Visiting Mom in the ICU (short story contest winner)

The following is a short story I wrote that recently won 1^st place in the “Walpole Writes” writing contest hosted by the Walpole Cultural Council. Everyone who has read this story has found it to be very relatable, so I thought I would post it here for more people to read.

 

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Visiting Mom in the ICU

By Matt Burns

 

You drive 30 minutes along a quiet and winding road. You try to put the radio on, but you can’t stand the music. Even your favorite song sounds so horrible to your ears. Instead, you drive in silence, save for the hum of the car on the road. You pray some more, but you can only pray so much. Over the past several days, you prayed to Holy Mary (via the Memorare), Saint Jude, Jesus and, of course, God the Father. Your praying sounds more like pleading now, maybe even whining. God has heard enough, you figure.

 

You pull into the parking lot and dread going into the hospital. You feel like a fish swimming upstream because you don’t want to go in, but you know you have to. In the hospital, you dread hitting the ‘up’ button for the elevator. You dread stepping off of the elevator onto the second floor. And you dread the ensuing walk down the corridors.

 

The first thing you hear are all the beeps from the bedside monitors. You then see glimpses of patients in johnnies. You don’t want to look at the patients directly—it wouldn’t be good hospital etiquette—but you know they are there.

 

After the first corridor, you take a left into another hallway and you now see the dreaded ICU unit, barricaded by a set of double doors that can only be opened once you hit a call button. The feeling of swimming upstream is even more intense now. You reluctantly trudge your way down the hallway, hit the call button and, after a moment, the doors open for you.

 

Once in the ICU, you again see peripheral glimpses of patients in johnnies—some look worse off than others—but you don’t look at them directly lest you violate their dignity. Three rooms down, ICU room #3, is the reason you have come to the hospital.

 

You immediately notice that she’s still on the ventilator, which was something you hoped miraculously wouldn’t be the case anymore. You’re more used to it now, though. The first time you saw her with the breathing tube, along with all the other wires going into her, you started shaking violently—you couldn’t help it—and then you burst into sobs and cries. But now you have become desensitized. During a time of extreme stress, the emotions eventually shut down and you become somewhat dissociated from reality. You often have to remind yourself that this is actually happening. But it all feels so surreal.

 

Today, they’re trying to drain excess fluid from her body with some diuretic drug. The problem is that this drug lowers blood pressure. Every time the blood pressure goes down, the bedside monitor starts beeping in a terrifying manner. Sometimes she also breathes “out of sync” with the ventilator and this sets off a terrifying beeping noise as well.

 

Every time there is a beep, the nurses come into the room, check her breathing and her heart, then adjust the blood pressure medicine accordingly. While this is happening, you stand in the corner, trying to stay out of the way, feeling and likely looking horrified.

 

Eventually, they find the proper dose of blood pressure medicine and the beeping stops. You’re able to sit in a chair by the bed and spend some alone time with her. Although she can’t speak with the tube in her mouth, she can supposedly hear what you’re saying. You want to say, “Oh my God, Mom, I can’t believe this is happening to you! You don’t deserve this! This is so unfair!” But you know that’s too heavy. You have to keep it light and simple. You tell her that so many people are praying for her. And that you love her. You also tell her that her “numbers” (i.e. vitals) are looking pretty good. “Hang in there, Mom. You got this.”

 

After a couple hours, you say goodbye and that you’ll see her again tomorrow. Then you leave the ICU and wander down the hospital corridors in a daze. You take a step back onto the elevator and this is when it hits you how emotionally exhausted you feel. You drive home, again in complete silence. You can’t shake the feeling of horror. The horror.

 

When you get home, the survivor’s guilt kicks in. You can breathe like a normal person, you can eat and drink like a normal person, you can go to the bathroom like a normal person, too. You do all these things with shame, knowing that she is back in the ICU, unable to do anything except lie there in a bed. A machine is breathing for her. A tube is feeding her. A catheter is going to the bathroom for her.

 

You try to watch a movie, a very light and funny one. You even find yourself laughing at the movie at a certain point, but then you immediately feel guilty. How could you laugh when she is in the ICU? You must be serious and sad at all times! You must mourn her misery at all times! You almost feel like laughing may somehow jinx the situation, like God will see that you’re not taking her health crisis seriously enough and He will punish you by putting her through even more misery. He wouldn’t do that, though. Would He? No, it’s an absurd thought, but, still, you’re walking on eggshells. You feel like taking a deep breath or relaxing for even a moment could somehow jinx her. It’s crazy, but it’s true.

 

You go to sleep, but you never enter a deep sleep. Your gut has a wrenched feeling in it. You know a phone call could come from the hospital at any time during the night, informing you that things are going south fast. You’re constantly fearing that the axe will make its final fall.

 

Then you get up the next morning and do it all again.

