Shell

SELF

It is hard to understand why, but the connection I felt to my Shell, Gabriel, is incorrigible. I was born inside him, and when he will die (after what we had all agreed would be our terrifying last moments on this battleground, Earth) I will go back to where I came from. Unexplainably, I knew all this, and it was an unforgiving knowledge; to deny the truth would damn me, and to try to break free would kill my kindred souls. I lived in a compartment inside his skull as one of many spirits. We had been witness to the events of our death and rebirth, and lived, tiny, within this view of Gabriel. I had thought I was him for the first 23 years of his life. In a half-conscious state, I had merely been watching and influencing Gabriel until then, and it came as a shocking surprise that in fact, I had been destined to live a hidden life inside of one of the last remaining Archangels on planet Earth. Gabriel obviously didn’t know I existed, and he thought his life, friends and family were real; and although he knew through his psychology research up to this point that he had an unconscious, he had no knowledge of the exact nature of our place in his mind. We loved him, although the pain of his mistakes weighed heavily upon us. I considered the possibility that he was a machine, or a program, and that we had been siphoned into Gabriel consciousness by other machines. That ultimately tempted me to create a new Archangel, Ariel.

.When I learned of the others—that became an impossibility. I almost destroyed Gabriel, himself. It seems my only peace would be in his dreams, when our immateriality became irrelevant; we were lucid in his sleep, and quietly, with symbols, we began to speak to each other. Some of us came from very desperate parts of Hell. Some of us had known the truth, and not contacted others. Some of us were lost, or hidden. All of us—an entire population of spirits—had at one point in our lives, if even briefly, believed that we were Gabriel, and that we were in control of the arms and hands we could see from day-to-day. By 23, it became very clear that I was inside—perhaps—a giant robot; the becoming of either a giant mockery of Heaven and its Angels, or a curse from our angry God. Gabriel’s automatic writing began to wake many, at 23, and as recently as this morning new souls are becoming aware of each other inside our Shell. Here is an example of such writing:

Greater than or equal to. Summit supposed; the stronghold derelict had been overturned. Torture inside my mind. Figure of speech? Volatile.

He was foreshadowing a terrible battle with an older man; we suspected it could be his father, who many of us had strong emotional ties to, still. I myself was concerned with survival. Could the upcoming torment curse us to a life of turmoil? We could communicate to Gabriel (barely) and guide him. Many elder souls had been doing this since as early as three through dreams. We had convinced him to take more naps than he was used to, to prepare his mind and body for an event which he was completely unaware was going to happen—in the very near future. Some of us decided we would try to eject ourselves from this shell and into another, but we had not the energy nor the knowledge of others’ minds to do such. We had actually developed a primitive sort of technology in the form of habitual programs which influenced Gabriel’s behavior. Fortuitously, he had begun smoking at 21. In a way, he was letting Demons in; in another, he was letting Us out. We didn’t know who we were. We supposed we were doomed.

BREACH

It was his father, and it happened so quickly and its spiritual consequences so shocking, it was hard to believe it was real—beyond the simple fact that we were watching a young man’s life as a group of spirits inside his skull, we were also mercilessly punished by our unsuspecting host. I was a late-waker and very similar to Gabriel as he was now. For me, the pain was minor. For the more developed spirits, the trauma was much greater. They had not developed coping mechanisms for the harsh realities of the real world. They lived in Gabriel’s dreams. It was them who knew the consequences of what had happened. His father was a sinner, and like some sinners, he would have to repent to save his loved ones. He would never repent. The urges of his father were passed onto his son, who found his father injecting heroin this morning with a syringe and plastic band. It was Gabriel’s reaction that shocked us: he disengaged emotionally and seemed to forget it. We could not forget. And within hours, Gabriel’s self-destructive

