Lost in such a deep state of sleep that I was so enthralled in, that when Father O'Malley began tugging on my shoulder I had barely any ambition to awaken to his request. It was as if relaxation was at the peak of its maximum amount, and my body had rested itself in a way that I had never felt before. I must have been asleep for endless hours; and perhaps days, as my body felt like an anchor sinking into the back of the leather seats of the black limousine. I flicker my eyelids, as I can feel them still fighting to drift back into the dreamlands where I was dancing in the moonlight with the angels in heaven and delightfully sharing in their delicacies.

The Father nudges me again, and although still fighting for sleep he slightly presses on the back of my shoulder and raises me up to a seated position. My head no longer resting on his shoulder but rather shifted in an upright position as my thoughts begin to gather and my memory begins to bring itself back to the reality of the situation I was involved in. The limousine was still flying through space like a missile through the cosmos, as my head turns to look and see the flashes of colors still flying past me in a haze of confusion and coagulation. Father O'Malley whispers in my ear and his voice soothes and calms my demeanor that had recently been racking my brain as the entire situation was quite overwhelming.

Father O'Malley -- "We're almost there, my child."

I can hardly contain my curiosity as the same question I had asked of him moments before I fell hopelessly asleep in his arms was tearing at my consciousness and my need for an answer to this was growing unbearably necessary no matter how imperious my inquisitiveness must have seemed to him. Although the length of my slumber seemed like nearly forever, my constant dreaming was directly entangled within this notion of my whereabouts and what future endeavors that my new companion was going to be introducing to my life.
I trusted him almost completely; but yet, still was fascinated completely by everything that had transpired and the magical mysteries that he had introduced to me on the front lawn of my former home where now only my parents dwelled.

Mark Christian -- "Where are we going?"

Father O'Malley breathes in a deep sigh and pulls out from his left front pocket, the same pocket watch that I had earlier seen him glaring upon that is both intricate and peculiar all at the same time. He reaches in his right front pocket just as he had before and pulls out his reading glasses and gawks closely at the watch after he opens the faceplate. This time I can notice when he opens the faceplate, I notice that no symbols or numbers to denote any sort of recollection of what the time might actually be, and I am both intrigued and confused as to the necessity of its existence and why he was so enthralled by it.

Father O'Malley -- "Home.... I'm taking you home, Mark."

I knew not what that meant and the ultimate answer to my question was certainly not answered, but the way that he said it with such conviction and coddling care was exactly what quelled my quandaries and made me feel at ease with whatever journey we were about to embark upon. At that moment when my comrade made that statement and his sentence came to a close, the limousine came to a complete stop and the sparkling stars mixed with a multitude of colors passing by the outside window came to a complete and utter halt.

It was then, that I could see outside the car and notice the most beautiful and massive structure of a church was such immaculate and interesting features that I had never seen or known could possibly exist. Non-euclidean geometric shapes and designs stretched from angles and arrangements with an elliptical nature all around its exterior. It strained my eyes and perplexed my senses in an estranged way that caused a massive migraine at the forefront of my physical brain and pounded at the inner sanctity of my mind. Giving me a headache in both the physical and mental sense of the word if that were actually possible. How the angles of the church structure could bend and flex in such a manner and give such an optical illusion to my sensibility was both an interesting and frightening sight all wrapped up in one.

Interesting in the way that I knew that what I was seeing was something that no mathematician, constructional engineer, or physicist could explain. I was witnessing some type of wonder of the world and I immediately felt like I knew what it must have been like for those folks that must have discovered the massive Sphinx in the Egyptian desert for the first time. Although this was much, much more unexplainable and unique in its own sense, in the fact that its incomprehensible existence was unlikely to formulate any form of gravity or visions of the eyes that could only be felt and explained as if the mind was playing tricks on them. It was also frightening in the sense that I knew that this synagogue was indeed our final destination, and how I was going to navigate myself around this maze of upside-down sets of stairs and sideways temples with floating doors leading to entrances that led seamlessly nowhere.


The temples and shrines stretching both up into the sky and down into the ground, are of the most definitive shade of white, gleaming brilliantly in the glow of a dark red emancipating light that was illuminating the entire scene as Father O'Malley grabs my left hand and opens the door on his side of the limousine. He guides me out of the car, and as I step on the ground outside of the vehicle the ground feels soft and moist, almost as if it were melting my feet into the ground and slowly driving my legs into the ground like a very slow and definitive form of quicksand.

