Post by Benjamin Atreyu on Mar 3, 2013 17:55:22 GMT -5
Life was an ever changing stream of perspective where the only constant was that consciousness was always reforming itself to the influx of information flooding in from every direction. Today, Benjamin wasn’t strolling along on a sidewalk made by the hands of overworked construction men; he was walking on the bodies of deceased gods. The wind howled, echoing the sentiments of their dying words as they had cried out in fear of their inevitable demises. It’s a pathetic thing a god can be; creating life for vanity, destroying it for revenge, and eventually warring with anything that challenged its ominous nature until it either fell in battle or destroyed everything around it.
His mind drifted off into the distance and the idea of a God War started to take place in the safety of his thoughts where beings, of a galactic scale, ruled over an infinite universe upon their respective thrones. Power so unimaginable that they could shape reality to their whims and bend space and time to their choosing, but as life has often shown us, where multiple sources of great power exist, collision is inevitable. Maybe one stepped on another’s toes, maybe a snide comment was overheard in passing, or maybe one just got sick of looking at another’s face, but however it started, war quickly broke out like a wild fire over a dead forest.
Blades piercing through deity’s hearts, omnipotent creatures bleeding on a war torn battlefield as steel continued to clash with steel, it was almost poetic. The most creative of writers and the most articulate of speakers wouldn’t be able to give justice to the gravity of such a cataclysmic event as God tore apart God savagely. Truly, the most bright and open of minds would be left speechless as moments, that could only be labeled indescribable, took place before their very eyes. How does one defeat an all-knowing heavenly body? All strategy would be countered, all tricks would be seen through, and all acts of strength would be equaled. If there was to ever be a truly never-ending war, this would have been it, but even Gods will grow tired after centuries upon centuries of battle.
Eventually, the fighting would come to an end as one sword would raise high, gleaming in the oppressive sun, and come down upon the exhausted body of the loser, striking him to the ground in the most violent of nature. As the last challenger bled out over his death bed of dirt and anger, he would have the glory of using those last minutes to gaze upon the winner as they ascended up to the throne to be crowned the king of all the dead gods. Benjamin, picturing every blow and every drop of blood, breathed in the aftermath and blew out smoke.
Of course, such gods have never existed and thus no such war had ever taken place, but sometimes life gave off such a sense of fragility that one could almost suspect to turn a corner and see a tear between the known universe and the fantasy of human imagination. Benjamin often appreciated such moments, taking the time to let his mind wander into the territory of “what if…”. Such as looking at a cat and wondering how he would see them if they were just written about in stories instead of walking around in real life. Would he see them the same as he would see a troll or maybe a fairy? It could seem possible that, when taken out of context of natural existence, the only difference between animals and mystical creatures seemed to be familiarity. How many animals, in that fantastic world of thought, roamed freely without ever having been written about or painted for a canvas?
What was the point of all this, to play on concepts and ideas of impossibility as if only a few steps from being reality? Because it took more than just memorizing and using facts to keep a healthy mind, it also took the exercising of fantastic ideas to keep the wit quick and stimulated. No one seemed to practice “imagining” anymore, very few thought of it as a muscle that needed to be flexed and worked on to develop and thus most of the time it was taken for granted by the simple minded who would leave it to whither until they were forced to bury it in the back yard like a common house pet. Banality had turned into a disease that infected people by the thousands with a ferocious veracity.
No more were cloud portraits imitating life as they sailed along the ocean-blue skies; now clouds were just clouds. Kids that showed signs of creativity by openly expressing interest in what made the world turn or seeing vague images in mountain sides were smothered with medication and drowned out by being shoved to the back of the class room so they could watch others and learn how to be “normal”. Parents would stop just short of a lobotomy to make sure their child slowly faded into silence and effectively crushed their enthusiasm. Children who showed unabashed excitement fir new things or struggled to share complicated ideas were mocked and bullied for their strange behavior, assuring a long life of anxiety and insecurity. Even Benjamin, who would furiously at making sure his mind remained unrestrained, found it difficult, after years of being “well rounded” by the education system, to summon the kind of thoughts he had had a small child. Imagination was a dirty four letter word.
