MindQuake - Chapter 3

Chapter Three  (Truth and Reality)

7:43 A.M.  Tuesday

   
     "So what do we do now?"

     "Good question, thought Marcus.  Everyone was just staring at the pile of bodies on the floor.  Except for a couple of "Wow"s and a    "Jesus H. Christ!" inserted by Willie, the town's only male hairdresser, no one had said much of anything so far.  Gotta love that commitment.  Nothing says blasphemy like giving Jesus a middle initial.  Marcus's personal favorite exclamation was "Christ on a cracker!"  He grinned to himself just thinking about it.  He had yet to hear that one from Willie. He was young though, there was still time.

     Marcus looked across the room at the girl in the corner.  "Stacy, I'm not sure exactly.  I've never had to do this before."

Stacy Andrews was sitting way back in the far corner, trying to push her face through a mess of long black hair so thick it could double for rope.  Stacy was nineteen and a student at the community college.  Anyone who knew her would tell you that she was extremely bright and driven.  She was going to be a lawyer.  Nothing would hold her back, she said.  

     Nothing except a baby.  Ever since three months ago when she found out that her thing with Jason was a little bit more than a weekend fling, she had had to scale her plans back a bit.  Harvard could wait, she would get there in time.  Until then, she could pass the time taking basic classes here and raising her daughter. At least she hoped it was a daughter.  

     "Honey, leave the man alone," Jason broke in.  "He just had to kill someone.  Or something at least."

Her eyes flared up.  "What, you think I missed that?  It only happened right here in front of everyone, but you think that somehow I didn't latch onto that?"

     Jason was bright red, staring at the floor, "Baby, I--"

     "You what?  No what I mean is we just witnessed a serious incident here.  A crime.  Three people are dead, as far as we can tell.  Hell, Marcus killed one of them himself."

     "So?"

     "So we should call the police, dummy!  What else do you think we should do?"

     "Well I just--"

     "You just nothing.  Let me handle this.  I'm calling the police."  Jason looked away, embarrassed and defeated.  Stacy could be impossible sometimes, and all these new hormones were not helping.  They were making him crazy.  He just slicked back his wispy blonde hair, pulling it back into what would have been a pony tail and took comfort in the fact that she was right. 

Besides, Marcus agreed.  "She's right man.  We've gotta call the cops.  I mean look at all this."  He waved an arm towards the unmoving pile of flesh. It made a good point all by itself.  Plus, it was Marcus's neck on the line.  He was the one who decided to get all crazy and stab a man in the throat.  If that even was a man.

     Given what had just happened, and what he had done, Marcus seemed to be as calm as usual.  He was the only one not still breathing hard and in a panic.  Jason didn't see how anyone could possibly keep it together after having to bring someone down so violently.  He didn't consider himself to be a pacifist, but he wasn't a warrior either.  In Marcus's shoes, he'd be hanging his head over a porcelain bowl by now.   

     "Hey man, how'd you stay so calm?  I mean, you just killed a guy.  You saw blood spurt out and everything.  It’s still on you." His eyebrows were furrowed like he's been stumped at a puzzle. "Doesn't anything...you know, affect you man?"

     "Meditation, Jason.  It's not just the art of seeking calm, it's the practice of being calm.  Besides, that wasn't a man."

     "It wasn't?  I know he was weird--"

     "I think everyone saw that, Jason.  That thing may have started out as a man, but it most certainly became a monster.  And where I come from, monsters die."

     Stacy was already pulling out her cell phone, shaking her head.  "So should I call 911 or what?"

     Marcus had to think about that for a second.  It's not like there was an ongoing emergency still.  Everyone on the floor was very obviously dead.  Sirens and ambulances seemed like way too much for Marcus at the moment.  He was keeping it together pretty well so far, but even he had his limits.  

     "Call Sheriff Brown."  

     Stacy raised an eyebrow.  "Okay, makes sense I guess.   But what's the number?  I don't keep it on the top of my head you know." 

     "Here, give me your phone."

     She looked at Marcus like he was crazy.  "Oh hell no!  You're all covered in blood and you wanna put your greasy-ass hands all over my phone?  You must be out your mind.  Just tell me the number."

     Marcus sighed inwardly and let that one roll right off.  Calm.  Calm leads the way towards righteous action.  Breathe.  He recited the number for Stacy who turned away as the phone began to dial.  Now that that was handled, Marcus felt a little better.  He sat down on the nearest stool at the counter and tried to maintain the calmness that he had just so smugly talked about.  

     But it wasn't easy.  They were all watching him.  Eleven people were in the shop that day, eating breakfast and carrying on like any other day when something crazy and terrifying had occurred.  Now all eyes were on him.  He tried to deflect their eyes with a passive look of non-interest, but they kept watching him all the same.  All except Stacy who was in the corner talking to the Sheriff, her head bobbing up and down as she spoke.  Marcus couldn't follow the conversation, but maybe it was better that way.  Stacy could handle it.
Marcus didn’t like being the new center of everyone’s attention, it made him light headed and weak.  He felt like he had just stepped off of a carnival ride, one that spins and loops and rattles you around, then dumps you back on solid ground where you wobble and try not to fall.  He didn’t understand their scrutiny, didn’t want it.  Just because he was the one that met the threat of the unnatural stranger head on and dispatched him with cold unfeeling, what right did they have to stare?  Wouldn’t they have done the same?  He was just the closest at the moment and had the best opportunity.  It’s not like it made him a different kind of person from them.  He was just Marcus, he worked at the shop. He liked it that way, simple and neat.  No complications.

     There was a pile of complications that used to be people on the floor, however, and he sensed that his nice orderly life was going to be overtaken.  And there was something about that explanation to himself that he wasn’t quite buying.  Would someone else have done what he did?  Would they have done something else?  He didn’t see it.  Was it just a survival instinct to fight back with such violence, or did he make a choice somewhere in there that this creature, whatever it was had to die?

     Calm he reminded himself again.  As he saw everyone keeping a close watch on him, he decided that it didn’t matter.  Choice didn’t matter, motivation didn’t matter.  Only righteous action mattered, and Marcus didn’t have any doubts about that one. 
The tension eased off a bit, and Marcus felt better.  The watchful eyes around him no longer seemed like a threat, they all seemed…concerned.  Now that he was calmer inside, Marcus felt a powerful hunger.  He wanted to tear into a muffin, but when he saw his bloody hands again, he changed his mind.  The muffin could wait.  

