I am delighted, feels good. My eyes fall shut.
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Colors can be so iridescent can’t they? But there are shadows too...dark monsters sparring on the edge of light. I can hear Appelt barking out instructions, but his voice is distant. Still, it makes me cringe although I know I'm grinning like a village idiot on speed - when was it exactly that he became so thoroughly obnoxious?
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The lights overhead seem to be on some sort of timer, there’s motion in their madness, just not an insanity I can readily understand. Christ, I’m choking, I taste fish! There’s a competing aroma of freshly-ground, dark Arabian coffee. It wafts enticingly, just under my nose, reminding me of Sarah. God, I miss her, she was so fierce in her love of life, of me, of possibility. She kept a diary, strange, really, for a person so digitally minded. I used to spy on her thoughts when she went off to work at that offbeat charity thingy she loved so much. She was dappled, if that’s a description, I’m seeing flash cards of her shifting moods and expressions...my heart squeezes -
Sarah is standing over me, lemon-fresh hair swaying against my nostrils,
“Alex, if you go through with this it’ll cleft you, it’ll destroy us, it’ll make a mockery of everything we’re supposed to believe in.” I hear her condemnation, her accusation, it resounds.
Despite her warnings I knew I had come too far already. Even at that point, when she was still my reality, the dominos were falling - there was no way to stop them. Today’s deposits and signatures were the final thing I needed, I would be on my way to the Bahamas by lunchtime tomorrow. I had been so careful - no bank transfers, everything withdrawn in cash then deposited into several accounts and converted to crypto, no wallet keys stored anywhere but on my laptop.
My laptop is my freedom, and it’s safely tucked under the seat in my waterproof briefcase.
*********************************************************
I’m so tired, my eyes are fleeced with grit, honestly, that’s how it feels, I bend over, gripped by a surge of bile, it surfaces with a gastly bitterness and I lie back, gurgling, my mind awash with broken confusion. Why is Appelt’s face so close, his hair seems to be steaming water into my eyes. His mouth is a big round “O”, but there’s no sound. The veins on his temple are rigid, his eyes are bloodshot. He finally oozes volume above the noise of the sirens,
“Can you breathe, Alex, take it nice and slow, I’ve got you, you nearly drowned you silly shit..you need to breathe…” he’s up close, in my face, and he’s got a laptop under his arm. Odd, isn’t it, why would he come to my party with a wet, mangled computer under his arm, especially a computer that looks so familiar, even the smiley sticker on the side? Anyway, whatever it is that he’s doing, he’s making me gag with laughter, who would’ve thought that the great and mighty Appelt’s breath would stink, so pungently, of garlic.