The Mark of Chaos

by Susan D. Kalior

  He didn’t move or speak. In fact, he seemed gone. The room felt vacant. I waited a few more minutes to be certain. If he was gone, I’d race out the door, because I hated this feeling. Hated it. If he was here, staring at me with those cold eyes, I’d die.

  Suddenly, I had the courage to find out. I peeked between the slats of my fingers—three swords hanging on a black wall. I turned my eyes slowly toward where he last was: a group of knives, a whip, a painting of mutilation, black chair, black end table, black silk shirt. My heart stopped. He was there, watching me—this fiend who detained me against my will and trapped me in a nightmare. Sickness waved from my stomach to my throat. My sense of reality numbed as if I’d been hit in the head.

  I wailed, “I want to go home!”

  “Really?” he asked. His fingers circled my wrists, prying my hands from my face. He forced my upper back to flatten on the cushions and pushed my hands down on either side of my head. His face came over mine, his mesmerizing eyes whirling . . . whirling. “I can take you there, Jenséa. I can take you into that deep, dark place where you secretly long to be—where in the soothing blackness you can explore your wild red fantasies without repercussion, without another living soul ever knowing what you’ve done.”

  It was then I knew he was truly wicked, and something in me let loose, exploding my persona. My eyes squeezed shut. I screamed deliriously, “R . . . a . . . n . . . d . . . a!” as if she could burst through the door and rescue me.

  “Randa can’t help you now,” he said richly.

  I writhed and gasped, “I must get out of here, away from you.” I wanted to die. My private shame had been unleashed, surrounding me like a band of cackling demons wiggling forked tongues and chiding, You are evil. Soon you will be one of us. I cried to myself, Never! My eyelids squeezed tighter, excreting tiny tear buds that dwelled in the corners of my closed eyes.

  “Don’t fight this so hard,” johnny said softly.

  Parts and pieces of my Dark Room in Arizona flashed in my mind. They matched johnny’s apartment—except the horror paintings on his walls, though grotesque in content, were different than mine. Surely, the likeness was no coincidence. And it seemed that johnny, with his aura of danger and mysticism, was a living manifestation of my Dark Room decor. Something terrible was happening. Oh Saint Jude, help me!

  johnny blew a cool stream of air on my face.

  I opened my eyes. My skin prickled hysteria.

  “Trust me,” he said.

  “I cannot trust you. You are just like my room!” The tear buds bloomed and dripped over my cheeks. “You are so much like my room.”

  He released my hands. “What is your room like, Jenséa?”

  I snapped tearfully, “You know what it’s like, don’t you?”

  “Tell me anyway.” He sat back as if readying himself to listen to a story, but his face was icy cool.

  “It’s dark and evil like you!” I flung my cheek to the cushion.

  “Your room is dark and evil,” he repeated, as if taunting me with the fact.

  I curled into a ball on my side again, face in hands once more, and I wept.

  He didn’t respond. No touch. No words. Only silence.

  I continued to weep.

  No touch. No words. Only silence.

  I stopped crying and listened to the silence. And in the solitude of that quiet, I saw my own insanity. Maybe I had overreacted. Maybe johnny was not evil. Hadn’t I seen something holy when I traveled into the flame of him? Maybe he was just cleverly trying to teach me how to deal with my problem. Maybe he really was a holy man. And if not, at the very least, maybe he needed spiritual guidance. Perhaps I was evil, for to shout at him so harshly, I must be. Even the misled deserve compassion and mercy. After all, he hadn’t harmed me. Guilt set in. I must have hurt his feelings.

  I sat up and wiped away my tears, embarrassed by my behavior. I looked at him. He had not moved or changed the flat expression on his face, as if I’d never resisted him, nor hurled cruel words his way.

  His fiery orange eyes beamed a force that pushed me into the dark recesses of myself. His voice echoed inside me. “And yet—it is your room.”

  I couldn’t turn my head, close my eyes, nor stifle the truth.

