Here is one for you all and its a long one. 44M here, been with my significant other for ~20 years, married for 11 years. At this point I don't feel like we are going to make it much longer. I don't think she wants to be with me anymore but needs me for financial support so she is trying to string me along.
Background:
I want to say right off that I know I am not perfect, have never pretended to be nor have I overlooked my shortcomings and have done everything I can to address and deal with my issues.At first things were good. We did things together, went out, hung out with friends together, bowled leagues together, had a lot of fun. We also had a good, sex life. We were having cuddling times, regular sex, great foreplay, she was pretty open to positions and trying things.
When we first got together she was working miscellaneous retail jobs. She had a 4 year college degree at this point as well but never even tried to find a job utilizing it. I was fine with her working whatever made her happy. I work in IT/Tech. I have always been the higher earner, making almost double her salary up until a couple years ago. I never once said anything about this, never gave her crap for making less or the job she worked. I only encouraged her to find a job she enjoyed. I went years, never saying anything that might hurt her, even when I was working 50-60+ hours of work in a tough field at a job I hated while she worked maybe 20-30 hours a week in a super easy job of her choosing. After about 10 years of us being together she finally decided to go back to school for computer science. To support her doing this we lived in a couple places and worked jobs I absolutely hated to make sure she could finish school without any pressure. Again, I never said anything to her about this, I did it so she could be happy. She ended up finishing and getting an extremely good paying tech job after a few years, around the time that I noticed the biggest changes about her. Prior to her latest job and changes, we were OK for a few years. We starting doing well together as we were both earning well and have no kids.
Start of problems:
After we were married for a few years she started changing. She stopped wanting to do things together, we went out less and less. Stopped watching shows and movies together, stopped gaming together. She started treating sex like a burden, made me feel bad for even trying to initiate it. She became more of a prude, stopped wanting to do almost anything sexual, stopped wanting cuddling/petting, lost almost all interest in foreplay that wasn't directly for her, she lost all interest in any type of intimacy, cuddling, foreplay, or really anything that isn't about her getting off.
I feel that I have been extremely patient over the years about all of this. She has some back issues (self inflicted, she was having soreness and pain but continued a workout regimen that was obviously not right and causing issues. I have tried to be understanding and accommodating since she had these issues. Sex was never really a big issue, even with the back problems we had a decent sex life until the last 5 or so years. She started wanting to do less and it really felt like she was just trying to get it over with (outside of when I was pleasuring her and getting her off. Once that was done it was like hurry up and finish.
More recently, last couple of years she has had 0 interest in sex or even anything physical. I mean I can barely kiss her, cant touch her at all without some excuse that it tickles or some other BS. No cuddling as she says I always pressure for sex, BS, I love foreplay and am happy with mutual getting off. I have mentioned the lack of intimacy, mentioning that is had been months since we did anything and it is always some excuse or a suggestion it may happen this weekend (going on 20+ " this weekend" without anything) . She has almost every excuse in the book as to why she doesn't want to without really having a good reason. She will blame her back bugging her but will then do a lot of work that is physically punishing, especially to someone with back issues and despite the fact that I said I would do it or try to help. I have also gotten several different things to help, wedge pillow to help with her back, tried it once and had some random complaint that I forget. She had mentioned trying a swing so she could have support in different positions. I found several options and she then made excuses about all of them, the primary one being support for the swing. I eventually called her on this being BS when the new house we got had a chain mount in one of the bedrooms ( looked like it was possibly for a heavy punching bag) that would be perfect for a swing and I tested it holding my full weight. I again mentioned getting a swing to make things better to only get additional excuses.
Further Issues:
We had always talked about wanting to move back to California and get a house there when we had the chance. We had also talked about houses we would like and things like that. When we started seriously talking about getting a house, she said she would check with work ahead of time about being able to move to another state as we had discussed, she did not. I don't think she even talked to her boss about it. She just refused to move outside of this state as she said her job required her to be her even though her boss lives in a completely different country.
When the time actually came to find and buy a house it did not work out the way I guess I had expected. Eventually, we purchased a house here after several fights as she decided she wanted a cheaper house to fix up. Not even considering the amount of work and money it would take to do so. One of her "options" was a run down ranch house that had a surprise renter (9 months left on a lease) in a very obviously water damaged basement. She picked out this house so she continued to try to justify buying it for about 100k over what it should be sold for. After about a week of looking at shitty houses and fighting she finally agreed to look at one of the houses I had chosen, the house we eventually purchased. It was a bit more but had almost all of our wants without the need to fix it up.
For the purchase, she provided the down payment from her inheritance and jointly financed the house. Once the purchase was finished and we moved in she changed, a lot. Things became more about what she wanted, she would mention things to me but completely ignore any input and just talk like what she wanted is what I chose too. Her dad then decided to visit and this was the largest wake up call I think I have had. I saw him doing all of the things that she does that annoy and frustrate me. I then realized that if I stay with her, dealing with this is my future. He took over the house and she treated me like an asshole for just wanting a bit of space that I could have to myself. She refused to deal with him or reign in his behavior. I think it was around this time that I realized that it felt like I didn't even have a home even though we just bought one, that I was just a wallet to help pay bills.
We ended up having a fight about this and I ended up leaving and staying at a hotel for a few days. This is where it got really eye opening as I considered this fight as something we would think about and get over. However, the first thing she did was talk to her friend and then reach out to divorce lawyers. She mentioned that she was talking to them about post nuptials to make sure she got the house and money. This was a signal to me, that she did not consider nor seem to appreciate all of the years that I spent working jobs I hated to supplement our income and cover for her while she went back to school. All it seemed she saw was that she got money now so the house and all of it was hers. She made a comment about how she felt the money, stocks, and house were hers. She added that she wanted a post nuptial to define this so I shouldn't be surprised if I get one to sign. Unsurprisingly, she never actually got this done, never mentioned it more so I am assuming she just got lazy and never followed up. One thing that stood out to me was that she mentioned that she could not afford the house by herself. She rambled off several things about us just being roommates and me continuing to pay for the house and bills. She came up with something about me paying and her giving me money back later or something, I ignored most of it as it was dumb, I.E. me leaving my checks going into our shared account and continuing to pay like I have been but doing so knowing she plans on keeping the house and that I might get some money later if she ever sold it. She also made a comment that I did a good job with the stocks so I should keep doing that for her and she would give me like a 1k in a few years. Since I started working with the portfolio and diversified the stocks I have made over 40k in gains for it so yeah I ignored this as I felt like it was insulting. This whole fight and conversation hit me hard, especially after 15+ years of me working hard, shitty jobs, to provide for us just to get slapped in the face by greed.
We ended up talking a bit after that fight after I ended up stopping by the house. She had mentioned previously about going to marriage counseling. I told her I didn't think it would help with our situation considering what the issues were but if she was willing to go and actually participate, I would be too. We ended up seeing a marriage counselor as she had suggested it previously and I wanted to try everything to make this work. I had previously mentioned that I didn't think it would work as she refuses to open up or discuss her issues with anyone and if she wont do that, it is a moot point. She said she would so we found a counselor and we went for a couple of months. During this time I was very open about my thoughts and feelings and gave the counselor details on my issues. She however, did not provide anything ahead of time, participate much, would not open up, and eventually said that we might as well not go as she didn't feel like we were gaining anything.
Turning Point:
I think the f*ck it point, straw that broke the camels back for me is that about a month ago, around 10 months or so since we had any kind of intimacy we had a fight. During the fight she admitted that she actually masturbates fairly regularly which really, really pissed me off as she knows the lack of sex and any kinds of intimacy was a big issue for me and was causing a lot of frustration. I was quiet about it as what I would have said would have started a big fight. I am now struggling because I cant really get over the fact that she shows me no interest, wont let me touch her, we haven't had sex in months and she admits to masturbating instead of having sex with me when she knows I am extremely sexually frustrated. To me, this shows her lack of caring about me and shows that she only really cares about herself and what she wants. This is furthered by conversations with her family I have overheard because she talks super loud on the phone and I guess she didn't realize I could hear her in the other room. This last conversation was essentially her talking about the money again and additional money she may get when her dad passes. She made the comment to them that in hindsight she would have made me sign a prenup as all of the money she has gotten and will get belongs to their family and she wants to keep it in their family. This was another moment when I was like what the hell, I am not your family?
I am torn, I have been with her for a long time, I do care for her, but she shows no interest in being with me. No interest in a relationship, doesn't want to do things together (she even said that if I want her do more things with me I have to do things she wants to do first), nothing for how I feel, what I want, no cuddling, no touching, nothing. It came down to the fact that she essentially wants a roommate that pays for her to have the house, help with chores, and helps take care of the dogs without expecting anything in return. She does not seem to get how she is, care how I feel, what I want, or really care about anything that does not benefit her.
I am at my breaking point, I have tried for years to give her everything and now as thanks, I get nothing from her. I am getting to old to keep wasting time in a loveless, sexless relationship but am also having a hard time walking away from a relationship I have been in for so long. After writing this out I am also realizing, well more wondering, what the f*ck I am doing as it seems pretty obvious I am bailing water out of a sinking boat.

