“See Alexander, he’s still asleep and it’s almost noon. You need to talk to your son because I’m tired of being the bad guy here. He’s twenty-three years old for God’s sake.”

“What do you expect me to say that we haven’t already Penelope?” Her husband answered. His fist rubbed against his right eye as he felt a headache coming.

“Get him to take his life seriously! He can’t live in our basement polishing these gosh darn sculptures the rest of his life,” the woman grabbed one of the smaller statues and started to wave it around. “Look at this thing, I swear I see a different one every time I come down here. Where is he getting the money to keep making them?”

A young man, Arie Ganas, jumped out of his mattress as he heard her fumble around with the statue.

“Careful with that,” Arie said, and grabbed the statue of Dionysus out of his mother’s hand, “you keep giving me shit, but one day these statues are going to make us all rich.”

“Language, Arie!” his mother exclaimed.

Alexander put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and slowly stepped in front of her, “Arie, your goals are lofty, and we know you’ve always been ambitious, but what harm is there in getting a job?”

“I have a job,” Arie said, grabbing a pair of pants to put on.

“Yes, but working in a paint shop isn’t going to help pay off your debts. We see the letters; we hear the phone calls. We won’t be around forever, and we want to see you set yourself up for success,” Alexander continued.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I just don’t buy into all this corporate bs. Sitting behind a computer all day. Performance reviews. Office Politics. Celebrating the two weeks of vacation and hoarding them like they’re gold. That’s you guys, not me.”

“That corporate b.s. is what paid for art school,” Penelope stated, “It’s what let us go home to visit Greece whenever we wanted. That corporate b.s. adds stability to your life so you can do the things you want to do, like sculpt and do art.

“I swear it’s those kids from the art school that got this crud into your head. Those rich kids have never had to work a day in their lives, and now you think that’s a reasonable way to live,” she finished.

“Okay, I hear you both, I’m going to go now.”

“Arie, we’re trying to talk to you,” his dad said.

“And we talked,” Arie answered, “But I’ve gotta get to that job. You know, the useless one that’s just there to supplement my unimportant goals.”

“I never said that.”

Arie ducked past his dad and reached his mom on the stairs.

“We just hate seeing your life fall apart like this, Arie,” his mom said as she teared up, “I can’t keep watching you throw away your life. No one should need to declare bankruptcy in their early twenties. Where did I go wrong? What can I do to help you? I just want you to be happy…”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I know, mom, but happiness is different for everybody,” Arie sighed and grabbed his mom’s shoulders, “You want me to be happy by buying into ideas that don’t match my own, but wearing a noose around my neck and sitting down for half the day sounds like a death sentence.”

“But you can’t keep living like this.”

“And I won’t. But I refuse to not have fun in this life. I refuse to let my freedom slip away because I’m worried about things like my future. So the way I see it, we have two options. One, you let me figure it out and deal with the consequences as they come. Or two, you force your own ideals on me. With one, I’m free to make it work or fail, but either way I did it on my own terms, and with the other I’m miserable.”

“No one wants you to be miserable, Arie,” his dad jumped in.

“Then freedom it is,” he gave a thumbs up to his dad, “Which is always my favourite option.

“Bye mom and dad.”

*****

Arie didn’t have a job at a paint store. Not anymore, anyways.

That’d fallen through a couple weeks ago when he came to another shift hung over. As it turned out, artistic shills were just as bad as corporate ones, and ‘a workplace is not your personal hang out spot’.

“Holy shit, that is beautiful, Arie,” the young woman complimented, pointing at Arie’s latest art piece. His largest piece of art to date, he’d finished the bust last week and was now working on her head. “Is it someone I’d know?”

“Thanks, it’s the Goddess Athena,” Arie said. The cast had come out clean, but her braided hair had a bunch of small details that needed to be worked out. And if he was being honest, the real-life human was making it a bit hard to concentrate on his work.

“Another one, eh. You really love those Greek Gods and Goddesses,” she laughed, “How long does this one take to do? I was planning to go get an early lunch and though you might want to join.”

“The wax mold takes the longest, but I’ve actually still got a lot left to polish. It could take the whole day and then I still have a lot more to do after that. Not today.”

“Your loss…” she winked and left the studio.

While hard to resist, Arie really wanted to get back to fixing his cast after dealing with his parents that morning. The woman, Sharon, was the owner of his shared workspace. An artist herself, they’d met at the paint store and hit it off.

A free space to keep working was worth a couple interruptions a day.

The next couple of hours passed as Arie set to working on his latest bronze statue. Another ohmage to Greek figures, this statue was of Athena. The personification of righteousness, Athena was beautiful, and Arie knew he needed to make everything about her look perfect.

In fact, all of Arie’s sculptures were of Greek Gods and Goddesses. A series of groups given the autonomy to rule over their domains and with the freedom to act as they chose, Arie saw nothing more perfect than their existence.

And with each statue, Arie hoped to commemorate a small part of what made them perfect.

It didn’t pay anything, yet, but that was because people lacked vision. These statues had been made for a thousand years, and the most valuable would be preserved for another thousand years to come. And he was going to be one of the people whose name stood alongside them in museums.

Soon.

Arie was going to go down in history for his bronze statues. He’d pay off his debts. He’d move out of his parents house. He’d buy a studio of his own.

He’d be free.

Arie continued grinding and sanding away at the head of Athena when a message appeared in front of his eyes. A voice started to speak in his ears and for the next few minutes Arie’s life changed.

Not for the worse, however, like so many. To Arie he saw a path to the freedom he’d always longed for. A path where people got to live how they chose.

A path of freedom.

*****

Humans. We have been watching you for a long time. The System has realized that your integration cannot wait any longer.

Please know that this is not an invasion. The voice you are hearing is that of a herald, disclosing the System’s purpose so you are better prepared for what is to come. All humans over the age of twelve are seeing and hearing this message, so that no one is left unaware.

With the pleasantries aside, let us begin.