     When he looked up from his hands, Stacy was standing right in front of him, holding her phone closed between her palms.  She looked a lot less irritated now than she had been with Jason. “He says he’s on the way, honey.  And he says not to touch anything.  You gonna be alright?”

      Marcus waved it off, “I’ll be fine.  What did you tell him?”

     “Not much.  Just that we have a situation here and some people are dead.  And that he should probably hurry.”

     “Yeah, I guess he should.  He didn’t ask you any questions?

     “Not really.  He said these things are better off done in person.  He’s coming from the station, so it shouldn’t be long.

     “Cool, thanks Stacy.”  Marcus looked around the room at everyone watching him.  “Well, everyone just relax.  We’ll hang out here until Sheriff Brown can get here and handle the situation.  Is that okay with everyone?”

     Most just nodded their approval, too stunned to really say or do much else, but Willie stepped forward and detached himself from the rest. “Dude, I don’t know about these guys, but according to me, you just saved our skins from that freakazoid guy.  And to me, that makes you the King of Siam.  You can do whatever you like man.”

     Ten minutes later a squad car from the San Miguel police pulled up at the curb.  It rocked back and forth for a second, then the driver’s door opened and a squat, chubby man stepped out into the sunshine.  He wore a wide-brimmed hat and mirrors over his eyes.

Sheriff Lionel Brown wasn’t in the best shape for a police officer and no one knew that more than he did.  He had made peace with the fact that he liked pies and coffee cakes a whole lot more than he liked sit-ups a long time ago.  Instead, he focused on upholding the law, and over the years earned a reputations as an honest but formidable cop.  His record of collars and pursuits was impressive.  It was this record and the first name of Lionel that got him the nickname of “Lion”.  The Lion was well known throughout New Mexico, and he was respected across the board.  

     He peered in through the open door towards the passenger seat, “You coming out of there or what?”

     “Yes, sir. “

     Deputy Lucas Carlisle was thirty, and still fairly new to the department.  He was intelligent and honest, two qualities of outstanding police officers, but be was also very eager to succeed.  Too eager, really, and it made Sheriff Brown very nervous.  Ambition was a fine thing, but in this line of work, being too eager with too little experience was dangerous.  In the Lion’s experience, that combination often led to the good guys coming back with bullet holes.  Or not coming back at all.  

     Carlisle had a young wife and an infant son at home, so the Sheriff usually tried to steer him away from danger.  But you can only restrain a man so long.  The deputy was becoming restless performing the day to day tasks of a police station.  Brown could see that, anyone could.  So the Lion had decided to take him under his wing and take him out into the field before that restlessness became recklessness.

     Brown had to admit, he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into, though.  Carlisle was a talker.  And that’s putting it mildly.  The Sheriff was a quiet, reserved man who stood on his record.  Having to lead this jabbering rookie around everywhere was really making him think about how easily guns go off.  My god, he sounded like a gossiping woman sometimes!

     He would never shoot the man, of course, but a good solid Tasering?  Well, the Lion thought something might be said for that.

Carlisle got out of car and walked around to the sidewalk.  His thin frame looked almost comical next to Brown’s.  He squinted in the bright sun.  “So what’s the deal here, Boss?”

     “Don’t know really.  Didn’t say much on the phone.  Probably better that way.” 

     “Why do you say that?”

     “Helps to keep an open mind.  Quiet now, these people are bound to be shaken.  Best let me do the talking.”

     The Sheriff didn’t think that admonishment would really stop Carlisle from chiming in, but it might discourage him.  The Lion could be quite intimidating if he felt like it. 

     “If you say so, Boss.”

     “I do,” he grunted.  Carlisle seemed to take the hint.

     The Sheriff was grateful for his obedience, it would make this thing go so much smoother.  “And buy yourself some damn sunglasses, son.  This is the desert.”

      When they walked through the door into the shop, it was like stepping into another world.  

     The two men stood inside the entryway and looked around to see scared faces and hopeful eyes looking up at them.  Sheriff Brown peeled of his sunglasses and put his hat under his arm.  Carlisle was at least respectful enough not to gasp.  He tried to avoid people’s eyes though, speaking to the populace was the Sheriff’s thing.  Carlisle just shoved his hands into his pockets and decided to wait until he was needed.  He got the feeling that there was big trouble today, and he did not want to screw up on a big trouble day.

     The Sheriff looked around the room and said, “Morning, folks.  I’m Sheriff Brown.  This here is Deputy Carlisle.  We’re here to help you out and try to figure out what happened here.  But first things first.  Which of you is Stacy, the young lady from the phone?”

Stacy raised her hand from the back of the room.

     “Good.  Just sit tight for now darlin’.  And Marcus?”

     “Here, sir” Marcus gave a weak wave.

      “Ah, there you are.”

     Marcus was till on his seat at the counter.  He was still trying to ignore the new way everyone was looking at him.  It wasn’t really working.  And he felt exhausted for some reason that he couldn’t figure out.  It had only been a moment’s worth of action, not like he had gone running for miles.  But that was how he felt.

     “Well Marcus, why don’t you show me what we’ve got here and then we’ll see if we can’t piece things together, and get everyone back to normal.” For such a big man with a powerful reputation, the Sheriff could be as cuddly as a teddy bear when times required.

“Right over here, sir.”  For some odd reason, Marcus chuckled a little as he spoke. “Piece this together.”

     While the Sheriff was hunched down, examining the scene Marcus sidled up next to Sarah.  She was staring absent mindedly out of or into the window.  It was hard to tell, but he could certainly see that she was scared.  She wasn’t trembling anymore, but she looked lost in herself, trying to make sense of the unexplainable.  She wasn’t even aware of it, but Marcus noticed that she was shaking her head back and forth ever so slightly.  He could only imagine how she felt, watching her whole sane, comfortable world disintegrate.  Now there were monsters, monsters that were real.  He guessed that probably everyone else felt the same to some degree.

     As he got close, however, he learned he was wrong.

     “I know what you’re thinking.”  She kept her voice low and her eyes firmly focused on the glass.  “You think I’m a fragile little girl and this probably broke my mind.”

     “I don’t think that.”

     “You’re a terrible liar.  Anyway, the problem is not that I can’t accept what I just saw happen.  I know what I saw.  The problem is that I still don’t believe it.  It doesn’t play in my head.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “Well…I can string the events together in my head and remember what happened, but it doesn’t feel like truth to me.”  She finally broke her gaze and looked at Marcus.  “It all seems like it happened outside of reality.  You know like in some crazy dreamworld where shit like this is supposed to happen.  But that stuff is supposed to stay between book covers, Marcus!  I remember it happening right here in the real world, right in front of my face.”

