The Mad Man

     There he sat, at the corner of the empty room. Motionlessly, he stared at the other end of the room, expressionless and cold. What was on his mind, if there were anything, I did not know. I found it incomprehensible.

     "Hello, Mr. Fidelis," I said softly.

     He did not respond.

     "Mr. Fidelis, sir, what is it that you've done to the place?"

     The old man did not budge.

     "Mr. Fidelis!" I shouted worriedly.

     I immediately left the stone cold man, and started pacing. What has happened to the poor man? What am I going to do? What should I do?, I thought.

     "Ahhh!!!" the man screamed waking from his slumber.

     "Ahhh!!!" I shouted back, stumbling in fear.

     "Oh, it's just you George, old chap. You startled me," he replied relieved.

     "I 'startled' you? You scared my heart out of my chest. Anyway, what have you been up to?"

     "I was thinking."

     "What--Where's the furniture?"

     "I needed to stay focused. What are you even doing here?"

     "I was dropping of your medication, sir. Here."

     "I won't be needing it, that is if my experiment's results are permanent."

     "What experiment, might I ask?"

     "Um..."

     Mr. Fidelis paused. Then he jumped up like a cat, and ran out of the room and scrambled for paper and his quilt.

     "Imagine this piece of paper represents all life, and all reality," he said holding up the sheet of paper.

     Then, he took his quilt and made a fine dot on the page.

     "Now imagine this represents one life, and how much of reality we can potentially control. It is infinitely small, yet infinitely large like this paper," he said, slowly making the dot into a larger circle, that was much easier to perceive.

     "So, does that mean that we can potentially control a 'larger' amount of reality at will?" he asked making the circle larger and larger until it touched the edges of the page.

     "What does this mean, and how can we channel it? I'm not even yet completely sure whether or not such a principle is even true. I figured that channeling it would involve the basic elements of the mind, thinking or not thinking."

     I took a moment to process this. At first I thought he was insane, but then I took his thinking into consideration.

     "What do you mean by 'thinking or not thinking'?" I asked intrigued.

     "It's complicated," he replied.

     "What do you mean by that?" I inquired.

     "Did I not say it was very complicated?"

     "I dismissed my ideas, and stopped trying. Why is it that I even bother with this? I'm becoming a mad man. No, I'm becoming Fidelis! I must stop this now.

     "You're a lunatic, you know that? Now just take your medication for your bad leg," I said handing him the paper bag.

     He snatched the bag from my hand and through it straight into chimney fire. He grabbed a poker, and then picked up the bag to extinguish its flames in the kitchen sink.

     "Do you have the nearest idea how much that costs? You should be lucky to have even had it in your possession. It would help fix your useless leg of yours," I spoke loudly.

     "I told you, I don't need it anymore. Have you not noticed?" he asked and then walked away.

     It was peculiar how I had missed this before, but he was healed. Mr. Fidelis was walking upright, boldly, and swiftly, something I hadn't seen in a long time. Perhaps he is right this time. I couldn't help but laugh under my breathe at the thought. Highly unlikely.