The Madman's Tale

by John Katzenbach

That’s one of the major problems with being crazy: you’re just naturally uncertain about things.

Being insane gives one an interesting take on life. It certainly makes you more accepting of certain lots that befall you,

But for the most part, I am, if not happy, at least understanding.

I have a musty brown life, and it reminds me of the colors I might have experienced if I hadn’t stumbled onto the path that had brought me here.

Reunions are a constant part of the normal world. Folks are always trying to relive times that in their memory were better than they really were, rekindle emotions that in truth far best belong in their past.

Madness, I often thought, was a little like the night, because of the different ways in different years it spread itself over my heart and my imagination, sometimes harshly and quickly, other times slowly, subtly, so that I barely knew it was taking over.

Did you know that in the old days, people thought if you went to sleep with the moonlight on your forehead you would wake up crazy? That’s where the word lunatic comes from.

Or were they like soldiers, given an impossible and obviously fatal command, who decide that sacrifice is more important than life?

A really powerful delusion doesn’t need much ground to take root and flower.”

When I thought about it, I believed it was a curious thing, growing up and understanding in an odd, peripheral, or maybe subterranean way that all sorts of connections were going on all around me—and yet I was destined forever to be excluded.

Crazy people sometimes see things with accuracy, Father. An accuracy that eludes us on the street.”

There are some deep sadnesses that never leave one’s heart no matter how many hours slide by,