We Know
-Ryan Dewalt
“We know who you are.” Said the first line of elegantly written script. I found the envelope tucked into the edge of my door frame as I was about to walk outside. It was sealed with wax that seemed to glitter as I touched it. Either my Landlord had upped her game on sending me notes, or a new game was afoot. “We know what you can do. For your safety meet us at…” The script flowed on a few more lines, time, place. Not too far from here. Specifying a bookstore not far from here, one of the last remaining non-chain places in this day and age. I picked up my coffee cup from its spot next to the door, focusing on it, I insisted that it was full of hot coffee, just how I liked it. I took a sip, knowing it would be the right temperature. “Perfect,” I whispered.
I don’t need to go to work, jobs are for people whose bank accounts weren’t conveniently full of money. The instructions they gave me to follow were simple, and amateurish in lack of precautions. Back of the bookstore, go to the coffee shop, sit at a table, and wait. I know the place, the cashier knows me. She sat a coffee, two creams, and two sugars on the counter before I even got to the counter. A flash of movement and I swiped my bank card, not bothering to look and see if it cleared. It always cleared. I smiled at the Barista, they take good care of everyone, not just me. I reached into my pocket, knowing it was full of dollar coins, and dropped a random amount into the tip jar. “Thanks again.” I said, taking my drink to the “insisted” seat to wait.
“Mr. Phillips.” The voice was nervous, its owner had a really good idea of the danger they were in, but thought themselves safe. “Don’t turn around or the only thing your life will be filled with is pain.” A voice said. “We know about you, what you can do.”
“You also know that I don’t need to look at you to affect you either.” I shook my head slowly, sad really. The real threats sit in front of me, they don’t demand. These guys were new. “I could fill your bladder before you had a chance to act. “ I sipped at my coffee. “If I am kind, I’ll just fill it with the normal urine. Not something like… tabasco…” I set my coffee down, confident it would be full when I lift it again. “Or should I fill your mind with despair, doubt, sadness… Could you act, in the darkest depths of your life, when you couldn’t even trust yourself? When even your own mind, doubted you?”
There was a sharp intake of breath. “But you haven’t. I feel nothing.”
“Certainly not,” I said. “I’m many things. Asshole is none of them. The world is too full of them without me adding to it. What do you want?”
“W…..w-we know who you are, what you can do.”
“What do your bosses want?” I don’t beat around the bush. If this guy was anything but a third-string disposable underling I’d eat my shirt. Truly dangerous people who honestly know what I can do, never come near me.
“We…” there was hesitation in the voice. “They want to be left alone.”
I closed my left hand. I know that it was full of a glass leaf, an etched “P” embedded in it like a cheap Initial tchotchke you’d get at the mall. As always, it was there, as I insisted it would be. “This is for you. Only you. It means nothing, it is a gift. It is basically worthless, so don’t think its diamond or whatever. Tell them that you delivered your message. So long as I don’t know who they are, they are free.” I leaned back against my seatback. “Put the gun away, the magazine is full of air, the chamber full of pudding.”
There was a metallic clinking, sliding parts, a mutter towards a diety. “Why?”
I once again sipped at my coffee. “For everything good I do, I have to balance it with a negative. There has to be a balance in everything I do. Eventually. The universe requires harmony or it will not work how I expect. And sometimes doing positive for one person is negative to another.” I pointed over to the counter watching someone start to berate the barista. The girl was doing her best, certainly not deserving of what was going on. I looked at the woman, her body language was quite aggressive. She was looking for this conflict. She looked -way- too pleased to be causing problems. “Watch..” I said to the voice behind me and nodded towards the building drama. “Her colon is full, her bladder as well. Her mind is full of fear. That is why she’s angry” I smiled, I just had to picture it, and it was so. The woman straightened, looked terrified, and bolted for the restroom.
“That was you?” The voice behind me said. Lighter, easier, as if its mission was done.
“That one was free. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps it was luck and reading body language. Hey, your left pocket is full of twenty-dollar bills… Go rethink your life.”
There was a sort of rustling sound. I didn’t have to look around. I know exactly what was going on. “I… might.” The voice said.
I took another sip at my seemingly ever present coffee. It was just another average Tuesday.
