Delusions of a Broken Mind

Chapter One

Chapter One

November 1991

"Shut up, you pathetic little vermin! You go on drumming into my ears like that and I'll pull the trigger and spill your brains out!" he bellows, as I scream and flail wildly and helplessly.

I crawl across the ground and my bloody form leaves wet bloody marks on the wooden floorboards. He drops the gun on the floor and grabs my legs with his coarse hands and pulls me backwards towards him. He then picks me up and throws me against the wall.

The throbbing pain in my head becomes more immense and I start feeling dizzy. Oh, God, I think to myself. When's all this going to end? I feel the wood of a large and heavy plank slam against my head.

I'm on my back now.

Above my palpitating head, I can see several waves of dreadful black holographic circles, aligned neatly one after another.

The vibrations caused by the circles increase the intensity of the pain in my head. As they converge towards the center, they devour my consciousness and I find myself disappearing into their pestilential and soothing clasp.

•••••••••••••

How good it feels to finally hear the rush of the cool waves heaving themselves up the sandy shore and then carefully retreating back towards the sea! How mesmerizing it is to taste the salty sea air upon my tongue! How spellbinding it is to admire the beautiful clear blue sky and the seagulls it carries as they swoop down towards the water and gulp down whatever fish prey they happen to retrieve!

I'm on my back, lying down on the smooth silky sand of a beach in the sunny-side state of Florida. Finally!

Boy, did I need this vacation or what! During the middle of June, (in this case, it's 2002), people usually need that kind of relaxation and peaceful meditation, (one that doesn't involve work, if I might add).

I'm practically murdering myself at work and for what? Nothing I could possibly even care to like, for God's sake. Perhaps, the events of the past years made such a disturbing impact upon my life, preventing me from thinking clearly and causing me to appreciate little in life.

I don't brag about this and I'm certainly not proud of it but what can I say? Life is like the rushing and sometimes disastrous waves of an ocean. Like the waves of such an ocean, life's waves tend to embrace you in their deathly clutches and sweep you towards the place and time they see fit.

In my case, that's Memphis, Tennessee, where I work as an information technology manager. Basically, I manage a small division of a sector in the information technology department of the Medaka Telecommunications Company, a Japanese telecommunications company.

In other words, I'm the one they call when there are issues with computer hardware and software. I manage the computers, databases and the people who work with them.

B-o-r-i-n-g! Right? Perhaps I should be grateful, given not many people get such a - what should I say - a dazzling opportunity.

Not dazzling, maybe, but it's not too bad. Not that it's my thing or anything. You see, I've always wanted to be a graphics designer or an interior designer or maybe even a writer. Nowadays, though, few of us get to really take on the ambition or occupation they've come such a long way to procure.

"Hey, Lee!" my best friend Camden calls. She holds up a crab between her fingers and it's a live one too.

Cam had always been a fan of wild sea life. She knows almost every species of fish in the ocean. She'd done her research alright.