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Anglestan
Augustus 5, 1923
Facility 9, Mancheston
Colonel Jacobs
His hands flew through the folders General Jorgenson and Colonel Thatcher had. There were dozens of them, stacked upon each other all filed in alphabetical order. It had only been a few days since he had woken up from his coma and visited his home— now his mother’s grave. He clenched his fists at the thought. The grief and rage threatened to bubble and spill over once again. He took a deep breath and dragged out the exhale, almost to the point where he had emptied out his lungs.
He was the only one with clearance, and so he couldn’t disclose any of what he learned with his team. They would simply have to trust him and his judgment. Which he was sure they would do. His hands went over one of the folders skimming through it. There were multiple secret projects, but the ones with the most notes were Project S.T.A.R, Project L.U.N.A.R.I, Project R.E.V.I.V.E, Project D.A.W.N, and Project T.E.M.P.L.A.R.
The colonel decided to start with the most notes and papers. Project D.A.W.N.
He skimmed through the notes, reading through some of the details and highlighted words. Project D.A.W.N, the espionage project Thatcher had started placed two spies in Verlin who were to report directly to a Crescent general named Sienna Moretti who was apparently on humanity’s side.
So I was right. There was an espionage element. With the recent attacks and Thatcher’s death, however, it’s safe to assume that it had somehow failed. Either they got found out or they betrayed us. Both seem very likely, but if they were found out, it would be possible that they had died.
He read through all of it before setting the folder down. There were no new notes recently. He sighed and assumed that Project DAWN was a failure. Whether or not the agents were still alive and well, it was too risky to check if they had been compromised. It was better to assume that they had been and cut all contact. The only way to find out now was to go there himself and check. I can’t contact them again. There’s no telling if it would still be Moretti or the agents who would see my messages. It’s a big risk, and judging by the state of things, best to assume it failed.
He picked up another folder. This one had the label ‘under development’ on the folder. Project Templar. He opened the folder and was instantly met with a blueprint and drawings of a massive bipedal machine. It looked humanoid with strange proportions and was supposed to be standing at an impressive 30 meters, or 100 feet. The Titanic Engine Mech for Personal Land Assault and Reconnaissance.
It was apparently a joint project with the Church of Sol, utilizing new and advanced technologies he hadn’t heard of. A 203mm Gatling cannon on one arm, while the other had three different weapons. A massive firestarter that utilized a new type of fuel mixture that could theoretically spew flames a kilometer away using a high-pressure nozzle. The fuel was ignited using an electrical spark. The second weapon was a high-powered light weapon that fired a single powerful beam of focused light that was even further amplified by layers of focusing lenses that could increase its output several times. Its third weapon was… a dust domina?
Mark read through the specifications of the so-called ‘sand cannon’ weapon. It was a massive cannon that accelerated tiny particles several times. Each particle was to be electrically charged, and it would travel at immense speeds. Near impossible speeds. The resulting impact of a microscopic particle at such speeds would be enough to form a small crater and punch through armor like it was nothing. This weapon would fire multiple at the same time, which could literally eat away at anything on the opposing end.
In terms of secondary weapons, the titan had two missile launch chambers in front of its shoulder each containing about 40 missiles, and two massive howitzer cannons on top of it. Both are 800mm in caliber. It had massive stumpy legs that served as bunkers for a small platoon on each leg. Each leg had machine dominas and 155mm cannons. Its chassis held two nuclear reactors inside providing for its power and weaponry. Its armor was the thickest and most ridiculous he’d ever read. Two meters of heavy steel armor.
How far are we in terms of technology? This thing looks like it came out of an H.G. Wells sci-fi novel. He thought, shaking his head. It was over the top, but there was no denying its combat capabilities. If it was already under-developed then it must be the first prototype. This has already been approved. Guess I better see it for myself later and check how it's coming along. Construction apparently started just a few months before the invasion.
Next was project L.U.N.A.R.I. It was a project involving Six. “Huh,” he said, continuing to read on.
The Light Undone: Nocturnal’s Adaptive Resistance Initiative. As he read further, his eyes widened. The reason why Six was so special wasn’t just because of her immunity to all strigoi weaknesses, but because of her impressive ability to turn any true born strigoi like her. She could transfer her strain like any other strigoi and transform them into a version of hers. It however only seemed to work for naturally born strigoi. The new species of ‘half-breeds’ were called ‘Blessed Children’ as Thatcher had coined in the folder.
The plan was to turn all willing true-born hemolite strigoi into these blessed children. Able to withstand the sun. Immune to silver. Free from the dependency on blood. They could remove all the weaknesses of the strigoi and after the war— make it possible to integrate them into society as normal citizens living on the surface. The project folder also made mentions of a city-wide draft in Dante and highlighted the possibility of turning all Dantenite true born strigoi into these blessed children and renaming them as ‘Lunari’. A mix of the dark and the light. The light of Sol reflected in the children of the night.
“Thatcher, what the fuck have you been up to…” Mark whispered to himself.
While it was true that it could help in the war effort by utilizing Six and the dantenite population, it would also invite some unforeseen problems and consequences. Would humanity be okay with the Lunari? Would the world even be ready for them? Strigoi who were immune to the sun. They wouldn’t be impossible to kill, but they would be immensely more powerful if we were to take away their inherent weaknesses. This is a gamble. Its gain would only be seen during the war period, but its unintended effects on society could be catastrophic.
He frowned, setting the folder down. It was obviously Thatcher’s main plan; seeing as all her moves could be traced to the path of the eventual completion of this project. It seemed dangerous in the long run, but the duskwalkers and dantenites had been monumental in the war effort. Maybe it was the time the world started to accept them more. Isolation and segregation was definitely not the way to disperse fears and foster understanding.
If Thatcher thinks this is the next step forward… then I’ll put my faith in her plans.
Next up was Project S.T.A.R, or the Superior Tech and Adaptive Resistance. An upgrade to the current hemolite weapons and gear by using new researched studies. The Starfire Pattern Domina. The SFD-23 This thing features a new loading system and magazine, ditching the rotating cylinder most domina used, or the rotating helix magazine design of the current hemolite standard BM-16 domina.
The new domina had its magazine like a box… a strange design but it was certainly easier to handle than the bulky cylinders the helical mags used. In terms of ergonomics, it was smoother and fit more. Its placement however was on top of the domina, just above the barrel. Most of the weapon were to be made of lightweight polymers and the barrel itself were to be crafted out of reinforced aluminium. In addition to that, it had a 10-inch bayonet attached to it.
There were other new things as well, such as the composition of the bullet. Looking at the conceptual cross-section designs, Mark read through its description and how it would function. A .308 cased telescoped bullet covered in a silver jacket with break-away petals surrounding the main body. Inside the jacket was a penetrator core that was to be made of depleted uranium. It had a small amount of incendiary compound and… powdered white phosphorus behind an explosive compound. The thin silver jacket would deform and trigger the explosive compound inside the body. It would blow up causing massive internal damage and release the incendiary materials into the body with the flecks of powdered white phosphorus. The penetrator core could still potentially keep going and hit a second target, or punch through heavily armored targets.
Part of the new Project S.T.A.R was overhauling the armor and gear of not just the Hemolites but the Hunters as well. Starfire Mk 1. Carapace Armor. Carapace? It looked like plates of steel covered in a rubberized coat. It was supposed to be slipped on over the original hemolite body armor. It added a spring-loaded wrist blade to the gauntlet, a thicker coat made of resistant materials, and added extra padding for the knees, shoulders, and elbows.
However, the hemolites weren’t the only ones mentioned in the folder. It was to serve the Hunters as well. “Hunters…” Mark said. “August’s group is part of this initiative too.” He flipped through some of the pages. There were blueprints and drawings of an armored suit. A mechanized suit even smaller and more compact than the jotunn units. The Mark 1 STR battlesuit. It was supposed to hug the wearer’s frame and increase their overall power. It was supposed to be built of titanium alloy and a heavy steel frame with composite armor. It had a cooling system, life support systems that could recycle bodily fluids, and an exoskeleton frame that could increase the wearer’s strength and speed.
However, the real eye-opener was Thatcher’s notes. She had been ranting about the new human evolution, and how the Hunters were the first of the ‘Solari’. She wanted to enhance human genetics and push past the peak of human ability to reach greater heights. Implants and restructuring of the anatomy to make it more efficient. Using the blood of the goddess herself. She must have lost it. These are the ramblings of a lunatic. At least… if she didn’t mention the goddess. Why was the goddess important here?
The writings ended with the words: “See Project R.E.V.I.V.E, for more details.”
Mark eyed the final folder. His hands shook as he reached out to take it. Flipping it open, his hands nearly dropped it in shock. The goddess Helena was alive. There were pictures of her naked form floating in a giant tube of fluid. There were more of Thatcher’s ramblings and excited rants about the possibilities of such a discovery. Resurrection, Enhancement, and Veneration: Implementation of Visionary Evolution.
The goddess is alive?! According to the file, she’s currently under the Cathedral of New Lundun. Not only that, but the file also detailed the extraterrestrial tech that lay beneath the cathedral. So the goddess is real and she’s— not really a goddess, but rather, a vampyr who created herself a human body to stand in the sun, and decided that it wants to be on humanity’s side… what the fuck.
Mark’s frown and confusion only increased as he read on. Thatcher’s notes seemed to nearly descend into madness as she had written about creating ‘the first hundred’, alluding to the 100 members of the Hunters division. Her plan was to revive the goddess, and with her help and expertise in genetics— use her DNA to transform the Hunters into demi-humans. Super soldiers. Literal children of the goddess Helena. They would then don the STR battlesuits, the first of the superhuman warriors to defend humanity. Solari.
Their lightning-speed advancement into technology was heralded by studying the alien tech, which deepened the understanding of physics and engineering. Nuclear technologies, chemical warfare, new material sciences, the mechs, and walkers, it was spearheaded by trying to reverse-engineer technology centuries ahead of our own… for the past hundred years. It wasn’t completely stolen, however. More or less borrowed ideas that had been made into our own with our own designs and implements. Still, the speed at which the Church and the military had deciphered such advancements all by themselves was… impressive to say the least.
Still, the fact that the goddess was alive, and could be brought back was big news. Checking the file for details, he found that the previous general, Jorgenson, had already approved this project. It was their next step as soon as they returned from New Amsterdam; which never happened.
If Helena was alive, then she could end this war swiftly, or at the very least help greatly like she once did during the War of Darkness. Having the goddess back would throw a massive wrench in the Crescent’s plans. It would certainly be something they wouldn’t expect. Not even I expected this, since many sources say that the goddess had already ascended to watch over humanity, while conspiracy theorists claim she had died in battle and that the Church was worshiping a corpse. This could be the trick up our sleeves that no one would even consider.
The colonel quickly got up from his seat and gathered the main files he had read. He placed them in a bag and rushed outside of his office in Facility 9. He went over to a nearby room and flicked the lights on. “We need to go,” he said. In an instant seven hemolite soldiers got up from whatever they were doing and instantly stood in line.
“Sir! Whatever you need of us, sir,” the group said in unison.
They were Hemo-1. His former squad members. He had taken up Louis' suggestion that they be his personal security detail. It was a shame that he had basically placed the best hemolite team out of commission, but after all he had been through he convinced himself that he could be just a little selfish. He didn’t want to lose any more friends. Not on his watch. Not while he was in an office, and they were out fighting.
“We’re going to New Lundun. Better pack up, it’s going to be a long night.”
“Mark,” Olivia said.
Jacobs turned to her direction and gave her a nod.
“Colonel, sir, may I ask where in New Lundun?”
“Liv, you don’t need to do that with me. Please. I give all of you special permission,” the colonel groaned. “It’s so weird. I mean, ‘captain’ was bad enough, but now you’re acting like I’m an authority figure.”
“You… are, though,” Emma shrugged.
“I’m your friend, and Liv I’m literally your partner. Unless you have some kind of weird fetish, save it for later.”
Olivia grinned, shaking her head. “Duly noted!” she chirped.
“That’s better,” Mark chuckled. “Now come on, we have a cathedral to visit.”
“Uhh, I’m not sure if you noticed, but we’re kinda… strigoi?!” Louis groaned. “I’d burn the moment I step in that place! Plus, it’s coated in silver! Anything I even touch will give me burns!”
“Oh come on, Lou. You have fucking gloves on. As long as you’re not a clumsy dumbass you’ll be fine… oh wait.’
“Uh huh, just sayin’ what I think, boss.”
The group headed out and Mark said something on his radio. He then sat on the ground, making his joints pop. The rest of the squad shrugged and followed his example, sitting down on the grass and waiting for… nothing. Charles and Zach looked at each other in confusion. “Uh, sir?” they asked. “Aren’t we supposed to be heading out and traveling right now?”
“Oh yeah, we’re just waiting.”
“Foooor…?”
The colonel gave them a smirk as a loud noise began to make itself known. A hummingbird transport appeared out of the distance and stopped right above them, slowly descending into the grass. “Being colonel has its perks,” Mark said with a smile. He stood up and hopped inside the hummingbird as soon as it landed. “Come on now! We’ve got work to do! Last one aboard buys everyone food later!”
Emma zipped in before Mark could even finish his sentence, followed by Olivia, Phineas, Charles, Zach, and then Louis, who sadly took too long to process what the colonel said, and lagged behind.
“Aw, man! Fuck this shit.”
“Rules are rules, Lou. Prepare your wallet later.” Mark grinned.
With a smile, the colonel pulled Olivia to his side, who blushed for a moment before shaking her head. “Take us up! New Lundun Cathedral! How long would it take?” he asked the pilot.
“About an hour and a half!” The pilot replied. “Less if you want to get there as soon as possible!”
“Take your time! The night’s still young.”
The hummingbird started to lift up, taking them into the air. The group settled down in their seats and watched outside the open. Mark opened up a bag inside the hummingbird and took out some ear muffs built for a strigoi. Extremely loud noises were damaging for a strigoi’s enhanced hearing, so the military started implementing ear muffs for them after complaints from early deployments of the hemolite squads.
The trip didn’t take too long. In only an hour and twenty minutes they had arrived at the safe zone of New Lundun, heading straight for the cathedral. The night mass had just ended and people were leaving the cathedral. “Looks like we made it in perfect time!” Mark smiled. They hovered for a few minutes in the air before eventually landing down right in front of the statue of Helena.
As soon as they landed, the colonel and his group left the hummingbird. Mark instructed the pilot to wait for them. He went straight for the cathedral with his group following behind. He entered inside, clearing his throat. “Hello?”
“Well this is surely unexpected,” an old man said, walking up to greet them.
“Great Grandfather Aurelius. It’s uh, an honor.”
“Please. The honor is mine… I see you’re the new colonel. Yes, I’ve heard the news,” he said. “Would you mind telling me your name, young man? As well as your companions, if they feel so. I usually don’t allow duskwalkers here but, I have nothing against them. I’ll make an exception for your group.”
“Thank you, Great Grandfather,” Mark replied. “I am Colonel Mark Jacobs. These are my friends and security detail. Olivia, Zach, Phineas, Charles, Emma, and Louis.”
“I see, and what brings you here?”
“Since Thatcher’s demise, I was given access to her research and project folders upon taking up the title. I’ve learned about what’s under your cathedral,” Mark cleared his throat. “Would it be alright if we could see it? I’d like to check it for myself. Of course, under your permission and guidance, Great Grandfather.”
The church head looked from Mark to his companions. He pulled a slight frown and hummed. “Do these companions of yours have the clearance? Surely, we wish to keep our secrets hidden,” he said. Mark nodded.
“They do not have clearance to know what is in Thatcher’s folders and her findings,” the colonel nodded. “However, I give them permission to accompany me, and should they discover things for themselves, then you have my word and my trust that I can keep them from spilling state secrets.”
The Great Grandfather gave a short pause before ultimately relenting. “Very well,” he let out a sigh. “Follow me.”
Aurelius walked behind the altar and pulled the same lever, which opened the same staircase leading underground, where Jorgenson and Thatcher had once gone. “Over here, colonel,” he said. “I do not know you completely yet, but this is a big deal of trust I am giving you. Perhaps you would be the one to do things that Thatcher could not have.”
Mark nodded, he and his group followed the Great Grandfather down the staircase. It led down to a massive underground facility, with numerous priests, researchers, and scientists. Libraries, records, instruments, and artifacts of old. It was a treasure trove of learning.
“So,” Aurelius cleared his throat. “What would you like to know about?”
“This isn’t all of it,” Mark said. “Thatcher mentioned a living, breathing, Helena.”
His group behind him let out a soft gasp, but they tried their best to hide their surprise.
“Hm,” the Great Grandfather nodded. “Perceptive young man aren’t you? Very well.”
They were then led into another room, behind a set of heavy blast doors. If the whole group were trying to hide their surprise then, now they could barely contain it. Even the colonel stared awestruck at the things he had seen. Despite the near-magical objects around them, the true shock was the massive starship at the end of the hallway. “It’s impressive isn’t it?” Aurelius said. “All of the goddess’ artifacts and items at our disposal, to use and learn from, to integrate into our own. This is why Anglestan is the most powerful nation in the UHT in terms of development. When it comes to industry, however, that would go to the UNA. But we share our secrets with them. All our advancements are handed to them first before any other nation.”
“This is all amazing, Great Grandfather,” Mark replied. “But this is not what I’m here for.”
“No, it’s not.” Aurelius nodded.
He led them to another room, one that was sterilized and sported advanced machinery. Things that Mark had never even seen. There were screens with luminous green texts that appeared in front of it. Large panels with numerous keys, levers, and dials. Graphs of all sorts and beeping monitors. In the center, was the very thing he had come all this way to confirm. A large cylinder filled with liquid, sporting tubes and pipes connecting to its base. Inside was a woman of large proportion. Four arms, two legs, and six wings. In her bare chest was a symbol of the sun that seemed to glow dimly.
“There she is, there’s you goddess.”
Neither Mark nor his group spoke a word. He walked up to it, eyeing the woman inside. It really is her. Down to the last details. Golden hair, six limbs, six folded wings, and she looks massive. Probably as big as her statue just outside the cathedral. This is it. The very goddess in the history books, the one spoken about in legends and the one worshiped in the Churches of Sol.
“Can we free her?” he said.
The Great Grandfather nearly choked on his spit upon hearing those words. “Free her?! That could kill her! We don’t even understand this technology, let alone control it!” he said pointing at the panels. “The machines you see here are the best and most advanced we have based on what we can reverse engineer, but even then, the consequences of tampering with its functions may be disastrous!”
“I understand, Great Grandfather,” Mark said. “But we are in a dire situation, and the goddess may be our hope of turning this around. Whatever secrets of her tech that you don’t understand, wouldn’t she be able to teach us directly? What good is she floating around in Sol knows what?”
“That is her miraculous healing fluid. She had already built this contraption centuries ago in case anything were to happen to her, that her body’s natural healing could not sustain,” Aurelius said. “During the War of Darkness, Helena was struck with a weapon so deadly, her very cells began to tear away. The Reaper. Dealt to her by Absolem the progenitor. Her flesh was peeling from her body, and she began to decay whilst she still breathed. She entered this contraption and gave strict instructions to the Great Grandfather at the time, not to interrupt the healing process. The machine that monitored her, however, began to fail over time.”
“So this… these screens and panels…”
“Is only what functions we can understand. We took it upon ourselves to rebuild and study it the best we could. What we have right now is only a cheap imitation of a technology we do not fully comprehend,” he said. “It took us decades to even figure out the fundamentals and create a working prototype of this machine. By some miracle, the goddess’ healing process had remained even while we replaced components of technology ahead of ours.”
“But you know how to free her, don’t you?”
“I… yes.”
“Great Grandfather Aurelius,” Mark began. “We can end this war. Imagine what we could do with the goddess fighting on our side. We could advance even further, we could finally end the bloodshed, and we can show humanity that there is still hope. Imagine how people all over the world would feel seeing as their goddess has returned.”
“I wish I had your enthusiasm,” Aurelius said. “But it is simply too risky. The Church’s duty is to protect Helena and her legacy. We keep her alive, literally and figuratively. She nearly died the last time she was involved in a war. Would you risk losing the goddess?”
“Would you risk humanity losing?”
The Great Grandfather fell silent, looking back at Helena floating inside the tube, then to the panels that controlled it. He frowned and let out a long sigh. “The goddess said that we should not interrupt it. That it would end as soon as it was finished. Maybe we should trust her words.”
Mark shook his head. “I don’t spot a single blemish on the goddess. Not a single scratch,” he argued. “You said it yourself that the machine had begun to fail and you replaced components. How would you know that the thing that’s supposed to wake her up was not tampered with? Think about it. What you may think is a useless piece may be integral to the whole machine. Or maybe your replacements were not up to the task. Just because nothing’s happened doesn’t mean its functions have remained whole.”
“Young man, we simply cannot gamble with the goddess’ life here.”
“Have you no faith? Great Grandfather?”
Aurelius stepped back in shock. Mark’s companions looked at each other, clearly surprised as well. “Mark… I don’t think we should keep arguing with—” Olivia tried to say.
“No,” the colonel said firmly, cutting her off. “Great Grandfather Aurelius, do you think that Helena will not be able to pull through if we wake her? How long has it been? A century? How much longer will we wait? She may be immortal but humans aren’t.”
“I'm sorry, but the chances of failure are too high. The probability of her—”
“I don’t care about the probability! Would you rather put your faith in a statistic?!” Mark raised his voice. “I lost my mother to this war! My friends! My job! My eye, and almost my life! I’ve put mine on the line out there! You don’t know what it’s like out there! Was my mother’s death just a probability too? Was she just a statistic to you?! That as long as the numbers are good, no matter how many are lost, we are ‘winning’?!”
“Mark—!”
“No, Liv! He needs to know what’s really going on out there!” he spat. “Great Grandfather, with all due respect, but you don’t have a damn clue what it’s like to be in the field. You’re a man of faith, aren’t you? Take a risk. Everyone else has.”
Aurelius stood there, dumbfounded. He bit the inside of his cheeks and clenched his fists. “For your insolence, I would have had you flogged and stripped of your rank,” he glared at the young colonel. However, his features slowly softened, letting out a soft sigh. “But I have never seen such conviction. Mighty is your faith.”
The Great Grandfather moved over to the panels and reached into his robe, pulling out from around his neck a key with the symbol of the sun. He inserted it into the machine and turned. A beep sounded, right before Aurelius pulled a lever. In an instant, the fluid inside the glass chamber began to drain out into the tubes under it. Slowly, the chamber emptied and all that was left was the nude form of the goddess sitting in the glass.
“Did it work?” Louis asked, stepping forward and looking at the woman.
Aurelius stayed silent, his hands shaking in anticipation. Mark moved toward the glass chamber, when suddenly, the glass opened up like a door, releasing a fragrant mist. They stood there, watching for a whole minute. Nothing. At first nothing. The Great Grandfather looked like he was about to break down. His knees shook as he covered his mouth, thinking that he was responsible for the death of Helena.
That was when… a soft sound was heard. Movement. Olivia immediately went over to Mark and stood in front of him. Ready to protect him should anything happen. Slowly, the goddess moved more, her arms inched to the side.
Then, her eyes opened.

