Compartmentalization (Part 12)

Part 12: Drum Solo

I’m laying in the back of the van, trying to get some sleep. The plan was that Max, Ben, and I had to make it look like we were on tour to complete our band disguise. We took a plane to an airport two hours away from Nouveau Porc and we are driving the rest of the way. I am skeptical whether or not the Smokers couldn’t make the connection between Max and Maxwell, no matter how we came in. I guess it doesn’t really matter, for if they really cared, they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. There is a part of me that doesn’t want to go at all, that this was going to be a confrontation that I wasn’t ready for. I think about what Ben said, and how my destiny is going to ‘destroy me.’ It bothered me more than it should, but now I am just trying to concentrate on this ‘J’ person.

Maxwell mentioned J before he left, and I had been trying to sleep and try to drudge up some memories of him. I have had no luck, which is pretty odd considering that supposedly we were both business partners and good friends. There must have been a good reason I forgot him, and the more I think about it, the more it bothers me. Every time I try and think of J, it brings up a scene of me turning a key in a jet black car with me in a fancy suit. Sometimes I remember me thinking, “I won’t let you hurt her!” and other times I’m thinking, “I won’t let you get away with it!” I am unsure whether I am talking about this J guy, or I am talking about someone else, or maybe I am talking about myself. It seems so fueled by determination and fear that it just seems to be spewing everywhere.

I give up trying to sleep and instead try to listen to what Max and Ben are saying with my eyes closed,

“So, did Maxwell ever actually apologize?” Ben says pointedly.

“He did, in his own way,” Max said in a way that betrayed his normal boisterous manner.

“I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t work with him unless he apologized.”

“Well, I mean, he gave us a gig. That is a form of acceptance.

I don’t hear anything, but I can imagine Ben’s face.

“Don’t look at me like that Ben. I am driving here. I don’t do the whole ‘look and drive thing.’ Alright, look. Maxwell has issues, and he is a manipulative bastard who will say anything to get you back into your good graces. He knew that, so he didn’t say the bullshit he normally says, and he apologized with actions instead of words.”

“I don’t care about Maxwell, I care that you just let your brother walk all over you.”

“I would let a whole marching band march on me if that meant more paying gigs, Ben.”

There was a silence, and someone sighed. I couldn’t quite read the air and see how they were both doing without opening my eyes. I figured that I already faked sleeping for this long; I might as well get some shut eye until I need to get up.

“I know we are both tired Ben, but we got a show, so let’s focus on that,” Max says while trying to sound more enthusiastic than I think he was.

Another silence.

“I promise I’ll talk to him okay? Let’s get to cracking here,” Max changes his tone from honest, to the tone I am more familiar with, more excited and loud, “We agreed on doing two acoustic pieces and then we’ll go into the ‘jazz odyssey’ mode. I think we should do ‘Charitable Suicide” first.”

“This isn’t a coffee shop, Max. This is a dance club. We can’t play that song at the start,” Ben starts to sound more talkative than I ever heard him before.

“But it’s our hit! It is the only reason people know us!”

“We should start with ‘Party Song.’”

“Hmmmm, okay, okay. That could work. Man, I never thought that a song I wrote the lyrics for could start a set!”

“You wrote the chorus.”

“Yeah?”

“The chorus is ‘Party. Party. Song. Song.’”

“In the context of the song, it is pretty brilliant.”

“…Fair enough, it is the only song we have with a great hook.”

“’Charitable Suicide’ has a good one too, so does ‘The Witch I Knew’”

“I forgot about ‘Witch,’ let’s do that and then ‘Chronicles of Nirvana’”

“Wait, have we ever done ‘Party Song’ acoustic?”

“We did a couple weeks ago.”

“But that was rehearsal. How do you remember these things? Half the time I think you are barely conscious, but then you hit me with the most out of the blue things. Okay, so we’ll do ‘Party Song,’ and then ‘Witch I Knew,’ then we will jam out with Josh in the ‘Chronicles of Nirvana.’ Will that be enough?”

“’Chronicles of Nirvana’ is a 20 minute jazz piece. If anything, we will have to cut it short.”

