Detective Thomas Reed searched the apartment intently. A dismembered body without a head, but with knife wounds to the chest and arms lies before him on the kitchen floor. As he searches the rest of the kitchen he notices nothing peculiar, then he makes his way into the victim’s bedroom. Reed notices a power struggle between the suspect and victim had ensued because the walls and sheets were covered in blood. He picks up a piece of a broken mirror on the bedroom floor, turning it over he notices the word “PAST” written on it with an ink pen. Stepping outside the rain beats down on the streets as he gets into his car and drives off into the coal black night.
Jack, like any experienced street hustler, knows the job requires you to forget anything relating to self respect or dignity. It’s dirty work but with no other options available it has to be done. Before street hustling he worked in restaurants as a dishwasher and waiting tables. Soon enough though, the manager found out that he was working intoxicated and let him go. After that he couldn’t afford to pay his bills and soon lost his apartment along with almost every other earthly possession he had accumulated and ended up on the streets. Often he slept in abandoned buildings and scored drugs in between hailing cars from the side of the road. Jack doesn’t really have any rules for the customers since he prefers to just go with flow and let them do what they want. Still, he dreams of escaping every day.
Jane is sitting in the middle of a table surrounded by business executives and her manager. She does not want to seem too eager, and she is neither too withdrawn. Questions pop into her skull. Is it a good deal? Will she be able to buy a new apartment after she has signed the deal? Will this bring her worldwide popularity and recognition? The questions remain unanswered even after the contract is signed. The suits flood out from the room and leave Jane and her manager seated at the table.
“This was the right choice, right?” Jane looks at the piece of typed white paper in front of her with ambivalence.
“If you want to become a success it is, if you want to remain a nightclub act and sing to drunks for the rest of your life it isn’t.” Jane and her manager Sophie exit the room and step outside the building then part ways at the intersection of Oxford Street and Brick Lane. As she’s walking down Brick Lane thoughts stream into her brain like rivers flowing into the sea.
Back at her apartment, she sits at the living room table with a bag of coke. She snorts one line, then another one, and soon her brain is wired at rapid speed with more thoughts circling like a whirlpool. Jane does coke almost every day of the week now. It is noticeable on her body’s frame, she frighteningly thin and underweight. Coke makes you lose your appetite so Jane has resorted to eating ice cream and fresh fruits like apples, oranges and kiwi because they’re easily digestible and easy to eat. She turns on the tap in the bathtub and waits for the water to fill the porcelain structure. As the water runs, she ties an old shoelace around her arm and presses a needle into a visible vein then pulls the plunger back and watches the blood fill the vial, next she pushes the plunger into her arm and lies back in the tub filled with bubbles and warm water.
“Yes, hello?”
“Jane I need you at the studio tonight at 6pm to listen to the mixes of the new songs.”
“Okay, I’ll be there.”
Walking down the avenue as the clock strikes 5:45pm and Jane is still high. She feels like she’s floating down the street in a dreamlike state, past passersby’s, cars, and bicycles. Suddenly she feels nauseous and stops in an alley and leans against the brick wall. Pushing back the nausea, she collects herself and straightens her posture. Just as she is about to exit the alley and continue down the street towards the studio she hears something from deeper inside the alley. Though it is dark, she spots a figure seated down and resting against the building, singing to no one in particular.
At the studio Jane sits quietly listening to the mixes of her album, tired and strung out. “It all sounds the same, I’m not sure which one I like the best.”
Her manager shoots a dirty look at her from across the room.
“Jane, this is a crucial step in the production process, I need you to focus.”
“You know, I actually have a new song that I would like to record.”
The producer shakes his head.
“We’re done recording, we already have enough songs and the singles are picked.”
Jane’s manager concurs.
“Its too late in the production process. Maybe for your next album.”
After the production meeting and listening to the mixed songs, the group decided to pack things up and go home. The clock was just approaching midnight when Jane was walking along the silent dimly lit streets with a pair of keys clenched in her fist for self defense should danger arise. Making her way home, she couldn’t get the tune out of her mind. All she heard was the melody, but it was beautiful. Was it a song which was already recorded? Jane had never heard it before, so she guessed it wasn’t. Finally she arrived at her apartment and collapsed inside her bed and dreamed of the man in the alley humming the song.
Jack sits in a diner on Brick Lane with a hustler friend, Howard, drinking coffee like they do almost every day. Maybe it’s because they want to experience normalcy in between their deeply unconventional lives. They chat for a while while browsing the menu before placing their dishes on the tray at the back of the diner and exit.
´“He said he would meet us at the intersection, right?”
Jack kept his gaze fixed on the promenade stretching ahead.
“Yeah, between Brick Lane and Oxford street.”
