The Post-Humans (Book 1): The League

IT WAS TIM’S eighteenth birthday, Athan was nineteen. Athan had been a year ahead at high school, and was in his second year of university. He studied Fine Art and Art History; drawing and painting were his passion.

He was also trying to become a little more confident than he was in high school. He was a fairly introverted person by nature, preferring to hide in creative activities and his comics.

Tonight he wasn’t in the mood for a party.

It had been a long day at work and
this
was the last thing on his mind.

He had been home for fifteen minutes, but he hadn’t even got inside to get himself changed.

I just want a shower and a sit down. I don’t need this right now.

Athan wondered whether he could sneak away somewhere quiet and fall asleep.

“
Hey Harper!”
Tim noticed Athan was still in the suit he wore to work. “Did you work today mate?”

No shit,
Athan thought.

He was still dressed in his work uniform. A black suit with a white shirt and thin black tie.

“You’re a badass,” Tim said grinning. “You goin’ out with us too? We were gonna head to The Link at eleven.”

“Umm…” Athan tried to think of an excuse.

Tim was giving him the puppy eyes.

I guess it is his birthday…

Athan smiled and nodded. “Sure guys, that sounds like a plan.”

Bugger
.

They would have nagged him to go if he hadn’t said yes to start with.

He found one of the dirty plastic chairs that were strewn about the yard and pulled it over to the group of partygoers that surrounded Tim.

Tim shuffled over for him.

“You not drinking, dude?” Tim said. “Sup with that?” He looked slightly offended behind the mop of his bleached blonde hair. He wore a bright yellow t-shirt that matched his blonde hair a little too well. Athan and Lockie always thought Tim tried a bit hard to mix and match his party wardrobe. It was an ‘in joke’ they both shared.

“Just knocked off work, I need to slow down a bit first,” Athan said sheepishly, hoping that none of the others heard his poor excuse for avoiding the festivities.

One of the other boys came over and slapped him on the back.

“Hey dude! What’s goin on?” It was Rob, one of the guys that had not been part of their social group for very long. He didn’t get all of the ‘in jokes’, but he seemed more mature than some of the others that still clung to a high school frame of mind.

Athan gave him a hearty nod. “Yeah, not a lot, Rob. When did you get here?”

Rob didn’t drink and Athan decided that a sober friend might be better to talk to when he was feeling a bit flat.

“Only just mate. I had a paper to finish before Thursday, so I committed till it was finished. Now it’s done, I can chill,” Rob said looking pleased with himself.

Rob was a notorious over achiever at university.

“Nice. What are you studying again?” Athan was at a loss. His memory was a mess for information about people. He couldn’t describe the jobs his friends had if he tried.

“Arts, Literature.” Rob raised his eyebrow enthusiastically. “We’re doing a unit on the classic detective novels at the moment, so I got to read Sherlock Holmes and I even read Jekyll and Hyde! Awesome stuff! It’s hard to believe these books were written so long ago.”

“That does sound good man, I’ve always been curious about those, and the movies are always so different, so it would be nice to know the real story for a change,” Athan replied.

Note to self; read cool old books.

“What are you doing? Art isn’t it? Visual art? Painting and shit?” Rob asked, genuinely interested.

“Umm…yeah. Drawing mostly. My paintings always turn into the same mess… Come to think of it, so do my drawings.” Athan rubbed his face in frustration. “That’s my issue actually, my work all looks the same. The same theme!”

“Well you gotta branch out man!” Rob pointed his ‘advice’ finger. “Whatever you do normally, just do the opposite.”

Athan shrugged.

“I don’t try to draw anything now, I just let my hand take over and watch the image come together. It’s kinda lazy, but it’s all I can do…” Athan gestured to his invisible sheet of paper or canvas and moved his imaginary pencil. “I start a face, like a portrait and then it’s like my hand goes possessed on me and I don’t have any control.” Athan leaned back and sighed. “The faces or buildings, even the still lives of fruit bowls just degenerate into the same organic mess.” Athan realized that Rob was looking at him with some concern.

Rob frowned and shook his head. “You need to loosen up mate, that’s all. Let it take its course.”

“Maybe…” Athan replied.

Perhaps he’s right
.

When it came to being creative he was unstoppable, he would be constantly drawing things, whether they were on paper, canvas or the desks in the Art History room. His style, though, was something that had given him more and more concern over time. He had begun in high school drawing organic worlds made from flesh and bone and twisted creatures of non-descript identity. Soon these were all he could draw. For the last few months of university Athan had been working hard to broaden the range of his subjects in his work, but all he could manage to do was bring more realistic dimensions to his organic world. And he had been drawing them over and over again. This stress was beginning to take its toll on him

After speaking with Rob, Athan managed to somehow slip inside and confine himself to his room.

He needed some peace.