 

Reading "Visiting Mom in the ICU" at the "Walpole Writes" contest winners reception - June 11, 2025

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MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies! and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, MY RAGING CASE OF BEASTIE FEVER, JUNGLE F’NG FEVER: MY 30-YEAR LOVE AFFAIR W/ GUNS N’ ROSES and I TURNED INTO A MISFIT! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

 

 

Other trending writing-related articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:

 

THE AUDIO BOOK EXPERIMENT: Tips and Advice on How to Record Your First Audio Book

 

Getting Your Novel Done

 

Getting Your Screenplay Done

 

Making Your Good Writing Great

Writing the Sequel

 

Writing the Trilogy

No-No, Learn to Love the Rejection: Some Sage Advice for Writers in Search of an Agent or Publisher

 

The Story Behind Supermarket Zombies!

The Story Behind The Woman and the Dragon

Other trending non-writing-related articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:

 

My Childhood Obsession with Rambo

 

Video Store Memories

Revisiting the Blair Witch Project

 

A Love Letter to the Emerald Square Mall (about the death of the shopping mall age)

NEVER FORGET the Fun-O-Rama (a traveling carnival memoir)

Some Wicked Good Times: A Love Letter to Newbury Comics

I Dream of Dream Machine (a memoir of the local video arcade)

Skateboarding in the 1990s

PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective

 

100 DAYS of ZELDA: Revisiting Ocarina of Time

 

I USED TO BE A GAMER: The 8-bit Nintendo Years

WAAF Goes Off the Air

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Charlie (a story about Burns’ recurring nightmares featuring Charlie Chaplin)

Remembering That Time I Tried to Stop a Shoplifter at the Wrentham Outlets

The Strange, Surreal Moment of Being Called a DILF Inside a Panera Bread Restaurant on a Wednesday Afternoon

Weird Times en la Weirdioteca

 

RIP PowerBook G3

 

Vaccine Thoughts

For the past several months now, and especially for the past month, all we’ve been hearing is the word ‘vaccine’ over and over again. In fact, I’ve personally been hearing the word vaccine more than I’ve been hearing the word ‘the’ or ‘a’ or even ‘it’. Vaccine! Vaccine! Vaccine!

Never before has there been such a massive push for all of us as a collective to do something. It’s all over the news media. “Make sure you get your vaccine,” they say. The insinuation is, “Get your vaccine or you’re doomed.” The implication is also, “You’re a fool if you don’t want the vaccine.” Then, there’s mega-star John Legend who is doing #ThisIsOurShot commercials for Walgreens to make sure everyone gets their vaccine. Furthermore, there are dozens of companies (e.g. Krispy Kreme, Budweiser, Nathan’s Hotdogs, Staples, White Castle) giving away free stuff to anyone who has proof they got their vaccine (who doesn’t like FREE STUFF?). And, just in case all else fails, we are also being shamed and guilted into doing it. Do it to “save the life of your grandmother, grocery store clerk and delivery person,” says Joe Biden[1]. We can’t “celebrate our independence from this virus on July 4^th…until everyone has a chance to get their shot,” also says Joe Biden[2]. I’m not sure if it’s the intention (though I would argue that it probably is), but the consequence of all this is that anybody who does NOT want the vaccine feels like a total alien or, hell, in some cases, like a murderer. There is so much pressure to conform and go with the crowd. Vaccine! Vaccine! Vaccine! Gotta get the vaccine!

Now, you may be thinking that this is going to be an anti-vaccine blog. That is not the case at all. In fact, this blog is neither anti nor pro-vaccine. Instead, I want to discuss two interesting phenomena I see rearing their ugly heads from this intense #GotTheShot #ThisIsOurShot #FauciOuchie etc. pro-vaccine campaign.

The first is narcissism.

I personally don’t know if I’ll ever get the vaccine. I have my reasons and I won’t go into them right now. This doesn’t mean, however, that I’m “anti-vaccine” and that I don’t think anybody should get the vaccine. It just means that I may not ever get the vaccine—that’s all. It’s a personal choice that I’m making based on what a little voice in my head is guiding me to do. I have listened to outside voices like the CDC, Dr. Fauci, the media, political figures and other medical personnel and then I’ve listened to my inner voice and I’ve determined I’m going to wait for a while before I get the vaccine, if I ever get it at all (and I’m somewhat doubtful I ever will, to be honest). But, again, this doesn’t translate into me saying nobody should get the vaccine; all it means is that I may never get it. To think that nobody should get it just because I don’t want it would be narcissism.

Likewise, people who want the vaccine and get the vaccine shouldn’t feel that everybody should get the vaccine. Just because you get it and all is fine doesn’t mean that this will be the case for everyone. To think this would be narcissism as well.

The point is that we are all individuals with personal liberty and we all should make decisions based on what we feel is in our own best personal interests. What is a good decision for you does not equate to a good decision for everyone—it would be narcissism to think so. Unfortunately, it seems like there is a lot of narcissism out there because the message in popular culture right now is not “Get your vaccine [if you feel it’s right for you],” it’s, instead, “Everyone should get the vaccine [period].” The insinuation, especially in the media, is that only weirdo Trump supporters refuse to get the vaccine or, if not Trump supporters, then super-religious conspiracy theorists who believe the vaccine is the “mark of the beast,” some kind of microchip injection that allows Bill Gates to spy on you while you shower. This is not the case, but if you were to watch certain media outlets out there, they would have you believe that this were true, that only weirdos don’t want the vaccine.