     He heard her choke a little, “And that’s hard, Marcus.  That’s why I’m stuck here looking out the window.  Because I didn’t want to believe in a reality like this.”

     Marcus wished he had something better to say, but felt only empty himself. “No one does, Sarah, but I’m reminded everyday that reality doesn’t make much sense anyway, so why should this?  Answers don’t matter, don’t look for answers.  We just have to find our way through.  Gonna be alright for now?”

     “Yeah,” she said, and turned back to the window. “For now.”

     “Marcus?” Sheriff Brown was calling him from the apex of the madness.

     “Sir?”

     “Son, you better come take a look at this.” Marcus came up behind the Sheriff, careful not to get a good view.  

      The Sheriff stared into the tangled mess on the floor.  “What in the hell happened here?”

     “That’s a really long story, sir.  And I don’t think I really know for sure.”

     “Enlighten me.”

     “Begging your pardon sir, but I don’t think we should talk here.  We should probably do this at your station.

     “Is that so?” the Lion grunted.  He did not seem to be pleased by the presumption.  He lifted up the dead stranger’s hand and looked at it intently, searching for something. “Look son, this is serious business.  I’m here because people are dead.  Now I can keep this discreet or not, but I need some answers from you, I need to know what you know.  I’m not sticking my neck out for you again without some reassurance.  Not after last time.”

     Marcus winced.  Apparently there were hard feelings.  He had kind of hoped the Sheriff had forgiven him by now.  

This was going to get more complicated.  

     “I know what you’re thinking, but I assure you I’m not trying to be deceptive.  There are just some details involved here that I can’t really explain.”

     “What, in front of these people? Or to me?”

     “Well not to anyone, sir.”

     He grunted in disapproval.  “Try.”

     Marcus was becoming exasperated.  He started to care less how things sounded, or how he was perceived,.  “All right, fine.  The truth then.”

     “The truth.”  He was waiting.

     “Well, sir the truth is that this older gentleman in top came in from the outside all covered in blood.  He changed his face into a dog and used his teeth to rip Frank’s throat out.  When Jeremiah tried to pin him down, he changed his face to an insect and stabbed him with some sort of stinger.  Then I jumped over the counter with a knife and stuck it in the old guy’s throat. Then we called you.”

      It speaks to the Lion’s character that he didn’t make a face or give away much reaction during Marcus’s recitation.  He didn’t even blink. His eyes just narrowed as he seemed to think about possibilities.

     “So this bald fellow on top with the blood is your handiwork?”

     “Yes.”

     “And that is not his blood or the blood of these two unfortunates caked to the side of his head?”

     “Well I’m sure it all got mixed a little bit in the struggle, but that’s correct sir.  He walked in wearing that.”

     “Damn.  That means we have a second crime scene.”  He stood up and put his hat back on, twirling his glasses. “Probably more correctly, a first crime scene.  Son?” He put the mirrors back on his eyes and looked outside.  

     “Yes?”

     “We’d better go and discuss this downtown.”

The whole ordeal took up the rest of the day.  No one who was at the shop that morning got anything done.  What did get done was a lot of grunt police work, a lot more than these small town cops were used to dealing with.  There had been some accidents, to be sure, but Sheriff Brown couldn’t even remember the last time there had been a murder in San Miguel.  He’d never seen anything like this.

Witnesses had to give statements which had to be recorded and filed away. The immediate neighborhood had to be canvassed for outside witnesses and peripheral information.  The crime scene itself had to be cordoned off so that evidence could be collected and the detectives could do their work.  

     Overall, the Lion was overworked.  He had just seen the bodies get handed over to the county medical examiner.  He was awaiting reports on the causes of death, although he thought that each one was pretty damn obvious.  Still needed to hear the details, though.  

Only the bald headed stranger remained a mystery.  Not the cause of death, there was at the moment, still a knife stuck up to its hilt in his throat.  No, the mystery was who the hell was he?  Where did he come from?  No one seemed to know, and this was a pretty tight-knit community.  Maybe he was a traveler just passing through, or a tourist here to visit the hot springs, or go tromping through the caves.  He hoped the medical examiner would come back with an ID for him, give him someplace to start.  So far it felt like trying to climb up a mud slope and falling back on your ass every time.

He couldn’t even think about the story that Marcus told him.  Even all the way to the station, when pressed, he’d still give up the same story.  Always about changing faces, a dog and an insect, something long black and sharp.  It didn’t make any sense to the Lion.  Was the boy on drugs again?  It just didn’t fit into his philosophy of known facts.

     Few people know of the Sheriff’s philosophy of known facts, but Marcus happened to be one of them.  The “known facts” of the universe, according to the Lion were these:

     Jesus saves.

     Pie is good.

     That’s all there is.  It was a good, honest way to get through a life, and there just was not any room in there for nonsense about monsters with shifting faces.

     Yet he couldn’t believe that the kid would make it all up.  He was stupid and reckless at times, yeah, but he’s still young.  He’s got some time to work all that out.  Who wasn’t stupid and reckless when they were young?

     The Lion had met Marcus when he was mowing yards for money in high school.  He always did a good job of it and always had some interesting things to say, whether about the brainwashing of mediocre teen-candy pop music, or the dangers of radical neo-Marxism, or the importance of a good coffee grinder.  The kid seemed bright and personable, unlike most of the other little runts that just sucked forty bucks from your pocket and then vanished into thin air.  They didn’t appreciate the cost of actually having grass in this desert atmosphere.  The two ended up talking often, usually with iced tea in hand, in front of whatever sports channel the Lion had on but was not watching.  He would chat, and he would be polite, and then he would leave his glass in the sink and go about his business.  

      Things began to change, though.  Gradually, Marcus was less jovial and less talkative, seeming to deflect questions about his life or his family.  Then he stopped coming by at all, just dropped of the map for a while and the Sheriff had to pay some dopehead kid to come and screw up his expensive lawn.  He realized that he had come to miss talking with Marcus, and wondered what happened to him, if it was worth asking about.  After about two months, there was a knock at the Lion’s door one evening, and there stood Marcus with a sleeping bag.  He didn’t say a word, just shrugged his shoulders like a question, and the Sheriff let him inside.  In the morning, he woke to find his lawn neatly trimmed, the way Marcus always did it, and the sleeping bag rolled up by the couch.  

