Phenomenal insanity

It was his 35th anniversary and he had just woken up. Not a care in the world, and all eyes on him. He felt special. Almost too special, but never quite. It was just right. He looked around. Four walls. No screens. No windows. One door. One camera. A crew behind it. A jacket that someone had forced him into. No mask. Not a physical one anyway. Just another day in the madhouse.

They had locked him away three years prior. The charge: phenomenal insanity. “Allegedly”. His punishment: enough years with other equally insane — but not quite as phenomenal — people, just until he could regain a sense of shame over his actions. To think that one could give oneself permission to think out loud, refuse to share a photo on social media or tie other people’s shoes just because they got featured on some sneakerhead blog the year before.

The madhouse made him think of home. Except you couldn’t use Facebook there. When you think about it, who would anyway? It’s well known that selfies become much harder when your arms are wrapped around your torso. Plus, his smartphone didn’t support the latest OS, which rendered the whole exercise useless. That now made sense in his head, and in a weird way his mind got numbed by the idea of belonging to a frame of mind that other people finally deemed acceptable. The treatment was working.

Every now and then, I write random stories based on the results of a random word generator I found online. This is a product of that exercise. I have no idea what happens next. If you do, let me know.