Amor Fati: A Pinocchio Retelling

Pinocchio, tucked under the caravan, saw the feet of Adone violently thrust into the earth as they made their way back to the main area. All of the cogs in his system jaggedly twisted, trying his hardest to process all of the information he just heard. The cricket was unable to convey to Pinocchio how he should feel in that situation, so Celso tweaked some cogs to send the message that told Pinocchio the rudimentary rules of ethics that were disrespected in that situation. While he crawls on his elbows and knees to get out from under the caravan, he hears the woman’s muffled sobs from under the caravan. Empathy was still a foreign concept to Pinocchio, but the essence of it tainted his mind in some inconspicuous way even though he knew what she did and said was wrong at certain points. That’s what the cricket told him, so he swallowed it up without a second thought. 

The wooden boy sneakily crawled from one caravan to another, trying to find out where Adone ran off to. An orchestra of crickets chirped throughout the night, but the one inside of him remained silent, for he had no need to join them. Traveling through the field felt like being in another place entirely. Fireflies danced in the air, illuminating the ornate caravans of the members and other caravans that housed foreign animals and other equipment. Pinocchio heard the groans of people, two people, from one of the caravans he thought was supposed to be for animals. He climbed up the spokes of one of the large wooden wheels and jumped to hang from a window sill. With all his might, he pulled himself up to see a horrible sight: two people were bloodied and bound to chairs facing each other. One, a woman, had a blindfold over her with two dried rivers of blood over her cheeks which stained the cloth heavily. The other one, a man, was missing his left leg up to his knees. Stained wrappings and blood covered the wound, but it still seemed to ache as if it were fresh, judging from his moans. The bruised and battered individuals drowned in shadows radiated a similar feeling from that of the wooden boy who gazed at them with hurt in his heart. The man whispered sounds of ease to the blind woman, making her head perk up in response. A gruff hum echoed out of her parched throat, which was more than enough to calm the nerves of the man. Like crunching glass, he spoke,

 “Curse that god-forsaken harlequin. That bastard! Treating us like garbage and almost killing us. I’ll show him. We’ll show him not to mess with people like us! We’ll get out of here and we’ll wreck this place. We should’ve never agreed to this stupid assignment and just stay in Ryugu to enjoy some fried squid; man how I would die for some right now…”

“We? You were the one who came up with this stupid idea. ‘Prophecy’ this and ‘prophecy’ that, you couldn’t shut your mouth about it.” She hissed.

“My spirit isn’t my own; it whispers its newfound discovery to our master too, who obviously couldn’t get enough when he heard it. We were destined to come here and seek out the Field of Miracles.”

“Yet you still insisted on going!”

“I refused at first but he wouldn’t stop badgering me about it! You agreed too, you believed it as well. So don’t blame me, okay?” 

The light tone of the man held an air of tenderness, even when he was frustrated. Pinocchio could tell that he cared for her, even if he antagonized him a bit. She seemed to settle down and lost her hostility, which created a sorrowful silence between the two. A tender apology and acceptance accompanied the silence as they sat there with revenge and redemption in their hearts. 

After what felt like hours of searching, he finally spotted the harlequin sitting on an empty patch of grass, gazing up at the full moon whose silver light washed over everything. Pinocchio pressed his wooden hand on the back of the harlequin, startling him. 

“P-Pinocchio! What are you doing here?” he whispered, “You should be in bed by now; young boys need their sleep to grow big and strong.” he said, almost mockingly. The smile he gave afterwards definitely highlighted his act of mocking, but Pinocchio didn’t mind, he acted as if he was being considerate. 

“Thank you but I’m okay. I don’t like to sleep; I get bad dreams often.” 

A soft sound of sympathy descended from his voice as he repositions himself in a way to display open body language to Pinocchio. 

“What kind of dreams do you have?” Adone asked in a tone that was as soft as the moonlight.

“I remember that time in the arena, where I saw Martino fight some person. The brutality of it all invades my entire mind to the point where I can only think of the fear and dread that that human gladiator must be feeling. From sheer joy to abject hopelessness. That hopelessness just… I fear sleeping again after such a horrible dream. Dolls don’t need sleep anyway, I think. I’m fine for now, so that’s all that matters.”

The harlequin hummed in agreement as they both gazed up at the moon while the fireflies decorated the air. Words remain bound to Pinocchio’s wooden heart while he himself wants them to desperately exit his mind and mouth. Cogs and wires disobeyed his will to speak but about all that he has heard. All of the scenes replay in his mind; from the incident at Cecilia’s caravan to the two beaten individuals that cursed his name. War raged in Pinocchio’s sensitive soul, unable to understand how he should feel towards Adone. The cricket seemed to silently warn him, but his heart found comfort in Adone’s company. The war temporarily dissipated as Pinocchio spread out on the grass and let out a deep sigh before asking,“Why did you hurt those two?” 

Confusion twisted Adone’s face when he heard the question. A darkness slithered its way into his face which got quickly washed away.

“Oh… There are multiple harlequins. Those two poor souls must’ve been at the wrong place at the wrong time.” he said with a straight face. 

“We have to get our hands dirty frequently. Obeying every command that Mangiafuoco dishes out is quite heart wrenching. I’m really happy that you don’t need to get your hands bloody. Not like us…”

“Are you a bad person?” Pinocchio blatantly blurts out in full sincerity. He had an inkling that Adone was lying to him, but didn’t mind as he grew to realize that people often lie to protect the other person in some way. No offense was taken, only a lingering question and longing for understanding that made his cogs twist in awkward ways.

