Diminished

I didn’t dream. I don’t know how long I slept but now I was awake and I was in terrible pain. The drugs were wearing off and my head was a maelstrom. I pulled myself out of bed and observed the night sky. It had been dusk when I escaped the hospital. How long had I slept? I stumbled into my bathroom and flipped open the mirror. I had nothing to truly dull the pain. Just toothpaste and a few aspirin left in a white bottle. I swallowed them down with sink water.

ESCAPE.

Still? I’d already gotten out of the hospital. What else was I supposed to do? Unless… was I safe in my own home?

This question sprouted legs and walked across my walls. Everywhere I looked I asked myself the same thing. Paranoia. It’s paranoia! From the head injury, of course. My legs moved involuntarily again. I was dressing in smoke-scented clothes. I fought for control of my body, and after a struggle I moved each limb to confirm I’d ripped each from fate’s path. I walked into my living room and plopped onto the couch. The aspirin had done nothing to alleviate the fire in my shoulder or my head. I felt fate nibble at my hands, pulling them toward…

The crate in the corner. The bass. My bass. I heard an ephemeral song and I decided I’d have to accompany it. I got up and pulled the lid from the box. I used my good hand to grab the neck of the bass and raise it. I stood it up, leaning it against my torso, and reached upward with my shot shoulder. I nearly fell to my fire-weakened floor from the pain of the effort. It was impossible. I couldn’t play. And after my fall onto the SUV, maybe I’d never play again. Paranoia. It was all just paranoia. I was fine. My shoulder was fine. I’d been shot, and I’d hit my head, but I wasn’t in danger.

A small chuckle escaped my lips. It continued for a time, then progressed into laughter. The laughter became stronger, stronger, my lungs burning as I heaved from the effort. I fell back onto the couch and the bass crashed to the floor. I laughed and laughed, nearly shrieking before I lost consciousness again.

Daylight seeped through my window onto my reddened eyes and unkempt stubble. I’d slept again, and nothing had happened to me. Paranoia. That’s all. I pulled myself up and saw that my shoulder was leaking. Fresh, bright red was pushing through the deep brown of yesterday’s dried blood. It felt as though one hundred needles were tearing it open at once. All this from a single bullet. I needed to fix it. I wasn’t ok and I knew it. But I thought of the detective’s words. There was something more important right now. I grabbed a gray trench coat off a hanger and stumbled out my door.

I stopped outside the jazz cafe. It was getting dark again. So much of the last few days had taken place bit by bit with the haze of obscurity between. I blinked.

The cafe vanished. In its place was a boarded up theater, long abandoned. Through the filthy windows I saw an entirely empty space. I shook my head, and the cafe was back. I took a moment to settle my breathing.

Am I going fucking insane?

ESCAPE.

I waited a while. I pulled my coat closer to my face such that only my eyes were visible. My breathing was labored, and over the next hour of waiting it didn’t improve.

I imagined my pupils as feline slits and I imagined the barista as prey. Another hour later, he left the place, turned away from me, and walked down the sidewalk. I followed him at distance, occasionally losing him before catching his lanky frame in his white shirt and bowtie in between assorted bodies. Once or twice I completely lost him. In those instances, I closed my eyes and allowed the white cat to guide me. Then it would turn and look at me and swish its tail in my mind. I’d open my eyes and spot the barista immediately.

Eventually we were at his apartment. It was a building that wasn’t far from being described as ‘dilapidated,’ and I thought it fit the kid. He jumped the concrete front steps two at a time, got to the top, and slithered through the doorway as another tenant left. I ran up the steps and watched through the glass pane in the front door as he climbed the stairs, unlocked the door at the top, and walked inside. I waited outside as casually as I could, then caught the door as another tenant headed out. I was in.

My shoulder burned terribly. I walked up the stairs and got to the barista’s room. The door was stained and slightly warped. I knocked. Hard.

One moment, two… then the barista opened up. His eyes were an assortment of surprise, confusion, and fear as I kicked it the rest of the way open, sending him backward. He was prey, and now he was trapped in the confines of his apartment. He was mine.

