Gents Journey
Helping Men become the Gentleman they deserve to be. This Podcast is part inspiration part motivation. We discuss what it takes to be a Gentleman in the 21st Century. We also talk about how to deal with the internal and external battles that life throws at us. So come be apart of the Gents Journey!
Gents Journey
The Patience of Predators: The Ledger
What if your life was being tallied without your knowledge? What if someone—or something—was keeping track of every mistake, every debt, every moment of weakness?
Aston's nightmare begins with a simple discovery: twelve Polaroid photographs arranged on his kitchen counter in the middle of the night. Not scattered randomly, but positioned with deliberate precision like entries in a ledger. Each bears a mysterious red mark in the corner, like debts being counted. One mark, two marks, three marks, four...
As the high-powered attorney tries to make sense of these unsettling photographs, his carefully constructed world begins to fracture. His colleagues at the prestigious Warren and Keller firm circle like sharks sensing blood in the water. A mysterious stranger on the subway carries a briefcase filled with more photographs of Aston—from angles and moments he doesn't recognize. Music with pointed lyrics seeps through his walls at the most unsettling moments.
The ledger grows. The red marks multiply. The photos rearrange themselves when he isn't looking. The debt is climbing, but what exactly does he owe? And to whom?
This haunting fourth episode of "The Patience of Predators" series explores the arithmetic of guilt and the ledgers we all silently keep. When does a man become prey? When does he become the predator? Sometimes the hunter and the hunted exist within the same skin, and the most frightening reflection is the one that smiles back without your permission.
Take a journey into psychological horror that will make you question the debts you carry, the reflections you avoid, and the personal ledgers you might be keeping without even realizing it. Remember—predators don't always wear teeth. Sometimes they wear patience.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman Journey Podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today we are in episode four of the patient of predators. So let's go ahead and let's get in the cold opening. Aston stood in the kitchen, barefoot on cold marble. He didn't remember walking there. He didn't remember leaving his bed. One moment there he had been sheets tangled around his legs, the heavy fog of half sleep clinging on him like damp cloths, and the next this. The apartment was silent, too silent. The radio that always rattled faintly in winter had gone mute. The hum of the city outside seemed pressed against the glass, as if muffled by unseen hands. The counter was lit in a weak wash of street light leaking through the window. On it arranged in a neat, deliberate order, were the Polaroids, not scattered, not fanned, not abandoned where he dropped them last, arranged, two precise rows side by side, stretching across the marble like ledger entries, twelve in total, six above, six below, each pair mirrored, the other, himself half asleep in bed above, himself outside the diner below, himself staring into the glass above, himself on the courthouse steps below, himself walking into the firm's lobby above, himself in the leather chair below, rows of doubles, pairs, columns, like accounts being tallied. Aston's throat tightened. His breath sounded too loud, a hiss in the stillness. He forced himself forward, each step echoing off the tile, as though someone else moved in rhythm behind him. He hovered over the photographs, his fingers trembled above them, but it didn't touch. It looked different. No, not different. He felt they were different. Shadows were sharper, the eyes were colder. He leaned in closer. The photograph of him asleep, the one he hated the most, now bore a faint mark in the corner. A slash of red, thin, crooked, like a pen had dragged across it. Snatched it up, held it under the light. Mark glared back at him, bright as blood. His pulse roared in his eyes. Someone had been here. Someone had touched them. Someone had kept score. His knees weakened, and he braced against the counter. His eyes darted across the row, searching, scanning, desperate. Another mark. This one on the diner photo. Two short red lines in the corner. Corridor steps three, a leather chair four, a ledger, a sequence, a debt being tallied line by line. Ashton's chest seized. He pressed the photographs flat, aligning them, counting aloud in a whisper that cracked. One, two, three, four, each puller at each moment, five, six. The next was clean, unmarked, seven, another clean one. His breathing grew ragged, shallow. Someone was counting his life. From somewhere deep in the walls faint music stirred. At first he thought it was the hum of a neighbor's television, but the sound sharpened, bending in the melody. RM's losing my religion. That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion. The lyrics slithered across the kitchen, curling into his ears like smoke. The corner of the spotlight clicked back of the Polaroids, the red marks glared like fresh wounds. He whispered, What are you keeping track of? His own voice sounded alien, hollow. The music drifted lower, muffled by walls until it was gone. He lifted another photograph. Reflection in this one smiled faintly. He dropped it. The Polaroid slapped against the marble face up. The smile remained. No. It changed. It wider. He stepped back, his pulse was racing. His heels struck the edge of the counter. His skin prickled with cold sweat. The circle from before the twelve photographs that once formed a ring on the counter. He remembered it now. This was different. It was ordered, it was tallied. This wasn't chaos. This was bookkeeping. His chest rose and fell in harsh rhythm. He couldn't stay in the kitchen. He needed distance. But when he returned, the living room loomed darker than it should have, shadows spilling too far, stretching too long. He froze. Silence deepened, and then soft, almost imperceptible, the click of a camera shutter. Behind him, Aston spun, heart hammering, eyes wide. On her bare except for the Polarites, lying like soldiers marked like deaths. The sound lingered in his skull ringing like a memory. Click, click, click. His knees gave and he collapsed into the nearest chair, his hands pressed into his temples, fingers digging as though he could hold his skull together.