     Over that summer, the Sheriff got only bits and pieces of the story, only things like “My parents aren’t getting along” and “By the way, thanks for the place to crash.”  Marcus mostly just worked on people’s yards in the mornings, slept for a while, and then went out in the evenings.  The Lion never had to feed him, never had to scold him, Marcus was always there on the couch at night, and always out working in the morning light.

     Turned out the kid was right, and by the end of August, he got a call from his mother about the divorce.  She was moving to L.A. as she put it, “To get the hell away from here.”

     He never got a call from his father explaining anything.  There were rumors he was still around, although he had traded up to a big white house with a bean shaped pool and a blonde woman who had pool parties everyday.  There was even a silver Mercedes in the driveway, parked next to the fountain that ran night and day.

     To Sheriff Brown, it wasn’t just a rumor, he had seen it himself when he was called out for a noise complaint.  He never rode on calls like that, he wasn’t a hardass about parties. But 3:30 a.m. on a Tuesday with liquored up people screaming and kicking at the neighbor’s dogs is a bit much.  So he busted them, took their booze and wrote a ticket for noise violation, an expensive one.  It was torn up in his face by an irate man in a purple Speedo, but the Lion just smiled and the penalty hit the books just the same.  The Sheriff even smiled in court when the judge upheld the charge and made Marcus’s father pay the fine.   

     The weekend after the phone call from Marcus’s mother, Sheila was doing laundry and pulled a dimebag of pot out of Marcus’s jeans.  Always a good and honest woman, she showed it to the Sheriff.  The Lion had never felt so helpless, so deflated because as he saw it he had no choice.  He was an officer of the law and took his duties seriously.  He couldn’t have this in his house.  When he tried to explain all this to Marcus, however, his frustration got the better of him and he lost his temper.  After a lecture about upholding the law, he got angry and kicked Marcus out of the house.  The poor kid never said a word in defense.  He just grabbed his sleeping bag and a stack of books and shuffled out the door.  

     The Lion still felt bad about that day.  He knows that Marcus got off light on one hand, he could have gone to jail for that pot.  But he also knows that he never meant to be so hard on the kid.  Everyone screws up, everyone has secrets, and most importantly everyone needs help from somewhere to get through.  What if I was all he had? The sheriff couldn’t think like that though, not if he wanted to keep his job.

That was why he had taken the phone call this morning and responded to the shop so quickly.  Maybe things weren’t so bad, Marcus did call him for help after all.  Then again, that meant Marcus was in trouble again, but this looked like a whole different sort of trouble.  The sort that makes no damn sense at all.  The Lion shook his head and got back to work.

     He would help Marcus if he could, provided that he was in the clear and on the straight and narrow.  A lot of that would depend on answers from the dead men rolling away, and on the identity of some dog-faced insect man.  He couldn’t just discount Marcus’s story, even though it made no sense, because all ten other people in the shop saw the same thing.  He couldn’t believe they were all crazy.  Lying, yes, but crazy?  It doesn’t come in bunches like that.  They all had the same story.  

     A dog.

     A man.

     An insect.

     It gave him the shivers.

     Drinking strong black coffee to stay awake through the dark night, Sheriff Brown focused on a photo of the one solid clue he did have to work with.  

     A black Toyota 4Runner was found unlocked and abandoned in the shop’s parking lot.  Inside his deputies had found thickening pools of blood on the passenger seat and matted patches of short brown hair.

     There was also a pistol, a chrome .44 tucked into the center console, the only finger prints belonging to the bald dead man.  It was loaded, but super clean.  Lab said it was in perfect condition but had never been fired.  Blood smears across the console seemed to suggest someone was trying to open it.

     Someone in the passenger seat, struggling violently as they bled out and died, had reached for the gun.

     The Lion sighed and sipped his coffee.  A long day indeed.

Mindquake - Chapter 2

Chapter Two  (Relative Comfort)

7:15 A.M. Tuesday

     The door to the shop opened with a muted clang of bells.  Dry desert air spilled inside, annihilating the air conditioning’s feeble attempt to maintain order.  A tall man stepped inside, old in his complete baldness, and entered the shop tentatively, attempting to be quiet.  His eyes were vacant, deep and lost, and he shuffled slowly with small steps to the counter.

Apparently, no one noticed his entry, and for that, his empty eyes showed a glimmer of hope.  No, not hope, but perhaps a certain satisfaction.  

He couldn’t believe that he had made it this far.  Not that he could really remember, it was all blurry when he tried to bring it back, bits and pieces of snarling and blundering back into the SUV and then burning rubber all the way into town.  His head was killing him, pounding furiously in punishment for trying to remember.  He gave up and just sucked in the cold air.

He was sweaty and terrified, so the air conditioning in here felt like heaven in contrast to the parching sun out there.  But he was also thrilled. So far, no one had seen a thing.  Not the mad dash out of the cave, not skidding to a halt out in the parking lot, not even the sticky wetness caked to his face and neck, smeared across his bald head. They were all clueless little worms. 

Maybe they would never catch him.  The thought thrilled him even more.  Maybe he could just keep running forever and stay out of reach.  What had inspired him to come to this place?  It was so dangerous to be out like this, even in his condition he knew that.  

It was the people.  He had seen them through the window as he was driving past.  Sitting at their tables, casually looking out at the world, or even ignoring it completely.  He had turned around before he even realized it, and parked in the middle of the street behind a row of cars.  He couldn’t imagine that, just ignoring the outside world and all of its insanity.  It was hypnotic, he couldn’t look away.  Their fat lazy eyes and the comfortable way they were with each other.  Drinking coffee, having inane conversations, scrubbing the counter, reading and laughing and smiling their days away.   There was a woman at the counter brushing dirt off of a muffin like it was the world’s greatest problem.  

    It was their absence of fear that drew him.  It was magnetic, he had to get close enough to understand, to find out why they weren’t afraid.  Weren’t they scared of anything?  Weren’t they terrified, like him?  

     With only a soft grunt, he ambled up to the counter and leaned in between two customers who were busy scarfing down waffles as if he was waiting to be served.  He didn’t even really know what he wanted.  He was just so fascinated with it all, with the waffles and the muffins and the casual friendly atmosphere.  It was like everything about the car and the cave were distant memories, or dreams that came from someone else’s imagination.  

