A Bouquet of Ice Cream Cones

My alter ego smokes cigarettes and stays awake until 5:00 am without thought of the morning's responsibilities. He is addicted to sex and Adderall and lives a life that I used to daydream about while I was in class. Without him I have no confidence but without me he doesn't exist. He is clearly better looking than I am, but we are both still at odds with who's smoother. His temper reminds me of my father's, so much that I start to pace around the room fists clenched, grinding my teeth with no substantial way to back it all up. My right mind kicks into gear at that point and begins the uphill battle to regain control and composure. Most of the time no one else notices anything but a friend of mine often tells me I just have an over active imagination. Basically everyday she laughs at something I do that I would usually blame on my alter ego because she doesn't think he is nearly as tough as I make him out to be. She smiles and tells me "Toph, you're such a little kid, your imagination runs wild on a constant, nonstop basis." I never really understood it. After a while I decided to see if someone knew exactly what was wrong with me so I asked a doctor, but I know I'm not schizophrenic nor do I have Split Personality Syndrome and his white lab coat freaks me out, so I left his office and walked to the nearest fortune teller. She sat me down in a back room area with dim lighting from a seventies-style chandelier that hung low from the ceiling. A mesh bag of moth balls swung from the bottom of the chandelier and made the room smell as shady as it actually was, and only solidified my reasons to leave. So before she filled my head with hogwash I stood up, took out my wallet, handed her $50 and walked out with my dignity in tact but still with no answers. On my way back to my apartment I figured I'd stop in the bookstore to see if there was any reading material that could help me. The bells that rested on the inside of the entrance door served as an alarm to the bookkeeper when someone came walking in, and sure enough the bells that rested on the inside of the entrance door served as an alarm to the bookkeeper as soon as I walked in. At this point I was tired of hearing advice from other people but I had no choice right now. I went on to explain my problem and what I was looking for. Out of the three, the bookkeeper seemed the most interested but later I found out it was only because she thought I was making it all up and encouraged me to write a book. She let me know she envied my writer's brain, but her only advice involved me shooting a hole through the back of my head, thus killing my imaginary friend. I told her that it was an alter ego, not an imaginary friend, and I advised her to lay off the Chuck Palahniuk novels. The bells rang as I left and it reminded me of an ice cream truck so I went to get an ice cream cone. Ice cream parlors always made me feel so happy for some reason, probably because the sounds and colors and scents and probably due to my constant need to reconnect with my childhood years. Behind the counter a younger boy standing only 4'2'', that must have been the owner's son, was waiting to take my order. Although short, I would say he was about 14 years old. The entire time studying the layout of the place made me forget to think about what flavor I wanted. I asked his advice without remembering the terrible words of wisdom I had gotten earlier and he replied without hesitation, "I usually get 3 different flavors. I get 1 scoop vanilla, 1 scoop raspberry, and 1 scoop chocolate peanut butter in a rainbow sprinkle covered waffle cone." It made me smile because that was my favorite kind of cone. I asked him if he thought those flavors tasted best together. Again, without thinking about it he smiled awkwardly like someone would when they were about to reveal something strange about themselves and said "Nah, I just wanna make sure each part of my brain gets to have their favorite flavor, it wouldn't be fair any other way." I told him I want three of those and he rang me up for 3 vanilla, raspberry, chocolate peanut butter, rainbow sprinkle covered waffle cone ice creams cones. I handed him the money, he handed me the bouquet of cones, then I handed him one back. I said, "Thank you so much for everything and walked out." I met my friend in my apartments elevator on the way up to my floor and about half way through eating my tri-flavored treat. I handed her the almost melted third ice cream cone. She looked at me as she always had and once again smiled before telling me, "Toph you're such a little kid." It was the first time ever my schizophrenic, over active, alter-ego stricken, writer's brain of an imagination had nothing to respond back with except a smile of agreement.