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Scene #37
A Dark in the Light
"The light isn't on."
"What?" Beth asked from the doorway behind me.
"The light isn't on." I repeated as if she'd understand the second time.
Beth crossed the room to the window and followed my gaze to the Lekki Hotel across the street.
"Every night at 6:13, the light in that window comes on, and the curtains dance as if possessed." I pointed to the window twenty-three floors up and three from the end of the gothic monstrosity across the street that pledged allegiance to another time.
"Hunh." She said, shrugging noncommittally. "You're working too hard." She looked at me for a minute, then turned to leave. "You need anything else before I go?"
"No. I'm almost finished for the night. I won't be long." I should have turned my chair back to the desk, but I couldn't pry my eyes away from the window. I snuggled deeper into my high-backed leather chair. Why wasn't the light on?
The light came on every night at 6:13 for at least as long as I'd worked as an associate at Patel & Schwartzenheimer. I know because it was my job to work late every night so that the partners, Harvey Patel and Arnie Schwartzenheimer, could go home to their families and enjoy their seven digit salaries, while I kept the clients from moving to a bigger, more expensive firm around the corner. Each night, for as long as I could remember, I would watch the darkness until that light came on, somehow feeling reassured by its presence. And, every night, like clockwork, that one light came on.
Except that one night. The night that Frank died.
I remember sitting at my desk, waiting for the light to come on, when my mind wandered off to a strange place. Through eyes that were not mine, I clearly saw Frank running to cross the street as the little red hand blinked its ominous warning. Just as clearly, I saw a cherry-red Thunderbird careen around the corner a few feet away. I remember thinking that no one could be that lucky, especially not me, when I heard a high-pitched whine like twisting steel. Before I could blink, a steel pipe shimmied loose from the bundle being hoisted by a nearby construction crane. I didn't need to see the blood to know that a steel pipe and a scrawny neck don't mix.
A bright light turning on across the way snapped me from my morbid thoughts, and with all right with the world once more, I returned to drafting my brief. If only, I though.
The next morning, as I poured coffee, a gruesome headline taunted me: "Construction Attorney Loses Head to Falling Pipe." The picture showed only the gawking crowd, but a pair of grey eyes stared out at me accusingly.
A cold chill climbed up my spine as I remembered Frank. Evil just catches up to some people, I thought again, and spun back to my desk and the papers that, without fail, awaited my attention.
Not a moment later, a dark cloud overtook the fluffy white one that had only moments ago drifted past my balcony. An ominous blackness darkened my window. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass lifted from the street below. Before I left my chair, I knew that Beth was dead. And, as I turned for the door, a light filled the window across the street.
I grabbed my building access card as I ran out the door. My head filled with visions of Beth's crumpled body lying twisted among Acura glass and a yellow cab fender. I could clearly see every detail of the gruesome scene. The elevator closed in on my anxious thoughts and I could barely breathe.
I saw the Acura pull cautiously out of the nearby parking lot, hesitating to allow a bus to change lanes. Meanwhile, a harried bellman signaled for the next cab in line, which had been waiting on the next block for a decent fare. Without checking for the light, the excited cabbie pulled into the intersection on a red. Caught in the middle, Beth had no time to evade before plastic, metal, and glass wrapped her in a fatal embrace.
I ran from the steel sarcophagus as soon as the doors began to open.
Once outside, I pushed my way through gawking businessmen and horrified staff, their hushed voices buzzing in my ears like hornets. I threw myself into the debris, not caring that I was disturbing a crime scene, only wanting to reach my friend.
As I reached for Beth's body, a man turned from the crowd and walked towards the hotel's elegant revolving door. As his hand caught the turning glass and chrome, he looked back at me, and I looked into familiar gray eyes, and somehow I knew that time and space no longer had any meaning.
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