The Corner Of My Mind

Random thoughts were playing in some long forgotten corner of my mind. Only maybe they were not so random after all! Random thoughts, random thoughts. Or maybe not so random. Or maybe not so random. I had been studying the role of evil in myths and fairytales but my work had started to get too much for me. I slunk around the streets at night with a beaten expression on my face, hoping that I wouldn’t bump into anyone that I knew. I knew no other life than this – the life of slinking around the streets, the life of sticking to the shadows, the life of sticking to the little-known alleyways where only drug addicts and alcoholics were wont to go. I saw them as my kin whilst they – for their part – tended to shun me. There was something about me that marked me out – something in my aura perhaps that warned people off. I could see the pity in their eyes as they looked away from me. My work had gotten on top of me and things gone from bad to worse. My dreams were disturbed and wracked by guilt; my waking hours – in their turn – had little to offer in the way of respite. I slunk around the streets late at night, a hangdog expression on my face, visibly ill at ease, visibly at odds with the world around me. Visibly at odds with the world around me. I had no place to turn, no place of sanctuary. My work had gotten on top of me and I had the feeling that I was only half in this world – the other half of me inhabited a world that very few of my fellow human beings were unlucky enough to know about. There is a disturbing flickering energy to this other world and things have a disconcerting way of moving very rapidly when you look the other way. Sometimes you can walk for hours only to find yourself right back where you started from. You may come across strange sights in this world – people spinning like tops where they stood. Or perhaps you may see small dogs looking up at you from the street, dogs with the faces of people you know, people you half remember. They look up at you sadly as if trying to communicate something that you cannot understand. I no longer ask people if they know of this world because when I do they only look at me with that look of pity in their eyes. That look of mingled pity and contempt. You could so easily miss it – it’s only there for a fraction of a second before they turn away, before they take an interest in something else. Before they walk away from you in a hurry. I knew no other life than this, this life of slinking through the streets, a haunted expression on my face, avoiding human contact whenever I could. I knew no other life. I had been doing research into the role of the trickster in myths and fairy tales. I had been doing research into the role of the trickster…

 

 

 

 

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