Chapter 1一 Alienation
Circa 2009:
The young boy decided to skip an hour of skating at school to catch up on some pending notes.
He wasn’t alone though.
In the class, 2-3 other kids stayed back.
Once the kids completed their notes, they decided to chat about 3rd-grader topics.
Once they grew bored with that, 2 kids in the group decided to play a prank on the popular girl in class.
The young boy was conflicted for two reasons一
1) He had a HUGE crush on the popular girl and he wouldn’t do anything to embarrass her.
2) The 2 kids were her friends. Why would they want to hurt a friend?
So, out of fear, he just stood by and watched as they walked over to her desk and started searching through it.
They quickly found her pouch, inside of which was a photo of her father.
They plotted a plan of taking the picture of her father and pinning it to the notice board in the class. He stood by and watched.
He could only nervously chuckle when they actually did it, knowing it wasn't right.
“I thought you were a boring nerd, but you seem like fun,” they said to the young kid.
He was now one of them. Even though he was unsure, he felt something he never had before一 camaraderie.
He belonged to a group. He fit in.
In a few minutes, the class came pouring in.
A few minutes after that, the popular girl saw her dad’s photo on the notice board.
It didn’t take long for her to walk up to the teacher and report what happened.
Someone didn’t just rummage through her belongings, they hung her dad's photo with a paperclip.
The case was pretty straightforward for the teacher to crack一
It couldn’t have happened with people around. It happened sometime during the skating class.
Who were the kids who stayed back to write notes during the period?
3 kids.
Let’s have a conversation with them.
The young boy, feeling part guilt and part camaraderie decided to remain silent.
You stick up for your friends, right? That’s what everyone says, right?
The other two kids, noticing the silence of the boy, pointed their finger at him.
He was now very alone and the sole perpetrator of this crime.
He wasn’t part of any group. They couldn’t have been his friends.
Now defensive, he decided to speak up一 tell the whole truth.
But, it turns out that 2 people lying about the same thing is more valid than the truth of one silly, gullible child.
And, of course, disobedience of this size doesn't go unpunished at this school.
He was sent to the principal, who went on to call his mom.
You’d think a boy who mostly kept to himself could confide in his mother and tell her exactly what happened, right?
Of course, his mother who thought the world of him would unquestionably believe him.
But, on hearing the news from the teacher, she shed a silent tear.
In her head, she had failed as a parent as the boy was turning out to be a troublemaker like his dad.
This sadness in front of the teacher, on the way back home, turned into a mixture of anger and disgust toward the boy.
He begged and he pleaded to believe him, that he wasn’t to blame.
But, the one person who he thought would hear him out and trust him, now only seemed disturbed by him.
All for an act that he didn’t do.
You’d think it ends here for the boy, that his mother would move on and forget about the whole thing.
But, no. She was so disturbed by this one misdemeanour that she saw a form of sickness in the boy that needed severing.
She decided to drive straight to a child counsellor to get professional help.
With the limited knowledge the boy had about counselling, he knew he didn’t need it.
Wasn’t professional help only for the mentally sick一 for people fucked up in the head?
Why was he here?
Was he mentally sick?
“You’ve got wide ears,” the lady said. “It’s the sign of smart people,” she continued.
‘Lies,’ the boy thought. He wouldn’t be here if he was smart.
He stayed silent throughout the session, afraid she wouldn’t believe him even if he told the truth.
So, he bottled it up. He refused to talk because nobody would believe him regardless.
But, the kid learned something very valuable一
1) You don’t have to be truthful to get your way. Lying is easier AND it works better.
2) He was alone. Nobody trusted him, and he didn’t have anybody to trust. The only one he had was himself. Everyone else was just playing a charade.
But, he carried something in him that was more dangerous than the two beliefs.
He carried loathing and resentment towards the world.
All the lies people spew about being truthful and having people you could trust? Disgusting.
He wished they were all dead.
