... heh. Heh. Hehe. HA. HA HA. HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I have felt strange all day, and as I lay in bed, attempting to sleep, and the grandfather clock stroke midnight upon my home as it often does, I finally realized why. My chest began thumping once more, and I took a deep breath.

For an entire day, I took no breath, and my heart did not beat. I wonder what this means.

The Spiders of An'tole

Estranged and unmoved, I sit bereav’d,
Obscured and infringed, my thoughts are weav’d;
Impaled in my chest a dole so keen,
Affected by things but lately seen.

They came from inside and nest'd within,
And built their domain with heinous vim;
The Spiders of An’tole spin forth their web,
Whilst stemming my heart’s seditious ebb.

They sunder and hew, and pierce and cut,
Their venemous teeth create a rut;
With this now they curve and taint my zeal,
And thus do they vilely conclude this deal.

They burrow inside, a web create,
But creatures like these no man can sate;
And owing to them, my urge they kill,
For she is the cost, and pays their skill.

O Spiders of An’tole hear my praise,
With canker my mind and heart you rase;
Your purpose and cause you must fullfill,
And rend this curs'd fancy from my will.

Ron, I have descried the puzzle.

As common as it may seem when viewing some of my classmates' online journals, I feel that I have somewhat fallen into a certain type of manic lethargy when it comes to my own: I almost never write, but when I do put forward the effort, it often is at great length, usually to elucidate as to what has been occurring. However, I am not as perturbed by this development as it may initially have seemed; I simply find it quite interesting.

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, and perhaps it would be nice polite to let others know of the progress in an area that may seem neglected due to what happened last week. Incidentally, I will not be speaking of last week in my journal; enough people have done so, and I am wary of the consequences that may have on some of our newest classmates, as I, personally, would wish what occurred to us to happen to no one, with a few exceptions.

Then again, I have said plenty before that I perhaps should not have said, and I would be remiss if I did not speak of it further here. I am not protective enough of strangers to filter this; suffice to say, if you are new or oblivious, do not read further: you will be happier that way.

( As for the research Ron and myself have been conducting... )

Charlotte came by on Friday, and while I mentioned it to Jane in passing, I did not give her any exacts; I may have actually avoided the subject after broaching it, which would be a first for me. However, the precise reason of such an action on my behalf is perfectly suited to that type of behaviour: I am unaware of how to tackle the current situation that has presented itself with such terseness unto our lives.

It may not be a surprise to anyone who routinely reads my journal and speaks with me that I feel I can best express my thoughts and opinions when I have a chance to put them down somewhere, so that I may study them as I expose them and have a chance to rectify any paradoxes or misgivings that I may find or have as to the subject being analyzed. Jane certainly knows this- or should know this- which is why I am sure she will understand my aforementioned former disinclination to fully divulge my meeting with Charlotte. ( I will attempt to put it in concise terms so that... )

I think it is about time I put this down somewhere, lest I relive past moments of my stay here in Icaria and find myself bereft of some of my more disturbing and recent memories (something I do not relish, no matter how curiously strong and perturbing they may be). I must do this in earnest, for the past has apparently deemed fit to return to my home and haunt me once more, with a painful anamnesis of months gone by.

( Regardless of this, my tale begins two days ago... )

I am not terribly enthused by the upcoming play that will be performed. This is in every way affected by Jane's casting in it, of course, as many people would undoubtedly suspect. My reticense to truly accept any of this is probably an error; I am, after all, a rational person, and do not understand the quality or origin of my jealousy. That is to say: I do not understand why it causes me to be jealous. Well, that isn't entirely true, but then it is. It's complicated.

The elections have come and gone, and without much surprise, Jane has once more retained her office as student body President. I am somewhat intrigued by the emergence of Eliza Phelp as vice president, though I don't think she'll be too much concern, if any at all. She has displayed herself to be obnoxious, flaboyant, self-destructive, and severely lacking in manners- but that doesn't make her stupid.

She'll be fine.

Something else that has been nipping at the back of my mind in a most uncommon way is the sudden influx of new faces at the school. While I am sure there are people coming and going all the time, some are much more poignant than others. I've counted at least four new people that are worth at least observing for some time- Montgomery, Carroll, Salgari and Flannery- and the return of someone much respected: Samuel Clemens. Although, as I told Sam before, there is something curiously different about him that I cannot put my finger on.

