CXA Universe
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.



 
HomeLatest imagesSearchRegisterLog in

 

 Exit Joxide (Back story)

Go down 
3 posters
AuthorMessage
Julius Seizure

Julius Seizure


Posts : 996
Join date : 2010-11-06
Location : England

Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitimeTue Jan 25, 2011 10:14 am

OOC: More to come after this, so I hope you enjoy reading it.



=========================



[3 years ago, just after the closure of TXA's first form]

The meeting room was silent. The tension was thick, and all the usually smarmy suits that usually grinned and handshook their way through deals and executive meals were looking rather stony faced. Asses were on the edges of seats all around the table. The suits were worried. Some main investors had pulled out of TXA, stock value had plummeted and people were catching on. It was like an avalanche of failure heading straight towards the board of directors.

The self appointed leader of the board, Peter Cranmore, stood up from his seat. His usually calm expression was replaced by worry. His eyes looked tired and it was pretty clear he hadn't slept well recently. The rest of the board didn't look much better.

"Right then, I think we've waited long enough. We'll begin."

A murmur of general agreement immersed the table. The last man on the board was yet to arrive, but Peter Cranmore and his band of experienced executives saw this as more of an opportunity to pin all the shit on him, so were fairly happy to continue. They just couldn't be allowed to show it.

The door to the large plush office swung open and the last member of the board swanned in. Typical of him, he wasn't wearing a £3000 Armani suit like the rest, but a pair of black jeans and a red Hawaiian shirt. He grinned sheepishly at the board and then took his place at the table. He took a small metal case from his pocket and removed a thick brown cigar, a Jose L. Piedra, and sparked it up, much to the disgust of those around him. Typical Joxide. And he didn't give a shit. The expressions of the board all said the same thing: you pompous twat.

Peter Cranmore gave him a rather disapproving look.

"You're late. We were about to start without you."

"I bet you were. Lucky I made it here before you started so you couldn't assign all responsibility to me, eh?"

A few members of the board looked away guiltily.

"Come on Cranky, I think we've wasted enough time. Let's get on with it."

'Cranky' Cranmore sighed and sat down.

"I trust you realise the gravity of this situation?"

"Of course. Everyone's taking the money and running, In a nutshell, we're all fucked."

"… Indeed."

Cranmore looked at Joxide quizzically. He didn't seem too worried at the fact that his entire fortune was being flushed down the pan as they spoke.

"We need to discuss some things…"

Joxide blew a thick cloud of smoke towards the ceiling as he exhaled.

"I'm going to file for bankruptcy."

The board looked at him as one.

"I might as well. We're all fucked. You lot can try and regain your fortunes if you want. Not me though. I'm done. Done in this business. I want a quiet life."

"You can't just up and leave like this!"

"Of course I can, Cranky. I was one of the founding members of this company. I had a few clauses written into the contracts. You know, a few subtle backhanders here, a bit of sneaky corporate practice there, you know."

Peter Cranmore looked confused. Joxide stood up from his place at the table.

"I won't bore you with the details. I understand that there's some paperwork to be done. You'll get it in the mail, Cranky. Send mine to my box in Reading."

Peter Cranmore's face was beet red.

"You can't just leave like this!"

"Oh yes I can!" Joxide shouted back from the corridor.



=========================



[2 weeks later]

Joxide woke slowly from a deep sleep to a large bang from downstairs. He sat up in his dirty, unkept bed, eyes closed, and swung his feet onto the floor. Still clothed from the night before in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved t shirt. His head pounded ferociously, the backlash of the night before, as if asking him what the fuck he was playing at.

Joxide opened his eyes and stood up slowly. His mouth tasted like next door's cat had died in it and thrown up before doing so. He hocked up a greener of throat sludge, the contents of which he dared to think, and closed his eyes as he spat it out onto a dirty coffee mug by his bedside. Coughing from the night's intake of roll-ups and bong hits he stood before the mirror. Joxide looked like a tramp. His t shirt he'd been wearing for 3 days now stank of spilt beer and bong water and the sleeves had white smearing stains on them from using them as a makeshift handkerchief.

