Word for Word: Paranoid

I’m in a writers’ group that meets on Zoom, though before the pandemic we met in person. Every week, we do a writing prompt: someone gives a page number, and our organizer picks a word from a huge dictionary. We write for five minutes. In this example, the word is: Paranoid.

My two “haunted” miniature rooms evolved into a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe.

I wrote two separate bits this time.

I used to think I was paranoid until a narcissistic sociopath with borderline personality disorder took over my life and made me realize: you’re not paranoid if psychic vampires really are out to get you.

Two hours after I buried the old man with the evil eye beneath the floorboards, I continued hearing his heartbeat thudding at an abnormally fast pace. The police sat in a circle, chatting and laughing in the same room directly above the dismembered corpse. I imagined a pool of blood seeping up from the floorboards.

I didn’t consider myself paranoid. But I sensed the police knew and were toying with me. Surely they were waiting for me to blurt out a confession.

Where I’ve been published this year:

• My poem “Bonsai Tree” in the webzine Grim & Gilded, September 2022 issue.