Endless Cycle

By Sean Mackaay

A girl stops moving on the dance floor and raises her head to the sky. Her eyes are closed with something close to rapture, hoping for that one moment heaven's light might shine on no one but her.
And in a moment the battle lines for Generation Y's defining fight are laid bare. A generation promised the world on a platter - you can be whatever you want, you can have whatever you want and you can have it all now - realising they too needed to fight for what they wanted. The aspirations of a generation spoilt on boom times and false promises shattered by reality.
Some seek fulfilment through faux fame, youtube and reality tv. Some salvation in hard work. Many accept failure.
Others turn to revolution. Looking to carve out a place in the stars with blood, bombs and social overhaul. Looking to ignite their spotlight in the hallowed halls of history with RDX and PETN.
...this is their tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Mackaay
• Release date: Aug 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502242020

Sean Mackaay

I never wanted to be a dad... until I found myself with a daughter. She is the most important thing that has ever happened in my life (even if some times I need a break from her). But I'm older than I probably should have been to have a child, and will be very old once she graduates high school. So I wanted to do everything that I could to make sure that when she grows up I can be an active part of her life. To do that I needed to get healthy. I needed to spend time on myself so I could spend time with her. That journey began by taking the time to work out when I could. Then I decided to write this book because I knew there were other dads out there like me who want to get healthy but aren't sure where to start. Hopefully, this book will help you to be the best dad you can be. That's my aim anyway. It takes work but that work can lead to the best reward possible, more time with your child.

Book preview

ENDLESS CYCLE

––––––––

Sean Mackaay

Published by Letter3Publishing 2010

Copyright © Sean Mackaay 2010

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

––––––––

Obviously, this is a work of fiction. You would have heard about bombs going off in Canada if this was non-fiction. Unless you are reading this in the future and bombs have coincidentally gone off in Canada, in which case this is still a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead (unless explicitly noted), is merely coincidental.

For Alex

shall outlive me as the revolution never comes One...

... too many.

One too many.

Not the pint of Guinness that he stares at intently as bubbles cascade endlessly to the darkness of the void. It would be at least two more of those before it was one too many, and four more before he realises this.

The pub. He could not help but feel that this was one too many pubs that had flashed before him during his tenure. One too many bartenders with their fake smiles that begged for a few more cents. One too many too large tips as he stumbled out on to the street in the hope of finding a cab.

To his left a couple of old Italian men, chewed up by the world and left here, jabbered in their native tongue. His Italian was not what it had once been and he was only able to extract the odd word.

What did he say? he asked, trying to maintain the illusion of interest.

He says that there is no redemption in this world, came the heavily accented reply.

I hear that's what they say.

He says there is no redemption in this world, only fire.

The girl behind the bar crinkles her nose as she stifles a laugh. Her eyes sparkle as they look right at him. He had noticed her the moment, the second, he had walked in to the pub, an obvious attempt on the owners behalf to keep lonely men drinking as they gathered the courage to ask her name, her number, what she is doing later.

She would laugh, as she always did and know that all this meant more money come the end of the night. That was the reason for the sparkle, the barely hidden laugh that pulled you in to a private joke that wasn't there.

He knew all this. He had seen all of this one too many times, and yet he could not help the visions of her slowly undressing. Her coat being slowly removed, revealing alabaster skin and a vista of conflicting ink that ran down her right arm. Her legs that ran from tiny button toes up to her ass that he would have to relish as he began the delicate process of removing the lacy lingerie that a girl like her was bound to be wearing.

The soft fold of her labia he would gently spread apart as he looked up at her too big eyes, his fingers becoming damp with her anticipation. He would stop then and pull her down on top of him and hungrily feed on her mouth, her tongue eager to reciprocate his movements.

This he knew because of one too many times. This he knew because she looked like Bree. This he knew because he knew there was only fire.

Stop the cycle. Up. Stop the meaningless noise from the two men unstuck from this world. Up. Stop her cute little smile that says that one more, one more is exactly how many you will need to end up in her bed. Up. Out.

*

As he sat on the bus, he pressed the side of his face to the cold window pane. He was uncomfortable, edgy, imprecise. This always happened when he found himself on public transport with more than a handful of people. Didn't they realise that their chance of becoming yet another statistic sky-rocketed with every new person who sat, who stood talking idly about quantum theory and celebrity gossip with their travelling companion.

