Before He Slept, Part 1

Before He Slept
Ben Feidt


Monday

The morning is a battle. Every day it is a struggle between the body and will, and everything in the world is on the side of the body. Sleeping dust like dumbbells weighs down the eyelids, while blankets like serpents tie down the arms and legs. The cold morning air threatens to bite at any bare flesh that dares to leave the warmth of the covers.
He awoke at 5:43.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
It was seventeen minutes before his alarm would sound off. He could already hear the buzzing that was reminiscent of mechanical failure and blinking red lights shouting DANGER. An odd way to start the day, he thought, and as he gave in to the clutches of his own bed he tried to make a mental reminder to find a replacement.
When he awoke again, seventeen minutes later, the reminder had vanished, but he was a little more awake, an inkling more prepared to stand on his own two feet. He showered quickly, impatiently waiting for the water to turn hot. A delicate toe was placed under the faucet, a necessary sacrifice, and the cold water chilled the digit, sending icy waves up his leg and into the entirety of his body. He stood naked, shivering, and waited until the water transformed into fire, scalding hot, and the steam rose from the faucet and clouded his small bathroom mirror that stuck to the door of the medicine cabinet.
Stepping out from the shower, soaking and shivering to be among the cold air once again, he lazily swiped the mirror with a bare hand. The smudged glass revealed his body. Muscles had grown strongly over his frame but they ached with the same sigh that always echoed in his soul. They were strong, regularly trained, but never used with a purpose. Much like his flaccid penis, which hung small between his legs in the chilled room.
He dressed for work; black dress pants, black oxford shoes, a white button-down shirt, a dark grey wool sportcoat, and a simple Timex watch. He gazed at himself in the tall mirror that stood in the corner of his bedroom opposite the mattress. His hands ran through his hair several times, the fingers acting like the huge teeth in an oversized comb. He stood like this for five minutes, tediously attempting to push his bangs up, to part his hair to the right and to the left, vainly trying to mold his hair in a way where he was satisfied, but he ended up settling for acceptance. Fingers worked their way to his shirt collar and undid the first two buttons.
“No tie today.” The man said to himself, as if even he was surprised the sudden decision.
As he locked the door to his apartment and gazed stupidly at the cheap brass numbers, “202”, he could hear shouting from across the hall. Room number 203, Paul and Isaac’s place. He had never really met them. The most he had ever talked to them would be a deep-throated “Hey” or a grunt of acknowledgment, as if uttered between two Cro-Magnons. as they passed each other in the dimly lit hall. He pieced together their names through overhead conversations.
“I’ve told you a hundred times you idiot! Isaac! Don’t run and hide now you little shit, open the door. I know you’re in there! Open the fucking door!”
The walls were thin in the complex. Every slap and punch the man could practically feel for himself.

*

The bus was late, though it was always late, so the man could not feign surprise. It did not matter where he was, standing outside the university library when he attended college or standing on the sidewalk two blocks away from his apartment as he was now, the bus was always late. Whether it was raining, snowing, sleeting, sunny, cloudy, windy, or dry, the bus was late. This used to bother him so much that he would leave half an hour sooner and catch the earlier bus, which was inevitably late for its own supposed time. So fundamentally true was the fact of the bus’ tardiness that arriving on time would be abnormal, grounds for protest even. There would be nobody waiting on the concrete slabs of sidewalk or outside the library to get on.

*

“Ed! Big man, how was your weekend?” Bruce, his supervisor spoke in a signature unprofessional and overly confident manner. Bruce was tanned despite the Autumn season, his teeth were perfectly straight white pearls that belonged on a movie star living on the West Coast rather an office worker. He wore his dreams on his sleeve, obviously expecting big things from life to arrive at his doorstep and he wanted to look good when it happened.
“It was nice.” Ed smiled back, but beneath that polite veneer he was meekly wondering what he even did over those few days off work.
Bruce propped a forearm on top of the cubicle wall and leaned casually, “Do anything special?”
A fear suddenly seized Ed that he was a painfully boring person. Flashes of images sailed in his mind. He saw himself lying in bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling paint of his apartment, lost in thought and in a trance. He saw himself walking aimlessly through city streets aglow with the lights of cars and storefronts. He had not even watched a movie or read the newspaper. The existential crisis screamed at him, asking if he had even lived at all during the weekend.
Ed’s mouth slowly opened, his eyes pointed upwards at Bruce, “I walked.”
Bruce and smiled and nodded as if he perfectly understood. Ed smiled in return, feeling a comfort wash over him and forgetting his fear for the moment.
“Walking. It’s always good for some fresh air. Hey, I won’t keep you any longer, buddy.” Bruce furrowed his brow and barked sarcastically, “Now get back to work you minion!”
He flashed his white smile and moved on to the next hapless office worker, a younger woman with a curly hive of hair done up in a bun, her thin-framed glasses giving off an air of intelligence. Her black skirt clung tightly to her posterior and drew the gaze of both Ed and Bruce’s eyes.
As Bruce began to talk and she listened attentively, Ed thought with a quiet laugh that Bruce may have sexual harassment waiting at his doorstep in the near future.

