Ascii pot leaf small

TOTAL TIME:40 minutes
SERVES:2
PER SERVING:600 calories, 30 g protein, 6 g carbohydrates, 52 g fat

INGREDIENTS

2 Tbsp grass-fed butter
¼ cup onions
2 cups organic chicken broth
¼ cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups grass-fed cheddar cheese
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 cup broccoli

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a saucepot, melt grass-fed butter over medium heat. Add onions and cook for ten minutes until translucent.
2. Add chicken broth and let simmer for another 10 minutes.
3. Blend broth and onion mixture until smooth using a heat-safe blender.
4. Return mixture to pot and add heavy whipping cream and cheese. Whisk continuously to prevent burning.
5. Add powdered xanthan gum over mixture and whisk until soup thickens.
6. Cut broccoli into small florets.
7. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add broccoli. Cook until soft, then drain.
8. Pulse cooked broccoli in food processor until finely chopped.
9. Add broccoli to soup mixture and cook for an additional five minutes.
10. Serve hot with your preferred side dishes, or enjoy by itself.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.

Anyway this is the second story, that I was talking about, this happened fairly recently, I mean, about 4-5 years ago, it was during a particularly difficult time of life, I had lost my friends (not literally, just lost contact), my GF cheated and left me, then came back with an even wilder propostion, which kind of messed me up even more, anyway, it was a time when I was also doing my JEE preparation, and had gotten selected in top batch of one of the most prestigious coaching centres (I was an asshole to think it was ann accomplishment), anyway, I was studying 8-10 hours a day, I was irritable, used to go to school, have fun with friends, then leave it for my coaching and travelled in metro for 2-2.5 hours to reach my coaching centre and generally used to leave by 9-9:30. Anyway, it was January, and my father had some function, so, he had kind of promised that he'd pick me up, en route to Noida. He was so, I ended up standing there till 11, So, he comes, he's with his friend, and another collegue, my father is a teetotaller, he doesn't drink, both of his other collegues were visibly inebriated, his other collegue, was a lady, who was on the phone with her husband, pertaining to some stuff, anyway other guy, who I knew btw (Sadly he's not here anymore) was talking to me about bunch of stuff, asking what I learned, normal stuff that you do, anyway driver started the car, well, it was alright, we were having fun, it was Saturday, so, the 93.5 was on (Top 20 bangers from the week), we were singing, vibing, it was really cool.
Anyway, I had heard in passing about Nicholson Cemetary before, I had been there twice, once with bunch of friends, where we did some weird things including kicking a tombstone, I managed to crack it, my other friend managed to break a part of it, fun I thought, it was actually a tour about 1857 Revolt in Delhi, so, we where allowed to go to lot of areas, where most people are not! Anyway, that's where I heard this rumor that this cemetary is supposed to haunted, I was like right, lol, all cemetaries are haunted, anyway, back to the story: This cemetary was supposed to be in our way, now, I am a believer in ghosts but am not coward, so, I was fine so, were all of the other compatriots in that car. So, off we went anyway, even if you won't believe in ghosts, you'll agree that some people and place tend to have a weird vibe associated with them, and this place is like that, you'll feel a weird heaviness in the air nearby, you'll visibly uneasy, you'll feel that someone is kind of watching you at all times, it's kind of difficult to explain! Anyway, it was supposed to be a long 2 hour drive, so, we just went around didn't really