Chocolate Solipsis
There is a scratching sound coming down the hall on my ward and it smells like Ghiradelli's chocolate. Ah…I take a deep breath. Chocolate and insanity are two of my specialties. It makes for a sexy livelihood or the patients at least glow a bit sweeter. Such euphemisms we tell ourselves here in the hospital just to get through another day.
Chocolate fills my latest ward. His very room reeks far too sweet. I am nauseous. The sweet obsession of his is such a euphemism for his bravery when I know the truth. His solipsism is getting the best of him, but then is that not the point to be of this mind, that only of his mind he can know. Ugh. I scratch my head. His bravery too is a mind twister, is it not when one makes edible shoe laces? That is his latest invention. He teases me, "It is not so different than edible panties." They are miles apart… I tell him… so daft is he or is it adapt at sinking into his mind?
I know not the depths to take to reach him other than in his world the walls are lined with the finest gold wrapped chocolate. I shall become a glutton in his presence. So enraptured with his mind's creation he shall not know of my bravery until I fear it is too late. I clasp the waxy aglets on my shoe laces one last time and knock on his door though it's wide open.
Oblivious to my formalities, he continues scratching away as I can now see he is not one to be shy in this latest manifestation. It's a self world for he has made a mockery of my pretense at knowing him for there is a dark chocolate blackboard on his bed on which he scrawls over and over in large script, "Eu-phe-mi-". I say it phonetically, "You p-he, mi," and see without the ism on the end that it is a drunken play at self love for he is so intoxicated with his creations that he is in essence saying "you, he and me,". I shall oblige him as best as I can though it is against the book. But there are no books for chocolate solipises or shall I say synapses. Perhaps, that's what I'll call the journal article. It'd make a fine title of things, would it? Ah, I digress. Besides, I'm hungry.
So I hop onto his black board and wait for his chalk marks. The first tickle my arms and legs and the others across my torso and the nether region elicit feelings when I'm supposed to be clinically numb. I cringe. I've become as much a solipsist as him, except he's untying my waxy agelets and replacing them with chocolate. And I can't quite share what happens next other than to say this door shall be closed.
