Undermind: Nine Stories (20 page)

If he couldn’t stand another rejection letter,
he conceded that there was one other option. He could self-publish.
But then he remembered a man who lived down the street from his
childhood home. He had a garage full of boxes containing copies of
a book he had printed by a vanity publisher. He probably still had
all of them decades later. Ted did not want to be that man. But he
decided to see what his options were these several decades
later.

One week later, after studying self-publishing
every night at work, and reading every blog post that JA Konrath
had ever written, Ted felt sufficiently knowledgeable about the
process to self-publish his latest book online. He felt confident
that he could have this book online and available for purchase by
the end of the weekend.

By Sunday night, his book was “live” on
Amazon.com, but no one in the world but him knew it was there. He
didn’t know what to do next. Now he had to find a way to let people
know that the book was published. It existed now and could be read
anywhere in the world. It felt great not having to rely on someone
employed by a publisher to allow him through the gate and become a
published author.

But, he wondered, was he an author now? Did
self-publishing count? At what point could he distinguish himself
from someone who typed “poop” on a page and uploaded it to the
internet? How could he gain recognition as a serious and talented
writer when he was unknown to the world?

Would he only truly become an author once he
made it onto a best-seller list? Or was he already an author
because he had written several books – whether or not they were
published by himself or anyone else? Ted thought about this for a
while and pondered the question: what is an author?

The dictionary said he was an author because he
had written books. Society would more than likely only see him as
an author when they saw his books on shelves or on tables in
bookstores. He could describe himself as a self-published or
“indie” author, which did not have anywhere near the clout of a
traditionally published author – not until a traditional publisher
picked up the indie and put the publisher’s name on the book.

Ted continued thinking about what an author was
and eventually concluded that an author was a storyteller, no
matter how the story was told. The dictionary said that an author
was the writer of a book. But what about in the time before there
were books? Before there was such a thing as printing. Before there
was even a form of writing by which a story could be recorded?
Well, there had been storytellers long before the printed word
existed.

Storytelling went back to the dawn of time. Ted
snickered as it occurred to him that his craft was the true “oldest
profession.” He was a modern day man engaged in a craft that
boasted a legacy older than just about any other in the history of
man. It was ancient, and uncommon. There were seven billion people
on the planet. The percentage of them who could conceive a story
idea and then have the necessary skill to put that story into words
and entertain others with it was relatively small.

For the sake of the argument he was conducting
with his own internal monologue, he decided to pick a practical
number. If there were 100,000 authors in the entire world, that
would mean that they made up only 0.00001% percent of the global
population. If a million authors existed in the world, then they
were still only 0.01% of all people. Ted saw clearly that he
belonged to a very special and elite group of people on the planet.
Not everyone could be a storyteller.

Ted didn’t know what the future held for him as
far his storytelling went, but he was proud of himself for being
one. It was a gift that he was born with, and through his effort
and dedication, he had honed his skill and made it better and
better as he aged and practiced his craft. He felt it was
definitely something to be proud of.

He closed the lid of his laptop, grabbed his
clipboard and keys and stepped outside into the cold, windy night
to drive around the facility. It was boring, and no one ever
trespassed or tried to break into the chemical plant, but that was
his job so it had to be done.

He got into his security vehicle and started the
engine. He thought that he should go back in and give the car time
to warm up, but he decided to just brave the cold. It would take
longer to warm up the car than it would take to drive around the
entire property at five miles per hour.

He sat there watching his breath for a minute
and was thankful for modern technology. In a few minutes the vents
would begin blowing warm air into the car. He imagined a time
before technology, when heaters didn’t exist. He thought all the
way back to how the first people must’ve gathered around a fire to
keep themselves warm. His smile was lit up by the dashboard lights.
They probably had storytellers back then too.

It occurred to Ted that he was keeping the flame
of creativity and entertainment alive by telling stories in modern
times. His book on Amazon may not ever reach a million people. It
might not ever appear on a bestseller list. But
some
people
would read it. If it entertained those people and they had joy in
their lives for some small measure of time, then he was glad to be
the author who gave them that joy.

His was a special calling. He decided not to
tarnish it or belittle it based on such modern measures of success
as, number of units sold, or published by so-and-so, or two thumbs
up by John Doe of the Daily Blab. Just being a storyteller was
sufficient. The only difference it would make if a million people
bought his book instead of ten people, is he’d be able to quit his
job and write full-time. But then again, he laughed to himself,
being a night watchman with nothing official to do for 55 minutes
out of every hour, he was already getting paid to write his
books.

He shifted the car into drive and slowly cruised
the property, smiling and thinking about the plot of his next
novel.

###

Devon was trolling; just drifting along at
cruising speed and taking in the scenery while keeping an eye out
for particular shades and intensity of light.  His altitude
was lower than that of the average small plane, but not nearly as
low as a crop-duster. The landscape looked to him as it would from
a low-flying plane at night but with a layer of dark cellophane
between him and the ground. He could see significant sources of
light and he could make out shades of color.

The light that Devon perceived came from human
energy. It was created by a sort of friction that was the
by-product of a spirit dwelling in a physical body. Devon was
looking for a particular kind of light; one that glowed more
intensely than most and with specific color variations.

