He woke up in a silent, colorless world of bright white.
Rubbing his eyes and shielding them from the glare, he looked around and found... absolutely nothing. It took him a few seconds to realize -with a twinge of panic- that he was literally the only thing in that world; right, left, up and down were all the same hazy, featureless fog, and he could see no solid objects whatsoever. He couldn't help smiling at the irony that a claustrophobe such as himself would also somehow feel agoraphobic.
"Am I dead?" He asked himself... but it didn't seem to make sense; it was entirely too peaceful a setting for what he imagined his afterlife would be like.
After considering it for a few seconds, he noticed the fog again... and something clicked in his head; he was dreaming. It was probably just a new way for his subconscious to amuse itself by toying with him overnight. Looking down, he found that -in a bizarre plot twist that went against the timeless laws of dreamland- he was actually dressed... quite sharply; in a tailored designer suit, no less. That did not make sense either; his subconscious specialized in traumatizing dreams... why was it suddenly so eerily toothless and not as intent on embarrassing him? He could only assume that the fun part of the dream had yet to begin.
He tried moving his body, and it seemed to move normally... so he had no handicaps or deformities that he could immediately notice. He tried speaking, and his voice was his own... albeit musical and serene with an angelic, other-worldly echo. Stranger and stranger- he usually sounded like a drowning cat in his dreams. The final confirmation that he was dreaming came when he tried jumping; the jump itself was not note-worthy... but the lack of gravity certainly was. He hovered in mid-air for a few seconds, processing this new development... then, as any self-respecting 7 year-old-at-heart would do, tried to will himself to fly... and he did! It was of course much less impressive when there were no land markers he could use to judge his height and speed; but screw that! The moment he'd been waiting for since he was 4 had come at last; he was finally soaring upwards in his dream, and damn it if he wasn't going to enjoy every minute of it.
Higher and higher and higher he flew, but the sky was literally the limit; no matter how much higher he climbed, the nothingness stretched on and on with no end in sight... so he decided to switch tactics, and swerved sideways... if there was nothing to be seen upwards, he would fly to the east indefinitely, and he was bound to find something eventually.
Soon enough he realized that he wasn't even flying; there were no winds bashing his face and making his eyes water... and his flight was not physically taxing; he was not stretching his arms like Superman or holding on to a hammer a la Thor or flapping his wings like a bird- his was a more elegant flight; more mental than physical... he was levitating as Magneto would.
Three comic book references in the same thought? Yep, his subconscious was back to embarrassing him again.
"Let it do it its worst in my dream where no one can see it", he reasoned.
After he flew for what felt like hours, he suddenly began to see something outlined on the horizon... and it took him a few more minutes of flying to figure out what it was. It was so bizarre that he dropped out of the sky for a few seconds before he regained control and brought himself to a halt... then he flew towards it with all the more vigor. A few minutes later found him at the eye-level of a colossal statue of himself which must have been at least a hundred feet tall; raised on a solid gold platform twenty feet high. His every facial feature was sculpted to perfection with a loving, almost supernatural attention to detail; he saw every beauty mark; acne scar and wrinkle exactly where he'd expect to see them in a mirror. His hair was waves of molten gold; glowing with a bright sheen, and his eyes were bottomless pools of peaceful, sparkling blue, in vast contrast to the wild but fierce black beard that covered the skin above his full lips as well as his chin and sharp jaw. Gliding downwards, he could see that his body was given just as much attention as his face had been; his shoulders, arms, back, neck and chest muscles were all exactly how he'd remembered them; except even more pronounced and impressive.
I will spare you the details from the waist down... but it was more of the same, really.
Mouth agape, he floated to the base of the platform and stood there wondering what could be happening... then he looked up again, which was a grave mistake because the statue was only wearing a scaled bronze skirt and nothing underneath.
Shaking the image from his head, he turned around... then gave a musical and serene girly shriek of surprise with his angelic, other-worldly voice.
