This concluding story ‘Tell Tale Heart II’ closes the prolonged mystery of what did happen to the mad man in the original ‘Tell Tale Heart’, which was written in 1843. I quote: ‘Heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.’ From the original ‘Tell Tale Heart’. In my own personal view Edgar Allan Poe didn’t write the whole story. He wrote ‘Tell Tale Heart’ and left it on a huge cliff hanger… However I took the liberty of completing his works and produced this book ‘Tell Tale Heart II’.
Chapter I
As the dawn broke, the sun shone through the bars of the cell I called home. I woke up quite quickly hoping the reality two years ago was in the present but as usual they weren’t. Yawns of boredom and fellow inmates could be heard echoing around the cellblock-C. The guards didn’t take too much pity on us and if somebody were still sleeping at this hour you would be beaten until you screamed in agony. Awoken to the nightmare than a positive reality. But there wasn’t anything positive about being in a cell, at least not in this age anyway. Imagine if the world would stand still and the small confined room you were placed in was your release from true reality… The devil and I made a transaction. My madness for Sanity. I still hold my own part of the bargain and he has left me with nothing but my delusions and myself. I had two personalities as it were but called by the same name, had the same appearance and they both rested as one. One was of my more… negative mood and the other was confined to a more private area of my brain in a cell much like I am in presently.
Silence crept in, echoes of the few screaming because their slumber was ongoing through this hour. Usually the ‘new ones’ in fact. However I always kept awake. Didn’t know how but in my slumber, nightmares repeated as if I was a spectator in my murderous act. As I said before, I am mad. You wouldn’t believe me but the old man kept me awake… I crept into his room similar to the midnight shadow and killed him, blows to the head cracking his skull… I was loathing the blood pool I had made. The very floorboards clean as they were. Undisturbed as appeared to the naked eye but the very hell that was beneath it haunted the sites of many. If I could kill him all over again I would cover his vocal chords… were he would have screamed and no one would answer his cry for help. No angel would have seen him that night…
Guilt on my part wasn’t such an easy option to take. My madness, which some professionals would class as mentally ill, wouldn’t think to turn their own back on me, as I would kill them without thought to attempt to escape my home. Even after all this time passed I could still hear the repetitive pulse of the old mans heart racing through my mind. I can hear his rapturous heart beating under the floor beneath me… I tried burrowing into the thick concrete floors but all I made was the own blood pour from my hands and fingers. Dripping and pulling down on its concrete base. It was warm… similar to the old mans but my blood screamed of agony to me. I felt the draining power, so strong that it was as if water was running past my fingers but this wasn’t water indeed.
My delusions killed my mind, faith was at its last strand … the pumping of the black heart, the devils own heart kept me awake for two years. I visualise the very eye itself in my own skull. I tried clawing it out, in this eye I am now blind… as the old man was when I served under his house. His very pupils sucking me in, my attention was to his watchful eye and to his hideous heart! My self-control was improved since two years ago but I felt the disturbance in the corners of my mind… cracking the locks and embracing my insanity as if it were a caged animal.
Chapter II
As I gaze into the mirror the eye is of a different colour but yet it is still the very same as his! Yet in subliminal denial I failed to accept the cold, harsh breath of December was yet coming to the cellblocks. Some of my inmates froze to death last year because the cold was so intense. While the very smart, including I myself, made refuge under the bunks with the blankets the guards provided hanging over the four sides of the bunk.
I’m sorry I failed to discuss my cellmate, John Marvel. He himself infected with the disease of insanity as I myself. The differences between John and myself were of many. He wished to end his own life and I wished to end the life of the very select few of others. He tried hanging himself last Christmas from the bars of insanity I called the visual gateway to the stars. He only made view of the very bars themselves while I myself made the effort to gaze yet beyond these restrictions called my new home.
