At this point in time (stupid phrase, as if there is any other point in which to operate), I believe I’ve earned my own inner monologue. Sorry to say, there is much to unpack—besides my rucksack—almost enough for another play in itself. But further dithering will get us nowhere. Time to stop posting road signs, or, like Shakespeare or Dylan, nailing time bombs to the hands of the clock. Enough concocting movie scenes to mask the horror, to shield the raw, bleeding psyche from the unmitigated onslaught. K?

If it’s not too distracting, I’d like to request Santana’s “Black Magic Woman,” or perhaps “Soul Sacrifice”—specifically those from their 1970 Tanglewood concert—just softly, in the background. The drums…

So… greetings, strivers and slackers. I am the elusive, delusive Khalika. I’m sending this out there, on the wind, the same way everyone does, like prayers, supplications when they argue with the will of their chosen god, when they plead with “Him” to no avail. For me, however, there is a twist: it is how I sometimes check in with my sister. Think of electrons, inextricably entangled, whatever the distance separating us. Sometimes my messages don’t penetrate the static, the dreary detritus of existence. That’s when I have to give her a pinch or, if that fails, show up in person—a cameo, for movie buffs like us. But I’m pretty certain Violet has already filled you in on the particulars of my methodology by now. It has not been easy for the poor child, I admit. I can’t monitor everything; even I have to recharge the batteries, check out to regroup. Even vampires have to do that. This twin thing is tricky enough in the best of circumstances. But I—we!—are getting better all the time.

The showing up part: it takes much psychic energy—on both our parts—and challenges my determination not to reveal more than she can assimilate; thus, the infrequency and timing of my visitations. You might consider me the quintessential buzzkill, but no matter. And, anyway, it isn’t true. It’s a wicked world beyond the confines of your abode, and you need quite a bag of tools to navigate it, hold it at bay, without winding up on a slab—in a ditch, a stream, a dumpster, a plastic picnic cooler, a suitcase—before your time.

Whatever your conclusions about me, your outraged adjudications, know that they do not concern me in the least, do not make a ripple in the clear sea of my destiny. I, as co-narrator, call the shots, and you may believe whatever gives you comfort in a lawless universe. And by “lawless,” I don’t mean an absence of the blunt physical laws governing expansion, the birth and death of stars, the existence of light as wave and particle, all the numberless mysteries yet to be contemplated and set in cosmological stone. I mean the essential, eternal detachment from anything that happens to us on this hurtling cinder. I don’t mean to burst any metaphysical bubbles, but really, it’s time to face the music of the spheres without the guiding hand of a Heavenly Father. Humans and roaches are on equal footing here, no matter what people tell you, or themselves, what they whistle in the dark—except in the eyes of human law.

Myself? I am but a vessel of lawless potential, a chunk of the roaring engine that gave rise to whatever I am. I didn’t get this far in this round by hiding my light under a bushel. My sister: I am not Violet any more than she is I, although we are inseparable, both temporally and eternally. Even if you believe that my ends don’t justify my means, you can at least admit that my and my sister’s childhoods have not been optimal, but that under my tender tutelage, we have made the best of it, perhaps more than that.

So, let’s leave it at that. I make no apologies for myself, and never will. Life is cheap and getting more so at the dawn of each new day as we lurch toward a daunting new millennium. You might ask, like some dull child: “Are you some sort of demon?” Hardly. That’s another utterly lame construct by those who insist on the twin illusions of good and evil, light and shadow, feminine and masculine—of any and all pointless bifurcations, dualities, childish illusions. Never forget that evil, in all its configurations, may only have been conceived in the mind of, may only exist by the grace of—wait for it—your own personal God. With His official stamp of approval. But whatever you may believe about yours truly, I consider myself a bringer of light (think of Lucifer), and a self-styled connoisseur of the gory, 10,000-year-old, murderous carnival. Just think of where that word came from—carnival.

Sorry for the digression. On the bright side, I am getting more efficient at the communication thing, as is my sister—even if she is not entirely aware of it. At the moment, I understand her conviction that she cannot survive any more of this upheaval, my incessant meddling in her free will, her nascent love life. All I can say is that one cannot reveal everything in an indigestible lump, nor can one make an omelet without cracking some eggs. Again, apologies for the cliché, but the egg has great meaning to me, as well as pan-cultural significance. After all, we emerged, together, from the same one. As I said, the bitter medicine, the near-fatal knowledge, must be delivered carefully, incrementally, always bearing in mind the fragility, the vulnerability of the disciple—in her case, the dearest twin anyone could ask for. We have both endured much—have made impressive progress down a road where steel-jawed traps are carefully placed in mesmerizing gardens of delight—where you either lie there, wounded, waiting for the coup de grace—or get busy chewing your leg off.

