After his usual, nightly, slap-up dinner and dessert at the Kainan Paraiso, for which, again, Frank Diggory had not paid, he crossed the road, at the same time as always, to watch TV on his own, as always, before sleeping.
And slipping into another nightmare.
However, tonight was different.
Tonight he arrived home, crossing the deserted main road, unlocked his wooden door and swung it inward.
It was then he noticed a small piece of paper: oblong, scarlet red. It piqued his curiosity. He had not seen something like this before. It was brand new. Different.
Different things always took him by surprise.
Because in his controlled world they were so very rare.
He bent down and picked it up. One side of it was empty. Nothing of interest.
He was about to throw it out when he turned it over. There was handwriting on it. In blue ball-point pen. The handwriting was neat. Orderly. But not so neat and orderly that he could not see imperfections.
It was a Post-it note.
He hadn’t seen one of those for a very long time.
Intriguing.
He read the handwriting. It bore a simple message: ‘Bathe at 8pm’.
Curious.
Normally he would not indulge such oddities. However, he had nothing to do tonight except watch the same inane Tagalog dramas in the hope they would numb his brain to sleep. So he entertained the notion.
He would bathe at 8pm.
One hour from now.
He watched a crazy drama with the same basic plot line as all the others. Then, as the final advertising break began, he ascended up his house’s wooden stairs, retrieved his bath towel, and returned downstairs to wash.
At 8pm. As requested.
He opened his back door, entered his outside toilet and locked the door behind him.
Even though he was the only one home. Even though his house had a gate. Which was locked.
‘I guess... you’re here.’ he mouthed, timidly.
‘Good evening to you, too.’ Emet responded from the other side of his red-brick, tiled bathroom wall. ‘How was your day?’ she inquired.
‘Same as every Thursday. Same as every weekday.’ Frank replied dryly.
‘Must get so boring for you.’ Emet told him.
Frank disagreed. ‘No. I'm blessed. I like my life. So many people would kill for what I have.’ he told her.
Emet’s reply came quick as a horrified flash. ‘Why? Did you?’
Frank was taken aback. ‘No. I don’t think so. No.’ he stammered his reply. ‘What makes you ask that?’
Emet dug herself out of the hole she had sunk into. ‘Just curiosity really. If I’m going to have a conversation with someone through my bathroom wall, I’d rather it wasn’t with a killer.’
‘Understood.’ Frank agreed. ‘Sounds sensible.’
‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me about my day?’ Emet asked him.
‘So, how was your day?’ Frank asked her, as if he meant it.
‘Well, each day is different for me.’ She told him. ‘I work in IT security for a big company in Cebu. Remotely. Mostly. Never two days the same.’
‘That must be interesting.’ Frank mused.
‘Oh, it is. Never a dull moment.’ she concurred.
‘Same for me. Right now. This is not a dull moment. Never made small talk through a bathroom wall. This is an interesting experience.’ Frank told her.
‘Then you have never been in the ladies’ washroom in a mall.’ Emet quipped. ‘But look: while we’re here, we’d better both wash. Or least make some splashes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what people do when they're in a bathroom.’ Emet pointed out, with a mild air of exasperation. ‘Besides, your apartment is full of microphones, motion sensors and cameras. They pick up everything.’
Emet heard nothing for a second. Then a huge splash.
‘Are you alright in there?’ Emet asked Frank through the bathroom wall.
‘Yeah, fine. Just got a little shampoo in my eye.’ he told her, before a lesser splash washed it out. ‘So you say someone is observing me. That sounds a little...’
‘Crazy?’
‘I was going to say “far-fetched”. You know, because I’m polite. And I don’t want to be rude to someone who hears what I do in here.’ Frank told her.
Emet was suddenly concerned. ‘Why? What are you doing in there?’
‘Well, once I’ve finished bathing, nothing too... irregular. Nothing that a little air freshener can’t disguise.’
Emet laughed. ‘Too much information!’
