Ships Of Fools

Last night, during my endless war with insomnia, I decided to take a break from the exhausting battle so I took my phone and looked up Reddit, in which I found this prompt. Initially I saw the post and wasn't interested. I scrolled past it and wound up looking at other meaningless things such as "Darth Doofus" or the sort. I put the phone back down and fell back into the battlefield.

An hour later, and again, needing of a break, I went to the loo and looked at my phone again. This time, I decided to give the prompt a chance. By that I mean to read it, not to contribute to it. For your information, this prompt I mentioned is a writing prompt. It's a subreddit where users would post up a prompt for others to write a story on.

You could say there was nothing eye-catching about this prompt. It reads "Ever since you were born, you've possessed the ability to teleport wherever you're looking. Depressed and unsatisfied, you decide to end your life by looking towards the stars. You're not dead." It leaves a lot of boxes to be filled but that's the point of WP. It gives you an outline but vague enough for you to make it your own. And that's what this guy, psycho_alpaca // Cesar Vitale did. His writings has always impressed me but this particular writing, in which he made it into a series, he left me in awe. I am literally speechless. It is arguably the best series a prompt has ever produced.

His prompt, (x), revolves around the protagonist who instead of being dead, was on the ship of fools. I'm not going to say much because any summary of mine will do him injustice. His writing of a journey is a journey itself. Anyhow, this particular phrase caught this ship I call home and it hook it's anchor into the floor that is the brain. "The real world is not for us, Dean. We're fools."

Why? Maybe it's because ever since I was a kid, I never felt like a kid. I mean, around my friends, I would act like a total buffoon, a childlike attitude to bring the joys and laughter into this damp and depressing world of ours. And every since I was a kid, I have had countless people telling me that I was way too mature for my age. To loosen up a bit, to watch a movie just for the sake of entertainment, to stop reading every billboards and signage up on the street. But I couldn't do that. You can't just tell something in your mind to switch off. Unlike you do in reality.

Shame it's incredibly tiring to keep up with the world when they're not returning the love you've give them. I was on the virtual prison earlier (Instagram) and in between few posts, I felt two emotions. The emotion of sadness and the feeling of relativity hit me. The former was similar to when someone is abandoned and cast aside because they have no absolute need for you to be their shoulder and a pair of ears anymore. The latter was because of this post (x), I don't know about you but it speaks the truth for me. The voice I had but not loud enough to mutter a word, the words I knew but could never put it in a sentence good enough to be heard.

Back to the topic, this Ship of Fools. The moment I read it, I was hooked. It was a drug I could never be sick of. And I want to be on this Ship of Fools. I'm tired of living this life with this mask. Ironically, I was watching Watchmen (God lord, this beautiful piece of film is amazing. It is a goldmine for incredible quote.) One quote was when Rorschach mentioned how the mask was his real face, that the one he wore in his everyday life was a disguise. And that speaks volume. It speaks volume of truth. I'm tired of getting to class, telling everyone I'm happy, that everything is fine, that I've never been better! Because that's a lie, I know it but do others know it? I don't know. But that's my fault. I can't get help if I don't want it. I bring the cause to myself and I have no one to blame other than myself. Shame Stan, shame.

When I was a kid, I would spend my time on the carpeted floor we call home fixing up my virtual world of Legos or an architect of roads for my hot wheels or to indulge myself in the wonderful world of Playstation. In all those situations, whenever something's slightly off or I couldn't get the perfect score I would reset and start all over. I just wish I have a reset button right now.

But what went wrong? At what point in my life that I could pick out and say, that was a mistake. I got to amend that. At what point in my life, did I really become sad? And what could I do? Could I just tell my older self, "Stan, don't grow up. Stay your age. Don't learn the truth of the world. Be happy."

Could I?

2:15am
31/10/2015