Right about now, I begin to feel like things are starting to come to a head. I’m not sure exactly what I mean by that, but there’s just a funny feeling in my stomach. You know when you get that feeling – maybe when you meet somebody new, or see something happen – and you know that this person, thing or event will affect your life to an unbelievable extent? That’s how I feel right now. I’d equate it to when people first meet their life-partners, or how members in the army reserves would have felt when they saw the World Trade Center fall. Obviously, there are different outcomes in each situation, but some form of unclear fore-knowledge tells you that this is going to change your life dramatically.

Oh, if only I were to have the benefit of the hindsight, I could have known. I could have prepared myself. I now record the last of the events which occurred today, on March 26, which have slowly been accumulating to give me such anxiety. This is the breaking point, and in no way do I feel that I’m exaggerating.

I recall now, as was glimpsed in my last recording, which I hope you have read if you wish to understand anything about the man I was before these chain of events occurred. My ex-fiancée Mandy Freeman had surfaced once more at my mother’s funeral. I left the ceremony as fast as I could after she had been buried, and after traveling without purpose or direction for some time, I found myself pulling over for a bite to eat. She was there, and I had nowhere to run.

We talked for a while, longer than I recorded. She told me I had to keep fighting. She seemed to be under the impression that what I was doing was important, and that I needed to keep moving forward. She suggested that my mother, and perhaps even my brother, knew this as well. She doesn’t know what though, and I am forced to keep that information private until it is time to press the initiate button, figuratively speaking, but the fact that she picked up on something like that, without having seen me in person in two years, is a worrying thought. Am I that transparent to people that have been close to me? A raise in her security threat level might be in order.

Most of our discussion was irrelevant, which is why I didn’t record it all. A lot of it focused upon remembering my mother, and the effects that she’s had on the both of us. I was surprised to learn just how close Mandy and my mother had become. It’s actually upsetting to realize that I didn’t know that. This was my mother for Christ’s sake, and I am beginning to wonder if I knew her at all.

- Of course I did, dismiss that thought Leroy.

Once Mandy began to walk away, and I found myself staring as she walked – yes, exactly in that manner – I was left with an odd sense of calmness. To use a metaphor, she had put out the fire, but the ember was still glowing, waiting for that hit of oxygen to once more ignite it. That oxygen would come in the events that follow.

I found myself returning to the now apparently empty house that once belonged to my mother. It is the same home in which Stan and I grew up, although it could be argued that I never really matured until just a few years ago. Parking up in the stony carport, I exited the car and head inside. The house is not empty.

Stan was still there, which in some ways was a relief. He sat at the dining room table and turned his attention towards me the moment I entered the house. He however, was not alone at the dining table. Another man, older, in his fifties one would assume at first, is also present. For me, the age is not an assumption. I know that he is in his fifties, fifty-eight to be exact. I know this because I know him.

His name is Bruce Matua Stone, and he is my father.

“Lee…” he spoke first. I shot my glance towards Stan, who seemed guarded against my eyes’ attempts to pierce through him. Stan actually didn’t mind him being there.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, falling into a strange déjà vu loop, having just asked the same of Mandy earlier in the day.

“I was asked by your mother to come,” he explained. At this moment, I felt genuine anger towards my mother, which I know makes me sound like a worthless piece of shit, but I can’t help it. I never wanted to see this asshole again. The last time I tried to bridge the gap between us, he unwittingly got me caught up in a terrorist organization that when I discovered what was going on, kidnapped my girlfriend at the time (who coincidently was the same woman I just finished talking to, Mandy Freeman) and threatened to kill her. People died over that debacle.

He made me kill.

He germinated seeds inside me that I never wanted to grow. For that, I will never forgive him.

“Did you know that she was dying?” I inquired, one eye drifting towards Stan who I had already confirmed knew, and withheld it from me.

“Yes,” came the reply. Stan knew, Mandy knew, and even this fucking douche knew?

“Let me guess,” I began, “mum asked you not to tell me?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. That excuse of her not wanting to distract me, really starts to fall apart when even this guy knew. What the hell did she think was going to happen when I found out that He knew? That’s a distraction right there! She felt that she could trust this guy, but not her own son?

- No Lee, she could trust you, you know that. She knew that too.

“Just freaking awesome,” I remarked. I took a seat at the table myself now, sitting opposite my dad, with Stan in the middle at the side, geographically acting as a mediator of sorts. I wondered if he would have to take that role in more ways than just being physically located between us. “Let me rephrase one of those questions now, what are you still doing here? It’s all well and good to come at her request, and I can accept that, but for you to stick around – in this house of all places, that is something that I’m not willing to accept. And you Stan, how can you just let him sit here in our home? After everything he’s done.”

“He said he wanted to tell us something,” Stan said to me. “He wouldn’t tell me what it was until you were here.”

“And you bought that crap?” I scoffed. “What’s he going to tell us, that he’s a changed man and wants to be back in our lives?”

