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Mayhem-Artist — Brain Freeze
Published: 2003-09-03 04:59:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 485; Favourites: 1; Downloads: 1
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I haven’t slept in five days. All I ever do is sit at my Gateway computer with my pale skin, gawking mouth, and my puffy pink eyes that hang soar from my lack of sleep. I hold in my left hand a cup of orange juice while I stare forward at the AOL news reporting on the web pages. But I don’t care. Doesn’t appeal to my. I close the web pages clicking the mouse.I slowly shift my eyes to the cup in my white hand still allowing my jaw to hang from my head. I am dull. I am a zombie. My life is falling to pieces.
WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?????
My eye twitches uncontrollably. My flesh quivers. My fingers drop the orange juice to the floor splashing into a bowl that reads: SAMMY along the front. The sticky orange drink falls into pools around the bowl only making half of the cup in the bowl. My dog waggles over to the dog bowl sniffing the orange juice suspicious of the content. He licks and flaps his tongue at the liquid.
But I am a mess.
CRUSH YOUR DEAD SKULL IN BETWEEN THE FINGERS OF MY BONES . . .!!!
I slowly turn my chair and stand up onto my feet. I am wearing two sets of socks on my shivering feet. It is cold, freezing cold, in my apartment, even though it’s ninety degrees outside. But I am freezing. I am wearing a T-shirt and a sweater. I am cold. My skin is pale. My life is an ongoing hell.
Fine, I’ll fill you in on what has happened to me since my “mental collapse.”
See, Annette, my wife if I forgot to tell you, came home happy and jumping up and down, literally, happy and gracious that she got her raise she was begging her boss for. I congratulated her and talked with her. What I did for a living was that I drew storyboards for those cartoon shows you see on the television in front of a small six-year-old child on Saturday mornings. I got the script for the episode, and I used twenty pages worth of paper to construct the story into a real-life comic that the animators of the studio turn into a computer generated cartoon. They would pay actors of all ages to record in the studio the lines from the friendly and stereotypical animal characters that I drew.
Annette was my wife. She turned into a bitch. Yes, that’s right, a bitch. At first she was the one who shook my heart like a hurricane, then she transformed into this hateful, manipulative, lie compulsive freak that couldn’t get away from her job for two seconds. When I got off work for lunch I would stop by at her office, knock on her nice scented wooden door, and ask if she was free for an hour. But she wasn’t. She didn’t eat lunch. Just a quick bagel in the morning, then a small meal for dinner in the kitchen.
YOU ARE A NUTCASE, MORRIS.
Annette finally snapped when she caught me sleeping on the couch and all the lights were off in the house. I don’t know why she was so angry. Not angry, furious. Mad. Insane. She screamed until my ears hurt, then screamed some more. I arrived home at five o’clock, before the sun came down, and collapsed on the couch falling to sleep. She came home at eight finding that I wasn’t awake to turn on any lights for the night. No, I still don’t know why.
FREAK FROM HELL, YOU SICK SON OF A . . .
I finally told Annette, to her face, “It’s over.” She stood in front of me like an opponent I just met in a bar ready to pound on me, and yelled staring into my vulnerable eyes, “No, it’s not over now. It’s been over. It has been over for months. You ended this entire thing. All you do is lay around and sleep while I work, work, work.”
“You work because you want to work!”
SHUT UP!!!
Okay, fine, fine.
YOU ARE INSANE I SWEAR TO CRHIST YOU ARE . . .
So anyway, Annette packed up her business clothes, and only her business clothes, along with makeup and her office materials and left. She was gone for good. But I didn’t need her. I didn’t want her. To hell with her. I never needed her to make my life complete.
The thing is, I thought she could fit that missing piece to the big puzzle. There’s a large portion missing to everyone’s puzzle and that’s the “love piece.” Everyone needs that part filled. I figured through logic that maybe Annette could fill it, but, alas, to my own misfortune, she wasn’t the space filler. There was no space filler. There is no space filler. There never was, never will be!
EVER WANTED TO FEEL WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DUNK YOUR HEAD INTO A BATHTUB OF ELECTRIC EELS, MORRIS???
But continuing on, something inside my skin, something buried deep, deep to the very core of my everything, my very soul, deep within, there grew a power. This power took over me. It usurped my control of function. I could no longer stay awake, stay asleep, stay conscious, or stay aware of the situation.
How I got this large, hideous scar from my belly button to my sternum was from an ulcer. Know what stomach pains feel like? Well, you never had an ulcer. It feels like death is coming and he isn’t happy. I was just sitting at my desk remembering the harangues I got from Annette on the phone when I called her at work and compared them to my boss’s constant jabbering of artwork and quality. I couldn’t care. So it snapped. Remember how in school when guys would flick rubber bands at everyone from their fingers. That’s what it felt like. The beginning. It flicked on like a light switch. I grasped my stomach in anguish and screamed out cutting off my boss’s useless sentence of advice.
My coworkers, especially Becky, Estreia, and Bill, wouldn’t leave me alone with their constant sympathy questions. “Morris, how are you? How you doing, Morris? Morris, you okay?” Just shut up, all of you.
That’s it. You’re gonna get it this time, pal. I’m going to find a syringe to kill you with.
The ulcer felt like the beginning to everything. A hospital bed. A nurse. Four nurses actually. A doctor. Days away from drawing. Ah, well.