Along with narcissism (and not totally unrelated from it), the other ugly phenomenon I see coming out of this whole get-your-vaccine campaign is a war between the collective mind and the individual mind.

What is the old saying? “If everybody jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?” Right now, we are overwhelmed by a tsunami of outside voices telling us to get our vaccine—whether it be the CDC, Dr. Fauci, other medical doctors, political figures, mainstream media, Hollywood celebrities, the list goes on and on. The pressure to conform and listen to these outside voices has never been so high. And although it’s necessary to listen to these voices—many of which are considered “experts”—at the end of the day, we must listen to one voice and one voice only: the inner voice inside our own individual head, because that’s the voice that knows what is in our own personal best interest. And that inner voice, when it really comes down to it, is the voice of God.

What I’m getting at here is that the struggle between the inside voice and the collective outside voice is a struggle between God and, well, the opposite of God, whatever you’d like to call that (there are probably extreme words one could use, but I prefer ‘opposite-of-God’). Again, you should listen to the outside and discern what is and isn’t useful, but the inner voice should always take precedence over the outside voice. The day the outside voice becomes your god is the day that you are essentially practicing idolatry because what is idolatry but replacing God with another ultimate authority, valuing the voice of an outsider (a false god) over the voice of the insider (God). I would argue that there is a movement in the world right now to devalue the inner voice of God inside each and every one of us. It’s essentially an initiative to replace God with an idol. The “outside voices” collectively are that idol; they want to usurp God and become the ultimate controlling authority over you.

Now, this idea of “replacing God” is a very common theme in the world today, not just with the pro-vaccine campaign, but in many other areas of our culture. I’ve written extensively about this war against God in previous articles. We see it with Big Tech’s authoritative attempt to control truth and information via mass censorship (read my article Pride Comes Before the Fall). We also see it with cancel culture where the ruling “outside voices” self-righteously cancel out voices they don’t want other people to hear or books they don’t want other people to read (read more about this in my article “We All Know Cancel Culture is Ridiculous”). Furthermore, we’ve seen ‘the outside’ try to take control over science, nature, biology and even general reality (all of which collectively comprise God when you really think about it) and this is most apparent when they suddenly proclaim that there is no longer any biological distinction between man and woman and if biological men want to compete in biological women’s sports then, hey, that’s totally fair because there is no biological difference between the two genders (read more about this in my article “It’s ok to Admit the Emperor Has No Clothes”). In all these cases, Man is essentially trying to push God to the side—basically saying, “Get behind me, God!”—and secure itself more control, power and authority. This “great reset” we see in our culture is an arrogant display of hubris and I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to sustain itself before falling on its ass completely. Pride, after all, always comes before the Fall.

Anyway, this is all a longish way of saying that, if you want your vaccine and you feel it’s right for you, then do get it. And if not, that’s ok, too. Listen to the outside voices, but, at the end of the day, listen to your inner voice above all else. Once we kill the voice within and just adopt the outside voice as our guide, we are no longer individuals. We are just a collective. And, honestly, I think that’s the plan by those who want the power. A collective body of people with one collective mind is so much easier to control. That’s what “the outside” wants more than anything else: control, control, control and more control. At the end of the day, that’s what this whole year-long COVID experience may be all about: CONTROL.

Read more about the struggle of individualism and collectivism in my recent article: Individualism Vs. Collectivism: The Bad Acid-Like-Trip I Experienced while Watching the Superbowl Halftime Show.

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MATT BURNS is the author of THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON, JOHNNY CRUISE, WEIRD MONSTER and SUPERMARKET ZOMBIES!. Find these books (and many more) at Matt Burns’ Amazon author page HERE.

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[1] Here is the full quote from Biden’s April 21, 2021 speech: “Vaccines can save your own life, but they can also save your grandmother’s life, your coworker’s life, the grocery store clerk, or the delivery person helping you and your neighbors get through the crisis.”

 

[2] Here is the full quote from Biden’s April 21, 2021 speech: “To celebrate our independence from this virus on July 4^th with family and friends in small groups, we still have more to do in the months of May and June. We all need to mask up until the number of cases goes down, until everyone has a chance to get their shot.”

IT’S OK TO ADMIT THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES

Most people are familiar with the old folktale The Emperor’s New Clothes, right? The story is about two con-artists posing as weavers who convince an emperor that they will weave him “special clothes”, clothes that are only visible to smart people while invisible to stupid people. The joke, however, is that there are no clothes, but the emperor is too afraid to admit that he doesn’t see them, lest people think he is stupid. So, he walks around naked and his subjects are also afraid to admit the clothes don’t exist because they don’t want to look stupid, either. Eventually, it takes the courage of a little girl who doesn’t care about looking stupid to call out the fact that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

Now, there are many ways this simple but brilliant folktale can be broken down and analyzed, but what I think is most fascinating about the story is its lesson in human psychology. In particular, this is a fascinating case-study in gaslighting.

