[THiNK]

Chapter One: Depression: Monday morning. 06:00. November 2^nd.

The alarm went off. The start of a new day. The start of a new week.

A new dreary and daunting winter morning, prelude to a dreary and daunting winter week. The sun had long forgotten this little suburb as this side of the city had not been favored by god.

Xavier sat up on the edge of his bed. His bare feet touched the ice-cold, cement floor. A feeling of chilliness crawled up his veins through his body, forcing his skin to stretch and his eyes to open up wide.

A good morning foreseeing the coming of a nice day…

He had already finished shaving his beard when his wife woke up. He could hear the bed moan and shriek as his wife still tried to pull herself out from under the blankets. He ignored her and followed his every day depressing routine; a stare in the mirror and a loss for words. Every single morning, the same routine took away the slightest chance for a nice day. The thoughts that followed his everyday shave deprived him of his right for a better chance, a nicer day, a happier life, a difference.

Age caught up with him. There was no escaping, no turning back. Although, he had started off happily when he first planned out life, years later, he was this middle aged 30 year old nobody; he possessed a certain amount of nothingness and he was seriously unable to see any light, change or hope in his future, let alone his present.

Each single day, the very same train of thought would pull up in his mind’s station with the sole purpose of torturing his existence. He had decided he had been enslaved in a nightmare with no turning point.

Coming out of the bathroom, he noticed his wife trying to fit herself in one of her own XL gowns, one however which was not willing to stretch beyond a quad XL size. Debbie smiled at him amiably as he passed around her to reach his own wardrobe. He returned the smile out of responsibility. His smile hid his thoughts about Debbie’s size, his own financial situation, the fact that he was the only one working to feed the family and another one thousand depressive thoughts.

He put on some casually clean clothes and headed off to work. Reaching the exit he noticed that he still hadn’t said a single word since waking up and at this thought, he opened the door and walked out. Never saying a word.

It was a short drive to the office. For the last ten years he had been doing the same trip from home to work and vice versa. No deviation, no change whatsoever. Time and money would not allow the slightest change. Xavier was dying inside but he couldn’t decide what was killing him first: being part of a never-ending routine, or the nature of the routine itself?

- "Things would be different if I was routinely driving a Saab, from a mansion to a palace".

That was a thought he normally got whenever things took a really depressive turn. Unfortunately, it never brought about better thoughts. It seemed as if this same thought was the pinnacle of his depression.

Ten and a half hours later, he had worked his normal 8 hour shift, he had been called by his supervisor, he had been announced the end of their co-operation, he had visited the human resources department where he had been serviced by the logistics office personnel and had been given his last paycheck, plus all legal compensation. He had also found himself idly driving into a place where he had never been before.

From behind the wheel he could see people looking at him, mocking him and laughing at him. Even if they weren’t, he still knew they were. They were all laughing at him for getting old, for being married to a hippopotamus, for working his arse off for the last 10 years for minimum pay and most of all, for being kicked out of his job and for being left with no hope whatsoever for the future.

He parked his dying car behind a couple of lined up trash containers. A place appropriate for both the car and his entire life.

He found himself lost in his own concerns; so much in fact that he didn’t pay any attention to where his steps took him. He was deeply lost in his anxiety, trying to sort out his thoughts and figure out what it was that had gone wrong in his life to lead him to this moment of ultimate despair. Hundreds of fears, concerns, thoughts, images and theories invaded his mind.

Having idly and aimlessly walked for about an hour, his eyes fell upon a beach where the waters of the winter sea crashed frantically. There, he noticed a fire that lent light to the night.

- "Some happy, fresh loved couple"

He walked towards the beach, keeping a safe and certain distance between himself and the fire.

Ten minutes later he was spitting sand and warm blood while trying to find his glasses on the beach; he was crying, sobbing and laughing crazily; he attempted to keep movement to a minimum, as all of his body felt like a splintered marionette, and he tried to figure out what had just happened.

The people around the fire were not a loving couple. At that point, with no job, no dreams left to disappoint, with a whale for a wife waiting for him at home, with no hope for the future, no wallet, no money and no car keys in his pockets, with the spark of life dying inside of him, he sat up on the wet sand and wished to die.

