In Continuum.

Christian Goes to Sleep

One hour ago.

Already the hot steam condensed on the mirror to his left, his own reflection barely visible from where he was, as his vision was clouded by the drifting steam upon the air. It has been almost an hour since Christian has been in that bathroom, his fingertips and toes pruning under the glistering surface of the water. The light above hung low and steady, illuminating every inch of the bathroom but not the darkening heart of Christian, for under the surface of his chest where the waters lapped like the shores of the beach he was at hours ago, a storm of gathering clouds waged in a blinding rage.

He took a deep breath, feeling the moisture of the air feeling up his lungs, and with one last heave of his chest he plunged under the surface of the lukewarm water, bubbles escaping from his nostrils and bursting at the top. With the last bit of hope and faith they dissolved into the swirling mist all around, lost and promised the silence to be found by no one.

Eight hours ago.

Not used to the sensation of pure silk brushing against his skin, Christian found his way around the tables and the chairs in the restaurant. He has been here before, with his father long ago when they still lived in New York. He was a child back then, and he was there with his father to celebrate his belated birthday.

Nineteen Oaks is one of the most expensive restaurants on the 17th avenue, and he remembers his father's beard across from the table, spreading out into a wide grin as he revealed the present especially prepared for his tenth birthday. It was pair of tickets to the New York Yankee's baseball game for next Saturday, and despite the exquisite air all around, Christian gave a reserved but sudden yelp of joy. He went across the table and gave his father a large wet kiss on his cheeks, and the rest of the customers returned to their meals.

Christian ordered the most expensive dish on the menu without thinking twice about the food. The waiter smiled, and as he collected the menu Christian whispered into his ears if the waiter knows of any escort services around the area. The waiter smiled, and moments later returned with a glass of white wine accompanied with a small note just under the base of the wine glass. Upon it, the name and number to call for the escort service, and for that Christian tipped the man with a generous ten dollar bill.

The meal was both satisfying and nostalgic, for the smell emitting from the red meat was exactly like the dish his father ordered years ago. His father only just returned from his business trip, and this time it lasted longer than usual. Christian, at merely ten years old, understood not of his father's constant absence from his life, nor did he understand why his mother left his father for another man. Adult life was all too confusing and far away to the young Christian, though Christian now smiled at his own naivety and innocence, almost to the extent of mocking at himself. 'What did you know?' he murmured to himself. 'What did you know?'

Seven hours ago.

With one down, there were three more to go. The yellow paper fluttered in his hands as he got out of Nineteen Oaks. The bustling street was full of people of the night, hurrying in their own lives and caring not at all of the man in his posh silk suit and hat with a piece of yellow paper in his hand. He crossed out the first part of the note and found his way through the busy crowd on the sidewalk to the nearest pay phone. The rest of the world busied themselves behind him as he made the call, the receiver smelling of dried sweat and saliva. But he couldn't care less about them, as much as how the world was caring so little of him. The world never cared, for we are all writers of our own lives, contributing to this giant novel of life.

On the highest floor of the tallest hotel in town, Christian's room looked out onto the dark waters of the Hudson's. The city lights reflected off the surface of the waters, with the peaceful dark only interrupted rudely by passing ships and boats, still doing businesses deep into the evening hours. Doing businesses, their own businesses, carefully minding them but not anybody else's in the world.

Christian wondered what caused people to be so detached from one another, so cold and so ignorant with one side of his brain, while the other answered his own repetitive question: Look into the mirror, look into the mirror. He was both the guilty and the victim, both the accused and the owner of the pointing finger. Christian looked out into the Hudson River, and next to it his pale and vague reflection stared back. Because he never cared for anybody before, not for his father's death when his own name repeated over and over again on the death bed which Christian was never next to ever before. Or the pleading tears of his wife Melanie when she was dragged upon the wooden flooring of his three million dollar mansion back in California, begging him to stay for the sake of her and if not, for his young son Daniel.

Because he never cared, thus he was never cared for. Action and retribution, life and death. The universe is set upon a balance, just as his life was as he started on the long letter addressed to his wife across the country.

Four hours ago.

It took a long time, but it was complete. Christian waved the piece of paper in the air for the black ink to dry in the air, and folded it carefully into two halves. In his mind as he sealed the envelope with his saliva, he went through the content of his letter and most of all, the guilt and regrets that went into every single word and letter, and even the spaces in between those untouched by the black ink.

