4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Alex
“Alex,” pleaded Ditta, “focus on my voice. This isn’t a mere panic attack. You’re starting to feel cosmic energy flowing through your body. You can learn to control it.” Ditta reached across the table and placed her hand on Alex’s. “Focus on my voice. Let the energy flow through you rather than letting it build up in your body. As you breathe out, let the energy flow back into the cosmos.”
He breathed slowly with his eyes closed, before meeting Ditta’s gaze. How did she do that? He’d never had a panic attack pass so quickly. Alex could see Danyal rising from his barstool, but raised his hand to signal him not to approach.
“Have you been having more anxiety attacks lately?” she asked.
Alex nodded yes.
Ditta told Alex what he was experiencing was a fraction of cosmic energy flowing through his body. Given his history, his mind had no references to define the experience, so it interpreted the experience as a panic attack. She stated the good news was, he'd learn to control the cosmic energy in time. At this point, Ditta questioned if he still refused to believe her. She continued, saying it was a rare soul indeed that could contain both forces. Ditta asked Alex to look around the room. Each person has a spark in their core that burns bright pink for Eros, or else there’s the blackness of Thanatos. She added Alex could see this spark or the void, whether he knew it or not.
Just then, Ditta turned to face the elderly couple in the corner and asked Alex to concentrate and investigate the core being of the woman.
“I’m not playing your parlor game,” Alex said, still catching his breath.
“What are you afraid of, Alex? Prove me wrong,” said Ditta.
Alex sat quietly and stared at the woman. As his gaze lingered, his face went pale, and his eyes widened like a child’s on Christmas morning.
“What did you see, Alex? Something shocked you?”
“The woman has a dim pink spark in her chest. It’s faint, but it’s there. The husband has a more vibrant pink spark in his chest. Does he love her more?”
Ditta clarified that the man does not “love her more.” It’s a tragedy, she said. They’ve been married for fifty-five years, and she’s developed dementia and is slowly forgetting him and their love. Ditta said she was pleased Alex noticed the differing intensity of their sparks, and wanted him to try another person. She pointed to the businessman at the bar in the blue suit.
This one posed no challenge, Alex said; his core is solid black.
Ditta agreed, saying the bearded man was a sadist who worked for a banking conglomerate, his driving force being power and greed. His only relationships revolved around power and control, which were aspects of Thanatos. Ditta said she was pleased Alex was getting the hang of it. She added that each human being has a dominant driving force, that doesn't change. For example, Mother Teresa, Jesus, Mohammad, Roosevelt, and Carter were pure Eros. Humans consumed by Thanatos—such as Hitler, Dahmer, Bundy, and Trump were easy to name. Their only goal was bringing about death, destruction, and chaos.
Ditta noted she could see the fear in Alex's eyes; he was afraid to look at Danyal. She gently said to him, “Danyal loves you and has Eros in his core. However, darkness surrounds his heart.”
“Stop!” Alex exclaimed. Why was she doing this to him?
“Alex, control your emotions; you’re making a scene.”
He was making a scene? She was the one putting on her one-woman show about battling eternal forces.
Ditta told Alex that she wasn't trying to hurt him or toy with his emotions. She was trying to prepare him for the next step in his evolution. She recommended they move forward and wouldn’t focus on Danyal if Alex was uncomfortable. Ditta added that Danyal had been a much-needed step in Alex's development. “How can you become Eros if you haven’t experienced passionate love and desire? You needed to feel the depths of love and intimacy, so I sent him your way to further your development.”
Alex interrupted, raising his voice even louder, “What the fuck are you talking about? You sent him my way?”
Ditta asked whether Alex thought it was a coincidence that, the day he and Danyal met, he'd gotten on the wrong bus, that his phone died, and that he had to get off and find a café to charge it, even though he despised café culture. That there was an unexpectedly hot guy serving him at the café, who was into history and struck up a conversation with him. She said it was a small feat to make their paths cross. Did he think it was a coincidence he got on the wrong bus and was lost due to mass transit? Did he think it was odd that his phone was dead, and he sat at a cafe charging it when he despises cafe culture? Unexpectedly, the hot guy deep into history waiting on other guests smiled and started making small talk.
“Within three days, you were in bed together and have never parted because your attraction was explosive. It's been eleven months, six days, two hours, ten minutes, and five seconds since that fateful moment. Eros knows all when it comes to affairs of the heart.”
She continued saying that, for the record, the love and lust was all real, but going beyond the passion phase was never intended. Danyal had enough of an Eros spark that could be manipulated in order for him to cross Alex’s path. But the Eros Danyal now possessed was an enigma that shouldn’t exist. Ditta said Eros can only limit or suppress a being’s Thanatos for a brief period. As a result, Eros can’t change a human at their core. She'd tried and failed many times to limit the impact of Thanatos. But watching Alex’s relationship blossom with Danyal, going against the laws of the universe, Ditta said she realized the only reason Danyal had the growing ability to love Alex, was because Alex was lightening Danyal’s darkness. Ditta confirmed she didn't have this ability, and it was the moment she knew Alex's abilities were finally developing, and it was time to accelerate his transformation.
