ThePanda

As the warm summer morning wore on, the misfit heard a distant voice, a voice inviting him for a story, a voice requesting that he hear story, for the wisdom of the animated world lived in that story. Why the voice chose the misfit, over the billions of others, we would never know, but the misfit heard on, his acquisitive mind trying to fit the wisdom of the animated world, into the tapestry of the real world he already didn’t fit into…

Long years ago cartoons had one arch-villain, supported by other bad guys yes, but one arch-villain nevertheless, someone who was strong, and who featured in all his plans, someone who used the other bad guys to run errands for him, someone who could succeed in his `evil plans’ without the help of others. But then someday in a fit of inspiration a few animators realized that an arch-villain no matter how evil, could never be evil enough, after all one man against the world is hardly a danger, he’s more of a misfit than a villain, and thus they introduced the hyenas into the animated world. Every villain now needed a bunch of hyenas to support his plans, every villain now acquired power for some part of the cartoon, not necessarily because the villain had a good plan, but because his hyenas formed the gears and the wheels of an evil enterprise, one which forced the villain to succeed, one which pushed the evil through layers of good. The hyenas were not always portrayed as hyenas, but then that was just a certain prerequisite amount of uniqueness, uniqueness that the tapestry of the animated world worshiped, but all through this they were hyenas nevertheless. The hyenas were not foolish, they were not dumb, they hunted and lived in packs, and surrounded the arch-villains in hope of starring in animations, in hope of protecting their own hide, in hope that as long as they stuck to the arch-villain people would portray them in animations, and as long as they were portrayed in animations they would stay alive, and that is the only reason they stuck with villains who were obviously fools, villains who weren’t half as cunning or powerful as the hyenas were.

Time passed on and the hyenas realized that all of the arch-villains powers were actually derived from them, that arch-villains had grown to be incapable of doing their own dirty work. A few of the more intelligent hyenas started questioning the animated hierarchy that put them below the arch-villains who had no power of their own, they questioned the logic of doing all the dirty work and still being side-kicks to the arch-villain, the logic of having to scare all the other creatures in the name of the arch-villain when in reality everyone was afraid of them. Having realized that they were being looted by the arch-villains, that they could be arch-villains themselves, having realized that by always working for the arch-villain they had gained both life and power for themselves, they realized that no animator could ever question there existence again. And then a great call went out among all the hyenas, each pack’s leader proclaimed that he was going to be an arch-villain and in doing so they ended the reign of all the arch-villains and the very concept of being an arch-villain, because now none of them were arch-villains, they were just small villains who were taking their share of the pie which the arch-villain originally possessed.

The hyenas however were more intelligent than the arch-villains, they knew that in past animations people questioned the arch-villain because he never gave them anything, because he never promised anything for there welfare, and because he was indiscriminate in his dealings with people, so the hyenas’ gave the creatures choice and power, they let the creatures decide about whom the hyena’s ate, they declared most of their enterprises to be private in nature, and officially handed over control to other creatures, while at the same time making sure that no private enterprise could ever overrule the power which the hyenas originally enjoyed, they terrorized some creatures while at the same time inspiring others, and thus did they create a jungle perfect for them, a jungle which would always give them food, a jungle in which most animals would always revere them as the harbingers of harmony, and at the same time provide them with food and power without them raising a finger. To show the rest of the creatures that they still retained power, that the creatures still decided who ruled over them, who was there arch-villain the hyenas created special days on which they would fight with their opponents, days on which they would let the creatures decide who ruled over them, but these were staged fights, the opponents invariably supported each other, and while they publicly criticized the policies of each other, and even punished each other, privately they made sure that the others cellar was as well stalked as their own, made sure that hyenas, winners or losers were always more powerful than the rest of the creatures.

There were those who saw through the thinly veiled plot of the hyenas, those who realized that the hyenas rather than being the harbinger of harmony were the symbols of evil, creatures like the elephants, and a few of the older arch-villains, but the hyenas knew how to keep these people in check, they were cunning enough to realize that these people could be the very pillars that held up their ghastly reign. They began by giving to the old arch-villains positions which had high-sounding names but afforded very little in terms of true power. Since the arch-villains had already seen their power swept away by the hyenas, they were grateful for any vestigial power that they could acquire, they were happy to have the perceived notion of power, and in exchange stopped opposing the hyenas. The elephants, who were always the only species who could disseminate information about the hyenas ploy were appeased by the promise of small prizes and names, and in their vanity they gave up on their duty of protecting the rest of the creatures. Everyone else kept quite, because the speaking up was inviting danger, and thus the ancient wisdom of the animated world was lost. The animated world fell into a web of deceit, and no one realized this.

``There is no happy ending to this story’’, said the distant voice, ``for more often than not worldly stories have no endings, only lessons that can be taken away’’, and then the voice disappeared, leaving the misfit groping in the light of that warm summer day.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters, past or present, is the result of an overworked imagination on your side.

