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Cordellia Rose

Formal Paper 1

Final Draft

Miles

“I have to kill one of them off,” she muttered under her breath. She’s standing in front

of the window, her forehead resting gently on the pane. Occasionally her lips touch the glass,

and she relishes the cool feeling. It’s dark and stifling in this room, only adding to her angst.

The sun has just gone down, and night is beginning to fall. “They’re getting to be too many.

Damn it. I hate it when I have to do this. I need to find someone to kill, someone irritating and

irrelevant. It has to be good. It has to be emotional. It has to make me feel something. I’m so

scared. I have to get rid of this strange feeling. Is it going to be gruesome? I hate imagining

bad things. The last time something truly gruesome happened was when Kevin died. That was

a bad situation. I’m not sure my character can handle another serial killer or violent attack like

that. She already blames herself. Sure, she’s the victim……….but she’s always the victim. She

doesn’t want to kill, but sometimes that’s her only recourse. She may have to kill again.” The

woman is starting to tear up and presses the side of her right eye against the window pane to

ease the redness. It feels good. A few tears squeeze out and she steps back to watch them

slide down.

Suddenly the door opens. A man stands there with a notebook and a puzzled look. He

heard her muttering but couldn’t understand the words exactly. It’s probably a good thing.
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“Oh, hi. Come in. It’s ok. I was just talking to myself. It happens. You must be Miles,

right? Come! Come! Don’t look so shy. I’m not going to hurt you. Into the den of the crazy

person. Are you scared? Don’t smirk. Are you scared? You should be scared. I’d be scared,

talking to me. I’m pretty famous, you know. Ok, maybe you don’t know, being one of the

people who lives in,” She gestures quotes, “’reality’.”

“Wait………..don’t you know?” he says, looking at her a bit puzzled.

“Well………..um…………no…………I mean I guess a few people read my blog, but it’s not

like I’m really famous.” she says, laughing.

“Oh……..well…………you are, just so you know. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.

I’ve been following your blog for years. It’s fascinating. I’ve been very eager to meet you and

hear your story. I’d love to write about it, and, you know……” His voice suddenly becomes

quiet. “….get the truth out. People are very curious about you.”

“Well………..I’m sure people have a lot of opinions……..I can’t say I want to know

everything, but I’m an open book.” She’s suddenly jovial, realizing she’s going to be the center

of attention for awhile. For once, everyone is focused on her instead of some fictitious

characters. “Maybe if I just keep blogging and talking eventually people will learn and gain

some perspective before I actually have to listen to any of them speak anymore. Ha! ha! Ha!”

“Right. That’s actually not a bad idea. So, shall we start? I must say you seem

remarkably lucid.”
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She shoots him a puzzled, hurt look, like he’s just said something insulting and stupid.

“Thank you…. Do you even know what that means?”

“What, ‘lucid?’” He looks genuinely confused.

“Yes. ‘Lucid.’ Do you know what it means?” She asks earnestly, like she’s really

expecting him not to know and is prepared to tell him.

“Yes………………………………….do you?”

“Yes.” She says slowly, for emphasis, ”Good. I was just checking because if you’re

foolish and pretentious enough to think you’re qualified to tell my state of mind, then I wonder

what else you don’t know. Is there anything else we need to establish?”

“What………I……….um……..” He’s completely lost for words. “I……didn’t. I guess……”

She leans back, crosses her legs, and then puts her arms on the arm rests, in a regal

pose for a moment. Then she gestures for him to get on with it, quickly.

“Ok…………….so…………..what’s it been like?” He looks up at her and then back down,

fidgets in his chair, and then looks back up. He’s puzzled and uncomfortable, unsure where to

begin.

“What’s it like? What’s it not like? I’ve been like this since I was a baby, at least I

assume. It’s my normal state. There’s so much to say………. I mean it could’ve started with

abuse. Lots of times it starts with abuse, but frankly I remember doing it long before I

remember the abuse. You know they used to beat me, right? Well, I always grew up afraid,
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and I always grew up daydreaming. When I was daydreaming, I wasn’t afraid, at least not

usually. There were bad things, too, at night. It wasn’t always good.”