pay attention to surroundings much, well, I was kinda dozing off, but suddenly, my father's coworker she draw the attention to the guy standing near the cemetary's door, now, I being a devout Hindu, am not much sure about Christian burial rituals, but all of us were of firm consensus that they were not supposed to happen at 12-12:30 at night, later we actually confirmed it, so, yeah! Well, he had a bouquet of those whites flowers, was dressed very formally, almost too elegently for any function, so, I deduced it was supposed to be pretty important funeral, anyway there wasn't any other person standing nearby, just a huge white cross above him, painted over an entrance and two small one's adorning the gates, and even gates were closed, only thing, we could conclusively see from there was the generic information about the cemetary, nothing more. Anyway, our car kind of slowed down, and it fully came to halt, I dunno why but our driver had weird fetish of talking to weird men, in weird attire hanging around in weird places. He stopped the car, kind of parked it, near the cemetary so we had a full view of everything and jumped out.
My and me dad were daredevils, two other were drunk, what do think we were feeling? It was pure joy, while the driver was scared shit! Anyway, there's this guy atleast as tall as me, dressed like someone who'd surely say Shashi Tharoor is not eloquent enough, with a bunch of mourning flowers in his hand, what could go wrong? Anyway, fear kind of elected to join me waiting, the driver reached that guy. Anyway, it was obvious that driver was having a hardtime communicating with that guy, I mean obviously, but he kind of managed to communicate with him that it seemed creepy for him to hang around cemetaries at night, anyway whatever entity he was, was cordial enough to consider not hurting his feelings and must have said something about leaving in few minutes, our driver cameback, almost too proud of himself, hopped on driving seat and we all gave him a standing ovation, like he managed to convince that Churchill looking mf, to put it mildly "shove it in", anyway as soon as we turned to see him, he was gone, like nothing, poof! There was no door opening or closing, no car nearby, no leaf unturned, the guy just vanished. It was weird! Anyway, now, the daredevilry and drinks were turning against us, we were paranoid, almost messed up, for driver it took sometime to understand what he had done, he just told a ghost, yes, a literal ghost to leave his area of interest, the charm was cast, the Pompeii was warned, the Rubicon was crossed, and yet, he went out to investigate, I knew that if he was a ghost he'd prolly be looking for me, for some kind of sick twisted revenge for breaking his lovely tombstone. So, I was petrified, but like a knightess in shining armour, my father's coworker went out to check with driver, and result came the same, no proof of that guy ever existing, no flowers, no prints, nothing, nada! They came back, she was feeling kind of uneasy so, she drank some water, maybe it was the drinks or something, but she kind of threw up nearby, we just skidaddled off from there.
Now, while moving through a particularly empty road, my father's friend just said, jokingly, I didn't know the guy we saw earlier was your friend, and there that guy was, just standing nearby, sort of in a grassy side of the road, he didn't flowers with him, he was wearing the similar outfit, I mean, we were some distance away from that prolly 2-3kms from there, there was no other way to reach there, there were cars nearby, not too many, but you know Delhi traffic, right? Maybe, it was a different person, I mean, could be, but he was looking directly upto us, like he remembered the car, well, again my driver wanted to confront him, but we just said fuck off and drove off.