SPEAKER_01:Not real, not fucking real, not real, not fucking real.
SPEAKER_00:But the Polaroids remained. Not the radiator not the city. A voice low male breathing, waiting. Aston forced himself to look again at the photograph with the red mark. His eyes blurred, but the line remained unmistakable. Someone was keeping a ledger. The next mark would be his Part one Completeless Arithmetic Patience of Predators Episode four The Ledger. The clock on the stove glowed three seventeen AM and steady green digit. Aston had not gone back to bed. He couldn't. The photograph spread across the marble counter refused to let him. They were lined up exactly how he found them, two neat rows, redmarks slashed in the corners, like the notches of an ancient accountant. Ed moved them, couldn't move them. These are not yours to disturb. Yet the silence of the apartment pressed down on him, suffocating until the thought became unbearable. He didn't begin to catalog them. They would catalog him. Buston fetched a legal pad from his briefcase. He sat at the counter, pen in hand, and began his arithmetic. He numbered them first, one through twelve, top row, bottom row. He drew little boxes beside each number, as he did when preparing to position outlines, thoughtical and precise. Number one asleep, one mark. Two diner, two marks, three, courthouse, three marks. Four chair, four marks, five, firm lobby, none. Six, glass reflection, none, seven through twelve. He stopped. Seven through twelve weren't right. He leaned closer, squinting in the dim light. They were clean, yes. No red slashes. But something about them pricked through his skin. The light, the angle, the faint smudge of a shadow along the bottom corner of each frame. He scribbled it down. Shadow present question mark. Silence deepened. Aston kept writing. Began pairing the photographs in the pad, drawing lines between doubles. Bed above dinner, courthouse above chair, reflection above lobby, Paris, columns, ledgers. It felt too deliberate to dismiss as coincidence. What was a ledger not a record of debt? Is my turn to the red mark. One, two, three, four. A progression, a secret debt's owed by whom? He pressed the pen harder against the paper, scratching in letters with curious precision. Owed by me? The words blurred before his eyes. He blinked hard, lifted his head and stared across the counter at the two neat rows of Polaroids. They stared back. Somewhere below, in the bones of the building a pipe groaned. The sound echoed like a voice clearing its throat. Aston stiffened, and froze midair. Violence returned. He looked back to the pad. His headering had changed. Not the words, just the style. As though someone else had written them owed by me. The letters bled across the yellow page, like an accusation. Tore the sheet from the pad, crumpled it, hurled it into the trash, the sound of paper striking the bend seemed too loud, as if it woke something in the apartment. The silence swelled again. Puleroids remained patient, waiting. Aston forced himself to keep writing, line by line, tally by tally. If he gave the chaos order, maybe it would obey him. But the more he wrote, the more the numbers refused to settle. He added them once more, he added them twice, each time the total shifted. One mark plus two plus three plus four plus ten. Obvious. When he tallied them again, the pen dragged across the paper as if it pulled by an unseen hand. The total read eleven. Tried again twelve, next time thirteen. He gripped the pen so hard it nearly split in his fist. His jaw ached from the grind of his teeth. Simple math, he muttered. Simple math. But the totals kept climbing. One, two, three, four, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Dat rising but never balanced. He slammed the pen down and shoved the pad away. His breathing became ragged, shallow, broken. On the counter, the photograph of the chair seemed to tilt. He snatched it before he could think better of it. His reflection stared back from the glossy surface, faintly warped by the light. Red slash in the corner flared like a wound. Beneath it, faint and crooked a second mark had appeared. He dropped the photograph, clattered against the marble face up, two marks now, debt rising. On the wall faint and muffled, music stirred again. Rivanus, come as you are. Take your time. Hurry up. The choice is yours. Don't be late. They were pressed into his chest like a blade. He backed away from the counter, hands raised as it was to ward off the photographs. His heel struck the chair like he staggered, nearly falling. Polaroids remained lying like ledgered entries, marks multiplying when he wasn't looking. Patient, silent, certain. Aston sank into the chair pressing his palms against his