His ex-girlfriend was sitting in a throne at the base of the gold platform... and the throne could only be described as a ten-foot, solid-gold replica of his lap.
She was sitting in a ten-foot golden throne made of his lap.
Her ten-foot throne was his golden lap; and that same ten foot golden lap throne was right next to a hundred foot statue of himself on a twenty foot-high solid-gold platform.
What was WRONG with him?
Was his ego really so massive?
Yes... yes it was. His ego was huge, but his subconscious was a gigantic douchebag even bigger than the statue for bringing his ex-girlfriend into this. She was dressed in an elegant, flowing black dress with a golden crown studded with diamonds, sapphires, rubies and amethysts nestled amongst her curls. She was also holding an actual, honest-to-God golden scepter.
"What's with all the gold?" He mused.
She looked down on him with a glare full of pride and chilling coldness... but there was also a silent appeal in her eyes, mixed with another emotion he could only guess at.
"What's with all the gold?" He asked.
"Tell me why you're here" She demanded, completely ignoring his question. Her voice was the same as he'd remembered it, but she also had the same musical and serene, angelic, other-worldly echo. He didn't like that... that was his thing.
"Why I'm here? You're the one who showed up uninvited... This is my hundred and twenty foot monument to my greatness, thank you very much. Get your own." That sounded too childish in his musical and serene, angelic, other-worldly voice, and he internally resolved to speak more like an adult.
"I have no time or patience for this. You will answer my question." She met his eyes and replied fiercely, in a British accent for some reason.
The answer he'd intended to give her was "Why are you speaking like Queen Cersei?", but what came out was "Because I owe you the truth".
Wait, what? "How did she do that?" He wondered, again outraged at his sadistic subconscious.
"I see." She said in response... then she hesitated for a second before saying:
"Well, let me start. I have some unresolved feelings for you. I don't know what to do about them, so I wanted to talk to you so I can finally move on." He knew then what that other emotion he'd seen in her eyes was.
He held his silence, waiting for her get to the point.
"Do you have something to tell me?" She asked impatiently.
"Not really. Did you know we could totally fly here?" He asked innocently.
"Fine, have it your way." She replied, then she looked him in the eyes again and forcefully continued:
"I would like to know why things did not work out between us. Talk." She demanded again with unflinching eye-contact.
Weirder and weirder... he was beginning to notice a pattern. It seemed that whenever she asked something of him, he was compelled to answer her truthfully. He noticed this in the split second window before he spilled his guts:
"In two words? Clinical depression. People think that if someone's laughing and seems to be having a good time, then they're feeling fine and nothing's wrong with them. You fell for that trap; I've always hinted at my depression but we never really talked about it much, so you didn't give it much thought... and it's easy to miss it, because depression doesn't always show. It isn't all about sleeping all day or being in pain or getting suicidal thoughts... it is sometimes, on really bad days, but you know what it's like for most days? Nothing. Like this place; which is probably why it's all my subconscious could dream up. Complete, mind-numbing nothingness.
You can spend weeks feeling no joy from anything you do. All food tastes like canned beans on toast; every shiny new thing you buy; every friendship; every success in life; they all feel like minor, temporary blips of happiness on an eternal flat-line of "meh". You never feel motivated to see anyone or to do anything or have the energy for it, anyways... and all you can do to distract yourself from the nothingness is to obsess about your job and your hobbies which you grow to enjoy less and less as you start to ponder the meaning of life and whether or not it's even worth it.
And these are the good days... I'll let you figure out how bad the bad days can get. They're unpredictable, savage, impossible to foresee and can be triggered by the tiniest of stimuli.
How do you think I could have still been a perfect boyfriend when I'm always drained by this constant war which has been raging inside my head ever since I hit puberty?
And then there's my self-hatred and tendency to relentlessly sabotage every healthy friendship or relationship in my life because I literally don't know how to be happy... yeah that's a particularly fun little fact I should probably mention, too... but we actually talked about this one, so it should come as no surprise.
