It doesn't happen often. I can't remember the last time it did -- before Sunday, that is. What happens is, for about two hours, I'd be quiet. Lying down, maybe. Thoughts will be overlapping, one on top of the other, but never really silencing the ones below. If anything, the cacophony becomes even louder. I listen to their distinct voices -- every one of them. I'd agree most of the times. "Morons," they'd say, for instance, but not to me. "Filth," they'd say again, "Everyone around you -- mindless sheep. Morons. Filth." I'd agree.
It goes on for some time, the voices. Layer after layer, story after story, guilt on guilt, fuel to the fire. Still I'd be on the bed, motionless for the most part. My eyes will be moving, following a phantasm in the room. A specter. The voices magnify their chorus.
What happened last Sunday was, I got up after two hours of being motionless on the bed. I went down to the bathroom, and I slammed the door -- a little forceful than I'd intended, to be honest. It was enough, however, the sound -- enough to break something in my mind. A thin film of glass, maybe? A nylon string? An old piece of rope? It doesn't matter. Whatever was bound became unbound, and the specter took hold.
The cooling plastic hook attached to the door was not let go. I pushed the door open again all the way through... and then I pulled it shut even harder. BAM! the wood cried. I did it again. BAM! it said again, splinters exploding onto my eyes, onto my arms. BAM! BAM! BAM!
And just as suddenly, the rhythm stopped. Someone was holding the door, and someone was saying something couldn't hear. I screamed to her (his?) face because I couldn't hear. "I can't hear you!" I shouted. Or I tried to shout, at least. I felt something implode in my chest -- a black hole -- and it sucked all manner of sound into it. I shouted again. I couldn't hear. I stomped my foot, I punched the door. I couldn't hear.
I'm not really sure how long it lasted. I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor, my breathing pounding in my ear like sea foam, like the breaking of the universe. My cheeks were burning -- cold and hot at the same time. White noise crept into my mind like vines.
I came to. I was still sitting on the bathroom floor, but I was more quiet now. My breathing was more regular. I felt the needle-sting of a mosquito on my foot, and an involuntary hand reached to kill it. The world slowed to a crawl, and I felt every molecule in the air parting to make way for my hand. Eventually it reached its destination. The mosquito was still gorging on my blood when it died, thick and red and stringy on my thumb. That's when I knew it was over. What was unbound was bound once again.
