A World Without String Is Chaos 24 Chapter 24: The Meeting

His mother.

Mark went into the sketchiest looking bar he saw. He demanded a job as a musician at the bar. Nick, the bar owner, was about to shoo away the kid, but Mark picked up guitar that happened to be there, and played. He played and played and played. It was fast, angry. Nick was impressed. He hired him.

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Fred got on a plane as soon as he got off the phone with Emily. He was flying over to island paradise.

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Mark was at the bar for a few days now. People loved to listen to him play. Mark did drugs for the first time. All kinds, all at once. It looked odd, a kid in his school uniform, in the sketchiest bar in town, playing some of the best tunes the bar patrons ever heard in their lives. And he looked so stoned.

It was the third night, on a Wednesday. Mark was closing up his set. A man walked into the bar, and sat down at a corner. Mark didn't notice. He played the last chord, and people were clapping. Applause. Mark felt alive. It sounded like chimes.

Then, he saw a man sitting in a corner, clapping. He was in a s.h.i.+rt with flowers on it, and shorts. Looked like a typical tourist. Then, Mark saw his face, and froze. They looked each other in the eyes. It felt like eternity to Mark, and it was. The drugs warped his sense of time.

Fred walked over to Mark. "It's time to go home, Mark."

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?!"

"It's okay to live your life, however you want. But it's harder to cut ties with the people in your life than you'd like to think. Your mother, your sister, your father, they all love you."

"I don't have a father!" Mark refused to cry in front of this man.

"Hey, who the f.u.c.k are you?" Nick came over, with a burly man behind him.

"I'm his father. I'm taking him home."

Mark was about to explode, when-

"You're not taking him anywhere. The kid owes me money."

Mark was p.i.s.sed at so many people at once. "I don't owe you jack s.h.i.+t!"

"Give me 5K, and I'll let him go."

Fred frowned. "You heard the man, you're not getting one cent."

Nick chuckled, then pulled a gun out of pocket. He aimed it at Fred's face.

"It's 10K now."

Fred looked at Nick, then said one word. "Trash."

Nick shrugged, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

People screamed, and were running out of the bar. Mark just stood there.

Fred just stood there. The bullet grazed his left cheek. The knife appeared in his right hand, and Fred lunged at Nick, and stabbed the hand that was holding the gun.

Nick yelped in pain, and dropped the gun. After gasping for awhile, he shouted at the burly man, "Kill them!"

But the burly man just stood there, like a statue.

Fred held his cheek. It hurt like h.e.l.l, but he wasn't about to cry in front of his son.

He pulled on Mark's hand. "Let's get out of here."

Mark followed Fred.

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They were in a car, that Fred rented and drove his way over to the bar. The two of them stayed quiet.

"...Are you a spy?" Asked Mark.

Fred chuckled. "Do you like Fizzy Pop?"

"...I f.u.c.king hate Fizzy Pop."