Life Insurance

  Chapter 2: Out of My Mind

Before I got Rawson settled into my bed, it was six in the morning. As I carried him into the building, he wasn't a heavy burden, not at all. I got him into the elevator without a problem. The elevator was the problem; it wouldn't move.

I live on the sixth floor. At the third landing, I seriously considered dumping Rawson then and there.

As, in the dissipating dimness of my bedroom, I looked at the sleeping man. I sighed not only for the early morning exercise. I didn't want Rawson in my bed.

Of course, I had no choice in the matter. I put the man asleep; for as long as he slept, I was responsible for his safety. In addition, since it wasn't a normal sleep, I couldn't wake him up. Doing so, I would've caused damage to his already tampered with mind. But, it bothered me to see Rawson in my bed.

If Larry had been present, he would've been perplexed. He believes that I want Rawson more than anything. There was a time when that was the absolute truth, but unbeknownst to my old friend, I've changed my mind.

Actually, the change in my feelings happened during the worst and darkest night of my life: the night in my crushed car, when I lost my twin brother, Scott.

Oh, Scott. Without my brother, I'm less than half the man I was.

That night, Scott and I were coming home when a sudden thunderstorm found us. We were in the middle of a large plain of fields, and the lightning bolts struck ever closer to us. The cracks were deafening. Because of the heavy rain, I could see only a few feet in front of me. I was ill equipped for the task of driving in such weather. Scott and I had gotten our driving licenses only a couple of weeks before. I remember the painful knot of fear that grew in my stomach.

I remember also the feel of the runaway car flying through the air towards the sturdy trunk of a tree.

The next thing I remember is my own scream. I screamed as I stared at the bloody mess that should've been my brother.

After that, all I can recall of that night is the voice of a man that stayed with me through the storm. I didn't ask what his name was. I didn't ask how he was there. I listened to his voice, but I couldn't hear his words. In my mind, there was room only for my own words: I killed Scott. Again and again, I accused myself. Countless times, I went through Scott’s last moments. The lightning bolts, the rain, my mistake, the flight through the air, the tree. The only thing that kept me from drowning in that vortex of guilt was the voice of a stranger. I don’t know how he pulled me back, I can’t remember, but when the paramedics arrived, I had accepted the truth. Scott died in an accident; I wasn’t a killer.

The voice of the stranger saved my sanity. Later, I learned that he also saved my life. He called the ambulance, and while waiting for the paramedics, he kept me from bleeding to death. I bear more than just mental scars.

It took some time before I could appreciate the gift of life that I had been given. By the time I was ready to thank my savior, he was nowhere to be found. At the site of the accident, he disappeared before anyone thought of asking his name. Since the man wasn’t there, my imagination took over. From my very few, sketchy memories, I created the man of my dreams. My naive 18-year-old self couldn’t have missed the target more widely.

I promptly fell in love with my prince. For some months, I dreamed of him, but as I grew up, I left behind such foolish notions. My infatuation matured into admiration and respect.

For the next eight years I was blissfully unaware that my knight in shining armor was Connor Rawson. I believed that I saw the man for the first time at Wells a couple of years later. Rawson is two years my senior, and by the time I started frequenting gay bars and clubs, he had well established his not so shiny reputation. His alleged hotness made me want to get a glimpse of him, but I knew that the two of us played in different leagues.

When Rawson first became a fixture in the club scene, every gay boy in town--and not so few men--dreamed of conquering his heart. Since the handsome, loaded young man took full advantage of his family name and connections, he seemed like a good catch. That was a misconception; Rawson wasn't interested in settling with just one man. As that became apparent, his pursuers, excepting the most delusional among them, abandoned their campaigns for his heart. Rawson seemed happy in his new status: a fuck partner desired by a wide variety of men and available for a great number of them. I came to know him as such: a slut.

So, one night at Wells, I saw Rawson and became one of his rejects. Still, I wanted him, I dreamed of fucking him, but I never dreamed of anything more. I knew what an empty bag of hot air Rawson was.

I found out who my savior was on the same day that I got my first assignment from my current employer. For the background information, I read Connor Rawson's file, and there it was, the report that changed my life: “…at 10:43 PM, Scott Norris will die in a car crash. His death is unavoidable. Dane Norris will suffer injuries, but his life will be saved by Connor Rawson. No actions are recommended."

Those few words took my peace of mind for days. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that the biggest slut in town was the same man that had earned my admiration and respect. I denied that I had ever loved such a loathsome man. I was ashamed that I had admired him. I felt so stupid.

