HEY, YOU WANNA BALLOON?

With the recent comeback of horror movies in our cinemas, I was reminded of the books I have read . Yes, this is my favourite literary genre, and it is no surprise that my all time favourite writer is Stephen King, followed closely by Annie Rice and Dean Koontz. Anyway, I just want to share one that I read ages ago... "IT" by Stephen King.

Derry, Maine is a quiet town, terrorized every 30 years by a horror known only as "It". The only victims of "It" are children. Through the form of a clown named Pennywise, "It" wakes up every 30 years and feeds. The adults of Derry act like "It" doesn't happen. Ironically they know about "It", but the events are too horrible to talk about. Seven outcasts, known as The Lucky Seven, Bill, Ben, Beverly, Eddie, Richie, Mike, and Stan are able to defeat "It" as children and make a pact to return and do battle again should the terror return. Now 30 years later, Mike Hanlon who stayed behind, is puzzled by a bizarre occurrence of child murders. When he discovers that "It" has come back, he reunites what's left of The Lucky Seven, now in their middle ages to do battle once again, and "It" is ready. The Lucky Seven must now defeat "It" and cure Derry of "The Derry Disease".

 
Ok... if i had to choose a book that I particularly enjoyed, it would be this one...'IT' by Stephen King...no kidding!!? My all time favourite writer? why IT? Why not 'The Body' or 'Misery' or any of the countless books he has written? I'm not sure, actually...but the thing that is imprinted in my mind is the fact that when they were children, they managed to kill 'IT' with a slingshot, using silver bullets/slugs, which they actually made by melting their moms' silverware. 

However, 30 years later when Pennywise...that's the name of the clown (IT) resurfaced, (apparently, IT will appear in the form of something which the kids fear or hate most, eg, if you're afraid of spiders, than you will encounter IT in the form of a giant spider or in the case of Bill who felt guilty for the death of his brother, he had to face his little brother blaming him for his death. But generally, IT appears in the form of a clown holding orange balloons, saying 'Hey! You wanna a balloon?') , 

so, when Pennywise reappeared 30 years later, the silver bullets didn't work anymore. Another similar incident was when one of the kids, (I honestly cannot remember his name now cos someone borrowed the novel and forgot to return it, same thing with the vcd) anyway, this kid was a bit wimpish...and to make it worse, he had asthma...and at one point, out of desperation, he used his inhaler to defeat pennywise by pretending that it was battery acid...and it worked, of course, when he tried the same trick 30 years later...well, you can guess.

The point is, if the silver bullets and the inhaler worked when they were kids, why didn't they work 30 years later? What went wrong? or more precisely, what has changed?

As I see it, the problem was that they all grew up into sensible, rational thinking, no nonsense adults. The silver bullets and inhaler worked 30 years before because as kids, they really believed that if you want to kill magical monsters, you have to use a silver bullet...ordinary bullets won't work, just like they believed in the tooth fairy, or santaclaus or even magic.

When they were kids, their thinking was ...IT is not an ordinary monster. IT is magical...therefore, only silver bullets can kill it. 30 years later, the way they think was... IT eats children. for IT to eat, it needs to have a physical form and if it has a physical form, it can be killed...no need for silver bullets.

See how they need to rationalize things, put things in perspective so they make sense to their nonsensical adult minds, just so people won't think they're crazy. Is that so bad?...Doing crazy things sometimes? I don't mean turning into a serial killer or something, just doing something we don't ordinarily do, something out of our ordinary norm. Hell, it drives me insane trying to remain sane all the time.

I read somewhere that nobody appears more sane than an insane person. Look at Norman Bates in Psycho. Isn't he the most rational person you've ever seen???...with his clean-cut American-farmboy look and his soft spoken manner...he is the most 'sane' character in the story... until he starts killing...

and most of us go through life doing the same things everyday and then complain that our lives are monotonous. Isn't that insane? Imagine this...everyday we mix blue and yellow and everyday we get green. Then one day, we mix the same colours expecting to get purple...how is that possible. That's what I call crazy...doing the same thing everyday but expecting a different result. If you don't change one of the colours, you will always end up with the same colour...and if you don't change any of your routines but still expect your day to end different than yesterday...you are definitely losing it.

So, lighten up a little. Learn from the children... Listen to the Beatles...'don't carry the world upon your shoulders." Being an adult does not mean we have to know the answer to every question. Face it...the world is not going to stop revolving just because you don't know who Brad Pitt is, and if you can't explain some things, don't. Blame it on divine intervention or destiny or Barisan Nasional. It's hard work trying to rationalize everything so they make sense all the time.

Me? I live my life the way I want to...not really concerned with what other people think...err... as long as they leave me alone...and it works just fine...know why?

Cause I believe in magic. So... you wanna balloon???