Trips to MaximiLand were all Elijah really had left. He went through the motions, but his life never had much meaning anymore. He thought it was a selfish thing to do, to develop such a mindset. To think of giving up and clinging to the last temporary high he had. Money was never an issue with a fairly high salary keeping him in a paid-off house with nobody else to spend it on. Most men in his situation would cling to more acute vices like alcohol or drugs. Elijah trekked alone every week to the place where the family he no longer had forged so many memories together. And, as far as he knew, he had fun. He wasn’t entirely certain if he was happy, but it was the only time he smiled anymore. It would have to do. He dreaded going back home. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything but keep breathing and take care of all the necessary prerequisites like working and eating. His house was full of dust. Dust on the game system his son once treasured. Dust on the wine bottles and bookshelf his wife once loved. Dust on the populated dollhouse his daughter once played out her strange takes on society in, half of its dust-coated inhabitants nudists. Dust on the piano and broadsword Elijah used to channel his soul through. Dust, even, on the laptop Elijah used to tunnel himself into and glory in code, exploring everything that could be done. Monday through Friday, Elijah’s co-workers ignored the dark cloud around him and did their best to help clients believe his fake smile and the boisterous, jovial voice he hid so much pain behind. Today, his mouth agape with what he hoped was joy, he flew through the air. His close-cut blonde hair was blowing in the wind as much as it could muster, like it was trying to laugh with him and failing. There was no light in his green eyes, but he thought it was the best he could get. Today was the same as every Saturday, but it was the only thing in his life that never got old nowadays, even after three years. When the ride stopped, he slipped his thin body out of the seat and skipped about with a childlike grace and glee. Later, there would be cotton candy. He would say hello and talk briefly to the park employees who knew him as their only regular. He may even hit the karaoke booth, if he felt adventurous and managed to find a partner in crime or two. He knew his smile would fade completely before he even caught the eleven-o-clock train.
Lena’s hours of study were for naught. Her student loans, a crushing weight on her personal finances, had bought her nothing. Without experience, without a focus, nobody wanted to hire a liberal arts graduate looking to explore the working world and herself. Each day, she berated herself for her choice of major, hopefully the last poor choice she would ever make. She romanticized the concept of being a jack of all trades, of viewing everything around her under a mental microscope. She felt like she would graduate with the world at her feet. Instead, with each Dear John letter, she sank deeper and deeper into depression as her savings grew emptier each day. One day, she managed to get an interview in a job she thought may be worth a damn, or at least give her the cash she needed to stop stressing and use her free time to find a new focus. She would be a “client relations liaison” for the ever-expanding MaxiWaters enterprise, selling her soul for about $60,000.00 a year. Her interview was to be at the D.C. Superpark next week. For now, she stood naked in front of her full-length mirror, her dark hair falling in tresses down to her somewhat understated breasts. She tried levitating and viewing a full rotation of her body. Once her toes were a few inches from the floor, she spun once. There was nothing noteworthy in the plain-Jane curves of her backside and hips. Turning back to the front, she focused a pittance of her energies on her breasts. She pushed them together and upward, playing with positions for them and accompanying faces. The slight glow from the mental energy surrounding her stretching bosoms may have made them slightly more appealing, but if that was the case, she certainly didn’t notice it. “I’m gonna need new clothes, I guess…”, she muttered to herself. She tried various looks for her face, using her power to change the light near her round face. Smoky makeup around her piercing green eyes. Rouge on her low cheeks. A gentle slope to her straight jaw line. She eventually gave up trying to figure out how she may use her sex appeal, if any, and went to her bed to drown her sorrows in more research and more writing, some of it creative. For that, of course, she would need the glasses that she felt killed any small bit of sexual energy she may have otherwise radiated. With a scoff, she sank into her bed, pushed aside a pile of metal parts and gathered up her custom laptop using the psionic power she knew nobody could ever appreciate and she could never benefit from.
CHAPTER 1 - LENA
Lena arrived at the boutique and was greeted by a man wearing the fakest smile she had ever seen. The pain in his emerald eyes wasn’t her concern, but she couldn’t help but feel his sadness as they talked through getting her measurements and fitting her for a few suits. After picking out five that she liked. enough to tolerate, they went to the register together. As he rang up her purchase, Lena couldn’t help herself. “What are you hiding that has you in such incredible emotional pain?”, she blurted, then immediately covered her mouth. “I’m sorry…” The clerk waved dismissively. “No, it’s OK. I’m actually impressed. Not many people can see through my facade.” He folded the suits nicely and his smile broke for a second. “My wife, son and daughter… are dead. Three years ago. Three years ago today, actually.” Lena’s mind reached out to his involuntarily and a single tear made its way down her cheek. Without thinking, she threw her arms around him. “It’ll be OK, Elijah. One day, you’ll be able to feel again. To love again.” For a few seconds that seemed to stretch into eternity, she held him tight and he slowly put his hands on her back in return. Finally, she broke away from him and smiled. To both their surprise, he smiled back. Lena took her bag of clothes and left. Elijah knew she had looked into his mind somehow and, rather than feeling scared, violated or freaked out, he was relieved to have somebody to share the pain with. He didn’t say anything as she left, but an ache to see her again began to swirl within him. His earpiece clicked on, giving him a slight start. “Elijah, we have a corporate account here needing your blessing.” His thoughts racing, he began the slow trek into the back of the store to take another soulless call about more meaningless money, the strange, but real smile that the psychic girl gave him still hanging on his face.