     He knew no one had seen him come in. They were all busy with their tragically unimportant lives.  So he sat and waited.  He smelled the food in the air, mingled with the sweat from the skin.  On top of that horrid mixture, he could just barely detect the scent of copper that had plagued him since the car.  Now that he was inside, cooling off at the counter in relative comfort, a thin smile appeared on his lips.  

He was very close now, this was very exciting.  He could feel it rising up inside like before.  He had calmed down in the cool air, but now he was overjoyed.  It had frightened him before, but this time he was ready.  It was stronger this time, full of unbridled potency.  He knew that it would not be contained.  The thought filled him with a gruesome sort of joy.  Very soon now, and he would be complete.  

     Marcus was stuck chatting with Mrs. Fields from the dry cleaning store at the end of the main drag.  She was telling Marcus that people kept trying to scam her with coupons from other stores.  Unsuccessfully, of course.  He wasn’t sure if he believed her.  

     "I mean it’s a small town.  I’m the only dry cleaner in the downtown area.  If you can even call this downtown.  I have no competition, haven’t for years, and I never offer coupons,” she said.  

     "Never?”

     She shook her head vehemently.” Never.  Why would I?  I know everyone here.  They all get the same deal.  You can’t beat personalized service.”

     "We have coupons here at the shop.  There’s one where you can get a free waffle if you only buy an orange juice.  Only valid on Sundays, however.”

     "That’s different.  You advertise, you pull in tourists, you even have specials.  I do the same thing all the time for the same people.  It’s kind of comforting that way.”

     "Sounds boring to me ma’am.”  Marcus was eager to get out of this conversation.

     "When you get old son, you start to like boring.  I can’t start changing things now.”

     "Yes ma’am.  If you say so.”

     Mrs. Fields was sweet, but Marcus was busy and she could trap you for hours if you weren’t careful.  So he just gave her a wink and went down the counter to where it looked like a customer was waiting.  

     Watching his feet, to be sure not to slip on some grease or coffee, or any of the multitude of things that could be down there, Marcus plopped his beaten order pad down on the counter and raised his eyes to greet the customer.

     It all happened so fast.  That’s what they always say, Marcus would think later.  But right then, right in the moment when he raised his gaze to the stranger, all of reality seemed to fall away and the only thing he was capable of doing was standing perfectly still.  He couldn’t even close his mouth.

     The stranger appeared to be fluttering.  On the surface he was only a tall, old man with a bald head, but to Marcus’s astonishment he seemed to be blinking in and out of existence.  There was just no other way to say it.  He would phase in and out, changing shape and appearance, not flowing smoothly like liquid, more like a fuzzy television changing channels too quickly.   But that wasn’t all.  No, Marcus saw other things as well.  Darker things.  He saw the man change, his face distort into something primeval and monstrous, then flutter and change into something more animal than man.  He got a glimpse of dripping teeth and slanted yellow eyes, then he was back to normal as if nothing happened.  Another change, and this time Marcus thought he saw something that looked like an insect’s proboscis, but the stranger changed again too quickly to tell.  If this was a television, someone else was holding the remote. 

     Marcus was transfixed, he couldn’t look away.  Strangely though, he was not afraid.  He was too confused, too fascinated to be afraid.  Words were only a memory, thoughts an illusion.  Time was someone else’s bad idea.  He was tumbling backwards, out of everything he felt was real.  The only thing he felt now was cold.  

     The stranger would seem to hold an image only for an instant and then shudder and change into something grotesque and new.  It never stayed long enough to gather any details, to make a full picture in Marcus’s mind that he could make sense of. It reminded him of the snippets that linger after dreams, drifting like smoke across the mind and tormenting him as they fail to coalesce.  

     Only a few seconds later did he realized that he was still gasping, and in a startling moment of clarity—a lonely instant when the man in front of him was just a man--Marcus finally noticed the blood.  

     "Oh dear God," Marcus whispered.  He would have liked to say something more, to find out if the old man was alright, or to learn what had happened to his blood splattered head, but he never had time. Things changed too quickly for Marcus then.

     Without a word, the strangers eyes met Marcus's frozen stare and it was like gazing into the black desert sky on the darkest of nights.  The emptiness he saw in those eyes, the seeming lack of a functioning consciousness throttled his will, keeping Marcus helpless and motionless.  

     All of a sudden, the fluttering became faster and more intense.  It was building, he thought.  It's winding up to something. The man was now an insect, hideous and groping with a long black beak.  It twisted around in a convulsive shudder, and then the stranger had a dog face, long fangs and yellow eyes.  The eyes of a predator.  A hungry predator that snarled and bared its teeth.  Then back to human, over and over again.  It was getting faster and shuddering more violently every time.  It was definitely building up to something.  

     The stranger opened his mouth and a high pitched unearthly screech filled the shop, certainly scaring the bejesus out of everyone who was inside. They were all looking over his way now, gasping and screaming in turn.  

     Then in a quick motion, he grabbed Frank Harper--who until recently was enjoying a nice piece of lemon pie--and sank his teeth into Frank's neck.

     When the stranger pulled away with a dog's face where his head should have been and a chunk of flesh between his teeth, all the color and life drained out of Frank.  He slumped lifelessly over the counter, and gushed pools of blood everywhere.  A good life, a good reputation, a hell of a carpenter, it all spilled out onto the floor in a horrible waste.

     Mrs. Field screamed, hell everyone screamed, and it all became chaos in an instant. Jeremiah Trenton grabbed the mutating stranger by the shoulders and tried to haul him to the ground.  But he was too quick to be taken down easily.  His face once again became a snarling dog and he bit into Jeremiah's hand.  Jeremiah howled and they both fell back and struggled on the floor, out of Marcus's view.  Everyone one else in the shop was crowding around the two men, making a circle but too stunned or afraid to do much but watch.

Leaning over the counter, Marcus saw Jeremiah manage to pin the stranger down with his knees.  The thrashing dog had a hold of his hand and was shaking his head back and forth, trying to pry it loose.  Being a three time high school wrestling champion probably saved his life in that moment, but all he was able to extract from the monstrous face that had grabbed his arm was a bloody mangled stump.  He looked bewildered, amazed, and before he could truly react to the loss of his hand, the stranger fluttered and changed again, this time taking on the face of a deadly insect, smooth and angular, and sank a long needle from its snout straight though Jeremiah's heart.

     There was no recognition, no pain.  Just the cold eyes of a soul no longer there, and then he was gone, fallen in dead weight on the floor.

