Day 303 - Perfectly Executed. - Chapter 3.1 (1458 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.

PERFECTLY EXECUTED

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 3.1

The house was everything he was told it would be and Dr Edward Thompson was it’s only occupant. The driver left his bags at the doorstep, not even crossing the threshold and leaving immediately after giving the keys to the sole occupant.

“My phone?” Edward asked, more out of habit and a small concession to the nagging for it that would undoubtedly plague him in the following week. It would be longest he had been without connecting to anything since… well that last time had been also without his choice.

The driver said nothing, but a slight raise of one eyebrow and the stoic, passionless stare told Edward to not ask again.

Then he was alone, and still standing in the open doorway of a house he had not seen anything of. No tour given, no instructions left and complete isolation for a week. It would recharge him or drive him over the edge before the week was out.

He walked through the house, a large seven-bedroom monster, with a kitchen ready to cater for as many people if not much more and more than one room for entertaining himself, and presumably others when the occasion needed it. The kitchen was stocked with food and alcohol, the fridge set with fresh groceries and produce; they must have only just put this in before his arrival. The bread in the box was fresh and still slightly warm. Which meant there was a town nearby or some kind, this bread was not artisanal it was commercially produced even if was higher quality than the common sliced white.

He had spotted a rack with sets of keys labeled and hanging on hooks with various functions, things he had not yet seen or been made aware of. There was a boathouse, somewhere and a boat with an engine requiring a key too. From where he was situated it would have been below, the house was high and while not on a cliff’s edge that he could see the water was close, but dozens of feet below his current altitude.

He would explore that later; sure that boredom or curiosity would get the better of him at some point.

A sound system with complex controls was in the room between the living room and the dining room, and from it he could send whatever music he chose into whatever zones or rooms he selected.

Erik Satie played as he took in the view from the second lounge area, a mezzanine that took in the wide ranging view and massive window that ran two stories high, left to right across the width of both rooms, above and below.  He had not seen this when he had got out of the car; it had been to the left and angled away from the driveway and entrance. Forest and hills to the left and a sloping area to the right that had the driveway cutting through it, and beyond that the cliff where the land just appeared to drop away to the sea down below.

The music was just right, the view was amazing and the utter silence was unbelievable and it was an hour before he knew that he had been asleep again, sitting in a chair, his eyes flickering open and seeing the change in light outside.

A thought had come to him in his slumber; it processed in the half-light between dreaming and waking, the twilight of consciousness. The thought was elusive and dim now and every moment that passed he could feel it slipping away. If he was at home it would have been recorded on his phone or computer, and in the office one of dozens of whiteboards dominated with scribbles and half dreamed thoughts.

Here there was nothing, and no one to tell it to. There were no computers, phones or tablets and no whiteboards. No pens or paper, no camera or devices other than the Television and stereo, which had no connection to the world. There was a phone for emergency calls and he grabbed at it and dialed the lab, only to find that a recorded message.

“The number you have dialed from is currently blocked.” Said the pleasantly bland female voice from the system and he slammed the phone down in frustration.

The idea was draining away and try as he might he could not grasp it firmly enough to make it solid in his hands. He could call one of the team at the lab, but he did not know their numbers, not from memory anyway. The only number he could ever recall was his wife’s cell.

He dialed it in desperation, hoping against hope that the voicemail box would still be there, and that he could leave a message he could recall later.

“Hi, you have reached me. I’m not here, well I might be, but I am not answering the phone. Obviously.” The amused and playful tone of her voice shred the last thread of control he had left and the dream was done, vanished in the sound of her voice.

It was very late, very dark that night when he decided to try for sleep. The Television had been on and a documentary series had been playing for hours, without his watching it. The history of Jazz and it was a distraction and a soundtrack to his thoughts at best. It was quiet here, and though his own life was devoid of much conversation or noise, the complete silence in the countryside was aggressive in its totality.

At one point he heard the sound of an engine racing, faintly on the breeze carried over the fields surrounding him. Some local perhaps with a powerful car and a lonely road, opening up the throttle on his testosterone and pushing limits of his powerlessness.

That noise faded and the silence came back.

What was it that Samuel had said on the recordings? Light would always win the battle? This was true of noise and silence, the noise would be unbeatable, but as soon as it was done the war belonged to silence.

Silence was the absence of any sound, and he was taking philosophy queues from a madman in the dark of night, miles from civilization. Maybe he was more in need to take the time away than even he wanted to admit. 

The sky here was clear and the darkness almost absolute. A smear of ambient light from what had to be the nearest light source either the market town or the beach community? He knew the area vaguely, but having slept through the approach he was unsure exactly where it was coming from, thought it was likely south of his position. The house was on the east coast, so to the right as he looked out was south, and the proximity and size of the small smudge of coloration on the black suggested it was much smaller than the big city lights, some time away from here.

Pinpricks through the ceiling of the world, brighter and darker, colours dancing in the shimmer. This was remote and insulated, the perfect place for him to think or not think, but beyond that one choice it was the best place for nothing at all.

Whoever stocked the bar had good taste, expensive and broad enough in the choices made. The best of the scotch had been opened, sampled before and still over half full.

A dram in a glass, thin and held in one hand with no concessions of water or god forbid, ice. The legs ran the side of the bowl, and he stared through them out the floor to ceiling giant glass panes the two toned black of the sea and night sky.

His eyes were heavy and the documentary had reached the end of an episode, the credits rolling through the music and it was a good point to close it down and head to sleep.

Silence won out again, and he left it that as he came to the room, not turning on any lights, just stripping off clothes and laying in front of the balcony view, curtains open, but with only the sea and a distant blinking red light, safe in his privacy.

“What the hell, right?” the sound of his own voice sounded like an echo in his head and then he was completely nude, lying across the top of the bed, bathing in the light of stars and endless space.

When he woke, the sun was up and he had slept a dreamless and uninterrupted slumber, the sun high in the sky, and well past breakfast, heading to lunch.

He remembered nothing, just awoke, as nude as he had started his sleep, and alone as he needed to be.