The Great Disappointment - Dan Brotzel

‘OK guys and gals, let’s begin with the usual.’

The seven of them fidgeted a little more on their cushions, then settled into a well-rehearsed stillness. A breeze played with the net curtains at the window of Krish’s living room.

'OK everyone,' said Krish, exhaling dramatically with a self-congratulatory yogic air. ‘Find that still centre. Light your inner candle. Say hello to your soul.’

Others around him began their own deep breaths, some melodramatic, some more timid, others almost sighing. A drill began vibrating violently in the road outside.

‘Ssh, sshhh, that’s OK,’ smiled Krish. ‘These things are sent to try us! Literally.’ He elicited a few half-hearted smiles and chuckles. ‘Just acknowledge the distraction, bless it away, and return to your soul-flame.’

There was, despite his best efforts, a sullenness in the air that had never been there before.

‘Thank you, Source, for connecting us to the wellspring of your love,’ Krish intoned. ‘Thank you for connecting us to all things – for allowing us to find each other and meet here in the light of your love.’

Silence. Drilling. A fly buzzed a perfect enneagram.

It was Sandra who cracked first. She was an impetuous fifty-something divorcee who had just got her first tattoo.

‘I'm sorry, Krish,’ she exclaimed, shifting out of her meditation pose and sitting back on her haunches in an attitude that suggested righteous indignation rather than serene self-contemplation. ‘But is no one really going to mention it?’

‘What’s that?’ said Krish, innocently.

‘Well! I mean. Here we are all, meeting again, in your living room in Gerard’s Cross...’

‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Krish. ‘And isn’t it wonderful we can all be here to share one’s another company again?’

‘Only... we weren’t supposed to here at all by now, were we?’ It was Frank now, always ready to take up a fight once someone else had started it. ‘We were supposed to have ascended yesterday at dawn.’

Krish said nothing.

'Krish, we love you, and we love the Soul Circle, you know that,’ said Sandra’s sister Louise, who could be relied on to say and think whatever Sandra did. ‘But I guess we just need to know where we stand.’

‘We stand here, now, in this moment,’ said Krish with maddening simplicity. ‘We are. Here. Together. Now.’

‘Yee-ees,’ persisted Frank. ‘But according to your predictions, we should have been ushered into celestial bliss by now. You promised us an ascension. You showed us all your calculations. We've been working up to The Dawn Awakening for months – years, some of us.’

‘That's right,’ said Krish. ‘And we all stood on the top of Blackwell Hill yesterday. At 5am. Awaiting the great moment.’

‘Which didn’t happen,’ said Tony, who was normally the most mild-mannered of the group, but also the one with the most need for things to be spelled out to him. The fact that Tony was speaking up now brought the conversation, the group, to a whole new level of crisis.

‘Or perhaps it did happen,’ said Krish carefully. ‘Perhaps we have ascended?’

‘Right,’ said Sandra doubtfully. There were a few murmurs.

‘So we’ve ascended into… another level of reality that looks exactly like this one?’ said Frank.

‘But is it the same, though?’ asked Krish profoundly. ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I feel… subtly changed.’ At this he inhaled deeply, sat up straighter on his haunches, and arched his graceful back, accidentally accentuating the sleek perfection of his pectorals through his thin robe.

‘Do you?’ said Tony excitedly. He was unclear what was happening, but as the group’s newest member he was desperate to bear witness to a proper spiritual experience.

‘Absolutely, Tony,’ said Krish, staring right through him with those eyes of his. ‘I feel a deeper love for you all. As if I could see your souls as they truly are, naked and beautiful. For the very first time.’ 

‘Actually, I sort of feel a bit fluttery too,’ said Sandra, who now found she couldn’t help focusing on the triangle of taut bare skin visible around Krish’s nut-brown navel.

‘Or perhaps Source simply wanted to test us,’ smiled Krish. ‘In which case our behaviour over the next few days and weeks is absolutely critical.’

‘No, no!’ said Tony, desperately. ‘I definitely think we’ve arrived somewhere. There’s a sort of… awakened atmosphere in this room.’

‘That’s all well and good,’ said Frank, doggedly. ‘But I jacked my job in.’

Krish smiled. He sighed warmly. ‘Bless you Frank!’ he said, looking directly into Frank’s eyes for a long, compassionate yet steely moment, until at last Frank gave a little cough and looked furtively away.

‘Or again…?’ Krish began solemnly. ‘Perhaps Source only granted the Ascension… to some of us? Perhaps some of us are here at one level, while others…’

The sentence hung unfinished in the summer heat. For a long moment, there was only the sound of a light breeze fluttering the net curtains.

Then Krishna leant across to Frank, reached out and clasped that chubby, bearded, civil-servant face between his delicate piano hands. ‘What do you think, Frank?’

A sudden blast of sunshine lit up the room. A play of rainbow light, a sudden gust of warmth. There were gasps from some, knowing smiles from others.   

‘Wow,’ said Tony reverently, a true initiate at last.

‘Blessed be Source. Blessed be Brother Krish,’ said Frank eventually.

‘Blessed be Source. Blessed be Brother Krish,’ the rest of the group repeated as one.

‘So here we are at last!’ said Krish expansively, stretching out his arms in welcome. ‘Now, I wonder: Will the wireless signal be any better in this new reality?’ He reached for his iPad and began connecting his payment-card reader.

The sun beat in through the window, roasting the air and setting the flies off once more. Outside, a lorry’s brakes whistled hard, and the drill started up again.  

Originally published by Door Is A Jar, 2020

Dan Brotzel's latest novel is Thank You For The Days (Bloodhound Books)