Chapter One
Night descended on Miles Buhari’s deluxe apartment an hour before it fell on the city streets as the sun dropped behind the skyscraper opposite his window. Miles lay in the middle of his king-size bed, blue sheets strewn haphazardly as he tossed and turned, pillows on the floor. He opened his crusty, bloodshot eyes slowly. He couldn’t decide which side to take, but after a minute, he rolled to the left and felt his long legs clumsily hit the ground. He rose to his full height, fingers reaching for the ceiling. He bent down and grabbed the soles of his feet as he flexed his aching muscles. When he had finished, he walked across the expansive room to the extended closet he had turned into a walk-in wardrobe. On his right were five suits, black, gray, blue, dark blue and brown, hanging next to a series of imitation leather coats of even more colors. Opposite them hung a dozen pair of faded navy jeans. Miles fingered through them absentmindedly. He needed something that felt energetic and dangerous. Club-goers were craving the dangerous and mysterious again, now that it was an option and not a facet of daily life. Everyone was annoyingly exuberant about the city rising up except him.
Very few people could afford an apartment like he had. He had heard that before the Miracle, luxury apartments like his were stuffed sometimes ten people to a room as the owners rented off their apartments to those people who had nowhere else to go. Miles was from London, a place that was booming with new commerce as its competitors were liquidated. He bought the most expensive class of apartments at the Halifax Tower for near the same price that a low-income worker in London paid for an apartment just above the heavily-dammed Thames.
That was a year ago. He had gotten the apartment so that he could blog about the daily lives of New Yorkers as their city sank beneath the waves. Make big cash, maybe win a Pulitzer, then leave. Crisis, crime, racism, drugs; any one of those was front page material. Mixed together and sprinkled with personal interest and Miles solidified his reputation as the most famous gonzo journalist in the world.
Miles had been watching the Empire State Building with everyone else that night. He had already prepared an article about the tragedy that occurred when the symbol of industrial America toppled and crashed, killing unknown thousands. What should have been disaster turned into a miracle. Atlantis rose up from the sea and Miles was stuck in the city, wearing faded jeans, a short-sleeve t-shirt with the wavy silver dragon around an orb logo of the band Eleventh Planet and a ‘better-than-real’ leather jacket. He looked at himself in the full length mirror against the far wall.
His muscles stretched the shirt, making it look like it could rip if he so much as turned. He put a hand on his head and felt his short, curly, dark hair which was barely darker than his skin. He hadn’t shaved in two days and he had the lightest five o’ clock shadow, broken only by a tiny scar on the right side of his square jaw. He caught his light brown eyes in the reflection. Ever since he was a boy, he had been told that they had a hypnotic effect on people. He had put it to great use before and found that his suggestions carried an almost overpowering quality to them. Tonight there were bags under his eyes, his head drooped and his eyes were placid, like the eyes of a long-worn painting. They still drew the eye, but lack of sleep cost them their sorcerous element.
Miles looked out the window, down thirty-two floors. Street lights were being installed on the newly raised bases, but his block still didn’t have them. Every few minutes, a boat would pass by the canal, illuminating the newly-raised street.
Miles gave himself one last look over and walked out of his apartment. As he walked through the hallway, he scrolled through the photos he had taken the previous night. The shots were mostly of dark rooms cut by shafts of light; green, blue, purple and red with the silhouettes of revelers caught mid-motion on the dance floor, each of their bodies showing a different level of detail the closer they were to the illumination of a light beam. Miles had a few make-out shots, mostly men and their girlfriends, a few lesbians. He pulled up a photo he had taken of a bottle of rum being hit by a ray of light. He laughed; he had been bored and thought he might try an artistic approach. Worthless. These photos could have been taken anywhere in the world. He hit delete, wincing as he did. He didn’t want to be left with nothing, but he had too much pride to pump out a half-decent article. His readers wanted to know what no one else was telling them about the floating Sodom and Gomorrah.
