The Unquiet Mind: From Ink to Infinity

 

Nobody tells you when you’ve crossed the border. There’s no sign, no stamp in your passport. One day you’re walking down a street like everyone else, and the next, the pavement is whispering your name and the sky blinks when you look at it too long. Welcome to Schizophrenia. It’s not a metaphor. It’s a real place. I live here. I have an apartment on the fourth floor of a building that may or may not exist. My neighbor is a man with a thousand faces. Sometimes he’s my father. Sometimes he’s God. Sometimes he’s just a sound. He waters my plants when I forget. There’s a train here. It comes at midnight and runs on paranoia. The conductor wears my memories like a coat. He tips his hat and asks, “Where would you like to go today: guilt, grandeur, or confusion?” Sometimes I board. Sometimes I hide in the station bathroom and hum until the horn fades. There are rules in Schizophrenia. They change every morning. Time runs sideways. Gravity is emotional. Thoughts echo louder than footstep...

There’s a lobby in my head. Like, an actual one. With couches. And ferns. And a receptionist named Janet who never makes eye contact but somehow knows everything about me, including what I ate for lunch in 2007. This is where the Voices check in. They come and go. Some are regulars. Some are tourists. One showed up once, screamed about spaghetti, and exploded into confetti. We miss him. I, technically, am the manager. But no one listens to me. Classic. Gary lives in the vents. He’s a worm. Used to be in a peach, now he’s freelance. He narrates my every action like it’s a nature documentary: “Here we observe the subject attempting to socialize—note the hesitation, the sudden burst of sweat, the internal screaming... magnificent.” Carl wears a bathrobe and carries a clipboard. He says he’s here “for research,” but I’ve never seen him write anything down. I suspect he’s just nosy. Grizly is… well… Grizly is a void. Like a living shadow made of worry and microwave static. He’s not...

I stood trial for crimes I may or may not have invented. The courtroom smelled like peanut butter and unresolved trauma. The judge was a desk lamp in a powdered wig. His honor flickered ominously. A bailiff—who was either a platypus or my third-grade teacher—escorted me to the stand, which was actually a very tall ladder leading nowhere. The prosecution, a sentient fax machine named Greg, accused me of "intentional reality distortion with a side of inappropriate metaphors." “Your honor,” Greg beeped, “the defendant once declared gravity a hoax and attempted to float away on a couch cushion labeled ‘Plan B.’ ” “Objection,” I said. “On what grounds?” asked the judge. “On the grounds that the ground isn’t real,” I replied. A few jurors nodded in agreement. One clapped slowly. My defense attorney, a sock puppet named Mister Wiffles, climbed onto my shoulder. “We plead jazz,” he whispered. “That’s not a legal term,” I replied. “Neither is Tuesday,” he countered. The st...

On Tuesday, I became a hat. Not metaphorically. A literal hat. Perched on the head of a bureaucrat named Dennis who worked in an office made entirely of discarded to-do lists and soup labels. He didn’t notice me at first. That’s the trick to being a good hat—low profile, no sudden existential crises. Around noon, Dennis spilled coffee on his pants and shouted, “DEBORAH! THE SPREADSHEETS ARE BLEEDING AGAIN!” I whispered, “You should try chamomile.” He screamed. Understandable. I dismounted his head like a gentleman, landed in a potted fern, and took inventory: Sanity: misplaced Identity: fluid Toes: still mine Carl: absent Gary the worm: singing Ah, Gary. He lived in a peach in my pocket and had the voice of a haunted clarinet. Today he sang an aria about bees who became lawyers. I wept. It was beautiful. Or maybe I had juice in my eye. I stepped outside and reality reset. The street was upside down, the buildings were whispering, and every third person wore a ma...

I woke up inside a refrigerator. Not metaphorically. A literal one. There was a tiny man reading a newspaper next to the eggs, and he said, “You’re late for your appointment with the Moon Council.” I nodded politely and exited through the crisper drawer. Outside, my apartment was gone. Replaced by a giant vending machine that only sold existential dread and orange soda. I pressed B2 and got both. I drank the dread first. It tasted like Tuesdays. I walked down the sidewalk, which was made of soup. Chicken noodle. Every time I stepped, my socks got warmer. “Good for circulation,” said a pigeon wearing a necktie. He handed me a business card. It simply read: "Gregory Featherstein – Professional Disbeliever" I kept it. One never knows. A man with a television for a head interviewed me on the corner. “What’s it like having seven minds in a one-bedroom skull?” he asked. “Cramped,” I said. “But at least the rent is stable.” A laugh track played. I didn’t find it funny, but ...

 

 

 

 

 

  The Murmuring Realm Most travelers don't make it past the treeline. It isn’t the darkness that stops them—it’s the voices. At first, they're soft. Whispers in the bark. A hush in the wind. The crunch of leaves underfoot saying things they shouldn’t know. They speak in your own voice sometimes. Or your mother’s. Or someone long dead. By the time you hear the stones laughing, it’s already too late. I crossed into the realm at dusk, when the sky was bleeding and the air hung still, like the whole world was holding its breath. My boots hit the ground with a wet sound—too wet for dry soil—and the path beneath me whispered, "Where do you think you're going?" I didn’t answer. You never answer the first question. Everyone knows that. The trees leaned in like they were eavesdropping. Their bark rippled slightly, mouths forming and unforming in the grain. A branch cracked above me, then spoke in a voice like splintered bone, "You’ll never leave." The mos...