Niko’s Eye

Chapter 54.

Isis.

Fresh air flowed into the car bringing the freshness of the ocean air to their senses.

"We should get you your license, and then you can have a pick of any of my cars. Unless you want your own?"

Isis stared at him in disbelief, "Are you serious?"she asked, half-smiling.

"Why not? Aren’t you tired of getting picked up and taken everywhere? I’m sure you want to visit adult shops on your own."

Isis laughed out so loud that she snorted.

"I’m joking. But my wife should have everything, every single thing. Even the things you don’t need. And what do you want to do when you’re done with school babe?"

"What is work? Because honestly most jobs are bullshit. The work that creates real value - childcare, research, building, teaching, art - is barely paid at all, while the banksters and lawyers rake it in. It’s no wonder the world is in a negative spin, it’s the polluters and the economic-leeches that get fat in this rigged game of some eighty years, the one we call economics. I say take away the money and let us play, because I tell you that once the bullshit is gone art is play, science is play, maths is play and engineering is play. Once the stress is gone, once the power play and attitude problems of the entitled elite is gone - almost anything can be play. Your fancy cars and vacations don’t give me the time I need to care for my kids, or be there for a friend; they’re the gold handcuffs I can do without. Let’s make a world that rewards things that make living healthier, happier and more worthwhile. Polluting earth, creating stress, strutting puffed up egos while others go hungry isn’t life, it’s barely human. Maybe universal basic income is a start, but it ain’t the end, the end is true liberty without the bribe currency brings. I’m not a donkey needing a carrot; I’m an awful lot more than that." She said.

He sat in silence.

Isis couldn’t help but smile.

I never asked for perfection, nobody is, I asked for honesty. Otherwise there is no rock, no ground, no Earth on which to stand or plant the seeds of tomorrow.

I could bathe in his accent, feel its warmth wash upon my skin. I want to show him so much love. He deserves it.

We travel our road with all options open, yet over time our choices start to build a habitual preference for love or indifference, to bond or not, for acceptance or hostility, and this changes our brain development. So, how can we make more choices for empathy? Well, if we go back the driving down the road analogy, what is playing on your "radio"? What are your background thoughts? Do they hold you to a moral line, a predisposition to love and be kind? Do they excuse you for coldness and selfish behaviour? Are you playing the songs of love or selfishness? Because there is the balance between your higher social brain and your primitive drive. This is the point of choice.

A well loved boy is a joy forever, and you can take that to heart. They aren’t fodder for the money-nexus world so let them love, not encourage emotional indifference. Girls and boys both need a bit of toughness, the ability to be angry when their treatment isn’t right, but they both need empathy too, both need limitless love and protective arms. Let nature to the rest, let them see good male role models who protect from a sense of love, who stand by their family and do the right thing. "Let boys be boys" should be a good phrase, one that acknowledges that they are born for love as much as girls are.

He has loved me for who I am.

Once you stop seeking to belong, you can accept that you belong in a way that is secure and deep. When you ask if you belong you give someone else power and power corrupts. So have the courage to simply be yourself and tell yourself that you belong. When you do that your confidence will grow and others will see in you that you have accepted the land beneath your soles and it has accepted you.

What have I to lose by loving this man?

There are better and worse versions of loss. We are aiming for the better version because then we have the strongest base possible for rebuilding. That is our victory, it is the only one on the table, and it is a painful, sad and desperately awful form of success. Society can fall a hundred stories, seventy, thirty... whatever happens, however much we win, it will be measured in how much more we could have lost than we did. I’m sorry the news is that bleak. But, there you go.

"You rescued me with your black eyes, for with one look you saw my soul, you saw what nobody else ever could. In that moment I felt real. I felt that what I believe I am can indeed exist. I knew that there were others the same as me. And so this rescue, this horse I offer, belongs always to you and your kin. For you are the heroes of this story, the ones still warm within. Black is the colour of comfort for the heart and soul, for when we are in total embrace, when we are so protected by love, we are in that most divine cocoon. And so, in your black eyes I see home. I see a glimpse of the eternal, of serene divinity. I just can’t believe what destiny had in store for us. I love you so much. Thank you for your lust and your thirst for power, it’s what’s gotten us here."

Alejandro leaned over for a kiss, and she pushed his face back to face the road.

"You’re bad," he chuckled.

Sergio.

He looked at the glass of wine that he was nursing, as the television blared in the background.

"Key players earn the right to exist in the matrix with a "call-sign" such as on a CB-radio of old. That is eternal and fixed as their identifier. Immortality is impossible without it. That’s the prize, otherwise fade out at the end of your days and we hope you got something worthwhile out of it all. We do put a temporary reboot on those who suffered and had no chance to thrive, a sort of free pass for one more try in a better situation. It is fair we believe. So, pragmatically speaking that is the best we can do. Emotionally speaking we are all broken hearted for the situation of your species and planetary system. We’d do more if we could."

He was watching the Discovery Channel, or rather trying to keep himself distracted.

Though the glass was doubtless a vibrant strong green, and the wine, the deepest of reds, the bottle became the hue of a welcoming deep brown, the sort that brought aged oak barrels to the imagination.

Before my brain can register the sound as breaking glass, my eyes are shut tight and a million new knives fall softly over my exposed skin. I freeze, all but my heart remaining statue-like on the wet tile. When finally I allow my eyelids to flutter open I see that the ground is stained red, the colour creeping outward among the shards.

Sergio had dropped the glass of wine.

He had also gotten the famous "Aisha call".

Sergio let his eyes fall to the shining marble, "Love, if the pen is mightier than the sword then the internet is an atom bomb. If ideas cannot be destroyed then what we write can be enough to ignite the globe. I want nothing more than to take a fire started thousands of years ago and nurse it until it has become what it was always destined to be. This isn’t just a call to arms, it’s the only one that will ever matter."

She didn’t listen to him. She had preferred to hang up.

Scratching his head, he thought about how toxic their relationship had always been.

A toxic lover will be a sick time in every sense. A toxic lover will drive you crazy in every sense. They are bad medication, yet as addictive as any potent drug. The good lover will be as a touchstone, a pure gem of genuine honest affection with a unique affinity for your soul. The good lover is your divine medication and will drive you into sanity because you have no choice but to face your Waterloo when they come. They are the sweet addiction, as healthy as addiction to good food and exercise. So choose wisely when it comes to lovers, and these books come in any and all covers. You must read their pages with your soul, use your intuition.

Those words always stayed with him.

Now he was able to see his wife, Chloe, for all she was. He had been blinded by Aisha’s presence. And was still bothered by it.

Now he knew why he had been on edge. He knew that she’d want to take a bite at him. That was why he had prepared himself for the worst.

As my dreams linger, dancing in the way that dreams do, I arise to the light of the new day. My feet are ready for the ground, for whatever comes my way. Soon the greetings begin, the chorus of voices in my home, each as sweet as the birdsong.

He needed to go and see his partner. The identity of this man was the biggest secret that he was keeping, but it was for the best.