Keener’s continued saga: Links to the first several chapters are here if you’ve missed them pick them up here: Part 1 and 2 here and part 3 here, and part 4 here,part 5 here and part 6 herepart 7 here and part 8 here and 9 here.
I encourage you to pick up the story here if it feels overwhelming to go back and read all. Keener is a wonderful story teller…you will be enticed to read more or perhaps you’ll just pick up the story from here and stick around for the final chapters which are going to follow soon.
The journey home from the hospital was both exhilarating and terrifying. We chugged through the suburbs of London, my friend keen to get me home as soon as possible. I felt my heart thumping and racing and pounding in my chest. I watched the ambulance following us in the rear view mirror, on stand-by in case I died – I must not die, I must remember to breathe. My friend was tense and uptight, aware of the precious cargo that he was carrying, god in human form, destined to save the universe from obliteration. He didn’t realise that everything was going to be fine for us and I attempted to try and get him to relax. Unfortunately the gobbledegook that was rushing and racing and raging out of my mouth, provided no comfort. I watched as the alien spaceships wooshed above, battling each other with laser beams. Species from all over the universe had come to take part in the final war, ever, the ancient stuggle between good and evil finally being resolved. Finally, the good guys were winning the day. In the car, my friend and I were in combat over the temperature control. I was painfully cold and kept yanking the knob up to full heat, my friend’s internal thermostat was unable to cope . So he tried to reason with me to turn the control down. Completely pointless – up, down, up, down, hot, cold, hot, cold. The world watched on, people gathered around their TV sets, watching the playing out of the end of time. My friend and I were embarrassed, all those people viewing us, praying that we would succeed. So I told him over and over “Don’t worry I’ll erase it tomorrow, no-one will know it was us”. I felt sorry for him he looked so scared, he didn’t understand.
So I was a very poor travelling companion that day and my friend urged me to get some sleep, and jeez did I need it, but I suspect that his entreaties were also strongly motivated by a desire for a bit of peace and quiet. I was powerful, I was frazzling his brain with my garbled explanations and instructions.
If only he could see that there was no hurry, no desperate situation, I was in control of time and reality. Unlike the hospital, the rules would be determined by my decree and whim. I asked that we pull over off the motorway to go into several service areas on our route. I joyfully shouted out and rejoiced as I walked into the building, mocking the people that surrounded me pretending to buy sandwiches, newspapers and the like. They wanted to destroy me but were impotent against me. They were looking at me but trying to pretend they weren’t, but I knew exactly what was going on. O the elation of being paranoid yet feeling that you were getting one over on them. I felt good, I felt amazing, I felt indestructible. Woooopeeeeee, I cheered and the entire human race celebrated with me.
The mental heath team phoned my friend during our journey home. They had failed to send any one to the tribunal and no care plan was in place in any shape or form as we whizzed down the motorway. I listened to my friend talking to those bloody freemasons again. He was talking about me and the state I was in. I snarled at him “don’t talk to them, they can’t help you, we don’t need them, it’s alright”. He gave up, telling the head honcho that he couldn’t speak right now. I wanted him to understand that I knew exactly what I was doing and to trust me. The thing was it was increasingly clear that he didn’t, and what’s more I now didn’t trust him either. The patient from the hospital, sat on the back seat, listening in and watching me was starting to irritate me too.
After a few hours, we finally made it back home, brilliant sunshine and rainbows crowding the sky, very befitting for the last day of all time, truly beautiful. I went out to the back garden, to check on how my magical plants were faring. I heard whispers and mocking giggles in the lane beside my house. There were others here, desperate to be the chosen one. I needed to get myself inside and defend myself. My house was extremely sinister and hostile, not the sanctuary that I had pinned my hopes on. It became clearer and clearer to me that I was in grave danger and I was petrified.
