The Supernatural Confessions of Edith Anthrax
A duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London, I've often regretted that it didn't kill me. So I accepted the first injection, I didn't know what was coming to me, an initiation into nothingness. The image of the eternal quest for the gold buried beneath the filth and horror threatened to besiege the citadel of life itself. The celestial drug infected by inhaling, ingesting or injecting spores.
Destiny, my evil destiny, lay in wait for me once more.
The man who opened to me my own paradise, dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain. The druggist, unconscious minister of the celestial pleasures, the beatific vision of the immortal druggist, sent down to earth on a special mission to myself. These mummified remains bear witness to this. Fellow travelers, fornicators, butchers and dealers in hides, animal hair, and wool and handlers of bonemeal all felt the same demonstrable changes in spleen, lungs, liver and brain. I've often regretted that it didn't kill me.
Entombed, living in a silver box, alone with the mysteries of the human head. Haemorrahagic inflammation of the blood vessel communicated chemical serenity and equipoise to all my faculties, areas of necrosis and intestinal oedema. I felt that the diviner part of my nature was paramount, my moral affections in a state of cloudless void serenity. The infiltration of the tissue without abscess formation. Now I knew that happiness can be bought and carried in the waistcoat pocket, portable heavens may be corked up in a bottle. The pain was so intense that I screamed, I've often regretted that I enjoyed it so much. I demanded another injection. Which they bring to me on a silver platter. What an upheaving from its lowest depths of my inner spirit. Here was the panacea for all human woes. The secret of happiness itself. The formation of a carbuncle, nothing less than hope, the influence of heaven, eloquence and life. I felt so happy that I demanded another injection.
They made me wait as long as possible. I was no more than a remnant of humanity, these mummified remains bear witness to this. I was captured alive, chained and led from house to house, mocked and ill-treated. I was taken out covered in cuts, I had a fractured arm, I had broken ribs. Each time I pronounced the hated "I" word, I had to gash my arms with razors, pierce my skin with needles, so that I would not forget that there can be no supreme progress while I had the slightest trace of "I" self remaining. I screamed for another injection. I had nightmares I would wake up screaming. I saw strange disturbing people wander into my bedroom. They would leave as soon as they'd been paid. Wretched men would thrust their daggers through holy sacrament in front of an idol of Satan. I felt all the time that there were hands at my throat. The pain was so intense that I screamed. I felt amazingly happy. I begged for another injection. I was lost. A stain smear of fluid between me and hell.