  The force from his eyes intensified. “What infamous objects do you hide in your room?”

  I was compelled to answer, even though I was starting to think that he had been responsible for my obsessions, and was neither a holy man, nor God’s lost lamb. “Weapons of death. Paintings of horror.”

  “You collected the weapons. You painted the pictures.”

  “How would you know that . . . unless you made me do those things?”

  “Darkness is darkness. Anywhere, and everywhere, it appears the same. Your darkness is your own. I would like to take credit for it. But that would do you no good. It will haunt you until you own it. It will attack you until you make it part of you. I know about you because the information is in your mind and you are easily read.”

  “You have no right to get inside my mind!”

  “I am not a man of law—or honor.” His eyes narrowed. “Tell me about your paintings.”

  I huffed, “If you’re in my mind, don’t you already know?”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “No!” I spat, feeling the words pulled out of me. “Five paintings. The first, a woman’s terrified face surrounded by demons.”

  “And the second?”

  “A naked woman humiliated in front of a crowd.”

  “The third?”

  “A rape scene.”

  “The fourth?”

  “A woman swallowed by the color red.”

  “And the fifth?”

  “The fifth is too horrible to tell.”

  “Tell it anyway.”

  “A gruesome murder.”

  “Come walk inside me,” he said, “I will protect you there from all that is yet to come.”

  My essence felt bitten by a mob of tiny mouths. I had to resist. “You’re trying to steal my spirit. I won’t let you. I won’t!”

  “On the contrary, Jenséa, I am offering myself . . . to you. That is why I am showing you the true me.”

  “The true you is insensitive and cruel. How could Randa have sent me here?” Then behaving rudely again, I shouted, “Can’t she see how bad you are!”

  His sterile expression chilled me. “Randa sees what I want her to see.”

  “But she has sent others to you, who say you helped them.”

  “They experience what I want them to experience.”

  His diabolical words repulsed me. I lurched to my feet, bolting across the room, past the kitchen to the front door. I grabbed the knob. Arms lassoed me, pinning mine. I was towed backward gently, step by step, into the kitchen. I hadn’t even heard him come after me. How could that be?

  With my back smashed against his chest, I stared at the black sleeve of his arm snaked around me. He was a snake. I writhed in a vain to break loose.

  “Let me go!” I exerted my leg muscles to lunge forward, but I didn’t budge. “I don’t care what happens to me out there. It will be better than what you are trying to do.”

  He whispered smoothly in my ear. The warm heat of his clove-scented breath sent a shiver down my neck. “You are the one.”

  I didn’t know what he meant and I didn’t care. I struggled harder to break free.

  With one arm still binding me, he moved his other hand to the side of my head and stroked my hair. “You are the one, I will spare.”

  “Spare? What do you mean, I am the one you will spare?”

  “I will not harm you, even though you call for pain.”

  “Who would call for pain? Who wants pain? I don’t call for pain.”

  “You do.”

  “I don’t!”

  “When you berate yourself, that is a call for pain. When you sacrifice yourself to spare others, that is a call for pain. When you fight your own unfolding, that is a call for pain.�
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  He kind of had me there, even though I’d never viewed myself as such. And now that I did, I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about me. I’d rather talk about him.

  “Why would you harm someone who called for pain?”

  His breath was hot in my ear, “It’s what I do.”

  I tried to turn in his arms to face him, and I was surprised that he let me. I stepped back. “What do you mean, it’s what you do? People don’t have jobs causing other people pain.”

  He laughed a little. “You are naive.”

  I peered at him nervously. “Well, there’s the . . . mafia, or other types of gangs, I suppose, or maybe . . . bouncers or perhaps bodyguards. Are you . . . any . . . of those things?”

  He shook his head looking mildly amused.

  Curiosity burned in my eyes. “What then?”

  “I will tell you when you are ready to hear.”

  “In what way do you harm those who call for pain?”

  “In whatever way they want.”

  “People don’t want pain, even if they unconsciously call for it.

  “They do.”

