A phantom menace

I am sometimes paranoid.

The mania superimposes itself upon me in my house, at school, like a shawl of wariness. After having the abode burgled last November (while on Thanksgiving break), I no longer feel protected, my haven raped and ransacked. According to the dubious old wives tale, lightning desists from double-striking the same spot. However, thieves, unlike lighting, are skulduggerous sharks, who smell blood - once violated, a home is blemished as vulnerable. I know the housebreakers are out there with my roommates' X-box, iPod, camera, bag, pillowcase, and aikido gear (luck and having brought all my expensive stuff home saved me from pillaging). They are biding their time, observing, ready to strike again. Now I reside in a constant state of disquiet, serenity lost, and any minor commotion impels me to act impetuously: I stalk down the hallway, armed, ready to attack and defend the sanctuary. Nobody is there. Nobody is ever there.

Paranoia inhabits my car as well. It makes me chary of all of the other automobiles. Really, it is the motorist that I distrust - shifty-eyed, coldly calculating, potentially volatile, violent, or incompetent. Why should I have faith in their capacity to preclude collision? The texters, people exiting driveways and side-roads, buffoons on the telephone, left-lane laggards, the cretin who fails to signal, the ubiquitous white-tailed deer - Bambi with a death wish - they all worry and annoy me to no end.

It is the anonymous individual in the invisible car, nevertheless, who really drives me mad. The worst is on the back roads, of course. That is where the unseen autoist has such fun - tailgating; dallying, falling behind and then rushing up at a furious rate, to halt with frightful precision, mere inches from calamity; using the semaphores to send occult signals, many incomprehensible or openly false; blinding, and tormenting and taunting. From time to time, you get a glimpse of iridescent reflection from an external illumination. A shard of reality; of little use in elucidation. I curse these imperceptible pursuers with violence; the asperity of my vituperation poisons my composure. They rile me up, make me act erratic and devious, to utilize the same subtle chicanery, and beat them at their own game. I enact sudden pivots, circles, I run stop-signs and red-lights, I make wrong turns down forlorn byways. Sometimes I shake them, but they or their stygian compatriots always return. I find no peace.

The paranoia lingers.