The Briefcase

There was no time. He could remember only one thing as he paced the room. He needed to get away. ‘I need to get away. I need to get away.’ He repeated it to himself in his mind over and over again. He walked over to the heavy brown door. ‘Locked..’ He thought. Of course it was locked. He never entered his apartment without locking the door behind himself. He glanced around the room and noticed that his filthy gray curtains were open slightly, revealing a sliver of golden sunlight. He grabbed them and shut them as a cloud of dust jumped into the air.

He turned and saw his briefcase on the musty bed. So long had he lived in this apartment and only once had he sat on that bed. He looked at the briefcase. J.N. were the initials on the rusted silver lock. For a moment he was confused. He could not seem to recall what the initials stood for. But Wait! Jonathan Nichols… That was it. He had taken the briefcase from Nichols some time ago now. ‘Yes, Jonathan Nichols, born in 1879, died in… When was it? Ah yes, 1933.’ He walked over to the dirty brown bag. ‘1933… that was it, wasn't it? 1933? Let's see… born in 1879, died in 1933, that would have made him fifty-and-three years old at death. No, wait, fifty-and-four, not fifty-and-three.’ He examined the briefcase closely. He could hardly remember taking it now. It had been so long ago. ‘Hmm, fifty-and-four…’ How strange, that was his age in this very year.

Suddenly he heard the sound of a chair being pulled across the floor of another apartment. His hands immediately flew to his ears. Excruciating pain filled his head as the screeching of the chair grew louder and louder. ‘Stop! Stop!’ He thought as the pain slowly grew more and more intense. It would kill him. He knew it would kill him if it went on any longer. ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’ It stopped as quickly as it had started.

That was it.

He needed to get out of there right then. ‘I can't take any more.’ He thought to himself as he grabbed the briefcase off of the bed and walked over to the door. He faltered, ‘Have I oiled it today?’ He thought to himself, ‘Yes, of course, this morning I did.’ He opened the door as silently as a whisper and stepped out into the hallway. He softly walked through the lobby and stopped at the large glass door. He opened it quickly and was hit with a crisp November wind as he stepped out onto the street.

Immediately his ears were filled with the sounds of carriages and wind and laughter and children playing and every other sound that can be heard on London's streets. He resisted the urge to cover his ears. ‘I mustn't.’ He thought,‘I won't get anywhere by covering my ears.’ He glanced around. It had been so long... He walked over to a newspaper stand and his heart jumped as he read the front page headline:

‘JONATHAN NICHOLS WANTED FOR MURDER’


He skimmed the article, picking out pieces here and there:
The well known scientist Jonathan Nichols (famous for his incredible experiments involving sound and the ear) was seen leaving the building of a murder at approximately 2:30 A.M. two days ago. The victim was a middle-aged man named Charles Mcallister. The man was found stabbed repeatedly in the chest and both of his ears had been cut off with what appears to have been a serrated knife. Nichols was last seen running from the building in a black jacket and brown pants…

He continued reading as he felt himself go lightheaded. Nichols was also seen carrying a brown, leather briefcase!

‘It's impossible!’ He thought to himself as he looked at his briefcase. ‘It's impossible!’ He turned and walked quickly down the sidewalk.

He knew of Nichols' works. Nichols was a deaf scientist who was always trying to find a way to give himself the ability to hear. He knew that Nichols would stop at nothing to gain the power to hear. But murder? No, he would never commit murder. Especially not Charles, the two men were practically partners. Practically brothers, even. ‘It doesn't matter anyway.’ He thought,‘Nichols is dead and he's been dead for some time. I don't know how anyone could believe that story. Nichols died in one of his experiments. I know he did. He was going to help me. He was going to help me! We had a deal, but he got selfish and started devoting all of his research to his own problems. I could never find him after he left. Never.’ He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even realize where he was going.

It was then that he noticed a man slowly approaching him.

His first and only instinct was to turn in the opposite direction. As he turned to walk away, he bumped into a man in a long brown jacket, dropping his briefcase. He felt a rush of fear as he watched the bag slam to the ground and break open, spilling it's contents across the sidewalk. He stared in horror at the bag and the two items that had spilled out of it. Two ears. Both of them sloppily cut at the bases with dried blood covering them. He looked down at the two horrible, bloody things lying on the sidewalk. They were like two small creatures, barely alive, begging for life from anyone or anything. Searching for something to help them, to give them a chance, or even to end their suffering.

But no response came.

