Reasons Only Time Allows Page 4

  He didn’t care if anyone saw him, if anyone was taking a work shit. At that moment, self-consciousness forgotten, there was only extreme urgency. He needed to cool off. The motion sensor faucet in the sink produced a trickle of water then stopped. Thelon used it repeatedly and splashed at his face. He moved too fast to check his reflection, but underneath the horrible fear, he heard his own voice. Don’t look. You’re invisible.

  He retched on the sink and floor. No time. He turned and kicked open a stall door.

  His vision doubled and time moved strange and slow. Each second stretched too long. He saw the blurry toilet seat and leaned towards it. Pieces of it popped into sharp focus, demanding attention. A pubic hair resting on the rim pulled his eye and he knew it had been there for all time and would remain there forever, locked in its perfection.

  No! He broke free from the hair, lurched forward, and fell to his knees. Following a mad impulse, he dunked his head into the toilet water. Up and down, Thelon baptized himself in the sick waters as the motion sensor flushed. With each submersion, he became more real, more solid. After five times, he stopped and let the phone clatter to the floor.

  Thelon reached his hand a bit under the wall dividing stalls to pick up the phone. He tapped at the smooth screen and nothing happened. The phone was off. Nestor was gone.

  “Uh, you okay?” asked someone from the next stall.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” As Thelon said it, he realized it was true. He wiped toilet water from his beard with the back of his sleeve and gritted his teeth. What was that? His body calmed. His breathing regulated and so did his temperature. I’m okay, but what the hell just happened?

  He left the stall to get paper towels. This time, he did look in the mirror. Soaked from head to chest, he’d have to go home. He stank. The odors cleared his mind even more. Bright. Gross. Tangible. Rational. Though sense remained absent with explanations unavailable to him, he regained his ability to think. I’m a mess. I gotta go home.

  Thelon took the stairs, not wanting to have a run-in with anyone who might want a single Goddamn thing from him. He slowed when he came to the exit, forced back into the public lobby by fire alarm warnings printed on heavy exit doors.

  He wasn’t dry, but he wasn’t dripping water anymore. The suit, a dark enough gray, just barely concealed the evidence of his toilet soak. Once on the street, the only place he wanted to go was home. Not his apartment, but back to his parents’ house and crawl back into the bed where he’d awakened to this nightmare. Walking, his emotions settled. Passivity took root in an odd anticlimax.

  He didn’t observe a single detail, but he made it to his apartment. Room to room, he paced its spacious floors. The idea of going to the doctor, of admitting he was having a mental health crisis, was now contested by this physical proof that he wasn’t delusional, but that something terrible was going on.

  ~

  THELON WANDERED THE street on which his apartment sat but knew he had nowhere to go. After losing time, he walked up the flights of steps to his apartment again, eschewing the elevator because it made him feel trapped. He sat. He stood. He paced. Time moved. He tried to listen to music, but songs seemed too fast, the lyrics not what he recalled, and it failed to bring him any peace. He used the computer to look up his symptoms and there were many results.

  Schizophrenia seemed the most logical, but most horrifying. If he wasn’t holding the phone, the knowledge of the call still fresh, he’d believe Nestor was nothing but a voice in his mind and that he’d lost touch with reality. But it could be a brief psychotic disorder, sometimes called a psychotic break, and that was more optimistic because it could end. Or maybe he had a tumor. Without medical intervention—which he did not want—he faced the facts. He couldn’t self-diagnose. What’s that line? The broken machine can’t diagnose itself? I’m not a doctor.

  Thelon did what anyone might do in his situation and watched TV. The sound of other humans. The ritual of flipping channels. He sought comfort in these traditions.

  This isn’t working. Nothing held his attention. He didn’t recognize the shows on any channel, and it bothered him.

  Then, he saw something familiar: Friends. He’d seen every episode dozens of times; it was a show his family watched on Sundays while folding laundry. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped himself in a throw blanket, ready to lose himself in the show.

  However, he didn’t know this episode. A different actor played the part of Joey, but his character was the same. It was a sad episode. Joey had pancreatic cancer.

