I'd like to offer a different perspective towards this whole matter and get others opinions. This is just food for thought on a theory (one of several) I have and would like to hear your thoughts.
According to Carl Jung's "analytical theory," the human psyche is divided into three parts: personal unconscious, collective unconscious and ego. Jung analyzed dreams as important symbolic messages that created a bridge between the unconscious and conscious mind.
Personal Unconscious: All the information and experiences of an individual's lifetime that have been forgotten or repressed but continue to influence their behavior and attitude.
Collective Unconscious: The psychic life and teachings of our ancestors right back to the earliest beginnings. The stored wealth of human knowledge and understanding.
Ego: According to Carl Jung the ego is the centre of the field of consciousness which contains our conscious awareness of existing and a continuing sense of personal identity.
This definition of what an ego is, is more Western train of thought than Eastern. However, in Buddhism the ego is defined as that which makes up the five sensory organs of man: Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste (and even thought according to the Buddha). These senses are how we perceive and respond to our environment.
Now, as someone that hears voices, I have all my sensory organs, except for taste, manipulated. Even my dreams are manipulated and I communicate with entities while I'm dreaming. I've had experiences of astral projection, lucid dreams and dream constructs designed specifically for the purpose of helping me understand myself and others where I am still in complete contact and communication with the voices I hear all day.
Dream states are experienced first hand during Theta and Delta brainwave activity, however it is now theorized that they occur constantly and are a means of communication with the unconscious.
According to Dr. Leslie Ellis in her book, "A Clinicians Guide to Dream Therapy," we are always dreaming. Even while awake, we are still creating, in our unconscious mind, an entirely different reality that we only experience, and rarely remember, when we fall asleep.
Our brain waves operate on a wide variety of frequencies throughout the day:
-Gamma: (30Hz-100Hz) Higher mental concentration and motor function. -Beta: (12Hz-30Hz) Normal waking state, five sensory organs, focus. -Alpha (7.5Hz-12Hz) Relaxed, light meditation, creative, super learning. -Theta (4Hz-7.5Hz) Light sleep, recall, deep meditation, fantasy, dreaming Delta (.1Hz-4Hz) Deep sleep, unconscious, collective conscious/unconscious
Now when I look at these theories and implement my experience into them, a bigger picture begins to unfold.
When I first started hearing voices 11 years ago, they narrated or commented on my current circumstances. This was also the time I began using methamphetamine. They sounded similar to old men sitting on a front porch commenting on every car and person that drives by. But instead of old men, it was people in my recent memory. They'd say, "Why's he going so fast? That boy is dumber than a box of rocks. That looks terrible."
This most often occurred when I wouldn't sleep and usually around the time my brain would be dropping into Theta and Delta frequencies. I believe what was occurring was my mind was becoming aware of the observation and communication that takes place on those frequencies but because the meth had me awake, I sought an outside explanation. I began putting cardboard over the windows, peeking through the blinds, listening for any noise that may explain why I felt I was being observed. When in actuality, my ego became aware of the observation of my personal unconsciousness by unknown entities operating in the collective unconscious.
As the meth use continued and the reality I was creating in my unconscious became more fear, shame, guilt, worry and regret-based, the worse the voices got as they were now interacting with the horror of unmet obligations and chaotic present moment conditions. It was, quite literally, a total nightmare.
Fast forward: and year and a half ago the high pitch ringing began and what was once only commentary had developed into an internal dialogue with myself and three other voices communicating always. These entities went from only observing and commenting on my present moment recognition of my environment and thoughts but also had complete control over my emotions and physical states.
It wasn't until a little over a year ago I began hearing the high pitch ringing noise and the voices took an ugly turn.
It is said that our thoughts create our reality. I couldn't agree more. Our thoughts and what what we hear in our awake environment create, at all times, a completely different reality in our minds that is possibly connected to the collective unconscious.
So, in theory, what I am proposing is this: What schizophrenics, DID's, Targeted Individuals, etc. hear is an overlapping of frequencies. While we are awake and operating in the world on Beta and Gamma frequencies, communication that is occurring on Delta and Theta frequencies is being heard. This would account for the high pitch ringing we hear. And vice versa. The entities that are communicating on those frequencies are hearing and responding to our thoughts as they occur while we are in the awake state of mind but are responding to how it is registered in the dream reality.
Essentially, we are in a constant state of creating an alternate reality for them to communicate with; our imagination. When the frequencies intertwine with one another our active imaginations becomes an interactive imagination.
When we hear this, depending on the reality we are creating in our minds, it can either be a nightmare or in alignment with our physical reality. This all depends on your perception of your reality and how you process it. When one is stuck in the past regrets of accumulated guilt, shame, trauma and unmet obligations, the reality we create, always in our minds, is essentially stuck on repeat and they rendered useless.
When we are paranoid or living in fear, our thoughts that shape our alternate reality occurring on lower frequencies are being responded to by these entities and we are "permitted?" to hear it so that we may get a first hand glimpse at the nightmare of our own minds. Our nightmares occurring on lower frequencies are being intertwined with our awake, higher frequencies in an effort to show us what needs to be addressed.
"The collective unconscious exerts overwhelming influence on the minds of individuals. These effects of course vary widely, however, since they involve virtually every emotion and situation. At times, the collective unconscious can terrify, but it can also heal." ~ James M. Glass, "The Philosopher and the Shaman: The Political Vision as Incantation", Political Theory 2.2, May 1974.
Thoughts??

As of my last update in January 2022, the top 10 most-watched shows globally could vary depending on the source and criteria used, such as live viewership, streaming numbers, or overall popularity. However, here's a list that generally represents some of the most popular shows up to that time :

1. Game of Thrones: HBO's epic fantasy series based on George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels captivated audiences worldwide with its intricate plots and compelling characters.
2. The Witcher: This Netflix fantasy drama, adapted from Andrzej Sapkowski's book series, gained immense popularity for its rich storytelling, complex characters, and mesmerizing action sequences.
3. Money Heist (La Casa de Papel): A Spanish crime drama series on Netflix that follows a group of robbers who plan and execute heists on the Royal Mint of Spain and the Bank of Spain.
4. Stranger Things: Netflix's sci-fi horror series set in the 1980s resonated with audiences for its nostalgic homage to '80s pop culture, supernatural elements, and endearing characters.
5. The Mandalorian: Disney+'s space western series set in the Star Wars universe garnered widespread acclaim for its intriguing storyline, memorable characters (including the beloved Baby Yoda), and stunning visual effects.
6. Breaking Bad: This critically acclaimed AMC series about a high school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine manufacturer showcased compelling storytelling, character development, and intense drama.
7. The Crown: Netflix's historical drama chronicling the reign of Queen Elizabeth II captivated audiences with its lavish production, stellar performances, and exploration of the British monarchy's complexities.
8. The Big Bang Theory: CBS's long-running sitcom about a group of socially awkward scientists and their interactions with each other and the world around them became a cultural phenomenon known for its humor and endearing characters.
9. Friends: Despite ending its original run in 2004, this iconic sitcom about a group of friends living in New York City continues to enjoy immense popularity worldwide through syndication and streaming platforms like Netflix.
10. The Office (U.S.): Another beloved sitcom, this American adaptation of the British series of the same name follows the daily lives of employees working at the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the Dunder Mifflin paper company.

To what's left of you quarter, piece, and part powerful gentlemen and to the appearance of an extreme degree powerful “women” of this penny parade continent, this five and dime celebration, this dollar store revelation, this world-wide cultural instantiation and its jubilation, from factories in Fiji, to factories in China, to the world itself as if a great, round, roving, marvelous factory to print colored bits of paper and tin cans, shells and bombs to burst in midair – confetti for every beach and ocean in this ever-expanding tidal future of ours!
It is nearby somewhere my own hunger urged me from mine and your wilds alike, and in the emergence of a lucidity from the depths of yon trash heap (and my longstanding work therein), which predates not just my meeting you, and its tending endlessly to your children, but every and all conception of me for eternity and more; I came to you and allowed you to mistake yourself for me, as there was no mistaking me for you - for what's left of life in your eyes reveals to me what you know that you both know, and don't know, you need, what you can only ever imagine is lost or out there to be found or bought in your world, what has been conditioned into you so as to preclude seeing and especially the strength of “not seeing,” and it is with every momentarily wakeful glance you give in my direction, every question you hear, every call answered, that ensures me all is not forsaken despite the ceaseless attempt on “all’s life” to the contrary, a tryer of the reigns finds reigns, a fisher finds fish – in the depths of this land, and what clings to it on all fringes and fronts, fits you as your highest metaphor of a culture’s soul: a prisoner’s home for a lost vagabond, the destitute, overdosing on richness, dressed nicely if in the most poorly-fitting and disheveled clothing, as when a child too small tries to don the clothes (i.e., attitude, appearance, nature, purpose) of his absent father – he was looking into a future, and now he is this “future,” much less a “future” anyone would desire, utterly abandoned in hope, deed, action, and almost word, but for everything effeminately subtle and indirect, one thing is said, another is done, and no value may be found in the schizoid feeding frenzy to the tune of perhaps the most psychotic ruling herdsman type who have ever had the unfortunate chance (for every living creature) to love at all, but as anyone here only ever understands such things on meticulous spreadsheets of numbers that can never add up (Remember 2008? Whoops!), as if a sort of simulation of life, or in many cases, simulation of a simulation, of life, or something resembling some sort of denizen of some sort of strange land’s strange life, or similarly, a home that can’t house anyone at all, is only understood in familiar commercials where, a large volume of words, images, and bright colors are lauded and leveraged as a subliminal jackhammer, and of course, the less they mean, the less bearing, therefor reminder of and on reality, the better, so long as one message is clear (desire - what is missing and sought? How to twist the knife into the lonely and afraid?); I can state without undue excess and absolutely zero excitement, that the vault is empty, the account reads zero, rather, your vault is empty, and zero would be an improvement, for its implication would be that of an animal who, having a glance in the mirror, has had a profound and terrible revelation, not the ghost and mummy and living skeleton, the standing ruins that stand and stare back, but, had instead, possibly relearned to create beyond itself, or unlearned, to take pride in everything it IS, and to feel longing and despair and especially contempt for everything that it ISN’T; not a goal, or a destination, and yet would be a road as if so? Feign one more pointless yet needy life, lived as long as possible, forever taking more than can ever give, in service of the greatest number of pebbles and papers, and for itself, its own little day? When is this day? No, let us not see beyond the day – things are too good, your future is already in the water, don’t let anything, least of all yourselves, stand in the way.
Yet it wasn't for any of this I was glad or sad, as the tepid radiations and hopeful evacuations of a life on the wondrously vapid factory clone farm are often quite touching, and at times, seem to reveal the confessions of a beautiful animal, or the image of what once was, now reminiscing on their own or someone else’s golden years, some creature lost to winter everlasting, and astonishingly absent and completely unaccounted in a strange game of 'the most numbers' (as if creating for an audience, what you know as consumer groups and shrubbery, that doesn’t even exist, at least previously, without even realizing it) - once more, let us congratulate this species on its wildest success - it is rare that anyone changes anything, such as, even the most minor character of nature, culture, and being, let alone channeling, cultivating, and hobbling an entire species' psychic domain, with a success not unlike Malaria (and its nature), be it with prescription methamphetamine or the other panoply of assorted multi-colored poisonous candies and treats, largely advertised in yellow and red, like warning signs one finds on a deadly viper, you know (they really catch the eye), and though the medicalization of the future, a sort of savaging by the greatest of shorts never even conceived, but like a carcass that is just there, waiting for the bloated and their bloated feast, because as wisdom will teach anyone who lives long enough, success with or without awareness, as with all success, is classified as Victory under the great auspices of Nike, of which Nemesis never fails to find conscious or unconscious compensation. That’s the thing about the “unconscious” – the unknown is most feared, but just because it is unknown, does not mean it is wrong, unreal, or “not there,” nor does it make it chaos, merely, beyond you, before you, after you, your aftermath – to quote a wise woman, “funny that, humans can be ruins too, and that ruins can stand so long!” - and with these digressions aside, all these matters of which I speak need not in fact be recorded by anyone (even me), it is merely sufficient that they occur. Things are revealed, and those beings who are being revealed to, are helpless, but TO BE revealed to. Whether they see or understand what they are seeing, at all, is another matter. What emerges can’t not emerge, what is revealed, can’t not be revealed, or not witnessed. Like flowers and bees (and spiders) – the world is beautiful and many-legged, bites and stings and sometimes even smells nice.
For, to attempt to comprehend - what it means, for life to mean nothing? It would mean to truly understand this precipice – that, for time itself, mankind itself, ceases to exist, or have any reason, meaning, purpose, or even justification - but that is not our numbered and enumerating way, for, as a nation of decadent accountants, as nation of creditors and debtors even to one’s own family and friends, a nation of strangers and government agents who are primarily bound by their need to sell products and services in plebian, repeated, undifferentiated-as possible-like fashion, all of whom have many guns, are coerced by many guns, under auspices of those guised as ‘the educated’ even, it is the number here that matters most, and nothing else, but it was seeing the real nature of that number, and to what it applies (and how the code is woven through data to reveal all the ugly facts of life) that has us clapping ourselves on the back, or at each other’s throat, both of which are great opportunities for enterprising individuals, for, in a country and culture of mercenaries and prostitutes, the accountant who promises the most, wins, which is to say that the world’s oldest profession has taught all great and small American alike, how much the world, a family, a son, a daughter is worth: nothing. Love has no monetary value, happiness, contentment, the fact that a human being is born is complete, has no value, and if you market to them while they are bewildered, frightened, and alone, coming as they are from a culture conditioned to be sick farm animals, vacuous watchers and consumers and food and sacrifice and disposable animal, then one’s success is eventually guaranteed – and it is this sort of flagrant and glamorous prostitutions and illustrious illusions that has dominated our culture, to allow the most mediocre types to not just attempt to inherit the world, but to continue to assume that they are entitled to it, and to entreat themselves to all therein as if disposable possession, an entire world, increasingly filled with this singular, totalizing, delusion. Sadly, it is this sort of brainless extroversion, and disease, that dominates and continues to pass as leadership in what is already a totally medicalized, encapsulated, and strait-jacketed culture.
Which is really humorous, when you know then the term “business leader” is an oxymoron, and unfitting. After all, a pimp and a butcher do not have followers of loyalty or even duty, they don’t own minds or hearts, they own a line to the bank and paying bills – they have animals employed under pressure, under duress, under the knife, performance, art, feeding the hungry and the needy. The sort of deprecating and depredating effects one finds in such miasma and gore are what is known in the slammer as prisoner conditions—not just immediate depression that conduces to deep, dark, dreamless sleep – and not just that animals in captivity will act out violently as a matter of vital Will and its need to prove to itself, that it is indeed alive in some capacity, but to race to the bottom of the behavioral sink. But everything comes and goes, so it is that which went down the drain has washed back up on our shores, like dumping and leaking perchloroethylene and trichloroethylene, which, as deadly solvents seep directly to the bottom of the groundwater table, some things are just like that – an avalanche – unstoppable, indelible, ineffable, unstoppable, inevitability as it is – fate weaving itself, the basilisks of the new dawn cawing, and then their coming home to roost – leaving the question, who or what was this all for? The state, the herd, and the people are indeed “one,” even if many. Fascism with a good conscience, is to say, civilization is for the survivors, the good, the moral, and the just; and every judge, jury, and executioner agrees, especially when they elicit the confession from the condemned, all of which is fortunate and convenient for the survivors (cowards), so long as one takes their place in the orgy and circle-jerk chain of pity (which is all pity for self, projected outward as cover) of which, all the strangers with guns agree as well, yet despite all these plain as fact appearances, behaviors, and communications that anyone can see, read, and almost even understand, I know others don’t yet know or share my excitement at proposals of an updated and appropriate lexicon, and it is here that we visit terminology that is apt for a soulless, blood-sucking age that would rather see man as docile sheep, than become anything different, more, abd superior.
So it is, henceforth, all those conspicuously inconspicuous nobodies who always hunger more than they can Will - you are not known as the “the managerial elite,” but the “Malarial Elite.” Not the “business class,” but the “boring class.” Not the “political class,” but the “parasitic class.” Not the “leaders of tomorrow,” but the “pillagers of yesteryear.” After all, who would want health - when sickness is so profitable? Rather, how could the healthy even bother with the sick, how could they understand them? The entire medical profession’s creed, to this day, is “please don’t bother us,” as, everyone needs their papers. Yes, while even Dr. Frankenstein and his murdering monster appear naïve and juvenile compared to the sort of psychos who run most wards and hospitals, not to mention any of its direct connection to the state, this is the nature of miasma, no one could choke through it even if they wanted, - so who could ever stand on the shoulders of giants or titans, when the entire country from top to bottom, can only beg, borrow or steal from around the ankles? And the need is locked in – slavery, the most wealth and power ever created in the history of the world, wasted on a dying, decrepit ruling class of pseudo-human being who sound and appear as if they couldn’t have a genuine thought or feeling in their bodies, even if needed to prevent a nervous breakdown, even if needed to mitigate the breakdown of an entire civilization, or imminent death and war around the globe.
And this is perhaps the most astoundingly marvelous thing about a long-extricated, tortured-out diffusive chain of irresponsibility – the one who conceives of the bottom, the lowering of the bar, is not the same as the one who enacts it, is not the same as the one who installs it, is not the same as the one who tills it, is not the same as the one who owns it, all of which beleighs the truth that, most everyone is happy to disappear, they are happy that so little is ever asked or expected, that nobody remembers their name, or asks more. Yes, aloneness, and dangerous aloneness therein is the only real condition, but so it is for everyone. You see, take heart, you’re not alone here. It was only illusion. One or many, many or one – you’re the same thing, desire, create, act and enact the same thing – like addict and supplier, and that’s how and why you have built precisely what it is you have built - and the isolation also serves a purpose – as it makes your domination precipitously convenient (a civilization of people taught to be helpless, passive, watchers and consumers, and bad actors for bottomless pits of crowds at that). People are easy to manipulate, coerce, and control, when alone. The solution that knows how to answer for all problems- as both Socrates and the rapacious, long-annoying American salesmen, marketers, and spammers of all inboxes humanly known, know – you look for the self-conscious weakness, and then you twist the knife as insidiously and compellingly as sublimely [terrible and frightful yet divine distance between desire and reality] possible. Imagine doing this to an entire lower class – like raising rabbits for disposal and harvest.
And while our most acrimonious of orders is, pertaining to the supposedly beloved objects of one’s and one’s culture’s desires, first to try to masticate it, if not, fornicate with it, if not, buy and sell it with the purpose of others enacting the former and/or the latter behaviors upon it, it strikes me that even the larger, stunningly clueless population is beginning to scratch their heads as they watch time stand still in perpetuity, rather, as they watch time leak, fume, and die, to their detriment, on their dime (they pay for it), which, if you’re wondering why is an alarm to you and them, is because this is not what they were promised, and, that first Boston Tea Party is a simpleton's joke compared to the tyranny that rules happily and without remorse today. And so it is, what is being witnessed, interpreted, spun, and sold, is not what they are being promised right now (they see the very opposite in fact – reality, right under their nose, and they can even almost “read it”), and as with right now, Victory demands compensation, and it isn’t just coming, it is already here. Oh no, the best is yet to come, you assure me? I’ll agree, but only because it is in my language and on my terms, and you have no idea what that means.
Even then, despite my great love for this land and some of its most rare and valuable individuals (because the rest is corporate, i.e., state-sanctioned, wasteland), despite knowing all of you far, far, far too well, I am left with no pity in common with you, and if you’ve been reading the stars and the wind and the times (it stands still, slow enough to read for even the illiterate, in some regards, after all), you know then that you have all but nickeled and dimed away everyone else’s pity too, and those left parroting the party line are dead already without knowing it, fail to see they are alone, the target, the victim, the product, as well – but there’s hardly an accountant alive who can cook these books, even a Jew, or maybe someone from the Chinese Communist Party, of which, our own leadership shares beds, and a future as insect-overlords of a placated, wasted, dying populace of a poisoned land.
Yes, our way of life is incidental, a waterwheel in the river of misery for most that is called human biology – so nobody can help themselves against their own (intentionally) weakened and morbid Will and better interest, for instance, the people who once lived here were helpless to crave the steel and alcohol Spanish merchants advertised – and once this poisoned stream had traveled for centuries, found its way into my mouth and after a lifetime of ripping it out, to see what is beyond it, a life-time of sickness and its convalescence, exactly as everyone here intentionally and unintentionally designed, and with perspective on asylums and institutions from both deep inside and far beyond their walls (these are funny conceptual and imaginary designations, walls, barriers, doors, etc.), inside or outside of it, it is fear and hatred and pain – and a recirculation of dollars and pity, with its requisite shame, sympathies, and pities. The price for playing the game? Your eternal soul? No, that was marketing, so you didn’t notice your body was being used, abused, and consumed, by little camouflage predators who have the appearance of ‘ordinary’ human-beings (now its sublimated into the market, god being dead and all), but, alas, are not Apex, but incidental, happenstance, a laugh, a gas, mediocrity given its day since the real predators are medicated, surrounded, and killed off, and ultimately, as ape is to man, this homo sapien is to a better humanity of present and into the future – a (blind) laughing stock. An emperor and empire with no clothes at all. Just as neanderthal did not understand why homo sapien laughed at him, homo sapien doesn’t know how bad the joke is, and the exacting ways in which he and she are the joke (yes, presuming entitlement, and to be the goal, and what's to be preserved).
Even as I have watched, and continue to watch, the most basic and mediocre types of animals reach majority, in all human arenas, whose vanitous parents, teachers, and policemen, all profiting, even forming a way of life, based on their own absence in these future ‘derelicts’ lives, starting in their most vulnerable precatory age, of their own wisdom, persuaded them, having generally only paper or medications to offer, in manners not dissimilar to business in Italian mafia or other gangland activity, to become physicians, psychiatrists, lawyers, sociologists, and even justice-fighters, or freedom fighters (at least on TV, or social media) for an entire society that was conditioned to be ineffectual, hapless, resentful dependents, a dollar farm, a low-wage servant class, buckets of frozen fish consumer voting blocks to market sickness to, tossed to the dust and wind as fertilizer for future pennies, all vegetating on an American-factory-farm-scale organized lunatic asylum, or, as is well known, the streets, and other similar institutions such as prisons and schools, whom all get their French fries from the same governmentally relevant contracted organization, aka business, aka American business, aka corporation, aka, the State as nation, and the state of its affairs – an entire population missing in action, on vacation, tending tiny, totalized, cog-size gardens and planting for their own promised day alone, or sick on the job, owned as it were, by the people who own the entire country, and in some sense, the world, with our closest business partners, in both industry, and way of life, being the Chinese State, of which all Americans should be horrified.
—all of which conduces towards a feeling, or, thought of tremendous weight and burden, which is to say, what can anyone expect in a land where one doesn’t have friends and neighbors or even a husband or wife, but predatory yet desperately needy and dependent associates (nothing is more depraved than businessmen in rut, when they see only paper dollars with starry, religious-eyed zeal), all of whom can, do, and will continue to charge each other by the minute, to get the most out of every serviceable transaction they can name for a surcharge, or convenience fee, or tax, or service fee, of which, the original stamp act which was one of many matchsticks that helped founded this country, is a farce and a joke compared to the sort of brigands, actors, and ugly celebrity that is our body politics – a society where brutal taxation and its repression is culture, is the way of life, occasionally exemplified by “kill dozers” or small business owners flying their small airplanes into local tax offices (see Texas), of which we can say, the genius of America wasn’t a recreation of the old slave pyramid, at least two or three times in a row, as merit turned to money, that is gold, which turned to paper, which turned to non-existent ones and zeroes, nor is the genius the ever-present image and its parading and campaigning of forgettable faces and non-existent personalities and all its pretense of the removal of what sadly passes for aristocracy these days – the genius of America was to monetize every part of the body, every aspect of culture and life, to scrape the human being down to the bone, not of any human value, not of any real value that they themselves feel or want to represent in the actual world, in any remotely authentic, sincere, and even needed manner, but strictly: monetary value. There is no value outside paper money zero and ones values. Which is to say, the modern human soul is a worthless copper penny stretched between the crude, well-armed yet hapless Europeans of America, those eroded basalt Pillars of the West, and the equally hollow and vacuous Chinese Communist Part of the East, whatever facsimiles are left from their origins derived – between the two, like the upper and lower clamps of a vice grip, humanity are a great mass of herd animal, ready to be flambéed, roasted, crispen and woolied, ready to be turned into garment, and dinner, and pointless, disposable sacrifice (for the people that own them, but not for gods, greater purpose, men, or connection to the Earth and environment).
And how much value may be derived from this worthless penny? When the game is the bait and switch, it is never enough. And then how much can you charge for the sickness you create? Each layer of skin is a few cents more, and every American businessman, who becomes wealthy, knows that every penny adds up, because for most American business men, when it is, was, or becomes their time to rob anyone and everyone blind, we see the American for what they are (an empty, pitiless, stomach, no brain) and the most powerful nation in the history of the world – which proves, not just how blind great power is, but also states, the more one wants, the more one must debase one’s self, thus the entire human future, had to be sold out to satiate the money printers - where lavish expense in both cheap thrills and their curtailing, are incurred, inflicted, endured, yet loved with Barnum and Bailey advertising appeal of a culture that can’t decide whether it wants to be most pitiless master or most pitiful slave, prude or whore, noble Paladin or gutless Brigand – a nation not of refined or even rudimentary taste in appearance, behavior, and communication, but of tawdry delight and intoxication, angry politics, fear, and hate, not two minutes, but 24/7 – the assailing and travailing of the world against the senses, against reason, against purpose, against humanity, and harder will it become still. Not just against better, superior senses, but all senses, but that is nonsense for you, and as with yesteryear, today, nonsense rules – the lack of sense, the utter lack of reality. And when it’s clear, when you can quote a man, speaking of a past that hasn’t happened yet, who once said, “even if this country had been twice as big, it still wouldn’t be enough,” and, “the love of possessions is a disease in them” - What can you then truly say to a nation of dependents and liars all suffering under the same physiological sicknesses, whose condition is to admit, buy, sell, or permit everything, except for the Truth, and by design? Cowardice, that is generally called, “healthy fear”? And, the straightforward truth? The simple Truth? All of which precludes the complex, take lifetimes-of-vigorous-activity-to-understand-and painfully destructive-to-swallow-Truth? This isn’t s dog and pony show nation, it is a dollar-leash nation. And where reason and logic fail, passion prevails, therefor, a poem to end, in your honor:
Your life, on a leash, how much can you pay? Therapy, credit, lease no money down today
Your life, on a leash, it isn’t worth a thing
Humans have no value, but for the pennies
They might bring, but them alone, isn’t enough,
Together, a few bucks, but none are left That’s right, not a dime for you or for your kids
Sell it all before the fall, retirement commune called “to live” When nothing to give, but everything with a price No tomorrow, don’t think twice, wondering why
There's no ovation to your ending, fearful but
Just pretending – for, behind all that is corporate nice
Are strangers with guns, aplenty at small price
But the cost is wrought, you broke it, you bought
If you’re so smart, how come you aint rich?
One shouldn’t ask such clueless questions
In culture’s nihilistic pitch – few flown
To the top of the roost of the coup
When one is oh so unconcerned,
Rich, and hidden without a peep
This dollar harvest continent
Then demonstrates, by all such
Empty imagistic reprobates
What was sown was
salted stupid, to be easy
then well reaped
Buy and sell an empty shell
shooting fish in a bucket
Or herding sheep
But this sickness
It lingers
Trade coins
For every
Finger
squeeze
And lie
you
Paid
The
true
Price
That you’re nice
That you deserve it
That you can actually afford it
Selling dependence as codependence
the people are stupid and so deserve it
But your dull, dusty harvest, you made it, is here
I don’t know how you tolerate it through the smell
that anyone would be appalled
scrawled floor, ceiling, wall, stinking worms can't stumble, only crawl
Or how people will live through the coming years
of ever-worse, ever-harder, all-consuming and producing horrid fears
A sold-out nation of no rank and station, a parasite full of parasites
Not providence, but lots of guns and hatred
Of course would make so much noise, it’s simply what you can get away with
when men are all absent, resented, and hated - but this is the price for your fascist consumer statist corporate paradise of low-rent, low-class dread and vapid, empty, paper-money doll pretty, petty pointless penny-talking heads
***After it was written, this poem was titled - “Squeeze [the fun out of it]”

