I didn't sleep particularly well that night. There was simply too much going on in my head. It shouldn't have surprised me. So I got out of bed earlier than I had planned and went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.
Ah, the java bean. Cure for so many ills.
I made a three-cup pot (just in case) and went into the living to see what drivel was on the television at this ungodly hour. The couch was comfortable, the coffee was hot, and I had a full battalion of channels to command, so for the moment, life was not unpleasant.
It was almost bearable.
I turned on the Space Channel and immediately recoiled in horror as the stultifyingly horrific comedy of "The House of Frightenstein" assailed my senses. I punched the remote with a near-violent enthusiasm as I strove to switch to something else—anything else—to take the vestigial images of bad horror makeup and worse dialogue out of my forebrain.
I finally settled upon an infomercial for one of Tony Robbins' courses on DVD. I figured it was at least good for a laugh.
As I sipped my coffee and watched the toothy behemoth peddle his wares on the airwaves, I felt my eyelids begin to droop. I cursed my recalcitrant metabolism, asking it pointlessly why it couldn't have caused my eyelids to droop several hours ago. So I finished my coffee, put the mug on the coffee table, and put my head back on the couch.
Tony Robbins is just as convincing even when you can't see him, I discovered.
I must have dozed a bit (a surprising thing, since I'd just ingested coffee), because the next thing I knew I was not in the presence of Tony Robbins, but of Suzanne Somers, who was selling her latest book. I'd rather been hoping for an ad for "Girls Gone Wild", but this was an okay replacement. Old as she was, our Suzanne still cut a rather fetching figure, and she was wearing tights, after all.
After a few minutes of watching Ms. Somers and occasionally flashing back to memories of watching Three's Company, I decided to get my butt up off the couch and head for the shower. If the coffee didn't wake me, the hot water surely would. I left the TV on and put the mug in the sink, dropping my robe in the bedroom and turning on the spray. It felt wonderful.
As I dried myself off and got dressed, I tried to figure out what I was going to do that day. I didn't have to go into work; they were not expecting me back for another week. My manager and coworkers knew what had happened; Lydia had blurted it out to them when she called the store to tell them I wouldn't be coming in. I didn't blame her for that; she was distressed, after all, and my coworkers were all good people. They cared about me, I knew, and I cared for them, too. Well, as much as I was able to care about anyone other than myself.
So I had another full week ahead of me, with no real obligations. I could work on my writing, play my guitar, hit the local coffee shops, watch DVDs, go to movies, maybe even convince Lydia to come over for some intense make-up sex.
I paused at that last thought. For some reason, I felt a little guilty about the whole Lydia thing. That wasn't like me at all, as my usual modus operandi was to basically just do whatever the hell I wanted without much thinking about other people's feelings. Not that I didn't have my limits; I was, after all, a veritable master when it came to customer service at the store. I had a way about me that put customers at ease, and my knowledge of the inventory was exceptional. I was very good at what I did.
I was also fully capable of conducting myself well within social norms when I found myself in social settings. I was well-brought-up, had good manners and hygiene, and could be polite to almost anyone. My inner dialogue, however, was rife with judgment and disdain. I didn't have the time of day for most people, but they never saw that side of me. Not, that is, unless they got to know me better. The better I knew someone, the more likely my inner monologue was to become outer monologue.
And that little fact had lost me more than a few friends over the years.
I dressed and went back into the living room. I considered fixing myself some breakfast, but my stomach was not really awake yet, so I decided to wait a while. It was barely six o'clock now, and I rarely broke my fast before eight.
So it was back to the channel flipping again.
I found a kiddies show where frightening puppets were extolling the virtues of the banana. I found a cartoon where a large blue dog was trying to solve a mystery. I found a music video from about 1985. I found an early morning news program where even the reporter looked half-asleep. None of these things interested me.
In desperation, I resorted to the movie channels. They rarely showed anything worth seeing at this early hour, but I figured it was at least worth a try. There might at least be something to make fun of.
The first channel I landed on was showing an old Jean-Claude Van Damme film. I passed on that. The only film of his I liked was TimeCop (a guilty pleasure… I loved all things time-travel). The next one was showing a really cheesy adventure film with bad acting and dreadful costumes.
Nearly ready to throw the remote at the screen in frustration, I tried one more time.
This channel, at least, was showing something that caught my attention.
It was a black-and-white film, and the scene playing out was one set at a train station. In the foreground was a woman with her back to the camera. She was watching a train pull out of the station. I didn't recognize the movie, but I did recognize the woman's coat.
I sat forward, scarcely able to believe my eyes. She was wearing a coat nearly identical to the one that my mysterious visitor in the hospital had been wearing. Or my imaginary visitor. Or my hallucination. Or whatever she was.
Then the woman turned to face the camera, and the blood began to drain out of my face. It was the same woman. There was no doubt in mind. I'd gotten a good look at her during her last visit, when I'd been in my alove at the Short Stay Unit. It was the same woman.
She seemed to be looking right at me.
The logical part of my mind found this odd. Actors rarely looked directly at the camera when making films. Why this woman was looking directly at the audience was beyond me. It didn't make any sense.