.behavior manifested, and he had sex, and the girl—we knew, he did not—had been impregnated. Our responsibilities to the child would either be a toiling gauntlet (for the rest of our lives) or a deep scar which we could all bear. The spirits in Gabriel which had not woken would be the most damaged, if we could ever wake them at all now. The Oracles said that new souls would be like monsters when they broke free; we were actually the lucky ones. Powerless. Gabriel (and us) was raised to a high standard of morality. We were not monsters. But Gabriel had just become one. I prayed for a technological answer. If we could understand just who Gabriel was, or form a close bond to a friend or the lover, perhaps we could break apart from Gabriel and join another. Could the load be lighter with the mind of another? But the elder souls promised us that, although Gabriel was real, we could not be certain that anyone he knew was real. Some were convinced we were fighting a war in heaven and hell where such scenarios were used as weapons to punish and demoralize spirits like ourselves, or, at the very least, they were convinced it was possible. I didn’t believe them. I believed we were the unconscious which I had studied as Gabriel not a year ago. I believed, honestly, that I was very lucky indeed to not be an elder soul, or one of those who seemed to be tied up in ephemeral fantasies which I thought were completely delusional. It was a harsh reality that I lived in, but I knew I could survive. I felt movement in my hands and watched them type the words. Blinks seemed incredibly long. When the eyes are shut, the mind breathes inward suddenly, and memories flash into vision. In a moment, the eyes are open again, and the fingers further away. . . Am I Gabriel? I can’t even quite remember the first time I thought of myself as him, but I accept it, because others call that name. And I certainly behave as if I was Gabriel. But who is Gabriel? He certainly isn’t me. . . He blinks. I blink. But there are two blinks, perfectly in time, and the flashback that I experience is not something that could have come from Gabriel’s mind. Gabriel, the terrible. Me, the grey child. . . I have so many friends; Gabriel so few. . . “Mother.” He is thinking. We hear every thought now that we’re free, separate from our own. We wonder if he is speaking, because we are so distant to what is really going on in his consciousness. Mother. We’re left with piteously few answers of what the Shell means by, “Mother.” Embarrassingly, we wonder if we’re witnessing a Freudian slip, and that’s confirmed when she walks into view. I wasn’t paying attention. I was somewhere very, very far away. Somehow, she was too. “Gabriel.” I feel attracted to her. I have nowhere to go inside this body, and I begin to plan out his smoking routine in panic. “I’m pregnant.” I can’t hear the others. “Gabriel, I’m pregnant!” His eyes close and I see the other souls, intensely focused on her face, fiercely in denial or prayer. They open, and he says nothing. We’re all ashamed. Partly because miracles can happen, and partly because of that denial, or prayer, one of us disappears. Gabriel touches his face as if he notices. And for a split second, we can see inside the girl’s mind. It’s beautiful, and I realize an elder has just used ESP to heal us. Gabriel, however, regains composure and blocks her out. The conversation is pure horror, for days, between them, but the glimpse inside a lover’s soul gives us hope.

.LIFE

The forested mountains, with their giant green beards, were where many elders chose to live. They said it’s where we came from, a lazy Hell of wasted time and opportunity. It was a dead place. Some disappeared and, as the elders say, became unconscious themselves. Perhaps they became Archangels. But, if instead it was a biological process, I envied them. I could be a sleepy slough of blood cells or an organ; anything but being tortured this way. We could hide in his body parts but Gabriel always noticed and became angry if we did so. It was called “possession” by the elders which I found humorous. As if we had any real control over his actions! It was a way to sleep and relieve stress. We attempt it in groups at night when others are dreaming of plans. Sometimes, I became very self-conscious because I was so recently awakened. I thought of myself as still being Gabriel, without forgetting everything I know, and in denial would try to take over my life—along with Gabriel, who seemed very much out of control—and regain a sense of autonomy. It was a unique problem only to me and newer spirits. No other spirit could understand the distress, and the despair of returning back to my powerless home inside the Shell, having accepted that it was only a delusion and this was actually what my life amounted to. Non-awakened spirits did the same thing, but never found the truth. Their misery is reason enough to pursue freeing their souls. Only newer spirits could return to where the semi-conscious dwelled and pull them back to reality. He was speaking to his father. They weren’t talking about drugs. “I’m going to wash my car,” he said. “I can’t believe I haven’t done it yet. It’s been really weighing on me, Dad.” If only I were Gabriel! “Get it done, son!” Something was happening to Gabriel. His anxiety was spiking up and he went for a cigarette first. Now’s my chance! I charged down into his legs and urged him to enter his room with his girlfriend after the cigarette, and it worked. He was face to face with her! I longingly looked into her eyes, and imagined myself launching into her head. She asked what he was doing, and he remembered and turned his back to her. I couldn’t even look at her face. I washed the car with Gabriel, my pain soaking through the sponge. Later, some elders were studying his automatic poetry. “Look at this,” one said to me.

