Dispatches from the sub-basement of hell: How Steven Clark regained his sanity and lost his spark, a birthday reflection. (12/13/19 @ 4:15am) 

Those in my tiny circle know the life and death I have witnessed, the things I have accomplished and where I have fallen short, of the good times, and hard travels. 

I had just returned from music gigs in NY to an ancient farmhouse on an isolated gravel road in the hinterlands of KY. A million light-years away from the electric multicultural life of Manhattan to cold Kentucky desolation. When I heard cars outside on the road I muted all sound in the house and nervously peeked through the curtains. Anxiety attacked and thoughts poured in, “Were they finally here? How did they find out? Have they found me? Is this it, the showdown?”. I was the only house on the road what business did they have here other than to throw a net over me and drag me off to a cold cell? I would wait in silence with the lights out until I heard the car crunching the gravel off into the distance and turn onto the state highway. The root of my paranoia was that I had been having vivid dreams of violently killing people and burying them in the hard dirt floor of the old pig barn near the tree-line. These became so vivid that one icy morning after an anxious cup of coffee I worked up the nerve to check the barn floor for disturbed dirt, or a muddy shovel. Thankfully I found nothing but slight relief. It was in this period that my sleep paralysis was at its peak and thick beams of light, pure energy, would burst through the open bedroom window at night and unearthly beings would stand at the foot of my bed communicating with me telepathically while I lay frozen yet somehow trembling. The thin cool summer sheets weighed thousands of pounds while a dump-truck parked on my chest. It was also during this period that I cranked out multiple screenplays, short stories, poems, and songs. I couldn’t write it down as fast as it was coming in, my fingers pounding the typewriter keys like Liberace mainlining adrenaline. Upon reflection, I now realize that I had gone slightly insane. Perhaps it was the country air and dry county detoxing me from the excesses of the road, or the hand from above sending me transmissions and I was just momentarily open enough with antennas up to receive them. Maybe, hopefully, someday I will be lucky enough to lose my mind again, extend my antennas and regain my spark.