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There was a guy from high school, and let’s call him, Steve. He seemed like such a nice guy. A good athlete. Always was smiling and joking. A well-liked person at school. But some years after high school, Steve took his own life. Rumors circulated that he was having religious delusions, and some even blamed it on the long northern winter nights, where he was then stationed.

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Well, maybe that’s true…Steve just got very depressed with those long winter nights. Lots of people do.

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Nevertheless, as you read this chapter, maybe you might gain some doubts, as you read of what happened to me…

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The Scream – by E. Munch – Wikipedia – public domain by edvard munch c.1893

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CHAPTER 15:

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“IT AINT OVER TILL IT’S OVER”

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I can’t recall how long this bizarre “contest” continued…probably about a month. Oh, maybe less. Or maybe more.

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The TV continued to terrorize me. Patients continued to make taunting innuendos. Visitors would say things that had some vague encouragements, hidden ‘between the lines’. But as I recall, just about everything and everyone were being used by the spirits to communicate to me, whatever hidden message I was supposed to receive.

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It seemed as if some messages were for my encouragement, but others, simply to terrorize me! In spite of any encouragements, I was losing every single test!

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chess – checkmate by Friedriech Moritz August Retzsch wikigallery.org

RX7 – Unit 3600 – inspired by Scream by Munch

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THE HOUR OF RECKONING

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Well, the time came for these frightening tests, and this horrific game of Chess-With-The-Devil, to finally end. I can’t really remember the details of just how it all came to a finale. All I do remember is that there was not one single test that I passed. It was a total flop!

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But I can recall how the message came to me, to let me know just how I did.

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chess – checkmate by Friedriech Moritz August Retzsch wikigallery.org

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THE PUZZLE

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The next day, the spirit directed me to do a puzzle from one of those miscellaneous puzzle magazines. This particular puzzle was some sort of maize, in which I moved the pencil around from the letters “A” to “Z”. And honestly, I can just barely recall the details of this puzzle. But I do remember this: by the time I reached the letter “Z”, there was either something on the puzzle, or something spoken on the TV, which was playing just a few feet away, or something spoken in my mind: anyway, something was conveyed to my mind, regarding the end of the world by a nuclear holocaust. And just as I reached the last letter, “Z”, either this puzzle, or the TV, or simply the spirit communicated to me there was for certain, going to be a doomsday holocaust! And the spirit quickly and chillingly chided me, by saying “Now you know it…from ‘A’ to ‘Z’!”

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I got the message! I had lost this contest, and now the world was going to explode…all because of me!!! Now as I said, I cannot recall whether the puzzle said this, or the spirit, or somebody on TV made this terrifying statement, “Now you know it…from ‘A’ to ‘Z’!” But upon hearing this, I quickly turned away from the TV! Sheer terror ran through my already chilled blood-veins!

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So there I was, walking nervously around the ward, pacing back and forth, perhaps, trying to convince myself that I hadn’t lost these games!

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chess – checkmate by Friedriech Moritz August Retzsch wikigallery.org

Castle – romeo2 – nuclear bomb – Wikipedia – Public Domain – #9699d9

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THE FOOTBALL GAME

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Sometime, a little later, the spirit indicated that I should watch the football game currently playing on the TV. And it was a crucial game. Not just for the two football teams, but also for me! Because this was the chosen means for the spirits to let me know how I did in the mental ward games. I was still devastated over the rapture that didn’t happen, and my lack of faith which resulted in that failed rapture.

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But now this football game was on. I can’t remember who was playing. But the spirits were leading me to believe there was a reason why one team represented ‘the bad guys’, and a reason for the other team as ‘the good guys’. I think ‘the good guys’ team was either the Patriots or the Saints. And probably the bad guys had a conversely bad something or other about their name. I really can’t remember. But I was impressed that one particular team represented my team, and the other team represented the bad spirits.

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I hadn’t followed football since my childhood years, so I wasn’t up on who’s who.

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But this particular game I cared about! Oh yeah! The stakes were very high! Souls were hanging in the balance! The ‘good guys’ were winning! It looked like they were a ‘shoe-in’. This went on for most of the game. And then the ‘bad guys’ all of a sudden rallied and brought about a last minute defeat over ‘the good guys’. I don’t remember the score or even which team was ‘the good guys’. But I did know that my team lost. I suppose there were a lot of disappointed fans that day.

