#madness

October 15th, 2018, was the best and worst day of my life. It was the best day of my life, because my wife had given birth to a beautiful baby boy. It was the worst day of my life, because my wife went into a self-induced coma, resulting from excessive blood loss. I took my new son Sam home that day, and left my sick wife at the hospital. I was filled with so much sadness, yet so much love all at the same time. Every night, I put my baby boy to sleep, and I was filled with absolute peace and…

Ever since I can remember I have been able to see things that others cannot. I still remember the days of my infancy when I would, for the first time, sleep in my own bed, in my own room, and how the shadows of unknown beings would haunt my room. Or perhaps my head? All I know is that I saw things, and that, at least to me, these things were as real as the other things that other people were able too see and touch.

I've decided to kill myself.

Hello. I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, or behaviors. In other words, my life is a a systematic pattern. But yesterday, I experienced a flaw in my own system. I awoke that morning in my lakeside home promptly at 6:45AM, as I do every morning. Before leaving my bedroom I made sure to touch the doorknob three times. I have to. I need to.

Late one night about ten months ago, I found myself rushing my daughter to the hospital. I remember the morning. What time I woke up, the food I ate, and the sound of my girl’s voice yelling “See ya, daddy!” as she ran out the door to catch her school bus.

"Do you feel safe in your house? Does your house have secure doors and windows? Do you trust your neighbors, if you even have any?" I ask these questions, but I already know the answers. I know so much about you. I know how you tick, I know how you tock. I know what makes you happy, I know what makes you angry, and I know what makes you afraid. I have been watching you since you were just a young one; my how’ve you grown.

I quickly walked through the cabin, making sure everything was nice and tidy, just right. I’ve gotten pretty good at getting the whole cabin clean in less than a day. After a quick alignment of the magazines on the coffee table, the place was perfect. Penny would have been proud.

Have you ever thought of a person that you knew for sure couldn’t be human? That could never die even if you tried everything in your might to stop him. I am not talking about Jeff or Jane The Killer, no. I am talking about someone equally, or possibly, more terrifying than them: Tulo Beloff A.K.A. "The Home Run Killer."

“Skreeeeeee!” My brakes squealed as they slid along the slick road. The rain had turned the roads into a slip n’ slide from hell. My high beams illuminated the bridge’s wall and before I even realized what had happened, my car crashed through and over the guardrail.

“So goodbye yellow brick road Where the dogs of society howl You can’t plant me in your penthouse I’m going back to my plough Back to the howling old owl in the woods Hunting the horny back toad Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies Beyond the yellow brick road” – Elton John, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” Kansas In 1985, the Disney film ’Return to Oz’ was released in cinemas, and a few years later made its way onto home VHS.

It was a dark and rainy day in February when I was hit by a small red pick up. February 15th. I was told I flew 15 feet before landing smack on my head. Apparently the driver was drunk and didn't see me crossing. I don’t remember that day at all.

It was simple, we thought. Take a few chromosomes, slice them up, put them over there, and hey, perfect human being. I’m still not sure what went wrong. Maybe a miscalculation? A misprocedure? Or maybe something beyond our control. Who knows? We (a few of my psychologist colleagues and I) were intrigued by human emotion. Anger, despair, euphoria. Was it possible to lock the mind into one emotion? To lock it into a euphoric state so that no sadness or anger would cloud its thought?…

Now, when I think back to the excuses my parents used to make, I feel like an idiot. I remember being twelve years old, standing at the top of the staircase and watching all of the people filing into our basement. Some men wore white masks, some women wore bonnets. But they all had small suitcases, as though there was a bus stop beneath our house. And every one of them looked pale, frightened.

The term “synthetic drug” refers to a new type of drug on the market that has been created to skirt existing laws on illicit drugs. Thousands of psychoactive compounds are regulated by the law of the Federal Controlled Substances Act. However, in creating synthetic drugs, manufacturers alter the chemical structure of an illegal drug, modifying it to create an “analog” or derivative of that drug, to, essentially, make it quote unquote legal.

The flames are in full force now. Glass is shattering from the heat generated from this inferno. Even the charred wood is beginning to splinter, unable to withstand the weight of the 2nd and 3rd floors above. You know, it is fires like these that made me want to become a fireman. To see raging death dance across the floors, walls and ceilings is an incredibly beautiful and mystical sight. Don’t you agree?

Footsteps aren’t an uncommon thing to hear when you’re sitting in a basement, so I think nothing of it when I hear quiet thuds coming from my upstairs hallway. I just assume it’s my brother, and continue doing whatever pointless little thing I was doing at the time. They go on for another couple minutes, and I’m starting to get pissed off. They keep getting louder and louder and I sigh, wondering what the hell my brother’s doing this late at night. I sit there, because it’s impossible to focus…

In 1988 an unknown broadcast overtook several UHF stations in the Midwestern United States for six consecutive nights. The broadcast would last for only a few minutes and consisted of white static with a gray silhouette of a person in the center of the screen. The shadowed figure spoke with a an androgynous but deep voice and always spoke in whispers.

I don't like it here... The room is cold and claustrophobic. The walls seem to close in on me if I look at them for too long - which is kind of hard, saying that all that consists in my room is a bed, a desk with a chair and those damned fucking four white walls.

My childhood was always filled with fun. When I was a young boy, boredom was a very rare occurrence. This was the case mainly because of how much time I spent being happily occupied with either my Nintendo 64 or my Gameboy. I was the master, the undisputed champion of every game I owned for those systems. Occasionally there would come a time where perhaps the 8-bit graphics and sounds of Kirby’s Dream Land or Super Mario Land would leave unwanted lasting impressions on me while I was trying to…

I’m breaking every single one of my rules for survival doing this and yet I know if I don’t I’ll die of hunger in a few weeks or worse they’ll find me when I’m sleeping and carry me off to where they dwell nestled in the tunnels beneath the city. I stare into the abyssal depths below me, nothing to make out but the now motionless escalator stairs, poking their way out of the blackness. I take one last deep breath savour the clean crisp February air and make my way down to find Nate. Nate’s the…