Then we get to my anxiety and my inability to let things go. Whenever something's bothering me, I have to talk about it and I have to talk about it NOW. I'm normally a very diplomatic person, but it's difficult to keep it up when you have anxiety; the unresolved feelings of uncertainty are death to me... I always have to know where things stand, so when we had our fights and disagreements, it was difficult for me to let things slide or wait for a more appropriate time to bring them up again; I'd always say what I felt immediately when I felt it because I literally can't not do it, and that's how things kept getting worse... and I fully take the blame for this part.
My point is that it was easy for you to love me when I was being a knight in shining armor... but when you put me on a pedestal, it was impossible for me to live up to your expectations; and when I started being human, I fell from grace. I was no longer the perfect demigod who could do no wrong, and you couldn't handle that."
She was silent for a few minutes as she considered his words, then she replied accusingly:
"You know what? You're full of shit. You put yourself on that pedestal, not me. You stormed into my life and swept me off my feet literally out of nowhere, and always pretended to be a stupid white knight even when you weren't. How could I have known the real you when you were hiding him the entire time? You say that it's impossible to notice depression... so how was I supposed to know? How was I ever supposed to guess all of these issues if you never talked to me about them? You always pretended to be unshakable or unbreakable or whatever it is you used to call yourself, and you always changed the subject whenever we got close to talking about any of this. I understand now that you weren't withdrawing because you were trying to hurt me or because you didn't love me anymore; but you have to understand that it really seemed that way at the time. You should have talked to me... I would have understood." her voice was reproachful, and her eyes were shining.
"I know... I don't know how to show vulnerability and that's what killed us, wasn't it?" He wondered aloud.
"Yes... but it wasn't just you... it takes two to tango. I should have been more persistent... if I'd pushed you to talk to me, who knows? I think we were both just too proud to try." She concluded sadly.
They stood there -well, he stood there while she sat there in the ten foot golden lap throne- for a few minutes; then she asked the question he'd known was coming:
"Do you still have feelings for me?"
Eye-contact. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SERIOUSLY FUCK MY SUBCONSCIOUS FOR MAKING ME ANSWER THIS ONE.
Unless... because that was his subconscious, then maybe he could wriggle out of it. He gave it a go.
"I will only answer if you answer the same question". He replied, folding his arms.
It worked! It seemed like his subconscious couldn't answer on her behalf because it didn't know her answer; and since she couldn't answer either then he didn't have to. "I'M A GENIUS!" He thought.
He only got to bask in the glow for about three seconds before she destroyed his theory by saying:
"I think if any two people were ever truly in love, they never really move on. They do, but not all of them does... do you know what I mean? I think if we're born with let's say 10 love units, past loves permanently occupy some of those so there's less and less of us there for every new relationship until we finally wear down and become cynical when they run out. This doesn't mean I'm in love with you, but that a part of me will probably always love you and there's not much I can do about it."
Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT... now he had to answer the same question.
"I... think yours is a question with... many possible answers..." He struggled to fight the urge; tried to think about anything else... but it was too strong; he would either break or choke, soon enough.
"OK, enough of this. I can read your thoughts and I know how you feel. I've heard what I needed to hear, and I finally have closure. You can go." She finished dismissively.
What? You can read my thoughts? How can you read my thoughts? Is my subconscious actively trying to destroy me?
"Who says it's your subconscious? This is not your dream." She replied mystically.
"I think it's time I took you off that pedestal now"
An irresistible force was pulling him away. As he was yanked out of the dream, he saw her descend the crumbling ten foot golden lap throne as it collapsed, while visible cracks spread across his statue's torso with a thunderous clap as it fell apart all over the golden pedestal.
He woke up with inexplicable feelings of loss, but couldn't for the life of him remember the reason... then he shrugged and went back to sleep.
She woke up with a hopeful smile... she was free at last.
