The Ultimate God Conspiracy

Like the Bible, The Ultimate God Conspiracy is a work of fiction, so readers who are looking for accurate historical, religious or even geographical facts are going to be disappointed.

I wrote the first draft of this story around the turn of the century in a different language when I was living in Greece on the island of Crete. When I did not find a publisher for it I simply forgot the whole thing and started to do something useful.

I traveled, worked as a journalist for the now defunct newspaper Today on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten, then ended up traveling again after Hurricane Irma destroyed the newspaper and most of the island in September 2017.

I still write for a website in the Caribbean but in my state of semi-retirement I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands.

That's why the idea came up for a remake of the story I put together all those years ago. It has a more international flavor now and I like it a lot better than the old manuscript.

Every now and then during the remake, my own story gave me the shivers and I obviously want you, my readers, very much to go through the same experience.

It is out of my hands now.

The final judgment about this story is up to you.

Acknowledgements

The Ultimate God Conspiracy is the product of a collective effort. I wrote the story but my editor Al Sirois made it better - and I want to thank him for that. Al also designed the splendid book cover.

Jay Lyons recommended Al Sirois to me as the designer of the cover. I am grateful for his tip.

I also want to thank my wife Myriam for her patience and for leaving me alone when I was hammering away at my laptop for days on end.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who spread the news about this book through social media. I am not going to include a long list of names here but you know who you are - supporters of my transition from journalist to thriller-writer. You are awesome!

Prologue

He just turned forty, a veteran on the trade route from Mecca to Damascus and he is tired of traveling. He withdraws frequently to meditate in a desolate cave in the mountains. Gradually he has lost interest in his wife Khadija who is his senior by fifteen years; he prefers his cave over her wealth and her company because only here does he find the perfect environment to reflect on life, the Semitic Supreme Deity and on Al-Lat, Al-Uzzah and Al-Manat. Daughters of Allah, bah!

He sits on the rocks, rhythmically moving his body, absorbing the serenity of solitude. He shivers and pulls the thick coarse fabric of his galabia tighter; he covers his face in his headdress until only his eyes and the tip of his nose remain visible; anything in a vain attempt to fight off the cold.

This evening he is not alone; he senses, no, he smells that there is somebody in his cave. A man. For sure. He notices an atypical scent, so the man must be a stranger and an amateur; otherwise he would not let himself be detected like this. And women, he knows from experience, smell completely different. He worries about the scent that tickles his nostrils and that he is unable to identify; but he does not move at all. He is not afraid because Uncle Abu Talib has taught him not to fear - nothing and nobody, whatever the circumstances.

Then the silence breaks, like brittle ice.

Do not turn around, The Voice whispers. If you do that you will never see the sun rise again.

Who are you? the veteran trader asks.

A messenger, The Voice says, so softly that the man has to prick up his ears to catch the words. What does my name matter? You may call me Djibriël, or Satan; what's the difference? My masters have chosen you because you are just a little bit smarter than the rest of them and because nobody in Mecca has such a brilliant memory as you do.

Why pick me? the man cries. I have so much, if not everything, to learn still. Why?

Be quiet! You can only learn something by listening. Don't ruin everything with your stupid and unnecessary questions, because you'll get this opportunity only once.

But who …

Right; you want me to leave? After I have used my sword of course.

The man stiffens. Sweat pours down his forehead. It's easy for Abu Talib to talk, he thinks. I am afraid. No please; my eldest son will soon ….

If you ever want to see your son again you have to keep silent right now!

The man falls silent.

You will have to do exactly what I tell you; don't you want to be powerful and rich?

I am already rich, the man whimpers.

You don't know what you are talking about. I mean infinitely powerful, infinitely rich. Stop with your objections; they won't save you because you have been chosen. Listen carefully because I will say every word, every sentence, only once. If you fail, I will come back and kill you. First I will murder your eldest son and before you and your wife. Then I will murder your wife and force you to watch. After that I might kill you but I do not think that will be necessary. Once your eldest son and your wife are gone, you will be dead already.