He saw the world for the disgusting place that it was and hated everyone in it.
Chapter 2一 Anger
Circa 2015:
The boy grew up to build an identity for himself over the next few years.
The father of the boy wanted to make something of him.
The boy was weak and the father knew it was his responsibility to build him to be stronger.
So, he did it in the only way he knew how to do it.
He enrolled the kid into the school of Hard Knocks and thrust him into the competitive skating scene.
The primary teaching tool? Insults and comments to induce anger and aggression.
With a couple of classes of the good ole ass-whoopin'.
He wanted to inculcate smarts, aggression, competitiveness, and power into the boy.
But, the boy always seemed to fall short of the father’s expectations.
Nothing he ever did was ever enough.
The father said, "work on getting better at skating and beat the son of the head coach."
Done.
The son beat his competition in the city in under a year of starting.
The other kids had a head start by at least 5+ years.
The father said, "work on winning a state medal."
Got there in two years.
National medal?
A year after that.
The boy was running on the hamster wheel 24/7 just to hear 4 words from his father一
“I’m proud of you.”
But, they never came.
So, the boy decided to try a different tactic一 aggression.
Not in his sport, though. He could never manage to prove himself in front of his father.
The aggression appeared at the place he spent most of his day at, his school.
Anybody that didn’t do what the boy asked them to got sucker punched.
Anybody that pissed him off while playing basketball would have a ball thrown at their face, often at terminal velocity.
He wanted the power his father had.
He wanted the aggression his father demanded of him.
And, this was the only way he knew how.
The anger he had pent up inside as a child was now surfacing.
The anger grew, and so did his reputation.
Nobody messed with him.
He was by no means the strongest, but everyone knew that he was bat-shit crazy.
He wouldn't hesitate to rip a chunk of flesh off anyone's neck with his teeth.
Strangers and victims looked at him with resentment.
Friends could only look on with sadness as he pushed them all away.
The people around him disappeared, and the resentment he felt toward his father grew.
All this anger he felt, he now hated.
Before he realised it, he had become his father, even in the ways that he hated.
All the things his mother was scared of him turning into, he had turned into.
The boy now hated all that he had become.
He had let rage consume him and the people he cared about.
He was scared of the monster within.
Chapter 3一 The Jester Enters Neverland
Circa 2020:
The boy overcorrected for his aggression.
He became a goof.
He confused being harmless with being virtuous.
He went about making as little noise as possible, leaving the smallest trail on reality.
It didn’t take long for the boy to find vices to numb his aggression and emotions.
He turned to alcohol, vaping, and pot.
He started lying to the one person he could trust一 himself.
“Pot is not that bad. The world would be a better place if everyone did it.”
Before he knew it, the boy looked back and realised that he had consumed edibles every day for the last 3-4 months.
His normal was being high.
His normal was being numb.
He had entered Neverland.
A magical place where there are no responsibilities and the possibilities are endless.
He could be anything he wanted.
He could do anything he wanted.
He was an “adult” now.
But, in his bones, he knew this couldn’t be it.
He knew he had more to do, more to be.
Something was wrong and every day was an escape from feeling this feeling.
Chapter 4一 The Escape from Neverland and the Return of the Monster
Circa 2022:
The boy, now a man, was disgusted by who he had become.
He was angry at so many things一 the world, the people around him, and most of all, himself.
He had reached a breaking point.
He knew there was so much more to this.
Overnight, he gave up all his vices. He couldn’t do this anymore.
Living on 250gms of edibles every day is not a fulfilling life.
Once all the hyper-stimulation was cut off, the anger returned.
But, it was different this time.
He realised he could channel it to build something.
He could tap into his fire and use it for good.
The anger was a curse, a touch of evil, but it could be channelled into something beautiful.
The fire could burn his paradise down, but he could also use this fire to forge and build.
The hero has to be touched by evil before he can call himself that.
Little did he know that his journey was only beginning.