A Fairy Tale

once upon a time there was a young boy named Frude.

Frude was very intelligent and worked very hard to help his parents by milking the cows, feeding the chickens, weeding the garden, planting crops, as well as doing his homework and cleaning around the house.

Like most young boys, Frude had a tendency to find all this work tiresome and occasionally grew irritable and sulky over the list of chores he had. But nonetheless he was a hard working and lovely boy and his parents greatly appreciated his help and company.

Unlike a stereotypical fairytale father, Frude's father Grilog was a charming and funny man with eyes that twinkled and a cheeky smile which always warmed Frude's heart.

But Grilog was impatient, and had a tendency to snap and make bitter comments when disappointed. This led to a tendency to yell at Frude for things that were not always his fault, and to make a bigger than necessary deal out of things that were.

Frude was terribly hurt at these outburts, and would always console himself by saying 'Next time I'll do better and he won't be disappointed!' and each time it happened again, he withdrew into himself a little more and told himself 'Next time... next time...'

Frude grew to understand his father's moods and would even predict what his father would want before his father would even ask. He felt quite proud of his ability to help and took great satisfaction from the moments his father would grunt and say nothing when he'd look up to ask for a spanner and the right spanner would be waiting for him in frude's little hands.

But Grilog would still have angry outbursts about mistakes Frude had made and even problems caused by external forces, and Frude eventually grew to be quite bitter about never being good enough. This was made worse by the fact that Grilog would not listen to Frude when Frude tried to explain what had happened and a wall between they that were once so close began to grow.

Frude's bitterness began to affect other aspects of his life and he had soon alienated himself from all of his friends and teachers and he was finding himself to be miserable most of the time. This led to his complete disinterest in homework and his father attempted to talk to him about it.

Grilog was surprised and a little offended to find his intelligent and hard working son reacting in such a sullen and unco-operative way that he yelled at Frude once again, which made Frude furious.

Frude yelled back at his father that his father was an ungreatful taskmaster and told him that he wished he had never been born.

Frude left school and left home but soon found he could not survive on his own and so returned to his father's home. His father accepted him back but constantly made bitter remarks about his failure of a son which made Frude all the angrier and all the more bitter and resentful.

Frude made a friend who had similiar bitter stories to tell and they soon became firm friends. Frude's new friend, Vlandix, had a simple solution to forget his troubles; he liked to eat magical mushrooms.

Frude tried the drug and found it to create a feeling of sheer joy and happiness. For the first time in many years he laughed and smiled and forgot all his troubles. He very quickly became addicted and ignored everything in his life to spend time with Vlandix and the mushrooms.

Frude's parents could see what was happening to their son but they could not seem to get through to him about it; anything they said to try to help was met with anger and defensive hostility which cut very deep as it was intended to; Frude's natural and instinctive compassion and empathy for others combined with his newfound bitterness was used to strike people where he knew it would most hurt.

He accused his mother of being too forgiving and he accused his father of being incompetent. He hurt them both so deeply that at times they did not want him anymore. But always his mother would forgive him and smooth things over with Grilog.

But this did not ultimately help Frude, who was slipping away from the world and deeper and deeper into his mind's imaginary hell.

The drug, soon enough, stopped help and actually made things worse; as Frude was still angry but disorientated and forgetful he could not remember what he was angry about, and he would lash out at people for no reason and then be angry at them for being confused.

Vlandix grew worried about him and told Frude that maybe he should lay off the mushrooms for a while. Frude was outraged and accused Vlandix of conspiring with his parents to set him back on his old path to conformity.

Vlandix was a natural avoider of conflict so he simply stopped talking to Frude, who was now utterly alone and filled with anger and remorse. The remorse created deep sadness in Frude and the sadness was unpleasant so Frude grew angry all over again and, turning the anger in on himself, he took to the only thing he could think to do; he started to hurt himself.

Small at first, he would punch a wall or bang his head against the car door, but it soon grew. Frude took to cutting himself with anything sharp, he would also punch himself repeatedly all over his head and body, and he would tear his hair out in clumps and crawl up into a ball, screaming and sobbing.

However, something inside of Frude, something beautiful, was still speaking to him, and it would not stop. he would remember things out of the fog in his memory that made him smile; a conspiratorial wink from his father, the day his mother had given him his very first bike and the look of pride and joy on her face, and then he would lay still, smiling while bittersweet tears rolled down his face.

he knew that there was something wrong, but with his memory problems he found it hard to concentrate on fixing it.

he wanted to stop eating the mushrooms but he found he would grow too angry and would just cave and take them again.