I had ended up loving one image of Rawson and loathing another. For a fortnight or so, I was a mess, but then I found the courage to look the beast in the eye. I found the courage to admit to myself that a little, reluctant part of me admired and respected a tiny part of Rawson.

That’s the status quo today; my feelings haven’t changed and neither has Rawson. Despite his advancing age and the thinning crowd of admirers, he shows no signs of ever changing his ways; he is still fucking his way through clubs and other places of debauchery. Even his partner couldn’t change that. I wasn’t surprised when he left Rawson. But it isn’t Rawson’s promiscuity that, of late, makes me unwilling to even fuck him. The reason lies elsewhere.

Since that first time, Rawson's file has come onto my desk several times. The more I learn about the man, the more confused I become. For example; he donates frequently money to a number of organizations that either protect children against abuse or help the victims deal with the damage. People don't know that about him: he doesn't court publicity with his remarkable generosity. But, I've also learned that the same Rawson wastes as much if not more money on sports cars.

Not everything in his file is impressive, and some things make me shudder. To me, after Scott’s death, life is sacrosanct. I decided to become a damage controller of the company in order to be able to save lives. My job makes my life worth living.

To Rawson, life--his own or that of others--doesn’t mean too much: his favorite pastimes are a proof of that: drag racing, hunting, and speeding with his Porsche Cayenne GTS down country roads, endangering not only his own neck but every other person's on the road as well. To him, the least important thing seems to be whether he survives another day or not. His file is filled with close calls with death.

Therefore, I want nothing less than to have Rawson in my life, but sometimes, I find myself wishing that that tiny bit of him that is admirable would be the prominent one. I have such conflicting feelings about him that I find it easiest to put some distance between the two of us.

At the moment, I wanted nothing as much as I wanted to sleep, but that was out of the question. Instead, I settled on the couch in front of the TV which I turned on without sound.

According to the fourth report from the department of prediction, in less than two hours Rawson would be found dead. I wondered whether something I'd already done in order to prevent his death was the reason for that report or was it something unrelated.

The most worrying thing about the report was that it didn't reveal the exact moment of death or the cause of it. That's highly unusual. The seers that provide the data for the department of prediction are instructed to give as accurate a description of the alarming prediction as possible. On incomplete information, I and my colleges in the damage control department couldn't act effectively. The time and the cause of the event are the most crucial pieces of information, and that report lacked both.

I had no plan of action, I had no ideas; I was out of my depth. How was I supposed to save the life of the only son of our company's most prestigious client and the appalling love of my life?

And, how could Rawson end up dead in front of my building when he was sleeping in my bed? The man fell asleep only an hour earlier. Even with the cap of three hours that, because I manipulated his internal time consciousness, he thinks he already lived through, he should sleep at least for another four hours. What could possibly wake him up before that?

A dumb question. Rawson woke up only a few minutes later. He wanted to use the bathroom.

"What am I doing here?" my guest asked as soon as he once more joined my company. "Who are you? Why did I end up here? I assume that this dump is your place."

Since I found it rather difficult to explain why he was there, I turned on the sound of the TV. A news broadcast was on, and the explosion in Wells was the main topic.

"What the fuck!" was Rawson's first comment. I didn't comment on that. For the next fifteen minutes he concentrated on the news.

"Something isn't right here," he mumbled. "If the explosion took place just 12 minutes after the moment when the people were told to leave the club, how did they all survive?"

I was unwilling to provide that information. Unfortunately for me, the news reporter wasn't as restrained. He was making a big deal about the fact that the night at the club had ended 30 minutes earlier than was customary. Since the person that was responsible for the anomaly was missing, nobody could tell him whether the person had known about the impending catastrophe or if it was just a lucky coincidence.

Rawson was staring at the man on the screen with a rather bemused demeanor. I sat on my seat without moving a muscle, quiet as a mouse.

I sighed in relief as the reporter left that topic, but my relief was premature. The reporter started to speculate what happened to the missing person: none other than the club owner Connor Rawson. He told the viewers that Rawson called 911, but when the rescue team arrived at the scene, they couldn't find the man anywhere. Since there was a big chunk of a fallen wall on the sidewalk, the assumption was that Rawson was beneath it: dead or injured.

"Maybe you should--" I started, but he just glowered at me and stretched out his hand. With a feeling of déjà vu, I put my cell phone in it. Apparently, Rawson's call came just in time. The men at the site were just about to begin the work of digging through the pile of rubble.

"I remember--. What's your name?"

