The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2)

by Mark Reynolds

  And then there were other times when faking normalcy was impossible.

  He was barefoot. He had forgotten to put on shoes. It didn’t matter.

  As he walked into the silent diner, florescent lights flicked on by themselves. The coffeepot was already brewing hazelnut-flavored coffee—his favorite—and the Wurlitzer started up a song he liked, the volume normal: Wish You Were Here. Jack went behind the counter and selected a cup of yogurt and a banana from the refrigerator case, placing them on the counter. He found orange juice in the walk-in cooler, poured a glass, and got his coffee.

  Sometimes, it was almost easy to believe this was all normal.

  But it wasn’t. Not this place. Not him. Not Ellen Monroe. And most certainly not the world that she was living in right now, the one he had misled her about.

  He sat at the counter listening to the mournful refrains of Pink Floyd and sipping at his coffee while the sun rose behind him. On impulse, he took one of the postcards out of the nickel-rack on the edge of the counter: a faded picture of the Café on one side, the other blank but for the address lines and a square requesting postage.

  Jack looked at the empty back of the card for a time. Such a delicate thing, a beginning. So many ways to make it go wrong. So many ways to lose it all. It was every writer’s biggest hurdle. Or maybe just his. Maybe he wasn’t as good as he believed.

  Or maybe you’re just so arrogant that you believe every word you commit to paper has substance, the spiritual nourishment of generations not yet born. Maybe that’s it. Maybe a beginning is simply a place in the middle where you pick up the story, an invitation to come along and enjoy the ride.

  Jack wrote a quick message on the back of the postcard, and got up from the counter, walking out into the street and the full blaze of the rising sun to place the postcard into the mailbox. He raised the flag, much as he had done with the book. He didn’t bother with a stamp; there was no post office in the Wasteland to care about insufficient postage. Jack knew where the postcard was going; that was all that mattered.

  He walked back into the diner and took his breakfast over to the corner booth overlooking the nothingness of the chasm, the diner only feet from the edge. There was a typewriter on the table, the new dawn glinting off the polished metal keys, the strange casement an amalgam of typing machines, a David Chronenburg contraption combining an old 1920’s typewriter, a screen from a laptop, a jump drive port fashioned from a drive-slit in the side, and an iridescent black surface textured like the carapace of a jeweled scarab. Jack fed a sheet of paper into the back of the machine while sunlight ignited the steam rising from his coffee.

  It was time to get to work. Today promised to be another beautiful day in the Wasteland. Just like yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. An identical ribbon of days and nights of unending sameness, and him trapped on the Mobius strip for all time like a character from a Greek tragedy of Hell whose torment was considered too ambiguous to be of use as a parable.

  Nothing will change until you change it. Nothing.

  Jack swallowed a mouthful of the coffee, cracked his knuckles, and placed his fingers to the keyboard. It was not the first time, of course, but it was the first time he would do it where it was actually a beginning. No more setting it up. No more fooling around with characters and motivations and subplots and baselines. It was time to begin.

  Jack sent his fingers across the keys, tapping out words to the screen.

  The morning sun slanted across the rooftop, the stone surface misting gently with the new day’s warmth. Ellen Monroe noticed neither the cold of the stones beneath her nor the heat of the rising sun against her face. She was still lost in her own dreams…

  MEMORIES OF OUR TIME

  THAT NEVER WAS

  The morning sun slanted across the rooftop, the stone surface misting gently with the new day’s warmth. Ellen Monroe noticed neither the cold of the stones beneath her nor the heat of the rising sun against her face. She was still lost in her own dreams…

  Her own dreams …

  In that world that did not exist, that time both forever ago and as recent as the last words she had read before falling asleep, Ellen remembered something. Not something Jack had written. Not something that existed as words on a page. This was not a recollection reinforced by his book, but a memory from that world in spite of Jack’s book. Something happened at the Sanity’s Edge Saloon that Jack did not know about, had never written down, had never imagined.

  But it was real all the same. And she remembered it.

