Chapter 23: The Useless Broken Mirror

“There was once one who They slighted because of his religion. He tried to please them with unimportant things while his brother gave up something dear to him, something he loved that injured his soul to give it up and They were touched by that and pleased with his gift much more than the slighted one's gift,” the Inspiring One said.

“You who kill your brother because he is more pleasing to Them, are you not worse than the Liar who even told lies about himself?” I began to prophesy.

“Stay with me now, Frank,” the Inspiring One said to me, “Take your medication and get ready for your day, for you know not which way your day will go any more than the rest of the insane in the world. But you do know that without your sanity you will not make sense. Your emotions will pour out and your brain will not be able to even be in sync with them. Even you may become confused and decide to do strange things you don't know the meaning of much less the consequences of it. Frank Li, you are almost useless to me without your medication and if you persist in prophesying when you are not ready you may soon be on the psyche ward and another will be there where you were and be without psychiatric symptoms. Why do you have a need to throw it all away? Just stay with me, Frank Li. I cannot do this without you.”

I went to my dresser and opened the drawer and measured out my medication and then I went to the kitchen and got a glass of water and took my pills, for I wanted to be inspired. I wanted to prophesy if I was called upon to do it. I desire to serve Them and to receive my inspiration from the Inspiring One. Then at last I settled down and remembered the illustration that took place in my inspired imagining that the Inspiring One gave me so long ago. And I realized how real it all was as well as the power I was really dealing with. And I was sane yet and calm and full of joy and peace, for I loved Them which is the fruit of sanity. Unlike you those who are all insane who have no joy, know no peace and are full of hate despite what what pretend that to be, in spite of what they are in denial about for their brains cannot handle the strong emotions.

I know what is in you even if you do not. Was I not where you are? Crazy, coocoo, bananas, goofy, have you not used them all to describe me? Where is your stigma now? How does it feel, for you know in your conscience and in your heart of hearts what I am saying is true? Oh that they had medications for you! I am your only hope of sanity and I am nothing but a character in a mentally ill writer's book about Them whom you deny and cling to your insanities instead.

“Sorry,” I said to the Inspiring One, “But they all need to know these things before they die without a sane thought having ever taken place in their brains.”

“It's okay, Frank,” the Inspiring One said to me, “Just settle down. Collect your thoughts. There is nothing but nothing to fear. Don't let it distress you, Frank Li. Are you with me? Let me know when you are, not when you think you are, but when you are actually under the control of your own will. Stay with me, Frank.” Then he watched me a moment and added, “Frankly, Frank, you seem to be afraid today,” he said, “What are you afraid of?”

“I am afraid I will make a mistake,” I said, “That my writer will have me say or do something I cannot make atonement for, something that will leave me tormented forever and harm those of this insane world if not do injury to who They really are also!”

“Do you really think you can injure Them in anyway?” he said, surprised by my fear.

“I can make them sad, and grieve Their hearts and be an embarrassment to Them or something I have never encountered and know nothing about even yet,” I said, “And frankly sometimes my anxiety reaches he level some people describe as angst when I forget my medication or something.”

“You are unique, Frank Li,” he said, “Your writer has already done that many times and he survived. And Frank Li, you cannot die. You are nothing other than a character in a mad prophet's book. You never were in order to die. And They know your story. They understand your character.

But you are like what the mad writers of earth call the truth in fiction. The lies are not a part of you. The part of them they put in here with you are all part of that, their madness. It shall not touch you. It is like the insanity they espouse in all their lies whenever they say, “They say this,” or “You know what They say,” and make something up They never said, do not now inspire them to say and never will. Their word is immutable but the words of the insane are from it. Try not to worry, Frank Li. It makes you vulnerable to anxieties that have no basis in reality, the beginning of insanity as even they recognize it. Resist it, Frank Li, it is not really even a possibility.”

“But the Nemesis did it, didn't he?” I said.

“Before he went insane with conceit and made a mockery of Paradise he was like They were. All of the Light shined upon him and he reflected the light out into the darkness and seemed a brilliant shining star. But he thought he would be Them when all he was all that time was a perfect mirror. He was not the Light he merely reflected his image and They gave him place among them until he believed he was what he reflected rather than what he really was, for it was useful to see Themselves in his substance. But the time came when he was no longer useful like a broken mirror that casts so many tiny images it is completely impractical to use it. And there was no more place for him, neither on earth or in Paradise or also the place that They have truly been in all along, and he was nothing more than his conceit, and his conceit was a lie that vanishes when the truth is known. Give him no place even in your fears, Frank Li. Why injure yourself? Would you break a mirror and use its shards to slash your wrists and call that sane? But there are ways to use anything but Them to your own detriment. Even very small infants know that, Frank Li. And you are not an infant. You know all you need to know. Why do you persist in trying to know all They know? You cannot be Them. You must be who and what you are in Them. Don't worry, Frank Li, it is insanity in its onset. Don't let anything drag you back to insanity now that you know what reality is. Do not reject what They have shown you. And you will be alright, Frank Li.”

And I agreed with the Inspiring One and will attempt to do what he said to me.

“But what happened to the family where the one of us was killed by his jealous brother?” and the Inspiring One was surprised I remembered him.

“His body died but he went to be with Them for he not only loved Them he also pleased Them. What did you think, they would not remember him because his older brother was not even one of us. His brother was insane with jealousy and ran off the coward he had always been given in pride to his possessions, but with no heart for finer things. The killer was the one who was actually dead and he fit in among the humans very well. Humans claiming his heritage could be found today probably if it had not been for the flood that killed them all off that time. Unlike you, Frank Li, he was real and he died a cursed human among humans never to become anything.”

“So,” I said, “Because he was never one of his, he was dead already when he killed his brother, who is not dead but lives with Them?”

“Surely you understand by now,” he said, “Because, Frank Li, you even prophesy about such insane people alive to this very day when the next day is dawning and the Morning Star will so rise to put an end to the insane and bring the sane to be with Them when all things are made all over again following the end.”