Amor Fati: A Pinocchio Retelling

Sunlight finally managed to grace his skin after days of remaining inside Haruki’s chamber, only tasting a paltry amount through the window. Refusing to use a walking stick with a great passion, he simply waited to recover until he could walk without one. To Haruki’s surprise, it didn’t take him a long time to heal from his major wounds, but his ability to read in Adone’s music hints of ethereal activity dissolved his surprise and turned it into intrigue. He, too, had his fair share of secrets and didn’t care much to inquire, bottling the desire to wish him a safe journey when he knew the type of person he was. When Durante provided him with the minimum for him to feel comfort and forget the pain, Adone got ready to leave and begin his journey with Pinocchio. But not before spending some on the market in the center of the city. 

“Shouldn’t we be saving that money for our journey? Who knows how much we’ll need.” 

A smile brighter than the sun in the cloudless blue sky beamed from his lips, fondling the small music box in his pocket. 

“If he said that we have more than enough money, then we have more than enough. So why not treat ourselves a bit after all of this before heading out?”

It was in that instant that Pinocchio realized for how long Adone was convalescing, grasping his hunger for recreation with more clarity. Seeing how eagerly he wished to unwind after that period of stagnation gave Pinocchio the same will with the same hunger. Excitement flowed out of him like a fountain, unable to be contained after waiting so long for his return. Now, walking by his side again, the loneliness left him for the time being. He knew that it was always lurking, waiting to take hold of him when he least suspected its emergence. But with a clear, steady mind, he acknowledged its presence whenever it was there and its absent presence whenever it supposedly left him, not letting it linger but ebb and flow while he continued to be. It was a harder skill to master than any of the circus tricks he had to learn, taking all of his attention and willpower to make small progress with the possibility of nearly permanent decay in growth. But he endured, embracing the good and recognizing the bad as it flowed through him, scraping and sculpting his psyche like a riverbed. 

Not even the city’s buildings could hide them from the sun’s passion, scorching the stones with its raging lumination. Euphoria struck Adone’s brains when he witnessed all the colors of the vendors blossoming like flowers, emitting fragrances that sent his mind spiraling to the sky. With haste, he held Pinocchio’s hand so as not to lose him in the crowd and pulled him deeper into the plaza. With all the joy he had, there was a darkness growing in Pinocchio he himself couldn’t extinguish. In the middle of the throng, he felt the piercing gaze of innumerable eyes again, biting into every cog and wire in his system until it became agony to move. More importantly, he began to feel his own piercing gaze aimed at himself, unable to bear the weight of his own awareness of the suffocating feeling he was experiencing. Something sharper and deadlier than loneliness struck him in the plaza, pulverizing any tranquility he felt and thrusting him into a living nightmare. 

Adone, lost in thought as he walked around the food caravans to intoxicate himself with the scents they bled, didn’t notice the war occuring in Pinocchio’s ghost until he felt his movements slow down and become heavier. When he looked down to the wooden boy, he could immediately sense a profound disturbance in the music his soul played. Without a second thought, he went on one knee to try and meet him at eye level, ignoring the people passing around the two. While he was aware of their gazes, he was unaware of the fact that they had such a grave impact on Pinocchio. 

“What’s wrong? Do you want to go somewhere else?” 

Unable to communicate much, he gave a rigid nod, compelling Adone to get back up and walk into a side street, away from the din of the marketplace. Knowing the city like the back of his hand, Adone meandered through a few streets where there were no events and merely passed along, finding a street with benches under rows of trees, the perfect place for Pinocchio to satisfy his appetite for tranquility in a time of distress. He wished that he could provide him with a better location, but it was all he could think of. He already felt lighter seeing Pinocchio decompress a bit and hearing his inner music sinking back into its usual rhythm. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and turned his body in Pinocchio’s direction. The weight pressing down on the wooden boy’s spirits pushed his gaze to the floor, unable to lift it to meet Adone’s. But he maintained his gaze, studying his body language. He looked around to see empty streets, hearing the footsteps of someone walking behind them and the birdsong decorating the silence. Not hearing their serene melodies in what felt like forever, he decompressed and leaned back on the bench, drinking the sweetness of the birdsong with his soul. 

“I’m, I’m-” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Adone cut through, eyes still closed as he let the sunlight and birdsong sink into his skin and anoint his mind.

