Lilith stood face to face with the beast. That for which she’d feigned apathy towards exposed. It’s reaction to the truth behind her façade was surprisingly wise and gentle. She did not need to ask for its help, it understood.
As darkness fell away and the chamber’s light exposed her, it became evident this was no ordinary woman. Hair as red as fire framed her florid face. Green eyes revealing glimpses of anger and sadness as she peered back at the beast. She was adept at shielding those emotions, but It could reach into her soul.
She moved gracefully, despite an underlying fear. Where others burst forth stammering loquaciously, her approach was careful, reserved.
The beast would listen, but it wouldn’t matter. It was already bound to her.
Lilith fretted. She was comfortable skirting the periphery. Biding her time and studying the beast. Plotting how to best secure its loyalty. She needed it to support her primary mission.
Years had faded since she last saw him but not her memories. His captivating charm, the lost hours and waking up disoriented. His voice mocking as she stumbled dazed and half-naked into the corridor.
He was the real predator, worse than this unholy beast. Still, she clung to her script, leaving the dark recesses unprepared could prove severely disastrous.
“Show yourself,” the beast snarled. Slowly the shadow woman emerged.
Barely aware of the universe swirling around me. I am seized in the glow of such exquisitely simple beauty. Forever fixed to her coordinates, attuned to the pull of every movement. Entangled across time and in this space where everything else that ever existed falls away. Strawberry strands set against radiant bands of light, broken only by a wrinkle in the fabric of a warm smile. Every moment catalogued in the dark matter recesses of my mind. Always twenty-seven to the right and six steps behind. Never closer and still light years away.
In the night she waits for me. Playing on hazy celluloid loops projected on the horizons behind my shuttered eyes. Her vibrations bristle against the imaginary strings raised along the surface of my skin. There is no escape from the sickly sweet atmosphere that consumes us. Our bodies pulled by gravity, crashing against each other until we lay shattered in a heap.
Still, I wake alone. Our wavelengths continually overlapping as our lives run parallel to each other. I remain six steps behind, hoping that on a premonition you glance back and notice me but like the particle-wave duality of the sub-atomic, our worlds will never touch.
My dream of a life together with you has faded and I realize my love for you is unrequited. I knew the only thing left to do was blink from existence.
The bartender set the whiskey glass down in front of him.
“Make it a double,” he said, watching the pretty young thing at the end of the bar.
“Cheers,” he whispered raising the glass in her direction. She smiled back. It was preposterous how easy it was to slip into this skin.
Several drinks and she was on the roof. She watched, paralyzed as he place his hand on her thigh before everything went black.
“I need a drink,” Charlton said, leaving the courthouse as the wind swept through his hair. “What a shitshow — care to join me?”
“No, and stay out of trouble,” his solicitor responded.
“What, are you beginning to doubt me? One of the tenets of lawyering is that you must believe your client.”
“Whatever Charlton, just don’t get into any trouble!”
Charlton grimaced every time the plaintiffs’ lawyers referred to him as “Good-Time Charlie” while assassinating his good character. He’d been cleared criminally, so what if it was on a technicality, he’d done nothing wrong. All this acrimony towards him was nothing more than regret, a way to rationalize a sordid past and leave it behind.
“WTF happened to Bill!”
“No idea, I told the lazy bastard if he stood still too long he was going to grow roots. I didn’t think he’d literally become part of the landscape though.”
“What?”
“You know, they say the faeries run through these gardens. They can be mischievous folk, maybe Bill rubbed one of them the wrong way and poof!”
“Stop it, this isn’t funny. He wouldn’t run off without his boots. Where did he go?”
“Sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you. I ran up to the house and he was gone when I got back. I have no clue why he left his boots or where he’s gone.”
Ok, so I wasn’t exactly being truthful. You see Bill was a douché and when my best friend headed into town to pick up some more gardening supplies the pig made a pass at me. I let him think there was a chance, flirted with him some and talked him into undressing. The moment he turned his back to set his boots on the stump… well let’s just say I finally found a use for that old pitchfork. He ain’t with the faery folk and I am certain he won’t be coming back. She is better off without him anyway. As for his boots, they are more useful as planters than they ever were on his feet.
Eloise missed him. He had always been there for his little Angel. He dried her eyes when she had skinned her knee or bumped her head. He’d soothed her broken heart when she caught a glimpse of her best friend Jeannie and her first boyfriend kissing by the lockers in tenth grade. He buoyed her confidence when Harvard rejected her application, telling everyone she was too good for them anyway. He reminded her that plenty of other schools would be knocking down the doors to have her attend. He was right, she was more an MIT girl anyway.
She could believe it had been five years since he’d passed on. He’d been riddled with cancer, and she couldn’t bear to be there for him like he’d done for her so many times. It hurt too much to see him suffering and she feared living in a world without him.
The last six months had been the shittiest she could recall. The Chinese firm that had bought out her employer immediately fired the senior management team and 500 others. Employment Insurance didn’t cover the rent and it was overdue. It was only a matter of time before the landlord came to collect/evict.
Worst of all there was a heaviness in her heart. She couldn’t shake it off. It consumed the very blood pumping through her veins, turning it into a gloomy gray sludge. It weighed her legs down and zapped any reserved energy she may have had, leaving her helplessly paralyzed.
She thought she heard his voice in the hallway outside her apartment, so she immediately ran to the door. Several of the neighbour’s kids stopped playing hall-ball and looked at her. She stared through them to the window at the far end hoping to glimpse him. Of course, he wasn’t waiting there. She was about to turn and go back inside when a little boy tugged at her hand.
“Miss, are you sad?” he asked.
Overwhelmed, the tears began to roll down her cheeks as she nodded at him.
“Would you like a hug?”
Her eyes scan the corridor finally fixing on those of the little boy’s Mom. She smiles back in approval so Eloise kneels down to face the child at his level.
“I’d love a hug,” she replies through her tears and forced smile.
In an instant, this tiny yet surprisingly strong creature wraps his little arms around her and whispers in her ear, “Don’t worry Angel, everything is going to be alright.” After a short pause he continues, “That’s what my Daddy says when I’m sad.”
“Mine too,” she said, holding him for a moment longer but wishing it could be forever.
Sillinger slipped in through the back door. Clearly, there had been an advertisement, likely on social media or across the dark web, disclosing his whereabouts. The leak was born in the weaknesses of those in the know. The seeds of discontent sown and already lingering amongst his own rank and file. Only a handful of people knew his movements yet the streets out front were lined with tens of thousands of people.
The briefcase he carried held everything and nothing. The solution to the one burning question that humankind had yearned to solve for millennia. In a single stroke, the course of human history would change forever.
That is why the throngs had gathered. Some ready to embrace the unknown blindly, some looking to exploit it for personal gain, and some are just plain naive and curious. Still others, the disruptors as they were referred, were paralyzed by the impending apocalypse they believed was being brought down upon them. No matter the reasons it reinforced the belief that the world was not ready. The upheaval could prove disastrous, sending the world into a tizzy if the truth was revealed prematurely.
Some secrets are best left in the hands of the few revolutionaries who understand the gravity they hold. Curated and nurtured while a campaign of information and reform is allowed to seep into the collective conscious. Designed to diffuse the acrimony towards the establishment sudden revelation can illicit.
It could take decades, maybe centuries for society to catch up to the science. Until then Sillinger’s task was monumental. He would need to dispel all truths and myths about what it was the foundation held in its custody.
He was unlikely to see the fruition of his labours, other than in small doses amongst his peers. The transformative nature of the content of the briefcase would remain as much a mystery to him as those standing in the street below.
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