Chapter 1 

I felt a bit strangulated and remorse that I had caused even the slightest hurt to anyone. I could not say anything. I couldn’t apologize or indicate how sorry I was. These visages came, entered me, made their statements and then vanished. I was left with the memory and remorse. “Well, that feels like dying,” I thought. And I believed I was going through the first stages of death, perhaps experiencing the phases of death, perhaps entering Hell for all I knew. No, I knew too much for it to be Hell. Dozens more passed through me, including close intimates who I hadn’t had the faintest idea I’d hurt them. Some of them, some of the women, I did. But then, they had hurt me as well so I always said we were even. But they came and plagued me. They came and were like sorcerers the way my mind got confused and dizzy, even nauseated.

One said, “You did not have respect.”

I wanted to yell out, “I was a young guy, I didn’t know anything. Had I known I was hurting you I would have stopped doing whatever I was doing?”

But they passed on silently, without humor, without expression one after the other. They had not originated from anywhere in particular. They just came up and at me and I was defenseless. I was not ready for the onslaught and for the longest time I just floated around wishing I was back in my house, back in my bed or talking up the games with friends and letting life run out however it wanted to.

David Eide
January 24, 2014