Purgatorium (2 page)

Parked across the street is my beautiful BMW i8 concept car, fresh off the assembly line. The pearl white vehicle glistens beneath the streetlights. Sliding into the leather seat makes me feel quite peaceful. My watch beeps again.

10 Minutes

The radio is all static, as usual. I switch it off and speed onto the interstate.

I weave through traffic, feeling more adrift than in control. In the rearview mirror, I spot a steel gray sedan with PETER310 plates tailing me. A truck passes me. I see it carrying a cargo of window glasses. My reflection stares back at me, almost sinister looking, with each window that passes by.

Mind playing tricks on me again.

I exit and pull into a run-down strip mall. I need coffee.

An incomprehensible, warm feeling comes over me. I feel as though something good once happened here, but can’t remember what it was.

My
watch
beeps. Right on time.

15 Minutes

Everything looks burnt in the coffee shop, as if there was a fire. The lights are on, but no one’s around.

There’s a vending machine on the left. I put in two dollars and select “Coffee, Black.” The machine clicks; the cup drops. I wait, but no coffee comes out.

Another minute. Nothing. The display reads “0.00. Please insert coins.”

I sit down at a table. It feels familiar. I put my book on the table, for the first time looking at its cover:
The Count of Monte Cristo
. I start reading. For a few minutes, I’m lost in its pages.

My
watch
beeps again. I close the book, grab a newspaper from the rack next to the door, and head outside.

20 Minutes

I leave my car and walk to the park across the street.

The grass and trees are dead or dying. I find a bench on top of a small hill looking out over the vast, brown expanse. A distant Ferris wheel turns slowly on its own, the eerie sound of rusted metal echoing across the park. I open the newspaper but the words are scrambled and a gust of wind takes it away.

I hear the sound of something flapping from the breeze nearby. I see a tattered blanket with an old picnic basket beneath a large, lifeless tree. Nothing feels right.

A deer wanders from behind the tree looking for food. I briefly consider offering my apple but decide against it.

Survival of the fittest, remember? Every man for himself.

I walk down the hill and across the open space, past a Michelangelo-type statue, its hand extended, holding a glass box. Where did it come from? There’s a hole in it, big enough for a person to fit inside. A weird feeling overwhelms me.

My
watch
beeps, letting me know it’s time to leave.

25 Minutes

I am content.

I turn away from the tree and start walking to the other side of the park where my publishing company building stands, thirty stories high. Built this company from the ground up, aspiring fiction stories that have made billions of dollars. My glass elevator runs up the side of the building making its way down to greet me.

As I take the elevator up to my office, I watch the park get smaller while more of it comes into view. I see the cut on my neck in the glass. Weakness. A mistake I can’t redo. A mistake I can’t change.

I look away. I am perfect and don’t make mistakes.

My watch beeps as the elevator doors opens to my office.

30 Minutes

My office is cavernous. There’s a full bar, leather sofa, and treadmill. My bookcase, with all the works that I have published under my name through the years, stands across each row. My legacy is in this bookcase. My only treasures in life.

I head over to my king-sized desk. A glass case at the end of it holds two flintlock pistols pointing towards each other, as if held by invisible duelists.

The gun on the left features a dark stained wood stock, engraved lock, and a simulated engraved blunderbuss barrel with a lamb on the butt plate. The gun on the right is almost identical except it has a lion on the butt plate. Behind the desk is an old phonograph sitting next to a grandfather clock, its ticking the only sound to be heard.

My office is surrounded by windows, just like my apartment. I gaze out over the city, and in this moment, time is passing, second by second, shaking me to my core.

Time is the secret of life. Everything is run by time. Time cannot be bought or sold
,
wasted or delayed. Time makes you a better you. Time dictates what you do and who you are. Time is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-seeing. Time reveals the truth of one’s self. Hours and minutes are eternal but finite. Everything is fine because of time.

Seconds pass, and time reverberates through my bones, echoing in my heart. I feel the earth spinning through space and time.

But I digress. It’s time to get to work.

I sit down behind my enormous mahogany desk. There’s a small business card holder, but no name on the cards. There are a number of framed diplomas and awards on the wall, but no names on those, either.

I open a folder on my desk and inside are blank pieces of paper. I take my pen in hand and begin to write the title of my book. The ink hits the paper and I stop. Not being able to think of anything, I left my pen up, crumble the marked paper, and throw it in the trash.

I start again with a clean sheet and put the pen down, knowing I have it this time. Still nothing. I look down at the tiny ink splotch I made and quickly crumble the paper again. I toss it over to the garbage can where the other mistakes lie.

The grandfather clock seems to make the time pass slower. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

With every tick to every tock, I throw away another mistake.

I feel like it’s been hours as I look back to the garbage can filled with crumbled up paper, but the clock says 34 minutes. Looking down at my blank sheet, I think to myself that it will come tomorrow. Writers block comes and goes sometimes. It has definitely come to me today.

I am content.

I leave and go down to the lobby. I walk outside and there is no one else to be seen.

I cross the empty street towards a restaurant that looks like a lighthouse. My watch beeps insistently for a moment, reminding me of the grandfather clock.

35 Minutes

I enter what turns out to be an elegant French restaurant with no one inside. The room is saturated in crimson—carpet, wallpaper, even the ceiling is painted a deep blood red. Each table has two chairs and is perfectly set with antique silverware and origami napkins folded into bloody swans. Above the untended bar hang five unique masks, representing the cards of a royal flush.