“Hooooly crap, I know that song is the center piece of this whole plan, but you sure you don’t want to put in ‘Suicide?’ Our small fan base is not going to be pleased.”

“That song is about my mom’s suicide, I am not just going to play it to get popular.”

“Hey, you wrote it, not me. If you didn’t want to sing it, you shouldn’t have put it on the internet for 500,000 people to listen to.”

“We’ll play it if the crowd wants an encore, okay?”

“Deal. Now we gotta talk about our little jazz adventure. Josh, you awake?”

I was hoping to pretend I was asleep for the rest of the trip, but I realized that I was so completely out of my league to just try and wing it when I got there. I opened my eyes and sat up.

“I didn’t really sleep well,” I say while yawning, “But yeah, I’m awake.”

“Good,” Max says, not seeming to care about my attempts to sound exhausted, “You are going to be on stage, with the drum set, and you aren’t gonna play until the third song.”

“What do I play?”

“The third song is a concept jazz piece, and the concept is that we will play beautifully and you will sort of bang around making a lot of noise.”

“You are the ‘dragon of chaos,’ while me and Ben are the ‘Warriors of Myn,’” Ben says matter of factly.

“I thought we were going to cut out all that fantasy crap,” Max says as he turns towards him.

“If Led Zepplin can have fantasy, why can’t we?” Ben says innocently.

“Because Led Zepplinn has John Bonham. No offence Josh, you’re no John Bonham. Not by a long shot”

I didn’t take offence mostly because I didn’t know who that was. Though, I have found that ever since that car crash, any sort of enjoyment of music has been replaced by anxiety. I am not sure why, and the irony of then sneaking into this club as a band then hits me.

We finish talking about the music, and by the time Max and Ben get everything in order we reach the city. Nouveau Porc’s skyline is filled with tall white buildings. The city had every light on, and the light was almost blinding. As we got closer, the tall buildings blocked off the moon, and the lights of neon signs lit up every street corner. It looked surprisingly clean for a big city (though my memory of ‘big cities’ is also a little suspect), and the traffic all seemed to be going the same direction as we are. Before I knew it, we were approaching a smallish building (compared to the giant ones beside it) with tons of people, lights, and music. It seemed like the rest of the city was quiet because all the noise was gathered right here. I saw everything from heavily armored security looking people to people with barely any clothes on at all. Despite us being less than 300 meters from the club, it took us more than 30 minutes to get to any sort of parking situation. Eventually, we found a parking space.

“Hey, it’s not really rock and roll unless it’s late!” Max says excitedly as he exits the van, “Look at all these people! This might be the biggest crowd we ever get!”

“Dance club, multiple floors, Max,” Ben says warningly.

“Oh, you’re no fun. This is our big chance!” Max says as he opens the van and hands us equipment he thinks we can handle, “I’ll carry my guitar in, and get the guys there to help us with the rest of it, you guys carry that stuff, and try and set up as much us you can. I think Gwen managed to get in as well, so hopefully she can help us out too.”

I enter the Chamber club, and the backstage is dark. I can’t see too much, but the green lights on the ground seem to lead somewhere. I follow them and eventually end up in something that looks like a dressing room.

“Hey,” Some random big guy says to me, “You need to set up that stuff as soon as possible. We got a DJ up there now, but you guys were supposed to be up there 20 minutes ago!”

I thought of repeating Max’s line to him, but before I could, Gwen walks in with the same type uniform the big guy has on.

“Thanks, I’ll take care of this,” Gwen says, and the big guy walks away somewhat reluctantly.

“Where is the stage? We need to set up,” I say, honestly getting more excited to be in a real rock show.

“Everything is still going according to plan. The only real hiccup is some personal changes here and there. Josh, drink this water.”

“Uh, thanks,’ I say as Gwen forces the water on me. I drink it, but I can’t help but think how weird it is for Gwen to be so thoughtful so out of the blue.

“The stage is out this door and follow the lights on the right side. Or just follow the music. The DJ has one more song before his set is supposed to end.”

