Sungazers & the Secret

Evolution of Cannibals

THE BRIDGE

I sit more alone tonight, in a place I can no longer call home; this mansion haunts me now, but I will miss it more than the orphans.

Trin believes we only need 30,000 humans, if any at all. Whether they choose to convert or not is “up to them” and if that’s not generous of him then “so be it”. He wants to “save” only the most intelligent and/or most beautiul artists, of which passed aptitude tests or had created “worthy” work. He wanted a world of just farmers and livers, those who could work an easy two months to support themselves and then some for that year. He reasoned that women and children would no longer go missing when they could be accounted for in our underground computer network. He knew these people, like himself, could live like minimalists, with only care for natural desires without artificial distractions.

Through the use of violence and chaos and desperation, everyone has been convinced to work and live and play indoors over the years, but that was not originally so. Think back to the beginning of man and you will see that: people have been put inside buildings, when initially they were outside most of the time, or were enslaved and massacred for refusing. Churches, hospitals, houses with heating and A/C, offices, schools, and your only time outside is if you get to swim, or between car rides or outdoor events, like family barbecues or outside music festivals. Or hiking, if you choose to go on your free time, but they’ve made it so difficult. No? To ever have time for yourself, but try some time in the sun and then evaluate your situation: What do you really need?

Those in charge found a way to keep the suns truest powers a secret, while they further evolved living mostly off the sun. Those stories about vampires sleeping in the day because they burn isn’t true. Vampires use the sun to charge up for the night, of which is easier for the hunter. To catch a sleeping prey: child’s play. What better way to live, than the life you dreamed of as a child: easy, fun and full of wonder. Whether they get there or not, everyone is aiming for this: the best life they can dream of. And so, now, they will continue to dream and sleep, until death, as the elite inherit the earth for yet another generation, with more resources at every harvesting.

And so, I’ve been training every day for this,

God forbid the opportunity presents itself.

I used to do a lot of work, so I could blend in, you know, with the humans, or the day breakers: means time wasters, but they “break” days of their lives like vases.

I used to be a mechanic,

social worker, in marketing,

sales, this, that, the other.

I used to be a lot of things:

Bag boy, bus boy, dish boy,

in and out of restaurants,

markets, factories, and now schools.

I even tried debt collection,

“financial services” or whatever.

Thought I could be a shark like my carnal zodiac sign, like a Jordan Belfort.

Or Leonardo DiCaprio, really. I guess it’s not the best time to be thinking about all the human shit I love right now.

I don’t know.

That was hard to me, hard to be what I needed to be just to get by as someone I didn’t want to be, so I could fit in. You wonder why super heroes don’t make a lot of friends.

I’ve been educated;

I was educated.

Was.

I hate everything.

Now.

I have no choice.

I must leave this life I built behind.

I have no haven left on Earth.

The best of my friends are too scared to help. My greatest allies depend on me and my strengths; they are my only weakness.

I love these humans as I love my own, but are they worth giving up my life? The life that brings me, and not them, pleasure? My desires find me selfish, because they no longer make me. Why was I born into an environment of temptations & mindless self-indulgence, yet need to suppress and prevent only my own desires? If you have to kill to eat, are you a murderer? Or just an animal? A hunter? Human? Nature?

The students have left early today, I may never see them again. You just never know.

I wait for nightfall, where Trinidad will come speak to me. It doesn’t matter where I am, if he knows I am hiding, he will know my plans pre-emptively, so for now I keep my plans cool; I feel like this classroom. I am colder than I know how to feel. The world burns today and there isn’t enough water in sight.

I wait, calm, but torn, my heart has a mind of its own; I cannot distract my mind from this, something I thought I mastered.

Millenniums built what days will destroy, and, despite my pride, and understanding of Trinidad’s, and our kind’s, wishes, I cannot be interested in a life with only one or the other. Humans are animals to me, and without the animals, nature is artificial. All left we have is “intellectual” conversation about what could have been, or what could be. But the taste of animals isn’t their purpose. Evolution has created copies of the animals we used to be.

It’s dark.

As dark as it can be.

“Vincento…”

The most familiar hiss I have or will ever know enters my night.

