(...) Everything remained still for a moment, but then came the second knock, and the third. The fourth and fifth followed shortly after. Each time a bit faster, each time a bit stronger. The sixth made the entire door tremble as Timmy whimpered under his voice, still frozen in the corner of his bed. By the tenth knock, it was impossible to keep on counting. A barrage of strikes assaulted the door with deafening force as a thin stream of urine made its way down Timmy’s pants. He tried to scream, but by that point his voice had also abandoned him. The torment lasted for less than a minute but, to Timmy, it felt like ages. Then there was silence. As soon as he managed to muster the strength to scream, he wailed. His father came rushing into the room and turned on the light.
“Honey, it happened again,” said Timmy’s father to the woman walking groggily behind him.
“It’s okay, boy. You are okay,” he said as he held Timmy close to his chest.
“It... it ca- came,” Timmy whimpered.
Timmy’s father tried to hide the concern in his voice, but as soon as he noticed the small warm puddle on which he was standing, his fatherly tenderness was tainted by strokes of rage.
“You can’t keep doing this, Timothy. Not every night. You’re almost ten. This is not normal. This is not what normal kids do.”
Timmy tried to produce an answer, but only sobbing came out of his mouth. His father opened a drawer in Timmy’s night stand and took a couple of pills out of an orange bottle.
“Here, boy. Take these. We’ll go and see Dr. Zea tomorrow. We may need to change your prescription.”
Timmy was in no position to understand anything. His father lifted him up and changed his pants as the woman stared from the doorframe. He then put Timmy back in bed and lightly rubbed his head.
“You’re gonna sleep now, okay? No more games.”
Both adults walked out of the room and turned the lights off. Timmy remained motionless under his covers, staring blankly into nothingness (...)
Footnote #2: The Maddening
How do we deal with the mad? In older times, we may have put them into a ship and let them sail away with no compass so that they may be swallowed by the sea. We may have beheaded them or accused them of witchcraft. But we are not so barbaric anymore, are we? Now we just lock them up with the pretense of treatment and pump them with drugs until they become broken husks of their former selves. So humane we are. But why do we treat the mad in this manner? What crime have they committed to warrant such a stern punishment? One may argue that they are a danger to themselves and to those around them, and one may be right about that. However, it couldn’t possibly be that simple.
As a society, we rely on agreements to even have a chance of being able to exist in the same space. Legal agreements, moral agreements, monetary agreements and so on and so forth. We agree on what’s good and what’s bad, on what’s nice and what’s rude, we agree on what’s real and what’s not, and the entire history of human conflict could be boiled down to the moments in which these agreements were broken, or those in which no agreement was ever produced. We compromise, yes. But in order to keep us from tearing each other apart, at least some number of agreements must be held true and sacred by both parties.
This is why we prey on the mad. This is why we have so little regard for their lives. Because they disagree. It is not, however, the kind of disagreement a capitalist may have with a socialist, or a theist with a scientist. The mad disagree with reality itself. With our reality, that is. And that, we can’t forgive.
We feel so profoundly threatened by their reality, that we will go to great extents to keep them from even entertaining those thoughts and sharing them with us. When they’re lucky, we seal them away in white prisons where they can be ignored. And when they’re not so lucky, we ignore them nonetheless, but we do so with poise as we let them walk among us while we treat them like children. We look upon their lives with pity and condescension as if their very humanity was different, as if it was lesser, as if it was useless.
To deem someone as mad is quite probably the most severe form of violence we can inflict upon each other. It is a way of silencing, for their words will have no weight. It is a way of vanishing, for their lives will have no place. And it is a way of butchering, for they will never be complete again.
Deep down, we are all painfully aware of the implications of madness, and that is why the mere suggestion of our own madness is so viscerally unnerving. Thus, to become mad is, unsurprisingly, one of the most terrifying prospects we can possibly imagine.
This is where fiction can take some notes. The Maddening, to be understood as any force that would compel a character to become mad, is a tremendously powerful tool to convey dread. In practical terms, a mad character will be alienated and frowned upon. Everything he does or says will be questioned by his peers and, even more daunting, questioned by himself. Madness is the ultimate form of isolation; it is to put a character in such a state of helplessness that he will become a stranger among those who know him, a stranger even to himself.