On the Origin of the Buddhist Arthakathás Cambridge University Press (1871)

"—the commentary, I say, upon this Scripture was
at the first Council rehearsed by five hundred holy elders
and in later times rehearsed again and yet again."

L. Comrilla Vijasinha, Government Interpreter to the Ratnapura Court Ceylon:
It must be admitted that the point raised by Mr. Childers is one of grave importance as affecting the credibility of Buddhaghosa and the authenticity of all the commentaries on the Tipitaka. From a missionary point of view, the astounding statement that a commentary on Buddha's discourses existed during his lifetime, and was rehearsed along with those discourses at the First Great Council, appears so improbable and unnatural as at once to justify one in discrediting the testimony; and I doubt not that missionary orientalists will hail the discovery as a valuable addition to their stock of arguments against the genuineness and authenticity of the Buddhist Scriptures.
Indeed I found it difficult at first to obtain the opinions of some of my learned friends of the Buddhist priesthood on this point, as they seemed to regard it as another thunderbolt intended to be levelled against their religion by some enthusiastic missionary ; and it was only after explaining to them the object of the inquiry, and the literary character of the gentleman who started the apparent difficulty, that I could induce them to look the question fairly in the face.
I am glad to say that most of my clerical Buddhist friends with whom I have consulted on this subject agree with me on the necessity of giving a wider and more extended signification than is generally allowed to the word Atthakathá as applied by Buddhaghosa in the passage cited. The word, as is well known, is compounded of two terms, attha, " meaning, " and katha , " a statement, explanation, or narrative," the dental t being changed to the cerebral by a latitude in the rules of permutation.1 The literal meaning of the compound term would thus amount to simply " an ex- planation of meaning. " Taking this wider sense of the word as a basis for the solution of the problem, I think the statement of Buddhaghosa in his preface to the commentary on the Dígha Nikáya is not so hopelessly irreconcilable with probable and presumable facts as would at first sight appear.
On a careful perusal of the two accounts given by Buddhaghosa of the proceedings of the three famous Councils in the Sumańgala Vilásiní and the Samanta Pásádiká, this view will, I think, be found to be very reasonable. It must be admitted that no actual commentary, in the sense that the westerns attach to that term, and like that which has been handed down to us by Buddhaghosa, existed either in the lifetime of Buddha or immediately after his death. The reasons adduced by Mr. Childers, apart from others that can easily be added, against such a supposition, are overwhelmingly convincing. But if we suppose that by the word Atthakathá in his preface Buddhaghosa only meant to convey the idea that at the various Councils held for the purpose of collocating the discourses and sayings of Buddha, the meanings to be attached to different terms were discussed and properly defined, then the difficulty of conceiving the contemporaneous existence pf the commentaries and the Pitakas would be entirely removed.
This view of the subject will appear still further borne out if we briefly glance over the history of the First Convocation, as narrated by Buddhaghosa himself. The first proposal to hold an assembly of priests for the purpose of collocating Buddha's discourses was made by Mahá Kassapa, the chief of the seven hundred thousand priests who assembled at Kusinára to celebrate the obsequies of the departed saint. Seven days had hardly elapsed after that mournful occurrence, when signs of discontent at monastic restraint manifested themselves, and a disaffected disciple of Buddha named Subhadda openly proclaimed that now their master was no more the ties of discipline should be relaxed, if not broken. The words of consolation offered by this old monk to his brethren in distress are certainly remarkable, as it would be difficult to say whether they betoken more the callousness of his feelings or the depravity of his heart: " Brethren, enough of this sorrow, weep not, lament not. We are well rid of that Arch-priest, having been in constant dread of his declarations, This befits you, this befits you not. Now, there- fore, what we desire we shall do; what we do not desire that shall we not do." To a sagacious mind like that of Mahá Kassapa it was not difficult to perceive what language like this foreshadowed, and he instantly formed the resolve to congregate the priesthood, and to collect and arrange the laws and doctrines proclaimed by his Master. Hardly two months had elapsed before this active mind brought about what it had contemplated, and the result was the Council of the Five Hundred, convoked at Kájagaha, under the auspices of King Ajátasattu, for the purpose of collecting and arrang- ing the doctrines and discourses of Buddha.
The proceedings of this Council appear to have been con- ducted in a very orderly and systematic manner, which is the more surprising when we consider that monastic autocracy was about to give place to a form of church government prescribed by the great Founder himself, but which was now to be established and tested for the first time. Mahá Kassapa, whom Buddha indirectly indicated as his equal in point of superhuman mental acquirements, assumed the office of Moderator, and by the unanimous consent of the synod Upáli was elected as the best qualified of their order to repeat the Yinaya, and Ānanda the Dhamma ; the Council having previously decided that the Yinaya was the most material for the permanence of Buddhism.
Now it is important to observe that the catechetical form was used in the collocation of both the Laws and Doctrines. "Afterwards Mahá Kassapa, having seated himself in the presidential chair, questioned the venerable Upáli respecting the Yinaya in this wise. Brother Upáli, where was the first Párájika promulgated? My lord, at Vesáli. On whose account? On account of Sudinna, the son of Kalanda. With regard to what offence? To fornication. Then did the venerable Mahá Kassapa question the venerable Upáli on the offence, the cause, the offender, the primary law, the secondary law, the transgression and the non-transgression, relating to the first law enacted against mortal sin. And the venerable Upáli explained as he was questioned." Such was also the method employed in the synod in the collocation of the Dhamma : - " Brother Ananda, where was the Brahmajála delivered ? My lord, between Rájagaha and Nálanda," and so on. Though it is subsequently added that " at the conclusion of the questions and answers the five hundred Arhats repeated the texts together in the order in which they had been collocated,"- it is difficult to believe that all' the five hundred rehearsed the long narratives prefixed to some of Buddha's discourses in the same words and style that they are now clothed in. Buddhaghosa's account of the synod is gathered from tradition, which was very probably embodied in the Simhalese atthakathás, and there can be little doubt that the main facts are correct ; but that he drew largely from tradition, written and oral, and possibly in some instances from imagination, will I think appear clear to any careful reader of the commentaries. Witness for instance his relation of Ananda's mysterious entrance into the assembly : pathaviyam nimujjitvá ottano árnne y em attánam dassesi , ákásena gantvá nisïdîti pi eke , " He plunged into the earth and showed himself in his seat, and also some say he went through the air and sat down." He does not say which version is correct, but is quite satisfied with both accounts, and is evidently quite willing to let his readers choose whichever they like.
Buddhaghosa throughout all his writings appears to have set one great object prominently in view, namely to inspire reverence for what he considered as supreme authority. When he came to Ceylon for the purpose of translating the Simhalese commentaries, he found a great many extant at that time, and out of these commentaries, embracing no doubt various shades of opinion, and representing different schools of thought, he had to expunge, abridge, enlarge, and make a new commentary. Now how could he do all this, and at the same time preserve undiminished among future generations the same reverence and authority in which the older commentaries were held by the Buddhists of that age? The thought struck him, as no doubt it would strike any careful reader of the Buddhist Scriptures, that a large portion of the writings contained in that canon appear to be explanations and definitions of terms used by Buddha, and also that a great many discourses said to have been delivered by Buddha to certain individuals have not been recorded.
Now what more easy to conceive, or what more probable, than that they formed the nucleus of matter for the formation of a commentary, and that at the First General Council, which lasted seven months, the elders, who had all seen and heard Buddha, should have dis- cussed them, and decided on the method of interpreting and teaching the more recondite portions of Buddhist philosophy ? and what therefore if he should say in somewhat exaggerated language, " the commentary on the Digha Nikáya was at the beginning discussed (or composed, or merged into the body of the Scriptures) by five hundred holy elders" ? - for the original words may admit of such a construction. If or will this opinion appear merely hypothetical if we carefully peruse the account given by Buddhaghosa of the commentaries in his Samanta Pásádiká. In his metrical introduction to that work, after the usual doxology, he explains the necessity of having a proper Pali Commentary on the Vinaya, and then proceeds to set forth what he is about to do : -
"In commencing this commentary, I shall, having embodied therein the Mahá Atthakathá, without excluding any proper meaning from the decisions contained in the Mahá Paccarí, as also in the famous Kurundi and other com- mentaries, and including the opinions of the Elders, - perform my task well. Let the young, the middle-aged, and the elderly priests, who entertain a proper regard for the doctrines of the Tathágata, the luminary of truth, listen to my words with pleasure. The Dhamma, as well as the Yinaya, was declared by Buddha, his (sacerdotal) sons understood it in the same sense as it was delivered ; and inasmuch as in former times they (the Simhalese commentators) composed the com- mentaries without disregarding their (the sacerdotal sons') opinions, therefore, barring any erro* of transcription, every- thing contained therein is an authority to the learned in this priesthood who respect ecclesiastical discipline. From these (Simhalese) commentaries, after casting off the language, condensing detailed accounts, including authoritative deci- sions, and without overstepping any Pàli idiom (I shall pro- ceed to compose). And as this commentary will moreover be explanatory of the meaning of words belonging. to the Suttas in conformity with the sense attached to them therein, therefore ought it the more diligently to be studied."
....continued...
On the Origin of the Buddhist Arthakathás Cambridge University Press (1871)

Palestinian Happy Family
A short story.
A father in his 30s named Ammar, looking so weak and exhausted. With his 7 year-old daughter named Lara, a thin injured girl in her arm with bandage under her brown hair covering wounds having green eyes filled with holded tears. They live inside a ruined house in Gaza.
Everything around them is dead. Wrecked streets are dead. Collapsed Schools are silent. Children and families used to fill the air here with life are now either dead, injured with no hospitals to rescue, or forced to leave places they have always belonged to.
The girl breaks a long dead silence saying to her father: “Dad…why all that happened? What was the wrong thing we did to deserve this punishment?” The father replies in disappointment: “I don't know!”.
After short silence while Lara is looking around to see what happened in pity and pain, she asks again in confusion: “How comes?! My mother and brother were killed…lost 5 of my friends who were killed also…what was our fault…before all this happened to our district, we were playing Hide and Seek after finishing our school day…can Hide and Seek game deserve this punishment?”
Ammar with a smile: “wouldn't you eat? I baked this loaf of bread to you using the oven we made together yesterday from mud, sticks, and cement…Oh! Thank God…we are really genius.” The girl looks at her father longly into the eyes and says: “Where's your loaf?” He answered: “I ate a piece from yesterday’s bread…we are out of flour now…but don't worry…I will find my way to some flour again. Don't underestimate your father.”
The girl began eating hardly but stopped again after eating two small pieces saying: “Dad! You changed the subject…what did we do to deserve this punishment?” She continues on: “You know dad! I heard someone say that it's because we are Muslims…but what about my friend Cristina who was killed last week?” Ammar says: “Oh Lara! I didn't ask my old brother all these questions when my father and mother were killed when I was at your age…I know that you have the write to ask all the time…but sometimes questions have no answers.”
Lara looks at her father's face silently and after a while she asks with pain: “Dad! Are you trying to hold your tears? Didn't you get used to being into this throughout your life? You spent your life either in war or in calm ordinary big prison sieged by poverty, corruption, soldiers, tanks, and planes.”
Ammar keeps silent and silent. All of a sudden, he breaks down crying while trying to hide his face by his hands. He begins talking with distorted voice: “What a shame; I can't do this…I can't be weak in front of you…there's no one left for a tiny girl like you in this world but me…but I’m a human…I can't stand all of this…won't I see my girl go to school in peace and joy?! Won’t I see my girl in a home again?! Will I be able to find you a loaf of bread tomorrow?! What if I can't?! What did you do to deserve all of this?! What did your mother and brother do?! What did my father and mother do?! What did my imprisoned for life older brother do?! What did your tiny friends do?! I feel weak in front of you and it kills me every single moment as a father…I and you despite our weakness should be proud…we will die but inside ruins of our home…these bricks are not of bricks…every brick means home, means motherland, means dignity, means resilience, means glory and pride…real pride.”
Lara rises up and hugs her dad who is sitting tired after a hard speech leaning on a wall standing tall from the wrecked home. Rain comes heavily on their heads. They hide under remains of a roof. Sounds of a new air raid are heard.

Hi, I hope it’s okay for me to write here? I saw there was a sub specifically for those with loved ones with BPD but the description immediately threw me off (group for those who have suffered ‘challenges’ and ‘abuse’ at the ‘hands of those with bpd’)… it sounded kind of like there was no room for growth or like people with BPD aren’t just humans who deserve as much love and patience as anyone else?
Anyways — I understand where my boyfriend is coming from when he talks to me about BPD symptoms partially because I have ADHD and experience heavy limerence. I was his FP and he was my limerent object, so we’re kind of hooked in that way, but have mutually agreed to NEVER step on each others toes or cut the other off from external relationships.
I understand the jealousy. Seriously, I do. I get the feeling of rationally knowing a mutual friend poses no threat to your relationship but still feeling antsy and bitter and hating yourself for it. He’s felt sort of apprehensive about someone in our life (old friend of his, new one of mine). It’s ironic because I literally used to be jealous of this person too and I forced myself to befriend them and now we’re great pals.. 😭
He’d gotten pretty emotional while I was trying to talk to him about this.. I don’t want them to be friends if that’s not what he wants — but it kind of just makes me have this pit in my stomach being the reason they aren’t friends anymore. He experiences his feelings regarding BPD super strongly, but always says he knows some of his thoughts are unhealthy and that he never wants to restrain or keep me all to himself. He shows a great amount of self-awareness and maturity and a will to grow, so I really seriously want to make an honest effort to help him. But during this heated conversation he said something super possessive and honestly a little concerning that made me scared. It felt super impulsive — I told him I wasn’t mad and understood how he was feeling, but that his comment made me anxious and that I wanted to talk in the morning when we were both a little more composed. He said that he was sorry and that he didn’t mean it — and that was the end of our conversation.
I guess I’m just kind of antsy about it. In literally every other conversation we’ve had he’s not once shown any sort of unhealthy possessiveness over me. It definitely felt like a charged and unrealistic statement — not a real threat or something I worry about. It was just kind of harsh and slightly triggering and I wonder how I should discuss it with him. I’ve never been offput by anything he’s ever said before.
I don’t want this to be a ‘strike’ against him or anything though. We’re both hurting and I’m DEFINITELY am not his therapist nor do I ever want to take that role but I refuse to give up on someone I love wholeheartedly just because he’s struggling mentally. He’s been showing me nothing but patience and love and respect for my boundaries regarding my own mental issues and I want to show him that same love. That doesn’t mean I won’t advocate for myself or be blunt with him if I need to be.. I just really want to help support him as much as I can.

