Chapter II. What Happened Three Years Ago and What Is Happening Today
Ace Dias was supposedly the business partner of the young-adult man. Ace was working to get PhD in education, and the idea was that his PhD thesis would become the foundation of their business; meanwhile, the man would work on the backbone information technology infrastructure. For variety of reasons, he started working on his part of the project in Japan. Ad interim, Ace was going to stay in US to start working on his part of the project such as marketing and fundraising; it was because they planned that their company would be officially formed there, and also this PhD candidate needed to continue staying in the country in order to finish his program. This was basically what two agreed five years ago.
Absolutely no funding was available during the first year, but after the end of the herculean task of surviving and keep going, the man managed to start generating some revenue using the elementary infrastructure he built. However, at this time, the contact between two was sporadic at best; he was naturally concerned, and as a result, he was also rather distressed about it. There were many days that he felt like his restlessness and angst were eating him alive. There was even a day that he almost had an anxiety attack. Because of the small revenue that he started generating, he was able to get by, but his stress level only increased because, in the year following, the contact between two became even more sporadic. Two years after he started working on the project, the contact between Ace Dias and he were virtually non-existent. The man dropped Ace many emails and he also called him a number of times. There was no response.
This could not go on, so the man only managed to contact Ace again by taking down the entire IT infrastructure for a period of time. Dramatic action; it was a radical action. But he had to do it. Then, he found out that Ace essentially had done nothing the whole time, for two years; he felt great despair yet he was not astonished. He saw that this was coming; it turned out that virtually everything Ace told him for the previous two years was a lie. What amused him additionally was that Ace tried to ‘share’ whatever the man built; Ace was a looter and just tried to take whatever he could take at this point. He made excuses such as that he and his wife were not getting along well, that he was having difficult time making progress in his program, and that his thesis was not getting approved because he was caught in the middle of bureaucracy of academia. He also made other excuses, but the worst excuse he made was that he had to lie to not discourage the man and to not stop him from working on the project. Whatever excuses he had, lying was about the only thing he did and looting was the only thing he tried to achieve. As any outsider could expect the outcome by now, this was the end. The man managed to salvage the backbone information technology infrastructure and made it into the foundation of his current business. But as he looked back now, it was a painful time; life was frustrating, vexatious and tormenting. He did not mean to pat his back and say “Hey, good job. You managed to survive through that”, but he amazed himself that he did not just give up. He went forward step by step and stayed alive.
Skip forward three years. The man found himself in a similar situation. It was not that someone like Ace Dias was trying to steal from him outright. It was not that those who surrounded him lied through their teeth. But there was a huge chasm between he and those whom he worked with. A lot happened between now and then, and, a number of odd reasons had taken him to India, and that was where he was reading his diary.
There were a number of technical differences between now and then. Three years ago, the fact that he did not officially held the ownership of the business became an extremely complex and stressful problem to solve. He learned a few things from that, and he firmly held the ownership of the brand new Indian company and also its parent US company presently; after all, they were practically paper companies, but that mattered. Three years ago, his income went to zero or almost nothing because he could not manage to transfer the ownership of the business generating revenue swiftly. Two years before that, he started from nothing, and thus, the fallout felt devastating. Though he faced a disturbing situation now, it was not as bad. Back then, there were no prospects in near future; no new projects to take on and no possible income sources. What was worse was that he had to get a lot of help from his parents because he was not exactly being able to support himself financially; he was living with them and it was dreadful. It was not a matter of whether he was having a good relationship with them; after he became financially independent and started living a comfortable life, he found himself going steps backward. Not that comparisons were imperative, but those at his age were living the life of adulthood. Marriage, children and a house. He did not mind the fact that he had no possessions; he was not attached to the idea of marriage or having children, either. In fact, he did not find it mandatory; however, he did mind the fact that he was circling back. It was perhaps a learning process to him, but he could not see it that way. The future could not look bleaker. Now, compared to that, though it was rather easy to see all aspects of his current life as recipes of the catastrophe in making, he could also see that this was just a short time problem rather than a semi-permanent one; this was supposedly another difference.
But having recognized such differences, numerous parallels existed also. Communication gaps between him and those surrounding him were wide; they appeared to be getting wider and wider. If the current situation could not be rectified, then it would have a huge ramification on his whole life; he would be forced to make a rather significant change in his life. Leaving India would probably become necessary.