When life had embraced its age of enlightenment, the world had found it’s greatest of musicians, it’s more breath taking of paintings, and it’s most spellbinding of books as creativity seemed to flow with such an unadulterated sense of freedom, but now it had all gone to the dogs. A market for predictability rose up where one for creativity had once stood, the same three simple chords and an agonizingly cliché hook got the kind of attention that free-form jazz solos and mountainous epics had once received. They picked John Meyer over Thelonious Monk, they picked Kami Grcia over H.P. Lovecraft, and they would pick Sarah Twilight over “God Given Greatness” Benjamin Atreyu. There were times where he wanted to reach into the heart of the world and just rip out the problem so he could…
?:…fix this country?
The voice nearly passed Benjamin by as he was walking down the sidewalk. He stopped in mid-step and looked over at the man who caught his attention. A sort of lanky individual who hunched over as if fate had made him a tad too tall for this world, he held out a stack of papers crudely stapled together, his arms stuck out as if they were too long for his body, something that seemed accentuated by his black short sleeve shirt. Benjamin just took a moment to stare, unsure what was exactly going on, his mind quickly scrambling for a proper response to what he thought he had heard, but he could only seem to drum up a confused complexion upon his face.
?: Would you like to fix this country?
Benjamin Atreyu: More than you could ever know, kid.
The man held out the bunch of papers again and this time Benjamin grabbed it from him, taking a quick moment to look it over. The title page simply read “Among My Shadows”, he looked up back at the man who had handed it to him as saw a smile upon the man’s face, one that spoke to Benjamin with a sense of kindness and sincerity, a lack of pretention to muddy up the features, it made Benjamin felt at ease as it seemed that the man only had honest intentions instead of just trying to peddle the latest conspiracy theories. Benjamin, after a moment of hesitation, folded up the paper that was given to him and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, thanking the man for it.
?: If you like it, feel free to print as many copies as you like and give it to people who you think might be interested in reading it.
Benjamin Atreyu: I’ll be sure to do that…
Benjamin spoke the words in the same way that so many people before him had, without a single intention of actually doing what they had promised, but instead they just wanted to be nice and continue their day without an added sense of duty. Benjamin nodded awkwardly and moved on. He really didn’t give the paper a second thought, but his mind remained with the man even after he was long out of sight. It might seem strange to some people to just stand around on a street corner all day handing things out while telling people your intention was to fix the country, but it was obvious that that young gentlemen had found nothing wrong with it and even if he was aware of the estranged feeling people had about him when passing by, he seemed unbothered by it. Benjamin had to admire that, people rarely took chances or stepped outside the comfort zone of their particular social circle in fear of looking silly. It was something he wished he saw more of.
Days passed on and eventually Benjamin forgot about the incident as a whole. He went on about his life as usual, preparing for his coming match, something he was secretly dreading on the inside. When anyone asked, he was more than ready to walk into that arena on Sunday and walk out with another tally in the victory column, but the truth was that he was racking his head over what he was going to do. Night and day stress riddled his thoughts with holes and his dreams were, at best, feverish and incoherent leaving him rattled when he woke rarely leaving him with the urge to fall back asleep. There were a string of a few days where he had given up shaving because his mind would begin to wonder off to his upcoming match and he would either miss whole patches or end up cutting himself.
