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Morris reached for the cup of coffee on the windowsill with one hand, his other hand being used as a bookmark for the book he was reading. He took a sip of the coffee, which was no longer piping hot like when he made it - he was so engrossed in the book that he was reading, he had hardly paid any attention to the coffee in the last hour He was unaware of the real world, unaware of the wooden armchair in which he was sitting, unaware of the hard splashing raindrops on his window, for during the last one hour he had spent his time in a different, more interesting and more eventful world ? a world of stories.
Morris was the editor of a daily magazine. His present assignment was to select a horror story for publishing in the special Halloween edition of the magazine. Presently he was reading a collection of horror stories by different authors. The stories were so were entertaining and thrilling that he could hardly take his eyes off the book. The endings were the best?the part where your heart rate is at its highest?and you expect to expect the unexpected, and you are not disappointed when it ends? because it gives the satisfaction you have been waiting for since the time you began reading the story. Morris had just began reading a new story?the last one, after which he would have to make the difficult decision of choosing one of the stories for being published in the magazine. The story had no author's name. Maybe it was given in the end. The story began by introducing an unknown man. The first paragraph gave some details about the daily life of the man and his morning activities. Morris got to know that this man took some medicines early in the morning. This fact made Morris more interested, as he himself took medicines in the morning as he suffered from high blood pressure. However, the reason for why this man took the medicines was not explicitly mentioned.
Morris began reading the second paragraph of the story. The name of the man was not yet mentioned by the author. Maybe it would be mentioned later, or maybe this was one of those stories where the name of the character was not mentioned at all?nowadays such stories were in fashion too. The first few lines of the second paragraph were ?
?He was late for office, as usual. He kicked the door of his apartment open and rushed outside into the street, looking for a bus.?
Morris was very surprised ? because he too had the same habit of being late for office. It was not intentional, but somehow every day for some reason or the other he would be late for office. He continued reading the next few lines ?
?His day began like any other normal day. Little did he know about the drastic change of events that would take place later in the day??
Morris was beginning to feel the excitement. The author had already began playing with the mind of the reader, making him anticipate the ending of the story. Morris kept on reading. The next few lines were not exciting, it was rather boring. Morris grew impatient, but he knew he should not judge a story before it ended?after all, it was the ending of a story that made a story special.
Morris expected something uncanny to happen in the story?so far, the story had been ordinary and uneventful. But something uncanny did happen, though it was totally different from what he expected. The uncanny happened in the form of the first sentence of the third paragraph ?
?The man returned home from office, made himself a cup of coffee and sat down on his wooden armchair and began reading a horror story book.?
Morris's adrenaline shot up. His excitement slowly faded away, and was replaced by curiosity and even a tiny bit of fear. He took a quick glance at the cup of coffee beside him on the windowsill. Without a word, he kept reading the story. Questions began to arise in his mind ? who was the man in the story? Why was his name not mentioned? Who was the author? Morris began reading fast, he wanted to finish the story quickly. He moved on to the next page and the last. He could see that only a few lines were left for the story to end, and felt a strong urge to read the ending line, but he dared not do it. So, he began reading from the top of the page ?
?Suddenly there was a knock on the door. The man panicked and his heart rate shot up. When it's 11 p.m. at night, and you are in the middle of reading a horror story alone in your house, a knock on the door is something you don't want to hear.?
Instinct made Morris glance at the clock on his wall. It was one minute to 11 p.m. He felt his blood pumping hard in his veins. His blood pressure shot up. His doctor had warned him not to panic, as he suffered from high blood pressure and was in risk of heart attack. He tried to calm himself down ?10 seconds?5 seconds ?.2 seconds? there was a sharp knock on the door. Morris began shaking with fear. The book fell from his hand on the floor with a thud. It was a cold rainy night, yet his face was covered in sweat. Suddenly there was an ear-splitting lightning flash, and Morris could feel the darkness wrapping him up.
Meanwhile outside, Morris' wife, who was drenched in rain, kept knocking on the front door, wondering why his husband was not answering. Was he not there? Yet the lights were on. Panic gripped her. Within an hour she got a locksmith to open the door. The police, neighbors, and a locksmith crowded the room. Everyone asked questions and each came up with a different theory of what had happened. An ambulance was called and Morris was taken away to the hospital. In the middle of all the commotion, no one noticed the book which lay open on the floor, revealing its last page contents. The last few lines of the story that Morris had not been able to finish reading are ?
?The man was shaking with fear. He was nervous by nature. Suddenly there was a lightning flash and this acted as the final shock, and the man fainted. By the time he was taken to hospital, he was declared dead owing to a massive heart attack!?
The rain spattered against the glass, harassing the trolley's window. Alice increased the volume in her earbuds to drown out the white noise and she made her daily commute to work. She shivered from the icy wind that the automatic doors blew into the vehicle every time a person stepped in. The wheels screeched to a stop at the accounting firm she worked at and she hopped off, following in line with the other monotonous grey coats.
Alice was thinking about what Maruchan ramen she would heat up when she got off of work, but her attention was divided when a familiar scream pierced her left ear. She whipped her neck to face the sound to meet the sight of a woman in a floral dress standing smack dab in front of the trolley- and it was moving fast. Alice screamed and couldn't turn away as she watched the metal steel bars of the front smash into the woman. Noise escaped her chest, but it was drowned out by all of the witnesses'.
Suddenly, she woke up, bathed in sweat After catching her breath and letting out a sigh, she rested her elbow over her closed eyes. The woman's horrifying end flashed on the blacks of her closed eyelids. She squinted to try to force the images away.
Alice eventually rose and got ready for her workday, following her routine as she always did, even on weekends. No specific thoughts popped into her head, as she had already forgotten about the dream.
As she mounted the trolley that brought her to the firm, she experienced Deja Vú and laughed. Of course she would, she had taken this route every day for the last 8 years. She sat down next to a man holding a small basket of muffins and a young university student, neither of which could even spare a glance at her as she sat in between them.
After a few minutes, her eyes seemed to hang heavy, occasionally flirting with fatigue. Alice figured she must have had a bad dream or something that prevented her from getting enough quality sleep. Through half-closed lids, the hem of a floral patterned dress came into her peripheral vision. Memories flooded back and she choked on air, snapping fully conscious in seconds. Her eyes scanned the seats in front of her, but there was no floral dress in sight.
Alice wasted her day away in her small cubicle, entering numbers and processing data. She hadn't even realized when her lunch break had started. She gathered her brown paper bag and sluggishly made her way into the break room (unfortunately eating in the personal offices was prohibited). As she made her way to the empty table in the back row, someone tapped her shoulder.
?Alice Fantio? Senior accountant?? a man's voice came from behind. She placed the name to the voice and recognized a superior's inquiring tone.
?Is there something you need, Sir?? Alice asked as she walked in the large office he was seated in.
?Let me cut to the chase because I've got a call in a few minutes. It is no exaggeration when I say that you are one of the most integral employees we have in our company. You always follow directions precisely and comply with every rule our company presents.?
Alice felt a strange feeling seep into her. She was just as valued as any other worker, just another slave to corporate America. Following instructions perfectly, never voicing an opinion.
?For your hard-earned efforts, I got you a little gift of sorts,? he said nasally and reached under his desk to pull out a flat, square box with a brown ribbon on top. ?Only for the special employees,? he said and winked.
Alice's stomach heaved with discomfort and smiled an unwilling grin. ?Th- thanks,? she stuttered out as she slipped it into her computer bag. With an awkward chuckle, she exited the glass room quickly. Walking quickly back to her office, she decided that she would skip lunch today.
Exiting the firm, she stood at the trolley stop, hiding amongst the masses. She inserted her earbuds and queued her playlist. Snow started to fall in the waiting time, tiny pale spheres in her cropped, mahogany hair. She smiled at the sky.
?We always loved the snow,? a familiar voice whispered in her ear. Alice jerked her head to see who it was, but all she caught was the faint vision of floral fabric fading into the mist right beside her.
Alice couldn't breathe. She took a moment spinning around, assessing her sanity. Grey coats, black coats, blue coats, no floral dress. She faced the approaching trolley once again and pressed play on her music player.
The chicken ramen bubbled in the pot and Alice stirred it once before going to turn on the shower to get the hot water flowing. As she walked back into the kitchen her eyes caught on the corner of a gift box hanging out of her work bag. She had completely forgotten about the uncomfortable exchange with her boss's boss. She walked over and took the present in her hands. Carefully pulling the ribbon undone, she lifted the lid from the cardboard. Her finger's nimbly peeled the grey tissue paper away to reveal a floral dress folded neat in its position. She dropped the box and it crashed to the floor.
The next morning she got ready as always, doing her hair up in a low ponytail, sipping her black coffee, and gathering her crucial documents. She did not think about the fact that she was wearing the floral dress as a means to say thank you to her boss and prove that she was sane. She did not think about the woman. And she certainly did not think about the fact that she dreamed about the collision last night, or, at least she thinks she did. For all she could remember she might as well have dreamt about the collision every night of her entire life and not once could she be 100% sure she dreamt or didn't dream of it.
She stepped onto the trolley. She rode to work. She stepped off the trolley. In a hurry, she had left her purse on the seat. She ran back to the stop, hoping it was still there. She ran out in front to look at the traffic behind her. She was ahead of it. Good. She could catch it. She ran out in front of the stopped trolley, no other cars were in the way. Only the trolley wasn't stopped, it was moving. She had a moment of Deja Vú. Of course she would, she had done this before. She had been hit before, but that was a dream. What was this?
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