The boy called the Mass
There was a boy whose name was the Mass. He was raised by a big extended family which was materially and mentally prosperous. However, nothing lasts forever. The contradiction between the family members began to swell, and the great breakouts of it were inescapable. The great breakouts, by the way, were generally called the World War I and the WWII.
The family ended split and the boy was separated with his siblings and started his new life with his mother, whose name was Britain, in the house that they used to live. His mother led a very optimistic style of life, at least that, was what she showed to Mass. She told Mass everyday that they are going to make the house shine again. Mass was kind of exhausted after the wars, so that he was not sure whether it was feasible to shine the house again.
One day, the boy was walking in the park. A senior lady came to Mass, with that harmless smile on her face. “I see you are a little upset.” She said. “yes….” Mass paused, “My mom wants our house to be as glamorous as it used to be. But, to be honest, our house is a total ruin after the great wars. I don’t know if my mom’s wish is ever going to come true.” “of course it is not feasible with this attitude!” the old lady squeezed Mass’s face with her tough hand. “You will have to believe in heart that you can do whatever you want. You are the one who is controlling the world. Nothing matters except for your own heart!” she put her warm palm on his little chest and said, “Beat as hard as you can. Remember, young boy, you are way too young to be afraid of anything. Dream the wildest dream and do whatever you can, to make it happen!” Mass smiled, the careful but sincere smile that he had lost for a long time.
He brought the senior lady back to their house, and showed the ruin to her. “This is not that helpless,” she wondered around the house like kids wondering around the zoo, only with sharper eyes, “but things do need to be corrected.” In the next few weeks, Mass ran arrows for the lady like she was the master of the house and he was just a servant.
Britain was very pleased with her lovely son, she told him every single day that she was super proud of him and had no idea how she was going to live her life without him. As a mother who loved her son so much, she gave something that she thought was good for her son—a machine robot, whose name was the industrial revolution. The robot shared the majority of the housework, so that the old lady could leave Mass alone, without worrying about him.
At first, Mass was super pleased by the help provided by the robot. Mass started to feel uncomfortable with the existence of the robot before long. The robot had its working schedule and Mass was suggested by his mother to adjust his schedule to the robot’s.
Mass found it only tolerable at the very beginning of it. However, as time passed by, Mass found it harder and harder to live his life with the robot. For example, Mass wants to play in the park in the afternoons. But the robot needed to be recharged and maintained during that period of time, which meant that Mass would have to sacrifice the great sunshine and the fresh air, only for the robot’s sake.
One day, Mass fled away from the robot and took his adventure back to the park. Once again, he bumped into someone, a descent gentleman at his mid ages. He was stretching himself on a beach by the lake. Mass made his steps to the man and muttered, “May I join you?” The gentleman didn’t reply, but he made room for the boy on the beach. He glanced at the boy, “suffered?” he asked.
“I met that lady in this park, and she told me to dream the wildest dream and fight for it,” Mass paused, “but, I am kind of lost now. I don’t know why I am doing all these things.” The gentleman laughed, without moving any muscle on his face, “I bet I know the lady, the senior one, isn’t she? Her name is modernism, and I am postmodernism, her son.” Mass was more that shocked, “then what dreams are you living?”. The gentleman laughed again, more scornfully this time. “ I don’t buy her idea. To me, there is nothing worth fighting. Nothing means anything.”
Mass was almost utter-less, “you are helplessly crazy.” The gentleman laughed, hard enough to shack the beach. “ You sacrifice that beautiful sunlight and fresh air for a stupid robot, and you are calling me crazy? Don’t you find the irony?”
Mass returned home alone, disgusting the words called “ irony” and “meaningless”. From then on, it was not that Mass stopped doing his share of housework, he just didn’t care about it as much. His mom was kind of angry with the change, and blamed him for not being as obedient as he used to be, “Where does my lovely boy go?”, she asked for always. Mass seldom answered her questions or yelling, he stopped caring about Britain’s comment on him. And ever since then, he stuck to his schedule to breathe the air and expose himself to the sunlight. He would go back to the house when there was nothing attracting him from outside of the house. Maybe he was looking for something or some other wild dreams, no one would find out that easily this time though.
