How to send someone crazy? Easy, you break them, emotionally
and physically; when there is nothing left they are no more than a shell in
which anything can infest. All one has to do is find their weakness.
Shadow leant back in his satin lined armchair the tall back
of which engulfed him despite his height being of 6ft. He chuckled out loud,
people are just too easy all so eager to protect their trivialities of material
possessions that they leave what they hold dear unguarded, undefended,
helpless. He often mused in such a state nursing a brandy; life had always
bored him. Numerous therapists of his youth claimed that he was an insecure
child with little intelligence and no interest in others; they couldn’t have
been further from the truth. In fact he could be classed an intellectual
fascinated with fine literature and art, moreover people fascinated him. An
isolated life where few were aware of his existence lends itself well to the
observation of others and their consequent ... destruction.
Some people were inclined to call him mad which he was happy
to play upon; he revelled in making people uncomfortable. Everyone was so eager
to be different, to shine above the rest but he was something else, the tall,
darkly dressed figure that seemed more suited to dark alleyways of Victorian
London than the bustling streets of 21st century Oxford. He was the
‘different’ that stood out more than the rest and yet remained the person you
failed to recognise, for we have a habit of forgetting things we find ... grotesque.
He had dispensed with his birth name during his adolescence preferring shadow. Psychiatrists
had always jumped on that. Why 'Shadow'? Do you fell empty? Alone? No. How can
one feel alone when the whole world was so eager to entertain him with their absurdities?
He just liked the name shadow. He often felt like he was everyone’s shadow,
always there, silent, watching, thinking and yet remaining unnoticed.
There were those who believed he must have had a challenging
upbringing, no parents and little wealth. On the contrary he had everything,
well what people classed as ‘everything’; a home, loving parents, friends as
well as a dog, Jasper. What more could a boy want? A lot more he learnt or
rather, a lot less.
By all
accounts he was ordinary, ‘normal’ if such a thing really exists. However
unlike other people he had a hobby, one might even say an interest in some
specimens of the human race. Those that seemed to fit neatly into the world
they were desperately trying to cling on to but where on the verge of falling
and losing all, piqued his interest. He just wanted to push them into the
chasm.
He was always impulsive like that.