Chapter I

 “Paradox: [par-uh-doks] n any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradicting nature”

 

            "Good day to be alive, sir. Would you not agree?"

            I stepped out of this godforsaken place to something of a world beyond, something short of tasteless fruit betwixt nasty medicine. Deceptions lie at ruin before my very eyes; in the endless bounty of freshly whitened tree branches that held no intention of dying away; in the callow grass protecting scattered petals from autumn's very heart and soul; in the purest sky we ever could see, ever did see, and the clouds it carried on whispers only the meek could hear; in the light pouring its soul toward the bare hope humanity kept close; in the chirping and crunching and garland and laughter and wonder and gold lined with the flora of the gods.

            Mostly in the betrayal swept beneath, however.

            "Above and beyond shall the havoc run to wreak," I believed now more than ever. Mother Nature is a rotten w***e and little else; turn your back to her beauty and expect nothing but a technological annihilation, for what are we but her minions? Nothing, my friend, we are nothing, and trust me when I speak of it.

            Have no doubt I expect you to question me when I even notate toward our worthlessness, toward such hopeless facts, in that we do not know who we are or where we're going in this ocean of chaos, nor that the very entity that seems gentlest hides beneath her cover of rosaries, as would a god in search of power. I do not ask that you heed this tale. I do not ask that you think. I do not ask that you question. I only ask that you listen.

            And listen well, mind you.

 

            The stairs led me out and away from my home, if I could call it even that. We can’t seem to note the distinct difference between a house and a home, and this former was far from the latter. They led me from a four-walled structure made from dirt and desire and of nightmare and angry voices, if you will. I intend toward no misunderstandings here: the house was in a fine shape and working order. But to call it a home would go to an extreme so paradoxical, Stephen Hawking himself would chose god-magnets over gravity.

            "We don't need a fourth dimension; we can't seem to control the three we have."

            When you take something more than a step toward an act of peacefulness, you put on this façade of an attempt, such as the desire to understand naught but everything. You look at a flock of birds passing by and decide between contemplating the mechanics behind flight or the reason behind migration. You stare at a pond and wonder what it's like to drown. You look up toward the sky and feel the need to rearrange the clouds into artwork worthy of a divine order. You close your eyes and think about everything, yet nothing, but either way: barely anything gets done.

            I lied to myself in an effort to seem smarter, more artistic, but instead took upon the act of making a fool out of myself.

            "You would think so, anyway."

            Reality hits when you stop, when the sickening life you lead gives more anger than laughter, when your dependencies fall beneath you; rather, when my phone rang.

 

            "Hello?"

            "Jordan Cyprus, please." the lady chirped, far too polite for my taste.

            "This is he."

            "Mr. Cyprus, this is Anne from Eastly Daycare. Listen…your brother-"

            I cut her off, "I'll be there in a couple minutes," and hung up.

 

            "Blueprints and lists never go unchanged, and your plans, your future, will never stay the same."

            I sped to the nearest tree and climbed the branches, far to the top, not far enough and yet enough to keep me going on for what seemed like the existence of time itself, and when I finally reached the top, I stood in anger and infidelity: I stood in lifeless pitying: I stood in a bird's nest.

            I screamed, "It has come to my attention, my friends! To my attention, you see, that judgment has been passed and sees you all for the spineless cowards you are! There was a man, here, not too long ago, that said to his wife, 'My love and my soul, take not worry into your bountiful beauty!, For I will care and nurture your every will and attend your every call, my love, and my dear,' and my friends, he spoke upon her ears hateful lies! And we should spit on his grave for the pig he is!"

            I cried, "You worthless b******s, all of you, I have seen the light, I have heard the call, I have evidence of your ignorance and your apathy and you will pay, my friends! Pay dearly, and in my hope you will witness a world without you, every one of you: watchful and hypocritical, sarcastic and pitiful, doubtless in your ventures, you vultures, you horrible creatures you, you, and you, sir, madam, the things you are and will always be!"

            I roared, "’Fear not!’ is a lie I could and would say to you in that when this world ends you will stay ignorant and tortured within yourselves and you will never again see the light of day or the dark of night, you will never use the cover to stab your best friend in the back again or burn the summer dress that clueless boy bought for you! Never trample the bouquet! Never isolate the meek! Never swing on the tire of war! Never sing to the lullaby of your crack w***e mother! Never flow with the flock of sheep you call your peers that you keep so near and so dear, to hold and protect from the wisdom of this world!"

            I said, "And Aristotle, in his prominence, would call you sinners from the depths; and Nietzsche, in his grandeur, would see you for the swine you are; and Mozart, in his magnificence, would rather look at the floor than your eyes; and Alexander the Great, in his majesty, would turn his armies from your land; and Gandhi, in his harmony, would speak of your hatred; and Jesus, in his radiance, would frown upon your deeds; and Twain, in his contempt, would throw down his pen; and Einstein, in his brilliance, would kill himself!"

            I told them, "Brother, there's far too many of you dying, and for what? For what?"

            I turned, "Father, war is not the answer! The bottom line is money! Nobody gives a s**t!"

            I whispered, "Be smart. Kill yourself. Be smart. Kill yourself. Be smart. Kill yourself." I can't stand them.

            I opened my eyes, and I was on my porch, staring at the lake again. It was quite literally the end of the world, as was every Sunday morning. I wish I could go off like that, like an atom bomb. Such was not the case; such was not the way to express yourself so very, very often.

 

            I swore up and down that a giant wave had crashed upon this land; that a giant meteor had crashed upon this land; that a giant giant had crashed upon this land; and I would have no such luck.