Miles stepped out of his apartment and hit the elevator button. He stepped inside, pressed ‘L’ and immediately got a headache from the soothing elevator music.
Miles had catalogued so much change in culture in the city in the years he had been there, during the worst of its decline. Scavengers had been scrounging up old souvenirs of New York recently; snow globes and paper weights. Showing the city in its former glory had become all the rage. Food had become much spicier as Indians and Pakistanis set up food carts to the point that masala and chicken curry were more common than burgers and sandwiches. Two years ago, the supergroup ‘Rising Demons’ played on an aircraft carrier, trying to raise funds for the city. While some had seen that as a sign that New York still had some prestige and cultural power, Miles had written that it was just like when the Beatles played at the Red Square in Moscow before the Soviet Union collapsed. It was a kiss of death set to music. It irked him that reality didn’t conform to great fiction.
Miles stepped out into the lobby. As he walked through the glass doors, he noticed that half of the windows facing directly outward were glass and only the windows to his left and right were still sealed off behind a sheet of metal and plastic covering. Miles stepped out and walked down the street, breathing deep the cold salt air. He tapped his wrist and called Andy, his local liaison, the man who served as the gatekeeper to the underworld. No response.
Miles walked north until he hit a series of blocks that held multiple smaller buildings. These were lucky enough to have risen with the rest of Manhattan. They weren’t as luxurious, but they were the shopping centers and entertainment venues for the people who lived and worked in the skyscrapers, who couldn’t bear to leave them behind. Night settled on the rest of New York as he arrived at the Asphyxia night club. There was a line of thirty people to get in. Miles walked alongside it, seeing if there was anyone he knew.
“Miles!”
He turned. A dark-skinned woman with braided hair, wearing a blue coat and black skirt, hugged herself for warmth.
Miles walked over to her and gave her a hug. “Mylie, what have you been up to? I haven’t seen you in five months.”
“I’ve been gone for five months.” She shivered. “When I lost my job at the tourism board, I wasn’t going to stick around in an apartment with those two mean bitches and that old creepy guy. I left for Philadelphia, but I got a call a week ago saying they were re-hiring me.”
“So now you’re back in with the creepy guy?”
She bit her lip, widened her eyes and looked to the side, and nodded jerkily. “It took a whole city rising up from the grave to bring me right back to where I always was. Still, the job is a bit more rewarding. Before, it was like trying to sell coffins. That’s what I was doing in Philadelphia; working for a funeral company. Copywriting for coffins, cremation, green-funerals.”
“Wow. Welcome back to the land of the living.”
At the front of the line, the bouncer in an over-tight black-colored shirt let the first couple in, then closed off the entryway with the rope.
“I noticed you are still doing that blog.”
“Yeah, but it hasn’t been very good recently.”
“I noticed,” she said.
It stung because it was true. Miles rolled it off with a laugh. He turned his hands over, palms upward, as if asking for forgiveness. “Not too much of interest has happened. Everything is right joyful.”
Mylie smiled at the quaint phrasing. “You were never good at writing about that.”
Another couple entered and they stepped forward.
“It’s worse; now this place is teeming with reporters from everywhere. When I was the only one here scoping out the dark undersides of the city, people had to read my articles or fuck off. Now there are journalists everywhere in the city and people are following them now because they are ‘respectable’; because they are pawns to the media.”
They moved ahead in line until they were just behind the red velvet rope.
“If you are still looking for dark and unwholesome, you could always go to the Boroughs.”
“I don’t want to get shot.”
Mylie laughed.
“You laugh, mate, but that’s the trick. Everyone in the business sells just enough of the truth to shock people into watching, but not enough to make them vomit. Here, Africa, parts of Asia where there is still war and starvation. They see three-year-old kids with distended bellies and visible ribs and they think that’s the worst, but that’s just the censored version for middle-class Americans and Europeans.”
“Have you ever been to Africa?”
“I haven’t even been to Italy, but I know how it works.”
They were laughing as they walked into the club.