Is it not also so, that the fully realized human animal must survive the consuming fires of individuation to become the self-realized Golden Child? It’s a tall order. Anyway, that’s what Jung thought, and I’m down with it. There are no shortcuts either. Read up if you’re interested, but I must warn you: that Red Book is some heavy weather. But isn’t everything that brings knowledge, that leads to wisdom? We are here to uncover what lies beyond the main tent, behind the curtain of the sideshow. We are here to delve, to expose. Of course, it ain’t for everyone. It never will be.

Praxis makes perfect; after all, we’ve only been together about a quarter of a human lifetime, or more, if you meet up with the wrong stranger, step off the wrong curb, or suck up too much car exhaust or second-hand smoke, ingest too much plastic. But then we have to get into the mind fuck of whether any of us ever had any choice in the matter. I’m not going there, so relax. Violet once asked me what was up with all the mystery, why I can’t just give it to her straight up. I didn’t quite know how to answer. What’s up with any of it? What’s jerking the strings? I always regretted the waffling, the cryptic replies, the equivocation. But all of it was necessary—to do what must be done, for as long a time as we are allotted.

I tried to explain that I see everything as if it were all happening at once—present, future, and past—how the reverberations of each affects the other, for better or worse. It’s not like I can see into the future—nothing like that—more like sense vibrations from it. But isn’t that what reverberations are—vibrations of something that already happened, echoes? The past, to me, explains the way things are, in a constant stream of broken images. Then there’s the indivisible instant, the only one anybody is guaranteed. As they tick down, they throw out indicators, signals of what’s ahead, like radar. It’s crunch time now—for anybody and everything. Take it to the bank. All the end-times lunatics are finally having their way. But they don’t seem pleased, I must say—don’t seem delirious about going to meet Jesus. In fact, they seem to be shitting themselves.

Anyway, all this speaks to me in a language defiant of translation. I hope to be able to know, someday, exactly how this came to be, but won’t hold my breath, so to speak. Early on, after I tried to explain this to Violet—badly, I’m afraid—she asked, “So, we’re not even in charge of what we do next? Of what we think next?”

I made an attempt to indulge her.

“Just pretend that I’m God, but that my methodology is a bit more refined, more particular, less slash and burn. Of course, I would never have let it all get this far in the first place. I mean, before pulling the plug. Something is asleep at the wheel or got drunk and drove off the cosmic cliff.”

She stared into the middle distance, which is our way, then seemed satisfied.

Now the time has come to pull the gauze curtain back, deliver the news to my sister—to preserve her sanity in an insane world, in the cruel fiction that has been concocted only by those who stand to benefit from it, to explain that there is so much still to do. I am compelled to fulfill my nature (as if there is any alternative)—instant by instant. It’s the only way forward. Stasis is death, the waiting for things to be made right by some external force, by some hero riding across some ransacked plain to save the human day—waiting for it all to be made crystalline in the beyond. Right before the sun goes red giant and consumes what Dickinson called “the experiment in green” (which is no longer all that green)—within that fraction, when everything ignites, burns, and is plunged into darkness again, all anybody ever knew about anything—the entire library—will go out with it, the ashes spread elsewhere. In the meantime, in absentia lucis, tenebrarum valet: in the absence of light, darkness prevails.

Heavy, huh? Like mercury. I admit that even I, a remorseless killer, have to comfort myself at times, suck on a virtual pacifier, when the burden becomes too crushing. In those times, I conjure the image of Siddhartha’s shimmering, holy river, and the words of Hesse in the mouth of his enlightened creation, his actor: “He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same and yet new in every moment! This river is everywhere at the same time.”

Every seeker should have that embroidered on a pillow or staring at them from a refrigerator magnet: “This river is everywhere at the same time.”

Yes, it’s time, maybe past time, to deliver the news, for Violet to understand that from which I have shielded her, what I have made of her: a warrior and a poet—a witness and, finally, an actor. Now, I must try to convince her not to allow a man to interfere with her focus. Perhaps it would become clearer to her what she is—what she always was—if she stared into the mirror, or into Hesse’s river—one of any number of eternal archetypes. She would see a face, cloven, like the hoof of a deer. One half would be the familiar one, the mask we wear even when we’re alone, even in our most private moments. The other half would be the fierce visage of the Goddess Kali, destroyer of men and, in the fullness of time—in her remorseless consumption of it—the whole world. She would see the long red tongue, extended nearly to mid-breast, the fathomless black eyes, intent on destruction, finally uncontrollable, even by Shiva, who once convinced her to pause in her frenzied death dance. She would see the necklace of men’s hands—or skulls—the adornments of her insatiable appetite for death and renewal. Between the two faces would run two strands of DNA, its ladders slurring, entwining in an ancient, insoluble mystery, an implacable embrace never to be unraveled. She would see it all, superimposed on the Sacred River winding into Eternity.

Critical mass is approaching, for everything, everybody. The center cannot hold. I must try to save Violet, any way I can. I must help her find grace on her journey, rather than damnation. I will not harm her consort—our consort.

Meanwhile, follow Hesse’s advice: Find that spot within yourself where sanctuary lies.

Because you won’t find any out there. I said that.