Dreams of Twelfthtide

The Fugitive

Warning: This story is a dark tale based on true events with altered names. It is about the unexplained disappearance of a person. Nevertheless, it belongs to the Twelfth Season, because it is also the time of unknown darkness.

I live in a multi-storey wooden house in a shared flat with other young people my age. It's as if we're all in our teens again, but we're actually about to retire. But here and now we are young again. And I know my flatmates.

We manage everyday life, we get on well together. And there's the one who works a lot on the computer and is a nice guy. But most of the time I see his back until I suddenly catch sight of his profile.

"Oly, is it you?"

He shyly turns his face slightly towards me, only to quickly turn it away again. But he doesn't seem dismissive. I can't contain my surprise and continue to ask,

"Where have you been? You disappeared so suddenly?"

"Well, yeah," he stammers, now addressing me. He looks me in the eyes and is apparently glad to see a friendly face.

##

We go for a walk and Oleander slowly thaws out,

"You know, I've been given the chance of a new life. The old 'me' is over."

"A new life?"

"Yes, I'm no longer doing what I used to do. That's over."

I think about what he used to do and then suddenly it all comes back to me:

I got to know Oleander in my younger years when I was a student at university. My boyfriend back then, Henry, introduced me to a cult called "Heart". It was run by Oly. At the time, Oly was a very extraverted, excited man who tried to impress all the women. My boyfriend warned me to visit Oly's group 'Heart' with caution. One of the disciples and also one of Oly's former girlfriends gave a course which we attended. She was supposed to manage the course on her own, but it wasn't long before Oly made himself a stakeholder there. And ended up ruining it. Henry and I then left the course but remained friends with some of the disciples.

Years later, one of the disciples, Steven, had a stroke in the middle of one of the hour-long meditations the cult had. He lay unconscious and other disciples would point out to Oleander that something was wrong. But Oly waved it off and only said that this was a state of higher consciousness. It wasn't until several hours later that Steven got to hospital. He recovered somewhat from the stroke, but some damage remained.

Oly was confronted with his failure to get help quickly in such a situation. The more attempts were made to make him realize his mistake, the crazier Oly tried to block it out. In the end, he reacted by dancing and spinning wildly in circles.

The cult broke up.

Then, I haven't heard of Oly for quite some time until he suddenly popped up on social media, promoting Bitcoin. I added him on facebook und became witness how Oly started a real mining farm, buying tons of graphics cards. Before that, however, I wrote him a message asking for advice on how to buy cryptocurrencies efficiently and he promptly responded with a particular recommendation where he was a stakeholder himself. I didn't pursue his suggestion because I remembered the old days at the cult. Collaborating with him might mean trouble, possibly, in the end.

So, keeping my distance safe and friendly, I witnessed how Oly became incredibly rich. The company he invested in was on the upswing, and many new and old friends followed suit. After months of mining he eventually went on a holiday trip with his company partners, mostly exaggerated men like he was. Oly's Facebook presentation switched from a lecture on economic mining to a wild mix of vacation pictures from Thailand, where he was riding his motorcycle and enjoying the day.