The Tromonian Revolution

chapter 9

Chapter 9
Max was picked up asleep after he got kicked out of his room, by a man named Marcus Hobblecroft. He slept on the streets during quite a heavy storm. He couldn't feel the cold though because he was drunk and no one had noticed that he had pissed himself.
The man, Marcus, was a lowly writer. He wrote self help books that barely sold but made him enough to live off of. He looked a lot like Max actually with the same long hair and a slightly more developed beard. Though, he combed his hair more, washed it and kept it in a ponytail to keep it out of his face. He wore smart clothes that would've been fashionable in a time not so insignificant but forgotten and even provoked in the modern age. It was a shirt and tie that he wore today and a long grey overcoat making his trousers unnoticeable. His shoes were brown leather and looked expensive but they were a gift.
He would probably have gotten a lot of gifts. Everyone respected him, and most had a deep desire to express their appreciation and make their feelings about him known. Because he was that kind of a man. One who was passionate about everyone and everything but himself and yet all anyone wanted to do was to glorify him.
Anyway, he noticed Max, asleep after many people had trampled over him asserting their eyes ahead. He was the first to look at him and notice the whiskey bottle in his hand. It was expensive whiskey that the homeless wouldn't usually get their hands on and Marcus remembered that intoxication in the cold could lead to hyperthermia.
First, he nudged the boy slightly and whispered to him. "Hey, kid, you're gonna freeze to death. What the hell are you doing out here?"
Max was out cold and now Marcus was obligated to help. He picked him up, put him around his shoulder and carried him to his house. He lived alone and didn't have many possessions or spend much money so he could afford a small unfurnished house. Lucky for Max, the second bedroom was spare so he slept there for the night.
Soon he awoke, though Marcus was out. He vomited in the sink, coughing away every bit of hope he had left. He thought of his family; his sister, his parents, he'd let them down. He got caught up in the delusions again, he promised he wouldn't but he did.
Then he thought, “I couldn't help it. It happens, I can't stop it. It was Elijah's fault. He gave me the thing, he made me crazy.” Actually, he said it out loud. He often did that to formulate his feelings into words, while looking in the mirror, noticing his mouth move as he talked. He'd make a statement and then he'd take a pause and think for a little while then say something else because in his head, he couldn't hear it properly, what he was saying was not real. It's like writing, I can experience the story in my head but I for some reason want to write it down. And god can stay with the potential for eternity or he could actualise it into this present moment. So he rambled in the streets, eventually falling asleep in a puddle drinking honeycomb whiskey and being picked up and laid into the spare bed of the great Marcus Hobblecroft: the undisputed ideal.
“Where's my guitar?” Max asked him when he was woken up for some homemade soup. “I didn't see a guitar with you,” Marcus told him. “Oh,” Max sighed, sipping his soup with his mouth to the bowl. “Do you want me to get you a new one? You could play me some songs,” Marcus offered, smiling. Max's eyes lit up when he said that and he came back with the nicest one he'd ever seen. Nothing his parents would've bought him, it was Sam that ended up buying him his first with the little birthday money she had. Her birthday was in November, and she wasn't much into spending. So, that year, she thought it would be nice to buy her family some things for christmas. Max loved music more than anything, he'd dance with her when it was playing. He'd come into her room, pick her up by her hands and they would spin around the house. It didn't matter what the music sounded like, it just completely opened him like a flower that blossomed instantly after the rain had stopped. Thinking of that made him happy again in a nostalgic haze until he coughed up some sickness into a bowl and saw his new ugly world again.
He played Marcus a couple songs a few hours later and he clapped. His claps were powerful and proud, they mirrored the claps he would receive on his adventures.
Soon enough, Max explained his situation to Marcus. He explained the whole thing, not leaving out any of the gruesome details that painted him in an ugly light but still feeling shame as he spoke. Marcus didn't really say anything as he explained but he thought a lot and the thoughts attempted to climb out of his throat, until he flushed them back down with Maxs whiskey he didn't particularly enjoy.
It was clear to Marcus what Max had experienced. That is, he'd been so scared in his life of being nothing. So terrified that all the different parts of himself collaborated in deluding him that he was everything but that was all it was, a delusion. He was nothing. All he was, was a puppet being dragged around by his insatiable desires, wearing the mask of a human being, or a God in his recent experience. He had tried before to rip off the mask but it had been sown back onto him with all his other inseparable parts. Now, whenever he spoke, he saw his intentions and it was the most turbulent, evil thing he had ever witnessed, in himself or anything outside.
That was what Marcus got from that first discussion, he was quite an intuitive guy. Now all he had to find out was why he was like this. It would be something completely put aside by Max, its significance totally disregarded.
Max slept for the rest of the day and night. At one point he woke up and remembered the contract he had signed. He saw the hands of the devil that handed it to him and the carelessness and arrogance he displayed. And he saw that he was owned. He'd never seen it before but now he did, he was owned by evil. He would be forever subjected to suffering, that is what he saw and that is what he felt.
He woke up shivering in his bed, the room was without a fire or heating. Marcus whistled jingle bells and cooked breakfast, thinking up ways to make the poor boy who slept in his guest room feel better.
Amongst breakfast, he asked many more questions to the boy about his experiences and the beliefs he had given up. Then, after their meal of eggs and toast, Max felt ill once again and retired to his bedroom. He saw evil in each corner of the room he had inhabited and he carried it wherever he would then go. He had ruined Hope, and all his followers, and that poor boy he kicked out of the van, whatever was his name? He had ruined Elijah, Sam, all of them. He'd been so disgusting, so ignorant. Sam recognised it straight away. She'd seen it a few times, too many.
