OPERATION SUNRISE by GRIMLY WHETFOX

Chapter 5 - WHITE LINE RESTAURANT

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"Timendi causa est nescire" - [Ignorance is the cause of fear]
~ Seneca.

"Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: curiosity."
~ Jim Morrison.

"One supreme fact which I have discovered is that it is not willpower, but fantasy / imagination that creates. Imagination is the creative force. Imagination creates reality."
~ Richard Wagner.

***

She cut the powder quickly, breaking up the rocks as best she could, cursing as the occasional lump pinged away from under the edge of the flexible plastic credit card. The toilet stall was not ideal for the task, but this one was better suited than many of the other places she had used, so relatively it was manageable. Anywhere would have done just now, after that. That had been.... horrible. That rat fucking bastard. He was fucking with her mind somehow, she was sure of that, but by what method she didn't understand. It was impossible he had set this up from the start. Impossible. Too many factors... Too much had happened. She shuddered at the implications and returned her focus to the task at hand, cutting two fat lines on the top of the cistern and placing the card next to them as she reached into her purse for a piece of paper from her notebook. Gone were the days of banknotes. Just as he had said. Even he must have been surprised at the speed of the agenda. If he ever felt surprise that was. She tore a page out and rolled it quickly into a thin pipe, closing off one nostril as she leaned forward to take the first line. As she bent and brought her face towards it she caught her breath, choking back a wracking wave of tears, and stood straight, a brief cry escaping her lips before she bit down on the sound, hoping no-one in the restaurant toilet could hear her crying. They could listen to her snort lines all day, but woe betide her pride if they heard her crying. A sarcastic tug at the corner of her mouth and she exhaled, feeling the wave of emotion pass over her, and she sat down on the closed toilet seat, suddenly exhausted, the coke lines she had wanted and waited and fidgeted for now of secondary concern. They could wait, now that they were within arm's length.

How? How had he done it? She knew he genuinely hadn't recognised her. He would have reacted so very differently if he had. He must react differently, unless he is in complete control of himself. Which she knows he isn't. Not at all.

He had looked straight at her as she approached and said out loud, "well that looks a lot like her." That's it. That's all. And he had walked straight past her, talking to his friend, chattering happily as if nothing had ever happened, swinging plastic shopping bags low with his long arms. As if she wasn't there. As if she wasn't who she knew he knew she was, Wasn't she? The confusion rose again and the fear soon followed, and she hugged her arms around herself, shakes wracking her body and squeezing another small yelp of emotion from her lips. But it got worse.

She had followed him, her brain spinning, remembering, considering, calculating. Perhaps now was the time to try it? Seemed perfect. How hadn't he recognised her? How could that happen? But he hadn't, she was sure of that. He would have said something, there would have been fear or hope or at least recognition in his eyes. But no, just one phrase. "well that looks a lot like her," and then away. Could he be that calculating, that restrained? Nope. Calculating, maybe. Restrained, no chance. He genuinely hadn't seen her. And so she had followed him.

They had walked a short distance, him and his friend, and she had moved into step behind them, pacing her steps with his, synchronising her stride with his movements from a few metres behind him. As soon as she felt her pace click into sync she took one further step and then swung her right leg in front of the opposite leg, very nearly throwing herself to the pavement with the action. As she did this she stared at the back of his head, pushing the sensation at him, willing him, forcing him. And his right leg mimicked her exact movements, completely crossing his step and very nearly throwing him to the ground, forcing him to stumble, the synchronisation corresponding, the intended movement crossing through the air between them from her mind to his. As he tripped and put his hand out to steady himself with the aid of his friend, a call of surprise escaping from his lips, she had turned and ran in the opposite direction, no idea where she was going, just away. Away from him. Away from this. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be right.

Sitting in the toilet stall she replayed the scene again and again, over and over in her mind. He had told her to try that, to trip him in the street using only her mind, THAT night, the night they had... talked... On the phone. Had he? Does that sound likely? That night she had listened to him, his mind, a stream of consciousness, something fearsome, something wonderful, something impossible, unimaginable...

Something, anyway.

She had heard him, witnessed him, breaking down past events, shared memories, his life, hers, things he could not have ever known about her, watched him with her mind, splitting her thoughts into metaphors so exquisite that they announced their own version of the future through synchronicity and coincidence and all of the fabric of time and life and consciousness. They hadn't even been physically near each other.

Miles apart.

And he had told her that night to try to trip him, to test herself, to understand it wasn't just him.... she was a powerhouse too. So if he had known she was going to be there, on the street this afternoon he could have had someone tell him what she was doing behind him, and then he would have known to mimic her movements. Hand signals from a friend on the other side of the street perhaps? It was too convoluted. No, fuck that. It was downright impossible. How would he get them to agree to do that? What would be his explanation? Excuse me mate, through cheap hypnosis I have deluded this girl into thinking she is psychic, and she is going to creep up behind me and try to make me stumble with her telekinetic powers, would you mind signaling me when she does so I can continue the ruse? The ruse that had now lasted months? How had he known she would be there, right there, today, right then? He couldn't have. So no mate, no ruse. She knew what had happened. She just couldn't accept it. It wasn't possible. That fucking guy. Her whole life, watching him, wanting him. And then this. It was too much, too crazy. She thought of her own experiments before she had met him, then a sudden flash of her bedroom, books open, designs laid out before her, and she felt a sickness rise, instantly turning to the chopped lines and taking one up her right nostril with a single fluid movement. She quickly swapped symmetry, closing off the right nostril and taking the other line up the left, and then tilted her head back, sniffing hard. There it was, the metallic taste spreading down the back of her throat, her sinuses saturated with the numbing powder. Fucking bastard. Fucking rat bastard. How could he do this to her? Fucking rat bastard.

