Today I realized that the world is mad.

I know before I told you I thought the world didn't make sense and truth is it doesn't. The world is insane, just like us.

In the very beginning I asked if you've ever wondered why the world was round, why it even spun at all. I think I answered the question but I never really finished what I wanted to say. Or perhaps I did but now I had more to say than I had first realized... I don't know.

I don't think our world is normal, our reality isn't normal because it makes no sense. It may seem like it does, but I have come to realize that there may be a possibility that normal didn't exist at all. Not in our reality anyway.

I can't sit here and write a long explanation of what it means to be normal because truth is I do not know.
I don't even have any possible theories for you about normality. I just know normal is something our world is not, and won't ever be.

We're like dumb dogs who do dumb things without realizing we're doing so.

I heard the song Mad World by Gary Jules today on the radio. I first didn't understand the song, just saw it as a man who was dangerously sad because he lived in a very sad world.

But the lyrics fascinated me so I listened again. I realized that the man wasn't really sad at all just... burdened.

Burdened with knowing.

He had finally realized the endless circle reality really was. That our world was so crazy that characterizing it as normal would be insane.

The song spoke of the bitter truth that people refused to see. But I see, the man on the radio sees too.

I told you before that our reality runs in a circle, and it does. We're all lost souls, running since the day we are born but really for no reason at all.

We always say we don't have time, rushing to places in a hurry. But what I don't understand is why. Why rush at all, why run when really theres nowhere to run too? Why say you don't have time when you do? Time is something infinite, it doesn't stop when the lights go out, it doesn't stop when you've gone to sleep it doesn't stop, ever. It's something like a never ending stream that flows till forever has come and gone. Time is something so vast like the ocean, even if it did seem to fly past there was still more to fly too.

Time wasn't something that ended, it carried on. We as humans just made it into something it isn't, we made it seem like it was something brief. Something that was barely there for as long as a second and if you blinked too fast it would be gone.

We were always running, going places. But the truth is we weren't really going anyway at all, we still ran the unending circle we had created for ourselves. Still lived in madness without even realizing we were, maybe because we are just as mad.

In that part of the song when he says "The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had." At first I thought he just couldn't take it anymore and he had become depressed or something and wished death on himself. But no, as I listened I soon realized that this wasn't the case.

He just wished for an escape, and when he was dreaming he dreamed of death. And these weren't nightmares like you'd think them out to be but they were dreams. Because maybe death was the only escape. But he was sad yes, because its hard to deal with a world thats acted as though it were a cage, and us humans the prisoners. And the saddest part was we didn't even realized that we were wearing orange jumpsuits and that we were chained.

But I wonder if the reason why we are caged is because we are criminals. Criminals did bad things, humans did bad things too.

We read Alice in a Wonderland today at school. And I've decided that it is officially my favorite fairytale. I understood it like nothing else, or perhaps the story understood me like nothing else.

Theres this one quote in it that the mad hatter had said. He said "Your not the same as you were before. You were much more... Muchier. You've lost your muchness." He had been speaking to Alice, but I can say the same about the world we live in today.

I'm sure there used to be more, more color, more light, more difference. More... than an inevitable circle that never ended. The worlds muchness is dead and gone, now its just a bland landscape, with nothing left but madness.

And it wasn't the good kind of madness that set you free and brought you peace even if the world around you was being burnt down in flames and noise and chaos.

It was the kind of madness that brought you anything but peace, the kind that mad you feel like a bird locked in a claustrophobic cage. The kind that consumed you in so much reality that you had gotten yourself to believe that this kind of insanity was normal, even though it is anything but. The kind that made you cruel and abnormal and dumb.

So dumb that you couldn't even see the madness, and if you did you denied it was ever even there. Not that you have a choice, you have to be insane to survive a world of insanity.

You had to be completely mad.

I don't think the guy in the radio was mad, because if he was then he wouldn't realize the madness that afflicted this world like a plague. And if he did he wouldn't find it hard to take like he said.

It was only hard for him to take because it was becoming hard to keep running when your running to nowhere, it was like a dog chasing its tail or someone lost following their own shadow.

It was only hard to survive in this world because to live in it in peace you had to be cracked up in the head, you'd have to have fallen off the deep end.

Those who are different see the world for what it really is, they don't deny what is the truth.

And they find living in a world like this hard because they feel alone. Imagine being sane while everyone around you is insane.

People like I are different because we refuse to believe that running a circle is all there is to life. Yes the worlds muchness was lost, but something lost can always be found.

We aren't like them, we haven't yet fallen off the deep end but I've got a feeling its only a matter of time.

Its either you nock on reality's door and ask it to consume you or reality comes and nocks on your door and makes you mad anyways. Either way we become mad, like them. This world was so insane that no matter how sane you think you are, the craziness will eat you alive. Because thing is, your not supposed to be sane in a world of insanity.

And your supposed to wonder in a world of wonder or else you may never know. Even with a science answers the scientist came up with. They were answers to their questions, questions that they asked each other. Questions they asked in the first place because they wondered.

