Act I
Chapter I
Extraordinary Normality
Chaos seemed to be the only way to describe the motions that the two
helium atoms undertook as they flew around this space that seemed so empty and yet was so awash with others of their kind as well as a few relatives such as iron and oxygen.
The fact that the result of their collision and subsequent fusion would only be seen by the outside world in around 170.000 Years did not seem to upset their little dance at all as they finally smashed into each other and gravity finished the process of their bonding.
They seemed perfectly happy as the gamma rays that resulted from the process of their bonding were absorbed by the plasma of the sun and were reemitted again in random directions on their way to the outside to fulfill their evil master plan.
170.000 years Later...
Photons travelling at the speed of Light smashed into Earth's atmosphere
only to be scattered around on their way down but it did not matter at all
if a few of their brethren missed their mark as the process started so long ago was about to reach its culmination as they hit the exosphere, thermosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere and finally the troposphere.
It did not stop there however as they continued down towards a nondescript continent with a relatively mild climate and finally into some country or another and finally, oh yes finally, they slammed into glass, past some half closed blinds and then against some poor creature's eyelids
which started grumbling and moaning something about it being too early to wake up.
Johnathan Anders slowly opened his eyelids only to immediately slam them shut again and mentally curse himself for forgetting to close his blinds last night. If atoms and photons were sentient beings they would congratulate themselves on a job well done.
John moaned and turned to press his face into his pillow, unhappy about the unwanted intrusion of sunlight into his room and more importantly, on his face.
After a few minutes he turned onto his side and decided to carefully open his eyes again to inform himself of the current time: 7 o'clock on the dot it read on his bulky alarm clock / radio.
Grumbling and once more cursing the burning sphere of helium and hydrogen for daring to intrude on his peaceful sleep, he twisted and turned and finally sat up to arch his back.
After a few satisfying cracks, his vertebraes popped back into the right place.
He sat there a few minutes contemplating his predicament but decided not to take vengeful action against the sun.
Yawning, he got up and walked into his bathroom to take a shower.
John climbed into the bathtub and opened the hot tap to full while turning the cold tap to a half open position.
Satisfied that this was the correct setting he placed himself under the stream of water only to go wide eyed with shock and immediately retreat again.
„Mother-F...“, he almost screamed after receiving an icy surprise courtesy of his house's plumbing.
Quickly, John realized his fatal mistake, he forgot to turn on his hot water heater before climbing into the tub again.
Mentally cursing himself once more he turned to the other side of the wall against which his tub sat and cranked up the dial on the heater to full.
Testing the water for a few more minutes, he finally seemed content and placed himself back under the torrent of water to wash himself.
Ten minutes later he finished his cleansing ritual and stepped out of the tub in order to walk towards his bathroom mirror above the sink.
Grabbing a towel from the rack next to the sink he started drying himself off and inspected his reflection in the mirror.
A creature, 6 foot 5 tall creature with a mighty 5 o'clock shadow stared back at him with dull brown eyes.
John was only 25 years young, but already had a handful of creases and bruises on his sleep deprived face.
The creases were a result of long work days and the bruises were courtesy of his younger years, years in which he was much more reckless and stupid, doing moronic things to pass the time and overcome frustrations.
He sighed, opened his bathroom mirror / closet and retrieved his shaving kit.
Starting his routine by applying shaving cream and cutting down his stubble to nothingness, he tried to think of what he would do today.
Wake up. Check.
Shower. Check.
Breakfast.
Bacon and eggs sounded like a good start.
After that he would have to go to work in order to arrive there at 7:30...
„Hmm“ he contemplated. Something about that time struck him as odd or important.
He decided he would remember why later and finished his routine.
Walking out of his bathroom he immediately remembered why that time seemed so important.
It was already 7:10.
„Shit Shit Shit SHIT!“ John yelled out loud.
'Oh my boss is going to have my ass for this', He thought.
Launching from the bathroom door towards his closet, he quickly opened it and retrieved, by miracle he presumed, a set of decent clothes, which consisted of a black polo shirt and some ordinary blue denim jeans.
Putting on his clothes, John collected all of his personal belongings, such as his wallet and car keys, and made his way to the door.
It was a cool september morning and the still frigid air stung John into his face, causing more blood to flow there and in the process reddening his face. Ignoring the slight pain in his numbing face he unlocked his car, got in, started the engine and reversed down his driveway.
