Jeremiah was not a happy man. It often occurred to him that a good person ought to be happy, and that caused him to ruthlessly question his own goodness. Could a weak man be good? "The meek shall inherit the Earth" a voice told him, in incorruptible, solemn tones. But then, what sort of Earth was this that wept at the seams with such depravity? Was this an Earth for a soft, uncertain man to inherit? He frequently allowed his mind to synecdochize the asylum into the entire world, and to see his own place in it as so terrifyingly precarious that the eventuality of slipping off into the screaming pit of Unstables seemed impossible to disown.
Yes, he suffered from melodrama; it was a family affliction. He wished he had the stomach to drink through it, as had his father, but a persistent ulcer denied him even that bitter reprieve from his reality. The Asylum itself, brooding and Gothic, usually seemed far more in command than he. It understood the whims of its residents. It knew the terms with which they conversed, the rules by which they lived. Smug and bloated, like a black toad, it refused to tell Jeremiah any of it.
Pulling open a desk drawer that stuck halfway open, the current head of the Arkham family retrieved a slim, stiff volume with archaic gold lettering on the jacket. He lingered for a moment on the nightmarish woodcut printed before the title page, the creature whose face split in a grin, its ancient eyes wide and its tongue lolling from a mouth that was never meant to smile. Then he swallowed, clearing the congestion in his throat. He always read aloud to himself. He liked the sound of his voice. It was the only thing about himself that he liked.
"Once upon a time there was a girl called Red Riding Hood, so-named for the blood-hued hooded cape which she wore over her auburn locks…"