A Broken Mind Speak: A Micro Fiction

The floor is cold, the chill crawling on eager feet into my bones, as I lie watching the stars through the only opening I have been allowed; an aperture that serves as the egress and entrance for rats, bats, mosquitoes, flies and the scent of the lapping sea.

Remember that painting, that one of a man staring at the moon with longing? That's how I feel right now. I feel like the man whose shadow guards his face from the artist's curious brush.

This is my prison; this cubicle of roughly cut rock, scribbles of broken men screaming to me from its weeping wall; this silent space, where every thought is a loud plea for another go at life. This is my prison. This is where I have been left to fade into oblivion.

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What is my crime? Was it that I spoke the truth? That I called evil and greed by its name? That I scrubbed away the shallow lies of satiated lips and showed you, whom I love, the gory mess that we had become? That I dared to stand... no... crouch before tyranny and deception, before malice and greed for your sake? Is this why I am folded into myself like a rejected sacrifice before this cold, cruel concrete altar?

What do you know of pain? What do you know of screaming so hard, your voice flees into your throat in shame and all that is left is gasp after wretched gasp for greedy breath as tears, sweat and blood spice your broken skin with salt and the scent that carrion feeders love. What do you know?

You sit in your palace of bones and gold and sigh and nod at me from a distance; scented handkerchief covering your nose from the smell that is now my identity. You think I do not see the way you avoid making eye contact with me? You think I do not know that you are remaking history; denying everything that we had, denying every memory that I have kept faith with? It is alright, you do not have to explain. You are human after all; I understand.

I have become your shame. I have become a story best forgotten, a past best hidden. This is how it has become, this is what love has birthed. You have rewritten yourself into a different man, you have renamed yourself and this you has no space for this me. Will I do the same in your shoes?

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No I do not accuse you neither do I judge you. You sought freedom and I was like a mill stone about your neck. You needed to break away from me to be free. You didn’t intend to break me in the process, it was unintentional, wasn’t it? Well you are there and I am here, my friend. who is free and who is broken?

She came once, did I tell you? She whom you will not mention. She came dressed in white chiffon and the scent of unwashed sex. She flaunted the big diamond on her finger as if it was the sun and she was the earth.

I wondered where she had tossed my own ring. The words crawled out of my throat and hung on the tip of my tongue but I swallowed it back; what is a diamond ring in the scheme of things? She kept talking about how it was good for us to let sleeping dogs lie and forget about the past.

Your eyes shift; I was correct then. You do not trust me to keep your secrets anymore and you are not humble enough to beg for my silence. You do not like to touch your knee to the earth, do you?

I remembered a time when you would crawl, roll and throw a trick or two just to get a favour. But now you are so big that you send the woman you took from me to beg on your behalf! You send the whore decked in all your finery to come to me! You who I called brother, you who I swore for, fought for, killed for, bled for, you!

I am calm sir, I am calm. The past tends to break like an old sore sometimes and pain becomes truth and light. If you wanted my silence, all you had to do was ask; I have done worse things for you than this and yet you doubt me? You question my love for you?

When the goaler stretched me before the whipping pole and drew screams from the lips of fresh wounds, when broken men held me down under the uncaring shower and raped me again and again while the water tried to wash away stains that refused to leave, I didn’t feel this much pain. Those were physical things and I had long since transcended my body but this, this deliberate injury to my soul, gods! You have no idea what you have done, do you?

What did I do? Nothing, my friend. Come sit down. I have done nothing to hurt you. I never could hurt you, my friend. Have I not given you all that you had desired even the woman you call wife, even my wealth, my home. No I cannot hurt you but I can show you. Oh… I can show you what it means to be helpless as the world burns about you.

I think you should go. I have to contemplate the stars. Sometimes, they speak to me of places bigger than the earth, of worlds rich with truth and beauty, of love and life. Why do you shout? I have done no harm against you, have i? Please do come again, it will be good to see a familiar face once in a while.

The doctor turned to the man standing by his side. The man's eyes were fixed on a figure sitting on the floor of the cell, curled in a corner, muttering.

"Since the event, he has been like this. He seems rational but the things he says have no bearing in the present or in the nearest future. He has gone insane." the doctor said.

The man nodded his head absently then he opened a pack of cigarette, lit a stick and placed the stick on his lips. He drew the smoke into his lungs.

"Is there any chance of recovery?" The man asked.

"Everything and anything is possible. I have written out the planned treatments we intend to apply to make him normal again." The doctor replied.

"Did anyone tell him that his ex-wife and best friend died in the fire that day?" the man asked.

The doctor opened his hands and turned to watch the patient look into the TV monitor;

"He is gone. He is lost to this world. He remembers nothing of who is or who is not. His fantasy has become his reality." he replied after a while.

The man took a long pull on the cigarette as he contemplated his client. There is no way he can appear before a judge looking like this. he thought to himself. The case is dead.

"Do not rush the treatments. Study him more before you commence any of them. " He said to the doctor.

"What about the case in court?" The doctor asked.

The man flicked the butt of his still glowing cigarette to the concrete floor and turned to the doctor;

"Do you job doctor. I am paying you to keep him well cared for. Do as you're told." The man replied.

Across from the two men, separated by a thick glass partition, the patient chuckled.

The End.

Image sources:

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peace.

©@warpedpoetic.