Chapter 1: The Broken Pedestal

James threw another ball of crumpled paper into the trash can. The plastic bin was filled to the brim with tens of pieces of papers, and many were falling down from the edge of the can. As James stared at the garbage, he compared it to himself. He used to be promising child, and yet the boy, those around him had called a genius, had turned ambition less. His brain had stopped working since his last masterpiece, useless in his already misshapen useless husk of a body. His previously great imagination had begun to run dry, and every sentence he wrote was dumber than the last. Papers still thumped on his marble as they fell from the bin. Every thump was the loudest sound he would ever hear, overshadowing the whirring of the fan blades and the clicking he made with his pen. Every thump made his ears hurt, vibrating off every surface in the room right into his earholes. And yet that was nothing compared to the pain of being unimaginative and useless.

James had tasted success, fame and glory, and its taste was the sweeter than any sweetmeat, cake or dessert. But his tasting of it was less frequent since his last good book. And his last good book was three years ago. But the taste was too sweet to forget, too sweet to lose, too sweet to forfeit. Normal life was bitter compared to the taste of being a great man in the fickle public mind. They said hell was a igneous wasteland, a cruel kingdom ruled by a cruel overlord, but hell, to James at least, was every mistake he had ever made, to end up in the cruel wasteland of bleak, bland normality that was 'normal' life. The bitterness of normal life was enormous, and well apparent. The heaven in his past, and the heaven fated for his future, was all the respite James required, to temporarily forget of what he tasted in the presence. Once, back when life had been sweet, James had made himself famous, had made himself a pedestal where life's true luxuries could be enjoyed from, where the sweet air of absolution and fame could be inhaled.

But the pedestal he had made himself had broken below him, and he had fallen back to the unremarkable 99 percent, those who never deserved nor strived for anything sweeter, something that's worth their miserable, useless lives. As he fell, vultures circled in, ready to record his fall from grace, making up stories about how he mistreated his girlfriend, forgot his family, and, for some reason, the most important, how he had left his humanity at the front door to the house of the one percent. He had never understood how humanity meant to help the peasants, the vultures who had preyed on him to better their own sh*t lives. They had chosen to do nothing but hunt their betters, but it was the betters' who were inhumane, just because they wanted to forget about those who scavenged upon their rich flesh. The scavengers and functional garbage were accompanied by the voices of the family and friends he had apparently forgotten, in sync with his own conscience, screaming and whispering "What a shame" into the ears of his that had already been ravaged by the vultures. But his acquaintances never knew the taste of true freedom, of fame and riches, how bitter a life they themselves lived. And so he was set, toiling at the feet of his broken pedestal, rebuilding it, brick by brick and word by word, just hoping to taste heaven before the end of his great life, if the afterlife had no heaven to provide. He must have a taller pedestal, high above the peasants and their ilk, that was the destiny he deserved, wasn't it? That had to be it, or else his toiling had no purpose, and whichever god was so cruel to do such things, to strike down angels like him back down into the abyss, with the unimaginative public?

Well, his pedestal's structural integrity was based on the notes in front of him, And the notes in front of him were non-existent. He looked at the pens, empty papers, and balls of paper he was too lazy to throw till the bin, all around him, on his mahogany study table. Where the desk in front of him was evidently exquisite, valuable and rich, but the one room apartment behind him was dirty, not worthy for him, or for any human who was not a literal beast. It was filled with paper balls, supplied by James himself, the lower bunk bed's sheets were almost a light yellow, whether from its original design, or from his roommate, was not something James had a desire to learn.

His roommate Arthur had been James' friend in his childhood. But while the promising child had found his big break quick enough, the uninteresting Arthur had never left his town, and waited while the town around him turned to a city, and the city turned to a metropolis, and finally found a job at a fast food restaurant that was frequented by those who could not afford the money or time to buy 'real food'. Arthur was quick enough to let his better into his house, letting James live in his rented apartment for half of the rent fee. And James obliged, not eager to re-join his mother at her stand-alone house. He loved his mother, but James did not want to see his relatives after his fall from grace and fame.

And that grace and fame will never be retained if he did not write something good enough for his agent and his publisher. Once his next masterpiece would be published, he, and all those around him, would know for sure that he had some imagination left, and that his position in the one percent was not completely lost. So he looked back to his pen and paper, yet his imagination ran bone-dry. Illustrations for his most famous character, a white enamel plated knight he named 'Paladin', were all around his desk, some black and white, others coloured in the iconic colours of his character. The bone white armour was supposed to be a shining garb, and was replicated on a magazine by a shiny foil, reflecting the glamour of the armour, and the golden shine of the sword, right into James' eyes. The shimmer of the foil almost called out to the fallen author, back to the shine of fame, the glamour of the glory, the heaven of imagination. And, for a fleeting moment, the paladin starred right back at James, almost moving his covered head to face his creator. James imagined a smile on the white metal of the knight's helmet, but the moment ended quick enough, and the cold embrace of reality encapsulated the boy. And its embrace left a ugly taste in James' mouth.

James finally decided for a walk outside, in some park or other. The fresh air might get James' imagination blooming, the colours of nature might give some ideas to the unimaginative writer. So he stood up, straining and stretching his sleeping legs, and walked through his oh so humble abode. He walked to the trash can, picking up the paper balls he had either not been able to throw till the bin, or those that had overflowed out of the bin, and dumped his mistakes and misses into the bin. He walked beside the bunk bed, beside the washroom door. The last thing he saw was his roommate's own corner. Three books were situated on the plastic desk of a certain greenish blue hue. One was James' own, another from a modern fiction writer, and a collection of stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. James finally reached the main door, turned the knob, and shoved onto the wooden door, pushing the rusted hinges, and opening his apartment to the environment outside. It was a singularly pretty environment, dirtied by the blot of humanity's urbanization. Mountains specked the far horizon, and the light blue of the sky, bordering on white, was tinged with the shades of grey and white possessed by the clouds. But the mountains and mist was mostly covered by countless buildings, huge cement structures, consisting of tens of floors, thousands of people residing in each. In such a huge sample size, there was bound to be some fans of James' literature, and he wondered how they felt about the absence of any new books written by him. Did they not care, moving on to better and more timely writer, or were they pulling out their hair, bewildered at the apparent lack of works by their favourite author. But that was a matter James had no job concerning himself with, and instead he walked into the outside, leaving the cold and course palms of reality, for another fleeting moment