Epilogue
Taylor Cox
An Unspecified Date in 2017Cox was checking the news on his laptop, where he gotten a phone call from his cellphone. He answered it, where he recognized the caller. "Hello?" he asked, when the voice of Sinclair came up. "Cox? I got a call from some woman named Amanda? She wants to talk with you?"
"What does she want?"
"She says that she wants to talk to you at this party downtown? She has something she wants to ask?
"Text me the address. I think I pay a little visit to her." Cox said, being uncomfortable. However, he might as well get it off his chest.
Heading to the address of the party, he took an Uber, where he was starting to reminiscence about the time back in 2016. When he was reaching his last days of being mayor. He didn't know who would truly be mayor. Could have been Marlowe. Could have been someone sent by Walton. However, it was somewhat inevitable. Cox found it ironic, because despite the fact that the whole Democratic party was in shambles, he was starting to realize that it was heal up eventually. He was still surprised he won being mayor in the first place. Yet, the whole Red age he noticed after Reed became president could only last until 2020.
Getting dropped off in front of the apartment building, he went through the revolving doors to the elevators. 10th floor, the address said. He wondered how Amanda would react to seeing him arrive. She probably expected him to not show up. Some drunken party-goers were in the hallway of the building, where he used as directions. Amanda's door was wide open. There was loud music and a mix of random people Cox didn't know. He looked for Amanda, where she was chatting with some random man that looked like him. Upon seeing Cox, Amanda was somewhat neutral.
"Oh! Well, hello Cox!"
"And hello Amanda.."
"Want some vodka?"
"I'm good. I had enough drinks already."
"..."
"...Been a while." Cox said, trying to not get controlled by Amanda.
"So I heard that you running for governor?"
"I been for a while. Things are still being fine. I kinda thought it would be much easy, but I wish that is what happens when you have multiple candidates fighting over the last piece of candy. So how is your life? It's been a while, so I was meaning to hear how happy your life is."
"Oh, I'm planning on moving to Florida. I have an actual job now."
"Actual job? I thought you always worked a job?" Cox said, suspicious where he noticed that Amanda was now nervous. Something was up.
"Tell me about this job you getting at Florida?"
"I work on location at a magazine called Bright City. Very highbrow. You probably heard of it."
"Never heard of it? What you do there? Journalism?"
"Not quite." Amanda let out a nervous giggle, where he didn't say a word. "How about we take this conversation in a private place? If it means so much to you, I guess I want you to tell me in secret." Cox said, where Amanda started to frown, where Cox waited for an answer. Eventually, she succumbed. "Alright.."
Both of them went upstairs to an observation deck, where there was a view of the city, showing off it's glory. Cox crossed his arms, as he asked Amanda again. "So tell me. What do you work as?" Cox demanded. "A fact-checker. I'm being paid a good amount."
"A fact-checker? That's nothing. You aren't going to take a good income from that."
"How do you know? I heard they paid fact-checkers 100 of dollars a week!"
"..." Cox didn't say a word, because he knew that was a blatant lie.
"So who's the spud you were with? Married, I bet?"
"Come on, Cox! There isn't anything wrong with him. He's a widower. My other husband-"
"Other husband?"
"Oh please. He was just bitching and moaning everyday. It was normal for me to leave him!"
"I get it now..." Cox said, as he started to smile at Amanda.
"You're a fucking tramp, aren't you?" Cox declared to Amanda, as he started to recognize that she was still wearing the same pink outfit from the day he ran into her in November. "I have a place to live, don't I?!" Amanda started to scowl at Cox, but Cox didn't want to hold back. "What happened, Amanda? Didn't you have a job? You told me back in college. Back while we were in New Hampshire. In 1998. Around those years after 1998, you told me you managed to get a degree in interior designing. If so, why are you having a party at your friend's apartment?"
"How did you-"
"Come on, Amanda! You honestly thought that you were living here?" Cox said, where his accent started to turn somewhat British.
"What-"
"Amanda. You greet me with open hands, despite the fact that you didn't go down with the ship that I was chained to!"
"You tried to post that article in September! Of course, you deserved it!"
"True. But it never went into publication. The only reason of why I got burned was because I told you what happened. And you went loose lips to everyone I knew. Then, you took my money, because you only take advantage of naive people like me, so you can just spend it on things that you know aren't going to work for you."
