Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Call Me Irresponsible

Call me irresponsible,
Call me unreliable,
Throw in undependable too,

Do my foolish alibis bore you?
Well, I'm not too clever,
I, I just adore you,

So call me unpredictable,
Tell me I'm impractical,
Rainbows I'm inclined to pursue

- Michael Buble, Call Me Irresponsible

*****

"You have to try, 'cause if you haven't tried, you haven't lived."

- Anthony Hopkins as Bill Parrish, Meet Joe Black

*****

This is a story about a boy. There, an innocuous enough beginning to an innocuous enough story. This boy, was your average teenaged boy with all the hormonal problems and mood swings that come as part of the package. But he was skinny, and didn't play sports, he didn't think the same way other guys thought, and didn't see things the same way either. Maybe it was a byproduct of the way he was brought up, but that was how he was. And while he could revel in it every now and again, deep down he never felt right. He never felt as if he belonged. Not to this particular era, not to this particular world sometimes.

So then, this boy began to lose himself in another world. In the world of books, and roleplaying, and anime. And in this world, his world. He could be whoever he wanted to be, do anything his mind could conceive. He could be a hero, he could be brave, and strong, and powerful and everything he felt he should be. But still, he couldn't live in that world forever, and one day, when he stepped out of it, he found that the real world, the world he had been living in all along, had left him behind, and now more than ever he did not fit in. Indeed, could not fit in.

That didn't stop him however, no not this boy of ours. He took everything he learned from his world. From the world he'd imagined into existence, and tried with all his might to bring it to bear in the world he now found himself stuck in again. But all it did was isolate him further, because the inhabitants of this world could simply not understand him. Where he saw ideals, they saw naivete. Where he saw opportunity, they saw failure. Where he saw strength, they saw worthlessness. Yet he didn't give in, in fact he fought just that much harder to stay true to himself. To the person he knew he was.

And like all good stories, in this one, our boy fell in love. And as luck would have it, he fell in love with the most beautiful girl in the world. (To his eyes at least, because isn't that how everyone sees their partner?) But alas, this girl that he was enamoured of spurned his advances. Not out of spite, or malice, but perhaps out of fear? This didn't deter our boy, though. He kept his love alive, secretly. And admired her from afar in the only way he knew how. He became her friend.

Together they weathered the storms all friends must face, and all the while he kept silent and bottled the feelings he had for her deep within himself, trying to forget. But he could not forget. Slowly his other friends moved away to other parts of the globe to make their own lives. The group he had built around himself to support him began to come apart and crumble, or so he felt. Yet through it all, he held on to his hope, that one day, she would notice him. Then he would belong.

And then, she fell in love. Not with him, no. With another. And it seemed that he would break in two. "Will she try everyone before noticing me?" he wondered. It all but broke him, and he felt that in that moment, he could throw his dreams away and retreat again to that world he had created for himself. His world of fairy-tales. But he could not. While he'd stayed in the real world, he had aged, grown past the point of no return, and no longer could return to his world. He knew it wasn't real, and once you have found that knowledge (as everyone knows) the door to that dreamworld is closed to you forever.

So it came to be that the boy was stuck here, in the world he so hated, unable to retreat, too afraid to advance. Like a ship blown by brutal winds. And here the story ends, for what became of the boy, no one yet knows.

But that was not the end, truly.

It was just the beginning.

*****

I have no idea where that came from. I started writing a metaphorical story, then that stuff just came out. *shrug* People have been telling me to blog. So I did. At least it's semi-well-written, right? Hahaha.

I really can't think of anything else to write, so I'm going to sign off here.

Jared

*****

I find her standing in front of the church,
The only place in town where I didn't search,
She looked so happy in a wedding dress,
But she cried as she was saying this,

"Boy I missed your kisses,
All the time but this is,
Twenty-five minutes too late,
Though you've traveled so far,
I am sorry you are,
Twenty-five minutes too late."

- Michael Learns to Rock, 25 Minutes

1 comment:

Liz said...

Wow. I really liked it. For me, at least, it is MORE than semi-well-written. Honest. When I read it, I can feel the boy's feelings (true story eh?).

I don't know what else to say.

Maybe the boy should try building a new world within the world he says he hates. Injecting his ideals and beliefs into that very world. This may not help the boy to fit in this world, but at least it'll give the boy the strength to try; to not lose hope.