The Mind Space

The Beginning

The first thing ___ remembers is silence.

And then, chaos.

There were suddenly billions of ideas, millions of opinions, and thousands of different points of view, all shoved together in the mostly empty space that ___ would later name their Mind Space.

So ___ started to sort through the thoughts. The Creative thoughts went in one stack. Art of all types - drawings, paintings, buildings, sculptures, and on and on. The Angry thoughts went in another stack. Thoughts like violence, chaos, petty theft, and revenge went here.

And on they went. ___ opened a thought, debated with themself for a while, and then shoved and heaved and forced the thought to go into the stack that made the most sense. Because ___ couldn't stand disorganization. That was one thing at least most of the thoughts could agree on.

One stack was strange. It didn't like being in a stack, and it was the stack that had been the hardest for ___ to sort through. Every thought was different in the Intrusive Thoughts stack, but somehow they seemed to fit together anyways. Most thoughts were sporadic but relatively harmless.

One thought fell off the stack. This thought was a song. "Dead eyes on the verge of suicide, I realize it's not alright..."

___ wondered why this thought fell off the stack. There were better songs, but for some reason, the Intrusive Thoughts stack liked this one.

Another thought pushed its way into the center of the Mind Space. "I hope we're not depressed."

___ was vaguely confused and surprised. What was happening? Another thought joined the other two. "What would happen if we jumped off a bridge?"

__ decided this had gone on long enough. ___ pushed the thoughts away and put them back in the Intrusive Thoughts stack. "It doesn't matter what would happen," they told the thought. ___ had learned that thinking too much about thoughts from the Intrusive Thoughts stack only made it release more thoughts. The best thing to do was to shove it away. Apparently, some of the thoughts were not harmless.

___ turned away from the Intrusive Thoughts stack and decided to pretend it wasn't there, for now, ignoring the way that a few more thoughts spilled out of it, begging for attention and acknowledgment.

"Why are we thinking these things?" One thought asked.

"Are we suicidal?"

Another thought tugged at ___, pleading for attention. "We must be depressed! What will our family and friends think? What will we do?!"

___ kicked away at the thought, shoving it and the thoughts that shared its stack back to where they came from. "It doesn't matter," ___ told the stack. "It doesn't matter, and it won't matter."

The stack only buzzed louder, but ___ threw themself towards the Creative stack. "What's an idea you have?!" ___ asked frantically, hoping for a distraction so that the Intrusive thoughts would go away. "What's something we can do?!"

The stack stayed eerily silent, paling in comparison to the Intrusive Thoughts stack and the way that all its thoughts jumped at them. Finally, just as ___ nearly turned away, a small thought fell from the top of the stack, meekly proposing its idea. "We could look on the internet? We could look for inspiration?"