“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Tonight I say my final goodbye to my friend, Cameron Betts.

Because of unfortunate life circumstances at the time, I was unable to attend his memorial and for that I’ll forever hold a small piece of hatred for the person who kept me from attending.  Tonight, Friday, November 2nd, a benefit concert to his memorial fund is being held in Seattle.  I’ll be there, as will a plethora of others for whom Cameron’s short time on earth made a difference.  We’ll party like rock stars, remember the man we all came to love and hate and cherish and despise and secretly wish we were more like.

You see, Cameron didn’t hold back in anything.  He loved as if he were incapable of something as trivial as mere friendship.  He sang as if it were the last time he’d ever get to raise his voice and wanted you to know the depths of his soul through his song.  He gave his loyalty without reserve, drank to excess, smoked like a chimney and because of the fact that he seemed to know no limits, he’d destruct just as frequently as he excelled.

Though we had the utmost respect for one another, we had our moments.  We’d argue over trivial nonsense some days and deeper issues on others but there was never any doubt that we shared a deep friendship and that the storm would eventually pass.  I remember an evening where Cameron had fallen into another of his deep depressions and had drank way too much.  He was pissed off at the world and tried to storm out of the house to get in his car.  I stood in the door and told him, with no trace of smile on my face, “If you want to get into your car you’re going to have to go through me.”  He slammed his keys down and said, “Fine.  You want to roll?  Let’s do it,” and we stepped outside and within two minutes were laughing about the whole situation.

That was the thing.  His passions were strong but his heart and the love he held for others was stronger.  I sort of knew when I challenged him that we’d never really come to blows.

Good thing, too.  That dude was big.

He had the heart of a lion and the soul of a poet and the world never could meet his expectations.  He also struggled with depression and finally took his life earlier this year. I’m angry with him for leaving us behind without him, but I’m going to tell the truth now and admit that I’m happy he’s finally at peace.  He hurt a lot of people going out, but as long as we’re still living we have the chance to heal and grow and be happy again.  Cameron will never again get that opportunity and for that fact alone I’m finally able to forgive him.

So Cameron, here are my final words for you and then I’m letting you go:  I’m going to paraphrase Keets because I don’t think he went quite far enough.

The air I breathe in a world empty of you is unhealthy.

Tonight sir, we’re going to party like rock stars and indulge in the kind of excess that would make your passions proud.

Go in peace, friend.  I’ll miss you always.

 

If you didn’t figure it out yet, the title of this post comes from an essay by George Orwell called, “Shooting an Elephant.”  What from the title might imply an essay on hunting is far from it; it deals with the way a person handles the expectations of others.  This essay has become a touchstone in my life for a great many things which I think need to be shared.   I encourage you to go read the entire essay as it’s one of the better I’ve encountered.

I’ll wait here.  (Whistles, works on something else, twiddles thumbs, checks watch . . .)

You’re back?  Great.  More likely you didn’t go over there and read it.  While I purse my lips and shake my head at you, I’ll forgive you this time.  I’ll be summarizing and adding specific quotes below so I guess that you’ll still keep up.

Orwell writes about a time in his life when he was a young, sub-divisional police officer for the British Empire while in Burma.  His life there consisted of constantly being made fun of and of a population that both hated and needed him at the same time.  To sum up his state of mind, Orwell writes:

I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

To say he was a troubled young man would be a gross understatement.  Yet here he found himself in this position, sworn to protect a people he increasingly came to despise yet still searching for the man he would eventually become.

It was into this setting of a man outside of himself and culture that he received a call of an elephant gone on a “must,” a temporary condition where an elephant–even the most tame of the animals–goes into a wild, unstoppable rampage.  Orwell packs a .44 rifle–much to small a calibre to kill such a beast–and rides off in search of the animal.  Just about the time he starts to consider that the story is complete fabrication, he comes upon this:

I rounded the hut and saw a man’s dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beast’s foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend’s house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle.

The appropriate rifle retrieved, Orwell is led to a spot where he finds the elephant in question, the must over, pulling up grass with its trunk and eating peacefully.  It was obvious that he should not shoot the beast.  The danger was over and there was no reason to kill the animal to ensure the safety of the village.

However:

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant.

In spite of knowing in his heart that there was no need to shoot the animal, in spite of the fact that a working animal is an essential part of survival to the owner, in spite of the fact that killing the elephant was the wrong choice, Orwell lies down, takes aim, and with the combined weight of thousands of expectant wills pressing upon his conscience, pulls the trigger.  He shoots it twice before the animal finally falls, but it is still not dead.

He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open – I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.

In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dash and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon.

There was some disagreement as to whether he did the right thing; some thought so and others, of course, did not, leaving Orwell to summarize the experience as follows:

And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

And there, my friends, is the true crux of the matter.  He did it to avoid looking a fool.  Not because it was the right thing to do.  Not because his duty demanded it.  He shot and killed the elephant because of the weight of thousands of expectant eyes on his back.  He brutally murdered another living creature because, in the end, he couldn’t handle the idea that he would fail to live up to the expectations of others and be labeled as less than a man.

