There is a fish that wakes up every morning to burrow out of the sand and start the day's activities. It roamed the neighborhood in search of food. Sometimes swim to unfamiliar waters a little further to see if there is more adequate food and a safer environment. However, in order not to rush into predators, most of the time it only stays in a safe and familiar place, and then returns to the sand to sleep at night. Sometimes it also looks up at the dim light source above, wondering what lies beyond this repetitive and tedious life.
Until one day, possibly a storm, an upwelling current, or a clumsy seabird, all in all, it got out of the water. The fish was having trouble breathing, and gradually lost consciousness. Everything was so unfamiliar. At the same time, the scene around him became clear, and the light was so abundant that it seemed like heaven. There are no fish around, neither predators nor any of its kind, but itself.
When it returned to the water, everything was different.
That's Alma's story. The difference is that she's smart enough to tire of everything before she gets out of the water. "Everything is pointless".
Alma is special. She is smart, even if she dropped out of college, she understands the complex knowledge that "the ceremony of fathers handing over their daughters to their husbands at weddings is just an ancient relic of the backward customs of women as male appendages in the history of patriarchal society." She had a plan. On the eve of the accident, she deliberately put the ring in her sister's hand on her hand, so that the bartender thought that she was engaged instead of her sister, and thus circled the two together step by step. She was introspective enough, instead of looking at the Reeds because they were rich and powerful, she immediately saw through the nature of the family's classist and racist. She was hard of hearing as a child, spent a while in a school for the deaf, and didn't start hearing rehabilitation until she was 6 years old. She has a schizophrenic father and grandmother, so her brain is naturally larger than others.
But being special doesn't mean achievement or happiness, it can also be a curse. Just like people who can communicate with all things are respected as shamans in the aboriginal culture, but in modern society they are locked in a lunatic asylum for life. As a second-generation immigrant, a former hearing-impaired child, and a woman who lost her father at a young age, Alma was trapped in her own life. She longed for an outlet, a magical moment, "A life where everything can happen at any time. A life without limitations".
So she "wake up" in the hospital.
On the surface, this is a story about superpowers and schizophrenia. I mean, technically, it is, but it is not if you look close enough. Looking back at other works involving superpowers, this drama is likely to go to another route: ordinary life, accidents, call of duty, mentor appearance, world crisis, hard training, courageous progress, encounter setbacks, self-reflection, call for friends Companion, make a comeback, everyone is happy. This is a standard heroic adventure story, and if you think about it carefully, this game does introduce some elements. For example, Alma's car accident and the appearance of his father correspond to the awakening of the hero in the story; the truth of his father's suicide and laboratory research is a problem that the hero needs to solve; the people around him are the forces of various obstacles, and the real culprit is the ultimate culprit. boss.
But all of the above are just threads, like icing on a cake, they are just a pretext to tempt you to take your first bite until you get to the heart of it: how do we live? Which life to choose? Therefore, the discussion over whether the protagonist is schizophrenic or superpower is not irrelevant, at least it is deviating from the core.
At 28 years old, Alma is extremely tired of her life. Her daily job is looking after children in a nursery, a simple and boring job that doesn't match her IQ. The boyfriend is diligent and loves himself deeply, but his plan for the future is to get married and have children. He dresses as a couple on Halloween, and has no exciting dreams. And her dearest, grown-up sister is getting married to a superficial, ignorant and arrogant white man whose parents-in-law are vain and arrogant. She stumbled across a photo of her father that her mother had never brought up, and realized she was hiding a lot of things.
On the day of the accident, she had already broken up with her boyfriend and had a big fight with her sister, and everyone was leaving her. What a disappointment life is and what she needs to support herself.
Why father? Because Alma couldn't forget the scene when her father left her alone that night, she had been hoping for an explanation from her father. It can also be seen from the play that Alma and her father can understand each other better, while her mother and sister are closer, so in the long life after that, without the company and support of her father, Alma did not have enough strength to support herself. In addition, on the other hand, the history of mental illness in her father's line is a knot she has been unable to solve. Although not shown in the play, the appearance of the grandmother when she was sick or the horror of the disease must have been passed down in this family in some way, and it was deeply imprinted in Alma's mind.
She longed for her father so much, but the only remaining deepest connection to her father—the genes they shared—frightened her so much. So she needed a chance to undo everything, and the perfect time was Halloween the year her father died. If you have ever fantasized about going back to a certain point in time in the past and correcting a decision that you have regretted countless times now, then you must be able to experience this feeling.
