***

  Sara slapped Jason and yelled, “How dare you exploit him like that!”

  “It was his choice,” replied Jason.

  Sara raised her hand to slap him again and Jason caught it. She retracted her arm and said, “He could have recovered.”

  “Half a dozen people from that sector had already committed suicide.”

  “I hate you!” Sara stormed off in tears.

  “She'll get over it,” said Tracy.

  Jason turned to look at Tracy. “I hope she does. I was doing her brother a favor sending him into those systems.”

  “I don't blame you for doing that at all. You made a good decision.”

  “I wish Andrew was still around.”

  “Yeah. I'll never forgive Matt for what he did.”

  “You're certain it was Matt?”

  “He was trying to talk me into leaving with him just before we got raided.”

  “He's scum.”

  “Yeah. I thought he really did care.”

  “Not much we can do about it now.”

  Tracy stared into his eyes and touched his arm. “I wish I could find a man who's willing to be real with me.”

  Jason saw his chance and leaned in to kiss her. Just as their lips met, a violent shock caused Jason's head to spasm to the side and he backed away, feeling embarrassed.

  “It's all right,” said Tracy, grabbing hold of him with both hands.

  “No, it isn't,” replied Jason. “I have to expel them.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “By expelling the medications.”

  “But you haven't taken any for a long time now.”

  “Heavy metal poisoning doesn't just leave your system. I have to actively purify myself of it.”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  “We have everything we need to spend the rest of our lives down here.”

  “We'll be entombed.”

  “Maybe.” Jason turned away.

  “What else could happen?”

  “I'm not sure.”

  “Sooner or later you've gotta move on with your life.”

  “I am moving on with my life.” Jason walked away, feeling drained within her presence.

  “You're not allowed to get all lovey dovey with a girl,” said a goofy sounding pixy.

  “Yeah,” added a shrill pixy. “It's our sex drive. Now go back to your room and masturbate up a storm for us.”

  “I want my pee turd,” said a boorish pixy.

  A violent shock jarred Jason's brain and a raucous pixy shouted, “YOU JUST HAD AN ILLEGAL THOUGHT! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO THINK ABOUT MEDICATIONS LIKE THAT!”

  “You're delusional.”

  “HEY!” Repeated shocks hit Jason's head with every syllable as the raucous pixy shouted. “YOU HEAR ME!?! YOU WANT TO THINK THAT WAY ABOUT MEDS I HAVE TO MAKE IT HURT!”

  By the time Jason reached his room, his head was sore with all the shouting and the shocks.

  “What'd you expect?” asked a goofy pixy, pressing against his brain with weight. “Your mother?”

  “That needs to make you upset when we don't lay off you after a bunch of shocks.”

  Jason grabbed a large pillow and his head shook with convulsions as he laid it out upon the floor. Then he assumed the siddhasana position.

  “You're not allowed to do that with our sex drive. You need to masturbate.”

  Jason took a deep breath and propelled kundalini up his spinal column. Then he received an electromagnetic shock. He responded by sending up another burst of kundalini and he received another shock.

  The pressure against his head increased and the raucous pixy shouted, “THAT'S A DANGEROUS THOUGHT! I TOLD YOU YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO THINK ABOUT THE MEDICATIONS LIKE THAT!”

  “FUCK YOU PRETENDING I'D RESPECT YOUR AUTHORITY!” shouted that same pixy from a different angle, trying to force Jason's lips to move in conjunction with his words.

  Jason placed his palms on the floor in front of him and he violently rammed the kundalini upward into his head over and over again until he grew short of breath. Then he resumed the siddhasana position.

  “You're not allowed to be like us acting forceful like...”

  Jason rammed another burst upward before the pixy could finish his sentence.

  A massive force pressed into Jason's brain from the left hand side as the raucous pixy shouted, “OKAY! YOU ASKED FOR IT! YOU WANNA BE LIKE A POLICE OFFICER YOU NEED TO BE SHOCKED TO SHIT!”

  Jason continued sending the kundalini upward amid shocks, threats, and agonizing physical pressure for another hour before he grew weary and went to bed. He lay in his bed, trying to project himself into astral as the pixies harassed him and tried to scare him out of seeking ascension.

  He awakened, feeling refreshed, and he performed his morning yoga and exercise session on the floor of his room. Then he took a shower and went to the cafeteria.

  He was eating breakfast when Todd entered.

  Todd asked, “What did you say to Sara?”

  “Not much. Why?”

  “She hung herself last night.”

  Jason sighed. “What a waste.”

  “You wanna help me get her down?”

  “Sure.”

  They cut Sara down from the scaffolding above the stage and incinerated the body. Jason reminded the other victims that they were better off taking some of the oppressors with them. Nobody seemed interested in organizing another suicide squad. Hopefully Sara would be the last.

  Jason's need to enter the upper regions of astral to communicate with an angel again was such that he had gone vegan and quit smoking to help cleanse his body. Within a few weeks of going vegan the medications had begun separating so that he could feel them physically pressing against his brain like an inner vise. He also began suffering incessant ringing noises centered near his left ear. These ringing noises fluctuated in relation to the shocks being generated from that same section of the brain. The longer he continued with this ascetic lifestyle the more apparent it became that there was a big shell of medications near his left ear, where their access was centered.

  One morning, while he was eating, Jason felt something amongst the flesh along his left jaw line tearing. He realized it was tumorous flesh mixed with medications and he routinely gnawed at it from that point onward.

  The longer he continued doing kundalini yoga on a vegan diet, the more violent and angry the pixies acted about it, until they were shocking him and complaining about medications all throughout day.

 
Robert Paul Gass's Novels