In the pool of my mind, I find strange thoughts swimming. They flick across the corners of my inner eye, half-seen, yet distinct enough to allow identification.
Three separate species tenant these murky depths. There is the soft grey fish with scales of shadows, whose name, I find, is envying the dead. Each time I hear about a death, no matter whose—a relative, acquaintance, politician or some long-forgotten star—I feel within that sudden flash, that twist and plunge of jealousy. For the dead have already found their end, have found their turning from that long straight road; their story is complete, the last words written—the future can no longer terrify. They are enclosed both ends by time, wrapped in its gentle wadding, stored away as precious things. I still hurtle forwards on the cutting edge of chaos, into who knows what desolate and unexplored frontiers.
The second species is pale in colour; it drifts through the water like a reflection of the moon. Its name is believing that you are a ghost; it feeds on lengthy periods alone.
For hours, I cannot see the hand in front of my face; I cannot see my arms, my knees, my feet. In my box, I have no impact on the world, which travels on its course quite as if I were not in it. People pass the silent, shuttered house and, if they think at all, they probably conclude that it is empty. And what does dwell within? A thing that lurks, that creeps, that mopes, that wanders now and then from room to room, that flees in terror from the wide-flung welcoming front door, the joyful flicking-on of lights.
It is not surprising that I have delusions of non-existence.
And, lastly, there’s the thought that lurks at the bottom of the pool, where debris and slime have settled in layers, and the water is viscous and dim. It is an enormous pike, black and massive and strong, with spines along its back and rows of razor teeth. It can stay hidden for days, motionless in some mud hole, and I will catch no glimpses of its mottled, warty skin. But it will always re-emerge to float about the lower reaches of my soul. Its name, of course, is suicide.