I take a seat at the center table, my usual place to sit, and a door swings open. A waitress walks out with wine and a covered platter. I look up to find it’s the same woman I saw across the hall from my apartment. She pours a glass of red wine and removes the silver cover, revealing veal medallions in raspberry truffle sauce, along with sea scallops with puréed artichoke hearts. More crimson.

She averts her gaze and hurries away. I don’t stare at her as she leaves. My watch reads
39:00
. I take out my wallet and remove four twenty-dollar bills, place the money on the table, and leave.

Once outside, I descend the stairs to the subway. The ticket booth is unmanned, but I swipe my MTA card anyway. I wait alone on the platform. The train arrives and I get on. As the doors to the empty car close behind me, my watch beeps once more.

40 Minutes

In the window opposite my seat, I see the reflection of a little girl staring back at me. I look back in her direction but she is gone. I think nothing of it.

I stare dreamily back out the window into the darkened walls of the subway tunnel, then gaze upon my reflection. Looking into my own eyes, I find the green in them almost mesmerizing. My mind soon plays tricks. The green turns into cash. I watch as the tiny green papers rain down upon me. It consumes me. Never once blinking, I let it bury me in wealth and power.

Releasing myself from the window reflection’s hold on me, I blink my eyes while wondering what I was even thinking about.

My
watch
reads 42:02. Almost home now.

Suddenly, there’s a deafening, high-pitched squeal, growing louder with each second, almost unbearable. My eardrums feel like they’re about to burst; the pain is excruciating.

I start to lose consciousness and feel myself falling.

I am content.

I black out.

45 Minutes

I hear a faint beeping.

Is that my watch?

Why is it beeping so early?

I open my eyes and a metal grill comes into focus, blurry at first, then clearer. I see the cushioned seat, then the window of the train car. I look at the time and see 45 minutes has passed. The train grinds to a stop as light from the station streams in through the windows. I check my ears for blood and get to my feet, brushing myself off.

I exit the train.

I am content.

Streetlights flicker on, illuminating the empty roads. I walk towards an old bridge, its iron expanse grim and deserted in spite of the Christmas lights along its span. I see a billboard on the other side. A woman with brown hair and eyes seems to look right at me from the advertisement. “Madi” appears beneath her face.

Her elegance is in her beauty. Her smile captivates all who stand to gaze upon her. She appears to be a singer and the billboard is advertising her new, eponymous solo album. As I cross the bridge and walk towards her, I realize this is the best I’ve felt since waking up, which makes me feel oddly vulnerable. Her face looks familiar, as if from a dream. I look at my watch.

I must keep moving. I shouldn’t be thinking of her anyway. I am content.

I watch the aurora borealis glowing in the night sky. Its colors accompany me all the way back to my apartment building.

In the elevator, I see the painting once again. It almost seems as if it were staring back at me, grabbing hold of my soul. As I press the button for the roof, my watch beeps.

50 Minutes

I walk out onto the ledge, looking out into the night sky. I gaze through the eyepiece of a telescope but see only darkness. Before I can determine why, my
watch
beeps.

55 Minutes

I take the elevator one floor down to my apartment on the sixth floor, staring at the painting as I go. Why I am so fixated with it, I do not know or understand, but the doors open,and I don’t have any more time to contemplate it any longer. I head out for my room.

I strip naked and go into my bedroom. I find the snow globe still on my desk. Still curious of its odd placement in my room, I walk towards my desk and grasp it in my hand.

As I hold the globe up to the window, d
éjà vu overwhelms me. I stare through its tiny city and outside to the real city beyond
.

I give it a shake and watch the tiny snowflakes fall over the city. Nothing happens.

I am content.

I put it back on my desk and slip into bed. My alarm clock display reads 59:40. I remove my
watch
and place it beside the alarm clock, the snow
globe
to its left. I can hardly keep my eyes open. It all feels so…inevitable. I manage to keep my eyes open long enough to watch the display count up the last remaining seconds.

59:57…59:58…59:59…60:00.

My eyes force themselves shut and once again I slip into the darkness, hidden between thoughts and memories.

Freezing wind numbs my face as I struggle to unlock the car door. I can feel the cold through the loose knit of my gloves. The key finally turns and I pull up on the handle. The door is either frozen or just stubborn, unmoving like something old clinging to the past. I yank harder and it finally gives way. I jump inside, quickly slamming the door against the weather.

Dark circled eyes stare back at me in the rearview mirror. I’ve seen better days.

I hear the passenger door open and close. The rush of cold air hits me like a freight train.

I have to keep moving.

There’s a whisky bottle in a bag on the floor. I ignore it and start the car, trying to forget the reason I left it there in the first place. The engine purrs. The dash illuminates. A rush of air from the heater hits my face. Everything comes to life at once.

A thick layer of snow obscures my view of the road and I switch on the wipers, slightly reluctant beneath the weight of accumulated snow. I catch a glimpse through the snowy windshield of what lies before me. My headlamps flood fifteen yards down the ice-packed shoulder. Tree limbs hang over the road like spindly fingers.

I turn the heater up and listen to the sound of the wiper blades for a moment, mesmerized. Whirr, thwack, whirr, thwack. A familiar sound interrupts. Beeeeeep. Beeeeeep. Beeeeeep.

I turn my head toward the sound and everything goes black.