“Don’t talk to your brother that way Leroy,” my dad said, as if he was trying to lecture me. I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish, but whatever it was, failed miserably.

“Shut the fuck up ‘dad’,” Stan began, causing me to grin uncontrollably. “I don’t need, nor want, you to defend me. I’m trying to give you a chance…”

“…like he deserves one…” I inputted, offhandedly.

“…and so the least you could do is try your hardest to make this not a complete waste of time,” Stan continued. “We’re not children, and haven’t been for a very long time. If anyone is going to be demeaned here, it’s you, so keep that in mind.”

“I…” he tried to find something to say. I had never been more proud of my brother than at that moment right then. I then threw my hat into the ring once again, oddly enough as the mediator myself.

“You managed to convince Stan that what you have to say is actually important enough for us to hear,” I said, partially easing some of the tension. “So I think it’s about time you spat it out, don’t you?”

”Agreed,” Stan said, nodding.

“Okay…” he took a deep breath at this moment, and Stan and I glanced at each other, unsure of what we might be about to hear. He then said four words that put you completely at the mercy of your audience. Four words that I uttered earlier at my mother’s funeral service: “I need your help.”

“With what?” Stan asked almost immediately, while I preferred to think for myself. The answer some arrived though, and I must admit, even I was surprised.

“In two days,” he began, accompanied with another deep breath, “I’m going to be arrested under the government’s new terrorism prevention laws, due to my past involvement with the Worldwide Organization Regarding Liberty and Defence.”

“W.O.R.L.D…” Stan whispered to himself, remembering the stories I had told him about how I, myself, got caught up with those hooligans.

“Lee told you?” dad asked Stan, surprised. Stan nodded in reply, which caused my father to look at me, his head cocked to the side as if he were asking a question without speaking.

“I didn’t feel the need to hide it,” I explained.

“Wait…” Stan interjected, drawing both mine and our father’s attention back to him. “If you’re going to get arrested over that shit, then is Lee going to as well? You were both just pawns, essentially.”

“No,” my father responded. “The government needs Lee in the position that he’s in. I’m a fall-back guy.”

”The government is involved?” Stan asked, as I continued to keep my input to the conversation to a minimum. “This is New Zealand we’re talking about, not America. Our government doesn’t have the resources or power.”

“They do if they’re strings are being pulled by the right – or wrong as the case may be – people,” he explained. “I need you to get me out of this mess, and make sure the real people responsible get punished.”

“I don’t see how I can help,” Stan said, clearly confused. “Lee might be able to, but me… I’m just an electrical linesman.”

“Your job isn’t to get me out of jail Stan,” he replied. Stan still didn’t understand at this point, but it all clicked into place in my brain.

“Then why are you telling me this?” Stan continued his search for answers. This time, I’m the one who gave them to him.

“Because your job is to convince me that I should do it,” I said, staring straight into my father’s eyes. I see nothing in them, nothing at all. No emotion to any extreme.

“What?” he asked now, still confused.

“Let him rot,” I replied coldly. Still no change in my father’s eyes.

“Lee, forget about him, there’s people out there who deserve to be punished,” Stan begins an appeal to my ego and morality. “You’re in a position where you can make sure it happens. Isn’t that what you’re all about? If not, then apparently I don’t know my brother.”

“How can you possibly be willing to jump straight into this?” I argued with him. “Mum just died!”

“Maybe you should look at this,” dad then said. He pulled an envelope out from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. Stan opened it, and read it first, before handing it to me.

“It’s mum’s handwriting,” he told me, and as I looked down at it myself, I recognized the same looped ‘f’ and ‘g’. It is mum’s handwriting. I know people can fake these sorts of things, but I’m convinced here, and so is Stan. Even as I look back now, I am still convinced. The note read:

“Stanley, Leroy, help him.”

“How can you say no to that Lee?” Stan asked of me, and I didn’t know how to reply. There is still something fishy that I cannot quite place my finger on.

I left the house soon after that, still in position of the note. As I record this, I’m flying through International Airspace, destined to touch down in Miami, Florida to make it to the XWF’s Pay Per View: What Would Jonathyn Do?

I didn’t give an answer to my father, or to Stan that day. I can’t, not yet. While the note is an intriguing piece of the puzzle, I can’t just move on from my mother yet. Especially not on that day of all days. I wish she was here to answer a few more questions. It’s always the case though, that when you no longer have something, you realize just how you took it for granted.

- I had to have known her. I had to.

I can’t help but think that I didn’t though.

And then there’s Mandy… fuck.

I feel myself falling into the chasm again. I’ve recorded this sensation before. Those fiery hands embrace me once more. This time though… I don’t know if I can fight it off.

Everything comes full circle.

Atlas lets go of the sky.

Where I started the week, I find myself again. But there is no shattered glass. There is just the whiskey. And me.

I swirl it.

I smell it.

I drink it.

It tastes so good.