In a world that had put aside such silly notions as thinking, it was odd that a girl such as Sasha would exist.
For a great deal of time, people use to do a lot of thinking. They usually thought about themselves, but sometimes, they managed to pull themselves away from that topic and think about other things. The trouble was, they usually ended up thinking about other people.
Thinking about other people is just about the worst thing you could do. Nothing good has ever come out of thinking about other people.
People who think about other people would get cursed with one of the two curses. People would either get to like the other person or start to hate them.
Liking always lead to disappointment. Hating always lead to someone getting killed.
People would then have to spend a lot more time thinking. "How can I get them to like me better?" Would cross their minds a hundred times.
"Why should I get them to like me? What could I make so that I could better enjoy killing them?" Would cross the minds of others.
At one point in history, everyone decided once and for all that thinking was a silly thing for intelligent people to do. From then onwards, they swore, they would never think again.
They managed to keep their promise for thousands of years and it served them very well. There was no longer any wars, economic recessions, famine, or any other "great evil". Even if there was, no one really cared about it.
Then all of a sudden Sasha was born and fucked up the entire world.
At one point in history people used to think that there was a god. They are no longer so foolish. But were there to be such an entity, this is what he would say, seeing the first and only true Utopia come crashing down: "Shit."
Sasha had a rather odd ability, an ability she had no control over. When people looked at her, they found themselves think about all sorts of things.
This usually ended up scaring the shit out of people. People would looking into her eyes, which were blue, and thought of silly things, such as oceans. One woman looked into Sasha's blue eyes and thought this: "Fish." It wasn't that big of a thought, but it was a beginning. Later on that evening the same woman came up with this expanded thought: "Fish swim in cheese." She was, of coures, totally wrong, but she did at least think of it. Over the next serveral months she would constantly work on her thesis and a mere second before her death came up with the all new: "Fish swim in butter." Still wrong: Maybe she isn't a good example.
A man accidentally looked at Sasha's black hair and thought of trees. "Trees," said the man to himself. He then thought of himself in a tree. He then thought of himself next to a tree. He wondered how he could turn that tree into a stool. He wasn't sure why he thought that, but he did. He then thought of himself with a rather heavey piece of metal attached to a pole. He kept swinging the object at a tree. Then suddenly, the tree was no longer standing, but lying down. "How odd," said the man when he thought about it. The man then began to cut up the tree and finally, in his thoughts, he had a stool. He was quite proud. Then he came up with the thought that topped all the other thoughts. He thought: "Can I bring my thoughts out of my brain and actually make a stool." He then did everything that he had done in his thoughts, only this time, for real. After several months, he had a stool. He then thought: "What now?" He never did think about sitting on the stool. He wasn't the sitting sort.
The world was slowly being destroyed. Everywhere Sasha went, more and more people were thinking. Too many people were saying this to themselves: "Can I bring my thoughts out of my brain and make them real." or "What now?"
Then Sasha met a boy. This boy was different from all the rest of the people, for when he looked at Sasha, he thought of Sasha.
He looked at her eyes and thought, "What lovely eyes." He looked at her legs and thought, "What lovely legs."
He looked at her teeth and thought, "What lovely teeth." To give the boy some credit, Sasha's eyes, legs and teeth were rather lovely. Basically, Sasha was an incredible woman. No one had ever thought about it, but had they, they would have no choice but to agree with the boy.
The boy sat and thought about Sasha all day long and during the nights, he dreamt about her. She became his entire life. He fell so deeply in love with her that it would most likely make anyone else sick, if they thought about it, which luckily, they didn't.
The boy's thinking grew and grew with each passing second. Soon he was writing poems about Sasha. They weren't any good, in fact they were rather pitiful attempts at poetry, but since poetry hadn't been written in over four thousand years, it wasn't all that bad.
The boy thought about love and the more he thought about it the more that he became convinced that he was in love with the ravishing beauty.
But no matter how much he convinced himself, he could not build up the nerve to walk up to her, to get any closer then he had been. He would follow her all day long, staying as far away as he could, but still within range of watch her. He watched the effect she had on others, for as she walked, he could almost feel the people around her beginning to think once again. He could feel the cob webs within their minds brushed aside by the power with Sasha. He was so glad that he had fallen in love with her, who had such power. He was like a proud parent.
Finally he could resist no longer, although fear burned within his mind, he swore that if another day passed without being able to speak to the girl he loved, he would kill himself.
The hours rode on. The sun began to fall, but still he held back. He feared that she would reject him, so much, that for a while at least he thought that death might be better. At least he would die, confident in his dream that she had a place in her mind for him.
But then, as the evening approached, he decided that to die without even attempting to win her love would be the greatest tragedy of all time.
So within seconds of the final hour, the boy ran up to where Sasha stood and after a moment of tension, stated "Hi."
Sasha looked at him with her lovely eyes and said nothing. "I don't know how else to say this," said the boy, "But as soon as I saw you, I fell in love with you." He turned red and turned away. Instantly his mind was full of so many thoughts that he could not do anything. A great wave of depression hit him and he wished that he had died. "What a fool," he thought to himself. "She will hate you."
