The October Music: Second Verse - Day 20

Self-Control
Vibrating. Vibrating inside me. Can’t hold it back. Have to. Must. Cannot allow it to escape. It has to stay inside. Has to. Alternative is much worse.

Feels like boiling. Bubbling. A cauldron. Feels like heat inside me, steaming up my eyes. It’s foaming and roiling. It’s clouding my vision, but I have to stay strong. It has to stop.

I choke it down. I try. Bitter in the back of my throat. Tastes like battery acid. Burns. Stings. An acrid taste and smell. It’s necessary though. If even a morsel crawls out of my mouth…no. Best not to consider that option. Best not to give it life.

It's so difficult, though. They won’t stop talking. They won’t stop nattering on and on like flies. Flies with loud, echoing voices and piercing laughs. They won’t stop, even when others politely cough to get their attention. Rude. They are rude. I do not like rudeness.

Pressure now. Pressure behind my eyes. It feels like air is filling my head. Steam maybe. A kettle! Like a kettle heating up. Warming. Becoming hot. Hot. Hot. So hot. Like fire in my head.

I open my mouth to say something, but I stop myself. I can’t. I need to not. I need to maintain my presence. I need to stay silent. Quiet. A hidden un-person in my seat.

A piercing laugh from the Wicked. It is a particular kind of laugh that just cuts through all the chattering of people around. It slices and dices any sense of decorum and stabs like a pen knife into one’s ear. It’s a howling, shrieking laugh from a harpy. The kind of laugh that elicits hate where there was none.

I already had hate, though, so it does nothing but amplify the thoughts in my head. I picture myself slashing them with the steak knife at my right hand, carving their faces like turkeys. I see myself smashing one of the dozen champagne flutes sitting on their table and using the stem to pierce a throat, letting the laughter bubble out of them as the stream of blood does so as well. I see myself beating them with a chair, splinters of wood and bone bursting into the air with each heavy impact.

I want to do it. So bad. I want to do it and I feel my muscles clenching with the desire. I want to do it and free this restaurant from the screeches and braying of these demons tormenting us all. Nobody would stop me, would they? I can see their faces. The faces of the other diners. They are restraining themselves. They are visualizing violence, just like I am. Why should it not be me freeing us from this torture?

The knife is in my hand, unbidden. I feel a release within me as I stand up. Screams fill the room as I let myself act on my impulses. People are running now. But do my ears deceive me?
​
Do I hear clapping?