Everyone else seemed so caught up in the conversations about girls, cars and work that they hadn’t even noticed him slip away. He locked his door because a couple of his housemates had a nasty habit of bursting in and annoying him when they had had a few to drink.

The big house that the three boys shared was a very old four bedroom home that would have been the equivalent of a small mansion back in the day. Athan, Tim and Lockie weren’t the tidiest people in the world, but there just was no improving this particular building. The outside doors wouldn’t lock and the windows didn’t open and the floor was up and down like the waves in the ocean.

Athan crashed on the bed, still in his work uniform. The Sturt Street Gallery demanded that their employees were dressed in a clean suit everyday, unless they were moving artworks to different places around town.

Sleeping in his suit was something Athan was used to.

He had been so tired after work the last couple of weeks, even at university he would wake up with his head on the desk.

The throb of music.

Loud voices.

The thunder of footsteps up and down the corridor.

Athan tried to blink himself awake and make out the time on the digital clock beside the bed.

The orange numbers read ten something…

It was time to get ready.

“It’s time mate! The ladies wait for no man!” Rob’s voice outside.

“Yeah,” Athan croaked. “
Coming
.”

He sat up on the bed and found himself amongst a litter of paper. Hundreds of sheets.

The bastards,
he thought.

I locked the door
.

What was on the paper began to register. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and tried to focus on the black scrawl.

Drawings, there were drawings on every sheet, and they were his. They were the same fleshy assemblies that he drew at university when he had to draw faces and bodies. He could tell his own drawings anywhere, but he didn’t remember when he had done them.

He picked up the closest and studied it; it was definitely his, an organic mass like stretched, perforated skin drawn in charcoal.

When did I draw this?

He scratched them all together and scanned the images hoping there was some kind of mistake.

Another was a bony structure that looked like a melting pelvis. He picked up a third that appeared to be cityscape of intestinal vines and tendrils. They were his, but they were drawn with some urgency.

Then he saw the fingerprints he was leaving on the sheets of paper.

He looked at his fingers.

His hands were covered in the same charcoal that the drawings were done with; it was all over his hands and up his wrists.

What? How did I do this?

Athan sat in total dismay at what he had done.

It wasn’t just the papers all over the bed, the walls were covered with black fingerprints and drawings of the same organic mass. Treelike structures and coils, shapes like tormented organs.

His room was a mess, his clothes were a mess, and most probably his head was too.

I’ve lost it
.

He shook his head and stared at the chaos, wide eyed.

It was the kind of mad scrawling he had seen in the asylums in movies.

Did this mean that he was mad if he didn’t remember creating this nightmare scene? He’d always suspected that he had been dropped on his head, maybe it was true, and it just took a while to properly kick in.

He began to rub at some of the fingerprints and sketches to remove them, but they only smeared and added new black stains.

The boys!

He realized he needed to get ready, or they would come looking for him, and they’d see this.

He had about ten minutes to grab some clothes and run to the shower.

He didn’t want anyone else to realize how crazy he potentially could be.

After a quick peek outside his room he found that the coast was clear. Rob and the others must have been in their rooms or outside again.

Tomorrow he would clean the room and hide the drawings as though nothing had happened. It would be like a fresh start and his momentary slip into insanity would be totally under the rug.

“Dude?! We are all ready! How long are you gonna be?” It was Arron, one of Tim’s work friends, and not Athan’s favourite person. Arron had a habit of leaving his used bowls next to chairs in every room in the house and Athan would end up cleaning them. He had dyed black hair and a band t-shirt on. “And what’s the black stuff on your face? You look like a panda dude.”

Be cool.

“Charcoal. Had to get down some ideas for a masterpiece,” Athan answered sarcastically.

“Well, we’re leaving in ten. Get your arse into gear,” Arron said, before sipping his drink.

Athan nodded and headed down the corridor to the big bathroom that the three boys shared.

Athan shut the door, locked it behind him and took a moment to compose himself.

He felt fine.

No crazy left.

Maybe he had got it all out of his system. He had to be one of the guys now; he would save the crazy for when he had to clean the mess in his room.

Note to self; don’t bring a girl home
.

The Link was busy as it usually was, with a crowd of rowdy young men and laughing girls at the bar.

It was eleven thirty and the security guards were already refusing entry to some drunks as they descended the steps.

A haunting blue glow emanated from the bar while flashes of pink, green and gold waved and strobed.

Athan’s housemates headed downstairs to the nightclub floor, it was the favourite place for Athan and the boys.

There was a stage, a bar and a dance floor, and quite often bands would play lots of the sing-along dance floor favourites.

The guys had a few drinks in them and were making themselves quite busy on the dance floor, being wingmen for each other as best they could. Not that it was having much effect on the girls they were trying to impress.

The band came on and all thoughts about talking to the ladies were forgotten.

The band broke into the first song for the night. An instant floor filler.

The guitars roared.

The drums crashed.

Lyrics everyone knew.