Misery
Chapter 7
"Ok, get up. You need to get in bed." I think I said as I stood up. Mike and I were still sitting in the kitchen, it was about 2:00 A.M. We had sat there leaning against the wall drinking whiskey and telling each other jokes and random stories since yesterday afternoon. I decided that it was time to go to bed when we had five empty bottles spread out on the kitchen floor and Mike was slurring his words, but that could have just been my own intoxication garbling the words. We stumbled up stairs, using each other for balance on the swaying staircase. We finally got to the top, and we took our separate ways.
I woke up, immediately releasing an involuntary groan. So this is what a bad hangover feels like. I thought as I got up and stumbled to my bathroom. I got in the shower and took a long and cold shower to clear my head of this damned aching throb. My head feels like my brain has rotted inside and caught fire. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I woke up with a clear head, but also laying down in the shower, a light orange glow coming through the bathroom window. I turned off the water and jumped out of the shower, dried off and rushed downstairs.
It was after 5:00 P.M. I had slept through the entire day. But then I wondered How long was I sleeping in the shower? "Have a nice night's sleep?" Mike asked with a chuckle as I walked into the kitchen.
"My head doesn't hurt anymore." I said.
"I wouldn't expect it to, you were sleeping in the shower for over four hours." He said still laughing. Four hours? Could I really have been asleep in the shower for four hours? "Wait, how did you know I was asleep?" I asked after thinking about what he said.
"Because that's what I did after my first time being drunk." He said laughing even harder now.
Mike was cooking dinner and humming a nice throaty tune; I didn't recognize it, but it sounded nice. He was cooking pan-steamed cabbage and apples with fruit. The scents of pan-fried pineapple filled the entire house. There was a nice hunk of pineapple left on the counter from where Mike had carved the fresh fruit. Being my favorite fruit - I grabbed it and started eating it. It was just at the peak of ripeness and extremely juicy. The citrus twang mixed well with the super sweet pineapple juice, and the meat was nice and crisp without being mushy or hard. It was a perfect pineapple.
Dinner was finished just as I took the last bite of my pineapple hunk. Mike served two plates of this delicious smelling and looking dish. A base of cabbage with fresh granny-smith apples had been cooked under tin-foil in the pan, then the pineapple, starfruit, and lime were sautéed in a separate pot and the juices were added to the cabbage and apples while the fruit meat was set aside. After the cabbage and apples were finished cooking he set up two plates and drizzled the fruit juice over it and put the fruit meat on the top of that. Then he made a plum tart for desert. Dinner was fantastic, all of the flavors blended perfectly, and the cooked fruits were tender and juicy. The plum tart desert was sweet and tangy. Best dinner ever.
It makes me wonder why Cindy cooks instead of Mike. How did Mike learn to cook like this? Why doesn't he cook more often? I thought to myself as I ate. Mike broke the silence by asking, "What do you think?" The question caught me completely off-guard since I had been lost in a succulent chunk of star-fruit. I waffled for a second and replied, "It's delicious; where did you learn to cook like this?" He looked up t me and smiled, "When you live on your own through college eating nothing but sandwiches everyday, you will find yourself watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks just to get a good home-made meal." I expected a more fulfilling answer like, "I attended a culinary college for one term when I was a young colt." or something.
Then he caught me by surprise by saying, "It's almost sunset, you want to go down to the cliffs and watch the sun set? I used to love doing that before I met Cindy." What made him ask that? I don't know why he wanted to spend so much quality time with me all of a sudden. Cindy had left many times in the past on business trips and we never did this before. Why now? Whatever the reason, I wasn't about to pass up a chance at watching the sunset again with someone who will appreciate it as much as I do. "Sure, I'd like that."
We did the dishes together and put away the leftovers, then headed out the door. We didn't really say much until' we got to the trail leading through the woods. "Beautiful isn't it? Nature." Mike asked.
"Yeah, it really is."
"It's amazing how the most beautiful parts of nature are always those that are untouched and pure."
Isn't that the exact thing I thought on my walk home? I thought to myself. I didn't want to keep him waiting for an answer and I didn't want to have another deep self-realization again. "Yeah, it is."
"What's wrong? You don't seem to be enjoying yourself very much." He said in a genuinely concerned tone.
I stopped where I was and thought about what to say. "It's not that I don't enjoy this." I said beginning to walk again. "It's just that...It's not easy to get used to everything you know being ripped apart and re-assembled in a different order. Yesterday I heard a story that destroyed over half of my beliefs. And now, we are spending 'quality time' together. Things are re-arranging too fast. I can't get a grip on everything that is happening."
