To Step on Leaves

After reading Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Telltale Heart', I wrote a quick piece showcasing a similar internal monologue of insanity.

I'll tell you now, by the time I have finished, you will not believe me mad. 

Do you truly believe that a mad man would be able to see such clarity and detail as I? To be mad is to be grey. Grey, I certainly am not. 

As I wander alone across the street, I am encompassed by the steady groans of engines - each piston fire ringing out perfectly. The pitter-patter of footsteps as groups of children play, each with their shoelaces too tight or too loose. Is it mad to notice such imperfection? Such disappointment?

I hardly eat at the risk of tasting the stray hair of those who prepare my meals - at the risk of tasting poison. Of course, I would smell such poison upon my food as it enters the room - still I eat little. I stay safe. 

When strolling through an autumn forest, I feel the shattering of corpse leaves beneath each step. I notice their fragility and chuckle - they perfectly mirror the fragility of man kind. No, it is not madness to see these things to feel the suffering of humanity. You see, the leaves represent the human soul in perfect reflection: a soul can be shattered through simple wording alone - a leaf through a footstep. 

Of course, human fragility is not limited to the internal. Take the beetle, for instance - their skeleton envelops, protects the flimsy - breakable organs, the life line of a beetle is armoured. Human protection is left to an inch of flesh and muscle, easly pierced - easily torn. Easily compromised. What use is a skeleton if its wielder is dead long before its exposure. 

To see such clarity and detail. To feel the fragility of mankind underfoot. To feel the uselessness of a skeleton as its body slumps to the floor. 

Tell me, now I have shared with you what I know. 

Do you still believe me mad?

Author's Note

Be as harsh as you can, it is the only way for me to improve.