I am schizophrenic.
I am bi-polar. I am anti social. I am depressive, neurotic, anxiety ridden, autistic, melancholic, bubonic, histrionic… I am whatever they say I am.
An endless procession of collared experts dispense with prescriptions, hypotheses, referrals and speak in absolutes on whether I am sane or… otherwise. They consider themselves sane so they are allowed to do such things, the discoloured pieces of paper they frame and hang upon their walls tell them so.
I have pictures of Gary Newman and the art of Zao Wou-Ki on mine. I am obviously deranged.
My view on the subject is slightly more fanciful than their cold and clinical outlook. Since birth, I believe I have been filled with the elements of the soul. Fire burns and water heals, just as anger and love do. Jealousy cuts the heart and hate breaks worlds. I am filled with these elements, a great swarthy wave of feeling which throws me this way and that, neither allowing my proverbial feet to touch the ground, nor my mind to ever be still. It is the madness of nature, as insane as the stirring of the sea or the force of the wind. It can neither be touched nor measured; it simply is. As the tide is forever trapped by the pull of the moon, I am cursed and blessed in equal measure by my insight. My visions are as terrible as they are beautiful.
I sometimes wonder if I’ve ever actually met anyone, ever or if I have just conjured this whole world, this entire sea of humanity. Perhaps I wander through a world of mirrors, crafted by my own, cracked mind, endlessly confronting reflections; aspects of myself. Maybe I will continue to do so until I recognize them for what they truly are… elements.
That one represents my sadness, while that one there in the beige cardigan represents my apathy. That guy might be my happiness, whilst that woman must be my desire. Each a paragon, a totem of my inner world, but what is that world made from; from what emotion is that world carved; what part of me could make such a monstrosity?
As I walk the steaming, putrefying back streets of Gotham, lost and alone, I realize what is. I recognize it’s stench and it’s touch; the icy hands of familiarity and the dread fingers that run along the inside of my stomach, colouring my vision, choking my breath with it’s dire presence.
Fear.
This world is formed from it.
Caped demons are manifested, swinging from rooftops in a crazed display of my terror, sidekicks and commissioners; spotlights and villains... all set ablaze by my own madness. The rain falls in sheets, covering my thoughts, deadening the sounds of the city around me. It’s walls rise up around me and I stagger beneath their shadows. The alleyways stretch on forever, like great scars through the heart of the city and I follow them. Dazed and spinning I follow them until all I can hear is the whisper of voice, a voice within the torrent which seems to put it’s finger to lip and whisper shhhhhhhh… shhhhhhh, be silent, Megan… all is going to be well…
Shhhhhh.
When the hands grab at my throat from behind they are neither gentle nor imagined. They are hard and calloused, the body I am pulled hard back against smells of tobacco and chemicals and when I see a flash of his face it is ugly; ugly of nature and intent. He is smiling and I see his teeth dance between dry, split lips. I wonder whether he intends to rape me. Or perhaps he will torture me, cut me up; intend to kidnap me in the vain hope of money. I wonder what my mind will conjure for him to do to me. How will I punish myself this time?
He puts his hands, hard upon me and I fear the worse… but then I hear it.
A sound I had never imagined; a scream unlike any I have ever heard, as if dragged up from the bowels of the night, from the city itself.
Before me, a figure rises up, walking forward out of the darkness of the alley, the rain christening him. His entire being wrapped in the sound, rolled in a blanket of screams. The sound does not emanate from his mouth, but from the air about him, as if he were conducting; controlling the terrible sound himself.
What has my mind conjured now? A saviour? A hero?
He wears neither cape nor cowl, his features buried beneath the shade of night and storm, yet his head appears shorn, his body lean, angular and sheathed in a black, pin stripe suit and tie yet, something about his face… even obscured, something… unnatural shines through.
Oh, my dear brain… what have I done to you now to conjure such things?
For no hero could ever look like this.
And no saviour could ever be formed from such fear.
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