Crabs

At 4.48 when sanity visits for one hour and twelve minutes I am in my right mind.

When it has passed I shall be gone again, a fragmented puppet, a grotesque fool.

☻

Night arrives before I know it.

I was pretty sure it was barely late afternoon when I left Alice’s home, but when I stared up at the sky after what felt like minutes, all I saw were stars. A quick check of my watch told me that I’ve apparently been walking for hours. Maybe I should’ve been a little concerned about how a significant portion of my time seemed to have dilated for no reason, but somehow, I didn't feel bothered at all.

So I kept walking, making my way through the empty streets in the dark. I wasn’t sure if I was even headed in the right direction. All I wanted to do was stare at the stars. They made the world feel so much more surreal in a way. Remnants of celestial bodies, millions and millions of years ago, lightyears and lightyears away - yet somehow, they were right here. Little corpses of light, hanging in the night sky.

And I kept walking… and walking …

…

…

I spent a lot of the walk home thinking about crabs.

No, not the STD, but the ones you eat. The ones you boil alive. The ones whose bodies you desecrate by crushing them bit by bit until you reach their mortal, meaty insides. Then you tear out their lungs, rip out their limbs and dig out their flesh until all that remains is nothing but their destroyed, mutilated bodies.

Anyways, I spent most of the walk home thinking about eating crabs, and how much I hated it.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Not because I didn’t like the taste or found the eating process repulsive or anything, but because eating crabs takes so much effort. You go through all the trouble of crushing their boiled carcass as little shrapnels of their decapitated shell pierce your skin, only to get the tiniest bit of food as your reward. And those little fuckers hurt as well. One wrong crunch and it would be your finger that ends up bleeding, all for what? Two ounces worth of food?

But that’s just life isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like just being happy for a few seconds takes an ungodly amount of effort, to the point where I start questioning if it’s even worth it. It’s like eating a crab, only instead of small finger cuts, life does to you what you do to the crab. Leaving you with nothing but a violated shell of a body in exchange for grains of happiness that is supposed to stop you from being anything less than a walking, mutilated corpse.

…

Sorry, I don’t know why I’m suddenly telling you all this. In truth, I should be quite grateful for what I have so far. Take Marianne for example. Even though it’s 4 am, my phone is still blowing up with texts from her asking where I was or if I was okay. Seeing the way she loves and cares for me makes me really want to slit her throat love her as much as possible, but it’s hard when I still have no recollection of anything about our time together.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s just something about this world that feels really off. It’s almost like the world is… too perfect? I’m not quite sure how to explain. It’s like the world was designed specifically for me, almost to the point where it doesn’t feel real, like fiction. But if this is fiction, then whoever said fiction had to make sense is a fucking idiot, because none of this makes any fucking sense. The way I lost my memory, the way I just magically showed up, the way everyone at work worshipped me, the way I still want to end it all.

…

Or maybe I’m the problem. Shit, I’m the intruder after all. This ‘life’ I’m supposed to have isn’t even mine to begin with. It’s not the world’s fault that I don’t belong, because I’ve done nothing to deserve any of the good things I have right now. Past me did. I wonder where he is right now. Hopefully locked up in a cage somewhere, because that way he wouldn’t be able to come back and take away what’s now mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine

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…

A familiar door with a digital lock suddenly materializes in front of me, asking for a password. I smash the lock with my fists and break into the apartment. It’s almost 6 now. With only a few fleeting moments of sanity left, I climb into my the bed and stare out the window. A warm ray of sunlight creeps into my room as dawn breaks - and the world starts spinning into life.