Marcus encouraged him to carry on, his feelings would change and his sickness would go. He attempted to find good in his life, reminding him that he could go back to his family anytime and they would forgive him. He had not strayed too far ahead. But he didn't seem to believe it. Marcus didn't really understand, he was too forgiving. They would never forgive him, he was cut out of the family as soon as he left. Cut out of every picture on the wall and avoided in every memory.
Marcus then attempted to find another source of joy that was not completely dead. He still wrote good songs and he could still become a musician but it seemed pointless now. He was disillusioned with success and fame and money and validation. “I'm nothing, I'll never be anything. I'll never convince myself again that I'm great. I'll always know it's just a lie,” Max told Marcus.
“Is that such a bad thing?” Marcus asked. “Can't you just enjoy it instead of trying to be somebody all the time!” He took a pause as Max took it in and then continued with another question. “What did you learn with the Tromonia?”
“Well,” Max began but then stopped himself, “I didn't learn anything. It was all bull shit.”
“That's clearly not true, you must've learned a lot in there for people to follow you,” Marcus concluded and Max began to explain. “Well, I learned how to be happy, and to make others happy.” But when Marcus asked him to explain how, he couldn't. “It's complicated, I just felt it,” he said.
“Is there anything practical you could take and use out of your time there?”
“Well, I learned that we are all God, playing different roles,” he laughed but Marcus encouraged him to continue. “What does that mean to you?” he asked.
“It means that we are all the same. We have different factors affecting our personality and our mood and beliefs but at the core were all the same!” Explaining this actually brought back a seemingly lost delightedness in his voice and a proudness in what he was saying. But now it wasnt so hubristic, he was still just talking. “You see, how do I explain?” He laughed. “We're all God because at the core of our being all we are is experience. We are just experiencing our personality and beliefs and emotions, that's it!”
Marcus took a moment then responded. “Well, you know Max, what you're describing there is a spiritual awakening. That is a good thing. It's just, it's got all muddled up by your ego.”
This made sense to him. More sense than even what Tromonia would tell him. All he was doing was what he always had done, taking something good and using it to feel loved. “That's all I've ever wanted man,” he cried to Marcus. “Its all ive ever needed is just love. That's what I've done all this for man, I'm so sorry,” he admitted to him with strained teary eyes. Marcus cradled him, his shirt wet with tears. “It's alright Max, It's Ok. This happens to so many people, it's not your fault. You're the victim of your own ego.”
“Thank you Marcus,” Max smiled and sat up, wiping his tears.
Marcus taught Max true spirituality as he had taught many others. He helped him to find internal happiness and sometimes the image of God that dwells within and knows everything but will only tell you what you need to know. He won't tell you what you want to know, like what the future may hold or what the hell is an atom, only how you can live in accordance with him and be happy. Not enlightened, only happy. “One that wishes to be enlightened really only wishes to be as I am,” he would tell Max and he would see that God was right there at his feet. The people did not need another God, they did not even need to be led to him. Just to live happily and to love was enough. With each revelation, he sacrificed himself more to God to fully embrace the rest of life and feel the all pervasive love and connection and ecstasy and acceptance. It was debatable that it was God at all but after his final meeting with him, Max saw him in everything and the intellectualness of it didn't matter. Somehow, through these meetings, he had let go of his mask and there was nothing left.  Nowhere to go, nothing to do and yet all the happiness in the world was accessible to him. It would come to him in a way that was so meaningful now. A way that made meaning undeniably real, not an illusion.
“Knowledge is the crutch that your ego stands with,” Marcus told him after his meditation one night. “Stop trying to be smart.”
The day after that was a good day. They went to a pub which played Christmas songs on the radio and soon Max was on stage, encouraged by Marcus and his friends. He covered his face with embarrassment and laughed until he picked up his guitar and played one song of his own then a Beatles song called I'm only sleeping. They all knew the words and he invited some on stage to sing with him as he played guitar; his fingers were a gymnast jumping from rope to rope. The men who sang with him couldn't keep pitch as much as they tried but when many sing it never matters, they balance each other out. They were all high on the sound. For the first time when he finished performing and the snow fell, the Christmas music continued and a few people danced, he talked fondly of his memories during the "revolution."
Elijah found Max that night at the bar by some sort of miracle. “Elijah!” he screamed, “what are you doing here?”
“I've come to get you man. Where's Hope and all your friends?”
“Oh they've gone man, I don't know where. Hope went home when the rest of them ditched us. I just wandered the streets until this guy found me.” He pointed at Marcus and he smiled. “Good to meet you, Elijah was it?” Marcus beamed.
“Yeah, what's your name?”
“Marcus. I've actually heard a little bit about you,” he laughed.
“Oh really?” Elijah turned to Max. “What have you been telling him Max?” But Marcus answered for him. “Max has been trying to make things better, I've been helping him.”
“Yeah, I got rid of Tromonia,” Max bragged until Marcus corrected him. “Well, your friends stole it from you. But still, he's doing well.” Marcus looked up at Elijah.
“That's good to hear, I am too,” Elijah smiled. He still felt like shit but he was trying to be better. He found Max, it was an incredible relief after driving for days. It could've been his last days. He barely ate, he had nothing left but money for gas and a few energy bars.
Max asked about Sam and he told him that she was angry at them both but that he hoped they could make it up to her. He dreamed of putting all of this away now, to be a short period in their long finally fulfilled lives.