Tantric coil—friction.

Ember glow. Thermal ignition.

Tameless firestorm.

©2024 Chris Sadhill

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you take the time to really look at yourself? To spend a meaningful moment with yourself?

What do you see?

Is it beauty, success, greatness—a future best-selling novelist? Or do you see a monster: unhappy, fearful, a failure? Perhaps a procrastinator, a fraud, a “fatty” undeserving of love and praise, or something else. Maybe it’s a bit of everything.

Maybe you see nothing at all.

And when I say look, I mean peering through those dazed pupils deep into your soul, having an unspoken conversation with yourself. A head check. A state of the YOU-nion with your subconscious.

Be honest. What do you see?

---

I rarely look at myself, but when I do, I see a...

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'til next time...

Helplessness is a dagger, leaving behind the nastiest scars. Its trademark: dual edges, cutting everyone involved and killing them simultaneously, with nothing anybody can do about it. It’s uncalculated, irrational, and sporadic—the worst kind of killer. At least, that’s how it feels when you’re knee-deep in shit, wondering how you’re still alive and struggling to understand your life’s purpose. It’s misery on a plate, and you’re forbidden to leave the table until you’ve swallowed every last bite.

You may feel like you’re stuck in a relationship, drowning in debt, losing your mind, addicted to drugs, or a slave to alcohol. Maybe you’re jobless, carless, homeless, and feeling like a burden to those around you—or yourself. Helplessness is knowing you inevitably need help...

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'til next time...

The inferiority complex is damaging and toxic, and if left unchecked poisonous to the blood. It quickly seeps its way into the brain and tarnishes all of your thoughts and every decision. It destroys your functionality, ruins relationships, and diminishes the potential to achieve the best version of yourself. It affects your self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence. It affects your Self and any sense you may have of it. It disorients you and leaves you stranded in the world, never knowing where you belong or where you stand. It acts like an ego and begs you to seek attention through any means possible. It’s narcissistic and its byproduct is the welfare state of mind. But like all things, our perceptions and our reactions those perceptions have drastically different outcomes depending on one’s life experiences and perspectives.

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'til next time...

Here we go. There’s no turning back now. I’ve officially added yet another thing to my “I’ve taken on too much” list and I'm now obligated to entertain you fine folks.

My newsletter is finally here after tons of procrastination, fighting over what to write, and struggling to believe no one will care to read it.

As I write this, I’m still winging it, so expect this thing to transform and progress over time, but regardless of the journey, I appreciate...

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'til next time...

there is no face in the window.

asylum.

a·sy·lum

/əˈsīləm/

noun

1. the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee.

shelter or protection from danger.

2. an institution offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill.

how confidently i announced

that ghosts were nothing more

than figments

of an imaginative (or perhaps deluded)

mind.

$2,000. help wanted.

i thought,

what the hell? why not?

the cameraman never dies.

it never crossed my mind

that the cameraman

could suffer a fate worse than death.

there is no face in the window.

they even provided me a camera;

some fancy gadget

they ordered off of amazon

that claimed to be able to record

the paranormal.

it was heavy. i figured if a ghost came at me,

i'd go down swinging 300 dollars

worth of equipment at their dead face.

we saw nothing.

honestly, as much of a skeptic as i was,

i've always hoped something

(or someone)

would prove me wrong.

as we walked through the hallways,

grainy, dim-lit footage marking our path,

i found myself hoping:

show me something, anything.

we marched along for hours,

with a kid four years younger than me

narrating the scene.

"12:34 p.m., eastern standard time...

no signs of any activity yet. my name is

kevin schumer, i'm here with my crew

and tonight we are joined by..."

he pauses.

"the cameraman," I finish,

which prompts a few uneasy giggles.

yep, that's me,

the eternal watcher.

i see and i record

for posterity.

there is no face in the window.

we were there until four a.m.

our eyelids had grown heavy.

our livestream had exactly one viewer.

perhaps that was why

i felt like i was being watched.

nothing had happened. no doors

had slammed, no windows broken.

we were alone.

yet i could not shake the feeling...

there is no face in the window.

i drove myself home.

headlights lit up the parking lot.

yellow lines. black asphalt.

then darkness again

as i made my way up

three flights of stairs

to my apartment.

my lights refused to turn on.

a power outage? or had my power

been cut?

i did not know. i was too tired to care.

