John the screw-up

                It's a mad world out there. Even worse, it's a fucked up world out there. And John Doe is one small, insignificant piece of broken puzzle in this godly forgotten world. Poor sucker. And he just recently figured this out, if only he had known. Until now, he thought that he was the one who needed fixing, that he was the one that was broken, but truth is, the world is broken, and now he has come to realize this. Everything changes, but no one does. John is amongst the wrong people in the wrong place in this reality.

                Everybody has baggage. One way or another, everyone gets hurt, and everybody gets dumb, and we all fuck up. That's just the way life goes, it's nothing personal. John thought that the world was out to get him, when it was just happening to him like it's happening to everybody else. Reality is a dark, dark place, that's why John keeps finding his way back to his own mind, to his own reality, the one trapped inside his brain. It's a much comfier, more familiar place in there, and that's why every struggle to escape into the real world seems to end in complete and utter failure for him.

                But he's not mad. He used to be frustrated, thinking that nothing really good would ever happen to him. And he was right. At the same time though, he was very wrong. It's true that a miracle will never happen to him, no matter how hard he prays for it, but not because he's fucked up. That has little to nothing to do with it. No, the reason is much simpler and completely objective. The truth is, nothing really good ever happens to anyone, so why should John Doe be an exception?

                Actually, he should be an exception, shouldn't he? After all, it's called "The book of the extraordinary John Doe", so he should be at least a tiny bit of special. But he's not. The title is a lie. It's a big fat lie. Everything is a lie. Nothing's real anymore. It has all been just a dream. Just a bad dream, an illusion, conjured by the mind. The things he did, the things he said, who he is, if he is, it's all just dusty dreaming, and it's all over now. She wasn't real either, it wasn't real, it never happened, pure fiction, you're in fact normal, you're back to square one. In a while you'll forget you even dreamt this.

                Oh how he wishes he could say this. You can't imagine how many times John has rehearsed this scenario in his head, hoping that this time it would be different, this time it would be real. And he would actually wake up and start his life all over again. All the deaths, all the pain, all the rejection, all the loss, all of them just pure fiction that his mind had nothing better to do than to bring up in a night's rest. How perfect would it be? But it's not. And John isn't an exception. He wasn't asleep during his existence, and he sure isn't asleep now. He's just numb. And stupid. And it's all real. It's not a bad dream. Reality is a bad dream. And someone forgot to set the alarm.

                Sometimes, actually all the time, John wonders how life would have been if he wasn't such a screw-up. If he was just another person, living just another boring life, deluding himself with the plastic-flower smell of prefabricated happiness. And it doesn't seem so bad when he thinks about it. But it is. On the long run, the realization of nothingness is far more useful than the illusion of happiness. Because if you know you've got a problem, you also know that you need to fix it. Or at least try to. And that's what he has his mind set on, fixing it. Not becoming happy, just fixing it, whatever 'it' is. On the short term though, there's only one thing that's completely true. John Doe is without doubt a screw-up. An extraordinary screw-up. And that's fine by him.

John the knight

                Ok, it's becoming obsessive right now. John Doe really needs a breakthrough. He needs it badly. Too many things went wrong for him, there's got to be even a tiny grain of justice in this world, or karma, or whatever. It would be nice if, for once at least, things were to work out for him. He's definitely ready for it, in fact, he's been expecting this since God only knows when, so you might even say he was born ready. And he's also willing to go the extra mile, to actually try not to screw things up this time. He can't promise anything yet, but I've got a good feeling about this. It's crazy enough that it might just work.

                It's true, he still has some baggage on him from the past. But the ghosts are starting to fade away, and everything he does somehow seems more and more real, that can't be a bad thing. It's not like he can just let go of the past and become a whole new self. He was never able to master that. No matter how many times he has been reborn, there is always a small piece of his past that gets impregnated on his new soul, and it stains it forever. You could say that by now his heart has become a rainbow of loathing and past disappointments. But there's room for more, and even if he hopes it won't' be necessary, John is always ready to invent a new color, something not to bright, so it doesn't distract the attention from the old spots.

