Once upon a time, in a peaceful village officially named "Circle," lived a boy named Mark. Mark was a dreamer, always enchanted by the wonders hidden in the world around him. But above all, he was captivated by bicycles.
Every day, after finishing school, Mark would rush to the local bike shop, where he would gaze in awe at the latest models of bicycles. He was fascinated by the speed, elegance, and freedom that cycling offered. However, Mark's family didn't have enough money to buy him a bicycle.
One day, while walking past an abandoned mill in the nearby forest, Mark noticed something shiny in the grass. It was an old, rusty bicycle wheel, hidden among the leaves and branches. Mark was thrilled. He immediately began to fantasize about how he could restore the wheel and create his own bicycle.
With the passion and perseverance that defined his character, Mark began to collect the parts and tools he needed. Day and night, he worked in the old mill, turning the rusty wheel into a marvel of engineering. When he finally finished, he had created a magical bike, unique and extraordinary like himself.
His bike, named "Worldview," became the main attraction in the village. Mark became known as the boy whose imagination surpassed the boundaries of reality. Traveling on his bike, he explored every corner of the world, proving that dreams can indeed become reality if we believe in them.
And so Mark learned that freedom isn't just in the speed and elegance of a bicycle but also in the strength of will and belief in one's own dreams.
Bicycle, my ass! Here's what really happened.
In the quiet village of Circle, peace was a foreign concept. Instead, it was notorious for the rebellious behavior of drunken villagers, and the sexual assault of women and young girls. Named Circle for the malicious enchanted vortex of nothingness where the villagers lived, they woke at noon, angrily beat their wives and children, then went to the Dark Tavern where they drank until the wee hours. There, they harassed singers and waitresses, incited fights, and smashed beer bottles over each other's heads. There was no peace in that village. Perhaps they would have been peaceful for a while after beating their children and wives when they woke up, if they felt remorse for hitting them in the same spots where bruises were supposed to pop up.
Next, Mark was a daydreamer, but only because every night he had nightmares that woke him up in pools of sweat. He twitched and whimpered, unconsciously replaying images in his head of his father kicking his mother at the table after she refused to sleep with him. Mark didn't dream of bikes and the wonders of the world; he dreamt of how he would beat up his father when he grew up and kill the cops who were constantly bribed by thugs in the village, so they turned a blind eye to every inconvenience.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Mark had a small bike as a child, a tricycle, but he didn't ride it much because his father smashed and twisted it at one point, throwing it through the window onto the cobblestone street, after Mark refused to stop crying. His mother had tried to protect the child, but received vicious blows to the stomach. Four-year-old Mark saw it all, and such traumatic events, and many after that, definitely left a mark on his psyche and led to constant nightmares that prevented him from sleeping peacefully.
One day, a few weeks after the incident, his mother tried to run away from home with Mark, but neighbor Nate prevented her from doing so and informed the father, after which she was not seen outside the house for months, and after a few months was seen with crutches and broken knees.
Mark didn't rush to the bike shop every day to stare at wheels, but he looked at the shop next door, the gun store, eagerly awaiting the moment when he would come of age and be able to hold a revolver, like the plastic model from the storefront. How did he know it was plastic? Well, there was one incident when he was sixteen, when one night he smashed the glass and tried to steal a revolver from the storefront, and after realizing it was a plastic replica, he was deeply disappointed. The next morning, he received a spanking he would remember for the rest of his life. He couldn't sit upright for two weeks because his pelvic bones were very painful and swollen. He had to sit on cushions all the time, and even then it would be painful.
Finally, Mark didn't find any bad wheel in the grass. He found an old, rusty scythe. He sharpened it well at his friend's sharpening stone and slaughtered his father after a few days. No Mark's bicycle became an attraction in the village, but Mark himself, after the whole village found out about him being locked up. He was sentenced to fifteen years because he was still a minor, and his mother visited him until the last day spent in prison.
After he got out, he was thirty-three years old. Before leaving prison, for years he had devised detailed escape and revenge plans, including all possible variables he could remember. Every day, his mother would inform him of news and events from the village. He robbed a jewelry store, killed three cops who were closest to his father, and escaped from the village. His mother stayed in the old house, and there were rumors that the mailman occasionally delivered letters from faraway Finland. And so Mark learned that freedom isn't just in the speed and elegance of escape, but also in the strength of will and belief in one's own dreams.
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