Chapter 13

After our new friends had received their drinks we went to the next floor that was filled with seating booths. We sat down at one, and the guys finished their drinks as we talked. I started noticing a fairly quick change in the topic. The guys were starting to discuss some deeper concepts. Half of the time, Bro, Peyti, and I couldn’t even follow the conversation and had to just sit in amazement.

          “How do you even know we exist?” Sam asked the others. At that point my mind started spinning in confusion. First of all, I didn’t think something so intelligent could come from Sam’s mouth. He was a very simple guy. Or at least I took him to be. Then I started trying to picture my nonexistence. It was hurting my head to think of other possibilities. Especially since it felt like my life was so real.

          “For me, I don’t think we can know,” Ian started, “I mean, there are so many possibilities. What if we are really in a control room somewhere outside of this island and they have us thinking we are here?”

          “Or what if we are a virtual creation of someone else’s imagination?” interjected Tom.

          “Don’t you think that us simply thinking has anything to do with our existence though?” Sam said.

          “That is true to some extent,” Ian continued, “But I was talking to a guy in here the other day about the same topic and he mentioned that fact that we can’t even trust our thoughts. What if they are not really rational?”

          “Woah, I didn’t even think of that.” Sam returned. “This place is so awesome.” I was beginning to think the same. It was very appealing to be thinking on a higher level, but I knew I didn’t need to be spending any money.

          The conversation continued for another hour or so, but then I realized how the conversation became simpler until the guys were just talking about simple stuff like what is going on at the farm. The drink had ran out I guess.

          “I guess it’s time to go back,” said Ian. Then we got up and left for the farm. When we got back, I was up later than usual. I was thinking about all the topics that had been discussed. I also noticed that Peyti seemed like she was up thinking about these things as well.

          The next morning, I asked Peyti, “What do you think about last night?”

          “I’m unsure,” She explained, “I don’t know if I want to think of that deep of stuff. What if I don’t like the conclusions that I would come to?”

          “Yeah, I feel the same,” I returned, “I kind of want to try it out though. I don’t see too much harm in it.” After talking for a bit more, we decided that the next time we went, we would get a drink.

          Ian was accustomed to going to Neocortex twice a week so we waited until he went. I began to build up the time in my head. Maybe this was the answer to all of my questions about myself. I had to try this drink out to see if it would recall memories or something about me. Nonetheless, thinking at a higher level was very appealing to me.

          When the day came, we had decided that we would only get one hour drinks. The whole crew decided to come with us again. I hadn’t looked at the price of the drinks, but I was really surprised. A one our drink was only 2 Coin. The other guys got two hour drinks, Peyti and I got one hour drinks, and Bro was still skeptical and didn’t get anything. We got our drinks and headed to the same booth the last night we were there.

          The drinks were all small and meant to be taken like shots. We all took them at the same time and I immediately noticed my eyes widen and my mind focus on one topic at a time. I felt very aware of conversation and although my mind was racing, I was able to keep up with it and develop thought patterns. The thrill and adrenaline that came with it kept me engaged in conversation. I was addicted.

          Peyti on the other hand, didn’t seem to like it. After my hour was up, we talked about it for a bit and she decided that she wasn’t going to have it again.

          “You know, you should watch how much you drink this.” She said to me, “If you get addicted, you will waste a lot of your money.”

          “I’m unsure of how many times I’d want to keep coming,” I responded, “It’s nice, but I agree with you. Even though it is 2 Coin, the money could add up and we are here to earn money.”

          “Exactly, I’m glad you understand.” Peyti said. I knew that I was being honest, but there was a large pulling to have another drink. I didn’t do it that night, but I knew I would at least have another.

          Later that evening I heard Bro and Peyti talking.

          “So why didn’t you like it, Peyti?” Bro asked.

          “Well although my mind was processing things a lot better, it kind of took a turn toward worry. I started thinking about the money I spent and how I needed to save. Honestly, that almost took up my whole hour of thinking. I’m surprised none of the other guys were worrying about things.” Peyti Answered, “Why didn’t you try it, Bro?”

