The Glass Secret (Chain of Secrets) (4 page)

On the final impact, a sharp object pierced my flesh. I deflated like a water balloon, and then I heard the worst sound of all, my breath rushing out of me. Ever so still, I lay there, twisting and turning inside of myself on the gritty cold floor under my face. My screams bubbled over like boiling water from the back of my throat.

I released my breath, exhaling the pain. “Gawd damn!” I belted out. “It’s over...it’s over. God, why?” I wept. The sound of footsteps bypassed my dead weight.

-2-

Deep sleep...

I could not open my eyes, and the feeling of straining to do so was frightening, and so was the sensation of not being able to move my limbs.

Between small gasps of air, I choked, sobbing aloud, “Am I dead?”

There were no replies.

I can’t die...not yet!
I needed to get the manuscript to Sydney.
I’m the only one who can finish this piece...no one can write the story, but me.

My grandmother’s adage,
“What is written makes it so,”
flashed in my mind.

I couldn’t feel the ground beneath me. My hair swept over my face, blowing in the wind. Someone lifted me. The feeling of cool rain plummeted against my flesh. It felt as if I was traveling in a tunnel. Fast. At least, it felt that way.

Can someone turn on the damn lights?

I could hear voices coming from all directions. The chaotic pandemonium increased to wonder. Voices hushed, urgently buzzing and hummed in the depths of my subconscious.

Clearly, someone was whispering and mumbling words I couldn’t fully comprehend. What they were saying? Hearing voices in my head, arguing—disagreeing, laughing and singing didn’t alarm me. At least not anymore—disembodied voices didn’t scare me in the slightest; it was humans that could be the most frightening at times.

“Please,” I sobbed, tiny moans escaped my lips. The metallic taste of blood swirled in my mouth, hindering my ability to breath. Red tears stung against my cheeks, dripping onto the ground. “Get your hands off of me!” I squirmed and shoved away the interrogating fingers fussing around me. “Get the hell away—my chest,” I cried as they probed my body. It felt awfully intrusive. Excruciating pain traveled the length of me, radiating inside out.

Internal damage?

I felt my pulse stretching my veins beyond what was normal. An unbearable, mind-numbing throb radiated throughout every limb. No one should have to suffer such agony.

God, if it’s my time to die make it fast
, I pleaded inwardly. The open wounds on my face, lips and limbs throbbed, exceeding Hell on Earth. Stabbing pains shot through my head, which was the worst of all. There was not a place on my body that didn’t hurt. Okay that was a double negative, but it’s the only way to explain the excruciating pain that took my breath away. All I wanted to do was crawl into a ball and sleep—or find my place in Heaven.

“Hold still, please, we are trying to help you—Olga, hand me that, hurry,” a man’s voice called out. “We can’t do this when she’s hysterical.”

What the hell was that?
I screamed inside my head when I felt a burning blaze coursing through me. A bright warm light surrounded me, surprisingly the pain ceased and a feeling of awe washed over me, then nothingness.

-3-

Gone like a dream...

For the next few hours, maybe it was even days, as I drifted in and out of the quiet realm of my sub-consciousness, I contemplated...

Who am I? Where am I?

My memories were fading fast and, vanishing one by one. I struggled to hang onto them, the way you do after opening your eyes from a dream, then pouf—it’s gone.

Concentrate! Think! Concentrate damn it, self.
I cursed who ever I was.
Am I brain dead? When I wake up am I going to be a human carrot without a memory? An empty shell of nothingness! Will I even wake up?

The harder I tried to hold onto my vague memories, the faster they withered.

Is it time to accept my fate and let them go?

ζ

The first glimmer of hope came to me. Tarot cards...flashed in my mind, the death card vividly swarmed in my eyes, although it was not the most positive image, nonetheless, it was a memory.

Life sure had dealt me a bunch of crappy Tarot cards,
I said within, nodding to myself.

I recalled my mother objecting terribly to the fact that I had dabbled in such things as the readings.

She would say, “If you're going play with the Devil’s cards, expect bad things to happen.”

My thoughts were,
“Bad things are going to happen either way so why not get some insight.”

I didn’t believe much in the cards anyway. At the time, they were just a passing hobby of mine. I had never considered myself overly superstitious. So, I honestly didn’t think much of it when I pulled the devil and the death card, every-single time from the deck, during my readings. My interpretation was the devil card represents awareness and negativity that constrains, and the death card was symbolic that it was the end of something, but not human life. I didn’t perceive the images as literal.

Everything is relative and has two sides; it is not the dose, but an over-dosage that could make anything good for you...poisonous. Take sleeping pills, for example, one does the trick, on the other hand, a hundred pills would surely kill you.

I was cautious about anything that would have been considered addictive, or habits forming. I only had the cards read a half a dozen times. No big deal, right? I found the readings mysterious, fun, and intriguing, but maybe my mother was right. The source of the tarot’s powers may have not been of this world.

At twenty-something, I had my whole life in front of me. If I could have changed the outcome of the silly predictions, I supposed I would have. Alternatively, thinking back on things, maybe I would not have changed a thing. I had always known the life I wanted. I just was not sure how to get it.

I was not one to sit at the edge of a pool, testing out the water with the tips of my toes. I was more of a dive in headfirst kind
of girl, and then hoped I would rise to the top.

ζ

My mind pushed back to a time of broken promises and unfulfilled love. Those earlier memories swept through me; they were vivid and much clearer than the uncertainty of my current condition. Anger was the new sense that replaced my ability to grasp my fading memories.

