GREEN

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell

They advance quickly leaving the park behind them heading into the busy streets of the city, through the all-night mall, pass the arcades, into large crowds of merrymaking and out of them too. Green flew forward with ever-increasing speed and Simon had soon trouble keeping up.
“Not so fast…”
Green stopped. Simon caught up panting.
“Around this corner you will meet a man.”
“Who is it?”
“You will know the moment you lay your eyes on him,” Green explained and gallantly ebbed away.
Simon looked at the street and the city. He looked at the house and at the corner he was supposed to round. Curiosity enticed him to move ahead to meet whoever he was supposed to meet, not thinking of what happened to the cat or for that matter caring.


I know his face more than my own father’s. I see his more often than the old man. In fact I think the old man is dead. It doesn’t matter. I still can’t help staring because this man I so violently recognize has been in my house. His face has. It has been plastered on my TV screen every night. A royal socialite. A holy relic. An old woman’s dream. The wholesome son-in-law. Neither rude nor offensive. Smiling at the cameras whilst showing off his new teeth, suit and girlfriend on the red carpet at the premiere of some new club (like we need another) or film (as a rule a bad remake of something much better).
Yes I know his face, but I can’t recall his name. And if I would ask him for it that would cause a great offence because who would dare not to know it? So for now he’ll be branded the Actor because that’s what he is. A pretender. Like me. And like me he’s pretending to be something he’s not.
At the moment, though, this actor is drunk. He’s actually puking and the splashing sound his very late brunch makes sounds almost like his studio audience clapping at command. Sitcom demon. Alcoholic misfit. Unshaven. Clothes wrinkled. Eyes bloody. Not the nice cut gentleman one meets on the ‘hypno-box’.
This here, on his knees hurling dairy products from some fine restaurant, is a dark and most real side of him. It isn’t acting. This vomit circus is not make believe. It’s the true him. The man behind the ‘face’ and he’s like the rest of us. Lost. Fucked. Drunk on a drug or on confusion. Scared of pain and full of it. His life is the envy of others, but nothing he desires himself, and I know this because I can sense it in his eyes. He wants peace and meaning.
Like me. I want to belong. A purpose. Not the fake plastic dream I thought was mine. That dream I had, the dream that is constantly dying, is the collective dream of society. And we are all given it at birth; success!
And what is that but money and work well done? A lot of time spent watching clocks and catching busses, trains and taxis. Where is life happening? After 5 p.m.?
My life has to be lived how I want it to be lived, can’t it? Is that possible? I won’t hurt anyone or anything? Just go about my day… yes that’s all I want. To go about my day without being troubled by the ‘have to’ and the ‘must do’ of society. That would be wonderful. That I might find happiness in.
“What are you looking at?”
“An actor not pretending any longer,” I declare and he smiled a post-puked smile.
“Hey, what you see is all there is to see… this is me and who… are you?” the Actor asks with the occasional hiccup. I extend my hand and reveal my name.
“Well then Simon, let me tell you a story,” the Actor says and plunges down onto the pavement patting the ground next to him inviting me, and I gladly accept.
“Once,” he begins like most storytellers do, “there was a man sitting in a rowing boat without oars. The river pulled it forward towards a waterfall not far ahead. The man began using his own hands as paddles trying with all his might to get the boat to move up against the stream, but it was impossible. The current was so strong and death unavoidable. There was nothing else to do.
The man leapt into the water and began swimming. And the water grabbed hold of him and even more rapidly he was cruising towards the great waterfall. But he would not give up. And his arms became tired. And his strength became weaker and finally he drifted below the surface, water pouring into his mouth, and he drowned.”
“Is there a moral to this story?”
“Oh yes,” the Actor replies and a grand smile emerge on his face.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“No I think it’s fairly obvious.”
“I find it depressing.”
“Does it help if I tell you that all the other men in rowing boats that go down that river just sit there, looking straight ahead, until they finally plunge to their deaths.”
“No, because they all die in the end, don’t they? So what is the point of struggling?”
“That is the point. That is the point and no point could be more important, because one day a man, or a woman, will struggle hard enough and reach the shore where he/she can dry his/her clothes and figure out a way to maybe help other people caught in the current.”
“Mmm and then the government will have him/her assassinated.”
“Maybe so, still…”
“Still?”
“Some people try and some people don’t. You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Do you try or are you just waiting to die?”
“I… tried and now I guess I am waiting. What else can I do?” I answer feeling like a looser.
“I tried too and now I too am waiting for death. Karoshi. It will get me one day. I can feel it searching for me. And it’s getting closer by the day. Maybe even tonight we’ll embrace!”
Karoshi!
I’m not alone. I didn’t think I was, yet here next to me is a potential ally, and maybe we can help each other.
“What if there were two men in that boat. Wouldn’t they have a greater chance of success?”
“Possibly so.”
“Then come with me now,” I say and fly to my feet, “hurry now… Karoshi is after my soul as well. We have to run. Hide. Flee. Counter strike. I don’t know. But before I was alone and now we’re two. Maybe we can be three. Come. Will you struggle with me?”
The Actor coughs and spits a nasty lump of old saliva out his mouth.
“I am old and a bit drunk… you have no need for me. Call me a quitter. Call me a lost cause. Good luck young man. I can’t help you.”
“Yes you can,” I implore and grab hold of his shoulders, “now come here…”
“What are you… let go you fucking maniac. Help! Help!”
“Shut up, come with me,” and I drag him along down the street and his resistance grew fainter by each step we took till finally he walked by his own accord - eventually whistling as we rounded a corner and went down into the subway.