I suddenly started to ditch work and stay at home watching movies and TV sitcoms. Married With Children, Friends, Will and Grace, Columbo, Rugrats, The Simpsons, South Park, All My Children, Late Night With Conan O’Brien. I wouldn’t call in to let my boss know that I wasn’t going to be there. I just didn’t get up and disobeyed the constant screaming of my digital clock. An uncontrollable madness. It held onto me like I was ready to fall to my very doom, down into a pit of chaos. But I couldn’t hold onto that hand forever. So, I just decided to let go of that hand . . .
I got into a car accident, on purpose. I drove off the freeway almost crashing into a Volkswagen, a bus, and a Jeep and nearly ran over eighteen people. I crashed into a tree and just sat there waiting for the police or an ambulance to come. I didn’t care.
I didn’t pick up anything anymore. I usually kept my apartment clean ever since I moved out of my old house that I shared with that brunette bitch, but now it’s a dump. I let things fall into the pit and didn’t bother to take them out. Food lied spilled on the carpet. I knew what that small white hair from nowhere felt like on the tip of your tongue. Dirt bits in your ears. That pesky fly buzzing around your face . . .
TELL THEM HOW I PUT CIGARETTES OUT ON YOUR BRAIN NOW. GO AHEAD. TELL THEM. TELL THEM!!! YOU TELL THEM, I SWEAR TO GOD, DO IT!!!
But one day, I felt like going to work. Not to do actual work. But to visit. Estreia, Bill, and Becky asked how I was, but I didn’t respond. I ignored them like shadows. I walked over to my desk and burned everything. Seriously.
Then I waited for my boss to walk into her office to find me sitting on her desk with my pants down at my ankles and a stapler in my mouth. She wasn’t even that attractive. She gasped in shock at my showing skin and couldn’t believe how insanely bizarre I looked on her desk with a stapler in my mouth. Like a pencil holder from the museum of bizarre moments.
My psychiatrist tried to analyze my behavior and understand what is wrong with me. Schizophrenic was my answer. Just stamp a big label on my forehead in red ink. Unstable. Mentally insane. Suicidal. Dangerous to all.
I just stayed home for everyone’s sake. My landlord now bangs at my door trying to get my rent. He swears and yells promising to call the police. But oh well. I’m fine here. Sammy is my only companion.
I haven’t spoken a word in eight days. All I do is mumble sounds. I haven’t eaten in two days. At least, real food that is. A wasp found its way to my mouth and I bit it. Crunched and swallowed. My last meal.
DO YOU EVER SEE YOUR REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR AS SOMEONE ELSE? SOMEONE STARING AND LAUGHING AT YOU? I SWEAR I'LL BREAK YOUR NECK, YOU NUTCASE!!! I’LL SNAP IT LIKE A TWIG! I’LL MAKE YOU SUFFER, YOU FREAK!!!
This is my life, welcome. This is how I live. I see many different things everyday because I let go of that hand. Everything has changed. My apartment is a dump. Cans of food spilt and covering the floor. The heat can’t possibly keep me warm. My eyes stare off like a sheet of glass is covering them. I have several black rings underneath my eyelids. My clothes smell like piss. My apartment smells like crap. Everything is ruined. I know where I’ll end up. Right into one of those mental wards where I sit with other patients who talk about their abused childhoods.
AND THAT'S WHERE I'LL TAKE YOU!!! YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT ANNETTE'S BRAINS TASTE LIKE??? LET'S FINE OUT! C’MON! LET’S PAY HER A VISIT! LET’S SEE WHAT HER BLOOD FEELS LIKE PRESSED IN BETWEEN YOUR RED FINGERS AND SMEARED ALL OVER YOUR FACE!!!
My soul is damaged. My process of mental thought, calculation, and control is distorted, ruined, garbled, battered, crushed, and flattened. I am a nothing. Just like Annette promised that I would become. A nobody. A lost soul.
I stumble across my dirty, sticky floor staggering slowly in my two sets of socks. I collapse on the couch that is covered in messes of crinkled potato chip bags and sticky soda cans. I stare at my TV watching the movie Hannibal. Finally, someone who I can relate to.
YOU WANT SOMEONE TO RELATE TO??? TRY ANNETTE'S EARS. YOU CAN BITE RIGHT THROUHG THEM. YOU CAN CRUNCH THROUGH HER SKULL AND SWALLOW AND DIGEST HER BRAINS!!! C’MON, LET'S GO FOR A WALK AND STOP BY AT HER PLACE. LET’S GO!!! C’MON!!! I SWEAR TO CHRIST IF YOU DON'T GET OFF YOUR ASS AND COME WITH ME I WILL BURY YOU ALIVE!!!
I slowly look over at Sammy lying on the floor innocently. He looks miserable. He has no place to lie down. I stare at Sammy wondering why he has to say all those horrible things to me. “Why?” I ask Sammy the dog. “Why?” Finally, in eight days speak a real word.
BECAUSE I CAN, YOU FREAK!
Sammy has his miserable look on his face. Can’t get comfortable. Craving a biscuit or a dog cookie. Wants something to eat. Has to go to the bathroom.
I stare at him mad and intense. “What if I kill you?”
SURE. GO AHEAD AND TRY. WE’LL SEE WHO LAUGHS IN THE END . . .
Sammy looks up at me begging me with his eyes for something to eat. I stare back at him with glazed eyes . . .
“Let’s go say hi to Annette,” I speak.
