In this way he continued only a short step or two before seeing a short man stumble out of the door, his ink black linen-wrapped limbs seemingly more in control of him than his reason, and head towards the other end of the corridor where the landing was, where Rod was heading, and where he had met the four girls initially. The sight of the other man, so dapper was he, was at first a great and surprising reprieve for his tired, weary and bloodshot eyes after the night he had, this is in direct contradiction to his usual temperament, for he was always usually jealous and envious of his peers for their material successes and wanted the last to do with them. Here, however, was a man like himself, who knew the difficulties that young man faces in this society; perhaps this man would not know exactly the difficulties he had and was facing, but for a large portion of his sufferings this man would surely be able to empathise and provide counsel. Here was a man, whose back the young student was only aware of, who was broad in shoulder, and wide in hips, whose blazer flared below his waist like the lively petals of Canterbury Bells; these flowers having originated from Southern Europe, gave the young medical student the gut feeling that the man himself was also originally from there too. Overall, as the young man carefully studied the tuxedo-wearing man in front of him, watching how the man slid across the marble floor repeatedly and accidentally, he was torn between feelings of disgust and curiosity; for this man sparked in him a memory, a recollection, but to which felt to him like an autumn leaf floating teasingly away from his reaching, grasping hand. And soon, these nostalgic feelings turned into a depressing irritability. Sometimes he snarled at the man’s back, put up his nose and grimaced, his heart beating rapidly in his chest out of fear the man should turn around and catch him in the act. As he passed the door the man had stumbled out of like a drunkard, he sharply twisted his neck to catch a glimpse of the insides of the room, he gazed into it like a child sneakily staying up and peeking through the guardrail at what the grownups get to do, he saw a large rectangular table with several big black microphones laid on top of it in a row, and men sat behind them talking and laughing with each other. The men certainly caught his attention, for they were especially dazzling; he stared at them curiously, perhaps longer than he would have liked. He was met too by the sight of beautiful women, dressed as smart as anything, in shimmering, expensive attire that he himself had only ever seen in the movies, sat in between each man. There must have been, from what he could tell, almost as many women as they were men on that table. Next to the microphones there were plates of colourful snacks, to which his eyes were mostly drawn to next. It was a room lavishly and ostensibly draped, like that table, in excessive opulence. He watched them for a little while, studying them, wondering to himself what they were doing here and what they were talking about, and how happy they looked to be there, before he became suddenly self-aware again, self-conscious at his own position relative to the accomplished men in that room. He looked at his smart watch, which alerted him to the late time of four o’clock in the morning. He recalled that this might very well be the last time he could get to be in the company of such suave and accomplished men, for he had to admit to himself that with his social skills no money could afford to rectify that which could not be changed without the intervention of the past. He had made up his mind on that matter, for he had experienced the joys of having much more money relative to the average person in his vicinity in the past, and found that although it was the happiest time in his life, bar early childhood and the blisses of ignorance which accompanied it, he was as fundamentally different to the average person psychologically and intellectually that no amount of money could close that gap. He recalled this as he watched one of the women, a label to which his mind was apt to ascribe the specific person his eyes had gathered in that moment, and to which he suddenly felt ashamed of succumbing to, for he was certainly afraid of descending into patriarchal bias again, feed the bearded, square-block headed white man next to her. Once he recognised his own feeling, that of anger and jealousy, and to which he chastised himself for even feeling such feelings at such a sight as that of a woman feeding a man what looked like caviar, he found that the most sensible, appropriate thing to do was follow the little girls’ instructions and to leave the premises as quickly and as discreetly as possible.
