Chapter 1 - Old Crook

  “From this day onward you men, the ones who fought tirelessly for our royal family are hereby discharged from military service.” The King said with a commanding voice, an array of royal family members and their underlings stood along the stage.

  “We thank you for your service, and to ease your assimilation into civilian life, you will be placed in dormitories, free of charge for the first year of your return, and jobs will be readily available for all veterans.” He looked down at us, the few who remained after The War.

  “This guy is so full of shit, we should be able to live freely after all of this bullshit.” A young man said quietly to my right.

  The King gave a long speech about what The War gained for “our royal family” but to me, all I heard was a muffled voice while I looked up at all the people standing on the stage, looking down on us. We had barely got to bathe for the first time in months a couple days ago, and still a musty scent filled the air of the room. The royals tried hard to hide the disgust on their faces, but it was clear, at least to me, that they did not care one bit about what we had sacrificed for all those years of bloody warfare.

  -

  “Zee!” The commanding voice of my manager snaps me out of my rumination.

  “Time to clock out! Go home before you become an old crook.” He lets out a cackling laugh at his own words as he grabs his coat from the coat stand.

  “Yes sir.” I say and stand up from my cubicle.

  The Manager squints at me, as if he is perplexed by my response to his orders

  “Zee, you know that regular people don’t fall in line as easily as you do?” he says to me.

  “Well, sir I don’t see the reason in saying no to such a simple order.” I say plainly, the manager scoffs at me.

  “That’s the military in you talking! Geez the way they recruited you boys so young, and now they expect y’all to be regular folk.” the manager pauses as he looks at me again, a slight hint of surprise in his eye

  “Well, it looks like you have not one problem falling into line, bless your heart Zebedee, bless your heart.” He says as he makes his exit out of the door, his footsteps are still audible in the hall, clacking away until he exits through the main door.

  The thought of staying a few more hours off the clock doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to me, and my chair looks as if it is calling to me, for me to sit down and continue working, after all I have always been taught to keep going, even when I’m exhausted.

  I let out an audible sigh.

  “No I shouldn’t.” I say aloud.

  Rain starts to hit the window as I make my way out of the office room, and the sound of the storm outside only gets louder as I walk the halls to the front door, to the point I can hardly hear my own footsteps. Since rain was not in the forecast this morning I didn’t bring an umbrella, even more reason to stay, but I was given orders, so I should follow them. I grip the door knob of the exit, thunder booming outside, I feel so tired, but I have to run my way home today due to my lack of an umbrella. More than my exhaustion, I am a little bummed out that I won’t be able to enjoy the rainy city scenery.

  I open the front door, heavy rain pours over the city, the slightly outdated streets puddle in some areas, and the crowds of people are in a rush trying to find shelter from the storm. A few people carry umbrellas and are taking their time getting home, how envious.

  “Booze! All you can drink booze!” A man is yelling on the side of the street, he points toward a hole in the wall style establishment, with a neon light sign that reads the name “Andy’s Rum House” an odd name in reality.

  Before I know it I am walking instead of running, the rain starks to soak my shoulders as I admire the neon lights that cast a variety of different colored glows on the wet sidewalks and streets, all with one purpose, to get people to walk in and piss their money away on booze. And within the variety of identical bars that line the streets of the city, there are people talking, laughing, and just being loud. In contrast with the outside world which is dark and gloomy, these neon signs act like gates into other worlds, small ones, where you can be someone else with a whole bunch of other people acting as someone else. Walking past all these different worlds provides different people with different feelings.

  As a kid, when my father took me into the city for business or shopping, I was curious, I looked into every bar, at the faces, at what they were eating and drinking, and I tried to understand the jokes they made that made them all burst out into laughter. It was as a child that I started to believe that these bars were entrances into other worlds, especially in contrast to the regularly gloomy weather of the Capital City.

  “What did the leper say to the prostitute?” A man with a raspy voice says loudly in one of the bars.

  A crowd of people are shouting, trying to figure out the punchline before the man can say it himself, to no avail. The man smiles drunkenly.

  “Keep the tip.” The whole bar erupts in laughter, and so does the man, proud of his joke landing.