          “Well, first off, I know that we need to save our money. But I also have been listening to all of you. I noticed the other guys were all talking about purpose. I know that is why it is drawing. Maybe we can figure out why we are here, but I feel like they were going in directions that ended up meaningless. For a while I even thought about how they have been going in endless directions. The drink may even provide a detour from our real purpose, and for that I really would like to earn our money and leave this city.”

          When Bro mentioned that, it definitely made sense. I knew that I shouldn’t try this too many more times, but my mind was so set on it, I at least was going to try it one more time.

          We continued working for the next couple of the days. We had become good enough at our jobs that our work day only took a few hours if that. When the day arrived for us to go to the Neocortex again, Bro decided he didn’t want to go. He wanted to let me know that he didn’t approve. Peyti came along, but I was the only one out of us three to get a drink. I got a two hour drink in order to be on the same page as the other guys.

          Before I knew it, I was doing this for the next few weeks. I’d even come a bit early and have a longer drink. Bro and Peyti both stopped coming, and they would try and talk me out of it during the work day.

          When a month passed, I had been going every night for a couple hours. I wasn’t getting anywhere on what our purpose was, but there was still hope that somebody in Neocortex had the answer. One night before I left, I noticed that Bro and Peyti were packing.

          “What are you guys doing?” I asked them.

          “What do you think,” Bro said. He sounded very frustrated. “We are leaving this place. This isn’t good for us, and I know that you are looking for purpose at this place, but it is only sucking you in. You haven’t learned anything except how many possibilities are out there and how you will never know. That sounds depressing to me. So Peyti and I are leaving.”

          “We still want you to come with us.” Peyti said hopefully. Bro then gave her a look that I could tell was upset with her for offering forgiveness. My heart was torn. I knew that what I was looking for wasn’t here. “We have enough money for at least a year,” she continued. I knew that I needed to go with them, so I nodded and began to pack up. We said goodbye to the boys and left for Avaritia that night.

Chapter 12

The next day, I decided to get up early. I had noticed the day before that Ian often woke up early and finished his work by noon. That sounded pretty good to me. Ian often chose to pull weeds. When I woke up, he was already out there, so I hurried to get ready and ran over to him.

          “Hey man, can I help you pull weeds?” I asked.

          “Sure thing,” he smiled, “It’s would be nice to have company.” We then began to pull weeds. I didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I did. I mean, it could have been the company, but it really wasn’t that bad.

I was still very intrigued by Ian’s happy nature. Maybe he had found his place or something. “So what all brought you here?” I asked.

Then Ian began to explain, “Well I’ve only been here on this Island for about ten days.” I was shocked when he said that. I remember being pretty frustrated; almost anything but happy. “When I got here I was pretty confused but, I made my way to this place. I don’t know what it is about pulling weeds, but I’ve been enjoying it here. Maybe I just enjoy the simplicity of it. It isn’t too stressful. I know my job, and when I finish I can go read and relax. And I get to do this all while I am being fed and paid.”

“That makes sense,” I said although I was really wishing he was happy because he found meaning. Not that I was upset that he at least found a place to be comfortable, but it felt like he was growing content in a place I really wouldn’t care to work in forever.

“Yeah, something about having a simple life is appealing to me,” he continued, “I may just settle down here. Sam seems like he is doing fine here, although he barely works around here.” Ian and I both chuckled. “How long do you think you will stay?”

“I’m not sure,” I explained, “We originally came here to earn some Coin.”

“Have you been out in the city much?” He inquired.

“No. Have you?” I returned.

“Yeah man, it’s pretty cool. Would you all like to go with me tonight?”

“Well, I don’t want to spend too much money, but I’d be up for a tour. I’ll ask the others after work.” After I said that, we were on the final part of the area where we were pulling weeds. We finished the job up and went back to the shed. By that time everyone was out working. I decided to take a nap since I woke up early. I noticed that Ian was doing the same.

          It was perfect timing when I woke up. Bro and Peyti were just coming in. “How was work?” I asked cheerfully.