knees to keep them from shaking. The pad lay open on the counter, the words he had written glowing faint in the street light. You owe us he whispered in silence. What do I owe? No answer. Only the faint scrap of a pen against paper. Though his hand lay still. Pad bore a new line Everything. Part two Conversations Fracture. The morning came gray, brittle, and without warmth. Aston hadn't slept. He haven't even tried. Photographs remained on the counter, red marks glaring like wounds, and every time his eyes closed, heard the whisper of a pen on paper. He swore the number shifted when he blinked. So he shaved, dressed, and stepped into the firm, with his eyes hollowed, jaw locked, forcing composure like a mask. Warren and Keller's lobby was cathedral like in its gleam, glass, marble chrome. Usually Aston carried himself through like a man crossing a stage. Today he felt like it defended an approaching judgment. Late again? Elliot Warren muttered as Aston entered the conference room. I was working. Aston replied too quickly, his throat scraped with the words. Elliot studied him beat longer than usual. You look like hell. I'm I'm fine. You're not Elliot leaned closer, voice so quiet it might have been only meant for him. Get your house in order, Keller. This place runs on precision. The words echoed like gravel precision, order, ledger. Essence's chest tightened. Across the table, Janine Torres rested her chin on her hand, her eyes locked on him. She didn't blink. You were on Broadway again last night, you said. The room fell silent, paper stilled, pen stopped scratching. Aston turned sharply. What did you say? I saw you, Janine continued, her voice calm, deliberate. You walked past me in your forty fifth, didn't even look my way. That's impossible, Aston snapped. I was home. Her lips curved, not quite a smile. Okay, then who was it? He opened his mouth and closed it. Whispers fluttered down the table, soft his mouth swinged. Swear it was him again. Keeping score. Ray's hooked him like a blade, keeping score. His jaw ached from the force of his teeth grinding. He shoved his papers together too roughly, and the sound cracked through the silence. Focus, Elliot barked, slamming his hand against the table. This firm does not tolerate distractions. But Aston wasn't listening. He was staring at Janine. Her eyes were steady and blinking, watching. Make sure he knew the marks on the polaroids. Violent whispers had spread. He caught fragments as he passed the socias in the hallway. He slipping, ledgers catching up. That always comes due. His pulse raced, his vision tunneled. Every glance, every pause in conversation when he entered felt like another red mark in the ledger. By the late afternoon, he could no longer tell the voices were theirs or his. When he finally retreated to his office, the city beyond the glass loomed, fractured, skyscrapers tilting in the haze of his exhaustion. His reflection floated faint in the pain, but the eyes weren't his. And then there was the man with a briefcase. Aston noticed him immediately. Not because he was remarkable, but because he wasn't. Except for the way he sat too still, briefcase balanced on his knees, hands clasped over it like a priest guarding a sacrament. Ashton's tough tightened. Briefcase looked wrong, worn leather, cracked at the corners, scuffed from years of handling, reminded of the legals satchels senior partners carried decades ago, before a sleek black dialing replaced them. Out of time, out of place, and heavy. The man's wrist trembled faintly under its weight. At the next stop the train jolted, wheels grinding against the track. Man's grip slipped, briefcase tipped. The latch sprang open. A spill of photographs cascaded to the floor. Polaroids. Dozens. The man cursed under his breath, scrambling to gather them, but not fast enough. Aston saw one land face up against his shoe. It was him. Aston. Standing outside the firm, had tilted eyes hollow, not a memory, not one of his, another life, another angle. The man satched it up, stuffed it into the pile, dubbed everything back into the case. The latch shut with a sharp click. Then he looked up straight at Aston, her eyes locked. The man's expression was blank, almost calm, but the gaze carried carried weight, pressure, a ledger closing. The subway lurched forward again, throwing Aston off balance. When he studied himself the man was on his feet, briefcase in hand, moving towards the door. Aston's throat closed, his pulse hammered. At the next stop the man stepped off, the door slid shut between them. He looked. Aston saw him fade into the crowd. The briefcase clutched tight against his side. Gone. Aston stood frozen, knuckles wide against the rail, till the train plunged back into