Monotony and Mondays: Chapter 3 – The Daily Climb

Chapter 3 – The Daily Climb

The next following days pass without much good happening. What the mantises and I do is a variety of community work and protecting civilians from the national guard during protests and assassination attempts. We both gain and lose members while trying to keep our group as secret as possible and working with other revolutionary groups. Speaking of those groups, there are revolutionary groups that are for traditional values and ones for values from just a few years ago. We get along with the more traditionalist movements while agreeing to disagree with others and not really bothering them.

In other news, we’ve made a symbol for our group during a Sunday. It’s a praying mantis in the center of a gold and green cross. No one will really see it besides us since we’re supposed to be a secret group, but still, it makes our group feel more official. I joked that all we need is uniforms and a motto for our group, but everyone didn’t think it would be a worthwhile idea to invest in. My training in marketing makes me want to do more to make our appearance stand out despite not actively recruiting outside of accepting the help of random people who approach us to join.

Meanwhile, in other places of the country, riots and protests are breaking out. The famous Silas and his supporters are going after important figureheads in the corporate, political, and criminal world while being slowed down by the army, national guard, and local police force, so they’re not making that much progress in changing the country either other than constantly gaining support and punishing the criminals who thought they were untouchable. Because of this lack of progress, the feeling of doing the right thing loses a lot of its luster and I begin to want the old days of pleasure and relaxation. We hardly drink since we’re supposed to be working most days and when we do drink to celebrate a week of good work done, we don’t drink enough to get drunk. In addition, I also begin to miss the personal touch of a woman and my eyes and mind are always on Calabretta who I wish was near me more.

During one charity event we helped out in the city, we were cleaning up at the church and talking with one another about whatever. I honestly don’t remember because I was looking for an opportunity to kiss her. Once I see it, I take it and kiss her on the lips and then she pushes me away. Her face is a little red so at least she wasn't disgusted by my kiss.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I feel closer to you than anyone I’ve ever met. I love you, Calabretta, and I want us to be together,” I say.

She blushes and is speechless until she says, “I…now’s not the time for that. Give me more time before I can make a decision.”

Calabretta then walks away from me with the men of our group coming up to me. They say that no one has been able to kiss her without being slapped and that she doesn’t act the same way with anyone else in the same way that she acts with me, so I shouldn’t give up.

Since Calabretta is still not too far from me, I say, “Calabretta! I will have the honor of being your husband one day.”

Now her face is even redder and my friends in the group support me more. Even the girls want Calabretta and me to be together after I confess love. That was probably the best thing that happened in a while. One of the less exciting things is that my uncle caught me talking to my parents on one of my daily calls to them coincidentally when my dad was asking if he knew I was talking to them.

“He knows now,” I say.

“Put us on speaker phone. I want to talk to him,” my dad says.

“Okay…”

“Arthur! Brother! It’s been so long since I’ve last talked to or seen you. How’s it going?” my dad says to my uncle who looks warily at my phone and at me.

“Fine, how are you doing? Still enjoying the lazy, good life?” my uncle says.

“I’m enjoying it to the fullest. You should’ve followed dad’s advice because you would’ve been like me if you did, but to each his own as he said. Try not to get Alabaster, yourself, and your friends in too much trouble, okay brother?”

“Sure…”

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t keep you two hanging for too long. Talk to you guys later!”

“Love you, mom and dad!”

My uncle thinks in silence until saying, “How much have you been telling them, or rather what have you been telling them?”

“Nothing more than what they’ve been hearing on the news and stuff like me confessing my love to Calabretta.”

“Okay, just make sure it stays that way.”

“What? Do you think they’re trying to get information out of me so they could get rid of us?”

“It’s a suspicion of mine.”

“Why would you think they’d do that?”

“Because my brother, your father, is a trained liar and has been lying for his entire life to the point where no one can tell if he’s ever telling the truth or not. I’m pretty sure he even manages to trick himself. Like I said, just make sure you don’t say too much to be safe.”

“Understood, uncle.”