I told him, and he started again. "I remember standing at that sidewalk, Red. Why can't I remember walking away? Why can't I remember anything in between standing there and waking up in your bed?"

"You lost consciousness, and I carried you to my car and brought you here."

"I lost consciousness. Really?"

Admittedly, I've been more convincing telling outright lies. At that moment, I couldn't cook up even convincing half truths.

“Try again," Rawson went on with a perfectly unpleasant smile. “Try ‘I mugged you.’ I might believe that. I seem to have lost my valuables."

"You left your valuables in your office," I hurried to explain. "But, you lost them anyway."

"And a lot of other stuff, too," Rawson grumbled. "Wait a minute. I should've been in my office when the place blew up. I never leave before 5:30. Why wasn't I in my office?"

Why, indeed?

"You came into my office. My uninvited guest. Whom I dragged out. Or did I?"

I was getting nervous.

After a brief pause, Rawson said, "You wanted me out. You knew. You knew that the place would explode."

I didn't find any reason to open my mouth.

"Yeah? That's all you have to say? Nothing? Are you sure?"

I was pretty sure.

"You weren't this shy in my office," Rawson told me; then, knitting his eyebrows together, he went on with, "When you came to my office, most of the people must already have been out of the building. They were safe. Why would you care whether I got out of the building or not?"

For a second he stared at me with suspicious eyes; then, his gaze became hostile.

"What do you want from me?" Rawson asked. "Money?"

"I don't want your money. I just wanted you safe."

"HA! That’s bullshit. You don't care about me."

"I do care! Cut it, Rawson. I care because you're a living being, OK?!" I stared him right in the eyes. "Even you don't deserve to die like that, you miserable excuse of a man!"

Suddenly, the world dissolved into grayness. After a brief moment of disorientation, the world came back, but not the world I knew. I was in a room that I didn't recognize. Nice place, but nothing I could ever afford. The view to the lake from the window told me that.

"...excuse of a man," I said in indignant tones. The words were mine, but it wasn't my voice that I heard.

"Go to your lover, go to your mother, go to the fucking moon: I don't care. Do whatever you like, Mark, but you won't take the car or the jewelry or the designer clothes with you. You won't take a fucking thing I bought you."

It was a shock to understand what was happening to me: I was in Rawson's past, in his recollection of a quarrel with his ex-lover, Mark Lisle. I was almost completely involved. In a moment, I would lose my chance of escape. Desperately, I reached for the way out of Rawson’s mind, but it was too late. The way disappeared. I had to stay with Rawson as he walked down that stretch of memory lane.

"You can't keep me here by keeping my things as hostage, Connor!"

I looked at Rawson. In front of me stood a man I barely recognized. I didn't see the Rawson of the real world; I was looking at his self-image. It wasn't a pretty picture. Signs of his age and punishing lifestyle were exaggerated. He was dirty and unkempt, his clothing was old and ragged, every part of his body, even his clothes, bore nasty scars, but I found the most disturbing feature about him to be that he was translucent.

"I wouldn't even try to keep you from leaving," Rawson said. "In fact, I want you to leave, but those things stay here. They were never yours. I bought them. I let you use them, but every thing is mine."

"I've given you three years of my life. I've deserved every fucking thing."

"You mean that to you it isn't enough that I let you live here? It isn't enough that I let you immerse yourself into the idle and extravagant lifestyle of the filthy rich? It isn't enough for the sex I, in exchange, got from you? Mark, my expensive whore, you never were worth even that much."

"Whore?! Who are you to call me a whore?"

"The one that pays the bills?"

"I won't take that from the biggest whore in town!"

A little wound appeared in Rawson's shoulder: the fabric tore and the flesh beneath bled. In a blink of an eye the wound shut and a new scar was in its place.

"That wasn't true even when you agreed to move in with me."

"Yes, you had already cut back, but just because, at your age, you didn't attract too many men anyway. Did you think that, if you weren't Malcolm's son, your fellow circuit queens would invite you to the sex parties you frequent? You were a hot thing once, but that was a decade ago, old man. If it weren't for the baths, I wonder, would you get any action outside of this place?"

Five bleeding wounds appeared. Four of them turned into scars.

"Yes, what would we, old fairies do without the baths? Anyone can get cock in the baths, as you well know. Even you."

"I'm no bathseba, not like you!"

"True. You're nothing like me."

"Like you, indeed! You were at Wells last night, weren't you? When are you going to understand how pathetic you are? How sad is it that, even at 34, you can't give up the club scene? You're nothing but an over-the-hill drugged out club boy!"