And his wish was overheard…

There, in the middle of nowhere, amidst never, away from everything, a form appeared over the water, from within the sea as if made of sea itself; a form which steadily walked towards Xavier. A sea figure that took humanoid form. It walked out the sea and stood right in front of Xavier fiercely yet compassionately, caringly yet ominously.

Xavier let the alien know of all of his personal, financial, career related, emotional and whatnot problems. He invited the strange alien figure to take a dive into his failing, disappointing life; and the strange figure did. It scoured his thoughts and concerns and smiled and shed a tear at times. Then it revealed its own purpose.

Five minutes later, five minutes that resembled five lifetimes of inactivity, he felt "different". He found himself believing tales of strange, unbelievable entities, stories about appearances of angels and demons, gods and devils. Once those five minutes had gone by, Xavier found himself believing in Djins, he found himself believing in supernatural beings and forces, but most of all, he found himself believing that although his life had gone down the drain and touched bottom, a new life of redundant riches and wealth had been awaiting for him; starting five minutes ago.

Chapter Two: Recreation of Salvation: Tuesday morning. 06:00. November 3^rd.

The alarm went off. The start of a new day.

A new dreary and daunting winter morning, prelude to a dreary and daunting winter day. This time however, Xavier felt a wind of change blowing in his face. Touching his feet on the cement floor still gave him the same chilly feeling but that didn’t bring him down. He walked into the bathroom barefoot, shaved his face and looked in the mirror. That didn’t sadden him either. He heard his wife wrestling with the bed sheets, trying to pull her weight off the bed but that didn’t change his mood either. He came out of the bath and he saw his wife, once more trying to breathe her belly in, in an attempt to put on a stretched to the limits gown. He smiled sincerely as he walked over to his cupboard to put some clothes on. His wife didn’t.

Debbie had always been frightened of this moment since she had been diagnosed with the most disgusting disease. Her system could not process food intake and her metabolic ability was practically nonexistent. At the very moment of the diagnosis, she had already visualized her future. She would just live to put on weight and then die one day, a whale of a woman, knowing that Xavier would not be by her side.

The dreadful moment had finally come. After so many years of avoidance and negligence, it was the first morning that Xavier woke up on the right foot; smiling and lighthearted. Even on that very second that she knew Xavier had an affair, even if he didn’t, she couldn’t decide if she preferred having someone who hated her or someone who would pretend like he still cared.

Debbie took her gown off and looked at her naked reflection in the mirror. Her entire figure would not fit in wide wise. She knew she had grown obese. But the realization that came with the brutal depiction on a full frame mirror brought her to tears. However, she buried them under a fat layer of ego and never let them show. She just stayed there and stared at her naked figure. At her 17 she had won the International Miss Tourism contest and had traveled round half the world on the most luxurious vessel ever made. Now, the vessel would probably sink bottomwards if she had tried to board and herself, she resembled the Titanic.

Xavier tried to follow the Djin’s advice to the letter. He unearthed his wedding suit, found a pair of appropriate shoes, went back into the bathroom to use the last bits of remaining hair gel and he announced himself ready.

As he was ready to go out, the entire dialogue played back in his mind’s theatre.

- "Is it your ultimate wish to die, really?"

- "I have nothing. I never had anything but now, now I really have nothing".

- "So, you mean you thought you had nothing but then you lost something and it feels now as having less than nothing, which is nothing. Is that it?"

Xavier had been beaten, he had been robbed, he had been fired and apart from that one afternoon, in all of his life, more than anyone else perhaps, he had been tasting a life of struggle trying to feed himself, his obese wife and his two year old boy.

- "You’re not being funny. What do you want me to tell you? My life was shit before today yes, but now, how am I supposed to go on? I have nothing left anymore, nothing."

- "Oh but therein your error lies X-avier."

The Djin had a really strange pronunciation. Like a heavy Russian accent. It struck Xavier at first but then he thought it sounded cool the way the Djin pronounced his name. Having seen that "entity" walking out of the sea and evaporating slowly, Xavier knew it would be rather insipid to ask how come it knew his name.

- "What’s that supposed to mean?"

- "A person’s property surpasses his belongings, I would say."

