Preface
Point Of No Return

The one bare light bulb, a powerful 200 watter, placed high in the domed ceiling, had been turned off after the first ten days of constant screaming, yelling, cursing and expressing a murderous desire to inflict serious bodily harm on anyone and everyone who came within arm's reach.

His tormentors, of course, were going to have to wait until he was unstrapped, unbuckled and let loose; a remote possibility, in his opinion, equal to walking on water, or being raised from the  dead. Mere technical issues to be resolved when things swung back in his favor. Yeah, right!

At first, he thought it was the threats which had made them turn off the light, but the longer he lay there, the more he realized it just might be that the turning off of the light was nothing more than an insignificant gesture to an even more terrifying likelihood; they didn't have any intention of ever unstrapping or unbuckling him.

More likely, he figured, the light was turned off due to all the screaming and yelling he had been doing. The noise, no doubt, carried from the cell, out into the long corridor, where it echoed and reverberated off the walls with enough ear-piercing intensity to cause the other "patients" to complain. But, it didn't matter whether it was the threats, the screaming, the yelling, or even being looked upon by the white-coated "attendants" as something less than human; that awful, blinding light was out, and that's all that mattered.

On the downside, with the dark came swarms of roaches. Literally thousands of the little crawly...little? Little, my ass! Those nasty, scurrying scourges were the size of lab rats. Raising their hard, crusty-shelled bodies off the concrete floor on hair-like jointed legs, they would scamper across the floor, up the walls and attempt a "ceiling walk."

God, he hated hearing them up there. Most made the crossing without difficulty. One, however, he aptly named Kamikaze Karl, never quite mastered the gymnastics of the complex maneuver. Directly overhead, Karl would lose his footing, drop to the floor on his back with a sharp CRACK!, flip to feet and scamper off for another ill-fated attempt.

The "near misses" were numerous. Karl came so close once that when Chris heard the CRACK! he tore a neck muscle and gave himself a severe case of whiplash jerking his head out of danger. Karl, unfazed, scampered back up the wall.

Strapped down as he was, heavy metal ankle-shackles, double-locked wrist-cuffs fastened to reinforced weld-rings at his side, a thick leather strap cinched tightly across his chest, there wasn't a damn thing he could do except let the devil-spawns crawl. Crawl, and hope the food crumbs scattered throughout the cell held more interest to them than his ears, mouth or nose.

Lying in the dark, insanely giggling and snickering to himself, he thought, "well, that's the Yin and Yang of another of life's inflexible rules: for every action, a reaction." But, for now, the light was out... Thank God.

The roaches? Well, guess I'll just have to face those dirty, disgusting, brown, antenna-waving demons from hell when the time comes. Y'know, like a man! Show no fear. No trembling' here! Macho tough-gut-it. They're bugs, that's all, just bugs. I'll confront those shit-eaters with the courage of a warrior; the heart of a lion! Rah, rah, rah! Yep, it's a good day to die. A damn good day! bring 'm on!

"Last month at this time," he thought while lying in the dark listening to the roaches scurrying around beneath the bunk "I was living in $500 a night, four-star hotels, drinking $200 bottles of Champagne, chartering twin-engine Piper Comanches to the Florida Keys for a romp in the warm, crystal clear blue tropical waters. Damn! From that to this," he thought as he felt something crawl across the top of his left forearm and begin to feed on dead skin scales.

There was as nothing gradual about the descent into this pit of self-inflicted misery. Worse yet, no warning, no whistles, no bells, no flashing lights; nothing! not the slightest indication that tragedy was about to strike  . "One minute I'm flying high, relaxed, calm, without a worry in the world. The next...BANG! And I'm in an out-of-control flaming, smoking tailspin rocketing earthward with nothing to cushion my plunge except the solid brick wall of stark reality masquerading as a prison psychiatric ward."

"After that, its only gotten worse," he thought as he felt something crawl over his wrist and anchor itself to his naked inner thigh. "Just wanted something to relieve the mental pressure. Y'know, take the edge off. Smooth over the emotional lumps. Rest. Relax. Get some sleep."

How'd this happen? Oh, yeah! I remember, with that asshole shrink, his one man declaration of war on insanity, and a naive request for sleeping medication; "Hi, Doc. How ya doin? Me? Great, fine, yourself? Good. That's nice. Glad to hear it. Listen, Doc, I was wonderin', how about prescribin' somethin' to help me sleep? The last time I slept? Well, let me think. Nine days? Yeah, that's it, haven't shut the lids in over a week. How about a little somethin' to take the edge off? Whatdoya, say, Doc?"

From behind his well-worn desk, the good Doctor Fuma shifted slightly in his tattered, tan chair, leaned forward, made glaring eye contact, snickered, smiled widely and answered, "you killed a friend of mine. That bank guard you shot was my friend and you killed him."

That was it! The mind just snapped. What small shreds of sanity that were still loosely attached to quickly corroding walls of reason and logic leaped from their moorings with such overwhelming force, he actually heard his mind leave. At first, there was a far-off phantom giggle. Then the sound of a subtle, yet definitely audible, shadowy soft whisper of a "pouf!" and it was adios mind!

He had no recollection of snatching the steel lamp from the desk and slamming it up alongside the good doctor's head. Neither did he remember or recall the seven beefy interns who rushed through the door and wrestled him to the concrete floor. And he certainly didn't remember being stripped naked, then bolted and chained to this cold, steel prison bunk. Nope! He sure the hell didn't remember that.

"Yeah," he said to himself, lying there starring into the pitch blackness, listening to the roaches scurry around over in the corner, plotting their assault on him, "it has to get better than this. It just has to."

Eventually, it did. Only first, it got worse. From somewhere outside the cell, one of those thoughtless, sadistic interns flipped a switch and that blinding 200 watter lit up like an exploding sun. Instantly, to protect his eyes from the blazing light, he slammed his eyelids down over them with such force that he swore he felt an eyelash crack, snap off and fall to his cheek. Then, it scampered down across his lips to his chin, turned slowly and carefully navigated its way back across his now tightly sealed lips, darted into a nostril and began to feed. He screamed and screamed and screamed.

Six long, torturous, agonizing weeks later, it got better. They wiped the urine and feces from his emaciated body, bandaged the infected pus-filled boils, unstrapped the heavy metal ankle-shackles, removed the double-locked wrist-cuffs, unbuckled the thick leather strap from around his chest and let him loose...