The Great Serial Killer ordained that I and my 20 to 100 million alternate identities would swim for our lives through an eerie canal. I, being myself, chose to swim slow and steady along a straight and narrow path.

It was dark, but as I went along I saw that the walls were lined with writhing bodies of my former selves. They all followed each other to their deaths...

Occasionally, I would pass over someone. They were struggling to move forward. There were some who went too far left, and others who went too far right. I could tell by the currents in the water. The currents in the water seemed to tell me everything.

Eventually, I came to a place of rest, and there I buried myself inside. I was very, very tired.

When I woke up, I was here, where we all are now. I was a baby, and I was raised happily. My father was a carnie. He owned game stands. We traveled around the United States. It was a fun and happy life for a child oblivious to the ways of the world.

I grew up fine. Things weren't as fun once I reached the teen years. Dad drank. Mom complained of abuse. And year upon year, I became more and more aware of how much unfairness and cruelty there was in the world. I became aware of the evil within myself. I was scared and agitated. Generalized anxiety and sleep paralysis disturbed my days and nights.

Something had gone wrong, and it was only getting worse.

In my early 20's, I started to realize that the point of life seemed less to be the collection of pleasurable moments, and more the evasion of painful stimuli.

Is this a game?

How do you win?

With so many ways to die, and multiplicitious ways to live life uncomfortably, it seemed prudent to understand what was causing my feelings of unease, my suffering.

I drew the conclusion that this life and the life before were connected, and I thought back to my swim through the canal.

Everyone who lost, lost because they had followed after others without thinking, or because they had followed the current inaccurately, and this led to lonely deaths in the dark.

There is a current here! It is electrical, and it passes through the body. However, it is not God as far as I can tell, and we (whoever, whatever we are), the controllers, decide what to do based on the interpretation of signals.

Accuracy. Accuracy.

What really made the difference between my brethren and I? Why did my interpretation and action lead to Life, while theirs led to death?

Was I better than they?

Let me not play folly with humility.

I WAS better.

This is cold, hard truth, but it is undoubtly the key.

And you aren't getting through that door that leads to bliss, without that fucking key…

By Oscar Martinez

From: United States