Veil of Maya

VEIL OF MAYA

by Baron Brady

BARON’S BOOKS

www.baronbrady.com

Veil of Maya

First Lulu Edition, 2004

Copyright © 2003 by Baron Brady

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-300-27600-5

Printed in the United States of America

This book can be purchased at www.lulu.com

For more information about the author and his novels, go to Baron’s Books:

http://www.baronbrady.com

VIRGIL’S CONFESSION

B

efore I begin, let me just warn you. You won’t like anything I have to say. Of course I don’t even know you, but I feel compelled to be honest, as viciously honest as necessary. You’ll despise what I’ve written and condemn me for having written it.

Why, you ask? How can I be so sure of your disapproval? Well, what else can I be sure of anymore?  You’ll hate me. Others do, and, chances are, you will too. Besides, how can you find any merit in the maledictions of a repulsive-looking old man? And how can you not grow nauseous from the foul stench of hatred?

You see, these pages are full of hatred, enough hatred, I’ll warrant, to turn pity into outrage, tenderness into loathing. My eyes smart and my fingers ache just contemplating what vile things I could share with you.

Now, I won’t lie to you, though perhaps you’ll wish I had. You see, I’ll never tell you what you want to hear, only what I think you should know. And I want you to know me. I want you to know me so well you can smell the fetid stench of my breath and the stale odor of my perspiration. I want you to know me by the unmistakably pungent smell of my unwashed clothes and the less-than-wholesome odor of anger and resentment. It’s the stink of humanity. Remember it well.

Oh, have I already begun to turn your stomach? Have your delicate sensibilities been offended already? Now I did warn you, didn’t I? Perhaps you didn’t believe me. No one does until I turn myself inside out to reveal the rot within. Like everyone, you need to see it to believe it.

Alright, imagine a bony, ragged remnant of a man, skin hanging from me as if a sudden gale could blow it from my bones. Old age has not been kind. Is it ever? But don’t be deceived by my fragile, neglected body. I’ve never felt so ferocious in my life, as if I can leap upon anyone’s principles and tear them to pieces with my bare hands. Hatred alone gives me the strength of ten men.

Now gaze at my face and you’ll see what a savage I am. My skull can barely contain eyes that blaze like a multitude of suns. They’ll blast through the most carefully constructed edifice of pretension and scorch the most swollen egos into a pitiful heap of dust. Beware my gaze because I can see right through you, to things that would make you blush to think others might know.

Now, my cadaverous face would suggest a man more dead than alive. But my habit of cackling gleefully at the most solemn of moments should remind you that I’m not dead, but more than willing to mock you with my gaping toothless grin and ape your every self-important gesture with undisguised ridicule. Yes, I’m hateful but I enjoy it. Why shouldn’t it?

You’ll hate me because I’m malformed and hideous, because having one leg shorter than the other has warped my spine out of all recognition. Now I’m guilty of only one pretence in this life: being human; and, at that, I fail miserably.

You’ll hate me because how can you not hate something ugly?  And how could you not suspect that I’m ugly once you discover how wicked I am. After all, are not heroes fair of face while villains are scarred and embittered? Heroes are admired and well-liked while villains are, well, socially unacceptable. In a world that worships all that is beautiful and strong, it’s always unacceptable to be ugly and weak.

Of course, you say you wouldn’t despise me for being hideous, but you still do. You wouldn’t spit at me, but if someone else did, you’d assume I’d deserved it. You wouldn’t lift a finger to protect me from a gang of sadistic young louts. Better that I suffer than you. I was designed to suffer, after all.

But I don’t intend to suffer alone.

The world would just as soon be rid of me, but here I am, nonetheless. A mistake, perhaps, but a reminder of what we all wish to forget: that we’re stinking, filthy animals who’d scruple at nothing if we could avoid punishment.

I’ll remind each and every one of you if I have to. I’m not going anywhere.

Why do I damn myself before I even begin? Well, I suppose I could have lied to you, claimed to be just like you, insisted that I shared your hurt and welcomed you with open arms. But how long would you expect me to maintain the charade? I’ll play a part to please myself, but not for your benefit. Like I said, I’ll say nothing that you want to hear, nor will I do anything you’d want me to do.

