The Exit is Home, Hades said.

A kite flying loose and crazy and blindingly bright, Dr. J didn’t touch the ground. She wasn’t a solid thing, made of air, confetti, and balloons in haute couture. With a flawless face, a smile out of a Crest toothpaste commercial, and a red wig du jour, Dr. J was picture-perfect grotesque. She could pop without warning — a jack in the box! She shot off—AH!—like a firework into the sky and sighed, clasping her hands shut and clapping like a monkey with cymbals. You jumped! Cracked up.

Eyes on the stars, Dr. J.

She called herself the “Mother Teresa of the Tax Industry.”

Mirror mirror mirrors on her office walls, collectible tea sets trailing through the rooms on pedestals, Dr. J reflected a harsh reality like the degree to which people lie and parade themselves around like they don’t. In rooms covered in mirrors, the Tax Law Anthology on shelves, and balloons across the ceiling, what was the truth? Did it matter?

When I launched my undercover investigation, I knew I knew nothing and I thought it was perhaps my greatest strength. “I know.” I know I know and I know you don’t know. You know…No, you know, you know how it works. It wasn’t invisible: psychology. It was the architecture of her past shattered in the atmosphere. At four, five, she was so extreme, how could I even, at that age, take this woman seriously? What was this constant mean man, molester, rapist, death in an offensively wide-eyed, breathy, and bright mask even of chastity? So, this was her past, and I saw it at five: she wasn’t there.

Amanda Hess wrote an article called “Mommy is Going Away for a While” in the New York Times recently about the anti-heroine of the moment: the mother who abandons her child. People described Dr. J as a walking fiction, cartoon. She orchestrated a spectacle for four years, throwing money, coming over to this woman’s house twice drunk and sparkling, accusing my father of being a child molester, beater, and then she was already gone by the time I got home, the mirrors being smashed off the walls: the harsh reality of these unrealities, in a sense.

In my understanding of her, there was no such thing as the truth. I don’t know what to say about what she said and what she didn’t and what was true and what wasn’t. When you’re picking up the phone at four years old to hear her sister dying and Dr. J’s response is that she gets beaten to death practically by her murderer husband in and out of jail, what do you do with that? When she’s calling my Aunt about all the pills she’s taking for her terminal illnesses that don’t exist—now, I know about “the pills” as in her drug habit, so was she trying to justify it to herself by making up stories? What was the point—attention, sympathy, intimacy? What was true, “once upon a time?”

Dr. J had a Ph.D. in three different subjects.

In the article in Neiman Marcus Magazine, she was a professional pianist once. Was she? “Her first client,” she states, “is about to go to jail.” Where did she come from? Her name. It was sharp and stunning, the fear, considering who she was, mirror mirror mirrors on the walls with collectible tea cup sets trailing through the rooms, getting pulled over nightly in a car with a license plate that read: IRSHELP.

My Neapolitan cousins wondered if my mother had cousins I might be able to call and connect with. Not to project onto them, I have no clue who they are, but you see, it was always the case. My mother? Never heard from this lady. I was on the cover of Vogue Italia, why, who knew, but I was grateful to be there, and I started getting messages from a couple of her cousins, which means Dr. J was chit-chatting, talking as if we had a relationship. I even got a message—indirect—from her. It sounded like her, though, it was someone else. I was not prepared, but I also wasn’t aware. Contacting me, indirectly, because of a magazine cover? I thought, for the first time, that I could block her, but I had never gotten any sign from her. Her cousins probably don’t have a single clue that we have never spoken, more or less, in our entire lives. Anger, care, you see, in this way—yeah, I care that you stay away from me. Not aw, poor Maria—not oh, call her, make amends. These stories did not apply to me but were believed to apply to all. Sure, help could have been called, found, something. She was a severe case.

Reflections, reflections, I began to, well, reflect. Justice was her “selfless ideal,” wide-eyed and ready. Haha, how horrible. The woman who took me home for four years would sometimes have fantasies of my mother showing up one day with money and cars to take me away from my father, not unlike the temptations of the devil. Would I abandon him for money and cars? She decided he wasn’t a child molester, let’s remember the facts. Four years.

