A Convenient Lie

“You are wrong, boy,” hissed the sergeant. “I am everything your parents were too lazy and too stupid to be.  I am everything you wish you could be.  I am smarter than you, stronger than you.  I am in every way your better.”
Johnny did not remember drawing his fist back, but seconds after the sergeant fin-ished his sentence, Johnny’s fist connected with his jaw, sending him staggering back.  Johnny stared at his now swollen, red knuckles curiously, as if he had never seen them before.  Then, he leapt forward, his leg lashing forward to kick the man.  His moment of elation and victory was short-lived, however; the sergeant truly was stronger than him, and he caught Johnny’s leg in midair, flipping him around.  Johnny saw the ground rising up to meet him, felt the hard impact of his nose against the dirt, tasted the soil in his mouth.  As the sergeant stepped forward, drawing his sword as he did so, Hans appeared from nowhere, swinging the smaller sword that Johnny had plunged into the ground only minutes before.
Until now, the Imperials had watched impassively.  Now, with a genuine threat to their leader, they surged forward like a single, living being, a giant mob with the purpose of enveloping these two rebels.  Johnny saw them approaching through a daze.  One of his teeth had been knocked loose when he fell, and blood dribbled out from his lips, down his chin.  The Imperials seemed nothing more than dark silhouettes against the falling sun, and he felt a need, an urge, to rise up from where he lay, but the wind had been knocked from him when he fell, and he merely coughed pathetically.
As Johnny attempted for the last time to roll over and crawl to his feet, he felt strong arms wrap around his abdomen, and his view of the ground became from much further away.  A wave of dizziness washed over him, but then he realized that Hans had slung him over his shoulder.  Hans held the sword in his right hand, Johnny noted with satisfaction, and had Johnny draped over his left shoulder.  Johnny realized, however, than Hans would not be able to outrun the Imperials for too much longer.  The man’s breathing had become ragged and labored, and each stride he took seemed to pain him.
“I think I can run, Hans,” he grunted.
“What’s that?” asked Hans.
“I can run.  Put me down.”
At first, Johnny thought Hans had not heard him, but then Hans stopped running and gently bent over so Johnny could regain his footing.  They both stumbled forward slightly, and Johnny felt the presence of the Imperials at his back, and then they ran again, ran with their feet flying over the dirt like beating wings.  They ran because they knew that if they stopped, only harm would befall them and the rest of Silverage.
Soon, the soft fields of dirt began to thin out, and Johnny’s bare feet pounded re-lentlessly against the hard, packed soil of the town.  He envied his pursuers, who wore thick boots made of animal skin.  And their blue uniforms, too, so clean and stiff, almost sparkling in their brilliant affirmation of Imperialism.  Johnny felt the anger rising in him once again, and he pushed it down for just a little longer, for just a few more minutes.  He could not allow his rage to get the better of him, for that was why he and Hans were run-ning now.
Beside him, Hans started to speed up, and Johnny matched his pace, wondering why he used this sudden burst of speed.  The boy realized why when he saw his father standing at the end of the street, a crowd of about twenty men and women with him.  Be-hind the civilians were their children, protected against the tide of blue-clad soldiers.
“For Silverage!” shouted a man next to Johnny’s father.
“Yes, Dyvell!  We fight for our town and our lives!” said his father.
Johnny and Hans were almost upon the civilians, now, and the Imperials were close behind.  His father urged the civilians forward, and with a sound that seemed to rend the air apart, they met in a clash of swords, wooden staves, and any other weapon the residents of Silverage could get their hands on.  As Johnny turned to fight with his bare hands, Hans pushed him aside, shielding him from an oncoming Imperial.  Hans thrust the short sword through the Imperial’s belly, and Johnny’s eyes grew wide.  And he saw that for all his hope of rebellion, for all of his plans for overthrowing the govern-ment, he had underestimated the power of death, and what seeing it happen can do to a man.  He staggered back, feeling slightly nauseous.  The feeling was exacerbated when a civilian’s head was cut off.  The head flew through the air like a twisted ball and landed on the dirt, where it lay tilted off to a strange angle.  The body slammed into the ground several yards away, blood still dripping out from the stump on its neck.  Johnny felt his vision losing focus, and he lost his balance, almost falling over.  Men were pushing him back again, and now he did fall.  He was with the helpless children, and their small, inno-cent hands attempted to push him up.

Like wings on his back lifting him to unseen heights above, where angels played harmonic flutes and caressed the clouds with pattering feet, the demon’s hands wrapped around his waist.  And the ground rose to meet him, and the smell of sweat and greed overpowered him.  The feeling of fat pressing against his neck made him want to vomit.