How many lives could be saved, or changed dramatically, or simply lived better were we not doing what others expected?

I have a friend, let’s call him Carrot-top.  He married a woman he believed he loved and then, within less than a year, he left her.  His life and the things he desired had never really matched up to that of being a married man.  I do not know this for certain, but when I spoke to him about it at the wedding itself, I should have been paying more attention.  Why?  His eyes were telling me that he had the weight of two thousand villagers on his back, expecting him to grow up; to be a man, to put aside childish pursuits and do the things that everyone expected a man to do.  Like Orwell, he fell to that pressure, hurting those closest to him without reason and damaging his own sense of self-worth in the process.

I’ve done it many times myself, so I know the feeling well.  We do the “right” thing in spite of what our heart tells us.  We break up with someone we deeply care about because they don’t fit the mold of what’s expected by others in a partner for us.  We make promises our souls can’t keep in order to appear to be doing the right thing.

Just writing that makes me shake my head.  Yet still, I feel the rifle in my hands on a daily basis.  When ten people are telling you the same thing, shouldn’t you listen?  Shouldn’t you collect their communal advice and pay attention?  Perhaps you aren’t thinking clearly?  Shouldn’t you do what’s expected when the group mind agrees?

No.  Absolutely not. Not in a million years.  Not if your heart tells you different.  You do what makes you happy.  The crowd will dissipate.  They will return to their lives and they might even mock you while they sit around with  their family and have dinner that evening.  Then, later, you will find that the village has found something else about which to talk.

In the end, you’re not that important to them.

So be important to yourself.  There’s no other real path to happiness, and if you wear a mask provided by someone else’s expectations for too long, your face will eventually grow to fit it.

CONTENT ALERT: I’m going to tell you all up front: This is an extremely personal and emotionally strong blog post.  It deals with relationships, how I approach them, and one particularly gruesome recent event that’s appeared in the news.  If you’d rather not get deeper insights into me and my life and the way I live it, or if you’d rather just read the nice posts about my writing or my rants, I’d suggest you skip this one.  The story is important to me, however, and like I’ve always believed, as a writer I never really know how I feel about something until I put it down in words.  I’m sharing because, well, I’m a writer.  It’s what I do.

To say that the last eighteen or so months of my life have been challenging would be an understatement.  I went from divorcing my wife of ten years–we’d been together for twelve or so and still maintain a wonderful friendship–and two very intense, enlightening, invigorating, and ultimately destructive relationships with two women with whom I won’t be maintaining relationships going forward.  Let’s just say that the bad outweighed the good and the damage outweighs the memories.  I always wish that it could be otherwise but, well, sometimes it’s just not in the cards.  One was a very bad person disguising themselves as someone who had just had troubles in their past and the other was a very good person who will probably never overcome some very destructive demons.  The latter I wish well; the former I could care less about.

It’s the latter one who ended up saving my life.  That’s not an exaggeration.  Even though I knew that she was probably wrong for me, and even though I had early warning signs, when someone slips into my heart and asks me to love them I’d rather risk eventual pain than walk away from the possibility of happiness.  A number of my friends tell me that I should work harder to close that part of myself off a bit and make more sensible judgments.

Yeah, fuck that.  That’s not who I am, nor is it who I wish to become.  I’ll continue to risk everything for love.  It’s the only thing worth taking that big of a chance.  If it doesn’t work, well, I’ve learned something about myself and I don’t have to live with wondering what could have been.  Even if my heart gets broken again, I’ll know I tried.  And that my friends, is a good thing.  Pain is temporary and happiness too is inevitable.  I have two very dear friends who I’ve seen succumb to the siren song of cutting off their emotions.  One has become numb to any feelings and the other took his own life this year.  The first has a chance to become happy again.  The other doesn’t.  As long as you don’t suicide, happiness WILL return to your life.  You can’t avoid it.  Seeing as that I’m much too egocentric to ever take my own life, I live with the certain knowledge that no pain can ever stop me from laughing again, and loving again, and feeling the bliss of being fully in the moments as they happen.

And that’s a certainty of happiness that beats any religious conviction.

So while I appreciate the concern of my friends when they see me jump into a relationship or go down a confusing (in their minds) path, I do so knowing that I can’t be killed from it, and that even if I get hurt, the hurt will go away.  It allows me to take risks that others wouldn’t fathom and, as a result, allows me to experience joys that will forever remain a mystery to the more conservatively inclined.

Which brings me to my story.  It goes without saying that I am a geek.  A nerd.  A lover of all things goofy and wonderful and cartoonish and weird and full of science-fictiony goodness and fantastic whimsy.  I love games.  I love books.  I love collector’s edition toys and making beer and drinking beer and whisky and whatever that strange science project is that you created with seventy-two feet of copper tubing and two wash buckets.