Utterly alone, Frude tried to write about his pain and sorrow but everything that he wrote seemed pretentious and whiney and he grew frustrated and gave up the attempt.

He began to spend most of his time listening to music while under the influence of the mushrooms. He found it was a temporary escape from the existence he now considered hell. He liked sad songs, because they made him cry, and he found that when he cried he was almost happy, in a strange way.

But he also began to like happy songs, especially happy songs that cover sad topics. He found them very uplifting and inspiring.

It was while listening to one such song that his life changed. He was feeling his usual inspired and uplifted feeling while listening to this song and he suddenly caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, curled up on the couch, pale and sickly, and he finally combined the uplifted feeling with the reality of his actually existence.

'My god..' he said.

And he just stared at himself, for some time.

He decided he was going to change himself. He knew he had let things get very bad and let everything go so far, but he decided he was going to get his life back on track.

he decided that what he wanted, more than anything else, was happiness in his life.

He threw the last mushrooms he had away and he left them behind. he knew they were not real happiness; he had taken them as an escape from misery and he knew, they had created more misery as a result.

he realised that he had been living for his father his whole life; at first he had lived to please his father, and then he had turned, in bitterneess, he had learned to live to hurt his father. and he knew, by ruining his own life yes, he had hurt his father, but he had hurt himself more.

he only had his father's idea of happiness to go on, so he wasn't sure what it was that he needed for himself, but he had some ideas.

he remember when he was a child he had often walked the fields of his parents' farm and had dreamed of a girl with and endless smile and deep, loving eyes.

this was what he wanted.

after only a few days it was as though he had never taken the mushrooms, wanted them or needed them. he was cured of their addiction so easily that it almost seemed impossible. he just didn't want them anymore and that was that.

he was too old to study now, so he needed a job because everything in this life requires money.

he set himself to the task of getting a job. it was incredibly difficult because he had no usable skills, no experience and no history of work.

he managed to get a job making sandwiches at midnight for drunk party-goers. it was a dirty and hard job, but Frude took great pride in making sandwiches of the highest quality and he always gave the customers a fair amount of ingredients. he was polite and helpful, if still incredibly moody. the customers appreciated him and many came back to thank him for the wonderful job he had done on their sandwich, and this filled Frude with pride.

He kept working on applying for better jobs and step by step, he made it to a place where he was working reasonable hours and being paid reasonably for his efforts. he was a clerk in charge of stock for a department store.

he liked the work as it required organisation and he felt he needed organisation in his life to help him focus.

he took part in a play and made a group of friends which he felt very close to very quickly, and they soon felt like one big family.

and then he met her; the girl with the smile and the loving eyes.

her name was Yinla.

she was the older sister of one of his new friends.

Frude very strange to get to know her because he was worried his friend would be upset. But Yinla made it very clear to her brother that she liked Frude and her brother was thrilled. he said they would make a great couple.

frude moved in with her days later. it seemed amazingly sudden but to them both it felt right and they had no doubts.

yinla proved to be incredibly practical and calm. she had a 'no-nonsense' attitude towards life which she had honed out of being a single mum for a few years, and while she did not understand Frude's strange mood swings, she was very patient with them, and she never made him feel anything but loved and accepted.

The two of them lived together with yinla's two kids and they became a close and loving family.

but despite success, the darkness inside of Frude never left him. Frude was aware of a bittersweetness in this fact; the touble he had been through had made him more considerate of others and made him a very loving and giving partner and parent, however he also realised that occassionally it made him irrationally angry at his family.

Yinla for her part, was occassionally angry but for the most part very understanding of his problems and let him be who he was without judging him.

Frude appreciated Yinla's support and love in a way he could never express, but somehow she would look at him and he wouldn't need words, and he knew that she understood. she appreciated him the same way, despite his gloomy moods.

Frude slowly learned that life is not perfect. he found this a hard fact to accept, but with yinla's love and support, and her patient manner, he eventually accepted it, and he knew he had found that happiness he had searched for.

in his dreams and in his hopes there were no down sides, and no problems, and everything always went perfectly, but reality is just not like that. but the beautiful thing about life is that it is bittersweet, and the bad times are wonderful because they contrast against the good and give you something to compare them too. and being human, we would be bored if every day was the same.

this was the key that Frude had been missing, and the thing he kept forgetting when he eventually learned it, but all of that is a part of the whole, and everything is ok, even things you are not proud of. because life is about experience and about learning and about making mistakes. overall if you do what you can to be happy with yourself, then the external happiness will follow, and what is more, the sadness you experience will be wonderful too, because it means you are alive.