Watching Jeremiah Trenton die without mercy finally broke Marcus out of his trance.  They had been friends since the fifth grade, had grown up on the same street. But Marcus wasn't thinking about the past.  This was intolerable.  He grabbed a knife  from the butchers block behind him and leapt over the counter.

      As the stranger was getting back to his feet, customers from all sides grabbed him and held him in place.  Marcus came in swiftly and jabbed the oversized knife deep into the man's adams apple.  Bubbles of blood appeared, gushing from the stranger's throat, he wheezed for a second, then fell back on the floor where he lay gurgling, and then dying.

     Marcus felt no regret, just a seething desire start breathing again.

For long moments as people gathered themselves together and tried to grasp what they'd just seen, no one spoke.  A few cried, and most of them sat down and began shaking in late reactions to the trauma, but there seemed to be no words for times like these.

     It was Sarah who broke the dizzying spell of silence.  "What the fuck was that?" she screamed, spelling out each syllable.  She was still shaking uncontrollably.

     "I don't know," Marcus said grimly. "But at least we know now that whatever it is, it can die."

MindQuake - Chapter 1

Chapter One (A Beginning)

6:35 A.M. Tuesday 

     Marcus’s mind was shaking.  It was quaking with fervor, trembling with delight.  The central point of light in the middle of his forehead, right between his eyes, that he had been concentrating on for so long now, bubbled and shuddered and pulsed on the brink of change.  Then, spontaneously and with great force, it seemed to fracture into a billion tiny splinters exploding outwards and reeling through the vast emptiness that currently composed the rest of his mind.  A surge of energy came pouring inward, like a shockwave rolling through space after some unknown star becomes unstable and throws off its last dirty little isotope.  The fragments left streaking trails of light as they traveled; creating a network or a web that wrapped around the emptiness of his mind and enveloped him in a warm, blissful light.

     Throughout all of this, Marcus remained calm.  A rhythmic breath in, a rhythmic breath out, his body had become so accustomed to this pattern that it faded into the background and allowed his intellect to stretch out and explore other opportunities.  

The heavenly warmth that had overtaken him slowly dissolved away, and the web of light began to coalesce back together into a single point, the point that he had started with almost an hour ago.

     Marcus opened his eyes and ears to the real world once again.  Instantly, he heard the familiar sound of panting in front of him and reached out with his hand.

     Smiling in the early morning light, he said: “Hello, Dozen.  Are you hungry already, boy?”

     Dozen was the golden retriever that had been Marcus’s companion ever since he moved out of his parent’s house three years ago and suddenly realized how lonely life could be.  The question about whether or not Dozen was hungry was a purely rhetorical one to amuse himself.  Dozen was always hungry.

     "Alright, boy.  Give a minute, but I think I’ve got something special for you this morning.”

     Marcus lifted himself up off of his pillow and began to rummage through the refrigerator, looking for this special treat.  Dozen was a bit of a spoiled dog, but that really came from the fact that he always got what he wanted, no matter what tricks or games foolish humans played.  In fact, he got his name the first weekend he came to stay with Marcus in a dusty, unfurnished apartment.  

     On that particular Saturday night, Marcus had bought some doughnuts to take to the park on Sunday.  True, he did plan to share a doughnut or two with Dozen, but the hungry canine couldn’t trust in that.  After many, many failures, he succeeded in opening the refrigerator door when Marcus was sleeping, located the doughnuts on the second shelf, and greedily helped himself to the whole dozen.  Sadly, a dozen glazed doughnuts is a lot for a dog to keep down, too much in fact for Dozen, and it led to a horrible day at the park indeed.

In the here and now, however, Marcus found a bit of steak left over from his dinner last night and tossed it on the floor in front of Dozen.  The meat was gone, delivered to a strange new home by the time the refrigerator door closed.  The dog looked up longingly, wanting more.

Nope, that’s all you get for now.  I guess you’ll just have to settle for this sub-par doggie food.”  He tapped Dozen’s dish with his bare foot, making the crunchy pieces rattle together.  It worked though, Dozen came right over and started chomping away, the steak forgotten.  

Marcus walked back through the living room into his room and began the process of taking a shower.  Everything was a process for Marcus, a set of procedures that must be run through in order to attain a goal.  He got the water running and closed the bedroom door, leaving Dozen out in living area chomping slowly on his food.  

It wasn’t a big apartment, but it wasn’t bad either.  The living room was pretty spacious.  It helped that the kitchen wasn’t closed off; it was connected to the rest of the apartment, resulting in one big open space.  Some of the space had been filled by Marcus’s hand-me-down furniture, some by stacks of magazines and junk mail.  The front door to the place opened right next to the kitchen, so guests could enter on the linoleum floor, and then proceed to the carpeted living room.  If Marcus was particularly clever or lucky, he could occasionally persuade a female across the living room and into the single bedroom.  If they weren’t scared by the sparseness of the apartment, sometimes joyous and occasionally embarrassing things happened in there.  Lately, however, there had been no joy and no embarrassment.  In fact, there hadn’t been anyone in a long time.

As Marcus relaxed in his nice warm shower, fulfilling the procedures of a shower: wash, rinse, shampoo, condition, etc., trying to get the day going, he was not at all aware that his luck was about to change.  And neither did the person who knocked timidly on his front door.  

6:35 am Tuesday

     For as long as she could remember, back to her days as a child in her mother’s house, Sarah almost never woke up screaming.  Sleep had always been a restful place for her, somewhere that she could put the world away, tuck it neatly out of sight and worry about it later.  It was like swimming, as long as you were underwater holding your breath, it was calm and peaceful, even if the chlorine was biting into your eyes.  This morning, however, as the terrified scream died in her throat, Sarah blinked into the reality of her lonely apartment, longing for the serene dreams of her childhood.

     Hazy sunlight drifted in through her half closed blinds, the bluish-purple light of a filtered sunrise.  Sarah sighed and knew that she would never get back to sleep, not now that it was light outside, and especially not with all the adrenaline still pumping through her system.  What had frightened her so badly?  She stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling and searched her memory, but could not come up with whatever figment of her imagination had broken through in her dream and scared her.  All she had was the lingering memory of a deep seated fear.   It left her with a pain inside so bad that she could choke.  

     She threw the covers aside and got out of bed, determined to shake the fear out of her head.  Perhaps a shower would knock the rawness of the shock away.  She stood there, next to the tub, waiting for the water to heat up as she felt the raw fear begin to wane.  Less and less it affected her, and more and more she wondered why she was obsessing over something so small.  It was fading rapidly already, in a few moments it would be entirely gone, and she would probably never remember what had happened or how she felt.  It was a blessing, she thought, to let that feeling fade away and forget all about it.  