Terrorists prefer congestion; chaos can't be caused in a room of one. People didn't want to think about that though. It was for other people, other cities, and hopefully other countries. The man across the aisle from him was asleep, or drunk. It hardly mattered as it was the man's hands that had James fixated. The cracked hands, exposed to one too many nights on the street, were simply monstrous. Clearly, whatever was hidden under the man's beanie and sweatshirt hood was something other than human, or at least some perfect melding of ogre and human. Such was the nature of this city. Over time the streets had slowly become compressed by a tide of twisted parodies of human beings.

How Lovecraftian, James murmured for the benefit of no one but himself. As expected, the cute, in a larger sort of way, girl to his right had a puzzled look on her face. He could see her mind ticking over, wondering whether she had misheard what he had barely spoken.

The bus had stopped for longer than regulation would dictate and people were starting to become restless. Out front of the bus, yet another parody of man was flailing on the snow covered road. His violent shouts, unheard by James, were directed at the crowd that had gathered to watch this light entertainment. If James squinted, he could almost read the man's lips. The music that was flowing in to James' ears got in the way though, and so it looked as if the man was telling his audience, It's alright, it's okay.

As winter had descended unnaturally on this city, so had a madness. Through the snow a malicious charge could be felt. This was just one in a long line of impromptu shows put on by the inhabitants. If one paid enough attention to a subtle electricity running down the sidewalks, one would never have a further need for films or the theatre. How Lovecraftian. Indeed.

*

Home was not much of a home at all. A room in a hotel that offered monthly rates was where James had languished during the six weeks since his arrival in Vancouver. Long enough to understand the nature of the beast, to be able to taste it's depravity. Not long enough to have any love for it's people.

On the television, which lived on a questionably functional table in the corner of the dilapidated room, two men, who had more money than most people ever would over the course of an entire life, considered their options. Both were named Phil, not that it mattered to James. One of the Phils was trying to work out what he should do with the King and the Queen which were sitting in front of him. The other Phil wanted to know what should be done with the Ace and the Jack that he was looking at. James knew but he wouldn't tell either of them. Instead, he would wait for the television to show the truth.

As it always did, proving again and again that the 'truth' (such a lofty goal for those who had come before) was what the box said it was. What you could see 24 hours a day, never having to leave the house to find it.

His mind was wandering, the truth lead to Scandinavian pseudo philosophers that pandered to first year university students lead to parties remembered only due to others accounts lead to the Swiss banking system lead to the Gestapo.

In 1933, the Gestapo had confiscated, from one Max Bron, a great deal of correspondence written by the hand of a failed novelist by the name of Franz Kafka. This wouldn’t be an issue, except that Max Bron, executor of Mr. Kafka’s estate, had not respected Mr. Kafka’s wishes that his writings be destroyed if, and when, he died.

Instead, Mr. Bron had decided to publish a series of unfinished works that the late Mr. Kafka had written during his lifetime. As a result of this exercise in self interest, the Gestapo seizing the correspondence of Mr. Kafka had become a great issue.

The various schools of literary criticism established international foundations, aiming to be the first ones to claim the correspondence as their own. Surely, surely, this was what they needed to unlock the precious truth hidden within these works written to never be read.

The academics of this world were yet to work out that the truth only existed if you could see it.

James knew about a dead Jewish man's letters because he knew a little about a lot. This story he knew because his father had told him. His father was also how he knew how to get a man from a chair to a bath and back. His father had told him this story years ago because there were two things James' father knew. Books and money. This then was the perfect amalgamation of his father's two arts. For if these letters fell in to ones hands, money was guaranteed to follow. As would acclaim but that was fleeting.

Hence, here James was. Sharing a room with the opiate of his generation, his purpose was to make contact with a man that had called his father, half a world away. This man, should James ever meet him, had promised that James could have possession of the long coveted letters. Supposedly, this man was the officer responsible for the confiscation in 1933, which would make him old, feeble and probably delusional.

James doubted it though. His father had sent him traipsing to parts of the world before only to find that it had been a ruse, or worse, that some other collector had beaten him to it. The fact that this man, this Gestapo, had done everything in his power to have barely missed, misunderstood and just simply not turned up, told