What If: Tyler Took Over

I am Jack’s Manic Depression and I am Jack’s Smirking Revenge. Yet, I failed to become Jack’s desire for Anarchy and Chaos in the system. 

Tyler appeared in my life as a saviour. A saviour from my personal monotonous life, a saviour of the mundane superhero that I had become. Tyler had answers to the questions I was too afraid to ask and made me feel things again when I was sleep-walking through life. Just when Tyler felt like the only real thing in my life, I realized that he was a hallucinatory hitman, hired by my subconscious to blow my life up and everything that had kept me caged in this ruthless system.

Tyler and I wanted the same things, we just had a different approach to it. I was too hesitant to take what was mine, but I was ready to beat up a young blonde boy to a pulp just to feel alive when Tyler was with me. Even the boss who controlled me like a puppet to fulfil corporate needs was too afraid to ask questions when he was around. 

After several mental and physical revolts, Tyler had finally built up a perfect plan to end everything that had brought me where I am, everything that kept me awake and simultaneously asleep during every moment of the day. Yet, during that insane and crucial moment of doom and retribution, I decided to stumble back and blew up my own (Tyler’s) brains out with a gun to my mouth. 

Every moment that I was awake, I was unhappy. I was the person that needed to fake cancer and listen to people talk about their suffering merely to get decent sleep at night.  On the other hand, Tyler made soap and ran a basement fight club where men like me got together to finally feel something. It is time I decided to stop being myself and accept Tyler as who I needed to be. Instead of being the man who got up every day like a mannequin, worked from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, I need to be someone who could hold a gun to a random man’s head and tell him to go home and achieve his dreams. I had finally given up on the version of myself who ran through catalogues to buy yet another piece of unnecessary capitalism, and instead, I became the version of myself who was able to pour lye on my hand to accept the necessary pain that reminded me that I was still alive. 

 If I gave in to my (Tyler’s) desire to create the perfect explosion and obliterate everything, I could rebuild my life from dust and ashes. I could become the man Marla fell in love with, instead of pulling the trigger to the gun and holding her hands, I could hold on to Tyler’s hands and pull the trigger together. A perfect conclusion to our long-drawn struggles with Project Mayhem. Marla, Tyler, and I should be standing, watching skyscrapers that accommodated the corporate system and its need for consumerism, greed, and modernity become smoke and soot. At the end of it all, it shouldn’t be Marla and I watching the final plans of Project Mayhem play out,  it should be Tyler and the boys celebrating the success of all the sacrifices. The conclusion to my chaotic story does not need a romantic end, instead, it needs a commemoration of every moment that finally brought us here, especially Tyler and me. 

I am Tyler and not myself, being Tyler has given me purpose and a path. This body of mine has been a slave to this system for too long, I had always been Tyler, only dormant. I have been numb and asleep and now, I am truly awake. 

I am Tyler and I am Jack finally satisfied.

 I am Jack’s peaceful sleep at night.

 

Written by Sadashiv Mitra for MTTN

Edited by Anushka Das for MTTN

Featured Image by Noir Gallery

Artwork by Oliver Shilling

 

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