tomorrow, my check would hit

my account

and then i could solve the problem

of late rent.

i laid down,

in nothing but boxer shorts,

awaiting the release of sleep,

and found that

i could not hold my eyes shut.

a feeling was sinking into my spine

like a numbing injection

and i found myself tingling with

some unseen awareness.

i was being watched.

there is no face in the window.

it has been

three weeks

since i had looked outside

that night

to reassure myself

that i was alone.

there is no face in the window.

yet the feeling did not leave.

it only grew.

more and more, i believed

i was hunted. haunted.

there is no face in the window.

each night i check the door,

the closet, the bed, the window—

wait, the window—

tonight,

(one last desperate cry,

the moment before the mind

shatters)

THERE IS NO FACE IN THE WINDOW.

it has followed me home.

now i will follow it home.

to my sanctuary.

to my asylum.

i am the face in the window.

you will feel me watching,

just as i felt it.

when you look outside tonight,

do not trust your eyes. trust

your instincts.

there is a face in the window.

I was home alone when they came. My boys were trekking up Mount Kyanjin Ri in Nepal and I was getting a little staycation. No cooking, minimal cleaning, reading, writing and sleeping without being awakened by earthshaking snores or multiple visits to the bathroom that didn’t coincide with my own.

I always thought I would have a heart attack and die if someone broke into my home in the middle of the night. Alternatively, I saw myself grabbing the surprisingly sharp pocketknife I keep by the bed and shocking said invader with a nicely placed jab to the neck…or wherever my flying fist might land.

I did neither.

It was my third night alone and I was sleeping like a baby when a hand covered my mouth, startling me awake for the seconds it took another set of hands to put pressure on my carotid arteries. At least, I assume that’s what he did. All I know is one second I was ready to bite a hand and scream, the next I was waking up in what appeared to be a one-room cabin. I was laying on a cot, hands and feet bound, while seven men sat watching me.

“I hope you don’t think you can actually get a ransom for me. We own a small business. We don’t have major profits. We pay our bills and have no debt. That’s it. You seriously chose the wrong side of town. You know we live on the blue and pink-collar side of town, right? I mean, you saw our house. What were you thinking?”

I babble when I’m nervous. Needless to say, I was nervous.

“You have been chosen,” said the only un-bearded fellow.

You can imagine where my mind went but all I said was, “Is this some kind of religious thing?”

“No,” replied a different guy.

“Kind of,” said a third.

Right. “What have I been chosen for?”

“To kill us.”

I giggled, also a nervous habit. “Great. Give me a gun and the keys to a car.”

“It is not that simple.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“We were sent here long ago as punishment. We had to live and suffer as you humans…”

“Whoa, what. Wait. You humans? Um, I am sure I don’t really want to know, but, if you are not human, what are you?”

“There is no word for us that you would understand.”

“Fallen angels?” I said, giggling again while my skin had goosebumps and a sheen of sweat.

“More like gods, than the angels that come to your mind.”

“Well, if you are gods, how did you get sent here?”

“We angered the Creator. Our punishment is eternal damnation. Eternal damnation is living and suffering as a human without end. We cannot die.”

“Then how am I supposed to kill you?

“It is the night of the seventh moon in the seventh year of the seventh century since we were relieved of all that made us gods and forced to be but men.”

“Okay.”

“On this night alone, and not again for another seven hundred of your years, the barriers between this plane and ours will open for seven hours – from now until dawn. In that time, if we are killed, we will finally throw off the chains of our earthly imprisonment and return to our true existence.”

“And if I kill you, I get to go home?”

“Yes.”

“So, give me a gun.”

“As I said, it is not that simple.”

“Yeah, I remember. So, what’s the deal?”

“We cannot just let you kill us. We must run away from you, and we have to try not to die. You have to catch us and stab us seven times with this dagger,” the un-bearded one said, pointing to a very pointy knife with a bejeweled handle that I hadn't noticed on the cot next to me.

“Well, I guess you’re stuck here because there is no way I can do that. Have you looked at yourselves lately?” They were seated, but it was obvious they were all in the over six feet, six pack, I eat steak for breakfast and bench-press your mom group.

’While the barriers are down, you will be able to tap into energies and powers you’ve never dreamed of. But you must figure it out on your own or else it would be considered cheating, and we will continue to rot in this hell.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“I did.”

