ChapterOne

From the handwritten journal of James Edwin Stone: April 12, 1994

DayOne

You wouldn’t believe the last three days of my life. I barely believe them, myself. If someone would have told me four days ago that I would know the things I know today, I’d have called them crazy and then called the authorities or perhaps—depending on the situation—tossed some coins at his cup and walked on. It all started on Tuesday and lead irrevocably to today, Friday. I am still so astounded that I am having some serious trouble sorting it all out even here in this journal where my thoughts normally fall onto the paper effortlessly.

Tuesday morning I woke in the normal or usual way. I hauled myself into the bathroom in my small apartment. I flicked on the light, sat down and sighed in relief. My bladder felt like an over inflated balloon and the sound of my piss hitting the side of the bowl was a lot like the hiss of air escaping. In the mornings, it was just easier to sit than try to focus on aiming. After that business was done I stood and opened the mirrored cabinet where I could see that some grime was beginning to collect on the fringe, but I knew it would probably be days, if not weeks, before it would bother me enough to clean it off. I knew that once it got to that point, though, I wouldn’t be able to resist it.

I grabbed my toothbrush top and snapped it onto the vibrating base, squirted some paste on it, ran it under the water and popped it in my mouth. The little white button pressed in and the brush combo hummed. I swirled it circularly over my teeth and gums massaging them while the bristles plucked crud and residue from the enamel on my teeth. That was about as normal as the day would hold which is the only reason I’ve described it here in such detail. It’s about the only grasp on reality that I think I’ve maintained until today.

I spat the paste, water, saliva, and tooth crud out into the basin of the sink and watched the water swirl it away. I remember thinking about how the drains empty counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere and the banality of it all stole my mind from the thing itself. As I looked back up into the mirror I saw that I was not looking into my reflection any longer. The metallic sheen of the glass glared back at me revealing only the room behind. I stared in complete disbelief, mindlessly dropped my toothbrush into the sink and stepped back with the water still running.

I felt my left shoulder slam carelessly into the wall behind me and I blinked my eyes hard then opened them and saw that my reflection was barely a wisp of an apparition in the mirror. As I stared at the mirror longer, my reflection returned steadily and quickly until I was staring back at myself again. I shook my head, grabbed the brush out of the basin, shook it off, and put it away. I grabbed two hands full of cold water and dipped my face into them as I tried to dismiss what I had seen as the early morning mind fog playing tricks on me.

The rest of my morning went on normally for the most part. I showered, dressed, caught the morning news with aggravation and stayed tuned just long enough to get the daily weather report. I really didn’t feel like shackling myself to the rest of the horrid newscast to get the extended report so I grabbed the remote and clicked the power off. I sat on my couch staring at the dark screen and noticed with comfort that I could see my reflection in it. I glanced over at the clock on my stereo. It was about ten minutes fast and it read 7:34 A.M. so I knew that I had about another ten or fifteen minutes to sit and just stare off into space before I left for work.

I did just that.

When the clock read 7:48 A.M. I stood slowly, grabbed my ID badge, clipped it to the side of my pants and headed out the door and into the hall. I went out to the parking lot and found that it had rained the night before and there were small puddles of water collected in the low spots of the asphalt. I avoided stepping in them on the way to my car and I walked past a rather large pool of rain water that reflected a large, vibrantly green tree. I looked up, moved my head from side to side, and then spun myself all the way around with my head just leading the twist. I knew that something was screwy. There were no trees anywhere near the parking lot. In fact, the only trees I could even see were small Japanese Cherry trees that were an easy hundred feet away. They were no where near large or tall enough to have been the reflection that I saw in the water pooled in the parking lot.

I looked around one more time and then brought my gaze back to the small rain puddle and the tree I had seen before was still there, but barely. It was fading away quickly in very much the same way that my reflection had faded into view in my mirror. This was far too coincidental for me. By then I was a bit shaken and I really needed something to calm my nerves. I kept thinking of the Hostess Suzie Q snacks and I knew that the vending machine at work normally stocked them. I got in the car, switched on the local classical music station, and tried to keep my mind occupied as I drove.

I got to the parking structure downtown and used my pass in the machine. I only had to go up three levels before finding a spot so I looked at the clock in my dash. I must have been speeding because I somehow managed to be fifteen minutes early for work. That struck me as very wrong because it takes me seven minutes to get to work and I left home with only twelve minutes to go. I figured that the clock in my car was on the fritz just like my mind was and I hurried down two levels to the bridge that connected the parking garage to the building where I worked.

I quickly crossed the bridge, entered my building and extended the zip cord that was attached to my badge so that the security attendant could see it. I made a beeline to the vending area, grasped in my pocket for some change, dropped three quarters and four nickels into the machine, pressed the EE button and waited for my placebo breakfast to drop. As soon as it hit the bottom of the tray, I extended my hand and grabbed it out, but before I could fully remove it I heard coins clanging down the return shoot like a waterfall made of gears and sprockets.