Xavier paused for a second. The Djin pronounced all "s" as if they were "z", but what really bothered him was its philosophical stance that seemed monumental.

- "I lost my job. Lost my paycheck. No more money. What do you propose I should do? Where will I find the money to support my whale wife and sobbing bastard? What do you propose I should do? Start robbing banks?"

- "See?" the Djin answered, "I didn’t even have to do a thing. You came up with it on your very own."

- "You must be fucking me", Xavier exclaimed in an outburst. "What are you anyway? No! Fuck that. I don’t care. What the fuck do you want with me?"

- "You wished to die. The mere reason you’re still alive is because I allow it. I will make amends.”

Thus the Djin spoke and the last few drops of water evaporated from its figure and let Xavier stare in the darkened, winter sea.

Chapter Three: Realization of Salvation: Tuesday morning. 07:00. November 3^rd.

Xavier smiled at his own reflection in the toilet mirror and then walked out again and into his kid’s room. He couldn’t remember when was the last time he had seen his baby. It felt like years. Debbie looked from across the hallway and failed to hold a tear carving its way on her cheek.

Xavier walked to the exit, opened the door and walked out saying "bye babe, see you in the afternoon".

Yes, Xavier was having an affair. Debbie knew and so did all the magazines the likes of Woman, Pink, Her, etc. "When a s man’s attitude changes suddenly from typically normal or bad to dream-like perfect, it is self-evident that this man is having an affair". The psychologists knew, so did Debbie.

Xavier walked around his block, he walked away towards the central square, past the pedestrians’ avenue, strolled among the various local shops and cafes and after having walked for about five straight hours, he found his inner optimism diminishing. He felt empty again; once more betrayed. By the alien or by himself, it made little difference. He walked a bit more before entering a British-style pub. He walked over to the darkest table available, one far away from the windows. It was as if the table had been placed there for covering a simple basic human need; privacy for the completion of some illegal activity.

He closed his eyes for just a second. He let his troubles and depression overtake him but he was never given the chance to enjoy the moment of self pity. The three chairs around his table were pulled back almost simultaneously. First, the person opposite him sat at the chair facing him. Then, on his right and left, two other men sat. Xavier never had the chance to object.

Half an hour later, he found himself out of the pub and into some kind of an agreement. He found himself walking towards home, with an envelope in his hands and a thick check in his pocket. Half an hour later, Xavier found himself having chosen between two options. Job over death. He was too scared to die. For the second time, he had proven too weak to ask for his termination. Perhaps he should have had. The first time. Or the second time.

He reached home. Too early by any standards. He got in but didn’t say a word. His two year old boy crawled to him but he hardly noticed. Debbie however, she did notice. She walked to the little boy and picked him up. Still naked. Hours after the morning’s incident, she remained nude. She picked up the baby boy and took off towards the boy’s bedroom muttering: "you act as if you hate us already". Her voice sounded like a bird chipping at the back of Xavier head. At the very front, serious issues galloped. Job over death. His free will choice.

He checked his immediate surroundings. Felt like home. Seemed like home. Was it really home? He could swear he was in a pub. He was getting ready to order. He was home. An envelope in his hands. He dropped it on the old wooden table in front of him. "Mahogany" he was calling it. As if he’d ever afford true mahogany.

The envelope. He had to know. He grabbed a long steel knife from the drawers next to him. He checked the envelope. Checked the edges, mentally measured its volume and weight, raised it against the little light coming from the window and tried to make out its content. In vain. The doorbell rang. Once. Twice.

Xavier walked to the door, opened it and demanded: "What?"

A gun staring him at eye level. Xavier felt the knife travelling a long, short distance to the cement floor, his knees bending, standing up straight, his mind racing for an explanation.

Fifteen minutes later, Xavier was sitting before the same "mahogany" table. He was also deprived of the envelope, awarded instead with a small, black, plastic bag filled with about six hundred gold "liras"; an old Greek coin no more circulating. He also heard his wife asking for information over the phone and finding out that the national bank of Greece would buy a gold lira for about four hundred Euros. Four hundred Euro…times six hundred.

- "Who were these people? What did they come looking for in our house? What’s all this money? What was in the envelope? What have you gotten us into? Who..? What..?"