After scoring they hid inside an abandoned building, waiting for the darkness to fall unto the streets, high as butterflies and surely as free.
“It goes like this! I have the melody down but I didn’t hear the words.”
Jane hummed the melody to her producer, who listened attentively.
“Well, it sounds nice, but it needs some work, plus you only have a melody for a chorus. It needs verses and lyrics added. I think we should just forget it and go with the songs we have.” Jane insisted, annoyed that the people seated inside the studio didn’t recognise the brilliance of the melody. “No, this needs to be the lead single, it’s gorgeous. It sounds like an old American folk ballad and I’m sure it’s an original.”
Jane cranked out the melody along with her improvised lyrics. When the producer heard the finished version, he sat back in his chair
“You need to work on the lyrics. They sound rushed and improvised.”
Jane put on her coat and exited the studio. Another 12-hour shift was completed as the moonlight and the damp, quiet streetlights lit the boulevard Jane was walking on. The melody of the song was repeating inside Jane’s mind.
The next time Jane saw Jack, she was sitting in a diner with one of her old work friends, Stephanie. They were chatting about just as a rough-looking Jack sat down at a table next to them. Jack was wearing an old lady’s coat matched with a vintage hat. Jane didn’t recognise Jack at first, but after a while of checking him out, she realised this was in fact the same person she had seen in the alley.
“We need to get out of here. I’m scheduled for a meeting at the studio soon.”
As they left the diner, Jane explained the situation to Stephanie.
Jane was prepared for the question, but had no solid response.
“Well, at first I was a little nervous, but what are the odds he’ll ever hear it? Plus, he must have been pretty out of it to just stand in an alley and sing to himself. I doubt he remembers it.”
The production was over and the album was ready for release. The lead single Jane named “Sailors Lullaby” was already released. Jane sat in her apartment reading a book when suddenly her phone rang.
“Jane, turn on the television, they’re playing your video for your lead single!”’
Jane sat back on her sofa and turned on the tv. They had shot the video just a couple of weeks earlier inside a garage filled with toys, dolls and junk. It looked distinctly 90s. This was the first video Jane had ever done and it was the first time she had ever seen herself on tv. Ecstatic, she turned the volume up and sat on the edge of her seat.
Just like that, the video faded to black. Before Jane could even talk about the incredible moment to her manager, she heard a knock on the door. “I’m sorry, I have a visitor, I bet its Stephanie. Talk to you later.”
Jane got up from her couch and went over to the door. When she opened, there was no one there except a white note placed right on her doorstep. Confused, she picked up the note and went back into her apartment.
“I know… “
“Thats all it said. Look for yourself”
Jane was sitting in her apartment with Stephanie as she was showing her the note. Stephanie examined the note with a surgeon’s precision.
“This is bad. Who do you think it’s from? I told you this was a terrible idea.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not plagiarism if I just heard it on the street from some random waif. We don’t even know if it’s about the song I recorded or if this is just some strange advertising scheme.” “Jane, we both know who this is from. It’s clear as day.”
It was midnight, and Jane was high again. She filled her bathtub up and laid back inside the warm tap water and started floating while the warm sensation from the heroin she had snorted stretched across her body. She was positively exhausted from the long day, and her mind was filled with circling thoughts.
“I have finally made some progress with my career and now this… Maybe I should just try to forget about that dumb note, it probably meant nothing.”
As she relaxed she attempted to empty her mind of all its contents and just enjoy the evening when suddenly her phone beeped. Picking it up she noticed one unread message. Opening it, she saw it was a photograph. It looked like someone’s living room but the lights were dimmed. Looking closer, she recognised her apartment in the photo. It was for sure hers. Jane felt how her heartbeat sped up as she turned off the tap in the tub and got out. Putting a towel around her body, she opened the door and exited the bathroom. With silent yet determined steps, she eased her way into the living room. Empty. Jane collected herself and calmed down. Suddenly, to her horror, she noticed the coffee table in front of her couch. There was a knife jabbed into the note she had received earlier that day. Pulling the knife out of the table, she picked up the note.
“NOW.”
Jane jumped at her phone ringing in her pocket.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
“Jane, this is Sophie. Something terrible has happened. Are you sitting down? Its Stephanie, she’s been stabbed. The police found her in her apartment with several knife wounds. She’s dead.”
Jack was sitting by the edge of Northwoods lake, it was a sweltering hot summer’s day and he felt the need to cool down. Besides Jack sat his hustler friend, Howard. They were relaxing and conversing in the sun after swimming for a while. Jacks’ eyes fell onto the lake as he watched the brilliant sunlight glimmer off the water. Suddenly Jack’s eyes started welling up as he laid back in the grass and stared at the clear blue sky without a trace of a cloud. In his periphery, he noticed an airplane gliding overhead. “I just wish I was on that plane. I don’t care where it’s heading, just to be on a jet without a proper destination, to just escape.”
