Two

Rough draft of chapter two of Atlas Winced

2

            Atlas woke up the next day after sleeping relatively well. Perhaps yelling at communists is a better sleep aid than ambien and cannabis indica? He never really did sleep all that well, but that's afflicted him for decades. He would oft jest that it makes him the apex predator of ebaying and other such auction sites. He'd rather make someone else laugh about it than give himself over to the frustration of it all. Before even getting out of bed, he grabbed the bottle of caffeine pills and bottle of water on his night stand. He selected two caffeine caplets and swallowed them both with a gulp of water. 

            Now he was making his way to the bathroom to run through his morning routine: a shower, a s**t and a shave; with great music blaring. Today it was Dream Theater's  Falling Into Infinity, starting with "Lines in the Sand". Atlas could literally listen to John Petrucci play guitar for hours on end, and had done so an amount of times that he often wonders if he'll ever find a guitarist that could inspire him more. After trimming up his several inches of facial hair, he shaved the portions of his face that weren't a part of his majestic beard. Then after going to the bathroom, he takes a rather hot shower and begins singing along with "Just Let Me Breathe" with incredible passion. The aging musician had always enjoyed the acoustics of his shower and more often than not took full advantage of them. 

            Soon enough he was toweled off and preparing for his, likely forlorn, journey to the east. He started by preparing two sandwiches and five spliffs. Then he grabbed his portable music player,  speaker and camelback. You know, just the basics. He tied his wet hair back into a pony tail and began off into the east, hoping that the meteorite wasn't too far away from his sizable property. Not because he didn't want to go the distance but because he just didn't want someone else to find it first. 

            Locking the door behind him, Atlas began his eastward trek and decided that he would just let his playlist, Skyline 4.78, do the heavy lifting, musicwise, and lit a spliff. He walked for about ten minutes across the woodland that he had inherited from his grandfather when he passed away, avoiding the brier bushes as he went and keeping a stern eye for any passing animals. Squirrels skittered about in their usual squirrely fashion making tiny rustling noises away from the stoned invader of the strange kind. "This guy again?!" they almost seemed to say. Atlas laughed quietly to himself over his personification, he really rather loved squirrels. "They live so peacefully. All they do is play with each other, climb things, eat and bury seeds and nuts and create more wicked tree forts than I ever could. Such happy little things...it really is a shame that they rarely live passed the age of one because of the amount ran over by vehicular squirrelslaughtering vehicles...?" Atlas thought to himself until he became startled by a rather shrill sound. He looked upwards to find a mockingbird staring down at him with curious eyes. "Haha you've got me again, dearest mockingbird," he said as he sat down on a nearby tree stump to listen to this particular mockingbird's repertoire of birdsongs. He went from the irritating "caw caw" of the blue jay onto the happy sounding chirp of the house finch and ended with his grand finale, the "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" of the chickadee; Atlas's favorite bird. He took it as a great omen, got up and redoubled his pace with such enthusiasm and optimism that nothing could prevent him from finding his meteorite.

            With his quickened pace, he barely noticed that something had been following him. In fact, he hadn't noticed at all that there was a distinct sound that he couldn't identify: a kind of "clop clop, draaaaaagggg, clop clop, draaaaagggg," that seemed to mirror his pace in frequency. Paying it no real mind, Atlas fell back into the groove of his seemingly carefree attitude, and yet; the painstaking detective, within himself, couldn't help but keep a watchful eye (or ear rather). After some time he began to discern the noise as belonging to none other than the stray goat he would occasionally find wandering his property. But that didn't explain the dragging sound, it doesn't explain it at all...but ahh there it is, poor thing must've gotten stuck in something, but what is it stuck in? Without much understanding of what he was seeing, Atlas noticed the goat was stuck in a perhaps mortally wounding coil, wrapped around his neck with a large chunk of some sort of alloy leaving a trail in the ground behind him. 

            "C'mere Baphy!" Atlas called, as one might to a wary child to encourage them that everything would be alright, and the struggling goat slowly approached with a distressed sounding "baaaaahhhhhhhh..." "Shh, shh, it's going to be alright, Baphy, don't worry," he said as he knelt down to try and help the poor goat with the mess that it had gotten itself into. In examining the loose cord around the poor thing's neck, Atlas realized that it wasn't any material that he recognized, and with a little effort he had freed the ecstatic Baphy. The goat nuzzled against him with the kind of affection that is rarely seen in this wretched world of ours. Atlas smiled and pet his furry friend with one hand, and with the other put the odd cord and stranger alloy into his pack. Then he sat down next to the goat, lit a spliff and pondered on the curiousness of what had just occurred. Where in the hell did Baphy find this? What even is this?!

