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.

Chapter 9

We started walking around the city. Hardly anyone was moving around outside, although it wasn’t storming anymore; it was just cloudy. Peyti showed me all of her favorite places to go one after another. It was interesting that every place we visited was somewhere she liked to go alone. They weren’t places I would like to go either; some were back alleys and abandoned houses. Then I got to thinking. I wondered what the country on this Island is like. It made me feel a desire for peace from all of the business in these cities. Then I realized that was exactly what Peyti was doing; she was finding peace. “Do you ever go into the countryside?” I asked brightly.

          “No,” she said, “I can’t. My parents said they would disown me.” I was about to ask another question but then she came back in, “Besides, I’ve heard that there is nothing but crazy people out there.”

          “That’s funny,” I laughed, “I wonder why that is the case.” Shouldn’t all of the people out there be from the cities?”

          “Yeah, but I heard that they are people who can’t ever settle down.” She continued, “They never find their place.”

          “Sounds like me,” I said still laughing, “Maybe I’m one of those crazy people.”

          “You haven’t been to all of the cities yet,” She returned, “And I haven’t been to any of them except this one. I think we have a ways to go.”

          “Yeah I guess we’ll have to see.” I said as we started to slow down. “What are we coming up on now?”

          “My house!” Peyti exclaimed, “Come see my parents.” At that moment I had a weird feeling. It was something like a sense of trouble or almost like evil in the air. It was kind of weird to think of it since Peyti was so nice. I decided to shake it off and see how this all played out. When we entered the house it was like an average home, especially compared to the house I stayed at in Luxuria-Fornicatio. “Hey Dad, Mom, I’m home and I brought a visitor!”

          “Who is this.” Said a stern deep voice as a large man came around the corner. “You are out making friends again?” He said as he was looking at me in a deep way. It felt like I was in trouble or something. “I told you to not make any friends from outside!” Then Peyti started to say something.

          “But Da-”

          “Come on Evan,” Interrupted a much softer voice as a middle aged lady walked around the corner as well. “They don’t know any better right now and poor Peyti, doesn’t have any friends that she can hang out with.”

          “Well that is just something she will have to deal with. These people are manipulative, and we are the only one’s she can trust!”

          “hmm, I guess you are right, but let’s just let him leave. We don’t have to do anything to him.”

          “Isn’t your daughter old enough to make decisions by herself,” I said hoping that would lighten up the conversation. It turned out to be quite the opposite.

          “See!” the dad yelled again, “there’s that manipulative side that I am talking about. As long as our daughter is under our house, she is not going to be with you folk. Now get!” I looked at Peyti wishing I could do something for her, but at this point I was slowly being nudged out the door and her dad was so strong I wasn’t able to put up any fight. Before I knew it I was shoved out the door and it quickly shut behind me. It happened so fast that I wasn’t even able to see how Peyti was reacting and whether she was upset or content. Since there was no way to find out besides disrespecting her parents’ wishes, I decided to go back and find Bro at the hotel. It was 10:00 now at this point so I decided waking him up thirty minutes early wouldn’t be a big deal. When I entered in the room, Bro was already up drinking coffee.

          “Where have you been Bro?” he asked. I paused for a moment realizing that a lot had happened in the last few hours.

          “How long have you been up?” I said in order to get an idea of how long he had been up and what he would have missed.

          “I’ve been up since 9:00, why?”

          “Well, I was hoping it wouldn’t have been too long or I would have felt bad about not coming and getting you.” I answered. Then I began to share with him what all happened. After telling Bro what all had happened, he looked at me kind as if he was frustrated. “Is something wrong man?”

          “Yeah man,” he replied, “I don’t understand why you did not wake me up. It sounds like a really eventful morning and you got to be a part of it and I didn’t.”

          “I’m sorry, Bro,” I said, “I thought you would prefer sleeping in; especially since I left around six this morning.”

          “Well you thought wrong, now I won’t even get to meet Peyti or see what this city is really like.”

          “I wish I could change my decision, but there isn’t much I can say now except that I am sorry and I will definitely wake you up to go with me in the future. As for the stuff in the city, you really didn’t miss much. I can take you around before we leave to go to the next city.”

          “Ok, I’m sorry for getting angry there as well, Bro.” Said Bro as we shook hand and decided to move forward. I continued to show Bro around the spots that Peyti showed me. By this time some people were out and about, but strangely Bro and I received the same mean looks that Peyti’s parents were. After receiving about five more looks like that, we both decided it is time to leave the city. We made our way to the edge of the city and got on the first bus to Socordia.

Chapter 8

The bus ride was a little different than the other bus rides we had taken. No one else besides Bro, the bus driver, and I were on the bus. If me and Bro weren’t together and enjoying our conversation about our hopes for belonging to this upcoming city, the ride could have been described as creepy or eerie. With Bro’s company though, we were in Ira-Invidia before we knew it.

When we got out of the bus, the city was not foggy like I mentioned Acedia was. Instead Ira-Invidia was in the middle of a thunderstorm. Strangely enough, the storm was similar to the storms that feel somewhat comfy. Because it was night and quiet outside, it was strangely peaceful instead of scary. When Bro and I entered the city, the streets were empty. We quickly saw a hotel a block away and made our way to it because it was getting late and bus rides often wear one out.

