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You don't know what it's like to be me; fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Don't look at me. I don't know where to start. I don't know how this will end. I do know that there's all this—rage, turmoil, pain, whatever—and it won't go away—it is all that I have, all that I am. I'm just so—tired. Wish it would end.
It was sometime mid-2018 when the camel's back broke under the weight of approximately a trillion pieces of straw and I broke down like the camel and I unleashed everything I had—tears, snot, yelling; accusations and incoherent wails of grief and pain, just trying to express it, just trying to speak—and of course, dozens or hundreds of corrosive polka dots expelled from my skin (I could barely control it, I don't know if I could have controlled it)—the worst breakdown I've ever had—not the first or the last of its kind. That time was special because my mother, may she go to hell and stay there, was caught in the polka dots. Or I caught her in the polka dots, or the polka dots caught her.
I watched with some measure of glee and some measure of dread as the dots connected with her flesh. Red. Purple. Green, yellow, orange, blue. Lots more red. Blood. Flesh. Bone. And then she was dead. Half-eviscerated. Very dead. Face frozen in horror, scream on her lips. The glee faded quicker than the dread—no surprise. The dread, that lingers. Pretty soon I was charged with murder. Sounds about right. I am a murderer with a murderer's face and a murderer's hands, a murderer's diseased and disgusting body, a vile and deformed monster and like Frankenstein's monster I killed my creator, so now the only thing left for me is death. Would that it would come for me.
At night in Belle Reve I lie awake. The collar around my neck, unwieldy and abrasive as it is, is something of a relief. While it suppresses the virus, I'm free of expelling the dots, I'm free of the intense and unrelenting pain that comes with it. Free of the reminder under my skin of my deep and irrevocable state of being completely fucked up.
Part of me misses it: the pain distracted me, made me angry, fueled me. But part of me is relieved. Look at me—a normal man! No freaks to be found here! Cue audience laughter at the clown! What a fine joke, Abner, what a funny thing to say, but we all know who you really are, joke's on you, always on you.
Most nights I have nightmares—some of them recurring, some of them new and novel—all of them to do with loathing, loathing, loathing. I'm at a trial listening to some variation on Abner Krill deserves to die, in a crowd listening to what a disgusting thing that is, what the fuck is that thing, ew what is that on his face, in the water drowning, in the air falling, in the ground in a coffin with dirt in my eyes and my mouth suffocating, no air. There is color in these dreams—red, purple, green; yellow, orange, blue. Polka dots swarm my vision and choke me and melt my flesh away like swiftly-melting cotton candy. And it's always: die! die! die! you hideous monster! you thing. Strange and ugly creature, why won't you just die.
In the dreams and in life I swell up in all these colors. Poison frog, venomous snake, nature's warning signals, death, death, death.
I see my mother in the faces of the prison guards. in my dreams. in the palms of my hands when I stare at them wondering whose hands these are—who I am—what I am. in my reflection in water, glass, plastic. I am filled again with rage every time she enters my vision. She deserved to die too, she did this, she fucked me up, she—is dead and I killed her. There is some freedom in that. But so much more fear with that freedom. She follows me. I can't get rid of her like I get rid of the dots, expel my disease and my life twice a day. I can expel them for some time but she lingers and does not leave me be.
I am coming to understand why ghosts must be killed again after their flesh has died. why vampires, why zombies, come back. why figures are always resurrecting or being resurrected in stories. These things do not stay dead—I don't think anything really does—but I hope dearly that when I die I stay dead for good—I don't ever want to come back, I want to sleep and sleep and sleep. But while I still live the dead follow, follow, follow, saying, you're dead too, didn't you know, you're just a little slow on the uptake, but pretty soon you'll catch it too, or you'll be caught, or you'll catch yourself and die like you should, like you should've long ago.
No one can escape. I hope so, I say, God, I hope so, I hope I die I hope I die I hope I die, and face the prospect of nothingness like an embrace. Die, die, die, you hideous thing, and because the monster and I are entwined, are the same, I will have no choice but to fall into the abyss together with it; and fade away, and finally be rid of my own self for good, and maybe then I will be free.