Chapter Seven - "OSCAR"

Seven

OSCAR

Connection

As he walked in downtown Glasgow, soft rain was falling on the street and on his face. He didn’t care. He was following his inspiration. Nothing could distract his concentration from the prey of his attention. The dark waves of his chin-length locks had turned to softer curls in the damp air. He towered over the crowd of shoppers in Buchanan Street for both height and presence. The gentle loveliness of the East and the muscular beauty of the West were fused in him. He had an elegant, slow stride. He wouldn’t go anywhere without a drawing pad and a bag full of crayons. A celebrity in town: his eyes were on the pavement and his head was in the clouds. Oscar O’Leary wouldn’t go unnoticed anywhere.

Glam World magazine had mentioned his visit to the city. Two young women whispered to each other when they recognized him. He didn’t see them, busy as he was digging up the bones of an distant memory, a long-buried feeling that he wanted to forget and had been afraid to retrieve for a long time. It had caused him so much hurt.

“I turn you into shapes and colors as liquid as sunshine,” he had thought on a dark night. “If I give you a name, a hue, a sensation, I will become your master and you won’t rule my life anymore...”

That’s how he took up painting: to escape the demons of his past. He was twelve then. Thirteen years later he’d become the youngest artist to have a monographic exhibition in the prestigious Situchi Gallery, the coolest place to showcase and sell one’s art work. The rest is history. Many Hollywood stars bought his paintings and installations. The world fell in love with him and he became an overnight success. Three years on to that date, he was in town as the star guest at the vernissage of a joint exhibition by Glaswegian artists. Life was wonderful. He was the center of attention, and that was good. But an important someone was still missing from his life, and that bothered him. He felt incomplete on his own, which made him think about things he wanted to forget. Unbeknown to Oscar and Kassandra, their respective paths were pulling them towards their first encounter. Well, their first encounter in the third dimension of physicality.

The two girls called Oscar. He turned and noticed them.

“The blonde’s hot. Mega boobs.”

They asked for his autograph. He was used to being stopped like that. Even that kind of ‘worship’ was a call for love, from both sides. People took photographs. A small crowd gathered around him. Fans asked him the usual questions. Was it true that Layla McIntyre was going to be at the opening? Were they dating? How was his experience in Australia? Did he really go on a walkabout with an Aborigine tribe for three months? Did it give him a different perspective to his work? Was that the inspiration behind his latest production?

By means of a reply, he said: “Is that what you want to believe?”  He was everything but verbose. He could now sense a sudden magnetic pull in his chest. His Native Australian friends had taught him to listen to this kind of heart-intuition. Ignoring the crowd of admirers around him, he turned his hazel eyes to the passing clouds in the sky, tilting his head back a little as to let the rain kiss his neck.

“New feeling. Very strong. I can’t think of any event or person clearly associated to it... Wow...”

Yet there was a familiar je ne sais quoi in that sensation. What was it? Who was it? As soon as a sense of recognition registered in his mind, the impression was gone and all he could hear was the rumbling of his stomach. He’d not eaten since lunchtime on the day before. Noon was approaching again. A coffee shop came into the focus of his glance: “Soul Food.”  Heaven-sent, obviously. It was a picture of prettiness made of lime green tables and pink chairs. He stepped in and sat at the only vacant table. That’s when he saw her. Months later, on a romantic night, he told her that his heart had barely beaten in her absence up until that moment.

Soul Café, Glasgow, 24 April 1993

“Oh my God! Kassie, can you see him?! He’s sitting in front of me, and he’s looking in our direction... Oscar O’Leary... I can’t believe it... he’s so gorgeous... I think he saw me looking at him... am I blushing? Incredible, he’s amazing, he’s just so sexy!” 

I was only half-listening to Polly’s ramblings on this painter who was supposed to be the most spiritual artist who’d ever walked the planet, a person who brought art alive with his drawings, who’d awoken magic into the eyes of those who beheld them. On first impression, you seemed a bit too self-conscious. Handsome? Well, very. Your black curls had hints of blue in their natural wave. Your eyes were the color of amber and your face was chiseled and yet as gentle as an angel’s. You were so young then.