The man now feels sweat coursing down his back. He remains motionless; he does not even hear his own breathing.; This is not real, this is not happening. He wants to turn his head to look at The Voice but he remembers just in time what this would do to his eldest son; Khadija is far from his mind. He sends a silent prayer to Abu Talib, thankful for his wise lessons in self-control.

At the same time his hand is inching millimeters at a time towards the razor-sharp sword that has served him so well in the past though he knows already that he will not use it. Not this time.

Now the good news, The Voice says.

The man relaxes. Wrong! That's Abu Talib speaking in his head, but The Voice does not miss a beat either.

Ha! You like that, don't you? Good news? You give yourself away with your body language. I am disappointed, the way my masters will be disappointed. Control yourself; hide your emotions.

The man stiffens.

The Voice laughs; he is enjoying his little game. The good news is that you do not have to do anything for the time being. Correction: you are not allowed to do anything. You will forget that I was ever here.

Then The Voice begins a monologue that continues for six hours. The man absorbs the instructions from the masters of The Voice with increasing astonishment; though he has trouble staying awake, he effortlessly stores every word in his memory.

Finally, The Voice says: That's all. It's written down on these parchment scrolls. Rome and Jerusalem have already signed it. Here is your name. Sign this with your blood but never tell anybody that you have seen this. Not ever.

In the half-dark the man sees purple-colored parchment adorned with symbols in silver. He does not understand a thing because he is unable to read. He feels how The Voice grabs his hand and makes a cut in the palm of his right hand.

Abu Talib has taught him to suffer pain and that lesson serves him well now; he clenches his jaws and ignores the pain of the cut while his blood flows onto the parchment.

Two years from now your crusade against the infidels will begin, The Voice says. Have your followers write down your revelations; on palm leaves, on stones, it does not matter where. Measure out your revelations lest they become suspicious. Maybe it is a good idea to withdraw in this cave on a regular basis. That way you're able to launch a new revelation the next day. Do not forget to add some justice to your stories; only then will those poor souls believe you.

Do you think that the powerful elite in Mecca will allow me to preach like this? the man asks suspiciously.

The Voice laughs. No; of course not. It could take ten years but if you are doing well you will chase them out of town. Maybe you should establish yourself in Medina. If that happens it won't be long before the old elite are going to dance to your tune.

I won't be able to trade with Mecca anymore, the man blubbers. How will I ever be able to support myself?

The people will be kissing your feet, Mohammed, The Voice says. "You will never lack for anything, you will become immortal and you will rule over this world with my masters for eternity.

Book 1

Robert

Mary sits motionless in her large black-leather armchair in front of the TV. I sit at the table and study her face, her smooth, slightly tanned skin, her dark curls, her perky nose and her saucy mouth.

She has been sitting there for more than three hours in the same pose with that empty, absent look in her brown eyes. The talking head on the flatscreen rattles on against a just-married couple, vulnerable participants in a stupid game, with shameless advertising of producer X for product Y as the main objective. They are young and in love, holding hands in front of the camera, prostituting their happiness in exchange for viewer ratings and a couple of nice prizes.

If they had come up with these games twenty years ago we could have participated too, Mary, I say against my better judgment.

What an asshole I am. Was it not twenty years ago that I, a young kid with a simple job at a publishing company, won that absurd top prize in a German lottery?

Mary does not react.

She does not hear me, otherwise she would have said something, like, Those TV-games go much further back than twenty years. I know she does not hear me but I don't want to admit it. It is too painful and too cruel. My heart starts racing and my forehead is clammy with sweat.

Mary does not hear the game show host either.

Of course, she doesn't.

My breathing becomes labored and I grab the edge of the table. Another minute and I will get one of those unreasonable attacks of anger. Why? Why for God's sake? Pointless! Pointless!

I get up and put a hand on Mary's shoulder, the only gesture of love I am still able to make. I feel her shoulder through the thin fabric of her silk pajamas. She feels like a block of ice – a cold bone from the butcher's freezer down in our village.