Inside, red, green and blue lights flashed on and off while a brighter white light blazed on and then went out, seemingly at random. A DJ with blond dreadlocks and glasses played on a raised platform, mixing the electronic sound. The dance floor was crowded as Miles and Mylie began to dance at the edge until they could make their way closer to the center. A curly red-haired girl that looked barely legal danced next to Miles. Miles looked at Mylie, who was moving away from him, having found a man who had taken an interest. After moving on to two other women, Miles worked his way to the bar. Alcohol of every type covered the shelves. There was a vertical line of golden rums and scotches, followed by white vodkas and whiskies, then green absinthe. There was a line of red and blue, though Miles was sure that most of those were just the color of the bottles and not the drinks themselves.
A woman in a dark t-shirt with a picture of a gas factory with different colored lights rising out of the pipes between the letters of ‘Asphyxia’ walked up behind the bar and looked at him. “What’ll you have?”
“White Russian,” he shouted over the noise. She brought it out and he turned around, rested his back against the bar and surveyed the crowd.
Nothing.
He looked to the side and saw a dark-haired man in a fedora turn his head sideways and hold that position, obviously taking video of the scene.
Nothing and it’s already being covered.
Miles looked down the length of the bar. Three twenty-something girls were drinking and talking. Behind them, a lone man tried and failed to slyly stare at them. He doesn’t stand a chance. At the end of the bar, a pale man with ice-blue eyes and near-white blond hair was looking at Miles. He nodded at Miles, who mimicked the gesture. Miles stood up and walked to the men’s bathroom. From inside one stall, he heard gasps and moans. He tried to ignore it and turned to see the pale man behind him.
“Miles.” The man smiled.
“David, how’s it going?” He shook his hand, sliding him three ten thousand dollar bills as he did. David looked around, making sure no one was watching. Still cautious, he slipped Miles a small plastic bag with a single dark purple pill in it. He nodded one last time and left. Miles stepped into a stall and tried to ignore the sound of the moaning couple. He opened the baggie and took out the pill. He threw his head back and swallowed.
He waited a minute, until he began to feel fuzzy and warm. He unzipped his pants. The yellow stream hit the bowl and the sound exploded into an array of colors. He looked to his left. The moaning grew louder as the couple had given up on any privacy. Splashes of color flew over and below the divider with every moan while the divider wall was glowing. Miles zipped up and walked back to the dance floor. The speakers turned into fountains of color. Dark purple rolled out as the deep bass played, blue flew out as the high-tempo electronic hum took over, and the mash-up of guitar and drums with a synthesizer sprayed out orange, red and green hues over the dance floor. The sounds he could now see mixed with the flashing multi-colored lights and Miles could barely tell what was real. He chose not to care, picked a girl to dance with and used her as a fixed point to keep him from completely losing all sense of reality. Pretty soon, he forgot he was supposed to be writing anything. He was back at the bar with one of the three girls he had lured away from the others, a margarita in hand.
A phone icon danced in front of his vision with the word ‘Andy’ floating beside it. Miles let it go. Andy called again. Miles tapped his palm. “I can’t talk,” was all he said, while letting the blaring sound in the background explain the rest.
Andy said something from the other end.
“What?” Miles asked, kicking himself for even bothering.
“You have to come here, this is amazing.”
“Hang on!” This time he did shout and realized his voice was a royal purple. Miles put his drink down on the bar. The glass ‘clinked’ on the tabletop and sent out a soft, near-white vibration. “Hang on, I’m going to the bathroom, excuse me, love, only a minute.”
He walked to the bathroom, where the music was a muffled violet blaring against the walls. “What is it?” Miles growled.
“Wherever you are, get out and meet me at the intersection of 33rd Street and Avenue of the Americas. Trust me.”
“What the hell for?”
“We’re jumping off the buildings.”
Miles furrowed his brow. “What?”
“We’re jumping off the buildings. Get here now, otherwise you’ll just have to watch us from below.”
