Intrusive

Intrusive thoughts, that’s what my therapist calls them. But they aren’t just thoughts, they are fully realized scenes that play out in the theater of my mind.

The colors, the sounds, the smells, the feelings…that’s what they are. I watched the old guy in the store with the pistol on his hip. He didn’t pay attention to where he was or what was around him. Twice I’ve managed to sidle past him in the aisle and put my hand on it; the second time I just stopped myself from pulling it when I had hold of the grip.

I had to hide in the diaper aisle while the scene played out in my head. I draw the pistol and shoot him, point blank. The look of shock makes me laugh. I continue with my shopping, like nothing is wrong while everyone runs from me. I approach the checkout lane and use the pistol to encourage the cashier to ring me up. I pay with my card while waving at the cameras. Anyone who gets in my way, I shoot them and continue. The blood is beautiful, as beautiful as the looks of fear.

Once the scene had played out and I was done grinning like a loon, I pulled myself together.

“Are you okay?” the soccer-mom looking woman asked me. She was looking at me as if I’d gone mad.

“Oh, yeah. I took a shortcut through this aisle and couldn’t help remembering when my boy was a baby. Happier times.”

“Happier?”

“Yeah. Teenagers are the worst. He’ll grow out of it, I’m sure.” I left her with her lower-middle-class suburban haircut and cart full of cold cereal, milk, yogurt cups, and training pants to get back to my own chores. As if I’d ever have kids.

I saw a police officer in uniform, probably just came off shift. He was far more aware of his pistol than the old man. On a whim, I stopped him in the cracker aisle and asked if he could reach one of the boxes on the top shelf. It was a reasonable ask for someone as short as I.

He put his right hand on his pistol as he reached up and grabbed the box with his left. “Just the one?” he asked as he handed it to me.

“Yeah, just the one,” I said, “thanks. Good work on weapon awareness, by the way.”

“You a safety instructor?”

“No, just pay attention.”

“Well, you have a good day.” He looked at me as though he suspected something but couldn’t do anything about it.

I finished my shopping and told the cashier I’d changed my mind about the crackers. With full reusable bags in hand, I made my way to the bus stop.

I’d lost my driver’s license when I let the “intrusive thoughts” win and threw it into park on the freeway. It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. The car just slowed down until it came to a stop, then the transmission made a loud clunk as it shifted into park and wouldn’t shift out of it.

The other people on the freeway got all the excitement. One guy slammed on his brakes to avoid rear-ending me and got rear-ended himself, spinning him into the next lane. That created a chain reaction that involved fourteen cars and a semi-truck. Problem was, it all happened behind me, and I couldn’t see much of it.

I almost missed my bus, as I was busy trying to recreate the scene that had played out behind me that day. I lugged my bags to an empty seat and sat. The bottle of malt vinegar bumped against my ankle, and I chuckled.

I empty everything but the bottle from the bag, then stand. The bag handles in my grip, I swing with all my force. I laugh at the sound of the bottle cracking skull. Head injuries bleed a lot, and the scene is glorious. Someone tries to grab me, and I swing at them. The bottle connects with their wrist, a sharp snap as their ulna breaks under the impact. I cut their scream off with a hard swing to their head, the bag now thoroughly soaked in blood.

The other riders on the bus have gotten used to me. I’m sure they thought I was mentally impaired in some way. Still, I felt eyes on me; someone was staring.

I looked around and found them. A woman in the sideways seat in the front stared at me. I looked at her, opened my eyes as wide as they would go and licked my lips. The way she almost jumped out of the seat and turned away to look out the front made me laugh.

“Thank you, darling,” I said. “I ain’t been eye-fucked that good in a long time.”

I blew her a kiss as I got off at my stop. I skipped the elevator and took the stairs to my apartment. It was always good for a little extra exercise.

My therapist said that exercise was a good way to combat the “intrusive thoughts.” I didn’t agree, but I did have to admit that I was better shape than I had been in a long time.

After a so-so take-out dinner, I settled in to watch every horror movie on stream…or at least the ones with gore and rated R or MA. I was still watching and laughing at the splatter-fest on my screen when the sun came up.

I didn’t have any plans, so I decided to just fall asleep in front of the television whenever. There were still hours and hours of movies to go, and I wasn’t tired. I ordered breakfast from one of the delivery services, since I didn’t want to pause the movie too long, it was the funniest I’d seen yet.

It consisted of a thin veneer of plot over a plethora of inventive and increasingly complex methods of gory murder. When a kid’s intestines were slowly wound around a hose reel, I laughed so hard that I nearly choked on my breakfast burrito.

I liked it so much, I restarted it as soon as it ended. At some point, I laughed myself to sleep.

I woke feeling tired, my body aching, as though I’d been working out. I reached out for the remote, but my hands were bound to the table in front of me. Handcuffs. A scratchy blanket was wrapped around me. I looked down, and saw that I was nude under the blanket, and covered in blood.

I hurt, but not enough for the amount of blood. It couldn’t be mine. “Fuck!” I pounded my fists on the table. “It must’ve been amazing, but I don’t remember anything! God damn it! It’s not fair.”

“You don’t have to remember. We have you on camera. We’re just trying to establish a why.” The detective tried to talk all gentle and polite, but I could tell she was a hair from snapping.

“It’s on camera? Can I see? I want to see. I need to see!” I shook the blanket off and looked at the blood that had dried on my body. From the looks of it, I had painted myself with it.

“We’re not going to let you wa—”

“If you show me, I might remember why,” I said. “It’s not fair! I don’t remember it, but it had to be good. Just look at me!”

The detectives decided they weren’t going to get anything useful out of me and booked me. They didn’t know that while they left me waiting in the hall, I was able to see some other officers gathered around a monitor, watching my antics. I just wished I could remember what it felt like in the moment, but it was hilarious to watch.

I couldn’t stop laughing, even while I was booked, forced to wash, and thrown into a cell. It was just too funny, and I imagined all of them with their intestines on a hose reel, which just made me laugh more.

I wondered if my therapist would even talk to me any longer. She’d probably be disappointed. That thought made me momentarily sad. I could find out where she lived and go talk to her; let her know it wasn’t the same — it couldn’t be the same — because I don’t remember it. To talk to her, of course, I’d have to get out the jail first, but I was already working on an idea or two.