Shall we switch off the TV, darling? I say softly.

How will she react to this? My Mary, the love of my life. Four years ago, I knew her better than anyone I’d ever met, even my foster parents, and we could talk for hours about anything and everything. But she is my wife no longer. She is a patient, an anchor around my neck, forever bound to me by civil marriage. She is not even forty and she could easily make eighty with her rock-solid physique. That thought regularly drives me to the brink of insanity. Like now!

My hands shake as I pick up the television remote and switch off the flatscreen, one of the amenities I hardly ever use for myself. The rattling game show host goes silent and everything becomes black in front of my eyes.

Mary makes a grumbling sound, like a caged animal. I hear her, but I do not see her pick up a heavy vase from the table next to her chair and throw it in the direction of the TV. The dull thud of the cracking screen opens the floodgates for that attack of irrational fury I fear so much.

You fucking cunt! That's already the third TV this year. I'm gonna have you locked up, goddamn it! No, I have a better idea! I am going to kill you – right now! I cannot take this anymore. Jesus Christ, Mary!

Is it really twenty years ago that we stood hand in hand in front of this piece of real estate and said: this is our dream house? O Mary, Mary, you put your heart and soul into equipping our little palace. You wanted every room to have a different color scheme. Your color scheme! These days you cannot even find your way to the bathroom. You don't recognize your children, you don't know who I am and you will never realize that tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. Are you not much better off dead? Mary? Mary? Mary!

My legs are shaking. My back is drenched in sweat and I feel those uncomfortable rivulets run from my armpits across my sides. I start drooling like an octogenarian – how I hate those heinous reactions of my body – and in the meantime I put my hands around Mary's throat.

Now it is really over! Now, for the benefit of everyone, I am going to end this. I don't care if I have to go to jail. I figure that Steve and Judy will understand; or will they? I am too enraged to care.

Mary struggles. She is strong, she has the strength of an insane person. I feel her nails scratch my face. Blood mingles with sweat.

Then I hear Steve and Judy storm into the room. I get a violent kick in my crotch. Shit! That hurt; but I keep strangling Mary.

No, Dad, stop that! Mommy is getting completely blue in her face. You are killing her. Daaad!

Four young and powerful hands pull me violently backwards. Steve is our big strong son of twenty and his sister Judy has incredible power in her deceptively fragile-looking body. Ironically, she gets her strength from Mary.

Mary is foaming at the mouth in her chair. She makes those grumbling sounds again, like a rabid dog ready to attack. She looks at the blood on her hands and starts licking it.

Come on, Dad, Steve says. That's enough for now.

He pushes me towards the kitchen. Fighting back is useless because Steve has the build of a Canadian hockey player; in situations like this he uses his strength with gusto.

He puts a glass of water in front of me. Jesus, I mumble. She destroyed another TV.

It's only a TV, Dad, Steve says. Here, drink this.

The brutal neon light gives out kitchen the character of a 1950s hospital. Our furniture reveals Mary's longing for the old days: a teak dining table, black and white plastic covers on the teak chairs and work tops covered with formica. The linoleum on the floor completes Mary's idea of what kitchens ought to look like: clean and tidy when not in use, practical when work has to be done. I don't like kitchens, not even when they are equipped nicely, so this has always been Mary's domain.

"Equip it the way you want. As long as I don't have to work there, I'm okay with it; memories from happier times. We were young and I was cocky. I wanted to provide for you with my own money, without having to rely on your parents' intimidating fortune. I mocked them when I won a small fortune of my own in that lottery and bought this villa without their help. I had a nice job with a large publisher and you were the perfect lover, spouse, host and manager of a rich social life. Boy, did I laugh when you said, Okay, as long as I don't have to work in that house." But you don't laugh anymore; in fact I haven't seen you laugh for years. Man! If only I could hear you laugh one more time like in the old days. That clear, infectious laugh …. Mary, Mary, where did our happiness go? Why did Alzheimer’s break down what we had together in no time at all? Why? Why?