Even coming to learn that a woman was raped in my room. I was nine years old. Something like this. There was an energy I couldn’t explain in my room, something was here, or what was this experience I was having? Finally, I came out of my bedroom one night, and I said a classic line: “there’s something in my room.” Oh no, my father said, there isn’t. Hm, I thought, “monsters,” what is this? Fear? The feeling didn’t go away though, so I changed my question. “Did something happen in my room?” And he said, well, the housekeeper of the former owners was raped in my room.

I had no idea what to do with that.

I sat in my room and held space for this real trauma that happened because it did, in my room. I couldn’t even believe it. I needed a moment. But I thought, taking in my room, that it would make sense that such a trauma would leave an imprint. It had an immediate effect on the room, which I cannot deny. I was able to perceive that? I didn’t know what it was, I thought, so I was shaping this unknown material, somehow—what? I just had to sit with it, in silence, and acknowledge it. I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t hear that.

Forget the stories, just Dr. J. I figured she had been.

I sat in my homework chair and looked out the window so I could get a clear shot of the master bedroom window, the stone path of the condominium in view. It was a small gated community, I mean, five townhouses in a row facing one another. There was a gate in the back and front, and this condo was closest to the street. No, they didn’t find the guy. I asked. Was she killed? No. This person had to have known that she worked in this townhouse. I stared at the gate. And yes, it so happens, that my father lived at the townhouse at the end of this row. He and my mother moved into this condo when the owners moved out. I’m not accusing anyone, I’m saying that a woman was raped in my room. Why was this so close to me? Mirror, mirrors—the degree to which she talked about this—rape, it was disgustingly common, wasn’t it? It was physically hard to sit with that thought, but I was outraged, and was she? This “lie” was not a lie. With Dr. J, it’s either that she was or, she didn’t have the filters, that is, the mechanisms, to separate fantasy, anxiety, and this reality that we share. We all have stories in our heads. They can appear very real. Why she went there, I don’t know.

I came home towards the end of these four years for a holiday party. She never threw a party for her clients. A man was videotaping it with a light, asking people questions, I don’t know. What I remember is coming to under her grand piano realizing where I was. I was home. My parents were nowhere to be found. I figured my father was probably downstairs as he normally was. I knew where she was. She was upstairs dying. Really? I was standing at a party, stunned. She threw a party to die, and I was invited.

I looked up the stairs, and it was dark.

I was curious about this state she would fall into…

I stood in the bedroom in the dark and watched her perform this deathbed routine. Lifting her hand, gasping, what was she trying to communicate? She really believed in what she was doing. I don’t remember seeing my father—nowhere to be found. I didn’t have a room in this house. Did I go “home” with this mother who took me home? And since I was home, at what point was I in this child molester story? Why was I here? And it mattered to me, it did, I greatly cared about the unreality of all this.

“Was anything true? One thing?”

My mother was a pathological liar, my father had “a secret Alzheimer’s.” As memories began to surface, I didn’t know what to do with them. It took my whole life thus far to realize that my father was sick the whole time. You don’t just leave your child at someone else’s house for four years, playing into a lie that you don’t know is being told about you. “They told vicious lies,” he said.

Look, I got inventive—characters: social workers and cops to sit with. What would they say about all this?

There’s a friend who is writing a TV show and I inspired one of the characters. She contends with the reality of her spy identity along with her mother’s. True story. Oh yes. Dr. J’s escort—the man who flew in and saved her from this fiasco because she was a genius? Secret spy. He told me that he used to work for the government. It was the last time I saw Dr. J, and there are many government jobs. What did you do for the government? He rather not talk about it. Dr. J then told me that he lived a double life at the Continental Hotel in Paris, France. He was searching for Osama Bin Laden, at a time when everybody was looking for him.

Reflections, reflections, I cannot even talk about my life from the position that there is something called the truth.

I met Hades in the elevator of Dr. J’s office above a luxury car dealership. He was in the place of Ael, his eyes a green that rattled the walls covered in mirrors. I knew the only way out of hell was through Hades. I was amazed—the luxury car of dealership—his entrance was perfect. He was here to lead me through the depths of my hell, and I was making it out. He always handled this himself, he assured me, a statesman, and it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Hades, Hades, “the gates are always open but the labor labor, what a word,” is the exit. The return.

