The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
At times I sit all alone,
And stare faintly into space.
Do I really belong here?
Or am I in the wrong place?
I woke one morning, well, the same as any other morning, to the sound of nature calling outside my window. Drawing the curtains and letting the channelled light strike me in the face, I stared out across the town of Markopan. Grass fluttered madly down below me as the wind blew a mighty gust, the town clock chimed for 9am, and any bird in sight quickly flew in the opposite direction in order to evade the startling noise. I, as usual, turned a blind eye to the smoggy and god-awful nuclear plant, churning out fog and mist; I wasn’t man enough to face such a vile aspect of the town. Markopan was supposed to be perfect.
I’d led a sheltered life; my parents always trying to grasp me, control me. Whilst all the other kids ventured out on a warm Saturday morning to play football, I was kept at home, with little explanation to why I was to stay in my room twiddling my thumbs of boredom. The only way that my parents could have restricted my life any more was by wrapping me in large amounts of bubble wrap and cotton wool before accompanying me to every one of my destinations that I visited. I hated my childhood. I hated it with passion.
I’m encircled by questions,
That submerge my mind.
At some point the answers,
Are what I do wish to find.
My childhood, or rather, my lack of one, has led me into being an adult with social skills comparable to that of a toilet seat. Everyone uses me, everyone takes advantage of me, but nobody even gives a second thought to the valid service I provide. Hence the fact that I am now an avid studier, who other less intellectual individuals see it appropriate to mooch off of. My efforts seem unnoticed by any sort of human. The last piece of social contact I had was when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came round and my parents were out. I was so desperate to try and converse with something in possession of a mouth that they nearly didn’t leave, and when they did it was by their own accord. Everyone seems so much more positioned than me. I don’t fit in.
After a rather lengthy period of time I have developed the notion that the reason for my criminal lack of sociality was down to my parents, and the obsessive guard that they have over me. I’m sixteen; I find it hard enough trying to get space and time away from them, and yet they still employ the most unthinkable excuses to keep their watchful eye over me. After much more contemplation and brainstorming I decided that the whole area that I lived in had a mask around it, and in some ways I have a mask around myself, a more inner-one though. With my name being Mark, and the town that I live in being called Markopan, it was no surprise that I invented the title of, “The Mask Of Markopan” to try and convey the shielded existence that I populated. It sounds sad, but what else am I to do crammed up in a room with slim to no opportunity of getting a life worth pondering over.
My thoughts are extreme,
I’m going round the bend.
If this is my new beginning,
When comes its pitiful end?
With the mask mutation, it was getting to the point in which my life, my very subsistence of concrete moments and memories was being controlled entirely by these two people. These two individuals who supposedly created me had erected these two barriers that enclosed my existence like two huge curtains, the type you’d see at a play or in the hall of a school. There may as well be strings hanging from my ceiling too, flailing from my body. In fact, sometimes when I lie alone, gazing blankly into nothingness, I start to picture them, attached to my hands and feet like a rag doll. And whenever I glimpse out of the window, anything beyond my hometown is cloaked with red velvet.
I have times where everything in my life goes hazy, malformed and indistinct. I feel myself rattling inside, my eyes and legs quiver, like I’m trying to escape from myself in search of light, space, and empty air beyond these masks, in which I can aspire to things that I want, not what some bunch of domineering halfwits desire. Some aspects of my life are unfathomable, and to this day I am befuddled by such feelings of hesitancy and anxiety that so often come over me. From time to time I just don’t know who I am, where I am, and why I’m in a certain place. My lonesome days are like a blurry splodge of mystery, with everyone else on the outside of the blob looking in at me by myself, and laughing at my pathetic state.
I frequently pinch myself,
To ensure that this is real.
Nobody understands me,
And just how odd I feel.
My atrocious condition was getting close to boiling point, as my life began to feel as unlived as ever. I still felt restrained like a straightjacket, still unable to break free and show the world what I had under my mask, what I had to offer. I longed to get out into the surrounds of the town that I loved so dearly, then even further, and feel what it was like to be in this time, in this place, and to be alive. After much deliberation, I decided to seek advice from a doctor, as I hadn’t seen one since Dr. Street, my previous source of medical welfare, had passed on.
So I snuck away from the house that had jammed me in its jaws for so much of my life, in search of the guidance I now needed so desperately. Entering the small clinic that branched off the corner of a street, and used to be the home of somebody unimportant many years ago, I sat down, patiently waiting for my call of fortune to arrive. The overhead speakers sounded, “Dr. Cooper to see Mark Plumber now.” I trembled, legs juddering with apprehension as I brought myself to my feet. I trudged slowly down the hallway, and just before I could greet the door that corresponded to my consultant’s name with a knock, his cheerful and balding head popped round the door. “Hello” he sounded, “Do come in Mark”.
