Day 266 - Resurfacing - Chapter 5 - (1060 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

RESURFACING

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 5

The Village, if that is what they call it here, is old. Old in a way that redefines the world old in ways that don't sit well with antipodean dwellers like me. The idea that the building where I can buy a causal trinket or time at an internet café, is older than the 'civilised' history of the land of my birth, my home. Sure there are older things back in the Lucky Country, but they seem like myth and legend. Make believe fairytales of aboriginal settlements older than the cathedrals of Europe, but with nothing to show is it any wonder it doesn't feel real?

Nature is older, and so the people at one with it seem as impassable as it is. The mark they left behind, only footprints and some paintings. When in the presence of a modern age-old artefact it feels more real though it's probably youthful by comparison. You don't stand at the foot of Uluru and think about millions of years of geology, it's too oblique. You don't think about the thousands of years of a nomadic existence, there's not any easy reference points for it.

Standing the arched doorway of a shop, hundreds of years old and not uncommon enough to be listed as heritage or as worth protecting, it is mid boggling to a younger country man. At home buildings over a certain age, barely older than a generation, require preservation. Buildings here just carry on, preserved by virtue of being kept. Unconscious and not at all deliberate, preservation is an act of conservation by default.

So every second doorway is a melange of styles and ages, the Village takes pains to remind me of it's decrepitude and it's modernness all the while declaring it's age like it was the fittest octogenarian offering to do push ups in the Plaza, the benefits of clean living and exercise on display. The oddest thing about the visual age of things is the mask they put over the top. There is a patina of ancient attitude smeared over everything, even the more modern of components. Like Mutton dressed as Mutton, but the best and most tender of Mutton you can find. Ok I get that it's an odd way to think of it, but unlike the women who are in deepest of denials the ageing gracefully is a mark of pride, not a skin to be pulled taut over the cracks.

The cracks are the features to be proud of.

Here if the cracks are simply not pronounced enough, then accentuate and develop them, make them known and make them the centre piece of your display.

Why here? Why anywhere, really? It was a pin on a map, a random act of defiance and rebellion from the structure of an itinerary that choked it's hold on the necks of teenagers. If things were different, if the past had played it's course in more traditional methods, would she still have made it here? Questioning the past is a colossal waste of time and effort of course. Doubt is pointless and an exercise in frustration, the past has not changed and it is the future that I am interested in, no matter the path there.

She waits.

Impossible to determine what shape the future may take, the laws of nature and physics have their own sense of propriety, and an arrogant belief that they are the only truisms in the world, but obviously they are not, or I would not be here and she would not be waiting for me. Human behaviour is madness all the time and no one questions it, why would they? Everything is complex if you examine it too closely, and simple if you leave it be. Why unravel the loose thread and destroy the sweater when you can wear it until the thread disappears or resolves itself? Why does anyone do anything? Is human behaviour so predictable and logical at any point in time, why start pulling it apart because it's meaningless to attempt it.

Nobody really knows the answer to most of the questions, like the women in physical denial about their age, the rest of us less concerned with the image of our bodies and the side of our faces we show, still lie about who we are and more importantly why we are. Just because we believe a lie, that does not make it true or trustworthy. That's a modern fallacy, say it enough and it will come true.

Maybe not that modern looking at the blood soaked floors of churches, the blood dried invisibly on ancient stone cobbles and pathways to wars. Horses and swords marched and swung beneath the roofs, the sky and in between the halls of history. You'd think more than twice before stepping on someone's grave, it's disrespectful and vain to tread so lightly on the sum of someone's existence. Then you scuff your feet on a paving stone that has known more death than you ever will. It is now a part of daily life, you walk it every day and while it was once the end of someone, someone(s), life, now it is...

Pedestrian.

Clichés and stereotypes all come from somewhere and we decry them as hiding the truth, but the truth is dullness and repetition ad nauseum, that is it's legacy and it's future. There is nothing new under the sun, how apt that is and it's older than the buildings who tower over me like a elderly relative. Who is their senior?

Two decades it took me to live a life less truthful and more deceitful than the cliché of a runaway boy-man looking for the lost love of a teenage rebellious period. It could not be more clear about what and where my past had imprinted on me and yet I married, denied and slathered the make up on me until the clown faced mirror image screamed at me and could be heard.

I did not question it then for nearly twenty years and what happened when I started the process? This is hardly the best outcome for me or my ex-wife, the as yet undivorced narrator's partner. She would say I am mad, fixated on the memory of something I don;t know at all and cannot possibly be true.

She'd be right.

And yet.

Here we are. We are.

Day 265 - Unpublished Project Work - (1272 words)

Working on a side project, still part of my daily total - but not to be published here.

Design Document

Day 264 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 14.1 - (1300 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 14.1

“Hello, Detective Samuels speaking.” George Samuels answered the phone on his desk as he was working that afternoon from the office, a mountain of paperwork to go through.
“Is that really what I sound like?” Came a familiar sounding voice back at him, catching his attention immediately. The file he was working on was on screen, he hit save on his notes on the case, and turned away from the screen to give the interesting voice his full attention.
“An odd way to start a conversation... and whom am I speaking to?” Detective Samuels inquired.
George Prime was calling from the warehouse, there was a secure line in the freeze room and he called his personal line at the office to talk to the only person he could trust given the situation. He had thought about the options and what to say long and hard, he had even made some notes. He had frozen time to do that, so he had time and the luxury of setting up what he needed and providing evidence on the 'crimes' as they existed. Of course he knew it would be an uphill battle to convince anyone of what was going on, but he did have a few advantages up his sleeves.
“Let's just say I'm a concerned citizen for now shall we.” It was not framed as a question, it was a command.
“Fine by me.” Detective Samuels replied nonchalantly, but he had activated a call trace and was recording the call with the click of a few buttons on his desk. “What can I do for you, Concerned Citizen?”
This is where he needed to hook his other self in to the case, and that was going to be easy enough. George chose his words carefully, knowing full well that any wrong word or misstep would sink the wider goal he was trying to achieve. The one crime he could prove, he could solve for them instantly was only the tip of a significant iceberg, but one that could strain credulity. Fortunately the hook was very strong.
“Last night, there was an officer down near the Plaza.” George said, lightly, off hand and almost too casually. His other self, the Detective George Samuels of this 'dimensional reality' sat up in his chair but gave away nothing audibly to betray his extreme interest.
“There was. Do you...” He paused and snapped his fingers above his head, pointing across the room at another man, the detective who had caught that case. Fingers beckoning to join him and listen in to the call, he patched the call, duplicating the line as he continued his line of questioning after the brief interruption of about two seconds. “... Do you have information on that?”
George Prime smiled on his end of the phone line, he knew he had him and he recognised the gap in the call, the small pause and the almost unnoticeable change in call quality, imperceptible unless you knew what you were listening for. “Yes. Can I just ask something please?”
“Certainly.” there was silence on the line. “Go ahead? Ask anything.”
“Who caught the case? Who just joined us on the line? Who's lead on the … and can you tell me the name of the officer who was shot please?”
Detective Samuels looked across the crowded room to Detective Bell, who returned his gaze with a canny look. The person on the other end fancied they knew something about the way they operated, either a fan boy or an ex-cop? Either way, the name of the deceased had already been made public, so how was it that someone had information on the killing but not who the victim was? That ruled out the press, who had been known to call in and pretend to have information only to pump the desk for more than they had released.
“Excuse me, but can I ask you a question first?”


