Their Madness was a Tragedy

By Sklar Fulton

Focusfocusfucosfocusfocusfocusfocus

It was terribly hard to focus when one’s surroundings were imploding in on themselves

all around him, but Emrys did what he could to work around the circumstances. It’s hard,

not because of the aforementioned implosion- those were a surprising blight of positivity

in an increasingly bleak world- but rather because of the aftermath of the destructive

beauty and the vibrant bursts of color they inevitably ended up leaving behind.

Pale pinks that wrapped around his body like a kiss, various shades of greenery that

danced upon his tongue until he felt his mouth go numb with its intensity. Bright gold and

blues that blended together into colors that made shivers jump up and down his spine as if

he was being jolted with electricity. It darted up the bones, up into his brain to tickle the

muscle there and bounce around his skull and taunt his very soul because there was

something important he was forgetting. Something he’d remember if only he’d just focus-

Color was a strange thing, both simultaneously Emrys’ favorite and least favorite thing-

good for days when he could do little more than curl up and sink down into a heap on the

white floors of his white room watching with an sickly sweet sense of content ‘or pain or

dread or downright nausea’ as he and the room faded away into a mess of colors in all

hues and shades. Bad for days when dread filled his limbs up to the brim as he

remembered how to move them properly as best he could, for days when he could feel

the insides of his head itch and ache for something crucial, something important yet

unattainable as it tore itself apart searching for clues as to what it could be.

Focusfocusfucosfocusfocusfocusfocusfocus

There was a significance in the way that the days blurred together, how some days were

good, euphoric even, and how other days were excruciating and how there were days that

walked a fine line between the two extremes. There was a significance in the way his

doctor seemed to remember anything and everything under Emrys’ white ceilings while

Emrys’ himself had to fight to recall what his name meant even on a good day, even

when his head felt as weightless as a cloud and little facts floated in as though by

mistake. And on days where his head was packed full of worries and whimpers about

which day it was going to be next and how long it would take for his head to start itching

again, the doctor had the privilege to smile, a small thing sent carefully his way to calm

him down and keep his head at bay.

There was something unnatural about it though. About the way the doctor’s head

remained so clear while his only ever seemed to get more cluttered, about the way their

teeth looked behind much too red, friendly lips.

Teeth weren't meant to be that sharp, that sinister, were they? The tongue hidden behind

them wasn't meant to be so forked and silvered, was it?

Something urged him to trust the doctor, trust them with his care, his health, his life.

What did they do to deserve that trust anyway?

Emrys often had the terrible habit of making things up that weren’t? shouldn’t be there,

his doctor said, a terrible tendency to try and trick him into believing in things that

didn’t? shouldn’t exist. Sometimes there were sounds, the unmistakable sounds of

someone miserable and in anguish, they sounded deep in the night as if to join his croons

of loneliness. Other times, there were words, they clashed with everything the doctor had

cautioned him against and thoughts the doctor had talked him out of.

If he was coherent enough, Emrys tried to find even half the mind to wonder what they

were. People, maybe? Hallucinations perhaps? Ugly little nothings brought on by his

ugly, selfish need to have someone suffering alongside him, sharing in his pain. That’s

what the doctor said after all. Told him they were nothing more than phantoms until he

built up the urge to laugh them all away, guilt pressing into every octave. But even with

the doctor’s help they never stayed away for long.

Why was that?

As a patient and a troublesome one at that, for all the extra work and extremities the

doctor often had to put up with when it came to him, Emrys had always felt inclined to do

his best to follow through on the doctor’s orders. He wanted to get better, he wanted to

make the selfless doctor proud and he tried his very best to listen but-

There are nights when the voices were at their loudest and the colors at their brightest and

pictures that didn’t belong there at all found themselves plastered to his walls and his

floors and his skin and he found himself at an almost terrible sort of clarity. Peace-

though that didn’t sound like the right sort of word- organized chaos of mind would flood

him and he’d feel his skin want to peel at the feeling.

If color and loopiness are strange, the feeling of understanding the world around you is

downright madness. It’s just as terrible and haunting and beautiful as all the other things

that run through his mind. Up until the doctor’s face floods his vision and his head fogs

up. The last thing that comes to mind as he goes under is a terribly muddy thought on the

true peace of mind.

He’s too far gone for it to make any sense. Something along the lines of sanity was

overrated anyway.