With a click of his tongue and a swing in his step, he turned around to waltz back down the stairs, have a nice cup of soup, and wrap himself in a blanket of his own sanity, but alas, once again that idea was flushed down the John like yesterdays breakfast. It couldn’t be! It can’t be! Even the idea of it is preposterous! This is what Harvey thought in his head, but indeed, Indeed! He must be going mad! What he faced when he turned around was the eye popping purple pin up board, the same pin up board that was on the left side of his office room, just above the old, copper filling cabinet, and yes, the filing cabinet was indeed there, Harvey noticed, lowering his eyes.
Harvey’s head was swarming. His ears started ringing, as if a giant swarm of wasps were throwing a party in his brain. Harvey felt sick; he felt the vomit crawling its way up his throat. He heard the ticking of his wall clock like a drum beat on his chest, the vibrations expanding throughout his body, and echoing in his ears. The blood in his veins ran ever so hot, and his mind reeled at the idea of being insane. “I-I can’t be insane! This-this is all just a dream, a horrid, shoddy dream!!” Harvey cried, turning around in circles, clutching his hair in his hands. But it seemed the deafening tick-tocking of the clock on his wall just continued to replay, replay, and replay at a progressively louder and faster song of death. With a shatter and a whistle, the ticking was out the window, and plummeting through the air.
Now, at this point in the story, Harley, our poor… shall we say, hero of our tale, was beginning to doubt his sanity, quite a lot, not that he didn’t about tem minutes ago on those god damned stairs. Harvey decided that this was just a strange dream that he could not wake up from, yes, yes! Just a dream, all a dream! He was pacing now, step step step, turn. Step step step, turn. This simple formation of walking and turning was as equally as bothersome for Harvey than the fact that the window was open, and a cold breeze was tickling his neck. Frustration reddened his face, and he went over to the window, eager to find some way to shut it. “My stars… good lord!” Harvey said, staring out of the window. What he had wished to see was the manky greenish brown colour that he was familiar with, the old washhouse across the road. But, alas, that was gone too. There was nothing familiar about what he saw out of the window. Gone were the stacked rows of old battered buildings, the sound of homeless people shaking little cans, and asking for coins, the only thing that was there were the silky clouds… only they were a very, very long way below him. Inky blackness surrounded him, making him shudder with and overwhelming sense of loneliness. Small milky dots covered the darkness that surrounded him, and the big round moon rested directly above him, shining like a pearl in tar. Below, the clouds covered a round, blue and green orb. His work building was stacked into space resembling a wonky leaning tower of Pisa.
Harvey’s stomach dropped to his toes, and ha backed away towards the door, his hands and knees shaking. This cant be real. It cannot! It’s… just… a bad dream! He repeated those words over and over, until his hand found the icy cold metal of the doorhandle. He swallowed the lump of fear in his throat and turned. The door squealed as he opened it, and he turned and ran through…. Back into the room. “What?!” Harvey said to no one, his voice carried out through the shattered window and into the night sky. He once again tried going through the door, and mysteriously once again ended up in his office.
The world around him was beginning to spin, he collapsed to his hands and knees, desperately pinching himself on the arm in a futile attempt to wake from this terrible nightmare he was living. He began to cry, and then to sob, cradled his legs and rocked back and fourth. “I’m mad… I’m mad… I’m mad… I’M MAD!!!!” His whispers turned to screams, as he ran round the room, ripping pares from desks, destroying filing cabinets, searching for something, anything!!! Anything to rid him from this horrible place! A door? A trapdoor!? A broken floorboard!!? “ANYTHING!! JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING!” Harvey screamed, ripping the tattered, moth eaten carpet from the rotting floor, but underneath was pure concrete.
His lungs were beginning to constrict, the blood in his veins pumping so fast and hard that he was sure his heart would explode. He scratched and hit the concrete flooring until his hands were raw and bloodied, and he could hear the horrid sound of his bones on the concrete. His body was worn out, his clothes ripped, the floor covered with blood and spit. There was no way out. Harvey was begging to give up, he stood and turned. His eye caught something as it roamed the trashed room. The window. My only escape from this hell.
He took a running start; his polished shoes the only thing still classy in this room as chaos. All it took was his shoulder to shatter the remaining glass of the window. Harvey had done it, the room no longer sucked him in, and instead he was falling, falling back to his home, to his warm bed, the rain that was always falling in the month of May, to the things he recognised and was comfortable with.
As he fell, Harvey realised that he really was insane; I mean what place could have repeating stairs? He was now falling through the clouds, their moisture collecting and cooling his heated face. Another reason Harvey noticed that he was insane was the fact that he didn’t even have a clock in his office! Nor do fake doors and repeating rooms exist! The last reason Harvey could safely judge himself insane for was the fact that he most certainly should not have survived this fall, and that fact that he should have landed by no-
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Broncino Newspaper (Sunday sellout)
Madness
(Published 25/6/1998)
Article by Lucinda Brown
On Monday the 23rd of May, resident of the north academy
Apartments, Harvey Minter was found dead at the foot of his
Work building, witnesses of the incident claimed that he was
Walking around aimlessly, screaming and shouting. Before
He went to the top of his work building and jumped, landing
On his neck, and shattering his spine, his death was instant.
Witness Carla Blunter comments “I believed that he was just
Drunk, I was never really close with Harvey but I remember
He did have nights where he drank himself silly.”
Doctors that have interviewed the witnesses claimed Harvey
To have mental disorder, after going insane whilst drinking.
More investigations are still being made of the death of
Harvey Minter.
Mindless -Madness-
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