The Devil's Escapades

The sound of dripping water and fluorescent lights buzzing above was filling the silence between Steve and I. A draft was moving throughout our seven-level building (if I remember correctly) because the insulation in here is shit. Whenever it gets cold, my feet are always the first to go; they just become these ice cubes. That dead-looking, mucus, piss yellow fills the eyes, also, Steve. He was like any other white guy around 5'11 with suit pants and a classic dress shirt. Brown hair and a fresh, clean-cut shave.

“Almost got hit by a truck on the hike over here," I said.

“What? You didn’t look both ways.” He replays while leaning on the water jug next to us with a cup to his lip.

“No, I was piss drunk and jumped right in the bastard’s way.”

“Couldn’t even do that right, could you?”

“You’re a dick, you know that, right?”

“So are you.” He said with a sip.

“How’s the wife?”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“You don’t!”

“Oh, shut up, you’re showing your dickishness. Seriously, how did you almost get hit by a truck? Even when you were a drunk, something like that wouldn’t have surprised you.”

“It just came out of bloody nowhere as if the trunk were some magician.” I grab one of those paper cup cone things (why are they cone-shaped?) and pour some water into it, taking a sip from the cone.

“Thirty-two years. My god, you’re getting up there in years.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s your birthday! Christ Almighty, I didn’t know you already have Alzheimer’s.”

I start to look around for any cubicle that is hanging a calendar. Finally finding one with a bloody calendar and thirteen days were cross out with a red Sharpie. The date is December 14th, 2011.

“Christ, it’s that time again, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Fucking, December.”

“You want to grab a drink after work.”

“Sure, I’ve got nothing better to do on a frozen Wednesday than to get good old hammer. Fifty-fifty split.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I take a glance at the clock and pull out my pocket watch to check if the time is right. “Time to put the nose back to the grindstone.”

“See you at dinner then.”

“Yeah.”

Sitting here, pushing papers and looking at this Windows '98 in this gray box without a roof, my mind starts to wander.

Man, thirty-two goddamn years. It’s been fourteen years since that thing; ain’t that a kick to the head? What is happing to the time… Well, can’t complain too much; spent most of those years boozing and smoking, wasting away in that little apartment. Weren’t too awful, all those years in stupors, mostly because I don’t remember a damn thing about them. All those years and I was able to keep this fucking job… I don’t even know what we do here; it’s just my job five days a week.

Thirty-two years… Fuck me.

A good five long hours sit in front of me. With all just the mind to entertain myself.

A cartridge of cigs and a flask I keep upon me are a calling, but it isn't time to open those. Who knows when it will be? After we have our fill of drinks, what should I do when I get to the apartment? Well, I’ll gotta watch “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” skipped it last year. Should I rewatch good old Apocalypse Now Redux and throw Blue Velvet in or just Apocalypse Now Redux? Could always just watch the second half of Redux and the whole of Blue Velvet. Well, I guess I gotta see how drunk I am by night's end. And if I could find some Pabsts.

The workday drew to its end, and Steve and I went out on the streets of Tokyo. I could never remember why some random American company was over here, but who cares? Screens were everywhere lighting up the grey skyscrapers with ads all over, someone always trying to sell you something. But that’s true with all cities; oh, good old Philly, I do sometimes miss you. With the Tokyo Tower piercing the sky… The very sky that was once believed to be the heavens. Just a bunch of bollocks these days, isn’t it?

“So what’s the plan, Steve?”

“I'm thinking about doing this Korean barbecue buffet that's nearby.”

“I’m in the mood to fill myself with some cheap booze and cheaper meat, so I am all in.”

The two of us were walking through the streets of good old Tokyo. Guess I've been living here for about fourteen years. If I remember. Very strange.

“You used to be a heavy drinker, right?” Steves asks while we wait at a crosswalk.

“Right.” I say while cold steam comes from my mouth.

“What did you do about the hangovers?”

“A prairie oyster, hair of the dog, and enough aspirin to kill a baby horse. But that last step was only for special occasions like a work meeting.” I nag him with my elbow. “You know, at the job I was pretty much drunk for twelve straight years. Didn’t even know what we do.”

“How come you stopped?”

Looking towards the distance, I say, “I never stopped; I just don’t drink as hard, and I don’t smoke anymore. Never did like the smell of smoke.” I gaze upon the building. “And all this chatter seems to have filled the walk over here.”

The sun was setting over the country that once stood as the rising sun. We enter the restaurant and our noses are hit with the smell of cheap booze and meat. With the lingering smell of stale cigarettes, but that goes for any good bar here in this city. The place was somewhat empty; maybe Wednesdays aren’t one of their big nights. The waitress brings us over to one of the dozen open tables, and we grab our seats. We glance over the menus and order our food and drinks.

“How's your department?” I throw out to start something.

“Same as always, just damn paper pushing. You know what I’m interested in? How do you not know what we've been doing? I’ve been at it half my life.”

“Jesus, when you say something like that, I actually feel old, and I know what we do in the broad sense is rather hard not to. But in the specific sense of if we sell something or work with clients, I have no clue. Hell, we could be working for a death squad; I wouldn't know. I just show up from six to five and finish every paper that stacks up on my desk. Then head back to my apartment to get ready for the same the next day.”