the darkness. The reflection of the window, he swore he saw himself sitting where the man had been, hands folded, briefcase balanced on his knees, smiling. Part four. The firm had emptied out by the time Aston left his office, whilst the lights were off, leaving long stretches of the hallway in shadow. Only the green glow of emergency exign painted corridors, but the faint hum of the ventilation system filled the silence. His shoes clicked against the marble, each step too loud, rebounding as if someone followed just behind him. He rounded the corner desperate for the elevator, stopped. Nine Torres leaned against the wall at the copy room, arms folded, eyes glinting in the dim light. He looked like she'd been waiting for him. You're working late, she said, her voice smooth and unhurried. So are you, Assam replied, though his throat felt tight. Lips curved faintly, not quite a smile. Some of us can handle it. The word slid beneath his skin, barbed. He tried to move past her, but she pushed off the wall, falling into him step behind. Her heels tapp lightly, predator's rhythm steady and deliberate. You've been off, she said. Everyone sees it. I'm fine. You're not. Her gaze flicked to him sharp and blinking. Elliot smells it. So do the juniors. Weakness doesn't last long here. He clenched his jaw, staring straight ahead. Careful, Janine. Her voice and laugh was low, almost immune. Careful? That's what people say when they're already bleeding. He stopped walking. She stopped too, facing him in the half light of the hallway, her eyes locked, predator to predator. You think for one moment you can replace me? he asked, with a voice low and dangerous. Her expression sharpened, satisfaction flicking across her face. Not replace survive. There's a difference. Their silence stretched taut as a wire. For a moment it felt like they weren't colleagues at all, but animals on an opposite side of a kilt. Then the elevator door dinged, and the door slid open. Jenny broke the stair first, stepping inside. As the doors began to close, she tilted her head and said softly, try to keep up, Aston. Door sealed. Deck over words clinged to him all the way out of the building. The city at night felt sharper than usual, every light like a scarpel against the dark. Aston walked quickly, collar up, shoulders hunched, but the weight of Jean's words pressed against him with each step, bleeding, weakness survived. Everyone was circling, everyone was watching. The time he reached his building, that had soaked the collar of his shirt despite the chill. Dorman gave him a polite nod, but even that looked like judgment. On the elevator, his reflection hovered pale and hollow in the mirrored wall. For a moment, the mouth curved into a grin without his permission. He looked away, carts pounding. The apartment fell, silent, and he entered. Too silent. Photographs waited on the counter, rearranged yet again, not in rows this time column, uneven and jagged, like the pages of a ledger of mid calculation. Essen's knees nearly buckled. He gripped the counter with both hands, staring down the glassy squares. More red marks? The dinner photo now had three, the courthouse four, the chair five, the debts were climbing. He pressed both palms against flat the marble, bowing his head, chest heaving the fuck do you want me? No answer. Only the ringing silence. The phone shat shattered it. Sharp and merciless. Aston staggered to it, nearly knocking over a chair in his rush. He snatched the receiver voice crackling. Claire Claire Claire, you there? Claire A pause. Static. Then her voice faint, fractured, but unmistakable. Aston His chest broke open, relief and grief tingled inside of him, sharp enough to bring tears to his eyes. God I You sound tired, he whispered. I can't sleep. Why? He swallowed hard, glancing back at the photograph. Because someone's keeping score. Numbers, Aston? One two three His blood ran cold. Her voice shifted, overlapped by a deeper tone. Male low four five Ledger Balance due asked and pressed the receiver harder against his ear. Stop it. Stop it, Claire, what is this? The voices tangled her softness against his depth, till there became a noise that wasn't language anymore, just rhythm. Counting. Ashton clutched the phone so tightly his knuckles blanched. Tell me what you want. The line clicked dead. He stood frozen, his heavers still pressed to his ear, breath jagged, body trembling. The Dalton droned back, flat and merciless. He lowered the phone slowly, his hand shaking. Polarites on the counter stared back, head marks gleaming like flesh wounds. The ledger was growing. Predators were closing in. For the first time, Asman realized he wasn't prey because he was weak. He was prey because he