I also love comics.  All of them.  The good, the bad and the perverted.  All.  Of.  Them.

I fell in love with the Christopher Nolan Batman movies.  Dark crunchy goodness with just the right mix of heroic romanticism.  I ate them up.  So when The Dark Knight Rises scheduled for release, there was no doubt I’d be first in line for the first showing.

One of the things I spoiled myself with was a 65″ television and blu-ray player.  I owned the first two movies on bluray and had a wonderful evening planned out for myself.  I’d watch the first two movies at home with a big bowl of popcorn and a bag of chocolate covered peanuts (my biggest vice ever, and another story in and of itself for another day) and then skip my happy, super-hero infused ass over to the nearby theater where they were showing the premier of the new movie on three screens.

Here’s a google map of just how close the nearest theater was, so if I wanted to have a beer or two before I could just walk over and back.

The purple dot was where I lived.  The “A” on the map was the theater.  So close I could see the marquis from my parking lot.  The night was set and planned from the beginning of the year when I heard the release date.

And then something happened.  I met a lady.  It was an interesting meeting and the details I shall not share here–trying to keep this at least rated R and not verge into NC-17 mode–but she was not just beautiful and not just sexy, but she was driven and courageous and full of life.  She’d been down a hard road and made many poor decisions but she still had the spark of passion that led me believe she could overcome anything and would be the kind of partner who’d fight tooth-and-nail to find the solution to any problem that might come up.

Better yet, she fell in love with me, too.

I had plenty of warning signs that the relationship might not work, but like I said above, I’d rather reach for bliss than run from pain.  Her three children were unexpected, and I didn’t know how I’d handle it but they quickly got into my heart as well.  The oldest was a seven year old boy by the name of Billy.

Yeah, put a nerd/geek/comic book loving adult man together with a seven year old boy and you get best buddies.  It’s just the way things go.  We were of an equivalent mental age, after all.  Early in the relationship, I found out about The Avengers marathon at a local theater.  All of the Avengers movies–Iron Man, The Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers in one glorious fifteen hour movie bacchanalia.

We so had to go.  I was worried if he’d be able to stay awake for the whole marathon, but he made it; I was the one who kept dozing off.

Still, when I thought about seeing The Dark Knight Rises, my plans did not change, until one day, they did.

His birthday happened to fall in the same month as the premier of the new Batman movie.  There was no reason for us to go to a marathon other than this: He loved spending the day with me at The Avengers marathon and it was his birthday.  So I asked him, “Do you want to go to The Batman Marathon for your birthday or would you just like to see the premier with me and we can watch the other two movies at home first.  If we just go to the premier, we can schedule a day at the amusement park instead.”

Billy thought about it for around ten minutes and then told me, “I want to go to the marathon with you.”

So, that was that.  I went online immediately and tried to buy tickets at the nearby theater . . . and got shot down.  The nearby theater wasn’t showing the marathon.  To do that we’d have to drive cross-town.  Damn.  Well, I figured it was worth it and that we’d have a great time. So yeah, we went.

We did have a great time.  Pure, juvenile, geeky fun.  Driving home, Billy fell asleep in the backseat and wasn’t awake as we took our offramp.   I saw police cars blocking off a good portion of the streets surrounding my apartment.  It was nearly four a.m. at this point.

Figuring there had been a bad accident with a drunk driver, I drove us home and we crawled into bed and fell asleep, dreaming dreams of Batman and Bane and delicious, calorie laden snacks.

It wasn’t until I woke up the next morning to a text message from a good friend that read, “OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY?  I KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO THE MOVIES LAST NIGHT.  TEXT ME ASAP!”

Having no idea what the hell was going on, I replied.  ”Yeah, I’m fine.  We had a blast.”

And then I found out.

Go look at that Google map again at the nearest theater, the one that wasn’t playing the marathon.

It’s the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado.

My theater.

I’d been in the very auditorium where the shootings happened at least twenty times.  There was a one-in-three chance that had Billy not wanted to see the marathon for his birthday, we’d have been in the theater where twelve people lost their lives.

If I hadn’t overridden my good sense and allowed myself to take a risk with Billy’s mother, there was a one-in-three chance I’d have been in that theater, and friends, had I been in that theater, I’d be dead right now.

When you’ve been in the military and law enforcement, there’s one thing you learn: The smell of CS gas, or tear gas.  It’s very distinctive and the odor jumps right out as soon as the grenade pops.  With the training I have had in my life, I would have realized two things immediately:

1. This was a real attack.

2. I was probably one of the few people in the theater trained to deal with a situation like that.

And those realizations would have put me on my feet charging this guy; this armed attacker wearing body armor.

The odds of my success would not have been high.

Had I been more conservative with my approach to relationships, had I not wanted to give a young boy what he wanted for his birthday, had I not ignored the warning signs and taken the risk on happiness, I very well could be dead.