  I can’t help but to let out a scoff at such a joke, it is because of jokes like those, that these days these other worlds only serve me as background noise. These bars that I never plan to step foot into exist in reality, but they are about as real as any other temporary pleasure. The curiosity of my childhood is gone now that I know the jokes they tell are all shallow, dirty and easy to get, people guzzle beer and wine all night, and the food are simply side dishes to compliment their alcohol. These other worlds are simply one aspect of my nightly walks home, though they have a certain feel on rainy nights like tonight.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  All the noise, laughter, and the red and blue lights soon disappear as if they never existed in the first place as I get into the residential area of the city containing all the apartment buildings, homes and hotels. I start to run slightly, there’s no reason to get any more soaked than I already am, especially in this bland area.

  Within the residential areas it is hit or miss, some days you’ll only hear the sounds of the night. You know? Owls, bugs chirping, the light wind, and on nights like this, the sounds of rain showering the trees and ground. On other nights you’ll hear people, they could be arguing or having a good time; it could even sound like both at times. On those nights I wrestle with a thought in my mind, the thought that says I am creeping on these people, that I should block out the sounds of “their world”, because I exist in a completely different one.

  The world I exist in is new and dreadful, it leaks out into all the other worlds in the form of blood curdling screams at night, with spontaneous public freakouts, acts of needless violence with no explanation. This is the world of the returned, the men like myself who made it out of The War. For some reason, we brought all of it back with us, whether it was intentional, or if it just seeped so far into our skin and bones that it became impossible to wash off; the reason isn’t clear, but it doesn't matter. For all the outworldly aspects of this “new world” we brought back with us, there are a thousand more aspects that only us, the citizens of this world, experience fully.

  A screech bounces between the building's on the street, only drowned out slightly by the raging storm. These kinds of screams happen from time to time, an old or young vet having night terrors, or a panic attack.

  “Shut up you crazy old man!” a voice yells out of a newly opened window.

  Such a statement is indiscriminate, but it disregards the fact that the scream may have come from a man younger than himself. Such absurdity causes me to let out a laugh.

  “The fuck are you laughin about? What, are you a bum?” The man shouts at me now.

  “No no, sorry sir.” I say while giggling still, I start running at a faster pace to escape this situation.

  “Yeah you better run!” I hear the man shout, among other things as his voice gets drowned out by the roaring storm. Before I am too far away, I hear another screech, clearly from another person. The second scream results in a few lights being turned on in the houses on the street.

  “Two in one day… doesn’t happen often.” I say.

  My nightly walks home, as a result of all these factors, always become needlessly complicated; at least in my mind. But this only lasts for the 10 minutes it takes to get home.

  When I enter my home, that being a small studio apartment, gracefully issued to me by our government, I am greeted with a string, the string hangs from the ceiling, and when I pull it light beams throughout the doorway and room, in the form of a nearly spent, dim bulb, conspicuously screwed into the ceiling. The contraption appears needlessly complicated, for the seemingly miniscule task it performs, and badly at that.

  Every time I walk through my door the first thing I do is grab a can of beer, and today is no different; I open the small fridge and grab one can of the many inside. The words “Free Throw Beer” sprawled on the front of the can.

  “Eccacia’s finest.” I say out loud.

  I start laughing at my own statement, that is because this is the cheapest beer you can get in the entire world, even the slum countries up north can get a can just like this for anything, even the dead skin that clogs an air filter can get you a can of this stuff.

  This is the only thing in my routine that never changes, no matter what. Every time I crack open the can I can't help myself from smirking ever so slightly. The first gulp feels like pouring acid down my throat, but it is always the biggest gulp I take, and the pain is a form of satisfaction that can only be felt after another long day at work, no matter the job. This daily routine has become so integral to my life that I bought a fridge specifically for this reason, and I put the fridge at the entrance of my apartment.

  With half the can of beer empty, I finally slip my shoes off and slip another can into my pocket, the condensation on the can wets my thigh through my pants. The only light in my whole apartment is the one at the door, but it is enough to provide me with a path to my couch, which also acts as my bed. I stumble over to my “throne”, grabbing the TV remote on the way, and when I finally crash down onto the soft cushion I can feel my body loosen up.