A friend of his recently warned him that a negative thought was poisonous, but it was still easy for him to have a chain of negative thoughts. Recopies of triggering the catastrophe were there. It was as if he mixed nitroglycerin, diatomaceous earth and sodium carbonate; the mixture was formed into a short stick and wrapped in paper and he put it out there. Dynamite. A triggerman could find it, ignite it and blow him up; that triggerman could be anyone. Though he did not think that he had a lot of enemies, it was only his guess; there could be unknown enemies. One day, he might lose his mind and detonate it by himself. Though the metaphor did not accurately describe the current situation, he felt like it did.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 3:00 | No Comments
Chapter III. Diary, ‘Money Is The Faith And The Conviction’
When the young-adult man was seventeen years old, he started keeping a diary. He continued for about three years, but he stopped. In his later years, he took on writing again, but he no longer wrote on papers; he just used his computer to type. On rare occasions, he jotted down on papers but it did not even take half a minute to count how many pages were written by his hand in total since he started typing his diary. Much of writing was saved electronically, while a part of it had been printed out. The diary that he was going through now was saved electronically. He found the entry titled, ‘Money is the faith and the conviction’.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
There is this consensus that one needs to adapt to the given condition. I cannot tell how many people have told me this and how many more will tell me this even though I have no desire to listen to their preaching; what is more, generally speaking, those who preach do not practice what they preach. So, I only feel disgusted when I hear this. But that is not such a major issue; I only let it go. That is also not exactly what I want to discuss in this diary entry. What I want to discuss is that ‘money is the faith and conviction’. I started by bemoaning about the idea of adaptation because there is a correlation between that and what I am about to discuss. After I left Japan, I was labeled ‘dropout’ in that country. It is true that I dropped out of a prestigious university there, but that is not what this ‘dropout’ meant. This meant that I am not complying with the convention that exists. I am not writing an essay on Japanese culture studies, so I take a few examples just to explain what it means. There are many customs and rituals. There are also conventions. For example, one is expected to get married; he/she is also expected to do so at a certain age. There is also a relatively concrete idea of whom that person should get married to. What kind of job he/she should get. How he/she should behave. How much money that person ought to make and how much of it he/she ought to save. Dress code. Makeup code. Where to live and how to live. What to drink and what to eat. Now, Japan is a relatively modernized country, so rules are not as strict as those in many other countries. But the point is that, even then, there are conventions; I was not following them. Dropping out of a reputable university was an anti-convention, and this is why I was labeled ‘dropout’, or so did I believe.
I do not say that I do not mind that labeling at all. After all, I am a mere mortal and when that word or a different word of the same meaning is spoken with the vicious tone, I feel a little antipathy. When it is spoken numerous times, I feel irritated. What can I say? I should not bother, but I cannot help it. But that is not even a major issue; that is how the world is. A few years later, I entered a respectable university in US; however, since the university was not well known, my labeling in Japan did not change. I eventually graduated; I took four years to get my B.S. degree. Still no change in the labeling. Two years after this, the labeling suddenly changed. What happened? I got a job at a computer software company in New York City and started earning a respectable salary. Was that about the name, ‘New York City’? Partly. But what really mattered was money. All of a sudden, I was not a dropout.
At this point, I did not care about labeling much; I had no immediate plan to go back to Japan ever since I moved to US, and once I moved to New York, my mind was set, or so did I believe. Perhaps, more accurately, I was convinced that I would never move back there. But three years after that, I was forced to pay attention to this labeling again. For a number of different reasons, I decided to quit the job and strike on my own. To be very honest, there was a lot of confusion and chaos at the time that I made that decision. Also when I was in the city, living life and working there, so many things were going right that coming to that decision was aching. Retrospectively speaking, I followed a certain principle. I could not go on faking that what is perceived good by others is also good according to my definition. Not that there were so many problems, but, according to my definition, there were a few imperative questions that needed to be answered. And to me, that mattered, even though it did not make much sense to those who surrounded me. I needed to serve myself first and foremost. I am the center of the world, and if the center collapses, then the whole world collapses. Now, I am not trying to say that I am the king of the world or I ought to become one. I am not trying to say that I am the Caesar of the 21st century or want to become one. I simply faced the authentic fact that happiness is defined in my own terms and no one else’s.
That decision, however, forced me to move back to the country where I was born and grew up. And this was when I suddenly became ‘dropout’ once again. To summate, the principle did not matter. Customs or rituals did not matter, either. In the end, what mattered was money. Money is the faith and the conviction. Now, does this mean that I suddenly decided to chase after money in order to destroy the labeling once again? No. Does this mean that I felt great despair? Not, exactly. It means that I have a deeper understanding of the world. Most people, in the end, justify a person based on whatever money he/she has. If he/she has a strong financial status, this person is often viewed as good and accomplished. Now, if I tell this to people, I am so certain that they pronounce they disagree. They say that money is not their faith or conviction. They say that they do not judge people based on their financial status. I do believe that there ought to be a result in order for one to attain success; however, success is not the result itself. Success is the process in which one reaches or attains a certain result. Now, if I tell this to people, those who understand what I am talking about would probably say that they agree with this statement. Most of them are liars or they do not understand what they are doing. Money is the faith and the conviction.