“Thanks again, Gwen. See you on stage!” I run out with my black box with a pedal connected to it. I wonder where the rest of the guys are, but then I reach the stage. I take a peak at the crowd and there seems to be tons of people, all decorated in the green hue of the club lights. The amount of flashing lasers and effects are memorizing me, until somebody pulls on my shirt.

“Back here!” Max whispers loud at me, “We are going to set up behind the curtain, and once the DJ finishes, the curtain will raise, and you just got to sit pretty until I signal to you, okay?”

I nod and try to help out as I see Ben and Max set up all the equipment. I can’t really do much, and I find myself just sitting on the drum stool thing, watching them figure out what things connect into what.

Suddenly, Ken rushes through the curtains and confronts Max.

“Max, we need to get Josh out of here. Now,” Ken says as he is trying to get back his breath.

“What are you talking about? We are about to perform here!” Max says in an annoyed whisper.

“Smoker knows he’s here, this whole operation is a bust. Maxwell is trying to break into his office now to distract…”

“My brothers WHAT?” Max interrupts and says breaking his loud whisper.

I suddenly get a rock of anxiety in my stomach and look at them, things seem like they are about to explode when a voice comes on the PA,

“Now, for our last song, a special request from your friend and mine, Mr. J. Smoker! This is dedicated to someone named…Josh, so all you Joshes get excited for the remix of the smash hit A_____!”

What erupted from the speakers then sounded like trash bags filled with pots and pans crashing together and ripping themselves apart. I tried covering my ears, but the sheer din that was filling my head was too much to bear. I could see the horrified expressions of everyone around me, and I wanted to run away. I run through the curtain, I knock over everything in my way, and I suddenly jump off the stage.

As I am flying through the air time begins to slow, and the noise goes from an unbearable dissonance to just a low hum. I hang in the air, and I see the people moving very slowly (though they look like they are running away) out of the way and I can see the floor. As I float towards the floor, the green hue begins to fade to black.

And I look to my left, and I see a little boy. Couldn’t have been older than five. I see the madness in his eyes, the sort of pure anger that only a child could have. He wants everything to fade away. He wants to be alone in his hate. He blames the world. He is like a demon, but powerless to do anything about it. I pity him. He thinks there

is no one in the world that loves him and that the world is after him. I can tell him it’s alright now, but before I can, two people take him away, a man and a woman.

And I look to my right, see Maxwell and I laying down on a blackness. I see the burning mass on top of us, but we seem to be perfectly fine. Maxwell looks terrified, as I look elated. I can see myself looking at him, trying to tell him that it is going to be fine, the 
long journey is finally over and I see myself reach out for his hand. I begin to realize

it’s not that I really want to reassure him, but that I want to prove to myself that this is

a reality, that this is happening, before I can, I fade away.

I look straight ahead and see that the floor is about to reach my face. Despite my slow speed, my face smashes into the floor as if I was going full speed. The pain that is hitting as I smash head first in the floor is almost too much, and I begin to lose consciousness. As the blackness engulfs me I hear a woman in the distance say, “…the pain of the mistake?”

Compartmentalization (Part 11.5)

11.5 The Sidelines

    “Nouveau Porc is a hell of a city, huh? Even their super markets are huge!”

“I guess.”

Kate couldn’t believe that everybody else just wanted to stay in the hotel. This is the first time most of them have been outside of that desert, and they just want to stay inside? She had to drag Gwen out of the room under the pretense of ‘buying supplies’ for the rest of the group, but really she just wanted to see what the big city was like. It was much cleaner than she thought it would be, but also a lot more empty. Kate wasn’t sure if this was normal, or if maybe the city just didn’t want to stay up late tonight.

“Gwen, look at this!” Kate grabs a box of cereal off the pristine white shelf, “Man, I haven’t seen cereal in YEARS!”

“You can get cereal back home,” Gwen said disinterestedly to Kate.

“Yeah, but not the real stuff. Look, I mean c’mon, it is all branded and everything!!”

“We could buy non-generic stuff back home.”

“Yeah, but its so expensive!

“It’s the same price.

“Well, it isn’t expensive when Maxwell gives you the okay to buy supplies!”