Andy hung up. Miles looked off into space as the thrumming purple sound mixed with the gauche wallpaper.
He opened the door and stumbled out. He glanced at the bar and saw that the girl was gone. Damn you, Andy. With no excuse to stay, he weaved his way through the crowd to the exit. He ran out of the club and down the street. The cold silence brought him back to reality, as the gentle passing of the current was the only sound he could see. There were hardly any people out, just the odd couple going to a club or bar. All along the street were boats tied up to the newly installed cleats in the old concrete sidewalk. There were a few nice ones on the main streets, but then there were dirty ones in a long line, clearly from the Boroughs, poor folks working as a taxi service to the rich drunks who wandered out at night, needing a ride home. As Miles ran, he saw a man with a thick black beard standing up in his boat, staring at people who passed. Miles averted his eyes and kept running.
He was a block away from the intersection when he nearly ran into three women walking side by side, talking excitedly. Across the canal, more people walked parallel to them. Nearly a hundred people were standing on the corner. Miles squinted as he looked for Andy. By now, the synesthesia had worn off and his eyes and ears were functioning normally, but he still felt fuzzy and light-headed.
A short, curly brown-haired man in a blue blazer and worn jeans saw Miles and jumped up, waving. “Miles!”
Miles ran over to him, joining the crowd. They locked hands and hugged.
“Glad you could make it. We’re about to go up.”
Miles looked up the skyscraper. The lights were on at the base and the building’s top faded into the blackness, merging with the sky. In between the two, near what must have been the twentieth floor, was a sky bridge.
“From there?” Miles pointed at the bridge.
“Yeah.” Andy nodded. “Faisal, come here.” He waved over a well-muscled man with jet black hair and goatee. “This is Faisal.” He clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Faisal, Miles.” The two shook hands.
“Miles Buhari?” he asked.
Miles nodded.
“I’ve read your blog for a year now, all the crazy things you’ve covered. That’s why I organized this. I thought it might be worth an article.”
“So what is this?” Miles asked.
Faisal turned to the crowd. “Everyone shut up!” he yelled, an angry scarlet.
The crowd turned to him, though most continued to talk.
“All right, everyone, follow me. We’re going inside the Walton Building. There are a lot of us, so we’re going to take turns with the elevator. Make sure it stops at the 23rd floor. From there, I’m going to open the door to the sky bridge. There are no railings, so stay near the center until you jump. If any of you are drunk or high, or tripping, you can’t come. That’s the breaks. Oh, and to get in, it’s ten thousand dollars per person, has to be cash or non-government issue e-currency, nothing traceable. Okay? Good, let’s go.”
The whole crowd turned with Faisal. The lights in the Walton building were on, but there was no one in but a lone security guard. Upon seeing them approach, the guard stood up and walked to the door, tapped out a combination on his hand and opened it. The guard looked at Faisal. “Make sure they only stop on the 23rd floor. The video cameras are only disabled here and there.”
“I’ll ride with them.”
The guard nodded, let them through and started collecting bills from the people behind him. The crowd slowly filtered inside the lobby. When fifteen people had gone through, Faisal waved them over to the elevator. They crowded inside. Faisal pressed the button for the 23rd floor.
“How did you get this many people?” Miles pressed. “Are they some sort of group?”
Faisal looked over his shoulder at him. “I know maybe three of them. But I started a thread, they re-sent it to their friends. It always works like this, every time I come up with something new. Always hundreds show up.”
He forwarded the message to Miles. Come to 33rd Street and Avenue of the Americas and jump with us appeared in front of Miles’ eyes.
After an uncomfortable few seconds wherein Miles was pressed against thirteen strangers and one of his drug dealers, the doors opened to a long hallway with modern art pieces on the walls, interspersed with chairs and coffee tables. Faisal stepped forward and walked halfway down the hall, pulled a key card from his jeans pocket and opened a door on the left. The others followed him through into a maintenance room. He waved them over, towards a large double door with warning labels all over it. Faisal pressed a few buttons on a side panel, waited for a metallic click and opened it. A gust of cold air tore through the room. Faisal turned, smiling.
