The Glint of the Luopan

Chapter 11

When I awoke, I was lying on the couch. Outside of the windows, night had fallen. It could have been any other peaceful night when Suresh had stayed with me except that my head hurt, and my arms seemed twisted. After a few seconds, I noticed that my hands were tied behind my back. Suresh sat in my desk chair, his laptop open in front of him. From the corner of my eye, I saw his dark silhouette turn around and face me.

"You're awake, that's good. I tried to find out what this is about" – he picked up the sheet with the drawing of the Luopan from the desk – "but it's impossible to understand any of that spiritual gibberish on the internet. I just can't remember how this damn thing works."

I swallowed back the sour feeling in my mouth. "What do you want?" My voice trembled and sounded bitter, like the voice of a child that resented its peers throwing snowballs at it, and I hated myself for it.

Suresh seemed to be taken aback. "I don't understand why it won't work on you properly. It should have kicked in weeks ago. Well, this way you can at least help me."

"What are you talking about?"

Suresh sighed. "Jesus, can you finally stop with your questions? You should know by now that they're of no use to you. Only make my headache worse."

I felt nauseous. Who was this guy? I didn't recognize him.

He stood up, switched on the desk lamp, and came over.

"If you tell me how to read it, I can untie you." His half-cheeky, half-uneasy grin, which had made me feel warm inside so many times before, scared the hell out of me now. He held the sheet under my nose.

"Nothing? Well then, I'm afraid you'll have to stay like this." He lay the sheet on the couch table in front of me.

"Keep bothering your pretty head about this, princess, while I consult the internet."

Different shards of memory were piercing my brain. The accurately laid out cutlery in the restaurant. My head on Suresh's counter while he was cooking. The sun going down on the hill at Highline Park.

"As you're quite gullible anyway, maybe it doesn't matter that the drugs haven't worked properly. To blindly believe someone when he claims that you're dead." He swung backward on the swivel chair, almost violently.

Suddenly, something occurred to me. "Mr. Socio?"

Suresh didn't even turn his head. "I don't think that a 'Mr. Socio' has a hand in this. It's all me, baby. It's all me."

Maybe the Mr. Socio personality part had taken over and Suresh was just pretending to be in full control of his senses? I cursed myself. The thought that he might be seriously mentally ill had slipped my mind more with every day we had spent together.

"Most people are perfectly comfortable with having laid out their lives for them, with someone telling them what to do. I've experienced this so many times in my career. Don't be too hard on yourself, princess. It's what makes you human." He snorted.

I swallowed. Suresh surely had some kind of heavy psychotic episode, and I had no idea how to deal with it. Maybe there were some meds in his bag?

"I thought that this would be fun, trying out another kind of existence, but it's not exactly a joy ride. I haven't even been able to sleep since... So, forgive me for being so impatient." There was something in his gaze that had never been there before, a kind of dark wall.

I tried to move my hands, but the shackles were too tight.

"Either way, I'm sure we'll reach some kind of agreement."

I noticed something flickering over Suresh's head, like a tiny fluff that was illuminated by the ceiling light.

"Tell me something about Daoism. I mean, that's the underlying principle of this thing, right?" He said it like it was some programming principle, some source code that would immediately solve all his questions.