“Eh…” Bro mumbled as he went straight for the shower.

“It was alright,” Peyti shared, “We went with Tom and scooped up poop. I don’t think it was Bro’s favorite thing to do.”

          “Yeah I wasn’t so fond of it either. Pulling weeds actually wasn’t that bad,” I said. “Ian asked if we wanted to go out around the town tonight. I told him that we didn’t want to spend much money and I’d ask you guys. What do you think?”

          “I’m up for it,” she said, “But I want to shower as well.” Soon after, Bro got out of the shower and Peyti took his place.

          “I’m really tired,” Bro complained, “But I’ll go out as long as we don’t do too much. I want to come back and sleep as well.”

          “That’s fine by me,” I said. Then we continued to relax until everyone was ready. Tom and Sam also decided to join us.

          When we left, I quickly noticed that Socordia was not at all a beautiful place. There was tons of litter in the streets. The people were not so appealing either. I saw quite a few people in their pajama pants. I was starting to wonder if it was the style. Even though it was weird, you felt like you could relax. I thought back to my time in Luxuria-Fornicatio, and remembered how well dressed everyone was. I realized that even though the city was a dump, here you didn’t have to impress anyone. It was relaxed and there wasn’t much judgment. Maybe that is what Ian saw in the place.

          We continued through the city. Ian was taking us to one of his favorite places called “Neocortex.” He just kept raving about it. When we arrived I couldn’t believe my eyes. The place was huge. It was at least fifty stories high and was as wide as a stadium. We all had seen it at a distance, but we didn’t expect it to be the same place that Ian was describing. When we got inside, the lobby was filled with sections that looked like little bars. Ian took us up to one.

          “I’ll have a two hour boost.” He said. I was so confused that I only continued to watch what was happening. Sam and Tom decided to get one as well for the same time. Bro, Peyti, and I looked at each other and decided that we should save our money as we had agreed earlier.

          That night was the beginning of a path our group was not ready to go down.

Chapter 11

When we got to the farm, we spent the first day getting settling into our new living area. We had been given bunks inside a large shed that was made into a bunk house. It was a tight space but it was big enough for four bunks and an end table next to each. When we sat down to eat with everyone else inside the house, we were approached by an older lady.

“Oh, you must be the new workers Jim said he recruited today?” she asked.

“Jim,” returned Bro who was speaking for all of us who didn’t know who Jim was.

“Well, my husband of course!” she exclaimed, “You mean to tell me Jim didn’t even introduce himself when he hired you?! I’m sorry for his rude behavior then. My name is Iona, I will feed you and do your laundry while you are here, and my husband runs the farm.”

“Thank you mam,” I said to show our appreciation.

“So are all of you looking for other work right now?” Iona asked randomly.

“No, why do you ask?” I responded.

“Oh, most folks don’t last here long. We either get the people who have nowhere else to go, or we get those who are trying to transition to a different job.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“It’s hard work, son,” she said as she began to chuckle. Then she filled our plates and moved on to serve the others.

There were three other men who had been working there as well. One was a short man who had been working there for a few weeks. He had short curly black hair and scruff covering his face. He seemed like he was a very serious man. And everyone there was calling him Tom. The second man was pretty chubby. He had long blonde hair that didn’t look like it was his. He seemed jolly from the way he was lit up at the dinner table. He also talked as if he had been there the longest of the three. And the boys were calling him Sam. The third man was tall and skinny. He was the type of guy who stood out in a crowd. It was mainly because his height, but his smile was one that caught on if you looked at it for just a few seconds. His name was Ian. He came in just a couple days before we did.

Bro, Peyti, and I introduced ourselves after dinner to them. They were all what I would consider fairly chill guys. They all decided to lie down and talk in their beds until they fell asleep. I can’t say that our group did anything different though, we were really tired from all the day’s events anyway.

We woke up at 10:00am and we began to freak out because we were supposed to wake up at 8:00am. I looked over and all three of the guys were just waking up as well.

“We’re late.” I said expecting them to get up really fast. Instead, Sam began to laugh.

