I think, at the end of the day, what bothers me the most is how unnoticeable it is.
If I squint, I may still be able to convince myself everything is normal from memories alone of what life was once like. But every other waking moment, it's a sickness at the back of my head, waning and waxing nausea as I look around at how completely and utterly normal the world is- like all of reality is trying to convince me at once that I'm going mad, that this is the only way life has ever been.
This record stands not only to remind myself of once was as my memory weakens, but as my formal, personal apology- if anyone reads this, they will undoubtedly dismiss me as a raving lunatic. Do so, then. But if you believe nothing else in this account, believe me when I say I'm sorry. I really, truly am.
The very first thing I noticed about the shape which would become my undoing was how paradoxical it was. It existed on flat paper, as a completely flat shape- yet through pen alone the artist could convince me that the shape was real, held a depth unmatched across its face, light meeting one end, shadow falling off the other. Such a thing would be so impossible to form in nature, that if it existed, I would be able to find no up or down on it, no indicator whatsoever that could alert me to any single point on its face- I could stare at one spot, spin it, and never see that spot again in my life.
The Circle- I shall call it that, although it fails to do the strange shape justice- was found the way I find most of my treasures, that being thrift shopping. Being a stallion of not much material wealth, I cut corners whenever possible, although I still try to keep as much dignity as I can in my purchasing. Clothes, furnishings, belongings, nearly everything I own is passed down or bought secondhand at small stores, marketplaces, or garage sales. The last one in particular has given me some of my most cherished heirlooms, the completely useless products that decorate my house. Oftentimes people advise me against such senseless purchases- I'm down enough on my luck as it is, in a position that could be politely described as 'between jobs', and it seems frivolous to my better off lenders that I purchase items like instant grape peelers, cookie jars shaped like cows, or Tiki lamps.
But the sheer mental toll of being poor forces my hoof- I despise how frequently I'm forced to barely get by. I hate the feeling that I need to cheat the system in order to keep myself alive and healthy, or some approximation of it. To have even the smallest amount of control in my life keeps me sane, and that control is buying worthless knick knacks for less than five bits. If somebody else doesn't want it, it will surely be dumped in a landfill by the end of the week. I see it as not just my duty to others, but my duty to my continued happiness to indulge in what little freedom I can afford, even if it means a little more haggling for oranges or a day without electricity.
So really, The Perfect Roundness was an improvement on a waste of electricity or novelty container. It was a painting, allegedly from some family member of the seller who had recently passes, depicting nothing more than the titular on white canvas- a single grey circle, with a black shadow underlining its shape. It made me happy to look at, it made the buyer happy that it wouldn't have to be disposed of, and it would surely rest the spirit of the struggling artist who finally managed to make a postmortem sale. I bought it in a heartbeat when I saw the meager price, and took it home without a second thought.
When I tell you next how long I spent staring at it, it surely will not do much to dissuade you from the notion that I am beyond saving, but this too has an explanation I hope will suffice. I'm an amateur artist myself- amateur mostly in part to how little time I have to practice, and the rarity at which I replenish my supplies- and frequently in the days when I finished a piece would I find myself doing nothing but staring longingly at it, lamenting how unlikely it was that it would ever see a light outside my living room, or whatever apartment I dragged it to if I still thought it worth keeping. Upon hanging The Circle, I was stricken with a very similar sense, the sense of completion as if I myself had drawn the piece. I stared at it for what must have been half an hour on end, admiring the depth and the way it was captured, a way I had never seen before at that point. So many shades were captured in the transition between the white point of the shape and the shadowed point, mixed and blended so excellently I could fool myself into thinking such an object could be real, an object I could turn in my hoof and watch the reflection move in real time.
I confess that my eyesight is far from perfect. I may indeed need contacts, or something of the sort, but have always been far too insecure to pursue this, say nothing of the absurd price it would surely cost. It's because of this that it failed to strike me in the morning the slight change, stumbling around blearily for the first part of my day due to another in a long series of insomniac nights that have bore the curves of bags under my eyes like some old man.
