Runners

It's what I love doing; making runners. Screaming runners; not all of them out loud, but at least in their heads. Why? I learned while existing here at the asylum, the safest, most holy of commandments: Do one to others before they do one to you. If I'd been left alone with my insanity and sickness, I could have died and been rid of this...  this mess. I could have passed on to Heaven and been forgiven for my sins or cast down to Hell to pay for what could not be overlooked. But no. They wanted to SEE where I had gone wrong. They just had to know why I had pulled those ladies apart. They needed to SEE what my thoughts were when they caught me laughing smeared  and sitting in a puddle of crimson thanks to Mrs. Jones working alone at the general store that Thursday. So one day when I was busy eating belly button lint and dirt, they snatched me up, dragged me kicking and moaning to the infirmary where I spent quality time with Doc, Buzz and the Devil himself. 


They started by drilling a hole in my head. I guess they thought the sickness in me would spill out like maple syrup. It did not. It made my skull itch and the giggling in my head got louder. I gnashed my teeth and took a sizable chunk of Doc's cheek. Round two went to Buzz. He was a thick black coil with a raggedy pair of electrodes that attached to both sides of my syrup factory. They'd pull up their masks, flip the little switch on the wall and Wowee! I'd see lights,  feel a million knives cutting from the inside, and hear Lucifer just hee-hawin in the dark as I tried not to swallow my tongue. Pain? I used to feel it, be afraid of it. Now there's nothing. Silence, except for the voices I hear on occasion, so to stop them, I make Runners. I will not visit Doc or Buzz again. Ever. 


They took the weak shell of skin I was given and threw it in a hole with a shiny granite stone. Someone scratched :"Never should have lived. Thank God for death "on it. It would have been nice if it were true. But I never got to die. The trauma of Doc and Buzz keeps me here, tilted and eager.


All I have to do is wait for you. It seems like and eternity but you always come looking. Sometimes you skip along these old chipped halls and  make a lot of noise. You break already broken things and call out 'Yoooooo HOOOOOOO! Anyone hoooome?"  I get excited but still I must wait. If I appear too soon, it could backfire so I never come up to meet you. I want to see I can coax you down to MY shadows with playful suggestions: a soft cry or a shuffle.   Descending in to my madness, you get quieter; leery. That's fine. It takes some getting used to; insanity, but the curiosity will be too great for you to resist. Your fearless boasting and provocations become tiny whispers and whimpers.  I love that; Lion to lamb. If you come in a group, you might hang on to the cockiness a little longer; just a little. I still win in the end. What's that? Well that is when I introduce you to MY world. I will permit you to come close to me with questions :"Is there someone here with us? Would you like to show us a sign of your presence?"


Haha Oh yes. I will show you much, but for now, just keeeep coming. Down here with me. Yes. I  can throw a childish giggle often times in anticipation. If you should begin to chicken out, I will get mad and dump something on the floor or rush passed you to the door. I don't want to lose you now. I can taste fear as the edges of your minds crack as mine did once; so long ago. It happens so quickly. First, I am a simple farmer and then, I am ... a monster. But I don't reflect on this much. It does no one any good now.  Then I usually short out batteries, cameras maybe the sound equipment. All these toys ... All you really need to know me is an open mind. I will do the rest. Then when I can smell it; that nausea of fragility, uncertainty and the regret that you came down here, with me all alone, I begin to make Runners.  I hear  the reassurance of naive words like "It can't hurt us" or "It won't touch us." This is silly and untrue. I most certainly will.


 I will sit next to you and make the hairs on your arms stand up. I will be that puff of freezing cold air that makes a weak spot between your shoulder blades that you can't shiver off. I am the cobweb you think you just walked through. You want me to share with you? You want to know me? Come closer. I will be glad to. I will sneak in to your head through your ear; a noise you hear, or your nose; a stale sweet stink that makes you pull back and cough. Now we are together. Now I can begin to make you mine; a dark love affair we will have. You will feel a thickness in your head like a cold or water in your ear from a shower. But it's me. I'm just browsing inside your mind. I like that I can feel arms and fingers. I can see more clearly through your eyes and the voice you have? I will want that. I want to hear me. My laughter at one more success. My cries for what never should have been. Welcome. 


You, of course will not feel well. You will be queasy and confused. That's all right. It's not new to me and I can show you what you said you wanted to see. I will begin to show you the others that were here before you. You can see their naked distorted bodies and malicious activities. You can meet Margaret.  She used to eat bugs in the nude. Michael love to chew fingernails, but not his own and he rarely could find the  self-restraint to stop. It made nap time in his ward a bit tricky. Then of course there were the pinchers, the wailers, the criers and me. We all want to meet you; know you. We want to sing and dance inside your mind. We will share you with shadows of the past; the horrors of those who lied and said they would fix us. We'll tell you of the experiments, the failures. We will make you wonder who the monsters really were.


 You will eventually break. Your mind will fight back. Some will run, like a drowning man swimming for the light, air and what's really yours; your soul. You will pray to a God and you will have nightmares but you will forget me; us.   But some? Some of you will escape with much greater damage. As you run, and your mind "snaps", a piece of me breaks off, like a broken candy and it remains with you broken, jagged and decaying in your thoughts. You will always see or hear me. It won't stop when you sit up and sob at night or when you childishly say "I'm sorry". It will be too late. You and I will always be connected and I will come to see you in your dreams. I will haunt your days with a darkness and a fear that will chill your belly and shake your core. You can pray. You can seek help either with someone to talk to like my good old Doc or with pills.. a new kind of Buzz. I will always be there though. I will continue to show you my black and blood red thoughts. You will scream and wish it wasn't ever true. 


And you will continue to run.






Did I getcha? This one is dark even for me. A rash of nightmares and a lot of nighttime wanderings has left me this little ditty.  Being a believer in the paranormal, I have to confess a belief of good and an existance of evil. The two can be hard to distinguish whether in the flesh or in the shadows.


I'm glad we got to huddle together while I scared myself into turning on the lights. Better? Yes. I think so too.


Thanks for stopping by. I love our time together. See you soon.