Anonymity. A blessing and a curse. Hatred flows more easily, confessions thrust from sealed lips.

From behind a screen, a young boy types a threat:

My world is broken. I'll break yours, too.

No one takes it seriously until he's in the school with a gun. A scared little girl calls 9-1-1.

Police arrive: the boy bursts forth, waving an assault rifle that his dad gave him for his 15th birthday. Shots fired. He goes down. They check the body–– no pulse. The gun: unloaded. The press calls it suicide by police.

There are no heroes, no villains. Only victims.

In the beginning, I was naïve— too eager to preserve life, too blinded by saving the world, and for centuries I did, but a sanctuary exposes one major flaw, overabundance. Humans multiplied. Cities Overcrowded. Agitation sprouted hate. Hellbent on destroying themselves the planet became their battleground— a war-torn dumpster, forcing many creatures into extinction. I couldn’t save them all. A species that once reveled in enlightenment and face-to-face connection now measures success by “likes” on smartphones— their thumbs replacing mouths.

Humans are pestilent, a malignancy sucking life from its host. I cannot sit by anymore.

I must destroy the disease.

The portents of its arrival tingle and hum through my skull. My head begins to hurt, but the numbing dread encourages me to keep scrolling, burying myself deeper. Today was a failure, I should try to escape tomorrow. After all, being in this haze is as good as being dead.

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I've always liked writing about this experience as it's been a daily struggle for me to escape this "haze." I would love to hear about other peoples' thoughts on this or any other similar feelings since I'm pretty certain that this is not an uncommon experience nowadays. <3 :3

I may be dying.

No, we are all dying from the moment we are born. I am dying. Instead, I should say: My inevitable last breath may become a reality sooner than anticipated.

That’s not accurate: I have been anticipating death since I was 12.

Perhaps: The existential angst that has plagued me since I was 12 may soon cease to be a source of constant reflection and anguish as I will no longer be.

I can’t decide what would make me happier: dying soon or living to ease the the long day’s journey into night of those I love.

"See how we have arranged your bookshelves," said the design show host. "We've grouped the books by spine color!" The cameras rolled; the couple stared at the shelves. Smiling oddly they nodded “Oh, amazing." "So, um, different." Thirty minutes later, crew gone, Grace began pulling books off the shelves.

"Idiots!"

Fifty or one hundred that is the question. Whether to listen to the bold print or the regular. Is it a problem of the mind or the eyes. I shudder to think what those who follow may think of my ramblings but to one hundred I must go and end.

Ascending the grand, creaky staircase, my fingers left trails in the thick layer of dust on the handrail. The blood-red message had been graffitied across the ancient portrait for three days now:

I'm in the walls.

Plasterboard was shredded to pieces; every resident on search duty, but no trace of the spectral painter. My husband, master of the house, had laid all manner of traps in an attempt to catch the fiend - to no end.

Phantom breezes; eerie wailing; spontaneous fireplace eruptions. Even the beloved pet hound hanging from the bannister. I was particularly proud of that last one.

Hours suffered in stagnant air— a chilate glaze collects beneath my trembling legs. I’m numb. My pasty forehead pressed to the crack frantically searching for anyone to flicker past. Nobody! Minutes from final boarding and leaving Mexico seems hopeless while finding fucking toilet paper impossible. I should’ve listened to Mother.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "All Aboard" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Age mellowed (and yellowed) my quiet natured propensity. Far back as I can remember, solitude much more preferable versus commingling amidst madding crowd upon seeing return of the native son. The wonderful world unleashed thru reading age appropriate literature sparked overactive imagination of one average boy. Plethora of reading material bowed the wooden shelves groaning, moaning, and straining under the voluminous weight of countless books, a natural predilection awoke when mother (long since passed away) patiently taught yours truly and younger sister (about forty five months my junior) the twenty six symbols constituting plethora of words, and perhaps unwittingly alleviated boredom during those twelve plus weeks of lackadaisical summer break, otherwise known as the yawling, yawning, yawping, et cetera dog days afternoons, which beckoned, cosseted, and perfected the art of procrastination style. Absent deadlines allowed, enabled, and provided ideal breeding grounds to wallow away deeply engrossed with select young adult authored material. Many occasions, mom needed to pry (albeit loosely courtesy black crow bar) these child size hands of mine off tightly clutching storied material for dear life.

