The following piece of writing, an excerpt from an unpublished book, was included in March 98 issue of Ferment. The book is presented as fiction. Yet the section below says something entirely true about the protective power of Goddess Kali, as experienced by people who worship her...
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So, Im asleep in bed one night...and then Im awake...abruptly...instantly!...fully conscious...most unheard of for Max...I usually take forever to struggle up to what Pinks consider normal waking consciousness...not this time...theres someone in bed with me!...a female form, lying on its side, facing away from me...Im abruptly aware of an overwhelming terror...and disgust...this is no ordinary happening...this thing next to me is glowing faintly!...its emitting a dirty whiteish-yellow light...which somehow shines right through the bedclothes...Im paralysed with horror...this overpowering sense of a presence...an elemental...its like yeast...all mouldy...or fermenting...not smell...it doesnt smell at all...something far more fundamental than that...seething, swirling, bubbling, corrupted leavening is its very essence...and its Postsekvinjo, I can tell...somehow, shes projected herself into my fuckin BED!...what now?...I cant move...and its turning over...you can bet it knows that Im lying right next to it...thats what its here for...
...it doesnt have a face at all...nothing...smooth, blank...two armlike projections reach out to me...in a filthy parody of a womans embrace...but they sprout wet sucking mouths as they come towards me...they hit me...wrap around me...theyre wet, sticky...doughy...they coil right around me...and keep on going...the mouths wetly latch onto me...two big slimy <kisses> on my chest...then they start sucking...draining the vitality away from me...I can feel it going...the Yeast-Thing instantly abandons its succubus-form...its just a dirty glowing pulsating wet lump of ooze in the bed with me...more tentacles sprout from it...all over...slurp slurp slurp...they stick on and start bleeding me, too...faster and faster...Im being raped!...its disgusting!...terrifying, too...although I can somehow sense that this thing is not preponderatingly of evil as such...its a vastly powerful manifestation of twisted, insane NEED...it NEEDS me so much...so much that its draining away my whole spirit into it...its killing me by its need...I can feel it...thats why, evil or not, I so absolutely terrified...<terror> doesnt do the feeling justice...I need a stronger word for it...
...suddenly, I hear my own voice filling the room...not loud...but vibrating with a profound, reverent confidence that seems to shake the walls and floor...<<By You this universe is born, by You this world is created, by You it is protected, O Devi; by You it is consumed at the end...>>...Im praying!...without conscious intention, Im reciting my basic opening invocation to Goddess! And, instantly, the horrible wet sucking multitudinous vampire mouths have lost their hold on me!...<<You who are eternally the form of the whole world; at the time of creation You are the form of the creative force,>> its withdrawing its tentacles back towards its quivering body,<<at the time of preservation you are the form of the protective power,>>the quivering mound is shrinking! The nasty glows dying out! <<and, at the time of the dissolution of the worlds, You are the form of the destructive power. You are the Supreme Knowledge, as well as ignorance, intellect, and contemplation.>>
ITS GONE! Goddess be praised! I roll over, and snap on the light...nothing there...I fling the bedcovers back...nothing left but a huge wet patch on the sheet, disgustingly like leftover come...
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You might recall that the altar was right there in the bedroom...thats probably what saved me...at all events, you can be very sure that I immediately lit up everything that there was to light on the altar, and gave humble and profoundly grateful thanks for my deliverance from a very strange and horrible and unheard-of phenomenon...then I performed a few special little rituals for keeping evil at bay...the stain on the sheets had completely vanished by the time I was through, so I judged it safe to go back to bed, which I did...undisturbed for the rest of the night, thankfully...
Text © Max Ridge 1998
Artwork © Colin Robinson 1995
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