by Ross Elder
“Is that drool?”
“Sorry, what?” I’m not drooling, am I? I check, just to be sure.
“It is impolite to stare, Morgan.”
“Wha…”
“Seriously. I mean, yeah, she’s pretty hot but, let’s try to keep our tongue in our mouth, shall we?”
Despite Toni’s admonition, I’m still watching Amanda. Again, she’s walking toward a townhouse but not the one next to mine. She uses a key and walks right in. Is that her townhouse? What about the key and the kiss and the familiar demeanor? Toni is smacking me on the left shoulder now. It doesn’t hurt, but I offer a passable, “Ouch!”
“Pervert.”
“Hey, now, that’s harsh. And, that isn’t it. I mean, she’s nice to look at, sure…” another slap to the shoulder. “…ouch. But, no, seriously, something isn’t matching another memory. I could have sworn she lived in a different house.”
“Well, maybe she moved, and you remember a different time?”
“Possible, I suppose. Still, I don’t think so. I think I remember the wrong things, filling in the blanks with bad information again.” My eyes itch, and I’m rubbing them with the palms of my hands. A headache is coming, I can feel it. There is pressure slowly building against the backs of my eyes and the base of my skull is aching. My memory of this is very clear. Soon, streaks of lightning will flash through my skull between my eyes and the back of my head. It will be nearly unbearable. I need to get inside and lay down, preferably with some painkillers and a helpful nurse.
Chapter Thirteen
September 16, 2016
I remember lying in bed, naked, hoping Toni would slowly undress when, instead, she jabbed me in the shoulder with a hypodermic needle. It didn’t hurt. Not that much, anyway. She said it was for the migraine. There was a little pill, a little kissing, and then nothing. I didn’t dream. I think.
It’s chilly. I’m standing. The room is dark. I can feel the chilled air over my entire body. I’m naked, peering through the bedroom window into the night. Soft, silent rain is falling, creating a glistening, shimmering mirage against the glass. There. What is that? Through the sheets of water running over the window, I see trees. Trees and grass. The cars. Where are the…
Where the hell am I?
Panic has overtaken me now. Frantically, I look around the room. A bed, undisturbed, is behind me. Toni is not there. The walls bear a different hue. The lamp on the nightstand, a different nightstand – heavier, older, and showing more wear – is different. The room is different, a mirror image of where I left Toni sleeping, but the window penetrates a different wall. The nightstand. A lamp, a digital alarm clock/radio, and a metal box. The box is thick and textured. It doesn’t move along the surface. It is bolted to the nightstand somehow. A small, red LED is dimly illuminated above a small piece of glass. A fingerprint scanner.
I know this place. It is familiar.
Have I been dreaming? Am I dreaming now, or was I dreaming before? The chill is more pronounced now, and I know why as soon as I reach for the lamp switch. I’m wet. My arm, and presumably the rest of me, is covered in a light sheen. I was outside. Naked. Oh, boy. Yes. My feet are wet. My shoulders, back, and hair. I’m not soaked, just wet. I wasn’t outside for long. That is encouraging.
I’ve turned on the lamp so I can further examine the room. This is more like a real home. There are items strewn atop the chest of drawers and the bed clothes aren’t perfectly arranged like I’ve just walked into a hotel room. It is “lived in” and feels genuine. But, where am I? My head is pounding, but the worst of the migraine has passed. The injection must have worked to some degree.
The master bath is clean and orderly, but there is evidence of frequent use. A shaving kit, toothbrushes, some still in their containers as though just purchased, shampoos, soaps. Towels hang from the towel bar on the wall, and the toilet paper roll seems to be about half its original size. The mirror still has some water spots on the surface, probably from handwashing or some other activity.
I’m distracted by a bluish glow from the hallway outside the master bedroom. Some form of electronics is turned on in one of the other bedrooms. I can hear the hum of a machine, or machines, inside. As I reach for the partially open door of the glowing room, I realize I’m holding something in my left hand. A key. A key with a rubber fob attached. This is the key Amanda slipped to me the other day when I returned home from the hospital! Oh, my God! I’m in Amanda’s townhouse, naked, in the middle of the night. I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here, like, right this second. But, the glow. I can’t ignore the glow or look away from it. Before I go, I have to go to it.
