solutions

There's an old saying. "If you sit down at a card table and you don't know who the sucker is, it's probably you."

That was true. I was the sucker.

And this was it.

This was where it'd end. I could feel it in my gut. I'd come this far, and in the end, for no reason. As The Artist drove to what she wanted to "show me", all I could think about where the last few months. This had all been orchestrated so beautifully. What if there WAS no power struggle? What if Silence and Jars were fighting just to get me out of the picture? If that was the case, then they succeeded in spades. And here I was, stupid enough to follow their every whim, to end up in a car with the one person who had the balls to kill me.

We hiked a bit into the woods, and neither of us said a word. I thought I might be able to turn and run at some point, but it didn't really matter. The Artist had a gun, and there was no way I could dodge bullets. I'm no action hero. I'm just a sad, lonely man now. As I followed The Artist on the death march towards my inevitable ending, I realized that these were not good people. Annie, Silence, Jars. The Artist was just following orders, she actually did give me answers. But even still. These were not good people, and I'm not sure why I wanted to help them. Maybe I wanted to regain something I'd lost.

And then she pulled it.

I knew it wouldn't even help to beg or plead. She wasn't going to let me go. Not now. I just asked "Why" because I felt I was at least entitled to the answer of why my life had to end here, in the middle of the woods, for seemingly no damn good reason. The Artist didn't say a thing at first, but when she spoke, she said something I wasn't expecting.

"You're not going to die. I need you."

WHAT.

This was not what I was expecting. What does she need me for? I asked why she was holding a gun to me, and she said, "This is merely a formality, I need your assurance and word that you aren't going to turn on me. I have answers, I am the only one who's been honest to you, you NEED me. You need to listen to me. If we work together, we can both get what we want out of this. You want to see Silence and Jars hurt the way you hurt, and I want out of this thing once and for all. It's a win/win situation, the way I see it."

And she had a point.

She WAS the only one who'd been honest with me, and here she was, defying orders and saving my life when I SHOULD be being buried under a tree right now.

Then she heard something. We both did. I think we both knew it was Jars. She'd been tailing us for a while. Ever since Silence and I had split, Jars had apparently been on our tail. The Artist seemed to know this, and enjoy it. That's when it hit me. THIS IS WHAT SHE WANTED. This whole time, showing me everything she'd shown me and giving me answers...all she was doing was trying to make Jars angrier. Angry enough to possibly be willing to attack.

"You're going to head back to your apartment, and when you get there, you're going to wait for me." she told me. I understood.

There's an old saying, "If you sit down at a card game and you don't know who the sucker is, it's probably you."

The thing was. I WASN'T the sucker. Jars was.

john