Day 64

The honeymoon period between myself and Steve has ended, 2 grown men living in close contact for over a week, with no women, no space and in a collapsed world ruled by the dead is enough to make anyone sick. Its not so easy to just ask him to leave or to get out of each others faces, we are surviving together to not only protect ourselves, but also to keep our own sanity, something I lost a while ago now. I had another one of my uninvited mental episodes yesterday that caused a bit of a problem, because I had kept it to myself, for obvious reasons that you don't tend to drop into conversation with a new friend that you occasionally get schizophrenic episodes that cause old memories take over your mind. To say the least, poor Steve was left confused and worried when I walked into the room, completely blanking him and talking to the empty side of the sofa where Robyn used to sit and had a full blown argument because she caught me smoking when I quit a few months ago.
Oh yeah I finally got told exactly what happens when a memory takes over and I have no sense of real time or reality itself. Steve said It was frightening how one minute I was fine and the next I am shouting at the sofa as if there really was someone there. The thing is I can remember that argument as if it was yesterday, I had given up smoking for like the 30th time and after a few weeks I couldn't stop myself from giving in to the cravings, so I went out and bought a box of 10 and smoked them when Robyn wasn't about. It was absolute bliss to have a cigarette when your body had been starved of nicotine, the patches helped a lot, yet when you come off them and are on your own, you still get the cravings, I also hear that they never go away. I was stressed out because we didn't have any money, I hadn't had a treat in a while so I thought a pack of cigarettes would make me feel better. The annoying thing was Robyn caught me on my very last cigarette in the pack, If I had got away with that one I would have got away with the lot, but we ended up getting into a big fight about it and I ended up recreating that fight in front of Steve. I had no recollection of him being in the room, it really was as if it was just me and Robyn and it felt so real. Steve told me how he was trying to get me to be quiet as my shouting was going to alert nearby zombies, he even tried to pull me over and was right in my face, yet I just saw through him and didn't even react to him in any sense or form. In the end he had to deal with me the only way he could and that was by laying me out with a powerful right hook. I can honestly tell you now that It was a very weird experience for me, because there I am shouting at Robyn, and suddenly this invisible punch came out of nowhere and put me on my back. It didn't knock me out, but as soon as I hit the floor, the whole incident was flushed away and I was back in the room with Steve. As soon as he realised that I was back so to speak, he reared up against the wall, put his arms out in a defensive manner and said,

"Dave, are you alright? can you hear me?"

After climbing to my feet and gripping my now aching jaw I looked at the empty sofa, then towards a petrified looking Steve and said

"Yeah, I'm okay. Did I just do something very strange? like talk to thin air or something?"

Steve put his hands down and nodded in agreement, to which I sat down and apologised, not before explaining to him what had been happening to me. I actually thought that by having company and keeping my brain engaged would prevent this from happening again. Steve did seem quite nervous afterwards and said that he was thinking of leaving, as he didn't feel safe being in here with me. How can I blame him? I have put him in harms way twice and now I just freaked him out with a crazy outburst that I failed to let him know about, I am probably more of a danger to him than him living outside in a tent. Things cooled off in the end though I managed to calm down and make Steve see sense, that he really was in safe hands up here with me and my memory intrusions really meant him no harm as I don't even acknowledge him being in the room and all I am doing is reliving previous memories that temporarily take over my mind. I don't think he is convinced, yet he seems to now believe I am no threat to him.

Aside from that my ankle feels much better now, no more aches and pains, I am probably not fit for any marathons, yet I can run if I needed to. Food has been lasting quite well, and it is nice to eat with company, I feel I have learnt a lot about Steve the last week. It is kind of hard not to really, when all we have is time to talk and nothing else. I think its safe to say we both have different personalities and clash on a few things, yet its hard for me to find someone on my wavelength because I do have a bit of a dark and warped sense of humor.
I laugh at things people tend to get upset or offended about, I can't help it, its been in my nature for as long as I can remember. For one I can never forget how I was never invited to an Air cadet Christmas meal after I spent most of the first one telling dead baby jokes and flicking mayo over the female cadets faces, claiming they looked like they just filmed a Bukkake porn video. Yeah, sometimes my sense of humor can go down like the Titanic, and over the years I have tried to moderate my brain to learn when to behave and also read people to see if they may appreciate or get offended with what I have to say. If only I had the chance to do that at school, maybe i wouldn't have been labelled the weird kid in the corner, who named the disabled kid "Hotrod." I also definitely should have put a stop to myself when I stabbed the schools child psychologist in the knee with a pencil because "that's what Sarah Conner did in Terminator 2." Sometimes I think maybe I always have been a bit mental, yet all this time I put it down to my sense of humor, it would really explain a few things.
On the other hand I like being different, why be normal like everyone else? Its better when you can laugh at everything and everything, even my own misfortunes, it just means I have a great sense of humor, although slightly dark and twisted it may be, I always let things cheer me up, even when I was down.