It took me a few weeks to visit the memorial.  It was too close to home and I wasn’t done processing.  When I did, the reality of what I’d avoided hit me between the eyes.

So friends, I hope you understand when I tell you that while I love you and appreciate your worry for me, I’m not going to change.  I’m going to keep living my life full of hope and dreams and passion and damn-the-risk fervor because that’s who I am.  And in spite of the fact that my relationship with Billy’s mother ended, and ended rather poorly, I wouldn’t trade the months I spent with her for anything in the world.

While we’re alive, we have the chance at being happy.

And tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

Go.  Live.  Risk.  Love.

It’s what being alive really means.

 

 

 

NOW AVAILABLE!

 My new young adult/dystopian novel is now available in both trade paperback and ebook format at the following locations:

 

 

 

 

Trade Paperback:

At Barnes and Noble:

Trade Paperback link 

For your Nook 

At Amazon:

Trade Paperback Format

Kindle Version 

If you order direct from CreateSpace, you can enter coupon code TUDMAXN9 at check-out and receive $2.00 off the cover price.  Click here!

If none of the above formats work for you, you can always download the book for reading directly on your computer or other device at Smashwords.com.

Dealers and Booksellers, please send me an email to find out how to receive copies for your store at 40% off the cover price.   Send inquiries to publisher@gryffynperchbooks.com .

If you’re one of the select few who has already read MAROONED, please feel free to leave your honest opinions in the form of a review in either the comments section below, or at any of the above sites.

Thank you again, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the story.

 

 

 

 

For your reading pleasure, here’s Chapter 3 of Marooned, coming September 23rd, 2011.  If you haven’t read the previous two chapters, you can go to Chapter One or Chapter Two at these links.  If you enjoy the book, you’ve still got time to pre-order a signed copy at two dollars off the cover price until September 10th, 2011 using the Paypal menu to the right of this entry or you can purchase your eBook copy now from Amazon.

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Three

 

It’s not me I’m worried about.

If Dad believes Joey is a threat of some kind, Joey is the one who’s in danger. It’s not my well-being Dad is concerned with. It’s the fact that I’m his daughter and he’s protective of what is his. Having something happen to his daughter would not only show he can’t control his own city, but that he can’t control his own family and I can imagine nothing would embarrass him more.

I don’t wait to be formally excused. I can’t send Joey a message as I’m sure my Dad has my interlink monitored. I’ll need to find him on my own and to do that, I’ll need help.

Don isn’t in the kitchen when I check for him so I take the auxiliary lift down to the lower level of the apartment to the Indentures’ quarters, but they’re empty. Even though I know he won’t be in the dojo in formal wear, I check there anyway.

No luck.

The only chance I have is Mom.

Not good. On her best days, I love her and can count on her. On her worst . . . I just hope today is a good day. Over the last couple years she’s slipped deeper into her own world, just surfacing long enough for one of Dad’s functions or to get me to the clinic for yet another inoculation. She’s managed to keep from becoming a liability to Dad so he’s mostly ignored her and let her be but I can tell his patience is starting to wear thin. Our dinners are held in silence on the bad days, but on the good we share mocking glances whenever Dad starts in about business or politics. I still don’t understand how two women could end up so dissimilar to someone with whom they share a life. I don’t understand it, but I’m glad for it.

For years she was my best ally but that was long ago. Sometimes I think she doesn’t even realize I’m there most of the time. She’s Elevated, so it’s not a physical abnormality. She’s just losing her will.

I miss her.

I couldn’t find Don, but Mom is right where I thought she’d be. The door to the master bathroom is closed and locked. I run my hand over the slick polished sandalwood and lean in to listen. The scent of chrysanthemum drifts from beneath the crack and a hard-driving bass line thumps against my hand.

I knock. No answer. “Mom?”

Nothing. I check behind me to make sure Dad isn’t out of his office. Seeing no one, I use the edge of my hand, thumpthumpthump. “Mom!”

Murmurs, then, “Ten minutes.” It’s barely audible.

“Mom I need to talk to you now. It’s import–”

“Ten minnits! Go way!” Her voice is slurred. Not a good day. I know what’s she’s doing in there, and the bath is secondary.

Mom is a cutter.

I found the straight razor in her drawer just after my fourteenth birthday. I didn’t know what it was at first. I’d never seen anything like it. The handles were made of a porous cream-colored material which later research told me was ivory and the steel of the blade itself seemed to glow with an awful purpose. For weeks I couldn’t figure out why she even owned such a thing. Mother is Elevated. She can set her biological systems to only allow hair growth where she wants it, and even if she needed to rid herself of any, an electrolysis shower would do the job far more effectively. It was hard for me to even imagine a time when people had to scrape such a hideous instrument across their skin for a trivial task like grooming.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later I learned its purpose. Joey and I were stretching out before a Seeder practice session and I brought it up.