The rush from the coke surged through her synapses almost instantly, jarring electrical signals rushing down her spine and over her scalp. She shuddered slightly and quickly unrolled the make-shift straw, running her index finger along the paper to catch any spare grains that had not been sucked nostril ways. Then she crushed the paper into a ball in her fist, and after using it to brush any powder from the top of the cistern, she raised the toilet seat, and threw it into the bowl. Sliding her credit card back into her purse she turned around and sat back down on the closed toilet seat, feeling the drug working its way through her system, her pupils dilating, a fine perspiration forming on her brow. It was never worth it, she knew it, but it was all she could do. She had soon realised escape from this situation, from her thoughts, from him, was impossible. Ignoring it was only temporary, but feasible. She took a long swig from the tall gin and tonic she had brought to the toilet stall with her, and then regarded bubbles in the glass at an angle from the coke tunnel that was beginning to enclose her mind, her perceptions. A few more drinks, a few more lines, she thought, that would finish the day. Tomorrow things would look different. Tomorrow she would be able to figure it out. What had happened. How he had done that today. And all those things before. On the phone. But what if she couldn't? What if it all looked the same? Her mind began to spin, and then her vision, giddiness and nausea rising in her chest. The toilet stall blurred and shifted around her, and she leaned back, coughing weakly, and tried to steady herself, her vision, her soul. Tomorrow it would not have changed. She knew when she was deluding herself. Okay, just because she couldn't explain it didn't mean it didn't have an explanation. But isn't one of the criteria for an explanation that it must make sense? If an explanation didn't make sense, then surely it wasn't an explanation? Surely it was a delusion? She waited for the rush to pass, drained the gin and tonic and flushed the toilet bowl in a poor mimicry of a legitimate stall user, then unlocked the door and made her way back to the table to order another gin. It would be a long night.

Back at the table her unfinished meal lay, cold and stagnant, left untouched. Her boyfriend sat next to it, looking dejected and thoroughly bored. She realised that she must have been in there a good while. It was so easy for her mind to wander for hours, after that night. It had been happening for months. So much to consider. She remembered what he had said about the abyss. If you spend too long staring, it starts to stare back. She mentally slapped her thoughts out of her head as she made her way through the small restaurant back to her table, trying to pull out a smile as she sat down, but it didn't work. Could she put her shades on? No, too dark, she'd look stupid. You can never wear your shades in this city, she thought. Shitty place.

"I'm sorry, I got to thinking," she said, her unused voice coming out as a croak. She opened her mouth to speak again but he cut her off, irritated at his wait and with her.

"Well, I've paid the bill, let's go somewhere that I can have some of that with you, rather than you going off to take it and leaving me here, twiddling my thumbs."

"Okay, cool, I'm sorry... Where shall we go?" She tried another smile but she was sure he wasn't fooled, her eyes reddened by tears, and coke, and sorrow.

"Let's just get a bottle and go to yours, I can't be bothered with the bar tonight. Nobody will be there anyway. They have all gone up north to protest the conference."

The thought sent an alarm bell ringing through her mind, another flash of his face, his voice, and her knuckles whitened slightly with as her grip on the edge of the table tightened. She didn't want to know what might happen tomorrow. Please don't let anything happen. Please don't make him right about everything. Fuck this.

"Let's get the big one this time, the last time we ran out." She tried another half smile. Enough of that.

They made their way out of the restaurant and towards her car, parked in a rare space three blocks from them. She had had 3 gins but it didn't matter, it was only a short distance to drive to her flat where they would do this coke and listen to records for hours, until she slept, until it all went away. But it didn't go away. Her dreams were plagued with the repeated content of her daily thoughts, fractions of his chatter manifesting as characters in bizarre and twisted hyper real scenarios, always leaving her either shaken, terrified or awestruck. Hadn't his voice woken her this morning? Before any throw-yourself-over-in-perfect-synchronicity kinetic energy shenanigans? I meet, I like, I take a big beautiful swan dive, baby....

Hadn't it though? Hadn't he been in her ear, not like that night, no telephone, but as if he were an inch from her earlobe, and spoken with a rich, deep voice that was so real, more than real, a bone fide solid CHUNK of hello, right next to her head, awaking her this very morning and sending her scurrying to the shower to wait for the feeling to fade? Was that this morning that happened? She sighed. Was she going mad? Did that happen? That couldn't have happened, could it? Oh not this again. Shut the fuck up.

She realised she hadn't heard what her boyfriend had just said to her, away in another world, fantasies, memories, whatever, something in between. Not here anyway, not paying even the mildest bit of attention. She coughed, as if it were an excuse for not hearing him, post fact.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I said, are you sure you are alright to drive?"

"Yeah, fine." Fine and dandy my good man. About as fine as I am to drive this relationship. A drunken ride to escape some grim transgressions, probably due to end in some car crash antics and the subsequent dramas that will ensue. She liked this guy, he was a good friend, but she was hardly even present, well, only in the physical. All her brainpower seemed to be unavoidably drawn to rehashing, recursing, retrofitting and re-remembering snippets and clips of the conversation that she could not forget, the coincidences that could not have occurred, the content, the half-crazed nonsensical floods of metaphoric content that could not have been rehearsed, could not have been scripted, could not have been a trick.

Is this your car, baby? Can I drive it with you? Why is it this colour and where the hell is the steering wheel? Are cars not supposed to come with breaks, and doors? Why is it now flying? Where the hell is this place we are? How did we get here? What's happened to your voice? Why can you see into my mind?

I think maybe I'll get a lift with the next guy.

To be continued....