Britney
I am in my shower—a solitary box in my bathroom—when my mother’s cerulean velvet robe hanging on the door morphs into Blackie from One-Eyed Jack’s. Her sharp elegance contrasts my nudity and I am unmoving, staring at her through the opaque shower door. I stare at the plushness of her lips as she speaks:
“Do you belong to the White Lodge or the Black Lodge?”
“Uhhhhh, uhhhhh, um,” I can’t form words. We are not on my terms; the two of us are existing in her time and space. Everything looks the same but everything is different.
She smiles. “Decide soon. You know how to find me.” And with that, Blackie is gone. She has become my mother’s dressing gown again.
I continue to shower when I can feel myself once again. Oh no, I think. Oh no.
A Dweller on the Threshold is: “the sum total of all the personality characteristics which have remained unconquered and unsubtle, and which must be finally overcome before initiation can be taken. Each life sees some progress made; some personality defects straightened out, and some real advance effected. But the unconquered residue, and the ancient liabilities are numerous, and excessively potent, and—when the soul contact’s adequately established—there eventuates a life wherein the highly developed and powerful personality becomes, in itself, the Dweller on the Threshold. Then the Angel of the Presence and the Dweller stand face to face, and something must then be done.” The premise is a huge part of Twin Peaks and the Black and White Lodges.
It is said that controlling this Dweller allows one to enter the arena of dark forces and come out unscathed. However, if this malevolent place is entered without the proper grasp on the Dweller, destruction will ensue.
I do not know the specifics of my Dweller but I feel its presence every day like an unborn twin. I can feel myself getting closer to facing it and I do not know how to prepare. The desire to know oneself always bears the risk of self-consumption.
The darkness approaches with the subtlety of a preying lion and I scream endlessly. No one hears but me. The echo is enough to shatter my skin. ♦