Final Collection
By Jesse A. Goodrich
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Copyright 2012 Jesse A. Goodrich
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CHAPTER 1
Under cover of night, cloudy, no stars, hearing each footstep echo back from both walls of the alley and the too frequent sound of pooled water on the uneven pavement, Adam cautiously approached something unusual to him.
On any other night, he wouldn’t be awake, let alone visiting an unfamiliar alley. Especially as this is how he lost his fiancée two years ago, but there was something about the yellow glow coming deep from this alley he passed twice a week to get to the deli from work for lunch. The color was slightly brighter than trash fire for warmth but smaller and not the right color, he knew it could be dangerous, but on this night, his birthday, it seemed to matter less than usual, and it was so strange, the light didn’t fit into the categories he so frequently made about everything.
The memories of his stolen Sarah kept Adam alert as he crept by backdoors to offices and trash receptacles. Her brutal taking tugged for him to retreat to sanctuary, to what he considered normal, the familiar street and the wandering mind that led him to great ideas but also great suffering for anyone and anything he thought of. This was just slightly too unusual and Adam’s desire to keep things in order drew him near, after all, how dangerous could it be, it was only a light and he was modestly strong, not that he was skilled in any sort of way, but his presence was usually enough to ward off anything unsafe.
The wind picked up for a moment too long, so Adam flipped the collar of his short-length, charcoal pea-coat up to the length of his freshly cut dark hair, giving him enough of a distraction to recognize how far away this light was and also how this might require some disarming conversation and possibly some cash if it were a transient simply by a fire for warmth. Yet this is what drove Adam forward, nothing about the light or this situation really made sense. Trying to distract himself further from the anxiety mounting, he checked the brick walls around him and the roof edges and dark sky above, Adam thought of how much more beautiful the night would be if there wasn’t a busy city around him, how the stars could provide a wonder that would distract him at any time, instead, it was dark, he was alone and his mind, as usual, had wandered too far.
“Aaauggh, HELP!” a small man shouted as the door near Adam impacted the left side of his body. Adam exhaled deeply and although habit would have him utter something cursory, he reserved himself to a sigh as being struck was unexpected enough and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. There was enough force to disorient him to the point he was knocked down by the person running by and to numbly feel having his right leg stepped on by what seemed an even smaller pursuer. All Adam could realize and organize was someone had been chased and probably for some time as he heard heavy breathing from both men. Without hesitation Adam half rose in the direction of the two men running toward the street and made a pursuit lasting about five meters before he determined, as the two unexpected intruders on his adventure slipped beyond his view from the alley, that they were too far gone and probably around the corner to the next street. Adam stopped and everything resolved at once. How could he help their situation? It would be considerably dangerous to continue in whatever ensued there, but here, the light which begged his attention couldn’t be that much a risk. Adam let words slip softly into the cold alley, "Call the police." Adam knew it was the right thing to do, but more importantly the police would be near if someone came back to remove witness. The security warmed him as the wind released its push. He turned back to continue his approach toward this curious light near the end of the alley. Adam adjusted his clothes, feeling the wet along the back of his pants, and recognized he was indeed a coward. Determined to test his limitations against cowardice and relying on his strength in organization, he pulled out his phone.
The phone ringing as he called the police, in this situation, couldn’t help but draw Adam back to the last evening he called Sarah. He remembered his nervous curiosity forcing him to reposition the white wine glasses. The small size and richly dark black satin of the table demanded he adjust the distance between the glasses; he had been distracting himself from fear, “why could she be running late?” Adam realigned his focus to the operator on the call in the present as the loosely held phone dangled near his right ear. The operator gave a long generically concerned greeting while Adam stopped himself in the open doorway where the two men had come from. He peered into a stairwell belonging to an office backroom and could see only one light with darkness engulfing a second doorway into a room beyond the stairwell. The effect the lone sconce created in beating its dull yet unwavering cream imbuement on the stairwell enlivened the anxiety Adam had suppressed moments ago. Adam, on occasion, worked fourteen hour shifts at his office which often was long enough to require more lighting than provided by this office stairwell alone. Adam brought the phone more firmly to his mouth drawing himself into conversation with the operator. “Hi, there is someone chasing another male near the corner of Washington and State street,” Adam paused as he realized there would be many questions coming, so to avoid this, he raised his voice and added a sense of panic, “I THINK HE’S COMING TO GET ME!” and closed his phone to break conversation. Adam moved back from the doorway and fully into the alley, his mind beginning to unlock the organization of events. "The dark office meant they probably didn't come from the first floor," he thought. Adam lingering on the idea of a rooftop chase that led to the current situation had placed himself, with quick and thorough imagination, into the lead runner position and imagined the pursuit which led to opening the door on the roof which led to the building stairwell. His imagining was cushioned to a halt as he recognized his current situation alongside reliving the hum and blanket of the cream light he just saw. With anxiety mounting Adam fell out of the imagined chase and transported back in time to hearing Sarah’s voice-mail pickup; he knew something was off that night when Sarah didn’t make it punctually to dinner, Adam fought fear as he always had when he was younger and resolved to be patient rather than allow anxiety to take over. "She'll tell me about everything when she gets in," Adam remembered thinking. He looked out the window from his memory and saw traffic on the street below. The headlights from the cars took over and Adam could feel himself being brought back to the alley. Adam swam through his own mind with ease but tonight he was shifting without control. The light near the end of the alley, as he approached, didn’t seem to grow in volume only in its intensity, "I should see something by now," he spoke mostly in his head. The light acted as transportation between the past and the present and Adam was again remembering. The quiet room surrounding the vibration of his phone against the kitchen counter drove darkness in; everything brilliant seemed dark and everything dark became more prominent. The call he received about an hour after his third attempt to reach Sarah that evening seemed foreboding and indeed nearly destroyed him then; the memory of this was currently feeding his desire to go home, to just walk away. “I could just let this go,” Adam considered, but too much was aligned in such incongruity with his routine that he pushed toward the curiosity. Quiet consumed the resonant brick of the alley; it forced back the sound of Adam’s footsteps into a soft echo. Hearing his solitary steps helped Adam gain a foothold in this out of place reality; as if out of all that were unusual about this frequently ignored alley, Adam could at least rely on the fact, he was alone.
