Ketchup

Ketchup
I don't even know why I'm writing this. I mean, what's the point? Not
like anyone's going to fucking read it. Last week, I had a realization.
No, I regained consciousness. That's right. For almost all my life,
I've been unconscious, torn and bent over my imagination. Crying over
my imagination. Jubilating. Any emotion, you name it.
Well&;#8230;whatever.
It was 7:13. I'd lurched up in bed, looking about my room, which was
slowly filling with morning's light. Then it hit me. Skewered me.
Devoured me. The impact of this consciousness has almost driven me mad.
Nothing fucking exists. Nothing. If everything is relative, then
nothing means anything without anything else around it, to support it.
And that means that no thing, by itself, has any meaning. So, why was I
sitting under a blanket, with disheveled hair and clothes from the day
before? It's all in my head. Every fucking thing. Every person I'd met.
Every thing I'd touched. Nothing existed. Talk about a wake-up
call.
What was I to do with this revelation? Hell if I knew. So, I got up.
Took a shower. Y'know&;#8230;the mindless doldrum sort of stuff. But
this burning question left an indelible mark upon me. Why was I doing
this? Was I that masochistic to put myself through this? Throw myself
through things I hated because I thought, literally, that I needed to?
Then another realization slammed into me. If this 'reality' was all in
my mind, then could I not change any part of it I wished? That thought
put me where I am now. The thing was, I had no idea how to change
anything. I felt so powerless. So weak and defenceless against the
horrendous, evil creature that was my mind.
A ketchup packet was there on the floor. How it got
there&;#8230;I've got no idea. I guess I put it there, in
retrospect. I always fucking hated ketchup. Ruins the taste of
everything. I glared menacingly at it, and left it, alone in the early
morning cold.
I might as well try to control this reality thing, I recall thinking. I
decided to have some fun. I needed to be at work in a few hours. That
might be a good place to start.
It was cold during to the short walk to work. Fallen leaves frosted
over crunched and crackled beneath my shoes. Dusty gravel. Frigid
pavement.
In my naivety, I didn't think about the fact that loomed over me: I
didn't really know how to change anything. I was, however, extremely
aware of this after I was fired and thrown out due to
the&;#8230;massive glass jar displacement project I had decided to
undertake. Well, fuck. That hadn't worked so well. And now I lost a
good reference for my resume. Well, fuck&;#8230;again.
I sat at home in the darkness, eating canned olives and frozen meat. I
tasted neither, felt neither, was not really all that aware of either.
This food was just fuel until I could decipher this whole reality
conundrum.
So I sat, listening to music that I, evidently, had written and
composed. Concentrating. Mentally flailing against my mentality.
Surging pain tore me apart from the core. What? Why was I in pain? I
didn't want to hurt myself&;#8230;I realized that I must have
decided earlier that raw meat makes you sick. Well, damn. The raw meat
danced happily in my stomach, giggling at the mayhem it was causing. I
told it to stop. "Stop what?" It asked. "You're the one who's making me
do this." An inherently maleficent giggle resonated in my mind, as if
the former cow truly enjoyed this spectacle. Me, harming myself. Not
that the fucking cow ever existed. Not that there was ever going to
exist a cow. God, I hate myself sometimes.
I retched. I knew what was going to happen. A violent outpouring of my
food. Spilling onto the floor. But I didn't want to. Every fiber of my
body went against this.
Then the most amazing thing happened: Despite all my efforts to reshape
my "reality" to confine the horrendous lurching inside me, I failed.
Again. I fell down to my knees, coughing up the meat that had so
violated me, mentally and physically. Raped me of my sanity. Perhaps I
was simply insane. Perhaps this was all just some oddly contorted
dream. I could only hope.
From my vantage point, I saw the ketchup. Sitting. Yet dancing.
Infuriating me. The ketchup symbolized all that was wrong with me. I
despised it, yet it existed. I detested it, yet it was. In this reality
I had concocted, it was material.
I lashed out with my anger, pouring my hate towards it, my wish for its
non-existence.
The most amazing thing happened: Despite all my hopes having failed,
the packet disappeared. Vanished. Transcended into the great reality in
the sky. I stared in awe at the carpet where it had lain. The empty
space.
I had done it. Despite all rational odds, I had proven my sanity to
myself by actually altering reality. I jubilated, cavorting happily
upon my knees, my previous meal upon the ground before me. I should
have been horrified. I should have been wholly disturbed and mollified
by the actions I had just accomplished.
I raised to my feet, my eyes brimming with tears of tainted joy.
Already, the questions were forming in my mind. If I could do this,
wouldn't that mean I was alone, devoid of peers or even lesser? These
autonomic queries did not prevail against the adrenaline rush that
currently overwhelmed me, like a rushing river swallows up a small
animal.
My attention fell to the partially digested food on the ground before
me. I hated it. So much revulsion affronted me, coming from beneath me
in waves. I decided to follow through, like before. I hated the food.
And the food was no more.
I walked forward, placing my foot squarely where my fuel had once been,
smirking all the while. I was God.