  “Well, if causing pain is what you do, then why have you made Randa and her friends see and experience you as—good.”

  “I used them to draw you to me.”

  “But how could you know of me? I don’t understand.”

  “When I met Randa, I sensed you—through her.”

  “So, why would you want to draw me to you?”

  “I told you. You need protection. You need guidance.”

  “But you’re—bad.”

  “Even so, without me, you will run to your death before actualizing your potential.”

  I kind of wondered if he was right, given my behavior of late, but I wasn’t sure, and I especially wasn’t sure about him. “I think you are like all the others, trying to trick me so that you can take something from me.”

  “If that was my intent, you’d never suspect it, like the others, Jenséa—it was them I tricked. And if I wanted to take something from you . . . or take—you, it would already be done. And you couldn’t have stopped me. And your mythical god wouldn’t have saved you.”

  “God would have saved me. God will save me.”

  “Jenséa,” he said with a bit of tenderness. “You are caged in religion. I will free you.”

  “I don’t want to be freed from religion. It’s all I have.”

  “And that’s why you haven’t much.”

  “Stop,” I cried.

  “Religion harms you. It always has.”

  My jaw clenched. “How would you know?”

  “Your astrological chart reveals it.”

  I stepped back. “You lie!”

  “You lie to yourself. I will help you see the truth, find your power, and know your worth. And then . . . your call for pain will cease. But first, I will help you override all you fear, Jenséa—all you fear. We will work to compensate for your fifth house Mars conjunct Saturn in the sixth house, and your Jupiter in Scorpio in the twelfth house.”

  “What?” I huffed, looking up at his dark-skinned, too handsome face.

  “The dark side is attracted to you. And you are attracted to the dark side.”

  “I’m not attracted to the dark side. I don’t want darkness. Who would want darkness?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Well, I don’t want it. That is why I came to see you, to get rid of it!”

  “And yet for the last six months, you have craved it, invited it, and sought it with each painting you created and each weapon you collected.”

  He had a point. I had done that. I had. My muscles went limp. Even if I ran from johnny, I couldn’t run from myself. My head bowed in shame.

  “Your yod will be triggered this year. Your yod is your life’s mission. It cannot be denied, unless you choose to die.”

  I gazed up at him sheepishly. “What do you mean?”

  “If you don’t harness the powers of dark, the powers of dark will harness you. It means you must ready yourself for what is to come.”

  I glared. “I would rather be taken by the dark than wield it.”

  “I've relieved you of that decision, Jenséa.” johnny guided me firmly back to the cushions and sat me down. “You’ve no choice but to trust me.”

  I bunched my knees to my stomach and held them tight. I cocked my ear to my shoulder, raising my eyes shyly to him. “I trust only light, love, and God.”

  He stared blankly at me, making me nervous. I had to move. I tilted my knees to one side, crossing my ankles. But my pose felt seductive, so I scooted back from him, holding one knee to my chest. Moving wasn’t working. I needed to diffuse the weight of his power over me. “God will protect me.”

  “Do not credit light and love to the mythical god upheld by the clergy. Such a god is the creation of the fearful who need to invent a superior being in order to feel safe. Such a god is the product of mindless masses groping for someone else to guide them because they cannot guide themselves. And such a god is the invention of the ambitious, an ingenious design to control the populous, a political venture at best.”

  With every word he spoke, I felt worse. Neither movement nor words had brought me relief. Praying then, I would pray and deepen my conviction to all things sacred. I closed my eyes calmly and piously, and prayed. johnny’s power rolled off me. Relief at last. I was sailing deeper into my prayerful world when I was startled to a stop. johnny had yanked the gold crucifix off my neck and hurled it across the room. My eyes opened wide. johnny didn’t like prayers!

  His jaw tensed. “Your religion betrays you, Jenséa.” He paused a moment. Then his tone calmed into a gentle song. “Your religion betrays you.” His orange eyes seemed to push me into myself again. “Your religion betrays you and it has for many lifetimes. Remember Jenséa, remember . . .”

