I have woken in a strange nightmare. I have no mouth, and I must scream, is the expression that I keep thinking over and over. I am now superman stuck on a planet full of kryptonite, unable to run.
I am Maleficent with her wings cut off.
As always, I had big plans to write out the darkness in a piece of fiction. Here's how it would go:
**A story about an injured marathoner, who makes a deal with the devil to run one last race. The devil is happy to oblige, and provides health and stealth and fleet of foot. In exchange, the devil needs to be paid. In blood. As the runner lines up at the starting chute wearing a red Nike shirt, bib number 538, he knows that in order to keep going, he needs to spill the blood of another runner at each mile.
This happens, of course, and our obsessed, cunning runner does everything he can to slice into the unsuspecting thighs of other runners which pushes him towards an amazing pace. He is, in fact, the leader with one mile to go.
Only problem is, mile 25, and there is nary a runner in sight. No blood to spill to satisfy the devil, he will be unable to finish.
Ah, but behind him the pattering of footsteps. One runner has caught him, one runner whose blood will spill and take him to the end. So he turns, and there, right beside him now, the other runner with bib number 538, same red Nike shirt, same ugly mug, same salty sweat, and in fact, his doppelganger. That doesn't stop him, so he pulls his exacto knife from his belt and plunges it into the runner's neck with more fury than all the previous cuts combined. The runner falls to the ground after a crimson sprinkler spray, and our protagonist runs the last mile with his biggest split and breaks the tape and has the biggest runnorgasm of his life.
Not far behind him, his dead self lays in a pool of blood, unable to go on. Our protagonist has ultimately sacrificed his own life for one last race. Obsession, tunnel vision, regrets, lack of acceptance: all of it has killed him. The triumph of victory is temporary, but the tragedy eternal
I would write that, but, I already have enough folks calling me a psychopath, so, I shall not. Or if I do, I will save it to draft, leaving it unpublished, and certainly not blog about it.