The Escape Artist Chronicles
- Part 3 By: Gayla Walther


when i let the sad thoughts enter my mind, it becomes an instant inevitability that they will take over and i will not be able to smile for some time.

and then the desperation sets in. will i ever find happiness?

will i be able to fight and resist the constant thoughts of my own self inflicted demise?

and if i can what would be the point?

two equals are never the same. so i will never find the one. such people do not exist. so we must, i must, endure and tolerate the bitter and ugly flaws of others, and seek some sort of quietness in those of the ones we love.

quiet repression.

passive agression.

when the doctor diagnosed me as brilliant, it was simply because he was trying to prevent my demise. i sat and looked into his pleading eyes, and said nothing of importance or consequence.

i only told him of all the pictures i see in everything i look at.

i asked him if he ever really looked at the works of goya.

and then i laughed and shut my eyes in order to picture a purely joyous exodus from this place we call life.

this time there were no angels and demons fighting a bloody, and hopeless war. there was no thunder and moonlight, no splitting trees, no sounds of colliding metal or crying or cackling.

there was only silence and greyness.

that has all passed now, and stability has taken hold on her short and barely attainable reins.

now i am quiet and content, and exploring a state of balance without banality.

but the thoughts have entered tonight.

i would rather kill a person than an animal or insect. i would rather have love in any form than war. i would like to turn on the television without being bombarded by one-sided, sexist, sexual messages. the medium is the message. people are the medium, people live the message. people will all obliviously destroy themselves and i will sit back and laugh while i sit beside god and then together we'll root through heaven and be discriminating in our discarding.

does any of this shock you? do any of these stupid statments shock and disturb?

okay.

exodus, escape, retreat is all an ending.


Go To Part 4