An Even Worse Self Insert

by ROBCakeran53

12: Imagination

“Imagination, is funny.
It makes a cloudy day sunny.
Makes a bee think of honey,
Just as I think about you.”

Alcohol does different things to different people.

Some see it as relaxation, to use to unwind. Enjoy their evenings at home, be it alone or with company, and talk over the television, conversing and reminiscing.

For some it can be an out. Numb away the pains and sorrows of our lives, and just go into a vegetation like state as we watch the second hand tick away on our clock. Sober, my mind wanders more than it ought to.

Come to think of it, the last several friends’ houses I’ve been too, they only had digital clocks. No second hands to watch tick away as they talked on about the new trends and modern online things that go above my head.

“Can people even read analog clocks anymore?”

“What?”

I looked to the other side of my couch, where Twilight Sparkle sat, head cocked to the side as she stared at me.

“Nothing, just rambling.” I took another sip of my tonic water.

Twilight watched me, concern on her face. After several seconds of this, to the point I’d nearly drained my glass, she sighed and turned away to watch my ticking clock.

“I can’t believe people couldn’t read a analogue clock.”

I laughed. “My nephews couldn’t until I taught them. Although, it didn’t help that the numbers were in roman numerals.”

Twilight’s brow raised.

I shrugged. “We got some old clocks.” I began to pour myself another glass.

The song continued to play, and Twilight watched it spin. There was one major difference now, which considering the time that had gone by since her last visit, I was waiting for the question to come up.

Of course, her licking lips told me that she didn’t want to ask out right.

“It broke.”

She looked at me, startled.

“The arm, it broke.”

Twilight looked to the newer, modern turntable resting on top of my old one. It was the one from a previous visit, that Twilight had talked me (using the loosest form of the expression) into trying out. Now, it's time for use had come several months back.

“I was wondering about that.”

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

The song ended, but the record continued to spin absentmindedly.”

“Just, no automatic arm.”

“Right.”

Her magic came to life, and she picked up the arm and placed it at the beginning of the record to start again.

“Imagination is quite a silly thing, isn’t it?” I asked.

Twilight let out a laugh. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that.”

“No no, I mean besides the whole you being here thing. In general, we wish and want to imagine what can be, or could be. Sometimes it works out. Most of the time, it doesn’t, and we’re left defeated by it.”

Twilight took a silent sip of her glass of water.

“Imagination is crazy,” I sang along, “your whole perspective gets hazy. This song is so spot on, so subtle, and it hits home, painfully so.”

My focus returned to the spinning record. Twilight’s ears would twitch just at the corner of my eyesight.

What’s amazing, the less and less I drink, the more I find myself wanting to scream out my pains and woes, not too far from when I’d be well off in a pint and just waiting to go to sleep.

“I’ve stopped drinking. Several times. Just… wanted to show I could.”

“But not for you.”

I lowered my glass, inches from my face, and looked at the mare.

“You have not once wanted to stop for yourself. You wanted to stop for others, or why you think they wanted you to.”

“Well yeah, because I could be an ass.”

She pointed a hoof at me. “You could also be an ass when sober.”

I… didn’t have anything to say to that, so I took my waiting sip of tonic water.

“It’s hard to imagine what others want from you, or me, or even Grayson. What matters is what you want from you, from life.”

I let out a small laugh. “There’s not much I want out off life.”

“But what about others?”

I paused.

“What if others want more out of life, and see just how little you care, or little effort you put into your own life? That’s what makes them stray from you?”

“Well, I mean, if I had a reason to, then I’d care more.”

“What else would you need to care for more than life?”

“Love.”

Twilight’s ears went flat.

“I’ve fucked up a lot, you know. Made an ass out of myself around my friends, family, but there was one person that didn’t deserve what I did to… her. And I did it anyway. Because I’m an asshoe. A drunkard.” I watched the record spinning, the needle playing nothing but crackles and pops of the closed loop groove. “And she’d somehow decided to still be my friend. It’s torture to me, but it’s my just desert.”