*

The incessant clicking started as it did every week day in Ed’s personal hell. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLACK! Editors, so damn self-important in their typing, Ed thought. He may have been a member of their clan, but at least he had the courtesy to think before his hands were set in motion. He perused the articles of the magazine company he worked for, a trite tabloid that served out gossip, leaked photos, and other disreputable information about celebrities and politicians. Ed personally believed most of it was lies, and he pitied the customers that paid for the garbage that made up his salary.
CLICK!
CLICKCLICK!
Ed hung his head in his hands and slowly massaged his temples with his index fingers. The editors next to him were unseen barbarians, pounding their chests and shouting expletives into the air for everyone to hear. He was different though. He had finesse. An owl, he spotted his prey from miles away, silently dragging his mouse cursor across the misspelled word and with a single, swift touch on his keyboard, the word was dead. None of that hitting Backspace ten times nonsense. Commas were added, phrasing was changed, entire paragraphs revised or scrapped altogether, but never did he go on a tirade on his white plastic keyboard. He could only imagine the crumbs and bits of dead skin sleeping in the crevices of his colleague’s computers being forced upwards into the air with each pounding finger clacking away.
The fluorescent light bulbs shining down on the office space flooded the area with a hospital white light. It blinded Ed’s vision when he opened his eyes and transitioned from the blackness of closure from burying his head to the over-saturated heaven of light. Though even his eyelids could not bring complete darkness as their insides were a mask of red due to the bulbs’ incandescence leaking through. The low sounding hum from the tubes of toxic light only added to the cacophony of office noise: The gung-ho typists, the water cooler chattering, the loud eaters. Beneath all of that, the hum persisted. It was a buzz of a thousand bees trapped in the woodwork, straining to get out of this place, counting the seconds before the lights turned off and they would cease once more. Cease until the next day, when it would all start again.

*

Ed’s eyes darted to the time at the lower right hand corner of his computer screen, 12:41 PM. Like usual, his work was finished well before he needed to clock out. Every day, Ed casually typed at his desk, often walking to grab a cup of water or just to stretch his legs and escape from the mind-numbing daze that clouded his cubicle. He never rushed and his brain never strained.
With a pencil between his thumb and index finger, rapidly twirling back and forth in motion, Ed spun around in his black office chair. His eyes closed, he felt the whooshing air skip past his ears as he pushed with his legs to pick up speed.
You’ll throw up one of these days.
His stomach, picking up on the memo, upturned and puffed out, forcing Ed to decelerate and convince the empty bowels to contain their contents. There would not be much to spill, anyways, as he had not eaten anything yet. He crossed the office’s white floors and rapped on the white door of his supervisor.
“Come in!” Bruce’s voice was slightly muffled on the other side.
“Lunch break, boss?” Ed asked.
“Sure thing, Ed. See you in thirty.”

