CHAPTER 6 – DAVY JONES'S LOCKER
"Please give me another chance at life!" I wept as I knelt down and begged for mercy. "I don't want to get in Davy Jones's Locker and be one with other souls in eternal despair. I only plunged myself into the garbage processing pool because I want to be free from my horrible life. I just want something better, and being in that locker for the rest of eternity is NOT my definition of something better."
"But it was your choice to be miserable," The Flying Dutchman said. "You have been given near-endless opportunities to reconcile with your old buddy Eugene Harold Krabs, and yet you chose to blow them all away with your sad attempts to steal the Krabby Patty formula that was the ruins of your friendship. Every second you have been given in this life was a chance for you to turn your life around. You have heard advice from Neptune and even Stanley about how to deal with your situation now. You've just committed the ultimate act of selfishness by bringing yourself here to escape the giant prison cell known as your life."
"Stop it with that bunch of blasted, Neptune-damned baloney!" I said angrily as I stood up from my mortifying, sorrowful surrender. "Those words are useless to me now. If you are not going to give me that second chance, then fine! Send me away to the farthest depths of Davy Jones's Locker! You could have just said that I will not be given the second chance, but instead, you give me useless advice that I will never follow! All you ever did was shove my failures into my shriveled, bearded face! And selfish? How am I being selfish when I just did this for the betterment of the world? Nobody needs me anyway. Everyone hates me!"
"Come to think about it, yes. I should stop talking now and send you away already," The Flying Dutchman said as he stroked his beard while in deep thought. "You're acting like you don't deserve that second chance anyway. You asked for this moment by jumping into the garbage pile, but now you are asking to go back to the sea. That's how you are being selfish. The only reason you are really doing this is yourself. Everything you do is for yourself. No one else. And that is why you feel that no one needs you. Everybody hates you because of your selfishness."
"But how about my wife? Of everything in the world, she is the only one that stood up for me and actually cared for me. She is a one-of-kind computer that actually has a heart because of the unusually lifelike way that she feels love. Somehow, she saved me from some amounts of loneliness for most of my life when she helped me finish my battles for me. No one else really cared for me since I was young. Everybody made fun of me, and the worst thing, really, that happened to me is that time I fought with my one and only best friend who will eventually turn out to be the reason why I'm so miserable! Sure, there may be times I took her for granted and cheated on her, but I love her! I was the one who was there for her when she needed repairs. I may seem heartless on the outside because of how the world made me, but it now saddens me to know that she's gone away from my life! She's found someone else! It kills me inside to know that the only one who's always been there has moved on! That is why I'm here now! Not even the one I love needs me anymore!"
The Flying Dutchman took a paper from a drawer in his end table and read aloud what was on it.
"The note from Karen? But how? I already threw that away and even saw it burn in flames!"
"Aren't you forgetting that this is another dimension?" The Flying Dutchman replied. "You're too quick to jump to conclusions. For your age, you are way beyond immature. Didn't you read the whole thing carefully? Karen herself said that she was never really happy up there because she misses you. She does her best to move on and live anew now that she's no longer welcome in the seven seas. She does feel good about her new life now, but that is different from being truly happy. Her true happiness lies in being with you. Even if you take her for granted at times, what gives her a sense of purpose in life is to live for you. She does feel a new sense of purpose by being with her new-found owner, but things for her are never really the same without you. She misses finishing your battles for you, cheering you up, and reassuring you time and time again that everything will be okay. Having a good time is different from happiness in such a way that having a good time is a fleeting experience, while happiness is a state of mind."
"Enough with the cloying sentimentality!" I replied in a disgusted manner. "The only thing that she wants to tell me through that cursed note is that she's leaving me behind for something else, something that is also of her kind, something far superior to me. It only makes enough sense that a computer will fall for another computer, that is, if computers actually have hearts."
"But what about everything you've told me about Karen? Isn't that a form of cloying sentimentality? Anyway, all the things I've said are true. There is still someone out there who needs you, even if she is a computer. Now, let me ask you this: why did you cheat on her in the first place? It's most likely because you want a real woman. Well, that was your actual motivation at first until you decided to grab that opportunity to get the formula and fail yet again. There's something missing in your life, and you decided to fill that void by cheating on her with your enemy's mother. Karen also felt the same way and did the same thing, only with another computer. Now, there is a reason why you had to read that note. She wants you to know that even if she is no longer by your side, you are never really alone in the world because there is still something out there that sees your significance and still thinks of you every day," The Flying Dutchman then paused for a while and drank some rum.
"Do you want some?" he said as he offered me some of the liquor that he carefully poured into a miniature figurine of a goblet from his shelf of knickknacks.
"Uh, sure," I said reluctantly as I took the cup and drank. "So are you giving me the second chance?"
"After so much pondering, yes," The Flying Dutchman said. "I'll send you back to the material world. However, there are certain conditions. If you attempt in any way to steal the Krabby Patty Formula, you will go straight to Davy Jones's Locker with no more turning back. I'm giving you this final chance in order for you to turn your life back around, so do whatever you can in order for you to be truly happy- anything which does not involve stealing secret formulas or planning world domination. I will give you a hint on this one, though: it has something to do with letting go. Once you let go of the burdens you carry on your feeble back, you will feel great. You will be truly free. You will also have to start off with absolutely nothing. You will have to live a new kind of life, something completely different from how you used to be. Pursue a new passion. Do something you've never tried to do. Do you remember C'ren, otherwise known as Kataryna, that girl from the last book you've read?"
"You mean that ridiculous barnacle head from One Less Lonely Gurl who makes me look sane, at least in the parallel universe where the story was supposed to be set?" I said in surprise. "Why? What does she have to do with my situation now? She is just a fictional character that someone wrote about for this year's worst novel contest!"
"She is so much like you, a bitter failure who only has dreams to turn her life around but no will to do something about it. She has been doing the same washed-up method with the same useless motivation for all those years even beyond her prime, and so had you. For almost all your life, you have spent the days doing the same thing over and over again. Nothing ever worked out for you, and neither has anything worked out for her. Perhaps, if you grab this chance and seize every day, you will see significant changes in your life and find that you are actually happy. But in the end, it's your choice to accept this ultimate opportunity or not. Goodbye for now, Sheldon."
Everything slowly faded back to black. As soon as I opened my eye, I was back in the debris of my old home. I looked at myself and noticed that all my burns have been healed and that my skin has turned slightly greener as if I'm slowly aging in reverse. I still have the beard, although it's slightly shorter than how it used to be. I just knew that this is my chance to redeem myself.
With a deep breath, I left my house and stood still in the middle of the streets, not knowing where to begin with the new life I've been given. I wondered how my life would be like if I would quit attempting to steal the formula and turn over a new leaf for real. Would I really find my happiness this way? I was still uncertain if this is going to work out for me, but it would be better to take this very rare chance now that I don't know how much time I have left on this earth anyway.
[Author's Note: I might be on hiatus for quite a bit because my internet connection sucks. I'm just fortunate enough to be able to connect to the net today. Meanwhile, I will leave you guys with the first three chapters of my own commentary on One Less Lonely Gurl and an official artwork of C'ren Amethyst LeHeart Bieber, if anyone of you are curious about how she looks like in dream mode, all of which are on my blog. (remove spaces) http: / trollseyeview. blogspot. com
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On another note, I think I just found the most epic troll ever, Todd, the one and only author of My Immortal. He's XXXmidnitegoffXXX. I'm really hoping this awesome guy IS Tara for real.]