Spiraling into Madness
Aug 24 '02
The Bottom Line This is fiction...I think...I hope.
I awake each day with joy and hope until my sleep narcotized mind begins to focus.
As that soothing, diaphanous cloud of sleep dissipates, the sun’s brightness and warmth do not greet me and comfort me as one would expect. That sun…your sun…despite its power and brilliance…cannot touch me. Instead, I am plunged into a world of terror and dread, and I haltingly and fearfully grope my way through the foul and stifling darkness that has enveloped me. I seem to lurch and bump and stumble my way along a path that, though leading nowhere, is strewn with insurmountable obstacles and the cruelest traps.
I feel as though I have been judged by some omnipotent force and found wanting, and that I am being punished without mercy for some unknowable transgression. I, at first, rebelled at the thought. Coincidence. A streak of bad luck. Everyone experiences it. Things will get better.
But, after ceaseless emotional battering and countless ego shattering experiences that left me reeling and helpless and wallowing in despair, it was impossible to keep the unthinkable from creeping into my mind. If I am being punished, then surely I must deserve it. And if I am so wretched a creature as to deserve this fate then, by all means, why not inflict some more?
And, accepting my guilt, I willingly hurl myself over the edge.
Plummeting, I glimpse with horrified fascination the fate that awaits me. The blades shimmer and sparkle through the darkness as if beckoning to me. I frantically grasp at the air to slow my descent, then realizing the futility of my efforts and accepting the rightness and justice of it all, I open my arms to their piercing and bloody embrace.
And then the awful tearing, searing pain without respite. I thrash and moan and scream as life slowly seeps out of me, and sweet, merciful death approaches. But as I near that blissful welcome oblivion, death cruelly recedes, and I am revived and made whole…only to relive this horror…this cursed new day…again…and again. The hoarse cackling of the Reaper echoes through my throbbing skull until my trembling hands rip and pound at my hair and flesh and bone in pain and anger and frustration. “End this now!” I plead. And there is mocking laughter…then nothingness.
And I continue my journey through the darkness.
Until the next terrifying fall. Or conscious leap?
On occasion, a ray of light pierces the gloom and, given this sudden burst of clarity, I recognize the randomness of life and humanity’s universal innocence…even my own. But the darkness is too powerful and overwhelming, and it inevitably devours me again. That fleeting thought of innocence that is my only salvation lies just outside my grasp… taunting me and torturing me with its elusiveness.
I begin to see the light as the greater evil and to be avoided.
So I begin to seek the darkness…even welcome it, for there is a certain amount of comfort in the eventual acceptance of one’s fate…even one as horrible as mine. Anguish, no matter how constant and severe, can become as familiar as an old friend. It can be endured. But hopes of relief and dreams of escape that are never to be realized are unendurable.
Maybe these hopes and dreams are my real enemy and the cause of my wretched state. Perhaps my petty needing and wanting…my aspirations…are perceived as greed and are the reason for my damnation. Better to abandon them.
Want nothing…need nothing.
Be nothing.
Embrace the darkness and emptiness.
Not be.
Peace.
At last.
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Epinions.com ID:
rich2003dm
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Location: New York City
Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 171 members
About Me:
I broke my pencil so I'm probably done here.
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