Broken Faces, Empty Spaces

==Let me tell you a joke.==
It is the most intricate and humorous joke I know. The contexts intertwine, the setups are as innumerable as they are perfectly placed, and the punchline is to die for. Of course, none of you can hope to understand this joke, as the knowledge required to see the funny side has a mind of its own. To know the joke is to have your very essence consumed by the sheer infinitude of its aspects. I therefore will not burden your finite souls with the knowledge required to get the joke; I will instead recount my own tale of woe and wit, for in it lie the barest threads of the ultimate comedy. Any more, and I would risk imparting onto you the truth of my sorrows and my humour, which would be a cruel yet funny fate.
==I was a fool.==
To the other residents of the castle, back in my old life, I was a source of amusement and an object of mockery. My mind — even so long ago — was one that leaked at the seams; I had never managed to pass as a conventional man with standard sensibilities. My peers could not grasp my ideas of humour, nor would my everyday antics and observations be met with anything but bemusement from the crowds who gathered to laugh at my strange ways. Every incident, accident, and circumstance surrounding me fed into the sense that it all twisted together to form an as yet unknown quantity. I made light of every situation the way I knew — in jest, which only brought me more ridicule from those without my understanding of each and every way the puzzle pieces of reality slotted together. I do not profess to any feelings of superiority, however, as their culture and way of being eluded me as completely as my vision of an existence woven with intrinsic and overlapping humour did them. Me and the humans with whom I resided, though one and the same, were a world apart.
==Birds of a feather…==
When one is so other, so completely alienated from their kin, their nature drives them to seek out those of a similar disposition. I had no such desire, for I believed the internal and external tapestry I saw had no equal, but this did not stop others from seeking me out. The pattern of existence showed me setup after setup, each building to a unified punchline I could not hope to foresee. Each sign, each ripple in my psyche built the pressure. I tried to communicate it to the people around me, yet they could not see my ravings as anything more than amusing lunacy. The gathering tension sent my consciousness reeling with each revealed string forming a more confusing mosaic of meanings, its weight threatening to crush me. The finale, the payoff, was on the tip of my tongue, just beyond my grasp, when I felt a presence. The pressure in my mind was no longer constant; it fluctuated in a strange rhythm. The tapping in my head formed a language of its own, formed from my patterns, the message merged with my being.
“let me share with you the meaning. Let me relieve you of this mortal coil.” 
I obeyed, and then I knew.
==I knew I had known nothing.==
With the touch of a force so unutterably far beyond me and my realm, I became something my leaking shell of a soul failed to contain. The tapestry of everything I ever was rewove itself, expanding endlessly to encompass everything that every one of my selves could possibly be. The humour that interlaced the fabric of every conceivable existence coiled into my understanding, and the sheer hilarity of it all knitted into my fragile mind. It broke it. My mind was shattered into uncountable infinities of infinitely small details that made up unfathomably large meanings. Somewhere, I could feel my physical self—lungs emptying of breath as I wheezed in laughter, limbs shaking and seizing as I writhed in the agony of joy. Where I fell, humans stopped to watch, assuming there was a new height of ridicule to which they could raise me in their pitiful way. A rictus grin crept across my face, expanding as the muscles tore and my eyes opened wide—wider than humanly possible. I was not human any longer. Onlookers who managed to glimpse my face, who were able to gaze into my bulging eyes, gained only the smallest idea of what I really knew. This was still too much for them. So set in their rigid ways, they had no hope of processing revelations not meant for them. The knowledge etched into the wrinkles and tears on my distorted face and the sight of the soul-rending satire conveyed through my eyes were enough to destroy them. Waves of spectators simply fell, intellects annihilated, and nervous systems shut down from the sheer amount of signals their brains were sending. This anguish was the final straw; I could not even pretend to belong among my once-kin, for now my plain visage was enough to drive them to madness. It was time to forge my own path.
==I hid myself.==
Behind this pallid mask I now reside, for it protects all those who would know me from the true sight, and it replicates emotions far better than I ever could. My porcelain mouth twists upwards when I am joyful, and my ivory eyes may widen with surprise. Still, I had to escape from the horrified gazes of those from my former world; I let my broken form be led onward by the pattern. The air twisted, capering and summoning me into a realm I could finally call home, a place as fractured yet whole as I was. My threads of fate drew me here, a long-lost soul returning to a new, yet familiar, setting. These passages twist and dance with me as I explore the farthest reaches of this non-space. Here, the tapestry of truth and fate is free to shape the hallways as it sees fit, with nothing holding it back. I feel more alive in these endless rooms than ever I did before I was dead. There even seem to be others, strangers in these halls, who may know what it is like to be so broken yet so all-encompassing. Even now, I am on my way to meet them in this strange royal court. The strings of all dance alongside me and call me onwards to meet these regals. I think I will tell them a joke. Maybe they will even understand it.
Category:Tales
Category:The Jester
Category:The Royal Court
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