The nature of madness

I'm a quick thinker, I'm a rationalist, yet I had a hard time understanding the nature of my madness.

Insanity, you see, has this neat little trick up its sleeve, it doesn't feel like anything is different, and that's the worst part.

Some people kept telling me that I'm very much wrong in the head, over time I've come to believe them,  it was initially mistrust, denial, incredulity, even anger; I mean who wouldn't be pissed off if someone you hardly know comes up to you and matter-of-factly tells you that you are insane?

In the beginning I tried a lot, you know, to find out exactly what was wrong with me, first choice was obviously to ask them, but these people just won't say anything other than reiterating in various ways that I was off my rocker, so no luck with that. Then I checked my behavioural patterns for anomalies, my appearance, I compared them with everyone around me.

I'm a mild mannered person, I hardly express negative emotions, neither am I devoid of them, I smile when I greet people, I listen well, I express myself quite appropriately - I remember people I've spoken to before; quite sane, in fact I concluded I'm much saner than the average crowd around me, and people's remarks would mostly also be on the same tone. But every now and then there'd be those who simply out of the blue would call me a total nutcase -  very strange.

Appearance wise, I'm plain, dress pretty much according to social norms, take care to not appear dishevelled or abnormal at all, so no dice there. The source of my apparent lunatism was going to be a perpetual mystery.

After that, when I put some thought to it, it was clearly one of three situations, either there was something wrong with me that I just couldn't spot but these people could, or there was some major practical joke going on of which I was the butt, or simply there were some people who themselves are completely bonkers and their madness makes them call me insane. It had to be one of these - no other options.

I dismissed the first one simply because I had checked myself too thoroughly, and there was absolutely nothing off. For the second one, I quietly tolerated them, just waited for it to end, waited for the prankster to pop out and show me the hidden camera, but I knew of no one who would want to film that for years and do nothing about it.

Yes, I waited for years, kept my anger in check, trying my best to ignore the nonsense, years upon years... It was absolute torture. But I never met my prankster. Third option it is then, but why me? I didn't see them do that to anyone else! The torture continued.

And then I cracked.

I was having a bad day in general, a very bad one, work and whatnot, returned home very late and very pissed. I was climbing up the stairs, when I saw that bum who possibly lived somewhere in my building, the one who always accosted me on the stairs and called me a psycho. The moment he spotted me he made a beeline for me... I lost it, I wasn't going to stand it anymore, he was a few paces away from me on the landing when he started doing his routine, lifting his arm to point a finger and deliver his line - utterly oblivious to my anger.

Before he could say anything, I socked him in the jaw, I only saw his flabbergasted expression for a moment as he saw my fist coming up to meet his face, he didn't have much time to brace for impact, I saw him topple over and fall down the stairs, coming to a halt in a very inhuman posture.

It took me a moment to recover, then dread filled me, what had I done! I ran down and righted up the guy, no pulse, no responses.

Thankfully there was no blood, or it'd have been far messier; I was quite out of my mind, and indeed did feel very insane as I carried him down to the car, drove down to the river across the city in a convoluted route, parked in the middle of the bridge, looked around, 2am, not a soul in sight, tossed the corpse over. I was shaking as I drove back via yet another convoluted route.

Not a peep back at my place, I went up to my apartment, shut the door, sat down on the floor, and spent the rest of the night right there.

When I woke up in the morning I was feeling refreshed, and far less shaken than I felt I should be. And why not? That bloke deserved it, legally speaking, the years of torture is provocation enough for my assault - I rationalized to myself.

I went to work, to avoid arousing any suspicions, to my utter surprise, and alarm, I spotted two of the usual mad-callers, they saw me, didn't approach, just eyed me surreptitiously. Shit, they knew.

A few weeks passed, I still couldn't help but feel pangs of nervousness whenever I saw any neighbours on the stairs, or any cops near my place, and of course the ex loon-sayers who had now become mere eyeballers. But apparently there was no mention of any missing persons in the air. I began to grow more and more relaxed.

About a month after the incident, they started up again, but this time, to my utter shock, they called me mad murderer, crazy criminal, psycho killer. I couldn't even reply or react out of mind-numbing fear. I'm generally the kind of person who scoffs at conspiracy theories - but this was first-hand! There would be no police enquiries, no direct action, just continued torture.

There was only one solution.

After the first time, things get much easier, the second time I flipped, I knew what I was doing, and the guy did totally deserve it. It was a pattern, they always approached me when there weren't others around, and always had that look of disbelief when I took out a handkerchief and strangled them, I'd gotten much more confident and took them down every time they started their abuse.

I had to buy a new handkerchief every month. And I could write a book on disposing corpses.

It had become almost routine, but it did affect me every time. In the course of the next year, I progressively grew bitter, I did not enjoy the killings, but I could not stand the torture either. But the scales seemed to be tipping, there had to be some way out of this horrific cycle.

After the thirteenth kill, I had enough, this could not go on, whatever my madness was, this murder spree was proof of it, I wanted it to stop. I decided to turn myself in.

I rehearsed my lengthy explanation, I knew it would be difficult to prove, after all, my methods were quite polished and there would literally be no proof that I had murdered those thirteen people. There was also a faint ray of hope that their investigations could also unearth the root of this whole cruel joke/conspiracy/whatever.

I walked into the local police station this afternoon, my thumper going wild in my ribcage.

The front desk was empty with an out-to-lunch sign. I was strangely relieved, maybe that was a sign that this was not a good idea after all, like the universe was on my side!

That thought was load was off my chest, feeling like a soul reborn, I turned to exit, and there he was.

The guy from the stairs, in the same clothes that I had dumped him in the river.

Now I pride myself on being a rationalist, and am quite a quick thinker too, you can't be a good criminal if you're not one. So I reasoned, the guy could have been rescued and resuscitated, he may have communicated with the other loon-sayers, spied on me, made me commit twelve more murders, real ones, and then in my weakest moments, turn it all on me. Yes, that was the only possibility.

But by now I was too good at this, he will not get the better of me, I'd gotten him once, I will get him for good this time. I looked around to check, no one else, as usual, his habit was much to my advantage. I grinned as he glanced at me with a knowing look.

My elation was short-lived when I noticed the security camera, now that was going to be a problem, I had to get to a blind spot, I looked for the security monitor at the desk, that'd tell me where to stand so that our encounter is not visible and the escape route is clear.

I saw the monitor, I saw the screen, I saw the view from the camera, I saw me, and the empty room.

I'm a quick thinker, I'm a rationalist, it was then that I understood the nature of my madness.