Photo by MuZemike

Round 2 of Build A Story With Bryan is complete, thank you to everyone who participated and to everyone who read along as the story was being constructed. It’s a mysterious tale, with missed opportunities, missed connections, a foreboding light switch, and has a nifty shock of an ending. If after reading, you’re inspired to comment and/or come up with a title, I’d love to hear everything.

While the record changed, he noticed his right hand moving independent of where his brain had told it to go, instead of adding ice to her drink it was reaching for the light switch that had appeared where one hadn’t been before. All he could see was the light switch case. There was not a switch to turn on or off. Yet as his hand came closer to the switchless case, the lights flickered like a strobe light in some old fashioned long forgotten disco hall.

It was at that moment he could feel the hair on the back of his neck raise and the realization set in that he was not alone. He hoped that the outdated wiring in the abandoned warehouse he called home was on the fritz again, but it was hard to convince himself that it wasn’t something more sinister. Strange things like this had been happening to him ever since he’d met Seren Grossmann for a drink at Nando’s last Tuesday. He put the ice in her bowl, filled it with water and set it down. Angela was there immediately. She was thirsty. He watched her, but his thoughts returned…to last Tuesday.

The heady combination of the scent of Nando’s piri-piri wafting from the kitchen, the rioja in his glass and Seren’s smoldering eyes nearly caused him to succumb to her charms, AGAIN! Why was it that he agreed to see her whenever she asked, despite what she’d done? He was only saved from her by the ringing of his mobile. Hmm, a blocked number, he thought, and considered not answering, preferring to lose himself in those eyes.

“Did you bring it?” she asked with a purr, caressing her glass stem with the innuendo of an ambulance siren. “And if you did… how much do you want for it?” Her mouth was all business even if her eyes wore dance shoes.

“Yeah I brought it. But if I’m going to hand it over,” he continued, “There’s a price you may not be prepared to pay.” Her eyes continued to dance as her mouth remained in the ever so slight grin while remaining silent—she knew him well.

He rooted it from his pocket, placed it next to his glass, and froze. He had wrapped it in velvet to be sure, but this was no longer the same object he’d brought. This object was rectangular. He unwrapped it, revealing a switch plate discolored by time, the switch rising from the beige plastic like a child’s bony finger. Without intention, trancelike, they both began reaching for it.

They were interrupted again by the ringing of his mobile. As he pressed the button to answer the call, he caught a glimpse of Seren’s golden hair disappearing out the door. She knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation. He would ring her and ask her to come back, and when he did she’d have the power to make him do anything she wanted.

“Damn,” he thought. After a brief static, an electronic telemarketer.“Double Damn!” he shouted and hung up. She’d taken the switch plate and the velvet he’d wrapped it in.

On the street, she hurried her pace. “Let him call,” she thought and caressed the child’s finger through the cloth. “It’s mine now. I’ll do what I want.” She took a corner and joined the darkness.

She wasn’t prepared for what she saw around that corner, and she wondered how the fat man had tracked her to this dark, lonely byway.

Angela continued to lap at her bowl, bringing him slowly back to the present without blinking. He hadn’t seen nor heard from Seren since that night. Angela crunched the ice cubes between her teeth, a familiar sign the water was gone. So when she began to lap again, it drew his attention… to the bottom of her bowl where a switch plate lay.

Her tongue caressed the switch without moving it. He knelt and lifted the bowl from her reach.
He carried it out of the light to the massive industrial windows and their grace of Manhattan across the river. His sadness was reflected in its shadows. Its creases were his; the decay, the thinning, the theft. He was old enough to go now. The switch would do the work. His fingers had already found it.

He closed his eyes… and flipped it.

But everything remained. He breathed deeply and looked. The city still there, Angela still rustling behind him. But slowly his focus shifted to his reflection and the young man staring back in disbelief.