Page 183 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 5 #2

ries. I'll be careful." I laughed. "Besides, I asked the question, I wasn't comfortable
go into my head alone all the time."
"Talk about dangerous places.... Your head
is one. You know, if there weren't a god
you would have to invent one just to make
it was safe to go into your head."
I found that comment humorous. I laughed.
Mark laughed too, but it was a different
laugh. One that said that he was surprised
that I had found humor in a statement in-
tended to be taken extremely seriously.
However seriously he intended me to take
his comment, I wasn't sure even he could
see all the ramifications. I found myself
listening to my notes on Feuerbach and
his analysis of the need to have a god.
Perhaps Mark was right and it wasn't safe
to go into my head alone. Neither he nor I
said much after that. But I wasn't going to
let go of his comment or the question that
had started it all.
I was well aware of where the conversation
was going to go. "So, you want to go into
my head with me?" I said again hoping to
diffuse the intensity of his feelings. Mark
frowned. An intense, almost angry, frown.
I could feel the wounds that Mark had
carried with him his entire life open and
bleed. He reached for the cup of coffee
and let his hand fall just short of it. Even
before he spoke his question, I felt it.
"So," I began, deliberately pulling Mark
away from his question, "to what extent do
you think that my being an empath influ-
ences my work?" Truth be told, even as I
with the word "empath." It carried, well,
too much baggage. Too many connotations
over which I had no control.
"It has everything to do with your work,"
Mark said as though I had asked a ques-
tion that was so obvious I needed to nev-
er ask it.
"Why would you ever ask that?" I recog-
nized the tone in Mark's voice - the tone
that I have learned says one of two things:
Either Mark has missed something so ob-
vious he would need to reexamine his
connection to the world, or, I had asked
a question, the answer to which was so
obvious, that it was a waste of time for him
to even respond.
"Of course it does," Mark said. He leaned
forward and his voice became intense-
ly focused. As he leaned forward, his
hand brushed his coffee cup and nearly
dumped it on the table. As if ignoring the
near spill, Mark picked the cup up and
held it close to him. "Of course it does,"
he repeated as though, perhaps, I had
missed what he had said. "It influences ev-
erything you do. I mean, you can feel the
emotion in everything around you."
Rarely am I ever caught off guard, but that
last comment did just that.
Mark looked away and for a long moment,
I let myself drift away. . It wasn't that the
comment taught me something new about
myself. I mean I know that I can feel the
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