The Servant Of Time

Not So Normal Beginnings

The monster was merciless. Its sword was the wind that slashed brutally across skin and its arrows were made of water, that yes was a blessing, but was a curse as well. It flooded bringing destruction and stagnated bringing bloodsuckers and disease to Nairobi.

It was the month of June, proven by how the sky was covered by the city's breath. Not the words of Angelo Toussaint, but of his mother when he was younger and tried to comprehend fog.

He tried to smile at the memory but the monster's sword slashed with a force that chattered his teeth. He now regretted leaving the house in a vest and basketball shorts.

None of this helped him carry his load that already weighed a tonne to the taxi parked in front of the house. The driver was at the open boot of the car, shielding his face from the drizzle with his right hand. He helped the sixteen-year-old boy lift his mother's suitcase into the car then slammed the boot shut. The car leaned slightly on its rear wheels.

Angelo began to question the credibility of his mother's words when she'd said, " I'll be gone a few days."

He shook the driver's hand and they exchanged pleasantries. The man was warmly dressed in a heavy jacket and jeans. Angelo was making the perfect demonstration of a reed in the wind, the driver joked.

Angelo smiled with some effort, tried to laugh but only chattered his teeth some more.

He made for the house, his bare feet splashing in some puddle. Ignoring the cold he pushed the door open.

The cold didn't disappear at once but was reduced to a certain extent, which was better than being outside.

He found his mother rummaging through her drawers in her bedroom, desperately searching for something.

" You do realize that the longer you keep the driver waiting, the more they charge you, right?" he asked leaning on the door frame.

" I'm still a year from turning forty Angelo, I'm not yet old. I still know stuff" she replied, her search never stopping.

Time stitched seconds together to a minute that was occupied by silence. 

She must've found what she was looking for, Angelo could tell by how her previously stressed expression calmed. She closed the drawer and held out the headphone adapter so Angelo could see.

Of course. Headphone adapters were crucial for sixteen-hour flights to New York.

She shoved the adapter into her coat pocket and picked up her purse. 

Their goodbyes were brief, such that the word goodbye wasn't even mentioned. A few days.

A few days because she couldn't dictate how long she'd be gone because that's how U.N jobs worked, Angelo guessed. A few days in the States.

Emptiness was no new feeling to Angelo, but it gripped him with a renewed strength every time he was alone. The stronger need to go back to sleep commanded that he worry about being lonely later.

As soon as his mother had shut the front door on her way out, he had gone back to his room upstairs and fallen onto his bed, desperately searching for leftovers of sleep. It was too early for a Saturday morning.

He felt his senses dull,

But was pulled from his haze by Chris Brown's voice right next to his ear. His phone was ringing.

He picked up without looking at the caller and put them on speaker.

"Hello?" Angelo said, speaking through the mattress.

"Hey Angelo." came a feminine voice. A voice Angelo could recognize from a miles away. It belonged to the girl who had become Angelo's best friend, a term he was beginning to despise. 'Best friend' was the wall that prevented them from being more.

"Hey Ashley. Isn't it too early for a Saturday morning?" he said keeping the pain of his thoughts from his voice. He was wide awake now, sitting on his bed. 

Angelo imagined her shrugging.

" Some of us have things to do on Saturdays"

" Going for tennis practice, are you?"

" Stalking is a felony, Mr. Toussaint."

" And waking me up early on a Saturday morning against the best friends' law, Ms. Waweru"

Angelo could hear commotion in what he presumed was her bedroom. A zip-closed a door creaked as it opened.

" Let me make it up to you then" she said after a moment of silence.

" How so?"

" Meet me at the Junction mall at midday" she said and hung up before Angelo could reply. He was out of his bed in an instant.

★★★ 

'This isn't a date.'

The back of his mind nagged him. He and Ashley did this all the time. They would go to the mall, watch a movie or have lunch with the possibility of a third party. 

Boys would always flirt with Ashley and Angelo would ignore them until he got the secret signal from her that they should ditch the third party.

If it was a girl, they would flirt indirectly with Angelo and Ashley would come to his rescue. As a result, neither of them was very popular at school.

The cold had subsided and the clouds had parted only slightly, letting in some sun. It would probably start raining again in the afternoon.

Angelo's house was a five-kilometer walk from the mall, a walking distance.

It was ten minutes to midday. He slowed his pace as the road rose uphill. He could almost see the building now.

A foreigner gestured for him to stop.

Taking off his earphones he heard her struggle to speak Swahili, her American accent betraying her.

Foreigners were only ever in the country because they worked and lived here or they were just tourists.

She was clearly a tourist because she had immediately presumed that Angelo didn't speak English. 

She'd switched to random words combined with gestures when Angelo decided to end his amusement.

"You realize that waving your arms about doesn't make me understand you any better, right?" he asked, letting the grin spread on his face.

Her cheeks flushed and she looked down, embarrassed.

