Neptonia

Junior was eating sweet jellof rice seated beside the couch. His head was bent as he read his new reader. He scooped spoons of rice as he turned each page and chewed slowly, his mind and mouth in perfect rhythm. A small feet appeared by his plate. He didn't turn his head nor acknowledge the feet. He kept on reading. 

Then a big feet came and stood for a while. He didn't move. His mind was faraway in Tokyo, dreaming of a place where the cars swam and the oceans wailed and flew at the same time. His mind was in a place where the sky was green, the aqua green he saw in swimming pools in movies. He wanted to see a dog quack and a rabbit paddle a boat. He wanted the alligators to sing in perfect soprano voices and he wanted to feel the salty spray of the ocean as it wailed and flew across his head. He wanted a place where the grass grew taller than his head and he watched the sun set beautifully on a kayak. He wanted the moon to sing to him haunting hymns and touch his cheek gently. He wanted the world empty and he alone in this world. He called it "neptonia". He wanted to be in neptonia, where nothing was impossible and the world was turned upside down into a mashless goo. 

He wanted to swim in sweet boiling sugar water alongside a dolphin with red, blue and green eyes. He wanted the birds to stomp ungracefully so close to the water that he could reach out and touch them. He wanted the big whale to be his ever present companion, knocking down yellow and red vases awkwardly as he went by. He wanted the little fishes to carry him to the huge tree that would hug him close and carry him so high there would be no difference between him and the green sky. He wanted his body to be coloured aqua blue, aqua green and slashes of yellow, red streaks and purple violet flowers here and there. He wanted neptonia and he refused to wake up from his dreams.

In the full moon, he would leave through the window, crawl up the short fence and wander aimlessly. Those were the times he wanted to be a werewolf. He would imagine his teeth growing longer and sharper, his bones getting harder and his skin covered in hairs. He would make howling noises with his small voice and pull the grass. He wanted to be in the books. His own book. Where he called the shots and made the rules. Where he didn't feel so small and irrelevant. He wanted to fast forward into the future where a single tall violet would be standing on a field of grass and he would be it's sole friend.
He wanted the trains and the cars and the houses and the bags and the shoes and the clothes and the humans to disappear forever, so he could live in his own perfect world.
He often dreamt of building his own bubble where he would exist and be anything he wanted. He wanted the world to love him. In his rage, he wanted to destroy the world. In flashes of rusty reds and green blues, he wanted sweet music that would calm his spirit and heal his soul. He wanted acceptance. Everywhere he looked, it wasn't coming. The breaking of a new day was the breaking of senseless omelette to him. He hated it all. He hated them all.
The world he wanted, he desired and craved, the world that his stomach wanted to birth forth in sweet agony, neptonia, was not a dream anymore. It was not far away. The world was him. Neptonia was all his dreams, and agonies. Neptonia was to him as a drink to an alcoholic. Neptonia was to him as the baby's cries for the mother's milk. Neptonia was the fiery slash of water that would sway his soul and fill every pore, every cell, every hunger inside of him. His soul was a bottomless drum, getting deeper each day. And no one noticed. No one cared. He was all alone, empty. He had nothing left to give. His soul was weary and dragged down. The only constants in his life were the colours, the fearsome reds, the deep purples, the hazy violets that were never clear, the gory blues and yellows mashed together in a representation of nothingness. Neptonia was not a colour. It was him.