As a side note, I suppose that, when this rule does not apply to a person close to me, he/she is a true friend. Personally, I believe that one can only have a few such friends in life. I can only have a few such friends, true friends. I am ok with that.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
He felt that the idea presented was a refined one and felt a certain comfort. The statement did not present a solution, but he found it relevant today. And that realization allowed him to put the current situation into perspective. As he gained the sense of objectivity, he continued reading his diary.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 2:59 | No Comments
Chapter IV. Diary, ‘Headache’
The young-adult man gained a better sense of where he was by analyzing himself objectively, but he could not help coming back to recalling grim days of the past and seeing those days as the mirror image of his recent cycle. He found the entry ‘Headache’ and started reading.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
I took powdery medicine for headache; I do not know the name, but it works well whenever I have headache. I guess this is a prescription drug because I only get this at clinics and hospitals. There is another powdery medicine I often take and it is for cold; this is just an over-the-counter drug. I do not know exactly what is in them, but my guess is that it is dextromethorphan; many other typical over the counter drugs for cold contain this. I only take either of these two whenever I have headache, but I get this type of headache too often. I have a guess; I think this is stress related. When I started working on the current project, I was very stressed because there was no income, nor was there any funding available. Because of an odd incident, I found a contract job and I have been providing services to this same client ever since. But whatever I receive from her is minimal; I did not have any other income, so life was difficult. I could not exactly get a part job because, if I had done so, I would not have been able to spend much time on the project. I was in a violently strenuous situation. The IT infrastructure I built itself started generating revenue a couple of months ago, but I had to deal with yet another problem then. Ace Dias wanted to share the revenue, while working on that infrastructure was already my full time job and I desperately needed that money. He barely spent time on the project, yet, once it started generating revenue, he was eager to share it; that was one of reasons why I felt irritated. But, in addition to that, this was a man who kept lecturing about how entrepreneurs ought to work strenuously in a seemingly antagonistic world and produce. This was a man who stated that he was one and that he would just eat bread and drink water in order to not become a follower but a pioneer. Yet what he ended up doing was to get by as a follower on the side while his presumed partner worked almost all by himself and when a result was attained, just share it. He did not fund it; finding funding for the project was supposedly his job but he completely failed in that as well. Also, to him, receiving a part of the revenue would enable him to save money while he did nothing to develop or maintain the infrastructure. On the other hand, the same cush would finally enable me to start paying bills without resorting to borrowing money or cutting essential expenses. This ‘sharing’ did not make any sense.
This was when I realized that I made a tactical mistake, and this was a very serious aberration. I trusted Ace Dias based on the assumption that he was trustworthy. One earns trust; one is not entitled to be trusted. He never earned my trust, yet I just granted him. Also this resulted in a number of technical problems, one of which was that checks were sent to him. I don’t get into technical details, but basically, the revenue was generated using a certain infrastructure provided by a major IT company. The registration was done using his name, so all checks were sent to him. Retrospectively speaking and not very surprisingly, he quite literally took three months or longer to process one check and wire-transferred a portion of that to me. To this day, I do not know exactly why he took that long. In California, it only takes threes days to clear a check. It can take up to a month to wire-transfer, but adding two makes a month and three days. Taking three months is absurd; it does not make sense logically.
Of course, it did not make much sense for me to keep waiting. Even if it had been a result of administrative issues created by the bank, this could not go on. I dropped him an email and told him that I’d change the registration information; I would use my name and address so that I did not have to wait for three months to receive a portion of each check. Eventually, I politely asked him to give me the whole amount of each check cached because, after all, I was the only one who was working on this project. That is what I have been doing for the last two months or so.
But you know, the funny thing is that I still have not received the whole amount of what I am supposed to receive from Ace Dias; this amount was a percentage of the total of all checks sent to him and cashed in by him in US. Given the information I gather, two checks are missing. I asked him about these checks, but … I do not recall receiving any convincing answers. Did he just … steal? Did he just cash in checks and not tell me about it? I am afraid that it is very possible. It is absolutely nauseating as I have to come to draw this conclusion; it is simply preposterous that this guy lied to me to steal money from me. It is a sickening feeling as my reason tells me that it is the most plausible scenario.
I met Ace Dias when I was in my senior year in college. We were never close friends, but we kept in touch. I admit that he was one of key characters when I made the decision to leave New York; it was one of the most significant decisions I made in my life, so I assumed his importance in my life. But now, I know that that paramountcy is collapsing. I already hypothesize that he lied to me quite a few times. Scary thing is that I do not know how many more times he lied to me. The more I think about this, the more abhorred I feel. This is probably the major cause of my headache.
