Imperceivables

Time to write!

A couple quick things to say before I post tonight's Authentic writing :)
1. I know I didn't post last night. That was because, while watching Thor *drool* my internet connection decided to go haywire. Then I had to reset everything up, and it took forever and was mucho frustrating. By the time that was done and I'd finished Thor (cause obviously it is imperative to finish Thor!!) my roommate was asleep on my bed, leaving me mooshed against the wall and the situation was not ideal for writing. So I really do apologize. :(
2. This story, while authentic, got it's origins while I was in an AP psychology class. Now, it's about Schizophrenic people. I don't know who will read this or if I will ever expand this and take it anywhere, because I really love the idea, but it needs to be understood that I in no way mean this with any disrespect to the Schizophrenic community or those with family members who suffer from Schizophrenia. I am not making light of the disorder, I am merely exploring an idea which came to me while learning about it. 
Now, without further ado, here we go!

The world around us is all a delusion. What we think we’re seeing is merely the way our brains interpret light rays around us. That's all it is, and we have no way of proving otherwise.Who’s to say that any of us even see things the same way? Who’s to say we all see the same things? Scientists have discussed the theory that each person’s concept of a certain color could be completely different. It’s hard to tell, what with the brain sitting encased in our skulls, safe from scrutiny. That is, of course, unless we’re dead and have donated our brains to science. But then you’re dead, so fat lot of good that did you.

Beyond that, it's a wonder things appear the way they do even to one individual. I mean, most of what we look at as completely solid objects is actually empty space when viewed from the molecular level. I'm mostly empty space. You're mostly empty space. We all sit around, looking at other things which are mostly empty space and function based on what our brains see. It's all really one big mystery that everyone pretty much takes for granted. Those who study the brain come up with some crazy ideas about what's really going on in our heads, and some even believe that they've got it basicallyI figured out at this point. 

I'm here to say that we don't have it figured out. The scientific community can't even begin to grasp what is happening. No matter what theories are out there, and no matter what your textbooks say, I have an answer that they will never provide you with. I can tell you, we don’t all see the same things. I know, because I’ve seen them. The Imperceivables, and science refuses to acknowledge that they exist.

***
I was ten years old when I saw my first Imperceivable. He was uncannily tall, wore a black sweatshirt and torn jeans, and had a gaunt, sunken face. He was basically your stereotypical creepy dude. I didn't notice him until the end of recess. Maycie and I had been swinging when the bell to line up rang. It wasn't until I jumped off the swing that I saw him leaning against a tree. I couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like he was looking at me. 

I was extremely creeped out, but since we were going inside anyway, I just ran off and sort of forgot about the incident. Until I saw him outside my room two nights later. I heard a tapping sound at my window long after my parents had gone to bed. I was horrified, and called for my father. When he didn't come and didn't come and the tapping continued I became utterly hysterical. I jumped from my bed and peeked through the blinds of my window and there he was. 

After running to my parents room in tears, my dad went outside to investigate, but assured me there was nothing there. I refused to be consoled and didn't sleep in my room for the rest of the week.

That didn't mean I stopped seeing the man though. He showed up again on the playground. I'd see him in the corner of my classroom. He'd follow me from school some days. But anytime I mentioned him to someone around me they said they couldn't see him, that there wasn't anyone there. 

Two weeks after I first saw him, Maycie told me she didn't want to be my friend anymore. Her exact words, I believe, were, "You scare me now. I think you're crazy." Then she walked away from me. This made me feel more alone than ever, and I started seeing him more. 

Finally my parents took me to a psychologist. I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. I was given medication. I was told that everything would be fine. But everything wasn't fine, and it couldn't be fine, because the doctors didn't understand what was really going on. 

Instead of getting better, the "hallucinations" began getting worse. More people started showing up. I'd hear voices whenever I closed my eyes, or I heard people talking about me but when I turned around there wasn't anybody to be seen. 

For years this continued. My life fell into a certain kind of pattern. Someone would see me sitting alone, and they'd try to be my friend. I would try my very best to act normal around them, but after a couple days, one of my tormentors would show up in an especially unexpected way, or would change up the routine. That changed things pretty quickly. 

One particular example was my fourth day of eighth grade. I was sitting alone at lunch and a nice girl with long brown hair and glasses which actually looked cute on her came to sit by me. 

"I'm Jessica," she told me. "Is it ok if I sit here?"
I smiled at her and nodded. 

"Do you like cheesecake?" she asked. "My mom gave me this huge slice of cheesecake in my lunch today."

"I love cheesecake!" I answered. After devouring the piece, I discovered that Jessica and I had a lot in common. We both had little sisters, we both loved the original Star Wars movies, and we both were super excited to get our ears pierced. She had to wait until she was sixteen, and my parents basically wanted to wait for me to "stabilize". I didn't tell her that, just that my parents wanted me to wait. 