  Jack had retreated to the top room of the saloon, secluding himself away to write. He was angry and exhausted, bereft of inspiration and betrayed by half of the people he was charged with looking after. The others, those who did not openly doubt or despise him, were suffering a crisis of confidence. He was to be their savior. He was supposed to protect them from the lunatic mystics and monsters of the Wasteland, and free them from this strange purgatory. But Jack didn’t know what he was doing, and the monsters and madmen outside the saloon—the ones they knew they shouldn’t trust—were sounding more and more like the voice of reason in a maelstrom of insanity.

  Jack would fail, and they would all die.

  Ellen wanted to believe in Jack, but just then, with everyone in the saloon distrustful of one another and the tension a palpable haze that magnified every sound, darkened every shadow, stole the taste from the water and stifled the air, she wasn’t so sure. No one wanted to talk about how Alex and Leland tried to kill one another, one for the love of the mysterious woman from the Wasteland named Oversight, the other for the chance at free will, the businessman willing to sacrifice all of them for Kreiger’s promise of control over his own destiny. Lies, but Leland gambled all the same, and allowed one of Kreiger’s creatures into the saloon: the Dust Eater. Just part of Kreiger’s plan to stop Jack, to run him down in an ever-tightening trap until all of the exits were blocked, all of the avenues exhausted. Then the Cast Outs would take over the saloon, rule the Nexus, and recreate reality after their own twisted dreams.

  Jack sought the advice of her, Oversight and Lindsay, but she had none to give. She left Jack despondent and desperate. What Oversight told him after she left, she never knew; not until she read it in Jack’s book.

  But Jack didn’t know everything.

  Ellen fled to the one place no one would follow: the bathroom. It was the only door in the entire saloon with a lock. Ironic because the room itself was only half-complete, the ceiling and most of the walls missing. Even a patch of floor in the far corner was gone, leaving exposed lathe and empty sky. But here she could escape, and Ellen was nothing if not accomplished at escaping her problems. And she distrusted the desert sky less than the others in the saloon just then.

  Since that morning when Jack began writing, Ellen had retreated here several times: occasionally to think, but mostly to escape. She sunk down in the tub, the large, claw-footed antique brimming with water, small wisps of steam sucked from the surface by the desert air. She had been here almost an hour and would gladly stay longer, but the water was starting to cool again, and she had already replaced it once. Eventually, one of the others would want to use the bathroom and the mutual freeze-out would not hold long against the proposition of venturing outside to pee.

  She rose from the water, the desert air already stealing the moisture from the surface of her skin. Behind the tub was a large brass statue, an anthropomorphic frog with its front legs outstretched, a large towel neatly folded and waiting on its flippers. Very ridiculous. She stepped carefully from the tub, the tiles slippery beneath her feet, and planted the towel squarely over her face, pressing the thick cloth against her eyes and holding it there while a pleasant sinking rush went down through her body, her skin tingling and cool under the gentle desert wind.

  When she lowered the towel, Oversight was standing directly in front of her, her face barely a foot from her own.

  Ellen jumped and felt her feet slip, the towel dropping
from her hands as her fingers scrambled for purchase and found none.

  Oversight caught her arm, supporting her easily and allowing her to regain her balance. And for a moment, the two women faced each other across a chasm of differences that had narrowed to inches. Ellen looked back at Oversight, her perfect features, smoldering eyes and raven hair; her dusky skin smelled faintly of sandalwood and musk and vanilla, exotic. The woman’s skin-tight leathers were still permeated with the dust of the Wasteland, the bone-colored sand saturating the creases and seams, making her somehow more ethereal, a mix of youth and newness with something ancient and eternal, a dark goddess from a dead mythos, Heaven’s lost angel.

  Ellen tried to speak, her lips forming questions, too many at once: How did Oversight get here? Had she jumped from the rooftop above? Then why hadn’t she heard her? But nothing emerged except her intent, and a mystified expression. She was never more aware of her own nakedness.

  “I understand what he likes about you,” Oversight said plainly, a smile touching the edge of her lips.

  The hand upon her arm was strong, supportive, but not allowing Ellen to distance herself. Would you want to if you could?

