The Shapes of Kindness

Chapter One

Now, then, Mr. Johnson, if you will make yourself comfortable we can begin our interview." The psychiatrist pushed his glasses back up and then proceeded to lean back in his plush leather chair.

Mark Johnson sat tensely in his chair. He glanced briefly out the window, noticing that a major storm seemed to be coming in from the west. Thick black clouds moved swiftly, blotting out the sun like some cancerous disease. People on the street hurried their pace as the wind rose, blowing bits of debris before it.

Mark was in his mid-forties with dark hair, broad shoulders and deep, sad eyes. An only child, he had few friends as he grew up. He was basically an outcast from the other children although he was never able to figure out exactly why he was considered outcast. He never hurt anyone, never bothered anyone, never asked for anything, really.

As his school years went on his loneliness grew. Even his time in college proved to be of little improvement. Granted, he had finally had one attempt at romance, having fallen deeply in love with a girl in one of his classes, but the affair ended when she abruptly dumped him, never even bothering to explain just why her feelings changed almost literally overnight from love to hate.

Such was the way of life, he figured. "No good deed goes unpunished" seemed to be a truism in his life for whatever good he tried to accomplish only somehow seemed to end up serving to further set him apart from others. He had considered trying to become a teacher but realized that, with his lack of people skills, such a profession would be a disastrous choice. Instead, he ended up working at a paper mill. There was no intellectual challenge for him, of course, just the monotony of his daily routine, but this didn't seem to bother him anymore. He did his job and kept to himself.

At home he read, watched movies, worked on the Internet and had his own site with a rather eclectic mix of materials.

He managed to keep going for a while, but eventually the loneliness, the isolation, the overwhelming feeling of sadness got to be too much for him and he tried to kill himself, using sleeping pills. He was almost successful, but a neighbor had stopped by to borrow something ,noticed the unlocked door and entered, finding Mark in his bedroom, already in the process of throwing up.

He was taken to the hospital, treated, arrested for trying to kill himself, and a few weeks later sentenced by a judge to undergo psychiatric counseling. Thus, Dr. Roberts office on this particular day.

"Why, Mr. Johnson," Dr. Roberts said, " did you attempt to kill yourself'?"

Mark looked down at the floor for a moment and than be an to speak. "I had reached the conclusion that I had nothing left to live for. I was tired of being alone, tired of being left out of everything, tired of feeling so much sadness and pain from myself and others.

"Isn't there anything that you feel is going right for you, something you can look forward to each day?"

"No, there isn't," Mark replied. "I feel like a reactor with all the control rods pulled out. I'm always doing something just to try and take my mind off what is happening to me but it still doesn't seem to do any good."

Outside the sunlight had totally disappeared, replaced by thick layers of clouds. The clouds felt like a physical pressure on Mark as he saw the first flashes of lightning signaling the beginning of the storm.

"Your test results," Dr. Roberts began, "seem to indicate a person of above-average intelligence. Your creative abilities are very highly developed. You actually have quite a lot going for you.

"At the same time," he continued, "there is no doubt that you suffer from clinical depression, self-destructive tendencies and, although I would need further testing on this to be absolutely sure, I think that you might even be slightly autistic."

The psychiatrist took a drink from his ever-present can of pop and then continued. "What kind of interests do you have? Perhaps you could find others who have similar interests and develop relationships that way."

Mark glanced around the room for a moment and then answered." The kinds of I'm interested in aren't all that popular in this city."

"What kinds of things are those?" the psychiatrist asked.<.p>

"Paranormality, virtually all aspects of that. UFO abduction cases. Science fiction, fantasy, Egyptology, not exactly the types of things that you talk about with others in a casual manner."

"The sounds of thunder entered the room as the first of the rain began to fall. The lightning flashed nearby, lending its power to the fury of the storm.

"What kind of movies do you like," the psychiatrist asked.

