INITIUM NOVUM: Part 1 (2 page)

The young man looks over his right shoulders.
There is a feeble looking older lady with a walker coming up strong
behind him.

“Oh shit,” he says to himself, in the brief
faction of a second that it takes for him to see the impending
situation. On his far left, the ding-dong signifying the closing of
the train’s doors rings. The very train he needs to be on will be
leaving in a matter of mere moments.

Before he can make a decision, it happens. The
fat man comes barreling towards him and bumps into his arm.
Unintentional reflexes in his forearm cause his hand to tense up,
squeezing the cup of coffee so that the lid pops right off. His
elbow is now bent beyond ninety degrees. The coffee is swishing,
gathering in a small wave, ready to be sloshed out of the top.
Luckily, he had poured a few ounces out just prior to descending
the subway’s steps. This freed space inside the cup buys a few
milliseconds of time, but not enough time to change the course of
the near future.

Time slows almost to a standstill. It’s as if
some divine and merciful entity has granted him the opportunity to
control the outcome of this situation. If the coffee splashes on
his shirt, he will most definitely not get hired by the prospective
employer he was on his way to see. Something in his gut tells him
that he really needs this job; it might be his last employment
opportunity in a long while. The second choice would be to move out
of the way and let the hot liquid spray across the old lady’s face.
This would be horrible, as he can feel the heat stemming from his
hot drink. His guilt consumes him as he ponders the scenario. The
very idea of scorching the poor, old lady’s skin turns his stomach
and breaks his heart. Finally, prompted by necessity, he makes an
unexpected action, an option he did not know was available. It all
happens very suddenly; as spontaneous as a nerve twitch. The
tensioning of a bicep and the swift flick of his wrist snaps his
hand open. His fingers abandon the cup, letting it go completely.
The cup falls, turning in the air and landing on the man’s belly
like a Styrofoam missile. The hot liquid soaks the fat man’s shirt
causing it to instantly cling to his large gut.

“Ahh, that’s frickin’ hot,” he
bellows.

Without a second thought, the young man takes
off towards the train, the faintest echo of its closing ding-dong
still in the air. The fat man chases behind him, albeit not as
fast. The young man barely makes it, sliding into the car just as
the doors are closing shut. Catching the fat man’s eyes, he mouths
“my bad,” hoping that his apology will make up for the hot coffee
he had just dropped on him.

As the train is taking off, he suddenly
realizes that his breakfast sandwich is no longer in his
possession. The train begins to depart and pick up speed. But just
before the station is no longer visible, he sees the old lady with
the walker. The one he had saved at the fat man’s expense. Tunnel
vision strikes him as his sight zooms into towards the ground near
the lady’s foot. He watches as her shoe introduces itself to the
sandwich with a squishy, warm embrace.

“Oh shit,” he says to himself, somewhat aware
of what’s going to happen.

The lady with the walker slips on the
sandwich. Her foot slides, she loses balance, her other foot comes
down and steps on the sandwich next. The walker comes off the
ground, she spins, and finally lands hard on her back after being
airborne; both feet having left the ground for a split second
before gravity beckoned. Never having let go of the walker, the
metal walking device lands on her top of her chest vertically, then
topples over, crashing on her head. Needless to say, the old lady
will be there, on the floor, for quite some time. The station
disappears from view as the train enters the darkness of the subway
tunnel.

The young man leans against the door, takes a
deep breath and releases it with a long sigh. Replaying the entire
event in his mind, an unexpected emotion rises in him. He takes
another deep breath, trying his best to fight a most cruel and
horrible urge that is growing inside him.

Go ahead, laugh.

He hears the sound from earlier again. This
time it’s a faint whisper. Looking around, he sees that there are
no passengers close enough to him to have produced it.

He shakes his head.

No, he won’t laugh he tells himself. It’s not
funny. An old lady might have been seriously hurt. There’s a good
chance that she broke something when she hit the ground. At that
age, such an injury can be fatal. No, it is no laughing matter; no
laughing matter at all.

He shakes his head.

Still…

The unexpected image of the old lady in the
air flashes into his thoughts, reminding him of cartoons and the
injuries they sustain.

A snicker escapes. Then a chortle, followed by
a fake cough into his fist, intended as a cover up. A few people
look toward the noise. He tries to fight it but soon he’s laughing,
plainly and enthusiastically. The other commuters look at him
disdainfully, shooting him dirty looks every couple of seconds.
Most of them know what he’s laughing about. They were there too,
after all.

A young female dressed in a very stylish
business attire and expensive looking heels, maybe in her late
twenties, mostly likely in her early thirties, takes notice. Having
been seated near a window, she, like many other passengers,
witnessed the scene. A small grin begins at her lips. She holds the
smirk in and looks away, but the only other things to look at are
other passengers and the darkness of the tunnel outside of the
window. Her eyes land on him again. This time a half smile appears.
Then a full one. The young man, now straightening up and catching
his composure is oblivious to the young, beautiful woman who, at
that very moment, is taking a liking to him.

He looks around for an empty seat. The one
near the smiling female is semi-available.

Go to her.

He walks over and motions at her purse, which
is sitting on the seat. Just a stop before he had entered the
train, the lady had refused to move her bag for a hipster-looking
gentleman, but this time, she has no objection to moving it. A head
nod and courtesy-grin later, the two are sitting shoulder to
shoulder. He looks down and slightly to the right, his eyes land on
her crossed legs.

Touch her.

At this point, the voice begins to worry the
young man to the point where he briefly questions his own mental
state.