Shattered reflections of my ex, who was long gone, stuck to me like flies stick to a strip of flypaper. Of all people to remember, why would I think of him? He was the last person I wanted to remember. That was my thoughts at the time.
Go with them,
I convinced myself inwardly. Three little words popped into my memory. They were
not
the three most powerful words that we all desire to say and hear—

‘Eat shit and die...’
Those words lined the pages, more than once, in the letters I vigilantly wrote to him, and rightfully so because he had broken my heart into a million pieces! This asshole was a trespasser—he had no place in my life, or my memory, although I had to remind myself it was me who settled for him.

Would he actually eat shit and die? I wondered while I was writing to him, wishing, and hoping. I was doubtful. There was a one-in-a-million chance he would eat shit and die from it. That was virtually impossible. Unless, it was infested with a deadly strand of E Coli.
What would be the chances of that?

Ever since I was a young girl, my grandmother would say, “What is written makes it so.” Essentially, she was aware of
“The Secret”
long before the huge moneymaking, spiritual self-help books were flying off of the shelves.

The Secret
is the law of attraction and manipulates the “Universe’s powerful energy” to our liking. According to
The Secret
our thoughts and feelings attract a corresponding energy to ourselves. If our thoughts are negative, we attract negative things. If our feelings are positive, we attract positive things. Essentially, we all have the power to determine our own destiny. We can all create our own reality. How do we do this? Write down daily affirmations, then mediate on them and keep your thoughts positive, then your desires will have a greater potential of coming true. It was pretty simple.

My grandmother warned me that
The Secret
does not know the difference between negative and positive thoughts, so whatever you focus on will come to you. She said, “Be wary of what you write down and cautious of what you wish for.” Her words dripped in the back of my mind like an IV giving me life support.

Not only had I used my grandmother’s advice to my benefit, I took it a step further. In keeping faithful to her mantra, I wrote those daily letters to my ex—cursing him as a practice, and hoping my words would come true.
Hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned.
I was that woman.

It took me a year to get over his lying, cheating sack of horseshit ass!

When I busted him, he had some nerve, calling me the cuckoo one! Consequently, maybe I was.
Maybe.

My behavior could have appeared a bit neurotic. I was polite to his face, sighing and smiling and then later bombarded him with over fifty emails, which could have made me look like one of those quiet types that could flip-out at any minute. So maybe I was crazy. As far as I was concerned, he could
kiss my ass
in a Macy’s window!

After discovering the tool between his legs, he transformed himself from a computer geek into a hunk and quit thinking with his head. The one on his shoulders anyway.  Because of which, he wasn’t worth a head-on confrontation. He had too many distractions going on below his waistline to concentrate on my feelings. So, my resolution was to write him...and, so I did and did and did!

Crazy huh?

It was my intention to use
The Secret
as my personal weapon of revenge! Deep down, I had known one hundred percent that I was not practicing
The Secret
in the way it was intended.
So what,
I thought. If it worked, I would be happy.

As much as I tried to meditate on positive things, I didn’t always succeed. I did not actually want my ex to die. But, eating shit—now, that sounded good to me. At best, if the universe made good on the first writ, if nothing else, I would have felt much better than I did.

After, my facing the facts, it was more than likely my prose would end up in the trash of his email; I decided to send the last letter anyway. Who would it hurt? And, in hindsight, it gave me some closure.

I had never taken the power of
The Secret
as serious as my grandmother did, especially because I wanted to be an author. After all, an author writes everything down. If everything that I had ever written came true, my life would have been nothing more than a tangled web of drama. Therefore, in my role as an author, I had to throw away her mantra. “What is written makes it so”—I mean according to my grandmother, the universe does not know the difference between fiction and reality.

After rereading the emotional letter to my ex, I focused on my salutation—
Break A Leg.
I laughed to myself at my closing, it was very apropos, because my ex happened to be an aspiring actor. It seemed as if it was the perfect way to end the letter. He would have no idea that I meant it in the literal sense. Then again, in tune with the rest of the letter, I was sure he would figure it out that I definitely meant it literally!

Then came the most nerve-wracking moment—the time to actually send the letter. I slid the cursor up and over to the little blue send button. After all, hovering over the send button was the easy part; actually clicking it was a different story.

A gut-wrenching pang oscillated in the pit of my stomach as the cursor blinked as if in anticipation. That feeling of regret, we have all experienced from time to time, swept over me.

“Do not send it,” a little voice whispered.

I had to tell myself to breathe. Deep breaths—it’s going to be fine. Don’t panic.

I closed my eyes and tapped my index finger against the mouse pad. It was complete. Within seconds his phone would alert him that he had an email from me.

As the moment passed, that feeling of impending doom eased in my chest. With one click of a button, there was no more pressure beating down on me, no more threats of an unknown female scratching her nails across his back and no more lies bringing me to my knees. It was true; he pushed me past the point of breaking, causing me to become pathetic on many levels.

Stupid girl,
I thought, scolding myself. But, of course, it was my own fault for believing in fairytale romances and happy endings.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” I muttered out loud in a British dialect, quoting the phraseology that was originally coined by Tobias Smollett in The Critical Review, 1805. The quote had special meaning to me. My grandmother often used the expression. She always exhaled a modest little sigh of 
“ha-ha”
after saying it; I found her quote extremely befitting in this case.