"Anything that ends happily," Mark replied. A frown crossed Mark's face. "This world," he began, is evil. People behave almost savagely towards others. We're not civilized at all. We kill, let people suffer, failing to help those in need, but at the same time spending billions upon billions on weapons of destruction."

He paused for a moment. "Businesses become ever bigger, taking more and more control of people's lives. At the same time they try to continually shaft their own workers, cutting benefits, treating workers almost like slaves. And yet it seems that the majority of people don't see these things, or don't care, because the same politicians rule as always, out of touch with the people, out of touch with the truth."

"I think a series of treatments will be necessary to deal with your problems, Mr. Johnson. You seem to have some major difficulties that it will take a lot of time to work out. I'd like to see you again in my office at four o'clock next Thursday."

The doctor closed Mark's file, bringing the session to an and. Mark rose, shook the doctor's outstretched hand and then left the room. He walked slowly down the corridor, head bowed, then took the steps rather than the elevator, thinking over what the doctor had said. No matter how he looked at things, he didn't feel there was any way the psychiatrist could actually help him. The loneliness was too much, the sadness of the world was too much.

Soon he was out on the street, making his way against the pouring rain. He had left his umbrella at home, trusting to his luck and, as usual, his luck had failed him.

He passed an alley with an almost palpable stench coming from it as from piles of aged refuse that were trying to poison the air. He walked on, pelted by the massive drops of water cascading from the blackened sky far above. The people he saw were deep into their own worlds, usually unaware of his passing. At times a girl would look his way then pass swiftly on.

He could feel his socks squishing in his water-logged shoes as he hurried his pace. He needed a few things from the grocery for supper and had hoped he would get there and home before the worst of the storm had sat in.

Lightning flashed ominously overhead as he remembered years back to a time of innocence when he had fallen in love, expecting his loneliness to be ended at last, finding instead increasing pain as the relationship disintegrated around him.

He found himself increasingly lost in his own fantasies. At the moment he was thinking about one of his favorite movies, The Dark Crystal. Mark had fallen in love with Kira, both with her physical beauty and her warm and loving nature. That world, now freed of its Skeksis horror, seemed to him the type of paradise that he had always searched for.

He thought of the movie as he walked, the water pouring from the heavens, the buildings around him standing cold and aloof. He pictured them instead as the trees of his beloved Thra, and the sounds of the cars became the sounds of exotic animals. His thoughts so occupied his mind that he did not notice the strange sight happening above him.

Lightning flashed in an ever quickening pace, striking out at an invader in its midst, a meteor from the depths of space, a small piece of a planet long dead, a planet on which magic, rather than science, was the master.

It had been an old planet far older than the earth. The beings who lived there measured their lives in millenia and had pursued their dream of peace throughout their lives. Their world was one ruled by magic rather than science. They had infused the very planet itself with their magical strength so that they could shape stones, cause plants to grow and maintain a peaceful harmony amongst all the life forms of their world.

Aliens from another planet, one where military might was literally worshiped as a god, had eventually attacked. The beings of the peaceful planet, known as Allengore, refused to take any life, even that of the attackers, knowing full well that if they failed to destroy the awesome weapons of the invaders that their world would be destroyed.

Instead they had chosen to transport themselves and all life from their planet to another world in a far dimension, a young world without life but not inhospitable to the arrival of peaceful colonists.

When the invaders saw that their prey had vanished they used their weapons to destroy the planet entirely, sending small pieces on their lonely trips throughout the cosmos.

It had been this series of events that had resulted in one small piece of the magical planet finding its way to earth. Infused with a magic far stronger than any ever practiced here, it sensed the presence of one in dire need, one whose own world was being destroyed by uncaring; others. The meteor came for Mark Johnson.

It blazed earthward, lightning tearing at it, swirling around it in a cacophony of sounds and colors. When Mark finally came out of his reverie and saw what was happening it was too late to flee. The meteor rushed at him.

He thought one last time of Kira's world and then there was blackness.

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