Well, he kind of was a unlucky omen for all of us, the female coworker of my dad lost her husband in COVID, my dad broke his leg in an accident later, the driver was let go and we don't know what happened after that to him, I kind of suffered from deep times of melencholy and depression after that, I actually had to be properly treated, and my father's friend died, his COVID treatment kind of destroyed his family financially, he just left his wife and three children, two of them are in college now, and my father along with his friends are paying for their tuition. Anyway, this story could just very well, be some unique collection of coincidences, I know, and obviously, it wasn't anything special in large cities to know two people, who died during COVID, but it's just something, I have thought about a lot, my father on the other hand still doesn't believe it, although that female coworker of his, does agree with me, she's a friend of my moms, she's the one who told my mother this story, about 2-3 years later, anyway, my mom did this whole elaborate ritual for "Nazar Removal", she consulted a lot of pundits, and other things, my father just joked around saying that he was pretty sure that the ghost or fiend or whatever that entity was, was definately not Hindu.
Anyway, this story is kind of ongoing because apparently, the father's coworker claims, she's still having nightmares, I mean, I can't blame her, she's about 35 and has already lost her husband, she doesn't have a family and her husband's family is not excepting her and her baby (They had a love marriage, that too with consent from both sides, but still I dunno). She's trying counciling, and also going bit into religion, she meets us like every other month, so, yeah, she's brearing the blunt of this.
I have third story too, it kind of happened to friend of me (although I was also there), that too just few months ago, so, it's again quite fresh, just message if you want to hear it too.
Visit this and upvote this, don't upvote this post, I just wanted to create the comment but couldn't! This is in response to his post!
https://www.reddit.com/indiasocial/comments/1csfeoa/whats_the_creepiest_thing_youve_witnessed_irl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Hi! I‘ve been having autonomic like symptoms for a couple years but it’s definitely worse in the summer. What’s weird is that I’ve had tilt table testing with almost totally normal results aside from the QSART part and a heart rate jump they said wasn’t POTS (despite it jumping 43 bpm but it kept dropping then spiking over and over). I get the nausea, dizziness, chest pain, eye sight changes, GI issues, all that. I have heart rate jumps with position changes, heat, and any sort of upright exercise. I can do sitting bikes all day but anything standing sends me into presyncope. My HR regularly gets up to the 130s while standing. It shoots up when I sit up, move in bed, change clothes, stand from kneeling, everything then drops quickly. My biggest issue is that especially when it’s hot out or I sit up from laying flat, I have episodes where my HR and BP shoot up way high and I get full on presyncope. Like heart rate of 160+ and BP of 155/100 range high. My resting is like 60 or lower bpm and 120/85 range. I also have days where my heart rate is like 45 and I get heart palpitations and everything. Normal EKG, echo, CAT scan, everything. I don’t have the classic POTS BP drops, my BP spikes when triggered.
My neurologist has been treating it like POTS which has helped. He’s pretty sure I have some variation of it as clinically he said I’m identical. I also have hEDS, fibro, small fiber neuropathy, constant headaches, and other things. I had a neck MRI that showed some mild bulging and protruding discs (mainly positional in extension). This neck position and sitting up caused a massive episode.
Has anyone had experiences like this? Any ideas or medications I can mention to my neurologist next week?