This is really driving me crazy. I cannot stand this anymore, son. Goddammit, I cannot stand it anymore.

Mom has to be committed, Steve says almost absentmindedly while he is treating the bleeding scratches on my face.

It is not a new idea to have Mary committed and Steve no longer manages to add emotion to these kinds of remarks. He attempts to upset me, hoping that I will accept the inevitable sooner or later.

I cannot put her away just like that in one of those awful institutions, I object, but it does not sound as convincing now as it did a couple of years ago. I love her. I love your mother so much, Steve. I cannot let her down.

I love Mom, too, Steve says. So does Judy. We've had so much fun together when we were little. But that time will never come back again. Mom is no longer our mom. She has become a different human being. She does not even know who we are anymore, Dad. You see that, don't you?

Judy enters the kitchen. She takes my head in her hands and holds me against her. I took mom to her bedroom, she whispers. With a bit of luck she will go to sleep now. I'll switch on the web cam so we can keep an eye on her.

I grab her hand and kiss it. Thank you, sweetheart; where would I be without you both?

Mary did a thorough job on me with her nails. When I talk I feel a piercing pain in my cheek. I don't have the guts to look at myself in the mirror. Not tonight.

Steve cleans up the wounds with sterile gauze before he looks at his handiwork from a distance. Andy Warhol would probably call this the pinnacle of body-art, Dad, he says with a sly smile on his face. You could have that head of yours framed and offer it to an art gallery.

Yeah, really cool, Judy pipes in. She nods approvingly. You sure woke up the artist in Mom.

My offspring have a particular sense of humor that I do not share. Always jokes at the wrong moments about the wrong subjects. And then they claim that they inherited this from me because apparently I once said that everything is funny as long as it happens to somebody else.

A nursing home is not an institution, Dad, Steve says, hovering without effort between joke and painful reality. Mom is not insane; she just lost it a bit. And she is not the only one.

We can visit her every week, Judy adds. Every day if you want, but I do not think that makes much of a difference for Mom. She doesn’t know who we are anyway.

I make a theatrical move with my arms. Look around you, sweethearts. This is Mary's home. Every color on every wall, every curtain, every piece of furniture, every lamp, every painting is an expression of who she is. She has selected and bought everything with infinite patienceand with a hell of a lot of money. We may think that she is not aware of anything anymore, but we obviously cannot be sure that this is so.

Yeah, Steve mumbles. Now that you mention it … she does go to the garage every Friday at a quarter to ten to sit in her Porsche with those weird leather gloves on. And then she sits there, looking lost, with her hands on the steering wheel. By the way, Dad, speaking of the car, is it okay for me to use it tomorrow?

Steve! Judy cries. We're talking about Mom here.

But I am too emotionally drained to care. Go ahead, Steve. Decent of you to ask, but don't let Mom see that you're driving it. God knows what she will destroy then.

Think about it some more, Dad – about committing Mom, Judy says. Things cannot go on like this, right? If they do, in another couple of months we'll all go down together.

A couple of months, Steve grumbles.This is going to continue like, forever, Judy. You know it and I know it.

I bend my head and feel the tears coming. They are right. Of course, they are right. If we put Mary away the kids will at least have more or less a normal life again. What does it matter? I am already miserable. But I just cannot do it… I don't have the guts to take that decision.

Judy grabs a bottle of bourbon from a kitchen cabinet and she puts three glasses on the table. Get us some ice, Steve, she tells her brother.

Soon we are lifting our glasses. The bitter taste of the liquid does little to improve our dark moods.

Game of chess, Dad? Judy says. We cannot stay depressed forever.

Judy is a perfect copy of Mary. The same sparkling eyes, the same dark curls. Brilliant set of brains as well. She excels at math, something I don't get at all, and she is an ace at a chess board. The same as…. oh, please God, don't let her slip away like Mary….