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Normally I couldn’t have cared less. But now the spirit was impressing on my mind that this game was the indicator as to how well or how badly I was doing in these mental ward games. And since my team had lost, I feared that this entire ordeal I’d been going through for several weeks, was going down in flaming defeat!

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chess – checkmate by Friedriech Moritz August Retzsch wikigallery.org

Super-Bowl XLIII Thunderbirds Flyover wikipedia public-domain.

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THE FACE OF GOD…

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The spirit then directed me to go to my room and lay down. The spirit was urging me to go into one of my trances. He indicated to me that I was going to see ‘The Face of God’. And so I did what I ‘normally’ did. My eyes began to cross. It felt like my eyes were going very slowly around in a 360 degree rotation. I’m sure they didn’t. But it felt like they did. Nevertheless, this was how the spirit had me go into these trances.

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Anyway, I was gonna see ‘The Face of God!’ Or at least, that’s what I was told. I didn’t know what I would see, or how I would see ‘The Face of God’. But I kept this up. Of course as I was crossing my eyes, the ceiling tiles appeared to be crossing as well. I kept straining and straining my eyes. These rather old-fashioned, 12-inch-square asbestos ceiling tiles with little holes dotted throughout, kept appearing to converge together.

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But finally, my crossed eyes made the ceiling tiles seem to cross each other in such a way that I saw what the spirit actually wanted me to see.

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I was so shocked and amazed!

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But it wasn’t ‘The Face of God’.

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No, instead my crossed eyes made those tiles appear like a GOAT’S HEAD!!!

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The ceiling tiles came together, and meshed into the shape and similitude of a pencil drawing of a GOAT’S HEAD! (The little dot-like holes, together with the straight edges of each 12 x 12 inch tile square, converged in such a way as to make them appear like the head of a goat! And how these spirits knew in advance this would happen shows how clever they actually were!)

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And I knew the joke was on me…AGAIN!!

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Of course, even though I knew I’d “been had” by these incredibly intelligent spirit beings, I didn’t know that goats were a very prominent animal in Scripture. I knew nothing about the parable of the “sheep and goats” or anything about the temple service in which both sheep and goats were used as sacrifices. And I knew nothing about the Scapegoat in that temple service.

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I just instinctively knew that God doesn’t have a head like a stupid goat!

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chess – checkmate by Friedriech Moritz August Retzsch wikigallery.org

Cross-eyed – Not me, but an unknown individual – cropped & altered image – Wikimedia – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Goat Eating Weeds – wikimedia – public-domain.jpg

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THE EXODUS

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The chess players seemed to be all getting ready for discharge. The Shah was getting so bad, they transferred him away to the regular part of the hospital. This football game showed that I had lost the mental ward games. There were no more games for me to play. The Shah was the “king” in this bizarre chess-like game! With him gone, it was all over!

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Now there was only complete silence. I felt the controlling power of the spirit leaving my body. It seemed like I was all alone again. All this spirit stuff seemed to be totally gone! It was like they all packed their bags and left town. Just like that old Don McClean song, “Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie”. You know, where it says regarding the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”… “They caught the last train for the coast.”

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I felt like they were leaving me forever! And I was left alone to ponder the enormous consequences, which failing the contest was sure to bring! I lost the mental ward patients! I lost the residents of Oregon! I lost the citizens of the U.S. and I lost the entire Middle East! And now there would be a nuclear war which would result in world-wide annihilation!

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All because of me!

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BN caboose, Eola Yard, 1993 by Sean Lamb for Wikipedia – share-alike license

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HORROR MOMENT!

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Words cannot convey the enormity of this situation. The spirits had condemned me for something so terrible. It was beyond belief! It was sheer terror! It was as if I was in a horror movie! But this all was for real!!!

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Now, had I been familiar with the Bible, I might have shrugged the whole thing off, as “just another satanic attack”. But I didn’t know the Bible. And so the spirit could tell me anything, and I would have to believe it. And because there were so many other things confirming this, how could I doubt it was all true?

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After all, living in an atheistic society, I’d never heard of anyone being in such contact with the spirit world: certainly nobody being told these horrendous things. And it cannot be emphasized enough, that these spirits are powerful enough to completely dominate one’s thinking. I was totally powerless to resist the thoughts coming into my mind!

