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.
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