#madness

I cannot describe to you how I feel right now. What I’m experiencing is so detached from the normal, I’m almost convinced I’ve finally gone insane. Almost. My wife, Bea, died during childbirth. She was gorgeous, funny, intelligent – stubborn. A woman whose laugh was so loud, eating in restaurants was a challenge. A woman whose stare was so intense, it made my hands shake. I lost her as she gave birth to our daughter. Sam.

It was a cold winters afternoon, soft flurries of snow were gathering on the boys window sill, much of it piling in a clump on his timbered bedroom floor, unfortunately his window panes, which were designed to keep him from catching a flu, had been shattered.

When I was very little, I met my very best friend. I was quite the fearless little child, so I wasn’t afraid of him. Though, I do think most little kids might’ve been. But, I was a boy, and by my logic that meant I wasn’t supposed to be scared of anything. Even if I was little, I was still a boy.

A true (?) story.

My life has been average at most. I lived in a family of two girls and one boy. There was my older sister, Jenny, me, and my younger brother, Alex. We had a typical childhood, I guess. Jenny was popular, with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and skinny frame. Alex, early on, showed a penchant for sports and became the star athlete of the family. But myself, just like the rest of my life, was very… average.

I was a nurse fresh out of my program and eager to start working. After applying to many different hospitals I was accepted by a prestigious private hospital specializing in obstetrics and prenatal care. The hospital was famous for its surrogacy programs and had global reputation of delivering the healthiest and genetically superior babies. I was of course excited and couldn't wait to see my new hospitals and meet my new coworkers.

In 1998 I got a new teaching job in a new town. To save money I moved into a small house that was for rent. My roommate, Claire, was nice enough and the two of us got along easily. I moved in and found my room. While unpacking I came across an old framed photograph. Three men dressed as hospital orderlies were sitting together in the living room of the house. These three men had once lived in the house I was now renting with Claire. I didn't want to throw away the photograph, it didn't…

Grandpa was 97 years old when he passed away. He lived far from where his three children had settled. Grandma died when I was a small child, and he ended up remarrying another woman a few years later who demanded that he move out west so that she could be nearer to her sons. She was a piece of work, was Grandma Hester. We all wondered how Grandpa could stand her. It turns out that perhaps he could not.

In rural southern Illinois a toy company began selling “realistic” baby dolls to expectant mothers. But apparently after the mother had her child the toy baby would start crying. Eventually the “rocking motion” advertised to calm it down wouldn’t work, and you couldn’t get it to stop without shaking it.

Max Theodore pushed past the boisterous throng of laughing kids and settled down at his usual table. Max’s best friend, Isabella, bounded over to him with her typical energy. “Max!” she greeted, hugging him as if she hadn’t seen him in days. “You won’t believe what I was able to find last night!” Max grinned and shook his head. Isabella had a reputation as a paranormal fanatic. On Saturday night she could be found in her home watching black and white horror films while eating buttered popcorn.…

The audience laughed as the young man in the top hat smiled. The trick he had just completed had apparently been more than enough to please the crowd. As the man slowly walked away from the almost blindly bright spotlight, he kept his face focused on the crowd, continuing to smile.

Edgar raised his head up from his chest; back pressed firmly into his favorite recliner, his entire body drenched in cold sweat. He stared into shadows at the edge of the living room, eyes welling with tears as he lifted the revolver slowly and deliberately to his temple. “Seventeen”, he whispered to the darkness.

It started when I was six years old. I was in school, it was the middle of a reading lesson, and I needed to pee, badly. At that age, actually, a fair few kids still wet themselves, and I always got paranoid about embarrassing myself in public like that. I stuck my hand up and told Mrs. Zebby that I needed to use the bathroom. After the usual speech about how I “should have gone at break”, she gave me the key to the Disabled-Access toilet (as it was the closest one to my classroom).

This used to happen to me quite often when I was younger, but lately I have had “different” experiences. To start with, I would like to say that this is all true. Everything I write here is fact, and you don’t have to believe me.

Call me a misanthrope, an introvert, whatever. The fact is, I always thought I preferred being alone. I had a couple of friends. Well, mainly acquaintances. People I worked with. People I lived near. Family.

I don’t know why so many of these things have roots in childhood. It seems like a bad cliché at this point. “When I was a kid”, there was this strange event… that odd creature… or the other thing that made me do something-or-other. Yeah. I don’t know WHY so many start like that. For me, I can’t explain this any other way than starting when I was little. It’s the crux of the entire thing, and I apologize in advance if it seems like I’m just following in the footsteps of others.

“Bobby! Pay attention!” he heard his teacher say. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see her glaring at him. “Did you hear anything I’ve been saying?” she continued. Bobby shrugged his shoulders. Prior to being disrupted, he was daydreaming that he could freeze time, and before that he was imagining himself navigating the classroom if he was only 5 inches tall. The teacher continued to rant at him, just as they all did, then she placed him on detention Friday night after school.

Have you ever forgotten your phone? When did you realise you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realisation probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were momentarily confused by it not being there. Then you did a mental restep of the morning’s events. Shit.

Maybe it's late at night, but you can't sleep. You're bored, or you can't stop a bazillion thoughts from racing through your skull, or maybe you had too much coffee, or you're a little drunk. Whatever the case, I've been there, my friend. I know how it feels to sit there and realize that you're not really living right now. You're just existing. Surely there's something you can do, right?

I live in South London in a third floor flat in a five story building, two floors above, two floors below. Being that I live in London I’m used to seeing people act drunk, crazy or violent; Especially at night when the nutters come out. But what I experienced two nights ago shook me to this very moment, so I feel I have to write it down in case my situation becomes more weird than it already is. Why did he choose my door!?