“We shouldn’t...”

“Will you relax? Jeeze.”

    Kate liked to hang out with Gwen. They have a nice balance, but sometimes Kate thinks that maybe if she spent more time with more people, she would feel better about herself. Though it wasn’t as if Kate didn’t like herself, she just thought that her life has been in a bit of a lull lately.

    “Gwen,” Kate begins, “Do you like being an anti-assassin?”
    Gwen was eyeing a can of tomatoes and seemed to be caught off-guard by the question, “What?”
    “I mean, we just go around, stopping crazy people doing crazy things, there is no real ‘career advancement,’ people just hire us until there isn’t a problem. We are just treated like exterminators, but instead of killing the cockroaches, we catch and release, so they can just come back another day. It just all seems so pointless.”
    “I don’t mind,” Gwen said as she put the can of tomatoes in the cart, “it’s not my job to care, so I don’t.”
    “Oh, so you let your job dictate what you should care about?”
    “If I enjoy the job? Sure.”
    Kate couldn’t tell if she admired what she considered as ‘Gwen’s simplicity’ or if she hated it. Maybe, Kate thought, she was jealous. Kate tries her best at the job, but even at her best, she never quite lives up to Gwen’s level. Though she quickly realises that if she had to sacrifice parts of herself to become more like Gwen, she would never do it. Kate enjoys the fight too much to just give up because someone is better than her. One of the maxims Kate lives by is that she doesn’t try hard because she is strong, but because she has so much to improve on.

    “Anyway,” Kate then decides to change the subject, “So you met the big Smoker boss? How is he like?”
    Gwen begins to look up at the walls, “Is there no clock around here?”
    “No, supermarkets never have clocks.”
    “We need to be back by 2400 hours.”
    “Oh come on, when have we had a night out of just us girls!”
    “We sleep in the same trailer.”
    “Sure, but I mean OUT! C’mon, it's only,” Kate checks her cell phone, “11:30, and if the others really need us, they’ll call us.”
    “I need to be back because I need to sleep.”
    “You can be such a spoilsport Gwen.”
    “We have an important job tomorrow.”
    “And we are back-up, Josh and Max have all the positions, we are just there if they mess up.”
    Gwen takes a pause, and stands still. She looks around and says, “...I am not sure about that Josh guy.”
    “Really?” Kate said, surprised, “if you saw him at the last mission, he looks like the real deal to me.”
    “Its not his professionalism I am suspicious about.”
    “I dunno, he seems like too much of a doofus to try anything too fishy.”
    “That could be his whole act.”
    “Oh? He is doing a terrific job then.”
    “Smoker and Josh used to work together and compete with Maxwell. The rivalry was supposedly pretty intense.”
    “Where did you hear that from?”
    “Dan.”
    “You know, Dan never talks to me. He doesn’t hate me or anything, right?
    “No, I don’t think so. I think he is just quiet.”
    “You’re quiet and you talk to me!”
    “That’s because...because you’re my friend.”
    “Jeeze Gwen, don’t you sound so genuine! You are already making me awkward with all your admiration and devotion.”
   
    Kate understood that Gwen was just the introverted type, and she appreciated Gwen for who she was. The problem was that Gwen always wanted everything to be the same, trying to make Gwen do anything new or go anywhere was like pulling teeth. When Kate became a anti-assassin, she was expecting to go on trips, travel the world, and have exciting adventures. It turned out, Kate does all these things, but they weren’t how she imagined them. She wanted it to be like how it was when she saw her mother in the UWG forces. Constantly moving from place to place, going to see her mother stop international incidents, and being with her father on the sidelines. Those were exciting times, but when Kate finally found her way into the UWG army, the times had changed. She was confined to a desk job. Kate quickly found an out, and made a deal to do the rest of her obligation of service to the UWG through Maxwell’s group, but she found that while the highs were higher, the boredom between was much worse than sitting in a air conditioned office. That is why she treasured her friendship with Gwen. They may not be on the same page most of the time, hell, Kate thought, they are barely in the same book, but it is that difference that keeps things interesting.