'If I'm lucky I might get there in time', John thought to himself as he turned onto the small towns main road and drove on.
However, somewhere in this cold frigid place we call the universe, a guy called Murphy was about to have some fun with poor John.
The road before him was completely clogged up, John sighed and got out his phone to inform his employer in the hopes that he might spare him a punishment if he could explain the situation to him.
Getting the busy signal John sighed again and pressed redial, he looked at the huge traffic jam around him while waiting for his boss to pick up the phone, and finally noticed the very unamused looks of the two police officers in the patrol car waiting next to him.
If Murphy did indeed exist he was probably patting himself on the back now.
„Perfect, fracking perfect.“ he exhaled.
Murphy's law as true as it might be was not nearly as annoying
as the example of Parkinson's law that the two officers were currently presenting.
„License and registration please.“, the taller and older one of the two gruffly demanded.
John immediately handed over the documents while profusely apologizing to the both of them.
The younger one mumbled something to his partner who now looked at John with an unreadable expression on his face.
„Please step out of the car sir.“, he said.
„What? Why?“, John wanted to know but that only resulted
in Grumpy Face shooting daggers at him with his eyes and reiterating
his earlier demand.
'This day is going just perfect right now', he thought to himself
as he opened the door and exited his car.
Murphy and Parkinson must habe been the best of friends
because when John finally arrived at his place of work in the main workshop for the track construction machines of the German Railway Company, it was already 8:30.
He walked past a gravel planer towards the office of the workshop manager who just walked out of the office.
Seeing the expression on his boss's face John felt the hairs on his back
stand to attention and he stood stock still.
He didn't move an inch.
„Mr Anders, i've been expecting you.“, he said in the calmest voice
John has ever heard.
What scared John was, that his boss, a spitting image of Hugo Weaving,
was smiling.
He didnt look one bit angry, not that John ever saw him angry. No, his boss always had this uncaring completely deadpan expression on his face, but now he was actually smiling.
That made John feel a chill move down his spine and back up again.
„Would you follow me into my office please, Mr. Anders?“, his boss asked in an almost normal tone.
It wasn't a request.
After following his boss into the room he was motioned to take a seat and did so. He was considering what to tell his boss when he spoke up.
„Im sure you have some very logical and understandable explanation
for your late arrival this morning but let me save you from trying to make something up“.
His boss adjusted his suit and looked down on a piece of paper.
„Mr. Anders, normally I would have had to conjure up some formal way of saying that due to the economic situation we would regrettably have to let you go but since you are giving me the perfect opportunity here and now let me be quite frank with you.
I don't like you, I never have and to be perfectly honest the only reason I hired you five years ago was because we had to meet some ridiculous employment quota.
However seeing as you never quite managed to meet my expectations of yourself and my superiors, I am quite happy, after todays display of your tardiness to tell you my opinion.
You seem to lack the drive to accomplish anything meaningful around here, be it a lack of purpose or laziness, I cant say I care, but what I do care about is the efficiency of this workshop.
So with due regret and respect, I'm afraid I will have to terminate your employment with us, Mr. Anders. Now if you would please sign here to indicate that you have understood my little speech I would be most glad.“
John was quite shocked that his boss had not even given him the opportunity to speak up during the whole process,
and now he found himself even more unable to bring out any meaningful
series of words, so he took a pen from the table and signed the termination
of his employment contract.
On the way out he finally managed to mumble something to the likes
of „Jackass.“, before moving to pass through the doorway and close the door.
„I heard that“, was the last thing he caught before closing the door.
Murphy would be rolling on the floor roaring with laughter right about now.
John contemplated what would happen now but no clear result came from his thoughts. The only certainty was that this would start a long downward spiral from hereon out.
Five years Later
John was pushing his shopping cart down an alleyway thinking
about times long gone.
The shock after he was suddenly unemployed.
The search for jobs that would last a few weeks at most before he either left or got fired.
The bank reposessing his house and most of his belongings after he failed to pay his mortgage and his hydro bills.
Him looking to the social services for help.
Well, they did help for a while, but after a year or so their leniency came to an end, and since he wouldn't or couldn't take any of the jobs that they tried to force on him he was eventually dropped out of the reintegration program.