Rubbing his eyes and shielding them from the glare, he looked around and found... absolutely nothing. It took him a few seconds to realize -with a twinge of panic- that he was literally the only thing in that world; right, left, up and down were all the same hazy, featureless fog, and he could see no solid objects whatsoever. He couldn't help smiling at the irony that a claustrophobe such as himself would also somehow feel agoraphobic.
"Am I dead?" He asked himself... but it didn't seem to make sense; it was entirely too peaceful a setting for what he imagined his afterlife would be like.
After considering it for a few seconds, he noticed the fog again... and something clicked in his head; he was dreaming. It was probably just a new way for his subconscious to amuse itself by toying with him overnight. Looking down, he found that -in a bizarre plot twist that went against the timeless laws of dreamland- he was actually dressed... quite sharply; in a tailored designer suit, no less. That did not make sense either; his subconscious specialized in traumatizing dreams... why was it suddenly so eerily toothless and not as intent on embarrassing him? He could only assume that the fun part of the dream had yet to begin.
He tried moving his body, and it seemed to move normally... so he had no handicaps or deformities that he could immediately notice. He tried speaking, and his voice was his own... albeit musical and serene with an angelic, other-worldly echo. Stranger and stranger- he usually sounded like a drowning cat in his dreams. The final confirmation that he was dreaming came when he tried jumping; the jump itself was not note-worthy... but the lack of gravity certainly was. He hovered in mid-air for a few seconds, processing this new development... then, as any self-respecting 7 year-old-at-heart would do, tried to will himself to fly... and he did! It was of course much less impressive when there were no land markers he could use to judge his height and speed; but screw that! The moment he'd been waiting for since he was 4 had come at last; he was finally soaring upwards in his dream, and damn it if he wasn't going to enjoy every minute of it.
Higher and higher and higher he flew, but the sky was literally the limit; no matter how much higher he climbed, the nothingness stretched on and on with no end in sight... so he decided to switch tactics, and swerved sideways... if there was nothing to be seen upwards, he would fly to the east indefinitely, and he was bound to find something eventually.
Soon enough he realized that he wasn't even flying; there were no winds bashing his face and making his eyes water... and his flight was not physically taxing; he was not stretching his arms like Superman or holding on to a hammer a la Thor or flapping his wings like a bird- his was a more elegant flight; more mental than physical... he was levitating as Magneto would.
Three comic book references in the same thought? Yep, his subconscious was back to embarrassing him again.
"Let it do it its worst in my dream where no one can see it", he reasoned.
After he flew for what felt like hours, he suddenly began to see something outlined on the horizon... and it took him a few more minutes of flying to figure out what it was. It was so bizarre that he dropped out of the sky for a few seconds before he regained control and brought himself to a halt... then he flew towards it with all the more vigor. A few minutes later found him at the eye-level of a colossal statue of himself which must have been at least a hundred feet tall; raised on a solid gold platform twenty feet high. His every facial feature was sculpted to perfection with a loving, almost supernatural attention to detail; he saw every beauty mark; acne scar and wrinkle exactly where he'd expect to see them in a mirror. His hair was waves of molten gold; glowing with a bright sheen, and his eyes were bottomless pools of peaceful, sparkling blue, in vast contrast to the wild but fierce black beard that covered the skin above his full lips as well as his chin and sharp jaw. Gliding downwards, he could see that his body was given just as much attention as his face had been; his shoulders, arms, back, neck and chest muscles were all exactly how he'd remembered them; except even more pronounced and impressive.
I will spare you the details from the waist down... but it was more of the same, really.
Mouth agape, he floated to the base of the platform and stood there wondering what could be happening... then he looked up again, which was a grave mistake because the statue was only wearing a scaled bronze skirt and nothing underneath.
Shaking the image from his head, he turned around... then gave a musical and serene girly shriek of surprise with his angelic, other-worldly voice.
