While drowning my sorrows in a bottle of distilled spirits the solution to this dilemma finally struck me. Admittedly I was sodden with drink at the time, yet the paralysis of my neural axons was undoubtedly the source of the idea. Any man that says he thinks better drunk than sober is a fool. But this was a different case altogether. I was feeling, not thinking, and my anger at her escape cracked the lid off my more civilized impulses. I choked a pillow to death imagining it was her neck and finally shouted, “Crazy, crazy, that’s her trouble, all the way around the bend and dotty as polka-dots!” When I fell onto the bed everything swooped around and around in sickening circles and I mumbled, “Just plain crazy. I would have to be crazy myself to figure out which way she will jump next.” With this my eyes closed and I fell asleep. While the words swam down through the alcohol-saturated layers until they reached a deeper level where a spark of rationality still dwelled.
When they hit bottom I was wide awake and sitting up in bed, struck dumb by the ghastly truth. It would require all the conviction I had—and a little more—to do it.
I would have to follow her down the path of insanity if I wanted to find her.