“We aren’t in any hurry. We will get our jobs done. It looks like you all need to be trained.” He said as he was still laughing a little. Then he began to show us around. There was a small farm with a few vegetables and a large pinned area with many pigs. “Now, the pigs just need feeding and cleaning the dun out of their main area. Once a week, we get to wash the pigs. We decided to play rock, paper, and scissors to see who has to do it for the week. But most of our time is spent pulling weeds on the farm or just general upkeep. Old Jim pays us 25 Coin a day no matter how long we work, so we usually just do a couple things here and there.”

“How come he said this is hard work?” Peyti asked.

“Well most people here just work a few hours a day and get paid a lot more.”

“Then how come you still have worked here so long?” she continued.

“Well, for me, I only have to work hard when no one is around. My job gets easier the more people who are here and I have learned to eat my fill during all the meals as you can see.” He said as he chuckled.

“I’m not sure how long we are here,” I explained, “but we will work hard to earn our wages.”

“If that is the case, I hope you guys stay longer,” Sam said, “Tom and Ian have been working hard too.”

Then we began working on the various tasks we were shown. Sam was right in that it only took us an hour to do everything we were asked to do. We then relaxed for the rest of the day.

During the next day, I was working along with Tom scooping up the pig dun, when Tom asked me about my time on the Island.

“So how long have you been here on the Island?” He asked. After I told him about myself and our group, I asked a little about him.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Too long,” He began, “I was told I was born here although I was raised in an orphanage in Acedia. When I was old enough to leave, I left to Avaritia and found a new home there. I enjoyed it for quite a while, but I knew deep down it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t a very happy person, so I came here to spend my earnings on entertainment. I didn’t even notice the amount of money I was spending, but I ended up going completely dry while playing poker one night downtown. I needed a job right away and Old Jim was hiring so I immediately accepted. That’s me up to this point.”

“Thanks for sharing that with me, Tom,” I said, “Are you planning on anything next?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “I thought about going back to Acedia. I feel like there is nothing out there for me.”

“That is really encouraging.” I said sarcastically. “My group of friends and I have been traveling the cities because we keep feeling like there is something more out there. I’m a bit discouraged now.”

“Ah, don’t listen to me the entire time. Besides, I haven’t been to most of the cities myself; only the ones I mentioned before. If you find something worth it, let me know.” He said as he smiled.

“Will do.” I said. By that time I hadn’t realized that our conversation took the whole work time for that day. After we finished up, we relaxed again and talked until we went to bed.

Chapter 10

The bus ride was an average one. Well, as far as the looks of the bus, and that not much happened. Once again, there was no one else on the bus. It was a little more obvious why since we were leaving Ira-Invidia.

          “Why were so many people giving us mean faces,” Bro asked distraughtly.

          “I really don’t know, Peyti’s parents were ten times worse even,” I exclaimed.

          “Well at least we are out of there. Hey, what is that?” Bro pointed. I looked out to see what looked like a mountain of trash. It was double the height of the city walls at least, which were only fifty yards from the trash pile.

          “You know, I haven’t really thought about where the trash in all of these other cities has been going. Obviously, they must do something about it because there aren’t any trash mountains outside the other cities.”

          “Yeah weird,” Bro said as we turned our eyes to look through the gate we were now pulling through. Getting off the bus we encountered the same name and job area that each city had. It was crazy how uniform the Island was. I mean each place I had been was different, but each place seemed to be unified in something. The lines for the town seemed to be quite a bit longer than the others, but I think the line was just moving slower instead of the demand to come into the city being larger.

          “So, where to now?” Bro said. I was thinking the same thing. We were kind of still from shock from the unwelcoming side of Ira-Invidia. I reached into my pockets first out of contemplation, and then I realized that I only had five Coin left.

“Maybe we should work again,” I said to him as I pulled out the remainder of my money. “How much do you have?”

          Bro looked into his bag and said, “I only have seven. I guess we better start looking for a job.” We went ahead and got in the fairly large line at that point.