It’s hideous, I told him. It’s actually made from part of an animal, an elephant I think. Maybe she just wants to own a piece of something extinct.

He grunted and nodded, then looked away. He knew more than he was saying. I gave him a minute to decide if he was going to spill, but he just went on stretching. When I couldn’t take it any longer I grabbed his arm and turned him toward me. What?

His head bobbed side-to-side with indecision. Finally he sighed and said, She’s a cutter, Punk.

What’s a cutter?

She’s a sensation junkie.

I shoved him away from me. My cheeks were on fire. Take it back. It wasn’t something you said about a person’s parent. For some, the experience of life after Communion could be difficult. It’s not the easiest thing to transition from a crude biological entity into one where every cut healed within seconds, every broken bone knitted in minutes. Once your body learned its new condition, even pain could be shut off with a simple unspoken command. For most, a few months were all that were necessary to dampen the instinctive impulses which no longer served a purpose. You learned not to flinch when you saw something flying at you out of the corner of your eye. A simple trip or slip no longer brought your breath up short in a hiss between clenched teeth. You evolved.

But for some–mostly those without the resources or the good sense to hire a reconditioning specialist–the transition was more difficult. Temporary bouts of mania and hyperactivity could develop in the mild cases but full blown psychosis could develop in the more extreme ones. Everyone experiments after taking Communion. It’s inevitable. You can do things you never considered before. Most kids even developed a flesh list outlining all the things they wanted to do once they Elevated, things like jumping down an entire flight of stairs or getting into a fight with the person who bullied them most pre-Elevation. But most quickly bored of it.

Sensation junkies, on the other hand, found a way around the boredom. They’d turn off their repair systems long enough to feel the skin shrivel and harden as they stuck their hand in an open fire. They’d command the nerve center cluster to allow all sensation as they beat themselves in the face with a hammer.

And some would cut themselves. Over and over again. Deeper. More cuts in one session. They were always looking for the bigger thrill, the more dangerous rush. They flaunted their immortality in a world where only the privileged were given hundreds or even thousands of years of life without aging, without pain, without suffering. They were not often discussed, and certainly not in polite conversation. Sensation junkies were the trolls that lived under the bridge of rational society, abominations of immortality living amongst the pure. And there I stood, listening to my best friend tell me my mother was one of them.

Joey held up his hands, palms facing me. You asked. 

By the time the practice session was over, half-contact sparring turned to full. I’m pretty certain Joey let me beat the crap out of him. I needed it and he knew I needed it. To his credit, he never brought it up again. I deal with things in my own way and only get more stubborn if someone tries to help. Joey knows this about me, and it’s one of the reasons we’re such good friends. I ignored him for a few weeks but eventually realized he was right. Mom changed; slowly, but the woman who protected and laughed with me and told me about the “little people” they put inside you during Communion no longer existed. Every so often I’d get glimpses of the person who’d been my best friend, but the woman who raised me became a ghost haunting the hallways of my home.

I don’t know why I expect her to help me now. Ten minutes will turn into thirty or forty and there is nothing I can do about it so I let my hand fall from off the door, turn and leave her to her demons.

I round the corner out of the master bedroom and then from over my shoulder I hear the bathroom door lock click open. Maybe today is a good day after all.

But it isn’t Mom that exits.

It’s Don. His bow-tie is crooked and his face flushed.

I jump back behind the door frame so he won’t see me. What was Don doing in my mother’s bathroom? And with my Dad at home? There’s no way . . .

But what else?

I’m blushing and I have to relax my jaw as I realize I’m grinding my teeth. Just as I’m about ready to storm in and confront him, I hear his footsteps coming my way and all my bravado abandons me. I half-run, half-tiptoe into the next room before he sees me, then turn and walk his direction while doing my best to act natural.

He sees me coming and like I always do, I open my mouth before I even know what I’m going to say. “Have you seen Mom?”

Dumb. Now he’s going to know I saw him.

“She’s readying herself for tonight,” he says. His flat expression doesn’t change. If he knows I saw him, he’s not letting on to the fact.

It feels strange asking, but I don’t really have a choice. “I need to talk to you,” I say. “Can we go to the dojo for a few minutes?”

He shakes his head gently. “We’ll talk about it later,” he says. Wrinkles crest on his forehead, creating waves across his tattoo. “Don’t worry. I’m already working on it.”

I know he’s talking about Joey. After so many years, I know Don and every gesture speaks volumes. He trains Joey as well when we can sneak him in, so I know he cares. Then again, after what I just witnessed how sure can I be? “But–”

“If you’ve ever trusted me, now is a good time to remember why.” He rubs my shoulder and then leaves.

