Your Truth is Out There (Find Your Truth Book 1) (4 page)

Gsefx arrived at the shopping complex, parked and waited patiently until he felt comfortable Xtlar was out of his meetings. He punched in Galacticount’s main code number into the vidcon. The communication was answered immediately by a young female he didn’t recognize.

“Greetings, and welcome to Galacticount. How may I help you?”

“I need to speak to Et Xtlar, right away please!”

“I’m sorry, Et Gsefx,” said the receptionist. “I’m showing your credentials have recently been revoked. I’ll be unable to connect you. Goodbye.”

Now, if he had been in a reasonable state of mind, Gsefx would not have been surprised at his inability to reach Xtlar. It was only logical that all terminated employees be denied access to company facilities and not be permitted to bother high-ranking executives with their disgruntled ravings.

Gsefx was not in a reasonable state of mind. He went into a total and complete rage. Shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs, he threw whatever objects he could get his four hands on, and beat his fists on top of the console. All-in-all, it was quite an entertaining display for the employees of the shopping complex, who were arriving to begin their shift.

As his outburst subsided and he began to regain some semblance of control, he considered what to do next.

I have to reach Xtlar, but how? I can’t get to him physically, and any attempt to call him is automatically terminated. Perhaps I can reach him later.

He searched the Laxor database for Xtlar’s residential communicator code, only to find that it was, of course, unlisted.

As he racked his brain in an attempt to figure out how to get his job back, he noticed his vehicle’s energy levels were a bit on the low side, so he left the shopping complex for a refueling station not far away. As he locked into the fueling channel and began to recharge, it finally hit him.

“Planvc!” he said to the rather confused attendant. “Of course, Planvc will help me! Why didn’t I think of him before?”

The attendant simply shrugged his shoulders.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, as he finished the recharging process.

Planvc was Gsefx’s closest friend and co-worker at Galacticount. He would be able to get a message to Xtlar.

Yes, that will work,
thought Gsefx.
But he will be at the office now as well, and I won’t be able to get through to him any more than I could get through to Xtlar. I’ll have to wait until the end of the rotation and call Planvc at home.

He took a deep breath and decided to go home and wait it out. Lhvunsa was there, but she would be locked in client meetings all day. She probably wouldn’t even notice him.

A few additional deep breaths later, Gsefx pulled out of the refueling station and turned his music on again. He smiled as he thought of Lhvunsa’s reaction when he first played albalan music for her. She had called it loud and obnoxious and told him not to ever play it again around her. He’d laughed at her reaction, and agreed to only play it when he was by himself in his vehicle. What made it all the more amusing was that he couldn’t disagree with her description. Albalan was, in fact, loud and obnoxious, but that’s what he liked about it. It was what made it, surprisingly enough, soothing and relaxing to him. So much so, that as his cockpit filled with its discordant sounds, his mind quickly drifted away from his current predicament and onto the curious nature of this latest musical find.

Meaning “primitive” in Galactine Standard, albalan was defined by a stringed instrument known as an “elek trik git-arr” by the natives who played it. The git-arr was usually accompanied by a variety of other instruments just as primitive. All were played at exceptionally loud levels and what vocals there were often resembled primal screaming, rather than true singing. Albalan would likely have remained undiscovered for several more millennia, except for a small group of musical pioneers who took it upon themselves to travel throughout the galaxy and search for musical compositions that were unique, interesting, and ultimately marketable, as an alternative to what they described as “the soulless, pre-packaged garbage the major galactic labels continually pushed on the general public.” What these independent mavericks came back with wasn’t always pleasant, but it was never boring, and on occasion it was actually quite good. As Gsefx sang along with words he didn’t understand, the thought hit him that he didn’t actually have much albalan in his collection.

Maybe I’ll go back to the music store in the shopping complex and see what’s new. Probably not the wisest thing to do, financially speaking, since I’ve just lost my job, but the rest of the rotation will be unbearable without some sort of distraction.

He was calculating just how much he could reasonably spend when a new thought struck him.

