‘You’re not the Storyteller, I’m the Storyteller. You must be confused, there’s only one Storyteller, you must be an editor of some kind,’ I wave my hand nonchalantly as if this is of no matter, as if it’s just an error that a new Storyteller arrived at the crime scene. But I can’t hide my panic, feelings of rejection overcome me. Am I rendered obsolete for letting our consciousness down?
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I meant I’m the Storyteller-in-training, your apprentice so to speak,’ it is no comfort learning that I’m not being rejected, I’m just being replaced. After everything I’ve given this place and to these beings, how could this happen? I feel my emotions sputter and rise, the scene changes rapidly cycling through different places, stages, events, anything to represent or capture what I’m feeling. It’s like a story that can’t find its happily ever after, it’s like you’re starting a sentence but stuttering to reach the end, it’s like you’re trying to say 30 different things all at the same time because that’s how intense it feels to be alive and aware.
‘Woah…’ the child steps back in awe, staring at the space behind me flickering on and off into more images than can be counted, like you’re flipping channels to a television unsettled and unable to find what you want to watch. It’s like writing a million metaphors to capture how you feel, but in essence avoiding how you feel all together.
Then everything turns black and I’m running nowhere. I look at my hands, they no longer exist. I’m in the labyrinth again, running in the darkness, where no one can hear me or save me. I never got away, I just thought I did. I hear the snort of the Minataur behind me but before I can turn around, a child pops up and claps its hand decisively together.
‘Hey!’ the child snaps me back by the well, bewildered and confused. I stop myself from creating anymore stories, breathe into my body, let the air reach and clear my mind. The atmosphere is still and calm again until the child’s voice rips it apart.
‘Wow! You just created, overtook and destroyed dozens of stories, can you teach me how to do that?!’ It bounces on its toes in excitement.
‘I’m going to teach you a lot more than that, don’t you worry,’ I smile at its innocence and remember myself as a novice, not dissimilar at all. Full of curiosity, imagination and cheek. I look around to get my bearings, to make sure I’m where I belong and not stuck in the Minotaur’s maze. When I’m certain of myself I start yelling out.
‘Very funny! Ha-ha, very clever! Are you happy with yourself! You proud of yourself!’ my words pointed to the Subconscious. She can hear me, I know she can. She does not care to respond.
‘So you’re my replacement huh? The little mini-me?’ I size up the child.
‘That’s right! And I am ready!’
‘Oh really? That’s cute. Let’s see just how ready you are,’ I start pacing. ‘Why don’t we start at the start. Tell me the story of your inception?’ I suggest with a wave of my hand.
‘Oh, I know this one! Change is the only constant in life, our consciousness is no different, I represent a change in how we view the world and ourselves!’ It exclaims most excitedly. I make an error sound and give it a thumbs down.
‘Boring! Meaningless! What are you, a Scientist? Too generalised to resonate with. Your stories must be captivating, they need to be compelling, the consciousness needs to believe you which means you need to convince all the others here that what you say is true. You need to attract emotion, win them over to your side, to then be channeled into something greater, otherwise your stories will amount to nothing. A boring, pointless, untested theory, like an unfunded Scientist. Try again. This time think, how long have you been watching me work? Start from the start,’ I suggest and it starts flipping the pages in its notepad looking for an answer.
‘I’ve been watching you for as long as I can remember…’ The child’s shoulders fold inwards caving into the weight of actualisation and the uncertainty that comes with it.
‘Yes, but why have you materialised now of all times, of all places? Who brought you to life? There’s only a few figures who can, and it wasn’t me,’ there’s a reason why this consciousness is shared by many, we create new figures (or they simply appear) all the time to advise on changes. If we were one-minded we would be a tyrant, with no one in the inner-realms to suggest otherwise.
‘Because we needed… but I guess we always needed… and the Subconscious does this thing where…’ it starts to trail off into mumbles, unsure on how to answer.
‘How’s this, let me tell you your story instead,’ I offer and stop pacing.
‘Okay!’ the child agrees and crosses its leg onto the ground. I amp the drama behind me, to set us into the mood and tone, to deliver my next story.
‘Once a upon a time there lived a Storyteller in a woman’s mind. Everything was fine up until her body turned unkind. Her bones began to rot, her heart turned into plutonium, and she asked the Storyteller what’s going on with them. The Storyteller traversed to great lengths to find the Subconscious waiting in her deepest depths.