For Joey’s sake, I hope I can. I want to blow off Dad’s dinner party and run over to Joey’s place to warn him but there’s no use. If he’s smart he’ll be long gone, and Joey isn’t stupid. If he got caught by surprise, which is more likely, he’s already in custody. I just can’t figure out what Joey might be into that would cause my Dad to come to this conclusion. Joey’s always been a bit . . . detached is the best way to put it, I guess. Politics don’t interest him, or if they do I’d never seen evidence of the fact. He’s like a mirror in some ways. He just says what he sees without commenting on it. It’s one of things I like about him. After Mom started to slip, I needed a rock to hold onto every once in a while.

I suddenly realize that I don’t know what I’d do without him and my hands start to quiver. I’ve never even thought about it before. Joey isn’t someone who suddenly vanishes. He’s as constant as my own chewed off fingernails. He’s not a threat to anyone.

Damn you, Dad. How could you do this to him? He’s Elevated. He’s one of your precious upper strata of society. Why would you–?

It’s not about Joey. It’s about me. He’s using this for leverage, but leverage for what? Even if I’m wrong there’s nothing I can do to help Joey right this minute and if there’s one thing I can’t stand is having to sit still.

I’ll trust Don, but back up plans never hurt.

I wipe my eyes and take a few deep breaths to steady myself, and then I’m heading downstairs to the building atrium, riding our private elevator to the sixtieth floor and then navigating the cavernous hallways to the resident’s lift. As I wait for the car I realize I’m twitching my fingers to the beat of the song I heard coming from Mom’s bathroom and that I’m biting my lip. I force myself to stop both but then my foot starts tapping the beat instead.

I need to calm down and I need to do it now. Residents above the fiftieth floor don’t get nervous. Showing my agitation would be the best possible way to attract attention and that’s the last thing I need. The lift opens and thankfully it’s empty and then I remember, there’s a Seeder match scheduled tonight and it’s a sword bout. Not many people would miss watching but I’m one of them. There’s something perverse about the weapons matches. I understand when the wounds heal almost instantly and pain doesn’t come into play the match can stretch out much longer than a lower tier event, but weapons seem unnecessary. Seeders have limbs cut off that are replaced with artificial extremities and before long the match might as well be between robots. There’s no art in it.

But most fans aren’t looking for art. They’re looking for blood. Seeders compete for the knowledge their skill is being tested against the best that exist. Fans show up for the mutilations. And according to my Dad, before long I’ll be the one doing the mutilating.

Not if I can help it, I won’t. I just don’t know if I can help it.

I step into the lift and hit the button for the fiftieth floor and within a minute I’m there.

When the door opens, the smell is the first thing that hits me. The rest of the building is aroma enhanced. Every floor’s hallway is set to emanate roses or lilacs or sandalwood; whatever the residents of each floor prefer. Each apartment can be individually customized for the occasion with fresh pine or roasted fowl. And within every apartment, the rooms themselves can project their own aroma, be it lemon as my father prefers for his office, or chrysanthemum as Mom often chooses for her bedroom. But here, in the atrium, no conditioning is allowed. Only the dank scent of cultured soil mixed with rain exist in this place. Every form of shop you can imagine runs along the outside of the floor. The majority are closed for the evening but a few remain open, mostly those selling clothing or replica uniforms of the more popular professional Seeders. A few residents are still shopping, but they stay to the red brick promenade area along the storefronts and they don’t pay any attention to me. I’m not here to shop, though.

In the center of the floor is the park and I head toward it while trying to appear uninterested, bored even, but there’s no way I could ever grow bored of this place.

Once inside the paved perimeter, grass grows in cultured, symmetrical blades. Square decameters of flowers break up the circle of deep green with rows of tulips in every imaginable shade. In the center of the park lies the Earth Tree, an ancient redwood which stretches fifteen floors high into the empty space above. The apartment levels above the fiftieth floor form a pyramid to allow the limbs to stretch out and grasp at the walls as if they might one day be able to grab hold and tear away the layers of steel which imprison them from the absent sky. It’s a conceit, of course. The groundskeeper would never allow even a single branch to encroach in the slightest way upon the resident’s areas but I’ve always held out hope anyway.

It’s the groundskeeper I’m here to see. Barnabas is a joint Indenture for the building nearing the end of his term of service. His replacement has been a source of constant discussion for the last three years and time is growing short for him to train a successor. Within a few months Barnabas will take Communion, like me, and he’ll no longer owe us anything. An apartment has already been reserved for him on the fifty-third floor where he can watch over the sliver of natural life he’s lovingly tended for so many years, for once enjoying its beauty instead of slaving to protect its existence.

The only thing which could make him happier is ensuring his son receives Communion as well, but for a retired Indenture, that kind of money simply isn’t obtainable without help.

That’s where I come in.

Most of the residents don’t even notice the park between their shopping visits. I hope I never become jaded to its beauty like them, but their indifference does leave me privacy to speak with Barnabas without interruption.

