Eavesdropping during the years of schizophrenia

Maybe it could all be explained better, this attempt at simultaneous privacy and exhibitionism, as encouragement in the practice of eavesdropping.

During those years of paranoid schizophrenia, on the street without medication, you heard every voice cohere into the perfect grid. That's what paranoia really means – everything relates to you. You are the crown of creation. It all makes sense, a terrible and thrilling burden of centeredness.

You have heard it, nervously dismissing, when you were shopping at Target and the child with Down's Syndrome wandered away from his mother and walked up to you and spoke aloud the very words that were in your head. Coincidence, you thought as you hurried to the checkout, because later that afternoon you had a meeting. You tried not to listen and started counting the agenda items, one, two...

Or the homeless guy on the corner. He seemed to be babbling to the stars that only he could see at noon, and yet when he wiped the greasy locks of hair from his face and looked in your eyes, he knew the game you played and saw each sin and laughed. That pierced. His inchoate words you heard, eavesdropping what went on between him and God, and you couldn't believe. You couldn't believe that his prayer was for you.

You can go there (if you can) or you can pretend (as you must).

It changes nothing to know.