After the doctor had heard my panicky words of misplaced existence, and general agony, he leant back in his chair, caressing his gristly stubble and cocking his head to one side. He noted down several brief observations on a clipboard before placing it on his desk and turning towards me; waiting like a ghost the whole time, silently. “Perhaps this series of depressive feelings and over guarded parenting links directly to your schizophrenia, epilepsy and amnesia?” He commented, “Your parents can’t afford to let up at anytime”. My silence said it all, as every word escaped my comprehension; I was totally baffled.
At times I sit all alone,
And stare faintly into space.
I really don’t belong here,
This isn’t the right place.
And stare faintly into space.
Do I really belong here?
Or am I in the wrong place?
I woke one morning, well, the same as any other morning, to the sound of nature calling outside my window. Drawing the curtains and letting the channelled light strike me in the face, I stared out across the town of Markopan. Grass fluttered madly down below me as the wind blew a mighty gust, the town clock chimed for 9am, and any bird in sight quickly flew in the opposite direction in order to evade the startling noise. I, as usual, turned a blind eye to the smoggy and god-awful nuclear plant, churning out fog and mist; I wasn’t man enough to face such a vile aspect of the town. Markopan was supposed to be perfect.
I’d led a sheltered life; my parents always trying to grasp me, control me. Whilst all the other kids ventured out on a warm Saturday morning to play football, I was kept at home, with little explanation to why I was to stay in my room twiddling my thumbs of boredom. The only way that my parents could have restricted my life any more was by wrapping me in large amounts of bubble wrap and cotton wool before accompanying me to every one of my destinations that I visited. I hated my childhood. I hated it with passion.
I’m encircled by questions,
That submerge my mind.
At some point the answers,
Are what I do wish to find.
My childhood, or rather, my lack of one, has led me into being an adult with social skills comparable to that of a toilet seat. Everyone uses me, everyone takes advantage of me, but nobody even gives a second thought to the valid service I provide. Hence the fact that I am now an avid studier, who other less intellectual individuals see it appropriate to mooch off of. My efforts seem unnoticed by any sort of human. The last piece of social contact I had was when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came round and my parents were out. I was so desperate to try and converse with something in possession of a mouth that they nearly didn’t leave, and when they did it was by their own accord. Everyone seems so much more positioned than me. I don’t fit in.
After a rather lengthy period of time I have developed the notion that the reason for my criminal lack of sociality was down to my parents, and the obsessive guard that they have over me. I’m sixteen; I find it hard enough trying to get space and time away from them, and yet they still employ the most unthinkable excuses to keep their watchful eye over me. After much more contemplation and brainstorming I decided that the whole area that I lived in had a mask around it, and in some ways I have a mask around myself, a more inner-one though. With my name being Mark, and the town that I live in being called Markopan, it was no surprise that I invented the title of, “The Mask Of Markopan” to try and convey the shielded existence that I populated. It sounds sad, but what else am I to do crammed up in a room with slim to no opportunity of getting a life worth pondering over.
My thoughts are extreme,
I’m going round the bend.
If this is my new beginning,
When comes its pitiful end?
With the mask mutation, it was getting to the point in which my life, my very subsistence of concrete moments and memories was being controlled entirely by these two people. These two individuals who supposedly created me had erected these two barriers that enclosed my existence like two huge curtains, the type you’d see at a play or in the hall of a school. There may as well be strings hanging from my ceiling too, flailing from my body. In fact, sometimes when I lie alone, gazing blankly into nothingness, I start to picture them, attached to my hands and feet like a rag doll. And whenever I glimpse out of the window, anything beyond my hometown is cloaked with red velvet.
I have times where everything in my life goes hazy, malformed and indistinct. I feel myself rattling inside, my eyes and legs quiver, like I’m trying to escape from myself in search of light, space, and empty air beyond these masks, in which I can aspire to things that I want, not what some bunch of domineering halfwits desire. Some aspects of my life are unfathomable, and to this day I am befuddled by such feelings of hesitancy and anxiety that so often come over me. From time to time I just don’t know who I am, where I am, and why I’m in a certain place. My lonesome days are like a blurry splodge of mystery, with everyone else on the outside of the blob looking in at me by myself, and laughing at my pathetic state.
I frequently pinch myself,
To ensure that this is real.
Nobody understands me,
And just how odd I feel.
