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CHAPTER 1
The Secret Name
The herpetologist pulled the snake out of the cage, holding it up toward the sunlight so that it shimmered like a jewel.
"What kind is that?" I asked.
"This, my dear friend, is a black mamba," she said. "Isn't she beautiful?"
"Aren't they poisonous?"
"One of the most poisonous snakes in the world," said the herpetologist quite matter-of-factly. "No animal, no living being, can survive the rapid-acting neurotoxins from the bite of a black mamba."
"Really?"
"It can kill a full-grown adult in less than thirty minutes."
"That's pretty potent then."
The herpetologist's mouth curled up into a grin. "The black mamba is a long snake with colored scales that range from leaden yellowish green to gunmetal grey. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"
"I can't say I have," I muttered nervously. "But anything so beautiful is bound to be just as dangerous."
"Speaking from experience, I gather?"
"Perhaps," I said. "So what are one's chances of survival if bitten?"
"Oh, it's a very poor prognosis," she said, cocking her eyebrows. "Extremely poor. The best and only defense against the black mamba is to remain inviolated."
There was a sound of rustling leaves as I made a backward shuffle.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No, nothing."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"You don't fool me," she said. "There's nothing more effective at getting the heart to race, the palms to sweat, and the stomach to lurch than a black mamba. A rattlesnake will also do it. Any poisonous snake, in fact."
"How are you able to stay so stoic and composed around them? Are you immune to their poison?"
"Oh, I've been around them all my life. I know how to encumber their predatory instinct by manipulating the vibrations of the immediate environment," she said. "Even if I relinquished my hold on this mamba right now, she would not attack me."
"You're not implying that you're going to ..."
"Oh, come on, you're a grown man, for Christ's sake! You're not frightened by something as innocent as Mother Nature's legless creature, are you?" she asked, thrusting the snake toward me.
"Well, ah ... no."
"Shall we test that hypothesis?"
"That won't be necessary!"
I watched in disbelief as the snake dropped to the ground. Her brazen act made my heart thump so hard that I thought it might come smashing out from my rib cage. Strangely, the instinctual drive for self-preservation wasn't there; instead of running, I found myself glued to the ground like a tree stump.
From then on, everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. The black mamba sensed my primal fear and lashed out, jabbing its fangs into my ankle. My cacophonous shriek was so loud that windows from surrounding edifices fractured.
When the snake retracted, I could see copious amounts of venom spurting out from the puncture marks.
"Oh shit!" the herpetologist yelped. "That's not good — not good at all. We've got no more than a few minutes to pump as much antivenin into you as possible."
I dropped to the ground, hands clasped tightly over my wound, in an act of surrender.
"Just breathe," said the herpetologist as she flipped open and fumbled through an emergency first aid kit.
Her words were barely audible. I tried to keep myself from panicking by drawing in deep, oxygen-rich breaths and then expelling them. "Hurry, please!"
With an eye for meticulous detail, the herpetologist drew up exactly ten cc's of serum from a refrigerated vial with a hypodermic syringe before jabbing the needle straight into my thigh. After a few seconds, she said, "This should counter the rapid-acting neurotoxins until we get you to the hospital."
"How ... far ... is it?" I asked, gasping for breath.
"No more than about fifteen minutes," she said. "Probably less if I let loose on the gas."
"Oh, good."
"Can you get up?"
"I can try." I gasped. "Your face looks funny."
"How so?"
"It's blurring."
"Here, take my hand," she said.
My arm appeared to be stubborn, unwilling to submit to executive commands coming from my brain. I couldn't fulfill her request. Everything from that moment on was a blur. I don't remember being lifted, or the supersonic ride to the hospital, or being ushered into the emergency unit, because I lapsed into a coma shortly after dropping to the ground.
Try as I might, I couldn't quite remember how I'd fallen asleep on a boulder near the foothill of a mountain slope. Where the hell was I? The landscape wasn't the slightest bit familiar; an aquamarine watercourse offered a sharp contrast to the auburn sands of the desert, winding its way through the terrain like an iridescent snake.
Then came the memory of proprioception; a sharp excruciating pain emanated from my ankle when I made a concerted effort to scamper to my feet.
"You've been bitten," came a woman's voice from somewhere behind me.
"By what?"
"It was a tricolored serpent," she said. "A venomous one."
My eyes darted from left to right, searching for any visual evidence of the assailant. "Where is it?"
"Long gone."
"When did all this happen?" I asked, wiping beads of sweat from my brow. "How did I get here? The last thing I remember is ..."
"The most likely explanation is that you were unconscious."
"How do you mean?"
The woman stepped out from behind a grove of emerald ferns. She was a giant with violent eyes and a physiognomy most would associate with the supernal beauty of the Greek nymphs.
"All is not lost," she said, curling her arm around my back. "There is still hope for a cure."
My eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yes," she said sternly. "But you must tell me your name."
"Paul," I blurted. "My name is Paul."
She shook her head. "That's not it."
"What do you mean?"
