Fleeing the eternal battlefield of the Gods, our minds surge into quivering semi-solidity in the hallowed quietude of the great Hall of Shadows. You’re semi-transparent, your astral from a shivering figure of lucent quicksilver, your voice cracking like iced crystal, savagely compressed by the powers of nothingness.

“I understand...take some time. You must be shaken....but rest assured we’re all killers... every one of us kills in the choices we must make. Knowing this... it's the price of passing through the Gateway of Knowledge.”

Around us, the seven great gateways shimmer, each radiating unique facets of eternity through billions of light years of space an time and probability. All except one.

“Speak up child...no, I’m afraid not...the Christ figures...? I don’t know...

“Yes, He saved her...gave her the courage to die...you need to rest. Do you still trust me...? Good...very good. I’ll take you somewhere beyond good and evil... somewhere wonderful, before we continue our journey. Take my hand again. My God, but you’re beautiful...

Your hand trembles, but your spirit gains strength, and the light of knowledge gleams faintly from your eyes. Yes, soon you will know him intimately. He yearns for you...

“This is the Gateway of Death...don’t be afraid...

A surging dark tide responds instantly to our thoughts, envelopes our shimmering forms in starless night.

Darkness is. Thought is not.

I see your silver spectral form leach into eternity, dissipating like sparkling snow crystals in the infinite night of ageless Saturn: Lord of age and wisdom. Our mortal senses die as we are absorbed and stretched into the void that lies beyond mortality. Oblivion penetrates my final thought as we join and permeate the domain of death.

No longer mortal, I am a tide, a dance of lightning across the span of history, a thread deep-woven in the tapestry of life and time. A fragmented rivulet of thought washes through my being even as the entirety of my life worms its way into the collective mind of dead humanity.

As Christ, I die in an agony of tormented thirst upon the cross; as a Jew, I burn in the ovens of Auschwitz. As Robert Plant, I scream the ecstasy of Stairway to Heaven at a mesmerized, transported audience, and as Hitler I spew my venom at the people I have enslaved.

History’s tides grow stronger, spinning the loosened thread of my mind through ever expanded reaches of time. I gaze at the sky in wonder, clad in naught but the ragged skins of butchered beasts, brutal yet full of wonder in the morning of the world. Transported yet again, my mind descends in glory to another moment of orgasm in the sacred whorehouses of Rome, and descends onto the streets of Calcutta in the guise of Mother Teresa, stern and wise. The scabrous plagues of illness and poverty gambol at my feet like deformed calves, feeding my soul with righteous wrath. The wind stirs and the stars tremble. I am beautiful again, crucified by love I cannot bear. Oh death! Oh blessed death! I am Diana, pressed hard by the love of those who leach my soul in their need, as my life blood drains into the soil of France, surrounded by the evil ones who would sell my death-scene for hard cash. I rise again and wash my life through time, seeing through the eyes of the terrified boys who died in the cold sea as the Belgrano sank, and Margaret Thatcher applauded the courage of ‘our boys’. A bloody legacy of time and life is this domain of death, yet peaceful beyond the roil of earthly thought and cruel flow of time...

I AM.

“No...don’t speak...no need...”

We stand again in the Hall of shadows, restored and strong, filled with knowledge of good and evil, restored by the grace of He who set us free. The Gateway of Death lies dormant before us, a promise of peace, and a testimony to the lies of the storm god JHVH who hates us.

“Are you ready..?

“Yes..what’s next...?”

“Take my hand...I will take you through the Gate of Truth and Deception...”