The door opened on silent, well-oiled hinges. The hum grows in decibel, and I am awash in subdued blue and yellow light. A large desk sits opposite the doorway and on top of that desk sit three laptop computers, each open, on, and running various programs. There’s a small couch, a coffee table, and a small, portable bar on wheels in the corner with various bottles, glasses, and utensils. File cabinets. It is a comfortable computer chair. Obviously, whoever uses it spends a lot of time in this room and comfort is important.
One laptop looks like something out of a science fiction film. Symbols and numbers and strings of text are scrolling across its screen in various colors and sizes. There are three windows open simultaneously, and the programs appear to be working together, from what I can surmise. Are these links? Some have URL data in them, like website addresses, while others have IP information. I don’t understand it.
The middle laptop appears to be conducting continuous searches through numerous search engines. This appears to be autonomous since no one is sitting here typing the queries into a search box. Weird things, some not even in English. Someone is multi-lingual, or, at least the laptop is.
The third laptop appears to be a standard Windows® machine with all the expected images and icons. There are two small windows open. What is that? The window to the right looks like a mobile phone. It looks just like my mobile phone. Holy crap, it is my mobile phone. Using the mouse, I can click on the screen and open various apps, even the contacts. The other window is a messaging application that seems to be linked to the phone app. Within a small, text box under the header “MESSAGING,” appears the word “auto.” What does that mean? I can click on the drop-down menu there and see the available options - auto, manual, external only, and custom. I don’t understand what any of this means. I do, however, know I must get out of here in a hurry and, somehow, get back into my apartment, and back into my warm bed next to Toni, without being seen, or caught streaking. I have enough going on right now. An indecent exposure charge is not something I need right now.
I’m backing out of the room, trying to be as silent as possible. Where is Amanda? It is the middle of the night. She should be here somewhere, sleeping, or doing whatever she does in the middle of the night. I glance across the hall to the doorway of the third bedroom. Nothing. There is a twin-size bed, a dresser, an end table. No one there. Is she downstairs, sleeping on the couch, perhaps? How did she not wake up when I walked into the townhouse? One would think a naked man sneaking through your house would be enough to wake you up. One would think.
Christ, I’m like a cat burglar or something. Am I? Is this what I do; wander around other peoples’ houses in the buff? How would I carry anything out? Wait, am I just a pervert? Holy shit, a rapist or something? Is that what’s happening to me?
Come on, that can’t be it. That doesn’t feel right. Of course, wandering around a strange, yet strangely familiar, townhouse in the nude doesn’t really feel right either. The stairs are quiet as I go down. A mild creak, or pop, now and then, but nothing too loud. The living room is also empty. No one home. Well, at least I have that going for me. I just need to get out and…somehow…return to my house. Shit! Did I lock the door on my way out? Can I even get back in? Okay, here’s the plan: I will leave this door open, run over to my place, check the door to make sure I can get back in, then I’ll run b
ack here and lock the place up before going home. That will work, right?
I peek out the window to make sure no one is outside before I go trotting through the neighborhood. Everything looks quiet. No one would be out wandering around in the rain anyway so the risk is much lower on a night like this. Okay, here goes.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Pebbles on the sidewalk! Ouch, oh, god… dammit. Okay, my door is unlocked. Run back to lock the other. Go, go, go! I made it! I’m in. Lock the door behind me. Done. Whew. I’m out of breath and sweat has joined the rain on my face and neck, but I’m safe. I peek out the front window from behind the curtains to double check. Nothing. All clea…wait. Who is that? A shadow moving on the other side of the courtyard. An umbrella and a raincoat but, even from here, I know that posture and gait. Even under these conditions, she maintains her poise. Mrs. Harris. The lovely and mysterious Mrs. Harris. She’s walking to this side of the complex. I don’t think she can see me here; her head is under the umbrella, but she is walking this way. Key in hand, she is entering the unit I just escaped. Why? Whatever it is, I got out just in time. Her legs, they are bare. She’s also barefoot. It looks like she just threw on the coat and went out. Even then, she’s alluring.
Stop it! You have Toni, and she's such a wonderful companion. She’s pretty, fun, energetic, smart, and she’s helping your recovery. But, that Mrs. Harris is…I don’t know. Something. I know we were involved previously but, so far, she has treated me like a platonic friend, like my memories never happened. Maybe they didn’t? At this stage, I have no idea what is real and what is just a fantasy, or a dream, or a hallucination. Pondering it now is all consuming.
“Jesus Christ!” I yelped as I spun around at the sound of Toni’s sleepy throat-clearing. She burst into soft laughter but I’m shivering and clutching at my chest.
“Whatcha…um…doin’ there, Morgan?”
“I, uh, well, I think I…” I’ve got nothing.
“You’re all wet. Were you outside? What were you doing outside in the rain? And, hey, what were you doing outside in the nude? Her eyes are roaming around my figure. “It must be…uh…a bit chilly…outside.” She giggled. I placed my hands over my manhood. That was harsh.
“Hey!”
“What the hell is going on, Morgan? Come in here. Let’s get you dried off and warmed up. Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?”
“No, I’m…fine. I think. I was...” I glanced back toward the door and remember I had been out there. “…I was…I don’t know, actually. I think I blacked out again.”
“Okay, well, let’s get you warmed up and see if we can work through this.”
Toni started a hot shower for me and put two cups of water in the microwave for tea. Hot tea and a hot shower would be great right now, I think. I think I like tea. I like Toni. Toni making tea seems to make me happy too. She’s just wearing cotton panties and one of my t-shirts. I like the sway of her unbound breasts under the loose cotton. I tell her so as I step into the shower. She giggles and shakes her shoulders to show me she can totally do that on purpose. Yeah, she absolutely knows how to distract me.
The hot water streaming against the base of my skull is helping relieve some of the tension there. I close my eyes and will my body and mind to relax. There was a note I read in some of the literature covering my condition. It said to try emptying your mind, like thinking of blankness; a white sheet of paper, or something similar. I’m trying it in the shower. The water is a bit hotter than I prefer, which is great because I realize my preference, but I leave the temperature setting where it is. Toni knows best if you ask me. If she wants me under hot water, that’s where I will be.
Images are invading the blotchy whiteness of my mind. I expected them to be images of Toni, or Mrs. Harris, or some other passionate embrace from my past but they weren’t. The images, which I’m fighting because I want to abide by the blank mind instructions, are of other people, mostly men. Scenes flash and repeatedly disappear until, without warning, the scenes become violent. There’s fighting and weapons and bloodshed. Do I remember something from my life or a scene from a movie I don’t recall? Think! Work it out. Try harder.
The images are gone.
“Okay. Come on out before you get all wrinkly,” she’s telling me. I’m reluctant to leave the warmth, but I do. She’s waiting for me with a towel stretched between raised arms. It’s very warm, and I say so. She tells me she ran it in the clothes dryer for a few minutes. Very thoughtful. Now dry, she hands me the bathrobe that hangs behind the door, and I put it on.
Downstairs with tea in hand, she snuggles against me on the couch as we sip. I don’t really care for the tea. Another mystery solved. Toni seems to enjoy it, though, so I drink it anyway. It makes her happy when she is taking care of me.
“So, are we going to talk about what happened tonight?” She's very gentle with me. I think she doesn’t want to get me worked up. I wonder what she thinks of me. I wonder if she is afraid of me, or afraid of touching off some sort of breakdown. At this moment, I feel bad for her. She is in a difficult situation.