The Storyteller said it is time to purge this body and mind of all that’s unkind. Quit this act, time to enact, conquer and attack. The Subconscious is an interesting creature you see, it offends you to show you when it agrees. The Subconscious concedes, and what better to do so than to sack the Storyteller just as she’s asked and agreed.
That’s when you materialised little one, as a replacement for every wrong I have done. You represent a change to the times but most of all you exist as a ‘fuck you’ for all my crimes. Do you understand now little one, how easy it is to be beat at your own game, if you’re not careful with how you direct your blame.’
‘Woah…’ the kid says in awe. It erupts in applause, feet kicking the air. ’That’s really cool! Did you just make that up then?’
‘You don’t need to make up stories, there are already several competing versions of the truth. Your job is to decide which one needs to be heard. No two truths are exactly the same, it’s your role as Storyteller to discern our reality. Our universe does not have the capacity to contain every truth, so you choose what stays and what goes.
‘The story of your inception is an example of how our reality can be distorted into a world of hurt and betrayal, because that is how I feel, but that’s not the only perspective at play. The subconscious is very cunning, she likes to reflect our stories back at us. I asked her to fix us and her answer is to make it my responsibility to create a better version of myself by materialising you into the consciousness, a place that is not her jurisdiction, but mine. It’s ironic because when I started writing this story, I blamed her and I blamed the Critic for our problems. But she’s used my own story against me, made me the bad guy. It’s clever, but it’s not to be taken personally.
As a Storyteller, you’re one of the most influential figures in this consciousness. When you’re handed stories, your job is to give it a happy ending or to assign meaning to it, no matter how bad or bizarre it is, like getting fired from your own job. I could choose to be insulted by your existence, or I can use this as an opportunity to do things better, with a clean slate, by training you to do the things I couldn’t do. By the time I’m done with you, you should be able to spin any negative experience into a positive one, and carry on my legacy,’ I assured the child. What a great opening speech, I think to myself. In my arrogance, I don’t notice the darkness creeping in. The child starts to speak, but the void envelops my peripheral vision. I’m in the darkness again. I’m running.
S H
O a
M p
E i p
T s e
H n
I i Can anyone hear me?
N n
G g…
H
E
LLLLLLLLLLLLL
P What is happening?
M
E
‘Hey!’ a child claps their hands decisively together and I’m back by the well, bewildered and confused. ‘Where did you go?’ it asks. I look at my hands, they are visible and real.
‘There may be a chance I didn’t fully come out of the well…’ I mumble. Maybe I never did escape that part of my mind, maybe some part of me is left behind running into nothingness. Maybe that’s why I’m being replaced, because I’m just the memory of who I once was.
‘Lesson one mini-me, respect the jurisdiction of others you share a consciousness with. We are intertwined, our work overlaps, we are forced into cooperation, when we are synthesised beautiful things happen, but there are still things you should not interfere with. Ignore this rule and you’ll end up like me, shellshocked and who knows when I’ll recover,’ I keep looking at my hands to remind myself that I’m still here, I’m real, I’m where I belong. I hold out my hand to the child, who accepts, and we stroll towards the lightly traversed and puddled track that leads to the trees. The weather is dark, moody, drizzly. The ground is wet, a storm has passed through and damaged the trees along the way. The child’s hand in mine will remind me of where I am and keeps me grounded.
‘Can’t you just tell yourself a story to make it better?’ the child asks, swinging its arms.
‘Storytellers can bend the truth, we create beliefs in the absence of clarity, but we have to work within the paradigm of our being, our values, our goals. Honesty and integrity are the two relevant ones at play here. Since I know going into that part of the mind was forbidden, denying that then-’
‘Sets me into action. I’m sharp as a whip and remind you when you’re not being honest with the rest of us. And I will employ all my resources to convince you and the others of that,’ I hear Coach Critics’ voice cut in, rightfully so. The child looks up and around to find the source of the voice.
‘It’s happened before, many times, all the time actually. Arguing between each other about who’s more right, who’s more justified, who represents the truth the best, what’s more fair, whose interests matter more, who’s more important, and we’re all powerful, influential figures. We have access to a range of emotions to give weight to our arguments, we have a lot of experiences to draw upon, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whose perspective triumphs, because we’ve exhausted ourselves to a net zero. We all lose. All we’ve achieved is insanity in the name of a balanced, well-rounded perception of the truth,’ I explain.
‘Unnecessarily complicated processing. Inefficient use of energy,’ Coach Critic agrees.
‘But what are we trying to win exactly?’ the child asks.