*

The three co-workers stood in the elevator, three obelisks on an island too small, surrounded by an ocean of tension. Ed recognized the girl with the glasses and the pleasant posterior. She stood in front of him, reading her notebook that was filled with elegant cursive handwriting. She smelled of blackberry and fire and it recalled an image of her lounging on dark oak floors, only candlelight revealing the silhouette of her long, naked body with legs that stretched across the room sensually. Ed’s heart leaped and bounded, but then a pang of guilt shattered its excitement. He was sure that he had thought too loudly, his excitement too palpable, and now she had known along with the middle-aged man in the corner, who groaned and rubbed an aching neck, that he was a pervert. He was too embarrassed to look at her anymore and stared at the bloor of nine square, uniform tiles. He yearned to plant soft kisses on her neck, trailing his lips up to her earlobe and then, next frame, happiness.
It all stopped and became useless when he realized he did not even know her name or anything about her. The elevator dinged and the three co-workers left. The middle-aged man continued to groan, the lady read her notes and only occasionally glanced up to see where she was walking, and Ed still felt naked, with a stomach that rollicked in waves and a heart that jumped off a ledge and had yet to hit the ground. He shuffled across the first floor lobby and pushed out the revolving doors. The streets were crowded with bustling people and cars lined bumper to bumper. Ed jostled along with the flow of pedestrians,young men in suits chatting about flows and IPOs and women in high heels sipping on frappuccinos. He arrived at the sandwich shop, Big Eates, and walked to the counter, surprised by the lack of a line.
“Hey there, guy. The usual?” The large man behind the cash register asked.
“Yeah, usual.” Ed responded with a nod.He pulled out seven dollars and dutifully waited for the cashier to say, “That’ll be $6.50.”
It was the same price every day.
“Keep the change.” Ed always smiled.
“Thanks.” The large man said without looking as his meaty hands glided into motion. It struck Ed as odd how the man’s sausage fingers could fly so gracefully; they flashed into the bread oven and pulled out a baguette, one hand reached into the bins of ingredients and threw down thick slices of roast beef and ham. Once the hands reached the ingredient bins, grace was abandoned for unregulated speed and power. American cheese was slapped onto the roast beef and ham and in an instant it was followed by vegetables: Peppers, cucumbers, and lettuce. He slid the sandwich down his reckless conveyor and grabbed a bottle of mayonnaise and squeezed, spurting out thick streaks of milky white. The baguette was finally clasped together and rolled in paper.
One of these days I’ll time you and make you famous.
“Here you go, man.” The sandwich virtuoso handed Ed his creation. The man’s rolled up black sleeve revealed a tattoo on his forearm: The queen of clubs. She was drawn slightly cartoonish, a thick border of black and splashes of blue, red, and yellow like any other playing card, but the queen herself was different. Her legs crossed each other and her face turned seductively, one open eye staring out intently. One hand was outstretched, clutching onto a braid of whips, while the other half covered her naked breasts.
Ed wondered what possessed the man to have it pricked into his skin. Perhaps it revealed a gambling nature behind the man who owned the shop. Ed thought he could be a gambling man; the man’s large gut would set perfectly against the edge of a blackjack table and his thick forearms would look formidable grasping a handful of cards. Behind the doors in the back of the restaurant there could even be a round table, illuminated beneath a single hanging lamp, with scotch and cigarettes close at hand. Late at night, long after the shop closes, shadowy men would enter quietly and take their seats at the table before uncovering their faces in the dim light and erupting in laughter. Their teeth grinning, the large man would plop himself on his chair and shuffle a deck of red Bicycle cards and pass them out.
Another possibility emerged in the clouds of Ed’s mind. One that spoke of the man as being something far more sinister, a criminal, the tattoo written in his arm being the associative mark between his darker side.
Certainly not all men that have tattoos are evil, Ed wondered as he took a slow bite from his sandwich. But he surely looks the part, doesn’t he?
A customer walked in, tall and thin, wearing a suit and tie, and ordered the Hunter’s Club. Again, Ed watched the man’s hands fly and lunge with speed, grabbing a fresh piece of bread. How deadly those hands would be if they held a knife. With one flick, a slit throat. With the next thrust, a punctured lung, a cut belly. Ed studied the man more closely than he ever had before, as if the small brown eyes set below that heavy brow would flash and all would be told. I have killed more men than I can remember, women, too, if the money was good enough, those eyes would say. But, Ed simply watched a fat yet muscular man create a sandwich for a businessman in the establishment he will probably work all his life to make more successful. A simple man who lets out a sigh after every customer leaves the store and wanders the small space behind the counter without purpose. He only wants to work his magic hands, but there are not enough opportunities anymore. Ed saw him now as just an honest man, and admiration sparked a warmth inside him, leaving fear to die in the heat of love.

*

Returning to the office afterwards was quite pointless for Ed. His tasks were complete, the articles were edited, there was no motive for sitting in front of his computer. Even more maddening, his coworkers were still in the great hunt for recognition or a pat on the back as their speed never ceased to slow down. But for Ed, there was nothing.
He organized his desk three times, making sure the stack of printer paper was exactly aligned and straight. In his desk drawers the Ticonderoga pencils were arranged in rows from used to new, his Swingline stapler was flush against the drawer’s particle board wall. Ed swiveled in his chair and tempted his stomach again. He sharpened pencils, picked at their tips with the nail of his thumb, and sharpened them once more. He walked to the water cooler and sipped from styrofoam cups until he needed to use the restroom. He watched the white-face clock’s black second hand tick away, every rotation creeping towards 5:00 and the end of misery. Ticking away the seconds, the years, of his life.

*

Heavy feet dragged up the stairs to the second floor of the apartment building. His body was drained, and a limp hand raised in front of his face to show the time on his wristwatch.
5:43.
Ed pulled his body down the hallway, edging closer to his room door. Muffled yelling across the hall reverberated in his ears. He did not have to look at the door number to know that it was emanating from 203. It was rare that the slightly higher pitched voice of Isaac was ever heard matching against Paul’s thunder, but this afternoon David was standing tall against Goliath.
Ed smiled a tired grin, Keep fighting the good fight, boy.
He locked the door to his apartment upon entering and crossed the dark living room into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and sickly yellow light shone out from inside, highlighting the cheekbones, nose, and brow of Ed’s sunken face. A half-eaten sandwich from Friday did not seem too appealing and besides that his stomach was not feeling exceptionally hungry. Most days Ed forced himself to eat. So, he settled for a protein shake and strutted to his bedroom as his hand vigorously shook the drink to break up any sediment of whey powder left inside. As he twisted off the cap and brought the drink to his lips, the sweet taste of vanilla was almost too much for his light stomach. Ed sighed and set the protein shake on his dresser, turning around to see his exercising equipment staring back expectantly.
The last thing I want to do right now is use you, Ed groaned.
Every day after coming home from work, though, he did. The weekdays were for strength training, the weekends for resting. His lack of an appetite had taken away his steady rate of muscular growth, but his body had already grown into an ox. There was a time when Ed studied the art of molding his body into exemplary strength, but that passion had left him. Now, like most everything in his life, it was a part of a schedule that had lost its lustre. Wake up, shower, brush teeth, go to work, eat a sandwich, wait for the clock to tick on 5, go home, eat, workout, sleep. He was efficient, he compartmentalized every aspect of his world, and he was boring even to himself.
As Ed unbuttoned his shirt and stepped out of his pants he wondered where his life had gone wrong. There used to be goals, certain beacons of hope to follow, but their lights had dimmed sometime between memory and reality. He used to push so hard while training his body and mind. Thousands, even tens of thousands of pages had whisked past his nose in his excited attempts to fill his brain with knowledge. Knowledge that he believed would bring him everything he needed in life: Happiness, love, wealth, brilliance. But looking out at the meager apartment and unfulfilling job he had acquired after so many years of work, Ed could only consider the belt looped around his pants that lay on the floor as the only escape.
It’s always nice having options, Ed sighed.
Stripped of his clothes, Ed lumbered over to the weight bench and flattened his back against the cold seating. He gripped the barbell loaded with weights, exhaled, and lifted.