Japan is one of countries where one cannot obtain hard drugs like heroin, morphine, ecstasy, LSD, methamphetamine, opium, hashish and such; it is one of reasons why I do not get into these drugs. Now, if they are available, am I going to get them? Probably not. I will probably stick to dextromethorphan; but the idea of using these hard drugs would cross my mind.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
This was written shortly before the partnership fell apart. It sounded rather verbose, but he could understand why he was being so pleonastic. He was tormented when he wrote it, and the harrowing thought was circling around in his head. That being recognized, he had to ask why he chose to read this. There was a good reason; he felt like that he was making a similar mistake now. He asked, “Is anyone stealing money from me outright right now?” Not exactly, but the possibility of his getting the short end of the stick seemed very real. He could not help worrying about being cheated and he asked himself, “Yet again?” And the thought felt so torturous.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 2:57 | No Comments
Chapter V. Diary, ‘Debt’
If the young-adult man forced himself to become a skeptic of his own writing, what he wrote about Ace Dias was, after all, his interpretation of a metaphysical matter of the past. However, the debt of the past and the debt of the present were concrete undisputable liabilities and parallel lines in his life.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
I have never had as big a debt as this before; in fact, I never had a ‘real’ debt in the past. Six thousand dollars. Ok, it is not such a big amount compared to the average consumer debt in US, but it is a tremendous amount given the fact that I have no steady income now. Of course, even if I count the existing income, it averages out to be a couple of hundred dollars a month. It is ridiculous; it does not even pay interests. Maybe it does. Well, it does not matter. Obviously, I have other expenses, so it does not pay anything. But the more I think about the whole financial situation, the less important these details become. See, the thing is that my credit line is five thousand five hundred dollars. Should I say it was five thousand five hundred dollars? It does not really matter, does it? I have not been able to make any payments for months, so the collection agency is handling the debt collection now. I called them once to have a small chat. My god, the lady who worked for the collection agency had a flat impervious monotonic tone. Completely emotionless and inhuman. That was not the voice I want to hear again. What should I do about this? Good thing that I have been using Arte’s address in California for this credit card. Otherwise, they would be calling me in Japan; that will not be pretty. I still need to do something about this though.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
The date of this dairy entry was earlier than dates of three other ones, which he read so far, ’Living room’, ‘Money is the faith and the conviction’ and ‘Headache’. He made a decision to strike on his own shortly after he quit the job in New York, but making the decision took him more than a couple of months. In the mean time, he took money out of his retirement account to pay his bills. He then started borrowing against one of credit cards, which had his largest credit line, five thousand five hundred dollars. It took him more than a year to start earning a steady income, so he was unable to make any payments during that time. He did make a few payments, but that did not help. Interests and late payment penalties kept adding up and the card was maxed out eventually. He never ever had a debt like that, though, like most people, in the past, he borrowed small amounts here and there, from friends and his parents. But this was different; this was a genuine debt.
What happened next was a story of its own. The debt went to the collection agency because he could not make payments. The agency called his friend Arte in California because he was using his friend’s address there in order to keep using US bank accounts and credit cards. And that was because he had been planning to return to US in near future. Of course, that plan was already a big question mark because of his financial status. But regardless of that, the fact that he did not directly receive the call gave him a breathing room. He had to do something about it though because the agency kept calling his friend. At this point, he contacted Ace Dias to seek a solution. Though he was already very frustrated with Ace and the relationship between two were already deteriorating, he had to turn to someone. Ace apparently felt that the situation needed to be rectified somehow and he took care of the debt, or so was he told.
To this day, he felt awkward about this particular event. In the end, he made a copy of the IT infrastructure and handed it to Ace for nothing. Even if he took the minimum wage in US, he had provided enough work to justify the lump sum Ace supposedly paid to take care of his debt. So, he justified how the debt was paid off; he justified that he only received what he was deserved to. But even then, he could not help feeling perturbed. At the end of the day, he did not come up with any hard cash by himself. What made him feel even more confused was the fact that Ace Dias lied to him so many times; it was a fact that he confirmed sometime after the credit card incident. Was the debt taken care of? Too many questions and too much confusion.
Now that three years had passed, he concluded that the debt was indeed managed by Ace Dias and that, in exchange, he provided enough unpaid work to him. After two essentially broke up the partnership, Ace contacted him several times and asked him to provide IT service to him; he promised him to pay for the work. He completed every task Ace asked him to do; he submitted time estimates, price estimates and invoices. Yet he never received any payments. He let it go because of the debt that was supposedly handled by Ace. But two years ago, he completely stopped doing any favor to him; he justified that the debt he owed to Ace had been paid off and that the closure was justified.