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I can sympathize with Judas Iscariot when he realized that he caused the death of Jesus.

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And I was now a modern-day Judas Iscariot!

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Atheist sign, Wisconsin State – wikipedia – share-alike license

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MODERN-DAY JUDAS…

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I thought about the millions of people who would lose their souls because of my stupendous blunder.

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But more than this, I thought about the millions of persons who would be angry at me, once they found out that I had let them down! The thought came into my mind that the “insiders” here in the ward would tear me limb-from-limb as a last act of vengeance. I nervously looked over at the nurses station. They were talking together. Then one of them would glance over my way.

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“Oh yeah” I said to myself. “They Know! They already know!”

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And so, the hours passed by, until all was quiet in the ward. And I just sat there in the dimmed lights of the mental ward. No television jabbering! No “Born Free” booming on the stereo! Just a few quiet conversations.

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I thought about what was going to happen to me when everyone found out they were doomed. The spirit began to terrify me with threatening forebodings. They were going to cut me into little pieces as slowly and carefully as they could. But they would do it in such a way as to keep me alive as long as possible!

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And after this was completed, they would send these parts to many of the “insiders” elsewhere in the world.

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Now for those of you who have studied the Bible, you are no doubt reminded of the story of the Levite and his Concubine, how he cut her dead body into pieces and sent those pieces into all the coasts of Israel (see Judges 19:29).

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Well, I didn’t know it at this time, but obviously, the spirits knew that story! Because, that’s the scenario they were presenting me with!

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“HOPE YOU ARE…QUITE PREPARED TO DIE!”

(Line from the hit song, “Bad Moon A-rising'”)

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Desperate, I looked around for the highest thing I could jump from. But the windows were barred, and the exit doors locked. Just about the highest and most effective place I could think of, was my bed, which was a little higher than most of the other beds, as I recall.

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And so I got up on my bed. I stood as high as I could. And then I jumped as high as I could, and did a nose-dive, holding my arms by my side, hoping to crush my skull on the hard-tiled floor.

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The next moment, I was laying on the floor looking up. I failed. Oh yes, my head hit the floor. But it didn’t crush my skull!

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So I got up on the bed and repeated my dive. Head first into the floor. This time I was looking up again. But after this second attempt, the staff rushed in. They no doubt heard the noises from both dives. They picked me up and delivered me to a special room. It was the same room from where I heard screaming, when I first arrived.

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Jukebox – Wikimedia – cropped image – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Global license

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MY HANDS ARE TIED…FEET TOO!…

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In the room was a bed that had high metal rails, all around. Kind-of like an over-sized crib. The bed also had straps, that attached to each arm and each leg. They called these, “restraints”. They put me in the restraints, and there I lay. Oh I don’t know. For several hours, maybe.

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But then after those hours passed by, for some reason, they let me out of the restraints.

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THE “NOT-SO-FUNNY PAPERS”…

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“THE EARTH AND THE WORKS THEREIN SHALL BE BURNED UP”

2nd Peter 3:10

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It was somewhat late in the evening. I went out of my room to one of the tables in the dimly lit main hall. There were some newspapers, and so I decided to peruse them.

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Nothing intense.

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Just browse.

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You know, something to get my mind off my troubles.

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I came across an ad for a “Fire Sale”. It said “everything must go”. All of a sudden, it hit me like a ton of bricks! This ad was to me! It was a hidden message! The ad had something about it that just seemed weird. At least it did to me. It gave the date of the fire sale, and I took it to indicate the date of the nuclear annihilation of the world. This was probably put in the paper by the spirits or maybe an “insider”.

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“NANCY”…

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”LET THEM BE CUT IN PIECES” (Psalm 58:7)

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I next started reading the Sunday comic section. It seemed that most or all had similar hidden messages. For instance one comic strip, Nancy was angry at her brother, and she looked at him. And the brother looked like his body was sliced up into little pieces, like he was a jig-saw puzzle. At the time it seemed like this was a cryptic message about me getting cut up into little pieces by the insiders.

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Now that I look back, I finally get the joke. Nancy looked at her brother as though he was a big puzzlement. Hence the brother who looked like jig-saw puzzle pieces. Pretty funny actually. But at that moment it was terrifying, because I was getting an entirely different message than the intended joke. And most of the other comics had some similar hidden message, maybe not quite as direct as the Nancy comic.