Before I begin to tell you everything that’s happened, I think it is important to ask yourself whether you think a madwoman would be able to hold the position of head librarian at Echo Bay’s prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University for 19 consecutive years? Do you think something like that would be possible? It’s a rather difficult job to manage such a vast collection of reference materials–to ensure that they’ve been organized and categorized and reshelved correctly and logically once they’ve been borrowed and returned. It really does take a lot of skill.
I’m sure that you’re aware that our university is home to the nation’s third largest marine biology, nautical engineering and maritime history reference library? Of course you are. Everyone knows that. You can’t be unhinged and also be responsible for the standard titles in fiction and non-fiction, the classics and new releases, an extensive backlog of microfiche, newsreels, a wide collection of digital media as well as hundreds of scholarly journals. These are things that students have come to expect from a university. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars that they’ve borrowed in student loans for an education! That’s money that they will work for the next fifty or sixty years to repay! Did you know that our university is the university with the second largest collection of restricted-access books, scrolls, clay tablets and ancient one-of-a-kind texts on the occult? Well, that you probably didn’t know and I’m not supposed to talk about that, so why don't you do us both a favor and just forget I’ve mentioned it…
I ask you, would they trust a lunatic with such a large responsibility? No, I don’t imagine that they would.
I’ve seen the mentally unstable–suffering from various forms of psychosis and neuroses, the drug addicts and drunks–you’ve seen them too. You know you have. They’re spending all day talking endlessly about kraken, mermaids and boat-eating giant squids. They think they’re talking to someone else, but there’s nobody there. They’re just sitting by themselves on a bench down by the wharf. Sure they’ll realize they’re not talking to anyone eventually…then if they have even half a whit, they’ll go find some sucker who will take pity on them–a skipper or deckboss…someone who’ll let them scrape barnacles off the side of their barge for a couple twenties. Most of those fishermen know they’ve pulled in quite the haul so they can afford to take pity on some poor nitwit. Get them to do the jobs nobody wants to do for pocket change.
Maybe those imbeciles will get really lucky and some blowboater will have them scrub down the deck of their fancy new sailboat for a crisp hundred dollar bill–or polish the chrome railings and whatnot. I tell you, that’s what the crazies do around here…they hang out around the docks, hoping to make enough money to buy themselves a handle of Gordon’s Gin–the plastic one for $15–just so they can pass out on the beach under the stars and get bitten by sand fleas all night long. I see it every day. It’s just what the nutjobs do.
Cuckoo-birds aren’t head librarians–they’re not even regular librarians–and certainly not at the leading university in a two hundred mile radius for marine biology, fishery management, and coastal environmental studies. No sir, they are not. And that’s just to name a few of the more popular fields of study here at the university. We have many, many programs for those intelligent, hardworking and qualified students who have spent their lives fascinated by sea exploration and sea related fields of study and I’m proud to be a part of such an important organization. I’m proud to say that from the year I began, I’ve helped each and every one of our graduates at some point discover that there’s more to see within the sea than we initially see…or maybe if I haven’t, I’ve at least told them where to go to find some book or other that they’re looking to find…unless it’s one of those books from the access-restricted collection of occult texts that we keep secretly locked in the sub-basement. I’ll kindly remind you again to forget about those. They’re off limits.
Now, I’m humble so I don’t brag. I'm not telling you that I’ve been in charge of all of the college’s books for nearly two decades because I expect you to be astonished. I wasn't fed my Master's degree in Library Science on a silver spoon by my rich parents. I grew up very poor like so many of you. I come from meager beginnings. My family had nothing, like most families still here in Echo Bay. That's right. I grew up here.
We aren't expected to do anything particularly astonishing growing up amongst the fishers and the crabbers on these prolific shores. The town is known only for its propagative fisheries--for crustacean trapping and shellfish. We’re seafood people of modest stock. I never knew I was destined to such grandeur as the title of a university's head librarian! And for 19 continuous years! This is a quiet coastal town that some will tell you has unique charms, beauty and history. Those things are lies. The only thing here is fish and everything smells just like you'd expect. The only industries here are the fisheries. The whole town stinks like the rotten breath of Poseidon and everyone you meet smells like they've bathed in the mouth of a bloated whale carcass that's washed ashore at the height of summer.
Still, you'll find that we’re more or less unpretentious people. We don't brag much, but maybe we should do a bit more than we do. The town itself is awful but we have one of the best maritime polytechnical universities anywhere in the entire country, and that's something we should be proud to say. I might be biased, but the university employs a great support staff. Most of the professors also do their jobs most of the time. It’s common knowledge that we’ve taught some of the leading marine technologists, aquatic environmental scientists and maritime law and policy makers from here to New Bismuth and Harlow’s Cove. I bet even someone like you knew about that already.
Our graduates are making big names for themselves even as far away as Clarion and Hedonis. So, I assure you that the crazy people aren’t found here at Eldertide Polytechnic. No place near it. Only reasonable people here…and they certainly wouldn’t let a psychopath be the head of the university’s library staff–Why, I’ve just told you, haven’t you been listening? The lunatics are out near the docks like they’ve always been, gibbering away their drunken theories of sunken pirate ships, lost treasures and superstitious legends about the sirens that supposedly make their home out on Mermaid Roost.
When those wackadoos are done running their mouths for the day they’re outside sleeping rough. They're exposed to the elements, spending all night cold and wet under the stars on Hidden Haven Beach. They've got their heads on jagged rocks instead of pillows out there, laying on beds made of cigarette butts and broken liquor bottles. That's where all the noodleheads around here sleep at night. They're all camped out there on that nasty beach with the rest of their kind: the vagrants, and derelicts, the dropouts, skateboarders and unwed mothers, tattoo artists and the illiterates too. Hidden Haven is the trashiest beach we've got in Echo Bay and levelheaded, decent people who can read stay away from there.
I heard from a reliable source that when intelligent people even think they might want to visit that beach "just to see" they should just go to a rehab instead. There's a nice one out in Harlow's Cove, I hear. It'll save them some time because the only reason anyone with any sort of logic would think thoughts like that is someone slipped them drugs or they got talked into drinking some of that Tidepool Tonic by a Whalehead. All it takes is you accidentally taking edible marijuanas or trying some of that Seafoam Slurry just one time and you'll never be the same again. After that, you're addicted now. Quit your job and become a Webby. That beach is crawling with that Enclave scum too. Used to be that cult ran the whole town, but there's less than 200 of those wackos left–all Greenmouths–every single one of them so they're easy to spot and avoid. Belong in the gutter if you ask me. That's the type of corrupted skelm a place like Hidden Haven belongs to...but I digress...
Set a single toe in that beach's sand and you might as well throw your whole life in the trash because people out there bring no value to society. You'll find yourself turning tricks so a pimp can give you some heroin or worse–a pint of Celestia–faster than you can say "lickety-split." Happens just that fast. Can't take a step on that beach without tripping over a box of dirty needles full of methamphetamines is what I've heard. You listen to me. I work in education so I know what I'm talking about.
Hidden Haven isn't the only beach you don't visit in Echo Bay. You don't go to Twilight Cove, either...not if you don't want to die horribly with your skin pulled off and your insides fed to something's pet.
They’ll call me crazy because nobody goes through the pass that leads down to Twilight Cove. Not anybody born and raised here in Echo Bay and not tourists either–but I've done it. I did it just last night. The path between those cliffs is too rough and stony for tourists and the Bay people are too superstitious–afraid of the Xaigonians to take the walk down to that beach. Twilight Cove’s not for the Bay People…that’s their territory. If you grew up in The Bay you grew up being told that the Xaigonians are down on that beach and they don’t take kindly to trespassers, especially not ones that can only breathe plain old regular air with normal human lungs. The Bay people say that if you go down between those cliffs you better have a damn good reason and something shiny to offer those webbed-footed freaks, because if you don’t and you’re dumb enough to go out on that particular stretch of beach you won’t be seen nor heard from ever again. It ain’t an expressly forbidden place to go–there’s no laws against it. Nobody’s gonna stop you. Nobody stopped me. You just ask anyone who’s spent their lives around these parts though. Ask them and they’ll tell you why you’ve got to stay away…
They’ll tell you there’s a whole race of people that aren’t quite people hiding out in that cove. They’ve been out there for centuries–and the world don’t know about them–that’s just the way they want it to stay too. They’ve been out there staying unseen since before the town was a town–before this state was even a state. They’re Fishpeople, that’s what they are. It isn’t just webbed fingers and toes, they say from far off something about their skin just doesn’t look quite right–looks a bit shinier than skin should look–they say you don’t want to get anywhere near them to see what’s off about their skin up close, but if you’re foolish enough to try you’ll see it ain’t skin at all. It’s a whole mess of scales.
When I was a little girl my mother (who also grew up here) told me the people hiding in Twilight Cove had gills and if they caught you walking out on their beach, they’d drag you down beneath the whitecaps and into the black waves. The waves are always black out there–day and night–nobody knows why. Once they’ve pulled you under, they’ll take you to their hidden shining city in the coral caves. She said the Xaigonians breed crabs–grow them even bigger than dogs–and they’ll peel off your skin the same way a fisherman uses a boning knife just so their mean and nasty pets don’t have to work so hard to get their claws inside–jab you in the spaces between your muscles and get at your good parts–get at your meat. That’s all The Bay people are to the Xaigonians–meat. If you don’t want to be meat, you’ve got to bring them some treasure. They’ll take gold, silver, diamonds–gems of all kinds actually…
But for your sake if they catch you out there, whatever treasure you’re bringing them had better be real…otherwise…you’re meat.
When they find him–no–if they find him–they’ll say I’m mad, of course they will, because nobody in their right mind goes down to that beach.

”Hello, I’m Bradley Wilcott, Eldertide Polytech’s University’s New President,”

I heard the stories all my life and you think someone like me, head librarian at Eldertide Polytech, for 19 goddamn years who grew up in this sea-side fish-stinking town ought to know better than to go out there. You’d have to be stupid or crazy to go out there. Especially not at night.

”And you’re Darlene? Ms. Darlene Fischer? The head librarian? According to your file, you’ve been here for a very long time. I do wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”

But I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy either–I was perfectly sound-minded and sober when I made my way to his goddamn house. The street was poorly lit and that was good. I was only a little worried that I might be seen making my way up the sidewalk by one of the neighbors. So, naturally, I knew if I was mentally disturbed, I would have kept everything on, but I wasn’t that way so I had to take it off. That way if anyone saw me through their windows, they would just see a naked woman in the street. They’d know I was being rational and wise. They’d know I was just out for a sensible stroll in the dark.

”As you know, the board of trustees has appointed me to this position because they felt that my predecessor extended very little oversight to the budget spending of quite a few departments.”
I’m not a department head. I’m the head librarian.
”You’re in charge of the purchase of the university’s books, are you not?”
Well, naturally…

I took off my blouse and bra first, then my skirt and panties. The air felt sweet and unseasonably cool as it caressed my exposed breasts. This breeze of course very naturally caused my sane and rational nipples to harden ever-so slightly in just the way that I had hoped and planned for. The way that deliberate and logical nipples are meant to react in accordance to a breath of cool night air. The house–my destination–was just up ahead. Every window was dark and the driveway was empty.
It appeared as though I would arrive at the most practical and prudent time for a levelheaded woman like myself to arrive–precisely when I intended to–at a time when there was nobody home.
I tucked my discarded clothes into a storm drain that opened up beneath a curb on the side of the road. Afterward, I cut diagonally from the sidewalk and through a yard with a large Victorian home standing like a sentry in the center of the lot growing heavily with a number of oak trees that were old and thick. Many lights were on inside, but I didn't worry because I knew that anyone who might look out would only see a fully rational and not-insane naked woman on a typical late-night walk beneath the shadowy canopy of branches that densely covered the property.
I lurked from tree to tree, skipping through the darkness as naturally as possible, only stopping once to rest for a moment beneath the largest of the ancient gnarled oaks. I had been carrying a rope in my hands, but it was in a mangled knot and it seemed more practical to wrap it into a coil around my arm and I’m a practical woman so that’s what I did. Then I very smartly slung the loop of rope over one of my shoulders and returned from the shadows of the trees in that yard to the sidewalk where I continued to nonchalantly make my way through the dark.

”I just have a few questions about some of the purchases you’ve made in the last few years. I’m hoping you could help me understand some of these expenses.”
Okayyyy…
”I’m seeing here that you spent–”
I don’t spend anything. The books belong to the library.
”Okayyyy, the library spent $13,000 on a volume titled ‘Twilight Testament: Unveiling the Esoteric’--can you explain that Ms. Fischer?”
Certainly. That particular book was written by Friar Lucian Benedict. He was a powerful sorcerer. Burned at the stake for heresy in, um–1263, I think.
”...And for what reason did you–I’m sorry–for what reason did the library spend $13,000 on this book?”
Naturally that’s what a book like that would cost if it were the only copy that exists.
”I see…”

Moving naked through the black of night, I knew that anyone who might peer out at the desolate emptiness of the cul-de-sac would pay me, a naked woman simply walking, no mind–wait!–I’d forgotten to take off my shoes! How could a cognitively prudent head librarian for nearly 20 years like myself forget to take off my shoes? A clear-headed, sane woman on a naked nighttime stroll, but wearing shoes? No. Absolutely not. I panicked and ripped them off as quickly as possible…I tucked my socks cleverly inside them and abandoned my footwear in a mailbox as I passed. The danger of being discovered having passed, I breathed a sigh of relief and I continued on my way.

”And Darlene–may I call you Darlene?–what’s this charge for $9700 for something called, ‘Chthonic Codex: Communing With The Eldritch’ can you explain that?”
Umm…
”What about $3750 for something called ‘The Alchemy of Night and Unveiling Infernal Secrets’–why–why are you making these purchases?”
Well, you see…
”I’ve actually been going through your purchase history and there’s almost $1.6 million dollars of misappropriated funds here, Ms. Fischer–and I’ve only gone back 10 years so far. There’s 9 more years of this library’s–your library’s–purchase receipts to go through.”
Misappropriated? No. Those texts were acquired for the occult library.
”I’m sorry–the what?”
The occult library.
”Where are these books, Ms. Fischer? In order to recover these funds, the university is going to have to liquidate some–if not, all–of this collection. Hopefully I can find a buyer so we have a way to recuperate these losses.”
Losses? These are treasures. Artifacts. I’m not going to let you sell them or even tell you where I keep the occult library.
”Whether you tell me or not, you’re facing very serious legal action, Ms. Fischer. Do you understand that?”
The occult library access is restricted. End of discussion.

Mr. Wilcott was not married. He lived in the house alone and he came home at midnight, which as a sensible woman, I found to be a very unsensible hour. I waited for him inside of his bedroom for two hours. Two full hours, I stood in the dark, arms bent up near my head in my best impression of a hideous modern style lamp. I tried to hold my breath, but I only lasted about a minute doing that. I didn't try to hold my breath again and that was a very sane decision because only a boneheaded lunatic would try not to breathe for two full hours.
When I arrived, I found a trellis at the side of his front porch that was heavily overgrown with rosebushes and climbed up from the ground floor to the windows of the home's second story. The roses that crawled up along the trellis were protecting the house from humble intruders like myself with a profusion of thorns. After letting myself inside through an unlocked window I discovered that my arms, my legs, my breasts and my hands were covered in nicks and scratches and scrapes. And for two hours he inconsiderately left me in the corner of his bedroom in the dark, waiting patiently to kidnap him.

”This is a maritime polytechnic university Ms. Fischer. We don’t need an occult library. We should not have an occult library and you therefore should not have purchased any texts for an occult library. When I show these numbers to the board of trustees you’re looking at some serious jail time.”
Jail time?
”This is embezzlement. Do you understand that? You’re done here, Ms. Fischer.”
I’m the Head–I’m Head Librarian–19 years! I’ve been in charge of this library for 19 years!
”Well, I’m very sorry, Ms. Fischer–but not anymore…you’re fired.”

When he came into the room, I wondered what he’d been doing out and about while I patiently–sensibly–waited for his return? Probably, he was out destroying some other people’s lives. Good, upstanding and reasonable people’s lives. He thoroughly explained to me how he intended to ruin mine just hours before. It seemed to be something he enjoyed and I was certain he'd ruin everything he was allowed to ruin if given the chance. I waited for him for so long that even my rational and logical blood acted practically with the time it was given; everywhere that the trellis thorns cut me while I climbed, the blood had quite astutely dried. Just another indicator that what I was about to do was not absurd–even my blood was behaving level-headedly.
If one can't trust one's own blood, then whoms blood can one trust?
I wasn’t worried that he would see me when he turned on the light to undress and climb into bed. If he did, it wouldn't matter much, for what could be more natural than a naked woman in the darkened corner of your private room? I wasn’t worried when I made my way down the road and into his house. Why should I worry now? As it turned out he never had a chance to ponder the existence of a naked woman standing so naturally and logically in the corner of his room pretending to be a lamp. I had chosen a very practical corner to stand in while I waited for him to arrive. I loosened a length of the rope between my clenched fists as he entered through the doorway with his back to me and before his hand even reached for the light switch, my arms were over his head, wrapping the cord around his neck from behind.
They’ll say I’ve lost it. They’ll say I’ve lost my mind…but that’s not the case at all.
I had to knock him unconscious with the butt end of my knife when I got him to the car because he very foolishly tried to fight me when I took him for the ride.
I parked at the mouth of the pass and dragged him down between those cliffs and when the waterline was low, I was stable and lucid and completely sane as I tied that bastard down to the heaviest rocks I could find at the water’s edge; arms and legs all splayed out so he couldn’t sit up or swim away when the tide came back in.
If someone was to find him (but I’m fairly certain no one will) I don’t think there will be any evidence left to tie what happened to him here back to me. I’ve been naked this whole time. Less evidence that way. That was very clever of me, indeed. I don’t think he’s told anyone about his little investigation yet either. If he has shared what he’s found, there’s something in the library, a book called: “The Obsidian Grimoire: Lost Spells of Power” to make them all forget. Ironically, I’ll have to look up the page because I can’t remember which one it is…
They probably won’t find him and even if they do it won’t matter, because the crabs will find him first. Don’t have to be the great big ones my momma told me the Xaigonian people keep either. The regular old little ones will do just fine. They can even take their time and eat him slow because nobody goes down to Twilight Cove unless they’re batshit crazy.
Except for me. I’m the exception.
The light of the moon was the only illumination on the pass between the jutting edges of the high rock formations that towered over each of my shoulders last night. It sparkled on the water in the distance like a thousand diamonds scattered across black velvet; a forbidden treasure that called to me and led me down and down and down to the living darkness of the water’s edge. My breathing was steady, matching the rhythm of the ebbing and flowing shoreline as it rolled toward me over and over only to pull back into the black and be sucked away. The waves rolled in and the waves rolled out and unconsciously I matched each of my inhales and exhales to the beat of the tide like one might attempt to match their breathing to that of a sleeping lover. The act was unintentional--the hand of destiny serendipitously guiding me along the correct path. Tonight this ebony shore was my lover and together we would take this man's life--not in the way that garden-variety sociopaths might take a man's life with the sole desire of watching him die. Tonight, the sea and I would be two cogent and rational beings in love who are also coincidentally both murderers who kill together in harmony. Together we would drown my new nemesis for the sake of love. My love. My love for the forbidden knowledge of the occult.
It wasn't being done in the name of chaos and irrationality. We were doing it methodically, reasonably and sensibly. Don't you see? Don't you understand it now? The sea loved me so much that it needed to kill Bradley Wilcott for me to prove that love was real.
I could taste the clean salt that hung in the air as I dragged him over all those jagged rocks, ignoring the sting of their sharp edges as they sliced into my bare and bloody feet. I made furtive glances behind me with every ten or twelve steps and felt no pain as I carefully but quickly made my way down between the cliffs. Any suffering I might have felt was overridden by the pleasure I found watching his head bounce roughly across those same rocks. The constant bludgeoning would keep him knocked out cold. The flow from the back of his head looked black beneath the starless sky, not red, and left smears as it mixed with the black of the footprints I left behind with each step I took along the path. I dragged him with one end of a rope tied around his ankles and the bulk of it wrapped around my waist a half a dozen times. The opposite segment of the rope was tucked down between the coils that circled my waist, and pressed against my bare skin so that the end of it hung out past my hips. I tied a bag to the length that remained. I fetched it from my trunk when I dragged him from my car. The hilt of my knife protruded past where the top of the bag was cinched tightly closed. It hung low and heavy against my leg, bouncing rhythmically against my thigh.
They’ll call me a madwoman because I went down to Twilight Cove beneath a dark and starless sky, dragging behind me a man that I intended to tie to the rocks at low tide. They'll say that I did this all while Echo Bay slept because irrationally my internal voice dictated I must watch him die--but don't you see the truth of it all? Everything they'll say about me is a lie.
They’ll say I’m insane because the only thing I felt was pleasure as I watched the current roll back in and the water slowly rise up over his eyes…because I laughed to myself when he regained consciousness at the perfect moment and those eyes fluttered open with little bubbles coming out from behind the eyelids, and floating up to the surface of the water. They’ll say I’m insane because I came out here, my waist wrapped in a rope that I unraveled and using a knife, cut that rope into lengths so that I could tie this lunatic of a man down by each of his limbs. They’ll call me certifiable because I gloated over him, my bare feet bleeding and my body completely naked against the ocean breeze and bare breasted against the moonlight as I watched him drown. They’ll say I’m deranged because on a starless night, I trekked into territory well known to belong to the Xaigonians to do this to a man who definitely deserved what fate had in store for him…but I’m none of those things. I’m completely sane.
When I saw the first Fishperson come up and out of the waves, clawing his webbed fingers through the sand and pushing his hands into the ground to stand upright on his flipper-shaped feet, I didn’t feel any fear. I knew that even though my nakedness rendered me easier to flay and feed to his giant pet crabs beneath the waves, Xaigon and his Fishpeople had an unspoken expectation for anyone and everyone who traipsed uninvited into Twilight Cove. This place is theirs and everyone in Echo Bay knows that. We don't come to this place where we don’t belong. If we do they expect us to have a gleaming gift to give them. Each of them. Twilight Cove belongs to the race that lurks beneath the opaque waters there and it has belonged to them since the time before men learned to walk upright. If you're on their beach when they come up out of the murky depths, they’ll either drag you down through the viscous pitch dark water to their shining city beneath the black waves...or they won’t. It only depends on whether you came to the beach intending to meet their expectations.
A moment later, another one is rising up through the white foam that swirls atop the surface of the inky dark sea. And another one. And another. And another.
I’m not crazy. I’m not insane. I’m the head librarian of the prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University and I have been for the last 19 years and I will be for 19 more and longer still after that. I’ve read everything about this place. Some of it’s in my collection with restricted-access and some of it isn’t. I came out here as an outsider intending to meet their expectations but I didn’t have any pockets to stow away my shiny gifts, so I put them in the bag I tied around my waist.
The bag was big. The bag was full. I knew what was out here. I knew what they would expect. This is the perfect place to bring a body because anyone who comes here without gifts for each and every one of them coming up and out from their city in the coral caves below won’t be seen again. There must have been a hundred of that strange aquatic race climbing out of the water. I watched them rise up to the surface that rippled with reflections of the moon. People don’t come here and if they do, they die. They might bring a gift and think they're wise, but one gift is not enough. You need to share with the whole class. I’m reasonable and pragmatic and my well of resources is deep. The bag I brought with me was very, very big and there were plenty of gifts inside to go around. They’ll say what I did out in Twilight Cove last night was crazy, but it wasn’t. They’ll say that I’m unhinged or deranged because I dragged that man out there to watch him die, but I’m not. Eldertide Polytechnic University wouldn’t have trusted me to be the head librarian for 19 fucking years if I wasn’t perfectly and completely rational and sane...
ss