An empty train screeched to a halt. Simon and the Actor climbed aboard and sat down. The doors closed with a robotic hiss. Slowly the train began moving until it was hurling itself through the deep tunnels beneath the city. Outside the windows there were only darkness.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know?” Simon replied, “but I do know we have to be on the move. Karoshi is close. I barely escaped it not long ago just before we met.”
“You saw it!”
“Yes…”
The Actor looked down as to avoid the eyes that had seen what he feared.
“What did it look like?” he warily asked.
“Colorless, grey… a mass of empty death… a pallid ash shaded shadowed entity…”
Simon’s words trailed off into his mind and he sat silent for a while contemplating his recent adventures, or nightmares, depending on what view he took. The Actor leaned his head against the window for a nippy nap. Simon observed him wondering what dreams he might have and felt fatigued himself. He recalled how he, as a teenager, used to enjoy the train journeys without a set destination and he tried to fall into that emotion again, but found it difficult.
They were the only passengers and the desolation was kind of spooky. The train made its typical train noises. It was kind of soothing. Like a mother singing a lullaby.
Outside the windows the darkness remained. How long is it to the next station? Simon wondered and sat up straight after slumping for a bit. The Actor woke up.
Abruptly the train stopped. The doors opened. Both of them looked out. There was a station there neither of them had ever seen before. Empty and incomplete.
“What’s this?”
“Come,” the Actor urged and left the train with Simon in his heels. The doors shut again.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have got off?”
The train began moving and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. A howling wind flew through the air sounding like a broken Theremin. The floor was dusty and the noise of mice, or rats, could be heard. Simon felt a chill in his bones and he knew the atmosphere reeked with an unknown threat.
“I don’t think this station exists,” said the Actor with a baffled tone.
“I have never…”
At the other end of the platform stood a flight of stairs that hopefully led to the surface, but before either of them had a chance to move towards it, or speak another word, a pale menacing shadow crept down the steps. Come come… it chillingly implored.
“We better run,” Simon leapt off the platform down unto the tracks.
The Actor stood still. His hands trembled. A cold breeze approached him as the shadow grew into a shape. Into a mass of death. A horrible evil and dark thing with bottomless eyes filled with malice, and it grinned a smile of vile spite.
Come here, it hissed with a guttural voice.
“Run!” Simon screamed and headed the same way the train had gone. But the Actor did nothing but stand where he stood, watching in terror as the malevolence approached.
“Karoshi…” the Actor said and that was the last word Simon heard before he disappeared into the black world of the tunnel like a frightened worm.


I cannot escape.
I cannot keep running. What’s the point? Death is imminent. I might as well just lie down and wait… but I have waited. I have waited all my life. What is life but a waiting room for the next world, if such a world exists. I better keep running. There must be a way. I know more now than I did before. I can survive if I struggle. If I don’t crumble and give in. I shall not give in.
Yes!
When I was young that was I believed and now I believe in it again. The struggle. I won’t let them, it, win. And even if I eventually loose at least I gave enough trouble. My death will have to be an annoyance. I’m not going to cave in like a house of cards, but like a house of bricks in a world of glass. I have changed, and I need to change back. Innocence. Naivety. Purity. How can I find my path? Where does it lie?
“In your dreams!”
“Who said that?”
“Don’t be afraid…”
“Who’s there?”
“White!”
“What?”
“I am White.”

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