Inside the hotel, the host seemed a bit cranky, but it was getting late so sometimes you can’t blame someone for being cranky having to work late hours. He still helped us get our rooms and I was sure glad to walk into the room knowing nothing strange like Luxuria-Fornicatio was inside. I took a shower and immediately went to bed.

Though the sleep was peaceful, I heard some sort of argument going on outside my window. Waking up felt similar to the times that one wakes up and isn’t sure they were awakened by the noise or just happened to wake up and couldn’t continue to sleep. Nonetheless, I was awake and this argument was keeping me in that state. It looked as though the host from the night before was yelling at an employee.

“You cannot come into work late! This is the first hotel new visitors see and you are a part of making their experience acceptable!”

“Sir, this is my first day of work. You told me to come in at 6:00 AM and here I am,” Said the girl who looked sixteen. I was not only amazed by the anger from the same host from last night, but also I thought I got a lot more sleep than I actually did. 6:00 AM was a bit too early.

“I did tell you 6:00 AM, but it is 6:05 on my watch!”

“Sir, it is 6:05 now, you have been yelling at me for at least five minutes.”

“Well you should have come early then!” yelled the host, “You’re fired!” The young lady fell on her knees out of despair and the host did the unthinkable (or at least unthinkable for a work relationship in association with a sixteen year old). He took her by the shoulders and threw her to her side so she was completely laid out. Then the man walked firmly around the corner towards the front of the hotel. The young lady remained there for a few moments and then she turned her head towards the front of the hotel. An older lady, probably in her forties came to meet her. She lifted the young lady up who was crying all out at this point.

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” she said as she held her in her arms; both still on their knees. “This man has had a lot going on the last couple days.” They started to talk quietly, and at this point I had decided that I wanted to meet these people. I didn’t think to get Bro up because it was still very early and I figured he could get his rest. Nonetheless, I went ahead and went outside. I purposely decided to wait to check out because the man was still at the counter with a distraught face. By this time the two ladies had got up from the ground and were having some small talk. When they saw me, they both flinched as if they were thinking about leaving or running from me, but they calmed down when I smiled and motioned that I was calm and not like the other guy.

“Hey, I overheard the conversation that went down this morning,” I said as I was still walking closer, “I am sorry to hear about you losing your job, but that didn’t seem like your fault.”

“I know,” the young lady replied, “I grew up with him and he is always like that. Not that I am saying he will change his mind, but what he did isn’t unusual I guess.”

“Are you serious?” I asked knowing that in my mind that is not normal at all, “This isn’t normal everywhere else I’ve been.” She kind of seemed surprised and then she began to speak.

“I’ve never…” she paused to think as if she was distressed, “I’ve never been anywhere else besides Ira-Invidia.”

“Besides coming in last night, this is my only experience of it. What about you?” I asked the lady who was older.

“I came in a couple of weeks ago. Seeing the struggles some of the younger people and visitors have to face makes me so angry. I want to be able to show that not everyone here is a difficult person. I have taken Peyti into my care as well because her parents kicked her out.” She pointed to the young girl so I assumed that was her name. Then it looked like this lady was thinking pretty deeply. “Say… are you traveling to the different cities? I’ve heard there are seven of which I have only been to two of them.”

“I will be traveling until I find myself at peace wherever I’m at.”

“I’m not sure you will ever find that, but at least I have found some sort of happiness here in this place and helping these people. Anyway, my reason for asking is that you should take her with you?” I initially didn’t want to take her because I perceived her as too young but I felt something in me that said she needs this for some reason.

“Well, how old are you?” I asked the younger lady.

“I just turned 19 a week ago,” she returned. I realized I had made a poor assessment but maybe she just hadn’t grown much yet.

“Ok, I will let you come with me, but you must also know I have another guy with me. We both have decided to call each other Bro, but you can call us what you want, we just decided to wait for a name to come to us instead of make one up ourselves. We kind of wish we would be notified of our real names.”

“I didn’t choose my name either,” she smiled, “I’ve always lived here. My parents said they came here when the cities were being built.” It was strange to think that this island had only been occupied as long as Peyti has lived. “It really wasn’t until ten years ago that we started getting a lot of visitors like yourself.”

“You mean that your parents where here before those who have had amnesia?!” I said pretty excitingly; hoping I would get to talk with her parents soon about the past.

“My parents have always said they have had amnesia as well,” Peyti explained, “It’s hard to understand when I haven’t gone through what everyone else has.”

“Hmmm, well is there a way I can talk to your parents anyway about what it was like when they first came here?”

“I’m sorry, Bro, but my parents became very angry with me right about the time that all the visitors came. They said that it was for my own good and that I should find out about everything myself, so although I’ve been living here my whole life, it sounds like you know more than I do. They are even worse to the visitors. They told me that they are trying to take our land. I quit believing that because most of you visitors are initially nice people.”

“What do you mean by initially?” I feared.

“It’s hard to explain. I guess that frustrations rub off the more you are around it.”

“It starts with complaining and then turns into annoyance, then arguing, then anger,” Interjected the older lady, “for only being here for a while, I have already had experience.”

“Let’s see the other cities, Bro,” Peyti said hoping to loosen up the discussion, “I haven’t seen any other ones before.”

“Well, I don’t want to wake Bro up yet because it is still on 7:30, but how about you show me around Ira-Invidia until about 10:30?”

“That sounds fine,” Peyti said as she motioned for me to follow her.

the next chapter will be posted May 8th... hopefully :)