***** I am mainly sending this because I want my evidence back and because I’m pissed that the police department allowed this to happen with next to 0 consequences. Names and identifying info redacted. Let me know if I should change anything, I genuinely am thinking about sending this to whoever I can find emails for at my local PD.
To Whomever This May Concern,
My name is *. I am 21 years old and am a recent graduate of the University *. I have made the difficult decision to write this letter because I am truly disgusted and horrified by the manner in which ** County, the ***** Police Department, and the Child Advocacy Center of *****, NY handled my allegations of rape, sexual assault, and stalking that were filed in 2019. I have allowed myself to move on and grow from this atrocious act that has significantly impacted my life, but my development as a functional, healthy adult has been drastically hindered due to the treatment and negligent investigation into this case.
I would like to describe my story in order to fully convey my frustrations. When I was fifteen years old in late July of 2018, just after my freshman year of high school, I began babysitting the child of a thirty-six-year-old man who my family and I knew quite well and had considered a family friend since I can remember. The premise of the childcare was to assist this man with daily tasks regarding his three-year-old daughter. The man in question was unemployed, but had a difficult time caring for his autistic child alone due to his anger issues, as recognized by the Department of Social Services.
When I began working for this family, the man in question, ****** (*) was in the home at all times in which I was present in the home. The events that led up to the detrimental and life-changing abuse that I experienced are too difficult to describe in one email. To summarize, this man groomed me, sexually assaulted me, and raped me on several occasions in his home over the course of six months. ** sexually abused me in his home, at my home, and in a vehicle. He bragged to his close friends, and specifically, his neighbor ***** and friend ****** about the things he had done to me. These witnesses were willing to comply with any investigation at the time of these events, but were not ever asked to answer questions. In addition, this man isolated me from family and friends, threatened to murder my entire family, and stalked me for a year after I ceased contact with him, which included 5+ drives by my home daily, waiting outside of my place of employment, and cyberstalking. This man used hard drugs in front of me and forced me to participate in and witness several illegal acts. I cannot convey with strong enough language, the impact that these events had on me as a naïve and innocent teenager. He genuinely ruined my life and I deal with the effects every single day.
These events have seriously impacted my development into an adult, and hindered my growth on levels that the recipient of this email may not comprehend. During the end of my relationship with this individual, I had realized that this situation was extremely unsafe and had attempted to break contact. He threatened suicide as a punishment if I left him, so I agreed to meet with him at ******** high school in the mornings after I had gotten off the bus, as I was not yet old enough to drive myself. He forced me to remain in his vehicle from 8am until 9:30am during school hours for multiple days in a row. Several times during these meetings, in the parking lot of the school, he sexually abused me and at other times, drove at dangerous speeds with me in the vehicle on Route 8 in *******. School officials and police officers were well aware of these events after my whereabouts during several of these mornings had been discovered. This individual was then arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of a child but was released on bond the very next day. After much difficulty and explaining, I was granted with a temporary restraining order, which did not stop his advances. To this day, when I return to my hometown to visit family, I am afraid for my safety as I have to see this man in public at a gas station or at a local restaurant.
After a few months, in 2019, I had realized that I wanted to tell my story and that I wanted this man to be held accountable for what he had put me through. At just 16 years old, I went through a series of interviews held at the Child Advocacy Center in ***, NY, which only further traumatized me. A female officer involved with my case made me feel as if I had brought this onto myself due to the sympathy I felt for my abuser and the guilt that I felt about everything that had occurred. To clarify, I was a victim of abuse as a child and did not fully comprehend the extent of said abuse. The female officer was unwilling to recognize that I was a vulnerable, disadvantaged child who did not have the means to advocate for myself. Another male officer, Detective **** collected evidence from me, including an expensive necklace given to me by my abuser with, to my knowledge, a value of $3,000, as well as a letter from him where he confessed his love and relationship with me. He looked me in the eye and promised that I would receive justice. This officer never contacted me again after the interview. If nothing is going to be done about this rage-filled, aggressive, and dangerous pedophile, I would like the necklace and letter back that was entered into evidence in 2019.
I will never understand how a person can be subjected to such atrocious and vile acts, and nothing will be done about it. I am not a religious person, but I wake up every single morning praying that he has not found another victim to control and destroy. I pray for his family, especially his child, and I pray for those who have to encounter him. I pray for myself and my family, as my case has been dismissed and invalidated time and time again by the ***** police department. I pray that no other girl or woman has to experience the things I did, nor has to grow up so quickly the way I did. The treatment of this case taught me that I cannot rely on law enforcement, or on those who are supposed to protect me. I hope that my statements throughout this email encourages more thorough investigations into cases like mine. Women and girls need to be protected fiercely, strongly, and wholeheartedly. I was not provided with further resources to assist with my mental health during this time. The town I have grown up in and have always loved is forever tainted as the place where my life was ruined.
Today, as a strong, accomplished, and college-educated woman, I am extremely disappointed with the way my trauma and physical safety was dismissed by the ***** police department, ***** County as a whole, and the Child Advocacy Center of ******, NY. I will no longer be silenced by fear. I will say his name, as the guilt and shame I have experienced is not mine to bear. I am not looking for retribution, I am simply asking that you dedicate resources to believing victimized women and offering bare minimum, necessary support to women like me in the future.
Thank you for your time,

I know that due to feedback, some of the story was rewritten, like Ling Yi being turned into Dianthus, and Light Chasers being made villains instead of friendly, so probably Dietrich was supposed to be playable initially, as well as Beatrice.
I wonder if there was anything else that was changed, so that's why those Chapters feel so disjointed, as if they're not connected with each other, and for example Mauxir appearing completely out of nowhere in the Towers chapter.
Also since the old writer left after Ling Yi retcon, I wonder who even rewrote those 10 chapters, as well as writing Mingdeng Jie and Fogbound Dream?
The new writer is someone named 'Brother Kang', and he came between summer patch and Tess patch, which is exactly when the game turned into full harem mode. That is also when they lost their 'operations department' who was preventing them from going full harem.
So since there are many CN players on this sub now, I'm wondering how much of the story was different compared to now, was it like Wuthering Waves rewriting 90% of the story in beta, or was it less than that?

Bonjour! Sorry I am writing in English, I don't speak French. I am planning to apply to a few French universities for my masters. I have some questions regarding the master education system in France.
(1)I know about the M1 and M2 thing of France. After completing an M1 you complete an M2. My question is If I complete my M1 in one university, can I complete my M2 in a relevant field at another university? For example, If I complete my M1 in Applied Mechanics at the Grenoble University, can I complete my M2 in Fluid Mechanics at IP Paris? In that case, who will provide my masters certificate?
(2)What are research masters programs? How is it different from the normal master programs? I have seen one research master program in Toulouse INP. They are saying it's for those who already hold a master of science degree. Is this like a PhD?
(3) What are master of science programs? Toulouse INP has 5 master of science programs. They also have (just) masters degree programs, which are different from the master of science programs. How is it different? After masters, I want to do a PhD. In that case, which one will be better?
(4) Some people are saying that French university curriculum is bad because they have "Fixed Term Credits". What do they mean by that? Does that mean that you can take less elective courses? Please don't think that I am trying to say French education system is bad. I am from Bangladesh, I am sure your education system is thousand times better than ours. So I am in no position to say that your one is bad

{Dated - 15th May, 2024}
I go and how I should I proceed Some context here1 And then, I have all my stuff packed in a little flat which aint livable I'm in house/hotel rn.. My family's (parental) house is in a small town in nearby state...but small town, toxic family is probably worst scenario I either get a new place here in Delhi..where I don't wanna live either specially this summer and my state's gotten too sensitive to hostility and bad part of India..but all my stuff is here (literaly) I wanna go to the west, mother might help in sponsoring as it was an old promise that she still dont deny.. My masters (2024) got interrupted by them (father mainly) throwing me in rehab/psych again.. I have almost enough to rent a new place and probably sustain for.rent and food..
I cant write/express very well in the extreme state of suppression and depression I'm in...I'll maybe try to edit or add into this later..

Businesses use nostalgia marketing to evoke emotions and drive sales

Introduction

In a world where consumers are bombarded with constant marketing messages, businesses are turning to nostalgia marketing to cut through the noise and create a deep emotional connection with their audience. Nostalgia marketing taps into consumers' fond memories of the past, evoking positive emotions and driving sales. This article explores how businesses use nostalgia marketing to evoke emotions and boost their bottom line.

Understanding Nostalgia Marketing

Nostalgia marketing involves using themes, imagery, and references from the past to create a sense of longing and familiarity among consumers. This strategy leverages the power of positive memories to create a connection between the brand and the consumer, making the marketing message more impactful and memorable.

The Psychology Behind Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a powerful emotional trigger. It is the feeling of longing for a time gone by, often associated with positive memories and experiences. Psychologically, nostalgia can provide comfort, reduce stress, and enhance mood. When brands evoke nostalgia, they tap into these emotional responses, making their marketing more effective.

Why Nostalgia Marketing Works

Emotional Connection

Nostalgia marketing creates an emotional connection with consumers. When people see or hear something that reminds them of their past, they experience a rush of positive emotions. This emotional response can make consumers more receptive to a brand's message and more likely to make a purchase.

Trust and Credibility

Brands that successfully evoke nostalgia can build trust and credibility with their audience. Familiar references from the past can make a brand seem more trustworthy and reliable. Consumers are more likely to trust a brand that brings back fond memories.

Boosting Brand Loyalty

Nostalgia can also boost brand loyalty. When consumers have positive associations with a brand from their past, they are more likely to remain loyal to that brand. Nostalgia marketing can strengthen these associations, encouraging repeat purchases and long-term loyalty.

How Businesses Implement Nostalgia Marketing

Retro Packaging and Product Design

One common tactic in nostalgia marketing is the use of retro packaging and product design. Brands often revive old packaging designs or create new products with a vintage look to evoke memories of the past. This approach can attract both older consumers who remember the original designs and younger consumers who find the retro style appealing.

Revival of Classic Products

Bringing back classic products is another effective nostalgia marketing strategy. Brands can re-release popular products from the past, capitalizing on consumers' desire to relive their memories. This approach not only appeals to long-time fans but also introduces the products to a new generation.

Nostalgic Advertising Campaigns

Advertising campaigns that incorporate nostalgic themes, music, and imagery can be highly effective. By featuring elements from the past, such as popular songs, TV shows, or cultural references, brands can create a strong emotional connection with their audience. These campaigns often evoke a sense of longing and warmth, making them memorable and impactful.

Leveraging Pop Culture References

Pop culture references are a powerful tool in nostalgia marketing. Brands can incorporate references to popular movies, TV shows, music, and other cultural phenomena from the past to create a sense of familiarity and connection. This approach can resonate with a broad audience, making the marketing message more relatable and engaging.

Case Studies in Nostalgia Marketing

Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" Campaign

Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign is a prime example of successful nostalgia marketing. By replacing their iconic logo with popular names and encouraging consumers to share a Coke with friends and family, Coca-Cola tapped into the universal theme of connection and sharing. The campaign evoked memories of good times shared with loved ones, driving a significant increase in sales and brand engagement.

Nintendo's Classic Console Re-releases

Nintendo has successfully used nostalgia marketing with the re-release of its classic gaming consoles, such as the NES Classic Edition and the SNES Classic Edition. These re-releases appealed to older gamers who grew up with the original consoles and introduced the classic games to a new generation. The limited availability of these consoles also created a sense of urgency, driving demand and sales.

The Role of Social Media in Nostalgia Marketing

Engaging Content and User-Generated Content

Social media plays a crucial role in nostalgia marketing. Brands can create engaging content that evokes nostalgia and encourages users to share their own memories and experiences. User-generated content can amplify the nostalgia effect, creating a sense of community and shared experience among consumers.

Creating Community and Shared Experiences

Nostalgia marketing on social media can also help brands create a sense of community and shared experience. By encouraging consumers to share their nostalgic memories and engage with the brand, businesses can foster a loyal and engaged community. This sense of belonging can strengthen the emotional connection between the brand and its audience.

Challenges of Nostalgia Marketing

Balancing Nostalgia with Innovation

One of the challenges of nostalgia marketing is balancing nostalgia with innovation. While it's important to evoke positive memories, brands also need to stay relevant and innovative. Finding the right balance between the old and the new is crucial for the success of nostalgia marketing campaigns.

Avoiding Overuse and Clichés

Another challenge is avoiding overuse and clichés. If every marketing campaign relies on nostalgia, it can quickly become tiresome and lose its effectiveness. Brands need to use nostalgia strategically and sparingly to maintain its impact.

Measuring the Success of Nostalgia Marketing Campaigns

To measure the success of nostalgia marketing campaigns, brands can track various metrics, such as engagement rates, sales, and customer feedback. Analyzing these metrics can help businesses understand the effectiveness of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions for future marketing efforts.

Future Trends in Nostalgia Marketing

As technology and consumer preferences evolve, so will nostalgia marketing. Future trends may include the use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to create immersive nostalgic experiences, as well as leveraging data analytics to personalize nostalgia marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

Nostalgia marketing is a powerful tool that businesses can use to evoke emotions and drive sales. By tapping into consumers' fond memories of the past, brands can create a deep emotional connection, build trust and credibility, and boost brand loyalty. While there are challenges to overcome, the benefits of nostalgia marketing make it a valuable strategy for businesses looking to engage their audience and increase sales.
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NostalgiaMarketing #EmotionalBranding #CustomerEngagement #MarketingStrategyIntroduction

Okay so throwaway account, a little bit of backstory so u can understand better (also English is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes) I have 2 aunts which r my mother sisters, they both have a daughter: O has her daughter R and E has her daughter F When I was 4 my father left us and my mother had to work 3 jobs to support me (I will always be thankful for that), I was always a quiet kid and never complained about anything, my cousin F instead (f19) always complained about everything. I didn’t really have a good relationship with my cousin since my mother and my aunts always gave her more attention but I never said anything. Fast forward, I’m 8 and my father wanted the house my and my mother were staying in back, so we had to go away (we lived at my O aunt’s house for a month) and, as much as it hurt me to leave everything and everyone behind, I never said anything, but around this time I stared having emotional outbursts such as crying, screaming, going mute for days, not eating and many other things. No one really gave me any attention since they were focusing on my mom a lot and I felt so lonely and hurt (I also developed an herpes patch on my arm from stress). After a month of living with my aunt (O) we moved to our current house, my mom finds a stable job and I’m going to school, I loose all previous friendships I had at my old place and I start feeling numb, like not really having any emotions, my cousins F also goes to school but does so much worse than me and still everyone keeps telling her how good she’s doing (I had an all 9/10 report card and she had a 6/10 one, but I still never say anything). I start middle school trying to make new friends but, since I wanted to replace my old ones, I never had any friends there, and the third year I start going to a therapist (which I had to beg my mom for), I tell her everything that’s happened to me so far. Fast forward I’m 17 and have been doing good at school (F still does bad but has more recognition than me), my father calls from time to time and it makes me feel like I’m an option for him but that’s not really a big deal, around this time I also buy animal crossing to play with my mom since i know this is a game she would like. One day she sits me down and tells me that a few months ago F was raped and ofc I feel bad and offer my support and all and still keep my feeling aside for her. Once again all my family’s attention goes to F and I feel excluded and lonely so I start to not go to school cause I wanted to feel seen and my family tells me how much my absence from school hurts them and that I’m a bad daughter and that I’m a disappointment. So ofc I start feeling even worse, I can’t get out of bed sometimes and feel physically sick, so I’m not really going to school but when I go I get good grades and pass to the next school year. As for now, I’m not really going to school because I can’t get out of bed and my family tells me I only think about myself and that I’m a bad and awful person, I have emotional outbursts (I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I think I could have a mental illness but my family just tells me that I’m lazy). I pleaded my mom for attention a couple days ago (I wanted to play animal crossing together and we did for like 30 minutes before she didn’t give me any attention anymore because she was editing a pic of her and F together, which I told her i could do the next day but she said no) because she still gives F more attention than me, and today (I stayed home from school) she screamed at me that I only think about myself and that I’m a narcissist, keep in mind she always screams this nasty words to me when I stay home from school. What should I do? I feel like such a disappointment, I want a mom but she doesn’t understand that and keeps insulting me and not showing me love. Thank u in advance at anyone who will give me some advice!!