Hands behind his back, the elevator doors opened.

“It’s your lucky day…”

Down the corridor, we peered, together.

“Well, you don’t expect me to go ahead of you…do you?”

With a turn of his finger, out the elevator, he said, “Sure, why not…I have made small steps for Man, okay? Little man steps.”

He turned toward the hall with conviction.

“The Maleficent forces, Meri.”

“Let us battle them together down the hall. One last time! Merí! We will defeat!”

He cried!

“Defeat the Maleficent Forces!”

He pretended that the forces were swooping in, his eyes, all around us. We were cornered, ambushed, we hugged the walls. He did a dive roll. He told me to quiet down! Get down!

I was so laughing so hard, I got a crick in my neck.

“Get down!”

Suddenly concerned, he nodded.

“Are you ok?”

Into the parking lot full of luxury vehicles, he tossed me a bag of Mocerino nuts. “Okay,” Hades was facing a wall.

“We will examine this health care system,” he said.

“And we will be clear — very clear.”

He was curious, getting into a sportscar of his choice, about the dramatic nature of Man. “Meri,” Hades said, “we have to talk about what’s going on here. First, Meri, tell the people, am I real? Meri, am I real? This exchange, between us, is it real?”

“Do you think we are in different paradisos or something?”

I didn’t need to sit down on this rolling chair. I had to. I was at the ER mental health ward because of COVID, waiting for the results of my COVID test to be transferred to the Bellevue ward.

“I am not an aggressor,” I kept saying because anything I said could be interpreted as making trouble, so I lead with “not to be an aggressor. I am not trying to do that.” Yes, I understand. Overworked, you deal with all sorts of people. I wasn’t messing with that one, not in this place.

I took a seat.

No issues, I had Jurassic Park and The Egoist.

Getting rolled into the ward, well, if I was here, though my mind was blown, then I was definitely going to be paying attention.

Hades said looking fly in a sportscar, “many realities at once.”

He wanted some praise! He was a God and he knew it. There was no issue with it. “Realities?” He scrunched his nose, thinking. We were definitely getting through this, please, the things he had seen, getting his snacks prepared, the things people have gone through. We’re coming back from the other side.

“Do you know what happened to Fellini, Meri? He had a dream that he was swimming in a vast big ocean, in a storm, he didn’t know what to do. He saw a man swimming, so he went. It was Picasso, Meri, what do I do, Fellini asked, the seas are,” his hands rose. “Rising.”

“Keep swimming, Picasso said, don’t stop swimming…”

He turned up the music.

I was on the scale at 93 pounds, and I said it, and the woman passed me a comment about “how I’m skinny” and needed to eat a cookie, and — was it me, her — I got a vibe. I purposely showed in my body that her comment hurt me. She received it, I believe.

I couldn’t eat because I was going through excruciating pain around two symbols in my head, lady, one telling me I want another when all it is is pain. Couldn’t admit that at the time, because I also received a 5 AM message after I asked for my money back, and I felt like these people hated me, and my mother gave me away to a total stranger when I was four. She used money and lies about my father being a child molester that I do not know are lies anymore, so I don’t know what the truth is.

I said to her she was only doing her job.

Excuse me, Hades said.

We made a right out of the parking lot, and I began to realize my old house was a straight shot down La Cienega and we cruised — fast. Hades was an aggressive driver. He had neat tricks up his sleeve. He was never as interested in a human as on this ride.

No way, tell me more, he said.

Sitting in front of the healthcare professionals, no one talked to me about the content that brought me here, so I broached the subject. I could see small text on their packet, someone had written a letter, with a little lens I made with my eyes. “We are concerned.” I knew I had to broach the subject in some way. I told some disturbing stories, but you see, the actual content of my story disturbed me. If I were to start telling you the real story, I began, you wouldn’t believe me, it just all sounded crazy. I didn’t understand what was going on, but then, I was always a spiritual person. So many realities at once. And, of course, I was going through “the system,” too, wasn’t I? I knew that.

“MORE,” Hades said.

“Ask for more,” he said, standing in the fluorescent-lit hall with cameras along the ceiling. “More towels, more socks, new pajamas—more.”

We changed the sheets.

I was in a fluid state for sure.