There were no stars on the December nights. As like clock work the Anniversary of the death of the old man would commence on the day of my execution, The first of January at 8:37pm. Ironic my end is the start of many innocent’s new year to come! Ha this madness will dive with me into the depths of death accompanying my victim he yet waits for me patiently.
On the other side, hell will take me and his eye will forever watch me. His heart would thunder in my after life for all eternity… Intense torture in death as if is in life eluded me greatly. Even retrieving the memory of my self righteous deed signifies the affect that the transaction of ending my torture for my death that I will face eventually… But it was unfair. Even after his death his heart beats beyond the grave itself!
Ten o’clock the prison seems to rise in a racket. Gladly this deafened the heartbeat moulded into my brain. The barred doors were released as if I was free to leave but even my small portion of sanity left I myself knew that this was not yet possible… in life anyway. John remained in the cell writing his own going depressing poetry of his newly planned self caused death. He eluded my perception of life just by the words of his great works.
I reached slowly to the main courtyard surrounded by fencing of course. Some men would shout, that if was snowing raining fire and much other absurd profanities. They were usually taken away and disposed of in the quite room and returned with yet bruises and no soul left in their bodies… ‘The Quiet Room’. I curiously treaded carefully upon that subject. Maybe my insane outbursts would come to the surface and one day I may be taken to such a place. But my small portion of sanity and logic kept me clear from that room for the rest of my days on this earth.
Chapter III
The everlasting winter ceased to end. The very first snowflake of winter seemed to fly through the bars of insanity before me. Signifying the small elegant beauty insanity has to offer in such a place like this. I made refuge under my bunk similar to last year. But this year the guards were not merciful and didn’t hand out the lifesaving blankets, which we craved all night long. Patiently waiting under the bunk, I switched my sanity to an off and let my emotions take control. I put my ear to the floor, constantly looking out for the heart beat below.
There it was, thump… thump. I wasn’t crazy it was as clear as day! I started to claw my way through the floor, this time getting deeper. My fingers dripped in elegant varnish which others would call blood. My nails were slowly peeling back, the pain… intense, as it was I still continued. My claw marks were clearly visible along with the blood marks which as if looked like somebody was dragged backwards out of the cell in agony.
The prison guard saw me attempt to do this. I wasn’t trying to break out but find the heart itself! My legs dragged me out of the cell with two-prison guard’s help. I kicked and screamed for mercy and then they took me to the place I promised myself never to go… ‘The Quiet Room’. Passing along the cells, one by one made me cry… Other men cried, fully grown men! Some of them would kill without thought and they cried for me how peculiar indeed. I felt a sharp jab in my arms, my world painted black slowly before me, as if I was being buried alive by dark colours…
Chapter IV
Soon after I was present in the state of consciousness it didn’t take much brainpower to work out where I was. The cold metal table I was on, restrictors around my legs and arms and chest. It was severely uncomfortable. “Were may I be?” I waited for reply. All I could see was towards the ceiling and little to the sides but all other angles of vision were useless to be explored. “Prisoner 9475-C this is the quiet room… This is a place for relaxation and a sort of… break from the stresses of your own mind and prison.” A smart voice replied from the edge of the room I could make out.
“May you call me by my own name?” I conveyed politely.
“No, You have a label now… An animal and you will be treated like one as well. Do you think cows in the field have their own individual names? Ha, just numbers and letters my good sir. However my name is Doctor Lapel, you will call me by this name. Agreed?” He sharply added. I felt shuffling coming towards me suddenly and slowly but surely the restraints were loosened and my limbs were free from the table.
“You hear voices sir?” the doctor enquired. “Unfortunately yes I do… The old man haunts me from the grave; I can hear his on going heart pumping and circulating my madness!” I added to our conversation. “Well sir… That’s very interesting!” he counter attacked my description. The conversation was ongoing.
Chapter V
30 minutes after our lengthily conversation the doctor called in the prison warden into the room and made his own diagnosis that I was yet a schizophrenic. This was nonsense! I am mad yes… But I do know in reality that the old mans heart craved my attention and so it got it! I give it every thought… I lay there at night hoping the sounds would stop. I want to stab the heart and let it not function ever again! Only then my madness will be cured… Only then.