“Sure. Is it why I don't the officer's name? When I claim to have knowledge about a crime, where the name has undoubtedly been published already? That's a fair question. It will become clear when we meet later, but it comes down to this. The person who committed the act, he has confessed on tape, I have the evidence and can provide it and the perp to you all ready to go. You just have to come an get him. I assume you have click/traced this call and the address return should be on your screen by now, if not then very soon.”
Detective Samuels nodded down the line, he got the feeling that the person was not wasting his time, that he was a cop or an ex-cop and that he was going to lead them to a neatly wrapped result. There was something else though, something that tickled the back of his brain and gave him the oddest feeling that he knew this person, very well but could not quite place him. Maybe an old colleague from the academy, undercover with some scumbags? He was not going to open up to him and trust him completely, but there was definitely something there worth pursuing.
“You also have Detective Bell on the line, he's...”
“Joe? Joe Bell, he caught the case did he?” Came the reply from the other end of the line.
“Yes, that's me – excuse me but do I know you?” Joe's voice came down the line and asked curiously. He was having trouble telling the two voices apart and if it were not for the fact that he could see and hear his office mate in the same room he would not necessarily know which of them said what.
“Yes, you do. And you don't. It's complicated. It is very...” there was a heavy sigh and again Joe thought it sounded much like Detective Samuels did when annoyed or frustrated.
“Well I think you should tell us everything you know... officer.” George Samuels cut to the conclusion, and he did not hear a contradiction from the man calling in.
“Yeah, about that.”
“You're on the job. Don't bother denying it, I mean you have done little to hide the fact with what you say and how you say it, so why start now? How about you just tell us what you know and … yes we have the address, what is that? A warehouse?” He was looking at the Google Map of the address, a large block building much bigger than a standard office block, and with a single square pitched roof. He switched to Street View but saw little of any use, the view down the alley was oblique, the camera car had not gone down the alleyway where the entrance was, it was a driveway access and not a road per se. From the angle though he could made out a big roller door, a garage entrance or loading dock as well as a door with a keypad much closer.
“Yes it is, and you'll want to get down here quite soon, bring a tac team and a DA, and I mean THE DA not an ADA or one of the fucktard minions from the office. Bring the actual DA. Officer shooting, he'll want to be here anyway, but when they see the... well the bigger picture. Then we'll need someone with some juice.”
“Juice?” Joe Bell was stunned, he could have sworn that it was George who said that, but it was not. George Samuels was sitting at his desk nodding at the request, potentially not getting the same vibe that his colleague was.
After all you never recognise your own voice on the phone, do you?

Day 263 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 14 - (2068 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 14