Gaslighting, if you don’t know, is basically a manipulative psychological tactic where you convince a person they’re crazy for believing or stating the obvious. In the case of The Emperor’s New Clothes, the emperor’s subjects see—clear as day—that the emperor is buck naked with no clothes on, but the emperor is able to gaslight them that he is, indeed, wearing clothes, the most splendid clothes ever to be worn, and he’s able to get everybody to sign on to this unreality because people are too afraid to state the obvious. This is how manipulative power-hungry personalities work: if you can convince people that unreality is reality and vice versa, you can literally convince them of anything. Once you accomplish this, you can get away with anything. Literally anything.

This lesson in psychological manipulation is, of course, timeless and perhaps more relevant than ever right now in the current political climate. What we are witnessing today is an overwhelming amount of policies coming out of a Biden administration that defy common sense and, frankly, defy reality. There are many examples of this (a wide-open border policy during a pandemic, continued school closures that contradict science, cancelling Dr. Seuss etc.), but perhaps the most glaringly obvious one is the federal mandate to allow transgender women to compete in women’s college sports.

Now, this is a controversial and sensitive topic, but let me just say from the outset that this is America and I believe everybody has the right to live their life in any way they darn well please, so long as it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others. There are many people born who don’t feel right in their own skin—there’s no denying this and there’s nothing wrong with it. They feel compelled to switch genders, at least to the extent that man-made hormone treatment and surgery have allowed them to.

The problem, however, is that these man-made medical procedures can only take their sex change so far. Based on what we know, it appears as though hormone treatment can potentially reduce bone density and muscle mass to a point that is near or close enough to a biological woman’s; however, science has also shown that muscle mass can be easily rejuvenated afterwards because of “muscle memory”.[1] Either way, hormone treatment still has little to no effect on a male’s bone structure, muscle fiber composition, larger heart, larger lung capacity[2] and the other 6,500—yes, 6,500—genetic differences between men and women.[3]

In short, transgenders are still unavoidably built like a man in many ways that cannot be changed or at least cannot be guaranteed by science to be changed. So is it fair for them to be allowed to compete against biological women in sports? No, doesn’t seem very fair to women, does it? Because there are still significant biological differences at play and the transgenders could have significant advantage over the biological female competition. If anything, much more research has to be done on what, exactly, hormone treatment does to a man’s body before we give the situation the benefit of the doubt and assume there is a level playing field between a trans-woman and a biological woman when it comes to sports.

That makes logical sense, doesn’t it? So why are we afraid to state the obvious? Well, because of the Emperor’s New Clothes phenomenon. Very few people want to state the obvious—that there are innate and unchangeable biological differences between man and woman—because they are afraid to do so. They don’t want to be seen as stupid or, in this case, bigoted or transphobic. So they agree to sign on to an unreality. And that’s what this is really about at the end of the day: inverting reality into an unreality.

That’s right: I don’t think the Biden administration or the political left in general really cares about transgender folks as much as they proclaim to. There is a much bigger issue at play here and that issue is POWER. Remember: if you can convince people that reality isn’t really reality (as we see in The Emperor’s New Clothes), then you can convince them of anything. Once you have obtained the power to invert reality, then you have basically obtained absolute power. And what is absolute power but God? Plain and simple: it’s God.

So that’s the real goal here. Not to help out the transgender community but to put the American people into an “Emperor’s New Clothes” kind of psychological state, which is a state of easy manipulative control and absolute power over them. Once you accomplish this, you have accomplished the goal of every power-hungry emperor and that is to essentially usurp the role of God. This will mean people no longer answer to God as their ultimate ruler; they answer to you and you only. Instead of being one nation under God, America basically becomes one nation under the Biden administration.

To put this another way, what we’re witnessing today is a near-coup-like war against God. Because a war on biology, a war on nature, a war on science, a war on common sense, a war on “the obvious”, a war on reality is just that: a war against God.

What we need more than ever right now is for people to put their foot down and state the obvious, especially when we see so many policies being rolled out—one after another—that defy common sense. We need to fight against unreality. We need to have the courage to say, “THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!”

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MATT BURNS is the author of THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON, which is a novella loosely based on chapter 12 in The Book of Revelation. He’s also the author of JOHNNY CRUISE, WEIRD MONSTER and a memoir called GARAGE MOVIE: MY ADVENTURES MAKING WEIRD FILMS. Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

 

 

RECENT TRENDING ARTICLES BY MATT BURNS:

 

We All Know Cancel Culture is Ridiculous

 

INDIVIDUALISM VS. COLLECTIVISM: the bad acid-like trip I experienced during the 2021 Superbowl halftime show

 

Pride Comes Before the Fall

 

The Cloak of Woke

 

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[1] Rigby, Sara. “Can transgender athletes be fairly integrated into women’s sports?” Science Focus, 29 March 2019, https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/can-transgender-athletes-be-fairly-integrated-into-womens-sports/?fbclid=IwAR25A2Ks_3ObyNE-2jYdtP6EX2SQskJTFuEBeTDOozyhw_Tb9NFuB2-9tIQ.