I can't help that my mental acquisitiveness draws my immediate attention towards the front seat of the car, as I had wondered since the beginning of our journey who was driving us across this supernatural atmosphere in the stars. I peer inside the window, gawking intricately into that front seat and adjusting my eyes by blinking numerous times as the only thing I can see in that front seat is a collection of dark shadows swimming around in the front seat with no distinctive shape and nothing but a hallow of black shades that appear a lighter shade of black then the limousines interior leather.

Father O'Malley grips my hand tighter and pulls at my shoulder and leads me away from the limousine as we walk gingerly up towards the massive church with symbols of the cross standing out everywhere on the tops of every building in all sorts of directions. I turn back once more, as my mind had a sudden urge to make one last attempt to view any sense of normalcy that I knew now as I walked towards this bizarre scene was my last glimpse into the life of uniformity and existing gravity that I once knew. The limousine had vanished, and a black void of absolutely nothing was all that I could see stretching outwards for miles upon miles beyond the horizon. There was no color, as a sea of translucent nullity persisted in a blank canvas that could provide not even the dark black hue of color that had normally represented nothingness.

My guide on this journey into madness, tugs at my hand even harder as he was insisting upon me moving more quickly and ignoring my interrogating behavior into the past and where the vehicle that had brought us to this point of this imagination land had disappeared from our sight. It was at this time that I realized that this blank void that stood behind me and kept disappearing with every step that I took and vanished behind me with every pressing step that I took forward, was possibly some sort of metaphor that whatever existence I knew to be reality was now a thing of my past. I was now presented with my future as I turned around and saw the golden gates of enormous and exquisite nature opening directly in front of us.

As we walked through them as they open magically of their own accord, my body is given an immediate shock of rejuvenation and energy that flows through my body like a shot of some strong drug that was taking its effects immediately and overcoming my body like a shock wave. As we approach, the buildings and structure before us expand, and become even more massive and realistic then what it looked like when peering from it inside the limousine.

This time it is I who grabs my companion's hand even more tightly, as a sense of fear shivers through my body. I believe that the good Father can sense this, as he quickens his pace and our escapade into the extraordinary continues onward as we arrive in front of a door covered completely in crosses of different sizes and colors. It was if the door was being blockaded by a force field of faith and was intended to keep any evil out from disturbing this house of the holy disciple that dwell within.

He opens the door by gently pushing on its heavy exterior with what seemed like as little effort as humanly possible; yet, the door slowly folds open with a massive creaking sound that splits the inside of my eardrums like someone scratching their nails across a chalkboard. As we step inside, we see endless rows of church pews lined on both sides and a long black carpet rolled out in front of us leading off into an endless point far off in the distance.

He turns to me and smiles as we make our first steps down this long path with the door quickly pulling itself shut of its own accord directly behind us. We walk forward; hand in hand, slowly and methodically forward until a giant stage that is displayed with more signs of the cross and glowing gold sheets of baroque beauty draped over its center. The long sheets are glorious in their glowing color and indiscriminately placed on indirect places all over the front of the stage that makes them look like a mirror of misplaced magnificence.

As we arrive at the front of the stage, my comrade releases his grip from my hand and reaches down to lift up one of the sheets and place it over my head. I am at first startled, as I am confused as to what capitulating nature of his conduct may have in store for me. At first I am entombed in darkness, but eventually a glowing ball of light down a dark passage discharges as it grows more and more bright and big as it approaches me quickly with a sense of urgency. Like a train traveling down a tunnel at alarming speeds encroaching upon my face like a wreck that is waiting to happen.

Just as that ball of light is about to strike me, Father O'Malley removes the sheet from my face and all around me the entire church is a disheveled mess of wooden cross necklaces lain out all over the place. Stacked on top of the pews, littered all over the floor beneath my feet, and spread out anonymously and everywhere across the stage in which the two of us were standing on. I could not even walk or take a mere step without stepping on one of the wooden cross necklaces and crunching it beneath my feet as the sea of necklaces beneath me stretched up to the tops of my ankles.