 He tilted his head and met his eyes, giving him a little smile like a spark in the dark. Seeing that elevated his spirits a bit more, giving him the space to understand exactly what he was experiencing moments ago. His eyes lowered again, nailed to the bright red shirt he wore and the detailed buttons that had the insignia of an institution he had no knowledge of, but knew that it was the source of his oppression. 

“It’s this stupid shirt and their stupid eyes and this stupid…” 

Feeling a tightness in his chest, he stopped speaking for a moment. With those simple little words, he already grabbed Adone’s full attention. Yet it was not in the words he dwelled in, but the space between the words. The intensity of whatever wheels within Pinocchio were whirling, the sharpness of his articulation, the tightness of his fist, the tension in his arms, how his eyes froze as his head twitched as if they had an existence independent of him that cradled an obscure but profound rage his body couldn't comprehend. Those little cracks where the light of truth sputtered from captured Adone’s attention the most, saying far more than words ever could. 

“I’m just so tired of wearing this red shirt that’s supposed to mark me as a harmless thing. It’s just that, a harmless thing. Everyone can wear what they want, but I need to be labeled and marked and disconnected from all the others, as if I wasn’t disconnected enough for being a living doll. Being reduced to such a degree is so lonely, so suffocating, as if this shirt is like a cage that keeps me away from the world, only allowing me to look beyond the bars.”

Adone’s lips curled inward as he exhaled through his nose, feeling every word peel back a layer of his mind. Each wall that protected him from the wrath of his soul became translucent, giving him a safe vantage point for him to observe not only Pinocchio’s pain, but his own. From beyond the layers upon layers of fortification, he saw the restlessness and relentlessness of his own soul, eager to burst out of itself every moment. It was like witnessing an endless process of lightning giving birth to lightning, enthralling himself in the spectacle of his design.

In seeing the world behind Pinocchio’s words, he was able to peer into his own inner world, bridging the eternal gap between them as individuals and recognizing the void that bound them together as a whole into a whole. Adone appreciated Pinocchio’s openness deeply, gaining an appreciation of his own openness towards himself. It was in the abyss shining from beyond his micro and macro expressions where Adone saw him truly and truthfully expressing himself. The verdurous void between them and within them helped their souls flourish in the light of the abyss. 

“And not to mention their eyes. So, so many eyes. I feel like I’m in the circus again, being watched by all those people who don’t see me, but what they want to see. In their gaze, I feel like I’m becoming alienated from myself, as if every eye rips a piece of me I thought I knew until I become a blank canvas to even myself. Their most intimate looks just feel like knives skinning my heart, bloodletting me to make me realize that there’s nothing within me but an emptiness I try to avoid, but am forced to confront in their gaze. It’s in those moments when their eyes pierce me that I realize that they can never know me, not even myself. In being recognized in such a way, I can’t even recognize myself anymore.”

He could feel Pinocchio’s description crawling under his skin, invading his flesh as it penetrated into something far deeper than any affectivity ever could. The way he articulated the chaos of his music made clear sense to him, impressing him with the skill he had in describing his current state of mind. Most of the amazement came from his own inadequacy in that field, never truly finding the right words for the needles piercing his heart. Yet the doll’s clockwork heart and mind united perfectly to articulate his sorrows well, giving him embers he might be able to use to tame the conflagration within him with the right words. But he felt as though he lost that power when any and all words he knew dissolved in pain. In Pinocchio, however, he saw them blossom from the ashes with fiery verdure.  

Using his right hand, Adone rubbed Pinocchio’s shoulder, feeling the strength and smoothness of the wood beyond his red shirt. In spite of his lack of flesh, a somatic echo resonated between him and the wooden boy akin to a heartfelt embrace. Unable to tame the effervescence of his clockwork, Pinocchio leaned into him, reaching his arm cross Adone’s chest and nestling his head on his shoulder. In spite of the absence of temperature, a delicate warmth caressed the skin beneath his soul, inspiring a somatic serenity. Immersed in a realm where the abyss sang with a melody of honey, Adone was able to locate the place where Pinocchio was able to articulate his heart with almost ethereal grace. He, too, wished to tame the fires of his heart with the miracle of words. 

There was an aversion in his process from wishing to verbalize to actually verbalizing it, as if the words fell into an infinitely deep chasm when they tried crossing the bridge from silence to sound. The somatic serenity failed to dissolve the wicked bile stuck in his ghost and didn’t help with turning the formless into form. Instead of giving it shape to master and control, the stubborn formlessness managed to exert control over him instead, dictating what he should and shouldn’t feel, could and couldn't confront. But the fire of his tongue that blossomed in the blackest shadows of his tortured heart followed the choreography of the horrible formlessness, turning it into something sublime in the mere attempt at doing so. All those tongues of fire licking his soul persisted in their dancing, managing to give him strength where he thought he didn't have anymore. But they burned in the deepest marrows and the darkest corners, offering illumination in the crushing abyss. 