Xavier looked at her. She still shouted, still naked, still obese. He stood up, took the plastic bag and turned it upside down. Took a handful of golden coins in his hands and hid them deep in his pocket. He walked out of the table and to the exit. Idly.

- "Put some clothes on", he said and left the house.

It took Xavier about two hours to find a branch of the national bank of Greece. Once inside, both the clerk and the branch supervisor were very keen to learn where those coins came from. For the first time, Xavier came up with an excuse that worked; for the people in the bank, Xavier rooted back from a famous family that owned large amounts of such coins.

After visiting the national bank of Greece, He looked for a branch of Barclays. He still had the check in his pocket. He went in, produced the check, waited for the clerk to count the money and then walked out; richer by 25 thousand Euros. At that moment, Xavier was a jobless, broke punk, with almost 30 thousand Euros in his pockets. He chuckled, he smiled, he laughed and in the end, he fell on his knees with tears of delight. The Djin had been right. It did make amends.

He strolled among the shops once more. This time round with a smile on his lips and radiant eyes. He reached the same bar wherein he had been given the envelope. He walked in and he paused for a second shocked by the feeling of déjà-vu. Everything and everyone looked just like they did the first time he had walked in. He looked around, felt the waitress pressing against him in order to pass through, he scanned the area for an empty seat and noticed there was only one empty table. The darkest table.

He walked to it, pulled one chair back and sat down. Everything felt repeated. He closed his eyes to re-establish a connection with his consciousness. Everything seemed replayed, but a logical explanation should explain everything. At that thought, Xavier opened his eyes to face three people sitting around him. They were staring at him staring at them.

Some minutes later, Xavier walked out on the pavement. An envelope tight in his hands, a check in his back pocket. He walked straight home, locked the door behind him, threw the envelope on the "mahogany", picked up the knife that was still lying on the table and was interrupted by the ringing bell.

He walked to the door, opened it and demanded: “What?”

A gun staring at him at eye level, three people dressed in black with a certain foreign accent and a hasty attitude.

Fifteen minutes later, Xavier was counting the coins in the newly acquired black, plastic bag. Sixty. Sixty gold liras. One tenth of the amount he got the first time, by the same people, in an identical way. He felt rather let down at first but exclaimed in satisfaction at his resurrection. The Djin had done more than Xavier had ever hoped for.

Xavier lived the dream. He went out on the same day and purchased all that he had always dreamt of. A new car -a brand new Lotus Exige with a 1.8 L Rover K Series engine in VHPD, a superbike -an MV Agusta F4 Veltro Strada, new furniture, a high end security system for the house, the most extreme PC, a 66 inch LED TV. He had come to possess all the things he could have never even dared desire, all in one afternoon. He had even arranged visits to the best beauty salons for Debbie and his libido showed on that very same day when, in the dead of the night, the bedroom got to remember the moaning of Debbie and Xavier.

Happiness reigned. For one day.

Chapter Four: Decline: Wednesday 03:00. November 4^th.

In the dark bedroom, all sweaty and gasping for breath, Xavier and Debbie had just had sex for the first time after their son’s birth. Debbie could still not believe Xavier’s sudden change of character. She was still torn between believing in a magnificent new life with her beloved husband or in her suspicion he was having an affair. Xavier on the other side of the bed, he was staring at the ceiling exhausted but rejuvenated.

- “I’ll go again right now!”

- “Please don’t…”

She tried caressing his torso but he got off the bed. She looked at him while he got dressed. He just put his pants on and a shirt. Slipped into his shoes and took off, leaving her naked and sweaty, under a crumpled mass of wet sheets.

Chapter Five: Paranoia: Take One. November 5^th.

Xavier got back a couple of hours later. As soon as he got in, he heard a muffed sound coming from the bedroom. Debbie was probably having a nightmare. He did his best not to wake up the baby or his wife and he kept as silent as possible by closing the door behind him slowly and tiptoe walking to the “mahogany” table. Leaving the envelope on the table he noticed a tiny plastic black bag. He untied the knot and turned it upside down. Six gold coins dropped on the table, swiveled and fell off. Six coins. Exactly one tenth of the second time he got paid for the envelope. One hundredth of the number of coins he had gotten the first time round. But this time there were no doorbell and there were no foreigners in black.

