Chapters The Soup Kitchen of the Mind
This story is awful, and that is why it was written.
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I’ll be blunt here, the story you are about to read is about a literal fucking loser. His name was Nicholas. He was 15 years old, gross not only physically; but mentally, and on top of that, he has almost no friends. Nick was a peculiar young man as well, he’d spend his days in his room, fantasizing about some particularly “lovable” characters from a trendy show. The only problem is that he had grown quite big mental relationship with the characters, and he really seemed quite crazy when he told me about it. Hell, I thought he was just being the same old Nicholas, random and whatnot, but his story affected how I thought the world worked. This is his story.
Nicholas woke up one day, feeling great about the day, but it had a weird feel to the word great. It felt as if he was at the top of the world, while at the same time restless and unprepared. But that didn’t stop him! Nicholas continued with his “waking up” process, which consisted of getting his shirt and pants on, walking down stairs, and sitting down on his couch.
“What to do today..” He mumbled to himself.
Suddenly, an idea! He decided to go through his old things in the attic, maybe finding something do. He walked into his hallway, pulled out his ceiling “trap door” and let the latter fall. As soon as that latter fell he ran up those steps with excitement in every movement. After rummaging around for awhile, he found an empty picture frame, an empty box, and a small Walkman from the 80’s. Now to any normal person, these items looked completely useless; and truth be told, they really where. But they were useless for what the young man had in mind for them. Nicholas popped in the Walkman earphones and turned it on.
The sound started as a blooming flower, slowly growing into a designated beat, producing colors with no names, masked by steaks of light that rippled through his mind. The sound waves would fade into a subconscious sound wave that echoed into his head, knocking against ever corner of his brain, from side to side, making his ears potentially lose perception. The music became more and more intense, and produced the most beautiful sounds in the galaxy. Streaks of light would continue to move in correlation to the sound, painting mental images of a physical manifestation of his body and soul; a void of reality that has been barely grazed upon, a field of reality that he was now entering.
Nicholas had gotten so into his music the he stumbled right off the latter, smacking his head dead straight into the box, with the picture frame in it, right as he collided with the floor. Everything went black, and boy, from what he explained, being knocked out doesn't feel like a second, then an abrupt waking up, but a pain describable on conscience terms. Anyhow, upon his awakening, the real story starts.
The Soup Kitchen of the Mind
The first thing he saw when waking up was the brightest neon colors, perfectly stitched with a perfect landscape. Not only that, but everything looked familiar, but not the same kind of familiar as in “I’ve been here before, so it looks like I imagined it would”. He got up and looked around.
“What in the holy mother of fuck?” he said, as the world broadened in front of his eyes. The trees were a beautiful green, laced with vines, and growing the shiniest apples he had ever seen. The grass blazed across his naked feet, it was cool mountain air. He watched a train come out of a small cave in the distance, below what looked like a large kingdom.
“Hey! You okay down there guy?” he heard from the clouds above.
Nicholas heard a little snicker as she swooped down and landed directly in front of him. Nick’s face filled with excitement, joy, amazement, and happiness, but a lingering feeling of pain still crept through all of these happy emotions.
“Ha, you look like you’ve seen a ghost! Say, I’ve never seen you around.” She rubbed her chin and inspected his face from every direction. “Yep, just what I thought.” She said.
“Wh-wha-what?” Nick replied shyly.
“You look like you’ve never gone for what I like to call a “Rainbow Dash” She said, winking, with a big smile on her face.
The next couple hours were spent, well, “Rainbow Dashing”.
"Come on! Jump on my back!" She said, smiling.
Nicholas, again, shyly mounted the equine, and he was soon lifted into the air. Wind smacked against his face, gripping tightly around her body frame. They sped skyward, reaching speeds that he had never experienced prior. All at a brief instance, they collided with a cloud still lingering in the sky. The collision happened to be unnaturally hard, and Nicholas and the Pegasus separated slightly above the hole previously made. As they both floated upwards for a brief amount of time, they looked into each others eyes. Simultaneously, sparks, well, sparked; and they grabbed on to each other in a moment of pure bliss, making a mental connection through such a truly enlightening experience. Nicholas had never experienced such a thing, not in his whole life.
Eventually the “dashing” had come to an end, and they landed in a small field to let loose.
“So.. What exactly are you?” She said, obviously trying not to giggle her little head off.
“Uh-umm.. I-I’m a Nick?” He mumbled, with slight smile, but mostly shyness.
She fell over laughing, holding her stomach, and occasionally letting out a tear. She proceeded to do this for about five minutes.
“Oh boy “Nick” you’re a killer!” she said with her laughter slowly dying out, “But hey, that was really fun, but I have to get going.. I’ll see you around, that is, if you stick around.” And she was gone.
Nick began humming to himself. As he stared at the night sky, beautiful constellations, and galaxies; he saw the universe was spread out in front of him. Out of all the places he could be, he had found his home. And deep in his heart, he knew his life would never frown again.
The Soup Kitchen of the Mind
Nicholas woke up. The forest was dark, and dim light let out through the tops of trees and shone very light streaks across the grassy path leading yonder. He noticed a very small yellow and pink creature looking over a bush at him, cowering and whimpering, showing signs of fear. He looked closely in the direction of the being, and his face grew questionable to if he had the slightest idea if it was who he really thought it was.
