Psycho (Phan)

1

Dan walked in silence, the rain affecting him in no way at all, the dark surrounding him felt nothing but familiar and the resilient sensation of sheer loneliness was no longer a problem, just a distraction. A distraction he didn't need.

Loneliness was nothing, Dan would tell himself. Loneliness was, by definition, lack of human, social and physical, contact. In which case, loneliness couldn't technically exist, in the same way the cold and the dark didn't technically exist. Cold was the lack of heat, darkness was the lack of light, emptiness was the lack of fulfilment. Therefore, Dan couldn't feel something that wasn't actually anything at all, he could simply be vaguely aware of the unsatisfactory result that was, at best, a hollow metaphorical cavity in his chest.

However that is the dictionary term for loneliness, and the dictionary couldn't quite describe just what loneliness actually was. You can not put into words the creeping sensation of absolutely nothing, experts can not portray the moment of realisation that there is simply no one there, despite everybody being there. Not even, unfortunately, when there is a room crowded with people. There is nothing that can ever represent the acute self-awareness forced upon a person when they finally come to terms with the fact that no one in that room knows them. No one in that room is necessary, no one in that room cares, no one in that room is even there, or not there for them.

The literal definition of 'Loneliness' can not express the painful conscious thought process involved when you're stood in a room full of people and can't say a thing. The feeling that's so similar to your lungs collapsing inside of you that the whole idea of breathing doesn't seem so great anymore, anyway. The definition of loneliness doesn't include the moment of acceptance that there's just no point trying anymore, it doesn't include the hours of sitting alone, it doesn't include the endless craving of simple human contact, it doesn't include the dark, cold, rainy walks along the side of an empty road. The fact that loneliness was quite literally nothing but the lack of something considered widely to be essential was something that both haunted and amused Dan Howell.

Lots of things are considered essential by humanity as a whole. Even more things, slightly more materialistic things, are considered vital by the more western world. If you were to talk to someone from a developing country, they would surely say the essentials were much less physical and far more emotional, whereas the possibility of the indispensable, irreplaceable priorities of Dan Howell's neighbours being something along the lines of house, a car, or an extension to the conservatory, was very high.

People amused Dan Howell. Society was entertaining and the humanitarians of the construct that is civilisation were simply puppets in the comedy show that was the human way of life.

A show that, Dan thought, seemed to be created for the sole purpose of his amusement. The strings attaching people to their lives were his to cut, they were his people to free from the whole ordeal. It was his job to determine the lives of others.

People were, in Dan's admittedly warped opinion, pathetic. Their constant need for attention, the desperation for acknowledgement and the self pity they so easily drowned themselves in at the slightest opportunity was just the smallest display of the simplicity of their minds. Their lives traipsed at slow motion, the false impression of 'living on the edge' was driven firmly into their minds to mean doing something mildly unintelligent with the intention of telling all of their friends about it the next day. Living was a concept that had been distorted by people, they needed fulfilment for the otherwise empty periods of time between birth and release and they needed purpose to their dull and un-extraordinary lives.

Dan prided himself on his detachment from the community of mindless 'individuals' who followed blindly the media orientated, systematic course of action set out for them. They were 'free' and they were 'independent'. Dan had no clue how they managed what they did, he couldn't figure out how they'd managed to persuade themselves that any of this mattered, that their 'purpose' and their achievements were even remotely special. The human perception on 'love' and it's ways in which it so clearly brightened up the dark, warmed up the cold, and righted every wrong was yet another concept that never failed to amuse Dan. He didn't believe in love, he didn't believe in right or wrong, he didn't care about human 'life'. Which made his job as semi-professional assassin considerably easier. These people weren't living anyway, they did what they were told, knowingly or otherwise. Humans relied on the knowledge that they were needed, the hope, misplaced or otherwise, that they were wanted and relied on was enough for them to feel like they could keep going. Dan wasn't like that, he was sure. Dan was Dan. Murdering, self obsessed, lone-wolf Dan. Not a person, especially not one like them. Dan never wanted to be like them, Dan was not like them at all.