And he thought of the sun high above, thought of the rays shining beautifully through the arc of branches silhouetted  with the sky.  Shadows, cast across the weedy ground, those shadows were his salvation.  He bit his lip and felt blood running down his lip.

The men behind him, they were security guards.  He was running from them.  Well, not anymore.  His legs were sore, his back lacerated with cuts.  And he lost motivation to keep running whenever he looked up at the sun and it’s Sun Fire.  For it was like an eye in the sky, admonishing him for his fear and cowardice.  He wanted to please it, make it happy, but it would always fill him with disappointment, making him push ever faster.

“Push harder.”  Just as always.  That evil voice.

It felt like teeth biting the small of his back, but it was really just elbows.  And Sun Fire looked ever on in sadness.

Base 10 stood at the Equal Sign, unsure of where to go.  He was tired of fitting in, of standing in the midst of the crowd.  He wanted to stand out.  E was at the other Sign, sitting down in a chair.  Both of them had a huge choice in front of them: should they cross the Sign, committing to a life of work and prosperity, or should they hang back, wait for other opportunities to arise?  Base 10 had always had his path painted out for him, but now he wondered.  Did he really want to spend his whole life as a base?  Sure, it was a steady job, a high-paying job. However, as he looked around him, he found himself desiring another life.  Perhaps he could be a Coefficient, a Variable, or maybe…
No.  He could never be a Log.
He knew he would just end up making the choice, being a base all his life; and then he would be Erased.  Gone, forever.
E smiled grimly at Base 10, gesturing at the Equal Signs near them.  Then, he took a deep breath, and ran towards it.  LN, who had been hovering behind him like a ghost, disappeared quite suddenly, Erased by the godly Pencil above.  The equation altered, and E knelt panting on the other side, holding up a 3X above his head.  Base 10 gave him a brief thumbs up, and E shrugged modestly.  A bewildered ½ scratched its head, filling the place where E used to be.
Base 10 was reminded of how quickly life changed.  E had always been his friend, youthful at times, serious at others.  He had always been different from the other special numbers.  i was lost in her imagination; pi was too irrational.  And the others were just boring.  But E was faced with a new life now, a life that, in time, would also be Erased.  Base 10 saw his friends moving forward, and again, he wondered what to do.
Above, he saw the Pencil moving down, and he thought to himself; was it his time to be Erased?  Was the Pencil coming towards him, or was it simply writing a new equation?  Either way, he knew he had to make a decision.
The Pencil above hesitated; faltered.  The equation it was trying to solve was particularly difficult.  It was:
3x=14
If it changed the equation into a log, the base would be 3, something the Pencil knew wouldn’t work.  It knew this instinctively, because the Hand knew this.  As did the Arm, the Body, and the Brain.  The Brain knew it wouldn’t work because “3” wasn’t a viable base option on its Calculator.  The Calculator knew it because it was not programmed into its code.  And so on.
But Base 10 knew nothing of this genealogy of knowledge, knew nothing of the intricacy behind each decision.  To him, the Pencil above was a divine being, deciding whether someone was Written or Erased.  He knew and believed in his ability to make his own decisions.  The Pencil was just a judge of those decisions, not the catalyst, nor indeed the actor itself.
In a flash, Base 10 realized his purpose in life.  He could never be a Log; no, he was better than that.  He could never be a special number; that was too limited.  His job was to be as versatile as possible, fitting into each ideal Log equation.  He was 10 now, not just Base 10.
All of a sudden, he felt himself rushing towards the Equal Sign, and then he was holding up a .004 with delight.  The .004 smiled with pride at its exponentially more powerful position in life.
10 was content now, knowing that he had made a difference in this equation, and when the inevitable Eraser came descending towards him, he accepted his fate blindly, knowing that through his own free will, he had done something to change history.
Far above the Pencil, the Brain commanded the Hand to shut the math book.  And if you looked closely enough, you could see almost invisible strings pulling the limbs of the Body.  Above these strings were more strings, more hands orchestrating a massive puppet show, the puppet masters puppets to some higher power.
10 had lived a good life, had fulfilled his destiny.  He was a hero.

Improve.  Develop.  Progress.

Running through his mind, running through his body, running through his soul like a mantra, like the prayers he said when he was young.  It’s all a prayer, every memorization, every recitation.  All a testament to some higher power, all a struggle for control.  A struggle that no one ever wins.

Improve.  Develop. Progress.

