Take the question of morality. Who is to say “what is moral? By whose criteria are we to judge this question? That of God?
The morality embodied within those commandments that the Bible speaks so proudly of? Those ten rules designed for destruction. Rules that man is incapable of keeping. God issued those rules knowing that those he had created were unable to uphold them. God is a trickster. God wishes his children to fall by the wayside because if they do then they call on him with even greater volume. Their prayers grow more desperate and they rely upon their deities to an even greater extent. A vengeful God. A caring God. The God of cancer and war. The Lord of child abuse and illness. The Holy Spirit of madness and destruction. The Trinity of suffering.
In every man there is the capacity for evil and yet has anyone ever truly defined the meaning of that word? Is it evil to kill? Is it evil to steal? No.
I feel it is not. If a man has the strength to commit any act, no matter how depraved then he should be applauded for his honesty. There is a purity in the act of anyone who knows he is answerable to no one but himself. The law is unimportant. Man must live by the law he creates for himself. He must live by a code of honour that he himself invents, not that handed down to him by the church, society or the masses. Man’s biggest crime is to lose his identity.
Without it he is nothing and that identity is defined by a man’s actions. Not as they are perceived by the world at large but by himself. Once that code of behaviour has been established, one that is peculiar to each individual, then its rules and parameters must not be broken for the retribution that accompanies such a transgression is limitless.
STRANGE WORDS
Christopher Ward read the words but they made no sense to him. He sat at his desk and scanned the two sheets endlessly.
The only thing he knew was that the handwriting was not his.
DILEMMA
Christopher Ward sat staring at the blank monitor before him then, as if a switch had been thrown somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he typed: 1. Where is the girl?
2. Did I kill her?
3. Who wrote the words I found today?
4. Hallucinations?
He underlined the last one three times.
5. If I killed the girl, where did I hide the body?
6. What would have made me kill her in the first place?
Ward sighed almost painfully and looked at what he’d typed. He picked up the two handwritten pages he’d found in the office that morning and re-read them.
When he’d finished, he placed them gently on the desk to his right, next to the box of printer paper he kept there.
He got to his feet and crossed to one of his bookshelves. He selected a Dictionary of Psychology and flicked through the pages.
‘Amnesia,’ he murmured to himself as he found the entry. He read it quickly then replaced the book on the shelf. There was nothing worthwhile there.
Nothing that helped him.
He switched the monitor off and made his way down the stairs, locking the office door behind him.
Inside the house it was cool, almost chilly, and he shivered as he wandered through into the study. He switched on the computer there and waited. No point in checking e-mails. No one ever sent them any more. He went straight to the
Internet and tapped in: Short-Term Memory Loss.
The computer buzzed and whirred. Ward got to his feet and padded back into the sitting room where he retrieved a bottle of Glenfiddich and a clean glass. He carried these back into the study and sat down at the computer once again.
A series of different coloured images appeared before him. He placed his hand on the mouse and waited.
Search Results: 11 matches found
2 in symptoms and conditions 1 in special topics 3 in medical abstracts 5 in drugs
1. Memory loss
2. Stress in childhood
3. Post-cardiac defibrillation
4. Zopiclone (systemic)
5. Temozolomide (systemic)
6. Zaleplon (systemic)
7. Zolpidem (systemic)
8. Dronabinol (systemic)
9. The nature of early memory
10. Memories lost and found — part II
11. Acute traumatic brain injury in amateur boxing Ward scanned what was before him then clicked on ‘The nature of early memory’.
He read quickly then took a gulp of his whisky and shook his head.
He clicked on ‘Memories lost and found’. He read that more slowly, occasionally reading aloud.
‘There are different kinds of memory,’ he read. ‘Declarative or explicit memory includes learning of facts … culture of victimisation … may cause patients to deny responsibility for their problems … memories can contain varying elements of truth and distortion.’
He sat back in his seat and drank more whisky. In less than an hour, he’d finished the whole bottle.
It eventually becomes impossible to separate what constitutes reality and fantasy. One passes over into another with such ease that to discern their individuality is almost futile. The fine line which is trodden between the world of the imagination and the everyday world becomes indistinct. Sometimes this is a desirable state of affairs but, more often than not, it signals the refusal of the mind to accept reality. It chooses instead to retreat into fantasy. It is a world more comfortably inhabited. In such a state, what was recognised previously as catharsis becomes prophetic. The mingling of worlds is amplified to such a degree that it may be possible to influence the outcome of that which had previously been subject to the whims of fate. And with that comes responsibility. One that does not always sit easily with those who possess it.
I seek a knowledge that others have sought but failed to find. I seek with a ferocity some find disturbing. With a single-mindedness which produces confrontation, but then, what is life but a series of conflicts? Without conflict, life is worthless. Without confrontation, man is nothing. Only from confrontation can true knowledge come. The battle is fought inside the mind to begin with but then it evolves into a more tangible fight. With the passing of time, one learns to thrive on conflict, to seek it. To welcome it.
How tedious to pass the days in silent subservience. How much better to confront. To challenge. To triumph. For without the pleasure of triumph there is no sense in entering into a conflict. One should only do so with the express purpose of leaving it as the victor. Defeat is something to be despised. To be ridiculed. Those who accept it are to be similarly loathed and treated with the contempt one would reserve for lesser beings.
But victory can be viewed in many different ways and from many different aspects. The true nature of triumph is again a personal matter. Man measures his victories against others. Only a man who values victory above all things is worthy to retain his place in the natural order. There are no aspects of defeat that are tolerable or worthwhile. The single overriding factor in the
mind of any man should be to stand unchallenged atop the mountain of ambition he has seen fit to climb. To fall short of that summit is to fail. To fail is to show weakness and weakness is the most vile and contemptuous attribute that any man can be cursed with.
are
There
SALVATION
Ward placed the five pages to one side and slumped forward on his desk. He was drifting off to sleep when he heard a loud noise away to his left. It took him a few seconds to realise that the noise was a car horn. A little more time to work out that the sound was coming from the driveway of his own house.
He got to his feet and crossed to one of the velux windows of his office. By standing on a chair he could just make out the bonnet of a car pointing towards the house. Another moment and he saw a figure walk around the vehicle, lean through the open driver’s door and hit the hooter three more times.