The Legion's Greed (Chapter 1)

Chapter One: Prometheus' Mistake

The wheels on an older model sports car screamed as it rolled to a stop. The motor stalled when the light turned green, the man inside jostled around, and eventually the vintage automobile rolled down the avenue. Adam Stunors’ glare followed the tires lazily.

“Even that piece of shit is better than the bus.” He grudgingly mumbled.

An elderly gentleman sat down on the bus stop bench where Adam impatiently waited. The wrinkled face slowly turned toward Adam. The man’s head jumped slightly back as if he had seen something shockingly strange in the blue suit, white shirt, and yellow tie that Adam wore.

“What is it?” Adam asked.

“Well, it’s you. What could a gentleman like yourself possibly be so stubbornly down about.”

“For all you know my whole family could have died this morning. How would you know?”

“Even so, that wouldn’t be enough.”

“Not enough are you mad. I know it was a hypothetical situation, but if I—“

“Shhh, complaints are for the greedy. Enough.” The seemingly absurd man stopped on a dime, and made a point of doing so. His eyes, now showing through his wrinkled face, starred straight into the sun that reflected of these soft blue globes. Standing up off the bench, he took a long deep breath, almost savoring it, as one would a delicate desert. He lowered his arms which stood erectly out from his body with his hands on his hips, unwrinkled his shirt and sat down once again.

“Fantastic another fucking homeless lunatic” thought Adam after the relatively unusual display.

“It was given to me when I was just like you, and now I will pass it on. But make no mistake it stays with me forever, as it will you.”

“What stays with you forever?” Adam, although quite sure the man belonged in a hospital, was curious as to what he was about to receive.

The man reached into a deep pocket that started at his hips and ended right above the knee. While Adam waited he estimated that the jacket this man wore was most likely two to three sizes too big for the degenerating human being.

“Ahhh. Here it is.” Pulling a fist from the depths of the brown coat pocket, the man extended a bony hand. Adam uncurled his fingers as he placed his pale tendrils a few inches below the fragile claw.

Faster than Adam expected, the bony fingers spread wide, and a small translucent object dropped down into his palm. Clenching his fingers to stop it from bouncing out, Adam Strunors’ now felt a warm smooth object between his fingers. He slowly opened his hand to find a small glass marble within. Adam postulated that the surprising warmth, which now faded, was a result of being buried so deep in the elderly man’s pocket, probably nestled against his body.

“What’s this?” confused and slightly disappointed, asked Adam.

“Enough!” shouted the man, “Enough, Enough, Enough.” His tone was not angry, nor in the slightest irritated. Instead he was shouting with joy, each repetition louder and with more glee than the last. Adam wiped off the spit that had jumped out of the raving man’s mouth and onto his suit coat when this creature shouted his fanatical words at him. He was almost frightened now, but feared an even worse reaction if he suddenly left the conversation.

“What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do with this?” Adam cautiously asked, hoping for a more sane response than the last one.

“Nothing. Wrong question. It most certainly is not what you do with it, but how you do it and that you attach importance to it.” The elderly man went cock eyed and glared at Adam piercingly. Grabbing Adam’s coat, he pulled him closer. He then whispered, “Although it has value in itself, it will always be as translucent as air without someone to understand that very value that lies in plain view.”

“What is it again?”

“I’ve already said too much. It is life, it is all you have, it is—“, once again as if god had pulled the needle of this broken record, perhaps because this tune was too scratched for the lyrics to come through clearly, the man stopped. “Well, that there, that is for you to figure out”

Stunned by the lucidity of these last few word, Adam didn’t even notice as the old man slowly climbed the steps of the number 11 bus, the same one Mr. Stunors had been eagerly awaiting. The elderly man looked back from the top of the steps and calmly proclaimed, “It is” pausing for another breath, “for you to figure. It means nothing if it’s handed to you, that’s the problem in the first place. I’m sorry and you’re welcome.”

Adam’s mind whirled but slowly came to a halt and his eyes watched his bus leave as his still disabled body sat rigidly. His shoulders relaxed and he peered down at what lay in the cracks of the palm of his still outstretched hand.

He thought about throwing it away. He thought about keeping it. He thought whatever it was, even if it had some meaning or power that it could only lead to being more similar to the freakish human being that just took his bus downtown. Adam watched the marble roll down his hand and into his pocket. Better not to think of it for now, he thought. Better to just go on with the day as usual, he reassuringly concluded. Adam shrugged and sat there, just as impatiently as ever, waiting for the next number 11 to come by.