Howard laid down next to Jack and cradled him in his arms.
“Sometimes I have thoughts like that, then I realise that there really isn’t a proper place for people like us, hustlers, junkies, faggots, we get the same treatment wherever we go.”
“I’m not talking about changing places or locations. Sometimes I just want to escape myself. I can’t stand myself most of the time. I have a darkness inside me which I can’t reveal to people. Sometimes I think I’m a beast or a creature. The minotaur roaming the shadowy corridors of the labyrinth.”
Howard tightened his grip around Jack and kissed his arm.
Jane stood outside Stephane’s apartment with her manager Sophie, talking to a detective who worked on the case of Stephanie’s murder.
“She was found with stab wounds to the chest, face and neck. Right now we have no leads, no fingerprints, nothing. We will get in touch as soon we have uncovered something.”
As Jane and Sophie were walking back to their car the rain was pouring down from the sky, soaking the asphalted ground around them.
“Sophie, I might have something that the Detective would find useful but I want to share it with you first.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Well, last night when you called, something happened. I was in my bathtub relaxing when I got a message someone sent to me. Look.”
Jane handed Sophie her phone with the ominous photograph.
“Thats from inside my apartment… someone was in my apartment and took that photo when I was in the bathroom then left before I could catch them. Then I found this as well…”
Jane showed the note with “NOW” typed on it.
“Jane, you need to show this to the police. This is important information. The killer might have chosen you as their next victim if I hadn’t called and picked you up.”
“But it’s just a photo… the knife is more upsetting, okay, I’ll talk to the detective.” Jane went back to the building, which was at this point swarming with officers and detectives. Yellow tape was placed around the entrance so no one could get in or out. The rain was still beating down from the sky. “Jane, thank you for showing this to me. This will certainly help with our investigation. I need you to answer some questions, but you look tired. I’ll call you tomorrow, keep your schedule clear.”
Jane woke up the next morning in a state of delirium. She had spent the night getting drunk and crying over the loss of her closest friend. For 10 long years Jane and Stephanie had been friends. They met in their first year of high school and instantly hit it off. Jane remembered their movie nights, their first time getting drunk at Jane’s parents’ place and puking in their bathroom sink. Tired and exhausted, Jane sat down on her living room sofa and turned on the television. “The suspect is still on the run. Right now the police have no leads as to who committed the murders.”
She switched channels and saw her video playing. As she was fumbling for the remote she started experiencing flashbacks. That horrible night when she was taking a bath and heard her phone ring came back to her. She felt the tears streaming down her face as she finally found the remote and turned off the tv. The video which had fulfilled her dreams of becoming a star had spun into a curse. Jane toyed to ask her manager to talk to the executives at the record company in order to take it down and then quit music forever. How could she continue being a musician after all of this?
Jane jumped at her phone ringing in her pocket.
“Hi this is detective Thomas Reed. We talked briefly yesterday. If it’s alright with you I would like to ask you some questions about the photographs you showed me.”
“Yeah sure, shoot.”
“You said you received them when Stephanie’s body was found.”
“Thats correct, my manager called me a minute or two after and told me the news.”
Jane told detective Thomas Reed the entire story of the man in the alley, the note outside her door, and finally the photographs. After a moment of silence, detective Reed returned. “We might deal with a stalker, or some sort of obsessed fan. Did you glimpse his face? Age? What did he look like?”
She reached into the recesses of her mind and tried picturing the man, but couldn’t remember his face.
“Well, he was white, scruffy, about my age. You could tell he lived on the street. I didn’t catch a proper look of his face, sorry.”
The detective paused for another moment before continuing.
“You have provided valuable information. I will get in touch if we uncover any leads. What I want you to do now is lie low for a couple of days. Make sure you lock your doors and remain safe. Don’t answer the door if you aren’t absolutely certain that you know who it is.”
Jane hung up the phone and went into her bedroom, where she sat in front of her mirror. Pulling out a razor, she continued to shave her head slowly. When all the hair was gone, she put on makeup and mascara plus lipstick on her lips. After that she laid back in her bed and started masturbating ferociously.