One step after another led me down the street to another street that led to another street and turned onto yet another street which broke onto the next street where on that street my brother lay, dead.

            I had passed by trees swaying in the breeze and buildings sitting ever so still. I watched as mothers clicked their child's seatbelt and gardeners tended to their employer's flowers. I walked along cracked and sunbathed sidewalks that housed anthills and shoes aplenty, but never compassion. No one housed compassion anymore.

            In silence, I stared at nothing, yet everyone saw that screwed up look on my face, but it was too much for me to think about at that time, and at all times. It was simply too much, much too much.

            That corner, the corner of Presage and Providence, ended my life.

            I saw the police tape and hated myself. I saw the policemen and blamed the world. I saw the four-car pile-up and turned white. I saw the bystanders and stood still. I saw the torn up gravel, the misplaced dirt, the bitterness in the air and the echo of walkie-talkies that passed through my every fear from behind me, I saw that screwed up look on my face, I saw the body bag and I saw the paramedic put my little brother in it, and I asked for Armageddon.

 

            "Sir? Sir!" A policeman now stood at my side, much less still than I was. He had on the regular I'm-way-more-important-than-you costume, complete with shiny medals and a chic hat, but more importantly, he had on his person a few pieces of paper attached to a clipboard that needed my attention.

            "I need you to stay calm," I told him.

            "Excuse me?"

            "No, quiet, sir. This place is not safe anymore. A woman would stand upon this street,” and I pointed, “and recall atrocious stories, recall insanities for us all to hear, and curiosity would hold them, do you not see; this place is not safe? Curiosity would kill them."

            He gave me a confused look and just kind of stood there for a minute or so. "Sir, are you Jordan Cyprus?"

            "Sir, I am," I said, as I looked toward the halo on the ground, my brother broken as a guitar string would, trapped in a tangled mess of dirt and grime.

            He wrote something on his important little papers. "I will need you to come with me, but first, where are your parents, and how would we contact them?"

            I pointed at the body bag. "He now knows better than I."

            He stopped dead, "Dead?"

            "You are a smart cookie, you."

 

            There was screaming and crying and crying screams and screaming cries and every other possible combination of the two you could think of. So help me, 'scry' could not even begin to describe this place. I wanted to hear the kid jump up and laugh, "Just kidding!"

            No such luck.

            This felt strangely familiar. There was such a distress in my mind, where everything goes still. Where everyone moves slowly. Where every precious sound runs away, and I'd chew off my own leg to be anywhere but here. You can't talk. You can't think. I can't function. I want this moment gone, I want this day erased from existence and I want my mind mashed into a bloody pulp that won't remember this.

            You look more into the situation and see everything again: the policemen, the paramedics, the body bag and the gravel around it, but you see it in a separate perspective. Be it a different color, shape, dimension, attitude, it's unique, and it's terrifying. The gum you were chewing tastes sickening and makes you want to throw up, you move to cry but only fall to your knees and stare straight ahead, wondering what the hell happened and where you went wrong.

            Little to feel but despair, little to hold that is dear anymore, for your very life has been stricken from you and from my mind, and I can't stop the world.

            "I didn’t mean to leave."

            You find yourself lacking motive, lacking feeling, lacking care, not an apathetic state, more of an inability, and you find that you have no idea what's going on: what the cause is, what the message is, what the purpose may or may not be, and it seems to turn into a war upon yourself that turns into a dream of hell that you can't even acknowledge.

            It's that feeling when a dream is about to end.

            It's that feeling when a phase finishes.

            It's that feeling when nothing is real; it's just there.

            I feel numb. I feel the desire to care, and the subsequent inability to. I feel hours slip by in minutes, minutes slip by in hours, time wasted in nothing, everything juxtaposed in time.

            I see death upon these streets, and the blood of the only hope I ever had in this world spilt. And here’s the best part: no one spilt it.

 

            “No one knows what happened,” Anne told them between her self-interested sobbing. “He had just got up and left, that’s all, just left! Didn’t say a word, just got up, just got up and walked right out the door. Next thing I hear is a screech and I ran outside and there he is, dead, dead and gone, oh god…”

            The police officer walked back to me, “First of all, I apologize deeply for your loss. My sister was killed in the war, I have some idea of what you’re-“

            “What happened to my brother, sir?” I asked him, in a numb monotone.

            He looked down. I stared at him. Why wouldn’t he look into my eyes, why wouldn’t he look at me? “Nothing hit him. No one touched him. He walked into the middle of the street and flung backwards.”

            I heard rain drops start to pitter-patter in something of a lonely comfort, or at least an attempt at it. “And there he lies. Dead.”

            The officer looked up, “I’m afraid so…but look, they’re taking him to an autopsy to find out what happened. If you give me your phone number, we can call you with the results when they come in.”

            I gave the officer my number and walked away.

 

            The walk home stretched across what felt to me as a million censored miles beyond the falsities Mother Nature and Father Insanity gave birth to; more specifically, the entirety was set to destruction and the entirety’s people were set on chaos. Everything burned. Everyone ran.

            I stepped onto my porch and the air returned to its deceitful springtime smell again, and the clouds cleared to reveal the sun and the flames died to restore my town to its peaceful order.

            Nothing ever burned. No one ever ran.

            Hello, my name is Jordan Alexander Cyprus. My name centers on insanity. My name is Jordan Alexander Cyprus. My name centers on lunacy. My name is Jordan Alexander Cyprus, and I am a certified schizophrenic.