I decide to lie to her. I’m not telling her about the townhouse next door. That might be a bit much for her. I mean, come on, she already has a thing for a damaged guy. Throw in a nudist pervert and breaking and entering, and, wow. I guess it isn’t technically breaking and entering. I have a key. “I don’t know. I woke up, and I was outside in the rain. I have no idea how I got there.” That pretty much ended the subject. She didn’t know what to say about it. There was no super-secret nursing answer available in her formidable mind. She seemed perplexed, if anything. She may want to dissect my brain at some point.
I’m far too awake at this point, so I refuse her offer of another sleeping pill. She offered to tuck me back into bed, but I figured it was too late for that. The sun would be up in a couple of hours anyway. We settled in on the couch, and she flipped through the channels in search of something entertaining.
“Oh, Tom Cruise! I love him. Let’s watch this.” The guide display informed me the film was Jack Reacher. Jack “I’m a giant” Reacher.
“You know he’s only five foot seven, right?”
“So? He’s a really good actor.”
“But the guy in the books is…” I can see her expression going blank. “You haven’t read any of the books, I’m guessing.”
“There’s a book? What’s it called?” She’s crossing her legs beneath her now.
“I’ll grab the snacks.” I made to stand, but she grabbed my arm and prevented me.
“No. Let me. You just sit here and keep the cushions warm.” She padded off toward the kitchen, and I heard cupboards opening and closing, then the refrigerator. She returned faster than I expected. “We have Cokes and pistachios. Not much, but we will make due.”
Pistachios? I love pistachios. I think. I immediately take one and pop it in my mouth, shell and all. The salt-coated shell bathes my tongue in flavor. And that’s when things got weird.
Chapter Fourteen
September 16, 2016
My mind is filled with images and sounds. I’m no longer sitting on the couch with Toni. I’m in a dimly lit room in front of computers. Three computers. The three computers in the townhouse next door. A Coke sits on a coaster on the desk, and a bag of pistachios is to my left. I’m reading. Scanning, really. Several articles at once, it seems. The flavor, the lighting, the screens, they all rush into my brain with such urgency that I’m lost in the memory. I’m having a flashback. The doctors all warned me of these things, but that doesn’t diminish the sheer fright of the thing. Total immersion into an event of the past is very different than simply remembering something. I’m there. I’m living it. Somewhere in the middle, I realize what is happening. This alleviates some of the fear, but that void is replaced with the compelling desire for understanding.
What am I doing? I’m working! I’m…studying…something. I’m analyzing…something. Articles and blog posts and social media connections. Words are flash
ing in my mind’s eye; false, corrupt, embedded, propaganda, manipulation, influence, foreign, active measures.
Holy shit, I’m a spy! I’m like a…nudist, peeping Tom, home invading…regular James Bond. No. Okay, none of that makes any sense, although it would make for an interesting movie. Now, in my mind, I’m flipping through the pages of books, making notes, highlighting passages. Cross-referencing between books and web pages.
I must have leaped to my feet violently because I can hear Toni’s voice mixed with the background sounds within my head. She’s pleading with me to do something, or say something. I’m not sure. I don’t have time for any of that.
I’m walking in darkness now. I think I am following someone. Maybe more than one person. The memory is foggy, but I don’t know if it is real fog or just a damaged memory. I can’t see faces, only movement. People are meeting under trees in a park late at night. I’m watching. I’m conducting surveillance. Who are they? God, these voices keep getting louder and more abrasive. Stop it! I need to keep going. I need to figure this out! Jesus, will you please just shut the hell up?
“Morgan!”
“What?! For fuck sakes, what is it?” I’m yelling. I’m staring over Toni’s head at the blank wall behind her. She’s shaking me by my shoulders. My head suddenly jerks backward, and I’m arching my back as Toni’s right hand, palm open, fingers extended, breezes past my face. Damn, she tried to slap me! This girl has spunk. That’ll never work. She telegraphs too much. Saw it coming before she even raised her arm. Still, kind of spunky, and I like that.
I have to catch her as she loses her balance and begins to tumble toward the couch, squealing all the way. She put everything behind that slap. I have an arm around her waist. She almost takes me down with her momentum. I’m able to keep my footing, and I haul her back upright.