  A scroll bar popped up as it did on every channel. Advertisements blocked part of the screen, commercials overlaying the narrative, and this one announced this had been a special episode—the one that won all the Emmys.

  Like his thoughts about his job and life, Thelon knew and didn’t know at the same time. How could I have forgotten so many big deals? This reality made him sick. He changed the channel back to the news and left it there.

  ~

  BY NIGHTFALL, THELON was sick of TV. Sick of the President. Sick of waiting for the phone to turn back on—dreading it, but also wanting it to so he could again be reassured that he wasn’t certifiable. Even thinking about Nestor upset Thelon in a way it was impossible to explain. I have to do something. Get out of the apartment. Get away from the TV.

  So, he went to the bar to meet his coworker Chad. Thelon arrived without awareness of how he got there and thought he should have stayed in.

  Crowded with Manhattan stereotypes, Thelon ogled the bar patrons. Suits and hipsters mingled. Everyone laughed. The music played too loud. Smiles on every face. I don’t belong here. He pushed his way through, trying not to spill anyone’s drink.

  “Hey, T! Back here,” Chad shouted.

  Chad, Chad, Chad? Am I really friends with this massive douche nozzle?

  “You missed it, dude. After you ghosted at the office, J.P. came in looking for you.”

  “Did I fuck up?” Anxious and disinterested, Thelon wondered if getting fired would be enough to convince him he needed help.

  “You tell me. Was a little afternoon delight worth skipping out on the CIO? Or were you cutting some deal with another firm?”

  “I wasn’t feeling well.” This was the truth.

  “Drink this. You’ll feel better,” Chad said and forced a shot glass into Thelon’s hand.

  “I don’t like shots.”

  “And I don’t like pussies.”

  Is this guy really my friend? Thelon downed the drink. Whiskey. It burned his throat but produced a pleasant warmth in his body.

  The others at the table cheered and the noise of the bar rose to a pitch that made everything but shouting inaudible.

  “What’s everybody celebrating?” Thelon screamed to Chad.

  Chad looked surprised. A toothy, broad smile formed on his face. “You, you beautiful brown bastard! The ink’s not even dry, but the deal you signed yesterday made everyone at this table a rich man and all of our bosses even richer.”

  Thelon didn’t comprehend what he and Chad did for a living. He looked to the table of his peers. The men looked like robots, programmed to drink and laugh loudly at things he couldn’t hear and wouldn’t understand if he did. He reached instinctively for the buzzing vibration against his thigh.

  “No phones, bro.” Chad tapped his arm and pointed at the sign above the bar that said as much. “Unless it’s that sweet piece of yours hitting you up for another booty call.” Chad laughed and Thelon wanted to punch him in the face—punch himself in the face for associating with such an assclown.

  “No. It’s okay,” Thelon said and left the phone in his pocket.

  This was the good life. A fiancée. He’d have to address this at some point, he thought. But how? She’d know I’m a phony. A fake. Or she’d be the one to push me to the doctors—to the loony bin. Thelon didn’t know how long he was supposed to stay at the bar. Nothing was happening. Less than nothing. He couldn’t hear the conversation. Couldn’t participate.


  Chad pulled on a jacket and slammed his drink. “See you in the office.”

  The only person who has talked to me is leaving. Fucking great. Thelon nodded and participated in the limp fist bump. Oh, I’m his black friend. How dope. How fucking horrible.

  With Chad gone, Thelon excused himself from the smiling table of empty-headed robots and went outside. The sun had set, but the city was still warm and lively. He could go back home and watch TV, but that wasn’t his home.

  Out of nowhere, he wanted to talk to someone about this. Not Chad, but I should tell someone, yeah? Who though? He fantasized about meeting a wizened old man—no, a sorcerer—full of sage advice on dealing with mystical arts. That’s movie stuff. The hero meets a teacher.

  Thelon accepted his bitter loneliness and paced the street.

  He thought about something he’d read once about stages of something… Was it alcoholism or grief? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and something else. In this moment, he recognized denial. Wasn’t sure if he’d been angry yet. If only he had a friend, someone who understood and didn’t laugh or send him to a doctor. This is really weird. I feel weird.

