“Stephen, are you ok?”
Lily was standing in the doorway, surveying the
wreckage of his once neat one room apartment.
Domino’s boxes and empty cans of Busch carpeted the floor except in a
narrow path leading directly to the bathroom.
The blue-green glow of the TV set was the only source of light in the
room, slightly dimmed by a layer of dust at least a week old. Magazine pages and newspaper clippings had
spread across the walls. Notebooks open
to hasty scribbles buried the coffee table. Stephen himself looked as though he hadn’t
slept since the dust began collecting.
He had heavy bags under his bloodshot eyes and a beard had grown on his
normally clean-shaven face.
“Get out Lily.
I’m working.”
“Eliza and Harry are worried that you aren’t. They say you haven’t sent anything in for
more than a week.”
Stephen dismissed the comment with a wave of his
hand.
“Are you working on anything?”
“I told you I was.”
“What then? “
“Come sit over here, I want to show you something“
Lily closed the door to join Stephen on the
couch.
“Don’t move that!”
Stephen cried, grabbing the notebook Lily had tried to move.
“Where do I sit then?”
Confounded, he shuffled the notebooks on the coffee table to make room
for one more.
“Listen to this,” Stephen said, turning on the TV again.
“Stephen, that’s the prime minister’s last speech. It was a little late after the bombings, but
there’s nothing more to it.”
“No, look at his eyes when he’s talking about the actions he’s going to
take. They’re blank, like a mannequin. He’s not speaking from the heart. He either doesn’t think war is the right
option or he’s on the same side as the terrorists.”
“But he’s taken a similar stance in the past towards similar
situations.”
“Right, and I’ve reviewed those tapes.
He meant what he said then, or at least he made it look like he
did. He doesn’t agree with going to
war…this time. Which means someone else
is really making the decisions.”
“Stephen, do you have any proof of this? You’re entire theory is based on a look in
the Prime Minister’s eyes on a grainy television set.”
“I know what I saw. And I know
it exists.”
“You’ve also been alone in this apartment for more than a week. I know you.
Your mind runs wild when left to its own devices. You’re looking at a familiar scene and making
it different out of boredom.”
“Listen to the words themselves.
They’re empty!”
“Stephen. You need to get
out. I hoped we could go out for dinner
tonight, but it seems like you need to work this out.”
“It’s night?”
“Yes, Stephen. It’s Friday and
the stars are shining. Good bye
Stephen.”
“Lily, please listen; you don’t understand. Someone is dressing up the Prime Minister and
telling him what to say! We can’t trust
anything he says. We can’t trust
anything anyone says!”
“Good bye Stephen, I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Lilly…I… All right then, see you tomorrow.”
As she left, she heard the drone of the TV returning to life. She sighed and braced herself for the cold
walk back to her apartment along the Ouse Embankment. The only sounds were the click of her heels
on the pavement. She was growing tired
of Stephen’s conspiracy theories. When
they first started dating, she had found him fascinating; but now, now she had
begun to think he was a madman. He
bombarded her with theory after theory every time she was with him, and it was
growing tiresome.
Deep in her own thoughts, Lily didn’t notice the men behind her.
The black bag made a quiet sound as it slipped over Lily’s head. She found herself in a small, dark room with
nothing but a toilet. The walls were
cold stone. Groggily, she scrambled to
sit up. As her vision settled, she
noticed another huddled mass in the cell.
It was a man. Dirty and bald, he
looked as though he had been beaten a number of times; his face was purple and swollen.
“Sir, are you alr….are you alive?”
He chuckled a dry laugh, “It doesn’t really matter. I don’t exist anymore. I’ve been replaced by a doll”
In shock, Lily stumbled backward.
“Prime Minister?”
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