Image credit: Zoltan Major

I placed the electrodes on either side of her perfectly skinned temples. I could see she was starting to realise what I mean by the journey, though she could not know it all yet, not really. Perhaps she has seen pathetic horror movies where electric shock therapy wakens monsters. I will not wake the monster, but the true flower within, my Violet. If she thinks this is the journey, she knows nothing.

There was so much I could teach her, so much she can be shown. I was almost dizzy with the anticipation and promise of the moment.

She still tried to bargain with me, to cajole. I could hear the fear in her voice and I ignored her, just as Imogen ignored me. She was right to do so, as am I. We were about to embark on a journey that cannot be denied, and no deviation could be tolerated. The process is precise, demanding and total. To flinch early and show some empathy or mercy was in fact its exact opposite. The only true mercy was in firm resolution, holding to the path.

There are dangers indeed in disturbing the process. She is a child, innocent to what is required, and as a child she must be led, firm despite her protestations and fears. Otherwise she might go mad with this. She might even die.

I think I came close to death once, in the early days. In the midst of the dissociation I felt my own heart beating in my chest, too fast and too fluttery to be normal. It was like some other, alien thing in there, its rhythms insistent and crying out some message. Dimly I realised that it beats, every day, every hour, every minute, in so steady a pattern that I do not notice it at all. It is like a low-grade hum from traffic you hear at night from your bedroom window, so repetitive and ubiquitous you quickly cease to hear it at all. Hearts are like that, and when they wake to fear, they are something else entirely.

But Imogen showed no mercy. She was steel. And she was right. My heart eventually ceased its demands and settled, a chastened child within the child, yielding to the wiser, stronger force.

I did not die that day, and neither would Violet now.

I placed clamps on her hands and feet. They are designed to almost pierce the skin, eliciting pain and discipline, should she struggle too hard as the electricity stalks through her. They must ground through pain but also release. The precision of the art is impeccable. It’s been refined and designed for so many years, first brought into perfect realisation by Dr Green all those years ago. I like to flatter myself, however, that I have perfected it even more. Building on Imogen’s teachings and my own experience, I think I can fast track my beloved’s journey, and if it is no less terrifying, it may be briefer and more complete.

I had years of these sessions with Imogen, from when I first met her to only a few years ago. I was refined over time like steel under the fire. It went on too long and bred hate. I must be quicker and more efficient to breed love.

I tuned the machine controls to relay the first electric shock. I watched as my dear Violet convulsed, her dear cries dampened by the cloth I had put in her mouth to stop her biting or swallowing her tongue. Her eyes widened incredibly and tears streamed from the corners. She looked at me in complete, disoriented horror, and I began to speak, and as I spoke, she obeyed.

A perfect princess, preparing herself for the ball.

‘Close your eyes, it’s better if you close your eyes. Feel the energy as pain, but as more than that. It’s a road, a road. Do you see the road? The yellow brick road? Follow the yellow brick road. Follow. And do you see the rainbow, the lovely rainbow overhead?’

Her restrained head nodded slightly. She saw the images! How quickly she responded! She was a natural!

Or was she tricking me, trying to make it cease by pretending to see, pretending to journey? Well, it would make it no quicker. There was no quicker way for a session, only the hope of the need for less of them to meet rebirth. If she was beguiling it would soon flee before the tidal wave of terror and pain and the need to disconnect to cope, to survive, this onslaught being so much more than humankind could normally bear.

‘Go over the rainbow,’ I intoned, ‘Go to a wonderful place, a safe place, and meet me there dear Violet. I have so much to show you, so much for you to see!’

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved