The Collection

Strange Bedfellows

"Right this way, sir." the well-dressed waiter said with a curt bow, "My name is Terran and I'll serving you for the remainder of your stay here. If there's anything at all you need, please let me know."

"Understood," I say in a distracted way, still taking in the opulence around me. Crystal chandeliers, finely woven tapestries, polished wooden floors, exquisitely crafted art, antique china, all the hallmarks of privilege. Everything I've never known. Nothing I've ever really wanted. But it's here now.

I follow Terran into the next room. It's a banquet hall. Steepled stained glass windows decorated niches carved into the walla. A great oaken table takes up the majority of the room. 

At the far end, a n elderly man dressed in a somber suit sits, watching me. A cup of coffee is clutched in his right hand, and as I watch the remains of his breakfast is whisked away by another servant, this one a young woman who smiles wanly at me as she passes by. He has spectacles with which he looks me up and down, his grey hazel eyes calculating and cold as his gaze sweeps over me.

I grimace and clench my fists, knuckles white. He's an old man: wrinkled visage weighed down by age, hands worn soft by time, and heart feebly beating on, marking the silence. 

I've waited along time to meet him. 

After all this time...

The bullet holes in the wall...

The fated taxi drive...

The diner...

My mind flashes back.

Standing in the rain, watching the yellow taxi cab slow to a halt.

Crawling out of the framented skeleton of the diner, calling my best friend's name. 

Running my fingertips over the round wounds in between rooms 13a and 13b.

He is the one responsible. And while once, that would have filled me with white hot rage, or even a thrill of satisfaction, instead it empties me. 

"You." I manage, injecting years of pent up heartbreak into a single weary syllable.

"Yes, me." he responds calmly, wiping his face daintily with the corner of his napkin and smiling curiously at me.

"Why?" I've taken a seat now, and my breath is ocming ragged gasps. Is this what shock feels like?

My hands are shaking again.

He calmly brings the cup of cofee to his lips again and takes a long sip.

"WHY?!" I scream at him. "What do you want from me?"

He looks at me, his face still calm and motionless as ever. When he finally speaks, it's with a deep, gravely voice that echoes thought the hall.

"You'll get answers in time. For now, we will have to make do with the simple explanation." He takes of his glasses then, folding them neatly and depositing them in the front pocket of his button down before rising and approaching a painting I had hitherto failed to notice.