Imagine that: touching a stranger for no
reason; a pretty, young stranger at that. “And touch her how?” He
asks himself. The idea is ludicrous. He looks at the lady, their
eyes meet. She smiles coolly. He smiles nervously. Without actually
deciding to, his left hand slowly glides over his lap and lands,
gently, but also very awkwardly, on her knee. As he awaits a
reaction, his mouth hangs slightly open and his eyebrows are
semi-arched in what seems to be confusion. The expression on his
face is, in a word, dumb. He cannot believe he’s followed
directions from a voice that only he seems to hear. Anyone with any
sense knows that listening to voices in one’s head is a sure sign
of mental illness. The young man knows this too. Still…

Taken aback is too strong of a term for the
lady’s reaction to the stranger’s touch. She looks at it with one
brow curved, almost in an arch, but a bit more nonchalant. The grin
which had been on her face evolves into a full smile. A scoff
escapes from her mouth.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She
asks.

He retracts his hand quickly, shrugs, and
offers her a smile rooted in sheer embarrassment, the kind where
the lower lip tenses across the jawline.

The only excuse he can think of is, “I don’t
know,” and he says it with a nervous chuckle. “I’m sorry, I don’t
know what I’m thinking about.”

“I think you know exactly what you’re thinking
about. Don’t get shy now. What’s your name?” She asks
him.

This surprises him. He tries to answer her,
but his attempt results in him drawing a blank, again. He does not
know his own name so he stares dumbly at her as she waits for his
answer.

“Okay… Are you high?”

“No… I don’t think so,” he answers.

“That probably means, yes.” There’s a giggle
and an eye roll as she says this. “In a suit too? I hope you’re not
on your way to work.”

“I’m not high,” he responds.

“So, you don’t want to tell me your name
then?”

“I want to tell you my name, but—

“But?” She interrupts me.

“I don’t know it,” He tells her.

She scoffs.

“You’re high,” she says, so very assured that
her words are true.

Don’t tell her even when you do
know.

This time, there’s no hesitation when it comes
to heeding the voice’s instruction, despite the madness in it all,
because there is nothing he can do to disobey the voice. The matter
is out of his hands. Still, he looks for a different channel,
different option. His endeavor is to no avail. Looking around the
subway cart, he takes notice of nothing which can help him invent a
name. The train begins to pull into the next station.

“This is my stop, stranger. I have a sudden
detour before work.”

“Can I have your number?” He blurts
out.

No. Pull back.

“You are so not my type. But, I don’t know,
fuck it, I guess,” she says, reaching into her purse and handing
him a pinkish-beige business card with a golden script font printed
on both sides. “When you remember your name, call me.”

“Sure,” he says, taking the business card from
her.

They smile at each other before she walks out
of the train car and across the platform smiling because she likes
him; but, in being quite frank with herself, does not understand –
for the life of her – why she likes him or what is it about him
that she likes. He just feels very familiar to her. Sure, he’s an
okay-looking guy, but that cannot be it. The girl is used to
model-caliber males fawning over her. And in all actuality, she
prefers a more thuggish look to her potential courters, piercings,
tattoos, and the like; he possesses none of these qualities.
However, she did like that he might have been high, as she has
never been able to help the fact that she is drawn to a certain
type: losers, derelicts, criminals, delinquents, and
etc.

The girl’s business card reads:

Laura Cohen

Assistant to the District Attorney

New York County

(212) 114 1986

Obviously, Laura is older than she appears to
be. However, the irony, which escapes the young man, is the fact
that Laura Cohen has a specific type, unbeknownst to the young man
with no name at the moment. That specific type happens to be the
very kind of people she has built a career upon, the dredges of
society. It is unclear whether her type is a result of
over-exposure to the certain men encountered in her work day or if
her career is a result of her gravitating towards her sexual
interest. More importantly than it being unclear is it being
unimportant. The fact that is of note is that, time after time, her
type has fallen to her will in the courtroom. As a general rule of
thumb, she usually has her way with men, whatever her way might be
at that moment. Men either love her, getting their hearts broken
along the way, or they hate her and she break their hearts in a
different fashion.

Still at a lost over what his own name might
be, the young man ponders over the possibility that he had recently
ingested some memory impairing substance. A random series of
thoughts form a train and lead him to suspect that perhaps the lady
was right and he indeed is high.

No… He shakes the thought from his head. If he
were high, he’d know it, he’s sure of that. Besides that, he was
most likely busy last night with something important. An instinct
buried deep inside of him reaffirms his belief that yesterday he
was surely preoccupied. With what exactly? He couldn’t say, even if
he wanted to.

The downtown-bound train pulls into yet
another station. Rising from his seat, he steps out of the subway
car and ascends the staircase leading to the surface. Walking
absentmindedly, his feet take him to his yet to be discovered
destination. When he finally becomes conscious of where he is, he
figures that he has made some type of mistake. The sight before him
cannot be right. Logic dictates that there is no way he has an
interview there, at the location his feet had placed him at. What
position could he possibly hope to attain there at a newsstand? A
shabby little hut under the Brooklyn Bridge.

“This is bullshit,” he says loud enough for
those passing by to hear him. In addition to his complaint, his
empty stomach growls. For the first time since the incident, he
thinks of the old lady. More specifically, he thinks of the
breakfast sandwich which probably killed her.

Go to her.

Looking towards the newsstand, he sees a young
brunette staring at him, so he goes to her...

CHAPTER 2:

It can be described only as luck that the
train she needs to be on arrives just as she reaches the platform,
coinciding perfectly with the pace of her gait. The doors part, she
enters, the doors close behind her, and the train takes off. The
station which it departs from is calm with nothing occurring which
can deemed unusual. Commuters bustle to and fro accordingly, in no
particular rush, patient and unhurried. The ambiance at the scene
being the exact opposite from the one she heads to, the same one
she had only but a small chance to take in the first time
around.