//-------------------------------------------------------// A Time For Nothing -by Matthew DePointe- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// Broken at 8:17 //-------------------------------------------------------// Broken at 8:17 A million pixels of stardust flows over me in a billion combinations that would defy the law of gravity and almost certainly destroy all generally accepted theory of science. The “oh shit!” moment where you learn why you are there, the meaning of your existence, and it means … nothing. Everything is lost in time, and I wake up almost forgetting everything, but with a fading memory and its gone. Where the world made perfect sense, where crime is non-existent, where nobody grieved, where nobody ever narrowed into a new dawn. My intention with this novella is to prove to you, the reader of this esteemed article,  that curiosity doesn’t kill the cat. My mouse is on another dimension or maybe an out-of-body phenomenon that no one else believes exists. We have always needed sleep. For me, it was a matter of passing out and coming to. And exactly 8 hours and 17 minutes after I DO pass out, I wake up again. I mean, who does that? Who in their right mind knows exactly when they wake up? A new world, with no limits of the imagination. Dreaming, dramatic intentions that have floundered exceedingly for me. I can do anything, know everything, feel nothing. For the past 11 years,  that is the time I always sleep. No varieties. My normally numerary way of life has been fixated over time so that I won't ever need to leave my lifestyle.  I live in a temperature control room. I have decided long ago to forgo my meaningless life for a more structured one. I have all the comforts of home.  A royal feast of exquisite foods are prepared for me by my servants. But for some reason, it tastes like shit. Maybe my phenomenon has improved my outlook in life to the highest quality and only does the best compare to my liking. Or maybe they’re just awful cooks… I am not ever truly alone. I invite people every day to socialize. Some of these ponies could be considered psychopaths. I study these esteemed guests of mine so I can have a better comparison of right and wrong on a cosmic plane.  They teach me about life and what it’s worth. Especially pain. I pay them to beat me up every day at exactly 3:53 pm so I can heal in time to sleep. It often makes me stronger, more aware of my surroundings. Narcoma Nasally is injected by my very own doctor, Dr. Scar. I guess I was afraid of him at first, with the ice cold hoofs that feel like shaving a cat, but I eventually got used to him. A x-ray full in my head, with circles around to pinpoint spots of great curiosity to him. Every week, I see him. I am truly special, aren’t I? Who else sees their doctor every week? Dr. Scar is so far the only pony to believe my phenomenon, stating that he expected no different from me, that I was “special." He's been saying that ever since I arrived.  I don’t mind the trips at all, because there is nothing but time for me. A fast ticking arrow on a slowing clock… One of my conditions living here is that there are no loud noises. A dropping of a spoon can annoy the hell out of me, more than even I imagined. Screaming, chewing on the rugs and furniture, and my servants come ablazing, me feeling the pain only Narcoma Nasally can bring. And loving it. When I dream, I am transported into a flat place. Not a mountain, not a desert, but a plain of sorts. A flat piece of land where there is only one rose. A rose as high as the tallest skyscraper, as wide as the moon, with 55 thorns on it. Sometimes I use those thorns like a ladder to climb to the top. On top of  the pedals, I usually make an airplane. I fly for miles and miles, over the glittering glass scattered as far as my eyes can see. Grassy glass. Or glassy grass as some might say.  Sometimes I just run in a random direction, even towards the sky. The farthest I have ever gone was to a magenta cloud, then sadly I wake up. Hundreds of attempts and I’ve never made it. I know that once I surpass that cloud, I will have entered a brand new plane. I should mention, I usually wear a three piece gray suit, with two cigarettes and a broken match in my right pocket, two grapefruits and a pocket watch. A broken pocket watch whose hands are forever stuck at 7:18 pm. So far, I have explored at least 6000 square miles of that place. Some might think it, but I can’t command things there at will. All I have with me is what I described above.  Even though I might sometimes describe this state as a “dream” for the sake of  simplicity,  it is not so. It seems that my head is a transportation device. Goodbye room, goodbye rapscallions of the oddly new and oddly contaminated world full of dull yesterdays. Hello to infinite tomorrows and infinite nights full of infinite stars on my infinite tongues. Dr. Dumbbell asked me questions when we were alone.  I didn’t have any answers. So, in frustrated agony, he beat me against the head with a wooden mallet, like I’m a racquetball and the walls are the little hoops the blood goes through. Many surgeries later, a new doctor came to my little room and asked even more questions than the previous doctor. Well, unfuddyduddied, he changed his approach: it’s an even bigger mallet. The clothes I wear are precise, elegant, and classy. It has a very neo-classic design, very simple and pleasant to the eye. I wear white hoofy-pajamas, with my name sewed on a little patch. The stitching is very impressive, with the little loop inside the L, and an infinity sign right after it, my favorite number. I’m not sure what the P and Y are doing there, but I don’t mind it. Complete randomness is my specialty. They tell me to close my eyes and I do. I must certainly do. I must, for as you may very well see, my eyes have locks and bolts and chains, with numerous muscles looking for the key, and once in a great while, they do! They do! Celestia Almighty, they do! They tell me I’m going to be alright. I’m alright, I say. I say these things, hoping to be beautifully believed, my nonsensical resonating with my words goes through their hearts, impaling them with disbelief at how magnificent I am. They shake their outrageously small heads and I leave the room covered in cotton candy. It’s a bit pillow-ish, but it tastes amazing. Tick Tock! Time for my beating. I walk into a large dining area and I see my good old buddies. I told them I didn’t have any money on me, I was ashamed, I was very very super sad because I wouldn't get my pain today. They smiled, a humongous grin, and said they’d teach me a lesson. Said they didn’t care about the money, so I burst into tears and thank them so so much for helping poor poor me get some of that good good pain. Afterwards, with a broken tooth and a bad headache, I skipped to my cotton-candy room, munched for several hours, and counted the spaceships flying around my room until bedtime. I push the dream button by slamming my head on the metal bed and off I go, flying through the air in my suit with two cigarettes and a broken match, having misadventures involving dragons, fallen kings, and mountains of Narcoma Nasally, just waiting for me to snort. Huh. That’s strange. The lightning clouds are blue instead of magenta today. Maybe I was going crazy. I wake from the dream at 8:17. My servants, ever so loyal and trustworthy, strip off my pajamas, open my guillet and pour breakfast down my throat. However, they are giving me a rather colorful suit instead of my pajamas for some reason. I like my pajamas. They are white, you know. They don’t seem to hear my screams, they don’t seem to feel my wrath anymore. What’s happening!? I hear them drag me towards an exit sign. The corridors turn blue, then red, and back to blue, each transition trying to make me vomit. The Big Bad Establishment’s office is fairly large and aside from the vomiting fairies inside it, it is a dull and completely normal place. In front of me, a pony with a mustache is telling me some wonderful, wonderful, news. My room was being changed. Apparently, my servants weren’t my servants anymore, my pajamas weren’t my pajamas anymore, and I was to be kicked in the butt so hard that I landed on the moon. My screams were loud as I bounced off the moon and finally onto an empty street. I was free. Finally.