Short Stories of an Untreated Mind Read online

mind won’t allow me to believe this to be just a stupid nightmare; I’m consumed with the fact of knowing what my future is. The final line of the poem keeps drumming in my thoughts and there’s no way of ignoring it. Well, there is one way. I’m going to take that way.

  These are my final thoughts. When my wife comes back from work, she will find me hung in our closet without a single explanation. Everyone will believe that I simply gave up on living, but at least whoever reads this knows the truth. This is a warning to you though: don’t allow your curiosity to trick you into looking for what shouldn’t be found. There is, after all, a reason why you are reading this right now.

  Regards,

  -Jacob

  Unstable Ground

  It was still dark outside as the man arose from his slumber. It took him awhile to fully register that he had lived to see another day, although he wish he hadn’t. It wasn’t that the man hated the world, but he simply grew tired of the world he was in. Currently in his mid-thirties, the man spent much of his young adulthood exploring the world. He enjoyed exploring everything the world had to offer, as well as mingling with the locals and learning of different customs. However, he never expected himself to adopt a young girl to be his companion.

  It had happened over a few months ago, while he was taking a visit to Spain. It was around the time where he had gotten bored with his travels and was looking for something new and fresh. There was a ruckus going on in the middle of one of the cities. There, he found a young girl, who had been caught stealing a loaf of bread. Although she looked tattered and dirty, it was obvious that she was a beautiful girl, but appeared no older than a decade old. Her eyes and cheeks were puffed up as an elderly woman was, presumably, telling her off in Spanish. While the young man knew many things, he had yet to learn the various languages of the countries that he would visit.

  He walked up to the elderly woman, who was watching over a table outside of the bakery. Placed on the table were various breads and baked goods that appeared to be at least a day old. He simply pointed at the breads that he found the most delectable, including the one that the young girl had stolen from the table only a few short seconds ago. Placing the money on the table, he took his load, and walked over to the young girl standing only a few feet away from the table. She appeared to be running out of tears when the man pulled out the bread that she had deemed most delectable and handed it to her.

  “Thank you,” the little girl cried out to him, hugging him tightly.

  This was a bit interesting to him. The man didn’t expect the little girl to speak a lick of English; in truth, he had believed the girl to be a mute. The two of them sat on the street corner for half an hour, eating from the man’s picking of bread. As he left, he noticed that the young girl was carefully following him. He certainly didn’t mind the young girl following him around the town; in the past, he was greatly admired by children for being a wanderer. Of course, the young man knew that there were also other reasons why people would follow him.

  By what appeared to be noon, the man was at the center of the town, where all the merchants gathered. This was a part of his usual, daily routine. The man carried around only a small backpack, which held his tent, a blanket, and other small belongings. That was all he ever needed though. He pulled out his blanket and placed it in front of him as the little girl sat right in front of the blanket.

  He pulled up his long sleeves to reveal strange, blood red patterns on his arm. From a distance, they appeared to wrap completely around his arms, but no one could exactly figure out exactly what the pattern was for. From the ground, he picked up a few small rocks that were surrounded around him. He collected these rocks until they were in a small pile on the blanket. He then placed his hands on separate sides of the pile.

  No one knew the true name of this young man. Many simply knew him as The Traveling Alchemist.

  The red ink on his tattoos appeared to glow as he was concentrating on the rocks in the middle of the blanket. People started to gather around him as they were noticing what he was doing with the rocks. Everyone looked with their mouths wide open as the matter of the rocks began to change. They formed together at first, and then started being crafted into something else. The alchemist looked at the glow in the little girl’s eyes, as well as the twinkle in the eye of other kids as they looked at his creating process.

  The crafting was finished. What was once a number of small pebbles piled on each other was now a solid, gray replica of a new born kitten. Those young and old applauded at the feat that they had just witnessed.

  “You’re magic,” The little girl said to him.

  The man smiled at the little girl’s words. He was used to such praise, and it was obvious that the same praise was coming from everyone around him. In an instant, the little girl started running around the town center, looking for more small rocks, tossing them on the blanket. Children followed suit with her, wanting to see the young man do the trick again.

  “What would you like to see next,” the alchemist asked the group of kids.

  “Puppy,” the little girl said almost immediately.

  He could hear the commotion coming from the rest of the children in the crowd. Even without asking that question (which he knew that the kids didn’t understand anyway because of the language barrier), he knew that the kids would be yelling at him to make the rocks into various figurines. He obeyed the wishes of the little girl that he was familiar with, first creating a small dog with its tongue dangling from its mouth.

  That was what the alchemist did for his work. At every town he would go to, around this time of the day, he would set up shop and create small creatures from rocks. He never charged money for what he did though. He would create these still creatures and then hand them to whoever wanted them. Usually, the parents of some of the kids would be so grateful for the smile on their child’s face that they would give him money for his hard work. He was able to survive on that, as well as performing other tasks in the towns he would visit.

  During the day in Spain, while he was making the figurines, there was a young man who was playing on his guitar. Between the two of them, it appeared to be as if a festival broke out in the middle of the square. Kids were cheering loudly as the young man worked his alchemy while they danced around to the hypnotic beat of the music.

  With the hustle and bustle of the square, many of the kids weren’t paying attention to what was going on. A young boy appeared to be running around, like most kids do when are young, but accidentally knocking into the man who was playing the guitar. While the man appeared to be uninjured, the guitar appeared to be broken in two.

  The young alchemist noticed this and refused to simply ignore it. He understood the kind of predicament the guitarist was in. He knew that man’s guitar was the only way he was going to get any kind of nourishment tonight. This was the kind of other service that the alchemist provided for the people. The alchemist moved the guitarist away from the broken guitar and made sure that every small piece had been accounted for.

  Placing his hands on the floor next to the guitar, the ink on his tattoos began to shine as started to concentrate. Like the rocks, it appeared as if all the pieces were melding into one. He then thought of the structure of the guitar and how it is properly formed. Seconds passed and the spell was completed. The alchemist handed back the guitar, which appeared to be in a much better condition than he had originally seen it.

  “Thank you, sir,” the guitarist said to the alchemist.

  “Oh; you speak English,” the alchemist responded, happily surprised.

  “Yes, sir.” The guitarist smiled. He then noticed the little girl that has stuck by the alchemist from the very beginning. He smiled at the girl. “I see that Lucy has gotten attached to you, my friend.”

  “So that’s her name,” the alchemist said, feeling somewhat relieved. He then turned to the little girl, meeting her at eye level. “Why didn’t you tell me your name?”

  “You never asked me,” the young girl said
in a matter-of-fact voice.

  The alchemist gave a smirk as the guitarist laughed.

  The three of them stayed in the town square until it was sunset. While the alchemist didn’t accept any kind of payment from the guitarist, he did decide to accept his request on staying in his house for the night. Lucy had been sticking by his side throughout the day, and it appeared as if the same can be said for the night. The alchemist had figured that the young girl was homeless and lived on the streets, so sleeping over at the guitarist’s house was more for the young girl’s sake than for his.

  When the young girl was put to sleep for the night that was when the alchemist was told the story of Lucy. The guitarist figured that she was from the United States, but he knew that she had originally come to the city on vacation with her parents. A few days ago, there was an accident involving Lucy’s parents. For some reason or another, there was a shootout in one of the streets, and her parents happened to be caught in the line of fire. Fortunately for Lucy, she was brushed into the crowd, and didn’t get injured from the incident. However, she could never find her parents, since the authorities had taken all of the causalities out of the streets by the time Lucy returned to look for them.

  The alchemist couldn’t hold back a few