“Here you go, Mr. Kessel,” Nathan chirps, handing me a generous stack of files.
I run my hand over my face, balk a little, then smile down at Nathan, the warm radiant glow that only comes when you’re absolutely livid. Nathan is teetering on his heel, unsure of what to do next, whether he should go back in or stay out here to chat. It’s one of those indeterminate pauses which come more and more often between us.
“That’ll be all for now,” I reply. “Get on back in there, champ.” To my left, Carla-Jean sits applying nail polish, her arduous curves sinking into the swivel chair beneath her, plump envy lips jutting out beneath her rectangular quartz glasses with the delicate beaded chain on the side. It occurs to me that she shows up less and less often these days. Of course, she has barely any actual work to perform. She’s paid simply to appear.
“Yessir, Mr. Kessel.” he swivels back in and out of sight.
I proceed. I’ve memorized every step by now, I seem even to have memorized every carpet strand and tile boundary. I loosely hoist the files over my shoulder before discarding them in a trash can at the intersection. I have no use for them anymore, I’ve begun resorting to my own unique methods and could care less what my forebears tried.
I’ve brought gloves and a cap to deal with the cold, I spoke with Bradford the week prior and he said that was absolutely allowed, considering the two-way mirror I can dress however I want. I was glad to hear it, my morale has been going up and I’m much more comfortable down there. Down in the lonely hourglass cavern of power.
It feels like I should be facing some sort of burnout at this point, it’s been a while of repetitive procedure, learning how each control works and how to properly record notes. However, every day brings with it promise. The promise of some breakthrough, a promise which infects and tantalizes me to no end. The long hours spent sitting and watching have become a way of life for me, a meditative routine.
I rub my arms and punch in the sequence on the keypad. The barrier clicks, and I’m standing again in the vault of perpetuity. I wonder how I would look right now to an outside observer, standing gaunt down here as a menacing avian form, although as has been well-documented, viewing oneself from the perspective of a third party is a difficult task.
I wonder how my profile looks from the side, lit only by the dim glow of the pale orange buttons, all of them decades old, the VU meters and the clicking jungle of information being fed towards some arcane ideal. I must look empty.
“Hello again, Nil,” I recite into the microphone, tapping it gently to remove any dust. I’m much better at giving the proper commands by now, simple phrases which won’t risk the formation of concrete thought. Nil doesn’t even know the English language, of course, not really, but still- these strange transmissions being piped into his head, the arrival of blurry human speech above vocal cords which probably can’t yield as much as a syllable- it could interfere with the process. He can only be prompted to act in an inert state. Speech is a catalyst of education. These are reasonable assertions to make.
I casually unzip my left jacket pocket, feel around inside for the cap and gloves, along with three other items. Heavy-duty earplugs, designed for sporting events or concerts, thick foam with a form-fitting shape. And a blindfold, of course. Thin veil of fabric, about fifteen inches long, had to order it custom to ensure the size and fabric would be just right.
I procedurally apply these items, starting with the cap. If I’m less numb, if the temperature is less of an issue, then maybe I can place myself in his mindset. As much sensory deprivation as possible. Need to ignore these blinking lights, all the color and sensation, the noise and the fury. There we go. I tie the knot in the blindfold, I hear nothing and the world goes dark.
They’ll probably review the tapes, see me doing this, they must have several employees at their disposal for review, one person couldn’t sit through all these hours of recorded footage. I wonder if anyone’s tried this before, noticed any phenomena. It seems the logical thing to do- if one is to understand how Nil’s mind works, one cannot remain tethered in the material. You’ve got to cut the anchor.
The chain snaps, and I’m drifting out- further out onto the motionless waves-
“Nil,” I recite. The words taste dry, without audibly hearing them from the outside, they echo in my sinuses and the other assorted cavities of my skull. I inhale, swift breath of the sterile deluge, exhale sharply. Try to loosen my fingers such that they don’t register the material beneath them. The gloves help- they contract the skin so as to render tactile sensation distant. In front of me, little synaptic fireworks begin exploding, the telltale signs of absolute darkness. I open my eyelids and I’m startled at how well the room has vanished. My aqueous humor remains glued to the nylon, bound in tandem to the fading phosphorescent orbs.
I use the technique described in the meditation book I checked out three days earlier, sat overnight in the living room going through the motions and various Buddhist rituals in preparation for this specific moment. Begin the chant, count from ten to one.