                A shade of brown hair, a trace of green eyes, maybe even the dark red of the most poisonous lips, those are the colors of John's heart. And beneath the painted coating lies the darkness of his wicked soul.  It's better even, just to have it painted like that, it would have been a shame if it were all black and gloomy. Where there is color there is hope, and that's what keeps him going. And there's a new paintbrush on his easel, and who knows, maybe this will be the one that paints him bright red and throws him to the world to die. Maybe this time there will be no space unpainted, and there will be no more need for painting. One can just hope.

                How great is it that he is able to do this. That we are all able to do this. To move on to the next paintbrush, hoping that this time things will be different, knowing they probably won't. How terrible it would be if we fell in love only once in a lifetime? Unbearable at the least. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful when you finally find "the one" that's meant to be there forever. But you never know when will that be, and you have plenty of time to try and figure it out, but it most certainly won't work. So all you can do is take the love as it comes and hope you don't find the true one too soon or too late. You love every single one as if it were the one, and if it isn't, you never regret it, because it would have been much worse if it were and you would have ignored it.

                And that's what John Doe does, in every single moment of his existence. He is an idealist, he lives with the illusion of the perfect love stuck in his mind. And that's why he madly falls for any girl that he meets on a bus, and he lives a whole love story with her in just under a minute, right before he has to get off the ride, too late for an introduction. And he grieves, and he hates himself for a while, but then he sees another on the street, and it's back to square one. And when he finally finds the guts to go for one, he throws himself head first like the biggest fool there is in this universe. And he usually ends up bashing his head on the ground. An then it's back to self loathing. But he doesn't regret a thing, because he always goes down swinging, and honestly, that's the only thing that matters. John Doe needs to fight for the ideal love, even though his cause is not only lost, but it never really existed. At least he has one, a cause, that is.

John's incapability

                Next comes nothing. John Doe is still down, with not much hope of getting up. Stuck on the surface, barely floating, praying for a miracle. A miracle that will probably never come. He's missed his chance, he blew it away like he always does. A chance came, another after, but as always, he dismissed them without hesitation. He didn't even realize he did it. He never does. His intentions are always good, but somehow he shoots himself in the foot with any given opportunity. If only he would have the courage of being so kind as to aim for the heart for a chance. But he's too much of coward for that.

                John has many, let's call them attributes because they not really are flaws, but you definitely can't call them qualities either. One of them, one of the biggest ones is, of course, hypocrisy. It's ironically one of the things he despises most in this world. But he can't help it, he is by his nature a hypocrite. Not by choice, of course, but it's not something he tries to change either. Truth be told, he's not changing anything. That's partly because he doesn't believe in changes, not when it comes to people. People never change, they just unravel new sides of their character as they move along trough life.

                That aside, let's get back to the hypocrite . John Doe. that is. You see, John had to choose to go on. life forced him into it. The only problem is, he's got no idea how to do it. He hits his head to a wall whenever he tries to get up. And that wall is his hypocrisy. He says he wants to meet people, go places, but when a chance presents itself, he does his best to alienate it as soon and as efficient as possible. He walks away from new people, he takes the long but familiar way home. He does his utmost best not to wander off too far from his comfort zone, and that's the thing that's ruining him the most. The same old friends, the same old places, the same old life. The past lives in his present so vividly that he sometimes thinks he's remembering, when he's actually living in the moment. The boundaries between the present and the past are faded. But there's no "déjà vu" in it. It couldn't be. Because he has burned all the bridges, broke all connections with his past. And when he realizes that, it's when he breaks the spell and gets back in the moment.

                The sad part is, when he gets back in the moment, he realizes that the moment is nothing, the moment is empty. When the dream is gone, when the past becomes past once again, that's when John tries to evade, to get on with it. And then he hits another wall. This time it's his power of will. The lack of it, to be more specific. He's a coward. He's so terrified at the thought of something working out for him that he tries very hard to sabotage any attempt of escape from the comfort zone. His zone. He tries to push himself, but he unconsciously screws up every time. He lies to himself on a daily basis, telling himself that from now on things will be different, but in reality, he does nothing to even try and make them better. He hates the place he's at, but deep down he doesn't want to leave. And that's why he has no will. The only things he seems able to hold on to are bad habits. He needs help, and he sure as hell can't help himself. So, if you see John on the street, remember to help him, for what is worth. And if you don't, and you'll probably never will, just try and pray for him, to whatever entity you might think our world is governed by. Feel sorry for John Doe, because he can never feel sorry for himself.