“Come on!”
He ran out onto the top of the sky bridge. The crowd stepped up to the edge of the door. Miles looked down and saw, twenty-three stories below, the cold water as black as night between the two sidewalks. The wind tousled Faisal’s hair, but his pace was steady. He walked until he reached the center. Hanging off the south side, there was a giant metal spool wrapped with a long black elastic rope. The machine was tied to numerous sandbags that were stacked around it. Any relief that Miles may have had from seeing the bungee equipment dissipated when he realized that it had not been installed into the bridge and was instead being held down by makeshift weights.
“Line up!” Faisal called. “You each get one jump, then I’ll reel you up. Watch your head as you come back up. After that, go to the back of the line if you want to go again. Who’s first?”
Miles looked at Andy. Andy grabbed his arm and pulled him into the forming line.
“Stop it, are you mental?”
“What?”
“I’m not jumping off of that.”
“Why not? Tons of people have done this before. It’s perfectly safe.”
Miles stopped. He wanted to tell Andy the meaning of ‘perfectly’ and ‘safe’ but his curiosity was piqued when he said that this had been going on before. How many other people had counted on this wobbly machine to keep them from certain speeding death? Then Miles realized that if Andy wasn’t full of shit, a real possibility, then this strange part of New York culture had gone on without his notice. He felt a stab of professional guilt for not having done something this uniquely stupid in a while.
The first person in line was a skinny blonde who was chatting with her two girlfriends. Faisal smiled at her and attached the two straps around her ankle. He said something to her that Miles didn’t hear and then she jumped. Everyone else was looking down, but Miles was looking at the spool as the rope spun wildly from it. Then it suddenly ran out with a twang. The girl screamed and Miles looked over just as a few people behind him gasped. She was bouncing a dozen feet above the cold water. Her friends cheered and pretty soon everyone else took up the call. Faisal reeled her up, then slowed as she neared the bridge, being careful not to bang her against it. He helped her up, making Miles wince as he kneeled so near the edge without any protective gear. He pulled her up, gave her a hug and detached the rope. The girl ran back to one of her friends, who looked so similar she might have been her twin. The girl’s friend hugged her and cheered, “Yeah, Kate!”
The next girl jumped off the side, flipping and turning as she did. The rope twanged and she hung above the water. Three more people went, and Miles was seriously considering jumping, if only to make up for his previous failure as a journalist. He was fifth in line behind Andy. He turned, looking over his shoulder, and saw a heavy-set man behind him, whose gut hung out of his shirt.
“Want to go ahead of us?” Miles asked.
Andy gave him a confused look. “No, he can go ahead of you; he’s not going ahead of me.”
“Come on, I need to gather my courage.”
Andy shrugged. “All right.”
The man huffed, obviously insulted, but didn’t turn down Miles’s offer to let him go ahead. He muttered “pussy” as he passed him.
Miles ignored that. He felt the blood rushing through him and heard his heart pound in his ears as they neared the front of the line. As the fat man approached, Faisal gave a worried look. He attached the straps to the man’s ankles, despite his reservations. Faisal began to say something when the man jumped. Miles looked down at the fat man as he flew headfirst at the water. There was a twang and then a slight screech of moving metal. Everyone fell silent. Faisal put his hand on the machine, as if that would have done something. Then the screech ended.
Faisal looked visibly worried and quickly reeled the man up. With some struggling, he climbed back onto the bridge.
“See?” Andy backhanded Miles on the chest and walked forward. Faisal strapped Andy’s ankles while still breathing heavily from trying to lift the fat man. Andy jumped and Faisal reeled him back up. Miles looked over his shoulder. The entire crowd from below, minus a couple who must not have paid, were crowded in the maintenance room. There wasn’t even enough room to walk back through the crowd behind him. Miles’s panic at being trapped on the bridge, combined with the after-effects of the pill, made his heart pound in his ears.