Now only a short distance away, Adam checked over his shoulder, reinforcing the idea he was alone this far in the alley and that whatever secret lay here was not going to be interrupted by something which followed behind him. The only thing unexpected behind him was a flash of headlights which lit one side
of the alley and then the other as it went by. Adam recognized the passing car as a police vehicle, and although it was unanticipated in the moment, it was not unpredictable; he was so close now and nothing else mattered. As he turned back to his prize - the phenomenon, the new thing Adam hoped to categorize, this light of intrigue and mystery - was gone. "At the very least the object which had created the curious glow should have remained," Adam thought briefly as he leaned in to inspect the area. The thought of discovery was quickly replaced by the recognition of red and blue lights reflecting down the alley from behind him and the sound of a woman's voice, one certainly of a police officer, shouting, “Hands above your head...”
Time lapse
Grabbing a towel which was well above the quality he needed to dry off, Adam remembered Sarah specifically telling him he would appreciate having them to use. The towel however was now just a reminder of her - one perhaps he would be happy to have in the future, but now only existed as another painful reminder of her. “If she were here…” Adam’s thought trailed off as the loneliness started to wear on him. Shaking the memory away as he ran the soft towel down his back, Adam focused on how it felt to be reprimanded by Officer Murray, Erin; her partner had said in semi-private conversation. Adam knew the phone-call he made wasn’t handled the right way, but it didn’t really matter to him. He looked at his reflection from the long wall mirror behind his couch and checked for any marks that he would have been graced with after being slammed unexpectedly by the door in the alley. "Nothing permanent," Adam reassured himself. Adam’s mind was jumping because of the light that seemed to avoid being seen, he looked into the reflection of his eyes wondering if somehow the alley had made sense after all and he was just misreading his own ability to recognize something out of order; that his pain from the past had burrowed into his judgments. “I don’t think I can sleep.” Adam said, with no hope of answer, to his reflection as he pulled himself away from the mirror and made his way to the bedroom closet. The walls of the hallway on his way to his room were bare save for a painting Adam paid for at a street kiosk one summer several years ago. Holding out his hand to feel the walls with his fingertips while continuing to the bedroom, Adam enjoyed the course paint providing a continuous flow of texture that tingled up to his elbow and he watched the painting imaginatively move and come to life in sync with the vibrations he felt.
“What was I even doing?” Adam lingered on the question which morphed into something more personal, “What AM I doing?” He finished dressing for the evening and started for the living area to pour a small glass of 10 year Macallan, which he afforded himself more often than he should. Adam set the bottle back down to the resting place each bottle had called home in the 'bar' area of the brown-marbled laminate by the refrigerator and concluded that he was searching for something more. He felt tired with a clouded yet strong desire nearing focus in his mind, so he enjoyed a small drink to either let the thought linger to realization or to let it pass for when he was less exhausted. Adam lazily moved toward his leather chair, which was almost a different color now as he continued to break it in, six years now, without once applying anything to preserve the quality or integrity of the leather. Sarah would bring up taking care of the furniture a couple of times a year, at the time it seemed like more, but now he realized how patient she was, or at the very least, how impatient he truly is. Taking another drink Adam brought the glass up to eye level enjoying the look of the scotch while savoring the taste and thinking he shouldn’t sit down. He didn’t work tomorrow but was more tired than usual. Instead of giving it more thought Adam fought the desire to sleep, assuming he would refill his glass though more than half remained, so he could sit up thinking for a while - almost as though he were avoiding the next day.