“Torture?”

I stood, and reset the record player arm to start the song again. Standing there, I watched the record play.

“Yes. Because no matter what I do, no matter how much I try to imagine what could be, it never will. Because I can’t imagine her wanting me, too.” I turned to Twilight, my brows low with a half lidded stare, tired. “I’ve burned that bridge, and danced in the ashes.”

“There will always be somepo-er, one, else.”

I shook my head, and took my seat on the couch. “What have we talked about before? I can’t change. I can’t change my life, my things, my anything. I’m stuck here. Stuck with these old thoughts, and feelings.

“I’m left with the ‘what if’s’, what if I’d done something different, been different. None of it matters, because as much as I try, I can’t imagine it playing out any other way than failure.”

Twilight was silent once again.

“I… want to imagine, if I could be different, change how I am and what I do, that maybe… but my life is a re-run. I’m just doing the same things I always do, then throw me in the tape rewinder and set me up to play again.”

At Twilight’s confused glance, I wave a hand. “Don’t worry, an old analogy.”

“This… might be forward of me-”

“Has that stopped you before?”

Twilight frowned, and I raised my hands in surrender, still holding my tonic water.

“As I was saying, it might be, but I feel it’s worth asking. Have… you told her how-”

“Oh yeah.”

“When sober?”

I went silent.

“When you were you, one hundred percent. Not drunk Alex, intoxicated Alex, or, pardon my language, but flubbed up Alex?”

I wanted to laugh at her word choice, but the tone didn’t allow me to.

“Drunk Alex is one hundred percent me though.”

“That’s because you only imagine yourself that way.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I see myself that way.”

“What’s in your glass?”

“Tonic water?”

“Exactly. You imagine yourself a drunk, but you’re not drinking. Why?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of being a depressed drunk for reasons I can’t any longer control, so I’ve said fuck it, and will only be one or the other.”

“So you’re depressed.”

I didn’t respond.

Twilight’s magic flared up, and the song was started again.

I licked my lips. “I… want to be better, but I’m not strong enough. Not for myself. I need help, but not the kind that everyone wants to offer you, or say they’re there for you but only at their convenience.

“I need someone that can see me for my faults, and I see theirs, but we can accept them and work with it. Support each other at our worst, because let's face it, I’ve got some of the worst ones,” I laughed.

Twilight did not.

“And… what’s got me so defeated, so thrown into the mud and dragged through it is… that I can only imagine one person like that.”

Again, her ears went flat. I hate that expression, like when I yell at our dogs.

“But I can’t imagine her imagining me like that.”

“So you’re just going to continue to spiral out of control until, what?”

I sat there, quiet. Downing the last of my glass, I set it on the floor, and reached around the couch edge, drawing out a half empty pint bottle of bourbon.

Twilight didn’t look pleased the slightest bit, but I didn’t care. This was all too much for me, too emotional. I’d been sitting on these thoughts, feelings, for too long.

“Until,” I began, then took a swig, wincing at the burn. My indigestion did not like me drinking straight liquor, but that was my punishment for my self abuse.

I let out a breath, the fumes tickling my nose hairs. “Until I’m either dead, or… or she leaves my life for good, and then all I’ve got left of her is my imagination again.

“She has left before. For years at a time, in fact. When I think I’d finally be over her, she would come back into my life. The last time was rough on her, and all I wanted to do was be there for her. Help her, support her, and do what I can. But I was doing too much, I think. Maybe too little?”

“You were expecting.”

I bit my tongue, and took another swig of the bottle. “I was expecting there to be something that would happen. Join us, and maybe make us work.”

“Intimacy?”

I laughed at the mare. “Jesus, I’m not that shallow. I know I’m a guy, but I actually care more about things than just sex. Sure, it’s a thing that every guy says just to show he’s not an ass, but I am an ass. I am shallow, just not for the same reasons.”