“I thought this daydreaming condition was always supposed to be a relief. Why was it

bad?”

“I don’t know that it is always supposed to be a relief. I think it’s an act of creativity. My

brain was always running wild, and I couldn’t stop it. Outside, there was nothing but negativity

and discomfort. There were sounds, horrible sounds, itchy clothing, ugly furniture, dark rooms,

bright sun, people who ate like they were in a barnyard. Then there was the abuse, the

screaming, yelling, hitting, hair-pulling, kicking……..what they called ‘discipline’.” She scoffs. “I

don’t know if that caused it or just pushed me further into it. By day, I’d live in a fantasy world

of fairies and princesses. Then, as I got older, negative images would start to creep in. I think I

wanted to experience everything that’s part of the human condition, from the greatest joys to

the darkest……….” She turns back at the window but resists the urge to get up and press her

face against it. She bites her lip instead. “My daydream reality was probably a more complete

reality than most people ever get to experience. Anyway, all kinds of images were in my head,

day and night. It’s wonderful but exhausting.”

“What about at night? Tell me about the horrors.”

She perks up and continues with excitement. “Right. Well, you know I have sensitivity

to light as well as everything else. I hate bright sunlight, and I hate the dark. I’ve always been

completely terrified of the dark. Every shadow contained a murderer. Naturally, the

combination of my sensitivities, which might have been caused by disconnection due to my

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daydreaming, and the fact that I couldn’t stop daydreaming all the time, day and night, every

minute…….well unfortunately they merged. Except this time, I was sure it was real. During the

day, I knew I was daydreaming. I mean I’m sure all children do this. They hear things. I’m not

talking about the hallucinations yet. I mean every little bump and moan, rustle, click, tap, every

little sound that can drive you mad in a night. I was certain, really certain, that someone was

about to break in and do terrible things to me every night, as far back as I can remember. I

used to hide under the covers shaking violently and crying. “ She’s bouncing up and down in

her by chair now.

“This went on for how long?”

“Maybe……..well……………I’m 40, so…………maybe…….35 years. It’s actually gotten a little

bit better recently. I only get this way when something bad has happened in the news nearby.”

“Is that how the insomnia started?”

“I assume. This has been going on so long that at some point you just accept that your

head has changed and never will be the same. At first you feel crazy. Then you accept that

crazy is relative, and who gives a crap?”

“Ok, let’s get into that……..the hallucinations. What’s that like?”

“It doesn’t feel like a hallucination at first. You just feel so tired. You just want to sleep,

and you can’t. Your body starts to ache, and your mind starts to wander. At first, you just stay

up all night, trying to make yourself relax. There’s only so long you can do that, though, before

you start having in-between states. It feels like you’re literally half awake and half asleep.
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You’ll be sitting up in your bed staring at your alarm clock and wondering if you’re really there

or out in the street. You can spend an hour sitting there trying to figure it out. Then years go

by, and nothing improves. Your mind and body acclimate to a new state of being. Reality

becomes an old wives’ tale”.

“You blogged about something you call ‘mixed reality’. Is that related to your

daydreaming disorder?”

“I wouldn’t call it a disorder. It’s just how my mind works. Many people live with this

condition just fine. Many become authors or otherwise great thinkers. The worst they do is go

on huge daydreaming binges for days and end up not doing much with their lives. They wake

up fat and drooling, much like many rock stars minus the booze and STDs. Ha ha!

“The reason things started to get foggy is due to the insomnia. You start to feel sick all

the time, and you want to sleep, but you hurt too much, and so your brain just……needs to

dream anyway. You start to sort of really dream all the time, even when you’re awake. You’ll

be seeing one thing and somehow seeing something else at the same time. It’s like the two

visions overlap, or like you’re going back and forth so rapidly between the two that you’re

thoroughly confused and don’t know where you’re at anymore. Plus, the isolation is enough to

make you go mad. You’re too sick to go out, and the world is too……….” She sighs. A look of

pain comes across her face.