"Erase and start over" is a behavior that Alma has repeatedly repeated in the early days. In the hospital episode, when she wakes up, she can't help but lose her temper at her caring mother and pick on her sister who is trying to reconcile herself, everything sucks. But she didn't know how to get things right, like being stuck in a weird maze or a third-rate game, failing and starting over. So she has to "say yes", agree to change, agree to accept help. As my father said: "I need you to make a choice. I need you to make it now. We can't move forward..."
Make a choice or you cannot move forward.
Everyone is in a similar situation: trapped in similar interpersonal patterns from which there is no escape. You may not be able to refuse other people’s needs, and you may be too busy to get anything out of it; or you may always push away people who are really kind to you, choosing “scumbags” and “scumbags” countless times. Always suspect that there is something wrong with his IQ. This is a mental maze that belongs to everyone, and if you want to change, you also need to make choices.
Making up your mind and accepting help is only the first step in change, and change is not that simple. After leaving the hospital, Alma still couldn't get on well with her mother, and continued to behave in her own way and cynical behavior, making her sister and those around her unhappy. After learning about the breakup, she had a big fight with her boyfriend and locked him out without listening to any explanation. She was very angry, feeling cheated and trampled on her moral principles, ignoring the fact that her boyfriend was also scared, worried and overwhelmed at the time. Ah, typical Alma. She's still the same person.
Of course, you know a hero's story is incomplete without a "back to the heart" part. To know how to change, you need to know why you are who you are: and to know how you got here, you need to go back to where you started and see how it all happened. So Alma thinks back to her childhood family trips, where her father explained their Indian ancestry and shamanic culture at the ruins. She also recalled the time when she had hearing reconstruction after implant surgery as a child, and when she was transferred from special education school by her mother after her hearing was restored.
She used to wander between the fringe and the mainstream, never blending in.
She also tries to understand how other people become who they are today. As an Indian, Sam must have gone through all kinds of difficulties after immigrating to a new country as a child. Ordinary like him, he has also paid unimaginable hardships in exchange for the current stable years. So, she recalled all kinds of things at the beginning: chance encounter, first time watching a movie, first roller coaster, first kiss, and then the two moved into a new home. The countless times spent together were frozen as photos and hung on the wall. Love is not like the dent left on the floor by the sofa, which has been deeply imprinted on the texture of the house after many years. It is neither beautiful nor delicate, and even unsightly. But as soon as something changes, you want to get back to the way it was. Love is not only Sam's wandering eyes and words after hearing Alma's first confession, but also his constant companionship and support.
You know, “there is nothing wrong with bathtubs. Bathtubs are fun, too.”
Alma walked out of the toilet and told her boyfriend: I'm sorry, I love you, everything is alright. She rushed to the church to witness her mother preside over an important ceremony for the first time in the church when her sister was unable to be present. Before she suspected that she would lose control, she rehearsed the out-of-control scene in her mind in advance, venting all her dissatisfaction, so as not to let her emotions ruin her sister's wedding. She can even comfort and support her sister appropriately when she is helpless, just like her father once did for her.
Growing up is like this, understanding your own past, but also understanding the lives of others.
No matter how charming, the journey always has to end. The dwarf returned to the wooden house and sealed the magic ring; the little girl said goodbye to her three friends and returned to her relatives; the wizard wrote what he saw on the way, waiting for the legend to be discovered by future generations after a thousand years. Alma's journey has come to an end, but she doesn't want it to end. She always wants more, "Don't you want there to be more? Don't you believe there has to be more?"
Yes, it would be nice to be able to stay in a wonderful world for the rest of my life. In this world, the ocean meets the sky, night and day are no longer different, and I know that you love me, don't want to leave me, and always stay with me.
The only thing that can resist this power is equal love. So my sister said, I will help you, and so does my mother, these concerns will always be the reason for us to stay. The sunrise, the trees, the birds, and the clouds were so beautiful only when she was with Alma.
Some things can't be changed, and no matter how Alma reacts, Becca will eventually tell her fiancé the truth, because she's a good person, and she feels guilty about it, and because she doesn't love the man she's marrying. This is not fate, but the inner love and hate that people cannot contend with. Perhaps this also implies that no matter how things develop, Dad cannot be resurrected, which is a given. But beyond that, how you view the whole story is your choice.
There is another version of the story at the beginning:
Two small fish were swimming in the water, and suddenly they encountered an old fish swimming from the opposite side and nodded to them:
"Morning, boys. How's the water?"
Xiaoyu continued to swim forward for a while, and one of them finally couldn't bear it anymore. He looked at the other and asked:
"What is water?"
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