George was watching the proceedings from the cold storage room, where he had the time frozen Brian of this dimension, this version of things, in the coffin arrangement frozen and immobile in time. Ivan Prime and Brian Two both knew he was here and they sent him in to hide, to be the ace-in-the-hole should the need arise. Neither of them really knew what the more modernised, albeit only a few hours different, versions of themselves would be like. One could not comprehend the man he had become in what was at most a few days, and the other could not believe what he already had done in the name of greed without conscience.
So they had secreted George away, which he willing did because he was an unknown element and he had no stake in being discovered and no power in revealing himself to the others too soon. He took his gun with him, and a quick lesson in how to freeze time if the opportunity presented itself.
He watched the group reacquaint itself with its component members, and the copies that were unexpected to say the least. The revelations came thick and fast, the CCTV footage he was watching and listening to was shocking and shed a little light on the how and the when, but not really the why. They tore into each other and George watched dispassionately, not tempted to freeze time until Ivan Two drew a knife and stepped into Brian Prime, cutting him on the face.
The machine ceased all activity as soon as George reacted and set the controls in motion. It was not fast enough to stop it all together, in fact it froze the act halfway across the face of the attacked man and showed that the trajectory of the knife was too shallow and to oblique to be a killing blow. George stood in the now open doorway of the room and stared across the space between themselves, he the master of the moment and they the immobilised and unaware.
George had his gun trained on the Ivan holding the knife and he aimed down the sight line, taking his time and thinking his options through. It was not going to be fatal and taking the shot would not significantly change the outcome unless a second and more visceral attack was to follow on. He could shoot at the knife, but that came with some risk. The velocity of the shot could drive the knife further in, or it could twist the blade and do more damage. It could deflect the attack and make the cut a little smaller, a little shorter but the damage would still be done.
Alternately he could shoot the man holding the knife, in the arm and potentially have the same effects as shooting the knife, positive and negative. With that option of course it would also incapacitate the attacker, the other as yet uninformed Ivan number two. Was there any advantage in that? By learning what the other Ivan already knew then it would be a fair guess to think that the new Ivan, would become more like the Ivan Prime, the one that was driven by guilt and regret to be a better person and make up for his actions.
Either of those options would reveal George in the room, and create a new round of 'explaining' between the members of the group and lead to another sudden, seismic shift in power that would potentially compromise his investigation.
His investigation, that was what was going on here. He was investigating a crime, multiple crimes really across multiple dimensions. He had taken the idea of the time travel and the creation of multiple instances of reality in his stride and the idea that criminals were exempt because the crime was elsewhere, elsewhen and had no evidence made little difference to him. They had caught up with the gang, there was little else to call them, and they had congregated in one handy location.
So that was part of his plan, he came to realise as he stared down the barrel of his own gun at the men who had raped and pillaged through alternate realities, that some recompense had to be made. It was not going to be easy, and it had no legal precedent to establish a law to be broken.
What they did was wrong, foolish and immoral to be sure and there would be plenty for lawyers and agencies to work out in order to prosecute and bring them to justice.
Justice was required.
George lowered his gun and went back to the console, looking intently at the men in the room. There were only two people who knew how to make the machine work, and one of them was incapacitated with a knife in his cheek right now. The other was kneeling next to him, in close proximity and there was no easy way to get across the space and activate either the machine or the time freeze device that was in the room with George. Execution was out of the question of course, it was not his place to dispense justice, it was his to bring the offenders to justice. If the system freed them, pardoned them or excused their behaviour then that was the system at work.
The machine would engender fear in the system, it had to. So the men would be incarcerated for their crimes or locked away where they would not do any further damage. There would be a clean up, there would have to be. As he understood it, if the Brian that had shown him the ropes was telling the truth, and there was no way to know for sure, but if he was? Then there would be the potential of a dozen more Brian's unfreezing in a few years time as the stasis fields collapsed in each dimensional anomaly and wake the scientist up without the benefit of knowing any more that Brian Two did when he woke up, knowing little else except how to work the machine.
That was a catastrophic roll of the dice to take, so the machine itself would not likely be destroyed as then the reparative work would not be able to be done. Maybe it would be a matter of travelling through each dimension and disabling the machine, maybe it would be an assassination squad killing the frozen Brian in his sleep, humanely but definitely.
George pondered the various outcomes and what would come of the next thing he would do, but he knew as he always did that it was irrelevant eventually. Justice was served blindly, that was not his all and not his problem. He had a job, it was to bring them in and let the rest sort it out, and he was glad it was not on him, and never would be.
He unfroze the scene and watched the following events as the men repositioned themselves. Two Brian's on the floor. Two Ivan's squaring off. Harold sitting aside and watching it all, and of course the very ill Mike who could not even lift his head.
That was what he wanted an explanation of, what was going on there with the criminal leader and the brains behind this who scam? Why was he so sick, and what did the scientist know about it? He had mentioned before his own 'illness' but had been vague and not very explanatory, other than the supposedly fatal nature of it. He was a man that could not be trusted to tell the truth and made no attempt to hide his socio-pathic actions in looking out for his own self, even over the copies he had made.
He had killed off the other people he had taken on board, though how exactly he did not fully understand. It did not matter to George, murder was murder and this man was a confessed serial killer, a mass murderer. It would be a mine field for the prosecutors, if it ever got that far of course. He was a liar and a killer, a man bent to a purpose and willing, able and with a history of crossing the lines of humanity to get his way.
That was the man he needed to watch out for.
He needed back up. There was a phone on the wall and the seeds of a plan started germinating in his mind. He froze time once more, and counted the men in the room, watched them unmoved and out of time, in more ways than one. He had an idea that may work, but it would require more than his own actions to carry it out.
Could he trust any of the people in the room? It seemed unlikely.
Brian Prime was the one to watch out for, he was dangerous and ruthless when put in a corner, he had a proven track record of reacting that way. Brian Two, he was more reasonable and shocked by his own behaviours certainly, but he was a few days or hours from becoming the more socio-pathic version of himself. Who was to say that pushing him too hard would not just create two monster scientific minds, not just the one psychotic one they had so far.
Ivan Prime was a mess of guilt and regret, he was a good reason why George had made it this far, alive and able to take control of the situation. Would he agree with what George wanted to do? At first, maybe on an intellectual or emotional level he could be on board. That was a possibility alone though, and a remote one. Fear and loathing aside, he was still a criminal and who was to say that the code was somehow overridden by this new level of regret? He would not be trustworthy enough to cooperate in his own demise. Ivan Two had the same issues but with an even bigger risk of failure or betrayal. He was unstable and violent, much like Ivan Prime had most likely been, in those early hours when he had arrested him and was questioning him. He made no sense then, but now it was obvious, repressed rage and conflict internally drove him along to the desperate attempt to right wrongs.
Harold White, was as guilty as the rest now, much less so apparently for the violence, just the larceny. None the less the thefts were crimes, not victimless as he had been lead to believe, but criminal enough for a charge on each count. He had mitigating circumstances of course, but where did his loyalties lie? Did he have any at all? Did he want or need to return to whichever copy of reality he belonged to?
What would they do, what could they do to repair the amputated fingers, the ones that belonged to another version of the Bank Manager? That juicy little detail had come out while the Brians and the Ivans worked out the time-line between them and it filled in a few little details about how and what was done to whom, where and when.
That left Mike, and he was already known to George, who had been waiting sometime to find a new crime to pin on that one. He had a reputation and a history. He was not to be trusted, he was to be watched very carefully. The first time the bullets went flying? The chances that they would come from him would be nearly 100%, and the next one had to have his name on it. The only way that George would pull this off was if Mike was out of the game, he was sick right now, so now it had to be. If he was going the same path that Brian Prime had already been done then recovery was on the way, most likely, and despite the claimed fatal nature of this 'ailment' there was a remission or recovery period before the worst stages to come.
He could trust none of them but he needed to take action soon in order for justice to be served, for the criminals to be delivered, packaged with evidence and enough understanding of the crimes to not send them all to the crazy house with stories of time travel. He could not do this alone.

The only person he could trust, was himself.

Day 262 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 13.3 - (1089 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 13.3

