Anthology Complex by M.B. Julien (new reading .txt) 📕

I take cover, and I see my partner laying on his back about four meters away from me. My heart is pounding. I don't know if it's because I just killed a powerful man or if it's because a close friend of mine is in danger. The pounding gets louder and louder until it finally wakes me up.

What does it take to truly change the way the world works? Do certain people have to die? Do certain people have to live? Someone said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I could also kill the next mayor of New York City, and then the one after that and the one after that, but even though the people in this seat change, the seat itself never changes. The people change, but the seat stays the same. So the world and the way it works stays the same. Sometimes what seems like true change is actually just the process of repetition. The process of repetition.

A king named Solomon said that there is nothing new under the Sun, and this is probably true. Every day we wake up, we go through our day, and then we go to sleep, until we wake up the next day to do it all over again. Rinse and repeat. Every day the Sun comes up, and then the Sun goes down. We are born, we have children, and then we die. Our children our born, and they have their own children, and then they die. Our children's children are born, and they have children, and then they die. A way to keep our species alive in a never-changing world.

These thoughts reflect the image of the double helix; the name of the structure or form our DNA takes. Two perfect spirals that continually repeat themselves. Because DNA is almost the road map to life, it is sort of poetic that it would take the form of a repeating structure. The same repeating structure that is symbolic to the lives we live.

The same repeating structure that is symbolic to a world that will probably never change. A world that can't change. Maybe a world that doesn't need to be changed.

There is a story of a group of humans who could only live for six hours. In most cases these humans would only live to see a world with light or a world with darkness, but there were some lucky humans who saw the change from day to night, or from night to day, but they didn't know what was happening. Unfortunately, before they could understand and document these changes and what was happening, they would die.

After a while, along came a human who could live for an entire week. This human saw changes from day to night and from night to day multiple times, and this human told the other humans that could only live for six hours that he or she could tell what was going to happen next.

So this human would tell the the other humans that soon there would be light, and while some humans died before then, the lucky ones saw this change and thought that this human who predicted this change was some sort of higher being, but eventually that human's week was over and he or she died.

After a while, along came a human who could live for years. This human experienced all the different seasons. This human understood the seasonal changes and the changes from day to night and night to day, and he or she documented and explained them.

Eventually this human told the other humans, who at the time could only live for a few months, that he or she could tell them what to prepare for next. So this human tells the other humans that snow and great cold is coming, and the ones who were lucky enough to last to see this change thought that this human was some sort of higher being.

Eventually this human died after living for so many years. After a very, very long time, along came a human who could live forever. After reading the documents and recordings of previous humans, he or she realized that every thing just repeats itself, even on the grandest scale. He or she saw the end, and then watched as the beginning started again. In this beginning, the human watched as these people who could only live for six hours were born, and then died.

Chapter 9:

THERAPEUTIC SILENCE

It's been a little over a week since Joe has been in a coma. By now I thought that he would have been out of it, but he's not. The people that work at the hospital tell me that he only has a few relatives, and that they can't reach most of them. The ones that they actually do get a hold of don't want to visit, either because they live too far away or they aren't that close to Joe. In the end I guess he is stuck with me.

I'm on my way out to go visit him, this will probably be my last visit. I hope it's my last visit. I hope he wakes up soon and returns to business as usual. I walk through the front door of my apartment building and I see the woman who just moved in kneeling on the ground. She's gardening.

She looks up at me and smiles, and that's when I immediately remember a dream I had of her a couple of nights ago. In the dream she is helping me with something, but I can't remember what. It's unfortunate that I can't remember some dreams that I have as well as others. Sometimes I wake up knowing I just had a dream, but I can't remember the dream for the life of me.

I'm standing there, looking at her with a weird expression on my face and trying to remember this dream, then her smile begins to slowly fade. She asks me if I'm okay, and I tell her I was fine. I tell her it was weird to see her gardening because I had never seen anyone ever garden around an apartment building. I always thought that was done usually around houses or nice places. She gets up and she says to me, "Your home is your home." And slowly the smile grows back onto her face, and once again I can't do anything but smile back at her.

