Sometimes, they explain insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. It's wrong.
I visited a rundown hospital. Apparently my little cousin had run away, and she was last sited there. It seemed simple enough, check every floor up to the eighteenth floor and then leave. If I found her, great. If I didn't, she wasn't there. The hospital was worn and old, I scanned every room on the 1st floor, then escalated up. Every room from the second floor to the seventh was completely empty, so I continued up to the eighth.
I felt my body wearing out as I traveled up the building, exhaustion scraping at my muscles, but I kept going. There were no demons, there weren't any psychotic axe murderers, and there wasn't an alien in sight. There was nothing to be scared of in this dark, painfully quiet structure. The rooms loomed around me as I made it to the sixteenth floor. I can't explain how ecstatic I was once I finally made it to the seventeenth floor. I skimmed through the rooms, continuing up the final stairs. As I reached the next floor, I looked at the number sign,
"17th floor"
What?
I must've misread the numbers.
I walked up the stairs again,
"17th floor"
Insanity isn't expecting different results, it's knowing the results won't ever change.
I panicked, rushing up five more flights of stairs, still the seventeenth floor.
I ran down fifteen flights, out of breath and nearly puking as I looked at the sign, seventeenth floor once again.
Back up twenty stairs, seventeenth floor.
Back down twenty more, seventeenth floor,
and returning up five more, seventeenth floor.
And it's been this way for as long as I can recall.
Knowing that every door will lead to the same room, every flight will lead to the same exact floor, to the same number. Not knowing how many months it's been, not being able to sleep, not hearing another voice other than mine.
When the cries for help and sobbing from fear and sadness slowly turn into laughter, that is the definition of insanity.
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Breed Of Emotions
Short StoryI wrote each of these short stories between the ages of eleven and seventeen. Each and every story was written at a different point in my life, with a different state of mind, and a completely unique breed of emotions flowing through my veins. Keep...
