I suddenly became aware of the fact that I could hear a voice screaming and shouting like a demon out of hell. The demonic voice was screaming abuse – not just regular everyday swearwords like ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’ or ‘cunt’ or ‘prick’ or ‘wanker’ or ‘knob’ or ‘tosser’ or ‘twat’ but the really bad stuff. The really sick type of stuff. Deeply perverted stuff. The sort of stuff that would make you feel seriously disturbed to hear it. For days afterwards I’d say. Longer, even. It was real messed up shit. Stuff that only a very badly screwed up person would come out with. Stuff that would stick with you – making you wish that you had never heard it because you can’t forget it once you have. Stuff you’d have to talk about in therapy for a long long time…

Anyway the voice continued on and on pouring out abuse, getting more and more worked up until it wasn’t even making sense any more. It just screamed and screamed. Non-stop screaming. Full of toxicity. Full of unspeakable venom. I had never heard such terrible poisonous mendacity in all my life. How could anyone hate that much? I wished that the hate-filled voice would stop. It was tormenting me. It wouldn’t let up. I became very agitated, holding my head in my hands and grimacing. I wanted to bang my head against the wall to make it stop. Or harm myself in some way. Anything…

I became aware at that point that people were looking at me in a strange way. For a while I wondered why and then it slowly dawned on me that it was me screaming, that it was my voice I could hear. It had been me coming out with that non-stop demonic torrent of obscenities. I left the library in a hurry, aware of lots of unfriendly eyes watching me as I walked out onto the street…