"Somebody asked me the other day, 'What is it you have, is your life wonderful?' And I had to tell them: 'I have the moon and the sun and the stars in the sky. I have everything in the world. There's nothing I do not have.' Sitting in my fame home, embedded in a suburban bubble and driving chariots of lust, what else could I say? But the truth is, there's nothing I do have. My life is empty. This can be said to no one. Anyone sees the lie and I die. That's why I'm lying here now: to keep the secret safe.
"My finely furnished castle is my finely furnished prison. But others see only the gilded walls. In the world where I live, to not be happy in such a well fortified fortress is the Ultimate Sin. And we pride ourselves above all else on our Sinlessness. So how does one escape? Where is the place where I can go and be free of it all? Why it's right here, on this hospital bed.
"It's a temporary reprieve, I know. I see all the looks of concern on my parents' and husband's faces. But I also know how quickly they would turn had they a certainty of knowledge of my treason. Outcast I would be. Already I can see twinges of outrage as they suspect the motives for my self-inflicted demise. They're wondering who I am now. Is she a traitor among us?
"Why yes, yes I am.
"Even in a coma that's a dangerous thing to say. But my goals and my gods have failed me. 'If you can't lie, you have to die.' That was my holy mantra, the sunglasses on my soul. I smirked in my disguise and chastised those losers whose secrets got revealed. My God, what a feeling of contempt! But now I share the losers' fate. I lost myself along the way - or perhaps I should say I found myself - and I got to a place where I could lie no more.
"I read them well, my supporters. My traitorous urge to be free surges through my veins, bringing the cherished dream of life back to me. If I give in to this impulse, I will be abandoned by those who sustain me. All the world is blackmail in the end. If I free myself I will be called a 'lost sheep' and a 'misguided soul'. Help from them can only mean returning to the fold of my golden prison of despair. Who among them wants to set me free? Who among them is not Pharaoh?
"I discern I can still salvage a sickening horror hell out of this. I know they know of their own sins just as I know of mine. But they didn't take 32 pills, I did. Thus forever will I be looked askance with suspicion and if ever I express any sort of doubt of them or the holiness of the life they provide me, my captors will sneer and say, 'Oh, you're not going to do that again, are you?' And thusly the cell door of shame will slam shut. Paradise with iron bars.
"Here in the coma world, I have it both ways, neither trapped nor free. Can you imagine a life outside the castle? Is there one? Does God really exist? Does somebody somewhere really need me? I would have to rebuild everything, this time on a foundation of truth. That would be wonderful! It's been so long since I've walked in the Son. Free and clean with a smile of its own making - why did I ever get away from that? I'd be like a little child again, discovering all the joys of life meant for me.
"But years of running have put me far, far away from what I want. Have I the strength to leave my gilded cage? To stay entombed is to stay in torment till the end of my days. I'll be their puppet girl, my strings pulled this way and that, their precious toy of amusement assuaging their own fears and doubts. In such a way would I be 'useful' and on bended knee I would pray to my Maker to make me holy, to make me His puppet as well. But God doesn't want puppets.
"Abandoned by all. God wants not my useless puppet ways, my family suffers no traitors in their midst and I, myself, want no part of this cripple you see lying comatose before you. Is this how a real person becomes a ghost? If I go on to heaven, I'll forever bear the disdain of God and hear the wailing of my motherless children. But if I come back, will I have the strength to transcend the castle walls? I fear not. I fear I have only dug my hole deeper and made my life dumber.
"Dear God, help me. I am too stupid to live."
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