But the big question now was not about how he finally cut off the connection to Ace Dias. He was once again in debt; he once again got to that point in part listening to his business associate, partner or the person who was defined by a similar term. Of course, circumstances were different. He also had to admit that he took a major role in making of the disaster. But he could not help observing similarities between two series of events. He felt eerie. When he looked back the series of past events, he often put his fingers on his temple, closed his eyes and sighed. Ordeal he went through as he associated himself with Ace Dias nearly ruined his entire life. One ought not to make the same mistake repeatedly, but he feared that he was essentially making the same mistake. Was he? This was the big question. He feared that he would not be able to mend the current difficult situation, but that failure itself might be less catastrophic than that he was caught or was destined to be caught in the endless circular motion of failures. This was the kind of thought that kept him awake all night long.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 2:56 | No Comments
Chapter VI. Conversation
Lara was a friend of the young-adult man. Two met in their freshman year in college. They happened to take a same class and got to know each other. Though two felt that they should become more than just classmates or acquaintances, nothing special happened. But years passed, in the internet age, they found each other online. This was about a year ago, and he was about to leave Japan for India. She was in Vancouver, Canada. He learned that, after the freshman year, she ended up dropping out of college and traveled to a couple of different places over the next several years. Just a few years ago, she decided to go back to school and become a doctor; she was already in Canada then. Initially, they exchanged a few emails. Eventually, they started exchanging many more emails. Lately, it became customary for them to chat online twice a day; this became almost a daily routine. And today, in the midst of toilsome time, he started telling her about his diary.
He started typing and explaining about what was on his mind. The more he read his diary from three years ago, the more parallel lines he found between events that took place then and events that were taking place now. Recently, he read ‘How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later’, an essay written by Philip K. Dick; it is an essay he wanted to read for some time, and only recently did he have chance to read it. Now that he read it, he was not so sure if he agreed with him. Also the whole essay sounded rather confusing. In his opinion, essays ought to have rigid structures and they ought to convey carefully constructed logical arguments. Philip K. Dick did not do that in this essay. This writer was really big in drugs, and it was very possible that he was under the influence when he wrote this essay. The young-adult man realized that he was diverging a little. Then he typed that, having said this, he had nothing against Philip K. Dick; in fact, he still had a favorable opinion about him and his novels. Then, he got to the point.
In the essay, the writer reiterates religious ideas and he basically argues that time might not be what it is believed to be; time is a part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. There are events that appear so similar; these are not just historical events, but one experiences such events in his/her life in one lifetime. He argues that this is not because time doe not exist. Much of what, he thinks, he sees is an illusion; it is not real. What is real is that there are events that do take place, and there are illusions that appear to be in different times and different places, but all these illusions are essentially illusions of one set of events. For example, suppose that there was a young bright engineer-to-be in Florence, Italy in 15th century. He worked for a well-known wealthy engineer at that time. But this young engineer’s boss was mean and cruel; he figured that it was not worth working under him and he just quit and left. After years of struggle, he became a prominent engineer of the Renaissance era. Suppose that one man (or woman) reads a detailed account of this man. But he might find that the story is just like what he is going through in the 21st century. He is becoming a bright engineer; he used to work for an established engineer in Detroit. But the boss kept yelling, screaming and cursing at him so he quit. He might find that as he reads the account of the man in 15th century Florence, the story sounds just like his except for the place and the time. Something eerie like this does happen. Philip K. Dick’s answer to this is that this is because ‘time is not real.’
After he explained this, two continued chatting.
Lara: “You’re depressed.”
The young adult man, TYAM: ”Yeah, I guess so.”
Lara: ”You know …, I’m sure that you’ll figure out a way to get out of this.”
TYAM: ”Yeah?”
Lara: ”What I mean to say is that you might not be able to correct the current situation, but you’ll find a way somehow in the end.”
TYAM: ”Ok.”
Lara: ”You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Things might not work out the way you want them to, but it’s ok. Life is like that sometimes, and it’s important to realize that, even if this whole thing turns out to be what you see as a failure, it’s the tuition you pay for success. And, you know, even if you end up leaving there not achieving any … financial success, what matters is what you’ll do afterwards. Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up, and I don’t think that you’re refusing to get up. You’re always trying to stand tall or you are standing tall.”
TYAM: ”So you’re saying that I should get out of here?”
Lara: ”I’m asking that you don’t go cross the line. This is not the end of life and it’s ok if you can’t correct problems you have now like you envision.”
TYAM: “I’ll think about it.”
