Chapter one : Prologue
written by: Robert Fierce
Time .. a bunch of infinite variables and just as many unknowns put together on a piece of imaginary paper that we call "time" .In truth , it's more like a piano. Even though it has a finite number of notes there is an infinite way that you can mix them and put them back together. And if you think that just because it has a fixed number of keys it also has a fixed number of ways they could work together, well then you would be wrong.
-Why?
Because you could always add one more key to the whole composition. One small note that could change the entire "song" . It doesn't even matter where you put it , but in doing so you change the course , the beginning or the end of it all.
If you don't believe me , just go see for yourself. Try it for a while. Just don't get caught up in it as you'd probably loose your entire life simply by imagining the endless possibilities. It's not as easy as it would seem at first sight. And it's definitely not as easy as stepping on the wings of a butterfly in order to change the future. No , it's a little bit more complicated than that.
I don't even know at this point if i should let "me" start this story, or simply start this myself.
And if you think that's weird , wait till you hear what's next :
19 November 2000 . I remember that day as if it were yesterday. You ever stop to remember the time you were bout as small as a cub , and even though everyone around you treated you like a child , you knew perfectly well deep inside you what was really going on? Like the coming of Christmas in an early winter when you could practically smell the real Christmas tree way before the season started and you wished it so hard that even the old dull plastic tree in the attic would smell like a real one? 19th of November ..
I could smell the Christmas tree right there on the bus. Of course there were no Christmas trees anywhere near me but i could just smell them! I remember I was happy , Being a child is a wonderful thing! You don't know how much this world can change you and shape you in what you wouldn't even dream about when you are small and fragile and lost in your own little world. I also remember faces.
I always had a thing about faces. Starring at people , randomly , outside , in shops , in school , everywhere i looked , is like i was looking for something. Didn't quite knew why , i just liked looking for faces.
Call me strange.
I guess we all have our own thoughts that drive us , whether it's a shiny , glowing button on a digital play panel when we're young or THE most interesting woman or man in our lives when we're adults. It doesn't even matter what he or she does , it's simply amazing. We all have it and strangely enough , it differs from one another.
Back on the bus , I was looking in the window's reflection of the bus's inside. Ever done that?
Starring out the window of a bus , or pretending to do so when in fact , you were actually looking at the people inside the tram or bus or subway or whatever it was you were travelling with?
Most people don't even recall being four years old and at that age , most of us would probably still be learning how to speak. But not me. I remember everything. And yes , before you ask , it's not very common and YES you're allowed to call me weird in fact ..
Call me strange.
Four years old ,and my mother would have all ready taught me how to work out the bus & tram system. I wasn't what you'd call a normal kid. When other kids my age would play with miniature cars and GI Jo's , I was doing the multiplication table so many times that it became a second language to me. I remember my first teacher back when I started my first day of school . He was trying to teach us how to write the letter "a" and I started laughing at him. He asked what was so funny. He also asked me to go in front of the class and share it with the others. Then I walked out of the bench right next to the big black board on the wall and explained in writing , how for any given value of "X" it's true that
He was not amused. As a matter of fact he was shaking.
But don't worry. That's just the result of a mother with an IQ of a little over 240 and an alcoholic father with a weird obsession for the Occult Science. So ,
Call me strange ,
Now back to the bus. Looking at the faces of so many strangers can , sometimes be a little overwhelming giving that I was studying them so hard that I felt it burn behind my eyeballs, stocking the images like data on a hard drive only a bit slower but in much higher detail. You see it in movies now a days. When they show you the profile of a person and the actual front side of the face in those C.S.I movies. I use to see it just like that but in my mind. After seeing somebody from the front and from they're profile I could identify them out of a thousand look-a-likes.
None the less , I was going through those faces faster than usual that day. Maybe it was the excitement in my head related to , of course , thinking about Christmas . Who knows.
There was this Blonde lady five seats ahead but on the other row on the other side of the bus. She was sitting near that window so her facial characteristics were easy to "record". She was in her mid 30's She had long blonde hair , with almost no eyebrows. Just some makeup over , wide eyes blue as the sky of a summer holiday , a pointy nose , lots of lipstick and tiny mole on the right side of her neck. But only 1 earring.
Yes , one earring only and a scratch mark on her cheek and what seemed to be darker spot right beneath her jaw.
Here's the thing. She was crying silently. Not the type of crying , a grown woman would do when she doesn't like something , but the kind of crying that hurts. Slow and painful. She was keeping it to herself of course. You see , ever since I can remember , I would take any image and pin it in my head and work my own scenario around it. It was my way. My "thing".
At the time I assumed the lady had a fight with her boyfriend or husband and things didn't go too well for her.
After all I deduced the dark spot beneath her jaw was more likely a stain of blood that she missed when she cleaned herself. So ,
Call me strange but ..
I could never understand my cold attitude though. I could see things that weren't there for everyone to see but even after judging them , and creating the scenarios in my head I was SO cold. My reaction was so emotionless towards them. Like I didn't care at all. But I did! In this case I was more then relating to the beatings I got from dear old dad on a daily basis. But something always held me back in showing that I really care.
A man wearing a Fedora and a grey suit underneath his old raincoat , with a funny looking tie on which he did a sloppy job with a wrong kind of Windsor knot , and a pair of miss matched socks that were screaming the lack of feminine presence in his life. A wet-ish stain on the right elbow that shown he must have slipped on the cold slippery snow , and landed on in before he got on the bus , shaking the remaining snow off of him , sat down in the first row and started acting like he was reading his newspaper. He wasn't really. I should know , because I was looking dead straight at him through the reflection in the window. The same window he wiped clean when he took that seat , right before cursing what ever soul "forgot" their chewing gum on that particular seat , ruining his precious coat.
Moving through those faces while watching their reflections in the window I notice that for the first time someone was staring at me!
Creepy right?
Aren't I the strange one?
Well oddly enough I tried to read this person's face but , somehow I couldn't. He had no recognition pattern as I like to call it. No smile or smirk or sadness or wrinkles , no nothing. Just that stare! That awful empty stare.
For a while in my mind I was thinking of him as if he was trying to "read" me or something ..
Was it possible? But how? How would he know exactly where to stare so that the reflection would send him right to me. From his angle and side of the bus it was impossible to see himself or myself for that matter yet he was staring at me intensely. The appropriate word would be "insanely" or at least that's how it looked like.
There was nothing. But his eyes! those eyes. Seemed so familiar. Nothing else ringed any bells up here. I'm pointing to my head of course. But those eyes!
They were almost as cold as .. as mine..
As always , thanks for reading!
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