"That's not your true name."
"Paul Kiritsis ..."
"No, that's not it. It doesn't feel right."
"Apostolos Kiritsis," I said. "That's the name that was given to me at birth."
"None of those are your secret name, your true name."
Somewhat discombobulated, I could only say, "I can't remember what my name is, as strange as it sounds."
Without warning, rays of the loveliest light burst through the ominous clouds, illuminating the landscape in all its glory. Within seconds the landscape became peppered with shadows; however, the conglomeration of silhouettes didn't correspond to the dimensions of the objects and other things casting them. There was something unusual about my own shadow too.
"That doesn't seem right," I pointed out. "Why has my shadow taken the form of a ... an unresponsive patient on a life-support system of some type?"
The stranger's head looked at the firmament. "Oh, Re decided it was time to come out and shed some light on the matter."
"I'm not sure if he's shedding light on anything," I said, "but suddenly I am aware of something else."
"What?"
"I can hear voices."
"What voices?"
"The voices of different people — men, women, and children. How the hell are light and sound connected like that?"
"Your own thoughts, maybe?"
"No ... no, not my own thoughts. These are external to self and impersonal, coming from a place beyond my personal boundaries. These are the words of other people. I can fixate upon any of my choosing."
"What are they saying?"
"Um ... that ..."
"Go on."
"It's someone with some degree of power and authority. He just said that the young guy on the hospital bed is going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He wants to pull the plug."
Suddenly, the strange woman spoke with a sense of urgency. "What is your name, boy?"
I couldn't remember. All I could do was shrug my shoulders.
Keeping one hand around my back, she reached toward something above us that remained out of my direct line of sight. There was some rustling, and before long a fragrant rose was tickling the underside of my nose. The scent possessed me; it was the scent of anamnesis.
It then came to me like a deafening thunderbolt amid the primordial silence.
"Olyn." I gasped. "My name is Olyn."
She who was formerly mysterious sprouted translucent wings of powder blue, jade green, blood red, and golden yellow. Her skin radiated a warm phosphorescent light. Disappointment flashed in her big eyes.
"What are you doing here, Olyn?" she asked. "You swore a solemn oath to remain faithful to our endeavor."
"What endeavor exactly?"
"Working in service of the feminine aspect of the divine. You promised you wouldn't return home until the seed had been planted."
"For that to occur, the spiritual fruit must be ripe for the picking," I said. "I'm afraid the crude and vulgar have not been jettisoned."
Her eyes narrowed. "So the crude reigns everywhere?"
"And not only," I said. "They're all cuffed, blindfolded, and gagged in the mental subterranean, passively reacting to the intellectual aftershock afforded by the Cartesian–Kantian epistemological quake and the older, more subtle tremors of theism. These ungrounded intellectual preferences will not come unstuck!"
"Hail, O mighty ignorance!" Solim taunted, lifting her arms up to salute the world of the living. "The blind shall forever be leading the blind!"
"Try convincing the blind that the cosmos was no accident."
"The intelligibility and order of the world is no accident, Olyn," she said.
"Well, can a sentient creature that has spent its entire life slithering and dragging itself across deserts, grasslands, and forests awaken to the wonders of flight? Can the color-blind feel the ebullient emotions released by the primary colors? Can a three-dimensional body truly appreciate a nonlinear universe operating on the principles of serial time?"
Solim smiled wryly. "History says yes, albeit fleetingly."
"Point taken."
"The mentalistic teleological laws were all venerated temporarily before being dismembered and scattered to the winds by enlightenment science," said Solim.
"The deeper and more profound the revelation, the deeper the succeeding slump into forgetfulness. Truth only comes in fleeting glimpses, and distorted ones at that."
"Truth cannot be kept from shining," said Solim. "It must burst forth from the darkness and illuminate the world."
"Agreed," I said, "but try getting a vehicle out of quicksand by flooring the gas pedal."
"The traps set by falsehood are multiform and deceptive," said Solim. "How does one become entangled ..."
"... in a projection of their own self-concept? It's called theism."
"Theism is false."
"What about the products of logical operative cognition, for instance, Darwin's natural selection?"
"Absolutely false!" said Solim. "Evolutionary naturalism is inert, lifeless, and outrageous — the work of falsehood."
"At least there's movement though."
"But it's in the opposite direction of a veridical systematic account of nature as it is," Solim pointed out. "Human sacrilege is shameless."
"The followers of truth shall work ceaselessly, tirelessly, and meticulously so that the truth may shine," I said.
"Is that what you bore witness to?"
"I want to rest."
"You must return."
"They'll be just fine without me."
"You must return," she reiterated, with a more authoritative inflection in her voice.
I briefly glanced at the bizarre shadow of the hospitalized patient to which I was connected before shifting my gaze to the plethora of other shadowy figures. Once my eyes had adjusted to the somnolent darkness, I could see a pulsating mass that connected the shadowy web with something, or someone, directly behind us. It was Aeolian and alive, and it swiftly dawned upon me that I was in the presence of something ineffable and incomprehensible, at least by the standards of our logical operative cognition.
