Chapter 6

          Upon walking into Gula, one thing I immediately noticed was the magnificent smell throughout the city. I couldn’t pinpoint what it really smelled like, it was just like one of those moments where I wanted to just close my eyes and take it all in. After hearing those ladies talk about food so much, I was getting kind of hungry. I walked past the name and job table again towards the closest restaurant. There was no line to order food so I immediately went to the front. A lady greeted me at the register.

          “Hello sir, you are new here aren’t you?

          “Yeah, how did you know?”

          “Just the way you hesitated when you walked in,” she said. “Most people want their food immediately.” I looked around for a menu and there wasn’t one to be found.

          “Where is your menu at?” I asked as I kept looking around.

          “Oh, I’m sorry; we have you scan for your meal.”

          “What?” I got so confused from such a random statement.

          “Yeah, we have scanners that take your cravings and favorite foods from your thoughts.” My mouth dropped. That sounded awesome because by this time I was craving some steak “The scanner goes on your head for five seconds like a baseball cap.”

          “Alright, sweet, let’s do this!” she then gave me one of the caps and I placed it on my head. It immediately started scanning. Sure enough, it said that I wanted steak and potatoes!

          “That will be ten Coin please,” the lady said, “All of our dishes are all you can eat and ten Coin.”

          “Thank you very much,” I said handing over ten Coin. Now I had run out of the first bag of Coin and only had fifteen left from the older man. I sat down and started eating the steak. It was pretty much the best steak ever; but I guess having amnesia blocked my memory of what it used to taste like so who knows. Nonetheless, it was wonderful and juicy, cooked to perfection. After I finished, I was still slightly hungry and since it was all you can eat, I went back up for seconds. The quality of the steak was just as superb as the first. Then I was about to leave and the lady at the register yelled for my attention.

          “Sir, there is free dessert!” By this time I was way full, but something about free food just got me. I ate a whole batch of cookies! After eating everything, I was completely bloated. It was definitely one of those moments that I regretted in eating so much.

          I decided to head out of the restaurant and walk down the street. I noticed that the people here didn’t worry about having a specific look. It was a lot more diverse. There were some more people on the street just like at Luxuria-Fornicatio that were on their soapboxes.

          “You are your own purpose, so make the most of it,” the man said. “Satisfaction is found in the fulfillment of your heart’s desire. Seek and you will find everything within yourself.” Yet again another nice speech. I wasn’t so settled in it even though the basics of it sounded pretty sweet. After the man had finished, I began walking down the street again. Then I saw a mall up ahead. I was pretty sure that there had to be some better clothes because the diverse style of apparel. As soon as I walked in, I saw so many stores that it would have taken me three days to visit all of them if I went to each store for twenty minutes, of course that was something I wasn’t interested in doing so I just went to one of the stores next to the entrance. The majority of the clothes were bundled in deals: Three t-shirts for five Coin and two pairs of jeans for ten Coin. The thing I didn’t like was that individual things cost almost the same as bulk. I decided to go ahead and get both deals. I needed some other clothes for sure; I was getting tired of wearing the same overalls all the time. After exiting the store I realized that I had used all my Coin that I had received. I may actually have to start earning Coin. I think that was one of the first moments on this island that I was legitimately worried. It kind of made me wonder why I was so at peace at first.

          It was starting to get dark now, and I hadn’t received any more Coin.
Then I remembered the first thing I saw at both cities; the name and job table. When I arrived, I was greeted with a smile from a well dressed lady, “Can I help you, sir?”

          “Yes,” I answered. “I don’t have any Coin left and I guess I need a job.”

          “You guess?!” she said as if I was unsure of myself. That was pretty good discernment on her part because I was unsure. “How about you know.” Then  she paused for a moment and looked straight into my eyes, which I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty awkward. “I guess I can host you for some work.”

          “You guess?” I said softly. No doubt I realized that I was flirting with this woman, “How about you know!”

          “Oh shut up, but for real, are you interested?”

“Well, it depends.” I said. I didn’t want to venture into another weird situation with a girl. No matter if I thought she was good looking or not. “What will you need done?”

          “I need a babysitter for the weekend. My husband is on a business trip and I’m going to be out and about most of the time. I’ll pay you ten Coin an hour.”

          “Alright great, I’ll do it.” I’m glad to hear that she was married because that would relieve some worries. Also, ten Coin an hour would really help me out, especially getting paid for the whole weekend.

          “By the way, I’m Sarah. I just got off work; follow me.” She gestured as we both started to walk. As we were walking she asked me, “What’s your name? Tell me a little about yourself.”

          “I don’t have a name yet, I feel like I’ll figure it out someday.”

          “You mean your real name?” she said quite seriously. “I’m sorry to say you probably won’t ever find out.”

          “We’ll see,” I said, still hanging on to the idea of figuring everything out. I went ahead and told her about everything I went through since I was conscious.