“Wait a minute,” he said out loud. “I’ve got a whole rotation to kill. Instead of going shopping, maybe I’ll just go to the source.”

Checking his onboard computer, he found that the planet Irt could be reached in about three sars. He could go there, upload some music, and be back in time to call Planvc when his rotation ended. Nobody would be the wiser and he’d be able to expand his music collection significantly without it costing him a thing, except for a little fuel and some time—which he currently had in abundance. Plus, it would keep him out of the house, just in case Lhvunsa stepped out of her office for any unforeseeable reason. It wouldn’t do for her to discover him sleeping on the couch or playing games and listening to music when he was supposed to be at work trying to catch up.

Besides, I deserve a bit of a break,
he thought, his mood brightening considerably.
After all, what could happen?

A brightness filled Henry’s field of vision, and he found himself being drawn toward it.

I’m dead,
he thought,
and this must be the bright light everyone talks about.
His body shivered.
I thought the afterlife would be warmer …

As if on cue, his entire body cried out in pain from the beating he’d received the night before.

“Oh God!” he said aloud. “I can’t be dead. If I were, it wouldn’t still hurt so damn much.”

The brightness reached its zenith and his eyes involuntarily popped open to reveal a cold and bright morning sky. On any other day, this might have been a lovely sight, but today, it only served to make his skull throb as if it were a toy drum in the hands of a four-year-old child. The shivering didn’t help either. Henry closed his eyes and attempted to grab his temples in agony, only to find he was wrapped up tight in an old sleeping bag. After a few moments of monumental effort, he freed his hands enough to move them to his temples where he was able to slow the throbbing to a dull ache.

Now, let’s see if I can figure out where I am.

Henry fidgeted around within the sleeping bag enough to loosen it, being careful not to disturb the fragile noggin attached to his shoulders. When he was free enough, he took a long, slow, deep breath and let it out. He then counted to three, and in one rapid movement tried to sit up and look around. He made it halfway into the sitting position before realizing what a colossal mistake he’d made and fell back to the ground, but not before learning that he was, in fact, in his own back yard.

“Holy crap, that was stupid,” said Henry as he lay there, head and body burning with pain. Through the pain, seemingly from out of nowhere, a memory flashed into his mind. It was Lucy, yelling at his attackers, which seemed odd, given the way she’d looked at him as they’d dragged him away the night before. Perhaps she hadn’t completely deserted him after all. Henry could hear her voice in his mind, but couldn’t quite make out what she was doing.

“Hey,” she had said, getting the attention of the frat-pack leader. “Not so hard. I said to knock him around a little, but don’t break anything. If he ends up in the hospital, it will end up costing me, and that will end up costing you.”

“Why, yes ma’am,” the leader had said back to her in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “The only problem is that it’s personal now. The son-of-a-bitch ralphed on me, and I’ll break whatever I damn well please.”

“Is that so?” asked Lucy, her voice making it clear—to Henry at least—that she hadn’t played her trump card yet. “In that case, I’d suggest you smile pretty for the cameras, because I have you, all of you, on record assaulting my poor defenseless husband.”

There was a pause, in which Henry could only guess the frat pack leader was looking around for the cameras and weighing his options, only to realize he had no choice other than to do Lucy’s bidding.

“Now,” said Lucy, “do your damn job as instructed and you’ll get paid. Do anything else and you’ll go to jail. Any questions? Oh, and don’t bother trying to destroy the cameras or come after me for the memory card, because there are more than one, and I’ve already put a failsafe in place. Anything happens to me, you’ll be in jail before you know what hit you. Now finish up and get out of here, I have to work in the morning. And make sure you wrap him up in that sleeping bag like I told you, it’s going to be a cold one tonight, and frostbite means doctor bills.”