“So, it’s because of the insomnia that you stay here in this room all the time? I thought

it was something about the daylight or the noises.”

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“It is. I mean, it’s really both, but the reason I started intentionally staying home is

because of my sensitivities. Certain sounds are so awful to me that I just want to cover my ears

and scream. Plus there’s the sunlight. I really can’t stand being in sunlight. I used to live with

it. I would dread the spring, but I would weather it. Then as I got older, between the sounds,

the light, the itches, the smells, and the loud noises everywhere, I just realized I’d had enough.

It wasn’t worth it to torture myself this way, so I stayed home. Then I’d be too sick to go out

because of the insomnia, and I wouldn’t be sure what state of mind I was in anyway. I started

confining myself to this room. Years went by, and I never left.”

“Ok, but the insomnia isn’t a problem right now…….. I mean, how are you feeling?

When I said you seemed lucid……….well you’re not always lucid, though, are you?”

She sits still and pauses a moment. She looks up and then down. Her face suddenly

looks very sullen, like she’s remembering something sad. “Lucid is relative. Your reality, that

you’re so certain is real, is no better than mine. It’s true that after awhile, even when I’m

feeling fine, images start to creep up. I woke up once and was feeling very foggy. I saw, with

my own eyes, a woman standing naked in front of me, right by my bed. I was probably partly

asleep, but I was awake enough to be fully aware of my surroundings. I didn’t think I was at the

supermarket or anything. My eyes were feeling very strained, but yet I saw her very clearly.

Then she disappeared. We hear stories all the time of ghosts, vibrations, and whatnot. It

wasn’t a daydream, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a night dream, so maybe it was something

else. I really don’t care, though. I just accept things that I see. It doesn’t help to analyze them.
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“Then, there’s dreaming. All of what’s happening to us, when you think about it, is

really in our heads. You see me, but you don’t really see me with your eyes. You see me with

your mind. Your mind gathers all the information and decides that I’m here. When you go to

bed, your eyes see something else. Your eyes move back and forth, following your mind. Your

mind is your reality. So, when I’m daydreaming, my mind lives in a different reality of my own

exploration. When I’m night dreaming, I’m just like you. I’m in a state that we all go through.

It can’t by even common logic be a ‘crazy’ state if it’s something our bodies require, can it? I’m

so sleep-deprived that I experience that during the daytime as well. Therefore, I can’t really be

crazy, now can I?” Looking triumphant, she continues.

“Your body lives in the world you’ve consented to live in. Your mind agrees to interpret

the information your body has given you in a certain way, so that we can all compare notes

together and understand each other. I guess that by ‘lucid’ you mean my eyes and mind are in

agreement with yours. We agree that we’re in this room, sitting on 2 old, comfy chairs.”

He’s been taking it all in, his jaw tense, and writing feverishly.

“well…………………..ok……………………I guess………….but you don’t always feel the same. Will you

just tell me how you’re feeling? Sometimes you say that you’re feeling bad and can hardly get

up. Other times you feel awake and inspired and can write a thousand pages if only people

would shut up and leave you alone. Where are you on that continuum?”

“Well, physically I feel about as comfortable as I can be. I’m never 100% comfortable,

but relatively ok. Mentally………….well, I’m talking about myself, and that’s often inspiring. I’d

say I feel good…………definitely, compared to bad, I feel good.”

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“Excellent. If you start feeling less, just tell me. Ok, next. Tell me about some of the

people you’ve known. Tell me about Kevin.”

“Well, it’s kind of you to give my characters such credence like that, but let’s not talk

about them like they’re real. Kevin was a character I invented when I was around 13. It didn’t

start out bad. At first he was just my main character’s friend. Then he became an increasingly

needy friend. Then he became a possessive friend. Then my character would start having

other friends, and he’d get really mad. He would whine at her to spend more time with him,

pleadingly. He would say she was his best friend, and he loved her so much. No one could ever

love her so much. How could she leave him alone on so many nights? Why didn’t she

appreciate him more? Then she started dating, and he got really, really mad. She was already

being abused at home, so she didn’t really notice when he slowly started becoming abusive. He

just seemed to need her a lot, so she couldn’t turn him away. He was nice to her on most

nights. He hit her on occasion, but his eyes looked so sad and helpless. She hardly even felt it

when his hand hit her cheek. Then he would cry and say he was sorry. He would sob so hard

she thought he would die from the effort. She would comfort him and try to calm him down.