Before I begin to tell you everything that’s happened, I think it is important to ask yourself whether you think a madwoman would be able to hold the position of head librarian at Echo Bay’s prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University for 19 consecutive years? Do you think something like that would be possible? It’s a rather difficult job to manage such a vast collection of reference materials–to ensure that they’ve been organized and categorized and reshelved correctly and logically once they’ve been borrowed and returned. It really does take a lot of skill.
I’m sure that you’re aware that our university is home to the nation’s third largest marine biology, nautical engineering and maritime history reference library? Of course you are. Everyone knows that. You can’t be unhinged and also be responsible for the standard titles in fiction and non-fiction, the classics and new releases, an extensive backlog of microfiche, newsreels, a wide collection of digital media as well as hundreds of scholarly journals. These are things that students have come to expect from a university. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars that they’ve borrowed in student loans for an education! That’s money that they will work for the next fifty or sixty years to repay! Did you know that our university is the university with the second largest collection of restricted-access books, scrolls, clay tablets and ancient one-of-a-kind texts on the occult? Well, that you probably didn’t know and I’m not supposed to talk about that, so why don't you do us both a favor and just forget I’ve mentioned it…
I ask you, would they trust a lunatic with such a large responsibility? No, I don’t imagine that they would.
I’ve seen the mentally unstable–suffering from various forms of psychosis and neuroses, the drug addicts and drunks–you’ve seen them too. You know you have. They’re spending all day talking endlessly about kraken, mermaids and boat-eating giant squids. They think they’re talking to someone else, but there’s nobody there. They’re just sitting by themselves on a bench down by the wharf. Sure they’ll realize they’re not talking to anyone eventually…then if they have even half a whit, they’ll go find some sucker who will take pity on them–a skipper or deckboss…someone who’ll let them scrape barnacles off the side of their barge for a couple twenties. Most of those fishermen know they’ve pulled in quite the haul so they can afford to take pity on some poor nitwit. Get them to do the jobs nobody wants to do for pocket change.
Maybe those imbeciles will get really lucky and some blowboater will have them scrub down the deck of their fancy new sailboat for a crisp hundred dollar bill–or polish the chrome railings and whatnot. I tell you, that’s what the crazies do around here…they hang out around the docks, hoping to make enough money to buy themselves a handle of Gordon’s Gin–the plastic one for $15–just so they can pass out on the beach under the stars and get bitten by sand fleas all night long. I see it every day. It’s just what the nutjobs do.
Cuckoo-birds aren’t head librarians–they’re not even regular librarians–and certainly not at the leading university in a two hundred mile radius for marine biology, fishery management, and coastal environmental studies. No sir, they are not. And that’s just to name a few of the more popular fields of study here at the university. We have many, many programs for those intelligent, hardworking and qualified students who have spent their lives fascinated by sea exploration and sea related fields of study and I’m proud to be a part of such an important organization. I’m proud to say that from the year I began, I’ve helped each and every one of our graduates at some point discover that there’s more to see within the sea than we initially see…or maybe if I haven’t, I’ve at least told them where to go to find some book or other that they’re looking to find…unless it’s one of those books from the access-restricted collection of occult texts that we keep secretly locked in the sub-basement. I’ll kindly remind you again to forget about those. They’re off limits.
Now, I’m humble so I don’t brag. I'm not telling you that I’ve been in charge of all of the college’s books for nearly two decades because I expect you to be astonished. I wasn't fed my Master's degree in Library Science on a silver spoon by my rich parents. I grew up very poor like so many of you. I come from meager beginnings. My family had nothing, like most families still here in Echo Bay. That's right. I grew up here.
We aren't expected to do anything particularly astonishing growing up amongst the fishers and the crabbers on these prolific shores. The town is known only for its propagative fisheries--for crustacean trapping and shellfish. We’re seafood people of modest stock. I never knew I was destined to such grandeur as the title of a university's head librarian! And for 19 continuous years! This is a quiet coastal town that some will tell you has unique charms, beauty and history. Those things are lies. The only thing here is fish and everything smells just like you'd expect. The only industries here are the fisheries. The whole town stinks like the rotten breath of Poseidon and everyone you meet smells like they've bathed in the mouth of a bloated whale carcass that's washed ashore at the height of summer.
Still, you'll find that we’re more or less unpretentious people. We don't brag much, but maybe we should do a bit more than we do. The town itself is awful but we have one of the best maritime polytechnical universities anywhere in the entire country, and that's something we should be proud to say. I might be biased, but the university employs a great support staff. Most of the professors also do their jobs most of the time. It’s common knowledge that we’ve taught some of the leading marine technologists, aquatic environmental scientists and maritime law and policy makers from here to New Bismuth and Harlow’s Cove. I bet even someone like you knew about that already.
Our graduates are making big names for themselves even as far away as Clarion and Hedonis. So, I assure you that the crazy people aren’t found here at Eldertide Polytechnic. No place near it. Only reasonable people here…and they certainly wouldn’t let a psychopath be the head of the university’s library staff–Why, I’ve just told you, haven’t you been listening? The lunatics are out near the docks like they’ve always been, gibbering away their drunken theories of sunken pirate ships, lost treasures and superstitious legends about the sirens that supposedly make their home out on Mermaid Roost.
When those wackadoos are done running their mouths for the day they’re outside sleeping rough. They're exposed to the elements, spending all night cold and wet under the stars on Hidden Haven Beach. They've got their heads on jagged rocks instead of pillows out there, laying on beds made of cigarette butts and broken liquor bottles. That's where all the noodleheads around here sleep at night. They're all camped out there on that nasty beach with the rest of their kind: the vagrants, and derelicts, the dropouts, skateboarders and unwed mothers, tattoo artists and the illiterates too. Hidden Haven is the trashiest beach we've got in Echo Bay and levelheaded, decent people who can read stay away from there. I heard from a reliable source that when intelligent people even think they might want to visit that beach "just to see" they should just go to a rehab instead. It'll save them some time because the only reason anyone with any sort of logic would think thoughts like that is someone slipped them drugs. All it takes is you accidentally taking edibles that one time and you'll never be the same again. You're addicted now. Set a single toe in that beach's sand and you might as well throw your whole life in the trash. You'll find yourself turning tricks so a pimp will give you heroin faster than you can say "lickety-split." Happens just that fast. Can't take a step on that beach without tripping over a box of dirty needles full of methamphetamines is what I've heard. You listen to me. I work in education so I know what I'm talking about.
Hidden Haven isn't the only beach you don't visit in Echo Bay. You don't go to Twilight Cove, either...not if you don't want to die horribly with your skin pulled off and your insides fed to something's pet.
They’ll call me crazy because nobody goes through the pass that leads down to Twilight Cove. Not anybody born and raised here in Echo Bay and not tourists either–but I've done it. I did it just last night. The path between those cliffs is too rough and stony for tourists and the Bay people are too superstitious–afraid of the Xaigonians to take the walk down to that beach. Twilight Cove’s not for the Bay People…that’s their territory. If you grew up in The Bay you grew up being told that the Xaigonians are down on that beach and they don’t take kindly to trespassers, especially not ones that can only breathe plain old regular air with normal human lungs. The Bay people say that if you go down between those cliffs you better have a damn good reason and something shiny to offer those webbed-footed freaks, because if you don’t and you’re dumb enough to go out on that particular stretch of beach you won’t be seen nor heard from ever again. It ain’t an expressly forbidden place to go–there’s no laws against it. Nobody’s gonna stop you. Nobody stopped me. You just ask anyone who’s spent their lives around these parts though. Ask them and they’ll tell you why you’ve got to stay away…
They’ll tell you there’s a whole race of people that aren’t quite people hiding out in that cove. They’ve been out there for centuries–and the world don’t know about them–that’s just the way they want it to stay too. They’ve been out there staying unseen since before the town was a town–before this state was even a state. They’re Fishpeople, that’s what they are. It isn’t just webbed fingers and toes, they say from far off something about their skin just doesn’t look quite right–looks a bit shinier than skin should look–they say you don’t want to get anywhere near them to see what’s off about their skin up close, but if you’re foolish enough to try you’ll see it ain’t skin at all. It’s a whole mess of scales.
When I was a little girl my mother (who also grew up here) told me the people hiding in Twilight Cove had gills and if they caught you walking out on their beach, they’d drag you down beneath the whitecaps and into the black waves. The waves are always black out there–day and night–nobody knows why. Once they’ve pulled you under, they’ll take you to their hidden shining city in the coral caves. She said the Xaigonians breed crabs–grow them even bigger than dogs–and they’ll peel off your skin the same way a fisherman uses a boning knife just so their mean and nasty pets don’t have to work so hard to get their claws inside–jab you in the spaces between your muscles and get at your good parts–get at your meat. That’s all The Bay people are to the Xaigonians–meat. If you don’t want to be meat, you’ve got to bring them some treasure. They’ll take gold, silver, diamonds–gems of all kinds actually…
But for your sake if they catch you out there, whatever treasure you’re bringing them had better be real…otherwise…you’re meat.
When they find him–no–if they find him–they’ll say I’m mad, of course they will, because nobody in their right mind goes down to that beach.

”Hello, I’m Bradley Wilcott, Eldertide Polytech’s University’s New President,”

I heard the stories all my life and you think someone like me, head librarian at Eldertide Polytech, for 19 goddamn years who grew up in this sea-side fish-stinking town ought to know better than to go out there. You’d have to be stupid or crazy to go out there. Especially not at night.

”And you’re Darlene? Ms. Darlene Fischer? The head librarian? According to your file, you’ve been here for a very long time. I do wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”

But I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy either–I was perfectly sound-minded and sober when I made my way to his goddamn house. The street was poorly lit and that was good. I was only a little worried that I might be seen making my way up the sidewalk by one of the neighbors. So, naturally, I knew if I was mentally disturbed, I would have kept everything on, but I wasn’t that way so I had to take it off. That way if anyone saw me through their windows, they would just see a naked woman in the street. They’d know I was being rational and wise. They’d know I was just out for a sensible stroll in the dark.

”As you know, the board of trustees has appointed me to this position because they felt that my predecessor extended very little oversight to the budget spending of quite a few departments.”
I’m not a department head. I’m the head librarian.
”You’re in charge of the purchase of the university’s books, are you not?”
Well, naturally…

I took off my blouse and bra first, then my skirt and panties. The air felt sweet and unseasonably cool as it caressed my exposed breasts. This breeze of course very naturally caused my sane and rational nipples to harden ever-so slightly in just the way that I had hoped and planned for. The way that deliberate and logical nipples are meant to react in accordance to a breath of cool night air. The house–my destination–was just up ahead. Every window was dark and the driveway was empty.
It appeared as though I would arrive at the most practical and prudent time for a levelheaded woman like myself to arrive–precisely when I intended to–at a time when there was nobody home.
I tucked my discarded clothes into a storm drain that opened up beneath a curb on the side of the road. Afterward, I cut diagonally from the sidewalk and through a yard with a large Victorian home standing like a sentry in the center of the lot growing heavily with a number of oak trees that were old and thick. Many lights were on inside, but I didn't worry because I knew that anyone who might look out would only see a fully rational and not-insane naked woman on a typical late-night walk beneath the shadowy canopy of branches that densely covered the property.
I lurked from tree to tree, skipping through the darkness as naturally as possible, only stopping once to rest for a moment beneath the largest of the ancient gnarled oaks. I had been carrying a rope in my hands, but it was in a mangled knot and it seemed more practical to wrap it into a coil around my arm and I’m a practical woman so that’s what I did. Then I very smartly slung the loop of rope over one of my shoulders and returned from the shadows of the trees in that yard to the sidewalk where I continued to nonchalantly make my way through the dark.

”I just have a few questions about some of the purchases you’ve made in the last few years. I’m hoping you could help me understand some of these expenses.”
Okayyyy…
”I’m seeing here that you spent–”
I don’t spend anything. The books belong to the library.
”Okayyyy, the library spent $13,000 on a volume titled ‘Twilight Testament: Unveiling the Esoteric’--can you explain that Ms. Fischer?”
Certainly. That particular book was written by Friar Lucian Benedict. He was a powerful sorcerer. Burned at the stake for heresy in, um–1263, I think.
”...And for what reason did you–I’m sorry–for what reason did the library spend $13,000 on this book?”
Naturally that’s what a book like that would cost if it were the only copy that exists.
”I see…”

Moving naked through the black of night, I knew that anyone who might peer out at the desolate emptiness of the cul-de-sac would pay me, a naked woman simply walking, no mind–wait!–I’d forgotten to take off my shoes! How could a cognitively prudent head librarian for nearly 20 years like myself forget to take off my shoes? A clear-headed, sane woman on a naked nighttime stroll, but wearing shoes? No. Absolutely not. I panicked and ripped them off as quickly as possible…I tucked my socks cleverly inside them and abandoned my footwear in a mailbox as I passed. The danger of being discovered having passed, I breathed a sigh of relief and I continued on my way.

”And Darlene–may I call you Darlene?–what’s this charge for $9700 for something called, ‘Chthonic Codex: Communing With The Eldritch’ can you explain that?”
Umm…
”What about $3750 for something called ‘The Alchemy of Night and Unveiling Infernal Secrets’–why–why are you making these purchases?”
Well, you see…
”I’ve actually been going through your purchase history and there’s almost $1.6 million dollars of misappropriated funds here, Ms. Fischer–and I’ve only gone back 10 years so far. There’s 9 more years of this library’s–your library’s–purchase receipts to go through.”
Misappropriated? No. Those texts were acquired for the occult library.
”I’m sorry–the what?”
The occult library.
”Where are these books, Ms. Fischer? In order to recover these funds, the university is going to have to liquidate some–if not, all–of this collection. Hopefully I can find a buyer so we have a way to recuperate these losses.”
Losses? These are treasures. Artifacts. I’m not going to let you sell them or even tell you where I keep the occult library.
”Whether you tell me or not, you’re facing very serious legal action, Ms. Fischer. Do you understand that?”
The occult library access is restricted. End of discussion.

Mr. Wilcott was not married. He lived in the house alone and he came home at midnight, which as a sensible woman, I found to be a very unsensible hour. I waited for him inside of his bedroom for two hours. Two full hours, I stood in the dark, arms bent up near my head in my best impression of a hideous modern style lamp. I tried to hold my breath, but I only lasted about a minute doing that. I didn't try to hold my breath again and that was a very sane decision because only a boneheaded lunatic would try not to breathe for two full hours.
When I arrived, I found a trellis at the side of his front porch that was heavily overgrown with rosebushes and climbed up from the ground floor to the windows of the home's second story. The roses that crawled up along the trellis were protecting the house from humble intruders like myself with a profusion of thorns. After letting myself inside through an unlocked window I discovered that my arms, my legs, my breasts and my hands were covered in nicks and scratches and scrapes. And for two hours he inconsiderately left me in the corner of his bedroom in the dark, waiting patiently to kidnap him.

”This is a maritime polytechnic university Ms. Fischer. We don’t need an occult library. We should not have an occult library and you therefore should not have purchased any texts for an occult library. When I show these numbers to the board of trustees you’re looking at some serious jail time.”
Jail time?
”This is embezzlement. Do you understand that? You’re done here, Ms. Fischer.”
I’m the Head–I’m Head Librarian–19 years! I’ve been in charge of this library for 19 years!
”Well, I’m very sorry, Ms. Fischer–but not anymore…you’re fired.”

When he came into the room, I wondered what he’d been doing out and about while I patiently–sensibly–waited for his return? Probably, he was out destroying some other people’s lives. Good, upstanding and reasonable people’s lives. He thoroughly explained to me how he intended to ruin mine just hours before. It seemed to be something he enjoyed and I was certain he'd ruin everything he was allowed to ruin if given the chance. I waited for him for so long that even my rational and logical blood acted practically with the time it was given; everywhere that the trellis thorns cut me while I climbed, the blood had quite astutely dried. Just another indicator that what I was about to do was not absurd–even my blood was behaving level-headedly.
If one can't trust one's own blood than whom can one trust?
I wasn’t worried that he would see me when he turned on the light to undress and climb into bed. If he did, it wouldn't matter much, for what could be more natural than a naked woman in the darkened corner of your private room? I wasn’t worried when I made my way down the road and into his house. Why should I worry now? As it turned out he never had a chance to ponder the existence of a naked woman standing so naturally and logically in the corner of his room pretending to be a lamp. I had chosen a very practical corner to stand in while I waited for him to arrive. I loosened a length of the rope between my clenched fists as he entered through the doorway with his back to me and before his hand even reached for the light switch, my arms were over his head, wrapping the cord around his neck from behind.
They’ll say I’ve lost it. They’ll say I’ve lost my mind…but that’s not the case at all.
I had to knock him unconscious with the butt end of my knife when I got him to the car because he very foolishly tried to fight me when I took him for the ride.
I parked at the mouth of the pass and dragged him down between those cliffs and when the waterline was low, I was stable and lucid and completely sane as I tied that bastard down to the heaviest rocks I could find at the water’s edge; arms and legs all splayed out so he couldn’t sit up or swim away when the tide came back in.
If someone was to find him (but I’m fairly certain no one will) I don’t think there will be any evidence left to tie what happened to him here back to me. I’ve been naked this whole time. Less evidence that way. That was very clever of me, indeed. I don’t think he’s told anyone about his little investigation yet either. If he has shared what he’s found, there’s something in the library, a book called: “The Obsidian Grimoire: Lost Spells of Power” to make them all forget. Ironically, I’ll have to look up the page because I can’t remember which one it is…
They probably won’t find him and even if they do it won’t matter, because the crabs will find him first. Don’t have to be the great big ones my momma told me the Xaigonian people keep either. The regular old little ones will do just fine. They can even take their time and eat him slow because nobody goes down to Twilight Cove unless they’re batshit crazy.
Except for me. I’m the exception.
The light of the moon was the only illumination on the pass between the jutting edges of the high rock formations that towered over each of my shoulders last night. It sparkled on the water in the distance like a thousand diamonds scattered across black velvet; a forbidden treasure that called to me and led me down and down and down to the living darkness of the water’s edge. My breathing was steady, matching the rhythm of the ebbing and flowing shoreline as it rolled toward me over and over only to pull back into the black and be sucked away. The waves rolled in and the waves rolled out and unconsciously I matched each of my inhales and exhales to the beat of the tide like one might attempt to match their breathing to that of a sleeping lover. The act was unintentional--the hand of destiny serendipitously guiding me along the correct path. Tonight this ebony shore was my lover and together we would take this man's life--not in the way that garden-variety sociopaths might take a man's life with the sole desire of watching him die. Tonight, the sea and I would be two cogent and rational beings in love who are also coincidentally both murderers who kill together in harmony. Together we would drown my new nemesis for the sake of love. My love. My love for the forbidden knowledge of the occult.
It wasn't being done in the name of chaos and irrationality. We were doing it methodically, reasonably and sensibly. Don't you see? Don't you understand it now? The sea loved me so much that it needed to kill Bradley Wilcott for me to prove that love was real.
I could taste the clean salt that hung in the air as I dragged him over all those jagged rocks, ignoring the sting of their sharp edges as they sliced into my bare and bloody feet. I made furtive glances behind me with every ten or twelve steps and felt no pain as I carefully but quickly made my way down between the cliffs. Any suffering I might have felt was overridden by the pleasure I found watching his head bounce roughly across those same rocks. The constant bludgeoning would keep him knocked out cold. The flow from the back of his head looked black beneath the starless sky, not red, and left smears as it mixed with the black of the footprints I left behind with each step I took along the path. I dragged him with one end of a rope tied around his ankles and the bulk of it wrapped around my waist a half a dozen times. The opposite segment of the rope was tucked down between the coils that circled my waist, and pressed against my bare skin so that the end of it hung out past my hips. I tied a bag to the length that remained. I fetched it from my trunk when I dragged him from my car. The hilt of my knife protruded past where the top of the bag was cinched tightly closed. It hung low and heavy against my leg, bouncing rhythmically against my thigh.
They’ll call me a madwoman because I went down to Twilight Cove beneath a dark and starless sky, dragging behind me a man that I intended to tie to the rocks at low tide. They'll say that I did this all while Echo Bay slept because irrationally my internal voice dictated I must watch him die--but don't you see the truth of it all? Everything they'll say about me is a lie.
They’ll say I’m insane because the only thing I felt was pleasure as I watched the current roll back in and the water slowly rise up over his eyes…because I laughed to myself when he regained consciousness at the perfect moment and those eyes fluttered open with little bubbles coming out from behind the eyelids, and floating up to the surface of the water. They’ll say I’m insane because I came out here, my waist wrapped in a rope that I unraveled and using a knife, cut that rope into lengths so that I could tie this lunatic of a man down by each of his limbs. They’ll call me certifiable because I gloated over him, my bare feet bleeding and my body completely naked against the ocean breeze and bare breasted against the moonlight as I watched him drown. They’ll say I’m deranged because on a starless night, I trekked into territory well known to belong to the Xaigonians to do this to a man who definitely deserved what fate had in store for him…but I’m none of those things. I’m completely sane.
When I saw the first Fishperson come up and out of the waves, clawing his webbed fingers through the sand and pushing his hands into the ground to stand upright on his flipper-shaped feet, I didn’t feel any fear. I knew that even though my nakedness rendered me easier to flay and feed to his giant pet crabs beneath the waves, Xaigon and his Fishpeople had an unspoken expectation for anyone and everyone who traipsed uninvited into Twilight Cove. This place is theirs and everyone in Echo Bay knows that. We don't come to this place where we don’t belong. If we do they expect us to have a gleaming gift to give them. Each of them. Twilight Cove belongs to the race that lurks beneath the opaque waters there and it has belonged to them since the time before men learned to walk upright. If you're on their beach when they come up out of the murky depths, they’ll either drag you down through the viscous pitch dark water to their shining city beneath the black waves...or they won’t. It only depends on whether you came to the beach intending to meet their expectations.
A moment later, another one is rising up through the white foam that swirls atop the surface of the inky dark sea. And another one. And another. And another.
I’m not crazy. I’m not insane. I’m the head librarian of the prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University and I have been for the last 19 years and I will be for 19 more and longer still after that. I’ve read everything about this place. Some of it’s in my collection with restricted-access and some of it isn’t. I came out here as an outsider intending to meet their expectations but I didn’t have any pockets to stow away my shiny gifts, so I put them in the bag I tied around my waist.
The bag was big. The bag was full. I knew what was out here. I knew what they would expect. This is the perfect place to bring a body because anyone who comes here without gifts for each and every one of them coming up and out from their city in the coral caves below won’t be seen again. There must have been a hundred of that strange aquatic race climbing out of the water. I watched them rise up to the surface that rippled with reflections of the moon. People don’t come here and if they do, they die. They might bring a gift and think they're wise, but one gift is not enough. You need to share with the whole class. I’m reasonable and pragmatic and my well of resources is deep. The bag I brought with me was very, very big and there were plenty of gifts inside to go around. They’ll say what I did out in Twilight Cove last night was crazy, but it wasn’t. They’ll say that I’m unhinged or deranged because I dragged that man out there to watch him die, but I’m not. Eldertide Polytechnic University wouldn’t have trusted me to be the head librarian for 19 fucking years if I wasn’t perfectly and completely rational and sane...
ss