This is what they said as he grew in his mother, even his time in the womb’s haven filled with brainwashing and evil.  His name was Holden Lightfoot.  And if you’ve read more about him, you’d know he was what we call now a Broken Knight.  The Broken Knights are the results of a small, utopian commune created in an attempt to break away from capitalism and progression.  It was isolation, happiness.  Content.  Consistency.  Routine.  Simplicity.

Diseases ravaged through, but death was natural.  Or at least that’ what they were told.  Holden was the Jesus Christ of the commune, sacrificing his old life and his old values to try and build something better.  He alone remembered the past, and perhaps this was the society’s undoing.  He went crazy in the end, you know.

Improve.  Develop.  Progress.

It’s a cycle, a snare, a trap that catches us all in the end.  When we try to run from it, we find that it’s only waiting at the next corner, a tantalizing image tempting us to improve.  Develop. Progress.

Holden knew this, for he had seen both the past and the future.  He saw Siddhartha Gautama attempt to break away from the cycle of suffering.  And even though he achieved enlightenment, Holden spoke to him as he died, and the Buddha uttered one last, crippled speech:

“I couldn’t stop it.  I don’t know why I thought I could.  It’s impossible, young one, and if you try to follow my path, you’ll end up here wishing you had lived your life better.  Because regret is intrinsic, regret is inevitable, regret is human.  And we’re all human here, aren’t we?  Thus, I tell you the secret: become something more or less than human and you shall break away.  Or perhaps this is just narcissism on my part, a patriotic obligation to my species to assume that humans have some different set of values, of emotions.  Maybe rabbits, maybe they feel regret.  Maybe they wish they had saved their little ones, maybe they wish they hadn’t let their little ones die.  Because suffering, I don’t know if it’s pure evil.  I think it keeps us sane.”

And Holden didn’t believe him.  So he kept searching for answers, and he spoke to Jesus Christ on the cross.  “Truly this is the Son of God,” said Holden as he beheld the man.  And Jesus replied, “Is this really how it’s supposed to end?”  And so Holden said, “Yes, you’ll be remembered forever.”  And Jesus said, “Forever just isn’t forever anymore.”

Holden kept searching, and he saw the future.  First he watched cities burn and civilizations fall, and then it all began again.  And they forgot the past.

He knew that forever just wasn’t forever anymore, that eternity is false, that the truth is translucent.

But he couldn’t accept it, and he fought it.  He fought it oh so hard.  But when he finally gave in, he found himself praying at the foot of his bed, on his knees and screaming out words.  His hands tore at his eyes, his hair, and then he fell back, a broken man.

He was more than human.  He was forever.  But forever just isn’t forever anymore.