    “You didn’t answer my question, by the way. How is Smoker?” Kate said while walking the aisles looking for the toiletries.
    “He didn’t seem that big a deal. When I first saw him, he just seemed like any other politician to me,” Gwen said while following behind.
    “Really? Wasn’t he some amazing anti-assassin who was too badass to stay with the UWG?”
    “He didn’t seem like it. There was this oddness to him though.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like, this nervous excitement. This energy that just felt...I don’t know...off.”
    “That’s a turnoff, for sure. I was hoping he was some ‘pretty boy assassin.’ Oh well. Hey, you need any more tampons?” Kate yells as she goes down the aisles.
    “You don’t have to yell that in the supermarket.”
    “What? Haha, do you mean tampons? HEY GWEN! DID YOU MEAN TAMPONS!? DO YOU NOT WANT ME TO YELL THE WORD TAMPONS IN PUBLIC?! THAT IS PRETTY ODD, ANYWAY, TAMPONS? TAMPONS! TAMPONS?”
    Sometimes the best part about hanging with Gwen was teasing her. The face she makes when she was angry or embarrassed is priceless, in Kate’s opinion.

    “Alright, here is what we are going to do,” Kate said to Gwen while they are at the self checkout lane at the supermarket.
    While Gwen was checking in all the supplies she responded, “What are we going to do?”
    “We are going to put a bug on Josh, and if anything goes wrong, we can just follow him!”
    “Tracking Josh isn’t going to make sure we catch Smoker.”
    “Yes, but I got a feeling that anything goes down, Josh is going to be in the center of it.”
    Gwen thinks for a second, “I agree. You get the tracking device, and I’ll plant it.”
    “How are you going to do that?”
    “Max put me down as one of the staff, I won’t be able to be there right away, but moments before the show, I’ll be able to meet with them backstage.”
    “You think we should do a skin tracker?”
    “No, I don’t see Josh as the touchy type. We’ll go with an ingestible one.”
    “Hmmm, I think I got some of those in my tool kit. Even if I don’t, I can get one pretty quick here in the big city.”
    “Now, let’s go home and get some sleep.”
    “Roger, boss!”

    This operation turned from a boring mission from the sidelines, to something Kate was looking forward to. Her sense of boredom and dread turned into excitement, and it made the lull she was in fade away. Something big was going to happen, Kate could feel it in her bones.

Compartmentalization (Part 11)

Part 11: Drums

I was sitting at the drum set, with Max’s eyes looking at me expectantly. I tried to explain to him that the only abilities I seem to have are anti-assassin ones, but he just wouldn’t listen to me.

“Relax,” he says to me, “let it come to you naturally.”

“I told you…” I try to interrupt.

“Just imagine you are back in high school or whatever, you probably played an instrument, now what instrument was it?”

“Actually, I am pretty sure my school cut its funding for music before I got there.”

“Okay fine, just bang around a little bit and see what you can do.”

I started banging the drums with the drum sticks in a way that might sound cool, but it quickly mutated to just me hitting all the drums trying to get a feel for what they sound like.

“Alright, alright, it was worth a shot,” Max says as he takes a hold of the hi-hat, “Just try and hit a 4/4 beat okay?”

I wasn’t quite sure what that meant and I sort of just drummed to my own heartbeat. Max but his hand on his chin, it was remarkable how much he looked like Maxwell. It is as if Maxwell cut the longish hair, spiked it, and decided to ditch the fancy vest look and go for a tank top and brown cargo pants. The similarities ended with looks though, as his voice sounded much less serious and his body movement seemed much looser.

After what seemed like ten minutes of drumming to my heartbeat, Max says exhaustively, “That’s enough.”

“Can’t I just go as a back stage hand or something?” I say defensively.

“No, I already told the guy that we were adding a drummer to the band. Also, I wouldn’t be so sure if they would let back stage hands in, the drummer is the best bet. I told them you were ‘unorthodox and experimental,’ so as long as you are consistent, people shouldn’t notice too much. Worst case scenario, we tone you down in the mix, and nobody will even hear you.”