“Did you have to do that?” Brian Two was tending to Brian Prime, and more than one person in the room was looking intently at the pair of men, wondering if they would be able to tell them apart when they separated. One of them was in severe shock following the release from his pain, and was curled on the ground and the other was leaning over him and trying to get him upright, trying to get him comfortable enough to finish the explanation they were waiting for about the other incapacitated man.
Ivan Two, the one who had been with Mike, the one who only now was realising all the pain and death he had dealt, believing in the ability to reset time, was permanent and real. Which meant he had killed the girl he had been sleeping with to get information about the bank. She had somewhat been forgotten about since the bank manager had piggybacked along with them on the jobs, but she had been there in the first few runs on the bank. He had shot her, executed her with not feeling at all.
The act of putting her out of her misery, seemed less merciful now and more cold, dispassionate. He didn't live her, she was a means to an end, but she was a real live human being with everything to live for. He had snuffed that out, in the world they came from, or one of the copies? Ivan had lost track of who he had killed and when. He was not keeping score, it was pointless because none of the killings existed.
Except he was lied to, supplied the most convenient of stories for Brian to carry out whatever it was that he needed to … Ivan was not even sure what it was the scientist was up to. Cancer, that was not cancer, dying of some … shit even that may have been made up. Barbara's face loomed up in his mind and remained there, transparently superimposed on his view of the two Brian's on the floor. He could still see which one of them was injured, which one was the lying bastard that drove all of this along. There was no way that he would let him not be brought to account, justice was a misnomer, but a settling of accounts, that would be real enough. There would be a small chance that he would confuse them all, he was a smart enough to see the potential in hiding in plain sight on the hope that we would want to spare the 'nicer' Brian.
Of course they couldn't kill them both to be sure, the way the machine worked no one knew except this guy, and the other Brians, they were … where were they again? He could conceivably get away with it, Ivan Tow was thinking, and that he should be snuffed out now. The lying prick had killed so many people, permanently for his own selfish, unexplained ends. What the fuck else could happen, why don't I just do it, do it now. Ivan hefted the knife and tightened his grip on it so hard the flesh in his hand went white.
“We need him.” Whispered Ivan Prime to his counterpart, seeing the rage and knowing what he must be thinking. After all he had been through it all in his own head before, when George first arrested him and the realisation that nothing was resetting, that things were not what he was told, hit home. The fear, the guilt and the shame at being fooled and duped so, easily. Willingly. The idea that he wanted to kill underneath all the deceptions, that was the truly fearful part. That would be the thinking that would follow with Ivan Two. “He needs to explain, tell us what the other 'hims' don't know yet.”
Ivan Prime let go of his other self, and then saw the grip loosen a little as the agreement was made to spare him. Ivan Two was not done though, he wanted to tell them apart, and the mixture of the Brians on the floor just upset him as the injured one was starting to come right, the flush leaving his cheeks and his breathing normalising.
“No fucking way.” He growled in gritted teeth and lunged past his other self with the serrated knife in hand, swiping the jagged blade across the cheek of the man on the floor, tearing open a line, a craggy mess of a line that rent the flesh all the way to the thin edge of the cut in his hairline near to his ear.
Brian Prime squealed in agony once more and flopped back on the ground, hitting his head hard on the solid surface. The other Brian leapt backwards, frightened by the speed of the attack and the blood that flicked up from the knife and the wound sprayed on his shirt, leaving a spatter mark that would stay in his memory longer than the stain would be on his clothing.
Ivan Prime stood back and looked into the eyes of his other self, saw the rage and impotence at being unable to deliver what retribution was desired, needed to be meted out. He nodded and then indicated the knife wordlessly. Ivan Two wiped it clean then held it out in one hand while holding the other open for an exchange. They swapped their blades so that Ivan Prime had the jagged, serrated knife and Ivan Two now held the small, sharp one in his right hand. Watching his counterpart steadily and seeing his own self reflected in his eyes he used him as a mirror of sorts and sliced slowly don his own cheek in a vertical line. Much cleaner and not as deep as the open channel he had dug into the arrogant and unfeeling scientific cheek, but deep enough and long enough to leave a decent mark and maybe even a scar.
Ivan Prime went to the kitchen sink and wet two towels, handing one to Brian Two, who with shaking hands pressed it over the still bleeding wound of the marked Brian Prime. The other towel was lobbed across the room to Ivan Two who, still silently, caught the wet cloth one handed and negligently wiped up the blood and covered the cut he had made in his own face with the cold compress.

“No fucking way any of us can hide.” He scanned the room with a fierce glare.

Day 261 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 13.2 - (1667 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 13.2

“We are at an impasse.” Brian Two said eventually.

“We don't have to be.” his other self said.

The men in the room went silent and there was no more said as they all thought about their options. Mike was still very, very upset but his body was preventing him from expressing it. His heart was beating fast, furiously throbbing in his chest while his vision danced and his body caved in to the symptoms he was experiencing.

Brian Prime came to the chair and lifted Mike's chin to look into his eyes, but he could see that the ability to narrow his vision, to focus on anything even something immediately in front of him.

Brian sighed and sat back on his heels, then sat all the way down on the floor and held his head in his hands.

“What?” Brian Two was asking, and looking intently at them both. “What is it?”

Brian Prime heaved a sigh and stood once more, shaking his head and walking to the kitchen area. He rummaged through a draw and pulled out a couple of different knives, deciding which would suit his purposes. He walked away with two, a small sharp bladed one and a serrated, rough and vicious looking one.

“What are you doing?” Ivan Prime stood from the table where he had been sitting and took Brian Prime by the arm, restraining one of the knife wielding hands. Without a word of collusion Ivan Two came and took the other arm before Brian Prime could react to the interference of the first Ivan.

“Let me go.” Brian's tone was not anything more than merely irritated, slowed down in what he was going to do. There was no anger or argument, it was an implied request to step aside and just leave him alone. The condescending tone he usually had was gone, the fear that drove him up until this point had been leached out of him when he looked into Mike's eyes from this captive chair.

“Not likely fuck-face.” Said Ivan two, holding the arm with the serrated knife much harder than he needed to, causing a little extra pain that dug into the numbness that Brian Prime was feeling.

“Just get out of it, please?” The please was out of character and in using it a little more of the fear and anger deflated again.

“Tell them.” Brian Two spoke up and he and Harold sat an watched from the table as the man in the middle did not struggle, not physically against the hold the other two men had on him. He had his gaze on the man tied to the chair, the man who was unable to look back at him.

“I'm just going to untie him, he won't be any harm for a while, and when he's better?” Brian chuckled to himself. It sounded harsh and mirthless. “When he is better, and he will get better in a few hours, then he'll … well he'll not want to hurt me until ...” Brian Prime did not finish the thought, left the idea hanging.

“You're saying he has the same cancer as you?” Harold sounded doubtful.

“Yes.”

“Really? That's hard to bel...”

“No.” Brian changed his mind, interrupted Ivan Prime's observation. “Not, cancer no. The same as me yes.”

Ivan Prime nodded at his other self and the two of them executed the self same move on Brian Prime from opposing sides. Each one slid their grips down the forearm to the wrist and twisted the new handhold they had in uncomfortable directions, each one causing the scientist to lose his grip on each blade, both clattering to the floor simultaneously as the contortions his arms underwent bit into his pain centre.

Ivan Prime let go first and picked up the smooth bladed short knife from the floor nearest him, while Ivan Two pulled his grip further and tied Brian Prime in a more difficult and torturous position, holding him upwards so that the weight of his body pulled against Ivan Two's hold, causing more pain, more grimacing.

