I imagined myself to be immensely powerful, full of unearthly knowledge, connected psychically to the higher worlds, and as I imagined it I felt it to be true. I was like some kind of Demigod. “This is great,” I said to myself, “Fuck yeah…” I was superhuman in potency. I was untouchable, invincible, possessed of arcane powers. I was telepathic, telekinetic – I could see the etheric worlds as plain as day. I could communicate with devas and elementals. Cosmic energy was flowing up through my feet and out of the crown of my head; electricity was popping and crackling in the air around me. The air was loaded with ozone. It wasn’t mere blood that flowed in my veins but something else! My thoughts were not the thoughts of ordinary men either – I had no interest in the thoughts of ordinary men, to be honest. No interest at all. My affairs were not the affairs of ordinary men – I was concerned with more arcane matters.
A secret smile played about my lips as I made my way to the checkout with my basket of shopping. I recited verses from the Egyptian Book of the Dead under my breath:
“Get thee back thou Crocodile fiend Sui, thou shalt not advance upon me for I live by reason of the magical words that I have before me…”
Power coursed through my veins. As the potent words from The Chapters of Coming Forth By Day rolled from my tongue I knew I was untouchable. “I am supreme!” I burst out, full of the sudden exaltation that knows no bounds. Then, in an instant, I regretted it. I realized what I had just done. Faces turned to look at me – unfriendly faces. Faces that – in some cases – frankly betrayed their owner’s hostility and contempt. In many faces, I could see outright incredulity. Others showed amusement. Small children laughed and pointed at me.
This of course immediately sent me rebounding in the opposite direction. Everything went into reverse – the power and exaltation was gone in a flash, to be replaced by intense unrelenting mortification and an overwhelming desire to get away. ‘Humiliation’ isn’t a proper word to convey what I felt then, standing in the queue for the checkout in Dunnes Stores in the B&Q Complex. Humiliation is in fact a very inadequate word indeed. My bubble had burst and now I didn’t feel powerful at all – I was standing there awkwardly in the queue cruelly exposed to all onlookers as some kind of bizarre freak, as some kind of laughably ill-adapted oddball. My private fantasy world had evaporated in a flash leaving me standing there like a complete and utter knobhead. I was a complete and utter knobhead – there is no other way of putting it. I could actually handle that, what I couldn’t handle was the fact that now everybody else knew it…
My mistake was to have let out my fantasy in the way that I had done. It is always this way with private fantasy worlds. They are – I realized with great clarity as I stood there waiting for my chance to pay for my shopping and get the hell out of there – best kept private…