Lena smiled as she walked out to the parking lot. She felt like she had forged a real connection with somebody for the first time in a very long time. It was scrawled on a napkin and secured with scotch tape. “You don’t want that job, call me.” A number was on the back. She hastily pulled out her cell phone and dialed it. “Hello there, Lena.” The voice on the other end was deep, slightly menacing. Lena didn’t let it faze her. “Hi, who the hell are you and how do you know about my job interview? Was that note a threat?” The man on the other end changed his tone, trying to sound soothing. “No, dear, not a threat at all. I’m a former MaximiLand employee. I got access to the list of new hires getting interviewed today and looked through their files. Yours… You seem special. Like they would… love to have you.” “Isn’t that a good thing?” “No. Certainly not. Things happen behind those doors. I can’t discuss them on the phone. Come talk to me in front of the main mall entrance if you want to know more.” When she walked over, a tall figure in a black cloak and a colorful mask awaited her. “I can see behind that mask, you know.” She said tritely as her mental energy seized upon it and ripped it away. A scruffy chin, glasses, sharp features, blue eyes and dyed blue hair were behind the mask. “Is this some kind of joke?”, Lena demanded. “No.” The man spoke in a hushed voice, as though somebody may be listening in. “I’m incognito.” Lena was shocked that he wasn’t scared to death after having his mask removed while she stood ten feet away. “You’re thinking your mental abilities scare me.” He scoffed at her. “I see more dangerous things before I get out of bed in the morning, lady. I told you I’m here to warn you, for your own good. And mine, of course..”
Thoroughly creeped out, Lena put up a barrier. The shimmering purple sphere shattered into pieces with an audible crack, leaving her frozen in terror. “Can’t you see I could have killed you ten times over if I really wanted to?” The man with blue hair approached her slowly and touched her face. “I’m here for me, mainly, to be honest.” Lena finally snapped out of her fear-induced daze. “How will helping me help you?” He stepped away from her and drew a short metal stick from his pocket. A long shaft of white-hot energy erupted from it. “Allow me to demonstrate.” Sensing it had been discovered, a monster that looked like an unholy pairing of a bear and an octopus suddenly materialized. Its attack was inhumanly fast and vicious, but the blue-haired man sidestepped it with laughable ease. “Less MaximiLand employees…”, he muttered as the monster turned and came at Lena. “Less monsters to kill.” With a single sweep of his energy stick, almost faster than Lena’s eyes could track, the monster was wholly bisected. Before the halves even hit the ground, it transformed into a middle-aged man in a black leotard. Lena’s eyes widened in disbelief. “N...no way.” Simple stammering was all she could really manage. The two watched as the dead man’s body evaporated like a puddle in the sun, leaving nothing behind. After a few seconds of silence, the man spoke up. “That is what happens to all of them, eventually.” Lena backed away slowly, horrified. “You’re lying! You’re insane! Whatever that was... “ She couldn’t deny it had once been human, but the thought of such a huge corporation turning employees into monsters seemed ridiculous, even compared to the current circumstances. The man sheathed his energy blade. “Believe what you want, sweet cheeks.” Without another word from either of them, the man walked away as if nothing had happened. Lena decided it would be best to dismiss what she had seen and go home. Perhaps it was a hallucination, or a clever trick by somebody with powers remarkably similar to her own. Lena’s curiosity began to burn. Who was this man? What was his power? Was it like her own? Her head full of questions, she did the only thing she could really think to do. She got in her car and drove home, trying her best to forget what she had seen. The possibilities running through her mind were enough to cause a panic attack and she certainly did not need that on the eve of a job interview. As she lay in bed that night, her thoughts flashed briefly to Elijah. Why did she have such an insatiable desire to connect with him? Who was he? Would he be OK the next time she saw him?
