Richard wants it to happen…. Richard's wanting it can't make it happen.
It might, though. Richard might get at her. His mind and will might be getting at her all the time, making her die. He might do it without knowing he was doing it, because he couldn't help it. He might do it in his sleep.
But I can stop that…. If Richard's mind and will can make her die, my mind and will can keep her from dying…. There was something I did before.
That time I wanted to go away with the Sutcliffes. When Roddy was coming home. Something happened then…. If it happened then it can happen now.
If I could remember how you do it. Flat on your back with your eyes shut; not tight shut. You mustn't feel your eyelids. You mustn't feel any part of you at all. You think of nothing, absolutely nothing; not even think. You keep on not feeling, not thinking, not seeing things till the blackness comes in waves, blacker and blacker. That's how it was before. Then the blackness was perfectly still. You couldn't feel your breathing or your heart beating…. It's coming all right…. Blacker and blacker.
It wasn't like this before.
This is an awful feeling. Dying must be like this. One thing going after another. Something holding down your heart, stopping its beat; something holding down your chest, crushing the breath out of it…. Don't think about the feeling. Don't feel. Think of the blackness….
It isn't the same blackness. There are specks and shreds of light in it; you can't get the light away…. Don't think about the blackness and the light. Let everything go except yourself. Hold on to yourself…. But you felt your self going.
Going and coming back; gathered together; incredibly free; disentangled from the net of nerves and veins. It didn't move any more with the movement of the net. It was clear and still in the blackness; intensely real.
Then it willed. Your self willed. It was free to will. You knew that it had never been free before except once; it had never willed before except once. Willing was this. Waves and waves of will, coming on and on, making your will, driving it through empty time…. "The time of time": that was the Self…. Time where nothing happens except this. Where nothing happens except God's will. God's will in your will. Self of your self. Reality of reality…. It had felt like that.