Have you ever had a moment of intense clarity, where something you've been struggling to understand just clicks into place? Or maybe you look at something you already knew from a different angle and you just get it, only to have what you got slip away in the seconds that follow, unable to express to anyone what you felt for sure was an astounding revelation.
Well, whether or not you have, I have, and let me tell you, it can fuck with your mind, especially when you lose that flash as your mind reverts back to its normal, befuddled state. My best example is once when I was walking to my car after school, recalling an interesting conversation my AP English class had had on modernism and postmodernism, which led to the limitations of the human mind, and I had this thought: Why can't we think beyond our physical limitations? And then I had one of those moments of utter clarity.
"AHH!" I screamed, clutching my head as an intense, mind fucking spike of pain split my brain in two. At least, that's what it felt like. Except, maybe it was more like a spike from my brain, broke out? Either way, I was in a mind boggling amount of pain (pun intended), and I have no idea how long I blacked out for.
When I came to, a crowd had formed around me of curious and mildly worried bystanders.
"Maybe we should call the paramedics?"
"You think, dipshit?"
"Well, why didn't you do it then?"
"I thought you were doing it!"
Internally, I sighed. Obviously none of these kids had paid attention in health. Externally, I groaned, getting up onto my hands and knees, my muscles stiff from contracting and curling into a tight ball due to the pain.
"Oh, he's awake!"
"Great, then we don't have to call the medics!"
"Are you an idiot?"
"Hey!"
"Of course we still have to call them!"
"Why, he's up, isn't he?"
"Yeah, but people don't just collapse like that and don't need medical attention."
"Oh, I guess so. Then who's going to call?"
"I'm fine," I croaked. My family couldn't afford an expensive hospital bill, and besides, I was fine, I mean, I felt fine, just sore. "It was just a sudden migraine, that's all."
"A migraine?"
"I didn't think migraines worked like that?"
"See, I told you he's fine!"
"Are you sure you're fine?"
Bored that there wasn't going to be any drama, most of the crowd started dispersing, and went back to their daily lives, leaving me be.
See, I was the definition of the quiet kid. I never spoke in class. I never spoke to anyone if I didn't have to. Hell, I've had people try to start up conversations, and I just said nothing until they gave up and walked away.
I was so insignificant to everyone's lives, I wasn't even bullied. I wasn't intelligent enough to be a nerd, I wasn't into games enough to hang with the gamers, I had no talent with music at all, and sports were even worse. I was by no means fit, or even skinny, but I wasn't grossly overweight. I had enough fat where no one would call me thin, but no one immediately thought I was fat. My face was so plain no one ever looked at me as if I was attractive, but no one was repulsed by my looks either. In essence, I was a true background character, except not background like all the average joes that make up most of high school.
And when I say insignificant to everyone's lives, I do mean everyone at high school. I didn't have friends, and I didn't really know how to make any. And despite living in the same town for all my life, I did not have a childhood best friend. None of the teachers took notice of my presence, or treated me like a pain for being so silent. I'm fairly certain if I walked into the guidance counselor's office, she'd spend a good ten minutes making sure I actually went to this school and wasn't some weirdo who just liked to pretend he did.
Up to this point in life, my destiny was to be the kid in the yearbook that everyone looked at and said, "wait, I went to school with him? But I don't remember him at all!" That is, if I was even remembered to be put in the yearbook in the first place (it has happened before, and I was much too shy to try and fuss about it).
I sighed. It was a lonely life, but I wasn't particularly sad, just not happy. I stared after the retreating crowd and saw Brent Johnson, the running back for our football team among them, laughing with his friends. A pang of envy went through my heart. I wanted to be him.
If only I was more like him, I thought. Maybe if I had a six pack, I could be confident enough to talk to people.
But that was never going to happen, since I was too lazy to ever work out consistently enough to lose weight, let alone get a six pack.
Still, as I hopped into my car (a literal piece of trash that I was astounded still ran, but hey it was a car), I couldn't help but dream of myself with a six pack.
That's when I felt it. It was like that little wisp of thought, that dream, left my brain. I froze, and the wisp vanished. I know, most of you are thinking that I'm paranoid and that what I felt doesn't even make sense, let alone is anything to worry about. I mean, how can you feel your thoughts outside your body? And to most, yes, that is just a nonsensical notion like "dream grass blue fastly."
But I know what I felt. It was as if I was in a particular frame of mind, I had the right gear of concentration, or like I had just discovered a new appendage, and still hadn't quite figured out how to send information to those neurons to move it. The question that rang through my mind, then, was what could I do if I figured out how to control this new appendage?
