I’ll never forget when things started to change for me. It was early on in 2020 when the Fear started to set in.
As someone who went through his fair share of life-changing circumstances prior to any sort of worldwide panic, I thought it almost Silly that so many were undergoing Massive Ego Deaths and turning into Hypochondriacs hellbent (or Heaven Sent) on disinfecting any surface they could, spraying chemical particles into the air and removing the top layer of their skin by applying copious amounts of hand sanitizer in an attempt to Scare off the Plague that was about to (allegedly) begin to Ravage the Earth.
I was working for a stockbroking company at the time, reading Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., becoming aware of the prediction of an Automated Workforce in 1952, nearly 70 years before companies would start massive layoffs and replacing employees with robots. The past always seems to repeat itself and I wasn’t fully aware of how that was going to take place, but something was definitely about to happen.
Rarely does it rain in the Desert, which, living in Las Vegas, you become almost accustomed to the hot summers and dry winters with only a few days of rainfall during the year. Hard to determine the motives of the masonry contractors and other individuals responsible for building construction, but something always seemed Off about the Villas at Desert Pointe, the apartment complex that I called Home when I first moved to Las Vegas, only a block away from one of the most dangerous intersections in town, Twain Avenue and Swenson Drive (now known as University Center Drive, perhaps to deflect the infamy attached to the former name).
A cheap apartment always comes with its fair share of nuances, perhaps cabinets that don’t close or open properly, older appliances, loose electrical outlets that plugs fall out of easily, sometimes even insects or rodents that seem to creep out of the woodwork, but what happened during the fierce November Rain of 2019 was unexpected, to say the least.
It is 3:16 PM as I write this, and apartment 316 was assigned to me upon signing my lease with the Villas, a lease I and many other residents would desperately wish they had not signed as it was almost impossible to get out once you were locked in.
The first thing I noticed once the Rain started was a slight drip emerging from my ceiling, which I was able to contain in a bucket for a while. At this point, I would have considered myself more of a lazybones than the Driven, Stoic, Masonic individual I have turned into but believe me when I tell you that all of this happened for a reason.
First thing I attempted to do was repair the ceiling myself. When I first noticed the leak I called my complex’s 24 hour emergency line and I was greeted by someone who didn’t seem to care about the issue I was having and actually hung up on me when I told him that it was an emergency that needed to be taken care of. Days, possibly weeks passed before I heard anything else from the powers that be about something that could have potentially saved me from the destruction of my life that was about to ensue, but things happened as they did and I moved forward.
Took a trip to the local Target and looked around for something that could have helped, found some sort of construction putty that looked like it might do the job and I paid out of my own pocket to do some building repairs for a building that proved to me later on wanted nothing from me but my life and wellbeing.
This, of course, did not work, as often things that are not meant to succeed do. One of the phrases I have reflected on moving forward is "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Something was happening and at this point in time I was powerless to do anything but submit to the forces at work and my way out would not come until much, much later.
The dripping was incessant and without ceasing, and since I was working from home at the time (the pan/scam/plan/wham/bandemic) in Full Swing, there was not much to take my mind off of it while it was starting. This began my full descent into complete mental health purgatory, as I noticed that things began to be taking a toll on me and things that I normally had no trouble with started to make me anxious. The first thing I noticed was that music was sending me secret messages that were scaring me, soon after, the movies I was watching were doing the same thing, and the last thing I cut off in the entertainment spectrum was television programs that I would binge watch but when death plots would spiral to increase views, I felt as if the Divine was predicting my death itself and stopped watching/listening anything at all.
I had not begun to realize that it was Black Mold that was creeping into my bloodstream by way of airborne particles, but my Body was certainly understanding it at that point and the effects started to kick in.
For some reason, I was unable to formulate thoughts in my head and when considering talking to friends, family or lovers, I could not generate any ideas or points of reference to converse on so I began to withdraw from society and people.
At the worst of it, I sat in my apartment on the couch in my living room, very close to the Black Mold Ceiling that would soon start having more devastating health effects on me, and I would scroll on social media accounts on my phone from dawn until dusk, still working my job of course, but doing nothing else besides that. If you know me personally, or did at the time, you may have noticed me withdrawing from society but I would “like” posts as it gave me something to do, the only thing I was doing at the time. Buried in the notifications, you may find the Grim Reaper who was chasing me liking your posts from that time period, typically ad nauseum.
One thing I dwelled upon was the women from my past, especially those with family and children at the time, and I wept wondering if I would ever recover from this idiopathic disease that was burdening my body and soul.
As this Phenomenon moved into Act II, I was hospitalized briefly in August of 2020, feeling feverish for a few days and tested for COVID-19 at a urgent care office nearby, a test that would later come back negative (throughout all of this, I have never tested positive for COVID-19). I noticed that my body was beginning to fall into a vegetative status, as I felt myself feeling faint and as if I was about to pass out/die if I didn’t seek help immediately.
I called 911, a decision that would put me into massive debt but could have possibly been Step 1 into saving my life, so I try not to view this hospitalization negatively, even though I was treated like a drug addict by nearly everyone I came across in the Desert Springs Hospital.
The hospitalization came and went and I won’t dwell on it too much because it was a minor arc in a larger scene of tumultuous nature, if you’re still reading I’m glad that I’m keeping you company and hope that you can see why I am the way that I am now having gone through all of this.
Since the city of Las Vegas was on a lockdown during my illness, once returned to my home (unknowing of the Black Mold still at this point), I began to have groceries and meals delivered to my apartment through delivery services, usually hiding behind the door as I listened for them to arrive, and at the height of the onslaught, hoping that I would not pass away before my items arrived, worrying about what would take place after the fact and the people who would be responsible for recovering my body and other eery, dark thoughts that began swimming around in my head.
I’ve been away from this for Days and now I find this as a Good Stopping Point so I will continue on with my next post which will describe my Exodus or שְׁמוֹת from the End of my Past Life and the Beginning of my New Life.
Shalom.