Rain had always had a certain charm for Jack, but driving in it was usually tedious. Admittedly he did take a certain childish pleasure in driving through puddles though. He loved to see the water sheeting off to the sides in a translucent curtain. Heck, if he turned at the same time, sometimes the water came up in a frothing wave to cover his windshield, before swiftly being beaten back by the whirring windshield wipers.
For now through, he was on the freeway. The constant percussive sound of the rain was drowned out by the roar of the car and the sound of trucks and other cars passing by. The constant thump-thump of the windshield wipers kept the visibility passable but the mist left by other cars constantly obscured the glass until the next pass. The lights of the cars ahead were shining red circles going in and out of focus with the accumulating and disappearing water.
Jack sighed.
“I hate driving in this.”
It didn’t help that he had just come from an interview. He hated job searching far more.
And there was nothing to these jobs. His last job was in computer IT, but the company had downsized with some of the recent economic issues. And, Jack didn’t play politics very well. He understood computers well enough, but people were a recurring mystery. He wasn’t the most recent hire, but he suspected he had been let go because he didn’t know how to play the game.
Oh well.
He had no idea how the interview went. He thought is was fine, but that didn’t mean anything, and plenty of other people had been looking for the same job. The pale beige walls had been lined with generic chairs and equally generic people waiting in dress attire for the interview.
He looked at the rain coming down. The sky was low overhead with dark clouds. He was just tired. The rain, the darkness, and his own depressed mood which seemed to echo and build, amplifying off one another..
Something in him snapped and he yelled at the rain.
“Go away!”
Lightning crashed across the sky and wind drove the rain across the road even fiercer than before. Everything blanked out in a fury of rushing water and wind and he couldn’t see anything but water past his windshield.
And then it passed and the wind stopped. The sky above had split, the clouds parting to each side and pure light streamed down from the heavens, bathing the road in glistening reflections from the remaining water.
Several cars had crashed and he had to slam on his brakes. It took ages before he finally got home.
------
The rain had returned by the time Jack got back to his apartment. That seemed appropriate.
His apartment was on the third floor of the building. He trudged up the stairs, the pool at the center of the complex enclosed by the apartments rising around it in a square. Honestly it wasn’t the worse design, as it allowed every apartment windows that faced both the inner courtyard on one side and the outside on the opposite.
His apartment wasn’t one of the nicer ones, even sharing with two other guys, so it wasn’t at one of the edges of the square with even more windows.
He opened the door and slipped inside.
The place was a mess, one of his roommates tended to leave food all-over the kitchen. If they weren’t the primary signer on the lease he would have tried to replace them.
As it was, if he didn’t find a job soon he might start owing them for rent and he didn’t want to be in that position. He hated owing people. It weighed on his mind, like he could feel the weight of his debt to them. He didn’t like it much better when people owed him either.
Shortly after getting home Jack suddenly felt immensely tired. He could barely keep his eyes open as he headed to his room. He didn’t even take off his clothes before he crashed into his bed and instantly fell asleep.
When he awoke it was 5:05 am. He looked at the clock on his phone a little more closely, wait…
It was the morning two days later. He had slept about thirty six hours.
“Damn it. I was supposed to have another interview yesterday.”
He didn’t feel sick, no sign of fever, no cough. He had just randomly slept for more than a day. What the hell had happened to him?
He hadn’t even eaten anything when he got home, he just needed to sleep so suddenly.
Well he felt fine now at least.
He stripped out of his shirt and tie and got into something more comfortable. No need to wear these around the house.
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He looked at his laundry basket with a sigh. He needed to get that done today. He hauled the laundry out of his room, his detergent stacked on top of his clothes. Odds were good that the laundry room in the basement would have plenty of open washers at this time of day.
He stepped out the door and immediately slipped. He went sprawling forward and the laundry basket hit the railing. The laundry stayed in place, but the detergent bottle sailed over it and did its best impression of a swan dive onto the concrete by the pool.
His body felt a little shaky, like it weighed too much. Jack stepped up to the rail and looked down. The liquid detergent was splattered everywhere and the bottle was cracked open like an egg. A substantial portion of the soap had sprayed out and was slowly dissolving into the pool.
“Fuck.” He muttered to himself, “Guess I was lucky not to twist my ankle or lose my laundry over the side though. What the hell did I slip on though?”
He looked down, and he could see a paper flier on the ground. It had a visible footprint from his shoe, but was actually in pretty good shape considering he had ground it again the cement when he slipped.
He leaned down and picked it up, reading the large font boldly making a declaration.
Discover the magic within!
You have the potential to make miracles.
Need money, need purpose? Just need to pay the rent?
We can help!
Ask for the Magic Room at Cathy’s Diner.
“Right…”
He walked back in threw it away and then put his laundry back in his room. Then he walked down to the pool and opened up the gate. There wasn’t much he could do about the soap that had gotten into the pool, but he picked up all the plastic shards and threw them away.
“Guess I am going to the store today.”