One time when I was walking home I saw something that made me angry. It made me so angry I had wanted to ball my hands into a fist and hit something hard. Even if I'd hurt my hand in the process. I've never gotten angry enough to have the desire to hit something, but today I did. 

It was a group of boys, the same group that called me mean names and spoke cruel words of me that wounded something in me.

They were doing the same thing to the homeless guy that always stood at that street. I called him Burt, but I don't think thats his real name though, he just looked like someone who would be named Burt. I mean what else do I call him, the homeless guy?

Its not like he would always and forever be someone with no house. Notice I didn't say home. Theres a difference between a house and a home.

He should be called the houseless guy not the homeless. Because your home would forever be your home, your heart would always be there even when the bank people kicked you out because you could no longer pay for it. It's still be your home weather the bank claimed it or even when you had to move and you no longer lived in it anymore.

He was old that much was obvious, but not yet that old to have wrinkled and sagging skin with sparkling gray hair made of crystals.

He looked sad, for some reason his sadness mad me sad. I wish he weren't out in the bitter cold with ragged cloths with tiny holes in them that fit loosely on his thin, skinny body that was nothing but skin and bones. He looked starved.

They had called him ugly, told him he was lazy and should go and find a job so he wouldn't be the freak that he was. Pointed their fingers at him and told him he was worthless that no one would morn him if he were to die. And the world would feel no loss from his departure.

Their words hurt, even I felt the effects of them and this made me sad. And if their words saddened me imagine how Burt was feeling. I bet he wanted to cry, but I don't think grown ups were supposed to cry, especially men because he didn't cry.

And they were wrong someone would morn him if he were to die, I would. Because Burt and I are friends even though he doesn't know it yet because I haven't spoken or had a conversation with him a single day in my life.  But I would morn him, I didn't know him, but in a way I did.

I gave him the peanut butter sandwiches my mother made for me for lunch because she was so indecisive and could never decide what to make me so she just made me a little of everything instead. And I was so full that I was never able to finish my lunch so I gave him what was always left over which was usually the peanut butter sandwiches.

But I always just gave it to him and walked away without a word, he didn't thank me or anything I think Burt was mute. But I never mind it, his silence I mean. Silence was peaceful and he seemed like a nice guy. I don't know if he ever ate the peanut butter sandwiches or not. I always walked away quickly after I gave it to him worried that I would get home late and cause my mother to worry.

Oh God what if he was allergic to peanut butter!!! I'll just give him my pop tarts instead, but what if he were allergic to that too!! Or what if he hated sweets? He probably did, he was a grown up, and grown ups never ate candy or anything with sugar. They almost seemed to avoid it, would I hate candy once I'm grown too? Is hating sweets some kind of grown up curse? I mean how can you possibly hate candy? It almost seems impossible. I guess this grown ups curse broke the rules and made it possible.

Them boys had also been wrong about another thing, the world would feel a tremendous loss if Burt was no longer here. The people may not care and the world itself may not even realize that it was losing something so great.

But it would because it would be another good person gone. Someone that for once wasn't cruel. I bet it was the reason he lost his home, the reason he had been treated as badly as I, perhaps even worse. I bet there was no reason at all other than the fact that he was simply good. 

Because the world is unfair and the good ones always get what they don't deserve. They are never treated kindly in return, never appreciated for their goodness.

I appreciate their goodness and I bet others did too. But I and others were not enough people. It is why this world seems to drown in darkness. And lately things have been worse. I bet the world was going under, slowly losing air, slowly weakening, surely dying. Perhaps the darkness was finally taking over, or perhaps it already has.

It was why them boys were so mean to Burt, I don't think they could help it at all.

And I like the fool that I am jumped in the commotion thinking that I could be some kind of hero and go against ten boys and demand they'd stop. Pfft! as if they'd even listen to me, the scenario went better in my head.

But the way it happened in my head is not the way it actually happened. I got my butt handed to me.

They hit and beat me till I could barley feel their hits at all. I saw flashy stars in my vision and I think I was going to blackout. I didn't see exactly what happened but Burt somehow did something and it sent them running the other direction. I wonder why he hadn't done what he had done in the first place.

I didn't understand, did he like hearing hurtful things about himself? Or did he just no care at all? I didn't ask, because I think my mouth was bleeding and I couldn't exactly speak at the moment. Anyways he probably wouldn't even answer, he was supposed to be mute after all.

I can't tell you what happened because I honestly don't know. Am pretty sure them boys put me to sleep and somehow I had woken in my room with an ice pack laid on my head. And the headache I had after hurt like you wouldn't believe!!

My mother said somebody carried me home, but she wouldn't tell me who. I'm pretty sure it was Burt though, I doubt them boys would do something like that for me.

I told myself I would thank him on Monday when I went back to school again, and on my way home I would give both the peanut butter sandwich and the pop tarts because I now wasn't sure which one he wanted.