Somehow you didn’t make a massive impression on me at first. I thought you were the kind of man who expected the world to revolve around him. The fact that at the time I was myself a girl who wanted to be the center of attention probably confused me. I thought Gordon’s muscular body was more manly and powerful than yours. What I found appealing about Gordon was his obliviousness to his surroundings and his mindlessness of fans, although he was a celebrity in his own right. My ex was self-involved at best and self-centered at worst. Or perhaps he was just too thick to realize that there was a world around him.

But I was still intrigued by you. I studied you as you sat two tables away from ours. Unlike the majority of people, you were paying attention to every single detail in the café, as if your penetrating eyes were marking the territory. There was a lot of purple in your aura, together with gold and emerald green. You were very charismatic: your presence filled the room.

I knew you were Irish by descent, and you also had Japanese blood in your veins. Your maternal grandmother, Yoshiko Suno, had been an acclaimed actress in Yomasami’s plays. Her affair with the great Irish mystical poet was a scandal in the 1930s. Your mother was the love child of the east and the west. That’s why your looks were unique. I stared at you as you kept sketching on your notepad. Your movements were composed and relaxed, as if you were drawing something from memory, channeling all your awareness into those gentle strokes.

You raised your head and looked at me for half a second. Our eyes met for the first time. Time stood still and expanded. Everything around us disappeared into a background of nothingness. You had magnetic come-to-bed eyes. They were drawing me into your world. You wanted to enlist me in your collection of women, among the notches on your bedpost. Or so I thought. And so I looked away. I wouldn’t fall prey to the ego of a Casanova. A part of me was still in love with Gordon. My human self needed a little more time to be distracted from the pain of my loss.

You smiled. At me. I didn’t bat an eyelid. Instead, I said to Polly: “He likes you. He’s winking at you, woman... come on, do something!”

I was only trying to deflect your attention, your energy. I wasn’t ready yet. I was afraid of you. At the same time, I was in awe.

“Go ask him for his autograph... or his room number,” I said. “They say he’s a slut, and he’s definitely taking a shine here... you should use this opportunity!”

Polly was a very shy girl who would never approach you without my help. I only said those words in an attempt to side-track my eyes from wanting to meet yours. I intended to eat my scone and get out of that place. I was uncomfortable and under scrutiny. Your glance stuck to my skin like honeydew. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable.

As a displacement activity, I started reading the newspaper that was lying on the empty chair at our table. I opened it at a random page. Fate has a strange sense of humor. Gordon’s face was staring at me from the ‘gossip’ column. It was official: he was going to become a father. The short article referred to Linda as his ‘girlfriend’.

My heart sank in that coffee shop. I’d not got over him as completely as I had assumed. My mind had, but not my body. My blood ran cold. I had to leave the café and be alone. I rushed out and started running down Buchanan Street like a headless ghost from somebody’s past. Polly understood what had happened as soon as she saw the article. She paid for our coffees, cast a final longing glance at you and then followed me to the street. By the time she got out of Soul Food, I’d already disappeared into the maze of my desperate thoughts. Not a place for the uninitiated to venture.

Arkadians on the side-lines

We had been in the café for a while as well. We didn’t miss a second of what had gone on. Particular heed was paid to the silent interaction between Kassandra and Oscar. They had met, at last. We spied his sketchbook and were surprised at the remarkable resemblance of his portrait of Kassandra. The way he had depicted her hinted at her secret. He’d stumbled upon it so effortlessly. He would disclose it to himself very soon.

Their encounter went as we had planned it. He fell for her the moment he laid his roving eyes on her face. What we could not get over, however, was the fact that she had not been impressed by him. Did she not recognize him? Did she not realize that he was the one? We had raised her frequency so that he could detect her more easily. Or at least his subconscious mind could. It had worked very well. He had been brilliant at following the signs. He was a good, attentive listener. And true to his well developed earthly nature, his stomach had taken him to the café and right next to her.

