NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 142

The ninth door opens onto a pier. There is a multi-coloured boat waiting filled with glitter dust and rubies. Intuition directs me to enter for whatever comes next. When I do, everything splits in two with me at the centre. I spread my arms out to touch both worlds. My fingers help me tap into everything. I feel purity on my left and something dying on the other side, so I bring my right hand back to the middle and veer to my left for the clarity we all long for. Then the ocean roars in response and tunes into the drumming in my head. Suddenly I feel myself slipping away and up, and now I am here, there and everywhere.

This must be what time machines feel like. Inhale. Exhale. I want to feel again. Inhale. Exhale. I want to breathe again. Inhale. Exhale. I want to rise again. And then I want to erase everything, the good and bad, my entire existence. Is that where this boat is taking me? Back before my parents were born, so that I'm not even a thought? I remain absolutely still, so still that darkness can find and cover me. Instead it is the angry ocean that showers me with its blessing. Now the boat almost topples. Glitter dust gets all over me, first my face and hair then other parts without discrimination. Then, when I am completely drenched in gold, I feel my skin come unstuck from years of trauma.

My scalp and face peel back like dirty underwear – eyebrows, hair, everything – and run off with my old self, leaving behind another me, one I've never met before. I look down at the water in the boat to see what I look like. But now that my mask has crumbled there is no reflection for anyone to see. Have I now become the shadow? Is that why she disappeared again? I try blowing like she does but nothing comes out. Am I then less than the shadow? Who am I? No one's leader, that's for sure. Then I pass out as I see the ocean about to topple my boat.