Sensing my urgency to pivot, Solim interjected, "Don't do it!"
"Why not?"
"You won't be able to stomach it," she said. "The Handiwork is too profound to behold."
"What's behind us?"
"The unfathomable action that moves things," Solim said. "It too casts its shadow on the land of the living. How could it not?"
"I want to look."
"You could be struck down right where you stand, I warn you."
I began turning my head. "How can something so sublime remain occluded from sight?"
"It can when there are no boundaries ..."
Something knocked me unconscious before I could behold the source of the shadows.
The muffled voices were a salient indicator that I was coming to. Feeling and kinesthesis gradually returned, as did volitional control over my body. I wiggled my fingers to attract attention.
"There, see," said a voice that seemed vaguely familiar. "He's back. It wasn't just an involuntary muscle spasm."
I could not contain my curiosity. My eyes flitted about in awe and wonder like a newborn infant casting its gaze upon the physico-corporeal world for the very first time.
"Yup, he lived to tell the tale!" said a tall woman with delicate features. "What a miracle!"
"Who ... are ... you?" I croaked.
"I'm the herpetologist you were helping before you got dealt a nasty bite," said the woman. "You were bitten by a black mamba. It's nothing short of a miracle that you survived."
I couldn't stop looking at her violet eyes; there was something vaguely familiar about them.
CHAPTER 2
Subliminal Uprush
The Unknown Pilot. How have you been, Olyn? You've been emotionally distant as of late, very preoccupied with your art.
Olyn. Oh, yes. Art is my refuge from the ravages and wear and tear of day-to-day living.
The Unknown Pilot. You haven't been yourself lately.
Olyn. No, I'm all pallid and jaded, and my cognitive engines are running on very little fuel. I need a respite from all this craziness.
The Unknown Pilot. All in good time, Olyn.
Olyn. The upside is that I'm still drawing and writing vigorously. You know, sometimes I find myself entering these hypnoid states where I'll write and write and write automatically without any awareness of what I've written; once in a while I glance up and marvel at the text with childlike wonder.
The Unknown Pilot. And that's because?
Olyn. Because I've transcribed something quite profound and meaningful. In fact, it's so semantically intricate that I hesitate to pronounce it in public as a product of automatic thought.
The Unknown Pilot. Are you one of those credulous people who subscribes to the belief that a muse may work through them to produce artistic masterpieces? Many artists think an indwelling general perceptive power, an intelligence, call it what you will, sometimes works through us to express the ineffable majesty of the intelligible macrocosm.
Olyn. I must confess that from time to time I do find myself wooed by the idea and wish to express it vociferously. I don't know anybody who can resist the romance of birthing something from nothing. Despite our best efforts to subvert irrationality and embrace the world of scientific intelligibility, our thinking is encumbered by "something from nothing" tendencies.
The Unknown Pilot. Say more. Like, in what way?
Olyn. Creation ex nihilo ...
The Unknown Pilot. Oh, you mean the Judeo-Christian mythology of Genesis?
Olyn. And not only! Science, too. While free from animistic and metaphysical ideation, the big bang theory is still a proposition of something from nothing.
The Unknown Pilot. What's your point, Olyn?
Olyn. My point, dear Unknown Pilot, is that if science can make nonjudgmental space for these "irrational" ideas in its own reductionist and self-righteous paradigms, then it should not be so hypocritical as to swiftly dismiss the possibility that a creative idea may be wrought in a functional space beyond the individual will, which then floats into the stream of conscious awareness as a flash of inspiration, a eureka moment. We see this idea embodied by the mythological birth of Venus, where the love goddess springs to life, fully formed, from the foam of the Mediterranean Sea before floating to the shore on a clamshell.
Solim. It was a scallop shell, Olyn!
Olyn. Oh, that's right!
Solim. You need to brush up on your Greek mythology!
The Unknown Pilot. Where in the name of empirical science did you just come from?
Solim. I heard the conversation while relaxing in my ethereal floatation tank and could not resist!
The Unknown Pilot. You weren't even invited. This isn't supposed to involve you; this affair is strictly between Olyn and me.
Solim. Ha! You forget that I too am an indivisible part of Olyn and his life. You won't be rid of me that easily, O technician of the rational mind.
The Unknown Pilot. Stay then. I don't think it will make much of a difference anyway.
Solim. Is that what you think?
The Unknown Pilot. Well, we don't need to recourse to metaphysics to explain these flashes of geniuslevel creativity or eureka moments, as Olyn dearest calls them. There's nothing metaphysical about them.
In fact, they can be explained quite well in terms of the associationism and connectionism underpinning all cognitive science. This paradigm falls within the domain of the "natural" be —
Solim. No, I don't think ...
Olyn. Let him speak, Solim.
The Unknown Pilot. The phenomenon of which you speak ...
Olyn. Subliminal uprush.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Confessions of a Split Mind"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Paul Kiritsis.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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