The solitude of Ambition

The solitude of Ambition

Russell Suarez

04/17/2023

The year is 2148, Florida has become its own country known as the great republic of Florida. The time of unification and transparency has been lost due to the incompetency of the world dealing with the ever-growing crisis of the rising destructive waters. Our story today follows one man and his ambition. Will he achieve his goal, or will he fall just short?

Aurelian had always known that his parents were polar opposites politically. His mother, Vayne, a thoughtful woman who was relatively moderate in nature believed in equality, fairness, and freedom for all, while his father, Torrent, was a staunch Fascist. Aurelian had always tried to stay out of their political discussions, but he couldn't avoid them when they turned into heated arguments. The constant arguments slowly started to become just part of the daily routine in Aurelian’s life. “The toxicity coming out of their mouths is worse than the filth in which we lay our head’s every night.” Thought Aurelian. It took a lot for these pitiful arguments to truly affect Aurelian, but it was one such argument that woke him up on a particular morning. His parents were yelling at each other over the upcoming presidential election, with his mother expressing her support for the independent candidate, whose name she couldn’t even have the faintest care in the world to remember, and his father staunchly defending the incumbent candidate, John Goodall. It is as if these arguments is what gives them purpose, “maybe if they focused as hard on their life as they do with these god damn arguments we wouldn’t have to be confined to this cage that even the rats avoided. But of course, god bless Mr. Goodall for this lavish lifestyle!”

Aurelian grew tired of this argument, as do many when politics come into conversation. And knew he couldn't stay in the house any longer, so he took what was left of his family’s canoe and paddled away to a secret abandoned building on the outskirts of the city. He had found this place years ago and had made it his own private sanctuary, a place where he could escape from the constant bickering and arguing at home. He named in air42. It seemed as if it was floating above the water suspended in air, and well 42 because the meaning of life is a pretty neat name. When he arrived at Air 42, he was surprised to find that Rose was already there waiting for him. The best friend and second half to Aurelian, well at least half in one mind to the detriment of the other. She had a black eye and a bruised lip, and Aurelian knew immediately that her boyfriend, who disgusted him, was responsible. Aurelian constantly mentioned to Rose to “just leave that man, he only ever hurts you. Find someone who wants you for the great person that you are….” Yet this advice falls on deaf ears as Rose has no other choice than to be with him, he has a house, and in this society that makes you already more fortunate than most. Rose was an orphan and no where else to go, Aurelian has offered for her to stay with him but even in that house, if you can even consider it one, there is no place for happiness and a flower like herself to bloom everything in that house slowly wilts away until there is nothing left.

At Air 42 they talk about everything imaginable, from the future of each of their lives, the troubles of their home environments, the world, and every couple years, politics. This conversation in particular happens to drift into the future of their country and how awful it would be if Goodall came into power. This was something they both heavily agreed upon. They talked about how unfair his monopoly on AWH (Affordable World Housing) was, and how he was raising the prices of the homes beyond what people could afford. In each of their lives the home environment was heavily influenced by the price of the home itself. The majority of the political arguments between Aurelian’s parents are the fact that Aurelian’s mother cannot understand why Torrent can ever support a man that has put his own family through such hell. Rose and Aurelian dreamed of a world free from the tyrants that ruled over their lives. They knew that someone needed to do something to stop Goodall. How, who and what, were a different story.

After their conversation, Aurelian returned home brainstorming ideas, and Rose went back to her boyfriend's condo. Torrent, Aurelian's father, left for a convention of John Goodall's campaign for presidency. There Torrent was hoping to be able to meet and shake Goodall’s cold hand, thinking he will be able to feel a surge of excitement and hope for the future. Little does he know.

But while Torrent was away, Vayne struggling with the demons in her head. Them being financial concerns and lack of a true partner had driven her to the brink of life, and she attempted suicide. Taking a whole bottle of cheap pain killers. Aurelian found her in time and managed to resuscitate her, but she slapped him and cried in his arms, feeling guilty for putting her son in this position yet again. Aurelian has dealt with this situation many times, each just as terrifying as the next. He feels a sense of guilt and contempt for his own self for forcing her to stay on this earth even after how hard she is trying to leave it. Seeing her so helpless and knowing the irony that it was her inability to afford the good medication that prevented her from killing herself, truly took a toll on him. The guilt was not one-sided, Vayne felt an overwhelming sadness for her son knowing she was trying to leave him alone with that monster. Torrent, returned home and scoffed at her yet another failed attempt, telling her “See? Nothing you do is successful.” And laughed while climbing the stairs into bed. Aurelian knew the reasons for his mother's repeated attempts, that bastard she called a partner, but mainly the inability to be able to separate from Torrent due to the finances, for as much of an asshole as he is, even he works to live under that roof too. The new interest rates set by John Goodall that continued to rise no matter the profits he already saw caused such rage in Aurelian, and even more when he thought of his incumbent father supporting someone who has had such a negative effect on his mother’s health. Aurelian knew he couldn’t change his father, but what he could try to do is get Goodall’s name off the ballot. Determined to stop Goodall's presidency, Aurelian decided to take matters into his own hands. He created flyers and a blog under the Alias of "Air," staging protests and other forms of public stunts to change the public view of John Goodall. At first, he started small only being able to reach 5-10 people but with each working day he became more and more diligent in his attempt. Putting even more effort and truth into his posts, he began to amass a following, hundreds of people have now flocked to his posts supporting his ideas. He realized he was not alone in this fight for a better life, he had out pouring’s of support coming in from all over Florida, from Tampa to the little islands left in Miami.