So this is life, I repeat. Sitting, muscles kept fixed, save for the occasional low-frequency vibration to prevent total spasmodic failure. One arm to either side, locked to focus straight forward at a flat opaque wall. I’ve been here many years, more than I can remember, and my memories are more like hushed fantasies, whispery remnants of a bygone era.
The noise of the womb as it contracts- red flesh sheathing my frame, warm placenta entering my lungs, then exiting- a secretive forest framed by ovaries. Above me, the steady beating of the heart, a syncopated rhythm which holds exactly to my own. My heart is unimaginably small and frail, a meager thing processing blood through its four chambers. Someone could easily crush it, but nobody does. It’s a slumber that lasts forever in the span of nine months. In that time, I receive the secrets of being and of existence.
So this is life...
The curtain lifts and the shaft of all-consuming light pours in, sounds from beyond the veil- horrible, gnawing sounds, mechanical patterns. The flesh recedes, the placenta empties out, liquid draining down the faucet, and my legs are exposed suddenly to the brisk air, the skin raw and unfit, the blood everywhere- oh no, the blood- the red rivers pour and gush, let loose from their dams they roar in agony as I’m ripped, jostled mercilessly from the sanctity of the refuge.
Every pathway is flooded, every orifice filled with a new kind of material, the alveoli flourish as my mouth hits the opening, one deep gasp and the blinding lamps filter through, screaming everywhere, everything is dry and wrong, displaced and knocked over. Kill me, I shout, kill me before it’s too late, before the secrets leave me- I must regain them-
I blink twice, I’m affixed to some soft sheets and a towel with a yellow fringe, there are two legs on either side of me and latex rubber appendages coming in to scoop me up by my arms. I can’t make out their faces, everything beyond a three-inch point is faded and blurry, abstract. Noses and foreheads where they don’t belong, blobs of color shifting into position and through fractal arcs. Everything is slow- so slow- it takes a year for contact between the latex and my shoulder to be made, another year for the ascent. I feel every second.
The noise on the monitor next to the bed in which my mother is lying makes its insipid scrawl, decibels slowed down to a constant stuttering tone that rises and falls, an insect rubbing its legs together. Faraway, the three-month long noise of scissors closing, then a sharp, overwhelming pain near my stomach which lasts approximately two months.
The illuminative rectangles above shift and cast their patterns over us all, wafting from side to side- dense clusters of ganglia form near the back. My mother’s voice is a steady oboe, slow woodwind reverberance and no readily available meaning. I raise my arm, reach out toward my benefactor, who chuckles for a week. Objects are growing faster at an incremental pace. I can almost make out my thumb bending.
The orbs diminish, split off into sections and subsections, ripple like the splashes of a pond after a disturbance from a small bird. These are the primary components- the departments of the psyche, the id and super ego and so forth, each leaping into its own place according to its own need. Behind these, the medical equipment sits in gray complacency.
More details of the room come into focus- the ripples on the sheets of the bed, my own smooth skin, the enlarged pores, the soft fingernails. The way the ambiance filters in, all while a constant wailing erupts forcefully from my lungs, loud and caustic, a volcano of involuntary noise in response to the unbreathable atmosphere. I feel no pain, though.
My mother seems to be reaching for me, holding her arms out, tears streaming down the bridge of her nose in response to my own, her face is kind and responsive, the sort of visage you could get lost in, and time has sped up to the point where, if I turn my head, I’m looking at her for a few seconds. Those seconds are days, days of longing and heartache, the necessity of closeness, the realization that what has happened is irreversible-
There’s a door right behind her. Three and a half feet wide, around seven feet tall, standard size for the entrance to a hospital room, or most doors, for that matter, yet to my shriveled little form, it’s a vast formless chasm, a rectangle leading into something horrible and desolate- a world beyond redemption, a world of suffering and death, unimaginable cruelty. Those four smooth wooden panels are the final threshold.
My breathing relaxes momentarily, my heart rate regulates itself, less out of peace and moreso out of confusion. I blink twice, each blink takes an hour. The orbs vanish entirely, replaced by a sharp lucid awareness of reality. There is no sound. I wish, for my own sake, that I could tell what the doctors were saying, but for whatever reason- my own encroaching awe or a particular vibration in the aether, all I can make out is a distant ringing and a depraved thud. The thud draws nearer.