  Unfortunately, there was only one person who knew and understood: Nestor. After that single gut-wrenching call, Thelon didn’t want to talk to him again. Nestor might be a hallucination, a side effect of whatever mental breakdown I’m going through.

  In the absence of a wizard, he bargained with his own rational mind. Except the phone is real. Thelon felt the weight in his pocket. Yup. There it is. My only proof I’m not nuts.

  He slid the phone out and tapped the screen to life. The earlier text message waited.

  “Get off your ass, kid. Go to Seattle, ASAP.”

  The phone remained on.

  Thelon replied, nerves mounting in improbable anxiety. “Who are you?”

  He saw the ellipsis and the words below that said, ‘Nestor is typing.’

  Somebody pushed by him on the sidewalk and Thelon freaked out when he nearly dropped the phone.

  Beep, the message came through. The sound caused a physical reaction in Thelon before he saw the words. Reverse cocaine. Dread shot through him from top to bottom and his stomach told him he would throw up soon. A horrible nausea burned in his belly, sending stress sweat to his armpits. The back of his neck itched and stung like an infected papercut.

  Sweat dripped from his brow onto the screen. His knees threatened to buckle beneath him. Thelon gasped for breath and struggled to unbutton his shirt to let air reach him. The night had gone stale and stank of rotting garbage and gasoline fumes. The urge to flee refused to allow him to read the message as if his body anticipated the pain.

  Walk, fucker. Walk! He willed himself forward, stumbling like a drunk. Strange noises rumbled in his guts and his bladder ached with the need to piss, too full. His hand ached too, wrapped in a death grip around the phone. He wanted and didn’t want to look at it, so he walked, directionless. His thoughts moved fast. If I could just find somewhere to sit and think. He crossed streets and obeyed traffic signals, grounding himself in the movement which took extreme effort.

  His head weighed a hundred pounds and continuously bent on its own to look at the phone hanging at the end of his arm. Thelon grit his teeth and forced his gaze up at the ugly orange park lights. A park. He was in a park but didn’t know how he’d gotten there. He wasn’t alone, but he couldn’t see the faces of the people around him. From their outlines, he believed them to be occasional hipsters and homeless, indistinguishable to his unfocused eyes.

  Thelon tripped on a bench and though he’d been wanting to rest, he didn’t realize he’d found a place until he fell on top of it. Awkward, he slumped sideways on the cold metal and attempted to sit. His ass clenched in regular cramps to hold in the watery contents sloshing about in his guts. The phone buzzed and beeped again and again in rapid succession. Thelon read.

  “Seattle, Washington. Go. Now. Gather up Henry before it’s too late. Clock’s ticking.”

  “Send an email to your boss.”

  “Take the time off work.”

  “Ignore everything that isn’t finding them, bringing them together, and taking them to Black Star. Cahokia, Illinois.”

  “Do not tell anyone about me, or you all die.”

  The words spun in Thelon’s mind. He threw up. The whiskey burned coming up his throat and out his mouth and nose.

  “Uuugh,” he groaned. This is bad. This is really bad. The symptoms of contact with Nestor had not completely derailed him as it had in the office. This prompted a hopeful thought. Maybe if I go with it, it doesn’t fuck me up so bad?

  Thelon squeezed his eyes closed and focused on the name repeating in his mind: Henry.

  Henry. Henry. No last name. Henry.

  I don’t know any Henry.

  Then, with his fingertips pressed into his closed eyes. In the drunk spins and retina fatigue, the purple and red blacks of the back of his eyes, he saw a flame and he knew something. Henry! How could I have forgotten Henry? He was with me on the Moon. He saved me, didn’t he?

  Thelon laughed an echoing, mad laugh. !

  Though he lacked the context, knowledge flooded into his mind. The name connected to a face and a feeling of trust. A lanky man in his early 20s. White guy, something grunge about him. And a swagger! How do I know him? Who is he to me?

  Thelon rotated the image of Henry in his mind, examining him. Without any clear facts, he sought emotions and impressions and sat with that sense. Henry had been rough—a shit talker, but knowledgeable. Cocky because… There it is. Henry had power. A fire thing. An entity within him that burned. He’d saved me.