Before I begin to tell you everything that’s happened, I think it is important to ask yourself whether you think a madwoman would be able to hold the position of head librarian at Echo Bay’s prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University for 19 consecutive years? Do you think something like that would be possible? It’s a rather difficult job to manage such a vast collection of reference materials–to ensure that they’ve been organized and categorized and reshelved correctly and logically once they’ve been borrowed and returned. It really does take a lot of skill.
I’m sure that you’re aware that our university is home to the nation’s third largest marine biology, nautical engineering and maritime history reference library? Of course you are. Everyone knows that. You can’t be unhinged and also be responsible for the standard titles in fiction and non-fiction, the classics and new releases, an extensive backlog of microfiche, newsreels, a wide collection of digital media as well as hundreds of scholarly journals. These are things that students have come to expect from a university. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars that they’ve borrowed in student loans for an education! That’s money that they will work for the next fifty or sixty years to repay! Did you know that our university is the university with the second largest collection of restricted-access books, scrolls, clay tablets and ancient one-of-a-kind texts on the occult? Well, that you probably didn’t know and I’m not supposed to talk about that, so why don't you do us both a favor and just forget I’ve mentioned it…
I ask you, would they trust a lunatic with such a large responsibility? No, I don’t imagine that they would.
I’ve seen the mentally unstable–suffering from various forms of psychosis and neuroses, the drug addicts and drunks–you’ve seen them too. You know you have. They’re spending all day talking endlessly about kraken, mermaids and boat-eating giant squids. They think they’re talking to someone else, but there’s nobody there. They’re just sitting by themselves on a bench down by the wharf. Sure they’ll realize they’re not talking to anyone eventually…then if they have even half a whit, they’ll go find some sucker who will take pity on them–a skipper or deckboss…someone who’ll let them scrape barnacles off the side of their barge for a couple twenties. Most of those fishermen know they’ve pulled in quite the haul so they can afford to take pity on some poor nitwit. Get them to do the jobs nobody wants to do for pocket change.
Maybe those imbeciles will get really lucky and some blowboater will have them scrub down the deck of their fancy new sailboat for a crisp hundred dollar bill–or polish the chrome railings and whatnot. I tell you, that’s what the crazies do around here…they hang out around the docks, hoping to make enough money to buy themselves a handle of Gordon’s Gin–the plastic one for $15–just so they can pass out on the beach under the stars and get bitten by sand fleas all night long. I see it every day. It’s just what the nutjobs do.
Cuckoo-birds aren’t head librarians–they’re not even regular librarians–and certainly not at the leading university in a two hundred mile radius for marine biology, fishery management, and coastal environmental studies. No sir, they are not. And that’s just to name a few of the more popular fields of study here at the university. We have many, many programs for those intelligent, hardworking and qualified students who have spent their lives fascinated by sea exploration and sea related fields of study and I’m proud to be a part of such an important organization. I’m proud to say that from the year I began, I’ve helped each and every one of our graduates at some point discover that there’s more to see within the sea than we initially see…or maybe if I haven’t, I’ve at least told them where to go to find some book or other that they’re looking to find…unless it’s one of those books from the access-restricted collection of occult texts that we keep secretly locked in the sub-basement. I’ll kindly remind you again to forget about those. They’re off limits.
Now, I’m humble so I don’t brag. I'm not telling you that I’ve been in charge of all of the college’s books for nearly two decades because I expect you to be astonished. I wasn't fed my Master's degree in Library Science on a silver spoon by my rich parents. I grew up very poor like so many of you. I come from meager beginnings. My family had nothing, like most families still here in Echo Bay. That's right. I grew up here.
We aren't expected to do anything particularly astonishing growing up amongst the fishers and the crabbers on these prolific shores. The town is known only for its propagative fisheries--for crustacean trapping and shellfish. We’re seafood people of modest stock. I never knew I was destined to such grandeur as the title of a university's head librarian! And for 19 continuous years! This is a quiet coastal town that some will tell you has unique charms, beauty and history. Those things are lies. The only thing here is fish and everything smells just like you'd expect. The only industries here are the fisheries. The whole town stinks like the rotten breath of Poseidon and everyone you meet smells like they've bathed in the mouth of a bloated whale carcass that's washed ashore at the height of summer.
Still, you'll find that we’re more or less unpretentious people. We don't brag much, but maybe we should do a bit more than we do. The town itself is awful but we have one of the best maritime polytechnical universities anywhere in the entire country, and that's something we should be proud to say. I might be biased, but the university employs a great support staff. Most of the professors also do their jobs most of the time. It’s common knowledge that we’ve taught some of the leading marine technologists, aquatic environmental scientists and maritime law and policy makers from here to New Bismuth and Harlow’s Cove. I bet even someone like you knew about that already.
Our graduates are making big names for themselves even as far away as Clarion and Hedonis. So, I assure you that the crazy people aren’t found here at Eldertide Polytechnic. No place near it. Only reasonable people here…and they certainly wouldn’t let a psychopath be the head of the university’s library staff–Why, I’ve just told you, haven’t you been listening? The lunatics are out near the docks like they’ve always been, gibbering away their drunken theories of sunken pirate ships, lost treasures and superstitious legends about the sirens that supposedly make their home out on Mermaid Roost.
When those wackadoos are done running their mouths for the day they’re outside sleeping rough. They're exposed to the elements, spending all night cold and wet under the stars on Hidden Haven Beach. They've got their heads on jagged rocks instead of pillows out there, laying on beds made of cigarette butts and broken liquor bottles. That's where all the noodleheads around here sleep at night. They're all camped out there on that nasty beach with the rest of their kind: the vagrants, and derelicts, the dropouts, skateboarders and unwed mothers, tattoo artists and the illiterates too. Hidden Haven is the trashiest beach we've got in Echo Bay and levelheaded, decent people who can read stay away from there. I heard from a reliable source that when intelligent people even think they might want to visit that beach "just to see" they should just go to a rehab instead. It'll save them some time because the only reason anyone with any sort of logic would think thoughts like that is someone slipped them drugs. All it takes is you accidentally taking edibles that one time and you'll never be the same again. You're addicted now. Set a single toe in that beach's sand and you might as well throw your whole life in the trash. You'll find yourself turning tricks so a pimp will give you heroin faster than you can say "lickety-split." Happens just that fast. Can't take a step on that beach without tripping over a box of dirty needles full of methamphetamines is what I've heard. You listen to me. I work in education so I know what I'm talking about.
Hidden Haven isn't the only beach you don't visit in Echo Bay. You don't go to Twilight Cove, either...not if you don't want to die horribly with your skin pulled off and your insides fed to something's pet.
They’ll call me crazy because nobody goes through the pass that leads down to Twilight Cove. Not anybody born and raised here in Echo Bay and not tourists either–but I've done it. I did it just last night. The path between those cliffs is too rough and stony for tourists and the Bay people are too superstitious–afraid of the Xaigonians to take the walk down to that beach. Twilight Cove’s not for the Bay People…that’s their territory. If you grew up in The Bay you grew up being told that the Xaigonians are down on that beach and they don’t take kindly to trespassers, especially not ones that can only breathe plain old regular air with normal human lungs. The Bay people say that if you go down between those cliffs you better have a damn good reason and something shiny to offer those webbed-footed freaks, because if you don’t and you’re dumb enough to go out on that particular stretch of beach you won’t be seen nor heard from ever again. It ain’t an expressly forbidden place to go–there’s no laws against it. Nobody’s gonna stop you. Nobody stopped me. You just ask anyone who’s spent their lives around these parts though. Ask them and they’ll tell you why you’ve got to stay away…
They’ll tell you there’s a whole race of people that aren’t quite people hiding out in that cove. They’ve been out there for centuries–and the world don’t know about them–that’s just the way they want it to stay too. They’ve been out there staying unseen since before the town was a town–before this state was even a state. They’re Fishpeople, that’s what they are. It isn’t just webbed fingers and toes, they say from far off something about their skin just doesn’t look quite right–looks a bit shinier than skin should look–they say you don’t want to get anywhere near them to see what’s off about their skin up close, but if you’re foolish enough to try you’ll see it ain’t skin at all. It’s a whole mess of scales.
When I was a little girl my mother (who also grew up here) told me the people hiding in Twilight Cove had gills and if they caught you walking out on their beach, they’d drag you down beneath the whitecaps and into the black waves. The waves are always black out there–day and night–nobody knows why. Once they’ve pulled you under, they’ll take you to their hidden shining city in the coral caves. She said the Xaigonians breed crabs–grow them even bigger than dogs–and they’ll peel off your skin the same way a fisherman uses a boning knife just so their mean and nasty pets don’t have to work so hard to get their claws inside–jab you in the spaces between your muscles and get at your good parts–get at your meat. That’s all The Bay people are to the Xaigonians–meat. If you don’t want to be meat, you’ve got to bring them some treasure. They’ll take gold, silver, diamonds–gems of all kinds actually…
But for your sake if they catch you out there, whatever treasure you’re bringing them had better be real…otherwise…you’re meat.
When they find him–no–if they find him–they’ll say I’m mad, of course they will, because nobody in their right mind goes down to that beach.

”Hello, I’m Bradley Wilcott, Eldertide Polytech’s University’s New President,”

I heard the stories all my life and you think someone like me, head librarian at Eldertide Polytech, for 19 goddamn years who grew up in this sea-side fish-stinking town ought to know better than to go out there. You’d have to be stupid or crazy to go out there. Especially not at night.

”And you’re Darlene? Ms. Darlene Fischer? The head librarian? According to your file, you’ve been here for a very long time. I do wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”

But I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy either–I was perfectly sound-minded and sober when I made my way to his goddamn house. The street was poorly lit and that was good. I was only a little worried that I might be seen making my way up the sidewalk by one of the neighbors. So, naturally, I knew if I was mentally disturbed, I would have kept everything on, but I wasn’t that way so I had to take it off. That way if anyone saw me through their windows, they would just see a naked woman in the street. They’d know I was being rational and wise. They’d know I was just out for a sensible stroll in the dark.

”As you know, the board of trustees has appointed me to this position because they felt that my predecessor extended very little oversight to the budget spending of quite a few departments.”
I’m not a department head. I’m the head librarian.
”You’re in charge of the purchase of the university’s books, are you not?”
Well, naturally…

I took off my blouse and bra first, then my skirt and panties. The air felt sweet and unseasonably cool as it caressed my exposed breasts. This breeze of course very naturally caused my sane and rational nipples to harden ever-so slightly in just the way that I had hoped and planned for. The way that deliberate and logical nipples are meant to react in accordance to a breath of cool night air. The house–my destination–was just up ahead. Every window was dark and the driveway was empty.
It appeared as though I would arrive at the most practical and prudent time for a levelheaded woman like myself to arrive–precisely when I intended to–at a time when there was nobody home.
I tucked my discarded clothes into a storm drain that opened up beneath a curb on the side of the road. Afterward, I cut diagonally from the sidewalk and through a yard with a large Victorian home standing like a sentry in the center of the lot growing heavily with a number of oak trees that were old and thick. Many lights were on inside, but I didn't worry because I knew that anyone who might look out would only see a fully rational and not-insane naked woman on a typical late-night walk beneath the shadowy canopy of branches that densely covered the property.
I lurked from tree to tree, skipping through the darkness as naturally as possible, only stopping once to rest for a moment beneath the largest of the ancient gnarled oaks. I had been carrying a rope in my hands, but it was in a mangled knot and it seemed more practical to wrap it into a coil around my arm and I’m a practical woman so that’s what I did. Then I very smartly slung the loop of rope over one of my shoulders and returned from the shadows of the trees in that yard to the sidewalk where I continued to nonchalantly make my way through the dark.

”I just have a few questions about some of the purchases you’ve made in the last few years. I’m hoping you could help me understand some of these expenses.”
Okayyyy…
”I’m seeing here that you spent–”
I don’t spend anything. The books belong to the library.
”Okayyyy, the library spent $13,000 on a volume titled ‘Twilight Testament: Unveiling the Esoteric’--can you explain that Ms. Fischer?”
Certainly. That particular book was written by Friar Lucian Benedict. He was a powerful sorcerer. Burned at the stake for heresy in, um–1263, I think.
”...And for what reason did you–I’m sorry–for what reason did the library spend $13,000 on this book?”
Naturally that’s what a book like that would cost if it were the only copy that exists.
”I see…”

Moving naked through the black of night, I knew that anyone who might peer out at the desolate emptiness of the cul-de-sac would pay me, a naked woman simply walking, no mind–wait!–I’d forgotten to take off my shoes! How could a cognitively prudent head librarian for nearly 20 years like myself forget to take off my shoes? A clear-headed, sane woman on a naked nighttime stroll, but wearing shoes? No. Absolutely not. I panicked and ripped them off as quickly as possible…I tucked my socks cleverly inside them and abandoned my footwear in a mailbox as I passed. The danger of being discovered having passed, I breathed a sigh of relief and I continued on my way.

”And Darlene–may I call you Darlene?–what’s this charge for $9700 for something called, ‘Chthonic Codex: Communing With The Eldritch’ can you explain that?”
Umm…
”What about $3750 for something called ‘The Alchemy of Night and Unveiling Infernal Secrets’–why–why are you making these purchases?”
Well, you see…
”I’ve actually been going through your purchase history and there’s almost $1.6 million dollars of misappropriated funds here, Ms. Fischer–and I’ve only gone back 10 years so far. There’s 9 more years of this library’s–your library’s–purchase receipts to go through.”
Misappropriated? No. Those texts were acquired for the occult library.
”I’m sorry–the what?”
The occult library.
”Where are these books, Ms. Fischer? In order to recover these funds, the university is going to have to liquidate some–if not, all–of this collection. Hopefully I can find a buyer so we have a way to recuperate these losses.”
Losses? These are treasures. Artifacts. I’m not going to let you sell them or even tell you where I keep the occult library.
”Whether you tell me or not, you’re facing very serious legal action, Ms. Fischer. Do you understand that?”
The occult library access is restricted. End of discussion.

Mr. Wilcott was not married. He lived in the house alone and he came home at midnight, which as a sensible woman, I found to be a very unsensible hour. I waited for him inside of his bedroom for two hours. Two full hours, I stood in the dark, arms bent up near my head in my best impression of a hideous modern style lamp. I tried to hold my breath, but I only lasted about a minute doing that. I didn't try to hold my breath again and that was a very sane decision because only a boneheaded lunatic would try not to breathe for two full hours.
When I arrived, I found a trellis at the side of his front porch that was heavily overgrown with rosebushes and climbed up from the ground floor to the windows of the home's second story. The roses that crawled up along the trellis were protecting the house from humble intruders like myself with a profusion of thorns. After letting myself inside through an unlocked window I discovered that my arms, my legs, my breasts and my hands were covered in nicks and scratches and scrapes. And for two hours he inconsiderately left me in the corner of his bedroom in the dark, waiting patiently to kidnap him.

”This is a maritime polytechnic university Ms. Fischer. We don’t need an occult library. We should not have an occult library and you therefore should not have purchased any texts for an occult library. When I show these numbers to the board of trustees you’re looking at some serious jail time.”
Jail time?
”This is embezzlement. Do you understand that? You’re done here, Ms. Fischer.”
I’m the Head–I’m Head Librarian–19 years! I’ve been in charge of this library for 19 years!
”Well, I’m very sorry, Ms. Fischer–but not anymore…you’re fired.”

When he came into the room, I wondered what he’d been doing out and about while I patiently–sensibly–waited for his return? Probably, he was out destroying some other people’s lives. Good, upstanding and reasonable people’s lives. He thoroughly explained to me how he intended to ruin mine just hours before. It seemed to be something he enjoyed and I was certain he'd ruin everything he was allowed to ruin if given the chance. I waited for him for so long that even my rational and logical blood acted practically with the time it was given; everywhere that the trellis thorns cut me while I climbed, the blood had quite astutely dried. Just another indicator that what I was about to do was not absurd–even my blood was behaving level-headedly.
If one can't trust one's own blood than whom can one trust?
I wasn’t worried that he would see me when he turned on the light to undress and climb into bed. If he did, it wouldn't matter much, for what could be more natural than a naked woman in the darkened corner of your private room? I wasn’t worried when I made my way down the road and into his house. Why should I worry now? As it turned out he never had a chance to ponder the existence of a naked woman standing so naturally and logically in the corner of his room pretending to be a lamp. I had chosen a very practical corner to stand in while I waited for him to arrive. I loosened a length of the rope between my clenched fists as he entered through the doorway with his back to me and before his hand even reached for the light switch, my arms were over his head, wrapping the cord around his neck from behind.
They’ll say I’ve lost it. They’ll say I’ve lost my mind…but that’s not the case at all.
I had to knock him unconscious with the butt end of my knife when I got him to the car because he very foolishly tried to fight me when I took him for the ride.
I parked at the mouth of the pass and dragged him down between those cliffs and when the waterline was low, I was stable and lucid and completely sane as I tied that bastard down to the heaviest rocks I could find at the water’s edge; arms and legs all splayed out so he couldn’t sit up or swim away when the tide came back in.
If someone was to find him (but I’m fairly certain no one will) I don’t think there will be any evidence left to tie what happened to him here back to me. I’ve been naked this whole time. Less evidence that way. That was very clever of me, indeed. I don’t think he’s told anyone about his little investigation yet either. If he has shared what he’s found, there’s something in the library, a book called: “The Obsidian Grimoire: Lost Spells of Power” to make them all forget. Ironically, I’ll have to look up the page because I can’t remember which one it is…
They probably won’t find him and even if they do it won’t matter, because the crabs will find him first. Don’t have to be the great big ones my momma told me the Xaigonian people keep either. The regular old little ones will do just fine. They can even take their time and eat him slow because nobody goes down to Twilight Cove unless they’re batshit crazy.
Except for me. I’m the exception.
The light of the moon was the only illumination on the pass between the jutting edges of the high rock formations that towered over each of my shoulders last night. It sparkled on the water in the distance like a thousand diamonds scattered across black velvet; a forbidden treasure that called to me and led me down and down and down to the living darkness of the water’s edge. My breathing was steady, matching the rhythm of the ebbing and flowing shoreline as it rolled toward me over and over only to pull back into the black and be sucked away. The waves rolled in and the waves rolled out and unconsciously I matched each of my inhales and exhales to the beat of the tide like one might attempt to match their breathing to that of a sleeping lover. The act was unintentional--the hand of destiny serendipitously guiding me along the correct path. Tonight this ebony shore was my lover and together we would take this man's life--not in the way that garden-variety sociopaths might take a man's life with the sole desire of watching him die. Tonight, the sea and I would be two cogent and rational beings in love who are also coincidentally both murderers who kill together in harmony. Together we would drown my new nemesis for the sake of love. My love. My love for the forbidden knowledge of the occult.
It wasn't being done in the name of chaos and irrationality. We were doing it methodically, reasonably and sensibly. Don't you see? Don't you understand it now? The sea loved me so much that it needed to kill Bradley Wilcott for me to prove that love was real.
I could taste the clean salt that hung in the air as I dragged him over all those jagged rocks, ignoring the sting of their sharp edges as they sliced into my bare and bloody feet. I made furtive glances behind me with every ten or twelve steps and felt no pain as I carefully but quickly made my way down between the cliffs. Any suffering I might have felt was overridden by the pleasure I found watching his head bounce roughly across those same rocks. The constant bludgeoning would keep him knocked out cold. The flow from the back of his head looked black beneath the starless sky, not red, and left smears as it mixed with the black of the footprints I left behind with each step I took along the path. I dragged him with one end of a rope tied around his ankles and the bulk of it wrapped around my waist a half a dozen times. The opposite segment of the rope was tucked down between the coils that circled my waist, and pressed against my bare skin so that the end of it hung out past my hips. I tied a bag to the length that remained. I fetched it from my trunk when I dragged him from my car. The hilt of my knife protruded past where the top of the bag was cinched tightly closed. It hung low and heavy against my leg, bouncing rhythmically against my thigh.
They’ll call me a madwoman because I went down to Twilight Cove beneath a dark and starless sky, dragging behind me a man that I intended to tie to the rocks at low tide. They'll say that I did this all while Echo Bay slept because irrationally my internal voice dictated I must watch him die--but don't you see the truth of it all? Everything they'll say about me is a lie.
They’ll say I’m insane because the only thing I felt was pleasure as I watched the current roll back in and the water slowly rise up over his eyes…because I laughed to myself when he regained consciousness at the perfect moment and those eyes fluttered open with little bubbles coming out from behind the eyelids, and floating up to the surface of the water. They’ll say I’m insane because I came out here, my waist wrapped in a rope that I unraveled and using a knife, cut that rope into lengths so that I could tie this lunatic of a man down by each of his limbs. They’ll call me certifiable because I gloated over him, my bare feet bleeding and my body completely naked against the ocean breeze and bare breasted against the moonlight as I watched him drown. They’ll say I’m deranged because on a starless night, I trekked into territory well known to belong to the Xaigonians to do this to a man who definitely deserved what fate had in store for him…but I’m none of those things. I’m completely sane.
When I saw the first Fishperson come up and out of the waves, clawing his webbed fingers through the sand and pushing his hands into the ground to stand upright on his flipper-shaped feet, I didn’t feel any fear. I knew that even though my nakedness rendered me easier to flay and feed to his giant pet crabs beneath the waves, Xaigon and his Fishpeople had an unspoken expectation for anyone and everyone who traipsed uninvited into Twilight Cove. This place is theirs and everyone in Echo Bay knows that. We don't come to this place where we don’t belong. If we do they expect us to have a gleaming gift to give them. Each of them. Twilight Cove belongs to the race that lurks beneath the opaque waters there and it has belonged to them since the time before men learned to walk upright. If you're on their beach when they come up out of the murky depths, they’ll either drag you down through the viscous pitch dark water to their shining city beneath the black waves...or they won’t. It only depends on whether you came to the beach intending to meet their expectations.
A moment later, another one is rising up through the white foam that swirls atop the surface of the inky dark sea. And another one. And another. And another.
I’m not crazy. I’m not insane. I’m the head librarian of the prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University and I have been for the last 19 years and I will be for 19 more and longer still after that. I’ve read everything about this place. Some of it’s in my collection with restricted-access and some of it isn’t. I came out here as an outsider intending to meet their expectations but I didn’t have any pockets to stow away my shiny gifts, so I put them in the bag I tied around my waist.
The bag was big. The bag was full. I knew what was out here. I knew what they would expect. This is the perfect place to bring a body because anyone who comes here without gifts for each and every one of them coming up and out from their city in the coral caves below won’t be seen again. There must have been a hundred of that strange aquatic race climbing out of the water. I watched them rise up to the surface that rippled with reflections of the moon. People don’t come here and if they do, they die. They might bring a gift and think they're wise, but one gift is not enough. You need to share with the whole class. I’m reasonable and pragmatic and my well of resources is deep. The bag I brought with me was very, very big and there were plenty of gifts inside to go around. They’ll say what I did out in Twilight Cove last night was crazy, but it wasn’t. They’ll say that I’m unhinged or deranged because I dragged that man out there to watch him die, but I’m not. Eldertide Polytechnic University wouldn’t have trusted me to be the head librarian for 19 fucking years if I wasn’t perfectly and completely rational and sane...
ss