bled. Predators never stopped circling. Part five The Ledger of Reflections. Aston turned every light in the apartment on. It didn't help. Polaroids gleamed under the artificial glow, red marks bright as fresh wounds. He couldn't stand them on the counter anymore, couldn't endure the sense of being catalogued, so he gathered them up with shaking hands, began pinning them to the wall above his desk. One by one, twelve photographs, each placed. Carefully, methodically, as if order could contain them. He fetched red thread from a drawer, left over from a case where he had once mapped the movements of a prepped accountant. Back then it had been professional, clinical, now it felt like a ritual. He tied string from one pullarite to another, mapping connections, the diner to the courthouse, the chair to the reflection, from lobby to the bed, lines stretched across the walls like vein. He stood back, passiving eyes wide, a web, a ledger, a record of debts. He was at the center. He took the legal pad again, scribbling furiously. Dates, places, the number of red marks. Betrayed him. If he told the edge shifted, and he checked it again. One plus two plus three plus four, better than ten. When he traced the lines and the pad, some came out something different each time. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. The numbers climbed, always climbing, never balancing. He ripped the page, threw it down, started again. Still wrong. The letter refused to close. He turned back to the wall. The polaris seemed to have shifted. Not much just enough. The bed photo hung a little lower. The diner tilted slightly left. His breath stuttered. They were moving. Sam broke the silence. Soft click the shutter of a camera. He spun, heart hammering, but the apartment was empty. Shadows stretched long against the walls, but no one was there. When he turned back, one of the photographs had changed a chair. Its reflection smiled wider. And beside red slashes in the corner, a fifth mark had appeared. From the street below, faint music drifted through the glass. Temple of Dogs Hunger Strike. I don't mind stealing bread from the mouths of decadence. The lyric crawled into him, sharp and accusing. He staggered back, clutching the edge of the desk, eyes locked on the Polaroids. Ledger wasn't keeping score, it was feeding on him, on everything he refused to face. The wall of photographs loomed larger, lines of red thread cutting across his vision like bars. He whispered, voice breaking, what do I owe? What do I owe? No answer. Only silence. And then the weight of the photographs pressing against him, telling debts that would never be paid. Part six The Red Ink The apartment felt smaller. Every light was still on. Shadows thickened anyway, hanging to corners, pressing in at the edges of his vision. Aston sat at the desk beneath the wall of Polaroids, the red thread webbing outward like veins from his heart. He stared at the legal pad. Fresh page, no attempt. Numbers scratched down the yellow line. One, two, three, four. The red mark. The debts. Added them again and again and again. Each time the sum changed. Ten, eleven, twelve. Then without his hand moving, the number thirteen appeared at the bottom of the page, written in red. He dropped the pen, it clattered against the desk, rolling until it stopped against his wrist. His stomach lurched, file sharp in his throat. On the wall, the Polaroid shimmered faintly under the light. For a moment he swore the glossy surfaces pulsed like breathing. He forced himself closer. Terra photo again, the one that always unsettled him the most. His reflection smelled wider now, showing teeth. He staggered back, nearly tripping over the chair leg. He looked again another polarite had changed, the courthouse steps. First glance it looked the same, him standing rigid, hand on the rail, with a red tally mark in the corner bled downward, smeared like wet ink, dripping into marble steps. Blood, utter ink, red. Silence cracked. A sound rose from the wall, soft at first, then swelling. The low drone of a voice humming tunelessly, no melody, no words, just sound. Then beneath it, ain't music. Pearl Jam's alive. Son, she said, I've got a little story for you. The lyric cut him in half. The ledger knew. His breath came in shallow bursts. He stumbled back to the desk, ripped the page from the pad, tore it to shreds. The pieces fluttered to the floor bright yellow against the dark wood. But the Polaroids remained, still twelve, still watching, still waiting, and the red ink bled deeper. Aston pressed both palms against his face, fingers digging to his eyes until stars burst behind them. What do you want? he whispered, voice ragged, tell me what you want. The permit answered with silence. And