It should not go unsaid, of those things both strange and fascinating and entirely composed of truth, that the events of that gray day have exonerated me of what feeble fastening of tangible life I could ever continue to claim.

Indeed, I could say that those events I have cryptically alluded to, are in fact the reason for that unhinging from reality, from the everyday chores I call life.

I, for one, have no further explanation of those things I dare tell you in hushed tones than I do for the natural science of things that surround us all, but I shall endeavor to relate what I know or even loosely reason in hopes of making even a small connection back to what I can only now refer to as the barest ideals of my own reality.

As I have already stated, the day was crisp, but not uncomfortable save for the gloomy and gray clouds blocking out any real semblance of day. A wind blew pleadingly from the north as in a desperate reminder that this was indeed November and not the mild fall previous days temperatures had indicated.

I briskly walked to my car and pulled it from the garage, stopping just long enough to adjust the day’s proceedings coming from our local Minnesota Public Radio so as to avail myself in the day’s news — both state and national.

It was a dreary discourse that spoke to me as I guided my vehicle down the main thoroughfare that is, of course, Oakland Avenue East, turning a pair of times to reach the final destination of my singular employment: The Austin Daily Herald, a dispatch of some renown that has been with this oldest of southeastern Minnesota communities for 150 years.

Entering the building, I couldn’t help but shake the chill that accompanied me from the outside, a chill that reached to my bones and would take some time to relieve myself of, despite the adequately placed space heater, situated ideally under my desk.

As it was a Saturday, I of course, found myself the only employee of the building, a situation I am quite fond of as it allows me to get the most amount of work done with very little in the way of distraction and other happenstance that would seek to turn my day long.

The morning progressed as it does. I turned on my computer and allowing it to come fully awake, proceeded to the break room for the day’s first cup of coffee.

Returning to my desk, sipping gingerly at the steaming mug of morning revitalization, I began to scroll through the long list of newly arrived email messages within my inbox, many of which I was able to throw aside as they contained nothing of any real value to my particular employment situation.

For some time I enjoyed the peace of the morning, drinking my coffee and organizing the rest of my day: a day that would require a couple different photographic opportunities and the construction and assemblage of the next day’s edition of the Herald, that being a Monday.

It was then I began to notice a rather peculiar feeling that had not been with me that morning upon first arrival. It was nothing more than a mild irritant, however, and I pushed it to the back of my mind and dutifully returned to the day’s tasks.

And yet, I could not fully relieve my mind of the now gnawing feeling rising from inside and troubling my mind.

A dark shadow, perhaps a shade of some long lost past, crossed over my musings, pushing me it seemed to an end not quite within grasp.

I soon began losing focus on my well-crafted day as the thoughts within my mind took me upon a different path from the work needing to be done. Perhaps more unsettling was an inexplicable fear that scratched at my thoughts — an unspeakable horror that reeled and roiled within me, yet should not be there.

I looked about, suddenly afraid that somebody was watching me. The paranoia that I might be discovered almost seemed to dim the room. Indeed, the lights almost appeared dimmer than they were when I walked in that first time in the morning. And there was the chill. The chill I felt earlier gripped my bones as if the November winds themselves gripped me in iron fists of purest cold.

I rubbed my hands together attempting to return some warmth, but that chill just wouldn’t leave me. Was this madness, was this the insanity so many spoke of growing steadily within me?

The light of the room suddenly became abhorrent to my eyes. “How could there be light in such dark musings?” I muttered this to myself as I quickly crossed the room, shuttering the remaining lights.

It was upon me now, this I know and as I frantically put these horrid deeds to paper, I realize now what terrors I unleashed that chilly November morning.

Indeed, I think I shall never forget them as even now, my maniac grin widens into something beyond lunatic minds.

Oh yes, I will not stop now, for I have already heard those things that can not and will not be reversed. On those days and nights when the building yawns empty and only I sit within it’s fevered walls I will indulge.

I have played Neil Diamond’s “The Christmas Album,” before Thanksgiving and so too shall the world very soon.

And this concludes this week’s reading of “Overly Dramatic Christmas Stories,” written by Eric Johnson and narrated annoyingly in your head by Eric Johnson.