But I never got the chance, I never got to say thank you and I never got to give him the leftover lunch that I had and now it would all go to waste.

I never got the chance because the world was so unfair and so complicated and so dang cruel!!!

I was told Burt had died two weeks later after the incident. I was told he would get no funeral because there was no one to pay for it and he had no family members or loved ones who would come go pay their respects. But he was loved, I don't care if I was the only one but I loved him. He was like a best friend, one I never spoke to or had a conversation with. I never knew him,
but at the same time I did.

I begged my parents to pay so he could have a funeral, and they did. The lack of people who had come had made the situation even more sad than it already was. Burt was a great man, all great men deserve to be honored. But he wasn't honored. Not enough people had mourned him and not enough had cared. The world didn't feel the aching hole he had left behind. There was only an aching hole because he was gone.

I had felt loss without him. I had mourned him, and perhaps I was the only one. But one person is better than none at all.

I left roses at his grave, they wouldn't allow me to put Burt on his grave instead it just said homeless guy. As if he were somebody random as if he never mattered as if he never was.

Yes its true Burt wasn't his real name, but putting that on his grave is at least better than just Homeless guy. And then ?-2015. Nobody knew when Burt was born, they weren't sure exactly what day either. Some hiker had just found him in the woods just laying there, dead.

Nobody new how he died and the grownups found it pointless to do an autopsy because in truth nobody really cared how he died, they didn't care so it didn't matter.

But it mattered to me, I cared. But just one person is a person too little, they had no interest in hearing what a kid had to say.

And they didn't want to feel grief they didn't want to feel sorry, because it'd just be easier not to feel. It's just be easier to feel no sympathy for the houseless guy who once lived. And who made a great addition to this world.

Another good man was buried today, another good man gone. I wonder what happens when all the good men are gone.

This world would be lethal even more than it is now, it wouldn't be a place where no light shines. There will be no light at the end of the dark tunnel because the dark tunnel would have no end.  The darkness will feed of this world like a wretched leech, and it would never go away. Never stop feeding. The violence and darkness would always be there. They would never be gone until the world itself collapsed in and fell away to nothing at all. Until it too was finally gone.

Men like Burt didn't deserve to go the way that they did. They never deserved what they got, but for some reason they still did. They still were treated like they were nothing at all and I didn't understand because good men like Burt were everything. They deserved to be mourned and the sad thing was they weren't.

He hadn't even been that old, at least I don't think he was that old. He should have lived longer, he should have still been here.

So is this what happens when we finally reach the finish line, we die? I guess that was what had happened to Burt, he had crossed his finish line. I wonder what was beyond, what happened after?

I never asked because I had a feeling this answer wasn't one of those answers that were obvious. Nobody knew, what beyond the finish line was unknown. And those people like Burt who had crossed it couldn't just drive backwards and recross it just so they could tell us what was beyond.

You wouldn't know what was beyond unless you were beyond.

I cried for three days straight after the funeral, I could sit here and wail like the child that I am and demand an answer from no one in particular to the question of why Burt had to leave so soon.

Them boys hadn't even acted like they felt the slightest bit of guilt or sorrow or anything. It was almost as if they didn't care at all and perhaps they really didn't.

I went back today and I left a peanut butter sandwich and a pop tart at his grave. I tried to be strong and told myself not to cry, but I was only kidding myself, I cried like never before.

Before I had spoken of our world like it was something wrong and it is something wrong.

I can't explain why people can be so cruel or why bad things always happen to good people.

I can't explain it because there is no explanation that would make sense. Maybe because there wasn't supposed to be one.

I think that in a way our world was mad and insane simply because it was supposed to be. It was round because we ran in circles going nowhere. It spun because that circle had to keep on going round and round because we had to keep living round and round.

If we didn't we would no longer be running to nowhere. But this just wouldn't work. We have been running in circles for so long that anything different would almost seem catastrophic.

Us humans struggle with difference, we find it hard to accept it.

Our world isn't ok. But then again I don't know what is. I've never seen what ok looks like. And if I have, I never knew I did.

I have a theory, I think the world is sick. It has got a bad cold that is slowly killing it dead. And I'm afraid it can't be fixed, it isn't just bent anymore its broken.

And this global warming thing the scientist speak of is just a bunch of gibberish. I bet the real reason why the Earth is gradually becoming hot is because it had a fever and as time passed the world was becoming more sick. And its fever was getting worse.

It would explain why everything was so scrambled and complicated.

Why the good never got what they deserved. Why the bad people always got away with it why it was hot when it was supposed to be cold.

The world didn't make sense anymore because it was sick. And whatever it was, whatever it had, I had a feeling that it was just too great and was beyond what the doctors could do.

Its quite a tragedy once you think about it, it was almost sad.

Our world was sick, and it doesn't matter how many people have come to realize it or not. It's dying and I'm afraid it is already too late, there's really nothing more we can do.

The time to fix the damage has already come and gone.

There really is nothing else to do because a cure to fix our world am afraid doesn't exist at all. ~