Beener turned up, to find me huddled up against the radiator. Trying to keep warm, hiding under the window so they could not see me and positioned to ensure I could see anyone who came in. Vigilant and ready for ’em, yet hiding at the same time. Beener had not brought her dogs with her, nor her children, as the prophecy had foretold. Things were not going to plan, this was not good at all. My other friend was not watching footie and drinking beer. In fact they were both just sat there looking at me, also seemingly not pleased with the situation either.
“What’s wrong, talk to me”, they asked the blank looking creature on the floor. Her mind racing at a speed that was unfathomable to her. They continued to question her and then began to urge her to go to bed and to try and sleep. She told them over and over “I cant, I cant”.
“Why not, please tell us what’s happened to you, what’s wrong?” Calling my name, trying to get me to come round, to respond. They couldn’t find her. This other woman whispered to them instead “I can’t, I’m scared”. Trying to understand her and make her feel safe, Beener said “ what are you scared of”. So, she told her in no uncertain terms, shouting at the top of her lungs “I’M SCARED OF THE DARK”. Night was drawing in, and with it the time for slumber drew closer.
There was no way I was going to sleep, because I knew that if I did I would be dead, and so would existence its self.
The evening, unfortunately got worse as I slipped further and further into a dissociative state. A nightmare being played out in my mind whilst I was still awake. That familiar feeling of watching a movie, but this was not a lucid dream. I was not in control. I was an observer. I watched myself whizz around the house, gathering up my possessions and putting them into piles, good and evil. I had to understand and get the energy balance right. All manner of terrible things flashed through my mind, how my friend’s child was locked in my garage, crying in the dark, alone and scared. Yet all of us unable to go out and rescue her. I was fighting the compulsion to commit all sorts of atrocious acts against myself in order to free us all from this hell. On and on and on.
After several hours of these shenanigans, my friends eventually decided that they were making matters worse and I was becoming so agitated and unpredictable that they should leave me for their own safety. The mental health team would not agree to come out and see me. There was no medication to give me to get me to calm down, besides I wouldn’t have agreed to it anyway. I was beginning to try and strip off again. Everything was crazy and way, way out of control. So they left me.
I chased down the street after them, as they drove away. They were outta there. I turned around to go home, spotting a lady putting stuff into the boot of her car. I went up to her and asked her “are you alright?”. She looked at me and said “not again”, not to me as such, but more as a declaration of annoyance. At that point I realised that I had met her before, a few weeks ago when I had burst into a community hall butt-naked. The hospital flashed through my mind and I scurried home, leaving her to go about her business.
That moment of clarity, lasted only long enough to get me safely back into my house. I closed the front door and tried to block out the sound of my yoga teacher and his wife up my drive-way, laughing at me, waiting to destroy me. I hid in the living room. Suddenly I was trapped, I was pure consciousness, an awareness, I was at the beginning of time. I was so lonely and so I imagined another, something outside of myself. Me and it. I saw all the dichotomies that had existed throughout time, the stupid pointless battles. All I had to do was unthink them. My mother was infinity, she was so tired and lonely too, she had waited eons for this all to be over. I had to rescue her. I could hear myself speaking backwards, reversing time, trying to save her. But I became more and more imprisoned. I could hardly breathe, I was so paralysed.
Then suddenly it occurred to me that all of this could be complete and utter rubbish. Now whilst this was clearly a useful and comforting realisation. It also dawned on me that if it wasn’t true then I am absolutely, 110% barking mad. An equally terrifying conclusion. This was a lot to take in and I fell down onto the floor. Shocked, confused, and deeply afraid. I then felt warm liquid and realised that I was wetting myself. I didn’’t care. After that I cant remember anything until mid way through the next morning, when I was most definitely no longer alone. All manner of people began to turn up at my door – friends, my parents, social workers, doctors and the comical private hire mob, AKA the ‘rapid response team’. To my horror and dismay I was sectioned under the Mental Health Act once again. I agreed to go this time, I knew it was pointless to argue or resist. But I managed to strike a deal first, that they would let me have a bath and then I would go with them.
Everything Matters 