When you close your eyes at night, what do you see? Some people see their dearest thoughts, some people dream of solutions that they could not solve in the day, some even dream of things that they could have done. However for people like me, we are trapped within the walls of this reality where everything is real. Every dream we see is an image of what will be or what has been, to the extent, it becomes hard to differentiate. We have been taunted, teased and even labelled mad. It’s a sad life for us, to see of what will be and to be utterly powerless to stop it.

I learnt it the hard way: Fate is unstoppable.

I dreamt a while back, how an armed robber ran into a twenty-four hour shop. He had panicked and shot three customers, the shopkeeper escaping barely unscathed. In the dream, the customers that he had shot passed away. So that was how it happened, how it was meant to be. I was only eighteen then, just realizing the power of my dreams. I was eager to help people. I had always wanted to make a difference in the world. What I did not realize was that Fate, despite my good intentions, will always find a way into the path that had been carved for it. Fate was like a typhoon and I was the girl trying to stop it from destroying the crops with my bare hands.

That was all a good five years back; now I sit in a grubby computer chair with files and a filthy coffee cup as a companion. Not that the dreams had gone away or have even eased off; I simply chose to pretend they didn’t exist. It was hard at first. I cried often to see people get shot, killed or murdered. It was hard to stop myself from calling the police to tell them who the murderer was. It was a hard lesson I had learnt five years back and it was then I swore never to acknowledge such dreams were ever real. Previously I’d have loved to be a policewoman – a crime scene investigator as a matter of fact, since I would have been likely to have had seen the scene in my dreams. All I would have to do then is to push the meagre investigation skills that humans currently possess and attempt to pin point the culprit.

Some people call us seers, prophets, diviners, whatever they wish. A larger population calls us mad, crazy psychotic, delusional. That’s the fine thin line. Sometimes we are driven senseless with all the guilt of doing nothing but possibly being able to do something. To me, doing nothing was as good as committing the crime and I am pretty sure it goes around the same for the rest of us with this abnormal skill – not that I have met anyone else with such. Not too long ago I have read in the newspapers though about some local wrote letters regularly to the police on the crimes with even the crook’s name and a brief description of the person. Apparently one of the biggest flaws in his plan was that these offences had yet to occur. This led the police to believe that the local was an accomplice seeking revenge and eventually he was handcuffed and was to be jailed for an awfully long time. A much later report on that local was that he continued to ramble on even in jail before committing suicide. Whatever that happened later made me count my numerous blessings that I had managed to make a narrow escape, though it consequently led me to wonder what I would have done had I fallen into the same consequences.

“Elaine!”

That’s my name and that’s my boss yelling for me. I should be grateful to him for even take me in after that incident five years ago. Well, not to say I wasn’t, it is just that he’s overly nit-picky. The company I work for is a shipping company. It’s always filled with stacks and stacks of paper. Just a whole load of accounting crap: receipts and orders. Any further elaboration on my side would just bore you to death. Like the rest of the office, his workplace isn’t any neater. Coffee stains litter the once pure white wooden table. Perhaps it is that ‘art deco’- so he calls it- that he hangs on the wall that makes his cubicle somewhat more presentable. I would like to think it is that smooth silver ultra thin computer monitor that perked the place up.

I watched that entire bubbling fat jiggle as he opened that wide trap he called a mouth. Mister Lewsky also known as The Boss is one of the fattest people I’ve met. He has three layers of skin for a chin and barely a neck. His teeth are yellow from his many years of cigar smoking, which is very noticeable from the second you enter his office. His fat fingers drummed on the table indicating that he had finished reprimanding and was waiting for a reply.

“Yes, sir, I will do it right away!” I attempted to tinge my voice with a little enthusiasm to avoid getting reproached for ingratitude.

“Elaine, I told you when I took you in. I didn’t care about your past, but still!” I had to suppress that strong urge to roll my eyes. Surely if one did not care about one’s past, one would not have to drag it up at every lecture. He was likely to have been more than happy to accept a former honours rolls student into his company. “Alright, you may go.”

