Zebra Mask - Tale of a Nightmarish Book

A Poet's Journal Entry 4/17/2023

Ezra had locked himself away in his basement apartment for weeks.

Ezra had always felt that his greatest downfall was trying that he always tried to make his therapeutic activities into his main job. Painting, photography, illustration, working out and writing all lead to the same place. To be good at any of these activities meant you had to be good at business as a whole, and you spent 90% of your time not even engaging in the activity but instead with the business of marketing and selling the end product or activity. Every time by the end of it, Ezra found he was better off letting someone else do the creative work and for him to spin it into profit. This left him feeling empty and killing the activity. Ezra didn't have passion for these activities, he used them to destress and mistook that for passion.

This issue led him to being more interested in consuming the works of others then to ever work on his own crafts. Ezra would just stumble around from odd job to odd job without a real focus. He ended up with many skills and no interest in using any of them professionally. This would turn into what was his actual greatest downfall. He found a small notebook with a unique story online, sold through Etsy. He ordered it and found the material to be unearthly. After reading it, he found himself in a stupor. Once in a stupor, he did one of the few things he knew how to do- self therapy.

He began to write to himself:

I have begun to notice a few odd things. I just want to write them down so I can look at them myself and try to be unbiased about them. What I write can't really be deleted or changed. I don't know. My memory is starting to feel blurred. I think it comes from working night shifts. Maybe that's the problem, needing to work nights for an extra dollar and easy work has made day and night feel indistinguishable. I'm not sure when I started to feel strange, but it was in the middle of thumbing through my books. Maybe nothing is wrong.

I feel lonely. 

No one really messages me online anymore. I went through a breakup and when dating the person, I stopped talking to everyone and once we broke up, I found myself with no friends at all. I don't really have anyone at all. I think it's been days since a girl I only know from Instagram responded to my message with a heart.

I live all around bars. I feel like I should step out and have a drink. I should try to meet up with someone I knew. I went upstairs to the garage door I open to leave my little basement apartment. The heavy slow opening door grinded up loudly and I could see that it was the dead of night. I check my phone and see that it's just after midnight. The pandemic has made all the bar close early now. You know most bars are closed after midnight.

I decided to call one of my friends who I knew would be drinking. They are always drinking. I dialed and put the phone to my ear... but it was like it couldn't connect. The phone call second timer went up slowly, and after waiting a moment I hung up. Almost immediately I got a call from a number I did not recognize. I answered. They said I should go to the bar they were at. The exchange felt very weird so I told them I think I would just stay at home. I recounted the facts in my head, I tried to call her, and she didn't answer, and she called me back on a number I didn't know and invited me to drink. I didn't hear any noise in the background- nothing that made it seem like they were at a bar.  As I stared out the garage door, I noticed the wind wasn't blowing.

When I woke up the next day, I felt so silly for feeling weird about the exchange last night. I guess sometimes I get silly and scared over nothing. Writing everything down helps. Nothing strange had happened. I think I should get out of the house today. I got dressed and as the garage door opened, I was met with the sound of heavy rain. Grey sky made the day seem dark and the rain came down heavily. I closed the garage door. I could hear the rain after, and I moved back downstairs. I wish when I opened the garage door I had seen another human being.