A lesser man would mistake it for fear, but for Benjamin, it was something worse, it was a sense of unsurity that had him around the throat. Sarah was one of the few competitors in the company that Benjamin would admit was on his level and anytime they found themselves paired off against each other, it had not ended well for Benjamin. He couldn’t understand the appeal so many people had for her, he found her dry and heavy handed, riddled with clichés, and lacking any sense of elegance. It seemed her life was straight out of a made-for-TV inspiration sports movie and her jokes were dry enough to have their own British sitcom and any time she opened up her mouth to talk shit, Benjamin’s ears turned off as he felt he could already predict what was probably come out. He remember for a period of time when he go to phrase n any twitter war was ”you don’t matter” and it got to a point where Benjamin would feel physically sick when he saw her even start up on a comeback. She offered nothing new to the table, but for some reason, in the ring she could match him blow for blow. It was always something that left a bad taste in his mouth and it felt as if it was worse than ever. It was affecting Benjamin to such a noticeable extent that even Derek Stone, who didn’t take note of much, had decided to say something.
Derek Stone: So…
Benjamin Atreyu: Don’t.
Derek Stone: Don’t what?
Benjamin Atreyu: The same shit you do every week. This stupid back and forth where you ask about my match and I go on this half-cocked rant about my opponent, its no better than office gossip and right now I just want to go a single moment of my day without having to think about it.
Derek Stone: You know, they say people who repress anger die quicker.
Benjamin Atreyu: I’m not repressing anything.
Derek Stone: Her team did knock your team out of the three man tag-team tournament a while back, correct?
Benjamin Atreyu: Yeah…
Derek Stone: and she did take the Classic Tournament away from you by beating you in the finals, correct?
Benjamin Atreyu: Get to the point.
Derek Stone: Well, you are just getting your winning streak back after defeating Odin both via a Tag-Team match and a singles match, just to find yourself facing here in a triple threat match for no good reason what so ever and while I would be feeling pretty bothered by it, you are just sitting here sipping your coffee and trying to make idle chatter.
Benjamin Atreyu: It does bother me, but not because I think I’m going to lose, not because I think I’ll humiliate myself, I’ve shown time and time again that I am just as good as anyone in that fucking lockerroom.
Derek Stone: Then what’s got your panties in a bunch?
Benjamin Atreyu: What bothers me is the fact that she is nothing more than a flaming cunt with a handful of good ideas, but for some reason she gets way more chances than she ever deserved while I had to claw my way up to this point. She was getting World Championship matches while I was struggling to make a name for myself here. People got on hand and knee in front of her to make it easier for her to step up to the top of this company while I was drawing blood and knocking out opponents cold to get some sort of reputation. I was fighting new and incredible talent while she was beating has-beens, but I was the one ignored. I’m not saying she isn’t talented, but what did she do that was so special that she warranted all that attention while this company kept sticking me in cluster fuck matches?
Derek Stone: From how it looks, she’s got the better win-loss record.
Benjamin slammed his fist down on the table in frustration. Other patrons of the restaurant turned their heads wondering where the sound had come from. It was always a point Benjamin could never argue. She clearly had the better win streak, in th long run people just had to look at who had more notches under their belt to see who was the superior wrestler, but it never sat well with Benjamin. He felt like there was some sort context missing when you just looked at the numbers, but that didn’t seem to matter either, because she had a couple wins over him too and that’s what made it even harder to argue his case.
Benjamin Atreyu: Well, why focus on her? She isn’t the only person in my match this upcoming Sunday, we still got Skyler to fucking talk about. The guy is a veteran, doing this shit for fifteen plus years, but for some reason everyone wants to focus on Sarah. Some how she has become the fucking sensation across the globe even though she was fucking handed it all.
Derek Stone: Give the crowd a few recognizable faces and a bit of fancy pyro and they would probably latch onto anyone the same way, I’m sure having tits don’t hurt.
Benjamin Atreyu: You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was comments like that caused a few wrestlers to underestimate her. It only takes a little cockiness to let a whole match slip between your fingers. Somehow if I could get my mind around what the big deal behind Sarah is, maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much, but it all seems to be the right place and right time sort of things, a sort of lucky happenstance that I’ve never had the pleasure of running into.
Derek Stone: Oh look at Mister “Let’s Talk About Skyler Instead”.
Benjamin Atreyu: Look, I’m not counting him out, but I’m just worried he is going to get in the way some how and fuck it all up for me. I’ve walked into too many matches and let the win slip out of my fingers because I wasn’t quick enough to stop the three count.