I take a deep breath in an attempt to take my distance from the drama that is controlling our lives. Suddenly I am very cold on this warm June evening.

Alright little girl, but don't think that I will let you win again.

Duh, Judy mutters. To begin with I am already eighteen. Secondly, over the first six months of this year you are 12 and 28.

I hold my liquor better than you do, I say weakly.

I would not put my money on that, Steve says, ignoring the stare of his younger sister.

Steve, my son, my problem child. He miraculously graduated from high school, but after that… a little job here, a little job there… weird friends that boy has… and what does he want to do with his life anyway? I have no idea, and I doubt he does, either. It does not seem to matter to him whether he is driving a garbage truck or whether he works in a pub or for a publisher. Well, at least he is working and that situation with Mary has been going on for more than four years now… it’s a wonder that he did not get into drugs….

I force a smile, this time with more conviction. The heavy atmosphere in the kitchen becomes just a tad more relaxed. Upstairs everything is quiet, so it seems that Mary has fallen asleep.

Judy plays the Sicilian opening with white – a move Smyslov made in 1957 to beat Botwinnik. But of course, she only tells me this after the game. And even if I had known it, chess history and strategy are not among my strong points. Little Judy leads me neatly up the garden path and it does not take long before I withdraw to my only remaining tactic to let the game of chess with my daughter last a bit longer. I try to concentrate on the board but after every move the mental paralysis increases, the feeling of impotence weighs me down and pierces my soul until I am playing a losing game. But it is all irrelevant compared to the overpowering feeling that Mary has lost it. Forever.

On the 25th move it is over. Checkmate, Judy says triumphantly. 12 and 29.

Sunday Morning Ritual

Sam launches his bobber into the lake and lays down his bamboo fishing rod in the reeds. It is Sunday morning, four o'clock. For years this has been our regular time for a couple of hours of fishing.

Sam stares thoughtfully into the water on this unnaturally beautiful morning. The lake is deserted, and most sailors are down and out with a hangover in their boats in the nearby marina. Even the water birds are still asleep. The silence is almost absolute.

I put my bobber in the water, a couple meters past Sam's. I put my ultra light casting rod in a steel holder. Modernistic stuff a primitive like Sam does not want to know anything about. If you think you're going to fish better with a thing like that you will be sorely disappointed, Robert, he told me when I showed him my new toy.

That was more than one-and-a-half years ago and I cannot claim with a straight face that I have caught more than Sam did with his little bamboo thingy. Yeah, well, I do have a tic for gadgets, no matter how useless they are. Sam regularly gets a fit when that hypermodern reel on my casting rod malfunctions, but in the meantime, I do not get cramps in my arms from holding such a large bamboo stick.

Sam is my foster Dad and, even though he is a good 25 years my senior and as old-fashioned as hell, he is my closest friend. He is my go-to guy, my sounding board, the father I never really knew, and also a walking library. Maybe it's better to describe Sam as a collapsed bookcase because the guy is rather chaotic.

He is 68, a retired civil servant who, according to his own statement, has only cost the Justice Department a lot of money. Even if my work has produced anything for our country, I am unfortunately not at liberty to say anything about it. My conclusion is that Sam must have made a career in the Secret Service. I am not sure of course, because he refuses to talk about it.

Sam is a tall, slim man with a full head of gray hair and a wild unkempt beard of the same color. He looks at least fifteen years younger than he really is; that often gives me the feeling that I must appear fifteen years older than I really am. His trademark is a ridiculously large pair of glasses with a square black frame, directly bought after he once saw how a British snooker player scared the hell out of his opponents with a similar pair. The glasses function as a distraction; they cause confusion and trigger astonishment. That gives Sam the opportunity to shamelessly study everybody he comes across.

Sam is as fit as a healthy athlete with a constitution to match. He is proud of his health: That pension fund will be sorry that they ever accepted me because I intend to reach at least one hundred and ten, is one of his favorite statements, if he happens to come across a bunch of fifty-somethings expressing their concerns about ageing.