He stared at the monitor for a short while. It was well past midnight. It was almost 2:00 am. He promised that he would keep her updated and logged off.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 2:54 | No Comments
Chapter VII. Letter
The city had life and the whole surroundings felt sprightly. It was rather odd. In December, it rained a lot in Vancouver, but for the past one week, there was no rain. Though Lara preferred gray and rainy days, she did not mind the recent weather. She felt energy and excitement. As she left work early today for it was a very slow day at the office, she walked home. It was one of warmer days this winter. Streets were full of people and she wondered if anyone in the city was staying home today; it almost did not seem like it. They were out here to feel this air and the sun. She did not feel like going home though that was where he was heading just a couple of minutes ago. She felt like she wanted to be out here all day long. She thought about going over to see a friend of hers from work and later hanging out with other friends; she felt so much energy. Christmas was just a few days away; though she was not too enthusiastic about the holiday, she thought that she might want to do something this year. It had been a while since she did anything special for Christmas, but she did not have to follow that tradition. She was not religious, but she felt that one did not have to be religious to enjoy the festivity. She decided to walk to the nearby park facing the ocean. Warm and sunny; she felt light heat on her face. This was the classic perfect day in the middle of winter. Though she was not too fond of the idea of accepting and following conventional ideas blindly, this day just felt right. After a long walk, she headed home, and there, she found a letter. The postal date was only a week back; it was sent from India. She was hearing that the post office there delivered mails very late almost always, so she asserted that this was one of few that happened to be delivered so swiftly. She turned around, went to a nearby coffeehouse, ordered a shot of Espresso and read the letter.
”Hi,
My guess is that, when you receive this letter, I have not mentioned a lot about disastrous aspects of my venture in India for the past one-week or so. It is not that things are going great. It is not that the problematic situation has been rectified. But it is that, at least for the time being, I made up my mind; I shall stick out around here. I cannot say that I am happy now. I cannot say that I enjoy any aspects of my life here. But I want to see how things turn out to be. I think it is too early to quit. Life ought to be about exploration and discovery; it ought to be about evolving from one stage to another, and I personally believe that, in that process, if one has enough physical and mental strength, he/she ought to take challenge, and physically and quite literally live in different environments. I often describe this place as if this were the land of death cult. Most people probably wonder why I am here, and I guess that what I just wrote about exploration and discovery is the best explanation that I can come up with right now. (I shall think about this and write to you again. When I do that, I shall come up with a more refined answer.)
I must admit that I feel eerie about my life after I read Philip K. Dick’s essay ‘How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later’, but first, I am not a very religious person like him. I certainly appreciate ideas that different religions present, but I do not follow their doctrines. Also the more I think about the series of my past events and the series of events taking place now, there are not that many striking similarities like ones that this science fiction writer experienced in his life. Even if there were, I do not believe that life is about following an established belief or a theory that is not proved scientifically; life ought to be about searching, learning, and discovering, but at the same time, breaking patterns that you think exist. So, I shall stay here. I have not given you the answer as to your question of whether I plan to leave here anytime soon in IM sessions, have I? Well, here you have it.
Starting over in Vancouver sounds fabulous, but I would not move there to ‘start over.’ If and when I reach there, I reach there as I move into the next stage of my life and begin my new expedition and encounter.”
After she finished reading the letter, she stared at it for a few minutes with the blank face. Then, she signed slightly and the faint smile appeared on her face. She whispered, “This guy …”
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 2:53 | No Comments
Letter From A Dying Man (Short Story No. 11)
Forward
I am afraid that those whom characters in this story are based on might be offended when they read this. I do not apologize for it, but I acknowledge it. After all, this is a narrative, not my diary or essay, so it is not exactly a collection of concrete facts or accurate representation of my feeling. Also I just took real life events and turn them into a story. However, I can sense that those whom I mentioned might feel upset if they read this; it would be unfortunate, but it is very possible. But writing of this was essential to me; there were certain feelings and emotions that I was going through at one point in my life, and I had to write them down. I had to express those difficulties in some way. I can sense that they would feel unfair; I can sense that they would feel that I misunderstand. I can only say that this was one of stories that I had to write.
Also I have been asking a couple of people to review my short stories, and one of readers suggested that I emphasize the beginning and the ending in order for the central message to be conveyed clearly. Taking the suggestion, in every subsequent story, I wrote a paragraph to introduce the story and a paragraph to sum up and wrap up the story. It was a meaningful attempt; however, I am afraid that the structure was emphasized more than necessary; furthermore, it might have killed the flow, the essence of freewriting. Given that, I tried to write this story slightly differently. I tried to capture what came to my mind rather than to write the story like an essay. Following the previous format, I still underlined the part close to the beginning telling what the story is about and the part close to the ending wrapping up the story though. After I receive suggestions and feedback, I will probably try to make the structure of the story somewhere between the rigid structure of the standard essay and freewriting.