He peered in the direction of the small equine, and walked over to sit next to her. He brushed her mane as she quivered; much with the fear of lost child. As Nicholas stroked her velvet hair, flowers of all shades started to bloom around him and the young filly. Strokes of light illuminated everything around them, as her wings spread and they descended towards the sky. The flowers were still blooming, but reproducing at the same time, as they let go of streaks of light that waved through the air; grasping the cracks of reality around them. They would stroke themselves within the sky, painting a picture around them, and humming softly to the movement of the earth, as it moaned in ecstasy. Every flower that matured had mixed in with every color in our visual spectrum, and surrounded the boy and the cowering animal. Nicholas held her closer and closer each second, and her fears slowly left her mind, as she became at ease. He continually stroked her mane, and she drifted into a state of conscious rest. Nick peered into the darkness, and waited patiently for her awakening.
Hours past and she had slowly awakened within the young mans arms, similar to that of mother and child. She peered at him, and her pupils were as blue as the oceans glimmering waters. “How can I assist you today?” He said, with a grin on his face.
She was still speechless. Nicholas shook his head.
“Ill walk you back home, how about that? You don’t have to say anything.” He again said.
“O-okay” She whimpered back.
She led got on her legs, and notioned in the direction of her cottage. He again scooped her off the ground, and walked in the direction he was given. On the way to her cottage, he thought about how things worked. Why was this pony light enough to carry, yet another can easily pick him up and fly, with him on her spine? These thoughts continued to plague his mind, more so he lost his sense of direction, and not realized they had passed the cottage, more than twenty minutes prior. By the time his awareness had recovered, he noticed the mare was asleep. He walked back the direction he wandered off, and eventually made it to the cottage. Opening the door, he stepped inside and walked up the nearest stairway to her room, and laid her upon the bed. He smiled. Turning around, he walked back down the staircase, and back outside. It was night time already, and it would seem to him he had lost perception of time to a point of incomprehension.
The Soup Kitchen of the Mind
Again he lay himself upon the grassy fields in hopes of sleeping through starry nights. His mind drifted, at first slow, but eventually sped up. In time, is thought process was at full speed,and falling into sub-lucid states of awareness. Again, Nicholas looked at his jar of dust. He had been collecting it as the ripples tore larger and larger. Nobody ever seemed to notice, and this perplexed him even more so.
“If I think, then I am.” He said to himself.
“But if I am thinking that I am, am I really it? Me thinking implies doubt. If I know, I don’t need thought.”
And then, he understood.
His mind sprouted colors of every variation, in every direction, and intertwined into his thoughts. He created trees, clouds, the rain, and put it into perspective. Life bloomed in every corner of his mind, and it intertwined in a vivid reality of understanding; of universal oneness. All sound at once collided, creating the sound of pure astral energy. It sung from the oral tongue of enlightened sound, and created waves across the vivid projection of reality. As the mouth sung, the eyes saw. The eyes saw themselves as what they were seeing all together. The pupils of the void, containing a understanding big enough it easily comparable on a zelo-versal scale. Out side the bounds, Nicholas’s reality continued to grow. Colors would spread to places that never had color prior, and the sound of harmonic light would echo through said unseen places. Light would dance to the beat of the drums, and form it self as a being, slowly grasping the concepts of self awareness, ending its evolutionary process by floating into the the sky and beaming the beautiful light through cloudless to let the flowers grow. Rain would patter across the world, feeding those unable to move from their permanent homes in the ground, almost as if it they had eaten from the soup kitchen of the mind. Because the helpless was offered help, it soon got off its feet, and grew into maturity.
Nicholas opened his eyes, and looked at the sky. The constellations again spread out across the pre-daylight hours, creating visual representations of memories once passed.
The Soup Kitchen of the Mind
Upon waking up, nothing had really changed. The grass was still breezing through where he had fallen asleep Waking up was much the same as the previous day, but this time the lingering pain had faded more than ever, because he woke up knowing that he would have a reason to smile everyday. Nick hadn't dreamed that night either, the whole scenario just seemed like a good dream, but he was obviously wrong. He wasn't sure when he was going to see her again, but he was willing to wait, and definitely stick around for the time to come around again.
He got up, brushed himself off, and began to walk north, to the forest lying ahead. He had seen the interior of this forest many a time and wasn’t really afraid of the dangers that could be lurking behind the corners of every tall tree. He peaked around the corner from time to time, to see up ahead. Eventually, he grew tiresome and would lay for a nap within a bush he found on occasion, and drift off into sleep. Light would flicker throughout bits of space, revealing reality for a brief second. As the sparks ignited, they let bits of their essence fly within a breeze and shake themselves upon people who didn't have the patience to see. It would rain this dust, upon what we called our life, and it was never taken for granted. Slowly, Nicholas had been collecting this dust, and letting it build up, building his own reality within another, slowly bringing his own imagination to life. As this dust built up, so did his affection for his own world. And he’d wake up, within his own world. The beauty and grace was better than dreaming, because it was no longer what he wished, it was what it really was: his own reality brought to a physical form, that he was capable of living in.