"The only difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad!", I said looking at a blank canvas. Staring at a blank wall in a dark room, I sigh. Making paintings is always tiresome. In just a few minutes, I was going to create a painting by using a technique I created called The Paranoid Critical Method. This is when you put yourself into a state where you can see everything in your mind in all sorts of different shapes and illusions. After opening the curtains and brewing myself some chai tea, I sat myself on a chair and closed my eyes.

As I stepped into my hallucination, all I saw was a pinewood forest and a lot of rain. Even though it looked a little creepy, I moved on into the forest. Inside the forest, there were bunnies with purple eyes that had tails of beavers. But I wanted to get closer to them to observe them. As I was slowly walking up to them, I accidentally tripped and fell. Soon enough my vision blurred and I closed my eyes. I wondered what I would see next.

When my vision cleared up, I saw a house right in front of me. For some reason, it looked very familiar. Shrugging my thoughts aside, I walked into this unknown house but once I did, I soon realized that it’s my grandmother’s house. It smelled just like the gingerbread cookies, the ones my cousins and I would always make for Santa Clause during Christmas Eve. When I went over to the kitchen, I saw candles with green flames. Peering inside the oven, there were, of course, gingerbread cookies. “I missed this place.”, I say, sighing. Looking up at the family portraits on the wall, I wondered how long they’d been there. But that thought instantly went away when I saw a bunch of cookie crumbs on the floor, almost like a trail. Deciding to follow the trail, I step into grandmother’s living room. Walking up to the sight awaiting me, I see chairs floating, clocks swirling around, and so many flying cats. “What a sight to see!”, I pointed out. “This place would be perfect for my painting.”, I say. Walking out of grandmother’s house, I step out of my hallucination. When I did, I checked to see if my room was still the same, and luckily nothing changed. All the clothes were out on the floor and blueprints of my paintings were all over the place. Whenever I hallucinate, it makes me feel uneasy, like something happened while I was out on a surreal adventure.

I opened some new paint and took the canvas out of the plastic. Using a soft-bristled paintbrush, I decided to sketch the pinewood forest first. Grabbing a dark green paint, I drew every leaf on the trees. Doing so, I got that kind of itchy feeling you get when you touch the leaves of a pinewood tree. Afterward, I painted the jagged pieces of bark on the tree. Touching up the trees, I moved on to grandmother’s house. I started to paint the scented candles inside the kitchen. Then I added gingerbread cookies from the oven with eyes that follow you around, no matter which direction you go. Next, I painted the floating chairs in the living room. I added a doll grasping the chair’s leg, holding on so it won’t hit the ground. The chairs were all in different directions, swaying left to right. Even though I couldn't make the chairs physically move in my painting, I could make them sideways, so I did that instead. Then, I drew the clocks melting and swirling. In my hallucination, the clocks were on the carpet of the living room, but I decided to put the clocks on the top of the roof, filling up the house’s rooftop. Lastly, I drew the flying cats. When I was at my grandmother's house, I saw her pet ocelot floating, so I decided to draw all of the cats as ocelots. But for my grandmother's cat, I made it have a stone-studded collar.

Once I finished adding tiny details, I soon had a painting I was satisfied with. I put down my paintbrush and soon realized how exhausted I was. When I checked the time, it was already midnight! I put a fan next to my canvas for it to dry by the next morning, and went to bed.