Dirty streetlights exposed my vague anxiety as I wandered through streets surreal in silver moonlight. I had only one clue, only one sure desire. I was searching for distraction. I had no definite idea of what I was doing on these sidewalks so far from home, or even where I was going - I had nowhere specific to be, and if I did then it was impossible anyway. I didn't recognize a single house.

I supposed that this walk was to warm my blood and cool my temper, as I often resorted to such exercise - this compelled solitude always forced my concentration upon more important matters. What was I trying to at once forget and remember? What was the hour? What direction was home? I didn't really care. My passion had subsided and now I, merely disorientated, had but a ghost of fury in my head.

I wanted to fly into the stars, away from this life. I wanted to melt into the earth and become unborn again. I wanted to be the Universe, and I wanted it to understand… the cold, inky wind was speechless. Nothing was there to distract me from my thoughts but the shadows.

What was the hour? The streetlights seemed less contrasting than a moment ago, against the depthless sky, grainy on the wet cement. When did it rain?

Flickers of the day came flashing, and I faltered in my ever-slowing pace… she looks at a bright light and then closes her eyes. The image remains, burnt for a few moments into the front of her mind. …A flash of my father.

"…And I was above, I could see myself - but I wasn't a body, I was a head, but not really a head, more like a thought. I suppose that's what people call a soul."

He looked at me, and then towards the shed. The growing breeze across the dam was giving me goosebumps and the dirty smell of cigarette smoke was nearly unbearable, but I stayed there beside him all the same. He was a person. Nothing more, nothing less. The howling wind teased the rusty branches, leaves fluttering onto the cool, sepia water. My hair whipped across my eyes, and then…

What happened?

No wonder I needed distractions.

Yesterday these thoughts would have been ridiculous. Tomorrow they would seem naïve. But both these facts were of little comfort to me now. Distractions, distractions indeed. Distractions to put the world in ludicrous perspective - when did this start and when would it end? I was powerless, and it was my own doing - cursed by blind confidence and faith in truth.

Distraction. That word haunted me. Just to hear it in my head - in that incessant internal narration, where words precede form and you struggle to shape them into tangible, controllable words - filled me with both nervous apprehension and disdain. The world was none the wiser; only I was affected by this chronic and idiotic thought. Obsessed by one word, absorbed by such a tiny part of my situation. This circular thinking inspired only further distress - Why? It would all blow over. Eventually this would all be forgotten. But how could one forget something that existed perhaps not even in the memory of another person, an event existing in oblivion? It is like trying to forget the face of someone you haven't met. I knew enough to know that I knew nothing at all.

I resolved to concentrate on forgetting what little I did know; until I was successful, I must be distracted. I was somewhat satisfied with that conclusion.

That was, of course, until the most dreadful thought struck me. What if I had made that very same resolve earlier, which then, having been momentarily forgotten, had led me to itself? This filled me with intimate horror… I was a stuck record, a perpetually looped track.

I started to run.

Trees grew larger, and echoed footsteps reached out for me as I stumbled through this suburban tangle, my heart pounding against the pavement. Distractions. Distractions. Distractions. Distractions. I wanted to scream! With every step, the word tormented me, swallowing up my thoughts and bleeding them into the shadows.

I would die. I would kill myself right now, just to stop this feeling. People die for more stupid things than that. I wanted to slap myself. I needed a distraction. I needed a distraction from this grisly word, 'Distraction'; I needed a distraction from distraction… I repeated the word over and over in my head until it meant nothing. Fractured syllables floated through my mind, themselves of no consequence, encompassing every emotion and meaning in the Universe, cutting up words and turning them into confetti.

I shook my head. I couldn't bear to think of the world like that, empty and pointless. And I slowed - it didn't matter how fast I ran; I was going nowhere, and these morbid shadows would always be two steps beside me. I couldn't outrun this fear.

I started to cry, and it started to rain, and I started to wonder if it were my tears that fell from the sky. I was so confused. I was lost, inside and out, and the blackness of the hour faded into the black of my loneliness. The stars sparkled innocently in the impossibly engulfing night sky, as I lay down on the warm road, as I closed my eyes and forgot about myself.

And there, distracted at last, I drifted into an exhausted sleep.

That must have been when he hit me - maybe his attention was distracted from the road for half a moment. Maybe I was too dark against the road to be seen. I wrote him a letter, when I could write, and I spent long nights awake hating myself for what I'd put him through - through the nightmares, the agonizing days of wondering whether this stranger would live or die. How much of his Life had I stolen? I felt absolutely wretched about it, and I haven't stopped feeling guilty yet. And this hospital is so boring. The only vent I have is this laptop.

I'm not going to lie to myself, or to you. I need Help. I need a Distraction.