His voice had been one of experience. Experience that came from years and years of walking around on this planet. Experience that came with the many gains and the many losses that he knew were integral to human life.
That experience, now, fueled the old man. He knew what he had to do. He had to trust.
GOOD FORTUNE
(March 15, 2016)
The field had been very good to Baal. For ages he had been able to feed there off unwitting strangers that were tempted by its precious green grass and marvelous solitude.
He remembered fondly the massacre of his bride and daughters. How he had slaughtered them for their life force. They had consumed so many men by that point that their souls had been full and juicy. How delicious they had been.
Only the weakest he had allowed to live because she could be controlled. Controlled, perhaps, forever.
Right now she was living out her life in the town of Brettville, growing older and older and slowly losing her mind. It was good to have her. Good to know that he could bring her back at any point he wanted to. Perhaps, one day, he would need her.
For all the benefit the field had granted him, Baal was getting restless. The oak to which he had attached himself was strong as ever, with its roots planted deeply underneath the ground. If necessary, Baal knew he could stay here until the end of this tiny planet.
But he was bored, terribly so, and he knew that life had moved away from the fields that were once sweaty and stained with the blood of countless slaves. Very rarely now did somebody venture far enough out into the fields to find him, and when they did, they never stayed for very long.
When Baal tried, he could hear the countless voices that echoed through the nearby town. Brettville was small but sweet, with many inhabitants that Man would call ‘good’ that carried their own private little demons all the same.
Oh, Baal knew he could make those demons larger than life. He could play with these people until they broke, and then, he could eat. He could eat so much that he’d never be bored again.
Guilt. Anger. Fear. These were the emotions that sat at the core of the human experience. They were so incredibly tempting to the restless Baal.
It wasn’t that he hated human beings. Not at all. He thought they made very interesting distractions and, in a world that had no meaning, distractions were of the utmost importance.
Meaning was what Man had tried to create when he realized he was all alone with nobody to care for him. No mother to love him, no father to protect him. And, certainly, no God in those white clouds looking down on him, judging him and offering up an afterlife of love and pleasure.
Baal was much older than mankind and he had seen it all. He had seen the very beginning of life on this earth. He had watched it crawl up from the immeasurable ocean and evolve slowly over time. At first primitive, and then, a little less so.
He had seen large, feathered dinosaurs roam the land until they were taken by the great cataclysm that set their end into motion. Their beautiful screams of pain and fear still sounded in the back of his mind.
He had seen the rise of giant mammals that crushed all standing in their way without even so much as a thought. Until the ice age had come and the monstrosities succumbed to the low temperatures and scarcity. Brutes in a world that couldn’t sustain them.
And, to his great pleasure, he had seen the great apes that learned to use tools, mastered fire, and began to cook. These apes had steered their own evolution and, over the ages, became Man.
Baal had followed Man everywhere. He had watched Man in the ancient Middle East where he had first shown himself. Man had called him ‘Lord’ then and worshiped him.
The tribes in Africa. The geniuses of Egypt. The decadence of the ancient Greeks. Baal had seen it all and he loved Man for his arrogance and ignorance. To Baal, Man was the most beautiful distraction that could ever be.
The brave new world had been the most beautiful of all. It was here that Man had learned to indulge every single ego impulse he possessed. He had wanted land, so he killed the natives that roamed it. He had wanted resources, so he destroyed the natural habitat that surrounded him. He had wanted sex, so in his drunken stupor he raped the woman that stood closest. He had wanted profit, so he abused the life of his fellow, black, man.
Baal wanted things too. He and Man weren’t so very different. He wanted to consume and to be entertained. Nothing entertained Baal more than the suffering of Man.
He wanted his life force to grow through the souls of Man and he would stop at nothing—nothing—to accomplish his goals.
So Baal knew that he had to move on from the field that had been his home for centuries. He had to abandon the mighty oak that had been his vessel. He had to find a new host.
A solution came in the sound of a car crash on a road not that far from the field. It sounded through the air on a rainy afternoon in March and Baal knew that he had to take a closer look.
He detached himself from the mighty oak and assumed his human form. Then he swirled through the air, over the remaining pines, traversing the fields surrounding his old home. The black smoke that came from the crash told him exactly where he needed to be.
Baal landed on the road not far from where the car had crashed against a tree. It was a beautiful car, even Baal could see that, with its sleek black design. Even now, with its hood banged up into a messy pile of steel, it spoke to Baal’s sense of esthetics.
The silver imprint of a predator of some kind, a large cat, featured prominently on the car. Baal felt not unlike this predator now.
Slowly he stepped toward the left door of the vehicle and opened it. When he looked inside he saw an old man with his face bashed against a white cushion of some kind. It only took Baal a quick look to understand that the man’s old body had been no match for the impact he had suffered. He was dead.
Baal did not hesitate. This was the chance he had been waiting for. Gently he placed his hand on the old man’s head and entered him.
Baal coursed through the old body and found all the places that had been ruined by the impact. He restored the broken ribs. He unfolded the collapsed lungs. He restarted the old heart.Then Baal moved on to the old man’s brain and made sure blood could reach the sensitive organ again. Without this brain there would be no true home, so it had to endure. And endure it did.
Now there was only one problem left to solve for Baal. Somebody had to come and find the car before it was too late. How would he go about clearing this final obstacle? Through almost an infinity’s worth of experience, Baal soon found a way.
DAY 4
OCTOBER 27, 2019 – PART 2
“I woke up in a hospital bed two days later. It was a miracle, the doctors said. I should have been dead. And I shouldn’t have been able to wake up from the coma they induced. But I did. I survived and my body was none the worse for wear. I had a small period of physical rehabilitation, of course, but I was back home two weeks after the accident.
“Apparently old Isabella found me. The woman that owns the arts and crafts store. Nobody knew what she was doing on that road—she herself couldn’t remember either—but that was probably my luck. If the old woman hadn’t found me in time I would have died for sure.
“I still get terrible nightmares. Or night terrors, really. Ellie can confirm that, I’m sure, sadly. I go into a frenzy sometimes during the night. It feels as if something is choking me but it’s on the inside of my body. Like it’s not grabbing my neck but applying pressure straight to the windpipe instead. I can’t really explain it. I see horrible things during those night terrors. Images of death and rape. Executions. Lynchings. Burnings of buildings and old trees. But they don’t feel like nightmares; they’re not just images. They’re…. They feel like they’re old memories that are somehow being forced onto my mind.”