Any lesser being would tremble, but I curtsy,

“Master…”

I bow, as I have eternally.

Trinidad is just checking in,

my feelings and response,

he is usually the master at this,

but perfect training beats talent,

if talent doesn’t train perfectly.

I know his plans, he doesn’t have to tell me.

He liked the aesthetics of seasons. I think that’s why he insisted on a perfect one year plan to “save” the planet. Every month he would take out the largest metropolitan areas simultaneously, until there would only be his army left in a year. This plan has been set in stone from our initial pact, centuries ago, when Trinidad was the only one of us, the only Master, not just my Master. He made me, Chosen. I was, am and will always be. The Chosen will inherit this world.

He smirks, “I presume no one will be missed?”

How hard is it… to give up your riches and comforts and all your hard earned things, just to survive? Easier said than done, I have seen it all, as far as I know. All the world’s a stage, for an actor, to act upon, good, and bad, to tell truths, or to tell lies. Most humans have been acting much too much for much too long.

“Of course not, Sir, I have been ready for this day, since the beginning.” As i have, but these experiences, you can never prepare for wholly. Nothing like the real thing. Like humans waking up to the government announcing the execution of all seniors above 69, and it’s your grandmother’s 69th birthday. It just feels too sudden… too soon… and you just don’t know how your mind and body will react when it actually happens… even if you hate your grandmother. And that would just be “Stage 1” depopulation. This is what Trin has planned, but he wasn’t so conservative with the age cut off, or any criteria really. He just wants to try to preserve the smartest artists around the world. For his army of happy human slaves of course.

“Good. Then, you know where to find us.”

I bow. I know. And when, and what.

He lingers. He always lingers.

But now, my Roze; she’s delicate, like her name suggests, but only to me: I am not worried for her, but for myself. Keeping her alive, like a flower with no water, I would become water, if she would have me. But, like Juliet, she is the Sun. And even though, I have had the pleasure of meeting all of her idols, I am the Moon. We will never be able to cross paths or plan a meet until this is over, by the miracle that it goes our way. She can sense it, but not the way I can sense things. Like the calm before the storm, I have been conditioned the many times I have felt this before. The nightmare before the opening show. I warn her.

But I never get to say bye to Roze.

Bye, Roze.

“You’re sure you won’t miss her? She can come along, or does she have other plans?”

“She would be a burden”, I lie truthfully so he can sense my genuine honesty.

This “war” will be genocide, and I yet have no ultimate plan for another solution. Selfishly, I must prepare myself first, before I could possibly save anyone else. The orphans need me. I am determined.

Trin believed human armies only had monetary purposes, just a bunch of mercenaries for both sides, the poor soldiers led to believe otherwise. I am distraught.

Trin senses and remarks, “Why would a country ever have troops over seas, away from home? Why would any country fight another?”

But that was Trinidad’s winning argument: they deserve this.

“The humans have taken everything for granted. This planet has gotten worse, and only for us. These pigs eat and shit, and sleep and eat and shit. And come home to tell each other how hard they’ve worked. And nothing happens. The past 50 years, who has opened their eyes as the ice caps melt to nonexistance and the population continues to multiply exponentially. The last century? Genocides gone and forgotten, and in another generation the stories won’t have words left in them. It’ll just be a mess of a combination of monologues of each race and tribe that was raped and massacred by their own kind. All for resources, many times man-made. They would do it to us, and now, before it gets out of hand, we must move. The population has doubled too soon, as I feared, but like you I hoped. That they would change, but they grow more infatuated with man made pleasures like toys, like moths to the bulbs they think they invented. How could I feel any regret, Vincento? They even call you Vance! Because they don’t care about anything but themselves and wouldn’t waste another moment on your name so that they can tell you more about their own bullshit? Your fragile, little girlfriend?”

“If Anne Hatheway was Shakespeare, she would be her. I believe she his reincarnate…”, I say too much.

“And I love the believer in you, my son, but who knows better than your eternal father? Your human one couldn’t do anything close to this, so what God do you need if I not he? I gave you a better father, a better life, the best of me… your best father, your best life. Without a need for these blood sucking leeches. Even ‘The Good Hearts’ have no purpose.”

