"My attempts at clarification have only succeeded in muddying up my own situation."
"With the ability imparted by this parchment, you can clear up misunderstandings, which are all that separate one person from another."
He handed me a parchment. On it was written, "Charles Brenton is now granted the ability to pass through the membranes that separate mind from mind."
I couldn't read the signature, but it was bold and black and somehow looked holy.
I took the parchment in my hand. A feeling of competence and rightness came over me.
The parchment shrunk and flew from my hand into my head. It was glorious to feel it there. My image of my own rightness increased.
The subgod said, "Are you sure you know what to do with it?"
"I know," I said.
"Anything you want to run over with me?"
"No, I've got it. Many thanks, and I'll get to work immediately."
"I'll leave you to it, then."
I saw in a flash what needed to be done. God knows I had written about it often enough. The world was filled with misunderstandings. Ignorant and misinformed armies clashed by night, innocent women and children were killed, dictators and terrorists reigned.
There was work to be done with all of that and much more. On an international level.
Уnd there were many problems in America, too. There were some things I badly needed to tell our President, and have him understand them. I saw them all. The parchment in my head gave me the ability to do that.
There was work to be done, and no time to lose.
But first, I thought I'd begin with a situation nearer to home.
Light as air, I flew out of my apartment window and across town. I crossed Central Park, and admired the lights along the roadways. Across Central Park West, then I turned uptown for a few blocks, and then west again. I saw Myra's apartment building ahead. It used to be mine, too.
I entered through a long-remembered window. Like a breath of wind I moved through the rooms. I found my wife asleep in her bed. Alone in her room. I paused a moment to admire her beauty. Then, pursuant to the instructions of the subdiety as I understood then, I entered her mind.
The membrane at the threshhold held me back for a moment. Without Ahriman's parchment, I couldn't have done it. As it was, I feared the parchment might not work. But I found myself passing through it slowly, turning myself into something infinitesimal, ions, electrons--except for psychology I have no scientific training. Anyhow, I passed through the membrane.
Once on the other side, I reconstituted myself.
I was in a corridor that curved far away into the distance. It was lined with filing cabinets, which held the banks of dicta Myra lived by. These were the commands that she gave herself, the judgments she made, and most of them followed the commands set down from childhood. There were many she had not altered since that time.
Her mind to me was a long labyrinthine path that wound slowly into the interior of her soul.