When you break the shell of routine, the fruit of truth emerges.
“I can’t take it anymore!”
“Calm down honey, things will b okay for us.”
“Yeah Venarkus, you’ll do alright buddy.”
“It’s what they want us to think.”
“Who dear?”
“They give us jobs, we think they’re doing it because they care, because they don’t want to see their fellow man suffer and die. Well, they don’t care honey.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Venarkus buddy, let’s not get rash.”
“ I build houses for a living right?”
“You do it very well honey.”
“Very well indeed buddy.”
“In the time I’ve built ten houses, guess how much money I’ve made?”
“How much did you make Venarkus?”
“I’ve made enough money to buy one house.”
“That’s not so bad…”
“One house with lesser value than a quarter of the one of the houses I’ve built.”
“What are you getting at honey?”
He turned his head and glared at his wife with undisturbed eyes.
“I could have just built one house and lived in it myself.”
“I guess you could have… well Venarkus, have a seat buddy, I’ll get you a cold glass of water.”
“I could have built it, I could have made my own irrigation, my own running water, my own heat. I could have grown my own food. Ha, instead I buy the food they grow. They grow it while I am working to make the money to eat it.”
“Honey, I do think you should sit down.”
“No, they have this all figured out.”
“You’re getting crazy honey, please, for the love of God sit down and have a glass of water!”
“You don’t understand…”
“I understand you’re acting a fool Venarkus now sit on down here and let’s have a glass of water.”
“I said you don’t understand! I watched a friend last month being carted away on a stretcher. You know why? Heat stroke. You know what he earned that day working?”
“Honey please…”
“He earned his freedom.”
“Venarkus, as a friend, I am telling you to go to your bedroom and lie down a while.”
“Frankton, you know it yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know, while you’ve slaved away in the factories all these years there was one guy on top not working one bit…”
“Well, he earned that position.”
“By being the son of the owner? He didn’t work a God damned day of his life. And so what if he did? Does that mean I shouldn’t toss a fuss when I am working all day while he’s reading the ‘Daily Times’ in his air conditioned office making five times as much as me?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what’s all the point of getting worked up over it. Come now, let’s have a drink of water.”
They sat, and drank water. Venarkus realized his mistake of introducing the truth to the verbal world and laughed at what he was worked up over. The next day there was commotion by the door. Seria stood busy cooking dinner.
“Another hard day on the field?” Seria asked her darling husband. “No, Seria, I have something to tell you.” She was startled to discover Frankton in her presence. “I am sorry for not introducing myself before I entered.”
“What’s wrong?”
Frankton took his hat off and calmly took Seria’s hand. “I am sorry dear neighbor, but your husband… Venarkus passed away this evening. I thought I should be the one to tell you.”
Seria fell into his arms and cried. It was a pain indescribable to Seria. The person she once shared her life with was now only a memory.
“W-wha-what am I going to tell Arnowski?”
Frankton held his friend, his neighbor, tightly, “We’ll tell him that God wanted him in heaven.”
“What am I going to do?” Seria wept.
“Well now, I could help you out, and I am sure the church and the neighborhood could help you out.”
The questions came like raindrops falling from a merciless sky. Frankton consoled her the best he could and promised everything was going to turn out all right.
They held each other, while she cried, and talked… hours later Frankton and Seria sat at the table drinking water; a scotch for Seria.
“I can stay with you guys tonight, in case you need anything, I can stay on the couch.”
“That would be great Frankton, I really appreciate your help.”
“It’s nothing, just trying to be a good neighbor”
“Tell me Frankton…”
“Yes ma’am.”
“How did he die? Was it a heat stroke?”
“Well now… Well…”
“Well what?”
“I didn’t want to alarm you…”
“What, tell me please?”
“It wasn’t a heat stroke. It was a… It was a suicide. He left this note.”
His shaking, awkward hand delivered the note. Seria’s jaw hung, shocked to where she couldn’t produce crying. She unfolded the note:
‘I deserve hell for what I’ve done to you. I will not accept heaven. I am sorry my darling but I couldn’t take it any longer. The working was killing me. I thought I should have the dignity that I would take my own life rather working and slowly suffering and dying making someone else, who I now see as my enemy, exceedingly wealthy. My life was not suppose to be cheapened to make one’s more valuable. I am so sorry my dearest. It’s not your fault, I love you with all my heart and I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish I could hold your hand and love you one more day, I wish I could have given our son the world. I took the coward’s way out… not because I couldn’t handle the work, or because I’ve killed myself because I was suffering a life not worth living. I was a coward for leaving you to suffer. I want you to sell all my belongings for money… I’ve left three thousand dollars in the bank. I am so sorry. Words can’t express how much I love you… And yes, why have I left you if I loved you so dear? Because the system of work has us all caged, it has us suppressed. We work for them to earn their money to buy our things back. It’s thievery how those rich bastards use us as machines. I am dead now because I couldn’t handle being a slave any longer. I am so sorry but my life was not worth living, the only thing I lived for was for you and our son. And I only got to spend two hours with you a day and I could barely keep my eyes opened. I love you dear, and I did not want to leave you, but in the future I would have been driven to insanity, I would have been a greater burden not being able to work. I don’t know, I am having second thoughts, but I am going to free myself. Tell Arnowski that I love him dear and I had to go. He’ll learn the truth, but don’t learn him too fast. I cry now thinking of you two alone, I cry knowing my son will be a slave to an insufferable capitalist system of imperious domination and tyrannical oppression. I hope one day you all will resist the fat cats in Washington and take the land back into your own hands and learn how to live without the evils of the World. I say to thee, My Love, Farewell.’