The words the doctor used to describe my mind tormented me. His tongue, flicking through his teeth, slithering like the snake in the grass, the very poison of my moral discomfort! He would not silence himself. It wouldn’t silence itself. The tongue, flicking backward then forth, side to side and then it rolled. It was even more tormenting than the old mans heart itself! I wanted to cut out his tongue and stab it… again… again… and all over again.
The very noise of the ‘s’ was so tormenting! It echoed along the chambers of my mind and reverted around the walls of madness. I couldn’t bare it… I lunged out, pulled the tongue from its place, and repeatedly yanked it… The warden was trying to force me to stop, but my strength overpowered his by far! The doctor himself screamed, how could he be afraid. I was ending his torment! The on going noise clouded the air dutifully! And then it came lose…”
I held the very tongue in my hands. Stained in thick red, elegant varnish… The doctor was yet sleeping on the floor. The warden, the warden’s face seemed to express all his moods and thoughts. He was amazed I had committed such a righteous act! I saved everyone from that dreadful noise of S’s and Th’s and more dreaded sounds. But it wasn’t the words themselves that destroyed my mind it was the way they were said themselves.
The warden retreated and brought in a larger party which congratulated me on my job well done… My madness taken over. The satisfaction of flowing with my animal instincts overcame me. This is what I defined as a human being. The echoing voice, doused by blood and screams of pain reflected upon to me and to my victim. I was the wolf in the woods, hunting the little caped victim ripping it apart and taking what I wanted. I was in control! I had the power of god as it were, to change a mans life forever all I had to do is act quickly and make my thoroughly thought actions that I displayed in my mind into very reality themselves.
Chapter VI
The darkness I fell into on that very day. The thick black abyss that seemed to be everlasting. That second murder left my heart with no ease but more pressure as it were. I could see my ways were not positive… But yet evil to the naked eyes of others. The party didn’t congratulate me for freeing them from insanity but beat me down and restrained me. Until I was yet squirming on the ground… They held me high and escorted to the infirmary. The pain was unbearable, I struggled and I was shot through the foot by an armed guard. The silver bullet I felt travelled to my heart and neutralized all that was in me but no… My leg was yet bleeding, I could feel the shell slowly wriggle through like a lost child in a forest filled with sharp thorns. Now waiting patiently in my cell but now moved to block B, on death row. Should a mad man be killed for his madness or for his crime? Or maybe he shouldn’t be killed at all but be cured of his madness! But to myself, insanity reflected death upon its meaning. I had no life to live, everything was yet in a continuing blur of reality and my own fantasies. It is unchristian to let a soul not seek redemption when it wishes to but kill them.
The likelihood of my madness of being cured is very unlikely indeed. The cold harsh words that filled my heart were of words such as ‘failure’… ‘Failure in life unto death’. I believe it can be cured but it won’t be cured before my execution… The first of January at 8:37pm. How it all started I do not know exactly… Well faintly I can remember living with the old man. He wasn’t related to me in whatsoever way but for some peculiar reason I lived and served under him in the house for more than I liked to be. Then slaughtered him like a pig… He cried. Squealed as if I was his killer but no… I was his release from such a bad life he had lived. But who am I to judge such a thing? I am the prisoner captivated in such a place were others judge me for my wicked wrong doings.
Chapter VII
I lay they’re that night, staring up at the scarlet moon. The moon shone past the bars of insanity like the sun did in the day but this was more special. The sweet darkness kissed upon my eyes. No more heart beat…No more eyes… Just the free plain of my own mind to wonder upon, which was riddled with what, I do not understand… What is reality anyway? The perception of everyman against another is different but there is that common… thing. I don’t have that ‘thing’ and I may never have that ‘common thing’… for the rest of my days in this lonely prison.