She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless blacktop. Angelo's eyes wandered to a bronze ankh tattoo on her right arm, just below the shoulder.

"No need to apologize. What do you need help with?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Nairobi's not as large as New York or but it's a city nonetheless. Finding someone specific by asking random people won't get you anywhere ..."

"That's the thing, I have their description..."

"That'd still mean looking for a single person out of millions who meets that description. I'm sorry, I can't help you."Angelo said and began to walk away.

But the lady persisted, stepping into his path once more. She was a head shorter than Angelo but her arms were more than the tattoo.

Angelo stopped walking, not because he was intimidated by her build but because he didn't see any reason to be rude.

"The description is very specific, he's six foot two, has a scarred eyebrow and he's..."

"He's black." Angelo finished for her. 

Now he had a reason to be rude. He shoved past, already trying to forget that this had ever happened.

A grip around his right wrist.

It was strong enough to stop his movement and pull him back slightly.

Using his right foot as a pivot, he turned in a wide clockwise arc like he was playing basketball.

He stared down at the white lady who's expression had hardened.

"There's one more detail..." she began, but Angelo cut her off,

" I think we're past that now. We've skipped over to physical assault on a minor in a matter of seconds. And, with over a hundred witnesses..." he trailed off in his struggles to break free from the iron grip.

"His name" she said, tightening her grip, almost unleashing a scream from Angelo.

Almost.

"What are..."

"Angelo Toussaint." She said, releasing him.

Angelo pulled his wrist to his chest and rubbed it in his left hand. It throbbed painfully.

"Who?" he asked although he'd heard her perfectly well.

She ignored his question, seeing through him as if he were glass.

"Angelo, listen to me..."

"Oh, so you're demanding now?" he asked, his voice raised.

"Please. I can't let you go to that mall. Your life depends on it"

"What do you mean my life depends on it?" his anger flared. Was this lady threatening him?

"I'm trying to help you!" she shouted. Her expression had changed once more. Desperation was easy to read, but just as easy to fake. He wasn't going to fall for it.

He let the smirk stain his face.

"Yeah? My wrist says otherwise." he turned and strode up the hill, ignoring her as she shouted for him to stop.

Angelo knew about butterflies as insects. Magnificent creatures whose diversity in beauty was almost limitless. They were a part of his biology class. They were however completely different creatures when they attacked people in the form of anxiety.

And they only ever swarmed Angelo like they were doing right now whenever he saw a certain angelic face...

Hold up, Angelic? What is this, another Shakespearean romantic?

Angelo cleansed his thoughts.

Not angelic but this amazonian face. Ashley didn't have a sword and she didn't need one. Her racket was a heart breaker on its own. Iverson High School school tennis MVP.

Standing at just under six feet tall, she was one of the tallest girls in school and was built like an sss who played tennis.

She was seated at the inconvenient little table in front of the movie ticket counter, scrolling on her phone, taking a single popcorn at a time from a box seemingly half empty.

He knew she was irritated from waiting. He wouldn't explain why to her though, because telling her that he, who took Tae Kwon Do classes, was attacked by a random tourist on the street who knew his name would be pointless.

She looked up as Angelo approached, a faux smile mixed with a grimace covering her face.

" you're late" she stated bluntly, failing at hiding the disappointment in her voice.

"I'm sorry." he said distantly. The lady 's words replayed in his head.

*"Your life depends on it..."*

"Well?" Ashley's voice came, ripping him from his reverie.

"I umm...Let's just say I got sidetracked..."

"Did whatever that sidetracked you harm your wrist by any chance?"

Angelo's puzzlement was instant.

"I didn't tell you that did I?"

"No but you're right-handed and when you tried to lean on the table with said hand you winced and switched up."

Angelo vaguely remembered this happening a few seconds before, when his mind had wandered to the white lady.

Ashley was an observant sss as well. Angelo had almost forgotten.

"Right...Yes it did.  But we can talk about this later. What movie are we here to see?"

From her unsatisfied grimace, Angelo could tell that 'sidetracked wasn't enough an explanation. But she didn't press on.

" It's called The Hit Man's Shadow..."

"Wait. Isn't that the movie where the hitman falls in love with a woman he was supposed to kill?"

"yes."

Ashley said looking offended.

"Why, do you have a problem with it?" she asked defensively.

"No, " he said hurriedly.

Provoking Ashley when she had that look was a bad idea. Those Amazonian athlete arms could throw a mean punch.

"But I may have a problem with a certain actor..."

The first punch sent pins and needles through Angelo's right arm but this only aided his braveness.

"This actor happens to be the main character of the movie..."

The second punch paralyzed his right shoulder for a second before the pins and needles rushed in. He clenched it in his left hand barely holding back a yelp.

"Nathaniel Krueger is an excellent actor and writer. Two things you'll never be."

Angelo's ego hurt, not because he wanted to be either of those things, but a fleeting worry of what Ashley thought of him.

"Doesn't mean I should like him" Angelo said grimacing.

