‘It’s very important to maintain and promote the psychological ego’, I told myself sternly and then of course I straightaway felt a lot better. I had a job to do, after all! It’s a well-known fact that having an important mission is a curative factor and now I had reminded myself of my mission! ‘I must maintain and promote the psychological ego,’ I repeated, full of renewed determination. It was up to me to succeed at the task, I realised – no one else gave a damn! I knew very well that no one else gave a damn – I could tell from the look on their faces! They couldn’t care less…
I felt good for a while after this. I don’t how long – maybe an hour, maybe less. My sense of time is erratic and unreliable at best. I was going about my business feeling all brisk and efficient, feeling purposeful and motivated, and then the next thing was that the good feeling started to wear a bit thin. ‘Suppose I’m unsuccessful at my task of maintaining and promoting the psychological ego?’ I wondered, ‘what would happen then?’ This was the big question really – this is a question that was preying on my mind big time. I got very scared at this point and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. ‘What,’ I asked myself, ‘would happen if I wasn’t able to successfully maintain the psychological ego?’ I couldn’t even imagine what would happen then. Fear bubbled up within me and obliterated my consciousness.
Nothing happened in my mind for a long, long time. Nothing stirred. There wasn’t a flicker of anything. Then – very, very slowly – I became aware of a bad feeling. I became aware that I didn’t feel good. There was a bad feeling there somewhere but I couldn’t pinpoint where it was. Something somewhere wasn’t right, I knew that. And then the next thing was of course that I to do something about it! I had to locate the evil and then eradicate it. I had to neutralise it. I grew arms, many of them, and these arms grew longer and longer until they were like snakes. I sent them snaking off into the darkness to find the wrong thing and choke the life out of it. They were my assassins. They were my search and destroy team – they would not return until they had accomplished their mission. They would find the bad thing and destroy it. ‘Catch the culprit and make him pay, catch the culprit and make him pay, catch the culprit and make him pay,’ the crowd was shouting. The crowd was baying for blood – the crowd is always baying for blood. You know what the crowd is like!
It turned out that the wrongdoer was me of course! Isn’t that always the way? Isn’t that always the way? I should have expected it, I should have seen it coming – I’ve been down that down that road so many times and it’s always the same! It always turns out that the culprit is me. Always, always, always… I’m always the one spoiling the party. I’m always the one caught doing the bad thing, the enemy of all right-thinking folk. ‘Catch the ego and make him pay, catch the ego and make him pay, catch the ego and make him pay!’ the crowd was shouting. They were baying for blood. Caught in the act, caught in the act. Brought to justice, brought to account. Forced to confront the magnitude of my crimes. ‘Day by day the evil grows’ – isn’t that what they say? Day by day the evil grows…
Art: narcissistic_canibal_by_squezeetheworld