Something Cunning

It was morning: the kind of morning where it's bright and cheery with birds chirping in the garden. The kind of morning where rays of light filter into the kitchen with a warm hue and you think life sometimes is worth living. Sometimes. Unshaven but dressed for the office, Johnny noticed the shards of light. Like a man possessed, his gaze was fixed at the kitchen window. He didn't touch a single morsel on his plate.

"Johnny, you listening to me ?" Chrissy said whilst she busied herself with frying two eggs as bread flipped out from the toaster. Then there was the sound of tap water hitting the sink at full throttle.

Johnny blinked. Out the window was the oak tree, the one with the huge trunk. The shape normally hid there, like a wasps' nest. The first time he saw it or thought he saw it was a week ago when they lifting groceries out of the four by four. A characterless, shape that appeared for perhaps a miniscule before it hid. Or vanished. At best, it could only really be described a shadow despite the laws of physics saying a shadow could only be projected if light could bend or refract around it. So how could it be both transparent, and a shadow ?

"The Faltermeyers have asked to meet them for dinner Sunday night. That's sweet of don't you think ?" Crissy may as well have been talking from the next state.

"What ?" He was watching the oak tree, shoulders hunched.

"The Falter- " Crissy turned around. Donned in a T shirt, she hadn't combed her hair yet it still looked lush. " Johnny, what's up ? You look white as a sheet..."

"Sorry honey," he forced a smile. It took an effort to avert his gaze from the kitchen window.

" You've hardly touched your breakfast."

"I don't really feel hungry. Must be the office bug or something...".

"Maybe you shouldn't go in..."

"It's okay," he shrugged.

She returned to the eggs. "Anyway, as I was saying, Mrs Faltmeyer was asking me about installing an alarm system..."

"Oh- " Johnny said, realising he'd forgotten to take his medication. It was like a drug. He needed one now to keep him sane but not in front of Crissy. As if admitting a weakness, especially the mental health kind. He managed to break off, taking a miniscule bite from the toast. It tasted kind of grainy.

Crissy turned around again, he blue eyes squinting slightly. " Johnny, you know if there's a problem you can talk to me, alright ?"

"Sure..." Abruptly, he pulled his blazer, kissed her on the cheek hoping that she was thinking he was a typical male and not that good at communicating.

Outside, he took a deep breath before taking another at the garden. He waited. Apart from birds chirping and the soft bending of light against the trimmed lawn, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only his brow furrowed. "Ouch," Johnny grimaced at his hand, noticing a massive welt as if he'd foolishly touched a prickly thorn.

During his coffee break in the office canteen, his hand still hurt: the edges of the welt turning bluey -grey. As wisps of smoke drifted up from his coffee, he remembered how at school, they used to burst a blister to see whose was the worst. Now he new better, of course, even though he couldn't remember how the damn thing was there. Instead of one pill he took two.

"Boy, you look a little rough partner," Jeff smacked his tray on the table. He was a gorilla: each arm thick as a log. The tie and starched shirt seemed absurd given he resembled more a lumber jack.

"Hi, Jeff... "

There was the crunch of his toasted cheese sandwich. Noisy chewing."You look white as a sheet."

"Thanks..."

"Well, a tone of sarcasm," Jeff slurped coffee: " say buddy, that account I handled for you, it's gone through... But there's two new ones comin' in. How about we go fifty fifty on the next two ?"

Johnny was still looking at his hand, up turned. He needed to get some lotion.

"By the way, this new accountant they hired... This shitty bastard wants everything dotted and ticked." Jeff stopped chewing, his uneven eyes settling on Johnny. "You met him yet ?"

Johnny looked up and paused. "No... Not yet. Jeff, can I ask you something ?

"What..?"

"You ever had that feeling... Like when you start seeing things ?"

"What things? "

Johnny hesitated. "You know, stuff... Like when something's watching, about to get you."

Jeff leaned in as if he was about to share the world's biggest secret. In his element.

