Venice fool

"Why do we settle for merely gazing at the sky, instead of trying to reach it?"
This question was asked aloud by a man known as the Fool of the Gun, and his words silenced an entire square. The crowd stood in an eerie stillness, their faces filled with bewilderment and amazement. But the silence was soon broken by mocking laughter—laughter that made no sense to the Fool of the Gun. To him, it was an ordinary, reasonable question.

He was, after all, a rational man living an ordinary life. Since becoming aware of the world, he had grown up as an ordinary child, lived as an ordinary young man, and now, in midlife, he found himself living an ordinary, routine existence. And, as you might expect, dear reader, even his old age would likely be just as ordinary—or perhaps not.

The Fool of the Gun possessed one peculiar trait, a trait that caused an entire city to shun him: he had the audacity to think. His thoughts often led to difficult questions that demanded logical answers, and in the minds of others, such thinking was a sin. But that sin alone wasn’t enough to make him an outcast.

What truly made him a pariah was that, in the eyes of the spirited, energetic youth, his thinking was seen as revolutionary. For the children, it was enchanting, filling them with joy in a city where joy had long been absent. This made all the adults view him as a threat to their cherished traditions—traditions that, in their view, must never be questioned or altered. To them, he was a fool, despite his wisdom and awareness. His words spread faster than fire in the wooden houses that filled the city.

But the Fool of the Gun was not invincible. Being shunned by those who hated him merely for daring to think and to voice his thoughts openly broke him. It made him question the worth of his ideas. Why did people see him as strange? What kept him going, however, were the eyes of the revolutionary youth filled with hope and the innocent, dreaming gaze of the children.

But dreams alone are not enough. The more the Fool of the Gun gained the admiration of the youth, the more famous he became. And with fame came increasing resentment from the ruling authorities, who built their power on the ignorance of the people.

When you are the only one shining light in a world of ignorance, the winds of tyranny will surely extinguish you. And so it was that the Fool of the Gun found himself standing on the edge of the guillotine, surrounded by the sorrowful gazes of the youth and the gleeful sneers of the adults.

In his final moments, which felt like an eternity, he stood tall and said, "My death will be my greatest achievement, for it will unlock the path to my eternal thought."