Before I begin to tell you everything that’s happened, I think it is important to ask yourself whether you think a madwoman would be able to hold the position of head librarian at Echo Bay’s prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University for 19 consecutive years? Do you think something like that would be possible? It’s a rather difficult job to manage such a vast collection of reference materials–to ensure that they’ve been organized and categorized and reshelved correctly and logically once they’ve been borrowed and returned. It really does take a lot of skill.
I’m sure that you’re aware that our university is home to the nation’s third largest marine biology, nautical engineering and maritime history reference library? Of course you are. Everyone knows that. You can’t be unhinged and also be responsible for the standard titles in fiction and non-fiction, the classics and new releases, an extensive backlog of microfiche, newsreels, a wide collection of digital media as well as hundreds of scholarly journals. These are things that students have come to expect from a university. They are paying tens of thousands of dollars that they’ve borrowed in student loans for an education! That’s money that they will work for the next fifty or sixty years to repay! Did you know that our university is the university with the second largest collection of restricted-access books, scrolls, clay tablets and ancient one-of-a-kind texts on the occult? Well, that you probably didn’t know and I’m not supposed to talk about that, so why don't you do us both a favor and just forget I’ve mentioned it…
I ask you, would they trust a lunatic with such a large responsibility? No, I don’t imagine that they would.
I’ve seen the mentally unstable–suffering from various forms of psychosis and neuroses, the drug addicts and drunks–you’ve seen them too. You know you have. They’re spending all day talking endlessly about kraken, mermaids and boat-eating giant squids. They think they’re talking to someone else, but there’s nobody there. They’re just sitting by themselves on a bench down by the wharf. Sure they’ll realize they’re not talking to anyone eventually…then if they have even half a whit, they’ll go find some sucker who will take pity on them–a skipper or deckboss…someone who’ll let them scrape barnacles off the side of their barge for a couple twenties. Most of those fishermen know they’ve pulled in quite the haul so they can afford to take pity on some poor nitwit. Get them to do the jobs nobody wants to do for pocket change.
Maybe those imbeciles will get really lucky and some blowboater will have them scrub down the deck of their fancy new sailboat for a crisp hundred dollar bill–or polish the chrome railings and whatnot. I tell you, that’s what the crazies do around here…they hang out around the docks, hoping to make enough money to buy themselves a handle of Gordon’s Gin–the plastic one for $15–just so they can pass out on the beach under the stars and get bitten by sand fleas all night long. I see it every day. It’s just what the nutjobs do.
Cuckoo-birds aren’t head librarians–they’re not even regular librarians–and certainly not at the leading university in a two hundred mile radius for marine biology, fishery management, and coastal environmental studies. No sir, they are not. And that’s just to name a few of the more popular fields of study here at the university. We have many, many programs for those intelligent, hardworking and qualified students who have spent their lives fascinated by sea exploration and sea related fields of study and I’m proud to be a part of such an important organization. I’m proud to say that from the year I began, I’ve helped each and every one of our graduates at some point discover that there’s more to see within the sea than we initially see…or maybe if I haven’t, I’ve at least told them where to go to find some book or other that they’re looking to find…unless it’s one of those books from the access-restricted collection of occult texts that we keep secretly locked in the sub-basement. I’ll kindly remind you again to forget about those. They’re off limits.
Now, I’m humble so I don’t brag. I'm not telling you that I’ve been in charge of all of the college’s books for nearly two decades because I expect you to be astonished. I wasn't fed my Master's degree in Library Science on a silver spoon by my rich parents. I grew up very poor like so many of you. I come from meager beginnings. My family had nothing, like most families still here in Echo Bay. That's right. I grew up here.
We aren't expected to do anything particularly astonishing growing up amongst the fishers and the crabbers on these prolific shores. The town is known only for its propagative fisheries--for crustacean trapping and shellfish. We’re seafood people of modest stock. I never knew I was destined to such grandeur as the title of a university's head librarian! And for 19 continuous years! This is a quiet coastal town that some will tell you has unique charms, beauty and history. Those things are lies. The only thing here is fish and everything smells just like you'd expect. The only industries here are the fisheries. The whole town stinks like the rotten breath of Poseidon and everyone you meet smells like they've bathed in the mouth of a bloated whale carcass that's washed ashore at the height of summer.
Still, you'll find that we’re more or less unpretentious people. We don't brag much, but maybe we should do a bit more than we do. The town itself is awful but we have one of the best maritime polytechnical universities anywhere in the entire country, and that's something we should be proud to say. I might be biased, but the university employs a great support staff. Most of the professors also do their jobs most of the time. It’s common knowledge that we’ve taught some of the leading marine technologists, aquatic environmental scientists and maritime law and policy makers from here to New Bismuth and Harlow’s Cove. I bet even someone like you knew about that already.
Our graduates are making big names for themselves even as far away as Clarion and Hedonis. So, I assure you that the crazy people aren’t found here at Eldertide Polytechnic. No place near it. Only reasonable people here…and they certainly wouldn’t let a psychopath be the head of the university’s library staff–Why, I’ve just told you, haven’t you been listening? The lunatics are out near the docks like they’ve always been, gibbering away their drunken theories of sunken pirate ships, lost treasures and superstitious legends about the sirens that supposedly make their home out on Mermaid Roost.
When those wackadoos are done running their mouths for the day they’re outside sleeping rough. They're exposed to the elements, spending all night cold and wet under the stars on Hidden Haven Beach. They've got their heads on jagged rocks instead of pillows out there, laying on beds made of cigarette butts and broken liquor bottles. That's where all the noodleheads around here sleep at night. They're all camped out there on that nasty beach with the rest of their kind: the vagrants, and derelicts, the dropouts, skateboarders and unwed mothers, tattoo artists and the illiterates too. Hidden Haven is the trashiest beach we've got in Echo Bay and levelheaded, decent people who can read stay away from there. I heard from a reliable source that when intelligent people even think they might want to visit that beach "just to see" they should just go to a rehab instead. It'll save them some time because the only reason anyone with any sort of logic would think thoughts like that is someone slipped them drugs. All it takes is you accidentally taking edibles that one time and you'll never be the same again. You're addicted now. Set a single toe in that beach's sand and you might as well throw your whole life in the trash. You'll find yourself turning tricks so a pimp will give you heroin faster than you can say "lickety-split." Happens just that fast. Can't take a step on that beach without tripping over a box of dirty needles full of methamphetamines is what I've heard. You listen to me. I work in education so I know what I'm talking about.
Hidden Haven isn't the only beach you don't visit in Echo Bay. You don't go to Twilight Cove, either...not if you don't want to die horribly with your skin pulled off and your insides fed to something's pet.
They’ll call me crazy because nobody goes through the pass that leads down to Twilight Cove. Not anybody born and raised here in Echo Bay and not tourists either–but I've done it. I did it just last night. The path between those cliffs is too rough and stony for tourists and the Bay people are too superstitious–afraid of the Xaigonians to take the walk down to that beach. Twilight Cove’s not for the Bay People…that’s their territory. If you grew up in The Bay you grew up being told that the Xaigonians are down on that beach and they don’t take kindly to trespassers, especially not ones that can only breathe plain old regular air with normal human lungs. The Bay people say that if you go down between those cliffs you better have a damn good reason and something shiny to offer those webbed-footed freaks, because if you don’t and you’re dumb enough to go out on that particular stretch of beach you won’t be seen nor heard from ever again. It ain’t an expressly forbidden place to go–there’s no laws against it. Nobody’s gonna stop you. Nobody stopped me. You just ask anyone who’s spent their lives around these parts though. Ask them and they’ll tell you why you’ve got to stay away…
They’ll tell you there’s a whole race of people that aren’t quite people hiding out in that cove. They’ve been out there for centuries–and the world don’t know about them–that’s just the way they want it to stay too. They’ve been out there staying unseen since before the town was a town–before this state was even a state. They’re Fishpeople, that’s what they are. It isn’t just webbed fingers and toes, they say from far off something about their skin just doesn’t look quite right–looks a bit shinier than skin should look–they say you don’t want to get anywhere near them to see what’s off about their skin up close, but if you’re foolish enough to try you’ll see it ain’t skin at all. It’s a whole mess of scales.
When I was a little girl my mother (who also grew up here) told me the people hiding in Twilight Cove had gills and if they caught you walking out on their beach, they’d drag you down beneath the whitecaps and into the black waves. The waves are always black out there–day and night–nobody knows why. Once they’ve pulled you under, they’ll take you to their hidden shining city in the coral caves. She said the Xaigonians breed crabs–grow them even bigger than dogs–and they’ll peel off your skin the same way a fisherman uses a boning knife just so their mean and nasty pets don’t have to work so hard to get their claws inside–jab you in the spaces between your muscles and get at your good parts–get at your meat. That’s all The Bay people are to the Xaigonians–meat. If you don’t want to be meat, you’ve got to bring them some treasure. They’ll take gold, silver, diamonds–gems of all kinds actually…
But for your sake if they catch you out there, whatever treasure you’re bringing them had better be real…otherwise…you’re meat.
When they find him–no–if they find him–they’ll say I’m mad, of course they will, because nobody in their right mind goes down to that beach.

”Hello, I’m Bradley Wilcott, Eldertide Polytech’s University’s New President,”

I heard the stories all my life and you think someone like me, head librarian at Eldertide Polytech, for 19 goddamn years who grew up in this sea-side fish-stinking town ought to know better than to go out there. You’d have to be stupid or crazy to go out there. Especially not at night.

”And you’re Darlene? Ms. Darlene Fischer? The head librarian? According to your file, you’ve been here for a very long time. I do wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”

But I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy either–I was perfectly sound-minded and sober when I made my way to his goddamn house. The street was poorly lit and that was good. I was only a little worried that I might be seen making my way up the sidewalk by one of the neighbors. So, naturally, I knew if I was mentally disturbed, I would have kept everything on, but I wasn’t that way so I had to take it off. That way if anyone saw me through their windows, they would just see a naked woman in the street. They’d know I was being rational and wise. They’d know I was just out for a sensible stroll in the dark.

”As you know, the board of trustees has appointed me to this position because they felt that my predecessor extended very little oversight to the budget spending of quite a few departments.”
I’m not a department head. I’m the head librarian.
”You’re in charge of the purchase of the university’s books, are you not?”
Well, naturally…

I took off my blouse and bra first, then my skirt and panties. The air felt sweet and unseasonably cool as it caressed my exposed breasts. This breeze of course very naturally caused my sane and rational nipples to harden ever-so slightly in just the way that I had hoped and planned for. The way that deliberate and logical nipples are meant to react in accordance to a breath of cool night air. The house–my destination–was just up ahead. Every window was dark and the driveway was empty.
It appeared as though I would arrive at the most practical and prudent time for a levelheaded woman like myself to arrive–precisely when I intended to–at a time when there was nobody home.
I tucked my discarded clothes into a storm drain that opened up beneath a curb on the side of the road. Afterward, I cut diagonally from the sidewalk and through a yard with a large Victorian home standing like a sentry in the center of the lot growing heavily with a number of oak trees that were old and thick. Many lights were on inside, but I didn't worry because I knew that anyone who might look out would only see a fully rational and not-insane naked woman on a typical late-night walk beneath the shadowy canopy of branches that densely covered the property.
I lurked from tree to tree, skipping through the darkness as naturally as possible, only stopping once to rest for a moment beneath the largest of the ancient gnarled oaks. I had been carrying a rope in my hands, but it was in a mangled knot and it seemed more practical to wrap it into a coil around my arm and I’m a practical woman so that’s what I did. Then I very smartly slung the loop of rope over one of my shoulders and returned from the shadows of the trees in that yard to the sidewalk where I continued to nonchalantly make my way through the dark.

”I just have a few questions about some of the purchases you’ve made in the last few years. I’m hoping you could help me understand some of these expenses.”
Okayyyy…
”I’m seeing here that you spent–”
I don’t spend anything. The books belong to the library.
”Okayyyy, the library spent $13,000 on a volume titled ‘Twilight Testament: Unveiling the Esoteric’--can you explain that Ms. Fischer?”
Certainly. That particular book was written by Friar Lucian Benedict. He was a powerful sorcerer. Burned at the stake for heresy in, um–1263, I think.
”...And for what reason did you–I’m sorry–for what reason did the library spend $13,000 on this book?”
Naturally that’s what a book like that would cost if it were the only copy that exists.
”I see…”

Moving naked through the black of night, I knew that anyone who might peer out at the desolate emptiness of the cul-de-sac would pay me, a naked woman simply walking, no mind–wait!–I’d forgotten to take off my shoes! How could a cognitively prudent head librarian for nearly 20 years like myself forget to take off my shoes? A clear-headed, sane woman on a naked nighttime stroll, but wearing shoes? No. Absolutely not. I panicked and ripped them off as quickly as possible…I tucked my socks cleverly inside them and abandoned my footwear in a mailbox as I passed. The danger of being discovered having passed, I breathed a sigh of relief and I continued on my way.

”And Darlene–may I call you Darlene?–what’s this charge for $9700 for something called, ‘Chthonic Codex: Communing With The Eldritch’ can you explain that?”
Umm…
”What about $3750 for something called ‘The Alchemy of Night and Unveiling Infernal Secrets’–why–why are you making these purchases?”
Well, you see…
”I’ve actually been going through your purchase history and there’s almost $1.6 million dollars of misappropriated funds here, Ms. Fischer–and I’ve only gone back 10 years so far. There’s 9 more years of this library’s–your library’s–purchase receipts to go through.”
Misappropriated? No. Those texts were acquired for the occult library.
”I’m sorry–the what?”
The occult library.
”Where are these books, Ms. Fischer? In order to recover these funds, the university is going to have to liquidate some–if not, all–of this collection. Hopefully I can find a buyer so we have a way to recuperate these losses.”
Losses? These are treasures. Artifacts. I’m not going to let you sell them or even tell you where I keep the occult library.
”Whether you tell me or not, you’re facing very serious legal action, Ms. Fischer. Do you understand that?”
The occult library access is restricted. End of discussion.

Mr. Wilcott was not married. He lived in the house alone and he came home at midnight, which as a sensible woman, I found to be a very unsensible hour. I waited for him inside of his bedroom for two hours. Two full hours, I stood in the dark, arms bent up near my head in my best impression of a hideous modern style lamp. I tried to hold my breath, but I only lasted about a minute doing that. I didn't try to hold my breath again and that was a very sane decision because only a boneheaded lunatic would try not to breathe for two full hours.
When I arrived, I found a trellis at the side of his front porch that was heavily overgrown with rosebushes and climbed up from the ground floor to the windows of the home's second story. The roses that crawled up along the trellis were protecting the house from humble intruders like myself with a profusion of thorns. After letting myself inside through an unlocked window I discovered that my arms, my legs, my breasts and my hands were covered in nicks and scratches and scrapes. And for two hours he inconsiderately left me in the corner of his bedroom in the dark, waiting patiently to kidnap him.

”This is a maritime polytechnic university Ms. Fischer. We don’t need an occult library. We should not have an occult library and you therefore should not have purchased any texts for an occult library. When I show these numbers to the board of trustees you’re looking at some serious jail time.”
Jail time?
”This is embezzlement. Do you understand that? You’re done here, Ms. Fischer.”
I’m the Head–I’m Head Librarian–19 years! I’ve been in charge of this library for 19 years!
”Well, I’m very sorry, Ms. Fischer–but not anymore…you’re fired.”

When he came into the room, I wondered what he’d been doing out and about while I patiently–sensibly–waited for his return? Probably, he was out destroying some other people’s lives. Good, upstanding and reasonable people’s lives. He thoroughly explained to me how he intended to ruin mine just hours before. It seemed to be something he enjoyed and I was certain he'd ruin everything he was allowed to ruin if given the chance. I waited for him for so long that even my rational and logical blood acted practically with the time it was given; everywhere that the trellis thorns cut me while I climbed, the blood had quite astutely dried. Just another indicator that what I was about to do was not absurd–even my blood was behaving level-headedly.
If one can't trust one's own blood than whom can one trust?
I wasn’t worried that he would see me when he turned on the light to undress and climb into bed. If he did, it wouldn't matter much, for what could be more natural than a naked woman in the darkened corner of your private room? I wasn’t worried when I made my way down the road and into his house. Why should I worry now? As it turned out he never had a chance to ponder the existence of a naked woman standing so naturally and logically in the corner of his room pretending to be a lamp. I had chosen a very practical corner to stand in while I waited for him to arrive. I loosened a length of the rope between my clenched fists as he entered through the doorway with his back to me and before his hand even reached for the light switch, my arms were over his head, wrapping the cord around his neck from behind.
They’ll say I’ve lost it. They’ll say I’ve lost my mind…but that’s not the case at all.
I had to knock him unconscious with the butt end of my knife when I got him to the car because he very foolishly tried to fight me when I took him for the ride.
I parked at the mouth of the pass and dragged him down between those cliffs and when the waterline was low, I was stable and lucid and completely sane as I tied that bastard down to the heaviest rocks I could find at the water’s edge; arms and legs all splayed out so he couldn’t sit up or swim away when the tide came back in.
If someone was to find him (but I’m fairly certain no one will) I don’t think there will be any evidence left to tie what happened to him here back to me. I’ve been naked this whole time. Less evidence that way. That was very clever of me, indeed. I don’t think he’s told anyone about his little investigation yet either. If he has shared what he’s found, there’s something in the library, a book called: “The Obsidian Grimoire: Lost Spells of Power” to make them all forget. Ironically, I’ll have to look up the page because I can’t remember which one it is…
They probably won’t find him and even if they do it won’t matter, because the crabs will find him first. Don’t have to be the great big ones my momma told me the Xaigonian people keep either. The regular old little ones will do just fine. They can even take their time and eat him slow because nobody goes down to Twilight Cove unless they’re batshit crazy.
Except for me. I’m the exception.
The light of the moon was the only illumination on the pass between the jutting edges of the high rock formations that towered over each of my shoulders last night. It sparkled on the water in the distance like a thousand diamonds scattered across black velvet; a forbidden treasure that called to me and led me down and down and down to the living darkness of the water’s edge. My breathing was steady, matching the rhythm of the ebbing and flowing shoreline as it rolled toward me over and over only to pull back into the black and be sucked away. The waves rolled in and the waves rolled out and unconsciously I matched each of my inhales and exhales to the beat of the tide like one might attempt to match their breathing to that of a sleeping lover. The act was unintentional--the hand of destiny serendipitously guiding me along the correct path. Tonight this ebony shore was my lover and together we would take this man's life--not in the way that garden-variety sociopaths might take a man's life with the sole desire of watching him die. Tonight, the sea and I would be two cogent and rational beings in love who are also coincidentally both murderers who kill together in harmony. Together we would drown my new nemesis for the sake of love. My love. My love for the forbidden knowledge of the occult.
It wasn't being done in the name of chaos and irrationality. We were doing it methodically, reasonably and sensibly. Don't you see? Don't you understand it now? The sea loved me so much that it needed to kill Bradley Wilcott for me to prove that love was real.
I could taste the clean salt that hung in the air as I dragged him over all those jagged rocks, ignoring the sting of their sharp edges as they sliced into my bare and bloody feet. I made furtive glances behind me with every ten or twelve steps and felt no pain as I carefully but quickly made my way down between the cliffs. Any suffering I might have felt was overridden by the pleasure I found watching his head bounce roughly across those same rocks. The constant bludgeoning would keep him knocked out cold. The flow from the back of his head looked black beneath the starless sky, not red, and left smears as it mixed with the black of the footprints I left behind with each step I took along the path. I dragged him with one end of a rope tied around his ankles and the bulk of it wrapped around my waist a half a dozen times. The opposite segment of the rope was tucked down between the coils that circled my waist, and pressed against my bare skin so that the end of it hung out past my hips. I tied a bag to the length that remained. I fetched it from my trunk when I dragged him from my car. The hilt of my knife protruded past where the top of the bag was cinched tightly closed. It hung low and heavy against my leg, bouncing rhythmically against my thigh.
They’ll call me a madwoman because I went down to Twilight Cove beneath a dark and starless sky, dragging behind me a man that I intended to tie to the rocks at low tide. They'll say that I did this all while Echo Bay slept because irrationally my internal voice dictated I must watch him die--but don't you see the truth of it all? Everything they'll say about me is a lie.
They’ll say I’m insane because the only thing I felt was pleasure as I watched the current roll back in and the water slowly rise up over his eyes…because I laughed to myself when he regained consciousness at the perfect moment and those eyes fluttered open with little bubbles coming out from behind the eyelids, and floating up to the surface of the water. They’ll say I’m insane because I came out here, my waist wrapped in a rope that I unraveled and using a knife, cut that rope into lengths so that I could tie this lunatic of a man down by each of his limbs. They’ll call me certifiable because I gloated over him, my bare feet bleeding and my body completely naked against the ocean breeze and bare breasted against the moonlight as I watched him drown. They’ll say I’m deranged because on a starless night, I trekked into territory well known to belong to the Xaigonians to do this to a man who definitely deserved what fate had in store for him…but I’m none of those things. I’m completely sane.
When I saw the first Fishperson come up and out of the waves, clawing his webbed fingers through the sand and pushing his hands into the ground to stand upright on his flipper-shaped feet, I didn’t feel any fear. I knew that even though my nakedness rendered me easier to flay and feed to his giant pet crabs beneath the waves, Xaigon and his Fishpeople had an unspoken expectation for anyone and everyone who traipsed uninvited into Twilight Cove. This place is theirs and everyone in Echo Bay knows that. We don't come to this place where we don’t belong. If we do they expect us to have a gleaming gift to give them. Each of them. Twilight Cove belongs to the race that lurks beneath the opaque waters there and it has belonged to them since the time before men learned to walk upright. If you're on their beach when they come up out of the murky depths, they’ll either drag you down through the viscous pitch dark water to their shining city beneath the black waves...or they won’t. It only depends on whether you came to the beach intending to meet their expectations.
A moment later, another one is rising up through the white foam that swirls atop the surface of the inky dark sea. And another one. And another. And another.
I’m not crazy. I’m not insane. I’m the head librarian of the prestigious Eldertide Polytechnic University and I have been for the last 19 years and I will be for 19 more and longer still after that. I’ve read everything about this place. Some of it’s in my collection with restricted-access and some of it isn’t. I came out here as an outsider intending to meet their expectations but I didn’t have any pockets to stow away my shiny gifts, so I put them in the bag I tied around my waist.
The bag was big. The bag was full. I knew what was out here. I knew what they would expect. This is the perfect place to bring a body because anyone who comes here without gifts for each and every one of them coming up and out from their city in the coral caves below won’t be seen again. There must have been a hundred of that strange aquatic race climbing out of the water. I watched them rise up to the surface that rippled with reflections of the moon. People don’t come here and if they do, they die. They might bring a gift and think they're wise, but one gift is not enough. You need to share with the whole class. I’m reasonable and pragmatic and my well of resources is deep. The bag I brought with me was very, very big and there were plenty of gifts inside to go around. They’ll say what I did out in Twilight Cove last night was crazy, but it wasn’t. They’ll say that I’m unhinged or deranged because I dragged that man out there to watch him die, but I’m not. Eldertide Polytechnic University wouldn’t have trusted me to be the head librarian for 19 fucking years if I wasn’t perfectly and completely rational and sane...
ss