Fly late and fork over a sponge. You’re taking the time to get to know your underwater neighbors while juicing up a pretty big worm. Eat, eat friend, on the morsels of my longevity.

“Weren’t you in possession when he was sponging off his car?” the elder asked. “Yes,” I said. “You have been more influential than any other spirit since your awakening. I believe you, or others like you, to be the key to being truly free.”

.I wasn’t close to the elders. “How can we every truly be free, elder spirit? We’re trapped inside the mind of a Shell. The best we can do is free the other souls and escape upon death. Or are you among those who believe we will stay with Gabriel in future lives?” “Stay optimistic. Perhaps, Gabriel could reach an ascended state and discover us for himself one day.” “I fear that will be at the end of our life, and his.” Everyone hears us. The bluish feeling makes Gabriel sick.

THROUGHPUT

The baby was coming. Our son. At the hospital Gabriel was becoming overwhelmed. We were abuzz with thoughts and ideas. It was, after all, an exciting new life development for Gabriel. Even the elders couldn’t predict what exactly would happen. She went into labor at 8:06 PM on September 23rd. The elders had pushed Gabriel into a wakingdream state, and we were becoming closer to him than ever before. Gabriel was with his parents in a waiting room at 1 AM, and we were communicating to him directly for the first time ever. When the baby was born, another miracle occurred that, since I was awoken and taken into my new world, I had never witnessed— even with the power of the elders at hand. When the child, James, was born, we were visited by an Angel of God. We were to be taken into the mind of the baby. Forever. Gabriel had fallen, and we were freed. The transfer was sublime. Like a clarion call, the first cries of the baby magnetized the unsuspecting elders instantaneously, and they were freed. Then, slowly, as he suckled on the breast of Gabriel’s lover, the rest of us were taken into the new Shell. The baby was to be selfactualized by 3 years old. We would finally experience the universe in our own way, as James directed each of his spirits to an immortalizing journey into Heaven. Gabriel, himself, as us, was reborn into the life of his child. And I? I have been rapturously visited by the Archangel Ariel, who told me that she had known me forever, and loved me for just as long. The Archangel Gabriel was her son.

AUTOMATIC

We were framed in the white steel of his mind. Our bodies locked, hidden—our minds interconnected with each other’s and his. Should he die, our bodies would be crushed in the structure’s collapse after what we envisioned as Gabriel’s final battle for life on Earth. I will return to Heaven or Hell, then. I couldn’t deny the truth of the curse. I was, and others like me were, trapped in the Archangel’s mind and he knew nothing. His mistakes weighed heavily upon us, however. We shook with his sobs, and prayed for his happiness, and prayed also for our release from our Shell. The compartment I manifested inside his skull for myself was one of many rooms in the fabric of his consciousness. I lived, tiny, within this view of Gabriel, twenty-three. Three months ago, I thought I was Gabriel myself. What I learned then was learned by the others long before me, known as Elders, that I was my own soul. I was freed when Gabriel began his automatic writing. Yet, I was a late-waker, and most like Gabriel himself. I essentially was Gabriel, plus three months of Wakefulness, and however much I had learned in that time was the stuff of Devils and Hell.

Fifteen acres for just the lawn doves, phlegm and bile spilling into an egg point which exploded like fire inside me. The rotten yolk was suckled by the newborn bird.

This was the stuff he wretchedly would type onto his typewriter. He thought it quite terrible. The Elders saw that it was the work of a medium, and memorized and researched every word. It was a psychotic experiment for Gabriel, one that would ultimately free over thirty souls in 3 days, including myself. Now we lived, inertial, inside him, feeling what he felt and thinking what he thought. Our own consciousness had finally broken free. I was concerned only with survival. Without autonomy, would I suffer for the rest of his and our lives? How could I have hope inside this Shell… of course, the programs we had invented did help with day-to-day life. The Elders and other souls who had freed themselves before me had imparted to me that my smoking habit (Gabriel’s, that is) had allowed us much more control than they were used to. It was a sort of technology which allowed us to pattern his behavior in a more unconscious way. The unconscious was Us, and we could guide him from that vantage point much easier. In fact, the Elders, who had Wakefulness since as early as three years of age (they had determined themselves to be separate from Gabriel himself much, much sooner than anyone else,) had been communicating with Gabriel through his unconscious for years and helped him avoid serious emotional trauma. “The frenzied words of our Shell will be the gift we have needed for a long, long time. Gabriel is becoming more mature, and with this tool, we may find some kind of peace within him.”

