“No, sick,” he said.
“Got it,” Simon replied. “Too sick to see the planning committee?”
“Oh, hell, is that today? Well, I guess I could spend some time at city hall,” he said. “You know how much I’ll love that.”
Simon laughed. “Yeah, but it’ll make my day, thinking of you down there, arguing with them.” The two men shared a chuckle, and, with that at least easing some of the tension, Simon turned and headed off to his next project. The way things were going today, he should probably just go home and tell them all to take a hike. And, true enough, he got to the next job, just in time to see more chaos happening. “What the hell is going on today?”
“It’s a fucking full moon,” his project manager said, glaring at the building.
“Well, do you want to go in and show me?”
The tour on this site proved to be just as disappointing and discouraging as the others. Materials didn’t arrive; crew didn’t show up, and some welds that had been very necessary and should have been up to code had snapped.
Simon just shook his head as he stared upward. “What a shitty day,” Simon muttered under his breath. Feeling the weight of all the decisions and the financial burdens of all the things he’d seen today, he looked at his contractor, who shrugged.
“Tomorrow’s another day, huh?”
“It needs to be,” Simon replied. “It needs to be a damn sight better than today.” Taking his leave, he strolled down the street, taking a shortcut and coming out on the far side, where one of his favorite restaurants was located. Just as he went to cross the road, words slammed into his brain.
Just do it.
He shuddered, and, rather than forcing himself across the street, he grabbed a nearby bus stop bench and collapsed. A woman stopped and looked at him, but he just gave her a wave and a half smile, then shuddered as the pain flooded through his system.
He buried his face in both hands, rested his elbows on his knees, and told the world to F-off.Leave me alone. I don’t need this.
But instead the voice chanted in his mind,Just do it, just do it, just do it.
He couldn’t even begin to confirm if this was something happening in real time or some hanger-on from some other damn energy, if in the present or from the past. He wished to God he had learned more from his grandmother, but he hadn’t. On the contrary, he’d been too busy ignoring it all, stomping it down, and hoping it wouldn’t happen again.
Seeing those abused children had been devastating. Saving the one had helped a lot, and putting the entire ring behind bars where they couldn’t hurt children anymore had been a supreme ego boost. But more than that had been the sense of finally controlling something and stopping a travesty. Something that he couldn’t do before, and nobody had helped him back then.
But now, here, it was happening all over again. Not children but other vulnerable people, in the sense of it being anybody struggling with depression or other mental health issues. At least that’s what he’d figured out so far. It didn’t mean he was right by any means, but it definitely meant crap was coming down that he didn’t have a clue how to deal with.
As he sat on the bench, a bus came and opened its door. He shook his head, and the door shut, and the bus carried on. It took a long moment for Simon to press the taunting voice out of his brain, then give his body the once-over enough to realize he would be okay to get up and to cross the street. Anybody watching him would think he was either drunk or in some medical crisis.
It hurt to think he would come across that way, and it gave him the added impetus to get out of sight of anyone. With every step he took, he got stronger and stronger though, and, by the time he made it around the corner and out of view from everyone, he felt just that much better. He quickly crossed the next block and then the next. By the time he got one more block over to where he wanted to be, he got comfortable again. But, just as he took another step, the voice slammed into the back of his head.
Just do it.
Simon stopped, froze, turned around, and glared at the complete emptiness around him, confirming the voice wasn’t anywhere close by but was inside his head, which he knew all along. But it was so hard to stop that instinctive reaction to look around and to tell somebody to shut up. He told it quietly but firmly,No.
The voice stopped, fading away into the darkness.
Simon managed a couple more blocks, changing his plans from going to his favorite restaurant to heading straight home. He might be short on food, but he could quickly order something from home, if it came to that. Food was a constant irritation in his life. He liked good restaurants, but, after a long day, like today, he didn’t want to go home only to change clothes to go back out again.
Forcibly trying to stay in control, he raced back to his apartment, lifting a hand at the doorman as he headed to the elevator. He felt the pressure, a swelling in his head, as if somebody were pounding on the outside of his brain. By the time he made it inside the front door of his penthouse, the voice slammed against his forehead.
It screamed,Just do it.
Simon collapsed to the floor, his mind already consumed with the vision that had overtaken him.
As he looked down at his feet, all he saw was the edge of a metal piece, his hands gripping a rail, and water. Water flowing underneath his feet, as he looked over the railing. He stared at the rushing depths, almost mesmerized. There was pain, and there was fear, yet also a longing for whatever that water offered. Simon stared down, paralyzed, unable to move, terrified, and yet desperate to break free of this image. He screamed in his head,No, no, no, no.But whoever it was that he had connected with lifted his head and looked around at the area. Somebody called out in the distance. A vehicle honked. Then someone spoke.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Almost instantly the paralysis eased, and the person stepped back from the bridge.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just looking at the rushing water.”