Lush Life

Everything and every being has a story, or as some would officially put it: an account, of some event or more, or a whole biological event of their own life, and every story has a beginning and an end, an age-known instrument to depict the edge of every story, be it real or fiction, an edge to put a psychological borderline in the ever dynamic flow of consciousness, between the real and the unreal, the then and the now, the birth and the death. This is a story too about a town or a person, or persons, whichever way you see it and it too has its borderline. And it's beginning is with a storm. The storm crashed heavily outside, mixing a sound that was like a thousand clashing pieces of metal with the chaos reveling in what was the stretching sea beyond the town of New Oastine. A town full of the intricately woven bubbling seam of life but just like anything with dimensions it had a hollow, a deep yet almost invisible hollow in the heart of its serene residence and this storm was not it's first, neither would it be it's last. "Damn it!" A voice came from a resident in a room in one of the several houses by the edge of this town overlooking the sea. "I forgot to switch off the electricity in the tower," He muttered scratching his hair in front of his computer. He threw his head back, looking through the window at his bedside to catch a glimpse of the tower but only caught the sight of water running down the glass window drenching it's glazed countenance with cold condensed droplets blurring the view. "Matthew! Is everything alright up there?" A feminine voice came from below. "Yeah, I'm alright just.. I'm alright!" He answered facing the door, increasing the tone of his voice on the reassurance. He turned back to the blurred window picturing a smileyface on it. He used to love painting those over the condensed droplets on windows, the cold water dribbling their way down the window as his finger drew the crooked lines, he still remembered those words: "Hey Mk don't go falling out of the car window now drawing smileyfaces, even your dad can't fix a broken boy" He threw his head back to face the computer in his dimly lit room,full of different neon lights. "Back to the business of the night," he mused, squinting at the bright computer screen. His history assignment was more important to him than the old memory right now, it was a week due. He wasn't the type to slip on assignments but he'd been busy and well the winter break would be here in a week's time, he had alot planned out. "Wait a minute.. Easthern? in the middle of a history research? Sorry Mrs Will, you'll have to wait.." He clicked on the site. A new webpage popped up: "THE REBUILDING OF THE SOUTHERN ARTIDALE MUSEUM OF EL'REAND" He squinted at the image below, frowning. It was a photo of Thomas Easthern shaking hands with the minister of works in front of the rebuilt El'Reand museum of history. Easthern, he was in every turn of a page in the books of El'Reand. The island of El'Reand has had its share of bliss and disaster, the latter however being less than the former and Thomas Easthern was a huge donor to the share of both, being more active in the latter but only publicly visible in the former. El'Reand? El'Reand is an island and a country, south of West Africa just on the edge of the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic , it was on the far south of this island the town, New Oastine was located. El'Reand was a well-known island for its assortment of resources, entertainment and property. Perhaps it's fame was birthed from its tourist attractions, the virtually ever serene and aesthetic sceneries, it's well constructed roads and residential landscape and seeming lack of citywide slums in all its four states or it's leading step in the development of technology and robotics or it's powerfully charismatic female president, or perhaps all of the mentioned and more, had made it one of the leading hands on the globe and it was the history of this country that Matthew was to give a report on. Mr Easthern on the other hand was one of the people who had a big play in this advancement of the island country, a bright experienced businessman, opportunist and owner of the leading robotics company; Easthern Industries Corporated, however he also had a whole barn of darkness that very few people among the public saw, amongst which Matthew Kruise was found. Mr Kruise had worked in Easthern Industries and was a big-time contributor to the success of the company and after his development of a powerful A.I chip was staged along with another co-worker Mr Moore as working on a secret project of potential national danger and were both fired, their ideas stolen and the creation "97% type Human AI" was brought to fruition, and terminated, but all of that is another story. Mr Kruise stripped of his source of living and professional reputation had to move with his family to New Oastine for a less expensive standard of living and started working at a fishery company, in the labor department and it got a little better until things went down south. This and many other very significant events involving Mr Easthern and his own family had made Matthew detest even the name "Easthern" and he knew right out there was nothing nice about the dealings of this man. "... Destroyed in 1999.. linked to the Great Artidale Fire...rebuilding carried out in 2018 by the National Board of History, NBH, funded by Thomas Easthern, a benevolent businessman and owner of Easthern.. " Matthew muttered, reading words from the webpage. Suddenly his eye caught sight of a red caption displaying the link to another webpage: "THOMAS EASTHERN JOINS THE NBH" "What're you up to.. Easthern?" He asked himself gazing at the picture of Mr Easthern standing with members of the NBH being inducted into the Board. He had a tingle in his cerebral that something was up about this development. He scrolled up the webpage "..Great Artidale Fire of 1999.." He mused "..'we're just setting the pace, this is just the beginning of the cultural advancement' says Museum manager, Mr. Abaronoros ...Hmm..setting the pace, I've heard that before.. somewhere.." he muttered pinching his lips. He logged out of the system and shut it down then stood up, moving towards the corner of his room at the foot end of the bed and bent down, picking apart files,books and equipment in search of something more peculiar. He then carried a black case with him to his desk and sat down with it on his lap. The rain was still ever as serious outside with the storm getting more and more threatening. He connected the casing to electricity and pressed some numbers on it, suddenly a multicoloured interface popped up into the air. He set the case on the table. "Now let's see.. Bizarrho dark web open.." he commanded as he moved his hand over the air suspended holographic interface clicking on an icon which generated a black and purple page, "Great Artidale Fire of 1999.. Artidale Museum of history.. setting the pace" He typed in the black search bar, almost immediately files popped up. "The Fire is just the beginning, the end is coming" "Something happened on May 4,1999" "File Re: The Fire is just the beginning" "Pace+making/+&01+gru.in" His eyes widened, he started clicking on the links in a frenzy. "File Damaged" "File Damaged" "File lost" "Why?" He asked himself, his face etched with confusion, his eyes lowered to the last file, he took a deep breath, "this better work". He clicked on it. The same result ensued. He scratched through his hair frustrated and made to log out of the interface. It stayed static, he hit the "exit" button, the screen still didn't budge, suddenly a message shot up: "BUG DETECTED, ERROR: DEVICE SYSTEM WILL BE NULLIFIED" What error? His eyes widened in horror. No, he couldn't lose this device, he hit the back button frantically but it did nothing. "What do I do?" He thought, looking for any suggestions. Suddenly a thought came to him among the flood of several rushing through the channel of his mind "The port!" He made to rush to the port when suddenly a crash of thunder resounded through the house like a phantom had torn through it and every thing powered by electricity was off. "Hey!" He heard his mum shout in poorly disguised terror. They were the only ones awake even though it was just 2AM in the morning, because they were the only ones staying in the house. He wanted to respond to her but he just kept mute and sank into the chair. "Phew.." He breathed, unlikely help, but what the heck was that? he looked at the black case. He stood up and walked to the window, static before the frame, raising his hand to the window he rubbed against it, looking at the light tower in the distance. His eyes were worn not only with lack of sleep but a somehow misplaced memory as well. He smiled faintly, drawing a smileyface on the window.