Joel Barraud

Title: DARKNESS A STATE OF MIND
A short story by Joel Barraud
Download: Darkness a State of Mind, Joel Barraud (PDF 355 KB)

I hate it when people try to hiss broken words of wisdom into my head like a snake on speed. Oh, that’s right, I’m meant to be on speed because I’m a teenager, a space case, an odd ball. Not that I can hit a ball to save my life, if I have a life to save that is! Thank God I did not say that out loud or … did I?

No, I am not going to top myself; it is just a thought for fuck sake. A thought, not an act. It seems to me that when you’re my age it is a crime to think, let alone speak. But as we all know, a teenage mind with no thoughts is not possible. You have all these spiders of ideas crawling and sliding around in your head, spinning a red-hot web of pain, when you just want to relax. You do not know which ones are yours and which ones are taken from a school text, a TV show or a movie.

Anyway, free time’s up; it’s time for my meds. Tick-Tock life is a clock; yep that’s the name of the game in this place. The staff hate the power of that word “Game”. They hate the fact that we know it is all a joke. Not a joke in a comic sense, but in a slow, sly, evil way. We are their drug-coated puppets. We are black slaves governed by a crystal haze of white masters who monitor our every move.

… My mind at rest, my mind asleep.

Footsteps play soft tunes in my head like a broken piano that can’t put itself back together. In the corridor, feet sound light, yet wise, like they have felt raw heartbreak but come out the other side. The air is thin, tight. Am I awake? I don’t know. The doctors know. The evil devil takes pride in knowing. A gun fires and screams break the ward in half. Darkness now has a face. Me.