Sophie had scheduled a meeting for Jane at the record company headquarters but Jane didn’t arrive. She hadn’t even answered her phone when Sophie called. Nervous and anxiety ridden Sophie made her way to Jane’s apartment. She knocked and rang the doorbell but it was met with silence. Luckily, Sophie had a spare key Jane had given to her, which she used to open the door. Stepping inside, she called for Jane. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
Sophie noticed the living room was empty, so she sauntered up to the bedroom door, which was closed. Opening it slowly, she first spotted the mirror. It was smashed. The pieces laid on the bedroom floor. There were also spots of blood on the sheets of the bed. Sophie panicked when suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her back. Screaming, she turned around and saw Jack holding a piece of the mirror in her hand. Jack lunged at Sophie’s throat and stabbed it, blood was gushing out unto the bedroom floor. Sophie fell onto her back, gasping for air through her wounded throat as Jack got on top of her and continued stabbing her face with a burning rage. All that was left of Sophie was a desecrated corpse. You could barely recognise her face, which had been savagely brutalised. Jack sat on the bloody bed and while he lit a cigarette, he stared into the mirror, which was now fixed. In the reflection, he saw Jane gazing back at him. He reached out to touch the surface of the mirror, and in the reflection, Jane did the same. As their hands connected, Jack’s hand started merging into the mirror and in the next moment he was gone. The room was empty.
After Sophie’s body was found, the local police department started a search for Jane. They had been searching for weeks with not as much as a trace of evidence as to her whereabouts. Detective Thomas Reed was also searching for Jack but it was like he never existed, no one had seen or heard of a scruffy-looking street hustler wandering around town, perplexed, Thomas called off the search, and with no new victims being found he figured the perpetrator had gone into hiding while waiting until the streets were free of roaming cops and detectives. Thomas Reed got into his car and drove home to his villa which was just outside the city. His wife and children were waiting for him after he had been occupied with work for weeks. As he turned the engine off and exited the car, he walked into his house without knocking. “Hello? Anyone here?”
Thomas’ voice was met with a deafening silence. He took off his coat and hung it in the hallway as he made his way into the living room. It was empty, and the lights were dimmed. He felt a brooding darkness permeating the corners of his house and pulled out his gun. Several alarms went off in his mind. His wife and kids should be home. Why are the lights dimmed? Making his way up the stairway to the second floor he took quiet, measured steps, inching along the corridor to the master bedroom until he noticed the door was halfway open, though he couldn’t see inside. He slowly pushed the door completely open and saw his kids on the floor playing with their toys, by their side was Jane, who was instructing them and playing along.
“Jane? Whats happening here? Where have you been?”
Jane smiled at Thomas and placed two fingers on her lips. “Shush”
Perplexed, Thomas scanned the room with his gun pulled when suddenly he noticed the mirror in front of his bed. In the reflection, he saw Jack holding his wife with a knife pulled against her throat. They were standing right behind him. Shocked, Thomas turned around, but there was no one there. He looked perplexed into the mirror again, and the image of Jack and his wife remained. “What the fuck is happening?! Don’t you dare hurt my wife!”
Jack flashed Thomas a smile. “Didn’t you hear the lady? Be quiet or I’ll jab this into her neck.”
Jane got up from her position on the floor and went over to Thomas. She displayed a golden dagger in her hand. She pushed it against Thomas’ stomach. “Don’t flinch or move or I’ll bury this in your kidney.”
Making a drastic move, Thomas flipped his gun over his head and shot backwards and in the reflection he saw how the bullet struck Jack in his head, who fell backwards and collapsed. Jane screamed and buried the dagger in Thomas’ stomach, who fell onto the floor and passed out. “Wake up! Please!”
Thomas regained consciousness with his two children by his side. As he tried to rise to a sitting position, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, lifting his shirt he saw a hefty wound in his stomach. He laid down on his back again and looked to his left and noticed his wife, who was on the ground beside him, though she was unconscious. Jane was nowhere to be found. Reaching for his phone, he dialled his colleague at the police department. While waiting for help, he tried to coax some answers out of his children.
“What happened to the woman who was here before? Did she run after stabbing me?”
Unable to get any answers through the screams and crying, he dragged himself across the floor towards his wife and cradled her in his arms.
Sitting outside his house with a blanket around his shoulders waiting to be driven to the hospital, Thomas’ house was swarming with detectives and police officers.
“She was just gone… I woke up, and it was like she was never there.”
The detective discussing the events with Thomas wore a puzzled expression.
“Incredibly strange. You’re sure this wasn’t some hallucination? I mean the man and your wife in the mirror?
Thomas grunted as the pain in his stomach sharpened. “Right now I don’t know, I need to get this wound fixed up.”
Before he got into the ambulance, he turned around and looked at the countryside beside his house. Gazing across the fields and trees, Thomas then looked up into the sky and spotted a majestic hawk circling the air in search of a prey. With a sudden distinction and ferocity the bird plunged into a nearby field and caught a critter before flying into the distance and out of human eyesight
Gabriel Wing 