 

[2] Bettle, Mackenzie. “Study: Transgender Male Athletes Keep Physical Advantages Even After Female Hormone Injections.” The Federalist, 8 August 2019, https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/08/study-transgender-male-athletes-keep-physical-advantages-even-female-hormone-injections/?fbclid=IwAR03TsPEyYlbgs_FteHX7sHXYUtyuRymApLZXFMxsKHQlbHs9FSraIx1pFA.

 

[3] Perkins, Tony. “New Study Shows Transgender Players Have Advantage in Women’s Sports.” The Daily Signal, 3 February 2021, https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/02/03/new-study-shows-transgender-players-have-advantage-in-girls-sports/?fbclid=IwAR2TpvAnMOJbMjDUcRfRym1ssZE09VouqhZvXPS90keVLorjRa6QZCNp37E.

 

FOR FURTHER READING:

Avery, Dan. “Trans women retain athletic edge after a year of hormone therapy, study finds.” NBC News, 5 January 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trans-women-retain-athletic-edge-after-year-hormone-therapy-study-n1252764?fbclid=IwAR2JGxUuIeSE-zior598zWoSW1auZdo0VEFrQ8ZQh1olJz3Ceh8qiZDJtmk.

The Story Behind THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON

If, 20 years or so ago, you were to pull me aside and tell me, “Matt, one day you’ll be writing a Biblical Epic,” I would have said that you were bonkos. I wouldn’t have believed it. Nope, not in a million years.

But it happened. Somehow…my God…IT HAPPENED!

The seed from which the “epic” grew was planted my junior year in college. I was in a class where we essentially had to read a bunch of screenplays. The very first screenplay we read was an unproduced adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost (adapted by John Collier). I had not read Milton’s epic poem at the time, but the screenplay was the most beautiful thing I ever read, or at least so I thought at the time. This was no ordinary screenplay! It was a work of art in and of itself. No camera-angle-talk or interior/exterior mumbo jumbo or any of that jazz. You could read it like a piece of literature, but it was also extremely visual. You could see the cinema as you read!

That next June, I found myself in summer school at BU and I was enrolled in a British Literature class. This was when I read Paradise Lost, the actual John Milton poem, for the first time. Once again, the story struck a chord, somewhere deep inside my soul. I thought the concept was brilliant. It was a Biblical-like story told through the devil’s eyes. For so long, we were only getting God’s perspective and Jesus’ perspective. But now we got the devil’s perspective, and that felt extremely important to me. Hearing this point of view allowed us to better understand evil and darkness in a more complex way, instead of something that was one-dimensional.

At the time, my British Lit. professor knew I was majoring in film and he told me I should someday try to make Paradise Lost into a movie! He said the poem was so visual and it was almost like Milton was writing with cinema in mind. I agreed with my professor and said, “Yes, one day I shall turn Paradise Lost into a movie! I’ll do it, just you wait and see!”

Flash-forward to a year or two after college. I started re-reading Paradise Lost and began thinking about how I would turn it into a movie. But then it hit me: “Why am I doing this?” I thought to myself while I showered later that evening. “A brilliant screenplay has already been written. All somebody has to do is make a film out of that. I’m not needed for this.”

Instead, I suddenly felt drawn to the Holy Bible. I had read much of the Bible in various literature courses at BU (including Genesis, Job, and Revelation), but I had never read the Gospels, so I thought it was about time to do just that. To my surprise, I found the Gospels to be much more interesting than I ever would have thought. There was so much wisdom in those pages. Morality! And truth! It didn’t matter if you were religious or not; the Gospels were great to read for anybody looking to strengthen their moral backbone but also for anybody looking for the inspiration to speak the truth in a society of pure and utter bullshit (especially when you know people will hate you for doing so).

After the Gospels, I felt a pull to re-read Revelation and this is when I stumbled upon chapter 12: THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON. That one small chapter—only a few paragraphs long, really—ignited the flame of the Holy Spirit within me (okay, maybe I’m being a tad dramatic). The chapter is very cryptic (as is all of Revelation), but I could almost see in my mind’s eye what it “meant”. An entire epic-sized story flooded into my mind. This story would be loosely based on the chapter but would also integrate the Gospels and, yes, even draw much of its inspiration from Paradise Lost.

In other words, I was going to write my own Paradise Lost!

And that’s exactly what I did. THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON started out as a screenplay that I wrote in 2007. About ten years later, that screenplay turned into a novel. Not only was this novel inspired by the Bible and Paradise Lost, but a growing interest in psychology also helped flesh out the story’s main protagonist (i.e. the devil). I became fascinated with narcissistic manipulation techniques, such as deception, projection, guilting, shaming, blaming, gaslighting etc. I saw all these techniques as comprising the devil’s malicious modus operandi.

