I'm Sane // Insane

 " True! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; "  ~ Edgar Allan Poe.

Nervous?  Me?  Of course, I was! Sitting in my room, all by myself, and the light was so dim. All through this time,  every word I read reverberated in my ears,  and though were very simple words,  it made me so nervous.  I still convinced myself to keep reading ahead.  Why?  Well,  only because stopping feels harder than keeping at it. 

Some weird obsession with the eye of an old man, I thought to myself.  Did it have some mystic powers?  How can it make someone's blood run cold?  Well,  this didn't frighten me at all but there was something else that did.  It was the eye of the one that was obsessed with the eye of the old man.  

Of everything else till now,  this made me freeze. " Every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept." It might look like an ordinary thing,  but trust me,  when you travel through the lines that lead up to this one,  about how meticulously he was planning to separate the old man from his eye,  My God,  isn't that creepy?  Imagine you were asleep and someone was lurking near your door just because they wanted to rip your eye off of you.  

Oh wait,  I didn't need to ask myself to imagine.  I already was.  I felt like there was someone at the door,  lurking behind the curtains,  waiting to do the same. Not brave enough to get up and face whoever was behind the curtains, I just tried to get a peek if I'd find someone there. I didn't.  Phew!  No worries then!  I start to read again.  

" Night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall". 

That was him.  Me? I was hearing the death watches in every word. He says the old man's fears were growing in on him,  and I have to say,  so were mine. I heard the clock ticking and every passing second only made the ticking louder for me.  What was lurking behind the shadows,  behind the curtains, and behind these words,  I can't yet dream of. 

"A hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones" was what he says about the old man's eye,  but I see that hideous veil all around me. I felt these words and their eerie silences trying to envelop me. These long silences and slow movements vexed me because they made my fears grow larger every minute.  Come on,  if you want to kill,  get done with it already!  This was what was in my mind.  I wanted everything to go faster,  but - Oh,  wait!  That was faster than the blink of an eye!  The old man's dead already?  So,  we're done right!?  He got what he wanted! 

Haha,  just kidding - nothing's done yet.  And I was just laughing at my own fate,  of not being done with this yet.  Yes,  yes, the old man's dead!  What next then?  Another blink of an eye and there was a dismembered corpse on the floor being looked at with a creepy stare.  My throat ran dry!  Then,  each part being hidden under the wooden planks... Wait,  sorry,  I need to get some water. Every step I take away from the bed,  makes me feel like I'm walking on the same floor the old man's buried under!  I can't move anymore...  

I'll get the water later,  I need to finish this.  The police came in and searched the entire place while he was sitting right above the place where he buried the old man.  Chills were running down my spine!  "My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears" - Was he talking about me?  

He gasped for breath and I did too.  He said the sound was getting louder,  and I felt that too..! How could that be happening in two places at once? The only difference was that I knew it was my own frenzied heart while he did not.  Which is why he confessed to doing what he did.  Thank God!  I'm glad this ended.  

But,  how did Poe know what exactly I was feeling?

I can be at ease now... Wait, I'm not being watched, am I?