The Lonely Road

Short Story 1 of Truth Fiction and Lost Friends

By KJ Halliday Jnr

“Where did you go?” asked one of the nurses that were transporting me.

I was supposed to be sent in an ambulance, but the ambulance drivers refused to take me to Tamworth. Not sick enough. I had overheard the discussion that is often had in hospitals as if the patient is not there. Invisible.

“I was in hell” I replied.

I didn’t feel like mentioning the rest, since the situation had already spun well out of my control, something the Holy Spirit had warned me about before proceeding. It was definitely not something I would call a ritual at all. It was a calling and a confrontation.

The idea, so the Spirit assured me, was a simple invocation and supplication. What it failed to mention who and what the gatekeeper spirit I would be confronted by was. I had met so many spirits in both flesh and in passing, that it was something I didn’t think much about anymore. It seemed routine. Besides, the dead have very little to say of concern to the living, and it was usually through other vessels.

It was often just a homeless person grabbing me, out of a crowd of people, screaming gibberish, or a snippet of conversation from a passing stranger. But the gift was always the same, and direct – forewarned is forearmed. This spirit was something older and darker. Not a lack of a light type of darkness, but devouring of lumination type of darkness.

It had been made clear to me before saying “yes” to what is, for people like me, a type of coming of age (A rite of passage. A remembrance of what once was. A vision of things to come) was that this meant the end of all my friendships and forsaking even my own life. Now that I was in a car being asked questions after the event, I decided to go into “auto” mode and let the Spirit cover the questioning.

It also helps when the hospital pumps you full of valium. Much of the rest of the conversation was friendly in the “I feel sorry for this crazy person” kind of way.

The road from Glen Innes to Tamworth is one that is very familiar to me, and something in my soul had always pointed to that place as a point of darkness in my life. So my testing would begin there of all places. I had at least had hope in what the other one had shown me after I passed my trials, and supplications in prayers before the Highest. A future time when, as I am right now, could sit and write openly about my experiences. My testimony.

When people think of God, they tend to focus on their little guidebooks. A Bible, a Torah, a Koran. However, the truth of the matter is more complicated, and perhaps, more wonderful to understand. If you believe at all in a supreme being, capable of creating and sustaining life, and omnipotent, then you must also understand that any supposedly holy books may contain a discussion of such a being, but, and it’s a big but, this type of being does not live solely within such a book. They are all flawed creations of man. An attempt to emulate the divine, or in most cases, to create their own god who does not speak, and does not hear and does not see them.

My purpose, such as it was and at the urging of the Spirit was to merely be a vessel of prayers and a sacrifice of sorts. That isn’t to say (as I have been misunderstood in the past) that death was required – despite it occurring. Rather, it was to throw aside my own life, such as it was, to replace it with something else, from that place people refer to as “Heaven” – although it is something more than that. To carry something important back – the way we have always completed our works while in the Earthly realm.

Now is really not the time to delve too deeply into it, especially as I was on my way to a psychiatric unit. The funny thing was, despite feeling battered and needing to rest after an unexpected spiritual confrontation, I had never felt surer of myself, more alive. Whatever had been forced into my mind from the Heavenly realm was, however, taking up a lot of space in my brain. If you can imagine, being shown in a tiny instant, everything that was and everything that will be. What would you remember?

It was already clear to me at that point that I am either completely insane or, everything I had suspected was true. The little incidences that never made sense. Like my bedroom blinds being pulled open by invisible hands, and my window flying open with a crash by itself. Now though, I didn’t need proof. I didn’t need any more epiphanies. I knew. I just knew. Being labelled as suicidal was actually hilarious at the time. Life had never felt more precious, understanding at last what wisdom and wealth really was.

That was probably a lot to take in, and the spirit has told me not to go too overboard in the retelling of what was, a set of tragic circumstances from the past. Being dropped off at the Banksia Mental Health Unit in Tamworth (Country Music Capital of Australia!) where my own mini nightmare began, and where I then understood human rights are just something those with money dabble in and discuss over champagne.

I still remember so clearly the layout and sadness of the place, despite there being an obvious attempt to add as much light to the building as possible. The nurses at the entrance all sat behind what looked like bulletproof perspex, to separate them from the dangerous crazy people inside. You could see none of them wanted to be there, except for the paycheque. This was where they kept the patients’ cigarettes, doled out one by one, lest anyone would share with other patients.

The Banksia Mental Health Unit had one courtyard that you would not describe as spacious. It was for pacing, smoking, and pacing some more. As if this type of environment would somehow make somebody’s state of mental health better. I knew that a place like this was designed for one thing – containment and crushing spirits. So I tried to make the most of it.

We were not allowed to have a cigarette lighter. Apparently, someone had set fire to the curtains at some point in the past. Although, I am not sure that burning down Banksia would not have been a good thing. Instead, patients could line up and push a little metal button, and stick their smoke through the hole in a metal plate. Sometimes it would singe the cigarette slightly, other times light it, and more often than now, produce a cigarette end colder than when it was placed in the contraption.

It was almost as if the courtyard itself was designed as an experiment. How to make the mentally ill more mental. Let them walk around and around, while the nurses would laugh at the patients and any serious questions they would ask. The way they would treat everyone like children was astonishing. This wasn’t a care facility, it was a holding cell. The people here were mostly not wanted by family and friends, had no family and friends, or had been here before, been broken and so had nowhere else to go. I could feel the evil of the place pulsing in its walls.

I was given a cell, sorry, room, with three beds, but only one other patient. The first night my roommate furiously masturbated. He didn’t seem to stop all night. I was waiting for his battered member to tear off his body and for the screams to begin. Luckily, that didn’t eventuate.