Kassandra disappointed us with her lack of sensitivity to the Plan. We had sent her all the signs pointing towards Oscar along the way. Of course, she was young and still a bit incredulous. Nonetheless, her disregard for her mission was preposterous. Gordon had definitely dented her purpose. She had never misbehaved like that before.

This had nothing to do with the quickening of her transformation, or the effects of the change in her body at the cellular level. There was something more worrying and sinister in the way she had refused to listen to her destiny. Her reverting to the past had nothing to do with her nature, with her True Identity: it was completely out of character. The seed of doubt had been planted in her consciousness. We feared the worst. There was only a group of people capable of piercing through such a crystal-clear mind. We feared they had found out about Kassandra. We had to find her as soon as possible. She could even be in danger. Or worse: she could be lost somewhere in space-time.

We left Oscar and his sketchbook in Soul Food and set out to follow Kassandra. Trying to tune into her frequency proved useless. Nothing. We tried looking for her through physical eyes. Zilch. She was nowhere to be seen. Her Core signature and Light were undetectable. That was the first time she’d disappeared from our radars during the twenty-five years of her life. Dark clouds loomed in the distance.

We returned to the café. From his table, Oscar had watched the scene of Kassandra’s sudden departure. What happened to the girl whose portrait had occupied him for the past twenty minutes? Where had she gone? He had been too busy sketching and familiarizing himself with the new feeling in his heart. He couldn’t even articulate what this sensation was, and why he’d associated it to that lovely woman in the cream and beige dress, and the long brown hair, and the amazing suntan, and those big green eyes that pierced through his consciousness like embers.

He was in love. Simple. Just like that. She had to be an enchantress. He could tell the type very well. Her latest antics had also revealed her as an eccentric and a bit of a drama queen. What an exit she’d made! It wouldn’t deter him from wanting the spoils of her heart all the same. He liked her quirky style and those emotions she wore on her sleeve. A crystal-clear bundle of feelings, she was. Of the purest, deepest, most aware kind. He breathed in deeply, finished his coffee and kept at his drawing for another quarter of an hour. He had always maintained that longing is the stuff art is made of.

Why didn’t he make a move on her? Why didn’t he run after her and try to save her from whatever cloud was crossing her sky? His face darkened.

“Of course I shouldn’t get too close to her, or anyone for that matter, because of what happened in the past.”

 He didn’t want to think about it, about that wound he kept running from, the mark imprinted on his life forever. He couldn’t get close to her or it would burn her too. He was a hurt-generating machine that might never change. He couldn’t get involved in committed relationships for fear of reducing the other party to pieces. It had always ended like that. Whenever he had shared his heart with a woman. Whenever there was real intimacy. Truly, the only intimacy he’d ever experienced was with a bottle of vodka, a line of coke, and drunken strangers who disappeared from his memory and his life the day after.

Things had changed in Australia though. Healing had started there. He continued pouring his thoughts into the drawing of that angelic vision in the café, but the veil of defeat was descending upon him.

“No, that’s not the way!”

He slammed the palms of his hands on the table, took some change from his pocket to pay for the coffee, packed his sketchbook into his canvas sling bag and left. The other punters in the café turned their heads to watch. He couldn’t care less. He had to catch up with the beautiful girl. He wouldn’t give in to his shyness. Or his wound. His heart would guide him this time.

We rejoiced at his decision and followed him in his roaming. He was the only one who could find Kassandra now, at a time when she was lost even to her own self.

Oscar’s Secret (Dublin, winter 1971)

Little Oscar watched Sister Nora’s creeping gown move away in the distance, taking the fat nun with it. Her dark silhouette swept past the rows of beds where the boys had been tied up for their bedtime. Sixteen beds in each room, the sound of weeping and heaving sobs mixed together. The big clock above the main door tick-tocked its sad rhythm. Terror reigned supreme.