There he was, a dark shape in the night, sitting all alone in front of the ephemeral glow of a screen, the light barely defining his features. The hazy shape looked much like the billions who quietly slept through the night, ``the people who made the world go around’’, and yet there he was, the garish thread which refused to blend into the tapestry that defined much of the world, the misfit. Everyone of the billions who slept through that night pledged that uniqueness was a virtue, they were unique in their own ways, and they pushed others to be unique, uniqueness was the difference between being an entrepreneur and just another one of the workers, no society had ever emphasized uniqueness as much as this one had. How could someone be a misfit in this sea of uniqueness, how could someone be different when everyone was unique, and yet there he was, the misfit…

Societies past & present hated misfits, they hated anyone who didn’t fit into the standard mould, people have always been scared by those who aren’t like them, and yet every few centuries people promise themselves never to persecute misfits, and then the misfits become mainstream, only to persecute others who don’t fit in. Misfits however have always had there own kind, people who made misfits something other than a minority, places where they were a majority rather than a minority, and yet the misfit sat there in the night, trying to imagine where it was that he was a majority and not a minority, where lay his place, who were his people? As the events past and present flashed before his eyes, there was not one place that was his own, not one person who was as much of a misfit as he was, not one person who did the same things he did. There were times in the past when he fought, and people told him that was wrong, because people did not believe in fighting for those beliefs, people did not believe that he was able enough to define his old beliefs, then there were the times when he refused to fight, and people called him a coward, because they would have fought rather than given up the fort. When he was in what was legally his country, the place he was born, the place where he had lived for long, he was treated as a foreigner, because he didn’t believe in the same things others did, because people believed he acted in manners reserved for `foreigners’, and when he started leaving his country he was a `foreigner’, because he was tagged with the name of his nation. In a time when everyone claimed the world was equal, when everyone talked of a `global village’, he was a foreigner everywhere, he belonged to no one and to everyone. People wanted him to be an enemy people he hadn’t even met, not because they hated him, but because the masses hated them, he lived in a democracy which felt more like a theocracy, run not by priests but by hawkish politicians who defined for the masses, what the masses felt. Was democracy amplified theocracy, or was the misfit simply not fitting in?

Democracy had spread as a reaction to the damages caused by fascism and colonialism, history kept proclaiming that democracy was an imperfect solution to the world’s problems, something which ensured that no man would be more powerful than the masses, that no people would be discriminated against on the basis of their identity, and yet the misfit watched as democracy itself became an agent of fascism, the misfit watched as people elected those who proclaimed hatred for another people, people elected leaders who defined a dangerous world view, because the masses needed leaders to define their world view, and because the masses needed a cause to fight for. The misfit watched in horror, as people defended fascism, called it the one force which a nation needed, and the misfit remembered another misfit who in another time had warned others about the horrors which the very leaders they supported would unleash on them. The misfit watched as humans, lost their humanity, as people questioned him as to why he was unhappy about the fact that people in a distant land had lost their lives, he watched as people stopped caring about the deaths around them, as death became little more than a point of competition, as countries who fought a useless war which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their own, criticized the actions of another country at war, because the other country risked loosing thousands of people. The misfit watched as his own country wavered through what was obviously an undefined foreign policy, making far more enemies than friends, all because it refused to come up with a single line of thought which defined what the nation felt, because in the name of democracy, a bunch of politicians ran a theocracy, because a politician wanted to proclaim that he was a statesman.

The misfit felt lonely through all of this misfittment into a world which would in all probability never fit him in, but a world which would nevertheless worship some amount of uniqueness. The misfit did have `friends’ though, or perhaps he fooled himself to believe in the sanctity of the world and the existence of his friends. The world said friendship is a two way street, you always give something in return for what you take, they all agreed that you should never take more than you give, and yet there lay the misfits dilemma. The misfit was a friend to most, because he was a misfit, an anomaly, and people talked to him because they needed some of what he had, society after all worshiped uniqueness, and most felt he had too much of that, but no one ever stuck close to the misfit, he was the person you tried and kept at a distance, the person who didn’t appreciate the `cooler’ things in the world, the person who liked a different genre of music, the person who didn’t appreciate the popular dance you tried so hard to master, he was after all a misfit. The misfit had different kinds of friends, there were those who talked to him at their time of need, and then disappeared as he groped in the dark, the friends whom everyone else warned him about. And there were those who stuck to him, but who didn’t really understand him, they considered themselves to be better friends of his than the rest, they probably were, but he was still a misfit for them, and then there those who forgot him, people who had once stuck to him, but had eventually left him on the wayside, people who had drifted away, people who were still courteous to him, people he still talked to, but people who were more acquaintance than friend. There were the acquaintances, people who never claimed to be his friends, but people who still seeked him out at their times of need, people he didn’t expect much from, because they were after all acquaintances. And at the end of it all there were the anomalies, the voice on the other end of the phone, the person on the other side of an IM window, the author of a long e-mail, people who talked to him for reasons unknown, people who had no expectations from him, except that he not expect anything from them either. He could never be sure about the anomalies, he knew too little about them, and that too only thing they wanted him to find out about them, a censored version of who they actually were. The anomalies were OK, but the friends and the acquaintances confused him, for one he felt unwanted by them unless he had something which they needed, and that worried him, for he needed people who would do little more than listen to his concerns, people who would care about his view of the world, people who wouldn’t dismiss his views as just another fit of craziness.

Maybe his view was just another brand of fanaticism, maybe like chicken little he was crying about the sky falling down. How is a misfit supposed to blend into a tapestry where every thread is unique by an exact amount? How is a misfit in a world filled with exact misfits supposed to blend in?

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters, past or present, is the result of an overworked imagination on your side.