Short Story: As Both Worlds Breakdown

Short Story: As Both Worlds Breakdown

Dreaming is no more than the mind's strange way of allowing repressed thoughts enough yard time out of their cells to stretch their spindly legs.

In a healthy person, the darkest of thoughts are held prisoner by the conscious mind; kept under lock and key and monitored to prevent them from persuading the individual to take indulge themselves in acts of nightmarish evil.

Like a diligent prison warden, an agile mind can detect the capacity every thought or impulse has for encouraging destructive behaviour and ensure the correct safeguards are put in place to restrain them.

However in some minds, this prison may be run by guards too keen to repress all dissent. These individuals are known as 'sociopaths'. The guards lock away compassionate and self-analytical thoughts to prevent the individual from carrying out self-scrutiny ... and yes, this may be dangerous.

Yet in others, the prison walls may one day simply vanish - if it ever existed at all. Bedlam ensues as the unchecked inmates are suddenly free to behave however they so desire; the normal rules of human social and psychological conduct simply melt away. The conscious and subconscious minds collide; reality and the imagination become indistinguishable. All inhibitions on destructive behaviour are quickly lost.

Acts of destruction may seem as natural as the rising of the moon on a cold December night.

This condition is known as insanity.

Martin Salister - not sane - crept along the pathway that cut through McManus Park in the centre of the city of Dundee. Inside his mind, the inmates were running riot.

Sally Mitchell had just finished work and was making her way home.

She didn't stand a chance against the darkness within the stranger she met in the park that night.