The moaning got louder.

Xavier walked to the bedroom curiously but silently. He pushed the door open and he froze in place at what he saw. Debbie, tied up and suspended from the bedroom ceiling, naked, raped and bleeding to death. It took him a minute to recompose himself, just in time to recognize the familiar handgun. One of the three rapists was standing in front of him, pointing a gun at him at eye level, just like the two times Xavier had opened the door for them, earlier on that same day.

The bullet spiraled around its axis and started drilling on his forehead skin; it then shattered his skull and finally, it ruptured his brain before he even dropped dead on the floor. His eyes remained open; alive; staring. Staring at a wooden door.

Chapter Five: Paranoia: Take Two. November 5^th.

He was only gone for a couple of hours. He had an envelope in his left hand, a check in his back pocket and the keys in his right hand. He was standing in front of his house entrance. He stared at the keys and tried to acknowledge if he was dreaming. He inserted the key into the hole, turned slowly, pushed the door so that he could take a peek inside and tried to listen.

There was a muffed sound coming from the bedroom.

- “Bastards” he muttered.

He slowly got in, silently, he tiptoe walked to the drawer where he kept the knife he was going to use in order to open the first two envelopes, he took hold of his favourite blade and slowly walked towards his bedroom. He slightly pushed the door and got hit by the strongest déjà-vu in the history of mankind.

Debbie, tied up and suspended from the bedroom ceiling, naked, raped and bleeding to death. He stormed inside holding the knife high up over his head and ready to throttle anything and anyone that would get in his way. Nothing and no one did. The room was baptized in light, Debbie was still bleeding to death but no one else was there.

There was a muffed sound coming from his son’s bedroom.

He walked across the hallway in sheer fear, pushed the bedroom door with his fingertips and witnessed the sickest picture his eyes would ever allow his sanity endure. Two men raping a baby boy in silence. He back stepped in disgust and fright, just before he stormed against them furiously, maniacally, frantically. One shot. Two shots. One knee blown apart. Two knees blown apart.

Xavier tried to push himself up. He pressed on his arms and tried to straighten his spine to force his head look up. A gunshot right in front of his eyes, a massive blow just before his eyes popped out under the pressure of a bullet carving a diaphragm within his brain.

He dropped on the floor lifeless. A vivid image of a door in his lifeless subconscious.

Chapter Five: Paranoia: Take Three. November 5^th.

He was standing in front of his front door. He had never left his house. He looked at his hands and saw no envelope, or keys. He turned around and walked back into his bedroom. Debbie was there, under the wet sheets; naked, horny, smiling at him. He smiled back, partly in relief. He walked the corridor and checked on his baby boy. He was sleeping peacefully under a beautiful electronic blue sky which shed light over the bed. Everything was peaceful.

Xavier took a long breath in. He exhaled slowly and repeated once more as if to make sure that nothing bad had happened. Everything was still peaceful. He closed his boy’s bedroom door and walked to the other side of the corridor.

- “Babe, I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Don’t you go on thinking of silly things now, okay? I’ll just go make sure we’re still getting richer”

He blew her a kiss and walked away; took his keys in his right hand and opened the door just before letting the keys fall on the floor. It was not out of fear. It was not out of shock. It was not out of surprise. It was merely out of death!

A gunshot in the night, a splattered brain across the corridor, pieces of skull, buckets of blood, dead Xavier flying in the air before dropping flat on the cold cement. Three pairs of legs walked around him, the three dressed-in-black foreigners looked down at him, dead eyes looking up at them. Staring at them as they sit around his table.

Chapter Five: Paranoia: Take Four. November 5^th.

Xavier opened his eyes. The fumes in the bar made them wet with tears. With watery eyes, he noticed his three foreign companions sitting around his table. He didn’t move, he didn’t talk. He attempted to race back in his thoughts. What day was it? Wednesday. What time was it? Almost 4 in the morning. He took one more long look at his companions.

He checked his watch. Wednesday morning, 03:45. He had probably just gotten here. He specifically remembered leaving home at 03:00 after a long session of passionate sex. He smiled. He had probably gotten to the bar and dreamt of the previous nasty scenarios while waiting for his company. They were here now.

