Insanity

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Expressionist painter of the 20th century best known for his piece called "The Scream".  He described his inspiration for the depiction in his diary, "One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream."  

A study into the life of this artist reveals the influence of his father, Christian Munch, who was a physician and medical officer who raised his family after the death of his mother, Laura, who died of tuberculosis. of his father Munch wrote: 

"My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born."

I've always envied the way an artist is able to capture the expression of the soul, the cry of madness onto a canvass or within the lines of poetry or delve into the depths of insanity as envisioned in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, who was born in Boston but raised and educated in Virginia.  Poe is famous for his literary tales of the macabre best depicted in his works, "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Pit and the Pendulum".   I remember as a teenager performing in a public speaking class my rendition of his famous narrative poem, "The Raven" which begins:

 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
            Only this and nothing more."

It's 1:42 am as I pen these words -  I know not why.  Perhaps it expresses the depth of the horror of the pain bringing me down into the depths. As I end the thoughts two hours past my pain has eased, but I am afraid to try to decline upon my bed, put head to pillow for fear I will awaken once more body wretched in pain as I endure this agony.  I am being put to the test again tonight, but thankful that my waking hours will be less dramatic, a reprieve from this hideous adventure of endurance.  Only thirteen days left to meet my tormentor face to face again and receive my verdict..."Quote the Raven, nevermore."