I find him sitting on the row of benches next to the base of the tree. Even the chocolate brown of his coveralls can’t hide the dirt stains on his knees. His skin is wrinkled around the corners of his eyes and the shadows remind me of the thick creases between the slabs of bark on the tree. Across the dark skin on his forehead there’s a white dusting of what appears to be pollen. Five years ago he wouldn’t have allowed himself this moment of rest, but now that he’s so close to completing his Indenture nobody minds, and even if they do they don’t say anything. He doesn’t look at me when I sit beside him.

“I won,” I say. “There’s a little left over but I didn’t have a chance to transfer it to your account. Constables.”

Now he looks at me and smiles. “You really don’t have to do this, you know.” It’s an old argument, but it makes him feel better so I let him continue. “We can figure out something.”

“I know you can,” I say. “But since I enjoy it anyway, what’s the harm of speeding it along?”

He grimaces. “You do not enjoy it. But thank you for the lie.”

I shrug. “How’s Yosef? Haven’t seen him in a while.”

He looks back toward the tree and I think his shoulders slump. “He took a job with your family’s company. Wanted to try and contribute and, you know, why not? Been there a couple months now.”

I do my best to keep my anger from getting the best of me. It’s not a dumb idea. It’s entirely possible I could lose the event and come up short. Yosef is doing the prudent thing by trying to ensure he has a chance to take Communion before his sixteenth birthday, but still, my pride can’t help but be a little wounded. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but I understand,” I say. “Why my father’s company, though?”

“Only ones who would hire him. He wasn’t even going to get that job until your father called the foreman and told him to give Yosef the position.”

“My Dad? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

Barnabas chuckled. “He’s not as bad as you think, Punk. You should give him a chance.”

I leaned forward, considering it for a moment. No. I shake my head and say, “You’re right, he’s worse than I think. He has a reason. We’ll probably never know what it is, but I’m sure there is one.”

His eyebrows arch. “Be careful. You might turn into him sooner than you think with logic like that.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, crossing my arms.

Barnabas sighs and says, “When you start questioning everyone’s motives, it’s not long before you need to start questioning your own.”

“I’m fine,” I say, standing. “But I know him, Barnabas. Be careful. He usually doesn’t give something without expecting much more in return.”

He nods. “Okay, Punk. Will do. Hopefully soon we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

I nod. “You won’t. I promise.”

“I won’t hold you to it, but again, thank you for saying it.”

I have one more thing to ask him, but after this conversation it makes me sick to do so. “I have a favor to ask,” I say. “If it were for me, I wouldn’t but it’s not.”

He looks at me through narrowed eyelids and there’s a slight smile at the corner of his lips. “A favor? Sure, Punk. What is it?”

“Can you keep an ear to the ground for any information about Joey Lancaster? I think he may be in trouble.”

To his credit, Barnabas doesn’t ask why. “If I hear anything I’ll let you know.”

I sigh with relief. People tend to speak more freely while walking through the atrium level and even more so through the park itself. He’s in a great position to overhear conversations but what I’m asking him isn’t without risk. He’s managed to learn much over the years without passing it on and in doing so kept himself relatively unnoticed. I’m asking him to violate his reserve with only a few weeks left on his Indenture.

Thing is, I knew he wouldn’t say no.

When you start questioning everyone’s motives, it’s not long before you need to start questioning your own.

Damn. “Thank you, Barnabas. I really appreciate it.”

“I know you do,” he says, standing. “I should get back to work.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Talk soon, okay?”

He smiles, nods and walks away.

Maybe I am turning into my Dad after all. Not a pleasant thought.

I stop at a public terminal on my way back to the lift to transfer the money into Barnabas’ account. The promenade has cleared out and only a few residents remain, chatting over drinks while sitting at tables strategically positioned to enjoy the view of the park, so they don’t pay attention to me. I finish the transfer and make my way back home. I’ve only an hour or so before dinner and being late is not an option.

The Indentured level is empty when I arrive. They must all be preparing for the party. I’d hoped to run into Don but it looks like I’m going to have to just sit still until later tonight when the guests leave.

Not my greatest strength.

I take the lift to the residence. The conditioning unit has been set to patchouli, meant to evoke an atmosphere of the outdoors. I can taste the dank soil undertones from the air on my tongue.

When I arrive at my room, I find my dress for the evening laid out on my bed. It’s sky blue with a layer of black lace over the fabric. I hold it up and realize it will only fall to mid-thigh. A pair of black flats sits on my bed next to a white wrap, meant to cover my shoulders. Good. Maybe it will cover up the massive bruise from the Seeder match.

I shower and step into the conditioning unit. The settings are already in place so my tossed red hair is slicked back against my scalp. Dad always complains about how short I keep my hair but there’s no way I’m giving my opponents an extra weapon to use against me. One grab of the hair and you gain control of the head and where the head goes, the body follows. The conditioning unit applies a slight coat of foundation, just enough to cover the blemishes but puts on no other make-up. Guess I’m not supposed to look too pretty tonight. It’s not the role I’m supposed to play. Can’t have his daughter looking like a tramp after all. I change into the chosen outfit and look at myself in the full length mirror which rises from the floor next to my dressing table.