His ex-girlfriend was sitting in a throne at the base of the gold platform... and the throne could only be described as a ten-foot, solid-gold replica of his lap.
She was sitting in a ten-foot golden throne made of his lap.
Her ten-foot throne was his golden lap; and that same ten foot golden lap throne was right next to a hundred foot statue of himself on a twenty foot-high solid-gold platform.
What was WRONG with him?
Was his ego really so massive?
Yes... yes it was. His ego was huge, but his subconscious was a gigantic douchebag even bigger than the statue for bringing his ex-girlfriend into this. She was dressed in an elegant, flowing black dress with a golden crown studded with diamonds, sapphires, rubies and amethysts nestled amongst her curls. She was also holding an actual, honest-to-God golden scepter.
"What's with all the gold?" He mused.
She looked down on him with a glare full of pride and chilling coldness... but there was also a silent appeal in her eyes, mixed with another emotion he could only guess at.
"What's with all the gold?" He asked.
"Tell me why you're here" She demanded, completely ignoring his question. Her voice was the same as he'd remembered it, but she also had the same musical and serene, angelic, other-worldly echo. He didn't like that... that was his thing.
"Why I'm here? You're the one who showed up uninvited... This is my hundred and twenty foot monument to my greatness, thank you very much. Get your own." That sounded too childish in his musical and serene, angelic, other-worldly voice, and he internally resolved to speak more like an adult.
"I have no time or patience for this. You will answer my question." She met his eyes and replied fiercely, in a British accent for some reason.
The answer he'd intended to give her was "Why are you speaking like Queen Cersei?", but what came out was "Because I owe you the truth".
Wait, what? "How did she do that?" He wondered, again outraged at his sadistic subconscious.
"I see." She said in response... then she hesitated for a second before saying:
"Well, let me start. I have some unresolved feelings for you. I don't know what to do about them, so I wanted to talk to you so I can finally move on." He knew then what that other emotion he'd seen in her eyes was.
He held his silence, waiting for her get to the point.
"Do you have something to tell me?" She asked impatiently.
"Not really. Did you know we could totally fly here?" He asked innocently.
"Fine, have it your way." She replied, then she looked him in the eyes again and forcefully continued:
"I would like to know why things did not work out between us. Talk." She demanded again with unflinching eye-contact.
Weirder and weirder... he was beginning to notice a pattern. It seemed that whenever she asked something of him, he was compelled to answer her truthfully. He noticed this in the split second window before he spilled his guts:
"In two words? Clinical depression. People think that if someone's laughing and seems to be having a good time, then they're feeling fine and nothing's wrong with them. You fell for that trap; I've always hinted at my depression but we never really talked about it much, so you didn't give it much thought... and it's easy to miss it, because depression doesn't always show. It isn't all about sleeping all day or being in pain or getting suicidal thoughts... it is sometimes, on really bad days, but you know what it's like for most days? Nothing. Like this place; which is probably why it's all my subconscious could dream up. Complete, mind-numbing nothingness.
You can spend weeks feeling no joy from anything you do. All food tastes like canned beans on toast; every shiny new thing you buy; every friendship; every success in life; they all feel like minor, temporary blips of happiness on an eternal flat-line of "meh". You never feel motivated to see anyone or to do anything or have the energy for it, anyways... and all you can do to distract yourself from the nothingness is to obsess about your job and your hobbies which you grow to enjoy less and less as you start to ponder the meaning of life and whether or not it's even worth it.
And these are the good days... I'll let you figure out how bad the bad days can get. They're unpredictable, savage, impossible to foresee and can be triggered by the tiniest of stimuli.
How do you think I could have still been a perfect boyfriend when I'm always drained by this constant war which has been raging inside my head ever since I hit puberty?
And then there's my self-hatred and tendency to relentlessly sabotage every healthy friendship or relationship in my life because I literally don't know how to be happy... yeah that's a particularly fun little fact I should probably mention, too... but we actually talked about this one, so it should come as no surprise.