Outside his cubicle, I breathed a sigh of relief. Janet gave me a faint smile from her mountain of file work. It is that all-knowing smile that says “better you than me”. Janet and I got along as good as a cat and a dog would have. We do help each other out once in a while, but it was a pretty much a common fact that Janet would have preferred me not to be around. Beside my brilliance, she felt small and inadequate. How could one worked beside me and not have? I was student who scored top results for every test and exam I sat. I was the student who aced my projects, the person everyone wanted to be back in high school. Back then; I was not a student of that high school but The Student. Teachers loved me, students loved me, and even parents loved me. Yet, all that had come and gone.

I looked around taking in the notches of dirt and messiness. Not too far back, I sat at my small table in school dreaming of working in a large international firm, sitting in a sparkling clean room that ought to have been the size of this filthy place. I dreamt of managing a company that was thrice the size of the staff of this dingy firm. I once had scholarships to the top colleges, companies clamouring to hire me once I came out of high school and even college. In actuality, I found my friendships superficial then. People who stuck to me were there either to copy from me or try to appear popular. I never did mind it back then. It took just one incident to show me who my real friends were.

The incident really did ruin my future.

Depressed, I returned to my shabby table and worked like majority of the working human beings – mechanically, not thinking much. It was five thirty sharp when I stood to leave. Over the years I’ve developed that undesirable clock-watching habit. It’s hard to stop with when everyone does it. I wondered for the umpteenth time what life would have been if that incident had not have happened. The rapidly cooling air and the buzz of people leaving met me as I stepped out of the building. I watched people in their beautiful cars drive past. They had that snobby air that I could no longer afford to have. They had that snobby air that I once had. I slid onto the cold metal bench, waiting for the bus. Did it really make that much difference? Everyday I asked myself that question. I felt unappreciated despite the things I had tried to do. I closed my eyes briefly, the scene replaying in my head over and over again. Had I not saved lives? It was in those brief twenty minutes that I never forgot. A tear slid down my cold cheek.

“Oh God, why have you cursed me with such a vision?” I asked, burying my face in my palms.

He ran out of the dark alley, swiftly cupping the lady’s mouth and placing the knife at her throat.

“Scream and I swear you won’t live to see the daylight. You understand?”

The lady mutely nodded, reluctantly allowing her to be dragged into the dark alley.

“No, please don’t!” The lady’s voice from the dark alley floated up.

“No, no more,” I begged as I struggled to rouse from my slumber. I bolted upright gasping. My pillows must have slid off my bed while I was thrashing about in my sleep. Outside, dawn had yet to appear. Deciding I was much too awake to return to sleep, I made up my mind to take a stroll around the neighbourhood. The apartment I live in was nothing like what my parents’ home was like. My parent’s home was a house by itself. It had a yard with two big trees in the back yard. It was a pain to clean up during the autumn season. Yet I missed it badly, I missed them badly. Here I was, in a city many miles apart. I can still remember the last thing my mum said to me as she pressed a white envelope filled with money into my palm.

“Get as far away as possible from me. Don’t ever let me see you again.” Parental love. What a joke.

My parents are perfectionist. They married young, had kids young and pretended to have the best marriage anyone, who would bother, would envy. Needless to say, they wanted perfect children too. Maybe I should have mentioned, I had a brother, Mike was his name and he was the dearest to me. Had, not have. He was twenty-two when he died, twenty-two and just about to step into the workforce. He had a bright future ahead of him. My parents would never let me forget that it was my fault that he’s gone. They send me little notes with the significance of that day. It is not like I would forget his death in a hurry – especially when one dies protecting you.

The inky darkness of the night enveloped me as I stepped out from my apartment block. In the far distance of the street flickered a single street lamp. With the kind of money I was earning, I would never be able to afford anything decent. So here I am living in a part of the town that is close to being called slums. Never in my entire twenty-three years of life had I thought that one day I would live in a dump like this. I stuck my hands into my coat, slowly strolling down the street. A lone car whizzed past me causing the papers to fly. Despite all the things I’ve done to move on, I was trapped in my past. I missed everything that I had left behind – that I had been forcefully to leave behind. I was alone with no one to turn to, no friends who would talk to me, my parents disowned me, and my brother was gone. For five years I was alone, and that empty feeling eats into me. It makes me what I am now, bitter and resentful.

I paused in my steps. Having not paid attention to where I had been walking to I was surprised as I realized that location my feet brought me to place; it was where my vision had taken place.