I honestly doubt my parents are using me. They were always uncaring if they were never directly affected. Still, my uncle is right in that my dad was raised to be a liar. My dad also raised me in the same way grandpa raised him, but I won’t be like him. I’ll show him that what I’m doing is right and should be supported or at least proud of. This thought helps me keep working with the mantises through the many repetitive coming days of community work.

There aren’t many fights breaking out between the country and its citizens with the following days just having protests and people from each side debating with one another, however, fights do happen between civilian groups that are a result of arguments over politics, religion, and whether or not America should be completely overhauled and people live out in the uncivilized parts of the country and create their own America. During one of these days this week, I suggest exposing another company like mine for its corruption since it brought so many together and was a major wake-up call.

“What would be the point? People know how corrupt America’s leaders are and we’ve exposed other companies by exposing yours so doing so again will be like saying water is wet to the public,” Calabretta explains.

She’s right and has made me realize something at the same time. Nothing has changed in America even after the start of the pseudo-civil war. Politicians and corporate businessmen are corrupt, don’t have the country’s best interests in mind, and want to only make themselves comfortable? That’s old news. The police and army being sent to arrest and kill civilians who are fighting for their rights? Next, you’re going to tell me we need air to breathe. This also goes for people selling out, figureheads larping as allies, and what seem to be historical events having little to no impact at all. America is still the same as it’s always been. Even so, there seem to be glimpses of real change on the horizon when I look back on all we have done so far which gives me hope.

That hope is all but shattered when our base of operations is attacked by the national guard the day after my uncle finds out that I’ve been talking to my parents. We already have a plan for this since many other groups have been attacked out of the blue and enacted it well for the most part and lose few people, but still, we’ve lost people and now we’re in a backup spot further outside the city at an abandoned warehouse that’s not as comfortable, useful, or convenient as the previous one. After helping everyone settle down with what few resources we have left, I go sit outside to think.

“Mind if I sit with you?” Calabretta says before sitting down next to me.

“You can,” I say.

A few moments of silence pass before she speaks again. “I’m just as upset as you are about our situation, but we’ll get passed it.”

“And then what? Why even continue when we hardly make any progress?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means…to serve God in everything you do, say, and think.”

“I’ve heard that before and I still don’t really get what it means.”

“Maybe you should pay attention more when we go to church rather than looking at me every other second.”

“I’ll try, but why should we bother going to church when we have so much to do? We were lacking in resources and manpower before and now it’s even worse.”

“I have an obligation to fulfill and it’s the right thing that I should fulfill it. You can come if you want to like always unless you have a foolproof plan to take back what was taken from us.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you.” Calabretta gets up and then hugs me from behind. “Things will get better. Trust me.”

She then walks back into the building. How will things get better by taking a day off? Most of the mantises work so they can financially keep us going and if they could go to work tomorrow, we could get a little bit more to slowly restore our resources, but since they’re religious like Calabretta, they’re taking off without considering if they should work a bit more to help build up the group. Is this what it means to be devoted to something higher than yourself? Is their God so important to them that they don’t try to work around the rules and break them if necessary? I guess that’s just my parents’ side of my thinking and I should ignore it. Now I really miss having a drink, a woman to keep me company, and my consequence free life.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have the idea of crawling back to my company expecting them to give me back my life even if I sell out the mantises. Maybe I should do what they’ve been telling me and start praying for help more. So…uh? God? Mind doing me a favor for me? Help me so I can help others and do whatever it is You want me to do? The door opens behind me and my uncle comes out.

“What’s going on?” I ask expecting that he’s going to say something that will answer my prayer in some way.

“I think it’s best if you don’t talk to your parents today at least until we get our communications encryption setup again,” my uncle says.

“Do you think they had something to do with what happened?”

“It’s a suspicion again. Please, just do it.”

“Okay, fine.”

“Thank you,” my uncle says before hugging me. “We’ll get through this.”

“Yeah, yeah. You and everyone else say it a million times, I get it.”

“Alright.”

My uncle goes back in. I keep waiting for something to happen until I’m told that dinner is ready. Guess that means I’ll have to wait for my prayers to be answered. They told me that most prayers aren’t always answered when we want them to be. Here’s hoping that things will get better and my prayers are answered like they said or…I’m not sure what I’ll do then. What a tiring month and a half it's been...