Now it was sleep or else. Soon the medicine would take effect and kick into his bloodstream like a tsunami. And then all would be calm and mellow. A big stillness would finally expand into his heart and mind. Thoughts were going to be eased out and wiped away. Tomorrow would be another day. But for now, for a few hours, Oscar might hope to be comforted by the nothingness of sleep. Emptiness. Peace. Silence.

Perhaps the voices in his head would subside. Perhaps they would give him some respite. Of course, he was a bad, bad, bad boy who deserved to have ended up in that horrid place, and to have been given that unspeakable punishment by the bogeyman in the Infirmary. His family couldn’t handle him. Nobody really wanted him. He had to be cured.

Maybe the other boys there were like him, and they wanted the darkness to spread through their minds and their lives like a relentless ink-stain. Perhaps the horror in their souls was also too much. Just like him, even when they confessed their sins, perhaps the darkness would still stretch from their hearts to their minds, and paint their lives the color of the night. They were doomed. They were all possessed.

Oscar was aware that he was cursed: how could he ever forget? He was only six and a half but he knew full well that the devil was directing his actions, pulling the strings of his limbs. He was a dreadful sinner. He asked questions about things which could not be discussed. He was restless, he was bold; a naughty boy. His mum had tried to protect him from himself, but the voices had always come back, telling him to do things that would embarrass him, or get him punished, or both.

He hated being six and a half. There had been better times. Things had not been that awful when he was still four. He could see the little people others couldn’t see. Mum had told him they didn’t exist: they were the fruit of his imagination. But then they started talking to him. Especially when dad was drunk and would come home stinking of alcohol, with stains on his shirt and violence in his heart and hands.

His father wasn’t bad when he didn’t drink. He had taught Oscar how to draw only a year previously. He spent a lot of time with him and his brother that year when he was working from home and planning the building of their new estate in Wicklow. But drinking was the problem that plagued his dad’s generation. When he drank, things would change quickly. Mum would cry, dad would shake her up and shout because she cried, and Oscar would jump into his baby brother’s bed and put his hands on Conor’s ears. At least his brother wouldn’t have to hear what was going on in the background.

One night after dad had come back from the local pub and the usual racket had started, Oscar heard the voices in his head telling him not to be afraid. They spoke clearly. They sounded like so many crystal cymbals.

“Hush, Oscar. Don’t be afraid. We are here to help you. We’ll keep you company and tell you stories till the night has gone.”

He was still four then, and he turned five shortly after the voices started talking to him. There were good voices and scary voices too. The frightening ones were very creepy and sounded like the roar of a dragon or the waves crashing on the rocks during a storm. They told him he was a bad boy who should do as he was told. Otherwise they would haunt him, they would kill his mum and then only his dad would be left, and they would steal away his little brother. Oscar didn’t want to upset them. But he didn’t want to offend his mum and dad either.

So what was he supposed to do when those voices told him to go to the kitchen, tell mum not to cry and start punching his dad? He was six by the time he finally took the good voices’ advice, and did just that. With a grave look on his pale little face, he stepped into the room where his parents were arguing. He kicked his father’s legs and hit him in the stomach.

“Let her go, let her go...,” he demanded.

Oscar’s actions shocked his father into stopping the beating. He shook himself and looked ashamed, then slumped on his knees and hugged his little boy.

 “Oscar, I’m so so so sorry... I didn’t mean to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone, you, your mother, anyone... I am weak, I am a weak man... I lose control, I lose the run of myself and my actions. I won’t do this again, I will never do this again. Forgive me, little man.” 

Oscar’s eyes grew serious as tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Okay, dad,” he said.

But he knew he would never forgive his father for the trauma he had inflicted on him.

“Well done, Oscar, you brought peace back in your family,” the good voices said. “But you shouldn’t have used violence...”

This was clearly no time for celebrations. There was blood coming out from his mother’s nose as she was lying on the floor, shaking and sobbing louder than ever.

