A Madman Made a Bomb

Sensitive Content Note: Contains mentions of bombs and mental health contemplation...

I am Steve–a literal madman, and I will blow a building up today.

The subway doors opened. Now, I’m walking on the plantation, closer and closer to the stairs. On a hot day in April, within the hours of the morning–I think this was a part of New York City…if I was still there–my feet felt the cold sternness of the ground through the soles of my shoes. Each step was a step in a life I never wanted to live, and each heartbeat echoed the walk I knew I’d end up taking.

I ascended up the stairs. I couldn’t remember the way to the exit I had taken or if I passed any people, but I felt the weight of my handiwork, which was hiding on the inside of my long and baggy coat, lighten.

Was my coat brown or mud? What is my cover story if asked? I came from somewhere a little more chilly… Somewhere with mindless crowds I have never fit inside. I think there were animals involved–or just children featured in my life’s story of unraveling into madness. But… am I really that mad, or just hurt?

Somehow, somewhere, I think I followed a sign or a group of people to an exit, because I am outside, and—wait, did I climb stairs? What time is it? Am I late? I took my phone out of my pocket. Nope, actually, I am early–but not early enough to be where I needed to.

I always hated city streets, because if nothing else–past lovers, family, validated achievement–could have gotten me down a different path in life, symbolisms such as crossroads, directional signs with options in multiple directions, advertisements telling me to waste my life…differently–only those warnings and moments of guessing several times can freeze me up and get me to hate myself.

I waved a taxi down. I wonder how I did that–I have never been here before, and yet, I knew how to get a ride. Not a rideshare ride–with these phones or potentially other smart devices that today’s world has succumbed to living inside–No,... I, a madman,–one who has only lived within his head for as long as he could remember–I used my arm and hand, instinctively, and waved down a yellow taxi. A vehicle I have only seen in boring American movies. Wait, am I American or does it not matter? Who cares, I am crazy. I am insane. My mind is dangerous…

I got inside the taxi and gave the man the address.

…I am an abomination. I have either been dropped or electrocuted as a child–I had to be badly hurt in a way that has been ignored by my outstanding and loving parents in order for me to be the anomaly I am. No one raised me right if my father enforced sports and my mother enforced singing–yet, somehow, I ended up obsessed with formulas–formulas for modifying the world.

As the taxi car drove to the place, stopping at the traffic lights and beeping at reckless drivers, I couldn’t help but linger on what was unraveling–potentially a historic event in progress with my name on the paper–But why? I never went to college. I haven’t had a friend in my life. I like squared pizza more than triangles–and I know that has nothing to do with the criteria, but what does? What qualifies people for matters like this when I am crazy and I like square-cut pizza? What gives Steve, the madman, the audacity and the power to take ordinary life and shatter it?

I couldn’t help but smile at my thoughts. My absurd and abstract thoughts. My way–the way of thinking that has always brought me back to belonging in the nuthouse. Yet, I remain my patient and my shrink, and I have concluded that I am absolute bunkers and that I should push all the triggers…or buttons…I find myself creating in life–or accessing. And that is why, Steve–the madman–is a madman…

… Because, I just got to my destination early. Now, I can say without a doubt I am early. No, I can’t say that. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Because when I entered the building, I needed to comply with the policies and go through the security person and bag check.

I placed my phone, and bag that contained a variety of normal business items within a tray. I am an idiot. I knew I was when I looked around me to check if anyone was watching–observing the plan within my jacket being pulled out in slow motion and placed under the bag I put in the tray. My paranoia snapped my eyes to the person sliding the trays to the other side of the…I think, metal detector… There’s a chance she saw the plans when my eyes glanced over the room to make sure no one else did. This all can end now, and she can tell me that I am not permitted to be here, or that my name isn’t Steve, but Gary–the madman—and I wouldn’t know what is true. I’ll just know that this wasn’t.

