#madness

The homunculus was a thin, flat, disproportionate thing that was too smooth, too round, and seemingly forever dissatisfied with its own ludicrous appearance. The first time I ever laid eyes on it, I had just arrived at my tech job, fresh from a stay of extended medical leave, mind already ablaze with the problems of yesterday’s virtual meetings. A semicircle of young and middle-aged colleagues surrounded and watched in hushed excitement as the thing changed. What I initially recognised as an…

"I just needed to sleep; it wasn't personal," he murmured, focusing intently on his fidgeting hands to avoid my gaze. "During the war, to desensitize us, our superiors played the harrowing screams of dying men over the speakers in our barracks. Initially, it was deeply unsettling, but over time, I couldn't sleep without it." He yawned, revealing the dark circles under his eyes. "I see," I responded, sitting across the table from the soldier. "And this justifies your actions?"

Outlaws sucked. It was just another shithole bar in Columbus, Georgia. One of many I might add. Not that I was an expert given I wasn’t much for the party scene. This college student struggled to meet friends, much less find girls who wanted to talk to me. I had no wingman after all. No one to go out with.

Most people have never heard someone die. The moaning. The crying. The pleading. The last tortured breath before they go quiet. Most people will never hear those things. I do. Daily. No, I’m not a serial killer on a hellbent mission to cleanse the Earth. I’m a 911 operator. When I took the job ten years ago, I assumed I’d more or less be like an air traffic controller, but for emergency response teams. For a large portion of my job, that’s true. That’s the easy part. Death is harder.

The rain carried on as mercilessly as it had the past two weeks which miraculously happened to be just the time when I moved into this dumpster of a town. Me, the 13 year old, Finn Junior Hollis. Watercliff, Bakersfield. Things that shouldn’t be associated at all, right here to shove in the universes face after all. Or rather, this was the universe shoving it into my face as if this is its idea of some cruel joke. First of all, not only was I damned to live in an uneventful place like…

The trip was fun. From what we could remember at least. Olivia and I had made the weekend trip down to St. Augustine, Florida with her younger brother John. The four hour drive from Albany, Georgia to one of America’s oldest cities was long and boring. The four-lane highways we traveled along were barren and isolated, surrounded by nothing but miles of impenetrable forest save for the occasional shithole rest stop.

My name is Edward Polist, and for most of my life I was a detective. People used to say I had a gift for seeing things others missed, that I could notice patterns hidden in chaos, that I could follow the smallest detail until it led me somewhere real. I believed them, maybe more than I should have. My work became the only thing that made sense to me, the only place where the world followed rules. Evidence led to answers, actions had consequences, and nothing simply happened without a reason.…

I’m writing on here about a missed connection. I was at the Bernard Mall retro game store around 3 pm on Saturday. You were in the fantasy aisle. Your hair was a shining auburn that graced your gentle frame, and when you turned to me. Your eyes lit me up like the mystical northern lights. Their hazel flecks danced even in the dull lighting, and you smiled. And your blushed cheeks a shade of rose so sweet a hummingbird would confuse you for a bloom.

Honestly, I liked the drive. It was the scenic route and those beautiful country roads were part of the reason why I didn’t mind the commute. Driving became an escape for me. Cathartic even.

I awoke to the sound of dripping water, it was coming from somewhere in the kitchen, the open door just a few feet away. The smell hit me, just as pungent as it was when I went to sleep. My eyes started to water at the pure concentration of the odor, and the nausea set in. How long had it been since I arrived here? A week? A month? It sure felt like forever, but time was useless for me, since I knew however long it had been wouldn’t affect how long it would be until I could leave.

May 17th of 2011 was my finals week. I was quietly working on a study guide in the Earth Sciences department. Being surrounded by the fossils somehow made me feel less stressed about finals. Many of them were simply beautiful, with their natural curves set in stone. All of them, from ammonite shells to mammoth teeth, were arranged in a chronological fashion, from oldest to the youngest.

This morning, I cleaned out my closet to create space, and I discovered a plastic bin filled with childhood memories. Being sentimental, I removed the bin and began searching through it. The bin mostly contained artwork from my elementary school years, and the majority of them were scribbles or fingerpaintings on bright construction paper. In particular, a crayon drawing of my entire 3rd grade class drew my attention. I have to say that I must have been quite the artist back in the day because…

I'll never forget the summer of 1998, or the encounters I shared with my classmates. When I was ten years old, just two weeks into the beginning of the school year, the entire fifth grade was taken on a special week-long camping trip to 'Camp High Hope' in Indiana. Being ten years old, the idea of spending a week away from home, without any parents or siblings, just friends and the other kids from school, was one of the coolest experiences you could ever hope for as a child.

Bordering my property line, a manufactured home is left to be devoured by mother nature, abandoned. I have owned my property for multiple years, and, throughout that time, an owner has never been present, nor had I seen anything suspicious — until recently.

ICON Systems Group TL-07: Neural Language Analysis Internal memorandum #TL510513 1A Dr. Elin Saber [Routing: Office of Internal Ethics Oversight] To: IEO General Director Hevlen Please, read carefully. I'm not sure how long I can keep my thoughts straight, or if they are even mine anymore.

I’ve gotten into some trouble recently, and I need to tell people about it. I need to know if anyone has experienced something like this. I don’t want to be alone in this. I’m really, really scared. Please, bear with me while I explain what happened to me. For the purposes of this, I’m going to remain anonymous, so I don’t complicate my situation further. You’ll find out why in a little bit. I really appreciate you taking your time to hear me out and help me.

I work the night shift at a local mom-and-pop convenience store at the front of my neighborhood. We sell snacks, drinks, milk, bread, all the normal stuff that people need but aren’t willing to make a traditional run to the grocery store for. There was talk about adding a gas pump out front, but it hasn’t happened yet.

My cousin told me it happened in a very small village in Mexico, the one our grandfather grew up in. Late one night, a young man was leaving a friend's home. Despite the late hour, he insisted that he could walk home. After all, his own abode was only a mile away. Stepping out into the quiet streets, he started his journey. Breathing in the humid summer air, listening to the buzz of the street lamps mixed with the crickets and his own footsteps on the gravel ground.

In case you’ve been following along with the events at the gas station on my blog, I apologize that my website was taken down so abruptly. For some reason, the city council found my public record of local events to be “troubling”--to the point that they hired a fancy Orwellian legal team to bury me in cease and desists. I tried fighting back, but as of last week, it looks like my entire site has been retroactively erased from existence. Presumably, these are the same guys who’ve been scrubbing…

New York City, 1980: Giuseppe Russo sat in his small city apartment. It felt no larger than a jail cell, but had just about everything he ever dreamt of. His bed sat in a window nook on the right wall across from the entrance. Two bookshelves sat on both ends of his bed.