I damn myself now because I am damned, thoroughly and irretrievably. Aren’t we all? Apologies for being so unforgivably apocalyptic, but are we not doomed to make the same mistakes we’ve been making for millennia? Are we not doomed by our very natures to want what we don’t have and to resent those that do? Hateful or not, we all share the same dismal fate in the end: to lose what we’d spent a lifetime acquiring and become nothing. We’re doomed because we can’t escape ourselves.

Now, don’t mistake my intentions. I can assure you that should anything the least bit profound pass my lips it was inadvertent. There’s only one thing more inexcusable than ugliness and that’s profundity. Besides, didn’t I assure you of my lack of pretension? How could I wax profound without becoming pretentious in the process?

I promise, I have nothing to say, no cause to advocate, no ulterior motive whatsoever. I’m merely talking to pass the time and because it amuses me. See, in my particular calling, I have all the time in the world. I live nowhere but everywhere. I’m my own boss and yet you’d mistake me for the most servile of wretches. I’m free but I’ve never felt so prey to the demands of my deplorable flesh.

You’ll see men like me asking for money, but you ignore us. We’re everywhere. You’ll cross the street to avoid us, turn the other way to pretend you didn’t see our outstretched hands, pass us by as if you wished we’d never attempted to claim your attention, if only for a few seconds.

We’re here and we see everything, and we’re not the victims we so-called beggars might appear to be. After all, we gain more from you than you could ever gain from us. And your ceaseless struggle for the unattainable entertains us more than you could imagine.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to tell you, to the very thing that will render me most hateful. You see, I have it in for you, since the moment you met me. Fall flat on your face and I’ll laugh. Do you hate me yet? I hope so.

Granted, it’s not the custom for a villain to introduce himself before the hero, but that’s just what I’ve done.  Moreover, I’ve thumbed my nose at all tradition and picked my own hero. Now don’t get excited at the mention of a hero. There’s nothing heroic about him, by any leap of the imagination. But I’ve chosen him because it amuses me to do so and because, well, he’s one of the beautiful people. But if he’s beautiful, he doesn’t realize it. In fact, I’m sure he thinks himself ugly. He feels ugly enough to feel sorry for himself, and for me. But pity shall be his undoing, and thus shall I turn the hero into the victim.

ADAM’S UNHEROIC LIFE

Apathy. I’m cursed with it. I’ve read everything I could lay my hands on in the hope of finding a cure; but I’ve found none. Now I want to believe that compassion has a future. But what chance does it have unless everyone cares? Problem is, no one does.

Of course, if everyone behaved decently, the world might even be a decent place to live in. But with enough of us seeking our own ends at the expense of others, nothing will ever change. The mistrusting hurt the trusting until no one trusts anyone anymore. And so the story goes: a few bad eggs stinking up the entire carton. Or has the entire carton gone bad?

Now while I’ve been ridiculed as an idealist and a dreamer, I’m not fool enough to think we’ll change ourselves overnight. But is there any harm in trying? Why doesn’t anyone try?  I can’t honestly be the only one, can I? Am I really a fool for imagining a better world than this? Am I fool for believing we’re capable of so much more than we realize?

I’ve been told my earnestness makes me boring. Perhaps. My roommate Warren has told me time and time again to stop thinking and start doing. I know he’s probably right, but what would I do? Volunteer my life to help rescue a nation from its oppressors? Byron threw himself into the Greek war for independence but died of fever before he had a chance to draw his sword. Perhaps he wouldn’t have cut as much of a heroic figure as everyone thought he might, and maybe death spared him that final humiliation. But he tried and failed, which is more than I can say for myself. I’ve failed before the get-go.

Perhaps Byron was motivated by boredom. Why else discard your life for an ideal? And maybe boredom is our undoing. We itch to keep busy, and if we can’t do good, we’ll at least do evil, anything to stave off the suspicion that our lives are meaningless trifles. It’s not enough for us to simply be. We want more. And we might even be happy if we weren’t so prone to boredom. And I might actually be happy if I didn’t consider my life ill-spent.

