Heavy is the Crown

"Have you ever heard the story of Icarus, Stowartz?" Jack adjusts his seat to face the port ahead of him. A cold smug up his pale face.

Zayn Stowartz, the man addressed before seemingly turns to face the man Jack. And before his voice could be heard, a gushing wind blew from the center of the port and wrecked some ships with the waves from the sea.

After the waves subsided Zayn sat back, having not addressed the question asked just before. He didn't say anything else, he didn't have to add anything more. Because the man who sat alongside him was no amateur at criminal work. He was a playful and cunning psycholinguist. A man everyone knew to be a dark angel, a specialist of the crafts.

"What a great view, New England sure is beautiful." Jack adds to the tension that for a moment seemed to have almost found a sound conclusion. "Too bad it's her last year to serve. What a shame."

"So what do you say old friend, care to go for a drink?" At this time what's looming in the mind of Jack Torres is a drink accompanied by a trusted old friend.

To be honest, even though what he does is completely unjustifiable, Jack Torres never thought of it like that. Truth be told he should be electrocuted or seemingly hanged on the spot for the crimes he's committed - heck he's at the top of a tower about to commit another one right now. Zayn Stowartz knows this very well, as his closest ally, he has had full exposure to how Jack works.

For a man like Jack Torres, this world is but a board game, precisely a closed chess match. Built specifically for the taking. A strong-willed individual will absorb the world, a weak-willed one would be absorbed by it. That's as close as to a debate he has ever had with his internal monologue. Once he views you as inferior, then it's a checkmate for you. He claims that a man of such stature as himself, shouldn't have to exist in a world full of happy fools. Rather than destroying the world, he wants to reconstruct from what is to what can be.

And although his ideologies are too disturbing for the average person, it can't be cast aside that that is what has nurtured him to the being he is as of now. A god of politics trapped in a mortal coil, too eager to die, yet struggling for inevitable life.Truthfully said by his ideologies, there is no such thing as good people. Simply fools who aren't able to execute anything to save themselves, and the brave who die every day to save others.

And as Zayn overlooked the matters that disturbed his mind, he couldn't come to the term that whatever is about to take place next, would be a catalyst to what's held for the future.

"Don't tell me you called me up here to have a drink? I'm a busy man after all."

Jack stares at him before standing up, lowering his head down while walking towards Zayn's direction.

"Dear old friend, what's the point of making money if you're not going to use any of it?" He's now in his neck, Zayn could feel as the words came out, that cold breath flowing past his neck slowly.

The day was cold, which was an understatement since New England has been facing the same weather for some time now. Even at the top of the clocktower, where Jack thought it was a great idea to have a meeting on, was split in half by the cold. Half of it was just dark and frozen, the other one the meetup between the two friends.

Jack's cold gloved hands fell on the shoulders of Zayn, in which seemed to follow a manner of hand massages. Then it halted at once, a cold breath could be heard emitting from his dry lips.

"Have you ever felt the orgasmic ecstasy of strangling a man to death?"

As he said these words, Zayn's eyes were focused on his surroundings, he of all people knew what kind of a human being Jack Torres falls under, and it's not the humane one most people would associate with. His heartbeat started racing. Every single hair in his body was screaming fear. At that same time he happened to get a glimpse of a steel pipe, too rusted for a firm grip, but would surely work perfectly for the job nonetheless.

Just at that moment, he heard a huge burst of laughter coming from his backside, where Jack was. Jack was already teary eyed by the extreme laughter. Then suddenly, he pulled in closer to Zayn's left ear itself and whispered silently.

"I am in no need of a dead friend, what use would that help me with? One as valuable as yourself should understand it."

Then he pulled away. Zayn's body froze up then slowly calmed down releasing all its worries over rapid continuous breaths, then all went silent.

Zayn stared at his friend and simply asked. "What's your endgame in all this? Surely you must have one, for why then would you go through all this trouble?"

Jack smirked, lighting his cigarette, the first form of warmth emanated from the lit up cigarette - the sweet intoxicating smoke ravished the cold surrounding instantly, and a sweet but choking fragrance could be smelled in the air.

"Shhhh don't say another word, I plead. The show's just about to start."

He pulled away the lighter and shoved it back into his brown leather coat, which he thought had contrasted well with his modern-day suit and hat. It was cold, he wasn't dumb enough to wear black, since it would just attract the coldness from the outside and into his fragile beautiful warm body. He had left behind his watch, maybe that's why he wanted to meet at the top of a clocktower. Jack was a great scholar, just came out of the freshly newly made Oxford University. A top scholar, who was nihilistic enough to make a friend.

Ohh and what about the friend? How impolite for me to say this, but in comparison to the top bosses and CEOs, he was considered a very stingier man. Even he dresses as one. A slick top boot followed by black pants held by suspenders, an overall coat and a nice bowtie over the striped black and white tucked shirt. A top hat to finish it off. Such a ladies' man.