The bleeding wound opened further until it was a gash. It didn't show any signs of turning into a scar. The things behind Rawson became clearer.

"Leave, Mark. Don't come back. I'll send you your things."

"Connor…"

"Just fucking leave."

I turned around and walked out of the room. As I shut the door behind me, I appeared in the room with Rawson again. I was freed from the involvement, but apparently, I wasn't freed from the recollection. The status quo of the situation had changed, though: I had the chance of creating my own way out. I was preparing to do that when I heard Rawson's quiet curse.

"You little shit."

I wanted to curse, too. Trying to come up with something to say, I turned to him. Fortunately, the lucky stars hadn't abandoned me. Rawson wasn't speaking to me.

"I never asked from you anything but that one thing. I never asked you to pretend that you care about me. We had a simple deal: sex for me, my lifestyle for you. I put one condition into that deal. Just one, Mark. Why couldn't you keep that one promise? Did you think that I wouldn't find out that you were using my money to support your lover? How dense did you think I am? I told you from the very beginning that I would never let you use my money on your lovers."

It was getting embarrassing, eavesdropping on Rawson's innermost thoughts like that, but he was acting in a peculiar manner. My curiosity took the better of me.

While Rawson thought about Mark and his relationship with the man, he closed all the curtains and dimmed the lights. Then, he fetched a book. Why was he making the room dark if he wanted to read, I wondered, but as soon as he opened the book, I knew that he didn't have reading in mind. He took out a CD and put it into the machine.

The TV screen woke up, showing a gloomy picture of rain beaten countryside under a purple-gray thunderhead. In a moment, a flash of lightning hit the ground, and the sound system woke up, too. On the screen, all hell broke loose, and the room was filled with deafeningly loud, cracking grumbles. Even though I knew that it was just a recording of a storm, I was slightly frightened.

I guessed that it was a recording from one of Rawson's jaunts to the country roads. He must have got himself caught right under the storm, and instead of running to cover like any sensible person, the bloody bastard goes and takes out his camera. I hadn't thought that any further indication of Rawson's utter disregard for his life would make me feel any differently about him, but it did. I was more appalled than ever before.

Rawson was sitting on the coach, listening; his eyes were shut. The gash stopped bleeding, and the sides of the wound drew together. Soon a new, angry red scar showed on his self image. Then the redness of his latest scars began to fade. After awhile, just healed old scars were in their place. At that point, I noticed that Rawson seemed more substantial, too.

Then, the music started. What I experienced wasn't music as I know it, but I can't describe it by any other word. It was a soul singing a symphony. Rawson was taking the sounds and noises of the storm and transforming them into a cohesive and coherent form that carried meanings. Violence, pain, loneliness, endurance. The form he created had also beauty, but it wasn’t the beauty of a sunny afternoon; it had the majestic beauty of the storm that gave it birth.

I was stunned. Way too soon and too abruptly, the music stopped.

"What the fuck!" Rawson exclaimed looking right at me.

The next second, I was out of Rawson's mind.

"What the fuck are you?!" Rawson wasn't happy. "Get out of my mind!"

"You already cast me out. You're alone up there now," I tried to placate him, but he didn't listen to me.

"What the fuck are you? What?!"

"A clocksmith," I said, not thinking it through.

"Don't play games with me! I don't care what you do for a living, and you know it. How did you get into my head?"

"I’m not playing games, Rawson! I’m a clocksmith: that’s what people like me are called. It's memory manipulation..."

I didn't think that through, either.

"Manipulation? You were trying to manipulate me? Fucker. Get out of my way!"

Rawson pushed me aside as he hurried to the door and out. I gathered my aching ass from the floor and cursed as a loud bang echoed through the room. Of course, Rawson slammed the door shut behind him.

I was pondering whether to go after him--he had no coat, money, cell phone or keys--when it dawned on me that exactly that was written in the fourth report. I hurried to find my cell phone. It was 7:42. During the next twelve minutes, something would kill Rawson.

What, in less than twelve minutes, could cause his death in such a manner that "the cause of death would remain a mystery"? As far as he knew, Rawson was in perfect health. And, in the autopsy, wouldn’t the coroner find any unknown problem with his health? The cause had to be something else. A sudden exposure to some rare poison? But, that would show in the coroner's tests, too. Wouldn't it?

I was getting desperate, and the minutes ticked away. Only ten minutes were left. How could I figure it out? I'm just an internal time consciousness controller...

An internal time consciousness controller?

