Flashes of rage

The strangest things set it off. I have that nervous energy running through my body. I'm still feeling it now. I roll my shoulders and neck around. I stretch my elbows and fingers. Pressing on my eyes and brow with the heels of my hands helps squeeze the images out of my head.

"Just stop it, stop it, stop it...stop it.", I tell myself. I hate this feeling and I wish it would just stop. Images have significantly decreased, but they still come.

I'm calming now, but it's still there. In....hold it....and out.

I was reading a simple Onion article today. It was pretty funny. In fact, the whole time I'm reading it, I'm thinking about sending it to Rob and Melissa, two Wii-loving friends. In case you don't take the time to actually read it, essentially, it's making fun of the whole debate about how video games shouldn't be so violent cause that teaches our children to be violent in real life. However, they translate that to the Wii system, that is notorious for creating the cutest, most lovable characters you could imagine.

It's interesting how the thought progression goes. I'm reading the article talking about sissy fights on playgrounds and scurmishes ending in tears. This flashes back to my own playground days. For some reason I got into a lot of fights in middle school. I don't know if it was because of being the new kid or what. I'm not really an instigator or anything. Well, ok, now I am a bit, but not then. Then, I was really shy and mostly kept to myself.

I remembered about this one time when this douche bag Frank Giordano, this rich kid that probably didn't get any love at home or something, punched me in the face on the playground. When we were both sent to the vice principal's office, I started crying when I had to tell the story, and then Frank made fun of me later for it. (also, later this same kid stole my Arrested Development tape...god I hated that kid).

In school I never did anything to retaliate against any of the bullies, but I sure did have fantasies about it. I suppose this is where the progression went next.

I flash forward a bit through my life to last December (2006) when I got jumped and mugged by two guys a block away from my apartment in Philly. I'm walking down the street, texting my girlfriend, and these two kids were walking toward me, I supposed just passing me on the block. Instead, the dark street got darker and I was in a down jacket caccoon. My reaction was to defend myself. Long story short, they got the best of me, my cell phone, and $7 cash.

The police never booked anyone, even though I found a letter that one of them dropped with his full name, birthdate, and social security number on it. Apparently, I couldn't make a positive ID matching a face in the dark to his driver's license photo. Not to mention, I wasn't murdered and that's now really the only business the Philadelphia Police Department is in.

For months after this incident, I had a lot of flashbacks to that night. I would have long flashes I couldn't get out of, and they would happen quite frequently. The flashbacks started out as a strict memory, and turned into various scenarios of me getting the better of them. All were ultra-violent. Most times they ended up dead on the street. Some times, I gave 'em the old sleeper hold. They'd pass out long enough for the police to come. Sometimes, I broke bones, caused internal bleeding, knocked out teeth, and worse. I've already elaborated more than I should.

It's calmed down dramatically now, but even after a year, I still find things that will trigger it. Each time though, the images are just as lifelike and detailed. And each time, I get an immediate surge of adrenalin that's hard to shake.

There's nothing I can do about the situation. It's been a year. The cops did nothing. My computer crashed which had a scan of the letter with the kid's info on it. (I only remember that he was 19 at the time and his name is Joshua Stokes, but how many of those are there....I suppose I also still have my phone records from that month as well). Anyway, there's really nothing I can do though for real. And anything I did do would not make the images go away.

Well, I just wanted to get that out. I gotta stop now though, cause I'm starting to get another flash and I need to do some work. I'm gonna go walk around the office a bit. Talk to you later.