FOR PC
Hi everyone, you can call me Surma. I'm 28 from Europe (GMT) and I've finally got myself a PC I can game on. While I enjoy playing alone, I'm also on the hunt for some fun, chill individuals to game with and become friends (1 on 1 or a group!). Please be +20 years old, your gendesexuality/timezone/nationality/religion/anything else wont matter to me, as long as you speak english enough that we can communicate (English is my 3rd language) and are polite with a knack of humor! If this ad is up, it means I'm still looking! I use discord daily, so thats where I'd like to go to!
Here are some games I've recently been really enjoying playing: - DayZ (my brainrot.) - RDR2 - Minecraft
I'm interested (and have) in games such as: - The Forest - 7 Days to Die - Among Us - Lethal Company - Left4Dead - Dead by Daylight - Demonologist - Destiny 2 - Escape the Backrooms - GTA5 - Warzone
This isn't a complete list, but ya know...im open to new games and experiences and am quick to learn!
A quick snippet of me; I'm a dog (4 giant breeds) and a cat (3 barn cats) owner, I'm a surg nurse, so my work schedule allows for pretty much any and all timezones to interact. I'm an introvert in real life but extrovert online (make it make sense...) with a love for rock/metal music, crime podcasts/horror movies and crafting/knitting/art/writing and am in a committed relationship. I’m a little shy and reserved at first, but I promise I’m fun (and chaotic) to be around once I get comfortable talking with you! I’d prefer if we can chat and talk first and get to know each other a little before gaming, so please send me a DM and lets become friends! If you have a group that you think I would fit into, don't hesitate to drop me a DM about it too! I'd love it if you could give me a little introduction of yourself in your first DM so it's easier to start a conversation ^{^} !

Brief English text:
Our traditions are many, and one of them is our language. Yet there isn't one Georgian language, but dialects. Among us we speak many dialects that are distinct, though there aren't plenty of resources to learn them I'm afaid, off we go to our villages dear lads and lasses. Or you may learn standard Georgian and then read the linguistic literature on this topic and learn the bits (not as hard as it sounds once you get there), there are studies on dialectology of Georgian language which also cover our many dialects. How easy it sounds, right? I'll write this post in Turkish since the audience would rather take it that way.
Asıl Türkçe post:
Gürcü gelenekleri pek çok, bunlardan biri ise dilsel gelenek, yani dilimiz. Bu güzel dil aslında tek bir dil değil, pek çok lehçeden (diyalektten) oluşuyor. Lehçeler kelime hazneleri, telaffuz, gramer gibi esaslar itibariyle birbirlerinden ayrılırlar. Bizde de her yörenin insanı kendi lehçesiyle, şivesiyle konuşurdu: Acara lehçesi, Macahel şivesi, Çürüksu (Gurya) lehçesi, Şavşat'ta İmerhev lehçesi, Ardanuç lehçesi, Yusufeli lehçesi ve sair. Dilimizi, lehçelerimizi öğrenip güzelleştirmenin iki yolu var, ya paşa paşa ana babamıza, dede ninemize vakit ayırıp bir yandan işlerini hallederken bizimle muhabbet etmelerini isteyeceğiz ya da bizimkilerden bir miktar farklı olan Tiflis lehçesi üzerine esas edilmiş standart Gürcüceyi, kendi ifadesiyle Kartli lehçesini ("kartuli ena", Kartli bölgesinin dili yahut "Gürcüce" -bizim lehçelerimizde ise "gurculi ena" veya "gurcuca"-) yeterince öğrenip bu dildeki akademik çalışmalardan faydalanıp dilersek diğerlerini faydalandıracağız.
Bazı -facebook, youtube vs- sosyal medya ortamlarında lehçelerimize dair örnekler var az da olsa. "genatsvale.wordpress.com" dışında Türkçe hizmet sunan sistemli bir site bilmiyorum malesef (övmekle bitmez bir hizmet). Ancak "dspace.nplg.gov.ge" adresinde ve bilinen akademik ortamlarda bilhassa standart Gürcüce ile yazılmış pek çok akademik metin mevcut:

• çveneburebis kartuli (put'k'araz'e)
• aç'aruli dialekt'i (nijaraz'e)
• kobulur-aç'aruli dedabrulo h'eli (h'ah'ut'aişvili) -yazı hakkında-
• dialekt'ologiuri k'rebuli -dergi-
• z'veli kartuli enis gramat'ika (şaniz'e) -eski gürcüce-
• turkizmebi kartuli enis samh'rul dialekt'ebşi (çoh'araz'e)
• samh'ruli k'iloebi - brunebisa da uğlebis z'iritadi p'aradigmebi (pağava, tsetsh'laz'e)
• kartuli enis geograpia turketşi (çoh'araz'e)
• kartvelur ena-k'ilota gandasebis sak'ith'ebi (put'k'araz'e, dadiani, h'aç'ap'uriz'e)
• kartuli dialekt'ologia 1, 2 (corbenaz'e)
• kartveli h'alh'is etnologiuri leksik'oni aç'ara (mgelaz'e ve diğerleri)
• kartvelur-turkul samet'qvelo k'odta şerevis k'anonzomierebebi kartvelurenovani muhacirebis ştamomavalta met'qvelebis mih'edvit (put'k'araz'e ve diğerleri)
• sit'qvats'armoebis tavisebureba t'ao-k'larcul met'qvelebaşi (surgulaz'e)
• etnograpiuli zeda maç'ax'eli (guceciani ve diğerleri)

ve daha fazlası.

• Mixing Georgian-Turkish Spoken Codes According to Fillers (Yusufel Region, Turkey) [sic] (Dadiani, Mikautaz'e)