One night he beat her up. After that, she tried to stay away, but then he started stalking her.

He’d show up randomly in places she would hang out. He would hide between buildings along

paths she was known to walk on. As they got older, he started carrying weapons. It started out

with a small pocket knife. He loved knives….” Her voice drifts off. Her eyes wander over the

walls. She’s been talking really fast like she’s reciting a story she’s told a thousand times, but

her gaze travels slowly over every corner of the room. “The walls aren’t actually moving, are

they?”
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“No. I thought you were feeling fine today. Why, what’s going on?”

“I feel fine, but you know. It’s just………my brain……….. I don’t think it knows what’s real

anymore.”

“I thought there wasn’t reality……”

“That doesn’t mean sometimes I don’t wish for just a little more agreement. Please

consent………… Oh well. I can’t worry about this. The lines on the wallpaper are just wiggling a

bit. It’s no big deal. I can handle that. No crisis.”

“Ok, well, let me know if you get tired and want to stop or something. So, tell me about

Kevin’s death. Do you mind? It’s not too traumatic, is it?”

“No……….it’s been several years now. Things just came to a head. It was bound to

happen. I needed something emotional to happen in my storylines because I was becoming

bored, and the Kevin character was just becoming too tiresome. My main character was

avoiding her home town because he’d always show up in her rear view mirror with a knife. He

tried to kidnap her on many occasions. One of her friends who knew karate tried to follow her

around like a body guard, but he couldn’t be with her every minute. She couldn’t enjoy herself

anymore. She was living in constant fear. So, one day, she got a vision. She was very psychic.

She got a vision that everything was going to come to a head, and it was going to be bad.

Anyway, he followed her out to a remote location. She saw in her vision that he had a lot of

guns, which turned out to be true, so she went out somewhere where there wouldn’t be a lot

of people. She called 911, but since she mentioned the word ‘vision’ they didn’t believe her,
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even when he was actually following her and smiling with a knife in his hand. She didn’t really

think it all through, but she didn’t know what to do. She looked out the window and saw him

coming, so she just took off, and he followed her. In her mind, she saw a lot of guns in his trunk

and car. She found an old empty building and was planning to just try and stay alive until the

police came, but they never came. She talked to him and tried to be his friend. He cut her

once……and then again……..and then again. By now he’d taken her phone………..and then he

got her on the ground and just started stabbing her. She knew it was over. She knew………..”

She looks down and gulps then quickly recovers and resumes. “He was leaning over somehow

and then she saw a gun in his front shirt pocket. It was one of those small guns that looked like

a toy. She grabbed it and shot him. She fell back and was just bleeding there. Someone

must’ve heard the commotion or seen the cars and wondered because they came by and found

her……….. Anyway, yadda yadda, she just barely survived. It was really traumatic, but

eventually she was hailed as a hero and survivor. She still can’t cook or do anything that

involves any cutting, but she’s ok.”

“Ok, so…………….how did you come to….………know this story?”

“What do you mean? I know I get emotional about this stuff, but they’re just stories.

It’s what my mind can’t help but do. I spend all my time thinking about my characters and what

they do. When characters get tiresome and I’m starting to feel empty, I have to kill one of them

off. This isn’t real.”

“What other characters have you killed off?”

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“Well…..over the years…a few. Sarah died of some horrible disease when she was 12.

Ed had an aneurism after a fight that grew violent. Kevin……….well, that’s the most gruesome.”

“Ok, you don’t know their last names, do you?”

“I don’t think they have last names. What are you talking about?!”

“Ok, well…………..Kevin………….what was the real Kevin like? How did you meet him?”

“Kevin is a fictional character. I made him up. What’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you

listening to me? I don’t know who you’re mistaking him for, but there’s no one I knew named

Kevin.”