To emphasize, I offer no apology to those from whom I created characters in this story if they feel unhappy, but let me just state a couple of plain facts so that they might be able to justify how they were transformed into personalities that I created in this story. After all, what is written is one perspective. After all, this is a story that I, a mere mortal, wrote and I am not a God or a personification of the higher power. Also I justify that I serve myself first and foremost; writing of this story came very naturally as if this were something that had to be written. One last thing; this is just a first draft and I plan to rewrite like I plan to rewrite all other short stories of mine.
Chapter I. About This Letter
Chapter II. Two Weeks Earlier
Chapter III. Background, Briefly
Chapter IV. Two Weeks and Four Days Ago, The Process of Being Ruined
Chapter V. Two Weeks and Three Days Ago, One Day in The Losing Battle
Chapter VI. Two Weeks and Two Days Ago, Piece of Reality
Chapter VII. Two Weeks and One Day Ago, Getting Looted
Chapter VIII. Looters - Letter From A Dying Man
Chapter IX. Is It My Destiny To Be Destroyed By Liars and Looters?
Chapter X. I Do Know that Hell Exists on Earth
Chapter XI. Pain, Suffering and Dreadfulness
Part II: City-V, Country-C
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 2:00 | No Comments
Part I: Letter
Chapter I. About This Letter
I am dying. Not from a disease or starvation, although I have caught cold several times this past years and also I lost a lot of weight over the period of time. I am not committing suicide if that is what you are suspecting. I am dying simply because my time is being up.
The fact of the matter is, however, I cannot tell exactly how I am going to die. But I tell the story of mine here, so you would know that it is indeed a fact. It is a slow death. The end is near; all this will be over in a month or two. You will learn that it is inevitability like the riding tide always comes once in its cycle, advances up the beach and washes away whatever there is. You could say that my life is like a sand castle on the beach; the tide is coming and the castle will be washed away.
You might ask why I am not doing anything about it. It is difficult to explain, but I try to give the best possible explanation. I am basically failing where Napoleon Bonaparte failed, though, if I achieved anything, none of my achievements would be remotely close to what he achieved. All right. I must admit; I am trying to glorify my life here, but allow me. At least, in this letter, I do not wish to compare myself to a beggar perishing on the street of a 5th world country slum. You might still ask, “Why Napoleon?” I was watching a documentary about Russia the other day, and it mentioned about Napoleon. And what I am about to tell you occurred to me. The pattern of his fall and that of mine seem to match, though, to emphasize, not much has been accomplished in my life to date. I am speaking of his Russian campaign by the way. Napoleon marched into Russia, and he even reached Moscow and seized the capital. But he was already lost. The capital and villages between the city and France were burned by Russians; Napoleon and his troops had to survive, not battles with Russian troops, but the battle with the coming astringent Russian winter. He had to retreat but it was too late. In the end, he lost 610,000 troops out of 650,000. I have a theory; I think he knew that he was dying. I think he knew that he was not going to win the battle against Russia or survive the coming years of his life. Though he temporarily returned as the Emperor in 1815 (defeated in the same year), this was basically the end of Napoleon Bonaparte. Somewhere between France and Russia, he crossed a line that he should not have. Once he crossed that line, his fate was sealed; he only waited slow death. But why couldn’t or didn’t this military genius, according to many historians, the greatest general in human history, prevent himself from placing him on the path to death? It is because he found himself deprived of energy to live; he became a living corps, though he did not appear that way in the eyes of his followers. And this is exactly where I am. To reiterate, I am not comparing my achievements, if there were any, or my significance in history to Napoleon’s. I do not make such meaningless comparison. But I am comparing the death trap having captured me and the trap having captured Napoleon. There are many of us who are caught in the death trap; I just took an example of Napoleon to illustrate my point.
But why am I writing about my inevitable death here? And what exactly am I writing in this letter? Though I declare that I am dying, I do not believe in fate. I believe that one determines his/her own destiny, though mine has been sealed. One is not destined to be caught in the death trap; he/she needs to be wise and strong though. The story I am going to tell is the story of mine, the story of a dying man. My hope is that, as you read the story, you would find a way to survive. I hope that you would not get caught in the same trap. Well, I am certain that you would not fail where I failed.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 1:53 | 1 Comment
Chapter II. Two Weeks Earlier
I start by telling you what I was going through two weeks earlier.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
”Is this the end of my venture in Country-I? If not, this is just a few steps away from it?” wondered I. I was getting tired. I was running out of cash and called Ares to see if he could pay me back at least a part of what he owed me. The answer was essentially no. Ares had no money with him at the moment; he told me that he would get it somehow somewhere tomorrow, but it meant nothing. If he were a reliable person, he would have paid back the full amount by now. The reality was otherwise, and that meant that he was not a reliable person. Not reliable at all in fact. I felt sickened and nauseated. I wondered, “What went wrong? Did anything, anything at all, go right?” When my friends asked me about my venture, I half-jokingly answered, “I don’t know if God exists or not. I don’t know if heaven exists or not. But I do know that hell exists on earth and its name is Country-I. I witnessed Apocalypse in this subcontinent.” Now, this did not sound like a joke; this sounded like a reality.