I was the fucking Creator of all things. I made a mental note to
abolish religion. The last thing I needed was a bunch of people
following some god that wasn't real, that wasn't me.
When you realize you're the Almighty God, your perspective changes a
bit. From the outlook of a lowly worm, oppressed by those who are
powerful, to the One who has the power to oppress, or embrace, as it
may be, including, but not limited to, the powerful.
The world was my oyster. Or it would have been, if I had liked my
creation of oysters enough to make the world one overtly sized oyster.
I didn't.
I stepped outside, glaring around at the sudden cold that squeezed in
upon me from my very entrance into its domain. It howled at me, as if
posing a challenge. I chuckled. My creation wasn't too intelligent. A
few moments later, all I felt was pleasant warmth, emanating from a
dull sun. I hated brightness.
My shoes drummed on the worn concrete, steady beats in accordance with
my steps. As I walked along the busy sidewalk, people stopped to look
at me, to gape at my presence. I had them look away, to mind their own
damned business. A deity can't spend too much time with his underlings,
can He?
I paused, looking out on the intersection, laden down with the thick
smog of audio traffic, horns blaring their existence, disembodied
voices screaming their protest.
These people&;#8230;these mindless peons of my imagination, annoyed
me. Pestered me to no end. I needed to get rid of them. A good number
of them, anyway. And if they weren't even real, what was the harm in
murder? I imagined it would give me a wonderfully visceral experience,
fulfilling my purpose and calming my nerves at the same time.
What did I have in my possession to accomplish such a benign task?
Nothing. However, I was aware of a certain shop that would fulfill my
needs.
I walked, throwing my jacket to the gritty street as I did so. I had no
use for it; the weather would always be warm now.
Upon my arrival, I opened the door, pain flaring in my hand but for a
moment as my hand turned upon the cold metal knob. I stepped in, my
hand feeling along the wall for the lights. I couldn't see anything in
this dark. Guns threw themselves into my vision, assaulting my eyes.
There were so many, a plethora of ideals. I plucked one from inside its
glass display case, my hand again twitching with pain. I shrugged it
off, and held the weapon in one hand.
The gun gleamed with malice, glinted with malevolence. I smiled
happily, nurturing it like a child. I knew almost nothing of weaponry
and assault, but I guessed the boxes by the stand were this particular
handgun's ammunition. After a few moments, I managed to load the thing,
all the while cackling inanely.
I stepped back the way I had come; my eyes flickered with
destruction.
I stood upon the corner, my jacket laying somewhere nearby. I noted the
cars drove in the plentiful light with their headlights on. It boggled
me as to why.
And I began.
Stepping forward into the street, I laid siege to the knights sitting
inside their mechanical warhorses, formerly confident of their assured
victory. They failed. I shot without rhyme or reason, excepting that I
shot every person I saw. The total, they've told me, was seven.
Bullets flew through glass, barely hindered by its presence. Red liquid
affronted the yes, covering the space where the bullet had struck, a
heavy fog exploding onto the punctured glass of every victim. A man
carrying a briefcase crumpled violently, never to return to the office
again.
There I stood, amidst the carnage, betwixt the halted vehicles, inside
the ring of bodies, engulfed by the terror. After a few moments, sirens
screamed, as my "victims" had. What had I done wrong? I stood for
several moments, before remembering that the police too, were figments
of my highly masochistic mind. No matter.
I decided that the sirens perturbed me, and took actions to eliminate
them. The plan went successfully. I turned to walk away from my scene,
from my stage of happiness, but I was stopped. Halted. Thrown into
arrest by a high-velocity piece of metal tearing into my shoulder. The
ground flew to my face, and I decided it would be good for effect if I
let some blood flow to mix with the dirt and grime of the
pavement.
The bullet stuck inside me, playing havoc with my nerves. Or what I
imagined to be nerves. So it would go away.
But&;#8230;it didn't. Perhaps it was the impact of
bullet-to-shoulder; perhaps it was the ground-to-face impact. But it
would not leave. It lay there, agonizing my being.
I screamed, howled, thrashed in pain, until I felt rough hands upon my
shoulder. All physical feeling melted away. I was pulled roughly from
my brief home on the ground, and slammed roughly into the side of a
building. During this transit, I saw the stars, swirling in unceasing
blackness.
That's the moment it hit me. I was fucking insane. The frigid wind
re-enforced this, laughing once more, mocking me. The vomit on my
shoes. My horrendously bleeding hand, splintered in a thousand places
with glittering glass, shining cheerfully.
There is no such pain and humility you can feel as when you've killed
seven real people in a fit of insanity. This idea swallowed me, tore
me, destroyed me.
And so it followed that I was confined to a mental institution, where I
am writing this. For the good of the people. I'm still not sure whether
or not I believe in people. But, like it or not, they sure as hell
believe in me. And they are terrified at what they believe.
It's not like I'm a bad guy. I was just insane. For a little bit. I was
insane until they stopped giving me ketchup here. The catalyst to this
whole event. But I'm better now. Just let me out, and you'll see.