Derek Stone: Riiiight, well I think I’ve had my fill, you want to pay the bill.
Benjamin Atreyu: Fine you fucking mooch.
Benjamin reached into his coat pocket and felt a bunch of folded papers. He pulled them out with a bit of confusion and then suddenly remember the incident only a few days before when he had ran into that man on the street corner.
Derek Stone: What’s that?
Benjamin Atreyu: Oh, just something some guy handed to me, claiming it would help “fix the country”.
Derek snatched it out of Benjamin’s grip and flipped through it.
Derek Stone: Looks like a bunch of jibberish, guy probably just not good enough to get his shit published so he hands it to strangers to get some attention.
Benjamin took it back and just shrugged, he paid for their lunch and Derek strolled off to go do his own thing, but Benjamin stayed at the table and read through the papers he had completely forgotten about until now. “Among My Shadows”, the title seemed to lack the heavy-handedness that he had read it with the first time around. What he found strange was that the author had not put his name anywhere, as if to leave it anonymous.
Benjamin was astounded by what he read, complicated word play that seemed to work on multiple levels with such an intricacy that Benjamin would have to read several times to find all its meanings, but even with its complicated appearance, one message was plain enough, the world put too much weight on status. The basic story was f a man who roamed through life with his eyes to the ground, scared of wandering from the path that life had set for him in fear that he might look up and find that there would be no one waling beside him. The man feared the idea of being different, heading down the path that very few people took. The man spoke only in clichés, because they were phrases he knew that was familiar with and knew others would understand him. He liked being in crowded elevators and being in packed stadiums, because he knew he didn’t stick out. However, no matter how comfortable he felt, he never enjoyed himself. He could sit quietly and not feel like he would never alienate anyone or bother anyone with what thoughts really went on inside his head, but he was never really happy. Eventually he found himself on his death bed and someone walked up and asked him if he had any last words before he passed on and the only words that came to mind were “well, this was all quite boring, wasn’t it.” And in reading that last line, Benjamin understood what the man was hoping to accomplish. However, he was disappointed in the fact that he wasn’t able to keep his promise, no longer because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know anyone interested in such a piece of writing and at the very moment, Benjamin never felt more alone in the universe.
His mind drifted off into the distance and the idea of a God War started to take place in the safety of his thoughts where beings, of a galactic scale, ruled over an infinite universe upon their respective thrones. Power so unimaginable that they could shape reality to their whims and bend space and time to their choosing, but as life has often shown us, where multiple sources of great power exist, collision is inevitable. Maybe one stepped on another’s toes, maybe a snide comment was overheard in passing, or maybe one just got sick of looking at another’s face, but however it started, war quickly broke out like a wild fire over a dead forest.
Blades piercing through deity’s hearts, omnipotent creatures bleeding on a war torn battlefield as steel continued to clash with steel, it was almost poetic. The most creative of writers and the most articulate of speakers wouldn’t be able to give justice to the gravity of such a cataclysmic event as God tore apart God savagely. Truly, the most bright and open of minds would be left speechless as moments, that could only be labeled indescribable, took place before their very eyes. How does one defeat an all-knowing heavenly body? All strategy would be countered, all tricks would be seen through, and all acts of strength would be equaled. If there was to ever be a truly never-ending war, this would have been it, but even Gods will grow tired after centuries upon centuries of battle.
Eventually, the fighting would come to an end as one sword would raise high, gleaming in the oppressive sun, and come down upon the exhausted body of the loser, striking him to the ground in the most violent of nature. As the last challenger bled out over his death bed of dirt and anger, he would have the glory of using those last minutes to gaze upon the winner as they ascended up to the throne to be crowned the king of all the dead gods. Benjamin, picturing every blow and every drop of blood, breathed in the aftermath and blew out smoke.