This does not sound entirely accurate; what was taking place was a little more complicated. So, let me explain this in more details. Fact is that Ares handles various tasks for me, and I am supposed to pay him a certain amount for that every month. However, months of payments have been pending; in short, I owe him money. However, passing a small amount here and there is handled as a separate account, and this is what I just described about. Now, given the status of the other account, I was in a rather weak position to ask him to pay back what I lent him, but you can understand the inconvenience. If I lend a certain amount of money that is supposedly not confused with other expenses or accounts, I expect it to be paid back in a short time. If not, I start having difficulty meeting my expenses. That was exactly what was happening.
Hairspray was almost out, but I could manage without it; it was not that I was going to pick up a girl tomorrow. Hair gel was almost out, but it was not a necessity, either. I was using the last roll of toilet paper, and I urgently needed to get a couple of new rolls unless I took the leap of faith and brought down the standard of living to the level of the medieval age. Mosquito repellent liquid was out; not absolutely necessary, but they should be stocked. Same went for Mosquito coil. I would not starve to death tomorrow or the day after, but the standard of my living was getting lower and lower minute by minute. This nauseated me. The standard of living in this country was very low to begin with, but now, I had to suffer even more. “How did I get here?” wondered I.
The future looked bleak. Everything was falling apart. I was recovering from cold, but I was dispirited.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 1:52 | 1 Comment
Chapter III. Background, Briefly
I think I told you much of the background of my current disastrous situation as we exchanged emails and talked on the phone, but let me summarize that for the clarification purpose.
—– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —– —–
I arrived here last December after I spent a week and did my research briefly last April. It was a big gamble retrospectively speaking. I was not shot down strikingly upon my arrival a year ago, but my income has been in steady decline ever since. Prior to that, I was going back and forth between Country-J and Country-U; I cannot say that things were going brilliantly. In fact, I needed to change the whole approach to my business; otherwise, I felt that my business or my life was not going anywhere. Actually, as I look back, that was not the only reason; there was another reason. I do not see the point of explaining it in detail, so I just describe the situation back then very briefly; there was basically an administrative issue as I traveled between two countries so frequently. In case you are wondering, I was not doing anything illegal, but it became rather difficult to keep doing that, and that was another reason why I decided to seek new opportunities here.
I have made three major investments so far, and the first investment was the formation of a company here in Country-I. I needed to do this in order to get necessary permits to start operating here. The preliminary research started back in last June excluding the meeting that took place during my stay here last April; I actually met a lawyer and asked questions about how I could approach this, but it did not produce any tangible results. After a couple of months of research proceeding my trip, I found a firm to handle this and decided to go with them; I made the initial payment and provided all necessary information and documents. The company was finally formed in December and all related administrative work was taken care of in the subsequent months.
I expected that taking care of the paperwork be cumbersome and time consuming; however, I was not excepting that to be as dreadful as it actually was. Details are perhaps not imperative, so I skip them, but I had to be at so many places physically and waste so many hours. Waste of time turned into a waste of money. I also wasted a lot of energy and that turned into a waste of productivity. The accumulation of stress only prevented me from focusing on my actual work.
To make a long story short, six months after the arrival, the situation was not as promising as I expected. This was when I decided to get into the handicraft export business with Ares; for preliminary research, we flew to Country-J and spent nearly three weeks there. The trip itself did not seem disastrous or completely unproductive at the time, but it has not produced any tangible results to date. Chances are the entire cost of the trip would be wasted. This was the second major investment.
This leads me to tell you about the latest investment, the web design business. Two investments I made previously were nowhere near investments that major firms make; however, they both were sizable investments to me personally. Consequently, not being able to obtain the return started putting me into a very difficult financial situation. I had to reorganize and start doing something tangible. This was when I started pushing the we design business; to give credit where it is due, Ares was the person who suggested the idea initially. Developing websites helped me to generate revenue in the past, and this seemed like a reasonable place to reorganize my whole business and start rebuilding my life that was falling apart.
Short Stories (Fiction) | 22.11.2007 1:51 | 1 Comment