I walked through the threshold, realizing that it was, in fact, a threshold, and I have never been on the other side of it before. I wanted to smile, but I’d be delighting myself in a dream if I did. This is insane, and I am crazy. Lives like this don’t happen to people who like square-cut pizza. They don’t at all, I think. Maybe they can happen to the odd person that always sits furthest from everything. Maybe they happen to the person always over-succeeding in environments that run like fishbowls, so they jump out and succeed again. Maybe it happens to a guy named Gary, who has always been weird–maybe a secret agent or superhero; however, I am not Gary. I don’t think anyone suspects I am odd, and I never sit the furthest from things. I have never succeeded externally a day in my life–nor was I praised for getting by in fish bowls. I don’t have a secret agent background. I have no powers or odd abilities I am forced to tend to, and I am definitely not a hero. I couldn’t save a cat if I tried–and I did try once as a child. I am not special, so I must be mad.

Nor am I average enough to be normal and not insane. There wasn’t a time in my life where I embraced social interaction, and there has never been a time during engagement where it was longer than the details needing to be said or times where I invited the sharing of details. I have never done anything child-like when I was a child. No siree, no meaningless play with Lego, tablets, or action figures for me. I stuck with independent puzzles and a few checkers/chess games when social interaction was mandatory. Even if there was a cat or dog, I didn’t care. I potentially had siblings…older, but still children…and I wasn’t the odd one, but I wasn’t like them. In regards to my childhood, I was normal, but different in every possible way–so I am mad.

I walk through the halls of this seemingly empty building, but I know that is far from the case, and I know this is just the lobby. My feet can feel the coldness of the floor through my soles again, with the added texture of smoothness. In my mind, and only ever in my mind, the walk to the room wasn’t a ‘walk’, it was a glide, or a dance…or an escalator that moved me forward because, regardless of whether I wanted this to happen, it is going to happen… and I will feel amazing.

Wait, do I have my plans and my bag? Did I passively pick them up as I was thinking? Is the security lady looking through everything right now and deciding to look at the back of my coat? Is my coat mud, brown, or shit to her? My arms feel loose, and at my sides, but I have never been good at external awareness of myself, so maybe I was crossing my arms. Maybe my arms weren't typical arms at all. Maybe I had no arms. I kept walking, I think, or gliding to the room. The smoothness of the floors turned into carpet as the imagined chase began. If security stops me, it’s over, because I am a nutcase who isn’t supposed to be here. I slipped into the opening elevator, waited for the normal man to exit, and pushed the button for the seventh floor. The doors closed and I imagined myself flying up, although, in reality, it was just elevator mechanics in motion. I forgot my plans and my bag. I’m a stupid piece of shit that needs his plans and bag to blow up this building…maybe… maybe my mouth is all I need–a signal of confidence to carry forward and give the go ahead.

I entered the room, and must have departed from the elevator when I was thinking. The room contained a mere three people–important people–scientifically profound people–three men who shaped the previous years of technological advancements. Occupying the same space as the three men who do it all, there is an imposter–me, Steve, the madman…the small man.

“You must be Steve,” one of the men said, as they got up to shake my hand.

“Yes,” was all I could say…because now I know that this part of the story is real. My name is Steve and I am standing here.

“Are you ready to change the world, Steve, with your self-produced work? It will completely blow up–or…” the man laughed, “Sorry, I should stop sayin’ that. This is New York City and I gotta be sensitive. But Steve, it still fits the occasion. Are you ready to work on blowin’ up what is considered normal life, and changin’ the world forever, with us?”

I didn’t get my plans–well, the folder that contains my plans and my bag–from security. I didn’t wonder why the muddy coat for cold weather felt like a hollow and brown overcoat…only in front of these men. I didn’t contemplate why I was flying with my feet unable to feel the floor at all. All I can think about is one sentence. I must not be a madman.

With their eyes on me, like I accomplished what I did in my condo all alone over the course of years that I carried passed a decade, I grabbed all the confidence I easily had. I can always go down and get my belongings after talking with my new coworkers…because I already know it all thanks to how my mind works.

“Yes,” I said, and another chapter began.