He rinsed the soap off his hands and got in the car. It was once black, but the paint had been worn away by time. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked quite well. The engine was rock solid, even if some of the rest of the car was gradually falling apart around it.
Since it was early the store wasn’t busy at all and he eased into the parking lot. The subdued sounds of a baseball game in the neighboring park were the only sounds. It only took a few minutes to get laundry soap and a few essentials. When he came back out he quickly put away his groceries in the trunk and got in the car. There was a flier on his windshield.
“Ugh.”
He got out of the car with a grunt of frustration.
He pulled the flier off and got back in the car.
He looked at it real quick. It was another damned flier about magic, though this one wasn’t the same.
Discover the magic within!
Don’t ignore the call!
Wash away the past.
Having bad luck? Unable to complete tasks?
We can help!
Ask for the Magic Room at Cathy’s Diner.
Jack looked around, the back of his neck prickling. There didn’t seem to be anyone looking his way.
“What the hell?”
None of the few other cars parked in the parking lot had fliers on their windshields. Come to think of it he hadn’t seen any other fliers waiting outside any of the other apartments either. He felt like something was pressing down on him.
He put the flier on the seat next to him and took a deep breath.
He started up the car and started to back up. A baseball hit the ground behind his car with a crack and bounced away. He stopped the car in surprise for a moment and then continued on the way. He could see kids cheering their home run. He couldn’t blame them for celebrating, it had been a heck of a hit to get all the way out here.
He pulled out of the lot and halfway home another flier plastered itself against his windshield as he was driving. He hadn’t read the whole thing, but “Discover the Magic Within,” had definitely been visible as he swerved in surprise. The flier had promptly flown away in the wind and he had trembled as he drove the rest of the way. A car ran a red light ahead of him as he sped up again.
“I swear no-one knows how to freaking drive here.”
He tried not to think about the flier.
He got home and peeled his white knuckled hands off the steering wheel. He looked down at the flier on the seat next to him. The cheery words and the brightly colored paper were innocently laying there.
“Okay, I will deal with this later. I… just cannot deal with this right now.”
Jack got out of the car and grabbed his groceries. He quickly got them inside without further incident.
Very carefully, he took his laundry down to the laundry room and swiped his card to get inside. It refused to register for several tries, but eventually the door opened and let him in.
The entire place was empty, the lights flickering on as he entered. He chose a washer at random and started to load his clothes into in. A few quarters got it to start running and he sat down in a chair to wait.
His phone was running slow and kept glitching out. It was just one of those days apparently. Fortunately getting his laundry into the dryer proved to be without obstacle. He emptied out the lint trap and it started up.
A couple other people had started up their laundry by the time the button on the dryer beeped and I went to check on it. Everything was still wet, through it was at least hot.
“What the hell…?”
Jack checked the lint trap. For a second it was jammed and then it suddenly sprung open and he stumbled back. A perfectly pristine flier was caught in the lint trap, blocking it completely.
He started to tremble.
“Oh my God.”
He had been here the entire time. He had chosen the washer and dryer. That lint trap had been empty. He had cleaned it out himself.
“Holy fuck, holy fuck. What the hell is happening?”
With a shaky hand he plucked the flier out of the lint trap.
Discover the magic within!
URGENT!
You need to act now!
Think it is going to get better?
It won’t! We can help!
Ask for the Magic Room at Cathy’s Diner.
He crumpled the paper in his fist as he trembled.
He could feel something looming over him. The feeling of weight had been growing all day. It was the same feeling he got when he owed someone anything. And he had never felt it like this. It felt like a tidal wave was about crash down on him.
He opened his phone and input Cathy’s Diner. He left his clothes in the dryer. He could get to those later. He had started to believe the flier in his hand. Whatever was happening, he needed to get it taken care of. He didn’t care if it was magic at this point, he was afraid to wait any longer.
He got in his car and started to follow the directions.
He almost got into an accident three different times as he was on the way. Each time he was interrupted by fliers blowing in the wind. The last was caused by a tornado of fliers rushing around his car, the bright neon colors blinding him at he screeched to a halt.
When the tornado of fliers finally passed he saw a train track in front of him. The train was passing by but the railroad crossing signs were not flashing and the barriers were not down. If he hadn’t braked the train might have hit him without any sign it was coming.
His face paled and he shook more than ever.
He finally arrived and tripped on another flier in the parking lot. A car sped by right were he would have been it he had kept going.
He ran inside the cafe. It was a fifties diner, all chrome and red leather seats.
A waitress greeted him.
“Hey honey, just you this morning?”
He didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“Where is the Magic Room?”
The waitress’s face went blank and the room dissolved around him. The waitress disappeared and the room became much larger.
Over stuffed brown leather chairs were grouped in pairs and trios around the edges of the room, small round tables in-between them. Large round tables occupied the middle of the room, with ornately carved wooden chairs around them in groups of six.
“What the hell was that?”
A voice called out from behind him, and he turned to see an older gentleman sitting in one of the leather chairs.
“Magic, of course. How did you like your first experience with it?”