Ivan Prime watched for a second, but no sympathy for scientist came, so he reached for the second knife only to find his other self stamp on it, inches from his fingers.

Creasing his brow he eye-balled his other self and the slid his gaze sideways to the agonised Brian Prime. “You can't have your fucking cake and eat it too, moron. I'm the same as you … retard.” Ivan insulted himself but he also knew that the conflict that his other self was feeling was one he had in himself. He did not want weapons in the hands of Brian, either of them. Not in Mike's hands and the bank manager? He was not going to be helpful. So the best place, the most trusted place was in your own hands, the only person you can trust is yourself after all, right?

What about when the other person is also you as well? That was an ethical conundrum and a brain teaser. Ivan Two saw Ivan Prime as himself, but there were differences, they had seen and done different things. Ivan Prime had crossed a line, a line that he himself would have crossed if he were in the same situation, but he never was and therefore never did. Now he could see that Ivan Prime was working with a different version of Brian, and there was Mike who was losing it, had been for a while and could not be trusted. The man who had brought him in on the job, the one who he had the faith in, the trust in and the one who he relied on, the one he thought relied on him.

But then he had left him behind, or more rightly Mike had left the OTHER him behind, the same person that he was but for a few hours of slightly altered circumstances. How could he put any faith or trust in anyone around him any more? Even in himself? The other version of himself, was he deserving any more than Mike was? What had pushed Mike and Brian to abandon him behind, and start afresh with me?

“Fucking asshole!” Ivan recalled the details revealed, how the reset was not a reset at all. Mike maybe had let go of the Ivan in the past, the one across this madman's body from him, and thinking that the bad behaviour would be erased and they could start again. Granted that was an insulting and abusive twist on their professional relationship, but it made a kind of sense. It was not meant to hurt or punish, just erase, rewind and restart. Of course if the shoe were on the other foot there was no doubt that Michael would not want himself treated so cavalierly by time and the notions of physics, but it was not ill intentioned.

Brian though, he knew that the machine did not do what he said that it did. Not the way he said it worked and not without the consequences of their actions being erased. He knew when he took them on this journey, he knew when he and Mike colluded to leave him behind. He knew all along that things were irreversible and irreplaceable. Mike wanted to make things, well maybe not right but better. Brian? Who knew what the psychotic scientist felt.

“Fucking socio-path.” Ivan Two moved his arms with a violence, and sudden heft upwards pulling Brian Prime's own arms beyond the limits of his joints. There was a snapping, popping sound as his shoulder nearest Ivan Two dislocated and the searing pain lit up Brian Prime's eyes and they bulged like there were being pulled outwards, to be dislocated like his shoulder had been.

With the job done Ivan Two reached down and picked up the knife as Brian Prime slumped back, forcefully pulled by his weight back to the ground. The new shifting in centre of gravity made the return path agonising, as painful as the grip and twist that injured him initially. He screamed in pain and rolled to the ground, causing more and more to course through him.

“Jesus, leave him alone.” Harold rushed to aid the sobbing scientist and moved him, not without gasps and cries of pain, into a position where he would be comfortable and rest without the fire of his joints lighting him up again. “Hold on.” he said but gave no other notice as he wrenched the man's shoulder backwards into the joint.

There was not enough force in it and the pain was blinding, the scream deafening.

“Again.” He said that as he slammed the shoulder backwards a second time, repeating the pop, snap sound and the pain switched to an immediately lower setting in Brian Prime's nerves. The relief was an ocean wave over him and he stood to clear his head above that water line, only to find blood rushing and shock keeling him over, blacking out and falling down.

A few seconds later his eyes flickered open from the floor where he lay. From that position he could see both Ivans standing either side of the roped up Michael and sawing away at the ropes that bound him. It took a minute or more to free him and as the last binding was undone, they stepped back to see Mike topple out of the chair and fall to the floor unable to move or support himself at all.

Brian Prime and Mike lay face to face a few feet away from each other. Neither one was in total control of their own fate, or their corporeal selves. However as the red eyed, tear stained Brian Prime looked sideways across the cold floor the bouncing, flailing eyes of Mike did not hide the smile as he could see the pain his newest nemesis was in.

Day 260 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 13.1 - (1085 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 13.1

Mike was angry, that was normal enough for him, the rage he felt inside was far from a unique feeling for him. His way in the world was paved by the blitzkrieg of his temperament. The thing that worked at him, gnawed at him was how impotent it made him feel in the moment now. He wanted to tear apart his bonds and leap across the room, grab the offending scientist by the throat and squeeze until the flesh gave up and tore, soaking them all in blood.

That image was dominating his mind even as his body screamed for release, he could see it in his mind, he could feel the slippery fluid of the man's life seeping into the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing. Gloved in the man's blood he stood in his own reality far away from the inability to move or effect any change. The ropes that tightened when he strained against them were causing an extra reaction in him, he was draining of energy and purpose in his body, the complete opposite of his thinking.

His arms and legs felt like lead in his clothes, and were he to free himself suddenly it was more likely he would have keeled over before killing anyone. This sensation was new to him, instead of the unstoppable force he became when his ire was raised, instead he was collapsing in on himself, he had become a hollow man, and shell unable to support it's own mass. His head lolled about on his neck, like a baby without the muscle development.

To the others around him it looked like he was having a fit, an episode of madness, sickness or blind rage maybe? Not one of them could have known of understood what was happening to Michael, he could not comprehend it so how would they be able to?

“Bastard.” he spat as his head kept flicking from side to side, the flecks of saliva doing nothing to aid the perception that he was losing it, was uncontrolled and blind with fury or insane.

Brian Prime sneered at the man in response, it was hard to take him seriously with no focus, no ability to present a credible front. It made no difference to his desire to keep the man locked up, tied down to the chair and out of harms way, there was the possibility of a ruse where he would leap up and take his price, exact his vengeance once the 'coast was clear'. So he was not going to take any chances, he was he going to let the bound man take the upper hand again.

“You have no idea what is going on, you don't have a clue. So why don't you just sit there and shut up and let the clever people talk? When we need someone punched, we'll call you... if one of the Ivans isn't free.” Putting him in his place, reminding him that he was replaceable, by more than one version of the junior team member he brought in. Adding insult to injury, Brian was doing exactly what Mike had been trying to accomplish.

Show no fear.

“Fucking kill you.” Mike stammered through the words but his head hung low as he could barely keep it level to stare down the scientific mind that taunted him.