Two shoes, a wiry figure emerges from the doorway, a being of simmering, unrestrained evil, clad in a long flowing cloak held to his neck by a silver medallion, a low-brimmed fedora perched on top of his perpetually unseen, scratchy hair. Two piercing diamonds where eyes should be. He’s moreso a silhouette than a person, but I’ve seen him before, because in a sense all the world’s anguish can be tied back to him in one way or another, every little thing that goes wrong can be attributed to his wanton malicious interference. He wouldn’t have it any other way...
My mother’s smile fades, her hope vanishes and is replaced by a sullen, reserved acceptance. The doctors mumble some form of halfhearted apology before setting me onto the blankets and leaving the room, hanging their stethoscopes up, disposing of all biological waste. The umbilical cord is deposited into the waste compartment without a second thought.
I’m alone with them now, and too far removed from the empty places and the grand truths to understand what their ties are, how they met or what his purpose is in doing this. He takes up a position near her feet, she shrinks back to avoid contact with his cloak, as if it were somehow acidic. Measured respiration on his part, an entirely collected approach.
He pushes his arm forward and his gloved hand makes contact with my bare, raw scalp, too much friction. I recoil from the touch, it’s altogether frigid. He leans in, the border of his hat covering his sullen cheekbones, his skeletal complexion, and all the other features he possesses which any third party would find repugnant. He breathes on me and I shiver. It’s the freezing wind of absence. I long for an end to this state.
I know my mother is crying, but I don’t want to look up at her and confirm as much. She holds my hand one last time, she interlaces her fingers with mine, and then the hat man scoops me up in his talons, fumbles around near his lapel for something. A blindfold. Six inches in length, in the years to come I’ll be graduated to ten and twelve-inch ones but this will suffice for now. Content with his prize, he steals away into the gathering dusk.
My visual cortex will remain inactive for the next twenty-two years.
I sigh, blink once, and remove the earplugs. I pop a few aspirin from the little foil tray, they taste awful sliding down my gullet without water, but they’ll do for now until I can get to my prescription at home. I’ve been through enough for one day.
I spend a couple minutes coming down from the trip, take the gloves off, nestle my head in the crook of my thumb and index finger, study the contours of Nil’s profile, how they perfectly match everything he’s been through, how well the universe measures out punishment. Cause and effect, and it all goes around in so many ways.
There’s something else about him that disturbs me. He has no facial hair. Same with the nails, there’s no hair of any kind protruding from beneath the breathing apparatus. Surely he would have some coming in. Or maybe- this would be difficult to test- when you’ve never seen the sun, your follicles and cuticles shut down, they lack impetus. Smooth chalk layer, looks as if it were dusted. Like how corpses are when they’re bathed in a shellac of formaldehyde. That checks out, everything about the specimen is as one would expect. As if these fundamental truths were gathered in this very room with us, hovering over our respective minds, dreary rainclouds of absolute certainty.
The conceit is as such: I could have easily become him, and vice versa, and only by the strange hand of reverence were we sorted into our respectful worlds. There’s nothing special about either of us. That’s what I’ll need to maintain going forward.
I smile, my palm has lost all traces of sweat from the coolant. It’s dry now, and there are still traces of hickory lingering on it. I imagine Bradford won’t care- even if I were to describe the properties of the substance to him, he’d be confused, so it’s better left unsaid. It seems the flakes turn up all kinds of places these days- underneath my eyelid, on my pillow, beneath my nails. They get everywhere the more you take them.
They’re instrumental now, I realize, if I’m to break through the gate and achieve what nobody before me was able to. Even if that slow birth is all I can behold, all that Nil’s brain stores- it was invaluable. It was sacred.
I study the lens of the Hi-8 cameras. Surely they didn’t catch me in the act. I touch a particular dial and Camera three swivels on its mount by half an inch, providing a radically different view of the apparatus and table. I can make out the seat’s machinery, its distinct chambers, the way its multitudinous wires protrude and dangle from the platform like crawling ivy. It is a masterfully engineered thing to lay witness to, there’s no getting around that. Whoever built it had utility in mind.
It’s unavoidably stark and bears no insignia, and I imagine Nil’s flesh has probably grafted to it in the way flesh tends to, if not to the seat then certainly to his clothes, his unwashed back with the cravesses of accumulated matter, a body so neglected and diseased it must induce some kind of physical pain...