She's wearing a pair of jeans so I can't see her fake leg, but for a small amount of time I can't stop thinking about it. I didn't dare ask about it. She then starts to talk about how she didn't really introduce herself when I helped her move the television, and she tells me her name is Lynne. She tells me her kids' names are Sarah and David. A lovely family.

I asked her what kind of flowers she was planting, and she told me they were going to be zinnias. She told me it was going to be a shade garden. I didn't really know what she was talking about but I would find out when she was finished. A little while after talking, I see a woman walking her dog. She's walks in our direction as if she is going to enter our apartment building.

Lynne sees the lady a little after I do and she tells me it's her sister, Claire. Claire was coming over for dinner. Lynne introduces me to Claire, and then invites me over for dinner as well, but I tell her I have to meet a friend. Now across the street there is a man walking his dog. This man's dog and Claire's dog start barking at each other. Bark, bark, bark, it gets so annoying.

It starts to remind me of that terrible ringing sound. The phone ringing, ringing, ringing. Sometimes the ringing drives you so nuts you want to just break the phone and live the rest of your life in solitude. Bark, bark, bark. Now I want to kill the dogs. Stop barking. Lynne says goodbye to me, and she goes inside the building with Claire and her dog. The barking stops. I look at Lynne's work in progress and then leave.

The entire way to the hospital, on that dirty bus, I can't help but think if animals have souls. A lot of people say the difference between people and animals is that a person knows the difference between right and wrong. That people have a working moral compass. That people have a certain unexplainable bond with other life forms. But what about the dog that lays there next to its dead master, laying there with those eyes that want to cry. Laying there sad, and when it sees the person who killed its master, it begins to bark uncontrollably.

What about the goat and the horse that reside on the same farm who begin to go every where with each other, and begin to care for each other, so much that when one is sick the other stays by its side. What about the humans who hunt other humans. The sociopaths who kill for fun, for sport. The serial killers who show no remorse. What about the humans who strive to benefit financially off of wars that are unnecessary. Do they have any more of a soul than that dog, or that goat, or that horse?

I get to the hospital, and then to Joe's room and I sit on the chair. I think to myself, what's the point of this. It's not therapeutic for Joe. It does nothing for me. But still I sit, hoping that he will wake up so I don't have to come back here. I guess the only real reason I do it is because no one else has come to visit him.

How would it look if a man was never visited by anyone throughout the entire duration of his hospitalization. At least when he wakes up, if he wakes up, he will owe me.

After a while I begin to remember the dream that I couldn't remember. Something happened to me and I went to Lynne for advice. She was able to comfort me, to help me with this problem I had. This internal struggle that keeps me prisoner. It was this strong woman in a tiny body. This woman who tells jokes and gives life to plants even thought a part of her has been taken away, she guides me through this dark hallway with her slight limp and her bright yellow dress.

Chapter 10:

A GENETIC PEACE

Last evening, I had a dream. There's so much sand, and the Sun is so hot. So yellow. I'm walking through this desert, leaving behind a life I once led. Leaving behind people, leaving behind lifestyles and leaving behind addictions, maybe trying to find some form of peace somewhere overseas. I keep walking and walking until I see this big white house in the distance. A house that has no business being way out here in the desert.

I walk closer and I see a child digging behind the house. I go up to him and I look into the hole in the ground, it's a grave. He tells me he's burying his brother. His brother that looks as if he died of starvation.

Sometimes I wonder if people who die of starvation have that really horrible of a death. In order to feel hungry your brain has to tell you, it has to send messages back and forth and such, telling you it needs more food to be able to function properly. I would think that in order to send those messages, it takes energy, and to get energy you will need to eat or drink.

So if you are sitting there starving with no food to eat and no water to drink, will your brain eventually stop sending those messages because it has no energy to do so? If that's the case, you will stop feeling hungry,