They repositioned themselves, Adone holding onto his shoulder until the last second. He laced his fingers, still uncomfortable with the lack of feeling in his left hand and the prickling warmth in his right. Just like how Pinocchio touched the marrow of his heart, so too did he try to contact his own using the tongues of fire, intimidating yet illuminating. In the light, he was at the very least able to perceive the chaos of the formless violently sculpting and scarring him, and in that awareness was his ability to sculpt his own forms from the formless, gaining agency within himself through himself. 

“I know exactly how you feel, Pinocchio. I also felt a very similar way, inside and outside of the circus. Being forced to wear masks all day will eventually mask things within yourself you don’t even notice are facades until they crumble. But every mask has a maker, mirroring the recognizable and melting all they experience together into something unrecognizable. The way I conducted myself when I also felt like the antithesis of life was that I wore my alien identity as a badge of honor, as a way of seeing the world differently due to being seen by the world as different. It will make you realise that you are another to yourself, but once you do, you’ll reach the best clarity there is and see your true self for what it really is.” 

A pleasant breeze combed through Adone’s hair and softly flew through him, giving his whole body a balmy kiss under the blazing sun. He rested his elbows on the back of the chair, tilting his head towards the melancholic Pinocchio. His face had an indescribable warmth in it, buried under the stars of his turquoise eyes. Springtide perfumed his countenance, arousing a smile to blossom and his eyes to glow with new strength in great weakness. 

“There’s no way to justify the cruel conditions, but you can learn to grow a lot from it. From that process, you can see the beauty in so many things, even if that beauty is stained with a touch of hurt. That little hurt does not necessarily make those things more beautiful, but it does make them more genuine, raw, honest, sincere. And that is by far the most sublime thing that exists. It’s made even better by the fact that it’s not a distant ideal, but a fulfilling reality. At least it can be, so don’t be afraid to cultivate it. There’s nothing to lose in the end and there’s so much to gain from it.” 

Excitement rippled throughout his whole system, inspiring the clockwork to sing in a way he didn’t know it could sing. As if he was drowning and tasted air for the first time, he suddenly heard his body eulogize for existence, giving his soul a stage to dance on and a melody to dance to. And in the primordial silence and unfathomable abundance, his soul found something to dance for.   

“But how can I ever know these things? I’ve only heard you speak of things like this, but you’re extraordinary, so how can I ever find such answers?” 

A suppressed laugh sputtered out of him, sealed with a broad smile. Pain caressed his heart for a brief moment, giving him a taste of oblivion amidst the raging light of joy inspired by Pinocchio’s appreciation for his qualities. The pain merely scraped its barbed tongue over the surface beneath his qualities, agitating a place he thought was either an open wound or tender flower in bloom. But it was both of those things at once, acting as a cradle for pain and passions, destruction and drives. It was the throne of his soul’s kaleidoscope of affect, bleeding and blooming with truth. 

“The soul is a response to the world and is the world. It’s responding to itself through its most available means like our bodies and its instincts. But to get to the core and escape the veil of alterity, you need to see what lies behind the way you interpret and experience yourself and your experiences. There’s always something that you are interpreting, so the true goal is to get to that which you are responding to and to see it for what it is. People get lost in responding to responses and become aimless, restless, dispirited because of that.

When you receive a positive, fulfilling feeling from responding to yourself, then it is an authentic response and an authentic expression. With proper care of your input, you can produce outputs that reveal the truest parts of you in the most pleasant way. It’s all just a dialogue with the world, with itself. Trying to understand itself, and it does so through affirmations and refutations from both life and death, from what is and what is not. You’ll find it too, I know you will. And since I’m here, I’ll gladly help you with that.”

The scars decorating his face contributed to the warmth of his smile, twisting and stretching in the shape of Pinocchio’s hope. Unable to contain his joy, he lunged to him again for a tender embrace. Adone cupped his head with his prosthetic hand and caressed it, pressing it to his chest in an attempt to fill the hole that he suddenly discovered there. In the wake of warmth, a cruel coldness blew its icy breath into him, reminding him of the person. Of the fire he could awaken and snuff out in others, of the fire that burned his heart to ash and charred his conscience. The sheer fragility of titanic emotions that alter the course of the soul bit into his own, disintegrating it beneath the jaws of despair. With all the wisdom he thought he had, there was a layer of his being enclosed in the narrative of the past that stained all dimensions of his time. 

