continued
Her jaw clenched. "Stop being so annoying, Tristan."
"I'm just being you." Snapping his fingers, he ran a hand through his black hair, grinning. Everything about them seemed to say 'midnight,' even their charcoal colored irises.
"I'm too tired to reply to that. But if I was awake we all know I would roast you."
He smirked, and then poked her in the side again. "Sure you would, sure you would. You always say that, but you never do it. I'm still waiting for some action."
Trinity just ignored his remarks and kept eating, with her eyes closed. Crumbs were sliding down into her lap, tiny little ones managing to stuff themselves down her denim jean pockets.
Sabrina put her Styrofoam cup down after a quiet sip of coffee, and then coughed twice to gather our attention, which she'd already had. "So, I was thinking that we could just start off today with a little activity." She handed us all a yellow sticky note and a pencil. Mine was unfortunately not sharpened. "Write down what you think insanity is."
I scribbled messily across the paper, soon finding that it wasn't enough room for all of my thoughts, all of the analogies I was ready to bring about. Insanity is me. I am insanity. Insanity is when you can't control yourself. When fear has been haunting you, has been controlling you, making you hallucinate. It's the one word that can describe people with schizophrenia perfectly. It's a synonym to those possessed. It's when you've done something wrong, or something right, and the emotions you once tamed run rapid again. Insanity is merely a word to describe a man who's mentally ill. I am ill. I am very ill.
"Brandi, tell me what insanity is. At least what you find insanity to be," Sabrina said, tucking little strands of golden hair behind her large ears, smiling with her blindingly white and crooked teeth. And still she looked so sincere.
Brandi didn't say anything for a while. It was so quiet I could faintly hear the sounds of traffic outside the wooden door, the footsteps of civilians marching around with black clothes. Maybe inside her mind she was even marching with them, up in the front, screaming nothing. She was possibly shouting at the world through whispers. Maybe she was chastising our universe for being so bored. Then she spoke, quietly. Her voice was hushed, her back hunched. She didn't call for attention but she had been given a gift. "Insanity is mental torture that leads you to believe in things you normally would not. Torture is infinite, thus insanity is. And most of all, it's when we say we're fine but really we're drowning and no one is bothering to pull is out of the water. Insanity is a realm of reality for some."
Sabrina squinted at her, hands clutched in her lap, body trembling as if she had seen herself in a mirror. Maybe she'd had. I'd never know, but maybe I wasn't supposed to know. "Who is insanity?" Her voice quivered when she asked the question. "Don't answer me, answer yourself. Answer the question for yourself."
It's me. Insanity is me. You're a victim of the rules you live by. Whatever you think, it's what you become in the end. A prisoner of the bars you set and the standards you watched others raise. I can't help that my mind is filled with elsewhere and details that I don't care to share.
The rest of the day was uneventful for the most part. I watched the others talk chat amongst themselves, and I managed to sneak a peek at Oscar's little yellow sticky-note. Sabrina had told us to keep those sticky notes, to just keep them for a while. What he had written was interesting enough, and I'd decided to stuff it into my pocket, doubting he would notice its disappearance. As a club we played a few more games and took quizzes about what type of era we were supposed to be living in. I got the 50's, and I'm not too sure why. Was it because things were taken a lot more seriously back then? Was it because of the innovations made during that period? However my mind could never be as colorful as it was then.
(This is part of a story on Wattpad called Writing Away The Clouds. You can read the rest of it here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/55599792-writing-away-the-clouds)
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