I looked at the return tray, and sure enough, three quarters and four nickels were resting peacefully. I grabbed them, noting that they were particularly cool to the touch, pocketed them and took to tearing open the snack package as a wild bear ripping into a rabbit or something. The sugar helped. A lot. I reveled in my lethargy and sat at my desk while I waited for my computer to boot. I stared into the unresponsive monitor and checked—almost subconsciously—to see if my reflection could be seen in the flat screen

It could. I was relieved that my reflection was doing well there at work. The two odd occurrences with reflections that morning seemed to be coincidental and I remember hoping that they were not related and that perhaps they had something to do with the fact that I felt terrible. I hadn’t completely realized it yet, but I remember sitting there trying to get going and my mouth was overly dry. I opened my email program and my organizer program and wished for the umpteen thousandth time that our company would get GroupWise or Outlook or something better than the crap we had. I let those two programs fight over my system resources for a minute while I walked to the nearest water cooler. It was one of those jobbies with the red handle for hot water. I’d never tried the red handle. It really bothered me that someone would build a water cooler with a heater. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

Anyway, I grabbed one of those snow cone paper cups and I filled it most of the way and slammed it down the back of my throat returning my hands into place before I could even register the coolness of the water sliding down the back of my tongue. Normally I needed at least two or twelve of those little cups. I think they hold something like one and a half ounces. It’s ridiculous. Yeah. Um, okay. So I downed another cone of water and by then my mouth was chilled, but the water didn’t seem to do much to sate my thirst at all. I still felt parched and I had a case of cotton-mouth that would make a pothead cry.

I stood at the water dispenser—as I have resigned myself to calling it since it heats and cools water—for a while longer and I must have drank about six more of those little cones all together. I was still thirsty and I was starting to get that cramp in my gut when you drink too much of anything too fast. I could feel the water sloshing around and I figured that I was getting sick or something because my mouth was still very warm and I was still very thirsty. Looking back I get it, but I was really thrown by that and I remember thinking about grabbing a bag of throat lozenges from the crappy little convenience store that was on the second floor of the office building.

I headed back to my desk and stared at the cubicle wall to my left. There was an early twenties college grad chick in the three walled cage next to me and I could hear her on a customer service call. From the sounds of it, the person on the line was pretty dense because from what I could hear, she was explaining the concept of the impact of periodic withdrawals on compound interest to the dimwit on the other line for the third time. I’d fielded that topic before and some people just refused to understand that your money doesn’t make as much interest if you take it out before it can compound. But this isn’t really the time for me to gripe about work.

It was already around ten in the morning and I hadn’t gotten a thing done. I’m not saying that this was an odd occurrence by any means because it’s not as much of a rarity as I’d like it to be, but that day it wasn’t really because I was goofing off or checking websites or any of that. I just couldn’t concentrate on anything. My ability to focus was practically non existent and, well, it seemed like lethargy had washed over me. The next time I looked at my clock it was ten minutes until lunch and I planned a stop at the little mart on the second floor then I called up my lunch buddy, Mark to ask him where we were going.

Mark usually drives, so I have no problem letting him pick where we go. I’d drive. I have no real problems with that, but he has a nice, comfy truck and he likes to smoke, and I don’t want my car smelling like charred ass. I dialed his extension and he picked up in under two rings. We briefly discussed the options and he ultimately decided on a mom and pop burger joint that served some the best sliders this side of White Castle. White Castle didn’t have a store in our town so if you wanted any, you had to drive at least an hour to the nearest one and then you got a huge order and took them home and froze them. I may detail the process in a later entry here. Everyone should know how to properly preserve a White Castle slider.

Anyhow, Mark decided we would go there and we’d be leaving in just a few minutes, so I locked my workstation, grabbed my jacket and took the stairs down to the second floor. I grabbed a small pack of lozenges and then hit the ground floor, exited, and went to wait by Mark’s truck. He was only a minute or two behind me, but as I was standing there I saw something in the periphery and it looked like a large bird headed right for me. I ducked out of the way, but there was nothing there. I looked into the window of Mark’s truck and saw that there were immense and ominous clouds in the sky. I turned and looked up because I had just walked out there and the sky was clear. Nothing. It was another crazy reflection trick.

When I turned back to look into the window so I could figure out what the hell was going on, it happened to me again and I know I had to have been looking like a fool as I stood there with my jaw dropped. My reflection was gone from the window. I looked quickly in the side mount mirror. Nothing again. It was right about that time, I think, that Mark—who had apparently been standing there a while and calling out my name—threw a cigarette butt at my head and yelled at me.

I turned away from the mirror and the window and I think I remember opening the door and getting in the truck. I must have downed at least four or five huge glasses of pop at the restaurant but the only thing I remember is that the burgers somehow tasted really bland even slathered in onions and I was thirsty as hell. I think I told Mark that I wasn’t feeling well, but the rest of the day was pretty much a blur.

I am pretty sure that I considered asking whether I could go home at least once every thirty seconds. I vaguely recall that my stomach started cramping something horrible. My throat stayed so dry the whole day. I wanted to leave. I wanted to know why I kept feeling worse and worse. The lozenges didn’t do a damned thing.

After the day was done I know that I got home because I woke in my bed the next morning as my alarm coerced me into life. I am not sure how I managed to drive my car home, but when I went to the lot to look for it in the lot, it was right where I expected it to be.