I pulled myself up to the bars of insanity quickly turning to one side John was asleep… least he found peace and solitude in this place, God Bless. For the remainder of the actual night I prayed solemnly. But then the dreadful noise appeared to my senses yet again… The floor began to beat slowly then fast in the matter of minutes. I prayed for this all to end but no matter how hard I tried my last… few days were repeated over and over again. I sat there… powerless in my bunk the cold rusted frames appeared to be bending into myself, partially blind, the searing pain of my right foot and the constant ache in my head… the constant thumping… the constant paranoia drilling inside my head. Torture to say the least!
Chapter VIII
It was the day before Christmas, my eyes bloodshot from all the focus I paid upon the stars up in the sky. Pretty rare indeed, tiredness didn’t affect me for more than 7 days running. The very snow falling created cold spots in my body… My calendar displayed it was always the 24th for more than 3 days… It killed me. An hour seemed as if it was a week. A week seemed like an eternity and for the year I have served already… required unlimited patience to cope with the stresses and strains of your death being controlled like clockwork.
Earl, the prison guard of the county was famous for his kindness in Block B. He always cooked my dinners for extra time because the oven at Christmas wasn’t that good and needed high maintenance. Needed to be fixed by 3-4 dinners cooked say to the least! I play chess with him, he shared some of my views on reality… the old philosophical quote ‘am I in your dream or are you in mine?’ left us baffled for hours and even after this long period of time we couldn’t answer such a quote. Maybe if we understood it could answer the question and break free the unsure reality I thought I was in. I hoped that if I could answer that question all could make sense and I could live as normal instead of living in an unsure state of mind.
He was my only friend there. He was on the other side of the spectrum… He had a job, wife and kids and me… A lonely murderer in a prison who is also a schizophrenic, apparently and is antagonised by delusions. I envied him greatly but for that envy I chose to like him even more. Copied and learned what he did so I can become a reasonably good person to converse with. But this wasn’t my true action coming to surface… I was, for a short time a reasonable person. But I could feel the anger that erupted inside of me and the very visions of death and murder that I would commit in near future eluded my soul greatly.
Chapter VIIII
As I returned from the lunch hall I found John crying upon his bunk. His wife had died from heart failure and her funeral day is his execution day. A truly sad story to hear. “Were all given a second chance… one day maybe not today I can look after my children again… poor kids? Must be so traumatised”. he murmured. “John there is no second chance… not after what we’ve done!” I added quickly. “Everyone dies one day” he smiled as he replied. “For murdering the old man ill never be free… he will chase me everywhere I go” I panicked. “The old man will never follow you outside this prison, least that is something to look forward to” he smiled slightly. I don’t know what he was saying, how could he be positive even after all this! The question of ‘am I in your dream or are you in mine’ lark went straight through the bars of insanity at this point. Now the question ‘are you mad or am I?’ left me unsure and baffled.
The prison must have brainwashed him! The food laced with drugs and etc. It must have been this! I never ate their food… for this very reason I feared that if I ate that extra jacket potato I would either fall over and die or maybe my insanity would be clouded by consciously expressed lies apparently called truth. Maybe a ray of hope touched him I do not know to this day and I will never know, I choose to sleep this night. The night before Christmas made all the better sense… I felt quite better in the sense that the end is nearly here at least instead of a long going wait presently made to two years in this hell I called the barrier between life, death and insanity. I crossed two of these barriers… Insanity wasn’t the name for this. It was the small wind that blew down the trees in the forest; it was the dust particle that collapsed a building… It was more than insane it was sheer utter madness I say!
