The Man In the Irony Mask
I sat,
Silently watching a spider crawl up the pristine white wall,
Wondering where it had come from,
Wondering where it was going.
The straps from the straight jacket were chafing my neck;
My hands were not free to relieve the discomfort.
Where, exactly, was the light source in this room coming from?
And, why did I not cast any shadow?
Where was that spider going?
The annoying humming of some unseen electrical device was driving me mad.
I smiled at the irony in that thought.
The unseen electrical device was probably the hidden camera by which those who already thought me mad were watching me;
Watching me watching the spider with nowhere to go.
The madness was not in the acts I took to end his life;
The madness was in enduring the pain he inflicted for so long before doing so.
Now,
In a padded cell,
Forced to hug myself by a tightly strapped straight jacket,
Unable to move,
Unable to relieve the discomfort against my neck,
Unable to smash that damn spider,
I am free.
Free of everything, it seems, but irony.
Go ahead little spider and crawl up that wall,
There are no cracks from which to escape,
There are no flies to be caught,
And there are no monsters to force you to do unmentionable things.
We are safe in their prison, free of his.
I am not sure when I realized that I was actually the source of that annoying humming;
Perhaps it was when the cell door flung open and smashed the spider against the wall.
Copyright © Joe Flach | Year Posted 2016
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