She ate lunch with me the next day, and the first three days of the next school week as well. My main haunter, the one I'd seen first, was still showing up everywhere, but my therapists had told me to ignore him, to remember that he wasn't real, and to live a normal life. So that's what I tried to do. But when, on Wednesday, he stood up from the table where he'd been sitting across the cafeteria, sitting with a bunch of the popular girls who of course didn't know he was there, and walked towards me, I could feel my pulse quickening. He didn't normally come close to me, but sometimes he did, and those were the worst moments. I think he knew how much I hated it, and he saved it for special circumstances. 

I tried to ignore him. Truly, I did. I turned to Jessica and asked her how she liked the book we were reading in Mrs. Matterly's class. I tried to concentrate on her answer, but I was hyper aware of him drawing closer and closer to me. I gripped the edge of the table, squeezing so tightly my knuckles turned white, as he started making his way around the table to where I was sitting. At this point I was completely panicked. I could hardly breathe.

"Shea? What is wrong?" Jessica said.

"Oh, mercy, no!" I whispered, petrified, as he reached out to me. He'd never been this close before. With the torture he was inflicting, I expected him to be smirking, but he looked deadly serious as he reached out to lay a hand on my arm. I pushed back from the table, rising to my feet and stumbling backwards, hysterical. 

"Don't touch me!" I screamed. 

Jessica wasn't my friend anymore after that. 

***

At seventeen years old and in my senior year of High School I was done trying to make friends. I didn't want friends. I didn't want anything but for everyone to leave me the heck alone. I wanted the hallucinations to leave me alone, I wanted the kids who'd tried to be my friends to stop whispering things about me to everyone else. I wanted my teachers to stop analyzing my behavior in class. I wanted my psychologist to stop telling me it was all in my head, and for my parents to stop asking me if I'd had any episodes every day when I walked in from school. I wanted to be normal, to be like everyone else. 

I hated that when anyone else walked down the hall they would see a bunch of smiling students, walking together, nudging one another, laughing or complaining about their day. In the exact same hall I'd see all these students, and more often that not one or two other people who clearly didn't belong there. Sometimes they were the hallucinations that had been plaguing me from the beginning. Others I only recognized because they obviously weren't supposed to be in high school.

Most people would argue that I didn't belong at a normal high school. And while it's true that my parents talked, talked a lot in fact, about pulling me out, my doctors were convinced that I just needed to give the new set of medication "a little more time" and that I needed to live "the most normal life possible." Every time something of that vein left one of their mouths I wanted to strap them with the hallucinations for a little while and see what they had to say afterwards. As it was, I stayed in public schooling, but I kept to myself. Kids talked about me but not to me, and I pretty much left them alone as well.

The day life really changed, I mean even more than that day when I was ten, was a Wednesday. A seemingly innocent enough Wednesday, too, all things considered. I was sitting outside, eating my lunch. I ate outside whenever I could, sometimes even when it rained, because it was less socially painful than sitting in the loud, crowded, constantly bustling lunch room. Besides, large crowds freaked me out. The more real people were in a room, the harder it was to tell if there were "fake" people there too. This may sound like a benefit, but it actually just made the hallucinations that much more unexpected, that much more realistic. 

I was eating my sandwich and trying not to think about anything really, when I heard a twig snap, and turned. There was no twig on the ground to have snapped, but there he was, less than a foot behind me. Oh, I hated him. Loathed him, detested him, blamed him for the nightmare it was my life. Rising shakily to my feet, sandwich forgotten on the ground, I did my best to breath normally, despite my pounding heart, and to assess the situation. 

"Why don't you just leave me alone?" I asked, voice wavering. He hadn't gotten this close to me since that day in eighth grade, although I never went more than a week without seeing him. The others always made more infrequent appearances, but this one was rather consistent. It was especially disorienting that he hadn't changed at all in the seven years we'd been "seeing" one another, everything the same as the day I first noticed him.

"Shea, I need you to listen to me for a minute," he said. This was the first time he'd spoken to me. I heard lots of them talk, but he had always just been my silent stalker. Hearing his voice was completely disarming. I tried to run, but tripped and fell, landing hard on my hands and knees. 

He slowly walked over, taking his time, and with each step he took coming closer to me the less power I had to gain control of my limbs and get away. He crouched down, right beside me.

"Are you okay?" he asked, in what was probably one of the stupidest questions ever asked. 

"Leave me alone!" I gasped, crying now, completely alone with him, kneeling in the grass between the main building and the science lab, trees all around. 

"Calm down," he said, not in an ordering sort of way, but in a gentle sort of tone. Tone aside, I was far from being consolable, especially by him, the inflictor of my misery.

"Listen," he continued, voice quiet as he remained crouched beside me. "I need you to do your best to calm down and to understand what I'm saying. My name is Ian, and I promise I am not going to hurt you. But the others might, and I'm here to warn you."

...thoughts?