You have something to say? Say it to my face, you coward.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – City of Tomorrow: Ethaneos
Current Date: April 1, 2023

Character: Drake Jones
Race: Human
Age: 41
Current residence: Ethaneos, Europe
 

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As my heart beats wildly all the way up in my throat, I struggle to catch my breath. Panic is at the very edge of my being and while I’ve only ever had a single panic attack before in my life, I feel as though I know its telling signs. I found myself on that edge so often before I said forever-goodbye to the few people I had truly called my friends in that past life of mine.

The source of the stress leading to these nearly-happening panic attacks was a single man. A man I had made the mistake of liking enough to allow for a relationship to develop. I had been too blind to see the red flags until it was too late and, by then, my only escape was death, in a literal sense, as far as he was concerned, and in a not-quite literal one in my case.

As far as everyone in that past life of mine is concerned, I have died. My body has been cremated, my ashes scattered with no stone or marker to denote that I was ever anywhere in that world. I have disappeared, only leaving behind traces of what my life had been.

When my heart finally eases back into a slightly choppy—or so it feels to me—but slower rhythm, I cough out a breath. It takes a few moments longer for the invading darkness that had been on the edge of my vision to fade. I haven’t missed feeling like this and, just for a moment, I wonder if anyone somehow actually likes being in the throes of a panic attack, or even just on the very edge of things.

I know that not all panic attacks turn out the same way. In my case, really, this is how it happens, and I still hate it, no matter how rare it turns out to be. The thought of trying to make my way home after this is exhausting but I know that it’s going to be my only option. I can’t stay out here tonight, no matter how perfectly safe the place is supposed to be. I know better but, on that same note, I know that I’m safe in this place.

I force myself to look around. I know I’m alone, the rest of the crew has all left at this point. I’ve lost track of the time while I was hiding out in this changing room but I’m always the last one to leave; this is my theatre and I’m the one with the keys.

For a few moments more, I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, counting my way through some box breathing. A technique I learned when I was younger, struggling with the stress of being on stage those first few times. It works wonders when I can actually focus on the counting; it certainly is easier when I’m not struggling to just flat-out catch my breath.

At this point, I’m wishing I had a bottle of water on hand but the one I had—with tea, but still—is empty. I remember downing the last of it just as my actors were stepping from the stage after the curtain had dropped one last time. My mind just barely, briefly, goes back however long it was that I spent in that room with the trigger, and I shudder softly.

For just long enough to be considered plenty of time for the memories to come flooding back, I saw a man in the first row of seats who had looked exactly the same as the man I had left behind. The man I had to fake my death to escape from. The man who, whenever I would dare look him in the eye when he was angry, would call me a coward and taunt me about having anything to say to him and that I should say it to his face. That, in itself, possibly doesn’t sound very threatening but it was in his posture, in the tone of his voice; it was in the fact that I knew he would turn to violence if I so much as showed an ounce of fear.

The sight of the man who clearly was not my ex from years ago had been enough of a trigger. My mind found itself dropping into a loop of terror wherein he was back in my old life, he’d found me, and he would shatter all that I had worked hard on to get to where I was. He would make it clear to the world that I was not who I was pretending to be.

I left that old life behind when I came here. The people here know me as Drake Jones; they know me as a man who was accepted into this perfect little city of tomorrow with all of the paperwork as it should be, and they know nothing of my past. This is how it is meant to stay.

I know that it’s going to take me a long time to make it back to my apartment; at this point, my ability to trust strangers is on a fragile ledge and I know that instead of calling for a cab, I’ll walk. It isn’t as though I’m very far from my place; on good days, it’s a twenty-minute walk, tonight, I know it’ll take me closer to an hour, but I’ll deal.

The residual effects of the attack that nearly swept me off my feet will fade slowly as I walk, and the still-fresh early-spring evening air will help clear my mind a little. By the time I make it home, I’ll be so exhausted that all I’ll want is to sleep and, you know, that’s fine.