  “Lifetimes?” I murmured, growing sleepy, sleepy. I seemed to drift away from the concrete world, moving into some deep inner space—a trance I think. My body went limp. I felt johnny ease me backward until I was flat upon the cushions.

  “That’s it, that’s it.” His calm voice soothed me. “You see the betrayal. You see it happening now. You are at the scene. What’s going on? What?”

  I had arrived somewhere deep in my mind. I couldn’t resist his command or escape this place that felt implausibly real. I felt drugged, and not me—yet me.

  The robes on my body felt heavy in this place where I was. I said in a low voice, “I’m a cloistered nun in France, forbidden to think or feel anything other than the honor of serving God. I mustn’t fantasize about my earthly desires or be angry or sad. If I have a bad thought, I must repent until the sun sets or rises.”

  “Your world is dark then,” johnny said.

  “Yes. Except for music. I love to sing. I love the feeling of sisterly union. But this joy makes me guilty of selfishness.”

  johnny asked, “Why did you become a nun?”

  My stepfather was . . .” my voice cracked, “abusing me.”

  “How?”

  “In a sexual way.” My cheeks welled with liquid pain, rising to my eyes. “Ma mère, I mean my mother sent me to the convent for protection. I became a nun. Such a good nun I was, that one of my sisters became jealous. She poisoned me.” I gasped, “She . . . killed me.” The pain welled in my cheeks again. I pushed it down, swallowing hard.

  “So,” johnny said. “You hid in the convent to escape darkness, but it found you anyway.”

  I thrashed my head. “I don’t want to do this anymore!” I tried to open my eyes, but they felt like lead. I wailed, “I’m making this up.”

  “No,” he said, “you are remembering.”

  “I was never a nun.”

  “A hundred and forty one years ago, you were.”

  “You couldn’t know!”

  “I’m reading your soul.”

  “There is no reincarnation.”

  “No, there isn’t, in a way. But in
a way—there is. There was another time that your religion betrayed you. There was another time. Be there.”

  “No.”

  “Be there. It’s happening now.”

  I felt as if he’d tossed me into space. I landed in a terrible gray dreary place.

  “Where are you?”

  “I am a monk in the Dark Ages. I am wearing brown robes. Though I’m French, I’m living at a monastery in Mongolia. Warriors have come, harassing and physically maiming my apprentice, a boy of ten. They . . . cut off his ear.” I moaned, wanting to escape the scene, but I could not.

  “Go on,” johnny said.

  “I am sworn to pacifism, required to look beyond the small picture and see the holistic version of what is happening. I am to allow others to suffer and die, myself included, forbidden to fight back—ever. But my feelings for the boy arouse my anger. I lunge at a warrior, withdrawing his sword from the sheath on his hip. I turn to the warrior who injured my boy. The warrior releases my boy and draws his sword. The other warriors are in shock because monks aren’t supposed to fight back. That’s why they like to harass us. Our swords engage in a fight of fights. I back my foe up onto a wooden arched bridge that crosses a river. I stab him in his right side.” I gulped back my tears again, feeling shame. “johnny, make it go away!”

  “What’s happening now?” johnny asked, disregarding my plea.

  My voice trembled, “He loses his balance and falls to the shallow river onto rocks, dying instantly. His stare is vacant.” I moaned low and long, deep from my gut.

  johnny said, “Go on.”

  I gasped, “I’m deeply appalled that I killed a human being. The other monks gather around, promising the riled warriors that I’d be punished beyond anything the Emperor could order.” My throat knotted in pain. I truly felt like this man, this monk.

  “Continue,” johnny said.

  “I’m deeply ashamed that I killed someone, so I volunteer for a task that none had before, a task that had long awaited the chosen monk.” The knot dissolved in my throat. My voice grew stern. “I am to spend every minute of every day being tortured, absorbing the world’s pain, so others need not suffer anymore.”

  “You like this idea?” asked johnny.