Turning away, the boy had not noticed that Sasha had continued looking at him, though lovely eyes they were, they were also blank, unthinking, for Sasha had never looked at herself. She remained in the state that people had sworn to remain. The boy's words had passed through one ear and out the other. Though she looked at him, it was not her conscious thought that did so. Her eyes merely focused on him, for he was the thing in front of them.
"I'm sorry," said the boy, turning back to her. "I feel so silly." He felt stupid, but thought that "silly" would be a better thing to say, how could Sasha fall in love with someone who was Stupid? He still did not realize that Sasha had never had a thought in her life. Though she had the power to give thoughts to others, that gift, or curse, had been denied her.
"You probably hate me," he said and then built up the courage to look into her eyes. It was then that depression overcame him again, for the first time he realized the tragedy of Sasha. He looked into her eyes for a long time, hoping that somewhere within the bright blue waters would be the slightest hint of thought. He fell into a dream of hope, knowing full well that it would be impossible. But still did he imagine. He imagined that within those lovely blue eyes was someone that cared as much about him as he did for her.
But within those eyes he only saw desert. Blank and lifeless. Blue seas of desert. Sand storms of motionless non-existence. The walking dead, an undead horror of unearthly beauty.
Sasha was the empty shell that gave life to others. The boy was nearly comsumed by his defeat. All that he lived for had been crushed, or so he believed. He hated himself and hated the curse that Sasha had bestowed upon him. He wished to float in the empty void once again, he wished to be free of the burden of thinking. Free from the pain that thinking had caused him.
He fell to his knees and began to cry. He no longer felt embarrassed showing his feelings, for he now knew that Sasha was merely a brick wall. Were he not totally drained of all energy he might have rose at that moment and bgan to smash that wall with his fists. He would have killed Sasha for she now represented all that he despised.
He pounded the ground till his hands were too sore to do it anymore. Finally he rose, to look one last time at the woman of his dreams, the nightmare that had brought him to the doorstep of insanity. But Sasha was not there, she had continued on as if nothing had happneed, for Sasha, nothing had.
The boy collapsed once again. Hope had once more been washed away. He had thought for a second that all his greatest fears might not be true. In the face of despair, he had dared to hope, but now saw how useless that was. Only the ones who looked at Sasha could think, and she was eternally exiled from the power of her own image.
The boy looked down at the twinkling pool of tears and saw within the mocking image of his own face staring at him. "What a fool you are," the boy said to the reflection. "What a fool," and with that he slapped the tiny pool, to rid himself of his own stare.
The boy felt the weight of life upon his shoulders, like Atlas, as long as he lived, he would have an irresistible force upon his back.
"What an evil thing thought is," the boy thought. "Before I thought, I did not know the pains of life, did not feel the icy grip of life. For so long, the thinkers of the world feared death, thought of it as a cruel monster, a Grim Reaper, with a hideous skull, ready to take its prey to hell. But can any world be more terrible than this? Is this not hell? Death is merely escape, death would save me."
His thoughts concluded, the boy decided to take his own life. He pushed all other thoughts from his mind. Nothing must distract him. The beautiful flowers and warm sun were merely a facade, a cruel joke.
Without delay the boy found a knife and used it to cut deep slashes into his wrists. The blood squirted uncontrolably from the open woulds as the boy stared into space. He smiled gently, knowing that soon he would cheat life from any more amusement. He was not a toy for life's own pleasure. He would not play upon the stage of life, the cruel plot ended here.
But as his perceptions began to wander, from the weakness that the blood lose had brought about, he against thought of his lovely Sasha. He saw her as he had seen her before his encounter, and he convinced himself that the lifeless husk he had met was not the real Sasha. The Sasha was a lovely thinking wonderful woman. She danced about in great fields of flowers. Her laughter was heard from one end of the world to the other. Everyone loved Sasha and more importantly, he loved her and she loved him. Then suddenly the dancing Sasha turned to stone, cold and lifeless. He cried out in his dream, as the mocking sneer of his own image, reflected in pools of tears stared at him, laughting evilly. Thousands of mirrorss reflecting his own image back upon him. He stared into his own eyes a thousand fold.
Images of himself came back upon him. Images were reflected.
He burst from the dream weak and soaked with his own blood. He could feel his life slipping away and fear grew within. He could not die. Sasha would love him, he knew that she would love him, if only he could see her once more.
The mask of death had been torn away, he saw it now as it truly was. Death was a hideous monter and it had almost tricked him into sacrificing himself to it.
"I will not die," he told himself. "I can not die." He tore the shirt from his back and tied up his wrists with in, hoping to block the flow of blood. He dragged himself to his feet, still weak from the blood lose, but determined. A warm glow grew within, shedding the coldness of empty veins. A power was in him, the power of his own will.
Determined, he stumbled out to find the woman of his dreams.
"Sasha," he cried when he at last found her. She ignored him as she ignored the world, still stuck in the void of her own thoughtless mind.
The boy stood in front of her again, standing tall and brave, "Look," he said to her, "Look at yourself. Look into your own bright and beautiful eyes!" And with that, he held up a mirror.
As Sasha stared into her own eyes, she saw the desert fade under an emerald glare. Bright flowers sprung up from the earth and blossomed. Trees rose high and majestic. The desert was gone; bright glowing life overflowed and Sasha thought her first thought.