Playing House.

[Kai]

There they go, that sweet looking couple with the two kids, one in a stroller, walking down Main St on a Sunday afternoon, looking in the shops, giving big smiles to all the people who pass. They're a young couple, in their early twenties with nothing but time ahead and there's no rush.

But something is off, those eyes say different stories than their smiles. Those tired eyes, light rings of black around them obscured by glasses and makeup. The little girl dances around the stroller babbling about ice cream and toys and dolls, and they barely pay attention.

The husband and wife married just out of high school 5 years ago and had a child shortly after, they were both in college at the time she for education and he for engineering, they worked through it and purchased a home but something still wasn't right. She went to the middle school, he the refinery as what was expected by the matriarchs and patriarchs of the tribe.

There's something off here, this lovely looking couple and their lovely looking children, a typical scene but it feels like paper dolls cut out of a cardboard book with cardboard clothing and cardboard accessories. And after the walk they go back to their cardboard cutout house with all the cardboard furniture. The girl squeals at a stuffed animal in a window and while these two keep up their smiles they are both inwardly cringing, they can't escape from this cardboard world that they created.

They thought it would be fun, at first, such a great game, get married so they could have sex without their parents thinking bad of it, but then the children came along and the game wasn't so much fun anymore. It was still fun, but not as MUCH fun, less pretend and more real, less playing and more of this WORK stuff. They secretly hated the children, ruining their game but they didn't say it, didn't speak it not even to each other but they could see it in each others eyes, the want for a chance of a possibility of something else the idea that they could get OUT, escape this game that wasn't fun anymore. They had so many plans, like children playing dressup, like their little girl played dress up these days, all those nights of going out and boozing with friends and making pretend that the money would last forever and they would never age, that freedom that was cut short.

They keep their minds by continuing to pretend that everything is alright, that they are still in that wonderland of possibilities and that the world isn't getting more crowded and that they will still live forever, that it's still all imagination and playing and pretend, that it's all FUN you see, playing this adult game, the game their parents played, still play, the innocent game they got caught up in and now they can't escape.

It's all fun, though, right? Right?

[Freeky]

Nicely done, Kai.

[Adios]

Well said. Is it odd that so many things can be linked right back to the BIP?

[Kai]

Well said. Is it odd that so many things can be linked right back to the BIP?

Not really. Law of fives.

[Jasper]

I guess there's that, but any mental framework that references reality itself should probably crop up in a lot of contexts if it's any good.

[Salty]

It's so damned easy.

When you act and everyone else in the tribe smiles along with you, if only to mask their own, personal reservations as whether this whole plan is a good thing after all, it's that much harder to resist that neat little path that's all set up.

Years later when the kids are able to do practically everything for themselves within legal accountability, and that happy little couple that spends their free evenings with other happy little couple so they don't have to look and listen to the lives of people who chose differently (people hey used to look down upon for being to rash and impractical?) go home and don't say a word to each other, don't touch each other, can barely stomach being in the same room as one another because they ruined each others lives (apparently), what then?

Nothing. Then nothing. Because they did everything right. They spent their the time allotted to them Doing The Right Thing. And Sensibly too. Their parents are so proud.

Great OP.

[Brotep]

I like this.


Great post, Kai. It really captures that sickening feeling that comes up from the pit of your stomach when you realize everyone around you is just shuffling along killing time until time kills them.

[ThatGreenGentleman]