Great Expectations Chapter XXXV

To read from the beginning, please click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXV pgs. 229-231


At three twenty-five a.m. Alex screamed and sat bolt upright in bed, but he didn’t wake up. Vivian debated whether to wake him up or not. He’d been having nightmares for quite some time now. A few times when she’d wakened him up, he had just shivered and refused to tell her anything. Then he’d been afraid to go back to sleep, only to waken screaming all over again. Well, no wonder with all the pressure he was under. He thrashed in his sleep, and Vivian wrapped a robe around herself and, feeling a little guilty for leaving Alex, went to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms. It seemed that neither one of them was getting much sleep lately. She wished Alex would tell her what was so wrong, but he’d fly into a rage whenever she asked.




In Alex’s dream he stood at the top of the Houston conference center like a god, watching the world crawl beneath him. The building melted, and he sat astride a breeze as he would a cushion. He stretched his arms up, then sideways and found he could glide carried on the wind. The sensation of soaring was pleasant, thrilling, and he gloried in rising on an updraft, then swooping down towards the earth below, seeing how low he could get before he arched his head up to rise again.

Higher and higher he climbed, then jackknifed into what was almost a free fall. Faster and faster, the earth rose to meet him, lush, soft, and tropical with vines and ferns. Faster still, wind rushed into his face. But suddenly below him were soldiers, and a screaming woman. Alex arched his back upward willing himself away from the frenzy. He hit an updraft. Higher and higher, he shot upwards, until the battleground below was less than a speck. He turned down towards the ground now, but he was too high. Faster and faster he hurtled towards the earth, then pulled out of his descent and found himself higher than before. Too high! Again he tried to soar downwards toward safety, but currents kept lifting him higher and higher. Thrill turned to fear. He was high enough now that he could see oceans with their coastlines snaking under cloud cover. Again, he tried to soar downwards. He picked up speed, arched upward, and plummeted, tumbling head over heels in uncontrolled free fall.

Then he woke up.

It took him a few seconds to realize that this was only a dream and that it was over. Indeed sometimes he wondered what was real and what was dreaming – the nightmares or his daytime life. He reached over, but Vivian was no longer with him. And he was so tired…

He sat astride the bull that no one could ride. The chute opened and Alex spurred the animal into a bucking frenzy. Two seconds into the arena, and Alex knew that the beast was his. The beast would serve him, and he, Alex, savored his power over the animal. Elated, he jabbed his heels into the creature’s side. The bull’s hide was tough, but Alex jabbed harder, harder still, until frothy blood flowed, red-black down the creature’s side. With that, the creature reared as a horse would do, then spun, first left then right, in tighter and tighter circles. Alex hung on. But underneath, the ground gave way. A pit of hissing sidewinders replaced the sand and sawdust. Alex hung on. Now the bull was twisting and weaving from left to right, and circling fast and hard.



Alex woke up in a cold sweat, wondering at first what brought on this panic. And then he remembered. His soul was dead. He hadn’t meant to sell his soul. Was he really doomed? The devil didn’t play fair. Maybe there was a way out. “Is there a way out?” Alex shouted at the walls. He pounded his pillow like a crazy man.

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIV

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXIV pgs. 220-222

The room chilled. Alex’s heart all but stopped, and his shoulders slumped, aching, crushed by an unseen burden. Alex stared at the place on the wall where Hitler’s portrait had hung. Where did that word come from? In his mind, Alex had said, “devil”. He didn’t really believe in the devil - any more than he believed in God. He, Alexander Lidecker, was god. That was what he believed. That, and the word Remordia. But it was only a good-luck thing – like a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover. He’d never actually done anything superhuman. He hadn’t meant to…


Alex began to tremble, chilled as he had been that night years ago sitting beside Puddin’ Creek. He remembered hugging the book, next to his body, its pages musty with age. What was its name, he wondered. Something with a “C” – “Chesterville’s! “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” On an impulse, Alex pulled up the Internet on his computer, and typed “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” He stared at the screen for a full minute before pressing enter. Nothing came up. Next he typed in antique books and bookstores. Three hours later, he had located a shop in New Jersey whose owner claimed to carry a copy of “Chesterville’s”. With a sinking feeling, Alex reached for his car keys, and, driving as if in a trance, he headed for the New Jersey Turnpike and Ye Olde Biblioteque, a modest antiquarian bookstore in Trenton. Then, with the precious book wrapped in brown paper and tucked away safely in the trunk of his car, Alex sped south towards the White House.

“I’ll be home late again,” he told Vivian. He needed to examine the book in privacy.

“I’m not superstitious, just curious,” Alex said to himself as pulled out “Chesterville’s Complete Book of Spells.” He opened the package. The musty odor inside reminded him of attics and old trunks, and historical ghosts. Carefully, he leafed through the pages. Most were a dull tan, the color of autumn leaves gone to dead brown just before winter’s blanket of snow. He handled the pages gingerly. And just like dead leaves, they crackled and flaked away in his fingers. Alex tried to remember that Halloween night. “Lying spells.” “The craft to convince.”

Hell was supposed to be hot but Alex was chilled throughout as if suspended in ice. He found the lying spell, and skipped to the bottom of the page. “…for a price. Thy essence consumed with lye. Shackled to spiked wheels. Dragged by wild oxen through rasping rocky pits. Flesh rotting from thy writhing body.” There was more. “Agony not of flesh but of mind and soul.” “Chill not of body but of spirit.” “For Hell and damnation lie not in chasms of flames but in the human heart.”

Alex saw himself a small maggot in the center of an unidentifiable rotting carcass. And he was afraid. Icy fingers tore at his heart and choked his breathing.

“Snap out of it,” he whispered to himself, but his body shook. “You don’t believe in any of this. And anyway it’s too late. So schedule a massage, enjoy your empire, and stop all this shit.” And like the maggot in the rotting carcass, he slunk back to his desk. Slowly, like someone drugged he turned back to his notes on Johanna. It was hard to concentrate. His mind was playing rhythms that he couldn’t control. Taps, The Lord is My Shepherd. And Taps, over and over. He poured brandy – glass after glass – amazed that he wasn’t drunk. Finally he threw up, and that cleared his head. He went over the notes one last time, then gave task up and went home.