Too proud or more likely too damn stupid to go and look for help elsewhere he turned to the streets as a beggar.
A hobo is what he had become, a social outcast unfit for society.
Normal people would have looked to friends and family in his situation,
but he never had any of those, he never did.
So John did the only thing he could do and swaggered on, unsure if he
could even survive like this, but he did.
It was relatively easy to be honest, he would spend most of his morning
on the sidewalks begging for some spare change from the commuters that were on foot, which usually resulted in enough money for a small breakfast.
Later on he would scavenge the back streets and alleyways for valuables to fit into his makeshift quarters on the outskirts of town while at the same time looking for food, even scraps, that he could eat
for dinner.
He thought it quite odd how fast people were to shun someone
based on their social status. If you were rich or even moderately
wealthy people would come and flock around you hoping to maybe
catch some of your excess money.
If you were poor however, people were quick to turn their backs
on you and generally treat you like a stray dog, insulting you,
shooing you away and sometimes even physically hurting you.
What a wondrous thing society was, John mused.
John was picking up some cans, scanning their contents, when he
heard a rustling coming from behind him. He turned around and looked,
but nothing was there.
Probably some stray animal.
Satisfied that he was alone he continued scavenging and after a few more
hours of looking around alleys and back streets he carried on towards his
'home', somewhere just outside town near some dumpsters, that were left
there ages ago for some kind of construction work that never got finished.
Eventually arriving, John emptied his shopping cart and placed his newfound belongings inside a construction of cardboard and corrugated metal that he called his home, and started collecting some paper and other
wooden materials to start a small fire in order to warm himself.
He took off his old and ragged duster that he acquired some time before
his current predicament and laid it down on the ground as a sort of mat.
Watching the sun set on the horizon he started heating the cans and other bits and bobs that contained edible materials on the fire and dug in.
His stomach content, he propped his back up against one of the pieces of corrugated metal he used as a wall and tilted his head towards the night sky.
„Beautiful is it not?“ He asked himself aloud.
John counted the major constellations on the night sky such as Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Pegasus and Andromeda.
After a while however he stopped counting and just stared at
the ocean of stars, the night being exceptionally clear and the light pollution at a minimum out here, John could actually see the differing shades of black in the night sky, nebulae and galaxies.
The moon, the stars, and what ever lay beyond.
Smiling, he thought to himself: 'How immense the universe is, and how immense our egos must be to reduce it all down to near nothingness.'
Eventually, after a while of pondering the triviality of our current society
he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
He didnt dream this night, nor did he on any other occasion, it seemed
that his brain didnt deem any of his actions or experiences as important enough to recount them at the end of the day.
As the sun rose and photons once again charged towards their victim
John actually welcomed the intrusion of light on his face and slowly opened his eyelids.
Johns smile quickly turned into the best Angela Merkel impression this side of Berlin as he once again for the umpteenth time remembered who, where, and what he was.
Rising from his lying position he went through his morning routine, picking up all his things, putting them in the shopping cart and heading into town to beg for money while at the same time providing people with the satisfaction of the knowledge that there was someone worse off than them.
A few hours later, finishing his breakfast, John was scavenging through the alleyways again when he heard a rustling sound coming from somewhere behind him.
'Odd' He thought.
'Didnt the same thing happen yesterday?', John pondered for a moment.
As he turned around to check if there was somebody there, he saw him.
A young male, around five foot eleven was staring back at him.
He was wearing unneccesarily baggy pants with chains around his waist and a white shirt with a rugged leather jacket draped over it.
John was stumped for a moment but carried on walking, almost forgetting about the encounter before, a few minutes later he saw the same person standing behind him again, staring.
However two more people had joined him, John now a bit scared noticed that they were all clean shaven.
'Skinheads' he thought. Maybe theyd leave him alone.
He continued walking and deliberately took a few unexpected turns to try and loose them and to his surprise it seemed to work.
As the sun was setting he was finally walking towards his sleeping spot
again, satisfied that they had lost interest in him.
However once again, somewhere in this vast expanse of space that we call the universe, a non corporeal being naming himself Murphy was rubbing his hands in anticipation of the upcoming bucketload of 'fun'.
John never did see the three younglings that stabbed him in the shoulder and proceeded to beat him to a pulp.
Hate crimes were always such a surprise.