My whole family came into my mind—all the characters in my life. I sent a team of silverback gorillas to carry the forms away, I didn’t know why I had that spontaneous thought, but at least, seeing these forms disappearing in the distance and coming back, I could breathe…staring down a vast black space in my mind. I had to make more space to accommodate. I placed a conflict resolution specialist I know in the corner to help me through this as characters were being born that the real people could become. Transformation. They helped me to let go. Even my attachment to “the truth,” what happened, I was hanging onto my reality very tightly. I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. A trial was beginning upstairs in my mind, some chicks from my high school were there. My current family, Jesus, my problems didn’t go away. Okay, why is she here? She never left. The feelings around her were painful because a 5 AM message I received out of nowhere kicked off this whole event that culminated on Mother’s Day 2021. Her name was slightly off, Joe, but if you were to google me, she comes up. I wondered if the message might have been from my mother, so that was a harrowing thought because I had received this message physically in my gut and I didn’t understand that—was this intentional? It was about my actual bank being shut down and the timing of it was so perfect. I kept telling myself it was random, of course, but I was here. But this form, in the form of a character inspired by a real person, went with me through my dark fears, because she would be that mother. In my mind, I saw her stepping outside of my grade school and noticing my father. It scared me, why was I here? I looked at her. She would be the type of mother who would spot something weird from far, far away.

With a finger, reading lines from Jurassic Park to distract me from these sharp feelings. She would be in the Batman movie also playing in my mind: find the leaders of today, make sure they get as far as they could. How to find form for these feelings? I sent lines of psychic fire and encircled the forms—the hallucinations—and that helped. I looked at all of them at a distance, at least. I shouldn’t feel this way. I don’t care what I did. From every door, aide came flying in, whatever was happening, I had a fleet. It was part of what was amazing—was this a future reaching for me?

Grippy socks over the bed, with Hades, I just had to face the facts: I didn’t have parents. The sun was setting.

Up La Cienega — a straight shot — we passed boutiques, the tine-lined boulevard, silver hydrants, tennis courts, a park, happy little trees, a church, a tower, a synagogue, dealerships, advertisements, billboards, a chakra temple, simple condominiums of canary and burnt yellow, Versailles; Cuban food. Hades was tempted. We passed 18th street, palm trees, and I remember this drive — all of them — with Hades.

And I cried and cried and laughed.

He was eating red vines. Tell me more.

Ominous clouds clustered in the near distance.

“Uh oh…” Hades said.

“It’s the freeway…”

We ducked from the shadows of the overpass, and as crossed Venice Boulevard, we braced ourselves, “you’re in a fluid state for sure.”

Hades cried.

“CULVER CITY!!”

Checking out one of our routes back to my old neighborhood, at the point that La Cienega became an open highway at a curving incline, Hades stepped on the gas.

I leaned over my roommate, she was lying down. They sedated her after I had started asking her questions, looking at the speakers, about how she got here. I supported her in talking as it was also my subject of interest—how to help? I had accompanied her down the hall to the phone when her sister had suddenly called: we had looked at each other. Did she want water? And she did, and I realized that they didn’t tell people where the water was. They don’t make sure people drink water? Fine, you know, I was going through hell, the fact that I was here, fine, I could accept that. The metaphor is real, Hades said. He got close, as he could, “is the metaphor real?” He asked me that question, sincerely. “Meri, is it real?” In my case, for sure, I came from a madhouse. “Mental health care” as a former journalist in alternative medicines for psychiatric care, yes, I cared about this subject. My mother? Dr. J. I walked down the hall and asked the nurses where the water was. It was in the rec room, could I get a cup? Thank you, I was gracious, I filled up the water, and I walked down the hall with it. I gave her some water. And I forgot about myself so I went down the hall and asked for a cup myself.

A girl in yellow, the Korean girl with MS, she couldn’t speak, but she was there and she was making her way and falling down…and the nurse wasn’t lunging into action, so I did, I put my hand against the wall to catch her head and stayed with her a moment. Hades—just to say this—was a deity that understood was a clown was. It would also be his domain, in that mythological construct. He kept me on a line because I was coming alive, too, that’s what it felt like even if it was confusing. I was moving, coming to understand—forget the details. The reason why I was here? I happened to miss a phone appointment because I finally slept, and they showed up at my house with nine police officers the day after Mother’s Day. I had many guides through this. “Internal resources,” Hades’ said. It was my physical experience that was hard to believe, actually.