“Oy. Anyway, I have never killed anyone, and it is not on my list of things to do. Couldn’t you take me home and get someone else to do it? Why not hire a contract killer or something.”

“We cannot hire someone. That would be cheating.”

“And this isn’t?”

They looked at each other.

“You have been chosen by the Creator.”

“You are fricking kidding me. You must have really pissed him, or her, off.”

“Clearly since we are here.”

“No, I mean, I am the last person in the world to choose to kill someone. Seriously.”

“If you do not kill us, you will die.”

“As I said, last person. I’ve been suicidal since I was 12. Get it over with. Just shoot me now.”

“You do not want to die.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I definitely don’t want to stab seven men.”

“If you do not find and kill at least one of us an hour for the next seven hours, you will lose a finger each hour. If you do not kill us all by dawn, those you have killed will rise as we have ever done these last seven hundred years we have tried to die in the many wars that have plagued the earth, and you will be beheaded – by seven strokes of seven angry immortal men.”

“That sounds horribly painful.”

The only one who hadn’t spoken looked at me with haunted eyes and said, “It is.”

I wasn't certain we were talking about the same thing.

“Fine, I guess I have no choice. Untie me.”

They looked at each other with a sense of hope or dread, not sure which. “You must free yourself. And you must do it without one of your fingers.” As he said this, one moved quickly to flip me on my side and, using something that must have been made for cutting off fingers, he snipped off my pinkie.

I was still screaming when they left the cabin.

I wasted fifteen minutes of the first hour whimpering. Then I started to think. Okay, if the walls are down, so to speak, and those guys were supposedly like gods, I must be able to tap into some powerful energy.

Why would I be chosen? I thought. Well, because it had to be someone who didn’t want to kill, who had a healthy fear of a painful death if not death itself…what else? Maybe also someone who wanted to believe in other worlds and beings or varying layers of existence… who wasn’t power hungry.I suspect someone who sought power would have a field day figuring out what powers he could get tonight and how to hold on to them.

I just wanted to get home so I could see my boys again. I might even take off from work and hop on a plane like they’d wanted.

A half hour had gone by before I thought, so, if the walls are down, on this amalgamated plane, my pinkie is not gone and the bindings on me do not exist.

And it was so.

I took a deep breath. OMG, I thought. I wanted to think myself anywhere but there, but figured I would end up fingerless and headless, so instead, I grabbed the dagger and went out the door. I thought myself into the form of an owl, carrying the dagger in my claws. I flew above the surrounding forest and began my hunt.

I found the first within minutes. I landed in the branch above where he hid, retook a human form and landed a death blow before he knew I was there. And then I added the six to complete the seven stabs.

And yes, I meant “a human form.” Why take my normal, five foot seven, 120-pound form when I could be six foot six carrying two hundred fifty pounds of pure muscle?

I thought myself into owl form and set off to find the other six.

I found all but one within the first three hours, but I hunted all night for the seventh, flying miles of circles around the cabin. I finally flew back to the cabin to rest and think. As I was landing, I saw him through the window. He was sitting, looking at the door, a gun in his hand.

Hmmm, I thought. Either he doesn’t want to go back, or he has to make a good showing.

I flew up to the roof. I heard him speaking.

“I know you are near. I can feel you. You will not be able to kill me, and my brothers will come back, and we will have to stay here. We will take your head and we will have life still. I don’t want to return to the ether. I have grown to love this world. I do not want to leave it.”

Great.

I wondered how to get in the cabin without being seen. Then I thought, why go in the cabin? If there were no air in the cabin, he would suffocate and die. Bingo!

I could hear him choking from my perch on the roof. Within moments, there was silence.

I flew down and peeked in the window. He was on the floor, unmoving. I thought restraints onto his wrists, just in case, and removed the gun from the room. Then I entered, dagger at the ready. As I stabbed him for the seventh and last time, his body faded away or perhaps it was just me, for I found myself standing over my bed in my home. Alone.

The dagger was still in my hand.

To sit in silence is to face oneself. A break in conversation to hear what the other has to say. The other: your feet. The other: your organs. The other: the pain in your back whose cries are stifled by social anxieties each day when you leave the house. A locking door to an empty room, a place of silence. A place of overwhelming complaints, of longings, of terrible, horrible things. To sit in silence is to sit in chaos.