Fifteen minutes later, Xavier walked out of the bar and into the darkness of the winter night. It was freezing; it was the first time he felt so cold. Xavier only had a shirt on. He should have put on something heavy but he had been way too eager to get to the bar that he didn’t think about clothes as much as he should have. He looked around for a taxi; he should have driven his Exige but the importer didn’t have it in stock. He was told he would have to wait for at least a couple of months before finally getting it. He had however paid the entire price in full, in cash, up front.

He looked on his right. There was no taxi coming. Just three people in the distance, walking away from him very slowly. He looked on his left. A taxi was just passing him by. He turned quickly to his right, ready to shout so that the taxi driver would notice him and stop; but he never got the chance. He bumped into three figures in black, back stepped and dropped the envelope.

- “What the fuck do you want? You scared the sh…”

One gunshot. Two gunshots. Three gunshots. Four gunshots. Left shoulder, right shoulder, left kneecap, right kneecap. Xavier dropped on the pavement, bleeding like a virgin teenager at rape. He was bleeding on the envelope. The three men in black walked around him. Three barrels pointed down at him.

One gunshot. Two gunshots. Three gunshots. Left eye, right, eye, right between the eyes. Xavier was dying. He was drawn towards a large sea. Winter sea, where waves were crashing against the sand.

Chapter Five: Paranoia: Take Five. November 5^th.

He opened his eyes in pain. His entire body hurt with each move he attempted to make. He had no wallet, he had no keys. His clothes were ripped and drenched in his own blood. A fire still lit in the distance but there were no one around it. The people he had mistook for a freshly loved couple had jumped him and mugged him.

At that point, with the spark of life dying inside of him, he sat up on the wet sand and wished to die. And his wish was overheard…

The Djin walked out of the sea and onto the sand. It was dripping water just as fast as it was evaporating into the air.

- "Is it your ultimate wish to die, really?"

- "I have nothing. I never had anything but now, now I really have nothing".

- "So, you mean you thought you had nothing but then you lost something and it feels now as having less than nothing, which is nothing. Is that it?"

Xavier was really having a hard time discerning between reality, memory, nightmare and déjà-vu. He just carried on staring at the Djin. But the Djin didn’t care for a stare game.

- "Is it your ultimate wish to die, really?"

Xavier carried on looking. He didn’t have an answer. He had wished to die but the human survival instinct will never simply accept an offered death. On the other hand, he felt as if he knew what would happen if he gave a negative answer.

- "Is it your ultimate wish to die, really?"

The Djin would never get tired of asking.

- "Is it your ultimate wish to die, really?"

One second later Xavier burst into shouts.

- “Yes! Yes you fucking asshole! Yes! I wanna die! So, what the fuck? I wanna die! Get the fuck away from me!”

The Djin chuckled; and then it evaporated into tiny particles of steam. Particles that traveled with the wind, attached themselves on Xavier’s body and entered his bloodstream through the pores of his skin. Xavier felt a certain discomfort; he felt like his blood had thickened. His veins could not accommodate the thick blood. He shrieked in agony. His eyeballs reached the outer limits of their sockets; his lungs felt suppressed under a tight ribcage; his stomach and bowels got swollen to the extremes that his belly could stretch to; and then his umbilical cord snapped, his intestines spiraled out and onto the beach, his eyes got pulled into his skull, pushing his brain down and out of his mouth like a never ending vomit of intelligence.

The empty shell of a man dropped on the sand immovable. The Djin evaporated from within the dead body and reached for the stars. The bright stars that lit the winter night over the beach, looking down over Xavier. Xavier, dead on the beach, stared back up towards the stars of the winter night.

Chapter Five: Paranoia: Take Six. November 5^th.

He stared at the stars for a few minutes. He was almost certain the freshly loved couple by the fire was doing the exact same thing. The starlight shared a shade of hopefulness and more than anything, he needed a spark of hope in his tortured life.

He stood and got ready to leave. He didn’t hurt, his keys and his wallet were still untouched in his pockets. Which meant that all of the things he had lived the last couple of days were just a long dream. A long nasty, tasteless nightmare. He was still jobless, broke, hopeless and married to a whale.