That breathing, kick/jump starting, cerebral thinking realm plumbed the depth of limitless make believe. Soon after turning the first page of coveted hard or soft bound treasure (particularly fictitious story more so than gleaning blandly stitched historical details), an immediate ability arose to summon forth majestic complex edices. These illusory expansive fields of fanciful day dreams (coaxed by the white strunk elements of style) wrought lost paradise on Earth ofttimes as divine comedy. Such evocative picturesque fabrications evoked, divined, and conjured, no matter childhood summer home strictly linkedin at "Glen Elm" awash with idyllic perfection. Said named original estate comprised a great swath of unbroken wooded land (approximately about one hundred acres) served as a haven for multitude of flora and fauna, and Winnie the Pooh. This natural unviolated tract sublimated to unconscious sphere, and most likely influenced what fanciful notions got distilled, contrived, and birthed while obviously steeped within mesmerizing words, which riveting concentration, would defy call of wild (asper breakfast, lunch, or dinner bell), nor heed interjections, sans original intercom system (known in those parts as shrill maternal voice) requesting attendance to complete assigned chores. She (think Atlas) shrugged off any lame excuse spluttering from shy son, who tried his darnedest to shuck requisite household chores, when matriarch unpredictably roared with her ferocious stentorian voice. No matter mine heartbeat fearfully thumping close to a mile a minute, the impending frightened lad (within grown man recounting this anecdote) merely surprised me with a "peekaboo I see you." That quivering fear, (portending wrathful bride of Frankenstein), would become manifest upon stealthily (inopportunely) returning to highly charged fall out zone usually the kitchen. Without fail such anticipatory fearful intimations turned out to be pointless, groundless, and baseless. The parent in question actually, usually, and zealously delivered pleasant nurturing, mollycoddling, and pampering me with motherly doting affection. If thud of footsteps indicated the plodding approach of "mommy dearest," this quick thinking son of a gun slinging begat by (“FAKE” outlaw) father, would burrow within his makeshift impregnable blanketed redoubt. This threatening oncoming momma mia marauder, invader, and despoiler of intent concentration avoided like the plague, whereas many other times of grievous melancholy she got sought out serving as amazingly graceful savior, especially when yours truly regularly assaulted by neighboring bruising bullies.

Prior to heightened anxiety tentatively uncertain if mom would mimic being gentle as a kitten or soul fully bellow like fire breathing dragon. Meekness and submissiveness (mine) eventually curbed (rather escaped) maternal maliciousness, when prolific progeny (me) discovered sanctuary within catacombs of living room library, whereat ancient tombs defined epitomy of spinelessness courtesy storied classic tales. Careworn dogeared brittle pages self prescribed tender loving care, which recourse would spur passionate appeal to storehouses of literary creativity subsequently subjecting this then kid feigning to relish immersing every effort even mastering the esoteric Dewey Decimal system and encyclopedia britannica.

An overprotective youngest Kuritsky gal unknowingly affected her brand of Homeland Security (decades before such terminology linkedin with countering terrorism) essentially cocooned this risk averse kid within domicile fostering utopian scenario. Any and all present danger seemed nonexistent, now knowingly linkedin to pathological uber vicious weirdos emanating courtesy mine corpus callosum.

Meanwhile immersed within deeded parameters quite finite property parcel purchased courtesy father (with a little help from paternal grandfather) compared to the extant breadth, scope, width...comprising vast outlying suburbia slowly encroaching upon idyllic nook excited where the wild things are.

No surprise this then cautiously halting, nervously slinking, and tentatively wary child found succor within string of sentences, that seeded subsequent swell unfettering (healthy johnny come lately to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness) cathartic, fantastic, imagistic... inherent when plying affinity with English language.

Though nursed, raised, and vetted thru the reverence of nature, this current (Schwenksville, Pennsylvania residence) faintly reminiscent of those memories where farms dotted the rolling hills of Arcola right out a Currier and Ives painting, and a bajillion miles distant from yesteryear. Thus, the hand of destiny wrought a grown man (indelibly etched with quaint rural happy "pretend hunting grounds"), since father (then nearing ninetieth orbit around the sun), and cremated ashes of mother long

scattered to the four winds vehemently opposed to firearms.

As a sensate quizzical, intellectual, and horizontal human product bred, distilled, and gifted with exposure to the sanctity of diverse living creatures, a predilection naturally manifested to incorporate the shrine (John James Audubon originally christened Fougère Rabin or Jean Rabin, baptismal name Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon), would be proud, though his spirit aghast at the industrialization, evisceration, and aggregation of insidious urbanization all in the name of progress.

One day, Helen took the status quo in her hands and set it on fire. She was sick of being its puppet. She went to the right school, married the right man, raised the right children. All that earned her was chronic back pain and crippling debt. She was a good mom, of course. She waited for the young ones to grow up into their own directionless followers of the approved life script. Then, she ran away to start anew in Venice. Her family didn’t even file a missing person report. They were too busy to notice she was gone.