My atrocious condition was getting close to boiling point, as my life began to feel as unlived as ever. I still felt restrained like a straightjacket, still unable to break free and show the world what I had under my mask, what I had to offer. I longed to get out into the surrounds of the town that I loved so dearly, then even further, and feel what it was like to be in this time, in this place, and to be alive. After much deliberation, I decided to seek advice from a doctor, as I hadn’t seen one since Dr. Street, my previous source of medical welfare, had passed on.
So I snuck away from the house that had jammed me in its jaws for so much of my life, in search of the guidance I now needed so desperately. Entering the small clinic that branched off the corner of a street, and used to be the home of somebody unimportant many years ago, I sat down, patiently waiting for my call of fortune to arrive. The overhead speakers sounded, “Dr. Cooper to see Mark Plumber now.” I trembled, legs juddering with apprehension as I brought myself to my feet. I trudged slowly down the hallway, and just before I could greet the door that corresponded to my consultant’s name with a knock, his cheerful and balding head popped round the door. “Hello” he sounded, “Do come in Mark”.
After the doctor had heard my panicky words of misplaced existence, and general agony, he leant back in his chair, caressing his gristly stubble and cocking his head to one side. He noted down several brief observations on a clipboard before placing it on his desk and turning towards me; waiting like a ghost the whole time, silently. “Perhaps this series of depressive feelings and over guarded parenting links directly to your schizophrenia, epilepsy and amnesia?” He commented, “Your parents can’t afford to let up at anytime”. My silence said it all, as every word escaped my comprehension; I was totally baffled.
At times I sit all alone,
And stare faintly into space.
I really don’t belong here,
This isn’t the right place.
Oooh, nice. I would have killed the parents though. :-)
An interesting twist on the mask of Markopan theme. Nicely constructed with a believable voice. Very good. Choosing the top 3 is going to be difficult.
Good, now you can win mate.
This is easily one of the best entries.
This is easily one of the best entries.
Thanks for the advice, Para, have made a minor alteration.
Very nice idea, beautifully written, though the ending "Manic dyslexia" didnt seem to fit, I'd suggest changing it to something more "medical" perhaps.
Anyway nice take on the ideam glad you entered.
Anyway nice take on the ideam glad you entered.
I liked that.
Brilliantly abstract take on the concept, and a nicely original way of telling the story through the progressive ramblings of a troubled mind, rather than physical happenings. The interspliced poetry was also a nice touch - giving us "signposts" of his psychological trauma.
Well written, with a nice and unpredictable twist at the end. I was actually expecting the doctor to turn around and say something like "But Mark... your parents have been dead for fifteen years...", but I was pleasantly surprised and satisfied with the actual, sinister conclusion.
So top marks for innovation and imagination. Good stuff!
Brilliantly abstract take on the concept, and a nicely original way of telling the story through the progressive ramblings of a troubled mind, rather than physical happenings. The interspliced poetry was also a nice touch - giving us "signposts" of his psychological trauma.
Well written, with a nice and unpredictable twist at the end. I was actually expecting the doctor to turn around and say something like "But Mark... your parents have been dead for fifteen years...", but I was pleasantly surprised and satisfied with the actual, sinister conclusion.
So top marks for innovation and imagination. Good stuff!
At times I sit all alone,
And stare faintly into space.
Do I really belong here?
Or am I in the wrong place?
I woke one morning, well, the same as any other morning, to the sound of nature calling outside my window. Drawing the curtains and letting the channelled light strike me in the face, I stared out across the town of Markopan. Grass fluttered madly down below me as the wind blew a mighty gust, the town clock chimed for 9am, and any bird in sight quickly flew in the opposite direction in order to evade the startling noise. I, as usual, turned a blind eye to the smoggy and god-awful nuclear plant, churning out fog and mist; I wasn’t man enough to face such a vile aspect of the town. Markopan was supposed to be perfect.
I’d led a sheltered life; my parents always trying to grasp me, control me. Whilst all the other kids ventured out on a warm Saturday morning to play football, I was kept at home, with little explanation to why I was to stay in my room twiddling my thumbs of boredom. The only way that my parents could have restricted my life any more was by wrapping me in large amounts of bubble wrap and cotton wool before accompanying me to every one of my destinations that I visited. I hated my childhood. I hated it with passion.
I’m encircled by questions,
That submerge my mind.
At some point the answers,
Are what I do wish to find.
My childhood, or rather, my lack of one, has led me into being an adult with social skills comparable to that of a toilet seat. Everyone uses me, everyone takes advantage of me, but nobody even gives a second thought to the valid service I provide. Hence the fact that I am now an avid studier, who other less intellectual individuals see it appropriate to mooch off of. My efforts seem unnoticed by any sort of human. The last piece of social contact I had was when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came round and my parents were out. I was so desperate to try and converse with something in possession of a mouth that they nearly didn’t leave, and when they did it was by their own accord. Everyone seems so much more positioned than me. I don’t fit in.