A young Black woman came in with a shaved head crying, and she settled herself against the wall, seated. We weren’t allowed to sit on the floor anymore, and I believed I had something to do with it. I looked at the nurse, and I crouched down, respectfully. Did she want to talk, but she couldn’t, so she was going to go to sleep, and I was here if she needed to talk. She thanked me. Nicole. I don’t know what to say…I just did things like this. She said that she was taken from her shower by police officers and that her mother had put her in there. It would be expected that one might lie at first, but I would never approach it like that.

We walked the halls together that day. “I’m a creep,” she sang.

I laughed. Wow, I never sang, I thought, there was so much that held me back for so long that I didn’t even realize it.

Hades turned at the top of the hall.

I flew at a sharp diagonal through the crack in the door into my room. I looked at the large camera and my roommate reading The Egoist, seated in the light of the window, turning a page. I told them that I went to a movement school, so why not practice some of my exercises, what else was I doing? I believe I said it to the speakers. I just move like that. I just need to move. I wasn’t going to pretend like they weren’t present, and what was I going to say to these people? My loins?

With a roaring engine, we crossed Rodeo and flew through Kenneth Hahn Park; the Japanese garden. We skipped across the lake, and all the while, we never left the car. Through it, through it, there were no turnoffs and no places to pull over. Over the hills, the trees turned into oil rigs tipping up and down at sunset. Up and over where the azaleas pink crawl up the highway, the houses turned modern and pristine; Inglewood on my left, Ladera Heights on my right.

A line of oaks vanished to a point — a green light up ahead.

We made a right onto my street, Fairview Blvd.

Palms trees grew, azaleas flourished, and down the boulevard of bottlebrush trees, I saw Hades. We were walking toward one another; he didn’t care about the vehicle. Down the sidewalk, in a flash of images, I passed by in a pink corvette, in the window of Angelita’s red Cadillac, the Yukon, the Cutlass Supreme, and Hades marched towards my old address.

“5344,” he looked at it.

“Not everyone has one…”

He opened the gate of the white box with stripes vertical and horizontal.

Birds of paradise up the steps, we moved through my front door.

“As if you didn’t know where we were going,” Hades said, “focus.”

His foot was on the first step.

The exit out of hell was home, but I guess it was really hell in there for me. I guess I couldn’t deny that anymore, or that was my foundation. These people. Hades made his way up the stair and regarded in a blink of an eye the whole concept, construct, details, what was there and what wasn’t.

“Why are mirrors being smashed?!”

Men were smashing the mirror mirror mirrors off the walls, shattering, breaking down. “This,” he didn’t even have to make a stretch.

“This was a problem before 4, okay?”

It was clear to him.

“This is the narrative.”

“Me? Io?”

“I am a father…” as a hypothetical, he presented himself.

“Let us make this belief.”

“I return to my home,” he got close and curious in this scene of smashing mirrors, “from a,” he waited for me to give him the usual line, “work trip.”

“And I find the house re…decorated,” mirrors being smashed, “and my house? Changed from carpet to curtains…and you are gone.”

He paused.

“Why,” Hades got low, “do I wait 4 years? No, no, no, mother aside, why do I not go into this woman’s house and take my baby? Home…” He got sassy with shoulders, “no, no, no, Maria, tell me why,” he let it drop with his chin, “why I do not go to the house of this woman and take,” he took it, “my baby?”

“Now, you may,” he said, “ask your question.”

Hades stood in the threshold, mirrors flying behind him.

“Was I not fed?”

“Remember me,” he said.

The mirrors, the breaking down of it all, not knowing what to do with these feelings that I had repressed for a long time, unable to step foot in the master bedroom, a character arrived — Hades. And yes, we would examine the health care system, because a God understands what a story is. Gods showing up in stories is nothing new, he shrugged.

Hades instructed me to draw, thankfully, to help me to focus. I would remember this. He made sure I drew the ward good and well; I would remember it all. Presence, just presence. We started at the top. It was his suggestion; to look at what was really there. We looked into the window: I’m soory written, stars, sparse lines of text. We took in the Korean language sheets. We sat at a table with Korean newspapers drawing a cup that had “Mecca” written on it. “The e,” he said, “is not like that.”

