Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!
I’m staring across the blackjack table at a young gentleman in a tailored suit. The tint of his sunglasses adds an aura of obscurity to the man’s well-built frame as he lights a cigarette. This man had just put down forty thousand on his previous hand and lost at the mercy of chance, but his disposition reflected nothing more than the mindset of a child piecing together a small puzzle. As the smoke settled in the dimly lit room two older women stood up from the table adjacent to ours and rushed out of the building with what remained of their paychecks, presumably headed to the nearest bar in search of similar company. The man removed his glasses. He placed them in his pocket, revealing what must have been recently acquired bruising around his left eye. A few scars ran down his knuckles and underneath a solid gold ring; which he wore casually. Before offering his outstretched hand to the dealer, he stood gracefully and nodded in my direction. Our eyes met for a brief second before he departed. Deep beneath them I recognized a somber understanding. This man had seen the walks of life four times over, and he wanted nothing to do with any of it. I glimpsed fleeting images of traveler’s checks, lavish hotel rooms, private accountants and high-class business meetings. I could feel the skin of hundreds of women whose rich perfume pulled at the edges of my mind, but only encouraged a nauseous feeling in this man’s stomach. City pollution from New York, Bangkok, Barcelona, and Prague singed my tongue as if it were the liquor I kept in a flask. Even more concerning were the alleyways I found plastered to the back of this man’s mind, each one hazy with cigarette smoke. In that moment I grasped at explanations for the scars and his empty eyes. I understood the way he carried his self, I understood the folded bills he stuffed into the waitress’s pocket and the smile that broke his otherwise emotionless appearance. Knowing the rarity of such an occurrence, I asked the man where he was heading next. He answered, “My friend, life is but a game very similar to the one you are currently playing. There are times in which success may manifest itself in loss, or vice versa, and there are times in which the answers to certain questions carry more uncertainty than the question itself. Such questions are better left unanswered,” before handing me his gold cigarette lighter and exiting the casino.
A blue vial was tipped over a glass synthesis pad on the lab desk. Precision seeped through the scientist’s veins as the assistants watched, slack jawed. He certainly hadn’t planned such a routine; regardless, it was deftly executed. This was characteristic of the man in the white lab coat. You could see it in the way his firm grip loosened on the vial and switched gears. Mechanical. The clockwork turned as some distinct chemical reaction puzzled itself together in the man’s head. It was as if he had purposely set it forward; he did not hesitate, his eyes did not stray. Despite the subconscious code sequences and inhibitor concentrations, his gaze was trained on the effervescent solution in front of him.
The creation was fascinating. It brought back the ocean breeze that had chilled his damp skin as he made sculptures in the sand. What consequences could the additional spire have on the miniature castle? What would the introduction of casein do to his buffering solution? Cause and effect. He knew it inside and out. A year of operative training had taught him the scaling necessary to make such judgments, and they had eagerly toyed with the gears and cogs fitted to his thought process. They said the alterations would be helpful, he believed them to be necessary.
Outside the research facility, the wind weaved between towering structures of metal and concrete. Within them, others typed away at computer keyboards in standardized cubicles. Complaints were filed, summary reports were analyzed, and the wind blew on. The low-pressure currents uplifted flakes of snow to the tops of these infrastructural giants where they came to a rest on the tips of faint red and green lights. Three hundred feet below, a young girl named Gaby struggled to upright herself on the hand-me-down ice skates. Her mother had pulled her out of school that day to wander towards the ice rink in Central Park. Gaby slipped on the chilled surface before stabilizing herself with an outstretched arm. Slowly, she straightened her figure, and a couple steps later found herself gliding across the even surface. Older individuals passed her with their caffeine saturated blood and blind conversations, the cityscape harboring them from the harsh climate.
Twenty stories above, a man pulled off his lab coat and sat down with a sigh. Another failure, another report of human error, guessing and checking; the contract was up. Another ten stories above him sat a man at his desk, contemplating suicide. He lived from paycheck to paycheck, his girlfriend had left him long ago, and the mind-numbing routine failed to satisfy his primal instincts.
“Hello.”
“Hello, how are you?”
“Good, thanks. How are you?”
“I’m well.”
StartFragment EndFragment
The wind outside had subsided, and heavy snowflakes now fell to the pavement below. Amidst the glow of streetlights and storefront windows, a young girl named Gaby was learning to ice skate. She had stumbled at first, but she stood up quickly. Looking up to the sky, she stuck her tongue out to catch a snowflake. The frozen water landed on her nose and melted. She smiled, and the wind flowed on.
EndFragment
;){kind=link}