But as the day continued, I took notice of the change for the first time- indescribable, for the simple reason that the change I am to describe is the world that exists today. When you look down at yourself, at the grass or sun or sky, you see the final product of a long, grueling, agonizing metamorphosis across days and days that I seek to record. To this end, its useless to explain why it horrified me without explaining what the world once was.
As alien as it may sound, for over two decades of my life I knew a world where the clouds twisted into elegant, repeating patterns, where the grass stretched into a green plane with rolling hills and only the faintest hint of individual blades drawn across the surface. When I waved my hoof, I saw one flowing movement. When I looked into my eyes in the mirror, I saw at most five colors. Within water I saw a wave of blue, like moving gelatin. The darkness of a room without doors or windows open was just that- black, and it would always be black until a sliver of light was let in.
The new world ached like a nagging headache, and I only took notice when I was spoken to.
"Why not?"
It was a complete non-sequitur, no way to open a conversation. In my confusion, I could only beg their pardon.
"I said, Hey there!"
I shook the initial confusion off, and would not remember it if I did not know what I know now. The girl, Apple Bloom, was a young fruit vendor taking over their family business as they had recently passed into adulthood, and I was more than happy to patronize from them at the prices and kindness they offered. When I lifted the apple to inspect for bruises, I realized I saw it much clearer- it struck me as impossible that it could be anything but ripe, with none of the wariness I may have once had with my inexpert agriculture knowledge. Then I took a bite- admittedly before paying- and became instantly enamored. Never had a simple apple tasted this good, and I finally understood why one could dedicate their life to the melodic juice, the delicate crunch. I was all ready to proclaim this until I saw the vendor's expression, and became suddenly afraid that this was not a sensation others were privy to. Not wanting to make a show of myself, and already holding up the line, I paid quickly and moved on.
All throughout the day I felt livelier- not just the apple, but all of the world seemed fresher and newer to me, a single shift to the right. Music trickled into my ears in cool streams, the gravel under me crunched distinctly with each step, and I barely thought anything of my suffering eyesight the entire day. Nothing scared me at all- what's more, I felt happier after what had been a long depressive slum. When I returned to my house with breakfast eaten and plans for lunch forming, I returned to the painting, appreciating the new light I saw it in. The Circle looked realer, and at its core I could no longer make out the grain of the woven canvas it was painted on. It was a solid object, trapped in the weakening restraints of its 2D plane. Again I failed to connect the word 'circle' to its shape- it was something far, far greater, which I felt I was grasping at straws to understand. An entirely separate dimension of form existed, and this shape was proof of it.
I went to bed a new man, without a single discernible change in my life to chalk it up to. With the next day came another shift to the right, and now I began to wonder. The Circle was practically a photo, superimposed onto the canvas so perfectly it burnt away the fabric underneath, like a portal to another world.
I returned to the same market, forgoing my usual cycle of water holes to test a theory I was beginning to form. With my face locked tightly into place I paid for the apple, and bit into it. Tastes I could never have before imagined seeped into my mouth, and I had to keep myself from melting into orgasmic bliss from the simple taste I had taken for granted. I shut my eyes in pleasure, and as I pulled the apple from my mouth, I found myself unable to open them. I was still tired, saved by the insomnia that had only made my life harder until now. When I came to, really came to, the entire world would be like this one apple, and I may very well drown in the sensation.
Indeed, I opened my eyes and became instantly overexposed. The new world hurt, and only I seemed aware of it. Clouds in the sky were becoming unique and incredible, I could make out individual blades of grass just by looking down. When I waved my hoof, I saw hundreds of tiny movements flowing together. Water was a collection of drops and streams, not a single plane. Everything around me was new, and everything around me was terrifying.