I want so much to care, but why care when no one else does? Besides which, my ideals have come to nothing. But such is the nature of ideals. You invariably fail to achieve them, becoming disappointed and bitter as a result. I’m disappointed with the world for not being different, and I’m disappointed with myself for doing nothing about it.

What with my natural tendency towards inertia, my disappointment becomes an incurable paralysis.  Unable to do good, and unwilling to do evil, I’m left with nothing.  All I can do is watch and wait. Wait for something to happen.

Heroism is admirable, in theory of course; but, in practice, it makes no sense. A hero only makes everyone else look bad, and no one wants that. Besides, heroes don’t really exist; they occupy stories. We create them because we want to believe they exist, but heroism is nothing more than wishful thinking. No one ever believes they live in an age of heroism. The age of heroism always exists in the past, ever out of reach. For me, the age of heroism ended once I was born. 

Now, here I am, seated before a phone and a computer. I’ve been working at the same property management firm for two months now, sitting at the same desk five days a week for exactly eight hours a day. I arrive on time and leave on the hour. I take an hour lunch break, no more, no less, and return to my desk. It’s expected of me, and I’ve never been one to disappoint. I greet my boss with a lukewarm Good morning, at eight and take my leave at five with a less-than-lukewarm Good night. I rarely say much more than that, but it’s enough.

I thought I did everything right in my life. I did what they wanted me to do and now I’m miserable. Since graduation, I’ve been temping, going on four years now. And as a temp, it’s my job to be useful while remaining as inconspicuous as possible. I say nothing and I mind my own business. And as long as I ask no questions, none are asked of me. It’s almost perfect but …

  Adam, says a stony-faced and impeccably attired woman, frowning as if nothing were more tiresome than having to give me instruction. I close the document before she can see the computer screen, but she must know I’ve been conducting personal business on company time. What else could I be doing? Twiddling my thumbs? Staring at the ceiling. My mind grows to mush with the work they give me.

I offer a pleasing smile.

If you’re not too busy, I need these envelopes stuffed. Before you leave today.

Of course, I offer. I’d be happy to.

Of course, nothing could more completely remind me of the triviality of my life than stuffing envelopes all afternoon, but it’s my job to be ready and willing. It’s what they pay me for, to make them feel important.

My boss chortles before turning away. It’s as if she found my willingness to oblige beneath contempt. I’d tell you her name, but it doesn’t really matter. Suffice it to say, she’s a VP of something-or-other. Half of the company’s employees are VPs, so I can’t say I’m terribly impressed. As for myself, I’m what is considered a coordinator of intraoffice communications. In other words, I’m a glorified file clerk, which is about all a B.A. in English will get you these days. If they decide to hire me, there’s talk of promoting me to manager of intraoffice communications; but I’m not that ambitious.

English major, remarked the agent at the career agency not three months ago. Then you can spell, she added with inordinate enthusiasm. I insisted I could do anything, that I was an extremely fast learner. She smiled as if she’d heard it all before. Though she couldn’t have had much faith in my innate abilities because she sent me here, to come when called and to flatter egos with accommodating servility.

Little do they know that I’m here under false pretenses, that I don’t really want to be here, that every ounce of zeal for my work takes almost superhuman effort to muster. I know I could do a whole lot better. But I mustn’t let on that I’m a malcontent in sheep’s clothing. They would never have allowed me on the premises had they known the truth. That being said, they must never suspect my true feelings: that I despise them and that I despise myself for pretending to be like them.

Some people notice. Only found months previous, a placement agent told me I was unemployable because I had a chip on my shoulder. I didn’t, but how can you deny such a charge without confirming it; that is, how could I object to being combative without showing the slightest tinge of hostility. It’s a no-win situation. So I smiled agreeably, as was my habit, and, with a nod of the head, accepted the judgment as if it were true.  I couldn’t have been more amiable, yet he was convinced he was right about me. And it’s often the people who spend the least time getting to know me who seem to think they know me best, just by looking at me; people who think they understand everything without ever having to really think about it. 