***

              "Now Barry, what is it that you have to do now? Repeat it to me." said an ominous voice in the torchlit chamber.

            Raising his gaze from the checkerboard floor, Barry replied, "to 'expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize' Atlas and the inevitable movement he will start as an insider who knew him in his early days."

               "Yes, yes this is what we require of you. You must be ruthless, you must not let your feelings for the man affect your work." Barry's mind began to wander to his initiation into this dark "Brotherhood":

               "You are prepared to give your life?"

               "Yes."

            "You are prepared to commit murder?"

            "Yes."

            "To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of innocent people?"

            "Yes."

            "To betray your country to foreign powers?"

            "Yes."

            "You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases -- to do anything which is likely to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?"

            This time, Barry hesitated and let out a half-hearted "Yes.."

            "If you do not wish to join us, now would be the time to admit it...But remember, Barry, always remember: 'If you are not one of us, YOU! ARE! NOTHING!!'"

            "Yes, yes I want to join you! I want nothing more!"

            "Good, good. Now let us continue...If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to throw sulfuric acid in a child's face -- are you prepared to do that?"

            Barry immediately answered "Yes," knowing that any more hesitation or signs of distaste would not be good for him. 

            "You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the rest of your life as a waiter or dock worker?"

            "Yes." This time the question was easier...This time.

            "You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order you to do so?"

            "Yes.." Barry answered, betraying his wish to stay alive.

            "You are prep

ared to separate, and never see your wife again?"

            "If....if I have t

o.." answered the forlorn fledgling Communist, who still had no idea what he was getting himself into.

            "Do you understand that even if you survive, it may be as a different person? We may be obliged to give you a new identity. Your face, your movements, the shape of your hands and the color of your hair-- even your voice would be different. Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb." 

            "Yes, yes! I am ready for this task!" Barry answered, still with no real cognition about what he was being asked. 

            "Very well, let us begin the initiation..."

                        

            How strange it all seemed now...was he an unwitting pawn or was he one of "The Keepers of the Secrets of the Ages"? He couldn't remember much of the initiation, except for the strange coppery taste of the "blood" and the circumambulation on the checkerboard floor. He wished he would have learned earlier. He wished he could have foreseen what was ahead. But alas, no one ever recognizes Jahbulon until it's far too late... 

Author's Note

10/11/15

Reviews

[A.marie.speaks]

One thing I notice is the initiation scene.. I know I've heard or seen close to exactly the same line of questions somewhere.. I can't put my finger on it.
Is this a real line of questioning for a real secret society? Or the government or something?
But all and all its a chapter that really draws you in.

[Jonny The Savage]

It's from 1984, something about it just felt right to include, but it might be too close to a direct quotation.

[A.marie.speaks]

Oh yes. Loved that book. I guess it's personal judgement and it could be seen as an "ode to 1984" kind of incorporation in the story. It didn't deter me from reading but it caught my attention as similar but with secret societies and all types of the occult there are such similar initiations that it may not ring like dejavu in someone else's head. Regardless I'm excited to read on

[BenjaminJames]

You painted the scene with Baphy so intimately. Atlas seems like quite an outstanding fellow. What with his fine tuned inner sense with nature and ability to brush fools off like water on duck feathers. I eagerly wait for your next update. You won't need to email it to me this time haha

[Jonny The Savage]

Thank you good sir. I did really enjoy writing the scenes with the animals, as you've likely already figured out haha. Atlas is incredibly heroic, in my mind. Sounds good sir. I could email you what I've got so far on it if you'd like.

[B]

Jonny this is amazing
Atlas has this chilled out mood to him
i really like him
and is humane heart is just like a magnet

The brotherhood
i read that and i freak out
because i met people that think this way
and they sat and talked with me
and i must say i left in a couple of minutes
because if you stay long enough they are devils
No sense of right and wrong
and no fear of anything
yet they are cowards
because they do not respect the law and the elderly

This is truly amazing
please continue
i will be waiting

[Jonny The Savage]

Thanks Nisreen, I'm glad that you enjoyed it so much.
I wasn't sure with your aversion to novels in general and all :P.

haha right? it's such a sick world, couldn't not add them to it.

Thanks dear, I'll try my best :D.