How quaint, right? I’ve always been a fairly lonely person. Only child, only a few close friends (who have either since moved, gotten into relationships, or passed), but has also never done well with being alone/not having someone to talk to.
And lately, I dunno. I’ve been in a struggling relationship and found myself missing a guy I used to hang out with. We were super close 10 years ago but, around the time I left for college, he got way too into drinking and pot for his own good (not against those things, but we’re talking about a guy I don’t think I’ve seen sober since high school).
So, feeling especially lonely yesterday, I thought to text him (he still drops me a line every few months to see if I want to hang. I usually do, then get annoyed at him being plastered when I go to pick him up and get stuck babysitting him)) to see if he wanted to catch a movie or something. But before I did, I decided to also check Snapchat for the first time in months. And lo and behold, he had a story about how drunk he was at a restaurant at 2pm sitting there. So I didn’t reach out 🤷‍♀️
I dunno. Small victory I guess, but I realized that I’d rather be alone with my peace than hanging out with someone like that. I’m not passing judgement on him (I’ve spent a decade trying to make it clear to him that he needs help, and have staged interventions with another friend before he gave up and moved/got married), but it was awesome realizing that I don’t need that kind of person in my life.

Habitat and cultivation Native to East and South Africa. It is now widely cultivated worldwide (potted aloe, low in anthraquinones). Aloe vera can be propagated by new shoots from the roots. Cutting the leaves or drying the leaves can collect the gel and juice.
Main functions Healing wounds Emollient Stimulate bile secretion
Practical application Beauty Aloe has a long history of being used to moisturize the skin. Western Remedies In the 1950s, Westerners first discovered that aloe vera was useful for burns, especially for radiation damage. As a result, aloe therapy has become popular. First aid treatment Aloe Vera is an excellent emergency care remedy for burns, abrasions, scalds, and sunburns. Break up an aloe leaf, squeeze out the gel inside and apply it to the affected area to get good results. Skin State Gel is suitable for almost all skin types that need to be soothed and tightened, and to a certain extent, it can also relieve varicose veins. Anabrosis The protective and healing effects of Aloe Vera on ulcers can also work inside the body, and the gel has a certain effect on peptic ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome. Laxative The yellow, bitter sap extracted from the leaves of Aloe vera contains anthraquinone, a powerful laxative. It can cause the colon to contract and defecate 8 to 12 hours after taking the medicine. Low doses of juice can promote digestion, and high doses of juice can be used as diarrhea.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/obv2Tp1
Hello,
I'm currently downsizing and selling my Augur. It used to be a black WKL variant, but I got it reanoed to a custom purple. The PCB was millmaxed with 3305 sockets (3305-0-15-15-47-27-10-0 to be exact) and is fully functional. Not every switch placement was millmaxed though, just for the layout I use + both capslocks. More sockets for different layouts can easily be added yourself.
The Augur also comes with:
1x FR4 leaf spring full plate
1x FR4 leaf spring half plate
1x Alu no leaf spring full plate
1x CF leaf spring full plate
It also comes with an additional custom (mirror) stainless steel weight (it doesn't fit perfectly, would need shorter screws to screw it in tightly) and the original brass weight.
The keyboard is in good condition, but it does have a small nick at the bottom next to one of the feet (see picture attached).
Looking for 210€ + shipping. (Switches and keycaps not included!)
Also I'm selling a few cables I bought from Keebstuff.com. The cables are brilliant in quality, some of the best I've seen around here, smooth consistent coils, durable and great colours. The first one is a premade Grand Royal cable (Grand bleu colour, white shrink, silver LEMO connector, 20 cm coil, 180cm length), second one is a custom made Gulf blue, white shrink, silver LEMO connector, 20 cm coil, 180cm length). Both cables have been used for a little while, but have no noticable wear or anything.
Looking for 50€+shipping each or 80€ if bought together.
If you are interested in all 3 items I'll discount to 250€ for everything (excl. shipping).