“Burn me you fool, kill me. Douse me in your lies. Brainwash me, make my reality as I know it and twist it into some form of false security… Liars!” I echoed in the cellblock. No one would dare question me, or I would kill him or her. Even if I was a madman in a cell, I was yet dangerous… very dangerous and I knew it. “Quite down madman. Wait till new years, you will be fixed… Then you will be out of here forever hopefully” I could hear Markus, the prison guard echo back down the corridor. “You cruel wretch! Denying a pleading man of his death. You are the very devil himself… This is torture” I acted in a violent frenzy around my cell. John was trying to pin me down… I broke down. This wasn’t madness this was caused by the tired silence. I hadn’t slept in a week, haven’t eaten in days. I looked at myself in the reflection of his eyes… I saw the cold, pale skinny man who didn’t have anything… His soul stripped and his mind morphed by the festering disease.
Chapter X
Next day, Christmas day. The lonely day where John was executed by a death I did not know. He seemed a changed man as he entered into through the lunch hall were we all said goodbye and cried for him. I still mourned for my best friend on Christmas day. I never heard from him for years after this… I never saw John again. His poor children… losing their mother and then their father. That must have rippled in their life dramatically and maybe they will never be the same after today.
Tomorrow was my time to reflect and then be killed… Murdered even. I waited there in the morning, in my cell I mean, Christmas… When the old man lived he always gave me a present on Christmas morning. I loved him like a father. He gave me a dog one Christmas morning… It slowly died jumping down the well about five minutes from the house. That day I knew whatever I touched emotionally… died tragically. The soft working menace of my life worked hard… never rested just worked but in small sections. It decided to have breaks and then continue as if it had all the time in the world… the time my life had to offer to me.
Negotiating with the prison guard for a blanket on this cold morning wasn’t an easy task. I pleaded… Then begged. Then he made me dance for it, named me a dancing cold chicken. I was humiliated throughout cellblock B. I wanted to kill him… He didn’t give me the blanket even after my humiliating experience. I was an animal, treated like a foolish one at that! I was only in use for amusement, I was forced to dance for the things I needed to survive and yet… I DID NOT RECEIVE THEM!
My insane outbursts didn’t come to surface this time… I felt anger but no action was taken further from myself as usually they would. I felt calm… Relaxed. I was able to rest that morning easily enough through to the afternoon. I rose to still find myself in my cell… not in my paradise I always wanted to be in. I didn’t know what paradise was, a mental state or a physical place?
Chapter XI
I slept through to the new years day and kindly I wasn’t beaten due to it was my last day in the cell. Kindness was splashed around in the cells… as if it was a special occasion such as Halloween and so forth. I realised I didn’t even think to rise earlier to reflect more before I was executed. I ran through to the lunch hall but the large guards who really didn’t like anyone to rush up the corridors. It said to make the guards very jittery and so they slowed me down.
It was 5 o’clock, never in my life have I been so anxious. I wasn’t afraid to die… Just not now… I looked upon the bars I called home once. I stared into the very moon itself and told myself I would be ok. This gave me some morale… but not enough. I looked behind me to witness the two prison guards opening the doors to my cell.
“No! Its 5 o’clock! Please no! Please just 3 more hours… Please!” I screamed. I curled up… I was scared, cold and lonely. All the above in the negative category. Swift silence took over my cell… The mangled locks that rested on my heart appeared to break free. I decided to just… lay. Lay down and think of all my life in the space of a few moments. I felt my body being moved unwillingly, very tense, not relaxed.
Chapter XII
I closed my eyes in disbelief… I didn’t know what to do. I looked upon my hands but they weren’t visible… I was in a stray jacket of some sort! Metal buckles locked my arms in such a way they couldn’t move. The prison guard’s uniform changed into white shirts, the colour white… calm. My reality was changing… Maybe this was my delusion or was it the real perception of the world? Maybe they are prison guards, maybe they work in a mental hospital, which I appear to be in presently, or maybe I’m not actually here at all… Maybe I’m still at the old mans house.
I couldn’t bear to think that these years weren’t actually years but my own delusions. All this grieving of my execution… Maybe I will be set free? Maybe I can live like a normal man. Not mad but normal! I could live like the majority of this world…
The dragging of my feet across the floor proved to me I wasn’t able to stand on ones own two feet properly… But I had help and that’s what I found pleasant. I lifted my head up, glancing at the real corridors that I had never seen before in my life but the morphed, twisted version I have perceived for the last 2 years of my life.