*

Sweat pooled around his eyebrows and the edge of his hairline. His armpits were damp and uncomfortable, but the dark light passing down through the window of the setting sun promised cool air soon. His arms weak, his heart pounding, Ed walked over to the window and with great force pushed it upwards and open, letting the cacophony of the city streets below flood the quiet of his room. It brought a cool breeze that tickled the hairs of his body and dried the streams of sweat. Ed bowed his head and let the air do its work for awhile. As he looked out across the city street into the apartment building that stood opposite his own, something caught his eye.
It was her, it was always her. She was just getting home from work probably, or maybe dinner. Ed had made watching the blonde woman through her bedroom and living room windows part of his routine as well. The guilt he usually felt when he fantasized was still there. But this time it was different, a feeling that was more well-known, something he was accustomed to. When Ed looked at this woman and pictured himself with her, there was a longing that felt more innocent. It reminded him of being a middle schooler and wanting so desperately to hold the hand of a summertime crush or to kiss a girl during a school dance in the gymnasium. Ed was also not fooling himself entirely. He knew that beneath those childish emotions, lust was still lurking.
He watched her take off her long wool coat and throw it across the couch, stepping out of high heel shoes and crossing the room until there was no revealing window to facilitate his spying. Some days, it seemed inevitable to him that he would see the inside of her apartment without having to peep through windows. They would run into each other randomly one day, he would strike up a conversation and the connection would be instantaneous. In no time, they would be laughing together, arm in arm, walking through the front door. He imagined her having a clean kitchen, state of the art and modern but rarely used. Her bedroom changed several times in his mind. Dark, only lit by candlelight. Sometimes it was yellow with pale blue sheets and the sun rising cast lines of light through half-closed blinds.
You don’t even know her name.
Ed frowned, and saw her move back into view for one last moment before he closed the window and stepped into his bathroom to shower. He washed the stabs of guilt and regret down the drain and emerged from the bathroom a fresh man. The bad feelings were left underneath his skin, though. He could never really do away with them entirely and eventually they would fester and show themselves anew.
Ed dressed again, more casually this time: Dark jeans, boots, a sweatshirt, and a denim jacket. When he walked out of his apartment and into the hall all was quiet. He paused and realized he could hear the buzzing lights in the ceiling, the faint ticking of his Timex watch. It was a rare thing for him to experience such stillness in the complex. He hesitantly stepped down the stairs and out into the city, which had grown dark with the setting of the sun.
This ritual was mysterious even to him. He had a vague notion of what he was hoping to find walking the sidewalks, parks, and alleys of the city. Mostly he was hoping for a chance encounter with her. Ed believed that the opportunity was all he needed, but it required perfection. It made him feel queasy just picturing seeing her walk down the sidewalk toward him, and sometimes the warm light from a streetlamp or a convenience store would shine on a woman passing by and he would think it was her. His heart would leap into his throat and bang like a drum, but the woman was never her and so he would keep on walking through the night. Most nights he would not return home until midnight or later. His body would inevitably get icy cold, and the moment he returned to the relative warmth of his apartment his hands would throb, sting, and burn as they returned to life.
This Monday night, Ed continued his routine, but something was not quite right, a little out of the ordinary. It happened just before midnight, Ed had checked his watch periodically, puffing white clouds of air in the frosty night, and it read 11:54 when he heard the yelling.
His eyes flashed forward to the street ahead of him where three shapes emerged from the glow of a storefront. Two of their silhouettes clutched the arms of the other and then they pushed. Ed could tell the body falling forwards was that of a girl, likely not yet in her twenties. Her hair flopped to the side as they pushed her into the street, her legs shuffled and slipped and her arms outstretched in a “V”. The girl’s hands slapped the tarmac of the road but kept skidding in front of her, causing her chin to connect to the road’s rough surface. The inhuman sob and moan that came from her bloodied, broken mouth instantly made Ed feel ill. It reminded him of the death throes of a wounded animal, speaking a language so intensely universal that it must be pitied. Ed ran forward, ducking in an alleyway to stay hidden, but keeping close enough to watch.
The girl coughed blood in mouthfuls and pushed herself up by the elbows. A Volvo sedan, going the speed limit on the empty road in the middle of the night slammed its brakes as the headlights uncovered the scene. The car careened its way to a stop, not many feet from the girl’s head. Had the driver not turned on his lights, she would have been a streak on the ground.
A young man emerged from the car. He stood up from the front seat, propping himself up on the car door to peer over the roof.
“Yo, what the hell’s goin’ on?” He shouted.
Ed realized that the same question had been penetrating his mind for the past few minutes. Three men appeared out of the store to join the original two whom had pushed the girl. She was still sobbing, trying to breath through the viscous of dark red that filled her mouth. Her head turned between the five men and the driver that nearly finished her off.
The driver’s bravado was visibly dying before everyone as he slowly sunk lower into the car. His gaze remained fixed on the five men and he sat back in the car, its growling engine the only noise being exchanged. Ed watched one of the five men step forward, pulling a gleam of silver from his pocket and aiming it directly at the driver, whose foot instinctively pushed the gas pedal to the floor mat. The car sped by, its grill just missing the delicate head of the girl and then the silver gun jumped in the air as it exploded in the dead night, louder than the car’s speeding engine. Dull thuds sounded in the car’s trunk as bullets pierced the thin metal. The car and its driver were gone.
Ed’s adrenaline pumped and it was impossible for him to control his breathing now. If they caught him, he did not have a car to escape with. The man with the gun walked to the girl. She cried and her head turned towards the ground. In the deepest recesses of Ed’s mind and body, the parts that understood what evil men can do, he knew what would happen.
The man whispered something to the girl and for one last time her gaze turned upward.
The gunshot echoed and her body went limp and collapsed.
Ed did not stop running until he was in front of the door to his apartment.



