Today's Literary Quote:

From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:

"The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand, and grinned through moving masks." (pg 159)

I have to confess that, once upon a time, like Dorian, I too kept a transferable demonic self-portrait in a 'locked room at the top of the house' - actually, the rusting boot of my old corolla, underneath the spare tyre. It did serve me well, though, for awhile. The portrait would absorb all my verbal faux pas and my ludicrous vociferations (including when I would use words like 'vociferations'). The painting's transference manifested itself as ridiculous facial expressions, and gibberish would emanate from its tainted canvas.

Eventually the noise from the portrait grew so loud that it could not be contained within the confines of my corolla's boot. Its hideous tones seeped into the car's carriage. I was unable to concentrate on my driving. Family and friends refused lifts from me. I became quite lonely and despondent. One time, I had a vision of a 'foul puppet' upon my dashboard, and I nearly crashed my car. It all became too much and I realized I was going to have to destroy the portrait. Once I had made this decision, I felt as though a great weight was no longer squashing me. It was very liberating.

Of course, once I'd destroyed the portrait - by cutting it into tiny pieces, which I then scattered across an abandoned sewerage processing plant - my ludicrous vociferations came flooding back. Years of inappropriate comments and wild streams-of-consciousness poured from lips, day and night, for many months. It was hell. I couldn't be around people, I couldn't even be around animals (who are notoriously tolerant of lunatic rantings).

Finally, the rantings began to ease. And I started to realize that I actually had some control over my mouth; I didn't HAVE to vocalize every random thought. I could, in fact, veto myself. It was a life-changing revelation. And, thankfully, I didn't need to murder anyone to come to this epiphany, unlike the tragic Dorian Gray.