aici<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following are excerpts from the journal of Stuart Littlejohn.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why I fire–I just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t think that you\u2019re the first psychiatrist to talk to me. \u00a0I\u2019ve had shrinks of all shapes and sizes.\u00a0 Good ones, bad ones, black ones, white ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 I love you all–primarily because not one of you\u2014not ONE of you can supply me with the definitive answers that I need, so I write my thoughts\u2014hoping to self-diagnose.\u00a0 Clever of you to suggest it, writing things down.<\/p>\n
Why does a respected council member of Cogan\u2019s Bluff, New Mexico find the need to light houses and businesses on fire?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m a really good guy.\u00a0 Everybody tells me that.\u00a0 Not now, of course, but they used to before they found out about me.<\/p>\n
I think maybe it was the fire that my father used to burn me, or, maybe the fire that I played with as a boy in Mississippi.\u00a0 Maybe it was when I lost my virginity to Lucy Lane back in camp–when was that, nineteen sixty?\u00a0 My God, imagine that?\u00a0 She and I rutted around a camp fire!\u00a0 Hah!<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe it was when I used that red hot nail to burn the puppy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Maybe it was the time that I burned myself on my, well, you know.\u00a0 Maybe it was the time my ex-wife used burning matches to help me achieve a hard-on.\u00a0 Who knows?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, and you head adjusters don\u2019t know, so what am I supposed to do?<\/p>\n
I do know.\u00a0 Do just what we tell you.\u00a0 Sit quietly and don\u2019t speak until spoken to.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t you dare pee your pants, or you will get beaten this side of tomorrow.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you dare!<\/p>\n
How is my life now that my true identity and passions have been found out?<\/p>\n
Well, one the one hand, it is Hell. \u00a0I have neighbors screaming that my family move from the neighborhood that we\u2019ve lived in for years.\u00a0 Speaking of family\u2014my wife has filed for divorce and my oldest has run away.\u00a0 Someone shot Sparkey, my collie.<\/p>\n
I have rocks thrown through my windows on, usually, Friday nights.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Other than that, I\u2019m fine.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If this sounds like a \u2018poor me\u2019 diatribe, it is.\u00a0 I have an addiction.\u00a0 It is fire.<\/p>\n
It is hell.\u00a0 I took a pencil and pierced the skin of my scrotum to punish myself, but all it did was make me orgasm.\u00a0 I\u2019m sick, I guess.\u00a0 You guess, too, I guess.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 I don\u2019t go out anymore since I was released on bail.\u00a0 I sit in my house\u2014the house I inherited, and think about myself mostly.<\/p>\n
I think about how I used to be almost painfully<\/em> thin.\u00a0 Ouch.<\/p>\nIt seems amazing, but I used to weigh one hundred and forty-three pounds.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, of course, I weigh more, much more, but self-loathing because I have turned into a slob didn\u2019t make me start fires, I don\u2019t think.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 When you think about it, \u00a0I lit my own business on fire, so,\u00a0 I lit them because I wasn\u2019t just trying to hurt others, as the district attorney is saying, but \u00a0I was trying to destroy myself– as you professionals <\/em>are suggesting.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Me thinks the truth lies atween us, as Dickens says.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I hate people, but I also hate myself.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I know that sounds like so much psycho-babble, but it just happens to be true.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 After those years when the scum that paraded around calling himself my \u2018father\u2019 left the house, I decided that I needed to channel my energy elsewhere\u2014that is besides, well, besides those other issues that the authorities uncovered and made dammed sure got into the newspapers.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 I was eating to ease the hurt inside, or so I was told by a councilor back then.\u00a0 I was married to a bitch on wheels kind of a gal, and I was so angry that I used to stand in Church sometimes with my fingernails pressed into the pew in front of me so hard that I would break my fingernails. I hated the hypocrisy of church and I hated the parishioners, I hated God\u2026.I hated myself. Oh, I hated myself.<\/p>\n
Someday, I wanted to scream and tear the heads off of every living creature.\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 I did\u2026<\/p>\n
Want to scream, not tore the heads off.\u00a0 I fired them instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh, my phrase \u201cI fire\u2019 refers to my setting fires.\u00a0 Pyromaniac sounds so stilted and formal and it doesn\u2019t get into the \u2018why and how come\u2019 of the situation.<\/p>\n
