The Bad Boys' Soft Boys' Lonely Hearts Club - The Full Package

The Myth Of Ay/Iden

"It feels like forever since I've been to an actual class. My grades should be tanking by now. Wasn't the purpose of this club of ours to help us graduate without the typical bad boy distractions? Oh, sweet summer child. I'm never going to graduate, am I not?

I'm pretty sure this whole story is a Sisyphean nightmare imposed by some puny God that I somehow wronged by existing in their vicinity. I'll put my money on Athena. That bitch is vengeful. She made a girl into a spider because she could crochet better than her and that somehow offended the great goddess of wisdom.

For those in our audience that don't know this very popular myth—or haven't played 2018's Game of the Year Indie darling Hades, which you should, because it's dope—King Sysiphus cheated death, not once but twice, by bamboozling Hades, Persephone and Thanatos, the Gods of dead and the personification of death, to return him for a day to the world of the living to tie up loose ends. But he, instead of going back to Hades, simply... overstayed his un-alive visa. Long story short, he was caught, and was cursed by the gods for eternity to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top.

To cheat death is an impossible task, so as a punishment, he was tasked to do the impossible: to roll the boulder uphill. But it shall never reach it. It will always fall down. Thanatos will always find you.

Yeah, this has to be some kind of nightmare. Imagine it, me, fated to roll the metaphorical boulder of my handsomeness up the even-more metaphorical mountain of shit that is my life. Only, the boulder doesn't roll down at the end of the climb. That would give me at least a moment of hope as I see the infinite expanse of Tartarus as I reach the top. This is just an everlasting struggle.

Yes, this school is a punishment. This whole story is a punishment. And my crime? Maybe fighting against my bad boy instincts? Perhaps these magical eyes of mine, washboard abs and worm-like metabolism are a gift from the gods, and I'm spitting in their eyes by rejecting them. But this is who I am. Rejecting their gift would be rejecting myself. It is fruitless. So, they have given me an appropriate punishment by having to be in this story, living and recycling tropes over and over and over again as plot after plot is thrown at me.

But, how to escape this ungodly punishment? If I surrender to my base instincts, I will never be genuine and happy. If I fight against them, I will perpetuate this sick punishment. Either way, it's a lose-lose situation. It's no wonder that Algerian philosopher Albert Camus, in his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus," tackles this very issue.

"There is only one really serious philosophical problem," Camus said, "and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that." To Camus, suicide was not the question, but the answer. But the answer to what question? An answer to the absurdity of life? An escape from the Sisyphean punishment that is being a human with a conscience and washboard abs and perfect teeth?

That, I don't know, and I'm not about to find out. Perhaps I already did, in another life, in another time, and this is my punishment for it. My hubris is being punished. Death is not an answer for me, as it isn't for Sisyphus. We are already dead, after all.

Then, the only answer I have is to suffer. Because, whatever happens, that is the ultimate conclusion. The gods' cruel laughter. That's what I am. A punchline to a cruel, godly joke, made to amuse higher beings."

"That's... nice, methinks?" says the plump teacher as she adjusts his plump glasses with her plump fingers. "But, Mr. Gomez, I asked you why you're late to my class..."

Ah. Right. Kinda got sidetracked there for a second. That's a whole bouquet of oopsie-daisies. "Ah, my boyfriend locked us up in the cafeteria. Sorry."

"Okay, then," she whispers.