"Well, seeing as all of the things that are changing are non-influenced; why don't you sit back and enjoy it, and after a while everything will settle down into the rhythm of daily life. If you keep fighting it, things will only get harder." What he said made sense. Life would put itself back together again, and without being in the middle of it, I could just watch it fall back into place and get used to it without the stress.
I felt as if that one sentence had solved every problem I had. I felt better, much better. My mind was clear and there wasn't a problem to have to deal with, it felt weird; not bad, just weird. "Wow, that actually worked."
"You already did it?" He asked cocking his head to give me an over-inquisitive look.
"Well, yeah. Did you expect me to wait until' I couldn't stand it anymore to try and fix my problems?" I asked him.
"Well, no. But how were you able to simply forget that fast?"
"I didn't forget. I simply, stopped focusing on what was troubling me."
"That fast? Wow, kiddo. Thats some pretty good control you have."
"I was taught that in order to deal with my problems, I must first be able to control my thoughts."
"Who taught you that?"
"One of my therapists, she helped me to regain total control over my mind. After she taught me to accept and forget, she taught me how I could stop the hallucinations, not completely, but for the most part. I spent over two years in therapy groups, and had many visits to therapists afterward for relapses and other occurrences such as that, with dozens or more ponies trying to help me get 'cured' of my symptoms. Truthfully I still have the hallucinations and the nightmares, but those are symptoms that will never go away, they come with the diagnosis."
"You were just a little colt then, how were they able to re-wire a foal's mind after such a traumatic incident?"
That question made me think. Did they actually know what they were doing when they did it? Or did they just use the same techniques as used on adult ponies, just hopping that it would work? "You know, I'm not even sure that they knew the treatments would even work. But I guess they knew what they were doing, because they were able to get me to where I am now."
"But, is where you are where you feel comfortable?"
"I feel mentally competent enough to get through a normal day without having any episodes, but of course, I don't control that. Even the most simplest of things can set me off, and I won't even know why. But I have come to find that clearing my mind of everything, and allowing myself to drift through nothingness will calm me down and I will be able to function and figure out what happened and why I went off."
We didn't say much after that. We simply finished our walk, found a comfortable spot, and sat down. I sat on a large boulder about fifteen feet from the edge. It had another rock projecting up the back of it that acted as a support for me to lean against. Mike laid down on a fairly large, flat boulder and rested his head on his hooves. The sun hadn't started to set yet, there was at least another twenty minutes left until' it started.
"Mike, tell me a story."
He rose up to look at me, "What do you mean?"
"You already know about my past, and I just told you a little bit about my rehabilitation. Now it's your turn, tell me a story about your past."
Mike took second to re-adjust himself on his rock before speaking, "Well, my life hasn't really had many exciting things to happen in it. My parents put me through private school until' High School. Since there weren't any private High Schools in my area and my parents didn't want to send me to a boarding school, I went to a public High School. After graduation, I joined the military and did my time with them, and in turn, they payed for me to go to college and study to be an architect. I landed my current career here in Hoofington as an architect for large buildings and bridges shortly after that. Then after about a year of working there, I was sent to Las Pegasus to plan out the structure of an addition to an office building. That was where I met Cindy. She was the consultant that was going to show me the build site, the requested layout of the building, and other stuff. From the moment I saw her, I knew that I had strong feelings for her, I just needed to shape them into good feelings and then replicate them in her. It took four days of sweet talking, but I finally got her to go out on a date with me. We had a nice time. After another two dates we decided to go steady and form a relationship together. We had a good time, and after another two months, we had to make a choice. The construction job was finished. So we had only three choices: me quit my job, move to Las Pegasus and find a new job; her quit her job, move here to Hoofington and find a new job; or break up. She decided to quit her job and move here, obviously. I was ecstatic to know that she would quit her job and move, just for me. And then, after about six more months, I decided to ask her to marry me. The happiest moment of my entire life was when she said 'yes'. We had a traditional wedding, and had a one week honeymoon in Canterlot. And after about five more years, you came into the picture. You were quite possibly the most difficult decision of my entire life; but I think I made the right choice." He said looking over to me. "The rest you know from experience."
"Sounds nice, maybe you could go a little more in-depth next time." I said.
"We'll see. For now lets watch the sunset." Mike said.
We watched as the sun grew closer to the horizon and started passing it, changing through all of its different color schemes. We simply sat there, on those rocks, watching in awe at the beauty of nature. Watching the colors go from red to orange to blue to purple and finally to the black of night. We laid out for a few more minutes after the sun was gone, before heading home. Home. Did I just use the word 'Home' without even noticing? Maybe it is where I belong. Hmm...Home