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Chapter 12

Part 1
 Meeting with Evil

I met with him again tonight, the guy on the moped. This time I finally understood he wasn't just a malevolent teenage guy – he is Satan himself, in one of his many guises. Tonight I could see this, as I looked deeply into his eyes. Gazing into his eyes put me in contact with an aura radiating about him, an aura emitting a soul-paralyzing cold deep evil. A frantic, abhorrent, agonizing fear impossible to endure took hold of me. Hence, our encounter was short, I simply couldn't abide being in his presence. Yet a lot took place during this brief space of time.
          It all happened in the ancient part of the town I live in. I was walking along one of the gravel pathways, a path surrounded by fields of wheat, oat, barley and rye which by now had grown knee high and just started to shift in colour from green to yellow. It was early in the afternoon and the sun was shining, about to get ready to set but still its warmth lingered on as stark as had it been midday.
          My purpose for being there was simply to take a short walk and get some fresh air, and when I met him I was on my way back home again. Seen from my point of view at the time this meant I was walking due west. I was gazing out over the vast fields on both sides of my trail, enjoying the feeling of openness they gave, enjoying the tranquillity of that place, enjoying the company of occasional joggers and bikers and walkers with whom I shared this moment. I took great pleasure from letting my mind roam freely here, from letting go of all constrained thoughts and just follow the unbound mind on whatever path it chose to wander. One such whim passing lightly through my mind was that although the other persons who had ended up here at this particular moment, either by chance or by choice, didn't actually meet or share anything specific, we just shared being here at this same time. I didn't think of it in any philosophical terms, I didn't think it was anything mysterious or special with that at all, I just liked having this idea lightsomely crossing my mind. It gave me a feeling of the hugeness in life, somehow. From this my mind wandered on towards the lingering warmth of the sun as I absentmindedly sensed the sunbeams bouncing playfully on my body.
            So I was in a cozy state of blithe when the question that always kept coming back to me entered my thoughts. Sometimes it comes with intensity, sometimes it just touches my mind ever so briefly and disappears again before I can get a hold of it. The one thing constant about this question is that it always comes unannounced and seemingly from out of nowhere: "Who are You? Who is it that I'm searching for?" This time the question had hit me rather intensely so I sat down for a while, trying to get in real touch with it. For a second or two I thought I knew who it could be, but then I got the strong feeling I was on the wrong track. Again. It made me sad and disappointed me quite a bit.
          In this feeling of tiredness and slight disappointment, but also an acceptance of kind, I got back up and continued walking. I was about 10 paces away from where the trail I walked intersects with another gravel path when the guy on the moped came driving on the intersecting pathway, heading in a southbound direction. I knew the road he came from didn't lead anywhere, it ends at an abandoned shed just some 60 paces away. As he drove through the junction he looked at me, and the malice glow in his eyes when they met mine, combined with the aura of utter evilness around him, was so intense I just froze.
          The thing is, this guy appears as being just an ordinary guy. As long as you don't pay any attention to him you can easily mistake him for being just another guy around 15 years old or so, if you, like, just walk past him on the street or something. He has short, light-brown hair, his eyes go in a watery blue-green colour, he's medium sized, often wears a slightly threadbare greyish jeans jacket, blue jeans and tennis shoes. But when you meet his eyes, meet them for real, then you get to see a reflection of his soul, and when you do, you get in touch with the force he radiates, and then, then you know who he is.
           As he drove through that junction he looked straight at me, and I looked back. He drove a little bit further, and then he stopped. When he had passed the intersection I could see that on the back of his moped sat a little kid, a boy with blond hair and blue eyes, somewhere around 4 or 5 years old I would guess. At the very moment I spotted the kid he turned his head and looked at me. It was because of this the guy on the moped had stopped, as if he could sense us seeing one another, the little kid and I. By now they were roundabout 15 paces away. Both of them eying me, neither of them saying anything. Then the guy on the moped narrowed his eyes, and motioned me – dared me – to come closer. He made a provocative movement with his hand, a gesture I understood meant: "Come here, come to us, come rescue the kid – if you have the guts …" In the eyes of the little boy I could see he desperately wanted me to come to his rescue, he was really scared being in the peril company of that moped guy. But, at the same time, his eyes were telling me how very proud he was to have been let in to play with him, with the big guys, he had this obstinate attitude glimpsing defiantly in his eyes, like was he saying: "I'm hanging with the cool guys now so don't you come here and embarrass me, I don't need you!".
          All of this was happening in the shortest of whiles, so the predicament the little boy had gotten himself into hit me more as an instinctive insight than a thought-through conclusion. I just sensed it all; the impenetrableness of the invisible web woven around the little kid by his own mixed emotions, a web now holding him captive by threads sticky with dread, anger, pride and obstinacy. And I knew, as did he somewhere deep down, that what he really wanted was to leave the guy and get off the sidetrack he'd been lured to join. But he couldn't do it on his own. He just couldn't. Someone had to come to his aid, someone who could not only see past his defying surface but also help him tackle the embarrassment that came with the act of leaving. There were no other persons around now, so his hope rapt solely and concentrated onto me. I never questioned whether I should try to help him or not, it was as if that wasn't even an option, only, I didn't know how to do it. I was so immensely scared myself by now, and my fear made me seriously doubt I had neither the strength nor the power to do anything. By now, I could literally sense fear crawling up and down my spine.

          continues in Chapter Twelve Part II...