Chapter 24:: Do You Sleep Well in Trains?

The rays of the setting sun flooded in through the large stainless glass panes and lit him from the back as he swerved into the corridor, silhouetting his slender figure against the glorious New York skyline behind. He walked with a moody swagger, hands in the pockets of his faded jeans. Once or twice he swung his head around, as if taking in the details of the corridor in quick glances, but actually only because it made his mop of dark brown curls catch the light and burn like an iridescent halo over his shoulders. A blue acoustic guitar, much-graffitied, swung lazily over his black leather-clad back. Of course, he wasn't expecting to play anything. It was all for the effect. The effect was important. People gotta know who's the rockstar around this place.

Having to come here irritated him a little. Offices were boring. Normally his agent would take care of this sort of a thing, but the bloody manager of the record company had demanded to conduct this particular deal personally with him. And he couldn't refuse, despite begrudgingly, because this record deal was important. It could change the direction of his musical career. He couldn't afford to mess it up. Admittedly, this man he was going to meet was the boss of one of the largest music businesses in the world. He shrugged and swore under his breath. So?

Turning the knob of the mahogany door at the far end of the corridor, he slipped himself in. Behind the desk at the centre of the room, a tall white-haired man stood with his back to the door, staring out of the glass panes at the resplendent glory of the never-sleeping metropolis as would only be visible from the 65th floor of a towering highrise. The man was dressed in an elegant dark blue suit and an antique silver watch peeked out of the sleeve on his right wrist. Music poured into the room from invisible speakers placed somewhere the visitor couldn't immediately guess, filling the ambience with the refrain of the most popular song The Statues had ever created. And I'll fish out a supernova from your hair, mad girl… When I'll be meeting you in a starfield on Pluto… Meeting you in a starfield on Pluto, he found himself humming the words, almost involuntarily.

He could have stood and revelled in the perfection of the moment forever, but his impatience was too strong. With a shrug to no one in particular, he announced, perhaps a little louder than necessary, 'Hello, I'm here! Thought I had an appointment?'

The man in front of him turned to look at him. A genial smile appeared on his handsome, middle-aged face. 'Welcome. I've been waiting for you.'

He took a shocked step back and almost tripped. 'You! You are not Roger Bennett!'

A pair of dark red stars glittered like pinpricks inside the eyes of the record company manager.
'Are you Mark Middleton?'

--

You can run and run but I'll always be one step ahead of you. After all, as they say these days, who's your daddy?

His mind raced back, despite all reluctance, to the rave party one winter night in downtown Dublin, five years ago, a time before even ten people had heard the name of the band that was soon to become the phenomenon called the Statues. Reclining on a mattress in the middle of the backyard porch, a stranger who had just walked in and joined the ongoing revelry, he couldn't take his eyes off one wispy, dimple-cheeked young girl right across from him. He had been watching her all evening. She was a tiny thing, like a doll, she could've been anything between fifteen and twenty-five. Her jet black hair was cropped short, like a boy's, and fell all around her pale little face and glittering blue eyes and the two deep dimples that formed on her cheeks. Just by being in the same environment she was making him feel perfect, and oh, she just didn't seem to leave the side of her boyfriend, a nondescript grungy dimwit who had snorted a bit too much of cocaine and was going to be sick any moment. Earlier the evening the boy had a guitar (which he seemed to have lost by then), and he had been regaling a few of the girls, including his elvish beauty, with pathetic self-compositions that couldn't help make him smirk. What felt the most unacceptable was that the boy even resembled the way he looked that evening, same height, almost similar body structure, even the face was roughly similar. He could pass off as the boy's cousin. And yet the boy was enjoying the entire devotion of that stunning woman, while he was left craving and cold, while he was evidently smarter and the more deserving.

It seemed like a good idea at that time. People around them were zoned out and too busy to notice, and anyway he had just been through a very hard life, he deserved a break and some fun. So. Follow the poor jerk into the men's room. Let him finish lodging the contents of his guts into the toilet, then hit his half-stoned brain with a mild missile to knock him conveniently unconscious. Follow up by neatly muddling up the insides of his head, while also collecting the necessary information for yourself. Then the important physical transformations, not very drastic, but they had to be accurate. Exchanging clothes was the easier part. Teleporting his unfortunate victim to South Africa, though, drained away most of his physical strength, making his eyes water and his head feel like bursting at the seams. But then he could afford to stumble his way out of the men's room and into the arms of the breathtaking beauty, who would whisper his weariness away to sweet slumber. What did paradise feel like again?

Five months later, The Statues hit the top of the UK charts with their groundbreaking single, Journeys with Strangers.

--

All I want for now is that for my journeys with strangers to end
Let my journeys with strangers end, end my journeys with them my friend…


'I told you not to keep coming back to my life! Why don't you let me be?' he yelled at the older man, barely able to control his anger.

'Now now my boy, the ties of blood are rather too thick to ignore aren't they?' The record company manager spoke as he walked around the table over to where Mark stood, the genial smile still hanging loosely around his lips. You would almost find it courteous, if you didn't notice too closely. 'And after all, who else do you have left in the world but me? Your poor mother couldn't have afforded to keep an eye –'

'Don't you dare take my mother's name, you bastard!' His picturesque body shook with rage, his hair flying out wild.