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Nancy – by Ernie Bushmiller – (June 5, 1960) – Fair Use Rationale – Wikimedia – Click here for Fair-Use Rationale Guidelines – Could not find suitable free replacement on Internet – reduced size & quality

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“QUEENA LENA”…

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And then there was another ad for mobile homes. It had a little poem about a lady named, “Queena Lena”. This caught my eye, since that was my dear Grandmother’s name (this was my other Grandma, not my, “Driving Miss Daisy”, Grandma Imah).

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This ad went something like this…

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“Queena Lena found a diamond in the rough. But all she had was an agate to trade. So she traded away that agate for this diamond. And she now lives happily ever after.”

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I’m not sure exactly how that ad went, but something like that. Anyway, as I read this, I was convinced this was talking about me. I was that worthless agate! I was that agate which my Grandmother was going to trade in. And she will live forever, now that she traded in the worthless agate (me). My grandmother Lena was really a very sweet little lady. As humble a person as you’d ever meet. So I had no trouble thinking that she was heaven-bound. And she did have at least, one picture of Jesus hanging in her home. And this comic seemed to say that my Grandma was gonna escape the doom that was sure to soon come (even though this newspaper ad was merely about buying a mobile home).

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And so, I became very frightful of what lay in store for me. That Nancy comic really ‘nailed it’ as to what I could expect at any moment. And so after reading these comics, and every other comic, they all convinced me that I was gonna get sliced into itsy-bitsy little pieces… soon. VERY SOON!!! And then I was gonna be thrust into Hell. BURNING HELL!!! FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER!!!!

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#3 SUICIDE ATTEMPT…

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”ONE EYE IS TAKEN FOR AN EYE”…

(Line from the song, “Bad Moon A-rising'”)

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I can’t remember how I spent the rest of the night. But I do know that all these things were spelling the word, “doom!” Not only my doom, but the doom of the entire planet. All because of my terrible failure of the Mental Ward Games!

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The next morning I was still intent on doing myself in. I saw a nurse with scissors in her pocket. I walked up to her and grabbed the scissors. And before anyone could stop me, I held the sharp end to my right eye. I fell face-flat to the ground, still holding the scissors to my eye, hoping to penetrate my brain, thus killing myself. I fell just right. But the next thing I knew, they were picking me up from the floor. It seems the scissors only glanced off the bone of my nose.

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Before I knew it, I was back in the restraint room. I was laying face down on a gurney. There were about four or five nurses around me. I didn’t have my shirt on. They were all standing around me, talking. I should say, whispering. I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. But as they talked, one of them would make an imaginary line across my back with her finger. And then another line with her finger. This actually felt like getting a nice massage (even though I figured that they must be deciding how to slice me up into little pieces). But their whispering and drawing lines on my back, and the ever-present low-hum of the air-system put me to sleep.

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About 11 pm that night, they let me out of restraints. I was still in the Restraint Room. They decided to make that my permanent sleeping quarters. By now, the desire to kill myself had somewhat lessened. They allowed me to smoke. So I began to smoke as I was sitting on the floor, back to the wall (don’t forget, this was still 1979).

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Jukebox – Wikimedia – cropped image – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Global license

Scissors Photo – Wikipedia, public domain.

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BAD MOON A-RISING: “Run to the moon, moon won’t ya hide me…the Lord said Sinnerman, the moon will be a bleedin’, all on that day!“

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After this attempt, they put me back in restraints for a while. It was late at night. The moon had arisen outside my window, as if now watching, watching, down at the earth in horrified astonishment! The spirit back in control of my body to a certain extent. I knew the spirit wanted me to do something. I asked him, “What should I do?” In response he made my head slowly turn toward the bathroom. I took this to mean that he wanted me to go to the bathroom and kill myself by drowning myself. He let me know that he was in control of my body enough to hold me under the water long enough to get the mission accomplished.

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I asked him for permission to finish my pack of cigarettes. But as I smoked them, he took control of my body so that I began puffing incessantly. And to make things even more miserable, he kept turning my head cryptically back toward the bathroom, as if to say, “Hurry up and get it over with!” So I was puffing and puffing, and turning and turning my head toward the bathroom between each puff.