No, because pain is, again, a relative term. One does not know pain until one experiences pleasure. He may feel pain, but he is numb to it. The dust gathers and the decay proceeds, but he bears it because he is submerged in a pool of incomparable agony. Agony which coats his scalp and his rotting teeth, his dead systems shambling on in mock form, his wretched mass corpulent and sprawled with checkerboard abscesses.
I check my watch. 8:36 P.M.
It lasted longer than I thought, the pangs of hunger gnaw at me and I’m looking forward to dinner. Even so, I can’t leave. Not yet. Not while the memory is so fresh. Not while the details stand out so clearly with crisp photographic debris. I file them away meticulously, devise subtle mnemonics by which I can revisit them. Five clicks of the tongue and they’re saved.
“Move.” I check the microphone, turn the volume up a few hairs to ensure it blasts into the antechamber.
“Move, damn you.” The expletive might be frowned upon by the ones in charge, but the proof is in the pudding. I’m probably already too unpredictable for their liking, too scattershot, the greatest risk they’ve ever taken, and they know it, but if they really hated me they would’ve told me to leave weeks ago. I’ll play it by ear until anything else arises.
My stomach growls, I shift a little in the swivel chair to get a better view of the action. I’m still unacquainted with around half of the control mechanisms which tie directly to each camera, I had no idea Hi-8 equipment was capable of so much mobility. I reach forward, twist one knob so as to zoom in on Nil’s hands, which lay sprawled face-down on the table. They’ve always been like that, totally inert. He’s never used them because he sees no reason to. Their muscles, like all the rest, have long since died.
I shift the focus over to a particular sinew, a tendon near the base of the wrist. It’s been so long since I studied these in any detail, I can no longer name each one individually. So many scattered facts lost with the breeze, irrelevant to my life. So many hours spent in dusty lecture halls, soaking it all in. What a waste.
Anyway, it’s one of those which control the fingers. I study my own for comparison, his is withered, an unwatered tree desperate for air, beanpole of a thing visible through a thin layer of seran-wrap flesh, unnaturally stretched and expanded by the horrible stimulant devices. I flex my ring finger to be absolutely certain of how it operates, take in every step in the process, my brain sending out a conscious desire for movement, my knuckles undulating in kind.
I’m scared to attempt such a thing, yet the prospect remains...
On my left is a navy blue door I’ve never seen anyone enter or exit. It’s smaller than the vault, about half the size, and a layman would probably assume it constitutes a crawlspace. I know better, however. This is the maintenance hatch through which Nil’s room is accessed. Who it’s accessed by, I still don’t know. Bradford, certainly, from time to time, to replace the IV drip or other vital components of the setup. But there are others, I think. Furtive people who slink in only when I’m out, entirely by design.
I conceptualize the layout. One hallway, snaking around to the back. Must be some kind of sewage system hooked up, basic waste disposal and atmospheric control. How to get into the passage, that’s the key issue. I’ve tried the handle out of curiosity before, pry the latch beneath the flaps of my jacket. It appears to be locked at all times.
Except today.
Today, the entry stands askew, one inch of free space leading right towards the chamber. I aim to take full advantage of it. I’ll detail the report in simple terms- a symbiotic deprivation attempt, followed by a quick rundown of the equipment, and departure at the correct time.
Surely they won’t notice 15 minutes of missing footage.
I grab the tapes rotating in their slots, push every button to eject, cram them in their receptacles and begin the uploading process. The conversion takes well enough time to cover me. The cameras are dormant now, so I search around the base of the desk to unplug a few vital inputs. Dangerous things which could be surveilling me. I’m not as technically inept as they surmise, I’ve got adequate knowledge of systems like these from my time at Swedish, and I’m a fast learner besides.
I check my watch, in and out should do the trick.
Cautiously, masking my footsteps in case there are microphones embedded in the walls, I approach the passage. My breathing slows as the Hi-8 tapes whir, plastic substrate clicking past esoteric heads, whirring incessantly. The noise is like a swarm of hungry insects devouring everything in sight. I’ve never been too fond of it.
It recedes, though, as I close myself off in the corridor. Surely there are no bugs here, this is designed only for the insiders, one of which I don’t constitute. It’s silent, about three feet wide, very narrow with a high ceiling. I gaze up above. Wooden rafters, dust falling from them, one naked light bulb plugged into a spare outlet. This is much less visually pleasing than my room, there are no sleek panels or sharp angles. This is more like an old toolshed, it has that particular musky aroma of old rot and damp crevasses.