I locked my slitted eyes on him and struck him with my good arm across the face. He spun backward and cried out, scrambling to reach for something to defend himself. But there was nothing. He’d landed between the kitchenette and living room. He was in deep waters and I was not to be stopped.

“What the fuck are you doing? Help! Help!” he cried.

I knelt atop him and struck him once more with a clenched fist. He sputtered and looked up at me with wild eyes. His thin, gangly frame struggled against the haggard mass atop him. He tried to spit from his bloodied mouth, but it fell before it reached me and splattered on his white dress shirt.

“Why!?” I demanded. I struck him again.

“W-why what, you fucking freak?”

“Who the fuck told you to do it? To shoot me?”

This was the only way it made sense. ‘Silver briefcase, young woman;’ ‘Vintage guitar case, skinny young man;’ ‘Large camping pack, middle aged man.’ As soon as the detective had said it I knew it was the boy. It had to be. He was the arm of that voice. The hand. The fingers. The rifle.

“What’s his name?” I hissed, shaking him by his bloodied collar. “What’s his fucking name!?”

The boy’s face remained confused, bewildered. Then, in a single instant, it settled. He cocked his head to the side, and smiled with bloody teeth.

“You know…” he started. I raised a fist and breathed hard, adrenaline coursing through every inch of my being. He continued. “It’s not easy.”

“What the fuck are you saying?”

“It’s not easy, training to use one of those things. You practice, you read the manuals, you go to a shooting range,” he said, pausing to spit blood onto his floor, “but at the end of the day, if your scope’s off by even a few ticks, you can miss a shot by a whole foot. You know… aim for the bullseye, hit the edge of the target. Aim for a head, hit a shoulder-”

I hit him with everything I had. Not because of the surprise. I knew it was the boy. But now, at this moment, he was the only tangible extension of the voice on the phone. I had to inflict pain by proxy. I had to at the very least try.

“Where…” I growled, “where the fuck is he? The voice…”

The barista laughed and manufactured another horrible smile.

“You think I know? Fuck you. I just get the fucking checks.” He continued his bloodied cackle for a moment. “But it’s over for you, one way or another. He explained it to me once. It’s fate. It’s all goddamned fate. If you’re meant to go-” he managed before choking on his own blood. He turned his head and spit onto the floor. He struggled to catch his breath. “If you’re meant to go, then you’re gone. That’s all it is.”

I grabbed his collar with my good hand and shook hard. “The checks. Show me the fucking checks.” I shook him so hard his head hit the ground, and he wheezed as his eyes nearly rolled back.

“You… you won’t find him there. It’s a front. It’s all fake,” he said. He motioned to his coffee table. “In the drawer, take it and get the fuck out. I’ll call the cops on you. Even if you find him, it doesn’t matter. You’re done, whether it’s here or in prison.” Then he smiled. “Unless you wanna kill me and try to get away with it. But then you’re exactly what he thought you were.”

The barista’s words pierced my mania. Exactly what he thought… a killer? A lunatic? I couldn’t be sure. I saw the white cat walk out from beneath the barista’s sink cupboard and walk over to the coffee table. I got up off the boy and followed it. I found a check. And on it was an address. A warehouse near the docks. Not far from where he’d sent me for that job. That’s when everything began. The spiral, the murders, the upright bass…

I took it and left.

I hobbled forward, lightheaded from the blood loss. It was the middle of the night and I didn’t see another soul at the docks. The ocean breeze tried to infiltrate my trench coat. I was externally warmed by the blood dripping down my torso from my shoulder. It soothed me. But with each drop I knew I was losing body heat. I knew I was dying.

I heard no seagulls, only waves. The docks were illuminated by blinking lights atop empty freighters. I followed my phone to the address stated. I laughed. It was on the very edge bordering the vast sea. The voice was sending checks to the barista from a lighthouse.

The lighthouse wasn’t tall. It was the sort you’d find on docks like this rather than rocky beaches. Maybe three, four stories; chipped white paint with red roofing. A small tower leading to a rotating lamp up top.

I blinked, and it was gone. The dock was empty space aside from some large ropes and extra fishing nets roughly tossed into open crates. Ocean waves rolled in. I blinked again and the lighthouse was back. I walked to it.