“Ok, I just………….Just…………try to think back. Did you remember reading about a man

named Kevin in the paper a few months ago? He died.”

“I’m sure there are lots of people named Kevin who die. What does that have to do

with one of my storylines?”

“It’s just…………..the Kevin you described in your blog is a lot like the Kevin who died. He

had dark brown hair and wore the same style of clothing. You drew a picture of him for your

blog, and it looks remarkably like him. The details in your story………..maybe you made them all

up, but somehow your reality got it right. He attacked a girl with short brown curly hair. He

stabbed her 4 times, and she somehow survived. She shot him.”

Horror-stricken, she runs her fingers through her hair. “It’s not true. It’s not.”
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“They saw it happen on the surveillance video. Then she just ran off and disappeared.

They assumed she went somewhere and bled to death……….. They’ve been looking for her.

One of the reasons they might not have found her is she may have been holed up in a room

somewhere. ”

She runs her hand over her abdomen, confusion all over her face. It’s not true. She

would know if it were true. She starts to tear up and bites her lip.

“Last year, Kevin’s father Ed died of an aneurism. There was a gunshot wound to his

right hand from a domestic fight earlier that night with Kevin.”

“It’s just a coincidence,” she said, barely audible. “This all happened so many years ago

in my mind anyway. I don’t know why it’s coming up now. It’s just a story. It’s JUST A STORY!”

She bursts out of her chair, a steely look in her red eyes.

“Ok,” he whispered, “I’m sure I’m just mistaken. If I’d have known………….I wouldn’t

have bothered you with all this nonsense. I’ll email you later.”

He stepped out. In the hallway, they were waiting. A woman approached, eagerly.

“Well?”

“I don’t know why…………but I don’t think she did it. I just can’t see her doing that. I

don’t understand this. I don’t know anything. I thought that…….since we were becoming

friends and she was answering me………….that maybe if I interviewed her I could get something

out, but…… I don’t know how this could all have happened. I’ve been following her blog for

years. It’s extraordinary. She doesn’t even believe in insanity, but she knows her world is
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somehow changing. I can’t even bring myself to say it. She’s not insane. She’s NOT. She

just……….walls move.” He’s trembling.

“Ok, but there’s some serious business here. A man, who just happened to be the

mortal enemy of her ‘main character’, was shot a few months ago, and she just happened to

know every detail.”

“I don’t know. Maybe she dreamed about him. Maybe she just knows things. Her

character was reminiscing last week, and she brought it up. Then I looked over her old blogs

from years ago. She blogged about this incident 5 years ago. She knew every detail. She even

had the right address.”

“She has cameras all over this place. They were installed after the attack when she was

a kid. She hasn’t left this house or even her bedroom in over 10 years.”

Back in her room, the woman slowly went to the mirror and pulled up her shirt. She

caressed the scars lovingly. “That was a good storyline. I’ve decided who’s going to die this

time. I’m tired of characters who don’t understand me. I think the young man I have in mind is

going to push her out a window. She’ll grab onto him to try and save herself, but they’ll fall

down together. He’ll hit his head against a rock and die. Miles? Miles, I forgot to tell you

something! I’m feeling much better now.”

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Reflective Memo

This short story is my first attempt at fiction in many years. I have a condition called

Maladaptive Daydreaming, which is in short an addiction to daydreaming. People with

Maladaptive Daydreaming become addicted to their own creativity. Some have full fantasy

worlds, and others daydream about different things each time. I’ve had this condition all my

life. As a child, I developed a full fantasy world that stayed with me all my life. I would lie

around and daydream all the time, day and night. At night, my anxiety would kick in. When I

was a kid, I wanted to be a writer, and I tried to write down my daydreams, but they were so

vast that it was impossible. As I grew older, my fantasy world kept expanding. Each character

had whole family histories that I’d thought up. Every time I’d try to write it down, I’d get lost. It

never worked. It stressed me out, so I quit. I also had trouble reading fiction as I’d get bored,

or it would trigger my fantasy. I started focusing on non-fiction, which was somehow more

engaging. I also wasn’t ready to confront my daydreaming as the addiction that it was. Now,

educating people about Maladaptive Daydreaming is one of my causes. I’m working with a

doctor in NY who’s studying it and agreed to “out” myself and be the poster child. Talking

about it was difficult but highly liberating.