Frank laughed with her. ‘This coming from the woman who’s just told me my entire life is being observed.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘I just have trouble believing that I'm that interesting.’ Frank told her.
‘Well, since you haven’t changed any of your habits – not even what you eat – since you’ve got here, I have trouble believing it too. But someone thinks you are.’ Emet parried. ‘And I can prove it.’
Frank got out of the bathtub. Emet could hear the rasp of towel on skin. ‘Okay.’ Frank parried. ‘How?’
Emet began. ‘Well, it seems to me that whoever is watching you is doing it to make your life more pleasant. That’s what I've observed. Your meals are always on time at the restaurant. The bus is always there when you need it.’
‘My favourite songs are always playing when I get up and at mealtimes.’ Frank completed.
‘Really? I just thought the DJ had gotten lazy.’ Emet countered. ‘Ask yourself how they got that information. Did you tell anyone?’
‘Well, no...’ Frank mused.
‘They got it by observing you.’ Emet told him.
‘So?’
‘So, test them. Give them something to think about. Let's see what they do next.’
Frank thought about her proposal. ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll test your theory. However, I would get out of there if I were you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I know what I’m about to do next, and you might hear some unpleasant noises.’ Frank warned her.
Emet made her displeasure plain. ‘Really?’ she protested.
Frank’s reply was swift. ‘Well, this is a bathroom...’
Once he had said his goodbyes to his friend through the bathroom wall, Frank finished with his noisy activity, cleaned himself one more time down below, brushed his teeth and began to head upstairs to bed.
But before he climbed the stairs, he decided to put Emet’s wild theory to the test – at least to prove her wrong. He stood in the middle of his lounge, and announced to himself, ‘You know, if there’s something I really miss out here, it's Scottish football on TV.’
Ethan heard every word. ‘Scottish football? Scottish football? Could you not have said “English”? That’s everywhere! But Scottish? Who even puts that on TV anyway? And why would they? Does anyone actually watch it? You like to make things difficult, don’t you?’ he sighed, exasperatedly, while typing furiously on his keyboard.
Thumping music. Thumping his brain against his skull. Although Frank was never sure if it actually qualified as music. His jury was still out.
A grouchy bouncer had reluctantly let him and his partner in: at first opposing their entry, but when they produced some ID, he’d realised he had no choice.
Now they were picking their way across a dancefloor heaving with barely-clothed flesh, avoiding the women who ‘dressed how they liked’, looking to entice someone else who liked how they dressed, and the wolf-like males, who picked their prey according to how easy the pickings looked. Weaving their way among the unwary, as inconspicuous as they could be, sellers peddled uppers and downers – a few of them even sold pills to make the prey more compliant.
Scumbags.
Frank Diggory hated them. With a passion.
But they were not here for them.
Not this time.
They could prowl their beat for another night.
Through the heaving throng Frank and his partner wove. They reached the neon-lit bar. Placed their order.
Frank’s partner was stunned. Drinking on duty?
Need to blend in, Frank excused it.
His naive partner bought the lie.
So they drank.
And then some more.
And then some more.
And then some more.
The vision was blurred. Impaired. The memory was fractured.
Or was it imagination?
Please, God, let it be imagination!
The music was booming now. Really booming. His head echoed it like a cave, its robotic autotuned remix of a voice reverberating in the void chamber of his alcohol-addled skull:
Frank watched on in abject horror and disgust. He saw himself weave back through the mass of writhing flesh. Find a woman. A sexy, barely-clad woman. He moved to her rhythm. Put his hands around her waist.
She turned and slapped him. Hard.
He deserved it.
But it didn’t stop him.
He moved in again. For the win.
She shoved him away.
He was dizzy now. His head was swimming. Felt detached from his body.
Had something been in those drinks?
Something he had not ordered?
From nowhere, a man appeared. A black-clad man. The man struck Frank. Hard. On his head.
