"In the depths of my mind I laid sleeping
Well I had such a dream when I woke I was weeping
The vision I saw danced around me
And my heart saw the things that my eyes couldn't see."
- Soil to the Sun – Cage the Elephant

The Mental Hermaphrodite

I was over half done my research. I only needed three more people. Luckily enough, the people usually found me. It was like I was a magnet for misfits. At this point, I didn't mind. Anything that could help me with The Project was a good thing, even if that meant something bad would inevitably happen.

My life was left in ashes, but I refused to acknowledge this fact. I had lost family while The Project was in progress, my own health was going to shit, and my trust fund was slowly diminishing because I lost my job at the library on campus. I made myself focus on finishing The Project the way I wanted to: without any cliché's.

The Project was my obsession. It was all my brain was trained to think about because thinking about anything else led to pain and I'd already dealt with my fair share of pain in my twenty-three-years of living. I'd been thrown into a pile of shit the day I was born and even though I was out of the pile, I still reeked of feces, and if I stoppedto smell myself, I was taken back to the same mountain of crap.

In my spare time, I drew and took pictures, two things that could successfully take my mind off of everything, including The Project. Although many people hated the gloomy weather in Seattle, I flourished in it. Besides the fact that my pale skin did nothing but burn, I liked the unexpected rain. Most places in the world have predictable weather; if there are clouds, odds are it will rain. In Seattle, you never know if it's going to remain cloudy, start raining, or give you a giant thunderstorm that will rock the skyscrapers.

Today was a drawing day. I grabbed my iPod and my sketchbook and headed to the nearest park, sitting down at one of the chess tables and beginning to lightly shade the entire canvas gray.

Birds were migrating back to Canada, but they were so high above us that they were just black outlines of anonymous aves. I blared the music in my ears, blocking out the real world successfully. It was just the gray sky, the birds, my paper and charcoal, my music, and me now. What a perfect world to exist in.

According to my watch, I sat at the chess table and sketched for two hours. To me, it felt like mere minutes. That was the biggest problem with music. It made me lose track of time. If I didn't have windows in my apartment, I would have never been awake at the proper times.

Most people would pack up and leave the park after realizing they had been sitting here for two hours. Usually a person would be shocked that they had wasted two hours of their life. I started packing up my stuff when I realized that I had nowhere to be. I literally had no life. I had no friends, basically no family, and no job. All I had was The Project. This fact saddened me.

What sort of life did I lead? I was socially inept, only talking to people I needed answers from. The only real friend I had ever had was Alice, but I lost her a long time ago and never bothered to replace her. I could have become friends with Emmett, but all chances of that were destroyed from the moment I met him. We were both flawed beyond normal standards. One of us had to become clean in the end.

So, as it dawned on me that I was a fucking failure at life, I sat down and unpacked my things so I could drown my emotions once again.

I drew until it was too dark for me to see. My eyes were burning from overuse, my ears were ringing from the music that had been blasting through my ear buds, and my right hand was aching. I had probably given myself carpal tunnel.

As I was packing my things up again, a man walked through the mostly empty park. He was mumbling to himself. The man looked absolutely insane. His dark eyes darted around wildly, his pupils as wide as saucers. He also looked homeless. It looked like he hadn't showered in weeks, months even, and his clothes were dirty and ragged. He was wearing a wool cap that covered his dirty blonde, shaggy hair; a gigantic, off-black turtleneck; and a brown, leather trench coat and some track pants.

I observed him for a while. Sometimes he'd talk to inanimate objects, like bushes and lampposts, and sometimes he'd talk to something that I couldn't see, a person that only existed in his mind.

The entire time I watched him, all I could think was, He's perfect for The Project. What was more unacceptable that a crazy homeless guy? People literally tremble in fear of people like this man. I was usually scared when I met this brand of human on the street as well, but I couldn't find the fear anymore.

"Hey!" I called.

The man's head snapped towards my voice. He was looking in my direction, but I wasn't sure if he was actually seeing me.

"Over here!" I called again.

He rushed towards the table, practically sprinting across the park until he sat down across from me at the chess table, his wild eyes never settling on a single object for more than a second or two.

"Hello, there," I greeted with a smile. "What's your name?"

"What's your name? What's your name?" he mimicked. "He wants our name. Jasper, Jasper Whitlock."

To be honest, I was fucking scared. I was trembling. I didn't know what this guy was capable of.

"I'm Edward Masen," I replied, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "Where are you from, Jasper?"

"Where are we from, Jasper?" he asked himself quizzically. "Is it Minnesota or Missouri?" He looked at me with an embarrassed smile. "We can't remember." He said it like he was apologizing because he didn't have any cream to put in my coffee.

"I'm from Chicago originally," I said quietly. "In Illinois."

"Yes, we were in Illinois," Jasper murmured, his eyes still shifting rapidly. "We were locked up in Illinois. White rooms, tight jackets, bad food. Yes, yes, we hate Illinois."

"How old are you, Jasper?" I asked.

"We don't know," Jasper admitted. "Maybe sixty, maybe fifteen. Time moves differently in different areas."

"You're right, time is a little tricky," I agreed. "Do you know if your other voice has a name? Or are both of you Jasper?"

Jasper laughed loudly. "No, no, no. We're not both Jasper. Jasper hides in the corner, that little fucker. I am Marie."

"Marie?" I asked for clarification. Jasper nodded, a proud smile on his face. So he wasn't schizophrenic. He had MPD. "Sorry for calling you Jasper then."

"Happens all the time," she reassured me. "But I am Jasper!" It was the real Jasper emerging. "My body, it's my body!" There were a million emotions flitting across Jasper's face. "Shut up, you fucking retard!"

There was an internal battle waging in front of me. Jasper was panting as he began to physically abuse himself, the voice switching back and forth between Marie and Jasper.

I just sat there and watched. I should have ran and left this tiny bubbled of madness far behind, but the sting of realizing I was a worthless being held me there.

You have nothing better to do, my brain reminded me.

Although that was true, I should have left. I really had no idea what this crazy son-of-a-bitch was going to do. I wasn't expecting a knife to come out of his pocket. I wasn't expecting to see a full-grown man stab himself repeatedly in the chest, neck, and abdomen to try and rid himself of the demons overpowering his mind.

I finally came to my senses. And then I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in the hospital and it was already light out. I was later told that I was lying several yards away from a dead, wanted criminal. Jasper Whitlock finally rid his body of his demons.


Did you get the title? Kind of like having MPD, but having one of the personalities as the opposite sex... That was how the title came to me. Just so you know.