In this story, I wanted to confront one of the biggest fears Maladaptive Daydreamers

often have: that one day, it will just take over. So far this has never happened to my

knowledge, but often we’re terrified that one day we’ll completely lose grip of reality. This

story is a big hypothetical. What if? I tried to imagine how it could happen and what would it

be like? I tried to make it as realistic as possible. What if I became so wrapped up in myself, my

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fears, my fantasies, and my sensitivities that I completely lost sight of everything else? I’ve also

had insomnia for many years and have experienced dreaming while awake. I imagined that

that would be the thing that breaks my mind with “reality”. As rich as my daydream world is, I

still don’t see myself actually mistaking it for reality.

Almost none of this is original material. The character is based on me, if my sensitivities

and other eccentricities completely took over. The abuse, insomnia, daydreaming, and

sensitivities are all true. The story about the naked woman is true. The characters Kevin and Ed

are taken directly from my fantasy world, as is the anecdote she tells about Kevin’s death. That

occurred several years ago in my fantasy world. Miles is completely made-up as is the room

and the situation. The situation is what I would imagine if everything took over and I just

couldn’t take it anymore.

There are a few important points to remember when reading this story. First, we have a

story within a story. When the subject of my story is saying “She”, that’s not me talking about

her, that’s her talking about her character. When she’s relaying the events that “happened”

with Kevin and other characters, she’s not saying they happened to her. That’s crucial because

that becomes the debate in the end. She’s talking about a fictional character who interacted

with a fictional Kevin. She has no idea, as far as we know, though it’s probably up for debate,

that there really is a Kevin who was killed. My story is not about Kevin. My story is about an

intelligent woman who’s trying to make the best of living with all these conditions……….but

who’s been slowly pushed deeper into them and away from the outside world until she’s

completely lost touch with reality. She’s still fighting to live the best of both worlds and in her
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own way is trying to improve the image of people with psychological issues by explaining them

to Miles and through living openly through her blog. We know she hasn’t given up because she

doesn’t hesitate to admit when something happens like the walls move. She’s trying to prove

that there’s nothing to be ashamed of. This is further evidenced when she grills Miles for

talking down to her.

The second crucial point is that both the woman and Miles each have completely

different agendas here. She thinks he’s there to interview her about her blog and her

psychological issues, which she’s eager to talk about. In the beginning, his questions are so

open-ended, that it’s reasonable for her to think so. She rattles on and on because that’s what

she thinks the point of the interview is. She has no reason to stop and enjoys hearing herself

speak to an interested fan. Plus we understand that they’ve been in communication, and he’s

very sympathetic to her. We can assume that he probably said he wanted to interview her and

left out any mention of Kevin.

Miles has a different agenda. The character Miles is meant to be a sympathetic fan

whose profession is left up for debate. At first he was a journalist, but he became too

sympathetic for that. However this is an interview, so I imagine him to be a very curious fellow

blogger with an emotional investment in her. He asks her broad questions about her feelings

and her life as a way to get her talking and feel comfortable. His secret agenda is to get her

talking about Kevin. He hopes to get her talking and talking, so when the subject of Kevin

comes up she’ll be on such a roll that she won’t quit. He tries to ease her into it by asking

seemingly banal questions like what her characters’ last names are. In the end, we find out that
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he knows who Kevin is, and he suspected that she was his victim/killer, so there was no reason

to ask this question except to get her to admit that she knew him. His plan still backfires,

though, and she gets upset. As the story progresses, the character Miles became less of an

interviewer and more of a fan with a burning desire for answers.

The dueling motives are the reason that the story is so long and divided. She rattles on

and on like she’s giving a lecture because that’s what she thinks this is. In the end, each

character wears their heart on their sleeve. She flaunts her madness, and he flaunts his

intrigue.