Jolt

It was bright cold day in April and the clock was striking thirteen. Something had happened, a small thing. Barely a flicker across the vision. Faces, places, food, a weapon? A strange scent, a ringing in the ear. Names, words, gasps, sighs, regrets? Barely a feather against the skin. Clothes, fingers, lips, freezing wind, a knife?

Seated at his desk in the office, the young man retracted his hand from the grey handle of his half-full coffee mug and stared at it. The mug did not belong to him, no one knew who owned it, but had it just bitten him?

No. No, that didn’t make sense. It was a lump of ceramic, not a D&D mimic. And yet… and yet he had felt something, hadn’t he? Seen something? Remembered….

Was it possible to remember things that had never happened?

He tried to fix on any one thing, eyes unfocused, any one aspect of what he had just seen and felt and heard. If only he could get one, then the other dominoes would fall. Not all of them, dreams weren’t like that, they didn’t give you everything, assuming it had been a dream. But sometimes they gave you enough.

Just enough.

Other times it was like trying to taste clouds. A fool’s wish, a child’s errand.

Banishing the vague, half aware memory of a memory from his head, he picked up the mug and sipped. The coffee was nearly cold, barely warm enough to still be pleasant; grey was the only word he could think of for the taste. It was the kind of thing he expected them to serve in purgatory.

It was weird, how the coffee never stayed warm for the same length of time. But for some reason his thoughts couldn't fix on that. He tried, really tried to question if there was anything he had done differently compared to the previous attempts. But no. There was nothing.

Only the memory from a dream.

His only real question was what the dream had been about. It felt like a warning, but why hadn't he remembered it when he first woke up? He wracked his brain, but there were only the fleeting images, the slowly dying thunder of voices, and the memory of pain.

Physical pain?

No, no. There was emotional pain. Or was it physical? A knife had been in the dream. Yes he remembered the knife clearly, a gleaming steel blade and blood. That didn't make sense. He had never been stabbed. But there was the memory of the dream of pain.

He narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the mug again. Trying to understand what exactly was going on.

The clock finished chiming, and he took another sip from the coffee. He really should finish it before it cooled completely. Nothing worse than hot coffee gone col... how many times did the clock strike?

Alone in the office, he jumped up from his chair and ran over to the old clock. It must have always been there, must have. And yet, since when had he worked in a place with an old grandfather clock?

Imperfect, that was the only way to describe the clock, everything about it not quite right. One cannot evenly divide a circle into thirteen, still it had been done, and wasn't that the strangest thing?

Looking over his shoulder, he tried to call out to someone, but of course there was no one there. He stood alone in an office that more closely resembled a prison cell. Grey walls, grey carpet, grey furniture. Even the light was vaguely grey, though how exactly that was possible he had no idea.

And the clock had struck thirteen.

How was a problem for another time. He slowly walked back to his desk and tried to hit one of the keys to wake up his computer. Nothing happened. He tried again, pushed the power button, held it for a short count and picked up the desk phone (what century was he in and why was he so sure he had never had a desk phone?) to call IT when nothing happened again.

"Are you ready to talk now?"

Slamming the receiver down so hard it fractured the cheap plastic base; he fell back into his chair. The clock, the dream, the voice... what had the voice said to him?

The phone was still on his desk, looking as though he had never touched it. Trembling, he picked it up again and put it to his ear. "Mr. Storm," said the same flat voice as before, "you don't owe those people anything."

"Who are you? Where am I?"

"Trouble with the memory circuits, eh? I'll get IT to adjust them." Indistinct shouting then, clearly not to him. "Now, Mr. Storm, the sooner you help the Justice Bureau find your former friends, the sooner we'll let you die."

-0-

This story was inspired by and written for Liam Storm's excellent 1984 dystopian challenge.