Tuesday

Ed did not sleep. Once he stopped shaking and his adrenaline died, he started thinking. There were so many thoughts, so many questions, that he could not consider them all at once. He let them glide past, his unfocused perception sorting out what was important from what was clutter. Who was the girl? Why did they kill her? Who are they? These questions Ed set aside. No amount of context would change what he had seen.
Ed rarely drank, and he never smoked, but as he stood up from his meditative state and began pacing, he wished for nothing more than these two vices. Fear of the men seeing him and tracking him led to anger and a desire to fight them. But, what Ed could not escape from was despair. Humanity had grown even darker, and even the near pitch black of Ed’s apartment could not match its depravity. There were only little flickers of goodness and something worth living for in his life, and now they seemed to be wavering. They threatened to disappear in the wind, flickering and dimming in the dark.
Seeing the senseless killing was the catalyst for the problems that were lying in wait, leaping out now that the flesh was exposed and weakness showed itself. Ed could not protect himself as questions without answers crawled over him.
He could not say why he had ended up a failure. His friends had left. The calls between them grew less and less frequent until they stopped altogether. Empty promises of seeing each other and ‘catching up’ remained just that: Empty. While they had found lives for themselves, other people to fill the vacant spaces in their hearts and souls, Ed was left behind by himself. There was only himself to blame, though; he had as much cause to pick up the phone and call as his friends did, but every day that he lingered the more impossible the idea became. He would not even know what to say anymore and they were probably different people who had long ago forgotten his face, maybe even his name.
That knowledge and ability he so strived for earlier in his life, where did it lead him?
To Hell, Ed knew.
There was nothing to look forward to now and that was all Ed had done when he was younger. He worked so hard, with a vision of it paying off in the future, and then he would be truly happy. Life had been delayed gratification whereas now it was a life Ed wanted nothing to do with anymore. The future promised change no longer.
Ed felt cold as he unbuckled the belt from his pants and slowly walked into his bedroom. He looped the belt around his neck as he had done multiple times before. In a perverse way, Ed enjoyed having this path open in his life; no matter how badly things seemed, he always knew that this was a way out. When he thought of it in the sense of an ever-present opportunity, it really was inevitable. Already, even before stepping on the edge of the bed and tieing the end of the belt to the ceiling fan, his neck was burning a little, but quickly turning numb. Breathing was a shallow affair.
The hot tears did not start falling from his eyes until he looked outside the window and resigned to the idea that it would be the last time he saw the city. It may not have treated him well, but it was familiar.The blonde woman across the street could still not be seen, having gone to bed long ago.
Edfelt his head begin to swell and thump with building pressure, his gasps for air were like a fish out of water. He had not moved off the bed yet, but he was quite sure the ceiling fan would hold his weight if he was gentle when he stepped into his death.
He would miss some things from his life, most of all being his parents. He had not called them in weeks either, but he thought of them often. Now, on the edge of suicide, he felt guilty that they spent their energy, their money, on a son who was about to waste it all. He had not even wrote them a note despite promising himself that he would before the end. Ed wanted to tell his mother that she was the sun of his world and she could not have done anything different to save his life. Every holiday, no matter how insignificant, there was a package in the mail and a card to be expected. He thought about last Halloween and the brown box waiting for him at the post office. When he returned home he opened the box and found that Mom had filled it with his favorite candy and chocolate, truffles, caramels, and gummies. Sitting on top was a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a card.
“I know you don’t read much anymore, but I thought it was fitting with it being Halloween and all.” Mom had wrote. “It’s cute. I love you Eddy, Happy Halloween!”
Ed had not yet started reading the book his mother had sent him, and with that realization the tears began flowing more quickly and blinding his eyes. His father had not been a constant influence or presence in his life, yet he did not need to be to show Ed how a good man acted. That’s what Ed would write to him, that he was a good man and a good father. He rarely spoke his mind and even more rarely said, “I love you”, but Ed had never doubted it as the truth. Some words never need to be spoken.
Ed unlooped the belt from his neck and sank onto the bed. He could still feel the belt’s tight grasp, though that would leave soon enough. Its mark was visible, a clear ring of red circling his neck, the slave collar of suicide. Yet, early on that Tuesday morning he may have been a slave but he was alive, too.
Ed looked at his image in the bathroom mirror and the sad eyes and red markings infuriated him.
What do you have to be sorry for. You aren’t the one who was fucked and killed.
Disgusted, he stepped into the shower and let the water wash over him. As he felt the cold water turn to warm, he returned to thinking what he would do now. How would the killers be dealt with?