Leonard tapped his fingers against the coarse, wooden desk, watching them walk their way across the surface like two isolated legs.  He heard an imaginary beat in his head, a cacophony of sound that obscured all other noise.  The voices of other students were lost to him, the sound of their feet drumming against the floor.
How he wanted to do that. How he wanted to run.
The teacher had left the room, and the students were playing some sort of makeshift football game.  As their “football” (a wadded up paper ball) flew too far, someone came careening into him.  Patrick’s heavy body crashed into Leonard’s wheelchair and thin desk, sending him tumbling towards the floor.  He felt nothing in his legs, but that was not a new sensation.  He hadn’t felt anything below his waist since the accident.  But he felt the pain in his arms, in his head, in his back.  The old scar, that curved laceration across his back, it screamed in agony.
The floor was sideways in front of him, parallel to his eyes.  Through a blurry haze of tears, he saw the feet of cloudy figures moving up towards the ceiling.  Why were they all sideways?  No, he had it wrong, he was the sideways one.  Leonard had always been the one on his side, the one on the side of everything.  Even before those flashing lights, that menacing laugh.  He choked back a sob, forcing back the memories, not wanting to humiliate himself in front of the others.
Sound had returned to the world, that faint, unreachable beat had vanished, and Bess was standing above Leonard, trying to help him up.
“Come on, Patrick, help me!” she snapped.
Her soft hands wrapped around Leonard’s wasted torso, and he closed his eyes, resisting the urge to embrace her, to give in to his sorrow and cry.  He felt for his glasses on the floor and picked them up just as Patrick was righting the wheelchair.
“It’s his own damn black fault,” said Patrick. “He wouldn’t get out of the way.”
Leonard bit back a retort, knowing it would get him nowhere.  Some people would never change.  The bell rang, the teacher still gone, and the children filed out quickly from the classroom.  Bess lingered by the doorway, turning her head to wave goodbye to Leonard.  He didn’t respond, and after she left, he felt a bitter taste in his mouth for all the things unsaid, for the things in his past he wished he could undo.  He wanted love, not pity.  He wanted acceptance, not tolerance.
****
The small girl named Ming Li stood by the bus stop, a morose figure in the pouring rain.  Beside her, an elderly man sat on the bench with a new, dark colored umbrella.  Ming looked at him beseechingly, and he frowned at her, moving a little further away from her on the bench.
“Who let you out of the shop?” said the man scathingly.
She felt something strange in her ten-year-old heart, not quite sure what the feeling was.  It was deeper than just sadness.  It was a byproduct of rejection, of a cancerous prejudice rooted in the soul in the man beside her.  It made her sick, and she turned away to hide her tears.  As she looked down the long, gray street, she saw a wheelchair-ridden boy rolling towards her.  The bus pulled up, driving past him and sending a spurt of water spraying all over him.  He didn’t seem to mind, as he was already soaking wet.  The bus doors opened, and the elderly man hurried in, trying to distance himself from Ming.  The driver gestured at Ming in annoyance, clearly not about to wait for the boy in the wheelchair, who was halfway down the block.  Ming shook her head, and the bus left.  She walked forward to meet the boy.
“Why didn’t you get on?” he asked suspiciously as she held out her hand.
“I don’t know, I felt bad I guess.  You were stuck out here without anyone in the rain, and with your…wheelchair,” she replied, stumbling a little over her words.
“Just what I need,” he growled. “More pity.”
“I’m Ming,” she said, holding out her hand.
“I don’t care,” he said, pushing his wheels to move past her.
Undeterred, she followed him, surprised at the speed at which he moved.  Almost jogging, she asked him why he was so angry.
“Because I’ve had a bad day, okay?” he snarled. “And you coming here and not getting on your goddamn bus just because you ‘felt bad,’ how do you think that makes me feel?  Do you think I want to be pitied?  Do you think I want your attention?  I want to be treated like everyone else, not like some special freak!”
Ming was quiet for a little while.  Then: “I’m sorry.  I just wanted to help.”  She touched him lightly on the shoulder, biting her lip to stop the tears for the second time today, and then she walked away.
****
The stench of cigarettes and sweat pervaded the air around Carlos’ nostrils.  He wiped his forehead, feeling the stubble of hair on his head as he did so.  His maroon eyes stared out at the dark world in front of him under his dark eyebrows.  He was sitting against the fence, a hammer in his left hand and his right hand resting on his knee.
“Can you guys put those out?” he asked the men around him. “I’ve told you before, I can’t stand the smell, and I don’t want to die of lung cancer.  I got two kids.”
“Why don’t you learn to speak English before you rag on us, beaner?” jeered a white man.  Carlos looked to Jose for help, but Jose shook his head ever so slightly, a nod almost imperceptible.  And so Carlos stayed silent.
They were building a fence for a particularly rich man in town, by the name of Jared Ingleberry.  He owned a riverside house, and he complained that the “dirty homeless” would come up from their makeshift homes by the river and sleep on his lawn.  Though they all claimed to remain outside his property line, Jared was adamant that they be kept out.  And so the homeless wandered back to the river, staring at the water with sad eyes.  They were eyes that knew more than many in the world, thought Carlos.  They had seen too much, lost too much, but even those that had turned to drugs were wiser than the ruthlessly ambitious politicians or the lazy scholars.  He had spoken with them, urged them to pick up their lives.  While some spoke incoherently and mumbled nonsensical riddles to themselves, many wished to work, to get a job.  But once they had slipped this far on the slippery slope of life, they had no hope.  It saddened Carlos seeing how brilliant some of them were.
All it takes is one mistake, and your whole life can be thrown away.  Because while one year, two years, thirty years can go by without cessation, change occurs in seconds, in mere moments, fragments of time.
Time is a fragile vase, and it shatters at the slightest touch, the slightest crash, and then it’s all disappeared until you can’t even see yourself anymore, until you look in the mirror and what you see is a prophecy of your future.

