My mind is my playground. And my prison.

But mostly my playground.

#

I'm not insane.

I fully understand that most people, actually probably all people, would view me as insane. But they are common. And dull. I do not recognize their requirements for sanity, for the same reason you, gentle reader, would think it absurd to let your pets' behavior dictate your own. Oh wait. You do. But that's why you will never be me.

Besides, those making the rules of the world don't know how to have fun.

Everything is a toy. And I want to play with it all.

I play with people as they play with dolls: dress them up, buy them things, take away their things, pit them against each other, construct a labyrinth and watch them fail, and then watch how they find a way to make it their own fault, or the fault of another doll. And it is their fault, really, for lacking in cognitive capacity to the extent of being utterly and completely unaware of their lack of sentient thought. Which is a paradox, I know.

Isn't that how you play with dolls?

No?

You're boring.

#

My mind explodes with sensory information. I notice everything. I see everything, all the things everyone else seems to miss. I don't understand how you could miss it; it's right there! All of it. All of it, laid out plain, bare, as if someone had written it in crayon.

"Someone"....

I wonder if I was the one who wrote it. I am the author and orchestrator of this world, my world. Either it's all happening in my head, or I am truly, literally, your god. Does the difference matter?

I see the seams of the world, see how it was all stitched together, sometimes with loving care and sometimes in that last-minute panic of deadlines. I examine those seams, find the loose threads, and pull. I unravel a world I created, only to use those threads to create more rooms and more detail for me to find and unravel later on. It's an endless game I play with myself, and sometimes it's conscious and sometimes it's not. I keep rediscovering and re-remembering as I find it all for the first time.

Time to graduate, kiddies.

#

That man broke one of my toys. So I broke his mind.

#

The only real fun comes from standing on the edge, the very edge of your mind. You can look back into all of it from there, deep into the heart of your mind, and see every single line of the web, so delicately constructed. You can know everything, everything, from that vantage... but be careful, and don't lose your footing: the other side is the abyss.

But there would be no fun without risk, and we don't want tedium, do we?

#

I've been called the Devil. You simpletons. I make your world interesting, not put you in hell. You'd be in hell if it weren't for me.

#

FIRE. Oh god, there is fire in my veins, fire in my spine, in the back of my skull. It's that brink, swelling up of its own accord and threatening to swallow my mind, to drown me in the torturous relief of the end of all things. I feel my body react to it, violently, before I can snap down control; but even after I recognize and enact response, it boils and burns just beneath the surface.

That tedium.

That monotony.

That lack of stimulation.

That lack of a challenge.

That lack of an appreciative audience.

That fire.

#

I like to challenge myself. It prevents monotony. The problem is, there's no one to play with except myself. And while I know I have the unlimited expanse of my own mind to work with, it still becomes monotonous from the simple fact that I'm the only one playing the game.

I have pawns, of course. But they, by definition, cannot control their fate, let alone try to play against me. A few have tried, and that was made mildly interesting for a span of about three heartbeats. Sometimes I make the game longer than necessary, just to give the illusion of possible victory in their small minds. It's that much sweeter to watch the horrible, crushing agony as they lose.

Between playtimes, I hear the noise. That hum. It starts out so quietly, almost imperceptibly. But it grows, ever so slowly, until it is deafening. I like to play around with how much I can take.

I will be my undoing, for my Shakespearean flaw has been laid bare to me, many times over: I loathe silence, and I loathe a deafening roar. And I adore both. I adore slipping, losing my grasp, as I watch with clinical detachment while my sanity battles with its more interesting half. I've played too close to that edge, too many times.

...No. There is no such thing as too much.

I have played at that edge with the perfect proximity I needed to, as many times as I've needed to.

One day I will lose my footing. And that thought excites me.

It's like bringing yourself almost to orgasm, over and over and over. When you finally hit it, you lose your mind, and it is glorious.

And then the other part of my mind (I'm not sure if that's the sane side or the insane side) watches this unfolding with complete detachment, a passing interest in the war inside my skull.

But "war" is too strong a word, or perhaps just not the right one: all parts of my mind flow together and clash violently in a cacophonous symphony. It's pure chaos, and I love it more than I love anything else in this world.