“No, please don’t!” a lady begged.

I closed my eyes willing myself not to act. Would the lack of action make me guilty here? What was I afraid of? No one cared if I lived or died to start with, what difference would it be if I had died in the attempting of saving her? The pounding of my blood in my ears overwhelmed me as I skidded to a stop at the dark alley.

“Hey, you!” I was surprised that I even had the courage to yell. He turned to me with the help of the flickering street lamp; I saw a sight that sickened me. My visions had not prepared for what I had seen. He stood up; his jeans had fallen to his ankles. I took a step back, my mind trying to erase what I had seen. The poor lady so unfortunately had already died. Her neck slit, her clothes ripped apart. There was nothing I could have done.

“No,” I whispered taking more steps backwards as he pulled his jeans up and advanced to me. My mind was screaming in terror, my legs refused to move. My only clear thought was that I was such a moron. Overhead, the flickering light only helped to make him appear even more menacing. This was the exact reason why Mike died. I was too stupid. My awards and grades were in the end nothing but a show. “I’m sorry Mike,” I whispered to the cold night air as I sank to the ground in fear. I trembled as I felt his coarse palms caressing my face. I whimpered, shrinking from him as he pulled my coat apart. “No,” I muttered, trying to put up a show of courage. I pushed him away, trying to get up but my legs had no strength. He grinned devilishly, fiddling with his jeans.

“I hate rapists,” a deep voice broke the uneasy silence. I found myself pulled up by a smartly dressed man. In the flickering light, he looked an angel to me with his smooth face and neatly combed hair. “Miss, are you ok?” he asked me, peering at me with his beautiful brown eyes. Not trusting my voice I mutely nodded.

The rapist took out his knife and rushed towards the man. In a movement too fast, the man pulled me into his embrace to shelter me from the attack and kicked the rapist in his crotch. “Maybe you should cool down and think,” he haughtily told the rapist.

“The lady!” I said, finally finding my voice. The poor lady, to have died this way was just so heartbreaking.

“He killed someone? I guess that changes things,” the man said. He turned around to catch the rapist but he had already fled. “Oh damn,” he muttered. “Did you know her?”

I shook my head. “I was too late. I hesitated, it’s my entire fault.”

“No one is at fault, no one apart from that crazed guy,” he said with a soft smile. I pulled my coat tighter around me. This coat frayed and worn out is one of the few lingering belongings I had left from the previous life. It had been around too long for me to break that silly sentimentally of mine. Somehow, me pulling the coat around me was like a way of me trying to ward off feelings from what had just happened. It’s one of my more die-hard habits. The reason is there is possibly linked to the reason why I could never move on. I feel like I’m repelling people in some ludicrous longing for my past life to come back to me.

Dawn was breaking as we finally neared my apartment. He had insisted on walking me to my apartment, not that I minded after that attempted rape.

“Robert’s the name,” he grinned. “Oh, here,” he scribbled a number on a piece of paper. “Call me if you need any help. Cheerio.” He waved and turned to leave.

A swelling feeling in my throat formed as I watched his fading back. Back in my secure abode, I leaned tiredly against the wall. It felt nice to be safe in the dark even if it was just a little while. I could see the clock flashing six am with its bright red digits. It was about time that I should start getting ready for work. My fingers picked at the frayed ends of my coat. I had not removed my coat when I had entered my apartment. Just as well, for it brought back memories.

This coat had seen better days. It was a colour that was second to the common bright shocking pink. I remember that it had been a birthday gift from Mike. How often have I thought about Mike, how often had I been immersed in my self-pity and guilt?

I smiled quietly to myself thinking of how Mike used to be and then it hit me. Mike would have frowned on all this wallowing. Look ahead and keep walking was one of his famous phrases.

“Thanks Mike,” I whispered to the stifling air. I stood up to change when I realized that man’s name card was still clutched tightly in my hand. I placed it beside the phone, a heavy feeling within myself telling me that soon I might have use of it. Somehow, unknowingly I had dreaded it as though it was something bad. My heels clicking down the steps of the street, back in the tiny living room was the faded pink coat. A new day, a new beginning, it was as though my life had just began. In a way it had.

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