WELL ON THIS END. IF YOU ARE READING THIS THEN I ASSUME YOU ARE OUT AND ABOUT. BRAVO! GOOD LUCK AND STAY IN TOUCH WITH YOURSELF AND OTHERS. (HEH, HEH)
. . . . . . . . . . PTL
* * *
Gladden typed in an R and hit ENTER and a reply message template appeared on the screen. He typed out a message to the sender of the first message.
* * *
NOT TO WORRY ABOUT ME. ALL IS TAKEN CARE OF. YOURS TRULY IS NOW OUT AND ABOUT
. . . . . . . . . . PTL
* * *
That done, Gladden typed in commands so that he could move to the main bulletin board directory. Finally, the screen filled with the directory of message boards. Each board was listed with the number of active messages available to be read.
* * *
General Forum 89
B+9 46
B-9 23
G+9 12
G-9 6
All’s fair 51
Musings & Whinings 76
Legal Beagles 24
Services by city 56
Barter Board 91
* * *
He quickly typed in the necessary commands to move to the Musings & Whinings board. It was one of the most popular boards. He’d already read through most of the files and had contributed a few himself. The writers were all ranting about how unfair life was to them. How maybe in a different time their tastes and instincts would be accepted as normal. It was more whining than musing, Gladden had always thought. He called up the file marked Eidolon and began reading.
* * *
I think they will know about me soon. My time in the light of public fascination and fear is near. I am ready. Each one of my kind eventually assumes the mantle. Anonymity will be lost. I will be given a name, a designation not reflective of who I am nor of my many skills, but simply determined by its ability to fit nicely into a tabloid newspaper headline and stimulate the masses to thoughts of fear. We study what we fear. Fear sells newspapers and television shows. Soon it will be my turn to sell.
I will be hunted soon and I will be notorious. But they won’t find me. Never. That’s what they won’t realize. That I have always been ready for them.
I have decided it is time to tell my story. I want to tell it. I will input all that I have, all that I am. Through these windows you will see me live and die. My laptop Boswell makes no judgments, cringes not at a single word. Who better to hear my confession than Laptop Boswell? Who more accurate a biographer than Laptop Boswell? I will begin to tell you all now. Turn on your flashlights. I will live and die here in the dark.
Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.
I didn’t write that first but I wish that I had. But it doesn’t matter because I believe it. My suffering is my passion, my religion. It never leaves me. It guides me. It is me. I can see that now. I think what is meant by those words is that our pain is the pathway upon which we make our life’s travels and choices. It paves the way, so to speak, for all that we do and become. Therefore, we embrace it. We study it and, for all its harshness, we love it. We have no choice.
I have a great feeling of clarity about this, of complete understanding. I can turn and look back on my path and see how the pain made all my choices. I look forward and can see where it will take me. I don’t really walk along the path any more. It moves beneath me, carrying me, like a great ribbon through time. It carried me here.
My pain is the rock upon which I make my stand. I am the perpetrator. The Eidolon. True identity is pain. My pain. Until death do we part.
Drive safely, dear friends.
* * *
He read it again and felt deeply moved by it. It touched his true heart.
He went back to the main menu and switched into the Barter Board to see if there were any new customers. There weren’t. He typed the G command for good-bye. He then turned off the computer and folded it closed.
Gladden wished the cops hadn’t taken his camera. He couldn’t risk going to claim it and he could barely afford to buy another one with the money he had left. But he knew that without a camera he could not fill