I suppose all shall become clear with time. For now, however, I suspect it would be within a much more pragmatic vein if I focused my efforts on my own life and problems, rather than studying others'. Or perhaps studying a certain other's would be wiser... I think I'll take another look at the cast for the play...

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

I will be attending the costume party- yes. I am not sure if I will be attending it whilst wearing a costume, however, as I am unsure anything of that sort is suited to me save, perhaps, the Reaper. In any case, I have neglected this journal- which I some time cherished- and other important factors of my existence long enough.

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul; and I say the show must go on. Additionally, I have acquired a 1984 Montrachet. While not 1978, I do believe it should be quite flavorful. I should enjoy it with someone else, as drinking wine by my lonesome has become tedious and... well, predictably lonely.

Hmm.  I... hmm.  It... hmm.

I should begin again.

It feels like I should be apologizing to someones... or something of the like.  But I certainly cannot place my finger on what is making contemplate something of the like.

In either case, Ulthar has bitten my heel, which means all the windows are closed and he cannot step out.  I must go rectify this.

I have myriad of things to work on, and so much need to do something, yet I cannot bring myself to do any of them.  I must work on my clas schedule, finish the biography and annotations of my last English paper...and many many other things, including cleaning my house which, albeit Jane was kind enough not to say anything (that or she didn't notice, which considering the fact thatmy lights were off and my state of mind isn't necessarily impossible), is in chaos.

I must find a broom...

I could swear I had more things to do...I need to make a list...

I have some things to say...

My life has...changed, over the past few months.  As many--if not all--of you know, I was quite mad for the past...oh, threee months, give or take.  I was insane, keeping track of the time was not one of my...priorities.  I am still not all well.  There are moments that occurr, important moments, that I cannot remember later, and the dreams have become more vivid and...well, I am yet unsure as to how to describe them, and so I believe I shall leave that for a later time.

I am better, however, largely in part--I believe--to the presence of Jane...she's been helpful in ways unimaginable.  There is another occurrence that you might all--especially the people whom were here when I originally began class and began posting here--be interested in knowing.  My mother, the hateful hag whom I wished death upon thousands of times over...

...

...she died.  On Christmas Eve.

The doctors said it was a panic attack brought forth by hallucinations, which apparently she had been having during her last days.  It was unexpected.  I am torn between two very strong feelinhgs, one instinctual and one nurtured for years within me...

...I suppose that is how it will always be.

My aunt will be coming in a week or so.  I have high hopes that she will not be affected by whatever it is that is near my abode.  She's coming with the lawyers who have to take care of the will.  My father's will was remarkably precise,--I remember because I read it when I was seven--and it leaves my mother and aunt everything until my mother's demise or my twenty-first birthday, whichever occurred first, unless my mother died before my seventeenth birthday, in which case I was to wait under the guardianship of my aunt until then, or...and I feel very vigilante-esque saying this...our butler, in the eventuality of my aunt's death.  But the facts are that my aunt is alive, and yet I am past saeventeen years of age, and so the fortune passes on to...me.  I am being legally emancipated as I write this.  I don't know about the wisdom of such, due to my obvious instability, but I have written up a leagis that gives my aunt the power to put me in mental custody should she believe that my mind is irrevocably distraught.

Yes.  I trust her that much.

In any case...I have to go.  My nightmares await me.

"May you live in interesting times." - Ancient Chinese curse.

I am insane.  It is now a fact.

My declaration of insanity is based on a very clear and concise analysis of a very recent event.  In short:  only a person suffering from insanity would claw at a door until his fingers are bloody in desire to get outside, only to realize that, with red-wet fingers, he could have simply turned the knob and pushed the portal open.

I am currently typing quite slowly and painfully in an effort to record this before I forget it.  My fingers are bandaged, and a section of my keyboard is drenched in blood.  Luckily, I have a spare.  Keyboard, not set of fingers, though I suppose the latter could also be possible with a little work and a few phone calls.  It is worth considering when one ponders on this most recent of developements.

Only an insane person would suffer this attack of desperation, it is the only reasonable conclusion one can come to.  However, since one must be sane (mostly) to adopt reasonable thinking, it is peeplexing that, in order to be insane, I must be able to think reasonably, and in order to think reasonably, I must be sane; thus, to be insane I must be sane.