America is in a race with itself to see which party can deglobalise faster. On Tuesday, Joe Biden slapped tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, including 100 per cent on electric vehicles. That’s nothing, said Donald Trump, who promised 200 per cent tariffs on Chinese cars, plus 10 per cent on all imports from everywhere. Biden has more to come. At this rate of bidding, US-China decoupling will be set in bipartisan stone by November. The choice will be between Biden sealing an orderly divorce, or Trump doing it in chaotic leaps and bounds.
Of course, there is far more at stake in the US election than what remains of global trade rules. If Biden’s trade war helps to defeat Trump in November, hindsight will judge him kindly. The cost of imposing new taxes on the US middle class and delaying America’s transition to green energy would have been outweighed by the benefit of saving US democracy. But it is an open question whether Biden’s move will register at the polls. Since Trump will outbid him every time, some voters might prefer to go for the real thing. In 2019, Biden criticised Trump’s China trade war for harming US farmers and manufacturers. “It’s really easy to be tough when someone else absorbs the pain,” Biden said. After a four-year review, Biden this week said he would keep all of Trump’s China tariffs and raise him on others.
Either way, America’s direction of travel is ominous. At one speed or another, Republicans and Democrats alike are now in favour of pulling up the global drawbridge. Biden’s economic and climate change arguments both fail on their own merits. Biden’s protectionist wall will eventually create and support “thousands of union jobs”, as he said. But this will impose a cost on millions of existing jobs that rely on cheap steel and aluminium inputs for what they produce. That is without counting the cost of China’s likely retaliatory measures, which will target US exports.
As Biden knew in 2019 but appears to have forgotten, the costs of tariffs are borne by consumers not by importers. Biden’s main targets are Chinese solar panels, batteries and EVs. These are capital intensive goods. Manufacturing employment is declining across the world, including China itself. For the symbolic gain of a handful of muscular jobs, Biden is imposing a broad tax on the middle class and undermining US competitiveness. Then there is the hit to his climate change policy. The cost of all forms of renewable energy has nosedived in the last decade, chiefly because of China. Some of China’s competitive advantage has been bought with subsidies.
The rest has come about because of fierce domestic competition and the scale of its domestic market. America is taking the wrong leaf from China’s book. The Biden effect will be to raise the US domestic price of EVs, solar panels and other green inputs and delay America’s energy transition. This will also price America out of export markets. China will continue to sell its cheap EVs and renewable energy supplies to the rest of the world.
Biden offered no list of steps that China should take to comply with US rules. This is because there are no rules. Successive US administrations have disabled the operations of the World Trade Organization, which would have adjudicated unfair Chinese subsidies. Biden himself is subsidising US green energy with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Indeed, humanity as a whole is benefiting from the green subsidy race. Unfortunately, America is not executing its industrial policy as well as China. Almost two years after the IRA was passed, the US has only installed seven new EV charging stations covering a total of 38 spots for drivers. This would be insufficient to cover a suburb in Luxembourg.
The other motive for US protectionism is national security. This explains Biden’s so-called “small yard, high fence”, which bans the export to China of high-end semiconductors and equipment that can be used for military as well as civilian purposes. It is an open question whether this will slow China’s military expansion or accelerate its homegrown shift up the value-added curve. But Biden’s theory is sound. It makes no sense to sell military technology to a potential enemy.
Against this, however, are the uncounted national security costs of deglobalisation. The last time the world was confronted with rising populism was in the 1930s. America’s initial response was to make it worse. The 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act raised US tariff barriers and triggered beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism elsewhere. This time, again, America’s instinct is to disengage: Trump across all fronts, including military alliances; Biden only on the economic front.
The US has grown tired of upholding the rules that it made in the wake of the most devastating war in history. Nuclear weapons will probably ensure there is no repeat of the second world war because it would amount to collective suicide. Today’s most potent threat is global warming. On Tuesday, Biden slowed America’s transition to green energy and moved the US a step closer to a zero-sum contest with China. The only persuasive justification is that it could help him at the ballot box.
https://www.ft.com/content/97024f02-c830-4e18-a8cd-4e7b79cbc3b6

I have an 09 Xterra with 170k miles. Almost my entire exhaust has fell off (in different sections at different times). One of the leafs on my rear passenger leafspring is completely broke (been like that for years), all shocks are shot and have been for years (Front tires wear significantly faster on the insides). In addition, my e brake doesn't work, rear driver door no longer opens and CEL is on for camshaft sensor.
I am thinking about revitalizing the suspension and maybe doing a small (2 inch or so) lift while I'm in the process, seeing as I have to replace a lot of the suspension parts anyway. Any suggestions? I'd like to keep it as cheap as possible, not looking to keep it for much longer.

Just bought a rather small one, its leaves are about 10cm and the whole plant is about as high. Is there any need for a moss pole at this stage or do I just put it in a suitable pot and let it grow up a bit first? Considering adding a small moss pole, not for climbing but to see if it likes the humidity from it..
Thanks in advance!

So in April along with getting a bonus for a good business year I was also given a 2% raise, which I'm not complaining about!
However, I've since found out that with the increased living wage I'm only earning 23 pence over the minimum amount (25500 PA, 42hrs PW). I am basically performing two jobs as I'm transitioning to a QA role/career, but also handle sending out samples, usually its a few small orders a week but sometimes it will be several a day or a huge order e.g 250 bottles, or 4000 plastic pot lids that I have to count individually alongside smaller orders, which can get rather hectic with my primary role.
I am also in the process of asking to be put on a ISO training course that could end up costing ~£1500 of company money. So with all that considered, would it be worth asking for my salary to be reviewed again or do I not have a leg to stand on?