Alex stared at Ditta in disbelief. He grasped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white. What were his options to end this conversation? Should he walk away? Grab Danyal and just leave?
Ditta confronted Alex, saying that leaving would be a mistake and that the next step in his development was to guide or direct the Eros spark in others. She pointed to the young woman at the bar, sitting beside the man with the beard. Her spark was dim, being asexual, but it was still there. Ditta instructed Alex in his mind’s eye to imagine her kissing the bearded man and to make it happen.
“So much for the #metoo movement,” Alex said sarcastically.
“Funny, Alex. It's Thanatos that's to blame for sexually exploitative behavior. Concentrate, build the spark, then turn the spark into action.”
Alex closed his eyes and was silent. He opened his eyes, and to Alex’s shock and amazement, the young woman leaned over to the bearded man and kissed him on the cheek before slapping him across the face and walking out the door. Ditta giggled with glee and added that he had wimped out on the kiss, but the slap was appropriate and amusing. Looking around the room, Ditta pointed to the next lesson and said she wouldn’t make him do anything more tonight if he completed this task. She told Alex about the intense shame felt by the two guys playing pool who were secretly hooking up. She demanded Alex ignite their spark of attraction and make them kiss publicly.
“No,” Alex said sternly. He wouldn’t do it. Alex refused to out them for Ditta’s amusement.
“Alex, our time is short, and you have two choices. Either you can make them kiss, or I can make them start fucking on the pool table. Your choice.”
Alex sat defiantly with his arms crossed, refusing to do as she commanded. Ditta smiled and nodded to the pool table, as both men began to unbuckle their belts.
“Stop this bullshit!” Alex exclaimed as he slammed his fist on the table, knocking over his beer.
“You know how to stop it, Alex. Just one kiss.”
Alex turned towards the men and imagined the most passionate kiss possible, and the men willingly played along, entering into an intense embrace that shook them to their core. They couldn’t hide their desires any more or their erections. He watched as their sparks burst into a blaze.
“Bravo!” Ditta said and applauded. “You impressed me, but you did one thing wrong.”
Alex responded, angry and confused, “I did exactly what you asked?”
“Yes, you did. But look around the room, Alex. Every person in this room is engaged in a kiss.”
To Alex’s astonishment, the entire bar was kissing except for Danyal. Stop kissing, he thought and the room returned to normal as if the kissing outbreak had never happened.
Ditta smiled across the table and congratulated Alex on a remarkable show of Eros. She added the ability to control the entire room except for Danyal, showed considerable control and determination. She smiled and wondered aloud if people were kissing for miles outside the bar. Ditta stated this exercise illustrated his final lesson. She warned Alex he must keep his desires and emotions in check. If he loves too much and loses, the universe will suffer his depression and grief. If his love turns to resentment and hate, Thanatos will take control, and the universe will risk destruction.
Ditta looked at her watch, saying the time was almost nigh, but that she had one last revelation for Alex. She warned him that his transformation into becoming the Eros force wasn’t assured. At dawn, he'd either become an immortal force of creation and rebirth, or his body would explode at the cellular level, unable to harness Eros. As his abilities grew, her life force was waning.
With tears in her eyes, Ditta stated the last gift she could give Alex was the time to spend his final fleeting moments of human existence in Danyal’s arms. “Eternity is a long time, Alex, and agents of destruction will threaten you. I'd hoped Thanatos had been too distracted by causing death and destruction in Ukraine to notice my plans—but there was no way that a cosmic force would take kindly to a substantial change in the laws of the universe.”
She further cautioned Alex that Thanatos rarely gets his hands dirty. “Beware the Sons of Enyaluis, for they are his right hand and do his bidding.” She warned Alex to question every decision and think very carefully where he placed his trust. Ditta said she hoped he'd love, and allow his Eros to transform the universe and humanity. She added she wanted him to take this opportunity to enjoy one last night of pleasure, regardless of the outcome. Ditta thanked Alex for giving the universe new hope. “Godspeed,” Ditta said as she stood and kissed Alex on the forehead.
“Where are you going?” asked Alex.
“I don't know, Alex. I hope to walk out the door into the unknown peace of oblivion. Freedom is a feeling I have long forgotten, but I embrace whatever comes next without fear.”
With that, Ditta turned and walked out into the driving snow. Alex lost sight of her as she disappeared into the snow and darkness of the night.
Danyal quickly approached the table and hugged Alex tenderly. “That looked intense. Are you OK?” Danyal whispered into Alex’s ear.
“No,” said Alex as he grasped Danyal tightly. He knew his life would never be the same again. He wanted to live this night as if it were his last, in case he didn’t survive in the morning.
“Please take me home and never let me go,” said Alex. Tomorrow and the universe be damned.
“Bring the chocolates with you; I’m dying for a taste,” said Danyal, flashing his devilish grin that stoked the spark in Alex’s core to an inferno—one that threatened to consume them both.