"Well it's too late for you to criticize my movie choice," Ashely said picking up the untouched box of popcorn. The box she'd been eating from when Angelo had first arrived was worse than half empty.

"Oh come on!" he said to a serious-faced Ashley.

"Don't look at me, you're the one who came late."

He wordlessly turned to the snack counter. There was, thankfully no line. The man at the counter wore a forced smile as he served Angelo his popcorn.

It was a perfectly normal Saturday.

Then Angelo saw it. It shook him at once, even before he had registered what it was. He had seen it before, on a certain tourists shoulder.

The bronze ankh tattoo was not on the man's shoulder but on his neck, perfectly resembling that of the lady in the street.

"That's a nice tattoo you have there," Angelo said as the man handed him his popcorn.

The smile he got in reply was sent chills down his

spine.

"Yeah. I got it when I was sixteen. It's Egyptian, it symbolizes..."

"Life." The word came from Angelo's lips as if it meant more. As if it had consciousness, it rippled through him raising dread and confusion

Whatever expression he was showing widened the man's grin.

"Kid, word of advice enjoy that popcorn, it may very well be your last."

"What's that supposed to mean?"Angelo asked, his temper rising. Two death threats in a day was a new record, that is if one wasn't a record in itself.

But the man was already gone. He'd been turning even amidst Angelo's words. The door at the back of the counter slamming shut was his reply.  He hadn't even paid for the popcorn.

Had his life not just been threatened, he would have perhaps been elated at the prospect of free popcorn.

***

If you ignored the loudspeakers projecting gunshots music and ugh, Nathaniel Krueger's voice, it was eerily quiet in the screening room.

Usually, there was at least a single person who had something to say about some scene and Angelo would wonder, 'Is it really so hard to be quiet for an hour and a half?'

But for the first time, when nothing was being spoken, he longed for it. It was as if everybody in this room, despite it being only half full, was disciplined enough to remain quiet. Even Ashley who always had to shout something at the screen was silent. She had stopped eating her popcorn halfway through it.

Her eyes were glued to the screen, watching Nathaniel Krueger's shirtless form as he carried some other actress who was bleeding into a car. Angelo could've sworn Ashley was drooling.

His phone was pressed against his thigh in his pocket and it was taking quite the effort not to take Ashley a photo.

The loudspeakers quietened. It was gradual. The sound faded to disappearance as if a reverse crescendo.

It was like somebody had pressed a pause button on the movie. Angelo turned his head to the screen. Nathaniel Krueger looked back at him in a car, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. The other actress barely conscious on the passenger side. But nothing happened. The screen remained frozen, paused.

Angelo waited for a protest from the rest of the rest before he could shout himself. None came. Surely Ashley would've done so considering the opportunity had been so freely given. But the sss remained quiet at his side.

He turned to her, her face illuminated only by the light from the screen. Withholding a gasp, he realized that her expression had remained the same, blank. Her eyes were still glued to the screen,

Which suddenly went off.

The darkness almost made Angelo jump. The sound of his heartbeat reverberated in his ears. He elbowed the girl on his right but got no reaction. Not even a breath.

Angelo wasn't one to be afraid of the dark, but that was starting to change. Standing up was suicide. Even if he managed to get up, the stairs were at least ten strides away, and falling from them seemed painful.

His breath caught in his chest. A chill similar to the one he'd gotten at the snack bar stroked his skin diabolically. Cold sweats stuck his t-shirt to his back.

"Don't overreact," Angelo whispered to himself.

"The screen'll come back on any moment now."

In a flash of bronze, the screen was on again. The breath Angelo released from his lungs was certainly no sigh of relief. It reeked of dread and worry. But his lungs were far from free. If anything, the fear only doubled in his chest when the screen displayed nothing but bronze.

It quadrupled when the bronze swirled from the corners, moving towards the center to form an ankh, leaving the area of the screen around it in a startling white.

'Don't go to that mall, your life depends on it.'

The white lady's voice replayed in his head.

'Enjoy that popcorn, it may very well be your last.'

Both the white lady and the guy at the snack bar had a tattoo resembling the ankh. Both had threatened him.

What the hell did this damn symbol mean?

As if in answer of his the image on the screen shifted.

The face that came on was, thankfully, not that of Nathaniel Krueger.

The man was standing in a desert. The dunes, or as Angelo preferred, the waves of sand stood unperturbed but for the wind that stole and gave sand from them.

But it was the man that intrigued Angelo.

It may have been nothing but an illusion, but he stood at the height of the dune behind him. The wind did not bother him but, his green cape flowed in it as if it were a flag.

His bronze armor was blinding, even through the screen. His face was indecipherable and when he spoke, his accent was untraceable. But his words shook the sixteen-year-old boy who watched him.  It was not only dread that filled his veins, but also spite. The spite ran deep as if he'd hated this man all his existence, yet he had never met him before.

"Angelo Toussaint." he grinned.

"You have evaded me long enough."