We have been fishing together for ten years already, every season at the same spot. Sam's spot.

Sunday was fishing day at home. The children got along fine with Sam - he is the ideal grandfather. And Mary …. Mary always prepared our catch, except for that time when we came home with a bucket of eels. I still see her staring with disgust into that bucket. And I still hear her say to Sam, with that scornful look in her eyes: Well done grandpa! Go ahead and clean them yourself but not in my kitchen. After that we spent two hours in the garden to get those buggers ready for the frying pan. Mary and the kids were in stitches on the terrace.

Sam starts rolling a cigarette. He is a staunch tobacco addict and also one of those freaks of nature who do not seem to be affected by nicotine. He never coughsat least I have never heard him coughand a couple times a week he sets out for these ultra long walks. I accompanied him only once and when we finally got back home after four hours, he deadpanned whether I still had energy for a game of tennis. I won't soon forget his howls of laughter after I chickened out.

Right now, I am softly grinning because Sam's cigarette is part of our Sunday morning ritual. I catch myself thinking that I should not be in a good mood, but right now I need relaxation more than ever. While the bourbon is still hammering in my head, the scratches on my cheeks bring last night's crisis back to life. Did I really put my hands around Mary's throat in an attack of uncontrolled rage? Would I really have strangled her if the kids had not intervened? I don't know the answer and I start doubting myself. Am I still normal? Is this the beginning of my own mental decay, as irreversible as Mary's condition?

Just when Sam gets ready to moisten his tobacco-filled cigarette paper, holding it with both hands, his bobber shoots like a rocket underwater.

He swears unashamedly, drops his cigarette and grabs his fishing rod; too late, of course.

I cannot imagine a Sunday morning that begins in any other way, I say, rather morosely. It is the traditional opening remark for many a long philosophical conversation. But today I am not in the mood for mockery, humor, or kitchen-table philosophy. I stare straight ahead but I don't see a damn thing; I am afraid of the questions that are going to come my way.

Mary? Sam says softly. He has that special gift of framing painful questions in a single word. This way Sam always gives me the opportunity to get away from a subject. Now that Mary is gone from me, he knows me better than anyone else; we have been through so much together. First, he was a comforting uncle that I had never seen before, and then he became my strict foster father who later turned into my best friend.

We laughed together when we were happy, we cried when we felt sorrow and we talked forever about the world in general and about our own place in the universe. With Sam you're never short of stuff to talk about.

I nod meekly to confirm that things are out of control again with Mary.

She really got you this time, Sam observes, rather unnecessarily and without emotion.

I nod again but I don't say a word. If only he knew how rotten I feel, how frustrated, desperate and miserable.

You wanna talk? Sam asks after my continued silence. It's that bad, huh? I wish I could do something for you, Robbie.

I keep staring into the water, sullen and crestfallen. Should I give him the full Monty? How does even more misery do Sam any good? Aunt Irene died more than 25 years ago and he still mourns her every day. He never talks about his personal tragedy, the only topic apart from his mysterious career that he won’t discuss with me.

Okay, mate. As long as you don't forget that your friend Sam will always be there for you, even if all I have to do is listening. After a brief silence he suddenly says: Did you ever have a transcendental experience?

I know that trick Sam is playing on me. First, he pretends that I hurt him by refusing to talk and then he comes out of left field with a question that has no relation whatsoever to what we were talking about. How often did I fall for it? How often did the floodgates open while minutes before I was determined to keep my trap shut?

Sam should have been a journalist with one of those gossip magazines where your editor-in-chief provides you with a list of fifty questions you can pose in any interview. What scared you the most when you were a child? How did you get to know your wife? Why do you have a secret phone number? What would you do tomorrow if you had a million dollars? Which TV program do you hate the most? And so on. Tell me something, I know them all fifty by heart.

I am not in the mood for serious talk Sam. Really.