Of course, such gods have never existed and thus no such war had ever taken place, but sometimes life gave off such a sense of fragility that one could almost suspect to turn a corner and see a tear between the known universe and the fantasy of human imagination. Benjamin often appreciated such moments, taking the time to let his mind wander into the territory of “what if…”. Such as looking at a cat and wondering how he would see them if they were just written about in stories instead of walking around in real life. Would he see them the same as he would see a troll or maybe a fairy? It could seem possible that, when taken out of context of natural existence, the only difference between animals and mystical creatures seemed to be familiarity. How many animals, in that fantastic world of thought, roamed freely without ever having been written about or painted for a canvas?
What was the point of all this, to play on concepts and ideas of impossibility as if only a few steps from being reality? Because it took more than just memorizing and using facts to keep a healthy mind, it also took the exercising of fantastic ideas to keep the wit quick and stimulated. No one seemed to practice “imagining” anymore, very few thought of it as a muscle that needed to be flexed and worked on to develop and thus most of the time it was taken for granted by the simple minded who would leave it to whither until they were forced to bury it in the back yard like a common house pet. Banality had turned into a disease that infected people by the thousands with a ferocious veracity.
No more were cloud portraits imitating life as they sailed along the ocean-blue skies; now clouds were just clouds. Kids that showed signs of creativity by openly expressing interest in what made the world turn or seeing vague images in mountain sides were smothered with medication and drowned out by being shoved to the back of the class room so they could watch others and learn how to be “normal”. Parents would stop just short of a lobotomy to make sure their child slowly faded into silence and effectively crushed their enthusiasm. Children who showed unabashed excitement fir new things or struggled to share complicated ideas were mocked and bullied for their strange behavior, assuring a long life of anxiety and insecurity. Even Benjamin, who would furiously at making sure his mind remained unrestrained, found it difficult, after years of being “well rounded” by the education system, to summon the kind of thoughts he had had a small child. Imagination was a dirty four letter word.
When life had embraced its age of enlightenment, the world had found it’s greatest of musicians, it’s more breath taking of paintings, and it’s most spellbinding of books as creativity seemed to flow with such an unadulterated sense of freedom, but now it had all gone to the dogs. A market for predictability rose up where one for creativity had once stood, the same three simple chords and an agonizingly cliché hook got the kind of attention that free-form jazz solos and mountainous epics had once received. They picked John Meyer over Thelonious Monk, they picked Kami Grcia over H.P. Lovecraft, and they would pick Sarah Twilight over “God Given Greatness” Benjamin Atreyu. There were times where he wanted to reach into the heart of the world and just rip out the problem so he could…
?:…fix this country?
The voice nearly passed Benjamin by as he was walking down the sidewalk. He stopped in mid-step and looked over at the man who caught his attention. A sort of lanky individual who hunched over as if fate had made him a tad too tall for this world, he held out a stack of papers crudely stapled together, his arms stuck out as if they were too long for his body, something that seemed accentuated by his black short sleeve shirt. Benjamin just took a moment to stare, unsure what was exactly going on, his mind quickly scrambling for a proper response to what he thought he had heard, but he could only seem to drum up a confused complexion upon his face.
?: Would you like to fix this country?
Benjamin Atreyu: More than you could ever know, kid.
The man held out the bunch of papers again and this time Benjamin grabbed it from him, taking a quick moment to look it over. The title page simply read “Among My Shadows”, he looked up back at the man who had handed it to him as saw a smile upon the man’s face, one that spoke to Benjamin with a sense of kindness and sincerity, a lack of pretention to muddy up the features, it made Benjamin felt at ease as it seemed that the man only had honest intentions instead of just trying to peddle the latest conspiracy theories. Benjamin, after a moment of hesitation, folded up the paper that was given to him and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, thanking the man for it.
?: If you like it, feel free to print as many copies as you like and give it to people who you think might be interested in reading it.