Final Word Count: 962

Some of you don’t know the meaning of restraint.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – City of Tomorrow: Ethaneos
Characters: Drake Jones
Race: Human
Age: 40
Current residence: Ethaneos, Europe
Final Word Count: 872 words
 

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In a previous life—something I can only keep to myself, as they would ask questions I cannot answer—I have worked with high school kids. I have helped them with putting on a show. It was, in a way, what I did for a living. I was a teacher in a prestigious high school, but I don’t think I let it get to my head.

So when I was approached to help with a stage play of one of the nearest high schools, I didn’t say no. The theatre was currently on break between productions and a bit of renovation was taking place within the walls of my building, so I took it as an opportunity. I’m well aware that I could have temporarily moved my fluctuating crew and myself into another theatre for the time being, but we’d been done with this show, and it had been time for a break, as was.

Most people still believe blindly that Ethaneos is the perfect city. They believe it has no crime, they believe we are the better of everything and everyone else out there. They are wrong, of course, but that is the thing with this place. Everyone wants you to believe that it is the perfect city of tomorrow, but I’ve seen things.

Now, I’m aware of what private school can do to kids. I’m aware that, for some, this is the perfect excuse to turn their noses up and act like snobs. My feelings were mixed about what kind of potential behaviour I would be dealing with when I first stepped into that theatre. From the principal, I had been told that they were kids mostly in the sixteen to eighteen year group. Kids in their final few years just needing a project to get whatever it is they were missing from their grades to be able to either graduate or move up a grade.

That didn’t bode well. Kids, usually whose hands are forced into a decision like this, are rarely willing to put in the effort. Most believe it is outside of their station, so to speak. I did expect that most of the kids in that room wouldn’t have much of a care in the world about whether or not they would do any of the work assigned. Their parents certainly would try to pull strings. The small group I expected from there were the ones that genuinely struggled in school but wanted to learn and wanted to better their knowledge.

To my surprise, most of the kids were interested in the play; it was something they had put to a vote and the majority had wanted to try. I had as many girls as I had boys, most were indeed between sixteen and eighteen years of age though I had one at nineteen and she was the one who gave me the most issues.

As I first stepped into that room, I didn’t quite expect the chaos I was seeing. I suppose that leaving teenagers unsupervised isn’t really a good idea, but this was almost as though I was walking into a party and these kids had been left to themselves for hours. The principal had assured me that the vast majority of them had gotten out of their final class of the day just minutes before.

The auditorium was a mess of paper. Uniform jackets were strewn all over the backs of seats. Some of the kids were gesticulating on stage, others were separated into small cliques and were talking. Some were, to my dismay, flinging a roll of toilet paper back and forth as though it were a ball.

Clearly, I had my hands full, and we hadn’t even started on with the project. I had expected some form of chaos but nothing of the likes that I walked into; it was as though none of these kids even knew the meaning of restraint.

Getting their attention took time and getting them to clean up the mess took even longer. By the end, at which point everything was as clean as it could be and they were settled in not-quite neat rows of the first few seats, it was nearly time for them to head home. I wasted little time telling them what I expected in behaviour, I asked them to each bring home a copy of the play that would be worked on and to learn a few of the lines from any character they might wish so that upon our meeting the following day, I would be able to at least know who to cast on to which role.

Those were the last words out of my mouth before that final bell rang, they almost ran out and I had to call out after them to pick up the script before they stepped out and that was that for the first day.

Let’s just say that it hasn’t been easy and, yet, in a way, it could have been so much worse. I still have a month or so of work still left to do with them before their play comes to happen and I cannot say that I will miss this working environment once I go back to my theatre.

You were useful, sure, but I don’t need you anymore.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – City of Tomorrow: Ethaneos
Characters: Drake Jones
Race: Human
Age: 38
Final Word Count: 649 words
 

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The thing with surrounding yourself with actors and actresses is that you don’t actually always know if what they’re telling you is legit or not. Though, I think that my primary issue is that these actors and actresses think they’re all that and that they can act in any which way they might like because they just can. When you confront them about it, they’ll tell you that ‘they’re allowed’, and that it’s ‘just part of the charm’.