'Oh I apologize,' the older man retracted, his voice turning warm and smooth like liquid gold. 'I didn't know it was technically possible to take her name, you see, since I can't recollect her ever having one –'

Mark struck out wildly at the miscreant. 'Keep her out of this, okay?!'

The blow landed on the man's mouth and a thin stream of red started making its way down the corner of his lip. He looked unperturbed. Mark was horrified.

'Oh holy fuck! You're using his body!' he stammered. 'How…??'

'You do need to be reminded each time that I am a little more than what you are, don't you son?' replied the man, wiping off the blood with a nonchalant swipe of the hand. Fresher droplets began to appear immediately. 'However, the important stuff. As you I have no doubt have managed to conveniently forget, the war is upon us.'

'I clearly remember having told you before, and many times since, that I will have nothing to do with the war,' shrugged Mark. 'I'm happy, I'm having fun, I have created and nurtured this life for myself and I'm enjoying it. Why'd I want to fuck all this up?'

'You know the answer. This life that you're living is another ruse, it's not your life, it does not contain or confine you. But the war is happening in your reality. You cannot ignore it.'

'This is more of my reality than what you speak of,' Mark pointed at his chest. 'This is me. Why would I give a damn about a family and siblings and uncles whom I have never seen, forget having spent a life with? They exist to me only because you speak of them, and how many truths have you told me till date? It might all be an elaborate figment of your imagination for all I care. And that's what I'll choose to believe. You go fight your war.'

'You cannot do that.'

'What will stop me?' The eyes of Mark Middleton stared challengingly at the face of Roger Bennett.

'Fine. If so you wish,' sighed the older man, after a pregnant pause. His shoulders seemed to be sagging. Then he tried to smile, with some effort. 'How are things with life otherwise? Your old friend Mr. White does well, I believe.'

'He's cool,' replied Mark, stiffly. He wasn't used to small talk with the person in front of him.

'Indeed he is,' smiled Roger Bennett, as he walked casually up the office room. 'He seems to be having a rather relaxing session with your lady back home.'

'Shut the fuck up! Christine would never –'

'It rather seems that she would,' Bennett touched a long finger to the wide TV screen on the wall and an image came alive. It was more than just a television image. It sucked Mark in as if he was staring through a keyhole into a room – and the white walls could only belong to a room in Henry White's palatial mansion – and Mark would never mistake the two figures entwined on the bed, lost in themselves.

'I love her, you bastard! Why did you have to do this?' he screamed, feeling thoroughly wretched. The corners of his eyes twitched.

Bennett shrugged, staring innocently at the screen. 'Me?'

'This is another of those bloody tricks of yours!'

The screen went blank. Bennett turned sharply to Mark and stared at his eyes. 'Keep deluding yourself, Mark Middleton. The war has arrived. Do you think Henry White betrayed your trust with the slightest assumption that you wouldn't find out? The woman is insubstantial, this is an open declaration of the war. The was has opened as we speak, my son, weapons are being drawn, and Henry White is no friend of yours.'

'You never told me who Henry really is,' said Mark accusatively. 'You knew all along and you didn't tell me.'

'One would want to be amazed that you haven't found out in so long, clever boy as you are,' Bennett shook his head, then added sternly, 'The truth is that you never tried. Never thought it'd be necessary, did you? Well, this time you'll get to know very soon.'

Mark stared at his feet miserably for a while. Then he picked up his guitar and spat out angrily, 'That's it. I'm getting out of here. This place, this life, this war… everything!'

As he laid his hand on the doorknob, Bennett called out from behind, 'Would you not rather finish what you came here for? The record deal?'

'No, fuck you! I can get it done later!'

'Not a wise move, I'd say, especially since the paparazzi is waiting right outside the building to get hold of you the moment you step out.'

Holy fuck, the bugger's right, thought Mark. He had to have the deal signed and confirmed, and then go for a press statement. 'I want all my terms approved. I've laid them down before,' he said, reluctantly moving back.

'So you will have,' laughed Bennett, handing him a bunch of documents from the table.

Mark checked them with his mind as he read, minutely. They seemed genuine. He chose a pen from the stand on the table and signed them, one by one, and returned the papers to Bennett.

Bennett began to inspect the signed papers. As uncanny delight started to spread on his face and Mark watched, horrified, as the documents in his hands began to transform from white sheets of paper to a strange unknown bunch of parchment, written in runic symbols.

'So you have signed the unimpeachable agreement, my son,' said the man behind the desk, whose voice did not sound like Bennett's any more. 'You are born, ironically, with the constitution of a hero and you signed the agreement with revenge in your heart. That'll do.'

And then he began to laugh. It was a cackling, unearthly laughter.

--

Mark Middleton woke up with a start on the upper bunk of the train. His head throbbed with pain, he was drenched in sweat and his mind was filled with the feeling of disgust one gets after waking up from an unpleasant dream that one cannot remember. Young Moses was sleeping peacefully on the lower bunk below him, unperturbed by his turmoil. The rest of the compartment was silent except from the muffled noises of sleeping bodies. Somewhere in the cubicle someone had left a radio turned on and the devious laughter of some Hindi film villain was ringing through the slumbering compartment.

--

Credits:: The lyrics for Journeys with Strangers, used in this chapter, have been written by Joe B R. My sincerest thanks to him for the brilliant contribution, thankyou, I loved it.