Benjamin Atreyu: I’ll be sure to do that…
Benjamin spoke the words in the same way that so many people before him had, without a single intention of actually doing what they had promised, but instead they just wanted to be nice and continue their day without an added sense of duty. Benjamin nodded awkwardly and moved on. He really didn’t give the paper a second thought, but his mind remained with the man even after he was long out of sight. It might seem strange to some people to just stand around on a street corner all day handing things out while telling people your intention was to fix the country, but it was obvious that that young gentlemen had found nothing wrong with it and even if he was aware of the estranged feeling people had about him when passing by, he seemed unbothered by it. Benjamin had to admire that, people rarely took chances or stepped outside the comfort zone of their particular social circle in fear of looking silly. It was something he wished he saw more of.
Days passed on and eventually Benjamin forgot about the incident as a whole. He went on about his life as usual, preparing for his coming match, something he was secretly dreading on the inside. When anyone asked, he was more than ready to walk into that arena on Sunday and walk out with another tally in the victory column, but the truth was that he was racking his head over what he was going to do. Night and day stress riddled his thoughts with holes and his dreams were, at best, feverish and incoherent leaving him rattled when he woke rarely leaving him with the urge to fall back asleep. There were a string of a few days where he had given up shaving because his mind would begin to wonder off to his upcoming match and he would either miss whole patches or end up cutting himself.
A lesser man would mistake it for fear, but for Benjamin, it was something worse, it was a sense of unsurity that had him around the throat. Sarah was one of the few competitors in the company that Benjamin would admit was on his level and anytime they found themselves paired off against each other, it had not ended well for Benjamin. He couldn’t understand the appeal so many people had for her, he found her dry and heavy handed, riddled with clichés, and lacking any sense of elegance. It seemed her life was straight out of a made-for-TV inspiration sports movie and her jokes were dry enough to have their own British sitcom and any time she opened up her mouth to talk shit, Benjamin’s ears turned off as he felt he could already predict what was probably come out. He remember for a period of time when he go to phrase n any twitter war was ”you don’t matter” and it got to a point where Benjamin would feel physically sick when he saw her even start up on a comeback. She offered nothing new to the table, but for some reason, in the ring she could match him blow for blow. It was always something that left a bad taste in his mouth and it felt as if it was worse than ever. It was affecting Benjamin to such a noticeable extent that even Derek Stone, who didn’t take note of much, had decided to say something.
Derek Stone: So…
Benjamin Atreyu: Don’t.
Derek Stone: Don’t what?
Benjamin Atreyu: The same shit you do every week. This stupid back and forth where you ask about my match and I go on this half-cocked rant about my opponent, its no better than office gossip and right now I just want to go a single moment of my day without having to think about it.
Derek Stone: You know, they say people who repress anger die quicker.
Benjamin Atreyu: I’m not repressing anything.
Derek Stone: Her team did knock your team out of the three man tag-team tournament a while back, correct?
Benjamin Atreyu: Yeah…
Derek Stone: and she did take the Classic Tournament away from you by beating you in the finals, correct?
Benjamin Atreyu: Get to the point.
Derek Stone: Well, you are just getting your winning streak back after defeating Odin both via a Tag-Team match and a singles match, just to find yourself facing here in a triple threat match for no good reason what so ever and while I would be feeling pretty bothered by it, you are just sitting here sipping your coffee and trying to make idle chatter.
Benjamin Atreyu: It does bother me, but not because I think I’m going to lose, not because I think I’ll humiliate myself, I’ve shown time and time again that I am just as good as anyone in that fucking lockerroom.
Derek Stone: Then what’s got your panties in a bunch?
Benjamin Atreyu: What bothers me is the fact that she is nothing more than a flaming cunt with a handful of good ideas, but for some reason she gets way more chances than she ever deserved while I had to claw my way up to this point. She was getting World Championship matches while I was struggling to make a name for myself here. People got on hand and knee in front of her to make it easier for her to step up to the top of this company while I was drawing blood and knocking out opponents cold to get some sort of reputation. I was fighting new and incredible talent while she was beating has-beens, but I was the one ignored. I’m not saying she isn’t talented, but what did she do that was so special that she warranted all that attention while this company kept sticking me in cluster fuck matches?
