If you’re not sick of the ocean/water similes, here’s another: Chinese water torture. Everyone is familiar with the concept. I never put much stock in it until an episode of Mythbusters in which one of the co-hosts submitted to testing the effectiveness of being strapped down as cold water dripped onto her forehead at a consistent rate until she began to cry and lost it. Just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t help but think, as she mentioned, that its effectiveness as a torture device was only enhanced by her own incredulity toward the whole thing. Fucking water drops. Who could expect anything more than a minor annoyance?

The analogy I had in mind is some people are like that. They seem small and incapable. Minor drips that are easily and unceremoniously wiped off. But they’re not a single drop. They’re a series of them, one after another. At times intentionally well-timed, but more than likely to be a semi-conscious affair. Intentional choices and ones made by forces in their minds that have been building up since their earliest memories. Looks, tones of voice, silences and outbursts. Drip, drip, drip.

And if so—if these individuals do cause someone to lose it—what of the other? I hesitate to use the word “victim,” if only on account of the charged connotation, but the parties who are affected by this process. The ones strapped down as the drops fall. Who stretched the leather over the wrists and ankles? Who tightened them and buckled them in place? And why, God, did they lie there and allow the themselves to be strapped down in the first place?

Why, God, do they just keep on dripping?

It’s complementary, of course. One type meets another and they fit together a certain way. Lots of ways, some good and some not. I just think about afterward. When the fear of what could be ensures that they remain what they are. When the analogy is over.