Joxide blinked several times to stop the itching in his eyes from the 2 day old contact lenses and walked out on the landing. Stepping over the sleeping body of what liked a seventeen year old kid on the landing he walked down the stairs and into the front room of this scummy, three-bedroom semi detached house. The thick curtains were pulled shut, making the place look dark despite the time on Joxide's phone showing the time as 14:17.

Fuck, he thought. This has got to stop.

Two bodies lay on the floor snoring. One was slumped on the grubby armchair and another stretched out on the stained, dirty sofa. Joxide's housemates must still be asleep in the other rooms upstairs. He brushed his long unwashed hair out of his face and walked into the kitchen. He flicked on the kettle and grabbed a dirty mug from the draining board. He looked into the open cupboard door and saw an empty box of teabags. Well, the shop is only down the road, he thought. Might as well go and get some… Joxide stepped over the bodies to get to the front door, picking up an unsmoked roll-up from next to one of them as he did.

The bright sunlight hit him hard. It was an April afternoon. That uncertain time where you're not quite sure whether it's going to beat down sunlight or piss down with rain. This being England, it's kind of like that all year round anyway. Today there was not a cloud in the sky and was pretty warm outside too.

Two kids rollerbladed past Joxide with no shirts on. He looked at his own stained t shirt and took it off then threw it on the doorstep. Stretching, he made his way to the shop, remembering only then to check his phone.

Answerphone message. Don't get many of these anymore, Joxide thought as he unlocked his phone to check in the unlikely event of someone wanting to speak to him. Well, that wasn't strictly true. People wanted to speak to him. He daresay people wanted to hurt him, but he wasn't really worried about that. He'd ditched his old phone after leaving TXA headquarters a few weeks ago and his old residence in London and returned to Wells to stay with some old friends. Telling that prat Cranky Cranmore to send his stuff to Reading was a decoy move. One of his friends had removed all the papers from the box and mailed them on to him.

The 'old friends' led pretty rough lives of drug taking, all night parties, excessive drinking, paid for by other peoples' eagerness to part with their dole money for illegal substances. Joxide didn't know the extent of his housemates' dodgy activities but he elected to keep out of that side of things. He'd party with them with the bit of money he had left in the bank, but he had other long term plans he was banking on.

He looked at the strange number on his phone. It started with 00507. Looks like someone, somewhere far away wanted to get in contact with him. Sounds promising. He listened to the message.

"Alright maaaate…" Joxide smiled to himself. It's all coming together. "Everything we discussed is in order. I fly into Barajas airport on Friday afternoon. I've sent you the flight details in an email. To your secret email address. Don't worry about conserving your money, you're probably running low by now. Hahaha."

The phone clicked dead and the phone asked Joxide whether he'd like to save the message. Instead he hung up. Instinctively, on the mention of money, Joxide put his hand into his right pocket. His wallet had a tenner and a few coins in his pocket. He knew he had about £500 in his account. That would be more than enough to see him through the three days until Friday.

Back at Casa Joxide, the door slammed shut as Joxide appeared in the hall. A few heads stirred. The curtains were flung back and much needed light poured into the dark sweaty room. Last nights party guests groaned in disapproval. One of his housemates, Adam, poked his head round the corner from the kitchen, nodded and grinned and gave him a thumbs up wearing a pair of flowery, rubber washing up gloves.

"Tea, vicar!?"

Adam and Matt, his housemates, always kind of puzzled Joxide. They were clean-shaven, good natured lads. Between them they were friends with what seemed like the whole town, albeit for the wrong reasons, and sometimes to Joxide's extreme annoyance at 3am Tuesday morning when there were still 8 people downstairs smoking and drinking. They helped old Mr and Mrs. Evans next door take out their rubbish. Last week he'd even seen Matt in their garden pulling up weeds. They were good guys, but their friends and associates really irritated Joxide. He was sure their house would actually be respectable if it wasn't for the lecherous, degenerative guests they received. If you saw them on the street you wouldn't think that this was how they live.