Derek Stone: From how it looks, she’s got the better win-loss record.
Benjamin slammed his fist down on the table in frustration. Other patrons of the restaurant turned their heads wondering where the sound had come from. It was always a point Benjamin could never argue. She clearly had the better win streak, in th long run people just had to look at who had more notches under their belt to see who was the superior wrestler, but it never sat well with Benjamin. He felt like there was some sort context missing when you just looked at the numbers, but that didn’t seem to matter either, because she had a couple wins over him too and that’s what made it even harder to argue his case.
Benjamin Atreyu: Well, why focus on her? She isn’t the only person in my match this upcoming Sunday, we still got Skyler to fucking talk about. The guy is a veteran, doing this shit for fifteen plus years, but for some reason everyone wants to focus on Sarah. Some how she has become the fucking sensation across the globe even though she was fucking handed it all.
Derek Stone: Give the crowd a few recognizable faces and a bit of fancy pyro and they would probably latch onto anyone the same way, I’m sure having tits don’t hurt.
Benjamin Atreyu: You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was comments like that caused a few wrestlers to underestimate her. It only takes a little cockiness to let a whole match slip between your fingers. Somehow if I could get my mind around what the big deal behind Sarah is, maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much, but it all seems to be the right place and right time sort of things, a sort of lucky happenstance that I’ve never had the pleasure of running into.
Derek Stone: Oh look at Mister “Let’s Talk About Skyler Instead”.
Benjamin Atreyu: Look, I’m not counting him out, but I’m just worried he is going to get in the way some how and fuck it all up for me. I’ve walked into too many matches and let the win slip out of my fingers because I wasn’t quick enough to stop the three count.
Derek Stone: Riiiight, well I think I’ve had my fill, you want to pay the bill.
Benjamin Atreyu: Fine you fucking mooch.
Benjamin reached into his coat pocket and felt a bunch of folded papers. He pulled them out with a bit of confusion and then suddenly remember the incident only a few days before when he had ran into that man on the street corner.
Derek Stone: What’s that?
Benjamin Atreyu: Oh, just something some guy handed to me, claiming it would help “fix the country”.
Derek snatched it out of Benjamin’s grip and flipped through it.
Derek Stone: Looks like a bunch of jibberish, guy probably just not good enough to get his shit published so he hands it to strangers to get some attention.
Benjamin took it back and just shrugged, he paid for their lunch and Derek strolled off to go do his own thing, but Benjamin stayed at the table and read through the papers he had completely forgotten about until now. “Among My Shadows”, the title seemed to lack the heavy-handedness that he had read it with the first time around. What he found strange was that the author had not put his name anywhere, as if to leave it anonymous.
Benjamin was astounded by what he read, complicated word play that seemed to work on multiple levels with such an intricacy that Benjamin would have to read several times to find all its meanings, but even with its complicated appearance, one message was plain enough, the world put too much weight on status. The basic story was f a man who roamed through life with his eyes to the ground, scared of wandering from the path that life had set for him in fear that he might look up and find that there would be no one waling beside him. The man feared the idea of being different, heading down the path that very few people took. The man spoke only in clichés, because they were phrases he knew that was familiar with and knew others would understand him. He liked being in crowded elevators and being in packed stadiums, because he knew he didn’t stick out. However, no matter how comfortable he felt, he never enjoyed himself. He could sit quietly and not feel like he would never alienate anyone or bother anyone with what thoughts really went on inside his head, but he was never really happy. Eventually he found himself on his death bed and someone walked up and asked him if he had any last words before he passed on and the only words that came to mind were “well, this was all quite boring, wasn’t it.” And in reading that last line, Benjamin understood what the man was hoping to accomplish. However, he was disappointed in the fact that he wasn’t able to keep his promise, no longer because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know anyone interested in such a piece of writing and at the very moment, Benjamin never felt more alone in the universe.