Public Enemy Number 1

Author's Note: This is response to The Truman Show. It is targeted at the idea that we must make our life real, and that feeling nothing is to be constantly feared.

It was a lonely day. They all are. I never have any choice. Every day it's all the same. Everything is already done and decided for me. Set from the beginning, and not changed, ever. I wish I could choose. I wish that there was chance, but there is only what you have done, what you are doing, and what is set that you will do. I needed change. I needed to feel something. Really feel something... Anything would suffice. It was that day, that I made myself an outlaw, and public enemy.

I woke up, did what I was supposed to, but I did it lethargically, so to slow the day, miss the bus, and change the set structure. Sure enough, it worked, I was supposed to go to school, but didn't. It felt... so different. It was an awakening, like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was a sense of pride. Not the false pride that schools bestow upon you with a title, but one of real pride. It was now my life and I could anything, so I went outside, and walked. Just walked, but I never stopped. I never slowed down. Now I knew I couldn't go back. I could never go back. After feeling this, after knowing... It just would make me a hollower shell than I already was.

I walked until I the city was no more, and it became the country, and then, I walked some more. I could begin to hear the panic. It was everywhere in the city. The government was flying in helicopters, and jet planes, but wouldn't say what was wrong, but the city had entered a state of lock down. I, of course, knew what was wrong. It was me, I had caused this. I just wanted to feel, but at the expense of my city. I still felt, but now, it was sorrow. I can't go back, because now the government would detain me, and kill me, or even worse... Make me work for them. Now everything that I felt was beginning to overwhelm me, but I still couldn't go back.

Now was my choice. Three options, each as painful as the next. I could kill myself and be totally free, I could go back and turn myself in, or I could bear the emotions and trek forward. Turning back would mean no misery for my friends, and fellow city dwellers, but I would then thrust myself into a life of misery. I could not bring myself to kill anything, even if it was me, so that left only one option.

I must go forward, and so I did. The minutes turned to hours, the hours to days, the days to weeks, and the weeks to months. The whole time I stayed in the wasteland. I would avoid any cities I found. My emotions had become dull again. That was until the third month. That was when I finally saw it. The ocean was before me. I could now do anything. If I made it out there, nobody could ever control me again.

I ran out, and swam. Swam as far and long as I could. My only motivation, was if I get out they don't own me. It was the life that I now possessed drove me to get a better one. One free of the tyranny here. I went, and kept swimming.