*

Work seemed even more pointless than usual today; a combination of a lack of sleep and a killer headache slowed his editing to a crawl. Coffee was another substance Ed had rarely abused, it did not fit into his squeaky clean schedule, but today he needed it. He was headed to the office kitchen to drink one more cup as often as he was sitting at his desk and slaving over an article.
It did not help his headache that the tabloids were particularly vile today either. Some rich actor had an affair, the pictures of him and an unknown woman on a private dinner are being released. A politician known for his anti-gay stance on issues turns out to be gay himself. Ed shook his head and sipped his coffee. Wealth and power did not do much for these kinds of people, they were never satisfied or comfortable with themselves.
Give me a million dollars, I won’t complain. I’ll be happy all you want.
His head pounded. He knew it was not the truth.
Ed worked through lunch and this upset in the balance of routine alarmed Bruce, who came by the cubicle around the time Ed would usually have knocked on the office door. The office was quiet, half of the workers were out for lunch while Ed was staring into his computer screen with a dead gaze.
“You look like hell, bud.” Bruce said.
“I’m not surprised.” Ed retorted and slowly turned in his chair to see Bruce. It was odd to see his boss not standing in his typical relaxed stance, but slightly leaned forward, his head bowed toward Ed, appearing extremely attentive.
“Didn’t sleep well, did you?”
“It wasn’t too bad.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it. What happened?”
“Nothing, I just couldn’t sleep.”
“Right.” Bruce sighed. “You know you can tell me anything, Ed, okay?”
Ed nodded, “Of course.”
“Okay.”
Bruce smiled half-heartedly and put his hands in his pockets. Ed grinned politely and the two of them exchanged awkward glances for a moment.
“So…” Bruce started, “You haven’t had lunch yet, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve just been busy getting these articles done.”
“Well, I’m going to head out and get something if you wanted to come along. I tend to go for the more organic stuff rather than the hot-dog stand crap most of you guys eat. So I’d even pay for you, no problem.”
“Oh, thanks Bruce, but I’m really not hungry.”
“All right, well the offer still stands whenever you want to take me up on it.”
“Sure, I’ll turn in the favor soon.”
“Okay, well take care. See you soon.”
“Bye, Bruce.”
Bruce smiled, his cheeks making his eyes squint, and he left out a lazy wave of his hand as he headed for the elevators. Ed smiled back and as he watched his boss and friend leave him, he began to regret declining the offer. He wondered if Bruce was not just making sure that he was feeling okay, but if Bruce was looking for someone to connect to as well. Ed never imagined Bruce for the depressed type, though he admitted that no one had ever pegged him for it either. It was assumed to be a lack of sleep, a bad mood, even drugs, but depression was never said. Still, elusive to grasp as it was, Ed did not believe Bruce was ensnared. Bruce enjoyed his work. Bruce still had goals. Bruce was happy.
Ed certainly did not hate his boss for his seemingly successful life; there was not even envy masqueraded by admiration. The truth was that Ed preferred Bruce to have his share, because at least he would know how to behave with it. ed was content in the life he had created. He was miserable, but accustomed to the misery.
He laughed in his cubicle and finished the cup of coffee that had grown lukewarm.

*

5:00 seemed to arrive more quickly than usual, but Ed was exhausted as he walked to the bus stop for his ride home. His headache was gradually improving, yet he needed sleep desperately. As he sank into the seat of the bus, the cool autumn air coming in through the windows along with the hum of the engine drifted Ed off to sleep.