then very softly, the sound of the shutter again. Click. He lowered his hand. On the desk the new Polaroid lay where the pad had been. Number thirteen. His own eyes. His own face. Eyes closed as if already dead. Aston's monologue. Photographs shouldn't add up to anything. They're supposed to be fragments. Lights snared on paper. A moment embalmed. You can tape them to a wall, you can pin you know red thread between them like veins, you can stack them in an envelope and sit on it like a lid. But they do not move. They do not breathe. They do not count. Mine do. They arrange themselves while I sleep or while I pretend to. They become columns and rows. They turn into a ledger that will not balance, a throat that will not clear, a mouth that keeps whispering numbers until I can feel them beating under my skin. One, two, three, four. It's not the ink that frightens me anymore. It's the arithmetic. I keep adding simple sums, and the total swells. Beyond what's there, as if the math knows something I don't. Ten becomes eleven, eleven becomes twelve. Tonight it reached thirteen without my hand moving. Red where my pen was black. My life annotated by someone who writes like me and not like me at all. I can still hear Janine saying weakness doesn't last long here. She didn't say it like a threat. She said it like a law of nature. You watch my face the way Ok watches a field, patient, certain, waiting for the right twitch. I used to admire her for that edge. Tonight I understand it, but everyone in these halls is a mouth. Irma's in a family. It's a feeding ground. Elliot smells it, Juniors whisper it. Nane names it blood in the water. City knows it too. In the glass of the subway I saw myself where a stranger sat, hands folded over a battered briefcase, a smile that didn't belong to me. The case spilled and my face landed against my shoe. Not a merview of mine, not an angle I ever lived, somebody is carrying the evidence, the way I carry guilt, close, possessive, too heavy for one set of wrists. Back in my apartment, I tried to make order. Turned on every light. I built a case file out of string and paper in denial. Told myself that I could diagram the moments bed, dinner, courthouse, lobby chair. I could name the principal beneath them, starve it. But the string looks like caterpillars now. The wall throbs like a body, and the photographs breathe. There is music when the numbers come. Sometimes it leaks through the walls, songs from this year, the city keeps humming back at me, like the one about losing my religion, or the one that says come as you are, as if the predator wants me unarmed and honest. Sometimes it's the only clip soft as a tongue against teeth, though close, I feel it breathe on my ear. Titles alone are enough to make their point. The words don't need me snug for me to choke on them. Claire's voice broke through again tonight. Said her name, something inside me cracked open like a bad joint. For a moment I believed relief could be a door. But the line filled with static numbers, her softness overlapped with a slower male breath, and what I heard wasn't conversation, it was counting. Not a lullaby, not it. Keep asking what I owe. The pad answers, my hand is still, everything it wrote, everything. Tore the page to pieces. I felt like tearing a confession I haven't made yet. Thirteen is sitting on the desk now, smiling the way the reflection does. One window thinks I'm not looking. Eyes closed, as if sleep is a verdict, as if peace is a mask. Is it one of the twelve? It is. Circle doesn't break, it widens. Completeness that keeps expanding. Halo that eats the head inside of it. Tell myself I'm being hunted. It makes the fear obedient, almost noble. But tonight, after Janine's voice, and the firm's immoral silence, and that humming on the line that sounded like numbers rolling through a throat. I can feel the other truth I've been hunting too. I chase proof the way starved thing chases scent. I press photographs to the glass and beg them to reveal an angle that clears me. I move the entries around the page, I compute and recompute the total. I call her just to hear a ledger turn to breath. Predators don't always wear teeth. Sometimes they wear patients. Sometimes they wear your face in the elevator mirror. At midnight, they tilt their head fraction too late. Sometimes they make a wall of Polaroids, but yeah I thought if I worked hard enough, the city would belong to me. Precision would save me. I see now precision is just a weapon with nicer handle. I can cut both ways. I did too. Here it is. I have a ledger. It's not mine. And it is. Entry's are twelve. Ink is red. Total keeps changing when I'm not looking. Can't sleep because I don't know which side of the