That was a mistake. His brain was not at home. It made little difference. Other than a little blood above his eye. Frank felt it. He saw it on his fuzzy, unfocused hand.
This demanded revenge.
He lazily swung out a fist. It seemed to him like it was in slow motion. But somehow it struck its target. The man stumbled.
Sensing victory, and caring little for his assailant. Frank kicked out. He took the legs away from his attacker. Who fell to the ground. Backwards.
Frank stumbled towards him.
He saw something sparkle on the dancefloor. Something metallic. Something sharp. With a hand gripping it.
Even his alcohol-addled mind knew what that meant.
A knife.
His assailant had a knife.
He fell on top of the man. He wrestled him. Wrenched at the weapon. Prised it from his grasp.
The man swung out another punch. Caught Frank full on the nose. Blood spurted from the wound.
Frank had had enough. This had to end.
He took the knife and stood upright. Shakily. He lunged forward. His head spun. He lost his balance. He tripped. He stumbled.
He fell.
He plunged the knife into the man's stomach.
The man howled in pain.
The dancefloor screamed. Everyone around him screamed.
It made his head ache even more.
His partner, mid-arrest of a small-time drug dealer, spun around and stared at where Frank was in astonishment and disbelief.
Frank stared at his bloodied hands, bloodied sleeves, blooded shirt.
The penny dropped through alcoholic gravity.
He had to go. Now.
He lolloped at speed towards the nightclub’s fire exit, shoving anyone who stood in his way.
Security staff ran after him. But even in his inebriated state, he was too quick.
He stepped outside. The cold Glaswegian night air hit him like an ice wall. His breath escaped from his lungs like cumulonimbus clouds.
It was cold. Really cold.
Even for someone with a pickled brain.
And booze-numbed nerves.
He stumbled and staggered out into the darkness. One alleyway bled into another. He ran. Fast as his shaky legs would carry him. Across thoroughfares and roads.
Until he hid from passing sirens in a rubbish-strewn alleyway, next to a long-overflowed dumpster, his numbed nostrils immune to the stench.
He bent double. His mind was spinning. His head aching. His vision blurred, doubled, tripled and quadrupled.
His eyes somehow caught the filth beneath him.
His stomach heaved. And retched.
And emptied itself on the tarmac.
Frank woke up on his knees on a tiled floor, eyeballing his empty toilet bowl, retching loudly. But nothing came out.
Emet had received the alert on her phone. ‘Man! Even babies sleep through the night sometimes!’ she had exclaimed frustratedly.
Now she was seated on the floor, back to her bathroom wall, listening to the horrendously ugly sound of her neighbour retching his stomach dry.
Just to pass the time, she asked a pointless question to which she already knew the answer. ‘You okay in there, Sir Frank?’
‘No. Not really.’ he replied through dry heaves and spittle expulsions. ‘I had a bad dream.’ he told her.
‘What about?’ she asked, as if talking would make it all better.
‘My past. I think.’ Frank told her. ‘Emet, I am the plainest of men. My very existence is boredom and routine and futility. How can that possibly be me?’ he yelped.
Emet sighed. ‘You know, Sir Frank, you are a good man. Now.’
Frank retched harder. Nothing emerged.
‘And despite the soundtrack, I actually do enjoy our conversations through the washroom wall.’ Emet added.
‘How do you know I am a good man now?’ Frank asked. ‘You don’t know who I am. I don’t even know who I am.’
‘I know you’re in your CR, retching your guts out at the very thought you could have done something wrong.’ Emet told him. ‘That means you didn’t enjoy it. In fact, it disgusts you. To me, that means that you, Sir Frank, are a good man now. And that’s all that matters to me.’
The other bathroom went silent for a moment
‘Are you okay in there, Sir Frank?’ Emet asked, this time actually concerned.
‘Yes.’ came the weak, but strengthening reply. ‘Thank you, Emet. You told me that every day cameras watch my tiniest movement. But I think you are the first person to really see me.’
Commentaires