‘The Subconsciouses favour. If you convince the Subconscious of your interpretation, that perspective becomes reality. The beings that exist in the consciousness are quite limited in what we can do, we exist for only as long as we can maintain attention and presence, and this is something we all compete for. That’s why I’m writing this story, to give everyone a turn to share their perspective, rather than fighting all the time. But it’s actually the Subconscious who does most of the leg work, who brings forth the fruit of our labour. It can automate any thought, feeling or belief, it can make anything feel right. But it needs to be programmed. That’s the hard bit, if we don’t program it correctly, we create bad habits, reinforce bad behaviours, create false realities, and cling to old thoughts that do not serve us – but feel entirely right. It can be difficult reprogramming because that means you’re changing everything that feels safe, comfortable, familiar and right,’ I explain.
‘Well, how does it decide who will program it?’ the child quips.
‘It has a process we’re not terribly privileged to. In the past, we tried to understand everything to garner a sense of control, but now our consciousness is too spread and broad, and we all fight for a sense of righteousness. This is what happens when you try to fit in too many truths, our processes become too complicated and divided, and us bickering doesn’t help the Subconscious determine who it should listen to’, I say.
‘Why do we process things like this if we know it’s not serving us? Are we broken? Dysfunction?’ the child asks.
‘No more dysfunctional as anyone else. We had to develop in this way, given our circumstances. All the characters that make up our consciousness had fundamental roles at some stage in our lives, and they helped us understand what was happening around us. But not all characters know how to go dormant or subside once they’re activated. They continue to live on within us, jumping at any opportunity to be relevant again,’ the Logician’s voice answers from the skies.
‘Then what do we do about it? How do we fix this system?’ the child asks.
‘You tell us kiddo. You’re going to be me one day, you call the shots. A Storyteller cannot fix a system per se, but we can create the beliefs our systems depend on to operate. What stories can integrate a hundred characters living in one consciousness, in a place where time does not exist, all of whom were very important once?’ The child stops to fish something from its pocket.
‘I was thinking if there was a way to resolve some of our traumas, it would create more space. I created something like this to have a direct line of communication with…’ the child reveals a small box, shaped like a jewelry box. No, more like Pandora’s box. Written on it is ‘unresolved issues’. As soon as the child opens it, I snap it close and snatch the box from its hands.
‘No!’ I bark, in unison with many other factions of my consciousness. Fuck me, I think to myself as I search around the trees for the damage. Nothing untoward. Not as far as my eye can see, only the damage from the storm that has passed through many moons ago.
‘What, what did I do wrong?’ the child exclaims in confusion.
‘Nothing. Yet. But you need to be careful when you create gateways, you need to be specific about what can come through. Unresolved could mean anything, issues could mean anything. You shouldn’t create a door for anything to walk through into the light of consciousness, because trust me, many things will. The Subconscious is full of millions, billions, memories, cells, disappointment, heartbreaks, we cannot give them an opportunity to spill over to our side. We can only work within our means, not every issue can or should be resolved. The collective consciousness, the world outside of ourselves, is an unfair place, and we’ve had many grievances to date. It’s not within our control or reach to fix everything, we can only work within our own world, we cannot invite things outside into us, or welcome back things already processed, it will just cause more havoc.’ The child sheepishly looks between its feet, feeling discouraged.
‘But it’s okay, it doesn’t look like anything got out. I’m not angry, I’m just…’ I try to explain but before I can finish, a figure appears from the trees coming for the child, with an ivory knife in hand. Not the kid. I push the child aside and take the knife into my gut on its behalf. I grunt, suppressing my pain, a grimace to my face.
‘You might not be angry, but I am,’ the attacker says. She’s a woman, she looks like me, but she’s dressed nomadically, of no culture, clan or creed. She has a dirty face, dreads for hair, and when I look into her eyes I see hell looking back. I’d recognise that look anywhere. I grasp the hand that’s stabbed me, try to unwind the knife she started to twist inside me. She likes to hurt me. Remembering the progress report, and all that’s happened in my absence, it explains her presence. I deserve this.
‘Anger,’ I name her in greeting. ‘Kids innocent. If you got someone to blame, give it to me,’ I feel the blood rise in my mouth, I feel myself begin to choke on my own blood, I want to say fuck you but I don’t want to play her game. She pulls out the knife, and guts me rapidly a few more times for good measure, and I groan, my hands trying to catch every stab. A weak effort, I don’t really try to stop her, I know I deserve something for what I’ve done. Or more specifically, what I failed to do.