So, thus, we have THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON, a story that is, I suppose, almost 20 years in the making. It couldn’t have been written at a better time, seeing that we are currently in the midst of a global, apocalyptic-like corona virus pandemic and there’s consequently a renewed interest in The Book of Revelation.

THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON is now available to read on Amazon and perhaps the day will come when it finally turns into a movie.

Find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZY35QX5

Here is the book’s trailer…

And here is the book’s teaser trailer…

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MATT BURNS is the author of THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON, JOHNNY CRUISE, GARAGE MOVIE: MY ADVENTURES MAKING WEIRD FILMS and several other books. Check out all his books at his Amazon author page HERE.

The Rise of the Moral Supremacists

Perhaps one of the greatest existential threats to America right now (and perhaps the world) is a phenomenon that is rarely discussed. I don’t speak of white supremacy, which has been a hot topic in the media recently; rather, I speak of moral supremacy. Moral supremacists are people—in many cases, politicians—who talk down to, guilt and shame those who possess thoughts and opinions that they do not agree with. They label these thoughts and opinions as “immoral”. Moral supremacists believe they are or at least pose as somebody who has somehow achieved 100-percent moral clarity. They do this because a 100-percent morally conscious person can never be questioned or proven to be wrong. The problem, however, is that no human being can ever reach a point where they are 100-percent certain of what is and isn’t morally correct. They can only think they are morally correct, not actually know for sure. In fact, the only being who is 100-percent morally conscious is, well…God. So the ultimate goal of the moral supremacist is, essentially, to fool others into thinking they are God. If they get you to believe they're God, then they can convince you that your morality depends on voting them into office. You must vote for them to save your soul.

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One of the most prominent moral supremacists out there right now is Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker. He uses the word "moral" incessantly -- in Tweets, speeches and interviews. One recent example is a comment he made after the recent El Paso mass shooting:

"I think, at the end of the day, especially because this was a white supremacist manifesto, that I want to say with more moral clarity that Donald Trump is responsible for this. He is responsible because he is stoking fears and hatred and bigotry." -- Cory Booker speaking on CNN's State of the Union

Also, this was a Tweet he posted from just three hours ago (as I write this). Notice how he also says "we must do better". This is his way of establishing his moral supremacy over us:

My "Time in the Desert"

…But first I mean [ 155 ]
To exercise him in the Wilderness,
There he shall first lay down the rudiments
Of his great warfare, e're I send him forth
To conquer Sin and Death the two grand foes,
By Humiliation and strong Sufferance: [ 160 ]

- from Book One of John Milton’s PARADISE REGAINED

It was only about a couple weeks ago that I was a guest on a paranormal radio show where I discussed various pieces of my writing and documentary work, especially that which involved exploring certain aspects of the paranormal world. The show lasted about two hours, but the last half-hour of the program consisted of a discussion about past lives between the show's two hosts, a psychic medium named Lucy (name changed) and myself. It wasn't long into the discussion that Lucy started telling me that I had 23 past lives. I had already known about one life I had in Poland and another life I had in Hollywood, but Lucy said that another life I had was as a doctor and in another life I was actually part of a knighthood at a roundtable (whether this had anything to do with King Arthur's roundtable is unknown to me, as Lucy didn't elaborate).

Needless to say, it was pretty interesting to hear about these two additional past lives and I was especially excited to hear that I was once a knight. But my excitement quickly dissipated when the medium started telling me some other things about myself. She said that I was still sort of living with certain past-life traumas in my subconscious mind and – for whatever reason – they were making me very indecisive in my current life. When an opportunity came my way, I would have a very tough time deciding whether it was a good opportunity to take advantage of. I would carefully weigh the pros and cons of the opportunity, almost to an absurd point. This extreme indecisiveness consequently allowed a number of opportunities to pass me by, mainly because I waited too long to act on them. Lucy then started talking about how I had the potential to "go such great distances" in life but I "hold myself back", because I’m so indecisive and I don’t take advantage of enough opportunities.

Now, let me just say that this medium Lucy is somebody I completely respect. There is no question in my mind that this lady is very nice and warm and kind, skilled and legitimate. But I have to admit that this information was probably the worst thing that somebody like her could have said to me at that given point in my life. It COMPLETELY messed with my mind, awakening one of my worst fears: mainly, that I have let key opportunities pass me by and consequently haven't lived up to my full potential as a human being. Yes, some people fear death or heights or spiders or clowns, but, lately, my worst fear has been that I haven't been making the right decisions in life and seizing the right opportunities. So when I heard Lucy – a respectable medium – say what she said, my mind was thoroughly, pardon my French, FUCKED with.