The brighter the glow, the better, because that
meant the spirit had more strength or power.  Devon was
looking to convert a significant source of white energy to dark.
Not only was this his job, but it also provided him with the energy
he personally needed to sustain himself and to conduct his
operations.

Sometimes, when he wanted a challenge, he would
select one of the pure, white emanations and see if he could turn
it dark just for fun. But this was very time consuming and required
a lot of energy. When he needed a serious dark energy infusion,
like now, there was no time for playing around and risking the loss
of his dwindling energy reserves. He had to use his remaining
energy to acquire more. If he failed and ran out of energy, he
would cease to be Devon.

As he cruised, he passed over many of the
typical white glows. The small, intense, pinpoint spots of pure
white light came from happy children.  Small, bland, weak
points of grey light were from their unhappy counter-parts. Devon
almost never selected a child. It was easy to turn them dark and to
feed off them, but it was a waste of time and effort. Sort of like
going to a restaurant and ordering a 5-hour Energy drink when what
you needed was a big steak and a baked potato.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the
emanations that were most challenging and yielded the largest
bounties were the large, white ones infused with gold. These were
happy people in true love with someone - or even worse – genuinely,
happy-on-the-inside people with a compassionate love for everyone;
nearly impossible to turn. Sure, you could screw things up for
them, make things go badly by way of people they were connected to
who had less power; but the mere act of dark interference with
these special people would alert reinforcements and you could find
yourself in a big, taxing battle. Lots of fun if you had a
limitless supply of energy and really liked a challenge, but
definitely not something to take on when you were running low and
needed a good, solid conversion.

Devon was looking for something in between. Not
a naturally happy child, and not a bloody do-gooder. A nice,
strong, greyish-white glow with streaks of red marbling through it
would be the perfect catch. He needed someone with sufficient
output that they
 
could
 
turn
bright white if things worked out for them, but who could also turn
dark if things went very badly - someone teetering on the fence –
ready to fall to either side. Light or Dark – depending on what
happened next in life. Filled with potential for good, but so worn
out from the struggle that they lacked the reserves to brave just a
few more serious downturns in life. Someone who’d been pushed just
a bit too far and could be convinced it’s just not worth it
anymore.

People had it all wrong. They thought dark
beings like Devon only fed on dark energy from hate and anger, fear
and jealousy. It was true that those things gave off dark light
that attracted beings like Devon; and yes, he could skim off that,
others like him did just that routinely. But the actual consumption
that took place (which was really an absorbing – an infusion) came
from the
 
conversion
 
of
energy. It was turning the
 
source
 
of
the white and all of its
 
potential
 
for white into dark. That process was like
fission taking place. Like being there when an atom splits and
sucking up the resultant power and radiation. It was like eating a
small sun.

If it could be said that individuals with a
common goal and purpose were members of a group, whether or not
they self-identified as group members, then Devon was a member of a
very large group.
 
He didn’t quite
look at it that way, any more than a garden insect viewed itself as
a pest. He just knew what he was and what he did, and he knew it
was good and it satisfied him while serving a larger goal at the
same time.

He did not have a title or position, but if he
did, he might be called a Recruiter, since each time he was
successful, the total number of his group increased by one. Devon
would say that his job would be more accurately described as a
Converter, because that’s what he really did. He converted energy,
and he did so by converting its producers - people.

He was not concerned with the larger picture –
such as how every successful conversion of his brought the overall
goal of his “group” closer to fruition and had rippling effects
which made other member’s jobs easier. He only cared about what he
did and the pleasure and growth it brought him personally. He was a
total freelancer. Like a sales pro who traveled the world making
excellent commissions because he was great at his job, but with no
interest in knowing the impact he or anyone else had on the
corporate bottom line. He just did his job. Others did their jobs.
And that’s the way he liked it.

One solid conversion was an operation unto
itself. It required a huge investment of time and energy with
little to spare for anything that didn’t contribute to the final
outcome. Once his target was selected, he would be committed and
focused. A good conversion required his complete immersion. He
would be connected, and to an extent, vulnerable, with his own
well-being at stake. The risk was great, but the reward was
greater. When he waited too long between conversions, as he had
now, his resources were limited and rapidly dwindling, which
limited his operational capacity.

He had briefly entertained the idea of turning a
few kids for a quick spike in energy, just to get started, but
being supremely confident in his abilities and impatient to dive in
to a human life, he dismissed that idea and increased his focus on
the glowing spots below him and shifted his frequency to bring
himself more in tune with the physical plane so he could get to
work.

***

Lance was looking forward to a great dinner and
the company of his two favorite people – Kim, his fiancé, and Tom,
his best-friend. Lance turned 28 years old at 2:38pm today. He was
happy with his life and knew it could only get better. He was proud
of the fact that he was well on his way to becoming a successful
entrepreneur at a relatively young age. His security surveillance
business was finally solvent after two years of ups and downs. His
engagement to Kim was definite after a few years of her not being
sure of whether she even wanted to be married  or not – to
anyone at all. And he had the best friend he could ask for in Tom –
a man he loved more than a brother and had known since grade
school.

Everything in Lance’s life was going so well
that it scared him a little. One of his foster-fathers often quoted
David Horowitz, saying, “If something seems too good to be true,
then it probably is.” Lance had always kept that in mind when
considering business proposals, job offers, sale prices, and
anything that warranted a closer examination to verify that it
really was as good as it seemed.