Everyone is an author.
Everyone has been given a pen, better known as ‘Will’ and an enormous canvas better known as ‘Life’.
We all get to tell an amazing story. And if you think yours sucks, it’s never too late to stop what you have been doing and add in some crazy new chapters you deem worthy of your story.
Hey there! I am Kile with a birth certificate that would claim otherwise. Because of a bet/lesson, I had to prove/teach my best bud, Tetsu; we swapped names.
Not legally though, so welcome to the prologue of Kile.
Thanks to a certain Karen. AKA: my second mom, who I wished was my first. I met the best thing that could happen to me; Tetsu.
One of my most prominent mysteries revolves around a certain drunken nurse, who we have yet to find. He scribbled weird letters into our names, claiming us to be unique among the crowd. Tetsu thinks he was marking us so he could return to finish the job someday.
I know he is dumb and If I try explaining Tetsu to you, you’ll be flabbergasted, frustrated, baffled, and amused out of your mind. Picture him as an extreme eccentric who deserves a new word coined to describe him appropriately. It’s safe to say I am who I am thanks to him; an overthinker.
We both perceive the world with two unique perspectives, as we all do, but I would say myself and Tetsu have even more weird and unique perspectives than your elite Joe’s. We find simple answers for the most complex problems and complicated questions for the world’s simple solutions.
Yes, we both are different and start at different ends of a thread. Yet we end up finding the exact same solution. However, it takes him much longer as he uses more than one perspective, having stuck with multiple personalities.
No, it’s not DID: Dissociative identity disorder. With so many opposing thoughts, we assigned each unique idea generator of his a personality.
The notoriously calm one: Hero.
The Copycat: C2Y
And the runner: Bolt. These are my top three. With the analyser: Kile. being the runner-up.
He doesn’t approve of the fourth name, but as the one who got to name the rest, I maintain full rights over my best bud’s life. So, with all this in mind, it’s safe to say that even with multiple points of view, the core problem and its solution are always singular. A hundred questions can be boiled down to one and that one question can be solved with a simple solution.
One might argue that it’s just my perspective, or they ask you to walk in their shoes and blame it on circumstances, chance, and whatnot. But trust me when I say all your excuses are just that.
Excuses.
Life is better explained by simple math. If you do A, your result will be A+. And if you do F, your life will be F****d.
Thank you.
P.S. If you don’t accept Tetsu into your prestigious school, don’t bother with mine either.
Yours sincerely,
T. Kile.
(Billionaire M’s recommendation is below.)
————
“Done.” Kile slumps back as he completes, sending his quota of emails for the day.
Copy and paste was his go-to technique, but with Tetsu determined to join this particular high school, Kile had to put in some effort. Emphasis on ‘some’. Not in typing the mail, but sealing the deal with M’s recommendation. His stamp attracted greedy vultures like moth and fire.
Kile shuts his lap and kicks off from his desk. The half-broken wheel on the chair stumbles halfway as it throws Kile onto the bed. He lands face first, slamming onto the cushion. He bounces with a squeak, and rolls into his blankets, shaping it into a cocoon.
“Perfect.” Kile smiles and takes in a deep breath as an alluring aroma rushes into his nostrils. With each sniff, he unraveled his cocoon bit by bit. Karen’s cooking had its way of finding Kile in his room and, depending on the aroma, Kile decided where he would have his meals. Which mostly was at Karen’s.
Kile’s first mom; Mrs. Razz, AKA, the person who gave birth to him, prepared Indian cuisine as usual. She didn’t like nor want any Indian to forget the spices of India. None of her plans worked since Karen came into the mix. Mrs. Razz tried to block scents from entering her house. She tried redirecting her cooking scents through the air conditioner ducts of her house. Started a mild fire. Threatened her neighborhood to burn them down from the inside out if they complained again. And yet she couldn’t get Kile to like some authentic Indian dishes.