Once this man told me I had a chip on my shoulder, he made it so by his accusation alone. The harm had been done because I’d never felt so hostile until that very moment. I contemplated smashing his face in.  I was surprised and maybe a little frightened by my anger, but it was what I felt, the only true emotion I’d experienced in months. Yet, I lied to him with a smile, as if I were brimming over with brotherly love. I hated him for calling me hostile, but I kept it to myself. Everything might have been different if he’d accused me of being happy. But no one ever accuses me of anything nice, and so it’s a matter of time before I live up to their low expectations of me. 

If you don’t believe me, just tell someone they have a chip on their shoulder, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s enough to make a pacifist lose his temper. And if he doesn’t lose his temper, he’s only trying not to lose it. But now that I do have a chip on my shoulder, I’ve found it harder to pretend any longer. At the same time, I feel incapable of being honest with anyone.

I’ve already acclimated myself to a lifetime of pretending to be what I’m not and I can’t imagine doing otherwise. If I wasn’t telling my teachers what they wanted to hear, I was telling my parents what they wanted to hear. I did and said whatever was necessary, just to be left alone and because I preferred to be praised than punished. If they taught me anything, it was that I didn’t live for myself, and that success depended on how well I pleased others. I believed it, for a time anyway, or until I realized I wasn’t much good at pleasing others.

Nothing reveals the truth better than failure. A successful man never has to contemplate the reasons for his success. He simply believes he deserves it. But a failure can’t believe himself deserving of hardship and misery. He must ask himself why. He must gaze at his own reflection and ponder his own soul. A disheartening prospect for many, no doubt, but few can contemplate their own shortcomings and remain unaffected.

This, by the way, is where I am: gazing at my reflection on a blank computer screen and asking myself why. Why haven’t I accomplished more? Is this what I’ve worked so hard for? Is this why I despise myself so much? So many questions, but what difference does it make whether I can answer them or not? What is, is and what shall be, shall be. What can I do about it?  A fatalist attitude perhaps but it serves.

How’s it coming along? asks my boss as she strolls back past my cubicle. Great, I reply. I always say that, by the way. More wishful thinking, I guess. I make a token effort of stuffing an envelope and sealing it with my tongue as I watch her disappear around a corner.

I’ll have to wrap this up for now but let me just mention something. You recall my mentioning how I couldn’t stomach being looked at. No, I didn’t mention that, did I? Well, it’s true.  I can’t bear to be looked at, sized up as it were; just as I can’t bear to be followed in the street. I feel vulnerable, as if someone knew more about me than I did of them; as if someone could see right through me; as if they could see that I cared less about anything or anyone, least of all myself.

Now there’s this tramp whose been watching me of late. I see him every morning when I come to work and every afternoon when I leave. If he wants something, he doesn’t say. He just grins at me; not a good-natured grin, mind you, but something knowing. It’s as if he really saw me for what I was; as if he’d observed me at my most humiliating moment and remembered nothing else about me.  I’ve been too embarrassed to so much as glance at him anymore, but I know he's there, watching me.

To be frank, I felt sorry for him at first. I’d see him huddled by the front steps, a blanket drawn about his legs. I’d never seen him walk, and as far as I know he probably can’t. But what did he do when it came time to relieve himself, I wondered? Where did he go to eat?  I’d considered offering him some cash, but he never asked for anything. Far be it for me to impose my kindness upon him; besides, he didn’t seem to expect it anyway.

For a time, I’d believed his eyes had been closed. Or so I thought. It took me a month to realize that he’d been observing me all along, and that his eyes had never been closed. And at the moment I realized he’d been watching me all along, he smiled. I couldn’t have betrayed the slightest surprise, but it was as if he knew who I was and what I was thinking.

No doubt, he’s waiting for me as I write this; and maybe he knows I’m writing about him at this very moment. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking or what he wants to tell me. But if he has something to say, I wish he’d say it and be done with me. Everyone else leaves me alone. Why can’t he?

VIRGIL GIVES CHASE

I’ve decided to follow him. He’s never seen me so much as stand up, so just seeing my twisted legs should be enough of a surprise for him. But I’ll do more than that. I intend to put some real fright into him. Overly sensitive, imaginative, solitary. The boy is perfect.