So I have the dreaded t with a lot of plants in LECA. Have soaked the outer and inner pots in binbata detergent, hot water and rubbing alcohol to be sure and threw out the wicks.
Is the LECA recoverable if I boil it? I just spent most of last week soaking and rinsing it. I think I saw a larvae on one of the balls and the whole pot of those got tossed.
Plants were soaked in water for 24 hours, captain jacks coming today and the systemics tomorrow. I don’t want the scorched earth to be ruined by contaminated LECA but considering the time I spent soaking and making the LECA usable…
To add to see if I’m still doing everything possible and if there’s anything more I can do…
Any leaf with a brown and/or white spot or any kind of line went into trash. Some entire plants went into the trash. I had a garbage bag full of leaves yesterday and it was a little heartbreaking. Some of them were water props I’ve had for several months and were finally taking off…
On the upside, my bromeliads now look like cool roses.
Edit 2: since I’ve gotten question about what t is, it’s thr*ps.

I’ve been with my husband for a couple of years now, married a few months. I caught him out in a pretty big lie last weekend and it’s unravelled so many things. So many times that I thought that what he was saying was strange, or seemed far-fetched all make sense now. The lies aren’t even big or to hide something that would hurt someone’s feelings, it’s just small stuff but the lie is what makes it huge for me. I’ll give a couple of examples to provide a bit of context:
EXAMPLE 1
When we met, he told me he had tried to kill himself in a car crash when he was 19, that it was a split second decision and to never tell his parents because it would crush them. I dutifully kept his secret.
A few days ago, I found out that there was someone else in the car from an offhand comment made by one of his parents. When I asked him later why he had lied about it, he said that he didn’t remember the crash, has no memories before or for a while after. I asked why he would try to kill himself with someone else in the car. He maintained that “it was a bit about killing myself”, before restating that he had no memory and “I don’t know what to tell you”. Very defensive, yelling and crying.
I asked him again a couple of days later (in one of our attempts to resolve the situation) saying that either he has lied to me since we met, or he tried to take someone else out with him. He said he didn’t remember but that he thought it was suicide because he was so deeply unhappy at that time in his life. I said “so you tried to take your girlfriend out with you? Because that’s murder”. He then said he didnt know the real reason. I then asked why he would definitively tell me it was a suicide attempt if he didn’t know the real reason. He couldn’t tell me. I then asked why he seemed to remember specifics when I asked him at the start of the relationship (“I was driving home from dads after dinner, it was a split second decision”) but now couldn’t even tell me if it was an accident or suicide. Admitted that it was silly to claim suicide attempt, but still didnt admit to lying.
EXAMPLE 2
I received a sapphire bracelet from my mum for Christmas last year. Boxing Day, he told me that “oh sapphire! it’s just like the ring my mum got you”. I asked him what he was talking about, and he said he didn't know. I said “no, your mum got me emerald earrings”. He said “ah yes that’s what I must have been thinking about”. I knew something was up but I left it at that because we were at family's house.
Later I asked him directly if his mum had given a sapphire ring to his ex. He said no, he was just confused about the earrings. I said I wouldn’t care, but that I don't want to be lied to. He said no, he was just confused.
Two weeks later his mum was on the phone on speaker (she didn't realise she was on speaker) and she said “I’ve asked for that sapphire ring back from [ex] and given it to [sister in law]”. I told him “I fucking knew it, why did you lie to me?” He said he didn't remember and that he genuinely got confused, and that he was “an idiot” for not remembering. I told him I’d be far more upset about being lied to than I would about a gift your mum gave to someone before we met. He said “I know, and that’s why I’m not lying to you!”
In all the other current issues going on, I brought this issue up again in the context of the other lies. The conversation went like this:
Me: Why did you lie to me about that, even when your mum mentioned it? Him: I already told you, I got confused, I totally forgot Me: How did you forget when I asked you directly, with specifics? I asked you “Did your mum give a sapphire ring to [ex’s name]” and you told me no. Him: I got my wires crossed, I was talking about the earrings Me: but you specifically mentioned a sapphire ring, which was exactly what it was. Him: I don’t remember who she gave it to. Me: So you do remember there was a ring… then why didn’t it jog your memory when I asked you directly? Him: I already apologised for this, we’ve been through this Me: What? No, after your mum got off the phone, you told me again that you’d forgot about it and you couldn’t remember anything about it. Him: Yeah, after the phone call with mum - we had a conversation the next day which I vividly remember where I told you I lied so as not to hurt your feelings.