The front door was unlocked and I opened it and walked inside. It looked to be a supply room with a staircase directly in front of me. There were lockers and crates and boxes with odds and ends poking out. There was a long wooden bench in the center of the room. Framed photos of the beach were placed directly next to large windows. There was no heating and I shivered. A single lightbulb flickered on the ceiling.

I turned and noticed a mirror pointed at me. I saw what I’d become. My eyes were sunken and the blood was beginning to seep through my trench coat. I looked like I’d aged 10 years in the span of a few days.

A phone rang. I knew the ringtone. I’d only ever heard one that sounded like this. I opened one of the lockers near me and retrieved an identical phone to that in the jazz cafe. It could have been the exact same phone. It didn’t matter. I answered it and I heard a song played on piano. It was beautiful. I was falling in and out of consciousness in accordance with the waves outside and still the song persisted. When it swelled I felt euphoria and when it quieted I was empty. I waited. I waited for b flat diminished. I waited for the voice on the phone to tell me to die. Instead it was her.

“Oh darling, look at the sight of you.”

I could sense my soul’s intention to leave my body and return to her. Wherever she was in time and space. But the static of the old cell phone wouldn’t permit it. She spoke again.

“I don’t know why it had to be you and I. He never told me that. We were just in fate’s path. That’s what he said, anyway.”

A gentle ‘drip’ stole my attention away from her voice for a moment. I looked down and saw I was leaving a puddle. I wouldn’t last much longer.

“H… how are you doing?” I managed, barely able to form the words with my cold, dry lips and parched throat. “Are… are you alright?”

She laughed. A sweet, wonderful laugh that almost saved me.

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m doing quite well, considering things. How are you doing?”

I nearly collapsed onto the wooden bench and my head spun as the waves in my mind urged me to drift away. “I’m… alright.”

“What is it that you want? What can I do to help you? I’m far away and you’re the only one I can speak to now,” she said.

“I want to kill him. I want to end his life.”

“If you do, it will only be because fate said so. And he can see it. Fate, I mean. So you’d just be doing what he expected of you.”

“That’s fine honey. Anyway…” I said, nearly falling off the bench, “anyway, it’s almost time to go. So if you could help me… if you wouldn’t mind…” I said, struggling to remain conscious, “I’d love you forever.”

She chuckled. “I think you’d love me forever either way, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

There was static for a few moments.

“There’s a knife in the crate to your right. The one next to the stairs. He’s waiting for you at the top of the lighthouse. If you can get there, he’s yours.”

It took everything I had to turn my head to the crate, get my legs to move over to it, and rummage around inside. My hand came away with the knife she’d mentioned. It was a kitchen knife and it was rusty.

“This’ll do. Thanks honey. I love you.”

“I love you too, darling. I’ll see you again sometime.”

“Yes. I’ll see you again.”

There was a click and she was gone. I knew I’d never speak with her again. I’d thrown it all away. Or maybe it had never been mine to lose. Either way, what I had now was my hand and a knife and a hole in my shoulder. I lurched up each stair one at a time, steadying myself against the chipped white wall leading in a spiral upward. I left a trail of blood with each step. Several times I stopped because the world was spinning and I knew it was my time to go with the waves and give up. Then I felt the soft fur of a white cat with piercing blue eyes and I found it in me to keep going for just a few more stairs. Eventually I was at the top.

The edges of my vision were dull and my mind was duller. I made out a single silhouette beside a large, open window. The breeze assaulted me and I almost faltered to it. I gripped the knife with my shaking hand. Then the rotating lamp of the lighthouse passed me. My eyes didn’t have it in them to dilate. I was overwhelmed until it passed and by the time I was present in the moment it had moved past the silhouette too.

“I suppose you have questions then?” the voice asked.

ESCAPE.

I would have laughed at him if I could. Instead I charged him with the last of my strength and stuck the knife through his torso. I heard him gasp and cry out in pain, and then we were falling. Falling to the sea. To the welcoming waves. To the abyss.

The two of us, bound by fate, cursed to die together.

One who observed fate. One who didn’t.

𝄂