You think I’ll never keep pace with him? Probably not, if he were to run. But he won’t run. No, this one’s too subtle for that. He’d never let on how much he fears me, but he does. I know the type, wide eyes and curious, ever anxious for a place to hide from the lights and the noise; but he’d rather pretend that he’s like everyone else, pretend he doesn’t care when, in fact, he cares too much.  I know the type because I was the type once, until I realized I’d never survive in this world if I didn’t become someone else.

It’s nearly five so I’ve readied myself, raising myself to my feet and positioning myself at the foot of the stairs. If I can be sure of anything, my victim always leaves the office on time. He couldn’t possibly enjoy his work because he never stays longer than he needs to, which brings me to why I chose him and not anyone else.

This boy drifts over the surface, carefully not to create a stir. It’s as if he didn’t want anyone to know he was there, as if he didn’t really want to be a part of it after all. I call it spirit envy. He resents his physical limitations but can’t manage to conjure up sufficient belief in an afterlife to find real happiness. He wants a soul but doesn’t believe souls are real. He wants something more but suspects there is nothing more. So he drifts over the surface, just as I crawl over it, neither of us willing players in the drama you people feel compelled to play out day after day.  We both observe and feel nothing but disgust. But whereas I no longer feel anything, this boy feels everything.  I might almost envy him this, but I don’t. Only a bigger fool envies a fool.

Speaking of fools, here he is. On time, as expected. And, yes, he sees me but turns away before he thinks I notice. He quickens his pace. Oh, what I’d give to eavesdrop on his thoughts. What a thrill to imagine his dread. The fiend walks, he must be thinking. No doubt, he probably flies too and walks through walls.

I give chase, which is no easy task. Though I must look a real fright when I walk, my body tilted precariously, first to the side and then forward, like a legless man held aloft by a headless dwarf. But I’m still fast. Fast enough, anyway.

He turns a corner, but not before throwing a glance in my direction. He pretended not to notice me, but I’ve never seen him so frightened. Oh, the thrill of the chase.

I turn the corner myself but where is he? More than a hundred yards away, he disappears into a crowd. Damn the coward. He wasn’t supposed to run. Where’s the enjoyment in that? I struggle to increase my speed, but it’s no use. Old age has never betrayed my spirit as much as it has today. I can barely walk for the excruciating pain in my back and in my legs.

Men in suits file past me and stare.

Do I disgust you? I asked one of them, a plum middle-aged man holding a finger over his nostrils.

If I disgust you, by all means throw up.

The suit tries to ignore me. Everyone does. But he heard me. They all heard me.

You can spend an entire lifetime trying to create a good impression only to leave a bad one, but it only takes a couple of seconds to create a bad impression. I can do that without trying. Just look at me. Or get close enough to smell me.

The way I figure, it’s just not cost effective to try to earn someone’s love. And if you do earn it, you’ll never keep it for long before indifference takes over. So why go to the trouble when it’s so much easier to make someone hate you?

ENTER WARREN

Life’s to be enjoyed, is it not? Of course, some of us enjoy it more than others. But what is it to me if some people get no enjoyment out of it at all. Is that honestly my problem?  Now, take Adam for instance. I haven’t seen him smile in weeks. But should his misery make me any less happy? If anything, the more miserable he is, the more relieved I am to be me and not him.

Some are born to suffer, some choose to suffer and some have suffering thrust upon them. And, believe it or not, there are those of us who refuse to suffer.  To suffer means you didn’t get something you wanted, and, most likely, someone else did. For everyone who suffers, someone triumphs, and for everyone who fails, someone succeeds. It’s a law of nature. So I’m determined to keep the upper hand, even if that means someone like Adam never gets the upper hand. If he wants it, he’ll have to take it from me by force, and it’s not like Adam to use force. It’s beneath him, as are so may things.

Now you wouldn’t imagine a guy like me giving a guy like Adam the time of day, but he’s been so accommodating. Besides, Adam makes me look good. He’s the personification of failure. So high-minded; yet people still dislike him. How could they not? He doesn’t make them feel good about themselves; he just makes them feel superficial and inadequate. But not me. I tell people what they want to hear and people like me for it. It’s that