Chapter One: The Vision
The gray sky darkened at the horizon, a foreboding message to those who dared to change, to travel from their city.  It was a bleak world, a colorless world.  Skyscrapers towered over the streets, casting dark shadows in frightening alleyways.  Johnny Sparks rubbed his bare arms nervously as he stepped over the puddles of gasoline that littered the ground.  Calls from unseen doorways, along with beckoning shadows, made him hurry as he walked.  He did not turn his gaze, but still he saw the temptations out of his peripheral vision.  They were temptations of drugs, sex, of living fully.  But the time was fleeting, and after the crash, after the glorious trip ended, the sky seemed even darker, the world filled with smoke and the food tasting like ash.  Johnny knew that once he succumbed, it was almost impossible to escape.  He had been like that several years ago.  He had been one of the shadows, a stranger in an alleyway tempting the passers-by.
But Johnny had a purpose now.  Not quite a dream.  The drugs had muddled his brain enough to make him incapable of ever achieving anything extraordinary.  But he had a job that allowed him to pay his rent.  He could spend the rest of his days in this city, maybe retire when he was old enough.  Living life to the fullest was overrated.  Johnny knew this for a fact because he had done so three years ago.  Dreams were useless, weighing him down with disappointment when they inevitably failed.  Practicality, the mundane, drab normality of everyday life; that was where it mattered.  That was what held society together.
“Redemption, sir, I can give you freedom and salvation!” cried a voice.
Johnny did not turn to look, choosing to ignore the lunatic.
“It’s the 21 of December, sir, it’s the day the world will end!  Countless prophets have predicted the catastrophe!” The voice’s owner sounded almost hysterical.
Johnny left the alleyway and sat down on a bench near the bus stop.  The bus would take him to his office, and then he would spend the day calling people richer than him, asking if they wanted to buy the company’s current product.  The company changed its product often, depending on how successful it was.  If they had a good month, the product stayed the same, perhaps for several more months.  But if their weekly quota was not met, the product was changed before the month even ended.  Occasionally, Johnny found himself describing previous products when on the phone, the constant changes creating confusion in his mind.  Even worse were the flashbacks from the drugs.  He had indulged frequently in a drug called Glow, a stronger variant of LSD.  A hallucinogen, it was named for creating a sort of “glow” around everything, almost as if was emitting an aura.  Strange apparitions also appeared, and the sensory sector of the brain became distorted, mixing the senses in an attempt to discern what was happening.  Johnny, as well as the many other users of Glow, enjoyed it partly because of the colors one saw when under the influence.  Johnny would greet them as long lost friends, remembering the colors that framed his childhood in happy, vibrant rays.  Except now, the over usage of Glow caused him to sometimes experience highs even when not using the drug, similar to the effects of LSD.  It was not as though color no longer existed.  It was just the smog, the factories, the buildings.  Everything was gray.  The attitude of the city’s population was depression, and that was reflected in the colors of their lives.
Johnny stood up quickly as the bus arrived, rummaging in his pocket for some loose change.  His fingers grasped several quarters, and then two dollar bills.  The bus fare was $2.50, so he had just enough.  He waited patiently for all the passengers to disembark, and then hastily stepped onto the bus, well aware that he might be late for work.  He handed the driver the money, putting the leftover quarter in his pocket.  The bus lurched and Johnny quickly searched for a seat.  As he sat down, he toyed with the coin in his pocket, pulling it out and inspecting the date on it.  It was from 2001, and the once shiny exterior was slightly tarnished and old.
A large, bearded man coughed, and Johnny realized that he wanted to sit down.  Johnny shifted over, allowing the man to sit by him.  As the man bent to sat down, the bus lurched once more, swerving over to the side of the road.  The driver cursed in surprise, pulling the bus back into the center of the street.  As he did so, the bus lurched once more, and Johnny was aware of a faint shaking, not in the vehicle, but in the earth itself.  He heard a sound, too, an immense wave of sound that was still building up, still swelling, the frequency too low for him to even register except as a pressure against his ears.  Johnny cried out in fear as the bus lurched for the last time, the front end tipping forward while the back end flew into the air.  Johnny felt himself flying forward, and the bearded man beside him grabbed onto the back of his shirt.  Before he could thank the man, however, the momentum of the bus kept them moving forward, and the bus flipped over completely, sending Johnny crashing to the ceiling.  His stomach slammed with a thud into the hard metal interior, and he found himself unable to breathe.  The pressure he had felt around his ears earlier had worsened, and now the sound was high enough to hear.  It was the sound of ripping, of destruction.  Though the bus was still skidding violently, and a river of blood was flowing into his eyes, he could see buildings smashing to the ground through the window.  He saw fires, huge car pile-ups, and, in one place, the street had cracked open, revealing a wide chasm beneath the ground.

So basically what this is going to be is a compilation of blogs that I feel like writing.  There’ll be at least one a day (hopefully), with varying themes.  There may be some expos/creative writing in there, along with venting, or just observations I have.  So…read and enjoy, and if you don’t enjoy, then it honestly does not affect me that much, considering that I’m getting paid per view, not per positive rating.

As for the name of the blog, Convenient Lie, it does not reflect my views on the environment, politics, social issues, etc. (just a pre-emptive strike for those of you who choose to decide everything about someone by two words…)   It’s just a quick name that popped into my head.  I can develop the idea later, but if you want me to spell it out for you, it’s the opposite of the words an inconvenient truth.