“Oscar, come here, don’t be afraid, mo chroí. Mummy’s okay, I banged my head on the cupboard and your dad just got mad at me for getting hurt. You know how clumsy I am. That’s all it was, it was all my fault.” 

But Oscar knew that she was lying.

“It’s your fault,” the bad voices said.

“No, it’s not,” the good ones told him.

He felt like his head was sliced in two.

Six months later, Oscar was sent to St. Anthony’s Children’s Institution. It was an old hospital that housed kids with varying mental pathologies: from those feared to have behavioral problems to the truly possessed, like Oscar. His stay was meant to cure him of his seizures, which had started shortly after he had witnessed his dad beat up his mum up in the kitchen on that fateful night.

His parents initially didn’t want to send him to the Institution. First, they flew him over to Japan to stay with his maternal grandmother. He could be treated properly there, and undergo psychological tests and art therapy for children. Those were probably the best months of his young, tragic life. Grandma Yoshiko lived in Tokyo. She was still acting when he was a child. She had always lived alone as she and Grandpa were not married. Oscar had never met his grandfather, the great poet, who had died during the war, shortly after the birth of his mother.

Oscar’s mother, Elaine Aki, was raised in Japan by Grandma alone. However, she had always felt more Irish than Japanese, and had always known she would marry young. Growing up without a father meant she needed a strong man in her life as soon as possible, she thought. She had moved to Dublin when she was eighteen to study English literature and drama, pretty much in her father’s footsteps. In her first year at college, she and Oscar’s father met at a ball. It was a classic case of opposites attracting each other. Brian O’Leary was a young architect from a wealthy Kerry family. He lived in Dublin where he owned and managed an architectural firm. He was tall, boisterous and jovial. She was petite, reserved and demure.

They married quickly, with Yoshiko’s blessing. Oscar was born within the first year of their marriage, followed by Conor two years later. Brian’s drinking got out of hand after the birth of their second son. Oscar didn’t know what had happened but was quite certain that there must have been a specific reason for it. His parents started fighting a lot.

By the time he was five, Oscar had become very afraid of his father and very sorry for his mother. He thought that life was hard and burdensome. All he wanted to do was to sleep or daydream, and protect his brother from the unhappiness of their household. His baby brother was an angel who didn’t need to be exposed to all that hurt.

The little people appeared for the first time one afternoon while he was playing in the playground of their family estate. Mum was pregnant with Conor and was sitting on a bench, writing a letter. Salvador, the gardener, was watering the rose bushes and whistling a tune. Mum stopped writing and smiled at him. Salvador nodded back. Oscar walked away from the baby swing, entranced by the blueness of the sky above him. Then something sparkled in his sight. He thought it was an ingot of gold, or a magical ring, or a secret treasure chest hidden among the oak trees at the back of the playground. He followed the shimmering until he was out of the grown-ups’ visual range.

That’s when he saw them, sitting on a rock, sunbathing: two little elves, one male and one female, dressed in the leaves and flowers of the summer. He wasn’t too surprised. He had always suspected that there was more to life than meets the eye. The two little persons were staring at him too, motionless. All of a sudden, they stood up and ran towards him, sprinkling fairy dust around his feet. Before he could say a word, they had disappeared. No way could he tell anyone of this magical encounter! This would be a secret for as long as he could keep it. And he had only just learned to say a couple of words by then anyway: he was only two and a half after all. These new friends would keep him company in months to come, when life in his family would take a very unhappy turn.

These elves had also followed Oscar to Tokyo three and a half years later, at the height of his sadness. Grandma couldn’t see them but she didn’t doubt that they existed. She would do anything to make his grandchild feel accepted, and she always showered him with love and her full attention. During the first six months of his stay, his health improved, although he missed his family. But Grandma would teach him many things. She would read him beautiful stories and let him have all the treats he wanted. Peace seemed to have come to stay, until one dreadful night when the Lord of the Darkness himself came to Oscar’s bed and sat at his side. He told him that he was his own child, and Brian wasn’t really his dad.

