The contract was written in the smallest writing, barely recognisable words were squashed into lines with no spaces or punctuation. It was as if a drunken spider had staggered into a pot of ink and danced across the page.
So Drake gave up trying to read, his eyes were strained in the almost darkness of the space, which was probably best described as a cupboard. A single 10-watt bulb hung from the ceiling fitting, with no shade to decorate the light. There were no windows, and only enough room for the chair Drake was sitting in, and another chair directly facing him, barely two knee spaces apart. Sheets from the day’s newspaper covered the floors.
Drake had entered the room blindfolded and been gently deposited in his seat by two very polite kidnappers, so there was no way of telling if this tiny bare room was in the city, in the country, in any place he had ever been to before. The more he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the point at which he was kidnapped. He couldn’t remember anything beyond the point of being put here, having his blindfold removed, and being given his instructions to wait.
He had no idea what he was waiting for until the door swung outward, and a well-dressed man entered, taking his place in the chair facing him, “so sorry to keep you waiting.” He said, placing an expensive briefcase squarely on his lap. He seemed friendly, his apology was sincere, and the way he opened the briefcase gave Drake the impression that he would at least be gentle, if not helpful.
“You are who?” Drake listened to the words as they dropped backwards from his mouth. He spoke slower, trying to regain control. “You are who?”
Had he forgotten how to speak straight? He considered this before saying anything else. Obviously he had not forgotten how to think straight, or he would not have noticed the skill that he had taken for granted for so long no longer available to him.
“Yes, you see, there is your problem.” The man’s voice was as rich and smooth as purple satin, pitched in a tone that could have birds swooning out of trees.He placed the briefcase on the floor and neatly crossed his legs, his perfectly tailored trousers folding exactly where they should, flashing a cm of lime green sock from above his ankle high boot.
His hair was drawn perfectly back from his brow, slick and black, as if it had been coloured there with permanent marker. He was perfectly groomed, his fingernails like ivory placemats on the broad tabletops of his hand. Tanned, but not over sunned. A dark green tie hung loosely, yet purposefully so, within the broad collars of his ultra white shirt.
“Do you remember your name?”
Drake tried: it was like trying to hug a salmon in the shower.
“So. I suppose this would be a good time to tell you what you are charged with.”
“With charged?”
The man pulled out a ledger from within the briefcase, opened it to the centre pages and began to read aloud. “You were found by two agents patrolling a place named…let me see…it’s here somewhere…oh yes, Earth.”
Drake sat in the dark warehouse of his mind without a memory for company. “Remember I can’t why?”
“You can’t remember, Mr Blank, because you have lost your plot, if you ever had one.”
“Plot?”
“Your story. Everyone in this universe is connected by stories Mr Blank, everyone therefore must have a story to move the greater narrative of life along. It is designed to be so. Your place in the great cosmic narrative, however, seems to have erased itself. You are a character without a plot.”
“Understand don’t I.”
“I’m not surprised at all, you have absolutely no frame of reference. If I were in your position I’d be pretty span out too.” He shuffled in his seat, rephrasing himself. “The people I work for have a record of everyone who is born, has been born and will be born in every corner of this universe. There is no record of you, however. The question is where did you come from, and how did you get here?”
“Remember don’t I.”
“Indeed.” He said, patting down his pockets for a pen. “That was rhetorical. You were found on Earth so let’s start there. Is this a place of some significance? Tell me the first thing that comes in your mind.”
“You are who?”
“I could tell you, but very confidential I’m afraid. Just refer to me as the advisory.” The advisory popped the lid from a biro he found clipped to his shirt, and eagerly scribbled down the date and details in the top left hand corner of a fresh page of ledger.
“Advisory?”
“Here to advise you on your case,” he said, still engrossed in his notes, “and if need be, defend you.”
“Me defend? Done I have what?”
“Yes, well, for one thing it probably has not have slipped your attention that you are talking back. That is a serious crime in the eyes of my employers, I’m afraid, it is a classic side effect of someone who has rebelled against all direction, if not lost direction altogether.”
“Direction lost have I?”
“Indeed. Everything in the universe is being directed forward, or outward if you like. Nothing is going backwards Mr Blank, apart from memories, but even they are being created in the present. The system ensures that all things run within an arrow of time all pointing in the same direction. Evolution requires it, you see. You Mr Blank are a spanner in the works of a system that has never failed, until now.”
TO be continued....
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