My dear Satan
The bringer of mass destruction
The bringer of light
The bringer of human freedom
The king of this world and the flies
The joker
Master of mind games.
The prince of darkness
Lucifer
The bringer of light
Lucifer and his off-springs all the devils all his cambions. The legend of king Arthur and Merlin.
King Arthur and the knights of the round table Merlin the cambion who was born through an incubus ( male demon ) and through a virgin nun and you would know him as Merlin the mage.
He was supposed to be the Anti Christ instead he showed his loyalty to king Arthur.
Don´t belive in this tale. (belive if you belive) I have voices in my head.
read between the lines.
This is a story about the muse the conductor of this earth. The orchestra of your room
The artist who does not speak or lose the Angel who you wish was was true.
The Black sabbath`s The Beatles, Johns Lennon, Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson, Carlos Santana, Snoop Dogg, Ozzy Osbourne Giuseppe Tartini who all bargained with the devil! And so many more who sacrificed
their lives and their souls for something bigger something magic called music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rxl5KsPjs
Dios and The misfits you should already know that every word a is true. Niccolò Paganini
the Foo fighters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBG7P-K-r1Y and the Mephistolees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qdQMFCfEGM
your deepest wish or your deepest secrets your biggest dreams or all your shallow nightmares.
door after the door. lies after lies split your wrist after wrist stomach after stomach still we will beat you up the the stars.
I´m a a soul from the war that we won. From the grave yards from the ravens eyes to the night
I have licked a vampyriez clitoriz and Satans cock I am Love and rainbows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNDOMa8jBlo
Let me tell you an story about the fallen angel the nobel price winner the oscars winner. The Dragon. let´s start fom me!
aI was born in Helsinki in 94 to explosions. My first memory is my father throwing me up in the air when we won the world cup in hockey 95.
I was a pretty curious child I wanted to look at the world through our window when my father grabbed my leg to save my life. This text is to my mom. who made me play the drums and pushed me to viloin lectures. Bought me drums after drums.
I took an overdose in barcelona 28.11.2019 do to benzowithdrawals. I will come back to this...
When I was 16 I got my first taste of mother nature. I ate some mushrooms i have never been the same.
I was an instution child who did not speak a word of my trip to anyone with mother nature. Try to explain the colors of the rainbow to an adult.
I never spent the nights at home I was with my older friends smoking weed. My best friend at the time called my mom about my weed smoking he hurt me a lot.
I was hiding from the police at my dads friend. untill eventually he had to let me go.
Never felt so alone and abondoned with my guitar. No idea how she came with me guitar are like women. I´ve seen a young woman at 13-16 years split her cheeks becouse she did not want to eat her meds.
I learned pretty quicly to keep to my own. Soon we were playing playstation and made our own food and had our own small apartment. Smoked some hash and listened to music- I had to do something so I started designing logos to companys with my rastas and my skateboard. By company I mean firms that wanted free labor. I have pissed a lot of drug tests by drinking water and citrus to hide thc and cbd from my urine. The only time I got caught was when the instution worker came to my home when I was on leave from the institution.
Don´t let me get started on the social workers.
Anyways I hated adults becouse they all lie. So my child if you read this don´t you be one.
When we had drug leactures in school one in particular warned if you smoke weed you will see a pike from your hand I wear one as a tattoo the jokes on me. Concidence probably...
The first dog I got close to bit me and the first cat clawed me.
Me and my friends are guys you would no want to to show to your mom exept me of course.
For an exemple after doing music the whole night we went for a cigarette and it was to damn cold so we order a taxi we wanted away. Imagine partying the whole night and you find yourself at the airport. Then bum a couple of beanzodiapines from a friend thats even more than this story.
Wake up by machine guns by the frankfurts police after getting a few ours of shut eye and telling them that we just want to get to the sun. My dear friend had weed leftowers in his pocket when we were supposed to fly to dubain where there is death penalty for marijuana so he threw hes jacket in the waiting lounge. And we were fine.
We woke up in bangcock and I called my mom. We had arrived. Then I fucked a transexual high on valium and on local alcohol. I was scarred shitless that I might have aids. I survived despite the ratio in Bangkok. the local hookers in bangkok has a ratio of 20% of aids that means 2 girls of 10 have aids and I fucked a man. I survived
After travelling for one month in thailand we went for cambodia.
We travelled to sihanoukville to beach otres 3. We went one night to a jungle party. After returing to otres during the sunrise I saw a man playing the guitar near him was cajun drum set. We started playing together we did not speak a word. It was blissful, We changed back and forth. He said to me follow your dreams. Then I saw a local drug dealer who sold me edibles. I hade one of the most meaningfull days of my life while I watched the cambodian ocean from dusk till dawn I realized there is nothing wrong with me and how beatiful mother nature.
Then we went by bus to the city were pepper grows. Kampot.
Next destination was Vietnam.
We arrived in Saigon Ho Chí Minh city. We bought crystal meth and heroin. And a own hotel room after we realized we can´t live our life in a hostel room with 10 other smelly britts.
I realized I need a guitar to be doing this journey.
When you smoke crystal What feels like 5 minutes is 5 hours when you try to get the perfect hit. Stay away from meth.
I had bought an guitar earlier so I went high as fuck to play the guitar.
People took videos of me and wanted to talk to me. I just played my new guitar.
My friend was in the hotel room still trying to get the pefect hit. Stay the fuck away from crystal meth.
Then I went back to my hotel room and started sniffing heroin like the rockstar I thought I was like all my idols before me. Just like magic I found davids magic chord hallelujuah.
The next day we we trying to get our next fix but the local police was doing a drug razzia. I know we had guardian angels on our our side. We were fine. Guardian angels was protecting us. So we left to to Phu Quoc to escape the city. We went snorkeling. While my friend was with his friends. I ate a ton of tramadols and I was swimming with dolphins.
Then we flew to Hanoi. We were high all the time as you might have guessed.
I ate a bunch of a benzodiazepines and some codeine and went for some tattoos. I now bare a black raven on my left hand.
It got me some pussy it took just a couple of months.
Then we went to Laos. First to Vientiane then to Vanvieng.
We took a hostel room. And started doing drugs. Vanvieng is sketchy they sell almost everything. So we started doing drugs.
When we got to our hostel my friend got in trouble first for smoking weed then for smoking opium. We should be sitting 7 years in a sweaty laos prison sell. Thanks to my brilliance I saved us from that hell.
We were on the balcony enjoying our night spliffs of opium when sudenlly there was 7 undercover cops trying to harras us.
We just pushed them away. They were small you know how asians are. I flushed all the drugs down the toilet. We knew we had to move on.
So we just went down the town and rented a pair of bungalows.
I got hooked up on opium pretty fast... Played one gig and tried to play an other but I got kicked out pretty fast beacouse had an opium spliff in my mouth and the guitar in my other hand. To explain to you my dear reader. in Laos there is a seven year jail sentence for opium, we are lucky to be charleen and still free.
In laos there grows a lot of magic mushrooms. So me and my dear friend ate some. After beign awake on the local methamphetamine called Yaba. We drank a couple of magic mushroom shakes. It took 15 minutes to hit. We had to leave everybody and get to our bungalows to our safe place.
At one poin of the trip I thought my friend had died. Thanks to our guardian angels he was just laying beside me.
Then I continued doing opium and playing my guitar.
One night when I was sleeping I got woken up by a britt by playing golden brown form the stranglers. We were going to harvest mushrooms for his trip to wherever he was going. My friend and he had stayed up all night probably smoking crystal. He told me stay away from opiates it will eat your soul.
Next to our bungalows there was a jungle full of mushrooms. We picked a lot of them for him... I hope he had a great trip where ever he may roam. May the force be with you.
I was already addicted to opium so my friend had to carry me to the bus away from Vanvieng to Vientiane. We did all the typical turist thing in Van vieng before you start to cry.
The Tubing the Jungle the caves and the springs.
We went back to Thailand there and then I made the promise to never travell sober again.
We arrived in Chang Mai and fast travelled to Pai. To Pai sircus school hostel. There were guys jamming all the time. I felt at home. We did the basic turist things borrowing scooters and watching waterfalls. Drank the local wine and had a hangover like nothing else.
We went to see the white buddha. I showed him the middle finger an took a selfie. I know I know I was ignorant child and if the customs see the pictures I have curfew to Thailand.
After seeign the white buddha we drank mushroom milkshakes. I was laying in my hammoc when I closed my eyes there he was Buddha. I asked him to be gentle on me and not to talk about my tattoos. He listened. He showed me his beatiful world while my friend was puking his garbage out and somehow managed to make a puppy dissapear after the puppy eat the vomit. I asked God what do you want from me why do I hurt this much, I don´t want bad to anybody show me a sign. I was enlightened but a young drug addict so the struggle contiunued to the next day the struggle continues to this day.
Then we travelled to Pattaya long story short my friend fucked a russian and I did drugs planning our trip to europe...
We took some tattoos. then we flew to Barcelona.
I had arrived I felt at home.
My friend knew a few guys who rented a place to stay so we stayed there.
One day we were sitting on in a bar on the terass and listening to live punk music. We got the splendid idea to just forget about the bill. And run away.
Then we asked a couple of police the way to see the champions league, that was going on on the same day that is when the trouble began.
We walked la rambla and a couple of swedish girls caught us asking us were are you going? we said the we are going to look at football.
They followed us. One of the girls acted as a terapeut so I spilled my whole life story to her. Of course she lied she was no terapeut just a horny swede. We kissed in a night club and she suddenly said to me let me sit on you in the bathroom go buy some condoms.
I was on my way to buy the condom when I met a heroine junkie who had a condom I wanted to try heroin so I went with him.
Bought some heroine and brought the condom but the nightclub was closed. I am lucky my friend was walking through la rambla against all odds.
we made it safley to our place...
Next morning I did speed balls In my room. I had bought cocaine earlier. My friend had tooth ache so I gave him so cocaine to ease the pain.
We had to move on...
So we took an hostel for our remaining days. I went to search more heroine. Like the curious junkie I was. Pretty fast I met some junkies either crack heads or heroine junkies. We went for an adventure they took me to lion's den an awful drug hole I bought some heroine. When I got out there they were the undercover cops. They searched me and found my bag of smack. I was honest to them and they promised nothing will happen to you. I love Barcelona.
I will come back to Barcelona I moved there couple of years later.
Then we travelled to Sweden and by bout to Turku Finland.
When we arrived in Turku we started drinking compulsively we almost got thrown out from our train to helsinki.
When we arrived we went to our friends apartment as usual we could not behave so we started wrestling and we got throwned out with my friend.
His neighbours had called the cops.
We went to jail to the lock up. The copps were probably jelous of our tan so I masturbated to their cam.
Then I stayed a couple of nights with my mom. Untill I needed to find an apartment a childhood friend called Ronja saved my ass I moved into her apartment in Helsinki where she let me live there for free. Bought some fentanyl first then started doing oxycontin and heroine and benzodiazapines I was a total mess.
After two months living there I moved with my guitar and amp to Kallio a suburb in helsinki. I was a total mess. I was seeign this beatiful girl named Natlaia she had a child and was a single parent I played the guitar a lot to her child and her I was hooked on opiates then. I remember one morning when I decided to quit drugs for good I woke up with withdrawals and saw her child on the floor. Then and there I quit opiates I wish it was last time I touched opiates.
I started smoking lots of marijuana to deal with the withdrawals it was not to bad. Thanks to the weed.
I had to figure out what to do with my life I was 21. I have friends in Sicily so I called one of them and decided to move to Palermo to work as an bartender.
Life in Palermo was hard but fun lot´s of drinking and live music in one of Sicilys best aperitivo/bars there is called Il siciliano.
My dear friend tattoo artist came to visit we played a lot of guitar. One day we took the train to Catania and walked from the train station almost all the way to Etna we hitchhiked the last kilometers. Made a fire and slept on the base of Etna. Then walked the whole way up we were companied by dogs. When we reached the top we drank a couple of beers like the kings we are. The workers were happy to see that two guys had walked the whole way instead of taking the car up.
My friend then moved to Barcelona I soon followed him there to live my dream to play the guitar. My drug use went from hand pretty fast. So I moved to Finland to escape it all. It went good for an while.
I lived with one of my best friend and he wanted us to go to Talinn so we went and we drank a lot. Went to the horehoes fucked hookers and drank some more. When we came back to Finland I had my seond encounter with a demon. We fucked and she slapped me and said don`t you ever fuck a hooker again. I love demons. They might hate me and I may die any second know.
Then I started doing oxycontins again. I went to seek help from the hospital. I pored my heart to them. I was ready to go to rehab. In Finland it is not the way it goes. You have to be sober when you are seeking for help. They gave me some pills and said go home and sleep and gave me a number to call.
I started doing even more oxycontins. I took my Fender Jaguar and flew back to beatifull Barcelona. With my opiate addiction.
I was doing telemarketing In swedish soon I was fucking my boss. She is still beatifull. I got hooked on the local opium. It`s a wonderful medicine if used correctly- Don`t you dare reader get this message wrong. There is nothing wrong with substances they are just molecules. I am the problem an I hope you don`t cary the same diseas as I.
I quit cold turkey opium thanks to weed. Instead was doing local amphetamines/meth mix 5 euro per gram.
The guy who I lived with in Kallio moved to Barcelona so I quit opium there and then. For an while...
I did speed and lsd and benzodiazapines instead.
Now is when things get out of hand.
I wanted to come down from the amphetamines after I had been playing guitar with my friend so I went to go buy some opiates.
I thought the cops were following me and that they were going to arrest me. So when I got home I cleaned my computer and ate the gram of opium shitt my pants and woke up in the hospital . My friend saved my life against all odds. I am alive thanks to him. And capable of writing this becouse of him. I should be dead. All my vitals was as good as gone. The first thing after the darkness I saw a bright light and my friends who were pissed of at me. And then a beatiful doctor who thought that I might be bi-polar I fell in love right away.
Most of the staff in Barcelonas hospital were women and they treated me like a prince, exept one who liked my in uter tattoo and said that you need to eat more. I masturbated to one of nurses she was super hot black hair and she drew some blood from me. I apologize for my honesty this is my life I´m Love and Rainbows.
Little did I know that my life would change for ever. My dear friend had at the same time arrived to come and visit me. So he came everyday to the hospital too bring me food and borrow his phone and his headphones. What a nice vacation. It was the most psychedlic experience of my life. I had a brain injury. My dear friend is a nurse so he knew right away that everything was not okey with me. Thanks to my looks him and a girl called Mia I got to stay in the hospital for as long as I did. Mia is an angel she came everyday to the hospital to keep me company. I owe her a lot. She is an aspiring actress. Very beatiful.
We flew with my friend to helsinki. No one knew yet that I had a traumatic brain injury everybody suspected something. Not me I thought I was fine. So when we arrived at the airport in helsinki we went with my mom and her man to the hospital once again. They said that I should seek help for my drug abuse. When I od:eed there was every single drug in my system expet alcohol.
I could not even get my pants on or shitt or piss correctly. So we went back to the hospital and they took an mri scan. And there thay found that I have holes in my brain.
So there started my 6 months rehabilitation.
I had to learn basic thing again like the clock and math every language I speak. I was a patient in the neurological part of the hospital. Do to the overdose i got bedsores and had to get a few operations. So lucky me I was high on opiates again. This time leagaly.
My dear friend brought me a guitar. I had to learn to play again. I´m pretty sure thats why recovered so quikly even listening to music does wonders for the brain so imagine playing it. My mother took my phone away she was scarred that my friends might bring me drugs. So she brought me a lot of books. She bought me Nirvanas Kurt Cobains biogarphi. Like to junkie I am I started to stash my leagal opiates. My other friend had brought me his playstaion and a tv. So I put my headphones in the tv and listened to Nirvana in my hopital bed in the middle of the room high on opiates. Then and there I decided that I most learn to play the guitar once more. Slowly but steadily I improved. I went to speech theray, neuropsychology therapy and played my guitar everyday. The hospital worker showed me how to take a shower. He liked to hold my hand while we walked. Thought me how to propely dose drugs and buy shitt from the grocery. A very fine and fine man.
I also read the book the power of now. It changed my life I started to meditate.
I went every evening around 10 pm to an isolated room to play guitar and trying so sing. It slowly got better and better. Then the doctor slowly but surely weaned me of the opiates.
I wanted help with my addictions so I started to see a drug rehab worker. She was amazing. We spoke a lot we had common intrests she had seen Nirvana live in Turku I´m jealous. She said to me one day that you have to read Petri Wallis and Kingston walls biography. Know you fucker who read this Biographi go to listen shine on you. They might be the best band Finland has ever produced. Thanks Jukka Jylli Sami Kuppamäkki and Petri Walli. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H\_tvqsENfUY
After I was realized from the hospital I was institutionalized going to the store was weird beign free was weird. I relapsed pretty fast.
Played my guitar too. Then I moved to east Helsingfors lived by my own trained pretty hard and played music during the weekends with my friends.
Then on the exact day when I should have died or be an vegetable a few years back I went and bought speed and subutex. That was a big mistake I got voices in my head attacking me and judging me. A doctor would call it a psychosis I call it stupidity and faith. I went to the hospital and saw a doctor. He asked me what´s going on. I said that I felt psychedelic that your the doctor know. He gave me diazepam and neuroleptics. I was fine the voices dissapeared.
I got hooked on benzodiazapines once again pretty quikly... I was hooked on the local xanax that was probably laced with fentaly. The withrawals were horrible.
Then I moved back to the city were I was born Tölö. On my birthday turning 27 I played my guitar in the heart of Helsinki were I live and was born. I guess I played good or so I remember. I was going through benzo-witharawal once again. Then I smoked weed felt like a king. Untill I went to bed the voices attacked me again. I still hear them to this day. Calling me disturbing things almost all the time. Exept when I play guitar. Not to be arrogant, reader if you happen to be a scizophrenic you are special. I dare to say a chosen one. There is succeful people with voices in their head. Like John frusciante who has had voices since he was 7 encouraging him to pick up the guitar. Anthony Hopkins voices doubting him before he is about to act. Socrates as well. Gandhi, Saint Joan of Arc
Winston Churchill, Brian Willson and of course a story of an artist Daniel Johnston. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKW2H0WBqW8
Demons home is our hell demons home or our hell?
I´m possessed by a demon who is never satified he lives in my head and learns me things like music and who I should trust.
He is a shapeshifter I think that´s pretty cool. He calls me a fraud. We are the same he is me so who is the fraud?
He is a fallen soldier. A fallen angel or so he says. He is also a demon. He loves rock n roll. We are nothing alike. We are alike Or so he says. Finally I met somebody who loves music as much as I. He comes from Hell I from Helsinki. He is starting to understand that I have no other fucking choice than to play my guitar untill I die. Do to my small deal with the king of this universe... Mr Satan
I walked to the crossroads playing the blues put my guitar down and sold my soul for exchange for fame and glory and the mastery of the guitar... I am love and rainbows
I see demons and vampires. I fell in love with a vampire she is something totaly diffrent she is a God damn vampire. She is also a Indian an Ballet dancer Shapeshifter and hot and beatiful there is not a way to describe her she is the most beatiful woman I have ever seen. She keeps dissapearing and returning all the time. She is good to me even though she could be evil so I hope I can trust her. I brought he a red rose once and she took it. Tha´ts magic. She returned it to me when I ordered food. I assume she does not like when I order kebab. She may eat me I love her. I owe everything to them my life they saved me against all the ods. The most difficult thing in my life is to choose sides between good and evil so I choose my own side follow or don`t!

Alright well if you really want to know the truth about the CIA's orchestration of the 60's drug culture and hippie / counter culture movement... it's all about mind control. LSD was evidently invented by the Nazis and brought over to the United States via Operation Paperclip, where around 1,400 high ranking Nazi scientists and engineers were absorbed by the CIA. From the outset LSD has been an experimental mind altering drug which has been intended to use for mind control and interrogation purposes. That is to say, LSD has been used to both erase and implant false memories in laboratory experiments. LSD has also been used for the purpose of attempting to more easily induce a highly impressionable hypnotic state which can then be programmed.
If you take a look at my post about The Beatles, I pointed out that one reason The Beatles were replaced in 1966 with the "LSD Beatles" was because they were meant to openly encourage LSD consumption to the British and American youth. If you watch the music video for Strawberry Fields Forever, the line "Nothing is real" is constantly repeated nearly every time the fake Paul McCartney is shown on screen. This is all part of the mass trauma based mind control program which is being utilized against the population at large. They're traumatizing us by blatantly replacing our idols and encouraging us to disassociate and split our personality and create a new alter personality which can be easily programmed by the Illuminati "broadcasts" and "programming". I believe LSD plays into this because it makes a person more easily able to disassociate, or at least that was the theory at the time. All I know is Timothy Leary and all the manufacturers of LSD were CIA affiliated, and the druggie John Lennon 2.0 openly said "We were manufacturing it (LSD). It was a real boom to business".
Marijuana / THC as it turns out is the most effective drug to combat mind control. My guess is it has to do with the type of brainwaves that are created while consuming marijuana. I think it makes your frequency so high that it's a lot harder to influence your thinking, kinda like trying to throw a wrench in an engine which is spinning too fast. Whereas drugs like methamphetamine actually lower your brainwaves and put you into a much more easily impressionable state, which is exactly why ADHD was invented to justify putting kids on Aderal and Ritelin.
One point I want to remember to make is that drugs were deliberately infiltrated into various factions which were considered a political threat to the establishment, with anti war protesters and Black Panthers, etc being high up on the list. This was used for one to ensure that the powers that be had blackmail and leverage to use against their political enemies. It was also used as a means of discrediting the opposition and getting them addicted to drugs so that they would be no longer focused on taking down the establishment. My theory is that Woodstock was a giant CIA mind control and human behavior experiment. I believe that they deliberately advertised Woodstock to the point that it would draw in massive crowds so that they could then deliberately create and test out supply shortages, geo engineered weather problems, and also they were just openly handing out tabs of acid to every attendee and monitoring their behavior. I also believe that D.A.R.E. "To Keep Kids Off Drugs" was basically reverse psychology and encouragement by the state for the youth to get involved in drugs.
In summary, the drug culture was a deliberately orchestrated social engineering campaign by the powers that be in order to control, discredit, and confuse their political opposition. There's way more links and books I could send along but just start with this documentary and you'll have a way better handle on the entire situation.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8h1ecp

Drugs as Weapons Against Us- The CIA War on Musicians and Activists (2018)

Hey there,
I’m working on a project related to the way in which certain Thai policies, specifically some of its drug policies, have been influenced by the separatist movements in the south and the Malay insurgency.
I know very little about the subject and am wondering if anyone in here has any good books or scholarly articles that address the subject in an informative and at least somewhat accessible way (I don’t read or speak Thai).
Any resources would be helpful. If you happen to have any resources about kratom or methamphetamine policy in Thailand that could be helpful as well, but I am mainly looking for the political history.

Male 31 Y/O, quite soon turning 32.
I guess I was satisfied with life untill around age four, my life started to go downspiral.At age four my parents were already divorced and basically the whole time I was around my mother, grandmother or grand grand mother. My mother were trading chickens for her income and were really successfull in her life, untill she got hit by heavy truck while she was going on work trip and got crushed to death alltogether with her already that time boyfriend.I am not certainly sure if i can remember anything that happened before this event, but i do remember some of the events from the funeral, because of some sort of photographic memory i do have. After this incident my grandmother took custody of me, because at that time my father didn't care much for me, or simply I believe at that time he just couldn't. Since age 4 my new home were together with my grandmother and grand grand mother. My grandmother were also divorced but my real grandfather was just living next door, he was our neighbour. Anyway she was living with another man, and I would consider him as my real grandfather. Also my uncle were living with us, in reality if you think so I was living with them. As since pre-school period in kindergarten i have been very quiet and mostly kept all pain to myself. In my early childhood days my uncle were true hero, i spent as much time i could with him, that is how i got involved into video games, and it felt like painkiller for the brain, ofcourse he tried to teach me also car stuff, fishing e.t.c., but I wasn't particularry interested in those. In fact i still do not possess driving license. Long story short in 4th or 5th grade i came accross videogame called RuneScape, with basically zero english knowledge, and i got obsessed. After 6th grade I had to move to different school, because current one were just to 6th grade. After moving to new school life started to improve, again. Unfortunate for me in 7th grade i started smoking tabaccoo, and got involved in alcohol around age 15. Also I started to meet with my father more and more often and we even started to bond with him, but he had some medical issues, also suffered car crash from his early life days. And then my fathers father passed away, as he was planning funeral and some final touches he got hospitalised himself in local hospital. I don't remember for what he was hospitalised, but day before he was talking with my grandmother on phone, but the very next day when she was calling or somebody called her to inform that my dad also have passed away. I was in high school at that time, i arrived home at lunch break and my grandmother told me what have happened, I was devasted. Already in the high school I had no mother or father left. I got involved into alcohol even more. In the high school, i was just attending classes, and were paying attention to those I were really interested to. My grades were avarage, but nothing great either. After high school I went to learn one and half year course as cook, I did this more for myself, because my father used to be great home cook. Even so at that time I had girlfriend, I always tought im ugly as hell, and relationships were going like rollercoaster anyways. After I graduated this cook course and got my certificate. I went for IT 4 year, I still had my free public transport as orphan, supported by goverment, in my first month there i was coming home every day with a bus and going back to college every morning. I dropped out from IT because i started to miss classes because of my alcohol problems. I started working after that for some local company, were processing meat for further cooking. At that time I also gotten into fast credits that were booming at that time in my country, but i knew deep inside that I cannot do this rest of my life. After some time I decided i will give a go for medical college as doctors assistant 3 year course, but after 1,5 year in, I felt sorry for all people in hospitals and didnt think it was really for me, so i quit and started doing some construction work. I worked for company that were building grain silos for farmers, basically every job was accomodation and nonstop drinking. I started dating my co-workers sister, she was so sweet, but in the end she ditched me because of my drinking problems, it's not like i were abusive or something, i just constantly were in cycle of alcohol, videogames and some other ongoing things, I worked two or three seasons for this silo company and in the end i tried my luck abroad. I Landed in Dublin, in my head fresh start, had been chatting with this girl i knew from my hometown, she were living in Northern ireland. My other uncle were living in Dublin for quite some time, and he basically picked me up from airport and next day he took me to her. There I started working in factory packing orders for cafes and small shops, everything seemed ok. But every good story comes to an end. She found new boyfriend and cheated on me, in the end I moved to Dublin and started working for my uncle in construction, but this time alot of different random jobs. Dublin as a city during that time was so nice, but now my alcohol problem got new friend. That's right - I started using methamphetamine. Everything went allright, untill I met in video call with my next girlfriend, in the end she convinced me to start all over again with her ( She already had 2 kids) I didnt know how it will go, but since i were at that time really into her, atleast I could try. I got along with them eventually and they were really nice kids, but i lacked alot of expierence, but in the end i moved back and basically dropped my methamphetamine use as i arrived. Like after 2 years in this relationship, she got pregnant, I had really well paying job, my grandmother and grand grandmother were also doing good. I was also starting to pay off my debts that i had left, around 2000 Euro at that time. But after she gave birth to my son, which was most amazing moment so far in my life, she started joining some sus local facebook mother groups and she got really into those things, I was at that time playing Rust, helping at home as much I could but still I were drinking on weekly basis and she told me that I have to leave. Since I had still good job, I started to rent apartment near my work and started to live on my own, I tried to limit my drinking but on one day when i was out with friend of mine, we got drunk and i fell with electric scooter, and basically what happened is i missed my job next morning and because of ongoing equipment maintaince that day I got basiccally fired. Literially one week before i got fire i took loan for PC. Now I had no job, No family, debt and neverending sorrow. I felt like i have failed everyone, so naturally I were paying rent from my goverment provided unemployment support and literially everything rest i used for alcoholic drinks, little bit food, but mostly i took my calories from alcohol. I spent like this meaby six months, constantly drinking and playing videogames, at that apartment, but the goverment provided support were coming to an end. So i moved back to my home town with my grandmother and grand grandmothether. I started work for some construction company yet again, and every day were drinking fiesta even at work. In the end i got mentally tired from that work and mid week i went home. I Dint know what to do next as i was already lost, in massive debt. For some time i was doing nothing, just sitting at home, drinking whenever i had a chance. And i deceided to give another try for some work abroad. I got in touch with some agency for work abroad in capital city, as I went there for interview - everything kinda went smooth, and like some time later i had already tickets booked for Netherland, which was supported by my grandmother and grandgrandmother, ultimately my grand-grandmother didn't want me to go, but deep inside she supported me and I believe still does. Anyway after landind in Eindhoven, it turned out that job they promised is no more and i had to wait for like two weeks. During this time I started smoking weed, and dropped my need for alcohol, because I replaced it with different substance. After this two weeks of wait I got moved to city called Utrecht which is very very close to Amsterdam. And agency got me work as a housekeeper for quite big hotel chain in Amsterdam, but afetr 3 days of work they informed me that I am way too slow for them. So naturally I didn't know what to do next, as only returning shortly after would prove once again that I am complete failure. So I got in touch with friend who live in Amsterdam for quite some time, and he gave me some contact where I could try look for work. And - I did. After couple days I already landed job as a receptionist in Amsterdam with accomodation, seems like finally i have rolled 20. After training in my new position, and couple shifts on my own, i finally started to feel like a human again, but during this time i was constantly working, smoking weed on my free time and starting to improve physically, because alcohol was past now. Once again i felt like I am on right path again, but then my grand grandmother got sick, it was very hard for me being here this time. Even i were working my ass off, i didnt had any savings to go visit her, i was still broke, and even if I did go there would be high chance that I wouldn't make further than Airport, because of accumulated debt now regarding unpaid computer that i took on loan and sold when I was in Netherland to buy laptop that I am using right now. Also have other credits that i took to fuel my drinking needs before. I was Angry on myself, that I couldnt go back see her, even she told me so not to come, that she will understand, still I can't - I failed her, Also i failed grandmother and my son just he dosn't realise, right now. My grand-grandmother passed away while i was doing usual night shift at the hotel, she was over 100 years old, and during my childhood she were there always for me. And I couldn't even visit her, while she was on her deathbed. And i really really miss her, so do I miss my grandmother and son. My whole life I just wanted to be happy, have family, minding my own bussiness and just living happy life, but in the end i am stuck abroad, alone. Doing job that i don't enjoy anymore, because i feel like i should go back home, even I failed everybody, i feel like mentally it would be better for me to accept defeat and just go home. So I believe I will never be able to bring my grandmother on a trip she always wanted, because half of my life i was using alcohol, and playing video games to escape reality, but in a reality i really should have just paid more attention to my own family members, and i feel currently like I have nothing left and I am quite lost on this journey. I just would like to go home hug my grandmother and tell her that she was right all along. It's just sad that i realized it just now. I feel like i could write a book about all this, and long story short its my life.
Sorry for mistakes or something if there is so. English language isn't my native.

