The Ruse

Chapter 8: The Ruse

 

 

 

           

Trevor liked the daily attention from her. Other friends, old and new even seemed to notice him since he was seen around her. Yet, they seemed less important. It still felt like time was moving fast, though he was having a hard time balancing all aspects of school and outside work. He wanted money so that he could go to shows and take his girlfriend places. He’d been to a show more recently that he’d gotten a ride to for a band called DieBrittanyDie. It was a pretty sweet gig to say the least. He couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy the struggle of earning his way there. After leaving to go home from school, he thought about calling Jamie and seeing what he was doing. He felt bad for not taking Michelle home, but she usually went with her Mom anyway. So, he pulled out all the stops and went to work on some lyrics. He wasn’t quite sure how to fit it all in, considering they hadn’t written any new music. But, that didn’t matter. The need to grow in an expressional sense took premise over the functionality of anything he wrote. He couldn’t help but write. He wrote about this notice of time. Stopping and starting, as if events and altercations were the marks of the passage of it. Coming out of his shell, at least on paper, it seemed. The sense of longing for happening and marks of being on the right path or a path at all were the largest form of solitude. Writing as he pressed pencil to paper. It wasn’t just this that reflected, but the arguability of it was that it didn’t have to. Each sentence was of a difference subject was all it took. Finishing up by dawn, knowing school tomorrow would likely be an average day, it wouldn’t even be tolerable not to with the bizarre outburst within his writing. The day after, school bells wrung one after another. He seemed to chase time throughout it, bringing himself closer to the end of the day. He tried to be nicer to Michelle while distancing himself from others. On the way home it was music in his ears as usual, boring through the students standing about. Wasting as much time as possible before their classes started.

           

Summer hastily approaching, hoarding all his books together and preparing to give them back to each individual class. Those things were expensive! But, all-in-all it had been the most exciting and catastrophically embarrassing year of his life. Trevor was ambling about outside the school entrance when he spotted Ashley. He decided to go-up to her since it was the next to last day of school. He had a soda and feeling of carelessness going on. She greeted him and gave him a friendly hug. He asked about Michelle and she elaborated that she was quite busy with family preparations for the summer. He thought he might try to get into something new this summer. Like go to more shows or find some parties. He said bye to Ashley underneath the afternoon sky and went home.

            Underneath the cover of his square room, dull and dry as it was, he actually felt like he was home for once. The bounding of the walls around him weren’t there. Pacing back and forth for about two minutes, he walked out the front door after a moment of anxious leering in the mirror and a glass of water. Briskly walking down the street towards the end of the road, he thought about trying Michelle’s house. Probably not a good idea with what Ashley had told him. Clueless, he headed out towards the shopping center nearby. As he walked up a small road that was a utility for businesses and storage facilities, he became aware of a strange man in an overcoat. Black, a black undershirt, black jeans, and black shoes. He was standing near a telephone pole and was just glaring at him from his position in the field. Trevor was at first nervous, then nearly terrified. Struck by fear or uncertainty, he pushed on-up the hill as if he’d seen nothing. In several paces, he looked back to his right. The ominous appearing man was standing adjacent to him just as he did before. He began walking again without averting his gaze. The man; likely somewhere in his late twenties, was moving almost reflectively along the roadside. Before Trevor could reach the top of the hill, he stood still. Looking down in hysteric confusion, he couldn’t bring himself to move any further onward. Whether in curiosity, or horror, he stepped back with a pivot to look again. He was still there beaming at him. Looking like he could turn his back at any minute or even disappear. He warily took a step, toward the roadside. The man’s expression didn’t change a bit. Another step, pulling his other foot parallel. Still no response. The reservation didn’t fade. “What am I doing?” He thought. “This is not normal.” Almost warning himself, he just couldn’t inhibit from this. He took an unwavering stride toward him, without a concern of danger or consequence. Mere feet from him, the man disappeared in the blink of an eye. No footprints or inkling of his overcoat swaying in the wind of the late afternoon. No optical illusion, it seemed. As he ran up to the place he had been.