“See? This is why we can't free him! One chance, that's all he needs and he could kill us all!” Brian Prime sat back with his arms folded, his case made.

“Except he won't though.” Said Ivan Prime, the one who was left behind.

“You just heard him!” Brian stared at the younger man incredulously, taking all the effort he had to not roll his eyes in disbelief. Pissing on the people who are on your side was not the most effective of tactics.

“You said he could kill us all. He said he would kill. You. Just you.” Ivan held his palms up to finish the sentence with a 'so what' gesture.

“Really? You think a man who could kill one of us, would not hesitate to kill all of us?” Brian was pressing his advantage but the room was no more sympathetic to him than it was to the strangely incapacitated Mike.

“Am I always this much of a douchebag?” Brian Two asked Ivan Prime.

Ivan Prime in turn considered his answer very carefully. Today had been a shocker for him, he saw the other him, Ivan Two, staring at him most of the time strenuously avoiding contact with him and keeping out of his way. He also saw that the man he was only hours before, days maybe in real time but not many, was very different from the man he was now. Ivan Two had the intellectual knowledge, the same as Ivan Prime, but without experiencing the fear and revelations that Ivan Prime had? That was a different person staring back at himself.

“I don't know exactly.” he said finally. “There are moments of 'douchebaggery' sure, but they are... when you get angry and frustrated I can see the similarities for sure. Only then though.”

Harold White cleared his throat and then raised a hand as if asking permission to speak. No one said anything or made any concessions, so he sighed and spoke anyway. He was out of his depth with the criminal element, with the men that spoke with their fists and rode rough shod over people who disagreed with them. Harold had his fair share of those moments, when in his chosen career he held life and death in his hands. Usually it was a slow death, but one just as shocking and inevitable once foreclosure or denial had occurred. The opposite was also true where his beneficence could be just as terrifying and controlling.

“So the only real difference is what? The cancer? Cancer makes you a dickhead that can't be trusted?” He pointed this at Brian Prime who scoffed.

“I'm just trying to find a cure, to save my life, I'm not killing ...”His voice stopped moving but his eyes widened slightly at his choice of words. He was not admitting to killing anyone.

“Look, it's not the same.” he started.

“ Really? You think a man who could kill one of us, would not hesitate to kill all of us?” Brian Two through his counterpart's words back in his face and waited for a response.

Day 259 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 13 - (1735 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 13

“He's awake.” The voice belonged to Brian, but to Mike's ears he could not tell which one. He opened his eyes to see Ivan looking at him, but which one.

“About time.” Said one of the Brians nearby curtly.

“Well you shouldn't have hit him so fucking hard should you?” This came from the Ivan in front of him, the one he had been with the last few days, by the look of him. Mike could see subtle differences in two men, one carrying himself with confidence and brash attitude, the other looking a little more circumspect, like he had seen something that made him think. The way Mike figured, the one who was full of attitude was his guy, and the other one? How come there were two of everyone?

“You shouldn't have fucking hit me at all.” Mike growled and at the tone of his voice every one stopped and turned their gazes to him.

“It seemed like a good idea at the tine, and now... well now it seems like a brilliant idea.” Brian, the one who had been standing nearest him, the one accused of hitting him in the head, he spoke. Brian Prime, the one who had been with them all along, or so Michael had to assume.

“Where am I then?” Mike asked after looking about the room, but getting blank stares in response. “Well?”

“Well what?” Brian came back with, a little braver than usual, because Mike was tightly bound.

“There's two of you, two of him and there's even another Harold White at home in bed, so where the fuck is ...me.” It was not a question. It was an accusation.

“Well.” Brian Prime said, and then sat down.

“There's a few things you should know, before we let you go.” Said the other Brian, his voice sounded the same but he also sounded different. Mike could not quite put his finger on what it was. Something was missing, or softer but there was definitely something not the same. Not exactly.

“We are not letting him go.” Brian Prime said categorically.

“It's not up to you though is it?” Brian Two said, with an edge to his voice that made him come a little closer to the image of Brian that Michael held. Was that the difference? Brian Prime was angrier? More fearful or driven? Something was pushing him to a tension and attitude that the other version did not have.

“Look.” Brian Prime was trying to sound reasonable but everyone could see he was barely managing to maintain the rage he obviously felt at not being in control of the situation. “I have been at this longer than any of you, and I have known Mike longer than any of you, at least in this scenario.” He nodded at Ivan to acknowledge the long standing relationship but neither of the Ivans Prime, or Two, made any challenge to this statement. Michael was not following how the dynamic of these personalities had changed so rapidly.

Harold White remained silent through the conversation, sitting at the desk and looking at his hands. Was he still being a pussy about the dead cop? It would all go away soon enough, as soon as the time was reset then...

Wait? How long had he been out? When was the reset going to happen? Had it happened already?

“How long have I been out? How LONG!!??” Michael screamed the repetition of his question, frustration coursing through him despite leaving no possible window to answer the query.

“Not that long.” Ivan Prime answered, the Ivan that had been working with Michael, by his estimation.

“But long enough.” Ivan Two said, breaking his silence with regret in his voice from the table.

“How much time have we got before we need to reset? How long has it been since the Cop? How long since we came here?” Mike was the only one who did not know and the look that danced around the faces assembled made him acutely aware that he was missing something.

“It doesn't matter,” he said out loud and referring to what he did not know. He just wanted to get the reset on the clock. Bring the world back to zero, so to speak and clean up the mess outside, then they could get all the pieces sorted, get the team back on a even keel. Get them back in line, get out of this chair and get them back on the fucking programme.

As he was thinking this the rage in him was rising, and it was impossible for him to not show the anger and violence seeping through his pores. Brian Prime struck out a hand and with a wavering finger of righteousness he jabbed it harshly at Michael. “See? You see that? You want to untie that? Let him loose on us? Is that it? I won't let you risk my life!”

“Tell him.” Ivan Two, the seated and more quiet of the two was speaking up. “Tell him the answer to his question. Tell him where... he is. The other him. Tell him that.”

Brian Prime went silent and looked at his shoes. Now all eyes in the room left Michael and were trained on Brian Prime. The look they all gave him was variations on a theme, the answer to that question about where the other Michael was garnered a strong reaction in all of them.

“Where?” Mike was curious more than angry, what was so bad that made everyone silent like this, even the arrogant Brian, Brian Prime not the more measured version of Brian.

