You see, there was this birthday party. A very large party with over 30 boys and girls. During the party, they played a game of musical chairs.

Very simple rules, but I’ll go over them quickly here just to refresh your memory. The game starts out with as many chairs as players and there’s music playing. During the music, one chair is removed. When the music stops, at a random interval, everyone has to sit in a chair. Of course, there’ll always be one chair short, so the person left standing is out of the game. He or she loses.

Simple, right?

Not really. In this game, nobody actually knows the rules.

Except one boy, Jimmy.

With each music duration, there’s a lot of confusion, with the kids not knowing where to be. They’re all over the room. When the music stops, there’s a chaotic scramble for the chairs. Some people, er, kids, get hurt in the stampede. Because of their extreme, resulting anxiety, they’re unable to figure out the actual rules, ie. trying to get close to a chair when the music stops. Sometimes blood is spilt, as the situation becomes violent. So there are a lot of sad losers.

But not Jimmy. He always gets a chair.

The game continues with more losers and distressed little kids until there’s nobody left sitting, except Jimmy.

Oh, and the other rule is, which nobody knew until the end, is that the winner gets everything and the losers get nothing.

So Jimmy takes the whole cake, all the pop and all the loot bags.

The other kids are very sad and dejected and some of them question these strange, secret rules. They’re told that that’s the way the system works. Anything else would be

Communism

And most of them go along with that. Some that are still questioning are told that if they don’t like it, they shouldn’t even come to the party.

Well, the party’s finally over and it’s late and dark and everyone has to leave. Jimmy gets driven home in a limousine. The others have to walk. Some have to walk through dangerous neighbourhoods.

Many don’t make it.

Some photos from my anonymous people collection. [Click on any photo for the slideshow. Please leave comments at the bottom of the page]