    Unless it happened again.

     "Shit,” she said to no one in particular, and sat there staring straight ahead in a moment of indecision.  The shower streamed down in front of her face, but she didn’t see it, she didn’t see anything.  She was too busy obsessing and she knew it. A second later, she ran out of the bathroom, forgetting all about the running water.  

     Sarah slammed her apartment door and ran down the hall to the stairs at the end.  Then she went up one flight and came out into another hallway, ending up in front of a door that was exactly above her own.  Sucking in a deep breath, fully aware that she was most likely going to embarrass herself here, she raised her right hand and knocked on Marcus’s door.  

     Much to her dismay, he didn’t answer.  She could hear Dozen panting on the other side of the door, so she cautiously decided to try her luck on the door.  It was unlocked,   Marcus had always been the trusting sort.  She swung the door open and Dozen backed up to let her in.   The living room was empty and she heard the faint sounds of the shower going in the back room.  

      After a moment, the noise of the shower made her remember that she had left her own water running downstairs.  

     "Shit!” she said for the second time this morning, more emphatically this time than the first.  Wow, twice before breakfast, this was not going to be a good day for her, she thought.  Sarah lunged back into the hallway, and ran downstairs to her apartment.  She got to the bathroom, turned the water off, then ran back upstairs and was sitting on the couch in Marcus’s living room before Dozen even figured out she was gone.  

     Back in the bedroom, Sarah could hear Marcus singing to himself as he showered.  She giggled a little bit as she learned this little bit about him.  To her it was something new, previously undiscovered so far in the time she had known him.

     They both worked part time at the little coffee bar on the ground floor of their apartment building.  It was such a small time establishment that it didn’t even have a name.  All it had was a sign that said COFFEE AND PASTRIES with an arrow pointing to the front door.  The sign lied, however, they really only had coffee and bagels.  Harold was the manager of the little lying coffee bar as well as their landlord.  He was a stocky, nervous man who mumbled instead of speaking, and constantly kept trying to smooth out the nonexistent hair on his bald head.  Harold kept meaning to order pastries for the shop, in order to keep them from working in dishonesty, but he was a busy man and kept forgetting.  

     Marcus had been working at the coffee shop for almost three years now, but Sarah was brand new to the neighborhood.  She didn’t really know anybody here, and she didn’t know the area at all.  The one person she knew, through a week and a half of coffee slinging, was Marcus, and now she sat nervously on his couch, waiting.

     Dozen sniffed eagerly around her knees as she waited, perhaps hoping that she had some food for him.  In the back room, she could hear Marcus singing, but couldn’t quite make out the song.  It seemed familiar though, and sat right on the edge of her mind.  

      She looked around the apartment curiously.  She had never been inside here before.  In truth, she didn’t really know Marcus that well, but he was the only person here that she knew at all.  And one thing Sarah hated was obsessing over stupid stuff by herself.  It generally worked much better talking to someone, it helped to distance her from the problem. At least that was the theory she was operating on here. 

The apartment held a strong smell of incense, but it was not unpleasant.  It was cluttered; stacks of mail and magazines were everywhere.  She was thankful that the place was more tasteful than most male apartments that she had been to, with crumpled beer cans and moldy pizza boxes scattered everywhere.  Out of curiosity, she went into the kitchen and opened up the freezer.  No frozen dinners, just baggies of portioned meat: beef, chicken, fish wrapped in paper and labeled with a marker.  In the refrigerator, she didn’t find a lot of junk food, mostly just fruits and vegetables, milk and eggs.  Apparently Marcus cooked for himself.  Sarah was moderately impressed.  

     She picked up a glass bowl of cooling pudding and was about to take a sample taste when she heard a voice behind her.

      "..And the world comes crashing down on me,” Marcus sang enthusiastically as he stepped into the living room.  

     Sarah turned around to see Marcus come out wearing only a towel and shrieked like a frightened mouse.  Her grip on the pudding relaxed and the bowl shattered on the kitchen floor.  

     "Jesus!” Marcus yelped as he jumped back behind the doorway, out of her line of sight.  He hurriedly grabbed his pants off the bed and pulled them on.  “My God, don’t do that to me!” 

     He peered his head around the corner and dark hair fell over troubled eyes as he looked at Sarah with a new understanding. 

     "That was my pudding wasn’t it?”

     "I’m so sorry Marcus, I’ll clean it all up.  Umm…here,” Sarah grabbed a nearby roll of paper towels and functionally disappeared.  Marcus only saw round, blonde arcs of straw that sort of bobbed up and down on the back of her head as she tried to scoop up the pudding one paper towel at a time.  

     "That was going to be for Dozen.  He’s been so good for the past month.  No humping the legs, no shitting on the carpet, no anything.”

     She looked up over the counter again, “You feed your dog pudding?”

     "Well it’s not really a matter of feeding it to him, dogs will pretty much eat anything placed low enough for them to reach.  I just set it in front of him and he does the feeding all on his own.”

     She tried to understand, but instead her face just made a twisting knot.  “But that’s horrible!  All the fat and sugar in there, that can’t be good for him.  And there’s so much of it!  Did you expect him to eat a whole gallon of pudding?

     "Well, yesterday’s bowl was a little smaller.”

     "Yesterday’s!  You do this everyday?”

     Marcus couldn’t hold it anymore, and busted out laughing.  “Relax girl, I don’t really feed pudding to my dog.  I’d have to be a nut job.  Lord, that was fun though.”

     "Oh geez, now you’re a smartass!” she said when things fell in place.  “Why am I even here doing this for you?”

     "Well it was you that dropped the pudding, right?”

     "That much I know, but I’m still trying to figure out why I came up here.”

     "Aren’t we both?” Marcus said absently.

     There was a sudden flash of violence in her eyes.  “Look, are you asking me to leave?”

     "Wait--”  Marcus came around the counter and stood facing down to Sarah, looking at her calmly.  “I’m just having fun with you, try to stay on the light side of things.  Why don’t you forget about the pudding?  I’ll clean it all up later.  But there’s obviously something bothering you, I could tell that before the Great Pudding Disaster, which shall hereafter be called the GPD.  You came up here to see me for a reason.  What you got instead was my horrifying nakedness and pudding on your shoes.  But forget all of that stuff, just tell me what’s going on.”

