by M. Roberts
Ezekiel lifted himself from the sand, brushed it from his suit pants, and strode over to Lane. “Don’t you ever keep me waiting again.”
With drooping lids, Lane replied in monotone, “Rose is dead. So is Titus.”
Ezekiel took a deep breath and hung his head. “There’ll be time to mourn the dead.”
Lane shook his head. “I could’ve let him kill you.”
Ezekiel’s frown reformed to a scowl as he stared into Lane’s eyes. “Why didn’t you?”
“Same reason he’s dead.”
“Order in the power.” Ezekiel patted Lane’s back and continued walking to his car.
Lane spoke to himself, “Choices. And chains.”
He remained alone on the beach while Ezekiel drove off, knowing he had much work ahead in cleaning the chaos of the preceding events, but holding off on its start. His eyes followed along the beach beyond Lucius’s body, out over the ocean to the horizon, or where he assumed it divided the earth from the heavens. Though he couldn’t, despite all his focus, discern it. Even as the sun continued its incrementally growing onslaught, his vision was only pained instead of aided. It was an ugly gradient which he turned his back to as he raised his cell phone to his ear and began to speak, “Cleaning crew to the coast, one body. Lucius Imada.” He stuffed it back into his pocket and hoisted himself behind the wheel of his black pick up truck, kicking the gas and tearing back down the road towards the heart of Verón City.
Rose
Life is a trip, free flowing, time irreverent, uncertain, chaotic, swirling. Uncontrolled. Consciousness always tries to negate that fact, tries to ensnare reality with laws, with rules, rigidity. We try to make it make sense, when it won’t.
Every day I see it, with my family, with everyone I meet. I meet a lot of people. When you let life carry you on through its highs and valleys, you come across others in its journey. And they all hold fast to their vision of it, of what they need to do, and what that ultimately will make of them. And in every one of them, in all of their stories, even if you break the timeline, rearrange moments, they show the same pattern. A cycle of chasing after something, large or small. Getting it, or missing it, and either way going again. All the while thinking they’re moving forward.
I suppose we are. Aging, or shrinking the gap between us and the end.
For all the ups and downs, the trip only ever ends.
So perhaps it’s pointless in the end.
Maybe that makes what we make of life meaningful. Or that meaning is for us to create and bury within us, that, though life alone is meaningless, within ourselves, it’s not.
Or maybe we can struggle against it, with it, for it, and find whatever truth to define it.
I know less and less, and believe others less and less.
But I still see some beauty.
It’s highs and lows.
Life’s a trip.
*
To follow M. Roberts, visit mrobertsbooks.com. There you can find the entire collection of stories from the author of Peace Tomorrow and stay up to date on all the new releases.
Including Two Empires, the second book in the Verón City Series:
Vincent returns to Verón, but he doesn’t come alone. After having been found by the mob, Vincent comes running home with thoughts of collecting Lucius and running off again. To his dismay, he finds Verón has gone to hell. Squeezed between two enemies, Vincent is robbed of mourning as he must dodge two power-hungry forces, the Dicaro Empire and the mob, as the two find themselves vying for the same goal: control of the city. All the survivors of Peace Tomorrow return with a collection of new characters to chase after, earn, or play for prosperity in Two Empires.
Also available from M. Roberts:
Secrets of the Forest
a fantasy serial
Cybil Weaver is a struggling college freshman, drowning in assignments and finding it hard to focus as her mind carries her away with intoxicating visions. As she dreams, she finds herself in a mystical forest, coaxed deeper by a mysterious boy that she decides to seek out in waking life. Meanwhile, she’s pursued by a wealthy, charismatic junior who seems to hide his true intentions from Cybil, while following beside her as she meanders through the forest. She quickly discovers there is more to the forest than the trees. An ancient force at play has more than school in store for her, and a secretive order plots to use her connection with the forest to their advantage.
Visit the website read more about these and others!
mrobertsbooks.com