*

The bumps on the road, the familiar beeping of the arcade passing by with the inaudible sounds of children talking excitedly, were all like little alarm clocks, unconsciously telling Ed’s body that it would soon be time to wake up. As the bus pulled into the stop outside his apartment building, Ed awoke and shuffled out onto the sidewalk. The sun was setting, as it always did when he arrived home during autumn. Soon, the days would be a mere glimpse of light while night would hold on for its big stay.
The half an hour of sleep had provided Ed with a sip of energy and although he was thirsty for more, his legs had him wandering. When he walked past his complex, he was unsure of where he was heading, but, for some unclear reason walking seemed like a solution to a problem. What that problem exactly was, Ed was soon to find out.
Streets and buildings that floated by were all familiar. Ed had seen them thousands of times, and their changes were so minute that they could not be traced. Like looking into a mirror one day and suddenly realing that in some space of time you had grown old, the city was growing, too.
Everything he saw had a place in his memory no matter how mundane. Ahead of him was a maple tree, sprouting out from the sidewalk, its roots burrowing beneath cement to create broken slabs and hills of concrete. Its bark was scarred by hundreds of pocket knives, mostly initials, gang signs, and expletives. The faded carvings on the higher portion of the tree trunk often made Ed imagine young boys climbing the boughs of that tree in the night so as to not get caught. How they must have been excited to leave a mark on something so old and eternal. They probably believed that the letters of their name would still be there long after they had died, and people would continue to wonder who it was that did the carving and braved to climb so high. Achieving immortality by the grip of their sneakers.
As he kept walking, the buildings and scenery became more than just memories and he realized where he was unknowingly drifting. With the sun nearly disappeared over the horizon, a growing sense of dread overtook Ed. He could no longer even see the sun as it had settled behind the townhouses and apartments on the city block. The commonly heard yelling of women and men, the jovial roar of children playing in the yard, and the ugly growl of muscle cars competing with the chugging of sedans, all had quieted. There was an often spoken foreboding from grandmothers and mothers to their delicate children that darkness brought with it the evil in men. It gave them cloaks and shadowed their features, so their base desires could freely be acted upon. If he looked into their faces closely enough, they may not even seem human anymore. Old tales for young minds.
But darkness was coming quickly, and Ed walked faster.

*

By the time he reached the sidewalk he had stared down the night before, the very edge of the sun’s red glow was creeping back into the West. He stepped into the street and strolled to where the scene had happened. Dark red, nearly black, stained the cool asphalt. There was a slightly faded pool of blood where the girl’s body had collapsed after being shot. The last light of the day glimmered its sheen like water. Black streaks where the tires of the sedan had braked hard were still visible.
All other evidence was gone. Ed stooped to his knees and placed a hand on the stain, almost expecting it to be as fresh as the memory it had etched into his mind. He turned his head toward the store as he heard the door open; a man with a shaved head and a worn track jacket appeared out of the doorway, walking deliberately towards Ed. He stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and took a long drag from the cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
With the night falling around them, they stared at each other, motionless.
Ed noticed the appearance of the bald man. A gold chain hung around his neck, a cross with the crucified Son attached to it. The man’s lips were thick and cracked. Smoking certainly would not help his evident dehydration, though Ed did not think the man would live a long enough life to worry about dying from cancer.
Puffy eyelids tightened with each inhalation of the cigarette, but they never turned away, gazing at Ed with a mild curiosity and hidden menace. Ed slowly stood up from where he was kneeling over the bloodstain, his heart burst in his chest like the night before, pumping blood through his veins ferociously. The fear was there again but it was masked by a hatred that had grown from the pit of his stomach into all of his body. He could almost feel his body pulsate and yet it was calm. There was not even a tremble in his limbs but behind their stillness a terrifying force was waiting to emit. The more Ed looked at the cracked face of the bald man, the more he was sure that the man would die soon. He could see the man’s face in a puddle, drowning in his own blood, teeth breaking off like kernels of corn.
Smoke from the man’s mouth drifted in the air, slowly climbing upwards. A white flag of truce, perhaps, though neither party was willing to accept it. Here, the two men stood and refused to show their hands, the one’s bloody, the other’s willing. One man ready to defend his way of life.
He’s happy. He doesn’t want it to change. He’s afraid.
The other, waiting to throw it away for something better. Ed, then, realized the man he had been staring at was nothing to fear, but something to look at with contempt. The man literally blowing smoke out of his face was the kind of man who acted on instinct and emotion. If he wanted something he would get it; if something felt good it would be done. Consequences did not exist, and thinking was abandoned for acting. Whereas with Ed, all he did was think. He followed life’s blueprint and it led him to a dead end, and now the man who Ed guessed was involved with raping and killing a girl was standing tall. Apparently, he thought his life was worth protecting.
Ed sneered and walked past the bald man, heading back up the sidewalk he had once sprinted over with his heart in his throat. Tonight though, tonight he was strolling easily.
Behind him, he could hear the man throw down the cigarette and grind it into ashes on the concrete. Then, the door to the store opened and several pairs of feet stepped outside. When Ed had reached the corner of the street, he turned around and saw five men waiting by the store, watching him.