All through my drive to work, I focused as hard as I could to try and get it to move, but still as I pulled up to the Dave's Groceries, I still hadn't been able to replicate that feeling.
"Dammit," I said to myself, banging my head down upon my hands on the steering wheel. How could I move an appendage I was never aware I'd had? I mean, I can't force my hand to move by thinking move, I just move it. But I couldn't just move my thoughts, could I?
I grabbed my work shirt from the passenger sheet, and changed quickly in the car, heading in for a mind numbing six hours of stocking canned vegetables and bags of sugar. Who knows, maybe getting my mind off of the problem would let my mind flex its new muscle.
"Hey, Rodney," Brittney, the cashier greeted me as I walked in. She was pretty-ish, meaning she didn't suffer from a lot of acne and had a nice looking face, but not anything that would make men take especial notice of her. Her hair was a dirty blonde that was a little dry, and while she was thin, she also had hardly any breasts or butt.
Brittney was a year older than me, and was working here while attending the local community college, planning to get her nursing degree and work in one of the local nursing homes. We often worked together, but since I was a stocker and she was a cashier, we hardly ever interacted outside of her polite greeting that she gave everyone.
"Hey," I responded, clocking in and going to the back and grabbed one of the residual carts I needed to work tonight. Stocking is a pretty decent job when you work in a lax enough store. I could calmly work through stock without worrying about my pace and having to have everything done. All I had to worry about was: where is this item, and will it fit on the shelf?
"Hahaha!" someone laughed, disrupting my lack of train of thought. Some noisy customers had entered up front, and from the sound of it, it was a group of guys just hanging out.
"Look, dude," my ears perked up, as I recognized that deep voice. "You know me, I ain't the kind of guy to kiss and tell--"
"AHAHA!" the rest of his friends burst out.
"--Shut up!"
I got up and peeked around to the next aisle, to see Brent with his friends. Quickly, I ducked my head back, as another pang of envy shot through me. I prayed to whatever deities there were, don't let them see me. As I saw it, there were really two outcomes if they did,and I didn't like either. One, they would recognize me, and try to strike up a conversation. Brent was in a way my idol, my ideal of a person to be like, and I don't think I could handle it if they did to talk to me. I would fuck it up and say something wrong, or shut down and not say a word, freaking them out. Or worse, two, they wouldn't recognize me, meaning I meant so little to Brent that he couldn't even bother to remember who it was that had collapsed in pain this afternoon.
My eyes started tearing up as I imagined either of those things happening, even worse as I heard them start to move. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized they had gone up to the register, checked out, and left.
The immediate fear gone, I grew curious, and went over to the next aisle to see what Brent and his friends had came here to buy.
Of course, I thought to myself. Condoms.
I mean, Brent was an attractive and popular guy, so it made sense. A pang of loneliness hit me, as I wished I had someone to use condoms on. Condoms meant sex. Sex meant interacting with people who somewhat cared for you. If only I could be more like Brent. If only I was attractive. If only I was confident.
Once again, I felt the wisp of thought leave the confines of my brain., but this time, I felt like I understood how to control it. Staring off into the distance I guided that thought and felt it grow to envelop my whole body, and then I understood.
I wasn't entirely sure how, but earlier, before I doubled over in pain, I had unleashed my mind from the confines of my brain. It was like a day old chick, unsteady, inelegant, barely able to move away from its egg. But it was out of it. And now, My mind was in my entire body.
Have you heard the mantra, mind over matter? It was exactly like that. See, in our brains we can control our thoughts. But once my mind had become one with my body, I knew I had absolute control over it. (Don't worry, the nuanced concept of the question of if we really have control over our own thoughts and my sweeping generality displayed here will come crashing together later on in my story, biting me in the butt).
Put another way, it was as if my entire essence was now no longer concentrated behind my eyes as I often felt. It was my entire body.
Nervous and excited, I decided to take my break early, and ran to the deserted break room, where there were no cameras. And just like directing my arm to move, or thinking up a thought, I started to change my body. My body fat melted away until I was your normal pale skinny white dude. I took off my shirt to confirm it, and yeah, I was pale and skinny. Which meant I didn't have any fat! YES!
"Holy fuck," I muttered to myself. "What else can I do?"
I thought some more, and the obvious answer rose to mind. Instantly, my chest started filling out, as my stomach starting grooving itself, until suddenly I was a literal stud with bulging biceps, massive pectorals, and an eight pack with a sharp v-line towards my dick. Speaking of which...
