My own fears are not the responsibility of others. Day in and day out, I walk in a shell of my own creation; a hermit crab in a calcified box stemming from my mental illness' extrusions. I hate the thoughts that worm their way into my default mode network, dark and private and something I couldn't share. I'm not even half way to work and I want to turn my car around.

Was that bump actually a kid that had wondered into the street or yet another pothole? If I make a block to go back and check, my asshole boss will consider it the last straw in a week of late arrivals. If I don't, I'll be asking "what's the problem officer?" on my lunch break.

It's not his fault that I have these thoughts; one of the few things he isn't at guilt for. It's not the other peoples' faults at all, just my own. Or my parents. They were the ones who had a kid knowing that they met in a hospital. They were both diagnosed. They knew it was genetic.

Smoke rises in the distance behind me. I catch a glimpse in my rearview mirror. Suddenly, the bump takes second fiddle to the question of whether or not that candle was out; whether the house I can't pay for is burning. I can check the bump on my way back. Of course I have the memory of blowing it out, but it wouldn't be the first time I imagined remembering something that didn't actually happen. Didn't I read something about false memories the other day? Kids in hot-air balloons or something? Hot air. Fire. I need to do something.

I turn on my blinker and flip the car around. It was an illegal move, but a ticket is nothing compared to a house fire. As I turn, I catch a glimpse of a flash in the corner of my eye. It was closer to light reflecting off of a windshield than a traffic camera flash, but I'm not an expert in traffic cameras. There was something in the news about Flock cameras. Do they give out tickets? I push the car faster as I point the car toward the smoke and drive back over the pothole.

It was a full fifteen minutes before I came out of the anxiety-haze. I was in a different part of town, surrounded by dilapidated buildings and homeless encampments. It was one of these buildings that the fire was billowing out from, rolling into the sky as a ladder truck dumped foam on it and the cops drug the homeless squatters into vans. I stared for several seconds before an unnoticed rookie cop knocked on my window.

"Hey! No rubber-necking!"

I nodded and turned around. Another u-turn. More quiet driving. More thoughts.

What happens when I go to court? I bet he has to report what he sees. What happens when the judge sees that I made an illegal u-turn to go get in the way of a house fire? What if I loose my license?

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pull it out to read the screen.

"BOSS DO NOT ANSWER"

"SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT"

It buzed again, then again, then again. I hold it by the edges in a desperate attempt to not accidentally touch the green button. The call timed out. Then he called again. I couldn't answer. I couldn't face him again. What if he's going to fire me now?

The second call times out, followed by a single, lonely buzz.

"This is the last time. Don't worry about coming in now. Your check will be in the mail"

I park in the middle of the street, crying as other drivers honk their horns and pull around me. I knew it was coming. This wasn't the first or fifth or fifteenth time. Tears push their way out of my eyes as I manage to get the car to the curb and lay the seat back. Might as well get used to sleeping in my car anyway. I stare at the car's ceiling as my phone buzzes again.

I hold it to my face to read the notification through the blur of tears. I could just make out a post by an old highschool friend of mine; a picture of a rug on a floor that didn't quite line up with the bookshelf next to it.

"OMG! I'm so OCD LOL!"

How scary! Thank goodness the firefighters arrived quickly and that you and your whole family are safe.

As teenagers with too much freedom and too much time and not yet shackled by screen-society we found ourselves once again in the back of our local BestBuy. The loading dock area always proved to be a wonderful source of entertainment for many reasons. We could jump off the dock on our skateboards, people would unfortunately (fortunate for us) dump all sorts of "trash" that would serve as toys for us, or after heavy rains the loading dock would flood and we would make boats out of dumpsters and try to tip each other over with two by fours. Flood wars, we called it.

One day something magical appeared behind that BestBuy, a large couch. What an exciting day! We lounged about and smoked pot and skated and spent a good few hours back there with our new toy. We all had lighters and were all a bit of degenerate pyros and someone discovered that when you light any spot on this particularly fuzzy couch it would create a small ring of fire that expanded outwards indefinitely until you put it out yourself. Well there were four of us and were each a bit lost in making these rings of fire all over the couch we were sitting on until a realization dawned on us all simultaneously.

A lot of this couch was on fire, we should probably do a bit of damage control. But it was too late. We went from giggling fun to frantic effort in a blink, and we were trying every method possible our young panicked minds could muster. I remember grabbing a two by four to try and beat some flames out but I hit something hard inside the couch and sent painful vibrations through my arms and all the way to my shoulders. I abandoned that idea quickly. We tried everything before we made our final mistake--a collective decision to roll the couch over in attempt to smother the flames. Nope. The flames rose and the entire couch was now completely covered in fire and the surrounding area was getting hot. The next collective decision was plan B: Run.

We knew our city well and we would use the storm drain system for quick travel under instead of over the streets, evading police or angry civilians, or just hanging out--so that's where we went. It was a 100 yard sprint to the nearest fence that when hopped would get you in the storm drain. The first two to arrive at the fence had the best place for jumping where the pole-supports would offer great hand and feet placements and I was third to arrive seconds later. But I didn't want to wait my turn in my frantic state of mind. I decided to jump the fence in the less-ideal spot where I had to put my hands right on top of the twisted metal ties at the top and on my right hand I still have the scar, 25 years later, where on tie punctured the meaty part of my palm. We escaped as I bled into the sewers (we called it but it's a stormdrain) to safety and watched from our neighborhood as flames rose higher than the building and black smoke filled the surrounding air. Fire truck sirens got louder and louder as responders came to clean up our idiot-mess.

This story sums up quite nicely what a lot of my teenage years were like. We were punks with too much time and too much freedom. But I must say that I cherish those years deeply. We as a group were very close from ages 5 to 20 before we slowly started separating geographically. As everyone approaches 40 we still get together for big events and keep up with each other and we spend hours and hours reminiscing about stories just like this. Although some of the things we did were a bit horrendous, in some weird way they are what made us the successful humans we are today. Some of us went to prison, some to rehab, but every one of us is now a well functionating adult and we have each others backs, forever.

I fell asleep for an hour or two last week while I had a candle lit. I tend not to make such mistakes, but I was exhausted.

He walked into basement. The fone rang. It was the creature. He saw the phone cord. it was unplugg