  “Finally.” I say while letting out a long exhale, as if I were holding my breath all day.

  There is nothing like relaxing on the couch after a long day at work. It allows my mind to run free, even more so than the walk home allows. What did I achieve today? Who did I talk to? Was today fun? I ask myself all sorts of questions, and I answer them wholeheartedly.

  “Nothing, no one, and no.” I say aloud.

  I usually have the same thing to say about every other day, and that sounds terrible, but those kinds of things don't matter when the days I live only serve me so I can live the next day in the same fashion. Over and over again. But I do get tired of saying “No” all the time. I am not clueless to my pessimism, or my self-destructive way of life. I mean, I have a fridge full of beer at the entrance of my apartment and it’s the only thing I look forward to all day. That kind of life where we live day by day, where we are counting every single day subconsciously, where the small things, self destructive or not, are what we look forward to beyond all else… It's the kind of life me and people like me, the people scarred by war, are forced to live. “Borrowed time” they call it these days.

  I let out a long sigh

  “What am I even thinking about…” I say as I click the red power button on the TV remote.

  There are more important things to worry about, like what will I eat tonight, or what's on TV today? Will it be another “Memorial for the ones we lost” typed out in a beautiful font, with sad music playing as they spout bullshit about a 30 second moment of silence, as if that somehow pays off the debt this country owes the dead. Will it be the royal family making a speech about our freedom? In their high castles? After their grand balls and daily feasts? They preach to us, the people, and most of all the soldiers, about the freedom that we fought and paid for.

  “Breaking News huh…” I say repeating the words on the screen

  A woman reporter appears on the screen

  “Youngest Princess, The Illegitimate Angela, who rarely made any public appearances, has been reported missing…” the woman reporter says.

  My eyes widened slightly.

  “Huh, a princess? I thought that was just a rumor. Princess Angela?” I say as I squint at the screen.

  Before the war ended there was news that circulated throughout the country, and later our camps, that a girl was discovered to be an illegitimate child of King Harold. That small tidbit of information was all we heard about this supposed princess. This caused most of us to think it was just a rumor, that coupled with the fact that news like this simply isn't broadcast often, due to it being a “scandal” I assume the royal family silenced the people who reported on it after it broke, as they do with everyone else that aren’t kissing their boots. Either way it’s not like there aren't already a few of them, the being illegitimate children of the king. This kind of news is not new, and it's not what's most important, at least to me.

  “For those of you who aren’t aware of what the Princess looks like, please look at this photo.” The woman reporter says with an attitude, as if she is referring to us who don’t know as gleefully ignorant.

  “How the hell are we supposed to know, lady?” I scoff, at that moment the image on the TV changes.

  The TV program displayed an image of a young woman, her hair is jet black and her bangs go down to her brow, her eyes are a deep blue and her lashes are long, her skin a kind of pale I thought only achievable through malnutrition, but her cheeks are full and slightly chubby in contrast to her skinny figure, by all accounts this woman is the embodiment of absolute beauty.

  Something catches my eye though, something is familiar about this girl. I get up to my feet and almost trip on a can as I sprint to the TV screen. On the Princesses cheek is a scar, it looked jagged like whatever cut her in the past was not something sharp and clean. It is almost completely covered up by makeup, that's why it was so hard to see it at first.

  “That looks just like the one Angy had.” I mutter.

  “Just months before the ‘Madly in Love Couple’, that being the Youngest Princess and Prince Dane of Artenia, were to be wed on the Isles of Arden. ” The woman reporter says.

  “Whether she was taken or is on the run is unknown at the moment.” She continues.

  “M-married?” I stutter

  For some reason I felt an urge to shut off the TV, and soI did, leaving me in silence. Even though I’m doing anything physical, I start to feel sweat form on my scalp, and I feel as if I am increasingly becoming out of breath. This feeling isn’t new, it is the same feeling I felt when the Brigadier General would announce the soldiers killed in action after a day of fighting and I would hear the name of a friend. But why do I feel this now? The princess surely isn’t her. The princess cannot possibly be the Angela I know.