The Three Unmaskers!

(Write a story about a meeting of a secret society.)

It was a premise Keith had been considering for some time.  He was a realist, and quite pragmatic so Keith was open to finding the truth, even if he found himself on the wrong side of the equation.  Perhaps especially if he found he should dislike himself or his behaviors toward human kind.  

It took some convincing and appealing to the gamer identity both of his friends identified with,  but Keith thought it worth a bit of subterfuge to gain his end results.  And so it was that a secret society was formed.  It was only a group of three members, two of which thought it a clever game but Keith had a higher purpose he had discovered in himself this need to know.   Who was he really?  What were his core values?

The first meeting was arranged with his two friends.  The results were as positive as Keith could hope for.   The secret society was called “The Three Unmaskers”, similar to another trio name and the whole idea was a cunning social experiment to determine the truth via personal experience and not rhetoric based on herd mentality, point of view and the need to have power over society.  Living the truth, day to day, witnessing man’s behaviors …..kindness or repugnance!  His friends just prepared to enjoy a charade of sorts but to Keith it was very serious.

Keith was finding the anecdotal evidence alarming!   It was much worse than he had expected and it was proof society was headed in the wrong direction.  He often sits and tries to imagine the response to his paper, once published or  perhaps no one would publish it.  It would not be pretty or popular, the two things current society demanded.  

All three members participated equally.  Keith would gather their notes and interview them individually.  Both thought it just a sneaky role playing game but to Keith, it was very serious, his whole future depended on it.

~~~~~

He felt gruff and knarly this morning.   A night sleeping under a bridge in the ever present damp would make a saint into a sinner!  Crawling out from under his pile of rags,  he is having trouble getting untangled from the dogs who kept his body from the chill.   Finally upright and fully awake,  he scratches at the parts of himself that need a good bath or a hot shower.   The two mile walk to the truck stop and that shower would give  him time to think about this day.  He pulls a garbage bag containing the nice leather travel case from under the bushes and gets on his way.

As he walks along he suffers, sneers and jeers, that is expected but the more hurtful are those who cross the street rather than encounter him or those who look away in fear.  Some are afraid of him,  but why, he would never hurt a fly but the record shows many street folks to be violent,  the result of drugs or lack of health care or learned behavior from childhood.

Within his travel case is the “other him”.  The part of himself he shows to the world.  Upstanding, generous, intelligent!   The world has no idea it has been an unwitting participant in his social experiment but he will publish his paper soon with the hopes it may open a few eyes,  create a bit of “Social Consciousness”,  he laughs at the very possibility.  

He wanted to live both lives,  he wanted to live the truth!    And he needed two more unbiased reporters so the data would be broader and more accurate and believable.  

No one knows each story, how the demise of the respectable and the birth of the derelict came to be real.  Drugs or bad decisions, broken minds coming home from a war that proved nothing, ever,  things we can’t imagine because we turn away from it.  

A single wrong decision compounded by events quite possibly out of a persons control and the road to hell becomes more slippery and dangerous.  Who would choose to live like this, you might ask!  Maybe it is those who find the necessary role playing of modern life unbearable.  Modern life is full of meanness and double standards, untruth and selfishness.   Where is the midpoint?  The place to be?

As the months passed, The Three Unmaskers lived their double lives.  The summary results are much worse than he had imagined.   The divide in humanity is becoming greater,  the more wealth and education,  the more distance between them,   the “aloof and blind looks” of the well off instead of the “kindness and generosity” he had hoped to see toward those in need of human kindness!

It is hard not to look with disgust at humanity that has fallen on such a hard life and times.  I am sad to report that the lower the base creatures of the street have fallen, this creates a feeling in the viewer, not of sympathy or thoughts of kindness but rather it bolsters superiority.  There is no real way to judge an unkept slovenly kind and decent person against a well dressed, affluent thief of our dreams and fortunes.  And so the need for evidence and the hopefully shocking published report.

~~~~~

Finally showered and dressed as his respectable self,  he calls for his limo and goes to his job.  It is a curious thing to him,  a dichotomy really, both of his existences have beautiful moments,  the street person has freedom and basic contact with the elements, but the successful man has the power and respect this other self enjoys.  

What if he had to choose?   

What if life suddenly gave him an ultimate wish!   Be what you wish to be!   

He laughs now,  thinking of the expressions of his respectable peer group if he and the dogs came from under the bridge and went directly to his job!  This made him laugh out loud!  

~~~~~

He struggles daily with the task of finding a workable solution but so many in society have a vested interest in this divide.  The power brokers need the needy to remain needy so they are controllable, sheep to be led.  The majority ignore the problem as having nothing to do with themselves, that is called avoidance, and a few want to study the problem from facts and numbers, they become the data gathers, but no one seems to want to solve the problem and thus the creation of “The Three Unmaskers”, to unmask and publish unbiased truth.

But aside from his paper which had become secondary to his own self examination, it only took one second to reach his own conclusions.    

The two lives could never meld or mix…..one or the other…..freedom to be himself or the façade of respectability!

The time to choose was rushing toward him!