“How are you so successful and yet so bitter?” asked Rod.
“The knowledge that you are alive and well robs him like taxes, I’m sure,” interjected Aleku. “How is it possible that you are still so very poor? Not of heart, do I refer to, but to your financial situation.
“Yes, according to your recent bank statements, your expenditure wholly outpaces your income,” added Jam, furiously typing away on his keyboard.
“How did you access those?” demanded Rod.
“A simple process,” he replied. “To me, Rod, a computer is simply an extension of myself: the keyboard is simply another hand to which life (or should I more aptly refer to that which supersedes me, ‘God’) has given me to deal the full force of the law.”
The young student had been following the slender, petite brunette woman for quite some time now. His expression appeared very obviously tense and nervous, and when the young woman slowed down her pace, he almost tripped over himself, descending into an ugly stumble and nearly falling off the curb and onto the road. He said, after catching his breath, and reorientating himself to his surroundings, wherein the tall metropolitan office buildings loomed like giant chromium bricks, “Jam, I want to know about your own love life. Would you care to share your successes there? All you lot seem to do is make fun of me for truly and sincerely loving a woman. What is wrong with loving a woman dearly? What is wrong with the world today that a man cannot love a woman beyond all doubt, beyond all circumstance, beyond even his own life? Oh, what is wrong with the world today that I am unfairly criticised for loving a woman so much that I would slice off my own hand, slice off my own leg, for just a whisper, for just an utterance, for just the slightest of attentions from my beloved? What is wrong with the world today that it is frowned upon so much? Oh, tell me this; tell me, you law-abiding citizen, you persecutor, you shape-shifter, tell me why! Tell me why a man cannot devote himself utterly to the whimsical fancy of a beautiful woman? Why, oh why? Now, you may say that it is utterly superficial for one to be so in pursuit of a woman for her outward appearance, but I say onto you, my good fellows, my perfect citizens, my British subjects, my good for nothing brethren: can you say with utter sincerity, can you promise upon the lives of your own mothers, upon your future children, upon your very lives that one is not influenced by the appearance of a thing, by the illusion upon that great cave wall --”
Whitehood smirked and looked intensely at the camera, his eyes glistening as though they were merely rippling puddles reflecting the white light of the full moon. “The acquisition of material goods is the greatest deceit of the modern world; it looks like someone is caught up in false idols.”
“Oh, you are the greatest hypocrite to ever have lived,” exclaimed Rod passionately, “because, for as long as I have known you, I have observed you doing many an illegal thing, and now you sit there on your high horse, your golden throne, to tell me how I ought to think? Oh, you make me laugh! You tell me not to pursue the material and yet you wear the material on your chest, your wrist, around your neck and upon your ear. You are merciless, you are a viper, you are a bitter man.”
“Your attacks upon my character are fruitless,” replied the policeman, “for you are rotten to the core. We are not the same.”
“You have been effortlessly destroyed by the man himself,” chuckled Aleku unnecessarily. “I must say, however, that wearing clothing is very restrictive; I do recommend the removal of it.”
“Still having trouble with your webcam, Aleku?” asked Jam.
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“Why yes, I indeed am.”
“Here, let me sort that out for you,” said Jam, and his fingers darted across the keyboard like a figure skater.
At once another face appeared on the screen; however, this one, in contrast to the policeman’s, was brutish and roman-esq in appearance; it was square and thick like a Pitbull. He, in essence, looked like a schoolyard bully in comparison to the majesty of the computer hacker.
“The ultimate proof of Christianity's failure at supplying people with genuine spiritual growth is the fact that you used to be an adherent of it,” continued Jam, his olive skin sheening with moisturiser. “Meanwhile the dharmic religions work off the assumption that tis adherents are player characters who have their own journey to go on instead of simply offering enslavement to guilt-ridden suckers. I am sorry for the dose of brutality, but I had to get it out.”
“By the way,” interrupted Aleku, his face an expression of confusion and repulsion, “who is this, ‘Paolo Nutini’ fellow? It is mentioned in the biography description of your profile.”
“He is exceptional,” remarked Jam.
“What?”
“He is a musician who my colleagues are very fond of, and whose popularity I can personally attest to as being of well deserved. His music is very inspirational and exists commercially because of his exceptional and innate talent.”
“You are so very brutal to me,” said Rod, walking frantically after the young brunette.
“I do not know what I should tell you, Rod. You repeat the same day over and over again, blaming everyone except yourself, and it is just a fucking vampiric mode of existence, and I realise now with this that people like you literally need to have a stake driven into them and just fucking die honestly, or else you and people like you will drag me down into the depths to abide in your darkness. Pity is your weapon; pity is your blood.”
“I must agree,” said Aleku, “but I must offer you the antidote that I use, which is to shut off your brain. I gradually became to hate people after I first moved to the big city. I spent the first almost quarter of my life cooped up on the family farm, and I expected so much from people when I moved out.”
Rod bit his lip. “We are much alike after all,” said he. “We think a lot alike,” he added.
Aleku took out another cigar from a tin case and bit into it. He caught Jam’s raised eyebrow, and said, the cigar half-hung from his bottom lip, “Cuban. Thick and brown and made in the USA. Don’t make ‘em like they used to.”
Jam pulled out his very own tin case, and a cigar just like it. He plopped it into his mouth, and said, “I agree; two minds think alike.”
“What you say, boy,” asked Aleku, “care to join us for a virtual smoke.”
“Smoking is bad for you,” said he in reply, “it causes cancer.”
“Ah, my boy, you only live once. That’s what I say; you only live once.”
“I very much disagree with what you guys are doing with your bodies,” remarked Rod.
Aleku paused, apparently thinking for a moment, before sucking all the smoke out of the cigar. “My boy, you are too scared of life and its extremes. Keep within that little box you call your studio, where you pay an inflated price, and live out in your little childish delusion of security. Life is raw and is meant to be lived raw. That is what I say,” he said, casually blowing large beautiful grey rings of smoke.
“A long time ago I could not have dreamed of being friends with cigarette users,” Rod said, bowing his head, “but I guess what I have learned is that one can do a very bad thing but for a very good reason.”
Aleku raised his eyebrow, “How so? Do explain,” he said, taking the cigar out of his mouth and twirling it between his fingers. “Also, turn on your camera so that I may see your face. I want to see out of you two who is the prettiest, for one of my daughters is too ugly to be married off to an equal.”
“You speak so meanly,” said Rod suddenly. Then he thought to himself, “Marriage into an Eastern European family...that would mean I would get to both live in Poland and be permanently attached to one of my closest friends. Maybe I can even be heir to one of his companies.” He gasped when it hit him, “think about the inheritance!” He fumbled with his phone and turned on his camera.
“Here I am,” he said with glee.
Both of the men looked with curiosity at the new face on the screen, which sat in the middle of them.
“Rod,” cried Aleku, “if I had the body that you had but the mind of what you have now, I would surely be miserable.”
“What a pity,” tutted Jam, his smirk ever present on his face.