Psychosis

Unravelling Mysteries

Soothing, lilting melody. Guitar strings oscillating. His voice husky, but gentle. Calming to the nerves. Soporific even.

Resting my head on his brawny shoulder. Continues to play beautifully, he does. His face; almost seraphic. Eyes shut, hands gliding over the strings, hair fluttering in the wind. Takes no notice of his surroundings. Too immersed in his consecrated craft to do so.

Vertigo inducing landscape before us. A height of nearly three hundred feet off the ground, we are, legs dangling from the ledge. World appears inconsequential; peoples' worries altogether inconspicuous. Vast expanse of seas in the distance.

Raising my palm up to ruffle his mane softly. Stops singing, feeling my fingers on his scalp. Turns around to look at me curiously.

"You don't like it?" He asks.

Shaking my head vehemently I am, just to rile him up for the sake of it.

Eyes turn morose at my blatant disapproval, his do.

"I love it, just as I love you." Say I, watching his eyes twinkle with reignited pleasure.

~*~

"Wake up, 1244! Your visitor has arrived!" The viper's shrill hiss disrupts the fantasy.

Eyes snap open with a jerk. Startled, sit up on the bed, I do. Use my free hand to conceal the piece of formerly moist paper. Crushing it under the flaccid pillow, away from her view.

Paper to be hidden at any cost.

Won't be able to bear such a loss.

Viper before me appears satanic.

Have to protect the only picture I have, of Manik.

Viper slithers towards me. Eyes yellow. Skin scaly. Tongue abnormally narrow and fleshy. Red capsules in her hand- ramifications too severe to bear, upon swallowing them. Poking and prodding, my grey cells, white cells and what not, to be absolved of the pills.

Come on! You can do it! Don't swallow!

Platitude resonates in my skull, interrupting my thoughts. Listen to it, I must. Hypothesizing from my experiment yesterday, I am. Clarity in my head increases manifold, memories become less foggy, on forgoing the malevolent pills.

Pills result in migraines;

They omit memories from my brain.

Without consuming them, I'll have to sustain.

Long enough to get myself out of these chains.

Ruse hits me like a flash of mercurial lightning.

Deception being the only key to surviving...

Viper's wrinkly palms dance in front of my face. A second longer I make her wait, and shove it down my throat, she will.

"I need some water with the pills. My throat is too dry." Say I, words ringing true.

Throat does seem parched in actuality.

Water being an expensive commodity.

Perhaps the best way to spin lies out of the blue,

Is to modify facts which are, to a degree, true.

"Normally, I wouldn't tolerate any such demands, but I'm all out of patience, 1244. Take the water and glug them damn pills already..." She screeches.