And, yes, let me reiterate that Lucy is a respectable medium. I mean, I would be singing a different tune if some Joe-six-pack Schmo from off the street said these things to me, or even if a friend or a family member or a grandmother said them (which they have in the past). In fact, I've heard these words come out the mouths of all sorts of people in my life, but I never felt in my gut that what they were saying was true for me. My mind may have been screwed with a little bit, but, ultimately, I would just say, “who the hell are these people?” and remain confident about the path I had taken in life.

But then when a MEDIUM came along and said these kinds of things, it was a whole different ballgame. I know a lot of people out there don’t even believe in mediums, but - for whatever reason - I take mediums VERY seriously, almost as though they are a conduit from which God Himself speaks, and I know this is silly but I have to admit it’s pretty true for me. So when I heard a medium say that I was missing opportunities and holding myself back and not living up to my full potential etc., my mind was fully screwed with. For a good week or so after I spoke to Lucy on the radio show, I felt very angry and depressed...even doomed. I felt that I had missed crucial opportunities, “missed the boat” in life and that there wouldn't be another boat for a very long time or maybe forever. Yes, I felt like I was stranded on some desert island and a boat had come to save me, but I didn't get on it because I didn’t feel like it was the right one for me, and - if I hung in there just a bit longer - a better one would come along. But, shit, what if another one wasn’t going to come? What if I was doomed to roam this desert island forever?!

A whole week went by where I was filled - and I mean FILLED - with doubt about the general direction and atypical pathway I had taken in life. I prayed to God, hoping that I hadn't made any fatal errors when it came to making certain decisions about opportunities. I was cranky around people, had a snappy temper and was depressed. My nephews would come over to play and I had a tough time mustering up the ambition to play with them, because I couldn’t get my mind off the past. Yes, it was that damn "coulda, shoulda, woulda” mindset messing with me again (read more about this mindset in my previous blog). I was anywhere but in the moment, completely dwelling on past decisions. I was absolutely filled to the brim with doubt.

At some point, however, I had a revelation. I realized that I was worse off now than I had been before. I mean, I was actually feeling kind of happy and confident up until Lucy started telling me these things about myself. I know she was trying to help, but she paradoxically just made me feel worse. So what was even the purpose of telling me such things if it was only making me feel bad? It didn’t really make any sense to me. But then came the epiphanal moment. It suddenly hit me that Lucy may – just may – have been messing with me, but not intentionally. What I mean is that Lucy was unintentionally playing the role of devil’s advocate (so to speak) for the purpose of testing my confidence in my self. And when I say ‘unintentionally’ messing with me, I really mean it; again, Lucy is an extremely skilled medium and a very nice, warm, well-intentioned person. However, I believe that - to at least some degree - the voice that channeled through her in this particular instance came through as misguided judgment, all for the purpose of testing my faith and strengthening trust in my self.

In fact, this idea of trusting the self amidst a sea of voices that say things contradictory to your inner feelings has been a very big theme in my life, for several years now. And I have always perceived these 'outside voices' as collectively comprising the voice of the devil. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: “The devil!? Have you lost your friggin’ mind, Matt? You sound like a crazy person!” I realize that I sound crazy and weird and extreme but allow me to further explain what I mean:

If you are at all familiar with the story of Jesus, then you know that - immediately following his baptism by John the Baptist at the Jordan River - the Son of God subsequently spends forty days and forty nights roaming the desert and being tempted by the devil. John Milton's PARADISE REGAINED (the sequel to PARADISE LOST) does the best job portraying this time in Jesus' life. Where the Bible just talks about turning stones into loaves of bread and throwing yourself off cliffs so angels will lift you up, Milton's poem goes into much greater detail about the very complex and clever methods the devil uses in order to wrest Jesus off the unique, seemingly-pathless-pathway he was taking in life.

Late into Jesus' time in the desert, the devil gets very desperate. His temptations don’t seem to be working very well so he essentially starts trying to mess with Jesus' mind, awaken his fears, and fill him with all sorts of doubt:


These God-like Vertues wherefore dost thou hide?
Affecting private life, or more obscure
In savage Wilderness, wherefore deprive
All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thy self
The fame and glory, glory the reward [ 25 ]
That sole excites to high attempts the flame
Of most erected Spirits, most temper'd pure
Æthereal, who all pleasures else despise,
All treasures and all gain esteem as dross,
And dignities and powers, all but the highest? [ 30 ]
Thy years are ripe, and over-ripe, the Son
Of Macedonian Philip had e're these
Won Asia and the Throne of Cyrus held
At his dispose, young Scipio had brought down
The Carthaginian pride, young Pompey quell'd [ 35 ]
The Pontic king and in triumph had rode.
Yet years, and to ripe years judgment mature,
Quench not the thirst of glory, but augment.
Great Julius, whom now all the world admires
The more he grew in years, the more inflam'd [ 40 ]
With glory, wept that he had liv'd so long
Inglorious: but thou yet art not too late.

