by Gary Pryke

The cash machine chewed up my card again. I guess maybe now i'm starting to believe it. I keep feeling like i'm being watched. Why me? I was never that bad was I? Well, not enough to warrant this...

I figured it out. Just recently and though it didn't make sense it was the only conclusion I could come to. I guess i'm not as smart as I like to think. I used to worry that I was going mad, I used to suffer from the deep dark hole of manic depression, gee that was fun. When I was at Primary School age I used to get into fights all the time. I used to get angry. They sent me to a child psychologist. In the end they concluded that there was nothing wrong with me. People used to say I was weird. Normality is overated. School only ever gives you one choice. Conform and be shallow and empty and happy or be an outcast and true to yourself and suffer the posibility of never finding happiness. Sometimes I think about killing the ignorant fucks on the street. Blood stained burgundy caps.

I get home and try to figure it all out. A dark room. One day maybe. Maybe it'll be alright. Gotta be alright. I saw it on the way home. Watching, waiting. I'm flinching at every movent, every sound. Can this really be happening?

Time drifts aimlessly on and still there's no answers, no insight, no point to asking such inane questions. The whole idea is preposterous, like something dreamt up by some unemployed schmuck late one night, tired...but I know it must be true. The reason why nothing ever works out for me. So many bad things. I don't wanna go into it. I know that really i'm so lucky to have the things that I have but...

A screech - like some kind of bird, an eagle maybe? It's come for me, she said it would eventually. I head for the door. I hear the window smash inwards and the screeching continues, pircing my hearing. Run.

I run down the streets. It's following me, I can hear it. I'm not fast enough. I hear a sudden loud hi-pitched trill, like it's going in for the attack, and the sound of wings, like a heron, and the claws dig in. Bad day. Bad year. Bad ever.

He continues writing. Sometimes you just have to let it out and even though he knows he's written better this is still good in it's own way. Different. Funny thing is that he's happy...but that darkness has to come from somewhere. Is it in us all? Is that darkness just part of being human? He shrugs it off, it's way too late at night to be philosophising. It's an interesting story. Not written in his usual style. What style? Some guys are good at sports, some are good at music, some are good at drawing, others are good at writing. I guess i'm just mediocre at most things and just plain shit at the rest. It's not my fault.

All of a sudden the window bursts inwards and the claws dig deep.

"I didn't mean it" he scrawls in his own blood.