The Crazy

I’ve either been here for several days or just a few minutes. Time has just stopped flowing like the smooth stream it was when I was growing up. It seems like now I can be yanked right out of the way of things and held up from the rest of the world. At first I couldn’t tell what was happening, the transition was quick and subtle. Now it’s blazingly apparent. Like right now, I’m standing in this phone booth. I came in to make a call to Gwendolyn when the stars started whizzing by. Whoosh. Whoosh. Then it was like they all went by at once. It looked like every star-tail strung through every moment it could experience in both directions. I was tempted to go ahead and make the phone call anyway, but I’ve tried to do that before. I called myself and left a forty-eight hour message once. When I came home later the machine had exploded.
There’s no accounting for the time. I’ll just get dropped back in right where I left off, but the time out in the cold keeps getting longer. I’ve talked to a few people about this and often it’s a mixture of confirmed disbelief with a skeptical line of questioning. The truth is I often don’t go anywhere when my record goes off the track. I’m never sure when I’m going to be dropped back in and there’s no telling what maniac on a bicycle or texting driver I’ll appear in front of. I prefer to stay in the general area where things started or, I suppose, where things stopped. Like this phone booth. It’s not great, but there are ads to read. One for some women who calls herself “Treat” and another for a business I can run out of my home. They both have the same hook. “Have you got some extra time on your hands?” It’s exactly like it sounds. My hands are grimy with time. I can also read the phone book, but I usually don’t get past—

~PHONE RINGS~

Howard: Hel...Hello?
Mr. X: Hello, Howard.
Howard: Um…
Mr. X: I imagine this must be quite shocking, Howard. Take your time.
Howard: No, I mean, a bit surprising, yes, but what with the rest of my life I’m used to being disoriented
Mr. X: Good man. Well, let’s get to it then. Howard, you are going crazy.
Howard: Pardon?
Mr. X: Quite mad, in fact. In a few years, you won’t be able to get out of your own head.
Howard: What? That isn’t—
Mr. X: —quite fair, is it. No, it isn’t. But you’re about to be introduced into an entirely new world. Tell me, have you ever considered how crazy an average crazy person considers themselves?
Howard: Well, no.
Mr. X: No! And neither had I until I went to crackers, but it’s fairly simple. A crazy person never feels crazy. A rather important symptom, I’m afraid. Take me for example. I was a leading professor of eastern philosophy when I started to make my jumps into madness. I know what it’s like to feel the earth stop around you, only mine wasn’t so gradual as yours. I was lost in this world of lights rather fast.
Howard: Wait, what are you saying? This is crazy?
Mr. X: No, Howard, you are. You’ll see it soon enough, but I have other things to attend to now. I’m not the only one here though. We all come to the same place. A meeting of the maddest minds in the land of lights. You may even meet some, in time. But for now, this will have to suffice. Welcome to the crazy.

~CLICK~