FICTION

A Man of Many Names — 3

A project from The All-Mother is revealed.

Griffin had classes to teach the next morning, and he had to come up with a plan to bring an end to his career as a math teacher. The hardest part of abandoning an identity, was the deception required. Erasing his current existence was an integral part of the process of rebuilding a new identity. It was easier for mortals, they simply died. Gods just didn’t die.

Well that simplicity wasn’t all positive, to be sure for humans. Heart attacks, murders, accidents and other forms of quick death that were unexpected and unplanned by the person doing the dying solved identity issues in a hurry. Dying made the whole process kind of messy, and long and drawn out. Griffin didn’t have time for a gradual shift from one identity to another.

Besides, lingering illnesses took an unimaginable toll on the person doing the dying, and that included those who have found themselves in such dark places that suicide seemed to be the least painful of outcomes.

The act of leaving behind a persona, such as he was just about to do as Griffin Brown, was a form of suicide, a quick exit. The persona had to vanish, disappear without many questions being raised.

Usually, the process of changing an identity was slow with a new persona being born long before the old persona ceased to be present. Typically, Griffin had a few years to prepare for such a change. However, this time it needed to happen relatively quickly.

Griffin soon came up with the basics of a plan. Since he was near the Rocky Mountains, he would arrange to have himself disappear in a snowstorm in the mountains. The timing would depend on the presence of storm conditions west of Deer Crossing. That was the first part of the plan. There was a lot more that needed to be done in a short time to make that basic outline work.

In the meantime, he would begin building his new persona. He needed a new name. Using the Internet had changed how Griffin and his siblings were able to create new identities. In his previous life before being a teacher in Deer Crossing, Griffin had been called Bill Hunter, a psychotherapist who worked in Toronto, Ontario.

Before that, he had been a mason working in Montréal, Québec with the name of Cameron, Cameron Burns. Griffin considered for a short time before settling on the name Griffin Long. He had once used a version of that same name just a few hundred years ago when he lived in Spain, Grifo Longa.

Using social media he created a Facebook account for his new name. Next, he did the same with Twitter, Hangouts, LinkedIn, and Instagram. He also registered for a domain name, GriffinLong.Com. The bulk of his new identity’s history would be found on the website as it allowed him to post using dates in the past.

Next he hacked into the CRA, the Canadian Revenue Agency, to create an account there with his new identity. He populated that account with a history of taxes filed and paid going back fifteen years. Of course that meant another hack into the government agency that issued Social Insurance Numbers, or SINs as the Canadians liked to call them.

That was the easiest part. The hardest part was filling in all the blank spaces. Griffin had a lot of work to fill in the blanks in the various accounts that would give him a credible past. And in addition, he had a book to write.

In his new career as Griffin Long, he was going to be an economist. His objective as an economist, was to enter politics, federal politics. Behind the scenes, The All-Mother was going to put things in motion so that Griffin would become a Liberal member of parliament elected in the next Federal election.

The All-Mother was aware of an imminent change that would be taking place in the relatively near future. The present government in Ottawa was in a minority government situation, which meant that it wouldn’t have a long life.

The role of being an economist wasn’t all that difficult considering Griffin’s uncanny ability with numbers. Sophie on the other hand was as artsy as they get. Even Talan had some moderate success in the field of fine arts.

Griffin’s only real talent in the arts was as a writer. A good writer needed the same level of discipline as did a mathematician. It was also helpful that most languages were conveniently structured. He had written books in many languages over the past five hundred years.

Meanwhile, he had to teach at the high school in Deer Crossing as if nothing was ever going to change. Despite his dissatisfaction with the quality of some of his students, which he rightly blamed on their parents, Griffin was a very good teacher, something that most of his students appreciated.

Griffin was well liked by his students, with the only exception being those who were so immersed in their own entitlement that they couldn’t be bothered to learn or like anyone. But that wasn’t just a recent phenomenon. There have always been children from entitled families that made a teacher’s life difficult.

On Friday, as soon as he could reasonably leave the high school, he made the six-hour drive to Golden in his hybrid car rather than drive to Calgary and catch a flight to the city. The amount of time it took to drive was about the same as if he had taken a plane, and it was definitely a lot more comfortable way to travel. That and the carbon footprint was lower as well, which was even more important in Griffin’s mind.

He arrived sooner than he had originally planned, as the traffic was light and there wasn’t any road construction to slow down his travel. Having done his research earlier in the week, he had booked a room at the Best Western Hotel which was located at the western entrance to the city.

With his future constituency, according to The All-Mother, being in the western portion of the city and the surrounding countryside, Griffin decided to scout out the western part of the city carefully for both office space and a private residence.

Sophie and Talan would eventually be making their own arrangements for lodgings once they were in the city. Until they found their own places, they would stay at whatever place Griffin bought. Since they would be living in the same city, they would follow family protocol and maintain separate residences.

Griffin’s research had provided him with a few suitable locations for an office, and a couple of acreages within reasonable driving distance to the city. He was fairly confident that he could have both office and future home arrangements in place before the weekend was done and he had to return to Deer Crossing for another week of teaching.

Once settled into his hotel room, Griffin took advantage of the exercise room and the pool. Because he had stopped for a meal in Kindersley an hour-and-a-half earlier, he wasn’t hungry.

For those who are following and reading the story, thank you!

Jenine "Jeni" Baines, Robert, Keeley Schroder, Christopher Grant, Diana Meresc, Pat Romito LaPointe, and Afroditi Filippidi. I would enjoy having more of you become part of my ARC team. The more eyes on a story, the better the final version will become when it is time to publish the story.

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