The pathos of such vulnerability is universal, and if fictional horror manages to convey it, the results should be staggeringly effective.
Footnote #1: The Unknown
Footnote #3: The Cosmic
I really hope you enjoyed this piece. Please follow me if you did! @jean.racines
Image sources (in order of appearance): Image 1, Image 2, Image 3.
Further reading:
- Ahmad, A. (2010). Bordering On Fear: A Comparative Literary Study of Horror Fiction. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
- Campbell, J. (1949). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Lovecraft, H. P. (1973). Supernatural horror in literature. New York: Dover Publications.
- Mathiesen, T. (2004). Silently silenced: essays on the creation of acquiescence in modern society. Winchester: Waterside Press.
¡Caramba Caramba hermano! Qué extraordinario cuento con un muy atractivo e interesante tópico y excelsa narrativa de la que haces gala de tus singulares dotes de excelente escritor. Ya me lo olía desde el principio de conocerte. (Shush! aquí hablando de loco a loco }:))
Cuanto me alegra observar que en tan corto tiempo ya hayas logrado cruzarte al frente del radar de las ballenas y captado su atención e interés con suculentos votos para premiar tu excelente narrativa en la creación de tu contenido original. ¡Wowza! ya en camino a los $500.00 en un solo post ¿Huh? ..Jajajaja ojalá a mí me salpicara algo de eso!! Mientras tanto te acecharé de cerca a ver que aprendo. :)
Ya estaré pendiente del próximo Cryptail Contest a ver que se me ocurre para poder participar con algún mínimo chance de éxito. Porqué lo que es en ésta primera edición, me temo que la competencia es feroz y ya estoy plenamente convencido de que tu entrada luce claramente imbatible para ser superada.
Por otro lado y si por si acaso no lo sabías, haciendo click aquí podrás consultar continuamente en qué porcentaje y peso y de donde provienen esos jugosos 500 verdes que en buena lid te has ganado. ;)
Un fuerte abrazo y que continúen los éxitos.
¡Gracias, por500! Me alegra mucho que te haya gustado este ensayo. Respecto a Cryptails, ¡siéntete libre de participar! Todavía queda tiempo. Tenemos algunas excelentes entradas, pero siempre estamos abiertos a recibir más talento. Yo soy uno de los organizadores del concurso, entonces ninguno de mis textos es parte de la competencia.
Phew! bueno saberlo entonces para no exigirle tanto a mis extravagantes musas Jejeje. Sin embargo, de momento no creo disponer del tiempo y calma necesaria para crear un relato digno de ésta competencia. Esperaré al próximo y tentaré a la suerte a ver si soy capaz de obtener al menos la cuarta parte del éxito, reconocimiento y recompensa que has obtenido tú con el tuyo. :)
No hay lío, ¡te esperamos en la próxima edición entonces!
Suerte con todo,
Jean
I was pleasantly surprised by this article. I was ready for something about how we fear the mentally because they are unpredictable and might do something violent, but I shouldn't have doubted you. Despite how often they are portrayed in pop culture as the perpetrators of crimes, they are much more likely to be the victims. Madness makes you vulnerable and confused and isolated, not The Joker, and I think that is what you are getting at. The fear is not in what they might do to us, but what might happen if we became them. It is easier to project that fear by assigning someone monstrous capacities than to go face to face with the disintegration of what makes us human and connects us to others, where lies true terror.
That was precisely the point! We may fear a “crazy person” for the violence he or she might inflict upon us, but that fear it trivial when compared to the dehumanizing prospect of our madness.
The maddening... good read. Lack of agreement leads to madness among a monster in myselfs ?
I often often feel the madness making me as I like to refer to myself at times as:
Maal de Mal.
What if my madness was my way of seeking attention and the normality only disturbed me or
my reality threatened me so I dreamed it or about, can never tell which one.
Thanks, silvio! I'd say that the advent of madness, true madness, is never a desired process. Some people may choose to embrace the idea of madness in one way or another for personal gain or attention, but these instances are quite rarely (if ever) true madness. True madness is an overpowering and desolating force, one that I truly believe very few (if any) would accept willingly.
Good post..
Thanks, davidad! Glad you enjoyed it = )
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Inspiring. The Black Mirror - Gateway to Madness... Coming Soon
Sounds ominous enough! It has quite a lovecraftian vibe to it.