I glance to my right and find a simple fuse box next to what appears to be a smaller two-way mirror, this one only a couple of feet in length. It’s carefully concealed, I never would’ve guessed it was there, it’s coated with a shellac of gray fluid on the other side to camouflage it.
There sits Nil, from an angle I’ve never seen him in reality, lower than the cameras can account for but there all the same, completely inert and unchanging.
It occurs to me that not only can I see him from here, but someone could be in here while I’m in the observation room, studying him in tandem. Concurrent surveillance of the same target, for entirely separate purposes.
No. That’s not it.
Breathing picks up, heart rate increases. I fumble around on my keyfob for a penlight, press the on switch, get it up close on the fuse box. It’s not a fuse box at all, I realize. It’s designed to look like one, vaguely, to a layman it might pass itself off convincingly as one, but there are five unlabeled buttons, each one solid red, where the breakers should be. And above them, a tiny panel. A screen. I hit the first.
There, on the little CRT monitor, a monitor smaller than any I’ve ever seen, surreptitious as all get out, an image flickers on- an image of my chair, from some camera I could never have accounted for, which for all intents and purposes appears to be embedded right into the glass of the main mirror such that the viewer can monitor my face head-on. Needless to say, it seems as if audio is a built-in feature as well.
I press the second button, and the volume turns up. The sound of the surveillance tapes moving. An empty post. They’d only need to use this if they don’t trust me.
I’ve had enough, check my watch. Only seven minutes left before those things are finished burning and I have to step back in to replace them. And if there are any more unknown cameras I’m not privy to, whoever uses this equipment will likely have access to evidence of my departure. I may as well finish what I came in for. I press the last button, the screen goes dark with a chirp, and I proceed onward towards the end of the hall.
I try the handle, it slides open gracefully. This door has no lock, it’s integrated seamlessly into the wall, a Machu Picchu job, I had no idea there was an entrance here, in the back left corner. That’s how well it blends in. I take a moment to run my index finger along the edge, examine it on a microscopic level. It is a perfectly manufactured object, crafted with the utmost precision, an optical illusion. And the funny part iss, it doesn’t even need to be- I know they get in somewhere, to restock supplies and the IV drip and all- but I hold a weird respect towards the commitment and the unflinching thoroughness.
I don’t close it, because if I did it might vanish forever into the blank canvas of the wall and I’d be lost amid the ocean of glaring white. I never fully appreciated how well-lit this room is, how every corner and area is bathed in the medical-grade phosphorescence which bears down from above. I stare upwards at the halogen tubes, each one a pillar of ceaseless visibility. I’ve never noticed or appreciated them before, the mirror’s field of view doesn’t allow for that, nor do any of the cameras. It’s a gorgeously demonic arrangement, ensuring that there are no shadows cast by any object, no area left unseen.
To Nil, there is no light. His is a universe of shadow, of sightless things writhing in inky subcurrents, to him the process of discovery we hold so dear is mirrored by an ongoing process of ignorance. How odd that he should find himself amid a bouquet of glaring beams.
I assumed that when I approached this point, standing scarcely three feet behind him in physical space, I’d experience some form of hesitance. Instead, my resolve is firm, and his motionless, placid state only furthers the onset of an indescribable, serene calm- a calm which I know isn’t going to last much longer.
There he is, tubes and drip bags and all, his dusty garment clipped onto his neck with a stale button, lulling again and again, one loop then the next- static...
“How you doing, buddy?” I pinch his cheek. The flesh is pallid, lacks elasticity. Much like my own, some would even say. There’s no moisture in it, the cells are dehydrated, my fingers grip it and it just sags there, unable to return to where it had been. I push it some, meld the structure around like Silly Putty. I’m overcome by potential.
“Hey, Nil,” I laugh, stooping down to his level. The apparatus contracts once. “ Hey, man. Sorry I couldn’t make it to your wedding. Job got in the way. Too busy taking care of- well- something. You know how it is. Heh.” Reach up, squeeze the IV like a water balloon, its contents slosh around and quiver. Some viscous amber liquid, not the usual saline solution. Probably a vitamin or protein supplement.
“You feel anything, huh?” I tug his hair. “Feel that? If you do, Nil, tell me. Just say as much.”