Oscar screamed: “I don’t believe you!”

Grandma switched the lights on only to find her grandson had wet his bed and was shrieking like a lunatic, beating his head and fists on the wall to the point of bleeding. It took her all of her strength and the help of the night servants to calm him down. Oscar’s seizure ended after twenty minutes of madness. The boy collapsed in bed, as white as a sheet and covered in sweat. His temperature was sky high and he was foaming at the mouth. The following day he was sent to the best neurologist in Tokyo who gave him some medication to calm his nerves. Two days later, he and Grandma were on a plane back to Dublin. The following week, he found himself at St. Anthony’s Institution in Bray. He was to spend the next three weeks there. His life was about to change forever.

At the Institution, Sister Nora was one of the people he feared the most, almost as much as the bogeyman. She was very violent. Beatings were one of the ways used to keep naughty children under control, and she relished her role as teacher of these lessons. Oscar misbehaved all the time. He had to do what the voices told him to do. They made him do the dirtiest of things. He couldn’t help but take off his clothes and run around naked. He couldn’t help but play with his willy until thrilling sparkles ran through his limbs. He couldn’t help but say bad words. He couldn’t help but wet his bed. He couldn’t help but break windows, smash furniture, fight with the other children. What else was he supposed to do? He was a sinner: the grown-ups had told him so many times.

In the second week of his stay, he was sent to the special ward where they housed all the boys as bad as he. They all seemed very quiet at first. Of course, they were sedated. Most of them had already undergone electroshock therapy, and soon he would also face this treatment. It was the last hope. His parents came to visit him twice. Mum cried every time she saw him. Dad wore a serious expression and told him to chin up. All Oscar wanted to know was how Conor was, and if he missed his big brother. Otherwise, words failed him.

The more silent he turned, the louder the voices started to become in his head. One night the bad ones told him that the next day was going to be the toughest day of his life. That he would lose his mind completely. That the treatment he was to undergo was very strong and very painful. Oscar wanted to sleep and forget about it all, except he knew that upon awakening, he would be greeted by the worst, scariest day of his life. He wanted to die. He started praying that he could die. The voices laughed at him. He was the child of the devil. He opened his eyes in the hope that they would stop.

When he turned his head to the window next to his bed, he saw a face reflected in the windowpane, although no one else was there with him. Perhaps the little people were now playing tricks on him. But this was the face of a little girl. She was probably a couple of years younger than him and had big, bright eyes. She put her index finger to her lips and signaled to him that he should hush. Then she nodded and smiled. Light radiated around her. Oscar’s breathing became deep and regular. A strong sense of peace pervaded his mind and his limbs.

Who was that girl? Surely she was an angel. Or perhaps a ghost, a girl who had died in the hospital, suffering at the hands of Sister Nora and her entourage. Oscar thought that now he didn’t mind dying. It was definitely a much better choice than recovering and having to go through life with the mark of the devil branded on his soul.

 “Shhhhhh,” the girl said.

Sleep came to Oscar’s rescue. His thoughts melted into a pharmaceutical kaleidoscope of shapes, spiraling down to the pitch-black depths of his love-starved heart. Then there was a long interval of void-like nothingness, until he saw two green eyes that shone like fluorescent lights. They opened up in the blackness to spread Light on that dark night of his soul. They were so bright that even the charcoal shadows of his personal hell couldn’t defeat them.

The pale light of the morning came filtering through the curtains, and Oscar awoke to another wet bed. He wasn’t ashamed anymore. He expected to feel afraid at the thought of what was in store for him that morning, but the fear wasn’t forthcoming. He was calm and centered instead. That girl was his Savior: she could sweep all bad thoughts away. He sat up in bed rubbing his fists onto his eyes. He was still sleepy. He went to the washroom and took a quick cold shower. He got dressed in his daytime clothes and went downstairs to the laundry room where he washed his bed linen. Then he returned to the bedroom and made his bed. Now he was ready. He sat and waited for Sister Nora and Doctor Morrissey. He noticed something on the chair next to his bed: a golden chain with an angel medal. The girl must have left it. He put it under his pillow. That medal would have the power to return him to her even after what was awaiting him that day.