Time passed, and the election drew closer. Aurelian had garnered large amounts of support, but no one, not even his father, knew that he was Air. Aurelian tried very hard keeping this a secret from his father, he made a hole in his wooden floorboard in his closet and would hide his most precious valuables in there such as ideas for different flyers and protests. Working on this plan for months on end, hours each day he had become obsessed with his ambition to get Goodall out of office that he forgot about his mother and his very close yet far friend, Rose. They hadn't spoken in 2 months, the longest they had ever been without talking. Yet in his head he excused his actions by constantly saying he is doing this for their own lives. For the people he cares about, but now this number had multiplied, he had so many people relying on him to deliver that he could not bear to feel the guilt of thousands of peoples stories that he now knew of to have them go back to their daily lives. He knew his ambition must be achieved, yet to become blinded by ones ambition means to forsake his daily life. And that he did, the people he started this for were as distant as they had ever been their entire lives. His own mother he only even saw crying on the porch or finding her smoking in contemplation.

More time has passed and although he has continued to garner even more support for his cause, Goodall has been doing the same on his campaign trail. There was one huge problem that affected Aurelian’s plan. His plan was to take down Goodall, his entire argument was to highlight all Goodall has done wrong and shame him out of the presidential running and in turn have any other candidate win the election. But he was not supporting anyone in particular with his blog posts or rallies, they only agreed upon their hatred for Goodall rather than for any candidate. This caused “Air’s” supporters to cast their votes for a plethora of candidates instead of one main person to oppose Goodall. The final polls a week before the election finally came out, and they showed over 40 percent favor in the Goodall Campaign. Now although he had under half the vote, the other 3 candidates had each around 20% of the vote. Aurelian knew it was his own inefficient system of opposition that had to do with these results. Aurelian knew that no matter what he did, Goodall would take office. There just simply was not enough time left to make any drastic change in the polls. Even though as it may be, Aurelian's mind raced, bouncing off hundreds of ideas all coming to the same end, failure. He finally came to the only solution he could see working - the death of John Goodall. If we were to be in the mind of Aurelian 3 months ago, there is no way he would have even thought of such an idea let alone plan it. But his ambition, and the weight of everyone’s hopes were being dragged by Aurelian’s conscious. Left with no other choice, Aurelian then spent the next three days planning the assassination. He couldn’t decide on where it would be, he had hoped for a remote location, but Goodall was a wealthy man, and there was no way to be able to figure out where he was considering they didn’t exactly have friends in common. So, he finally decided for it to take place on the last rally of his presidency, not because he wanted him to feel as if he was so close to success and then have the satisfaction to take it away from him, no, but because this last rally was inside an old opera house. Aurelian believes he could sneak into the light control room and find a shot; he would be practically invisible because no one else would be able to see him in the lights. It was a perfect location.

Aurelian was hesitant on telling Rose about the plan but knew he couldn’t keep this amount of stress bottled up by himself. Although it may be weird not talking to her for 2 months and then letting her know that “hey by the way, I’m gonna kill a presidential candidate.” He battled with all the different responses he may get from her, but at the end of the day he knew she wouldn’t see him as any different as a person. Right?

Around 8pm 2 days before the plan is supposed to take place, Aurelian finally musters the courage to tell Rose. Rose was in complete shock. “You do know what will happen to you if regardless of if you succeed or not right?” Her mind goes blank and imagines a world where this plan works. She imagines her child hood friend turning into someone who would take a life. She does not know how to feel about this entire situation. She wears that on her face and it causes Aurelian to ask, “What are you thinking about?” she then began to cry, because in a weird way she saw his actions as equal to what he has always been. Someone who will do anything to help his loved ones. Rose feels immense guilt because she knows he is doing this in part, for her own wellbeing. She hates the idea of maybe losing Aurelian, but she can see it in his eyes that he is going to go through with it regardless of her support. So, she bites her lip and nods her head in agreement, wanting to say more, needing to say more… Yet she cannot, instead she was supportive of the decision. Her mind selfishly races to her own life. Considering she was only with her abusive boyfriend because she couldn't afford a place of her own due to Goodall’s greed. She thought, “maybe this can be the way for me to get away.”