gibi az sayıda İngilizce çalışma ile Türkçe literatürde bazı gramer ve sözlük kitapları ile çok az sayıdaki akademik eser de listeye dahil edilebilir. İnternette kimi örneğini bulabileceğiniz, seçmeli Gürcüce dersi (yasal olarak kendine has bir komedi vakası) için hazırlanmış ders kitapları malesef standart Gürcüce ile hazırlanmış. Standart Gürcüce için işinize yarayabilir ancak dedeniz ninenize okusanız pek bir şey anlamazlardı okuduklarınızdan, haberiniz olsun, lehçe farkı o düzeyde yani genelde. Yine de hazırlayanların emeği geçenlerin eline sağlık, nankörlüğün lüzmu yok.
Dilin genel konuşulma durumu şöyle: köyde doğup büyümüş ve bugün (2024 yılı itibariyle) ekseriyeti yaşlılığa yakın orta yaşlı ile hayli yaşlı kesim tarafından temsil edilen grup -pratik yapıp konuşma alışkanlığını canlı tuttukları sürece- Türkçe kadar iyi bilirler Gürcüceyi, ancak çoğu basit muhabbet dışında nadiren kullanıyor dili. Onların erken yaşta veya gençken şehre göçmüş çocuklarının çoğu Gürcüce'yi duyup anlayabiliyorlar ancak konuşmaları zayıf, pratiğe ihtiyçları var hızlanmak için. Onların şehirli çocukları ya birkaç kelime biliyorlar ya da hiç bilmiyorlar. Bu konuda basit ama iyi temsil kuvvetine sahip kısa ve öz bir çalışmayı "Türkiye'deki Gürcüler ve Konuşurlarını Kaybetmekte Olan Dilleri - M. S. Ertek (2013)" adlı değerli makalede bulabilirsiniz.
Dil ev hayvanı değildir, muhabbet kuşu değildir evde konuşup yaşatasınız. "Dilini evinde istediğin gibi konuş, dışarda konuşma" demek "dilini unut, dilin yok olsun" demektir. Dilin yaşaması için tam teşekkülünü koruması, dilin ifade gücünün korunması ve hayatın her alanında kullanıma hazır olması icap eder. Dili yıllarca duymadan veya dizinizi kırıp eşek gibi çalışmadan öğrenemezsiniz, öğrendikten sonra kullanmadığınız takdirde de hiçbir işe yaramaz ve unutursunuz, vaktinizi israf etmişliğinizle kalırsınız. Gürcüce, az önce bahsettiğim ikinci jenerasyona değin bu memlekette tam teşekkülünü korumuş, ikameye ihtiyacı olmayan bir dildi, Gürcücemiz; şimdi ise yok olmak üzere, diğer tüm geleneklerimizle beraber. Meraklıları için şimdi basit bir kılavuz yazıp bırakıyorum buraya, olur da öğrenmek isteyen olur ve işine yarar diye.
St. Gürcüce (standart Gürcüce) 33 harf ve bunlara karşılık gelen seslerle yazılıp konuşuluyor. Asomtavruli denen eski yazı, zaman içinde birkaç kez tarz değiştirip bugün Mh'edruli ya da Mrglovani denen son şeklini alıyor, bu sistemde kelimeler neredeyse her zaman yazıldığı gibi okunur ve söylendiği gibi yazılır (sağdan sola). En eski tam metin örnekleri 5. asırdan olsa da kuvvetle muhtemel Gürcüce birkaç asır evvel yazılmaya başlamıştı ve civarda yazı geleneği -başka dillerde olacak şekilde- çok daha geriye gidiyordu; yazı ihtiyaç doğrultusunda icat olunup kullanılır. Gürcü dilinin bilinen akrabaları sadece Lazca, ona çok benzeyen Megrelce ve bir de Svanca. Eski Gürcüce muhtemel ki önce bugün Türkiye'nin kuzeydoğusunda izole oldu ve Lazca ile ayrıştı, sonra konuşanları bugünkü doğu Gürcistan'a ve sonra oradan bugünkü batı Gürcistan'a göç ettiler (ve bu hamleyle Lazca ile Megrelce konuşanları birbirlerinden coğrafi olarak kopardılar).
Pek çok lehçesi olan Gürcüce'yi şimdi genel özellikleri ile tarif edeceğim ki olur da öğrenmek isterseniz neyle karşılaşacağınız hakkında bilginiz olsun. Arada kendi lehçelerimize dair de birkaç istisnadan bahsetmeye çalışacağım farklılıkları vurgulamak için. Aşağıda kimi kuralları verirken basitçe geçiyorum ancak verdiğim kuralların istisnalarının olduğunu lütfen unutmayın, dilin tüm gramerini burada aktarmam zaten teknik olarak mümkün değil, Türkçe'den farklı olarak çok düzensiz ve istisnalı bir dil Gürcüce. Kartvelian gibi sub'lardan da yardım alabileceğinizi unutmayın. Elbette bir İngilizce, Almanca, Arapça değil ancak artık Gürcüce yaşızabileceğiniz yapay zekalar bile türedi, kaynak miktar ve kalitesi yeterli düzeye erişti.
Gürcüce'yi Türkçe ile benzerliği üzerinden tarif etmek mümkün. Türkçe gibi, kelimeler "isimler, isimleri niteleyen sıfatlar, isimlerin yerine onları temsil eden zamirler, fiiller, fiilleri niteleyen zarflar, kelimeleri bağlayan edatlar, cümlecikleri bağlayan bağlaçlar, ve 'hey!' gbi ünlem ifadeleri" şeklinde sınıflanabilir. Bir de bunlara gelen "ek"ler var tabii. Bunları Türkçe üzerinden örnekleyeyim ve açıklayayım.
İsim:
cümlede herhangi bir işi yapan yahut o işten etkilenen "şeyler"dirler: Ev (sah'li), kedi (k'at'a), pencere (pancara), kadın (kali), sik'ete (iyilik) ve sair.
Cümlede işlevlerine göre hâl ekleri alırlar, Türkçedeki gibi: "k'at'as vh'edav." (Kediyi görüyorum.) veya "k'at'a h'edavs." (Kedi görüyor.)
İsimler yalın hâl, yönelme hâli, araç hâli, zarf hâli, yapan hâli (ergative case), sahiplik hâli ve seslenme hâlinde bulunurlar.
Genelde yalın hâlde isme -kökü ünsüzle bitiyorsa- -i eki getirilir -ve ünlüyle bitiyorsa ek gelmez-. Yönelme hâlinde -s eki gelir -bizim lehçelerimizde bazen bu hâl, ekin olmayışıyla belli olur, Türkçe'deki yalın hâl gibi-. Araç halinde -it eki, zarf hâlinde kökünün ünsüz/ünlü ile bitişine göre -ad/-d eki, yapan hâlinde keza -ma/-m eki, sahiplik halinde keza -is/s eki ve seslenme halinde de -o veya -v eki getirilir. Sırasıyla -kökü "k'at'a" olan- kelimenin çekimi: k'at'a (kedi), k'at'as (kediye), k'at'ait (kediyle), k'at'ad (kedice), k'at'am (kedi), k'at'is (kedinin), k'at'av! (kedi!)
İsim çoğul olacaksa köküke -eb eki gelir, sonra hal ekleri gelir: k'at'ebis (kedilerin) -evet bu bir istisna misal, kökteki son "a" düşüyor-.
(ismin yalın, yönelme ve yapan halinin hangisinin özneye, dolaylı nesneye ve dolaysız neseneye denk geldiği fiil çekimine göre değişen bir durum, yukarıdaki tarif ismin şimdiki, geniş ve gelecek zamana göre çekildiği durumlar için geçerli)
Yalın hâl, yönelme hâli ve yapan hâli isimlerin özne veya nesne oluşlarını belirtir. Şimdiki zaman ve gelecek zaman ile çekilen fiillerde özneler (işi yapan şeyler) yalın hâlde, dolaysız/doğrudan nesneler (yani işin üzerlerinde yapıldığı, değiştirilen şeyler) ile dolaylı nesneler (işin kendisi için/uğruna yapılan şeyler) yönelme halinde çekilirler. Dolaylı ve dolaysız nesneler arasındaki fark bağlamdan çıkar (Türkçe'de ise dolaysız nesneler belirtme hali alırken dolaylı nesneler yönelme hali alır genelde):
Me megobars k'at'as gavugzavnep. (Ben arkadaş(ım)a kedi göndereceğim) -Macahel şivesinde "gönderirim"-
Fiil geçmiş zaman yahut dilek kipi ile çekilirse özne yapan hâl, dolaysız nesne yalın hâl ve dolaylı nesne yönelme hâli ile çekilir:
K'at'am tagvi megobars gaugzavna. (Kedi fareyi arkadaş(ın)a gönderdi.)
Fiil -mışlı geçmiş ile veya bundan türetilen diğer zamanlarla çekimlenirse özne yönelme hâli, dolaysız nesne yalın hal eki alır ve dolaylı nesne bir ek (yani edat) ile belirtilir:
K'at'as tagvi megobaristvis gaugzavnia. (Kedi fareyi arkadaş(ı) için (yani arkadaşına) göndermiş. -Macahel şivesinde "... megobaristin guugzavniya"-
Sıfat:
Türkçe'deki gibi, isim olan şeyleri niteleyerek onları birbirlerinden ayırt etmeye yardımcı olurlar: lamazi (güzel), ç'k'viani (akıllı), tsarieli (boş), çkari (hızlı), k'argi (iyi) ve sair.
İsimleri nitelerler, Türkçe'dekinden farklı olarak niteledikleri isme hâl olarak uyarlar:
Lamazi kali ç'k'vian biç's uqurebs. (Güzel kadın akıllı oğlana bakıyor.)
Dikkat edin, Türkçe cümlede eğer aynı kural geçerli olsaydı "akıllıya oğlana bakıyor" diyecektik. Türkçe'de böyle bir durum yok: akıllı oğlan, akıllı oğlana, akıllı oğlanı, akıllı oğlanda, akıllı oğlandan.
Sıfat isme uyarken isim çoğul da olsa çoğul olmaz, ancak hâl açısından uyar:
ç'k'viani biç'i (akıllı oğlan) ç'k'vian biç's (akıllı oğlana) ç'k'viani biç'it (akıllı oğlanla) ç'k'vian biç'ad (akıllı oğlanca, akıllı oğlan edasıyla) ç'k'vianma biç'ma (akıllı oğlan) ç'k'viani biç'is (akıllı oğlanın) ç'k'viano biç'o (hey akıllı oğlan!) ve keza ç'k'vianma biç'ebma (akıllı oğlanlar)
Sıfat, isim gibi yalnız görünebilir, o zaman isim gibi davranır ve ek alır, aynı Türkçe'deki gibi: Lamazi ç'k'vians uqurebs. (Güzel, akıllıya bakıyor.)
Zamir:
ben, sen, o gibi şeyler, Türkçe'deki karşılığıyla:
me (ben), şen (sen), is (o), çven (biz), tkven (siz), isini (onlar).
ve çemtavi (kendim), şentavi (kendin) mistavi (kendi), çventavi (kendimiz), tkventavi (kendiniz), mattavi (kendileri)
ve igi (şu), igini (şunlar), es (bu), eseni (bunlar) -ve sair-
ve bunların kendi hâl çekimleri var. Örneğin me zamirinin sahiplik çekimi "meis" değil "çemi", ancak eğer isim gibi davranırsa (Türkçe "benimki" gibi) o zaman "çemisi" olur. Hâl çekimleri bir ölçüde isimlere benzer ancak ayrıca öğrenilmesi lazım.
Şe, çemi megobari am gogostan lap'arak'i unda. (Hey sen! Benim akradaşım bu kızla konuşmak istiyor.) -konteksti salladım, uydurun bir şeyler-
Edat:
İngilizce preposition diye geçen elemanlar bu edat dediğimiz arkadaşlar işte. Kullanıldığı kelime grubuna spesifik bir anlam katar ve böylelikle anlamı derinleştirirler. Türkçe'den "sonra, sadece, rağmen, ile" gibi örnekler verebiliriz. Bunlar genelde ismin tek bir hâli ile kullanılırlar, misal "senDEN sonra" derken olduğu gibi 'sonra' edatı ayrılma hâli ile beraber kullanılır. Gürcüce de böyledir, bazı örnekler:
lap'arak'is şemdeg (konuşmanın ardından, lap'arak'i + sahiplik hâli) kaltan (kadınla, kali + yönelme hâli) megobris mier (arkadaş(ım) tarafından, megobari + sahiplik hâli) zğvaşi (denizde, zğva + yönelme hâli) magidaze (masada, magida + yönelme hâli) sah'lis mimart (eve doğru, sah'li + sahiplik hâli)
ilgili hâl ekleri eklenirken bazı çekimler istisna oluşturup öyle günümüze gelmişler, örneğin eskisen "zğvas şida" gibi kullanılan edat, ifade değişe değişe "zğvaşi" şeklinde kullanılır olmuş.
Pisuna dedis z'uz'usk'en midis. (Kedicik anasının memesine -doğru- gidiyor.)
Bağlaç:
Cümlecikleri veya ifadeleri aralarındaki ilişkiyi gösterecek şekilde birbirlerine bağlarlar, Türkçe'deki "ama, çünkü, belki, yine de" gibi ifadeler örnek verilebir. Örneğin:
tu (eğer) - st. Gürcüce'de gelecek zaman çekimiyle kullanılır-, magram (ama), albat (acep, belki), ikneb (belki, olur da), ase (böyle), isev (yine) ve sair.
Mitkvams, magram ar gah'sovs. (Söylemiştim, ama hatırlamıyorsun.)
veya İkneb ar gamibrazebs. (Belki beni kızdırmaz.)
Ünlem:
Bunlar herhangi bir hissi, duyguyu muhataba aktarmak için kullanılan ifadelerdir, Türkçe "vah vah!" gibi, misal bunun st. Gürcüce karşılığı "vai me!" olur.
Vaşa, çvenma bavşvebma gaimarcva! (Yaşasın/Hah, bizim çocuklar kazandı!)
Zarf:
Fiilin nasıl gerçekleştiğine dair bilgi verirler, benzer bir eylemi diğerinden ayırmada yardımcı olurlar. Türkçe'de "çabuk, iyice, doğruca, birden, aniden" gibi örnekleri vardır, çok çeşitlidirler.
Çkarad modio. (Çabuk gel, dedi.) -çkara da denebilir-
veya K'argad iqavi! (İyi ol! -veya- İyice ol!) -Hoşçakal, demek için de kullanılır-
veya Sah'lşi ertad movdiodit. (Eve beraber dönüyorduk.)
Fiil:
"Ğmertma degveh'maros" diyerek çalışmaya başlamanız tavsiye olunur, Gürcüce'yi nevi şahsına münhasır yapan konu fiillerdir zira. Türkçe'ye büyük oranda benzer ama daha düzensiz ve çok daha nüanslıdır Gürcüce fiiller. Türkçe gibi zamana ve özneye göre çekilirler, etken/edilgen farkı ve dönüşümü vardır, farklı da olsa keza kipler mevcuttur; ancak bundan öte Gürcüce fiiller kökleri itibariyle görüntüde biraz veya tamamen değişken olabilirler (Türkçe "DE-" kökünün "Dİyorum" şeklinde çekilmesi, biraz bozulmaya örnektir), fiilde doğrudan nesne ve dolaylı nesne de özne gibi eklerle gösterilebilirler, bazı ekler bazı fiillerde normal işlevlerinin ötesinde beklenmedik fonksiyonlar gösterebilirler ve sair. Biraz açayım.
Daha önce ismin hâlinin özne ve nesnelerle olan bağlantısından bahsetmiştim, bu hâllere tekabül eden ve fiile önden ve sondan veya hem ön hem sondan eklenen ekler vardır, keza bu eklerden bir dizisi misal -mışlı geçmiş zamanda (yönelme hâlindeki) özneye karşılık geliyorken şimdiki zamanda (yönelme halindeki) dolaylı nesneye karşılık gelebilir:
Mİ-tkvams (BEN söylemişti-M) ancak; Mİ-ts'ers (o BANA yazıyor) -hatırlayın, fiilde nesne gösterilebilir, bu ikinci fiilde sondaki "s" sesi üçüncü tekil şahsı (O) özne yapıyor-
bu özne ve nesne eklerinin tümüne "şahıs eki" denir. V-serisi, M-serisi, U-serisi ve E-serisi şahıs ekleri vardır ki bunların bazen kombine edilmesi gerekir ancak her kombinasyon -Baskça'nın aksine- mümkün değildir. Bir de az kullanılan H-serisi ekler vardır ki bunlar bizim lehçelerimizde kaybolmuşlardır.
V-tkvi (dedim) V-tkvi-t (dedik) tkv-a (dedi) tkv-es (dediler)
veya mi-qvar-S (ONU seviyor-um) gi-qvar-VAR (BENİ seviyor-sun) u-qvar-S (ONU seviyor)
veya damalavS (O onu saklayacak) daUmalavs (o onu O KİŞİDEN saklayacak) daİmalavs (o KENDİNİ saklayacak) daVmale (BEN onu sakladıM) daMİmalavs (BEN onu saklamışıM) daimaleba (o saklanacak) daEmaleba (o O KİŞİDEN saklanacak) daMEmaleba (o BENDEN saklanacak) damalulan (onlar saklanmışlar) daVmalulVAR (BEN saklanmışıM) daVmalviVAR (BEN ondan saklanmışım) [sanırım anladınız, daha da karışıklaştırabilirdim ama galiba gerek yok]
Kökünde "e" ünlüsü olan bazı fiilerde bunu "i" 'ye çeviririz geçmiş zaman çekimlerinde: "uk'BENs" (onu ISIRıyor) ama "mik'BİNa" (beni ISIRdı).
Az sayıda bazı fiiller çekimde tümden değişirler: "zis" (oturmakta), "sh'edan" (oturmaktalar).
Bazı fiillerde nesnenin sayısı, yani işlemin tek şeye veya tek sefer mi yoksa birden fazla defa veya birden fazla sefer mi yapıldığı şahıs ekleriyle değil, fiil önekleriyle (verbal prefixes) belirtilir, misal "da-" öneki dolaysız nesnenin çoğulluğuna delalet edebilir bazı fiilerde: "gak'ida" (onu astı) ama "dak'ida" (onları astı). halbuki bu normalde şahıs ekleriyle belirtilir: "gmadlob" (sana teşekkür ederim, -bana sevabın dokundu anlamına gelir aslen-) ama "gmadlob-T" (SİZE teşekkür ederim, -eski anlamıyla bana sevabın-IZ dokundu demek-).
Bu pek sayılı fiil önekleri fiilin anlamını değiştirebilir, fiile tamamlanmışlık anlamı katabilir, fiilin işlendiği yer-yönü belirtebilir yahut fiilin zaman çekimini değiştirirken kullanılabilirler -varlık ve yokluklarıyla-. Keza nadiren geçişsiz bir fiili geçişli yapabilirler.
"davts'er" (yazacağım) ama "v'ts'er" (yazıyorum), veya "movdivar" (geliyorum) ama mivdivar (gidiyorum) gibi, yahut "gadavts'er" (yeniden yazıyorum) gibi.
Kip çekimleri de mevcut, ancak detaylıca bahsetmeme gerek yok sanıyorum. Buraya kadar anlattıklarımla bizim lehçelerimiz arasında farklılıklar olduğunu unutmayın lütfen, araya bazılarını sıkıştırdım sadece, çoğu Macahel şivesinde zaten okuduğunuz üzere. Neyle karşılaşacağınıza dair fikriniz olsun yeter.
"vak'eteb" (yapıyorum) lakin "vak'etebineb" (yaptırıyorum), veya "vh'at'av" (resmediyorum lakin "vah'at'av" (onun üzerine resmediyorum) gibi.
Sentaks ve sair:
İsimler çoğul halde çekilirken st. Gürcüce'de ekstra bir dizi ek kullanılabilir, yani onlarda ismi çoğul halde çekmenin iki yolu vardır ve bu ikinci yolu resmî/dinî/ilmî hususlarda kullanırlar: "turkebis carebi = turkta carni" (Türkler'in orduları). İsim çoğul değilken tek set ek vardır, ayrım yoktur.
Sıfat ve zarfları üstün halde göstermek için "upro, uprosi, met'i, umet'esi" (daha, pek daha) gibi edatlar kullanılabilir ve yerine göre karşılaştırmada sıfat ve zarftan sonra "vidre" (İngilizce "than", Türkçe "-e kıyasen/-den daha") getirilir: "şeni tma upro grdzelia vidre çemi tma." (Senin saçın daha uzun benim saçıma kıyasen.) -Macahel şivesinde upro yerine impo denir-. Burada "vidre" kullanmayıp kıyas edilen nesneye "-ze" edatı getirebilirsiniz, o zaman cümle aynı anlama gelecek şekilde şöyle kurulurdu: "şeni tma upro grdzelia çem tmaze".
Gürcüce'de cümle düzeni Türkçe gibi dağınık olmakla beraber bazı kalıplar daha sık kullanılır. Bazı kalıplara bazı durumlarda daha çok başvurulabilir (özne-nesne-yüklem).
İsimden fiil, fiilden isim, sıfattan fiil, fiilden zarf ve sair elde edebilirsiniz ancak bunu en iyi dilbilgisi kitaplarından öğrenmelisiniz, Türkçe kadar çeşit barındırır, ancak düzenlidirler diyemem.
Evet/Hayır sorusu, son hece vurgulanarak sorulur.
Yukarıda verilen zamir ve zarfların soru versiyonları olduğunu unutmayın:
Vin şedis? (Kim giriyor?) veya Rodis moh'da (Ne zaman oldu?) gibi.
Sayıların çoğu sıfattır, eklerle detaylandırılırlar:
sami (üç), mesame (üçüncü), mesamedi (üçte bir) ve sair.
Birler ve onlar basamakları 20'nin katları şeklinde sayılırlar, 10'un katları şeklinde değil:
ori (2), rva (8), ati (10), tormet'i (12, on-iki-daha) -eskiden "atormet'i" şeklindeydi ama baştaki "a", yani "ati (10)"nin a'sı düşmüş zamanla-
otsi (20), otsdaoth'i (24, yirmivedört) ama otsdaati (30, yirmiveon) ve otsdateksvmet'i (36, yirmi-ve-on-altı-daha)
atas rvaas otsdatsh'ra (1829, bin sekizyüz yirmi-dokuz-daha). binler ve yüzler basamakları yönelme hâliyle çekilir.
Bazı kelimelerin kısaldığını bilin: misal "rom" (-öyle- ki) edatı "ro" diye kısaltılabilir, ya da "ra vitsi" (ne biliyorum/bileyim) ifadesi "ravi" diye kısaltılabilir:
Me ro şentan viqavi... (Ben ki seninle iken...)
veya Dialekt'ologiao, me es ravi biç'o? (Lehçebilim mi, ben ne bileyim onu evlat?)
[Burada gördüğünüz gibi bir ifadenin sonuna "-o" eki gelince o ifade doğrudan aktarma anlamı/işlevi kazanabilir.]
"Bilmek" fiili hangi zamanla çekilirse çekilsin özne-dol.nesne-dol.sız.nesne hâl dağılımı geçmiş zaman çekimi gibi yapılır, misal:
Datvma itsis rom tsiqvi sul t'quis. (Ayı bilir ki sincap hep yalan söyler.) -Macahel şivesinde sincap "teyini" veya "t'riya" olur-
Kendinden sonra ünsüz gelip kelime başında olan, ve kendinden önceki ünlüye ulama ile bağlanmayan "m" ve "v" seslerinin telaffuz edilmediğine şahit olabilirsiniz. "vk'ith'ulob" (okuyorum) ile "k'ith'ulob" (okuyorsun) arasında telaffuz farkı duymayabilirsiniz. Keza "mtsiva" (üşüdüm) ifadesini de "tsiva" şeklinde işitebilirsiniz.
Lehçelerimize Dair:
Büyüklerimiz her taraftan göçmüşler; Çürüksu (Guria), Batum, Macahel, Acara, Livane, Yusufeli, Şavşat, Ardanuç, Ahıska ve başka yerler... Hepsi kendilerine has bir şive veya lehçeyle konuşurlardı. Ufak bir şehirli ve eğitimli azınlık hariç pek Türkçe bilenleri yoktu. Buralara varınca kimi okulda, kimi de komuşularında işlerine yarayacak kadarını öğrenmişler. Bu mevzuya yukarıda değinmiştim, ancak lehçelerimizin detaylarına ya ilgili makalelerden ya da büyüklerimizden öğrenebiliriz. Bu bir yana, şimdi diğer mevzular.
Her şeyden önce bizim lehçelerle Tiflis'te duyacağınız Gürcüce arasında ciddi telaffuz varkı vardır. Daha sert konuşurlar, bizim t' k' p' ç' ts' gibi 'ejective/patlatmalı' seslerimiz yumuşaklıktan ötürü onların d g b c dz seslerine benzer. Onların q sesi bizimkine kıyasla çok daha kuvvetli ve gırtlaksıdır. Bizim lehçelerimizde daha yavaş konuşulur ve cümleler kısa ve öz tutulur, araya kelime sokuşturulması -"yani, ee, bilirsin, işte, şey" gibi- pek hoş karşılanmaz (idi eskiden).
"a e i o u" ünlüleri ağız geniş açılmadan telaffuz edilir ama Fransızca konuşur gibi çok kısılmaz da. Dil rahat tutulur ve ağzın çok önüne ya da arkasına gitmez.
"b c d g h j l m n s ş v y z" sesleri sakince telaffuz edilir, genel olarak konuşurken Rusça, Fransızca, Ermenice konuşur gibi ağızdaki kaslar çok gerilmez. Türkçe karşılıkları ile aralarındaki fark yok denecek kadar azdır veya yoktur.
"r" sesini eskiler "i" ünlüsünden evvel geldiğinde neredeyse "y" 'ye asimile ederlerdi dolayısıyla "lap'arik'op" (konuşuyorsun) kelimesini "lap'ayk'op" diye duyardınız, diğer r sesleri de Amerikan "r" 'si kadar geriden olmasa da dil damağın tepesine değmeden yuvarlanarak çıkarılırdı. Yeni nesiller Türkçe "r" gibi damağa bir kez hafif vurdurarak Türkçe "r" gibi telaffuz etmeye başlamışlar.
"ts" sesi Almanca'daki Z sesine ve Rusça'daki Ц sesine denk gelir, keza İngilizce "tsunami" denirken duyabilirsiniz. "t" sesini pat diye çıkarırız, "sssssss" gibi sürekli çıkaramayız, ancak "t" sesini "sssssss" gibi sürekli çıkarmaya çalışırken "s" 'ye birazcık benzetirseniz; yani "t" derken diliniz üst dişlerinizin hemen arkasına sertçe vuruyorsa onu bu sefer daha gevşekçe ve yumuşakça vurduğunuz takdirde "ts" sesini çıkarabilirsiniz. Pratik şart, duymak lazım.
Yalnız bu sesi, yani "ts" sesini ve dahi "t k p ç" seslerini çıkarırken bir miktar "hhhhhhh" sesi de çıkarmalısınız eş zamanlı olarak. Abartmadan yalnız. Avcunuzu ağzınızın hemencik önüne koyun, "k" deyin, eğer sesi düzgün çıkarıyorken aynı zamanda elinize nefesinizin vurduğunu hissediyorsanız doğru yapıyorsunuz demektir. Ancak abartmayın, flüt çalmıyorsunuz. Kalan sesleri çıkarırken bunun neden önemli olduğunu anlayacaksınız.
Ama önce "q" sesinden bahsedeyim, ve "h' ile ğ" seslerinden. Bizim lehçelerimizde bu ses, Arapça gaf sesine benzer şekilde çıkar, Kürtçe'de de olan boğazsıl q sesini biraz "g" sesine benzetircesine çıkarırsanız, iyi iş çıkardınız demek. Ancak Tiflis'te bu sesi duyduğunuzda insanların boğazlarında ufak patlamalar olduğunu sanabilirsiniz, ya da boğulayazdıklarını. Duymadan anlamanız zor, o yüzden dinledikçe öğrenirsiniz diyeyim, o gırtlaksı gaf sesini daha şiddetli bir şekilde çıkarıyorlar demem yeterli sanıyorum. Keza ğ sesini Paris Fransızcası'ndaki r sesi gibi çıkarırlar, gargara yaparken çıkardığınız ses yani, ama rrrrrrğğğğğğ diye sürekli çıkarmayacaksınız, o Almanca'daki r'ye kaçar. h' sesi de bunun titreşimsiz versiyonudur. Titreşimli-titreşimsiz ses farkını sürekli sss-zzz diyerek anlayabilirsiniz, bunu yaparken elinizi boğazınıza koyun. Z sesinde boğazınız titreşir. Keza, ğ sesini çıkarırken bu titreşimi keserseniz h' sesini elde edersiniz. Bu, Arapça'daki hırıltılı ha'ya karşılık gelir, "iyilik" anlamındaki "khayr" kelimesinde olduğu gibi. Bunu eğer k sesine benzetir gibi ve daha yumuşak/sakin, daha az rahatsız edici şekilde çıkarırsanız lehçelerimizdeki h' seine ulaşırsınız, keza onun titreşimli hali bizim ğ sesimize denk gelir.
" z' " sesi de keza "ts" sesinin titreşimli versiyonudur.
"k' p' t' ç' ts' " sesleri, patlamalı seslerdir. Türkçe "hayıyok" anlamında "ı ıh" derken boğazınızda yaptığınız hareket, patlatmadır. Bu sesleri, yani k p t ç ts 'yi çıkarırken patlatma yaparsanız, bunu şiddetli yaptığınız takdirde st. Gürcüce karşılıklarını çıkarabiliyorsunuz demektir. Biraz daha zoru, bizim lehçelerimizde mevcut. Zira biz bu sesleri yine patlatarak ama daha sakince çıkartıyoruz. Öyle ki g b d c dz ile ayırt etmek yeni duyanlar için zor oluyor, ancak bu seslerin farkı, evet, titreşimli-titreşimsiz mevzusu. düz k p t ç ts seslerinden bir diğer farkı, ki ayırt etmeyi kolaylaştırıyor, bu sesleri (k' p' t' ç' ts') çıkarırken ağzınızdan hava çıkmaması. Deneyin, dinleyin, alışırsınız.
Bizim lehçelerimizde olan/korunan bazı kelimeler st. Gürcüce'de yoktur, keza tam tersi de geçerli. Örneğin orada "diah' " evet demektir, biz onların gayrıresmi durumlarda evet demek için kullandığı "ho" kelimesini kullanırız sadece. Bazı kelime ve ifadeler benzer ama farklı anlamlara gelirler, bazılarının tamamen farklıdır anlamları. Bizim lehçelerimiz modernizasyon sürecinde Türkçe'nin etkisinde kalmışken st. Gürcüce belli oranda Rusça etkisinde şekillenmiştir. Lehçelerimizin bir farkı da kalıp ifadelerden kaynaklanır. Bizde kelimeler ve kalıplar eski manaları korunarak günümüze gelmiştir çoğunlukla, aynısı st. Gürcüce için yer yer söylenemez. Bizde korunan bazı gramer kalıpları mevcuttur st. Gürcüce'de kaybolmuş, keza tam tersi geçerli (Macahel şivesinde şimdiki-geniş-gelecek zaman çekimindeki üçlü ayrım st. Gürcüce'de geniş zamanın şimdiki zaman çekimiyle ifade edilmesiyle ikiye düşer, kronojik açıklamasını bilmiyorum).
Öte yandan ilginç bir şekilde Türkçe'den geçmiş bir kip varmış sanıyorum Düzce Gürcüleri'nin şivelerinde; "modisene" (gelsene) ifadesini "modi" (gel) + "-sene" (Türkçe'deki -sene/-sana) şeklinde türetmişler misal, malesef kaynağı hatırlamıyorum. Keza rahmetli nineme kahverengi ne demek diye sorduğumda bi an hatırlayamayıp "ts'itelimsi" (kırmızımsı) demişti, "ts'iteli" (kırmızı) + "-imsi" (Türkçe'deki -ımsı/-imsi) diye türettiğini çok sonra fark etmiştim. Başka benzeşmeler az da olsa Rusça'dan Gürcüce'ye olacak şekilde orada da gerçekleşmiş sanıyorum.
Kartvelian sub'ında bir sürü kaynak mevcut, ancak gramer için H. Arason'un ve G. Hewitt'in, fiiller için T. Makharoblidze'nin kaynakları altın değerinde haberiniz olsun. Garnett Press'in (2006) Gürcüce-İngilizce sözlüğü de hayli kapsamlı. Hepsine ve daha fazlasına dijital olarak ulaşabilirsiniz. Rusça kaynaklar İngilizce kaynaklardan, onlar da Türkçe kaynaklardan daha fazlalar. Yazıdaki hatalar bana ait, affola.
net'a sakmem gigiqolayos da gigitavos ğmertis nebit; mşvidobit mk'ith'velebo.