“Where are all these extra copies of us coming from? Did you fuck up the settings? Is that why you rushed to get back here? To cover your own ass? Is that it? You fucked it up didn't you?” Mike was watching keenly for the response but there was none coming.

So that was not it – this was not a mistake?

“If this is not a mistake then...” Mike was trying to work it out in his head. “Then the extra people is deliberate?” What the fuck is going on? Will someone just bloody tell me?”

“Probably good you are tied up then.” Harold finally spoke and looked at Mike with a fire in his eyes. “That cop you killed? He's dead, and he's going to stay dead.”

Mike struggled in the chair. “All the more reason to let me out of this and get us back in time and get the mess cleaned the fuck up! Come on!”

“He is dead. All the other people you killed, we killed … well I say we but in reality I haven't killed anyone.” Harold sounded more despairing about that fact than he should have.

“Neither have I” Said Brian Two who then looked pointedly at Brian Prime, who blushed angrily trying to hide his face.

“How long have we been here?” Mike was not getting it.

“It doesn't matter how long we have been here. It never mattered how long each trip was...”

“Well it did to me.” interrupted Brian Prime, interrupted his other self.

“Yes, but your … situation aside. We never actually travelled in time. None of the crimes, murders, assaults and other messing about with people's lives, none of them ever reset themselves.”

“What?” Mike's voice was barely above a whisper. He didn't understand how this was possible, yet their faces screamed it was true.

“Brian, what are we calling you?” Brian Two asked his counterpart.

“Prime. Brian Prime.” He seemed embarrassed.

“Really? Jesus, get one fatal disease and I grow all pretentious too?” Brian Two made no effort to hide the distaste for the older, more affected version of himself.

“Fatal what?” Mike's head was spinning.

“We never travelled in time, we just jumped to a new copy of the universe based on the copy point. We moved on and left a hole of everything we took and everyone we hurt, but without us. Each dimensional copy we leave behind ourselves is a mess. A fucking mess. And the bodies? They're still there. The jewels? In each copy, the owners are looking for them. Ivan? That Ivan over there, that would be Ivan Prime, though maybe not to you, but anyway the one you left behind when he got all uppity? He was left behind holding the bag and the fingers all pointed to him.”

Mike felt faint. He was not sure what was worse out of all the things he was hearing, but he could see Brian Prime, the self serving scientist who lied to him, lied to him repeatedly and then... wait, what?

“So where is my copy?” Mike clicked that there was no explaining why there was only one of him, why the did not run into copies of themselves all the time, how did work?

“Well that is the question now isn't it. How many people have you killed today? I mean since you started time travelling in this day?” Brian Two was looking at Brian Prime, though he wanted Mike to answer, his gaze was fixed on himself, who could hold no one's gaze.

“A handful, I don't know? What the fuck is going on here?”

“Every time you have 'travelled' and not met yourself? It's because he, I in the future, killed you as part of the 'calibration' process, so you jump in and the versions of you in the new universe you inhabit? They are gone, displaced or removed or evaporated in quantum moment. So you killed what a handful? He's killed as many trips as you have made, times two for the each of you.”

The weight of that settled on Mike. There was one point though.

“Three, times three because we never saw any other versions of him, of... oh fuck. You. You are the other version? He's been killing us and making copies of himself?”

The full horror of how many murdered versions of himself lay on fabric of their altered reality sank in and Mike released every ounce of tension in his body and the ropes eased and hung looser for that moment.

Day 258 - Resurfacing - Chapter 4 - (1139 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

RESURFACING

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 4

Just beyond the piazza, in that yellow dress of summer and youth. She shimmers like a hallucination.

Which of course she is.

I know she is and in the knowing the delusion is less deluded and more, what? Guided? Perhaps? None of it matters, I am giving in to whatever and why ever I am seeing her again. The important thing is the seeing, the again part, not the reason behind it. It may be as mundane as a loss of sanity, or it may be as miraculous as to bestow sainthood on the ill advised. Either way, here now and going with it.

She has no grown, but that's my memory not letting my imagination fill in the blanks. Just as well I think, I could fill in the blanks and add the growth that comes with adulthood. A minefield for the unprepared, but if I imagine her as a woman I feel sad and out of place. The idea that she would have, blossomed, such a paedophilic word if ever there were one, is disturbing. When we were sixteen it was fine, it was desire and unbelievable in it's depth. Drowning in lust as a child and swimming in it as an adult though, these are different worlds I have lived in and they do not easily cross over.

I can't imagine her with full breasts, as a sexual being with needs and desires. Beyond what we felt then, and how we experimented with it, pushing whatever boundaries we could like we were the only people to have ever tried it before. We were inventors and surveyors working on no previous maps and uncharted territory then, but now only one of use has actually experienced sex.

I can't project that on her, she is a teenager and a child still but it's not about resolving lust, it's about reclaiming loss. So no breasts, no dripping thighs and heated passions as limbs entwine. The idea of sex with the woman I loved as a child, sickens me. As it should, I am slightly mad and delusional, but am not a monster nor a predator.

She smiles and the curses of modern life melt away with the sunlight dancing in between us. The unsettling sun is warmer than expected, heating the skin, the tightening skin of my forehead reminding me to find a Farmacia and get some sunscreen.

Sunscreen, another reminder of adult sensibility and responsibility.

The Piazza is maybe a hundred feet across and filled with people, but she stands out to me like the sun is shining brighter on her alone. The criss cross of folk on the cobblestones make no obstruction to my attention or my focus. She turns her back and flits, still visible and still recognisable, playing an obvious pied piper to my ears and leading me on to the next stop.

One foot in front of the other, tripping in unexpected movement breaking my pace and quickening it at the same time. My feet feel like they are dipped in wax, thick and sludgy with it's encasing warmth. It is a small distance but an impossible one as she stays equidistant no matter the ground I try and make up and no matter the pace I attain, fast or slow there she is a hundred feet away.

The tyranny of distance, isn't that the bane of the antipodean races? Here I am a half a world away and I cannot get away from being down under and so far away from it all, even when I am deep amongst it.

The horizon is not a line, not defined but more of an idea based in misty boundaries. At the pace I continue to move at the lines of people and vehicles in my way become more a danger than I am giving them credit for. Cars, bikes and larger things appear in my field of vision only to dissipate with each step in a new direction. Turning down an alleyway off the opposing end of the piazza from where I began I enter a Minotaur's home with no ball of string to find my way out. A flash of hair and the scent of the season is all I have to go on, the one or two exist of each maze like mini-street and alley confound me and I hope she knows where she is going, where she is taking me.

