Edge of End (3 page)

What
the
… What a rude woman! I narrowed my eyes
at her complete loss for words. For a split second I even thought
of punching her right in the face. I wanted to teach her a good
lesson, to never talk to customers in the way she had just spoken
to me. I clenched my fists angrily.

“
Why don’t you go back to
your house?” she said, tearing her eyes off me as she turned
around.

“
House?” I replied,
slightly taken aback. She took a step and paused. “I told you I’m
lost here. I’ve got no home, where the fuck am I supposed to
go?”

She remained staunchly in front of me,
and I wondered what I’d said that made her freeze.

The man at the bar lowered his glass
to the counter slowly as if he were considering my
words.

“
Haven’t you been into any
house in this town, young man?” the man spoke for the first time
since I’d been in the bar. He spoke with his back to me.

“
No,” I
replied.

Although I could only see the right
side of his face, I noted a smile resting on his lips.

“
Pour him my favorite
drink,” he ordered the woman in a hoarse voice.

Then he finally turned his face to me.
I stared at him wonderingly, and then my wonder turned to
awkwardness. The left side of his face was wrapped with a black rag
covering his eye and cheek. His gray hair escaped from under the
rag and fell across his forehead. With his one eye, he looked at me
sharply until the woman reached behind the bar.

“
What is your name?” he
asked me and then shook his head. “Do you have one?”

“
My name is…” I stumbled
anxiously. I had surely had a name once, one which I couldn’t now
remember. But I should be called something, shouldn’t I?

“
Jonathan,” I replied with
great uncertainty. It was the first name that popped into my mind,
also the name that the mysterious woman from the first house had
called me.

“
Okay. Let it be
Jonathan,” the man said standing up. Holding his glass he moved
towards me. “May I?” he pointed at the chair in front of
me.

I nodded. The woman took a bottle from
the shelf and poured a colorless drink into a glass.

“
Tell me Jonathan, what do
you think? Who are you?” he asked as he sat down.

I stared him in his single light brown
eye. I lingered, not because of his question, but because I was
wondering what had happened to his other eye and to the other half
of his wrinkled face.

“
It makes no difference,”
I answered gruffly after a little while. “I need to get out of
here. What is this city? Where am I?”

“
It makes no difference,”
Malcolm (that’s what the woman had called him) parroted.

“
Okay, I get it,” I
grinned slyly. He was treating me like I had treated him. “Why are
you so interested? Maybe I’m a tourist or a
businessman.”

“
You look like neither of
them,” Malcolm cut me off.

“
Maybe I’m a killer,” I
shrugged.

“
You might be,” he said,
taking a sip.

I eyed his drink, and my mouth hung
half-open. Malcolm was drinking a dark yellow murky looking liquid
which appeared to be boiling in the glass, but no steam escaped it.
“Good drink, you should try one,” he said, noticing my shocked
stare.

I shook my head involuntarily. Malcolm
laughed a silent laugh. “It does look nasty, but it tastes good.”
He shot a look back at the butch woman demanding my drink with his
harsh stare. Then he turned back towards me. “I know,” he resumed.
“You don’t remember who you are, do you? I suggest that you don’t
even try to bring your memories back. You won’t get anything good
from them, believe me. I was like you when I found myself in this
goddamn town.”

“
Which town?” I quickly
asked. “I saw a sign at the town’s entrance. It was…uh,”
Squint-eyed, I forced myself to remember the name. “Mors… Morski…
Morsfinis, isn’t it? I have never heard of it before.”

“
And you have never been
to it before,” Malcolm added.

Placing my drink in front of me, the
woman interrupted what he was saying. I looked down at my drink in
wonder, expecting to see what I’d seen in Malcolm’s glass, but mine
was clear and calm like water.

“
What is this?” I asked,
still staring down.

“
It’ll cool you down,” the
man said. “Tastes like shit, but it’ll help.”

He said it as if he had actually
tasted shit before. But why was I so surprised? He might
have.

I placed my fingers around the glass
with uncertainty. “You said you were like me. Have you succeeded in
recovering your memories?”

“
Some of them, kind of,”
Malcolm replied.

“
What did you do? Where
did you go? I haven’t seen any living soul on the streets or in the
houses. Are we alone in this town?”

“
Too many questions, but
you haven’t asked the right one yet.”

“
Which one is the right
one then?” I asked impatiently.

“
The time hasn’t come yet.
You’ll get it soon. I’m just worried that you’ll be disappointed,”
he sighed.

“
Why? What is it out
there? Just tell me straight,” I grumbled. “You’re talking in
riddles.”

“
Drink it,” he ordered
pointing to the glass in my hand. “Then I’ll tell you everything
you want to know.”

Why did he want me to drink it? One
drink couldn’t make things worse, could it? Besides I needed
answers, even if they were going to come from a man who didn’t
appear to be completely sane.

Ever so slowly I brought the glass to
my mouth and with one big swig, I skulled the whole drink. With
great difficulty, I forced myself to swallow. Malcolm’s face lit up
clearly pleased. As soon as I’d downed it, I got his meaning about
the taste.

I tossed the glass onto the table,
looking down at it with disgust. The man was laughing.

“
What the fuck?” I
exploded.

“
And that shit is his
favorite drink, can you believe that?” It was the woman’s turn to
speak from behind the bar.

“
Cigarette?” Malcolm held
out a gray pack, one without labels.

“
You promised me answers,”
I reminded him, the nasty taste still sitting in my throat like
glue and no matter how many times I gulped, it didn’t want to be
washed away.

“
Yeah, sure. It’s going to
be a long talk, I suppose. We can share my cigarettes.”

