The Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste

Do you remember the time in your life that you were the angriest? I try to forget about it but the unusual circumstances cause me to revisit the emotion from time to time.

On the night in question, I found myself sleeping on a couch that didn’t want me either. I was in between marriages. Enough said. I kneaded my fingers into the folds of my closed bloodshot eyes. I had pent up anger inside. I tossed and turned. I mumbled invectives that would make a pirate blush. When I get angry, it paradoxically becomes more of an internal battle. I am my own worst enemy in argument. Endless playback ability. Swirling mental anguish. Gnawing and knashing of teeth. Private auditions for sobbing. Emotional implosion. Inability to regroup. This is me.

On the couch in question, it felt like my anger ionized the air. A pressure cooker, my head readied to explode under the volcano. The detestation attacked me like a parasite bringing suitcases. I tossed and turned on the couch. At the apex of my anguish, I heard what sounded like a shotgun blast in the late hours. The blast came from inside the house and it sounded to be only a few feet away. It scared me enough to silence my crying. My body stiffened up. I listened but heard no further sounds in the eerily quiet house. I sat up and looked around in the darkness. There were no other sounds to be heard. I should have cased the entire house. Instead, I chose immobility and the wallowing in my own pity as the lonesome priority. I returned to my crying towel, a musky throw pillow saturated with the salt of my tears. Anger once unleashed can be a heck of a manufacturer’s recall. Eventually, exhaustion helped me drift off to asleep.

The next morning, I awoke to an unexpected mess. When I walked into the kitchen, I noticed a cabinet door ajar. A curious blood splatter pattern tainted the kitchen floor. I could not believe my eyes. Judging by the splatter pattern, the red substance originated from inside the cabinet. I looked inside the cabinet not really sure what I would find. I soon discovered the culprit, a mangled can of tomato puree looked as if it had undergone rapid decompression before exploding out of its tin. Being a chef, I mused over the squandered chance to make my authentic Italian gravy. Mama Mia! What force of nature could have blown the cabinet open and splash tomato puree across the kitchen? I had to look no further than myself, the volcano. I realized that if I could bottle my anger, a side job as a human can opener in a traveling carnival was not beyond possibility. If you let it, canned laughter can easily be replaced by canned anger. The mind is a terrible thing to waste.