Now time inside a mental ward is a strange concept. They feed everyone the same drugs, antipsychotics – which really work – because your mind is actually altered in a way that you no longer feel anything. For most people, being on antipsychotics would mean you could watch someone being beaten to death, right before your eyes, and you wouldn’t care. It is a drug not designed to fix anyone, but rather subdue.

Having worked inside a few different farms I understood this was all about sedation and control of the animals – which were, unfortunately – us.

In the morning we would all line up for drugs. All the same, as I said. In tiny white cups and imprinted with Lilly, in an almost mocking way – trying to pretend to be of the natural world when it was just experimental chemicals to crush your emotions. All with the added benefit of lining the pockets of a faceless pharmaceuticals company. Anything for a dollar. Despite the Spirit preparing me for this, and assuring me everything was going to be ok, it was difficult to be there at that moment.

It has been times such as this that I have found both God, and the Holy Spirit to have a particularly dark sense of humour. A sense of humour that I find quite fitting for the state of the world, such as it is. In this case, my first experience of the conga line of breakfast drugs in the hospital was, actually hilarious to me.

As my turn finally arrived to take what was seemingly Satan’s own version of communion, and instead of wine and bread, it was a pill and some cheap orange juice. But, as the nurse begins to pour the juice into my cup, she keeps pouring, until it overflows. To many, this would be a simple accident, but really, it was the spirit assuring that my “cup runneth over” as the bible saying goes.

Even though I was not in the mood for jokes, the Spirit had, once again, assured me I was on the right track, no matter how awful it might seem right now.

I love to have a beer with Patrick
I love to have a beer with Pat
We drink in moderation
And it wouldn’t really matter if the beer was flat
(From “Duncan” by Slim Dusty. Australian country music legend)

One thing that the Spirit had taught me was that there is more to music than just a song and some instruments. Music is our story as humans, and the best music doesn’t just come from the soul, it comes from what you would call Heaven. It’s been many times that the Spirit has saved me and guided me with music, and helped me to understand certain lingering questions that I have had in my life.

I have grown up my entire life as a stigmatic. Meaning I have certain scars (not wounds) that correlate to the crucifixion of Christ. Now, not being a religious person, but one of faith, I have kept this hidden from everyone in my life. In fact, I have a scar on one wrist – not the hand. Why? Because to save wood in certain areas the Romans would crucify people with one wrist placed above the other, strung from a single pole. The hands would form a “cross”. Try it yourself at home!

I also have one on my side, not very big, but matching the story that on the cross, Roman guards, instead of breaking Jesus’ legs, put a spear through his side.

Now if you don’t think I am crazy at this point I would worry for your own mental health, but I assure you, the scars are real, the reasons, in honesty, I don’t really know despite having a personal interest in understanding the strange fate that had me, a stigmatic, locked away in a mental ward.

I am being sidetracked again with incidental information that may or may not be relevant to this story. Do these scars really matter? Especially when they have always been something I have covered up, quite literally.

Now despite the mental prison, I had been placed in, the kind folks that ran this medical torture chamber did allow visitors after a time. They also allowed for day passes into the normal world if you hadn’t smeared your own poo on the walls or stabbed someone to death. This was all about acting the way you were told to act. Obey.

One of my old friends (keep in mind what I said earlier, that this would be one of the last times I would ever see any of my old friends) Patrick, had come for a visit and taken me out to get a few things, as I had no other clothes, shoes etc.

Now Patrick was an easy going and genuinely kind sort of guy, and probably not one to understand my predicament, especially since I myself did not understand it. Although, with some of the medication it was often times hard to communicate as effectively as I was used to. I still remember Patrick being kind enough to pay for a few items from the shop. I didn’t have money at that time, but I had a designer orange tracksuit top I had bought a while before from South Korea.

It was another one of those things that the Spirit, in all its incessantness made it clear to me to do. So without thinking, I made sure Patrick took the orange jacket as a thank you. It wasn’t until the release of Feel it Still by Portugal the Man ( you can watch the video clip later at 2:04 – or further down this page) that the orange jacket made any sense at all. Sometimes events and things that stick in our minds are just marker points for greater things. Despite going through all of that – and this is just a little piece of the lonely road I have travelled, I am blessed with everything the Spirit showed me would come of it all. The biggest gift from “Heaven” arrived not long ago actually.

Got another mouth to feed
Leave it with a baby sitter, mama, call the gravedigger
Gone with the fallen leaves
Am I coming out of left field?
(From the song: Feel it Still – by Portugal the Man)

I gave that orange jacket away at least 14 years ago now, and despite knowing that no friends would talk to me again, that I would be seen as insane by my family, I am sitting here exactly where I was shown. That’s my testimony, but it’s only a little sample of it. There is more to tell, and your own lonely road will be just around the corner now. There isn’t much time, so I must go and attend to some other matters. When you need it, the Spirit will send you some help and confirmation.

We all have our own roads to travel down, but I will give you some advice – don’t take the well-travelled way, take the narrow path, away from the crowds and those who love the sound of their own voice. There you will find the truth. Then you will see God.

Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

Luke 12:3 KJV

So when that nurse in the car, travelling down that lonely New England Highway asked me “where did you go?”.

“To hell” I replied.

Only what she didn’t understand that I was describing what I had been shown – in the future. I knew where this road was heading. Towards my own personal hell, prepared just for me by Satan in the Banksia Mental Health Unit, in Tamworth of all places.

What I never mentioned was the joys of what came much later.

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

Revelation 2:10 KJV

So if you want to know what time it is, then just open your eyes and ears. Oh, and watch for watches. It might make your life easier. Stay safe out there.

Thank you for reading. Please share it if you enjoyed it. NEW Parts of “Truth, Fiction and Lost Friends” will be coming soon. Be sure to check out Salvation.