“Come on, Miles!” Faisal called.
Andy walked back, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “All right, your turn,” and pushed him forward. As he took his first step onto the bridge, Miles felt like the whole world was tilting, then as he steadied himself, he felt as if the world was too straight, as if the bridge he stood on was too hard and too real. The world continued to reassemble and change its mass with every step.
“Go or get back in line!” someone from behind yelled angrily.
Sweat beaded his forehead. Faisal walked over to him. “Come on, you can do this.”It was then that Miles realized this must be the first time he had come face to face with a genuine admirer of his. He had been praised by a few fellow thrill-seeking journalists and on the internet, all outside New York. Everyone in the city hated him for tracking their decline. But Faisal seemed to be the first person he had met who genuinely admired him. Because I seek the truth? Because I occasionally glorify or publicize the nuts like him? Miles nodded and let Faisal attach the strap to his legs. If I survive this, I will have to ask him why he likes me and pretend I’m not surprised.
Miles walked to the edge and looked down. It was the same sight, a black river between two raised blocks of concrete, but somehow it looked ten times closer than it had before. He closed his eyes and jumped headfirst. The sensation was better than anything he had ever felt. It seemed more like flying than falling. Then the rope stretched to its end, his eyes flew open and he saw that he was less than ten feet from the water. If there had been a boat there, I could have been impaled on the mast! His heart exploded in his chest again as he bounced back up into the air before falling down again. He thought he heard faint applause, but it was less than a whisper from twenty stories up.
There was a whirring and a light shone above him, blazing on the sky bridge. From above, a voice on a loudspeaker called, “This is an illegal gathering on private property. You are all under arrest. Calmly step off the bridge and re-enter the building.”
Blood was rushing to Miles’ head as he hung limply below, straining awkwardly to see the helicopter whirring above him. He lurched forward, swinging himself back and forth, trying to see what was happening. As he swung forward, he saw Faisal trying to force the opposite door, to no use. A policeman jumped on him, but Faisal elbowed him hard and swung around and punched him. Miles swung forward again. When he swung back, he saw Faisal flying through the air. He hit the water, the splash accompanied by a sickening crack. His body floated up, face down.
Miles tried to look away and he suddenly felt like he was going to pass out. His right leg was numb and his other hung awkwardly, pressing against his stomach. His eyes began to close when a sudden pang of nausea made them shoot open. Animal instinct rushed into him. He strained the muscles in his stomach and lifted himself up, feeling instant relief like the breaking of a fever as the blood began to flow out of his head. He reached for the straps and tried to undo one. He was fumbling, and couldn’t undo it. He fell back down, his stomach muscles exhausted, the blood continued to flow down into his brain and his lower body felt as if it were disappearing. He roared and lifted himself up again. This time, he managed to undo one of the straps. He fell back down, jerking as he did. He finally succumbed to exhaustion and let himself fall for a second. His head pounded in pain and he forced his eyes open. Faisal’s body had drifted until it was nearly underneath him. Miles lifted himself up again, his roar little more than a cringing moan as he fumbled with the last strap. He hardly felt it when he fell.
Then the freezing water engulfed him, forcing the air from his lungs. He tried kicking, but his legs wouldn’t respond. He clawed pathetically at the surface, his strokes stiff and awkward as the cold made him jerk and spasm. He watched as the lights drifted away and the darkness consumed him. He felt light-headed again, and then a feeling of warmth overcame him. He saw the dark outline of Faisal’s body above him. Miles thought he was smiling at him.
Pain shot through Miles’ legs. He kicked madly and felt himself rise up. He was writhing more than actually swimming, but he was nearing the surface. He reached out his hand, cresting the water. His head broke the surface and he gasped for air. The helicopter’s blades continued to break the night silence. More lights had come on all around him. To his left, at the skyscraper’s entrance, cops were carrying people off. Two were yelling at Miles, telling him to swim towards them.