Joxide threw the box of teabags over to Adam. The bodies on the floor were moving. One of them looked over at Adam.

"Can I have a cup of tea, mate?"

"You can fuck off, actually."

Joxide wasn't impressed with this guy. He came round most weekends to spunk his wage packet. His hair was greasy and his clothes were grimey and he stank like someone who hadn't yet had the pleasure of being introduced to soap. Kind of like Joxide did at the moment, but he blocked that bit out.

"Chill out, man", the guy grinned sheepishly at Joxide, who sighed and grabbed the hood on the coat he'd slept in and pulled him up to his feet and frogmarched him out the front door and pushed him onto the lawn.

"You're such a dick, man", the guy protested.

"Shut up and fuck off" Joxide said to the guy as he walked back into the house.

By now most were getting up, not wanting to be manhandled out of the house by a muscled former wrestler, and understandably so. They shuffled out of the house, mumbling that they'd call them on the weekend or something. The two left were still passed out on the sofa and armchair. Matt was sat cross legged on the floor smoking a roll up.

"What's gwanin' with you then?" he said, grinning slightly as Joxide evicted the last two to weak protests.

"I'm going away for a while. Business trip. Kind of."

"Right…" They both eyed him suspiciously. They knew a little of what had happened with TXA but Joxide had purposefully not revealed too much to anyone.

"I don't think I'll be back for a while. I'll be in touch in a week or two when I'm all settled. I should be leaving tomorrow morning."

"Uh, okay."

"I'll send you a postcard" Joxide grinned at them.

"Where are you going?" asked Adam.

"I'm not too sure yet. Far away though probably. And hopefully for a long time. I'm sick of this country, lads. And also there's a few blokes in London who aren't too happy with some of my, err, 'corporate decisions'. But that's kind of irrelevant now."

That night they sunk a few beers and ate a curry, and turned away all the heads that came to the door looking for their fix and the next morning at 7am, Joxide left the house with a bag of clothes, and caught a taxi to Bristol airport and left the country on an early flight to Madrid's Barajas airport, armed with a £4000 credit card limit to see him through to Friday and high hopes and dreams of starting a new life.


Last edited by julius seizure on Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:20 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : text formatting)
Back to top Go down
Julius Seizure

Julius Seizure


Posts : 996
Join date : 2010-11-06
Location : England

Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitimeTue Jan 25, 2011 10:23 am

OOC: Oh, and any feedback or constructive criticism you have would be appreciated, it's been a while since I done this!
Back to top Go down
Faulerro

Faulerro


Posts : 218
Join date : 2010-10-10

Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitimeTue Jan 25, 2011 12:06 pm

OOC: Loving it. I'd swear you've got better.
Back to top Go down
Julius Seizure

Julius Seizure


Posts : 996
Join date : 2010-11-06
Location : England

Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitimeTue Jan 25, 2011 12:37 pm

Cheers mate, yeah considering that's the first RP I've written in a while I'm pretty pleased with it. I'm considering trying a 1st person one further down the line. You made yours work really well, I was quite impressed Cool
Back to top Go down
Mjolnir

Mjolnir


Posts : 2467
Join date : 2010-10-09
Location : London, England

Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitimeTue Jan 25, 2011 12:46 pm

Ooc: I totally agree with Chris, you have gotten better. That was very very well written, and you have a very good natural narrative style. I liked that a lot.

I'm now quite intrigued by what's been happening with Joxide. Looking forward to reading more.
Back to top Go down
https://facebook.com/david.shand
Julius Seizure

Julius Seizure


Posts : 996
Join date : 2010-11-06
Location : England

Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitimeWed Jan 26, 2011 3:40 pm

Cheers mate, glad to have some positive responses.

Part two tomorrow, and possibly something else depending on how creative my brain is feeling when I get home from work!
Back to top Go down
Sponsored content





Exit Joxide (Back story) Empty
PostSubject: Re: Exit Joxide (Back story)   Exit Joxide (Back story) Icon_minitime

Back to top Go down
 
Exit Joxide (Back story)
Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
CXA Universe :: CXA 2011 Event :: In-Character-
Jump to: