Participants:
| Scene Title | A day in the life |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A day in the life of Adam Monroe |
| Date | Monday 21, 2009 |
No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man.
Five am. His eyes adjust to the dull light beginning to make its name known before the day begins. He feels like he should be stiff. He should be tired. He should ache. That’s what age means, that’s what happens over time. But he doesn’t know what that’s like. His body doesn’t work like that and hasn’t since before the country he’s in /was/ a country. He needs sleep, but not much of it. He needs comfort, but not much of it. Some would call that a blessing, the capability to live a Spartan existence, he only wonders how the rest of the world lives. Still, sometimes he really envies Ash. He’s not sure the man needs to sleep, he would certainly love that power.
He reaches over towards the other side of the bed to find it empty. It happens, he actually doesn’t like to sleep alone, but not everyone can coax company every night. He sits up and glances at the clock that tells him what some part of his body or mind already know. His body does not need to adjust to the waking hours, those are parts of the mundane healing process that also escape him, so he walks to the bathroom without staggering. He turns on the light only to switch it off again. He fills his hands with water and splashes his face with water. Then he stares at the same face that has stared back at him for the centuries. He does that every now and then. He’ll stare as long as he can until his eyes trick him and it changes, even a little bit. It adds a bit of comfort, a bit of normality.
To be the sad man behind blue eyes.
He dresses reverently as he always does. His first act is to slide a long necklace around his neck filled with rings. He’s not known for his sentimentality, at least most of the time, but it exists. He slides a finger along one of the rings quietly, fondly remembering a time that doesn’t exist anymore with a woman and people who don’t exist anymore either. Here he remembers women he’s loved and women he’s hated; women who loved him and those who came to hate him. There should be other souvenirs he thinks to himself, there were other women. Women he loved and excited him, women that elicited emotions in him that aren’t represented by some of these rings. He should have kept something of them, something that would help him remember more than his unreliable memories. He should write memoirs, he should make a movie. But these are all just more regrets and Adam Monroe has a sea of regrets floating inside him, he can’t think about that now or there wouldn’t be any point to getting out of bed.
No one knows what it’s like to be hated.
He’s out of his New York apartment in his usual fashionable self. He’s eaten breakfast and one of the men, Tommy or Franklin he can’t remember which, is already waiting in an SUV. There’s no talking until the boss says so, it’s a rule they follow and he prefers it. He takes the time to read the paper, shaking his head appropriately at tragedies that he reads about but doesn’t care about. People who live in lives encapsulated by a beginning and an end never seem to realize that. They think that each story, each person is a tragedy to be mourned, to be studied. They’re like an ocean of flowers, each with an intricate beauty that can be smelled and loved and appreciated, but always die when the season is over. How could you cry for that? Their death is part of their beauty And so rests what most people call his callousness or monstrosity, because in the end, Adam Monroe doesn’t believe life is precious. It’s just another thing.
His blackboard is back at the lair outside of the city, but it’s on his mind constantly. Shifting lines that slide between people and organizations. He looks out at the window as he considers the Company and the Scoobies. He’s starting to suspect they have some sort of truce between themselves. This entire rise up nonsense probably wouldn’t be at the top of the Company’s radar, but they wouldn’t ignore it either. It seems unfair, uncouth, he never imagined making any sort of alliance with a bunch of rich kids with graffiti cans when he created the Company, it seems under them. What’s worse is that it points to a problem he’s begun to feel the effects of. The city’s been too quiet recently and when the city is quiet, that’s when people begin to plot their paranoia like he’s doing now. That means too many eyes will be or are already on him and his latest plans. He briefly hopes Norman White hasn’t finished his crusade, he’s the perfect distraction. Adam Monroe needs the world to burn because he works best when everyone else’s attention is somewhere else. God knows he’s got a list that he’s already checked twice and there are naughty little boys and girls who haven’t received their coal yet. As the car passes by a restaurant, he briefly considers a plot for distraction, bombs going off across the city. Watch the little mice run, watch them scurry. He shakes his head and takes out his cell phone.
To be fated, to telling only lies.
“Sabrina, I need you to send flowers to Lola, I’m told you know her.” He pauses for a moment, “Also, send some flowers to…” he pauses, what was Odessa’s new identity? Started with a B, didn’t it? He shakes his head and just gives an address, “Send flowers there. Make them nice…add some chocolates or something. Oh, and be sure to get my suits pressed.” And then hangs up.
Part of it feels like a lie. As if he should be adding a card explaining that his emotions are tied into a complex amalgamation of need for control and alliances. Flowers make it seem like love, they make it seem innocent and nothing Adam Monroe has ever done could be considered innocent. He doesn’t love them, either one. But in fairness, they probably don’t love him either, yet. But if either one were to ask if he could love them…that would be a difficult question to answer without a lie, wouldn’t it. It’s not that he doesn’t have feelings for them, it’s not that they don’t arouse and excite him, it’s not that they don’t have qualities he has come to enjoy, it’s not even like some person might be able to call the feeling he will eventually develop for them, and as they might develop for him, love. That’s actually not the problem. He taps his arm with his forefinger as he ponders a question that has plagued him through the years, if you want to use someone can any feelings you actually have for them be genuine? He’s never been able to answer that question. Huruma would laugh that he even cares about it.
But my dreams, they aren’t as empty as my conscience seems to be.
There is a passing moment where his thoughts return to Kaylee. He frowns then, his forefinger sliding across his thigh in thought. He can’t really tell who’s been avoiding who, but he thinks it’s her, mostly. But the truth is, he could have pushed himself forward, could have closed the gap if he so chose. But he did not. One night he tells Kaylee she’s like a daughter to him and the next day he massacres a woman in front of him. Involuntarily, he sucks in a breath at the thought and frowns to himself. He ponders, not for the first time, if he can keep her involved and still maintain her love and trust.
In his weaker moments, he had visions of giving her away at her wedding, to whoever that might be. In his mind, it was always some man he had picked for her, someone worthy of her attentions, certainly not this Mr. Grimalkin and without a doubt not Mr. Winters. The thought curls in his stomach for a moment. He keeps himself from grimacing only by biting onto his lip. He walks a razor’s edge with Kaylee, maintaining her use and maintaining her. He’s honestly not sure if he’s failing or not. And that bothers him. He’s not so sure Huruma would laugh at him for this one.
I have hours, only lonely. My love is vengeance that’s never free.
They pull up to the estate, or the compound, or the hideaway. Adam’s never really sure what to call it. But this is where he trains and this is where he maintains his blackboard. He spends the first hour or so updating the board. Changing lines between names and organizations, writing in small notes by people’s name as the information had been updated. Someone suggested it’d somehow be easier to do this on a computer, but it just wouldn’t get the same satisfaction from the striking of the chalk on the board as he slowly puts together every tangible and important alliance, rivalry and player in New York. In the end, he circles the name of a location which is under Linderman’s umbrella; ‘Rapture’. He stops there. That requires more planning.
No one knows what it’s like to feel these feelings, like I do. And I blame you.
A stand that is filled with swords of all sorts of type, heft and make are approached. The katana remains his favorite, but he makes sure to include his sabers, foils and others into his routine. He practices his form with these weapons; he makes sure he will never be out of practice again. His strikes, his stances, his reflexes, they’re all perfect. He imagines opponents as he makes his moves. He imagines Kaito Nakamura. He imagines Hiro Nakamura. He imagines opponents he’s never faced like Miyomoto Musashi whose shadow he’s always had to suffer. He imagines opponents he has faced and whose names never mattered to him. He imagines Arthur Petrelli. He imagines Daniel Linderman. He even imagines little Elle Bishop. He uses them to perfect his art. He uses them to remind himself who his enemies are.
No one bites back as hard, on their anger. None of my pain and woe, can show through.
Unarmed training is harder. The sport of Judo was created well after he had learned to be a samurai. Some of the tactics and moves are the same, but they’re now used to score points and win matches. He always used the fighting to stay alive. A practiced class of judo practitioners wouldn’t even recognize the moves. They might even ridicule them, because they would lose in any tournament they entered. But Adam Monroe doesn’t practice to win tournaments. Adam Monroe practices so he can kill people. And therein lays the difference between them. There’s something about that that bothers him. The idea that what he learned was perverted into these nonsensical athletic events angers him and it shows as he strikes a hanging bag. That he watches movies about Samurai which have nothing to do with what really transpired centuries ago. Quite frankly, it’s a miracle Tom Cruise didn’t make The List, last Samurai indeed. He figures this new cult of scientology probably employs assassins and he can only deal with so many Companies at a time.
But my dreams, they aren’t as lonely as my conscience seems to be.
After some fire range practice, Adam Monroe is ready to leave his hidey hole. There’s a new driver in the SUV now. Adam thinks his name is William, but he doesn’t really care. There’s no words allowed, they’re on their way to somewhere very special. It’s not long before they’re in a cemetery. They pass people who mourn quietly with frolicking kids who don’t appear to have any idea why someone might want to remind them that cemeteries are not playgrounds. They pass an old woman who sits on a bench in front of a gravestone that seems well cared for. Adam watches her intently as he drives by her and frowns to himself. There’s a part of him that thinks of that as the ultimate testament to love, growing old and in love. Something that he can never do, but something others have done for him. He sits back in his seat and waits until they arrive at their destination. He gets out with a fresh bouquet of flowers that was bought for him, William stays with the SUV.
Adam makes his way among a few markers until he comes to one that is certainly more expensive than the rest, but isn’t a mausoleum. He brushes away some leaves from the top of the marker and lays the bouquet in front of the grave site. He doesn’t say anything because he’s not sure what to say. She’d never approve of any of this. She would approve of the murders and the revenge and the anger and the hate. And perhaps that’s why he’s visited her as he studies the grave. There’s one last brush of the grave marker before he heads back to the SUV so that they can get back to the city. There’s more work to be done, more people to be killed and more of the world to take over. Adam Monroe’s plans never end.
The grave marker that tells people Zoe Porter is buried there doesn’t seem to notice him leave.
No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man.