After a rather lengthy period of time I have developed the notion that the reason for my criminal lack of sociality was down to my parents, and the obsessive guard that they have over me. I’m sixteen; I find it hard enough trying to get space and time away from them, and yet they still employ the most unthinkable excuses to keep their watchful eye over me. After much more contemplation and brainstorming I decided that the whole area that I lived in had a mask around it, and in some ways I have a mask around myself, a more inner-one though. With my name being Mark, and the town that I live in being called Markopan, it was no surprise that I invented the title of, “The Mask Of Markopan” to try and convey the shielded existence that I populated. It sounds sad, but what else am I to do crammed up in a room with slim to no opportunity of getting a life worth pondering over.
My thoughts are extreme,
I’m going round the bend.
If this is my new beginning,
When comes its pitiful end?
With the mask mutation, it was getting to the point in which my life, my very subsistence of concrete moments and memories was being controlled entirely by these two people. These two individuals who supposedly created me had erected these two barriers that enclosed my existence like two huge curtains, the type you’d see at a play or in the hall of a school. There may as well be strings hanging from my ceiling too, flailing from my body. In fact, sometimes when I lie alone, gazing blankly into nothingness, I start to picture them, attached to my hands and feet like a rag doll. And whenever I glimpse out of the window, anything beyond my hometown is cloaked with red velvet.
I have times where everything in my life goes hazy, malformed and indistinct. I feel myself rattling inside, my eyes and legs quiver, like I’m trying to escape from myself in search of light, space, and empty air beyond these masks, in which I can aspire to things that I want, not what some bunch of domineering halfwits desire. Some aspects of my life are unfathomable, and to this day I am befuddled by such feelings of hesitancy and anxiety that so often come over me. From time to time I just don’t know who I am, where I am, and why I’m in a certain place. My lonesome days are like a blurry splodge of mystery, with everyone else on the outside of the blob looking in at me by myself, and laughing at my pathetic state.
I frequently pinch myself,
To ensure that this is real.
Nobody understands me,
And just how odd I feel.
My atrocious condition was getting close to boiling point, as my life began to feel as unlived as ever. I still felt restrained like a straightjacket, still unable to break free and show the world what I had under my mask, what I had to offer. I longed to get out into the surrounds of the town that I loved so dearly, then even further, and feel what it was like to be in this time, in this place, and to be alive. After much deliberation, I decided to seek advice from a doctor, as I hadn’t seen one since Dr. Street, my previous source of medical welfare, had passed on.
So I snuck away from the house that had jammed me in its jaws for so much of my life, in search of the guidance I now needed so desperately. Entering the small clinic that branched off the corner of a street, and used to be the home of somebody unimportant many years ago, I sat down, patiently waiting for my call of fortune to arrive. The overhead speakers sounded, “Dr. Cooper to see Mark Plumber now.” I trembled, legs juddering with apprehension as I brought myself to my feet. I trudged slowly down the hallway, and just before I could greet the door that corresponded to my consultant’s name with a knock, his cheerful and balding head popped round the door. “Hello” he sounded, “Do come in Mark”.
After the doctor had heard my panicky words of misplaced existence, and general agony, he leant back in his chair, caressing his gristly stubble and cocking his head to one side. He noted down several brief observations on a clipboard before placing it on his desk and turning towards me; waiting like a ghost the whole time, silently. “Perhaps this series of depressive feelings and over guarded parenting links directly to your schizophrenia, epilepsy and amnesia?” He commented, “Your parents can’t afford to let up at anytime”. My silence said it all, as every word escaped my comprehension; I was totally baffled.
At times I sit all alone,
And stare faintly into space.
I really don’t belong here,
This isn’t the right place.
And stare faintly into space.
Do I really belong here?
Or am I in the wrong place?
I woke one morning, well, the same as any other morning, to the sound of nature calling outside my window. Drawing the curtains and letting the channelled light strike me in the face, I stared out across the town of Markopan. Grass fluttered madly down below me as the wind blew a mighty gust, the town clock chimed for 9am, and any bird in sight quickly flew in the opposite direction in order to evade the startling noise. I, as usual, turned a blind eye to the smoggy and god-awful nuclear plant, churning out fog and mist; I wasn’t man enough to face such a vile aspect of the town. Markopan was supposed to be perfect.
