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The
car knifed through the thin night air, the driver oblivious to all
surroundings. Whimsical classical music
embraced him, the deep bass of the
oboe was warm and reassuring, blending with the hum of the engine
creating a music all it's own. A music
that lulled the driver into a bliss
of numbness, setting his mind to rest. A rest which relieved his
troubles and for a moment he was truly
happy. Then he remembered. As of someone
awakening from a spell of hypnosis he was abruptly brought back
into reality. He cringed and tried not
to think of it, but as he always did,
he failed. From the day of his admittance onto Earth he had been
doomed to failure. Whatever he did was
always pushed back in his face, deemed
not good enough. School for him was a prison. Too clumsy and awkward
to be accepted, too insolent to succeed, he longed to leave and
live a life of seclusion. A place where
he could be isolated from humanity,
hidden from all eyes. For this is where he thought he deserved
to live. But unfortunately for him, such
a haven never existed and when he
left school he was condemned to spend the rest of his days in the
very town that had brought him to this
state. An unforgiving town
drowning
in its poverty. Nevertheless he lived on. Day after day, year
after year. Jobs came and went as did
people. And he never awoke from
his
depressed slumber. He took shelter in the rusting trailer house he
called a home, fearing the outside
world. Mail and overdue bills piled up
in his box at the post office which was never emptied, for he was
overwhelmed by a sense that everyone was
watching him. Prying into his soul,
judging and prosecuting him. That sense grew and with it the seeds
of his insanity. He ran out of food and
began to eat his clothes and other
belongs soft enough to chew. He grew weak but held on for some
unknown reason, as if his life supported
some untold purpose. Then one day
he was lying on the floor watching a cockroach scurry up and down
his arm when someone walked into his
home. The stranger yelled, but to him
it may as well have been gibberish seeing that he had long since
forgotten the English language. A panic
broke over him. The room began to tilt
and sway while he crawled toward the cabinet. He reached over and
opened a drawer, pulling out a long,
silver steak knife. The stranger was
still emitting that noise, that terrible noise. He had to put an end
to it, whatever was making that sound.
It was driving him even deeper into
the reaches of the insane. The noise made his mind dance with
indistinguishable
thoughts which were both confusing and frightening to the
man. He heard it approaching, and when he saw movement in front of
him he sprang forward, unleashing a fury
which had built up for years. His
surroundings became a blur as he propelled the knife forward and
felt the skin of the thing give. Soon he
found himself covered with a warm
red liquid which he couldn't quite put his finger on. But that
didn't matter, the noise had ceased. He
first felt a sense of accomplishment,
but then was overwhelmed by something different. Something
was telling him what he had done was terrible. In a trance-like
state he wandered out of the house for the first time in months
and climbed into his car. By some
miracle the knowledge of how to turn it
on and put it into motion came back to him, and soon he found
himself driving. He
shivered. And once again allowed the music to carry him away. This
noise had started when he began moving,
but it was much better than that of
which the thing in his house had emitted. Since he didn't know how
to
make
it stop and he really didn't want it to end, he allowed the music
to continue. He went on in this state
for quite some time, swerving between
lanes, inducing many to honk. Then the music stopped and a sound
like the one from the thing in his home
took its place. Confusion overtook
him and all the muscles in his body became tense. Ahead the road
swerved, but the man was ignorant of it
all. He was thrashing wildly about
the car trying to stop the noise when he again got the feeling of
something terrible. He stopped and sat
still waiting for something to happen,
and was suddenly engulfed by the feeling that he was floating
in air followed by the sensation that
everything was upside down. Then the
car slipped into the icy depths and all thoughts and feelings ceased
to exist. Silence.
Nothing heard, nothing seen. Blackness. His eyes strained into
the endless space, and saw nothing. His
ears heard nothing. No rumble, groan,
or creak. He tried to make a sound but was unable. Tried to walk
but found his legs unwilling. His mind
screamed in vain, stripped of its powers.
Trapped in a prison. A prison without walls, bars, and cells. A
prison of infinite space. All alone. No
one to share the sorrow with, no one
to keep his mind from going mad. He wrestled and struggled with his
mind, the toils of the utter helpless.
He stopped. All remained still. He,
for the first time, knew the despair of true loneliness. The pain,
madness, and sorrow it brings. He, for
the first time, knew hell.
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