Breakdown of Reality

               He was dressed in a yellow suit with deep purple pinstriped. He face had a strange contortion that was at once a smile and a grimace. Freddy almost could have thought that it was painted it on, it wasn’t. That was his natural face. Well, as natural a face as he had. He flashed Freddy his smile/grimace and takes a deep bow.

               “Welcome one and all,” he told him, “To this wonderful kingdom. The king is waiting for you.”

               And with that he bowed, threw a smoke bomb on the ground, and was gone.

               Freddy frowned, because he couldn’t remember how he got here. He couldn’t even remember where exactly here is. He looked around himself and saw the stone brick of a warehouse. He looked to his right and left, men and women stood next to him, looking as equally bewildered. Some were dressed in sleeping clothes; some were dressed as if they were plucked right off of the street. One man was wearing an expensive looking silk suit.

               After a few seconds of staring around, they all noticed a large sign hanging over the only exit to the room. It read Enter Here, in big bold, neon flashing lights. Freddy wasn’t sure how it didn’t grab their attention in the first place.

               “Uh… I guess we go through there?” he said, unsure of what it was he was asking. Or where it was they were going. Or who the king they were supposed to be meeting was.

               One of the women that looked like she had been plucked off of the street giggled. It wasn’t an amused giggle, or a funny giggle, in fact it was kind of a scary giggle. In a normal setting it would have gotten her strange looks; with a normal crowd she would have been ostracized. Here though, they understood. Freddy was familiar with the sound, it was one that had played in his head plenty of times, but he had suppressed it from escaping his lips to not be deemed insane.

               The woman looked about her sheepishly, as if a little ashamed of what she had done. Mostly though there was defiance in her eyes, as if challenging any of compatriots to say something. No one did. Not here. They could feel it pressing in around them. Reality was fractured and angled, something each of them had known, but never expressed. Freddy knew in his heart that none of these people were residents of insane asylums, but each shared in the knowledge of the truth that those residents held to be self-evident.

               So as a group they moved past the threshold of the exit, into the next room in their new location. As each crossed through they entered into a plethora of color. Red, greens, violets, and everything in between swirled around them. Every color from the spectrum of human existence was everywhere, and a number of colors beyond. Everyone stopped to take in the sight.

               The colors moved, intermixed, and separated. In one corner a spectrum of red light was conducting war with a spectrum of violet light, opposing forces from the opposing spectrums. The greens and blues sat in the stands cheering. Freddy watched with the giggling girl and the man in the suit. After a few minutes they all turned to each other and nodded.

               After the sights of the colors had all been taken in they began moving to the void. The great destroyer of colors, who stands in opposition to the great All Color White, the No Color Black. A void gaping and obvious. Everyone instinctively knew that this was the portal to their next destination. As they spent more and more time in this place they knew where to go.

               They were in an office. A normal office from the normal world. They walked through it like ghosts, invisible to the cubicle warriors sitting at their desks behind their walls. Freddy knew the insanity that held dominion in this realm. Had felt it in the past, attempting to gain control over him. The belief that this was all there was. The water cooler, the desks, the chairs, the grind, the office gossip, the football games after work, the beers at bars, the 2.5 kids, this was all there was to the world. The world held no beauty in it.

               Where the land of colors had inspired awe, this realm, so close to their own, inspired sadness. He knew plenty of people that spent time in this realm.

                One man in thirty looked up and saw them, nodding and returning to his work. Ah, there was one brave soul that was willing to question the bounds of reality. Perhaps he would not be trapped here for that long.

                They walked out the emergency exit and came to a throne room, of sorts. The man from the entrance stood in front of the throne, smile/grimace on his face. “Ah, supplicants,” he said, “It is good to see you. Did you enjoy your brief foray into a few of my Lord’s realms?”

                 On the thrown sat an odd looking man. His eyes were piercing, they looked right through you. Lips tight and pursed in a grin that looked like they already knew the answers to everything that you never thought of. Long slender hands with long slender finger that never ceased moving.

                 And looking at him those questions that you didn’t know were answered. Everything made sense suddenly. The fractures had their place, the giggles their moments, and they would not be suppressed.

                It would be so, King Delirium had spoken.