     Sarah dropped the paper towels and looked up.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “I can’t remember.”

     "You can’t remember what to tell me, or why you came up here?

     "Either one.”

     "Hmm. Pudding on your shoes.”

     "Yeah I noticed.”

     "No.  I mean, it’s a pun.  Get it, pudding on your shoes?”

     She rolled her eyes at him.  "Yes, I get it. Ha ha.  You’re very clever, how fantastic.  How about getting back to me now?”

     "Fair enough, what’s going on?”  Marcus went to the cabinets to get her a glass of water.  

     Sarah walked right past Marcus and slumped into the couch that was green and ugly, but remarkably comfortable.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “But I already told you that.  I—I just feel strange.”

     "You feel strange how?”

     "God this is frustrating.  I don’t think I could even tell you how much.”

     "Well, start somewhere.  Try telling me what’s bothering you.”

     She looked up in earnest from the couch, “I just felt wrong when I woke up this morning.  I was afraid.  No, I was terrified.  I must have been dreaming, that’s the only thing I can put together, but I don’t know.  Because I can’t remember.”  

     "Hmm.”

     "And now I feel all scattered and weird, cause I freaked out and came up here and ruined Dozen’s pudding--”

Hey relax, just back up to before that.  You say you can’t remember anything you were dreaming about?  Here you go.”  He handed her a glass of cool water, no ice.  She held it in front of her face watching little white flakes spin around inside.  

     "No, and it’s screaming inside me.”

     "Well, that’s pretty common.  We all go through several stages of dreaming as consciousness goes up or down.  In fact, most dreams slip away without any recollection.  And you know how hard it is to hold onto the memory of a dream, even for just a short period of time.  I wouldn’t get too worried about this one.”

     "But Marcus, I was so scared.  It was the loneliest feeling I’ve ever felt in my life, and I’ve had my share of lonely moments.  It was like I was sure that I was going to die right then.  I can’t help but think that it might be important to remember why.”

He sat down next to her and sipped on a glass of water of his own.  “Have you tried thinking about it really hard, you know, just concentrating and trying to bring it back?”

     "I don’t think it would do any good.  It’s farther gone than your pudding back there, sorry.  There aren’t even any pieces to try and put back together.  There’s only emptiness where it once had been, a fuzzy dark veil.” 

     "Wow, that was extremely well put.”  Marcus hopped up to his feet.  “Look I don’t know about you, but I feel if we continue with this conversation, we’re going to need some coffee, maybe even some bagels.  We can pretend that they’re pastries with extra gooey fruit filling.  You game?”

     "Sarah smiled for perhaps the first time all morning, a mischievous little grin.  “Yeah, that sounds okay.  Come on, let’s go get a little perked up.”  

6:55 am Tuesday

     The shop opened up in five minutes and nothing was ready.  Marcus and Sarah flew around inside, preparing the morning’s coffee and setting up the shop, unwilling to let the GPD get in the way of their day.  

     Sarah was behind the counter, simultaneously making regular and decaffeinated coffee behind her, and warming up the cappuccino and espresso machine.  It took some time for it to work the kinks out of its pipes and work properly.  Even then it had a foul temperament and pushed out only a splotchy, toxic-looking sludge on some days.  When everything was set in mechanical motion, she went back to the walk in refrigerator to bring out the day’s supply of bagels and bread products that were definitely not pastries.

     Marcus ran around the store floor, taking the chairs down from on top of the tables, and then wiping all the tables clean again.  When the seating area was clear he went to the front door and opened it up towards the outside world.  The clock over the counter said 7:02.  

     "Damn, we almost made it,” he said.

     "Yeah.  Let’s just hope that little miracle is worth it.  It’ll really suck to sit here by ourselves for the next three hours after rushing like that.”

     "Very true.”

     "Anyway, thanks for the help, but I can watch things here for a minute if you want to go and deal with that pudding.”

     "I keep telling you, it’s the GDP now.  I’ve named it.”

     "Good for you, how very quaint.  You don’t want Dozen sticking his nose in there do you?”

     "I know, I’ll be right back.”  Marcus slipped out through the back door of the shop.

     As soon as he was gone, the first customer of the day drifted in, a slim elderly man with white hair and thin lips.  He was short now, but it was obvious that he used to be taller.  Age had taken back some of the height it had once granted him.   He was dressed in a fine red suit, with dark maroon lapels and he carried a hat of the same color under his arm.  

     "Good morning Mr. Stanley,” said Sarah, managing to smile.  

     Mr. Eugene Stanley worked as a doorman at the prestigious Velmont Hotel, a five-star luxury resort just two blocks down 32nd street.  His shift went from eight to five six days a week, only taking Sundays off.  Eugene met all kinds of people on the job, from sharp dressed businessmen to snotty spoiled rotten children, and he was friendly to all of them.  He couldn’t imagine anything better than meeting so many fine people every day.  Every morning he walked down to the nameless little coffee shop on his way to the Velmont, sipped on a cappuccino or two and mulled over the day’s newspaper.  Eugene and Marcus had gotten to be pretty good friends.  Sarah couldn’t really understand it, but she supposed they recognized each other as creatures of habit.  

     "Good morning, Sarah,” he said, returning her smile.  “Where’s Marcus?’

     "Oh, he had an accident upstairs.  He should be back in a minute or two. What can I get for you this morning?”

Mr. Stanley seemed a little puzzled over this tiny break in his routine. “You should know better than to ask me that, dear.  I’ll just take my usual.”

     "Sure thing.  I’ll have it in just a moment.”

     Sarah never did understand his usual order.  She started on the cappuccino and as the old machine kicked to life, she turned around to the cutting board to make up Mr. Stanley’s bagel.  Mr. Stanley was nice man, but he was also a strange man if you asked Sarah.  Every day it was an onion bagel with cream cheese and a squeeze of lemon over the top.  It just about made Sarah gag. But she handed him his cappuccino and the bagel just as he wanted, and Mr. Stanley retreated to his usual table in the corner and faced away from the window.

Eugene was an old man, just a few years from retirement.  His hearing had been fading out for the past decade.  He didn’t care that much, the world was full of too much noise for him.  Let it go, he thought.  So as the morning began and customers began to trickle in for coffee and treats, Eugene focused in on the morning paper, holding his lemon-tainted bagel just inches from his mouth, and never even looked up when the door opened.  

     Such a pity though, he never did get to that bagel.