          “Oh, the same happened to me.” She said real plainly, “At least the unconscious thing.” It seemed to me that was real fake, but who am I to know her character, she is offering me a simple job for what I feel like is good pay. By this time, we had made it to her house because we were in the alley like streets and she started to head towards a door. When she opened the door, I was greeted by the two most chubby kids I have ever seen. “This is Charlie and Jane,” she said. Charlie looked about ten and Jane was around five or six. I was shocked that the kids didn’t resemble the mom in shape. It must have been all of the eating that is offered in Gula or something. “All you need to know is that you can have whatever you like, and keeping the kids happy will benefit you.” Sarah said as she walked out the door.

          “So kids, what do you want to do?” I offered.

          “I’m hungry.” said Charlie. I should have seen that coming.

          “Alright, let’s get you some food.” I opened the refrigerator and it was filled to the brim with all kinds of meals. Charlie seemed to know what he wanted because he grabbed a chicken nugget meal as soon as I opened the fridge. Then Jane and I grabbed our meals as well and headed to the living room where we all ate.

          Before I knew it, the weekend was flying by. It wasn’t too hard to take care of the kids. Jane would occasionally have a fit if she didn’t get what she wanted.
She was already so chubby that I didn’t worry about letting them eat too much. Sarah had also come in each night partially drunk, but sober enough to pay me. The last night was a big shift from the other though. Sarah came in completely wasted. She was rambling as well as being all up in my personal space.

          “You wanna have sex?” She asked very bluntly.

          “No, why are you saying this out of nowhere?” I asked, though I knew that it was because she was drunk.

          “I’d get a raise if I did it.”

          “What? That doesn’t even make sense.” I asked very suspiciously.

          “Well,” she said, “You are.” Then she passed out. So much for that making any sense.

          When morning came around, I started gathering my bag and coin that I had received and Sarah walked in the room.

          “Did you enjoy last night?”

          “What do you mean?” I asked.

          “Well, you know…the sex.”

          “Oh, we didn’t do that.” I said.

          “What? Ah, dang it! That is going to be bad. Well, go on, get out of here.” She said so quickly.

          “Alright…?” I said hesitantly. “Is everything okay?”

          “No, you just will get me in trouble if they know that I had the chance. You just need to leave.” She said as she was shoving me out the door. That left me with a lot of questions as I stood at the front door. Who are “they?” Why would she get a raise for seducing me? Gula was really scaring me at this point. Being kicked out of a home very randomly wasn’t what I expected, but it gave me a motivation to leave Gula. It was not long before I had made it to Gula’s North Gate and made it on a bus headed to Acedia.

i will post the next chapter on march 27th

Chapter 5

When morning came it took me a while to get out of bed. It felt so nice. The older man had left so I took my plastic bag and money and walked back outside. I definitely looked out of place. The majority of people had on skimpy looking outfits or really fancy outfits. No one dressed for comfort. It’s always interesting to me that when you have nothing specific to do, your mind races more. That is what happened to me. I didn’t know what to do next. Maybe I could go to the next city but I didn’t know where that was.

          I decided just to start walking down one of the main streets again. I walked by another corner speaker, who appeared to be saying the same things as the other speaker was the day before. Maybe there were several people who had that as a job. I thought it wouldn’t be a fun one if it was, but I guess not all work is enjoyable. I continued walking noticing the people as I walked by. Many couples were around, and most of them were in some physical act. The thought of public didn’t seem to bother any couple from making out or anything else.

          Anyway, before I left the town I wanted to learn a little more about this place. I made it to what appeared to be the center of the city. There was a circular glass building that was the tallest in the entire city. When I walked up to the entrance, someone yelled from behind me.

          “Well it’s obvious you’re new here,” he said. I stopped walking and turned to find a bigger man. “Not only are you in weird clothes, you are trying to go in there.”

          “What is so wrong with going in?” I said in a very confused tone.

          “Wow, you really are new. Well, only those who are invited can go in.”

          “How do you know I wasn’t invited?”

          “Simple, the way you were dressed. You are invited when you become known in the city. If you were invited then you would have been acting differently than you are now or you would have been dressed nicer. But you’re obviously not. You’ll get used to this place; just give it some time. Why don’t you get yourself some new clothes and hit up a club or something?”

          “Well thanks for the offer, sir,” I said, “But I’m not too interested in this city. Do you know anything about transitioning to another city? Or which one is closest?”

          “Well, just go to any side of the city: north, east, south, and west. There is a bus that will take you to the city in that direction. Of course, each city on the outside will have one side with no bus because there is no reason to go to the coast. Each city is the same distance from the ones next to it. If you want to walk, you’re on your own, but it’s a free service to go via bus.”