Hi all UPN/Pre-Nursing people! I just wanted to write out some tips on how to look best on your NursingCAS applications for your goal starting semester. This is a pretty detailed guide with some good calculations to determine other scores beyond just the basic impaction score. This also provides some resources for your TEAs that I found most useful. This guide is directed towards those applying to SJSU especially those on the Pre-Nursing Track at SJSU.
Don't flop your first semester: It is true that the first semester of college has a learning curve, but it is still important that you stay focused and maintain a high GPA. For many this is the easiest semester, but don't be fooled English 1A or Chem30A/BIOL65 will bite you in the butt last second.
Aim for a high GPA not solely TEAs: As much as people brag about their TEAs scores a GPA at SJSU is much more important! If you have a 4.0 GPA and score lower on your TEAs you will have a way better shot at getting in. Take this for example: a person got 2 A- in 3 unit courses out of the big 8. This makes their cumulative GPA a 3.94 GPA. If this person applied to nursing against a person with a 4.0 this score is then doubled, for impaction. 8 compared to a 7.88. With 2 A-'s you now need to do better than 3.5% of whatever teas score the kid with a 4.0 got. Also keep in mind that SJSU already requires a 84% to even apply leaving a 16% playing field. If you get a 4.0 and a 84% a person with 3.94 needs to get a 87.5% on their teas!

• BE ADVISED EVERY SINGLE POINT COUNTS!
• Realistically you are okay and should not flip out with a 3.94 GPA to this is just being used as a clear example. Just remember that if you keep a high GPA that you are saving yourself a mental breakdown before taking a TEAs.
  • Be sure to get the extra points as well if you know you don't have perfect stats. This will greatly improve your odds at getting in, especially for Fall applicants.

Don't rely on comparing stats to AllNurses: This is a hot take, but hear me out; 60 kids get into SJSUs nursing program and maybe 10 people post their stats on AllNurses. I am throwing no shade saying this, but these are the people that are for the most part going to get in. Some claim to have 4.0 GPAs, 98 TEAs, 2000hrs of Healthcare experience, and co-reqs done too. Obviously they are going to get in but, that spot is now taken from a person bringing it down to 59 others. It is nice to have a comparison to, but unless more people post on it people are going to have skewed to the right opinions. There are tons of applicants and there are different groups of people apply. The overachievers, the average, and the prayers. Most people are average and do not have the crazy stats these people have. There are some people that do post stats that are more relevant to compare to such as a 4.0 with an 88% or something like that. Again this is highballing and it is important to really dig deep into who got accepted when using this platform. A 92% TEAs is what even the pre-nursing advisors and these guys want you to drop the major. Do realize that if you have a lower GPA you will need a higher TEAs. Doing this calculation [20(4-(current GPA))*3] will tell you what you need in comparison to a 4.0 GPA.

• Here is an example with a 3.8GPA [20(4-3.8)*3] = [20(.2)*3] = 4*3 = 12, this means (excluding extra points), you need to score at least a 96% if a kid with a 4.0 got a 84% on their TEAs.
  • For understanding the 20 comes from the calculation 10 (to make the solution a whole number) multiplied by 2 (because the GPA is multiplied by two in the impaction score calculation) and the 3 comes from the fact each .1 of a GPA equates to 3% of a persons TEAs score (1/30 = .033333*3 = .1). The 20 contains the multiplication factor of 2 already so we don't need to multiply 3 by 2 as well.