The plan was that everybody needed to sneak into the Chamber club at different points. Maxwell, Kate, and the rest of the crew have already took a plane to set up and do reconnaissance, while Max, Ben, and I will go as one of the bands playing. Everyone will have their roles and such, and apparently our role is to be stuck in the middle, whether things go well or not.

Max heads to the tiny kitchen in the trailer, “Let’s take a little snack break! BEN! GET UP!” he yells at an indistinct pile of blankets on the floor.

Max’s trailer is very messy with clothes, blankets, and miscellaneous things, but other than that, it has a very warm, nice atmosphere. There is not much furniture, and what there is all low on the floor. There is a drum set and some guitars on one side, the other side is a mess of brown clothes, blankets, and translucent purple curtains not just on the windows, but hanging from everywhere.

The indistinct pile of clothes on the floor than slowly gets up, and reveals the while haired, white shirted, and white pants man I always see whenever I see Max. I suddenly remember that little tiff Max had with his brother.

“So, Max, you and your brother are…” I say cautiously.

“Perfectly fine,” Max responds right away. The white man clears off some clothes of the floor in front of me, and it turns out to me a sizable table that is low to the ground. He sits down at it and gestures me to sit down at the table as well. I comply, and Max continues while fixing something up in the tiny trailer kitchen, “Maxwell was just mad that I pretty much quit the business to focus on my music. I was never any good at it anyway, so I thought he would be fine with it, but I underestimated how serious he takes everything. Man, I love my brother and all, but he can be an asshole at times.”

“What made you come back?”

“Not really back, to be honest, but I wanted to try and make amends, so here we are. Once this is done, I think me and Ben here are going to move out of here.”

“Oh, right, hi Ben! I don’t think we have been properly introduced!”

I hold out my right hand to shake hands, and he holds out his. It is an okay handshake, but there wasn’t much effort put into it. I find myself trying to focus these things in order to remember people, but Ben doesn’t seem too interested in whether I remember him or not.

After he shakes hand he lets out one “Yo’,” and that was the totality of his introduction. I didn’t know what to make of Ben. I couldn’t tell if he was shy, quiet, or just not that bright.

We sat around the floor table, Ben looking like he is spacing out, Max is busy in the kitchen, and I am sort of fidgeting trying to figure out how I should act in this situation. I remember that I am still carrying around that packet about ‘The Catastrophe” in my pocket. I changed out of the anti-assassin suit, and into a sweat pants and wind breaker combo that wasn’t quite appropriate for the desert weather. Luckily, it fit the air conditioned trailer environment just fine. I pull out the packet out of one of the windbreaker pockets and I start looking through what looks like pages and pages of statistics, trying to find some sort of narrative, when Max comes back from the kitchen with some hors d'oeuvre. It was a simple platter of saltines, what looked like cheddar cheese, and maybe some sort of salami. Max starts to make a little sandwich when he spies what I’m reading, “Gimme that,” he says as he snatches the packet away from me.

“Hey!” I yell.

“Did Maxwell give this to you? Hoooooly crap, what is this nonsense,” he looks through and throws it to Ben, who picks it up seemingly uninterestedly, yet keeps reading it anyway.”

“Well, you see, I am somebody who uses MCN or..” I start to explain.

“Yeah, yeah, everybody knows about you and your brain. So you forgot about the Catastrophe, huh? I wish most people would do the same, but people can’t let go when they think the world has wronged them, you know what I mean?”

“Uh, kind of?” I say honestly.

“Here, let me tell you how it is,” Max starts.

“It all starts 30 years ago when people got their head out of their ass and started caring about shit like ‘global warming’ and whatever. Of course, by the time this happened, the world was already f’ed, and the ice caps were about to melt and cause a domino effect that would just mess everybody up, so most the countries in the world banded together to start a coalition to deal with the problem. Every country was given ten years to get everybody up to safety standards and make sure that when the shit hits the fan that losses would be kept to a minimum. Everything was looking alright until 5 years in, an asteroid that was supposed to completely miss us, hits the ice caps, causing even a worse domino effect than they predicted. Turns out, even the countries that already started on building their defense measures were hit bad, but the countries that just embezzled any funds they were getting and did nothing got hit worse. These people were completely devastated, and it created an uproar that went worldwide. Some people argued that the safety guidelines were unreasonable and investments had to be made to afford surefire protection, other people argued that if they had the whole 10 years, things would be different, most people, though, were just filled with anger and sadness with how much life was just wiped off the planet. Those were some scary times. Eventually, the UWG was formed and it gradually sucked up every country, and become the government for the entire world. Things calmed down, but things were never the same after that,” Max ends and finally puts the cracker sandwich he made in his mouth.

