Tensile Rod

Imagine if, when, after having enough, we were offered a check out option from life? This could be a hangman’s noose appearing from the ceiling, or a trapdoor appearing in the floor. All we have to do is step in. My personal fave is a small red button. Press the button, and you get evaporated away from existence on the Earth. When does life get stressful beyond belief, that one realistically considers one of these options?

As someone who is going through a testing situation, I contemplate these imaginary escape routes all the time. It’s a little game I play. What famous last words would you leave behind? If asked to focus on a final happy image, which one would you settle on, when facing the be all and end all?

This strain of thought started when contemplating death row inmates. It must be utterly depressing being made aware of what time you’re going to die. I get panic attacks when sitting peacefully in the pub, so imagine what it’s like when waiting for the electric chair to be made available. I’m so pleased I was born in a country who opposes capital punishment because a crime of passion can happen in a split second to anyone of us.

Last week, due to visual and auditory disturbances severely grinding me into the ground, I started to feel myself begin to lose my temper. This was a mood that had been building over several hours of the day. I was getting snappy, and jumpy, as if wanting to lunge for someone, like a trapped rodent in a corner. I was on the verge of snarling. The general public were winding me up as well.

I became aware of what felt like a tensile rod in my body, in front of my spine. I’d never felt a sensation like it before. It would flare up like a hot magnetic pole and pulse a cloud of rage into my chest. At one point I felt like walking out in front of a car from the pedestrian crossing. Something in me, this tensile rod I call it, physically prompted me to step out into the road. I felt my leg begin to move.

Later on it made me furious in my mind. A cloud swept over me. My patience broke, my tolerance snapped, I turned into the Incredible Hulk and started smashing traffic mentally. I believe it was a surge of raw anger and adrenalin mixed up in my bod. If I’d have had a weapon at that point, and access to someone’s throat, I believe I could have quite happily caused them grave injuries. I was mad with fury for just a couple of seconds.

It would be a wonderful feeling to bottle. For rugby players and the like.

That’s the chemicals in the bloodstream which crimes of passion are enacted out on, I thought, consolidating myself. I could have bombed the whole world with that feeling, I wanted to thrash destroy-flatten-squash-and-stamp over somone’s head. For just a moment, I was capable of some very epic violence.

Acting it out mentally helped lift the vexation from my flesh. I went home and lay down and thought deeply about what had just happened. I might have just shot someone, or stabbed someone, or drove over someone on purpose. I felt both elevated and relieved from merely acting out some frustration in my mind.