  “But I wonder,” Oversight continued, “if you do?”

  The dusky woman’s free hand came up, lightly touching Ellen’s temple, brushing back a wet strand of hair. The caress of her fingertips sent a thrill through Ellen’s skin that turned electric as Oversight’s fingertips trailed down her cheek and around her neck. She felt a tingling sensation race down her spine, acutely aware of the intoxicating scent of Oversight’s skin, overpowering. And when her fingers slid gently behind her neck, drawing her closer, Ellen did not resist, did not want to.

  She felt her lips press to Oversight’s, losing herself in the aroma of the other woman’s skin, more powerful now that she was pressed tightly to her, locked in an embrace. Any hesitation slipped away, Oversight weaving her fingers into Ellen’s hair, and she returned the kiss with equal fervor.

  Oversight’s steadying hand came away from her arm, sliding up across her shoulder, thumb playing along the gentle ridge of her collarbone before the splayed fingers ran trails down across her damp skin, pausing momentarily—maddeningly—on the swell of her breast, Oversight’s palm brazenly rubbing the nipple, making it even more sensitive.

  Ellen had never experienced anything like this before—had never even considered anything like this before. She harbored no secret desires, no fantasies unfulfilled about a woman’s touch over a man’s, but there was no denying Oversight. Ellen’s hands hung limp, her elbows bent and frozen in the same position she had adopted to save herself from slipping and falling. Now they waited, motionless, permitting Oversight to lead her.

  The dusky woman’s lips parted, her tongue running hungrily over Ellen’s lips, the sensation weakening her knees.

  This is crazy. Last night, Oversight killed the Dust Eater; slit its throat after smashing its eye socket with her bare fist. What am I doing kissing her? Letting her kiss me? Touch me? Making me want her?

  Oversight’s fingers stretched down across Ellen’s ribs to the flat of her belly, thumb catching lightly in her navel, the rest of her hand turning slowly around it, nails lightly grazing the flare of her hip before descending further, closer, maddening…

  Oversight broke their kiss suddenly, stepping back to release her hold over Ellen, cheeks flushed with desire. But her eyes were completely rational, her smile calmly reposed. Ellen may have lost control, but Oversight gave no impression of the same; the pleasure may have been mutual, but the abandonment of reason was not.

  Oversight’s tongue slipped from her lips, licking quickly at the taste Ellen left behind of herself. “I always knew your lips would be soft,” she said.

  Then Oversight turned and made two quick steps to the little there was of the bathroom’s far wall before stepping over it and dropping from sight. Ellen heard the dull thud of Oversight’s boots striking the ground, and nothing more. She was alone again, feeling even more vulnerable than before, no answers, only questions.

  Jack never knew. He had not written about this moment because he never knew it happened.

  But it did. And Ellen remembered it. This was not some memory borrowed from Jack’s book, or lost in the shadowed halls of her self-induced amnesia. This she remembered. A true memory that proved she was not crazy, that she was not making this all up, that she had been there and it had all happened.

  The flaw in her logic was apparent though she never saw it; a tribute to her dreamer’s nature and the sincere desire to believe in what could not be. Not ever.

  Dr. Kohler was wrong. Everyone was wrong. And she was right. They simply did not understand.

  And she wasn’t crazy. She didn’t need to get better because she had never been sick. Jack was real. And she would find him again.

  Strange, the revelations one has in those last moments before waking, and how real they can seem.

  Even if they are not.

  POSTCARDS FROM THE DEAD

  That suddenly, the dream ended.

  The door behind Ellen creaked loudly then slammed, waking her and leaving her confused, blinking as she looked for the familiar features of her room that were conspicuously absent: where was the alarm clock, the nightstand with Jack’s book, the comforting shadows and amber light of morning?

  Then she remembered, a flurry of sensations greeted upon still-waking nerves: blue sky, brisk air, the sticky confinement of slept-in clothes. Answers followed in a flood of recall: following electrical cords up to the roof, Jasper Desmond’s grand project, Serena’s special tea, falling asleep while reading Jack’s book …

  … Dreaming …

  Jack was real, as sure as the earth beneath her feet and the air in her lungs. Not some invention of her imagination or a character in a cheap paperback, he was real. Kohler was wrong. They were all wrong.