          “How long have you been here, sir?” I asked the man in front of us.

          “Oh, I’d say for about an hour,” he said.

          “How long was the line when you got here then?”

          “Well I haven’t been counting but I’d double the amount of people who are here now.” He answered. I then looked at Bro to see if he was up for staying an hour or two, assuming that is how long we had to wait.

          “Well what else do we have to lose?” Bro said. So we decided to wait in line. It was interesting how half of the people there were just now getting names. Of course, Bro and I hadn’t gotten names yet either, but we felt a little more unique than most. It kind of set us at ease that there still might be hope for us, and that there was more people who were like us throughout these cities. When it was a bout thirty minutes in, we were about half way through the line. We had some interesting conversations with some people around us. One guy was talking about how they were really lenient on the job quality. Another guy mentioned how the cost of living is really low here, so most people only work once or twice a week if they have to. That honestly sounded pretty nice to me. I would say I’m a hard worker, but when given the opportunity to relax over work, I’m almost always going to relax. I would unless I was going to lose my job of course.

          An hour had passed, and we were finally at the front. We told the guy at the counter we were looking for any job that we could work together. He rolled his eyes as if it was going to be a difficult task.

          “You know that is going to be hard to find job openings; especially if you want to work together.” He exclaimed just like a worker would say you have a ten minute wait at a fast food restaurant; they don’t want you to order that because it involves more work than usual, but they realize they have to do their job. Well that is exactly his reaction.

          “We would definitely prefer to, sir,” Bro explained, “We are really hard workers and we would go wherever.”

          “Let me see what I can find,” he said as I got up slowly and walked over to his supervisor. For a while I watched them discuss the situation, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught the bus come in from Ira-Invidia again. I had forgotten that they run every hour as long as they have a passenger. I looked at who was exiting and I realized it was Peyti. I was afraid at first because I wasn’t sure if two seconds later her parents were going to come out too. Surely enough they didn’t. Peyti was the only passenger. I saw her kind of looking around as I normally would when I entered a new city, and then I remembered that she had not been anywhere outside of her town. I quickly began to wave her over.

          When she got over there, the worker had come back. “Oh, you have a third person now?” We could hear the people behind us yelling about her cutting. “If she is with you, you all have to go to the back of the line,” he said as he smirked. He knew that he wouldn’t have to figure out a place for us just yet if so. We didn’t argue with him as we left to go back to the line. Bro was a little upset at first, especially since he hadn’t met Peyti yet. I think that Bro kind of liked her upon meeting her though. It was probably because Peyti was a very beautiful girl. He quickly lost his frustration from losing place in line as we began to catch up and introduce Bro and Peyti officially.

          “So how did you get here? And why?” I asked.

          “I lied.” She said, “I told my parents that I felt like Ira-Invidia wasn’t where I belonged, and that I wanted to find out more about myself.”

          “That doesn’t sound like a lie,” I said curiously.

          “Yeah, that is because that isn’t all I said to them,” she exclaimed, “I told them I was going to Acedia in order to head to Luxuria-Fornicatio eventually. They seemed pretty excited about me showing excitement for learning about the cities, so I got away without many more questions. I knew that you would be heading this way so that is where I went.” I felt sad that she had to lie to her parents to leave, but I knew that I wanted her to join us more than her to go back to that family.

          “Well I’m glad you joined us, Peyti!” I said. Shortly after we had gotten to the back of the line, an older man interrupted our conversation.

          “I heard you all were looking for a job you can work together?” He asked as his thick mustache lifted with his smile. He seemed like a pleasant man, so I figured I’d respond.

          “Yes sir, do you have work for us?”

          “Well, I’m getting old, and I got me at the edge of town that hardly anyone wants to work at.”

          “Why is that,” I asked.

          “It is tough work, son. No one wants to work at a place like that if they get other job offers. Now I’ll pay each one of you five Coin an hour, but you’ll have to put in a hard day’s work. I’ll give you meals and a place to sleep as well.” All three of us knew that there weren’t going to be good chances of getting a job together, so we decided to take it.