Adone however, aback by the question, takes a moment to fully process it. A deep pain crawled its way inside of him the more he thought about it. Anger was never the first emotion to come out of Adone. The wooden boy knew that he could swallow his sharpest daggers of honesty and openness, which Pinocchio admired him for. After a long break, he came up with a response. 

“You can’t simply lump people into categories like that. No one is truly good and no one is truly bad either. I do my best to make others happy sometimes, but deep down I know it comes from a selfish place. Everyone is like that to some degree. It just depends how destructive it is for others and yourself which deems it as a good or bad thing. One who destroys themselves for the salvation of a group is good, but one who enjoys themselves fully while hurting others is bad. Good and evil isn’t measured in numbers, it’s measured in actions which take on a variety of unique characteristics. It’s all a matter of perspective and subjectiveness. I think that I’m a bad person for being inconsiderate to most and thinking about myself in the end. I care for others only because it makes me feel good, not because I actually care about them. I call myself a terrible person to warn them that I will never love them with all my heart, that I’m just being selfish. But they only see what I show and not what I know I truly am, so they like me despite my cruel honesty they see as tragic humility. I’m a bad person because I use people only if it benefits me and my selfish desires in the form of showing love, care and other positive things. I guess I can be considered good if my selfish desire is to want someone else to be happy if it makes me happy. Would you consider that selfish, though?”

A shrill laugh echoed as his head sagged down, making strands on his long black hair fall and swing in the gentle wind. He whips his head back up and runs his fingers through his hair to comb it back.

“It’s funny how a doll like you has more of a heart than me. Maybe I am the doll and you are the human being!” he said as he cackled and fell on his side, rolling in the grass before looking up at the stars with Pinocchio lying beside him. The moonlight washed over them as the orchestra of crickets chirped to bury the silence. Adone decided to fill the air with more than just the light of fireflies and the cacophony of chirps.

“Anyone can be seen as evil or good, so what do you see in me? Am I a bad person to you?”

Pinocchio’s eyes attached themselves to the stars in the sky, methodically giving every star the same attention and adoration. The answers felt as if they were far, far away from him, as if the stars stole his words. He gazed intently at the night sky and at the way the stars sparkled to find the answers he looked for. He voiced his answer to the stars in an attempt to channel their beauty through his words. 

“I can only look at the world through heaven’s eyes. I’ve seen the beauty of life and how rotten it can be. How people aggrandize themselves despite them being as simple as bugs from nature’s point of view, but more destructive and chaotic. That chaos seems to seep into you, but in ways I can’t seem to be frightened about. Anyone can be anything, but everyone seems to be confused with themselves. You are no different. You are not bad, you are simply you. Satisfied?”

The side of the harlequin’s lips curled up without his consent as the nocturnal lights surrounded them. Adone tilted his head to the side to look at Pinocchio lying next to him; his white mohair hair glowing with the moonlight and the turquoise in his glass eyes flickering like the stars above. An indescribable feeling of awe struck him, fortifying his resolve to go through with his plans. He also began to scrupulously study the stars in search of the right words to convince the young Pinocchio to join him. 

“Have you ever thought of what lies beyond the stars? Ever wondered why we exist?”

Pinocchio’s turquoise eyes glowed even brighter as looked at the sea of stars. Both confusion and profound intrigue found their way into his mind which slowed his internal clockwork to a brisk tempo to fully accept what he just heard. He could tell that Adone was about to go into something deeper, so he waited in thoughtful silence to hear what he had to say further.

“I don’t mean how we exist; science can try to explain that.I mean why you and I exist. Why vegetation grows. Why the birds sing and the sun rises and falls. Why… Why such godly power is placed in the hands of chaotic humans. Simple turning an intricately designed music box can manipulate the laws of the cosmos. It’s what made you, but some say that the whole universe is the result of a melody from some primordial music.”

After Adone’s performance of languid gesticulations into nothingness, he slumps back down to lie on the dirt and grass again, turning towards Pinocchio’s attentive expression.

“... I’ll stop playing around. I know you were listening in on the conversation I had with Cecilia; I can recognise those bright turquoise eyes anywhere. I… Honestly, I don’t even know the name of this ‘true love’ of mine. That I was a knight in a distant kingdom… It just feels right. It could even be a past life for all I know. But Celeste… They're just… A concept to me. I don’t want to get out of here for that person, I want to get out of here to discover what “Celeste” could possibly mean. Maybe I’m madly in love with that ‘princess’ because I’m madly in love with unknown knowledge. Maybe she’s just a metaphor for undiscovered truth and is the key to understanding the world and myself. 

With his elbow pressed into the soil, Adone curved his upper body to face Pinocchio more, lightly waving his stretched hand as he went on like it’s an autumn leaf bouncing from a gentle wind.

“I need your help with that, Pinocchio. Truth be told, I’m really jealous of you. To be a puppet without strings… Every being with a heart is bound to its strings, and Mangiafuoco controls the hearts of all of us. The idea of a free will means that our free will is limiting us from experiencing true freedom. We’re constantly doing things and thinking about things we think we want to do or think about. We’re blinded by our desire for things which gives us the illusion of freedom, while in actuality we’re simply listening to our hearts’ whims. We are prisoners to the will of our desire in our hearts. But if our hearts aren’t our own… then whose are they? Who's in control of our hearts if not us? That, my wooden friend, is what I want to uncover the secrets of! And you’re the only one who can help me; the only one that isn’t bound by the whims of the heart.”