“Did you complete your video intro thingy?” Mrs. Razz blocks Kile’s exit before he can rush off again.
Kile ducks, preparing to slide below her. Mrs. Razz lowers her body to block his escape. Kile laughs and slides anyway. As he approaches his mom, Kile slams on the brakes by shifting his momentum to his feet and standing upright in an instant. He flips over her back and out the main door.
“At least learn the proper terminology if you want to pester me about it.” Kile taunts her mid-air. After a side roll to get back on his feet, he immediately dashes away toward his second house.
Mrs. Razz’s ultimate weapon to not let him back into the house would only backfire as he’s been waiting to move across the street and settle down with his second mom. Oh no! She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of that! “Come back, my dear son.” She tightens her grip over the chapati roller, sending a wooden creek across the road.
“I’ll be waiting.” She gives a crooked smile.
“I mailed.” He yells and waves back. “M’s letter is all they need, so don’t worry.” He yells louder, facing his Mom. He did not care for a sudden car or tripping over the sidewalk. One doesn’t turn their back on their mom, especially if said mother is an Indian: Kile learned this lesson the hard way. The universal weapon never misses its mark. With Mrs. Razz carrying a much stronger weapon, Kile had to focus.
“Stop calling him M.” Mrs. Razz yells back. “Memorise his full name, for god’s sake.” She reveals a hot steaming pan from behind her and waves him goodbye. “For such a smart ass, you still have many blind spots.”
“Unnecessarily hurtful as always, Mom,” Kile yells from across the street, slipping into his second home. “Yo, mom!” Kile salutes to Karen. Blood might not relate them, but Kile sure would argue this bond was thicker. Name it what you will. “I almost died today.”
Karen was a natural purple head with a complexion that suited her hair. “Hey! There comes my smart kid.” Karen laughs. “Don’t you every day, though!”
“True… true. Say, do moms have secret training during maternity leave?”
“Nah! We just love you so much that we can’t miss you when we aim for you.” Karen bursts into laughter.
Kile joins in on the laughter as Tetsu comes stumbling down the stairs.
“Again!” Both Kile and Karen comment and sigh at the same time.
“Should we sell him off?” Kile asks.
“I know a couple right across the street who will love him like their own.”
Kile thinks, chuckles, gives a devious high-five to Karen, and turns to Tetsu. ‘My most favorite thing in the world.’ He says to himself. Of course, saying that out loud would be embracing. Not to mention an unnecessary ego boost to Tetsu.
“For a self-proclaimed overthinker, you certainly don’t think things through.” Kile taunts Tetsu.
“Hey! Do you mind? I am busy.”
“Overthinking?” Kile eyes him.
Kile perceived his best bud way too well. This dude can fall in love with a fictional character and dismiss the hottest girl’s advances in real life. He’s not an idiot, he’s just a dumb, hopeless romantic who overthinks in the worst way possible.
Kile ignores Tetsu’s horrible comeback and gets back to his train of thought. He was like that. He took what benefited from the situation and left the rest. Such statics he rarely used on Tetsu. Not because he was his one and only best bud who absolutely can’t be replaced. But because he loved the time, they both spent brainstorming imaginary crap. When he stopped talking to himself, that is... Kile looked away from Tetsu, who was still on his ass. “Dude needs to live in the real world more.”
“Got it!” Karen said, folding her sleeves. “I’m ready to smack some reality back into Tetsu.” she walks toward him.
“Thanks.” Kile chuckles.
After Tetsu was forced out of daydreaming, we packed our lunch and headed straight to the bus. Inside, we meet Billy, the bully. We locked eyes as I and Tetsu crossed him. Weird how he didn’t pick a fight this time, but giving up was his forte. He shifted targets from Tetsu to me not too long ago, which had been part of the plan. A simple yet brilliant plan I got from observing Tetsu actually, also, a plan in which he was the perfect genie pig. After its fruition, Tetsu would bow to me, never to object to my preachings anymore.