Doorways and walls are the bumpers and flippers than bounce me like a pinball, racking up non existent scores and meaningless bonuses that are generated by the moves of me within the game. This is so like her to take me on a mystery tour that makes no sense. I fly half way around the world, abandoning a life I did not want and a woman I did not love for a will o the wisp of a memory to lead me on a wild goose chase through Rome.

We're not even back where it started and yet.

I still run through the maze, hoping for the cheese of her smile.

Oh god? Do I talk like that now? Is this how delusional hallucinating makes you talk? Like a wannabe poet looking for meaning in small amounts of vocabulary? Or selling tragedy for a sound bite on the news, get short get quotable and get famous.

Madness is preferable yes?

A truck looms into my sight and screeches it's fear and reaction of rubber into the road near my body, which lurches backwards. And then it hits me how mad this thing is, this chasing after a thing I know not to be real.

I regret leaning backwards in the split second it takes to lurch out of the way and save my own life, but my first though is regret for taking a step back from my pursuit and allowing her to take the lead, increase the gap in reality never changes.

In reality? There's a joke.

My heart has leapt to my throat and panic has moved me out of my obsession for now. The truck is within an inch of my nose and I can hear Italian swearing coming from the cab of the vehicle and echoing with the Doppler effect as it moves in relation to it approaching and then passing me.

I am left standing in the road as the near miss has slowed to a halt ahead of me and the traffic behind it starts to concertina together to avoid rear ending the one in front, they have all been following too closely as I hear car up on car hitting the stopped vehicles in the front, and then I see the cumulative effect as they nose to tail, pushing each one towards me like a giant Newtonian cradle made of tonnes of metal and oil.

Day 257 - Resurfacing - Chapter 3 - (1141 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

RESURFACING

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 3

Italy

Meticulous, that was the word I was thinking of, meticulous. Everything in order. Not just in place, but in the right place, the right time and the right angle. Life was never this meticulous, never this perfect and never showing this degree of order.

That is the joy of hotels, the more anal and obsessive compulsive the better. Left to your own devices this kind of setting never presents itself without hard work and planning. The regularity and meticulousness of doing this as a daily task only comes from obsession or employment. The business of keeping it like this is the benefit and joy of hotels, even the ones that are only four stars, they have an edge over the flop houses, apartments and boarding houses of three stars and below where you rely on the cleanliness and obsession of the person before you.

You rely on their natures but you generally are sharing more bodily fluid that you want to admit.

I can hear the vacuum cleaner buzzing in the room next to mine, the adjoining doors between the rooms lets through only the lowing hum of the machine at work, removing hair, skin and fibre from the floors and the furniture. It's my room next and I am torn between staying for the performance, watching the artist at work and leaving them to the job in peace. What kind of artist really wants to be watched as they work their masterpiece? Only the kind where the art is not about the piece, but about the artist.

Cleaning as a work of art is about the result, not about the process. You can know too much and you have the temptation to shape the result, something most people do not take kindly to. Don't tell me how to clean, what order to do it in, how I could do it better? I imagine this is what it must be for any artist with an audience, you want them to appreciate what you do but there is a line not to cross.

The arrogance of the audience, I love your work but it would be better if you listened to me.

No, that is as mad as you can get. The art made to specification is not art, that is when it becomes design.

So leave them to their art, I do not want the cleanliness of my room to be sullied by the specificity of requests. So I must burst the bubble and take in the chaos of the outside, which I would definitely have to do at some point. My feet have already begun to tap to the rhythm of the streets, hands planted in my pockets and readying them for the cadence of walking to the beat of the streets.

There was a pattern and effectiveness to what seemed like chaos and imminent catastrophe. That was the thing about Rome, if you were uninitiated then it seemed like madness and everything was barely a split second from disaster. Those things, those worst case scenarios never eventuate. All the time I see people almost getting run over, almost coming to blows, missing the speeding train, bus or motorcycle in the blink of an eye all have the one thing in common.

Almost.

For all the potentially tragic outcomes, the shock and fear of the worst is the worst I have seen. Maybe I am lucky to have never crossed paths with the unlucky, maybe I am just blind to the misfortunes of others, but all of that is adding up to the pattern I think I have detected, the innate ability to dance among the moving parts of the city of Rome and survive within it's ancient boundaries.

Maybe age has something to do with it, the Coliseum, the Roman Forum and the churches that lurk over every corner with friezes and pastries of stone offering history for every meal. Every one of these things remind you how old, how much a survivalist the city has become in the millennia that it has existed. Home has barely a quarter of a single millennium, let alone it's plural forms. Where you would think that entropy has bent the city to it's will, instead you find the wise bones of a living thing.

The Eternal City, a cliché but one born of a singular truth. Eternal before it became old, it was named so in it's infancy, a prophecy of longevity if ever there was one. I wonder about my home town and can't imagine Sydney two and a half thousand years in the future. It's only just recognisable merely two and a half centuries from it's beginnings. It is one tenth of the age and has one tenth of the soul, and so this is where I feel like home now.

That's what drew us to the place when we were young, when we last touched we touched here. The circular notion of returning to what? The scene of the crime?

The cleaning crew have moved through my room with a CSI like efficiency, obliterating the diret and the detritus that I have brought with me on the short trip from the airport to the train to the hotel. Three stops after the antiseptic sprayed flight landed at Fiumicino and all I really have is some small dust and a lot of sweat, but it is still refreshing to hit the refresh button after my walk around a few small city blocks near the Roma Termini and come back to my room all cleaned and turned again.

I spin around in the space, looking to see I am alone, when I know I am.

The bins are empty and the beds are turned in neat corners ready to receive whatever they might in the Eternal City, the city of love and lovers.

Why am I stalled in my hotel room? What draws me to the neatness and the tidiness of it, that keeps me from finding her, from seeking the truth. She drew me here, and I hide in this dirty hole like a rat avoiding the sun.

Just like that the imperfections become visible and the room becomes painful to be in. The darted folds in the toilet paper rolls look like knives, cutting and stabbing at me. The bidet, functionally clean but a history of the most intimate of contamination that could ever exist, could it ever be clean enough now? It screams it's filth at me.

I need impetus and it's coming to me uncomfortable and raw, pushing me from my safe haven and back to the streets, despite the sun's retreat and the clouds that foreshadow a change in weather, I am out the door and breathing heavily on the little road that feeds scooters into the bloodstream of the downtown traffic arteries.