            There was nothing there. It wasn’t as if he’d somehow gone invisible or something. He was uncontrollably fazed. He ran off towards the shopping center. Looking back the feeling of terror still lingered. Approaching from the back alley of a small restaurant, he really just wanted to get a soda from the drug store. Moments catered by silence. As he waiting by the counter for a clerk to sell him the drink. No avail. The store seemingly deserted. He paused, and noticed the cigarettes behind the counter. He felt he kind of wanted some. He’d never before smoked them from a pack that was his own. Hell, he’d barely smoked any at all. With anxious hesitation, he walked around the counter and grabbed the first pack he could. Holding the items outside the scanner; walking out.

           

Two minutes later he was walking up the hill to the utility road. He didn’t open his drink, nervous about getting flagged down by anyone before he got back to his residential domain. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and looked at them, doing the packing motion to the pack before shoving them back into the front pocket of his navy blue jeans. He began to unruffle his shirt before staring out at the sundown before him. “What if the store’s camera’s recorded me taking these?” He thought clutching the front of his pants, “Not to mention being on the other side of the counter for a brief second.” He decided he didn’t care at all. It was an exhilarating occurrence that left him thrilled. More so than attaining his own pack of cigarettes or… He looked to his left. Panic stricken, that man was once again there glaring. Somehow, his features were more discernable in the glow of the falling sun. Same outfit. Same parted dark-brown hair that looked like it was dyed in a hair salon in Manhattan. Same otherworldly visage that wouldn’t allow you to see his eye-color or expression. Fear turned to fight or flight as he unhinged his jaw with terrified vexation. “What is it?” He screamed with some vigor, “What do you want?” whimpered inside his head. No never-mind. He stamped forward ignorantly without precaution. He could see his feet dissipate within an instant preceding the rest of his body. Trev’s eyes were cast down. As before, the figure was not where it was standing. Charred by his acknowledgement of this. Harrowing as it is, the anger wasn’t fading. Suddenly, he looked around and he caught him. Looking like a statue many paces away on an embankment. Unsure of what to do he sprinted in voracious non-amusement and receded himself as he drew closer. Poised there, the dark character would simply glare. Unintelligible now to if he was looking at him. Instinct told him to approach cautiously. It didn’t appear he was disappearing this time. By now, the evening had settled into dark. It seemed to happen quickly rather than dusk overtaking the remaining daylight. Of course this didn’t really settle the inexplicable matter. He thought he might say Hello, but that was awfully polite for whatever was transpiring. Then, then man’s face lit with a set smile, “What might you be doing out here young man?” Taken a-back by his non-chalant greeting in such a peculiar spot he didn’t know what to say.

            “Um, yeah. I was wondering the same of you.” He muttered. “Well, it’s such a great night. I thought I’d see how you were.”

            “I don’t even know you….” Trevor said with audible tension. “Well, that’s arbitrary.” “How is that? I’ve never met you.” He’d never felt more troubled before now. “So what?” He asked imposingly. “Why is that?” he was asked. “Because if you’ve never met me then how would you know me or of me?”

            “That is the question. You have witnessed my power, have you not? Before as you followed me here, and I followed you here. Is it so hard to believe that I could already know you?”

            “I guess that would make sense.” He responded in skepticism. “Well now that that’s established.” He didn’t seem to notice the obvious dubiousness Trevor was giving off and not subsiding. “Do you know why you’re here? Or rather why I am?” He asked. “I don’t know. But, you scare me.” The man stalled. “You may refer to me as Don.” He likely thought that giving his name was a mitigating action. “Your point?” asked Trevor with lackluster prominence. “The interest I have in you is what you can choose to attempt or deny in effect.”

            “You lost me…” He murmured. “It’s not something I can explain to you.” The stranger growled with vehement expulsion. “Look.” It redirected with a restless sigh. Trevor had never felt so debased in his life but was so afraid of what to say. “I will include what you may not understand at this very moment.” Trevor was disengaged with this, in repudiation of the time that was actually passing. All at once he decided to continue…