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Setting the tone. Play while you read.

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The Morning After

The sun crept over the skyline and shone its rusty orange light over the bustling city of Los Angeles. Too bright, thought Robert, as he grabbed the cord and twisted, shutting out the light. He turned around dropped down into his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He flipped open a lighter and held it to the end of the cigarette and took a long drag after putting the lighter back in its permanent place in his pocket. He wore a grey pinstripe suit with a matching top hat.  

His office was luxurious upon first glance; various bottles of alcohol sat on a shelf on one end of the room, the remaining shelves filled with books, a couple of abstract paintings lined the walls, and a small end table sat in the corner with a bust of someone important looking. In reality, it was all cheap, and Robert knew it. It was a facade he needed to put on for his clients, he always hoped they would never look too closely at any of it.

Robert could hear some talking outside his office, and he knew it was only a matter of time before someone came bursting in.

“Hold on a minute, ma’am. I’ll be right back.” Robert’s assistant Ari, dressed in a tan linen suit, opened the door a crack and slid through before closing it carefully.

“Bobby,” Ari stopped, his eyes widened as he took Robert in. “You look worse for wear, Bobby.”

“Yeah, it was a long night”

“Oh, yeah, what’d you get up to, if I might ask? I bumped into you on the street last night but you didn’t seem to notice.” Ari’s voice whimpered ever so slightly.

Robert stopped to think. He spun around in his chair and looked at the window, blocked by the blinds he had shut previously.

“I’m not sure, Ari.”

“Well, must have been a long night if you can’t remember it,” Ari paused for a second, relieved. “There’s a woman here to see you.”

“Let her in then, why don’t you.”

Robert puffed his cigarette and put it out on the ashtray on his desk.

Ari left for a split second before returning, this time followed by an elegantly dressed woman with a distraught look on her face.

Robert blinked his eyes a couple of times and shut them hard, trying to get a sense of awareness that he was so sorely missing.

“Please have a seat Mrs… “ Robert had to curtail his annoyance.

“Mr. Wilkes, something terrible has happened,” she said.

“Well, that’s awful, but ma'am, it would most certainly help to know your name.”

Robert’s hand pointed palm up at the chair in front of his desk for an awkward amount of time, and he realized the woman had no intention of sitting down. She paced back and forth.

“Mr. Wilkes,” she said.

“Yes?”

“It’s my husband, Mr. Wilkes.”

“Please, call me Robert,” he said.

“Well, Robert, he’s been murdered.”

“Tell me about it.”  He lit another cigarette in his mouth and puffed out a few clouds of smoke nonchalantly.

“The last time I saw him was last night before he went out for a smoke”.

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Too bright, thought Robert, as he grabbed the cord and twisted

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An elegantly dressed woman with a distraught look on her face

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Murder

The moonlight spilled into the quaint bedroom, casting long, distorted shadows of the bed and nightstands next to it against the far wall. In the bed lay a man and a woman, sharing their own halves evenly. An open bottle sat on the nightstand next to the man, a recently put out cigarette hung off the lip of the ashtray next to the open bottle. The man’s body slid out of the bed carelessly. He stood next to the window, looking out on the moonlit street.

His eyes were glazed over, focused on nothing and vacant of anything resembling consciousness. Maintaining his vapid gaze out the window, he reached down and opened the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a revolver. The moonlight cast a menacing shadow of the man and his weapon over the woman lying in bed.

“What are you doing?” she said as she sat up.

The man seemingly ignored her and made his way to the door despite the fact that the room was draped in darkness.

“Oh no, not this again,” sighed the woman. She laid back down and covered her head with her blankets as if to hide from anything and everything happening around her.

The man stumbled out of the room and into the hallway of his apartment building. The carpet a gaudy red and the wallpaper an equally loud orange, doors covered the walls for a distance before a stairwell down the hall. The man slowly walked down the hall and reached the stairwell and in one swift motion opened the door and glided down the stairs. His eyes still lacked that purpose that one would typically exhibit when leaving their room in the middle of the night with a gun in their hand.

He walked out of the building and found himself standing on the street corner. Light rain came down and dripped off the scaffolding above him; puddles formed in the gutters and people walked along the sidewalk with black umbrellas and a sense of urgency preserved only for those walking in the rain. With his head locked in on its forward position, he turned to his left and walked down the street.  People brushed passed him, paying no mind to his dress or the gun in his hand.

The man bumped into a passerby, who upon doing so turned around; the passerby’s eyes lit up in recognition.

“What are you doing at this hour?”

The man continued to walk as if he hadn’t heard anything.

“Sir?”

Nothing. And with that, the passerby turned and went on his way.

The man doggedly marched on, still, his eyes glazed over. He stopped at an alley where a tall man was pacing back and forth puffing on a cigarette. The tall man froze, as the man approached him with the revolver aimed directly at him, his head slightly adrift as if he wasn’t even looking at the tall man at all.

“Hey, man, what are you doing?”

No response.

“Come on!”

The man walked closer.

“Say something!”

The man squeezed the trigger, and the tall man dropped his cigarette. It landed in a puddle by his feet. Seconds later, he fell to the ground, his head landing inches from the cigarette.

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An open bottle sat on the nightstand

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He squeezed the trigger

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Revelation

“OK, I’ll see you later”.

Ari walked down the Los Angeles street on his own. He had spent the better part of the night sitting in the bar with some guys who worked in the same building as him. It wasn’t often he went out, due in part to the long hours he worked at the office for Robert Wilkes, but the fact that Ari didn’t have many friends didn’t help much either. The rain lightly bounced off the top of his head and his shoulders as he walked down the street. He didn’t much mind the rain, it was a nice change of pace from the consistently sweltering summer heat of Los Angeles.

As he walked down the street, he let his mind wander. Deep in thought, he was interrupted when he bumped shoulders with someone walking in the opposite direction. Ari turned and recognized him right away; Robert Wilkes, his boss at the office. He feared initially of being seen by his boss in the middle of a work night but he knew almost instantly that Mr. Wilkes hadn’t noticed him. He had to say something, though, just in case. In case Mr. Wilkes had noticed him. Conversation was not a strong suit for Ari.

“What are you doing at this hour?”

That was a stupid thing to say to his boss, he thought. Mr. Wilkes ignored him. He knew he had embarrassed himself.

“Sir?”

Nothing. He turned for a second but hesitated. He looked back at Mr. Wilkes, who walked with an absent purpose down the busy LA street.

Ari was a very conservative, closed-off man. He minded his own business and wasn’t the type to go off the beaten path. He had always done what he was supposed to and what he was told to do, and so he was ready to go home and get a good night’s sleep to be ready for the next morning of work. Something felt different, this time, though. He turned and looked back at his boss walking down the street, and something caught his eye. Something shine, hanging on Mr. Wilkes’ fingers. He looked closer, but a crowd of people drifted into his view.

A rush of spontaneity rushed over Ari, and he pushed through the crowd to get a better view. He saw the moonlight glance off whatever it was that was in Robert’s hand. Ari followed him down the street, spotting him ten or fifteen feet. Robert turned into an alleyway, and Ari followed him.

Ari turned the corner and quickly ran back and hid behind the wall. He peeked his head out and watched in shock. Robert had a gun pointed at a man several feet in front of him.

“Hey, man, what are you doing?”

No response.

“Come on!”

Robert walked closer.

“Say something!”

Robert pulled the trigger. Ari turned around and ran, doing everything he could to wipe his brain clean.

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He didn’t much mind the rain, it was a nice change of pace

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He peeked his head out and watched in shock