This doesw wonders to explicate the world's condition, no?  Is not the last sane person in the planet not, in fact, the only one suffering from insanity?

Jane...

...I miss you.  Terribly.  I would love to be able to speak with you soon.

My window was broken just a short while ago. Ulthar and I were sitting in the living room, attempting to drive away a voice that had decided to install itself in my mind once more, when we heard a loud scraping. Ulthar thinks it was one of his brothers, coming for a visit, but I suspected otherwise, and when I made my way to the window, something broke it. I...didn't feel what. It was...hmm, having trouble explaining the profound and necessary implications of what occurred to me previously. It was a wind unfelt that rushed from behind my without disturbing my clothing and ruptured my window with the force of a jackhammer.

I didn't go to class today...Ulthar was scared. Tomorrow I must attend, however, no matter his state of mind--or mine.

The ceilings are still moving and

I was staring through the window, beholden of the night's sky and the way the sun still seemed to loom unending and bewitching above the horizon, waiting to disappear when my gaze turned away, when the mark on the window I have mentioned before vanished.  I had grown accustomed to seeing it, and thus when it disappeared I found myself rather...confused.  I stood and ran my hand through the space where it had been, and felt it cold as ice.  I turned away for a glass of water from the pitcher Jane had left for me, and when I turned again, I saw the shape once more, and through the spots of the window where the shape is marked, I saw something running through the woods.  T'was no man, but it was shaped like one.  It ran on four legs and its hair glinted in the light.  It looked at me, with big, silver eyes that burned my cornea even from the hundred or so yards away that it was, and then turned and promptly vanished.

I've locked the door.  Call before coming, Jane, or I most likely won't open it for you.

I am perlexed by my inability to correlate my thoughts for long enough to be able to record them here.  Everything that seems to swim through the ephemeral carapace of my mind and occurs to me is brought out in contrived and oddly written verse or prose which even I have trouble following after certain continuous and superfluous readings of the obvious.  That is to say, and I am sure none of you can even begin to compehend the herculean effort that I am exercising to write the following:  I say a lot, while meaning very little.

I am unaware of how this predicament that assails me came to be.  Frankly, I never quite expected to become clinical; and though I am not yet, I fear, in some part of my mind, that perhaps I may become so.  It is worrisome, if not terrifying to feel one's equilibrium slowly filter from thew existence of a mind that was once so solid and fueled by reason.  Hmm.  I seem to have done it again.

I am a little angry, though I don't seem capable of remaining so for more than a short while as of late, as to the happenings between Jane and Chaucer, the latter of whom's face seems to be represented more and more clearly by the shapes in the grass in my dream where I have a rather large and sharp lawnmower.  I am, in two words:  not happy.  She returned from their dinner the other night, and my brain--or better said, my mind--itched with insertitude as to the look in her eyes and the stride with which she moved.  As if my unconscious felt or saw something I was illprepared to noticed, as it was obfuscated by the blinders of love--and perhaps, terrifyingly enough, insanity.

More and more I sleep during the day, while Jane is working, and stay up during the nights writing stories that I may have though foolish before, at least in concept; and I find myself discreetly attracted to a shape that has formed in my window.  I have looked through my entire library, and have not been able to find what it is called.  It is not a drawing or anything so complex--it is a simple shape, reminiscent to the feeling one experiences as significant when one views a rectangle or an oval, amd yet it had nothing to do with either, and yet was just as simple.  I attempted to bring Jane into this mysterious happenstance, but she could not see it in the window.  Finally I dismissed it, if only so as not to scare her with the utter macabre bizzareness of the concept.  However, I feel that, should I hide these odd occurrences any longer, she may begin to feel oddened by my presence, and so since I cannot bring myself to speak of it--another experience that has tilted my mind as I have no reason as to why I cannot speak of it face to face--I have recorded it here, where I know she will read it, in the hopes that if she is the one to speak of it first, we might converse thoroughly on the subject.

It may be a while before I write again.  I am tired and beholden of the unimaginable effort it has take to correlate these simple thoughts and concepts in my head.  Unashamed, I tell any who read this that I am, if only a bit, frightened.

Edgar...how is that absinthe coming?

It has been a while since I've written here.  I don't know why, I simply haven't had the urge to do so.  Instead, I've been plagued by a need to write--really write--for hours on end while Jane sleeps next to me.  My sleeping schedule has become rather displaced, but it was never normal to begin with.