We regarded the patients watching television.

I practiced my speech for the health care professionals since we meet them every day, or they do their rounds every day, and I had only been there a day. I was already out. I worked on memorizing that text to help me focus, and do something else with my mind, in a sense. I needed to go to a chiropractor, Hades said. I needed to receive care. I never had a history of mental health issues, never been on prescription medication. They didn’t even ask for my medical history. Now, I don’t know what to say about the people who come through these halls, so I won’t disrespect these people who dedicate their time to work here. In my case, I wasn’t going to just take drugs. They didn’t offer me any, except to sleep, and I calmly, a little scared, reiterated with my sedated roommate lying behind me…I have never been on a prescription drug, no, not to sleep. I’ll go through my hell. If someone was there who inquired into what was going on with me and could follow the psychological structure of it, I might have been able to voice what I couldn’t even forgive myself for thinking and feeling and what was this? Even the simple question based on what I was saying: do you believe that you might have been raped? Again, that would have taken perhaps a couple of steps, but I didn’t receive “care.” There were caring people there, but I’m talking “health care,” and Hades kept saying it. The phrase. “Health care.” It’s not that I wasn’t going through a lot, but I had to get out of there. I used the experience, all the same, to work through and separate the stories—because that’s what I did—I put the feelings into stories because regardless, these were huge issues. At least, from a storytelling perspective, there was a place for them, and why did they scare me so much? This night, I went out into the hall, and Nicole was on her second pill for insomnia. I was here—and my sensations were getting very intense and any “person” in my mind who came near me raised the sensation. I realized with Hades, who never left my side, that I didn’t even use my mother’s real name anymore. And that night, I assure you, I stood in the hallway, and I looked at these cameras—fine, psychology? I said my mother’s full name out loud.

The next morning with my instant coffee, I approached someone and told them I had to get back to work, with all due respect. I told the cameras, and they knew, I had to get my belongings back. I was going to rip through these boxes—given away for four years? Lies about being a child molester? I didn’t have a room in this house. The rage. I was home in these four years? Where did I sleep? What was this outrageous story? I took the invisible yet present health care professionals through all the stories I had told, basically, and said, for example. This was me working with the system. “Child prostitution is a very large problem, as we know, so yes, I was moved by the story all the same.” I couldn’t go into shame. My mother lied he was a child molester—did she? I organized all the stories in my head, I still didn’t know what really happened, but I was terrified about the feelings I was having and the images that came to mind. All the same, the Justice League I created in my head flying through wind tunnels—that wasn’t real, that I knew. Batman, too, not real, but a fictional character, no, can have an effect. Just to let you know. Hades was there. For the doctors innovating medicine in Silicon Valley—make it a TV show and make it British. My mother is a Joker, that was the big revelation, so I have material to craft that kind of villain, and a villain in the context of a story could do some good. That was my “the night is darkest before the dawn:” I refused my whole life to frame her as a villain, but in a literary context, I could craft a villain out of her. A female Joker, you know what I mean? It might take a second to get there, but I’ll definitely take the opportunity to give it some thought. In my mind, on my mental health panel I created to help me through this, they said to me that I can go on a journey and change. I could even show another way is possible—blah ba da bi blah blah, a screenwriter said. In writing a book about my life, things got a little confusing. I was still freaked out, but I had to get out of here. With my coffee, it was about my family, that I knew. My family was a mess.

I noticed the large towel on the bed because I was leaving. Hades was eating an apple, lounging on my bed. They gave me two small towels, Hades could get close, and now that I was leaving, I was getting a large one as a gift? Or, was it because I had taken so many? I wondered. I realized that taking showers was a sign. It was the first thing I did. “You don’t encourage people to shower?” I didn’t understand this logic. Health care. Waffles! I never ate waffles, I said it to the speakers. I was going to eat the waffles, though it was hard to eat. “I ate the waffles!” I could feel they were concerned I wasn’t eating, which I was vocal about, just in case, but I had stories that were extremely difficult to digest, and the food was truly difficult for me to eat, so I asked for vegetables. I’m not usually like that about food, but it wasn’t easy. I said into the speaker above my head. I thanked them for the waffles!

