their purpose—this "awakening" came by way of the training Bonnie‘s
characters were undergoing.
The absurdity of these assertions aside, her presentation was serenely
thorough, concise, and consistent within the detailed metaphysical
parameters she had been constructing since we met. Unable to determine
whether she meant this story was more than a screenplay plot, but also her
personal go, I warily nudged her to admit that her persuasive performance
was part of our in-depth role-playing. But even my intimidating postures
did not phase her; she steadfastly said only that her character‘s training
entailed discovering a design in his life—a purpose. After making this
discovery, the validity of the quest and its methods would no longer be an
issue, because he would know his role and understand why the elaborate
subterfuge had been necessary. Her character, of course, was me.
Reluctantly accepting that I had been chasing a brilliant lunatic, I left
her to gather courage enough to abandon her typically delightful
companionship, and our challenging discussions. The next morning, I
awakened at 3:27.
This happened again the following morning, and the morning after
that. O n the fourth consecutive day of awakening at precisely the same
time, additional odd events caused me to realize that I was being
awakened. I then demanded, and immediately received, confirmation of
Kha-li‘s existence by way of a conscious out-of-body experience.
My mind raced for hours to grasp the significance of what had
happened, and by 7:00 a.m. I knew that I had no choice but to believe
everything Bonnie had said about the existence of teaching spirits, and
mankind‘s wayward journey into an abyss of our own design.
Two hours later, to my incredulity Bonnie said I was the first target
of the rescue mission, beginning with exploring what I was really like: She
said my ultra-reactive behaviour was a consequence of extreme
experiences that had long-ago been seeded in the average man‘s beliefs,
and nurtured by governments and cultural contrivances until they reached
apocalyptic proportions. It followed that to excavate the influences that
threatened to destroy me would reveal how an intelligent race had perched
itself on the brink of annihilation.
As I understood my situation, I was the metaphor for the self-
destroyer, which constituted half of my life‘s quest. The rest included
learning how to heal myself, a process that did not end when I stopped
being an idiot. I would also have begun to experience what she called the
cognition of the Stalker. If I had the courage to endure the full procedures
I had been role-playing, I would also have a story to tell that would
complete my life‘s purpose.
