The clock on the wall read eight in the evening, or so Joseph imagined. For him, they were not merely moving hands, but the heartbeat of his "great project." In his narrow room on the outskirts of London, where the scent of old paper and cold coffee lingered, Joseph did not see the cracked walls or the worn-out chair; he saw a cosmic laboratory, and maps no one had yet discovered.
He sat at his desk, cluttered with newspaper clippings and colored strings connecting photographs. In his mind, he was the "hidden engineer" directing the world's events from behind the curtain. Every passing news story on the television, every cloud drifting past his window, was a "signal" addressed to him personally.
"Delusion is not a lie," Joseph whispered as he ran his pen over a tattered map. "Delusion is a truth that refuses to die; it is the refuge when reality becomes an insult to intelligence."
The door opened slowly, and Clara walked in. She was carrying a tray with a sandwich and some medicine, her eyes bearing that deadly mixture of love and pity. To Joseph, Clara was not just a sister; she was the "warden," the one who always tried to tear down his kingdom and return him to the cell of "ordinary reality."
She placed the tray on the edge of the desk carefully, as if afraid of scratching the glass of his dreams.
"Joseph, you haven't eaten since morning. And it's cold in here—why don't you turn on the heater?"
Joseph looked at her with a mysterious smile, the kind worn by those who believe they know a secret hidden from everyone else. "The heater? Clara, the warmth you feel is nothing but a distraction. I'm on the verge of cracking the code. Did you see the bird that landed on the windowsill today? It was chirping in a repeated pattern… it's a code from the other side."
Clara sighed, feeling a lump rise in her throat. "Joseph, it was just a sparrow looking for crumbs. The room is dark, and you haven't gone out in three days. People are asking about you at the library."
Joseph gave a short, dry laugh. "People? Those who walk around like machines? They live in their own delusion that they are free. I alone see the strings, Clara. You see a messy room; I see the world's command center."
At that moment, their gazes collided. Clara saw a frail man chasing ghosts, while Joseph saw a "blind" woman trying to drag him down into the pit of blindness with her. That is the true horror of delusion: it reverses the roles, so that the sane person appears mad in the eyes of the deluded.
Joseph picked up his old pocket watch. It had stopped years ago, yet he set his time by it. "Do you hear that humming?" he asked with complete seriousness.
"I hear nothing but the rain outside," she replied in a choked voice.
"Of course you don't," he said triumphantly. "Because your mind refuses the truth."
Clara left and closed the door behind her, leaving him in his kingdom. Joseph stood before the mirror; he did not see his tired face or the dark circles under his eyes. Instead, he saw a great leader preparing to deliver a historic speech.
He extended his hand to touch the cold surface of the mirror, and in that moment, the image trembled slightly. For one second, he saw the truth: the filthy room, the smell of mold, and his deadly loneliness. But his mind, that brilliant machine of distortion, sprang into action at once. "It's just interference from the enemies," he reassured himself.
He returned to his desk, picked up his pen, and began writing meaningless symbols, fully convinced that they would change the course of history. Joseph sank into the sea of his illusions, choosing to drown in fantasy rather than live dryly in reality.