“What purpose does fun, peace and happiness need? They all vie for it, even if they are no good, they have faith and hope, and I think, without them, I would lose hope in myself.”

“Come, let’s go somewhere. It’ll change your mood. And tomorrow morning, you can ride all the way to the Bay with a couple of your favorite types. Two funny college kids. That’s what I hear, you know I can never meet these things the way you do. Ugh, listening to them…”

“I know. You have no reason to understand, and I have no way to explain. Let’s go.”

Trinidad signs me up for a drive, a last hoorah for him or “us” if you asked him. He’s something like LeStat in Interview with a Vampire: charming when played by Tom Cruise, but stories are always more beautiful than the real thing.

The mind wanders, but not his. He never had to change for anything or anyone, besides himself the infamous day he was born. Through all time, he was this way. Yet, I learned to adapt as soon as we met long ago: two roads, and I am the one less traveled.

He directs us to a new secret spot, like a watering hole for our types, had we known about it. We arrive at a concrete box with a wooden, breaking down roof in the middle of nowhere, High Desert California. The surrounding area is red with sand, like Rialto forty miles west of it, but it makes Rialto look urban. The nearest building is half a mile away, and it’s a shed. A big toolshed, home to a family of unrelated homeless people that are something like the city bird or flag, because it’s the only landmark the town has.

Parked, we synchronistically open doors and hop out as the dust from the parking lot settles, exposing a lot of mostly late eighties / early nineties sets of beat up, mostly champagne or black colored automobiles.

The building box is like a shitty, grounded rectangle disco-ball for the night, rave music bumping. Everything about the place is dirty, but it looks fun, and we’re here and committed now. It’s too long a drive back home for me to be annoying and try to leave early; how do you enjoy an end of the world party when you’re the only one who knows it.

The “door” is an opening where there should be one with a big black man of a bouncer, pouty scrunched face; he could kill us both (in another life), towering over like a guardian angel bear, but we’re not scared as he hands back our fake id’s and even he knows it; we don’t actually comprehend fear, because we physically cannot get the flight response we see in animals: only fight.

Beginning to inhale the smell of a fog machine smoking up the place as we step inside the door frame and enter a portal to the best place in town, where it’s easy to understand the community here. Trin is never amused with them; he was born this way, but I routinely question this, as I have seen him admire beauty without destroying it.

I don’t know the music specifically, but the vibe is familiar to any club you’ve seen. It’s the definition of a shit show, in terms of an operational dirty dance club. The dirtiest part is the concrete floor, blackened like asphalt by a lifetime of dancers. The fog becomes comfortable as I narrowly catch a smile through it. A beautiful face in a place like this? Feelings divine engulf me, I feel blessed to be here. For a moment, I thought even Trin felt blessed.

We work our way in. We don’t look old, but we’re too “old” to really understand dancing enough to imitate the eccentric stomp dancing. Some of them seem crazy, maybe hallucinating, as they stare blankly, and wave arms, like witches summoning demons. To my surprise, the smiling witch girl ballets her way over. I think I’m in love again, I pay it no mind. Again.

Then, I remember what night it is, and my gut drops as this same smiling witch slithers around Trinidad’s ear, as her smile transfers from behind him and directs to me. His eyes follow and it’s about the mission I can tell. And, as the snap of a finger is instant, the night time sky slapped on gray and white bright clouds to morning type back drop. I can understand why this is all beautiful to the artists, I just can’t actually connect the feelings.

Los Angeles EXPLODES from a distance I did not know I could see.

I bring my focus back.

I’m on that mission now.

Trin was one step ahead of me again.

I move.

They had told me to drop my car off at the meet up spot, so I didn’t ask questions: I needed to execute if I was going to hold off Trinidad’s plans. It made me feel safe, that this mission depended on me and he could not give anything a “go” without completion first.

I come across two juice heads in the pick up car, “Hop in bro”, proceeds with fake first impression smile, clearly unaware of the explosion. Trin has his ways.