  Jack had saved her from herself, from the slow poison of self-neglect she’d inflicted upon her person. Before him, disinterested in her own state, her soul paralyzed and dying, she paid no attention to her own slack-jawed expression, failing sight, slowing heartbeat. Her callous disregard was a mask hiding wounds that had never healed, and she was slowly bleeding out. Somewhere deep inside, a part of her could not stop screaming.

  But Jack changed all of that. Even when he was weak or inattentive, distracted by his own miseries, she could still take strength from him.

  And now he needed her. He needed her to save him, to rescue him from that world upon the dream plane, that place of self-imposed exile where he lived both as a refugee and a prisoner, his pain self-inflicted. Ellen could not allow it to go on. His penance was served; whatever crime committed long ago absolved. If it was in her power to save him, she would.

  But the dream plane was like the world beyond the looking glass: an ephemeral double-life unfolding each night as she closed her eyes and defying her upon waking. Knowing Jack was real, knowing he needed her help, did not make reaching him any easier.

  “M-mm-morning, Ellen,” Jasper said, navigating the litter of discarded tools and plane scraps. Beyond his greeting, he took no special notice of her. Maybe he didn’t see anything unusual about a person spending the night on the roof.

  Ellen craned her neck around the brick wall of the stairway to watch Jasper as he yawned and stretched, body lean and black against the rising sun, a dark spirit of creation’s dawn going about his unfathomable task. He found tools and supplies in the chaos of the rooftop with the ease and familiarity of a witchdoctor fashioning a totem, and applied both to the ongoing construction of his flyer, all without benefit of plans or directions.

  Ellen climbed stiffly to her feet, arching her back until the bones popped with a deliciously satisfying sound before picking up Jack’s book and the empty coffee mug—she did not remember finishing Serena’s tea, but was not surprised to find it gone—and slipped down the stairs.

  Her apartment was unlocked. In her distraction, she had apparently left it
that way all night. This did not surprise her either.

  She stared in cautiously and the rooms stared back at her, silent and empty, windows standing open, the morning breeze fluttering the curtains like the slow, graceful movements of membranous sea creatures caught in the subtle currents of an otherworld ocean. Everything looked perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary.

  She supposed she ought to count herself lucky she wasn’t robbed; an unlocked door was an invitation to even the most inept of criminals. What had she been thinking?

  Thinking’s not really your strong suit, Ellen. It never was. You’re a dreamer.

  She quickly set herself to her morning routine. She had slept later than she realized, too many sleepless nights and hard mornings finally catching up with her. She wasn’t late—not yet, anyway—but if she wanted to be out of her apartment on time, to Serena’s on time, to work on time, she could not afford to daydream.

  She undressed and climbed into the shower, trying not to think about dreams of swimming in a nighttime ocean, of talking cats and ghost ships, and memories of a time before now, a hospital that she could not exactly remember and hoped to God was not real.

  But for a brief moment, she had been close to Jack. She had felt it. As close as the ocean and the sky; separate, but forever touching.

  Be that as it may, reality was what you woke up to, the world outside of your head, the place where imagination stops, where normalcy draws that line in the sand that it refuses to allow dreams to cross. Reality was not a choice. You pull against the rubber band only so long before it pulls you back. And she had certainly stretched it to its limits on more than a few occasions. It was an easy thing to live in your dreams when there was nothing outside of them, no demands, no responsibilities, no pressures of any sort. No boss to fire you, no landlord to kick you out, no utility companies to turn off your water or your electricity, no one calling on the phone or sending you a jury summons or a pre-approved credit card. Free from responsibility, dreams were the place where everything was exactly as you wanted it to be. But it was all internalized, looking outward by staring into the mirror. That was what life had been like at the Sanity’s Edge Saloon for that one day that she and Jack had been alone. No spoilers or distractions, just her and Jack and a morning of pancakes and coffee.