I’d led a sheltered life; my parents always trying to grasp me, control me. Whilst all the other kids ventured out on a warm Saturday morning to play football, I was kept at home, with little explanation to why I was to stay in my room twiddling my thumbs of boredom. The only way that my parents could have restricted my life any more was by wrapping me in large amounts of bubble wrap and cotton wool before accompanying me to every one of my destinations that I visited. I hated my childhood. I hated it with passion.
I’m encircled by questions,
That submerge my mind.
At some point the answers,
Are what I do wish to find.
My childhood, or rather, my lack of one, has led me into being an adult with social skills comparable to that of a toilet seat. Everyone uses me, everyone takes advantage of me, but nobody even gives a second thought to the valid service I provide. Hence the fact that I am now an avid studier, who other less intellectual individuals see it appropriate to mooch off of. My efforts seem unnoticed by any sort of human. The last piece of social contact I had was when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came round and my parents were out. I was so desperate to try and converse with something in possession of a mouth that they nearly didn’t leave, and when they did it was by their own accord. Everyone seems so much more positioned than me. I don’t fit in.
After a rather lengthy period of time I have developed the notion that the reason for my criminal lack of sociality was down to my parents, and the obsessive guard that they have over me. I’m sixteen; I find it hard enough trying to get space and time away from them, and yet they still employ the most unthinkable excuses to keep their watchful eye over me. After much more contemplation and brainstorming I decided that the whole area that I lived in had a mask around it, and in some ways I have a mask around myself, a more inner-one though. With my name being Mark, and the town that I live in being called Markopan, it was no surprise that I invented the title of, “The Mask Of Markopan” to try and convey the shielded existence that I populated. It sounds sad, but what else am I to do crammed up in a room with slim to no opportunity of getting a life worth pondering over.
My thoughts are extreme,
I’m going round the bend.
If this is my new beginning,
When comes its pitiful end?
With the mask mutation, it was getting to the point in which my life, my very subsistence of concrete moments and memories was being controlled entirely by these two people. These two individuals who supposedly created me had erected these two barriers that enclosed my existence like two huge curtains, the type you’d see at a play or in the hall of a school. There may as well be strings hanging from my ceiling too, flailing from my body. In fact, sometimes when I lie alone, gazing blankly into nothingness, I start to picture them, attached to my hands and feet like a rag doll. And whenever I glimpse out of the window, anything beyond my hometown is cloaked with red velvet.
I have times where everything in my life goes hazy, malformed and indistinct. I feel myself rattling inside, my eyes and legs quiver, like I’m trying to escape from myself in search of light, space, and empty air beyond these masks, in which I can aspire to things that I want, not what some bunch of domineering halfwits desire. Some aspects of my life are unfathomable, and to this day I am befuddled by such feelings of hesitancy and anxiety that so often come over me. From time to time I just don’t know who I am, where I am, and why I’m in a certain place. My lonesome days are like a blurry splodge of mystery, with everyone else on the outside of the blob looking in at me by myself, and laughing at my pathetic state.
I frequently pinch myself,
To ensure that this is real.
Nobody understands me,
And just how odd I feel.
My atrocious condition was getting close to boiling point, as my life began to feel as unlived as ever. I still felt restrained like a straightjacket, still unable to break free and show the world what I had under my mask, what I had to offer. I longed to get out into the surrounds of the town that I loved so dearly, then even further, and feel what it was like to be in this time, in this place, and to be alive. After much deliberation, I decided to seek advice from a doctor, as I hadn’t seen one since Dr. Street, my previous source of medical welfare, had passed on.
So I snuck away from the house that had jammed me in its jaws for so much of my life, in search of the guidance I now needed so desperately. Entering the small clinic that branched off the corner of a street, and used to be the home of somebody unimportant many years ago, I sat down, patiently waiting for my call of fortune to arrive. The overhead speakers sounded, “Dr. Cooper to see Mark Plumber now.” I trembled, legs juddering with apprehension as I brought myself to my feet. I trudged slowly down the hallway, and just before I could greet the door that corresponded to my consultant’s name with a knock, his cheerful and balding head popped round the door. “Hello” he sounded, “Do come in Mark”.
After the doctor had heard my panicky words of misplaced existence, and general agony, he leant back in his chair, caressing his gristly stubble and cocking his head to one side. He noted down several brief observations on a clipboard before placing it on his desk and turning towards me; waiting like a ghost the whole time, silently. “Perhaps this series of depressive feelings and over guarded parenting links directly to your schizophrenia, epilepsy and amnesia?” He commented, “Your parents can’t afford to let up at anytime”. My silence said it all, as every word escaped my comprehension; I was totally baffled.
At times I sit all alone,
And stare faintly into space.
I really don’t belong here,
This isn’t the right place.