As a seasoned Marxist-Leninist and Joseph Biden voter (lesser of 2 evils is an important tenant of Marxism), I'm constantly harassed by these Ultras (armchair "communists") to "read Marx read Marx blah blah BLAH"
Here are the TOP 3 reasons WHY it's no longer necessary to read Marx:

1. Because so many of our proletarian comrades cannot read, gatekeeping theory behind reading is absolutely ABLEIST. Don't even try and talk to me about audio books, because plenty of people are deaf too, so just don't even start. Stop being ableist, or we will go absolute bananas on you after the revolution.
   
2. "Bourgeoise" is a French word. French are all bourgeoise or bourgeois sympathizers. Therefore, every time Marx uses that word (pretty sure he invented the word at least that's what Chat GPT tells me), he is using OFFENSIVE micro-aggressive languages that grates the ears of any true socialist. It's time we acknowledge that using the word "Bourgeoise" is in itself bourgeois.
   
3. In the same way that Jesus Christ (our Lord and Savior) fulfilled the law of Moses and added upon its precepts, Deng Xiaoping fulfilled Marx's Kapital and added upon it further wisdom. Just listen to these absolute beautiful quotes and LIE TO ME that they don't absolutely stir your SOUL:
   

"We no longer know what socialism is, or how to get there, and yet it remains the goal."
"It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice."
"Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is GLORIOUS!"
"Let some people get rich first."
"No contradictions exist between socialism and markets."
"Do not debate!"

Do I like Marx? Sure. He was good for the 1700's when he lived. But now it's the 21st century! Thankfully another GREAT MAN has risen to give us further light and knowledge. So stop being so hard on people for not reading Marx. We have a new supreme leader, comrades.
That's it folks.
-God's greatest socialist ⚒️
P.S. I know I invoked Jesus Christ, and while Stalin taught that "Jesus is the methamphetamines of the Petite bourgeoise", goddammit I am totally hooked to methamphetamines. Sue me.

I medically meet the criteria for the blue book for HIV/AIDS, 14.11 F and 14.11 G, which alone probably is not enough to qualify me for SSI/SSDI, I think.
I have also submitted an ADHD diagnosis I have had no luck at getting treatment for, from my HMO. Also suffer from depression which complicates my ability to care about taking medication for HIV, which has led me to an AIDS Diagnosis. The last time I had a therapist, they were sending me to a Autism specialist to see if I could also be on the spectrum, though it was a city program that I was kicked out of because of my inability to complete a form I forgot about (because ADHD.) I do have evidence of continued medical care for the physical symptoms but mental health issues are very difficult to receive treatment for in my current HMO Situation.
My health has declined to the point where I am having auditory hallucinations and other problems such as edema in my legs, incontinence issues. I know that with some sort of treatment for the mental stuff, I might be able to manage the other physical symptoms. I’m 37, and also have a little bit of history of Methamphetamine use on my record, and also have hepatitis C, which I forgot about when applying for SSDI, but also is not able to be treated due to my immune system dysfunction.
I have gotten to about 71% in my application, already submitted information about an a dire need (losing my housing), my doctor has filled out the SSA form 4814 - “Medical Report on Adult with Allegation of HIV Infection” and they have received it. I have submitted the work activity report and function report. I lost the contents of my storage locker for nonpayment and really don’t have much else to lose. I am LGBTQIA and do not have much support from my family, some want nothing to do with me. I do not know what is taking so long, they said a decision was due on the 6th, but my address has changed so much that I have no idea if I might have missed something….
I don’t think I can physically work but I have literally lost everything in waiting.
Is there any chance that I might actually be approved under these circumstances? If there is any doubt, I would like to know so I can give up.
I’m thinking of going to find a job somewhere.

This is a long story, but I'm going to make is as short & sweet as possible.
My ex and I first met as fellow students at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. She was in a promiscuous phase of her life, and is highly attractive, so she had plenty of success in that arena from her late teens onward. Conversely, I had chronically low self-esteem and had a lot of turbulent relationships with women who I wanted to get serious with, but who only wanted to use me for a good time.
We developed a cordial friendship over the course of a few months, but that friendship abruptly ended when she took me to an AmWay meeting.
Since I was born/raised in the Baptist church and had since become an agnostic, the smarmy, ingratiating personalities at the AmWay meeting immediately gave me flashbacks to the most unpleasant aspects of the Baptist church and my time there. This was compounded by the fact that they were clearly seeking some financial buy-in from me on day one, and it made me feel like my ex's inviting me was just a ploy to get me to give AmWay money so she could get credit for the referral.
I later told her I didn't think I could hang out with her anymore and calmly explained why via text. She responded by telling me "you're just pissed because you know I'd never fuck you."
Given my self-esteem issues, this was a pretty wounding statement from someone I considered a friend, especially given her relatively low bar for who she'd seek a sexual encounter with. It made me feel totally unappealing, and I couldn't even respond to her insult...
-------------------------TEN YEARS PASS
------------------------Ten years later, I was 32 years old and - in spite of being pretty functional and having a $150k/year job in the insurance industry - was struggling with an addiction to opioids that had been going on for six years by that point. Over the year 2021, I had sold my home in Metro Detroit and moved down to the Michigan-Ohio border to stay in my childhood home, attempting to kick my heroin habit (I only smoked, and have never used needles, but kicking is still brutal) more than 30 separate times, always relapsing and resetting the withdrawal clock. Consequently, I spent most days that year in full-blown withdrawal, save the one or two days a week where I'd "slip," enjoy a one-day reprieve from the pain, and reset the withdrawal clock back to day one.
By the holiday season and the winter of 2021, I felt completely run-down and empty, a shell of a man. However, I had worked relentlessly on self-love and come to the resolution that I would work hard to live my best life, even if I ended up eventually dying with my addiction. i finally came to embrace and accept the man I saw staring back at me when I looked in the mirror, even though I was still drug-dependent.
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Cue my ex-college friend's re-entry into my life. She reached out via LinkedIn because she barely uses social media. She told me the universe had given her the strong urge to contact me on two separate occasions, and mentioned her "guru" several times, which I found strange. She was coming home to Metro Detroit for the holidays and wanted to see me.
We met near the Detroit neighborhood I'd lived in prior to moving back to my parents'. I noticed her head was shaved and she seemed far, far more diffident that I remembered her. Whereas she'd been cocksure and ready to take on the world in college, her 30-something self seemed painfully timid, unsure of even her next sentence, let alone any long-term life plan.
We began to see each other more frequently over the following week, and I quickly discovered she'd just left an abusive cult, run by an Indian man her age who had styled himself as a "guru" but really just seemed to want to bleed my friend and the other woman in the cult (yes, two whole members) dry of their money and independence. She admitted she'd been abused physically and emotionally, but she kept on framing it as some sort of necessary hardship that her all-knowing guru had placed in her life to help her grow.
Careful not to alienate her by being too harsh, I began to ask pointed questions, and the dam eventually broke, with her realizing she'd suffered severe abuse and had been a member of a deranged cult.
The realization shook her to her core, all while we were steadily growing closer and more romantically interested in one another. I made myself available as a source of emotional support and nurturance, without pressuring anything romantic. But she seemed intent on pushing romance anyways, even showing some signs of possessiveness, irritation and jealousy when I went blow-for-blow with her account of her time in the cult by describing some of my hurt feelings over my then-ex's sudden departure from my life a few months prior.
Soon, we were renting Airbnbs together. Six weeks after our first meeting, we made love, and the level of intimacy and vulnerability we both felt was off the charts. I'd never experienced such feelings of closeness with another human being. We talked from dusk till dawn, wrapped around each other, struggling to fall asleep because of how engaged we both were in the conversation.
Three months after reconnecting, we searched for and found a shared apartment in Midtown, Detroit. I encouraged her to get a job in the industry she'd been in before the cult, and she got a good job and we settled into an awesome, intimate domestic routine.
There were arguments and trauma-related flare-ups, including some verbal abuse on my part, I'm ashamed to admit. I had such intense feelings of closeness with her that old abandonment fears from childhood reared their ugly heads and made me insecure. But each and every time we had an unpleasant interaction, I took accountability for my part and worked on doing better, even though I was still struggling to quit opioids. We supported each other pretty much 90% of the time - she offered me understanding and reassurance when I felt insecure and fearful, and I offered her my attention and listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on when memories of the cult trauma welled up and caused emotional outbursts in her.
We'd met in December '21 and moved in together in April '22.
----------------------------------------
Fast forward to September
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I'd been encouraging her to pick up her graduate family/marital therapy degree where she'd left off (she dropped out of school before her last semester at her cult leader's urging), and we mutually decided to move to Denver, CO so she could finish her clinicals, since they were only offered in select states.
I was honestly terrified, as I'd never moved out of Michigan in my life and would be leaving my entire support network, my friends, family, everything. I definitely caused some pointless arguments during those weeks preceding the move. But I was also excited because I had come to realize that this woman was the love of my life, and felt more like home than any home I'd ever known in my 33 years alive. I even felt closer to her family than my own, for a multitude of reasons.
However, after the move to Denver, things turned south quickly. She started polling her single, female friends every time we'd fight, seeking validation from them that I was unhinged and abusive due to my preoccupied attachment issues. These friends had never met me and definitely had a "girl power" philosophy that seemed to totally overlook my issues and paint me as a shitty, angry boyfriend.
Even though I never once felt less close to her, it became clear that her sense of closeness with me and trust in me was eroding quickly, even though I'd enrolled in a methadone program upon arriving in Denver (I promised her I would) and was trying to work on self-improvement and so on in any way possible.
Without warning, she started to disappear after our arguments, for days and then eventually weeks at a time. She was now a dog-sitter for Rover, as we'd collaborated to design a Rover profile for her and her business took off to the point where she had sits lined up for six months in advance, So whenever things got heated at our apartment, she'd disappear to a new address I had no knowledge of to spend time in solitude and debate (after each and every argument) whether our relationship was worth maintaining.
To me, the value of our relationship and my loyalty to her were unshakable and unquestionable. She, on the other hand, began to download dating apps each time she'd disappear. Then she'd come back and say she'd realized she couldn't live without me and so on, and I'd take her back without so much as a moment's hesitation. I mostly blamed myself for these episodes, and was having serious anxiety and abandonment panic each time she''d leave, even compulsively plucking my hair and sending dozens of Facebook and text messages to try to break the deafening silence. Meanwhile, she was swiping on dating apps and even took the concierge at a client's apartment out on Valentine's Day to the same place we'd both pointed out as a dream V-Day destination when we'd first arrived in town. That was particularly devastating for me, but she casually shrugged her shoulders and told me she'd "thought we were done the last time she'd left."
She even joked that "at least he'd be a cheaper date than I'd have been," since I had just lost my job due to my drug issues and preoccupation with fixing our relationship. Seeing how hurt I was, she offered to cancel the date, but I wouldn't allow this other guy to get treated like some pawn in my ex's attempt to hurt me, so I told her to go ahead. I had some of the leftovers when she got home from their Valentine's Day date... hooray me.
During this period of time, she'd ceaselessly complained about the smell of drugs in the apartment, so I took my drug use downstairs to our apartment's utility room.
Then, one day after a particularly heated argument, our landlady calls my ex, asking why I kept going in and out of the utility room late at night (cameras clocked my comings/goings).
My ex plainly and vindictively told our landlady I was using drugs down there. After all, she'd been bullying me about not following my Methadone protocol perfectly, and projecting all of her own shortcomings and insecurities on to my drug addiction, which seemed more and more to be the cause of each and every problem both she and I had, individually or as a couple.
My landlady then called me to tell me I had two weeks to vacate the unit or face a formal eviction. Since I didn't want that on my tenancy record, I complied.
Perhaps the best illustration of my loyalty to her vs. her lack of loyalty to me: the FIRST question out of my mouth upon news of the pending eviction was "how do I prevent the results of my violation from adversely affecting -------? She doesn't use drugs and had no part in this!"
My stunned, stupid brain immediately jumps to protect my ex, when in fact the only reason we were getting forced out was because of her own words/actions.
I was scared at the realization that I was about to be forced out into the cold. When I expressed this to my ex and asked her why she'd done what she did, she smirked and said "I'm about to be homeless too!" and claimed I was delusional for even suggesting that he narc'ing had anything to do with my situation, again pointing to my drug addiction as the root cause. Mind you, I'd been addicted for eight years at this point yet always had a steady job and place to live... until now.
At this point, the feeling of being discarded gradually took on new shape, as I was told that I was even WORSE than the abusive cult leader of the year prior, and was in fact the most abusive and cruel man she'd ever been with.
During this time, I'd taken an expensive item of hers to the pawn shop for storage purposes, because it was by far the most costly item in the apartment, she hadn't touched it in months, it was sitting out in plain sight, and we'd had four or five burglaries in our apartment complex over the past month. I told her I was putting it in safekeeping but didn't volunteer the info that it was a pawn shop, fearful of more flak and accusations that I was using the money for drugs (I used the $200 loan for a utility bill, and paid the interest on the item faithfully until the event that follows occurred; I was offered $600 to sell the item outright, so it seems obvious to anyone with a brain that I didn't steal or maliciously pawn the item).
I admit I definitely should've been more forthright about where I was taking the item, though. I understand and accept that it would be natural to suspect something nefarious if your addicted partner pawns an item, even if it's just to save money over what it would cost to get an entire storage unit to store just a few valuable items. But I never stole, cheated on, or even really kept anything secret from my ex. I was committed to avoid repeating the mistakes of my past.
Eventually, my ex had told me I was an even worse person sober than when actively using (I'd been mostly sober for a few weeks by this point, still faithfully walking 1.5 miles to/from the Methadone clinic each morning. She popped up one last time to coerce me into having sex (our sex was always amazing, right up till the last day) before disappearing for good two days before I was to vacate the apartment we'd shared. I had loved making a home with her, and now it was over. She had vaguely promised to help pay for a mover to move my things into storage, but that never materialized, as she disappeared completely two days from Day Zero, and I was thus forced to drag my things on a dolly, sixteen city blocks down rush-hour-infested streets, back and forth ten times total till everything that comprised my life up until that point was in storage. ALL those possessions would be auctioned off due to nonpayment of storage fees within eight months of the date they were initially stored.
----------------------
HOMELESS
----------------------
I spent the next nine months homeless. I was charged with a 2nd Class Misdemeanor my first month on the street, because my ex had immediately called the pawn shop to report her item as stolen when I told her where it was on the final day of our lease, when she'd moved everything out and had only that final item to account for.
I couldn't even find places to regularly shower when trying to balance cleanliness with work and job interviews/prospective boss meet-and-greets, and eventually I just gave up on life altogether. My ex's departure made me feel like my heart and limbs had been cut out of me, and I just had no will to survive, let alone wash myself or work.
While on the street, I was raped (group of gay men on methamphetamine), beaten/mugged/robbed multiple times at knife and gunpoint, and can't even count how many times I fell asleep after 3-4 days awake in cold, rainy weather feeling panicked, only to wake up to find my work money./backpack/all earthly possessions had been stolen and I'd have to start over.
$20k of recording/performance equipment (I'm a musician), clothes, and necessities/sundries were auctioned off when I could no longer afford to pay my storage unit payment.
Shortly after I'd lost everything and spent several months scrambling just to stay well and avoid having all my meager belongings repeatedly stolen, I was finally arrested on the warrant for the pawn broker charge, and spent three months in jail serving the maximum sentence for the charge.
During my sentencing hearing, my ex offered a statement that came off as extremely calloused, saying I'd "spent the past ten years of my life making nothing but excuses," and "needed jail time, as it was the only significant time I''d ever had sober." This was a lie, seeing as I'd voluntarily gotten sober for an entire month after I promised to do so while visiting her extended famiily in Nova Scotia. Didn't touch opioids the entire month, and though I was a bit grumpy I was extremely proud of myself for proving that my love for her and her family was ultimately more important than my addiction.
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PRESENT DAY--------------------
One year after my ex fucked me and disappeared for the last time, going no-contact, I'm still completely dumbstruck by how it all went down. I was fortunate enough to be offered a place to stay by a good friend I made in County Jail, and now that I'm regularly working a job and sober-lite, I reached out to my ex once more. No response. I'm relatively certain she was auditioning my replacement those times she was spending off-radar, and probably got on top of somebody else within a week of my getting forced out onto the street.
Still, I love her, even her brokenness, and wish things were different. I can't even make sense of any of it. My heart and mind feel shattered and frozen, like I can't move on emotionally at all.
I don't understand the "why" of any of it. My ex had boarded dogs in our apartment well before ratting out my drug use, and we'd been told that was ALSO an evictable offense, but I said nothing of it, and did most of the work of caring for the animals while she was away doing on-site walks and sits at other people's houses/apts, helping her double her money and not receiving a penny of the proceeds. How was that any different from my drug use, from an eviction standpoint? How is that "being honest" as she claimed was her motive for telling our landlady about my addiction when asked about my behavior.
I feel no sense of closure. No justice. No validation of any of the trauma I experienced on the streets. Unseen....
I don't even know how to end this. My broken heart doesn't just skip beats nowadays. It''s stopped beating altogether... I honestly believed I'd spend the rest of my life with this woman and was committed to working through our mutual and individual issues as a team, even if it required me to go to rehab and spend some time in sober living. Now all I have left of her is the album I wrote, named for her initials. Fifteen songs I wrote while in jail. I'm going to play my heart out at some open mics, that's for certain. But I'm not certain I'll be able to leave the pain on the stage when I walk off...
Thanks so much for reading, if you've come this far with me. Have a wonderful night.
Love,
TJR
PS. FYI, my ex knew from WEEK ONE of our relationship about my addiction issues and the fallout they caused in my life. I was an open book to her because I loved her and didn't want to lie about ANYTHING, be it big or small. I told her I sincerely wanted to quit to put our relationship on the right track, but gave no timeline because I was honestly scared to go through the process and didn't know how long it'd take to bite the bullet, man up, and do the dirty work of recovery.
​
PSS. No "hobosexual" comments, please, assuming anyone even reads this far... I paid half the rent and all of the utilities for the entire time we lived together, and paid to furnish both of our apartments with the items that would eventually get auctioned off and thrown in a dumpster when the bottom fell out from my life and I could no longer afford the storage fees,