In spite of his pain, Henry couldn’t help but smile just a little. Lucy was nothing if not predictable. She clearly hated him, so much so that she hired a group of fraternity thugs to beat him up last night. Be that as it may, there was a truth in her predictability, a consistency that was to be admired. To be sure, it was an ugly, vicious truth, but it was a truth just the same. And even though her viciousness was aimed at him, at least she was being true to herself. He laid there a while longer, oscillating between the physical pain in his body, the emotional despair in his heart, and the jealous rage he felt toward a despicable woman who was somehow more real, more honest, and truer to herself than he’d ever been to his own needs and desires. He had finally decided he could no longer remain prostrate in his back yard, when the full impact of last night’s events hit him at last.

My God,
he thought,
it’s my fault. I’m the one to blame. Not for getting the crap beat out of me, of course, but for the way my life has turned out. All these years I’ve been telling myself I haven’t had a choice, that I’ve been forced one way and then another by the people around me. But I’m the one who let them. My parents, Lucy, they’ve been true to themselves, and I’ve blamed them for not allowing me to be true to my own self, but it’s not their fault. I’m the only one who can decide whether I’m going to follow my truth, or allow myself to be pushed around by others.

With more than a few grunts and groans, Henry forced himself onto his feet.

That ends now.

He made his way to the back porch. As he reached for the door handle, he noticed a note taped to the window. It was from Lucy.

Henry,

I don’t know how much you’ll remember from last night, and honestly, I don’t care. I’m sick and tired of your constant failures and they have to stop. I kept them from hurting you too badly, but only because I’m giving you one last chance. Get your job back at Telasco, or find another one that pays the same or better – I don’t care which, but don’t come back until you do.

He pulled the note from the door, crumpled it into a ball, tossed it into the yard, and went inside to get cleaned up.

He emerged from the house a couple of hours later, this time from the front door. He still carried the physical pain from the beating he’d taken, but even so, he still felt better than he had in some time. He felt as though a fog had been lifted, and for the first time in his life he was able to see things clearly. Lucy’s despicable example of wicked self-honesty had helped Henry make a decision about his own life and what he was going to do with it, though he didn’t dare give voice to his intentions. Henry put his two suitcases into the cab he’d called; one filled with clothes, the other with pencils, brushes, and other art supplies that had been in storage far too long. He got into the cab and gave neither the house, nor his life with Lucy, so much as a backwards glance as the car drove away.

After a quick stop at the drive-through ATM, Henry had the cabbie drive him to the bar where he’d left his car the evening before. He paid the cabbie, put his suitcases in the trunk, and then paused to look at the bar’s entrance. He thought about going in, just to say hi to Craig, or so he told himself, and maybe have a drink. Sure it was early, but one drink would be okay. Henry stood there a moment longer, then shook his head, got in his car, and drove away.

He went back to the bank first, cashed his paycheck and closed his checking account. Throughout their marriage, Lucy had insisted on keeping their money separate. As inconsistent as his working had been, he couldn’t really blame her. Even though his work had been sporadic, Henry had managed to squirrel away nearly fifteen hundred dollars. Added to the eleven hundred from his last paycheck, it would be enough, considering the short-sightedness of his plans.

Next he found a hotel that was sufficiently inexpensive but not too seedy looking.

“I need to check in,” said Henry to the desk clerk. “I’ll be staying for two weeks, and will need a room on the first floor, in as quiet of a spot as possible.”

“This is a busy hotel,” said the clerk, giving him the once-over. “We don’t have any rooms like that available. You’re going to have to go somewhere else.”

She started to turn away when Henry plopped down fourteen hundred dollars in cash on the counter.

“Two full weeks, in advance,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t have the room I’m looking for?”

The clerk looked at him again, counted the money and handed him a key.

“I’ll need a receipt, too,” said Henry with a smile.

When Henry got to the room, he pushed all of the furniture into one corner and set up his studio in the open space. He planned to spend the next two weeks painting to his heart’s content. By the time he finished settling in, which included a trip to the art store to pick up canvasses, brushes, paints, and other supplies, it was too late to obtain the last item necessary to his plan. That would have to wait until morning. With nothing else to be done, he ordered a pizza, turned on the radio, and began painting.