Trespassing, illegal and dangerous activities. This would be great if I weren’t a part of it.
Miles dog-paddled the other way. The cops kept yelling at him. Miles grabbed onto a decrepit, small motor boat and with the last of his strength, he flopped in. He was panting and shivering, with his face pressed against the cold metal of the boat. He heard the cops continue their shouting, only this time they were moving farther away. He looked up and saw them running back toward the bridge. They were going to cross and catch him. Miles tried to stand up, but the boat wobbled and he fell down again. He hit his head painfully and shivered. The cops had crossed the bridge and were rushing to him.
Frantically, Miles raised himself to his knees, leaned over the side of the boat and untied it from its cleat. He grabbed the side and pushed it with his hands. He fell backward as one of the cops nearly stepped on his hands. They were cursing him. Miles covered himself as if expecting blows. But they weren’t stupid enough to jump in after him. Miles leaned backward and revved up the motor. It started on the second pull and he was off. As he sped down, he caught a glimpse of the group of people being arrested cheering him as he fled.
Miles sped down the canal, stopping after three blocks and pulling into an open spot. He jumped from the boat. He was about to run off when he decided to tie it to the dock. He didn’t know why, but he figured he shouldn’t add to his growing list of crimes. His numb fingers could barely make the knots, but miraculously, they managed. He ran off, as fast as he could, trying to force some warmth into him. After a while, he had to lean over, panting but still freezing, the biting cold water and the frigid night air cutting into him. His heart pounded furiously and he felt as if he might have a stroke. Resting against a wall hardly helped. He kept running, passing the odd couple who would gasp and step out of the way, knowing that a drenched man running in the dead of night can’t be up to any good.
He finally arrived back at the Halifax Tower. He let the building connect to his internal comp. The system identified him and the doors opened. Shivering, he stepped inside and pressed the elevator button and when it came, he pressed ‘33.’ Miles ran down the hall to his apartment. He burst inside, slammed the door behind him and without even locking it, started stripping down. He threw off his clothes, ran to the thermostat, turned it on full blast heat and rushed into the bathroom, turning on the shower. Once it started heating up, he stepped in. Scalding water poured down his body, but the pain felt good as feeling coursed back into him. Eventually, it was too much to bear and he turned it down. He sat down in the shower, covering his face. Not a single thought passed through his head, which had gone from feeling as if it weighed nothing to weighing a ton. He let it fall into his hands.
After what must have been ten minutes, steam filled the bathroom. It was getting harder to breathe. Miles reached up and turned off the water. He pressed his palm against the shower door and pushed it open. He crawled slowly to his feet, wrapped a towel around himself and collapsed on his bed. It never felt so good. He closed his eyes. Everything was dull. A long time passed, but he couldn’t sleep. He tried opening his eyes, but his eyelids were too heavy and he quickly gave up.
Go to sleep! Go to sleep.
It was a futile effort. After lying down for what felt like hours, he raised himself to his elbow and forced himself to look at his antique clock. 3:23 A.M.
Miles sat up, feeling pain course through him as he did. He didn’t realize how stiff his back was, then he remembered the fall into the cold water. He walked over to his desk and sat down. On the desk was a clear white cube. He pressed a button on it and it hummed to life, projecting a desktop screen. He opened up a document and began to write, detailing everything, minus his own involvement. A few minutes later, he leaned back and re-read the article through tired eyes. It wasn’t his best. There wasn’t even a photo. But it was the best thing he had written in a long time. His finger reached for the screen and hovered over the ‘post’ button. He wondered if the cops would follow him. Surely they wouldn’t? They have enough on their hands, trying to turn Manhattan into a gated community to keep out the people from the Boroughs. They wouldn’t chase after me, not without any hard proof, not with just this.
He clicked ‘post.’
When he had finished, he felt a wave of relaxation wash over him. He turned, walked over to his bed, slid inside, lay his head back, looked at the ceiling and closed his eyes. He was too exhausted to have nightmares.
© 2020 Gary Girod
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