“Oh man, that is terrible,” I say automatically, not really being able to process all that I have heard.

“2 Billion people,” Ben says out of nowhere, “According to this, 2 billion people were lost.”

“Really? That many?” Max says with a full mouth, and quickly swallows, “I think that is a broad estimate. Nobody really knows how many people were lost. I remember hearing about a big controversy at the time about people being cautious to not lowball the number to not seem insensitive. There was a big movement early on to try and ‘move on,’ but it got a huge backlash because people thought the higher ups were trying to minimize the loses for their own agenda. Very touchy times, as you can imagine.”

“Honestly, I am not sure I can. I think that is why I don’t really remember it” I answer.

“That’s the thing though; people are still trying to come to grips with it. The whole Smoker guild is based on mistrust of the UWG,” Max responds.

“Why do they mistrust the UWG?”

“For many reasons, but the big one is that they believe the ‘asteroid” that hit the ice caps weren’t an asteroid at all. They believe it was all a set up, a conspiracy to create the perfect environment for the UWG to form and rule.”

“So, they think it was a bomb or something?”

“Not necessarily, I heard that some people believe that people knew that the asteroid was going to hit, they just chose not to tell anybody.

“Is any of that true?”

“If you ask me, doesn’t matter. How things are, are how things are, and obsessing about the past is not gonna bring you nothing but grief. Though, I am just a guy who is trying to be a musician, what do I know?”

What started as just an awkward moment, turned into something even darker. I was just trying to process everything. Is my family still alive? I am not sure how old I am, but I think I am probably about 20-something, so I most probably lived through the Catastrophe. What did I feel? Did I feel anything? Was I old enough to understand what was happening? Why did I forget all this? I found myself banging on the wall of my own head, desperately trying to unlock any sort of tidbit, any at all, but I came up with nothing.

“Haha, sorry to bring everybody down, but those are the breaks. We play more moody music anyway, so this will get us in the mood for tomorrow,” Max says, I am sure pretty much only to me, as he sounds fine, and Ben looks unfazed, “Oh I know, Ben has this amazing ability to read peoples’ minds”

Ben gives Max a dirty look, the most emotion I have seen from him since I met him, “OK, its not mind reading, it is just he ‘reads’ people and tells them something ‘deep and profound.’ Wanna try Josh?”

I wasn’t in the mood for this, but I figured I would play along anyway.

Ben begins to speak, “Max, I don’t think…”

Max interrupts him right away, “C’mon Ben! Lighten up! Joshy-boy here needs some perspective, and you can give it!” Max looks at me, “This guy is crazy perceptive! He is like a fortune teller, here! You gotta try this out!”

I look deep into Ben’s eyes, and Ben begins to speak again, “You…are hiding something.”

“Oh come on!” Max laughs, “Who isn’t?”

Ben continues, ignoring Max, “What you are hiding isn’t just from other people, but from yourself.”

“And…?”

“And this thing, whatever it is, this idea is guiding you. It is leading you to your destiny.”

“Ooo, this is getting good!”

“Your destiny will fulfill you, but it will also… destroy you.”

“HO-HOO! WHAT DID I TELL YA’! HOMERUN EVERYTIME!” Max starts laughing hysterically, “SO DRAMATIC! Ben doesn’t say much, but when he does, it is so great!”

Max continues to laugh but I find myself beside myself. I had a feeling that Ben knew exactly what he was talking about, but I couldn’t tell if it was so broad that it would fit anyone, or if Ben really understood me more than I did myself. In either case, I felt more fired up than ever to bang on some drums.