“… Why do you get to work at six? The place doesn’t even open till 9.”

“Don’t enjoy sleeping… Maybe that's why the truck almost ran me over. Bastred was just asleep behind the wheel.”

“Do you even get paid for those two hours?”

“Maybe, I don’t really look at the paycheck. The only thing that matters is if there’s enough for the rent and food. And of course the bottle.” I say and after I finish talking, I take one long drink.

The meat and, of course, the booze had arrived while we talked. Steve has begun to place the meat on the stove after my final comment.

The booze is what an individual would like it to any cheap booze when taste is brought up, but in a surprise, the meat wasn’t awful; it was almost good. The night continues on with boozing, eating, and talking.

“You know…”

“I don’t.” I say with a sly grin.

“Would you let me finish my thought, you dick?”

“All right, all right, what were you saying?”

“I was saying that I read the damnest thing the other day…”

“Which is?” I reply with mutter laughter.

“I’m getting there, Jesus Christ. You're the worst person to tell a story to. So if am allowed…”

“You are.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Ha!”

“Fucking Christ. Like I was saying, I read this article the other day about these disappearances across the world throughout history. Before all of these disappearances, there was always this brilliant ray of light that appeared.”

“Man, what the fuck have you been smoking?”

“Oh, piss off! I didn’t write the damn thing. I’m just telling what I’d read.” He finishes with the finger.

“What type of new website or whatever the hell writes about disappearing people and links them to brilliant bloody light? How would someone even find something like that?"

“I’m just telling you what I’d read… What, you never lose something and swear it must have just disappeared.” He says with a drink from his glass.

“Well yeah, but I don’t go telling folk tales about why I lost my keys. I just go buy a replacement pair and get on with my day.”

“Well, I thought it was interesting," Steve said while taking a bite of meat.

“They probably just killed themselves or got murdered and thrown in a dark hole no one could find… or eaten.” I reply and have a drink from my glass.

“Jesus Christ, man, I’m trying to eat here.”

“I didn’t bring the topic up.”

“You brought up eating people.”

“And you brought up magic.” I say while I pick up meat.

Time moves on and we grow drunker… And filler. We went ever on with our conversations, but the night was coming to an end. I pull out my pocket watch and check the time.

10:40. Click, click, click.

We stumble out from the Korean place with more than just a mere buzz. Standing in front of the restaurant, Steve and I decide to reach out our hands. “It’s been fun, old pal.”

“Sure has,” Steve said, returning my hand with his own. “Goodnight.”

“Yeah, goodnight.”

We start to walk away from each other, but before we get too far from each other, Steve yells to me, “I forgot something!” Steve rummages through his pockets and throws a golden-wrapped Zippo lighter over to me. “I remember you saying something about losing your old one, and I couldn’t figure out anything else to get you, so there.”

“Thanks.”

“Check the body.”

So I did, and I found a quote from Doctor Faustus: "The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike: the devil will come, and Faustus must be damned!" How much did this cost that crazy bastard?

“Thank you, Steve. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

Oh, that cheeky bastard made me chuckle to myself a bit in this frozen land.

A city is never quiet, but tonight it seems like I was the only man on Earth. The sky that was clear only a bit before was now covered in a layer of clouds. Nimbostratus clouds (the dark/grey clouds), if I remember correctly. Snowflakes start to fall upon me. I always like the day after a good amount of snow, the beauty of it all, before I have to go out there and freeze my ass off. The land of pure white is so blinding that I’m thankful that I haven’t taken these sunglasses off since I got them. I doubt there will be that much snow. Only time can tell.

The silence was starting to creep me out a bit at this point, so I put in my earplugs into my MP3 player, and I put on a song for myself to fill this endless silence.

“The past seems realer than the present to me now,

I've got memories to last me,

When the sky is gray,

The way it is today,

I remember the times that I was happy.

Same old sun,

Same old moon,

It's the same old story,

Same old tune.

They all say

Someday soon,

My sins will all be forgiven.

Gentle rain,

Falls on me,

All life folds back,

Into the sea.

We contemplate eternity,

Beneath the vast indifference of heaven.” —(The Indifference of Heaven live at Biskuithalle, Bonn, Germany by Warren Zevon.) Good old Warren Zevon, the best that ever was. He died too soon; only the good ever do.

My eyes were once more drawn to the sky. I wasn’t sure why; I just had the feeling that I should look up. As the clock strikes 11:00, there was a bright light that cut through the gray of the cloud and the black abyss of the sky. In total, three form across the city, and then there was one on me. “Well, I’ll be damned, you crackhead; I guess you were right.”

A feeling that I could only explain as if a thousand cuts all over my body happen to me within a millisecond. They all feel so familial but distant at the same time. As if they were echoes of the future. My mind couldn’t comprehend what was happening, so instead of a screech or a yell, I just stand there in immense pain. The blinding yellow that seems to have been stolen from the sun surrounds me. In both my pain and confusion, I was standing there like a deer in headlights (excuse the cliché simile).

With all this happening, an explosion of white light surrounds me; the next thing I hear is that of a bird chirping, and the taste of dirt filling my mouth.

“Fucking hell…”