Things would only grow worse from here, and I found myself becoming reclusive. Even this barely saved me, forcing me to tie a semi-transparent blindfold of torn bedsheets over my eyes and muzzle to keep from being overwhelmed by the dust in the air and the dingy distinct smell of the room. In time, I found my attention drawn to my tongue in my mouth, holding it in a disgusting and pervasively wet way I had never felt it before. And my breathing- I could feel the air move up my throat, into my lungs, aware of my awful mortality as flesh. I couldn't take it anymore, and finally shut out all light, closing off all entrances to my bedroom and standing alone in the center, relishing in the absolute silence and darkness that followed.
Then I saw it- out of the corner of my eye, a shape, an outline, slowly becoming the corner of my bed. I looked away, but already the rest of the room was encroaching- not even darkness was safe anymore, and I could hear the room laughing at me as my most basic material belongings lashed out at me with electric sensations. I chose a single spot at the wall to stare at, tortured by the sound of my beating heart in my own chest, and was finally driven to turn the lights back on when I realized that my eyes had been drawn to the terrible center of The Shape which couldn't exist.
My days became studying. My nights became sleeping- I slept as I never have before, desperate to escape the waking world. I often thought of death, but that only scared me more- if life had turned into this, what could I possibly risk seeing after?
But what drove me the most to try and read for any understanding in the impeccably calligraphied letters- each symbol distinct, no longer blending together into sentences my eyes skimmed- was the people around me. Nobody acted like anything was different, nobody saw what I could see- that's what has really driven me to risk forgetting the world as it once was, is the fact that I would be jeered at if I spoke a word of this to anyone. This very writing threatens my upstanding- as much as I may be looked at as a pathetic, scrounging miser, it's infinitely better to being seen as someone dangerous. I don't want anyone to worry about me- but when they talk and laugh as if their voices are not ambrosia, it boils me inside. I want to take them by the pelt, digging my hooves into their flesh and tear at it, tear it apart until they see what they hold inside themselves and finally understand the world as I understand it.
The world is complex in a way I never could have imagined. Clouds in the sky are masses of suspended particles, hundreds of thousands of miles above the ground and gargantuan massive. I squint, and I still see endless blades of grass stretching away in a field. Water is a great force of nature, terrifying in how much it contains. When I wave my hoof, it is no longer one motion, but trillions and trillions of muscles twitching at once to create the illusion of one motion. My eyes make me shudder everytime I see a mirror, for they contain colors I was never meant to understand, floating in pools- pools that are as much a part of me as this voice. I am no longer a pony- I am a machine, infinite processes in a homeostasis. I have left the cave, and I feel as if I have trapped myself in a poem. It hurts like nothing I could ever have imagined.
But the worst part is what I am convinced began this great change- The Circle itself draws my eye, and every day I have watched it become more and more real, instating with it a new law of reality. Everything that exists may have more than two sides now, all because of this shape and what it has wrought on my world. I have to fight the urge to reach in and grab it, pull it out of its fake land to speed up the process of transformation- and even that is tempting at times, to finally get it over with and maybe forget the old world entirely. Perhaps a moment of excruciating shock is better than the slow burn of bleeding out.
Then one day I blinked, and it occurred to me that the painting was no longer a portal to another world. It was my world, and the painting no longer existed. In its place sat a beautiful, unblemished sphere, oozed out into my comforting reality that I was fast leaving in the rearview mirror.
I have not been committed. If I am insane, I have done an exceptional job of hiding it. The strangers on the street comment on how I squint, or duck my head, but none have treated it as any more than an oddity. Then again, maybe that's all anyone has done- maybe everyone sees the change as I do and the world full of spheres and cubes it brings with it, and simply refuses to admit it. Perhaps it is best to to carry on instead of acknowledging what it could possibly mean that such a perception has always existed in the corners of our eyes- and how many more perceptions may exist beyond those.
I have rendered my entire generation obsolete, and inflicted a deep scar on what it means to be alive. I fear it may never heal, and for that I am very, very sorry.