What an idiot I was!

I rushed out, into the stairs since the elevator was out of order, and run down as quickly as I could. I had to get to Rawson. I had made a serious mistake, a stupid mistake. If Rawson died, it would be because of me. I had made a lethal mistake.

As I assumed, in front of my building, on the sidewalk, I found Rawson standing still, staring at nothing. I moved my hand in front of his face, but he didn't react. He was completely drowned in his own thoughts. I had to act right away, or I would lose him.

I took Rawson's hand, and looked him in the eyes. Despite his introspective thoughts, my power took hold on him. I saw the damage I had caused by mishandling my power.

I entered into a stream of chaotic, flickering lights. The lights were coming from one distinct direction, but I couldn’t get any impression of what they meant. There were lights of every possible color, some bright, some muted, some dwindled into nothing in front of me.

I didn’t know what the meaning of each individual light was, but I knew what the stream of them was. I was in Rawson’s flow of time. The lights were Rawson’s memories. If I had been in a normal time consciousness, I would’ve seen lights, too, but they wouldn’t have flickered. Rawson’s memories were flowing way too rapidly. In order to help him, I had to get to the ephemeral node of now. That was the direction from which each memory was coming, fading ever further into the past.

I struggled against the flow, trying to find my way past Rawson’s memories. I was in a hurry, but his mind was putting obstacles in my path. I didn’t need to worry that I would get entrapped by the memories, since I can’t enter the thoughts of the people the time consciousness of whom I manipulate. I can invite people into my own memories, but I can’t invite myself into theirs. I can’t “see" into the thoughts of people. That’s one of the powers of a first class memory controller, and I’m not one of those. My inability to enter Rawson’s memories was a difficulty because there were a lot of memories and not much room in between them.

As I closed in on the present time and the number of the memories lessened, my trip finally became easier. I saw the strait in which one of all the myriad futures becomes the present and, in the next moment, the past. A few steps later, I saw the falls of potential futures behind the node of now. The next step took me into the node.

At my last visit in Rawson’s node of now, I had set Rawson's inner clock to run three hours in advance, nothing else. That was the case no longer. When Rawson exited the building, he also exited the zone of my influence. I should've prevented that. I even brought Rawson to my condo in order to do just that: it was my intention to lift my command from his time consciousness as soon as he woke up. Instead, I let his hostility distract me.

So, when Rawson exited my zone of influence, his time consciousness remained locked into my command, but the mind controlling the command was no longer there. Rawson's time consciousness kept obeying the command: three hours after three hours were skipped. He was aging too quickly. Without my intervention, the process would continue until his internal time consciousness reached the time by which he believed he had left this life. Rawson would die because he would believe that it was time to die. The body obeys the mind.

I needed to take control at once.

Rawson!

I raised my mental voice, commanding his undivided attention.

Skip two hours into the future!

I needed to be careful. If I made him stop aging too quickly, he wouldn’t be able to adjust. The damage to his mind would be different but not less severe.

Skip one hour into the future!

Stop!

A stooped, gray headed old man emerged from the chaos.

“Hi, Rawson," I said gently. “Do you remember me?"

“Red Norris! I haven’t thought about you in ages. What made you pop into my head?"

“How old are you?"

“77, if you can believe it: I’m almost 80 years old. Who would have thought that possible?"

I thanked the Lord that, despite his death-courting lifestyle, in his innermost core, Rawson wanted to live to old age.

But my job wasn’t done yet. I had stopped his aging, but it wasn’t enough. I had to reverse the flow of his time consciousness.

Rawson! Recall your past!

Skip one hour into the past!

Skip two hours into the past!

Skip three hours into the past!

Soon, Rawson was back in his own age. In order to finish my rescue mission, I set his internal time consciousness into sync with the world time: with his time in the world history.

"What the hell happened?" Rawson looked at me with a fist sized glare. I took a step back, just in case. “Suddenly, I felt like an old man: a very old man. And then I was feeling like myself again. Were you manipulating me after all? What the hell are you doing to me?"

"Yes, I was manipulating you. Yes, in order to save your life, I was manipulating your internal time consciousness." Rawson tried to interrupt me, but I didn’t let him. “Come inside, Rawson. We need to talk, and you can't get far, anyway: not without a coat, money, cell phone or keys. Come inside, and I'll tell you everything. OK?"

He still looked at me with the same fist sized glare, but after awhile, he followed me back in. As I walked up the stairs, I tried to decide what part of the truth would be enough for the "everything" that I would tell Rawson.
 

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