Okay, sit down for a moment. I have something dearly important to me to admit. Are you prepared? Alright, here it goes: There’s a fungus growing inside of my skull. It eats and tears away at my brain consistently, trapping me in its protective snare. It carefully lines the wrinkles in my brain, creating an extravagant mycorrhiza. Its name is “Amanita virosa”, but you can just call it Angel.

It makes me act in ways that are unnerving or outlandish. When the fungus is weeping, I’m weeping. When the fungus is ecstatic, I’m ecstatic. When the fungus is vexed, I’m vexed. When the fungus is dead, I’m dead. Angel is quite sensitive, so it’s hard for me to give you a reasonable response. When you make jokes at my expense, I want to laugh with you, but I just end up sobbing and sobbing. I hate it, but I’ve tried everything I can to separate from it.

I’ve gone to botanists, biologists, mycologists, exterminators, but all their efforts are in vain, and I feel bad for wasting their time. They’ve recommended antifungals and slugs and roundworms and foxes and fire; none of them work for me. All of them just make the fungus worse. When their methods fail they say I don’t want to get better. They scream and pout that my problem is too inconsistent. They claim there are no fungus penetrating my brain, and that I just want attention, but it’s not true. You believe me right? You believe that Angel is a real fungus?

I promise you that Angel is real, and I don’t intend to make excuses for it. I want to repent for when I told you I can’t say sorry. I can say sorry, but Angel never wanted to. Angel likes to make excuses and it likes to lie because Angel is afraid, just as I am. I’m afraid that you’ll leave me, we’re afraid that you’ll leave us. Neither of us want that, can you believe it? A fungus likes having you around, so intensely that I sometimes get headaches when I’m around you. I don’t have romantic affection for you, if that’s what you gathered.

I’m jealous of you. I want to be you desperately, and it makes me want to strangle you because you make me so self conscious. Theoretically, I don’t want to hurt you, but sometimes you make me feel so violent. I get irritated by how well you can control your outbursts, and I want to be you. Well, not you, your life is pretty messy, but I do want to be similar to who I think you are. 

In short, I want to be free of Angel. It’s just a nuisance in my life that makes what we have difficult to maintain. Everytime I see you, I think it’s the last time you’ll ever talk to me. I fear that you’ll slowly stop talking to me before you drop me altogether. I want to be carefree, I want to control my anger, I want to scrap my knee without crying. Doesn’t that sound so wonderful?

Hey, remember when you claimed that you couldn’t forgive me for all the times I hurt you? I hope that this can convince you to forgive me. I’ve told you what I can’t say to anybody else without fear of being ostracized. I trust you to understand why I act out every now and then. If you can forgive me, please say it now.

You hesitated before muttering: “I can’t say it…”.

Oh? I’ve poured my heart out to you and you can’t find it in you to forgive me? I’m on the verge of tears, I’m on the verge of breaking entirely, and you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me. No matter how hard I try to repent for my mistakes, you won’t allow me!? Okay, you pompous- ahem, forgive me. See, Angel got a hold over me again. Although it hurts, I will respect your decision. I understand, I’ve hurt you so much that it must be hard. You seem to be thinking a lot about our friendship, yes? I don’t want to stop being friends. You’re so dear to me, can you at least believe that much?

You’re nodding? Oh, that’s a relief! Then we can still be friends even if our friendship is strained? Oh, yes? You’re such a doll, you know that? I’m sorry for getting angry, but you really are such a sweetheart. Can we forget what just happened? Let’s put it behind us now. Oh, but I have a quick question:

Do you remember how I wanted to strangle you?