Caffeine Dreams

"I got you some coffee, James."

I ran my thumb up and down the little white cup she handed me, feeling the side and hearing it screech a little. Styrofoam. The coffee inside was warm. Black, no cream or sugar. Pure.

"You dreamt about him again?" she asked.

I kept quiet. I had to submit this article about tomorrow's case before the proceedings tomorrow morning.

"He was really there?"

Rebecca asked me that question once a month these days. I'd be working late, until the sound of her throat being cleared distracted me. Sure enough, when I looked up, she'd be planted in my chair without asking. Several dozen black ringlets draped over a floral dress. Of course, she wanted more than friendship and coffee and dandy favors. She wanted to ask me about him. I always wondered where he was, too - but she had it worse.

"Rebecca," I said, making eye contact. Brown eyes, pensive, looking for a lot more than I could tell her. "We've talked about this. Let me work."

David Culmont, pleased to meet you. Over and over, he'd be in my dreams. Somewhere far away. Trains blaring their horns over a cliff. Lighthouses and sea-worn sails. He always came. He was always out there, somewhere on the edge of what my dreams were, somewhere in the styrofoam cup around the coffee that was me. Waiting for someone to take a drink.

"Just forget about it. I was tired," I said. "It shocked me. I thought you should know," I lied.

"And you should know that I talked to corporate this morning. They're running a full frontal of the crazy protests downtown for tomorrow's paper. The Robinson case won't have front page space until Wednesday."

"You did that on purpose." Her lips curled up at the ends. She pulled out her phone, and started digging out texts.

"So you owe me," half-looking at me and half-looking at her phone, "So what did you mean when you said..."

My empty styrofoam cup bounced off the top of the wastebasket, and three more teetering on top fell to the ground. Caffeine didn't work too well on me these days, or so it seemed.

"...that it was time for us to gather our dust? To air out our coats, push back the walls, and--"

"Time for me to go," I said, putting on my coat.

"That they're coming?"

"Thanks for the coffee, Rebecca." I would give her that much, at least. Any break from the Robinson case was welcome.

An overcast sky with the hints of a setting sun. The skyscrapers on one side almost seemed invisible, the sky's reflections blending them into the clouds. The protests bled into the streets and flooded them with people. Signs were held up to the skies as they chanted. The walk home was longer than it should have been, weaving around all the crowds. The people weren't happy. Rebecca wasn't happy--I gathered this from the paperweight she threw at me. Granted, I wasn't happy either. Life sucks, I guess.

Gather our dust. Air out our coats. What did that even mean? I didn't send those texts. Push back the walls. I woke up to a dozen confused responses. Mom suggests therapy. Dad said I need to get laid. An ex wants to get coffee. Dad might be happy about that. The rest of them just think I'm some loony freak. Nothing terribly unusual: just chalk it up to day drinking.

All of it the same thing. Gather the dust. Air out the coats. Push back the walls. Damn phone. Damn dreams.

"Did Tommy Robinson deserve these injustices?"

Damn prophets. The case dragged them out of somewhere. Some sect or religion, something under the streets. Bunch of dirty-clothed ragged homeless bastards trying to make some money off the crowds.

"Is this why we are restless? Is this why we hunt?"

Shoot up a hot dog stand, like this Robinson looney? Savior. And I'm the loony for sending out drunk texts without remembering being drunk.

"Then sin, sirs, and suffer your somnambulence, for the way to the light is clear! The way to the light is clear!"

Can't go into the streets these days without hearing them yell off their boxes. Echoing down the streets, blabbering about ambulances, sinners and saints. I suppose the last thing any of them are going to want to read is what I've got planned for Wednesday's paper. Good thing I got that extension.

Tommy Robinson. Don't let the name fool you--he's no whitewashed professional. Unemployed, thirty years old. Had his own blog on the internet, where he ranted and raved about the usual conspiracy theories. Aliens behind September 11th. Aliens behind the economy. Aliens behind the protests. Aliens behind the weird texts getting sent to all of James Cardin's friends. Aliens behind David Culmont's disappearance.

Tommy was starting to make a lot of sense, when nothing else sure did. When I got put on this editing detail, the lead editors asked me to scrape whatever I could off the guy's freak site before it got taken down. Find his family, relatives, whatever. That was the idea, before I realized they were all in some bum town in Missouri and hadn't really heard from him in a decade. The guy was living in the most disgusting apartment right above a record shop, living off welfare. Like I said--unemployed. Just posted on the internet all day. Real opinionated man.

They're coming for us. They're coming for us. They're coming for us. These are the works of Tommy Robinson. If I were to disappear, or something happens to me... it's starting.

That was something of a preamble. His site was real gaudy, bold yellow font on a maroon background, but nowadays you'd see it on every phone screen on the subway. Everyone wants to know what he was thinking--everyone wants to know: why does somebody shoot a hot dog vendor ten times in both eyes, and then turn himself in?

David Culmont knew.

It's why I'm here, James. He was right. We were standing on an ice cap, where the sky was full of fire and the ground shook, where planes stuck out of the ground like tombstones, where the horizon wasn't a straight line, but a circle quivering in the air. You have to join them. Gather the dust. Air out your coats. Push off the flame. They're coming.

"God damn these bullshit dreams!" I shivered, suddenly the road was back and the crowds were real.

"You seeing them too, brother?" a flannel coat and ragged beard reached out to comfort me in a hug.

"I hate you, David Culmont. I hate you. I hate you for all of this."

"So that's his name. So that's what we needed."

"Rebecca loved you in the end," I whispered.

The alarm blared: four in the morning. Car sirens went off in the street forty floors below, the air whistled through cracks in the walls, keeping the air dry and smelling like hot dog stands. Empty dreams shattered in those senses, black ringlets draped over a floral dress, laughing in my ears, straddling my lap, something insane, something lost. A faint stomping shook me awake, as sirens blared somewhere far away. A text from Rebecca lit up my phone screen.

Sorry about the late text, but I just got something from David. Are you awake? Can you get here soon?

Rebecca's dining table was covered in paper. The couch was covered in paper. The bed was covered in papers, the trash bin stuffed with them and the hallway overflowing with them and the toilet clogged with them--each saying the same thing:

Tommy Robinson is dead.

"Tommy... James, these are all in David's handwriting."

"How do you know it's his writing?"

"His messages to me always come this way. And... they smell like him. It feels like he was just here, almost like he is here."

"Does he... write you often, Rebecca?" I swallowed, and probably audibly. I didn't know about any of that. "How do you know it feels like he's here?"

"Well, sometimes little things, like he missed me, or... that's not really the matter at hand, James, I..."

"If that's true, and Tommy is dead... This isn't going to be good. Did you see the streets yesterday? They're obsessed with him, prophets going on about sleeptalkers, sinners and something about the path to the light. Something is bubbling under the surface."

The window shot open, and the wind blew in, blowing the papers all around.

"David?" she said.

The light flickered, and the papers were all dark red. The words were a bright yellow:

THEY KILLED HIM TO HIDE THE TRUTH.

"What truth? David, it's James, can you hear us?" Once more, the apartment seemed to quiver as thousands of papers glossed over with a single phrase.

THEY'RE COMING.