I stood next to a man who went through a lot while I was there; he looked better. I held a position of pride. I asked a man how he felt, better? He did, and I was happy to see that in his eyes. Nicole and Lisa gave me their numbers. The girl in yellow came around the wall and hugged me. She was there, I mean, we all were. Hades and I exited the hospital…I had a kick in my step that day, no diagnosis. Guess if anyone thought anything was going on with me, they were wrong. It isn’t a joke either. No matter what that was, if we want to argue over labels, it was a unique event, and if my life had gotten me to this day, let it be the last. I marked it as such. Psychosis on my exit papers, and someone who has worked in this context, who told me that I didn’t go through that, said that they put that on the exit papers as “the one to check.” A break from reality? I believed I was connecting to a very real reality; my story, coming to realize that it happened. It was quite a shock. I would still come to realize many things, but at least, I knew a Wise Screenwriter who said: panic attacks might be par for the course. I flicked the idea that I wasn’t going to get out of this healthier, saner, and stronger than I was. “Alive and well,” that was my mantra, along with “I have seen Gods die…” Neglect; I didn’t even know that was a form of abuse. Who was my mother? She was a head trip, just to begin, let alone the stories about my father that I would still grapple through. I could go home, open the windows, and sing. Which is what I did, like I just arrived, because I did. I might have been shaking, but I did it. I sang.

Hades moved his feet in the room of mirrors, quite a dancer. He listened to my four-year-old. He stood with me as I faced my darkest questions, my sharpest sensations, and yes, we ended up dancing, all the same, the mirrors exploding. We moved through the pieces. A cut, to the other side. Mirroring it, he told me to feel, suddenly flying from the shadows like my father in the middle of the night, his face half in shadow.

Through a vast black, Hades appeared between mirrors, chasing me in flashes on the beaches of Cuma in between single-drawn chariots working the horses out in rows. Hades watched me fly through the black; a speck. A majestic wall rose of dust and I didn’t take my eyes off of Hades, because he was Hades. “I am Hades, I am the gate!” Of course, he was. “I have seen Gods die to become ordinary men and I have seen ordinary men die to become extraordinary men.” He closed the door to Hades, reverently for the mystery of Man, in a vanishing point — the pupil of his eye. “And you are one of them.” I was in his pupil? I ran this exit many, many times—Hades in a flash of lightning—I have seen Gods die! When I needed to feel that I could make it through anything, even experience a miracle, because it was true. And the beauty of it was, finally, at the brink of spring, yellow daffodils in a garden on the cliffs of Sorrento, I shut the door to go to Morocco. Hades appeared right when I closed it, “softly.”

I wasn’t expecting that, he said, in a scene of yellow daffodils. A soft closing of the door, and I felt it—gentleness. “I have seen Gods die to become ordinary men, and I have seen ordinary men become extraordinary men,” he said.

From up above, Vico’s hand descended to reveal a pomegranate from the garden on the Feast of the Witch. Did I know the story of Hades and Persephone, he asked, the pomegranate between us. I had already, secretly, seen these figures in the family members, and the siren delivered the story, beginning by taking us back through time. By the end, I had forgotten the pomegranate, so engrossed in his version, in relation to me, and unfolding me into a deal I never saw coming, all Hades did was ask Persephone to return. They ate the pomegranate seeds. Could I make this promise? To return. And I could. It was a deal then. We ate the seeds, and he left me with the pomegranate.

This was my mythology, it was in the blood, in the soil, in the stars, Hades was the one to tell me that, in the home, too. I write this in a home with swirling symbols of the cosmos, so it is not a foreign concept.

Out the coffined entrance of the cave in the ancient city of Cuma, single chariots working the horses in rows across a great beach, the Oracle of Cuma and I watched Franco deliver the line to me long ago.

“Where every stone SPEAKS!”

The Oracle of Cuma regarded me through the lens of her experiences, lifetimes, and histories between sea and sky. Feeling all the feelings that brought me to this revelation, the Oracle of Cuma nodded. She acknowledged the separation between us; the illusory boundary, binaries and differences, our similarities. She regarded me one last time as if I were the only person in the world. She had done this out of time, in time, for a long, long time.