As it turns out, ‘part of the charm’ can go rot somewhere in the mud pits and the moats because it sucks.

I’m an outgoing guy, I like getting to know people better and I like spending time with others, so I suppose you could say that I’m both outgoing and an extrovert and that’s perfectly fine by me. Of course, it took me some time to get back to this behaviour after I’d had to fake my death to get away from a guy who would pretty much have been my death if I hadn’t somehow managed to get away.

I left everything behind. My old name, my old life, my old social security number, everything.

So I was wary of letting anyone into my life once I moved here, I’m not going to lie. There really is only one person I can call a proper friend and I’m fine with that. It doesn’t stop me from mingling with others, especially after work or after a play.

There’s just this one guy who has taken to confusing me to a whole new level I didn’t think I could reach. I mean, I’ve been confused by things before but in this case, I just don’t know if he was being an arse because the character he’d finished portraying was an arse—I’ve met a lot of people who needed a little while to detach themselves from their roles—or if success had gone to his head and he had turned into an arse for real.

He’d been a sweetheart up until we’d gone to stage with this particular production we’d worked on together. When the curtains had dropped and I’d approached the whole crew to congratulate them on a job well done, he turned his nose at me and told me that he didn’t need me anymore. That I’d been useful but that I’d outgrown that usefulness.

I think that the point he missed is that he can’t just dismiss me this way. This is my theatre. I will dismiss him as necessary but I don’t do with being dismissed because it doesn’t work that way.

I haven’t spoken with him since, though, so I still don’t know whether or not those words really were his or if they were a leftover from his role in the play. The thing is, he’d not acted this way before; after every practice, I’d tell everyone they’d done a good job and everyone would be a charm, people would be happy, he’d be a slightly bumbling but adorable young man and now… well now I’m confused, I’m sure it’s not that hard to understand why.

There’s not much I can do besides waiting and I’ll wait. I don’t know if he’ll show for the new set that had been discussed as the old set was coming to a close but it’s going to be one of those things. I know I’m going to have to replace a few people from the crew but that’s fine too. I’m thinking of putting forth a production of Romeo and Juliet but with a men-only cast. I’ve done similar before and it had worked out well. I know there’s a theatre not far from mine that does the same but with women, so I figure that it can’t hurt to try again.

I can’t predict the future, so I’ll prepare things and then I’ll go from there.

I can’t believe you got your arm stuck in the vending machine again.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – City of Tomorrow: Ethaneos
Characters: Drake Jones
Race: Human
Age: 38
Final Word Count: 667 words
 

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Moving to this city was a difficult choice. For years, I had lived in Japan, teaching in the world’s most prestigious school and I think I would have stayed there for a while more had my life not taken a sharp turn in a way I’d like to not really discuss. Let’s just say that someone came into my life in a way they should not have and it seemed as though the only way to escape that nightmare and get back to a peaceful sort of life was to die.

So, in a way, I died.

I had some outside help, I had people willing to help with the whole setup and the accident was so real that I did end up with a broken leg and a pretty bad concussion but I was alive—for me to know, not for that other person—and I was on my way to another sort of life, a city that they claim is perfect but I know better. I think most people know better but we turn a blind eye for the fact that this is supposed to be the so-called ‘city of tomorrow’.

The living is relatively easy; I’m not going to lie. I have a good job, I have a small circle of friends, I feel safe in this place where no one really knows where I came from and I’ve finally adapted to the change in my name. Not that it was a drastic change but still a big enough change for me that I didn’t know how to deal with it at first. The thing is, I was used to going by other names, if you look at my career choice, but it was for a night’s time, for a repeat the following night. It was all temporary but this name change, this move into this city, it was permanent.