column I live on anymore. Debt or credit. Hunter hunted. Man or reflection. Only certainty is arithmetic of absence. The way the city keeps whispering that balance will be enforced. The photographs are fragments, and the thing arranging them is a mouth. The thing is a mouth, then it wants to feed. If I am the meat, I'm also the one carrying the knife. Whew Alright guys, let's get into my monologue here. You know, if you if you're listening closely, the story is no longer about proof, right? It's about accounting. Twelve photographs circle the room like jurors. Who already gave and you know, I guess you could say agreed on a verdict, right? They aren't simply records of where he had been, they're positions on a board, pieces in an equation, entries in a book that wants to close. That's why the red marks matter more than the images. The camera is the pen, the sutter, or should say shutter, is the stamp. The apartment has become a desk where a quiet quirk tallies a light. And notice how the predators multiply without adding bodies. You know, Elliot he doesn't need to raise his voice to feed. He lets the culture bite for him. Janine does doesn't need to show her teeth, and Bustion is a jaw. Even the city participates. Elevators reduce him to poses, subway windows turn strangers into mirrors. The hunger is ambient, really. When Essen smells it, it's because he's bleeding. Not because the world changed. The world has always been, you know, carnivorous or has been a carnivore, so was that carnivorous? Right? The phone call makes the point sharper though. Claire's voice is not comfort, it's a collection. The numbers she counts are not lullabies, but in excuse me, invoices. Every whisper of her name is another mark in the margin. Every unanswered question adds interest. And here's the thing grief is not absent. It's the predication that feeds on silence until the silence becomes a mouth. Here then is the sh really the shape of the story. A man believes himself to be hunted, but he cannot see the ledger in his own hands. See, predators rate, they they circle. Predators write the numbers that do not stop climbing. When he asks what he owes, the answer is already written. It's everything. He owes everything. And so the question, honestly, is not whether Aston will balance the book. It is rather in the moment will he be forced to? Will he sign as prey? Or will he sign as a predator? So let's go ahead now and let's get into our reflections. Okay. Reflection one. What personal ledger do you keep without realizing it? That's mistakes or the guilt that you silently tally in your mind. And I'm going to tell you this right now. We all do this all the time. And a lot of the debts, mistakes, or guilt that you carry silently, a lot of it is subconscious. This is a great question to ask. Like what thoughts are always coming up in your mind that are negative? And I'm going to tell you it'll point right back to that question. I promise. Number two, when in your life have you felt others circling you like predators, sensing weakness or fear? And how did you respond? You know, like it or not, we're animals, right? We just are. And we're apex predators because we're human, right? We're the top of the list. And unfortunately for him, that's how he made his living or makes his living, is being a predator. He's a top-notch attorney. Attorneys are predators, I'm sorry. Just they have to be. Their job, right? So as you're thinking about this, right? Who is circling you? Who is using your weaknesses against you, right? And if if you're having people that are using weaknesses against you, you need to immediately get them out of your life. Just being honest with you. If you have people in your life that are using your weaknesses against you, you need to get them out. Those are not people that you need in your life. You do not need that kind of predatory relationship. That is not good for anybody. Okay? Now, number three, which part of you keeps marking the corners of your days? The self that judges, the self that forgives, or the self that waits? So I'm gonna tell you, this is something that, as we're talking about number three, this is something that really was a hard thing for me to kind of get over. And I still face this sometimes. And I don't know if this happens to you guys. Like for me, I'll get ready to go to bed, right? And then all of a sudden, I'll get really angry at myself because oh, I could have done more with my day, I could have done this, or I didn't finish that, or these doubts, or gosh, I could really be doing more with my life, right? So now what happens as I put this massive guilt trip on myself for the next hour and a half to two hours as I'm trying to sleep. And you know what sleep you