he’d told himself that people fascinated him until he began to believe it. Pushed himself further and further until he was no longer pretending.

His study of humanity led him to the stark contrast of their dark side. This the counterpoint to their goodness. He found that the inherent good in people was difficult to bring forth and examine. The fact of its existence was so obvious he couldn’t explain it sufficiently. And so he brought the darkness out into the light and this allowed him to know people far more than he’d expected. 

Life was a theatre of comedy. Angry, abusive and hateful people readily recalled all the perceived wrongs perpetrated against them, whilst conveniently losing their own transgressions in the waste paper basket that they allowed to dominate their being. They weaponised the acts of others, forming a battering ram that destroyed all sense and reason. Victims on the other hand, struggled to articulate the abuse meted out to them. They were too enmeshed with the pain inflicted upon them. Holding it to their bosom like a babe. Allowing it to suckle their life from them while they wrestled with the false question of why they deserved such treatment.

Prior to therapy, observing people had sometimes tired him. The fascination they held waxed and waned. He was too divorced from their experience. A stagehand in the wings watching the performance from a restricted view point. Never a part of the play itself.

But then toxic people became his specialisation. He found them basic and senseless and yet they captivated his interest with one, simple question.

Why?

Via the examination of myriad addictions he saw glimpses of the problem that the addiction sought to address. And of all the addicts, the narcissists stood out from the beleaguered crowd. Not those with narcissistic traits and tendencies. Everyone had those. It was the full blown disorder, those with narcissistic personalities caught his eye. That in itself was intriguing, because they were ever so dull. Something in their disordered nature dimmed their light until it was almost hidden. And yet he was attracted to them and their predatory behaviours.

Narcissists exemplified the contradictions of the species, for they were self-proclaimed gods. Secretly anointing themselves at the temple of their own egos and defining themselves as other worldly. Setting themselves apart from the herd. Never sharing their godhood openly. Instead they inflicted themselves upon their victims and grew darker with every act of abuse.

On the face of it, the narcissist was addicted to hurting people. Humanity was the source of their supply. The infliction of pain upon a person gave them the hit they craved. Under the addiction he pieced together the god-complex they suffered from and marvelled at the twisted logic they operated under. A logic that was simple and quite simply ridiculous.

Narcissists suffered from hyper-entitlement by virtue of their god-status. They were entitled to love and adoration. They expected to be worshipped come what may. And so they sought out a suitable follower and they blinded them with promises of love that would never be fulfilled. Their power was reliant upon the love they received from their blind devotee. In seeing this and the cold predatory way they spiritually raped their victims he understood that they were an assumption of love. They’d no need to show love or live love in any way, shape or form because their being gods meant that they were love itself. That was the fantasy they drew innocents into so they could dim the light they so envied.

Narcissists were an abhorrent misinterpretation of God is love. In a daring act of the ultimate blasphemous egotism, they’d claimed the crown of God for themselves and fed on the love of those they covertly abused. They were an eternally hungry falsehood numbing those around them and wrapping them up in a web of lies, chaos and confusion so they could feed upon people until they rendered them dried out husks. Or made them in their own corrupted image.

In a way, he admired their single-minded purpose and he was grateful to them for the lessons they provided him whenever he could get time with one. Which wasn’t as often as he would have liked, because they never saw the need to improve upon all that they believed that they were, let alone heal from the wounds that led them to become this way.

They did however attend group therapy. This was a playground for a narc. A chance to play and hone the use of words as weapons. He observed them in these acts of play and marvelled at how they hid so lazily in plain sight. They indulged in a martial art that entailed the victim beating themselves up. Narcissism seemed to be unique in that the symptoms were passed on to the victims for them to suffer as the narcissist enjoyed the suffering they were projecting upon the poor, unsuspecting individual.

He wondered at how no one saw them for what they were. There were those who were hurt over and over again. Thousands of moments of pain over decades, and yet they slept walked deeper into a darkness that would eventually consume them. 

Then he saw it. The corruption of the belief system of the victim. A virus that infected the meat of meaning within belief. I love you hid hateful intent and via the infliction of pain the victim was bonded to the abuser with invisible chains that would take a life time or more to break.

It was as he studied the narcissist’s vast array of weaponry that he came upon entraining and as he saw this hypnotic tractor beam in action he laughed to himself. Now it made even more sense. He himself was staring in a mirror. Everything he was studying was an echo of himself. This was a lesson meant for him and him alone.

There was much discomfort in this revelation. Barbs tore at him as he considered how alike he was to the narc. Even then, he attempted to excuse his own behaviours and in so doing he knew himself all the more.

All the same, he made a good therapist with his dark perspective on humanity. His investment was in the acquisition of knowledge and this played out as professional detachment. He asked questions that opened his clients up and he sat back and listened as each wound was aired. Although very few full blown narcissists visited his practice, their victims did and he learnt much from those who’d been preyed upon. Understood that he should experience a resonance as he listened, and in failing to feel regret more questions emerged along with a shame long buried.

His self-loathing eventually caused him to prey on the predators who considered themselves to be gods. The broken victims who visited him exposed these twisted individuals and he would study them and their movements at night. He found them to be clumsy. Too taken with themselves and their originating wounds to develop the elegance of a true predator. 

They were easy prey. Almost too easy. After the initial finding of the facts of their existence he realised that they were all the same. And they made him sick. There was a poison inside them that burnt him however much exposure he had to it. It were almost as though he were feeding upon the corrupt flesh of rotting corpses.

One night, as he held a supposed god in his thrall, he playfully asked her what she supposed she was possessed by. Having asked his question of her, everything changed. Her clouded and wandering eyes focused upon him and darkened with a naked hatred that chilled him to the bone, “what do you mean?” she asked. But he’d seen enough and the answer concerned him so much that he’d no option other to end her there and then. In killing her, he’d done nothing to stop the endlessly feeding darkness within her. He felt it’s hunger even as her body lay lifeless and cold.

Try as he might, he couldn’t escape the ghost of the dark creature that’d made itself known to him. In his restlessness, he hit the books and dwelt upon the matter of his own possession. He was a Son of Judas. There was death in his existence, and having partaken of the darkness of narcissists he was tired of what he’d become. More so of what he was continuing to become. There were errors in his ways and he would change them if it were possible to do so. Then it fell upon him as he read on. A glib phrase that meant far more for one such as him, you are what you eat.

He remembered those dark eyes. Windows to a darkness where no soul dwelt. He’d been appalled at what he’d gazed into. Feared those depths. Thought of them as a dark, endless ocean in which a person drowned in eternal rage and pain.

Eternal pain.

They were the damned and yet they walked among the innocent. As he understood their nature his eyes fell upon the page he’d turned to…

Leviathan.

Leviathan was so much more than a gargantuan of the seas. This demon was second only to Lucifer himself. God cautioned mortals not to fight this monster. No one was a match for this beast, they were merely fodder. This was a fight for God himself. The demon was a harbinger of chaos. Lord of pride and lies. Now the narcissist made almost too much sense to him. There was no way back for them. They were the lost and damned.

But still he struggled with this loss and what it meant.

He questioned his own prideful study of these dangerous creatures. Had held himself above all others. Almost succumbed to the same insanity as those he looked upon with disdain. He had to believe he was better than them though. In the same way he understood he was lesser than the people he attempted to help.

He vowed never to feed upon a narcissist again. This decision presented him with an ethical conundrum. He’d culled the worst of humanity. Stripped the herd of its cancerous cells. To leave the worst cancer in place was a wrong that wouldn’t allow him to justify his own wrongdoing. Food for thought, but he could no longer take on the tainted blood of Leviathan. To do so was folly. He was consuming an infinite darkness. Filling himself with sin beyond measure. 

As this dilemma ate away at him, he engaged with a new client. Lily was yet another victim of the evil that was increasingly prevalent in the modern world. She’d been hurt and yet possessed a strength that he was immediately drawn to. Her vulnerability excited him in a way he’d never before experienced. 

As he listened to her he felt a deepening of the relationship necessary for therapy. His detachment became an impossible memory as he engaged with her. He found that all he wanted was for her to be whole again. Discovered more and more of her landscape and dreamed of his place there. 

Thoughts of home came to him unbidden. Not the place in the mists of his past, but the place that was always meant for him. The space where he could dwell and be. He listened to Lily with his entire being and gazed upon her with eyes averted. She was an apparition on the borders of his world and he yearned for her to haunt him all the more.

And she did.

His world no longer made sense without Lily. As she recovered and grew in their sessions he witnessed her unfurling and readying herself for the life that lay in front of her. He watched this with a sense of wonder. After each hour was up he basked in the elation of having been in her presence.

Later he would scan his horizon for pain. But the pain of loss eluded him and in sensing the absence of the oldest of his friends he knew what it was that was happening to him.

Love.

Now he ceased to study. He had no inclination to dig around the roots of the fledgling tree that he never thought could grow in the barren soil of him. Instead he chose to nurture that growth. Each session with Lily was a release from the prison of a version of him he no longer cared for.

And he barely thought about feeding. Hadn’t fed since the first time she’d stepped into his office. He was becoming equal to the ever present hunger within.

Living was an experience long denied him and yet here he was, a part of the living world. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he fancied he could hear the beat of his redundant heart. Every time he let loose the sighing breath of a lover the world took on a little more colour.

He was grateful.

Grateful for this moment.

Grateful for her.

And when she told him she loved him he froze. The dream of her became real in that moment of confession and he was assailed with a debilitating confusion. And in not knowing what should be done, he rejoiced. Rejoiced in the insanity of a love that he could never know as the dark creature he had been until she came into his life and shone upon him.

He smiled as the magic spell she’d cast upon him took effect. 

Now he had the answer he’d sought. The intriguing narcissists spoke to him of a Bad Choice. They’d chosen the darkness of Leviathan and that demon would never let them reverse that choice. He’d never had a choice. He’d been made against his will. But he’d continued to believe there was always a choice. Always. Having dwelt in the shadows for too long he’d chosen love at last, and he’d helped Lily to find her way back to love into the bargain.

He’d chosen Lily and she’d chosen him. Her love filled him, and his heart swelled as it spoke truth.

He told her he loved her too. Witnessed the beautiful reciprocation of that love. And in the next breath he denied her. He rejected her as he knew he must. This was the truth that came from his now loving heart. 

He must set her free.

And in setting her free, he too would be free.

I will always love you, he told her, but this is the pure platonic love that lifts two souls up towards the place they have always belonged. We are well met you and I. You have saved me as I sought to save you.

Her tears were gems falling from the treasure of her. He watched her leave and locked the door to his office as his transformation continued to take effect. Lily had taught him to give again. In giving he was living. The sacrifice required in order to live was his life. That was the contract he’d long since broken. Sitting in the bliss of a love he didn’t know was possible, he let go of everything that had held him in darkness. He let go of the dark power of a false god and with it the immortality that had been his curse. 

Redemption from sins long forgotten, reconciliation with love and peace at last.