Horrified, the child watches on, unable to do anything but witness and take notes. Is this the right lesson to teach the child? Is this the legacy I’m leaving for them? To be a martyr to my own violent emotions? To allow those emotions to express hostility within me because I think I deserve it? That slither of doubt is enough of an opportunity for someone to harness my powers to materialise themselves into this scene.
‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own size,’ a huge man grabs Anger by the nape of her neck and tosses her away like a frisbee. She rolls in a heap before lifting to her feet. With a threatening glare she regards my right hand man. I like this man, he has helped me shape many stories, he’s given me solid framing, though he does have some setbacks. That’s a different story.
The man is strangely shaped, his proportions all off, like he stopped growing in some parts but kept going in others. His head is too small for his wide neck, his legs too thin to carry such a widely heavy and muscled chest, his legs too long and lanky, his arms too short and buffy. But he’s strong, one of the strongest ones in this consciousness.
‘Aren’t you supposed to write the stories, not fall victim to them?’ he reminds me.
‘You’re right, as per usual, my dearest Logician,’ I remark while I try to cover the holes in my chest. The child runs to me, runs their hands over the stab wounds to repair them with the gift of imagination.
‘You going to get in my way?’ Anger asks the Logician.
‘If you try to hurt the Storytellers, I will,’ the Logician promises.
‘Why? She betrayed us, she needs to pay!’ Anger declares.
‘Storyteller doesn’t deserve to be punished, she didn’t know, she was away-’
‘She assured us, told us it would be ok, tricked us, led us into a world of hurt!’ Anger disagrees.
‘If she knew what she knows now, it would have been different, don’t be absurd,’ he reasons.
‘Always with the excuses. I’ll ensure she knows better by the time I’m through with her,’ Anger vows and launches herself in my direction, morphing into a cougar. The Logician jumps towards her, morphing into a grizzly bear. They collide, attacking, hissing, tossing between each other and transforming into opposing animals: cat, dog, wolf, tiger, bat, fox, snake, eagle and so forth. Whenever Anger changes form into an animal, the Logician takes on the shape of its natural predator to curtail her onslaught.
‘Is this my doing?’ the child’s voice is shaking.
‘Sorry to say kid, but it is. Anger is what you released when you opened that box. She is primeval, gendered and unresolveable. Our original sin. But it’s not your fault, Anger always finds a way in. You’ll get used to her,’ I explain.
‘What do you mean primeval? Gendered? Unresolveable?’ the child asks.
‘She’s inherited by the matriarchal side of our bloodline,’ this offers absolutely no clarity to the child, so I continue. ‘She comes from our cycles. We got it from our mother. All the women in the world have this anger in them, but ours has a life of its own. Where there’s one anger, there is a horde more just around the corner. The Storytellers before us struggled to contain the waves of anger that flooded this consciousness. She was originally a defensive mechanism, our first instinct, our primary emotion, to protect ourselves, to scare away the monsters in the real world. But we didn’t know how to turn her off and she kept coming and coming and overriding our systems. Now she’s the monster of our inner-realms. We internalised her at first, using the Logician to compartmentalise and divide the Anger apart.’
‘When will they stop fighting?’ the child asks in concern. They both look worse for wear but show no signs of slowing down. Anger morphes into a phoenix and flies high above us. The Logician takes its human form, watching for her next move. In a piercing screech, she pours fire down upon us from her breath. Before the heat can land, the Logician materialises a wall to protect us.
‘They can go on like this for days, weeks, months, years at a time, arguing, trying to outdo each other. They’re an even match.’ Anger flutters in a circle, trying to breath fire from the sides. The Logician extends the wall around us until we’re in a dome, ensuring the fire does not reach us. Then, we warm in the dome shaped oven. Soon, we will boil.
‘She eventually found a way to slip into the collective consciousness, into the shared reality. She cornered us, much like she has now, and we lost control of her and her horde. Once she was out, we became an angry person, and we hurt the people around us, especially the people we love.’
‘It’s getting really hot in here. Are we going to become an angry person again?’
‘No,’ the Logician and I say in unison. ‘I did what no Storyteller before me could do. I placated the Anger.’
‘How?’ the kid asks, sweating and panting. A thud sound hits the dome, followed by another thud sound.