“A million for the only friendship I have left...A million for the past and all the potential I could have had if only things could have been different; I must be an idiot to turn down this deal. This is generational wealth we’re talking about,” he thought, trying to convince himself that an immediate decision must be made, and that dallying about would only make him worse in the long run, but he soon forgot why he had accepted the offer in the first place, and doubted as to whether he had actually consented to such an agreement, or considered the facts entirely and with sufficient reason. He recalled this as he, leaning slightly to the left so as to get a wider view of the entire room, saw the bulbously large man with black opaque aviator glasses in the centre, noticeably different than the rest for he was the only one shirtless. A thick, brown cigar hung from his fat pink lips, balancing delicately between his massive, splintery teeth as he grinned like a cheshire cat. In his right hand, but from Rod’s point of view it looked like his left, he held a desert eagle pistol...Rod’s heart rate instantly rose as soon as his eyes had clocked it, for in this country it was odd to see a firearm in person, them being illegal and all... But Rod calmed himself down using his extensive array of breathing techniques he had learned over the years for his anxiety; although a better explanation for what Rod was feeling at that moment was petrification, and that whatever calming techniques he thought that he was deploying had little to no actual effect on his stillness and lack of apparent reaction to seeing the pistol. He swallowed himself totally at the sight of that weapon...His knees started to buckle again, the nervous tremor he could not control. Eventually, he mustered back enough control to inch slowly backwards, his heart whaling in his chest; he felt his insides awash, overrun with water, spilling over the sides like a topsy-turvy boat.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
“I hate the rules because I don’t understand them,” he muttered hatefully to himself, his eyes narrowed and drowned in red. As soon as he saw that one of the women was brunette, he instantly became even more sorrowful as his mind took flight with the hope that she was among them, that she was near. “You shouldn’t fucking judge me,” he said breathlessly, “You don’t fucking understand me. You wouldn’t follow the rules...what were the rules? No one can explain them because they’re fucking random and arbitary and just fucking made up. It’s all made up. It’s all madness.” Then his eyes shifted to the cream wallpaper behind the row of yuppies, and said, “Why do we even have this wallpaper...humans are a parasite.” He was thinking of all the times that he had been rejected by women. “Of course,” he thought, suddenly chuckling to himself, “of course it’s all my fault. I should learn how to talk to women; I should respect them...I should be a good little boy and learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘that’s alright!’...this country is going in the gutter.” An image of himself being interviewed by the BBC projected into his mind – a flattering future he had always liked to always escape into ever since he was twelve, or eleven...further than that: since he was very young, he had dreams of stardom. He had dreams of going on stage and singing and dancing like Michael Jackson, and suddenly going from the bottom-barrel loser to the ultra-popular boy, with all the cute girls expressing their desire for him. In this fantasy he could say whatever he wanted, he could be whatever he wanted, and no more did he have to pretend, to suppress, to restrain himself. He has said to women in the past that he has to restrain himself, to repress his thoughts, his words, his actions, and they did not express pity at that at all, to which he found a shame.
“You see, Aleku,” said a young, olive-skinned man suddenly, similarly wielding a thick Cuban cigar between his delicately penciled lips, and draping his long, slender arm across the ringleader’s broad muscly shoulders, “I’ll get smoother; I'll get slicker. But yeah, I don’t need nobody. I thought for such a long time that I needed somebody – a lot of us young men grew up thinking like that – but this is it. It’s just so ugly and cold to go on podcasts like and just sit there and answer the same old boring ass questions that been asked a ton before. I an’t got time for that shit, you feel me? So, Aleku, how did you get all these girls? That’s what I’m gonna ask on this podcast you got us doing. I’m going to ask you the real shit, you feel me? Shit is about to get fucking real for you, for us, for the community that you’re building. Cause I’m an AC you feel me, whereas you’re the motherfucking boiler in this old ass terraced house, bro. Why, why am I asking you? Why the hell am I not, my brother? I just wake up and I try and try to get ahead in life, try to live up to this ideal placed on my by the other men out there, and I just fucking fall flat on my fucking face.” Then the young man’s face turned into a grimace, starkly contrasting itself with the pleasant and smooth faces of the other guests. “Oh shit,” he continued, slurring his words, “Ah, fuck. Fucking hell. I’m...I’m a bad boy...”
“Same old questions you’ve been asking back on the private jet, blah blah, Bowlby, and honestly you’re starting to really piss me off.”
“Well, tell it, - tell me again, I beg you, master-”
“Knock it the fuck off with that shit, Bowlby,” replied Aleku, chomping down on his cigar. “You almost sound like...someone I know,” he said, taking out the Cuban and blowing thick rings of smoke. “At least you’ve actually got something to show for yourself...though I wouldn’t say being popular on Twitch counts as ‘good’.”
“What is ‘good’?” said the blonde woman sat next to him, her voice dripping with allure like melted candle wax.
Aleku ignored her; he looked straight ahead, his face as still as a stone.
“You’re so cool,” said Bowlby. “Tell me how you got like this,” he asked, resting his elbow on the table and his head on the palm of his hand.
“Like what?”
“Come on, bro,” replied the younger man excitedly. “You got the women, you got the cars, you got the motherfucking dream, bro. How you do it?”
Aleku remained stoic, his face as flat and as neutral as it had been from the start of the conversation, as he thought about the question. “I don’t think you even know what you’re asking, bud. Better yet, I don’t think you even want to know the answer.”
“You’re so freaking smart; like, how do you even talk, man?” replied Bowlby.
“At least we have a script,” Aleku said, sighing and jabbing the document that was laid in from the young man. “You best stick to it,” he said.
“Ah, shit man, I don’t read you feel me? Nah, fam, who reads?”
“Hey,” the woman next to him said, batting her eyelashes at him, “what is ‘good’?”