We headed up to the clearly marked up ‘reception’ sign that hung over the booth. Waiting room opposite and I was told to sit in there. The old man… sat… in the seat opposite my chosen one! Was my torment really here to haunt me again? He sat with my other victim... The Doctor Lapel.
I amazed and yet intrigued… my mind is yet reclaiming either intense insanity or sanity? I hope sanity in any case but I wasn’t sure what it was.
“Greetings Martin, your time with us has came to an end,” Dr. Lapel conveyed… but I hadn’t contemplated the very meaning of his words due to my state of mind. I wasn’t sure if was really hearing this.
“I swore I killed both of you! I did, I killed your hideous heart and ripped the very serpent tongue from your skull! What witchery is this?” I shouted in reception.
“Its shock… You’re a schizophrenic Martin… This really isn’t a prison. This is the county Psychiatric Hospital. We’ve put you on medication to help you reclaim your sense of reality. I know this is really hard to take in… You must be going through such a rough time at this very moment but it can only get better.”
The very respect that was put over in those few sentences filled my heart with joy. A common respect was laid out, I had my own name… 9475-B wasn’t a name I had been called by but the very name my own mother gave me… Martin.
“Ah... Why… I just cant… I’m sorry” I slumped on the back of my chair.
“No, don’t be sorry this is not your fault. Or anyone else’s of that matter. Your father has agreed to take you into his home yet again… Now I’ve prescribed you this treatment you need to take your medication or you will return here yet again… You understand Martin?”
I nodded my head briefly to show sign of reply. The very question of what is reality came to question pretty easily. The endless breathing of my own heart clouded me instead of the delusions of the old man. The obsessive behavior has come to an end. Nothing made me happier than this but… there was one thing. To have what I had all that time ago… A chance of a lifetime.
Chapter XIIII
Myself Sane once more? Temporarily anyway… The heart doesn’t beat… The eye doesn’t watch… The silver lining was shining through the clouds of my beliefs that were cut in such a fashionable way. The only thing that insanity had to offer was the plentiful chance of being sane. It made all the sense in the world to me. Thankful for my reality for only being a delusion somehow. If I did commit serious offences like the ones I had conjured I would have seen an early grave by my own hand. Not even the kiss of the elegant yet attractive insanity plea could save my crimes… not if these actions transpired.
But how do I know? How do I know I’m here… hearing these attractive things? How do I know if I’m not dead yet alive? How do I know… was the ongoing question that I asked myself throughout my life. I believe I had answered such a question that me and one of the guards had for you earlier…
‘Am I in your dream or are you in mine?’… I make sense of this question in one way. The things that one has seen through their own eyes is reality… Their own reality. This cannot be affected by medication… But I do believe there is yet another reality I must be in and follow. A reality that corresponds to other human beings including myself. But in harmony I will be if I had such… wait. I do have such! The short clench of humanity, sanity, manners, clear thinking was yet visible. Expressing these happy things that I hadn’t had in such a long time. I cried… I still cry now. Those long hour nights in that room, staring through the bars of insanity… Now I’m going to walk through them.
So many things I can do now… I can get a job, wife, kids and a normal life… Just like Earl, the prison guard… I asked for him at reception and it seemed as if he ever existed in Block B. Maybe he was a figment of my imagination… maybe it was my brain telling me this is my idol… what I should be and now I can achieve that.
6 Months later after living in Alabama again with his father, Martin went to be an actual prison guard at the real state county prison. He had 3 children 4 years later with his wife Francesca. His mental condition affected him in many ways but he made his way to having a relatively normal life.
The End.
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I hope you enjoyed my story, ive put it here for public display on weed guru because i didnt wanna hold out on you guys
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(that means you too animal 
)