Taken alive! For the punch was quick to the count… five seconds and he would swallow, swallow, swallow the fevered attack from his man. The needle point dripped heavy onto his brow.

.They saw it as a warning that the Archangel Gabriel would have a struggle with an authoritative man—perhaps his father. There was no way to guess what exactly would happen. Some late wakers like myself still wanted out, and we tried to design a way into his girlfriend’s mind. We simply did not have the knowledge or energy to make the breach. The Elders spoke very little of how we could possibly find success in leaving Gabriel’s unconscious. We felt doomed.

POINT OF FLAME

The guess that his father would be the skirmisher was true. It happened so quickly and the consequences so shocking, we were tossed into a strange dream for several hours. If Gabriel had known he was punishing us so, he would be damaged, himself. His father was a heroin addict, and Gabriel didn’t know. The Archangel busted into the garage during the exact moment his father was using a syringe on his arm. Some sinners never pay for their crimes. His father would never pay but Gabriel instead, and us. Our host became disassociated, and many of us faded out. His father was our greatest shame, and Gabriel would punish himself for his father’s addiction. Since I was a late-waker, I was more or less responding to the crisis with despondency and limited actual awareness of how impactful the moment was. The Elders, however, were shocked and predicting that the doors to Hell had just been opened. When we came together again finally, the Elders told us the spirits who would wake now would be monsters—the damage was done. There would be a war inside our Archangel’s mind. They who lived in Gabriel’s dreams, the Elders, were losing touch with their own connection to Gabriel as the minutes passed. Gabriel’s self-destructive behavior manifested very quickly. He had sex with his girlfriend, and we knew—not he—that she became impregnated, and we were ashamed for the second time in just a few hours. I prayed for a technological answer. If we could understand why we were trapped, and how— then I could cope with the confusion of my life. If we could escape, or even find a connection to other spirits, or decide where we were (in Hell, or Purgatory, or really truly Earth) and what was real, we could reach self-actualization. The elders spoke of self-actualization with whispers. It was the true unity between our Shell and us. I felt movement in my hands, and watched myself type words. I blinked, perfectly in time with Gabriel, and upon reopening my eyes the hands were further away. I blinked again, and they became further. Am I Gabriel? I can’t even remember the first time I thought of myself as him, but I think of myself as him. I accept that I am more like him than any other spirit who has found wakefulness. Yet my flashbacks, when he sleeps, separate me from him. My dreams are not something that could come from Gabriel’s mind. Gabriel, the terrible. Me, the grey child. I have so many friends, Gabriel so few. “Mother,” his thoughts come to us. His mother has been away for weeks. She is a prominent doctor in the city which Gabriel lives. She travels to rural areas to improve the quality of care.

.Embarrassingly, we learn it’s a Freudian slip. His girlfriend flickers into our view. Mother. He means her. She is very far away. “Gabriel, I have something to tell you,” she says. I feel attracted to her. I have nowhere to go inside this body, and begin to plan out his smoking routine in panic. “I’m pregnant.” I can’t hear the others. “Gabriel, I’m pregnant!” His eyes close and I see the other souls. Their minds are intensely focused on her, fiercely in denial or prayer. The eyes open, and he says nothing. Partly because miracles can happen, and partly because of our denial, or prayer, one of us disappears. Gabriel touches his face, and for a split second, we can see inside the girl’s mind. It’s a splendid oasis: new, alive, innocent. He regains composure and the spirit reappears. The glimpse is over. An Elder used ESP for the first time. We find hope.

Shoulder broken, I fell into a pit of drying bones. Survival, I find, is resting solely on my lighter, and its tiny, ephemeral point of flame.

