As he climbed down the steps, his thoughts continued to spiral out of control. On the one hand, he knew, or at least heavily suspected, that they were just thoughts, and the validity of them as being true were questionable; however, he could not help but wonder why then he was having these thoughts, and continually so, if they did not in some way correspond to reality. But then, he was forced to come to terms with the possibility that perhaps they were in fact true in some way or another, whilst at the same time not being absolutely true in the sense that other people would hold what is true; in other words, he might have been living, he reasoned, in a world of his own with its own truths and laws and things of that nature, and other people’s theirs. But that came then to another conundrum: was it so black and white? Maybe, he intuitively gathered, for he could not reconcile the implication of his emerging proposition that he was living in a world that was within another world since it was obvious to his senses that there existed a world outside of his own world that his thoughts conjured. To make this plainer to the dimwitted reader, he saw that the golden arches above his head, which were nestled with dark brown, almost black religious iconography, were an item in the world that was observable to him and to another person; and though he could not be sure that they were seeing exactly the same thing, it was practically agreed upon that there was something there with agreed upon attributes to which there was no sense in disputing the actuality of the things described. His forehead pulsed, and he shook his head, and darted his eyes to the far right. “That can’t be right...” he pondered to himself, “I can’t be explaining it right. If another person were to describe to me something out in the external world, and that description was exactly how I would describe it too...how can I be sure that it would be the ‘exact’ way that I would describe it? I would first hear the other person describe in their own words what their interpretation of what their sense impressions gathered from the external world, and then perhaps that would interfere with my own interpretation of that same place in the external world...” “Oh, damn what am I thinking?” his head fell into his hands and he cried out in frustration.
“I want a girlfriend!” he thought suddenly, and then almost immediately after, as though realising the shamefulness of such a thought and utter hypocrisy of it, for he often spurned the idea of cooperating with another person out of sheer stubbornness and refusal to give up a part of himself – in other words, control – and then thought, as if these two conflicting and contradictory thoughts happened both simultaneously and concurrently, “I do not want a girlfriend! I just-”
The double doors were as before, shut tight, and unlike before, but like always, he was utterly alone on the ground floor after he had climbed down the staircase. His mind was in another place, and as a result he did not notice the quick movement behind him, the quick – shuffle – behind him on the red carpet, as he was staring at the door. Then Rod almost lost himself completely in his head and nearly gave in to his burning temptation – the temptation to think that he was right. “Those girls...they tricked me, huh?”
Fearing that the young teenage girls had and were planning on plotting against him, and not taking any chances that his mere disappearance and compliance with their requests would prevent them from enacting harm on his reputation by spreading malicious falsities, he thought of snatching that desert eagle from Aleku and...he shook his head, “What a stupid thought,” he muttered.
He sighed, let drop his shoulders and neck, and dragged his feet to the front doors. He pulled on the door handle, but it was locked. “What a bother...” he said pitifully. Then, he had the thought to twist the handle, which popped the door open to his surprise. “Damn, I am so tired...” he groaned.
The door was now cracked open slightly, and as the cold blue of early morning dawn met his eyes, and the crisp wintery air met his skin, a pair of sharp, beady eyes stared at him from the darkness. Then Rod exploded in his chest and nearly collapsed out of sheer panic.
Fearing that one of the girls would think that he had not listened to them, and had not upheld his end of the deal, he swung open the door and stepped out swinging his arms by his hips. Seeing this, the little girl did not advance any closer, as she was sure to have done had he retreated instead of advancing so confidently, and stayed where she was stood, staring at him with wide-eyed curiosity. Seeing that it was little Cee, and that she was not scowling at him or posturing like she was before, but instead smiling, he stepped closer to her and gave her a funny look. She tilted her tiny chin upwards, so that she kept on looking directly into his eyes, looking as though she wanted to say something, to ask something, but waiting, considering whether to say anything at all. It was always a great and existentially exhausting endeavor to fathom the thoughts of another person; however, he always had an easier time in doing so with children and other discriminated people. He did not know what sort of tone he should use, whether to take on the one of a responsible adult, or that of his true, inward, chaotically disturbed self; the self which was not in itself disturbed, but only so far as other people granted access to his unregulated thoughts would label him. The children, in fact, found him rather exciting and ‘cool’ - that is what he thought, anyway.