To sit in silence is to reflect into the mirror that is the undistracted heart. When the room floods, what is it that rises to the surface? What sinks? And which will you remember to move to a higher shelf? Do not fret though. The sunken and forgotten with age will become treasure that will be most novel to rediscover. By someone else of course, not you. The next tenant, hypothetical grandchildren, or a sparrow to use for their nest. To sit in silence is to scramble to the top of the trash heap.

To sit in silence is to gaze into the crystal ball you have spent your life creating. To revel and to mourn. To anticipate and predict. To worry and to dread. To sit in silence is to be assured that all is factual that is broadcasted from you and if the forecast is dire, you need to take shelter soon.

To sit in silence is to levitate in a spacious moment. At the counter between customers when the store is empty. On the near-empty bus late at night between stops. On a walk as the battery on your phone finally runs out. To sit in silence is not to sit at all.

To sit in silence is to squirm uncomfortably in your chair, in your clothes, in your skin. To sit in silence is to notice you are physically alone, and to realize the music, the podcasts, the radio are not your friends after all. To sit in silence is to notice silence. To sit in silence is to remember how untethered you are. Levitating, cartwheeling, sleeping, gliding, landing and launching. All you do to feel as though you are going somewhere, reaching something, reaching someone. To watch time pass and feel it pass to always arrive at the same place. To sit in silence is to face oneself.

I woke to dust motes. They drifted lazily, basking in the light from my open window in the early sunrise. I rolled my eyes at them. A year or two ago, I might've gotten lost in the way they looked like a thousand shards of glitter. I might've smiled softly and lifted my fingers to send them stirring on a tiny, frantic breeze. Today, like every other day for the last six years, they only reminded me of my utter ineptitude. I couldn't keep my bedroom dusted, for Christ's sake, how could I be expected to achieve anything truly substantial at all? Not that I wanted to. No. I'd greedily retreated into the mundane, into normalcy, routine, whatever. This. This is the life I wanted. This is the life I chose.

The words haunted me as I scurried into the bathroom and slathered body wash under a tepid stream of water. They slithered along my skin along with the brisk toweling down I gave myself after. They sang with every sweep of the hair brush. Hell, I could even hear them in the spritz of perfume I applied: one spurt to my wrist, one splash on my collarbone. Like every other day, it was the same. My body fell into a rhythm, moving without me giving any conscious thought at all. It was so mindless, I was hardly surprised when I found myself sitting at my desk at work with no memory of the drive, stacking paperwork tidily, as I did every morning. I settled into my chair and nursed at my coffee. My insulated mug kept it a little too hot, so I pried off the lid, let the steam fog my glasses and took in my cluttered desk. The stacked papers were the only thing that looked vaguely organized. Little trinkets were scattered beneath my monitor, a tiny carved dragon, a chipped miniature disco ball, and a bottle cap my daughter had colored with swipes of rainbow crayon. A stained floral mouse-pad sat under my keyboard, the passage of time marked in splashes of spilled coffee and remnants of sandwich crumbs. When I'd gotten the promotion, Daniel had bought the huge mousepad for me. He'd handed it to me nervously, unable to meet my eyes under trembling lashes and muttered, "For that dreary office... something pretty," his voice had caught in his throat as he'd dragged his eyes up to meet mine, "pretty. Like you." I smiled at the memory. That'd been the beginning of the end for me. Those words that'd so obviously taken every ounce of Daniel's bravery to utter had been my undoing. They'd been the beginning of my stagnation.

Daniel was... comfortable. I'd fallen into him like a feather bed. He'd wrapped me up and offered up everything I'd ever dared to dream: a house in the suburbs, two gorgeous kids, a nice-ish car, and a decently good-looking and kind mate to share it with. What more could a girl want? My smile turned bitter and broke, falling off of my face and drowning in my now lukewarm coffee. This is the life I wanted. This is the life I chose. I didn't have anything to complain about. I should be happy. I was happy. If I said it enough, maybe I'd finally believe it.

I spent the next three hours clacking away at the keyboard, organizing figures into columns on my spreadsheet until my eyes went foggy from staring at the screen. I leaned back and pressed my fingers into my eyelids, rubbing a bit to dislodge the fog. A soft knock sounded on my door and Patrick poked his blonde head in, "Hey, you know what day it is, right?" A mischievous grin unfurled above his sculpted jaw.

I smirked, folded my arms, and rocked a little in my chair, "Nah. Enlighten me, Patch."