Mounds and mounds of them in an expanding everlasting exposition that was all over the place. Had the sheet been a cover for them to rain down upon me and protect me from the landing on top of my head and pummeling me from the sky? As I look up to see where these supposed wooden necklace crosses could have come from, all I can see is the same translucent sky that has no color and no consistency just the same as the horizon that I looked back upon to discover that our limousine had disappeared. There was no ceiling or sky or any sense of ending to a blank void of absolute nothing. My eyes then make their way towards Father O'Malley, who was standing before me with his eyes closed holding a golden goblet full of a golden liquid that he then insisted I drink from.

As I held the goblet in my hand and stared at my reflection in this golden elixir that had been placed in front of me. I see myself in an entirely different form that I had known before as if my childhood innocence was staring back at me and my face had fallen back to a form that had left my figure a long time ago. It brought me back to a time long ago where my ignorance of the stressful and perplexing life that led me to a schizophrenic mess that I had become was non-existent and my life was full of cheerful bewilderment once again.

As I drank from the goblet, which Father O'Malley then placed his hands underneath and tilted into my mouth, I was again brought back to that time when we stood in the circle holding hands and praying together once again. As soon as that sweet nectar hit my lips I immediately dropped the goblet and closed my eyes as I nearly fainted but was brought back with a stern strength from the touch of Father O'Malley who reached out and stopped my body from falling backward. He then called out to me in that same calm and coddling manner that I had known him to always use before.

Father O'Malley -- "Now, you must choose my child. The chosen one must choose his tool to make you triumphant in the eyes of our Lord once again."


I can only assume that what he suggested was that the slew of wooden cross necklaces that were strewn out all over the place around us was what I would be choosing from. What I was choosing as far as how it would be used as my tool was still unknown to me, and probably that was the intended purpose of Father O'Malley as the tone of his voice and the words that he chose to speak to me were picked deliberately in this coded manner as I assume that it was my destiny to seek out and find the perfect piece that would help me in whatever task that I was chosen to partake in. How was I to know how to muddle through the sea of wooden cross necklaces and distinctively pick the most powerful of those was an unfathomable decision that I knew I had to make both quickly and independently, with no aid from my comrade.

I begin scanning the entire room and with the utmost concentration try to focus my internal senses and direct my mind towards the proper decision. I take a few steps backward and then turn around completely, browsing with my eyes and searching frantically in all areas of the room in search of any wooden cross that may have any sort of differential distinguishing anomalies that may lead me to believe that it was the one that I must choose.

I turn back around, as nothing in sight seems to stick out and catch my immediate attention. I then see a wooden cross necklace, floating right in front of my face with a distinct hue of wooden color that is a slightly brighter shade of black then all the rest of them scattered about the room. I reach out and grab it with ease as it appeared to be floating in mid-air towards me almost as if it were choosing me!

I place the necklace around my neck with a sense of pride and persistence and then I am immediately overcome with joy as I had immediately known that I had most definitely chosen the right one. Father O'Malley smiles with that same long and drawn look that he had given me many times before. It was almost as if he too had known that I had made the right choice. He then steps down from the stage, and walks over to me and places the sheet over my face again. In a matter of a few moments, the same blinding light that was now right in front of my face from the time before when the sheet was placed over my head, dissipated off into the distance as it traveled down the tunnel of my vision and disappeared..

The sheet is then removed from over my head by Father O'Malley, and I still remain in the same room as before but for all the wooden crosses had gone missing and had vanished just as quickly as they had arrived just moments before. My companion then steps down from the stage and stands right beside me and pulls me closely into his chest and then kisses me on the forehead. He makes the sign of the holy trinity on my forehead with the small droplets of saliva that had leaked from his lips

Father O'Malley -- "You must cherish it forever."

I really didn't need him to tell me this as deep in my heart I knew that this necklace was my tool to help me get my life back to a sense of self-righteousness. It was my gateway to my own destiny that I felt like I finally knew and gave me a sense of purpose. I still did not know what I had to do with it, but what I did know, was that I would never let it out of my sight for as long as I lived. Little did I know at that time that that power that lies within it would be something that a simpleton such as I would be unable to cope with. Father O'Malley then grabs both my hands and insists I join him in our two man circle and begin to pray once again. He begins the prayer with these same words he had spoken when I first met him.

Father O'Malley -- "Give yourself to god my good boy, and he will walk with you for all eternity."