Niko’s Eye

Chapter 73.

Isis

There wasn’t a day where Isis shuddered at the thought that Aisha had almost made her put her guard down. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever she was expressing, could have been real. After telling Alejandro what had happened, he agreed that she might have been trying to express remorse, but because the feeling was not familiar to her, she did not know how to let it out.

Isis shifted in her seat, there was air of umbrage to her that was unusual.

"We all experience me versus me, the higher angelic self versus the primitive monster. Some of us step beyond the boundaries of the ordinary and seek to bring a better world for the many to our expense and peace of mind. Yet when we fail, when an inevitable circumstance arises that blinds our higher self and switches on the monster, the public condemnation is swift and brutal. How they love to throw rotten tomatoes from their cheap seats. It just feels like we’re one of those people throwing rotten tomatoes at Aisha you know. I mean, it shouldn’t be easy to accept her wrong deeds, of course, but we can’t be the ones to hold up a personal mob justice against her in our brains."

Alejandro laughed." A personal mob justice in our brains? That’s rich!"

Isis threw a Cheeto at Alejandro, which he smoothly ducked.

"You’re always eating those things. And throwing them at me."

Isis giggled girlishly, before starting. "After the long days of being so alone, the pain ebbed. I thought I would feel the knives in my back forever, the long blades slicing into such sensitive flesh. There were days my brain felt electrocuted, so violently defocused and the pain, the emotional pain, was so all encompassing I simply existed as a matter of will power. They say you come out of these things stronger, and I guess that’s true, but you come out wiser too. I still have my loving heart, I am proud to say. I still have my idealism and courage. I still take forward leaps whether I can see the ground or not. But this heart, it’s not for everyone, it’s not for the ones who threw the knives, forgiven though they are. I need to forgive her, and let this thing go. For my own sake. This is my journey now. I’m gonna be married soon. I’m gonna start my own family and I have to have the right frame of mind, state of heart and spritual shift for all of that. To be able to project the right kind of love to my kids, and to you. I don’t want to be afraid of loving just because I was let down."

Alejandro nodded in agreement and pulled Isis closer to him.

"Do you abandon your friends, or yourself, or is it much the same thing? For when you find yourself, your true self, you will find them also. You will see all of their actions, the ones you felt as crimes, for what they really were - the confusion of lost souls, ones who haven’t seen a guiding light for some time. So, trust me when I say this to you, "Walk this way, toward this childish spirit who sees with the heart and loves as birdsong in a summer breeze. Reach for the child-self you were born as, reconnect with innocence, and humble joy. Relearn the sweetness of giving as freely as sunshine and rain. Grow enough courage to step into the soft grass and flowers, so that one day you can see yourself as I do, so you can have inner peace and dream in true liberty. I’m right here."

Even though the visit to Aisha didn’t go according to expectation, I think I shouldn’t have had any to begin with. I accept everything as it is and I will just take it one step at a time.

Sergio.

"What did you say to Alejandro and Isis?"

Sergio looked into the sunken eyes of Aisha. "And what’s going on with you? The maniac in you is deteriorating huh?", he scoffed.

Sergio thought to himself that if she had said anything to deformate his character, Alejandro would have been trying to reach his cellphone already, but there was no missed calls, emails or texts. Which made him think that, he might have been wasting his time here in Croatia.

He scratched his stubbled chin annoyingly and decided to say things he’s always wanted to tell her.

"I gave to you freely from a sense of deep love, yet you assumed you had taken it from dominance. I saw our relationship as cooperation, yet you saw manipulation instead of helping words, as if we were in some bizarre live game of chess. It broke my heart to realize that you saw a cold war instead of sweet love, for it was all in your head, a paranoia. All I ever wanted to do was love you and bring happiness, to heal where you were hurt. What I gave, I gave freely from my soul, yet you thought yourself entitled to all I ever had and more. You were as a guest at a restaurant who, because he pays the bill, he feels entitled to be rude to the chef. Yet love is more akin to cooking one another meals for the joy of feeding the other, the coziness that comes from nurturing being the reward. What you saw and felt isn’t love at all; I’m sorry that I failed to teach you, yet it was also your duty to learn. I should have seen the signs, how you were cold, how you never took the initiative for connecting with touching words or physical love. I should have seen how every good thing you achieved was solely accredited to you, yet all my achievements were also accredited to you. I wish you had learned humility, humbleness and kindness, the happiness that comes from feeling as part of a team, one where each is boosted by the other, proud of the other’s success. Love brings joy to giving, it is the difference between feeling as a valued helping friend or a slave; it’s the magic ingredient that makes everything wonderful. What you showed me was indifference to my pains, refusing my emotional needs, demanding resilience and compliance. Leaving you was a harsh road to my "bad place," a personal hell, yet in truth, it was also the only road to my "good place," my best chance at a better life and, with luck, one day experiencing real love. I hope you find your way too, that you learn how to truly love instead of hiding behind that mask of what you suppose friendliness is."

He took a deep breath.

"Alright Aisha, it was alright to see you again. Bye."

He was out of there as fast as his two legs could carry him, straight onto a plan that flew him back to Barbados, without anyone recognizing or noticing him.

Thats the power of a mayor.

Belvia.

Belvia looked outside of her window and saw her children pulling in through the driveway.

It’s time.

She sucked in a sharp breath that almost ruptured her oesophagus.

She turned her attention back to the television show that she had been trying to concentrate on for the past 30 minutes.

Psychosis is a natural response to being unable to solve problems, Casey."

"How d’ya mean?"

"In childhood we are more creative, that part of our brain that dreams at night has more access to our daytime thinking and we can dream up the most wonderful fantasies, live them in a sort of way. It’s what small children do all the time."

"Go on."

"But for the most part we fail to continue using our imaginations, or rather, it gets ’educated’ out of us. The brain connections between the subconscious and the conscious minds weaken, like when anything is unused. But in times of serious problems, of high stress, the brain panics and tries to reconnect them. The result is ’awake dreaming’ or ’psychosis.’ And since the person is already in crisis, it’s difficult to handle."

"So what are you saying we do for them?"

"Oh, sorry my dear, you misunderstand. We can help the sick, but the real work is in the schools, in stopping the destruction of the connections in the first place. Above all kids need to be nurtured with love and have the freedom to use their imaginations without fear of judgement. Then they will grow with healthy and fully connected minds, far far more intelligent than we are. All this takes time, but we can cure everything with whole and connected minds... everything. Future generations will be solving problems in their sleep, solving them in play, fun and work will be the same thing. Casey, it’s the key to utopia."

Sanity is just a limited mind. Sanity is a mental operating system accepted by the masses as within normal parameters. I’m not like you, I have something different. I can shift from one operating system to another quite invisibly. You won’t ever know which one I’m using because I don’t have to tell you a god damn thing. Until your shrinks can mind read, we’re done. No more cosy chats, no more honesty, no more drugs, no more rooms without door handles. I don’t need you anymore. I’m not mentally ill. I’m the gingerbread man.