These are my responses to the Writober prompt post Fear of Insanity. It occurred to me as I journaled this morning, that as I wrote the prompts for today, I was focused on the fear of losing one’s mind, going insane, but the fear of insanity may also include the fear of encountering someone else’s insanity, or interacting with insanity.
When I woke up this morning, it didn’t feel like Saturday, so I decided to incorporate some Saturday prompts from other sites to play with as well.
OctPoWriMo
I sometimes enjoy a Stream of Consciousness Saturday, so I checked to see what Linda’s prompt was for today, and saw that it was to pick a word that starts with “kn.” I found several words that I thought fit well with fear of insanity, and with the couplets and endword repetition of a ghazal in mind, here’s what I came up with (not a ghazal):
Fear of Insanity
We punch through the resistant membrane to iron rust and sour-sweet candy knots
in the iridescent scraggly beard of the madman wielding a knife who knocks,
overwhelming halitosis of rotting teeth dizzies like knockout drops.
Another horror derivative, a knockoff of that knockabout knockoff,
the mutation, ever-changing, like overlapping radio frequencies on a knife-edge
tightrope, suddenly loosened to slack-rope while we’re juggling knifepoints.
But it was the knowledge, the ancient forbidden knowledge
that broke us open, leaving us mirror-knotted and known
to the knocker with bloody knuckles now wielding knowledge
of our fear of seeing him in our own knowing eyes.
Writober Flash Fiction
Pleading Insanity
Patrick didn’t do it because the voices told him to. At least that wasn’t the only reason. It was the way the light glinted off the knifeblade as it whispered to him, and the way that same light glinted in the fear in their eyes reflected in the knifeblade as the whispers grew louder, and the pretty colors as their blood rushed and pulsed around the fear in their eyes he saw in the knifeblade when the whispers became commands like heads floating out of his head. All those heads, floating from his neck, telling him what to do, were quiet now and the blade, no longer shining, no longer reflected the light.
Halloween Photography Challenge
Saturdays I also sometimes enjoy Kaleidoscope Saturday, so I thought I’d play with my Kaleidoscope today for a little extra insanity. First I put a physical kaleidoscope in front of my camera lens and took some pictures outside. Then, I had some fun putting some of this week’s images into a free online kaleidoscope generator.
Experience Writing 