Young and successful Edward Staulker, is an attorney with a very uneventful life.
He lost his faith in mankind many years ago-even as a child, he recognised the innate fakery borne by every Homo sapien and always resigned to a purer intercourse with...
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Edward's POV
I have spent these last four years of my life navigating not just the past but also my own consciousness. By all standards, this modern day is the epoch of mankind's years of civilisation. But the place and time that I used to call home, is now barely recognisable to me.
The clunk-clunk-clunk of the rails beneath the train snaps me out of my mental moratorium. Thirty minutes ago, I boarded a train going to Geelong. I have a plan that will help me go back to the past.
I lost everything that ever meant something to me for the second time; and like before, the loss I feel cannot be quenched. I had hope, I believed, I even prayed... But Jane was taken again and our future was razed to the ground; its remains are like splinters in my heart, killing me; like embers in my blood, burning me from the inside out.
What is living without Jane? I wanted an anchor, I wanted a home, I wanted a happy life—very simple things—with Jane; of all of these, I received none.
Looking through the window, I see rail lines crisscrossing above. The overhang of rail lines create a pattern of serpentine tracks across the expanse of the Melbourne Megalopolis. There are trains on every track too, careening forwards and backwards at phenomenal speeds.
In 2056, "Towers of Babylon" are rampant; the desire to exalt ourselves did not die with our biblical ancestors; the current objects of humanity's everlasting boast - the ultramodern cloudscrapers, get their name from literally jutting into the clouds.
Menacing clouds have encircled these monoliths. From time to time an angry rumble emanates from the dense clouds coloured like darkness, like a warning from the heavens to mankind, to desist from their godlike aspirations. The sky is glum and a storm is brewing.
There is no record of my existence in this timeline. I checked. The alternate version of myself, Willem Freud, is actually dead. He was remanded in a prison asylum for four years until his death. Willem ate his arms—according to the news tabloid I read—he had already eaten all the flesh on both hands—up to his elbows, when the guards found him screaming, "there is no pain in heaven!" He died at eighteen.
I found out about him by mistake; I happened upon his story while searching for information on myself. It was almost funny when I finally understood everything: my alternate version wanted so much to become me that he forged a permanent alter ego, Edward Staulker, that became his identity for the rest of his four miserable years, after running away from Axel at fourteen. In the same way, I tried to become him, so that Jane would accept me. I was miserable too.
After throttling Axel, I relieved him of his "citizen card". Since this timeline's future is not unlike my own, citizen cards work the same way: they are given to every eligible, working citizen, to shoulder the cost of basic services—transportation, food, clothing, shelter...
People declared that we were never closer to becoming a "utopian society", when this neo-communist propaganda was introduced; the future is bright, they chanted. Years later, when the hidden agenda was revealed, their joy turned to disheartenment—the people had become glorified slaves. Their utopia quickly turned sour and their future was now so "bright", its brilliance brought tears to their eyes.