The student council elections are going as I suspected--hectically.  Most things in this school are done as such.  An anarchist--that's the closest definition I can come up with for him, without applying some sort of fatuitous label--has joined the fray just in time for them, though he hasn't said much about it.  I suspect he's steering clear.  He has, however, proven a distraction for Phelp, which is good.

Tomorrow class begins anew, as it will be Monday.  I have been informed that Mr. Roberts woke up for a few minutes early this morning, though of course he is in no shape to come back and continue attempting not to look like a fool when he tries to teach his class.  The substitute is not quite as bad, though still as dull.

I just watched "The Mummy Returns,"  which is one of the worst movies I have ever seen; though I did like the visuals for Anubis' army.

Jane, what are you doing tonight?

I am aghast with incredulity as to the level of fatuity that the policemen have thus far shown; and while I understand that we may seem like arrogant children to them, they must see that we are more than capable of not only understanding, but also carefully dissecting their methodology and plans as to the rousing of key suspects.  The fact that they even attempt to question people that have only been here for a matter of days is utterly inane.

The fact of the matter is, I see only a few viable suspects, and as far as I can tell--which is a fair amount, I can assure you--the police are not looking at any of these.

They would be intelligent if they understood that to acquire cooperation of the helpful variety, they should be polite and curteous, not demanding and completely disregardful of their mannerisms.

Lawrence is probably a suspect, due to his scarf being used.  I obviously am, for several reasons, and Jane may be as well, though it is beyond me.  The police will probably take Ann's dream as a subconscious need to speak of something she as a "dream."  I for one, believe her.  What truly bothers me is that they seem to be staring at the student body, without a single attempt to look towards other suspects--like the faculty.

My lawyer is in town by now, by the way.  Just a phone call away.  So please, detectives, call before you come by. I would hate to have you stand outside while we wait for my lawyer to arrive.

In any case...

I told Ann that I would say what I dreamt of, and though I did not get anything more, and this is vague, I shall say so anyway.

( A vague recollection of my dream. )

I am unashamed to say that I woke up in a cold sweat...perhaps my words don't do it justice.

Mr. Roberts.  Ah, dear Mr. Roberts.  I believe the Police are considering locking me up, just on general principle, after my interview with them today.  They called me during first block, and I could see Jane walking away when I approached the office where they were conducting their interrogations.

"A blunt object, you say?"  "Struck over the head, you say?"  It was all news to me, but apparently the Police don't understand that.  Luckily, it seems Jane did nothing but tell the truth, and since I was with her the whole night, our alibi is sealed.  Unless, of course, as one of the two policemen put it:  "we're in cahoots."  I have not heard that word used in years.  Not seriously, anyway.

In any case, while I certainly have the strength, skill and, according to some, attitude to hit Mr. Roberts, I a) wouldn't because he did nothing so severe as to deserve my physical wrath; b) wouldn't because I don't feel the need to get arrested; and c) would not leave him alive afterward, should I decide to attack him.  I may be kind, but I'm not stupid.

Perhaps I should give Inspector Kait a call...hmm, I wonder what would happen then.  No matter, my lawyer is already on his way.

Anyway, I seem to be their prime suspect, though seeing as how they haven't found any real clues, they can't even Mirandize and arrest me.

I believe everyone that care to pay any sort of attention to anything has realized or been explained by now that Jane has been spending the night at my home for the past few days.  I would like to clarify that, while we have slept in the same bed, we have not had sex.

It pains me and shames me to have to say it so bluntly, but due to the misinterpretation of many, and the out-right intrepid allegations and actions of an instructor that is not only stupid, but a simpletone, I feel I have to.  Mr. Roberts, one of our illustrious school's English professors, has taken it upon himself to become the local snitch, and done something quite unacceptable.  I would be remiss if I did not tell Mr. Roberts as plainly as possible to mind his own fucking business. Neither Jane's nor my personal life are of any of your concern, Mr. Roberts, and I would like to ask you to please stop acting upon your ambitious instincts.  Calling Jane's father was bad enough, but I received, in the middle of the night, a phone message from my aunt (I was currently busy when she called).  She had this to say, verbatim:

( The message. )

I sincerely hope you read this, Mr. Roberts.  Because I, too, can see you.  I shall see you this morning in class.  I'm going to return to my bed, where it is warm and comfortable.