Any who, the story went like this…
****
One day, I found Tetsu pleading with his bullies. He had many throughout his childhood, but this encounter remains to be one of my most memorable ones. The bullies, at first, mock him for his tears, but as the awkward and unfortunate mucus situation unfolds, their taunts start to wane, replaced by expressions of disgust and amusement. Before anyone can react, Tetsu’s mucus finds its way onto the pants of one bully, drenching the fabric in a rather unfortunate and sticky mess.
From one bully to another, he took his turn to spread his mucus. I don’t know if he did this on purpose or not, but the scene was hilarious and comical, nonetheless. For a moment, the alleyway fell silent as everyone processed what had just occurred.
The bullies, who were once the masters of humiliation, now found themselves at the receiving end of an embarrassing situation. They scramble to wipe away the mucus, which only spreads with every touch. Their laughter was reduced to a nervous chuckle, their posture ready to flee. It might not be the ideal revenge Tetsu ever imagined, but at that moment, there was a sense of poetic justice that gave me a small measure of relief. I personally don’t think Tetsu even knows what he did to this day.
As the scene unfolds, the dynamics in the alleyway shift ever so slightly. This is where I came up with my hypothesis. The key was in how Tetsu pleaded.
I used a similar yet different technique. You see; The world operates on a system of quantifiability, where an excess of something can lead to diminished value or the search for a more balanced outcome. For example, if you have too much of something, you won’t value said item, person, or outcome. One would simply look for another outcome that’s more satisfying. And in the same sense, if you have something very little of something, even the bare minimum seems plentiful.
With Tetsu and the bullies, their desire to hear him cry backfired when he unleashed an overwhelming display of tears and mucus, leading them to lose interest in provoking him. The bullies found themselves with an outcome they never anticipated–In search of some drama they switched to–having to discard their pants and run home naked. This unforeseen consequence made them avoid Tetsu forever. They even began carrying spare trousers to be prepared for any future encounters with him.
In a similar vein, when one continually faces disappointment despite relentless efforts, it’s natural to become disheartened and give up. As humans, we crave drama in our lives, and surprisingly, there exists a delicate equilibrium in this aspect as well. Experiencing too much drama led Tetsu’s bullies to back down, while in my case, the lack of drama made Billy seek easier targets for his torment.
Through extensive theorizing and testing, with Tetsu’s invaluable insights, I have confirmed the validity of my ideas. Never have I ever told him his significance in my life, though. The simple fact of the matter is that he is my Watson. I don’t have to worry about him figuring it out nor I am ever going to reveal it myself. But he makes me wiser and gives me a better angle to perceive any problem.
Even dumb people have wisdom after all…! They help you look at a solution that you might miss, never think of, or take very long to comprehend. Rather illogical formulas can have fragments that fit your broken concepts and make them whole.
This is my life: day in and day out. We formulate theories, test them, and refine them endlessly. Some succeed immediately upon creation, while others await their moment due to formidable challenges. With an unwavering determination to unravel the truth. With a vivid imagination and quiet honestly nothing else to do, we persistently iterated, adding and subtracting from the list until that fateful day when the Earth stood still.
Yet another day in which Tetsu lost yet another bet.
He still somehow hasn’t figured out that he came up with the solution first. More precisely, help me come up with the solution. Being a nervous eater, he finished his ice cream ahead of mine and hoped I would share, which I definitely wouldn’t. Be it karma or because of me having my entire focus on Tetu’s expressions, I knocked my ice cream onto him.
Let us call him Stranger-Ze, as I didn’t have the pleasure of quenching my curiosity then and there. Not that I would remember his name either way. Stranger-Ze had a weird aura surrounding him. As the crowd pushed us farther apart, I couldn’t force the sense of dread I felt by meeting his eyes. A deeper depth encircled his eyes. His stare carried hatred for something or everything.
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