P-P-Propaganda

In the midst of the day yesterday I happened to walk into the bathroom on the first floor of the science and technology building. For those who need the background information the bathroom in that building is notorious when it comes to sayings etched on the wall. I find it amusing sometimes to just enter and see what people have etched on the inside of the bathroom stalls. The sayings, words, and obscenities always seem so distant, as if no one from the campus had written those things, but instead as if an outside had come in the dead of night to scribble profanities on our bathroom stalls in an attempt to tease us.

I looked over the normal sayings, the expressions of hate, I even looked over the petty poems that always seem as if they belong to a bathroom at a local elementary school; but etched in between the swastika, and petty poems, were the words "No Fate."

I couldn't help but smile as I looked on towards those seemingly miniscule words with tremendous implications. "No Fate" I stated to myself, as I shrugged my shoulders in the most nonchalant way. I had always been against the idea, and tremendously loathed the idea that everything in my life would come down to predetermined circumstances beyond my control. I chuckled at the words as I knew the man who had written it, as if it were I who had spent the time sitting on the toilet etching the words, "No Fate", into the side of the stall in a vain attempt to accomplish something, anything.

I stood there blowing my nose with the toilet paper that hung adjacent to the carving thinking, "If you only knew...” If only the man who had etched that into the wall could only see the big picture then he too would chuckle at the words "No Fate" being etched into a wall.

I thought: a person is defined by their actions, actions that are based upon memories, and memories that are based upon past situations. The past situations come from circumstances that the person has absolutely no control over, i.e. birthplace, origin, nationality, etc, etc, etc.
Not to mention that long chain of events that continually starts and stops without us ever knowing - the bus that arrived two-minutes late to throw off the day, the car breaking down at a specific moment to alter a series of events. I stood there staring at the wall and suddenly an animalistic desire came over me, I suddenly wanted to carve "No Fate" in the wall in a vain attempt to rebel against that which is totalistic - that which has no escape. Instead, I merely smiled and looked down upon the words and half heartedly stated, "Yea, there is no fate" in the tone you would elicit in telling a child a lie, a lie that they would have to believe for their own benefit. I turned, opened the stall door and walked out across the barren bathroom, leaving the words, “No Fate” for the next gentleman who decided he needed to use stall no.2.