CHAPTER 2 - ELIJAH
Something had changed in Elijah after meeting that psychic girl. He could feel it, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was almost as if his spark had started to return. He got home and looked around his dusty house. Rather than seeing the usual scene of lives abandoned, he saw stories to be preserved, some even continued. He saw a game system he could sink some spare time into. He saw a sword, a keyboard and a laptop that he could pour his soul out to like they were old friends. He saw delicious wine begging to be imbibed, books begging to be read and a dollhouse fit for a queen that simply had to be cleaned and set in a prestigious and conspicuous place. Elijah briefly considered the possibility that he may have fallen in love, then berated himself for even entertaining the thought. Unfazed, he set to work cleaning and dusting things that had seen no use in years.
Less than an hour later, surprisingly, the deed was done. The home had shine and life to it for the first time in years. He couldn’t stop the tears from coming as he looked around and imagined his wife, son and daughter being there with him again. His wife sat at the dining room table with a glass of wine, smiling at him over the edge of her book. His son sat immersed in front of the TV, a spare controller next to him calling Elijah’s name. His daughter called to him from where her dollhouse sat. “Daddy, come play house with me!” A wave of emotion crashed over Elijah. He didn’t know if he should be happy, sad, confused or just overwhelmed. He found that his body was being rocked by heaving sobs.
Without any warning, a woman with long, jet-black hair and a dress like midnight appeared before him wielding a spear. “Hello, Elijah.” Her deep voice had an eerie ring to it. “Who the hell are you?” Elijah’s hand fell to the newly polished sword on the table beside him and he held it like a lover. The mental images of his family snapped off like lights. Adrenaline coursed through his bones and he couldn’t wait any longer. “Answer me, damn you!”, he screamed as he threw himself at the mystery woman, turning on his heel to swipe upward and then diagonally with uncanny grace. The woman sidestepped, then leapt over the second swipe of the sword. Elijah backed away just in time to avoid being kicked in the face, then was surprised to find that his reflexive upward stroke had been parried by the woman’s unwieldy-looking spear. The two froze, eyes and weapons locked. “Perhaps now you’ll talk to me like a human being?”, the woman whispered, then slowly lowered her weapon. Elijah placed the tip of his sword on the carpet and rested his hand on the pommel. “Maybe. Who are you and why are you here?” The woman licked her blood red lips. “I’m here to seduce you, quite frankly.” Elijah pursed his lips in confusion. “First off, why? Second, how did-” He was cut off by an unwelcome kiss. It felt like the acidic bite of a rattlesnake. He picked up his sword and threw a vicious roundhouse kick. Instead of throwing its target to the ground, the kick had met only air. The woman was gone, but her voice rang through the living room. “Too bad, dear. You had such potential. Now we’ll simply have to do away with you if you become problematic.” “What the hell are you talking about?!”, Elijah shouted hysterically. “Stay away from that girl, the one who read your soul…” The woman’s voice and the feeling of her presence faded, leaving Elijah alone.
Unable to think of what he should do, he sank to his knees and wept. He stayed in that spot and let the anger, confusion and grief he had felt for years flow down his cheeks. After years, he finally felt strong enough to confront it. In the accident, he had lost focus and reached back to help his daughter adjust her booster seat. That was when the drunk driver had edged up to pass them and Elijah couldn't get out of the way fast enough. By the time he had any idea what was happening, the van was flipping toward the guardrail and the other car was smashed against a light post. He had sat with his family's corpses for two hours, conscious and in incredible pain, screaming his various anguishes. The drunkard's body across the street had a sorrowful look on its face, as if he realized his mistake and bore the burden of regret at the last minute. Hot tears made their way to Elijah's chin, each one charged with emotion. His guilt and sorrow slowly released their hold and a wave of relief swept over him. Eventually, Elijah collapsed, the overwhelming release draining him.
The next morning, the mysterious girl showed up at the suit shop again. Elijah's heart nearly fluttered out of his chest. She walked up to the counter and smiled into Elijah's eyes. "Hi." Elijah broke the silence. His coworkers watched with bated breath in the otherwise empty shop. "I'm Lena." She spoke in a breathy, almost sultry tone. After a second, they both broke into laughter and took on the posture of old friends. "Hey," Lena reached down and took Elijah's hand, "Meet me at Penn Social on Saturday?” Elijah nodded. “Store closes at seven, I’ll be off a little after that. Call me and we’ll arrange the details.” He slid her a business card with his cell number scrawled on the back. She walked out with a smirk on her face and a bounce in her step, leaving Elijah’s coworkers beaming. Andrew edged up slowly. “Elijah!” He grabbed his supervisor by the neck and gave him a noogie. “You sly dog! Nobody knew about this chick!” “Neither did I!” Elijah grinned and slipped out of Andrew’s grasp. They laughed and chatted together between customers for the rest of the day. Andrew didn’t say anything, but he was almost in tears to see his boss and old friend seeming truly happy again. The store was the brightest, happiest place it had been in quite some time.
No comments:
Post a Comment