Aurelian travels back to his house and goes over his plans a couple more times before the night is out, considering he has quite a large task to accomplish tomorrow. He dreams of his success and knows he planned this attempt to the T, it will take place during the last convention addressing Goodall’s followers. And right before he leaves the stage, the world will stop, a wife will become a widow and 2 kids will be left without a father. He can’t sleep. He grapples with everything that may go wrong and how he had hoped not to do it in public but there was no way to determine where Goodall would be at any given time, so he had to rely on the information that everyone knew. He did not want people to think he wanted the attention, as if he was trying to be the next Booth. He just wanted to do what was right. At this point he had no conception of morality. This man had wronged him, did he deserve to die for it? His mother has tried to kill herself countless times and Aurelian has largely blamed Goodall for it “so wouldn’t it only be fair?” thought Aurelian. “But the damn kids, they did nothing to me, his wife, she did nothing to me. I can’t let morality cloud my mind on the eve of Judgement Day.

The day finally came, Aurelian is going to set out 2 hours before the event to set up everything he needed, he had taken a hunting rifle from his father’s safe to accomplish his task and hid his plans under his closet wood frame. He gathered his thoughts and put them in the back of his mind. He knew if he was thinking clearly, he would not go through with it. He finally walks out the door and into his old canoe setting forth on the convention center.

Torrent was getting ready to go to the event himself, happy as can be knowing John Goodall, the man that will change the world is about to become our next president. Torrent went to his gun safe to get his carry-on pistol he goes with everywhere. He noticed one of his rifles missing and tried to remember if he had misplaced it. Certain he did not, he began searching everywhere for it, he checked his closet, nothing, he checked his boat, nothing, he even checked the kitchen, nothing. He began to think of where his gun could be and then began getting angry thinking his idiotic son or his incompetent wife had stolen one of his guns. He began to search their personal belongings and eventually he searched his son’s closet. Torrent finds a broken wood frame in the floor, he got suspicious and thought that is where his son might have hidden it. To his surprise it was stacks of papers and the layout of the convention building. Confused he kept looking through and eventually found it all…. The location, the how, the when, and finally, to his dismay, the who.

As Aurelian is in place to take the shot, police officers rush the room, panicking, Aurelian tries to take the shot in a hurry and fires the weapon. He missed his target, but that does not mean the bullet was not encompassed by the blood of Goodall. The bullet struck Goodall’s son who took the stage to commemorate the campaign and give thanks.
This bullet would kill his son immediately. As if to give light to a gruesome situation, the lack of suffering of a child being murdered for the sins of adults.
Aurelian's heart sank as he saw the stage. The disappointment in his father's eyes. And the face of the innocent little boy he had just taken away from this world. He knew he had made a mistake, but it was too late to turn back now. As the police took him, he couldn't help but think about everything he had lost. And everything he had taken away….

A week passed and he got news Goodall won in a landslide, getting over 70% of the vote as many people felt the emotion of his son being shot. And grieved with him as one human being to another.

A year passed in prison, and Aurelian received the news that his mother had killed herself. He was devastated, but not surprised. He had seen the pain and suffering she had gone through, and he knew that he had contributed to it.

Two more years passed, and Aurelian found out that Rose had married her boyfriend. He was heartbroken, but he knew he had no one to blame but himself. He had become so obsessed with his ambition to take down John Goodall that he had forgotten about the people who had supported him from the beginning.

Aurelian was now left to contemplate his life and what he had given up. He had lost his mother, his lover, his father had forsaken him, and he was haunted each and every day by his owndoing. He had also lost his freedom and his future. He knew that he had made a grave mistake, and he would spend the rest of his life regretting it.

As he sat in his prison cell, Aurelian knew that he had become the very thing he had set out to destroy. He had let his anger and ambition consume him, and it had led to his downfall. He had become a cautionary tale, a warning to others about the dangers of blind ambition and misplaced anger. And the effect on those around him.

In the end, Aurelian realized that it was not worth sacrificing everything for a cause, especially if it meant hurting the people he loved and the innocent. He had learned his lesson, but it had come at a grave price. As he closed his eyes and thought about what could have been, Aurelian knew that he would never be able to undo his mistakes. All he could do now was to live with the consequences of his actions and be labeled as a martyr in time that will outlive him.