In our society, it is a fait acompli\u2014I am a pyromaniac, so kill me;\u00a0\u00a0 string me up, or put me away in some hell-hole of a prison, where ,hopefully, I\u2019ll be murdered.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 They wonder how a seemingly nice guy (albeit, overweight) eventually kill this watchman? This animal killed him, so why shouldn\u2019t we kill him?\u00a0 Pretty simple on the surface.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s see.<\/p>\n
I began setting fires the same way I began overeating.\u00a0 One mouthful at a time and one match at a time.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s funny—so much in life is actually funny, don\u2019t you think, as opposed to the deadly seriousness that we make it, I killed someone because of my rage at my father, yet, I overate to kill myself.\u00a0 Funny, no?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He was a very nice man, the watchman.\u00a0 His name was Jimmy, the same name that my father had his cronies at the bar call him.\u00a0 Jimmy.\u00a0 Jim. Jim.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I used to be nick-named \u2018Slim\u2019, but that was then and this is now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My name now is dead man writing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I never wanted to hurt anybody.\u00a0 Never!<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I married my High School cutie, but soon discovered that she was like all of the rest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A woman is like so many other creatures.\u00a0 She will use you, abuse you, and finally eat you– if you let them.<\/p>\n
My wife, who ever so conveniently left after my name began being paraded about, was a pretty thing, but, boy, oh, boy, did she jump ship like a rat when the good ship ME<\/em> was going down. \u00a0She was history.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have a mentioned that I am overweight?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like a ship.<\/p>\n
Does that make you smile?\u00a0 The idea of a human being floating in water because he is so fat?\u00a0 Being pierced by what?\u00a0 By what is he pierced so that he scoots across the water making rude sounds before sinking into the abyss?\u00a0 Perhaps the newspaper accounts pierced me.\u00a0 Perhaps my father.\u00a0 Perhaps my wife.\u00a0 Perhaps a match.<\/p>\n
I find it fascinating that I am on what is termed \u201chouse-arrest\u201d, but I am free to have all manner of things here.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Why, I found gasoline in my garage, I found newspapers all over my breakfast table, where, undoubtedly, my wife was reading and drooling about me, and decided to leave.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 I even found kerosene that was left over from three summers ago, when I was still trying to act the part of suburbanite, who mowed his lawn, etc.\u2014even though I had heart palpitations, mind you.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 So, as these writings should be found after the fire inspectors are finished.\u00a0 (I should know.), and I can wrap this in layers and layers of thick material that will protect them, even if they are not fire resistant.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll go out with a flash, fire, and maybe even a bang\u2014depending on the amount of gas in the lines.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 I think the shower curtain as the final wrapping is appropriate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She used to take showers and tease me\u2014saying that such a hot chick should have a hot man.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe she was trying to spur me to loose weight, but, like the lawn mowing, those comments hurt.<\/p>\n
Whew.\u00a0 This destroying ones self is thirsty work, so I\u2019ll pop a low calorie beer.\u00a0 Yet, another reminder from my ex-wife.\u00a0 The bitch that keeps on giving.\u00a0 Oh, I\u2019d like to\u2026.<\/p>\n
Okay.\u00a0 Finish my beer.\u00a0 Finish my good-byes. See you in Hell, Father, Wife, District Attorney, Newspaper reporters\u2026<\/p>\n
Me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 Ah. A Bic lighter.\u00a0 How appropriate.\u00a0 I like appropriate things, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Robert Fenhagen (USA)\u00a0 pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click aici \u00a0 The following are excerpts from the journal of Stuart Littlejohn. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why I fire–I just don\u2019t know. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t think that you\u2019re the first psychiatrist to talk to me. \u00a0I\u2019ve had shrinks of all shapes and sizes.\u00a0 Good ones, bad ones, black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[704,22],"tags":[1151,25,1116],"class_list":["post-5255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-29-30","category-short-story","tag-egophobia-29-30","tag-robert-fenhagen","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-1mL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5255"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6342,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5255\/revisions\/6342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}