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“Good evening, Celina,” he began, trying to speak as confidently as possible, but his voice had that highness of tone which betrays one's anxieties, where it shook and bent in odd ways uncharacteristic of an ordered fellow whose business was in order. “I am... leaving as you have requested of me; although... I do not know whether I should in fact leave.” And he looked back at the entrance of the palace, which took up his entire view at the close distance he was standing at. It was a pastel yellow, although darkened by the absence of natural light, he could just make out that it was supposed to be a pale lemon.
The small child, with her sparkling blue eyes, glanced at the man’s empty, light brown hands, and then back at once into the eyes of the stranger. She looked darkly, mysteriously, quietly and mistrustfully at the young man. A minute passed, two minutes, three minutes; he wondered why he was still standing there and had not moved in the slightest towards his destination, towards his retreat. If it happened to be a woman of his age, or even a young woman of about fifteen onwards, he would have felt an utter panic and would have sought every chance to escape the judgements of such a cultural being, but because Celina was just a child, untainted by the cruel judgements of the world, he felt somewhat in control, as though this little human being could enter into his world and he would not be so alone for a little while. It was exhausting being around a human being, but with a child, he supposed, he could be himself more easily. He felt wrong and dirty for having these thoughts since he knew that he was different and thought that he was losing his sense of connection with the outside world, that nothing outside of this moment between him and the little one was real, and he was so frightened at that moment, so utterly frightened that if he left her and turned his back on all his friends, the palace, Lena and little Cee, and also the other teenage girls that he had met at the beginning, he would drift off like a little balloon into the wakening sky.
And yet, the young man started to leave her, walking toward the big grassy, shrubbery island roundabout, with its park benches and tulip bulb bushes dotted about neatly like the wild head of a man just out of bed after a rough night sleep, and passed the limited-edition Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse ‘Ettore Bugatti’, which was modelled after the iconic 1927-1933 Bugatti Type 41 Royale. It was hard to identify in the breaking morning light dark cobalt of its rear, which hugged completely the roof and the bottom rim like it had been dunked in the stuff, and the chrome of its front seats and the engine.
“Goodness, Rod, what you honestly doing? What do you think that you’ll accomplish leaving now. Are you so wrapped up in that sick, twisted mind of yours that you’re just going to leave?”
The young man glanced for a moment at the little girl, but at once darted his eyes away nervously. He looked at the giant swaying oak trees in the foreground, stretched in a line upon a strip of neatly trimmed grass which extended out as far as the eye could see, for Aleku’s premises was almost as large as the city of Manchester itself (it was only no larger because the local council threatened to build homes on it if it encroached any further into the city limits) and therefore was quite the eyesore to the neighbours; so much so that their chief complaint, next to the noise and air pollution caused by his personal fleet of aircraft, was that of the amount of territory he seemed to have, whilst the homeless population was increasing year upon year.
“Why do you not look at me?” she asked.
“I am trying to suppress my inclinations to be myself,” he said suddenly, not thinking through his answer, but instead saying the first thing that came to his mind, which happened to be the truth. He had not even though of lying to her because he had no reason to lie to her: he would never see her again, and therefore an interpersonal relationship with her was not possible. But would it have been possible anyway knowing himself? He liked reading, learning, contemplating, problem solving...he did not like having to put up with the opinions of others, especially if they did not want to actually analyse their own beliefs to seek the truth of the matter. Though, did not he have his own beliefs which required scrutiny? What about this belief that he must have a mate. He still felt bitter about the NHS psychologist seriously asking him why he wanted to have children, questioning the necessity of such an act: he interpreted it later on as an ideological attack. That woman was trying to practice eugenics on him. He laughed a little, prompting a concerned look from the little girl, but to him he knew the inside joke: the attempt by the state to neutralise his bloodline only strengthened his will to procreate. In truth, he had been duped by the professional to question whether he even wanted to have children, whether it was right that he should, given his defectiveness and abnormalities...No, he won’t let them win. He won’t let the government win. He won’t give in. No, no, no!
“So,” Cee said, yawning and covering her mouth with her little white hand, “what are you going to spend the money on?”
“Huh?”
“Buy a nice car, go on vacations, wear nice clothes...Yes, you definitely need a tailor,” Cee said in her drawling accent, “...And a haircut!” she added with a huge laugh.
Rod fidgeted with the loose thread of his jogger pants, and turned to the side, looking sheepishly at the double doors he had stepped out of so confidently a moment ago.