She looked worried. She looked frantic. She looked as if something bad were about to happen.
"You must protect yourself," she said. "They're coming."
I blinked. What was she talking about? Was that a message for me? Was I hallucinating again? Was I going crazy? Was I being drawn into movie world? I had no blessed idea.
For the hell of it, I decided to answer her.
"Who's coming?" I asked. "Protect myself from what?"
Her face fell, almost as if she'd lost hope that I'd ever understand her. "There's no time," she said. "You must be careful. They know about you. They're watching you."
She looked away again, then back at me. She opened her mouth to speak, but the picture suddenly changed. I was suddenly watching an old Steve Martin movie, and it was not in black and white.
"Hey," I said. "Bring her back. She wasn't finished yet."
I suddenly looked around the room, the realization of how foolish I was acting suddenly striking me full in the face. "Great. Now I'm talking to the television. They shouldn't have let me go home."
But it was the thought of the television talking to me that was more troubling.
——————–
I did eventually have breakfast, after I'd managed to calm myself down and convince myself that I hadn't really seen what I thought I'd seen. It had been a coincidence, nothing more. There had been a glitch at the movie network, and they'd accidentally fed a scene of an old movie when they'd really meant to show the Steve Martin film. It must have been a movie I'd seen recently, and the actress had been the source of my imaginings at the hospital. It was probably all just some weird after-effect of taking so much Gravol, Sleep-Eze-D, and rum.
That was all there was to it.
After I'd polished off my scrambled eggs and toast, had another cup of coffee, and washed up the dishes, I decided to go out for while. I knew I'd go crazy if I stayed in the apartment for too long, and I knew some fresh air would do me good. So I grabbed my jacket, wallet, and keys, and went downstairs to the front door.
I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go at first, but I started walking anyway. I thought I might head downtown, maybe pick up a magazine or something, maybe stop somewhere for a coffee and bagel. I had no set agenda; I'd figure it out as I went along. I was a man at liberty.
It was a beautiful fall day. The leaves were turning the glorious colors of the dance of death, and air was clear and crisp. The sun was again giving sharp edges to everything it touched, and as I walked along, I felt that perhaps life wasn't quite so bad after all.
This was a stark contrast to a mere six days earlier, when I had gotten dressed, walked to the mall, purchased some over-the-counter pills and some alcohol, and had systematically attempted to remove myself from the gene pool. I was, yet again, amazed at how something as simple as a different day could produce such a staggering change in one's mental state.
It never ceased to frustrate me.
My feet carried me in the direction I usually walked when I headed for work. I found myself in the center of town, glancing at the shop windows of the Quinpool Business District, and wondering what the day would bring. I loved days like these; I could do anything I pleased and go anywhere my feet felt like taking me. The day was like a gift-wrapped box, waiting to be opened.
I found such optimistic thoughts suspicious, and I immediately took their mental mug shots and started a case file on each of them. If they turned out to be bad eggs in the long run, I'd know where to find them. They wouldn't get away with deceiving me.
At length I found myself nearing the downtown area. It was about a half-hour walk from my apartment building, which suited me just fine. I didn't want to live too close to work, but I didn't want to live too far away from it, either. My location, as the three bears might have put it, was just right.
It didn't surprise me that my feet took me towards Barrington Street. It was a familiar route, there was lots to look at along the way, and in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to drop in on my coworkers and show them that I was hale and hearty.
But first, I stopped into Apollo's Coffee, which was right next door to my place of employ.
The aroma hit me like a thrown quilt as soon as I stepped in the door. The familiar setting was a comfort to my troubled soul as no apartment-of-recent-suicide-attempt could ever be. This place had nothing to do with my misery or failure, and I welcomed each sensory fragment as it arrived in my brain.
I stepped up to the counter. Tamara, the owner-slash-manager, was at the cash, ringing in the order of the person ahead of me. As he moved down to the bar, where his beverage would be presented to him, I stepped up and pulled out my wallet.
"Hi, Jack," Tamara said. "Haven't seen you in a few days."
"I've been off," I replied, carefully choosing my words for their double meaning. "As a matter of fact, I'm still off today." I held out my arms, inviting her to take in the non-dress-code splendor of my jacket, shirt, and jeans.
"Must be nice," she said.
I thought about that for a moment. "Nice," I said, "is hardly the word."
She cocked an eyebrow at me. "You feeling okay?"
"Today? Great. Tomorrow? Who knows?"
She stared at me for a moment. "The usual?"
"Yep. No variation from habit here. What muffins have you got today?" I stepped over to the display case to eye the baked goods. "Oh, good. I'll have a lemon-cranberry."
Cranberries always cheered me up.
Tamara called out my drink order—a chai latté made with soy milk—to the gal at the bar, and went to fetch my muffin out of the display case.
Tamara was a pretty woman, in her forties, I thought, with shoulder-length dark blonde hair and a face full of tiny freckles. She was a pleasant woman, and she knew how to run a business. I'd always liked her, and I'd always gotten along well with her. Not that we'd had time for any deep discourses upon the meaning of existence, but we always managed to have a pleasant chat.
I paid her, took my muffin, and moved down to the bar.
