| From my friend Shawn's journal, with permission.
The prophet came into my store around three in the morning. His eyes were bloodshot. Crazed. He started telling me about his waking dreams, about the voices that spoke to him in his head that he then spoke outloud. They had said, "A prophecy heard is a prophecy known. A prophecy known is a prophecy spoken."
He tells me he only sleeps two hours a night now. Everytime he tries to sleep he wakes up and even though he knows he's awake he knows he's still dreaming. He sees the world around him, but he also sees other things. He saw a face a few days ago that told him it would visit again in eight days. Eight days later he heard the voice when it said, "A prophecy heard is a prophecy known. A prophecy known is a prophecy spoken."
He doesn't want me to think he's crazy, but he has to tell someone. He asks me what I would do. I tell him honestly, I don't know. I don't tell him the reason I don't know is because I have yet truly experienced something like that. He goes on to tell me of the night terrors that plagued him as a child. He tells me of the creature that caused them. Hurt him. He saw the impression of it sitting on the bed. His mother and he moved a lot when he was young because of it.
He tells me that he decided at thirteen he would confront it. He felt its prescense and heard the squealing noise in his ears that he says always preceeds its arrival. He knew it was sitting on his chest and he put his arms around it and took it into himself and with it lost his fear of certain things in exchange for apathy.
But now he only sleeps two hours a night. He doesn't know if he's crazy or if this all just sounds crazy to everyone else. Being crazy, he says, is just being different. The only reason a person who eats babies, for example, is crazy is because the majority of people don't. So he doesn't know if he's crazy, or if thats just what people will think.
He says he's starting to understand, but he doesn't know if he wants to.
He knows he doesn't want to.
He just wants it all to make sense.
He wants it all to stop.
But he'll live with it if he has to.
His name is Daniel and he looks about my age.
He thanked me for letting him talk about it before he left. | 