Hey guys, this is my first time ever posting to reddit, I have a lot going on and I'm not really sure what I want to get out of this, validation perhaps? I know that I've been trauma dumping on my friends, my partner and some of my family for a long time, and it's really not fair on them to be doing it so much as I'm sure it stresses them out seeing me struggle and not knowing how to help me.
I'll start by saying, there are some things I may brush over, my writing may be disorganised and jumbled, I'm just going to type away try to get the gist of everything out.I'm happy to answer questions and elaborate on things in better detail if anyone wishes to know more I may take a while to reply but I'm an open book, heart on my sleeve type of guy, I have been my whole life. I've been in and out of therapy since year 7, with diagnosis' of: Depression, Generalised Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder and now recently getting back into therapy, my therapist thinks it's probably C-PTSD and ADHD.
(Trigger Warning)
I'm a 26 year old Australian (M) with a long history of mental health problems. I'm fairly certain I was molested or exposed to sex from a very young age, I had my first somewhat sexual experience with a girl my age when I was about 5 or 6 years old, I'm not sure who instigated that out of the two of us but it was really weird, I'm not sure why I was attempting that so young. I had reoccurring nightmares in childhood of a woman getting uncomfortably close to me but that's about all I can remember, I think my brain did a good job of blocking whatever that was out of my memory. I know that I've always felt uncomfortable when adults would hug/kiss me, I still feel this way, especially with my mother.
I was a sensitive kid and I'm a sensitive adult, I'm very empathetic and have been since I was a kid. I'm a good listener, and I've constantly been told throughout life, "I don't know what it is about you but I feel like I can talk to you about anything and you don't judge me" I was a somewhat bright kid, I loved reading, but I struggled with staying focused, and I started suicidal ideation around the age of 10 and going to a catholic school, my thoughts of suicide worried them a lot and I was made to speak with the school nun quite a few times about my problems.
I was bullied in school quite a bit, mostly for being skinny or weird. It probably didn't help that my family moved around a lot during my childhood, so I always had to deal with being the new kid.
My parents weren't by any stretch horrible, but fuck did they invalidate the shit out of me and convinced me that everything I wanted to try, I'd fail at it or not like it ie; Jobs and Education, all while telling me how intelligent they think I am, it has been such a head fuck. I know they think they have tried their best over the years with me and my siblings, but every member of my family suffer from some form of mental illness so I give them the benefit of the doubt majority of the time, I guess to the detriment of my own wants and needs, I people please a lot, mostly because I feel strong need to be accepted or liked by people. In saying that, I really do wish my parents were open to going to therapy for themselves, I don't think they quite understand how their problems have affected us kids. I don't think that will ever happen, but it's nice to imagine. My mum always played the "Well I'm just a bad mother card" and she became an alcoholic after her father died from alcoholism when I was 14 and still drinks today she also smokes pot, but I think that has been the case her whole life. As for Dad, he drinks, but not as much, he smokes weed and has for his whole life as well. Dang if I ever so as criticised my father, I'd end up in a full blown domestic, which happened a lot, quite a lot of police interventions over the years, one so bad that they placed an intervention order on the two of us and I wasn't able to contact him for a year. My Dad grew up without a father and has ADHD, so he was always a fun friend, and not really a supportive father and funnily enough from a young age I played therapist to my dads problems. Over the past couple of years I've started to put two and two together and I'm fairly certain he is vulnerable narcissist. Everyone bar my best friend and partner can't wrap their head around the fact that he was so horrible behind closed doors, it made me so upset to see him be so nice to everyone else in public, only to come home and treat us kids like dirt. He used to tell me and my older brother that he didn't want kids, that he did it for mum, and that their relationship was problem free before us kids came along. I used to look up to my older brother, he was my idol, and he used to treat me like he hated me in childhood and adolescence, nothing I ever did was good enough, I wanted to be like him and he hated it, I wanted to be myself and he thought I was a dickhead. When I got into high school, I struggled with focusing so much that I lashed out and left class a lot. I started smoking cigarettes, drinking and having sex at 13.
My best friend who I met in grade 6 on the day I moved to the town I'm still in, was raised by heroin/benzo/methamphetamine addicts/dealers, so I spent a lot of time surrounded by a lot of addicts, I wasn't too fazed by it, there was some scary moments, but given that I wasn't judgemental and was curious, I often had conversations with some pretty bad people who shared a lot with me, from everyday people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, to people who had been in and out of jail for murder and drug offences, even talking to those people at times I still empathised with them as fucked as that sounds. Years later I would see some of my school mates there. I empathised with my mate, he often dealt with neglect because of their addictions and I wanted to be there for him through those times. He wasn't a good friend to me over the years, and still isn't most of the time.
By the age of 12 I was I was already deeply depressed and anxious, I began laughing off problems and my peers seemed to get kick out of that, I guess that's when the people pleasing began and the bullying stopped. By age 14 I was recreationally smoking pot with my friends along with parties and drinking, my parents weren't happy about it but they allowed it under the shitty advice of their doctor at the time. By age 15 I was smoking pot with my parents, they supplied it to me along with supporting my addiction to cigarettes although occasionally they would cut the supply randomly, and treated me like shit when I my withdrawals kicked in.
(Trigger Warning)
This is where the shit really hit the fan.
At the end of year 10 at the age of 15 I was friends with a couple dudes who I considered best friends at the time, they had met some people on Xbox Live. They decided to come to town and we met them and they seemed cool, we smoked pot and drank to together. A few months later my mates asked me to come along to go see them in their town so off we went. For the first day we just hung out and smoked pot and drank a little. That night the two guys that we visited invited a couple of girl mates around, I was told that one of the girls was single and that I should cuddle up to her, I was very promiscuous at this point so I didn't really question that too much. I wasn't actually too keen on this girl, I felt weird and uncomfortable to begin with upon meeting her. Thy put a movie on and this girl kind of had her way with me I guess. The next day, after waking up my mate from out of town came into the room and franticly told us to get dressed and that we all had to leave the house, that this girls boyfriend was going to run through the house if we were there. We went to a park and hid for a little bit, with the girl who now suddenly had a boyfriend. After a while, a car pulled up on the street, and out came this 19 year old guy and his friend, full sprinting at us with a knife in his hand. We all scattered and he caught up to me and the other friend from this town, in between us a car. He screamed at us saying which one is (My name) whilst we ran around this car to avoid him. We both lied and said it wasn't me so he ran back towards the others whilst we ran for it, in the suburbs of this city, until we got back to my mates house, the relief I felt when getting to the front door, thinking I was safe. Right as we went to step foot in his house my friend got a phone call from this guy, saying bring (My name) back right now, that he just wanted to talk and if I didn't come back he was going to start stabbing the others. I practically begged my friend not to make me go back but he wasn't having it, so we walked back to this park, and as soon as I got over to the group of them, before I could even get a word out, he started to beat the shit out of me, knife in hand. I cried, begged and pleaded, hid behind my friends to get away, didn't fight back, and he just kept getting me to the ground, stomping and kicking at me all whilst he was telling me that I was going to die. It went on for ages, to the point that his friend actually stopped him and said I'd had enough. But he wasn't done, he then picked me up, marched me back to the house we were staying at, and told me I was going to give him everything I had, all while holding this knife to my neck. We were almost back to the house, when he got a phone call, some of his mates were coming to get him. He then proceed to make me lay down on the middle of the road and kiss his feet, only to stomp the back of my head into the asphalt. The car pulled up, a car load of people, and he got in and left. My parents made the 6 hour drive to come get me as soon as I called them about it.
I was home for about two weeks, with a good friend going to score some pot at night when a car full of people stalked us, cornered us in an alleyway and robbed us.
After of this happened I was fucked up, I'm still fucked up, I still have nightmares and trouble sleeping, difficulty trusting other people and even myself.
I was put on seroquel, which completely fucked my schooling, I dropped out of year 11. I had friends who got a kick out of making me walk home at night after smoking pot, making me walk the streets alone and sending me on goose chases because they seemed to think it was hilarious that I was freaking out so much about it. One of those being my still current best friend, another who I considered a best friend.
I had a girlfriend at the time, who I was absolutely in love with, who had to deal with my post trauma trust issues and irritability, I loved her so much, she dealt with me venting a lot, about my trauma and my drug addicted best mate. I had to break up with her because I couldn't put her through the bullshit anymore, I did it for her own mental health, and also my own, I had to learn to navigate it on my own. The only way I could get her to accept the break up was to tell her I didn't love her, an absolute lie.
The friend I considered a best friend, who was there for me the day I got back from the assault was dealing with a heroin addiction that I was unaware of for some time and substance abuse with a lot of different drugs, I along with our friend group started experimenting with LSD and other drugs from the silk road, even some shifty research chemicals. He was a very very intelligent guy, mildly narcisstic, but he was very good at pretending everything was fine, he rarely talked about his feelings. His ex partner and myself are among the only people he knew that he took his mask off for. He came over one day and admitted to using heroin and admitted he'd used a few hours before coming over. I got angry and told him to leave. That was the last time I ever saw him. We spoke a couple times over the next couple years and I was apologetic for pushing him away, told him that I'd always be there for him, and 6 months later he was dead. Overdosed. I'd already had a few friends die to suicide at that point, but when he died I truly broke.
Fast forward to 8 months ago, another really fucking good mate of mine died from an overdose of script opioids. He had moved away years before that to "Get away from the drugs" and get his life together, none of us knew his addiction got worse there. So it was a real shock to us. I became more depressed than I'd even been in my life, I couldn't leave my bed for weeks.
We had a gathering a couple of weeks after his passing, at an old older friends house that we used to party at, it was sort of a halfway home for a lot of us in our teenage years. We discussed a lot of things, we got onto the topic of my ex, who till this day, is with an acquaintance of mine. I was then told that the first mate who overdosed, had actually gone and fucked my ex right after we broke up. This guy who I mourned over for years, cleaned his grave monthly, felt guilt over, backstabbed me. My ex knowing how much I loved him, worried every night over, went to him and fucked him, I don't know how to feel about it anymore, I'm so confused.
All of this has completely fucked my progress in life, I can't hold jobs, I'm pretty much constantly analysing people, and myself. I've started studying so many times and dropped out. I still have major trust issues and paranoia, on my own I've learnt to internalise this instead of project it. I suffer with substance abuse problems still. I'm faced with years of therapy that I can't afford, a ten session mental health care plan just doesn't cut it when I'm going to probably need hundreds of sessions to reverse this. Those first ten sessions could quite easily and more than likely will be used up on my "History" because I have so much of it. I honestly feel like I will never feel joy or pleasure in my life, I'll always be haunted by nightmares, that my life is doomed to be a constant uphill battle.
I'm sorry for the trauma dump, I understand that the internet is a pretty silly place to vent, but I don't really have great support in my life at the moment. The only reason I'm still here is because of my partner. She's so patient with me, and loving towards me despite all of the negatives. She just struggles with communication, but I know she loves me very much, even if I don't love myself.
​

Hey guys, this is my first time ever posting to reddit, I have a lot going on and I'm not really sure what I want to get out of this, validation perhaps? I know that I've been trauma dumping on my friends, my partner and some of my family for a long time, and it's really not fair on them to be doing it so much as I'm sure it stresses them out seeing me struggle and not knowing how to help me.
I'll start by saying, there are some things I may brush over, my writing may be disorganised and jumbled, I'm just going to type away try to get the gist of everything out.I'm happy to answer questions and elaborate on things in better detail if anyone wishes to know more I may take a while to reply but I'm an open book, heart on my sleeve type of guy, I have been my whole life. I've been in and out of therapy since year 7, with diagnosis' of: Depression, Generalised Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder and now recently getting back into therapy, my therapist thinks it's probably C-PTSD and ADHD.
(Trigger Warning)
I'm a 26 year old Australian (M) with a long history of mental health problems. I'm fairly certain I was molested or exposed to sex from a very young age, I had my first somewhat sexual experience with a girl my age when I was about 5 or 6 years old, I'm not sure who instigated that out of the two of us but it was really weird, I'm not sure why I was attempting that so young. I had reoccurring nightmares in childhood of a woman getting uncomfortably close to me but that's about all I can remember, I think my brain did a good job of blocking whatever that was out of my memory. I know that I've always felt uncomfortable when adults would hug/kiss me, I still feel this way, especially with my mother.
I was a sensitive kid and I'm a sensitive adult, I'm very empathetic and have been since I was a kid. I'm a good listener, and I've constantly been told throughout life, "I don't know what it is about you but I feel like I can talk to you about anything and you don't judge me" I was a somewhat bright kid, I loved reading, but I struggled with staying focused, and I started suicidal ideation around the age of 10 and going to a catholic school, my thoughts of suicide worried them a lot and I was made to speak with the school nun quite a few times about my problems.
I was bullied in school quite a bit, mostly for being skinny or weird. It probably didn't help that my family moved around a lot during my childhood, so I always had to deal with being the new kid.
My parents weren't by any stretch horrible, but fuck did they invalidate the shit out of me and convinced me that everything I wanted to try, I'd fail at it or not like it ie; Jobs and Education, all while telling me how intelligent they think I am, it has been such a head fuck. I know they think they have tried their best over the years with me and my siblings, but every member of my family suffer from some form of mental illness so I give them the benefit of the doubt majority of the time, I guess to the detriment of my own wants and needs, I people please a lot, mostly because I feel strong need to be accepted or liked by people. In saying that, I really do wish my parents were open to going to therapy for themselves, I don't think they quite understand how their problems have affected us kids. I don't think that will ever happen, but it's nice to imagine. My mum always played the "Well I'm just a bad mother card" and she became an alcoholic after her father died from alcoholism when I was 14 and still drinks today she also smokes pot, but I think that has been the case her whole life. As for Dad, he drinks, but not as much, he smokes weed and has for his whole life as well. Dang if I ever so as criticised my father, I'd end up in a full blown domestic, which happened a lot, quite a lot of police interventions over the years, one so bad that they placed an intervention order on the two of us and I wasn't able to contact him for a year. My Dad grew up without a father and has ADHD, so he was always a fun friend, and not really a supportive father and funnily enough from a young age I played therapist to my dads problems. Over the past couple of years I've started to put two and two together and I'm fairly certain he is vulnerable narcissist. Everyone bar my best friend and partner can't wrap their head around the fact that he was so horrible behind closed doors, it made me so upset to see him be so nice to everyone else in public, only to come home and treat us kids like dirt. He used to tell me and my older brother that he didn't want kids, that he did it for mum, and that their relationship was problem free before us kids came along. I used to look up to my older brother, he was my idol, and he used to treat me like he hated me in childhood and adolescence, nothing I ever did was good enough, I wanted to be like him and he hated it, I wanted to be myself and he thought I was a dickhead. When I got into high school, I struggled with focusing so much that I lashed out and left class a lot. I started smoking cigarettes, drinking and having sex at 13.
My best friend who I met in grade 6 on the day I moved to the town I'm still in, was raised by heroin/benzo/methamphetamine addicts/dealers, so I spent a lot of time surrounded by a lot of addicts, I wasn't too fazed by it, there was some scary moments, but given that I wasn't judgemental and was curious, I often had conversations with some pretty bad people who shared a lot with me, from everyday people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, to people who had been in and out of jail for murder and drug offences, even talking to those people at times I still empathised with them as fucked as that sounds. Years later I would see some of my school mates there. I empathised with my mate, he often dealt with neglect because of their addictions and I wanted to be there for him through those times. He wasn't a good friend to me over the years, and still isn't most of the time.
By the age of 12 I was I was already deeply depressed and anxious, I began laughing off problems and my peers seemed to get kick out of that, I guess that's when the people pleasing began and the bullying stopped. By age 14 I was recreationally smoking pot with my friends along with parties and drinking, my parents weren't happy about it but they allowed it under the shitty advice of their doctor at the time. By age 15 I was smoking pot with my parents, they supplied it to me along with supporting my addiction to cigarettes although occasionally they would cut the supply randomly, and treated me like shit when I my withdrawals kicked in.
(Trigger Warning)
This is where the shit really hit the fan.
At the end of year 10 at the age of 15 I was friends with a couple dudes who I considered best friends at the time, they had met some people on Xbox Live. They decided to come to town and we met them and they seemed cool, we smoked pot and drank to together. A few months later my mates asked me to come along to go see them in their town so off we went. For the first day we just hung out and smoked pot and drank a little. That night the two guys that we visited invited a couple of girl mates around, I was told that one of the girls was single and that I should cuddle up to her, I was very promiscuous at this point so I didn't really question that too much. I wasn't actually too keen on this girl, I felt weird and uncomfortable to begin with upon meeting her. Thy put a movie on and this girl kind of had her way with me I guess. The next day, after waking up my mate from out of town came into the room and franticly told us to get dressed and that we all had to leave the house, that this girls boyfriend was going to run through the house if we were there. We went to a park and hid for a little bit, with the girl who now suddenly had a boyfriend. After a while, a car pulled up on the street, and out came this 19 year old guy and his friend, full sprinting at us with a knife in his hand. We all scattered and he caught up to me and the other friend from this town, in between us a car. He screamed at us saying which one is (My name) whilst we ran around this car to avoid him. We both lied and said it wasn't me so he ran back towards the others whilst we ran for it, in the suburbs of this city, until we got back to my mates house, the relief I felt when getting to the front door, thinking I was safe. Right as we went to step foot in his house my friend got a phone call from this guy, saying bring (My name) back right now, that he just wanted to talk and if I didn't come back he was going to start stabbing the others. I practically begged my friend not to make me go back but he wasn't having it, so we walked back to this park, and as soon as I got over to the group of them, before I could even get a word out, he started to beat the shit out of me, knife in hand. I cried, begged and pleaded, hid behind my friends to get away, didn't fight back, and he just kept getting me to the ground, stomping and kicking at me all whilst he was telling me that I was going to die. It went on for ages, to the point that his friend actually stopped him and said I'd had enough. But he wasn't done, he then picked me up, marched me back to the house we were staying at, and told me I was going to give him everything I had, all while holding this knife to my neck. We were almost back to the house, when he got a phone call, some of his mates were coming to get him. He then proceed to make me lay down on the middle of the road and kiss his feet, only to stomp the back of my head into the asphalt. The car pulled up, a car load of people, and he got in and left. My parents made the 6 hour drive to come get me as soon as I called them about it.
I was home for about two weeks, with a good friend going to score some pot at night when a car full of people stalked us, cornered us in an alleyway and robbed us.
After of this happened I was fucked up, I'm still fucked up, I still have nightmares and trouble sleeping, difficulty trusting other people and even myself.
I was put on seroquel, which completely fucked my schooling, I dropped out of year 11. I had friends who got a kick out of making me walk home at night after smoking pot, making me walk the streets alone and sending me on goose chases because they seemed to think it was hilarious that I was freaking out so much about it. One of those being my still current best friend, another who I considered a best friend.
I had a girlfriend at the time, who I was absolutely in love with, who had to deal with my post trauma trust issues and irritability, I loved her so much, she dealt with me venting a lot, about my trauma and my drug addicted best mate. I had to break up with her because I couldn't put her through the bullshit anymore, I did it for her own mental health, and also my own, I had to learn to navigate it on my own. The only way I could get her to accept the break up was to tell her I didn't love her, an absolute lie.
The friend I considered a best friend, who was there for me the day I got back from the assault was dealing with a heroin addiction that I was unaware of for some time and substance abuse with a lot of different drugs, I along with our friend group started experimenting with LSD and other drugs from the silk road, even some shifty research chemicals. He was a very very intelligent guy, mildly narcisstic, but he was very good at pretending everything was fine, he rarely talked about his feelings. His ex partner and myself are among the only people he knew that he took his mask off for. He came over one day and admitted to using heroin and admitted he'd used a few hours before coming over. I got angry and told him to leave. That was the last time I ever saw him. We spoke a couple times over the next couple years and I was apologetic for pushing him away, told him that I'd always be there for him, and 6 months later he was dead. Overdosed. I'd already had a few friends die to suicide at that point, but when he died I truly broke.
Fast forward to 8 months ago, another really fucking good mate of mine died from an overdose of script opioids. He had moved away years before that to "Get away from the drugs" and get his life together, none of us knew his addiction got worse there. So it was a real shock to us. I became more depressed than I'd even been in my life, I couldn't leave my bed for weeks.
We had a gathering a couple of weeks after his passing, at an old older friends house that we used to party at, it was sort of a halfway home for a lot of us in our teenage years. We discussed a lot of things, we got onto the topic of my ex, who till this day, is with an acquaintance of mine. I was then told that the first mate who overdosed, had actually gone and fucked my ex right after we broke up. This guy who I mourned over for years, cleaned his grave monthly, felt guilt over, backstabbed me. My ex knowing how much I loved him, worried every night over, went to him and fucked him, I don't know how to feel about it anymore, I'm so confused.
All of this has completely fucked my progress in life, I can't hold jobs, I'm pretty much constantly analysing people, and myself. I've started studying so many times and dropped out. I still have major trust issues and paranoia, on my own I've learnt to internalise this instead of project it. I suffer with substance abuse problems still. I'm faced with years of therapy that I can't afford, a ten session mental health care plan just doesn't cut it when I'm going to probably need hundreds of sessions to reverse this. Those first ten sessions could quite easily and more than likely will be used up on my "History" because I have so much of it. I honestly feel like I will never feel joy or pleasure in my life, I'll always be haunted by nightmares, that my life is doomed to be a constant uphill battle.
I'm sorry for the trauma dump, I understand that the internet is a pretty silly place to vent, but I don't really have great support in my life at the moment. The only reason I'm still here is because of my partner. She's so patient with me, and loving towards me despite all of the negatives. She just struggles with communication, but I know she loves me very much, even if I don't love myself.
​

Let me, Eleanor White, give you an example of how brutal and serious this
“character assassination” can be.
One of our members, who prefers to remain anonymous, moved in with her
husband and children to a house which, unknown to them, had been a
methamphetamine lab. The chemicals used to brew meth apparently cause
distinctive symptoms in the mouth. This family’s dentist felt he was “helping
law enforcement” by reporting them to local law enforcement as meth users.
This was absolutely untrue, but the family didn’t even know the report had
been made and had no way to correct it. (In fact, in some places, dentists are
REQUIRED to report suspected cases of meth use.)
Law enforcement in that area was apparently tied in to the citizen groups, and the
family was harassed for many years. The husband died, apparently from exposure
to these chemicals.
The lady, now a grandmother, steadfastly did detective work and eventually found
out about her family’s reputation, with some help from a policeman who was a
personal friend, from a different jurisdiction. This policeman admitted off the
record that “meth mouth” can result in people being submitted to citizen
harassment groups for harassment.
Character assassination is complete, and has life-destroying consequences!
 “A common tactic use by groups is noise campaigns.Group members will drive
by the target’s residence or work place, honking their horns, squealing tires, and
making whatever other noise they can.”
“They will also make noise from whatever nearby properties they have access
to. Typically, they will make noise when the target goes outside. Group
members will also frequently knock on his door for whatever peculiar reasons
they can dream up.”
 “In an apartment setting, targets can expect to hear tapping on the walls in the
middle of the night, hammering etc. from the upper and/or lower apartments, and
possibly the apartments on both sides. They will continue to ‘work’ on these
activities for as long as they can get away with them.”
 [From Terrorist Stalking in America] “… It is not uncommon, in an apartment
setting, for a target to hear someone moving from room to room as he does, from
the upper or lower apartment. [Eleanor White talking: This requires commercial
through wall radar or more advanced technology in many cases.]
 “Often they occupy a nearby apartment, part time, when the owner is not there
and he receives some benefit. A target may notice someone leaving a nearby
apartment when he leaves his, and arrive when he arrives. In addition, he will
often be accompanied in elevators by a steady stream of different individuals who
go to the apartments being used by the group.”
What about the future, then? Let me close this review with a chilling quote from David Lawson’s
first book, Terrorist Stalking in America, reporting what the author learned from some of the
leaders:
“The leaders … are starting to balk at exposing their members to arrest for activities which
amount to little gain for the movement. they say that anyone who is a target should be killed, and
not just harassed for years.”
Eleanor White

I had an episode, and this is an overview of it. During the episode, I was traveling a lot, had just moved, and was starting all this right before lockdown began. I did abuse methamphetamine and oxycodone during this time but didn’t go off the wall drug wise. Day or two no sleep, regular schedule for a few days, day or two no sleep.
That I’m being pursued by the DEA for interstate trafficking of drugs, they got jobs near where I worked, and would even go into the restaurant in disguise to keep tabs on me. They rented apartments around mine to install spy equipment and do things to antagonize me. Used a ladder to get onto my 3rd floor balcony because my stash was in the exterior closet. (Crazy thing is there were tire marks up to the building, and somehow the door had been opened 😳). They would shine lights into my living room at night (again, 3rd floor and wife saw them once). That I was doing work on my car to put in stash pots for transport, when in reality I was too poor to afford a shop to rebuild the front end of my car. I worked from 9 am to 11pm so I’d walk my dog around 1230-1am. Car would drive behind me, park, wait for me to pass, then drive past me and park again. I had marked police cars, parked in the shadows, flash their lights while I was walking my dog.
I gave them the slip one day, ducked into the woods by the back of the complex, and I swear the place came alive. People on motorcycles, cars and on foot. I walked to the corner store. Couple comes in, walks to every point in store I walked to, never actually looking at items. Comes into isle I’m in, and just stops. Staring at me while I get air freshener for my car. Go back out and get in my car. Couple gets in car beside mine and just sits there. I waste around 15 minutes sitting there before they turn their car on and leave.
Stopped at autozone in my hometown one day in the middle of it it all. 700 people here. Had to get a battery. Within a few minutes, the store was packed. To the point the worker ringing me out stopped and said “what’s going on? It’s never this busy here.” Everyone who came into the store naught oil additives or something simple like that, and some didn’t even get anything when I was leaving. They just put it down and left.
One day when I went to work a car would follow me all the way to my job, and another car was parked there with people in it. They had their windows down and were talking, staring at me. I went inside to and they watched me go. About 2 hours later, I took my paycheck out to my car. That car with the people was still there, on the phone. I turned around to go back inside and they were driving off. Came back out at the end of my shift and an unmarked police car was beside my car, idling. Another marked unit was across the parking lot.
My wife noticed people following us in the grocery store, a lot like loss prevention, but they seemed to keep us in eyeshot and try to antagonize us to cause an issue. They walked straight into her and would just glare at us. One on each end of the isle at all times. Even employees seemed to notice it was off and gave them the side eye.
One day after I got home from work, a plainclothes officer was talking to another resident on the bottom floor. They slowed talking and just stared while I walked up to my unit. When I took my dog out a few mins later, the officer was looking in handrails and near the stairwell for hiding spots. He refused to even acknowledge me saying hello.
This shit really happened. I used to drive from rural West Virginia to Charlotte, North Carolina, bi weekly to see my mom. At the same time they were finding people trafficking cocaine into my hometown. The vast majority of it came from me being off the wall psychotic at the time, but my wife did notice some weird things during all of it too. She also mentioned there had been reports of vehicle breakins in the neighborhood we just moved into. We were also the only interracial couple in the neighborhood, and one of the only millennial and under couples. Plus I get told I look like a hoodlum.
This went on for almost 2 years, off and on. I even tested it one night driving to WV, I took a “scenic route” of 6 hours instead of 3, and ran into state police in a town of less than 100 people, followed over a mountain, and followed through a bojangles drive through. Complete insanity. Got me so paranoid I watched a thicket of trees, maybe 10’ deep and 50’ long, for 3 days, thinking the police were hiding cars in them..
It was the perfect storm of coincidence, timing, wrong place/ wrong time, stereotypes and mental illness. I never trafficked drugs, only got stuff for me. I was traveling to visit family and friends. I still have an erratic odd schedule and walk my dog in the middle of the night. I still don’t fit the mold for the apartment complex I live in. I’m still schizophrenic. I also still can’t explain most of the stuff I experienced in that year and a half. I couldn’t write most of it, but a lot of it was similar to what I described, just varied in intensity.
Thanks for reading my book y’all 🫡

Synopsis: a baby boy is born 1983,(he has 2 younger sister not long after him) (I believe from love, non biologically speaking) soon it is realized he has a stutter, also it is soon noticed his talent for art. Boy grows, has for the most part a happy childhood up until he is 13 and his mother and father divorce. His Mother and Father both having decently level heads and never having drank or done drugs around him, having done nothing more than have several arguments (never even physical)(to my knowledge) around him, decide that Mom will have primary custody as Dad has been an over the road truck driver most all his life. Even after this his Mom and Dad were and continue to be rocks and cornerstones in his life but as he becomes and teenager and man he becomes a tattoo artist at 17 officially, licensed yada yada. He also becomes an addict.He is always a person who stutters to this day. This day he he 40, soon to be 41. In the last month he (so I hope) and with the help of his wife (whom is a literal saint, in my opinion) has overcame finally, his addiction, mainly to drinking and methamphetamine, but over the years he done and been on everything at some point. Does or can I ask...does anyone think this is an idea for a decent book? Or am I blowing smoke up my own ass and need to sit down? DONT TAKE IT EASY ON ME, TELL ME IF IM RETARTED AND THIS IS HORRIBLE IDEA. ANY AND ALL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS WELCOME. Edit: I forgot to mention and as this is in the stutter reddit. I will not say my stutter is cured, it does not control my life. I'm no longer controlled by it...idk...thanks for the few comments. Maybe I was just blowing smoke up my own ass...thanks all