16th, Sept. 1996

There existed an amusement park that seemed to defy all logic. It was called The Jade Park, a sprawling, absurdly sprawling entity that stretched infinitely in all directions. There was nothing jade about it. It was the kind of place where the laws of physics seemed to take a vacation and every ride and attraction was more an existential puzzle than mere entertainment.

One foggy twilight, a man named Walter stumbled into the park. He had no memory of how he had arrived or why he had chosen to enter. He only knew that he felt an overwhelming sense of boredom and malaise. His shoes crunched on the gravel path, which seemed to shift underfoot like sand. The fog rolled thickly, obscuring the park's rides and attractions, making them appear as ghostly silhouettes.

Walter's first encounter was with a roller coaster that snaked into the sky and then inexplicably tunneled underground. It was called the "Eternal Loop." Curious and desperate for some distraction, Walter boarded the ride. As the coaster climbed, he noticed that the scenery changed in bizarre ways—clouds turned into giant floating eyes, and trees morphed into clock faces whose hands spun erratically. The ride never seemed to end, spiraling endlessly through scenes of surreal and darkly humorous tableaux.

When he disembarked, Walter found himself at a carousel with horses that had human heads. They greeted him with eerily cheerful smiles and nonsensical greetings. One horse, wearing a top hat, said, "Welcome to the existential conundrum! Choose wisely, for every ride is a reflection of your innermost fears."

Ignoring the absurdity, Walter took a seat on one of the horses. The carousel spun and spun, faster and faster, until everything blurred into a dizzying maelstrom of colors and sounds. When it finally stopped, Walter was back at the starting point, but now everything seemed slightly different—more muted, as if the colours had been drained from the world.

Walter continued his journey through the park, encountering a haunted house where ghosts were too busy arguing over the nature of their own existence to frighten anyone. There was a hall of mirrors that reflected not his image but his fears and regrets. Each reflection was a different version of himself—one stuck in perpetual adolescence, another trapped in endless, meaningless office work.

In one corner of the park, Walter stumbled upon a bizarre vending machine. Instead of snacks, it dispensed small, absurdly profound messages like "The void is not empty; it is merely full of echoes" and "Happiness is a warm illusion." Walter tried to get something more tangible, like a snack, but the machine only offered cryptic wisdom.

As Walter wandered, the fog thickened and the park began to shift. The rides, attractions, and paths warped and twisted, creating a labyrinthine maze with no discernible exit. The park seemed to mock him with its endless, looping paths and bizarre attractions. It was as if the park itself was a metaphor for his own existence—an endless, incomprehensible journey with no clear purpose or resolution.

Eventually, Walter found himself in a small, empty clearing. At its center was a lone bench, and on it sat a figure dressed in an old-fashioned carnival barker's outfit. The figure held a sign that read, "This is the end. Or is it?"

Walter sat on the bench, feeling an inexplicable sense of calm. The figure smiled and said, "You've seen the park's reflection of your fears and desires. What now?"

Walter looked around at the surreal landscape, the rides that looped endlessly, and the fog that enveloped everything. In that moment, he understood that the park's absurdity and endlessness were not to be feared but embraced. It was a reflection of life itself—full of bewildering twists and turns, humorous contradictions, and the endless search for meaning in a world that offered none. The park, in all its madness, had revealed to him that the journey, with all its absurdities, was the true essence of existence.

And so, Walter sat on the bench, the fog rolling around him, and accepted the endless amusement park as a metaphor for his own life—a place where every experience was a reflection of his own existential quest, an amusement park of the soul that would never truly end.