I have no recollection of this conversation, but it would directly contradict claims he made seconds prior about ‘getting his wires crossed’, thinking it was about my earrings, and having no memory of it. When I asked why he had contradicted himself, he said he didn’t understand. It’s making me feel crazy.
There are actually many more examples like this, but over and over again, I’ve told him that I can handle the truth, but begged him not to lie to me. I caught him out in a lie in the first couple of months of us dating. When he said it was to protect my feelings, I told him that I would rather the truth than a lie from him. He promised never to lie to me again.
Over the last couple of years, he has sent me texts like:
“I felt absolutely stupid and embarrassed when I lied to you ages ago. And I told you it will not happen again. And it hasn’t.”
“I don’t lie to you”
“I’m so glad I have you. I can be my true self with you. I love the complete openness and honesty in our relationship. All we want is the best for one another”
”I asked myself something last night about us. Just in quiet reflection. Would I tell you everything and anything even if it would upset you? Like would I even make up little white lies to avoid anything crappy and I was like nah. I am cellophane with you. But frosted glass with everyone else”
“I love you so much. I promise to tell you everything and always devote myself to you”
He has repeatedly told me that he would never lie to me as “you know everything anyway, do you think I could lie to you?”
When faced with all of the above, he admits that he's got a problem with lying and says he’s turned a new leaf, that he knows what he needs to do, and that from now on it will be complete honesty.
In light of everything, how do I know that this is the truth, and not another lie?? All of my trust in him has gone, along with any respect I had for him. Everything he's saying to me just feels like lip service.
I know the above seems like a lot, but I’m only asking so many questions about these issues and others in the last couple of days because suddenly everything is making sense. A number of events that I went “huh, that’s weird” over the last two years but took him at face value and brushed off are all coming back into focus. I’m trying to get him to admit to lying for things that I know for a fact he has lied about. I’m trying to get him to understand that he can’t just give me something that doesn’t make sense and expect me to believe it.
HE is the one who asks me daily to talk about the issues we're facing, to tell how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking etc. He brings it up, so I explain to him what doesn't make sense to me or what I'm trying to process.
I ask him questions so that I can understand what his story is, and how that interacts with the facts that I know. When he’s defensive and contradicting himself instead of being honest and saying “yeah I made that up”. The fact that I’ve told him that I just want the truth and he still can’t admit to it indicates that there’s a problem - I even held a “safe space lie amnesty” a couple of days ago where I said I just wanted to know what he’s lied about so we can move forward. A lie you’ve gotten yourself tangled in is one thing. Repeated and continuous lying even in the face of contradictory facts is concerning. Despite my repeatedly telling him I can handle the truth, he maintains lies that have no value. Most of the lies he's told me couldn't even be considered to be for a reason - if it was to protect my feelings I'd get it, but some of them are just for attention.
These are not two isolated incidents, these are two of maybe ten events that I can recall from the last 2 years that have always been weird to me, but I kinda brushed them under the rug until recently when I realised there was something else going on.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask from a man who has repeatedly told me how much he values the honesty and openness in our relationship to show me those same values. He is not a man who has ever even indicated that he wanted to have his own space or privacy, in fact, he jumped into the relationship with "we should have each other's phone passcodes and be able to look at it whenever we want because we have absolutely nooooooo secrets". That was a bit of a shock to my system, but I thought 'hey, if this man wants full transparency and openness then let's go for it'.
Sometimes I’m furious and can’t stand the sight of him and other times I think it’s not such a big deal. I don’t know if I even really know how I feel about it. Sometimes merely annoyed, other times completely betrayed.
So…. AITAH for considering ending the marriage?