The inevitable madness that ensued...

The brain is an incredible thing. It can conjure up the most fantastic of images that leave one breathless in excitement, or trembling in terror. Some day, I hope to fully understand what makes the Mind do what it does to the Brain and why it still cares so fully for the subconscious, despite it's rather unappealing nature.

Part The Second: The Madness

For three long years, the Mind had led a comfortable life, lounging in it's theatre of ethereal light, doting upon it's beautiful ball of flames and basking in the promise of a resplendent future. The Mind was at ease, until that fatal day, upon which the Mind had become distracted and had tainted the Subconscious, transforming it into a coral-coloured ball of porous rubber.

A portion of the Subconscious had been turned to stone and had cracked open, spilling fragments of nightmarish images into the grand theatre. The beauty slowly began to change, to warp, to mutate. This once stunning location had turned into a boiler room with mesh on the floors, glowing in evil red and hissing as steam rose from unidentifiable places and sparks crackled from broken wires. The Subconscious itself had begun to moan and growl, hungry for any conscious input that would ease the great discomfort it felt.

The Mind slowly succumbed to the grief its mistake had caused. Such potential, such beauty, had been destroyed by one tiny mistake. It had been but one slip of the wrist, an accidental toss in the wrong direction. The Mind would not allow itself to remember the destruction. In its misery, it began to lose interest in its job, its raison d'être. It had nothing left but to sit and feed whatever came through the Brain into the bloated, sweating monster of a Subconscious... but continuing with its job took its toll on the Mind's sanity.

It was not long before the Mind had given in. Barely a year passed before the Mind had shed its opulence and had donned a top hat, a cane and a pair of boxers with bright yellow ducklings speckled all over them. The Mind began to settle into its new home, despite the fact that the very sight of the Subconscious made it want to put one of the sparking wires in its mouth and give the electricity a nice French kiss.

The Mind soon accepted the change in its circumstance. The more it accepted it, in fact, the more mad it seemed to become. It had taken — as of the fifth year — to singing "It's Raining Men" whilst doing a modified version of the dance from "Singing In The Rain", prancing across the power room beneath the Subconscious with the whimsy and accuracy of a crawling toddler. On good days, it would strip of the duckling-spotted underwear and pirouette through the boiler room wearing a tinfoil hat, whispering to the Subconscious that the mad men would not find it. The Subconscious would groan for more input.

The Mind had to face the fact that it would have to leave the life it had so adored and live with its own mistake until the Brain died. The Brain found this to be a highly disagreeable concept, for the Mind was one of a small attention-span and a low tolerance for repetitive activity. Therefore, it took it upon itself to completely destroy the Brain's life.

It was then that the Mind realised how much fun it could really have...

(Part Three: Duckling-Spotted Underwear — coming soon)

(c) 2014 Alexandra Odendaal

There once was a Brain and a Mind...

There are many ways in which to look at the subconscious. There are many ways to look at the human mind. I am not a neuroscientist, but I am a storyteller, and I would like to tell you the story of a Brain that was tormented by a broken Mind who worshipped a damaged Subconscious.

Part The First: The First Years

When the Mind first came into the world, it was a handsome creature. The Mind was fond of the finer things —those fine things that the well-off have in those old movies set in the fourteenth Century. The Mind envisioned itself as some sort of King, and that he was.

The Mind was the King of the world that lay within the Brain of a newborn baby. This was a creature untouched and untainted by decisions and perceptions. The Mind was King of the beautiful, clean, brand-new theatre. In the fore of the stage lay the the many beautiful and wondrous things the Brain had begun to absorb. The Mind would have to carefully use these absorbed images and feelings to shape the Subconscious.

So very many years ago, the Subconscious had been a beautiful ball of fiery light that had hovered, untainted, above a white pedestal. The Mind had doted upon it, pacing slowly around the room, approaching it to feel the warmth of its glow, watching it as it pulsed gently away in the white Kingdom. The Mind felt an enormous affection towards the Subconscious, for the ball of fire was in the King's charge. The Mind had to keep the fiery ball healthy and stunning and wondrous... though the Mind did not understand the full extent of its own responsibilities.

It had only taken three years for the Mind to make a mistake. It had been dutifully feeding the images and sights and smells and feelings into the ball of fire when it had become distracted. The nature of the distraction had long since been forgotten. The important fact was, the Mind had made a mistake. Without looking, it had fed a dark image and a horrific feeling into the Subconscious.

At once, the glowing light had been extinguished. The Subconscious then transformed into a ball of rubbery coral-coloured sponge. Within moments, a large portion of it had bulged and distorted and turned to stone where it cracked, spilling tiny fragments of waste into the room around it.

You see, the Subconscious was a filter. It was absorb the items it was fed by the Mind to release only the warm, cheerful fire of the things the that Brain should have been aware of. Now, however, the Subconscious had been damaged by the Mind's carelessness. Small fragments of nightmarish essence began to taint the Kingdom within the Brain.

The Mind, horrified, began to go mad...


(Post Two: The Madness — coming soon)

(c) 2014 Alexandra Odendaal