The minimum GPA and TEAs: Yes it is true that if you do have a pretty poor GPA (3.3-3.4) and don't have the TEAs to make up for it then it is probably unlikely you will get into the program. But, at this campus the stats are never posted for who gets in and during which semester. Recently SJSU raised their TEAs from a 78% all the way up to a required 84% which to me is crazy high! I assume this is to cut down the amount of applicants and in turn this makes the TEAs pretty irrelevant to the total stats. With only a 16% max gap, now any person who is able to apply to nursing must have at least that score making the GPA that much more important. If you have a 3.9 GPA and a 94 on your teas, a person with a 3.8 will still get outcompeted regardless of TEAs score. This is most likely why the GPA was lowered for nursing and is now a 3.3 instead the previous 3.4 because some kids may have done well in the GPA aspect and messed up their TEAs. Aim for a higher GPA but do realize that a lot of kids do manage to get really good GPAs that correlate with good TEAs scores. Get a good GPA, 3.8 and above is pretty good, a 3.9+ is quality work for both Fall and Spring semesters, and make sure to aim for higher than the TEAs threshold.Nursing advisors deter people from applying but, it is accurate that as of Fall 2024 that you have to be at the top to get in. Keep in mind that there are 500+ applicants and only 60 get in that is only 12% of the applicant pool. You need to aim for the 80th percentile at the minimum to be on the waitlist first round (beating 400 other applicants)
TEAs Test: Now I know I have talked a lot about the importance of the GPA, but regardless you still do want to do well on the TEAs. Your TEAs score, like I talked about above, is directly related to your GPA. If you got a lower GPA you need a high TEAs and if you got a high GPA you can slack on the TEAs score. If you have a low GPA this will make or break the odds of getting in and every 3% on the test you get a .1 point increase. Going against what I think everyone I have ever talked to has said, for me personally I say take the TEAs online, if that is still an option. Not only can you take the test literally whatever day you want, you can also take it at whatever time of that day you selected as long as a proctor is available. Some argue that the they test better when in a school environment and this is valid, but I also test better in those environments and I bombed my first TEAs due to nerves. When I took it online the only stressors were if the test were to crash or the proctor flagged my exam for no reason, but neither of those happened not even close. The low stress of being at home and taking the test when I wanted to allowed for much better results and comfort. You get to finish the sections when you want. If you think you are done and don't want to triple check your answers to save the brainpower for later sections you get that option. Take the test where you think you will test best though and take these words with a grain of salt. I just wanted to say that the TEAs online is the same content as it is in person and at the leisure of your home. Not many people talk about how the TEAs online is positive for some people!
Get the extra points if you can: The extra points are pretty easy to get at SJSU especially as commuters. Of course nobody can make themselves a first generation student, but if you are that is easy free points and congrats. No one has a clue what SJSU gives as a "bump" to an applicants score and it is honestly only there because everyones stats are so similar so they need more tie breakers. Granted, you will most likely want to win the tie breaker and in order to do you have to at least have all the co-reqs done. I want to be straight up and say I think the vast majority of students have these all completed prior to applying for the Fall because you have an extra semester (maybe not Spring idk). So make sure to have these all completed so you are not left behind and waste an attempt in the SJSU applicant pool(unless you have great stats t or have healthcare hrs instead then just apply). You only have 2 attempts at applying to nursing at SJSU so make them count. If you can, there is also the healthcare hours bump. This is a bump isn't achieved by all applicants and could help if you have lower stats. Keep in mind that this usually involves volunteer work once a week for 4hr shifts so you will be wherever you choose to stay for about 6 months (decent time commitment with school). I've heard that the healthcare hrs are pretty lenient about what exactly you did as long as it is part of the healthcare field and you can get it signed. Of course if you already have had a health job within 3 years this is a free point bump too!
Spring semester isn't as easy to get into as it once was: SJSU changed this policy. In 2023 only transfer students can apply for SJSU fall semester cohorts, no longer accepting post-bacs. Whereas spring semester cohorts will accept post-bacs and no longer accept transfer students. This means that Fall semester likely is getting more difficult to get into as all transfer students have to apply for the same cohort. It is believed that the School accepts a bunch of SJSU students and after the initial acceptance everyone on the waitlist is combined meaning more transfers will get in from the waitlist process as they may not have made the original cut with the SJSU students bump. This would also mean there are less opportunities for SJSU students to get in during the spring cohort as they battle against stronger transfer candidates. As for transfers, in Fall there are more opportunities to get in as more are accepted initally and through the waitlist process. For post-bacs the same process is in place but, since the top UPN students (because they were following the exact track) were picked out for Fall stats could be a little lower. Regardless, Fall semester cohorts I would assume have slightly higher impaction scores from all areas that are applying as most students took their time throughout all the courses and UPN program students are all expected to apply for Fall semester. Take this all with a grain of salt since again there are no exact numbers of all that get accepted as transfers and post-bacs and if these numbers have increased because of this change.
Remember your overall GPA prior to applying does matter: Your overall GPA does matter when applying for nursing at SJSU! When it comes to tiebreakers if everything is the same - the gpa, the teas, and the extra points - the school will look at overall GPAs to decide who gets in. So make sure to get good grades in that moral issues class freshman year because it will come back to haunt you if you don't get in because of it.
Don't Break down!: It is easy to read all of this and think that you are screwed, but it is important to remember that many people are in the exact same situation. We are not all getting 4.0s and 92s on our teas like our advisors tell us we need. Expect A-'s and a B+. No stats are published and nobody knows for sure what you need but the advisors say people get "mostly a's". Aim for the highest impaction score that you can get and don't slack on it because literally that is what is determining if you get in or not.

• As a SJSU student you have 2 opportunities to get in, once in Fall (a little more difficult as most SJSU students are on track so there are more of you) and Spring (a little easier just because there are less Pre-Nursing majors applying). So if you don't get in for the Fall and your stats are good, you have a great chance in the Spring
  • PS if you do get declined for the Fall get all the extra bumps you can and if you still have one more TEAs opportunity, TAKE IT AGAIN! If you get waitlisted for Fall there is a really good chance you will get in for Spring as the people you were originally going against are gone.

Waitlist: If you get waitlisted it really is not the end of the world. Most schools send out acceptance letters in two waves one at the beginning/mid of April and at the end of April where people accept of decline their schools. SJSU keeps a long waitlist because a lot of people drop the school for more local schools/bigger name schools so never lose hope. I've heard stories of people being #70 on the waitlist and still getting in. (FYI you have to contact someone to check if you were waitlisted you will not get any notice of what is taking so long for your acceptance. only when you are on the waitlist can you contact staff about your placement. Staff will not tell you where you are if you are not emailed by Nursing that you are on the waitlist.)

• If you are immediately declined from the school, that means that currently they were unable to offer you a seat. However, this does not mean that you are out yet. The school has an original waitlist and if that gets ran though they create another backup waitlist in case more students drop in the summer. This contains around 12 more students and you could be apart of this group.

EXTRA Info:

• Nursing Apps open January 17th for Fall and August 17th for Spring and they both close on the 15th the following month
• If you are a current SJSU student you do not need to apply for SJSU again prior to applying
• However many units a course is will impact your GPA differently (more units means more of your GPA)
• You get about One Week to accept SJSU. SJSU is one of the latest schools to send out acceptance letters so be prepared to wait. 8 Weeks after the deadline is when acceptance letter should begin to roll out.
• Acceptances are sent out around April 10th for Fall and November 10th for Spring.

TEAs Studying TIPs:

• DM me if you want a google doc with TEAs information (it won't let me put it here) it provides, in my opinion, the best ways to study for the TEAs. For me personally I only received a 93.3 but, if I had realized how vital one of the sources before I took the test the next day, I would have performed even better! Please give this a look. If you dont want you I'll put the order of importance here without links
  • 1 Quizlets, #2 the ATI website, #3 Miscellaneous Prep Tests (I provide links in the doc), #4 PocketPrep

Application Assistance:

• Submit all documents separate from each other
• The application pool is Not Rolling meaning you can apply at any time before the deadline and still not be penalized
• Whatever work experience you have will not change the size of the score bump i.e a hospital volunteer will get the same size bump as a person with a CNA.
  • You also do not need any letters of recommendation and don't need to fill out any extra information on the NursingCAS website for SJSU specifically. They will not read any paragraphs that are not relevant to you getting accepted.
• AP credit does not affect the GPA it is solely for credit. If the AP course is not listed on your transcript then you must submit a form proving you passed the exam in the "other" section.
  • Make sure that all your documents that need to be there are there and they will be seen and accounted for. Regardless of where you put the documents the will show up on the application.
• Download you application prior to submitting your application (they will let you do this after you finished all the documents uploading and are preparing to finalize). Look over everything to ensure it's all correct.

I know this whole process is stressful and pretty terrifying, but everyone has a chance. This is just what I have learned throughout the whole process and hopefully it will help others that have 0 clue what is going on. Although some of this may make it seem like you need to have crazy high stats I am just trying to say do your best. If SJSU ever posts the stats for accepted applicants this would a be a different story. This is a CSU so unfortunately this application does follow the "a single number means everything" this means your impaction score is who you are; not necessarily how well rounded you may be. Good luck to all future nursing applicants and congrats.
"Congratulations! This email is to inform you of your provisional acceptance to The Valley Foundation School of Nursing at San José State University" Fall
You can DM if you have any questions.

English:
Communities through generations live by traditions, and it is usually those traditions that bind them and give them an identity, in addition to the shared values and memories and interests among its members. Therefore a community and its identity may be built upon a set of traditions, moral values, memories of old and temporary iterests.
In our case, when the Çveneburi identity was established, all of these were present: -in reverse order- almost all of Çveneburis were newly arrived migrants who were seeking shelter and means to live by, all had the memory of leaving one's home -and maybe family- and belongings behind involuntarily, all shared a system of morality upon the religion of Islam, and lastly their shared and slightly varied traditions (linguistic, marital, military, administrative, scientific, culinary, medical or regarding to art, superstitions, good manners, industry, architecture etc).
Upon generations, what is left in common among their descendants, us, is their memory. This isn't simply 'all bad' or 'all good', as neither were their traditions completely perfect nor all disgraceful.
And it isn't others who are likely to keep such traditions alive, but us and those who partake in this with us (since we aren't a closed society, every sympathizer is welcome, who will share our concerns). "Why though? Is it worth it?", you may ask. Well, it's up to you, it's about how you feel about this.
If traditions that are beneficial for us or the society in which we live is kept alive or revived, that's a net positive. Surely this is voluntary, yet demanding. But if there are any individuals who are willing to keep them alive, to learn them and maybe even better them, it is best done in cooperation (however, it can be done individually as well). This effort may or may not mean something at the end to some, but we don't know what will follow it for now, so every participant and each tiny effort is welcome, at least for me. And it isn't hard to guess that this is also true for many.
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Türkçe:
Toplumlar nesiller boyu gelenekler uyarınca yaşarlar, onları birbirine bağlayan ve onlara kimliklerini veren de genellikle bu geleneklerdir; aralarında paylaştıkları değerler ve hatıralar ve çıkarlar. Öyle ki toplulukları ve kimliklerini bir dizi gelenek, ahlaki yargılar, eskinin hatıraları ve geçici çıkarlar şekillendirir.
Bizim vakamıza gelirsek, Çveneburi kimliği şekillenirken bu koşulların hepsi mevcuttu: -ters sırayla- hemen hepsi yeni yerleşmiş göçmenlerdiler ve yaşayacakları bir yer ile geçimlerini ikame etmenin yolunu arıyorlardı, hepsinin hatrında evini/memleketini -ve bazı vakalarda ailesini- ve mülkünü gönülsüzce geride bırakmışlıkları vardı, İslam inancı uyarınca paylaştıkları birtakım ahlaki normlar mevcuttu, ve son olarak bazı ufak varyasyonlarla paylaştıkları (dilsel, askeri, idari, ilmî, tıbbî, sanatsal, mimarî yahut evliliğe, mutfağa, batıl inançalara, adab-ı muaşeretlerine, zınaî tarzlarına ve sair dair) geleneklere sahiptiler.
Nesiller geçti ve soylarından gelenler arasında, yani aramızda, ortak sadece hatıraları kaldı. Bu hâl ne 'tümden rezil' ne de 'tümden sevinilesi' bir hâldir, zira mevzu bahis gelenekler ne tümden rezil ne de tümden mükemmeldiler.
Bu gelenekleri koruyacak olanlar tabi ki 'başkaları' olmasa gerek; eğer birileri koruyacaksa o biziz, ve bir de bu işte bize ortak olmak isteyenler (zira biz kapalı bir toplum değiliz, bize muhabbet besleyip derdimizi paylaşan herkese aramızda yer var). Neden böyle bir işe girişeyim diyebilirsiniz, pek tabii herkesin hakkı, haliyle bu yönde ne karar vereceğiniz tamamiyle keyfinize kalmış.
Bize yahut içinde yaşadığımız topluma faydası olan gelenekler canlı tutulur veya hayata döndürülürse, bu net bir kazançtır. Bu elbette gönüllüce yapılacak ancak uğraştırıcı bir iş. Yine de, eğer bu işi yapmak isteyenler varsa, bunun en optimal yolu beraber çalışmak (tabi ki şahsî çaba ile de bunu başarmak mümkün). İşin sonunda nereye varıldığı hakkında bir kafa karışıklığı olması bittabi olasılık dahilinde, ancak buna dair önceden bir tespit yapmak mümküm değil, haliyle her katılımcı ve her ufak çaba takdîre şayandır, en azından kanımca. Bunun pekala başka pek çok kişi için de böyle hissettireceğini tahmin etmek zor değil.
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Gurculad, dzalvan mok'led (ho vitsi ver geygonept ama ra vkna, devts'erona megobrebo):
Tu gvinda rom çveneburobam, çvenma vinobam da ertobam itsotsh'los da galamazdes, çven unda h'el ar vaqop'niyept da davitsavept ratsh'as dagvç'irdeba çveneburobis rom gadarçenobastin. Eseni ratsh'ayebiya çveni ded-mameptan, ocah'eptan rom dagvrça. Tkvens gindat tu gadavurçot çveneburoba, mart'o an ertat vecengebit. Ertat impo yoliya, ama mart'os ikneba. Es sakme ar mart'vay çventin k'arkiya, sh'veptinas k'arkiya vins çventan ertat tsotsh'lops soplebşi, şehrebşi. Tsot'a an bevri, ratsh'as tu vizamt, k'arkiya. Mogesalmebit sunqvelas.

As the title states. Today I (F24) found out an old coworker (M58) passed late April. We worked together from 2017 to 2022. While working 40 hour weeks, he had cancer and would drive 6 hours to a special hospital, get chemotherapy and drive 6 hours back in the same day and did so once a week for months. He was incredibly resilient but he was also in bad shape. His health problems and exhaustion (he didn't want to stop working and his department head is a stupid bitch) caused mental problems and he struggled with loneliness, solitude and alcoholism as well. He was caught in a vicious cycle of drinking because it made things easier mentally, but worse physically, and being worst physically made things worse mentally, so he would drink to make things easier mentally, etc.
He was the only person on maintenance that I didn't mind when he came to see me and we would chat as I worked. He would tell me stories of when he was my age, in his early twenties. Other times he would tell me about his ex girlfriend and past relationships. Other times he'd tell me he had stopped drinking for a full week, to then come back 3 weeks later and tell me he had had a beer the night before. We would talk about the meaning of life, about death and the after life, about solitude. I really enjoyed our chats and even came to look forward to them.
The last time I saw him was around Christmas in 2022. We ran into each other at the mall and we caught up. He was enjoying his new job but missed the staff from before. The last thing he told me was that running into me and getting to chat again was his Christmas gift.
I know some might say that it was weird, him being so much older (he was 4 years younger than my own father), but I never, never got any weird vibes or anything from him. I like to think that we were friends and we had really interesting chats and I enjoyed his company.
He passed around the end of April and his funeral was this past Monday but I only found out today. When I first arrived at work this afternoon and saw the obituary, I was surprised and sad but quickly got into work mode and it kind of became an after thought. When I got home and told my boyfriend about him passing, and told him about my last interaction with him, it hit me harder. I've been crying, but not like bawling my eyes out or anything, just kind of numb tears running down my cheeks. I keep thinking about the last time we talked and the one time before that when I saw him from a far at the mall and didn't feel like chatting to I pretended I didn't see him. Why did I do that? How could I be so selfish and rude? At least it wasn't my last interaction with him, I guess. I keep replaying certain conversations about life and death that we had. I don't really know how I feel right now. I feel like I'm exaggerating for crying, but I know how alone he was and how he struggled. I am fortunate enough to not have dealt with death very often (especially in my adult life and at an age where I actually understand what is going on), so I don't really know how to act/what is normal or unusual, etc. Maybe just writing this all out will help. I don't know.
Rest in peace Renold.

Hi everyone! In the scope of my master's thesis in linguistics at UQAM (Montréal, Québec, Canada), I am conducting a research study on biases in in-game chat toxicity detection, and I need participants!
--What's Involved: --
As a participant, you'll be tasked with reading in-game chat interactions and complete a short task for each interaction. You can fill the answers at your own pace. Completing the questionnaire takes approximately 35 minutes.
!!! TRIGGER WARNING !!
The language in the interactions you will read contain toxic and offensive content, namely in homophobic, racist and misogynistic nature.
-- To participate, you must... --
Have a good level of English. Be 18 years old or over. Be currently residing in Canada. Have a minimum of 30 hours of gameplay experience in any online competitive multiplayer game.
-- How to Sign Up: --
Interested in being a part of this study? Simply click on this link to join and start.
Survey Circle link is here.
-- THANK YOU ! --
An enormous thank you to all of you who take the time to share this post or participate to the study.
-- Questions --
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me on Reddit or at the email provided in the consent form if you follow the link.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.