          “Alright, well thanks man,” I said politely. I knew this wasn’t the place where I wanted to be, so I was definitely going to head a direction. I just decided to head back to the gate I came through. When I got to the gate there was no bus system. So I knew that I was at the very edge on the south side. I don’t think I was ready to head out on my own so I went the east gate where I was met by a woman.

          “Are you wanting to head to Gula?” She asked as she pointed at the bus. I nodded yes and she gave me a ticket. When I got on the bus, I sat near the back. After about ten minutes the bus started its journey.  I started to listen to a couple older ladies sitting in front of me.

          “Why are you going to Gula?” one lady asked another.

          “Well, I eat lunch there every day with my husband. The food there is to die for. Not literally, of course though,” she laughed.

          “Oh that is great. I am going to stay for a couple weeks. I always like to have a party week before I go on my diet.” I started to feel weird for listening in so I just sat back and closed my eyes. Only an hour passed and we were at Gula.

Lets go with my next post being two weeks from now: March 5th

Chapter 4

There was a large building across from the speaker. The building looked like a hotel and I guess that by the name “Relaxation Station.” I always laughed at the names of these places. Everyone seemed really blunt in their speech and of course the titles of businesses. I walked in the building and immediately saw a sign reading “5 Coin a night.” I didn’t really want to look around for a place to stay; especially since I had no idea where I was. So I went to the front desk and asked for a five Coin night.

          “Enjoy your night of fun,” He said as he gave me my room key. I wonder what he meant by fun. I was just planning to sleep unless there was a bunch of free games to play in my room. My room number was “333” which I was glad because it was easy to remember. I decided to take the elevator since it was closer to the front desk. Only men were inside. Each one had a sort of guilty look on his face. I shrugged it off not knowing the characters each one had. I didn’t feel like I had the right to judge them. I got off the elevator on the third floor and went to my room. Once I entered a robotical voice came from a panel on my door.

          “Thank you for choosing relaxation station, please enjoy your night!” I had no understanding why everything here seemed to be about enjoyment. I had a funny feeling from it though; being in a new place in general could have been the cause of it though. Before I decided to sleep I went into the bathroom to shower. The water was nice and warm and as I stood there I began to think. What lies ahead of me? How am I supposed to go about life here? I didn’t know anything about myself. Then I thought on a smaller scale. I didn’t even have anything clean to wear. That’s always a bad feeling. I got out of the shower and after drying myself off I wrapped up in a towel instead of putting back on my dirty clothes. I walked outside of the bathroom and was immediately shocked. A woman was lying on my bed almost completely undressed.

          “Hey, big boy, you ready to have some fun tonight?” she said in a seductive tone.

          “Who are you? And why are you in my room?” I announced as I kind of backed up towards the main door. “How did you get in here?”

          “Didn’t you know what this place is?” she said, “I’m your prostitute. When you check into ‘Relaxation Station’ it’s assumed.”

          “U-u-um, well I didn’t know that.”

          “That’s fine,” she said, “is that going to stop us from having some fun tonight?” She was looking at me with such a seductive face. I was beginning to be tempted in going through with it, but something deep inside me kept telling me that’s not who I was.

          “Yes, I’m afraid it does. Will you please leave?” I said in a weak but intentional tone.

          “But it’s my job to be here all night. If I leave I will get fired. You don’t want that do you? Come on, just a little fun?” she mentioned yet again seductively. Then she started walking over to me and tried to place her body against mine.

          “Quit that,” I said as she started to do it more. She then started rubbing her fingers on my shoulders. I twitched backwards then she spoke again.

          “Quit struggling, it will be more pleasurable.”

          “I don’t want it to be,” I pleaded. Then she grabbed the edge of my towel, “I can’t take this.”

          “Oh yes,” she squealed as she ripped my towel off and started to bring her body closer.

          “No for the last time!” I yelled completely sternly. I pushed her back slightly and I ran into the hall and down the steps. I got out of the building and let out a sigh of relief. Then I noticed I had no clothes on. Two or three women walked by and whistled. I covered myself all I could with my hands and ran into an empty alley. Or I thought it was empty. I was pulled inside a doorway by someone within seconds.

          “What are you doing like that?” an older man asked. I was pretty much speechless. When all of that happened, it was so fast my brain could have exploded. I just stared at him with a confusing look hoping that he would talk again. I didn’t want to speak until my thoughts were together. “Well let’s get some clothes on ya at least,” he said as he started walking out of the room. He left for just a couple seconds and then walked back in with a plain white T-shirt and some overalls. He also had a plastic bag he handed me full of underwear. “Now put these on son, and we will have a little chit chat afterwards.” He said as he handed me everything. I could still only say thank you as I took the clothes and tried them on. They were a little big but at least I wasn’t naked anymore. “I’m guessing you’re new here?”

          “Yeah, I got here this morning.” Words were finally starting to come back to me.