  Only now did a piece of the narrative manifest. Thelon opened his eyes and he knew something he hadn’t before, and it made him smile. Henry had given him something, shared his biography telepathically. That’s right. Henry didn’t have a body. Right. He’d burnt up trying to do something. And there was all that mushy love stuff with Cassie. Phoenix. He’d met her on a hot day in Phoenix, Arizona. That’s where we will go after I get him.

  Someone bumped into him. For a split second, he expected it to be Henry. Thelon looked at his companion and all this mental stuff—these memories—shuffled backwards and detached. He cleared his throat and his mind returned, present and calm. The guy next to him wasn’t Henry, but a red headed, homeless hipster, smiling at Thelon like he knew him.

  “You know, if you get sick out here, you could get harassed, you know.” The man handed Thelon a filthy rag and gestured to wipe his mouth. Thelon accepted it and did.

  “Thanks, man. I’m cool. I just had too much.”

  “Yeah. You got any money?”

  Thelon put the phone away. The screen had gone black anyway and didn’t seem to work when it didn’t want to work. He reached for his other pocket and pulled out a twenty and gave it to the man without thinking. The man accepted it, likewise, without thinking.

  “Thanks. Hope you feel better.” The man drifted back into the night, leaving Thelon alone on the bench with the dirty shirt and his thoughts.

  The intensity of Thelon’s anxiety and excitement at reclaiming memories died down and he smelled his own sick at his feet. It’s time to go home.

  Clarity and passivity. The pendulum of his psychology swung without his observation. One minute, panic. The next, idle nothing until someone told him what to do or took him somewhere. This time, it was Nestor. I’m going to Seattle.

  The plan formed on its own. He had an email to write and needed to get online to make travel reservations. The greater mysteries and the daily obligations of T’s life would wait.

  Damned happy that he knew his address, Thelon spat out the bile taste in his mouth as he walked back to the street. He wished he’d had a normal functioning phone to summon a ride. In Eden, flying cars and gondolas carried us for free up into the rainbow levels the city in the clouds. He shook his head. Not that stuff again. Not now. He wanted to be home and take a shower. Water. I need water.

>   A yellow cab pulled up to the curb and Thelon accepted the convenience of not having to overcome a hurdle, but that things merely happened in this Disney ride. He slid into the seat and stated his address to the cabby. Being in a car and going forward with a plan represented progress, yet they hadn’t moved.

  “Hey?” he said into the glass divider, hoping the cabby heard him.

  Thelon settled back in the soiled, spongy cushion. He reached for the seatbelt out of some physical habit and his hand went deep into the crack of the seat to fiddle with the buckle but encountered something slimy. He recoiled and wiped his fingers on his pants. Why aren’t we moving?

  He said his address again, louder, and looked at the driver. An older man, heavyset, ambiguously ethnic. The driver seemed not to hear him, or at least, gave him no sign having heard him—not even a grunt of acknowledgment. Thelon had leaned forward to tap the glass when sudden acceleration slammed him back into the seat.

  “Jesus,” Thelon muttered and now, the driver locked eyes with him in the rear-view mirror.

  “Heeeey,” he said in a slow and low tone. “I know you.”

  “Um, naw. I think you’ve got someone else in mind,” Thelon said. What is this shit now?

  “No,” he said, taking a turn way too fast against oncoming traffic. “I know you. Franky is your name, and you done fucked up getting in my cab again.”

  “Nope,” Thelon said as he clung to the door. “Not me. You can just let me out, yeah?”

  “Not without getting what’s owed to me, Franky. Ohhh, Franky boy, seeing you is just like Christmas in July.”

  “Dude, I’m not Franky,” Thelon shouted as they hurtled through another intersection too fast, hitting a bump in the road that sent his head into the soft, grimy ceiling.

  Thelon calculated that if he were to tuck and roll out the door, he might come away alive with some road rash, or he might break his fucking neck. Bad thoughts filled him. He never was a fighter. There’d be no way he could kick through the glass partition between him and this crazy fucker. Fuck! He was stuck and along for the ride, wherever it was taking him.