*

On his walk home, Ed stopped at a gas station and bought a pack of the cheapest cigarettes he could find and a Zippo lighter. He placed a cigarette in his mouth outside of the station and held the lighter close to the edge, cupping it with his hand to protect against the wind. A flick of his thumb on the lighter later, and the cigarette was smoldering.
His first drag of smoke was revolting. It was licking ash from a tray, extremely bitter with a burning sensation running the length of his throat. Ed hacked, but quickly inhaled again. This time, the cigarette made him light headed and he stumbled to a bench that was set up against the wall of the gas station. Ed let the cigarette burn and he held it between his fingers on his right hand while his left rubbed his eyes. A combination of not sleeping, not eating, too much coffee, and smoking had made Ed nauseous.
He let the cigarette fall to the ground and stepped out its trail of smoke. He was admittedly disappointed. But, he had time to practice.

*

Ed, exhausted, opened the door to his apartment and nearly fell forward from leaning on the door. He swung it shut with the back of his foot, not bothering to lock it. When tiredness had a strong hold on him, even the simplest tasks were too much to bear; it robbed him of any motivation, the schedule he adhered to was worthless now. Looking at the weights and exercising equipment was looking at a banquet of food on a full stomach. It made him sick, and when his gaze met the mattress, it was love. There were some things in life that were simple for Ed, though they were rare. Seeing his bed after not having slept for nearly two days was simple. He fell on the bed, rolled over in the covers to wrap himself up like a cannibalistic burrito and was asleep soundly.


Wednesday

ERRP ERRP ERRP
His hands jolted into action, flailing wildly trying to find the hellish source of noise that was making such a terrifying sound. In the blindness of waking up, his hand finding purchase on the cheap plastic clock, he threw as hard as he could manage across the room. A delicate fastball, it sped into the wall and shattered. A final echo of the mechanical sound rang in Eds ears before dying.
The moment the clock left his hand, though, regret struck him. Ed sat up in bed panicked, but as he made sense of what had just happened, he was convinced there was nothing to be done. He sank back in bed, a faint smile crossing his lips as he fell asleep again.

*

Ed fidgeted in the elevator and watched the light crawl from one floor to the next, inching closer to the third floor of the office. He ran his hands through his still damp hair from the hurried shower he took before rushing out of his apartment. His wristwatch read 10:10, but it ticked on, each rhythmic tick of the watch’s hands accentuating his tardiness. His only hope was that Bruce had not made his rounds in the office, chatting with the workers. The elevator dinged and Ed sheepishly moved between crowds of his coworkers, keeping a low-profile by stooping slightly and bending his head. He glided into his chair, thinking that perhaps chance had helped him this once.
Ed turned on his computer, thumbed through his articles for the day, and set to work. Today, no coffee was needed, he was feeling efficient like his old self; he wanted to finish the job early and go home to enjoy his free time. It was not clear to him as to why he was so eager to leave the office. There were no chores to be done, no plans were made, yet his legs were jumping and shaking under his desk and his hands were flying about his keyboard, quietly of course.
Well, I do have to buy a new alarm clock.
Ed smiled and raced through the first article, writing and editing quickly and with the passion he had had during his beginning years as an editor.
“Hey, Ed! Didn’t see you come in this morning!”
Ed gasped and turned around. His mouth agape and his worried look set Bruce into a hysterical guffaw. Ed smiled briskly, hating that he noticed Bruce’s laugh was like plastic: Fake and cheap. Bruce was Ed’s greatest friend, and finding something unpleasant about him was disappointing, akin to realizing the parents who had brought you into this world were not perfections of humanity.
“Jesus, buddy. I didn’t mean to scare you there.” Bruce apologized.
“No, I’m just a little jumpy, Bruce. It’s not your fault.”
“All right. So are you feeling better?”
“Much better. I think I’m going to head off early today, though, is that okay?”
Bruce shifted his eyes up as he took a moment to reflect and think, “Yeah, that would be all right, Ed. You haven’t taken a day off in forever. Do you have anything planned for later? I mean I don’t want to pry…”
“Nothing really. I just need to get a new clock.”
“So that explains this morning.” Nobody could ever accuse Bruce of being slow-witted.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t worry about it. And don’t talk like that, it gives me the creeps when people act scared of me.” Bruce smirked.
“Thanks, Bruce, and you’ve got it.”
Bruce nodded, smiled, and began his stroll back to his personal office. Ed wanted to stop him and shake his hand or hug him. So what if he had a false laugh, every other part of his best friend seemed genuine. Ed considered Bruce’s offer for lunch again. It grew in temptation, but Ed reconciled it was likely already lost as an opportunity. Bruce would have forgotten and tomorrow or the day after that it would be gone forever. His boss was kind, but nobody was that kind; this, there was no arguing. Ed had a meticulous picture that painted all of the colors of people, and not one shade reflected the character of a person he wanted to believe in.