AEAJ - Chapter 1

Part 1 - Which Takes Place Principally on What Would Most Commonly Be Considered to Be The Planet Earth

Chapter 1 - A Series of Written Communications

The first letter came on Tuesday.

Justin already had an idea of what was written inside, so he didn't so much read it as crumple it up, throw it away, and grab a soda. The letter's contents were to the effect of thanking him for attending Law School but that it wasn't necessary, or more specifically wanted, or if one could be quite frank allowed for him to return next semester. Justin's grades had been somewhere between abysmal and so apocalyptically bad one teacher remarked that he didn't think an F properly expressed the amount of failing Justin had done.

In retrospect, Justin probably shouldn't have gone into law. The problem wasn't that he was bad at school; he had simply chosen a profession that worked completely differently than it should have. Firstly, Justin imagined law as a way to discern whether or not a crime had been committed, and to punish the guilty party appropriately. Law turned out to be rather more about two people trying to outdo each other to accomplish a goal that was, more often than not, geared towards their own interests rather than that of justice. Justin's second problem was his dislike for physical evidence's necessity. It wasn't that he thought physical evidence was entirely unreliable, but that the fact that it was absolutely required wasn't conducive to cases getting solved. Justin found things like testimony and logical connections perfectly satisfactory where there was a lack of actual evidence, and this proved to be a problem.

As Justin sipped at his soda, he wondered idly when the last time he'd had chinese food was.

The second letter came two days later, on Thursday. It was from his phone company, noting that the amount of money they'd received in exchange for his phone service was in the general realm of none, and that he would not be getting or making any calls anymore, at least not from his apartment. Justin had long since lost his cell phone, and this effectively cut off any non-written contact with the outside world. There was a sort of peace that pervaded the apartment in the following days; something about the ringing of a telephone always made Justin nervous, for reasons he could not articulate.

The sun had decided that it would like the city grilled to an almost inedible crisp that week, and so it was that Justin didn't go out much. He simply lay around his apartment, silent but for the television that filled his days with shows that weren't interesting enough to be shown when people were actually there to see them. Most of the time, though, he turned the thing off by noon, and read old magazines, or did nothing at all. It was amazing how slowly the day could pass when you made no use of it. The heat seemed to paralyze everything. There was little that moved in such unrelenting weather, and three days crawled at a snail's pace, feeling like an entire week.

The third letter was from Justin's parents. They had tried calling him, his phone of course no longer working, but they felt they really had to get in touch with him. It seemed that he was no longer in school, which was alarming conceptually, although the monetary savings would, if his parents had to be completely honest, be fantastic. There then came a paragraph or two about how disappointed they were in him (he didn't read this; he did not have to be told what failing out of college meant), followed by the small matter of the apartment they were mostly paying for. Justin took care of things like the phone, water, and electricity, but the base rent was provided by his parents, as long as he was in school. Which he no longer was. This was a problem.

The fourth letter informed him that he was pre-approved for a brand new credit card with an unparalleled credit limit and interest so low it wasn't even worth really giving a number. Justin, of course, knew that if they had any idea what sort of catastrophes had followed the last time he was given a credit card they would have actually done everything in their power to keep him from receiving one of their cards for fear that he might use it. This letter joined the other three in the trash.

Letter number five was from the book store he worked for, informing him that there had been an %u201Cincident,%u201D the details of which were of a delicate nature. The owner would be, he claimed, by the time Justin would receive the letter, at least three states away, which was impressive considering he'd hand-delivered it. Within the week he would be well beyond the reach of the government and would most likely be growing a beard and changing his name. He apologized that he had to abdicate his store and render his three employees jobless, but that Oh dear that's a siren outside and I should probably get out of here as soon as I finish the bonfire. Included in the envelope was a crumpled $100 that smelled like dust and had several questionable red stains on it. There was also a package containing several old books. Justin put the box aside and promised to look through them once he was done not looking through them.

By Wednesday, he was beginning to consider no longer accepting mail. He could normally go months without mail and not even notice, but in the span of about one week his entire life had seemed to unravel itself quite efficiently in the course of four letters. Who wrote letters anymore, anyway? Luckily, Justin wasn't the type of person to let having no school, job, phone, and soon enough a place to live and things like that bother him. Justin didn't understand the point of getting worked up over anything. It wasn't like panicking would accomplish anything. All it'd do is make him feel like crap and ruin anything remotely fun he tried to do. Worrying was a completely useless activity and he would have no part of it.

A few more inconsequential days passed, and Saturday came without any more letters of life-altering magnitude arriving. Except for the one letter that did arrive on Saturday, whose magnitude could only be described as life-altering.