As he saw Pinocchio’s eyes light up like turquoise stars, the duality in Adone wove into one another, remaining separated and individual while intimately connected. In the union of emptiness and fulfillment, he took a deep breath. They slowly got ready to head to the center again, this time heading to vendors that sold textiles and articles of clothing. The soft scent caressed Pinocchio’s mind as Adone looked for a doublet for him. At the end of his transaction, he presented to him a woad-dyed doublet with the sleeves sewn together by the shoulders, contrary to the slashes sleeves bound by protruding ribbons. Taking off the red one felt like he was relieving himself of the world’s weight, peeling away the sea of eyes that soaked it with their judgement-weighty gazes. As he buttoned the blue doublet on, Adone studied the garish attire he had to wear as a part of the circus of the world, taking the pin off that showed Pinocchio’s harmlessness and nearly discarded the rest. But then a brilliant idea came to him. 

“Would you mind if we burned this somewhere? When it gets darker, perhaps.” 

Pinocchio reciprocated Adone’s foxy smile as he realized how tempted he was to see those clothes burn to ash. To see all those eyes and leers crackle and combust like stars, dissolving them into the kingdom of death. Just the thought of it alone made him taste the catharsis that would come from it, kindling the joy in his heart some more. 

“Not at all,” replied Pinocchio with a crispy, metallic chuckle. 

Shedding his old, loathsome skin, Pinocchio felt entirely liberated, escaping the fracturing of his being and feeling as if he were finally whole. Even though he got a few glares and obvious looks from passersby regarding his wooden shell or white curly hair, they didn’t seem to tear him apart as they used to. Nor did the shame baked into his being turn their looks into blades and expressions into fire. Instead, the shame dissipated into vapors, dancing beautifully for his soul to watch and appreciate on its somatic throne and opened the way for their impressions to paint him in colors he adored. Not because they were glorified lies, but because they were born from a sublime truth buried deep within his cogs and consciousness. 

Both of them enjoyed the liveliness of the marketplace with their full hearts, unburdened by terrible responsibilities and cruel sights. Two figures observed their joy as they too wandered the marketplace, invisible and permeable due to music manipulation. Even with Adone’s heightened sensitivity, he was unable to detect them, but Pinocchio’s mind got ever so softly tickled by their presence. But he was enjoying himself to such a degree that it didn’t deserve his attention, treating it like a lingering spell of anxiety haunting him. The two ghosts in the ether enjoyed the marketplace in their own way, observing the kaleidoscopic tapestry of each person in the crowd without taking their eyes off of their main target. When the sun began to kiss the horizon and scorched the sky, Adone located an inn he and Pinocchio could stay in for the coming night. 

The scent of sweet alcohol and salty, hearty dishes perfumed the cozy interior of the inn’s bar section, which they passed through first in order to get to the inn. They lingered in the tavern-esque place, absorbed by the music of the little band playing with recorders, fiddles and bagpipes in the corner flowing perfectly with the soft lights. It took pinocchio a while to notice that the soft lights were freely moving around the place and were in fact a type of fairy. Similar to the one in the guardsman’s eye, they were voiceless and aimless, suspended in the air like sparkling dust. Again a strange feeling of kinship hummed in his clockwork interior, both familiar and foreign. The way their yellow light colored the deep brown wood into a reddish gold touched Pinocchio deeply, reminding him of a distant dream. 

As the wooden boy absorbed himself in the aesthetics of the Red Lobster Inn, Adone also looked around and found a tragically foreign sight that stung with painful familiarity. While he was enjoying the way the fay gently danced to the music in the ether, he noticed Cecilia’s face, resplendent like the moon, in the corner of the bar. She sat by her lonesome with a drink in front of her, cradling an abyss with her melancholic expression. 

Despite the pain she gave him, a cruel love painted her in the most beautiful colors in the universe. Nostalgia warmly entered his mind, whispering into it the tender moments he once shared with her before turning into blood curdling screams that shattered the heart he once had and thought he still owned. Like lightning upon the heart, he was crushed by the viciousness of fantasy and the indifference of reality. Hope’s acidic stain on his heart began to burn the longer he gazed upon the image of her in his mind, not having truly washed her clean from his psyche. 

With a sharp and shaky exhale, he guided Pinocchio to the innkeeper and rented a room for the night.