He walked to his car and drove home. He opened the door and saw Debbie lying naked on the mahogany table. Legs spread apart, head tilted backwards, arms pulled back over her head, her thick hair falling down towards the floor on the other side of the table. He looked at her. She was obese. It was a miracle the table could endure the torture of her weight. On the other hand, she was still his wife; the mother of his son; always willing to give her best shot at trying to make him feel better. Even now, as if she knew the kind of crappy day he had, she was there; ready to give her best shot at making him feel better.

He closed the door behind him, stripped down to his skin and walked to her. He pressed against between her thighs and she moaned in anticipation. He kissed her just above the genitals area, then on her tummy, then on her chest and then on both her boobs as she shivered in excitement. Then he pulled her head towards his own to place a kiss onto her lips, only to feel her frantically pulling back and away from him; her chunky fat following a jellylike, wobbly motion.

- “You!”

He didn’t exactly know what she meant by that. He tried to remain calm.

- “Deb…”

He never got the chance to finish his sentence. The first blow hit him on the back of the head; the second against the spine as he laid on the floor face down. He tried to push back up but felt two simultaneous blows, one on each of his deltoids. He gasped for air but managed to turn his body and lay on his back. One more hit against the head; he lost grip on consciousness and then, a storm of blows came down from three different directions as the ceiling in his blurred vision started dimming away into nothingness.

Chapter Six: The End: Thursday Morning. 06:00. November 6^th.

The alarm went off. The start of a new day.

A new dreary and daunting winter morning, prelude to a dreary and daunting winter day.

Xavier stared up at the ceiling. It was the last thing he remembered looking at before dozing off. He looked at the alarm clock. 06:01. It had been a dream after all. All those sick ways in which he died more than a couple of times during the last one day, they were all a sick dream. A nightmare that ended with the sound of the alarm clock.

He took a large breath in and moved to get off the bed, psychologically prepared to touch on the cold cement barefoot. The chain never let him. He looked over his head and noticed his wrists had been handcuffed on the metal frame of the bed. He turned his head around to look at Debbie. Had they played some kinky game the previous night? He could barely remember what day it was, let alone think of what he had been doing the previous night.

He remembered Monday; he had lost his job on Monday. He remembered Tuesday; he had started getting rich on Tuesday. He remembered Wednesday; he had died on Wednesday. So what day was it today? If he hadn’t died the previous night, if he hadn’t gotten rich and if he had never lost his job, could it still be Monday? He knew he was alive; that ruled out Thursday. He knew it was not 03.00 in the morning; that ruled out Wednesday. Had he lost his job? Xavier decided it was either Monday or Tuesday.

He turned around again. Debbie was missing. On his left, the alarm clock read 06:14. Thursday, November 6^th. He stared at it intensely. Thursday? Was he still in a dream?

One man in black entered the bedroom; a second one; and a third one. They drew their handguns and took aim. Xavier didn’t even try to move. He had grown tired of this game. He just wished to wake up in real life.

One gunshot. Two bullets. Three cartridges. All emptied. Xavier was a bleeding corpse.

Chapter Seven: Rest in Peace: Friday 06:00. November 7^th.

The alarm went off. Such a dark winter day. There was no light coming from anywhere in the room; as if someone had barricaded the windows. The alarm kept ringing. Xavier tried to reach out and make it stop but he hit against wood. The alarm went on ringing.

- “Deb! Did you change the sound of the stupid alarm? Why does it sound like a fucking church bell?”

Debbie didn’t answer. Xavier tried to poke her with his left hand but he hit against wood. The bell kept chiming. He tried to spring out of the bed but his head hit against wood.

- “Deb! What the fuck’s going on?”

Debbie didn’t answer. Xavier tried to move his legs off the bed and onto the chilly cement but they hit against wood. He paused for a second and tried to listen. There was a voice coming from the outside of his room. It was not Debbie and it was certainly not his little kid.

- “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.…”

Xavier tried. With all his might, Xavier did try; but he ultimately failed to wake up in another point of time. He just laid there, under the ground, in his wooden coffin.

Not dead. Not alive. Food for the worms.