Alyssa stares back at me, not Punk. Not me. The girl in the mirror is refined, delicate and every father’s dream of a perfect daughter.

In other words, I look hideous.

“You do not look hideous.”

I glance over my shoulder and see Mom standing in the doorway. I must have been talking out loud as I didn’t hear her come in. “Please tell me you didn’t pick this out,” I say.

She walks up behind me and stares over my shoulder into the mirror. “Of course I didn’t. It was chosen based upon the preference profile of the Chief-of-Staff.” Her right finger pushes back a strand of hair over my ear and her fingernail scratches my skin, but not badly; just enough to let me know she’s not paying attention and has probably had a couple drinks already.

“The Chief-of-Staff? You mean like the President’s Chief-of-Staff?”

She presses her lips tight and nods. “Yes indeed and we’re all mighty impressed, aren’t we?”

I can’t help but grin at her sarcasm but it doesn’t last long. Less than an hour ago she was slurring her words and slicing herself up for kicks. Right now she’s the Mom I remember. Who knows who she’ll be an hour from now? I can’t help but wonder for the thousandth time if this is what I have waiting for me after my Communion ceremony; an eternity spent cutting myself for kicks and pretending to be impressed by my future husband’s accomplishments doesn’t exactly sound like my idea of heaven. There’s no evidence Communion based emotional breaks are hereditary, but there’s no proof they aren’t, either. Don tells me not to worry about it. Everyone has a hard time adjusting but in the end they find their own path.

He’s sincere, but when you live every day not knowing if your mother will remember tomorrow anything you told her today, well, it’s less than convincing.

“You okay, Mom?” I ask.

She spins me by the shoulders to face her–causing a fresh wave of pain–and pouts. “I’m fine. Don’t I look fine?”

She does, of course. She always does. Her wool pleated skirt and long-sleeved white silk blouse are the model of domestic perfection and her hair is in an up-do. Even the string of pearls around her neck is without blemish or flaw. I decide to risk it. “You look great. I was just worried. Earlier you didn’t seem like you were feeling too good.”

Mom tilts her head with an expression of puzzlement. “Earlier when, sweetie?”

I can tell by her reaction she not only doesn’t want to discuss it, but she’s pointedly not going to.

“Never mind,” I say. Right now she’s doing good. I know it won’t last but I’m afraid pushing her will ruin what little time I have to spend with her, and even though I know it’s selfish, I’d rather enjoy her company now, while I can.

Mom laughs and shakes her head. “You’re such a strange child.”

I turn away from her and take one last look at the elegant girl in the mirror. “Tell me about it,” I say with a sigh. Mom slides her arm around my shoulder and leads me to the door.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with,” she says. Maybe if she manages to stay this way, the night won’t be as terrible as I’d feared. Small comfort, but it’s something.

We’re met by Don before we can leave the room. “Dinner’s been postponed. There’s been an incident.”

“An incident?” I ask.

Don nods and closes his hands. “The food depot in the Northern outskirts was just bombed. It looks like a heretic attack. The depot was emptied of workers before the explosion, but the employees were shackled and left inside. They’re all dead.”

I glance at Mom’s expressionless face and watch as she slips away right before my eyes.

She and Don share but a single glance, and then his attention returns to me.

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” I say. “Why would they blow up their own food?” The government runs these depots and the food sold there is ridiculously cheap, much less than we pay for it in the city.

Don shrugs, but I can tell he’s got more to say about it than he’s willing to at the moment. “So dinner’s off?” I ask.

“No, just postponed. Your father and the Chief-of-staff will be delayed. I’m to come get you when they’re ready.”

“So we just sit here and wait for them? No way. I’m getting out of this thing.”

I turn but Don stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that.”

I spin on him. I’m not going to be treated like a dog and come when beckoned and I realize I’m even more pissed off my evening with my mother–even if under less than ideal circumstances–has been ruined. “Why not?” I ask.

Don eases toward me and leans his mouth in near my ear. “Because I overheard your father talking. He thinks Joey might know something about it.”

I pull away and look into Don’s eyes. There’s something there I’m not used to seeing: He’s afraid.

I glance back to Mom. She’s staring at herself in my mirror, pressing down non-existent wrinkles on her skirt with the palms of her hands. I think she’s humming.

Don shakes his head and leaves, shutting the door behind him.

Now we sit.

And wait.

And worry.

The trade paperback version is complete and should be available shortly but if you’d like to get a signed copy of Marooned delivered to your doorstep before the September 15th release date, you can now order directly through this website using Paypal.  You don’t need a Paypal account, just use any major credit card through their secure servers and order your copy at two dollars off the cover price of $14.99 until the end of August.  Once September 1st rolls around this price will no longer be available for a signed copy.

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