[Scene: A dimly lit stage half-entranced by moonlight, puppets of cardboard and string. The ocean is an absurdly large painted backdrop.]
Title Card: "The Silent Constellations Beckon"
Narrator (V.O.):
"And so it was that our hero, clad in yesterday's newsprint,
ventured forth without purpose, guided only by caffeine and
clumsily half-remembered dreams."
[Cut to a close-up of the hero's exaggeratedly puzzled face,
mimicking the silent scream of a fish out of water.]
Title Card: "A Meeting with the Unseen"
Narrator (V.O.):
"In the depths of night, where logic took its leave, he met
a shadow taking form as a divine cheese grater, symbol of
the cosmos and custodian of tales best left untold yet
ironically ungrasped."
[The hero attempts to woo the cheese grater with an invisible bouquet;
laughter erupts from the unseen audience.]
Title Card: "Ebb and Flow of the Ironic Tide"
Narrator (V.O.):
"Thus, the tides washed over fables long discarded,
their saline whispers intertwined with the absurd poetry
of silent films. Fate, in her whimsical folly, rolled in
like a tide, and out with her, the ebb of understanding."
[The curtain falls as cardboard waves cascade down, drenching the scene in mock grandeur.]
The stars, those ancient lights, conspire to remind us that reality is, at best, a poorly scripted comedy where each performer ad-libs their destiny amidst a sea of cardboard cutouts. Who are we in the end but actors in a tide of fate, swayed by invisible hands yet undeniably amused by our own pretenses?