My Beautiful Mind

                                                                        MY BEAUTIFUL MIND

                                                                   By Christopher John Tobin

 "Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

- John Lennon

                                                                                 For Lauren.

                                                                              CHAPTER ONE

She looked at me with skeptical, disapproving eyes. Showering me with her looks from tip to toe. Thick black hair and thick black boots. I, to her, was just another statistic. An embodiment of anguish, just another hormone imbalance.

"So...” she elongated, referring to her clipboard, she had obviously not taken the time to become equated with my file at all.”Young, Violet".

”I prefer it the other way round” I sniggered; trying to create some friendly atmosphere with this, what seemed, extremely exhausted woman.  An attempt with her eyes, sharp and lucid as daggers, to knock me. My omnipotent confidence trying to overpower her belittling effects. Fire and torment raging from the very depths of the dragons mouth, I pulled out my sword and made a lunge at her throat - Wait, no. No. That was just in my head (I was extreamly bored, if you can't tell). 

The room fell silent for a moment and just as she was about to blurt out some other insignificant crap I stated "So!” with great exclamation “any questions?”. Again, tapering her drowsy and disinterested eyes at me.

"Ms.Young..." Ms.Young was my mother. I never was, and never will be my mother and therefore "I’m Violet, so call me Violet". And, yet again, another simultaneous narrowing of those cynical eyes. "How long have you been having these dreams?" Dreams?  Jesus. Well by definition, yes. But no. These unadulterated torments haunted my mind each and every single night. Repetitive. These were no dreams, these were nightmares as pure as the word can come. "A better question Ms..." She read off the clipboard for her own name, god damn, this lady was more senile than a bat in a bookstore. "Starnes, Ms. E. Starnes" and again, there was silence.

By this time you could smell and breathe the abundant awkwardness in this systematic room. "E?" She went to answer, but burped. I wanted to get out of there. Every which way and direction the hell out of that bland and bureaucratically boring place. But I had to stay, I had to get my 500ml per day of opium because I wasn't religious and I didn't too much care for art anymore, either.

"Eunice, Eunice Starnes" I swear to God the name sounded (and most probably smelt) worse than the burp. Tedious and dull would be the best way to describe this obvious cat lover, not that I have anything against cats, it just seemed like this woman needed a hobby or a friend. To this date I still feel that most people’s depression and monotony all results back to loneliness, the fear of dying and no one giving a shit. The fear of being forgotten; the fear of being a failure, because what we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. And we all want to be immortal, don't we?

However, as hypocritical as it sounds I was not going to be that friend. Anyway. "A better question would be, how frequent are these dreams" I explained. She was half paying attention, but acknowledged what I said and gave an unproblematic nod. "Once a night, every night since...well...forever" She looked up. Uninterested. Unamused. Drained.

"Well, Ms.Yo....Violet" There was huge emphasis on the V, I laughed and she snapped me with her bulgy brown eyes."What do these dreams" I swear to god I could've killed her right then and there but I smiled, sarcastically, and she gave me the same. "Consist of?"

I'm an extremely open person; and therefore I had no bother in lowering my subconscious flood gates to anyone who was willing, cared or was being paid to help. Plus, to get my dose I had to sit through this. All of it. All of this god damn repetitive cycle of confessing the many thoughts and jubilation's of my cranium and attempting many different methods of trying to overcome the appreantly significant problem that had been haunting me every single night for the last forever.

None of it worked, honestly, all of it was bullshit. I had moved on from councillor to councillor, all telling me the same things. All forcing me, or trying to force me, to be fucking happy. Well it's not that easy; what the hell is normal anyway? Everyone's different, no one not even Lucy Mears is perfect. Or normal. But my particular talent was recalling dreams, it so was much more than that though. I could see the future, my future. And I could try, although most efforts were in vain, to change it.

I still don't understand why the hell we should be numb. I want to breathe cold and soul shattering air, I want to be able to see these extraordinary predictions every time I slept because it made me feel alive! So alive. I just wanted, and I felt like I deserved, a reason behind it. I was, well am, an ardent follower of oneirology (that's just a pretentious way of saying I find the study of dreams incredibly interesting). This pencil pusher obviously wasn't.

I explained to her the process, my process. A trail and coil of falling into rest and seeing the following day; mirrored with one slight difference. The reflected inhabitants of this dream world (her words not and certainly not mine)  had no faces, eyes, noses, ears, mouths. Nothing. They could not see, they could not taste, and they could not speak. Silent. Pure and utter silence apart from the callings of a mother woodpecker to her young, or the swaying of the gargantuan sycamore leaves swaying in the mellow wind. All these... ‘predictions’ ended in suicidium, without failure. Whether I had control, or not. All. All and every single reflection ended in blood and death. My minds great labyrinth of suffering; from which I seemed to have no way out; only to wake up and act the sequence I had just seen before my very eyes.

"Well!" She said, after noting down on a  rough assortment of sticky notes, "That's certainly a story isn't it Ms.Young" I wanted to whisper "fuck you" and slam the creaky wooden door leaving her to an

assortment of cats but she didn't seem to be patronizing....or sarcastic. She seemed generally interested. I think she could realise I was intelligent, a shadow of her former self at a younger age with great ambition to fall in love and make a difference, but I wasn't there for the long haul. I wanted my pills; and I wanted to get out.

"I want my pills" I stated. "Mhm" and another unproblematic nod. I looked at her for a moment, it seemed to last more than one though. Like I was looking through her eyes, and into her life. And then I left the room and left her. I have a habit of doing that.