The apparatus spasms once, I glance forward towards the two-way mirror. Blank surface, a featureless canvas, I run my skin across it to admire the view. It’s exactly as I had imagined. The world beyond it simply doesn’t exist.
“Well, here we are. Going to try something.” I reach around in my pocket, rifle through the odd assortment of lint, loose change, pills wrapped in little foil trays. At last I find what I’m looking for amid the debris. I pull it out, let the ambiance reflect from it. It’s brilliant.
A one-inch-long sewing needle, worn steel dagger gleaming with potential. Its tip is microscopic, sharp enough to pierce the skin, to cause unbelievable pain..
“Hold your hands out,” I state matter-of-factly, drawing near. “Oh, you already are. Of course you are. Good boy. Keep them that way for me.” I don’t want to touch the skin, it’s repulsive, coated in abrasions and sores. It’d be caked in dirt if the room had more bacteria present.
Instead, I hold the needle gingerly between my thumb and middle finger, utilizing my index on top of the hole to aim for the correct spot. I try and bring up images of the various tendons on the back, which spot will induce the most suffering, before deciding that it ultimately doesn’t matter, that the pain he’s about to feel will be unlike any he’s endured for years, a horrible reminder of the cruelty of the outer world well beyond his inaccessible capsule. If he refuses to explore it on his own, I’ll drag him headlong.
The needle makes contact. Gritting my teeth, overcome with disgust, I lower it further, well past the epidermal layer until it’s submerged amid the broken activity below. His vessels barely operate, I realize. The small drops of blood which emerge from the wound aren’t bright red, they’re oxygen-deprived, an awful dull purple which spurts in erratic little jolts, thick with all sorts of toxins and disease. He’s beyond reckoning, his physical state is the worst I’ve ever seen in all my time as a licensed physician.
Success, I think as his palm contracts upward, success because he’s done something, damn it, it’s worked, he’s moved, and whether that’s his own decision or it’s just how the body would react under such severe stress, it doesn’t matter, I’ve wrenched victory from him, his nails retract and lift off the surface of the table a mere one centimeter, but he’s done it, he’s proven himself to be human, and I helped him-
I expect to hear a scream, some vibrant release of the mind and all it entails as he breaks through the tunnel, some rasp of jubilation, but instead, he’s dead silent, and the hand falls back down as the blood continues seeping through, it doesn’t seem to be able to clot, his digits twitch spasmodically like putrid worms. I pull the needle free but it achieves nothing, so I use the corner of my jacket to wipe up the blood, apply pressure over the hole. His skin lacks regenerative abilities, it dawns on me. Of course it does. None of his cells have ever been called upon to regenerate.
Suddenly, my field of vision is filled with horrible things, a million bolts of fuschia lightning fill my view, shooting forward like rockets, puncturing my cortex in their unbelievable wake. Y nervous system is attacked from every angle, every nerve is stimulated with sublime, extensive pain- my eyes roll back as the torture grows, building like a neverending descent on the river Styx, I soar onward past Cerberus’ snarling heads-
I stagger backward. From what I make of him past the visual fireworks, Nil remains steadfast and empty, and the air begins to smolder somehow. The scent of burning newspaper, I feel as if I’m going to choke, I grasp my throat and cough, legs flailing, I shove myself out the door- heaving, trembling... violent waves of nausea, typhoons of pure sensation.
I run for the exit, look to my right and see that the little fuse box panel is sparking, overwhelmed by energy. Oh, well. Nobody can blame me if it catches on fire. I’ll tell them it was due for a repair anyway... dusty in here, isn’t it? Oh, yes...
No time to consider excuses, not now, I’ve got to get as far away from it as possible, escape the horror before it consumes me, rid myself of the ringing in my ears and the neon hum, the singed yellow onslaught. I don’t retreat, I push my legs through sheer will and I leap through the surveillance room, which is no longer frigid but warm, deeply and sickeningly warm, a swamp where the computer begins clicking incessantly and displaying error messages on all its penal, because something has gone wrong, something has gone horribly awry, and it’s all my fault- all down to my inane hubris...
I scramble up the stairs, herky-jerky, a puppet on borrowed time, a wretch, I hold my temples as they throb and I’m horrified to discover some sort of liquid seeping from them, please don’t let it be my brain, I sob, as I near the daylight from the upstairs hallway. Please, don’t take my mind away from me- it’s all I have left
Let me out