DRAFT – Chapter 7 – Faith & Darkness – The Other Side |2022

This is a draft copy of Release, Chapter 7 of The Other Side by K.W. Turner, unedited. We will be releasing a good amount of the chapters of this story over the coming week to ten days.

Enjoy.

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Faith continues to be an epic struggle for all of Man; else, the darkness creeps upon you, calling your name and misspelling it. Fucking clowns. Like the movie “IT,” but dumber..

I was talking with a former associate the other day. He insulted me and demeaned my feelings towards having lost something significant to me.

He ridiculed me so that if I were a violent person, I would have stabbed him in the throat with my dick. But I didn’t. Nor would I ever. And not just because I’m insecure about my cock.

I allowed this to go on for a while, not just one conversation, but many more over a solid piece of time. It was always a test of faith, even if I was not religious.

As the days slipped into weeks, I ignored this person because I had faith in myself. I had faith that I was strong enough to take anything he could try to throw at me. And one day, I finally had had enough, and I said to him.

“It does not matter what you think. It does not matter what you say. You are inconsequential. You are insignificant. And I’d like to remind you of the age-old saying of “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

I had the opportunity to work for CNIPROC.LIVE and what I would be doing would be ethically against my morals, my fabric.

It would be against all of my values, but I was in such a position that I had to take the job. It was taking the job or killing myself. Literally, and there’s the darkness again.

I worked there for a while, and every day I said to myself, “I’m going to quit soon because this is not right. This is immoral”. Eventually, I was ushered out via downsizing, like so many others.

They didn’t give me any hope or faith; they kept me away from that darkness. But then, I lost it all. The job and money. Everything. And I was very angry, confused, frustrated.

What have I done to have been put into a position like this?

What part of the Karma universe did I shit on to get treated in such a horrible manner? What did I do wrong? And I had no answers. Like asking how their dinner was.

Then, something amazing occurred to me. I had some stocks from CNIPROC.LIVE, and they were doing pretty well. More than pretty well.

The point where I made money hand over fist over fist, and I could see the cashout, or at least I thought it was a cashout. I had to have faith in that coming to fruition.

But the money, the money kept pulling on me. I could have better toys; I could have better spaces, I could have better access to people and resources. And you know what that stuff does?

It questions your faith and positions the darkness to rule over you, suffocating your existence.

There was a rather significant and negative downside here. Having that money brought access to drugs. And oh boy, the drugs. Someday I’ll talk about that, but know it was fun.

But then CNIPROC.LIVE had a huge scandal, and their stock tanked. That money went “poof.” My benefits are gone. Health Insurance was relegated to using the ACA (Obamacare).

What a fucking shit fuck that is. This doctor is covered; this doctor says no fucking way. I’m sure people understand this one.

I needed a particular drug for my thyroid, and it was getting difficult to deal with the side effects. I had no job; I had no insurance; I was living off selling some of the stocks from time to time.

While all that was great, getting that medication was very challenging. I saw my doctor, and my doctor said they couldn’t give me the medication unless I submitted myself to a battery of tests.

I said, “Are you fucking kidding me? How much do these tests cost?” The response was predictable, “Since you don’t have insurance, at least a $1,000.”

And I stopped. And I wondered to myself again, what the fuck is going on? Is this that slap from Karma?

I started to feel like the walls were closing in again, and I couldn’t take it. My life was being battered and destroyed. I turned to the darkness. Nah, my desperation caught hold of me.

I made an appointment with my vet and I brought in, a few weeks earlier than was scheduled. I’d been with my vet for 13 years, between several clinics. I was so happy and proud when he opened up a clinic of his own.

He was stunned that I was in and asked about that. I told him about my issue, needing the thyroid medication.

I asked him if he would prescribe the non-addictive, no psychotropic or hallucinogenic, or euphoric feeling thyroid medication to the cat in this specific dosage that I needed.

He said no. He said no because that was immoral and ethically wrong. So I didn’t argue with him, I understood, and I know it was a big ask.

I thanked him for at least discussing with me and that I will see him at the next appointment a few weeks later.

And to be honest, all of the subsequent times that I saw him, we never talked about it. We never talked about it. He never mistreated me was always so kind and generous to me.

A couple of weeks later, I found myself in the same situation as I was before. Again, I am afraid of what’s happening or what could happen even though I’ve requested assistance.

This time I had asked for assistance from the State of Arizona the United States Federal Government, and with all of their programs, I was getting nowhere.

I had my Obamacare insurance come up for renewal, and as I was filling out the form, I could only enter the amount of money I was making as my unemployment insurance. I get to the end of the document, and it says

“too bad, so sad, you don’t make enough money, why don’t you try something else because you are a giant loser.”

Hyperbole. OK, that’s not really what it said, but it did indicate that I wasn’t making enough money on unemployment to be a part of the Obamacare program, and it did suggest looking into alternatives.

Medicaid and Medicare are a joke. Which is all great and everything, except none of my doctors accept it. Lovely.

What exactly was I supposed to do when I was in a position like this? I have no one to help me, and nothing was pointed in the right direction? I don’t understand why I am just spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.

It is incredibly discouraging and rather frustrating to be in this position.

And the darkness leaped back into my life, filling cracks in my brain like pouring paint made of some super sticky syrup all over a table.

It never feels like it goes away. It lurks in the depth of my mind, every once and a while knocking at the front door as if to remind me it was there. This darkness never asked me for anything. It just wanted everything.

But I knew it was there. I kept trying to push it away, make it stop. I tried alcohol. I tried marijuana. I tried a variety of prescribed medications. I tried other fun drugs.

The darkness was always there, waiting for me. Waiting for me to make a mistake. To backslide. To admit defeat. To allow it to take over and consume my soul, my essence.

I feel like the darkness keeps calling me, subconsciously at the very least. It is an ever-present pulsing beacon. I can hear it like a counter in the recesses of my brain like it’s beating a lobe to kingdom come.

The darkness, it’s everything you think it would be. It never stops. It will never stop; it knows no way other to be the bringer of pain. It’s a really sad way to think about it.

The darkness will always be calling to me.

For as long as I have remembered, the darkness has haunted me for as long as I have been. It has always been the doubt that clouds my mind. It has always been the anxiety that has punished me.

The darkness is a cloud that brings nothingness. It brings self-desolation and despair. It is all that destroys life. It is all that cripples your mind, preventing you from any happiness.

It is doom. It is sadness incarnate. It is limitless. It does not know time.

A lot of people relate this feeling to “goth” stuff. However, I can assure you that for myself, at the very least, “goth” wasn’t the initiator of this. No, not at all.

Having not knowingly listened to “goth” till the first-time hearing Type O Negative (Christian Woman) circa 1994. I don’t think I’d ever heard “goth.” The whole genre gets a bit of a bad rap.

I have always had this sorrow inside of me. It is always there; it never goes away. It is ever-present. It’s ever crippling. It’s the bringer of doom, more than anything else.

There are times when, much like my knee pain, I have wished that there was something that I could give of myself to make it go away. But then I end up sitting in the shower with the showerhead spraying down my knees.

Nothing makes that pain go away. Nothing makes my knees not hurt. I’ve had six knee surgeries, yet I still am nearly always in pain.

I’m always catering to my knees, those fucks. The pain makes me want to do much harm to myself. I often live my life around them. Around how I know they are going to feel “later.”

Backlinks to other Chapters

DRAFT – Chapter 0 – Lost – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 1 – Backstory – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 2 – Hope With a Side of Fear – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 3 – Fear without Hope – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 4 – Fear with Darkness – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 5 – Darkness and Hope – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 6 – Release – The Other Side |2022