A train is pushing through a cold and bleak landscape. Void of life, hungering for death.
Cold steel grinding against cold steel.
While rusty outside, the carriages inside are tapered with cozy blankets from wall to floor.
Small patterns and seemingly nonsensical stitched icons all over. Like eyes looking back at you.
In carriage #17 we have our Max and his darling. I think we’ve managed to have caught him in the middle of a manic state.
Looking at our Max – starting at the shoes – you wouldn’t think of him as a character in high regard of himself. The dust getting caught in his greasy hair. Mud still on his white boots from last months expedition.
Let’s just call him our subject from now on.
The sun is touching our subject with what little light leaks through the wooly walls. Giving his darling next to him a bleeding orange hue.
He starts to ramble to her as he usually does everytime we tune in;
“as we walk through these carriages, I get this feeling, that everything is uneasy. That something isn’t right. Unclean, but something that can only be cleaned with my mind. Locked in a cold room, and I forgot where the key is. Somewhere I want to escape from, but my body won’t let me, or somewhere I want to escape from, but the struggle of trying to escape is what keeps me from being truly free.”
He continued “Obviously I got myself in this “mess”, so I am the key to getting out of it too. It’s as if my mind made the whole world uneasy, something I can’t rest in, something I can’t trust. Like I’m seeing the “off” side of everything. The dark side.”
All at the same time knowing I am still here, calm.”
Allowing himself a lukewarm breath he continued; “I understand there are things around me, and that they are physical – but what do I make of them? Like going back to infancy. The innocence of it all, the fear of it all. Purely rooted in the fact that we don’t know what it is. Existential racism. The things are just “thinging” … having a time. I, on the other hand, am making something out of it.
“My mind is fighting to implant a new reality into me. A corrupted one…built on fear. Surely nothing can be inherently evil, but my mind certainly feels so”
His darling notices a water droplet fall from the rusty roof, licking his greasy hair and finding its way down his cheek. She shifts her attention back to the rambling.
“…A process of finding proof for my brain to understand…”
(read: convince),
“…that the current reality it wants to adapt, is not a given reality nor the one I want to accept or give in to.”
“The part of me that isn’t making something out of this. The part of me that is laughing with me at how much I got myself to freak out. That is the sole anchor point of comfort I have left in this pure moment“
“Surely without that I could lose it, and might not find my way back in my oh so familiar shoes.”
“I feel like the demons are sucking me, playing an evil game. Why would the vampire, bleed his victim to death when he can let it live for further harvest in the future. That is, if he has the self-control. I guess demons do. They’re only here to teach me anyways. [REDACTED] demons.”
As they approach the next wagon, our subject notices a spot on the persian rug with a little pool of sun. He pulls out the tea gear and they sit down.
An old scrunchy man is playing a mean guitar in the corner facing the wall. I, as a narrator, can’t play in the cold, so he must be playing to stay warm.
As he pours the yellow liquid into the barely white ceramic, his darling next to him pitches in to his existential phenomenon, “It feels like everything is sinister … evil”
With a face of newfound solice he replies, “…it’s exactly that … spot on the money, as if everything and everyone are “in on it”. In on me. Against me. Completely unfounded, much like paranoia, but if it had a baby with anxiety.”
“Nothing is inherently evil, if anything everything is inherently perfect in it’s own way of being”
A slight pause ensues, letting a little sound from the man in the corner exist.
“The best part is that I’m not in a significant hurry to get out of this.”
“Allowing my brain to do its thing.”
“Me observing how much it can mess itself up, get torn, and knotted.”
“Just for me to still just pop back”
“Because all this time I didn’t forget that I am still here, calm.”
“My faith in my character, and what my character has to do.”
“A transcendental faith.”
“Much like this paranoia and anxiety – completely unfounded.”