He resisted the urge to scream and turned and fled from the sight. He was so confused. Nothing was making sense. How had the two ears ended up in his briefcase? Why was Jonathan Nichols in the newspaper, when he had been dead for years? And, most of all, why was he so terrified of the two ears? It wasn't a normal fear. It wasn't even disgust. It seemed as if he couldn't bear to think of them without feeling like he was going to faint. They brought up an immense feeling from deep inside of him, like nothing he had ever known. It was fear, but yet, it was attachment. It was horror, and yet, it was sympathy.
He could not seem to figure out why he felt this way. He had no idea that they were in the briefcase. But wait! Something had just occurred to him, ‘What did I put in the briefcase?’ He couldn't remember, ‘`Twas something of great importance. I know it was.’ But what was it? Why couldn't he remember?

He pulled his large dark overcoat closer to himself and put up the collar as a sharp gust of wind rushed around him. He walked around a corner and found himself at his apartment building. As he walked into the lobby he thought to himself,‘Where else will I go?’ He once again walked up those creaky wooden stairs and through his thick door. He thought that he would never return to this room.‘This old, noisy room.’ He thought to himself as he sat down on his chair by the window.

A dog's bark could be heard outside. He sighed, it was so quiet, being so far away. It was perfect. Just the way he liked it, quiet. He listened closely to the sounds around him. He could hear footsteps outside the building. He could hear talking and laughing.

Suddenly he felt an urgency. ‘I need to get that briefcase.’ He thought to himself. ‘I need to get it.’ It was as if he had completely forgotten the fact that he had left it there on the sidewalk. He didn't know why, but for some reason, he needed that briefcase. He got up off of his wing chair and started to pace back and forth. ‘How will I get it?’ He thought to himself ‘If the police see me I will surely be arrested. They will want to question me. I couldn't bear to be questioned by them. They will never understand my condition, either. Never.’ So many ideas and situations crossed his mind at this point. He decided at this point that the only way he was going to get his briefcase back was to simply walk out into the street, hope that the police haven't arrived yet, and grab it off the ground. He turned and opened the door. He stepped out into the hallway for the second time in one day, and walked down into the lobby. He walked quickly with his head down as he approached the glass door. He looked up as he opened the door and saw something that made his whole body freeze. He was staring at his reflection. But there was something very peculiar about it. For it was not his own face.

It was the face of Jonathan Nichols.

He stumbled backwards as he stared at the man in the reflection. ‘How can this be?’ He thought. But something about the reflection was strange. It was Jonathan Nichols, but he didn't know who it should have been. He stared in horror at the reflection, trying his hardest to tell himself that he wasn't seeing the face of a dead man. But deep down, he knew he was. He ran forward and threw the door open. ‘Born in 1879, died in 1933. Born in 1879, died in 1933.’He repeated the dates in his mind as he ran and retraced his earlier steps. He once again ran around the corner to the spot where he dropped his bag. It was there. Without an officer in sight. He quickly ran up and grabbed the briefcase without slowing down.

“Hey!” a voice from behind him yelled. “Hey you!”
He began to run. He could hear running footsteps behind him. He took a left and saw a large abandoned warehouse. ‘There!’ He thought, ‘That's where I'll go.’ But suddenly he felt a strong hand on his shoulder and he was pushed back against the wall. The man who was chasing him came around the corner stood in view. He was a tall man with sandy hair and dark eyes. He was wearing a brown coat over a dark blue shirt. “Do you know who I am?” The man asked, getting very close. His breath was some sort of ghastly mixture of smoke and alcohol. “Do you?”

Agonizing pain was filling his head as this man talked to him. When no response came, the man leaned closer and continued,“My name is Robert. Robert Mcallister. Do you know me now? No? You killed my brother Charles. Remember? You killed him, and now I'm going to kill you.”

There was only one thing that he could do. He clenched his hand into a fist and punched Robert in his midsection as hard as he could. The man stumbled back and fell to the ground, grabbing his stomach. He took this opportunity and ran into the warehouse.

The truth was clear to him now. He knew why he felt that way about the ears. It was guilt. Guilt was killing him. And he knew why everything was so loud. It was because he had been deaf. The experiment had given him the ability to hear, but the change was too much for him. He couldn't think straight. Charles wouldn't stop talking. He would stop asking questions. That's why he had done it. He needed silence.

It was only a matter of seconds before the other man was up and running toward him. Both men ran into the the warehouse as a crowd slowly gathered outside.

Not one of the people in the crowd knew what was going on, but when several gunshots were heard from inside the building, they alerted the police immediately.

No one knows exactly what went on inside the warehouse that day. But what they do know, is that a new gravestone was added to a London cemetery. On it, you will find the inscription to say:

Here lies Jonathan Nichols
1879—1933