I had no idea if I had ever smoked
before, but my body seemed to think I had. At that moment I felt a
great desire to fill my lungs with smoke, so obediently I stretched
out my hand to accept his offer. Malcolm readily lit it up for me.
I inhaled deeply and then breathed out again filling the air with
white puffs of cloud. Malcolm’s laugh washed over me coming from
far away.

My body froze. My eyes remained
fixated on the foggy clouds soaring above me and as hard as I tried
I couldn’t move my head.

Time had stopped. I stared in awe at
the smoke hanging stationary before my eyes. Malcolm’s laugh faded
into nothingness, and the silence of the street crawled into the
bar.

For a split second the light
disappeared, and darkness surrounded me.

Several pictures flashed before my
eyes like a scene from a movie.

I spotted a man running in front of
me, out of breath. We were in a dark, narrow alley. I was right
behind him, following him. Then the picture was vacuumed up out my
sight and before I knew what was happening, I found myself in the
café again where I clearly heard the sound of a gunshot.

I blinked. My body began to obey my
head again.

Startled, I jumped back up onto my
feet and scanned the café. The woman and Malcolm had disappeared
like the smoke of my cigarette, which was lazily vaporizing into
the air.

“
Hey,” I cried out
irritated. “Are you playing with me? You fuckin’ asshole. This
isn’t funny.”

Nobody answered me. Crushing my
cigarette onto the floor with my boot, I rubbed my eyes.

A cheerful cry reached my ears coming
from outside. I rushed to the door and threw it open. There in the
middle of the street was the same blue-eyed little
girl–Melissa–with a playful grin on her face looking at
me.

“
Hey,” I called. “Where’s
your Mom?” I thought she could have been nearby, and I would
finally have a chance to talk to her.

She giggled in reply. “Catch me,” she
said ignoring my question. She started off at a run and headed down
the street. Did she want to play tag with me?

I leapt off the bar’s steps with one
giant jump and sprinted after her. I was shocked as I found her
much faster than an average girl of her age.

“
Hey! Stop!” I called
after her picking up my pace. She halted, stood motionless until I
reached her. Leaning forward, panting, I placed my hands on my
knees. “You’re a very good runner,” I told her breathlessly. “Where
is your mom?” I asked.

She didn’t answer and instead just
narrowed her eyes at me.

“
What?” I asked
indignantly. I knew that I had met this girl before–before I’d
found myself lying in the desert with no memory. The way she was
watching me was too familiar. It was like déjà vu. “You know me,
don’t you? Tell me, where do you know me from?” I
demanded.

She displayed reticence and looked
towards the house on my right then lifted her hand to indicate
it.

It was a dark brown wooden two-storied
house with a white door. The windows, covered with white curtains,
were open. In front of the path leading to its entrance was parked
an old Ford.

I turned to ask the girl why she had
brought me to that house, but she had gone. I hadn’t heard her
sneaking away. But she had, leaving me alone in the middle of the
street yet again.

“
Hey! Where are you?” I
shouted. I began to hate that street. “Is this some kind of
game?”

She didn’t reply. “Okay,” I muttered
under my breath. “Let’s see.” I made my way towards the house
trying to figure out what Melissa had wanted me to see inside
it.

The gate in the fence wasn’t locked. I
passed through the garden up the path. Dried leaves crackled under
my feet and floated into the air as puffs of dust, hovering around
me as though gravity was momentarily absent. I reached out my hand
in an attempt to touch it and felt nothing like touching
air.

Looking at the dust in surprise, I
managed to reach the steps as white as the front door. My boots
left dried clumps as soon as I put my foot up to climb them. Before
I even reached the door, it swung open by itself. Next moment a big
stream of cloud escaped the house and encircled me at dizzying
speeds.

I became lost in those clouds, my
senses blinded.

The cloud slowly mixed with the
air.

I found myself in the café again,
sitting at the very same table with my arms crossed and head down
as if I had been asleep awhile. I sat up looking around in search
of Malcolm, but instead I found the rude woman behind the
bar.

I yawned. “How long was I out?” I
asked her.

“
A while,” she grimaced,
avoiding looking directly at me.

“
An hour?”

“
There are no hours here,
no days. Just a while,” she grumbled.
No
hours, no days
, rang in my head. She
really was a weird woman.

“
Where is Malcolm?” I
asked.

“
He’s gone.”

I put my hand on my head. “What kind
of drink did you give me? Ugh! My head.” I had an agonizing
headache.

“
You’ll feel better soon,”
she said.

I stood up and made my way to the
door, feeling giddy. “Where can I find Malcolm? Do you know where
he lives? I need to talk to him.”

“
I don’t know. Just get
out of here,” the woman spat. Then she wheeled around curtly and
left through the door behind the bar. I watched the door close
behind her.

There was obviously no reason for me
to stay in that unwelcoming café anymore. I headed out, my head
still aching. The street remained ghostly silent just like before.
Everything was the same as it had been in my vague dream,
everything except the girl. Again, there wasn’t any living
soul.

Reaching the street, I
looked to the right where the girl had been running to in my
dream.
Maybe that was a
sign
, a thought crossed my
mind.

I stuffed my hands into my jeans’
pockets and walked hastily down the street to figure out whether
the house Melissa had shown me even existed.

Who was the man running in the dark
alley? He’d been running away from someone. Who?

I was pretty sure that one hadn’t been
a dream, but a glimpse of one of my memories. I had heard a
gunshot. Probably that man was trying to flee from someone who had
the desire to kill him. Although I hadn’t seen his face, I could
feel he’d been scared to death.