I hop in an old Asian car, clean inside, good on gas. The driver’s either a scientist type trying to “save” the planet or he’s a bum who just likes to be cheap and clean to the best of his abilities. I’m leaning towards the latter as he introduces himself, “Sup bro, friends call me Russ”. So, I’m probably right to assume that’s not his full name, I’m thinking it’s Rusty, hence the overcompensation for his clean fabric car. Whatever.

He introduces the front passenger, like they’re bros already, “…this is my bro, Erik,” goddamnit, being right all the time just isn’t worth it, “He’s from Jersey, I’m from Iowa”.

I say, “wow cool, I’m actually from here. Well, 40 miles east of here, but kind of tired of LA”, and move on in conversation, like a human. I am much like a human. We share some similar interests like The Theatre, and girls, and then they ignore me for the ride, while I contemplate if the world is even worth saving, riding with these frat boy gym rats.

Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t the worst, it just hurts being around people who don’t see their own faults, who don’t want to see their faults. People who could never understand what privelages they have, have had, and continue to have. Even when they can say it loud and proud, it’s a show. They have been loved every day of their lives, and don’t know another way. I never blame them, another difference. Unfortunately, I sense these things and so it is rare I make friends.

6 hours pass.

An hour in traffic away from San Francisco and we hit the first bridge I have never seen in my life. Not gonna lie, I hate everything, but this was pretty dope. It’s so big, cavemen would believe God made it.

And then a thought hits me. In traffic, trying to keep cool from the heat, and, calm, despite the inertia of the automobile gridlock with these two dudes, of which I don’t know. Had I been human, maybe I would worry about such a last-minute “surprise! Here’s your vaguely described mission aka odd job for anonymous boss you will soon maybe meet and probably dislike”-type gig. But that was that thought, and that was it, but had I been human, I could have gotten real panic type anxious, or avoidant or this or that “feeling” about how they could be trying to kidnap me or rob me or kill me, but I’m not human anymore and… Gus breaks all these potentially anxiety and depression provoking thoughts of the two of them being horrible people to be stuck with in traffic with a redundant, “Damn bros, traffic’s whack”.

Of which I agreed. And these are the moments. The only answers I could give to Trinidad as to why. Why I want these fuckers to live. Nothing big deal. It’s in the details. But Trin would confirm that so is the Devil.

15 minutes pass.

I wish we had more to talk about. More I could relate to, at least for their sake. They ramble on about hitting the gym as soon as we get to The City. I also understand Trin, as I too have walked in many pairs of different moccasins, as necessary for all the different walks of life.

We are parked at this point, probably a few football fields into a 4 mile long bridge. It was fun while it lasted, I already hate this place.

45 minutes pass, the bros are sleep.

People begin consecutively exiting their vehicles. I can see a mile or two ahead, but not the end of the bridge.

They exit, like those human waves at sport events, soccer or whatever. I don’t know right now.

And then, EXPLOSION at the other end of the bridge, but I can’t see anything.

Russ and Erik wake, jumping out the car,

“YO?!”

I still don’t know.

People scream, like those waves again, the sound carries toward us, as the bridge collapses from the opposite end, making it’s way to us.

We are leaning now, into the water.

A second EXXPLOSION, much louder this time, from our end of the bridge.

Hearts drop. The bridge too. Some float, some try.

It’s the sinking scene out of Titanic: the ship, the captain, our captain, the crew, the rich, the poor. Minus the rescue. Nobody is coming to save these people, I know, I sense; my feelings for things and this and that transcend what they have ever felt, will ever feel, I know. Trin had me believe his moves would be monthly, but I know now he has plans I have not sensed.

I will float, regardless, and yet, as they die together, I will live alone. Some of them idolized figures, like Christ and such and this and that, for miracles… miracles like walking on water. I float, but I die with them today, because now more than ever, I realize they are all me, more than I could ever be.

As hard as I can try to save them, I couldn’t even save myself. I learn that now… as they all drown.

I am sorry, as they watch in disbelief and envy, until their final breaths for life… their beaming stares lose light as they begin to drop into the water, some grabbing to others, some too ashamed to beg for help… and in their last moment, before dropping, they dropped their envy, in final realization, that only I would be left to deal with the rubble.

And so I was.