"You...you asshole.." Amanda was starting to cry, which Cox started to smile in glee. "Of course, you could just kill yourself, but you know you can't because you're going to be forgotten. To be fair, your parents are in the retirement home somewhere, while my father is still rotting somewhere. He probably thinks I'm dead, but it doesn't even matter. What does matter is that I rejected money from him and I still won! Though, I would like to say that if I met someone different, I probably would still be a journalist. A shit one, but at least, it's the job I would want."
This caused Amanda to suddenly break down, where she knelled in front of Cox. "Cox please! I just some money! My parents didn't give me any inheritance money! They knew what I would do with it!"
"Even your parents wouldn't give you money?"
"I just need you to give me a couple grand and maybe-"
"No."
"I NEED THE MONEY!" Amanda lashed out at him, where Cox shoved her back, where he just stood there laughing. "And then what? I mean, you could just lie to everyone about me. But I had already learned something important. Consequences. That what being a mayor is for. I was aware of what I was doing, without realizing the scope of it. But now, I had began to know them. That's why I had been helping actual people. While you are just stuck here. Being nothing more than just a weak pathetic excuse of a human being. And you are going to have to live with it with the rest of your life."
"Get out! Get out get out get out!" Amanda started screaming at him, where he simply walked away, as Amanda had broken down crying. Cox had officially gotten his own revenge after nearly 3 decades. He could have just killed her, but it was much more better knowing that Amanda was actually suffering for once. He can hear her crying from the deck, as he started to go to the stairs. He felt better.
“Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.” - Alan Moore
"One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don't go into government." - Donald Trump
“After awhile you could get used to anything.” - Albert Camus
"I guess society is going to be doomed to repeat it's own mistakes, since reality is becoming more similar to fiction. Then again, most of us are miserable, because our lives are being screwed by people we don't know playing with fire. Along with the fact that we don't understand other people and respond with tossing salt in their eyes." - Main Nation Ministry
Cox sat on the corner of the city street, as he observed the city life around him. It was weird. He finally understood it all, yet it was all too new to him. All of this conflict. Yet, he's was unsure on what to do next. He guessed that since things were now normal, he didn't have to worry. What else did he miss? Cox got up and started to to walk and look around. What else was happening?
Cox found himself going upstairs towards a train station. He could just have Karen pick him up, but he felt an interest in taking the train home. At a bench in the middle of the night in front of the train tracks, he waited for the train, where some young girl sat next to him. Probably some college student, though she was busy checking her phone, possibly Twitter or Instagram. As he waited, he got a phone call from Karen. "Hello?"
"Cox. This is bad. Very bad."
"What is it, Karen?"
"Velma was at work and I got this knock on the door. There were several FBI agents out to look for you. I don't know what they want."
"...It's ok, Karen. I think they are there to ask me questions about the voting ballots."
"Cox.. I think you should-"
"Don't worry, Karen. If something happens, try to comfort Velma for me. I love you, sweetie. Bye." Cox said, before hanging up.
Cox knew they were probably trying to find him over the news that the voting ballots were hacked, however he already knew the truth. It was Cox's idea to call Amanda after all to meet with her.
Several days after the fundraiser, Cox had heard on the news that several scuba-divers had discovered a corpse on the sea floor near California. It turns out that Spin's body was still there, though even though he was now a skeleton with coral, they were able to identify him via dental records. Cox saw this as a sign. He wasn't going to actually die, but he realized it meant that God was practically fed up with dragging him through several messes, so he basically removed several seat belts from Cox, so he can go loose. To matters complicated, Karen had told him that the authorities were cracking down in Mexico, after they found evidence from a cartel that led to a suspicious car bombing on Baja. Death was one of the victims.
Now, Cox realized that he was about to get found out, eventually. Unless luck was still on his side, though he wasn't paranoid. Who knew. Maybe he still be able to become governor of California. If not, he get a memoir or tell-all that will earn him several months on New York Times Bestsellers or even a movie adaptation starring some random A-List celebrity. Maybe it can outsell Helter Skelter? "Hey, excuse me?" the girl next to Cox said.
"Yeah?"
"Do you know when the next train is coming?"
"No, sadly."
"Right.."
"..."
"..."
"...Why you all out here? What's your name?"
"Penelope."
"Not doing any heroin or anything, right?"
"No, why?"
"Just making sure."
Cox took a moment to sit up from the bench to get his body moving again. He spied a small wall advertisement in front of him. The words "Disappear Here" were in red bold letters. Cox jokingly thought that he was now in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, wondering if someone got the reference. Then again, life was strange to the point it was fiction. The train eventually arrived, where on the train Cox checked the train schedule. Near the top of the map was the words:
END OF THE LINE"And they said all stories end in death."
Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 11:28 am