The nun arrived. Oscar followed her along the long, white corridor, walking on automatic pilot and breathing deeply. They entered an otherwise claustrophobic lift that took them to the vaults under the dormitory. The darkness in the huge room made his eyes squint. A bed stood in front of him, with a machine behind it. It looked like a shelf with many glass tubes on it. A number of wires spread out of the support, with pads attached to their ends. Oscar was put lying down on the bed and was injected with the medicine that had never failed to tranquilize him. He fell into a state of numbness. All he could think about was his breath. The little girl was next to him in spirit. He detected her presence and this made him feel calm. It didn’t matter that he might have died in that experiment. She would be there with him whichever way, whether he was going to be alive or dead after the electroshock. He wasn’t altogether certain that she didn’t belong to the land of the dead already.

Arkadia watching the same event, 19 December 1971

The Great Diamond Lodge was in session. We, the Arkadian Masters, were sending high frequencies to Oscar right when the anesthetic was entering his blood flow. There were four adhesive pads applied to his forehead. We saw a nurse put a belt around his temples and fasten it tightly.

Oscar was made to count backwards. When he became unconscious, the doctor put a teeth-guard in his mouth. Then the current was switched on. Oscar’s body jolted as if struck by a lightning bolt. One hundred and seventy volts ran through his tiny, fragile limbs for five whole minutes. Kassandra’s astral body – she was indeed the little girl who had comforted him the previous night - stood next to him with her hands on his heart, to protect him from certain death. Nobody in the room could see her. She was making sure that Oscar, one of the youngest patients ever to undergo electroconvulsive therapy in Ireland, would wake up after the treatment. His heart was weak, but it belonged to her. She would do everything in her power to preserve it.

In this life, Oscar had chosen a difficult way to remember his True Identity: the Path of Sorrow. Only by allowing himself to experience the depths of despair would he remember his function in the Plan. He was Kassandra’s Earthly Twin Soul. She had known of him and his fate even when she was still a little girl. She hadn’t quite grasped it rationally. But she would often daydream of a beautiful little boy with sad almond-shaped, hazel eyes. Oscar was her invisible friend in her make-believe stories in which he needed her protection to escape from the Darkness. She would always shine her Light on his scared little heart. But her imaginary friend and his misadventures were more real than she could have envisaged then.

We, the Arkadian Masters, could read the thoughts of the medical staff in the room as the procedure was being carried out. They didn’t mean to harm Oscar. They wanted the boy lying on the plinth to wake up only with the memory of good episodes and experiences from his past. Everything else would be swept away by the current, they believed. Of course, they knew that there was an inherent risk that his mental capacity would be reduced by the seizures induced by this therapy to modify his behavior. They only wanted to damage what they saw as problematic portions of his brain. If all went well, he would forget the symptoms of his badness because that brain damage would simply delete them. He might end up with some cognitive impairment, but his life would be almost normal.

Sister Nora looked serene as she glanced over the activities around Oscar’s unconscious body. She was shrouded in a cloud of Darkness, and she was praying for ‘the mark of the devil’ to be washed away from ‘this little sinner’s soul’. She wasn’t really sure that it could be possible.

We knew that the nun was evil. How could she otherwise have kept silent in the face of the Oscar’s terrible ordeal a week earlier? Just like Kassandra, we had seen what had happened to him in the Infirmary. Yet we couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Of course, the wound it would cause in his soul couldn’t be wiped away by any machine. It would take time, awareness and love to heal. Right then, all we could do was send high frequencies of Light to Kassandra at such a delicate junction, when her love for Oscar was helping him to stay alive.