- from Book Three of PARADISE REGAINED


In layman’s terms, Satan is essentially saying, “What are you doing out here in the desert anyway? You're just wasting your time out here, letting life pass you by when there is important work to be done. Most of the world’s noble and great leaders accomplished so much more when they were much younger than you are. Here you are, 30-years-old, you're letting life pass you by and you're not getting any younger. Leave this pathless desert path now and go DO something!”

Now, do Satan’s words sound familiar at all? Yes, he’s basically saying to Jesus that he's letting key opportunities pass him by while he’s in the desert hardly doing anything. He’s holding himself back being out there in that godforsaken place. He’s not living up to his full potential…

Of course, when I draw a parallel between Jesus' struggle and my own struggle I don’t mean to put myself on the same level as Jesus, nor am I implying that I’m Jesus-like in any way. In fact, I’ve always viewed much of Jesus’ life (especially his time in the desert) as a metaphor for a very universal spiritual struggle most people go through at least at some point in their lifetime. The “time in the desert” is a story about taking a leap of faith, trusting in your self and ignoring the outside voices that give you bad advice and misguide you. It's also a story about doing something that - on the surface - looks foolish and stupid, even like a waste of time, but below the surface is very important and in your own personal best interest to accomplish. I mean, you would think the Son of God should be out doing big things - living up to his full potential, seizing big opportunities - instead of just hanging out in some deserted wasteland. But even though he’s not doing “great things” that appear to others as great and will garner him honor and nobility from his fellow man, on a spiritual level he is doing very important things, developing his faith and strengthening his trust, becoming more confident with what his inner self is telling him to do while ignoring outside voices that are so brilliantly personified in this story as the devil.

So, yes, the story about Jesus and his time in the desert gives me strength and inspiration, but I must admit that I could be very, very wrong when I compare my situation with his. When Lucy told me that I'm missing opportunities and not living up to my full potential in life and that I'm "holding myself back”, she could have been absolutely right. Once again, this lady is a very skilled medium and a very nice, warm person (I can't reiterate this enough). It may be absolutely absurd for me to label her voice as one of many outside voices that collectively comprise the voice of "the devil". So, yes, I still have my doubts about everything.

However, I have to admit that my inner self is telling me that, yes, this is your "time in the desert", a time to develop your faith and your trust, and don't let these outside voices bother you, because all they’re doing is creating conflict with your inner feelings and filling you with doubt. And doubt is bad; in fact, I would go so far as to call doubt evil. And if there's an outside voice telling you something that’s filling you with extreme doubt, then you can't really do anything else except ignore that voice. What ELSE are you going to do? Keep letting it bother you and drive you insane? No, letting it mess with your mind will only bring you down and make your life worse off.

So, yes, right now I'm identifying the voice of Lucy, the medium, as, perhaps, one last desperate attempt by "the devil" to wrest me off the path I have taken in life, a path that I feel is in my personal highest and best interest to be going down. And, again, I need to stress that when I say "the devil", I'm speaking metaphorically. I don't mean that an actual demon named Satan is messing with me. Like I said before, the devil is a personification of the misguiding outside voices; he is the anti-self, embodying everything opposite from what you personally feel inside your soul to be right and true.

I also want to reiterate that my "time in the desert" is NOT unique to me or – at least in my opinion - Jesus. Certainly Jesus was a unique individual, but his story that took place in the desert was a universally relatable struggle. EVERYBODY has their time in the desert at some point in their lives, going down a path in life that you feel is right but that outside voices say is foolish or dumb. This path may seem pathless (hence the desert metaphor) and at certain points you may feel forsaken. You don't know how long you'll be on it or where it leads. The devil will pull out all the stops to try and mess with you and knock you off the course that you are on. His temptations will come in many shapes or forms. He will show you an easier, well-defined path, where there is better money, more security, good-looking women or men. Maybe he'll drain your finances, take your car away or other material items. Then he'll take away your respect and your honor and your prestige in the eyes of men, make you out to be the fool or maybe even make you feel like a fool. But when all that doesn't work, he'll simply just try and mess with your mind. The "outside voices" will begin to assault you with their thoughts and judgments and opinions. He'll probably start out with people like friends and family, all of which will tell you that you should be going down a different path. Then when that doesn’t work he'll take on the form of people you respect a lot more. In my case, it was a medium. In your case, it could be a teacher or mentor or grandmother you have great respect for; or maybe a priest, minister or rabbi. They'll tell you that you're missing opportunities in life and you're holding yourself back, not living up to your full potential and, heck, you're just wasting your time out here on this godforsaken desert path. You can listen to these voices and take some time to assess their value, but ultimately you have to honor the voice that is inside yourself, because it’s this voice that is God speaking to you.

All in all, your time in the desert will be a blind leap of faith, but - sooner or later - you will reach a point where you will be rescued. In PARADISE REGAINED, Jesus eventually gets saved from the desert (after Satan pulls out every last trick) and a group of angels feed him a delicious banquet as reward for keeping his faith. I highly believe this banquet is out there for everyone. It's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the moment you realize you were right all along. You just have to have faith, trust in your self and filter out those devilish outside voices that will only distance you from the INNER voice that is God.