Your eyes slam open. Your god-awful alarm is blaring like some tireless siren. You’ve never been great at math, but you figure if you skip your shower and shorten your breakfast, you could hit the snooze button twice and only be five minutes late for work.  Two blinks later, you fall out of bed, shuffle to your bathroom, and found yourself wondering what that fat, scruffy person was doing in your bathroom, but realized you were looking at your reflection. You immediately comfort yourself with self-deceiving thoughts of positivity, complimenting yourself with reassurances that you’re slim and good looking. You glance at your closet and put on whatever is closest to you.

Downstairs, you force yourself to not gag on your cereal but eat it anyways so that you could consider yourself fit by eating cereal that says “healthy” on the box. As you mechanically shove food down your mouth, you check your phone and realize you might be more than five minutes late for work. You pretend as if this is alarming, but in reality this happens every day.

You spend a couple minutes fumbling around your house looking for your keys, and when you finally find them, get yourself into your clunky mid-class car. Along your forgettable commute to work, you constantly refrain from rapping your horn and remind yourself how much superior you think you are compared to everyone else.  

When you self-consciously amble into work, and when you finally arrive at your cluttered cubicle, decorated with pictures of your family and good times for all to see, you finally bring yourself to throw out all those excess papers and trash that have been piling up in your office. This only happens every once in a while, for you are far too lazy to keep your workspace clean, and when you do take out the papers, you always fill several trash bins alone. You sit down and steal a glance at your fat co-worker who looks close to tears every time he blinks.

Not thirty minutes into work, you find yourself woozy from all the sleep you didn’t get last night. Your coffee is the only reason you’re conscious. You tell yourself that you’ll just put your head down for a minute, as you involuntarily lower your cheek to your desk and sleep. You see, that’s when you meet me.

You look around and see white in every direction. Stretching much farther than your nearsightedness could see. Infinitely in fact. Then you saw me. To you, I looked like an identical proxy of yourself, complete with all your imperfections you try to ignore, yet something about me seemed off to you. Something vague and indescribable.

“Hi,” I said, breaking the ice.

“I'm sorry, who are you?” you demand, in this awkward confidence I’ve come to expect.

“Well I figured my rugged good looks would have given me away,” I joked. “Listen, why don’t you sit down, and let’s talk for a minute.” I gesture to the two chairs that materialise, not facing each other, but parallel, both facing the distance. The sky flared brilliantly, and an image of you pathetically snoozing on your desk was projected in the sky.

You sat down gingerly, as if the chair would swallow you whole. You thought to ask how the chairs appeared, but you thought you’d look stupid.

“So why are we sitting again?” you asked, at a loss for words.

“No reason, it’s just nice to sit while we talk,” I said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Not going to lie, it was fun toying with you in such a confused and befuddled state.

You turned to face me, “Alright, you better tell me where I am or, I swear to god, I wi-.”

“Although it would be fun to see what you could have threatened me with, I’ll just stop you there,” I interrupted. “Tell me, how many kids die everyday from poverty?”

You shrugged. You were sure you read this online from some social media post, but you never cared enough to remember.

“Twenty-two thousand,” I stated. “Now tell me, what percent of people live without electricity? Twenty-five. How many live without clean water, or even have enough water to keep them alive? 1.2 billion. Or how many live in a society that has water, but they can’t afford it. 1.6 billion.” You maintained your streak of silence.

“Last question: How many people are less fortunate than you?” You shrug as if you hadn't a care for whatever I said. To be perfectly honest, you’ve never been a great actor. “Five point five billion people.” I enunciated.

You’d had enough. “Alright, what the hell is this place, and who do you think you are?” You spat at me. “You wear my face, but you sure as hell aren’t me.”

“Look around. We are in your brain. Take note of its emptiness. And, well… I am your subconscious.”

“Oh...” You mutter confused. “So you’re like what’s behind all of my actions?”

“God no. Don’t insult me, that’s Conative. That guy’s an idiot.” I spat at you. Jeez, I spend all my time keeping you alive, and this is how you thank me.

“Alright then, so you’re my thoughts…” You guessed.

“Close. Now you’re talking about Cognitive. He’s the brainiac. In some cases.” I pause, trying to phrase my next words wisely. “To over grossly simplify it, I’m that voice in the back of your head, that you do your best to ignore. I’m the reason you stay up at night. I plague your head with thoughts like how you spend every day in and out like a robot, avoiding your family, social situations, to stay at home by yourself. That you’re not antisocial, but you blame that for your loneliness. How you lie to yourself that you prefer to be alone, but you know you’re just deceiving yourself.” I couldn’t help but raise my voice. “You think you’re stupid, yet at the same time, you think you’re smarter than everyone around you. You judge everyone for the smallest thing, yet the person you judge the most is yourself. You’ve barely donated a cent to charity, and recoil at the sight of any homeless person who even glances in your direction, as if you think you are superior to them. When you die, it will be alone. Your death will be taken sadly by whatever friends and family cared enough to give a damn about you, only to be forgotten in a blink of an eye. You are a spec in the grand scheme of things, a failure in the eyes of humanity for doing nothing to help, or even contribute to the greater picture. You are a pathetic person, a worthless talking monkey on a floating rock in space.”

After my soliloquy, you take sudden interest in your shoes. “But there is something you can do. You can take enormous care in your choices and action. You can take actions in generally being a good person to anyone around you. To borrow a cliché: you can stretch your horizons in directions you didn’t know existed. All it takes is a bit of good.” I put my hands on your shoulders, “My friend, you can make your life worth something. Do good to the world, and the world will do good to you in exchange.” You had nothing to say, so I sent you on your way.

You lift your head from your paper strewn desk. You sat up, no longer requiring coffee to stay awake. You face your co-worker going through a tough time, and asked kindly, “Hey... uh, do we have a recycling bin?”