Life’s Broken Fairy-tale

We’ve all heard that story. And I’m sorry, but this isn’t one of those stories. But it does begin with those four words. You know, those four words inscribed into literary folklore to begin every fairy-tale.

This one, goes a little like this…

ONCE UPON ‘A TIME, there was a baby. It was a new-born baby, and it was lying in a basket, as they always do, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

It was a lonely part of the world where there were lots of people—different types of people, but in this part of the world there was everything. There was crime and there was innocence. There were protests—angry people holding torches and pitchforks, all grasping pictures of people that they hated—tarnished with blood and drawn-on moustaches. There was peace. There was pain. There was comfort. There were noises of anger, tangoing with the sweetness of silence. There were happy people, dancing with their partners—their silhouettes casting over the brick walls as the sun came down—just like in the movies. And just next door, the sad people, staring out of their closed windows as the raindrops trickled down the glass.

But of course there was this baby, lying in its basket beneath all this chaos, the sun and the rain; the world’s next witness to all of life’s great paradoxes.

This baby was called Sam, and upon Sam’s discovery, everyone would cry: Sam’s new adoptive parents, the crusaders, the local protesters, even the animals. Nobody knew why they were crying—half of them didn’t even know that they were doing it— but there was just something that seemed to trigger them on a intrinsic level; something so abstract that it could not be perceived from a cognitive function. They just did it, automatically, like a child would get pissed from dropping their ice-cream. But it was just a baby—a semi-bald head with scrunched up features and arms like a T-Rex—the most normal personification of life in its very simplicity. And yet here, there were not just tears of joy, there were tears of anger; frustration.

But these people were missing something. Because what these people didn’t realise, was that Sam was extraordinary—for three, very important reasons:

1.) Sam had no ethnic identity.

We often fill out these identification forms in job applications and stuff—there’s an option in the ethnical background section called ‘other’, which people tick when they feel incorrectly represented or offended by the choices. In this case, however, the answer that most applied to Sam was ‘All of the above‘. Because Sam was both Black and white, Asian, Caucasian, African and yet—Western.

2.) Sam was the world’s first ever, sexually neutral baby.

This meant that Sam had both a penis and a vagina. For this reason, it was acceptable to call Sam he or she, because technically speaking, genetically—both were correct.

3.) This was because Sam was this Omnipresent Being that had the unique ability to shapeshift according to the ideals of every person that he/she encountered. And Sam would realise in early childhood that these unique abilities, as a by-product, enabled Sam great power – and Sam could control how people felt.

You see, Sam had a dream, much like his predecessors—Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln—a dream that was going to change the world. It was a dream that would rip apart the foundations of everything we knew and give birth to a better, freer world.

Sam dreamt of being a superhero. To fight crime and save the world from all of its monsters; the symbol of hope in all adversity. But because Sam already had these extraordinary powers, Sam didn’t even need to dream. He— she, already was a superhero, and would stop at nothing to make the world perfect.

It was a world that was going to end crime, poverty, abuse, addiction, hate, sickness and stupid people. There wouldn’t be another stupid person to step foot on this stupid Earth, Sam thought, and all forms of suffering would be expunged from the dictionary because they would literally no longer serve any purpose – and be rendered meaningless.

If man got sad, Sam would transform into whoever it was that made them happy— like their personal hero, or Gandhi—to give man whatever wisdom or courage was needed to uplift them from their deepest insecurities and misery.

If man got angry, Sam would become whatever it was that gave that person peace. Like a butterfly, or funny cat videos.

And if man became sexually frustrated, Sam transformed into a Hungarian hooker from the local brothel. Alternatively – Chris Hemsworth, or whatever.

Sam would give everyone whatever they wanted. They’d be rich and they’d have perfect partners and perfect sex. They’d bathe in strawberries, crap out jelly beans and live in their very own candy land. The world would be so rosy and bright that darkness would hide as if it were an illusion.

With such power (and lack of physical identity), Sam decided that he was just like God. Sam understood that a lot of people listened to God, and with that, Sam went and told all of the terrorists of the world that killing innocent people was WRONG. And from that moment forth, Sam decided that there shall be no more innocent death. This would be Sam’s final act.

Whatever the problem was, Sam had all the answers and all the solutions. The people of the Earth would not know another moment of suffering.

Sam climbed to the top of his tower later that week to rest; his work was done. Staring down at his beautiful creation; his children of the world – miles in the distant. The birds were singing from over the hills. The sky was glowing as the sun set. The city vibrant with colour and diversity. Everything was, finally, exactly how it was supposed to be – the heart of a life set for a thousand years; and it was ready.

Then one day, a flare shot up to the sky emanating from the north of Sam’s tower. A group of angry protesters began emerging from over the bordering hills of the city, advancing to the tower in their clusters – with their torches, their polished pitchforks and their fury-doodled-word-processed pieces of paper, with moustache filters and airbrush. Once again complaining about the latest imperfection. Protesting for something better, as if there were something still ‘wrong’.

Sam felt a cold breeze brush against his cheeks as he shut his eyes for all but a blink.

And in such a moment there was another – a second fleet of angry rebels scampering across the land from the east – directly opposing another of the west. Three sides of seething anger; poised to strike. And so they fought, clanging their weapons and their voices in any which way; a disgusting simulation of mutiny, yet fratricide. Of greed and entitlement.

Sam watched on; subdued in disbelief at the chaos unravelling before his eyes, until there were nothing left. Nothing but remnants of pain and anguish, and the bare essence of question.

Sam concluded;

“Is this all that life really is?

“Why is there still such pain and suffering, when I have spent my whole life helping people?

“How have I given so much, yet feel like everything was taken?

“How did I fix everything, and yet somehow, it became broken?”

And then Sam died. In a lonely part of the world with a little less people. Where there was pain and deafening silence. A prisoner of power. The refraction of a happier world, forged merely from the fate of a dormant lie.

And the cold truth that there was already everything, but in the end, there was nothing.

And then the camera zoomed out in its widest shot, capturing the frame in all its entirety. A broken Fairy-tale of all of life’s great paradoxes. The manifestation of everyone’s deepest, most dangerous dreams and desires of their subconscious locked inside the most fragile glass globe, cast to the back of the highest shelf; gathering dust. Never to be spoken. Never to be touched.

And there would be cheering, smiling and crying.

And everyone could, at long last, live happily ever after.