The imaginary ran through his head, of the scene of his wife in bed with another man, his best friend Alan. Still naked and wrapped in Alan's shirt, Melanie ran after the anger charged Christian out of the front door of their mansion. She collapsed under his feet, and clawed at his chest for forgiveness and mercy. But Christian stared upon this woman that he no longer recognized with disgust and an appalling taste in his mouth, not because of the scene he only so recently witnessed and the image so vividly engraved in his mind, but because of his own face set upon Melanie's. He knew that he could never forgive Melanie what he so conveniently forgave himself for. Because he too has a mistress, and he too has been disloyal to his own wife and child.

Christian fled the scene, with Alan's naked silhouette in the doorway comforting Melanie. He fled, not because of anger but mostly of shame and guilt, and the realization that that child that sat before his bearded father was stupid enough to not see that his parents separated for the exact same reasons. The constant moaning and groaning in the night while his mother wasn't at home, and the strange women coming in and out of his own house when he was younger. He never realized, and he never knew. But he knew right then, and he was committing the exact same crime that his father committed, the crime that he realized and hated his father for in the very first place. So much so that even till his father's death, Christian never gave in to his dying pleas, nor his butler's urgent calls to his home. He hated the man, and now he became that very man.

He confessed and he confessed, and he wrote and he wrote. 'Sorry doesn't even begin to justify the crime that I have committed upon Daniel, you and mostly myself" he wrote, and as he sealed the letter and wrote the address, the crossed out the second wish upon that little note that he held outside Nineteen Oaks, and awaited patiently for the last one to arrive.

Three hours ago.

Ashley arrived with a soft knock on the door. In the light of the corridor beyond, Christian scrutinized the woman before him, clad in clothes that were hardly clothes, for they were hanging loosely from the woman's body, exposing much of her skin save for the more private areas. She smelled of strong perfume, and her blond hair rested in curls upon her netted top. Through them, the black brasserie hinted of a satisfying night to come.

As the door closed, Ashley pushed Christian against the door to the bathroom, and her soft wet lips met his as her hands went downwards into his pants. He stood like a statue there for a moment, unsure of what he was supposed to do because it was his first time making love to an escort. But his hands slowly found the way to the edge of Ashley's black top, and lifting them up he revealed breasts that he longed for ever since he ran away from his own home and the home of his mistresses'.

The lights went out, and the night drew on with loud moaning coming from his room. His naked body rubbed against Ashley's, and the air smelled of hot sweat and other bodily fluids as he paced around the bed for a change of position. Nothing else matters anymore, he told himself. Nothing else matters. Christian crawled back into bed, and in between Ashley's legs, he entered her.

One hour ago.

The last wish on the list was crossed out, the paper moist upon the brink of the sink. He has been in the bath tub for over an hour, and Ashley left long ago with a stack of money Christian left on the table for her. He smiled into the air, and cursed the heavens aloud in the midnight hours.

He emerged from the waters and gasped for air, running his fingers over his face. He got out of the tub naked and wrapped himself with the plain white bath robe provided by the hotel. The floor of the room felt cool under his bare feet, as he lid a cigarette. The light from the tip ignited the rest of the room in a dull flickering firelight, and in the gloom of the room Christian prepared for sleep.

Now.

Melanie rushed through the car park before the hotel despite the cold wind blasting against the side of her face, still aching from the tight slap that Alan gave to her a day ago. She wrapped herself up with her coat, and ran over the lines that she intend to tell Christian when she meet him in the hotel room later. Lines that were merely lines, with no words to fill them whatsoever because she herself didn't know what to say, or what to do at the sight of Christian's face once again. She prayed silently for his forgiveness, and most of all his return back home.

A loud crash, the sound of exploding glass. The car exploded without flames to Melanie's right, and she screamed as the glass sprayed onto her face. Onlookers rushed to her aide, for her face and dress was covered in blood. 'Are you hurt?' the man first at the scene yelled. 'Are you okay?'

Melanie stumbled to her feet and backed away from the exploded vehicle. Not my blood, she thought to herself. This is not my blood. On the hood of the car she then looked, and in plain white robes the body of a man that laid there no in pieces. His face disfigured from the fall from the great height, and his left arm was obviously broken in several places.

Melanie fainted then, not from the blood that was smeared all over her, but for the crushed letter that was held in the man's hands. Her name big and bold was on it, and the body of her husband Christian laid lifeless upon the top of the car, and the cold winter breeze blew mercilessly upon the both of them, screaming not only the chill that ran down her spine but the fleeting warmth between everyone in this world.