          “Ah, that explains it,” the old man laughed. “I’ve been here for thirty years. My name is Arthur, what is yours?”

          “I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t really feel like making one up.”

          “Ah, so you didn’t even get yourself a job? Well maybe this city isn’t for you.”

          “There are other cities?”

          “Oh yeah, there are seven total: Luxuria-Fornicatio, Gula, Acedia, Ira-Invidia, Socordia, Avaritia, and Superbia. All of them form a circle on this Island, with Superbia being in the middle of the island.” I didn’t even know this was an island; yet alone more cities. I remember not having much of a choice. But then I remembered, I had followed the large group into the city right after the bigger man mentioned going.

          “What’s outside of the cities? I asked.

          “Not sure, a lot of rumors say it’s dangerous. It’s like living on your own. There are no jobs or houses.”

          “Can we ever leave the island?”

          “Boy, you ask so many questions. Sit down, we’ve been standing here for quite some time,” he said as he showed me into the living area. We both sat in our own recliner. “Now what was your question? Oh yeah, leaving the island. Well, as you can see, I’m old and still here. But I just haven’t chosen to leave. I like it here. Don’t see what could be better.” He said as he leaned back in his recliner and smiled.

          “So you can choose to leave?”

          “Yeah in a way, right where you came outside, you can go back in. But they make you do a lot of tests.

          “What kind of tests?”

          “Boy, I don’t know, I haven’t tried to leave. If ya fail the test they send ya back out with amnesia again.”

          “Oh so everyone had amnesia? And who are these people anyway?”

          “Correct son. And no one knows anything about them. They are so forceful it makes me wonder if the rest of their world has just as much rules.”

          “There are only two rules though.” I laughed.

          “One too many if ya ask me boy. Well it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ll show you to the guest room.” He said as he stood up. Then he led me down a small hall into his guest room. The place was huge for just a guest room. I have work in the morning, what are your plans?”

          “Well I was thinking about visiting the other cities.”

          “Oh you don’t want to do that just yet. There are so many things you haven’t got to do yet. Go to a club and meet some ladies. If you are a rule keeper and all you can go multiply or something.” He chuckled, “It’s pretty easy here. Everyone is open for fun.”

          “Well I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do. I feel like I was married or loyal to something before I had amnesia. I don’t want to be disloyal if so.”

          “Ah, the past is past kid. Just live up life!”

          “Well thank you for everything sir but I think I will leave tomorrow.” I insisted.

          “Ok, sure sure, well here is some money for your travels.” He said as he handed me another bag of Coin.

          “Thank you. Goodnight.” I said taking the bag.

          “Good luck kid.” He said. He left the room and went on down the hall. It had already been a long night so I got in the bed which was the most comfortable bed I’ve ever felt. Then I fell asleep not long after. 

Next post will be a couple weeks from this date. prob 2/19 or something

Chapter 3

Once the gate was lifted, we all went through into the city. It was huge. It didn’t seem near as massive from a mile away. Immediately upon entering, I noticed every sort of business. For some reason, my imagination made me think everyone was starting from the bottom up, but technology was booming. I stopped at a booth titled “Create Your Name, Find a Job.” I wondered if that was as simple as they made it. There were so many people pushing for a spot at the booth that I just backed up and watched. I thought it was funny that all of the men were naming themselves very manly names; the ones I can remember were Sparticus, Leonidus, and Zues. There were much more along those lines as well. All of the women were naming themselves after adjectives. Beautiful, hope, and honest were some among them.

          While I was still watching, another bigger man came up to me. “You look new here,” he said, “have this; go buy a drink.”

          “Thank you,” I said as I took a bag from him. I opened it to find fifteen coins. One side had a person’s face on it which I’m guessing the name “Titus D. Order” was his name according to that name being under the face. On the other side of the coin was the words “Worth One Coin.” I kind of laughed out loud at that moment. How original when coming up with a currency.

          I put the coin back and continued walking down the same road as the entrance. It seemed that the buildings grew taller and more complex as I went further down the road. There was a crowd gathered on the corner of the main road and an alley. Though it could have been the size of a road, I called it an alley because its comparison of size to the main road. There was one man standing on a wooden crate speaking to the crowd. I think I came right as he was beginning.

          “I know many of you wonder why you are here.” He said in a very eloquent voice, “but I tell you, I have received a vision. We are to seek what we desire. We are all great and famous people in our past, here to form an elect group of individuals looking to make a society for all to receive what they dream.” That made me think. I hadn’t slept in forever it seemed. The man continued talking but it seemed like he was repeating his basic message. It sounded really great. To imagine a place where everyone got what they wanted. No more poverty. In a way everyone seemed equal. According to him we were all high up in status.

          The day started to fade and the sun was leaving the edge of the horizon. I decided to find a place to sleep.

the next chapter will be added around February 7th or so :)