The record was spinning again. I got up and reset it, and took my seat once more. Grayson decided he wanted to visit, so after he jumped up between us, I began petting him.

We were silent for, I’m not entirely sure, two more plays of the song. By then, Grayson had switched over to laying beside Twilight (the traitor), who was yawning something fierce.

It was well past one in the morning, and there was a train going by the house. It amazed me how I barely notice them anymore.

I knew the topic was over with, but I couldn’t let it go so easily. Glutton for punishment, that I am and all that rot.

“I didn’t want her to think she owed me anything. I wanted to show her that I was there to help support her, and what she wanted in life. But… I guess I’m wrong to imagine something like that working out.

“Because deep down, we all think that everyone else wants something from us. Look at Grayson, he wants pets, so he rubs against you to entice them. It’s simple, but it’s true. I guess, that’s what I was doing too, and for that I’m in the wrong.”

“I don’t know if you were in the wrong.”

“I’d imagine so.”

“I think you need to talk with her about it.”

I shook my head, then with one last swallow I drained the bottle, tossing it onto the floor with the scattered empties that made up my bedroom floor decor.

“No. I promised myself that I was done.”

Her left ear twitched, and she turned to me. “Done?”

I could hear worry in her voice. “Yeah, I’m done with it. With my feelings, my want, my… imagination of it all. It’s done nothing but bring me down, and say and do things that have only hurt her further.

“I’m shutting the fuck up on the situation. I’m not bringing it up with her again. I’m going to just sit there, or stand there, and let her do her thing, and just go with it, and suffocate myself and either cry myself to sleep or drink myself blind.

“Because it doesn’t matter what I do anymore. I owe it to her.”

“But that’s not fair to you.”

I looked at the mare, stern expression in my face.

“Life isn’t fair. You just deal with it, and you move on. You hurt, you feel like shit, you take it up the ass and grit your teeth and hope that one day, soon, God’s fist will come out and give you a break so that you can expel yourself and start anew.

“And that’s just what I’m going to do.” I stood, and picked up the needle, and placed it into the resting position, closing the glass case and turning it off.

“I’m going to bed. Do what you want.” I stopped at my bed, looking at the mare. “Next time, let's talk about less shitty things, okay? Seems like everytime you come around I just spit out my problems.”

“I’m here to help, Alex.”

“No, you’re my imagination again. You’re here to just help me self analyze myself into believing I’m a person worth trying to save.”

Twilight frowned at me, and this time, I could tell I hit a nerve because she didn’t respond in the way I expected.

With a glow of her horn, she popped out of existence and left a empty spot on my couch, the depression still clear on the bed sheet covering it. Grayson took off running the moment her horn had glowed. The only proof left of her being there was the nearly empty glass of water on the end table, sitting on a coaster stylized as the mare herself.

I crawled into bed, not even bothering with the still on lamp, and layed there. Just for this night, I didn’t want to imagine anything. Not family, not friends, not my cats or dogs, not even Twilight. I wanted to imagine only one person, one time, one feeling, and for the first time in many years… I couldn’t.

And as I smiled, awaiting sleep, I could feel the tears running down the sides of my head and staining the pillow underneath.

Author's Note:

This story doesn't get blog posts. It's pretty self explanatory.

Comments

[SRY]

Well..fuck.

Good story though.

[EdBecerra]

Somehow this story matters to me.

I had two very special people. One was taken by the Cold War, the other by cancer. I thought about eating a bullet, but I'd made promises, so I sit and wait while time runs slowly out, and hope that whatever lies beyond this life has been kind to them.

Thanks for writing this, Rob.

[Theboxcatgamr]

Eventually it always comes crashing down.

It’s up to you to decide whether or not a bad thing or a good thing ends.

[Dustchu]

Whew... man, I adore this story, but I never know what to say when it updates and I'm left staring at the comment section.

it's good... is all I can really say on the matter :/

Have a heart too

[PointBreak]