Sam rolls another cigarette before he plunges his bobber back in the water. He is visibly unhappy when I don't talk; I feel that his stoic attitude behind that old-fashioned bamboo fishing rod is a pose. He is hurting because he wants to know every detail. And once he knows everything, he is prepared to give his left arm to solve my problems. But there is no solution Sam. Nobody is able to help me, not even you.

The peaceful silence returns until a couple of water birds begin their early morning concert. Behind us the sun is rising, radiating a soft light that makes the water sparkle.

Mary was so fond of the light's reflection on the water during the early morning hours. How often did we not go out together at dawn to sit hand in hand by the water? Memories of happiness that will never come back.

I see how Sam peeks at me from the corner of his eyes. I am sitting there like a pitiful stone garden gnome, but one full of emotion. I don't give a rat's ass what the fish are doing today with my bait. Whatever. For more than half an hour I am sitting there like a statue.

I am 45 years of age and if I stay away a bit from the booze and if I never again drive 140 miles an hour with my Alfa Romeo I will still have a whole life ahead of me. I could commit Mary to the best nursing home on the planet and then we will be able to breathe normally again at home. In the beginning I will visit Mary every day and later maybe once a week. Then once a month and in the end I might only show up for Christmas, her birthday and our wedding anniversary. Jesus, what's the point of all that? Judy and Steve are right; she does not recognize us anymore, so I may as well put her away forever, walk out of the nursing home and never come back. In that scenario, Elly, our former nanny, could come and live with us; however, the kids may find that odd and this way I keep leading a double life. On the other hand: sooner or later I will have to face the music because Elly is not going to wait forever. And I just don't know if I have the courage to love her. Steve is not going to make a problem of it but Judy? Women have a knack to react so oversensitive. I don't know, damn it, I just don't know. And still this cannot go on like this; those little monkeys of mine are right about that.

Sam has caught a couple of nice minnows in the meantime. He keeps himself in check but in the end, it's becoming too much.

"Allez Robert, talk to me. And if you do not want to discuss your real problems, fine, but then can't we at least talk about something else? We're here to relax, remember?"

Sam does it again. He breaks my stubborn silence with endless patience and with a few words that hit home. How am I able to block the entrance to my soul? The words start to come out, in short, almost childlike sentences.

I cannot handle it anymore Sam. Week after week I see her slip further away. She doesn’t recognize me anymore. She’s stopped talking. She just sits there. She does not hear me. And she is angry, extremely angry. Not with me or with the children, but with her condition. Yesterday she smashed another TV, only because I switched the damn thing off; at least, that's what I think. Nothing is certain anymore because I can’t talk with her. I don’t know what's going on in her head Sam. The children are taking it extremely well, but they don't have a normal life either. Two years ago was the last time Judy brought a friend home and Steve has been keeping his friends at bay even longer. Sometimes I wish she were dead Sam, and I find it terrible when I am having such thoughts. I don't want to lose her because I love her, I love her so much. Yesterday Steve said that mom is mom no longer. He is right, of course that brat is right. Why Mary? It is so goddamned unfair, so cruel, especially for the children. And Mary …. my poor Mary …she has no clue about what is happening to her.

Sam is listening to my outburst with his head bent and, in the meantime, my emotional resistance goes out the door. Always the same song when I unburden myself. I feel that clammy sweat on my forehead againjust like last nightbut then I turned into a murderous animal; now I collapse like the sad sucker I am and I begin to cry. I am howling; the snot from my runny nose mingles with my salty tears.

I feel the content of my stomach coming upbourbon mixed with a quick bite from the microwave. I throw up everything; the slimy barf lands on my trousers and my brand new sport shoes.

Sam behaves like Sam. He waits until I am done crying and vomiting before he takes action. The most disgusting thing one could say to someone who is crying is: don't cry, he grumbles. Put it all out there my boy; you cannot keep it all bottled up.

When I finally calm down my face is drenched, and I have an awful sour taste in my mouth. I'm so sorry Sam.

My best friend extends a handkerchief to me that is not exactly clean, but I use it all the same to dry my face and to remove the vomit from my trousers and my shoes. Sam fishes