There are times when I am full of this murdering rage. When the life of another seems simple and trivial as that of a knot on the end of a balloon – with one twist, one prick, without any hesitation and little force, every inch of air can be cut right out. And the balloon, it will wither and deflate with awful gasps and gaseous groans. It will writhe in the immanent departure of vitality – jerking side to side like a candle struggling in the gust of a door blown open by a tempest wind. And eventually, it will lie pathetic and malformed, lifeless on the ground, and I will envision it with once sultry eyes that have been burnt out. They will beckon me, those eyes, to return to sanity, to return to some sense of decency, but they will have been ill-informed on the manner and nature of my sympathies. For, what the eyes do not know is that dwelling in the cold dark cavern chamber where a heart should be, is the foulest void that is not only lacking anything like feeling, but actually has the power to suck sympathy and life from others like a light ray trying to out run the reach of a dead star; of a black hole.In that moment, I will imagine that these fake eyes upon this balloon will harbor long and treacherous nights staring into the very core of me as if questioning my motives; as if begging an answer to the question “Why?” I also imagine myself staring back at them in a determined psychosis, laughing.
“There is no ‘why’,” I would say and then heartily explain that I did it for the mere enjoyment of stealing a balloon from a child to watch it deflate!
Yet still, other ideas come to mind, in the times of such macabre imaginings – in those moments of folly or triumph…depending on your perspective. Like one might think death on another to be swift and forceful, and the only fitting metaphor is actually more an associate of sound. It would be like the puff of wind that blows out from something enormous hitting something else enormous and then silenced – like a boulder falling hundreds of feet to the earth, exasperating all of its fine kinetic energy in a single blow of force, and then simply rolling to one side in an almost post coital dose. That would be the end of a life! Grandiose and extreme – but only a moment’s breathe in length. I can imagine people around standing dazed as to whether or not the killing they had just seen was one that had actually taken place or if, by some miracle, it was no more than the flash of some inventive subliminal marketing scheme trying to get them to drink soda more or have sex better or make their kitchens cleaner or die later, but there the evidence would lie pooling at their feet or splattered upon their faces. It would be that hard evidence to reassure them that they were witnesses to such a crime – if indeed one could call it that. Again, maybe it is all but a game of perspective.
But one should not be crass, there must be some reason for these instances of psychosis, for without reason, death by the hand of another is something crude altogether. It is like a prostitute’s kiss – it is something that seems like it should be a natural part of a common proceeding, yet it is strangely out of place. What sort of action can bring someone to the point of such confusion; to such madness as to drive and crack the mind into hinterworlds of homicide where the ground drinks blood and the stomach longs for nothing more than the entrails of another. Perhaps, and I am no expert, it is mere agitation. Maybe, when there is the presence of some sort of overt annoyance like the buzzing of another in the ear when they come far too close to the face than would naturally be expected, and the stink of them seeps into the lining of your nostril and their very air blows lightly onto your neck where no breath beyond a lover’s should be - when it ceases to stop at the appropriate distance that marks a place of comfort. Perhaps, it is when the one is left with wringing hands and a sweating brow because of a mere sound made by another. Maybe, the mind is more fragile than would have been previously implied – maybe this psychosis lingers so close to the natural frame of mind that it is not really so foreign but a true mark of conformity. Maybe it is so close to all of us that it IS the natural, and its suppression is the true psychosis.
And maybe the one who is reading this will give stern warning to me for their distaste of the reproachful subject. Maybe, they would soon rather see me ostracized than read any more of this garbage. “And you call yourself a Christian – respectable – decent- whatever,” they would say, and I would murmur with that rabid foam of murder still trickling from my chin, as it droops down to stain the shirt upon my chest, that I apologize for nothing. For, even now as it alights upon my knee giving little electric ticklish jolts, and while it prods around my thick layer of hair and flaps near my ear with a high pitch squealing buzz, I have no sympathy for this little fly that has invaded my home or the millions of friends I know it will bring with it tomorrow. So, when I catch it I will crush it, and I will dance upon its body with the exuberance of ten marching bands on a Thanksgiving Day parade! And I shall be at peace!
But for now, let this heart blaze with a fury like Jupiter! Let it rage with the sounding of Mars’ battle horn! Let it brood like the furthest depths of Hades’ kingdom!
Let this heart burn! Let it burn! Let it burn!