" You know what it is..? It's the friggin' company putting too much on us. One thing after the next, new systems, new procedures, new people... Wanting us to close on everything. Now let me tell you, how can you close on something that ain't open yet ? Oh yeah, and that shitty accountant. No wonder people see things... "

It wasn't the answer he was looking for.

"By the way," said Jeff. " Have I told you I'm on viagra now ?"

That night Johnny couldn't sleep. He lay in bed, hearing the soft breathing of Crissy as her chest raised and lowered in slumber. She'd given him that perplexed glance again when he'd arrived home but he'd played it down. Including mysterious welt on his hand. As he lay there, catching his own breath, gradually the sweet weight of sleep descended. A break from the monotony of thought-or dread.

In that haze only dreams produce, he dreamt of his school, seeing up close the cracks in the wooden fencing, the sounds of children playing and the face of a friend long forgotten now. Then it switched to Crissy; the first he met her and those curls in her hair, the smile with the dimples. She was saying something but the dream morphed into something up close: the old shed where as a kid, he and some friends had sneaked in some cigarettes and smoked them. He could almost step into the bluey haze of cigarette smoke, the smell of nicotine and the feeling of nausea on his first ever drag.

Next he was climbing a tree, hands clawing on the bark, trying to retrieve a ball stuck between the branches with the summer due making him squint. Only the branches moved and before he knew he knew it, it wasn't THAT tree but the one in his garden. He was trapped, fingers scraping against the bark. Try as he might, he couldn't move a muscle. An overbearing stench invaded his nostrils and when he looked aside the branch, out stepped formless. But real.

"You mean you screamed last night ?" his shrink said, scrawling notes on a pad.

"Yes," Johnny lay on the couch that had the odour of polished leather. He could hear the soft ticking of the clock. Given this was his fourth counselling session, he mused that he should be used to it by now.

"And you saw what ?"

"The shape..."

" And..."

"Well, I couldn't REALLY see it. It's a kind of shadow..." His shrink paused before changing the subject.

"How's your relationship with Crissy." Johnny sighed. They'd spoke quite a lot about Crissy, about how they'd been together for three years before his break-up. "Sometimes I think she'll see me as a fraud and go off..."

"I don't think that kind of negativity would help. Tell me more about the shape... Has anyone else seen it ?"

"No." Another pause before Johnny frowned. " I know what you're getting at Doc... You think I must be imagining it."

For the first time there was chink in the Shrink's stoicism. "You'd be surprised how stress manifests it itself. The signs are your over compensating." There was a turn in the conversation.

"Over compensating ? "

"Yes. It would seem the underlying anxiety here is about your fear of Crissy leaving you. Yet from what you've told me there is no sign she may be thinking this way. This shape you see, that no one else has seen, is symbolic of a possible chasm developing between you and her. That is why it's shapeless. Since you don't have any real idea of what could trigger a possible demise in your relationship, the chasm cannot show. "

"So I'm imagining it ?"

" In the physical sense, yes. But in an emotional sense, no. It's the concept of duality."

"Duality..." Johnny mused the word. " Doc, what if it isn't that ?"

Another pause.

"Then we begin again."

When he drove home the feeling of tension in his shoulders had dissipated. He sat in the car, mulling over what 'duality' meant before the old feeling of panic returned. Quickly, he turned around until his neck muscles strained, glancing at the oak tree in the garden. His gaze scanned it. Shadows stretched here and there but there was no sign of the shape. It was like looking into a piece of art, looking into it and trying to find something that didn't exist. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the little bottle of medication in his palm. Is that how he'd gotten the welt ? By twisting open the lid instead of only one quarter turn and pressing on the double click ? He was about to laugh, thinking he was so gullible. He saw the curtain shift with Crissy waving. "Gee she was a bomb," he thought, waving. Only something else moved on the second storey window. In fact, it parted the curtain.

FINISHES