"Well, muchacha," he snickered, "it is noon, on a Tuesday. I saw Mateo's food truck parked on the avenue. Taco Tuesday. You in?"

"Thank fuck. Yes, I'm in."

Patch barked a laugh, "Is that any way for a boss to speak in front of her underlings?"

I grabbed my coat and gave him a shove as I passed him in the doorway, "Oh, screw off," I chuckled, "you know you love me. And you, Patrick, are not my underling."

He held up placating hands, "Whatever you say." His eyes sparkled with glee and my stomach dropped a little. I took an extra second to look him over, knowing that was as far as it'd ever go. Was Patrick nice to look at? Yes. Very. Did he and I like to flirt? Yes. Was he the only thing that made this miserable job worth it? Also yes. Would either of us ever act on the current of white-hot attraction that flowed between us? No. A resounding no. I had everything I ever wanted, and so did he. Both of us were married with the kids and the house and the doting spouse. So we looked... and looked... but never, ever touched. Well, not really, anyway. Not the way we wanted to.

Patch and I took a long lunch, though that wasn't unusual. We got lost easily in conversation and went over our hour nearly every day. Sometimes when we sat at the sticky picnic table on the sidewalk beside Mateo's Famous Tacos truck, Patrick would let his knee brush mine. He did it today and something sparked when his eyes met mine. I jerked my leg away like I always did, but I knew he'd seen in my eyes that I'd relished the touch. Like he always did. He smirked. I grinned. We both laughed in quiet knowing as we made our way back to the office. This constant hovering on the knife's edge with Patrick was the only thing keeping either of us sane.

The next hours passed in a blur of stirring papers and clicking pens. When it was over, I made the drive home in much the same way I had made the drive to work. I arrived without really knowing how I'd gotten home. Had I stopped at the red lights? Had I gone the speed limit? What music had played? I didn't know. I didn't care. I smacked a kiss onto Daniel's cheek and plopped one on the top of my daughters' heads as I made my way to my customary seat at the dining table. We ate spaghetti and spoke of the same things we always did. How was school? The girls grumbled some half-hearted reply. How was work? Daniel and I muttered about something or other. Anything exciting happen? Everyone mumbled a dead-hearted no.

After dinner, it was our customary race to be free of one another's presence. The girls sequestered themselves in their bedrooms, where angsty music echoed off of the walls. Daniel made his way to the sofa loosening his tie and picking up the remote. I scrubbed dishes and guzzled two glasses of red wine before settling into an armchair with a book. We all made our lazy way to beds, after checking locks and brushing teeth and slowly slipping out of the day's wrinkled clothes. I settled under the covers next to Daniel and the both of us continued what we'd been doing in the living room until finally heaving a mutual sigh, turning off our lamps, and whispering goodnight before turning away from one another in bed. When Daniel sighed a third time into the darkness, I knew it was coming.

He rolled towards me and twined his fingers into my hair. My toes curled...a little. Daniel knew me well. He knew I liked it when he pulled my hair... a little. He ran kisses down my neck. I ground my bottom into him, but didn't roll over. I reached behind me and shoved my fingers into his hair, too, urging him to keep pelting my neck in kisses. I wished he'd bite me, but he didn't. His fingers were clumsy as he pulled the waistband of my night shorts down and ran an exploratory thumb down my center, making sure I was ready enough. I was. That'd never been a problem for us.

We fucked like lazy spoons, clacking about in the cutlery drawer. When I came, I pictured Patrick's face. I'd done it for so many years, I didn't even feel ashamed of it anymore. It's not that Daniel wasn't attractive or that I didn't love him, even. He was just so... ordinary. Safe. Normal. We were bored of one another. It's why we always turned out the lights before finding release. He didn't want to see the faces I made in the throes of...well, whatever it was we did to emulate passion. And I didn't want to see his face, either. His face was as familiar to me as my own, and-- there wasn't any magic in that.

Daniel handed me a tissue and kissed my cheek. "Good night," he said.

"Good night," I echoed. But I didn't fall asleep. I couldn't, though it'd just been an ordinary day. A heaviness settled over me, an ache at the center of my chest that grew until it felt I'd tear in two. I stared at the silhouette of my closet door until it blurred into meaninglessness. Daniel's breathing turned thick and wet, asleep. And with every breath I heard those words I kept telling myself: This is the life I wanted. This is the life I chose.

Maybe if I said it enough, I'd believe it.