"What have you done...?!" Shards of glass exploded from the large face of the clocktower, rushing inwards almost smashing through Zayn's whole stressed body. That line of question that came out of Zayn's dry mouth felt like a whisper, cut aside from the blast. The explosion of the time bomb that Jack had stationed at the bottom of the national museum in England, finally took to its name. Only smoke, broken glass and Zayn's shocked face when he figured out what happened, was all that remained.

His friend had blown up the spotlight of England.

‎"It ain't fair?" Zayne couldn't process any of it.

‎"That's your conclusion to this. You think you need a reason to be the bad guy?" In the far side of the room Jack just stood expressionlessly. And as Zayn turned to look at his face, he felt irritated that in a way, he knew that something of this scale was coming - he could feel it, yet he did nothing to change the outcome. 

"Yes Zayn. Some sad past I must have to throw it all at the innocent, isn't that what you're thinking?" Jack continued, unaware of a glass shard stuck in his left arm. "Boo! Hoo! I'm sorry to disappoint you friend, but I don't bear hatred towards any soul."

Zayne stood up, picking himself up from the dusty floor of the clocktower. He didn't even care of how he looked at the time, his eyes were pinned on Jack's parted lips as he expressed his thoughts to him, as his only friend.

"We're all given something, some kind of a stupid joke, that makes naive people like you, believe you're special."

Zayn smirked. "Another speech conjured out of loneliness. What other fresh ideas have you come up with next, I wonder?"

 "Loneliness?" Jack stares at the top of the building that was full of fire. His face showed a slow sign of someone who has attained an award for martyrdom. "Oh! No, no, no! Despair." He adds.

"Do you understand the level it sinks down to? You've never experienced desperation before. So what do you know about any of the fairest things in life! Have you watched everything you love burnt down to ashes? Have you stained your hands on blood from those you considered family, so that they can't limit the possibilities of you attaining your goal? You have lived in a different world than me, just like a newborn, you've failed to perceive the world how I've viewed it."

"So you get to play god, when the rest of us share a life of discipleship. Is that your endgame here?" Zayn criticizes his views.

"Equality is something so biased, whatever the era. Go outside there and shout your truth. The world doesn't give a damn about your voice. Those speakers, who want votes shout all day - Equality! Equality! Who cares about equality?" A brief silence emerges for some time. Then Jack breaks it again.

"Do they stop and think for a single second that you, the voice of a normal mass, might want something else, that's not equality?"

‎"If not equality then what is it? What's the driving force for all this drama?" In his mind, Zayn had always known the inhumane side of all social beings. It always appears like a thread of fate. Something only he could see, not physically, but verbally. Each conversation would bring out the ideal factors behind a person. But sadly, that thread never showed itself on his friend - Jack Torres.

‎"Equity.

‎"Equality is for them, the rich pigs who live far from the glades. If not for them they'd be equity by now. We need ladders to succeed, not a road with uneven grounds.‎The smallest of outbursts can break the spirit of a foundation built up by honour, and respect - even you aren't as much of a fool to cast aside this factor of influence. If we disrupt the normal method, the hierarchy could easily be reversed, and we would run the world as an equivalent force.

"But can you see that though? Do you honestly think I wanna destroy the world? What would I benefit from, if I do that?"

"What of the innocence in it, isn't there a better way?"

Unfortunately for Zayn Stowartz, Jack's mind wasn't planning on listening to any word of advice he would come up with this time.

"The world bears a good will, this I know, but does that alone save it? ‎I wanna ask you a question. Do you believe the world is worth saving? Let me set it straight for you. Do you believe you're worth saving?"

Zayn moves alongside the darkened walls filled with soot, dragging himself to the wooden chair laying down alongside him. He picks it up and gladly seats on it. His fatigue could be seen. Same as that of Jack. Both were hardworking men, well not in the way anyone would guess them to be. They simply had easier ways of making money. That's all.

Zayn observed Jack's arm and in a moment of ecstatic wonder he burst out of laughter.

"You fool! You can't even take care of yourself, who would think about following your rule?" At this time, his brows showed a clear sign of fleeting happiness. Jack Torres was an old friend, practically brothers at this time. So whenever anything awful happened, they would back each other up. Or that's how they viewed their relationship to be.

‎Jack saw the look and the laughter afterwards, and couldn't hide to himself a small but cunning smile on his face.

"No one would follow a fool with no mark to his name." Zayn remarked.

"You only disagree with me because you've been given a different purpose in your existence. If I was born into the world of nobles, everything I'm saying now would be of no value. A different upbringing calls for a different sense of value. But the fact that I was given life as a downsider, only shows my destiny was already predetermined, even earlier than birth. My purpose of living is to only create a better utopia, not run by corrupt inhumane cultures, like those holy churches, who have a will of their own. If I must, I will destroy the world and rebuild a new civilization from the ashes of the fallen. And this is but only the start. For heavy is the crown of England."

In all his life Zayn never thought about it. But he wasn't against his ideologies, just the executions of them.

‎"That sounds like ethnic cleansing."‎