get when you start to do that? It's that sleep where your mind doesn't shut off, but you're sleeping. You can even hear yourself snoring sometimes. This has happened to me. You can hear yourself snoring, but your mind is 100% awake. And that's like the worst feeling in the world. So, with number three, I'd be a great example of that question. All right. Number four, if every reflection is a predator watching, what reflection of yourself do you fear most encountering? This can mean a lot of things. I'm just gonna say this for me personally. You know, for the longest time, I didn't like the way my hair was, or didn't like the way my, you know, I've I had a beard for a while and I like how just big it was. But once you kind of start forgiving yourself on what you look like, right? Or what you fear what you're encountering, you know, sometimes we don't like the way that we look, right? Let's say we're going through a bad part in our life right now, right? Like maybe you're feeling super anxious, or whatever the case is. I do this one mirror rule, and this is just me personally. I try to look at myself in the mirror for five seconds. Just look at myself, give myself a love, loving glance. And I'm gonna tell you, sometimes it's so hard, like in the beginning when I was going through all my anxiety and depression, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. Because that was because your life is a reflection, right? So that was always the biggest thing for me is like I didn't like how I looked because I didn't like how I felt. So that would be an answer to that question for me, for an example. And then last but not least, number five, what would it mean for you to stop asking, what do I owe, instead declare, this is what I claim? You doing that shift right there takes you from being a victim to being a victor. And I know we've talked about this on this podcast a million and a half times, even though we do stories, we still talk about this. You claiming to be a victor in your life and taking accountability and responsibility for everything that you do, everything that is in your life, your life changes instantly. That's what that question is. Right. So as we're talking about this yesterday, I I just gotta I gotta give a big shout out as I get an email there. Sorry, I got um. I gotta give the biggest shout out yesterday. Yesterday was the biggest download day in Gents Journey history. So I want to give it up to everyone out there who's a brand new listener, and everybody that has been sending this out to their friends and family. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was um that was such a wild roller coaster yesterday, and I'm just so excited that we're gonna have more days like that. So I want to thank every single one of you for doing that and for listening and just for your listenership and viewer, uh, I guess viewership, but this is the video, so your listenership just means the world to me. Now, if you want to support the show, you're brand new, you want to support the show, it's free, it doesn't cost you anything, and it's super easy, it takes a couple seconds. Number one, write a review, reviews help this show out so much, I can't even tell you. Number two, and this will be the easiest one for you. Send this to a family member or friend, right? And as you're doing that, check on them. Say, hey, this is a new podcast, and listening to this, I've been listening to this guy for a while. And by the way, how are you doing? Can't tell you. Checking on your on your friends and your family members, just that quick hello, hey, how are you doing? What you know, do you need anything? Do you need help? Whatever it is. Sometimes you mean the world to somebody. So check on your family member and your friends, right? Now, also with all of that yesterday, I've been getting a ton, a ton of emails and DMs. It's been nuts. So if you want to DM me, you want to message me, there's three ways to do it. First way is on the description of this podcast. You'll click on it, so let's chat. Once you click on that, you and I can have a conversation about this episode, this series, three and a plus other episodes on Gents Journey. It's crazy. Okay, got a ton of stuff out there. Second way is gonna be through my email. My email is anthony at gentsjourney.com. So please feel free to reach out to me there. And then last but not least, as always, feel free to go to my Instagram. My Instagram is my gents journey. So, again, guys, I know we almost ran an hour here. I'm sorry about that, but it was worth it. So I just appreciate every single one of you guys. Thank you so much for your support, and always, always, always remember this. You create your reality. Take care of the colour.