Fool's Paradise

‘You’re insane’ they had said. ‘No one will even tolerate you’ they had screamed, ‘you’re a fool’ they had mocked her mercilessly. Alice remembered it all to well. She remembered how her hopes and sacred dreams of successfully and finally becoming a lawyer had been distorted and carefully ripped to shreds by them. All of them, each and every one had played their part in a play meant to singularly defeat her, encage her ambition and destroy her. She remembered when they had taken to the stage, ornamented in arrogance and dressed in hubris, ready to take her down. Even now their casual cruelty had the power to sting her. She wanted the quiet solitude only her house could provide her. The past year had been like a flickering nightmare turned into a glaring reality. Tears cascaded down her cheeks but a part of her, even in the midst of such misery, knew that her ambitions were not their cheap entertainment.

Walking into her house was a relief, even though she had bought it a few weeks ago. It still felt like a quiet sort of comfort. The walls that encompassed and surrounded her kept Alice away from the rest of the world, away from them. Now that she wasn’t directly in the eye of the storm and instead far away from it, a vivid sense of clarity and perspective made her feel a lot more peaceful. As she bounded up the stairs, something caught her eye. It was a door, tall and sturdy with an ivory frame. It stood there invitingly, with a brass doorknob that seemed to beckon her and call her name. Hesitantly she opened it and steeped inside a secret passageway.

She felt an oddly peculiar sense of sheer difference creep upon her. She looked down and saw that her hands and face was plastered with words. Each letter was haphazardly uniform and each word was the same. “Fool’ they all read in perfect unison. Alice felt bewildered and had no idea what was going on but felt like going further into the secret passageway as curiosity took over apprehension. She felt drawn into a word that could not be worse the then mess she had left behind.

She went further in and suddenly reached another door titled and labelled “Eight’. A part of her felt like turning back but her awe and anticipation got the best of her. She opened the door and to her sudden wonder, temporary shock and delightful amusement she saw an eight-year-old version of herself. The younger Alice or, for clarities sake the younger fool had a nervous look on her face as she and her grandfather entered the un-inviting and un-welcoming hospital building. Her grandfather’s warm and nostalgically familiar cologne was a sharp contrast to the hash, sharp and diabolical smell of medicines that encompassed them. The eight-year-old fool wore a cherry printed frock and her hair was in bunches. Her grandfather had asked her to come with him. Though she was too young to understand back then, she knew know that they both were going to receive his positive cancer test results. Her grandfather had been a stoic man but his hands trembled like a leaf falling in the midst of autumn's climax as he opened the door.

The fool knew what was going to happen now. She winced in pain as the memory came flooding back. The doctor had eyed them with a detached sense of hostile curiosity as he continued to sign some papers. “You have eleven months to live” he told the fool’s grandfather. Her grandfather earnestly thanked the doctor for his time as the latter ushered them out. But suddenly the fool was jolted back to reality as she realized how the doctor had reduced her grandfather, a human, a living breathing entity into nothing more than an automation by ripping away her grandfather’s humanity and treating him like cattle to be dealt with swiftly.

But no! it was different here. Here the doctor broke the news kindly, as his eyes flooded with sympathy. He apologized earnestly for the trials that lay ahead. The fool and her grandfather walked home and instead of turning her white as a sheet her grandfather said ‘it’s going to be alright, don’t worry’ to the fool who bravely smiled back at him instead of crying and trying to helpless conjure back blissful ignorance.

The fool moved on feeling entranced and dizzy, she couldn’t believe what was happening, how she had come her through the secret passageway and was now in a world that could bend the basic rules of the harsh realities that her life had been molded upon. Just as she looked around, the fool saw another door, this time the word sixteen was stamped upon it. She eagerly approached it and opened the door ,but what she saw shocked her to the core.

The fool was surrounded by huge buildings that stretched way over the skyline. She was entranced by this larger-than-life glamorous display and almost didn’t notice her sixteen-year-old-self walk past. The younger fool wore high heels and it looked as if she was drowning in hot-pink and red. The fool's parents always told her that at sixteen she was utterly self-absorbed and frivolous. The teenage version of herself wore a scowl that felt uncharacteristically different from her pink and glittery clothes.

 The fool thought that she had seen enough, but to her added shock she saw the billboards that soared high above everyone were plastered with her brothers face. ‘he made it big’ they all had said in awe, ‘the boy worked his way to the top’ they would always say, with their voice filled with overflowing pride. The fool had always looked up to her big brother, she wanted to do what he did, to be fervently admired the way he was and to become a larger-than-life ideal for all of them the way he had become. But when she asked her parents,-no pleaded to be allowed to do what he had done, they said no. Apparently the rules were different, apparently it wasn’t fit for her, she was different, girls need to focus on other things. Their empty, lifeless and harsh words still wrung in her ears and created a deafening noise and clamor. Going down the vista of memories, she thought of how bad luck always stung, injustice felt like a stab but double standards were the worst. They destroyed your goals, aims, ambitions and dreams in one swift motion, in one casual word and in one cutting rejection.

The fool expected it now, wanted it badly and hoped for reality to change. Just as expected her parents looked at her thoughtfully. They said yes, that she could follow her dreams the way he did and that she could do what he did. The fool waited with baited breath and whimsical anticipation as her younger self smiled with endless joy and abandon. Success didn’t just feel sweet but in fact washed over her in tides of relief. She saw her younger self smiling and saw a person beginning to form in front of her very eyes, one not endlessly burdened and riddled with the weight of harsh antagonists like prejudice, sexism and double standards. The fool couldn’t help but smile clairvoyantly at the thought of who she could have been.

Just as suddenly as it had it come, it all disappeared. The fool was left alone with her endless thoughts that threatened to overwhelm her at any moment. She desperately searched for an escape. She then saw to her blissful satisfaction that another door labelled twenty-seven had appeared in front of her. She steeped into the passage and thought 'where will this secret passageway lead me?’ but she didn’t have to wonder in confused amazement for long.

The fool steeped into a similarly different world. This time around she saw her present self, looking straight through her. The fool expected her present self to look worried, frightened, intrinsically insecure and defeated. What she didn’t expect was a smile of glorious triumph inside a courtroom. Alice looked around, feeling hyper-aware. What kind of beautifully distorted reality was this? She was inside a courtroom, as a lawyer, she was believed, trusted, recognized, successful. The feeling was unexplainably foreign, vividly different and weirdly beautiful. The fool looked around. What kind of perfect, escapist reality was this? how had life become so fair, so easy? she looked towards the stands and saw them. Each and every one of them. Standing. Smiling. Smiling for her, she had succeeded. “you’re amazing” they said. “everyone knows how much you wanted this” they smiled, “we always knew you’d do it” they exclaimed.” well done Alice!’ they said. The fool couldn’t believe it. This world, this secret passageway was paradise. A world without flaws meant only for the oppressed, her kind, the weak and ones who could not do anything against them. She rejoiced in ecstasy and savored the moment that she knew would end too soon.

They mock us, and celebrate their heartbreaking choice.

They all laugh and cry and play.

But here in Fool's Paradise we rejoice.

Over the changing times and day.