‘Reinforcements,’ I explain. The thuds come in quicker succession, and we feel the second the fire eases off. Logician takes down the dome to reveal large balls of hail falling from the sky, hitting Anger from it. She tries to fly, batting her wings feebly to stay above, but the hail relentlessly whacks her down. The child investigates the hail, picking one of them up. Inside there are collections of tiny pills.
‘Medicine,’ the child exclaims. This is an opportunity for the Logician to gain control, he throws a heavy net over Anger, and forces her to land to the ground.
‘And you resolve her by giving her what she wants? To hurt you, because that’s better than if she hurts others?’ the child guesses pointing to the badly healed holes in my stomach. A bad practice, I decide. Sometimes I let Anger unleash upon me, and sometimes it is therapeutic, because this is easier than confronting her and her rage. But then I wonder whether that’s just a distraction, if that’s where all our energy is spilling out from, if that’s why the melancholy has spread as far as it has.
‘No,’ I say with resolve. The Logician punches Anger hard and fast, until she morphes back into a human form, until she’s black and blue.
‘Then you resolve her by beating her out of our consciousness?’ the child asks.
‘No…’ I murmur, watching as the Logician unleashes his strength and control upon her. Until she’s covered in blood. Violence begets violence, this is not the lesson I want to teach. ‘No! Stop!’ I say more decisively to the Logician and he stops to look at me. I shake my head at him and he backs up.
‘I used to let her punish me. Then I used to punish her. We’d take turns. But we’re not going to do that with you. Emotions are not that complicated actually, they’re messengers drawing attention to something that isn’t right. Our Anger tells us there’s been an injustice, to settle her we have to make things right, but that’s easier said than done. Sometimes it’s other people who have wronged us, and those people have no interest in making things right. The Logician is effective in containing Anger when she is irrational. But more often than not, such as now, Anger is disproportionate and she needs someone to blame. That’s why she attacks us.’
‘Well, what did you do wrong? Why is she here now?’
‘Yes, do tell Storyteller, why am I here?’ Anger untangles herself from the netting, and though she’s so badly injured she can barely walk, she drags herself to my direction. The Logician shadows closely, to restrain her if she gets out of hand again.
‘I saw it in the progress notes. When I was stuck in the labyrinth, there was a moment where my judgement was needed, and the past version of me did something I said I wouldn’t. I convinced us we would be fine, but we weren’t. I betrayed us,’ I confess.
‘Why?’ the child asks.
‘You didn’t know. You were with the Minataur for the month, the past version of you didn’t know what you knew, and you could not communicate with us,’ the Logician defends me. Anger fronts me, covered in blood and bruises, and spits blood at my face.
‘She knew. And now she will rue the day!’ Anger insists with a hiss.
‘She was in the labyrinth, she couldn’t be in two places at once,’ the Logician continues in my defense. I wipe the blood from my face.
‘You’re both right. There was a moment where a decision was made, a decision that goes against a promise we made together, a promise I assured would be okay to break. But I couldn’t stop us from making that decision because I was stuck in the labyrinth for a month. And you want to know why I betrayed us? Why I thought it would be okay to break that promise?’ A pause to let them consider the possible answers.
‘Because I needed to know if it still hurt. I thought it wouldn’t, but guess what!’ I learn closer to Anger to show her I mean something real.
‘It did. It hurt like hell because we still care. Do you have any idea how devastating it is to learn how fragile we are? You think you’re angry? You think I don’t rue the day?’ I pace around Anger and I extend a hand to destroy the scene behind me. I rip into my imagination, demolishing everything that I create, with a mere swipe of my hand. Trees implode, the ground erupts, the sky melts.
‘I have rued the day since I learned we cannot feel any semblance of connection or belonging without being vulnerable to the likes of you! I’m furious! I am so, so angry that we are human, I hate that the outside world can influence the inner-realms so fundamentally! I am angry that you have to exist within me! I hate that I have to know that I was hurt! I hate that I let myself be hurt! I wish it wasn’t the case! I wish it so hard sometimes that I suppress you, and all emotions like you, to imagine a world where none of this is real!’ My hand spins into a curled fist and I snuff out the light of the imagination, until we are nothing but darkness. All we see is what you see when you close your eyes.
‘I suppressed everything until there was nothing anymore. A world where it does not hurt anymore. But guess what. It still hurts, even if I destroy everything in here, we are still alive out there. I wish we could just flick a switch and not care. But we do and suppressing our emotions just leads to further disconnection. And so I convince us that to be vulnerable is to be brave, and so I let others hurt us because that is the only way out of this emptiness. And you know what else?’ I click my fingers again and we return to the terrain of imagination in the blink of an eye, now rendered into a pile of rubble, like a hurricane came through in express mode.