All my paperwork change my social security number, my date of birth, everything. All of it was subtly and not so subtly changed so that I could disappear from the world and have a second chance, away from that invading darkness.

So now I have a little apartment in a high-rise. I have the setting sun in my bedroom window and it is absolutely gorgeous. I teach drama classes in another school. It is nothing like my old job but I suppose that’s the thing and that took some getting used to as well but I’m good and fine now. I’ve made a few friends and one of them is something of an idiot but he’s a good idiot and he makes me smile.

That idiot has a tendency to get into places he just shouldn’t and one of these places so happen to be one where he gets his arm stuck in a vending machine. I mean, I’ve been here for about eight years, I’ve known him for maybe seven of those eight years and I’d say this is most likely the fifth time in the years I’ve known him that he’s got his arm caught in a vending machine and it’s usually always the same type. I personally would take it as a sign that I need to stop eating that junk food but I doubt he’d see it that way. Just the same, I suppose it’s not so much because it’s junk food either, not in that machine, but the statement remains.

How do you let yourself get sucked into that situation twice, let alone five times in the span of seven years? If a machine eats up my money but doesn’t spit out my food, I might try to shake it a little but I certainly won’t try to put my arm up there into that hole and try to get it. Though my arm is skinnier than his so just maybe I’d manage but as I’ve dislocated my shoulder twice so far in my life, I’d rather not chance it.

He can keep his vending machines adventure.

Why have you done it, then?

Timeline/World: Wings of Freedom
Characters: Drake Jones
Race: Human
Age: 37
Final Word Count: 605 words

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I’m a teacher at heart but I realized that after a decade teaching in one of the most prestigious schools around that I wasn’t meant for teaching in any school or in any university. I haven’t taught a single class since I left the school. I’d studied in that very school, it had made sense that I stay there and teach other kids my passion. I loved to watch these kids just explore themselves and grow into themselves. As a drama teacher, I felt like I always had a little bit of a hand in getting the kids to open up about themselves. Of course, I call them kids but most of them were between the ages of thirteen and eighteen but still.

I didn’t leave abruptly, I couldn’t. I’d talked with James over the summer about what had been on my mind for a while and I let him know that I would likely be taking my leave at the end of the next school year. He was understanding as he’d always been and I gave him ample time to find someone to replace me. Teaching hadn’t been quite as exciting as it had been before and I knew I needed a break. I didn’t know if that break was going to be permanent or not but I knew I needed at least a small break.

So I took a sabbatical, I left Japan and its beautiful landscape and found myself closer to Greece, where I had been born and raised. After about six months of aimless wandering and trying to find myself, I found a little job helping out in a theatre group, just doing little things here and there, helping some with their lines, others with their expressions, some with how to truly be heard in a crowd, it was little things and it didn’t feel so much like teaching.

That is until I ended up having to deal with petty fights. I felt like I was back in school, during the time I was a student more than a teacher and before I’d been sent to Japan to study. The pettiness was so present that it made me resign from that job after only a handful of weeks. Having to sit down two parties face to face to get them to discuss like naughty children who refused to acknowledge that they’d done something wrong was not my idea of a good time. I lost track of how often I had to ask them to tell me why they’d done what they’d done to try and get them to understand that this was supposed to be a team effort and not a fight to the top.

Though… I am aware that a lot of people believe the understudy is just that, an understudy. I always preferred being the understudy, myself. While being in the spotlight was always interesting, it wasn’t my goal. I was thinking about the show as a whole, about the people who were coming to watch us, those who were coming to enjoy the play. It was about giving back to the public, not being the one all eyes were on. It’s part of what I taught back at the school because it’s important.

Of course, I can understand that in certain instances, the need for ‘me’ outweighs the need for ‘everyone else’ but it just shouldn’t be the case, not in a place like plays, television shows and movies where team efforts are what really make it come together.

I’ll find something else to bring my passion for drama back to the surface eventually, I just know it.