Then we get to my anxiety and my inability to let things go. Whenever something's bothering me, I have to talk about it and I have to talk about it NOW. I'm normally a very diplomatic person, but it's difficult to keep it up when you have anxiety; the unresolved feelings of uncertainty are death to me... I always have to know where things stand, so when we had our fights and disagreements, it was difficult for me to let things slide or wait for a more appropriate time to bring them up again; I'd always say what I felt immediately when I felt it because I literally can't not do it, and that's how things kept getting worse... and I fully take the blame for this part.
My point is that it was easy for you to love me when I was being a knight in shining armor... but when you put me on a pedestal, it was impossible for me to live up to your expectations; and when I started being human, I fell from grace. I was no longer the perfect demigod who could do no wrong, and you couldn't handle that."
She was silent for a few minutes as she considered his words, then she replied accusingly:
"You know what? You're full of shit. You put yourself on that pedestal, not me. You stormed into my life and swept me off my feet literally out of nowhere, and always pretended to be a stupid white knight even when you weren't. How could I have known the real you when you were hiding him the entire time? You say that it's impossible to notice depression... so how was I supposed to know? How was I ever supposed to guess all of these issues if you never talked to me about them? You always pretended to be unshakable or unbreakable or whatever it is you used to call yourself, and you always changed the subject whenever we got close to talking about any of this. I understand now that you weren't withdrawing because you were trying to hurt me or because you didn't love me anymore; but you have to understand that it really seemed that way at the time. You should have talked to me... I would have understood." her voice was reproachful, and her eyes were shining.
"I know... I don't know how to show vulnerability and that's what killed us, wasn't it?" He wondered aloud.
"Yes... but it wasn't just you... it takes two to tango. I should have been more persistent... if I'd pushed you to talk to me, who knows? I think we were both just too proud to try." She concluded sadly.
They stood there -well, he stood there while she sat there in the ten foot golden lap throne- for a few minutes; then she asked the question he'd known was coming:
"Do you still have feelings for me?"
Eye-contact. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SERIOUSLY FUCK MY SUBCONSCIOUS FOR MAKING ME ANSWER THIS ONE.
Unless... because that was his subconscious, then maybe he could wriggle out of it. He gave it a go.
"I will only answer if you answer the same question". He replied, folding his arms.
It worked! It seemed like his subconscious couldn't answer on her behalf because it didn't know her answer; and since she couldn't answer either then he didn't have to. "I'M A GENIUS!" He thought.
He only got to bask in the glow for about three seconds before she destroyed his theory by saying:
"I think if any two people were ever truly in love, they never really move on. They do, but not all of them does... do you know what I mean? I think if we're born with let's say 10 love units, past loves permanently occupy some of those so there's less and less of us there for every new relationship until we finally wear down and become cynical when they run out. This doesn't mean I'm in love with you, but that a part of me will probably always love you and there's not much I can do about it."
Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT... now he had to answer the same question.
"I... think yours is a question with... many possible answers..." He struggled to fight the urge; tried to think about anything else... but it was too strong; he would either break or choke, soon enough.
"OK, enough of this. I can read your thoughts and I know how you feel. I've heard what I needed to hear, and I finally have closure. You can go." She finished dismissively.
What? You can read my thoughts? How can you read my thoughts? Is my subconscious actively trying to destroy me?
"Who says it's your subconscious? This is not your dream." She replied mystically.
"I think it's time I took you off that pedestal now"
An irresistible force was pulling him away. As he was yanked out of the dream, he saw her descend the crumbling ten foot golden lap throne as it collapsed, while visible cracks spread across his statue's torso with a thunderous clap as it fell apart all over the golden pedestal.
He woke up with inexplicable feelings of loss, but couldn't for the life of him remember the reason... then he shrugged and went back to sleep.
She woke up with a hopeful smile... she was free at last.
*************************
Now read it again knowing that it's her subconscious and things will make more sense.
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