‘I’m going to do it again. And again and again and again and again, because guess what!’ I yell into Anger’s face.
‘I’m human! We’re all human! We exist in a human’s consciousness! We are going to make mistakes! It is a part of life, it is not something we can protect ourselves from! We are going to get hurt again and again and again! Because that is the cost that comes with trust and love and hope! We get let down! We do the wrong thing despite having the best of intentions! We get deceived and we blame ourselves for being so stupid! For believing, for having hopes. We are selfish, we forget about other people’s feelings! They forget about us! We get left behind. We think we are the only ones who feel pain when there’s billions like us! And I am done being punished for being human by the likes of you!’ I’m nose to nose with Anger.
‘You think you decide when I’m done?’ Anger snides.
‘Yeah, yeah, you know what, I think I do. We’re done here,’ I nod to myself, my arms akimbo.
‘I’m not done, I’m not nearly done, you can’t get rid of me that easily,’ Anger replies. I continue to pace and encircle her.
‘No? You’re still going to go at it are you? Is that the grand plan you have in store for us? Just pop up, scorch and scathe our insides everytime every little thing goes wrong? Do you have any idea how many more mistakes we have coming for us upon the horizon? Do you have any clue how unjust this world we exist in is? What’s your contribution to reality, you’re just going to attack us at every given opportunity, put us between a rock and a hard place? Grow up and get with the program! We can’t just have meltdown after meltdown!’
‘You can’t dismiss me just because I’m inconvenient,’ Anger retorts.
‘Dismiss you?’ I stop, spin back til I’m head on with her. ‘Whoever said anything about dismissing you?’ I grab her by the shoulders and shake her gently. ‘My dear, I have much better things in store for you. I’m no longer a suppressor, I am a creator. What you call anger, I call energy. What you call punishment, I call penance. What you call justice, I call resolve. You want to exist? Fine. You want attention? You’ve have it, baby. But you do not get that and get to hurt us anymore. None of us deserve it, even if we did the wrong thing, we are not your punching bag anymore.’
‘You do not get to decide what I am or how I act. Someone needs to pay,’ she insists.
‘Why not you?’
‘I did not make the decision to hurt us. That was you!’
‘But you make the decision to continue to hurt us? No?’ the Logician interjects.
‘You will not outsmart me, I do not operate from the mind. I am a legion, my horde is everywhere, all at once,’ she retorts.
‘And we do not operate from a place of invulnerability or perfection. We will keep getting things wrong but you will not keep hurting us for doing so. Hurt anyone else, but not us, we’ve had enough,’ I say.
‘You think I won’t hurt anyone else? You think I can’t externalise? You think I will stop at you? You think there’s not enough of me to destroy not just this world, but the worlds around us? You think I won’t destroy everything in my path? I can reach any person, any friend, any comfort, any lover, anything you own, anything you love I can destroy should you deny me.’
‘Oh, I know you can do that. You’ve shown me, you have proven yourself as a hostile agent countless times. But I’m not scared of you doing that anymore. Because I’m not ignoring you, I’m not dismissing you, I’m not suppressing you, I’m not denying you, I’m not even arguing with you. You don’t have a reason to be cruel, and I know you’re not cruel for the sake of it, it’s only ever in retaliation. I won’t resist your existence, you can be conscious for however long you want, but I will not give you access to hurt us anymore. I’m calling it. I’m calling your bluff. You have a few choices from here. You can continue to fight us, but we will contain you and you will not gain any further ground within us. You can externalise yourself, and hurt the people we love, and you can deal with the consequences that come from such cruelty. Or we can try something different. You can let us transmute you and raise your vibration. Let us put you to work, render you into a motivation that gets things moving. Let’s refine you, transform your raw energy, evolve you from harm into transformation. Wouldn’t you like that more than to fight? To be integrated, to play an active role in our reality?’
I give her a moment to consider her options. Anger sizes me up, she doesn’t quite trust me I can tell. The Logician seems taken back and surprised by my proposal, but backs me up nevertheless. The child furiously takes notes, learning from this experience.
‘I am willing to consider these other options. But I decide how I am transmuted,’ Anger finally says, no longer on edge, her shoulders relax.
‘Great! Glad we could work it out, my dear Logician if you could give Anger the tour of our being, from mind to body, that would be-’ but before I could finish what I was saying, a horrifying scene is bestowed upon us.