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SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

(Title of the 1950 Ella Fitsgerald song, composed by George Gershwin in 1926)

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But before I finished my pack, the staff had someone come in to watch over me. So I knew this was why the spirit was so impatient. He knew they would bring someone in soon, making it harder for me to kill myself. But when they did come in, I felt the spirit release his control over my body. So I knew I’d better get the deed over with. And so I told them I had to use the restroom. I went in, closed the door, and urinated and threw my last cigarette and started to flush. But the spirit prevented me from flushing indicating that it would be much more fitting to not flush. This made sense. So I stuck my head in the urine-filled toilet, and held myself under as long as I could. The staff must have heard me, and they came running in and began pulling me out. But it was quite a struggle. But finally they overpowered me away from the toilet.

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Needless to say, I was back in restraints in my crib-like restraint-bed. After a while these merciful nurses decided to let me out. They had a nurse come to my room and sit with me, to keep watch. The nurse tried to give therapy as to what was troubling me, and how could I overcome my problems. Meanwhile I was trying to go into a trance to communicate with the spirit. She no doubt thought I was totally whacked out.

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And for all intents and purposes, I was…whacked out!

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Jukebox – Wikimedia – cropped image – Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Global license

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“Well then, Satan, Satan wontcha hide me!”…

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Seeing that I didn’t have many options open to me as far as this planet was concerned, the thought came to me of the possibility of playing organ in Hell. After all, I was under the notion that Hell was somewhat like “Dante’s Inferno” (I didn’t specifically know about Dante’s Inferno at this time, but I was presented with this concept by the spirits)

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Anyway, the thought came to me that playing organ for the Devil might be less torment than what I would otherwise experience as just another sinner in Hell.

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I realize how funny this might seem to someone. But for those who believe the old traditional Catholic version of Hell, why would this seem illogical? For those who hold to this view of Hell, I guess the only illogical aspect to this, is to think that I’d have a chance to be chief organ player! After all, just think of all the competition I’d have for the job! Just think of the long lines there would be, if there ever was a job-opening down there! I mean, playing organ would be infinitely better than boiling in a vat of burning oil. It would even be better than freezing in the River Styx!

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And anyway, I’m a piano-player! Oh yeah, I once played a combo-organ in our little pop band back in high school. But playing a big church-organ is a ‘whole different animal’, as they say, than playing piano, or even a combo-organ. But on the other hand, I’d have a lotta time to re-learn! But until I did re-learn, I can just imagine all the boos and jeers by everyone as I was playing some really bad organ music!

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Yoke pipe organ – wikipedia – public domain

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“BRING YOUR RUNNING SHOES WHEN YA PLAY THIS ROOM !”…

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I remember one night (on this Earth) when I actually was jeered so bad, I had to make a quick exit from an angry mob (Maybe this is a little bit of an exaggeration.) But can you imagine all the billions of the disgruntled throngs down in Hell throwing tomatoes, or balls of brimstone (or whatever) at me, as I was trying to get on-the-job experience as an organ player? And if you really wanna think this thing through, can you imagine how good the organ-player must be who currently holds the job? After all, he’s had that job for, well, who knows how long! And anyway, why would he even think of resigning such a cushy job? So he could go back to the vats? Or back to the freezing River Styx? This wishful desire just didn’t make any logical sense!

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Of course, “logical sense” was never exactly my strongest character trait!

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Anyway, I never thought all this “Organ Playing in Hell” idea through, back there in the mental ward. So please humor me as I just now have been musing on that crazy idea I had back then! But though I muse, be assured this was not the least bit funny at the time! But this incident really did happen! I actually did seriously consider this! And I’ve just stated… it wasn’t a bit funny at that moment!

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No, it wasn’t one bit funny! At all!

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But there was one last gig I knew was definitely gonna be awaiting me very soon: yeah, that gig was an eternity of me…screaming for mercy as I am roasting in HELL-FIRE!!!!!!!!!!

Hell photo – Wikipedia, public domain.

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To go to the next chapter, just click here …

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Ch. 16: “And then it still ain’t over!“

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Yogi Berra was correct of course, when he said “It ain’t over till it’s over, and then it still ain’t over”

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So the question to be answered is: How do you escape when you’re in an iron room with no doors or windows? Is it all over? Well, just read this next chapter to find out. It’s all about just that kind of situation! But like Yogi added, or at least should have added, “…and then it still ain’t over!”

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