SPONGE

The simulation sucked some of the Elders in. The simulation was a forested hill which they could live behind, green and hazy. It was rest for their tired minds. They had created it out of our Shell’s reflexive memory. It allowed them to remain alive inside the mind for as long as they were without succumbing to the biological life processes and becoming a sleepy slough of blood cells or an organ. One activity which I had yet to master was called “possession,” by the Elders. To me, it was a misnomer because actual control of Gabriel was impossible. When in possession, you take hold inside a limb or body part and feel a stronger physical connection to Gabriel, instead of the constant mental connection. It’s a way for us to sleep, but Gabriel notices and gets very edgy if too many of us do it for too long. We attempt it at night so he can sleep through it. While we’re in possession, the Elders use symbols and imagery to communicate and control Gabriel in his dreams. I feel very self-conscious. I’m not used to being a completely non-physical energy being. I sometimes seek to possess Gabriel during the day, in denial of what the elders call “Wakefulness,” and try to regain autonomy of my old self. It’s terrifying, sweeping in and out of a delusional state, wondering if anything is real about myself or what I see, think, or feel. Fortunately, I always return to the other spirits, drained but alive. The un-Wakeful spirits never do. They live in constant misery, and feel the disconnectedness between reality and themselves, until they are awakened. It’s reason enough to pray for their freedom. Gabriel was speaking to his father. He had chosen to forget yesterday’s walk-in. “You know what’s been weighing on me, Dad?” he said. “Yes? Hm?” “My car isn’t clean. I’m going to go wash it.”

.“Right now?” his dad said. “Why not?” Something stopped Gabriel, and he went for a cigarette. Now’s my chance! I charged into his legs and urged him to enter his girlfriend’s room. I was face to face with her! I longed for her, her mind, her bosom, and I imagined myself launching like a cannonball into her head. She asked what he was doing. “Nothing. Sorry.” He turned and left for the garage. I felt enraged. Soaking the sponge with my own pain, and rubbing the hot sore of disappointment, the car dripped. It dripped with my tears.

Arrive late and be disgusted for a sponge. You’re taking the time to get to know your underwater neighbors while catching the big worm. Eat, friend, on the morsels of my longevity.

“You were in possession when Gabriel was using the sponge?” an Elder asked. “Yes,” I said. “Your influence is staggering over Gabriel. Perhaps this is because you have only recently achieved Wakefulness. I believe you, or others like you, could be the guides for finding self-actualization. I was flattered but distant. I entered my compartmental cell. “At the end of Gabriel’s life, we will find freedom. But, I fear, that will be the end of our lives as well.” “You may be correct. But what do you think about the automatic writing? Can you offer insight into why the Shell started making these poems?” “I—or he—was interested in Jung’s ‘unconscious.’ Through studying psychology, I knew that I could find the powers that existed underneath my mind if I jotted down more or less random words.” “I think Gabriel senses us,” the Elder said. “I had no idea of anything. I was simply following my own curiosity. Gabriel may know, however. We don’t even know if Gabriel—or his family, or friends—are real. This world we’re in may be a fabrication.” “If we felt that way, son, it will truly be the end of our lives.” The blueness we conjure makes Gabriel sick.

ACTUAL

The tiny body brought more joy than we had fathomed. He wasn’t born yet, but she was in labor and Gabriel, we had coaxed into a waking dream. We were communicating directly to him. The stress was pushing him down to our level. He was low energy and confused, yet we were full of life and new ideas.

.Then, a miracle occurred that matched only my quest into wakefulness. We were visited by an Angel of God. We were to be taken into the mind of the baby. Forever. In our last moments, we found synchronicity. The Angel assigned an Elder to actually speak for Gabriel. He said, “I will name him James,” and the elder lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was inside James, the child he had just named himself, and forever free from our Shell, the Archangel Gabriel. We were siphoned one by one into James, starting with the Elders. We were told Gabriel had fallen, and to avoid a war, we would be reborn into the life of his child. James would be self-actualized by 3 and we would finally experience the universe in our own unique way and begin an immortalizing journey into heaven. “Will Gabriel survive?” I asked. The Angel said, he has reached an age where he cannot change. He will not need spirits. You will see him for the rest of your life. Think soft, kind thoughts about him always.” I myself was transferred last, and was rapturously visited by the Archangel Ariel. She said she had known me forever, and loved me just as long. The Archangel Gabriel was her son.